Just looking for some thoughts on a situation I currently have in my group...

I've explained Elite advancements to my group, but I've always had the rule that if a skill or talent appears somewhere in a character's progression path, then they must wait until they reach that level to purchase the advancement. This was mainly to stop things like over-zealous second rank Guardsmen purchasing Heavy Weapon Training (Plasma) or something similar.

One of the players plays a Sister Dialogous at the fifth rank of progression. The group has spent a lot of time tracking down a Daemonhost in the service of a rogue Inquisitor, and has even once ended up in a conflict with the creature. The Sister Dialogous character has done significant research in to Daemons during this time, and now her player has asked me if she can purchase Forbidden Lore (Daemonology) as an elite advance now, even though it appears in the eighth rank of the Adepta Sororitas path.

Personally I feel that the reasoning behind the purchase is sound, but now I'm trying to work out the best way to handle it. I've considered either just taking the cost of the advance at rank eight and adding a few hundred points to the cost, and/or requiring the character to take some more insanity/corruption points while taking the skill to imply that the character learned knowledge that her mind was not yet prepared to comprehend.

How is that any different from a Guardsmen wanting to train heavy plasma that you mentioned? Seems like a double standard to me.

Fundamentally you are quite right, it's no different. But realistically, I created the rule to prevent people exploiting the system to "min/max" their characters, whereas what we have here with this character is a player wanting to use the system to represent realistic character development based upon that character's actions.

I wouldn't charge more than 100 xp over the normal purchase price.

But to make it interesting......

Make a roll againt INT, every additional success gets a 10xp discount.

And

Gain 1d5 insanity +- WP

Every success on the WP check gains a -1 every failure gets a +1.

I would go so far as to say that if the character can pull it off then they have the possibility of gaining no insanity.

Just make sure if you allow this you also allow them to train in weapons if they take time training and spend money on ammo and/or trainer. Rules should be consistent after all.

If she's already faced the daemon and didn't go insane or corrupt when she faced them, she shouldn't suddenly go insane and corrupt when she remembers how she killed it. That be double penalizing so to speak, and that wouldn't be right.

Personally I'd say allow it, and charge +100 exp over the listed cost of it, assuming she has the pre-reqs ie she can't get FL(D)+20 before FL(D) and FL(D)+10. The penelty of loosing an entire skill (a 100 exp skill but still a skill) is more then enough to balance out the early pick.

Now here's the kicker. Lets say the Guardsman wants to access FL(D) and he doesn't have access to it in his tree at all. You need to balance this all out and make sure its more expensive then the character who does get FL(D), its not fair that the character who just didn't wait to have to spend the same (or more) then the character who wouldn't of got it at all.

Also you need to look at trees as well. If the Sister would have got FL(D) in a different tree branch, but didn't go down that tree, the cost should be more expensive then someone who did go down that tree.

Again its a balancing act. Good luck

Let her get it if it makes sense. +100 XP sounds fine.

As long as they don't do it too often, I think it makes characters more unique to have some skills unexpected at their level.

And if a guardsman could get a Heavy Plasma to practice or get training with, it also makes perfect sense to let him get the advance.

If supported by suffient roleplaying during the sessions, I would allow her to buy the skill as an elite advance for no extra cost. The cost has come through good roleplaying. I always rule that to be far more important. Players who do not feel like role-playing and usually just want to play a dreg-artisan-character with the imperial guard skills and talents just to have them, not because it fits the character concept (I have such a player), will have to wait for the XP to attain those skills.

I agree entirely with earlier posts: if the Eilte advance is supported by game play and in-game experience, then it's a valid request.

However, perhaps you could require that to "close the deal" she will have to seek out a forbidden tome on the subject. You could make a good sidetrack adventure out of it.

Well, how about the following deal:

Charging her 100 XP (not EXTRA but "100 XP") for which she will get "Forbidden Lore (Daemology)" as a Basic Skill? After all, she did only research about one daemon, didn´t she? When she buys it in "full", give her a 50XP "pay-off". If you feel like.

This should work for every skill the pc "dabbled in", but did not actually trainend/studied for a month or longer.

Give her the advance. She's been roleplaying the research in game and in keeping with the scenarios you are running. To me that screams let her have it.

In the case of min/maxers they probably haven't really spent in game time training and in constant practice with the weapon or technique in question. Plus even if your min/maxer is willing to spend all his in game time burning ammo to learn a weapon talent his Inquisitor may have to step in and discuss how well he uses his time "on the clock."

My policy has been no you can not pick a skill if it's in your tree, but you're not there yet.

But since she has spent time trying to research the topic and you allowed her to do so (should have given them an NPC), she should be allowed to get it.

The price should be Insanity points rather than Corruptoin points since unless in her research exposed her to something hidden in the text that was designed to corrupt the reader or she had to do something corruptable to access/interpit the information.

Stick with your standard Elite Advance rules for simplicity adding anything else or a new rule can become trouble as other PC's try to get their advances early, but not willing to put in the effort i.e. "Well you let her do it why not me?". Also stress that you're only allowing it because she put forth the effort and that since the price of IP or CP is in addtion to the base price that it was HER choice to accept the deal or wait till the advance came along.

Personally, I recently charged someone 600 XP to take FL: Daemonology in their third rank of a career path, where nothing on the career path ever gets the skill. (And they wanted it bad enough, they took it. It was their choice.)

I based this on the fact that this was at least 2 ranks earlier than ANYONE gets the skill, and that career progression never gets it, and it is not cheap even for those who do get it.

Again, this is a personal preference thing. But I believe roleplaying it only gets you the justification to have the elite advance considered. I believe there should still be an opportunity cost for taking something special like that. (And also I let them pay for most of it with "bonus XP" which is a separate XP total I use in my campaign that the GM usually gets to spend for you.)

This may sound harsh, but to paraphrase "The rain falls on the powergaming and un-powergaming alike." In my experience, some of the most troublesome players are the ones who are both munchkins AND good roleplayers. If I let someone take a cool advance cheaply because I knew it was purely a roleplaying / in character thing, how do I then respond to the clever munchkin who spends all of their downtime for the next 2 sessions drawing attention to their study of some cool advance they want?

Admittedly, how strict or worried about this kind of thing you have to be depends on how well you know your group, and on the grand scheme, I don't know mine that well since we play online, and only for a few hours a week.

I say allow it but also use it.A character who is advancing beyond normal could possibly come under scrutiny for it. Your Inquisitor could become suspicious or proud of the character.If you use this to your advantage you it could introduce new plot seeds.And if the "supernatural" advance is viewed badly then it could also keep the other pc's from wanting to "min/max" too quickly.

I'd say, charge her 400xp and grant her the skill, she did roleplay it, she did the research and while looking up info for a specific daemon she most probably found info on others.

How I use Forbidden Lore skills is that they are not absolute, so if they make a test I give the pc's 3 or 4 facts depending on the roll and include one or so false fact.

I'm not that difficult with granting Elite Advanced. My Acolytes found a shuriken pistol, one of the pc's (one who nosed at its stats) wanted to learn how to use it.
So I worked out a training and it left him with 10 rounds and no extra clips (you can't learn how to fire a pistol without actually fying it), if he's nice I might give him one clip extra..

I've had a similar thing with my group.

What I said was that they can purchase anything they would normally be able to take in a later career but it costs them double the exp, so a skill that would cost 100exp in 2 levels time costs 200exp NOW.

I' m not that difficult with granting Elite Advanced. My Acolytes found a shuriken pistol, one of the pc's (one who nosed at its stats) wanted to learn how to use it.
So I worked out a training and it left him with 10 rounds and no extra clips (you can't learn how to fire a pistol without actually fying it), if he's nice I might give him one clip extra..

HERESY!

Idless said:

Hehe, that was my first thought too. How long would it take for him to attract the wrong attention carrying a weapon like that? Suddenly 10 rounds and spent xp don't sound so great. Then again, radicals will be radicals.