In about 2 weeks I will be taking part in another Dark Heresy Campaign and I decided to run a Progium Guardsman. The basic back story to my character is that upon graduating from the Schola he was forwarded to a Storm Trooper Company in a squad that specialised in forward recon, stealth missions and tactics. Over the 9 years he served with his squad they underwent many missions together until the Inquisitor requested our squad to investigate the disappearance of a town. Long story short the town was lunch for the ‘Nids and in the end only my PC and another squad member survives the encounter.

The problem I’ve got however is that for a Guardsman to get the stealthy options I would have to wait till I get to the higher ranks whereas if I use the Assassin career options I could open the stealthy, snipery options that would greater represent my character and his skills in the early game. When looking at the two careers the Assassin route looks more viable. I must point out that everything else will remain the same, the starting gear, talents, skills and characteristic advance chart will stay typically Guardsman.

What are your opinions on this, I just don’t feel the Guardsman advances represent the type of character I’m gunning for but I would find it interesting and I would appreciate to read your opinions.

Edit: One thing to note is that the GM hates the Ascension book so we won’t be going down that route so there is no need for conflict with the Storm Trooper class, hence why I can represent my Guardsmen as a Storm Trooper.

Your background is for some thing like a rank 8 storm trooper. Rank 1 guardsmen barely knows what end of the gun to point at the enemy. You are trying to give a rank 2 or whatever guardsman an ascendant background, it won't work.

Thank you for the reply.

Upon reflection of what I've wrote, I haven't really asked what I mean't.

Irrespective of what I've wrote here for my background (the design atm is in constant flux), which career is more suited for a forward recon storm trooper that specialise's in stealth?

The problem with the Guardsman tree is that it only really deals with Stealth in the final 3 ranks and if I wanted to play a pc that carried a Heavy stubber around or the feral guardsman who packs a punch then it seems to be the ideal career at least to me, but I just can't help but feel that the assassin tree would better suit a stealth sniping guardsman.

It's best to think about the core careers, Psyker and Tech Priest excluded, as archetypes to build characters around and less as fixed careers.

Using assassin as a base for a scout/sniper guardsman is a perfectly reasonable thing to do. I would make sure to play up the guard aspect by taking skills that reflect that background, while avoiding the more criminal aspects available to the class.

Elite advances should solve most of your issues assuming your gm allows you to take the advances you want and you really want to focus on a stealth type recon character that is a guard. Having said that the assassin is a pretty powerful stealth recon type and it will cost you less experience points to get the skills you seem to be favoring.

Since ascension isn't an issue i wouldn't worry about what you call yourself. Rogue Trader even says and dark heresy might as well that they are just archetypes (skills and talents that are common to a certain group). A sniper guardsman could just as easily be drawn up as an assassin. Guardsman doesn't mean you were in the guard it just means you have a similar skill set it also works good for mercenaries and any other 'military' type character.

Good luck.

ItsUncertainWho said:

Thanks for the reply.

I've always had that opinion that careers aren't strictly tied down to what the book suggests and that they're more guidelines as to what a person with those particular skills are most likely be able to do. I've always liked the idea of playing a Guardsman sniper but the fact I would have to wait til rank 5/6 before I could get anything that really brought colour to my pc put me off. I just wanted to know what the consensus was on using other career trees to bring more colour to a pc and thankfully you've confirmed my belief over character creation, though I'm still looking forwards to other peoples views.

NGL said:

Thank you for your reply and sorry for writing this on second post but i was for some reason wasn't able to compile them onto one post :/

I've learn't from talking to other people and from the GM himself that he usually charges more than what most players would consider reasonable, this is ok for things that are unlikely a guardsman would do like copyists and stuff very, very unguardsman like but stuff that are viable , i dont want to be spending too much xp sacrificing other skills and talents that may benefit me.

As for what I call myself I've never liked the idea every new acolyte is a fresh faced guardsman or arbite or anything that is fresh off the line. I enjoy playing the pesamistic veteran, the high class assassin or someone whose seen a little bit more than the walls of basic, they add more character to a pc and give you something to talk about or use in game to break it up a little bit, sure at the beginning they aren't that good at bartering or intimidating in terms of game mechanics but how often would a said pc have to intimidate someone when he's hiding in a trench or barter with someone for a gun in his local store (i know they aren' the best example) but as far as I'm concerned the fresh faced recruit are boring IMO.

You can do this with the scum advancement path as well. I've built some good mercs with it and with the weapon skills you get from scholar progenum it would work.

Actually I've had a much better idea. Check out the Sabotuer alternative rank in the free pdf 'Salvation Demands Sacrifice' which you can find here:

http://new.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_minisite_sec.asp?eidm=50&esem=4

You get access to it at rank 3 and it would make a great commando if you used it with guardsman, and you still get the good physical stats of a gaurdsman (I play an assassin and that 500 xp for +5S hurts). You would only need to elite advance silent move, and you should be able to convince the gm that you should get it for 150.

Zakalwe said:

Thank you for the reply.

What you've suggested about the Sabotuer rank is a viable option, though I was hoping that my gm will allow me to keep the guardsmen skill advances (BS, S, T, WP) as if I was playing a guardsman normally as well as the guardsman talents, skill and gear. I only really wany to change the rank tree from the IG to Assassin, although I do like what i could become with the alternative rank, could make for a very twisted character in what i expect to be a puritan campaign.

I don't think there is any thing wrong with the gaurdsman tree. You start of as a pretty blank slate and then can build a certain character based on the character's experiences through play. Assassins start off with a narrower range of freedom, they pretty much force you to go stealthy.

The feral warrior alternate rank from the inquisitors handbook gives your character access to most of the sneaky skills, although you seem to be going for the schola background.

I personally like the idea of a hunter from a feral world getting conscripted, and subsequently getting put into a scout company because of his ability to track and stay out of sight. Abilities he obviously gained from his life hunting great beasts in the forests of his homeworld with nought but a humble bow and arrow, a weapon he keeps to this day... much to the chagrin of his superiors.

Maverick91 said:

I'm glad you liked the alternate rank. Using these allows a massive ammount of variation in the character advancement of the game. What I actually meant though, and Catachan said, is I would go for the Gaurdsman career package, take the alterante rank, and elite advance silent move. I think that would make exactly the character you have described, particularlty given the Scholar Progenum homeworld.

I really like your idea of using the assassin career though. I've spent a fair bit of grey matter processing resource thinking of ways to use the exisiting classes. For example, my friends were talking about how you would make a Commissar, I said use the Cleric path. I cranked out a 4500xp cleric that was a perfect commissar. So the system allow a lot of freedom to move.

What I think you nneed to be really careful with though, is mixing skill/talent trees with the statisitic advances of other careers. I think if you go for the assassin path you should use the assassin stat advance. The designers made it that way for good reasons, foremost of which is balance. I have a 5000xp feral world assassin and I would have loved to take the gaurdsman stat advances, he would ahve been a beast, but reality is, he is a beast already, because that's the way the designers made it.

Personally I'd go with the gaurdsman route, but we're not talking about my character. Whatever you choose, I'd like to hear back about where you go with the character.

Personally I wouldn't like the idea of mixing the Guardsman characteristic costs with the Assassin Advancement tree. The Assassin has a high cost for advancing strength for a reason (ie, to tone the power of the character down a bit), and the Guardsman doesn't have certain skills and talents (at least early on) for a reason as well. However, it does sound like Assassin suits your concept much better than Guardsman would. Also, if you keep to your conecpt, you should have the extra xp required for the expensive purchases for Assassins as you will be leaving out some of the less relevant aspects of the Assassin career.

Truthfully, on elite advances I am also of the idea that the base should be twice the "normal" cost of the skill (which I think was Black Industries' original guidance), rather than FFG's more recent advice of +50 xp. If you take an alternative rank that doesn't include a skill you need for advancement later on, or want to take a skill outside what your archetype does, you should pay extra for that bonus. If I was the GM I could maybe be convinced of a lower cost on those you need for later advances on your career tree, but I would probably insist on a minimum extra cost of 100xp. Now, of course, Elite Advances are entirely up to your GM, so you can discuss with them, but I am less convinced they would let you get the required advances for as little as a +50 xp bonus (especially if they don't like Ascension).

It probably doesn't help you now , but I'd be willing to bet that the Only War supplement will break down the Guardsman advancement branches into seperate careers, including a "from 1st level" Scout. But I have no idea when that will be released...

In the group I GM there are two players that originally both wanted to play a „sniper“. One of them clearly wanted to be an Assassin with all the sneaky and dastardly skills, while the other wanted to be a more military sniper (he played this Battlefield computer game for too long I fear…). I could convince the latter one to play a Guradsman and while he was a little dissatisfied at times, he became more and more accustomed to it and more and more convinced that it is the right career for him.
While the Assassin PC might deliver more damage output than the Guardsman PC, the Guardsman PC is able to survive an opponent arriving at his toes and even break his bones in melee. The Hive World born Assassin had Toughness 27 to begin with and invested a lot of XP to finally achieve a TB of 4, while the Feral World born Guardsman already started with TB 4. The Assassin mostly tries to hide and dodges the odd bullet coming his way; if it gets worse, he mostly flees. The Guardsman simply “tanks away” most incoming fire with his now TB 5 and 5 AP (full Guard Flak turned to light Carapace recently), while fast drawing his Chainsword (and putting it with SB 5 and Crushing Blow in an opponents face) should an enemy dare to approach him. The Guardsman even got access to some of the more sneaky Skills in the meantime due to the Elite Advance Package “Survivor of the Red Cages” from an official FFG adventure.

To cut a long story short, try out the Guardsman rank and try to “improve” it with Elite Advances (and Packages) as well as with the aforementioned Alternative Ranks. He is a survivable bad ass that is well able to improvise and get along in most situations (except social maybe…), while the Assassin is a one-trick pony and a sissy…(at least sort of… ).

If you're creating a rank 1 character, another option would be to create a workable bespoke Background package. I really like background packages, and find they potentially offer a nice and balanced introduction to a character.

Perhaps your scout could come from a regiment famous for its infiltration skills, which could be represented with a couple of stealth or shadowing skills. These could - depending upon the number of such skils - be balanced out with some sort of "drawback." Perhaps the regiment come from a night world and are easily dazzled by bright lights, or something like that.

A package like that is a nice rough and ready way of getting your character the skills that suit your concept without extensive re-writing of alternate ranks or switching to an archetype that clashes with your view of him as a military man.

I've written background packages, alternate ranks and even once an entire basic career. Background packages are by far the easiest to put together!

EDIT: Sorry, didn't read the OP's post properly: I missed that it's a Progenium concept... This sort of rules out a regimental background, but I still think that a background package could still work, though. Perhaps a background package based upon a particular military campaign where infiltration became important or something like that...