Ways to Pimp Out a Navigator

By Cheddah, in Rogue Trader

Howdy

A friend sent me an early invite to his RT game and I'm currently brainstorming some character ideas. One of the ideas I was tinkering around with would be a renegade combat navigator specialising in The Course Untraveled for the handy teleport. It doesn't seem so appealing now that I see it on paper though. Navigators' skill sets seem very limited and the VERY few powers that they have are made less effective in combat since the good ones generate fatigue.

I suppose I could look into bionics or other beneficial gear, but now Im starting to wonder if I should rethink this whole idea. Anyone been down this lane before?

Note that Navigators get Meditation at the second rank - it lets you recover roughly one Fatigue per twenty minutes rest.

well i recently made a navigator of house Nostromo (Renegade house). I took void born followed by scrapegrace and tainted mutant. My free choice was dark voyage followed by pride then finally Navigator.

Taking a renegade house gives you 2 navigator mutations and a handy bonus to up to 3 powers.

Just a note my navigator ended up with the following mutations:

Ravaged body (3)

Winged

Wyrdling

Degenerate mind (From Beyond)

and the following navigator mutations:

Disturbing grace

strange vitality.

Which makes her very fun and unique.

Cifer said:

Note that Navigators get Meditation at the second rank - it lets you recover roughly one Fatigue per twenty minutes rest.

Yeah I was looking into that, but not being able to kill that -10% to all test penalty until after combat just wouldn't work for me.

As an alternative for negating the fatigue penalty, I was thinking of taking gland or rig bionics full of stimm. It would negate the fatigue, but from stimm's description it is debatable wether or not navigators can use nav powers under it's influence.

With a navigator you either have to:

Just suck up the fatigue loss and penalty. Boost one of the talents as much as possible. You can easily get +20-40 in a single power to start. Then boost your will power up. The -10 isn't that major if you are at 60-80% to start. Then get yourself some stims. You burn your fatigue down then go to your backup weapon.

Go with a weapon, and use non-fatigue based powers.

PS- Also consider spending the starting XP on choosing a standard mutation or cybernetic device. You're already a mutant and as a Navigator you much more a free pass. I'd avoid ravaged body as about 1/2 of the mutation are all bad.

PS- Wyrdling wouldn't work for a Navigator as they can't use normal psychic powers.

Dalnor Surloc said:

PS- Wyrdling wouldn't work for a Navigator as they can't use normal psychic powers.

Does it actually say that in the book? What page?

wyrdling gives them psy 2 and 2 techniques, and if they use them fettered then they dont need to test for it.

Easy, use your first aquisition to get a best quality shock glove so it looks like a pristine white glove and aquire a digi-weapon cane. Also using best qulity clothing and having obscura addicted harem following you around doesn't hurt either. I hope my attempt at humor is not offensive to this community >.>

Lidless eye is the most broken attack in the game anyway... Take it with a Renegade House and pick it as one of the three powers and your at +10 on it while all enemies are at -10... and any damage results in a stun...

alexkilcoyne said:

Lidless eye is the most broken attack in the game anyway... Take it with a Renegade House and pick it as one of the three powers and your at +10 on it while all enemies are at -10... and any damage results in a stun...

However it does have friendly fire. Use it too often and they will take the damage and insanity, even with the +30 bonus for looking away. Especially since it's an opposed test and the navigator is expected to have higher willpower than most other characters.

Depends how your GM runs it. Considering that when our Navigator does it hes usually several metres in front of us with his back to us he doesn't ask for a check in that circumstance.

Our explorator "tank" burned a fate point due to my lidless stare last night. He was told to clear out...

Anyway, pimping out the navigator - To me it all depends on your ship build. At the end of it, due to history and stuff we put in the ship, I already have a +25 to any navigation roles. This ruled out for me that I needed to use my acquisition for either of the +navigation gear choices. I went with bionic arm, huzzah str rolls.

Spend the XP to choose your mutation and take the unnatural agility x2 mutation as you can use the increase in initiative to get in front to blast with your eye. I'm not sure if it is a house rule or not, but I didn't take a -10 from fatigue until I had been fatigued three times (equal to my toughness bonus). Don't fear the fatigue powers, as they are some of the good ones.

I'm not sure if it is a house rule or not, but I didn't take a -10 from fatigue until I had been fatigued three times (equal to my toughness bonus). Don't fear the fatigue powers, as they are some of the good ones.

It's a house rule. You normally get -10 for the first one and pass out as soon as you've got more fatigue than TB.

However, you might try acquiring Duty unto Death as it lets you ignore fatigue in combat.

Bilateralrope said:

alexkilcoyne said:

Lidless eye is the most broken attack in the game anyway... Take it with a Renegade House and pick it as one of the three powers and your at +10 on it while all enemies are at -10... and any damage results in a stun...

However it does have friendly fire. Use it too often and they will take the damage and insanity, even with the +30 bonus for looking away. Especially since it's an opposed test and the navigator is expected to have higher willpower than most other characters.

You have to able to see the warp eye to risk damage. If your allies are standing behind you when you use Lidless there's no test at all, any more than there'd be one for enemies standing out of line of sight. Standing in front of the navigator facing away from him is the main time you'll be testing at +30, and shouldn't happen all that often if you're careful.

But yes, amazingly strong power. Once you've taken two levels of it it really should end most fights decisively. Massive damage and 1d5 stun is a finisher. Shame the range is so short, eh?

Just remember that you're probably exposing the Navigator to enemy fiore to get into position for using Lidless Eye and most ranged weapons vastly outrange the power. it's not too unbalanced when you consider that the Navigator can just get his ass shot off for trying this stunt too often.

BTW, I didn't see anything that allows a Navigator to spend XP to select his starting Navigator mutation(s) and the one House-type that allows selection has a very restricted list that you can choose from that doesn not include Unnatural Agility.

If you're a renegade and focused on combat, just take "Duty Unto Death" as an Elite Edvance. Some would say it's munchkin, but if you play the concept well, it's very cool, I think.

Argoden said:

Bilateralrope said:

alexkilcoyne said:

You have to able to see the warp eye to risk damage. If your allies are standing behind you when you use Lidless there's no test at all, any more than there'd be one for enemies standing out of line of sight. Standing in front of the navigator facing away from him is the main time you'll be testing at +30, and shouldn't happen all that often if you're careful.

This makes sense as a houserule, but there is no text supporting it in the actual book. My explanation is that the siren song of the warp calls through the eye to demand you try and look in it or catch a reflected image.

RocketPropelledGrenade said:

Argoden said:

Bilateralrope said:

alexkilcoyne said:

You have to able to see the warp eye to risk damage. If your allies are standing behind you when you use Lidless there's no test at all, any more than there'd be one for enemies standing out of line of sight. Standing in front of the navigator facing away from him is the main time you'll be testing at +30, and shouldn't happen all that often if you're careful.

This makes sense as a houserule, but there is no text supporting it in the actual book. My explanation is that the siren song of the warp calls through the eye to demand you try and look in it or catch a reflected image.

I'll concede that reflections are a threat, but if you read Lidless Eye you'll see that it states that you have to see the eye to be affected. No amount of "siren song" will let you see through the back of the Navigator's head.

I'll concede that reflections are a threat, but if you read Lidless Eye you'll see that it states that you have to see the eye to be affected. No amount of "siren song" will let you see through the back of the Navigator's head.

More precisely, the Navigator has to be able to see you. If you can't see him, that's what gives the +30 bonus, but it's not enough for outright negating the power.

Looking at it, I'm inclined to agree that my opinion doesn't make the same level of sense as what you are suggesting. I have a tendency to draw a hard, concrete barrier between rules and flavor text in this kind of situation due to some experiences with stupid/abusive players. However, since the rules do not explicitly state my previous supposition is the Right Answer , and the flavor text falls squarely behind your idea, I'll go with what you've said.

Thanks for providing the additional analysis. That hadn't been sitting squarely with me, and now I think I know why.

Is this the general "talk about your Navigator" thread? Our game has not really started yet, but this is my Nav's back story.

Zanus is from one of the many magisterial Houses, which are kind of the "role model" Houses, ancient, well-off and cooperative with the Imperium. That's the impression I get from the book. He was a scheming, dueling, partying wastrel noble instead of the typical Hieronymus scholarly savant. House Hieronymus has a tradition of astrography (space cartography), which he more or less ignored for years. There were concubines to play with. He had to learn how to duel, how to shoot and stab and cut

The death of his brother during a mutiny caused a change in Zanus. He now seeks to improve himself, do right by his lineage and to honor his brother. He's years, maybe even a decade behind the rest of his brothers in astrography, but many levels beyond most in his skill with weaponry. And his paranoia makes him very perceptive for his age.

He's got the elongated form mutation, lidless stare. and held in my gaze. I'm thinking of making him a psyker/daemon killer, to avenge his brother.

Does anyone have any artwork of Navigators? I'm looking for inspiration.

I've been playing my Navigator, Atticus Rhodes, for a few months now, bringing him from rank 1 to 4. Here are a couple things I've found work well for Navigators. First off, armor is important as you'll often want to be in front of the party (for sweet, sweet eye-zapping without hurting your pals). Best storm carapace, combined with an inferno pistol ensure that he or she can last long enough in close quarters to get off a Lidless Stare (or two, especially if your character has Meditation ). On that same note, toughness is quite useful, as it not only gives you more fatigue to fuel the best Nav. powers, but it also makes it more likely to resist the inevitable mutations. Otherwise boost your WP, INT, PER, and BS (in that order or importance). If you are playing less of a combat character, then PER might be more important than WP.

If your GM allows it, the Sorcery elite advance from the Radical's Handbook and Disciples of the Dark Gods fits perfectly onto Navigator characters. Navigators quickly learn the prerequisite skills and will often have incredibly high WP (my rank 4 Nav has 70). This, combined with Armor of Contempt at rank 5 and Dark Soul at rank 3 creates a sorcerer who is much more insulated against the 1d10-WPbonus corruption that comes with casting sorcery Arcana, as well as the malignancies that eventually follow. The fact that your Nav is also immune to Warp Shock means that, generally speaking, he or she will have less corruption than other characters anyway. If your navigator is lucky enough to have the Strange Vitality mutation (as mine does), then the 1d5 damage casused by the Fueled By Flesh talent doesn't seem as bad, and should be taken as well. This creates a far more versatile "caster" who can both perceive the Empyrean and manipulate it. Of course, all of this implies that the GM allows material from Dark Heresy, which may not be universal among groups.

Beyond that, Navigators should take Void Watcher because it gives them something to do at the lower ranks during space combat, and Held in My Gaze because it turns you into an invaluable Psyker/Demon killing machine. I've found Foreshadowing to be useless and infuriating, but that may just be bad luck on my part.

HM. Thanks for the advice. I have 41WS, 36BS, so I am leaning towards combat anyway.