I remember running E6 for pathfinder in a WFRP. It worked really well. We did find that once a got to level 6, some of the fun did go out of it. So the suggestion has merit. I think it would be a hard sell for a group wanting that full progression but slow advancement is not a bad idea at all. For The Enemy Within something longer term helps.I think E6 would be very helpful to use - leveling up to 6th level max in a class, no hit point gain past 6th level. Maybe allow slow advancement beyond 6th level (around double "cost", but still no HP gain).
Will you be considering the elvin colleges of magic? In the past, they tended to map very well to the D&D schools of magic.
Chaos worshippers (and their ilk) would likely map very well to Warlocks, and you may want to map out some basic paths for the four Chaos gods (Khorne = Fiend, Slaneesh = Fey, Nurgle = Great Old One, Tzeench = ? )
I do agree. That’s why I would put choices back into the players hands.IMHO you certainly can convert 5e to be kinda like WFRP, but it requires so many changes that making somebody learn a system built to do that thing from the ground up is probably easier?
Take careers for example, the whole brass 3, silver 1 etc progression of careers in WFRP 4e can kinda sorta be kludged somewhat into 5e, the previous paradigm of massive and voluminous career trees certainly can't.
I think the main problem here is that you would be starting, as a base, from a game pretty much designed to do the exact opposite of what WFRP does. I can't think of many games outside of maybe, 13th Age and Exalted that are starting off from a worse place to do this from. 5e is designed to make very capable, hard to kill heroes that feel heroic and capable from jump and everything is designed around that, and WFRP certainly isn't.
I realize this is a thought exercise so it doesn't really matter, but if this were a discussion about somebody wanting to actually do this I would try to dissuade said person from doing it.
Some really good points. To be honest, I’ve found 4e WFRP players to be pretty robust with amour deflection, and resilience. Whack-a-mole is reborn in WFRP 4e.I wouldn't try to exactly convert the game system (So, no career swapping as you put it, unless they match the trappings of multiclassing minimums) as it were, but recreate 5e to resemble the dark world of Warhammer.
To do that, I'd bring over the Warhammer ideas and the world.
To make 5e grimmer, I MIGHT do the following.
Allow them to have a maximum of 4 HD rolls. They roll for Hitpoints at 1st level. They then do not get HP at 2-4th level, but roll every 5th level (So at 5th, 10th, 15th) up to 4 maximum rolls. They roll for HP at 1st level (So no maximum HP).
This could also correlate to the different tiers.
Death is ALWAYS at 0 HP. They can use a Point (Hero/Fate, whatever you want to call it in your system, it's in D&D though) to stop from dying (maybe it reduces them to 1 HP) but, otherwise, they die.
You can allow changes in "career" but only AFTER they qualify for a multiclass change (so, minimum ability score requirements). They'd still get their ability score increases, so if they really want it, they can get their minimum's that way.
No FEATS. (unless you severely weaken some of them).
I think your ideas for criticals are fine.
I'd make the rests different, more like the DMG's suggestion of longer rests. A short rest may be an hour (or if you really want deadlier, make it a day). A long rest a day (or, if you want it deadlier, make it a week or so).
In my mind:
The thing about Warhammer isn't so much they system, but the atmosphere. Players don't get the idea that they are invincible, but that they could die to any little thing, even that little goblin over there. They are fragile and so is life, just like the balance between Law and Chaos.
I feel you can recreate this in 5e without changing the entire system of classes. Keep the class system as it is, just make it more dangerous in the world itself. Use the Lore, but not necessarily the game system of WFRP.
Probably not right for me. Part of the attraction is the 5e ruleset itself and not having to learn a whole new rule set. Otherwise as others have said, I’d just play WFRP 4e, which may end up happening anyway.If you want to merge D&D 5E and WHFRP...how about Shadow of the Demon Lord? I'm running a campaign right now and it gives a nice gritty feel while being super easy to learn.