As discussed in the General forum, the Acquisition system as written is a clunky mess. Let's fix that.

At character generation you get some items based on your starting options, plus Influence bonus, representing your character's material connections and wealth. The stuff you start with should get you by in the beginning. So far, so good.

But what happens when a player wants to acquire a new thing? Or ten of one thing? Or a customized version of a thing? RAW, that's one roll per thing. Clunky, and really not a lot of fun. I personally don't like spending 10 minutes per player on shopping trips. Another thing that bugs me is that item acquisition is based off each character's Influence score. Like, we're all agents of the Inquisition here, right? How come the feral worlder can barely get a standard-issue lasgun while the noble is strutting around smiting heretics with a diamond-tipped pimp cane? Can't we pool our resources?

Only War had a pretty good way to address this: mission assignment gear. If you're not familiar, at the start of the mission, the GM puts together a list of equipment the team might need to complete the objectives laid out in the mission. The GM then rolls against the squad's logistics rating, modified by the squad's location and circumstances, etc. Depending on the roll, the squad might get all, some of, or none of the gear (or funny extra gear if the roll went really well). They're then required (in a loose, narrative sense) to turn in the gear after the mission is completed. It was a clean way to give the players a bunch of stuff they were probably going to try to get anyway, but it wasn't totally deterministic (and squads could take on secondary objectives to increase their own logistics rating, but I digress).

I propose a solution that will kill two birds with one stone: unPROFANEWORDing the Acquisition system and giving some mechanical effect for Subtlety. In the interest of full disclosure, I haven't seen the final rules, but as of the last beta, Subtlety was a disparate system with little to no mechanical support or concrete narrative impact and was almost totally opaque to the players. In my mind, it provided unnecessary mechanics for something GMs do anyway (i.e. keep track of how loud the players are being in the course of their investigation and tailoring the story to fit).

So that's the rationale for this. Here's my proposal: Let's treat Subtlety as a resource players can affect. Any item (at GM's discretion) can be purchased by decreasing the group's Subtlety score by the tens digit of the availability modifier plus the quantity of items being purchased. No roll, you just get it. Because you work for the god damned Inquisition and you can get stuff. If the availability modifier is positive or zero, Subtlety does not decrease. So 1 autogun with a red-dot sight would be -3 Subtlety (0 for autogun, 1 for RDS, quantity 2), 5 laspistols is -5 (0 rarity, quantity 5), a single powersword would be -4 (3 for Very Rare, quantity 1), and so on. The GM is free to make the cost higher if the item being purchased would stand out more than normal given the situation. Purchasing items always makes the group more noticeable (and because of this should be ignored for innocuous things like backpacks and watches).

So that's how Subtlety goes down. How does it go up? Two ways: the first being to go without, and the second by expending Influence. Going without means leaving the trappings of office at home. Players can opt to leave their fancy kit at home, temporarily increasing the group's Subtlety by the cost of the item (described above). This should be represented in a narrative way such that the items are stored securely but are not easily accessible - an obvious example is leaving your fancy custom lasgun on the ship while the group infiltrates a feudal world. So mark on your sheet how much Subtlety those weapons are worth! The second method ties Influence into this. By voluntarily decreasing their own Influence score, a player can reduce the group's Subtlety. A formula will need to be worked out, but 1 Influence for 1-3 Subtlety feels close. This represents that character calling in favors, getting fake identification papers, having evidence of the group deleted off servers, security footage of the group stolen, etc.

Obviously, it would be really easy for a group to blow their 50 starting Subtlety on gold-plated AKs and pimped out power armor with spinners and rims (which I'm totally okay with), so ideally this system would be paired with something that makes Subtlety a workable mechanic for narrative uses (I'm thinking along the lines of thresholds a la Corruption, making the group incapable of certain actions depending on their level of Subtlety). Something to give the players a real choice of how they want to play it.

I haven't figured out how to handle the case of exchanging goods for other goods, like buying a crate of weapons with this huge brick of drugs you picked up from that dealer you busted. Something to consider.

Thoughts?

edit: apparently the profantiy filter doesn't know ALL the profanity

I like this idea, but I think the biggest criticism you're going to come up against is the lack of "gating" for more powerful weapons like power weapons and plasma guns. DH2's system at least makes acquiring those things very unlikely.

Perhaps Influence could be tied not to general influence but to specific influence with the inquisition (and be a party-wide statistic like subtlety rather than a character one). Reaching new amounts of influence would unlock new weapons and gear to be acquired from the inquisition or by utilizing resources granted by the inquisition. So you could have every increase in the Attribute Bonus linked to unlocking a new weapon rarity. This would assume that the inquisition provides resources during every mission for the players to use.

The other big criticism is what happens when player's DON'T have access to inquisitorial resources. This could come up in cases where the inquisition does not have enough intel about a planet to give you resources, times when you are stranded from the inquisition, or times when the inquisition just doesn't want to give you access to resources. This could be explained as the players just plain having to somehow prove themselves or establish contact or intel with the inquisition in order to gain access to the ability to acquire new items.

Also, another thing will come up with regards to item rarity. Here's a quick and dirty way to do it. Make a table ranking all of the rarity modifiers from 1 to whatever. Multiply that number by 10, by 100, by 1000, or whatever metric is used in the location you're at. Maybe an item at rank 2 is worth 200 thrones, 2000 marks, or 2 gold scraps. But that would allow a simple enough way to give items concrete values. You roll commerce to barter and each degree of success increases the rank of the item by 1 or decreases it by 1 depending on if you're buying or selling. Selling an item would reduce subtlety as per your suggested rule, but allow the chance of possibly creating static resources that can be used later without affecting subtlety.

I like this idea, but I think the biggest criticism you're going to come up against is the lack of "gating" for more powerful weapons like power weapons and plasma guns. DH2's system at least makes acquiring those things very unlikely.

This is actually a good point. In-universe, access to powerful weapons like plasma guns is controlled by either the Munitorum (or other Adepta) -OR- by very powerful none-state actors (crime lords, rogue traders, etc.). Perhaps this system could be modified so that gear that should be 'gated' is only available to groups with very high or very low Subtlety. You could split it, too, so that some gear is easier for covert groups to acquire than overt and vice-versa.

This would tie in well with a system that brings Subtlety more to the fore. Like maybe the group can't call in Arbites support without a sufficiently overt Subtlety score, or criminal elements won't deal with you if you're a known Imperial agent.

Perhaps Influence could be tied not to general influence but to specific influence with the inquisition (and be a party-wide statistic like subtlety rather than a character one). Reaching new amounts of influence would unlock new weapons and gear to be acquired from the inquisition or by utilizing resources granted by the inquisition. So you could have every increase in the Attribute Bonus linked to unlocking a new weapon rarity. This would assume that the inquisition provides resources during every mission for the players to use.

The other big criticism is what happens when player's DON'T have access to inquisitorial resources. This could come up in cases where the inquisition does not have enough intel about a planet to give you resources, times when you are stranded from the inquisition, or times when the inquisition just doesn't want to give you access to resources. This could be explained as the players just plain having to somehow prove themselves or establish contact or intel with the inquisition in order to gain access to the ability to acquire new items.

I think reworking Influence to be a party-wide stat makes a lot of sense.

In these examples, the GM could increase the cost of items, giving the players some task they need to complete before they get the goods, or simply not allowing Acquisitions at that time (like being stranded on a feudal world). If we worked out a system for locking out gear to Subtlety ranges, that gives the GM the tool of increasing or decreasing the group's Subtlety score in response to their actions, locking them out of equipment until they deal with it.

Keep in mind this needn't be represented as Inquisitorial resources being used - it could just as easily be purchasing arms as a licensed (forged or legit) bounty hunter or as a front company.

A major part of the existing Subtlety system is the fact that players never know exactly how overtly/covertly their characters are operating. They don't know their Subtlety rating unless they use the Inquiry skill; if they roll poorly on this check, they might walk into an ambush because they thought their actions were unknown to their enemies. If Subtlety is "gated" such that certain courses of action aren't available at low or high Subtlety, the group's Subtlety score has to be public information, and I feel that takes a lot of tension away from investigations.

To be fair, once a group knows what their subtlety score is, there's not really a lot they can do with it, because the numbers were never assigned to anything concrete. Did they change the part in the beta about being off by a few points depending on your roll?

To be fair, once a group knows what their subtlety score is, there's not really a lot they can do with it, because the numbers were never assigned to anything concrete. Did they change the part in the beta about being off by a few points depending on your roll?

I haven't got a hold of the DH2 core book yet, so I'm not sure. But that is how things worked in the beta.

@cps: Several of your proposed changes are included in the core rules:

• There is a talent (Cover-up) that lets you spend Influence to increase your Subtlety by 1d5 per point spent.
• When you even attempt to buy an item with a negative Availability modifier, your Subtlety decreases by the tens digit of that modifier. Your proposed system skips the test entirely and just lets players spend Subtlety to get items, which feels very bizarre to me.
• The section on Influence in the core rules gives guidelines for increasing or decreasing the amount of Subtlety gained based on what kind of gear the Acolytes are carrying.

Also, your system assumes that the Inquisition has a strong presence in the sector and can procure everything their Acolytes may need. Especially in the Askellon Sector, that isn't the case -- the sector is in the process of crumbling, and there are at most a handful of Inquisitors fighting to keep the Emperor's Light burning.

If you haven't given the current Influence rules a fair chance, I recommend you do so before making such sweeping changes. My group was skeptical about the removal of Thrones, but after playing with Influence we liked it much more than the original system.

ATM, we're handling it as follows:

Tell the DM what you want to buy on planet. DM will tell you if something flat out doesn't exist, or if some goods (like lasguns, guard vests etc.; f,ex,, we're on Vostroya atm) are of higher availability.

Add up the availability mods and get the average from them all. That is your acquisition modifier.

Degrees of success or failure determine how much of your purchase you manage to buy with your operational budget. -20 items, f.ex., make it on to the list if you succeed your roll by 2 degrees. After nixing rares entirely, each degree of failure subtracts one item from the shopping list.

• There is a talent (Cover-up) that lets you spend Influence to increase your Subtlety by 1d5 per point spent.
• When you even attempt to buy an item with a negative Availability modifier, your Subtlety decreases by the tens digit of that modifier. Your proposed system skips the test entirely and just lets players spend Subtlety to get items, which feels very bizarre to me.
• The section on Influence in the core rules gives guidelines for increasing or decreasing the amount of Subtlety gained based on what kind of gear the Acolytes are carrying.

Also, your system assumes that the Inquisition has a strong presence in the sector and can procure everything their Acolytes may need. Especially in the Askellon Sector, that isn't the case -- the sector is in the process of crumbling, and there are at most a handful of Inquisitors fighting to keep the Emperor's Light burning.

If you haven't given the current Influence rules a fair chance, I recommend you do so before making such sweeping changes. My group was skeptical about the removal of Thrones, but after playing with Influence we liked it much more than the original system.

My issue isn't so much with the system of using Influence to purchase things - I'm totally support that kind of abstraction. My issue is with the fact that, RAW, you have to buy things piecemeal, and it's by character, not by group. It will take up a lot of time at the table and lead to weird situations where one player gets screwed by luck and another gets all the flashy add-ons for their weapon but not the weapon itself. And god help you if you need to buy things in bulk, because that isn't covered at all. These are all problems that don't need to exist.

Another issue I have is that the Subtlety system feels totally superfluous. It seems like it's just for the GM and does nothing but provide a poorly-built framework for how to GM. It needs to be opened up for everyone at the table or scrapped entirely. If you're worried about the Subtlety score being public knowledge, I think that's a good thing - gives the players a good idea of how likely they are to succeed at (whatever Subtlety is used for). The rolls against it can still be private, if that's your thing.

And again, this needn't represent the influence of the Inquisition - much like Influence itself can represent all manner of ways individuals can wheel and deal. In Abnett's books, even cut off from the Inquisition the characters are capable of renting out safehouses and boats and getting guns.

Deathbygrots: that system seems like it would resolve most of the headaches from shopping trips. Are you using Subtlety at all?

This is how I handle it:

Bulk purchases of weapons and armour without a sufficient IC excuse or other cover story will raise flags, as will acquiring goods atypical or rare on the planet. PCs can counteract this by purchasing by proxy/in disguise etc..

Purchasing "as an inquisitor" is definitely going to kill your subtlety, regardless of what you buy. IF, for us, is more "operational budget abstracted" for acquisition purposes.

In all seriousness, how often have your players needed to purchase items in bulk? The only time it came up for our group was when the PCs all needed microbeads at the beginning of the campaign or when they were buying clothing for disguises. In those cases, I simply let them acquire one extra copy of an item for each additional DoS they score on their Influence test. I do agree that some mechanism for this should have been included in the core book.

That really depends on what they're doing and what their assignment is. Bulk weapon purchases to arm a counter-revolution in seperatist territory is entirely within the scope of the current campaign...

In all seriousness, how often have your players needed to purchase items in bulk? The only time it came up for our group was when the PCs all needed microbeads at the beginning of the campaign or when they were buying clothing for disguises. In those cases, I simply let them acquire one extra copy of an item for each additional DoS they score on their Influence test. I do agree that some mechanism for this should have been included in the core book.

*I want to buy multiple doses of a drug

*I want to buy multiple things of ammo

*I want to buy multiple grenades

*I want to buy clothes for myself and the rest of the party

*I want to buy multiple pieces of inflitration equipment for the party

And so on

Playing a priest, whipping a mob into an angry frenzy with your oratory skills, then equipping them all with sh*tty quality lasguns and pointing them in the direction of the enemy makes for a brilliant tactic if you don't care about subtlety.