I see that we are getting the "Ace" role in the upcoming Enemies Without supplement. Add that to the roles in the core book and Enemies Within and we have quite the range.

Assassin

Chirurgeon

Desperado

Hierophant

Mystic

Sage

Seeker

Warrior

Fanatic

Penitent

Ace

What do we still need? Anyone have any ideas on how to do a Sister Repentia? Shrine World, Adepta Sororitas, Penitent or Fanatic?

I myself wouldn't mind a role that's designed for physical utility, we have roles for the talker, the finder and the thinker, but we don't really have one for the crafter/tinker/doer, perhaps call it scavenger or something possible aptitudes being: (Fieldcraft, Tech, BS, INT and maybe Agility). Mind you, we haven't seen the aptitudes on the Ace Role, and it's possible that it will fill this slot.

I think the difficulty is that much of what this role could do... is also done by anyone who has the mechanicus background in addition to being able to do whatever their normal role was anyways.

That said, being that the next book after will be Enemies Beyond, it's more likely that we will get a role that is more relevant to that source material. Probably mimicking the Grey knights mechanically, such as a second psyker role that is more melee oriented, which wouldn't be such a bad thing either.

Something like Diplomat could be fitting for Enemies Without. A mix of social and knowledge aptitudes but no real combat or physical stuff. Aptitudes: Intelligence, Willpower, Fellowship, Social, Leadership.

Talent: Peer (pick one) or something new tier 1 social or influence related.

Special Ability: Polyglot- Can test any linguistics specialization untrained as if it wasn't a specialist skill (so at -20).

Or instead of polyglot being a special ability make it function like infused knowledge, tier 3 talent and make the special ability something like:

Friend to Everyone- Spend a fate point to count as having any peer talent or to add 1 to an existing peer talent (peer 1 becomes peer 2) for the duration of the encounter (or maybe even a full session)

Oh, that's interesting! instead of a hierophant being good at appealing to individuals, the diplomat focuses on appealing to different organizations!

I also hope that there'll be new homeworld options ala Enemies Within. New traits to apply to specific worlds, I thought that was a nice touch.

Diplomat would be cool. Also, some kind of conman roll, loaded up with social skills/benefits. Basically, 'face' rolls in general are lacking in DH2 .

Some sort of combat, knowledge character would also be new. We have social combat characters with heirophant and desperado but all the intelligence based classes are pretty focused.
Can't think of a good name for it but I'm picturing Indiana Jones. Punches or shoots his way out of half his problems uses his knowledge of history, religion and archeology to solve the other half.

I'm also hoping we see a few more homeworlds and backgrounds.

Perhaps make a combined diplomat/fixer role.

Hierophant falls somewhere between orator (stacked with a ministorum background and charm) and a field commander (with a guard background and command).

A diplomat (wielding peer talents) or a fixer (with commerce type skills) would be best reprsented by an archetype focused on influence tests.

We're Inquisition, we don't need diplomacy ! We need the LAW !

Actually, about a diplomate, only the specific talent is missing ... doesn't it ?

Except - as often pointed out - the players aren't the Inquisition. They work for an Inqusitor, but aren't Inquisitors themselves. The only authority they actually have is what they can either borrow from their boss or persuade an ally (arbites, noble, convenient underhive gang boss) to let them use.

So a diplomat may be useful...

Friend to Everyone- Spend a fate point to count as having any peer talent or to add 1 to an existing peer talent (peer 1 becomes peer 2) for the duration of the encounter (or maybe even a full session)

Oh, that's interesting! instead of a hierophant being good at appealing to individuals, the diplomat focuses on appealing to different organizations!

The heirophant is specifically not about speaking with individuals and is supposed to sway crowds of people. But, this also depends a lot on your talent choices. If you're good at one, you're good at the other.

Regardless of the talent name, sway the masses is about passing fellowship tests - as noted, it's one and the same thing.

The idea with the diplomat/fixer is that influence is a seperate stat which has occasionally similar uses - but, as noted, is very much associated with organisations.

Diplomat, Fixer, Merchant....anything to do with influence and commerce. You could either make the Role ability to do with passing influence tests (although that's less useful if you can just use the Inquisitor's ridiculous Inf 75), or with temporarily obtaining Peer Talents (although that's kind of a rip-off of Black Crusade apostate) or with more easily using influence without the penalty for doing so subtly.

Except - as often pointed out - the players aren't the Inquisition. They work for an Inqusitor, but aren't Inquisitors themselves. The only authority they actually have is what they can either borrow from their boss or persuade an ally (arbites, noble, convenient underhive gang boss) to let them use.

So a diplomat may be useful...

You're totally right, and I forgot that ...

I've played some games and planned to GM one as well. I should totally warn my future players about that ... Oooooorrr not.

In a setting that's as combat focused as 40k - I would laugh so hard if/when the social butterfly of the group gets done because they thought they could make a square peg fit in a round hole (that's just my opinion ROTFL)

Stay GAMING

Morbid

Would love to see some more advanced classes for characters to move into. Would have loved to see something like what Only war did where they had a more then half a dozen advanced classes that your characters could become. The Inquisitor and Battle Sister class are both really nice looking but not everyone wants their character to become an Inquisitor and none of my players play a female NPC. Some more options on par with what we have now would really be great.

Rather than calling it "Diplomat" another good name could be "Politician". Its the class for navigating the complex web that is imperial jurisdiction. With all the various local governments and all the adeptus organizations and the various complex ways they all interact and intertwine having someone who understands these complex politics and can manipulate them to the inquisitor's favor would be quite valuable.

Also for more radical ordo xenos inquisitors it could be handy to have someone capable of dealing with external powers cough aliens cough. "Hey eldar come helps us deal with this chaos stuff" type situations.

Regardless of the talent name, sway the masses is about passing fellowship tests - as noted, it's one and the same thing.

The idea with the diplomat/fixer is that influence is a seperate stat which has occasionally similar uses - but, as noted, is very much associated with organisations.

Diplomat, Fixer, Merchant....anything to do with influence and commerce. You could either make the Role ability to do with passing influence tests (although that's less useful if you can just use the Inquisitor's ridiculous Inf 75), or with temporarily obtaining Peer Talents (although that's kind of a rip-off of Black Crusade apostate) or with more easily using influence without the penalty for doing so subtly.

I didn't remember black crusade had something similar. I got the idea from the fanatic role having the ability to temporarily get hatred talents.

In a setting that's as combat focused as 40k - I would laugh so hard if/when the social butterfly of the group gets done because they thought they could make a square peg fit in a round hole (that's just my opinion ROTFL)

Stay GAMING

Morbid

Hard to kill the enemy if you don't have the knowledges, social and investigation skills to find them first. Hard to kill the enemies if you are too unlikable to get the arbites or local PDF to give you reinforcements. Hard to get anything done if everywhere you go leads to a fight from having terrible social skills leaving the party bloody and broken by the time they find the enemy.

Dark Heresy is meant to be investigation dotted with combats. A party of all combat characters will never solve anything and a squad of all investigators will die as soon as they find them. A good party has a mix and all the characters should have moments to shine at their specializations.

Its already possilbe to have Intelligence characters with very limited combat ability so why not have a fellowship one with limited combat ability.

Would love to see some more advanced classes for characters to move into. Would have loved to see something like what Only war did where they had a more then half a dozen advanced classes that your characters could become. The Inquisitor and Battle Sister class are both really nice looking but not everyone wants their character to become an Inquisitor and none of my players play a female NPC. Some more options on par with what we have now would really be great.

Agreed. I would like to see enough elite advances for every character to have at least one reasonable option (not counting untouchable, psyker or inquisitor as reasonable since they only work in some cases).
That way characters can become more like DH1 ascension characters.

Would love to see some more advanced classes for characters to move into. Would have loved to see something like what Only war did where they had a more then half a dozen advanced classes that your characters could become. The Inquisitor and Battle Sister class are both really nice looking but not everyone wants their character to become an Inquisitor and none of my players play a female NPC. Some more options on par with what we have now would really be great.

Yeah, it would be really great to get some "Ascension-lite" Elite Advances like Interrogator, Savant, etc.

Not quite Inquisitor level, but some extra perks over being just an acolyte chump.

Indeed. More elite advances would be nice, but I don't want to see the million specialised one-rank advances from DH1 back.

The key problem is figuring out what to include; Elite Advances shouldn't necessarily be just an automatic advanced version of a given role or background; the problem with an Elite Advance of - say - Stormtrooper (...sorry. Tempestus ) is that if it's essentially just Imperial Guard +1, any Guard character is just counting down until he hits the experience/toughness/whatever threshold to get it. It should be desirable but ideally no more (or less) desirable than just spending the same amount of XP on a standard Guardsman.

The nice thing with Inquisitor is that it fits on top of any background.

Battle Sister is nice but not every Adepta Sororitas will want to take it - they may have gone down the Famulous/Hospitaller route, and for that matter if you've taken an Assassin role and done a sister with sniper-ish tendancies, power armour and a bolter is probably not useful for you. More importantly, it's primarily about the faith/insanity abilities.

Elite Advances I can imagine..... If you want to be able to do Rogue Trader without a 2nd edition, frankly a Rogue Trader elite advance could work nicely as a way to create the warrant-holder. There's even a starting example of the kind of talent to consider in the tree with the NPC rogue trader's unique Leverage ability.

Magos is an inevitable one for Adeptus Mechanicus backgrounds - the key is making something which appeals regardless of what Role you've taken - so you can be a Magos Biologis as easily as a Magos Secutor. The ability to parlay Intelligence and Lore skills into command/charm or other skills - at least with other mechanicus and servitors - was a nice ability in DH1 (bizzarely limited to the Mechanicus' Crimson Guard). It shouldn't just be " have 1,000,000 tech use ".

Essentially, an elite advance is justified if attaining the 'Rank' allows you to do or be something unique that can't be reflected by a basic character, no matter how much XP you spend on them.

my ideas regarding roles:

1) Ace really needs to benefit operate, tech use, and similar skills, otherwise it will feel useless a lot of the time.

2) There still is no strong defensive role, which currently requires manipulating backgrounds and home worlds to get defense, willpower, and toughness together.

3) building a role around influence does not sound like a good starting role, if anything, it would be some sort of elite advance. That and influence rules are just really vague to begin with.

4) some of the ideas mentioned above just seem to be because there is a lack of non-combat talents, based on the transition from only war, it might be better to just add more talents, rather than make a whole new role as the desperado, seeker, and heirophant all have their own spin on diplomacy and playing the party face, unless im missing something.

5) I still have no idea what the point of the penitent role is, as its aptitudes don't mesh at all.

6) still think the surgeon would have been better served with something other than strength, I think they just wanted to stick strength on another role and ran out of ideas.

7) They could make Magos and Politician elite advances, but they're mostly from a lack of noncombat talents in the book.

8) If anything, they're missing an elite advance for assassin orders (they keep many secret skills and gear that wouldn't make sense in the open)

2) There still is no strong defensive role, which currently requires manipulating backgrounds and home worlds to get defense, willpower, and toughness together.

The biggest problem I see with a defensive character in RPGs is that his role boils down to "I will not die". His usual contribution to the party is that he is the last one to die because he is the hardest to kill, while being the one that does the least to the enemies. How would you go about making a tank role that would contribute to the party ?

2) There still is no strong defensive role, which currently requires manipulating backgrounds and home worlds to get defense, willpower, and toughness together.

The biggest problem I see with a defensive character in RPGs is that his role boils down to "I will not die". His usual contribution to the party is that he is the last one to die because he is the hardest to kill, while being the one that does the least to the enemies. How would you go about making a tank role that would contribute to the party ?

Ally him with a friend with Assassin strike or something (so he can tank while they jump in and out), and give him debilitating weapons like Shock Mauls.

Voila, you now have an unkillable debuffer who stops you from ever getting into melee with the guy who specialised in DPS (dual-wielding power weapons, or with a power weapon + pistol, desperado and hip shooting)

2) There still is no strong defensive role, which currently requires manipulating backgrounds and home worlds to get defense, willpower, and toughness together.

The biggest problem I see with a defensive character in RPGs is that his role boils down to "I will not die". His usual contribution to the party is that he is the last one to die because he is the hardest to kill, while being the one that does the least to the enemies. How would you go about making a tank role that would contribute to the party ?

Defensive classes in D&D 4e had mechanics to incentivize enemies into attacking them instead of other party members. Things like: you 'mark' a single enemy, and all attack rolls he makes that are not directed at you suffer a penalty. Most of this wouldn't fit very well into Dark Heresy, but perhaps there's something to be found.

Also, I suppose defensive classes just work better in D&D because you have more narrow corridors and melee enemies.

2) There still is no strong defensive role, which currently requires manipulating backgrounds and home worlds to get defense, willpower, and toughness together.

The biggest problem I see with a defensive character in RPGs is that his role boils down to "I will not die". His usual contribution to the party is that he is the last one to die because he is the hardest to kill, while being the one that does the least to the enemies. How would you go about making a tank role that would contribute to the party ?

Ally him with a friend with Assassin strike or something (so he can tank while they jump in and out), and give him debilitating weapons like Shock Mauls.

Voila, you now have an unkillable debuffer who stops you from ever getting into melee with the guy who specialised in DPS (dual-wielding power weapons, or with a power weapon + pistol, desperado and hip shooting)

If the non-tank PC is close enough that the melee enemies can attack him or the tank, why would they ever attack the tank over the easier to kill PC that deals more damage ?

If the tank is up the front in a semi-open environment, what happens in a situation where one enemy fights the tank (mainly to keep him in place) while the other enemies go past him to attack the player that is the threat ?

How many ways can you think of for this bodyguard to force enemies to attack him instead of the PCs that are threatening them ?

2) There still is no strong defensive role, which currently requires manipulating backgrounds and home worlds to get defense, willpower, and toughness together.

The biggest problem I see with a defensive character in RPGs is that his role boils down to "I will not die". His usual contribution to the party is that he is the last one to die because he is the hardest to kill, while being the one that does the least to the enemies. How would you go about making a tank role that would contribute to the party ?

Ally him with a friend with Assassin strike or something (so he can tank while they jump in and out), and give him debilitating weapons like Shock Mauls.

Voila, you now have an unkillable debuffer who stops you from ever getting into melee with the guy who specialised in DPS (dual-wielding power weapons, or with a power weapon + pistol, desperado and hip shooting)

If the non-tank PC is close enough that the melee enemies can attack him or the tank, why would they ever attack the tank over the easier to kill PC that deals more damage ?

If the tank is up the front in a semi-open environment, what happens in a situation where one enemy fights the tank (mainly to keep him in place) while the other enemies go past him to attack the player that is the threat ?

How many ways can you think of for this bodyguard to force enemies to attack him instead of the PCs that are threatening them ?

generally the idea is not for the bodyguard to charge forward and play "RPG tank" but rather to sit next to and protect those who are more vulnerable. Basically using superior survivability and a bit of training to shield others rather than the arbitrary "agro tank" Although someone could try to use intimidate for that, I'm more saying it would be a role ability that you can use reactions to shield nearby allies rather than yourself.

In D&D, warcraft, etc - where the bulk of your opponents are melee armed - it's as simple as "stand in front". Once guns get involved, you need to apply a bit more creativity.

Either he needs a way to take hits on behalf of others (the Crusader in Ascension had the ability to 'bodyguard' a specific character - in this case the inquisitor) or else he needs a way to force opponents to attack him.

Either way, a Role bonus along the lines of "Draw Their Fire" would be an obvious ability and would complement someone with the toughness and wounds to take hits.