First of all im an extremely proud fan of the W40K rpg line so far!

This RPG line introduced me to the W40K world and i now own all core books n supplements. I always been a more fantasy oriented roleplayer with D&D and such but me and my player are totally into the W40K gothic-dark sci-fiction these times.

Now into Ascension...

Ascension is a great book and finally lvl the tier to the Inquisitor rosette.

But after reading it from page 1 to 252, here are the only flaw i see and i know why some of the community are negative about it.

- Lacks of new talents: This is the first negative point for me and my group. If we take out Influence talent, there is nearly nothing new for 8 more rank of play. There is only 17 new talents for the last half of game, 2 of which have already been published in previous supplement. 12 careers... 17 talents... its not even 2 new talents per career over 8 ranks each. This tier could seriously benefit if they had added 25-30 more new ascended tier talents, something like 4-5 more page.

- Same for Weapon and Adversaries: These section, even if less important than talents for character design, are pretty slim. Not much stuff here for diversity. This however may be covered with RT n DW books for this higher tier.

- Paragon Talent n Mastered Skill are more of the same: These gives nothing and is a poorly tought out mecanic. It doesnt even simplify the character sheet. Its only made so we can purchase many talents at low cost. It isn't that bad if we had at least something new to buy too... but the only talents we can find in DH ascension are these

So finally Ascension is a good purchase but would have been way better if properly completed. Are they deliberately holding content for an Ascension supplement to sell? I think there is place for much more there and thats why a lots of people complain about Ascension.

Thx for listening my constructive tought.

Still a good book, but no as great as it could have been if more details and crunch haven't been left out.

No offense, but we now have 3 threads that say more or less the same things.

its only gonna get worse with time...

I did find that it looked unfinished, especially with the editing being atrocious. Lots of spelling errors and the like. However, the feel of the book was still good for me, mostly, although more talents that weren't Influence related would be nice. Paragon Talents and Mastered skills were near pointless.

I find that one of the main flaws of all the Dark Heresy supplements is that a lot of the material requires other supplements as well as the core rulebook. For instance, the Heirophant starts with Pure Faith. He gets it for free upon taking the class. However, Pure Faith is not in either Dark Heresy or Ascension, as far as I am aware, it being in Inquisitor's Handbook.

That being said, I liked the Influence ideas, and the flavour text in general, as well as the adventure at the back. In fact, I'm about to run a session, starting at Ascension level.

Now, is it just me, or is it too easy to succeed on psychic powers, even without Unnatural Willpower or very high Psy Ratings when Fettering powers. I've read up on all the 'Psykers ultra-powerful' stuff, but that isn't what bothers me, I'm fine with the power level... it's just that there is no risk of Warp crap.

Now, one of the characters I created, is that with Discipline focus and Mastery (both must-haves), even fettered, the Psyker can cast these spells with no chance of phenomena. I was thinking that fettering should allow the player to ignore a certain number of 9s. Have any Rogue Trader players, familiar with Fettered/Unfettered/Push, used similar?

bluntpencil2001 said:

Oh gawd I hate that ... is it so hard to do a good proofreading?

Yeah, it bothered me too, and that was just the first flick through. It doesn't ruin the book, but it doesn't help. I mean, the art, as always is nice, even though I'd like there to be more (so far in Dark Heresy, we've only seen 3 or 4 Arbitrator pictures for instance, and you'd expect more).

Still, it does grate on the nerves, making you think that the effort wasn't there. Considering the time period in which the previews were coming out, they should have had plenty time to proof read. I mean, hell, if I can spot a half dozen errors in a ten minute flick through, I don't know how many a single session of proofing would find.

This in itself though, isn't enough to make me dislike it. For the most part, it's decent, even if there's a lot of wasted potential. For instance, we've not heard much about any Puritan plots or scenarios, particularly involving the very common Amalathian stance in the sector. There haven't been many Thorian NPC ideas, tending towards loads of Radicals, some Amalathians and some Monodominants.

And really, does every book have to mention the Mara Landing Massacre?

Well do conisder that this is hot on the heels of the Radical's Handbook. Nevermind Lure of the Expanse for Rogue Trader, and even the brand new core rules for Deathwatch. So ya, I wouldn't be surprised if they were a little crunched for time on this project.

Mazinkaiser said:

Wasn't RH finished about this time last year ? (It was released, what September?) 'Hot on the heels', seems a little exagerated a way to describe such a gap between products.

In ten minutes of flicking through, I found a lot of errors. Who was proofreading? No matter how rushed, it shouldn't have that many errors. All it would take would be to hand its to the staff involved with DH, and get them to read a chapter each, and it would look a lot better. Right now it looks like there has been next to no proof-reading, except maybe a read through by the main writer.

That being said, I sound overly negative. I like a lot of the book, and it has me full of ideas for a campaign.

Well FFG's proofreading has always lacked a little something, at least in their RP line(s), but then again I do belong to the group that still facepalm's over whey the license wasn't given to green ronin.

I'm not sure how people can say that the Paragon Talents don't add anything. Many of them are massive upgrades to the component talents.

Adam France said:

Gap in release dates does not equate to gap in production schedules. I think you also underestimate just how much time and effort it can take to get a book from concept to release.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

Other companies seem to manage faster. Paizo for example.

Not having a major go, I just think to suggest a 6 month plus gap is 'hot on the heels' of the previous release is a bit overstated.

Yeah but Paizo doesn't make card games, board games, and have multiple RPG systems. They only got 1.

Katsue said:

True, many of them do add substantial upgrades, its just that an equal number only add minor upgrades and some dont add anything at all.

I was hoping from the Paragon Talents hints that FFG kept dropping before release that they would all hold large upgrades for people that had gone to the expense of aquireing all the component talents. Its a shame that not all have these upgrades.

S.K.

Solomon Kane said:

It would be nice if the cost reduced if you already had some of the replaced talents. You can either have all, or none. Having one or two is a waste of XP.

bluntpencil2001 said:

The Laughing God said:

Yes actually, proof reading is soul crushingly depressingly dull work that takes forever

Artaxerxes said:

... and even if you catch 95% of errors no-one thanks you because of the 5% that slipped through.

Bombernoy said:

As far as i read, just because you have ascended, you can still go back into your previous career ranks and buy skills/talents you hadn't taken yet..

Plus there's nothing stoping you asking the GM for an elite advance for the one/two talents you may be missing rather than cough up the XP for the whole paragon talent.

S.K.

Khouri said:

Well excuse me but I don't give a dead Squat about how dull it is. Our hard-earned money should be spent on books which are finished and well-rendered and not carelessly put together. If, like it's stated earlier in this thread, a quick flip thru already gives dozens of typos and errors, it's not a matter of 5% but a matter of sloppy work.

I've basically given up playing Rackham's Confrontation and Cadwallon games because they failed to get their translations and proofreading right. Reading such books gave me a headache with all the errors and incomprehensible writing.

FFG can and should do better than that!

from france

i agree with the laughing god. i just had my copy three days ago and the book is full of page not smooth but rough full of typo and not always clear and it is worst for people who like me have english has a second tongue. sometimes the sentences are so badly writen that it gave you headheache. plus the carreer are very badly distributed ranging from two option to six. a magos cannot becomme the skitari equivalent to a storm trooper or a inquisitor but a assassin can be a inquisitor? not only some carreer are totally broken but some ar not distributed correctly.

for my games interrogator and inquisitor will be ban. sororitas and magos can acces to stormstrooper equivalent. so far i just read this part and abstain to read the comments on the book just to get my own opinion. but after reading that part and remenbering the title of the post i can but agree that the book is not what it should be.

it s not the fisrt times that i have the unifinished comment about a book of dh the radical handbook give me the same feeling. i think that if a book say that a information is needed than if it is in another book it should be reprinted. it s not normal that we need another book for the pure faith talent.