Reading – Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Character Pack
NOTE: I wrote this in 2008.
When Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay* was first published in early 2005, one of the very first support products was the Character Pack*, a confusing release in this age of PDFs for one simple reason: the supplement consisted of a short booklet and a pad of character sheets. A pad of character sheets? In this century, when we have the internet? What an odd, odd choice for a product. Still, it happened and is, today, a high-ticket expansion for the line, with copies selling for $40-$50 (whenever they turn up; it seems that most people who bought this expansion do not sell their copy).
The Character Sheets
Nothing to really talk about here, since these double-sided character sheets match the sheet included at the end of the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay* rulebook.
The Booklet
So if the pad of character sheets weren’t worth the price of admission, then it’s got to be the quality of the booklet that’s driving the after-market price so high. Right? Not exactly. Inside the booklet is:
- Character Creation Recap. This is a two-page overview of the character creation process, including some of the tables from the rulebook. It’s not enough allow a new player to create a character from scratch, but experienced players should find this useful if there’s only one copy of the book at the table.
- Names. Where the rulebook included a single page of random names, for those players who really want to randomly generate a character, this booklet includes just over 6-page of random name tables, including elf, halfling, and human surname tables. Even if the players don’t use these tables, GMs should find these very useful when creating NPCs.
- Meet Thy Doom. If you’ve got the Warhammer Character Folio (reviewed here), then you already have a slightly revised version of this table.
- Personal Heraldry. Also reprinted in the Character Folio, with a slight change, this table gives a player the tools he needs to create his own personal symbol. Not really important, but fun.
- Human Birthplace Tables. Another expanded table that’s intended to replace a table found in the rulebook.
- Spell Summaries. Two-pages listing the names, casting numbers, and casting times of the spells found in the main rulebook. It’s unfortunate that page number references aren’t included, since that would have made this section a perfect index/summary.
- Combat Action Summary. Another tool useful for floating around the table when each player doesn’t own a copy of the rulebook, these two-pages are, as near as I can determine without reading word-for-word, an exact duplicate of the combat action information found in the rulebook.
- Spell Grimoire. The last page reprints the grimoire that’s in the rulebook (and in the previously mentioned downloadable character sheet).
An Unnecessary Filler Product
It hurts me to say this, since I consider the line to be great, but the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Character Pack* is an average filler product. It’s a poor character sheet, since it merely duplicates what’s in the rulebook, and the booklet is mostly reprinted material from the rulebook (with the exception of the names, birthplaces, heraldry, and the “Foretelling of Doom†table . . . 7 of the 16-pages in the booklet), which means that this product – when it was new – an add-on that some people bought when they purchased the rulebook. The fact that it sells for so much today just tells me that there are more insane collectors out there than I would have expected and not that it’s an amazing product.
If you find this for sale at cover price, and have extra cash, go ahead and buy a copy if you must. Whatever you do though, do not buy this for any more than its original $15 price. Unless, of course, you’re a crazy collector (like me). Personally, I paid $12 for used copies of this and the Game Master’s Pack* (I found them together in a ziplock bag at a convention), so I feel like I got a pretty good deal. I know that if I had paid $50 for this then I would be very, very upset.