Despite having started with class/level-based systems, I grew to dislike them pretty early on in my gaming life. The idea that it was impossible, for example, for a wizard to learn to move quietly always rubbed me the wrong way. At the other end of the spectrum, I ran a variety of GURPS campaigns for two decades; and while I liked it a lot better, it could sometimes be hard to avoid players stepping on each other's toes or their characters becoming a little too much alike. I see the aptitude system as a nice middle ground between the two, and I personally like it rather a lot.

As to reinforcements... yea, I was a little disappointed. The only one that makes any sense to me to be deployed in such a manner is the Eversor Assassin. Pulling a Canoness away from the entire order under her command just makes no sense to me.

And as a side note, these are the kinds of threads which remind me how truly lucky I am to have the players that I have. I'll have to remember to tell them tomorrow night how much I appreciate them.

Kill Team = space marines.

Not always - it's a generic term for any specialised force of an Imperial organisation, which is why "Kill Team" is also the name for GW's skirmish rule set where you can build said teams from all codices.

In fact, doesn't the DH1 rulebook include a stormtrooper-like "Kill Team" NPC type in the adversary section?

Hola? Learn something new every day!

RE the murderhoboing/looting:

There are other ways to deal with it than removing fluffy coinage. Mission items, as mentioned above, and operational budgets should curb the "necessity" to loot literally everything. Wether you hook the budget to the task at hand, or to a tired mechanic with a fresh paint job (influence), or both, plausibly, it's something agents should be allotted.

On the other hand, I did recently find the standard wages in DH1 helpful for our chaos game, when figuring out how much to pay our ex-guardsman mercenaries. In other words, I'm still using DH1, because it having thrones still makes it relevant.

@Lynata

If players are just going to want a talent regardless of xp cost, then why have a differing cost at all? If you think players are going to base decisions on what twir character concept is, then it shouldn't matter if everything costs the same.

If players are just going to want a talent regardless of xp cost, then why have a differing cost at all?

That's where the aforementioned well-wrought distribution comes into play. If you don't have different costs, you are running a risk of samey advancements because there's no real penalty in picking up everything rather than having to choose carefully where to put their XP.

You'd still end up with characters differentiated as per the concepts of their players (because their XP pool will always limit the grand total of advancements regardless of the cost), but needless to say they will be much less specialised. And personally I do not believe that specialisation is wrong. It helps to guide the characters into more unique roles and serves to differentiate them mechanically, in addition to how the players run them thematically.

Let's look at it this way... I now think that you, when looking at the different XP costs, perceive it as one of them being more expensive, and thus more penalising to take, whereas I on the other hand look at the very same costs, but perceive one of them as being cheaper, and thus am incentivised to take it.

In other words, perhaps it's a question of the glass being half full or half empty.

The question of specialisation may also be simply one of two opposed "schools" of roleplaying where we just have conflicting preferences. I had a somewhat related discussion about the Dragon Age P&P here .

If players are just going to want a talent regardless of xp cost, then why have a differing cost at all?

That's where the aforementioned well-wrought distribution comes into play. If you don't have different costs, you are running a risk of samey advancements because there's no real penalty in picking up everything rather than having to choose carefully where to put their XP.

You'd still end up with characters differentiated as per the concepts of their players (because their XP pool will always limit the grand total of advancements regardless of the cost), but needless to say they will be much less specialised. And personally I do not believe that specialisation is wrong. It helps to guide the characters into more unique roles and serves to differentiate them mechanically, in addition to how the players run them thematically.

Let's look at it this way... I now think that you, when looking at the different XP costs, perceive it as one of them being more expensive, and thus more penalising to take, whereas I on the other hand look at the very same costs, but perceive one of them as being cheaper, and thus am incentivised to take it.

In other words, perhaps it's a question of the glass being half full or half empty.

The question of specialisation may also be simply one of two opposed "schools" of roleplaying where we just have conflicting preferences. I had a somewhat related discussion about the Dragon Age P&P here .

That and one skill being better to take by being cheaper still means the other one is worse to take by being expensive. Looking at things by the positive doesn't make the negative disappear.

Yeah, some of the criticisms towards the Aptitude system sound as if there were people who wanted to create characters that are equally good at everything. Aside from this also being far from the truth for DH1, I do not consider this good game design. It should not only be acceptable but intentional that different characters have different strengths and weaknesses, and the Aptitudes would achieve this nicely by forcing the player to limit and carefully distribute their XP investments, specialising in specific fields.

And as a player who enjoys dreaming up flavourful characters with a lot of thought in background I have to vocally protest the notion of any skill or talent being "unviable". There is no such thing as an "unviable" skill or talent in my mind - you either want it, because it fits to your character concept, or you don't mind. And if you want it, then its XP cost should be of no concern regarding acquisition, because it's merely there as a balancing factor.

Though I'm sure it was not intended that way, the notion of "unviable" character advancements sounds way too much like minmaxing to me.

Minmaxing and RP are not mutually exclusive. A min-maxed character is not necessarily a worse RP character just as a non-minmaxed character is not necessarily a better RP character(this thing has been done to death in relation to D&D, the name Stormwind Fallacy might be familiar to some people http://community.wizards.com/content/forum-topic/2861636).

And yes, IMO the issue of 'unviable' character advances is real, some things are just worse than others. The way I see it you don't want a talent/skill (even as a roleplayer), you want the outcome. You don't want your character to purchase Stealth +10 because you envision your character as having Stealth +10, you purchase Stealth +10 because you envision your character as being good at sneaking around. Now if for cost reasons (let's say you have no matching aptitudes for stealth) you either can't keep up with the opposition (because when you've spent X XP to purchase Stealth +10 your fellow party member has purcahsed stealth +30 for same cost due to matching aptitudes and the opposition is built to be a challenge for him) or you spend so much XP on stealth tht it cripples your concept in other places, I'd say that qualifies Stealth as 'unviable' for your character.

I realise this is from OW: HOE but since many on this thread continually like to say that DH2 is simply a repainted OW, Why not allow a character to "Elite advance" into a different role? In HOE this costs nothing and can be done every 2500xp! This means that if your Sage "needs" to be more like a Desperado, let them! This would change your aptitudes permanently to those of the new role. The limits would be those placed by the GM (In OW, A character may not Elite advance into or out of any of the specialist classes.)

If players are just going to want a talent regardless of xp cost, then why have a differing cost at all?

That's where the aforementioned well-wrought distribution comes into play. If you don't have different costs, you are running a risk of samey advancements because there's no real penalty in picking up everything rather than having to choose carefully where to put their XP.

You'd still end up with characters differentiated as per the concepts of their players (because their XP pool will always limit the grand total of advancements regardless of the cost), but needless to say they will be much less specialised. And personally I do not believe that specialisation is wrong. It helps to guide the characters into more unique roles and serves to differentiate them mechanically, in addition to how the players run them thematically.

Specialization is cool if you have an easy access to re-specialization. Otherwise, you are just lowering your character's usability (and consequently, his/her survivability) as you are going to do only one thing well, and get bored/suck/die in every other cases.

I realise this is from OW: HOE but since many on this thread continually like to say that DH2 is simply a repainted OW, Why not allow a character to "Elite advance" into a different role? In HOE this costs nothing and can be done every 2500xp! This means that if your Sage "needs" to be more like a Desperado, let them! This would change your aptitudes permanently to those of the new role. The limits would be those placed by the GM (In OW, A character may not Elite advance into or out of any of the specialist classes.)

Kinda makes you wonder why that's not actually in the rules. It's like DH2 is actually a step back from OW in some ways...

Anyway, good idea. Grabbing it for my group

It seems to me like this could just be resolved by limiting xp. Players can't buy everything if they don't get the resources for it. Makes more sense to have equally priced (relative to utility) skills and talents but limiting xp so players have to choose what they really want.

That and one skill being better to take by being cheaper still means the other one is worse to take by being expensive. Looking at things by the positive doesn't make the negative disappear.

I've already dealt with the "limiting XP" argument in the post you were replying to, so we'll just have to disagree here.

And you can absolutely make the negative disappear - for what you seem to consider negative is a feature for me, hence the "glass half full or half empty" proverb. An individual can only perceive the glass to be either half full or half empty, even though technically it's both.

Minmaxing and RP are not mutually exclusive. A min-maxed character is not necessarily a worse RP character just as a non-minmaxed character is not necessarily a better RP character(this thing has been done to death in relation to D&D, the name Stormwind Fallacy might be familiar to some people http://community.wizards.com/content/forum-topic/2861636).

Minmaxing and RP are not mutually exclusive, but you cannot focus on both things simultaneously. Even though it is true that most people fall somewhere in-between the extremes, inevitably, one will take precedence over the other. Would you buy a skill or talent you deem "unviable", just because you'd consider it a requirement for your character concept? There can only be either a Yes or a No to this question.

As such, I also cannot agree with this "Stormwind Fallacy" statement, where the author clearly jumped to conclusions and strawman arguments ( "[...] claiming that an optimizer cannot roleplay" ). Probably because they were called one or the other and didn't like it, and thus felt a need to defend their playstyle.

The way I see it you don't want a talent/skill (even as a roleplayer), you want the outcome. You don't want your character to purchase Stealth +10 because you envision your character as having Stealth +10, you purchase Stealth +10 because you envision your character as being good at sneaking around. Now if for cost reasons (let's say you have no matching aptitudes for stealth) you either can't keep up with the opposition (because when you've spent X XP to purchase Stealth +10 your fellow party member has purcahsed stealth +30 for same cost due to matching aptitudes and the opposition is built to be a challenge for him) or you spend so much XP on stealth tht it cripples your concept in other places, I'd say that qualifies Stealth as 'unviable' for your character.

You're disregarding the fact that the other characters face the very same limitations. The only possibility I could see that it creates a rift between the members of a group is if you have players who focus on their character concept on one side (and thus slow down progression by spending XP for more expensive stuff), and minmaxers who only go for the cheap skills and talents supported by both aptitudes (thus speeding up progression by singleminded overspecialisation) on the other. I can say I'm fortunate enough that I've never had such a group yet.

Besides, you will encounter the very same issue in the armoury (some people always picking the best weapons, whilst others would wish to retain lesser ones because of their background/history), regardless of the characters' own skill/talent progression. So, ultimately, the problem seems to be the players, not the system.

Also, what's the difference between "envisioning the character being good at X" and possessing the skill? The latter is merely a mechanical representation of the former, not a different thing altogether.

Specialization is cool if you have an easy access to re-specialization. Otherwise, you are just lowering your character's usability (and consequently, his/her survivability) as you are going to do only one thing well, and get bored/suck/die in every other cases.

Can't say I agree there. In my opinion, easy access to re-specialisation makes specialising in the first place rather pointless. There is also a difference between sucking and just not being very good at something. I believe the ideal example of a well-rounded character would be someone who is average at most important stuff, with one or two notable strengths where they can shine, and a couple weaknesses suitable for their background.

Lastly, there's nothing preventing you from specialising in more than one area. Ultimately, it just means you can't be equally good everywhere, or that you will have to sacrifice something else the more you focus on one or two (etc) dedicated areas.

Has "being bad at something" suddenly become a thing to avoid in roleplaying? To paraphrase an old saying about special snowflakes: If everyone is awesome at everything, nobody is awesome. You can't have a character whose concept focuses on being an outstanding gunman if he doesn't stand out from the group. You can't have The Face when everyone is equally good at social encounters. You can't have a good doctor if he's not notably better at first aid than everyone else.

Do your groups really look that samey? Why would anyone want this in their game? Variety ftw!

Lastly, there's nothing preventing you from specialising in more than one area. Ultimately, it just means you can't be equally good everywhere, or that you will have to sacrifice something else the more you focus on one or two (etc) dedicated areas.

There are two things: time and the amount of XP you have at your disposal. You can't grind in this game, and pouring 3-4 sessions worth of XP into a single advancement is not very imposing, especially if you barely get anything out of it because the difficulty has improved so much during those sessions that your advancement is now almost worthless.

You can't have a character whose concept focuses on being an outstanding gunman if he doesn't stand out from the group. You can't have The Face when everyone is equally good at social encounters. You can't have a good doctor if he's not notably better at first aid than everyone else.

This is why you have special rules for your roles. Maybe the Face is just as good at shooting than the Gunman, but the Gunman has a special rule that allows him to, say, bend bullets around corners or whatever. The Gunman still has his edge, and the Face is not a free frag in combat. Everybody wins.

Well, there's a difference between being "bad" at something and not being able to participate because you'll get your party TPK'd. You're familiar with DSA4, you know there's certain core skills everyone has to be able to function in the world. Given how DH2 is built up, though, even a basic rank in some of those can be prohibitively low and you end up needing to seriously invest in skillsets that demand an opposed roll, for example. If you don't have the aptitudes for it, welcome to sitting out a good portion of the campaign. That's the issue here. DH2 characters are not exactly functional in the very basic essentials of their profession (spies).

The difference between 'having the skill' and 'being good at it' is that the former might not always translate in the latter.

Also, you're making a false distinction between RPer and min-maxer based on (not) making the best choices. What if somebody's RP concept actually support said best choices? For example I have a desperado for an upcoming campaign that needs the grand total of one skill for which he doesn't have both aptitudes.

EDIT: The above was intended to be a reply to Lynata (intervening posts made that a bit unclear).

To further elaborate: aptitudes help define a character's focus. Yes, some aptitude sets will tend toward overspecialization, but others offer enough breadth to allow interesting and useful characters without dabbling into areas that are not their forte. Let's take an example (not my own character, a character one of my friends has made for an upcoming campaign due to start on sunday): A Magos Biologos (Forge World>Adeptus Mechanicus>Chirurgeon). This gives him the following aptitudes: Intelligence, Knowledge or Tech, Fieldcraft, Strength, Toughness Knowledge (or one free if they didn't choose Tech as background aptitude, let's assume they did) and one free characteristic (from Intelligence twice, let's assume they choose WS). Such a character can be knowledgeable (in any kind of lore), a good medic, reasonably strong, tough and decent at melee (he has only one aptitude for these 3). This is IMO a solid character concept without going anywhere near no aptitude skill advanced.

The armory example is also a poor one IMO. Some characters have attachment toward certain kinds of weapons (and it's a nice perk), others don;t. For these others, what reason is there to refrain themselves from choosing the best tool for the job.

The problem with having specialized characters in a game system is that tey either end up not participating/passing off responsibility to the person with the best skill rating (because players are PLAYING the game in addition to telling a story), try to finagle skill checks to just use their best skill, even if something else is more applicable, or end up being put on the spot and failing, because specialization when played optimally means all or nothing for most skills. This is compounded by how poorly the DH system handles actual failure. Is it bad to be bad at something? Yes it is if you're a player having to roll for it, because the failing outcome isn't fun. Dark Heresy's skill system is more about increasing te chance of success than it is gaining special abilities or becoming better at how something is done. As such, investment is not just required to be really good at something, it's also required to be even barely competent. This, specialization in dark heresy creates characters who are useless and unfun to play in situations other than what they're skilled in. So yeah, if yor argument against equal xp costs is that characters don't specialize, my response is that this would actually improve the gameplay of the system.

And as a note, a good GM can make failure more fun to play, but the DH system isn't helping him do this at all, and this RAW failure is not fun to play through.

It's like DH2 is actually a step back from OW in some ways...

Please name these ways.

Also what the frak is DSA4?

It's like DH2 is actually a step back from OW in some ways...

Please name these ways.

Also what the frak is DSA4?

Already have, but OW allows:

Shunting of skill modifiers and ability scores in between team members, allowing them to work as a team.

Respeccing into another career.

It also has a system to "create your own background" via regiments, which I miss in DH2.

DSA4 is something I referenced primarily because I was responding to Lynata. It's the fourth edition of Das Schwarze Auge, a system used quite frequently in Germany for roleplaying. It uses an elaborate skill system that both presents more options than most (aside BRP and GURPS) and is exceptionally simple to use. Both combat and noncombat rules exist, most rules are -optional- and helpful, or even have several variants where the rules basically say "pick one" or "if you want to be even more gritty, do this" and "if you want something more high fantasy epic, do this". It's exceptionally well-built, in other words.

Character creation is insanely varied to the point you can literally make anything you could possibly think of. What you can think of that isn't there has the rules they used to make their professions and cultures explained on 1-2 pages, so you can make your own.

Unfortunately, as good as the German version is, the English translation doesn't even contain most of the rules and reads like it was translated and edited together by a sixth grader :/.

Respeccing into another career.

I'm pretty darn sure that the creators are reserving this feature for a future supplement, just like in OW.

So I guess the answer to the OP's question is some people like it and some people don't.......

It dosen't matter to me that you need x thousnad points to get to the Inquisitor profession. You simply should not be one. Period. Same goes for DH 1. Ascension made this mistake and I was very surprised and sad that FFG made the same mistake in DH 2.

I agree- there just aren't mechanics built into the game that provide proper 'checks and balances' to PC Inquisitors. They either have so little authority as to make a mockery of the rosette, or they have so much authority that there is no reason for them to do anything themselves rather than sending minions to do all of the 'heavy lifting'. And what about the bureaucratic drudgery that goes along with being a member of the highest law-enforcement agency in the Imperium? Non-existent for PC Inquisitors.

My own DH1 campaign is just shy of Ascension level, and I've made it clear to my players that being promoted to Inquisitor is the 'retirement' goal of the campaign- the PC that distinguishes themselves the most will receive that honour at the end of the campaign.

And that is how you do it. I'd also consider the inquisitionship as the end-game for my PC's. Interrogator? Nope, I'll pass that, but no Inquisitors in my party, thank you.

Players attacking a doorman for refusing them entry = immature players! No excuse accepted! (To be followed by TPK in my game!). How players managed to take on half a PLATOON of PDF in straight up combat is beyond me! They should have been dead right there! If the kill team managed to capture them after a stunt like that? Again, TPK in the form of public execution. Get out of jail card from Inquisitor? Only if it's to execute them himself in the most creatively painful way he can think of!

In short: Any group of players stupid enough to pull a stunt like this arguably do not belong playing a game like DH! As Deathbygrots has mentioned, This sounds like a group of teenage kids railing against the world. I've played with groups of kids but even they weren't like this! (Actually, They were one of my BETTER groups in recent memory! )

Sorry of the double post, but... probably because they were on the level in DH 1, when PC's can take on almost anything with the right combo of supressing fire, superior gear and FP's, not to mention some OP psy powers. Trust me, I've been there.

Altough in hindsight I probably shouldn't stick so much to rules. The moment they've started this toomfoolery of theirs, is the moment they get insta-gibbed. Oh well, shame on me I guess... :/

Players attacking a doorman for refusing them entry = immature players! No excuse accepted! (To be followed by TPK in my game!). How players managed to take on half a PLATOON of PDF in straight up combat is beyond me! They should have been dead right there! If the kill team managed to capture them after a stunt like that? Again, TPK in the form of public execution. Get out of jail card from Inquisitor? Only if it's to execute them himself in the most creatively painful way he can think of!

In short: Any group of players stupid enough to pull a stunt like this arguably do not belong playing a game like DH! As Deathbygrots has mentioned, This sounds like a group of teenage kids railing against the world. I've played with groups of kids but even they weren't like this! (Actually, They were one of my BETTER groups in recent memory! )

Altough in hindsight I probably shouldn't stick so much to rules. The moment they've started this toomfoolery of theirs, is the moment they get insta-gibbed. Oh well, shame on me I guess... :/

Many players will get severely annoyed by 'rocks fall, everybody dies' scenario (and cutscenes in general). Their characters are the only thing they control in the game world. Not letting them play out the outcome of their own action (even if monumentally stupid) is taking their only bit of control away from them, turning them into simple spectators, which I doubt is what most people come to a game session for.

Generally my rule of thumb is "what you can do, NPCs can, too". If PCs introduce a certain equipment standard and are high profile in their actions, they may actually cause a general armoury upgrade for the sector's forces, simply because they are posterboys for efficiency.

Or, the poorly equipped PDF doesn't use his flashlight, but a shock-weapon instead. Those things are hilariously effective.

The problem with having specialized characters in a game system is that tey either end up not participating/passing off responsibility to the person with the best skill rating (because players are PLAYING the game in addition to telling a story), try to finagle skill checks to just use their best skill, even if something else is more applicable, or end up being put on the spot and failing, because specialization when played optimally means all or nothing for most skills. This is compounded by how poorly the DH system handles actual failure. Is it bad to be bad at something? Yes it is if you're a player having to roll for it, because the failing outcome isn't fun. Dark Heresy's skill system is more about increasing te chance of success than it is gaining special abilities or becoming better at how something is done. As such, investment is not just required to be really good at something, it's also required to be even barely competent. This, specialization in dark heresy creates characters who are useless and unfun to play in situations other than what they're skilled in. So yeah, if yor argument against equal xp costs is that characters don't specialize, my response is that this would actually improve the gameplay of the system.

And as a note, a good GM can make failure more fun to play, but the DH system isn't helping him do this at all, and this RAW failure is not fun to play through.

The only conclusion I can reach from your posts is that you and/or your group fails to have fun with DH2.0. This could be partially because of your expectations of the game, but the game itself is only partially the source of potential fun if you know what I mean. Correct me if I'm wrong, it would be nice to hear something positive about DH2.0 from you.

The problem with having specialized characters in a game system is that tey either end up not participating/passing off responsibility to the person with the best skill rating (because players are PLAYING the game in addition to telling a story), try to finagle skill checks to just use their best skill, even if something else is more applicable, or end up being put on the spot and failing, because specialization when played optimally means all or nothing for most skills. This is compounded by how poorly the DH system handles actual failure. Is it bad to be bad at something? Yes it is if you're a player having to roll for it, because the failing outcome isn't fun. Dark Heresy's skill system is more about increasing te chance of success than it is gaining special abilities or becoming better at how something is done. As such, investment is not just required to be really good at something, it's also required to be even barely competent. This, specialization in dark heresy creates characters who are useless and unfun to play in situations other than what they're skilled in. So yeah, if yor argument against equal xp costs is that characters don't specialize, my response is that this would actually improve the gameplay of the system.

So, what are some game systems which don't force/encourage PCs to specialize? I can't think of any off the top of my head...

-And, if there are any, how do those systems prevent characters from being bland cookie cutter clones?