Banjulhu said:

Its a subjective decision with the Guard->Stormtrooper being a 13yr old I dont want frustrated by a gaming experience and the Death Cult Assassin is an adult, who in his own way realises there's a need for tacit maturity in handling things the way they are and its not a case of being fair sometimes to make someone feel they're a valued contributer, as he knows the rules better and will be more effective at some things in combat. But they're a team thats done the hard yards from Rank 1 to 8 over a long time and overall a very well equipped one at that, so they're not exactly living on beans and scrounging for ammo.

From day 1 Ascension landed on my doorstep, the Vindicare has been black-listed for both mechanics and background fluff reasons, so the job of long ranged firepower is still the responsibility of the guardsmen. Its not that I don't like the assassinorum, just that for PC's its complete bull in the current form and there's different temples which would have been far better suited to DH than the Vindicares. (Culexus, Venenum Callidus and Vanus)

I know what you mean, and actually would probably deal with the situation in a similar way.

What I don't like is the fact that you have to bend the system and be unfair to give classes that feeling of contribution. The rules and the mechanics should have be designed so that all classes can feel like they are contributing when they are doing the thing they were designed for.

isidro said:

Thank you. I agree. Why is your Storm Trooper gving up his trademark and signature gear? Honestly, a character should not be based on his gear. Even at near 200 years old Commissar Cain still used a laspistol and a chainsword. He didnt level up, shout "Commissar Need Food Badly" walk over a burning smoking juicey turkey dinner to regain health, kill a bad guy, walk over a ammo crate and grab a bolt gun.

The notion that you have to advance in weaponry in 40K RPGs makes it too much a video game for my taste.

Which is exactly why weapons should be skills and not talents. You would be less inclined to trade up from a las pistol to a bolt pistol if you were changing from a weapon you were +10 or +20 in to a weapon you were merely trained in. Same goes for Armor, perhaps armor needs to be a talent or skill as well.

If you say here is a chainsword you get +20 to attack with or here is a powersword with +0 every combat character will take the powersword. Hitting an enemy, especially at ascension level, is not a problem thanks to multiple attacks, blademaster and easily achieved high WS. Damaging an enemy on the otherhand is a nightmare so you grab the weapon that does more damage and as the gulf between the powerswords output and that of the chainsword is massive taking the powersword is a no brainer.

Peacekeeper_b said:

Because it is insufficient for the current task at hand. Remember we are talking about Ascension-level here.

Hellguns are very nice and efficient when you go to a shootout with normal human-level powered enemys. But when you have to do some investigating in social circumstances the backpack and the unhideable big gun you are carrying makes you stick out like a pink&orange blinking sheep in a normal sheep herd. There Pistols are a) more hideable and b) often socially acceptable to carry around as part of your regular imperial wardrobe.

Or when its crackdown time, subterfuge is over, and you encounter enemys with Unnatural Toughness, Daemonic Traits or really thick armor a Chainsword will not be a good choice of weapon.

As to Commissar Cain, HERO OF THE IMPERIUM, he is in the Imperial Garde. They are not trained and equiped to go into Special Forces missions against the kind of forces Ascension-Level Throne Agents have to deal with. They may end in them anyway, but then it ends with the expected casualty rates and the inofficial motto of the IG "We have Reserves!".

There are weapons who are simply superior, but they are also much rarer and much, much more costly than the signature weapons with which the rank & file guys are equiped. From an emperial standpoint 100 additional gardists with Lasguns are more usefull than spending the same resources equipping 1 dude with a Power Sword. From the standpoint of that 1 dude, who works for the inquisition and therefore gets the chances to get such powerful equipments into his hands (and keep it), the Power Sword is preferable.

Ok,

Stormtrooper Carapace - 6 AP

Power armour - 7/8/9 options

So it's a 3 pt difference between the run-of-the-mill carapace and the Heavy power armour ( whatever that is... ) or a best craftsmanship power armour ( assuming those are rare even amongst ascention lvl toons )

Is that so bad?

Hellgun S/3/- 1d10+4 7PEN ( tearing with a Stormtrooper ) -

Rough math here with experimental data:

2500 sample, ignoring extra dmg from 10's but making note of how many 10 where rolled ( Used a common spreadsheet ):

Avg: 7,17

# of 10 rolled on the 2500 sample with Tearing: 463 or 18,52%

So it's about 14 pts dmg per shot with Pen 7.

Plasma:

Plasma Blaster 60m S/-/- 2d10+6E 6 6 2Full Overheats, Recharge, Unreliable

Dmg: 10,89 / #10 rolled: 489

About 17pt dmg per shot with 1 less pen. Higher range due to Exploding 10s

Bolter:

Storm Bolter (Ryza) 90m S/2/4 1d10+5X 4 60 Full Storm, Tearing

Using the same avg as the hellgun you get a 12pt avg with 2 less PEN but more shots...

Rough analysis here... no ammo counted or special guns as all weapons can get those. Just looked for high dmg weapons. You guys think this will kill the stormtrooper option? I'm assuming there are situations where you can't use a heavy weapon, those are the ones the Stormtrooper will be good at.

Isidro

As isidro points out the Hellgun when used by an ascended Stormtrooper is actually pretty **** potent. And sure, certain basic and most heavy weapons will out-damage them, but that's really not the point of a Stormtrooper. They are elite, spec-ops troopers with a wide range of training cover covert operations, deepstriking, infiltrating, tracking and demolitions.

What they are not are heavy infantry. The imperium already has heavy infantry in the form of the Adeptus Astartes and Sororitas. Stromtroopers will always come off worse in a comparison between themselves and Adeptus (both in Dark Heresy and Deathwatch), and the combat classes (Arch Militant, Void Master etc) in Rogue Trader.

Maybe the fact your game features characters from all 3 systems is why it doesn't feel balanced? Also to reiterate: Dark Heresy character classes are all specialists. If a player is not having an opportunity to shine it is often not their own fault but more the an issue in the way the game is being run.

Vindicare: long rage specialist.

Cult Assassin: melee rage specialist.

Crusader: tank specialist.

Palatine: girl in armor and bolter specialist.

Storm Trooper: WTF!?

Storm Trooper: subtle action and ninja skills specialist. With loads of cool toys.

Or he should be that.

I think the Vindicare and Death Cultist are more of the subtle action ninja types.

Storm Troopers are soldiers, they can sneak a bit, but sneaking and being subtle is not their perpose, they are the gaurds heavy hitting infantry, they are relaible and resilliant, the work well as a squad and they know battlefield tactics.

Unfortunately ascension removes them from the situation they are meant to be good in, drops them into a team with far better specialtists than themselves and as DH has nothing to represent battlefield tactics in any meaningful way the thing they are trained for and best at is not actually represented in game.

On top of that you have two better resilliant tanks types in the Palantine and Crusader and a better heavy hitters in the assassins.

At the end of the day they combat generalists (generalism is generally a very bad thing in DH) whos effectiveness plateaus at rank 9.

Sebashaw said:

Offering my insight here on the WH40K universe... and OFC once again this is not an action game or MMORPG where overlapping roles may be redundant but never useless.

Vindicare: Super-duper brain-washed assassin, IMHO, should not be taken without a significant loss of identity from previous experiences. AkA johnny the assassin who likes football turns into VA-007, never smiles, doesn't remember much about who or waht he was. He is now an idiot-savant with a Sniper mania.

Has the option of having all the melee talents as well so he is not ranged only. Only thing he is missing in comparison to Cult assassin is the Pre-natural speed and the special ability... he has unnatural str/tou that cult assassin is missing and a lot of dodges, not sure who is better...

Cult assassin: Sounds like a good description.

Crusader: Tank ? He drives one? Another melee dude with some "bodyguard" options and Faith flavour...

Palantine: Chicks with guns + Faith. Showers alone.

Stormtrooper: Soldier boy, Rambo, John Matrix, Chuck Norris... Has all the melee and shooting talents, lacks unnatural stats and special ability is not very catchy. Has a LARGE LARGE number of masteries. Isn't part of a Cult, isn't a brain-washed assassin or a religious nut. RPG makes him a tottaly diff toon than the other combat specialists... On combat rounds value alone prolly worse... But then... who compares to the vindicare?

Isidro

The first problem is that you are using Ascension RAW. Most things in Ascension need a heavy hand of editing, retooling and house rules.

The second is you are assuming everyone is supposed to be equal. I hate that concept, that every thing must balance out. If Im +3 to hit and +7 to damage, the guy beside me has to be +5 to hit and +5 to damage blah blah blah.

I think even FFG realize how bad Ascension was, which is why the only support/follow up to it so far has be two free PDFs.

I think someone pointed it out fairly well above. Its a role playing game. There are just thoughts, emotions, goals and decisions a Storm Trooper can have and make that a brainwashed other class cant.

And AP 7 Carapace Armour is nothing to laugh at.

In my opinion, Vindicare has stolen the role of Storm Trooper.

Sebashaw said:

This!

He is better at ranged combat, better at melee combat, better at driving things, better at sneaking.
Oh, yea, the storm trooper is the better commander. Even the trooper's ascended command trait is rather weak.

Sebashaw said:

To be honest, though, the Vindicare does exactly what it's supposed to do. The problem is not what the Vindicare is capable of, but rather than it makes everyone else look a bit useless by comparison. I, personally, won't allow Officio Assassins (of any sort) as player characters in a campaign because I don't feel that they're an appropriate part of a group of Throne Agents - they're solo operatives meant for missions of extreme difficulty and importance.

I personally also feel that they are too powerful for PCs... not necessarily the build they have made for the vindicare (powerful though he is), just that they are outside the scale of PCs in 40k roleplaying. In my mind it is kind of like trying to play Marneus Calgar as a PC.

After reading over the Advance tables, it seems to me that that Storm Trooper has some areas, where he is stronger than the Vindicare.

1. The ST is more flexible with weapon choices, as from Rank 10 on , he has the potential of being able to use every non-exotic weapon available. The Vindicare stops at Pistols and Basic weapons, but gets a few more exotic weapons. The Vindicare gets more fancy talents for melee, but pays considerably more EXP for increasing WS and S. So Vindicare is more the flashy Karate-fighter, while the Stormtrooper is the boring, but still effective boxer/grappler.

2. Socially, the Vindicare ist just... not the lady´s man. He is able to get a single Peer Talent (Inquisition). The ST is able to gain 14 Peer Talents and 10 Good Reputation. In the same way, the Vindicare is not able to choose enemy or rival talents, the ST can pick from 11, making him advance faster if he really wants to.

3. Finally, the ST is more durable. With Carapace armour, an additional Sound Constitution Talent and T for 1500 XP instead of the 3000 XP a Vindicare pays, he can take more punishment.

The Vindicare is probably the better killer, no doubt here. But if I personally have to choose between killing power or social power/Toughness/flexibility I take the latter, along with Field Command.

It's worth noting that there is no limit as to how many people the Storm Trooper may affect at a time with the Field Command special ability. Provided that he has a means to communicate with them all, he can theoretically affect several regiments' worth of allies.

-Kirov

master_death said:

If I compare wearing Carapace and having a high T to being able to dodge anything more than 10 times per combat turn with a chance of success of around 95% then the second is clearly superior.
And once the Vindicare gets unnatural T he's surey tougher than the ST.

Same with Strength. The ST may have an easier time increasing it but he doesn't get unnatural S. So in the end the Vindicare will do more strength bonus in melee and will be able to carry more load.

So as I said earlier: The only area in which the ST is stronger than the V is Social.
And many careers are stronger in the social area than the ST.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

How do you explain examples of Meh'Lindi in Inquisition War? Or the Redemptionist Assassin in Scourge the Heretic? Although I would agree that Vindicare are crazy powerful....I can't see using this as a justification for not allowing them.

master_death said:

The Vindicare get the exitus rifle and pistol, he does not need other weapons training and will never need WS and strength because he can just jump and shoot his way out of danger.

Also remember this whole topic was started becuase the Storm Trooper trying to keep up with the combat power curve had to change weapons and loose the functionality of his careers unique trait whilst every other combatant gets to keep their big killy stuff regardless of what they do.

Brolthemighty said:

He was talking about Officio Assassins and at least the Redemptionist Assassin in Scourge the Heretic is not of the Officio Assassinorum.

Brolthemighty said:

I largely disregard the Inquisition War novels anyway, and the Assassin in Scourge the Heretic isn't of the Officio Assassinorum, so she's completely irrelevant here.

Officially, an operative of the Officio Assassinorum can only be deployed by a majority vote of the High Lords of Terra - as has been the case since the aftermath of the Wars of Vindication (during the Age of Apostasy), due to corruption and misuse of these exceptionally deadly assets. I simply don't see one ever being simply loaned out to run around with an Inquisitor (if an Inquisitor wants an assassin, there are plenty of cults and organisations around to draw from, and there's always the alternative of getting his own Assassins trained up).

N0-1_H3r3 said:

I comprehensively agree - Officio Assasinorum CAN be used by an Inquisitor, but only after protracted wrangling of resources and influence and only for a limited time during high threat scenarios, e.g. An entire world has fallen to recidivists under a rogue planetary governor, but military forces are unable to respond to the situation. A vindicare assasin is contracted in to help eliminate the governor, but will depart as soon as this is done.

Umbranus said:

Yes but he's a better fighter than those. In essence, he's a better fighter than anyone more social and more social than anyone who's a better fighter.

If he was as good in one on one combat as a Vindicare then the additional ability to get resource from the largest fighting force in the galaxy would be ridiculous.

The storms troopers increased Hellgun power is nice, Hellguns are great weapons but it doesn't limit the player. They may always have a hellgun or hellpistol on them but they aren't making the most of their ability to ignore the weight of their armour if they aren't loaded with gear to have the right tool for the job. Some suggestions, a Long Hell-gun, Hell combi weapon, or just an auto cannon with a hellpistol as back up. Any weapons instantly improved if it's fired from the doorway of a Valkyrie BTW.