Hero and Wizard levels in early WFB

Posted by MortiS-the-Lost on Jan 16, 2015; 11:43am
URL: http://the-lost-and-the-damned.71.s1.nabble.com/Hero-and-Wizard-levels-in-early-WFB-tp7581537.html

Scumdog47 wrote

And yes, Warhammer 3rd Ed. was the best, except perhaps the magic system which was kind of clunky.
Also, what was up with Heroes with levels in increments of 5?

WFB3's rank/level system imitated AD&D somewhat (1st and 2nd WFB did also). I imagine that it originally reflected a D&D like leveling system probably present in early unpublished versions of WFRP which would later be replaced by the 'career system'.
I know from the introductory text in WFB2 that people working at GW and their friends were playing a Warhammer based RPG since the early days - games which developed the original Lustria background and various Moorcock inspired elements you find in 1st & 2nd but were later swept under the carpet.
How much the rules in these game had in common with D&D we may never know but it seems a fair guess that the pre-published WFRP probably had Heroes advancing in D&D like levels and would gain new abilities or stat increases each level. If we take what we know of the published WFRP (1st) working on (mostly) percentage based stats it's easy to speculate that when converting to WFB you'd end up with only every 5th level making a significant change to the WFB stats.

But who knows - Tony Ackland might, I'll see about asking him ...