Hello, I'm sitting here with a GenCon version of the Black Crusade book and I had a few questions.

First off, I was rather surprised that there were a lot of grammar and spelling mistakes in the book, but I was told that was pretty common for books bought at events before the official release.
There are just two things that I really need to get cleared up before I am able to start running the game.
In regard to the Intimidate skill. On the Black Crusade character sheet (online and in the back of the book) it says Intimidate is now based off of Willpower. It also says this on the table of skills (page 93 for anyone w/ the book). In the Skill description itself (pg 101) it says it's based off of the usual characteristic, Strength.

The other is in regard to the Renegade's starting Talents. The book states the renegade gets "Weapon Training (Chain, Las, Primary, SP, SP)". As you can see SP is listed twice. Now normally this isn't a problem (a simple mistake) except that below, in the starting gear, the renegade can get a common craftsmanship Plasma Gun. So... is the renegade expected to buy the weapon training (plasma) talent or is one of the SPs supposed to say Plasma instead?

This is not so important, but on the rules for "Running Horizontal Leaps" (41) there doesn't seam to be any bonus for the 4m the Heretic the heretic runs before jumping (there are bonuses for additional 4m though). This means unless the heretic has an 8m starting run there's no mechanical difference between making a running leap and a standing leap. Does this strike anyone else as odd?

And finally, a point of curiosity. On the first page of the character sheet (online and in the book) it has a place to record Rank after Archetype. I have not been able to find a single reference to rank yet in the book itself.

Thanks for taking the time to read and also thank you for any help in advance

The WH40k rulebooks tend to be chock-full of spelling and grammar mistakes no matter where you get them, in my experience. Black Crusade is actually somewhat low on them.

That said, there are a number of things that need to be addressed. For example, the "Great Unclean One" has two different stat blocks. One is clearly intended for the Lord of Change, but it's still mis-named. The section on Hordes clearly had some copy/pasted text from Deathwatch, as the section on attacking a Horde in melee makes clear reference to "Space Marines can..." without saying anything about whether humans can or can't.

Little things that will mostly require houserules, but still somewhat irksome.

Swot said:

As with the other 40k RPG games, you can use a number of characteristics with Intimidate, depending on how you are trying to intimidate them. All previous books have had "Strength" next to it as a skill despite this.

The only two I've noticed so far are:

Heavy weapon training. I'm not at all sure what this is and it's in the renegade starting package also. It says if you pick SP, Las, melta, etc you can use pistol, basic, and heavy. But under the weapon training talent, there's another category for heavy, and in the renegade starting package it says choose one. I'm assuming you don't actually start with heavy weapon training, unless you are a space marine with legion weapon training.

Under the chosen skills and talent starting package, you can choose between quickdraw and rapid reload. Well as a space marine you automatically start with quickdraw, so it seems a bit redundant.

Has anyone else noticed that the Survival skill is missing on the character sheet?
But overall the little quirks are a lot less annoying than I thought they were at first, so it's really not much of a problem.

When it comes to spelling and grammar, honestly, a lot of the companies seem to get sloppy with them now and then. The only one who really doesn't have to worry about it is Wizards.

And Wizards is owned by Hasbro, who have so much money they can afford to run its pen and paper games at a loss if it has/wants to (maintaining the IP for when there's a resurgence), and just needs to throw money at any problems it comes up against, of which spelling and grammar are fairly minor.

Now I'm not saying that I don't want FFG to get things a bit tidier, but overall I'm satisfied with their product. You can't let the perfect be the enemy of the adequate.

Blood Pact said:

Except basic spell and grammar checking isn't something that costs a lot of money. A goodly number of these errors could simply be fixed by using the basic spellcheck feature in Word for an hour or two. (Sure, you initially get a lot of false positives for things like lasrifle, but spellcheck does *not* take long.) These are the sorts of errors that people get flamed for when the errors are made in terribly thought-out gay fanfiction. There is absolutely no excuse for their prevalence in a product of professional nature that is sold for profit. And there should be an element of pride to it. I wince every time I come across a spelling/grammar error, and I feel bad showing certain portions of the books to my playgroup because the errors look so unprofessional.

I'm not even talking about making the rules text more mechanically smooth in nature (I realize that not everyone can meet the standards of specificity that Magic: the Gathering has spoiled me with); I'm referring to simple basics. Even allowing for unfamiliarity with UK English (armour and such) there's simply a preponderance of such errors.

Hardcore Heathen said:

What's with the "gay" thing? Cut it out mate.

Bad Birch said:

Aye, homophobia isn't welcome here.

Either way, not sure if it's relevant, but other RPG companies, such as White Wolf, used to have the problem with their proof-readers (especially those contracted from "professional" proofreading companies) adding in errors, so that they could then point to those errors and go "Sorry, we missed them, but imagine what it'd be like without us!".

The grammar has generally been alright when I've seen it, and new errors seem to be in it once it gets to retail, so I'm not sure if FFG needs to boot out whoever it's using currently, because either they're adding in errors, or just not good at spotting any that crop up during editing after playtesting.

MILLANDSON said:

Apologies; it was not intended to be taken that way. It's merely that, in my experience, homosexual fanfiction tends to be of a poor literary quality. There are notable exceptions of course, but to not completely derail the thread I will avoid a lengthy discourse as to my (extensive) experience and opinions of the literary merits of the fandoms of various TV shows, books, and anime

I also came across another error today. There's a Tzeentch mutation where, when you die, you scatter into demons. The mutation section says you turn into Blue Horrors (which will turn into pink horrors when they die), except the adversaries section says Pink Horrors turn into Blue Horrors when they die. I'm fairly certain the Adversaries section is the correct one, but there's still clearly some confusion there. I'm not sure how well communication was done between the various chapters, because cross-chapter references seem to be the ones that come up "weird" the most often.

Hardcore Heathen: -

From what you described about the Tzeentchian mutation it sounds like the developers have ported over the old 'Ecstatic Duplication' gift/reward/mutation, which had largely remained consistent all the way through to WFRP 2e in Tome of Corruption. I think, looking at my copy of RoC: The Lost and the Damned, what is supposed to happen is that the recipient of the mutation takes on some semblance of a Pink Horror (elongated arms, mutable features, etc.), yet if stricken undergoes a transformation which yields two Blue Horrors, which when are eventually slain return to the warp or are recalled by the Changer of Ways after a variable time period.

Unless of course the FFG developers decided to up the anty and make it the case when the heretic is slain he splits into two pink horrors which then further cause problems when they split into two pink horrors upon being slain. I'll think I'll stick with the former...

I believe it is the latter - you split into one, and then into the other when the first Horrors die.

It also doesn't help, I must admit, that different people write different parts of the book, which is one source of problems such as the one with the Horrors. Proofreaders will then read over it, and just see that the spelling is correct, and not notice the inconsistency because they often don't know the rules or setting themselves.

Hardcore Heathen said:

Tzeentch just changed his mind, it's what he does.

****

Just looked at my posting again and made an error in the 2nd para, when the pink horror splits into two should be blue horrors not pink.

Not that it matters - sure they'll have the v1.0 living errata out shortly after release date with some clarification...

Chaos claims thee...go forth and amplify!

The "Daemonic" trait lacks a rating in the Minion section, leaving it unclear as to what the Daemonic rating of a minion may be.

The Mechanicus Assimilation implant grants a rating of Machine each time it is installed. It is 100% unclear whether this can be installed infinity times, as there is no limit. Is it 10?

A number of powers inflict random Gifts of the Gods when used on another. It nowhere states that there is a limitation or that these are "corruptions through failure."

What is the Corruption and Infamy rating of a minion? 0?

It is very unclear whether infamy requires advertisement. Will a stealthy Tzeentchian whose deeds are largely unknown still acquire Infamy even if he avoids detection by the Imperium?

Also, while Winged is listed as a Gift of the Gods, it is not on the table.

Deinos said:

Yes it is. 14-16.

Oh, cool. Nevermind

I'm really confused about charge.

The description for charge (p.235) says that after you've made your charge move, you can make one of the following actions: Standard melee attack, All out attack or swift attack. It doesn't mention anything about any increases in WS.

The Chart (p.236) that lists all the combat actions only states that the attacker gets a +20 Ws. The Berserk charge talent says that you get a +30 instead of a +20 after charge, so it seems to support the description in the chart.

What do you guys think? I think the new description (standard, all-out or swift attack) brings a much needed boost to charge. The +20 is only a slight improvement on how its been done before.

Maybe they should be combined for a +20 Ws and the option between standard, all out or swift attack?

I like the combo of bonus to attack and you can take other action.

I do too. Charging into melee has been a poor choice for so long now. Charge really needed a boost to make it a whortwhile action.

Jackal_Strain said:

How I'd rule it is as follows: you gain a +10 to hit purely for Charging, but this is combined with any bonus gained from the type of attack chosen - so a Standard Attack provides a total of +20 (+10 for Charging, +10 for Standard Attack), a Swift Attack only provides a +10 (because Swift Attack itself grants no bonus to hit) and an All-Out Attack gives a +40 (All Out Attack grants +30 by itself). Berserk Charge then adds a further +10 on the top of that.

That sounds like a balanced and apropriate way to handle it. I'm definitely bringing the combat system from Bc over to the other 40k lines in my games.

P. 82, P. 302

Mark of Khorne grants the Brutal Charge trait, but fails to give the level of the trait.

Chosen have "Quick Draw or Rapid Reload" listed as an option listed in their Starting Talents on page 56.

All Chosen are Chaos Space Marines.

On page 48, we are told that all Chaos Space Marines get Quick Draw as a starting Talent.

So, something should be done here about the non-option (replace it or eliminate it).