WFRP 2 career advances

The thousand threads
Post Reply
johnfinnswife
Posts: 22
Joined: Wed Mar 25, 2020 5:02 am

Hello everyone,

I hope quarantine is going well. I have a bit of a quandary I'm trying to resolve before our online WFRP2 session tonight.

It's time for Advances. I've read the exhaustively confusing rules on this repeatedly, but there's still many grey areas. The most looming of which is:

If a player moves to a career with a +10 Advance where they had a +5, they simply use the +10, with however many advance marks they've picked up still counting towards that (so if they've taken the +5 then they can only go up another +5 to make the +10), right? & those pluses are cumulative, so you don't delete them when you get a new one & the Advance bonuses can only ever go up to +40, right & you only replace say a +10 if your new career has a +15, right?

We-ell (deep breath)... What about if someone changes to a career that has Advance bonuses in stats they don't have already (i.e. pays the 200xp to get out early)? If Career A had +10 STR & they go to Career B which has +10 AG but no STR Advance, can the player "double back" & buy the Advances from a previous career which they didn't already buy? Or do you delete the Advance bonuses not taken from your previous Career?

Many thanks & apologies for the confusion!
Jadrax
Posts: 44
Joined: Mon Jan 07, 2019 11:19 am

That's all correct.

I would very much discourage anyone from choosing to pay the 200xp to leave a career early, it does somewhat screw up the system. One of the reasons is, yes you theoretically have to go back and remove the advances they have not taken from their advance scheme, which when I had to do it did require going back through seven or so prior careers and recalculating it.
johnfinnswife
Posts: 22
Joined: Wed Mar 25, 2020 5:02 am

Jadrax wrote: Sun Mar 29, 2020 3:47 am That's all correct.

I would very much discourage anyone from choosing to pay the 200xp to leave a career early, it does somewhat screw up the system. One of the reasons is, yes you theoretically have to go back and remove the advances they have not taken from their advance scheme, which when I had to do it did require going back through seven or so prior careers and recalculating it.
Absolute star, thank you so much for your reply!

I shall institute the good ol' GM-fiat about finishing one's career early, in that case!
User avatar
Hyarion
Posts: 260
Joined: Mon Jan 07, 2019 11:56 am

Stat advances are not cumulative, they are absolute. Each career you enter allows a certain number of advances to be taken in specific attributes, if the new career's max is higher **than the number of advances already taken** it raises the number of max advances that can be taken in that attribute, but leaving a career before it's finished does not negate advances already taken.

If you enter Bodyguard, you get a max +10% to WS, let's assume you purchase one of those advances but not the other one.
Let's say you then switch to Camp Follower (which has no WS advances) leaving the Bodyguard career incomplete. You've still taken one advance in WS.
If you then enter a new career that does have a WS advance, the new advance is not a new +10, but merely allows you to take up to 2 WS advances, you've already taken 1 (from when you were in Bodyguard).

Make sense?
I hold the glaive of Law against the Earth.
johnfinnswife
Posts: 22
Joined: Wed Mar 25, 2020 5:02 am

Hyarion wrote: Sun Mar 29, 2020 7:47 pm Stat advances are not cumulative, they are absolute. Each career you enter allows a certain number of advances to be taken in specific attributes, if the new career's max is higher **than the number of advances already taken** it raises the number of max advances that can be taken in that attribute, but leaving a career before it's finished does not negate advances already taken.

If you enter Bodyguard, you get a max +10% to WS, let's assume you purchase one of those advances but not the other one.
Let's say you then switch to Camp Follower (which has no WS advances) leaving the Bodyguard career incomplete. You've still taken one advance in WS.
If you then enter a new career that does have a WS advance, the new advance is not a new +10, but merely allows you to take up to 2 WS advances, you've already taken 1 (from when you were in Bodyguard).

Make sense?
Thank you!

That's a lot clearer now. Copying & pasting your response to my OneNote from where I run the game!

BTW, did you make the relative to-hit table for WFRP2, from Reddit? If so, thank you again—it makes combat play out really fast but also retains the brutality for both sides, it makes what could be interminable & clunky (playing WFRP2 over the Internet with 5 other people not accustomed to the system) seamless & exciting, at least for my group of players.
User avatar
Hyarion
Posts: 260
Joined: Mon Jan 07, 2019 11:56 am

Yes, that was me.

I'm really glad it was helpful to you also! It really fit the problem without introducing a bunch of new problems and because Player's WS values don't change too often, the extra bookkeeping/work on the GM's part is quite minimal for the value added.
I hold the glaive of Law against the Earth.
CapnZapp
Posts: 270
Joined: Tue Jan 08, 2019 2:15 am
Location: Norsca

Yes, the "plus" in characteristics advances can be easy to misinterpret. As Hyarion says, they're all absolute, never cumulative. The plus sign is just... convention, I guess. It's meant to tell you "no, that Bodyguard isn't limited to a measly 10% in Weapon Skill, lower than anybody's starting score - he gets ten on top of his starting score". Of course, I don't think that was ever a big source of confusion... ;)

And oh, you never lose advances just because you switch to a career that doesn't offer any (or offers fewer than you already have). Neither theoretically nor practically. The whole point is for the Bodyguard that plans on switching to Camp Follower to first get his two WS advances (the one giving you +5 and then the one giving you +10) before switching, since once you've made the switch you can no longer improve your WS (since the Camp Follower has an empty box in the WS column).
CapnZapp
Posts: 270
Joined: Tue Jan 08, 2019 2:15 am
Location: Norsca

Hyarion wrote: Mon Mar 30, 2020 7:48 am Yes, that was me.
Link?
User avatar
Hyarion
Posts: 260
Joined: Mon Jan 07, 2019 11:56 am

I hold the glaive of Law against the Earth.
CapnZapp
Posts: 270
Joined: Tue Jan 08, 2019 2:15 am
Location: Norsca

Ah. I find it easier and faster to just make the calculation than use a table, but thanks.
adambeyoncelowe
Posts: 130
Joined: Sun Mar 22, 2020 3:54 pm

A quick hack: add (50 - opponent's skill). So if your opponent has Melee 35 and you have 35, you'll both get a 50% chance (35 + [50 - 35 = 15] = 50%). If you have 25 and your opponent has 35, you roll 40% and they roll 60%.

Using the to-hit table, two 35% opponents would each have a 50% chance of hitting and a 25/35 match would give them 41/58% (i.e., almost exactly the same). The only difference is at the higher ends (using the table, 60 v 40 would give 60% but the fast method would give 70%).

If your opponent has a skill over 50, you instead take a penalty equal to the difference.
User avatar
Hyarion
Posts: 260
Joined: Mon Jan 07, 2019 11:56 am

It is a faster calculation which I had considered initially. But rejected it because it gives anomalies in extreme cases (trying to roll over 100% or below 0% at the edges) which is unacceptable for my purposes. Thank you for the input though.
I hold the glaive of Law against the Earth.
adambeyoncelowe
Posts: 130
Joined: Sun Mar 22, 2020 3:54 pm

Hyarion wrote: Fri Apr 17, 2020 2:47 pm It is a faster calculation which I had considered initially. But rejected it because it gives anomalies in extreme cases (trying to roll over 100% or below 0% at the edges) which is unacceptable for my purposes. Thank you for the input though.
That's fair enough.
johnfinnswife
Posts: 22
Joined: Wed Mar 25, 2020 5:02 am

adambeyoncelowe wrote: Fri Apr 17, 2020 2:01 pm A quick hack: add (50 - opponent's skill). So if your opponent has Melee 35 and you have 35, you'll both get a 50% chance (35 + [50 - 35 = 15] = 50%). If you have 25 and your opponent has 35, you roll 40% and they roll 60%.

Using the to-hit table, two 35% opponents would each have a 50% chance of hitting and a 25/35 match would give them 41/58% (i.e., almost exactly the same). The only difference is at the higher ends (using the table, 60 v 40 would give 60% but the fast method would give 70%).

If your opponent has a skill over 50, you instead take a penalty equal to the difference.
I also appreciate the input, but possibly due to either running a quite complex RPG online for the first time ever for 5 people unused to the system or maybe just my years of substance abuse, I find looking things up on a table takes about 1 second & is one less thing to remember as we play.

I'll say it again: Hyarion's table is a thing of beauty & wonder, & if I could marry it I would.
Post Reply