Hello there,

One thing I want to clear up.

The hard-cap on +60/-60 in Dark Heresy seems to indicate it applies to everything, but in Deathwatch and Rogue Trader (on page 244 in both books, amazingly), it's there for the attack.

So what happens? Can various skill tests get to +100, +200, and so on, but attacks only +60 or -60?

Thoughts?

BYE

I only read that it applied to attacks. Could be worth posting on the Living Errata thread though?

H.B.M.C. said:

I would say for all things, on the GM screen for DW -60 is listed as the cap for a Hellish Task+60 for easiest.Having said that, you can eliminate some of the players bonuses. Lets say they have an auto targeting device of some sort, but the area has just been hit with an emp effect, then the bonus from that would not apply. Really +/-60 is pretty significant and this is really up to GM discretion in the first place.

Everything. Just a case of bad editing/proof-reading, like oh so many other things in the books.

BrotharTearer said:

H.B.M.C. said:

It is bad editing/proof reading, they asume you have experiance with DH, just like how they forgot to give a range for psyniscience in the DW, but you could find it in DH. All they did really was take alot of those talents/skills from DH/RT. They had to call the errata a "living" errata because the mistakes were so many they did not have time to address them all. And more are found and mentioned in the forums everyday.

Nimon said:

Or it's a rule change, given that the rules for DH/RT/DW are all separate, what is a rule in one does not guarantee it is a rule in another game.

Lots of RPGs have constantly updating errata, which is a good thing. It's better than no errata at all, as it at least shows the company cares enough to find unclear or broken rules and fix them.

Thousands of players are a hell of a lot more likely to find problems with rules than the 20-30 people that playtest the majority of books. That's just the nature of the beast.

MILLANDSON said:

Yeah, I gotta agree. The rules are different in the three games, flat out in places, I've made that mistake in my games on more than one occasion (assuming something works the way it did back in DH but they've totally changed it). And living eratta is there so that the game can evolve. I'd rather living eratta than a new edition every couple of years (though when they do reprints it would be nice to see the eratta make it into the update).

Not to say some of their copy paste errors aren't annoying or frustrating at times...

It wouldn't really be sensible to have bonuses/penalties higher than 60/-60 though. Higher and you practicely guarantee a fail or success, no matter the characteristics score.

MILLANDSON said:

There is a lot of talents from DH/RT in DW. Just compare them and you will find them. There has been some changes here and there, and sometimes they did not even put in the prerequisites of a talent just assuming you would figure it out for example Unarmed Master-Prereq Unarmed Warrior, those of us familar with DH/RT know what that is, someone brand new to 40k RPG not so much.

This book cost as much as a video game, imagine if that video game had as many mistakes in it. Would it even be playable? Now I know in some ways I am comparing apples to oranges, but maybe the book people could learn a thing or two from the playtesters of the video game world. As a GM it is really frustrating trying to teach my players the rules when they are constantly changing and being updated. It leads me to just house rule a lot, and then consider why I even bought the book. I will not buy any more FFG materials, and I know my players will not. They got lucky with a good lisence and a decent begining from BL, but I am not impressed.

There are lots of rules talents and skills from DH/RT imported into DW, but they don't work all the same- I can tell you with certainty here because I've ben burned by assuming the game worked the same way as it did in DH and it did not. Called shots are a big one- our group didn't notice that RT/DW had changed them until someone read the talent in DW that reduced it. I don't quite follow your argument on the Unamred Master - Prereq Unarmed Warrior, as you were the one that pointed out to someone on a different post that paget 108 described pre-reqs. The reason WE know it is because we had already read that page or a page similar to it in another system, not because the authors just assumed we'd bought all the books (and the lack of index and odd organization choice is that makes it hard to find some info is a different topic, but one I see replicated in most RPGs).

Re Video Games or other entertainment: Look at the forum posts of a video game after it's released, I think you'll find that the fans of that game have TONS of complaints about x being wrong or y being broken. Play any multiplayer game and just look at the number of patches and balance fixes that come out for them.

In either scenario it can be frustrating and annoying, I'll give you that. And I agree that postponing fixes and proper edits to what amounts to a web update (where issues are discovered by your users), in my mind, is NOT good policy, but it's the nature of the business. How pissed were people on this forum that the game was out late in the first place? Push it out further and people will move on to something else before you release at all- it's a balancing act, and in the case of DW they probably moved a little too quickly.

And their 'nice start' from BL resuled in three versions of eratta for DH, about 15 pages; that's the 3rd one since it's release in 09. DW has one eratta currently after 7 or so months, 8 pages, and I honestly expect to maybe see another one show up that focuses on RoB. That, to me at least, doesn't result in 'constantly changing rules.'

There is a big difference between what one persons opinion of what is broken and what is actually dysfunctional in the system. Most people who scream broken are not complaining about what doesn't work in the system, but what doesn't work in their opinion.

The index for DW starts on page 393.

As for video games, I know people who are in the industry, including the QA departments of successful video game companies. They ship horribly broken games all the time. They don't like it, but it happens because the game is required to ship at a specified time. They end up pushing patches through the consoles to auto update and fix things they didn't have time to get too, or the management won't let them fix before the deadline. Few, as in can be counted on one hand, game companies have the resources, money, and influence to actually push a ship date.

An RPG book that costs $60 or a video game that costs $60. Well, I would rather have the book. After 6-10 hours, the length of most AAA titles these days, I'm done with the game. The RPG books I will go back and reread over and over. They can provide hundreds, if not thousands, of hours of entertainment in comparison to a video game.

ItsUncertainWho said:

I was about to, pretty much, write exactly that. Thank you Mr Psychic Man!

But yea, seriously, you can't really compare video games and RPGs. Firstly, there is a LOT more money in games, and so they can afford to have more people working on it and more people testing it to ensure it works, and even then they screw it up and have to fix it with patches.

Plus, as is said above, an RPG provides vastly more entertainment for your money than a video game does. I'd hazard that I've spent about... 120 hours on Battlefield: Bad Company 2, but I've spent about 600 hours (actually, I've probably spent more time than that, as sad as it is) playing Rogue Trader alone, not including Dark Heresy or Deathwatch. It's paid for itself 5 times over.

You might not like that, but that's how it stands. For the money you pay, you get more enjoyment from an RPG for your money, and they make even less money off it all than a video game dev.

There are only about 30 or so testers per book, spread over 4-5 groups. There is only so much any of us can spot and bring to FFG's attention, and we don't pretend to gods at the game, or even at our job. We just try our best to try to do the best by you guys, and we do that for free, no cash payment for it at all. We do it because we want to. No one is perfect, and just as no plan survives contact with the enemy, no game of any kind, regardless of how much time went into finding bugs, survives contact with the customers without it being ripped apart and it's gory flaws being displayed for all to see.

MILLANDSON said:

Your welcome.

Ya, I probably was a bit harsh with that last comment, but I have never came across the issues running a game like I have with DW. And I was a bit disappointed being such a fan of 40k, and really liked the TT(though I have not played it since 3rd, I am looking forward to getting the new codex for 5th to see what they have done). What I would really like to see is now that they have DH,RT and DW is for them to put together a 40k core book with some revisions/conversions to make this all click together. If they do that I will give it another go.

MILLANDSON said:

From what I've seen, we don't need the thousands of players when the first dozen or so people that bought RoB found a large number of errors within a week of release.

Nimon said:

I bought Fallout New Vegas on its day of release and it was practically unplayable as it glitched up constantly before the patches. The "old cowboy hat" bug hit me hard until I found a solution.

Bloodbowl was completely screwed at launch, too. Computer games these days have the luxury of on-line patching, sot hey can release stuff that it pretty unplayable and essentially do UAT testing live!

HappyDaze said:

I guess if you are talking video games on a computer sure, on a consule there is no patches. I also am a big fan of Fallout, I like the turn based orginials alittle better because it was like no other game at the time, but the new ones are good too.

Nimon said:

Old School Mario Brothers and Star Fox didn't have patches, you're right (and they were infinitely simpler than a modern game, especially an RPG), but current gen console games patch constantly. Maybe not the Wii, but I can say with certainty Playstation and Xbox do this.

Edit: Not trying to pick a fight here, at this point we're debating unrelated semantics really anyhow, just trying to...well really I don't know what I'm trying to do, the term 'educate' seems more pompus than what my original intent was but I don't have any other words at this point

Nimon said:

Charmander said:

I guess if you hook up your ps to the net. I do not and my games work fine, if they did not I would not buy them.

They only work fine because you haven't seen the fixes, the same way most RPGs would work fine and have no bugs assuming you never read any of the errata.