I'm starting a new campaign with some friends, and one of my RPers wants to be a Smuggler as his advancement scheme.

I have given this a lot of thought myself and the only real solution I can come up with is to make him a Void Born Scum from a Rouge Trader ship and then just give him some skills like Pilot (spacecraft) and Navigate (stellar) and things like Trade (merchant).

Some of those skills would be thier starting skills, though I'm trying to come up with 15 - 20 suitable skills / talents for the first fiveranks then 12 - 15 skills / talents for the three split of ranks after that.

I was thinking I would call the ranks as follows :

1: 0-499 = Lacky

2: 500-999 = Deck Hand

3: 1000-1999 = Shipmate

4: 2000-2999 = Smuggler

5: 3000-5999 = First Mate

6:6000-7999 = Captain

6B: 6000-7999 = Understudy

7: 8000-9999 = Number Two

7B:8000-9999 = MajorDomo

8: 10000-14999 = Fleet Commander

8B: 10000-14999 = Kingpin

Any Ideas or anything to help would be greatly appreciated. :-)

Have you considered creating a separate career out of it?

Because in my opinion Scum does not really cut it. And making a new career isn't that hard in DH.

Having designed a complete basic career from scratch once, I have to say it's often a lot of work that is perhaps unecessary. You might be better advised to design an alternate rank or starting package. There's a lot of flexibility built into the Scum career that in my view would suit the concept of a smuggler very well. There's also an existing starting package in the Inquisitor's handbook for the Scum career that is very similar to the smuggler concept: I can't recall the name off the top of my head, but it's a courier's guild that specialises in transporting high value items.

@lightbringer: thanks for that, I also have the Inquisitors handbook and I think I know which guild you mean.... I'll look into it further......

@Arag: I could create an entirely new career scheme? o.0 Would you happen to have anything to help me with such a task? like a guick guide or some example ones?

XD thanks guys i wasnt expecting ANY, let alone such useful help XD

The first thing that came to my mind was "Extra large cavity"

time-flieslove-me-now said:

I did it once: I created a Imperial Noble basic career (this was almost immediately after the release of Dark Heresy, before the release of the Inquisitor's Handbook.) Here's the link:-

http://www.darkreign40k.com/drjoomla/index.php/new-rules/careers/624-complete-basic-career-imperial-noble

Basic careers are a lot of work. To do it right takes a good 2-3 hours. First you have to have a strong concept, even a visual reference or archetype to work from. Then you have to do a decent write-up, to introduce the concept to players. You have to think of basic trappings, starting skills etc. Then you have to go through the skills and talents table, and write out which ones suit the concept. Then you have to rank them up. This is the hardest part. There's no point giving a rank 1 character skills that need tons of prerequisites, so you save the more high powered skills for the end of the career chart tables. It's best done in Microsoft Word, using pregenerated tables with 10-15 spaces in each: this way you can easily move the skills and Talents around as you go. Bear in mind also that Basic Careers will need to be thoroughly playtested to even begin to balance.

Alternate ranks are easier, but you have the same "ranking" issues, as you need to set the level of the alternate rank correctly and consider which careers it interacts with. They're more flexible, and you can be a bit eccentric with them, though.

Starting background packages are the simplest thing to write: you need 3-4 skills, and some characteristic to make the character's history unique. You can churn out 2-3 of these at a sitting, if you concentrate.

One thing often overlooked are elite advances. These are skill packages for unusual skills (like learning to fly a particular type of speeder) that don't fit in any existing career. I've created a couple of these, here's one:-

http://www.darkreign40k.com/drjoomla/index.php/new-rules/new-packages/777-elite-advance-malfian-shadowguild-trained-safecracker

Oh, and don't use these forums for complex tables, they're useless. I could never figure out how to import tables into these forums. The old BI forums were much better for this sort of thing. I would have done loads more careers for RT and DW if I could figure out how to put tables here!

Hope that helps!

@lightbringer:

wow dude, those schemes are awesome. SOOOOOOO helpful, thanks a whole bunch for the help XD I found the smugglers guild you mentioned in the previous message, its the Cold Guild Courier. Maybe I'll leave the whole 'create a complete new scheme' thing for after I've run a few more games, (this is my first full campaign, though I have run a few single session RPs) I've created an alternate scheme called 'Smuggler' that can be taken instead of either of the original alternative scum advancements.

Once again guys, thanks very much for the help XD

time-flieslove-me-now said:

Remember, their are other things then interplanetary smugglers.

The owner and crew of a surface-orbit shuttle helping to get illicite cargo of a void ship > smuggler
The hiver guy & crew who promises the underhive dregs jobs for the children in the factories but sells them to slavers > smuggler
The guy on the imperial world who drivers alcohol from the farmer clans into the cathedral city despite the ban of the biship > smuggler
The thieves on the forge world sneaking goods out of the makro warehouses and to start ports to the independt traders, circumventing the scanner servitors and fooling the auspex-skulls > smuggler
The half-feral ashleen gang at port Suffering bringing ghost fire pollen past the gate guards for illegal processing in the port itself > smugglers

It would build an alternate career rank, at rank 4 (instead of renegade; which is very much about violence) and call it Smuggler

[100xp] Concealment +10
[200xp] Concealment +20
[300xp] Talented (Concealment)
[100xp] Pilot (Civilian Craft)+10
[100xp] Carouse
[100xp] Drive (Ground Vehicle)+10
[100xp] Secret Tongue (Gutter)+10
[100xp] Chem-Use
[100xp] Blather+10
[300xp] Deceive+20
[100xp] Navigation (Surface)+10
[200xp] Inquiery+10
[200xp] Concealed Cavity
[300xp] Forbidden Lore (Archeotech)
[200xp] Search+10
[100xp] Barter+10
[100xp] Ciphery (Underworld) +10
[100xp] Speak Language (choose a Hive, Ship or World Dialect)
[100xp] Commen Lore (Choose one: Machine Cult; Administratum; Ecclesiarchy; Imperial Guard or Tech)
[100xp] Trade (Merchant)
[100xp] Decadence
[100xp] Foresight
[100xp] Paranoia
[300xp] Peer (Choose one)

This assortment tries to reflect a smuggler who is about cunning, planing, contacts and running something across a border.

I would have thought you would just use the Rogue Trader career, but I like the idea of an elite advance open to Scum.

THAT being said...

• I think you should have Evaluate up to +20 in there as well as bring Barter up to +20 (No one wants to pay full price on the Black Market).
• Because of how all-purpose you are going with this advance I would suggest offering instead of just Drive, offer Drive (Any one) and Pilot (Any one) both up to +10...or maybe (Any two).
• It could be interesting to also offer Enemy (government) or Enemy (Underworld) for a negative XP cost. Enemy (Underworld) can be optional to represent someone who may have pissed off the wrong people...like maybe they dumped their cargo at the first sight of an Imperial Cruiser
• 'Maybe Forbidden Lore'...while they might have heard rumors, I think most smugglers would have enough dealings with such stuff to know.
• Finally I think they should have Tech-Use...most smugglers in 40K probably use something mechanical to get them from A to B, and should be able to tinker with it. Most smuggling vessels ARE modified after all.

That's my two-cents anyway.