I'm aware of the numeric XP cost for reducing Insanity Points, 100 per point.

My question is this: Does XP spent in this way count for the purposes of advancing in rank?

My character has been a bit unlucky with rolls, and I've ended up with a whopping 18 Insanity Points despite being a bit under Rank 3. I'm really interested in the Templar Calix Career, but my high Insanity Point count means I'm ineligible. Even if I don't accrue any more, that's still 800 XP spent to bring me into eligibility.

I don't mind spending XP to qualify, but I am a bit worried about spending at least 1/3 of my Rank 4 XP that would otherwise go towards the skills I need to keep my character even remotely useful outside of combat (though obviously his focus WILL be combat-oriented, given the interest in Templar Calix).

So does spending XP on reducing Insanity Points count towards Rank Advancement, or does the XP cost have to go towards a characteristic, skill, or talent advancement from a career to count?

Well, the rules say (Gain Ranks, pg 42): Characters automatically gain Ranks by spending xp. Once a character's total spent xp reaches the necessary amount, the character's Rank increases.

Based on that, I would say that your xp spent to reduce Insanity counts toward your Rank.

I would agree with LuciusT, it is the total amount of XP spent that matters. So spending XP to reduce insanity would count towards your rank advancement.

I'd say it wouldn't count, as things like background packages, etc, don't count towards rank advancement either.

Plus, it doesn't make sense. You haven't learnt anything, you've just become less unhinged. Why should that let you learn better skills?

Wait, Backgrounds don't count towards Rank Advancement either?

My goodness...

Unusualsuspect said:

If you read the rules for them, no, they do not.

MILLANDSON said:

Ah, but to play devils-advocate, the rules for Backgrounds expressly say that they don't count for advancement. The rules for buying off insanity say nothing of the kind and the rules for advancement say any xp counts. So, barring errata and since no rule specifically states otherwise, but the dreaded RAW buying off insanity counts for advancement.

LuciusT said:

I suppose that if you go by that logic, then yes, it counts. However, to me, that makes little to no sense. And it doesn't mean the RAW says it counts, it means it can be interpreted as such

MILLANDSON said:

I agree with you that it makes no sense.... and after typing "RAW" I needed to go wash my hands to get the dirty feeling off.

I will refrain from a diatribe about the whole rank system not making sense and just say, yeah you could say it counts... or not. Ultimately, I'd say this is a GMs call and the OP should talk to his GM or (if he is the GM) his group, make a decision and stick to it for that campaign (at least).

I brought this question to the GM first, but frankly, our entire group is really quite new to the game... We're on our first characters, and we're not even Rank 3 yet.

When I asked, he wasn't sure himself, and he asked me what the forums I visited thought. Since I couldn't find anything with the search function, I figured I'd post.

What surprised me about the Background Packages was that I THOUGHT I read through it all, and didn't see it not applying to rank increases...

Unusualsuspect said:

Inquisitors Handbook, p26, Using Background Packages, 1st paragraph, 2nd sentence.

I brought this question to the GM first, but frankly, our entire group is really quite new to the game... We're on our first characters, and we're not even Rank 3 yet.

When I asked, he wasn't sure himself, and he asked me what the forums I visited thought. Since I couldn't find anything with the search function, I figured I'd post.

Wasn't a bad idea. Sadly, I think you will have to report that the forums do not have a consensus on the issue.

Honestly, until you mentioned it, I didn't know that you could buy off Insanity with xp.

Edit: Quote fail, hate this forum software

LuciusT said:

It is also possible to ask FFG directly using their Rules Questions facility: www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_faq.asp .

LuciusT said:

While I knew that IP could be bought off with XP I hadn't noticed that background packages did not count for rank advancement (although I don;t think we've used nay as yet so it hasn't really come up).

Asking the forums was less of a RAW question (Even new to the system, I'm generally a pretty good RAW interpreter), and more of a "what do experienced Dark Heresy gamers think?"

While I didn't get consensus, I got the general gist of either side, which I can relay to my GM and let him decide.

Overall, thanks to everyone who contributed! And for teaching me about the background packages thing... I've got one, so now I'm even FURTHER away from a Rank increase... Darn you all!

It would seem profoundly unfair to apply that XP to rank advancement, not to mention completely unrealistic in an RP sense.

The way we've done it in our games is as you accrue XP you dont level up till you have bought the skills, so in that sense you could just spend that XP on the Insanity instead...

But using XP for insanity would normally imply that it goes to rank advance.

As a GM, I wouldnt do it though.

I would not count XP spent on reducing insanity points against a character's cap. They would simply vanish "into the warp". This is already a very expensive option and to further punish the player by reducing their character's maximum potential seems quite petty. Say a character roleplays through some sort of soothing and restorative personal retreat and spends 500xp to make 5 pesky IP go away: Meanwhile one of his teammates increases an attribute, while the others pick up and improve on a handfull of skills and talents. Missing out on that in the short term is already a fair "cost" even in the grim 41st milennium. Making them miss out on such things on a permanent basis will only encourage the premature retirement of characters unfortunate enough to rack up a few ugly insanity rolls. There is even a school of thought that a certain amount of insanity points is GOOD, since it renders the character immune to "lesser" forms of fear... Once you have peeked under Cthulu's miniskirt you are no longer terrified by dead bodies, maybe even if the dead bodies are still moving.

ZillaPrime said:

It makes sense. Lets houserule it:

I suggest to:

• make the insanity score an open-ended value, with no maximum.
• instead of buying off insanity points, players buy sanity points (at the cost of 100xp per point).
• the drawback of insanity (madness), is related ot the "insanity minus sanity" total.
• give players bonus to willpower check against fear based on sanity score (maybe +5 bonus for every 10 sanity points?)
• xp spent in sanity points count toward player advancement.

Suhuy said:

No need to get complicated like this. The existing insanity rules already cover this sort of thing. A character is immune to fear from things with a fear rating of at least half of the tens-digit of their insanity points total. This is to say that a character with 21 IP is now immune to Fear 1. Several missions later the traumatized accolyte is now up to 46IP and is now immune to Fear 2 and below. He has seen friends devoured by tyranids, been exposed to screaming warp-demons, watched a few coleagues melt into puddles of goo due to some strange xenos device and personally made decisions that have condemned thousands to horrible deaths in order to save a city instead. Some big ugly mutant is no longer scary to this guy....

ZillaPrime said:

Correct. This also coincides more or less with the Degrees of Madness ; the exception being the Unsettled level which begins at 10 IP and therefore initially does nothing to mitigate a characters vulnerability to FEAR .

-=Brother Praetus=-