Simplified Advancement in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay
We do not use the core advancement rules. We use the simplified rules below.

You spend x.p. to advance your character's abilities. The cost is 1:1 for any IN-career advances to action, talent, skill, wound, fortune, and stance. The limit of in-career advances you can get in each category is listed on the career description. Out-of-career advances to skills, talents and characteristic upgrades cost one additional x.p.

Limits
• Each skill, fortune die, and characteristic may only be trained once per rank.
• Skill specializations may only be gained in a trained skill and are for a specific category (gained only once).
• Advanced skills must be "acquired" first (cost 1xp), but may also be trained during the same rank (1xp).
• Each characteristic advance cost the equivalent of the new score and may only be upgraded once per rank.
• Some action cards have a rank listed. Cost is +1 advance for each rank higher than yours.

Experience Rank
0-9 1
10-19 2 Change career
20-29 3 etc Change career

Changing Careers
• You don’t change careers until you rank up.
• You lose old talent slots. Old career skills become “out of career.” Stance upgrade is kept the same.
• You may "re-take" a career, just give it a new theme (see house rulebook). You gain the career ability again.
• Spellcasters leaving the spellcasting career tree, lose their "Order/Faith" card
• Wound threshhold is raised by one.

Other optional advances (experimental)
* Gain heirloom item (roleplay)
* new trait
* favor from npc (roleplay)
* Gain an action card a second time at a higher rank (cost is increased by 2, rank 3 only).
* gain another career's ability until next x.p.(non spell)
* Improve corruption threshold (human only)
* inheritance
* sidekick
* create new spell
* create superior item (blue)
* Gain resistance to one condition type
* Gain one super fortune point (yellow or blue), cost higher, must trade for current fp
*etc.

jh

Wow i thought your first attempt was bad, but this here puts it a class higher. More complex more sheets on the table, you have missed your target by kilometers.

Thank you very much for your input. I'll keep your resume on file

I look at it this way: 26 lines is simpler than 3+ pages of indiscernible paragraphs. Also, I just hate the complex maze of trying to level. Minimialization of rules and increase in roleplay as well as player-defined input is my goal.

Did I miss that mark?

jh

What exactly do you see as the problems with the current advancement system?

My group (new players) did have some trouble figuring out the way the advancement system works, but after noticing that one had bought 5 skills (2 above what he could do), I gave them a crash-course, and now none of them have any issues/hardship.

So I actually liked it, with one major thing I like being that you're forced to pick certain things (the fixed talent, action, skill, wound) and then had to pick 6 advancements from your career sheet. Non-career advances should not bring you any closer to having completed your career, but it should still benefit you. I really like this.

But I think you should go ahead with your house rule, if you find it simpler. I do though agree that you miss your mark, but only due to the list of optional advances, which I think most of should be stuff gained in sessions.

I think the advance system is a little clunky and should NOT allow for advances if the career does not offer one. If a career has a 0 for an advance, then that should become an open advance...

My bigger issue is that Characteristic advance seems force fit and it can take all the available advances. I would almost rather treat a Characteristic advance as ONE advance (of the 10) so it would slow the finishing of the career. Of course, there should be a limit that only the Career Characteristics can be advanced and only 1 level. Non-career Characteristic advances can be treated as per normal (since it is limiting as described in the FAQ)

I think the core rules are fine and agree you have missed the mark.

I also like the idea of chartaristic only taking 1 open advance to slow down increase of rank for charecters who want there characteristics increased and will use that from now on.

I really can't find the simple in your simplyfied rules

I think the core rules are really simple and easy to use. I like how traits impacts your transition. Changing career means nothing, it's what you buy in the career that matters. Someone changing career often may waste a lot of exp.

I really can't spot what it is your rules adress

Gallows said:

Very theoretically, and extremely Munchkinismuz, a human PC could skip through careers with 3 similar traits, untill he reaches a career that has the skill/stat he wants, purchase it, and then return to his original career, thus "never" having to spend xp on non-career advances.

I would never allow it, but the rules doesn't stop players from doing it.

Spivo said:

That's the whole idea of the reiklander versatility and it's there to balance the fact that dwarves and elves being better in every other respect.

Don't see it as him skipping through those careers. It's not like he's standing there thinking "I want to be a xxxx, no I really wanto to be a xxxx, oh wait now I know I want to be xxxx".

You're looking at the situation is a too rules specific fashion. It's not like he's skipping through those careers... he goes straight on to the final career.

I don't see the careers as actual jobs and careers, more like a changed perspective, interrest or focus of the character.

By limiting the reiklander like that you remove the only thing that balance the race.

Not sure we understand each other, I was thinking about the possibility for players to be Soldier for example, then wanting to purchase First Aid. Now the soldier shuffles through careers for free, untill he finally arrives to a career that has First Aid, then returns to Soldier. Doing this he goes through maybe 12 careers, never stopping in any of them, just using them as stepstones to arrive at the wanted career.

I have no trouble with a player shifting between Soldier and Pit-Fighter, or whatever, because it's perfectly fine to me that the player works as both.

But doing the first mentioned is not, in my view, in the spirit of the game, since the player is not doing it to actually be the careers, just to get a cheaper skill/stat.

In my game there's plenty of bonuses from being Human (+2 fortune dice, 5 extra creation points (which of course is less than the stat bonuses non-humans get), one less advancement cost for changing career), and on top of the gamey advantages, there's also the social stigma Elves suffers from (I pretty much treat them as one step from witches in rural areas), and the hardship from roleplaying a dwarf (never ever take an insult, allways proud etc...).

Looking from a game technical point of view, non-humans vs. Reiklanders, I'd say the +2 fortune dice pretty much equals the benefits non-humans gets, maybe non-humans are better. But then there's the stat-bonus. If you then pick a career that has those stats, you basically get 8 creation points from chosing non-human (stat going from 3 to 4), this is vs. 5 extra creation points. So non-humans are 3 points ahead. This is "eaten" at rank 4, from spending points on career transitions.

Granted, that's a long way to go to be equal, but I'd say it would be quite unfair to allow Reiklanders to basically aquire non-career skills/stats, without paying extra, by skipping through careers.

The solution is just much worse than the problem imo It's like nuking the ants in your garden.

If you didn't want them to do that you could simply rule that any career where no exp has been spent does not qualify as a career he can use the traits for. This means he would have to use at least one exp in each of those careers, which would cost more than just switching directly.

But having a racial ability that pays off after rank 4 is pointless. We have played through the entire TTT campaign in about a year of real time and the characters are now rank 4. It's pointless if he can't use it a bit more creatively, than the OP suggests.

Gallows said:

hehe, I never said I agreed with the solution, but rather that it would "fix" the mentioned problem. I agree it's like digging up your entire garden to find the mole making a few holes...

Good solution to that problem though, not that it'll ever come up I think, but good none the less.

Well... non-humans are surposed to be better, and I like them better (one thing I disliked from 1st to 2nd edition was making non-humans as good as humans, I liked them better!!!). The advantage of being human is that you fit in, an elf would get penalties for shadowing people in a city, because basically everyone's gonna be looking at the elf! And a dwarf would get the same penalties, but because he'd have trouble keeping sight on his target!!!

Also I tell my players that they can play elf/dwarf, but I want to see them roleplay them, and not just roleplay them like a human with better stats...

I played with someone who played a halfling, and I kid you not, had I not known he was a halfling, I would never have guessed he was playing one.

I impose consequences for non-human races. Elves generally don't fit in. Dwarves have to watch what they do or be forced into the slayer career (paying the exp too).

Gallows said:

I agree, playing non-human has to have consequences, but that also makes the bonuses okay

Would simply love to have a player playing Iron Breaker, and then force him into Slayer career...

Spivo said:

I'm with Gallows, I don't understand what this new system is trying to accomplish.

If your players are hopscotching through careers to cherry-pick advances, then you have a player problem not an system problem.

Spivo said:

Players can't switch a career mid session - if a human player wanted to spend every session in a new career that would take a long time in 'real time' for them to play to the point where they could switch there and switch back... to me that seems like a lot of wasted time and effort for the player but not unreasonable. I'm assuming he wouldn't be spending advances while he did this, and his companions would be? I would start sending in opponents that match his tougher teammates and let him wonder if he's really on the track to success.

First of all, I never said I had players who did this, or that I'd ever allow it.

I answered a question as to why anyone would want to change the advancement system... geesh...

And I am not talking about players who change careers every session, I am talking about players who after an ended session go through 7 careers for free, till they land at a career that has the stat/skill they want, and then return back to their original career.

I would NEVER allow players to do it!!! I was offering a possible reason for someone to want to change (make a houserule) the advancement system.

But it's easy to simply rule that a character hasn't really changed career before he has spent at least one advancement in a career. That means you can't surf through careers.

Spivo said:

I was following up your statement, not trying to counter it. I'm sorry for the confusion.

Don't get all bent out of shape at me. I get it, you were being the devil's advocate. The problem was, the arguement for the issue your were bringing up was flawed. It would be silly to allow a player to switch careers more than once at the end of a session. Just because the rules don't expressly forbid it doesn't mean they allow it. The rules say you can interpret careers but it would be silly to allow a player to play a 'Space Marine' The rules don't really forbid you from doing it, but it's not a valid argument that something is broken.

Anyways, I think we're agreed that we're on the same page that the advancement rules are generally fine. Cheers, here here, crack brew.

I consider the core "advancement system" clunky and waaaaaaaay more complicated than it needs to be. A couple bullet points is a lot easier to do than all the pages of description. U Head's summary couldn't even summarize it quickly. If he can't get summarized quickly, then there's something up

IMHO.

Don't fanboy me to death guys I hear your points and merely disagree that FFG did it wrong and made it way more complicated than it needs to be. It's like they tried (and failed) to hybridize the old 2e system with career exits to the new sytem of traits..and then made another unrelated system called "ranks" combined with x.p. and another term called "advancements." It "works." That's about it.

x.p. leveling is much simpler and I believe allwos for more "roleplayign" which is apparently kind of big in the title of this game. Otherwise they would have called it WARAHAMMER FANTASY CRUNCH PLAYING.

Cheers!

jh

It's just that I can't see the complicated part of character progression or career transition. Your systems seems more complicated if anything.

• You spend advancements on your sheet.
• You have 4 advancements set in stone and 6 open.
• When you want to transition to a new career you compare taits and pay the advancement cost.
• Buying all 10 advancements of a career lets you finish it and spend an advancement on the dedication bonus
• The dedication bonus makes transition cheaper and lets you keep the career special skill, plus gives you specialties in the skill you trained in that career.
• One skill training in each skill per rank is allowed.
• and... well that's it.

I don't see how that can be percieved as complicated. It's one of the most simple advancement systems I've seen. It's so easy you don't even have to think about it because it's all there in front of you on your character sheet and career sheet.

You're right that simple XP levelling may be simpler in terms of player choice... but that's also why it sucks

Gallows:

Perhaps its the presentation that I dislike (the same as the "paragraph-based equipment section"). In any case, I've just made it standard: at 10 xp, you change careers. Spend your advancements how you like (costs relatively unchanged).

..and I have lots of respect for all of you guys' comments..I'm just drumming up conversation with my cave troll sticks

jh

Gallows said:

That's not it though (and a couple more thoughts on why I hate the core advancement Rube Goldberg system):

* To transition, you've got to figure out how to MIN-MAX saving up for your transition. This seems like a cheap rip-off (and bad combo) of wfrp2 and D&D's Prestige Classes.

* You don't gain a bonus on skills from creation..you have to train them..which promotes min-maxing

* The unnecessary 6/4/4 breakdown. Really? Is this necessary? If you MUST spend points on the 4, what's the point?

* The seperation between "rank" and career. As far as I'm concerned, rank should be tightly tied to career.

* Humans switching careers on a whim at barely any cost (this works well I suppose in some people's games where the GM forces players to always have to play the same character every session, rather than giving them the option of switching characters to what's relevant to a campaign instead).

Jay H