There has been a fair amount of talk on the boards about how best to implement Dark Heresy careers into Rogue Trader. One of most oft-touted being an advocating of just raising them to rank 5 and letting them have at it along with starting RT characters. Along with some others I've seen, I don't find this idea particularly tasteful - nor particularly workable. The skill and talent disparity is simply too great so crossing the systems has been something I've actively avoided.

Nevertheless, I have a player who wants to play a Sister of Battle.

Which leads me to try and rework the career as presented in Blood of Martyrs. My current plan - and what I would like other people to critique - is stripping away the normal Dark Heresy character creation system and replacing it with the Rogue Trader one (attributes at 25 + 2d10 instead of 20 + 2d10, using the origin path chart, etc). Then letting the career advance as normal...perhaps allowing the Sister the option to take an equally ranked talent from the Missionary or the Arch-Militant equivalent ranks whenever she would otherwise get a weapon proficiency talent (given that RT drastically consolidates those). Apart from that, I everything else appears alright at a glance - even the starting equipment: power armour and bolter is as good as any in RT get most certainly.

Thoughts?

It seems to me that the Missionary path, with perhaps a few of the lore skills changed around, would be perfectly acceptable.

If anything, Sisters are a change mismash of both the Missionary and the Arch-Militant. They're generally dipicted as highly trained soldiers (good BS progression and ranged talents which the missionary doesn't get) yet also very faithful (which the arch-militant doesn't get). If you're trying to stay true to the idea of the Adepta, trying to do it straight with either career seems to fall flat.

Most of the ranged talents are irrelevant if you're using flamers, which is what I presumed you wanted your Adeptas Sororitas to get. If you want a dual-wielding crackshot-with-a-bolt-gun meleer who can use flamers and has incredible faith in the Emperor, just let the player take whatever talents/characteristics they want, because you'll never balance it properly.

What...? Sisters use a variety of weapons just like the Imperial Guard do and the lack of melee is one of the reasons I'm against using the Missionary as a base - that's not what Sisters do. The potential balance issues are why I'm actually trying to make the latest DH Sister career workable instead of modifying one of the existing RT classes.

I guess you don't use Sister Repentia squads in your army. Anyways, we clearly have different comprehensions of what the average Sister of Battle can do.

They're hardly the norm. It would be much more appropo for me to say "I guess you don't use basic troops with bolters" in your army to your flamer comment above. The sisters are primarily a ranged force relying on bolters with a heavy dose of flamers and meltas available to them (and then an equal ammount of heavy flamers and heavy bolters in support squads). Compared to all that ranged firepower, sisters sepcialising in melee are almost a footnote compared to the basic troops, the celestians and the seraphim.

Celestines are also elites, just like Repentia squads, so you might as well say a Heavy Bolter is as alien to the Adeptas Sororitas as a chainsword. And Seraphims are fast-attack squads and hardly a basic unit.

The Missionary can use a Bolter just fine.

Anyways, good luck on your project! It sounds difficult, though it doesn't have to be!

from france

actually in the "blood of martyr" a high ranking sororitas became a rogue trader

Cannonball said:

Well blood of Martyrs really is just an exspansion to the orginal version listed in the Inquisitor's Handbook, which is a bit less powerfull and might meet your needs and allow the player to eventually grow to Blood of Martyrs, and eventually Ascension.

Main Problem: DH-Advances are much cheaper than those in RT (they have roughly the half XP costs), so someone with a DH-career and its normal costs who gets the starting benefits of a RT-Charakter (+5more on all characteristics mostly) will quickly outclass everyone else in the group.

If I may, I think the most elegant solution is to use directly the table in Blood of Martyrs directly in Rogue Trader, using the same progression for everyone. The only caveat for the DH table will be to convert every line which cost is 100 xp to 200 xp, and everything shall be roughly balanced with over Rogue trader careers.

I tested out the two systems compatibility by gening up a Rank 1 Arch-militant and a Rank 5 Guardsman. Both spent a (theoretical) total 5,000 exp. I assumed an average roll of 10 for all characteristics. The Guardsman can pass up some of the weapons training talents (thrown, etc) to get a leg up, but otherwise they turn out pretty equal. Of note, matching the Rogue Trader high characteristic scores eats up a lot of the Dark Heresy exp points. Therefore, the Dark Heresy can have inferior characteristic scores in exchange for more talents if they choose.

Rank 1 Arch-Militant (5,000 exp)
WS 35 BS 45 S 45 T 40 Ag 35 Int 35 Per 38 WP 30 Fel 25
Wounds 15 ; Fate Points 2 ; S and BS Advanced by one
Origin Path: Death World, Stubjack, Duty Bound (Humanity), Press Ganged, Endurance
Talents: Paranoid, Survivor, Jealous Freedom, Weapon Master (Basic), Jaded, Quick Draw, Sound Constitution x1, Basic, Pistol, Melee, Thrown Weapon Training.
Skills: Common Lore (Tech), Common Lore (War), Dodge, Intimidate+10, Literacy, Medicae, Pilot (Space Craft), Scholatic Lore (Tactica Imperialis), Secret Tongue (Military), Speak Language (Low Gothic), Survival
Total Skills: 12 Total Talents: 11

Rank 5 Guardsman (5,000 exp)
WS 35 BS 45 S 45 T 40 Ag 35 Int 30 Per 35 WP 30 Fel 25
Wounds 15 ; Fate Points 3 ; WS Ag Per WP Advanced by one, BS by three, S by two
Origin: Feral World
Talents: Iron Stomach, Primitive, Rite of Passage, Sound Constitution x3, Resistance (Fear), Quick Draw, Basic, Pistol, Melee, Thrown Weapon Training.
Skills: Awareness, Command, Common Lore (War, Imperial Guard), Dodge, Intimidate+10, Literacy, Medicae, Pilot (Military), Secret Tongue (Military), Speak Language (Low Gothic, Tribal Dialect), Survival, Tech Use.
Total Skills: 14 Total Talents: 12