Has anyone done the math on this yet (so I won't have to)?

No, but I might do it eventually. It's actually quite simple to put a xp cost on each starting skill and talent, so it shouldn't take long. At least, that would be the case if I had access to the book at the moment

The problem is how much are worth the special abilities. talents and skills are easy, but there's no "special ability" xp cost you can use as reference.

Lucius Valerius said:

Well, how about letting the player chose one special ability from any archetype he wants for "free"?

Could let the players pick one for free when they reach a specific level of XP (such as 2000) since they are probably well on their way to their "archtype" by then.

Lucius Valerius said:

Indeed, that and the traits. How much xp would +4 Toughness, +4 Strength and Amphibious, compared to The Quick and the Dead? Then again, this is only a "problem" if someone wants to play csm. As said above me, one could just let them choose one special ability they like.

what about special abilities from other books ?

Lucius Valerius said:

I dont see why not. In my group, we used the Dark Heresy divinations to our RT group, mostly for flavour, and it is just fun. So I dont see a reason why a "champion" or renegade couldnt have Exceptional leader or Weapon mastery (I think that is the name, the Arch-Militant one from RT) as their special abilities. It is mostly just fluff, so I say go for it. The more "personalisation" options availiable to the players, the better. At least in my book.

Nightsorrow said:

Yep more the better. That's one of the reason why I'm so in love with BC, you are free to do whatever you feel like it =D Heck I'm trying to see how it would work for a SM campaign (not DW)

There we go, I have now spent some time with the book, and will now write up a quick summary of how much Xp each race (CSm and Human) and each archtype have spent in the begining, prior to the +1000/+500 for starting characters to spend themselves. The hope is to find a sort of middle ground, since I doubt they are completely equal, to make it easier to start with no skills and talents and go form there.

I will not take into account the special abilities, Traits, nor the CSM's higher characteristic scores, since these are hard to put a solid number on.

In some cases, I will have two values, for example the Psyker has 4750/5000. This means that there is one, or several, choices of talents which have diffrent tiers, and thus have diffrent cost. I will always write the highest and lowest possible amount. So, without anymore needles talking (writing), I'll get on with it.

Chaos Space Marine - 5050 xp

Champion - 1800 xp (6850 total)

Chosen - 1750 xp (6800 total)

Forsaken - 1800/1950 xp (6850/7000 total)

Sorcerer - 2550 xp (7600 total)

Human Heretics - 800 xp

Apostate - 6500/6750 xp (7300/7550 total)

Heretek - 3650/4050 xp (4450/4850 total)

Renegade - 5600/6100 xp (6400/6900 total)

Psyker - 4750/5000 xp (5550/5800 total)

There we go. On average, a player has about 6571,875 xp, before the starting 1000/500 for heretics/CSM, as well as not counting any of the Traits, since they do not have a listed xp cost. Hope this has been to some help, for anyone thinking about playing this without archtypes.

Nightsorrow said:

Thanx mate, this is really helpful =D

Thanks Nightsorrow! I appreciate your effort.