The description on page 368 says "During Opposed Characteristic Tests, on a success, the bonus multiplier is added to the degrees of success."

Do Unnatural Characteristics only count on OPPOSED tests? It'd seem stupid to me if so because really, how many opposed INT or Toughness tests are there?

The Unnatural bonus also applies for tests that look for your Bonus. Medicae, for example.

I always thought that Unnatural Toughness also apply to soak damage as well. But indeed Unnatural Intelligence have not much use other than medicae, Tech-Use, Languages, and Lores...

Hmm.. Suddenly it sounds not that few..

Except that those skills have no use for the Stat Bonus , which is what the Unnatural Characteristic increases. It's relevant to Medicae, Combat Formation(!), Divine Ministration, or Gun Blessing. Nothing else directly uses the Intelligence Bonus in non-opposed situations.

theres an extra paragraph of rules for unnatural attributes not found in the rogue trader book, which say to reduce the difficulty (an effective +10 to skill) per multiple, to a maximum of +30. i know i saw it in deathwatch.

im wondering if this will be added to the errata at some point. it makes the unnatural attribute a lot more useful certainly.

Gah, I knew I'd seen that somewhere but thought it was a fan rule.

Deathwatch, page 136: When taking a Skill Test based upon a Characteristic with the Unnatural trait, the base Difficulty of the Test is staged downwards one level for degree of multiplier past normal (to a maximum of +30).

Actually, Deathwatch and Dark Heresy both have useful, consistent rules for unnatural characteristics. Rogue Trader, however, has to be different for some reason... The Rogue Trader rules as written make unnatural characteristics much less useful in many cases.

The Dark Heresy rules, per p. 226 in the Inquisitor's Handbook, are as follows: "The Characteristic Bonus is the first digit of their Characteristic score multiplied by the amount in brackets.... Note that Unnatural Agility whilst increasing the AB, does not affect the creature's move rate - this is a separate Trait, Unnatural Speed. When taking a skill test based upon a characteristic with the unnatural trait, the base Difficulty of the Test is staged downwards one level for degree of multiplier past normal (to maximum of +30),... During Opposed Characteristic Tests, where success is achieved, the Unnatural multiplier is added to the degrees of success. In the case of a tie, the participant without the Unnatural Characteristic trait loses the opposed test....

Personally, I house-ruled my game to match the Dark Heresy rules. That way, the Tech-Priest's prized, good quality cortex implants are actually useful.

Cheers,

- V.

I asked FFG if the unnatural characteristics rules from Inquisitor's Handbook quoted above applied to Rogue Trader as well. Sam Stewart said no. ("... [unnatural characteristics] do work differently in Rogue Trader .")

So, no reduced difficulty.

In that case, why the feth can't FFG come up with one consistent set of rules for 40K roleplaying? It makes balancing a game (particularly if you combine systems) more challenging.

Cheers,

- V.

Vandegraffe said:

I find trying to combine systems more a Sisyphos work than aynthing else. You can combine them, but balance goes right out the window.

But that does make the implant for Unnatural Intelligence pretty much the most useless one ever. How often do you test opposed intelligence tests after all......

Ah, how I miss the times when you could board a Star Destroyer, hack into the computer system, and enjoy yourself watching how, after a predetermined while, the reactor would go critical without reporting, then exploding...

Most likely FFG didn't want an Explorator boarding an enemy ship and getting control of it after some rolls. Imagine if he makes it, then, after securing the doors of the section where the boarding party is, opens all hatches and doors in the ship at once XDDD

Argus Van Het said:

Would all of that be Tech-Use?

Explorators can get crazy high stats on that anyway. If you push it you can get to 100%chance to succeed on a hellish task with currect boni (Unless your GM takes the Servoskulls away). At Rank4 because you need talented for that.

Vandegraffe said:

Perhaps in a 2nd Edition. The current one suffers from the problem that the basic mechanics were created before considering the entire scope of characters, which is why, for example, Deathwatch pretty much only works by itself, why its weapons continue to be a problem even though they just got errataed, and why the upcoming Daemon Hunter supplement will feature two sets of rules for Grey Knights (one for use in Dark Heresy, one for use in DW, hurr).

As for Rogue Trader, I'm not entirely sure I can agree with the RAW as confirmed by Sam, though. Granted, characters can get to pretty high characteristics, but ultimately, 10 points more or less shouldn't really topple the entire system. The problem seems to lie much deeper if characters can push for a 100% success on Hellish tasks already. And considering the extreme (and, imho, OP) effect Unnatural characteristics have on other stats (I've never been fond of flat multipliers that skip this many steps) it just seems wrong for Unnatural Intelligence to be this limited.

From France,

I read just know in the core rule books of Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader and the rules fort unnatural characteristic are the same.

A doubling of the first digit of the affected characteristic and a bonus to the opposed checks equal to tthe unnatural level (2 for x2 ; 3 for x3 etc.)

ciryon said:

Thats nice... and not at all what this thread is about.