The first edition warhammer rules
provide us with but 2 classes, Fighter and Wizard, and in many ways
the Warhammer fantasy battle system has always been about those two
classes and its variants.
In fact, the skill system of
Firsthammer provides some additional flavours to both classes, as
certain skills would make your character also a ranger (trapper,
tracker, woodsman), bard (Actor, Minstral) or rogue (pickpocket,
conman, transvestite).
The few related publications of WD and
a few miniature boxed sets also provide us with the idea that a
Wizard may be role-played as priest (Thistlewood Scenario, WD45) and
Fighters as Thieves (Thistlewood, Dorian Redhorn & the Lizard
King -lizardmen boxed set, Watch Out There's a Thief about -WD51).
But aside from the “ Watch Out There's a Thief about” article,
both the cleric class and thief class can be viewed as a role-played
variant of the wizard and fighter class respectively.
In many ways, this is fine. It requires
some creativity of the players and GM, but one can easily figure out
that an Avarice aligned Fighter or Wizard with the Pickpocket and/or
Conman skill(s) can be role-played as Rogue more than Fighter or
Wizard, or a player may decide his Good Aligned Wizard is actually a
priest of some religion, rather than a student of the arcane... But
how would the Firsthammer skills come in to play for Clerics? Well, a
wizard with the sailor skill might be a priest to a Sea God, a wizard
with the Trader skill might have turned his back on his previous
profession of greed to tend to the needs of the soul. Smart players
and GM's can work something out.
In the 2nd edition scenario
pack Bloodbath at Orc's Drift, we are presented with another kind of
thief-type character, the Half-Orc spy and also a (drunken) Druid.
Let's take a deeper look at how these
other classes are handled in Oldhammer scenario's and articles.
WD 45: Thistlewood, Meet the
Oldhammer Cleric and Warhammer's first Thief
Thistlewood is the
first White Dwarf published scenario for Warhammer, and provides us
with the First Cleric: Bishop Milendon, and the first Thief: Foro
Malas (NPC).
Bishop Milendon is
what one might call a 'themed character', a Mastery 4 wizard whose
spells are chosen based on what the scenario designer found fitting
for a cleric. Such as they are: Cure Light injury, Blessing, gift of
tongues, flight, aura of mighty resistance, Telepathy, aura of
steadfastness, hold door, mystic mists, aura of invisibility, banish
undead, invisibility, inspiration and wall shaker. He has some
religiously themed trappings in the form of a silver crucifix and the
Mace of the White Lord (magic weapon, +2 to hit and kill) and has a
heroic characteristics profile. A bad-ass character this, though he
lacks armour (may be remedied by spells). Also, he is unaffected by
Fear and Terror.
The
Cleric as “themed wizard” has remained a staple for WFB scenario
writers throughout editions to handle priests, and there are a few WD
and Citadel Journal scenario's were Priests are featured as wizards
using particular spells or lores. For example, the priest of Taal in
the 5th/6th
edition versions of the Maisontaal Abbey scenario is treated as Level
2 or 3 wizard with the Amber/Beast lore of magic. I think this is
also influenced by 1st
edition WFRP, where most priests use, with some restrictions, the
basic magic types, rather than having special priest spells although
Druids get their own lore of Druidic magic.
So, being a Cleric in Firsthammer is an option for players, but
mainly as character background and theme than a mechanical decision
like in D&D.
Bishop Milendon is
pursuing a thief named Foro Malas, who is in fact, a Fighter with
Move 5 (rather than 4 as normal for humans), WS, BS and I of 8, 2
wounds and 1 attack. His equipment is a light crossbow and a curved
dagger, nothing else. Also, no mention is made of any thieving
skills, only that he managed to make off with a relic of the Bishop's
temple.
In any case, one
must house-rule firsthammer thievery anyway, so why not base it
around initiative tests to accomplish certain tasks, or just have
player ingenuity decide things with ad hoc GM rulings when special
situations pop up?
Lizardmen Boxed set: Dorian Redhorn
Dorian Redhorn is
another “themed” character, nothing in his characteristics
clearly mark him out as thief (he's just a basic hero more or less),
but his choice of magic items in the scenario he stars in have
definitely a roguish, thieving-based theme.
WD51: Watch out, there's a Thief
about, WFRP design notes
This article in WD 51 gives a set of
tables and skills to generate Thieves in Warhammer games, pre-WFRP,
and is in fact, presented as a sneak peek of the 'forthcoming WFRP
rules'. The rules are said to have been play-tested, but I can't
imagine them to be “balanced” for a role playing campaign as
presented in Volume 3 of the white box. The reason I think so is
because of the random characteristic bonuses granted to (starting)
thieves of various kinds. Using these rules, it is entirely possible
to start your thief character with Weapon Skill or Bow Skill 10!
The presented Thieves' Skills are well
conceived though, and most of them were kept with little modification
for the 1st edition of WFRP, so if you're interested in
the history of that system, WD51 is well worth checking out.
For 1sthammer role-play, the article is
a mixed bag, the rules for generating thieves are not based on the
character generation rules of 1st edition and unbalanced
when combined with the volume 3 system. However, the article does
finally give detailed rules for the Pickpocket skill and offers some
rules for actions that could come up in an adventure but are not
covered in 1st ed. Vol.3 and some new weapons. It's value
to me thus lies in the rules provided for bluffing, blathering,
grapnels, pistols, throwing knives, bombs, lock-picking, jumping,
spotting (traps) and picking pockets.
Bloodbath at Orc's Drift:
Lock-picking, sneak-attacking half orc spies ...and also: Druids
This scenario pack
was written for 2nd edition, but I include it here because
it presents two interesting character classes not found elsewhere in
WFB material: the Spy and the Druid.
The spy is a
Half-orc with some characteristic advances, among others a +6 to
initiative (Initiative 9)! Also he can pick the lock of his prison on
a 3+ (d6) and back-stab an enemy on a 3+ (d6) as well. The back-stab
allows the spy to strike a blow against an enemy he attacks in the
rear without the enemy being able to strike back at the spy for that
turn. Elegant way to handle that rule in a Warhammer battle if you
ask me.
These special
rules could be used in a rules-light RPG variant of WFB. I'd probably
make it a variant on Wizard Levels: the spy starts with one level
each in lock-pick and back-stab, succeeding in such actions when he
rolls a 6 on a d6. Advancing the skills would give a +1 to the roll,
up to a maximum ability of 3+ on a d6 (level 4). lock picking tools
would give a +1 bonus to lock-picking, while lock quality should also
modify the required score, though a 1 should always count as failed
attempt.
As pickpocket is
already a skill available to all characters, and 1st
edition characteristic advancement is generally uniform (though with
wizards needing more XP to advance fighting stats), one only has to
decide at which experience levels these two skills can be advanced.
Alternatively, one might make an alternative advancement table for
thieves that sets them apart from fighters. Maybe by offering
advances to wounds and attacks at later levels than the fighter.
Bloodbath also
gives us rules for a Druid, Snart, again a modified wizard, who may
have some newly designed spells one would later find among the druid
spells in WFRP. He is restricted in his magic and his spell
allocation rules differ from the standard rules, giving him access to
battle magic spells up to level 2 and elementalist spells up to level
4, though he may only have one spell of each lore per level available
(so max. 6 spells in total). He may exchange elementalist spells for
the special druid spells.
Snart is, as far
as I know, the only Priest-type character in pre-6th
edition WFB to have actual special rules based on his profession, and
it poses interesting idea's for having a Priest class in 2nd/3d
editon WFB role-playing scenario's.
Edition 3+ Specialist troops
In 3d edition,
Warhammer had moved into wargaming territory by and large, relegating
roleplaying adventures to its sister game WFRP. This edition did
feature various specialist troop-types such as berserkers and
foresters, but also assassins. Many specialist troops could be
regarded as ranger variants (animal handlers, foresters, skirmishers,
missile elites) or fighters (Berserkers, Flagellants, shock elites).
The assassin rules basically give a character figure the ability to
'Hide in crowds' (i.e. a warhammer regiment) and perform a sneak
attack. That's all there is to it. Would I try to RPG with the 3d
edition rules, this would need some work, or should be substituted
for the rules of Bloodbath's Half-orc Spy. Third edition does in some
ways provide a class and level system with the elite-troops and hero
levels rules, though does not provide campaign-play advice, though
one might look to the later Realms of Chaos supplements for
inspiration on XP rewards (favour points in RoC) and experience
thresholds for advances. WH40K:RT is another source for a simple XP
system. A player character could start as a +1 Shock Elite (fighter
level 1) and progress through the Shock Elite upgrades to 5 hero and
beyond with 25 hero as the final level.
Conclusion
So, thieves and
clerics in WFB scenario's are more or less, characters with a
particular background or theme, in rare cases provided with special
rules (Bloodbath at Orc's Drift), defined rules for these
character-types eventually appearing in WFRP, which, despite it's
obvious links to the wargame, is quite a different rules system. What
would you prefer in an Oldhammer role-play variant as I envision it?
Background flavour and player preferences or actual (house) rules?
The WD51 rules for
Thieves are in my eyes, unbalanced if combined with the roleplaying
rules of 1st. ed. Vol.3, though gives some good idea's on
skill use and handling RPG actions such as jumping gaps and looking
for traps.
