I am introducing a new player to our campaign in a few days and we both liked the concept of him playing some sort of Hedgewizard-Apprentice. (I know... its illegal in the empire and were aware of that.)

We were thinking of his character as a young man (starting 20s), who grew up with his mentor (another hedgewizard), who taught him some magic. They moved quite a lot to avoid withchunters and the like, trying to stay in the shadows of society. So the young man grew up to be a scoundrel, who has some magic tricks up his sleeve. (Imagine a younger Han Solo with a few force-powers...)

Does this concept make any sense within the warhammer world? How would you create such a character rules-wise?

Thanks a lot!

Until official rules about Hedge Wizards come out, you will have to make up your own. Just decide how powerful you want your Hedge Wizard apprentice to be compared to an "official" wizard, and go from there.

As an example, if you are looking for a really low-powered approach - more for flashy effects rather than combat effectiveness - you could make him a Dilettante.
Allow him to choose the Cantrip petty magic card as one of his actions during character generation. Now he can use his special career ability to roll for Spellcraft once per session even though he never actually acquired the skill.

Just some food for thought.

Yer let him have cantrip but no channel power action card (so he can "do" magic, but has little control over being able to do it consistently). Perhaps even let him have a rank one spell that he will have enough power at equilibrium to cast, one of the low key grey order spells might be good, should probably stay away from bright order fireballs! someone who can cast those illegially won't have lasted this long and will have already ended up on the witches pyre!

You have the option then of him being found by the order and eventually progress in the apprentice wizard career, otherwise not sure that you'll have much opportunity to progress officially as a hedge wizard...

According to 2nd Ed such a character could present himself to a Wizard college to become 'legal'. As long as he wasn't too far down the path to corruption he would be accepted - rather than 'disappeared'.

So you might want to offer him this route to full wizard. It depends how liberal you want to play the Colleges in your game.

Well thanks for your replies... I guess, we´ll go with pumpkins approach an doffer him the opportunity to become a full apprentice wizard (by introducing himself to a college) later.

petty magic card seems to be the key so to start.

Ok, first, those are suggestions and ideas, not elaborated, throughfully though game mechanics. You'll have to check out the extend of them and balance things if they are broken (or maybe other posters could do that for you ).

You should read Chapter 4 of Tome of Mysteries to familiarise yourself a bit with Hedge Wizardry.

I would give access to all spell action cards, but make the player choose spell action cards at random (or at least, pick up 3, choose 1). Hedge Wizards can potentially cast any type of spells, since they are not bound to only one Order, but they cannot control their magic as well and most of the time, they accidentally discover how to cast a spell, wheter than choose how to cast a pecular type of spell w. You could also make it more random and have the player make a spellcraft check, then pick a spell card at random and apply the effects. Beware this option, it could lead the player to frustration since he will never be able to choose what action he does.

Now, mecanically, I'll use mostly the same rules as normal wizards (Channeling, Spellcraft, etc). The thing to keep in mind is that Hedge Wizard are very suceptible to influence of Chaos. The idea here is to make them more powerfull than the average wizard, but casting is far more dangerous for them.

First, I would make Hedge Wizard's stance meter 1 conversative, 3 reckless. That would make them channel power more rapidly, but make them more suceptible to Chaos' influence. You could change the rule that says if you channel in reckless and get a chaos star, you move the Party Tension 1 up and make it more dangerous for the user. Something like : draw an insanity.

You could make them choose the apprentice wizzard career, but maybe change the career ability card to reflect more their "raw magic". It could be something like : If your power is higher than twice your Will, you can choose to spend the exceeding power points to increase the spell damage by 1 for each power spent. This way, it makes Hedge Wizard WANT to accumulate as much power as they can, which then have greater chance of venting.

Venting power : Venting for Hedge Wizard should be more catastrophic since they are less effective in harnesing Winds of Magic than trained and disciplined wizards. For each power vented, the player should throw Challenge dices instead of misfortune dice. Effects are the same as p.34 ToM, but if they get a Choas Star, they pick an insanity.

Maybe I would also work something out for Dark Magic. Some ways to access (accidentally or not) to the Dhar and create some powerfull effects with very nasty side effets (for the caster). Maybe something like : once per session, you expend a temporary insanity, you throw additionnal expertise dices (?) equal to the insanity's severity, but you automatically activate every bane and chaos star effect of the casted spell. The insanity becomes permanent.

Well, it's about it for my ideas. Feel free to work from that, like or bash those idea as you please

P.S. Seems like this post should be in House rule!

here my HEDGE WIZARD career and the WITCHCRAFT Talent as Order card.

I use it for my campaign set in Mordheim in the unholy year 2000, so no college order exit.

HEDGE WIZARD career

Career Trait:
BASIC, WIZARD, RURAL, ROGUE.

Talent Slot:
FOCUS and ORDER.

Primary Characteristics:
WILLPOWER and FELLOWSHIP.

Career Skill:
FIRST AID, FOLKLORE, GUIDE, INTUITION, NATURE LORE , CHANNELING (free acquire as Apprentice Wizard career) and SPELLCRAFT (free acquire as Apprentice Wizard career).

Advances:
as Apprentice Wizard career

Basic Action Spells for free only CANTRIP.

Action Spells Available ( I don’t bother to create a new set of spells without play test, so I intent to use a mix of the official spells) :
Magic Dart (basic) / Counterspell (basic) / Course / Fair Warning / Omen / Cauterize / Shadowcloak / Veil of Fear / Fiery Passion /Burning Blood (rank 2 declassed to rank 1) not so power spell, justify for the lack of a rank 1 direct attack.
All spell flavor description are twisted in a darker version.

WITCHCRAFT (or Hedge Magic ) Talent as Order Card: Spellcraft Checks add a {S} Chaos Star to the results pool if at least 2 {B} Banes are generated. Not sure maybe I will change in (3 {B} Banes) after some playtest.

I Hope to be clear, English is not one of my Career Skills.

"The thing to keep in mind is that Hedge Wizard are very suceptible to influence of Chaos. The idea here is to make them more powerfull than the average wizard, but casting is far more dangerous for them."

I don't think hedgewizards, myself included, should be more powerful, rather the value of being a hedgewizard is flexibility. They're not bound to one-color/college, and may even draw upon dhar (dark magic) to fuel their spells.

Hedge wizards are fun! I have a very old and mad hedge wizard NPC in my campaign. He has traits from several of the magic colleges and knows some powerful spells from most of them (no cards or values for these - he basically can obliterate things, see the future, etc without using petty dice rolls) The price for that? Well he's absolutely bonkers and totally random! Did I mentioned he's wanted by the witch hunters, the magic colleges and basically all Empire officials.

How he got into this? He somehow cheated his way into his second magic college (guided and helped by someone) ... from there he started capturing, questioning and then killing wizards, stealing magic tomes, hunting for artefacts and gathering power and knowledge until one day he realised he can't learn much more and achieve anything else. Without his shadowy guide (who disappeared at some point over the long years) and nothing else to learn the wizard gave in to the madness. Now he roams the Reikland, occasionally killing or helping lost adventurers as well as escaping cultists... just so he'd keep himself amused.