So my players picked up their 10th experience point this evening and we had a hailstorm of questions about advancement into new careers. We were able to find answers to most of them, but this is a number crunching group so we have a few remaining.

1. Once the 10th experience point is acquired, is a character considered Rank 2? Does this mean they can spend their 10th advance to purchase a Skill requiring Rank 2 or train a skill for a second time (i.e. 2 Expertise Dice)?

2. What if a player does not want to move into another career because of limitations and restrictions of other careers (not being able to maintain enough similar career attributes to advance further in the attributes and skills he wants)? Basically he started as an Iron Breaker and he wants to stick with the Toughness, Resilience, tanking abilities this affords him, but other careers do not quite fit that mold and Iron Breaker doesn't really have an advanced career that fits (Note: I have yet to pick up Hero's Call, so I don't know what is in it).

3. Considering the above, what if a player doesn't change careers? Is he limited to only the 10 career advances and the 2 non-career advances and he can no longer spend advances until he does change careers?

All of the above considered, I offered him the option to spend his 10th advance to train Resilience a second time as a Rank 2 character; then Pit Fighter became more appealing as his next career since he wouldn't lose the opportunity to train Resilience as he would already have it going into his new career.

4. Why would a player want to return to a previous career if he has used all the 10 class- and 2 non-advances in it?

5. Is there a minimum number of advances a player must spend within a career before they are allowed to switch to a new one? With humans this may be important to avoid them profession hopping at no cost.

Mythiasis said:

Note that a career is not considered complete until you have crossed the Dedication box, so 11 advances. If you don't cross Dedication you will lose your career ability and won't get specializations for all skills trained during the career.

1. That is a good question which is not answered in the rules. I would say that a character is not Rank 2 until he has actually spent 10 XP, but it is open for interpretation.

2./3. No, you can't really stay in a career with the rules as written. Plenty of people use house rules to allow it though (check the house rules forum). The advanced career for Ironbreakers are in the Blackfire pass box. From a roleplaying perspective I think it makes more sense that the Iron breaker may dablle in some other careers before continuing since he's adventuring rather than doin the normal things an Ironbreaker does (presumably breaking iron and goblin heads while drinking huge amounts of ale). Still, I think your ruling is perfectly allright.

4. He wouldn't, there is no point whatsoever to do this. Unless he didn't cross Dedication, in which case it may be worth it to go back to get the career ability and extra specializations.

5. No, but there is a box in the Player's guide which advice the GM to demand a minimum of 4 advances spent in a career before switching if the players abuse career switching.

Mythiasis said:

The Player's Guide states (page 43) that a character gains rank as he earns experience, no need to spend it. So, yes, he can spend the 10th advance to train a skill for a second time in the same career.

Mythiasis said:

1. Yes

2. You need to pick up Black Fire Pass. It has the careers that continue the Ironbreaker. However, to answer your question … as the GM you could house rule to allow the PC to "transition" into the same career again.

3. Yes

4. You wouldn't normally. However, you can transition out of a career before you complete it. So, you can go back to it to finish it later. As well, you could theoretically transition back to a previous career and then use those TRAITs to transition to another career.

5. Not listed in the rules, no. Most GMs do require about three advances before you can transition. Keep in mind, that a GM has control of the game. Career transitions are not just "game mechanics", and all transitions should be OK'd by the GM and make story-sense.

I find advancement to second rank quite confusing too.

I am unsure how to handle it and how it goes.

Can someone explain it simply…starting from the created character who earns his/her first experience point?

Theros said:

Its a big topic, and I'm not sure what exactly you are asking for. I can give you some additional information, though.

1. Each career has (about) 10 advances listed on it. Those are the maximum "in-career" advances that can be bought. Now, when I say maximum, the meaning is that that is the maximum number of advances that could count towards the 10 required to complete your career.

For example: Say a career as Wounds: 1 listed on it. If you purchase +1 wound during first rank, you would write that down in the Open Career section of your XP/Advancement sheet. It counts as one of the 10. If you wish, you could theoretically spend additional XP to purchase a second Wound. However, since your career only has a single "in-career" Wound advance, this second Wound purchase would not count as one of the 10 XP advances required to complete the career.

2. All careers are required to take 4 specific advances: a Wound, an Action, a Talent, and a Skill. They are listed specifically on the character sheet Advancement section. These do fulfill and count towards the career maximums, as well as the 10 advances required to be able to complete an advance.

3. Most career transitions actually happen when XP is at 11 or 12, and not 10. While 10 are required to be considered to have "completed" the career, there are additional costs. First, to get the dedication bonus for the completed career costs 1 XP. Then, transitioning to the next career might (or might not) cost additional XP, depending on the PCs race and the trait difference between the current career and the intended career.

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I'm here at work, and so don't have an actual career card in front of me for a specific and realistic example to give you. I can give you a hypothetical example, however.

Career: Gardener
Traits: Basic, Rural, Menial, Rogue
Primary Characteristics: Strength, Toughness
Career Skills: Athletics, Resilience, Folklore, Nature Lore, Observation

Advances:
Action - 2
Talent - 2
Skill - 1
Fortune - 1
Conservative - 1
Reckless - 1
Wound - 2

Bob decides to make a character. He chooses to be a Gardener career. I'll skip over character creation. We'll just assume (for simplicity) that Bob chose to spend 0 for starting skills so he has no previous training.
Appropriately, Bob also names his character with a powerful name, "Bob".

Bob plays a session and gains 1 XP at the end of the session. He is now the proud owner of a single XP. He now needs to decide what he is going to do with that point. He has several options.
1. He can spend it to buy 1 advance that is "in career", since those cost 1XP each. Since he has not taking any advances yet, he could therefore buy anything in the list of Advances available.
Or,
2. Bob could save the XP. This could be used to buy an advance that is NOT a career advance, such as a skill that is not a career skill, or he could save it up in order to purchase an increase to one of his career's primary characteristics (which take a number of XP/advance slots based on the new value. i.e. raising Strength from 3 to 4 would cost 4 XP and use up 4 Open Career slots)

Bob decides to buy a skill. He spends his 1 XP on Resilience. Since Resilience is a Basic Skill, this counts as Training the skill, and Bob checks off the first box under Resilience. If Bob had had Resilience already trained, then he could have instead purchased a specialization for Resilience (specializations require the skill to the trained before they can be purchased)
On his character sheet "General Career Advances" section, under the "Skill Training" line Bob would write "Resilience".

Bob plays a second session and gains a second XP. He again faces the choice of what to spend his 1 XP on. This time, however, there is a slight difference. Since his Gardener career only has a 1 next to skill in the Advances section, if Bob were to want to take a second skill it would not count. As long as the skill was still on the career skills list, the skill still only costs 1 XP. However, instead of being able to mark the new skill (or specialization) down under the "General Career Advances" section, Bob woul dneed to record it under the "Non-Career Advances".
Bob decides to purchase an Action card. He looks through the cards, and chooses "Mighty Blow". Bob can swing his rake with the best of them. Again, under the "General Career Advances", this time where it says "Action Card", Bob enters the name of the Action card he chose: "Mighty Blow".

Bob plays a third session and gains a third XP. Bob has realized that Bob isn't very good in social situations. Bob wants to impress the ladies, so he decides to take another Action card, "Flirtation". Since the Gardener career has "2" under advances for actions, this new action card is still considered an "in-career" advance. Looking at the "General Career Advances" section, the specific "Action Card" line has already been used. So, Bob would write down "Flirtation" under one of the "Open Career Advance" lines.

Fast forward…
Every character is required to fill in the four specific lines in the General Career Advances section. So, Bob now has 10XP and has taken the following advances:
2x Action cards
1x Skill
1x Talent
1x Wound
1x Reckless stance
Bob has saved up the last 3XP, and now has 4XP, in order to raise his Strength from 3 to 4. The four empty "Open Career Advance" lines are all filled in with "+Strength". He has spent all 10XP.

At 10XP gained(not spent) Bob became Rank2.

[Edit: As a note, Yes, his 10th XP point *could* be spent to Train in Resilience a second time, as Bob is now rank 2. However, as mentioned above, the Gardener career only has 1 in-career advance for skills, so Training Resilience a second time would not be an in-career purchase]

He is still in the Gardener Career, however. Bob has fulfilled all the requirements for compeleting the career:
1) He has purchased 1x action card, 1x talent, 1x skill, and 1x wound.
2) He has purchased a total of 10 in-career advances.

[ As an alternate note/mention, suppose that in there Bob had chosen to purchase training in Weapon Skill so he can wield his Rake better. Weapon Skill is not a career advance, so it will cost Bob 2XP. This means that Bob would not be able to complete the Gardener career until, at a minimum, Bob gains 12 XP total.]

Keep in mind that Bob is still currently in the Gardener career. Now, Bob is a Reiklander/human. As such, his career transitions are cheaper. If he wanted to transition to another career that was similar enough, he might be able to do so right now if it had an XP cost of 0. However, he would not get the dedication bonus.

Bob decides he wants the dedication bonus. So, he plays an 11th session as a Gardener (despite the career being "completed") and gains another +1 XP at the end of it. Yay! Bob now pays the 1XP for the dedication bonus. First, he gets to keep the Gardener career ability permanently. Second, Bob trained Resilience during the career, so Bob gets a free specialization in Resilience. Bob chooses Resist Disease, based on his long association with fertilizer/manure.

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So, I know this was kind of long, and somewhat hypothetical. Does this help at all, though?

Thank you from your answer. That explains a lot.

First let me say: sorry my bad english, i am from germany.

Do I interpret the rules right, that a player can stay almost infinitly in a carreer?

Because i had a problem playing an elven waywatcher: i collected 6 XP to train agility from 5 to 6. Agility is a carreer characteristic, so 6 lines of the open worksheet where filled. And soon i am forced to leave the carreer (so i did understand the rules before your helpful posting), because all the 10 advances are crossed. I was frustrated, because there where lots of skills in that carreer i would rather like to get too.

Do i understand you right: i can STAY in the carreer and can learn all the skills i want? Even if i have spent 10 XP on waywatcher advances, i can spent more on "in-carreer" and "out-carreer" advances? these advances just dont count to the needed 10 advances for dedication?

I could stay at waywatcher for al long time, lets say: take agility and willpower to 6 for 12 XP, learn the 2 actions, 1 talent, 2 skills, 2 fortune, 1 C Stance, 1 R Stance, and 1 wound for 1 XP each (10XP). And after that, i could stay even longer and train the "in carreer skills" further (dependant of my rank) or may learn "out-carreer skills" for +1 XP?

This would be ok.

The most feared alternative (and i did understand the rules in this way, hopefully wrong!) would be to enter a foolish carreer, that might have agility as a characteristic, spent the 6XP there and return to waywatcher. I would hate that and it would defeat my feelings for this woodland crawling Tree-lover.

Talasia, as Emirikol said, technically you cannot re-enter the same career. However as both he and I mentioned, you could house rule allowing a PC to re-enter the same career, which is generally "needed" for careers that really should have an advanced additional career(s) but don't.

regarding the "when am i rank2" question

imo, You turn rank2 on when the 10th XP IS SPENT.

dvang said:

I have this problem with a player of mine. She rolled a Wardancer. Since there are no advanced classes for the elves, I just looked up how other

career lines alter from basic -> advanced (basically switching one Skill and shuffle in a new characteristic which makes sense). Finally I added

a "WARDANCER II" special card which helps with the stance dance.

Since she will soon turn rank3 I will do the same again.

I think I took the Soldier -> Veteran as template.

For dwarven chars - just pick up Blackfire Pass as mentioned above.

for high-elven chars - download the fan-created stuff by Yepesnopes

dvang said:

Sorry, but isn't this wrong?

I thought each career has 4 Fixed Advancements - one each of Action, Skill, Talent and Wound.

And has 6 Open-Career Slots - which can be filled with any of the (usually) 10 advacements on the career card. These are split over Action, Talent, Skill, Fortune, Conservative Stance, Reckless Stance and Wounds. Or be used to increase a Characteristic.

So if the Gardener has 1 next to Skill in his Advance section, that would mean he could take a total of 2 Skill Advances in this career - 1 as an Open-Career Advance and one as the Fixed Skill Advance.

Otherwise, what happens when you have one of those many careers that have 0 next to Wounds in their Advance Section? As part of their 10 Advancements, they have to take 1 Wound as per the Fixed Advancement, but their Career states they can't take any at all! I believe it means they can't take any extra, beyond the Fixed Advancement.

Sorry if I have got this wrong and am just confusing matters, but I do honestly believe this is how it is supposed to work.

Gazery

No, you are correct. Good catch. My example was trying to highlight the "restriction" on the career advance numbers and Open Advance slots, and in doing so I apparently forgot to take into account the four 'required' advance slots.

Unfortunately, I cannot go back and edit my post to clarify/fix it, but simply it should be modified to say "Third" instead of second, and assume that all three XP purchases were for skills.

Phew, I was panicking that I had been doing wrong. That is a weight off my mind.

Cheers for the confirmation.

Gazery

thePREdiger said:

The rules state clearly that you turn rank 2 (or 3, or 4…) when you gain experience and not when you spend it in advances. See for example player guide pg 43

" Gaining experience represents a character’s growing worldliness, burgeoning skills, and expanding renown. When a character has earned a certain amount of experience, he gains rank. Rank is an abstract representation of relative power or ability. "

Also, the table in the same page there shows Experience vs Character Rank and not Character Advances vs Character Rank.

Nonetheless, I agree with you, and in my opinion Character Rank should be given by advances and not by experience earned, but that is already house ruling.

Cheers,

Yepes

I'm pretty sure the reason for it being done by experience earned and not by advances taken, is that the rules suggest that potentially a PC can spend his experience during an adventure. This is a story, and PC could potentially "learn" (story-wise, "reveal") a skill/talent during the course off the story. So, rather than have group rank fluctutate during the course of a session, every PC who has gained X amount of XP has the potential to be the rank and is treated as that rank.

As a hypothetical example (not necessarily WFRP specific), a PC (John) has 1xp unspent. During a session the PCs run into a group of Dark Elves. John's player decides to immediately spend his 1 XP for John to know how to speak Dark Elf. He then procedes to fill in backstory about how he came to know the language.

Really, I don't see the problem with using XP earned.

You give a good point dvang.

I don't have a big problem that character rank is done by experience earned (I am still doing it like per raw). I have been sometimes anoyed when a player saves some of his experience points, and when he gets his 10th xp he automatically trains 3 skills to his second rank while stille being in the first career.

Ok, it is not a big deal, I agree, but is annoys me a bit because when you only have 10xp having 2 yellow dice in 3 skills, makes a big difference. Specially, I don't like it if it becomes the norm.

Cheers,

Yepes

Well, keep in mind that PCs are restricted in the number of each type of advance they can take. They get 1 free skill to train, and the X more depending on their career.

In order to get 3 skills with two yellow dice, they would need to:

a) have three skills trained once at creation

or

b) Have two skills trained once at creation and have a career that has a 3 for skills in their career advances chart (so they could spend 1 advance to train a skill once during their career, and then 3 more to get a second training in all 3 skills at 10XP).

In addition, they have saved up 3 XP, not buying anything, for 3 (or more, depending on how often you give XP) sessions. Otherwise, it costs an addiitonal XP per skill trained as it counts as a non-career advance.

Really, chances of more than one getting two training at 10XP should be slim.

If it really bugs you and is a problem for your group, simply make a simple house rule that restricts acquiring/training skills to one purchase per session (for example).