My party has no Navigator in it as of yet. I could get one to change as he is iffy on what to play but I don't want to force it on him unless it is really neceassary. But do you think a Navigator is very very necassary? I mean I could make an NPC one but I feel like I should make one that is not as good as a reall player's character.

Also I have a problem with understanding travel time and distance in the game. Can anyone give me a simple rule of thumb to follow?

Well if your group has no Navigator you should create one for them...an NPC...

I would make him an annoying bastard who abuses his rights...what are they going to do...shoot him?
The navigator is the only person who can guide them back to civilisation...

NPC is the way to go with this, it also means you have more control of time in the warp, events in the warp etc.

All Rogue Trader ships will have a Navigator, and an Astropath, and a Chief Mechanicus Tech-Priest and Void-Master. The only variable will be whether it's a PC filling the role or not.

For simplicity's sake, I just use the Crew Quality to make rolls for any NPC crew members regardless of level. I'd also allow for less detailed characters to be recruited for specific roles that have a higher Crew Quality for rolls related to that task. So a ship with a Crew Quality of 30 has a Navigator who uses a base 30% for all rolls involved in Warp Navigation. If the PCs manage through roleplaying to recruit a more competent Navigator I'd add something like "Navigator: 50" and use the 50% base for Warp travel.

I should note I've played with two different groups. One had the NPC Navigator at 40%. The other has a PC Navigator. The first group ended up losing a LOT of time to the Warp and running into a large number of hazards. Not only will PCs be better than generic NPCs in a given role, but the ability to spend a Fate Point to re-roll a particularly bad result with Navigation: Warp is an advantage that can't be overstated.

Tantavalist said:

thanks that is really informative. I think that I will use the basic crew score instead of making a npc fully roled up. thanks for the adivce

Or you could outfit the ship with an Immaterios Novis instead of a navigator....

Lucas Adorn said:

A what? I don't believe I've come across this term before. Where is such a thing described?

Laesin said:

I believe that sort of heretical tech is discussed in the DH book Disciples of the Dark Gods.

Effectively it eliminates the need for a Navigator to traverse the warp, and only works over short "distances." It would sure make a good plot hook to have an Inquisitor happen to find out about said device.

Consider this idea used.

RT's should have a player navis on the very simple basis that actually getting to where you want to go, on time, most of the time and not getting absolutely wrecked by in-flight encounters through the warp. You do not want to be in the warp for very long if you can avoid it... fate points spent to not botch rolls make for profit points in their own way. Plus they usually have a very high perception so it reduces your chances of being ambushed or robbed quite a lot.

There is also the specialist reasons why a navis is important. You can always find someone who can fly a ship, shoot a gun, punch someone in the nuts, wrangle a bargain, convince the locals to buy your flu riddled blankets and steal something. When it comes to Navis powers- NO ONE else can do them, ever and while they are sometimes situational. Fry a crowd of people to ash with a glance, lock down a daemon host or psyker and make him your *****, track targets through the warp etc.

None of that stuff is replicated anywhere else or with an elite advance.

I'm in the middle of writing a whole DH/RT campaign revolving around the discovery of this piece of heretek.

Imagine the consequences of said invention - civil/inquisition war? most assuredly the Navigator houses will resist implementation of such a device into the Imperium and probable several factions of the Inquisition and the Adeptus Mechanicus.

Zarkhovian_Rhythm said:

Read the first few paragraphs of the warp travel section in the Rogue Trader core rulebook (page 310). It sounds like all warp-capable ships can make jumps of 4-5 light years without a Navigator, meaning they already have something similar.

Presumably the 'short' distances messured would be longer then the 'tiny' distances one can travel without a navigator. 4-5 light years would hardly get you from Terra to Alpha Centari, and in many places wouldn't even reach the next star. Combine that with the amount of warp hazards and you can see why this isn't the perfered method. This might work for bulk frighters moving food from an agri world to his adjacent hive, for anything else it's to long or dangerous to consider.

There has to be at least 1 navigator, else the ship cannot get anywhere to speak of.

The issue I have with the navigator is that it can give the Player with them a feeling of immortality - after all once the Navigator is gone it's all over warp travel wise.... As such the game then changes completely, as they are no longer zipping through space but getting by.

However I not sure if it would be unheard of having 2 navigators - master and apprentice, and the PC is one or the other.

Of course you can always enter the warp without a navigator can end up anywhere.

some ships have senior navigators with a few 'apprentice' navigators attached to his retinue, that can take if anything should happen to the senior.

Just imagine jumping without a naigator into a sun that makes for a bad day and a short run for the players.

NPC navigator is definitely the way to go, but letting him roll against a "base" crew skill value of 30 is just a recipe for recurring disaster. I did it by generating a navigator character using the core character generation rules, spending starting xp sensibly, but froze character development after that (as NPCs aren't supposed to become better over time).

Personaly, I thought the best thing about not haveing a PC navigator for a while was that there were no rolls. I could just fiat GM the entirety of warp travel, with what ever disasters did or did not want to have occur. It actualy allows for both great flexability and much swifter warp-jumping.

I've noticed something similar since the Navigator player in my campaign hasn't been around much lately. I've taken to glossing over navigation matters (though I reserve the right to throw in "acts of plots").

Konrad von Richtmark said:

I think that the crew skill value is the Navigators base value before taking any gear or ship modules into account. That way the players can improve their chances by giving the Navigator better equipment if they want to.

We had a Navigator, kid only got to roll 3 times a night maybe. Ended up with him rerolling and just npcing that one. Don't force someone to be a class.

unfortunatly had the problem of nobody genning up a navigator but the gm came up with a decent solution. might be familar to people who have played ars magica.
We genned the Navigator up as a 'open' character whose character sheet is simply left in the middle of the table whom anyone is technically allowed to pick up and play, we take turns in the group to do his various die rolls for warp travel (fortunatly our ship gives a plus 55 bonus or so).
unexpected arrival? character ready and waiting
someone die horribly? new character ready and waiting till they gen up something else or decide to stick with it.
Overall we've find this way of doing things has worked out quite well and quite convenient.

We had a Navigator, kid only got to roll 3 times a night maybe. Ended up with him rerolling and just npcing that one. Don't force someone to be a class.

Did you force him to stay in his Sanctum? It's not like Navigators are forbidden from doing anything but navigating - otherwise, things might get a little boring for Astropaths if the adventure didn't involve any interstellar communicating...

On a quite similar subject: Do you allow fleet navigation ? Just one navigator doing the job for a cruiser and its two escort raiders for example. I do not know very well how the imperial navy manage its "navigator supply", but is it a relevant way to reduce the number of on board navigator.

Xalendar said:

There would seem to be some means along those lines; otherwise an entire fleet would be dropping out of Warp all helter skelter. Figure fleet navigation is pretty much sharing calculations and cross checking data prior to an actual Warp Jump. Once everything figures correctly, each ship makes adjustment for their presence in the Warp so as to avoid collisions during translation.

-=Brother Praetus=-

Brother Praetus said:

I've long assumed that Warp Travel as a fleet frequently involved linking Geller Fields - so that the entire fleet exists within a single pocket of reality, rather than many which prevents them being easily separated during transit. Of course, this leaves ships vulnerable to attack as they translate back to realspace (as they're all really close together and not in combat formation), so the practice often varies depending on how risky a given destination is, splitting fleets into squadrons that travel together.