Rogue Trader Acquisition: In Details

By rt1234456, in Rogue Trader House Rules

Hello guys, today I would like to start with common topic - acquisition of personal items for RT team.

There are some great house rules exists on this forum here and here .

Concept :

The details on personal acquisition should be somewhere between the team of starship officers and team of any house of power. If there is enough money to have a starship then bullets and weapons are not the problems, further when you have fleets and colonies then any personal item shouldn't be a problem at all except really unique ones, on other end - Winterscale Paradox taken into acount.

Winterscale Paradox - most powerfull and wealthy rogue trader in Koronus Expanse which have at maximum very rare personal items and not everything unique best craftsmanship which he can easily get, his Profit Factor is not too high as for the greatest for a long time and greatest RT power of Koronus Expanse.

Details :

Winterscale Paradox :

In order to solve Winterscale Paradox we decided that most logical reason for it that personal items are not where the power of Winterscale lies but in colonies, armies and fleets and mechanic should require Profit Factor to be used to acquire forementioned things.

It is like you investing your capital (Profit Factor) into enterprises: it is already described for colonies in Stars of Inequity; so it's the same for starships - your investing into starship to have it equipped, repaired and ready for adventures and if it's not used then you are not gaining profits; same can be applied to armies.

So, you may not fear Winterscale itself, his decent Profit Factor or his nice starship, but you should fear his capability in fleets and armies and maybe high-ranking officials support that he is already acquired which makes him powerfull enemy.

General :

We decided to split core book acquisition rules to corporate acquisition like you have a credit card of the RT dynasty to buy most difficult things or things influencing Profit Factor which needs for everyone sake like starships, bombers, armies, vehicles, items with endless supplies ( things we shouldn't worry about - ammo, rations, drugs ), etc and personal acquisition to buy personal items.

Corporate acquisition:

Profit Factor is burnt for spaceships, colonies and armies similar to rules by Errant Knight for spaceships and colonies ( might be changed later with our take on it )

  • Rules for armies you could find at Rogue Trader Ground Wars Part 3 along with acquisition modifiers.
  • Rules for spaceship components acquisition

    We are using rules ones we find more rich to give a feeling for spaceships components rarity.

    Changing rules in Core Rulebook. Table 9-35 for acquisition as follows:
    - Availability of spaceship component corresponding to BFK. Table 1-6 Expanded Component Costs based on component type and ship point cost
    - Craftsmansip of spaceship component corresponding to BFK. Table 1-4 and BFK.Table 1-5 for lances, macros and all other components with their influence on Availability .
    - Size of spaceship component corresponding to Core Rulebook. Table 9-36

    Also, we are taking into account system modifiers from BFK. Table 1-7 to determine final availability where components are acquired.

    We have possibility to acquire multiple similar components in one acquisition with following modifier -10 * (N - 1) for N similar componenst on 1 acquisition test.

    Which brings overall modifiers for spaceship component to be bought to
    Summary = Availability + Size + Craftsmanship + MultipleComponents Modifier + System modifiers.

    In order to figure time required to install components we are using rules on BFK p.17-18. Installing components.

Personal acquisition:

Similar to currency thoughts here by wolph42

In order to have personal items for team member we created system of Treasury Points ( there is a story for that name :) ) currency similar to thrones from Dark Heresy. We couldn't use thrones obviously because it would create confusion between items from different systems and it would be painfull to balance items from Rogue Trader with Dark Heresy prices and vice versa.

The Treasury Point (TP) is something similar to pirate treasury chest full of gold and ork ' shiney '... Arrr!... with which you can influence trader to sell you even rare item.

Each session Profit Factor converts to the equal amount of TP's and spreads evenly ( or how they decide ) over the team. When team member wants to buy personal item it is bought when acquisition modifier from Core Book >= 0 for this item. Scale modifier shoudn't be used and only 1 item should be bought at a time while for corporate acquisitions you may use extended and detailed scale table :

  • In order to inluence Availablilty modifier player should spend equal amount of TP's to number of tens in modifier to have it one step more available. Example: If item is rare (- 1 0) you need 1 TP to make it scarce(0). If you have item very rare (- 2 0) you need to spend 2 TP's to make rare(- 1 0) and 1 TP to make it scarce(0) which require overall 3 TP's to buy a very rare item.
  • In order to influence Craftsmanship modifier player should spend amount of TPs to bring Availability modifier to 0 multiplied by 3 for Good Craftsmanship and multiplied by 10 for Best Craftsmanship. In order to buy good craftsmanship very rare(-20) item 9 TP's should be spent, for the same best craftsmanship item 30 TP's should be spent. If there is no initial negative Availability modifier then Good craftsmanship item will cost 0.5 TP and Best craftsmanship item 1 TP.
  • Only consumables and supplies ( drugs, ammo, rations, grenades, etc.. ) can be bought with higher number. Each consumable or supply sold in boxes/cases/packages like case with 10 dozes of drug as 1 item. For negative initial Availability plus Craftsmansip modifier player needs to bring negative modifier to 0 like for other personal items but can spend 1 more TP to buy 1 one more case/box/package of supply or consumable in the same trade.

This is a pretty easy to use system, providing players with personal items according to description and fluff. In order to make it logically challenging Core Book Table.5-1 and Tabe.5-2 are used to contraint players by precious time. They can buy all the things if they have TP's(money), but not always they have time to wait for the item, because maybe it's a world with small population and it will take a long time to find and deliver this item or they are in hurry to other world.

In order to control personal acquisition there is also interesting article by nadomir .

Please read, comment, discuss, use. Next one I plan to provide Psychic powers and interactions.

Kind Regards.

Here about who, what and why.

Edited by rt1234456
Addition to acquisition