Hey guys! I'm new to the forums and such, however I've been playing WHFRP and Edge of the Empire and a few other RPG's for quite some time.

With that being said I do have a number of questions I want to ask.

First off, a GM in another group at the pen and paper gaming club I visit has done a few peculiar things with his Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 3rd Edition party.

He basically allowed one player to advance his Dward Slayer into an Ironbreaker with no sort of story or reason to it. Now from what I know, Slayers are a sub cult of dwarfish society that are doomed to die no matter what. Redemption would bring more shame to them if it were possible.

IS this the sort of case where the rule of "anything the GM says goes", or is this not allowed by some mechanic. I'm just curious, because if this sort of out of the blue career advancement is allowed than I would be VERY interested to transform my current Grey Wizard into a Priest of Ranald if it were possible.

So......what's allowed in a certain career and what isn't?...regarding advancements and such.

Certain careers have restrictions on being entered ranging from race to "must have completex X career first or have an insanity etc." These are all "entering" restrictions.

Unlike v2, this edition does not have "career exit" limits explicit by career.

So narratively, while it does seem that "Slayer" should really only progress up the "Slayer Tree" or progress to "dead", mechanically the transition was rules-legal.

That said I'm not impressed by Player or GM involved as that's a bizarre progression. If neither knows much of the Old World etc. perhaps it's a little forgiveable but only a little, if you look at career card text etc. the cultural expectation is pretty clear. Who gave the disgraced dwarf slayer the nice pretty suit of gromril armour?

It's also a little wierd to go from "great without armour" to "great with armour" (your without armour ability now moot?)

The slayer career bonus only applies 'while in a slayer career'. Even if you do "career completion" to keep it, it only works when your next career is also slayer type. So by the rules the PC should no lo longer have natural defence or soak bonus from the slayer career.

In the lore being a slayer is a to the death thing. You start off as a trollslayer and move up the slayer ranks. Troll, Giant, Dragon, Daemon. Used to be to progress up you have to kill the beast in question, unsure if was to kill a troll or a giant.

In the game, i am not sure. I dont remember the card saying anything about it.

To me its the one career, once you enter, your stuck with, the slayer chain of careers that is.

Yeah I was a bit puzzled when I heard that one of the PC's magically had his Slayer career bumped up to an Ironbreaker, but GM rules are as goes I guess. And from what I know the GM in question does not have an extensive knowledge of the Warhammer IP and most of his campaigns include a lot of things that aren't orthodox or even allowed, but that's not my problem since I run with another group.

The last part though is interesting, so he doesn't get to keep his current Slayer bonus. Ok.

So if I want to transition from a Grey Wizard to a Priest of Taal, will this also apply? Can I even pick up the Priest careers in the first place as a Wizard?

Priest careers i am sure say you need to starter career as does wizards, but you can go from wizard to priest with no difficultly, as long as you follow the path.

Think the cards actually say the entry careers.

There's at least half a dozen old threads on this.

There's a very intentional precedent set in the Player's Guide. Page 47, under "Careers as Story Aids". It talks about how you can use career cards to represent careers and development other than the ones they are literally named for. The specific example there has someone using Thug to represent "Sergeant of the City Watch". That implies much leeway and flexibility in the career system. Officially, you can use the mechanics to represent whatever plotlines and concepts sound good to you and your group.

It's probably also worth mentioning that starvation is not a glorious or honorable way to die... so unless the Slayer was independently wealthy from their previous life, they may have to perform a few odd jobs to put food in their belly and a roof over their head. At the very least, that justifies transitions like TrollSlayer to Thug or Mercenary, and I feel it could justify rather broader career paths if the situation where interesting and the play group amenable to it.

That said, each GM and/or play group are free to decide how literally and/or restrictively they wish to apply not only the fluff but also the mechanical implications of the career system. If it bothers you, don't allow it.

As r_b says careers can be used more as story aids. With that in mind a slayer could take thug, soldier or many other (even non-combat) careers to represent skills and knowledges of the slayer character. I would allow most careers if any of my players were playing a slayer and had a good enough reason.

That said, ironbreaker is a little extreme as a choice since slayers cannot wear armour. I would probably not allow it no matter how good a reason, unless the player was an ironbreaker before turning slayer and just carried the armour around as a reminder of what was lost when he/she was shamed (without actually wearing the armour obviously).

I would not have allowed this transition myself, but as pointed out it's mechanically possible. This is one of those deals where instead of saying "well, there's no rules against it" you have to use a little common sense and dive into the lore & setting a bit.

Don't get me wrong. I wouldn't allow that particular transition at my table either. Troll-Slayers are dishonored warriors that aren't allowed to wear armour. Ironbreakers are honoured warriors gifted an ancestral set of armour. You could fall from Ironbreaker to Troll-Slayer easily enough, but going the other way would require one heck of an unusual mitigating circumstance. I can't imagine I'd ever say yes to it.

I would, however, allow plenty of other "Troll-Slayer into some non-Slayer career" transitions. Thug, Soldier, Mercenary, Veteran, for sure. Other less-military careers would depend upon the plotline and the character background. If the player of a Slayer wanted to take Ratcatcher because he specialized in hunting Skaven, I wouldn't stop him. If he wanted the Graverobber career to pay the bills while hunting undead, I'd be okay with that. If he was a Messenger or Smuggler to cover his expenses while traveling the land in search of foes, that'd be alright by me. I don't see the harm in it.

This was discussed to death in several other threads but:

The rules allow it. Lore/Fluff wise it is nonsense.

In the end the GM has the last word.

No, I would never allow a slayer to become anything else because I play by lore/fluff not by rules (pun intended).

The lore only exists if you want it that way...you could use the rules for a Forgotten Realms campaign and just re-imagine everything. GM doesn't have to use the rulebook or follow any rules that he doesn't want to use. He could give a player 40 advances and let him wear pink, these questions are better for the actual GM in question. The rules don't matter even if he is playing every single rule wrong...if players are having fun its all good. If they aren't..then don't play.

Well, the lore exists so you can play in a Warhammer fantasy setting. I'm sure I could make a game where Dwarfs dance around in pink tutus and spend 50 advances during creation to become a Jedi but at that point I wouldn't call it Warhammer

The way I see it FFG has created a game with a pretty simple set of rules with as few details as possible. This is especially true regarding careers since very few careers have any restrictions to them (race being the most common one). Since FFG have decided not to explicitly state in the rules what limitations there are to career exits, this must be because they are counting on players to be able to figure this out by themselves. I strongly suppose FFG did not expect someone changing careers from Slayer to Breaker, even though the rules allow it.

In the same sense the rules also allow your character to instantly attack anyone they encounter and try to kill them. It just doesn't make sense to do so roleplaying-wise.

So basically it's allowed to change career from slayer to another - it's just poor roleplaying. Personally I don't see a reason why the slayer career is included, the roleplaying choices are severely restricted.

Theoretically, slayers would also have huge problems socially. Humans would fear seeing them as they would be omens of something bad happening (he's in your town cause there's a "great doom" on its way), and other dwarfs would see them as dishonored.

Not to mention their WFB entry mentions something along the lines of them being somewhat psychotic.