@Crate

You mean because being a mutant is so much more acceptable in imperial society? Space Marines are definitely and recognizably non-standard-human.

Cifer said:

No the mutant is ofcourse not welcome in general imperial society however he might be able to walk around other mutants or outcasts (even if they arent adherents to chaos) and even radical acolytes/inquisitors might not jump at his throat immediatly. Ofcourse he needs to cover it with some heavy clothing or illusions.

Crate said:

In the million worlds that make up the Imperium, there are bound to be a few where people average 7' tall. Plus, prominant citizens frequently employ gene-manipulated servants- such as hulking, muscle-grafted bodyguards. Add to that the fact that 99.99% of Imperial citizens have never actually seen one of the near-legendary Astartes, and it is unlikely that an unarmoured CSM will be instantly recognized for what he is. He won't 'blend in' to a crowd very well, but he will likely just be taken for a big off-worlder or high-end "Heavy".

Ghaundan said:

And yeah, still curious as how a space marine is going to be better at the social aspect, not every person can be bullied/threatened into submission.

5 bonus points of fellowship. Although the appearing harmless addendum to charm means that, yes, an adorable little psyker heretic girl does often have a net +25 to charm tests over astartes, who have a hard time seeming harmless. Its not easy to be moe when your strength bonus is +7 or more.

Ghaundan said:

A regular human however can move about much easier.

Don't mount decapitated heads and spiky bitz on your armor when travelling abroad. Bask in the worship of imperials. Knowledge of the mere existence of CSM is almost always censored, unless you're TOTALLY INSANE enough to try to chat up an Inquisitor. Even so, there's no magic "detect chaos" power, and even someone who knows of CSM has no way to differentiate a loyalist and non-retarded CSM. Higher tier imperials are more likely to try to court your favor than shoot on sight.

Also, while fluff has astartes of all the way up to 10 feet tall or so, in DW and BC the average astartes is only around 6'1" outside of power armor.

Though yes, astartes attract more attention, though this is worshipful rockstar-in-space attention. Astartes enjoy a level of rights in imperial society beyond the ken of the average human; while inquisition agents can casually execute anyone for even the ghost of suspicion,

Ghaundan said:

But the day you turn one of the cornerstones in a RPG into a dicefest, be it combat or social encounters, then you've lost perspective if you ask me.

This isn't terribly relevant. You can improvise and think creatively with a CSM char just as easily as with a human... but when it is rolled stuff, the CSM has an advantage the heretic simply cannot catch up with, and socially astartes are at a huge advantage as well.

Oh man I completely screwed up that multiquoting. Oh well, hopefully it makes some sense. short story is: space marines are adored by imperials, its not hard to have a Black Crusade char who can disguise himself as a loyalist, and CSM get +5 fel over heretics, so I'd rather make a social CSM.

Well, Alpha Marines pretend to be loyalists all the time.

I've played in two Rogue Trader games, a Dark Heresy game, an Ascension game, and Deathwatch. Except for Deathwatch, there was always at least one person who played a character who was practically useless in combat. Those characters were always incredibly useful and important, usually more so than someone who took a combat-only build.

Now I'm running a Black Crusade game and after a couple of fights and near-fights, its easy to see that the Astartes will always completely outshine the normal humans in combat in my game. The human characters were uninterested in making combat characters, but they were absolutely vital to the parts of the game that didn't involve combat. At my suggestion, the heretek is even trying to worm his way into being the source of chemicals, drugs, and proteins that an Astartes needs to survive. Even if one of them had gone the combat route though, I think it would be difficult for me to challenge the Astartes without killing the human unless the enemies I threw at them always used Felling weapons with high Pen, which defeats one of the purposes of playing a Space Marine.

I'm inclined to agree that Astartes are better than normal humans mechanically, but someone else wrote, or implied, that the 40k game universe lets you specialize to an incredible degree. I don't think that the edge starting Astartes have over humans matters much during the actual game, as the humans aren't typically competing with the Astartes.

And although Fallen Angels and Alpha Legion do hide within the Imperium, it's still a lot more difficult for a Space Marine to be clandestine than a normal human. Whether openly looking like a Traitor Marine, disguised as a Loyalist, or even trying to pass himself off as a hulking mutant, the Astartes is going to attract more attention than a normal human.

And although Fallen Angels and Alpha Legion do hide within the Imperium, it's still a lot more difficult for a Space Marine to be clandestine than a normal human. Whether openly looking like a Traitor Marine, disguised as a Loyalist, or even trying to pass himself off as a hulking mutant, the Astartes is going to attract more attention than a normal human.

That's my point. Yes, a CSM can sometimes hide as a loyalist. Right up to the point where anything suspicious happens and the local authorities (possibly along with some inquisitor) go "Okay, what strange things happened here in the last time?" - at which point a Space Marine sans Chapter is going to stand out a little...

Deinos said:

Being adored is not necesarily a good thing, especially if you want to keep a low profile, also there are plenty of downtrodden people who hate spacemarines.

Deinos said:

I suppose what I mean is just that, to me, astartes are the rockstars of the Imperium; they are adored. At the same time, the thing that makes them powerfully interesting is the contrast between the image -- the Emperor's angels -- and the fact: mutants created by the science project of a psyker who became God. CSM call this tension into sharp focus, especially the savvy, Alpha Legion style of CSM. If they wish to try their hand at manipulating with a power player of the Imperium... even an inquisitor or planetary governor is going to be curious enough to deeply consider the offer of an audience, as even an inquisitor (for instance) would kill to draft an astartes (even for noncombat assignments, their ability to eat someone's finger to gain their memories, stay up for long quantities of time, have clearer memories, etc.)..

I now however realize that the Apostate is the only class that drastically outpaces the competition in its chosen speciaty...

Ordos Xenos already have the Deathwatch for most of the assignments requiring space marines, ordo mallus has the grey knights and ordo hereticus are charged with hunting traitors, heretics and the like. Which a renegade SM would certainly be, and the inquisitor most certainly wouldn't hesitate in calling a nearby chapter who'd most likely dispatch marines to kill or apprehend the traitor.

A planetary governor might be interested for many reasons and could be the basis of a really exciting adventure, if the governor is radical and has no qualms with using heretics to do his dirty work he could try to use and later remove the party (don't want competition after all). Even a loyalist one would be eager to meet one of the emperors angels of death.

About the genetic memory thing, it's "only" genetic memory an animal/species possesses. Otherwise you could make the argument that a heretek that donates the arm he's replacing with biotics to the CSM's in the party would lead to the marines gaining all his knowledge. It says the marines gain information that might give them a tactical or survival related advantage. So most likely it's things like what to eat, what not to eat, how to avoid being detected be certain enemies etc. Not how to reprogram a cogitator. Well, actually, if they got their hands on an ork mek they'd gain his mechanical knowledge as it's written into his DNA...

Might actually give the marine a blood drinker trait if he does it extensively, that's what alot of loyalist marines suffer from according to their fluff (ref: blood drinker and flesh tearer chapters)

An inquisitor could be interrested in having a Space Marine available a lot more often than the Deathwatch for example.

I agree with Bassemandrh: If someone really thought they could get a Space Marine as a retainer, they'd take the opportunity - there is no such thing as "enough Space Marines". Of course, people who have a realistic chance of getting an actual Space Marine also have this habit of disregarding etiquette rules about equine donations, which may lead them to discover that their very personal gift horse has had its teeth filed to points and engraved with the eightpointed star...

All in all, I'd say it's certainly possible to infiltrate as a Space Marine and doing so may have extreme advantages if you manage to pull it off. And that would be the hard part as it's nigh-impossible to infiltrate the lower levels of society without coming to the attention of the high-ups and infiltrating the higher parts will need a cover-story so elaborate that its costs may outweigh the gains if you're not out to take over the entire planet. Should you be planning a quick Smash&Grab somewhere, just having the Space Marine hide somewhere out of sight until you're ready to blow cover may be more convenient.

The cannibal memory thing is really weird. It states that eating a tau fire warrior pilot could teach you how to use one of their hoverfishes, and I'm 99% sure the fire warriors have not evolved to be able to naturally use them without training. It also states it can grant memories from life, and its unclear (and open to GM interpretation) exactly what info it will procure.

But yeah, I will take back my assertion that astartes completely outclass mortals -- a harmless looking apostate will, in effect, have a +45 bonus to charm tests in comparison to an equivalent social CSM (+30 harmlessness, since its hard for a space marine to look adorable and non-dangerous, and +20 from peer 2) and further it seems to me that the heretic initiative bonus is a subtle but important aspect: in mid power 40k roleplay, an ultra-serious one versus one fight is all about who strikes first, and as such, until psyker powers or powerful force fields are brought into play, it seems to me that in a fight between two high tier heretics -- say, a CSM vs a renegade, both in terminator armor with reaper autocannons, both with maxed inits, that the human will have the best chance of victory. Just by being able to take the first autoburst.

Conversely, high power 40k roleplay is mainly about psyker abilities, force screens, and all that, where the mortal vs CSM distinction just doesn't matter much. Psy powers (such as from greater minions of chaos) can easily grant unnatural abilities vastly in excess of CSM traits, and so in a high powered game the CSM vs human distinction will almost have no effect.

All that being said... if I want to play a manly man character, I'm pretty much always going to go for the +5 to all stats of a CSM.

Thats the issue yes, at high levels they are probably going to be fairly even but at low levels, when just starting out, the CSM is gonna have huge advantage (IMO) vs. the humans in a fight due to stats, gear, unnatural stats, higher wounds and inborn space marine abilities.

Guess time will tell since I havent actually played yet and this is pure guesswork.

Why is everyone so concerned about balance ? This isn't an mmo, its a pen and paper, tabletop roleplaying game. Different characters will have different areas of expertise and you can't allways measure it in xp. Instead of focusing on that, just pick the character concept that you'd like to play and have fun with it.

I actually find it kinda strange that some people expect human heretics to measure up to chaos marines in combat, considering the source material. Thats the kind of mentality I guess we have to expect these mmoand post d&d 4th edition days. Different characters will have different ares they excel in, and it's the difference that makes them enjoyable and rewarding (imo), not measuring xp differences, combat bonuses or stat blocks.

Jackal_Strain said:

I agree for the most part, but for many players combat is one of the very interesting and enjoyable parts of an RPG and if they can't hold a candle to their team mates, to the point that they have to be babysitted it quickly stops being fun.

I dont expect my Apostate or even Renegade to measure up to a CSM in a fight, however I would like not to be insta killed in a fight designed to challenge the CSM guys and thats what I guess some people are a little worried about. Also a point that people are worried about is that CSM dont seem to give up all that much to gain all those nifty abilities, characters should be balanced if you look across the entire spectrum but at this point CSM just seem better.

Jackal_Strain said:

There are many reasons to be concerned about balance, but it's mostly this "having fun" part you mention.

I promise you that the minute you stop worrying about how your character measures up the the other players characters and focus on what you can do and what makes your character unique, you will have more fun.

True story.

Jackal_Strain said:

Sure, because obviously what works for you works for everyone.

Man, if I had a nickel for every person telling me I'm not having fun the right way...

Jackal_Strain said:

And I actually find it strange that throne agents measure up 100% fine to deathwatch characters, but somehow human heretics don't match astartes heretics. I seriously don't get it...

Oh wait, no one complained about humans not measuring up to astartes in combat, and I'm pretty sure I pointed out that at mid and high levels, they are more or less on par, depending on how much you value inits. The complaining was more about CSM being permanently more strong-willed, more intelligent, and, most surprisingly, more able to get along with people.

At least fallen throne agents measure up 100% fine to fallen deathwatch characters.

Morangias said:

I never said that you are having fun the wrong or right way, but it's obvious that you want BC to be something it's not. I'm offering you a different way to look at and enjoy the game instead of wasting all this energy on complaining on the differences between archetypes and races.

And if BC can't give you what you're looking for, maybe you should play another game? Life's too short to play games you don't enjoy, when there are thousands of games out there that could give you what you're looking for.

I know my comment might have come across as arrogant, but I wish someone would have told me earlier what I'm saying here.

Deinos said:

That is simply not correct. At least not the way you say it.

The same differences exist between Throne Agents (DH) and Battle Brothers (DW) as between human and chaos marine heretics. No wait, they are even bigger. The stat differences are even bigger between DH and DW than between two races in BC.

They do get access to a whole lot of skills and talents compared to marines though, and that helps to balance things between them.

Jackal_Strain said:

Man, and I thought your initial comment was excessively presumptuous...

Seriously. "I want PCs to be balanced against each other" is as valid a concern regarding any system as "I want to tell a cool story" or "I want X to be much more powerful than Y, in accord with the fluff", or a myriad others. Some of those may not work for you, but don't go assuming that it'd be better if everyone saw things your way. It doesn't help anyone, and it makes you look bad.