Hi all,

I didn't want to clutter up the other untouchable related thread as it is dealing separately with the issue of untouchables in Dark Pursuits. I was wondering if anyone here has any experience of having untouchables in the party in general and whether it causes any difficulties? We're starting our first Dark Heresy group next week (yay!) and whilst my players are relatively knowledgeable about 40k I'm fairly sure they've not heard of untouchables (nor do they own a copy of the rulebook). The reason why I ask is thus;

From the sounds of the character concepts being bandied around, it looks like my group is going to consist of a detective/seeker formerly of the arbites; a gruff Imperial guard medic, an assassin and a fanatical priest (I was impressed no one chose to be a psyker!). Now whilst this make up could belong to any Inquisitorial cell, for me this is a classic Ordo Hereticus set up and I'm thinking of making their Inquisitor a hard-line mono dominant witch hunter. Now, the assassin player has bizarrely gone for an almost comic-relief idea which was strange to me at first and a stark contrast to the other characters, but now I'm starting to really like the idea. The character creation session isn't until Tuesday and the character is yet to be fleshed out but essentially, is idea is that his assassin is neither liked by his peers and is actually a bit incompetent. He "impressed" the Inquisitor by wiping out a large heretical coven, when in reality it was completely by accident...

Those of you who are well versed in 40k will probably agree with me that this sounds like a classic pariah/untouchable scenario. I am very tempted to have it so that the Inquisitor actually saw right through the incompetence and secretly suspects that assassin character is an untouchable- something which will be confirmed when the group comes across the daemonhost in the intro adventure (I won't say it explicitly until they reconvene with their Inquisitor, I'll just have the daemonhost recoil in pain and try and stay away from the assassin). I think when I have the Inquisitor reveal this finally it could make for some really great roleplaying to see how the party reacts. The caveat to this of course is I'm going to try and assess the group and the assassin player as we're gaming, I'll drop the idea if I don't think it will go down well.

Anyway, now you know why I'm considering it. I'm just curious if it's going to be a pain in the ass rebalancing scenarios in the future? Does anyone have any insight they can give me?

All the best,

Sounds like a great idea, though check with your player beforehand.

Not being like by the peers could just mean that he has charmed his way into the profession without having the skill and his peers despise him for that. Something that is not possible as an untouchable.

Being untouchable is not being liked by everyone (even by the other players until they learn to accept him) and thus sets a different tone.

Always discuss anything like this with the player whose character you have in mind.

As for whether it will cause problems, most of that depends on the rules you're using. They tend to range from wildly under-powered to wildly-inappropriate, and rarely actually reflect the lore. That said, the fact that your throne agents lack a psyker might well mean that a null would make for a nice replacement.

Giving some feedback- the untouchable character doesn't know he's untouchable yet although he knows something is up! The player isn't aware, unlike two of the others, that pariahs exist in the 40k universe but the group has found out that the orb from Dark Pursuits has no effect on him unlike the other characters. If the others are carrying the orb in his presence, they stop suffering the symptoms they were having before if they are next to him. The two players who suspect he may be an untouchable have asked me in secret if that's what happening but all I've told them is they know what their characters know . It's a big hit with the group so far...in the next session the character will find out for sure after the climatic fight with the Daemonhost.