I'm confused again guys. In the Rogue Trader career path's gear options, the player can either select a set of best-quality enforcer light carapace or a set of stormtrooper carapace.

Having checked the armoury in order to make an informed decision, I've discovered that this is a choice between AP6 full-body armour for 7.5kg, or AP6 full-body armour weighing 15kg. So why would you ever pick the storm trooper armour?

Or, if I'm misreading it and the storm armour is also best-quality, why would you ever pick the light armour?

I checked the FAQ, expecting to see that maybe the storm carapace was good-quality, making it a trade-off between armour and weight, but found nothing.Can you guys help here, or is it just one of those weird things?

Dvil said:

Consider the following:

You're a rogue trader from a house that has fallen on hard times, and your Profit Factor is all of 20. You get into a nasty firefight and the armor you're wearing gets chewed up real good. GM calls for an Upkeep test. Which of the following would you rather test against?

A. Best Quality Enforcer Light Carapace:

20 (Base Profit Factor) + 30 (for one person) -10 (Rare) -30 (Best Quality) = 10

B. Common Quality Storm Trooper Carapace

20 (Base Profit Factor) + 30 (for one person) -20 (Very Rare) - 0 (Common Quality) = 30

Have a better idea now?

-Kirov

If your GM is making you make upkeep tests because your carapace armor got damaged, you need to encourage him to play Dark Heresy instead of Rogue Trader.

In regards to the original point it is purely a style issue. How does your RT present himself?

That is rather the point of the Upkeep test rule though. It's never really come up in my games as my players have a mania about collecting Trade skills and fixing up their own kit.

Kirov said:

Outside profit any way to improve the chances for the upkeep of armor,gun(the relevant skills or talents)?

We don't bother with upkeep(for personal weapons or armour) so it is kind of new.

Errant said:

Yah I know:( The damaged suit of armor is even directly from the RAW. I just think it is the entirely wrong mentality on how to deal with it. Your example of the trade skills is generally how I deal with it. If a single personal item is damaged it simply can't be used until repaired (or at least will have lowered effect), padding the armor with money and welding thrones to it will not really get the job done. Whether they can get it fixed would depend on the explorers trade skills and or facilities/equipment/personnel on the ship. If they or in a civilized port and they simply cannot fix it themselves, paying someone to fix an item should not stretch even the poorest RTs pocketbook. A exception is Archeotech items and possibly Xenotech as well, where getting someone capable of fixing it will have more to do with influence than the size of their wallet.

IMHO upkeep tests are mainly for large scale items. Your lost 2,000 guard personnel in your last boarding action, upkeep test to replenish the ranks. In short It should have the possibility of "overstreching your profit factor".

Millage may vary but I think the less time spent on the minutiae of personnel kit the better.

So, is upkeep the only mechanical reason then? Style's also something I hadn't really thought of, and is worth considering.

I go with style and flash in regards to choices like that. While there may come times when equipment is damaged I don't think I'd be to harsh on my players to repair the article in question. I already drain enough money from them through ship repairs and investments in endeavours.

So my take, as both player, and GM, is that the best quality simple looks like something someone of a high rank would wear. So, best quality enforcer armor means you look like Judge Dredd, or the Judge career from DH's Ascension book, while the common quality is the bland undecorated suits worn by the 40k game's original imperial guard stormtroopers, and arbites.

One might be acceptable to a formal occasion, the other is a definite faux pas when used anywhere outside combat.

I've had this come up a couple of times in games where people with best quality gear have been permitted to wear them in places that normally would not permit it. Such as a nice restaurant on Footfall, a planetary council meeting, marketplaces etc. Though I still won't let them take their power armor everywhere they go.

Though I did make my players describe to me what their armor looks like if it's supposed to be so impressive they can wear it to a local duke's ball.

I agree with Ilsoth, even a relatively poor Rogue Trader shouldn't be worrying about repairing one suit of carapace. Avoiding little stuff like that is (to me) the entire point of an abstract monetary system.

If I remember correctly, it says "A best-quality Enforcer Carapace or a Stormtrooper Carapace". The way I read it, is that both armours are of the Best-Quality.
Why do I think this? Becuse the way the "quality" is described in the other equipment options, such as: "A Best-quality Mono-Sword or a Comman-quality Power sword."Note how the quality on the Stormtrooper Carapace is missing, making me belive it also should posses the quality of the "previous" item, in this case, the Enforcer Carapace.

It isn't always present.

The arch-militant lists two bolt pistols but leaves out their quality.

And of course all non weapons/armor have no quality listed

Karoline said:

Quite correct, and if you went with Nightsorrow's approach, these would be Best-craftsmanship Bolt Pistols which seems quite out of line. I'd say that if a craftsmanship level is not directly specified (like the Archmilitant's Bolt Pistols or the RT's Storm Trooper Carapace), then it's Common.

Dvil said:

Yes and no. Using Profit Factor assumes a situation where the Rogue Trader and friends either don't have the relevant trade skills or don't have the time to sit down and spend hours/days/weeks doing repair work. If you have the relevant trade skills, more power to you, but be forewarned that a GM is well within their rights to say that the best quality item is going to be much more difficult to repair than the common quality item, and may even require multiple trade skills. To get back to our example, repairing the Common Quality Storm Trooper Carapace might be a Routine task (+20) and require only the Trade (Armorer) skill ("Just let me replace the broken plates and patch up the holes, and you're good to go"), while repairing the Best Quality Enforcer Carapace might be a Hard (-20) to Very Hard (-30) task and require not only the Trade (Armorer) skill, but also the Trade (Artist) and Trade (Scrimshawer) skills as well ("Boss, the holes can be patched, but it's going to be a royal pain to restore the gold leaf, the fine devotional script, and most certainly the fine etching of St. Drusus. Quite frankly, I'm not sure if anybody alive can even hope to match that artisan's skill when it comes to fine work like this, so keep your fingers crossed that we're able to restore this to some semblance of its former glory").

Other people have made some very good points about style and function in more formal settings, so I'll not repeat that here. As for extra time spent on such details, well, let's just say that I'm a Battletech GM and that if I could deal with repairs with just a single die roll, I'd be in heaven, though of course, your mileage may vary.

-Kirov

If you're using Dark Heresy's crafting rules in the Inquisitor's Handbook for trade skills (which are around about a million times more useful than RT's barebones description), then a player may pick Storm Trooper Carapace under the assumption that someone will upgrade it's quality in due time. Whereas you obviously can't upgrade the Enforcer Carapace any further. Mostly though, I would be picking the Enforcer Carapace.

I interpreted that selection to mean either best-quality light carapace OR stormtrooper carapace. Generally because, as you pointed out, anything less would not make a lick of sense. Also the character archetype in question is a Rogue Trader, not some Dark Heresy Scum, so it's also not unreasonable he would have access to such armor.

To Karoline and HappyDaze: Why would two good or best quality bolt pistols be inappropriate? Because that's how I interpreted that as well.