Hello,

there's a point of rule i cant manage to make clear in my head, even though i roamed the forums looking for an answer.

Page 272, "Acquisition and starting characters" :

"...They may choose a single item with a total Acquisition Modifier of +0 or more without the need to make an Acquisition Test"

that "seems" clear yet , the word item is related to the kind of object, meaning to me than you choose for example the single item: "Jump pack" (rare: -10 modifier) , for a squad (+10), total 10-10= 0, acquisition granted.

So the question is around the "a single item" true meaning and the fact that you can by for a single man a scarce item with best craftmanship to a scarce item for an army (10000).

Nb: In fact that would make me think the team does exist for some time now and made some true commercial operations together.

Thanks for yyour answer.

I've always taken the phrase "single item" to mean exactly that. One item, not a bulk purchase. So you can use it to acquire a best quality scarce weapon, but you can't acquire enough common quality versions of that same weapon to arm a company, despite both options having the same total modifier.

Bilateralrope said:

Agreed. But, oh, some of the things you can pick up with that one selection. Best craftsmanship Boarding Armor from the Inquisitor's Handbook , if you've a GM that will allow for it is always a nice pick.

-=Brother Praetus=-

Good Quality Lathe Pattern Refractor Field, from Ascension

All I'm going to say is that you may all have to rethink your choices when Into the Storm comes out... there is some very shiny gear in there.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

I am all for shiny new toys, but there are just some things I tend to pick as a matter of character style. My rather frail looking Adept in the Dark Heresy game I play tends to like big-bore weapons of the solid projectile variety. He had a Hax-Orthlak Mk IV "Thollos" autopistol and a custom commissioned Armageddon/Pump Shotgun combi-weapon until we started Tattered Fates . But, then, coming from a militant noble lineage from the war world of Kulth, I play him a little nutty.

-=Brother Praetus=-

I'd consider everything that adds up to +0 fair game. If the Rogue Trader wants a representative guard of honour, more power to him!

I would allow a player to have a goon, mook, or dogsbody, whatever. I see no harm in a player having a small entourage of such individuals, and would rightly expect them to have some.

Brother Praetus said:

Has he tried for an Ork ranged weapon yet ?

If your talking large bore SP, I can't think of anything more appropriate. To keep this post on topic I'll also point out that since they are scarce in RT, you can acquire a best quality Ork Shoota/Slugga as your free acquisition. The RAW says that this wouldn't jam, although an Ork weapon that doesn't jam seems wrong.

Given the descriptions I've seen of them, it shouldn't be too hard to argue that SP training count would count towards using them.

Bilateralrope said:

Nope. Three main reasons he wouldn't want one.

1. He's from Kulth; this is a world which has been at war for nearly 90 years against a Waaagh!
2. He's been on the receiving end of one, and managed to remain unscathed for the most part.
3. The Tech-Priest, Guardsman and Cleric in his cell would likely kill him. The Assassin would probably giggle.

But, yeah, as a "trophy-piece" they would be awesome. I would still say that they count as Exotic for the simple fact that Orky-tech shouldn't work by all logical rationale.

-=Brother Praetus=-

Okay, I have a similar follow-up question to this point.

I'm jsut starting playing an RT game and it got to the point of character creation where our GM let us look through for the starting acquisitions we wanted to have. Similarly to what's been said above he limited our choices to a single item, in his ruling it's 'personal' gear that you bring with you. This is fair enough, and I'm not going to argue with him. What I'm curious about is the ruling on how the modifier is worked out for this pre-game acquisition.

Obviously it's not hard to say that, of course, craftsmanship and availability modifiers do come into play, but if the acuisition is designed to be used solely for single items thus allowing you to automatically qualify for the scale of a single man +30 mod, does that still apply? I mean if it did that would let you potentially start with Power Armour, granted it would be common crafstmanship but that seems a little bit overpowered... on the other hand, being limited to Scarce availabillty (+0) common-craftsmanship, or better craftsmanship on lower rarity items, seems limiting when a lot of interesting things (i.e. Belasco Dueling pistols, or a Lord Captain's baton for a Rogue Trader) ar of higher availability.

The question is what the actual ruling is on whether scae;e factors into this pre-game modifier calculation or not, because there are really arguments for it beng both ways and the rules don't explicitly state anything either way.

Since it's a personal item, I've always included the +30 scale modifier.

As for them being overpowered, even the poorest of explorers start with a roughly 20% chance to take the time. If you're starting rich with a weak ship, it is much higher. The difficulty with the starting acquisition is to find something that you won't be throwing away when you find a better item.

I've also allowed the "single item" to include multiple pieces if they are part of a set loosely using the -5 per the combining items guideline. For example, once character elected to take an Armoured Bodyglove, Carapace Chestplate, and Carapace Helm - all Rare pieces and then upped them to Good-craftsmanship for a total modifier of +0. Another character selected a matched set of Good-craftsmanship Bolt Pistols.

Xanatov said:

With regards to this point I feel I should note that how long all the PC's have been together is not set. I, for example, had my Rouge Trader get a ship with only the Seneschal PC on it and 10% of the standard crew. The two of them meet up with the crew the Seneschal had hired on the station, which our Void-master PC had been the representative for, and hired a security force that came with our Arch-militant PC.

My point with this is that they all brought personal gear with them but wouldn’t start with anything really useful to the team yet as they were not a team until after about 20 min.

Balfuset said:

There is nothing that explicitly denies the scale bonus to the freebie acquisition.

Many of the career starting items are rarer than Scarce. It seems very odd that FFG wanted a character's personal item to be inferior to the generic gear every explorer of their profession starts with.

I am firmly convinced that the Scale bonus does apply to the freebie acquisition. Power Armor really isn't that much better than carapace, considering the kinds of enemies that are supposed to be a threat to your typical band of explorers (not a few hive scum with autoguns).