Hey gang,

I am looking for some advice. I would like to create an intelligence officer in the imperial navy as my pc. His origin is from the Schola but other than that, i am having a difficult time deciding what to do with the existing rules. Should I just use the officer path of the guardsmen? has anyone else made an officer template that might work or have any other suggestions?

I tried the search function and couldn't come up with anything. My apologies if I missed it. thank you.

I would use the Adept, change some lores around or take the Battlefleet Calixis from IH

It really depends. If you are starting at Rank 1, go with Adept. Or even Arbitrator.

If you get to start at a higher rank, say 6 or so, go Guardsmen and take LT when you get the chance.

If you have access to Inquistor's Handbook, see if you can use the Battlefleet Calixis background, or see if the GM will let you take the skills, talents available to them as elite advances for 100XP each (a makeshift alterante career rank). If Rogue Trader is an option, ask about using Rogue Trader as an alternate rank 1 career advance chart or Void Master.

In the end, the 40K RPGs assume that officers have 6000+ XPs, cause in that universe no one is ever promoted based on family, wealth, luck or youthful skill.

Another, yet different, route is Scum, but that could be fun. For a firebrand kill them all type leader go Cleric.

As stated before, if the GM is nice and lets you play what you want, just trade off some of the lore skills for similar military types.

ok, i will look into that. thanks for the advice guys.

Peacekeeper_b said:

Well, you either get background and vaguely-thematic names for career ranks, or they end up being "Guardsman Rank 6b"...

Personally, given that I'm quite willing to discard naming conventions whenever i feel like it, I prefer the named ranks to the nameless ones in Rogue Trader and Deathwatch - if nothing else, it provided us with little snippets of background for various ranks in the Adeptus Mechanicus, Adeptus Arbites and Scholastica Psykana.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

That is nice info, but Id rather it be a complete side bar, and not attached to the ranks. Plus, the skills (sort of) correspond with the rank title. For example, if you want to play a rank 1 officer, tough cookies getting the leadership skills and talents RAW.

Best bet for this character idea "fresh out of the gate" is to start with either Noble or Battlefleet Calixis (Voidborn) as your character origin (or perhaps one from Rogue Trader if your GM allows it). Next step is to gently tweak the starting skills and talents package on the Adept career. Because an officer should (hopefully) not be quite so anemic in regards to FEL consider substituting the Cleric's Attribute table in place of the Adept's usual chart. Replace the Adept's starting gear with a uniform, officer's sidearm (stub pistol or the naval pistol in IH), ceremonial sword and a flak vest (Battlefleet Blue, of course!)

Should full-fledged Rogue Trader characters be available as choices (say a game starting at 6,000 points for example) then Rogue Trader or Void Master make pretty good choices too.