One of my players brought up a gripe he had with the new system (as opposed to WFRP2) last night. He reckoned that the so-called advanced careers had nothing particularly 'advanced' about them, so there was no great incentive to follow a particular career through in the same way that WFRP2 careers had logical paths. Apart from perhaps an extra talent slot, there is nothing particularly better about the advanced careers.

Do you agree? Do you reckon that career paths are too vague in WFRP3? Why are advanced careers just like other careers?

UniversalHead said:

Advanced careers are mostly advanced because they can only be taken by advanced characters. Some do get bonuses from an extra talent slot or a career ability that works well with the basic career ability.

Mostly it's just fluff and that isn't bad at all. Being a witch hunter captain does carry some weight in the world by itself.

This was my player's gripe. In WFRP2 the advanced careers were just that - advanced. They gave the player greater and more powerful options. In WFRP3 it's mostly fluff (beyond 'stroy mode' roleplaying advantages, of course).

Big shame I reckon, and for some players it takes the fun out of the whole concept of career advancement..

I haven't seen a huge difference between basic and advanced, except that the skill lists are usually pretty good on an advanced career and they either have extra talent slots or the career ability is nicer than normal. Minimizing disparity between careers also allows for other characters to transition to another basic career that may be more campaign appropriate or story appropriate than an advanced one without creating a big power gap between characters.

What your player says is mainly true, saving wizards and priests which advancing through the career system allows them to take higer rank spells. In WFRP 3rd ed the advanced career are more like careers with some social prestige /responsabilites than the basic ones, rather than more powerful career regarding stats.

What I do not agree is that it leaves the whole system career useless or demotivating, on the contrary! While in the 2nd ed the players only wanted to move from basic ->advanced ->more advanced careers because it was the only way to evolve, now in the 3rd ed a character my find interesting to move from basic to basic, and then to advanced, and then may be again to basic, or what ever combination. The new career system is more open and more versatil, and any player can find improvements for his character in a basic or an advanced career. There are of course, as I said, the exceptions i.e. troll slayer, wizards, priests.

Finally, just look at he Wizard Lord career anounced for Heroes Call, it has five talent slots, I guess it will be the same for other high tier careers like Demon Slayer or whatever they invent.

I see what you mean, but I preferred the old way. It gave structure and meaning to career progression that was more 'realistic' (within the game world) and, I think, more motivational for players. Once again I reckon this is a case of 'too much choice, too many options' while sacrificing what worked perfectly well.

I think that one of the points of this system, is that while you'll often find that it's the case a Knight will not be more experienced than a mercenary.

In 1st/2nd edition there was no point in going back to a basic career (of same type), as you'd get no advances you could use.

But 3rd edition makes this possible, and to me it makes sense. Why would a Judical Champion not be able to set himself out as a mercenary?

This is not for all, but I really love the idea of a Grave Robber in his 4th career

Hi,

Totally second Spivo and Yepesnopes comments. While I have always loved the WFRP careers in all editions, 3rd ed seems more flexible. In previous editions characters were railroaded into certain avenues. Take the mercenary, as a player you kind of had to become a Sgt/Vet and then a Captain. This doesnt really allow for someone who just wants to be a better mercenary, or one who wants to offer a specialised role as a merc (merc->scout?). 3rd ed also makes it possible for players to play more creatively within careers, due to the flexibility within each career. In the previous two editions Witch Hunters automatically gave you ass kicking melee character development, now you can choose to go that route or you can focus on an investigative detective type instead. While this may seem to be veering away from the subject of advanced careers not really being advanced, I guess what I'm trying to illustrate is that I think 3rd ed is more about the freedom of "character advancement" supported by a career rather than "career advancement" defining the character. You can indeed have a down and out Grave Robber, who used to be a soldier and a judicial champion before some indiscretion got him fired, and still have all of your exp worth spending.

Hope that made sense, got the feeling I was rambling...

@UniversalHead

I want to tell you that at the begining I and my players had the same concern regarding the careers (you can even find a post somewhere where I complain about the new career system). The nice thing was that after some games we realized that we liked more the new system than the old. On the other hand, as you know, the new edition did such radical changes on the system that many old gamers abandon the boat (stayed on the second edition). For me it has been a painful transition and I still have some house rules to reflect things from prevoous editions that I liked more.

I hope you find your palce also in the 3rd edition

..our group doesn't use talent socketing. Advanced careers hold nothing over a basic career except for theme. This is simply understood in my group. The benefits are as follows:

• #1 - It reduces power creep
• It keeps players on task. Do they really want to be a Sargent? Well then act like one!
• It reduces over-specialization motivation by powergamer players who try to SUPERMAN-IZE their characters.

The drawbacks are:

• Player whining about it not being "powerful enough" (sorry, but I give those players a big "waaaaa! why don't you go cry to mommy!" thumbs-down for that attitude)
• It may send PCs in some odd directions instead: Initiate of Verena -> Grave Robber -> Courtier
• As there are not "tangible" other benefits, I somewhat sympathize with the thumb-suckers as well (sorry, I'm just picking on people today . In essence, there should be something other that should occur. I'd recommend both pseudo-game and crunch benefits: For example: ability to get into an organization, lines of credit, extra fortune point, better shame resistance when "relevant", ability to boss people around, henchmen/disciples, notoriety, etc. These things should be able to be PURCHASED with advances and not granted just because somebody took the particular career.

We'll see what happens when Heros call comes out.

jh

1ed had a great idea for career advancement where you bounced around from 1 career to the next, always having to change up if you wanted to advance. 2ed took that and remodeled it towards a more traditional class system. 3ed was smart in returning to the original idea.

I think that it's far more interesting for the ratcatcher to become a agitator and then agent and then investigator, rather than just go ratcatcher 2, 3, 4.

It's not a bug, it's a feature.

No:12 said:

I was really expecting an arrow in the knee just then

I love the career setup of 3rd ed. No more railroad track that you have to follow. No fear of gimping your character. You can just pick whatever you want and the careers are not completely defining your character. They are more fluff in terms of how you earn your experience and the current mind set of your character.

Excellent points folks, and you've definitely got me thinking about it in a more positive way. Nice one.

But the heroes call expansion will bring some truly advanced careers to the table according to the newest update. Plus action cards for rank 4+ to add to the careers feeling more advanced.

In the 3rd edition, players begin with a character really stronger than in previous edition, even if the careers are the same than before.

The power-curve is softer than before because you may have fun immediatly with your character (no more 27% melee attack making you miss all by yourself).

Now technically, advanced careers offers better ability cards, more talents slots and more career skills. Moreover, they must not forget that your rank also progress and give you the right to retrain your skills a to a total of expertise dices equal to your rank.

I'm more worried about how advacement plays out. With only 10(?) slots available for advancement per career, it just seems like it will be hard to widen your range of abilities and skills. Maybe it's just my 2nd ed brain getting in the way, I just got into 3rd and haven't really played at all, especially long enough to advance that many times.

It seems upping a characteristic pretty much takes up half or more of your career, which leaves little room for skills/talents/actions. Is there enough overlap there between different careers to make up for that, or do you end up almost forced to take careers that aren't really in direct relation to a 'path' (for good or ill)

Players are not required to increase their characteristics. If they choose to increase a characteristic over using those slots for more skills or actions, etc, then that is the player's choice to do so. they are CHOOSING to focus their character rather than widening their range of abilities.

As a GM, I do not force my players to "change" careers. They may "re-enter" the same career. They will lose out on the dedication bonus if they are in the career a second time, of course, but they can remain as long as they want in order to take whatever advances that are available to that career.

However, most careers have better/different careers worth transitioning to, if not a direct "more advanced" version of their current career.