So after my entire party of 4 got killed exploring the outskirts of Stromdorf (I shall say no more lest I spoil but I'm currently rewriting a chunk of the campaign to start afresh with a new party in the aftermath) I took some time to get some ideas together for character design. To try and help my players get there heads around what the stats and such like meant. One of the issues we had was a character with 2 WP and another with 2 TO.

I've written a little script that gives you the statistical likelihood of success given any given dice pool and I'll be putting a version online soon. I also wanted to revisit character creation and see if there was anyway I could steer my players away from being thicker than the average peasant. It was at this point I read a line I failed to notice before, I live that I thought I should publicly admit to failing to read.

‘Next, increase each of the starting career’s Primary Characteristics by one‘

Now many of you will be laughing at me at this point and that's good, I deserve it. I've run three demo games for people including character generation and failed to notice that line each time. Then I started this campaign, and failed again.

Some of you may be checking your rulebooks now, quick while the rest are laughing, it's on page 28. For you I hope my foolishness has been a warning and maybe a help.

Now to return to working out how a more competent party will deal with the debris left by the Keystone PC's.

scimon said:

I did exactly the same thing. And yes, it does mean characters come down with a major case of sucking. And shortly thereafter death. This was one of those things that should have been a little clearer,,,

phobiandarkmoon said:

So what can I say - Warhammer is a dengerous, dark and grimm place where death is on every corner.

ffgfan said:

Especially if you are playing the 'special' characters. On the bright side everyone seemed to have fun so I've got a chance

waitaminute-WHAT?!

When's that happen, I'm so confused, My adventurer's are high level now but I'm sure they would've like to know that.

Wopps that was an impulsive message, If I had read past the quote that blew my mind I would've noticed that you already answered my question.

reidchapman said:

That's quite alright, the whole thing was quite mind blowing all round. Oh well, you live and learn.

scimon said:

yup, I also missed that one – I actually think FFG should really add a note about this to the FAQ

Dont have rulebook home atm,but you say in character creation players get one extra stat in two career primary characteristics?

Leondgorance said:

yes, page 28, right column under the headline “Generate Characteristics”

As I said, I also overlooked this even though I frantically searched for such a statement since I had the expectation that the initial career choice would have some kind of influence on the starting characteristics.

I think the passage is also easy to overlook because the sentence before, which mentions the table for racial characteristics, is set in bold face. You wouldn’t expect a crucial information concerning not concerning race (i.e. concerning careers) in the same paragraph right below – at least when browsing through the rules.

Well, I guess in one respect I'm happy to know it's not just me. We can all share the shame, luckily all my PC's died so I don't have to retro fit them.... There's a logic to that.

Ah i see...that drastically changes concept of game than.I guess no1 saw that rule tbh:))

scimon said:

Hehe, yes – the logic is: “If you do not enter the adventurer’s lifestyle without some prior hardening then your life will be short and painful.”

Leondgorance said:

Yup, giving everyone 6-8 extra character points to spend during character creation should make a bit of a difference.

Another me-too post.

We missed the primary stat bumps during my group's first round of chargen and given that I was the game evangelist/purchaser/GM I probably *should* have caught it. Fortunately for us whenever I start running a new system I leave it pretty open for the players to swap out characters/move around stats/change talents etc. One of the players caught the omission and the group was quickly retconned into effectiveness.

Oh wow. I am about to run my first session of this game tonight, and had not noticed this. Thanks for the game-saver.

Ha! I missed it too... blasted Moon Letters.

ozean said:

I think FFG should hire a competent editor and completely revise the rulebook. It's very, very badly written. This is not the only rule that's easy to miss, yet other rules get repeated half a dozen times. Very inconsistent organisation.

It's a rulebook. You aren't meant to reference it. All of the rules are on the cards.

mcv said:

It's beautifully written. It's just poorly edited and organized. I tend to love almost everything FFG has done with this game, but the layout of that rulebook is just baffling.

Thanks for the reminder, though. I can't remember if my party did that or not, but they seem to be doing okay without. If they wipe eventually, though, we'll do it for their second incarnation.

Well last night we did the regen an reboot. At which point one of the players (who's actually read the book, I'm still in shock) pointed out you're only allowed to buy Career Skills at character gen (something else I'd missed) so maybe it evens out.

Anyway the new party wandered off to Stromdorf after meeting a bunch of refugees and where set upon be what as effectively the same encounter that wiped out half the party last time. This time went somewhat better, the addition of a Initiate of Shayalla is going to make a lot of a difference.

So fingers crossed they'll actually manage to be the Heroes of Stromdorf this time, as opposed to the Screw Up of Stromdorf. You never know.