A common complaint I've seen is that starting characters suck. A common response I've seen is to use modifiers like ganging up and aim, etc, to get up to +20 or +30. This is really specific for guns and melee though. What about getting a boost with psy powers? Navigator powers? Seems like starting out these characters are going to be rolling 50/50 on everything regardless. Is there anything they can do (especially navigators, as I've got one in group) to give them a better chance?

Second... I have a missionary, and we are having trouble deciding his purpose in game. The missionary doesn't seem to excel at much except resisting evil and using a flamer. Ignoring the roleplay factor, what is a missionary for? They don't even have any "special abilities" listed on the last page of the character classes chapter, which seems lame. Every other class is given some extra bonus powers there, except the missionary, and I don't see what he's got that compensates for that.

Missionary is good for maintaining morale aboard ship, contributing to Ship Actions, and being the only member of the crew completely immune to the influence of daemons. Missionary DOES get a mention on the last page, gaining the Pure Faith talent. If that's not enough, you could allow him to provide Ecclesiarchal Services or acquire Faith Talents from Blood of Martyrs.

Honestly, the Navigator's going to be doing fine by himself quite soon. Their powers are quite, well, powerful.

Resistance to daemons is great, if you're fighting daemons. Whereas being awesome with a gun is good no matter what you're fighting. In part, its up to the GM to run a game where every character is useful, but compared to other careers, I don't see the missionary stacking up. Perhaps its just over specialized compared to the other classes, which seem to have pretty broad use.

I know the missionary gets a mention on the "special abilities" page, that talent is already listed under "starting talents" for the missionary. So there isn't anything new there, like exceptional leader for rogue traders or weapon-master for arch militant, etc.

In terms of a combat situation I find that the missionary can be quite effect in close up encounters. They gain access to basic and heavy flame weapons early on with talents like Cleanse and Purify, the cost for there WS advancements is also cheap for them. Combining the fact they can have Pure Faith, Unshakable Faith and Nerves of Steel (stated they gain access to NoS in the errata) within rank 1 its going to be harder to fear or pin a missionary in combat. Also they should have a higher willpower then most classes as it is also very cheep for them to raise.

In ship combat they can preform the Dissinformation, Putt Your Backs Into It!, or Triage extended acctions as they have the skills that require them.

chuckhazard said:

Well using divine ministration a missionary can resurrect those who have fallen in combat. Our missionary used it to bring a dead npc back to life and to have him convince his people to surrender the city to us. Not a bad option to have. Besides that their faith powers allow them to do all kinds of useful things. Granted they typically require them to spend/burn a fate point. So if you are in a group that isn't giving out fate points at all his powers will be extremely limited if you only start out with one or two.

I read a discussion about fate points in another topic and some of those gm's would be effectively marginalizing the benefits of a missionary to their campaign.

Good luck.

In our game the Missionary has access to some abilities mentioned in Blood of the Martyr for Clerics.
He can bless an undertaking or weapons, he can take confessions and some other things related to his belief, that grant bonuses to his team.

Ryath said:

Didn't see NoS in the errata, that definitely gives them something to look at in rank 1.

So far the setting is going over really well with the group, I'm pleased to say. Missionary wants a chainaxe now instead of chainsword, but that's fine.

We're going to do starship combat next week, so hopefully that will be something else that allows the missionary to shine.

Thanks all.

Give him a double bladed chain axe (two chain axe weapons on one pole). Some times the skull bits jam up the chain on one side and you have to use the other.