egalor said:

They're hardly a recent addition, nor something suddenly foisted onto the setting; the first mention of them (that I can find) is the Codex Imperialis that came with the 2nd edition 40k boxed set (released in 1992), and they didn't have so much as a codex or a piece of artwork until 5 years after that. It's not as if someone somewhere suddenly went "hey, we forgot to include women" and threw them fully-formed into the universe.

Besides, that argument can be applied to **** near anything in 40k - Eldar are Elves in space, Blood Angels play on the whole "vampires are [apparently] cool" shtick, and the whole thing is festooned with giant guns and all manner of other things to catch the attention and make people go "oooh..."

All that aside... if you scour the Adepta Sororitas (who, it should be remembered, aren't all warriors - the Orders Militant are only one part of the organisation) your version of the setting , what do you replace them with? Afterall, you can't easily have a "church militant" without an army of religious zealots...

And no matter if Sister of Battle was a done badly or not they are important. Since they are the only easy avilable 40k women in a protagonistic roll (rather then sidekick eyecandy (kinky female assasins etc)) they are important to the potential female fans. You can pick up a sisters of battle codes or a miniature package and see within the second that "Oh. This is about chicks". And thats important.

Sisters of Battle will be important until female characters are presented as protagonists in all products to the same degree as male characters (at a glance, not as in "there are female gaurdsmen too, sometimes" mentioned on page x.) or GW come up with more chicks as protagonists products.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

Yeah, I know that SoB have been introduced long, long ago - that's out of question. The idea is that even then - GW needed (as it does now) more average buyers. And I can't blame them for doing their business, I just don't like SoB.

What to replace them with? Heck, you've told it yourself - an army of religious zealots of _male_ gender. And what worries me even more, is that SoB cannot be seen as fitting better into their fanatic roles than their male counterparts. Really, they cannot be, right?

w176 said:

That's a part of what I understand under attracting more buyers. Apart from female fans, please add the reputation of w40k as of a politically correct universe and combine it with GW's expansion at the US market, and somehow we see curious coincidences...

*cought* I dpont tink any Nun with Gun and Boobd from the silicon factory would be called poltically correct.

I'm not overly fond of SoB either as being essentially a diluted, pissweak PG-13 version of Fish Speakers/Bene Gesserit. So, I kind of ditched most of the cute and fluffy GW background and instead have them being extreme racial puritans, diplomatic assassins and fanatical religious militants waging their own little shadow jihad for the emperor.

So far the PC's have only had very brief contact with one of the Missionaria Protectiva with very real power and influence, also who's methods tend to make the inquisition look like a drunken old boys country club and who are quite rightly completely **** scared, as they well should be....

I want more gear, stuff, weapons armor and the likes.

But what I really would want is Imperial Books . Books that are mentioned in the fluff universe, holy books, imperial books, inquisitorial books. And I mean the whole deal with leather covers, golden ornamentation and blood stains on the sheets and horror!

That

would

be

epic!

I like Sisters of Battle as an army and as an idea. Are they well thought out and competative in the tabletop game? No, but there is potential.

I also like the idea that the Imperial Ecclisiarchy actually created an army off of a loophole not allowing them to field an army of men. It's pretty funny when you think about it. It really illustrates the hypocrasy rife in the 40k setting. "Hmmm.... we can't field an army of men... I smell loophole!!" This is very similar to the hypocrasy of "sanctioned psykers" being safe for use, overlooking the genetic deviation in marine chapters that are loyal, allowing Ogryns and Ratlings to live because they are useful genetic deviations. What would the Imperium have left if they didn't have their hypocrasy? In fact, it's one of the main things I love about the setting.

To adress the the hair and the beauty issues with Sisters of Battle, I think they need to look good. They do take a vow that betroths them to the Emperor if I'm not mistaken and they need to look good for their man. Their hair styles are acceptable for our modern day military (a short bob) to the best of my knowledge. I think the uniform look was just a design element GW came up with to bring unity to the army. Also, the bad girls (sisters repentia and penitent engine pilots) look significantly less pretty than their sticture following sisters in the other combat units of the army so the entire force is not just an army of models... wait, they are an army of models, but I digress.

Overall, I believe they have their rightful place in the cannon of the 40k universe, or cannon-ess if you prefer.

I did forget there were non-militant orders of Sisters too (replying to an earlier response to a post of mine)... Darn that faulty memory.

Eh don't get too bent out of shape guys, Mack was mostly just talking. It was one thing he would like to improve at some point (SoB), elaborating on different offices/specialties.

As for further books, etc. he has been getting up to speed, deciding what to make/do, actually do it with approvals processes, then they need to get it finalized, and then printed/distributed. This all takes some time, so be patient. Sounds like something cool is coming as I said, but he couldn't say in case it got nixed/changed.

I'd like them to re-do the Sister of Battle as an Ascension class, not a standard DH class. It just seems that a full Sister wouldn't be part of a lowly group of Acolytes.

BYE

You have right, but Ascension is an expansion, it is not the core game, this is the problem.

The Sisters begun their career as apprentices, not as standard guard.

We don't need a re-do Sister of Battle, we need a re-do Dark Hersy, with the careers and the system of Ascension included, replacing most of existing base careers.

But it's hard that FFG want do this. Maybe, they can't at all.

[sorry for bad english]

What's wrong with the existing careers?

BYE

Suijin said:

Sisters Repentia? Sisters Sabine? Sisters Pronatus? Weeeee, I would play cross-gender first time if I got an opportunity.

H.B.M.C. said:

H.B.M.C. said:

They are too few. A good expansion is definitely needed.

Too few? Adding any more would create redundancy.

BYE

H.B.M.C. said:

How would you prove this?

The carreer options are less than ten, which makes a very poor choice for roleplaying opportunities, wouldn't you think so? And even if we try to compare it to a 200+ carreer compendium of WFRP, it becomes even more clear, that 8 (if I remember correctly) DH options are far too scarce.

egalor said:

H.B.M.C. said:

egalor said:

Why do people continue to ignore the fact that the WFRP-style careers and the 40kRP ones aren't directly comparable? A WFRP career is a small, rather inflexible building block - the flexibility of the system is external, coming from mixing and matching them rather than within the individual careers. The careers in Dark Heresy are significantly larger and broader in scope than any one WFRP career, and while they cannot be mixed and matched as WFRP careers can, a given Dark Heresy career has a huge amount more internal flexibility, even before considering elite advances and alternate ranks. A 1 career human soldier in WFRP2 will be essentially the same as every other 1 career human soldier, but two Imperial World Guardsmen in Dark Heresy have the potential to differ to a more significant degree.

The closest comparison is between WFRP careers and the individual ranks and alternate ranks of a Dark Heresy career - smaller building blocks of advances - and even that isn't a particularly accurate comparison.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

Oh. Larger potential to differ with the very same set of necessary skills and stats? Oh.

Ok, I try to explain waht I think.

My (foolish) idea of an re-do Dark Heresy, is a game like Rogue Trader.

It start with 5000px, and every career has her own role in the party.

Each career has one and only one path of evolution (like Rogue Trader) and there could be alternative ranks, as the black priest of Maccabeus.

I don't think we need more careers, but transform Ascension in the core game.

So, some careers will be redundant, as Hierophant and Cleric, in this situation, the Cleric alone is enough.

Hierophant could be an alternate career rank, it isn't?

This would be great, but honestly, I don't think that we will ever see a new edition with those changes of Ascension.

IMHO, the rank titles like "Armsman", are in truth the old careers of WHFR, but in Dark Heresy I don't think this system works well, in fact in Ascension is different, it is like an improvement of Rogue Trader.

In truth, FFG had innovated the game more than the Green Ronin.

Sebashaw said:

Sorry Sebashaw, but I'm not a fan of what you're describing.

I like the separation between Ascension and the Core rulebook.

Now for my thoughts on some of the other comments out there.

I also think the existing classes are more than enough and allow the building of very flexible characters within their roles. While the classes have names and therefore, preconceived notions attached to them, they can just as easily produce a character that could have a different skillset from the "normal" skillset.

My cleric can be a shooter, a close combat monster, a Faceman, a leader or I could be more diversified and take a little of each. Each of these builds makes a different character and while, I'm technically a cleric, I don't have to play my character that way. That is just the name of the archetype that I'm playing. The same could be said for most of the other character classes. The Core rulebook for DH offers a ton of possibilities without boxing anyone in. In reality, you could just ignore the labels and look at what a class progression provides to you before deciding. The label and the name of the class are honestly irrelevant except to give you some flavor and fluff attached to the setting. If you don't like the idea of the Guardsman, but you like the progression, you can play him in any way you want and call it whatever you want. It's just that easy.

Okay, here's my shot in the dark...

As a tie-in to DW how about a DH supplement which explores the militant aspects of the inquisition and the roles in which the acolytes/throne agents participate. Perhaps with the inclusion of a career path/package detailing the Commissariat as well as other applicable alternate career paths/packages...

A supplement with a treatment on the Adeptus Mechanicus wouldn't go amiss, perhaps long overdue in WH40K...

Treatment of the Holy Ordo's, possibly from the puritan perspective seeing as we already have coverage of the Radical elements...

Other than that revision of the core rules for DH inherited from BI to iron out some wrinkles (e.g. use of PSY Rating instead of WP to figure out damage dealt by a force bolt and other offensive discipline powers...), as well as continued support for the WH40k RPG line.

There's my 2 cents, I thank you for your time...

Rictus

egalor said:

Comparing starting characters...

Starting WFRP character - a couple of either/or choices of skills/talents, and a single free characteristic advance.

Starting DH character - a few either/or choices of starting skills/talents, and 400 xp to spend on characteristic advances, skills, talents, etc.

There's the difference.

Over the course of a single Dark Heresy career path, from start to rank 8, there are maybe two to three times as many availtable advances (in cost terms) as there is experience available to spend on it. That value increases further with the addition of alternate ranks. Over the course of 4 careers (virtually the upper limit in WFRP2, as characters start running out of things they've not bought by the end of 3rd career), a character may encounter maybe 10-15 'options' that don't have to be taken, many of which will be taken anyway. WFRP2 characters become largely homogenous because the individual careers absolutely require particular advances to be taken, and then state where you can move next, and because of an insufficiently large number available skills and talents to diversify between characters. Dark Heresy's system, much as you might decry it for a superficial laxk of flexibility, places no such requirements, and allows a character to be built in any way the player likes within the broad boundaries of the career.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

Maybe. But the problem is that in DH as well - there are certain "particular advances" that are required to be taken by a char to be effective in game terms. I simply cannot imagine an assassin, for example, taking security-related test in favour of something else. Maybe it's different with lore- and trade-related skills (due to their number), but that's only the part of it.

But I would also want to see a Pilot (to drive/fly vehicles), various specialisations of IG (heavu support, etc.), Heretek, Thief, Craftsman, Hiver (not Scum/Noble), i.e. to breathe in some more life into the carreers. Generally, however, we all (including me) like the current character system in DH, anyway.