Can I switch characters between rulesets and still be playing the same game? Are the stats the same? If not, how are they different? I have had Rogue Trader for abot a week but do not have either Dark Heresy or Deathwatch.

Thanks!

There are a few differences, and the character creation system is entirely different, but with a few tweaks they are fully compatible, yes.

Rogue Trader characters start at rough 4,500xp by memory - so this is what, a rank 4 or 5 DH character? The trade off becomes that on average, RT characters have higher stats, while DH characters will have a much broader ability range. There are minor rules differences, but largely they are the same - I would recommend just sticking with one book or another, and in the case of using RT characters, just make use of the RT rule set.

Why was the starting stat range for RT 4500 XP higher than DH?

Rogue Traders are by (rule-)design more powerfull as they get +5 to all attributes and get complete skillpackages instead of single skills (pistol weapon training instead of laspsitol,sp-pistol,meltapistol,etc.)

to compensate this they just set the starting xp from rogue trader to 4500xp compared to 400xp for DH characters this just reflects the increase in Attributes and stuff

furthermore most RT equipment is slightly more powerfull but if you combine the 2 rulebooks anyway you can hand out equipment from both books anyway so this shouldn't be any hindrance

you are still left with the different economic systems while DH uses hard currency RT uses a different system (since you have the book for about a week you should be familiar with it)

DH get's a similiar wealth system with Ascencion but Ascencion starts at rank 9 for DH (while 4500 xp from RT are roughly rank 5)

Deathwatch probably has also a wealth system similiar to RT (as the money based system is a leftover from a previous licence owner) but is scaled higher than RT too

the rules are compatible enough to use the systems together,port equipment,use enemies from the different books but powerlevel doesn't have to be

Deathwatch has Reknown, which is apparently a representation of how much of a hero your Marine has been, the higher the rating, the better the equipment you can requisition from your superiors in the Deathwatch.

And I've done a lot of scouring, of both the books and the forums, one major difference is psychic powers, which look pretty incompatible to me. See RT (and DW) powers don't have threshold ratings, you just make a regular trait roll, with modifications for Psy Rating and other factors. Their powers also have different XP values. I've found no way to convert a DH psyhchic power to RT, or vice versa, because there seems to be no system for extrapolating the Threshold value, which can vary pretty widely in DH.

I should mention that the rules for psychic powers work work differently in Dark Heresy so it is one of the aspects of the games where they are not compatible.

EDIT : Now that caffeine has cleared my mind, I can see Blood Pact had already posted about psychic powers. I hate Monday mornings.

Blood Pact said:

This is the most annoying thing about DH and RT i wish that someone in FFG would get round to converting the powers, now that there are more powers on the DW book we need real rules on how to convert them or have the converstion done for us PLEASE

Kyorou said:

My understanding as to why is that Astropaths are not Psykers. It's two different disciplines. While both careers use psychic powers it's for different reasons and at different levels of power.

LeBlanc13 said:

Astropaths are psykers but not all psykers can be Astropaths. Soul Binding changes the psyker. Its Navigators who are like psykers but are wholly separated.

Aye, Astropaths are psykers, but they're different, they can't learn the powers a Sanctioned Psyker can (like Pyromancy), but they can send messages over the entire sector, which a Sanctioned Psyker and technology can't. Therefore, there's little incentive for full conversion to take place, because nothing currently in Rogue Trader could use the Sanctioned Psyker powers in Dark Heresy.

MILLANDSON said:

I guess my differentiation should have been between Astropaths and Sanctioned psykers then.

I agree with having astropaths on one set of rules for powers, other psykers/sorcerers are another. To the point that the only non-astropath psykers in the FFG published endeavours that I don't convert* over to the DH system are the Eldar psykers. They don't get converted because they are more stable than astropaths and converting them would be difficult.

*By convert I mean that I give them DH psyker powers, using their psy rating + willpower bonus to decide how many, and the powers FFG gave them as a guide to which powers they get.

With doing this, the only area where a house rule is required is if an astropath uses a force weapon, and that is a very simple houserule (ignore threshold, use the opposed willpower test to activate the power).

Bilateralrope said:

Actually, no house rules are needed. Full rules for Force Weapons are in Into The Storm .

I just think some consistency accross all 3 systems would have been best, instead of leaving Dark Heresy the odd man out.

MILLANDSON said:

Yes little incentive apart from the fact that i guess the DW rules use the same rules as RT so if we can get conversions then we can all be singing from the same hymn sheet. In one of the campaigns i am running its a real pain because i have a rogue trader vessel which has a inquisitor pc who used to be a pysker and an astropath pc on the same party plus i plan to add DW characters when i get hold of a copy and one of my players will want to play a space marine librarian thats 3 psyker systems in use in one game (granted i haven't seen the DW rules so it maybe 2) but its still a pain and i thought the idea was to have similar rules so you could easily intergrate one system with the other well the pysker system is the one outstanding major thing as far as i can see that isn't easy to intergrate.

Have a word Millandson as only you can do i'm sure the guys are rather busy with lots of other things but i bet this would be one of the most requested things if fans where allowed to request " what do you want to fix ".

And i feel as if a great weight has been lifted from me .

Well, I know that Mack and his team are busy on the projects you've seen in the Knowledge is Power release schedule, so I'm not entirely sure they have the time to completely rewrite the DH psyker rules. Plus, that would require an entire new version of the core book, so I doubt that such changes will come any time soon.

MILLANDSON said:

not looking for a re-write just an indication of how to convert the rules the details they give in RT are really not helpful at all someone somewhere in FFG must have an idea of how it's meant to work?

I've only skimmed the Rogue Trader rulebook, and haven't picked up Ascended yet ($50 for a rulebook, during the worst recession since the Great Depression? FFG , you are killing me!) Is it possible for characters to start out as DH -standard, switch to an RT class at 4th level, then switch to Ascended class at the appropriate XP level?

Adeptus-B said:

Yes, but your campaign will have to be both very long lived and tailored to combining the world of the Acolyte with the world on a Rogue Trader ship. Which can be done. My group has their ship in arrears, with the money owed to your friend and mine, Inquisitor Silas Marr.

You may want to bump up the xp rewards if you ever want to see Ascension levels. I saw one of the FFG people (Ross?) post that they liked their players to level every three sessions. If you follow the xp guidelines in the books, as characters go up in Ranks, it can take them ten or more sessions to make it to the next rank.

Whilst you can do that, the game system is not designed at all for characters to cross between different careers between different games (eg. DH to RT). You would have to figure all of that out yourself, DH and RT don't do it for you.

I'm thinking I would keep DH and RT careers separate but would want PCs to play in each others game's story line.

So, as long as I could have a DH character adventure along with a RT crew for awhile, without having to switch back and forth between rules (except for psychic powers), that would be ideal.

Saw this post on converting DH characters to RT. Is it any good in your opinion? Psychic powers have to be adjusted AFAIK but this might be a good start?

"Some players are curious about moving their characters from Dark Heresy into Rogue Trader. It’s a simple affair, you simply re-make the character as a rank 1 Rogue Trader character and spend whatever xp is leftover. A rank 1 Dark Heresy character has spent 0 xp out the gate, but is immediately given 400 xp to spend on advancements. A rank 1 Rogue Trader character, on the other hand, has spent 4500 xp, and has 500 xp to spend on advancements."

Meaning as I have an DH Assassin with 8550 xp I would just remove 5000 xp (for a total of 3550 xp left for my "new" RT character) and make a level 1 RT character. Then level up using RT rules and the 3550 xp I calculated in the previous sentence.

EDIT: Our whole group will do the same exact conversion so as far it's close enough and the group stays balanced I would be happy (as a player... I'm basically asking these here to help out our GM make a good and easy choice of conversion for our group).

Someone has already had a go at converting Dark Heresy's Psychic powers to the RT rules.

I've not tried them myself, but I'd be interested to learn what others think, and perhaps even some feedback after playtesting?

Note: I have had nothing to do with this, just passing on a find.

I wanna see if I have this correct. If I have a party of DH characters get to 4500xp, could they join up with a level 1 crew from RT?

Thanks.

Mike