As I grasp the rules atm you complete a career when you have taken 10 points of xp in career specific advancements be they career skills, stat increase or so on.
Looking at the careers and mainly then at skills one quickly realizes one simple thing, you will never be able to train all the skills of a career before you leave it.

Lets say I start out as a gambler, the career skills available are Guile, Intuition, Observation, Skulduggery and stealth, all good skills.

The career advancements I am allowed for skills tell me I have to train one skill as one of the four fixed and then allowes me to train 2 more as open career advances, this would meen I can only train 3 skills as career advances.

For most chars this is fine as A) the skills are basic and you are allowed to use them anyways and B) moving on to a similar career will give you access to many of those skills at a later point my gambler is a case in point if he moves on to become a thief.

For the aprentice career its a bit different however.

Without channeling you cant use the channeling power meening you have a very limited number of power to fuel spells and without spellcraft you cant cast spells, even if you create your character with 4 skills and 2 specializations you will be very limited…

To me it seems you merely scratch the surface of the career before moving on, taking my gambler example from above I can easilly see me taking all my career advances as completely outside advancing my "gambler" say for example taking 1 reckless stance, advancing my agility to 5, a ranged action card, a talent a wound and the only real "gambler" advance beeing a skill from my list.

It seems like Im missing something it seems like, in theory an apprentice wizard could advance to become an acolyte without being able to read&write, channel or cast spells…

Bear in mind that Apprentice Wizard's start the game with both Channeling and Spellcraft acquired (but not trained). Yes they need lots of skills, but that makes it a lot easier. By spending 3 on skills during character creation and a few advances they can get most everything trained if they want.

Thus far I only have the core rules and sadly the rule that apprentices get those skills for free is not in them (tho reading here I have found that they are) however this does not adress my overall point that passing through a career leaves you with only being able to train a few of the skills involved in the career.

The fact that there are few non combat actions, the traits being general if more or less usefull to separate careers…. to me it just feels you can go through a career, get the completion bonus and move on without having aquired any aspects of the career you went through.

I can see a player having to go throgh the same carreer multiple times to reach an intermediate career, slayer beeing a good example here, as I read the rules atm you simply have to rush through the trollslayer career as fast as you can, only obsticle I can see is to get the GM to give you an encounter with a troll or similar danger and poof you are a giantslayer.
Thats simply 10 sessions of play, fewer if you get bonus xp…

And the caster classes, 10 sessions and you advance to acolyte, 10 more and you are a wizard and 10 more and you are as powerfull as a wizard will ever become and its as easy as a thug advancing through watchman and mercenary to burgher.

Yes I know there are a few more xp needed for the actual advancement stages but …

Point is I just feel the career advancement effects feels … missing.

One won't always pull acolyte or watchman though. I really enjoy the character developement the system promotes. I feel much better about a character that I take from something like dockhand or commoner or barber-surgeon up through a few careers to get to the ones I feel he wants to advance through. Thats real advancement, the character learning to trudge his way through being a wretch to become a witch hunter, finding his faith and becoming a priest, or learning how to read and study properly to become a wizard. Thats one of my favorite things about any of the wfrp systems. Alot of people don't like random career/class but I think it's a really powerful character developement and storytelling tool

I guess I don't quite understand what you're saying. Bear in mind it isn't 10 XP, it is 11 if you're a Human, 12 for everyone else (1 for Dedication Bonus and at least 1 more for non-humans to transition to a new career). After you get the Dedication Bonus you get the career ability card AND a specialization for each of that careers skills you trained while you were in it. It seems like it definitely left its "mark" on you.

The question I have is mainly about skill advancement through the careers. Ill try to be more specific and look back at the original and 2nd edition versions to try clarifying it.

In first and second edition in order to complete a career you had to buy ALL the advancements from the career, this ment aquiering all the skills, buying all the stat advances and so on and thus if you entered a career such as a thief, wich in this version has the career skills: Coordination, Discipline, Guile, Skullduggery and Stealth you would have to ither already be trained in all of them or buy them all.

In third edition while I not only only HAVE to train one of them I CAN'T get all five, one fixed and 3 optional skills meen I can only ever train four of my career skills before I complete the career.

Yes I CAN take aditional skills as non career advances but that is not the same.

Let me use the most extreme example I can find and one that has a natural basic to intermediate advancement scheme.
The slayer.

The trollslayer has a career advancement allowence of 1 wich meens in completing the career you will max gain two skills.
Trollslayers may only have four available skills but to be honest, who would pick Athletics or Intimidate over Resilience or Weapon Skill…

Most trollslayers will start with Str and To 5, it only makes sence and if I wish to upp say To to 6 I only get one skill advance before being able to move to giantslayer for 1xp (yes I know there is up to 4 xp involved in changing career).
To make matters worse for the giantslayer has the exact same skill choises and again career advancement allowence 1…

Yes he will be a monster in close combat as he should but even a first career thug will be able to out intimidate a giantslayer…

Thus Im simply asking if I have missed some rule or if there are additional rules in the expansions (outside the core box) that deal with this?

If yes then please tell me where and if allowed outline them for me and if no… I supose I will have to houserule career completion advances, dedication bonuses and limits on advancing to intermediate careers.

I would probably go for something like you have to have all basic career skills trained and all advanced career skills aquired as well as having over average or fortuned primary characteristics in order to get the completion bonuses.

If that is not completed then you can not get the completion bonuses and have to retake the career untill those requirements are met.

Thus to advance to an intermediate career such as the acolyte you MAY have to go through apprentice wizard multiple times… wich ofcource is not really such a bad thing

I would put in similar restrictions for advancing from intermediate to elite and elite to hero classes unless those turn out to have suitable restrictions already (like I said I only have the core rules as of yet).

I see what you mean. If you've only got room to train 3 of your 5 career skills, that means that your career is not a "SKILL" career. It is probably more geared towards actions, talents, wounds or something else.

Not all careers are created equally in the skills realm. This is in place for two reasons:

1. Skill careers (i.e. the NON-COMBAT careers) are geared towards being more well-rounded compared to a focused career. Troll slayers are not a "skill"-career. Burgher is a skill career.
2. It FORCES us to make choices. Not everyone is going to be a generic career. Not everyone can then MIN-MAX every career exactly the same.

I like it. It adds depth.

Take the peasant as well: They can train FOUR advances in fortune characteristic dice, but they suck at everything else.

At creation, you can get those, but otherwise, no, you won't be able to train all of them "in-career."

Here's a summary of what the careers are best at:

Agent: skill (3)

Agitator: skill

Apothecary: balanced

App Wizard: skill

Bailiff, Barber surgeon, Boatman, Bounty hunter, : balanced

Burgher: Skill (3), Talent (3)

Coachman: balanced

Commoner: Fortune (3)

Dilettante: Talent (3), Skill (3) noble option

Dockhand: balanced

Envoy: Talent (3)

Forger: balanced

Gambler: Talent (3)

Grave robber: Action (3)

Hunter, Initiate, Ironbroken, Mercenary: balanced

Messenger: Talent (3)

Mystic: Fortune (3)

Navigator: balanced

Pedlar: Talent 3

Performer, pit fighter: balanced

Ratcatcher: skill 3

Roadwarden: balanced

Scout: skill3

Scribe: SKILL4*************************************

Servant, Smuggler, Soldier: balanced

Student: skill 4***************

Swordminmaxer, Thief, Thug: balanced

Trollslayer: Wounds 3

Wardancer: action 3

Watchman, waywatcher, zealot: balanced

The Advanced careers go more extreme in terms of skills, etc.

jh

Sorry, Emirikol, but you mention a Peasant Career - do you know which set that comes with, because I can't find mine and I'm worried I might be missing other things as well. Cheers.

Peasant came with this POD boxed set:

just kidding. I still refer to the commoner as peasant. It is a leftover from my 2e gaming days

jh

Phew, I was panicking there for a moment!

I always thought that a nice article for Liber Fanatica would have been the sub-career options of each career: For example:

Commoner: bog iron picker, hogsman, simpleton, rutabaga farmer, kept-man, village idiot, local fix-it guy, etc.

Coachman: coach gunner, driver, security box manager, manager, guest specialist (social), business-getter (marketer), groom, etc.

Trollslayer: troll slayer, uhhhhh yes, and trollllllllslayer

Bailiff: tax collecter, administrator, tollbooth operator, assistant tax collector (lackey), Mr. Nice guy/Mr. Bad guy, etc.

etc.

This is essentially what comes out of this discussion too: The reason why character /can't/ train all 5 of their listed skills for free is to instill that diversity and personal taste into character development. The biggest question comes down to this: "What to sacrifice?" Or, in the case of a game where you are actually roleplaying and not min-maxing every opportunity, it comes down to "What would my village-idiot commoner character have in relevance to his background?" Perhaps a specialization in "escape stocks", and avoid-blame-cuz'-that-boy-just-aint'-right

In the end it really doesn't matter, as the success ratio's approach 80% anyways, but sometimes that extrr 6% can mean the difference between being lost to madness, turned into a chaos spawn, or simply being Mr. Peg-leg from the neck down….

jh

http://www.lead-adventure.com/images/bru-19.jpg

you can still purchase skills after you've reached your alloted career advancement skill mark, they just don't count towards career advancement.

example: the gambler has guile, intuition, observation, skullduggery and stealth as career skills and 2 skill slots as open career advancements. Rubarb the gambler gains 2 xp over the course of an adventure smegma is running. rubarb decides he's not that good a gambler and needs to advance in guile and intuition, he spends the points, boom, gains the skills training, and uses up the 2 skill slots for the gambler career advancement. Over the next 2 adventures smegma runs, rubarb gets 5 xp, the adventures are long and rubarb is an important player in the casino gambling adventures smegma seems to like running. Rubarb then decides he needs the other 3 skills trained because he feels his character isn't good at observing, skullduggering, or stealthing around the place. Rubarb spends the 3 xp on the skills, but is still only advanced along his career path by the previous 2 advances. Rubarb spends his ermaining 2 xp or an action and a talent, increasing his career advancement to 4xp. even though he's 7xp deep into his character, only 4 of the xp counts towards career developement.

At least, as far as I understand it anyway, I could be mistaken.

It's easiest to figure out on the back of the official character sheet (about all that particular character sheet is good for ). It has all the listed slots.

jh

Hello, I am comforted to find that others, like me, are a little confused about career advancement. I am greatly pleased to find that there are also those who understand it fully.

Q: Is a character limited to only 2 non-career advances, or is the number limited only by how many advances one is willing to spend?

The character sheet at the back of the Player's Guide has only 2 slots, so one might assume that only 2 are available. 10 slots for career advances, 2 slots for non-career.

But, the example on the second column, first paragraph of page 45 in the Player's Guide - Beth and her Roadwarden, Birgitta - makes it look like Beth/Birgitte is ok to acquire First Aid , Education and a Focus Talent.

As a follow-up question: Are the options for non-career advances limited to certain purchases?

Again, page 45 of the Player's Guide, under the heading Non-Career Advances, one reads the following list: Train basic skill outside current career, Acquire talent outside current career, Acquire Advanced skill outside current career and Train Advanced skill outside current career. Then, in column 2, Upgrade a non-primary characteristic.

Q: What about additional Wound Threshold or Action Cards?

Our group is new to the system and we have only played twice, but we have enjoyed the game very much.

Thanks for your help.

JG

Q: Is a character limited to only 2 non-career advances, or is the number limited only by how many advances one is willing to spend?The character sheet at the back of the Player's Guide has only 2 slots, so one might assume that only 2 are available. 10 slots for career advances, 2 slots for non-career. But, the example on the second column, first paragraph of page 45 in the Player's Guide - Beth and her Roadwarden, Birgitta - makes it look like Beth/Birgitte is ok to acquire First Aid , Education and a Focus Talent.

From the Errata/FAQ p.3:

Character Development:

As a follow-up question: Are the options for non-career advances limited to certain purchases?

Again, page 45 of the Player's Guide, under the heading Non-Career Advances, one reads the following list: Train basic skill outside current career, Acquire talent outside current career, Acquire Advanced skill outside current career and Train Advanced skill outside current career. Then, in column 2, Upgrade a non-primary characteristic.

Correct. If it's not listed there, you can't get it.

Q: What about additional Wound Threshold or Action Cards? Our group is new to the system and we have only played twice, but we have enjoyed the game very much.

Same as above. If it's not listed, you can't get it.

Here's the full relevant text from the Errata/FAQ download:

Thanks for the quick reply and the excellent explaination. I must read the Errata and FAQs. I will likely call on you again.

Thanks again,

JG

Overall, it comes down to a simple thing that Emirikol pointed out: It encourages/forces diversity. A PC *cannot* take every single advance in their career. So, they must choose the advances that best work for or represent their character. If they are *really* driven to try to gain more career skills (etc), once they have filled their 10 career slots they can buy further career skills/advances by treating them as non-career advances and filling up their non-career slots. Of course, this isn't really cost effective.