1) Do bolter rounds now have the "Tearing" quality?

2) When you fail a non-combat roll, can you re-roll and try again but at a higher difficulty?

(and the biggie!)

3) What the hell is up with the investigation rules?! OK, you roll at a Challenging difficulty which is a 72 hour time frame. You fail the roll by 5 degrees and the task now takes 1 month and is at a -20. You fail again...and again...and again, adding 1-10 hours as you go. You finally succeed and drop the now 1 month and 23 hour time frame by *gasp* ONE HOUR!!! Yippee! Are you with me? Good. Now, you fail again by 5 degrees it takes 1 to 5 YEARS to complete your search! All for Snippy the Snitch who's probably dead anyway by now.

So, when, by the God-Emperor's grace, I actually succeed, by the rules I'm expected to whittle-down 1 or more YEARS 1 to ten hours at a time? WHAT THE ****?!!!

This needs some serious errata!

13 peeks and not one helping hand?! I am now sad...

Yes, No, and Huh?

Gotta look up those rules. That sounds... wonky

1) dunno look it up in the book

2) I would say it depends on the task and the nature of the roll. Lets say it is a tech use roll and the person trying to repair a dataslate has 31 in tech use. In order to suceed he must roll 31. But he rolls 43 and therefor he fails after sweating for an hour. He tries again and rolls 86. This is a fail by more than 5 steps so he breaks some importent compenent. A person trying to crawl up a house with no aid, might never succed. Lets say he got 32 in agility and as climbing is a basic ability he has 16 in it. But the cimbing test is -20 difficulty. he would only succed on 01. It would break the system to let him keep rolling until he rolls a 01. If the GM cannot control teh pestering player who wnats to rolls again and again just give him damage each time he falls down. A driving test would only be done once as you cannot turn back time and reroll. a knowlegde roll to remember something should not be rerolled. If you fail a blather check against a person you cannot just reroll it what is done is done, but you can try another person. But if you are interogating a prisoner and have all the time you wish you can just try again if your players can be a bit inventive and try something else.

So it all comes down to what they are performing and time. Does the effect show immidietly. what are the effects of a failed roll, Do they know they have failed. Do the players roll for very simple things like throwing a stone on a window, they usely can try again.

3) Scrap the rules. We are playing roleplaying game not rolling game. Make the campaign cool for the players and let them investigate themself dont take all the fun away by doing 2 months of investigation with a simple dice roll. Just do what you and you players find cool.

Darth Smeg said:

Please do look them up!

Give epopel a chance to reply instead of comaplaining. I jstu used my tiem this mornign before work to write a reply. Sometimes epople think half a day before replying.

As for retries, I've not seen anything in the rules that forbid it. However, it is up to the GM to decide wether a task can be retried, if doing so makes it harder etc.

Myself I usually allow retries if cricumstances has changed, for example on a failed security test I could allow a retry if you get better security tools or get help from a skilled friend. On a failed charm test I might allow a retry at a later time, but maybe at a penalty as first impressions count.

If someone climbs a cliff, fails, falls down, gets up and tries again I would allow so at no penalty other than from potential critical damage or fatigue.

As for the invesigation rules, I haven't read or used them myself and they seem broken. Just don't use them.

Meta, there was no complaint and you're coming across as rude. If you didn't mean to be, cool and no biggie. As far as the investigation rules go, I'm not sure how to proceed. The concept's sound, but the execution's obviously lacking. I thought about making it an incremental roll and require multiple degrees of success before you can gain the information (basically an extended test). Perhaps taking some cues from the crafting rules might work.

remember the rules are guidelines, in ur personal games u can manipulate them how u see fit. there are alot of rules in DH that seem a bit wonky and not very well thought out. while others work very smoothly. and others there are very little at all.

the Investigation rules are crafted to simulate a real investigation, that feeling of time being pressing and passing. remember some investigations take years because the trail goes cold. and Inquisitors often run multiple investigations because of this hoping somthing will pan out with one of their many cell operators. u get close. so close u know the time is nigh. u can smell the hot pursuit coming but the trail goes dead because u have been evaded and ur quarry has jumped onto a merchant ship or descended into the bowels of a hive. any number of factors. many investigations just hit a wall where there is no new data, no new informants to squeeze or slap around. or those that will take a while to break. to interrogate.

the rules are meant to frustrate players and for there to be pay off. as a real investigation would. its a very basic mechanic, at best. i use it only as a foundation to the Acolytes current investigation taking in each bit of research, new data and running from there. i play with a very mature group (mid to late 30s) so we've long since moved past the need for instant gratification. the Acolytes currently have 3 open case files from investigations that have grown cold. its important to remember to throw tidbits and maybe loose tie ins to reinvigorate their cold cases. the looks on their faces when a breakthrough in a cold case comes up...is role playing platinum.

just ride it out and role play it up. or craft ur very own to suit u and ur campaign

After looking at the rules, yes, that seems to be how they work. But a character who keeps failing these kind of tests shouldn't be heading up the investigation anyway

You can rack up some bonuses to increase your chance of success:

1. Assistance. Not necessarily from another character with the same skill, Tech Use can often be used as a substitute.

2. Resources. Having access to informants, libraries, special tomes or rare books, etc etc can provide a bonus to an Investigation test.

Also, if you should fail a test with disasterous results, remember you may spend a Fate Point to re-roll any failed test.

I agree with Smeg. If your PC has failed a test so often that it's going to take YEARS just to glean a vital bit of information that should be relatively simple, maybe it's time he thought about a career that didn't involve investigating, and leave it to someone vaguely competent?

I mean, how hard was this test exactly? If the info they need is vital to the plot, it shouldn't be that hard to investigate. My PC's generally just wait if it's going to take less than a few days, and only bother using Investigation if it'd take too long (i.e., if the plot requires them to do something within a certain timeframe). Or they'll find another way. As in all the best RPGs, I usually give my PCs alternative routes.

For example, once my PC's were investigating a murder scene, and while the Adept inisted on taking various samples to a lab for analysis. I determined this would take three days to get results from, at which point he'd need to analyse them. This particular Adept was in no position to try and reduce this time with Investigation (his Medicae skill was about level with an Ork Painboy and he was amazingly stupid for an Adept. He was more of an Inept, to be honest), so he'd have to leave it to his more knowledgeable local buddies, who, as I noted, would take three days.

The Arbite decided to question witnesses instead, and a few games-hours, Interrogation and Scrutiny tests later had determined the cause of death himself, saving the party three days at least.

It may be that I'm interpreting the rules incorrectly, which is my perogative as GM, but they way I play it:

- The length of the Investigation is the length it would take if the PC's just used their common sense and followed leads to get to the truth.

- You can reduce that time with Investigation tests, which represent actively researching, experimenting, spending time thinking things through, etc., but there's always the risk you'll take a wrong turn in your investigation and it'll end up taking longer to get to the truth.

Example: If you need to find out the history of a hive city, it might take the PCs two weeks, left to their own devices. They might decide, however, that this is too long and begin actively researching the subject. A successful Scholastic Lore test will get them their answers quicker, but a failed one could lead them down the wrong path entirely, finding false information and believing it to be true without cross-referencing, for instance. This could mean it takes months for them to find the truth of the matter.

Talking "Investigation Rules":

They did not make any sense to me, either. I think they are just a big nest-o-bugs.

My approach/house rules:
To any investigative a singel-info-matter ,* I add

a) a difficulty
b) a "time unit" (hours, days, weeks, month, etc.)
c) a "amount" (of time units) it would take

Then, I allow the pc a check

x) they don´t pass the check. They "wasted" the ("amount"x"time units"). If they can try again is a " depends-on"- thing I decided over freely
Pehaps it get´s worth (for every degree of failure) or they can´t try it again (five degree of failure). Dependts on story needs, really.
y) they past the test, but no "degress of success". It took the ("amount"x"time units")
z) they past the test, with degress of succes. Divide the "amount" by the successlevels, with one success meaning "took 3/4 of the time"

Of course, this is all about fine tuning, so you have a least 5 "amount" for your time units.
In example, if it takes a day to pin down an black market dealer for firearms in a space port, it take 24(amount) hours (time unit).
If my players come out with one level of succces, this took 18 hours (if this MATTERS that much!)
If my players come out with three level of succe, this took 8 hours.

*Again, sometimes time does not matter.
This is the reason why like all of the published materials (player modules or official) rather say "a role takes that-and-that-much time" and the more success you role, the more additional (usefull!) information you will get!

The rules are no good here! Get inspiration and do it yourself!
(And yes,, that is one of the things I DONOTLIKE about DH!)

TalkingMuffin said:

1) yes as per the errata rules (you wont find this in the book). The creators probably found that bolters didnt quite have that special "oumph!" without the tearing quality.

2) Depends in the circumstances. Up to the GM to decide. However I would usually rule against it. If you fail, then you've failed. Simply re-rolling until you succeed sort of takes out all the challange and element of risk from the game. Like: "oh, shoot I failed. But who cares, I'll just try and try again until I succeed. That way we can NEVER fail!"

3) Don't let one single person do all the investigation, use several. If one investigator fails so miserably he or she has proably stretched his or her luck and will PROBABLY realize that he or she isn't gonna come up with anything for the forseeable future. Let several people do investigations instead, and also remember to spread some coin around if you have to ask people things. That will probably reduce the difficulty a bit.

All good advice and I think I'm getting more of an idea as to how this might be able to work. That mentioned, I understand that investigations take time, but the rules are still wonky and don't do justice to things such as finding a ganglord's hideout in the underhive. Also, the character's a ****-hot investigator but when you repeatedly roll 90+ it's hard to be good at anything. It just wasn't in the dice, which happens. But it led us to realize the silliness of the investigation rules.

TalkingMuffin said:

If he still rolls 90+ even after using fate points to rectify the bad roll then obviously fate didnt have in store for that investigator to find the ganglord in the underhive. Even ****-hot investigators have bad days sometimes...

I don't think I've ever read the "investigation" section of the rules. I just roll with it (no pun intended). I've played enough games to know how to handle investigations.

Remember, common sense usually trumps game rules. Unless the game rules specifically take their avoidance of common sense into account.

Varnias Tybalt said:

Yeah, that's what I told him! I guess he shouldn't have pissed of the God-Emperor, huh?

TalkingMuffin said:

Guess so. Still, I hope you don't design your scenarios in such a way that progression is totally dependent on PC's succeeding in one particular roll. Options are always nice.

Varnias Tybalt said:

Nope. They never have any options. I hate them to succeed! Mwahahaaaa!

No, I don't stonewall them with poo rolls.

TalkingMuffin said:

Then again, what if one were to design a scenario that holds the pretence of the PC's having to succeed a skill roll, but they fail and you first give the players the impression that the whole mission depended on them succeeding in that paticular skill check, only to spring a totally different scenario on them that they never saw coming?

Would that be evil?

Varnias Tybalt said:

Yes, but only of the lesser variety. I've done that a few times in different games. It's always a blast. Even better is when the failure merely means they don't waste their time following up on a red herring; but the players are convinced they were on the right track.

-=Brother Praetus=-

It dawned on me that since you can reroll certain failed rolls (picking a lock or jumping from the ground to grab a ledge), why not tack on a -10 (or -5, if you prefer more finesse) per failure?

Anyway, reference was made to what modifiers would add to investigation rolls, such as informants and the like. But, aren't those things considered part of it in the first place?

TalkingMuffin said:

1 - The errata has added the tearing quality to bolers.

2 - Depends on the type of test. For example:

- Some test only get to be rolled once. For example fear, lore test to recall, awareness etc.

- Some tests have a significant cost in time and/or materials even if the test fails. These can be rerolled as long as acolytes can afford the cost.

- Some tests can cause bad things if failed badly enough. Like Medicae hurting the patients, tech-use could make things harder. If the acolytes want to risk it, let them.

- Some tests only take a few seconds to make with no cost. For example Invocation when the party isn't in combat. Since there is no downside to the player repeating them until success you could make them reroll. Or you could just speed up the game by saying they did and granting an automatic success.

3 - At some point you will just have to tell your acolytes that the search has failed because they took too long. Or simplify the rules. For example you decide the difficulty of the test and how long it will take to accomplish. Then you have the players roll until success, with failure (even serious ones) just increasing the time by a fixed length.