Hi all!

My group and I are possibly thinking of starting Dark Heresy 2nd edition with myself as GM. I'm currently working my way through the rulebook as well as reading up advice on running Dark Heresy campaigns, GMing in general (I'm new- with the exception of a few Inquisitor games in the distant past) and eventually, prepping the Dark Pursuits introductory adventure (which from what I can see, needs some filling of the gaps). I do have a few questions however and would like to ask the community for some help.

Firstly, does anyone have any experience running groups with one of the players as an Inquisitor? One of the reasons we didn't really try much of 1st edition Dark Heresy was the setting which more or less solely involved groups of acolytes dispensing Inquisitorial justice. This is something that doesn't really sit well with us, our interpretation is a little more old school in that whilst Inquisitors do have separate cells of acolytes to help them in their tasks, acolytes themselves are not given anything resembling an inquisitorial rosette or the power to do anything at that level (which I suppose, is good for certain adventures)- that privilege is for Inquisitors alone. Besides, as a group we tend to prefer the classic image of an actual inquisitor conducting operations on the field, surrounded by a group of trusted acolytes which augment the Inquisitor's abilities by specializing in areas he does not.

I can see a couple of problems to this approach- namely the Inquisitor player hogging the limelight if not careful and secondly, large portions of adventures being ignored/skipped with a simple flash of the rosette. Hopefully this shouldn't be much of an issue for us- we're all long time close friends and mature, plus the party will most likely be created so that the acolytes and Inquisitor complement each other. I'm also aiming at playing into the fact that Askellon is short on Inquisitorial presence- announcing their true identities at inopportune moments could do more harm than good. My main concern however is character creation itself. What do people recommend doing in regards to creating the Inquisitor mechanically, and how many extra points -if any- should the other characters be given so they are not completely outclassed by the Inquisitor themselves?

We won't be starting this campaign for some time yet so I've got a while to work things out. I was wondering though, are there any player made resources out there on the Dark Pursuit campaign itself? Anything premade like that will be incredibly useful because whilst I'm prepared to put in the legwork necessary as GM, time is always at a premium and getting inspiration from other people's work would be incredibly useful!

Finally (for now ), what is the general consensus on these forums on roll20? Our group is currently situated fairly far apart geographically so we're looking at potentially using this. Does it work well with Dark Heresy? I'm slowly going through some tutorials on how to set up campaigns on it but I was interested to hear what peoples' opinions were on it and whether they had any advice.

All the best,

Eisenhorn

Inquisitor characters in Dark Heresy typically have a very different 'feel' from those in the Inquisitor game, the Eisenhorn novel etc. This is because they are usually the result of lots of character advancement in a long-running campaign with 10,000+ XP. You'll often see them with carapace armour, power swords, bolt pistols, bionics, lots of combat Talents...

If you want to emulate an Inquisitor's cadre from Eisenhorn, you'll probably want to:

1. Start with an XP boost of a few thousand - enough to give your players some real customizability, but not on the level of ordinary DH characters who have made it to Inquisitorial level (so no 10,000+).
2. Perhaps give out some free knowledge skills in addition.
3. Let the players pick out some reasonably powerful but high-quality gear. The advantage of starting at high level with a group you know you can trust is that you can give some leeway to pick up interesting and characterful equipment without worrying that they'll be greatly overpowered.
4. If you start with enough XP, you might (emphasis on 'might', not 100% sure this is a good idea) want to give out less XP per session to emphasize that these are already experienced characters for who just another mission is not going to increase their skills significantly.
5. You might want to develop such things as a contact network, a hideout/base, personal vehicles etc. with your players before you start.

Inquisitor characters in Dark Heresy typically have a very different 'feel' from those in the Inquisitor game, the Eisenhorn novel etc. This is because they are usually the result of lots of character advancement in a long-running campaign with 10,000+ XP. You'll often see them with carapace armour, power swords, bolt pistols, bionics, lots of combat Talents...

If you want to emulate an Inquisitor's cadre from Eisenhorn, you'll probably want to:

1. Start with an XP boost of a few thousand - enough to give your players some real customizability, but not on the level of ordinary DH characters who have made it to Inquisitorial level (so no 10,000+).
2. Perhaps give out some free knowledge skills in addition.
3. Let the players pick out some reasonably powerful but high-quality gear. The advantage of starting at high level with a group you know you can trust is that you can give some leeway to pick up interesting and characterful equipment without worrying that they'll be greatly overpowered.
4. If you start with enough XP, you might (emphasis on 'might', not 100% sure this is a good idea) want to give out less XP per session to emphasize that these are already experienced characters for who just another mission is not going to increase their skills significantly.
5. You might want to develop such things as a contact network, a hideout/base, personal vehicles etc. with your players before you start.

Thanks for replying Drubbels, that's exactly the kind of answer I was looking for!

1. This sounds good-I'm thinkng about 3000 points but that's a number I've just pulled out of thin air- I will probably need to roll up some test characters to get a feel for the right exp boost unless anyone on these forums has some suggestions?

2. Sounds reasonable, not sure which but it's something I will look into to.

3. Yeah this should probably be alright, it's a good group for everything else we do and everyone is maturely minded so I don't forsee it being a problem- I guess time will tell however!

4. I hadn't considered this; it's worth bearing in mind. At what point do DH2 characters normally "retire" if they live long enough to do so?

5. My current train of thought is to make setting this up part of the campaign. I need to read more into Askellon but it seems bereft of much inquisitorial involvement. Right now I'm thinking of something along the lines of our group's inquisitor being one of the first sent to Askellon to begin the process of bringing the sector into line...

Any further suggestions will be greatly appreciated!

All the best,

Sorry for the bump!

Does anyone have any suggestions as to starting exp for a player Inquisitor and their warband?

No amount of XP can get you a starting Inquisitor due to the 75 Influence requirement since you can't spend XP to raise that. If you want to hand-wave it so that a player can take Inquisitor at the start without the Influence requirement, go for it. Or you can just hand them a rosette and tell them they're senior acolytes.

You don't need to bump up the starting XP, either, but if you do keep in mind that you're effectively borrowing against future sessions since at a certain point there will be nothing left to buy. If you foresee this being a shortlived campaign that won't be an issue, but if you'd like to play these characters for several months or more just start at the RAW starting XP or near enough to it.

No amount of XP can get you a starting Inquisitor due to the 75 Influence requirement since you can't spend XP to raise that. If you want to hand-wave it so that a player can take Inquisitor at the start without the Influence requirement, go for it. Or you can just hand them a rosette and tell them they're senior acolytes.

You don't need to bump up the starting XP, either, but if you do keep in mind that you're effectively borrowing against future sessions since at a certain point there will be nothing left to buy. If you foresee this being a shortlived campaign that won't be an issue, but if you'd like to play these characters for several months or more just start at the RAW starting XP or near enough to it.

Excellent post, thank you. I'll probably keep starting exp as it is then for each character with the exception of the Inquisitor who will have the starting 1000 exp, +1000 exp for the Inquisitor advance buy in cost (we'll ignore the influence requirements as you suggested). I'll boost the Influence of the Inquisitor a little bit above default but I'm not too concerned about it being too high just yet. The back story to our interpretation of Askellon is that the area has been largely devoid of any Inquisitorial presence for quite some time. The player Inquisitor's character is a recent promotion following her master's death and has been assigned to Askellon as both a means to bring the Inquisition's gaze back to the sector as well as a means to make a name for herself.

I haven't done character generation with my players yet. In case they *do* decide to create an Inquisitor PC, I created a test Inquisitor character to run through the first combat encounter in the dark pursuits campaign (against the baby faces) to get a feel for the combat. The Inquisitor was a fresh character (e.g. 1000exp), Seeker with Astra Telepathica background (not a psyker) and granted an additional 1000 exp soley to buy the Inquisitor elite advance. Influence arbitrarily set at 50- although I felt granting 5 additonal items at start up was too much. Instead, in addition to the starting equipment (las pistol, staff and flak jacket), I granted the Inquisitor a few appropriate items- carapace chest armor, a power sword and a flamer as this would set them apart from regular acolytes and would distinguish the character as an Inquisitor (ableit more of an Inquisitor as presented in the Inquisitor game, rather than the beasts of Dark Heresy).

Holy hell does the Inquisitor kick ass. She had a regular psyker and sage as test warband characters helping her but I feel that she could have dispatched Skinner and his lackeys by herself. The power sword was a beast as it should be, the flamer wasn't even touched although having read it closely- it seems to be murder incarnate.

Now this character isn't the actual PC, merely an approximation of what may be chosen. I feel it is utterly justified for an Inquisitor to have this kind of gear, but I think I'm going to have to definitely dry-run the combat encounters when the actual characters are created and rebalance as necessary! In addition, there will probably have to be heavy penalties to subtlety if anyone uses a flamer or indeed, a power sword (with the field active).

Any advice will be greatly appreciated

I've got a question for you; are the other acolytes given the same kind of bonuses? Because having the inquisitor career grants talents and aptitude. Do you hand extra gear/influence to other players?

For combat, just balance them. Make the gangsters combat intelligently and use strategies and you'll see your inquisitor will be in bad shape.

Yeah, I'm planning on giving extra gear but to be honest, it's up to them. At the moment the group is considering creating the warband as the classic Inquisitor and his retinue but they might can it and just go to being all regular acolytes making the above point moot.

I'm definitely going to have to make sure the gangers are intelligent in their tactics.

edit: Well, looks like i won't have to worry about it too much. My group have decided that they rather have an NPC inquisitor which makes my life somewhat easier!

The trouble with a PC Inquisitor and normal Acolytes is that unless the rest of the group also receives good bonuses, the Talents unlocked by the Inquisitor Elite advance will quickly make them feel somewhat like simple Hangers-on instead of senior trusted Acolytes (Jack-Of-All-Trades anyone?).

I would make the Inquisitor an NPC, and make all the players start with 2000xp (because 1000 is really too few to get the feel of "senior" Acolytes, but still leaves them lots of room for growth. My current GM had us all start at 5000xp and I still feel like I have a lot of room to grow!). I would also encourage them to take on "niche" roles and not anything the Inquisitor could otherwise aquire or easily do himself - things like psyker, techpriest or otherwise being extremely focused on a single facette of combat or Infiltration. Making a "Han Solo" Jack-of All Trades, Master of none Desperado would be pretty useless for example: the Inquisitor is generally that but with the powers of a Rosette!

However, a crack sniper/pilot, a good telepath, a good techpriest and a true social butterfly who can get them past any obstructions the Rosette cannot be used for (like worming his way into a cult/gang/noble household, or getting past security checkpoints discreetly).

If you look at the party in Eisenhorn, they have a crack pilot, an Untouchable, and a few other characters who are mostly notable for their backgrounds and contacts, although their combat prowess is of wourse nothing to be sneezed at!