hey, I've seen alot of questions, browsing google and the like, about how to make a dark heresy character equivilant to a deathwatch character. But I haven't seen anything about what happens after character creation.

For instance, Do they keep advancing in their career path, can they even take a space marine career path, be given the gene-seed and become a space-marine in a sense.

Also how does the money system work, do they get a set amount of thrones for each mission or something, do they start taking requisition and renown? and if so what do they use it on, if they can't become space marines I would think that they wouldn't really be able to use astartes equipment which, from what I can tell, is the only thing to spend requisition on.

Edit - If I put this in the wrong thread btw, could someone let me know where it should go, and/or move it for me? somewhat new to the forums.

Throne gelt aren't used in Deathwatch, instead each mission a space marine is given requistion points (req) to spend on gear. the more renown the more options available.

Throne gelt aren't used in Deathwatch, instead each mission a space marine is given requistion points (req) to spend on gear. the more renown the more options available.

There isnt a "space Marine " career for Dark heresy characters. so they'll still remain in the career they where in previously (either DH or acension)

space marines just increase their ranks (although rites of battle have career options for SM's)

I apologize if I was unclear, it happens to me sometimes. what I meant was what happens for a dark heresy character in Deathwatch, how do they use money, do they use the space marine's requisition? and if so can they even use the astartes weapons, gear, and ammo? From what I understand a gene-seed is required to use the astartes weapons because of the way they are built, but I wouldn't know for sure.

I don't remember a rule for that, but you could just hand-wave it and say he can requisition the DH versions of Astartes weapons for approximately the same cost (or a little less maybe), or give him the same weapons as the Astartes, just not calling them "Astartes".

Like, "I requisition a Gamma-Eta-Upsilon pattern Boltgun, it does exactly the same thing as the Godwyn-pattern Boltgun, but it's not Astartes so I can use it". Much easier for you.

For DH-specific equipment, I'm afraid there will be no easy conversion rule :/

There are rules in the DW core book on how to requisition DH equipment.

So you could just give the DH char requisition like the marines get.

Ascension has it's own "cashless" system that should handle anything a Throne Agent would need if they are working with the Deathwatch. It also contains a good bit of higher powered equipment.

There is no hard coded way to handle this, and much of it depends on how the campaign itself is being run.

Do the Deathwatch marine characters report back to a Watch Station between missions, or is the game broken down into a more fluid investigation held by the Throne Agents?

Probably the safest bet is to keep the two systems separate in a sense, and have the marines use requisition, and have the throne agents use influence, as per the rules for either side.

Thrones are pretty much not that important to any character at that XP level. RT characters have profit factor, and DH characters have influence.

Also, no, there is technically no way for a DH character to "become a marine." Major fluff reason would be because this (usually) happens very early in life (10-13). Mechanically, its just not how the game works. There is no "multi classing," partly in how stat advances work (if you could multi class, how do you handle attribute advances given the current system?).

Balance wise, it would also not work. The 13k xp marines have represent their way higher stats, and powerful innate traits. A 13k xp DH character can't just ascend into becoming a SM, and actually maintain any bonus they have from their former life (without significantly altering the benefits of being a SM, or losing any previous bonus of the DH character).

Now, RP wise, I wouldn't be too terribly against a DH character being inducted into a marine chapter (I've heard BT sometimes offer trials to IG vets and others that show promise, and that implantation can work as late as like, 40 years old), and allowing that character to come back as a marine (assuming they lose almost everything that ties to the old character, at least mechanically, so no keeping of particularly useful combat talents, e.g. lightning attack). Pretty much, just make the player reroll, but allow them to maintain the identity (but remember that there is heavy psycho-conditioning, so its likely to change anyway).

if the DH character gets weapon group -Astartes then they could use the weapons without any problems, it stands to reason that the player must spend time with space marines and train with the weapons.

Mans reach exceed his grasp clearly states that its the machine spirits of the astartes weapons and equipment that rebels against being handled by lesser beings. IMO there is no such thing as regular folk getting to play around with the marine toys without penalties (except for some reason if you like flamers).

UncleArkie said:

And most marines not teaching any mortals how to handle their sacred weaponry either. We're not dealing with mere Special Forces here. Marines are Space Paladins too.

Alex