Trap options just cause problems later on, when the player notices his one trick pony sucks and he's not having fun.

If a player isn't having fun, let him make a new one. It really isn't as difficult as you're making it out to be. You could also try and set up some challenges that let them use their one trick which would, probably, increase their enjoyment of the game. Declining someone's character because you don't like it? I'm glad that I don't have you as a GM. My players can make whatever character they want and even players who make one trick ponies tend to have fun. In the rare instance that someone isn't having fun with their character or they are really just tired of their character, I let them make a new one.

Trap options just cause problems later on, when the player notices his one trick pony sucks and he's not having fun.

If a player isn't having fun, let him make a new one. It really isn't as difficult as you're making it out to be. You could also try and set up some challenges that let them use their one trick which would, probably, increase their enjoyment of the game. Declining someone's character because you don't like it? I'm glad that I don't have you as a GM. My players can make whatever character they want and even players who make one trick ponies tend to have fun. In the rare instance that someone isn't having fun with their character or they are really just tired of their character, I let them make a new one.

And I'm glad you're not one of my players. With lines like that, kindly go **** yourself. Thank you.

Trap options just cause problems later on, when the player notices his one trick pony sucks and he's not having fun.

If a player isn't having fun, let him make a new one. It really isn't as difficult as you're making it out to be. You could also try and set up some challenges that let them use their one trick which would, probably, increase their enjoyment of the game. Declining someone's character because you don't like it? I'm glad that I don't have you as a GM. My players can make whatever character they want and even players who make one trick ponies tend to have fun. In the rare instance that someone isn't having fun with their character or they are really just tired of their character, I let them make a new one.

And I'm glad you're not one of my players. With lines like that, kindly go **** yourself. Thank you.

**** dude, take a chill pill. I'm all for confronting people on BS, but this just isn't helpful.

All Kaic said is that since the point of the game is to have fun and if someone isn't having fun, take steps to make sure they have fun. How on earth can you object to that?

P.S. with posts like the ones in this thread you sound like an unfun person to play with.

if someone isn't having fun, take steps to make sure they have fun. How on earth can you object to that?

You can't, which is why "go **** yourself" is the only feasable answer to using the general basics of good DMing as a shield to deride another's opinions. I don't disagree with presenting my players with character appropriate challenges, spotlight time and the whole deal. Honestly, who would?

The implication in that post is that I'm apparently unaware of this, and is used to insult, and THAT is why the poster in question got a less than kind reply.

So you also have incredibly thin skin. Got it.

You can't, which is why "go **** yourself" is the only feasable answer to using the general basics of good DMing as a shield to deride another's opinions. I don't disagree with presenting my players with character appropriate challenges, spotlight time and the whole deal. Honestly, who would?

The implication in that post is that I'm apparently unaware of this, and is used to insult, and THAT is why the poster in question got a less than kind reply.

I was not insulting you or using the basics of GMing as a "shield". I gave you a solution to the problem that you posted.

So you also have incredibly thin skin. Got it.

Hm? No, I'm not even angry in the slightest. Had the poster actually been interested in a constructive dialogue, they wouldn't have insulted me, so I just told them to **** off and put them on ignore, because they're not worth listening to. Simple and easy.

You have to have some sort of complex to have read that as an insult.

@cps thanks for sticking up for me, I don't know what DeathByGrotz problem is. Since he's apparently ignoring me now I suppose any hope of "constructive dialog" is lost.

Hm? No, I'm not even angry in the slightest. Had the poster actually been interested in a constructive dialogue, they wouldn't have insulted me, so I just told them to **** off and put them on ignore, because they're not worth listening to. Simple and easy.

That's funny considering how this conversation has gone so far. I give actual ideas on how to fix the problem you post, and you do nothing but insult me. Based upon what I've seen so far, you're the one not interested in constructive dialog. Once you calm down and want to actually have a conversation, feel free to respond to my original post. I'll be waiting patiently.

DBG's reaction has been like responding to, "Hey, you look good today" with, "OH, so I must have looked AWFUL all the other days. Jerk! I hate you."

edit; maybe he has avatars disabled and is mistaking Kaic for Dulahan, who took a harsher tone with him. DBG do you realize the post you blew up over was literally Kaic's first on this topic?

edit; maybe he has avatars disabled and is mistaking Kaic for Dulahan, who took a harsher tone with him. DBG do you realize the post you blew up over was literally Kaic's first on this topic?

That's possible. I'm actually pretty new to the DH2E forums in general. I've lurked a bit, maybe posted once or twice awhile ago when it first came out.

On the original topic, Enemies Within has a Role, Penitent, which would get your friend pretty close to what he wants. Feral/Imperial Guard/Penitent can get him Ballistic Skill, Weapon Skill, Offence, Fieldcraft, Intelligence, Agility and Toughness.

That seem close enough to what you want, ColArana?

Many GMs are very "by the book" and don't like to go that far. Plus, things like a skil or talent you can't get until Rank 8 is just ridiculous and even more unlikely to be allowed as an Elite Advance.

I strictly maintain that Elite Advances, those requiring negotiating with the GM, are a fault of the system. They were a crutch thrown in after complaints about flexibility, not the answer. And even then unlikely to be allowed if your talent shows up 5k XP later in the talent tree somewhere. So no, my head is not somewhere dark and smelly, I genuinely believe that was a flawed, stupid game design, as I do anything that requires 'negotiating with a GM'' - EVERY GM is different, and especially one you might not know well and only play with every other week at a gaming store makes it hard to do anything.

Hell, my last DH 1e GM wouldn't even let us PICK OUR CHARACTERS. They were a great GM, but we HAD to roll them randomly, even if stats ended up not matching up well and we doubled up on something (Indeed, we had 2 guardsmen and 2 tech priests... and my Arbites when I started due to the vagaries of the roll). GM was great otherwise, but was never comfortable with things not directly in the book, and even Elite Advances are "At GM discression" and "Optional"

DH 1st edition is a game made from a certain perspective in mind.Firstly, it is a more old school style of game, where you simply don't get to have much choice in your character. Yes, you might get to choose your class (career), and a little choice of your first few options, but you are not "making the character I want to play". I don't think the system even works very well if you don't roll your stats. It isn't about "playing x in the 40k setting" but about "playing DH" (though I don't think a GM not even letting pick your characters is fair). If anything part of the enjoyment should be about playing with characters in sub-par roles trying to get by with their non-optimised stats ("well I chose a Techpriest, but I have rolled an intelligence which an Ogryn would look down upon). Secondly it is very much designed as the "zero to... well, maybe not quite hero" kind of game. At the start you are a scrub. You are not playing an Eisonhorn character from the beginning. You are playing an expandable grunt who eventually becomes someone of importance (if you survive that long). Thirdly, related to the previous point, certain abilities are tighly controlled as to when you get them as they represent certain levels of ability and experience which means you should not get them whenever you want, but after you have had a certain level of experience.Some abilities should be out of reach at the start of the campaign, or at the very least should have a very good reason why you have them (such as those provided by the ALternative Careers and the background packages). Elite advances shouldn't normally tread on the toes of these abilities (mostly Talents), or you result in the query once heard on the forums "Why are deamons so weak?" "Well, because you have nerfed their main threat by giving Rank 1 characters all Fearless."

With this framework in mind DH 1st edition isn't actually bad (some inconsitencies, poorly or unclearly phrased rules aside), but of course if this is not the kind of game you are looking for then it will not appeal to you.

The heck? In a game actually designed around it. Allowing for more freeform characters so people -can- actually make a competent PC at Chargen instead of a pathetic scrub. Ability to make someone who is worthy of being chosen by the Inquisition in the first place, mind you. And that was why you won't run it?

But then part of the point of DH is that you start as a a scrub. Obviously this means that DH 1st isn't really for you, which is fine, but then I don't think the system itself works very well without the character structure of 1st. I don't think "freeform" building really works in the 40k RPG rules. I would really advocate a different style of game for the free form character style of game, or playing Eisenhorn style characters from the get go, except that there are no other 40k RPG games are out there and so would all involve a greater or lesser amount of work to get to fit (I would say Savage World or GURPS, or other truly open build system would be better, if only someone had done a good conversion of them).

And in turn, this advancement system puts DMs on the spot to the point I refuse to run it after having two people show up with fresh chars that started with previously rank 8ish talents... One would think that if one takes agency out of the hand of the game master, one might include some checks and balances against munchkinism.

Well that's their loss. Most of the currently Tier 3/2 Talents (I don't have my DH1 book on me so quite what makes a Rank 8 talent a rank 8 talent is beyond me), have pre-requisites.

There are Rank 8... well not "rank 8" as such, but Talents that are very specifically meant for higher level characters. Fearless is the most obvious one. These are kept to the very highest levels by having them only become available at higher levels. However, DH2 has to try and "balance" all the talents against each other. The truth was that in DH 1 even some of the most powerful combat abilities were not actually priced much differently from anything else. Instead they were placed where they appropriate for a certain type of character, and priced in such as way as to encourage certain kinds of builds for certain classes.

My advice to anyone creating an acolyte for the first time is imagine all the really cool stuff you want to get, well you are gonna get it, you get 400xp a session, but, well, sorry, but at the start you sorta kinda totally suck. Starting acolytes have excellent gear, masses of potential, but overall in the world they have very bad stats, and few skills.

You can just about if you sink all your xp into it, fail every single commerce roll vs a merchant,you can have better combat than a thief, but it is unlikely that you have better stealth, you aren't a match for a ship rating in stats, so don't imagine you were some imperial guard bad ass.

The concepts that will get you far are street urchin that got caught... imperial guard conscript...adeptus arbites record keeper....even minor npc char types have more char points than chars, often running around with stats at 45+ and multiple +10 if not +20 skills.

Concepts that work well, are ambitious ones, those who want to be great, those who think they already are great will have a hard time, since early on the game you will quickly realise you are very reliant on gear for an advantage (you genrally have better armour and weapons) but you are rather reliant on fate points to spot things.

Once you adopt that view of things you will find it easier to come up with all sorts of of chars that you can very quickly see how they work.

Dark Heresy is not the place for a sherlock esque char, sherlocks got int 50 or 60 with logic + 30 to go with it, he is the end game, the very best, you are more likely the char who made an intuitive leap to solve a single murder, that the inquisitor sees the seed of greatness in, and well, oh well, he has another 40 acolytes if you die (which is the fate of 70% of acolytes, another 25% become corrupt or insane, and the final 5% make it!).

The majority of non-psyker members of the telepathica usually accompany a psyker exclusively. They're called the "sisters of silence" and not allowed to speak once out of novice status. The rest are likely some form of clerical rank, because the ecclessiarchy watches the Adeptus Astra with hawk eyes and somebody needs to actually be able to preach for the sisters and instruct them in their duties in ways the novices can understand. The occassional techpriest may work as well, but it's quite possible they have a similar attitude towards talking to outsiders. Essentially, everyone with access to astropaths and their training is a secret keeper of sorts.

This is the Imperium we're talking about. There's bound to be paperwork somewhere, and where's paperwork there's bound to be a bunch of paper-pushers to take care of it. And groups of paper-pushers spawn all sort of support staff, from janitors to guards. I don't expect they use Astropaths/Sister of Silence for the more mundane tasks of running the Adeptus Astra Telepathica.

Many GMs are very "by the book" and don't like to go that far. Plus, things like a skil or talent you can't get until Rank 8 is just ridiculous and even more unlikely to be allowed as an Elite Advance.

I strictly maintain that Elite Advances, those requiring negotiating with the GM, are a fault of the system. They were a crutch thrown in after complaints about flexibility, not the answer. And even then unlikely to be allowed if your talent shows up 5k XP later in the talent tree somewhere. So no, my head is not somewhere dark and smelly, I genuinely believe that was a flawed, stupid game design, as I do anything that requires 'negotiating with a GM'' - EVERY GM is different, and especially one you might not know well and only play with every other week at a gaming store makes it hard to do anything.

Hell, my last DH 1e GM wouldn't even let us PICK OUR CHARACTERS. They were a great GM, but we HAD to roll them randomly, even if stats ended up not matching up well and we doubled up on something (Indeed, we had 2 guardsmen and 2 tech priests... and my Arbites when I started due to the vagaries of the roll). GM was great otherwise, but was never comfortable with things not directly in the book, and even Elite Advances are "At GM discression" and "Optional"

DH 1st edition is a game made from a certain perspective in mind.Firstly, it is a more old school style of game, where you simply don't get to have much choice in your character. Yes, you might get to choose your class (career), and a little choice of your first few options, but you are not "making the character I want to play". I don't think the system even works very well if you don't roll your stats. It isn't about "playing x in the 40k setting" but about "playing DH" (though I don't think a GM not even letting pick your characters is fair). If anything part of the enjoyment should be about playing with characters in sub-par roles trying to get by with their non-optimised stats ("well I chose a Techpriest, but I have rolled an intelligence which an Ogryn would look down upon). Secondly it is very much designed as the "zero to... well, maybe not quite hero" kind of game. At the start you are a scrub. You are not playing an Eisonhorn character from the beginning. You are playing an expandable grunt who eventually becomes someone of importance (if you survive that long). Thirdly, related to the previous point, certain abilities are tighly controlled as to when you get them as they represent certain levels of ability and experience which means you should not get them whenever you want, but after you have had a certain level of experience.Some abilities should be out of reach at the start of the campaign, or at the very least should have a very good reason why you have them (such as those provided by the ALternative Careers and the background packages). Elite advances shouldn't normally tread on the toes of these abilities (mostly Talents), or you result in the query once heard on the forums "Why are deamons so weak?" "Well, because you have nerfed their main threat by giving Rank 1 characters all Fearless."

With this framework in mind DH 1st edition isn't actually bad (some inconsitencies, poorly or unclearly phrased rules aside), but of course if this is not the kind of game you are looking for then it will not appeal to you.

The heck? In a game actually designed around it. Allowing for more freeform characters so people -can- actually make a competent PC at Chargen instead of a pathetic scrub. Ability to make someone who is worthy of being chosen by the Inquisition in the first place, mind you. And that was why you won't run it?

But then part of the point of DH is that you start as a a scrub. Obviously this means that DH 1st isn't really for you, which is fine, but then I don't think the system itself works very well without the character structure of 1st. I don't think "freeform" building really works in the 40k RPG rules. I would really advocate a different style of game for the free form character style of game, or playing Eisenhorn style characters from the get go, except that there are no other 40k RPG games are out there and so would all involve a greater or lesser amount of work to get to fit (I would say Savage World or GURPS, or other truly open build system would be better, if only someone had done a good conversion of them).

And in turn, this advancement system puts DMs on the spot to the point I refuse to run it after having two people show up with fresh chars that started with previously rank 8ish talents... One would think that if one takes agency out of the hand of the game master, one might include some checks and balances against munchkinism.

Well that's their loss. Most of the currently Tier 3/2 Talents (I don't have my DH1 book on me so quite what makes a Rank 8 talent a rank 8 talent is beyond me), have pre-requisites.

There are Rank 8... well not "rank 8" as such, but Talents that are very specifically meant for higher level characters. Fearless is the most obvious one. These are kept to the very highest levels by having them only become available at higher levels. However, DH2 has to try and "balance" all the talents against each other. The truth was that in DH 1 even some of the most powerful combat abilities were not actually priced much differently from anything else. Instead they were placed where they appropriate for a certain type of character, and priced in such as way as to encourage certain kinds of builds for certain classes.

Well spoken, well thought out.

However, I think that rolling a techpriest who is mentally retarded is not a feature. It's probably just a bad example, but if you're actually dumb as rocks, then you're not going to become a techpriest. You're going to be a servitor or a forge-slave or whatever.

Rolling stats and then picking a class that fits can be nice, but I personally found the DH1 classes incredibly restrictive. Both the guardsman and assassin are very one-trick pony, leaving much to be desired. Alternate ranks helped, but I prefer the DH2 system overall.

The majority of non-psyker members of the telepathica usually accompany a psyker exclusively. They're called the "sisters of silence" and not allowed to speak once out of novice status. The rest are likely some form of clerical rank, because the ecclessiarchy watches the Adeptus Astra with hawk eyes and somebody needs to actually be able to preach for the sisters and instruct them in their duties in ways the novices can understand. The occassional techpriest may work as well, but it's quite possible they have a similar attitude towards talking to outsiders. Essentially, everyone with access to astropaths and their training is a secret keeper of sorts.

This is the Imperium we're talking about. There's bound to be paperwork somewhere, and where's paperwork there's bound to be a bunch of paper-pushers to take care of it. And groups of paper-pushers spawn all sort of support staff, from janitors to guards. I don't expect they use Astropaths/Sister of Silence for the more mundane tasks of running the Adeptus Astra Telepathica.

I would argue that given it is a high security facility, janitorial staff/the tech priest in charge of the cleaning servitors and the adepts are all inductees into the order as well and have some sort of behavioural code, even if it is loosened only to absolutely never speak about anything pertaining the astropaths. The sororitas who are pencilpushers, after all, are still sororitas and guardsmen who log the desk are still part of the military command structure and have an actual rank, if only so they can order grunts out of their quartermasters' office.

By astropaths I ment actual Psykers members of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica. I think there is a fair number of non-psyker members that handle the lower level work, out of which an Inquisitor could recruit an acolyte.