Ascension, for me, is the most yearned after book. I've read a bit of what might be in it here & at Dark Reign.

This is a list of what I'm wanting/hoping from the book. What are other wanting or looking forward to?

• I'm looking for the, some, not many rules to take my PC's up a few more ranks. 4-5 ranks?
• How the high level game of DH should be played.
• (A lot) More info about the senior levels of the Inquistion
• Ways on the characters to develop in a roleplay sense e.g. a character played as a gruff Guardsman vet should have things to aspire to later on in their career
• Information about the more advanced type of investigations (involving spying, cover stories, technological tools to help with this).
• High level methods for dealing with daemons & xenos on an almost epic scale.
• Damage stats on Exterminus
• Hopefully a lot more fluff about the Inquisition.

How about you?

I honestly don't care what's in it, as long as it gives DH Characters a way to scale up to being the players rather than the pawns. If Ascension allows a DH character to be in the same room as an RT character, and have just as much power and pull, then I will be happy. I love the scale of DH and the feel of being a tiny speck in an ocean of murder and pain, but I also like the idea that the characters can claw their way out of that ocean and evolve into a prowling menace all their own.

I would like to see the following features in Ascension.

• Expanded/Inquisitor Career Advancement: It would be nice to see an option for Dark heresy characters to (eventually) reach the same level of power and capability as higher level Rogue Trader characters.
• New Career Paths: Yes I know that there are fan-made career paths for some of these options, but I have always thought that official rules should exist as well. For example I would like to see rules for: Sisters of Silence, Temple Assassins & Death Cult Assassins, etc.
• Space Marines: While I am aware that there is a "Deathwatch" project in the works, it seems very odd that only the chapter militant of the Ordo Hereticus has been made availiable to play. What of the Grey Knights for the Ordo Malleus as an example?
• Ordo Sicarius & Assassins: In my opinion the Assassin career presented in Dark Heresy is fine enough for run of the mill assassins, but it really does not do justice to the other forms of Assassins present in 40k. What of the Assassins of the Officio Assassinorum as an example? Surely these types of characters (and Death Cult assassins too, as mentioned above) would make excellent additions in service to an Inquisitor.
• Greater Daemons & Daemon Princes: It seems very odd that rules do not yet exist in Dark Heresy for encountering and dealing with Greater Daemons or Daemon Princes.

Alluvian Est-Endrati said:

Tome of Corruption, from WFRP may give you a little help on that one, mate!

I want to see rules that allow me to make characters like Gregor Eisenhorn, Jaq Draco, Harlon Nayl, Midas Bentacore, Kara Swole, Patience Kys, Carl Thonius.... maybe not Ravenor but what the heck.

I'd also like to see rules for all the gear, upgraded rules and new psychic stuff that I have to steal from Rogue Trader.

Baldrick said:

This.

I've found it to be immensely difficult to construct campaigns revolving around the larger than life aspects of the Inquisition and sector politics. I mean, it's pretty hard to do campaigns about high grade politics in more familiar settings (like the real world), and if you compare our real world with the political ways of things in 40K the task at hand is way more daunting.

I'd like to see examples of how you create something bigger than the standard "plot-hooks" described so far, and examples of how you construct an advanced web of deceit involving lots of different factions and power groups (both heretical and puritans alike) spanning over several worlds in a sector rather than just be located on one planet.

Quite simply, examples of how to create scenarios fitting for Interrogator and Inquisitor grade characters. Because to me that seems really hard to do at the moment...

More shiny toys, a lot more skills and talents, new career paths, new alternate ranks, and a lot more fluff. Basically I want my rank 5 telepath now to be able to kick it up to Ravenor levels of power. A new adventure path letting us get used to this new-found power. Ways to get a hell of a lot more money.

Everything mentioned above is exactly what I am looking for, but I would also like to add the Inquisitor Career Path, and what classes get to become inquisitors. I think it would be **** exciting for the lowest of the acolytes to claw their way up and be offered a spot in the Ordos.

A release date that is accurate.

Nigh7gaun7 said:

To be honest, I'd rather see that FFG don't put much attention to these things. We have all kinds of examples of equipment, skills, talents, how to invent original careerpaths and alternate ranks etc. etc.

We can do all of this ourselves, and I'd consider it to be quite the scam of making us pay for yet another list of "speshul" equipment.

Focus on the fluff and helping the GM creating epic-scale campaigns with investigations spanning over several worlds or even sub-sectors. Seriously people, we don't need more types of power armour, force fields, a gazillion new models of bolters, autoguns and lasguns. There's quite enough of that already, and if anyone feel the need for more then please invent rules for it yourself. It's quite easy in comparison to construct epic-scale campaigns like the ones im expecting from Ascension.

Varnias Tybalt said:

Frankly enough, I agree with you. I don't see the point of more skills, more talents, nor new career paths. Alternate ranks and background packages sure, a few would be cool, don't overdo it. But epic-scale campaigns for us simpletons that have to have steam blasting out of ears to think, I'd like that a lot more, because I know my writing isn't up to par.

Fideru said:

Indeed. Besides, focusing too much on player character game mechanics (like skills and talents) just smell way too much of MMORPG for my tastes. This is supposed to be an RPG after all, not a glorified game of Diablo or World of Warcraft but with dice instead of computers.

We have enough to cover the PC's themselves. I think it's time to focus a bit more on the world and the stories of which said Player Characters live their lives and have their adventures in. And to be honest, I think FFG have sort of avoided to adress this on purpose. Mainly because the world itself is so frigging large and developed. They just don't want to start biting on that cookie.

Varnias Tybalt said:

Couldn't. Agree. More.

It's dirt easy to come up with a new shinny toy or some bit of neat gagitry for the acolytes to play with. I've done it tones of times, offering up Multi-Faces and drugs that can burn the soul (or in the off chance, just it's corruption -it's a fun gamble), etc. Additional ranks beyond 8 would be nice but, again, that's not too hard to come up with on ones own nor it an alt rank to Interrogators or Inquisitors.

What's harder to come up with is a firm grasp of how one becomes an Inquisitor. I remember reading somewhere in the DH books that it took the word of 3 Inquisitors or 1 Lord inquisitor for another individual to be recognized as an Inquisitor by the Calixian Conclave and beyond, yet in the Murder Room in CA, Inquisitor Golgol was said to have been raised to his station by just one Inquisitor (and not a Lord IIRC). More info on Judges and the Law would be great. more info on the big power players in Calixis, their goals, how they do what they do, and what Hax is up to these days.

Beyond that, and probably has nothing to do with Ascension, but this goes for ANY book coming out for DH, more background information! That is, hands down, one of the hardest things for me as a GM to come up with, the nitty gritty details of the stage on which the story will be told. Hell, I'd say give us setting books as opposed to scenarios and campaigns. They're far more useful, speed up the construction of stories, help with writers-block when you just can't come up with another fun idea, and have a much greater replay factor. But, again, that's just a general, What I'd Like To See From Any And All Future Releases.

I could get a Master's in 40k if it were offered in college, so I don't really have the same need for the background as you guys I gues. The way I see it is that players ought to be getting new avenues for expansion and goals to aim for, such as terminator armor (some Inquisitors do wear it) or a Valkyrie. Yeah, you could make stats for it on your own, but you can make anything you like on your own. I like having more tools to play around with, because as a player it's what I'm using and when I'm the GM I can use it to motivate the players.

As a reply to Varnias and others asking about firm ways things are done, well, it's a big galaxy and things get done differently everywhere. Typically, an Inquisitor will promote an underling and then there may be a ceremony of investiture or something. Technically all Inquisitors are of the same rank and have the same powers, although with the Inquisition it depends on your personal ability, loyalty of others to you, other positions you hold, etc. Such powerful individuals may be granted titles like Lord Inquisitor and such, and then there are the masters and grand masters of the various sector conclaves, but those are more, in my opinion, titles of respect. The Inquisition is one of the few things in 40k that is run on a democratic basis, with a number of things being done by voting (such as the choosing of a new sector Grand Master)

As far as we're concerned, the Inquisition is a vast and multifaceted organization made up of highly individualistic people who are only tenuously linked who argue all the time and regularly attempt to kill each other off for heresy or just because they feel like it, and you can do pretty much whatever you like in-game.

For those of you lacking in fluff knowledge, I present the Warhammer 40,000 Fluff Bible and Lexicanum

http://www.electric-rain.net/w40kRPG/Warhammer%2040k%20FluffBible.pdf

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Main_Page

Nigh7gaun7 said:

I could very well become a professor regarding knowledge of 40K background. The thing is, I hardly believe that you could answer many of the questions I have regarding the Calixis Sector, because... Nothing has been written about it! There simply isn't any litterature to refer to.

Hence the need for more background material. But do note that I wasn't ONLY asking for more background material, but also tips and disciplines regarding how to do such epic-scale scenarios and campaigns. In the same way that I can invent my own "shiny toys", talents and skills I could easily invent my own fluff as well. The tricky part is gluing it all together into a coherent adventure that will stick with the relevant background information.

We have plenty of different factions and power groups already as well (Disciples of the Dark Gods and Creatures Anathema provides much of that), but if I was only to use these books as they were intended, the best results would be pretty standard "monster of the week" types of scenarios, and I just don't think that would be fitting for Ascension-grade PC's.

I'd like a book that's filled to the brim with narrative adhesive. That will use previous installments in Dark Heresy and even Rogue Trader as reference and show me some canon-friendly tips and suggestions of how to connect all these little "pieces" (pieces = political schisms, oddities in individual planet's cultures, extra- and intra-faction fighting etc.) with eachother into an epic campaign.

To provide a decent analogy: while the previous books would certainly help out in creating individual episodes (and also lots of fillers) for a television series, I'd like to see that Ascension will help me generate entire SEASONS of that television series, while still using the individual components that make up the background material.

So far, we have nothing coherent adressing this, we have individual tidbits of fluff and a very non-detailed story arch from WH40K, but we haven't got neraly enough "adhesive" to these individual parts. Adhesive which is oh so necessary for a GM if he or she wish to create a staggering campaign adressing the larger than life aspects of whats going on in the Calixis sector.

Nigh7gaun7 said:

The thing is both me and my players don't place much value on in-game equipment and character boosting talents and skills. We're more concerned about the narrative and the roleplaying aspects of the game. Quite simply: we don't play to "win" against the baddies by using lots of "shiny toys" against them, we play because of the cool and dramatic situations our characters get tangled up in.

So you won't see us drool over the prospect of clanking around in Terminator armour, or shooting things with that oversized armageddon gun that can split mountains down the middle. Sure it's nice for noveltys sake, but because all of us do some GM:ing of our own we know that if we wanted we could just say that all of us have access to five million sets of Terminator Armour, and 100.000 Valkyries of different shapes, sizes, colours and flavours to choose from.

Nothing can open your eyes so much to exactly how worthless in-game equipment actually is as spending some time behind the Game Masters screen. It is there you usually realize that "shiny stuff" and power gaming isn't really what makes roleplaying games fun to play, but rather the actual roleplaying and the stories the characters are involved in.

Not that there is anything wrong with liking "shiny stuff" or anything (whatever floats your boat ), it's just that I think that your type of players have already been spoiled to an absurd degree when it comes to shiny toys, skills, talents, optional career ranks etc. Every single book released for DH have included these things, and some books quite a lot of it (Inquisitors Handbook anyone?). I think it's time to help out the storytellers and the narrative fans a bit. The powergamers and the treasure hunters have gotten quite enough to work with already.

Either it's been covered for other sectors, and you can port it to Calixis, or you can make it up. I actually feel that "making it up" works better for fluff than crunch, but that's just my opinion and admittedly I make improvements to the game system too. And I understand what you want, I just don't have a problem doing it myself and thus it's not what I'm looking for from Ascension.

To me, a book like Ascension, or the Inquisitor's Handbook, is an OOC book. You look through it and use it before the game, picking out gear or planning out what your character will buy with his new experience points. In character, you can be concerned with roleplay and all that jazz, but I feel it's perfectly accurate in-character to be a Guardsman excited over getting a meltagun or a xeno-arcanist adept who just found a disintegration rod in the ruins of an alien culture. Ultimately, the goal of your characters is usually going to be taking down heretics that you've rooted out, and the higher you go the bigger a gun (or the more connections, or a shootier tank, or whatever) you're going to need. And a big gun leads to a big explosion, which sure helps with that "cool and dramatic factor". Not that cool to be fighting a ganger with a flick-knife (I can do that 10 minutes from my house) but taking on a guy with a chainsword with an attached flamethrower, much cooler.

As a player, I am am concerned with both how much shiny loot I can get, and how much cool drama I can get in to. I might refuse to take a power fist, for example, because my psyker prefers his mono-edged great axe. Lathe blade? Can't, dude, this axe is imbued with the spirits of my ancestors and will guide me in battle. But buying the mono-edged upgrade was perfectly fine. The players need things to allow their characters to go places and do things, be it career alternatives or new gear.

Having spent plenty of time as a game master, I realize you need things to give to your acolytes. They need some sense of material gain to cue them to how much they're advancing in the world, and to allow them to handle bigger challenges. A few guys with lasguns can't handle much, no matter what skills they have. Those same guys with a power sword, heavy stubber, and dual Carnodons can handle a lot more, but still can die fairly easily. And, as a game master, you can also take their toys away. Have them go undercover, go into a high-security zone, crash on a feral world, whatever. The equipment is a function of the story, not the cause for it.

I don't think you really know what sort of player I am, just from what I expressed about what I'm looking for from this book, and I would also point out that you don't get "roleplaying points" for having a character who uses a stub revolver instead of a tricked-out hand-cannon. Inquisitor's Handbook included plenty off non-crunch stuff, or combined fluff and crunch. The Nomad rifle is a great example of such. If you can't get plot ideas from that blurb alone then you're not trying hard enough. DotDG didn't include much crunch, and Creatures Anathema was all about fluff. Radical's Handbook will be planty fluffy, i have no doubt, and Ascension should be a pretty good combination of the two (I hope). So the "narrative fans" (if you really want narrative only, go "play" a freeform game where there are no rules) will have plenty to work with, and the storytellers can't get a "how too" that will pound it into their head.

In short, the crunch crowd is not at war with the fluff crowd, and in fact the two should go together. I like to have a lot of crunch and then work the fluff angle myself, and you prefer to have a step-by-step guide to storytelling and fluff. I don't want what you want out of the book, and that's fine.

Nigh7gaun7 said:

Of course they should go together, I haven't said otherwise.

It's just that one have been favored over the other for too long now. It's time to even the balance.

What would be the point of just releasing an "Inquisitors Handbook 2" and calling it "Ascension"?

Varnias Tybalt said:

it would ascend the players to a higher level of power? ~shrug~ I'm basing this not only off of what I would like to see for DH, but on what I expect to see out of the book. Think of Ascension as a super-shroom for your players.

Regarding the rules: I'd like to see some well balanced and calculated levels of the existing careers. A few interesting and challenging alternate careers. Some new equipment, part of it just higher powered alternatives to old common stuff. Some of the new equipment should be things that gives the players new and meaningful choices for sovling problems, both in combat and outside of it. I'd like some autistic powergamers to abuse the system to the cheesy hell of beards and beyond, and then some reasonable game designers to plug the most glaring horrible holes and inconcistencies in the rules. This is partly an action rpg, and I find it quite boring if there is always one career that outshines all the other careers in combat. Same goes, but is much less tricky, for rules that apply in situations such as investigation, social relationships, trading etc. For each type of challenge faced during gameplay, I'd like there to be a few careers that can handle it really well, and a few that handles it pretty badly. I want this to be very intentional. I'd like there to be hints for the GM how to incorporate different types of challenges into her stories, including how to set the difficulty of opponents and challenges to fit the characters and players.

Regarding the storytelling, wich is way more important: I'd like to see a few huge conspiracies and grids of relationships between different powerful players in the sector, and directions for building your own. Including some ideas for how characters can be introduced as pawns or even movers into these powergrids. I'd like to see a few good non-linear adventures, and some examples of how to design your own. Including ideas for how to involve the characters. I'd like a chapter specifically for players of highleveld characters. A few basic pointers about acting will be the first and easy part. The major part will be a longer discussion on how the gameplay changes when you are no longer doing other peoples biddings, but rather setting the rules yourself. How to handle highpowered intrigue. How to build your own little empires, etc. Including easy to follow guides both on the imperiums laws, and the game rules for planetary governing, how to set up and run a standing army, how to take precautions against assassins, etc etc etc. In a perfect world this would lead to a game where the players take a more active part driving the story forward, rather than waiting for the GM, disguised as their Inquisitor, to tell them "Go there and do that".

What I expect is a quite different thing. It mostly consists of new abilities and weapons with bombastic names that are pretty unbalanced but makes people go "oh, cool". And a few new superpowered badguys that can be the endbosses in a linear quest. I do hope I'm happily surprised!

Mellon said:

Bravo!

This would be the "adhesive" I was refering to in an earlier post. Much of the previous books mention many powerful players and factions in the sector, but does little to explain the relationships these have towards one another. Something going in depth with these relationships, along with a massive grid roughly illustrating it, coupled with many "loose ends" on this grid for the GM to include his own Merchant Magnates, Rogue Inquisitors, Arch-Heretics, Cults, Planetary Governors, Rogue Traders etc. etc.

That would be very useful indeed.

So one or two chapters at the beginning regarding how to make tier 8 PC's from Dark Heresy into Interrogators, and the rest of the book adressing stuff like the ones you've mentioned. That would be sweet!

I must be the only person who doesn't want to, as a player or GM, have us wandering around making our own rules and becoming Inquisitors and raising our own armies and so on... It's Dark Heresy, you're supposed to work for the Inquisition. Even high-powered people, by Dark heresy terms, work for someone even higher. That's the whole idea. You may get autonomy and discretion and so forth, but you're ultimately working for your Inquisitor and, more importantly, the Emperor. If you decide not to, without retiring or whatever, then you're going to get a world of hurt coming your way. Rogue Trader and (eventually) Death Watch are supposedly for the higher-powered stuff. You start off as Joe-schmoe, and work your way up to being a badass, but what I think a lot of people fail to remember is that 40k is a galaxy full of badder asses than your badass can concieve of, and only one of them likes you. And oh yeah, he might be corrupt or dead or think you're too corrupt or...

Nigh7gaun7 said:

Then you seem to fail seeing how that can become boring in the long run.

Also, what if we want to play characters with high authority (not necessarily "high powered") but still being in the Inquisition? What if we find it ridiculous for our tier 8 characters with 30.000 experience points under their belts to still be forced to act like "joe-Schmoe" when they clearly are not "Joe-Schmoe's"?

Eventually, you have to take some sort of step up in the ladder. You can only stall att Joe-Schmoe stage for so long, and forcing the players to just "retire" their characters simply for being able to survive for too long, overcoming all problems that have been set for them seems grossly unnecessary.

If Rogue Trader can handle player autonomy based campaigns, then so can Dark Heresy.

Also, who's to say that you don't have to answer to anyone just because you become an Interrogator or an Inquisitor? Everybody knows that all this "They only answer to the Emprah himself" and blablabla, isn't really the case. All Inquisitors still answer to their respective conclave, and each respective conclaves still answer to the High Lords of Terra and so forth.

Not even Inquisitors are fully autonomous agents, even if some of them like to believe they are. So your point is a bit moot in that regard...

One thing just occurred to me that would be quite nice to see in Ascension: Rules and suggestions for how a PC can go about setting up and maintaining a complex interstellar network of informants. That's almost a must have if you're an Inquisitor and there's no time like the present to get cracking on it.

I know there's some rather iffy rules for making individual contacts or planet based groups, but, dear lord, if one tried to make an actual and functioning information network that would keep eyes and ears open and report finding to the character, a dead drop, or another fella up the line to eventually make it back to the character, they'd have to spend most all their xp on contacts. And while strait up rp is one way, that limits PC's to the GM's whims and settings which may not represent all of what a character has done in the past and will do with the three years that pass between one major melt-down and the next.

Having a guideline to present to players and doing such in a manner that is attractive to them will be a great addition and help move them from being strictly reactionary and fallowing orders to taking the initiative and taking the story where they want it to go. After all, if Interrogator Steel gets three messages from her informants placed around the Hazeroth Abyss mentioning daemon worshiping pirates making raids on merchant vessels, some criminal activity that leaves folks with their brains scooped out, and then rumors of a planetary governor who might be thinking about seceding, they will have to chose which one they'll look into, possibly have some cells of acolytes they can send in to the other two and send the reports of their findings to her so she can forward them to her Inquisitor who's off taking care of things in the Josean Reaches, etc. By the time an acolyte becomes an Interrogator, they've shown that they probably have what it takes to be an Inquisitor; now it's time to prove that right and get some serious on-the-job training as one calling some of the shots, coordinating multiple investigations, helping their master pursue his or her goals while forging ahead with their own to show that they are, indeed, driven enough to make it as an Inquisitor.

So, it would be nice to have some thought put into how an information network could work, how a player should go about setting it up, and how it can be used and abused throughout the game. Information is power and all that.

Varnias Tybalt said:

I specifically said you can work your way up to being a badass, but there are still many people above you. If you're higher up in the Inquisition, then there's already an alternate rank in the IH handbook for you and, oh hey, they're releasing Ascension so you can get higher up! Look at that! It's almost like FFG was ready for this! Dumbass. And even as it is, if you go by the 200 exp every four hours bit, that's 75 four-hour play sessions. And there'll still be plenty left for you to buy, so you can keep piling on the points for a good long time afterwards. Getting up to 30,000, I admit, is pushing it. Now, you should having been taking steps up the ladder of power this whole time, but FFG specifically said there are some things out of the reach of the game. They're releasing Ascension to extend the reach a bit further, but still. You can do whatever you want in your game, though. Buy Rogue Trader and convert everyone over, for all I care. You can theoretically start in Dark Heresy and work your way all the way up to the end of Deathwatch.

Yes, Dark Heresy can technically handle a game in which there are guardsmen only and you're playing as a squad on a war world or something. But that's not really what the game was made for and not what all the fluff etc. they're releasing revolves around. So the autonomy bit is up to the GM and players. It can be done, but I'm not hoping Ascension will have anything to support it.

Interrogators obviously have to answer to someone, that person being their Inquisitor. Now, for an Inquisitor to *have* to answer to someone, well, someone has to come asking. I was nitpicking over a fluff technicality, and there are obviously, as you say, mechanisms by which the Inquisition regulates itself (such as declaring an individual Inquisitor Extremis Diabolus). But it is not a terribly structured institution. Inquisitors can leave conclaves, go rogue, come back, join another ordos, go to another sector and join that conclave too, join various other Inquisitorial organizations that transcend sector restrictions, and so on and so forth. There are minor wars within particular Ordos or conclaves all the time, as different factions vie for power.

There's nothing I see in fluff that says that individual conclaves answer to the High Lords of Terra, because Inquisitorial Authority specifically transcends everyone except the Emperor himself.

From Lexicanum:

"As a completely autonomous Imperial organization beyond the power of the Adeptus Terra, the Inquisition is immensely powerful. As the Inquisition's duties involve the scrutiny and policing of the other organizations of the Imperium, the Inquisition itself is answerable to no higher power except the Emperor. No one, except the the Emperor himself, is beyond the scrutiny of the Inquisition. This power is officially known as the Inquisitorial Remit or Inquisitorial Mandate...If required, Inquisitors may call on the service and/or resources of any Imperial servant or organization. Not even a High Lord of Terra may refuse the order of an Inquisitor without good reason. This power extends across the Adeptus Astartes and the Adeptus Mechanicus, however learned Inquisitors show discretion and request the assistance of the Space Marines and attempt not to anger the Adepts of Mars."

And, regarding the structure of the Inquisition

"The role of the Inquisition requires proactivity and efficiency unbound by the dogmatic bureaucracy common to most other Imperial departments. Accordingly, there is little in the way of hierarchy or departmentalization within the Inquisition. Authority within the Inquisition is governed by two factors - reputation and influence. Seniority is in itself no indicator of authority, however most Inquisitors will take heed of the wisdom an older and more experienced peer."

My point, dear sir, is not, in fact, moot. Inquisitors do whatever the **** they want unless someone else makes them do otherwise.

I want to see more advanced career paths that allow a DH character progress into eventually Inquisitors and similarly ranked archetypes. With Rogue Trader out, I'd like to see Ascension at least mirror the additional career levels that tacking on RT paths to existing DH paths from the DH paradigm. Essentially, I'd like to see character options for a player who stuck it out with a DH career path gain the same level of experience as a player who decided to try to tack on a RT path and continue the game.

I'd also like to see more Talents that reflect the level of experience and development an advanced character should have that surpasses what is strictly just available in Dark Heresy. It would be excellent in my opinion, if the new career paths are not just a shuffling of options that could be achieved by giving elite advances or simply saying: "take this rank of Adept" to continue a character's development.