I know there is a general. What are your experiences and opinion on Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying? Any editions preferred? Any cool stories to share?
WFRP
I know there is a general. What are your experiences and opinion on Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying? Any editions preferred? Any cool stories to share?
WFRP is great. 4e is my preference and there is no going back anymore. I thought it was just better 2e* when it released but the continued support has really solidified that. It fixed some big problems, added some nice new systems, and is generally a solid improvement overall.
It's less whiffy, the new magic stuff is a better representation of the setting and has some great new features, Priests aren't neutered wizards, the downtime system is great, and there is just generally a lot of love gone into it. They updated Enemy Within for it and got one of the original writers in to re-do the later parts that sucked. It's got much better adventure support than 2e did in general. All the supplemental stuff has been pretty solid for the most part, and this year we'll see a martial sourcebook, a magic sourcebook, and a bestiary, along with other stuff. So great game, great campaign, great support. Hard not to like their work there, the only real complaints I have are mostly some formatting stuff but it tends to be pretty minor all in all. Well that and I think enemy stat blocks take a bit of time to really get used to from the GM side of things. It's also pretty easy to convert 2e stuff over thanks to the free conversion stuff they put out.
The problem with 4e is that it's a little crunchier, and some not great layout can make bits of it hard to learn. It's a little more fiddly in places too, like the tracking of Advantage. Speaking of Advantage the optional rule for capping it it IB should have been default. Additionally while the new magic system it much closers to the fluff and generally better overall its channelling rules and overcasting effects aren't the best. The former isn't punchy enough the latter can be too powerful. Up in Arms, and the Winds of Magic does fix Advantage and the magic stuff though.
*3e is a bit of a black sheep in WFRP. It's very hard to even get your hands on it these days and it was basically a prototype for FFG's Star Wars.
>its channelling rules and overcasting effects aren't the best
Yeah, the critical failures for miracles are a lot harsher. You can't even properly explode into daemons by failing to channel your spells. You can summon a daemon by casting miracles, for some reason.
>You can summon a daemon by casting miracles, for some reason.
Because human holy magic is just regular magic powered by lots and lots of copium that "its not magic i swear"
Not OP but how tied to the setting is the system? Is it difficult to find people to play with? What's the playerbase like? I've been thinking of trying it for a while now.
Also slightly off topic but is there a rundown on the various 40K RPGs out there?
It's mostly how magic and miracles work that is tied to the setting. And any mechanics to corruption. There are also talents and careers that only really make sense in the context of the setting (largely the Reikland and, again, magic, courrption and miracles). The rest could potentially used for any other renaissance-like setting (it has a good amount of firearms as well). The playerbase isn't D&D-like, but it's not some obscure setting either, especially not since the recent video games. You can find players.
>Not OP but how tied to the setting is the system?
Very. To the point that I would say don't bother with it if you're not into The Old World. Too much stuff to strip out, alter, or ignore to really make that worth it. Play something like Mythras, or Shadow of the Demon Lord, or something else depending on what you're after.
>Is it difficult to find people to play with?
About as hard as any of the more popular non-D&D games. Not impossible but not the easiest thing in the world either.
>What's the playerbase like?
IDK, I only play with friends. So I'd imagine like all RPGs some people are c**ts, some people are angels, some people are fine.
Other anon wasn't the anon you replied to, that's me. Not that is massively matters but I figure the context is important given out contrasting opinions.
This anon nailed it.
I would also add 4e beats 2e by the sheer fact that combat rolls are now opposed. Adds depth and makes it feel more organic.
People swear by First Edition. Nostalgia Trip on 2nd. Never discuss 3rd on account of it being some kind of card game. And, complain about 4th's magic and art being shit. That's all I can tell you with any certainty. The reason I'm quoting the second poster is because he sounds suspiciously like an advertisement. I'm presently reading through 1st material right now and read a lot of the Second Edition material. But, never played either one of them. So, I'll just say this. The game books have occasionally exceptional artwork and setting material. But, mechanically it all seemed poor from stem to stern. Not to compare it to the worse systems out there like Shadow Run, but it's an acquired taste. And, I honestly wouldn't use any of them aside from material for a genetic or extrapolation unto a much more preferred system.
This is an impressively pointless reply
It answered OP exactly and raised a good point about another poster's "enthusiasm" seeming off. So, no I'd say it hit the nail on the head.
The only things you can say with certainty are other people's opinions. Which means you don't value your own opinion, which is what OP was after. Then it's just a lot of nogame stuff, so you don't have any exerince with the game. While also shitting on an opinion for a game you've not even read. So entirely nothing of value and doesn't even hit what OP asked. Like I said it was impressively pointless. Mastercrafted to add nothing of value.
LUL, shill harder. You can read systems and roughly approximate how they'll play if you're experienced enough with them. You can also run simulations, too. It's not like it's some how impossible to proxy a system with just one man. Also, the magic has issues in 4th. Similar to 2nd it takes heavy investment and advancement to use what should come sooner.
How would you even know, nogame? You're dumb enough to admit to being a nogame, it's surprising you can even read at this stage.
Who said I don't play games? I said I read through the system to check it out and found it lacking for my table. Not creatively, but mechanically. It's a fossil and the later editions don't help much in that regard.
No one cares, nogame.
>it takes heavy investment and advancement to use what should come sooner.
Legitimately what do you think should come sooner?
>he "plays" systems by dumping them into excel and simulating encounters
ngmi
>And, complain about 4th's magic and art being shit.
Having only played 4e, I’ll say that yes most of the art is kinda goddamn awful but the magic is rad. It’ll frick you up if you’re not careful, but the various spells are delightful and if you’re a coward it’s easy to build someone that’s essentially never going to fail their channeling and casting tests
He admits to never playing the system and has the gall to comment on it. He is the worst kind of poster. Absolutely useless and so self-centered be thinks his baseless opinion has any merit.
>and this year we'll see a martial sourcebook, a magic sourcebook, and a bestiary, along with other stuff.
The magic sourcebook already came out and is chock full of good shit. It doesn’t include rules for elf magic as advertised, but it’s still a great splat otherwise
Having just done some googling. WoM never had high magic rules advertised, only magic history which it does include.
Here's why I disagree: so far it's been only empire related. Empire jobs, empire adventures, empire enemies...
4e is definitely going outside of the empire moving forward
I’d certainly hope so, WF is a big fricking place and so far we’ve seen a single corner of a single country
C7 has released this art teasing something to do with the lizardmen/Lustria in the future
That is the first depressed skink I have ever seen
That's because lots of non-empire stuff had been done in 2e, and as those books are 90% comparable they're not keen on redoing them. The next sourcebook is the Sea of Claws though, for sailing to the wider world. Soon after that we're getting a Lustria sourcebook. I prefer that each Empire's provinces is getting a lot of love too rather than just a a book or two about the whole place. Each feels pretty different in play so the more love they get the more diverse games get.
>comparable
>compatible*
played a campaign for a year
rarely succeeded on rolls so it felt pretty bad
I play with a group of friends and I have a blast. I know characters are disposable but I'm strangely attached to my road warden. Had him take the Trade (Brewer) and now he brews knockoff Dwarven Ale on our party's salvaged riverboat.
Character's aren't disposable, they're just mortal.
Ah shit, I copy pasted that from a while back. I shoulda read through it again. Although I did also mention it at the end too.
I’ve yet to see a system where the right type of people don’t wind up attached to their PCs, but I swear there’s something a touch more honest in the people that gab about their boys in WF
>What are your experiences and opinion on Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying?
I’ve mixed feelings on the system itself, but it’s got some fun stuff and I’ve had some damn good times with my group.
>Any cool stories to share?
I’ve been playing in a Lothern game trying to deal with Druchii bastards and Tzeetchian cultists, and we found a “recently hatched” black dragon egg in a Druchii infested mansion at one point. Not knowing jack shit about how old the hatchling might be, not knowing how fast they grow, and not really knowing anything about black dragons beyond “fricking dangerous” we started gathering info as to what to expect and where it might be. Eventually tracking it down to a cave on the coast outside the city and still not knowing how big the critter might be, we are pretty much scared shitless of what’s to come and decide to set a trap. Specifically, we fill a wash tub with 5 kegs of bugmans and a bunch of delicious, delicious dead fish then leave it outside the cave’s mouth. Then we hide in various shrubbery and wait.
And wait.
And wait.
And eventually, flying in from the open sea comes the black dragon. At first we think it’s just real far away, but then the poor little thing lands and we realize it’s actually just no bigger than a large house-cat. It takes a few sips of the bugmans, immediately stumbles and begins falling asleep/blacking out, our wizard casts a sleep spell on it (and almost gets got by acid vomit for his troubles), we tie it up, toss it in a wheelbarrow, and rush it to the nearest dragon-authority to make the unfortunate little critter their problem.
I saw a post on leddit the other day where someone was asking what an appropriate reward for returning a black dragon to the high elves. was that your party?
If it was one of us asking I don’t know. All I know is we handed the slightly drunk and thoroughly unconscious hatchling off to a proper dragon who then flew off with it to Caledor to try and figure out how to raise the poor thing and whether or not anything could be done to cure it of the malformities inflicted by the Druchii drugs and magic. We haven’t received any kind of reward yet, but then again we’ve been VERY BUSY and very little time has passed since that series of events
>asking what an appropriate reward for returning a black dragon to the high elves
Clearly the party deserves dragon blowjobs as a reward. Even if there’s as many as five frickers in the crew getting their reward they might manage to get it all done at the same time depending on how big the dragon happens to be
>what an appropriate reward for returning a black dragon to the high elves
As a dwarf I wouldn't take a gift from elves, b-baka... but if the Lady insists so much, then I ask for... one golden strand of hair from her head.
Lecher
Damn fine story. Only thing i really have to share about my character is that he managed to survive a critical fumble with a crossbow during a big fight in our campaign. Drilled his foot to the floor and removing the bolt would have taken all his wounds. Couldn't move and had enemies coming from several directions. Managed to get through the fight by intimidating the enemies and making them run into the meat grinder that our Slayer and Elf Duelist players turned into once they accumulated advantage.
That sounds like one hell of a clutch intimidation, good work.
Were you the traditional human, elf, and dwarf trio by any chance?
I'd say we hit a lot of tropes. We have a Dwarf (Slayer), two elves (Duelist and Wizard), and 2 humans (Warpriest and Road Warden). Most of us random rolled our stats and backgrounds so there's some mush In there. Been playing for close to 2 years now but having a lot of fun.
As for intimidate checks, the Slayer and my character often try to combine rolls on that. There are some other combat Quirks of our party. if the Elf Duelist scores a critical I think he automatically gets Impale with a rapier, and that has actually factored into making humans mobs frick right off too. if we can position correctly and keep mobs off our wizard he can frick shit up with Dart.
That said, we're spending as much time poking around and doing the diplomatic stuff too.
Sounds like a good time
Isn’t the capture of a black dragon a huge fricking deal? I could be wrong, but that’d get you “elf-friend” status and at least a decent heap of possibly magic treasures I’d think
I disagree with the anon who says the system is inextricable given that daniel fox completely ripped off 2e to create his "own" system. You'd be hard pressed to run something modern or sci-fi with it but Warhammer is a pretty derivative setting so you can tweak the careers and races to match almost all moorwiener inspired fantasy worlds.
Pros of 4e are:
No HP bloat
Skillbased and super immersive
a ton of subsystems for trading, potion crafting, carousing etc... make it more interesting than CoC or Mythras/RQ where you really only roll under.
A ton of adventures new and old
probably the most active online community of the 4 editions
New books provide a ton of customization depth and QOL improvements
Cons:
Everything is broken.
Seriously broken.
The development was fricked and the lead designer left right at launch resulting in the core book being full of errors, contradictions, and ambiguities that never got fixed. The former and current devs are easy to talk to and post a lot about what they wanted the game to be like however the current C7 guys and Andy Law(the designer) have different ideas so theres no consensus. Also Andy Law is a very talented dude but doesn't seem to grasp the math behind the system which makes his answers frustrating.
The books have some of the worst editing and layout of any published material post gilgamesh. Rules are all over the place, spelled incorrectly, and missing clauses.
All of those subsystems require tweaking to make them work and are fiddly and difficult to memorize during play.
All in All this results in a game where the GM has to closely read the book cover to cover to find all the rules then spend his own time fixing them.
Also a bunch of cool rules are added randomly in the Splats so you have to find the google doc that outlines what rule is in what book
And that active online community is mainly active on d*scord which makes it very difficult to search for things.
>Everything is broken.
>Seriously broken.
Have you tried Winds of Magic and Up in Arms? Unironically revamps magic and combat to the point it's basically 4.5e. Ideally shoulda been like from the start so pirate the PDFs if you want but use them for sure.
I'm hoping they release an actual 4.5e with group advantage and other revised optional rules as default, and the upcoming pdf that will add 2 skills to all the careers whose first rank has 8 skills included.
That'd be great; C7 is supposed to announce more books within the next few months so maybe we'll get something after SoC.
Yeah I have and they"re pretty great but I was trying to give OP the impression that while there is a really good game to be had, you need to be willing to string together a bunch of disparate Splats, unofficial dev/fan hacks, and personal homebrew. I guess you can say that about most RPGs though
I'm new to the system but this sums up how I feel running 4e so far. I really enjoy it but it's very difficult to get all the rules down. Not only is there a ton of stuff to remember, it's all over the place. I've started working on a rules reference document for all the niche rules that are in awkward places to find during play. It's already several pages long. They really could've used an editor for the core book, and perhaps some sort of online resource that combines stuff from the splats as well. At the moment it feels like actually learning the ins and outs of the system is going to be a long project of trial and error.
All that being said, everything else is great so far. I only really had good hands-on experience with D&D before but I'm having more fun than I ever had running that system, 5e especially. Feels like there's a lot more to chew on and better opportunities for roleplaying. My players are really excited about it as well and one of them even commented that he's worried playing D&D will be boring in the future (we still have an ongoing campaign one of the other players is running).
why did Andy Law leave development so soon after the release of the core rulebook?
It's never been announced, but judging by his personality and the delays surrounding his releases (as well as the speed of releases after he left) he might've just been too slow as a producer.
No ones said, and this is pure speculation but it might have something to do with GW. in the first 3 re-releases of Enemy Within have articles written by the original writing staff describing writing the campaign and the early days of WFRP/WFB. However, in the last 2 these articles are either greatly reduced or eliminated cuz GW demanded the authors make changes that either cut most of the article out or that author was not comfortable making and consequently retracted the article. Also 4e brought back gnomes then immediately squatted them again perhaps indicating further GW meddling.
Other Anons theory that his pace was too slow is probably more accurate, but doesn't perpetuate my anti-gw narrative so I don't care for it.
you might have seen this but theres this index for all the shit not in the core book: tiny
(dot) cc/yhatuz
Only played 1E, will not play any other editions. The game really was and is amazing. It ultimately replaced D&D for my longtime group.
Our GM never prepares, for good or bad. Some nights are a drag, if he's in a slump, some nights are great, if he's doing well. Our best game lasted 12 hours real time and was entirely unprepared. We started as low-level scumbags wandering into a city (a beggar, a scribe and a couple others) and kept such a fast pace throughout the night, we had levelled the characters three or four times, bought and murdered into huge political influence, engineered a military coup, raided the treasury and ultimately ended the night, having killed most major figures in the city and burning it largely to the ground and wandered away with the soldering ruins behind us. It was absolutely legendary.
I would seriously recommend running 2e with 4e combat. Its really fun. All of the goodness of old lorebooks with none of the jank of the new wording, skill leveling, or other memes. And you can still easily work in 4E books because most of the actual mechanics comes down to combat/skill checks, which are largely the same as 2e.
My reasons for keeping 2e? Way better base mechanics, a far more interesting career catalogue (I find it much more interesting to have adventurers switch careers based on what they do in the world), and much better source material, especially old world armory/realms of sorcery/tome of corruption.
I've found using 2e magic with 4e combat is really fun, while 4e combat is really consistent, the swingy magic of 2e provides a huge contrast of mega damage or nil damage as compared to the consistency of a sword strike.
Also, in my personal opinion, while 4e may have more support, 2e has WAY better homebrew, Araby project and the Bretonnia project to name a few.
tl;dr: 2e has a better core rulebook, but 4e combat is absolutely better. You can take the best of both worlds, and still easily be able to run campaigns from both 2e and 4e easily.
You know the 4e career system is virtually identically to 2e's it's just formatted differently, and with no entries and exits you're actually more free to switch based on what you do?
Disagree. Hate the incremental xp distribution and the arbitrary "gold" standards of each ranking. Its pretty clear when they were making this they believed people would be doing a lot of town roleplay and staying in ubersreik for a long time, as also noted by their six short term adventures they made in ubersreik. I don't believe the system works well for those who travel and constantly push through the woods, killing beastman and foiling necromancers, classic WFRP.
I like the commitment players have to make when they go into a career. It as a DM allows you plan around it and offer them unique experiences based on how they progressing, like an assassins guild taking interest or a mercantile squabble. Transferring out with the low requirements at most bronze levels doesn't allow it to progress very far. Especially with their very generous xp distributions if you go by their own system recommendations.
XP distribution isn't really a Career thing, especially given the XP distribution is basically the same in both. 2e recommends 100 xp per session, and that's the average in 4e as well. 4e tends to be a little more generous with its XP as it suggests finishing adventures/ambitions grants extra but 4e also has higher comparative XP costs. I might have misunderstood you there but what you're saying, as I read it, doesn't really line up with either book.
The core book is Reikland focused too, not Ubersreik focused. I'm not really sure what you mean by the travel through the woods thing when the campaign they chose to launch alongside the game is both extensively travel focused and the most classic WFRP gets. The Enemy Within basically IS classic WFRP. As for the other adventures released close to it. If Looks Could Kill doesn't take place in Ubersreik, but the marshes of Reikland. Night of Blood takes place anywhere in the Reikland. Of the 5 in Rough Nights & Hard Days, only one takes place in Ubersreik the rest are all over the place in the Reikland. Of the ones found in Ubersreik Adventures. Mad Men of Gotheim, is in Gotheim. Hearts of Glass, and Bait and Witch do take place in Ubersreik. The Guilty Party only starts in Ubersreik but doesn't take place there. There was also Adventures Afoot in the Reikland which are plot hooks for all over the Reikland. Both Rough Nights &Hard Days, and Ubersreik Adventures have linked adventure set ups that have you traveling a lot.
I figured someone so into the fluff would be into Status too, given how important both the idea of societal status is for careers in any WFRP game are, and the whole "they're the things you do as a job" tends to involve making money. They're only as arbitrary as literally everything else in both games. Everything a career gives is just "what makes sense?"
2e has an odd way of recommending XP which I don't believe they expected people to do year long campaigns. Certainly, playing once a week you could have a veritable grandmaster with 100 XP. I believe its about timescale, and I think 2e lends itself to more drawn out sessions poignanted by combat, where 4e tends to be more drawn into the minutiae.
Yes, I've played many of these, and they tend to largely skip over the travel sections, with only a single ambush inbetween. I may be a fogie, but I do like outdoor survival and getting wrapped into a hamlets dire strike from a goblin tribe harassing them. That sort of outdoor minded adventurer who can't afford the nightly inn is why I'm writing a conversion overhaul for winter mechanics for 2e/4e.
I admit, not all of them were in towns, but the majority of them were. For me, and for what I envision as WFRP, it just isn't that. But my favorite campaign was Renegade Crowns, so I do have a particular dislike of larger established cities. The travelling heroes going from hamlet to hearth felt much more apparent in 2e.
I must sleep. I have some homebrew I already made that I can post if anyone is interested in the morning. A particularly expansive halfling master chef career with many dishes.
But you progress slower overall in 4e as you advance. Much slower. In 2e you end up rocketing ahead as the game goes on.
I haven't found that to be the case, to be quite honest. Mostly because the trappings for the higher level advancements are quite restricted to money. I do play with half as much XP per session (50), but even so, many of my players have wanted to become simple sergeants, and they're not able to, simply because they don't have the capitol. Some people call it gamifying, but I think its quite realistic that one couldn't become a sergeant or a merchant right off the bat, and would have to take up other jobs while they try to consolidate the capitol to get into that career. For example, a mercenary can't get into sergeant, so they take a career in bounty hunter. Gives them more specializations (+10%) in skills, diversifies their stats, and gets them new skills that could allow them to make the money to afford the full mail, or perhaps even someone wearing full mail.
Well that is fundamentally how the math works. It's an inarguable fact of the system that 4e progresses slower the more you progress while 2e doesn't. There are no two ways about it. You don't even have to take into account Trappings for what you're talking about in 4e because all the gold in the world doesn't make up for XP costs. Even if you had everything you need for any given Career progressing vertically is slower than going horizontal in 4e. But Trappings tend to be larger barrier for the things that were advanced Careers in 4e as well, a Sergeant needs you to get a unit of troops and the actual rank of sergeant. So a Solider might totally want to branch out for much the same reasons, and you can't just be a Sergeant off the bat in either game. Hell, in 4e you have to progress through a second Career to get there from a starting PC too ordinarily. Solider "exits" into Sergeant in 4e, but you don't start as a Soldier but a Recruit.
Progressing their current skill set, even in a different Career, is going to be much slower than in 2e though. It's way faster to progress in 2e by bouncing through Careers very similar to your own and not hitting the big ones, than it is to do that in 4e. There is really no argument to be had about this. It's very clear that this is the case. I don't care that you prefer one or the other, but you are wrong about this, and your continued insistence that this is somehow the way the game works is only going to make peopel think a thing that is demonstrably untrue. Whether you or anyone else thinks the way 4e works is good or bad doesn't matter, but for a thread about figuring out if the game is something someone might want to play people need to actually know how the game works.
Progress wide maybe, not tall. Its not an objective difference. There's a fundamental difference between 2e and 4e because of how hard the advanced careers are locked behind trappings. You can have a ton of generic knowledge and language skills, but 2e is designed around that because of specializations, which you're supposed to do until you can go tall and get the skills that are locked behind advanced careers. Its a different form of XP distribution, its not as simple as you believe.
I literally addressed both of those points. It's harder to progress vertically both in XP costs and Trappings in 4e, but trappings don't much matter if you don't have the XP to actually increase stats and skills, and it's only the same horizontally at the start because XP costs scale in 4e. You're just talking out of your ass.
That's just wrong. Everything in 4E is way cheaper, by a lot. You have no barriers to progress horizontally in 4E, for example, soldier. Breastplate is only 10 GC, and gold crowns are far easier to come by in 4e.
Compared to 2e, where according to old world armoury, even a great specialist like a barber surgeon has a poor weekly income of 19 silver on average, it would take them more than half a year to earn a breastplate.
I don't believe you've played 2e enough to really understand the economics and how they feel into the XP dichotomy, so I think this is as far as I go.
+30 to a Skill in 4e is 875xp, in 2e that'll be 300xp plus another 300xp for the Career swaps. +30 to a Characteristic is 1525xp in 4e, in 2e that's 600xp with 200 or 300 more xp in Career swaps. Which makes 2e substantially cheaper as things progress because it just gets more expensive there. The next +10 on a Characteristic costs you 950xp in 4e, but still only 200xp in 2e. A 4e PC is looking at an extra 50xp every three sessions, but that doesn't balance these numbers out.
As for actual money, that income is the lowest end of things and can go to 62 silver at the highest. In 4e the Barber Surgeon equivalent makes 16 silver per Income Endeavour. Unlike in 2e though that income doesn't persist unless you use the Banking Endeavour which means you need at least 2 weeks of downtime between each adventure to bank your Income. As you only get three Endeavours max you're not actually looking at all that much money. Assuming the 2e Barber Surgeon is just working for 6 months then they have the cash to afford the breastplate, but the 4e PC can't afford it at all despite the sensible economy. They can never make that much money because Endeavours are capped at 3 and they're assumed to be spending the currency they do have on actually living. So even this very bad example on your part is harder to do in 4e.
The trappings are, on average, much more intensive than 2e as well. All the third tier careers that are roughly analogous to intro Advanced Careers in 2e have Trappings that are much bigger deals. All the non-Wizard/Scholar Academics require buildings. All the merchant or crafter types require buildings, and most of them need assistants too. A Magnate, which is a step below Noble Lord, requires a fiefdom. It's only the wilderness/peasent types that don't have much going on there but even shit like third tier Villager needs a home and workshop. Things like the Sergeant require troops, half the criminals need gangs, etc.
You don't need trappings to advance careers in 4e.
It's not specified, which you can interpret that way, but a lot of people don't.
If there's no rule saying you need them then you don't.
It's up in the air.
It's not.
It's not specified because they expect you to make that ruling yourself, like a lot of things in 4e. Not that it actually matters very much what the literal rules say in a roleplaying game anyway.
I don't care. It's not a rule.
It ain't. They're not mandatory for the mechanical progression of Careers, but given the narrative-first approach they're pretty much required before your Career really means anything.
Good thing it doesn't matter then
So you can advance pretty fast in 4e with nothing but XP as your limiter. And I suppose a meagre amount of gold if your DM keeps track of how you live.
Yeah, but XP is the main limiter anyway. Slighty quicker advancement to being okay at a thing, muuuuuch slower to getting great.
At the very minimum, you don't need trappings to be at a rank in your career. Regardless of whether you needed them to get there in the first place. It *helps* other people recognise and believe you are at that rank, and you might take social skill penalties while acting to your career, but they're not necessary.
>I figured someone so into the fluff would be into Status too, given how important both the idea of societal status is for careers in any WFRP game are, and the whole "they're the things you do as a job" tends to involve making money
Barely any GM really bothers with it, i'm guilty of this too, when this could really add a bit.
Yeah, its kind of another thing shuffled onto the DMs stack of papers to keep track of, when in WFRP you already have so many threads you're already holding to write or follow a cohesive story.
I can see that. I really like status but it can be an easy thing to handwave or just forget about. I only use it in general terms myself, don't bother with all the details necessarily.
>a far more interesting career catalogue (I find it much more interesting to have adventurers switch careers based on what they do in the world)
I love the catalogue and sheer number of careers but 4e's fits the world more. Most people stay in one career their whole lives, which means a linear progression (with the ability to switch) is more faithful to the real-world feel of the setting. 2e's is more fun but going from Rat-Catcher to Merchant to Soldier to Knight because you need certain skills is more gamey than simulationist.
The big thing I think 4e does better is having really solid straight path progression for things other than Wizards. Being able to just stick to one thing feels really satisfying but that was kinda impossible for a good chunk of stuff in 2e. Lots of characters ended up being broad because of mechanical necessity.
Maybe. I see it more as a person moving up in the world and having to adapt to their situation. Though I have to state, if we're talking 2e, your example isn't very good, as neither merchant nor soldier is a possible career path after rat catcher. I mean, that's why they have specific career exits. Rat Catchers can't go to Merchant period, because its an advanced class. And even if they could they would still need to drum up the capitol required in the merchant trappings of 1000 GC, a significant amount in any edition. 2e careers just feel like they make more sense to me.
>Not just using all 2e content and porting it with the conversion rules
Jokes aside, I kinda think Old World Armory and Realms of Sorcery have worse mechanics than Up in Arms and Winds of Magic and it's only a couple of lore sections they offer that's super helpful in comparison. With WoM's new magic rules fixing the few problems 4e had I can't see the advantage of using 2e's. Have you looking into WoM at all? Not that you should use it just curious.
I personally dislike 4e's magic in general. Its not the sword and sorcery wizards I would expect from warhammer, its more "sit in the back and channel and hope to god no ranged attack breaks your concentration". Slinging spells, using warpstone to get bonuses for the potential corruption, and the gratuitous failures and successes with the homebrew advanced tzeentch chart. Thats not to say its all bad. Some of the spells are loreful and fun, and I've ported them over to 2e for personal use. But as for their mechanics? I don't feel they fit classic WFRP.
As for Up in Arms... I really don't get the hype. It feels like a worse version of Old World Armoury. I mean, I'm absolutely going to use the stuff in there like Common Structures, Pursuit, and some of the new items. And the lore (atleast about myrmidia) in there isn't half bad. Its just not as interesting or expansive as Old World Armoury. Group advantage is a fun concept. But it has 10 more pages than old world armoury with double the font size, and it shows.
The mechanics are more inline with the fluff than 2e's, and the Old World is not an S&S setting
You misunderstand my meaning. Literally sword and sorcery, not the theme. It might be more in line with fluff now, but I can tell you WFRP 2E was certainly more faithful back then than 4e is now. I do like my 6e nostalgia.
Why would you describe a thing as genre if you didn't mean that genre? Either way if something is more in line with the fluff, that's the thing that would be more faithful. The game is about playing in the setting. Being faithful to the fluff is largely the reason it exists at all.
>Some of the spells are loreful and fun, and I've ported them over to 2e for personal use.
Do you have a pdf of your work?
I made it specifically for one of my players. I only ported some of the spells, because I believed some (like bridge of shadows) were kinda bonkers. I'm somewhere in between being unsatisfied with how simple the spell catalogues were in 2e and disliking how odd the 4e spells were. I know they couldn't add many of the battle wizard spells from WFB, but adding spells created in AoS feels odd to me.
Didn't you say this was a conversion of 4e spells to 2e? I still see references to things from 4e in this.
Ah, its my crazy homebrew. I like the combat of 4e actually, so I left some of the things like success levels. I'm sure its servicable if you ignore it, as most of it would just be deleted if you fully converted it to 2e.
Newbie question. Let's say you come across a Daemon with the trait Corruption (Moderate). Do you roll a Cool test upon witnessing it AND an Endurance test on direct contact? Or just one of those? How do you choose? I can think of several other situations where I'm not entirely sure which one to pick. Doing both seems like it's probably not intended unless you want to speedrun the mutation tables.
>Doing both seems like it's probably not intended unless you want to speedrun the mutation tables.
It’s both I believe. Demons are bad fricking news
Well, my players did say they're curious about mutations..
Depends on what you're considering 'contact'. I don't think fighting it counts. If they knock it prone and it falls on one of them or they grapple it, that would be different.
Fighting them in melee should certainly count.
I'm not so convinced, unless you routinely fight like you frick.
Crossing blades should be enough contact to count as receiving some of that corruption.
That corruption starts on sight.
The sight corruption tests the mental strength, it's the corruption that starts on being in physical contact with the mutant/daemon that requires a physical test If I got that right
Yeah; your physical contact with the daemon. Not your weapon's contact.
wfrp 2e was my first ttrpg. In my opinion, there is no need to worry about an extensive universe. for 10 years we played with only the corebook and Bretonnia extention and informations like "this is vampire lands and this is Praag empty city". We made up almost everything and having Old World universe as a frame. It's good thing, I know SotDL have something like this.
4E unfortunately is too much rule heavy for me right now. I'm older and don't have so much time. Testing Warlock! rules recently
When I played I would always make my stats as even as possible, no matter my race. It drove one guy in my group up the wall for some reason.