Once again, I've never said that x is better than y or this is a better way than that, but I'm offering a different perspective . One that might let you enjoy your experience of playing the game more. Maybe it wont, but you wont know until you've tried it either.

And I never said that everything will be better if you see things my way, but it might be different. Different might be better, It might be worse.

Putting words into others mouths is another way to look bad too.

I'm sorry that the game isn't what you want it to be, but maybe you can enjoy it more by focusing on the things you like about it than the things you don't like?

And if you can't do that, maybe you should look at something else?

You talk about me putting words in your mouth, yet you talk about my attitude towards Black Crusade. News flash - I only started participating in this thread in response to your post, and never mentioned BC in particular. In fact, I'm very enthusiastic about it, and confident in my ability to balance things out should it become necessary.

Methinks thou dost assume too much.

Could we please chillax and get back on track? For alot of players it's a serious issue, no one wants to feel like the fifth wheel in a party, everyone wants to contribute in their own way. If Astartes dominate every side of the board it's a legitimate concern as players want a real choice in archetype and not a "awesome or crappy", that's not a choice. Some of it will always be up to the GM, if there are two combat orientet characters and one is melee and the other a sniper the melee won't have fun if they always meet enemies at far distances with little to no cover between them and vice versa if the sniper gets caught in melee the first round of combat. Of course, it should happen from time to time, but the point is that every character should have their moment to shine and on average do a fair contribution to the party.

For instance an astartes might get lucky and bully some information out of a dreg, but it's the apostate that in general manages to coerce information out of NPC's. Neither is useless in the social encounters, but a combat orientet astartes won't have it easy, especially if the npc's are not easily intimidated. In combat the astartes will have a greater duty to carry the fight home, not to mention getting a whopass of pain unleashed on him. A GM should try to make his pawns behave realistically, if a berseker in power armor dual weidling chain axes charges it's natural for characters to avoid him, unless they're mentality is that bloody melee against the stronges is the way to go. However jumping the astartes holding a heavy bolter instead of the heretek with a lasgun? Yeah, I'd jump the big gun to stop it from shooting. A GM that is basically just trying to snipe weak characters for no better reason then wanting to kill them is metagaming and not someone I'd like to play with.

Not to say mortals should be pandered with, but we can't really complain about stupid AI's in games if real life people don't try to make their own characters behave in a normal fashion (I try to shoot the guy with the biggest gun first unless there's a reason not to, be it mortal or astartes). My group isn't that big, but we have 2-4 players and a GM, we're still uncertain about archetypes but we're considering splitting it up unless there's a good reason not to. If not I'm sure our GM will give us an obstacle none of us are fit to deal with just to prove to us that we've made a boring, one dimensional party.

And yeah, roll heretek and let the astartes rage as they go into withdrawal without the drugs they need.

Agreed. There's also the fact people are just presuming a GM who doesn't see Combat as the only thing worth doing. And there's a lot of them out there. It doesn't make them bad, maybe not good let alone great GMs, but not a bad one.

So the many people who might have such a GM should be concerned, because depending on the GM they may not have a place in a party despite trying.

Jackal_Strain said:

DW: +30 to every stat, upgradeable to +50. Vastly more expensive XP costs. Unnatural attributes.

DH: +20 to every stat, upgradeable to +50. Unnatural attributes.

BC CSM: +30 to every stat, upgradeable to +50. Unnatural attributes.

BC Human: +25 to every stat, upgradeable to +45. No unnatural attributes -- other than those things CSM can also get.

Dark Heresy characters aren't pale shadows of Deathwatch characters -- they are firm equals. Chaos Space Marines aren't pale shadows of Deathwatch chars -- they are about on par. Being "not an astartes" doesn't make acolytes and throne agents be Not As Good; being "of chaos" doesn't make CSM Not As Good, but why does the combination of the two -- being a non-astartes non-loyalist -- make you Not As Good?

Also, it is assumed that CSM are deficient outside of combat. That's simply false. One can argue that humans are way better at Charm -- one can argue astartes are almost always better at Intimidate. One can argue that humans are better at escaping the notice of the Inquisition -- one can argue astartes are better at engaging high ranking imperials socially. There is of course still that +5 fel, will, per, and int to deal with.

Deinos said:

*points out that you are using "Ascension" stuff too, which is a bit unfair*

Plus, you are assuming that BC Humans can't get Unnatural Attributes... when they can be blessed to hell and back by the Chaos Gods, and given any number of mutations or gifts along the way.

@MILLANDSON

*points out that you are using "Ascension" stuff too, which is a bit unfair*

Admittedly, Black Crusade is in about the same XP range as Ascension, so it's not that unfair...

@Deinos

Also, it is assumed that CSM are deficient outside of combat. That's simply false. One can argue that humans are way better at Charm -- one can argue astartes are almost always better at Intimidate. One can argue that humans are better at escaping the notice of the Inquisition -- one can argue astartes are better at engaging high ranking imperials socially. There is of course still that +5 fel, will, per, and int to deal with.

One can argue a lot of things, but some of them are wrong. I daresay the "escaping the notice of the inquisition" part will be a lot more important in any games in imperial surroundings than anything else. When the Renegade intimidates someone (quite possible if he uses his archetype bonus for Fellowship or other intimidate-based abilities), that someone knows he was intimidated by... some guy. If the CSM intimidates someone, you've essentially got to kill him afterwards because he's likely to tell someone. As for engaging high ranking society, there's still that little problem with the missing chapter to solve. Why is a Space Marine a long way away from his chapter when there are a hundred wars to wage? High ranking imperials are likely aware of this problem and might perform a few discreet background checks. So all in all, it won't be much easier to infiltrate as a CSM than for example as an Apostate who can get Peer (Nobility) by saying "I really, really want it!".

Of course, if the game is set entirely in the Vortex, CSMs may enjoy significantly lesser drawbacks...

@Jackal_Strain

Firstly, wanting balance is in no way a new phenomenon - please remember that the first edition of D&D evolved from a wargame.

Secondly, yes, you could just stop worrying about it. The same is true about clunky rules, an un-engaging setting or a million other hallmarks of bad game design. That doesn't make any of them better.

Thirdly, I fail to see what there is to like about a system directly subdividing classes that are meant to be played together into what is sometimes called "hero" and "hero-helper" classes/professions/archetypes/careers. The easiest test for this is the test of redundancy: Is a well-constructed character of one archetype capable of taking over the entire speciality of another archetype while also adequately managing another shtick the other archetype is incapable of? Then that other archetype is functionally redundant.

However, as I've not yet seen the actual rules, I'll reserve judgement about whether the archetypes are balanced for that point of time. From what I've read until now, it seems like they are.

One thing I have noticed that no one is talking about, Human Pyskers are much more powerful than their CSM counterparts. Sure they are squisher and more unstable but everything I have seen has said that Human Pyskers have much more raw power.

There are some other things you could do if you think Humans need to be enhanced a little besides the obvious addition of starting XP.

Under "The Quick and the Dead", add a line that allows Humans to buy Step Aside a second time. This gives them an extra Evasion, which should help with survivability.

Only allow Humans to buy the Veteran(+30) level of skills. CSM have the general +5 to everything(Through increased Attributes), but humans become better specialists.

Give humans a "Lucky" trait that grants Unnatural Infamy (X), where X is whatever you feel is appropriate. And instead of adding degrees of success equal to half the trait, it could make Acquisition tests easier by one step per two levels. That would have the additional effect of getting them a gear upgrade. If you wanted to explain this other than lucky, you could say that the same feat accomplished by both a CSM and a Human is much more impressive for the Human.

Anyway, these are just ideas off the top of my head. My group hasn't actually started playing yet, finishing up a RT adventure, then giving the current DM a break, so I haven't used these. If anyone does, I'd be interested in how the work out.

Well, I´m not really concerned in regards to balance issues.

First of all, Astartes are supposed to be badass. And I´m glad that they aren´t artificially gimped into the ground for game balancing. It´s an RPG first and foremost, so characters should be true to whatever they´re supposed to be above all else.

Secondly, imo the character classes are so different from eachother that it´s very unlikely that one dude is stealing the show for everyone else. If every class has enough uniqueness to it, who cares about relative power levels? It´s all up to the GM and proper roleplay.

It´s not like other RPG´s where you might have a group with 3 different warrior dudes and one outshines all the others.

As long as everyone has his/her moments of glory, everything is fine and the character classes of BC do really good job at paving the way to that end. I think the only potential danger is that CSM might ruin it for a Renegade (both kinda fighters). And that can be avoided if both specialise on different things and if the also pay attention to the various difficulties/limitations of CSM based on their completely different background.

Sure if you bend it so that CSM somehow can do everything normal humans can do, find their way around in human society without trouble, don´t attract increased attention when undonning their power armour, basically relieving the CSM from any burdon of being a superhuman freak who spent most of his life in an elitist warrior society, then you might run into problems, but otherwise I don´t see any issues.

moepp said:

Well said, but it's not true that the classes are very different from each other.

Champion, Chosen and Forsaken are pretty much the same except for a few different starting skills, talent, some equipment and a special ability each. After character creation you can pretty much build the same character with each archetype. The ones that do stand out from each other and the rest are Sorcerer, Psyker and Heretek because of their unique starting traits.

This shouldn't be a problem however if the players and Gm sit down and discuss their characters with each other before the game starts. A little consideration so you don't step on each others toes and you're in for a fun game I think.

Jackal_Strain said:

True, but neither of those not so unique archetypes will steal eachother the show simply by being a CSM and thus much better than the others. Champion, Chosen and Forsaken are all CSM, so if there´s an issue it doesn´t arise because of that.

Neither the Renegade nor the Apostate are CSM so again no OP Astartes issue here. And while they can develop into the same direction, I don´t see why they would. If I want a human fighter, or stealthy char, I don´t go Apostate. Adroit is much more suitable and the Renegade background fits much better too.

The other way around an issue could maybe arise. A Renegade picking Adroit for Fellowship to become the superior social char. At least when the Apostates special ability is not required.

And that is the beauty of Bc compared to the rest of the 40k systems. You're not shoe horned into a particular role, with no chance of leaving that rle because of what class you're choosing during character creation. The only game I felt that justified the rigid class system was Dw, because space marines come from a rigid military system, and the fact that you have four different advancement trees to buy from helps immensely.

I can't wait to try Bc out when we're done with our Dw game!

The fluff on Kill-Marines from DW rather suggests that space marines hitch-hiking across the galaxy aren't randomly accused of being traitors, and there isn't some interstellar background check resource where you can check the astartes ID card on... but nonetheless, human heretics are better at being unobtrusive. However, just because apostates are better socially than CSM are, doesn't mean that is the case for the other 3 human types.

For what reason is the human psyker better than the CSM sorcerer? Isn't it better to be Bound than Unbound? The 750 xp is nice, but so is the large pile of bonus wounds and toughness -- and every purchase of sound toughness aligns you more with Nurgle.

Jackal_Strain said:

How much fun are you going to have when your character is killed from a single hit because he doesn't have a 20-point damage soak like the PCs the encounter was scaled for? Turns out, a degree of balance in a game is necessary for everyone to have fun.

-------

-And Ascention -level DH characters are not " equal" to DW characters in combat- they just have enough gimicks and expensive equipment to stand a fair chance of surviving DW -scaled combat, at least long enough to take cover. I don't see "having more social skills" as providing that same chance of survival in BC (not to mention that there is no "instant death" possibility if a CSM botches a Charm roll, unless he is staring down the barrel of an Earthshaker at the time). Sure, the GM will try to go easier on the Mortals than on the CSMs in combat, but eventually the opponents with the heavy weapons will have their line-of-sight to the CSMs blocked, and it will take some tortured logic for them to pass up a sweet shot at the Mortal half of the party...

Deinos said:

Because an Astartes is generally unfamiliar with human society. He is also big and scary to ordinary folk, a threatening presence, generally a bad starting point for most social interactions (imo even justifying a fellowship penalty when interacting with ordinary people).

People probably find astartes intimidating, but they might also feel greatly honored to meet with a being who normally wouldn't give any human below the rank of a High Lord of Terra the time of day. I do not particularly think being intimidated by an astartes is going to blow their cover -- they're the Emperor's angels of death, you don't question them, you write this down as the most amazing day of your life, even though for him, its just Tuesday.

Ok, I was talking about a CSM but in any case.

The human would probably not behave "natural" while talking with an astartes and the astartes will probably be too unfamiliar with human social behaviour to see through it entirely.

Maybe it will turn out to be something like this: Dude, totally carried away by awe and excitement tells a space marine his stories. Space Marine, used to hear hard facts (for probably hundreds of years), totally buys into everything. Or he doesn´t but isn´t sure what to make of it as he´s too unfamiliar with talking to regular dude.

However you turn it, extreme cultural differences do have an impact on conversations and the general perception of the "other" guy.

Is the marine capable of fully grasping the body language and gestures of the other one?

Does he understand sarcasm?

Does he have the patience to listen to someone who doesn´t spit out fact after fact?

What if the person he´s speaking to is upset about something and not thinking clearly?

Can he "read between the lines" like a well versed apostate would?

I simply doubt a marine will ever be able to get in touch with people as well as normal human would. With people who are used having space marines around, yes, but not with people who aren´t.

Likewhise, if you´re a PC and your group (including a space marine) needs to get information from a space marine, wouldn´t you want your space marine to do the talking?

I was talking about a chaos space marine too, but under the assumption that heretics will camouflage as loyalists whenever it fits their mission, or at least ones that want to be halfway sociable.

There are certainly roleplaying challenges in mortal-astartes relations, I will say that, though I still believe Fellowship gives astartes the advantage in everything but Charm. It is certainly open to interpretation, though.