Well this topic hits home when I think about the last season with my players two days ago. The vindicare was again pretty much over the top. The dodge mechanic is broken and I can't believe that this error wasn't obvious during play testing of ascension. I makes me believe that ascension was released in a kind of beta status.

One way to still hit a vindicate which I use is the feint action. It's basically an opposing WS test and if the attacked one fails ( which is not unlikely due to the fact that they don't have that high WS) it loses the ability to dodge or parry the next attack. One that way a vindicare can dodge a storm of bullets from bad ass aliens and imperial elite warriors but fails to avoid being beaten up by an one armed hive scum with a club
Ok... /sarcasm off...., you see my point For me it is not a satisfying solution of the balancing problem.

The real problem is that temple assasins, primaris psyker and others are far above the power level which is targeted in ascension. (They are more like Dreadnoughts in RoB than normal characters) Ascension should be the beginning level of an party led by an interrogator/inquisitor. Here I believe we should be able to do something on an early Eisenhorn level. It should be a smooth transition from classic acolyte game to an early inquisitor game. Instead it's a radical break in character development and a balancing mess which tries to be too many things at once.

Another problem I encountered with ascension are radical characters and careers. My players have chosen to be a quite radical group of acolytes. We used the Rhb quite frequently and also the interesting career options amongst other things. In ascension there aren't just enough career options for those kind of characters. There seems to be not enough career paths at all if you ask me.

I don't think the Vindicare is broken. The Vindicare is just being a temple assassin. As a very powerful PC the team won’t have to feel bad about putting him in harm’s way.

Most people seem to be having troubel with the Temple Assassin trait they get. So, just change the way the rule functions until you are happy with it. Let any of the players that want to play Vindicare know what to expect with the change in rules.

Another fix could be to play less combat heavy adventures with brainless enemies. I don't really see a problem with the Vindicare in our game, so I'm just making stuff up that might help you. Frankly I wish our Vindicare would take more of a leading role in combat, my Crusader has his hands full.

Delazar78 said:

I agree completely, and it's how I've houseruled my game. The way dodge itself works is the balance issue.

I've also been toying with the idea of each degree of success of a dodge reducing damage dealt - turning solid hits into glancing blows, etc. That way armor and toughness still matter, as well, instead of operating at 100% naked. It will need some playtesting to hammer out, though.

Catachan said:

Sigh.

No.

Among Ascension careers, there are four for whom combat is the most important (or plain only) way to contribute to team effort: Crusader, Death Cult Assassin, Storm Trooper and Vindicare. Out of the four, the Vindicare is the most powerful by several magnitudes, in any combat circumstances. He's so much better than them, in fact, that he makes them totally obsolete.

Now, this means that either those three are underpowered, or the Vindicare is overpowered. Since the three exhibit a roughly comparable level of combat prowess, and one more in line with other careers, it's only reasonable to conclude that the Vindicare is in fact overpowered.

But he's not just overpowered, he's totally broken. He can take on Deathwatch's Master-level opponents single-handedly and win. We're talking about enemies like Hive Tyrants or Greater Daemons, and he still pwns them silly because they can't lay a finger on him. How is this not broken?

And seriously, screw fluff. Even if the career is in line with Officio fluff (but then again, show me anywhere in the fluff a Vindicare soloing a Bloodthirster, then we're talk), it only means he should never have been introduced as a playable option. As an enemy, perhaps - but it's still extremely shady, because your average team of 3-5 PCs will auto-lose against him due to action economy. Anyway, fluff is the worst possible thing to balance character options against, because character options are supposed to, first and foremost, make sure everyone's having fun. Try having fun as a Storm Trooper, with your puny hellgun and your silly carapace armor, when there's a Vindicare fighting alongside. You can't, unless you find it immensely funny to be overshadowed and play second flute.

Morangias said:

The problem here is with Storm Trooper. If you actually played a guardsman into tormtrooper at Rank 8, it's much more logical to go into Crusader.

I don't have a problem with the balance, or lack there of. If any thing the problem is with how the Storm Trooper is being played, and then getting his feelings hurt and developing in inferiority complex. The Storm Trooper should man up.

He should get himself an auto cannon equipped sentinel or some thing. Standing there like a tool pew-pewing away with the hellgun isn't the way to go. It's a good option, but still only one of the options.

Edit: Sorry for some reason my post got published while I was typing it up, I think fat fingering shift+enter did it.

Catachan said:

And, if you go Crusader instead of Storm Trooper... you're still painfully outmatched by the Vindicare. This includes melee as well. There's only one thing at which the Crusader is better than a Vindicare, and it's getting killed in place of the Inquisitor.

Morangias said:

So, somehow, the Vindicare being good at combat makes my Crusader worse than he would have been otherwise? So, suddenly my Crudaser is rendered useless by the Vindicare. I'll keep that in mind next time I play.

Sure the Vindicare might be better at combat, but it doesn't affect my Crusader unless I'm get petty and jealous and allow that to ruin my fun. This seems to be a player problem and not a gameplay problem.

The Vindicare is still restricted by XP spent, so if he went close combat expert to challange my Crusader the Storm Trooper gets to be the badass at shooting. He can't have it both ways.

Morangias said:

Morangias said:

Strange. In our games, a Vindicare is an assassin. So many times he'll keep back in a fight to land surprising and fatal blows. Or he'll sneak around for reconnaissance. And he's quite effective in this role, yes. His role however is not open combat, that is definitely left to other careers.

Morangias said:

If you play the opponents like stupid. Feint, among other things. And a Vindicare's wounds and damage absorption sucks (even with Unnatural Toughness which is expensive) while others sport the same TB due to cheap attribute advancement, plus Machinator Array and AP 8 Power Armor. And can get Unnatural Toughness on top (Magos) for a TB of 16 or so. And have other roles to fill as well.

Other careers can still get Dodge into the high 70s easily which with 5+ fate points is almost a guaranteed success. And they will not suffer by auto weapons with high DoS either (like the OP suggested to illustrate his point) because they can actually wear true armor too. That's not to diminish the Vindicare special gear (it's cool) but armor is not its point.

Morangias said:

In fluff, demons are not the primary target of Vindicares because they are usually sent on a mission which requires some knowledge ahead. Would the Imperium know of a demon, they'd send Grey Knights. And since, in fluff, Vindicares are usually portrayed as with a specific objective, they don't kill demons they happen to encounter while on their mission. Because that would endanger their mission.

Also, in close combat, a Vindicare would so lose to a Bloodthirster.

Usually I don't try to argue with fanatical views.

So here's your answer to the thread topic: put him into social encounters.

Personally, I would have more fun as the Storm Trooper with a guard regiment or a platoon of storm troopers under my command. I find some people just have a lack of vision when it comes to certain classes that are thought of as "under powered" when looked at through the lens of stat crunching.

Just lob a few Hallucinogen grenades at him and see him shooting himself with his Exitus Pistol or jumping off cliffs while flapping with his arms. Hallucinogen grenades do not have a Blast radius per se and thus its effect cannot be dodged. The same is true for Photon Flash grenades, which can blind him for a while and thus making it impossible to dodge further attacks. If you use the Into the Storm supplement, you could also make use of Howler and Stunner grenades to disable the Vindicare or Bloodfire and Toxin grenades to harm him directly.

Using 3 kg of Fyceline also does the trick, as it is hard to dodge a Blast radius of 15 m...

from france

trap it in a closed room then filled it with acid. hard to avoid drowing/ eating by acide.

lock it in a ship escape ventilation and open it in the space option a real space how many time he will old his breath? option b in the warp if possible or in a ejected escape pod i don't think he will avoid the creatures there who want to play.

send it against another vindicare to see who is the best.

try poison food/liquid/ air.

send him in the french/usa/ etc etc administration to find the formula b red without shooting pepole....... he will become mad and a mad vindicare is not useful anymore and the ordo will finish him.

ItsUncertainWho said:

The people who are interested in running a political campaign are a fringe group though. People mainly come to DH for investigation and combat. I would dare to guess that most would have rather hoped for the same in Ascension, except at a higher level.

Alex

ak-73 said:

I'm not talking about running a political campaign, just a shift in players perspective. Ascension is a different tier of play where political power should come into play. When you have players with the power to condemn worlds with the stroke of a pen how well you can dodge or shoot a pistol should become a secondary concern at best.

Magos, Inquisitor, Hierophant, Judge, Desperado and even the Palatine ARE political characters.

Crusaders, Cult Assassin, Vindicare, Storm Trooper, this characters have the same political power of a simple acolyte!

Crusader, Cult Assassin and Storm Trooper have need to be remade like the new Sister: special character for Dark Heresy.

Storm Trooper IS NOT an Imperial Commander, he is a solider of special forces!

And Vindicare should be a weapon you can engage sacrificing your Influence.

Sebashaw said:

No, a Storm Trooper is not an Imperial Commander. He is a soldier of the Holy Inquisition, tested and hardened against the worst that humanity and the warp has to offer.

A Storm Trooper Player has a high probability of being an Officer within the elite combat unit of the Inquisition. That Storm Trooper player will have more relevant knowledge and ability to make tactical decisions based on the foe at hand than any Imperial Commander and unlike an Imperial Commander his Inquisitor trusts him.

If I was an Inquisitor leading an assault, I would certainly put a Storm Trooper officer I trust in charge of any Guard units I was employing. The Imperial Commanders would be in charge of their men, but I would make sure the commanders know that the Storm Trooper is in charge of them and that he speaks with the voice of the Inquisition. If I was using one or more platoons of Storm Troopers I would make sure the Player is in charge of them.

Sebashaw said:

Umm... but the same could be said of a Stormtrooper and his regiment. Or a favor from a crimelord. Or from the AM. Or a meeting with some NPC Sage in a library.

Did you read Ascension? Why do Inquisitors keep a retinue at all and don't just spend all their influence on ever more acolyte cells? Because they might not have the time to wait for some requisition and its due process. Because they like short communication routes. Oh and because it's not a game I would want to play. In our Ascension, we still have dice rolls and not only storytelling of what happened off-camera due to some obscure political influence and network.

I also fail to see how the Vindicare is overpowered in the general scope of Ascension. They got their role. They fill it. Is an Inquisitor/Primaris Psyker with a Willpower bonus of 30 weaker? Or is an Untouchable Moritat Death Cult Assassin? A Magos with a Toughness bonus of 16 and 12 AP for combined absorption of like 30, before fields?

I think the last Vindicare thread spawned a humor thread about there being no challenge to a Sage. I might have to dig it up.

Yes perhaps they might take some time off for Vindicare missions, just like the Arbiter or the Imperial Guardsman when important enough duty somewhere else arises. But I see them like the assassin in Servants of the Imperium, tagging along for some reason. They fill the solo scout role nicely and can also make it back alive. To be honest, the Dodge rule doesn't come into play as often as superior Concealment which is only thwarted by psychic means.

Which leads me back to the question... would you rather have me play an Untouchable Moritat Death Cult Assassin? In Power Armor? (A DCA gets way better Dodge, Concealment and Move Silently skills - by the numbers at least - than a Vindicare and thus can exchange some of it for a +2/+4 to damage and 5 more AP).

Ah found it:

www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp

Page 37, 15 threads per page, at around May 2010, and you'll find all the Ascension rants. I hate to repeat stuff mentioned back then.

Of course you can play it, because in my game I have prohibited all unnatural traits, because I'm sure they were made only for monsters, not for PCs.

Being part of a inquisitor's retinue doesn't means being always in play, especially with some type of characters.

And again, a Vindicare is assigned to selected targets, he is not a scout, nor a fellow for inquisitors.

Regard the Storm Trooper, who commands a combat unit, he would be a Storm Trooper Captain, someone too old and with so much experience that I don't think he commands his troopers from the front line.

To me, Ascension is the worst supplement for Dark Heresy (1°Ascension, 2°Creatures Anathema, 3°Radical's Handbook*).

*If you like the Ordo Malleus this book is not so bad, but if your party is for Hereticus or Xenos, this book is a total failure.

Sebashaw said:

What?! The Radical's Handbook has tons of great background material and is the best supplement after Disciples of the Dark Gods in my opinion. What does it have to do with the Ordo Malleus exclusively? You are certainly right in regard to Daemon Hunter and Blood of Martyrs (the latter for Hereticus of course), but saying the Radical's Handbook is bad is a surprise even for a nitpicker like me...

Luthor Harkon said:

If you look to the alternative ranks or the new gear, well, there are only generalist stuff or "Malleus only" stuff.

The ranks for the Hereticus characters are in a web supplement.

There are a lot informations about radicals of the Ordo Malleus and Hereticus, but very few ideas about the Ordo Xenos.

Maybe my opinion was too harsh, but I think this book is incomplete.

If you're playing with RAW, where does it say that the Stormtrooper gets a Stormtrooper detachment that he can order around?

And why, if the inquisitor got command over some Guardsmen, should a Stormtrooper with low Fel and without any leadership skills (not every guardsman has those) lead them when there is a Judge with real high Fel who takes every Command related skill or talent he can get?

Would the Inquisitor truely let the Stormtrooper that is lacking in the field of command lead the guardsmen just for political reasons when he has a capable fieldcommander around?

If a stormtrooper has command and perhaps even the ascended command trait, that's a differen story. But not every guardsman reaching ascension has been a commander. If he was played from rank 1 as acolyte and another char was the social, commander type, why in the world should the guardsman lern to command people?

The guardsman I played through DH (without knowing there was something like ascension) was a dusk born feral worlder, specialised in melee combat, with skills and equipment that would have given him a chance do fight a SM in melee and win. But he was far from being a commander. He was more a weapon. If anything attacked the team or the team leader pointed at something he jumped at it with his jet pack (lerned to fly via elite advance) and tore it apart. Who on earth would give him command over anything sentient?

Umbranus said:

Influence. You also didn't seem to understand what I wrote.

If I was an Inquisitor leading an assault . . .

Umbranus said:

Not every Guardsman is lacking Fellowship or Command. Your choices define your character, one possible character, not the type of character I was talking about. Then you bring up elite advances and you throw your own argument out the window.

Sebashaw said:

Most army Captains will be in their late twenties or early thirties and are field commanders. 40K in general is a lead from the front no matter how old you are universe. Unless they are Generals almost every commander in the fluff is on the front lines, sometimes even the Generals.

My main argument for my last posts was that ascension is not well done because you can not play every character with wich you played DH up to Ascension.
So in which way does my bringing up an elite advance throw this argument out of the window?

My second argument was that it is not for every stormtrooper possible (while being true to his personality) to command other people.
So in which way did bringing up an elite advance throw this argument out of the window?

Just because it can make sense to have a guard detachment around for some stormtroopers that is not the case for every stormtrooper.
And not every GM will allow you to bring a military unit wherever you go.

In our ascension game we keep on playing more or less similar that pre ascension, doing most things in person. What changed drastically is the powerlevel of most characters. It would not have changed as much for the stormtrooper, cause he doesn't get anything RAW that increases his power niveau similar to the vindicare so I changed to a not combat oriented character and have more fun with it than I would have had being outclassed by the vindicare all the time.

Absolutely nothing I said is in any form contradicted by my late guardsman having lerned pilot (personal) as an elite advance.

Umbranus said:

As soon as you bring in elite advances any character can have any skill or talent and therefore the argument that a character can't get something is thrown out the window.

Even feral melee combat specialists have a justifiable reason for taking command skills, how else are they going to lead their followers into combat effectively?

Look at Conan, the literary version. He is a beast of a man in a fight, yet he has the ability to lead/command as a pirate captain, general, and king, all to great effect and not just through intimidation. Just because you are a brute doesn't meant that command is out of the question, skills go a long way in making up for low stats.

Also, I never did say anything about hauling a platoon of stormtroopers around everywhere.

My point is that all the classes are viable if the GM plays to their strengths and capabilities by giving them appropriate bonuses and penalties based on who and what they are. In my game a Storm Trooper, not undercover, would get interaction tests with military types one or more steps easier than a Judge would, on top of any peer talents.

Umbranus said:

My good man you might have wanted to look into the Crusader career. I played, and still play, the EXACT same kind of character you had. Instead I didn't look at what I couldn't have, but at what I could have. It has served me well, no regrets here. I don't know what you were expecting. Earlier you claimed that there wasn't an ascendant career for your character, I don't know how you reached that conclusion. If you claim inferiority on the part of the Crusader career, I wish you good luck and great fortune with your newly chosen path.

That Crusader transition package; get sent to a monistary to find inner strength. Come back some sort of monk in total control of himself with a tendency to, every now and again, flip out and murder any ting within arm's reach.

As I look at the Vindicare career I'm not even mad as a fellow player. Nice dodges there buddy, I'll be over here getting work done. What all this outrage is about is beyond me.

There are easy ways to ignore dodge, using feints, and full auto weapons (preferably at point blank range). I almost made an eversor assassin cry the time I caught one at point blank with an assault stubber. I was actually lucky not to kill him for obvious reasons. A storm bolter would wreck any one's day if you get a good amount of hits. Start spending those fate points on rerolls, I hope the emperor loves you.

You also don't need elite advances to make a storm trooper a commanding expert, it's built into the career throughout the rank progression. If you actually spend some XP on fellowship you will end up with a decent commander. If you don't want to command, don't, but realize what you are giving up and just live with it.

As for RAW, we change what we want when we want, as long as it makes sense. This isn't some sort of tournament game. If you don't like a rule, talk to the group you play with about it.