So I was reading through the equipment list and one of the things I was looking into was the nature of acquisition of gear. Now frankly I hate the acquisition system because it in theory means that items can be gained just by rolling a dice and passing a skill role. Arguments aside, and please do not try to convince me on the virtues of the system because I don't want to use it, I'm looking at changing the way items are handled in my upcoming campaign to go back to the ways of Dark Heresy in that everything had a value and the players have an amount of coinage to acquire these items.

Before I go into a really long post with my thoughts on this, has anyone got a list of these already updated to consider the Black Crusade settings and save me a few hours? If not I'll get writing...

Link to current spreadsheet:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18Gy4EApngut_YvWWYt2tNj6BAbs7sbrz2LT7uNSK7Rw/edit?usp=sharing

Human Soul

A human soul bound in a shard of glass or small crystal for easy use in rituals or as fuel in soul-pyres. Phantom screaming faces can be seen on the edges for a moment, but otherwise those are just small shards of glass. Souls of more powerful persons than your average redshirt could be more valuable..

New Ritual: Soul-Bonding

Prequisite: a corpse, no longer than 24 hours of being dead

Heretic puts a shard of glass on a body of sentinent xenos or human and performs a +30 Scholastic Lore (Occult) Test. On failure he takes 1 would with no armor or toughness soak, but soul is captured regardless. This ritual never raises Corruption or has any other side effects.

Prices:

1 soul is roughly equal to 10 thrones for items prices from Dark Heresy.

For something more interesting consider something like this

Hmm, see I was also thinking small coin/gemstone like items.

One thing I had in mind was to work on the assessment that most basic simple gear items would be usually worth no more than 50 units.

Basic weapons such as swords, hammers and clubs as well as primitive weaponry come in anywhere from 100-200 units with more advanced versions, pistols etc starting at around 350 moving up to 1000. Advanced or heavier guns moving further up from 1k up to maybe 5k with specialist items costing even more still, perhaps in the 10k+ mark

Those would differslightly from your estimations mind...which means it needs to be reviewed etc. A good starter for me there though so thank you.

right now i'm using slave points which ain't far from the soul points above. We've just started so i'm not in a position to say how well it works. I am tying in investigation rolls with the acquisition rolls (limited number given per mission) where the players get to try to unlock things they want like demon names, rituals and what not but by opening up quest lines.

Posting so I can find this thread again later.

While the Human Soul as a currency is pretty nice, I'd value it to a lot more than 10 Thrones, mostly due to how powerful a bound sentient soul actually is.

However, psychically charged glass is not as powerful, but still useful. Perhaps it could be charged with any emotion, and different charges means different values to followers of the various gods. Thus, you could charge a single glass bead a lot instead of carrying around a sack of broken bottles everywhere.

Wasn't there some type of chaos drugs (flects) made from the shattred windows of hive on a world ovveran with chaos?

So overall then it seems that there are a variety of different commodities available to use. I'll stick with some form of coinage/precious stone for the time being. The reason behind this is that for the plan, the primary quest giver wishes to show off his immense wealth by handing them what appears such a small item and yet has almost exceptional wealth in proportion. This will be how they acquire gear, services and effectively live. If they run out then they wont be able to acquire items and will have to resort to other methods.

Given the information provided then, I think I have enough to start planning. My lowest tier item is food and water as these are essential and are therefore valued at 1 unit. Going through most of the gear and tools, nothing should really be too expensive. Highest I can probably justify is synskin of all gear costs due to its +2 armour bonus and resistances against electronic detection. Other expensive tech assets would be psychic hoods and Null rods which were all valued at 650/550 and 500 respectively. I'm working on a full chart and will have something up some time tomorrow where I'd love to get some reviews of numbers.

Armour meanwhile I'm looking at this starting at least around the 300 mark for flak armour and going up quite steeply with power armour starting at around 8k and terminator armour maxing out at something like 35k. Protection should be expensive with good protection costing exceptionally more than crap protection.

So far I've got in mind six tabs:

Supplies and Equipment - All gear, tools and generic items

Ranged Weaponry - "If it goes dakka or boom then it's on this tab"

Melee Weaponry - "If it buzzes, slices or goes thump"

Armour - All types of armour including force fields

Black Market - Currently reserved for Drugs

Services - Includes cybernetics and professional or unprofessional services

Anything else to keep in mind?

SirFrog,

In my version of the Vortex human slaves are cheap as dirt, since they are supplied by raiders, forcibly bred and sometimes vat-grown in bulk, and souls are used as a cheap alternative tank/aircraft fuel, commodity for the forges working with ceramite and adamantium which are difficult to melt, and to augment rituals. It should be noted that my campaign takes place on Q'Sal, and it is mentioned several times they have souls as currency there.

Calgor,

I am using a currency with relatively high value of a single unit (1 soul =10 thrones) because my group consists of legionnaires, whose acquisitions are rather expensive to keep the numbers manageable. For a human team you might want a cheaper currency indeed.

Still, it is possible you will need to value vehicles and aircraft, so I recommend evaluating them as well.

Ok so I have a first draft at the moment which I'm working on (also adding to OP):

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18Gy4EApngut_YvWWYt2tNj6BAbs7sbrz2LT7uNSK7Rw/edit?usp=sharing

I'm open to having any and all of these numbers changed. The ground rules though are that it has to be whole numbers for simplicity sake but otherwise go nuts. I've tried to apply modifiers based on quality, reducing the unit cost by 20% for poor quality, raising by 25% for good quality and by 50% for best quality. I've tried to tier the equipment into three groups to allow me to properly guess costs and evaluate.

Basic items are ones which should be easy to acquire without problems. Ones which 99% of merchants should be able to supply. This was reflected in part by the rarity of the item (Scarce or better, some inclusive) but also with an element of manual override for some items. These are usually cheap to acquire and are usually things like lho, recaf, swords, maces, simple armours etc. Basic gear like backpacks and climbing equipment are also included as you can grab those from most outdoor adventure shops.

Advanced items may require going to selected merchants and would normally be difficult to get hold of. This would be things like forgery and sabotage kits, chain and shock weapons, larger guns and bolt weapons etc. You could find a merchant for these but you'd have to travel a good distance, maybe a few hive levels but they should be around. The cost of these tier items are usually higher.

Finally I've created specialist tier. These are as the name suggests anything which there might only be from a single supplier on an entire world. Rare crap such as illegal or tech sabotage gear, big heavy guns or alternatively anything "Legion". These will therefore cost a metric indescribable ton.

Again I'm open to suggestions and if people are willing to help and are interested in such a system then I'll open the document for editing.

Some worlds use souls as currency. Others use promissory notes written on human skin, or ingots of adamantium or gold coins stolen from the Imperium.

The cost of the Specialist Armours seems way too cheap. Using Alcohol as a baseline price that pretty much is equivalent to the price of a beer here, 5$, it would mean that Legion Terminator Armour (40,000) would be the price of an average car.

Also looking at the salaries you provide, a Hired Chaos SM would only have to work 4 jobs to pay for one. A basic muscle would need to work 80 jobs. Not really all that much.

I think something as unique and advanced should be at least 100 times more expensive.

On the flip side I find the cost of the drugs to be too expensive.

A currency system is hard to manage because so many worlds use different things as currency. I tend to operate under the barter method when I GM BC. Other than the worlds that have a clear currency type - i.e. souls - bartering is how business gets done. More civilized places (like The Hollows or very developed 'roid stations in the Ragged Helix) would also likely accept most forms of hard currency. I'd count that as everything from Thrones to gold coins and adamantium ingots.

The cost of the Specialist Armours seems way too cheap. Using Alcohol as a baseline price that pretty much is equivalent to the price of a beer here, 5$, it would mean that Legion Terminator Armour (40,000) would be the price of an average car.

Also looking at the salaries you provide, a Hired Chaos SM would only have to work 4 jobs to pay for one. A basic muscle would need to work 80 jobs. Not really all that much.

I think something as unique and advanced should be at least 100 times more expensive.

On the flip side I find the cost of the drugs to be too expensive.

Thank you for the feedback. With that in mind, adjusting Legion terminator armour to something like a high 6 to 7 figure number, probably about the cost of a Bugatti Veyron in USD (1.5m), normal terminator armour to around 1.2m and putting power armour higher still so putting that at the 150k for the normal human version and 600k for legion version.

The salaries, to be fair those were actually a rough "cost per job" rather than a wage but I get your point. In fairness many of the specialist gear is nigh on impossible for them to obtain anyway and the only way you would is via knowing a guy, who knows a guy who once lost a poker game to another guy who they now owe a favour to et cetera.

But the numbers such as for the lines of the hired thug, low quality enemy you might see in a Bond film as a nameless grunt would probably charge 500 upfront just to look imposing, rough up a commoner or just generally be difficult for someone. I may adjust them but the idea was "If you went to see a specialist and asked them to do X, how much might they charge for you to do the work?" I'm happy to refine them further though.

Drugs and consumables I was a little at odds on this myself. The game seems to give them a very high rarity which implies I should give them a high cost but then these are narcotics which should be relatively easily available. Looking at the average street value of say cocaine that works out at around £40 per gram according to a few websites. I may readjust a few then and take them down to probably anywhere between 500-2000 for the higher end stuff.

Dec 7th - Bulk list of updates.

I have made an assumption and determined that the average wage of this region is approximated at 18000 thrones. This is a mostly arbitrary figure which I have devised by looking at the UK average wage of around £26000 (which I might add is mostly skewed by those overpaid gits down in the south. I have reduced this though by nearly half as unlike the population of the UK, this region of space I'm in has a much higher population and most of them are likely to be manual workers or lowly serfs.

From this figure I have roughly estimated a take home wage per Imperial/Heretical citizen of roughly 3000 thrones which is their final amount per annum after living expenses and taxation etc which means that on a monthly basis each citizen takes home just 250 thrones. Now of course your nobles, elites, management etc take home several degrees more than this but they are also exempt from the usual rules.

With this in mind I have redone a good number of the figures to that evaluation considering how many months each citizen might need to save to accumulate these items.

Melee weapons are being made cheaper than ranged weapons as arguably the usefulness of a firearm for protection is incalculable. What would you rather have to defend your home; a sword which requires you to be near someone or a stub revolver to drop them before they even get near you? As a result all ranged items are considered more expensive. All "Legion" weapons are being considered significantly more expensive than their normal equivalents purely due to them being speciality items, putting out generally more damage and being often better quality.

Armour is also being increased as in such times, few can afford decent protection without saving at least a few months/year wages to afford even full flak armour or some carapace and you can forget power armour on a standard wage which is in the millions.

I've incorporated weapon upgrades and downgrades which are so far on a percentage system which will modify the cost before adding quality multiplier.

How I'm calculating the cost to the players:

Sarathus the Assassin wishes to purchase a number of melee items to kill his target. First off he wants a good quality sword with a mono upgrade.

The sword is a basic item which means it should be easy for him to find at most armourers and merchants. He wants a good quality sword so this would be below.

Base: 200

Good Quality: +25% (50)

Mono Upgrade: +10% (20)

Final Cost: 270

This however becomes a much more dramatic increase working at higher levels which I am aware of but can't think of an alternative as I dislike flat fees.

Arcadius the Black Legionary wishes to purchase Best Quality Legion Power armour from a rogue trader he met which has extra ablative armour as he suspects he'll need it. So he needs a specialist merchant to stock it...

Base: 1,000,000

Best Quality: +50% (500,000)

Ablative Armour: +10% (100,000)

Final Cost: 1,600,000

Terminator Armour is only marginally more expensive at 1.8m but then that's not to say that the specialist has that available either.

Now all of these amounts can be subject to modification by various infamy/charm/intimidate tests or whatever but I have yet to determine their impact. I've also started adding a few of the newer items and upgrades available or desirable from DH2, Deathwatch, any of the other books and trying to work out those in relation to the rest.

Again I would love a second set of eyes to go over these, I'm also trying to rework cybernetics.

HI Calgor,

I would be up for that.

"These eyes can do more than see"

HI Calgor,

I would be up for that.

"These eyes can do more than see"

Sure, drop me a message and I can open up the document to a google account.

I'm actually starting to use these after the festive holidays as well...they have managed quite a while without needing to buy anything!