Can the Veteran pick Sorcerer abilities?

Can the Veteran pick Sorcerer abilities?

yes he can.

Also as I read it can pick only 1 ability (advanced types from splat-books has 2 or 3)

Can the Veteran pick Sorcerer abilities?

yes he can.

Also as I read it can pick only 1 ability (advanced types from splat-books has 2 or 3)

Yeah, but the cherry-picking options are almost too good to be true.

While I do like that the archetypes in general seem to have better conceived, more useful abilities than quite a few of those in previous books, the Death Priest seems to stand out as vastly more powerful in terms of the unique abilities he receives than virtually any other human or space marine advanced class.

Unique I think to any advance archetype he gets 3 active special abilities, and all 3 of them are very potent and generally useful in any combat (as opposed to most other folks who get one or more very situational or borderline useless abilities). He can make a pretty easy roll to give a melee weapon one of three pretty strong properties (Irradiated, Toxic, or Corrosive) unlimited times per day with no Infamy point cost, which is pretty strong and useful. He can spend a full action chewing on a carcass to gain Regeneration (1d5) for the encounter with no roll and no infamy point cost and no limit to uses per day, which seems absolutely ridiculous. Not only do much weaker to broadly comparable abilities often have infamy point costs (the poor Frost Father has to spend an infamy point to just get a faster mildly better Frenzy, Flesh Shapers need to spend an infamy point and make a test to get any of their perks most of which are not the equal of regeneration in terms of overall tactical value, etc.), but regeneration in and of itself is incredibly, unreasonably hard to acquire in Black Crusade (given that only one Gift of the Gods can give it to you and only if you follow Nurgle, while the corresponding psychic power has high requirements and requires a half action maintain).

Already these two would set the Death Priest above his peers in terms of how useful and powerful his tactical abilities are, but the third one seems utterly excessive. The ability to spend an infamy point to destroy a weapon that has hit you without any need to roll or any restriction on type means that the Death Priest renders laughable both the incredibly anemic Warpsmith Infamy point technology/weapon-crippling ability and the Nurgle equipment-degradation power. Why is the rot in a Death Priest's guts able to overcome the protections or raw power of a Daemonweapon, Sanctified Weapon, Rune Weapon, etc.? Sure the Death Priest has to take a hit, but given the general durability that following Nurgle confers (in terms of xp discounts and GIfts) and the fact that the Death Priest has easy access to Regeneration this seems like a small price to pay against anything short of a Bloodthirster. Being able to effortlessly cripple the best weapon of any melee adversary and render them vastly weaker to virtually helpless can change the course of an entire encounter, and all the Death Priest needs is to have an Infamy point to spare. Not to mention that if it's a Daemonweapon then "undoing the damage" would require an exceptionally difficult and costly ritual, and the daemon's release could very well directly alter the circumstances of the whole combat.

I just feel compelled to ask why the Death Priest was given such an abnormally large number of exceptionally powerful abilities (the latter two seem far in excess of what anyone else can achieve for the same action or infamy point expenditure)? Did I read something wrong?

I was waiting for someone to say that! I agree with you Andkat entirely. The Death Priest is over powered and should be taken down a bit, I mean regeneration with no limits and no rolls? Not even burning an infamy point.

I don't know why the Death Priest is so powerful because know I'm going to have to guard against an all Death Priest group. What a battle it will be.

Well, tbh any non-psyker archetype should have abilities that are off the heezy, considering how powerful psychic powers can be.

The Death Priest's weapon breaking ability is powerful, but for a PC is not that bad because it's breaking the loot anyway. On NPC's it's a little more tragic considering you can break a PC's demon or legacy weapon, so I guess we hope the GM uses it judiciously or warns players before such an encounter somehow?

The thing is, pretty much no other advanced class gets that amount of power for a similarly low/no cost in terms of their special abilities. Sure the human advanced class abilities are supposed to help counterbalance not being a Psyker/Astartes, but that doesn't really excuse one advanced class being a significant to dramatic step above the others in terms of power accessibility and/or potency.

Also the Weapon-breaking is pretty jarring from a fluff context- how is the mystical rot inside of some moderately accomplished plague-cultist sufficient to casually and with 100% reliability destroy even the mightiest of daemonweapons, the weapon of a Living Saint, etc.? At the very least there should be some kind of Corruption (it seems intuitive that the more infused with the stuff of Chaos you are the more potent your supernatural innate powers of decay would be) or Toughness test for it, modified perhaps by weapon rarity or with penalties/immunities for certain kinds of weapon or somesuch.

I would also tend to agree that testless unlimited use per session encounter-long Regeneration (1d5) should probably require an infamy point expenditure at the very least.

Ummm, have to ask where did you people took the Regeneration (1d5), it's Unnatural Toughness (1d5) to Death Priest of Mire.

[...]

New Weapon qualities:

-Corrosive (anyone owning OW can check this)

-Decay (Can insta gib anyone suffering from Critical Damage or ZH)

-Irradiated (Suffer Toughness damage)

[...]

Wow, I checked Corrosive from Only War, since it's never come into play for me before, and that's just ridiculously broken. It's got the potential to reduce a Power Armour to slag in a single hit or two.

Oh, huh, my mistake. Somehow I read it as Regeneration the first time and then missed or never reread it. Still, Unnatural Toughness 1-5 unlimited times per session with no infamy cost and no test is still very strong (especially taking into account the overall Death Priest ability package).

Edit: I think I must've gotten it confused with the plague heart implant thing.

I feel like Decay (X) is also pretty worrisome. While having a pretty high (the Decay ratings in the book are generally not small) chance of instant killing someone you've already forced down into the criticals is fine, I'm not sure how I feel about having a 10-20% (depending on how many 1d10s you are rolling for damage) per hit chance of forcing a high difficulty save-or-die on anything you can wound on a 10 or lower. The Pandemic Staff and Plague Claw at least have relatively low damage values (although a Space Marine or a Death Priest using a Corrosive coating with a Pandemic Staff can readily give it the ability to force -40 save or die rolls on most things) , although I don't see anything to prevent you from daemonically possessing a Plague Claw to make it an instant death threat against a pretty wide range of targets.

Yeah, but it's generally true in this game that taking even on solid hit will completely screw you, hence why evasion tests are king. So Decay is not that big a deal.

I kind of get the feeling with the Plague Priest of Mire that there was another sentence or two that were going to be added to that weapon break ability that were edited out of the print copy.

Interesting that Human disciples of Chaos has fewer options in every tome for unaligned archetypes...1,1 then -2 and now -3

Is it indicates that unaligned humans has no place in the Screaming Vortex? (or less likely to survive ?)

For the last two books they've focused on making all the archetypes aligned.

That said I don't really think the Pirate Prince should have been Slaanesh-aligned; unaligned makes more sense considering the broad spread of faiths for the pirates detailed in the books.

The archetypes in the Tome of Decay seem pretty clearly Nurgle-aligned. On a broader scope, there seems to be a general erasing of unaligned characters in the lore - despite there being plenty of unaligned demon princes in the backstory, the information detailed in the ToD disallows it. I guess you can assume that most of the fanbase will be ignoring that bit, and probably houseruling some particular benefits for unaligned demon princes to go along with it.

Though that may well be GW's hand - current codices require Demon Princes to be aligned with one of the Four.

For the last two books they've focused on making all the archetypes aligned.

That said I don't really think the Pirate Prince should have been Slaanesh-aligned; unaligned makes more sense considering the broad spread of faiths for the pirates detailed in the books.

The archetypes in the Tome of Decay seem pretty clearly Nurgle-aligned. On a broader scope, there seems to be a general erasing of unaligned characters in the lore - despite there being plenty of unaligned demon princes in the backstory, the information detailed in the ToD disallows it . I guess you can assume that most of the fanbase will be ignoring that bit, and probably houseruling some particular benefits for unaligned demon princes to go along with it.

Doesn't this go counter to what's been said in Black Crusade before? I'm sure Unaligned people were capable of reaching Apotheosis, so what do they get now, if Tome of Decay specifically disallows it?

Right now, the only reason to stay Unaligned is as a psyker, in order to get some really powerful psychic powers. This is **** odd, considering that psykers should likely lean the most towards alignment in general, from my point of view (Nurglite plaguelords, tzeentchian sorcerers, beguiling slaaneshi).

Well, I'm definetly houseruling that one.

That's certainly disheartening. The player base keeps asking for more reasons to stay Unaligned - what does FFG do? Creates Daemon Prince rules that excludes princehood.

Doesn't this go counter to what's been said in Black Crusade before? I'm sure Unaligned people were capable of reaching Apotheosis, so what do they get now, if Tome of Decay specifically disallows it?

Read the post directly above yours. And unaligned people can reach Apotheosis, at which point they have to choose.

BYE

That's certainly disheartening. The player base keeps asking for more reasons to stay Unaligned - what does FFG do? Creates Daemon Prince rules that excludes princehood.

Doesn't this go counter to what's been said in Black Crusade before? I'm sure Unaligned people were capable of reaching Apotheosis, so what do they get now, if Tome of Decay specifically disallows it?

Read the post directly above yours. And unaligned people can reach Apotheosis, at which point they have to choose.

BYE

Which is somehow make sense as you need a god to make you a daemon prince. Clearly they work together rarely.

That's certainly disheartening. The player base keeps asking for more reasons to stay Unaligned - what does FFG do? Creates Daemon Prince rules that excludes princehood.

Doesn't this go counter to what's been said in Black Crusade before? I'm sure Unaligned people were capable of reaching Apotheosis, so what do they get now, if Tome of Decay specifically disallows it?

Read the post directly above yours. And unaligned people can reach Apotheosis, at which point they have to choose.

BYE

The preceding post doesn't really answer my question, but judging from your response, if I got this right, when they reach Apotheosis, they have to choose one of the four Chaos Gods, even if they are previously not aligned?

That seems.. awkward and.. odd.

That's certainly disheartening. The player base keeps asking for more reasons to stay Unaligned - what does FFG do? Creates Daemon Prince rules that excludes princehood.

Doesn't this go counter to what's been said in Black Crusade before? I'm sure Unaligned people were capable of reaching Apotheosis, so what do they get now, if Tome of Decay specifically disallows it?

Read the post directly above yours. And unaligned people can reach Apotheosis, at which point they have to choose.

BYE

Which is somehow make sense as you need a god to make you a daemon prince. Clearly they work to gather rarely.

I never considered the direct involvement of one of the four greater gods of chaos to be a requirement for becoming a daemon prince. I always thought of it as a natural principle of chaos, just as I always considered the greater gods themselves more forces of nature given face than actual individuals.

Besides, the Immaterium is full of all kinds of forces, including a host of different "gods". Not all is divided between the great four.

Speaking of Daemon Princes, I am rather baffled by some of the actual mechanics associated with apotheosis:

* Only humans receive Unnatural Toughness (3) when they Ascend- it seems really strange that there would be an attempt to 'balance' between CSM and human players at this incredibly late stage in the game with one random Ascension perk.

*Wounds: The Greater Daemons and Daemon Princes in the books (other than Phokulozurtis from Tome of Fate, whose statline is utterly pathetic for any kind of Master-level NPC and cannot be anything other than a misprint) all seem to have 80-100+ wounds. But player Daemon princes only gain 10 wounds on ascension, putting their maximum tremendously below the NPC Daemons (and none of the purchaseable Gifts really help with closing this gap, either). It is very strange to me that Ascension doesn't outright double your wounds and the total number of sound constitution advances you are permitted to purchase as a character (or some other effect that would put you broadly in the same range of wound totals as the NPC DPs)- the discrepancy is rather jarring.

*Immortal Power: This is easily the most bizarre of the Gifts. Initially it seems great- letting Daemon Princes pick from a wide range of different traits including Unnatural Characteristics allows them to expand and grow indefinitely so long as they continue to accrue Favor, providing a clear conceptual continuity between a PC Daemon Prince and the very top ranks of a God's daemonic lieutenants. However, in actuality you are only allowed to ever purchase any specific trait once with this power and cannot purchase anything you already have.

This leads to several strange and ill-fitting behaviors/trends. One, it means that Daemon Princes are encouraged to stockpile Favor for as long as possible before buying any variable magnitude thing from the list (Unnatural Characteristics, Brutal Charge, etc.) because while you can buy up to any rating you can afford with your initial purchase you can never buy the same thing again.

Two, it means that Daemon Princes can never raise Unnatural Toughness or Strength (as all Daemon Princes have it) and moreover it leads to paradoxical situations, like how Daemon Princes of Khorne can have higher Unnatural Fellowship than Daemon Princes of Slaanesh, Daemon Princes of Nurgle higher Unnatural Willpower than Daemon Princes of Tzeentch, Daemon Princes of Tzeentch higher Brutal Charge than Daemon Princes of Khorne, etc. because in each case the latter type already gets the relevant thematically defining trait from their Mark (and often other mutations/gifts) and so cannot purchase any rating of it with Favor while the former does not have it and so can in theory get a pretty high rating if they patiently amass enough Favor for it.

Given that the cost of even one level requires something like taking a sector capital or launching a Black Crusade, I am not really clear on why it was necessary to impose these kinds of constraints on Daemon Prince growth- it's not like anyone is going to accumulate enough Favor to really get dozens upon dozens of levels of one unnatural characteristic (plus, Warptime, Protean Form, and Inviolable Flesh are already comprehensively broken in this respect anyway if you have a high psy rating, and all non-Khornate Daemon Princes can get psy rating).

*In the same vein, I am very confused by why the Nurgle Lord of Decay gift only allows you to purchase the bonus Sound Constitution three times- Nurgle's entire mechanical gimmick involves being far more bulky and resilient than anyone else so I don't see why a Daemon Prince of Nurgle shouldn't be able to have moderately more wounds than the average Daemon Prince of any other God .

As far as Undivided Daemon Princes go- the fluff examples of folks like Lorgar, Perturabo, etc. as well as some of the other lesser Undivided ones over the years have never made any mention of a need to hew to any one God at the moment of Ascension and thereafter. It would make more sense if Undivided Champions simply needed a higher Infamy threshold and only had access to the Unaligned Gifts, as they would need to be mighty enough to either attract the attention of multiple Chaos Gods and would not be as intimately connected to any one patron. THey could have the advantage of only losing Favor from burning Infamy (as they have no one patron their actions would clash with/displease), but might gain Favor much more slowly than Aligned Daemon Princes.

I'd say Primarchs are a different case and don't represent typical Daemon Princes in the slightest. Furthermore, as was already stated, this is something that GW has put in place. Daemon Princes are aligned. That's pretty much the beginning and the end of it.

As to your questions of wounds (both with the initial boost and the nurgle one), at the end of the day this is a role-playing game. You can't have one member in the group with 50-100 wounds when everyone else has 10-20. Balance is a concern, and it has to be taken into account. I'd also argue that you can Immortal Power to increase Unnatural Strength/Toughness because the ability doesn't allow you to raise something you've already raised with that ability (so you can't raise Unnatural Agility once, and then come back later and raise it again). So if you haven't used Immortal Power to raise Unnatural Strength/Toughness, then you still can. But that's a matter of interpretation I suppose, and it's the way I'd play it.

BYE

The preceding post doesn't really answer my question...

It should. It's the only thing that counts. If GW says it is, then it is. 'Fraid there's no wiggle room there.

BYE

Only wanted to point one thing here concerning Adkat's post about Daemonic Gift: Immortal Power and not being able to select it again if you have used it to buy Unnatural Strength (X) already.

You can take it again but first you have dismiss the said Daemonic Gift as has been said on ToD p. 68, Dismissing Gift.

"Daemon Princess can dismiss chosen Daemonic Gift and lose all the benefits of the Gift, including Traits, Talents or Skills it bestows."

Downside you don't get back the Favour you have used to take the Gift. So it might be wise to think when and where you are using your Favor.

I interpreted "Cannot choose a gift he already possesses this way" as meaning that you can't use the Immortal Gift power to pick up anything you already have an instance of from any source ("this way" referring to the act of using Immortal Gift to buy something new, rather than referring to something having the property of having been bought with immortal gift). After all, it already says you "cannot choose the same trait more than once" in the exact same sentence, so it's a little strange that it would say the same thing twice. I suppose it could just be an editing error?

Of course, It certainly is a more reasonable limitation if you interpret it as preventing stacking only of things you've already acquired via Immortal gift. But the wording is at least to me somewhat unclear.

HMBC: Fair enough, although I would tend to argue that 'party balance' has always been a tenuous notion in BC at best given the large gaps between Astartes and non-Astartes and the tremendous superiority of a well-built Psyker over anyone who isn't one (especially given the experience thresholds you'd be at when someone actually Ascends).

Of course, given that Ascension is itself sort of the ultimate goal, if you hit Princehood first (or are the only one to do so) it seems sort of fitting that you should be able to lord it over everyone else. When there's a manifest and unbound Daemon Prince running around a group of (high-tier) mortals, it doesn't seem like there would be much ambiguity as to who is supposed to be in charge.

Yeah GW made it preety clear in his supplement,that all deamon princes had to be aligned ever since the gods exsperimented with Be'likor and realized that unaligned princes where a mistake.