The rules on acquisition hint that the armory has retainers. The only retainer I see in the armor is a servitor. Heh.

Anyways, just wondering how others have handled this. I let the RT use his starting acquisition on getting a limited number of veteran (50 skill) crew. the rest of the ship is crack (40 skill). So I figured any time they are doing anything with a single action (like taking someone with them to pilot a small craft, or using their navigator - so far not a PC) they could use a 50 skill, but if it is anything that is large scale, the skill is 40.

If he next wanted to get a seneschal as a retainer, what would you think the acquisition roll for that would be modifier wise? Dependant on the seneschal I know, but I was thinking he might be able to get a singular modifier of +30, and then depending on the quality of the seneschal he was after that would give it the quality rating, and seneschals I would consider rare, so add that in from there.

Thoughts?

First of I must say I really like the idea of having different skill level crew. *Idea Stolen*

So do you want the RT to actually have this Retainer? If you do instead of having him make a roll and a NPC just popping up. I'd run a short session of one of my games. Maybe less than a hour or so. However, if your PCs are like mine they will drag it out. Have the retainer having to be found through Role-play. Gives you a chance both have the characters attached to your NPC and maybe describe one of you game hubs. Ex: Footfall. Maybe they get word that NPC X (the retainer) is looking for work but Organization Y is looking for X. So the party gets to duke it out with some scrub void trash and your RT gets a Retainer.

Hope you like the idea.

Actually what I will likely do is both. I'll let the acquisition roll 'pay' for having a loyal retain a cut above most NPCs but use an adventure to actually help with the acquisition. Probably give them a bonus for the roll with a successfull endeavor, to counter their really low profit rating.

Mainly this came about though due to the fact that the RT (and astro path now that I think about it) had no gear that they wanted to acquire with thier chargen acquisition roll. Heh.

I agree, making the players role play the scenario of recruiting a major NPC makes sense. Standard NPC's make an aquisition roll, but if you want someone who takes a core party role they need to be interesting/special.

For quickness my party has been given the key NPC's free at the start of the campaign at the same level as themselves, but their use is limited beyond filling party gaps. If we met more regularly I might be tempted to have an experienced player take the navigator/psyker/seneshal as a second character, but only allow them to take one of their characters on any off-ship actions.

The Seneshal as an NPC for me serves as a great GM device for guiding the campaign when players are stumped and give players additional choices and background information to flesh out the campaign. The Astropath is nothing but a communication console and GPS. I am lucky enough to have a Navigator, but if I didn't they would plot courses etc, however I wouldn't add their successes to the achievement points, just allow them to travel through space/warp.

Baz

So we had a prelude discussion (the RT player and I) and determined that as part of the RT's origin path's Dark Voyage, that the she was acting Seneschal on board a dynasty ship whose Gellar Field failed. The captain and a large portion of the crew died, but she took control and got the rest of the crew safely home. So the acquisition portion of her crew (higher skilled ones) are the veterans from the doomed Calypso. When the head of the dynasty (holder of the writ) died, and made the party RT head the Rogue Trader, she took over command of the RT ship and put in her own loyal crew from the Calypso. Unfortunately she is low on command crew, so she is going to need to augment them soon (IE picking up two characters in game).