I just want to make sure I've got this right: Characters that start the game as Apprentice Wizards and Initiates start with the Spell/Blessing cards marked with the Basic trait, correct? For Apprentices, this is Channel Power, Magic Dart, Cantrip, and Counterspell; for Initiates, Curry Favor, Blessing of Health, Minor Blessing, and Minor Ward. In addition, Apprentice Wizards receive Spellcraft and Channeling for free. If, however, a character starts in another career and wants to become an Apprentice or Initiate later, she must buy all of these abilities (if she wants them) and train the skills with advancements as normal, correct? Seems fair enough, except that careers are limited in how many advances you can spend on skills and action cards.

This isn't really a rules question as such, I'm more just "thinking outloud" so to speak. If I have all this right (and please correct me if I don't), it's a real pain in the ass to become a caster in a later career rather than starting as one. You're much better off beginning as an Initiate or Apprentice and transitioning to something else if you want to "round out" your character. This doesn't seem like too big of a problem, except for the fact that by the standard rules, your starting career selection is going to be at least somewhat random, so you may not have the option of starting as a priest/mage.

According to the ToM and earier material, it takes a decade of college training (or more) to get to the stage that a PC apprentice wizard starts the game.

Joining a college effectively takes a PC out of the campaign. I think priest training is still years...

This makes sense. It sounds like there really should be a rule that you can't transition into the Apprentice or Initiate careers after character creation.

Fresnel said:

I think a certain amount of latitude is to be given in this regard. Many people have houseruled Swordmasters into an advanced career; if you make that change, any Elf transitioning into Swordmaster should be out of the campaign for a great deal of time, as they would need to return to Ulthuan and the White Tower for decades of training.

This isn't to say they should suddenly become an Apprentice, but perhaps assume that they have already begun a certain amount of training and need to take several months to complete it. Take them out of the campaign for a few months time, and then continue.

Story-wise, I could deal with it. But it's a huge pain in the ass, mechanically speaking. Or at least puts the character at a severe disadvantage. Someone who starts the game as an Apprentice Wizard gets 4 free action cards, as well as training in two advanced skills. If he becomes an Apprentice Wizard later, he has to buy all of those. Assuming he wants the 4 Basic Spell action cards, he wouldn't even be able to get any Spells of his actual Order until actually COMPLETING the Apprentice career because he'd run out of Action card advance options!

fnord3125 said:

S/he will get 1 skill and 1 action card out of the 4 standard advances though, so s/he will have some advances for some order cards, but not as many as those who start the game in apprentice wizard, admittedly.

Not if she wants all the basic cards. Apprentice wizards can take 2 action card advances, plus the 1 fixed action card advance. That's 3. There are 4 basic spell cards. Obviously she's going to NEED Channel Power. That leaves 2. If she wants to do "magical stunts" she'll need Cantrip, and if she wants to defend against magic she'll want Counterspell. Aaaaaand you're done. Anything else, anything particularly interesting would actually need to be bought after moving on to Acolyte or some other career.

This seems so terribly sub-optimal to me that I think when I start a game of WFRP3 this week I'm going to make sure that Initiate and Apprentice Wizard are in the batch of career cards I deal out for selection (I'm planning on messing with the standard career selection process a little already) so if anyone wants to be one, they can start as one.

I'd rule that basic actions are free, coz, essentially, in the RAW, all other basic actions are free. (Obviously, they're only free to 'magical' characters, though.)

fnord3125 said:

Of course; I wasn't figuring in the limit of how you can spend the generic advances from the front of the sheet.

I think therefore I'd go for Monketylite's, ever sensible as always, suggestion of letting them pick up the basic spell action cards for free.

You could make them buy channel power, even though it's basic, as I personally like the idea of someone being able to cast simple spells without neccessarily having learnt how to channel the power to do so yet, and then as they have to buy skills too, there is still a lsight advantage for starting out as an apprentice compared to entering one during play.

In the FAQ, semi-interestingly, it is stated that for Initiate careers, they have to buy the basic spell and action cards seperately if moving to initiate after character creation, yet no such statement is made for apprentice wizard....

I don't have cards with me, but i wonder if Initiate also has the same issue with not having enough slots to get all of the cards required? I bet they do and I think we may well see a slight clarification to the FAQ in the forth coming weeks/months....

Although there is already a significant difference in the way initiates and apprentice wizards are treated in regards to free starting skills etc, so pehaps not?!

Yeah, Initiates also get 2 action card advances, so with the 1 general action card advance, that's 3. So again, if they have to buy them, they can't get even get all the basics, let alone delve into Faith-specific blessings until they've gone onto another career. Of course, in my mind, with the obvious exception of Curry Favor, the basic blessing cards aren't quite as crucial as the basic spell cards. And actually, even Curry Favor is less crucial than Channel Power, since a priest can invoke a blessing then just let the favor accrue until it's complete.

monkeylite said:

They are only free at character generation if you meet the basic requirements. So if you start a character with AG2 he doesn't get dodge for free. If he later bumps his AG to 3 he has to buy the basic Dodge action he doesn't get it automatically.

fnord3125 said:

Most players in that situation would take some other action instead of Counterspell, and some would take something other than Cantrip as well. They're still gonna be tight on spells, but just not in quite the specific way you're suggesting.