(hang on a sec while I put on my ceramite armor...)

So, I'm not a fan of class/level based systems in general and I find Dark Heresy to be very restrictive in that regard. So, after some tinkering, I've come up with a model for building Dark Heresy characters without the class/level restrictions on the system. The intent to create a system that allows for more flexible and individualized character creation and advancement without resorting to the vagueness of the current Elite Advance system. I'm interested in peoples thoughts on what I've worked up. Please keep in mind that this system does not directly mimic the current character creation system. You can't create the same character at the same costs as under the RAW.

We start with the same homeworlds and characteristics.

Next, we choose a career, which gives us our starting skills and talents just like under the RAW. Additionally, you're chosen career path gives you a +5 to three characteristics (Adept gives you +5 Int, Per and WP, Guardsman gives you +5 WS, BS and S, etc... essentially the three characteristics you would, under the RAW, buy at the 100 exp rate).

After choosing your starting career, you may purchase any skill or talent you like, based on it's cost.

A trained skill cost 100, skill+10 costs 200, skill+20 costs 400.

Talents are divided into 4 tiers: 1st tier cost 100, 2nd tier 200, 3rd tier 400 and 4th tier 600 (or maybe 800, I haven't decided). The tier a talent falls into is based on the average rank at which it could be purchased under the RAW.

Characteristic advances all use the 250/500/etc advance scheme.

Any advance (skill, talent or characteristic) taken after character creation is subject to the GM's approval and must have some rational in the campaign. If you character just spent three weeks crawling on his hands and knees through the Underhive you may not buy Pilot+10 even if you have the exp.

That's the system in brief. Thoughts?

I'd be really interested to hear how this works out.

Thoughts:

I agree that the career/rank system is clunky. Having the skills and talents "unlock" at various levels of rank and career paths is presented in an extremely wasteful manner, in my opinion. I can't help but feel that a lot of good stuff was dropped from the books just to make space for these sprawling tables.

However, it does serve an admirable purpose: Group diversity. The system makes developing your character in the direction appropriate for his career the smart choice. Take away those restrictions and suddenly the smart choice is developing your character in response to how the game world affects your character.

So the careers, ranks and paths work to point you in the right direction with the basic premise being that you chose the right character from the beginning. If it turns out you don't like playing a tech-priest, or the campaign style doesn't allow much room for an adept, well, that's where the sytem stutters and fails.

-K

kjakan said:

Then again, give me one good example of an RPG where you can pretty much arbitrarily change the character exactly to your specifications mid-game?

Consider the following example:

Ok, I'll make this underclass tough who "earns" his income through robbing people on the streets. Aww, shucks, that was too boring for me, so I'll transform him into this high brow nobleman who's filthy rich and has a mansion and lots of servants instead!

I can't think of any game that has a character system giving that sort of arbitrary freedom in overhauling their characters. Perhaps that's why you should think carefully before choosing a career path in DH? And at the same time, the GM should give the players a heads-up about which careers that might be more appropriate in his or her campaign than others?

Varnias Tybalt said:

Although it's true that you don't get total freedom most of the time, there are plenty of games that give you freedom to change career (WHFRP, Dark Conspiracy), to choose your own custom skillset (virtually any game from White Wolf), to pick outside your chosen skillset (Exalted, any game from Palladium) or indeed, to choose skills without any restriction at all (Call of Cthulhu). So although you obviously can't start from scratch in any game system, Dark Heresy has a peculiarly restrictive character generation system - even more restrictive than highly class-based systems like D&D.

I think there's a good argument for allowing more flexibility. Personally I'd prefer a WHFRP-style system where you pick one career then move on to a semi-related one, thu bulding a customised character but within reasonable restrictions. But a totally freeform system could work too - and after all, the system will automatically push you to specialise, e.g. through enabling high-powered talents but only with a bunch of prerequisites.

I think the biggest issue could be psykers. If you could essentially drop everything to get a high WP and as many cool psi-powers as possible, wouldn't you do it?

Varnias Tybalt said:

One the one hand, your example represents an absurd extreme. On the other hand any game system allows this if the GM and other players are amenable. After all, you can always throw out your character sheet, create a completely new character with the same name and claim, in game, that it was the same character all along and Rocko Thug was really always a high brow nobleman who was just play-acting at being an underclass tough.

However, that's not what I'm talking about here. I'm talking about players not being strait-jacketed into one vision of how their character can develop with no regard for the events of the game. After all, why can't Sergeant Lamark the Guardsman feel the call of the Emperor and become Brother Lamark the Cleric. He's an NPC in presented in the Core rulebook for Guilliman's Sake! But if he was a PC, he couldn't do that. Lamark's only options as a PC are to become an elite troop, an officer or a scout... or beg his GM to give him extraordinary permission to become something else, without either the player or the GM having any clear guidelines about how to do that.

What I'm looking for is to break those limits and provide some guidelines. OK, so Lamark started as a Guardsman and his in-game activities, reflected by the advances he has so far have shaped him into a Sergeant... but during his last mission, Lamark came face to face with a Living Saint and got religion. During a long lull between missions he goes to temple, becomes a novice and starts down the path to become a priest. Given a flexible character creation and advancement system, his player can buy advances to support the characters new direction... something he can't do under the current Career system (at least not without a lot of fumbling discussion and debate with his GM to work out how to handle a lot of elite advances).

LuciusT said:

Of course you can. I only meant to point out this fact because the rulesystem of Dark Heresy was accused of being inadequate in these regards, and I just wanted to illustrate that few RPG's actually support this kind of major character overhaul without some kind of GM intervention.

LuciusT said:

I like the idea, but so far I believe some quirks in the system might have to be adressed. But with a bit of work and research it could work quite nicely.

However, I would induce some restrictions. For instance if you created a character as a Techpriest from the beginning and said character has been a techpriest for many years, it would be hard for him or her to just rip out all the augmetics of his pr her body and start down another path in life. Especially if that character would like to switch from being a devoted servant to the omnissiah and then becoming a Cleric of the Imperial Creed instead. (the two different "churches" if you will do house som antipathy towards eachother).

But issues such as these could be adressed by a diagram perhaps? Showing what paths you can and can't take depending on earlier choices? It would kind of make sense really. Let's say that you commit several crimes during your life, you'll have a hard time in trying to get a career within law enforcement or other important governemtn institutions. So some past choices should sensibly remove some future options. Do you agree?

It does mean though that characters end up with some of the more powerful talents earlier in the game. Of course, with GM control it changes things, but if the players have been a in a few fights they would use that as justification to get swift attack. You'd have to decide how many brawls are required to allow for the taking of swift attack etc.

Swift attack followed by lightning attack for example. You can see just how many ranks (and thus how much XP you must have already spent on different abilities) are required before you have either one available to the character. In this system any guardsman with good melee will have taken them both after the 2nd session or so, depending on how much XP you give out.

I tried this at one point, but I ended up with a guardsman with S50, WS40, Dodge +20 and lightning attack after only a few sessions because he just went for the most optimal abilities straight up.

Although the ranks are clunky, they create a defacto prerequisite for each skill and talent - miniumum rank requirement. This then means you don't have adepts and guardsmen with lightning attack at low level etc.

Of course, the Elite advance system is the game's get out of responsibility free card. That effectively allows you to bypass the rank restrictions for any talent or skill anyway. You don't even need to charge a premium on the abilities either. It just puts the accrual of abilities at the GM's discretion instead of through an abstract table.

You could use the rank system as a way to spread it out. For example, the amount of XP required to learn talent X changes depending on what rank you've acheived (in this case, rank is merely an indication of how much XP you've accrued in the first place, call it experience or being a veteran). If it's a rank 6 ability and you are rank 4, it costs more. So if an adept gets swift attack at rank 6 he can take it at rank 1, but it will cost a but load.

Using a table like this:

Ability is 1 Rank Higher: 200 XP

Ability is 2 Ranks Higher: 400XP

Ability is 3 Ranks Higher: 600XP

Ability is 4 Ranks Higher: 800 XP

And so on.

If an ability requires a rank equal to or lower than your current rank it only costs 100 XP to buy. This then reflects how much personal development and experience (as opposed to "XP") one must undertake before one can learn a certain skill. The more developed you are in an area, the cheaper in XP it will be to take (represented by rank).

What you could do then is take the Talent and Skill tables from the book and add a few more columns listing the Rank they are available for each career.

ie

Skill Prerequisites Adept Assassin Cleric Guardsman

Pilot - Rank2 Rank 3 Rank 6 Rank 1

Tech Use+10 TU Rank 2 Rank 3 Rank6 Rank 4

Then have the small table (previously) listing the XP differences for an ability depending on how far away its rank requirement is for the character.

Hellebore

Hellebore said:

This is why there is one huge (and often overlooked) restriction on my system... the GM must approve any advance taken and that advance must be justified by events in the game. In other words, if you as the GM don't want the Guardsman to have S50, WS40, Dodge +20 and Lightning Attack, you have the right to say no to any of the advances that get him there and justify the decision based on the his actions in game. In that, I confess, my system in like the elite advance system... but then, I've used this restriction on advances for every RPG I've ever run.

Its eminently workable, its just a lot of work.

Personally I hate level based systems as well, but there's no real objection to the system from the people I play with so I've not really invested a lot of time into figuring out how to work it.

MKX said:

I guess I should mention that as well. Im generally not a fan of level based systems either (or anything else that carries the rancid stench of MMORPG-style playing).

But for some reason Dark Heresy hasn't ever caused problems, despite the level based careerpaths. I guess they have been pretty well planed in that regard...

Varnias Tybalt said:

My experience, however limited, has been otherwise.

LuciusT said:

Perhaps you didn't use the Elite Advances system enough? That's DH's get out of levels free card. Elite advances mean you as the GM can give anyone any ability at any level completely ignoring the rank system. With a generous use of that, you don't really have to worry about the levelling aspects at all.

I still like the idea of scaling XP costs relative to Rank though. I think that could be fun. Not everything is as easy to learn at any point in your life.

Hellebore

LuciusT said:

See, I would call that a weakness in the system. Anything that requires GM fiat to keep it working needs fixing, IMO. Especially in this case - what if unconscious GM favouritism, or just misjudgement about the strength of a given talent, leads to some characters being more high-powered than others?

Simplest way to deal with it without pricing high-tier feats out of the market, would be to keep the levels system but make it more freeform. You could say you reach level 2 when you have spent 2000 XP, level 3 when you've spent 2000 XP, or whatever. Then you attach a minimum experience level to the more powerful talents so that players can't just beeline them.

The other thing you could consider, so that people's characters at least broadly hang together, is to create a system of skill and talent groupings. A bit like classes, but again more freeform. Each level you can pick one skill/talent group and get a (permanent) discount when buying from that group. That way, characters should end up with broadly related skills, but have the freedom to choose more widely if they wish.

Cardinalsin said:

You say weakness, I say strength - the ability of the GM to disregard mechanics as required is fundamentally inbuilt into the role of the GM, but having it clearly encouraged is an asset, IMO. My big problem with D&D4 is that the GM is so heavily restricted that it can at times feel like the game could keep running without you (and indeed the DMG contains a section on gaming without a DM)... I like to be involved and active within the game, in all areas, otherwise it's no fun for me because I'm just a referee and spectator at that point.

Many of the 'flaws' people comment about in the 40kRP system are actually areas where GM intervention is explicitly required by the rules, emphasising their nature as a tool for the GM rather than the alternative (where the GM is just a set of limbs and a voice for the game mechanics). Test difficulty and frequency is one oft-repeated example, the progression system is the other.

Yes. I was flabergasted to discover that the PCs could get abilities in 4th ed that forced the DM to reroll dice rolls and other similar things. I couldn't believe the game actually gave the ability for PCs to mess with the DM in the normal rules.

Although I do think there is a line between encouraging GM intervention and requiring it because the game is inadequate.

Hellebore

Hellebore said:

My trouble with the Elite Advances "system" is that there is no Elite Advance system. There are just vague statements to the effect that the GM can allow anyone to buy anything at whatever cost the player and GM agree to. I would have liked to see some more guidelines for that last part... give me an idea of what the right cost of those advances ought to be. That's basically where I started with these rules... trying to work out how to cost Elite Advances.

Hellebore said:

That doesen't necessarily have to be a bad idea. I have experienced good examples where the players can at some times invoke GM like powers in the game. However that kind of game is more about the GM and the players creating a story together rather than the conventional way of a GM creating the story entirely and try to railroad the players through it. Lot's of free form gaming there, which makes it possile for players to have that kind of influence over the game as well.

So, power taken away from the GM and being distributed to the players isnt ALWAYS such a bad thing, I assure you.

(however I will in no way defend DnD, in any form or way. DnD stinks just as bad as it have always stunk)

Hellebore said:

Exactly.

Good: ignoring the rules when they don't work; making special exceptions if it's cool; inventing house rules.

Bad: a ruleset that requires a GM ruling every time a character spends XP.

Cardinalsin said:

Every game I have ever run, I've required that I give approval to every advance a character takes. Never had a problem with it.

LuciusT said:

Well aren't you the control freak?

Varnias Tybalt said:

Duh! I'm a GM.

Seriously though... if the characters spent the last three weeks slogging on foot through a swamp no one should be able to take Pilot +10 as an advance. I don't care if it is available on their career path for that rank. No in game justification, no advance. Now, if you want to take Survival, heck yeah... you should! So, yes, I approve every advance taken... it probably comes from playing lots of GURPS, where the availability of anything is subject the GMs approval, and Ars Magica, where the advancement system is entirely based on in-character activities during what most games call "downtime."

LuciusT said:

That's the thing... most of the time, my game has moderately long IC gaps between episodes, during which my players could be doing almost any training they like. So I don't worry too much about what they've been doing in-session. The only time I apply GM fiat to advances is to offer a player an advance they wouldn't normally have access to, because of something that happened in-game.

I don't mind the class/level thing with DH. I mind the fact that we can't go past the level "cap". Pure nonsense.

That and we still don't have proper career branches for the following things...

1 - Eldar

2 - Space Marines

3 - Orks

4 - Tau

5 - Eldar

6 - Chaos forces

...You get the point.

Kruniac said:

Well, you cant have infinitely-expanding career paths, can you... they do have to stop somewhere as a book is incapable of having an infinite number of pages.

Beyond that, there's something like 45-50 thousand XP worth of advances in any given career path, before elite advances and alternate ranks... there's nothing stopping you continuing to acquire xp to spend on skills and talents. The only thing that won't improve is your rank, and that's only used to determine how many options are available to you.

Plus, assuming 200xp (the suggested average in the rulebook) per session and a standard starting value of 400xp, it takes about 73 sessions to reach the end of the career tables. Assuming you've played every week since the game was released, you would have reached that at some point in the middle of June this year. If your sessions are less frequent, there's still a way to go yet.

Kruniac said:

Firstly, you've mentioned the Eldar twice.

Dark Heresy is humanocentric. The game doesn't include rules for playing Eldar and Orks and Tau because they aren't human. In the case of the Orks, they're savage and belligerent creatures whose peaceful interaction with humans appears limited primarily to short-term mercenary work and piracy... hardly the kind of thing appropriate for a game where the official materials are focussed towards an investigative game. In the case of the Tau, the fact that their civilisation sits an insurmountable distance from the default setting of the game makes their inclusion extremely unlikely.

The Astartes will be getting their own game . It is hugely unlikely that we will see any official material for Space Marine player characters before then.

As for Chaos forces... well, Chaos is everywhere and can taint anyone, so you just use the character progression rules we already have...