WFRP - Rogue Character Progression

 

 

Background

In WFRP the designers wanted a different approach to D&D and devised a system of careers.  In First edition characters start with a random career within a broad category such as Warrior or Rogue.  Later editions changed this to just a random roll across all careers.  Each career has a number of predefined career exits allowing you to build up a career path.  Fortunately you can also change to any other basic career should you have rolled badly or progressed into a dead end career.

Our goal is to build a rogue as a foppish dandy by day but daring hero by night.  Elves and Halfings are our race of choice (they both have night vision). For combat we want to be using a bow or sling and try to stay at range.  Later on we can get some bolas for entangling opponents and making them easier to finish.

Rogue careers start with a mix of social and stealth skills.  Since we have already made the choice not to be a Warrior the best career route to build on those skills is advancing to Charlatan then Spy and finally Assassin.  This lets us build our dashing rogue. 

While only one in five Elves can be Rogues 65% of them get a starting career with Charlatan as as exit.  This is reduced to about half the careers for Halfings and Humans and only a third for Dwarves.  Interestingly about a third of Academics also have the option of moving on to Charlatan.

The best starting careers would be Raconteur, Minstrel or Thief and we can always change to one of these if we end up with something awful such as Begger.

Elves and Halflings start with Fellowship of 30 +2d10 which means we should have a score in the low forties (if we get below average a social character may not be the best career path).  Charlatan gives us +30 and Charm skill, for another +10, putting us around 83%.  Wit, Acting or any other social skill will get our skill level even higher!
 

 

Progression

Most rogues get a boost to Fellowship on the starting profile and that is what we should take as our free advance. After that we just want to change our life style. Either becoming a Raconteur or going directly to Charlatan...

Career: Charlatan
The Charlatan is a trickster; a cunning liar with the ability to convince people of almost anything. People who really ought to know better can find themselves believing him.
Advancements: Fellowship +30; Blather; Charm; Public Speaking
Five Advances, since we already have +10 Fellowship, and we done with our social career. There are other skills but most of them are available again later

Career: Spy
Spies are expert at infiltrating an organisation. Some Spies prefer a more direct approach for one-off jobs, breaking into buildings to steal information or to commit some act of sabotage.
Advancements: Cool +40; Act; Cryptography; Flee!; Linguistics; Pick Locks; Palm Object; Read/Write; Sixth Sense;
Acting, Reading and lock picking are out main skills here. Lock Picking is interesting as you can take it several times each one improving your chances by 10%. We might want to pick up some other profile improvements while we are here but nothing else better than what we can get with our next career so have not listed them the same is true for the other skills both careers share. Depending on what we need there are between 8-15 advances we will take before moving on.

Career: Assassin
Assassins are hired killers, thorough professionals who are expert fighters. They are expert in the use of a wide variety of weapons and are trained to a far higher level than most other petty killers.
Advancements: WS +30; BS +30; T +1; I +30; A +3; WP +20; Concealment Rural/Urban; Disguise; Marksmanship; Scale sheer Surface; Shadowing; Special Weapon: Parrying, Thrown, Lasso (including Bolas).
We can now pick up all the stealth skills as well as useful special weapons and maximize much of our profile. There are some 25 advances we are taking here making it our single biggest career.

Career: Mercenary
A mercenary fights for money and the spoils of war.  Inevitably someone will hire their swords to settle a grievance.
Advancements: Disarm, Dodge Blow, Strike Mighty Blow, Strike to Stun, Drive Cart
This is actually a step back to a basic career but it gives access to all the common warrior skills that will help a character survive in the old world.  This career can be skipped, especially if you started with Dodge Blow, but the other skills do have options that help round out a character.

Career: Outlaw Chief
Successful Outlaws can rise to the leadership of their own band and can be known as Brigands or Outlaw Chiefs. As such, they get the pick of the equipment available to the band and the first choice of spoils from any robbery.
Advancements: T +3; Follow Trail; Identify Plants; Secret Language Thief
This is our Toughness boost. Leadership is another option but not something that is likely worthwhile. Four advances gives us maximum toughness boost and a couple of skills and we move on to being a Highwayman.

Side Career: Demagogue
Demagogues are popular Agitators, seen as the leaders or champions of particular causes. They are highly-skilled and sophisticated, able to arouse a great weight of popular opinion
Advancements: Fellowship +40;
It may not be worth it but for the cost of 3 advances we can do a round trip from Outlaw Chief and back again picking up the maximum Fellowship boost on the way.

Career: Highway Man
Highwaymen make a living by stopping and robbing coaches but they are more than mere robbers; as much as anything. Highwaymen are concerned with style and they are sometimes referred to as the nobility of thieves. Even when working, they never appear less than immaculately dressed. They affect frilly white shirts (silk, naturally) and wear large three-cornered hats with at least one huge, and outrageously-coloured, feather. Their masks are simple but elegant, of the type worn at fashionable costume balls.
Advancements: S +1; I +40; Dex +30; Int +20; Etiquette; Evaluate; Silent Move Rural/Urban; Special Weapon: Pistol; Wit; Animal Care; Ride Horse; Trick Riding;
Completing our dandy rogue with the last few skills; maximum initiative boost; as well as a bonus to Strength, Dexterity and Intelligence.  This career also gives us the option of becoming an expert horseman.  A trick riding hobbit is an amusing concept.

Career: Mercenary Sergeant
Members of military forces who show an aptitude for leadership will use their reputation to carve out a living as mercenary leaders.
Advancements: Ld +10; Street Fighter.
Another stepping stone that really just opens up other careers for combat skills.

Career: Mercenary Captain/Freelance
A full mercenary leaders or expert cavalryman who offer to place themselves in the front line of battle.
Advancements: S +2 / +3; Ld +40 / +30
The final characteristic that we want to boost is strength.  Ideally as a Freelance but a Captain does at least offer a +2 bonus if we are not able to become a cavalryman.  Short of a very few specific career paths we have now maximised almost all of our characteristics and have spent about 85 advances.

Career Opportunities
If we get this far then we can continue through warrior training or pick a new career for whatever we may want to learn next.  We could look at a career as a Wizard, Outlaw or even becoming a Physician to help heal other party members.

Other Careers

If we are not looking to build the social character then Rogues do have other options for careers.  Many of them can move on to Outlaw or Racketeer both of which give access to combat skills.  

Outlaw is one of the best starting careers in the game leading into Targeteer, for maximum ballistic skill, and then Assassin giving us most of the skills outlined above.  Jailers have their own personal advanced career of Torturer for gaining some medical skills and strength boost.

 

Image Credits
Lidda the Rogue by sirtiefling
Minstrel by sagasketchbook
Turpin By manicsam.