I need something of a much larger scale. While the current party "only" has 2 IG regiments in tow, they have access to over 100 more, depending on the planet they are operating on. My newest iteration (I had the day off today) uses the Army as the operational unit, with regiments making up the steps of those armies. I won't get a chance to playtest for another week or so, but here's the low-down.

• Armies are commanded by generals whose pertinent info is their skills at Command and Tactics.

• Armies can have 10 regiments + the General's Command Bonus

• Armies also have Morale listed.

• The GM gives a Tactics modifier to one side that has gained an overall advantage in the combined use of intel, recon, weather, terrain, and anything else that can be dreamed up.

• Each side makes a Tactics check to determine the casualties inflicted on the opposing army(ies). I'll post a link at the bottom of this post that shows both army OBs and the combat resolution table. Note that fortifications give the owning army "free" regiments to lose in each battle. These "free" regiments come back each new week of combat unless the army attacking them has siege artillery, in which case they can be destroyed on a strength point per strength point basis.

• The same die rolls used to determine casualties (averaged if one or both sides have more than 1 army) are compared as an Opposed Check. The winner's army(ies) take 1d10 morale damage. The loser's army(ies) take 1d10 morale damage +1d10 per DoS the winner has more.

• If armies have 0 morale they retreat and combat is done for the week.

• The GM has to make calls concerning how much turf is occupied by victorious armies.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/18pz4GhAnfGPDkZsWLvyLISM6syy75qFPL_7ei1UdMTU/edit?usp=sharing

This should reduce the time for adjudicating an entire front to something less than 20 minutes per week of battle, or at least that's what I'm aiming at.

Mind you, there are other factors the players are involved in, and I think that's why they want a faster adjudication. They have to consider infrastructure and how many troops they can move around per weekly turn, plus they get to decide what their reserves are, and when and where to commit them, not to mention pulling troops back to reserve from a winning front so they can used elsewhere.

Edit: This most may have come across as overly aggressive it is not intended to be so.

You can chart Warp Routes and you can chart systems. Both requires successful use of the Astrography skill. Charting Warp Routes gives advantages in Navigation (Warp), travel times, and AP bonuses (as listed in Into the Storm) . Charting systems affects Navigation (Stellar), in-system travel times and modifies the following types of encounters: radiation bursts, solar flares, gravity tides and riptides, asteroid fields, ice rings, dust clouds and rings, gas giant rings, and nebulae.

I have a GM that uses your house rules and I'm curious about your reasoning for this in particular.

Why is Trade (Astrographer) (that's the skill by the way, there's no "Astrography" skill, in fact the word is only mentioned twice in Core Rulebook, SoI and Navis Primer (seriously though this post has been up for a year+ and no one thought to ask what "Astrography" was?)) an AGILITY BASED SKILL the skill used for Navigator's to chart the void?

You only get Trade (Astrographer) from rank 1, so if you take an alternate rank 1 that sucks for you. You don't get +10 until rank 3, and +20 at rank 4. So this is a skill based off a characteristic which costs 500 for a simple improvement, for a class that already needs 3 high characteristics (WP, Per, Fel), a class for which makes by far and away the least sense to send on away parties (because not only are they the most valuable crew member, they absolutely suck at WS, BS, T, and Ag!).

Not only that warp travel, as you rightfully say, is already deadly enough, why are you making it tougher by making routes harder to chart, and charts worse?

Speaking of which this rule "

• No Psychic or Navigator powers outside the core rules may be chosen without previous permission."

means that half of the really good space navigator powers which are best suited to aiding in the warp aren't even allowed on assumption! Why not just change the ones you think are broken? What kind of weird thing is that?

Edit: Also to get around this we were going to have the PC Voidmistress take Trade (Astrographer) instead since she has incredible agility, but, oh wait, you can't chart it unless you were the one to navigate it.

Elite Advances
Elite Advances for Skills cost 300 XP. You can't purchase the +10 advance unless you're at Rank 4 or are willing to suffer 1d10 Insanity, and can't purchase +20 until Rank 7 or suffer the same fate. Elite Advances for Talents cost +100% XP. You can't purchase them at a rank earlier than their usual career can, unless you are of that career. You can reduce the XP cost to 150% if you are willing to pay 1d5 Corruption.

This is incredibly unspecific.

Let's look at a random talent, say Melee Weapon Training (Primitive), 5 different careers get this at rank 1, for either 200 or 100. What one is the "usual career", what cost do you go for? What if someone gets a talent for 500 at rank 1 (on say an alternate career path) and then 100 at rank 2? What cost do you go with?

The skill stuff isn't great either, a skill that cost 100 xp now costs 300 xp, yet skills that cost 200 xp are only 300 xp. There are plenty of skills that cost 300 xp themselves, so who cares what career you are it all costs the same! (Rank 3 of Arch Militant has 3 SKILLS ALONE THAT COST 300).

Edit: Also this rule makes me think that you would like a Rogue Trader system ala DH 2.0/Only War. Classless.

Alternate Career Ranks

I'm not fond of these, but I'm open to using them. They will be strictly controlled and people who want to build a character with multiple alternate career ranks will likely be disappointed. These are to be used to give flavor to a character story, not grant characters powers they don't usually have access to. If all you're looking for is a unique talent, consider going the Elite Advance route instead.

This logic is absurdly dumb. By your own rules I could be a Rogue Trader at rank 4 and get a Navigator Power for a measly cost of 500*1.5 and 200*1.5 = 1050 xp and 2d5 Corruption. Totally legit! I could also get a million other broken things with your elite advance system. But somehow alt career ranks are what is broken?

Origin Paths

Follow these strictly. I'm sure there are some great stories to explain why a character might deviate from them, but I'm equally sure those same stories can be told within the origin path. Some Lineage combinations will not be allowed. Some are just too unbalancing. If your Origin Path duplicates a skill without advancing it, I will advance it (e.g. If you get Language - High Gothic twice, it will advance to +10).

Fix it then. If it's broken fix it. Also I'm pretty sure that duplicating is the base rule, so you don't need to repeat it.

Also if interesting that you don't say you use the Multiple Acquisition rule which means every player can just roll for every item in the armoury. Now that is what's broken.

Some good questions there.

Why is Trade (Astrography) based on Agility? I have no idea. It's pretty dumb. Who draws maps by hand any more? The same goes for many of the other trades that might come in useful, in fact almost all of them. In the back of my Core book all Trades are INT-based. I'm not sure where the AGI-based thing came along. Thanks for bringing that up. Your example of a Voidmistress taking the skill because that character has a higher agility is an excellent example of munchkinism. It's not playing a character, but playing a character sheet. I discourage this kind of play. I like to think we can be better than this.

As far as purchasing levels of a skill, I don't make it difficult in my campaign for people to pick up Elite advances. The only exception that comes to mind is Forbidden Lores. You need some basis of contact to learn Forbidden Lores. Otherwise, Elite Advances in skills generally only cost 300 instead of 200...in my campaign. It's not a big enough difference to cause balance issues in game play, and I find that all my players buy Elite Advances.

Warp travel is supposed to be dangerous. This system doesn't make it more dangerous. It's less dangerous, by far, and less random, than Navis Primer. It's more concrete than the Core rules. It let's players take risks where they know they can stack the advantages their way, and it let's them make educated guesses as to their chances when factors are stacked against them, whereas Navis Primer just kills the entire crew with a couple unlucky dice rolls, even though the crew took all necessary precautions. Charts of warp routes can always be purchased. Purchases are handled like any other acquisition check. If the players want to chart new routes themselves into unknown territory then they probably need a PC navigator. I personally like that limiting factor. I know there are plenty of people that don't like Navigator PCs. I think they're the bees knees. I created a system that really made them shine, too.

When I limit the powers a Navigator or Astropath can purchase, I just want to talk it through with them, see what they want to purchase and why. I've often run into situations where someone purchases a power or discipline and we have different interpretations of how it works. This precaution makes sure we are on the same page before any dice are rolled.

Skills that cost 100 XP are usually career specific. Go to another career and they might be 200 XP. 200 XP is the base, and 300 seems a fair penalty for an Elite Advance. It's a rough and ready rule and one that any player can appeal. I'm not super rigid, but I like things spelled out in advance. There might be many exceptions in my campaign. Some skills cost 300 and 500, but they are pretty rare, so I'd probably make them 400 and 600. Depends.

I don't know where you get the idea that I'd let a Rogue Trader purchase a Navigator Power. My House Rules should make it plain I don't care for cheese. I mean, I like to eat the stinky stuff, but I don't like it in my games. I can do epic with absolutely no cheese whatsoever.

I'm not fond of Alternate Career Ranks. It has been my experience that most people want them in order to purchase a single Talent or small skill set. Just purchase that single Talent or skill set through Elite Advances. If I find that the ACR actually brings something to the game, then I allow it. In our current game we have a Genetor. I still don't see how it changes the character in question all that much. The player has actually made his character into a genetor through his roleplaying. The changes in the character sheet were minimal.

I have no need to fix the Origin Path system. I just ask the players to follow it. It's been my experience that many out there don't follow it, and that often brings up play-balance issues. I avoid the issues altogether.

I'm not sure what you mean by Multiple Acquisitions. If you mean Combining Acquisitions then I'm even more confused. If you mean Frequency of Acquisitions then understand that my Koronus Expanse is very much a frontier area. My players have found relatively few places where they can make acquisitions of any kind within the Expanse. For the most part, they go all the way back to Calixis. If they want to sit in Calixis for a year or two and make acquisition rolls then I'm fine with that. If they have a good PF they might have everything in the armory, and I'm also fine with that. If they don't have a good PF then they may find that a year or two isn't long enough for them to succeed at the dice rolls they need for everything in the armory. I'm not even sure why they'd want everything in the armory. I'm not really sure why they want all the things they do want, but I generally let them roll away. Then they return to the Expanse and proceed to surprise me with all their grandiose plans and that's part of my fun.

Hey, these are just my house rules. I posted and shared them because I kept getting requests. I change them frequently myself. I'm still not happy with my mass combat rules. My players want really massive combat but they don't want detail, and I understand that. If they tell me something else isn't working for them, I take a good long look at it. I don't want to make changes lightly, but I do want to fix both their and my problems with whatever rule isn't working. The rules I've changed have been acceptable my both myself and my players. If they don't work for your group, change them.

First off, thanks for the reply.

Why is Trade (Astrography) based on Agility? I have no idea. It's pretty dumb. Who draws maps by hand any more? The same goes for many of the other trades that might come in useful, in fact almost all of them. In the back of my Core book all Trades are INT-based. I'm not sure where the AGI-based thing came along. Thanks for bringing that up. Your example of a Voidmistress taking the skill because that character has a higher agility is an excellent example of munchkinism. It's not playing a character, but playing a character sheet. I discourage this kind of play. I like to think we can be better than this.

Well I think of all people that would make sense apart from a Navigator to make charts, it would be a voidmistress. I am confused by your back of core book. Is this something you've homebrewed, did I miss it in your rules? In the Rogue Trader Core Rulebook: http://i.imgur.com/dBX0gcg.png Also again, it is Trade (Astrographer).

However I agree with your point, people shouldn't take it because they have the best characteristic.

As far as purchasing levels of a skill, I don't make it difficult in my campaign for people to pick up Elite advances. The only exception that comes to mind is Forbidden Lores. You need some basis of contact to learn Forbidden Lores. Otherwise, Elite Advances in skills generally only cost 300 instead of 200...in my campaign. It's not a big enough difference to cause balance issues in game play, and I find that all my players buy Elite Advances.

Right well, I accept that, my question I don't feel was addressed though. Why are 100xp, 200xp and 300xp skills the same cost to pick up? I don't know if there are more than 300 cost xp skills but it seems really out of place to me that taking an elite advance would be better or equivalent to taking it from your class. You say instead of 200, does that mean you have homeruled that all skills cost 200xp? Again, if this is the case I must have missed it.

Warp travel is supposed to be dangerous. This system doesn't make it more dangerous. It's less dangerous, by far, and less random, than Navis Primer.

It's a million times more dangerous without warp charts (which do a great deal to balance the system).

Charts of warp routes can always be purchased. Purchases are handled like any other acquisition check. If the players want to chart new routes themselves into unknown territory then they probably need a PC navigator.

Well, no, they can't always be purchased as you go on to say. It is the case that our crew was in an uncharted region of space. Our PC Navigator didn't even have Trade (Astrographer) (because they had taken an alternate career path), and even if they had they had a pathetic agility score and would be lucky to make any roll, and if they did it'd only get them a poor chart anyway.

I imagine it would actually be less impactful with an NPC Navigator since they'd use the crew ratings and have 40 for all characteristics for example. Whereas a PC Nav will have high WP (or they die in the warp), high Per (or they die in the warp) and usually high Int or Fel for Navis Scions. Not a lot of room for agility there.

When I limit the powers a Navigator or Astropath can purchase, I just want to talk it through with them, see what they want to purchase and why. I've often run into situations where someone purchases a power or discipline and we have different interpretations of how it works. This precaution makes sure we are on the same page before any dice are rolled.

This makes complete sense, so why don't you do it for those in the Core Rulebook too? They are just as confusing, and in some cases more so.

Skills that cost 100 XP are usually career specific. Go to another career and they might be 200 XP. 200 XP is the base, and 300 seems a fair penalty for an Elite Advance. It's a rough and ready rule and one that any player can appeal. I'm not super rigid, but I like things spelled out in advance. There might be many exceptions in my campaign. Some skills cost 300 and 500, but they are pretty rare, so I'd probably make them 400 and 600. Depends.

Skills that cost 100xp aren't usually career specific at all, for example Awareness is 100xp every where it appears. I would say the Rogue Trader system is designed, and at least the way it is described that Elite Advances are for those who take Alternate Career Ranks to get lost skills. In this case it is completely and totally reasonable that they would be missing out on skills that cost 100xp, 200xp, 300xp or 500xp. It seems to me that a say a Navigator should be able to get Secret Tongue (Navigators) for cheaper than any other character, because they have it for 100xp, even if they take an alternate career path. Skills that cost more, what player is going to come to you voluntarily when you've set out a clear rule and ask if they have to pay more xp? If you like things laid out in advance, then say "Take the XP cost from your own career path, add 100xp (or whatever). If not in your career path, take the highest cost of the skill at the same rank or lower, if not possible speak to me".

I don't know where you get the idea that I'd let a Rogue Trader purchase a Navigator Power. My House Rules should make it plain I don't care for cheese. I mean, I like to eat the stinky stuff, but I don't like it in my games. I can do epic with absolutely no cheese whatsoever.

Because when you write strict rules like that, you're stating something to the player. Compare how the rulebook words it "All Elite Advances should be spoken with the GM first", whereas yours is more "Go to town get what you want." Obviously it's nonsense for a Rogue Trader not to do that, but unfortunately since you're sharing your rules and some GMs take homebrew rules without the same thought process that you might have behind them they will just read it RAW. That's why I think it's vital that rules represent intent as close as possible. If there's too many margins simply add, speak to the GM, then GMs who give these rules to players and kind of assume they would be sensible (especially for those who don't know the lore) might end up with a Rogue Trader who suddenly grew a third eye. Which they'd obviously correct in session, but who knows when it might come up. This depends on how independent and trusting of your players to manage their xp and characters you are.

I'm not fond of Alternate Career Ranks. It has been my experience that most people want them in order to purchase a single Talent or small skill set. Just purchase that single Talent or skill set through Elite Advances. If I find that the ACR actually brings something to the game, then I allow it. In our current game we have a Genetor. I still don't see how it changes the character in question all that much. The player has actually made his character into a genetor through his roleplaying. The changes in the character sheet were minimal.

Firstly, that is a really strange experience to have, alternate career paths are usually fairly penalising in terms of lost skills, anyone choosing one for a small subset for skills, would be as you say better off via Elite Advances. That rule is already in the game even before your homebrew so it is weird for your experience. However, let's say people were doing that with old Elite Advances, well you've fixed Elite Advances so you players no longer will have that motivation. So an alternate career rank will be a choice in specialisation of their character. The requirements for all the ACRs are so stringent already (always requiring roleplay) that they almost always require a GM to work with the player otherwise you could find yourself passing by the rank you wanted to choose an ACR without finding an opportunity to meet the requirement, with that in mind extra rules on top seem completely unnecessary.

If you think that ACR's don't change characters that much, then why are you ruling them out? If it's a minimal change then is it a big deal if a player picks up, say, Beastmaster (or whatever the one based around wrangling is). Why start off by shutting down or dismissing what a player might want to do? Some player might have wanted to move their character in that direction, but reads your homebrew rule specifically addressing your dislike and thinks better, might be a quick subconscious decision, you never know what you miss all in the presentation and attitude you put forth.

Surely your previous permission rule would be appropriate to add here at the very least, rather than wording it in a way that is so negative. Alternate Career Paths require GM permission. That does exactly the same thing you want, but doesn't put people off in the same way "I'm not fond" and "severely disappointed" (what's wrong with a Beastwrangling Manhunter?).

I have no need to fix the Origin Path system. I just ask the players to follow it. It's been my experience that many out there don't follow it, and that often brings up play-balance issues. I avoid the issues altogether.

Well yes, assuming the Origin Path is balanced then keeping with it makes it balanced. I was suggesting that you should balance free choice for one very important reason, roleplay, story. Yes, some players might pick backstories based on the best outcome for a specific stat, but then they could do that anyway within the Origin Path system to a degree, really you're just optimising in a more limited manner (you have 6 total choices each level with expanded Origin Path, easy to dismiss a route because it'd lower your primary characteristic or whatever). I think that free choice not only allows players to create more interesting and diversified backstories, but tells players that you're able and willing to work towards player choice and freedom in how they want to exist as characters. I understand that you think that opening it up opens no new stories, but I disagree, a death world Rogue Trader. That alone speaks an interesting tale, it's not possible in the base system. Similarly a Noble-born Astropath (boy that's interesting, why didn't their noble birth allow them to avoid the black ships, did they willingly go? How do their family feel? When did their powers develop? etc).

Again I would say that your rule with the "nothing outside the core without discussion" is perfect just for this, if you want to avoid balancing.

I'm not sure what you mean by Multiple Acquisitions. If you mean Combining Acquisitions then I'm even more confused. If you mean Frequency of Acquisitions then understand that my Koronus Expanse is very much a frontier area. My players have found relatively few places where they can make acquisitions of any kind within the Expanse. For the most part, they go all the way back to Calixis. If they want to sit in Calixis for a year or two and make acquisition rolls then I'm fine with that. If they have a good PF they might have everything in the armory, and I'm also fine with that. If they don't have a good PF then they may find that a year or two isn't long enough for them to succeed at the dice rolls they need for everything in the armory. I'm not even sure why they'd want everything in the armory. I'm not really sure why they want all the things they do want, but I generally let them roll away. Then they return to the Expanse and proceed to surprise me with all their grandiose plans and that's part of my fun.

Page 221 of Into the Storm. I am largely talking about the opening of a game, since after that Acquisitions are less important. I'm also pretty sure that time is an optional rule too like multiple acquisitions. Presumably in most games the Rogue Trader and crew will start in somewhere civilised. Also in the vast majority of cases time is not that relevant, and it would be unfortunate if it was because the warp can set you years off. It also mentions that and I assume it is the case with you that acquisitions are done between sessions, as such is often paid less attention to and as such rules should be clearer than they might need to be for those in session.

Re: Last Para

As I hope I have clarified I have no doubt that you run your house rules just as you want them, it is in the sharing and the dispersing of them I think that issues arise, and that's just why I want clarity. For example my GM who thought your house rules were worth taking probably didn't look into Trade (Astrographer) (or maybe they would have noticed the spelling), and didn't really think about the Agility. There are a lot of rules to think of as a GM and most GMs would prefer to be crafting their story rather than fixing basic mechanics or going over homebrew rules with a fine comb. I did speak to my GM directly of course because I would hope I am a sensible individual but I felt that there was no harm and possibly help to be brought from having the rules changed at their source to be more reflective of the actual way in which you play your own rules.

I tried to avoid speaking about rules that I would not be able to speak on, such as mass combat and ship combat. I don't know enough about both your intentions, the original balance and players desires to say much.

I will just add that the duplicate rule I thought was part of the base rules is on page 15 of the Core Rulebook.

I get this error when I try to post "You have posted more than the allowed number of quoted blocks of text", what year is this?

I have an old RT book, and have often been shown that differs from newer versions, but mine also shows Trades as based on Various attributes. Some are downright silly: Astrography (Ag), Armorer (Ag), Remembrancer (Ag or It), and Voidfarer (Ag). All those seem more It-based than Ag (to me.) Page 397 (the character sheet) shows all Trades as INT-based) in my book. Weird.

Once again, I didn't address skills that cost 100 XP because all that do are usually Rank 1 skills that are baseline skills for that class. Most of them are actually pre-purchased and come with the character at-start. The few that aren't are usually necessary skills that nobody would leave unpurchased. Elite Advances don't seem to apply to them. For example, a Voidmaster gets Forbidden Lore (Xeno) for 100 XP. They start with that skill. What's the point of covering Elite Advance? They can also purchase Awareness for 100 XP. Why should that affect another character class that wants Awareness? They therefore pay 300XP, if there is a character class that never has Awareness at base level available (I don't recall off-hand).

On the other hand, Arch-Militant is the only class I can think of that has 300 XP skills. I'm not sure why. I haven't had a player that wanted to play an AM since my 2nd campaign. They are probably the least flexible character to play unless you're in a gunboat game with significant dungeon crawls. Regardless, I don't see why other classes should be penalized in purchasing Scholastic Lore (Tactica Imperialis) as an Elite Advance just because AMs have to pay 300 XP. If I had an AM in my game, and that player felt other characters was horning in on his/her niche over 100 XP I'd certainly consider the complaint. But that just means I'd be charging that other person 400 XP instead of 300. It's just not that big a deal.

Your example of a Beastmaster/Wrangler is a good one. Anyone wanting to play such a character really needs to talk with the other players first anyway. Maybe nobody else wants to land on semi-habitable planets and hunt for animals. Maybe they want to explore xenos ruins, chart new systems, trade, colonize, or pirate. I find it's best if all the players come to an agreement beforehand on the type of campaign they want. Not since my first campaign has a party wanted to do something so micro-intensive as hunting animals. They've all aimed higher in terms of power levels, and that's fine with me. That really demonstrates that my house rules are more in line with a party that wants to colonize, conquer, and trade. The most current group is very much against Star Trek landing parties with the command crew and few redshirts. So, anyone wanting to go a different route should talk with the party first. If the party like their idea then I'm open to their ACR.

Look, I keep the Origin Path as it is because I've run the game enough times to know what cheese already exists and can easily say, "No" when it becomes necessary. Opening it up permits too much cheese to filter through unnoticed and I want to avoid saying, "No" after the game starts. I don't find that people pick different options on the Origin Path for purposes of backstory. It is my experience that people pick them to min/max. And don't get me wrong, I've always said the RT is a game that lends itself well to min/maxing without balance getting out of hand. So I keep the options vanilla and tell my players to min/max all they want. I already know what's coming that way. There's nothing that keeps a person from adding a story to their backstory. My take on the Origin Path merely keeps them from getting that extra +3 INT while they're at it.

As for the Navigator, that first warp journey along a new route is always without a chart unless one is purchased. Agility means nothing at that point. Astrography only comes into play after a successful warp journey. At that point a chart can be created. Again, I think IT is more appropriate. Let me be more explicit. Let's say our heroes are travelling from Footfall to Lucien's Breath. It's a well-travelled route. They should be able to acquire a chart in Footfall. If they can't, the Navigator checks for the Astronomicon at +0 (Visible). If this is successful then the Navigator rolls for Steering the Vessel at +10 (Stable) -60 (Uncharted) +/-10 per DoS/DoF. If the Navigator has good skills then it might take a couple checks on the Extended Action. Even if the Navigator fails, the DoF have to be >2 for there to be any chance of serious repercussions. Anything less is simply an inconvenience, which is exactly what I was after. Now try this where the Astronomicon is Shrouded and the warp routes are Unstable when you don't have a chart, and the Navigator has mediocre skills and you are risking some serious consequences, and once again this is exactly what I was after. Let me put this in D&D terms. The thief wants to climb a wall. Fine. Make a skill check. Next the thief wants to walk a greased tightrope while blindfolded and wearing combat boots. The checks shouldn't be the same. The result is that my players now carefully consider the routes they are going to take. Expeditions don't just blindly sail into the warp for destinations unknown. They take precautions. They make preparations. All this gives the PC Navigator a raison d'etre. They have things to do while in port, and those actions are important to the other PCs so they aid the Navigator in their endeavors. These are all things I want in my campaign.

The reason I don't limit the Astropath and Navigator powers in the Core book is one of the Social Contract. Outsiders entering a game have certain expectations, and one of those is that the base, or Core rules will be followed. Where they are broken, they need fixed. Where they aren't, I leave them alone. I don't find any of the Core powers, disciplines, or techniques completely broken anyway. In fact, I don't find many of them broken if you use all the rules, and this includes Stack the Deck, which many players and GMs find to be horribly broken. I don't. Of course, this means you need to keep track of fatigue. I like fatigue. It makes my players want to use drugs. That lets me bring addiction into my game. I love addiction. It also makes them want to learn Meditation. I like systems that encourage skills that otherwise don't get used much. Win-win.

I do use the rules from ItS about Multiple Acquisitions. I've merged the Unwelcome Attention with Misfortunes, but I don't worry about that at the beginning of a campaign. I try to start out my campaigns with a bang. The party won't have time to hang out in Port Wander rolling unlimited acquisition tests. There's always a timed adventure waiting for the start of the game. I want to get them into a story right away. All campaigns needs an Intro Hook.

My home rules are open to reinterpretation every time I sit down. I'm not publishing a book for money. If I were I'd try to word them in a more concrete fashion. I encourage my players to break my rules. If they do I give them a slight reward and change the rules again. They've evolved considerably since I first wrote them, and I add new ones every campaign. I want outside players coming in to understand that there will be changes, so I post my very lengthy house rules in our game's Forum. I'm not trying to squash anyone's fun. In fact, I want to encourage fun by keeping play balance, restricting cheese, and making sure every player has a niche to fill. I want my players to concentrate on plot and roleplay, not their character sheets. When new players enter the game I often have them play the first session or two without a character sheet. If they can't play without one, they might want to find another game. If they play well, they earn my respect and that of the other players in the game, and that's a great start for our group. We have 4 members who have played RPGs together for over 35 years. That's a real close-knit group to try to break into. If you can win some respect in the first couple sessions that goes a long way.

Edit: Apologies for not using the quote system but since it broke last time this'll have to do.

"I have an old RT book, and have often been shown that differs from newer versions, but mine also shows Trades as based on Various attributes. Some are downright silly: Astrography (Ag), Armorer (Ag), Remembrancer (Ag or It), and Voidfarer (Ag). All those seem more It-based than Ag (to me.) Page 397 (the character sheet) shows all Trades as INT-based) in my book. Weird."

On my character sheet is does say Trade (Int) too. Odd indeed.

"Once again, I didn't address skills that cost 100 XP because all that do are usually Rank 1 skills that are baseline skills for that class."

I didn't do a count of what usually is the case but as long as there exist plenty outside of Rank 1 I feel it is relevant.

"Most of them are actually pre-purchased and come with the character at-start. The few that aren't are usually necessary skills that nobody would leave unpurchased."

No that isn't the case, it's about 50/50 ones that come with a Career Path, (eg missionary 8 100 cost skills you get automatically, 8 you don't in rank 1) definitely not "most" or "few". Also there are alternate career ranks at level 1 which you have no choice but to leave them unpurchased.

"Once again, I didn't address skills that cost 100 XP because all that do are usually Rank 1 skills that are baseline skills for that class. Most of them are actually pre-purchased and come with the character at-start. The few that aren't are usually necessary skills that nobody would leave unpurchased."

Alternate career ranks? I'm sure I posted this before, but if not I'll remind you of the whole thing that you're overruling that is the reason I'm bringing this up. It seems to me you have no justification for overwriting this system other than (oh it's not common enough to matter?) Why not just make it double and cap it at 300 xp then?

http://pasteboard.co/39X7tK6DY.png

The base rules go out of their way to emphasis and give you an actual rule that you've chosen to homebrew over.

" Why should that affect another character class that wants Awareness?"

Hmm, I don't know why do you use the word "usual career"? Why does it matter what a talent costs for someone else? Why are talents percentage based?

"Elite Advances for Talents cost +100% XP. You can't purchase them at a rank earlier than their usual career can, unless you are of that career. You can reduce the XP cost to 150% if you are willing to pay 1d5 Corruption."

This is your own rules! You're arguing against yourself! But my own personal reasoning, is maybe, I dunno just guessing here, the cost of a skill or talent represents how difficult it is to acquire or learn, or how powerful it is. You know that makes a lot of sense to me!

"On the other hand, Arch-Militant is the only class I can think of that has 300 XP skills. I'm not sure why. I haven't had a player that wanted to play an AM since my 2nd campaign."

Sure hope that isn't because you've nerfed them with your homebrew rules.

" Regardless, I don't see why other classes should be penalized in purchasing Scholastic Lore (Tactica Imperialis) as an Elite Advance just because AMs have to pay 300 XP. "

It's just so crazy that you wrote this while having the rule that if it is a talent then you should have to pay more just because AMs have to! Also as I said, the reason they should have to pay 300xp is because that's how it is valued in the system, if people who are entirely skilled around tactical fights are just as good at that knowledge as an astropath who has never left their bedroom then why bother playing them?

"If I had an AM in my game, and that player felt other characters was horning in on his/her niche over 100 XP I'd certainly consider the complaint. But that just means I'd be charging that other person 400 XP instead of 300. It's just not that big a deal."

But suddenly if you change skills to talents it is a whole different ball game!

"Anyone wanting to play such a character really needs to talk with the other players first anyway."

I don't want to sound patronising but this is the case for everything. You want to play a Renegade Navigator? Talk to the other players. You want to play a crazy Rogue Trader who hates the Emperor, talk to the players. All characters should be made with other player's input by the by. At least to get people on the same page, but once they're on that, why are you striking things off the page when you've already have a filtering process to be on the page in the first place! It's completely needless.

"I find it's best if all the players come to an agreement beforehand on the type of campaign they want."

Yes, I completely agree with that.

"That really demonstrates that my house rules are more in line with a party that wants to colonize, conquer, and trade."

No it doesn't. There are tons of career paths which are actually focused on the bigger picture, Seccessionist being the most obvious. In fact there's very little in the base classes that add anything to do more stuff. At least a Beastmaster would have some rationale for trading in beasts or colonising with a symbiotic beast. What it demonstrates is my specific example of a career path which makes sense you somehow used as justification that all alternate career paths should be considered denounced.

"If the party like their idea then I'm open to their ACR."

Right, read that and compare that to "I don't like ACRs and Players who wish to take multiple ACRs will be disappointed", now which one of those attitudes do you think will let players make the choices that reflect best what they want their character to develop into? Hmmm. If someone wants to be both a Swashbuckler and a Legend of the Expanse and everyone in the party likes that idea too, I simply do not understand why you have to start off with the attitude that thinking of a famous rogue like Rogue Trader/Arch-Militant/Void-Mistress/whatever is so bad. From everything you've said to me it seems like your rule is not stopping any sort of power plays and is simply stifling people.

"Look, I keep the Origin Path as it is because I've run the game enough times to know what cheese already exists and can easily say, "No" when it becomes necessary."

That doesn't make sense. If you have ran it enough to know what cheese then you could easily spot any attempts at Origin Path cheese and shut it down. The purpose of a closed Origin Path is twofold: one for newer players to create characters that fit better with lore and second for newer GMs who would feel unable or incapable of stopping a player from asking for a different path for power reasons. You don't sound like you fit either of those.

"Opening it up permits too much cheese to filter through unnoticed and I want to avoid saying, "No" after the game starts."

For a start, I don't actually believe there is that much cheese, I've been making a bunch of characters for my own amusement and even the most abusive of plays and the best lenient of rules with no thought for story all suffer from the following: You have at most 500xp, even the most OP routes aren't really that good, the most OP routes within the system and without are very similar in power level. I would really appreciate an example of what you find to be cheesiest in an open system.

ON TOP, of all this, the book in ITS recommends opening up rows for your players! So even the bloody writers didn't think high level cheese was possible.

However, I'm immediately going to pick up on something, your players make their characters independently? How is that at all people on the same page? The whole point of origin paths is to have intersections and the such, and this makes me incredibly worried that you don't work with players backstories at all (since you don't know if it's going to fit or what it is if the game has started by the time you realise).

"I don't find that people pick different options on the Origin Path for purposes of backstory. It is my experience that people pick them to min/max. And don't get me wrong, I've always said the RT is a game that lends itself well to min/maxing without balance getting out of hand. So I keep the options vanilla and tell my players to min/max all they want. I already know what's coming that way. There's nothing that keeps a person from adding a story to their backstory. My take on the Origin Path merely keeps them from getting that extra +3 INT while they're at it."

With all of what you said somehow I don't find it surprising that your players min max with backstory, because you don't even know what it is before the first session started! Not only that this particular sentence: "There's nothing that keeps a person from adding a story to their backstory." tells me that in your campaign the origin backstory is pointless because you can write what you want.

I completely and totally disagree with this. If you're from a deathworld in your origin story, then you're from a deathworld, you can't write that you're from a hive world, not only is that just dumb, it makes no sense (why can't you speak Hive Dialects). When you divorce Origin Story from the backstory of the characters it serves no purpose other than min maxing. Players choosing to take the same motivation to have an intersection (either with one other player or more) is what makes the Origin Stories such a fantastic roleplaying mechanic.

"As for the Navigator, that first warp journey along a new route is always without a chart unless one is purchased. Agility means nothing at that point. Astrography only comes into play after a successful warp journey. At that point a chart can be created. Again, I think IT is more appropriate. Let me be more explicit. Let's say our heroes are travelling from Footfall to Lucien's Breath"

How often do you travel a warp route that you never travel again? Also, you were the one who made is so uncharted routes are at -60, in the book basic charts are +10, detailed charts are +20. So yes, you are the one who made it incredibly dangerous by changing how charts work. Yes agility is irrelevant in the first time, but if you somehow manage to make a -60 roll (good luck to you, we almost died in our very first session (pretty sure the DM mucked about to let us live)) then you'll bloody need agility for the next bunch. As I said it's your rules that make warp a million times more dangerous. (Unless your Rogue Trader grew boldly goes where people have already been all the time, then the chart rules are totally irrelevant!)

" If they can't, the Navigator checks for the Astronomicon at +0 (Visible)."

Oh wow so nice no warp storms, I'm sure uncharted warp territory is really calm and nice!

" If this is successful then the Navigator rolls for Steering the Vessel at +10 (Stable) -60 (Uncharted) +/-10 per DoS/DoF. If the Navigator has good skills then it might take a couple checks on the Extended Action. Even if the Navigator fails, the DoF have to be >2 for there to be any chance of serious repercussions. "

Dude it's -60. Based on a roll that's Challenging to begin with. So you've got say a 50/50 of managing the first roll, a couple of checks? And you want them to roll -50 when a rank 1 Navigator cannot have more than a 55 on their Navigation (Warp) roll? Wow! You're right, you've sure made the warp much nicer than the previous system. Also, no, most of the warp routes that will be uncharted will not be stable either. Any roll above a 25 is more than 2 degrees of failure. Again this is all under the idea that someone is playing a Navigator (and to be honest because they make the least sense to leave the ship on away parties I don't think they should be necessary as you said for going into uncharted territory, they should make it less dangerous, but just because no one wants to play a Navigator half of the Expanse is cut off?). If I don't know their GM put them under some sort of time based quest at the start of the game to make them rush somewhere and no one was playing a Navigator and boy they don't want to spend time looking to acquisition charts do they? They're in a rush!

Also since you can't get more than one success on a roll (actually hold on, with a -50 at 55, they'd never able to get even one degree of success!)

So it'd take a wee bit more than a couple of checks, they'd never get out. All of this is assuming that they didn't fail to locate the Astronomicon.

Not only that if they ever did (say 4 natural 1s accumulated each 0.5 degree of success) a year would have passed so they'd have missed whatever time trial it was.

"Now try this where the Astronomicon is Shrouded and the warp routes are Unstable when you don't have a chart, and the Navigator has mediocre skills and you are risking some serious consequences, and once again this is exactly what I was after."

No mate, it's not serious consequences, it is literally impossible. You've went from what the original rules have to make it literally impossible to translate the warp uncharted. Even with a high level Navigator with maxed Navigation (Warp), so +20, 20 characteristic bonus, rolled a 20 to start for their Willpower to have 65 total. Has 85. So even the best ******* Navigators have a 50/50 on dying on an uncharted stable route!

Let's do worst case (wait this isn't even close to worse) scenario with an endgame Navigator. After a bit of combat or whatever inside the ship, maybe a saboteur or something whatever it doesn't matter, the Navigation Station is damage (-20), their charts are destroyed (-60), the warp is black with storms (-40), and the route is haunted (-20).

First off end game on the Psy test, we'll assume this guy maxed per and that too so 85, -40 for lightless is 45. So the average is 0.5 degrees of failure. Obviously this can vary between 4 degrees of success and 5 degrees of failure.

We'll be nice and say that even though they only have to go make it to somewhere else within the sub-sector. So they need 8 success to finish their tests.

So 65+20-60-20-20, hmm now I'm no mathematician but it seems to me like you'd need at least 2 degrees of success on your Location to be able to roll positive and you'd need 3 degrees of success so that you can even have a chance of succeeding. But let's imagine you've nat 1'd the locating.

65+20-60-20-20+40 is 35. Well, good luck getting 8 degrees of success with 35. Without getting anything above 2 degrees of failure.

Even a completely normal route uncharted only works assuming this person has a rocking Psy (which yes Navigators should have), however it is just ridiculously lethal at early levels.

"Let me put this in D&D terms. The thief wants to climb a wall. Fine. Make a skill check. Next the thief wants to walk a greased tightrope while blindfolded and wearing combat boots. The checks shouldn't be the same. The result is that my players now carefully consider the routes they are going to take. Expeditions don't just blindly sail into the warp for destinations unknown. They take precautions. They make preparations. All this gives the PC Navigator a raison d'etre. They have things to do while in port, and those actions are important to the other PCs so they aid the Navigator in their endeavors. These are all things I want in my campaign."

Wait, now you're saying you've made it more dangerous than the base system so Navigators are more important? But what one is it? If you've deliberately made it harder then why did you say you were trying to avoid doing that?

" I like the idea of common reverses and setbacks from Warp travel, but I don't like the frequency of catastrophes in Navis Primer."

This sounds to me like someone who would not go and then create a -60 possibility on a Navigation (Warp), especially when you state that setbacks were common enough in Navis Primer.

Also who would want to play a Navigator when one of your explicit House Rules frames them (at least their extra powers) in a restrictive light?

"The reason I don't limit the Astropath and Navigator powers in the Core book is one of the Social Contract. Outsiders entering a game have certain expectations, and one of those is that the base, or Core rules will be followed. "

Well that's not true at all, you don't use any of the core starship rules. Slapping someone with 8 different documents on house rules makes them think that every core rule will be followed? It's just totally false.

"Where they are broken, they need fixed. Where they aren't, I leave them alone. I don't find any of the Core powers, disciplines, or techniques completely broken anyway. In fact, I don't find many of them broken if you use all the rules, and this includes Stack the Deck, which many players and GMs find to be horribly broken."

So don't limit them! If a player buys it and you don't even want to talk with them about it, and they get the wrong impression of what it does, let them get back the xp for free, there's nothing lost here, and everything is gained in that Navigators and Astropaths get to have much greater freedom in how they want to specialise their character.

"Of course, this means you need to keep track of fatigue. I like fatigue. It makes my players want to use drugs. That lets me bring addiction into my game. I love addiction. It also makes them want to learn Meditation. I like systems that encourage skills that otherwise don't get used much. Win-win."

I don't really see why you wouldn't keep track of fatigue anyway. This seems a non-sequitur to me.

"I do use the rules from ItS about Multiple Acquisitions. I've merged the Unwelcome Attention with Misfortunes,"

Uh, you say that, but it's not in your acquisition rules, and it's very specifically an optional rule, and if I wanted to include optional rules from the rulebook in my game and I am already giving them a list of rules that apply then I think that I might include it there...

"but I don't worry about that at the beginning of a campaign. I try to start out my campaigns with a bang. The party won't have time to hang out in Port Wander rolling unlimited acquisition tests. There's always a timed adventure waiting for the start of the game. I want to get them into a story right away. All campaigns needs an Intro Hook."

So unless your Rogue Trader and their crew literally meet for the very first time at the start of the session this doesn't really make sense. If you want to stop them making acquisition roles before the very first session I guess that's your own way of dealing with it but that should be in your house rules imo.

"My home rules are open to reinterpretation every time I sit down. I'm not publishing a book for money. If I were I'd try to word them in a more concrete fashion. "

The only reason I am encouraging you to write them in a more concrete fashion is to keep players expectations consistent and more importantly for me and for the player base at large because GMs look to more experienced GMs without knowing the motivations behind their rules. I don't expect you to write an explanation for each rule, though of course the best form of law is one that is annotated with rationale but I would be grateful and I imagine the world at large if GMs weren't killing their party off because they are blindly following it.

" I encourage my players to break my rules. If they do I give them a slight reward and change the rules again"

Well that is great but I don't believe that no player a) never noticed that you needed a non-existent skill to chart routes b) that you could buy navigator powers for cheap c) never wanted to buy an 100 xp skill instead of a 200+ d) never wanted to fly in uncharted areas without a PC Navigator, etc.

"They've evolved considerably since I first wrote them, and I add new ones every campaign. I want outside players coming in to understand that there will be changes, so I post my very lengthy house rules in our game's Forum."

Yes, hence why you should include the optional rules you use. Also you say they evolve but since I mentioned the Astrography non-existent skill and the normal rules of Trade I haven't noticed any changes to your home rules. Nor for example have you clarified what the hell "usual career" is meant to mean for talents.

"I'm not trying to squash anyone's fun."

I bet that isn't your intention but when I read "Your story isn't special", "Alternate Careers are evil" and "No extra fun powers for Navs or Astropaths" whether or not I know that you won't act that way it subconsciously makes a difference. Plus it's way nicer to speak to a GM directly about a second Elite Advance and be told you don't think it is appropriate than have it written that you'll be disappointed for wanting to be a pirate beast master. Think of the difference in how people approach and think with the method of wording.

" In fact, I want to encourage fun by keeping play balance, restricting cheese, and making sure every player has a niche to fill."

There is nothing more destructive to niche play than what you've done with Elite Advances. Taking them from "speak with your GM directly" to basically allowing open field on them is the antithesis niche play. Since as with my previous examples your rules can easily lead to someone getting a third eye, and if you're going to bloody home brew your rules why not make it so they can't be more broken than the base game (even if we ignore the obviously dumb Navigator thing a Navigator in your game can spam Navigator powers for 400xp or 300xp and d5 corruption. Why have only 8 ranks when you can max out all your Nav Powers, talk about broken). On the other hand Alternate Career Paths are the sole method of becoming more of a niche and you've shut them down too.

And again I will reinforce that the base game has very little room for cheese outside of the acquisition system. And I will ask for some examples of you of what exactly a character could build that is so cheesy? What bunch of Alternate Career Paths break the game? Even every rank an alternate rank doesn't break the game at all, in fact such a character would be far weaker than normal.

"I want my players to concentrate on plot and roleplay, not their character sheets. When new players enter the game I often have them play the first session or two without a character sheet. If they can't play without one, they might want to find another game. If they play well, they earn my respect and that of the other players in the game, and that's a great start for our group. We have 4 members who have played RPGs together for over 35 years. That's a real close-knit group to try to break into. If you can win some respect in the first couple sessions that goes a long way."

Yes this is great. I agree with all of this. Yet I don't think anyone who reads "Origin Paths are completely restricted" and "No multiple Alternate Careers" and the such would feel like the same person wrote these two things. If I'm playing without a character sheet then I'm writing a story about my character, and my character is a Death World Rogue Trader for example. Well, that doesn't work if I had a character sheet. Or he's a beastwrangling pirate, well again, Character Sheets make that fall apart under your rules.

I fail to see what your extensive discussion is supposed to achieve. No, I haven't updated my house rules since speaking with you last. I have a family and a professional career. These things come first. They constitute my real life. The lives of fictional characters are a distant second, or sixteenth. I probably won't be updating them in the next couple weeks either. I've checked in on other GMs that use my house rules (they also share their files with me). I see that some of them have modified my house rules even more. I intend to borrow from them in return. I've seen some good ideas out there. Collaboration is good. Still, I probably won't update until my next campaign, which is probably about 3 years off, and there's no guarantee that it will be a RT campaign.

I don't begin to have the time to answer all your questions tonight. I'll see what I can do over the weekend but let me be frank. If you were in my game, I'd ask you to leave. A decent social contract requires of me that I post the rules I'm not going to be following. I have done exactly that. It then becomes your responsibility to adhere to them, or to find another game if you find them onerous. I've stated that I'm open to discussions, though, so I'm going to at least make the attempt to answer your questions, if only so I can satisfy my own curiosity. If you've found some quirk that's broken, I do want to fix it (though again, I won't fix it in writing for some time to come).

I can't be sure how you are interpreting the Navigation rules. Your chief examples seem to be those of uncharted routes. I don't think rookie navigators should be attempting uncharted routes, and I designed my house rules to discourage that. At the same time, I don't think there are that many uncharted routes. The Imperium has been charting the routes of the Koronus Expanse for hundreds of years with hundreds of vessels. Charts are generally available, and when they aren't that should be a red flag for the players. Maybe they need to wait until they are higher Ranked.

One of your examples has a ship in distress, maybe crippled and burning, the charts destroyed (really can't think a situation where I'd have that happen, and while I agree that it's theoretically possible there's no critical hit that grants that result), and the Navigator has an inkpen stuck in his third eye. Maybe it's time to call the Navigator's nephew or another reasonable facsimile down from the Navigator apartments to take the helm (you did bring a backup, right?). Then again, maybe it's time for the Astropath to call on the Dynasty's allies (you have some, right?). Maybe it's time to pull a time-honored pirate stunt and take the enemy's vessel. Maybe they have charts out of here. If all else fails, the players can each burn a Fate point and await a rescue. In other words, maybe it isn't a problem for the Navigator to fix. But you don't seem to want that scenario. Maybe you don't believe in a no-win situation; no Kobiyashi Maru for you (we all know how that turns out). All situations don't require a way out. No man is an island. Entire fleets disappear when bad decisions are made. It should be at least remotely possible for that to happen to the players, and more so when they make a series of bad decisions. What should not be remotely possible in a game is for a worst-case scenario to happen when the players have done everything correctly, which is exactly what Navis Primer did. It gave a decent chance of lingering death for no reason whatsoever. I removed that chance, except in the extreme example you offered, which I can't foresee ever happening in one of my games, so I didn't allow for it in my house rules. My navigation rules do allow for all sorts of minor inconveniences, and they are more concrete than the very vague and ill-defined core rules, and that's exactly what I wanted.

A decent amout of your complaints seems to be around my unkind wording. If that's the case, you really wouldn't have liked my last version. I laid it down on any munchkin applications, and I was specific ("No, you can't play a Witchborn Missionary!"). Now you can make the argument about a Witchborn Missionary being a great roleplaying choice. I'd disagree and counter that it was the choice of someone who was attempting to become a psyker with few of a psyker's weaknesses. I further suggest that while I'd ruled out some of what you might consider great roleplaying choices, I'd left an awful lot of great roleplaying choices out there. You can't make the argument that there aren't other great roleplaying choices, so you'd have painted your desire for one particular choice into a corner. Again, I would suggest you find another game, one less restrictive on what I perceive as your limited definition of fun. If my house rules sound harsh, I do not apologize for that. Again, I find it easier to relax rules in a campaign than to tighten them.

I counted the number of skills outside Rank 1 that cost 100 XP. The sum total is 6. Half of those are for the Arch-militant. That fits my definition of irrelevant.

About ACRs. No, I don't particularly like them. I've run enough games, and played enough, to have seen them abused. Yes, it is my experience that they can cause problems. You are welcome to feel differently, but there is no number of paragraphs you can write that is going to convince me that they are a disadvantage. My own experiences tell me differently. I feel the same about D&D 3.x Prestige classes. I've seen them used to ruin the fun of other players. Therefore, I restrict them, and that's within my rights. As long as I apply the rules consistently then I'm being fair. So I require people wanting ACRs to talk to the rest of the players and see how they feel about it. I point out any problems I can forsee with the requested class and listen to what everyone else at the table has to say. I ask the requesting player to explain what they expect out of their ACR. That way there are no surprises down the road.

Too many of your examples are plain silly. There is nowhere in my rules where I've allowed Navigator's to spam powers. This is your misinterpretation. You've decided that if I don't disallow something then somehow I must have allowed it. For example, I didn't write down that people can't keep rolling the dice until they succeed. Does that mean they can? That's preposterous. I'm not going to write a set of house rules that delineates everything a person can't do in a game. Your misinterpretations of my rules don't aren't consistent with the logic I've applied everywhere. Since it's obvious that I keep a tight rein on cheese, what makes you think I'd allow unlimited cheese in some aspect I haven't discussed?

That's all I have time for right now. Again, I don't know what you hope to achieve with the conversation. Did you expect me to say, "You're right, my house rules are all wrong and I'm going to change them all again tomorrow?" These are rules that work very well for my group. Apparently your GM thinks they work well for his/her group, too. You disagree. Fine. Find another group. The internet is vast and it isn't that hard to find a game. You will eventually find one that is compatible with your style, and I wish you luck in that.

**** Errant, you kept your cool after that tirade of condescending crap. Way better than I would have done.

And if I may respond to RMcD here as well, think before you post. Coming from me, someone who sh*tposts and rages on forums quite often, that should give you pause.

Errant's House Rules are just that, HOUSE rules. They aren't replacements for the base game or trying to be. They are a system written by him for his own purposes. Trying to use them verbatim in a failed exercise, the rules are worded in a way that makes sense to him and his players, not for anyone else. If your GM wanted to trul co-opt Errant's rules then he shouls be posting here and asking for clarification, not your bullsh*t and calling out Errant for your group's problems.

All I see are passionate people - LOL

Well I'll wait to respond until you've had more time if that's what what you need.

I just like discussing rules.

"Once again, I didn't address skills that cost 100 XP because all that do are usually Rank 1 skills that are baseline skills for that class."

I didn't do a count of what usually is the case but as long as there exist plenty outside of Rank 1 I feel it is relevant.

As I said, I did do a count of those career and 100 XP skills. There are 6. That fits within my definition of irrelevant. In addition, each of those 100 XP skills would amount 1/3 of 1% of each career's maximum XP. That also fits within my realm of irrelevant. Since the career with the most of those skills (AM) has a mere 3 that would account for 1% of that career's total...also irrelevant. You're arguing over petty points. It doesn't appear as though you want to play a game as much as you want to define a system. I won't argue about the system. I'm ok with FFG games, but I'm not a fan. I'm a fan of 40K. I play FFG because they have (had) the 40K license.

"Most of them are actually pre-purchased and come with the character at-start. The few that aren't are usually necessary skills that nobody would leave unpurchased."

No that isn't the case, it's about 50/50 ones that come with a Career Path, (eg missionary 8 100 cost skills you get automatically, 8 you don't in rank 1) definitely not "most" or "few". Also there are alternate career ranks at level 1 which you have no choice but to leave them unpurchased.

Now you're whining. In the Missionary example there are 13 skills that cost 100 XP, of which 5 come with the career at-start. The only way those other 8 end up costing you more is if you take that ACR at Rank 1, and nothing prevents you from purchasing them later at increased cost. And if you did, under my system that would wind up costing you 2.67% of your end-point XP. Even if you did something similar at every Rank that would only result in an additional 24% XP, and that's for a character with basically no career, since they spent the entire campaign picking up ACRs. The notion is ridiculous to me. I'm not detecting any roleplay here. I'm detecting cherrypicking and I doubt you can convince me that there isn't an ulterior motive involved. Since my experience suggests to me that this ulterior motive will impinge on the fun of everyone else in the game, I simply disallow it, avoiding the annoyance of all players involved. I do this with complete understanding that some players won't abide with my ruling. They are welcome to find another game. I'm not short of players.

"Once again, I didn't address skills that cost 100 XP because all that do are usually Rank 1 skills that are baseline skills for that class. Most of them are actually pre-purchased and come with the character at-start. The few that aren't are usually necessary skills that nobody would leave unpurchased."

Alternate career ranks? I'm sure I posted this before, but if not I'll remind you of the whole thing that you're overruling that is the reason I'm bringing this up. It seems to me you have no justification for overwriting this system other than (oh it's not common enough to matter?) Why not just make it double and cap it at 300 xp then?

Once again, you don't want to play the game. You want to play a character sheet. You want access to ACRs without paying penalties for them. I stated plainly in my house rules that I don't favor ACRs. You'd do better to approach me with an idea you've made up from scratch. I'd probably insist on modifying it as well, but I'd be more open to consideration. My social contract is quite fair. I apply my house rules consistently and with logic. You haven't played this game so many times that you've exhausted the roleplaying options permitted within the core rulebook. Why do you need all these other options? Show me you can play a stereotypical 40K character before you request an advanced option. Everyone seems to want to play the Tremere antitribu, the 1/2 elf 1/2 dragon, or the psyker Missionary. Show me you can play a zealous, heretic and xeno-hunting Missionary first. If you can't pass that test then you don't need a further option. And if you don't think you need to prove yourself because you've done so in other games, then go back to those games. I've been playing RPGs for 45 years and I know that I'll have to demonstrate my skills to the next group of strangers I play with before they respect me enough to stary off the beaten path. And guess what? If they let me stray off the beaten path as a complete stranger then it's time for me to find another group because I already know I won't be happy with that one...they aren't choosey enough.

The base rules go out of their way to emphasis and give you an actual rule that you've chosen to homebrew over.

If I don't like the ACRs, why would I like the rules that modify them after the fact?

Hmm, I don't know why do you use the word "usual career"? Why does it matter what a talent costs for someone else? Why are talents percentage based?

You've explicitly stated on other posts that you don't care for FFG or their systems. I'm not sure why you're here commenting on them. For what it's worth, I don't think d100 was the right direction. GW went d6 because they wanted lots of dice being rolled and an average figure coming out. To capture that flavor and still permit characterization I'd go with something like averaging dice, d6 dice numbered 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5 and roll 2-3 of them. After all, the only results are succeed, fail, or partly succeed and try again. You only need 3 actual outcomes from your dice. RPGs, though, want multiple outcome results, but you still don't need 100 of them.

"On the other hand, Arch-Militant is the only class I can think of that has 300 XP skills. I'm not sure why. I haven't had a player that wanted to play an AM since my 2nd campaign."

Sure hope that isn't because you've nerfed them with your homebrew rules.

Don't care. Inflexible career choice. My players don't even want many of them for sidekicks. Improve your game play and you won't want to play one, either.

" Regardless, I don't see why other classes should be penalized in purchasing Scholastic Lore (Tactica Imperialis) as an Elite Advance just because AMs have to pay 300 XP. "

It's just so crazy that you wrote this while having the rule that if it is a talent then you should have to pay more just because AMs have to! Also as I said, the reason they should have to pay 300xp is because that's how it is valued in the system, if people who are entirely skilled around tactical fights are just as good at that knowledge as an astropath who has never left their bedroom then why bother playing them?

Because it isn't a talent. Talents and skills are different because they have different effects. The system treats them differently and so do I. What holds true for one doesn't necessarily hold true for another. You've invoked another logical fallicy, the Fallacy of Personal Incredulity (you don't understand it therefore it doesn't make sense). Astropaths often serve in the Imperial Guard. They have access to Common Knowledge (IG) and Peer (IG), among other skills, and it stands to reason they might have learned something else while in that service. After all, they tend to be smart cookies.

"If I had an AM in my game, and that player felt other characters was horning in on his/her niche over 100 XP I'd certainly consider the complaint. But that just means I'd be charging that other person 400 XP instead of 300. It's just not that big a deal."

But suddenly if you change skills to talents it is a whole different ball game!

Ibid

"Anyone wanting to play such a character really needs to talk with the other players first anyway."

I don't want to sound patronising but this is the case for everything. You want to play a Renegade Navigator? Talk to the other players. You want to play a crazy Rogue Trader who hates the Emperor, talk to the players. All characters should be made with other player's input by the by. At least to get people on the same page, but once they're on that, why are you striking things off the page when you've already have a filtering process to be on the page in the first place! It's completely needless.

Sorry, but nothing you've said leads me to believe that this is your style of play. You strike me as a person who draws up a character, tells everyone what you want them to know about your character (leaving out critical knowledge that you will spring on them at a later date), and threaten to disrupt proceedings if you don't get your way. Not all games are group-oriented. Some games thrive on player-driven conflict. Some even require it. Try GMing a game with 50-100 players. You have no time to present plots. You're too busy adjudicating player conflicts. But, RT is not that style of game...generally...the players could always decide that's what they want. In that case, I'd advise BC with the RT inputs.

"That really demonstrates that my house rules are more in line with a party that wants to colonize, conquer, and trade."

No it doesn't. There are tons of career paths which are actually focused on the bigger picture, Seccessionist being the most obvious. In fact there's very little in the base classes that add anything to do more stuff. At least a Beastmaster would have some rationale for trading in beasts or colonising with a symbiotic beast. What it demonstrates is my specific example of a career path which makes sense you somehow used as justification that all alternate career paths should be considered denounced.

Seccessionist is exactly the kind of ACR that needs entire party permission. The actions of the seccessionist can get the entire party in trouble or worse. And mind you, I reserve the right to denounce, though I'd say disallow, any and all ACRs. I'm the one doing the lion's share of the work. If you don't like it, find another game. Better yet, draw up one of your own. Fill it with all the cheese you want. There's nothing quite like experience, and nothing grants experience quite like failure. You could just read these forums going back 3 years and get that experience but you seem to want to graduate from the School of Hard Knocks, and I'll not dissuade you.

"If the party like their idea then I'm open to their ACR."

Right, read that and compare that to "I don't like ACRs and Players who wish to take multiple ACRs will be disappointed", now which one of those attitudes do you think will let players make the choices that reflect best what they want their character to develop into? Hmmm. If someone wants to be both a Swashbuckler and a Legend of the Expanse and everyone in the party likes that idea too, I simply do not understand why you have to start off with the attitude that thinking of a famous rogue like Rogue Trader/Arch-Militant/Void-Mistress/whatever is so bad. From everything you've said to me it seems like your rule is not stopping any sort of power plays and is simply stifling people.

Oh, for Pete's sake, now you don't like my attitude. If I were drawing up a game, I simply wouldn't make up stuff like ACRs. They aren't balanced. They don't even appear well thought out...to me...feel free to think differently. I don't like GW codexes for Space Marines, Dark Angels, Blood Angels, Space Wolves, etc., et al. If the first volume doesn't have the right kinds of rules to draw the others from then it's a faulty set of rules. Call me elitist. I can take it.

"Look, I keep the Origin Path as it is because I've run the game enough times to know what cheese already exists and can easily say, "No" when it becomes necessary."

That doesn't make sense. If you have ran it enough to know what cheese then you could easily spot any attempts at Origin Path cheese and shut it down. The purpose of a closed Origin Path is twofold: one for newer players to create characters that fit better with lore and second for newer GMs who would feel unable or incapable of stopping a player from asking for a different path for power reasons. You don't sound like you fit either of those.

It makes perfect sense to me. I don't want to bother combing through the all the possibilities of every character drawn up crazily just because some greenhorn roleplayer thinks a couple loose ends make a great backstory. Draw up your backstory and ROLEPLAY it. You still seem to think the character sheet is your character. I think differently.

"Opening it up permits too much cheese to filter through unnoticed and I want to avoid saying, "No" after the game starts."

For a start, I don't actually believe there is that much cheese, I've been making a bunch of characters for my own amusement and even the most abusive of plays and the best lenient of rules with no thought for story all suffer from the following: You have at most 500xp, even the most OP routes aren't really that good, the most OP routes within the system and without are very similar in power level. I would really appreciate an example of what you find to be cheesiest in an open system.

You don't. I do. That hardly merits a page.

ON TOP, of all this, the book in ITS recommends opening up rows for your players! So even the bloody writers didn't think high level cheese was possible.

However, I'm immediately going to pick up on something, your players make their characters independently? How is that at all people on the same page? The whole point of origin paths is to have intersections and the such, and this makes me incredibly worried that you don't work with players backstories at all (since you don't know if it's going to fit or what it is if the game has started by the time you realise).

But neither you nor I think that highly of those writers.

"I don't find that people pick different options on the Origin Path for purposes of backstory. It is my experience that people pick them to min/max. And don't get me wrong, I've always said the RT is a game that lends itself well to min/maxing without balance getting out of hand. So I keep the options vanilla and tell my players to min/max all they want. I already know what's coming that way. There's nothing that keeps a person from adding a story to their backstory. My take on the Origin Path merely keeps them from getting that extra +3 INT while they're at it."

With all of what you said somehow I don't find it surprising that your players min max with backstory, because you don't even know what it is before the first session started! Not only that this particular sentence: "There's nothing that keeps a person from adding a story to their backstory." tells me that in your campaign the origin backstory is pointless because you can write what you want.

I completely and totally disagree with this. If you're from a deathworld in your origin story, then you're from a deathworld, you can't write that you're from a hive world, not only is that just dumb, it makes no sense (why can't you speak Hive Dialects). When you divorce Origin Story from the backstory of the characters it serves no purpose other than min maxing. Players choosing to take the same motivation to have an intersection (either with one other player or more) is what makes the Origin Stories such a fantastic roleplaying mechanic.

I think you're the one limiting the players, not me. Death Worlds have Noble Born that probably were sheltered from the ravages of that environment, and Imperial Worlds have Techpriests that weren't indoctrinated into the Imperial Cult.

"As for the Navigator, that first warp journey along a new route is always without a chart unless one is purchased. Agility means nothing at that point. Astrography only comes into play after a successful warp journey. At that point a chart can be created. Again, I think IT is more appropriate. Let me be more explicit. Let's say our heroes are travelling from Footfall to Lucien's Breath"

How often do you travel a warp route that you never travel again? Also, you were the one who made is so uncharted routes are at -60, in the book basic charts are +10, detailed charts are +20. So yes, you are the one who made it incredibly dangerous by changing how charts work. Yes agility is irrelevant in the first time, but if you somehow manage to make a -60 roll (good luck to you, we almost died in our very first session (pretty sure the DM mucked about to let us live)) then you'll bloody need agility for the next bunch. As I said it's your rules that make warp a million times more dangerous. (Unless your Rogue Trader grew boldly goes where people have already been all the time, then the chart rules are totally irrelevant!)

I've already noted that you want no-lose situations for rookies. I want rookies to walk on ice. After all, my telescoping XP system ensures that they don't remain rookies for long and spend most of the game in the mid-to-high Ranks. The rest of your rant on Navigation is entirely about uncharted routes, which I've already countered. It works for my Expanse. In fact, our current Navigator at Rank 6 is nigh unstoppable, even when charting unknown courses through the hearts of warp storms. It's just not that hard to develop a character capable of handling these modifiers. Maybe you're not as good a gamer as you thought.

Let's do worst case (wait this isn't even close to worse) scenario with an endgame Navigator. After a bit of combat or whatever inside the ship, maybe a saboteur or something whatever it doesn't matter, the Navigation Station is damage (-20), their charts are destroyed (-60), the warp is black with storms (-40), and the route is haunted (-20).

And end-game Navigator that doesn't have a Bellecane Field, Warpsbane Hull, Ship Master's Bridge, Fleet Flag Bridge, Runecaster, Warp Sextant, or an Astrae Almanac Divinitus or any number of reasonable facsimiles that might appear in the course of a normal game. Truly amazing example.

"Where they are broken, they need fixed. Where they aren't, I leave them alone. I don't find any of the Core powers, disciplines, or techniques completely broken anyway. In fact, I don't find many of them broken if you use all the rules, and this includes Stack the Deck, which many players and GMs find to be horribly broken."

So don't limit them! If a player buys it and you don't even want to talk with them about it, and they get the wrong impression of what it does, let them get back the xp for free, there's nothing lost here, and everything is gained in that Navigators and Astropaths get to have much greater freedom in how they want to specialise their character.

No. Again, I don't know what you expect with your posts. I have my house rules for the game I am running. I have developed them over multiple campaigns for reasons of my own. I have shared them with those that wanted to see them. I didn't invite you. You invited yourself. I'm not going to change simply because you disagree. I don't know you and I have no reason to respect your opinions. You're new here. You've inserted yourself in a long-running thread in a very aggressive and impolite fashion. What about this formula says to you I should grant your wishes, reply to your posts, or even listen to your rants?

"Of course, this means you need to keep track of fatigue. I like fatigue. It makes my players want to use drugs. That lets me bring addiction into my game. I love addiction. It also makes them want to learn Meditation. I like systems that encourage skills that otherwise don't get used much. Win-win."

I don't really see why you wouldn't keep track of fatigue anyway. This seems a non-sequitur to me.

Again, your lack of experience is showing. Many gaming groups in many genres decide to ignore some systems in any game. I've rarely played any version of D&D where people actually kept track of encumbrance. It's unwieldy and time-consuming, and doesn't really affect play that much, and usually only negatively when it does.

"I do use the rules from ItS about Multiple Acquisitions. I've merged the Unwelcome Attention with Misfortunes,"

Uh, you say that, but it's not in your acquisition rules, and it's very specifically an optional rule, and if I wanted to include optional rules from the rulebook in my game and I am already giving them a list of rules that apply then I think that I might include it there...

This one truly cracks me up. So according to you I should post all optional rules I'm using in my house rules. That ranks up there with your statement where anything I don't specifically forbid must somehow be permissable. Your logical fallacies are numerous.

"My home rules are open to reinterpretation every time I sit down. I'm not publishing a book for money. If I were I'd try to word them in a more concrete fashion."

The only reason I am encouraging you to write them in a more concrete fashion is to keep players expectations consistent and more importantly for me and for the player base at large because GMs look to more experienced GMs without knowing the motivations behind their rules. I don't expect you to write an explanation for each rule, though of course the best form of law is one that is annotated with rationale but I would be grateful and I imagine the world at large if GMs weren't killing their party off because they are blindly following it.

Are you offering me money? In fact, I once did have explanations for each of my house rules. My players told me they didn't want to read 40 pages of house rules and asked me to shorten them. It would seem you are in the minority.

And again I will reinforce that the base game has very little room for cheese outside of the acquisition system. And I will ask for some examples of you of what exactly a character could build that is so cheesy? What bunch of Alternate Career Paths break the game? Even every rank an alternate rank doesn't break the game at all, in fact such a character would be far weaker than normal.

To answer your 2 questions, no, and I'm guessing you've already got your own little plan.

I'm done. The rest of your post I'm not going to bother to respond to. I doubt I'll respond further, period. I will be candid. You're new here. You didn't go the time-honored method of lurking and posting, building your street cred, and eventually breaking out on your own. You burst on the scene as if everyone should stop what they're doing and give you their full attention. Well, you've got it, but I doubt it's going to be what you wanted. I'm also guessing this isn't the first forum that's happened on. You didn't happen to get permabanned from rpg.net, did you? I'm nonplussed over your behavior. It's like the person who calls me on my phone and asks if I'm there. Did their parents not raise them at all? You don't knock on someone's door and ask the person that answers if it's their house. You introduce yourself and your business with the person you're looking for, then you ask if they are available. Your questions were aggressive, your tone was alternatively offensive, condescending, and scornful. Your full page NYT ad doesn't help things either. Instead of questioning things one at a time and getting the feel of something you instead went for a full-out rant without no understanding of the underlying causes. The worst part is that those underlying causes weren't important to you. They were only your way to keep the conversation going. Only your own viewpoint means anything to you. You aren't going to listen to anyone else's arguments, regardless. What makes you think anyone would want to carry on a conversation with you?

I respectfully disagree MorbidDon. I see no passion. I see obsession. I've seen it grip gamers before. It affects relationships, friends, significant others, it damages lives. I think our acquaintance here needs to back out of gaming altogether for awhile. Distance grants a new perspective. I've had to do it, and I've seen literally dozens of others that needed to.

I have a family and a career. I also go to school on top of that. I have a load of other real life issues to deal with at any given time. Gaming is a hobby. It's been one of my hobbies for nearly 5 decades now. You might say I have a passion for it. You can't say it takes precedence over any of my responsibilities. I'm forced to wonder if RMcD can say the same.

The fancy colours are way nicer than quotations.

I'm sorry what? I'm whining? You said "most", in every single character class it isn't even close to most at rank 1. That's not whining, that's correcting you. Unless anyone who wants to correct you is whining.

Also it's awful strange to compare to your end point XP, but nonetheless I'll follow with that idea, it would cost you 2400xp instead of 1200xp. That's the difference between 1.3% and 2.6%. If you hadn't taken an ACR at all it'd cost 100xp, so 0.6%. Now, I obviously earlier on I saw that you ramp up xp, but 1200xp is at least 1 session at later on 2. It feels odd to me that you'd dismiss a sessions worth of XP out of hand, but I'm not you, maybe you don't really care.

Since you already know there are (basically) no 100xp skills outside of rank 1 it seems weird to me that you'd bring up someone that was entirely ACR.

The only reason I'm bringing this up is because you treat Talents and Skills differently. One is percentage and one is flat. And of course because you've deliberately chosen to change a design element of the game which designers were very specific about, so why wouldn't I be curious about your motivations for that?

First off, a great way to defend yourself is to assume the worst of someone asking questions. Rather if you wish to be both secure and confident in your opinions and avoid problematic confident biases it is always the best to be most charitable towards your opponents. This is the difference between strawmanning and steelmanning. I can tell you more if you're interested.

First off, let's assume that I did only care about mechanics, which isn't the case but whatever like I said strawman away. This is the kind of stuff you say new people having issues with, people can play the game in a variety of ways, and all that matters is that people enjoy themselves. To start segmenting people into groups and decrying them for "not playing the game" is a really immature and childish move and I would encourage you not to go down that route in the future.

None the less it's also amusing because if you were so confident that your groups were playing the game without the character sheet then there would be absolutely no need for you to nerf ACRs, because as you point out the only time this would matter is a rank 1 ACR, so the only reason you changed the skill cost would've been for that. So if I was being charitable here I would say that you played a game and you had players that took an ACR and you were annoyed at this because they were able to buy most of rank 1 for fairly cheap. But then you say that it makes no difference to end XP so I can't assume that. I'm left completely confused as to your motivation. If it was for punishing ACRs you wouldn't be dismissing of how much it increases the cost because that'd be the whole point.

A person who would be playing a pysker Missionary would be burned for heresy which is what I am so confused about. The game designers made a not-significant portion of the ACRs extremely punishing in universe so unless your universe doesn't care about "Enemy (Inquisition)" or some of the variety of other things.

Your last sentence, it boggles my mind that you homebrewed at all. Homebrew is massively straying from the beaten path. I would have assumed that someone who wrote that sentence would play the Core Rulebook and nothing else. That's why your posts are just so confusing to me, I do not understand your motivations at all. I thought I understood why you were designing rules this way but then you say things counter to that.

You're an annoying fellow, RMcD. I'm done with you. Post away but expect no answer. I'm not going to be provoked, though I admit I earlier did allow it. We both know what this is really all about, so I'm not going to feed your purpose...very petty of you.

For those that still want these files, I'll soon be finding a new home for them since FFG will soon be leaving the 40K market. I'll post to let people know where. In the meantime, they reside in the same place they always have.

Enjoy.

Thanks Errant, will you be transferring them to RollforHeresy anytime soon? Seems the place people are flocking to now for this sort of thing.

I don't know, SCKoNi. I registered an account on RollforHeresy and it told me I'd get further instructions in my email, which never happened. I tried setting up a new account but it told me another username was already registered with my email address. When I asked for a new password it told me to check my email for further instructions, which again never happened. My confidence in this website isn't high right now.

Honestly I'm more likely going to stick in the archives or move to the 40krpg subreddit. I'm not looking for yet another username and password to remember.

I don't know, SCKoNi. I registered an account on RollforHeresy and it told me I'd get further instructions in my email, which never happened. I tried setting up a new account but it told me another username was already registered with my email address. When I asked for a new password it told me to check my email for further instructions, which again never happened. My confidence in this website isn't high right now.

It took a few hours for my email activation to come through for RollforHeresy, but it did eventually arrive.

On 11.5.2015 at 11:36 PM, Errant Knight said:

Starship Combat

• Macrocannon and bomber damage is calculated per hit.

Hi was just wondering is the armor applied also to each of the macrocannon hits as well?

On 11.5.2015 at 11:36 PM, Errant Knight said:

Starship Combat

• Macrocannon and bomber damage is calculated per hit.

Hi was just wondering is the armor applied also to each of the macrocannon hits as well?

s