Let's Make A Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4th Edition Character

And now the final Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay edition... for now at least.
Tips accepted at: ko-fi.com/digthezig
My Patreon: / zigmenthotep
Find me on the social medias if you like.
▶ Tumblr: / zigmenthotep
▶ Instagram: / atomagezombie
▶ Twitter: / zigmenthotep
And don't forget to subscribe: kzbin.info...
or not, I mean it's really up to you.
#ttrpg #warhammer #warhammerfantasy

[@Deailon]

There are some things I must object to: 1) the colour coding of Characteristic Advancement is extremely practical when you have to browse through Career Paths and you do it a lot. It is needed for players to decide their XP spending and change Careers and for GM to create NPCs. The symbols do the same for colour-blind people - it is good to think about those with disabilities too; 2) retiring a character and getting half of its XP is very useful, you are in fact missing a lot. Firstly is that characters get Corruption, mutations and permanent Critical Wounds - they are not only progressing. It is good to send a veteran without an eye and a leg to become a friendly innkeeper. Secondly getting more XP at the start allows you to progress character much faster and in a more controlled way, making specific builds easier to create for more experienced players; 3) Weapon +X trait informs a level of damage, not bonus to attack roll; 4) the number of Wounds between the name of the Critical Wound and its effect are additional Wounds suffered, not the number of Critical Wounds. You have to get several Critical Wounds to die from them. But as you gain them on success with a double of an enemy even if you win the opposed test, it happens in tougher fights. I am not a Warhammer fan, but I have friends who are and I GMed 4 ed. a lot in recent years. The decisions C7 made were mostly very practical and based on playtests - and that shows while using the core book and playing the game.

[@IAmTurbogfx]

Good points, also numbering the paths like the author of the video did would be more confusing than working with symbols, because it would imply that you would receive the number indicated below the stat as the actual bonus, while in fact it’s referring to the career path level. Symbols and colours are clearly a better visual solution here.

[@bernhardglitzner4985]

Your answer made me buy the Humble Bundle Thank you 😊

[@Deailon]

@@bernhardglitzner4985 : I wish many fun games to you and your friends :)

[@bigtastyben5119]

The virtues of playing a game before making a how to on character creation. That's probably my biggest issue with this channel tbh.

[@ArceusShaymin]

@@bigtastyben5119 to be fair, it should be a stated goal for pretty much any TTRPG with character creation to be able to be able to create a character and understand how to play just by reading the books. You won't be perfect, necessarily, but you should be able to glean the thing you're supposed to do at/before session 1 before you actually start session 1.

[@Wondarcouk]

As soon as you switched the symbols out on the career path with numbers the symbols suddenly made perfect sense. If using numbers you have the explain that numbers are not values but references to levels. I prefer the symbols.

[@Wondarcouk]

Great video, by the way. Without it, I'd struggle to work out what I need to do.

[@CarlosRodriguez-dd4sb]

Cubicle 7 is one of the best publishers I have ever encountered. High quality, a love for the content, and dedicated to the fans/consumers. Big companies could really learn a lot from this little Irish company.

[@thelunchlord4530]

But wouldn't it also give high risk to the game being discontinued due to them being a small company and not having enough books being bought?

[@russellharrell2747]

It’s always a risk when buying into a game that it’ll be discontinued due to the company folding or a new edition coming out.

[@josephmarlow6386]

So on the retiring character bit, it seems counterintuitive at first, but my group im running with actually like it and we’ve retired multiple characters already. The idea is that if you ever get bored with your character you can retire them and make a new character to continue with slightly more xp. Usually the retired character becomes an NPC so they can still interact with them as well

[@lordofthenight]

Surely you can just...retire a character whenever you want? While I suppose some GMs might make you start a new character as if they were brand new, that just seems pretty crappy in itself, as opposed to starting a new character with pretty much the same xp as other characters, as otherwise they're just a massive hinderance. It feels really weird to codify something that most GMs would be letting you do for 'free'

[@SilimSavertin]

@@lordofthenight This game isn't designed to just let you make new characters at higher exp. Its supposed to be a harsh world, not one where the party stays "balanced", to actually represent being the Warhammer Fantasy world which is pretty damn dark at the best of times. So letting you retire someone that has either seen too much or been permanently crippled while maintaining some exp is a method of letting you retain some advantage.

[@SusCalvin]

​​@@SilimSavertinAn experienced character in 1st and 2nd will have broader skills, better kit and depending on your careers more Wounds. But an end-game career like an Imperial knight is still a bloke with maybe five more Wounds and +20% more in some skills than an early chump. It's not like comparing a level 2 AD&D bloke with a level 15 who has a stack of hp and saves. You did the same in Classic Call of Cthulhu. All those retired investigators are still friendly contacts. They fight the mythos, just not in a field role. That bloke in a wheelchair with SAN 22 can still sort newspaper clippings, use their Assyrian 76% and teach someone else a spell.

[@SusCalvin]

​@@lordofthenightIn OSR you typically start at level 1. No exceptions. We usually do so. New chumps will pick up their first levels easily. Parties are often varied in level, like a level 3, two level 4 and a level 5 and 6 in the same crew.

[@SusCalvin]

One Ring has a fun downtime mechanic where you invest in your coming replacement. The goal is to become Bilbo and start nudging Frodo to take up adventure. Each year you can invest wealth and xp in mentoring some coming hero.

[@e.j.flores1307]

Rat Catcher is a great Career for a halfling! Especially when fighting Skaven!

[@benedictrogers1478]

I remember being surprised when I read it, it's actually a pretty solid career. In fact every career has access to skills that the party might not need, but which they'll definitely like, the designers has a good grasp on making nobody feel useless whether they were a knight or a tanner.

[@Treeeboy]

@@benedictrogers1478 I played a Bretonian Knight in 2nd edition with my two friends as a Rat Catcher and a Peasant and those two were honestly more useful for the daily stuff than my knight. I ended up being the fancy distraction whilst they got stuff done!

[@screamingcactus1753]

@@Treeeboy I love the idea of a Bretonian Knight going on an adventure with only two of his peasants and learning through a variety of encounters that he isn't prepared for and that they have to bail him out of that the peasantry isn't as weak or stupid as he originally thought

[@Treeeboy]

@@screamingcactus1753 Was definitely the way it was going, unfortunately the campaign didn't last long enough to fully explore it.

[@krinkrin5982]

Correction: In all editions determining hit location was facilitated by reversing the dice order. You only had to roll extra dice for effects that did not roll to hit.

[@wolffoetowtech]

This video has yet to be added to the "Let's make a character playlist".

[@drowningin]

Thinking about getting this. Warhammer Fantasy 2nd was my first ever RPG. I found it in a used book store, and fell in love with the book. Read it, and reread it. Made characters, and practiced running games with my own characters until I finally convinced a friend to play. Now I actually know people who role play, and I’ve been wanting to give this game a real shot

[@SusCalvin]

When you retire old PCs they are still around. This was assumed to be the norm in Call of Cthulhu where dwindling sanity and injury can make PCs unfit for field work. Retired investigators are not doing field work but they can man the telegraph, sponsor expeditions, store stuff and use their skills. The retired investigator with Law 81% can still represent your active ones before the state mental health board. She just won't take her SAN 19 and blown hearing into some cult-swamp. They can file through libraries and track down contacts and fix you up with stuff. Sometimes they are semi-retired, and part of a little stable of secondary PCs. You can choose to reactivate old sir Bob because something happened that you don't think he'd stand by or because you think that things are serious enough that all the legendary badasses need to reassemble. Sometimes they take an active but indirect hand through their resources, contacts and allies. Sir Bob's vast wealth can sponsor large projects and his personal goons can show up. His fort is a place you can visit. Getting half their xp is a little too much for me. Everyone starts at base level. The journey from there is the fun part. Starting a new PC in WFRP meant playing a dude who still has both ears and hasn't become maniac for fires. You could do this at any moment as well, just decide where your bum settles down and what life they can reasonably expect from now on.

[@g.i.e]

Just want to say that as an aspiring indie TTRPG developer, your reviews are not only incredibly entertaining, but hugely helpful for improving my game design. Keep up the good work!

[@ninjabiscuit1095]

WFRP was my first tabletop game, so it'll always hold a place in my heart, but having gone back to it a few times, there's always something slightly off about each edition, I think a hybrid of 2nd and 4th edition rules might be damn near perfect for me.

[@Sanguivore]

Have you looked into Zweihänder? If so, what’re your thoughts on the system?

[@SusCalvin]

The best about many older games is that you can pull out entire bits and screw around with them. GW always loved to tack on special rules on top of their specialist games and WFRP.

[@MrThorbjoern]

Rat catchers are quite important in this world. The rats are armed with ratling guns and fantasy nukes.

[@jeremyachinko3406]

As someone who ran wfrp4 for 2 years, the reason you would retire a character after a long term ambition is incase you were low on fate points since they are near impossible to get back

[@scelonferdi]

Makes sense. I personally love RPGs (TT or otherwise) were characters get retired or die, having an end to their story. Imho that can be well achieved by having an aging process of sorts. You need a type of degradation that's initially outpaced by progression, with the tables turning at some points (diminishing returns and/or degradation accelerating over time). Things like fate points and permanent injuries are a good implementation of that

[@SusCalvin]

​@@scelonferdiClassic Traveller uses the aging roll. Atva certain age you will be hit with aging crisis repeatedly that start to lower attributes. At some point they kill you. If you rolled a lot of tours in char gen you started at the edge of old age as they retired you from service.

[@SusCalvin]

Fate points could be regained in 1st ed but it was pretty much a matter of divine intervention. If you killed a big heckin' demon or saved a city. You can get two fate points more in the entire Empire megacampaign. Characters do not have easy magic healing. People live with the cost of heroism. Insanity and corruption were also semi-permanent. If your hero starts mutating from warpstone there's little to do. Some mutations can be hidden, others turn you into goop.

[@TheNatural-hbs]

WFRP 4e is the best fantasy RPG out there! I go back to the 80s and I played many types of RPGs, even crazy stuff like Paranoia, and I can tell you that WFRP was always the top of my list. And have you seen the books that are coming out for it? Wow! Really great stuff. The ADnD and Pathfinder just sit on the shelves, but the WFRP, Wrath n Glory and Soulbound really shift, often selling out before the next shipment.

[@s.a.l.1974]

rest in peace dark heresy and black crusade

[@Sanguivore]

Man, this is one of the most helpful, well-formatted videos I’ve seen in *ages.* Thank you so much! :D You’re a natural-born teacher, and I appreciate that you tempered your overview with both praise and valid criticism.

[@SusCalvin]

The WFRP attributes being so derived from the WFB unit stats meant you could swap them between games. Your WFRP characters could, with a little conversion using a side rule, take a spot as models in a WFB miniatures battle or a Mordheim skirmish. Then you can see what happens if your stevedore turned militia turned soldier takes a cannonball. Warhammer has a lot of little specialist games, some very small and niche. Full Tilt is as small as an article where two teams of bretonnian knights fight a series of jousts during a festival. Mordheim can be used to simulate a gang brawl on the streets.

[@StarkMaximum]

So after having made a character in all four systems, if you were asked to pick a favorite out of the four, which would you pick? It really seems like all of them have some really good ideas mixed in with some classic clunkiness.

[@Martin_Dimirag]

Nice, the one I was waiting for!!! You have the whole 40K line waiting for you!

[@Joveric2]

Not sure if we used the advantage wrong, but we had one high ws guy fighting against several mooks and one veteran. Since he kept winning his defensive roles he gained so much advantage which he than could use against the veteran, making the battle easier because of the mooks 🙃

[@chrismanuel9768]

You were doing it wrong. You lose advantage when outnumbered the more outnumbered you are. More mooks means more advantage lost every turn just because there's more of them. You also lose advantage any turn you failed to gain advantage, and it's all lost immediately the moment you take any form of damage

[@jonasang9676]

I loved 1st edition but 4th is really good but takes a while to get into. We're in the middle of The Horned Rat now since PbtT took almost a year. We had loads of fun just roleplaying in Middenheim

[@SusCalvin]

Ratcatchers are still around but a few of the everyday careers are gone. You used to play students, charcoal burners, bailiffs and militia. Just a tad more everyday chumps with knights and wizards and professional soldiers standing out more. Grave robbers, stevedores and bawds are still in! Bawds are the guys you hire to guide you around the hookers and wine districts of the empire so you don't get mugged, they stand outside bars and brothels to call people in as well. Or they're the ones leading people into a mugging.

[@6dragondaddy913]

Rat catcher one of the only ones knows Skaven are real

[@CountLuciferLeviatha]

i'd be curious to see if you do Zweihander, a controversial author, I'm curious to see how you would see this retro clone of 1e/2e of Warhammer. definitely want to see Soulbound and Wrath & glory!

[@Wolfphototech]

Hoping for The Mutant Epoch being done in the future ( Let's make a character for ).

[@medvedec]

Seconed that one. The character generation in mutant epoch is crazy and I can't wait to see the expansion rules

[@StrangeGamer859]

It would be great if you could cover the three Exalted editions some time. They are all both interesting and really fiddly, so they should make for fun videos

[@peterdickinson4599]

I really liked this breakdown. Took a lot of work. I think it would have been useful to mention the 10 Questions section, even if it wouldn't have been practical to include in your character creation example. FYI: you don't get Advantage for ranged attacks; unless you're using pistols while engaged and the target can defend in some way.

[@zang7474]

I'm trying to start WFRP from DnD but still couldn't find how determine which spells a new wizard will have. All arcane plus his color? Some? How many?

[@SituationNormalGames]

Quick question. When you rolled for Income, you stated that it would be at an average difficulty. How did you determine that? Also, as a side note, I don't think that the Goblin would get a +7 to his attack roll because the Weapon Trait only affects damage, at least that's what I can tell from the book which reads "The weapon causes Damage equal to its Rating which already includes the creature's Strength Bonus."

[@PMMagro]

What do you have against Goblins and small vicious dogs mate? We small folk should be friends :)

[@SusCalvin]

I think reversing the to hit roll for the location was part in the older editions?

[@wilonascave]

Excellent video! Still love 2e rules way more BUT 4e as supplements

[@scelonferdi]

Making average difficulty +20 also gives great parallels to the tabletop battle Game. In whfb the average human characteristic for most stuff is 3, from a range of 1-10 (typically). This usually relates to a success chance (say hitting with a ranged weapon) of 50%. 30 being kind of the (baseline) human average and also leading to 50% just feels right. The equivalents of 1 stat in whfb equating to 10 in wfrp also explains why getting really high stats is kinda impossible. Strength 1 is a rat and 10 a cannon shot in whfb. No human should be able to reach strength values of 9-10 (90s in the rpg) without supernatural elements). Heck even S6 (60s) is a troll iirc.

[@neffffffffff]

I'd love to see you make a character for various editions of traveller

[@user-mv4li7lm8w]

I participated in WFRP 4 game and created with full random halfling investigator named Rudolf Kugelschmits (as i later found out, in german "kugel" means "bullet" and "schmied" means "blacksmith")

[@1313hman]

I actually did figure out a possible reason for the symbols instead of numbers the moment you swapped the symbols for numbers: previous editions used numbers to signify, seemingly (I haven't played them so this is just conjecture) how much you advanced from the class, meaning that using numbers in the 4e system might imply the same thing for old players, whereas the symbols clearly indicate something else is going on. Is this something I know for sure? Nope. Does it completely justify using non self explanatory symbols? Probably not, but it seems to make some amount of sense.

[@scelonferdi]

Imho the way success levels are determined is a bit bad. Not only does raising the 10s value increase the bonus but also SL per default. I'm looking at houseruling it as full 10s difference between roll and targe.

[@skarjj1]

now you need to do Dark Heresy First and Second Edition

[@kengc3]

The biggest problem with this RPG is complexity. I love the Old World setting, and have played WFRP 1, 2, and now 4. 4th is the most convoluted and difficult to play of all: by far. I never played 3rd, although I have the books. I keep coming back to 4e, wanting to try to one more time, but my players are tired of the brain-bending combat rules, constant lookups, and rules for everything under the sun- even limiting it to the starter box set of rules makes it one more of the more difficult RPGs to get through without constantly second-guessing and looking things up. In my opinion, it could have been made much more streamlined and fun, and still had above average complexity. I believe that 2e was still the pinnacle of this RPG system. The Cubicle 7 books are excellent though, and I continue to buy and read every single one. Thanks for the video.

[@Sanguivore]

Out of curiosity, have you given the Zweihänder RPG a shot? If so, I’d love to hear your thoughts on it!

[@MrVideo540]

Since you mentioned it in the last edition, make a Mutant Epoche character

[@verfugbarkite]

Are those original wfrp pencil sketches??

[@danwhite7265]

You get to choose 1 talent from your career for free at chargen.

[@azkaulem]

Great video... Small corrections: You only get advantage on opposed rolls, so you never get advantage on ranged attacks.

[@jab9109]

You also get advantage when you wound an opponent without engaging in an opposed roll

[@azkaulem]

@@jab9109 I'm trying to figure out where that's written in the rules. Do you have a page reference?

[@jab9109]

@@azkaulem 164, gaining advantage, outmanoeuvre

[@philiphunt-bull5817]

Having watched these 4 videos, first edition looks like the best one, which is supremely bizzarre for a TTRPG.

[@Sanguivore]

To be fair, I feel like B/X (on average) is a better edition than much of what came after for D&D. But then again that mostly has to do with the tone and power-level of games that I prefer. But yeah, I’ve heard many people echo your sentiment that 1E is the best edition for WHF. I hope I can find a physical book of it for a reasonable price someday.

[@roberthuffman2620]

Thank you for explaining this. ...and... Holy %^&*, this reminds me of Algebra class in high school! WAY WAY too many numbers (mathematics).

[@porkers7792]

I have been GMing WFRP for 2 years now. Honestly, I adore the system, despite it's faults. (Magic went through a few design changes. Ultimately, though, the Winds of Magic book is probably the superior option)

[@M-CH_]

It looks like they were thinking of making career advance schemes branched. This would justify symbol-as-level convention.

[@CommissarMitch]

Imperium Maledictum, a newer D100 TTRPG made by Cubical 7, have a much better Advancement System Essrntially there you get +5 per Advancement Levels you put in. Simple and easy.

[@israeljakobsson7068]

The retaiering is great becos you can make youre own world off npc that you and grupp members haw playd. This make it mor fun to meat The npc for good ore bad

[@matthewschultz7390]

Can you please do Tiny Dungeon 2e?

[@marcoviola6741]

they really messed up casting with 4ed. They tried to patch it up with Winds of Magic and Archives III, but somehow they added even more confusion. There are masters who have to run their own magic rules, in order to make wizards usable (and for me in such an "accurate" ruling system, this proves that something is broken). They need a LOT of EP before they reach a point where they can be useful and you lag behind warriors for too long.

[@SusCalvin]

How does magic work here? In 1e it was a mix of checks and spending magic points. Advancing in wizard careers let you roll a few more mp to your pool.

[@chrismanuel9768]

Weird that you think the best improvement, using color coding for higher levels that can't possibly be misunderstood, is somehow a bad thing. In various systems bigger or smaller numbers are better or worse, even within systems. Bronze, Silver, Gold are pretty hard to misunderstand

[@chrismanuel9768]

You also kind of get... a lot wrong. Like cost scaling, hit chance with weapons, the reason rats are such a big thing in universe, opposed rolls and advantage, character retirement... It almost feels like you just did this because you felt you had to and you didn't put any real effort into it. I shouldn't be able to watch a thirty minute video discussing how a tabletop system works and pull out a major error in every segment of the video.

[@demongustavditters7150]

I’m trying to learn some of this stuff for my buddy who wants to gm a game. And one constant I see is the game seems to attract history nerds. I can’t watch a video without the poster jacking off to some form of history. In world or otherwise. I just wanna figure out how to build a character 😅

[@MrAyla]

Unpopular opinion, 3e is pretty fun… the dice take time to get used to. But the qualified success and failure mechanic is interesting

[@TheLazySamurai]

Now I've played 2e WF, and after watching your series, I am both surprised by how awful the FFG version is (literally the first time I've felt that they have let me down), and that 4e is not as appealing as 2e. Thank you for these videos, and also for the random image use for Slasher Flick in one of your previous videos, as I went and bought some of their books to run a Flick with some friends :P

[@LaughingThesaurus]

Advantage is a snowball mechanic, which, as someone who really enjoys game design a great deal, is always a gigantic red flag. Snowball mechanics are positive feedback loops, making it more likely for an event to occur the more often it occurs. Some of the most polarizing and frustrating games in the world are the way that they are because of positive feedback loops. See: most MOBAs-- the players who are dying less often get more opportunities to get experience and gold, which makes them less likely to die, which gives them more opportunities to get experience and gold.

[@LaughingThesaurus]

by the way when I say red flag I don't mean that it's an indicator that the game's bad. But, more that it's just a really spooky mechanic. Positive feedback loops are scary for the reasons you described.

[@Taeerom]

Snowball mechanics are great in cooperative games, even though they suck in oppositional games (like MOBAs). Snowballs means situations resolve much faster, you don't get the slow slog of an already won or lost engagement. When you win, you win hard. And when you start losing, you know it early and are more likely to be able to stage an escape in time to cut your losses. Blue shells are kinda cool when you play big multiplayer games, but it would be terrible to have a constant back and forth of come back mechanics in an rpg.

[@needmorecowbell6895]

I really want to like 4E, I just can't. So many of the changes added unnecessary crunch. I struggle to explain the advantage system. I still hate the color magic system. The 1E magic system was far superior. The summoning system is a barrier to entry for new players. Far too crunchy for new players. Warlock, an OSR clone, came along and streamlined a number of these systems into a D20 system. That's playable. I'm hoping Cubicle Seven takes the hint and hires an editor to streamline future editions.

[@Percivalvideos]

I hated 4th, 2th still is the best one.

[@SusCalvin]

2e is very close to 1e but cleaned up a bit here and there.

[@adzi6164]

22:24 btw this is how hit locations worked in 2nd edition, too - at least it was suggested. about ranged combat making you safe from losing Advantage... not sure about this one. But I will say that the game suggests a few options to curtail Advantage, by, for example, stating a cap. 35:38 THIS many Warhammer fans defended that, arguing that the characters are supposed to be weak, or that it adds to the "grimdark" flavour. But I consider this stupid, especially that common NPC and enemies have stats of the same scale, anyway.

[@SusCalvin]

Characters are not very powerful in WFRP. The same crit tables and chances apply to the fools you run into. It's less of a system for heroic charges and more like a system for desperate knife-fights on a river barge. Older WFRP adventures might not have a ton of fights in them. A fight with two dudes in a boathouse can be a big event. You are very common people fighting other very common people.

[@adzi6164]

@@SusCalvin fights are not the point My issue is how EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE was so inept, when their skills and stats were tested by the game's mechanics.

[@SusCalvin]

@@adzi6164 I like the skill mastery of 2nd ed. You could get +10 to a skill by double-picking it for the same cost as a +5 to attributes. In case you really wanted to make use of a skill. 1e skills are odd. Like they are a mix of proto-skills and proto-feats. A skill can give you +1 damage, no rolls. Some skills are unclear when you need to roll.

[@adzi6164]

@@SusCalvin you forget about a thing... IIRC you aren't allowed to buy skill masteries until you take another Career that has the same skills.

[@SusCalvin]

@@adzi6164 Yeah, that's how it works. You can't instantly get +20 in a skill in your first career. If you grab more careers in the same field, you will start to get this opportunity.

[@diegorodrigues9528]

Now make a character for Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Soulbound

[@skullman-us7wn]

by sigmar i hope there's some kind of assisted character sheet for this game. because you lost me on all the advancement stuff

[@mandyogilvie686]

239 like

[@Tyronebiggums371]

First edition is the best edition

[@sjhhej]

Jesus wept. "Look how they massacred my boy!"

[@Eron_the_Relentless]

I agree with your negative comments on this edition. I would add the amount of number crunching and player choice in chargen is completely against the spirit of WFRP. Also advantage etc is nonsense and very 5E inspired. This entire edition is the D&D 5E of WFRP, which means player coddling at the expense of tone, theme, gameplay, setting, literally everything other than player enjoyment which is a detriment when anyone realizes the dopamine hits are not earned, but designed in a lab. When you state that this edition came up with the reverse dice to generate hit location, I must protest that it actually was a 2E innovation. Page 129, first column, third paragraph. I was under the impression this edition made the smart play of just having the tens place of a die roll be the success level for successful rolls. It's a houserule I've long added to WFRP to remove a subtraction from determination because it's mechanically identical. Apparently I was mistaken. The silly "critical hits" beyond being out of wounds is also lame and silly. Making 44 or 55 a more important skill level than 45 or 56 is silly and lame. I disagree entirely with your presentation of critical hit results for 4E. They are simply wimpier than 2E full stop. This is another element of player coddling that has no business in WFRP and was largely based on D&D5E's existence. As an aside, the idea that "Rat Hunter" is not as cool and therefore is a lower level/rating than "Rat Catcher" is asinine and silly. This is another place where 4E fell on it's face. The idea that remaining in the Rat Catcher career would be worthwhile if only the various levels sounded cool was a plan from someone who's never played WFRP and therefore never understood what the point of it was. The point of WFRP is to beat the odds. To become a Master Thief or Champion in spite of starting out as a measly Rat Catcher or Valet. It's not about remaining in a stupid basic career forever. The endgame of a Vagabond isn't to remain a Vagabond that's now called a Nomad because it sounds cooler. You should, in WFRP, eventually own a house or occupy a grave. The entire "moving into an alternate adjacent career based on class" is basically a lazy way of removing career entries and exits. The entirety of 4E smacks of laziness to promote player coddling and at to do less work on the back end because game design is hard m'kay. "Game design trends change for a reason and tends to stagnate for no reason other than fear of change" - This is patently bullshit and really shows your age and frankly understanding of the hobby as a whole is limited by your experience with it. I hate to be that guy but WFRP3E was not a sane or rational game design change and you've even already shown and expressed that it was dumb so I win this particular point without actually trying as you agreed with me before I made this comment. Because there is no stating that the design didn't change _and_ there is no stating that the design didn't change _for the worse_ when it comes to WFRP3E vs WFRP2E. So.. Like Alex Trebek (RIP), I must say that no, I'm sorry, that is wrong. WFRP4E attempting to recapture the magic of WFRP2E is when this statement lost all relevance. I'm frankly surprised you bothered to include it considering the topics covered. On success percentage: Having a high success percentage actually belies having a game system entirely. Having a baseline >50% chance of success and not proper rules for "when to roll" both are player coddling measures which discard the notion that the game system should only be interfaced with when a result is actually important. That is a core principle of proper WFRP. Having an "average" test be +20% is obviously (again) a player coddling measure that has no business being part of WFRP. The idea that starter characters have a >50% chance of success at anything (meaning every potential roll) is laughable. There are strengths, there are weaknesses, and there are risks. The idea that they should be mitigated to make players feel better about their odds is silly and breeds weakling players who don't know what a 30% chance is or when they want to roll it in spite of a 70% chance of failure. An "average" task isn't an average task in WFRP, It's not worth rolling for. The baseline for a WFRP roll is and should be challenging, or important. You don't roll to see if you can drive a wagon, you roll to see if you can stop yourself from running over a kid when attempting to evade a pursuer hot on your trail. I feel this has been lost in transition. Again thank you for covering this weaker form of WFRP 2E written by people who don't understand what WFRP is about. I enjoyed your review even if I disagreed with some of it. I bow to the fact you are better at animation than I could ever hope to be. While I likely seem like an ass I do appreciate your work and recognize you would do better than me in your shoes.

[@SusCalvin]

It was possible to think in terms of char builds and optimization in 1e and 2e but it was not fun. Careers are most fun when they are a winding path where you're not fully sure how things will turn up. You must invest in the trappings of a career and find an instructor. Planning out 3-5 careers in advance was futile when you did not know what would happen around the next bend. Some careers were limited by the excessive trappings needed. Pistols and horse for a pistolier etc. The entry-level fighter careers are not powerhouses. It means you can get a few more advances to WS/BS and have talents related to a military job. Your trappings probably include an additional weapon than the standard hand weapon everyone gets. A firearm, a halberd and some armour. 1e had skills and what would become talents baked into one. Sometimes you do not roll a skill. Sometimes you just have a skill and can do the thing. The option to master skills in 2e is a decent compromise, you can buy +10 in a skill instead of or in addition to +5 in Fellowship etc. Some of the adventures can suffer from a bit of skill lock where the writer thinks PCs must roll a skill to spot a vital clue.

[@Matt-uc4iv]

this dude's butt-hurt because they didn't use the term race.