Sorry for my absence. I've been playing Pathfinder instead of WFRP3. We simply ran out of character advancement options. My players rebelled (and so did I). Now that it's been a few weeks, here are some random thoughts:

* Character advancement (vertical) was the #1 reason why this game has lost me (until there are the right products out there to fix this)

* Although I think D&D sucks the sweat from under Nurgle's scrotum, there are hordes of players and tons of support material for pathfinder. As a GM, it is crucial that I have: a) Scenarios b) background for scenarios c) loads of NPC's and monsters d) players

* I REALLY miss the dice mechanic for WFRP3. I don't miss the cards one iota. I understand that they prevent pirating and a 'few' people adore them..but jeez..just having it written on a character sheet would have been so much better.

* I miss the grittiness of WFRP. D&D is for pansies and people who just like to push the WIN BUTTON over and over. The whole culture of D&D is about discussing min-maxing the rules.

* WFRP3 cannot be played via Maptool or OPENrpg. This is a problem too. I know there has been some attempts at this..but no news yet.

* The Pathfinder Society (Living Pathfinder) scenario "The Pallid Plague" would make a great part III to my scenarios (False pretenses, Wolfship/Lonewolf). Nurgle..uh..er..whomever the Pathfinder evil god of disease, undead and death is the reason why that scenario gets up in the morning to make doughnuts. I'm debating on making a conversion set for it. Wolves, zombies, and cultists oh my!

* CONVENTION PLAY: WFRP3 just isn't well-suited to convention play (yet), so I'm planning on sucking it up for Pathfinder to be able to get to know a lot of people again at conventions.

I'll be back of course, after some more product has been released. I just need vertical advancement for PCs..otherwise I'm holding my campaign back..I can't function that way.

See you all again soon.

Jay H

It seems that after an initial "buying frenzy" things are seen more clearly...

Personally I think "vertical" advancement (defined as the character moving onto more and more powerful abilities/careers) is quite uninteresting, I find it way more interesting to flesh out a character's quirks, personality and get advancements that tie into this. Once that's done one can move on to a new career which will broaden the character even more, making it even more like the complicated being human (well or humanoids) are. But I do see where you're coming from, I can see thay you will run into problems at rank 3-4 or so, when the available options just don't fit very well with the concept. For us this is no problem since we only get to play ~2 times per month and are still at rank 1. But if you play a lot (which you really seem to do, just a tad bit jealous ) I can see that it is a real problem.

A high rank expansion should have been planned for release about now (your post in not the first with previously very enthusiastic GM's having issues), in principle I think it should have been included in the GM kit. I guess we'll see what the final prduct with hints in "Sifting through the shadows" is pretty soon, but the hints do not really seem to point at high rank stuff.

I'm not sure I see the problem with playing online? I have close to no experience with it but how is WHFRP different from other games? That the players don't have access to cards? Well, then they could either buy the rules themselves, or the GM just tell them what is on the cards, it's not like they will have a 100 cards to keep track of. How is that different from playing some other RPG over the web, in other RPG's the players will likely have to buy the rules (or rely on the GM) to be able to play. I guess it might be a bit more expensive than other RPG's, and you won't really get to use the stuff you're actually paying extra for, but there is no fundamental flaw in the game that makes it unplayable over the web. But sure, as I said, I've got very little experience in web play.

It's a pity that you're playing other things Emirikolol, your work will be missed. Let's hope new expansions can draw you and your players back to the game. Isn't it possible to set a Pathfinder campaign in the Old world? Or is the high-magic stuff to preevalent in the rules?

edit: removed one paragraph due to a misunderstanding.

I still haven't bought the game yet, for two reasons:
-We're in the middle of a 4e campaign, and I'm also planning a Swords & Wizardry sandbox, plus exams are coming.
-I always wait one year after it's release before buying a game, because usually after the first year, the game will have it's most important expansions out, and it's "mostly complete". Also, it's really frustrating, when right in the middle of the campaign an expansion comes out, with stuff that the GM or the PCs wanted to have at the beginning.

I posted elsewhere that my biggest bugbear with modern roleplaying is that advancement is encouraged to be so quick. I first really noticed it with D&D3e and WHFRPv2. Forgetting the mechanics of is there enough material to support the advancement, my problem was with the thinking this lead to for players.

When i played EverQuest, World of Warcraft etc, I would be trying to level up - that was the purpose of the game - to unlock that next level. I don't see this as a good thing in RPGs. I realised my players were more focused on what advances they wanted to take next, rather than how they wanted to play/develop thier charater now. So I took a simple step ... I stopped giving advances. This did cause some frustration for the players at first as that is what they had been expecting "If i just keep my head down for this session and don't do much, I'll buy +5WS at the end" and I was being asked "Why don'ty we get an advance? We did a big fight". Once that expectation had passed, then thier focus returned to actually play and enjoy the game without worring about what they would spend thier advances on. Quality of the games shot right back up. And then when we did do advances, it was an important event that players would be using to advance thier charater in the way they felt thier characters had developed.

My basic rule now is to award experience/advance at about the third of the rate suggested by modern RPGs.

And another basic rule is to change games occasionally as well. Keep everything fresh. In the last couple of years we had mainly been playing WHFRPv2, but our most recent campaign has been for Elric, and other games have included CoC, Hawkmoon and some system-less games. So, to the OP, I think that doing a D&D game is a great idea, and you'll return to Warhammer revitalised - but it might be an idea to slow down advances in future. Actual milage may vary.

Some great points have been brought up in this thread and I enjoyed reading them very much. I too have a problem with vertical advancement. In fact I don't like much having to do with ranks or levels at all. When my group was playing D&D 3rd edition (a lifetime ago it seems) we got to 15th level or so and decided to retire the characters and begin again from rank one with all new characters. One player chose not to do this so we agreed and he became a sort of Yoda-like sensei for the rest of us. Some things about this worked and some didn't but it was new a fresh and helped us out of the level advancement trap we had fallen into. Ultimately though we were still playing the same game so all the old weaknesses began to emerge again. Another trick we did though was to pass around the DMing duties. This caused us, as a group, to worry more about the story rather than simply wanting to advance our characters. Again certain things worked and others didn't (and I don't advocate doing that with Warhammer). So anyway I like the idea of Warhammer being a vertical advancement-lite game. If I want that level advancement style experience now, I simply play Warhammer online.

RPG and advancement are strongly tied. This is a design choice from the beginning of this hobby.

Advancement direction, vertical or horizontal, is irrelevant, imho. It should be there. RPG's stories are about drama, conflict (armed or not), passions, etc. All this should leave a mark on the player and his alter ego.

This isn't need to be "power", it can be also skills, prestige, fame, reputation, equipment or responsabilities.
Many players love to gain something that before wasn't there, on their sheets. This is a problem?

Imho, no. If you handle this matter wisely.

Some replayes to the original post have confused "advancement speed" and "advancemente granularity".
You can play D&D and level every two years if the GM gives "sufficient" low PX or you can level every session if GM likes this style of play.

Then there is advancement granularity.
You can gain every session something but this something is so small that will makes a difference only after many sessions.
Or you can advance every year but your PC will do a great leap up (or on the side).

If some of you think that removing advancement is the way to go, that's ok.

Emirikol, I think, have expressed the notion that for his style of play the core box doesn't have the options he needs/likes.

DeathFromAbove said:

Such as?

1. There is still plenty of advancement options currently in the game. Other than Wizards, priests, and Trollslayers, you don't really need vertical advancement. PCs should be encouraged to advance into another career, even if "horizontal". Is it so wrong to go from a thug to mercenary, for example? Or, feel free as a GM to make a career as an "advanced" career, or allow a PC to re-take their previous career. None of this seems to difficult to use. Remember, the game hasn't even been out for a year yet, so of course more "advanced" careers haven't been supplied yet.

2. Like with any game (that isn't a spinoff, like Pathfinder) that just got released, you'll be lacking some of the supporting expansions/scenarios. Honestly, with just a little work, you should be able to use all the v1 and v2 scenarios, adventures, NPCs, monsters, etc. until FFG gets time to put out enough 3e stuff.

3. Cards are a preference, that can easily be ignored by writing the information down (just liek any other RPG). It's just easier to use the cards.

4. I can see why it would be somewhat of a problem to play online, should there be players without their own copy of the cards. As suggested, the GM could send them the information, for example, although advancement card choices it becomes more work. It can be done, I'm sure, but requires more effort on the part of the GM I think.

5. I agree, it isn't as friendly for conventions because of all the parts. I think a creative GM, with pre-gen characters, could probably arrange for something that doesn't use cards or tokens. A pair of large character sheets, laminated, sort-of like the pages of Monsters in the TOA. Use dry-erase to record recharge, etc. Have card information copied onto a sheet for players, etc. Again, more work for the GM, but quite doable I think. Of course, a GM *could* use the cards in sleeves (and/or tokens) if they wanted, there's just the risk of losing them.

Fabs said:

/ad mode on

Try Mutants & Masterminds . It's a vaguely D20 based superhero game, where Power Level advances whenever GM chooses to.

/ad mode off

D.

I don't think I'll ever understand the point of these threads in an established game. You looking for a pat on the back or a grand send off where you get a gold watch. You have complaints, which are legitimate to you, the end. If you like Pathfinder play Pathfinder liking one doesn't mean having to dislike another. That's a problem with this hobby as a hole. Why perpetuate it. It's just dumb. You may as well announce that chess sucks because you'd rather play monopoly becuase chess isn't random enough.

Kryyst,

Because this game is not fully complete yet, and extra modules *will* be released, and they will address these exact issues that are being mentioned.
Try not to go too fanboyish over a game, they are legitimate issues at the moment, and sufficient feedback might help FFG set priorities more closely to what their fans (and thus customers) expect.

And it's nothing like Chess... Not like this summer, they're finally gonna bring out that extra playing piece that combines the moves of a pawn and a knight.

Nisses said:

A legitimate issue is this card is broken or how does this rule work or my box is missing cards etc... Those are legitimate issues. Complaining about vertical advancement in an RPG line that has never been strong on vertical advancement isn't legitimate. There was never any secret agenda about what was in the box or not. The listing of careers has been online since before the game was on the shelves. Complaining after the fact isn't a legitimate complaint. etc...etc...so on ad infinum....

This whole argument has been covered over and over again. So with that in mind I return to my original point. What's the purpose of putting up the 'I quit thread'. If you like System X because it fills a niche that System Y doesn't, play System X. This hobby as a whole is not filled with mutually exclusive decisions.

Oh and however you interpreted that I said WFRP = Chess is beyond me. But as a point of clarity to limit any further confusion on that front. I do not believe WFRP is similar to Chess nor do I think Pathfinder is similar to Monopoly.

@Emirikol-

Good to see you, even if it's only temporary,

I agree we need more vertical advancement options, and fairly soon. I'm not just talking about the lack of advanced careers, either. When I get to the point where I need advanced careers, if FFG hasn't released anything yet, I'll just convert them from 2nd Ed using the conversion notes we'd brainstormed.

The problem I'm currently a little worried about may show up before my group has exhausted all the reasonable basic careers, though.

Currently, there's no high-rank actions unless you're a spellcaster. However, the advancement system forces you to buy a new Action and a new Talent every career. I think there's a point you'll reach where Actions, Talents, and Stance Pieces are no longer worthwhile purchases. I'd guess there's no need for more than about 6 actions and 4 talents for a character, and with the right build you could hit that level before finishing your first career. Beyond that point, every new card has less and less chance of ever getting used. Eventually it's even going to get hard to pick out cards that support your core character concept. I mean, how many melee attack actions does your 4th Rank Thug/Pitfighter/Mercenary/Soldier really need? He really just needs two good ones to alternate every other round, right? It's one thing if your Soldier starts taking social actions because of narrative character development, it's not nearly as cool if he starts taking social actions because there's a required purchase and he's run out of worthwhile combat options.

If they gave us some higher-level action cards, Improved versions of the existing ones, even, then this wouldn't be such a problem. That, or more Advanced Careers. I too am hoping a high-level box hits the release schedule soon. Obviously, I can fix all these issues for my own game if I break open Strange Eons and get creative. However, I'm reluctant to do so since for all I know FFG might release their own take on higher-level play and it might not be compatible with whatever direction I take my campaign in. At this point, it's not yet critical, but It'd be very comforting if FFG could let us know if something like this were in the works.

Kryyst said:

I don't believe the original poster intended it to be a "I Quit" thread. He said he'd been playing something else, but was missing certain elements of WHFRP. So it's more of a "I Quit a while back, and kinda miss this game. If FFG can do any of the following, I'll come back" thread. Which, while similar, is definitely different.

As obnoxious as "I Quit" threads are, they definitely have more usefulness than the "I've never really played the game, but I'm gonna bag on it anyway because it's different from the previous edition" threads. I agree those don't do us any good, but that's NOT what Emirikol was doing here, in my opinion. Honestly, if I were FFG, I'd want to read even those for the data points. Luckily, I'm not FFG, so I can tune them out instead.

It does sound on the surface a little like a "I'm going to Quit if you don't meet my demands" or an "I'm going to Quit unless you all tell me how great I am" thread, but I don't think that either of those was the point or intent of it, either. The greater context of the post will explain why that's not what was intended. So here's the context: The original poster had been an active member of this community for several months, and was collaborating with various people on various projects. Then he vanished. Today, he came back and said why he'd been gone. Speaking as one of the people who'd been informally collaborating with a few weeks back (brainstorming conversion rules for adapting 2nd Ed careers to the current system), I had been wondering what happened to him. In the weeks while he's been gone, the party tension meter around here has risen a bit because of several "I Quit" or "Here's why your favorite game sucks" threads, but he may well have been blissfully unaware of such tension until you kinda unloaded on him.

No offense intended. I too get really frustrated and annoyed at the various "I Quit" and "Edition War" threads, so I get where you're coming from. I try hard not to get worked up over them, though. (And I usually fail.) Whether or not someone else enjoys this game should really only matter to me if they're at my table. That's what I tell myself anyway...

Emirikol said:

I don't take this post at all as a bash...it only highlights one part of the flaws effecting WFRP and that largely falls in the hands of the advancement system which is a fundamental problem with the system. The design of games like DND is gradually loaded. Low level characters are sort of crap and each time they level, they gain another grain (+1 attack bonus), a few more hit points. Monsters as well follow the same granulated scale of 1 hit die to two hit die to three. 3e resembles more of the old school White Wolf or Cthulhu model which is very front loaded...you have tons of power right out the door, but leveling, well, seems sort of limp comparatively. From a design point, the contradiction becomes the rapid rate of development which is way off the chart. They also keep the same problem of one career, one time. That means for each career, without having to jump around through the various careers, you need roughly five careers to define them. These careers though really are no different than previous careers other than one small card. Five careers, going upward, vertically in the same class or different classes will compute to the same numbers as jumping through 5. Given the rate of those advances...it becomes staggering and characters either will need short shelf-lives or become so off the chart, it becomes ridiculous and failure a non-option.

Honestly this advancement short coming (no career repetition, too much front-loaded characteristics, and the limits of the action cards) makes advancement seem limiting. I will argue other games have hosts of special powers and all you really gain is a statistical bonus of +1 or +2 or some new power to put in a broad list of powers...the only difference is the power curve from level one to level twenty or whatever. DND has changed the mentality and pushed an agenda of Vertical Advancement as well as the MMORPG'S.

Warhammer needs to fix at its core two factors in my opinion: The rate of leveling, the ability for career repetition, and reduction of starting points. This would allow the game to maintain balance and a solid core of advancement and completely neutralize, I have nowhere to go feeling players are apparently having.

Our group has yet to have this problem though. We play twice a week and have since before the game came out. However, we have slowed down the rate of xp gain and lowered the amount of starting characteristics (to roughly 2-4) and have yet to have a problem with the system in terms of advancement. Honestly, I think a year from now we won't be having these kinds of issues.

Since this is such a rampant complaint, maybe some form of overall readdress of the system starting point and ending point should be addressed.

I agree with Dvang about the cards, they are more useful and in ways better than having them a book and having to copy them down. That takes time, and in my experience, players don't take the time. The chits are great for the pools that go and come quickly as compared to burning holes in character sheets by hacking off boxes and erasing them, etc. But to each his own then.

r_b_bergstrom said:

Six action cards all you'll ever need? That's only if you're stuck in a mindset that a character has to be a specialist and never ever transcend the boundaries of his "class", i.e. a DnD mindset. This relates a bit to your other thread about limiting action cards for careers, so you already know what I think about that. Sorry if I sound a bit patronizing, I just can't express it in another way

Still, six actions cards? I have 4 on my soldier now and have planned to acquire at least 5 more. I want at least 2 improved defenses and improved guarded position is a great card, that's three actions. I have 2 ranged actions now, I'll want at least one more (and 1-2 more once I get a blackpowder weapon), that's two more. I have one support card now, I'm planning for at least two more. I have one melee action now, I want at least 3 more. And I'd like some social action as well, possibly connected to leadership. Thats 14 action cards in total. For me, it's not about making sure that I have at least one action available due to recharge, but rather to get actions that give me flexibility in combat and that allows me to do cool stuff narratively speaking without having to fall back on Perform a stunt every time.

While I agree that some high rank stuff would be nice, I would still hate it a lot if WFRP turns into some kind of DnD clone where advancement and character building is one of the most important things. Mind, I don't particularly dislike character optimization, I just don't think it should be an important part of WFRP. If I want that I will go and play DnD instead.

I'm in quite similar situation as a Emirikol, but find myself in totally different opinion. I run a Pathfinder campaign, that began almost two years ago to a day, and I find Pathfinder too rules-heavy, restricting, over-complicated and boring. While I try to run as close to spirit of rules as possibly, to avoid accidentary "cheating", I find it almost impossible. There are too many situational modifiers, exclusions from general rules, unclear ones etc. Combat is horribly, last one fought against 12 drow fighters/rogues and one sorcerer lasted over two hours of our time. At the end it was and players, bored mutually with game mechanics. What more, we have a two copies of rulebook, that were almost without break exchanged between players, who nervously flipped through them to find a specific rule, modifier or something that clears contradicting rules.

On the other hand there is WFRP. Rules are pretyy straightforward and detail is printed on cards, which are easy to manage, search and apply. After close reading and applying rules, neither me, nor my players had difficulties with grasping of combat mechanics , maneouvers. Right, there is a problem of chosing, which card to buy, will they work in coordination, but game play flow is much smoother.

As for advancement and it's verticality. Don't tell me, that characters advancement in Pathfinder is not vertical . While I must admit, that every character class has it's own path, advantages and uniqueness I still prefer WFRP, because of number of possibilities due to different Talents, Action Cards etc. It is quite natural that characters become more and more powerful, but as someone stated, it is natural for RPG's and there is nothing wrong wit it.

DeathFromAbove said:

You're talking about two very different things. There's character growth: growing as a person, learning new stuff, finding your place in the world, accomplishing personal goals, challenging your beliefs and growing through that. And then there's the growth of numbers on a piece of paper.

The first one does not require the second one. It's true that the second one is an old staple of the RPG hobby, and is often what's referred to when some game has "RPG elements", but it's by no means required. The first one is not strictly required or supported by most RPGs, but it is required to make a great story, and in the end, that's what RPGs try to do, isn't it? But it's usually one of those things that some groups discover by themselves during play, rather than it being anywhere in the rules.

In any case, there are a lot of RPGs that work perfectly fine without any experience points or stat advancement at all. GURPS and Shadowrun are good examples of this. In those games, you can easily start with perfectly competent and mature characters. D&D on the other hand, is very much about going up in levels. I can't imagine D&D being much fun without that (although I've heard stories that it may be a good idea to stop level advancement after level 6, that being the sweet spot, balance and power-wise).

WFRP is a bit in between. On the one hand, career changes are often a bit hard to justify in the middle of a campaign, but on the other hand, at some point you do want to move from "where you're from" (your starting career) to where you're going. What you're destined to become, even. Or at least something slightly cooler than what you used to be.

As for the lack of vertical advancement, I do agree. While it technically shouldn't be necessary for an RPG, WFRP should have a lot more career options than it currently has. On the other hand, I think it should also be possible to remain in the same career for much longer than is currently possible, and I will houserule as such.

I'm really not sure where the sense of urgency for advanced careers is coming from. Unless you are in a career with a vertical progression track by the setting, like a Priest, Wizard, or Slayer, what does an Advanced career offer you that a basic career doesn't? All careers offer the same 4 standard advances and then some variable advances per the front of the career sheet. One might say Actions 2, Skills 2, Talents 1, Fortune 2, Wounds 2, while another might say Actions 3, Skills 2, Talents 2, Fortune 1, Wounds 1, but there's more advances available in each career than you can take during your time in it. Sure, the career also governs which skills can be trained cheaply and which characteristics Fortune can be bought for, but your career doesn't limit which action card(s) you take and may inform, but doesn't limit your Talent choices. It's not like previous editions where once you had a +10% in stat you couldn't improve it by switching to another basic career. Okay, some may argue that certain career choices (which currently aren't available), like Knight, or Mercenary Captain, inform your roleplaying of the character, but mechanically, they have little impact on actual character development in terms of advances. Now sure, Wizards/Priests currently tap out after two careers without some house rules, but most other characters should be fine switching to other basic careers.

Don't get me wrong. I'm as anxious for additional product as anyone. It's just that I don't see the game as being unplayable until it is available like some others do.

gruntl said:

How many of those do you actually use in a typical encounter?

In my experience thus far, fights are short and nasty. Most attacks hit, and most characters (PCs and NPCS) go down in two, maybe 3 hits. Last week I threw my party of 6 PCs against an equal number of beastmen of various ratings, the total fight lasted half-way through the third round. At 12 actions per round, there was enough down time between each players action, I certain wouldn't want to add very many more monsters.

As I see it, you only really need 2, maybe 3, attack cards. With 3 attacks, by the time you've used the third one, the first one is recharged. You cycle through them and you're good. You can do the same with 2, as long as you choose the right ones, or can rely on a steady stream of fortune refreshes. Maybe I'm being too generous with fortune refreshes when I GM? Let's assume I am, and that as a result, most people not playing with me will need a 3rd attack.

3, I can believe. But you're saying you want 8 attacks? How will you ever use them all?

Yes, extra actions can give you special attacks for specific situations you might find yourself in, but most of the time if you don't have one of those actions, you can also get around it by spending one fatigue, and sometimes easier than that.

• Say I'm an archer and I don't have any attacks that don't require me to be disengaged. While I could solve that by taking "Close-Quarters Shot" or "Knockback Shot" or a Melee Action, I could also solve it by using my free manoeuvre for the turn to disengage and move out to close range.
• The inverse is true as well - if you're a melee fighter there's no need to ever fire a bow, unless the enemy is behind a chasm or atop a castle wall. If they're on the wall, you can probably scale it if you've got Athletics trained. If they're at long range, you spend one fatigue to cut it to medium on the first round and do Assess The Situation to get rid of the fatigue, or guarded position to keep from being hit. On the second round, you spend 1 fatigue to engage. Yeah, it's worse at extreme range, but you should only be facing that during pitched battles on a big open field. Most fights should start much closer than that.
• And some character types just aren't going to fight enough to need those three attacks. A Student is probably better loading up on support and social actions, and then hiding behind the big burly guys.

So, I stand by my statement that three attacks are all you really need.

On top of those three, I agree you'll want 2 more active defense type cards. Improved Dodge and Improved Parry for those who's stats allow them. Others will work on Improved Block, Dirty Tricks or Shrug It Off. You literally can't have all of them (Block needs a shield, Shrug needs a Troll-Slayer). I was figuring the typical character will take 2 of these, but perhaps you've got a point that most characters will actually want 3 of them.

If you're taking melee actions, then Riposte or Counterblow would make sense, since (like the active defenses) they don't use up your turn. But the archers and the social characters won't find them useful, and not all melee fighters are going to use a shield (for counterblow).

Improved Guarded Position is, as you mentioned, great, but only if (for whatever reason) you couldn't attack anyway. With the RAW, attacks are so likely to hit, anything that costs you an attack has got to be amazing to be worth it. It's not like you can win a fight by just doing Improved Guarded Position all day, someone in your party has to be dishing out damage. I think most characters will find they don't need it. Leave the Guarded Position to the softest, squishiest member of the party, or the weakest hitter, and they'll be able to provide the effects for the rest of you.

Similar things can be said about most of the support actions. Any Soldier, Thug, Hunter, etc, is going to be better off using an attack. Attacks hit more often than they miss, and it only takes 2 hits to down most foes. Save those support actions for the Scribes and Barber-Surgeons, the ones who can't really afford to get into the thick of the combat, or who have small enough physical dice pools that they actually miss more than once every 4 attacks.

As for the social actions, most of them don't hold up well when compared to Perform a Stunt. I really love the idea of social encounters in this game, and the idea of social actions, but most of them are only a hair's breadth better than Perform a Stunt. Some of them are only as good as the bonus you get by doing an assist manoeuvre, but they take your whole action. I most of those cases, I'd rather make my own Guile check (or whatever) and provide an assist on the side. It's the same problem the other support actions have in regards to combat. Anything that actually makes progress is much more potent than something that only provides an extra die or two on someone else's roll to make progress. So the game has 13 social actions, but at least 4 of them don't compare favorably to just making an assist, so that leaves 9 social actions that are viable. Even assuming for the moment that a party of 3 or 4 players actually wants to have all the viable ones represented in the party, that's no more than 3 social actions per character.

Having walked through all that, here's my feeling on how many actions various character types need:

• Archers (Hunter, Bounty-Hunter, Waywatcher, etc) need 7 actions. That's 3 ranged attacks to cycle through, 3 defenses, and probably 1 social action so they have something to do in the negotiation and role-playing scenes.
• Melee fighter types (Thug, Pitfighter, Troll-Slayer, etc) need 8 actions. That's 3 melee attacks, 3 defenses, 1 social, and 1 other card for those times when they can't get to the enemy. That one other card might be a range attack, or it might be Improved Guarded Position, or some other Support action to boost up the members of the party who can do something effective in those weird situations where the fighter is unable to reach the enemy.
• Bookworm and Talky types (Scribe, Student, Dilletante, Burgher, etc) need about 8 actions. They really only need (or can benefit from) 1 or 2 attack cards, and only ones that use unusual stat and skill combos (***** in the Armor, Acrobatic Strike, Coordinated Strike, Insulting Blow, etc), to get past their amazing dice pool of 3 strength dice and no weapon skill. Instead of a third (or even second) attack, they're better off taking Support cards. So I'd say they need 3 Social actions, and probably 1 or 2 support cards that can be used (instead of attacks) in a fight with monsters that won't listen to reason or don't speak your language. Plus the 3 defense cards any PC might need.
• Spell casters may need slightly different numbers. Admittedly, I haven't looked much at them, as I have yet to have a PC spellcaster in my games. They need more cards, but they get some extra cards for free, as well. Cantrip looks to have as much flexibility as Perform a Stunt, so I imagine their needs probably run similar to the other character types, once you factor in the free basic cards. Someone who's played such a character would be able to fill us in better. Priests don't get as many freebies, so they may have to buy a few extra cards.

So, the off-the-top-of-my-head number of 6 was a little low. 8 is probably average. Everything past that is just unlikely to see much use. The 14 you're suggesting is mostly wasted on cards you'll almost never use. And if you only need 8, you should have them by the end of your second or third career.

I don’t get where the need comes from. It’s all about the want. I may have a whole host of cards that get used rarely. Why, because every now and then I may want to use them or, heaven forbid, they fit with my characters story. Your telling me that a master swordsman would only have 2-3 distinctive moves that he repeats? No chance.

Only taking cards that can be cycled through in a strict order based on recharge time seems a bit off to me. That’s almost pc gamey with combos that get used repeatedly.

Again, as with anything, this is just my opinion and people are free to play the game as they please. Want to try and make that killer combo that you whip out all the time – go for it.

(The FFG forum text editor seems to have another bout of messing up my posts. I'm trying to fix it, but usually these bugs seem to be unfixable. Let's see if this works...)

r_b_bergstrom wrote:

Why would you stick to the minimum you absolutely need? Don't you want some flexibility and diversity?

r_b_bergstrom wrote:

3, I can believe. But you're saying you want 8 attacks? How will you ever use them all?

Not all actions are attacks. He wants melee attacks, ranged attacks, support cards, defenses, social actions. There's more than enough options to build a serious deck.

r_b_bergstrom wrote:

The inverse is true as well - if you're a melee fighter there's no need to ever fire a bow, unless the enemy is behind a chasm or atop a castle wall. If they're on the wall, you can probably scale it if you've got Athletics trained.

If you've got Athletics trained and you really want to die as soon as possible. Do you have any idea what kind of suicide mission that is? Any well-rounded warrior needs to be able to handle a bow. (Fortunately everybody gets the Ranged Attack action.)

Where do I need to go to beg FFG to get some decent forum software? Look what it did to my carefully crafted reply!

(Edit: it looks slightly less awful now. I'll leave it like this.)

yup, it has been my understanding that an "advanced career" in this edition is just a career that has strict entry requirements. acoltye requires apprentice, witch hunter requires zealot or at least one permanent insanity, etc. "basic" careers don't, except racial requirements. it actually gives players more freedom to move between careers. i think what this has done is make some people miss stricter career paths. because earlier editions had strict entries and exits even for basic careers there was an artificial feeling of being on a "path" even before you moved your mercenary up to mercenary captain. what eliminating strict career entries and exits has done is elminate the need to worry about making errata every time you want to add new basic careers. and really, housing advanced careers till more are published is easy, it is easier than easy. it is no skill check required. in fact, houseruling almost anything you want in this game is easy. if characters are too powerful when they start, check out some of gallows house rules, mainly how he reduced the number of starting creation points. he collaborated and tested it with his players and shared it with us. think players have too many cards, give em a max "hand" and let them spend points to swap them out. make your own "advanced" action cards and put them on index cards. i can't ever imagine myself going back to the horror that was D&D 3.5/Pathfinder. the OP compared it to nurgle ball sweat; i will take his word for that. A friend gave me the pathfinder core rulebook (thank you!) and it is six-hundred pages. i like reading it but i can't imagine tring to keep up with all of it as a gm. and 4th Ed. combat takes too long, also. -But I can see myself playing Castles & Crusades or 1st edition on occasion. that is just nostalgia gaming though, for me.

mac40k said:

+1000000000000000000000000

Other than a few careers, WFRP doesn't really *need* vertical advancement, and certainly not as "immediately" as people seem to suggest. PCs are already pretty competent, similar careers can still "advance" a PC. For example, moving from Thug to Mercenary (or vice versa) still allows for more training in Weaponskill, more Str fortune dice, increasing your Str, etc. Or, you know what, how about as a PC advances they BROADEN their skills/actions available, rather than min/max focusing on a single concept. They can easily take a similar career, which has some overlap to still allow increases in their chosen field, yet allow the purchase of some new stuff to round out their PC or give a variety of actions.