In a thread on the Rules Questions subforum, someone said they had houseruled Wardancers and Sword Masters into advanced careers. On thinking about it, it does seem like some of the careers might be better if the character was required to have one previous career under her belt first. I think I plan to give my players at least a little more choice over their initial careers than the default Draw 3 Random Careers and Pick 1 rule, but now I'm thinking maybe it would be good to take some of them out of the mix.

So I'm looking for suggestions on this. Which of the current mix of "basic" careers might be good to disallow for the 1st career choice?

Swordmasters and Wardancers as you said. Plus IronBreaker as well.

do not see why everyone seems to think they should be advanced. It seems they bring mystique to the elf/dwarf race and while their cards are good they also cost XP to get the cards, and not others. They have great flavor as careers also...

Wardancers and Sword Masters? Why, they are not even that good. People are only saying so because they feel it's unfluffy as being basic careers, yet game wise these careers are not amazing.

Really the only career I would possibly house rule out is the Ironbreaker as it is one of the most easily abusable careers and the starting armor is godly.

I certainly wouldn't restrict any basic careers, as those mentioned above (IMO) have a long training time and should not be taken later in the adventure. Or in other words I just don't see human PCs waiting 50 years until their High Elf friend comes back from Swordmaster training.

I would though look really closely on the hands of PCs taking the Trollslayer or Ironbreaker, as those can be broken very easily. I would push Trollslayer PC towards a greatweapon, and Ironbreaker PC towards sword & board (shield that is) to the point of taking Double Strike from the action deck (just when they choose actions, I don't see a problem with Thief + Double Strike).

D.

PanzerKraken said:

Iron breakers, wardancers and Swordmasters are all elite force amongst their apropraite races. These are not basic soldiers.

I would make them advanced as they are the careers you would espire to be. They should be ones that you need to work towards, like WitchHunter or knight. Others like Wizard or Warrior priest have a basic then an advanced careers. But the Ironbreaker and Swordmaster are available as a basic career. It just doesn't fit right. Humans are stuck with rat catchers, students and soldiers - they can't start as knights panthers or reiksguard. That is something they work towards. But their non human companions can do the equivilant.

I don't want to start a new war of "Swordmaster basic or advanced?" but like I said, even though all three are elite force to be reckoned with, according to the setting background they have long training times (maybe with exclusion Ironbreaker, but maybe not)...

IMO it's better to start with said careers than to strive for them and at the end get "you are training for Swordmaster, make another character in the meantime, for the next 50 or so sessions". I, for example, won't allow those careers later on because of those reasons.

D.

Stuntie said:

With the focus on the empire it almost seems like they just are tossing in well known other race classes in, while leaving the more detailed character advancement paths to humans.

Fluff wise it doesn't make as much sense of course, but game wise it doesn't make a huge difference other than tossing a bone to the other races which are largely ignored so far in the game.

This may not make much sense, but the main reason I don't want people to start as them really has nothing to do with their "power" and everything to do with the fact that they look like a cool thing to move on to, whereas otherwise what are you going to do? I have some difficulty imagining someone who starts as a Sword Master going "Well, hmm... I guess now I'll... I dunno, be a soldier?" As far as the whole training time thing goes, I'm not overly concerned. If there is someone who knows he's planning to move onto one of these careers, I would probably frame his starting situation as being someone who, perhaps, has already been training to be a Sword Master (or whatever) but hasn't earned the sword or learned the special moves yet and is now taking some time to travel to gain some experience out in the world.

Well I think it's more of a case of how you potray the career transition. Really jumping from careers in itself is kind of silly especially how fast it can be done by the players. Really if a person is a sword master and finishes the career, hes not really stopping himself from being a sword master, he always will be one, he just is doing something new perhaps temporarily or on the side. The career system is best to be thought of just a person taking on new experiences in his or her life and not a strict change in his life.

Many of the careers don't make a lot of sense in a gaming sense either and players playing those careers often are not doing what the career is supposed to be. How many Bailiffs are actually being a Bailiff? Ratcatchers going around wrangling rats? Not really, most turn into adventurers anyways.

If you stick to strict to the idea of people and careers, it gets real hard to keep it making sense.

Even such, even lot of the "advanced" careers don't make sense in an adventure sense. Why is a lone iron breaker hanging out with a bunch of random humans, that makes little sense. Same with many of the other careers, one has to come up with a good reason why these normally restricted character types would even be off on adventure.

I'm on the other side I'm afraid: an elf that has been training in the Tower of Hoeth for 50 years and has no experience of the outside world goes to explore it, becoming the said soldier in the army of Empire on the way... this way is understandable for me.

On the other hand saying that before and throughout whole soldier career the high elf was a secretly swormaster in training and the soldier career was just for the looks and stuff smells for me with bull dung from a mile .

Everyone interprets it in his own way though, have fun whichever the way you choose.

Or maybe if you have still doubts, ask your players whether they want those careers basic or advanced?

D.

I'll concede I may not have offered the best explanation. All I was really trying to get at was that I don't buy into the whole "Oops, you were a soldier, if you want to transition into a Sword Master, your character has to disappear for 50 in-game years!" thing some people have been advocating. There are bound to be reasonably plausible explanations that we can come up with, as a play group, to allow for it. As PanzerKraken suggested, I don't really see the careers as needing to be real, complete CAREERS anyway. If someone decides to transition to Dockhand, it's not like I'm going to require that his character now spend all his time hauling crates on and off ships.

Again, I may be completely wrong, but I can't help feeling that if I was a player and I started out as a Sword Master that it would feel kind of like an anti-climax of sorts to then have to transition to something so "common" as a Soldier or Mercenary or what-have-you.

Indeed the 50-year-thing is an exaggeration.

Yet consider this: an unexperienced swordmaster gets to Old World, he barely seen the world besides the Tower of Hoeth, fought once or twice against Dark Elves. Everything in the Empire is new to him, both humans, and their enemies. He is like a child in an abandoned amusement park - smelly, dirty, but in it's own way interesting.

I like this idea much more, than swordmaster as an elite, pinnacle of High Elf power, because after then were the character should go? Dragon Prince? High Elf Lord? IMO when swordmaster is advanced, PCs go for it for the power it presents (social or physical, doesn't really matter). When you start with it maybe (maybe only I'm afraid) the player will think about what next in a different way. I know my players will, and thats major vote against restricting those careers in my opinion.

On the other hand if my players would spend the most of PC creation time looking for best combos for killing machine, I would restrict those careers, and possibly few more (Trollslayer and Zealot come to think about it).

D.

I keep waffling on this issue. Now I'm thinking maybe I will keep all the official basic classes in the mix. After all, I'm going to do the "deal 3, pick 1" business, so theres no guarantee any or all of them will even be an option to someone.

fnord3125 said:

You're right about that. Since players only get to to pick from three out of quite a few, the chance of getting one of the "advanced lore wise" classes is slim.

Yeah, sadly the careers aren't very balanced in terms of what races they allow. So the odds of, for example, Ironbreaker coming up if, say, only 1 person wants to be a dwarf is slim, but any given wood elf career is much more likely.

I prefer to leave them all in. If a swordmaster turns up they are a swordmaster and even while they were an advanced unit in their home lands they are socially awkward and out of place here. If you play against their stigmas and not just mechanics for any career that's the balancing factor. I also don't look at it as a Swordmaster who finishes his career and then becomes a soldier as illogical. He's still a Swordmaster but now he's in the army and learning skills he may not have trained in as a Swordmaster he's also being exposed to the world and situations he never would have before if he stayed in his native situation. This holds true for any of the more seemingly advanced basic careers. It's not like moving to soldier is a step back, he's not going to unlearn what he already knows. It will just strengthen the things he's already good at and expose him to the things he's not. Furthermore in terms of story I would imagine the Swordmaster turned Soldier isn't going to be at the same starting point as the farmer turned Soldier. The Swordmaster is likely going to be part of an elite unit in that force perhaps put in charge of other green recruits etc...

Don't focus on the mechanics focus on the story that's being told around these situations.

I never said I thought it was illogical OR a step-back mechanically. But I think I said that, at least to me, it would FEEL anti-climactic. Sword Master looks and feels "awesome." It's like, "Check out my sweet sword and cool special moves!" And then when I complete the career, I'd probably hope and expect to move on to something even more "awesome." But there are no "more awesome" options, just "normal" stuff like Soldier and Mercenary.

fnord3125 said:

Yes it is kinda anti-climatic, but I think that there is nothing wrong with that. Our house rules for these situations are that if PC takes another basic career, he is not evolving or "taking a next step" in his development. Mechanically this means that he cannot train his skills more than once. However if he "gets promoted" by taking an advanced (or intermediate) career then he can train his skills more and rise to awesome levels. Unlike moving to another basic career the career promotion is not free and cannot be bought by advancements only. Something like a great accomplishment or heroic deeds are required. Problem is that currently there are not many advanced careers available. However, you could rule that for example Swordmaster, if he gets promoted, he can take Swordmaster career second time, becoming a Swordmaster Champion. Soldier can be promoted to Sergeant, Mercenary to Veteran, and so on. Just use the same career multiple times if necessary. But like I said, this promotion should not be easy and should feel like great accomplishment to a player. Thus, the skill training restrictions.

a swordmaster roaming the old world does seem to have moved down in the world. like masterless samurai who turn to banditry or roam around doing odd jobs trying not to starve to death. don't know much about swordmasters. just saying that a swordmaster, in exile effectively, moving into a less glorious career seems very likely and could be very fun to roleplay.