Hey all, new Dark Heresy player here!
Just wondering if I'm the only one who thinks that it's odd that a Sister of Battle requires an Influence score of 50, whilst the Canoness RC only has an Influence of 41.
Sister of Battle Influence Requirement
Where do you see SoB Reinforcement Character? I can only seem to find the Canoness who has an minimum Influence of 50 - p.296 Core Rulebook.
They've stated before that npcs do not have to follow the same rules as player characters in terms of creation. I asked about a couple of npcs from Damned cities once and that's the answer I got.
Where do you see SoB Reinforcement Character? I can only seem to find the Canoness who has an minimum Influence of 50 - p.296 Core Rulebook.
I mean her personal Influence score (which is 41), not the Influence of the PCs summoning them.Where do you see SoB Reinforcement Character? I can only seem to find the Canoness who has an minimum Influence of 50 - p.296 Core Rulebook.
My mistake, as ThenDoctor mentions, PCs and NPC are rarely at a 1:1 ratio for their Attributes, Talents, and Skills.
The Canoness RC is pretty underpowered in general, compared to others and considering her station. It's also worth noting that she isn't very compatible to the SoB rules in EW in general, as her Acts of Faith work by a totally different model, namely the one from DH1 BoM, which was presented as an alternative to Black Industries' original rules in the Inquisitor's Handbook.
In short, the Canoness RC seems closer to DH1 BoM (which preceded the DH2 core rulebook) than DH2 EW (which, being a supplement for DH2, of course is the newest source), and I'd recommend building your own Sororitas Reinforcement Characters based on the latter.
That being said, if you *do* want to look for a potential in-universe explanation without houseruling anything, I suppose you could also attribute the Influence scores to the PC simultaneously being a member of the Sisterhood as well as the Inquisition, and her Influence being an amalgamation of her pull within both?
PS: Welcome and have fun!
Edited by LynataThat or the NPC in question spent Influence on something else after attaining the rank. You don't have to keep 50 Inf or anything after becoming a sister.
Thanks all!
As a follow up (but completely unrelated) question... are there any rules in place for mass combat/large battles? I'm still reading over the book, and learning the setting lore more intimately (LOVING it so far though!).
I am considering, since I have quite a few friends who play Warhammer 40K with diverse armies, letting them play out those battles using the normal wargame rules, albeit with army strengths and situations that make sense for the "in game" scenario. What happens then can become part of the RP storyline! Of course, this is just assuming that there are no rules in effect already - if there are, I'd rather stick with those. (This was just a fun way that I could get my other friends - who like their wargaming - involved.)
Come join our 40k GM server on Discord! I know that a bunch of our members have already done mass-combat rules and can help you out.
Invite code:
zBF5GFg
I believe the Rogue Trader and Only War games have both attempted to insert mass combat rules via some of their supplements (I don't recall which ones in particular right now, but it should be easy to find out). Needless to say, those are other game lines, but as they all use similar d100-based mechanics, they should be easy to adapt to Dark Heresy 2.
Don't shy back from looking at other players' homebrewed rules or even coming up with your own stuff, though! Part of the fun and one of the biggest advantages of P&P over videogames is the ability to change or expand the rules with your own ideas. This can be especially important with a setting like 40k, where lack of a uniform canon can result in some material running in opposition to your preferred interpretation from other official sources.
This is probably more of a possibility for your friends, as you yourself are still in the process of discovering the setting without previosuly established expectations. However, even then it may just be that some fans (or you!) come up with something that simply works better than what's printed in the books, and as long as everyone on your table agrees on it, there's no reason you should feel bound to RAW just for its own sake. The rules-as-written are, in the end, a standard and a common ground, but not gospel. The people at FFG themselves kept experimenting on those rules, too, which is why they change and evolve from one book to the next. No reason that you shouldn't get creative as well. It can be quite fun, especially with a system that is as open as DH2!
And I think combining the RPG with the wargame could be a great way to increase interest among your friends. Games Workshop once did something similar when they published campaign rules that add a sort of strategic layer on top of the battle scenarios -- your approach would just be the other way around, by adding an indidivual RPG element below the battles.
Example:
The party requisitions one or two squads of troopers from the governor's security forces. As the mission objective is attacked by enemy forces, the game briefly switches to 40k tabletop rules as every player gets several soldiers to command in an attempt to repel the attackers. The player
characters
do not participate, but the outcome of the miniature battle will decide if the attackers break through the perimeter or not -- the former would then trigger a traditional RPG battle vs the PCs, its difficulty based on how many enemies are left alive.
Edited by Lynata
As a follow up (but completely unrelated) question... are there any rules in place for mass combat/large battles? I'm still reading over the book, and learning the setting lore more intimately (LOVING it so far though!).
Only War has the most recent mass combat rules if I remember correctly.
The Only War core rulebook has some decent mass combat rules with some other stuff available in Enemies of the Imperium. It generally didn't get much larger than a single battle.
Rogue Trader had mass combat rules in Citadel of Skulls (one of the adventure books) which dealt with a planetary invasion if I remember correctly.
Black Crusade also had some pretty abstract rules for mass combat in Tome of Blood from memory and they even had interplanetary warfare in the form of a Black Crusade in Tome of Decay. At that point though you're basically not playing with any of the standard rules so feel free to invent something that works best for you.
I don't own any of the 1st edition rulebooks, unfortunately.
We've tried mixing the miniature war-game with the RPG, and it's gone very well! It means that no-one can ever truly predict how things will go, and players have to think on their feet more and more as they find themselves facing potentially overwhelming odds.
My group used 40K to role-play/fight the Siege of Vraks, the GM converting our characters to 40K (giving them 2 Wounds, special equipment). I am currently getting ready to run 40K battles to fight out the war in Apostasy Gambit (from original Dark Heresy). Here is the link to that discussion:
https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/144897-apostasy-gambit-part-iii-40k-version/
~ alemander
What does this mean with in-Universe terms? Normally she doesn't have influence
to the other (arbitrary) Orders
while herself detached, unless she has particularly great reputation? Not sure, this may be a feature.
