Okay, new update, here's what's changed:

• The Character Creation chapter is done, including adding in some fluff text and sections on spending XP and starting thrones. Nothing fancy here, just filling in stuff that needs to be there. It's also prettied up a fair bit, now that I've got the text mostly finalised (there's always room for tweaks and additions).
• Corruption rules received some slight tweaks. I decided it was a bit TOO easy for malignancies to **** you up; now the table goes up to 120, so it's impossible to get a mutation or a really nasty result on a flat roll. But now each malignancy or mutation you already have adds 5 to the roll, in addition to the 10 added for each point you go over your threshold. So being heavily tainted already, or being exposed to large Corruption hits are both big risk factors for mutation.
• As stated above, buncha new talents, some from Star Wars, some original. I tried to be selective with what I brought over from SW, only taking a small selection of stuff that really suits the themes of Dark Heresy. The talent section is kinda ugly formatting wise at the moment; I'll tidy it up soon.
• We now have Fear rules! Heavily based on those provided in Genesys' Horror tone, with some modifications (and a proper table for spending symbols, rather than loose guidelines). The trauma half of these is coming soon, and will also be based on Genesys' horror rules.

Here's a link , check it out and let me know what you think. Are the talents enough? Anything you think is missing? Ideas for the Fear table are very welcome too.

Doot doot, another update done. Here's what's new

• The Gear section is done. Now all I need to do is grenades, weapon mods and armour mods and the entire Armoury chapter is done! The gear section is very bare aesthetically; I'll jazz it up soon.
• Trauma rules are in. They might be a little rough around the edges; give them a look and let me know what you think.
• Starting to build up some NPC traits, so that building the actual NPCs is easier.
• General proofreading, aesthetic and balance changes. Nothing exciting there.

Link

@Tom Cruise Just skimmed through it, looks good.

But what poked me into the eye, is that with multiple arms a creature could make an additional move maneuvre.

It should be a non-move maneuvre. And Additional Legs should allow an additional only-move maneuvre.

Also, not quite sure how 5T stands in relation to 1D. Guess that needs some live testing maybe.

The multiple arms thing is just lifted directly from how multiple arms function in Edge of the Empire. Do agree that it seems a little weird using both maneuvers to move though, I might change it. As for the 5T vs 1D thing that's literally lifted directly from Genesys' trauma rules, and I think it's pretty reasonable; you don't want traumas happening too often, but relying on upgraded checks (which won't be super common) doesn't work too well.

This is impressive.

It looks like Tech-Use replaces Mechanics, but there's still a number of mentions of Mechanics.

There's a *lot* of lore skills. I understand that normally, knowing one of these things doesn't get you the other information, but it damages the balance. In a normal campaign with a single Knowledge skill, that skill gets used about as much as another skill like Perception. It's hard to imagine each of the individual lore skills coming into play that often, making them a trap option. They don't have to be as valuable as the combat skills, but they're probably not even close. Perhaps if it was just Lore and Forbidden Lore, it might work better.

Multiple magic skills is fine, since any individual character is generally only going to use one, and they actually do use it a lot. In fact, for the base Genesys setting, the developers figured they'd use it too often, so the mechanics push the player to invest in Knowledge as well.

It may make sense to combine Melee (Light) and Melee (Heavy), like the modern setting. Given how much melee there is in this universe, keeping them distinct is also reasonable.

8 hours ago, Tom Cruise said:

The multiple arms thing is just lifted directly from how multiple arms function in Edge of the Empire. Do agree that it seems a little weird using both maneuvers to move though, I might change it. As for the 5T vs 1D thing that's literally lifted directly from Genesys' trauma rules, and I think it's pretty reasonable; you don't want traumas happening too often, but relying on upgraded checks (which won't be super common) doesn't work too well.

My thoughts. It just seems odd.

4 hours ago, ubik2 said:

This is impressive.

It looks like Tech-Use replaces Mechanics, but there's still a number of mentions of Mechanics.

There's a *lot* of lore skills. I understand that normally, knowing one of these things doesn't get you the other information, but it damages the balance. In a normal campaign with a single Knowledge skill, that skill gets used about as much as another skill like Perception. It's hard to imagine each of the individual lore skills coming into play that often, making them a trap option. They don't have to be as valuable as the combat skills, but they're probably not even close. Perhaps if it was just Lore and Forbidden Lore, it might work better.

Multiple magic skills is fine, since any individual character is generally only going to use one, and they actually do use it a lot. In fact, for the base Genesys setting, the developers figured they'd use it too often, so the mechanics push the player to invest in Knowledge as well.

It may make sense to combine Melee (Light) and Melee (Heavy), like the modern setting. Given how much melee there is in this universe, keeping them distinct is also reasonable.

Aye, there should be more lore skills. Didn't check those until recently.

Knowledge is rare in 40k, and kept tightly secure. Knowing things in Dark Heresy was always considered something of worth. I'd keep that.

Well, as a GM, one can easily add more. Those mentioned by Tom Cruise seem to be the basics.

But adding a list for additional Forbidden, Scholastic, and Common Lores, would be great.

5 hours ago, Hugh Salamando Filth said:

Aye, there should be more lore skills. Didn't check those until recently.

I seem to have expressed my point poorly. While in the setting there are a lot of lore skills, it doesn't work well mechanically to reproduce that in Genesys, since the cost of the skill is the same as the cost of other skills that are more commonly used.

I could be off base on this, and if your campaigns have encounters being won by lore checks more often than combat checks, splitting knowledge up makes sense.

Another approach is to have a T1 talent for access to each forbidden lore, while still having a single Knowledge skill.

One thing I have considered is making Forbidden Lore and Scholastic Lore into the two lore skills, and then having a Tier 1 talent which you can take to pick specialisations, providing a handful of boosts or maybe upgrades to a specific topic.

So you might have a few ranks in the forbidden lore skill, and then a couple of talents that are like, Specialist (Orks), Specialist (Cults), which improve your rolls on those specific subjects.

Thanks for the heads up about all the instances of Mechanics showing up by the way, I'll run a quick find and replace.

2 hours ago, Tom Cruise said:

One thing I have considered is making Forbidden Lore and Scholastic Lore into the two lore skills, and then having a Tier 1 talent which you can take to pick specialisations, providing a handful of boosts or maybe upgrades to a specific topic.

So you might have a few ranks in the forbidden lore skill, and then a couple of talents that are like, Specialist (Orks), Specialist (Cults), which improve your rolls on those specific subjects.

Aye, that sounds good.

New version! Here's what's new and improved:

• Realised the character creation chapter didn't have a bit about determining motivations. Added a little paragraph on that in; just advises people to use the Genesys guidelines, nothing fancy.
• As discussed above, knowledge skills have been distilled down to two skills; Scholastic Lore and Forbidden Lore. Supplementing these is a new talent; Specialist Knowledge, which allows you to pick a particular topic your character is knowledgeable in and reduce the difficulty of all tests pertaining to that topic. This talent can be purchased multiple times (it's not ranked, though, just a 5XP investment each time).
• Force Fields are added into the armour section. They provide a defence rating (no soak, although you still benefit from your armour's soak), but short out if an enemy attack generates four advantages or a triumph.
• Armour attachments are in. I think the current list is pretty good, but if you think there's anything crucial that's missing, let me know.
• Added a quick little note on item Rarity and how it can vary from planet to planet, including an example table. Fairly barebones, basically the same concept as Star Wars operates on. Makes it harder to find a meltagun on a Feudal World.
• Added some art here and there to pretty things up, and made the formatting more consistent; the whole book should have pretty unified styling and formatting now, previously it was a bit slapdash.

Things still to include:

• Weapon attachments, for ranged and melee weapons
• Grenades
• The last four Perils tables
• NPC Stats

Getting pretty close to a 1.0 release here! I may have it done before tonight is over.

Here's a link to the latest PDF.

Alright, not quite there but the end is in sight. This is pretty much a playable game at this point, if you're okay with making up your own NPC stats.

• All Perils tables are done. They're a little rough at the moment and are probably something I'll want to revise a fair bit, but at least they're there. Let me know what you think about them, and suggest any tweaks.
• Weapon attachments are done! Whole bunch of them for melee and ranged weapons.
• Grenades and explosives are statted up.

All I've really got left to do is the following;

• Do the rest of the NPC profiles. This shouldn't take a lot of time.
• Include a small foreward, with some acknowledgements and a basic legal disclaimer (really should have had this all along but I guess I like to live dangerously?)
• Go over the whole book with a fine-tooth comb for typos, balance issues and anything else that sticks out.

Once that's done we're ready for a 1.0 release, and then I can start looking at what post-release content I want to do outside of the obligatory errata.

Now more than ever it's a good time to go over everything in here and tell me if you think anything is wonky; I'm gonna be shifting into polishing mode soon considering we're almost content complete, so any input will help me immensely.

Anyway, I'll stop waffling, here's the link .

I just realised. My players really enjoy and use those special Background and Role traits (2nd ED.).

Can that be somehow implemented? Or would it disturb GNS' mechanics too much?

Things which jumped me in the eye while "sort of" skimming:

Besides of all that:

Awesome job. A hundred pages of quality conversion in less than two week. Just great!

Alright, thanks heaps for all the feedback, I'll give my thoughts below.

I'm either blind, or there's no Luminen Blast .
I thought you were wrong, but upon checking, you're right. Very odd, I definitely wrote up the talent, guess it got lost in the shuffle somehow. I'll add it back in soon (although it'll likely be named Luminen Shock (Improved) to keep up with Genesys language).

Pers. I think a Melta Bomb should have Encumbrance 3. Standard packs weigh ~10-15kg and are chunky and quite large.
I see no issue with this, I'll make the change.

Something I actually missed in the originals: Bionics have limitless power. I'd have them have some sort of energy cell management (unless linked to an AdMech's Potentia Coil), or have to be maintained using the usual rules. Also, they should have Hard Points, maybe depending on their quality. That'd be especially interesting for Tech Priests.
I've slapped a bit of limitation on some of the Bionics; Luminen Capacitors inflict strain when they generate threat, and Maglev coils drain their power cells with each use. As for a whole system for powering cybernetics, I'd be a bit reluctant, honestly. It sounds like an extra layer of resource management in a system that tries to avoid adding too much of that. Cybernetics already have the limiting factor of chipping away at your strain threshold, and costing a decent amount of thrones (although I do need to re-evaluate pricing in general, I feel item prices are a bit inconsistent as is). As for hard points, that's a really interesting idea, but not something I think I'll expand on yet. I've got plans to do expansions on this system in future in the form of supplement PDFs, so I'll keep that idea in mind for when the time comes to get onto additional content.

*various typo corrections*
Thanks heaps for this stuff, all fixed now. Really helps getting these issues pointed out.

How Perils are achieved should be better highlighted. I was just searching for about 2min until I found it.
That's a fair point. I'll probably whack them under their own title so that they're easier to spot."

Some simple QoL feature: I will be printing this a few times and have it glued to a small booklet. It would be of tremendous help and convenience if tables are on the same page of descriptions. Especially with all the psychic additional effects. Fill the pages with some images. Personally, I'd rather have a few pages more than turning the pages over and over. Also, sometimes it's not quite clear which table goes to which descriptions. One can easily get confused.
This is great feedback, taking a look at it now and that section is pretty messy. I'll try to tweak the formatting so tables and their powers are more clearly connected.

On closer reading, I'm not sure I'm quite happy with the mutations. Just "a few" malginancies can, although with a super low chance , turn the character into a daemon like creature. But something more progressive would be nice. You displayed 21 mutations. I'd rather see something like, if rolling on mutations, roll a D10 plus five for each mutation the PC already has. On a list ranging 1-50. I've always seen mutations to be a creepy slow process, not some sudden outburst into a creature with tentacles, claws, and snouts with arm-long fangs dribbling with toxic saliva. I'm seeing this in perspective of my current campaign: Guys hired by a Tzeentch cult with the ultimate goal to prevent the resurrection of some holy hero of the empire. I wouldn't want my players to "suddenly" been taken out of the game because malignancies and mutations actually are rewards for their dark deeds. And a progressive take on these feels more rewarding for them while for Acolytes it can be heavily terrifying in the long run trying to live with the mutations (if they refuse to sign up for the next possible cremation like any law-abiding citizen of the Imperium should do). Just my thoughts to that.
The malignancies and mutations system is a pretty close emulation of the one in the original Dark Heresy, or at least that's the design intent. There, your first roll could theoretically have you turning into a horrible mutant, although the chances were low. But to some extent I do agree with you; it shouldn't really be a possibility for the PC's first slip up with corruption to result in them effectively becoming unplayable. I like your idea a lot; it reminds me a lot of the malignancy system from the Dark Heresy 2e beta, where you had a table from 1-30, and the roll you made was only 2d10, plus your corruption bonus. So the only way to get the worst results was to already be at a very high corruption level. As for making malignancies rewarding, I think that's also something I could draw on DH2e's beta for; it was big on the idea that most malignancies had beneficial qualities, but they were qualities you could only draw on if you suffered Corruption.

In regards to the "Multiple Arms" issue: Add Quadruped (unless it's already mentioned in the GNS CRB)?
I've sort of shelved the NPC traits section until I go in and start writing up NPC profiles, but I'll definitely add this in when I get to that point.

Front page colours inverted? Make it more gloomy and "dark". Hehe. (While not printer-friendly i'd look better.)
Might be an idea, I'll see how it looks. Intention has always been to offer two versions of the PDF anyway (one printer friendly, high filesize version, one intended for computer viewing).

@Tom Cruise

Bionics : Yea, you make a fair point. Scratch that. (Except maybe the Hard Points part.)

Mutations : I'm aware that untrained people playing with fire can be immediately possessed or die horribly otherwise when opening a channel into the Immaterium. DH Characters die easily enough already and the PCs should feel themselves spiralling downwards into Darkness. But the PCs, no matter if Acolytes of the Inquisition or chosen by the Ruinous Powers, they shouldn't die off by too fast.

Multiple Arms : Just my two Thrones. I know plenty people who be like: "But it's not stated in the rules." or "But it's stated otherwise." Blah blah. There are plenty of people out there. ^^

Apologies for the lack of posting yesterday, I've started a new full time job so activity might be a little slower.

Anyway, having gone over things in more detail there's a lot I want to tweak, so 1.0 might still be a little way's away, but here's what I've got for today.

• Typo fixes. Lots of 'em. Probably still more to go!
• Psyker section is completely reformatted; easier to find important stuff, easier to figure out what tables go with what powers, and easier to read those tables. I still need to go in and tweak each Perils table; they kinda suck for now, although I've got Biomancy to a pretty good place.
• Corruption rules are redesigned as discussed above. Malignancies and Mutations are merged onto one table, going from 1-30. Players roll a d10, adding 5 for each malignancy they already have, and 1 for each point by which they exceed their Corruption Threshold.
• Formatting in general has received some tweaks; dice symbols look better, and so do tables. This isn't properly reflected across the entire PDF; that'll roll out as I finalize each chapter.
• The formatting for the NPC chapter is locked in, although the content itself is lacking.
• Added a legal disclaimer and some thanks at the back of the book, as well as contact details and a link to this thread.

Going forward, here's the plans

• Re-evaluate how I'm handling pricing of items; I think it might be a bit wonky at the moment, needs a close look.
• Update everything to the new formatting standards.
• Go back over the Perils tables and tweak appropriately.
• Finish up the NPC chapter.

I think the end is in sight, for the first release anyway. Keep hunting down typos, it helps immensely.

Link!

@Tom Cruise

Great reformatting. So much more pleasant to read.

Thanks for the acknowledgement!

I'll go read the rest more in-depth later this week.

This is stunningly good!

Thank you!

Genesys has finally arrived to my country, and I got a copy. Your conversion will be probably the first thing I will play with my friends, before I try to make something on my own.

No PDF today unfortunately, would have to do a lot of time wasting cleanup to get what I'm working on now in a releasable state. Regardless; here's how things are coming along:

• Yet more typo fixes.
• Formatting made more consistent across the whole book, and hopefully more legible. All tables now have alternating row fills between white and light grey, makes it easier to differentiate rows between the mess of numbers, and stops the Aquila in the background making things more confusing with the small font sizes. Dice symbols also look much better now that I've figured out how to tweak font stroke options.
• The NPC section got redesigned aesthetically a little. I wasn't pleased with the 4x4 grid; it was efficient, but cluttered and ugly. I've opted for something a bit less space saving, but I think substantially less ugly.

Ignore the janky quality in some spots; this is a screenshot right out of InDesign, not the PDF, there's no fancy image processing happening.

After checking over item pricing I don't think I'm too displeased with it, not anywhere near as much as I thought I was. How do other people find it? Consistent enough?

Also, here's the list of all the NPCs that should be in the Dramatis Personae section when it's done. Goal is not to cover every possible option, but to have a wide enough variety of concepts that GMs can easily fill the gaps themselves:

• Arbitrator (Rival)
• Astropath (Rival)
• Battle Sister (Rival)
• Bounty Hunter (Rival)
• Citizen (Minion)
• Cult Fanatic (Rival)
• Cult Initiate (Minion)
• Cult Magus (Nemesis)
• Combat Servitor (Rival)
• Deathwatch Marine (Nemesis)
• Enforcer (Minion)
• Ganger Juve (Minion)
• Ganger Heavy (Rival)
• Ganger Matriarch (Nemesis)
• Gun Servitor (Rival)
• Heretek (Rival)
• Industrial Servitor (Minion)
• Imperial Guardsman (Minion)
• Imperial Guardsman Sergeant (Rival)
• Merchant Magnate (Rival)
• Ministorum Preacher (Rival)
• Mutant Dreg (Minion)
• Mutant Abomination (Rival)
• Noble (Rival)
• Recidivist Scum (Rival)
• Servo-skull/Cherub (Rival)
• Storm Trooper (Rival)
• Tech-Adept (Minion)
• Witch (Rival)

@Tom Cruise

I have a late idea about Roles (from 2nd ED).

You have careers have only 4 Career Skills.

Just a thought that sprung up: Adding Roles to act as Specialisations who bring two more Careers Skills (still two left for the player to choose), and adding the specific Role traits/talents.

If you think that wouldn't fit, idm, I can still simply houserule them in for my team.

It's not a bad idea at all, but probably not something I'm personally interested in including; I actually considered scrapping careers entirely and making career skills a 100% free choice thing (not intending to do this at this stage though), I definitely lean towards more open ended character creation systems. Totally a worthwhile houserule option though.

38 minutes ago, Tom Cruise said:

It's not a bad idea at all, but probably not something I'm personally interested in including; I actually considered scrapping careers entirely and making career skills a 100% free choice thing (not intending to do this at this stage though), I definitely lean towards more open ended character creation systems. Totally a worthwhile houserule option though.

Your "we pick 4 skills you pick 4 skills" approach to careers is already something I'm going to use for my own campaign. I like the minimalist structure of the compromise there between some sense of a base training plus built in specialization. Take something in the core book like "Soldier". Your approach doesn't require separate careers for snipers, commandos, sappers, etc. I would happily allow my players to relabel the background to whatever they feel encompasses the full set of 8 skills, but a smaller number of base careers is really appealing.

I agree with @Dragonshadow , this is a great way to structure it. If anything I was curious as to the absence of Sororitas!

It's a bit of a "choose between these fluff choices" but it really gives players a place to start when it comes to building a character. And by not tying the class to a set of talents or other perks, it gives a bit of flexibility to the character idea. For example, "sniper" as mentioned isn't just a Guard role, I'm sure there's Adeptus Arbites who are marksmen (like SWAT snipers), and SoB snipers as well (especially if you can figure out long range flamers).

And it really just goes on from there when it comes to endless possibilities. One of the things I didn't like about the original DH (ed1 is what I played) was how boxed in the character creation felt. There were options, and any character concepts outside of them was pretty hard or just outright impossible to build.

Took a quick break from rules editing to start to put together a character sheet. Almost done with page one.

@Tom Cruise

Oh, that's great, but may I suggest you Tom's (another one) character sheet to use as template?

It contains more info and much less wasted space.

Toms character sheets color.pdf