When we started the "Eye for a Eye" campaign, the team made 6 characters and draw a total of 10 action cards.
edit: its more like 15-20.

I found this a little much so I am thinking about removing all action cards and talents (keeping 1 talent) and let them earn it on the way of the next book and so on.
Is this possible?

That's actually not that many action cards. Furthermore, I think there is a strong argument that - early on at least - action cards are not the optimal choice. When I generate a character I usually try and get all my stats up as high as possible, and then spend on actions if I have any points left. It sounds like that's the route your group has gone down. I would be very reluctant to strip them.

So its not a good idea to let them earn it by leveling and character development, they should just start with 4 action cards and 3 talent cards?

I found that a little much for "starting adventurers"

For people playing the game for the first time, I highly recommend "forcing" them to focus on buying skills, stats and social status. Talents and actions are a jungle.

But of course people will end up having some points left, for those I talents/actions that I recommend them taking for their chars. Either based on background story or on career. So they have 2 talents/actions to pick from maybe 4-5 I've selected.

Then when we start 3rd session I let them shuffle through the decks, while I discuss other stuff with the other chars, so they can get an idea of what to pick themselves. Hence my 3rd session is often (only done this once, so often is stretching it a bit...) is 50% running through cards, and 50% actual play.

By the 3rd session how many advances did they got?

Also, my wizard starts with a few petty magic skills and didn't get to have any action cards from his celestial set.
So maybe 1 action card would be nice for the soldier, troll slayer, waywatcher and coachman.

I don't know, still think the team would love the gaining of action cards and talents more than starting (too) strong.

I'm intrigued with this idea. As a "you start naked in the dungeon with a dagger and a loincloth" -type GM, I think you'd have to estimate some things if the PC's start with 0 or 1 action card instead of more.

A human character starts with 25 points:

3 points for affluent

3 points for max skills + specializations

3 points for talents

3 points for actions

For my own campaigns, I have one house rule:

* Max score of 4 in any starting characteristic

I think the only ones that truly suffer regarding action limitation are the spellcasters. Their variety would be hurt as they can only purchase TWO throughout the rest of their career.

Fighting characters or social characters are just not as seriously affected. They can still fight, whether with flair or not; whereas a wizard without spells can't do crap.

Considering that, you could limit action cards to one for non-spellcasters.

jh

I would encourage your players to buy higher attributes at character creation, and forgo buying so many action cards. I've found that players who invest lots of points in action cards and talents often don't have attributes powerful enough to take advantage of the cards they bought. Having an awesome attack card and a strength of three means that you're unlikely to get the boons and extra successes that make that attack card so awesome.

That said, you shouldn't need to change the rules of the gamepoint out that the players may be allocating their creation points unwisely, and leave it at that. If players want to have a bunch of action cards right away, let them. That said, if you have a group of six players, you should ensure that more than one player is allowed to have the same card. With six people each taking 5-7 cards at the beginning, and then another one every few sessions as they advance, you're going to run out of good options pretty quickly.

The maximum number of actions a starting character can take is four.

arscott said:

Ok but what if I want to roleplay the characters are young and inexperienced, if they start with all kinds of action and talent abilities that doesn't really make sense...

Illustrious said:

Thanks for nothing.

In fairness, your original post said that they had drawn 6-10 cards, and that there were six of them. I assumed that you meant they'd drawn that many EACH, otherwise six players drawing around ten cards would be exactly what you'd expect. Sorry for trying to be helpful. I didn't realise you were in such a foul mood.

The answer is always - "You're the GM, tweak the rules to make it your game, and explain it to the players so that everyone agrees why you are changing the base character generation rules."

That said, players face enough of an up-hill battle with all the ways to die (and be negatively influenced) in this game that having a hand of action cards and talents gives them a sense of power and stake in the game. The beauty of an action card, as I tell my players, is that you get exactly what is written on the card for the result of your die roll - I (GM) must narrate accordingly. While "Perofrm a Stunt" is infinitely flexible, the result is entirely up to me to narrate. While "Melee Strike" may seem good enough, other action cards offer more customizing flavour for a character that can be more powerful (and tricky) to use.

Illustrious said:

You quoted (directly) from the Rulebook...you think I didn't read the book first before coming here?
There is a soldier with the maximum amount of cards and I think that is a little much, he can do a action every turn...

gsoul said:

Thank you so much, for this they agree with me and they like the challenge.
But if there is enough challenge in the game without the strip of the action cards and talent(s) there is no need for it.

On Sunday we are having our second session and the start of Eye for an Eye, so maybe decreasing the total points or a little tweak will do the trick of starting slow and gaining alot.

Scydow said:

You obviously don't have a hunter with rapid fire and a troll slayer with double strike under the un-errata'ed rules It does seem though that you feel the soldier in wfrp with 4 ac's is broken. Remember them in 2e? Way-broken for starting, but everything comes out in the wash of leveling. As characters rank-up you may find that there is a bit more of this than you like. This case is made stronger by estimates that show that the average wfrp3 character is the equivalent of a 2nd rank 2e character (or a 4th level D&D character..in 3rd edtion).

You could go with 22 and 18 points respectively instead of 25 (humans) and 20 (demi's). Let us all know how it works out.

We're all here just trying to help.