As I've told in another thread (Putting Dex back in 2nd ed), I put all the careers, official ones and fan careers, in one document - and added Dexterity and Perception as attributes. That brought a problem with it.
You probably know that the career entries and exits in the Career Compendium (which hosts all the official careers) did not always match. In my document I added quite a number of fan careers (including first edition careers that were not officially ported to second edition) as well, which made an even bigger mess of it all. Some fan careers double official careers that appeared in later books, some fan careers would be a nice entry or exit of an official career that appeared later than the core book, and so on.
So I created a big spreadsheet of careers, with all career exits listed. The idea was to use these to complete the career entries in the document, so that there is no discrepancy between them.
In making that spreadsheet, though, I saw that some careers would get a lot of entries - up to 39 for Demagogue. It seems like everyone can become one of those, or a Charlatan (37 entries) or a Scholar (33 entries). In total there are 16 careers, out of 255, which have more than 20 entries, and 9 of those have even over 30.
For some careers it makes sense to have a lot of entries. A Veteran, for instance, should be available for any military career that doesn't lead to a higher rank, and WFRP has - probably thanks to the battle game - quite a lot of military starting careers. But that is not the case for all those careers.
What do you feel should be a reasonable number of entries or exits for a career? I tend to think that, unless there is something specific about them (like the Veteran) I should aim for fifteen entries at most, perhaps ten.
That operation would lead to a new rebalancing as well, because when I start scrapping entry careers, I must make sure that on the other side enough career exits remain. I mean, if I scrap the Assassin entry for Sergeant, then Assassin has one career exit less. If I take too many 'Assassin' career entries out of other careers, there will be nothing left for the Assassin to go to after that career is complete.
Number of career entries and exits
Taking your question at face value, I would say the answer feels like 5-12 with lower tier careers having more and higher tier careers having less (Remembering that you keep exits from previously completed careers).
But we can potentially cut back on the "interconnected mess", if we say that someone who enters Scholar from a religious background (ie, Priest) cannot take an arcane career exit (ie, Apprentice Wizard). With the implicit understanding that the GM can override any rule at any time for story reasons....
I tried to start something similar during COVID (...then abandoned, restarted, re-abandoned, and eventually left on the side of the road...) which took a slightly adjacent track, by using/expanding WFRP 3e's method of career tags, but perhaps it's time to revisit that effort.
But we can potentially cut back on the "interconnected mess", if we say that someone who enters Scholar from a religious background (ie, Priest) cannot take an arcane career exit (ie, Apprentice Wizard). With the implicit understanding that the GM can override any rule at any time for story reasons....
I tried to start something similar during COVID (...then abandoned, restarted, re-abandoned, and eventually left on the side of the road...) which took a slightly adjacent track, by using/expanding WFRP 3e's method of career tags, but perhaps it's time to revisit that effort.
I hold the glaive of Law against the Earth.
I quite like the 'interconnected mess', by which someone from a rural background could end up in a city-based or seafaring career. I just don't like that so many careers have exits to the same few other ones.
The concept of career tags sounds interesting (although I have no idea how it works in 3rd). But I'm not sure whether I'm willing to do much work to implement such a system in a proper way.
The concept of career tags sounds interesting (although I have no idea how it works in 3rd). But I'm not sure whether I'm willing to do much work to implement such a system in a proper way.
The career tags system in WFRP3 is really good. Instead of having entries and exits, anyone can go from any career to any other career (although there are some baked in limitations, like some are starting career only, you have to complete the previous wizard career before going into the next one etc.). The way this is managed is that each career has four key words. One of these is always the career level (Basic, Intermediate, Advanced, Elite, Heroic - slightly confusingly, everything that's not a Basic career is also referred to as an advanced career, a holdover from previous editions I guess). The other three key words give a kind of feel for what kind of career it is - Academic, Bureaucrat, Noble, Rogue, Rural, Urban being some examples. When you change career, you spend a number of XP to move into a new career. This starts at 4 XP, but is reduced by 1 for each key word the old and new career have in common, to a minimum of 1 (so moving from a career to another career with all four key words the same would still cost 1 XP, the exception being Reiklanders, who can reduce this to 0). One key word - Specialist - represents an exception, in that it never counts as a common key word between two careers. This does highlight my one issue with the system. By the end of the edition's run there were 33 key words, and there had been some bloat around certain careers (especially those in the Dwarf supplement) getting unique key words (e.g. Ironbreaker, Runesmith). These sorts of specifics were already adequately covered by the Specialist key word. So it wasn't a flawless system, of course, but it worked really well for giving the players options.
Second edition had these different levels of advanced careers as well, there it just wasn't named explicitly. There were basic careers, advanced careers which you could reach from those basic careers, and then what I named 'very advanced careers', which could not be reached directly from a basic career, but only from other advanced ones. And there were some fourth level careers - most easily seen in wizard and priest career progress. And the slayers.
I found a document which lists these career tags, I think, at https://rpggeek.com/file/download_redir ... s+v2.1.pdf
Perhaps it is an idea to implement it in my document; I am already working on starting career tables determined by character background; whether they are from an urban, bourgeois, rural, waterline or other background (a bit like what was done in Liber Fanatica I). I see those backgrounds being echoed in these career tags (but also missing tags like 'waterline' - lots of careers for WFRP2 are river- or sea-related. There are also no 'wilderness' tags; they seem to be encapsulated by 'rural', but to me there is a difference between living in a farming village or really living in the wilds (for careers like druid, prospector or outlaw).
But perhaps it's not a nice idea. I mean, the rules sound simple, but seem to come with lots of exceptions. As you said, there are some careers, like Noble, that you cannot simply switch to, you have to be born into them. Some careers are reserved for particular races, which is not reflected in the tags. I presume that some tags have special restrictions - that you cannot jump from a beginner to an elite career, for instance. And shouldn't initiates and priests have tags related to the deity they serve? Rural for Taal, for instance, or combat for Sigmar.
But there is also some logic missing. With a career entry/exit system a character has to build experience in an area before getting to certain jobs. You can only become a sea captain if you've gained naval experience in a previous career, like Mate or Navigator. With a tag system a dwarf who spent his life mining the World's Edge Mountains for gold can suddenly spend four XP and become the captain of a ship. That does sound strange to me.
I found a document which lists these career tags, I think, at https://rpggeek.com/file/download_redir ... s+v2.1.pdf
Perhaps it is an idea to implement it in my document; I am already working on starting career tables determined by character background; whether they are from an urban, bourgeois, rural, waterline or other background (a bit like what was done in Liber Fanatica I). I see those backgrounds being echoed in these career tags (but also missing tags like 'waterline' - lots of careers for WFRP2 are river- or sea-related. There are also no 'wilderness' tags; they seem to be encapsulated by 'rural', but to me there is a difference between living in a farming village or really living in the wilds (for careers like druid, prospector or outlaw).
But perhaps it's not a nice idea. I mean, the rules sound simple, but seem to come with lots of exceptions. As you said, there are some careers, like Noble, that you cannot simply switch to, you have to be born into them. Some careers are reserved for particular races, which is not reflected in the tags. I presume that some tags have special restrictions - that you cannot jump from a beginner to an elite career, for instance. And shouldn't initiates and priests have tags related to the deity they serve? Rural for Taal, for instance, or combat for Sigmar.
But there is also some logic missing. With a career entry/exit system a character has to build experience in an area before getting to certain jobs. You can only become a sea captain if you've gained naval experience in a previous career, like Mate or Navigator. With a tag system a dwarf who spent his life mining the World's Edge Mountains for gold can suddenly spend four XP and become the captain of a ship. That does sound strange to me.
Jumping from a basic career to a career beyond 'Intermediate' isn't explicitly covered in the rules to be honest. The Hero's Call supplement added an optional rule for those tags to be limited by character level - i.e. you have to be at least Level 2 to enter an Intermediate career, Level 3 to enter an Advanced career and so on (with the highest two levels not being optional). Partly these situations are covered by built-in career restrictions. The higher you go up the chain, the fewer careers there are (only Priests and Wizards have Heroic careers), and what there are tend to be part of career chains where you need to have completed a more 'basic' version first. Other than that, it's left up to the GM to decide what's appropriate.Whymme wrote: ↑Sun Jun 22, 2025 9:06 am Second edition had these different levels of advanced careers as well, there it just wasn't named explicitly. There were basic careers, advanced careers which you could reach from those basic careers, and then what I named 'very advanced careers', which could not be reached directly from a basic career, but only from other advanced ones. And there were some fourth level careers - most easily seen in wizard and priest career progress. And the slayers.
As I said, I think one flaw in the system was bloat. Personally, I'd rather have fewer, broader traits rather than the increasingly specific ones they went with. That said, the original intention is just to give a basic idea of the career, not to cover all its details. I could see an argument for a 'water' based tag, although I never missed it until you mentioned it. And then, do you distinguish between river-based water careers and marine water careers? How broad is too broad and how specific is too specific? 'Urban' vs 'Rural' is an interesting one, and I agree with your point in theory. In practice, I think they misused the term 'rural', as careers with that tag tended to be the more 'wilderness' careers anyway - although some like Bounty Hunter and Boatman had 'Rural' and 'Urban' I guess to cover them being equally at home in both situations.Whymme wrote: ↑Sun Jun 22, 2025 9:06 am I found a document which lists these career tags, I think, at https://rpggeek.com/file/download_redir ... s+v2.1.pdf
Perhaps it is an idea to implement it in my document; I am already working on starting career tables determined by character background; whether they are from an urban, bourgeois, rural, waterline or other background (a bit like what was done in Liber Fanatica I). I see those backgrounds being echoed in these career tags (but also missing tags like 'waterline' - lots of careers for WFRP2 are river- or sea-related. There are also no 'wilderness' tags; they seem to be encapsulated by 'rural', but to me there is a difference between living in a farming village or really living in the wilds (for careers like druid, prospector or outlaw).
As I said, the tags are just supposed to give a basic idea of the career, with the player being able to personalise it in there own way. So, no, I don't agree that Priest careers should have a tag for the deity they serve. The tags give an idea of what any priest would broadly be like, with specifics covered by skills - and the Signs of Faith supplement covered giving priests access to different skills based on which deity they serve.Whymme wrote: ↑Sun Jun 22, 2025 9:06 am But perhaps it's not a nice idea. I mean, the rules sound simple, but seem to come with lots of exceptions. As you said, there are some careers, like Noble, that you cannot simply switch to, you have to be born into them. Some careers are reserved for particular races, which is not reflected in the tags. I presume that some tags have special restrictions - that you cannot jump from a beginner to an elite career, for instance. And shouldn't initiates and priests have tags related to the deity they serve? Rural for Taal, for instance, or combat for Sigmar.
In theory, yes, you're correct that could happen. Would a GM allow the player to make that transition? I guess it would vary from one GM to another. Personally, I'd always expect my players to justify their career transitions, even if there's nothing explicitly in the rules about it.Whymme wrote: ↑Sun Jun 22, 2025 9:06 am But there is also some logic missing. With a career entry/exit system a character has to build experience in an area before getting to certain jobs. You can only become a sea captain if you've gained naval experience in a previous career, like Mate or Navigator. With a tag system a dwarf who spent his life mining the World's Edge Mountains for gold can suddenly spend four XP and become the captain of a ship. That does sound strange to me.
3e is definitely more permissive and more reliant on GM fiat than other editions I think. So perhaps this sort of system wouldn't translate well to another edition, at least not without some significant effort. I like the 3e system, but I like 3e as a whole (for the most part). All I was doing was trying to explain the system for you. Hopefully I've done that and given you some things to consider, even if it's about how you don't want to do things.
Oh, but I do appreciate your explaining how the system works. And going through that list of careers I found the PDF for, it looks like there are some subtleties n the system that are not explicitly laid out in the rules. Like the ‘iron breaker’ or ‘slayer’ tags to indicate a very specific and restricted career progression (you can go from a basic slayer career to an elite one - just like in the career entries and exit systems in second edition). I guess that one could make some restrictions, so that with those keywords, one could only go to an intermediate career with such a keyword if one has a basic career with that keyword as well, and so on higher up the ranks.
Or, more general, there could be a rule that you can only get an intermediate career if you have finished a basic one, and only an advanced career if you have the ‘intermediate’ keyword. Tha could be coupled with the ‘restricted path’ tags to make for a system that is a bit more structured, while still having a degree of freedom.
As I mentioned, I intend to have a number of background-based starting career tables, in Liber Fanatica style. So a table with urban careers, another one with waterline careers (which covers both river and sea - there are not enough careers to have two well-filled starting career tables). It would make sense to get tags that reflect those tables. So I would not follow the v3 tags exactly.
When I mentioned priests, I was mainly thinking of entering that career. It would be logical for a hunter to become an initiate of Taal, and for a merchant to enter the cult of Handrich - and that could be reflected by giving priests of Taal the tag ‘rural’ and those of Handrich the tag ‘commerce’ or whatever the tag is that merchants and pedlars have. In that way the system suggests the logical career path, which would be a nice way to make system and setting come together.
But all this is theorizing from my part. I did not use the system; you did. So perhaps I should just listen to you
.
And it looks like I have a choice now; either cull the entries and exits to a form of my last king, or add tags to more than 250 careers. I have to think about what sounds like less work.
Or, more general, there could be a rule that you can only get an intermediate career if you have finished a basic one, and only an advanced career if you have the ‘intermediate’ keyword. Tha could be coupled with the ‘restricted path’ tags to make for a system that is a bit more structured, while still having a degree of freedom.
As I mentioned, I intend to have a number of background-based starting career tables, in Liber Fanatica style. So a table with urban careers, another one with waterline careers (which covers both river and sea - there are not enough careers to have two well-filled starting career tables). It would make sense to get tags that reflect those tables. So I would not follow the v3 tags exactly.
When I mentioned priests, I was mainly thinking of entering that career. It would be logical for a hunter to become an initiate of Taal, and for a merchant to enter the cult of Handrich - and that could be reflected by giving priests of Taal the tag ‘rural’ and those of Handrich the tag ‘commerce’ or whatever the tag is that merchants and pedlars have. In that way the system suggests the logical career path, which would be a nice way to make system and setting come together.
But all this is theorizing from my part. I did not use the system; you did. So perhaps I should just listen to you
. And it looks like I have a choice now; either cull the entries and exits to a form of my last king, or add tags to more than 250 careers. I have to think about what sounds like less work.
I think one thing that you're missing from only looking at that list of tags is that there are explicit written rules beyond just the tags (that PDF after all, is only a fan-made summary of one element of the rules). Just to take the 'Slayer' careers for example: they are all restricted to Dwarfs only (each career lists availability by race); Giant Slayer, the Intermediate career, also has "Special: A character can only enter this career after he has completed the Troll Slayer career. Furthermore, a Troll Slayer may not become a Giant Slayer until he has slain a troll or performed a comparable feat of combat prowess." (the more advanced careers have similar caveats about completing the previous career in the chain before entering the next one). The bit about only entering a career after completing another career is standard across the careers that have 'paths' (e.g. a wizard can only enter the Acolyte career after completing the Wizard's Apprentice career) - the bit about slaying a troll is unique to the Slayer path and other ones don't really have an equivalent as far as I remember. So for the careers with defined paths, you really do have to progress Basic > Intermediate > Advanced > Elite > Heroic. Personally I would house rule a restriction like you suggest for all careers - e.g. you can only enter any intermediate career after completing a basic career. That's kind of a more explicit and restrictive version of what Hero's Call was trying to do anyway.Whymme wrote: ↑Tue Jun 24, 2025 2:02 pm Oh, but I do appreciate your explaining how the system works. And going through that list of careers I found the PDF for, it looks like there are some subtleties n the system that are not explicitly laid out in the rules. Like the ‘iron breaker’ or ‘slayer’ tags to indicate a very specific and restricted career progression (you can go from a basic slayer career to an elite one - just like in the career entries and exit systems in second edition). I guess that one could make some restrictions, so that with those keywords, one could only go to an intermediate career with such a keyword if one has a basic career with that keyword as well, and so on higher up the ranks.
Or, more general, there could be a rule that you can only get an intermediate career if you have finished a basic one, and only an advanced career if you have the ‘intermediate’ keyword. Tha could be coupled with the ‘restricted path’ tags to make for a system that is a bit more structured, while still having a degree of freedom.
(Maybe I should also add that you can leave any career at any time, but there are specific rules about what constitutes 'completing' a career. I can't remember whether there's an equivalent to this in other editions.)
I understand. I think this is one of those things that in 3e would be covered by the GM reducing the cost of career transition if the character is in an appropriate career and has shown an appropriate level of piety to the deity. I don't think it's supposed to be easy to become a priest if you don't start as one.Whymme wrote: ↑Tue Jun 24, 2025 2:02 pm As I mentioned, I intend to have a number of background-based starting career tables, in Liber Fanatica style. So a table with urban careers, another one with waterline careers (which covers both river and sea - there are not enough careers to have two well-filled starting career tables). It would make sense to get tags that reflect those tables. So I would not follow the v3 tags exactly.
When I mentioned priests, I was mainly thinking of entering that career. It would be logical for a hunter to become an initiate of Taal, and for a merchant to enter the cult of Handrich - and that could be reflected by giving priests of Taal the tag ‘rural’ and those of Handrich the tag ‘commerce’ or whatever the tag is that merchants and pedlars have. In that way the system suggests the logical career path, which would be a nice way to make system and setting come together.
It sounds like you have your work cut out for you either way! This is definitely the sort of project I endorse though. Maybe you can get some ideas from 3e, even if you end up doing your own thing.Whymme wrote: ↑Tue Jun 24, 2025 2:02 pm But all this is theorizing from my part. I did not use the system; you did. So perhaps I should just listen to you
And it looks like I have a choice now; either cull the entries and exits to a form of my last king, or add tags to more than 250 careers. I have to think about what sounds like less work.