Hi All,

Is there and word on when we'll see player/GM material that takes characters past Rank 3?

My group has been playing steady for a couple of months now, and Rank 3 is looming. After we get through that...where do we go? Even at mid-Rank 2, the players are quite powerful (feeling like, say, Level 15-or-so D&D characters). It's pretty easy for them to "consume" the standard game content at this point, since the bonuses they get from their actions and talents quickly & easily overpower the defenses that creatures can put up (even if they have a lot of Aggression/Expertise).

Obviously, we'll soon be looking for stronger action cards (particularly defenses), much stronger creatures, bigger spells, and most importantly, new "Rank 4+" careers (e.g. where do the priest and wizard go after Rank 3?).

What's the "word on the street" about this subject?

Thanks,

Kevin.

This is something that I've thought about too, what happends after rank 3? Sure some of my players feel that they want to be diversified and has allready at rank 2 selected careers with different skills than their rank 1 career. So they will probably have to begin rank 4 before they start to have trained any single skill 3 times but then there's all the other stuff, after rank 3 I feel that the players will have loads of cards, maybe more than they will ever use both actions and talents. There's allways the possibility that the players spend open advances on characteristics though. But I don't really know what to do when the players are done with the third rank and even if they are still at the beginning of rank 2 (they have spent like 2-3 advances in rank 2) it is still going to be an issue quite soon.

I've toyed with the thought of "retirement" for the characters and then picking letting the players create new rank 1 characters that are associated with their old characters in some fashion, thus picking up adventuring with the previous PC's as rolemodels. For example someone could play the coachman that the group has hired, another could play a ratcatcher that was saved by the party at some point. In that way the story continues but with a focus on other characters.

K7e9,

What you propose is one option, but it reminds me more of Call of Cthulhu campaigning than what heroic fantasy RPGers are expecting from a long-term campaign. I know in my group, we're expecting to run these characters for some time. I don't want to tell the players that after they're finished with Rank 3 it's time to retire and start up new PCs. That would be very disappointing.

Now I know a lot of people look at WHRP 3rd not as heroic fantasy, but as a low-powered game. However, because the system can be played as high-powered fantasy (and characters can be VERY strong in this game), the longer-term plans for development of the system should allow for high Rank play.

And products covering Rank 4+ should be on the drawing board now...I'd hope!

Kevin.

When my players hit 4th rank they diversified, too. The scout found religion and the ironbreaker got into tomb raiding. But a houserule I've used also helps to delay the need. I make all attribute raises out-of-career ones, not for cost, but for using up slots. (and of course the 5 slot limit for ooc advances won't apply)

Monkeylite,

That's a good workaround, and your players have happily adopted it. Very cool. However, in a situation where a Rank 3 Priest wants to move on to Rank 4, continuing his holy career...well, what's the GM to do?

Mage Knight Kevin said:

I hope for rank 4 stuff soon too, and agree that the tools for it should be there. This was one of my main concerns when starting to play actually, what happends when you've reached past rank 3 do you just start to diversify so everyone starts to get better at everyting else (and thus taking away some of the uniqueness of the other characters).

I'd like more Improved versions of cards, as they replace cards the players become better at their actions while not just adding new cards to an allready substantial heap of cards.

The retirement would be something that was decided together with the players rather than by me as a GM. If the group felt something like "well, our characters can't advance anymore in a good way, what should we do?" retirement and restarting could be an option to continue. I find that players often like "change" or the possibility to start with something entirely new. But as I said, that will be a group decision rather than something I impose on the players.

K7e9

Agree!

Kevin.

Two possibilities that would prevent you having to 'retire' characters are:

Slow down exp rewards / increase the costs. This might sound like a penalty, but depending on who your players are, you may all agree that you've all become pretty powerful and experienced, and in real life we don't keep on getting stronger/better educated at the same rate we do when we're growing up. We slow down, but we can still do things.

So players might be happy to have costs of advancement trebled or more to reflect that they are now experienced people with reputations and good skills, but who are not learning at the speed they used to because they literally do 'know it all' now.

Another option (which could combine with the first) is to allow players to spend exp on the story / backgrounds. Other games do this - at character creation at least. And the wealth attribute in WFRP is something similar. But it could be taken further. An organisation card could be created jointly by the player and GM to reflect what they are trying to achieve. This might be 'Criminal Gang' or 'Noble Estate'. Players could 'buy' a card like this (with them as the leader), allowing them to direct underlings and manage resources that allow them to influence the setting. For example, the crime lord could use his organisation card to allow his underlings to use one/some of his talents/skills/actions - and so his gang would reflect the character of the player. The noble could use the status that comes with his estate to get invitations to balls (or host them).

I would obviously try to work the spending of the exp into the story - you can't become rich just by 'being experienced'. But if the player was accumulating wealth, you could colaboratively come up with a way of turning this into something else.

Angelic,

I don't deny that there are a number of house rules that can be implemented to slow down or delay Rank advancement. We've seen examples of these on a number of forum threads. However, this is a coping or avoidance mechanism that just masks the root problem...that being, WFRP is essentially "level capped" at a relativeley "low" level right now.

For long-term viability of this excellent game, I'm saying we need an expansion set to open up the mechanics for Rank 4+ play. What are the plans for this? When should we expect such a product? How long can you realistically stretch out Rank 3 play?

Kevin.

I let my player retake careers some time is seems nessasary to do so. in the case of a priest wanting to go to worrier priest just make it up. look at the solder and add some of his skills to the career and add a tactic slot. making careers for this game is very east just use a bit of tweeking.

I'm also in agreement that the higher ranks are most def in need of development, my guess would be we will see something following the slaanesh release, hopefully by the end of this year or early next. To me that would seem logical, Im wish listing here, but i would expect to see slaanesh, Elves and a higher rank box in the next shifting shadows entry. Slaanesh is obvious, Elves would make sense in both terms of continuality with the forthcoming dwarf release, and profits as it is a product that will sell in droves, not just to 3rd edition players, but those who play 1&2 ed also. I would expect and hope to see the rank increase at the end of that wave as that would make logical sense, in that they will be able to include higher rank spells, blessings, fighting styles things, and social action type in one hit, as well as if they do anything special for Dwarves or Elves.

Angelic I really liked your idea's, very WoD, but would be def interested in using them even when we/if we have higher ranks made. Are you/ have you written a system for it or are you just doing it as and when required?

Thanks Crimsonsun

angrydragon said:

I agree careers are made very simply for this game, its higher ranked or more advanced actions that are required..

Making a few is fine, but to cover all angles by creating as many as would be needed would risk unbalancing/breaking the game mechanics. I would also like to see some "advanced" monster actions, as well as the "evil magic/priest lores" expanded.. Its silly that a greater Daemon is currently held to rank 3 spells..

Crimsonsun

For one there are plenty of creatures that can drop/challenge even a rank 3 party. Upper level demons, dragons and such can easily crunch even the more 'powerful' players. And when in doubt you can always just add more monsters.

We've had no further indication of expansions past Blackfire, but I expect another 'sifting through the shadows' and a video of a WFRP3 product line from Gencon (Late July) to appear.

As for what you can do - if your players don't want to diversify house rules are pretty much your only option.

As per RAW the only idea I have off the top of my head, there is a focus-slot talent that allows someone to slot ANY talent into the slot. Something like that would work to convert a soldier (or anyone with a focus slot) into a continuing priest or wizard career (essentially providing a Faith or Order slot). Alternately taking the time to buy up their stats would also give you almost double the game length (as they are expensive and slow to increase via out of career advances). That being said, I recall on the GM forum the idea being bandied about (again disclaimer house-rule!) to allow people to re-take a previously taken career. For example you can re-take priest or wizard, scrub your XP to 0. You won't get new career cards but it provides an advancement option.

For wizard/priests I highly recomment letting them redo the last career 1-2 time extra. The priest/wizard should have plenty of advances they'd like to take, to improve their skills.

Mage Knight Kevin said:

Hmm, I think actually the problem is that players can advance too quickly from the word go. There would be nothing stopping a GM or FFG bringing out level 4, 5, 6, 7 rank characters... But the problem is how this affects the setting. I don't want a party full of characters all of whom have stats which are all 6s. And all of whom are essentially immune to damage caused by humans. Sure, a GM always has dragons and greater daemons to challenge players with in a fight, but I also don't want a campaign that sees a party fighting a different greater daemon every time they leave the pub.

I would like the adventure to focus on the story - and most interesting stories involved people, and often quite weak ones at that. And if that is the goal, then for the story to remain challenging and dangerous, it simply cannot be possible for characters to continue to advance at the rate they can currently.

I think the solution has to be: slow the distribution of exp right down from the start (eg - multiply the costs of everything by 3 or 4), or 'cap' power levels (and level 3-4-5 seems to me to be pretty powerful enough).

The first option suffers from being pretty boring and frustrating, as it would take players ages to change their characters' abilities, so is probably a non-starter.

The second option is what most RPGs try to do, like World of Darkness, by increasing the cost of advances as you get better at something. This is what WFRP tries to do - with stat increases, for example - but the 'level' system actually makes this harder.

So it seems to me that a 'capping' system of some sort is needed, to keep the game - and the player characters - at a power level suitable for the enjoyment of the game and its setting. This could either involve making everything more expensive after a certain point, or giving players other things to spend their exp on. Crimsonsun, I'm afraid I don't have any rules written up to do this as I'm a long way off having players get to this point!

I agree that these 'fixes' don't address the need for more careers (and because of this 'levels'). I would like to see more careers - of course - but I think this desire is separate from dealing with the problem of what players spend exp on. (I also think it's pretty easy to house-rule that players can repeat careers.)

Angelic and Spivo,

I agree that players should be able to repeat careers...gives priests and wizards something to do once they are through their third career. However, what does the GM do when the player says..."Hey, I'm Rank 4, I'd like access to some Rank 4 spell action cards please." Obviously, the only answer is, "FFG hasn't put out Rank 4 spells yet, so just finish buying up all the rest of your spells in your discipline." This would work for a while, but "broadening" isn't "deepening". Players want to buy action cards that make them feel stronger. That's fantasy fulfilment. All I'm saying is that a product needs to get on the schedule that addresses the addition of new action cards (and careers...and monsters) for ranks 4+.

Sure there are workarounds...but workarounds will only work for so long before players feel held back.

Kevin.

Mage Knight Kevin said:

As a GM I'd tell my player that spells at that power are not some you can find in the colleges libraries, as wizards when they become that powerfull gets involved in complex politics, and thus don't give anything for free. Having knowledge of rank 4+ spells is like having monopoly on timber sales to Bretonia, you don't give that up freely! Their excuse for not sharing, is that "Spells at that power are so risky to cast, that only wizards who earned it through harsh trials should be allowed to learn them".

So that leaves the player to either researching/designing his own spells, which should be very doable imo..., venture out and plunder lost tombs, or do major favours for wizard lords.

I realize this really means designing the spells yourself, which is not really optimal...

More problematic is explaining this to a priest...

Mage Knight Kevin said:

While that's true, it's not really any different to a slayer saying 'I've got a massive axe and strength 6, so now what do I do?' Or a Rat Catcher who's taught his dog every trick in the book, or a flower arranger who knows everything there is to know about flower arranging. Sooner or later - no matter how much FFG put out - a character will get to a point where the setting can't support them become any more powerful.

In some settings you can become a God or what have you, but in WFRP, a human is probably going to remain a human all of his or her (probably short) life.

So no, there aren't any level 4 spells... But there is still an awful lot you can spend exp on to become a more powerful and more rounded character. And even if there were rank 4 spells, rank 5 spells, where do you stop? Sooner or later you'll get to a point where players have to accept that they can't get any better at something and still be playing a mortal human being (or elf, dwarf, halfling etc).

This business is one reason I don't like levels, ranks, classes etc, but even without them you'd still have a version of this issue: Some games/settings go on allowing stats/abilities etc to rise infinitely; others don't. WFRP may not have yet got this point (there may be level 4 spells etc in the works), but at some point it has to get there. And given the speed characters can improve, I think it will happen sooner rather than later unless you adopt some sort of capping mechanism.

Well FFG did make an error in indicating there were rank 4+ spells... they could have stopped at rank 3 spells, and no one would complain...

But again, I think I'd design my own spells really, and let it be grimoires that the players had to find.

Agreed. For now we will have to design our own spells and actions above level three if players want to further develop their characters. i like the flavor of level 4 and level 5 spells being the object of research or perhaps a quest... Perhaps people should start drafting a few and posting them as house rules.

Reading through the posts, much of the answer to the dillemma depends upon what power level each group finds to be comfortable. Slowing/capping advancements would preserve a grittier, more "real" feel but is sure to disappoint players looking for more depth.

-r

Huan said:

I agree that the answer to the problem depends on what type of group you have and game you want. For me, characters that couldn't be killed by mortal humans because they'd become so powerful smacks of less depth rather than more. But absolutely, some players like campaigns that go on for years with characters becoming harder and harder and fighting ever nastier bad guys. It's not WFRP to me, and I think different games (Dnd?) offer this in a way that WFRP can't (or shouldn't).

Mage Knight Kevin said:

Honestly, this part kinda startles me... I ran a game for almost 8 months, two games a month, and the game didn't get anybody to Rank 3.

Granted, there were a couple of things that slowed down the character advancement. I gave experience out a little slower than the books recommend, usually I was giving out one experience for every three hours or so of play. And I also I had two character deaths, which I frankly think was about right for a Warhammer Roleplay campaign.

And I never had anybody complain about advancing too slowly. The system is set up so that one experience point is regularly one advancement. Unless you are changing careers or trying to increase characteristics, one experience point can let you develop what your character can do.

Joshua and others...

Hmmm, it seems really hard to make a point on this forum.

Our group has been playing since last year. We play weekly. The players aren't Rank 3 yet...but they will be. Once they're through Rank 3, we'll need more game material. The campaign is "heroic," because it's fantasy, and that's the way we like to play. I play WHFB 8th ed and I have some army codex books; I know there are some really powerful heroes in the Warhammer universe, so I know it's not a low-power world. We don't want coping mechanisms or apologetic work-arounds that muddle our role playing experience...we want to advance like legions of other fantasy role players out there in the real world.

There should be nothing shocking or wierd here. All I'm saying is that our group...and I'm sure there are others out there...will be in a position to consume products with higher power levels soon. Are they on the production schedule? Will we be supported in our efforts to continue to play this excellent RPG system?

It does not seem like FFG is treating WFRP 3rd ed like a fire and forget system...there continue to be many excellent products put out there to support it. I just got my Witch's Song in today, as a matter of fact. Will one of these upcoming products be a core system expansion for Ranks 4+? That's all I'm asking.

FFG...tell us we are investing our role playing time wisely and will continue to be able to enjoy this game experience, with our current heroic characters, for years to come.

Thanks,

Kevin.

You play the game as you please, everyone should!

But there's a HUGE difference from WFB to Wfrp, one of the main differences being that GW (WFB) wants the universe to be as epic as possible, with grand battles, and glorious/villianous characters. While wfrp has historically been about internal struggles, weaker men becomming atracted to chaos, or fighting same thing.

Grand armies are good business for a company selling miniatures for same grand battles, while the roleplaying game strived to set itself apart from D&D. D&D came from US, while wfrp was from UK, so this could be part of the urge to be different.

With 2nd edition this changed some. GW broke in one dark night, and kidnapped all of the warhammer world "we" knew, and changed it from "The Enemy Within", to "The Enemy across the battlefield". Gone were the devious sorcerers, slaneesh worshipping noblemen etc... and wellcome to a world where the line is formly drawn on the map.

3rd edition moved away from this again, wisely, because many wfrp fans really didn't like Storm Of Chaos, so instead we're now adventuring before the Storm...

Moved from subject? Slightly, but not entirely, because the point is that there's a reason why GW is picturing Warhammer world like they do, to sell miniatures (no problem with that btw, earning money is not a bad thing). And while this can certainly be "your" vision of Warhammer, it is not how the majority (I have no numbers to back this up btw...) of the people playing Wfrp view the world. And I also don't think this is how FFG wants to picture the world either (no statistic numbers backing this up either).

Play it like you want, would be stupid not to do so

But if you want epic games, I don't think wfrp will ever satisfy you...

I have to say that one of the several things I don't like about WFRP 3rd Ed. (and for the record I love the game overall) is that you buy the 'Advanced' Faith and Magic expansions but only get careers & action cards to progress your wizard and priest characters 60% of the way through the game. I feel that if you pay extra for an expansion that covers a segment of the game, that expansion should cover the ENTIRE segment.

I fear that OOW - the 'Advanced' combat expansion will only have combat careers up to rank 3 as well. Given that we've presumably got a Slaanesh expansion (Social + Slaanesh + drugs/poison and addiction rules?) that will have social careers up to rank 3 we're probably going to have to wait for an additional 'Epic' expansion before you can have characters that can reach the pinnacle of their careers. We seem to get supplements every 2-3 months at the moment so it's conceivable that my players will be 'maxed out' before the epic expansion is available, which would be intensely irritating!