Got my copy of the book today and despite the fact that I'm meant to be revising for an exam on Friday I've been reading it a bit.

Does anyone else think that some of the origin path routes are a bit odd? The one that really strikes me as strange is that astropaths have to choose either tainted, criminal or renegade as their lure of the void choice (duty bound or zealot seem, more appropriate to me), also why are their no noble born astropaths? Are there any 'fluff' justifications for this?

I appreciate that the rules allow you to pretty much ignore the chart so it is not issue just seems odd to me.

i would guess the reason for no noble astropaths is that the noble gene pool is much smaller then that of normal humanity. There probably is a small number of noble psykers but i doubt there are many.

Shouldn't the lure of the void for every Astropath actually be.

Woke up.. men in dark suits arrived and dragged me off kicking and screaming to something they called "the Black Ship"..

Months have passed.. I've been presented to a corpse sat on a throne... I think its someone important..apparently he thinks I'm good.. but not THAT good.

Crap.. I'm blind now!!!

Seems about right to me. A lot of them don't really work for navigators either.

Got to say I don't think the origin path works that well. I think it's a bit over simplified, one for each carrier would have been better.

A lot of the motivation -> career links seem odd to me. So odd that I'm planning to let the players treat the career row as a free row as long as they can explain why their origin path fits with their career. Though this might change after I get the book.

Why must a Rogue Trader only be motivated by prestige ?

Why are only three of the careers motivated by fortune ?

Why can't an arch-militant (a combat heavy class) be motivated by vengeance?

The rest of it seems to follow.

I would just use the normal rules for the Career Path Chart, and on the Career row, allow the individual to pick from the one directly beneath, and 2 over from it. This might balance it out better.

After looking the Origin Path rules over in detail, I have to agree that they are terribly done. The best solution would be a much more fleshed-out 'web' arrangement, with a few options specific to certain careers.

As it stands, it's just silly that a Void Born character that wishes to be a Navigator has to be either a Scapegrace or a Stubjack.

A Astropath Transcendant from an Imperial World has only one legal path to get there, and you have to go from Child of the Creed to Renegade to follow it...

For that matter, no Astropath Transcendant can ever have a Motivation other than Endurance.

In all, it's a piss-poor excuse for a lifepath system. I look forward to a strong set of houserules on this. I may even post some myself if I get the motivation, but I don't know if I can get to an Ambition motivation from my origin path...

Actually, rather than a path, perhaps a random roll chart that has generally described events listed that you put toghether to tailor your character's background. These would replace Birthright, Lure of the Void, Trials and Travails, and Motivation. Home World and Career would be picked seperately.

Either a single d000 (yes, that's three 0s) chart where you can roll 4 times, or separate charts for each of the four categories could be used. The former could have a few tags (like Birthright) that would be exclusive - no more than one result with the same tag, but it's not entirely necessary. I think I'd still prefer four seperate d00 charts for the four categories.

Optionally, there could just be a budget of XP to 'buy' your origin path. This is likely to be the most balanced for those that are concerned over randomness in character creation. This would just provide naked skills and traits and require the player to build an appropriate origin story to fit what was purchased with approval of the GM required for all selections.

I like the origin path myself. But if my players felt it was too restricted i might think of making the carrer choice as the 'free choice' though i havent tested this.

Although the origin paths are a cool idea, I think their execution is flawed. The tree down approach means every career/origin or whathaveyou is limited to specific types of origin progressions, which I think is needlessly restrictive.

They should have been random table rolls.

Hellebore

I can see the problem. As a GM I won't see problems with players diverting from a set path.

I was also planning on having my PC's choose Career as a free row.

My other thought was to give my PC's the option of making one exception anywhere on the chart as long as they can give me a character background to justify if.

Heck, maybe both.

Just make every row a free row, have carees limited by origin (as per the side bar) and allow them to choose from origins and background packages from Dark Heresy. Makes it a much broader and diverse game.

It makes sense to me. I can see why Death World Rogue Traders and Noble Astropaths are rare. These characters are one in a trillion what with Death Worlds having small tribal structures and little wealth and Nobility being weak-willed degenerates for the most part. It seems stereo-typical, but this helps folks who are new to the universe to get a grip on the large number of options presented by powerful characters in the 40k setting and helps to really define what makes these types of characters tick. I, for instance, use the Career row as a 'Free' pick, but except for 'Pride' instead of 'Prestige', my Rogue Trader followed the path to his career almost exactly because it just 'fit' the basic idea of a Rogue Trader that I've had since the eighties.

For those of us famiiar with the setting (how many of us, for instance have been waiting for this game sincre 1987?) we could concieve of a myriad of different ways 'unusual' characters fit in the grand scheme of things and will likely pick and choose from the chart at our leisure. But I submit that a whole team of these 'special snowflakes' aren't any more interesting and are slightly more incongrous setting wise.

And turning it into a series of random rolls actually deletes one of the cooler features of the chart: crossing life paths. I like the fact that you can see at what point various members of the crew 'crossed paths' and provides a handy backstory tool and hooks for future adventures. I know you can just say 'If they rol lthe same thing they crossed paths' but a D1000 chart makes it highly unliekly that there will be a lot of commonality. As always IMO, YMMV, etc...

I have no issue with it being a pick your column and box chart. Thats fine. I am glad it isnt random roll.

Im more concerned, as I was with DH, on the rank and career structure which is just a hidden class and level system, more or less.

I overall like the character gen methods here, but would like to know the XP value of some of the packages as compared to the ones offered in Inquisitor's Handbook.

The impression I got from the origin paths when I read through them was that they were designed to give people new to the setting an idea of who their character is and their place in the grim darkness of the far future. For more experienced players I'd let them go wild with whatever origin options they want, so long as it makes a good backstory (and nobody's obviously angling for the best bonuses).

It should be noted that on page 15 dark box upper corner. It states that the origin path is there to simplify, and speed character creation. It's a short cut. I states a GM SHOULD allow players familiar with the setting to make some non-adjacent choices. Also the GM can designate an entire row as a "choice row" for the whole group. Where neither the following and prior don't need to be adjacent.

Personally my character creation rules are thus.

0)GM may forbid a selection based on character background.

1)If the player brings a character background to the 1st night he is in the game. He may make completely free choices based on his background.

2)If the player fails to bring a background he must rigidly follow the origin path.

3)However the Motivation row is always a free choice. (The GM may only suggest in the case of rule 0.)

4)A side result of rule 4 a player may chose any career subject to rule 0. (For example a noble born Astropath is highly questionable.)

ema nymton said:

Yes.

And that's why my group won't do the "routes" at all. We'll just pick whatever choices we like and only be constrained by a good knowledge of fluff and common sense.

Following the origin path routes as described in the rulebook just doesn't make any sense in my opinion...

t would be cool to have an Emperors Tarot for origin path resolution. That would really add flavor.

I personally think they make sense to a large degree. It's unlikely that you will have a noble born astropath. Even if the astropath was noble born he'd not have the benefits listed under noble born. Likewise a death world Rogue Trader or Navigator seems unlikely. (However a death worlder astropath seems odd too.) Sure someone who has a good understanding of the 40k background could easily explain any of the above in their background for a character. But I can see some of my player who aren't 40k fans coming up with unworkable backgrounds based on a randomly selected orgin path.

For the Imperial World Astropath, going through Renegade doesn't seem that odd, because that step includes the "Dark Visionary" option. Also, it seems workable that someone with a double-helping of orthodoxy would need to make a significant break from that to seek out life outside the light of the Emperor.

On the other hand, it seems really weird that the most common Astropath origin is evidently Death World. I mean, I know you'd get some pretty awesome shaman out of one of those, but most common?

But yeah, the paths are meant to be suggestions and to help tie the group together through intersections.