Hello Dark Heresy fans!

This week I have a special designer diary about Talents of Influence in Ascension. In addition, I am pleased to present the first preview for Ascension and a new wallpaper, both of which you can download from the Dark Heresy Support Page. Enjoy!

Preview Tech Priest Mago stuff next! Thanks in advance!

The Berserker Paragon Talent looks mighty sweet.

Thank you, Ross! Best teaser for Ascension yet... actual info! The PDF is GREAT and answers so many questions! I'm gonna go out on a limb here and guess that those very questions and the fallowing proclamations that the sky is falling got that released in which case, we need to do that more often ;-)

It's not big secret that Dark Heresy acolytes have the ability to all gain skills and talents in broad areas, so it's not uncommon for everyone to be able to dodge, inquire, and shoot decently with the same sort of weapons, for example, while maintaining unique niches of interest or talent the others can't match.

Considering I'm still not sure what prerequisites are required for these lore masteries, it seems feasible to me that just about everyone will be able to pick up masteries in identical fields because most acolytes have the capacity to pick up their fair share of skills and talents in those areas. How will this impact gameplay, especially amongst groups where there are multiple characters playing the same class?

So far, the only options I see are:

A) everyone inevitably ends up with the same broad skill masteries, more or less (since everyone has access to a reasonable amount of physical, mental, and lore-based skills in their acolyte years), in which case the only difference between characters mechanically is their characteristics and which 'fields' they get their extra DoS to. This however boils the characters down to simply characteristics and thus lucky dice rolls back in rank 1.

B) Throne Agents will have a limited spectrum of masteries they can 'officially' purchase - that is, masteries on their advance scheme. But this then begs the question - what else do they spend their shiny new buckets of XP on? Buying prerequisites for their masteries? Buying contacts and allies (see IH)? Just going back through ranks 1-8 and picking up all the neat stuff they never had time for? Or will there be a generous amount of new 'mundane' skills and talents available through these ranks?

I ask because I'm finding it very difficult to come up with, in my mind, enough 'stuff' for throne agents to buy their way through their next 8 ranks without resorting to exhausting their throne agent advances and reverting to characteristic advances to make up the XP (see Rogue Trader) or just going back to their acolyte advances (can we even do that?) and buy from the remaining ~30,000XP there (in which case why buy Ascension?)

Is there another option I've missed somewhere which clarifies this?

Sorry dear FFG folks ... but Common Lore Mastery, Scholastic Mastery, Forbidden Lore Mastery and especially Tech Lore Mastery just seem entirely hilarious to me.

The so-called simplifications offered by the Mastered Skills just reek of munchkinism.

Some of the Paragon Talents actually seem to make sense, so I might be pleasantly surprised by that chapter in Ascension yet, wouldn't count on it though.

As for Influence traits ... smells to much like Rogue Trader's acquisition system to me. Personally I don't like game mechanics to represent things (resources in this case) which are and should be gained via roleplay first and foremost. From my personal experience I am inclined to say systems like that tend to cut down on the roleplay of 'weaker' roleplayers even more, while good roleplayers can't be bothered with them.

Malefic Sorcerer said:

You missed out quite a few rhetorical fallacies, were you trying for the complete set?

Now that you make me think of it ... no, I wasn't.

Honestly, what's wrong with you ? I find you picking on me at every opportunity. A forum is supposed to be a place where everyone can express concerns and thoughts freely, perhaps you missed that part ? Or you have insights us mere mortals can't even begin to comprehend ...

It appears the base model for Frenzy has a +10 to WS, SB, TB, and WP, and a -20 to BS and Int. that's quite a bump including you no longer have to all-out attack.

What are the Frenzy rules in RT are they the same in DH or more like whats up there???

Malefic Sorcerer said:

I've done so twice and certainly not taken up every opportunity.

Your post here stated that (in your opinion) the Influence system wouldn't be used by 'good' roleplayers and would hamper weak ones.

It breaks down like this:

If my group use the Influence system (which they do) then from your biased statement of opinion, they have to be weak roleplayers and, moreover, are using the system as a crutch to their roleplaying. You've already dismissed the possibility of 'good' roleplayers using it after all.

The Hobo Hunter said:

New Talents, Influence Talents, Mastered Skills (no class can take every mastered skill and there's enough differentiation to keep the characters feeling different, even if you assume a character is solely their characteristics, talents and skills), existing skills, existing talents (more sound constitution for example) and characteristic advances.

Just as how a DH character still has plenty to spend their XP on when they max out at level 8, so do Ascension characters not lack for options on where to spend their XP.

At the higher ranks, it's less about the what and more about the how. Or, to be more specific, Influence Talents can be a really big part of the game, The Drive Skill rarely creates a plot, Acolyte Network certainly can (and is, given my group's Inquisitor is aiming for a spymaster approach and is working on building up his network at the moment).

Evilref said:

Finally, the first sigh of relief I can utter about Dark Heresy: Ascension.

The Hobo Hunter said:

Different Ascended careers have different areas of emphasis. There's overlaps but no career is an exact copy of another. Plus there are other things aside from the advance schemes to differentiate careers.

Another question I feel has been unanswered: How much leeway is there for two characters of identical career to be different to each other?

The Hobo Hunter said:

More, I think, than with core DH characters. Obviously there's going to be skill/talent overlap, but if they each take a different transition package and <other stuff> then they can certainly have different abilities other than their skills and talents.

Albeit not the same Ascended careers, but my game has a Stormtrooper and a Crusader. Both started out as Guardsmen. They're very different to eachother, there's overlaps for sure but in no way do they feel the same in play.

What about, say, two stormtroopers, both from guardsman paths? Two acolyte-level guardsmen could be radically different or completely identical. In Ascension, if we took a pair of otherwise identical guardsmen and made them both stormtroopers, how different could they be by the end of Ascension?

Basically, what I'm getting at here is: How much variety and scope for difference exists within the choices contained in a particular Throne Agent career alone?

For the editor's to note, I'd take a look at the redundancy of wording in the Purchasing Paragon Talents subsection of the Gaining Paragon Talents section, page 104 (page 5 of 6 of the preview).

Looking at what is being revealed in the DH Designer Diary Ascension is shaping up nicely.

I like the idea of 'positive' and 'negative' influence - the idea of an acolyte graduation to Throne Agent/Inquisitor, on the way making friends and enemies. Having to be careful how they treat people on the way up, because one day they may face them when their world comes crashing down around them - in a similar fashion to th events detailed in the Eisenhorn novel.

Elsewhere...

Though I had to re-read the passages in the pdf several times, and agree with Unusualsuspect that some of the wording needs proof-reading, I like what I see.

The concept of specialities purchased for skill mastery reminds me of the old Dark Ages: Vampire/WoD system for Talents/Skills/Knowledges (don't honestly know if the current WoD stuff kept with it). I'm not clearly sure why Ascension implements this on top os the skill mastery, which gives a +20 mastery to the skill grouping before the automatic success, though I suspect it allows for differentiation in abilities between the Throne Agents/Inquisitors. With all the other little edges and advantages acquired as an acolyte I suspect the Throne Agent is going to need all them when they are playing in the big league...

Though I wonder if there is enough space on the character sheet for throne agents to make a note of such specialisations next to the skill mastery, especially if a throne agent chooses more than one - for say Forbidden Skill Mastery (e.g. F/Lore [inquisition] and F/Lore [Ordo Malleus] specialities).

But as with all things I'll have to wait and see...

I'd like to see exactly how these specialisations work. Is the +1 success conditional on getting any successes? or can you have 0 successes, and does it negate degrees of failure?

Given the page numbers on the preview, it seems pretty clear to me that this is actually a snapshot of the actual book - what you see text-wise for the specialization tests is what we're probably getting.

As written, I'd guess they'd work like extra degrees of success already do in DH - if you succeed, you succeed by 1 more degree of success. If you fail, you fail by any degrees of failure as normal.

A bit less serious, but did anyone catch the file name on the picture of the Stormtrooper and the Adept?

"just_take_the_damn_gun_final_Eckert"

numb3rc said:

No, I hadn't... But that is AWESOME!!!

And on topic, so far I've been liking the things I'm seeing for Ascension.

-=Brother Praetus=-

numb3rc said:

I noticed. I found it quite amusing, to say the least. It's exactly what I thought was going on by the expressions of the people involved.

I just want to tank you guys for fixing the interaction of Frenzy and Battle Rage with the Berserker paragon talent. Ive been playing my character with frenzy for more then a year now, and have only used frenzy 2 times because of the problems it had.

I can't wait for Ascension to come out.

numb3rc said:

I did indeed notice the file name and was amused. What I noticed first though was the armour... There is at least one more Kasrkin serving the Calixis Conclave! Oh, the amusing RP possibilities of a chance meeting in the Tricorn.... Given a Cadian, I am forced to assume that "just take the **** gun" is the EDITED version of the conversation since no slander of the adept's mother, physical condition or improbable sexual misadventures was made.

Yeah, it was probably something closer to "Just take the damned gun you filthy *censored for purity* with a fork!".

I do so wish this book was already out...

BYE