I’d like to start by stating I am in favour of the career system and this discussion is not intended to criticize the rules, merely to examine current challenges and identify helpful solutions/recommendations.

Okay, so; I think that there are a few areas in the WFRP3 careers system that require some attention. What do I mean by that? Well, I’ll try and outline them:

For one, it is not complete. WFRP3 is by its design modular and so a work in progress. Obviously there are many incomplete career paths. This is one of the reasons why so many people are discussing and designing advanced careers. The system is designed to be flexible, so for most characters there are options available even if the desired path does not exist yet. But for some, there are problems. If you want to be a Dwarf Troll Slayer for instance, you can get to your third career and then you are stuck. You can’t leave the career (or certainly most would not wish to) but there is nowhere to go. If you want to be an Elf Waywatcher, Wardancer or Swordmaster, once you have completed your first career, you must choose a generic combat type of advanced career or go forth as a postman or something else rather 'left of field'. There is no option to enhance the career you began with. But this problem is not limited to the other races, there are particular gaps in the human career paths too.

If I may be so bold, I’ll state that if there is a particular archetype you wish to pursue with a character in the Warhammer world, the careers system does not currently lend itself to that aim for many careers. Careers as they are presented in WFRP are brief. I understand this is a contrivance to enhance the fun and variety of the game. It is fair to say that in the medieval world that Warhammer is attempting to parody, a job was for life, with most being born into a profession they never dreamt of leaving. That may be largely superfluous, as I don’t think the system should necessarily seek to match this or that our adventurers are your average Empire citizens. But, I do think it is an inflexibility of the system that if a character wishes to stick with a particular profession or career path such an option available is unavailable.

The main problem is that not all careers are equal. Commoners and servants are dead end roles – no conventional promotion prospects there. Whereas obviously Wizards and Priests have clearly defined careers. The beauty of the system is that you can play around and define a colourful career. But what if you like being an Assassin and don’t wish to stop being one? You could argue that each career only gives a character limited room for advancement before it has nothing left to teach them and that is certainly what the system suggests. But that will certainly feel limiting for some, especially when there isn’t an advanced assassin 2, 3 and 4. More over it seems an unnecessary penalty to suggest the only way to do this is by non career advancement.

So, I think there are two types of player with a legitimate argument for some additional career rules:

1) Players who are in a ‘locked’ career which is unfinished.

2) Players who wish to remain with a particular ‘archetype’ where there are no obvious career exits which would progress that archetype.

(1) is rather clear, whereas (2) is more open to interpretation of ‘obvious career path’.

So the key is what solutions are there which fit in to the system and still promotes career progression?

The simplest answer is to allow characters to ‘replay’ a completed career.

I don’t favour this, as it does not promote career progression if players can just keep retaking their favoured career. It would then be cheaper to replay a career than buy a new one. Nor is it any comfort for those players who have no career exits available – who clearly feel they are missing out on the improvements found on advanced careers such as extra talent slots or another career ability card.

The idea I am currently kicking around is a status called ‘Career Pledged’. This would be an option for players completing certain careers (agreed by GM or a career list) after they have bought the Dedication advance. Career Pledged would be in place of the career transition option and should be recorded there.

Career Pledged would cost 2 advances and would confer the following:

- The player can take a new character sheet with access to the 10 new advance slots. Their advance options would be based off their current career again ignoring the advances of the previous character sheet.
- The character is now considered ‘locked’ into their current career and cannot pick the career transition option, unless roleplay offers an exit (or an expansion provides one).
- If the career is a basic career, it should now be considered advanced for any game purposes. For roleplay purposes they would be considered a veteran of the career with expert insight into the profession (and probably a good degree of dogmatism too). They might be looked upon as quite a little ‘stuck in their ways’.
- The character has access to the following additional advance option:
2 advances = gain a new talent slot of a class they already have access to on their current career sheet. (Note they must still buy talent cards with separate advances. They can only buy this once per sheet and counts as one open career advance slot).
- When completing their character sheet, they would need to pay the 2 advances again to the Career Pledge ‘refresh’. (The character would still need to buy the Dedication advance again to fully ‘complete’ their character sheet. This would only confer the bonus of specialisations for the career skills they trained on their current character sheet).

I'm seeing Career Pledged as a mini-card with the above talent slot advance option info and an ‘ANY’ talent socket on its edge.

We have a simple house rule: You can repeat a career and just add the title "master" to the front of it.

That pretty much solved all of our issues regarding that.

If a person wants to be a "master" commoner (Yeoman or something), then there you have it

jh

Ditch the concept of trying to continue a "class". It's not D&D. Careers have almost always been chosen because of the advancement options available to them. It was perhaps more prominent in previous editions where everyone eventually ended up being a Champion or an Assassin…despite not actually BEING a champion or an assassin in their character.

Just because someone starts as a Troll Slayer or Ironbreaker doesn't mean that they stop being able to call themselves a Troll Slayer or Ironbreaker because they delved into the Thug, Assassin, Seargent or Champion careers. It just gives their character some extra depth either in RP or abilities they have. The balance is up to each group/player/GM.

The career system is not intended to create a modular class structure. It's intended to create a modular character structure based upon advancement a player wants and things that fit the type of character they've been playing.

A Troll Slayer is identifiable as the chap in the center of a melee with no shirt on, crazy teased up hair, and…biting the snout off a Skaven gutter runner. No one is going to whisper " yeah but Hogan isn't a TRUE slayer…I mean, he took that job as a merchant a year ago…"

It's not a bug, it's a feature. Forcing the change is a good thing that fosters character growth.

It's tough moving to a paradigm that doesn't jive with what we are used to with class-based systems (cough cough D&D cough), but it is worth embracing.

I get where you are coming from. It's a fair point. (And I have no inclinations towards D&D I assure you).

The point I was trying to make is that there are different factors at play in the career system. One is the concept you are rightly brought up; that the careers are effectively 'character advancement modules'. Now that would be fine (and in fact I like the idea) but that system is also strongly tied to a roleplay element. This means that it is not simply a matter of picking the module you want but also identifying the roleplay required to get there. If it isn't the roleplay direction you want (or can) go in, you're likely to avoid that choice.

There is also another factor at work. As I outlined in my original post there are effectively two types of career free-form and paths. Free-form careers are, in roleplay terms, a particular profession your average NPC human (or otherwise) would expect to hold for the rest of their life. Adventurers go through careers like a dose of salts because they are living life on the edge and learning quick or dying fast. So they move on. 'Pathed' Careers are in effect a career stretched out over many 'advancement modules'. You may not like it, but it wouldn't be absurd to call these careers 'classes'. The Wizard is a class, the Priest is a class. In fact any character with a 'unique' name trait in the career is a class. And we are talking D&D (or Ad&D to me) here.

So the area I was originally exploring was where these classed careers fall off the edge of the development table. Now, the Wizard and Priest careers have been developed up to rank 5 but the rest are largely left to their own devices. Now some characters can happily wander off from being a Waywatcher or Trollslayer to being a Dockhand (if their GM agrees with their philosophy also) but others will find the metaphysical gymnastics a step too far. Especially when we know these careers should have corresponding Advanced Careers which have yet to be created. So what I was seeking to do was to fill in the gap so to speak. It may be a sticking plaster, but maybe it will fulfil certain play groups' needs.

Just to play devils advocate: 'Forcing the change' is fine to some extent. But isn't 'enforcing' change as bad as enforcing stability in the form of rigid classes?

And I need no paradigm shift. I have roleplayed for some 16 years. I've played AD&D, but I've never considered it a major system or influence. A class system like AD&D is the last thing I want to advocate…

I can outline the careers I am talking about here:

Wizard, Initiate, Ironbreaker, Slayer, Sword Master, Ritual Dancer and Watcher. In addition to these you can argue for Devoted, Runsmith, Engineer and Witch as well. Note I've used the keywords here rather than the named Career - as it illustrates my point regarding the uniqueness of these particular careers.

There is nothing wrong with a player picking these careers and leaving them - if the situation suits the game. But to suggest that the Runesmith cannot advance on to a third tier of 'Master Runesmith' to develop his runesmithing further, because there isn't one, and instead should look for something in a Grave Robber is a bug not a feature.

I'm not knocking the Developers here, they can't make the whole system and release it all at once. But what I am suggesting is that this may be an area for some helpful house rules.

The reality you are ignoring here is that Warhammer is not a career system it is a class/career hybrid system. The 'pure' career system would have a single wizard career which characters would run through and then after their ten advances, be forced to move on to have a crack at a career in Gambling… There is nothing wrong with the system! It's just not finished yet.

Download Strange Eons. Cook up as many advanced versions of the various iconic careers that you want. Personally I just rationalise the limitations if possible or manage player expectations if I can't. Sometimes you get to the end of a career path, and it's time for a new career path that supports your character and his/her interests, and your idea of fun. But it might not come with another star to put on your uniform to let everyone know that you are really a Super Duper Awesome Grand Poomba. Pouting about not having another rank of military commander isn't going to get anyone anywhere.

This "limitation" extends to other areas of the game as well. What comes after Rank 5 spells? You could always invent some. But it's also just fine to say…nothing. Rank 5 spells are the most powerful things a wizard/spellcaster in Warhammer can get…anything else is just far too dangerous.

Master Runesmiths could be cooked up in Strange Eons. But you could also rationalise it by saying that a Runesmith typically spends about a century as a Runesmith so that they can learn everything else that goes along with being just a great crafter of runes (Move into Scholar, Merchant, etc). It doesn't make Amrek the Runesmith any less of a runesmith…he just needs to settle up with the fact that he's got all the runesmithing mojo he's like to have in play. Sometimes, despite Greenskin testimony to the contrary, there just simply isn't more Dakka.

The game doesn't break for lack of "MORE!" unless you let it. In which case…there are plenty of tools to add "MORE!." Either through rebooting as Emerikol does, or by inventing new careers.

Besides…characters shouldn't be living to three careers anyway :-)

Khelrauko said:

I'm not saying class-based systems are bad. They are fine for the games that use them.

It's just that the career system has always been one of the things that has set WFRP apart from other games. Throwing away (or neutering) that part of it is like vacationing to somewhere exotic but only eating McDonalds while you are there. Try it out, and let those things that look like flaws play themselves out. You may be surprised.

Khelrauko said:

Trust me, the longer you play the more benefit you get from paradigm shifts (24 years over here). If I can point to any successes I have as a GM, they can almost all be attributed to learning different techniques and styles from different games.

As a side note, if anything should be changed it is the linear careers that exist in 3ed. I was always of the mind that instead of the standard progression for Wizards (for example), they could have had a handful of more themed choices. Something like the following:

• Wizard librarian
• Arcane advisor
• Laboratory wizard
• Warrior mage
• Arcane investigator
• Wandering wizard
• College politician
• Village wizard
• Courtier mage
• Military mage

This way, there would be the same variety in advancement for wizards, priests and such as there is for other characters.

Doc, the Weasel said:

I think the "implied" advancement of iconic careers is far stronger than the actual limitations on them. It certainly seems to be the case with Wizards. Not every member of every order has to blaze up the charts from Apprentice to Wizard Lord in order to "be a wizard". There are bound to be some Wizard Investigators, Scholars, Apothecaries, Mystics and other sidetrack flavouring tossed in there someplace. I could see a Gold Order mage diving into merchant or some such. A Grey Order wizard could dive into more rogue-ish careers like Forger, or…heck…even crime lord. The articles of magic simply restrict wizards from holding official titles and lands. Other than that they could find themselves serving their order in just about any level of society. And at no point would they "cap" on being able to pick up new spells. They just wouldn't get the 'next wizard level' career ability. And the whole time they'd still be…a X Order Imperial wizard. They wouldn't have to introduce themselves as "Bright Order Mage Extraordinaire…though I'm currently a Scholar…" They'd just be a wizard reading books…

Callidon said:

Yes, but that's the same as saying that we could just have a "fighter" career to cover soldier, mercenary, pistoleer, etc. The specificity makes a difference.

It would also encourage the same character development changes. A wizard may start spending a lot of time studying the winds in a lab, before becoming a wanderer, and then end up as an advisor to the local lord.

It actually strikes me that the issue is those careers that HAVE paths, not those that don't. They're the exception, not the norm, and the rules should never be written around the exceptions.

My solution is going to be:

a) allow some reasonable replaying of careers, if it is appropriate for what the character is doing (between adventures, you're going back to tend your family farm - yes, you can continue to be a commoner)

b) either link talent slots to rank, or to rank plus expenditure of 1 or 2 advances.

Might also do something to improve career abilities, although being able to use it twice might be enough.

I'm just looking to kick around some ideas on careers. Start the ball rolling so to speak. Some of the points here are quite interesting.

I wasn't suggesting players should be allowed to replay any career. I think the basic general careers should remain limited to 10 advances - such careers are naturally quite limited.

Doc and Callidon; you have managed to refine my thinking on this - for which I thank you. I'm more inclined to limit such career re-playing only to the unique careers which clearly are missing advanced careers currently. In effect the Career Pledged concept is simply rules for 'simulating' those careers without having to speculate (or create) new sheets and abilities. It's just on option for some flexibility with career paths. Rather than the GM saying 'no you have to change to another career' when a waywatcher's player says they don't fancy any of the general careers, and both clearly aware the only reason there isn't and advanced career is because there is no Elf expansion, they can used the Career Pledged rules.

No major rules changes here.

Emirikol said:

Same here. Maybe add a talent as "career card" if the dedication is once again paid for?