In Blood of Martyrs, the fluff describes a Sister Dialogous as an expert in languages, with an example of their prowess in Eldar. I made a Rank 8 NPC Sister to be an expert on a xeno-archeo site.

I found they don't get any langues beyond low, high and secret (admin), even at rank 8.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you do Rank 1 from the Blood of Martyrs, pages 92 to 93. Then Ranks 2 - 8 from the Adept career. Which makes for a very cool Adept, one that can use Faith Talents.

But not useful if you want a language expert.

The fluff says these Sisters are known for speaking "new or unusual dialects" and skilled in "translating languages." It goes on to say they "specialize in languages..."

You could use elite advances to say they can learn to Speak any language 200xp each, or whatever cost seems appropriate for you campaign.

Or, you could use the Rogue Trader Into the Storm alternative rank Xenographer, but that seems an odd requirement for a Dark Heresy career.

That is kind of odd...

Though if using the RT alt career bothers you because it's not in a DH book, you could possibly go the Calixian Xeno-Arcanist rout from IH. They get unlimited xeno languages, but at 400 a pop.

Do they get polyglot at any point ?

Bilateralrope said:

No.

Graver is right, xeno-archanist would work as well.

I liked the "take your first rank as a sister, then go Adept" in principle, as it made it simple. However, this career requires a lot of out of the box thinking to support the core concept of the career.

I like Blood of Martyrs as a whole, but the Sister Dialogous career is broken.

Anyone try a Sister Famulous or Sister Hospitaller yet?

Nojo509 said:

Not really. But I play an adept that has +10 medicae, talented medicae and master chirurgeon. So apart from medicae +20 the adept gets what (s)he needs for being a doctor. So I think the sister hospitaller should work fine.

What I could see as a rolplay-problem is that there are not enough skills/talents for a adept (or sister hospitaller) to just specialise in medicae. Sooner or later the adept will be somewhat a jack of all trades.

My adept for exampe was a skilled tech, medic, a master of logic and a walking library of scholastic lores even before ascension.
And that was even though the char took most availiable not weapon combat talents and psy, too.

I think if playing a sister hospitaller there could come a point where you don't know what to learn without deviating from fluff. But on the other hand: there always remain ability increases.

@Umbranus

That's a problem nearly all RPGs share - the only viable one-trick-ponies specialize in combat or magic (or a similarly fleshed-out discipline). More mundane abilities like medicine are more of a "You've learned it. Now what's next?" nature since few systems have the "Perform appendectomy" talent.

Umbranus said:

The nice thing about a Sister Hospitaller is Faith Talents, and eventually you will Ascend and you will be a Palatine with all this extra skill and knowledge set a Celestine or Seraphim will not have. In my games I do believe that knowlege is power, if you have Medicae, then you know a decent amount of anatomy which not only adds in healing a human, but knowing where to strike as well. Same with forbidden lores and what not I generally reward my players when they succeed in these roles with some minor bonus in combat, and or knowing a major weakness.

While I haven't made or have seen played any of the anythings in BoM, I have noticed one small yet odd thing in regards to the Sisters Hospitlar, more specifically the sub-set of the Sisters Vespila. The one and only thing that is different skill and talent-wise between the Hospitlers and Vespilians is that, with GMs permission, the Sisters Vespila replaces Peer (Guardsman) with Dark Soul. However, nowhere in the Sisters Hospitler career, Adept career, or any of the basic alt careers available to the adept dose the skill Trade (Embalmer) appear. Actually, unless I missed something, Trade (Embalmer) only ever appears to Psykers at their 5th rank and Tech Priests who take the Magos-Errant path which would go a long way to explaining all the skulls in the Imperium -hardly anyone knows how to properly preserve/dispose of a body, get frustrated when asked, and end up just stripping off the flesh and making a skull column out of the dead. ;-)

If any career would have Trade (Embalmer) I would think it would be the order of sisters who's sole purpose is dealing with the dead and it seems a perfect opportunity of getting this skill back into rotation has been passed up. I would suggest for Sisters Vespila, replacing the starting skill Common Lore (Imperial Guard) with Trade (Embalmer) as well as switching the Peer (Imperial Guard) with Dark Soul.

Also, and back to the original subject of this thread, for those who own RT, it might not go amiss to add Polyglot for 400 xp (Int 30 Fel 30) to the list of available advances for a Sister Diologous.

Graver said:

Yes I thought so too about the trade:embalmer, I put that on my make up of the Adepta Sororitas Order in Calixis sector I posted in house rules.This will along the same lines as the chapter diferances in space-marines, but more local since apparently the main orders are very simular.