If you can't get your players involved in your game just for the joy of squashbuckling, I suggest you start them off on weaker grounds to make them FEEL for their roles.

Have the Rogue Trader be some poor ganger scum living on the edge in Calixias. Then have the Senchal, an old family servant, rush to find him amongst the underhive while a rival Rogue Trader seeks him too. Accompany the Senchal by any other players who could be explained as either mercenaries, family servants, or those who still hold loyalty to the dynasty.

Continuing would mean having the RT's gang be killed, him swearing vengeance, meeting up with the Senchal, getting the Admin to acknowledge the authenticity of the heir, escorting a crate full of debts to the Imperial Governor's palace, getting a busted systems ship refitted with warp capability, finding their transport in ill repair, killing a bunch of void hereteks to garner AdMech favor, receiving the repairs, and finally having the rival RT dynasty show up in their fully fitted cruiser only to have the RT escape into warp. From there on out they head for the Kronus Expanse because it's the only place they can make a quick profit without competing with major merchant houses. There are dangers though.

As you can guess this is the path I chose for my players and it has turned out great. They love their guys and nearly every session has them doing some awesome heroics. The game may be centered around profit but that doesn't mean the characters do.

My PCs are a Hiver RT, NB Senchal, and VB Void Master. Their ship the Silver Bullet as she was named by the RT is a sword class hull with the Adventurous and Temperamental Warp Drive. The complications represent the fact that the machine spirit is eager to explore the universe beyond it's home system and that her warp drive was crudely installed. She's pretty minimally fitted due to the relative poverty of her masters; their PF started at 10 but is now around 25.

calibur1 said:

This would result in a poor reputation for the Rogue Trader. Word would spread about the weak, scared and greedy little Captain, who lacks the balls to do a proper mans job. Any respectable house would refuse to trade with him. If not out of a sense of propriety, then out of an understanding that even being associated with such a coward will hurt your own reputation. No one wants to be known as a "friend of that worthless, spineless, greedy little maggot".

Being an undesirable (or being associated with one by trade, marriage, whatever) will mean trade opportunities are denied to you, that you will always get worse prices (as the people who WILL trade with you will want the risk they run, or damage they take to their rep, compensated)

The people they send as envoys would likely feel this as very embarrassing. Perhaps the ritual suicide of their lead negotiator will work as a hint? Or perhaps they defect to a more worthy employer, as suggested elsewhere. Or mutiny? It was not uncommon in our own Age of Sail if the officers lacked the mens respect (and it definately sounds like your players would).

Perhaps their existing trade routes will start generating less revenue as a result of their declining reputation? Much like a magazine looses advertisers (and thus vital income) if their reputation suffers? Just take a look at Tiger Woods for a contemporary example. Let the players do as they please, but make sure their actions have consequences.

[edited for spelling mistakes]

Bolt Pistol, Boltgun and a shotgun for building/ on ship combat. and power armour as she will be a sister of battle.

Sister of Battle in a Rogue Trader campaign? Interesting... do you anticipate the old "Paladin steps out of the room" scenario?

My GM informed us a few weeks ago that we were "Rogue Traders", NOT Rogue Havers". We all laughed and he said "really, no they just dont have a military grade maunfactorium right now. You can roll all you like its just not there...."

My Rogue Trader Captain did manage to get a fractal blade sword and carapace and she wears it all the time. We learned the hard way that we always have to be prepared at all times.

most of her sisters are wiped out and she vows to protect the RT but im just waiting on the books to arrive in the post.

Heh! Might be a bit of a culture shock for her but sounds like an interesting and challenging roleplay situation.

I may tweek her to be a sister of silence or something like that. hope they bring out a xenos pack to play an eldar or something like that.

Well, there's an Eldar in our game - there's enough information out there to extrapolate if you don't want to wait.

oohh coolness.... (Looks for links)

I can ask my GM to send me the statline he used as the base along with class he used; I believe the Eldar is a Solitaire - I'm not supposed to know in-game and that's easier if I don't know out of game, either, for the most part.

you are a star, feal free to email me the link.

The players in my game so far have mostly starter gear except for the RT rolling really lucky and getting the baleful eye he wanted. But what might eventually be an interesting addition to their ship is an assault team of kroot.

On their second day of playing I sent them out to find/recover/salvage a missing ship that went out to start a colony about 150 years ago. Eventually they tracked it down to a desert type planet that it had crashed on after having been attacked by unknown forces. A kroot mercenary ship had also been shot down there. The kroot and humans eventually joined forces for survival (the humans having actually all been radical's who were attempting to flee the restrictions of the imperium and thus more acceptant to xenos, yeah most of the time the kroot would have just eaten them but this was more interesting to do). The human population is low but the kroot adapted well to the planet, being able to evolve/mutate from eating the indiginous life forms and actually thrived. The RT being a xenophile (from origin path) decided to arrange a deal, they will provide supplies to help those on the planet live better and in return be able to salvage from the crashed colony and kroot ships. They also have been allowed to take any young kroot willing to leave, since they are a mercenary/violent type race and there isn't enough to fight on the planet, and many have urges to feel the true glory of battle like in the tales of their ancestors. Currently the party is searching for a suitable planet to transplant the young kroot to for advanced training, and are requisitioning better gear for them 5000 bayonette fitted long-las's and camoline cloaks so far...I shot down there dream of kroot fitted power-armor by pointing out that if there is even any in existance there is no way they are finding 5000 suits (at least in imperial space ;p ). They are planning on training them into a more elite fighting force, some to sell to high bidders, others for a personal assault force and others still to be use to help capture Xenos beasts to sell via The Beast House. All very illegal to Imperial Law but then again a large percentage of what rogue traders do is a bit on the shady side.

They are also having fun trying to decide if certain things they fight would be interesting to feed to the kroot just to see how it might effect them. Though they are getting annoyed at ship combat since out of the 4 last ship's they've fought, 2 escaped and 2 were critted baddly and both got warp drive explosion rolled on them (with the last one actually sucking them into the warp...that was fun...and our voidmaster is stapling himself to the control's since he was doing something else that round and wasn't there to reroll the maneuver to escape the situation)....they are very pirate like and want ships to salvage.

Found the SoS looks cool

Ship wise i use a sword class frigate, standard fit exept for the vitae life support system, voidsmens quarters and Warpsbane hull. weapon lodout consists of 2 battery of sunsear and several wings of guncutter that can't fit any form of ani- ship weapon. going to upgrade the bridge to a command bridge later as well as adding retro thrusters and guard barracks

My navigator walks around with a good craft hand cannon, a mono sword, and a mono groxwhip. as a renegade house member, the whip was turned onto him many times as a child. when at last he was old enough, he turned the whip on his father. he's carried it ever since. he likes close quarters combat, if you can't tell.

Our missionary carries a flamer and a chainsword. nothing fancy, and no real backstory. he just likes toasting heretics and cutting them up into little pieces.

the RT walks around with a hand cannon, a power sword, and an angevin chainsword. he perfers the pistol, but he's no stranger to hand-to-hand combat, either.

the astropath carries and archeotech laspistol and a mono sword. i let him take primive melee weapons as a bonus talent, but he still relies on the rest of us to keep him alive when the mutants get to close to warrant shooting.

our explorator is probably really over powered, but he carries a hellgun, a power axe, a shield, and his skull servitor has a las pistol. he claims to have been ascened to the cult mechanicus from the tech guard, and since we dont have an arch militant yet (and none of us have seen anywhere that that cant happen), the GM doesn't challenge it.

our ship, the Thrice Damned (yes, im aware that might be a little cliche) has a pair of mars macrocannons, but we have a barracks, murder servitors, and a crew relclemation facility. were not good at a distance, but once we close the gap, you better start praying.

needless to say, were a pretty violent group, and we like the upcloseandpersonal side of combat

My players are trying to put together a small fleet to oppose the necrons. And the silica animus MAIA. And a rogue faction in the AdMech.

And they still don't know what's behind door number 3...

So far the party has aquired a Long Serpent, a Gothic, two swords, the Righteous Path (their flagship, a Repulsive class Grand Cruiser), a cobra, three raiders, recovered the Dauntless they lost during Whispers on the Storm, two Dictators, and a hades class heavy cruiser. (note: none of these ships,with the excetion of the Righteous Path , are in what might be considered 'good' condition. (They're spaceworthy salvage, in other words.)

Right now the party is trying to hurry repair and refit along at their hidden asteriod base.

The Dyson Sphere Awaits....

BaronIveagh said:

The Feth? That is truly some epic crap they have managed to pull off. I would assume that the Imperial Navy and fellow Rogue Traders ( not to mention the Inquisition ) are keeping a very keen eye on this party. If they ever manage to repair and rearm those ships, they could cause some serious disbustance to Imperial interests if they so choose...

They started in the Dauntless. Or as they dubbed it the Archeotech wagon. We did Forsaken Bounty, (which is where the Pcs got the idea to salvage every wreck they see), Dark Frontier (where they offered Cobolt a place in their organisation and netted the Penance into thier little fleet.), Into the Maw (where they seized both raiders and salvaged the wrecked Righteous Path , though I made them spend fifteen profit to do it. They aquired 1k men and four tanks at this point, shopping around the sector for parts for a grand cruiser ), Whispers on the Storm (where both raiders were totally destroyed, and the Dauntless had to be towed it was so badly damaged. The Path made the kill with a combination of lance and plasma salvos. The party gained another five hundred men, and lost 300 and damaged one of the leman russes).

After thier success against the Whisperer, Battlefleet Calixis contacted them about the possibility of dealing with some pirates that had been raiding into the calixis sector. The party then made a few disgusting rolls and tracked the pirates back to the system they were based in. Using the newly repaired Dauntless, they managed to discern the location of the pirates lair. They then used combination of running silent and asteroids to mask their approach. Once they were within range, they used a teleportarium to send all remaining 1200 men, thier murder servitors, a squad of Sororitas, and a Leman Russ Exicutioner rigged for combat in vacuum, across into the base and canisters of death gas acrossed into the docked pirate ships (Losing 300 men in the process)

I had to admit, even the most hard core, blood thirsty pirates would have been surprised when that russ materialized in the middle of the hydroponics bay and opened fire with plasma cannons.

In the mean time, the pirate light crusier that had been in transit to investigate the asteroids made somewhat a better show of it, once again disabling the dauntless before being in turn destroyed by a combination of a critical hit to the manuvering thrusters and asteroid it then collided with. The station fell after ten more minuets of fighting in the corridors as the russ and the Path both began punching big holes in it, the servitors having disabled most of the weapons systems.

Needless to say, there were a few Tora Tora Tora comments at this point.

After all was said and done, four of the five raiders docked at the base were reletivly undamaged. The fifth had collided with the station as the crew was overcome with death gas, The pirate light cruiser was a total loss, and the dauntless was not much better, having struck an asteroid itself. The players then liberated the pirates slaves (to work for them in the name of the Emperor, of course) and put any surviving pirates out the airlock.

For thier services, the crew was given the run of the fleet wreckers yard, which the used to materials to repair the dauntless. One of the raiders was completely stripped for parts as well. The endevour netted them +3 profit.

Thier next adventure led them to search for rumors of caches of archeotech in the expanse (they didn't find any, I'd had enough of that.) they did find, however, a paradise world where, to put icing on the cake, they found a plentiful source of a rare and potent juvenat drug. (side effect: vastly reduced birthrate) which proved profitable. They also bought a ship, a sword class frigate. (and a defense monitor for thier newly discovered world.)

(Over in my DH campaign, at this time, the majordomo to Lord Hax has been murdered and the party discovers that the crime was committed by a silica animus known as MAIA, who has a base of operations somewhere in the Expanse)

At this time, there is a series of attacks against prominent Rogue Traders (some of them very public, as in on the very steps of the offices of the fleet in Port Wander).

The party continued it's quest for more archeo tech. Hearing of strange metal buidings on Vandamannmundi, they set out. As they approach the planet, thier sensors breifly picked up a crecent shaped ship lurking in the near by asteroid field. Deciding to explore this wreck instead, they quickly learn what people mean when they say 'things man was not meant to know" as metal skeletons surged after them, (the archmilitant and seventy guardsmen were killed) Racing away in a cargo lifter, they ordered their entire force to open fire, obliterating the ship.

Returning to Port Wander, the sensechal is gunned down in the streets by a gynoid assassin as the party attempts to gather information about what they encountered, and the murders in Port Wander.

The squad of battle sisters that the party has been lugging around make contact with the Inquisition about the discovery of Necrons in the Expanse. Mechanical hit men make a game effort to kill the DH party's Inquisitor.

The Glorium Imperetor explodes at dock, heavily damaging navy facilities Several deactivated necrons are found among the debris.

The RT party agrees to a mutual defense pact with several other lesser Rogue Traders and offically form a joint venture, the Comission. The Comission approaches the Navy, and convinces them to sell them several decomissioned ships. The party gains a sword, a cobra, and the Hades class Fell Tidings . The Navy attaches observers to the Comission. Commodor Smythe's sixth flotilla is assigned to support the Comission's forces. Smythe brings his flagship, the Long Serpent Glorieux , the gothic class Hammerdown , and the Dictators Atropos and Hunter .

Rogue Trader Simpson Aurum limps into Port Wander, his cruiser, the Gold Horizon , had come under attack by strange crecent vessels near Footfall and barly escaped.

The Navy delivers the promised ships. All parties are horrified to discover that in thier centuries in mothballs, much of the weaponry had been stripped from them. Admiral Goto commits suicide for having mistakenly rearmed the ships with multilasers.

The Doomstrider reaches port, and relates that in transit from Peltast, and quickly rumors run wild of thier encounter with a strange, silent fleet of ancient pre-imperial ships.

...aaaand any further details beyond what the party allready knows will spoil the surprise.

BaronIveagh said:

BaronIveagh said:

What is the average rank of your players? How did they acquire such priceless relics, especially considering that even the most basic cruiser, the Lunar class, is extremely rare in the Calixias and surrounding sectors? Why would the Navy "loan" valuable ships of the line to chaotic individuals like RT's? Are they starting a Crusade?

Sorry if I seem a little exasperated, but giving players the wealth of a Sector fleet... I mean a light cruiser as flagship would be a sign of amazing success amongst Rogue Traders, something earned through decades of service. The Grand Cruiser seems like a ship that would be in the service of Greater Rogue Trader Dynasty, perhaps heralding from the time of the Great Crusade.

However, it's your game. If I were you though, and your players had relatively poor profit and a high amount of ships, I would have a literal fleet of opportunistic creditors descend upon them to take their payments in full knowing the players can only pay in ships.

Munchkin...

... you do realize you can start the game at level 1 with a tricked out dauntless loaded with archeotech, right? (profit factor sucks, but can be done.)

Players are rank 6. Profit factor has gone up and down, but is currently 58

Also, the ships presented is hardly the wealth of a sector fleet, which average 50-75 ships of the line (this would barely be a battlegroup). Some fleets have more then this. Some less. Remember that Calixis is just over the boarder (so to speak) from Hydraphur in segmentum pacificus. Cruisers are 'rare' in that they're rarely sold, not that they don't exist.

As far as the Navy 'loan' it's better to attach people you trust to a fleet you don't. and none of these are top shelf ships. The Long Serpent is almost as dangerous to it's allies as it's enemies, and rolls twice when taking critical hits. The two dictators are decent ships, but the Gothic is not the strongest fighter against shielded ships. The swords, the cobra and the raiders are rather fragile. As we found in Whispers, they don't stand up well to heavy fire. Fell Tidings and Righteous Path are the two strongest ships, and will probably survive (unless someone gets a run of bad luck).

*edit* Tonights game ended with the Rogue Traders narrowly defeating a seven ship necron raid on Footfall. The cobra and a sword were destroyed in the explosion of the Glorieux 's warp drive. The Hammerdown extensivly damaged a shroud class, another exploding under plasma and lance fire from the Path . Fell Tidings was extensivly damaged by the Scythe class that destroyed Glorieux but gave a good accounting of itself in the process. Two raiders and the second sword class were eliminated by a trio of Jackels. A fourth jackel was destroyed by defense platforms at Footfall. The necrons then withdrew as the two Dictators and the Dauntless reached the fighting, having been deployed coreward. (Both Dictators lost approx 1/2 their compliment of bombers,)

(The party jokes that this was the first time that I hadn't manged to kill the Dauntless.) */edit*

Fleet layout - 1 Lunar Cruiser (flagship, acquisitioned with an incredibly lucky roll), 1 Hazeroth raider (original ship) now captained by the group's seneschal, 1 armored transport (captain cobalt from the preview adventure), and 1 wolfpack raider (captained by the original captain that attempted the 2 ship ambush in said preview adventure). The fleet is rarely ever together, with captain cobalt and the pirate captain off conducting "buisness" at any given time.

Personal Layout (Shipboard)

Out of combat (space)

Rogue Trader - best quality omnisight plasma pistol on the hip, harlequin's kiss on right wrist, power sword on other hip, best quality armored bodyglove.

In Combat (space & ground)

Rogue Trader - same as above, but add best quality power armor (all it takes is one bridge hit that does 2d10 damage to everyone inside when you only have 8 wounds to realize, yup, even in space, put yer friggin armor on).

Formal functions

Rogue Trader - best quality serpentine, best quality armored bodyglove under best quality formal attire, sometimes with plasma pistol depending on mood or occassion.

Generally my Seneschal wears best quality power armor when not at formal occassion with the starting hellpistol and a pair of wrist mounted inferno pistols when on ship, when off he adds a bq chainsword and has recently added an eviscerator claimed in single combat to his repetoir.

Our navigator carries a puritan, a bolt pistol, bq light power armor, and a lathed longsword for non-formal occassions.

Our void master carries a bolt pistol, power sword, and bq flak great coat... to pretty much everything unless I force him to dress up the uncouth pirate he is.

Fear, loathing and mutation

BaronIveagh said:

Yeah but how many of those 75 ships are escorts? Assuming a moderate amount of small ships, that leaves you with about 15 cruiser+ vessels. The navy is going to loan, even dust balled as ships are never thrown away in the Navy, cruisers to what may well be a pack of pirates in their eyes? I don't look forward to the trouble you're going to have when you have to make new threats to your "cruisers are expendable" party.

To be more on topic though, my players are rank 4 and have a conservative flotilla of ships. It consists of their Archeotech fitted Havoc-class Merchant Raider the Final Remark , Free Captain Cann's Sword-class Frigate the Righteous Scorn , Free Captain Cobalt's Vagabond-class Merchant Trader the Penance of Iocanthos , and Vassal Captain Amadeus Jericho-class Pilgrim vessel the Rusty Aquila.

I've pretty much taken a liberal view on chartist captains, having one the loopholes in their charter stating that they can form a flotilla with a Rogue Trader in order to explore the unknown. While this doesn't give them the broad freedom's of Rogue Traders, it does give me more control on what ships my players get. If they have relatively low profit and are unable to pay their fellow captains cuts, then the ships in their fleet disband to seek greener grounds.

This doesn't mean that I don't allow them to buy ships, it's only that if they do so they really have to buy the ship. This includes paying for a licensed crew, captains, components, repairs, AdMech support, Navigator support, Astropath support, and as well as the license to own the vessel. Just seeking out chartered captain and negotiating a deal makes it all go so much faster. In fact in my WH40k this is what most RTs do to expand their fleet.

When they are actually purchasing the hull, as they did with the Rusty Aquila , I make it a long adventure. With the Aquila they first bought the heavily damaged hull of a refinery vessel. Then they had to purchase the various components need to convert her to an interstellar craft from other wrecks. Then they needed to rent an orbital construction yard. Then they had to negotiate with the AdMech to work on her. This involved journeying to outer Halo Stars to search for signs of the Disciples of Thule beginning a new adventure. After that, they had to find a Captain and crew willing to pilot the hulk. Heading out to Footfall, I had them do a little detective work to find Captain Amadeus, a disgraced naval captain who was on the verge of killing himself when the PCs found him. Some tests insued and soon they had him dressed and ready to pilot in his words "a stinking pile of warp bile". Then they used their contacts with the Admin to buy a cargo hold of prisoners. Month's later, after Amadeus had personally killed half of them, the crew was ready. No much longer, about a year, the Rusty Aquila was ready. Setting sail with five ships now, my three players are now determined to explored the pre-Imperial civilizations of the Heathen stars.

Personally my players are rather lightly armed. They do how make good use of air support and their Veteran Armsmen.

The Rogue Trader wears a suit of GQ Storm Trooper Carapace with Psychic Wards/Helmet System he found on the body of a dead Skitarri in Halo Stars. He also wields a GQ Plasma Pistol and one GQ Holy Power Sword. Oh and he has a refractor field, but I don't see how he needs because he hardly ever gets hit.

Our Void Master is wearing a heavily modified BQ Boarding Armor. His armaments include a satchel of Meltabombs, a GQ power sword, GQ bolt pistol, and an assortment of various devices he thinks will be of use at one time or another. Oh and he has a tricked out guncutter.

Lastly is our Explorator. He suits up in GQ Dragon Scale PA. He's also armed with a GQ Sollex Light Sword and a GQ Hellgun fitted with all many of things. His main thing is implants and boy does he have a lot them, so many that no matter how much he whines I will not list them here.

Oh and if you were wondering my players have a profit factor of 52(started at 20).

Edit: Sorry Explorator Player corrected me on what he uses. Rogue Trader Player too....