I thought I'd make up a quick list of advanced careers that would go directly with current Basic careers (wouldn't these be nice???). These wouldn't be mandatory, but would give players something VERTICAL to move up to that would be directly related. Many of them should really have several Tiers (Troll slayer, giant slayer, demonslayer). Thoughts?

Acolyte -> Journeyman Wizard
Agent -> Master Agent
Agitator -> Politician
Apprentice Wizard -> Acolyte
Barber-Surgeon -> Physician
Boatman -> Boat Captain
Burgher -> Merchant
Coachman -> Guild Master
Commoner -> Elder
Dilettante -> Raconteur
Disciple -> Priest
Envoy -> Ambassador
Flagellant -> Priest Inquisitor
Gambler -> Spy
Giant Slayer -> Demonslayer
Hunter -> Master Hunter
Initiate -> Acolyte
Mercenary -> Sargent
Messenger -> Ambassador
Roadwarden -> Sargent -> Captain
Scout -> Sargent -> Captain
Soldier -> Sargent -> Captain
Student -> Professor
Thief -> Master Thief
Thug -> Kingpin
Troll Slayer -> Giant Slayer or Greenskin Avenger
Watchman -> Sargent -> Captain
Waywatcher -> Waywatcher Elder
Witch Hunter -> High Inquisitor
Zealot -> Flagellant or Witch Hunter

Adv's Toolkit:
Bailiff -> Sheriff
Bounty Hunter -> Spy
Dockhand -> Guild Master
Ironbreaker -> Sargent -> Captain
Pit Fighter -> Champion
Ratcatcher -> Deepwatcher
Scribe -> Litigant or Cartographer
Smuggler -> Kingpin
Swordmaster -> Elder
Wardancer -> Elder

I'm sure they're coming in a later supplement but the list isn't bad to give FFG some ideas.

This is a pretty well thought out list. I hope FFG gives it some consideration; that is if they're not developed by fans.

Watcher said:

That's kind of my point (for fan development). It gives us a list to get started on. Now that we've developed the formula in the house-rules section, these might actually give us some kind of direction.

There is a solid release schedule, but we're not seeing anything for the 90% of players yet. We've got 50% elves..we've got a product for wizards... The other players are really kind of left hanging in the balance right now. In fact..my group has no wizard and no elves... My players are asking about advanced career paths and I don't really have anything for them so I'm probably going to get started on those first. PLUS, the non-magical ones will be pretty darned easy to make. The only original part of them is the "career ability card." The background and the rest will be unchanged from 2e otherwise.

jh

I started making some career cards with Strange Eons, and have mostly stuck to (and thus far only shared) Basic careers. The reason why is because we don't really know how good Advanced Careers are supposed to be.

All the current Advanced Careers have the keyword "Intermediate", so there's apparently going to be better careers down the road. I feel like the 5 Advanced Careers we have don't necessarily give us a complete picture of what a typical Advanced Career should look like. All of the ones we've seen so far are built to be the next step for a single Basic career. While that may in itself give us a clue where the game is going, all five are essentially the next step for one of the four least typical Basic careers. That makes it tricky to extrapolate what other advanced careers will look like.

Giant Slayer is just Troll Slayer with one Talent advancement traded out for a Reckless Advancement. But you can't do too much of that, because by the end of Giant Slayer you're already capable of having 6 Reckless dice.

Acolyte and Disciple are just Apprentice Wizard and Initiate with a Fortune Die advancement traded out for an Action. For spellcasters that's great, but for others there's a limit to how many special actions you really need. For a Rank 2 career, it's no problem, but the really high-end careers might need to have fewer action advancements (or we might need some higher-end actions somewhere down the road to make it worth it).

Witch-hunter has a 6th skill, and Flagellant has a third talent slot, but they both require you to have a permanent insanity. So, it's hard to say if that bonus is because they're intermediate careers, or if it's meant to compensate you for being insane.

Just thinking out loud... or, in print, I guess.

Agreed. The Advanced careers don't really look like anything at all..even in regards to background. I'd like to see more definition there.

jh

Very nice, I'd extend them out a bit though and make career chains. For example:

Thug -> Cappo -> Boss -> Kingpin

That way, someone who wants to pursue a lengthy career in a certain niche would have long term goals. Also, the final career in the chain should be repeatable so the character could rest there and continue to advance.