MILLANDSON said:

I think you're right Millandson, and its a real shame that that's probably the case.

I think the tryptich approach has clearly failed to produced the 'grand roleplaying game' it presumably set out to (akin to the original box-set D&D model a couple of decades ago). There are now three games that don't really mesh properly, certainly not without a significant amount of kit-bashing from the GM/players.

I've said before i think the basic premise taken was a poor one, and the execution of the rules inappropriate for the epic nature of 40k, so i certainly support Kasatka's view that a core rulebook supported by splatbooks is a better model. Provided of course that an appropriate rule mechanic is also used.

FFG took the WHFRP IP and produced an entirely new iteration of the game so i think there's at leas a glimmer of hope that they might be looking at something similar for 40k. I do hope they don't send the 40k RP rules down the same route as WHFRP 3e though...

We've now got the full set of games as originally intended by BI/GW. With every release i was hopeful that things would get better. For me, the mechanics as so poor for modelling the 40k universe and the mechanical mismatch between the three games so significant that for me i think overall the IP line has collapsed into 'nice try' territory.

I'm holding out hope that FFG, while obviously supporting the current iteration (which i've, i'm afraid to say, stopped buying - too many rules/not enough background / RP source already), are beavering away behind the scenes on a revamp which provides a rules toolbox appropriate to model the 40 IP properly, supported by focussed sourcebooks.

Ah well... :¬/

From what people wrote, it seems more and more folks want DnD 4th ed: the Warhammer 40k MMO Pen & Paper experience, where types of characters is defined by their role in the team: one Tank, one Melee DPS, one ranged DPS, one support. Don't try going into melee with that priest, or try to pick-lock that door with that Assassin now, those are not thier specialty.

Please.

People want to be 'The Setting' yet despite this, they seems to want to be bound in thier specific duty, like one of the billions in the Imperium. No need to broaden your skills or learn something new: you're a guardsman and you better not do anything else than soaking damage. An assassin? Ranged damage. A priest? Boost your companions, don't even think of doing anything else.

You're acolytes of the Inquisition: use your ressources and your head instead of falling back into the mold.

Of course, I could be the only one who sees possibilitites where others sees limitations.

You don't need to change the system for flexibility though, just use more Elite Advances. They're in the game for a reason.

MILLANDSON said:

Exactly; They added this thing especially for cases that you want to learn a specific skill or talent. It fits all needs perfectly.

Braddoc said:

I have to agree. The 4E MMO setup of play this class, this way, and do nothing else, or you will fail is painfully restrictive.

I find the 40K hybrid point buy/level system quite flexible and with elite advances and alternate ranks you can take any archetype and fit any character type into the system. Some of the careers need a tweak here or there, as there are some errant skills, but over all I think BI did a good job with the design structure.

I do like the branching career paths, but at the same time I understand FFG's reluctance to use them. The branching path makes a much more complex design process with each class becoming 2-3 different classes and doubling or tripling the design time.

Having more seamless compatibility between DH and RT would be nice, but the discrepancies don't bother me that much. When it comes to space marines and DW compatibility, concerns go out the window for me. Space Marines are never going to be done to everyones liking, there are too many opinions of what they are and are capable of.

The three game approach shows three wildly different aspects of the 40K universe. Each one is unique in flavor but they all three represent the mishmash of what 40K actually is quite well, compatibility be damned. What we have in the 40K system isn't perfect, but it is handled and functions at a much higher level than something like Rifts.

MILLANDSON said:

Exactly. They recognized that the career/rank system was broken and tried to plug the hole with Elite Advances.

Overall I think that BI/FFG has done a respectable job with the game. I liked the earlier approach mentioned above about removing explicit names from careers and ranks. FFG did just that with the Rogue Trader ranks, but didnt follow through on the careers themselves.

However, certain careers need those distinctions. Tech-Priest. Psyker. Even Cleric. And Adept already fits into that sort of title. Its Guardsmen, Assassins and Arbitrators that violate the rules the most. You essentially have combat class 1, combat class 2 and combat class 3 each with differerent set of support skills and talents.

What I think would benefit the game right now is a supplement for all three games, similar to the Rifts Conversion Book (sorry) that houses rules, guidelines, notes and so forth for converting the three games together. I would also like to see a series of game neutral supplements, say something like Creatures of the Galaxy, which is a monster book aimed for all three (and other) settings.

I am starting a new game this weekend (FINALLY) and am thinking of creating a sort of origin path for the PCs that allows them the choose different starting packages (guardsmen, arbitrator and so forth, starting skills and talents) and career advancement skill/talent path and characteristic advancement chart. If you proceed straight down the path you get the carrers as written. If you veer to the right or left you get some sort of variation (such as a Arbitrator SWAT team member by taking Arbitrator start package and crossing over to Guardsman for career path).

Peacekeeper_b said:

Without wishing to widen the debate i don't think its just about what you call the ranks. That said, i think you're identifying the difference between ADEPTUS careers and GENERIC careers.

Members of the various Adeptus should follow hierarchical developments along set paths, whereas more generic 'careers' perhaps shouldn't.

The 40k games would have benefitted from this basic conception from the outset i think, at the same time solving a lot of the social issues associated with roleplaying in the 40k 'verse.

If a 'career' (i.e. D&D-style class system) had to be used i'd have limited it to the various Adeptus careers - make these higher status career options/advances with better but narrower options. Then have non-Adeptus 'careers' that are generic but broader and more flexible, but which lack the advanced possibilities of belonging to the Adeptus Terra.

So those Adeptus careers that are high status, with access to higher abilities, but with narrow advance options would be:

Adeptus Administratum Officer

Adeptus Munistorum Priest

Adeptus Mechanicus Tech Priest

Adeptus Astropathica Sanctioned Psyker

Adeptus Arbites Arbitrator

Adeptus Assassinorum Assassin

Imperial Guardsman

Adpetus Astartes Marine

Imperial Fleet Rating

etc., etc.

Whereas, non-Adeptus careers would be broader and more flexible like...

Sage

Cult priest

Technical specialist

Rogue psyker

Law enforcer

Death Cult assassin

Warrior

Private fleet rating

Rogue

etc., etc.

That way if you want to play an iconic character like an Arbites, you can - you benefit from higher status and restricted or superior 'Imperial' abilities/goodies - and pay for it with duties, Adeptus responsibilities, and a narrower, focussed advance scheme.

If you just want to play a frontier Agri-world law man or bounty hunter, pick the broader more flexible, but less priviledged 'law enforcer'.

Ah well...we are where we are...

I would think it would be possible for FFG to make rules where you get to design your own class/specialty. You would from say some generic initial starting paths and then pick skills/talents for each rank after that.

Saying such a thing is of course much easier than actually doing it. If they put a ton of work into it there would still be ways for power gamers to exploit the system to make a munchkin (but really any system has those holes). Also, options you may specifically want may still not be available, and it would still fall to something like elite advances to get what you want.

In any case whatever they do there will always be people who dislike what they did.

Suijin said:

Sounds like a Shadowrun-style type of character build; based on skills to define what your 'class' is; and I know that this system is easy to break and exploit: hell just the sketchy bow rules are enough to drive someone mad by the slack thse rules have.

Suijin said:

So I noticed: it seems most people here can be able to make a game that's millions of ways better than now; of course I don't hear the presses working so...tough luck chums. Play it or walk away.

ZillaPrime said:

Eh? Where is that from? I recall nothing of that - errata for DH does two things; one state clearly what exactly the choices are for all classes (you get X, Y, Z skills/talents, may choose A or B talent/skill.etc.etc) and it makes sure that the options you choose between may still be purchased (ie: in case of guardsman, you may choose Swim or Drive (Walker), it makes sure you can buy both Swim and Walker in the first rank in case you chose one or the other), as well as largely giving every career the access to Ciphers (Acolyte Group), or whatever they call it. I dont recall any ability to choose other careers starting skills/talents, nor can find a reference for it - nor does the charts at all mention Wrangling for Guardsman.

I do agree that some of the stuff being late game is rather silly; climb should be something accessible early on and it currently can be only through elite advances for some characters.

Braddoc said:

There is a huge difference between saying you could write a better game and saying you dislike an aspect of the game. I dislike the career/rank system. Yes if I were involved I would have tried to push a different style/system for that aspect of the game (and leave the rest pretty much intact).

However, I am big on not rewritting a system completely and instead creating modified rules that still enable all previous material to work with the updates.

As it is, right now, the career/rank system is getting better with all the various new add ons they have created. Now if we could only get them all in one book lol.

If you are a super hard ass not allowing elite advances or wanting the character to spend enormous exp on them then the game system can be limiting.

Look at it this way, if a character is spending exp on an elite advance then they aren't spending it on something else, and exp is a limited resource for the character. If they want a talent/skill earlier in rank I make them spend more exp for that talent (they would get it eventually, so what the big deal in them spending more for it???). I don't do this for rank 8 talents at rank 2, just saying if it is a rank or maybe 2 up, it's not that big a deal.

Unless you view it as totally overpowering, there isn't really a point in limiting even cross class skills. They still need to spend more exp than if they were that class. Compared to others in the group they are spending more exp for fewer talents/skills, so unless it is some magic combination then whatever.

A lot of the alternatives suggested here I do not consider an improvement. I prefer the system to stay as it is. Notwithstanding the flaws, I like this edition.

Please no new edition with cards like was done with WFRP or the Emperor forbids a system like DnD 4th. If there ever was a gamesystem that destroys my enjoyment of RPG it is DnD 4th.

When i mentioned D&D in my earlier post, i was referring to AD&D, or even 3.5 if you will. Never would i ever presume to recommend D&D 4th ed to anyone ever.

Kasatka said:

I recommend it; perfect book to level a shaky table

When they initially announced the line, I was surprised they didn't have a single core rulebook and then separate books for DH, RT and DW. At the time, the new World of Darkness books were quite new and White Wolf had deliberately avoided repeating slightly modified rules over and over again, which I think is one of the issues with the 3 sets of rules, incremental changes make it hard to take stuff from RT and put it in DW, for example.

I think 3 different games represent better 3 different type of game.

but the core rules is the same in each game, why do the core rules need to be reprinted each time? The fear, insanity and corruption rules exist in deathwatch and it explicetly state that they should be basically ignored, what a waste of book space!

Agmar_Strick said:

Because it is supposed to be a complete game system without the need to buy the other books.

Space Marines can cause fear, and for NPCs it would be nice to have the rules on how they are affected along with corruption information for all the mutants they may fight or go up against. Also they may work with imperial guard who are afected by those things.

Suijin said:

Frankly, GW could be making more money simply having both a core AND a setting book. Honestly, two purchases of $40 is amazingly easier to swallow than a single purchase of $60, and generally a group will want a core book each, with setting books rounding out campaigns and genres. That way, when Rogue Trader has something to say about Daemonslaying and Warp Phenemenon it can be placed with, say, similar things said from the perspective of Dark Heresy and Deathwatch (and more, maybe! Xenos-themed? Epic-themed? lots of possibilities in the wide, wide 40k universe...) to give a good alround persective on a given subject. More useful, more info, better sell, more money, neh?

Ok, ok, I have no idea about anything economy-related, and i have no idea if it would sell more... but I can tell you that a new edition with new core books will certainly sell more than existing core books, despite occasional spite and misgivings from grognards.

I would really like a more seemless integration of the settings, I must say - each of the 3 settings could be mixed with one another, and even occasionally all 3 mixed together. It would be great to have a consistent ruleset to use when the Rogue Trader element meets the Dark Heresy (or Deathwatch, or both) and something other than words/interactions apply.

I assume that when the DH book was written they had no idea if it would sell or not and whether there would be any demand for further 40K RPGs, so the "core rulebook and sourcebooks" idea wouldn't have made sense.

If they import Rogue Trader psychic power rules into Dark Heresy in some future core rulebook I will scream.

Inquisitor sapiens potensque said:

Why? The Rogue Trader rules are better.

Also, rules for converting the Dark Heresy psychic system to the RT/DW one is in the "Rites of Battle" DW book.

MILLANDSON said:

Some of us like the brutally short, painful, violent, and paranoid lives our DH psykers live. To me the Soul Bound psyker system is almost too safe. I know if we used it in our DH game, my psyker would be able to abuse his powers even more than he does now without any repercussions due to fettered casting.

ItsUncertainWho said:

Except that normal psykers aren't soul-bound in the same way as Astropaths. To be a DH psyker with the RT psychic system, you wouldn't use that rule.

I would be elated to see the rules for characters in DH changed to something more broad. As it stands, there's tons of concepts that would work very well that just plain can't be emulated in game. Many of them inspired by inquisition books like Ravenor, Eisenhorn, and Zou's "Emperor's Mercy" - in the latter case Roth's main acolyte, friend, and companion is a wealthy Big (Xenos) Game hunter. Stealthy, good shot, tracker, and a rich noble. Very knowledgeable about surviving in the wilderness and about Xenos. How do you even start to do that in DH?

Heck, when the game was first announced I was expecting it to be like a space version of WHFRP 1 or 2 - with lots of little starting careers that work up and eventually narrow into more 'elite' sorts. Space Rat Catcher with d10 rats on a stick and a small yet vicious skull servitor anyone? That would've been pretty cool. Things like Inquisitor, General, and other movers and shakers things you advance to.

As stands, I sort of like this way better. But feel much more constrained as to what I can be. I'd much rather they be more broad like in Rogue Trader, with alternate path advancements like we have already, just none of this Guardsmen snipers being an equivalent to Stormtroopers or Officers. WTF? They should not be mutually exclusive.