Idaan said:

You are kidding, right? That´s absolutely hilarious!

Overall I feel I have to give Ascension a C-. Not that I feel the book failed in any particular way. But that I feel there was a lot more it COULD have been. Most of my reasons have already been stated in this thread, things like the Paragon skills and talents were kind of 'meh' to me. I understand why they should exist, but felt they could have been done better. I also did not like the fact that the Inquisitor and the Interrogator were at the same rank, and that Vindicator Assassins were playable at all (I know this view is not shared by everyone, but I feel that some things should be 'off limits', in the 40K universe Temple Assassins are one of them)

All that having been said. I still rather enjoyed what parts of the book I did like (a 'C-' is still a passing grade, after all, just not a great one), and feel that over all I will be making use of it.

Idaan said:

Wait, can I get a link to LCB? (Or PM me if it is NSFW) I think I may have read it, but i can't remember a thing about it.

Idaan said:

Abomination? It was quite a well written story with a good narrative and interesting characters. I'm actually annoyed that no one has the ending.

If only there were more inventive things like LCB in 40K canon, where an author is willing to take risks with established norms.

I'm stick to death of all the chan-esque memes that sprung from it, but to call the story itself an abomination is a disservice to the writer.

BYE

I agree. This book is totally broken and unbalanced. Instead of adding new abilities it provides a CHEESY way to grant bunch of unnatural characteristics to everyone.

I wouldn't go quite that far Mrak. Unless i miss my guess Ascension was an attempt to bring long running characters from DH up to the power level of the old Inquisitor table top mini/RPG/hybrid game.

Vindicare Assassin can easily have Agility 70 (40 start + 20 dark heresy + 10 ascension). So he has 100% chance (Dodge +20, Unnatural Agility x2) to evade every attack that hits him.

Is it in line with tabletop game? It is broken, totally broken. I can't imagine a human that can do such things. It is totally out of my imagination and totally out of Warhammer 40000 canon, that I know.

Psykers... Psyker with unnatural willpower x3... With Psy Rating 10+... It's ridicilous. Can you imagine his power?

Inquisitor that was 'made from' Imperial Psyker gains unnatural willpower x2 in the beginning of this game...

Guardsman... Guardsman gains nothing. Hahaha. Playtesters, where are you?

Mrakvampire said:

Firstly, Ascension is not balanced with Dark Heresy, it's balanced with itself (and perhaps Deathwatch). Characters are therefore acting at a far higher power level than the core rulebook. Secondly DH has never been 'balanced' in a combat sense. An Adept is in no way balanced with a Guardsman or an Assassin. Likewise the Primaris Psyker can do far more in a fight than the Sage can. The Vindicaire harder to kill than a storm trooper. This reflects the setting. and note, the vindicare doesn't get to dodge every attack. There are many ways to take down a templum assassin.

Primaris Psykers are in line with the fluff. They're supposed to be extremely powerful. Likewise Vindicaire asassins, or the indomitable willpower of an Inquisitor. Moreover, if you don't like it for your own personal game it's an incredibly easy change, remove the Unnatural stat from players. However just because it doesn't work for you does not mean it's 'broken'. There's no objective set of scales you can determine game balance on.

Can Vindicare Assassin kill squad of tactical space marines in fluff? In Ascension he can, cause he is immune to all physical attacks cause he have HUGE dodge rating and can dodge all attacks, even invisible ones.

Ok, I'll find my 5ed Imperial Guard codex. Imperial Primaris Psyker... Oh, no, HE's NOT THAT POWERFULL. hahaha...

Warhammer 40000 has fluff. Has canon. And Ascension differs from canon greatly in my opinion, cause PCs become super-heroes a-la superman.

Mrakvampire said:

He's not immune to all physical attacks. You're being disingenous here.

Mrakvampire said:

hahaha... ? Really? Why are you trying to drag this down to the playground?

Mrakvampire said:

And you're entitled to your opinion, but as I said before, there are no objective scales for balance, it's a personal decision. I also pointed out a solution for your personal game which you seem to have ignored.

Evilref said:

Ok, can you tell me how can 12-14 space marines harm vindicare assassin?

Evilref said:

Yeah, really. Codex is official canon.

Evilref said:

Look, I, personally can homebrew ANY rule, I even create my own rpg system. But it doesn't excuse FFG for creating poor supplement. It is the WORST supplement they ever created. Cause it is horribly balanced. Balance is not only combat-oriented, you should understand that.

The 40k TT rules aren't a be-all-end-all argument because by necessity of game balance and model sales the combatants are generalised and adjusted. As such, one shouldn't take their statistics too literally. Likewise, the tabletop game represents a vague skeleton of power comparison between various units and to completely disregard that is just as silly as clinging to the belief that a space marine WILL die to 1/3 lasgun shots "because the rulebook says so".

That all being said, some of the power-levels in Ascension are beyond what is humanly possible. Don't give me the "It's 40k, these guys are meant to be badass" argument. This is beyond what a human being, no matter how indoctrinated/drugged/cyber-altered, should be capable of spilling out. Unnatural characteristics beyond x2 is NOT something a 'mere mortal' should achieve. It's called Unnatural. Not every stormtrooper/inquisitor/death cultist should be absorbing as much damage as a space marine while leaping 50m into the air and demolishing cities with their mind.

from a gameplay perspective:

15 dodges IS beyond the capability of most entities to even attempt to harm.

Throwing 15-30 bolts of invisible psychic energy doing as much damage as heavy weapons WITHOUT any penalties IS beyond the capabilities of anything being able to remain standing after an onslaught.

You cannot deny those two aspects mentioned above are powerful. They're not pulling any punches; they TOWER over anything "mere mortals" can achieve, and to me I get the impression that I'd find it really boring trying to accommodate a campaign where they can truly be tested without ramping EVERYTHING UP TO ELEVEN ALL THE TIME EVERY TIME!!1!11.

Basically, take all those "One character in our party is too overpowered" threads and multiply the single OP character by a magnitude of ten. That is not (to me anyways) a good thing in any sense of the word.

Full auto/pyskers lay was to temple assassins. Ban force barrage, maybe one or two other, then you have a pysker who can be killed by groups. 12-14 space marines are all carrying bolters at the least, one of them will get more hits then the sin gets degrees of success. Temple assassins are on par with space marines(the reason so many people have problems with them), actually, sometimes theyre listed as being above them in terms of ability and training. And pyskers have never been, nor never will be balanced, if you dont think temple assassins are, see the thread about them. Also your average Vindicare will be in the 90-100 range for dodge because of his suit, not unnatural, if you think unnatural is doing that, then you're doing it wrong.
Furthermore, the tiny little nit picky things or cries of "ITS NOT CANON OMFGWTFBBQ" are getting a little stale. You could never balance a game that took any of the other versions and converted them entirely, it wouldn't work. FFG tends to have their games move more towards the novels level of power and scale, and less towards the codex, which all things considered is the right way to do an rpg. And if someone is overpowered then it was your GM's fault for letting it get that way.

Ok, can you tell me how can 12-14 space marines harm vindicare assassin?

Use full-auto weapons. The assassin is bound to roll close to 100 at least once and get a few bolts in the face for it. Once we're talking stormbolters as in RT, it gets really ugly for him. 4 (or possibly 3, the rules aren't quite clear on that) DoS result in 8 hits which need 8 DoS to dodge all of them. Have fun rolling that 19-.

Alternatively, engage in melee and feint him. It's not unlikely that his WS isn't as well-developed as his BS and Ag.

1. Vindicare Assassin have Dodge ~115

2. Melee isn't an option, he can move from you with his unnatural speed and negate your 'free attack' for doing this with his dodge.

3. Add a refractor field and cry.

It seems to me from reading the books by Dan Abneth and the Ciaphias Caine series that the upper end of the heroes of the empire are capable of massively seemingly inhuman stuff, the heroes of the books (like Dan Abneths hero inqusitor eisenhorn parrying bolter rounds fired by a chaos marines storm bolter with his force sword or a relatively expereinced Commissar defeating on the Khornate traitor marines in single melee combat) seem to be the "Movie Hero's" we see in action films and so on, This book "acension" simply allows you to portray those types of character's either on combat or socially (ie the rules for influence and so on). Personally I like the book but if you dont like it you dont have to use it after all but at this level you are not just "investigators" the power of the Inquistion is absoloutely behind you. One example of this massive skill is that humanity is evolving into a psychic race and prehaps these paragon abilities represent an individuals ability to tap into the power of the universe some how? either way its all up to the GM and players for their own game after all.

You can't feint a Vindicare, they will always be at least a half action away from you. 115 dodge rating is munchkin, I'm tossing it right now, your average will see something closer to the perfect 100 score. Storm doesn't up the degrees of success needed to dodge, just the rounds hit on a failed dodge(Using the Ascension ones anyways, RT may be different, I don't remember) Either way, if the full auto gets 5 degrees, then they have a pretty good shot of laying out a few d10. If your GM is giving the assassin a field, you're doing it wrong. Actually, if you're in a situation where 14 space marines are fighting one Sin, you've probably done it wrong as well, Ascension is not meant to be a combat driven expansion, you can make it that, but bottom line, that's not supposed to be the focus.

Excuse me, you advice me to prohibit refractor field to Temple Assassin?

'My Assassin what to procure a refractor field. I want to roll Influence test'

'Oh no, you can't! It is prohibited for you to have refractor field!'

Agility = 40 (base) + 20 (DH) + 5 (package) + 10 (Ascension) = 75

Dodge +20

Vindicare Suit grants +10

Unnatural Agility x2 grants +10 to tests

So it is 115

Storm doesn't up the degrees of success needed to dodge, just the rounds hit on a failed dodge(Using the Ascension ones anyways, RT may be different, I don't remember)

You dodge one hit per dodging DoS. With Storm, more rounds hit.

H.B.M.C. said:

Yes, I quite liked the story itself and that it was referenced - hence my use of "well played". It was well written, though took a bit too much liberties with the background. The things it inspired, including hentais etc and the sole fact that it was created on 4chan were a bit more NSFW.

Dabat said:

Just google it, the first link on 1d4chan has the whole (uncompleted) story. It's not NSFW in itself but the wiki has some more, uhm, titillating images accompanying the text.

Back on topic:

So basically people have whined for two years that the DH characters are pushovers, and when FFG finally changed that, people are whining that they are omgwtf overpowered. Right. A combat oriented Inquisitor, a powerful primaris psyker, or just an average Vindicare should be at least as powerful as a Space Marine - and they are. The Marines will get their portion of overpoweredness with Deathwatch, so no problem with it. And we've known that the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay mechanics as updated for DH struggle with depicting high-powered characters from the beginning, so no surprise with that. At least it's not D&D Epic Handbook where you could theoretically hide your character in his own buttcrack or turn an enemy army into your fanatical followers by jumping up.

Mrakvampire said:

As a GM you can do what want, including prohibiting the Temple Assassin class entirely so even if it comes down to: 'I'll let you play a Vindicare on the proviso that you can never, ever use a field defences of any type.'

And he din't say that dodge of 115 wasn't possible, just that it was munchkin, and you included a 40 agility and + agility background package (whatever that is) so I'd say it stands.

Face Eater said:

That is just silly why would (if you actually get into the game) any sane warrior in 40k not use the defenses he can get, personally I dont see any issue with the level of power here, after all we are talking about the upper echerlons of the Imperium!

PS-I do understand your making about munchinkness but I also like to be realstic when I run my games, In such case there is no reason why anyone woujld do anything they could to stop themsevels from dying.

Idaan said:

I agree that is what it seems like to me as well, the power level of the movers and shakers of the imperium (which is what acension is all about) is going to be incredible and tbh I dont mind handing over massive power to the players makes things far more intersting for me as a GM (that might be the Amber GM in me talking too ). Also from what I have seen of the novels and fluff Vindicare assassains and other such high level assassains were used to Kill Primarchs during the Age of Heresy (like the primarch of the Night Lords) so assassians are almost certainly enchaned with tech (biological and cyberntic) and that can explain their awesome abilities as well.

Like I said assassins are = or > space marine. And I didn't say an assassin should never get a field, I said if you don't like what it does as gm don't allow it. Big difference there. Oh, and a starting agility of 40, guess what that is, that munckin, it's min maxing to give yourself a 20, the average set of rolls will not include a 20, and the ascended packages MINIMIZE one set of stats while MAXIMIZING another. Min-maxing. Also, I cant find anywhere that unnatural gives a +10 to traits, it gives you double your bonus for anytime you use the bonus, and added degrees of success for opposed test.

Bombernoy said:

Well, actually it is written in Inquisitor's Handbook on page 226. Difficulty of the Skill Test based on Characteristic with the Unnatural Trait is staged downwards one level for degree of multiplier past normal (to the maximum of +30). So, that means +10 modifier to all skill tests involving a given unnatural characteristic x2. So Dodge gains +10 from unnatural.

Reilly said: