Just wonder if you take a level 1 Death Watch Marine, what level would a Rogue Trader and Dark Heresy character have to be to equal the space marine.

Equipment aside, cuz that's a bag of worms we don't need opened yet again. I believe that equal XP values are equivalent power levels.

That having been said. Marines eat, breath, and poop combat. They will be on a step above the rest until signifigantly over XPed. On the other hand, I am led to believe that the RT/DH heroes are much better at non-combat tasks. So it all evens out, as this is a roleplaying game, not a pure combat sim.

There is a sidebar near the front of the book that describes where to bring in RT and DH characters at. Right around the 13k xp mark. Also do a search on the forums for the issue. Ultimately in a crossover campaign you're going to have, for the most part, wildly different specialties (DH/RT folks will have massive bonuses to skills, DW characters will have massive bonuses to killing stuff) and will need to balance the campaign and storyline accordingly so that each character gets his (or her) due.

If my memory serves me right, a rank one DW marine is equal to a rank four RT explorer who is in turn equal to a rank eight DH character. But as the others have already pointed out, Space Marine character advancement is grossly slanted towards combat while the DH/RT careers are more focused on skill, knowledge, and social interaction (very few Space Marines have access to any Fellowship skill other then Command, giving Librarians and Techmarines better combat stats means that they're generally inferior to Adept/Sages or Tech-Priests/Magos when it comes to lore, research, tech-use, or trade skills.)

I was wondering about that too. I mean, a Space marine doesn't even have access to scrutiny, so does that mean a space marine would have no concept of what the blather skill does?

On an upside, the kill marine advanced speciality is designed to get that Space marine in your game. Least it gives them inquiry, which should be helpful.

Frostfire said:

I can just see a marine explaining why he blew some annoying gits head off... "I apologize Watch Captain... I... I don't know what happened, He started talking, and I got confused, I think he was warp tainted... It was almost... hypnotic. I've been over my helmet camera feeds, and I still can't understand what he was saying..."

I'm not convinced that rank 8 = rank 1. By rank 8 a guardsman won't have unnatural tou/str, but he certainly will have three attacks, two parries/dodges, counter-attack, etc etc etc. I know the theory says that they're equal, but the practice is another matter.

Give the marine until rank 2/3 and they can certainly wipe the floor with a rank 8 RT character, as they'll have the 'required' talents. But straight out of the box? I don't think so.

I'd suggest just going directly to Ascension if you're going to be pairing Dark Heresy and Deathwatch.

While 13,000 xp with the regular DH book is hardly anything to sneeze at, the expanded rules found there for influence, and being a Throne Agent, really bring you to the same level as an Astartes.

Frostfire said:

Scrutiny appears under the Rank 2 GSM Advances.

HappyDaze said:

Poo. There goes my plans to take over the imperium one space marine at a time. This +30 in blather is now wasted.

HappyDaze said:

But then you have the agonizing decision of whether to purchase scrutiny or save for another skill/talent that furthers your Emperor-decreed function of a highly efficent killer. And let's be honest, which is a Space Marine going to need more?

On an unrelated note... I really have to question the tests we use to compare the careers to one another. Considering that at present, the Rogue Trader and Dark Heresy games have one career a piece to cover combat while Space Marines have three to cover melee, heavy weapons, and tactical arms seperately, I would hope they are superior to the other classes. But can the Librarian cast better psyker powers then the Psyker or Astropath/Navigator duet? Can any of the Marine's warrior-scholar classes outperform their Rogue Trader or Dark Heresy counterparts in lore or Tech-Use skills? Why aren't we talking about those comparisons as well?

Because most players define 'power' as 'how good am I at killing?', rather than 'how good am I at chess?'

I'd disagree that DH has only one 'fighty' class. The Assassin is also primarily about combat. And the cop, tech, rogue and even priest classes are all highly effective combatants, too. Each one receives far more in the way of 'killy' talents than their comparable DW careers.

DH psi powers seem to be far more utilitarian than in DW. I've not really looked at the numbers, but a DH psyker seems a lot more flexible.

Psion said:

Scrutiny is a valuable Skill for any number of reasons. It's the skill for closely examining something or someone to discover small details that might otherwise be missed. This makes it pretty crucial for at least some members of a SM team to have.

Siranui said:

A sad, but fair point. One made especially pungent to me after multiple sessions with 4th Edition D&D (my current group plays hardly anything else.)

Yeah, I forgot about the Assassin. Fair enough assessment on that part. Though I would argue that the other careers are still more focused on their specialities then combat, which could be played as something they just picked up naturally given how incredibly violent the 40k universe is.

Psion said:

I think the DH calsses are as fighty as you want them to be, whether you explain it as picked up by being part of a bloody universe or by being specialized in it.. The psyker in DH is as combat focused as you want to be- take one and ascend him into Inquisitor and see what that unnatural willpower does to your powers. The techpriest can be amazing if you build it right as well, and those scum can be surprisingly good at blowing up heritics.

DW just makes all their classes very powerful combatants in comparison from out of the gate, and with armor, toughness, and strength they're always a little less squishy than their counterparts.

Sorry to hear about your 4th ed D&D experience, I honestly haven't heard anything truly positive about that version, and I have to admit a little part of me dies each time I hear that someone had a terrible time with such a classic setting.

As far as combat is concerned, i think DW blows the rest away because of squad mode and their toughness. If you hvae an ultra tac as a leader, you can spam bolter assualts, fire for effect, strongpoint, or whatever all game long. Big cohesion, rally cry, exemplar of honor. You can start each combat with a bolter assualt easily. that is hard to stop.

Psion said:

They might not be focused combatants and have plenty off stuff in their niche, but the 'non-coms' have far more combat options to purchase. For example, the tech-priest and psyker both have far more combat feats to buy than the tech-marine or librarian... especially by the time they get to their rank 8.

A very good point, though I'd say that the Techmarine and Librarian don't need them as much, by virtua of just being Space Marines.

Psion said:

Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. My old group thinks that fourth edition is the best thing ever, because 'every class is effective in combat'. It's like playing an MMO with them sometimes. Strangely, having a hrad time getting the same group to play DW, I think because of the concept you don't keep items.

But I digress, as I do a lot. Though a space marine is a lot more killy, I too was surprised at how small their advance tables can be compared to their DH equivalants. A space marine rarely knows how to fit into normal society. However, as a thought, would any GMs in the audience allow a space marine who has traveled with a Rogue trader, for say, ten, twenty years or so, to replace one of his rank tables (I'd say a general space marine to be fair) with a table containing more day to day normal person advances. Nothing too big, but things like barter perhaps, charm, Inquiry. Few scholastic lores perhaps, things of that nature? Representing his time around normal humans that he actually understands their ways a little bit more.

Frostfire said:

Shouldn't such things be covered by Elite Advances?

That said, I'm also sceptical as this would be turning said Marine character into a jack-of-all-trades, and given that they already start out with higher stats even in Fellowship - which surprised me a bit as this runs a little bit counter to their nature - I could see said character taking spotlight time away from "lesser" characters ... whose only hope to shine are said non-combat skills. Even if you scale DH/RT characters up to DW's epic narrative, or scale DW characters down to DH/RT's realism, the Marine would still outperform any non-Marine when it comes to fighting ... as it should be.

You do have a point there. Keep forgetting how much having a skill allows you to do compared to old ranks in D&D style games.

Yeah, it would be easier if the characteristics wouldn't cover so many different skills in the same way, allowing a Space Marine to Charm as good as he Intimidates as soon as he has both skills. Most P&Ps have this problem, though.

One option I could see would be a X% or flat -X penalty on all skills that require "normal" social behavior, but in the end I'm also a believer in archetypes sticking to their vocation and the style with which they are introduced, else you're at risk of running into the special snowflake cliché - which, with Marines (especially the DW ones), is already more difficult to avoid, depending on how people roleplay them.

Just my two Thrones on the matter, of course.

The GM needs to take into account how mortals will react to the presence of a space marine and apply penalties and bonuses to all skills based on that.

A normal citizen seeing an Astartes for the first time is either going to be terrified or awed to be in the presence of such a holy being. The upper levels of society will have similar problems but, more than likely, in different ways.

-20 to -40 penalties for social interaction skills would probably be appropriate for all but the highest tiers of Imperial society. Inquisitors and the high ranks of the various Adeptus would probably be fine with no to minimal penalties, but probably not any better than a challenging +0 to any skill check.

ItsUncertainWho said:

Depending on the skill test, of course. It's not just that the normal population will react differenct, it's also that the Marine will act different, given that he should not be used to that kind of behavior, not to mention the aura of pride and arrogance towards mere mortals (one of the most difficult aspects to roleplaying a Marine, imho - not even the novel authors get this right all the time).

Just to exemplify what I mean with "depending on the skill test", let's take the worst case and look at a Marine trying to Charm an Inquisitor. For whatever reason.

That said, I suppose most responsible GMs are easily able to assign difficulty modifiers appropriately.

Lynata said:

For a space marine attempting a charm test on an Inquisitor, I would go with a Challenging +0 Charm test in a normal situation, as long as the two are in genial moods, with a -10 if there is any tension, and if the Inquisitor is a paranoid jerk then a -20/-30 may be in order.

Peer and reputation talents really come into play in these circumstances, as well as the Astartes Chapter and how much the Inquisitor knows about them.