ShatterCake said:

I do not really see why the "no helmet" is much of a balancing. She is not have any armour there, granted. But it is not like a shot to the unarmoured had would be any more damaging in DH then a shot at the unarmoured body. As long as we are not talking "the last three steps of critical".
And the Sister in Servor is going to have most of her other Wounds untouched, since all other parts are AP:8/7

I think giving a Sister Servo & Bolter is at Rank 1 is unbalancing. The "poverty woe" is not helping her, since the thing a pc is spending his/her money on is ...weapons, armour and ammonition. Okay, some gear sometimes. But mainly, it is exactly that. And weapons and armour and ammonition are free for a Sister. Especially in the case of ammo, the rest of the group might grow pretty jealous. While 40 shots of Bolter are 640 Thrones, a sister will get exactly this at the start of each mission (two spare clips)

Talking about battle, a GM of Rank 1-3 group now has to decide if he puts something up that can hurt the sister (and might be shredding the rest of the group) or to keep it level-field for the rest of the group (leaving the Sister defacto invurnable).
The other option is that either the GM equips the rest as good as the sister (carapace goes a long way) or makes sure he has a "duel partner" on the other side so the sister has her opponent(s) while the rest of the pc fight "the rabble". Things like this do work out. GM´s do this all the time. But at Rank 1-3, the GM with a Sister in the group will have to do double shifts in this department.

The FFG-Team might have done the SistaFanBozy a huge favour since they no can stop whaling about that a BS is not a BS if she isn´t having Bolter & Servo, but I doubt that FFG did the overall gaming a favour. At least not in the lower rank department.

Do the sisters get free bolter rounds? Not like they are gonna be firing that bolter of theirs all that much...especially since rounds are rare and cost 16 thrones a pop

Where does it say they get a proper military power pack for their power armor?

Even if they get a bolt pistol at rank 1, who really cares? If I am a guardsman, I am gonna be loving life with my autogun... because its godly.

I guess you can fire our bolt pistol and blow up 1 heretic every once in a while... but autogun is the king of guns against gangers, hertics, and cultists. (barring the obvious heavy weapons etc)

linearblade said:

Sisters get 'free' bolter rounds or any ammuntion they in service of teh Ecclesiarchy. They only get it Order Militant convents, Ecclesiarchy stores, or any other similarly stocked Imperial facility. To me that means any Arbites precinct house, Imperial Guard Armory, or a PDF base. That list is hardly all inclusive, but examples. Boltguns are pretty awesome with their penetration and stopping power. That and they are Tearing which is nice too so you have more of a chance of getting a Righteous Fury. The Autogun isn't bad if you have a decent BS since I assume you are referring tot eh ability to do full auto, but without any pen of its own (assuming you are not paying for manstopper rounds) its not all that good against serious armor. Of course Godwyn de'az bolters are reliable too so thats another point in thier favor unless you lay your hands on a good quality autogun. Bolters do have semi-automatic so they can burst fire. Stormbolters have fully automatic so they can hose down a crowd too if thats your preference. A good boltgun hit can stop someone in one shot (especially DH mooks) which I suppose is the point.

In BoM page 118, where it describes Sororitas Power Armor it also has that it uses a Fusion generator power pack that gives it unlimited usage practically speaking.

linearblade said:

By deault the Battle Sister starts play at Rank 1 with a Bolter and 90 rounds of ammunition. They don't earn a wage and don't purchase weapons/equipment. Everything they carry is basically property of the Ecclesiarchy and they will usually only carry what is deeemed essential for their role (two weapons with two reloads for each).

A Battle Sister will get to use their Bolt weapons quite frequently, and why not, they are supposed to be given some of the best kit the Imperium has to offer (short of the Adeptus Astertes and Officio Assasinorum). That said, there is nothing to stop the party giving the Battle Sister an Autogun to use if they felt so inclined.

Given the choice and even paying for the ammunition I'd go with a bolt weapon over an autogun most days of the week.

I guess... but by that logic a guardsman should get refills for a plasma gun or any other weapon they carry right?

On a side note, I doubt there are very many bolter rounds at a Arbites stronghold (even if they can refill there), and I dont think the eclisiarchy has any power over the PDF or imperial guard either, so I doubt they are getting rounds there as well. (unless, ofcourse it says in the fluff). You might refill their ammo out of courtesy, but not because of any requirement to do so.

I also know the way we play our games, we arent stopping by places all the time that have ammo just lying around...

I dunno, Battle sisters are horrible inquisition player class... You can hide the tech priest as a vending machine , or even a commercial tech priest... but battle sisters arent in the commercial sector, and they only serve 1 purpose: killin!

Wherever they are, its on official business. It would be like trying to be incognito with a Space marine With his chapter standard, or a guardsman lugging an auto cannon around.

On a side note: I'm STILL gonna use an auto gun over a bolt pistol on heretics and gangers. and if I can dum dums or manstoppers, then I'm really gonna have some fun.

Not like they have much armor, toughness , or hitpoints for it to really matter anyway...

PS: given the opportunity of a free Bolt Pistol, I'd DEFINATELY TAKE IT... but I probably ask the more important question... Why is this character here, and how will she hinder me.

I have a rank 9 or 10 interrogator, and I still use my autogun, or dual shot best quality Trantors with manstoppers more, then I use my bolt pistol.

linearblade said:

Nope, because the Guardsman career isn't automatically an Imperial Guardsman. He could be a bounty hunter, or a mercenary.

Also, bolters are fairly common in proper Adeptus Arbites strongholds. Local police probably won't have them, but the Arbites almost certainly will.

linearblade said:

Well I suppose it is out of courtesy. Surely though if a Battle Sisters shows up and asks for some Bolter rounds, no true Imperial would deny her the ability to carry out her holy mission. That said you're right you are only really going to get these refills at serious imperial facilities, but an Arbites precint house is usually jam packed with weapons as an Arbites fortress is often the place an loyal IMperials make a last stand vs secessionists or heretics beofre help arrives. They are called Arbites-Precinct Fortresses for a reason. They don't play around and are given very good equipment like Executioner rounds for their combat shotguns. Bolt rounds are used by Officers and Judges from the Arbites.

There is nothing subtle about a Battle Sisters and they try to cover this Blood of Martyrs. They are a symbol of Ecclesiarchy power and they mean business. If a small squad of Battle Sisters rolls intot eh Enforcer station I'm perrty sure that all the local Enforcers are getting nervous becuase they realize that somebody has screwed up big time or a purging is about to take place. Sisters working with an Ordo Hereticus cell can work undercover though they just won't be using her gear. But when it comes time to kick the door in and mow the heretic scum down, the battlesister with her stormbolter on full auto will strike the Fear of teh God Emperor into them

I guess it depends on your class of enemy when comparing the power of weapons but having bolt weapons is also making a statement. Staring down the business end of a Godwyn De'az bolter while the Sister holding asks you and your recidivist scum gang to submit probably says something.

One of the standard arbitrator weapons is the bolter, therefore they should have plenty rounds available. At least, it was when they last had models made by GW...

Hellebore

Hellebore said:

Gregorius21778 said:

Makes me wonder if Only War will have specialists with Flamers or Grenade Launchers or Heavy Bolters from the start!

I like Gregorius's thinking, its very progressive.

Yeah I also let Arbites bases have bolt shells and a small number of boltguns for emergencies, but I didn't know individual sisters had carte blance to supply their ammunition there by default. My impression of 40k bureaucrazy is that the different Adepta don't worked together well unless they have to, and that still takes an inordinate amount of paperwork.

As for the topic... as much as I like the coolness factor of "real" battle sisters with bolters and power armor, I concurr it is not very well balanced. In fact the armor is most unbalancing at lower levels, while when the acolytes start getting customized guns and carapace or mesh armor, it is the boltgun that really rocks as enemies get more armor, TB and wounds.

My acolytes have been ok with SP weapons for a long time, but now they realize bolters are often necessary.

The "Imperial Munitorum Manual", an in-character book for Imperial Guard, has a great flow chart on whether to allow a requisition or report the requester to the inquisition. Not specific to the sisters, but it has a lot of cool little forms that give one a good idea of what the Imperial Bureaucracy is like.

Another take on this: yes, a Sister of Battle or an Arbitrator may well expect to be supplied with bolters and all the shells they can fire into recalcitrant heretics and criminals. But they are not working for their respective groups in this game, they're working for the Inquisition. And at first level, you may well be an expendable acolyte, being tested, so your Inquisitor is unlikely to lavish expensive armour and equipment on you.

Niqvah said:

Exactly. The same reason a Guardsman can't go requisition a Leman Rus tank. ("Hey I've got Drive (Ground Vehicle)! Where's my tank!")

To requisition stuff you need a reason. Unless the powers that be think that you are going to need bolt shells, they are not going to waste any on you an probably you get a black mark somewhere as wasting Imperail resources (= sin).

I guess my main point was, yea if it was an emergency like 'there are tyranids running around, I am a battle sister and I need some ammo now! your probably gonna get it

But for normal like, 'Hello I'm low on ammo, and I need some more...' I'm guessing they aint gonna give it up...

For an example... look at the Departmento munitorium manual they published... I'm guessing its pretty darn hard to get restocked, and giving it out to a sister, is ammo you have to re -requisition...

There is a lot of paperwork involved... so unless there is an emergency I really doubt she will be getting anything, maybe a spare clip or 2... The beuracracy pretty much would shut this sort of activity down.

So while the bolter is dangerous, and it makes a statement, AND its powerful at level 1... I think it only becomes more powerful at say level 3-5 when all the sudden that bolt pistol is pretty darn handy, and now your guardsmen and arbites feel cheated, b/c they need to get one as well.... and if the sister is smart, she still ahs close to 90 rounds of ammo left.

If a Sister is workign for the Ordo Hereticus she is most certainly doing her job. After all they are the Chamber Militant of the organization. Realistically Sisters wouldn't be doing anything else as that is taking them away from their sacred mission. YMMV.

Linearblade I'm not quite sure what your trying to get at overall. They get a bolter at rank 1, or if a GM decides to dial it down a bolt pistol and a chainsword at rank 1. Or GM can dial it down further, but that is the suggestion. Both of those are exceptionally powerful for a starting acolyte, much like Redemptionists starting with flamers or ... for some reason I am drawing a blank, the massive chain sword. One of the central ideas stated plainly and directly in the text is they can restock from Ecclesiarchy stockpiles via any militant convent or just a similarly stocked Imperial bastion. This can mean ammo issues if they go to, say, feudal or feral world and ammo is scarce, but as a counter argument I would assume she is not limited to JUST forever having 2 clips and no more; if she is to go on an extended mission she may be able to requisition more.

That is slightly bending the rules however. More realistically there is nothing stopping her from buying another weapon with cheaper ammunition for mooks. Or, you know, making use of that chainsword which is pretty great especially when combined with the fact you start with power armor.

Sororitas become special cases; when you speak of an Arbite character showing up at an Arbite stronghold and asking for ammunition, they aren't very likely to get it without some proper clearance or some great convincing - maybe a GM will allow it, maybe not, but Arbites also becomes archtypes instead of a stringent career. Sororitas are the same always - a very important and very specific power and representation of the Ecclesiarchy. They have an authority inherent in being Sororitas, and Battle Sister's don't prance around pointlessly.

You could be called on it by a higher authority and receive censure as a result of "wasting resources", but I wouldn't expect something like a PDF depot to turn a Sister away without receiving severe repercussions without a much higher authority being behind it. *Shrug*

andrewm9 said:

The duties of the Adepta Sororitas aren't quite that clear-cut, though. Like the Deathwatch, they're not part of the Inquisition, but rather an allied organisation with mutual goals and a standing agreement to cooperate... but the Sororitas also have other roles and responsibilities aside from the Inquisition. They are, simultaneously, the military arm of the Adeptus Ministorum and the force that polices the Ecclesiarchy seeking out corruption, blasphemy and heresy within it, quite independent of their role assisting the Inquisition.

If the relationship between the Adepta Sororitas and the Inquisition is anything like that between the Inquisition and the Deathwatch, then high-ranking Sisters (that is to say, some or all Canonesses) may well have the political power to be able to regard an Inquisitor as an equal, in a manner no different to a powerful Cardinal, Judge, Imperial Commander, Astartes Chapter Master, Rogue Trader or Arch-Magos...

At that point, what constitutes a Sister of Battle's "sacred mission" is a little more fuzzy, as there are suddenly at least two outside groups vying for the means to direct the Sororitas - the Ministorum and the Inquisition.

More than the "balance" issues (which are only relevant when they're out of control, and I believe a level 1 power armor+bolter combo is), what annoys me is the paradigm change, from a game about mundane mortals trying to fight back inhuman threats that are vastly greater than they are, to a game about badasses who can kill heretics by the dozens.

Starting (even mid-level, at time) DH characters could not go around insulting hive gangers. They could not laugh at those guardsmen in the bar. They were talented (or at least became so as levels went up but they had to be careful, and that feeling of humanity made DH my favourite 40k RPG.

I like the Sororitas in IH better, because at least, it did feel like she could be threatened by mere hivers and lasguns.

Peacekeeper_b said:

I wouldn't be surprised if that's they way they are planning to go with it. BoM being the first in a line of books that hugely increases the load out of specific sub careers. This time next year a combat character might have to be a SoB, Cadian Shocktrooper, Hypno Indoctrinated Arbitrator etc etc.

If been running on a requisition system since the start (mostly cause I want them to be able to have the stuff that those characters have in the TT and the Fluff) so a full Arbitrator (at rank 5), would be expected to have Carapace armour and Bolt pistol, A Rank 4 guardsmen gets his Chainsword etc. Based on that I would have been happy to give a Sister power armour and Bolter when they reach that rank they seem to have jumped the gun to give the players what they want.

So I'm hoping that this is the way they are intending to go with it just that this is the first step and seem's a bit out of balance with the exisiting scumy (or at least massively generic) acolyte characters.

The problem that Sisters (and others) didn't start with their iconic wargear wasn't a problem in my mind, as you were not playing the table top game. You were playing mooks in the universe of the game. In my mind full battle sisters are not starting characters, and so the fact you didn't start with power armour made sense. Now you have a totally average person (barring lucky rolls and starting xp spend) starting with power armour and a bolter, which makes very little sense to me. Now, As a GM I would award the player with the requisite iconic gear when I felt they graduated to that level (so becoming a full Battle Sister, or a pre- Ascension Storm Trooper getting a hellgun and Carapace for the Guardsman).

There is no reason for bolter armed sisters to overpower a game. If the game stays true to the root of Dark Heresy (information gathering, infiltration, research, interrogations, interviews, investigation, screaming, babbleing, going insane) the bolt pistol, bolt gun, heavy bolter should have no impact or negative impact even.

As a cultist Im less likely to stick around the bar once a fully armed sister or arbitrator walks in.

Besides, boltgun shells do not add to fear tests, they do not block corruption or sanity damage and they cannot stop a ritual (well you can shoot those who are casting it, but who knows what mayhem that may cause).

Peacekeeper_b said:

You are absolutely right in that it doesn't upset teh game balance at all as everybody can get access to bolt weapons sooner or later. Sisters pay for the right to start with power armor and bolter repeatedly over their 8 ranks. The vast majority of their skills, wounds, and talents are seriously marked up in xp cost. If you want to be good at the thing you are supposed to be good at you will have a lot less (useful) skills than your counterparts in the party. Its not a broad class and they are piss poor in close combat IMO. Faith may help somewhat but I haven't played with them yet.

That's another way of saying that they won't be playing the same game as the other acolytes.

Anyway, I much, much prefer the Sororitas from Inquisitor's Handbook, including the way faith is handled. As for the new alternate ranks, they'd be awesome if they weren't making everyone and their dogs superpowered fantasy clerics. They're not so much unbalanced as completely missing the point of Dark Heresy. (Actually, they sort of ARE unbalanced).