I am curious if anyone has thought of or developed house rules for chaplains for Deathwatch?

Assault marine for the xp tree and advancement, I also thought of some sort of inspirational talent from Dark Heresy, something in the faith chapters perhaps.I have not read through the books in a while as my group is somewhat of a pain with regards to any game, but that story is off topic and need not be told.

Gear is where it gets dicey, the two specialized items are hte rosarius and crozius, crozius is easy, use stats for a power maul/hammer and tou should be good. The rosarius on the other hand, you're already ignoring 8 points of damage for power armor, and then another 6-10 for Unnatural Toughness. Tack on another 2d10 of damage reduction and what's the point of even having combat? The Gm would have to use 20-40 magnitude hordes toting Las-Cannon or melta weapons just to hurt this one character - and those same hordes will decimate the other PC's. (Assuming the rosarius from the previousl 2 titles)

I thought about putting a time limit on it or a certain amount of damage it can absorb before shutting down to recharge, perhaps only being effective against certain damage/attack types.

Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated, also please do not turn this into a thread on whether chaplains are allowed or should be in deathwatch or not, I have seen "fluff" with regards to them being in to the point of one being killed by a hive tyrant, I have yet to see anything specifically stating they are not allowed, unless it is in the book itself. I have inquired to FFG about this and was told that future supplements will have them in not so many words, but I would like to play one before next year.

Thanks folks.

Well you're worrying that a starting chaplain actually "needs" the rozarius. I would just say its a piece of gear he gets later. Compare to librarians, who don't get to start with a psychic hood.

As far as the profile, I would say its probably not too hard to actually make a custom career, as the specific careers are no longer as large (due to the mix of tables characters draw skills/talents from). The key would be to define meaningful special abilities for them. I would say the obvious thing would be something based off of the pure faith talents, or some variation of the litany of hate talent.

As far as the rosarius quality, I see no issue using the one out of Ascension/IH (take your pick I guess).

I had not thought about just avoiding it altogether until later levels, maybe awardeding it at the same level or roughly close to the psychic hood, thanks for that one.

The true faith is what I figured on using, litany of hate works too. I can probably put together talents from various sources, there was a set of unofficial astartes rules done for dark heresy, there might be a good talent list in there for ideas.

It was really mainly stats and the overpowered factor I was worried about with regards to the rosarius.

Thanks for the help, very good suggestions.

Although in consideration, I would say that a simple talent is probably not comparable to the special abilities offered by the other classes. Personally I would consider a chaplain to be a "social" career type, so maybe some ability for a rousing oratory, like the ability rogue traders get. Its hard to say what would balance well what with me not having a book since I didn't make it to GenCon.

Just a thought but aren't Chaplains usually the keepers of knowledge / tradition for the Chapters? Perhaps that is why they wern't included.

To include them I would agree a mutation of the Assault specialty would be in order. Keep the Melee combat advances and swap out movement / jumping / acrobatics for chapter lore / secret knowledge / and Fellowship based stuff.

Or you could just wait till December when they release 'Rites of Battle'.

Kaiohx said:

I wanted to try and put one together and not wait the year ofr the book, unless Winter 2011 is wrong.

I think once the book is released I'll have a better idea, just wanted to get some thoughts before that.

Zin said:

Winter 2011 would also include January and February, and that has since been clarified as basically meaning Q1 2011, so only a few months away.

Ahh very true, seems I thought the worst. Thank you.