Or people could just save up/spend XP on stuff that they think is cool and fits their character...

The "less skills is more" approach is pretty counter-intuitive to that.

I think here we hit the nail on the head of the problem.

There are some people that are willing to save up xp and spend on what they think their character would take/think would be cool. Regardless of the use of it in the system as a whole.

There are others who think only advancements that make a character more effective are viable, and that everything should be able to be bought for a cost that they, note there THEY, think is right.

This unfortunately is something that can't be resolved in the current system, it just isn't there. Play how you want, unfortunately you might have to house rule some stuff. If that doesn't sound very fun, hope someone else does it for you, that or complain about their house rules not being what you want.

I think here we hit the nail on the head of the problem.

There are some people that are willing to save up xp and spend on what they think their character would take/think would be cool. Regardless of the use of it in the system as a whole.

There are others who think only advancements that make a character more effective are viable, and that everything should be able to be bought for a cost that they, note there THEY, think is right.

No, the problem is that the system actively punishes the first approach while encourages the second. You can't just "save up" XP without severe consequences, and grinding though 3-4 sessions with a subpar character just to get some flavorful advancement is the best way to earn the other players' ire as they have to piggyback you "just" because you want to be a special snowflake.

Consequences are dependent upon the kind of game being run. Since there isn't a challenge rating system the characters really aren't at any more disadvantage than any other time.

Consequences are dependent upon the kind of game being run. Since there isn't a challenge rating system the characters really aren't at any more disadvantage than any other time.

Considering that competence is always in high demand, I would say that "I suck because I can!" is probably the poorest excuse you can present to the party .

Consequences are dependent upon the kind of game being run. Since there isn't a challenge rating system the characters really aren't at any more disadvantage than any other time.

Considering that competence is always in high demand, I would say that "I suck because I can!" is probably the poorest excuse you can present to the party .

Guardsman, "I suck at stealth"

Assassin, "So learn it."

here we have a choice:

Guardsman A: "Nah I'll suck forever and learn some more guns because experience is expensive"

Guardsman B: "Yeah sure, might be difficult, but I know as much as I need to about shooting. Want to teach me?"

(Note here the assassin kills them both because of the maddening effect of seeing reality splitting on a matter of choice)

The point is that there's a difference between character competence and player competence.

Consequences are dependent upon the kind of game being run. Since there isn't a challenge rating system the characters really aren't at any more disadvantage than any other time.

The problem is that there are no guarantees there won't be a character who takes 'cool' advances for the sake of flavor and a charavter who has planned his build ahead in the same group.

Consequences are dependent upon the kind of game being run. Since there isn't a challenge rating system the characters really aren't at any more disadvantage than any other time.

Considering that competence is always in high demand, I would say that "I suck because I can!" is probably the poorest excuse you can present to the party .

Guardsman, "I suck at stealth"

Assassin, "So learn it."

here we have a choice:

Guardsman A: "Nah I'll suck forever and learn some more guns because experience is expensive"

Guardsman B: "Yeah sure, might be difficult, but I know as much as I need to about shooting. Want to teach me?"

This would be the case in a real free-form character advancement system. In the aptitudes system ,however, it would look like this:

Guardsman A (no Aptitudes): "Dude, you are crazy! By the time I would not suck at Stealth, I would turn myself into a god of shooting, making Stealth kinda' pointless!"

Guardsman B (one Aptitude): "Okay, I guess. It will take some time, time I should spend on improving my shooting, but whatever. I hope we won't face any serious firefight though, but no risk no reward! I guess..."

Guardsman C (two Aptitudes): "LEL, I found 100xp in the toilet, so I'm now good at Stealth!"

Or that there is a character who takes all the 'cool' stuff for cheap and can take a few more expensive ones because he got lucky and his cheap skills line up with the campaign.

Please define cool for me.

Again some GMs will look at the characters aptitudes and try and make encounters or elements of the story make certain characters shine by exemplifying the different skills those aptitudes can get. It's not about luck, it's about what story you're in.

Guardsman C (two Aptitudes): "LEL, I found 100xp in the toilet, so I'm now good at Stealth!"

Curious as to what kind of GM would give a character 100xp for going to the bathroom.

I think here we hit the nail on the head of the problem.

There are some people that are willing to save up xp and spend on what they think their character would take/think would be cool. Regardless of the use of it in the system as a whole.

There are others who think only advancements that make a character more effective are viable, and that everything should be able to be bought for a cost that they, note there THEY, think is right.

No, the problem is that the system actively punishes the first approach while encourages the second. You can't just "save up" XP without severe consequences, and grinding though 3-4 sessions with a subpar character just to get some flavorful advancement is the best way to earn the other players' ire as they have to piggyback you "just" because you want to be a special snowflake.

Imho, a character's performance should never be impacted/viewed as subpar if the RP is stellar and fits the situations.

Sure, an adept might not want to go toe to toe with a hive-gang boss and it will likely end badly if the adept does that.

But she/he could plan/scheme/reroute local Arbites/frame/do away with said gang boss and in general do all sorts of alternative and nasty things, which would have the same end-result. They wouldn't necessarily be 100% covered by combat skills/stats.

In DH, the players (usually) play intelligent people that are a cut above humanity, you cannot capture that with stats alone.

Likewise, you cannot as a player be expected to spreadsheet/munchkin your character so you can take on anything or expect not to take "subpar" skills. (Who here can cook for instance? I bet not everyone can, or fight well with bows/guns for that matter). The system doesn't punish you for anything, your GM on the other hand might, if she/he is not experienced enough.

To me - RP should always be the primary focus and skills/talents should be the framework to assist the players & GM to settle on-the-fly situations, so that the story can proceed/develop.

The biggest impacts to a character's "life" should not be based on the result of a dice roll.

But I digress.

And that's sort of my point. That's where the largest sides of the discussion are coming from.

There are people that think both ways about the issue. It's not something that can be resolved by showing mathematics formulas or telling anecdotes about GMing. This just legitimately doesn't seem like it can be resolved.

Some people don't mind the aptitude system, they feel it's a good representation of different people in a wide galaxy, and that it's a better fit than the original system presented in DH1. Some don't, some feel it's not sound for a character to have to spend so much, and thats fine too.

The system however actually functions, at least seemingly, as intended. For what is written in the core nothing, at least that I've seen, is functionally broke.

However some feel that it's broken if they feel it's too expensive for them. Which I guess is fine, but in that case it's not a broken system as intended, it's broken in your eyes.

Mechanics should be a reflection of your concept. If your character's mechanics don't make him stand out in combat, RPing him as a skilled fighter is just bad RP (unless you're going for a guy who thinks he's skilled) concept.

The system punishes you by making some concepts way harder (xp cost wise and/or mechanical support wise) to pursue than others. Take a sword&pistol fighter for example. The protagonists of most 40k novels and games fight this way, default terminator gear is AFAIK storm bolter and power sword and yet within the mechanics of the game there is hard to conceive anytl situation where you'd rather do melee&pistol than anything else.

So it requires work to achieve a concept in the system? Sorry if I don't think you should be able to do everything you envision in your concept immediately.

Admittedly I do wish they would do something with dual wielding pistol/sword. It's weird that it's still three talents.

However just because you can't conceive of a situation in which you'd rather doesn't mean you shouldn't do it anyways.

So it requires work to achieve a concept in the system? Sorry if I don't think you should be able to do everything you envision in your concept immediately. Admittedly I do wish they would do something with dual wielding pistol/sword. It's weird that it's still three talents. However just because you can't conceive of a situation in which you'd rather doesn't mean you shouldn't do it anyways.

There are 2 aspects here:

-Concepts require work tens to drive new York layers away. Not everybody has 6+ hours to go through the whole book and then 1-2 hours of excel spreadsheets for xp costs before they make their first character. I don't mind working for a character concept(I enjoy the character building minigame) but IMO too much work drives players away.

- Some concepts require way more work than other equally valid concepts. This is a game design issue that bothers me.

The problem isn't the work put into char creation. It goes rather smoothly, actually. The problem is that once you've genned your character, your average player has no idea what they can really do. The aptitudes system is fairly counter-intuitive in that way, and requires a lot of back and forth. The consequence is, a clear cut class system like Dark Heresy first edition is far easier to get into, use and, tbh, plays better.

There are other models for an open progression system that are also intuitive and easy to use, by the way. Fazam, look at a single table, know all the costs on your sheet and done! That is how it should be. DH2 is "look at several pages, flip back and forth incessantly and hope you don't screw up on the fly". It had its merits in only war, where it fit the setting and the creation freedom was in the regiment, but this model? It's not free. Its freedom is an illusion. I'd rather have a class system where everything is on one page for what I'm playing instead of this.

That's the thing with Aptitudes; it's not only a matter of page flippin' a-hoy, but also, that for a newbie, he's got no idea what's available for him, for how much, and what it does.

A little comparaison, yes?

DH1;

Player sees a buyout in his carrer path

-He's got the XP cost for it in his career table

-He's got the prereq. for it (if any) in his career table

-Is it a skill or talent?

-Go to the related chapter, read the description

-Boom, done.

DH2

Player's got an idea where he's heading with his char, and would like to purchase a skill/talent to reflect his char's abilites.

-Is there a skill/talent can can reflect my character's abilites? Check the skill and talents chapters, browsing throught the tables.

-Found skill/talent that seems to match what the player wants.

-Flip pages to the related skill/talent chapter, read the descriptor of what he wants, to make sure it's REALLY what he wants; read some more skills/talent to see if those would be what he's looking for.

-He's got the prereq. for it (if any) in the skill/talent descriptor

-XP cost: how many related aptitudes does he have? Flip to the char gen chapter to see the chart

-Was it a talent? What Talent tier is the talent in? Filp back to talents chapter to check.

-Calculate XP cost depending on aptitudes

-Finally, done.

Oh wait right- didn't they made some talent tree now? Or was that only in the first Beta?

Also, all that page flipping reminds me of Deathatch; one set of tables for the carer, another for your chapter, another for Generic Marines advance and another one for Deathwatch. So one character had the choice of 4 different career tables to spend XP in. Hello page flipping..

I want to point out that people pointed out how sh!tty Aptitudes are during the beta, and personally seeing new people come in here complaining that the Aptitude system is some bullsh!t makes me feel totally vindicated.

The original beta's system of advancement was much, much better. Each role had a table for skill costs and a table for characteristic costs and they were all balanced in terms of costs against each other. Why they through that out is a mystery.

Braddoc - the talent trees were just in the original beta and had some issues as presented. The idea of them is solid, though.

edited for profanity

Thanks CPS.

Yeah- I never was hot to the aptitude system, in BC is sorta make sense, as you are out of the Imperium, the system, being totally different from DH/RT/DW, helped accentuate the fact that you were playing with another set of rules, in another field.

When it was back in OW, I was scratching my head, but had to work with it since I wanted to play OW; and yes having players who don't know the system made XP spending rather book-ish, with players not knowing what was available for/to them.

But people want choices, even when they play in a setting where your choices are decided for you, I alreayd posted about autority in the setting so I won't repeat myself, so we're stuck with a sub-par advancement scheme IMO

While the aptitude system might be bad, it's stilk a pretty big step forward from the class/alt rank/elite advance system.

While the aptitude system might be bad, it's stilk a pretty big step forward from the class/alt rank/elite advance system.

Could you expand as to why it is better? Because I don't it at all.

Because there's actually a system in place for getting every advance rather than, "Well we aren't really sure ourselves, but GMs should really think about it and maybe make it slightly more expensive."

Also because you aren't cut off from class skills and certain pre reqs that you'd need from an elite advance for taking alternate careers. That's largely an errata issue, but FFG is horrible with errata.

While the aptitude system might be bad, it's stilk a pretty big step forward from the class/alt rank/elite advance system.

Could you expand as to why it is better? Because I don't it at all.

I personally think it's much better for certain skills and talents to be more expensive for some characters than for them to not be available at all (or available only through GM hand-waving).

Personally, I prefer the elite advance system. The current progression system's "tier three" is ridiculously overpriced. Even the most stout roleplayer will avoid taking anything from it like a plague, in my experience. This is further compounded by the rather low XP amounts doled out if you go by RAW, in comparison to steadily increasing advancement costs. You will spend a long time sitting there, not progressing at all, if your DM decides to go by the suggestions presented in the book. This, compounded with failing at mundane tasks on a fairly regular basis, is going to frustrate your players.

You will now say that a good DM works around that, and I do know many that do, but it does not change that RAW seems a step down from prior, functional models, and more like a hash job intended for a quick game and discard to move on to the next 40k system, with its own overpriced rulebooks and minimal, cosmetic changes to the last.

The current progression system's "tier three" is ridiculously overpriced.

In your opinion, and in their opinion it wasn't.