What's up with the characteristic advancement tables?

By ThenDoctor, in Dark Heresy

Anyone ever notice how swingy they are?

There's also a couple with 500 in both Expert and Veteran advances.

I never had any problems with characteristics. Advances schemes with 5 pages of Errata is another thing...

It's only an addition or removal here and there. I've written them all out before.

The 500 in both Expert and Veteran reflects that the stat comes easily to that career (Agility for the Scum and Assassin careers, for example, or Strength for the Guardsman). I don't know what you mean by "swingy", though.

The 500 in both Expert and Veteran reflects that the stat comes easily to that career (Agility for the Scum and Assassin careers, for example, or Strength for the Guardsman). I don't know what you mean by "swingy", though.

All the careers are pretty vastly different from one another.

Cleric has all either 100 or 250 beginning, Tech Priest doesn't have Fel at all. Psyker doesn't have a 500 expert and veteran.

All the careers are pretty vastly different from one another.

Tech Priest doesn't have Fel at all.

That's meant to reflect their lack of empathy! Hence why they substitute Int for Fel when interacting with other Mechanicus.

That's meant to reflect their lack of empathy! Hence why they substitute Int for Fel when interacting with other Mechanicus.

Where's that rule?

Where's that rule?

Think you'll find it in Lathe Worlds. I'm on my phone, so can't give page ref for it. Might even be in Lost Dataslate .

Formally it's available only to Crimson Guard characters - Heart of Steel trait, "The Lathe Worlds" p.40.

Edited by Jargal

That's meant to reflect their lack of empathy! Hence why they substitute Int for Fel when interacting with other Mechanicus.

Where's that rule?

Formally it's available only to Crimson Guard characters - Heart of Steel trait, "The Lathe Worlds" p.40.

Sorry for late reply, had hangover.

Jargal's right and I got it wrong.

(note to self: DON'T post about rules when out drinking!)

Basically, I mixed up rules for Crimson Guard and ascended Magos.

In DHP03 "Heed the Higher Call", P16, grey text box, "Knowledge is Power", allows a Magos to use Int instead of Fel for prerequisite on Peer and Good Reputation talents.

DH18, Lathe Worlds, P40, Trait: Heart of Iron, allows CG to use Int instead of Fel for ALL interactions with other Ad Mech.

HoS thus lets CG duplicate the effect of the talent "Whisper of Samadhi"(LW,P30), which permits Acuitor Mech-Assassins to use Int when attempting to Decieive other AdMech.

Hope that cleared up how I made the mistake!

.

The 500 in both Expert and Veteran reflects that the stat comes easily to that career (Agility for the Scum and Assassin careers, for example, or Strength for the Guardsman). I don't know what you mean by "swingy", though.

All the careers are pretty vastly different from one another.

Cleric has all either 100 or 250 beginning, Tech Priest doesn't have Fel at all. Psyker doesn't have a 500 expert and veteran.

Which is heavily balanced out by Psykers and Tech Priests having significantly more options than any other career in the game.

Guardsman have two 500's imho, to balance out the fact that by endgame a Guardsman is basically a stat tank, as they have FAR fewer options than other careers for Skills and Talents.

Alternative career "Factor of the Lathes"(DH18,LW,P45)allows Tech-priests to purchase Fel advances at 100/250/500/750.

Also has 4 Peer talents available with no prerequisite.

Alternative career"Cyber-mastiff Handler"(DH17,BoJ,P45)has Peer Arbites with prerequisite Int 30.

All the careers are pretty vastly different from one another.

Balancing advancement tables with a semi-fixed progression is always tricks the more stuff you pile on top; it's no wonder that there's going to be some cracks here and there.

I noticed that the one time I played a BoM Sororitas where you pretty much start out utterly broken (free power armour, provided the GM lets you keep it) but, thanks to excessive XP costs for raises, by late game end up the weak link in the chain as everyone else just overtakes you with more/quicker advancement purchases.

By contrast, the IH version of the career felt a lot more "linear", compared to other classes.

Yeah I never got to see a sister in play (no one wants to play a female exclusive career nor have me play one when I got the chance).

Honestly I don't see why they made an entire new career anyways and not just upped her Ascension level play or something.

no one wants to play a female exclusive career nor have me play one when I got the chance

Honestly, that sounds a bit worrying in regards to your group...

Honestly I don't see why they made an entire new career anyways and not just upped her Ascension level play or something.

At a guess: recognition value.

Thanks to GW at times forgetting they exist, they aren't nearly as popular as Space Marines, but the Battle Sisters are still a fairly well-known entity in the setting (at the very least following their appearance in the successful Dawn of War videogame), and the perfect avatar for conveying the imagery of grimdark religious zeal combined with elite training as well as equipment that's regarded as a staple to the setting (power armour and bolters). There's nothing better before you're getting to the Astartes themselves, the Black Templars in particular.

That being said, one of the Black Industries game designers had a Battle Sister avatar on the old forums, so ... who knows, it may have also been personal bias. When FFG took over the license, they just forgot that Sororitas are a thing for a while (not even including their career in Ascension at first, which was later remedied with a supplemental PDF), but when they resorted to publish BoM as a sourcebook on the Imperial Church, they probably felt they had to include them again.

I sorta agree that adding them to Dark Heresy may have been a bit of a strange decision as it limits their power portrayal in the interest of gameplay balance, but at the same time Black Industries was quite clever by letting them start out as mere novices, only becoming fully-fledged Sisters at mid to late game, so that the game had an excuse for starting your 16 y/o girl out "just" as good as the other characters who would usually come from less vaunted ways of life.

FFG's BoM is, of course, the odd one in that it tried to let you start as a power-armoured, bolter-wielding battle nun -- but I was happy to see them returning to BI's earlier take on Sororitas (including the more vague nature of Acts of Faith, rather than blatant space magicks) with DH2's Enemies Within.

Edited by Lynata

You don't get to control what people are comfortable with.

Who said anything about control?

But hey, if your comfort isn't impeded by lack of tolerance, cool. It just sounded as if you were actually sad about something for a moment.

It's a roleplaying game at the end of the day. I like exploring different roles.

I'm not going to have a fit at my group if they don't want to roleplay with a girl. I can use NPCs for that (Arkadia Flavion was used to good effect when I ran Haarlock's Legacy).

I also didn't suggest throwing tantrums, especially as that would hardly help with things.

It was an expression of sympathy, but you don't have to take it if it's not wanted.

We can now return to the original topic. :P