Anyone interested in doing a warhammer fantasy game?
Skulls for Khorne's throne!
Thinking id flex my brain muscle and utilize the WFRPG 4th ed rulebook
Might be interested, and at a minimum rolling up a character is fun.
* Do you have a plan for what to run? Published adventure/homebrew?
* Should we roll a character or wait for now?
I made a character for WFRPG but never had a chance to play it. Would love to give it a try again.
I'd go check where I can find the book. Does that edition have many supplements?
The number of supplements is small, and it is arguable whether they add a whole lot. I'd think the Core book should be fine. You can find it on the Cubicle7 or search on the various vendors like DriveThruRPG.
I'm not aware of a wiki rule site out there.
Having a light read over it.
I am all up in this business!
Would defo be interested.
Want us to start rolling and pitching?
Human
Artisan
First thoughts Udo Steinspalter...
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It's been a while and I've seen the OP active in some other threads. I don't think they're coming back, though I'd like to be proven wrong there.
I'm not sure that I can take on another game right now, but if people are interested I can run them through a sample character recruitment at least.
We'll do this in stages to help those without any books. So, first up is Species. Available options are Human, Halfling, Dwarf, High Elf and Wood Elf. Human has a few cultures but for this purpose we'll just have it be equivalent to Reiklander since that's what the Core book does.
A note on this: the WFRP species do not even remotely look balanced. Statwise, the two elves species just tromp everyone. Dwarves do to a lesser extent. It's easy to miss the important role that Fate and Resilience play in the game though. Humans and Halflings are way better in that category. I'm not sure it works out to anything like balance, but humans & halflings are less at the mercy of the dice during play.
So for those that haven't done so yet, roll d100 for Species. If you don't like the result you get, you do have the option of ignoring the roll and picking whatever you want. If you do keep the rolled result you get some bonus xp. (There are two more opportunities to keep bonus xp later on in a similar fashion. The xp amounts are almost nothing in the long run, but there's a lot to be gained by going with the dice I think)
Since this is currently all for fun, I'll go first:
Human (Reiklander)
I'll stick with the Human I rolled above, also a Reiklander :)
ahhh crap.
hate to say this, but at this time i cannot start up this game. If i had more time at the moment, id be so down for learning the 4th edition rules.
No worries chief - know how it is. Should you change your mind down the line keep me in mind :)
You mean we're creating characters just for the sake of it?
My favourite hobby!
Let me roll and then pick an elf... because I like me some nice needle shooting elf.
So, Elf :D
Jereru, you'll need to pick between High Elf and Wood Elf. They're kin but pretty distantly. City elf vs forest elf is inexact but should suffice well enough. Neither race comes from anywhere nearby. If archery is your thing, they are both very down with archery.
There's no need to declare it until we move on to the next step, but we will need a decision by the time you roll for that.
So far we have:
Black Dow (Human - 25 xp)
Malinor (Human - 25 xp)
Jereru (Schrodinger's Elf - 0 xp)
More can feel free to jump in. Next up for rolling is Class/Career!
The process this time is:
1. Roll a d100 for your career. Each Species has its own career table and there are a lot of careers, so there isn't a way for me to tell you what the numbers will mean in advance.
2. If you like your career, great! You get 50 xp. If not...
3. Roll a d100 twice more to get two more careers to pick from. If you can select a career with those extra options, you get 25 xp.
4. If you still don't have anything satisfactory (or if you really want to be a specific career), you can pick which one you want! No xp though.
It's OK for everyone without the books to roll three times right off now. I'll start by telling you what your first career is before you make a decision. If anyone makes it to step 4 and doesn't have the books, it still won't be practical to list all the careers. Tell me what you are looking for and I'll try to pick one that is similar-ish.
After playing the game a while, I highly recommend thinking hard about your first career roll before choosing to move further down career selection process. This isn't because of the xp reward. Rather, it's because all of the careers have something to like about them. It generally won't take most characters too long to get out of their first career if you really want to do something else, but sticking with a random option that you didn't think would be great can be great for spurring creativity.
Also, I messed up on the Species xp award. It's 20 xp instead of 25 xp. Oops.
- which for a Human (Reiklander) is a Soldier! I've seen some fun things from soldiers, so I'll stick with that.
We have so far:
Darkest Doomed (Human Soldier - 70 xp)
Black Dow (Human - 20 xp)
Malinor (Human - 20 xp)
Jereru (Schrodinger's Elf - 0 xp)
Again I'll run with what I rolled above:
As a lucky participant in the game DD mentioned I can confirm his Peasant was indeed a beast of a bumpkin :)
My gestating idea is Udo Steinspalter a layman stonemason by trade...
Alright, so Wood Elf.
Let's see about the first career roll:
And, in case it's needed:
With a bit of luck some of them will be slightly related to launch pointy sticks with a bow.
Human 20xp
Protagonist 50xp
"A strong-arm for hire, you bully, fight, and maybe even kill for coin."
Arrange for 25xp and gain +5 advances to braggart attributes (WS/T/Ag)
WS (44+1=45) BS (41) Str (50) T (44+1=45) I (41) Ag (42+3=45) Dex (37) Int (32) WP (41) Fel (38+5)
Skills
Select 3 skills listed for your species and gain 5 advances in each
* Charm, Cool, Ranged (Bow)
Select 3 other skills listed for your species and gain 3 advances in
each.
* Animal Care, Gossip, Haggle
Talents
Doomed, Suave (+5 Fel), Animal Affinity, Perfect Pitch, Hardy
Career Skills and Talents:
Look at the page describing your class/career (Chapter 3 in the
rulebook). From the first Tier:
▪ Allocate 40 advances between the 8 skills listed, with a
maximum of 10 advances in any one skill.
* x10 Athletics, x10 Melee Basic, x10 Dodge, x10 Endurance
▪ Choose a single talent.
* Warrior Born (+5 WS)
Trappings
* Trappings: Clothing with hood, Sword, Dagger, Pouch, Knuckledusters, Leather Jack
XP
* 95 (character creation)
* x3 Toughness (75xp)
* 20xp left over
Final Stats
WS (50 ->60 with melee basic) BS (41) Str (50) T (48) I (41) Ag (45) Dex (37) Int (32) WP (41) Fel (43) Wounds (21) Fate (4) Resilience (4) Movement (4)
Human Female Protagonist. Already see her as being someone, who with animal affinity, was a shepherdess with her husband. Lost her children to plague, lost her husband to bandits, lost the flock to the State due to past-due taxes. Embittered by these losses, she has become a protagonist. Using her strength and grit to take what she needs.
@Jereru:
57 for Wood Elf is a Mystic (For High Elf it would be Bounty Hunter :)
24 for a Wood Elf is Envoy (for High Elf it is a Merchant)
55 for a Wood Elf is also Mystic (for a High Elf it is Scout)
Scout looks most promising but I'll leave DD to decipher above far more frankly!
Realized stats counted wrong. Fixed in profile :p
@Jereru:
57 for Wood Elf is a Mystic (For High Elf it would be Bounty Hunter :)
24 for a Wood Elf is Envoy (for High Elf it is a Merchant)
55 for a Wood Elf is also Mystic (for a High Elf it is Scout)
Scout looks most promising but I'll leave DD to decipher above far more frankly!
Black Dow, it isn't a problem that you told them their Career result before I did (I'm not really a GM for this), but telling them all three Career results denies them the clean opportunity to decide whether to stay at Mystic for 50 xp or not. At least spoiler the extra results.
It isn't very damaging here since this is a "for fun" character build session, but be careful about where decision points are. Even if these characters won't really be kept around, we should try to model the process correctly.
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Jereru: Black Dow is right that none of the rolled Careers has much to do with shooting a bow. A few things to consider at least for a moment before you jump off to choosing a career that does though:
1. Wood elves have an opportunity to select a small amount of bow skill just for being a wood elf. Their high starting ballistic skill means you can be pretty solid at it without any career help, early on.
2. Bows are crazily expensive to characters starting the game. The cheapest one is 3g, which is a lot to a crazy amount of money for starting characters. So not having a bow-centric class isn't necessarily debilitating to a bow-centric career.
3. Completing the first tier of Mystic or Envoy, then switching to a bow-centric career is very viable. It doesn't take too long to complete your character creation career.
4. Choosing a bow career is also just fine of course. If that's what you want to do, I'd choose Hunter, Outlaw, Scout or Soldier.
I've been thinking over how to continue on with this character build session when some people don't have books and decided I'm going to have to give a lot of basic system information before people can understand their careers properly. I'm sure I will miss something, but we'll start here:
Things you get from Careers
Characteristics: each starting career allows access to three Characteristics. Most of these should be familiar to people but I'll make notes where they might trip up expectations
Weapon Skill - skill in fighting, separated from strength below
Ballistic Skill - skill in shooting
Strength
Toughness
Initiative - goes toward combat initiative but also some skills to notice things
Agility
Dexterity - precision work, mostly with your hands
Intelligence
Willpower
Fellowship - social skills
Skills: each starting Career allows access to eight skills. Most of the skills doe exactly what you'd think they would.
Talents: each Career allows access to four Talents. Similar to feats in Pathfinder, with a wide range of effects. The ability to cast spells comes from talents, for instance.
Status: expressed in your Status tier (Brass, Silver or Gold) and a Status number within that tier. So a Villager is Brass 2 at first while a Noble is Gold 1.
Class: each career is most commonly referred to just by the Career name, but formally, a Career is the higher-order designation. The Soldier Career I rolled is in the Warrior Class for instance, while Mystics are in the Peasant class. Your class is important but not all-determinative for your starting gear (trappings) and switching to a Career within your Class is usually cheaper than switching to a Career outside your Class.
Further Tiers: what I described above is what Tier 1 for each Career gives. It is possible to advance to higher tiers in each career, which unlocks access to more Characteristics & Skills as well as a different set of Talents and in almost all cases gives a boost in Status. Some careers change markedly in focus as they go up in Tier. One easy example is a Miner. They start as just another grunt in the mines but eventually can become a Foreman which opens up some social options they didn't have early on.
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What I mean above by "access":
All character advancement is purchased with xp in the game and there is no formal level system. Access for Characteristics and Skills just means that they are cheaper. If you purchase advances in a Characteristic or Skill that you do not currently have access to, it costs double the normal amount of xp for each advance. But for Characteristics and Skills you can buy anything you want as high as you want, assuming you have enough xp to pay for it.
Mostly people just don't pay for things they don't have access to, but for Characteristics & Skills, you can.
Talents are different. You have to have access to purchase a Talent. If it isn't in your current Tier of your current Career, you can't buy it. There is one exception to this in the Downtime system, but it's crazily expensive and risky in terms of both money and experience.
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If people are considering a Career more closely, I can give more detail on what it is. Probably, I'll send a PM so I don't leave quite as much book information all over the thread.
Malinor: 15 is a Burgher (Agitator). If it helps, the first tier of the Career is called Phampleteer. Some neat features of the early career are Read/Write access, a bunch of social skills & political knowledge. They also have access to the Blather talent, which can stun people while you spout nonsense at them.
If it wasn't obvious before, quite a few of the Careers are not very combat-centric. Whether they "suck" is up to you. Every Career seems to be good at being what it tries to be.
At this point, I've noticed one thing:
The book I found online was not a 4th edition rulebook :P
In any case, and with honesty on the table, I would have probably rolled again after getting Mystic the first time. Only to find out I'm picking Mystic anyway, only with less xp and knwoing I could have been a Scout had I picked High Elf instead. The irony...
Luckily, this is jus a "for fun".
@DD: Apologies chief, wasn't meant to undermine the process :) Will defer to your goodself going forward.
Does Burgher lead to any Priest or Mage careers?
The short answer is no, not especially. The longer answer is that anything can. Nothing stops any character from moving into one of the magical classes like Wizard when they change careers.
The reasons why Burgher (Agitator) is not helpful:
* none of the other Careers in the Burgher Class are at all magical. So switching to a magical Career would involve changing Class and would be slightly more expensive.
* if we want to look at a transition from, say, Agitator to Wizard specifically, the two Careers don't have a whole lot of overlap. Finishing a run through Tier 1 Agitator wouldn't prepare you for a future Wizard calling very well.
The reasons why Burgher (Agitator) might be nice anyway:
* the lack of overlap can be a good thing, too. When you did settle into Wizard with all of its nicknacks, you would have a remaining Agitator-type skillset that could help in ways that other Wizards might lack.
* Agitator does have access to Intelligence and Read/Write, both of which are quite nice for a budding Wizard.
The analysis would probably be pretty close for Agitator into any non-Wizard spellcasting class.
I did change my notation when I started talking about your rolled career, by the way, since I started talking to people about Class at the same time. If it makes things any easier for you, I'd normally just say Agitator.
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One brief note is probably worth mentioning here. Spellcasting in WFRP 4e is risky. On a good day. It can also be crazily powerful. One time a Wizard in my party got a critical success on his Bolt & wrecked the enemy party. That was great, but it also caused a Miscast and some dude miles away from us died from it.
Very few of the Careers can do anything with spellcasting. It's a rare, novel, dangerous thing in the setting.
I think everyone participating has their Career now. The next step is Attributes.
First, here are the (very unfair looking) attribute modifiers for each race we have.
Humans: +20 on everything
Elves (either kind):
Weapon Skill +30
Ballistic Skill +30
Strength +20
Toughness +20
Initiative +40
Agility +30
Dexterity +30
Intelligence +30
Willpower +30
Fellowship +20
The process:
1. Roll 2d10 for each attribute, in the order listed above. Add your racial modifier. If you keep everything as-is, you get +50 xp.
2. You can rearrange the rolled stats from before and still claim +25 xp.
3. You can either roll again and rearrange stats or rearrange 100 'rolled' points among the attributes as desired, with no attribute under 4 or over 18 before racial modifiers. No xp.
The rolls are just slightly meh in total (107 rolled points is subaverage but not much) but it'd be a bit risky to roll again. I'll keep the rolls but shuffle things around: +25 xp
Weapon Skill 34
Ballistic Skill 34
Strength 37
Toughness 32
Initiative 31
Agility 30
Dexterity 23
Intelligence 28
Willpower 31
Fellowship 27
Now that I have my starting attributes, I can also calculate my Wounds. A characteristic bonus is just the tens digit of that characteristic. So the formula for all of the characters we're generating is:
Strength Bonus (3 based on 37) + Toughness Bonus (3 based on 32) *2 + Willpower Bonus (3 based on 31) = 3 + 3*2 + 3 = 12
So far we have:
Darkest Doomed (Human Soldier - 95 xp)
Black Dow (Human Artisan - 70 xp)
Malinor (Human Agitator - 70 xp)
Jereru (Wood Elf Mystic - 25 xp)
Gisela Schafer (Human Protagonist - 95 xp)
Alright, time to keep on cripplingdeveloping the character:
I'll probably rearrange, since BS got the second worse roll (as predicted). Before that, though, I have some questions:
-What's the difference between Agility and Dexterity?
-If the Mystic somehow starts with some spellcasting, which attribute would govern it? Intelligence? Willpower?
Crux seem fine enough for the "everyman" hero I'm shooting for? Willpower is very low, which I'm assuming will mean he'll blanch at most horrors? Could do a shuffle with Dex, Agility, WP & Int... Don't mind him being dull of mind if his chisel is sharp lol.
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Jereru & Malinor - you both have PM for more information about your careers
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Jereru: Agility is related to skills like Athletics, Dodge, Drive & Stealth - most of the uses of Pathfinder-style Dexterity
Dexterity is related to things like Trade & Play (as in musical instruments) - detailed work with your hands
If it helps, Dwarves have terrible Agility but great Dexterity.
Mystics get spellcasting very late in their career, but when they do they use Language (Magick) to cast, which is an Intelligence skill. They might also use Channeling even later, which uses Willpower.
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Black Dow: Willpower tests go toward things like Fear & Corruption using the Cool skill. The Cool skill is used to resist some social skills. Channeling is a thing for magic users. The characteristic isn't used for very many things, but those things tend to be pretty important. It's also a factor in Wounds calculations.
Endurance based on Toughness also helps to resist Corruption, depending on what the source of it is like.
So if you were expecting a Corruption heavy game, I'd be twitchy about starting with 23 Willpower. Your Career has early access to Cool, so you might be fine if the game isn't expected to be Corruption heavy.
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I will say that willpower (and the cool skill) as well as toughness (and the endurance skill) seem to me to be the closest for Will Saves and Fortitude Saves in Pathfinder. Dumping either strikes me as a bad idea. Especially in a system where mutation and insanity is a thing.
The next step is small, but it's worth taking some time to understand. So let's talk about Fate, Fortune, Resilience & Resolve.
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Fate & Fortune
Fate points are a major resource that never replenishes. You can get more for an act of extreme bravery or heroism or the like, but this is rare. Spending Fate has two modes:
* when you would otherwise die, you can spend a Fate point to survive but be removed from the scene. You get knocked out, float down a river or whatever.
* you can also spend a Fate point to completely avoid an incoming blow, but otherwise remain where you are, vulnerable to continuing badness.
Fate points also determine your maximum Fortune points. Fortune replenishes after every session (a weird concept in pbp format) and can be spent much more readily. Spending a Fortune allows you to:
* reroll a failed Test
* get +1 success level to a Test after it is rolled
* ignore Initiative order for one round and act whenever you want
Resilience & Resolve
Similar to Fate, Resilience never replenishes. You can get more for an extreme act in line with your character's Motivation (which we haven't talked about yet). Spending a Resilience allows you to:
* not develop a Mutation when you would otherwise get one
* choose your result on a Test. You automatically succeed if the test is Opposed (almost everything in combat). In short, this is an "I Win" button. Judging by the example given in the book, you can choose to "I Win" after you see the result of your natural roll.
Resilience also determines your maximum Resolve points. Resolve are recovered by acting according to your Motivation. Spending a Resolve allows you to:
* be Immune to Psychology (Fear & related effects most often, but a lot of things fall under this) for one round.
* ignore all effects from a Critical Wound for one round
* remove one Condition, including allowing a character to recover from Wound loss, going up to 1 Wound & removing their associated Prone Condition.
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So with that to explain what Fate & Resilience mean:
* Humans get 2 Fate & 1 Resilience points to begin with, along with 3 Extra points they can distribute between Fate & Resilience as they wish.
* Elves get no base Fate or Resilience at all, but get 2 Extra Points to split between them.
Example: a human might distribute one Extra Point to Resilience & two to Fate. That would give them 4 Fate Points & a maximum of 4 Fortune Points as well as 2 Resilience Points and a maximum of 2 Resolve Points.
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Miscellaneous: humans move at 4 & elves move at 5. If you haven't calculated your Wounds yet, this is good time to do so.
So I'm going to rearrange Udo's abilities as such (based on the input from DD & Grumbaki). Again going for the Stoneworker/Quarryman whose an unlikely hero...
Weapon Skill: 31
Ballistic Skill: 23
Strength: 37
Toughness: 37
Initiative: 27
Agility: 26
Dexterity: 31
Intelligence: 29
Willpower: 31
Fellowship: 28
Wounds: 12 = 3+6+3
Move: 4
Fate: 3
Resilience: 3
The next step would be determining your character's Motivation & assigning five advances to one of your Career Characteristics.
Motivations should be a word or short phrase. When your character acts according to their Motivation in game, they can recover one Resolve point up to their normal maximum. Acting very strongly according to their Motivation would yield a Resilience point, but that would be very rare. So pick a Motivation that you can imagine coming up in play at least semi-regularly.
Note that Motivations are different from Ambitions, the plans your character makes for both Short & Long term & aren't necessarily tied to the main plot. We'll get to those later.
For an Artisan, the Career Characteristics would be Strength, Toughness & Dexterity. You can distribute the five advances (worth one point each) as you like.
Motivation: Am envisaging Udo as a follower of Morr, as he works under a Master Stoneworker who carves headstones and gravestones for both the God of the Dead’s cult and those with coin enough for a proper burial in the Garden’s of Morr.
As such his motivation could be “Mark ye the dead” - makes sure he puts a marker (stone, personal effect etc.) on those dead and buried.
Advances: Okay. Am thinking that with Strength & Toughness close to the 40 cusp I’ll focus the advances on them? Toughness +3 and Strength +2 is my thinking, but not sure if that would be better served spread across the 3 abilities?
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Is this moving forward as a game or are you all just making characters for fun and profit?
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Just fun and profit chief - unless someone picks up the GM cudgel.
Personally I'm taking the opportunity to tap into some expertise and prime a character as/when/if a WFRP game recruits again :)
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Yeah, still no game attached to this, Edelsmirge. I'm currently playing in one WFRP game, GMing another & also GMing a Paizo AP. Not feeling like running a third game right now. I am trying to be supportive of those interested in the system though.
Black Dow's idea of creating a character for a future submission isn't crazy. The character attached to this alias was resurrected in a similar manner.
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Black Dow: evening out some characteristics to 40 makes sense. You will need more advances than that to finish the career level you are on & they definitely won't go to waste.
Since you are raising your Stength & Toughness bonuses, recalculate your Wounds.
Righty-o. With Toughness +3 and Strength +2 his stats become:
Weapon Skill: 31
Ballistic Skill: 23
Strength: 39
Toughness: 40
Initiative: 27
Agility: 26
Dexterity: 31
Intelligence: 29
Willpower: 31
Fellowship: 28
Wounds: 14
Was the Morr based motivation on the right lines?
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Dunno if it'll be of any help for those interested in this recruitment but there is a Cubicle 7 Warhammer TTRPG Bundle going on now over at Humble Bundle.
Just $ 10.00 minimum nets ya the Warhammer TTRPG 4th Edition version; higher nets you the past versions of Warhammer TTRPG 1e and 2e [but NOT 3e, funnily 'nuff]. Mebbe this'll help [or not, who can tell?]. ;)