Naturally I got to my local gaming store as soon as they opened, and bought the first thing I laid eyes on out of politeness, and moved on to my real purpose: snagging a copy of Forsaken Bounty.

Glad I did! Lovely full color supplement. Very nice to have a printed copy.

There is some new art, mainly for the three characters in the package. (Unfortunately, there are only three characters, but a web supplement has already been released that adds 2 more.) Unlike the DH starter adventures, the character class names are given, which is nice. Their gear and stats definitely align with the communications we've been getting that this game will be at a higher power level.

A lot of the booklet space is taken up by quick start rules. (Which shouldn't surprise anyone, given its purpose). They will look very familiar to DH players. Really no surprises. Combat Actions have been given subtypes, ostensibly to help with clarifying when you can do what.

The adventure is pretty straight forward (again, needs to be) but definitely less random than "And suddenly a plague bearer appeared." Some obvious integration with the Calixis Sector setting and previous DH material. I liked seeing a reference to Halo Devices.

Also not a surprise that there were no Navigators or Astropaths, given that they probably have their own special rules.

The adventure provided some good insight into how Endeavors will work, although did not include the campign-level information I'm sure we're all interested in as to what Profit gets you.

My favorite thing about this adventure is that an enterprising GM could actually flesh it out into a standard length adventure with no other material needed. The opening section gives information about how a normal length adventure would lead into an Endeavor, and some bullet points of how the PC's got to this point. You could very easily take those bullet points and write a prequel.

As if anticipating my ONLY gripe with the adventure, even before it came out, FFG has already released a web addendum with two additional characters. I am very pleased and excited about the release of the full blown book.

The back of the booklet also proclaims "Rogue Trader will be available in August 2009."

Might as well add my own thought here, likewise I ventured off to the nearest free rpg store grabbed the last copy (yas!) and headed home via forbidden planet (by the throne I love that shop) and read Forsaken Bounty on the train.

Since it's basically Dark Heresy in a new setting with new rules and stuff it does pretty much read (as expected) like a Dark Heresy adventure on a ship. The booklet is as said gorgeous though with a nice clear layout and i'm sure a mix of new and old pictures.

I found it interesting seeing the power difference too, rank 1 characters cutting about with chainswords, bolters and carapace armour. It makes sense I guess though, as your after priceless treasures you probably already can afford the best equipment. The characters also have special abilities giving us a peek at Rogue Trader Talents like the Arch-Millitant can let party members use her Int bonus instead of your own Ag bonus for Initiative rolls.

If you were to run it as is I think it'd work out shorter than Shattered Hope but it has an openess to it that we've seen in a lot of DH adventures so you could make it huge if desired, exploring strange bits of the ship (i'm sure some ghosts chucked in wouldn't go amiss ).

The reward section at the end was interesting too as it talks about the XP as usual but also talks about a set bounty they get that's modified positivly & negativly by what the PCs do in the adventure.

Personally I can see me modifing this a bit and using it in Dark Heresy, but as it stands it's a nice intro to Rogue Trader plus it's free!

Picked my copy up with Catacombs of Hyboria (Conan RPG) and noted the same. Im wondering what the "Motivation" entry is for and what the game mechanic is? Im glad to see the non-ship part so compatible with RT. My group could (and might) run this adventure as a RT scenario and they are around 1200-1300 pt characters. Very excited for the crossover potential. I admit I was a little hopeful to see something else than another "alien worm" as an adventure but hey- thats my job!

Oops- meant DH not RT in the above post- duh

MY FLGS doesn't participate in Free RPG day, so I'm screwed. *sigh* I so didn't want to have to use the PDF, which should've been available today...*sniff*

TalkingMuffin said:

My FLGS doesn' t participate either, so I snagged a copy from www.nobleknight.com . Sure, I had to buy something of at least a $15 value to justify them putting Rogue Trader in a box, but I think it's worth it. As of 5:07 PM EST (+5 GMT), they still have some copies left.

Necronis said:

Probably just a background roleplaying sorta thing, im guessing the quote is in fact just the divination from DH. Ya never know though it could be another character enhancement.

While playing through i got to play as Nathin Tsanthos, the Seneschal class guy with the data pad. I noticed that he does not have a GEAR box on his page or anywhere else i could see. Is this a misprint on my copy or everyones.

cjbowser said:

You're awesome and thanks! I ordered Disciples of the Dark Gods (a book I wanted anyway) and they offered a copy of Forsaken Bounty, so I should have it next week.

PaterSin said:

I too played last night and played as Nathin. Your not alone mine is blank wear GEAR should be. So i pleaded with my GM to give me the micro-bead and void breather because everyone started with it, oh and 2 clips of ammo of course.

And for my thought on forsaken bounty, I enjoyed it very much. If you wernt able to pick it up def get it when its downloadable.

Any closer look at the available characters? The class names "seneschal" and "arch-militant" sound awesome, but what do they do?

Idaan said:

Arch-Militant is supposedly Rogue Trader's "Guardsman" career, the guy who you turn to when you need to make sure something is very, very dead.

Seneschal I have no idea. Could be a scholar...

I already mentioned what the Arch-Millitant does, class wise it's pretty similar to a Guardsman i'd guess.

The Seneschal seems to be a lore-monkey. The one in the demo has a pile of lore skills plus tech-use and i'm guessing is most like an Adept. Has a special skill that allows a fate point to be used to automatically pass a lore test in the minimum time required.

As for the Rogue Trader he has the Commanding Presence ability which allows once per round a +10 to one players test (any test btw ).

A seneshal is usually the one who takes care of the finance departement, they are also often advisors.

The stats seem to be extremely strong for a low powered rank 1 character.
I think the RT characters are just as strong as normal DH pc's from the bat but have the oppertunities to buy special backgrounds to give them some special abilities.
I mainly think the stats are high because they want to show cool things and more than, yeah, this is your starting character, you suck.

Santiago said:

Still waiting for the free download so I can't really say, thanks for the little nugget of information however. And yes, somehow I expect that the characters created by the rules will be a bit weaker then the ones we have here which are supposed to show off how awesome the setting is. After all, noticed how both of the two additional characters are only really competent in ONE thing such as flying or first-aid? (technically combat doesn't count as everyone is assumed to be more competent in fighting then in the traditional D&D division of labor.)

I got mine yesterday, plan to read it. I have a few friends who want to try it.

I'm thinking the power level of RT vs DH, based on first impressions of Forsaken Bounty, isn't going to be all that compatable.

You're looking at two distinct bands of operation, and DH characters would need to be in their second career to be on similar footing to a Rank 1 RT character at first glance.

Well the Dark Heresy core rules state that later in their careers Acolytes might become or travel with rogue traders, which would seem to suggest rogue traders are substantially more powerful than acolytes just starting out.

Kyu Kage said:

all depends. once we see the the starting XP and XP ranges for the ranks we will know the power levels and the adjustments you need to make to DH to balance with RT.

I cant see them making RT that hard to mix with DH.

I also think the new book Ascension will bridge that gap in rules.

Well, from looking at the characters in Forsaken Bounty, here's what seems to be happening:

- RT characters have higher starting Characteristics. There are usually several 40+ and everything else is around 30ish. Average seems to be 4x stats at 40+

- RT characters each have a powerful Special Ability. These are things like rerolling piloting skills, providing an ally (each combat round) +10% on a skill test, +2 damage and initiative using a Basic weapon, etc.

- RT characters start with better equipment. They start with modified bolters, hellpistols, chainswords, power swords, Carapace armor, etc. A lot of equipment seems to be heavily modified/customized.

- RT characters get access to higher-tier talents. For example, the captain starts with Two-Weapon-Wielder (and apparently ambidextrous, although it is not listed separately). Since he wields a power sword and a pistol, I assume either FFG combined the two-weapon wielder into a single talent, or the captain has both telents (melee and ranged) and for the FB demo they just wrote them as a single talent to save space.

The list (and number) of RT character skills, seems to be slightly larger than a typical 1st rank DH character. The RT PCs for Forsaken Bounty have maybe 8-9 Skilled skills each. These are also better than DH characters, since their Stats are typically 5-10 points higher. One or two even start with a +10% version of a skill.

The rules, such as they are in the FB book, seem the same as DH. There does appear to be some clarification in places (such as sub-categorization of combat actions), but I couldn't see any functional difference between the two using the FB book.

So, most of the 'xp difference' that RT characters seem to have is higher base stats. Again, an average of 4x stats raised to above 40 (50+ in some cases). I'd guess about 45 percentage points to 'spend' for a 1st rank DH character, with no one stat able to get more than 15 points. A few more starting skills, and a special ability (likely based upon class, possibly a choice from a small list for each class as well?)

Still think the beefed up the stats to be able to show off the cool stuff.

You're not going to lure in the TT players by giving the pc's primitive swords, stub revolvers and laspistols.

A couple of things, and just some food for thought.

First, as has been stated (somewhere) by the FFG staff; Ascension will have rules for going beyond rank 8 in Dark Heresy . It has also been stated that this will bring an acolytes powerlevel in line with a starting Rogue Trader character.

Second, and of no less a concern of mine; where the hell is Nathin Tsanthos' gear? I would like to think the Seneschal has more than his armor and (admitedly cool) hellpistol.

-=Brother Praetus=-

Ultimately, I think the beefed up stats of the RT characters offset what a3-5th rank DH character would have with talents and add-on's to weapons and augmetics.

I ran the adventure for three players and I believe that the DH party that I play in that are around 3600-3800 XP could have managed better than the pre gen RT characters due to their combat talents and better skills.

Overall the players enjoyed it, two of them had never played DH and didn't know much the other was the GM who normally runs the DH game I play in, he played the Missionary, he got to purify things with the cleansing light of the Emperor, he was happy. I had a good time too, until the Captain figured out the trick and then commanded the Arch-Militant to shoot the big bad while he was vulnerable. She proceeded to hit with all four rounds of her bolt gun. The Emperor helped with the first shot to do 38 points of damage and all three others did over 10 each. I wasn't enjoying it so much once she made warp salsa for the whole command deck.

Santiago said:

I tend to agree, like Shattered Hope the players are given exactly what they need to do something cool.

While I personally felt the adventure plot was somewhat pedestrian (but then how many times can you see a ghost ship before it starts to feel a little old,) it does an excellent job demonstrating what we are likely to see in the full game both in variety of characters and in mechanics such as Profit with a capital "P."

And yes, I also noticed that Nathin's gear is missing. Eh, give him a void-breather, a micro-bead, his data slate, and two extra mags for his gun and there you go.

Yes, the rank 1 RT characters seem to be around 3000xp worth of DH characters. I base this primarily upon raising 4 stats to 40+ (about 9x stat advances) and adding a few skills / talents. I doubt the assertion that DH characters beyond level 8 bring them inline with RT characters is correct. It seems more like the previous comments of @ rank 4 DH = rank 1 RT is close.

I ran a demo with 5 players. Only 1 had DH experience, and 2 others had Warhammer 40k knowledge. It played out very well, and they had a ball. There wasn't much trouble with any of the rules (except some struggling with half/full actions). Everyone enjoyed the game, and seemed quite favorable to the space-theme. It didn't seem like quite as difficult concept for them to understand (Looking For Profit) as DH investigation was when I explained that.

Yes, unfortunately, despite looking over the PCs beforehand I didn't catch the missing gear... until the player asked about it! Like Psion, I gave him a micro-bead, void-breather, and 2 clips which was pretty standard for all the PCs. I did also give him a combi-tool, since he is the engineer geek (not that he really needed it). The rest of stuff that other PCs have is mostly just fluff, like clothing and personal items, so I skipped those because of time.