I've run accross a little concern. Most of the careers seem to lean in the direction of Human, Dwarf and High Elf. Even with the new expansion I only see one advanced career option. After looking through all the expansions and picking out the careers the breakdown goes like this. Humans 33 basic and 9 advanced careers. Dwarfs 29 basic and 5 advanced. High Elf 17 basic and 4 advanced. The Wood Elf only has 14 basic and 1 advanced. Both of the Elves seem to be lacking in the career department but Wood Elves particularly. I'm sure this will be addressed in an expansion but one of the big things they wanted to do with the new edition was differentiate between the Elf race. But if this is how it's going to be I would have much rather have seen one elf race option and let the character decided where they come from.

Like I said I'm sure this is going to be addressed in an expansion but right now I don't see much insentive in playing a wood elf when there is only one advance career option for them.

Hmm...wood elves are relatively rare, aren't they? Maybe this is a mechanical incentive to keep PCs from making them too common.

But yeah, that's a good point. If they're going to make all of these player races, they should probably keep careers coming for all of them.

Might there be a number of Wood Elf specific magic and divine careers?

I don't think that Wood Elves are anymore rare than High Elves. I could be wrong as that was one of the races that I didn't play in Fantasy Battle so I'm not up to par on their history.

I definitely think there are expansions in the works for all the non human races that are going to cover more careers in depth. In fact I'm just guessing but I think a dwarf expansion may be the next big one to come out based on the little info I've read on the new demo Journey to Black Fire Pass. Of coarse this is all conjecture on my part.

But to leave Wood Elves as kind of an afterthought race with little options for playing them is a diservice to the game. They should have left them out like Halflings until they had more time to develop them as a playable race.

Seekerco said:

I think I thought that they were rare because of the bit in the Winds of Magic book that talked about the incredible mystery of the WE lands, but maybe that's just about people visiting their lands and not about the scarcity of the race itself. (I must admit that I didn't read it too carefully, as I was sitting in a parked car in 105-degree weather while doing so.)

Dwarves! That'd be goodone of the wives of one of my current players wants to join, and I think she wants to start a dwarf. It would be excellent if we had a bunch of material to give her when she begins! Are you running JBFP? I'm jealous. I got asked to do it by my FLGS, but we're visiting my in-laws that weekend.

As far as I remember, if there was 1 race in the tabletop game that had more dryads, ents, & other magical creatures in their ranks rather than actual members of their race, it was definitl the wood elves.

To me, they are alot rarer than High Elves in general, because there are simply fewer of them. There was only 1 or 2 tribes that became wild elves IIRC.

They still don't breed all that much, and they seclude themselves in any wooded area to the point where mere sightings of them led to the Lady of the Lake mythos among Bretonnians that had a chance encounter with a few.

The High Elves are more numerous and have specific groups like the Sea Elves that have a higher chance of encountering humans.

As such I'm not surprised we haven't seen more classes about them yet, the only ones humans are likely to see ever, are archer/scout types. So to me, the lore fits the game.

Eventually I would think they will get an expansion, but the Dwarves & High Elves should definitely come first.

As for the lack of career options, I totally agree there needs to be more options for wood elf characters. To the point of the rarity of the wood elves its not so much a quesiton of numbers because the setting assumes the numbers active in and around the Empire not as a race as a whole. There simply are more High Elves if all of Ulthuan is taken into consideration as the Wood Elves are simply those High Elves who remained in the Old World after the majority of the Elves were recalled to Ulthuan at the end of the War of the Beard by the Pheonix King Bel Shanaar if memory serves, but it could easily of been Caledor II. Regardless, the point is there are far fewer wood elves in the Old World than High Elves and this is compounded by the fact that until the recent events where Ariel sent forth kinbands to take the battle against Chaos beyond the borders of Athel Loren, there were very few wood elven kinbands residing within the boundaries of the dark forest and these family groups are not comprised of large numbers. The kinbands sent by Ariel to the Dark Forest are comparable to small raiding parties. Those few wood elves who join with parties as PC's are in reality one of two even rarer breeds of wood elves; individuals who leave thier kinbands to further some purpose for thier people, or wood elves who are in a self impossed exile for whatever reason. By thier very nature wood elves are an insualar people who generally keep to themselves and until recently more or less ignored the world outside thier sylvan realm of Athel Loren.

The High elves who are currently in the Empire are most often there as envoys from the Pheonix King in Ulthuan or merchants and as a people have no foothold whatesover on the mainlands. They may be misconstured as more common in the Empire only because thier presence is not secretive and due to political or economic ties to Altdorf, Marienburg, etc. On the whole elves in the Empire are far from common. As PC's it would be safe to assume that High Elves are most definently more likely than wood elves are but outside of Altdorf and Marienburg the presence of any elf would be cause for the very superstitious and ignorant folk of the provinces to take note and perhaps even make thier presence known to the authorities.

Generally Wood Elves are rare in the empire. The newer fluff that limits them to Athel Loren does not help either.

If one were to list the relative rarity of the different groups in the Empire it would go something like this (most common to least common, this will vary by region but is more or less accurate):

Humans of the Empire

Halflings (a race that really should be reintroduced, they would be perfect for a Slaanesh/Nobility set and I am getting tired of converting reasources for my Halfling players. I will be sure to by 3 of everything with a halfling in it, I promisse; hint, hint FFG )

Dwarfs (ex-Imperial) and Old World humans (Bret, Estialian, Tilean, Kislevite, Norscan, even Arabian)

Orges (could be interesting in a Khorne/military set)

High Elves (HE)

Wood Elves (WE)

Human envoys from the far east

Anyway, the relative rarity of a given race should not neccesarily impact the options available to players. A wood elf might be rare but it would still bring with it a full culture with unique career paths. What is probably more limiting is the lack of unique wood elf careers that can be directly imported from WFB. (5 to 6 unique carrers in total, and the wardancer and waywatcher are the most iconic of these)

An additional factor that limits career selection is the reluctance of WE to blend into the culture of the Empire. Dwarfs, Halflings, Orges and even High Elves assume positions in all levels of society within the empire; ranging from servants, to cooks, blacksmiths, merchants or scribes and of course their services are sought within the military. WE culture embraces isolation and the rejection of urban society, this paired with a heavy dose of xenophobia limits the number of careers a WE would consider taking and as a result limits the players choice of career.

regards,

ET

Yeah, WEs are pretty limited in scope and options at this time. I hoped that the Winds of Magic would have opened that up instead of giving us a tease, but I think we'll have to wait until the Elven supplement (if they don't break it into two) for more directions for players to explore. The only thing that we, the GMs and players of the game, can do at this time is to remind FFG that we are indeed interested in having those options available and wait patiently for them to do a quality job providing them.

*drums fingers on the table* I hate waiting.

Nisses said:

That depends entirely on which version of the background you adhere to. According to 1st edition, there are several Wood Elf communities deep in the forests on the Empire, particularly in the Laurelorn forest. The city of Middenheim has a sizable Wood Elf population.

So what do those elves do? Are they all scouts and waywatchers? Unlikely. Considering that any Wood Elves that are living in human cities and adventuring with humans and dwarfs, have left the safety of their homes and are likely outcasts or at least considered somewhat weird, they don't have to stick to foresty outdoorsy careers. Roguish careers could be appropriate, as are academic careers. Being drawn to beauty, anything related to art would be very appropriate. Unfortunately we don't have any troubadour or minstrel careers yet, but if we did, those would be dominated by Wood Elves.

But in general, I'd say that for Wood Elves who have chosen to become part of human society, practically any human career should be open.

It will be interesting to see how support for wood elves and other races are introduced from here on in. With the announcement for Black Fire Pass with all these nifty dwarf careers being added it gives me a lot to look forward to in regards to the other races. My guess, and now this is a pretty BIG guess is that we will see supplements based around a number of iconic areas featuring careers and races or racial varients based on the place in quesiton. A supplement dedicated to Athel Loren for example would be pretty neat and it would be the perfect oppertunity to introduce glade guard/riders, wood elf spellsingers, etc. as well as a few really nifty location cards etc.

@ Errant Thought: Well put regarding career choices and wood elves, I absolutely agree that given thier overall mindset and culture there are really few careers a wood elf would take up in the Empire (though I can totally see the point in giving them enough options to have some mobility as a wood elf PC considering career transitions and all). More importantly Im just as excited to get my hands on a supplement that might take us for a close look at a little eastern province with an electoral vote to boot situated snuggly between Stirland, Averland, and that rather haunting provinve of Sylvania. Although Id say halflings would be more likely introduced in either thier own supplement or in conjunction with a Vampire related one rather than with one coppled with good ol' Slaanesh (Im thinking more of a nobility focused supplement for him/her)

If you are enforcing random race determination during chargen, then the number of Wood Elf careers available is adequate given the rarity of Wood Elf characters that the table represents. Doesn't help if you are allowing players to freely pick race however. Also doesn't explain the fact that High Elves should be as rare, but have more choices, although as pointed out, High Elves would have a better chance of blending into Imperial society than Wood Elves, so while it might be rare to run into either, it's still possible to rationalize the narrower focus of WE careers.

mac40k said:

I used the GM's Toolkit dice roller and rolled 4 Fortune dice 30 times to simulate a random character racial roll.

Here are the results:

0 = xx (2)

1 = xxxxxxxxxxxx (12)

2 = xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (15)

3 = x (1)

4 = 0

If going the random method it's unlikely you'll be playing anything other than a Human or Dwarf, but I definitely agree that the wood elves got the short end of the stick.... but, not over the halflings although I think getting shorted comes with the territory when you're a halfling character.

P.S. - I did a 2nd set of rolls, this time 32 times (got a bit overzealous.)

0 = xxx (3)

1 = xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (19)

2 = xxxxxxx (7)

3 = xxx (3)

4 = 0

Getting 4 hammers on the Fortune dice is a rare occurance to say the least, since after 62 sets of rolls it didn't come up once.

LeBlanc13 said:

There's this thing called math: 1/3 of the sides are hammers. So the chance of 4 dice coming up all hammers is (1/3)^4 = 1/81.

Which is about fair I would say given that Wood Elves are far more limited geographically in the new background. Personally I perfer the old background (but then it could be worse I am still sore about orcs becoming space mushrooms and I miss the Law gods as well).

@Solomonhiram:

Halflings would certainly also work with a regional expansion or on their own. They are a fundamental part of the Empire and I have it on good authority that they are quite upset over their exclusion, you could say that their tempers are running a bit short .

I have always been fond of the different emphasis that Warhammer places on the Halfing character, in many ways thay are the polar opposite of what people think. I once GMed an adventure in the Moot, the PC's thought they would be dealing with Hobbits, boy were they suprised.

The reason I place them in the Nobility/Slaanesh suppliment is that I naturally associate the non military noble careers with criminal careers (not sure why but I am sure there is a good reason). The two things that come to mind when I think of Halflings is their love of good food in large quantities and their tendency to borrow the property of others without asking permission (or intending to ever return it).

Halflings have no magical powers and tend not to join religious orders as well. In my mind this leaves servant, commerce and criminal careers as those most likely to be undertaken by a Halfling. Charlatans, confidence men, chiefs, scouts, farmers, brewers, agents, even merchants seem like reasonable and honourable Halfing careers. As a result a suppliment that deals with these aspects of life in the Empire seems the natural place to deal with Halfings.

Since their seems to be a tendency to pair each major career set with a chaos power; magic (or knowledge)/Tzeentch, faith/Nurgle, military/Khorne (probably) it would also be a great place for Ogres, it seems likely that the wealth/thief suppliment would be paired with Slaanesh (maybe an in depth look at life as a cultist as well, with cultist careers and "101 ways to hide that Chaos mutation from your friends").

Anyway it seems like a good way to get Halflings in the game at a fairly early stage, if FFG then wanted to do an entire suppliment about the wonderful world of the Moot and its magnificent inhabitants, well I would certainly support that.

As for Vampires, I see that as a expansion onto itself. It could deal with many aspects of necromancy in particular (by the time the big four have been dealt with we should have a lot on chaos so we can shift focus), The practice of necromancy, careers for necromancers and their servants, info on vampires (how to use them as NPC's (allies and enemies), as PC's even?) and also information on those that hunt them. It could be a more in depth look at the zealot family of careers, Vampire hunters in particular, but also witches and so on as well as more mundane careers, maybe a look at the Strigany(I have always thought Strigany characters could be interesting).

Anyway back to Wood Elves....

@mcv:

I can see your point and yes a Wood Elf could certainly chose to enter human society and could take up any number of careers that made use of their increased speed and agility and heightened senses. However once removed from their culture I would hardly call them "Wood Elves". Unlike many other game worlds I see little difference physically between the elven factions. A wood elf, a dark elf and a high elf are all more or less the same elf, it is their cultures that give them their identities and allow them to be considered distinct "races".

Strictly speaking we have three supported "races" currecntly in WFRP, one of these races is further divided into two cultures. This is no different (at least to my mind) than introducing Bretonnians as a unique "race", they could certainly enter careers that are traditionally reserved for humans from the Empire, male Bretonnian spellcasters for example are trained in the Empire, as are humans from around the old world.

Similarly Wood Elves would be suitable for most jobs that any elf could do, at that point though I would simply fold the two elf "races" together and intoduce a "culture" indicator.

Elves could be High Elf or Wood Elf or maybe even Sea Elf if they have relocated to the Old World (better yet it could go by province in the case of High Elves and kithband in the case of Wood Elves);

Dwarfs cound be Imperial Dwarfs or ex-pats that live in the Empire (we could also include reference to their particular hold);

Humans would go by nationality (or even province/city might be better);

and Halflings would probably go by family.

I think this would also better represent the affinity different individuals have for different careers. Different provinces of the Empire and Bretonnia have different cultural markers. The same goes for the High Elf kingdoms, the Wood Elf kithbands, the Dwarf holds, the Halfling families, and the Ogre tribes. For me at least this seems like a better measure of an individual than the broad "racial" leaning. It certainly is not needed in the core rules but I think it might be interesting in more advanced play. Hmm... I might have to try working out a system in my free time...

Oh and as far as minstrels go I hear Dwarfs have wonderful singing voices.....

As always just my two cents.... well manybe two dollars at this point.

regards,

ET

you make a few really god points Errant Thought especially regarding elves (and races of the old world in general) being divided more on cultural grounds than anything else thank you, and however the good ol' lads at Fantasy Flight decide to release future products any of these ideas would make me very happy indeed (and having ogres fall in with halflings would be fantastic presuming that they are keeping with the ogres of yore and not the IMO rather out of place lot of cannibals taht was tossed out of the GW studio as an ill concieved army for Fantasy Battles a few years back.)

@mcv your recall of 1st edition background is esteemable for sure and under those circumstances and using that background you are absolutely correct regarding wood elves jumping into human careers, it would make sense under the right circumstances. However the setting has changed significantly over the last nearly 30 years (wow kinda scary how that looks written down) i mean in the same text Bretonians were a bunch of corrupt to the core folk who covered up thier hideousness behind a mask of wealth and beauty (my prefered way to think of the lot of em to be honest, that lady of the lake and those grail knights have something giving them thier powers and my bet its sure not a moistened bink distributing swords. to this day i read everything written about bretonia like its the great gatsby). Point is if a GM is running a game using the background information from 1st edition and the Enemy Within supplements wood elves definently should be regarded as mcv suggests, back then there was little to no mention of high elves at all really, However given that the setting has grown tremendously over the years following the current background wood elves would not intergrate into human society the way implied by mcv, the wood elves of 1st edition and those of today are entirely different creatures (back then it was more a generic elf archtype than what they have become thanks to Fantasy Battles 2 editions of the Wood Elf Army book) not saying thier background and place in the Old World is better off for it, like I said above I liked them better before but as to what careers we can expect or what careers should be considered for wood elf pc's in the modern iteration setting we need to baseourdecisions as GMs and expectations toward FF with the newer mileu in mind.

that being said if tomorrow Fantasy Flight decided to go way back to the background that hogshead used all those years ago, i can imagine the guys over at warpstone mag would likely deficate the very substance thier laudable publication is named for, and it would be like christma-kah-wanza for me too. But as it goes so far I am very happy with how FF has intergrated the old and the new into something that I can be excited about while intergrating some of the newer elements of the setting that GW has made to support Fantasy Battles while holding true to the core concepts of the WHFRP setting.

Really, I don't think that rarity is a reason for not having options for a character. A player that wants to play with a Wood Elf, or a High Elf, will find himself wearing tight shoes if he wants his character to have career options.

Frankly I think race limitiations to the careers a not so good thing about 3e, as they are generalized. I prefer to give my players the chance to be creative, and maybe they'll be able to come up with a story that will make me agree with their request.

Not that a GM couldn't do just that as a house rule, anyway.

And sure there are some limitations that I think could well be maintained. We all know that letting a non-dwarf character be a Troll Slayer wouldn't make any sense at all - maybe if a human was raised by dwarfs? Non-human initiates...

And regarding Wizards, I like the idea they are now just for humans. The elves do have a very different way of using spells, and 2e resolution of saying that an elf being an apprendice wizard would use the magic in the same way just to practice till they were in a level of an actual elf apprendice (that of a Wizard Lord, as for a human) never seemed the best way of seeing things IMO. I hope eventually they come up with a way for elves to use magic (just like runemagic for Dwarfs), but then there is the greater difficulty of keeping it moderately balanced comparing to other characters.

Maybe the apprendice level magic would be more diverse, with some stronger spells, but that would need much more power - even if safer to gather. And maybe such a career could have some important flaws as well, like penalties to mundane stuff such as social dealings and... perception. :}

Ok, I have fled the topic, I'm sorry.

No need to run away, without different opinions and the conflict they breed the hobby would stagnate....

With regards to limiting the elves:

I think it has less to do with rarity and instead is an attempt to mimic the impact of culture on the mortals of warhammer.

The reason elves do not have access to all the careers that men do is that they would not choose to pursue some of these careers. The temptation is always to play elves as "humans with pointy ears" and in some settings that works. In warhammer the morality, the perspective, the motivation of elves and dwarfs is meant to be something almost alien to the human mind.

A wood elf chooses not to assimilate into imperial culture not because they are somehow limited or inferior (in fact they would view themselves as superior to humans), but because he/she would simply not want to pursue that sort of career while maintaining his/her identity as part of their kithband.

I am however, always in favour of creativity, if a player could give me a compelling reason for their desire to be a human troll slayer for example then I would consider it. I would however remind the person of the setting they are in, that humans would view them as insane and that while dwarfs might approve they might also be deeply offended and attempt to kill "the imposter". Ultimately the printed material is just a beginning and creativity should be encouraged, however stray too far (keeping in mind that the definition of "too far" is completely subjective) and the setting may be compromised. It is a difficult but neccesary and highly personal balance that must be struck.

At any rate, hopefully FFG will release culture specific supplements for both elven civilizations that expand the roles specifically available to both HE and WE.

And on the topic of elven magic:

This will hopefully be part of any HE or WE supplements that come about.

HE magic is highly ritualized (as hinted at in Winds of Magic) perhaps that mechanic could be used to limit the raw power of HE magic user and bring them closer to the strength of their allies. WE magic is tied to nature and I image would be greatly impacted by changing seasons and the corruption of the forests by the beast herds.

Ultimately though elven mages should be substantially more powerful than humans unless the elf is very young, just like swordmasters, ironbreakers and the other highly specialized careers they should alter the balance of the session by there mere presence. The careers of WFRP are not balanced for in any particular area, some things should be ridiculously easy for an elven mage when they would be impossible for a human, however it is up to the GM to balance this out. A mage has trouble casting spell if he can not find his enemy for example, lack of mundane knowledge can leave even the most powerful character helpless and allows for the less "flashy" careers to truly shine.

As long as the challenges that face the PC are adjusted accordingly I see no reason not to allow elves full access to high magic, let them test there powers then send an entire pack of flesh hounds on them... .

regards,

ET

ErrantThought said:

I agree that elves shouldn't be simply humans with pointy ears. But there's still the issue of the wood elf community in Middenheim. What are they doing there? They may love hanging out in the park, and regularly leave the city, but they're still in the city. Not exactly Waywatcher or Scout territory.

My guess is that they're mostly interested in culture and beauty (though Middenheim is not exactly the prettiest city), so they're likely to be musicians, artists, craftsmen (I guess they make by far the most beautiful things, while dwarf craftsmen make the most reliable things, and humans make the most affordable things), or any other occupation that gives them the time and opportunity to create or appreciate beauty.

Another question is why they are there. Because I don't think you need a whole community of envoys. But maybe somebody put a really ugly city on top of a piece of rock next to their forest, and they think it needs to be prettied up somewhat.

I think I need to take a look at PbtT to check the careers of the wood elves in there. I know one was a minstrel, but I seem to recall there were others mentioned.

The issue with wood elves in my mind is one of characer motivation.

Why would any sane wood elf leave the borders of his forest to enter the cities of men?

It wouldny happen unless there was a huge threat to the world itself. Wood elves do not generally have anything to do with the outside world, they went into thier forests for protection from the dwarves and in turn protect they now the forest. There are small settlementsoustdie Athel Loren but they are just as insular. That's not to say they wouldnt interfere for the works of man if there was a viable threat to thier own lands. They would never party with dwarves and the dwarves wouldnt be too happy about it either.

If you inted to run a campaign with Wood elf in my mind they wouldneed to eiyther be with other elven characters or in a group with very few other races.

High elves are nearly as rare, the empire folks dont fully trust them and theyu have very little need to wander the lands. Again the dwarves wouldnt be happy to group with them (house rule if theres an elf and a dwarf in the group and the party tension meter goes up then double the value it increases as the elves and dwarves blame each other).

The general problem withelves is skill level. An adult elf is over 1500 year old. That's a lot of life experience, and the nature of thier magiks is massivley powerful compered to the humans.

Balthasar Gelt the greatest empire mage is not even fit to was hthe shoes of the most basic High elf mage. High magic is game breakingly powerful, giving player characters the abiltiy to snap thier fingers and banish demons or bring back the dead to life is not a skill you want to have to GM.

Likewise for wood elves, being able to move forests around or teleport around using trees is a little OTT

Even as recently a second edition, the term wood elves in wfrp did not actually usually refer to the Asrai of Athel Loren. The term historically referred more regularly to the nomadic elves of the forest of shadows and the riekwold, who have a distinct and less alien culture than Asrai, they are not so dominated by the cult of the Asur nature gods, and worship the full elven pantheon.

They arn't as xenophomic as the Asrai, as blood thirsty as the Druchii, or as distant as the Asur. Their culture has degraded massively and contact with humans has led to adoption of many human cultural aspects. Historically this was the cultural group of elves who made up most PCs, because the Asrai simple didn't leave athel loren without seriously good reason, Druchii didn't play well with others, and Asur where to busy fighting of the Druchii, and those in the old world rarely left the enclaves in marienburg.

Would i like to see expansions for playing Asrai campaigns in the heart of athel loren, or Asur campaigns on Ulthan, sure, but neither race will find place as PCs in my oldworld games. As far as elves in old world games, i would really like to see a minstral career, aimed strictly at the wandering elven minstral of first and second edition.(probably with some magical music type action cards)

Talesin said:

Generally, yes. But all that means is that adventuring wood elves are not average wood elves. They are exceptions. Renegades. They don't represent wood elf society in general (which seems to be what 3e tries to have them do), but are mostly out on their own. Cast out or left of their own free will, who knows? But they're definitely not average.

Talesin said:

Never say never. It's the exceptions that make life interesting.

Talesin said:

Another great reason why any adventuring elves are not going to be representative of the elven establishment. I have no problem with the lack of elven spellcasting careers for exactly this reason. I also don't like the Envoy and Swordmaster careers much for this reason. PC elves need to be a bit rogue, loners (at least with respect to other elves). Living by their own rules, rather than those of elven society.