Sorry if this has already been asked and answered elsewhere.

On page 58 of the core rule book, under Buying an Advance it appears to indicate that expending XP toward "...changes to Characteristics, Skills, Talents, or Traits.." apply toward Rank advancement (primary focus for this query is on Characteristic Advances).

My question, having had it pointed out by a couple of my players relates to an apparent change in Rites of Battle, where on page 74 under Using Deeds it reads "Any adjustments made to the character by selecting a Deed do not count as advancements for the purpose of increasing your Rank, nor do increases or reductions toward the improvement of your Characteristics through normal means."

Does this indicate an alteration to the Rank advancement scheme? Or is our interpretation too literal?

Thanks in advance for your replies.

Characteristics advances count, I'd say.

I'll have to re-read this passage, though, it seems fishy.

I take it to meen that any increases towards your primary charictaristics as a result of buying those deeds don't count towards advancements. So say a deed increased your WS by 5, it wouldn't count as a Simple Advance.

As far as I understood it in Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader, EVERYTHING counts towards advancement. Stuff like "master of arms" and the like might not, but I doubt it. The only thing you need to take into account is that only SPENT experience counts for determining the rank.

I agree and understand that in the previous books, and that includes the Deathwatch core book, that characteristic advancements have always counted toward the expended XP total for rank determination. That is not at question. It’s the verbiage in Rites of Battle that seems to indicate a change, specifically:

"nor do increases or reductions toward the improvement of your Characteristics through normal means"

This new Deed mechanic was introduced in Rites of Battle specifically excludes XP spent on deeds from being counted toward rank increases.
When I had initially read it, I assumed that this passage applied to characteristic increases and reductions that are included in said deeds even though there is currently no mechanic in game to affect rank increases based on characteristic improvement (though perhaps one might be introduced later). But following a session one night where I offered a distinction after the scenario, it was pointed out that with the words through normal means may mean that XP expenditures for characteristic improvements were no longer applicable. In my regular group, implementation of this literal reading has resulted in the loss of 1 to 3 ranks.

My question is, is this the intended meaning? Or, was this part of a sentence that may have missed a proofreading pass after it was altered during editing?

It has been said: the passage means that if you get +5 to WS, it doesn not affect your buying advances from the characteristic table. You can still buy all the WS advances so that you have +20 and get the +5 WS on top of it for a total of +25. And buying those advances does cost you as much or as little as if you had not bought the deed. The +5 WS does not influence this.

It does not have anything to do with normal characteristic increases not counting towards rank improvement. Only with normal rank increases not being affected by deeds bonuses.

Alex

Ok, I misunderstood. AK-47 pointed to it clearly.

ak-73 said:

Thanks for that clarificatiion, Alex.

Nihilius Zee said:

No problem.

Alex