I'm starting a game of Rogue Trader and an interesting question arose. Where are the listings to get your own Choir and or troops for things like boarding and landing parties? Do these troops count as part of your crew or are they separate?

The exact amount and type of crew is up to the GM. I ruled that the crew had an Astropath with a limited Astropath Choir and that they had quite a few of security officers that could double as troops if need be. Of course their gear and skills are meant for shipboard defense and the occasional raid. They are less suited for prolonged planetary wars. For those you want true soldiers.

If the pc's want more and or better troops, they will have to make an aquisition roll. Warrior types and thugs will be pretty common, trained Imperial Guards rare and things like astropaths at least very rare. Don't forget the modifiers for quality and how many you want.

OKay, that makes sense. But it leads to another question: How many people fit on a ship? The ship they have has 30,500 crew. Is that the max capacity, or the required amount to fly it? Does a barracks add more room for soldiers?

I gave my game's ship an Astropath Choir of 2 besides the PC Transcendant and let him burn his acquisition roll at chargen for acquiring two more astropaths.

I let the rogue trader get a few (20-50?) higher quality crew with his acquisition roll at chargen. So most of his crew is skill 40, but some are skill 50. Since we don't have a PC navigator, I figure that one will be from the 50 skill pool.

DocH said:

That number is probably what the normal complement of the ship is. With enough redundancy to compensate for battle losses. The ship could probably carry more people but that would mean that living conditions get more cramped. But a few hunderd extra people should not cause any problems except some angry faces. Unless you put those people into the holds.

Barracks are just holds converted into well barracks. With added life support, bunks and storage to house a lot of soldiers. Best of all, barracks keeps soldiers out of your crews way. Remember that you do not want your own crew to go dirtside and go into combat, you need those to run the ship.

Now that they've conquered a couple of planetary systems, my players want to acquire some more astropaths, and the fluff (p309) says that such psykers are "common" in the Imperium, but I too think they should be rarer than that. I'm certainly not sure that they should be "common" in the acquisition rules sense.

Or maybe they should be? If they are so common, through necessity, perhaps +20% is a fair modifier, especially for an average quality astropath? It's one of those cases where the fluff conflicts with GM gut reaction, I think.

Now that they've conquered a couple of planetary systems, my players want to acquire some more astropaths, and the fluff (p309) says that such psykers are "common" in the Imperium, but I too think they should be rarer than that. I'm certainly not sure that they should be "common" in the acquisition rules sense.

Or maybe they should be? If they are so common, through necessity, perhaps +20% is a fair modifier, especially for an average quality astropath? It's one of those cases where the fluff conflicts with GM gut reaction, I think.

It's simply one of those cases where a commo- er, usual term of the English language means something specific in rules terms. That doesn't mean every occurence of the term in fluff texts refers to the rulewise meaning of Common. Considering that psykers in general were usually said to be about one in a million humans and at least half of them become emperor-chow instead of being trained to become astropaths or sanctioned psykers, common doesn't exactly describe the reality of it, especially since the Imperium certainly won't just let them go after spending massive amounts of ressources to cart them to Terra and back and train them. Acquiring astropaths and the gear they probably need for forming a choir doesn't sound like a Common task at all, as it would likely involve petitioning the Adeptus Astra Telepathica and possibly the AdMech.

For Aquisition purpose I would treat them as extremely rare. And don't forget that you only conquer worlds that are not part of the Imperium.

kelvingreen said:

Astropaths are not common. Think about it for a second. A major hive world commonly has dozen (maybe hundreds) of Astropaths. Like wise it commonly has hundreds or maybe thousands of power swords, plasmaguns, and power armor. On the other hand it's got millions of guardsmen and PDF.... You should make an astropath at least as hard to get as power armor if not more. After all you might be able to go to a high end weapons dealer for a plasmagun, but you'd need to petition the Astra Telepathica to get an astropath assigned to you.

Indeed, I agree. It seems very wrong to me for astropaths to be easily available; I was merely pointing out the potential conflict with what it says in the fluff. As it is, I don't think I'll handle it as an acquisition when there's far more potential in running the recruitment of a new psyker as a plot device. They're getting very close to bumping shoulders with another of the setting's Traders, one they suspect of trying to assassinate their own Trader, so there's a chance for them to "borrow" his astropath...

Dalnor Surloc said:

IMO, you're a few orders of magnitude or so out, there... every single situation where interstellar communication is needed, covering civilian and military contexts alike, requires Astropaths. A significant hive world may have thousands or even tens or hundreds of thousands of Astropaths, variously working for the Office of the Imperial Commander, the various officios and departmenta of the Administratum (including the Departmento Munitorum, and thus the Imperial Guard and Imperial Navy where relevant), the Adeptus Ministorum, the Adeptus Arbites, and then for more local matters, such as merchants and shipping companies, the crews of cargo ships and other civilian vessels currently in orbit... and so forth. Astropaths are extremely numerous, and make up the overwhelming majority of psykers in the Imperium because their existence is absolutely necessary to allow the Imperium to function.

I've seen fairly well-reasoned estimates that suggest a total approximate population for the Imperium to be 330,000,000,000,000,000... so if one human in a million is a Psyker, and half of those are Astropaths, you're looking at 165 billion Astropaths, spread across an empire of a million worlds... so over a hundred thousand Astropaths per world on average (before accounting for those serving off-world, such as those on long-term starship engagements, who will make up a noteworthy minority), with the most important worlds (sector capitals, segmentum bases, etc) having significantly more than average, and many worlds having far, far less...

Of course, that's a very high-end estimate - I'm personally not suggesting that anything close to 50% of all captured Psykers actually survive to become Astropaths or Sanctioned Psykers.

Still, I'd say that Extremely Rare is a huge overreaction in terms of giving them an availability... afterall, that's along the same lines as items of Archaeotech. I'd be more inclined to list them as Rare - the rulebook describes that (page 275) as being "Common high-end resources and the favour of moderately powerful Imperial organisations", and that description seems to ring true regarding Astropaths.

Of course, that's a very high-end estimate - I'm personally not suggesting that anything close to 50% of all captured Psykers actually survive to become Astropaths or Sanctioned Psykers.

And then there's constant "Your head a'splode"-drain on the numbers. On the other hand side, I don't see many of them dieing of old age - the capable ones will certainly get their share of juve treatments.

Cifer said:

New Astropaths are always being Soul Bound to be sent out to replenish the numbers, though... it's not as if nobody makes them anymore...

To be fair, though, more are likely to burn out from the stress of power overuse long before they need Rejuvenat treatments to prolong their natural lives...

Even so, they're hardly an impossible thing to obtain, and Rogue Traders (like anybody who travels over interstellar distances) are exactly the kind of person who will make use of a significant number of Astropaths during their careers.

Page 293 of the Dark Heresy book. In the section abpout Hive Sibilllus landmark it says that the the highest tower houses half a dozen Astropaths which is considered to be "the largest concentration of these powerful psykers in the Calixis sector".

So with a popultation of 25 billion and assuming that the other hives have a similar arangements we have 18 or so Astropaths?

That 's more then a bit rare.

Somewhere earlier in the thread it was made mention that Astropaths do all communications, and I would remind you that is not exactly true. A lot of Vox-comm stuff goes on, it is just not capable of sending information between systems. With how much systems are isolated within the imperium and the fringe, I would say it is not uncommon that a system not have ANY trained astropaths.

@N0-1

New Astropaths are always being Soul Bound to be sent out to replenish the numbers, though... it's not as if nobody makes them anymore...

Well, at least there's one technology that doesn't seem to to be in danger of being forgotten.
However, my point was a different one: If we assume that one human in a million is born a psyker and we infer from it that at every time there are humans/1.000.000/rate of wyrds coming back from Terra as astropaths, we need to assume that their life span is about average for human populace. If it's higher, you'd have some more since they're born along with the rest of the populace, but don't die with it - on the other hand side, if they're fewer, you'd get less than your original number since they die before they can be replenished.

@Sister Callidia

Page 293 of the Dark Heresy book. In the section abpout Hive Sibilllus landmark it says that the the highest tower houses half a dozen Astropaths which is considered to be "the largest concentration of these powerful psykers in the Calixis sector".

So with a popultation of 25 billion and assuming that the other hives have a similar arangements we have 18 or so Astropaths?

Sounds like someone didn't do the numbers when writing. Alternatively, we could assume that there are quite a few Astropaths more strewn across the city, attached to noble and merchant houses, PDF commands and Administratum offices - they just don't congregate in a number of more than 5. Or we could assume that the emphasis is on "powerful" and these six guys are Astropaths Transcendent.
Because I don't think you can run the majority of the interstellar communication of a throne-world with six astropaths.

@jtwing

With how much systems are isolated within the imperium and the fringe, I would say it is not uncommon that a system not have ANY trained astropaths.

I disagree. That may hold true for the feral and feudal worlds receiving an imperial visit every three generations, but most systems will have astropaths, especially if they're not self-sufficient. Not supplying them would be a death-sentence for the system and a loss of a useful canary for the Imperium - if the system goes silent, you know something is not well there, even if it's just the two astropaths developing severe head-a'splode syndrome at the same time.

So if the central government have 5. The governer of other hives would have a few less. Each Imperial navy operation, such as Scintilla prime, would need at least 1. Each Imperial guard regiment needs at least 1 (although I can't imagine PDF would as they get orders on planet. And the big merchant or noble houses would need some.

That's not a lot per planet but then I would imagine that Astropaths are used for only important messages. Anything that can wait will be send by ship.

Page 293 of the Dark Heresy book. In the section abpout Hive Sibilllus landmark it says that the the highest tower houses half a dozen Astropaths which is considered to be "the largest concentration of these powerful psykers in the Calixis sector".

I imagine they are refering to 6 powerful astropaths, all of which may be transcendants. Which would make sense, as 6 powerful a.t. working together would have a signal strength worthy of such an important location.

For all intents and purposes, I wouldn't consider astropaths - for a choir - as rare. Especailly for any ship that has a transcendant at the lead. They are valuable but disposable crew: if in an important message burns out half of the choir for an extremely important message - that would be considered a worthwhile expense.

Now, if your ship couldn't afford a a full-choir or a single transcendant, you would probably invest in a decently powerful astropath and maybe, a couple of very disposable astropaths (ie. those that are very weak, or about to expire, or twisted by the warp to not be very functional) to help.

jtwing said:

Vox-based communication is inherently limited (in practical terms) to short ranges. Speed-of-light communication will take minutes or hours to cross a star system, while an Astropath can contact his opposite number on a starship at system's edge almost instantaneously. Communicating outside of a star system may result in years of delay between sending and recieving - which could be critical in many situations (military, primarily), particularly as it is then slower than interstellar travel.

Obviously, numbers of Astropaths will be less on less-significant worlds - a world on the fringes of a region, visited by outsiders only rarely to collect the tithes, will invariably have fewer than a sector capital which needs to communicate frequently with those on other worlds, which in turn will have fewer than a Segmentum Naval Base like Cypra Mundi, which needs to have the means to communicate with hundreds of thousands of worlds and starships regularly.

Also remember that, in the broadest terms, an Astropath isn't a powerful psyker - they're selected from the second tier of psykers suitable for use by the Imperium. The smaller top tier, collectively known as Primary Psykers, are sufficiently powerful and stable to serve without the Soul Binding, while Astropaths lack that potency and stability needed to routinely, reliably and safely send telepathic messages over long distances in their own right, and need to be bound to the Emperor in order to give them the strength and resilience needed to fulfil their essential duty.

For all intents and purposes, I wouldn't consider astropaths - for a choir - as rare. Especailly for any ship that has a transcendant at the lead. They are valuable but disposable crew: if in an important message burns out half of the choir for an extremely important message - that would be considered a worthwhile expense.

Bolt shells are valuable and disposable equipment - and they're Rare as well. Or were you referring to lower-case-r rare?