WFRP 1e and 2e Careers: The Boatman, The Bodyguard, The Bounty Hunter & The Coachman

 The next four careers are more straightforward since they exist both in 1e and 2e. So, without further ado:

BOATMAN (original 1e):

Skills: Fish, Orientation, River Lore, Row, 50% chance of Very Strong, 25% chance of Consume Alcohol, 25% chance of Boat Building

BOATMAN (modified):

Skills: Fish, Orientation, River Lore, Row, Sail, Swim, 50% chance of Very Strong, 25% chance of Consume Alcohol, 25% chance of Boat Building, 25% chance of Secret Language (Ranger), 10% chance of Speak Additional Language

There isn't too much to say here.  I am a big fan of my boatmen and boat-women being able to both Sail and Swim as well as Row. Fish isn't a distinct skill in 2e, being merged into Outdoor Survival.  I don't particularly have a problem with that given WFRP's career design although I think it could have been left as Trade (Fishing) or somesuch.  River Lore was a much more problematic design choice, since it isn't clear why "River Lore" should be a unique and universal skill, but "Mountain Lore" and "Jungle Lore" and "Sea Lore" etc. aren't.  The approach of 2e to skills is generally much better than in 1e, with all that really cleaned up.  25% chance of Boat Building is much higher than I would like it, on reflection: 5%, or removing it entirely and leaving the building of boats to the Artisan design-space, feels much better.

I do have some issues with the Advance scheme too which I will mention here, but will try to cover more comprehensively at a later date:

The Boatman is a decent example of an advance scheme which is just too fighter-orientated.  The 2e is a bit better than the first but overall I would like to see much more emphasis on the personal characteristics than on the Weapon Skill and the Ballistic Skill; partly as I think it is just better game design but mainly because we would like our non-combat orientated characters to be more competent at their non-combat roles than their secondary combat functions.  For example, the 1e could and should have advances available in Strength, Toughness and Dexterity; and could reasonably have advances in Leadership, Intelligence and Fellowship just as much as Weapon Skill and Ballistic Skill.

BODYGUARD (Original 1e):

Skills: Disarm, Specialist Weapon - Fist Weapon, Street Fighting, Strike Mighty Blow, Strike to Stun, 50% chance of Very Strong

BODYGUARD (Modified):

Skills: Disarm, Dodge Blow, Specialist Weapon - Fist Weapon, Specialist Weapon Group - Parrying, Street Fighting, Strike Mighty Blow, Strike to Stun, 50% chance of Very Resilient, 50% chance of Very Strong

The above gives a modest increase to the number of skills without changing the character too much.  Both editions' versions of the Bodyguard were slightly quirky: the 1e Bodyguard had an advance of +20 to WS which seemed a bit too high: higher than Protagonists and Troll-Slayers for example(!).  Off-hand, I think only the Pit Fighter allowed equivalently high advances.  And since Bodyguard gets the extra attack and the Pit Fighter doesn't(!) then Bodyguard was legitimately a contender for the hardest starting career.  The other contender is Protagonist, since although it only as the +10 advance in Weapon Skill, it does have the Strike to Injure skill too which is arguably more useful than the extra +10 in WS.  In any event, both Bodyguards are strong characters, but the modified Bodyguard particularly so.

BOUNTY HUNTER (Original 1e):

Skills: Follow Trail, Shadowing, Silent Move Rural, Silent Move Urban, Specialist Weapon - Lasso, Specialist Weapon - Net, Strike Mighty Blow, 50% chance of Marksmanship

BOUNTY HUNTER (Modified):

Skills: Follow Trail, Shadowing, Silent Move Rural, Silent Move Urban, Specialist Weapon - Lasso, Specialist Weapon - Net, Strike Mighty Blow, 50% chance of Marksmanship, 50% chance of Strike to Stun, 25% chance of Concealment - Rural, 25% chance of Concealment - Urban

There are a couple of possible extra skills here but the character remains more or less 'as is'; and there is nothing to mind about that since it was a pretty good career anyway.  The main problem for the player between the two editions is that 1e Bounty Hunter could move straight into Assassin which was one of the most effective fighter careers of 1e but doesn't get to do that in 2e.

It might be worth mentioning the Marksmanship skill here, although very similar remarks might apply to Fleet Footed, Lightning Reflexes, Very Strong and Very Resilient.  These skills (all were made talents in 2e, basically because skills are stackable in 2e and talents are one-time bonuses) all give straight bonuses to characteristics and are mechanically indistinguishable from a characteristic advance, except it is only available once.  But although a character might have the Marksmanship skill, it doesn't mean that they are better at archery than a character who doesn't have it, since it all depends on the initial roll: a character with an initial Strength of '2' in 1e could enter a career that allows one to take the skill 'Very Strong', raises it to '3'...which is entirely average.  I think that it would be better to allow characters with one of these skills to raise their starting characteristic to either the racial maximum, or at least the racial average, e.g. a human character who obtains the 'Marksmanship' skill is allowed to raise their 'starting' profile to 40, becoming 50 with the addition of the skill...or otherwise, can raise it to 31, becoming 41 with the addition of the skill.

COACHMAN (Original 1e):

Skills: Animal Care, Drive Cart, Musicianship - coach-horn, Ride - horse, Specialist Weapon - Firearms

COACHMAN (Modified):

Skills: Animal Care, Drive Cart, Musicianship - coach-horn, Orientation, Ride - horse, Secret Signs - Ranger, Specialist Weapon - Firearms, 30% chance of Haggle, 30% chance of Speak Additional Language

Not much to add here: a couple of additional skills make this character a little better, but no step-change in capability.  I think the addition of coachmen and coachwomen is a nice touch, like the bounty hunters: hardly 'historical' but a useful addition to the setting.

WFRP 1e and 2e Careers: The Beggar & The Vagabond

 The 1e Beggar career was not brought forward into 2e.  A somewhat similar but also distinctly different character was created: The Vagabond.  The tonal difference is quite obvious: I think that the Beggar was envisioned as an urban career that did mainly rely on begging to survive.  The Maelstrom RPG, which may have influenced the writers of WFRP 1e, had several sub-classes within its Beggar career, differentiating them by which precise methods of begging they used(!).  The Vagabond RPG is more of the "gentleman of the road" stereotype, although resembling, this time more accidentally I think, the Maelstrom RPG's Rogue career.  Incidentally, the Liber Fanatica fanzine wrote that the 2e equivalent to the Beggar was contained in the Peasant career.  I don't see this at all, although I am always slightly reluctant to disagree since some of its writers had been official playtesters for 2e and may have been in a position to know directly.  In any case, the original package for the Beggar was:

Skills: Begging, Concealment Urban, Secret Language (Thieves' Tongue), Secret Signs (Thieves' Signs), Silent Move Urban, 25% chance of Consume Alcohol

If this character were bumped up with some of the skills from the Vagabond character, then we might go to:

Skills: Begging, Concealment Urban, Silent Move Urban, 75% chance of Secret Signs (Thieves' Signs), 50% chance of Haggle, 50% chance of Orientation, 50% chance of Secret Language (Ranger), 50% chance of Secret Language (Thieves' Tongue), 30% chance of Secret signs (Gamekeeper), 25% chance of Consume Alcohol, 25% chance of Fleet Footed, 25% chance of Storytelling, 25% chance of Swim

The above is okay, I think, but the problem here is that 2e Vagabond is quite a generous career, rather overpowered for its concept.  I find myself wanting to get rid of the Fleet Footed and Swim options too.  For example, an entirely legitimate set of skill and talent choices would be:

Skills: Common Knowledge (Bretonnia), Secret Language (Thieves' Tongue), Haggle, Heal, Navigation, Outdoor Survival, Performer (Singer), Silent Move

Talents: Fleet Footed, Marksman, Seasoned Traveller

That character really does have skills that can pay the bills, so this is very much a professional vagabond. But that really doesn't work if they are always perceived as common criminals - unless there is a very strong Vagabond sub-culture which still makes it a worthwhile life option.  So going the other way into 1e, how might this character look?

Skills: Begging, Silent Move (Rural), Silent Move (Urban), 75% chance of Orientation, 50% chance of Concealment (Rural), 50% chance of Concealment (Urban), 50% chance of Haggle, 50% chance of Secret Language (Ranger), 50% chance of Secret Language (Thieves'), 30% chance of Dance, 30% chance of Sing, 30% chance of Storytelling, 25% chance of Marksmanship, 25% chance of Swim, 20% chance of Sixth Sense

I am not entirely sold on this but on the other hand it doesn't seem too bad.  I haven't included Heal Wounds, I just think that is wrong for the character concept.  One might add a 25% chance of Herb Lore though without being too unreasonable.  A chance of Musicianship at the same level as Dance etc. might work too.

Going back to 1e, one of the weakest-designed skills is Secret Signs.  The entry states that Signs work at the level of individual careers but doesn't make clear if all careers have them.  One assumes not since otherwise every career should have this skill, whereas the Beggar career has the Secret signs - Thieves' signs skill and the Hunter has the Secret Signs - Woodsman's.  To make things even more muddy, the skill description states that Gamekeepers have Secret Signs but the actual Gamekeeper only has the skill for the Poacher sub-career! Anyway, all that being so, the following Secret Signs' sub-skills are the ones that actually seem to exist in 1e world:

Dwarven Engineer

Druid

Lawyer

Pedlar

Poacher

Scout

Templar

Thief

Woodsman

It isn't written but I am assuming the logic of the Templar career should imply that this is a separate skill for each Templar Order.  I don't think there is anything in the background which would justify the individual orders wanting or needing to communicate with each other through Secret Signs.  

There doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason to these choices.  I mean they are mainly individually defensible but why Lawyers have them but Physicians don't, for example, is hard to intuitively understand.  There is obviously a lot of design-space in here and something quite useful could be made of it but it seems a little half-baked as it is.

WFRP 1e & 2e Careers: The Bawd, The Rogue & Container Careers

 WFRP 1e contained a number of careers which didn't exist in WFRP 2e; or rather, they were merged into so-called container careers which merged a number of careers which were considered similar.  The 1e Bawd was put into the 2e Rogue container career along with the Gambler and Raconteur.  There is in fairness a common theme of semi-criminality merging fast talk with violence that makes sense of this and they mainly point to the Charlatan advanced career.

I am certainly not the first person to ever notice this but the issue was that this concept was by no means universally applied.  The 'fighting' and 'fantasy' careers were largely kept intact, or even extended, whereas the more civilian careers were the ones which were put into container careers.  Only 'fantasy' careers which no longer applied in the setting e.g. Druids and Alchemists were incorporated into other careers.  Contrast this with Maelstrom, which differentiated between all kinds of artisans and traders and gave them unique relevant skills, whilst all fighters were subsumed into "mercenary".

In any case, the concept of a Bawd is strong and unique enough to stand alone, I think, to justify retaining.  The 1e Bawd can take some suitable skills from the 2e Rogue, but without intruding so heavily in the game-space of Gamblers and Raconteurs, so:

Skills: Blather, Bribery, Charm, Evaluate, Secret Language - Thieves' Tongue, Secret Signs (Thief), Street Fighting, 50% chance of Gamble, 25% chance of Flee!, 25% chance of Haggle, 25% chance of Luck, 25% chance of Sixth Sense, 25% chance of Speak Language (Reikspiel), 25% chance of Wit

The Raconteur has a raft of skills which the Bawd does not have, so that is fine.  The proposed skillset above does look quite close to the Gambler though...it can stay for the present, but I may come back and revise this one at some point.

More generally, the concept of the container career seems to have been regarded as a mistake by 2e designers eventually as more and more careers were added during the course of 2e, some of them in quite niche roles and some seeming to explicitly move back from the logic of the container career. Both 1e and 2e also used explicitly (e.g. The Thief and The Entertainer in 1e) or implicitly (e.g. Wizards in 2e, Clerics in both) the idea of sub-careers, in which there were slightly different options to customize a career without making an entirely separate career.  The organizing principle here should really be the characteristic Advance Scheme rather than the skills, since it is easy enough to add 'if/or' clauses into careers but a separate Advance Scheme is more difficult to do that with.  But that being so, it was perhaps surprising that there wasn't a 'soldier' career that contained Marine, Mercenary, Soldier and then all the one-off flavour soldier-type careers. Overall though, the container careers were largely a mistake, despite the logic behind them, since careers are the currency within the game.

Careers in WFRP 1e and 2e - The Artisan's Apprentice & The Tradesman

 The Artisan's Apprentice (1e) and the Tradesman (2e) are another interesting comparison in that although in one sense they are equivalent careers in that they are the basic career 'feeder' career into the 'Artisan' advanced career which is common to both 1e and 2e, the Artisan's Apprentice is really not conceptually like the Tradesman.  The Artisan's Apprentice, the Alchemist's Apprentice and the Wizard's Apprentice are clearly mapped out as basically being:

Now, in and of itself there is no problem with this as a workable fantasy RPG character concept.  The problem in 1e though is that other characters - say, outlaws - already start at the level where they can legitimately pull their weight as one of Robin Hood's merrie men and women, if not the hooded man himself.  

The designers of 2e seem to have realized this and upgraded the "baby Artisan" character concept to the level of at least a working blacksmith.  So that leaves us a few choices here:

We can keep the 1e concept the same and modify the character to be a more useful version of the same thing

We can recognize that the designer of 2e did kind of know what he was doing when he made the change and follow his logic.

We can incorporate the Tradesman as an option into 1e and use both concepts.

At first glance, the latter option might look best, but it runs quickly into two issues - not insuperable, but worth thinking about.  Firstly, 1e has an 'all-or-nothing' approach to skills, you either have them or you don't and better performance in those skills is achieved by increasing the mental and physical attributes related to them.  In practice, this looks something like:

A character has 'Smithing' skill.  This enables them to construct anything that a Smith might realistically be able to make.  In 1e, Smiths can double as Armourers and Bladesmiths too, which makes them very useful.  I forget if there are special rules relating to weapon and armour construction lying around in one of the source books (I have a nagging suspicion that there are, perhaps in Warhammer City?) but ignoring that for a moment and just using the rules in the core book, the character rolls against Dexterity +10 to construct whatever it is they want to build.  There is a suggestion that for armour the character may need Metallurgy skill was well but there are no details as to whether these should be sequential tests or averaged tests.  No matter, the point is that if the 'Apprentice' has the skill, then they can make the thing and the only advantage the Artisan will have is that the Artisan may have a higher Dexterity score: the Artisan's Apprentice career allows the character to increase their Dexterity by 10, the Artisan by 20 and this is the only measure of difference. In WFRP2 by contrast, skills can be taken up to 3 times, so a character in theory can get another +20 from additional skills in addition to their relevant characteristic.

As an aside, dwarves should be rubbish at making stuff in WFRP v1 since their Dexterity scores are so low, averaging 21: humans by contrast average 31 and those of elves and halflings average 41.  The top percentile dwarven artisans are marginally less talented than the most fumble-fingered halfling...don't worry, the writing team in WFRP1 loved elves, but the dwarves got their revenge in WFRP2!

In any case, then if the 'include both' option is taken, then we need to decide if Tradesman is a 'Basic' career (i.e. one that a starting character can enter into) or an 'Advanced' career (i.e. a character must have been in one or more Basic careers prior to entry).  The logic of WFRP 1e indicates that the Tradesman should be an 'Advanced' career, which would then lead onto the Artisan career, which could no longer be entered into directly from Artisan's Apprentice. There is a lot to be said for this, in particular this would justify the advance scheme for Artisan having somewhat higher possible bonuses for Dexterity and Intelligence and Tradesman having some intermediate level.

This should really all be looked at then in conjuction with the Advanced careers, just like for Alchemist's Apprentice, but as a temporary suggestion:

Artisan's Apprentice:

Skills: Drive Cart, Evaluate, Haggle, Read/Write, Secret Language (Guilder), 50% chance of Animal Care, 25% chance of Very Resilient, 25% chance of Very Strong

Trades: 75% chance of one of Art, Boat Building, Brewing, Carpentry, Chemistry, Cook, Gem Cutting, Metallurgy, Smithing, Stoneworking, Tailor

This obviously retains the 'Apprentice' nature of the Artisan's Apprentice but makes some nods to being a much more competent character.

 

Careers in WFRP1e and 2e - the Alchemist's Apprentice

 The second basic career in WFRP 1e, the Alchemist's Apprentice, is an interesting case study in conversion between WFRP 1e and 2e.  The Alchemist career archetype was removed from 2e, that conceptual space being given to Wizards from the Lore of Metal tradition.  That being so, the Alchemist's Apprentice became simply a Wizard's Apprentice.  I think there is something of a flavour loss here, since the 1e Alchemist wasn't quite a wizard, but something more akin to a chemist with some magic, although I will agree that the skills framework of 1e only supported this idea so far (but so far was definitely more than 'nothing' in this context).  If we wish to re-work the 1e Alchemist Apprentice or create a 2e Alchemist Apprentice, how might we approach this?

One potential approach might be to add some of the skills from the Artisan's Apprentice and the Wizard's Apprentice and perhaps the Student to the 1e Alchemist's Apprentice but perhaps with some lower percentage chances of acquiring the same skills.  For example, the current career:

Skills: Brewing, Evaluate, Read/Write, 50% chance of Chemistry

Could become:

Skills: Brewing, Evaluate, Read/Write, 50% chance of Arcane Language - Magick, 50% chance of Chemistry, 50% chance of Drive Cart, 50% chance of Secret Language - Classical, 25% chance of Scroll Lore, 10% chance of Consume Alcohol, 10% chance of Very Resilient, 10% chance of Very Strong, 5% chance of Astronomy, 5% chance of Identify Plants, 5% chance of Numismatics, 5% chance of Speak Additional Language

Again, this one has at least a fair shake at being a much more useful character.  It might be best I think to increase the chance of Chemistry to 75% in the above case.  An option that I have omitted is for a 50% chance of Cast Spells - Petty, because the character couldn't use it even if they got the skill (because they would have no magic points); similarly, at least one point would be required to use Scroll Lore, so that might have been better off being omitted also. Even if most of the "chance of" rolls come up unlucky, then the character can relatively easily purchase with XP some very useful skills early on.  

Incidentally, the above reminds me of how unclear the rules regarding scrolls actually are; I think that the logic of the skill entry and the magical item entry together make the requirements as follows:

Can read the language in which the scroll is written

Has the Scroll Lore skill

Can cast the 'type' of magic of the spell(s) written on the scroll.  So, an apprentice with Cast Spells - Petty Magic cannot cast a Level 1 Battle Magic spell from a scroll, but a Wizard with Cast Spells - Battle 1 can cast a Level 4 Battle Magic spell from a scroll.

Has at least 1 Magic Point

I am reasonably sure that is what the rules say; I am far less sure that is what the authors intended...it is important though, because Dwarf and Halfling Wizards are going to be well-advised to use scrolls as their primary means of spellcasting until they have reached levels 2 or 3 in wizardry (if they ever do)...anyway, as they say, I digress!

Moving the other way into 2e will be done in the future, since it makes no sense to look at the Alchemist's Apprentice without looking at the Alchemist...

Careers in WFRP1e & 2e

The career system is one of the key parts of the WFRP game system.  Each character has a starting career and then progresses through a series of careers as part of the game.  The starting career gives the majority of a starting characters skills, and also allows - or if you prefer, restricts - advancement in certain areas.  These careers can be handled more-or-less abstractly, having little narrative impact on the game and being simply a mechanical advancement path for each character; or alternatively, being a major source of the narrative as characters search for opportunities to take the career path they desire and mold themselves into the character they want to be, whatever their starting point.  Broadly speaking, almost every career is open to every character, although 2e is slightly more restrictive in this regard.

The 1e careers are not even a bit balanced: some are much better than others.  I made a sheet once to show the expected skills that each starting career brings and the swing is enormous: IIRC an Outlaw can expect to get 13 or so skills, whilst others literally get 1 (the Roadwarden).  Most careers gave a percentage chance of having different skills, so some characters starting in the same career are just better (or worse).  In 2e, this was changed a lot, so each character got about 9 skills (broken into skills and talents in 2e, whereas they had been the same thing in 1e).  This was much better although 2e tended to express variation in terms of this skill or that skill, when I think it would have allowed much more varied and still balanced characters by dividing those skills into something like 'Core' skills and 'Optional' skills, or somesuch.  For example, the 2e Agitator has the following:

Skills: Academic Knowledge (History) or Gossip, Academic Knowledge (Law) or Common Knowledge (the Empire), Concealment, Charm, Perception, Read/Write, Speak Language (Breton or Tilean), Speak Language (Reikspiel)

Talents: Coolheaded or Street Fighting, Flee!, Public Speaking

I prefer to think of these in the following terms:

Core Skills: Concealment, Charm, Perception, Read/Write, Speak Language (Reikspiel)

Pick 6 of the following:

Optional Skills: Academic Knowledge (History), Academic Knowledge (Law), Common Knowledge (the Empire), Gossip, Speak Language (Breton), Speak Language (Tilean)

Talents: Coolheaded, Flee!, Public Speaking, Street Fighting

I think this clearly allows players and GMs to create a much wider variety of characters that would all fit the archetype of 'Agitator' without in anyway unbalancing it positively or negatively.

Returning to the 1e Agitator Career, it currently gives the following skills:

Skills: Public Speaking, Read/Write

As an alternative, some of the skills suggested in 2e could be moved across to make this character a slightly more appealing choice, e.g.:

Skills: Charm, Concealment (Urban), Public Speaking, Read/Write, Silent Move (Urban), 50% chance of Flee!, 30% chance of History, 25% chance of Law, 25% chance of Speak Additional Language, 25% chance of Street Fighting

This character looks a bit more useful and competent.  There is only one additional language option, since languages are less important in 1e (almost everyone speaks 'Old Worlder' in most of the published scenarios).  All the percentages might be tweaked to taste of course.  The only skill that might be worth changing slightly is giving the Charm skill a percentage chance rather than making it a core skill: Charm is much more common in 2e than in 1e and it perhaps overlaps too much with the Raconteur 1e career if it is included as of right.  But it could certainly be argued either way.  The percentages allow the randomness and variation between characters which some players - probably a minority, but a significant one - like about 1e.

Spell Components in WFRP 1

 

The magic system in the first edition of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying has never received a good press and in many ways it is easy to see why.  Many of the spells look ported over from Warhammer Fantasy Battle and although the system as a whole makes a fair stab at making role-playing games about something other than combat, the magic system was very combat-orientated.  But perhaps a worse problem was that there was a certain very functionalist air about the whole thing, with the system mechanics showing through - "Power Levels" and "Magic Points" and "Spell Levels" are game mechanics and the only way players have to think about them in character.  The magic point system functions fine, as in it is easy to administer - but it has some quite warped effects: beginning characters can really be quite ineffective.  A character has to roll equal to or under their current magic point total to successfully cast a spell, and given that the average Wizard's Apprentice has 2d4 magic points if human or an elf, or 1d4 if a dwarf or halfling, then they are going to fail a lot. Indeed, it is perfectly possible for a dwarf or halfling wizard's apprentice to be literally incapable of casting a spell...

So far, so bad.  At least this kind of thing is relatively easy to solve if you want.  But what has really been on my mind recently is WFRP's interesting use of spell ingredients.  The great majority of spells need the wizard to have some item or other in their possession to cast a spell.  I don't have a problem with this idea - indeed, I rather like it.  Quite a few of the spells in Harry Potter work this way for two good reasons (as a storytelling device): it limits the 'ammunition' of a wizard for certain things, and it provides a useful plot point to force the characters to do adventurous things to get hold of them.  And, almost by accident, WFRP 1 sets up the same system.  Take, at more or less random, the "Second Level" Battle Magic Spells.  They are: 

Aura of Protection (basically, magical armour)

Cause Frenzy

Cause Hatred

Cause Panic

Hold Flight (prevents a group of fighting characters from routing)

Lightning Bolt

Mystic Mist

Smash (breaks doors, walls etc.)

Zone of Sanctuary (protects against undead, demons etc. and all psychological reactions)

Zone of Steadfastness (group of characters in the zone become tougher and have increased combat powers)

 

Incidentally, Zone spells work in a very funny way in WFRP 1. If two zones overlap, then both are destroyed, so a demon who knows a spell or two can easily cast the petty magic spell Zone of Warmth to destroy these protective zones in a jiffy.

 

Anyway, returning to our list of spells above, we can look at them another way: those which have ingredients which are pretty easy or cheap to get, and which are not:

 

Aura of Protection (basically, magical armour) [A small iron ring]

Hold Flight (prevents a group of fighting characters from routing) [The jawbone of a mule]

Lightning Bolt [A tuning fork]

Mystic Mist [A ball of cotton wool]

Zone of Sanctuary (protects against undead, demons etc. and all psychological reactions) [A small silver pentagram]

Cause Frenzy [A lock of hair from a Chaos Beastman]

Cause Hatred [Blood from a Giant Spider]

Cause Panic [A Dragon's Tooth]

Smash (breaks doors, walls etc.) [A lock of hair from a Giant]

Zone of Steadfastness (group of characters in the zone become tougher and have increased combat powers) [1 pint of Dragon blood]

 

So, one set of spells can be executed for pennies, another set requires considerable risk and potentially expense in obtaining.  Neither set of spells is obviously much better than the other, although if pressed I might actually pick the 'Easy' group as the better bet.  Anyway, and I think that this is where the game fails to follow through, is that this disparity should have "game world" effects.  NPC wizards should be much more likely to have spells from the first set than the second.  There should be a real market in obtaining spell ingredients: becoming a professional adventuring fighter that hunts and kills monsters and sells their body parts for profit to magicians should be a real thing.  Being employed to obtain spell ingredients should be one of the most common adventure types (for spell casters who really want / really need) to cast certain spells.   The way that certain NPCs are written implies that something akin to the Talismongers of the Shadowrun world might exist, since otherwise, the major business of all lots of spellcasters would be a never-ending search for ingredients.

A lot of this was dropped in the second edition.  Ingredients were still there but gave a boost to the chances of successfully casting the spell rather than being vital to its execution.  Magic points were out.  The flavour of the spells changed, although I felt that some elements became a bit more stereotyped.  Anyway, that is a discussion for another time.