What's That Under Nuln?

Game Master Aubster

So here's my progression using the rules as exlained by our illustrious DM

I had an extra 45xp from character creation, plus the 5500

The first number is the xp expenditure for that advance.

1st Level

Characterisic Advances
125 WS +5
125 Int +5
125 WP +5
Skill Advances

50 Chanelling (Hysh) +5
50 Dodge +5
50 Inuition +5
50 Lanugage (Magick) +5
50 lore (magick) +5
50 melee (basic) +5
50 melee (polarm) +5
50 perception +5

Talents

100 Aethrryic Attunement
100 Petty Magic
100 Read/Write
100 Second Sight

2nd Level

Characterisic Advances
350 WS +10
275 Ag +10
350 Int +10
350 WP +10

Skill Advances
175 Language( Majik) +10
175 Chanelling ( Hy) +10
175 melee (basic) +10
125 Cool +10
125 Inimidate +10
175 Dodge +10
175 Perception +10
175 Melee (polarm) +10

Talents
Arcane Magic (Hysh)

3rd Level
Characterisic Advances
800 Int +15
475 Initiative +15

Talent

100 Instictive Diction

This puts me at 5475xp spent.

So in order for me to get to 4th level, i'd have to do something like:

Characterisic Advances
800 Ag +15
1050 WS +15
800 WP +15

Skill Advances
650 Chanelling (Hysh) +15
650 Language (Magick) +15
325 Lore (Magick) +15
225 Charm +15
325 Perception +15
225 Language (Battle) +15
225 Lore (warfare) +15
450 Cool +15
325 Dodge +15

Which would put me way over 5500xp.
I got these number from a very useful spreadsheet , but I also double checked that they were correct.

I think the other builds forgot about the scaling of costs .

For example to get my WS +15 xp expenditure to go from 3rd to 4th level
Current WS advances : 15
Cost to go from 16 to 20 advances : 5 x 50 = 250
Cost to go from 21 to 25 advances : 5 x 70 = 350
Cost to go from 26 to 30 advances : 5 x 90 = 450
Which give a total of 1050 to move the WS from 15 advances to 30 advances!

What a complicated mess they've created.

Poor job of explaining by the DM...he claims exhaustion

Any advances you’ve already taken count towards the advances you need. You have 8 skills and 3 characteristics that advanced by 5 to finish Level 1. Those only need 5 more advances to get to 10 total to finish Level 2. And those only then need 5 more advances to get to 15. You double billed yourself

Ah... not really your fault....the rules are very poorly written , and example or two in the rule book would have helped...

Or they could have left well enough alone and not fiddled with the advancement scheme from the 2nd ed.. :)

Whew! Was worried there.

You might want to buy a second copy of Aethyrric Attunement. I reommended tge same thing to Markus in the other campaign. It would go a long way toward helping you channel up to the higher casting numbers quickly (see the Test part of the talent).

If that recommendation doesn't make sense, let me know & I can lay out my thinking.

Wizard's Apprentice level talents are soooo good.

Also, I'm not sure that the progression you put up gives you any spells beyond WP bonus Petty Magicks.

You might want to buy a second copy of Aethyrric Attunement. I reommended tge same thing to Markus in the other campaign. It would go a long way toward helping you channel up to the higher casting numbers quickly (see the Test part of the talent).

If that recommendation doesn't make sense, let me know & I can lay out my thinking.

Wizard's Apprentice level talents are soooo good.

Also, I'm not sure that the progression you put up gives you any spells beyond WP bonus Petty Magicks.

I see that Aethyric Attunement would give you a +1 SL on channeling but I was wondering how useful channeling is in combat. If I was a wizard I would cast dart several times to build up advantage and then use that advantage bonus to cast a high CN spell. Otherwise, you've got your wizard not doing anything for a couple of rounds but channeling. But, I've never played a wizard or seen a game with a wizard that could channel so maybe my approach doesn't make sense.

I agree about the spells. Once you take the talent Arcane Magic which was at 2nd level you can now use XP to learn spells. Check page 133 of the manual. If I understand it correctly you can learn any arcane spell or the 8 lore spells for which type of arcane magic you choose for 100 XP per spell up to your intelligence bonus (so 4 or 5 spells probably)...I think that's fairly harsh considering you have to pay XP to get the talent to learn the spells but then you don't learn them without spending XP.

Let me know when you've got this character done and we can make sure that you get enough spells to make it fun to play

I guess I was assuming that Channel tests were supposed to be usable in combat, despite the difficulties. That would be the idea for taking two ranks of Aethyrric Attunement though. You are a lot more likely to scale up quickly if you have two bonus SL on any success.

You could also try to get someone to shove a lot of advantage your way via Leadership I suppose.

Dirk Liestag wrote:

You might want to buy a second copy of Aethyrric Attunement. I reommended tge same thing to Markus in the other campaign. It would go a long way toward helping you channel up to the higher casting numbers quickly (see the Test part of the talent).

If that recommendation doesn't make sense, let me know & I can lay out my thinking.

Wizard's Apprentice level talents are soooo good.

Also, I'm not sure that the progression you put up gives you any spells beyond WP bonus Petty Magicks.

I see that Aethyric Attunement would give you a +1 SL on channeling but I was wondering how useful channeling is in combat. If I was a wizard I would cast dart several times to build up advantage and then use that advantage bonus to cast a high CN spell. Otherwise, you've got your wizard not doing anything for a couple of rounds but channeling. But, I've never played a wizard or seen a game with a wizard that could channel so maybe my approach doesn't make sense.

I agree about the spells. Once you take the talent Arcane Magic which was at 2nd level you can now use XP to learn spells. Check page 133 of the manual. If I understand it correctly you can learn any arcane spell or the 8 lore spells for which type of arcane magic you choose for 100 XP per spell up to your intelligence bonus (so 4 or 5 spells probably)...I think that's fairly harsh considering you have to pay XP to get the talent to learn the spells but then you don't learn them without spending XP.

Let me know when you've got this character done and we can make sure that you get enough spells to make it fun to play

Yeah , just saw that about the xp for spells...but also realized I'd forgotten about my bonus character creation advances... still workin on it!

Ditto - still chipping away at my Coachman. Echoing Spaz - couple of working examples in the rulebook would have been ideal - constantly jumping back and forth between advance paras and skills/talents/career has done my head in lol (and this from someone who played MERP and Rolemaster for years!)

Hopefully have my wee coachie done soon!

Yeah...i had to go lie down for a bit after banging my head against some of the wording...

Aubster, I may not have time to get a profile up before tonight...the little ones are calling for dinner etc...

Yeah...i had to go lie down for a bit after banging my head against some of the wording...

Aubster, I may not have time to get a profile up before tonight...the little ones are calling for dinner etc...

No worries, seriously. We can always muddle through. And tonight, I'll only be setting the scene and putting you all in one place so you can interact. That's probably my favorite part. You all are really good writers as is clear from the Ubersreik campaign. For now, that's more important that having a profile.

I haven't gotten my head around a real background for Dirk, but I do have a few ideas that have been bouncing around for a while.

First, does Aubster have any preference for what village Dirk is an elder of? It probably isn't important but I thought I should check to be sure.

Dirk was hired as a young man to be a hireling for some adventurers, carrying their gear. It was risky, but the money was better than anything he would have ever made back home. After a scrape or two, things went bad and most of them died. But Dirk survived.

Later, as his situation grew desperate, Dirk took another similar job with a Witch Hunter. The same basic pattern repeated: the Witch Hunter was killed off by, ironically, a witch. But Dirk survived.

Dirk thought things would be different on the next time around. This was a scholarly research expedition. Well-funded and large, Dirk hired on to perform manual labor. The camp caught a nasty disease and most everyone died. But Dirk survived.

It almost wasn't a surprise when the noble that hired him next died with an arrow through his neck, shot by some greenskin. Dirk had seen more death & survived more attacks than anyone he knew or had even heard of. After yet another job fell through, Dirk decided to give adventuring a try of his own.

I will say that I really enjoy the rules of 4e so far. Skill checks are doable for anybody, leveling feels like it comes at a natural pace (unlike D&D and Pathfinder where there are huge power spikes) and combat is brutally dangerous. But no so much so that players feel the need to avoid it at all costs. It’s a great system and I wish more people played it.

But...the rulebook reads as if though it was made by 2e players who decided to try and fix all of the problems of the previous condition, and forgot that new players don’t come with all of their knowledge and ideas. The learning curve is pretty hard, which is too bad, as the rules themselves are pretty intuitive.

I haven't gotten my head around a real background for Dirk, but I do have a few ideas that have been bouncing around for a while.

First, does Aubster have any preference for what village Dirk is an elder of? It probably isn't important but I thought I should check to be sure.

Dirk was hired as a young man to be a hireling for some adventurers, carrying their gear. It was risky, but the money was better than anything he would have ever made back home. After a scrape or two, things went bad and most of them died. But Dirk survived.

Later, as his situation grew desperate, Dirk took another similar job with a Witch Hunter. The same basic pattern repeated: the Witch Hunter was killed off by, ironically, a witch. But Dirk survived.

Dirk thought things would be different on the next time around. This was a scholarly research expedition. Well-funded and large, Dirk hired on to perform manual labor. The camp caught a nasty disease and most everyone died. But Dirk survived.

It almost wasn't a surprise when the noble that hired him next died with an arrow through his neck, shot by some greenskin. Dirk had seen more death & survived more attacks than anyone he knew or had even heard of. After yet another job fell through, Dirk decided to give adventuring a try of his own.

The rest of the party are going to be thrilled to read this ;)

Any village is fine as long as it's close enough to Nuln that your name would have been known by at least some of the town officials.

I will say that I really enjoy the rules of 4e so far. Skill checks are doable for anybody, leveling feels like it comes at a natural pace (unlike D&D and Pathfinder where there are huge power spikes) and combat is brutally dangerous. But no so much so that players feel the need to avoid it at all costs. It’s a great system and I wish more people played it.

But...the rulebook reads as if though it was made by 2e players who decided to try and fix all of the problems of the previous condition, and forgot that new players don’t come with all of their knowledge and ideas. The learning curve is pretty hard, which is too bad, as the rules themselves are pretty intuitive.

I love the setting and think that have some really cool ideas (I like corruption leading to mutation) in the rules but the organization is so bad. I'm constantly flipping between sections in combats to be able to interpret what's happening. I guess it's good in Ubersreik that all the big combats have finished almost immediately as you all critical hit my monster (not that I'm bitter).

this will be my wizard's alias....an old character from a short lived 2nd ed game

This is Black Dow's WIP wee Coach Meister :)

Gameplay tab is open!

Cool - please note I'm in UK (and about to get some shut eye) - will finish up Jarvey and get some posting done on the morrow.

Cool - please note I'm in UK (and about to get some shut eye) - will finish up Jarvey and get some posting done on the morrow.

Brilliant!

Love the profile for Jarvey. Was it made using a generator or did you type it out?

Dirk Liestag wrote:

I haven't gotten my head around a real background for Dirk, but I do have a few ideas that have been bouncing around for a while.

First, does Aubster have any preference for what village Dirk is an elder of? It probably isn't important but I thought I should check to be sure.

Dirk was hired as a young man to be a hireling for some adventurers, carrying their gear. It was risky, but the money was better than anything he would have ever made back home. After a scrape or two, things went bad and most of them died. But Dirk survived.

Later, as his situation grew desperate, Dirk took another similar job with a Witch Hunter. The same basic pattern repeated: the Witch Hunter was killed off by, ironically, a witch. But Dirk survived.

Dirk thought things would be different on the next time around. This was a scholarly research expedition. Well-funded and large, Dirk hired on to perform manual labor. The camp caught a nasty disease and most everyone died. But Dirk survived.

It almost wasn't a surprise when the noble that hired him next died with an arrow through his neck, shot by some greenskin. Dirk had seen more death & survived more attacks than anyone he knew or had even heard of. After yet another job fell through, Dirk decided to give adventuring a try of his own.

The rest of the party are going to be thrilled to read this ;)

Any village is fine as long as it's close enough to Nuln that your name would have been known by at least some of the town officials.

I had intended that the others dying while he survived was mostly a way of discovering that he was tough and could do adventuring, not that he was some kind of black sheep. But let's go with it. The pattern has continued in some form or another since Dirk became an adventurer. Not all of his crews have met grisly ends. If one was to look at the numbers, most haven't. But when things do go wrong, Dirk has always been able to walk away when so many others haven't. Dirk insists that he just knows how to survive, but the reputation persists.

When not filling his role as one of the elders of Medrev's Hollow, Dirk works as a sword for hire. His proven competence in a scrap helps to balance out his reputation for getting everyone else killed: at least enough to keep the jobs coming.

Some people are just that desperate.

Love the profile for Jarvey. Was it made using a generator or did you type it out?

Typed out my friend - hence why my characters take so damn long to generate lol.

Looking good everyone.

It looks like the party consists of:

Adela von Suderburg - Warrior Priest - Has posted intro in Gameplay thread

Jarvey Glintloque - Coachman - Has posted intro in Gameplay thread

Hanna Achenbach - Wizard

Dirk Liestag - Village Elder

Ubaldo Hartig - Bailiff

This seems like a really nicely balanced party :)

The group even has multiple healers (either by Skill or by Magic).

And for WFRP that is saying a lot!

Although Dirk has some glaring weak spots (Cool mostly), I'm impressed with how well Villager came out for him.

Ubaldo is about done here, though I'm now debating whether I should stick with the career trappings or buy a new set.

As for Ubaldo, I'm thinging that he only fairly recently got appointed as a magistrate, albeit quite a young one and from peasant stock at that. He is fair-minded to a fault and intensely stubborn about enforcing the law in a just and even-handed manner.

Quite the bloodhound with lots of social skills and talents.

Decent in melee if not an amazing warrior. No ranged ability to speak of.

Quite resistant to fear and intimidation.

Very cool. As for him being decent in combat, I’d imagine that it is a requirement as a tax collector

Aye. I tried to make his skillset make sense for his job. Ignored the criminal options in the bailiff tree apart from an advance in bribery. He knows what it *is*, after all.

Heh. You know, WFRP is one of the few systems where you can have a party of badass tax collectors.

“Alright, we haven’t received taxes from Castle Drakenhof...”

The fearsome warcry of:

"It's collecting time!"

:D

@Aubster/All: Jarvey is well bedded into his Level 3, however I've spent more time buying up SL in talents rather than straight advancement up to Level 4. Am happy enough where I am (have spent 5125XP to date) but just want to check I'm not "underpowered" for what the game will hold?

However if you think my halfling is selling himself short (badum tish :) then I'll add to him or reconfigure the crunch...

Just trappings and fluff to round out and he'll be done.

Was also mulling having Tardy as a Henchman - again thoughts on that would be appreciated.

Honestly, I think Jarvey should be fine for combat. Ubaldo is even less combat-focused. ;)

I like the idea of Tardy as a henchman for additional banter. :D

So far as I'm aware, the tier of your career isn't much of a power issue. As long as the characteristics are in the right places, a tier 2 or 3 character can probably be as good or better than many tier 4 characters. They'll have spent less xp on some of the less combat-worthy skills, after all.

The big thing that going up a tier gets you in a raw power sense is access to new characteristics, skills and talents. If I was trying to optimize for combat, I probably wouldn't have bothered going up to Village Elder...it isn't offering me much that's helpful.

Status is nice, though, and I don't think it's safe to assume that we should all be building combat monsters. Despite my satisfaction with Villager, it really isn't one of those careers.

@Aubster/All: Jarvey is well bedded into his Level 3, however I've spent more time buying up SL in talents rather than straight advancement up to Level 4. Am happy enough where I am (have spent 5125XP to date) but just want to check I'm not "underpowered" for what the game will hold?

However if you think my halfling is selling himself short (badum tish :) then I'll add to him or reconfigure the crunch...

Just trappings and fluff to round out and he'll be done.

Was also mulling having Tardy as a Henchman - again thoughts on that would be appreciated.

I think I'd recommend using your gold on a couple of repeating pistols. Jarvey could be incredibly effective. I think with a repeater pistol you would do 8 + 1 + 3 + SL damage on each shot and would ignore all non-metal armor. A few shots could drop almost any enemy. The only downside is a failed test would have a good chance of a fumble. "Oops, sorry I shot you in the back Dirk, I was aiming for the Chaos Warrior"

If you get stuck in Melee, Dodge like crazy. Halflings being small-sized makes parrying a iffy proposition.

And, sure Tardy can be a Henchman. Kind of mean to send your mentor crawling through sewers, though ;) Of course, that means you need to do another Character sheet with 1/2 the XP

Cheers - Aubster. Duly noted on the pistols (also make more sense for a halfling than dragging an oversized blunderbuss around).

Will leave Tardy topside to hold the coach.

Dirk Trappings:

2 Hand Weapons, Dagger, Shield, Spear (weapons subtotal: 4 gc, 31/-)
Lightweight Plate Breastplate, Lightweight Plate Bracers, Lightweight Plate Leggings, Leather Skullcap (armor subtotal: 28 gc, 8/-)
Backpack, Waterskin (container subtotal: 5/18)
Boots, Cloak, Clothing (clothing subtotal: 21/-)
3 days Rations (food & drink subtotal: 6/-)
Crowbar, Hammer, Knife, Manalces (tools & kits subtotal: 31/6)
Trade Tools (Smith) (trade tools subtotal: 3 gc)
Faxtoryll, 4 Healing Draught, 2 Healing Poultice, 2 Salworth, 2 Vitality Draught (herbs and draughts subtotal: 97/-)
10 Bandages, Bedroll, Blanket, Chalk, Cutlery, 5 Lamp Oil, Rope (10 yards), Storm Lantern (miscellaneous trappings subtotal: 1 gc, 27/68)

Money Spent: 36 gc, 226/92 or 47 gc, 13/8)

Encumbrance:
2 Hand Weapons, Shield, Spear (5 encumbrance)
Lightweight Plate Breastplate, Lightweight Plate Bracers, Lightweight Plate Leggings (3 encumbrance when worn)
Backpack & Waterskin (2 encumbrance)
Crowbar (1 encumbrance)
Trade Tools (Smith) (1 encumbrance)
Bedroll, Rope (10 yards), Storm Lantern (3 encumbrance)

Total Encumbrance: 15
Dirk Carry Limit: 11
Backpack Carry Limit: 4

I still have about half of Dirk's money allocation remaining. Should I buy more qualities on his gear? Currently, I'm using three Qualities to make his armor lighter, dervied from his Trade (Smith) ranks as per the Making the Rounds Discussion thread.

Some changes to Dirk's trappings:

Additional cost: 31 gc
Sale of spear: 15/-
Total expenditure: 77-78 gc. I don't feel like doing the precise math right now.

New encumbrance:
2 Hand Weapons, Shield (3 encumbrance)
Lightweight Plate Breastplate, Lightweight Plate Bracers, Lightweight Plate Leggings, Lightweight Mail Coat, Lightweight Mail Chausses (5 encumbrance when worn)
Backpack & Waterskin (2 encumbrance)
Crowbar (1 encumbrance)
Bedroll, Rope (10 yards), Storm Lantern (3 encumbrance)

Total Encumbrance: 14
Dirk Carry Limit: 11
Backpack Carry Limit: 4

Ubaldo's equipment with gold used to pick up the same trappings and some extras.

I guessed at a price for a small box at 1 GC and that the price of a signet ring would do for a seal of office.

He will not be bringing all of this into the sewers, just to note.

Cloak 10/– 1
Clothing 6/– 1
Dagger 3GC 4/0 0 Enc Durable Practical
Pouch 4d 0 carries 1
Sling Bag containing Rations (1 day) Sling Bag 1/– 1 2
Hand weapon 4GC 0 Enc Lightweight Practical
small lock box 1GC ?
Horse with Saddle and Tack 15GC + 6GC
Breastplate 18/– 2
Library (Law)
Quality Robes 2GC 1
Seal of Office (using price of Signet Ring) 5GC

Shield 8 GC 0 Enc Lightweight Practical
Leather Skullcap 8/– 0
Scroll Case 16/– 0 0
Book, Law 15GC 1
Trade Tools 3GC 1
Saddlebags 18/– 4 Carries 8

5 x Bandages 20d
2 x Chalk 20d

5 x Faxtoryll 75/–
5 x Healing Draught 50/–
5 x Healing Poultice 60/–
5 x Salwort 60/–
5 x Vitality Draught 90/–

GC 3+4+1+15+6+2+5+8+15+3

62

SC 10+6+1+18+8+18+75+50+60+60+90

396

BR 4+20+20

44

SPENT
79 GC

19/_

4d

Ugh. These high-level characters are complicated.

In the gameplay thread, I realized that I had missed a few racial talents (Doomed and Savvy/Suave) as well as all of Dirk's Reiklander advances. So now I'll add them in. I'm not wanting to recalculate his whole build, but there is a little work that will go into this:

Talent Choice: Savvy

5-advance Skill Choices:
* Cool - this one helps paper over one of Dirk's biggest weaknesses just a bit, so it's a big deal
* Melee (Basic) - this means that Dirk basically didn't have to buy his first 5 advances in Melee (Basic) at Villager tier, so +50 xp
* Gossip - Dirk purchased his 6-10 advances at Villager, but with this change he would have had to, so +75 xp

3-advance Skill Choices:
* Haggle - similar to Gossip. Dirk bought his 6-8 advances and wouldn't have had to. +45 xp
* Animal Care - his Animal Care skill will just be 3 higher
* Lore (Reikland) - he didn't have this skill before, so no special change

Dirk also never spent his +70 xp for keeping his race and career rolls.

XP remaining to spend:
* +50 sourced from Melee (Basic)
* +75 sourced from Gossip
* +45 sourced from Haggle
* +70 sourced from creation xp
Total: 240 xp left to spend

XP Expenses:
* advances 19 & 20 of Endurance - 60 xp
* advances 16-20 of Intimidate - 150 xp
* advance 16 of Athletics - 30 xp

I'll update the character sheet.