So my OW group has been playing as a regiment in the pay of a RT family, working security on a pleasure world. In the course of our duties, we have stumbled upon items of considerable value. Using my share, I bought a ship. Has anyone done a conversion of OW to RT? What's the best way to use aptitudes and the OW system, but with the addition of RT specific skills and talents?

If you are an OW group still, I would recommend just bolting the Profit Factor and Ship rules onto Only War, rather then trying to truly merge the two systems. Just assume that nobody has aptitude in a skill or talent that isn't in Only War. After all, they have no background or experience in being a Rogue Trader. Er... Renegade, as you don't have a warrant of trade.

Or, given your new found wealth, perhaps you will be'awarded' a warrant in recognition (and to get you out of the way!) Your character could then elite advance into the rogue trader class and go from there! Fair warning though: This method will take considerable conversion in order to work!

If you are an OW group still, I would recommend just bolting the Profit Factor and Ship rules onto Only War, rather then trying to truly merge the two systems. Just assume that nobody has aptitude in a skill or talent that isn't in Only War. After all, they have no background or experience in being a Rogue Trader. Er... Renegade, as you don't have a warrant of trade.

Or, given your new found wealth, perhaps you will be'awarded' a warrant in recognition (and to get you out of the way!) Your character could then elite advance into the rogue trader class and go from there! Fair warning though: This method will take considerable conversion in order to work!

A Warrant has been thrown into the mix (albeit with significant strings attached) so there is that. My trouble is finding a way for all the players to advance specialize into roles that would fit in a Rogue Trader setting. The group's Operator could become a Void Master, the Weapon Specialist an Arch Militant... But where does the Medic fall into place? Furthermore, how would any of those conversions be handled?

I have half a mind to just come up with the aptitudes that seem most appropriate for each role - based off of what each is designed to do. That seems to be the most simple solution.

My best guess for the medic would be a seneschal. Conversions are a little more tricky!

Has anyone made the conversion before? I suppose this weekend if I have time I could come up with some aptitude lists to see what people think. This would make transitions to the DH easier, too.

My other problem is one of our players is a sanctioned psyker. As the mutant hating priest, I don't like him in the squad and barely tolerate him because he is wearing an explosive collar. Since we are transitioning to RT and the other players are to become the bridge crew, where would he fit in? It isn't as if he could become an astropath or navigator, as the first requires special training/rituals and the latter is a specific mutation. Role playing wise, I wouldn't want him on a voidship, but he doesn't really want to roll a new character (even if it has the same stats).

Any suggestions there?

It's entirely plausible for a RT to have retained the services of a sanctioned psyker. Or, depending on how law-abiding or not one is, an unsanctioned psyker or sorcerer. Or even more than one.

They do, after all, have certain uses, despite the inherent risks.

Has anyone made the conversion before?

The other day, I was talking to a guy (yeah, that reliable) who's moved his tank crew whole-sale into RT.

The Operator was shown how to Operate Space. The Sgt/Commander was given command of the raider. The heavy was given weapons control. No conversions needed or applied.

Astropath, navigator et al , were NPCs.

In a number of ways, I don't see how the SP is really so different than the Astropath. Bothe are Psykers. Your SP might be a bit more hardy, might be a bit more powerful, and won't be a cell phone. I know that you CAN build an Astropth Transcendant to easily go down to the surface with everybody, use your resources to acquire for them power armor, an awesome Force weapon, a really nice gun, and the other stuff that'll make them have fun being on away team missions with the rest of the bridge crew, but if this character is a battle-hardened field-psyker, already, then they might be even better at the job, and if you DO lose them, then you didn't lose one of your precious cell phones.

Depending on what you want your game-psykers to do, SPs can read the tarot, use boosting powers, and sling offensive warp powers as well as the Astropath, so I think they'll fit in just fine, and as said, might have even more fun doing the game, with less excuse to pull the BS some characters in the threads have been described as doing, and just wanting to stay on the ship "where it's safe."

If you don't like the AT path with caveats, you could just rebuild them as whatever they mostly do when NOT using powers, and give them the Psyker stuff as Elite Advance analogues. I'd be keen on something like Seneschal, but you have an okay number of options, at any rate.

We ended up having everyone advance specialize into RT careers, with the exception of the medic and psyker. The medic wanted to just purely focus on medicae, so instead advance specialized into a Field Chirugeon from HotE. The psyker we let go, with his player instead rolling up a Navigator character. Being much more powerful than his Sanctioned Psyker was, he is happy.

The conversions worked out better than I had expected, though with time we will see how that holds up. The Void Master and Arch Militant both ended up with 7 aptitudes, whereas the Rogue Trader has 9. This was done by comparing the characteristic advance costs of RT and OW, then awarding the aptitudes that best fit those costs.

It doesn't work. Ground pounder grunts can't fly voidships, shoot voidship guns, be navigators/astropaths, etc... you know, all the things that RT player character's do. Just start RT.

The conversion method seems overly complicated to me. Why convert them to Rogue Trader Career classes at all? Aside for a few unique abilities, an OW character has access to pretty much anything a RT character has access to, and then some (because they never need to haggle with the GM for Elite Advances or wait five ranks just to get a certain skill).

As far as OW characters in RT, it could work. There'd be difficulties and challenges they wouldn't be as skilled at overcoming, but with a good GM and skillful RP, that could be a benefit to the game instead of a detriment. So what if they're a bunch of ground-pounder bozos and chuckle-heads who followed their commander into space when he got a Warrant of Trade? Rogue Trader Dynasties and their retinues have originated from less than that.

Granted, OW characters would be most in their element in OW, and RT would probably be most fulfilling with RT characters, but if everyone involved doesn't get all meta-gamy and/or turn RT into something it's not, sure, go ahead, why not?

The conversion method seems overly complicated to me. Why convert them to Rogue Trader Career classes at all? Aside for a few unique abilities, an OW character has access to pretty much anything a RT character has access to, and then some (because they never need to haggle with the GM for Elite Advances or wait five ranks just to get a certain skill).

As far as OW characters in RT, it could work. There'd be difficulties and challenges they wouldn't be as skilled at overcoming, but with a good GM and skillful RP, that could be a benefit to the game instead of a detriment. So what if they're a bunch of ground-pounder bozos and chuckle-heads who followed their commander into space when he got a Warrant of Trade? Rogue Trader Dynasties and their retinues have originated from less than that.

Granted, OW characters would be most in their element in OW, and RT would probably be most fulfilling with RT characters, but if everyone involved doesn't get all meta-gamy and/or turn RT into something it's not, sure, go ahead, why not?

Yes, mechanics-wise, most of the RT skills/talents are in OW. If you view it with any modicum of realism... and Imperial Guardsman wouldn't know which was the front end of the voidship.

If you want to play RT... roll RT characters.

Well ... I could perfectly see one of the team become a "Rogue Trader" since that really just involves issuing commands and deferring a degree of authority to people who actually know what to do. Nobody says the character has to be good at space stuff if he or she has people who do.

The tricky thing would be the rest of the (former) squad. I'd probably recommend building them up as an "inner circle" of sorts. Bodyguards and retainers, who frequently go on Star Trek-like adventures where they can do their personal combat stuff.

Otherwise I'm forced to agree with that sentiment; "realistically", the characters would just be in way over their heads. And I remain sceptical regarding any direct application of cross-system rules without notable tweaking, as the games simply weren't developed to function in such a uniform way. That said, fingers crossed and good luck! As long as everyone is having fun, no harm done.

Yes, mechanics-wise, most of the RT skills/talents are in OW. If you view it with any modicum of realism... and Imperial Guardsman wouldn't know which was the front end of the voidship.

If you want to play RT... roll RT characters.

Meh. You say Potato, I say Vodka. They really are no different than Arch-Militants. Most OW characters, other than Ogryn, aren't going to be so dumb as to not know the direction of a starship by looking at it. Further, with time, effort, and mechanically, xp, a guardsman who learns how to fly and navigate a starship as part of his job duties ceases to be a guardsman, and becomes a voidsman instead. Besides, ships carry private regiments all the time. That's what the Barracks Component is for.

Like I said, being an OW character is probably best only in OW, and a RT character would probably make RT more fulfilling, but these kinds of characters are not in any way out of place on a starship by any means. Every RT ship worth its salt has their type around, only as npcs. If that is how they want to play the game, and that is what they find fun, who cares? If they **** up and find out porting OW characters to RT wasn't such a good idea after all, then they learned a valuable lesson.

Let's not say the Guardsmen would be dumb, but that they don't have good reason to know much about starships. Your "grunts" have trained their lives away to fight, and mostly to do it on the ground. When they have to get somewhere else (read: another planet), they are herded up, into the transports, and ferried up to the void ship(s). Once aboard, they are at the mercy, somewhat, of the Navy personnel, and are kept in specific areas of the ship, so as to not interfere with the inner workings of the ship. While I won't be so dense as to say that there is no interaction, or conversation, they aren't integrated into the Navy force, just put up and transported, for the most part, and then deployed to a new war zone, once they arrive. In this narrow view, I can see the average Guardsman knowing next to nothing about voidships, or space stuff, and be in for a lot of cramming study, once they get their own ship, in your scenario. All that said, the first games are a learning experience for every character set, and once they learn where they are lacking, they can patch up the holes in their team. So long as they get some navigators and Astropaths, that is.

The bove is my opinion, and interpretation of things; your mileage may vary.

So far, it has worked out alright. Since most of what a RT character does in the void is delegate tasks to underlings, it hasn't been too terribly hard to believe. Our Operator became the Void Master, and sucks at it. Medic is a Field Surgeon who is the Chief Chirugeon aboard. Weapon Specialist became an Arch Militant, and I went from being an aristocratic priest to the Rogue Trader. The transition was fine, the only issue now is the GM is still under the impression we play by "missions" and doesn't really want to read the RT books to see why that isn't so.

If you are the Rogue Trader, then it should be you who dictates the agenda. As an ex-Priest, the agenda should probably be to find heathen human worlds that were never touched by the Light of the Emperor, and beat that light into them with a heavy rod. Money-making, exploration, killing pirates, hunting down xenos, and colonizing worlds in the name of the Imperium are all good places to start too.

If your Warrant came with heavy stipulations, that can justify the mission-based format for awhile, but after a point, the power needs to transfer to the Rogue Trader and the party as a whole. The setting itself is very much a sandbox, and exploring and doing what you want in that sandbox is part of the premise of RT. Like I said earlier, career classes, character backgrounds, and game mechanics are sort of irrelevant to the idea of having fun and getting the feel of the game right. That the characters originated in OW generally doesn't matter if they can gradually act the part of RT characters and play the game the way it was generally made to be played.

If your GM wants to play it like Only War...in Spess, then I'd suggest the party being reassigned to be Imperial Navy Marines instead of a Rogue Trader and his retinue (or just keep playing the private army of an npc Rogue Trader), that way you can play around with RT game mechanics and things only found in the setting (like starship combat, Navigators, etc), but keep the feel of OW.

My suggestions at least. I'm curious to hear how the game goes.

I've been a fan of WH40k lore for quite some time, and I'm the one who got my group into it as well. When we started playing OW a year ago, none of them knew what 40k was, or had even played a PnP game before. So as time has gone on, the group has varying levels of understanding when it comes to the lore of the 40k, though everyone understands how to play OW. The problem we have run into now is the GM isn't as knowledgeable about 40k as the switch to RT mandates. With the Imperial Guard, it is easy to understand as big parts of the fluff take a secondary role to grunts dying in droves.

So the predicament I am in now is that I know very well what a RT is and what a RT is supposed to do. I get the feel of the game, and can role play accordingly. The Navigator understands the lore and his role, though he is still relatively new to 40k. The Arch Militant and Void Master understand it third best, only really caring about weapons, armor, and kills. The GM is probably at the same level of understanding as they are, which is where the problem stems. Lastly, our medic/field chirugeon understands it the least. He just heals everyone, hides, and wants to have a brace of one shot pistols to shoot like a pirate or something.

Outside of myself and the Navigator, the rest of the group has a really hard time understanding the scope and feel of the game. Everyone is still under the impression that acquiring stuff is limited, and we just do whatever mission is assigned to us. This isn't as much a problem with the other players (who are perfectly fine doing what their Lord Captain commands them to do) as it is with the GM. He didn't really bother to read how Endeavors work, definitely hasn't read any of the fluff on Rogue Traders, and refuses to understand that it is much more sandbox than OW.

I have tried to bring this to his attention a couple times. When we first made the transition, I explained how Endeavors work as opposed to assigned missions. I see now he brushed that off, and did so again the next session we played. He has us on a Hive World, and is railroading us into a huge fight against the planetary governor (!!!) which I know is going to be an ambush where we will be hopelessly outnumbered. "You'll need power armor for the next mission," he tells all of us.

So that's where I am at. Quite exasperated with the whole situation, I am going to just take the ship and leave at the start of the next session - GM mission be damned. He doesn't want to learn how to be a reactive GM instead of creating whole missions in minute detail for us to go on. So I suppose he will just have to learn!

I've been a fan of WH40k lore for quite some time, and I'm the one who got my group into it as well. When we started playing OW a year ago, none of them knew what 40k was, or had even played a PnP game before. So as time has gone on, the group has varying levels of understanding when it comes to the lore of the 40k, though everyone understands how to play OW. The problem we have run into now is the GM isn't as knowledgeable about 40k as the switch to RT mandates. With the Imperial Guard, it is easy to understand as big parts of the fluff take a secondary role to grunts dying in droves.

So the predicament I am in now is that I know very well what a RT is and what a RT is supposed to do. I get the feel of the game, and can role play accordingly. The Navigator understands the lore and his role, though he is still relatively new to 40k. The Arch Militant and Void Master understand it third best, only really caring about weapons, armor, and kills. The GM is probably at the same level of understanding as they are, which is where the problem stems. Lastly, our medic/field chirugeon understands it the least. He just heals everyone, hides, and wants to have a brace of one shot pistols to shoot like a pirate or something.

Outside of myself and the Navigator, the rest of the group has a really hard time understanding the scope and feel of the game. Everyone is still under the impression that acquiring stuff is limited, and we just do whatever mission is assigned to us. This isn't as much a problem with the other players (who are perfectly fine doing what their Lord Captain commands them to do) as it is with the GM. He didn't really bother to read how Endeavors work, definitely hasn't read any of the fluff on Rogue Traders, and refuses to understand that it is much more sandbox than OW.

I have tried to bring this to his attention a couple times. When we first made the transition, I explained how Endeavors work as opposed to assigned missions. I see now he brushed that off, and did so again the next session we played. He has us on a Hive World, and is railroading us into a huge fight against the planetary governor (!!!) which I know is going to be an ambush where we will be hopelessly outnumbered. "You'll need power armor for the next mission," he tells all of us.

So that's where I am at. Quite exasperated with the whole situation, I am going to just take the ship and leave at the start of the next session - GM mission be damned. He doesn't want to learn how to be a reactive GM instead of creating whole missions in minute detail for us to go on. So I suppose he will just have to learn!

Good man. While you're on the way out if you can orbital bombard the planet as well for a while by all means. He can't railroad you if the railway tracks have been reduced to melted slag.

I've been a fan of WH40k lore for quite some time, and I'm the one who got my group into it as well. When we started playing OW a year ago, none of them knew what 40k was, or had even played a PnP game before. So as time has gone on, the group has varying levels of understanding when it comes to the lore of the 40k, though everyone understands how to play OW. The problem we have run into now is the GM isn't as knowledgeable about 40k as the switch to RT mandates. With the Imperial Guard, it is easy to understand as big parts of the fluff take a secondary role to grunts dying in droves.

So the predicament I am in now is that I know very well what a RT is and what a RT is supposed to do. I get the feel of the game, and can role play accordingly. The Navigator understands the lore and his role, though he is still relatively new to 40k. The Arch Militant and Void Master understand it third best, only really caring about weapons, armor, and kills. The GM is probably at the same level of understanding as they are, which is where the problem stems. Lastly, our medic/field chirugeon understands it the least. He just heals everyone, hides, and wants to have a brace of one shot pistols to shoot like a pirate or something.

Outside of myself and the Navigator, the rest of the group has a really hard time understanding the scope and feel of the game. Everyone is still under the impression that acquiring stuff is limited, and we just do whatever mission is assigned to us. This isn't as much a problem with the other players (who are perfectly fine doing what their Lord Captain commands them to do) as it is with the GM. He didn't really bother to read how Endeavors work, definitely hasn't read any of the fluff on Rogue Traders, and refuses to understand that it is much more sandbox than OW.

I have tried to bring this to his attention a couple times. When we first made the transition, I explained how Endeavors work as opposed to assigned missions. I see now he brushed that off, and did so again the next session we played. He has us on a Hive World, and is railroading us into a huge fight against the planetary governor (!!!) which I know is going to be an ambush where we will be hopelessly outnumbered. "You'll need power armor for the next mission," he tells all of us.

So that's where I am at. Quite exasperated with the whole situation, I am going to just take the ship and leave at the start of the next session - GM mission be damned. He doesn't want to learn how to be a reactive GM instead of creating whole missions in minute detail for us to go on. So I suppose he will just have to learn!

Good man. While you're on the way out if you can orbital bombard the planet as well for a while by all means. He can't railroad you if the railway tracks have been reduced to melted slag.

Not a bad idea at all...

One shot of the ship's lance at the governor's palace! If not expected (In which case the palace and the hive would not be void shielded) and GM's railroad goes up in smoke! Of course you and your crew are now heretics but, you're free. Now convert to a black crusade game! The conversion is easier at least!

One shot of the ship's lance at the governor's palace! If not expected (In which case the palace and the hive would not be void shielded) and GM's railroad goes up in smoke! Of course you and your crew are now heretics but, you're free. Now convert to a black crusade game! The conversion is easier at least!

It's only considered heresy if anyone is alive to bare witness to the act. Otherwise it was a horrible but tragically unforeseeable accident.

Absolutely! Lmao

I do have evidence the Governor is part of the xeno cold trade... So it wouldn't be entirely unjustified! I just may have to bombard his palace while broadcasting evidence of his crimes. Easy peasy!