Yanma said:

Actually, the next sentence was Not quite like that, as they do have descriptions, but both Mastered Skills and Paragon Talents only add to the skill/talent wall of text in character descriptions. Which, IMHO, is very true.

Mrakvampire said:

Could you please state in what role does Strom Trooper perform better than Primaris Psyker.

Examples please.

Mrakvampire said:

Just to clear that up before we answer: are you talking about plausible Psykers or about the idiotic type of Psyker that always gets bandied about in such situations; i.e. the infinite xp psyker with always the perfect power to solve the situation.

Because what powers the psyker has will change a lot about what situations are the best to put him in.

By the time, when Psyker reaches Ascension he has more than 13-14 Major Powers and nearly all Minor Powers.

Mrakvampire said:

K, so we have a Psyker who spent as many xp on powers as possible, thus less on skills and advances.

What are his other abilities? What are his psychic powers? Is he lacking in a specific attribute? Any important skills he never bothered to take?

Without answers to these questions, an answer to yours is impossible.

After a quick glance over the Stormtrooper advance table they appear to have a boatload of Skills and Ascended Skills, some Peer and Influence talents later on and continue to be hard as nails. The Primaris Psyker, meanwhile, is mainly about his psychic powers with a side order of arcane lores, reputation and influence talents. It even has numerous Rival and Enemy talents, presumably to fuel the purchase of psychic powers in terms of mechanics for the psyker who doesn't care to foster good relations with the numerous organisations who hate his warp-twisted hide. The Stormtrooper is there to be the action hero; he can fight, he can fly, he can rappel down the side of a cathedral and later on he becomes knowledgeable about common lores and investigation. The Primaris Psyker is there for being whatever sort of psyker he is.

I agree that there are some problems with a couple of the careers. The Magos, for example, is crippled by the Fel prerequisites of the Peer and Good Reputation talents, talents which he should undoubtedly have access to as a power within the Adeptus Mechanicus (an organisation which has relations with everyone due to their monopoly on technology). The Crusader is somewhat lacklustre, boiling down to being a melee-based defender and not much else unless you invest in all the Peer talents he gets access to. The fluff places very little emphasis on this, but by dropping XP into those and a few Contacts as detailed in the Inquisitor's Handbook (A Trusted Adeptus contact which can offer Favours is 500xp, a decent price for Throne Agents) he can be a political asset to the cadre. The Interrogator I like, though I agree that his (Any) advances do need a cost reduction, given that Elite Advances are supposed to cost 500xp. The last career I have issue with is the Death Cult Assassin and how they have access to a number of Peer talents when the Vindicare Assassin (quite rightly) has next to none. Death Cults never struck me as the most personable of sorts, even their leaders.

What I notice, and what the book states, is that an Ascended game is less about your personal power power and more about your influence. You will of course need to handle some matters yourself, matters which necessitate the presence of Offico Assassinorum grade killers, hideously powerful psykers and bombastic living saints capable of leading thousands of men. In general, however, it's a more political game and I think this is my biggest issue with it, or rather that it doesn't detail developing a network of informants, agents and allies enough. Influence and some of the Influence Talents (Acolyte Network, Sleeper Agent, etc) are a good start, but I'd have appreciate more fluff on the subject and, as has been mentioned already, a reappearance/redux of the Contact Rules would have been worthwhile. An individual with a Common Lore skill (to represent local knowledge) costs a meagre 20xp. Obviously you don't want to have to keep track of a score of random informers across numerous worlds, but I'd have been nice to see rules for developing contacts, both among the powerful and the masses, fitting for Ascension level games. There's certainly enough experience points in each rank to make spending it on contacts viable. A trusted team of Scholars with an impeccable command of Scholastic Lore has the low cost of 250xp, for example, and would be an asset to any Sage who wishes to delegate research while he looks into more important things.

Ok. I can build sample character for you based on one of my player's characters:

WS 28

BS 37 (250 XP)

S 33

T 50 (2500 XP)

Ag 41 (500 XP)

Int 38

WP 71 (1600 XP)

Per 37 (100 XP)

Fel 25

Wounds: 14 (600 XP)

Psy Rating 6. (1000 XP)

She has all Powers from Pyromancy, and:

Force Barrage, Catch Projectiles, Preternatural Awareness

Let's say that she has nearly all Minor Psychic Powers, cause she really has A LOT of them now.

Favoured of the Warp, Discipline Focus (Pyromancy, Telekinesis), Power Well (x2)

She has some Knowledge Skills and have no Interaction skills except Decieve.

Even now (NOT Ascended) she uses Fire Storm with 6 dice (for example). We will take slightly below 'average' roll 1d10 = 5, not 5.5

So, she rolls 6 power dice = 6d10+7 (WP) + 2 (Focus) + 2 (Well) = 6d10+11; It means 6*5+11 total of 41. Threshold on Fire Storm is 11 (she has 10 powers, so it's 5 less than normal). It means 30 overbleed. So she deals 7d10+5 E damage in 6 meters radius. It is 7*5+5 = 40 E damage in 6 meters radius. It will critically injure almost any guardsman on that rank. And it's not even single-targeted power!

She has 10% per each power dice to roll '9'. So we will assume that the chance to roll single '9' is 60%.

Chance to roll Perils of the Warp is 25%. She can reroll using Favoured of the Warp, so it's only 0,25*0,25*100 = 6,25% chance to roll Perils of the Warp for every '9'. So, we have 60% chance to roll '9' and on this we have only 6,25% to get really nasty result. It's only... 0,6*0,0625*100 = 3,75% per manifest to have such dire result. 3,75% !!!

Now, please add to this value another +10 or even +15 to Willpower (Transition and Advances) and add Unnatural Willpower (x2) (for example).

Snidesworth said:

Boatload? Really? New skills and talents? Oh no, they are not new, they simply free some space on his sheet.

He is no action hero - Vindicare fights 1000% more efficiently and Storm Trooper will die from 4 full auto from Storm Bolters or heavy bolters. Vindicare smiles, and continue fighting, cause he hase dodge 115+ and 16+ dodges per round.

Mrakvampire said:

Oooh...good one.

Lets see...

ST will totally outperform the PP in;

1. dealing with the day-to-day boredom and occasional terror of military life.

2. relating to military authorities effectively and understanding how best to extract information, favours, help and goodwill for military associates and peers without invoking outright hatred and the attentions of a nearby Commissar or similar authority.

3. relating to, interacting with, forming long term relationships and friendships with, and generally socialising with other humans on an equal and effective level.

4. not ending up the subject of a witch hunt for simply existing.

5. retaining his sanity and morality.

6. not getting himself and his friends killed (debatable this one!)

7. not breaking down the walls of reality and invoking the attentions of foul warp beasts ar deamons...and therefore not being an inherent moral and physical threat to himself, eveyone around him, the world he's on and indeed the whole Imperium.

8. not being a power-gamed crunch-munchkin 'character', optimised to 'do eveything better', while utterly failing to realise the actual point of roleplaying.

There's a few ROLEPLAYING aspects in which a Stormtrooper might perform better than a Primaris Psyker...

Just a thought

Mrakvampire said:

Does the Vindicare lead squads or platoons of men? Does he know how to handle every common weapon, from bolt pistol to lascannon, by rank 10? The Vindicare is an assassin; he's there to take out high value targets with a single shot. The career is built towards this. The Stormtrooper is a soldier, as at home fighting in a Cadre as he is leading squads of men. When you're confronting a large force he's the better man for the job, though the Vindicare serves a purpose in such battles as well. Unless we're discussing theoretical scenarios where people stand in the open and allow themselves to be shot at by heavy weaponry both have their place in an Inquisitor's cadre.

Luddite said:

He has big Willpower? No, he hasn't. Psyker has, so he is can deal with any difficult situation psychologicaly more effiicient, than Storm Trooper.

Luddite said:

Oh no, Primaris Psyker can gain bonus on his Interaction skills, if he needs it with special powers. Storm Trooper can't. And his fellowship advances cost the same.

Luddite said:

Fluff-based yes. Game mechanic-based... No. Cause his low Willpower garantee that he hase already 30-50 Insanity Points and similar number of corruption points. Poor Guardsman / Storm Trooper! Psykers roll phenomena that requires all to test Willpower or gain Inasnity. Psyker rolls - others don't. Hahaha.

Luddite said:

Ok. Agree.

Luddite said:

High Willpower makes Psyker the most sane character of all party usually.

Luddite said:

Yes, highly debatable.

Luddite said:

Nearly impossible. First, you have to roll '9'. Then, you have to roll '75+'. Then again, you have to roll '75+' cause of reroll via Favoured of the Warp. Then you have to roll '80+' on Perils table. Then, you can adjust your score by 1d5. Then, you can test Willpower to kill yourself and spend Fate Point.

Yes, it seems that we have a chance. ^-)

Luddite said:

Ah, so you said it. So this career was reserved for munchkins? Nice explanation.

H.B.M.C. said:

Oh come'on! Fellowship advances cost same. Psyker has Interaction - boosting powers, Storm Trooper hasn't. And one simple question - why not send a Scum/Desperado/Interrogator/Vindicare Assassin/Death Cult Assassin/Judge/Crusader/others to this high society evening? Storm Tropper has an edje in such situations? Have skills and talents? Look through his progression from Rank 1 to Rank 13. Have you seen a lot of Interaction skills? Oh you are kidding me. Stop trolling.

You said find a situation. I did. Don't like it? Deal with it.

Don't accuse me of trolling because you're either too stubborn or too stupid to see that there's more to this game than damage caused in a round, or killing guys and taking their stuff. If you look past the advance tables and the D100 tests you'll see that there's a metric f**kton more to this game than you're giving it credit for.

The game isn't all about combat and as I've said before - and will say again - you get out what you put in. If all you're putting in is crunchy min/max gaming to get the best bonuses on your tests, then all you're going to get are a bunch of extremely powerful characters ready to handle any combat situation. But this is a roleplaying game, not Diablo or WoW, there's more to it than that.

Now, with even a fifth thread or so degrading into just another messy discussion about powergaming / munchkinism and rules-lawyering, peacekeeper_b has actually proven the point of his review pretty well I think.

Nice review peacekeeper, not unlike my own in the spirit behind it, was a fun read.

As a general thought, perhaps it would be nice to read about something different than Ascension again. What about a preview of Dead Stars, FFG ? Or perhaps some spoilers about future releases coming for DH ? I still miss something akin to the 'Knowledge is Power' release schedule teaser I must admit.

H.B.M.C. said:

And I replied. All that was done by Storm Trooper in your situation - Psyker could do better. You haven't proved that Storm Trooper is superior in this situation. You simply stated - Storm Trooper is bla-bla-bla mega-noble with HIGH fellowship and skill, and Psyker... Surprise! Is like a dirty pig without skills. powers and with fellowship 1.

Since we are on the subject of the Stormtrooper career, It seems that many of the initial ranks (especially 9) have skills & talent choices for 700xp that are already available for 100-200xp in the earlier ranks - what was the point in wasting the print to add these?

Also, as the assassin-esque careers get unnatural agility (and vindicate gets strength and toughness... eh?), the Psyker careers get unnatural Willpower, the sage gets unnatural intelligence...

Why do Stormtroopers not get unnatural strength? For that matter why no unnatural toughness for Judges? If we are talking genetic/robotic/bionic augmentation for the classes that do, why not for these guys?

It just seems to me that some of the Ascended Careers arent as balanced against what the others can do... As to wether or not all the classes should be comparable to a vindicare's specials, or the vindicare and primaris psyker should have been toned down... I simply couldnt say.

S.K.

Mrakvampire,

Judging by your posts you seem to be either munchkin, optimizer or troll. Or all three.

No offense, man.

You see, roleplaying games (as opposed to DnD) aren't ONLY about rolling dice and maxing out stats. It is about playing roles . I don't know (yet) about stats and skills, but Stormtrooper is a military man and unlike Psyker, he will interact with other military people much more easily, than any badass psyker. He will also much better know the organisation structure of stromtroopers, their background and habits - no matter his stats. And these are just examples.

If stats are all that matters to you in RPGs - then DH is probably a wrong game for you.

Mrakvampire said:

First, I think it's pretty important to emphasize that this is a different level of the game. It's about bringing your influence and actions to bear on a large-scale.

Mrakvampire said:

Second... The Psyker is, and has always been, the wizard of the party. That makes them numero uno sniper/heavy explosives target.

Third... (as this is Ascension with amped villains) my Nemesis is well aware of my Cadre and my skills. Therefore, they should be taking the steps to neutralize them. There is an excellent thread in RPG.net about playing amped super-villains. I recommend it. The best advice ever is to simply play them as your PC... smart. Very smart.

I really haven't seen any definitive proof that this book is broken. I think Magos cock-up is pretty silly on FFG's behalf. Easily fixed by replacing it with Int. Personally, I like the Crusader YMMV. As for everything else... it's up to your GM and group. You want to run around and blow people up with your mind, sure, go ahead. I don't care. I'm hoping to find me an Ascension group that really is able to explore the setting and the theme of the game at that level. A group that gets involved in the long-range In other words, I want to play in Eisenhorn's cadre!

Mrakvampire said:

See, this is something we can work with.

So, in this case an ex-Commander Storm Trooper (depending a bit on which career he was before ascending) might be the troop leader of the group, with a much better Command Score and social skills (he even gets Talented (Deceive) and when Ascended Talented (Command) ). Though he does have to wait for Rank 13 to get Heroic Leadership, but until then Into the Jaws of Hell + Iron Discipline + Litany of Hate + Master Orator + Specialist: Field Command is sufficient for loads of asskicking in a role that the Psyker can't match at all.

Even accounting for Chameleon, an ex Assassin or Sniper Storm Trooper can be better at infiltration, Disguise and sneaking. Even accounting for Unnatural Aim, he will probably be a better Sniper.

A pure Stormtrooper will be better at intimidation, any kind of combat where you can't show you are a Psyker or have to be careful with your surroundings (fighting in a Promethium factory or on board a Spaceship). He also gets Fearless, which the Psyker only gets if he goes the Scholar Empyrean route. (But yes, a pure Storm Trooper kind of gets the shaft here)

Apart from the pre-ascension career specific stuff, the Ascended Stormtrooper also gets Influence talents relating to the Military much earlier, making him the go to guy whenever you need to deal with local PDF, the Imperial Navy or the Imperial Guard. Together with the Magos he is also the guy who uses the Heavy Weapons. Getting Fieldcraft -, Athletic- and Driving Mastery that early is also good for several roles the Psyker can't really match until much later or not at all.

Ok... Maybe we should play in pure imaginative RPG withou rules? No, we don't play such games. We have rules. We have skills. That represent _abilities_ of each given PC. Fluff-based I totally accept and SHARE your position. BUT. We are discussing RULES. And rules as I'm trying to point DO NOT represent fluff...

Storm Trooper should be best soldier, bla-bla-bla. But rule-based he isn't. Is it ok for you? If it's ok, than I surrender - I can't convince a man that disregard rules that rule system is flawed and broken.

Mrakvampire said:

But he is the best soldier. He's just not the best killer.

Sheesh ... we had lots of fun roleplaying in the realms of AD&D's (or even first ed. D&D's) phantastic worlds ...

Why ?

Well, simply because the set of rules used to be so bad back then, you truelly HAD to focus on roleplaying. Some experiences weren't so bad after all ...

Anyways .... enough of this Ascension rubbish, let's hope the next supplement will be more on track again.

Wow! I'm relieved to know that I am not the only one here who sees good in Ascension. Yes, as I've explained in other threads, I find a few areas that I am disappointed with. But overall, I like it. With all of these "worse supplement ever" threads, I was beginning to think that perhaps I was retarded.

It's good to know I'm not the only 'tard on these boards.

Look, here's my take, for whatever you think it's worth. No, and I mean NO supplement (by any designers, for any game) is going to please everyone on every level, about every thing. But ... as many other very wise posters have pointed out, the game is what YOU make of it. If you don't like something, change it to suit you, or eliminate it completely. Gamers, both GM's and players, have been doing so for several decades now. If you can't see the good that IS there, then don't use the supplement at all. But, just because YOU can't see the good in it, doesn't mean that others can't, or won't ... and it doesn't make it "the worst supplement ever". JMHO.