Ok the description is quite simple - you don't suffer the effects of Fear and Pinning, and you have difficulties disengaging or backing down from a fight. But what does that actually entail?

Interpretations:

1. You are immune to the effects of the Shock table and the effects of Pinning. You still take insanity points and corruption as normal (unless you are Jaded).

2. You are immune to all possible effects of Fear, including Insanity points. Unless you get insanity points from some scource which is in no way related to fear and horror, you will never take IPs again. You can get Corruption points, but not from witnessing warp-creatures, demons and other fear-related scources. NOTHING will unerve you or disgust you, your mind is essentially immune to trauma. There is only War.

3. You are immune to straight up fear, thinks and situations that are scary for some reason. Full blown galactic horror, such as gazing into the warp, experiencing a full-blown deminic incursion, seeing certain extremely horrible beings, and personal horror with great emmotional shock can still cause IPs. In other words, Horror does not equal Fear in this case.

So which of these interpretations do you agree with? Which one would you personally like best? And which one is RAW?

IMHO I think no matter which you choose the Fearless talent is worth it despite the drawback, but #2 is definetely the most powerful.

Pinning is pretty straight forward, but fear is a little more ambiguous. Not 100% sure, but I think pg 232 of the Core Rule book applies. You simply don't make a Fear test. You are not immune to any other affects like the corruption the Daemon causes, the IP for reading that book because that is madness not fear. You are only immune to the actual "Fear".

Redeucer said:

Problem is, demons usually only cause corruption in a failed Fear test... that the Fearless character doesen't have to make.

I agree it is ambigous

Friend of the Dork said:

Actually, the CP you get from a Daemon is not Fear but Warp Shock (pg 238). I'm not 100% sure, but from that standpoint they would still have to make a Willpower Test. There would be no fear affect result, but they would get the corruption from it if they failed. There is a separate talent that makes you immune to Warp Shock (can't think of the name of it off the top of my head).

Redeucer said:

Sounds about right to me. Of course, I'm also going on about a full 24 without sleep. I just can't seem to pull myself away from the computer right now... Just one more click...

-=Brother Praetus=-

Sorry, Brother Praetus. Stealth edit there. I added that there is a separate ability that gives immunity to Warp Shock.

...Visions of the Abyss. It gives -1 to CP taken from Warp Shock.

I'd say it's version two - you're immune to fear and therefore by extension to everything that necessitates a failed fear check before it affects you. If that wasn't the case, it would have quite a few implications on the rest of the system: For example, if you have Unshakeable faith, you could reroll fear tests for the purposes of the fear effect, but not for ensuing corruption points. Resistance (Fear) would give you a +10 bonus on a roll which you couldn't use for daemonic fear.

That's too much patchwork for me.

Cifer said:

While I can see where it gets a little sticky Cifer, the problem with that is that it then makes Fearless extremely powerful and negates and in fact is more powerful than Visions of the Abyss Talent (-1 CP) and Purity is the Only Defense which is an Ascended level Inquisitor Trait (1/2 CP round down). Only Pure Faith allows you to ignore the corruption from Warp Shock, and then only by spending a Fate Point. That seems just a bit too much to me. As for a re-roll, I have less problem with that. If they get a re-roll, they get a re-roll just the same as spending a Fate Point would give them a re-roll. The new roll still applies. You would still get the re-roll for the Fear test. The difference is that no matter what you roll, you don't take any consequences of the fear, but you would from the Warp Shock. So while it doesn't matter if you fail the Fear test as far the fear effect goes, it does for Warp Shock.

So like I said, not 100% sure, but it makes more sense than making Fearless an untouchable by Daemon Talent which nothing else gives without spending a Fate Point.

Oh... And if it makes you feel any better, they roll every time, they just don't worry about what they roll unless there are CPs involved from Warp Shock.

While I can see where it gets a little sticky Cifer, the problem with that is that it then makes Fearless extremely powerful and negates and in fact is more powerful than Visions of the Abyss Talent (-1 CP) and Purity is the Only Defense which is an Ascended level Inquisitor Trait (1/2 CP round down). Only Pure Faith allows you to ignore the corruption from Warp Shock, and then only by spending a Fate Point.

I disagree. Firstly, Fearless is a top-tier talent for non-ascended gameplay, generally given out to rank 7or 8 characters only, so it isn't meant to be weak. Secondly, your comparisons are somewhat off. I don't have Visions of the Abyss in front of me, but Purity is the Only Defence has the benefit of halving all corruption. Your purity defender could easily have a career as a part-time sorcerer which would reduce the fearless character to a mutant blob in no time at all. Comparing the two is like saying that a lasgun is better than a boltgun because its range is ten metres higher. And Pure Faith finally is a talent certain characters receive at the first rank of their career, that has a ton of other uses and doesn't come with the "no retreat" drawback that ensures fearless characters can't let their willpower stay too low.
In fact I'd consider Pure Faith's ward against Warp Shock a kind of tacked-on benefit that ensures you don't lose Faith talents for going over 10 Corruption without having any choice in the matter.

So like I said, not 100% sure, but it makes more sense than making Fearless an untouchable by Daemon Talent which nothing else gives without spending a Fate Point.

And I'd say making Fearless an Untouchable by Daemonic Fear (daemons will certainly have a few other ways of dealing out corruption) is entirely fine. I mean, look at Purge the Unclean - is there any talent that lets you burn a fatepoint to inflict possibly massive damage on a daemon? No. Is it broken because of that? No. In fact, why would we assume the effects of a talent have to be repeated in others? If I want a career to have powers comparable to those of Fearless, I put Fearless into their career tree, not something else so I can have two talents with the same effect.

Guess we'll just have to agree to disagree then.

OK. Sent the following question in to their support and received the following answer from Mack Martin:

Q: Am I correct in understanding Fearless that "being immune to fear and pinning" means that if facing a Daemon, even if I fail the Fear test, I don't gain any Insanity Points or suffer from the effects from that, but I would still take any Corruption Points from Warp Shock?

A: You are indeed correct in your interpretation. Everything that would normally happen to your character happens, but you ignore the effects of any Fear or Pinning effect on your character. The character literally does not feel fear. He may fall back because it is smart, but he never runs away because he is afraid! Fear is a very powerful talent and your GM may require you to be a certain rank to take it, regardless of the alternate career rank you may have that grants it. Rank 5 would be the earliest I would allow a player to take it in one of my games.

So there's the official answer.

O I C. Well it does say immune to effects and not the rolls. So it's still worth getting fear, shock and corruption reducing talents.

Redeucer said:

Redeucer said:

He says that "you ignore the effects of any Fear" but doesn't mention any exception for warp shock*. Then he starts talking about how a fearless character can back down, which you didn't ask about, but I can see being a common question. To me that sounds like he skimmed the question, missed the part about warp shock, then copy/pasted their standard answer for questions related to fearless.

*Since warp shock only happens with a failed fear test how can it not be an effect of fear ?

Personally I've always interpreted fearless as meaning that you automatically pass all fear and pinning tests, making you immune to anything that follows from failing one. However the WP test to back down is a disadvantage that you should think about. A WP of 40 means that even if you spend a fate point, you will be unable to back down 36% of the times that you want to.

Bilateralrope said:

Uhm... Did you read the question I sent in? I specifically asked about the CP from Warp Shock in the question. And by the answer, the character would indeed still suffer from that aspect, just not the fear or insanity points from failing the test.

Funny. This makes it the third customer response in a row I don't agree with, out of pretty much all responses on this forum. And I still wonder how one can determine which effects are eliminated by Fearless and which aren't - a character receives insanity if he rolls a certain number on the shock table and corruption if he receives any insanity. Why is one an "effect of fear" while another one isn't?

So yes, we'll probably have to agree to disagree at this point, Redeucer.

Redeucer said:

Redeucer said:

I read the question and answer, which is why I think that he didn't read all of your question. Why else would Martin talk about fearless characters being able to fall back (which you didn't ask about), but not specifically mention warp shock (all he needed to say was something like "yes, they still gain CP") ?

Lets look a little closer:

Your question comes in two parts:

1 - Asking if you are correct when you say that a fearless character won't gain IP from a fear test.

2 - Asking if warp shock still inflicts CP on a fearless character.

A: You are indeed correct in your interpretation.

This answers the first part, because you stated an interpretation. But it doesn't answer the second part because you never stated an interpretation for that part. Since the second part was your real question, it's a lot like asking "Can I have a biscuit ?" and getting an answer of "You're correct".

Everything that would normally happen to your character happens, but you ignore the effects of any Fear or Pinning effect on your character.

Is warp shock an effect of fear ?

If it is then this part answers your question and you don't gain CP. If it isn't, then this part doesn't answer your question.

The character literally does not feel fear. He may fall back because it is smart, but he never runs away because he is afraid! Fear is a very powerful talent and your GM may require you to be a certain rank to take it, regardless of the alternate career rank you may have that grants it. Rank 5 would be the earliest I would allow a player to take it in one of my games.

This has nothing to do with your question. Why did he spend the time to write it ?

Cifer said:

Forth for me*, though this is the first one that doesn't answer the question that was asked. I wonder if he would have got a different answer if he question simply said "Does a fearless character still gain corruption points through warp shock?"

*Assuming that the posters were telling the truth about the response.

this Talent seems straight forward to me ...

You only get warp shock if you "fail the fear test". Since you cannot fail it, there is no need to roll on warp shock.

On a side note, Corruption from Warp shock IS retarded. Let me put it this way. If you fight 10 Daemonettes over the course of an adventure, and you have about +3 WP bonus (since your a normal guy and didnt trick out your WP), you basically just got 30corruption points. because they have Fear3 (-20 to check) and have that daemonic aura( gives you another -10)

So basically, you while you would not be immune to fear, you still wouldnt be playing the game, since you would be passed out from warp shock most of the time.

Fear tests are already stupid. Being afraid of more or less weak monsters (and there are A LOT of monsters that have fear, but are relatively weak) make you run away/ faint / do dumb things... what would be the point if you had fearless?

Fearless carries its own drawbacks... like not being able to run when you should be.

Bilateralrope said:

Your questioning my honor is offensive to me. I will be disregarding your posts. I asked a specific question and got a specific response. If you chose to disregard a game designers response, feel free, but there is no reason to question my honesty. I have done nothing to give you the impression that I would lie. In fact I have gone out of my way to be honest that I did not know for sure until I received a response from FFG.

I'm with everybody else here. If you are immune to Fear and Pinning you don't roll any test. Thus you can't fail one and suffer Warp Shock again once you've reached the rank to gain Fearless which is top tier. It rewards the character for getting this far - and the drawback is considerable (I'm pondering not to get it because more often than not it will spoil my favorite tactic of Acrobatic disengage+point blank shotgun and Assassin Strike to foil Lightning Attack). Or is Armor of Contempt too powerful because a Psyker will never again get the 1cp per phenomena? Is Favored by the Warp?

Next time word your question to CustServ better or better yet provide a link to this thread so that they actually know the context (and both sides' arguments!) instead of guessing what exactly it is you want to know. Because the answer provided isn't an answer and opens a whole can of new horrors like Cifer mentioned. It isn't supporting your case at all.

@Redeucer

Your questioning my honor is offensive to me.

I don't think that part was aimed at you - there were responses not quoted but paraphrased before and... well, let's say I've had bad experiences on other forums where posters flat-out lied about CS responses as well (which was pretty well traceable as another person simply asked CS whether anyone there had answered any question about that topic in the last few days).

A quick aside from the bubbling drama...

linearblade said:

Fear tests are stupid because fear is stupid -really, it is. Granted, it is a great survival trigger for organism so they don't get eaten, it is also has a bad tendency to shutting down most reasoning parts of the mind. Most fears tend to be on the unreasoning side of the spectrum and produce truly unreasonable reactions in people, even if the fear was reasonable such as a hostage getting into the car and away from the crowd of cowering hostages with a gunman. Fear will make you do truly stupid things.

Beyond that, experiencing fear (or extreme loathing and repulsion which a good handful of fear tests in this game can be seen as) is not at all rational. Hell, I'm not ashamed to admit (well, yes I am, just a bit) that I have an extreme unreasoning fear of spiders (perhaps it's more of an incredible loathing... the results are the same). While I know that there are very few breeds that actually pose any kind of threat to me and, in North America, those that do tend to keep to themselves and away from me, I will still go into an embarrassing near blind panic at the sight of a harmless wolf-spider scuttling across the floor. I just can not stand, in any way, the thought of one touching me or the possibility existing of one coming into contact with me in any way. Because of that, I will go to any lengths including screaming and flailing like a five-year-old little girl (and utterly ruining what little man-cred I might have been able to build up at that point) to keep that from happening. I once had to get a raccoon out of a big macho black man's apartment. That man, if he ever got it into his head, could utterly destroy me (and probably almost literally rip me in half) but he was absolutely terrified of that raccoon -he absolutely could not handle it while I, being far less physically capable then he, had to get it out of his apartment at 3 in the morning.

"Fear is the mind killer" as the TFTD goes, antitheses to reason. There is little reason to some of the triggers nor is there to our reactions to those triggers. In the end, we seem to fear things that are of little or no threat to us all while not fearing those things which we rightfully ought to. In Dark Heresy, however, the things that trigger a fear check most definitely could do something to you even if you reasonably know you can kung-fu it into non-existence. A great big handful will even do horrible things to you just by existing in their horribly loathsome fashion somewhere near you (war-shock)..

So, in summery, reason has no place in fear and loathing. Fear is stupid, but not the rules for it. While not the best fear system I've ever seen, I postulate that it is still fear it self that is stupid, not the rules that allow such to exist in the system (because, lets face it, there aren't too many gammers that have an massive fear of numbers, math, and stat-blocks ;-) )

On the issue of Warp-Shock, yes, it is truly devastating, but then, as the setting goes, warp incursions are incredibly devestating. This is not the setting of Doom. That warp-shock thing is why the Imperium has a long and bloody history of killing anyone that has ever even witnessed a warp incursion as well as burning everything within miles (sometimes hundreds of those miles) and salting the earth where it happened. It is why entire Imperial Guard regiments will be purged by bolt and flame after a successful campaign or victory against the ruinous powers. It is why any citizen that even hints at having seen things from beyond is murdered by the Inquisition (perhaps after getting all the facts from said citizen that they could). Those who deal with the warp (even by fighting it's manifestations) will, barring some incredibly exceptions, eventually be destroyed by it for it will corupt and warp (that's where it gets its vulgar name after all) by merely existing... such is its corrupting nature in this setting ;-)

Either way, sorry for the slightly off topic remark here. I will say no more on this here so this thread can get back to its mounting drama in regards to Fearless and postings of Macs responses to questions about it. It could be quite entertaining...

Chester said:

First off, the answer came from Mack Martin. So not just some random CS person. So I would tend to believe he knew what he was talking about.

Second, if you read the text for Fearless it specifically says:

"You are immune to the effects of Fear and Pinning"

It doesn't say you don't roll, it says you are immune to the effects. It also does not say you ignore the effects of Warp Shock but only of Fear and Pinning.

Third, by the time you get this ability, you are probably going to have a Willpower over 40 (possibly even 50) so you have a pretty good chance of leaving the combat if you want. And even if you fail, that's what a Fate Point is for. So the "drawback" of Fearless is nothing really much more than an inconvenience. I don't see it as a serious drawback at all. It is a role play opportunity.

Forth, like I said previously. If you chose to ignore the answer, that's fine. Your game, your rules. Feel free. You don't like the answer? Feel free to send in your own question and get it answered. Go for it. You are more than free to do so. I'm not stopping you. Don't shoot the messenger because you don't like what he told you when all he did was share the information he received.

And believe it or not, I'm not a 20-something kid with no life but this game. Heck, I've got a 16 year old son (and he's not even my oldest) who plays with a bunch of us old codgers. If you take a look at the character sheet, skills and talents sheets I've put together I think you'll see if anything I'm just a little bit AR (is that hyphenated? ) in making sure the details are correct. Or do a quick search of the forums for the posts with the discrepancy that I encountered while compiling the data for those sheets to try and get a 4.0 errata out (which still hasn't come in over a year). Hardly the type who is going to lie about a response about a rules question asked.

So yeah I'm pissed at someone who questions my honor. I think I've earned the right to have my honesty a little more respected than that.