1. How do achievement points and objective points work? It seems like they're just something to help the DM keep track of how far along the players are, but then you get feats and equipment that say "+50 Achievement Points when exploring!" Does that mean the plot just progresses faster for them, or are there concrete bonuses players get for accumulating achievement points?

2. There's a pair of techpriest ability (Luminen Charge and Electrical Succor?) that appear to allow for an infinite loop. One of them lets him use his bodily energy to charge a battery, and he only becomes fatigued if he fails a check. Another lets him absorb electricity and make a check to remove his fatigue, with more fatigue removed based on his success. I realize that as GM I can just kick the player in the shins if he tries this, but I'd like to see if the loop is even valid because I'm a rules lawyer at heart.

3. Are careers and ranks a prereq for talents/skills? I still don't completely understand the class system, but it looks like the primary benefit of ranking up is access to new talents/skills. I'm just a little confused because I haven't seen "Must be a Rank 5 Explorator" written on any of the talents.

4. Do ships explicitly *need* a Cargo Bay to hold cargo? I don't see any rules regarding how much they can carry, and the cargo bays themselves just say they grant bonus progress on Trade missions. If my party wants to fill their ship with elephants, how do I know how many elephants they can carry? (NOTE: this hasn't come up ingame and probably won't)

1.) Achievement points are needed for Endevours, which are the primary way to boost Profit Factor.

2.) Technical loop yes, but honestly I'd just keep awarding Fatigue till they got the idea.

3.) Yes and no. In the Careers section it lists access based off of Rank per Career. This is a baseline access that even the GM should be wary of revoking. Everything else is accessible, at a slightly inflated cost as an Elite advance.

4.) Ships explicitly need a Cargo Bay component to participate in Trade Endevours. They can haul limited cargo in corridors and empty rooms, but loading and offloading of the ship would NOT be easy, nor would the cargo be secured. They would also not be able to haul any large amount of cargo, it would mostly be very small things, in small quantities.

Larkin said:

I've been looking for where it states that a Cargo Bay component is required for Trade Endevours without success. Can you please give us a book/page reference? Thanks.

flossy said:

It doesn't directly. Pg 209, Entry for the Wolfpack Raider under Stowage Bays.

"Small: This Component allows for Trade Endeavours, but provides no bonus."

If you work out the ship, this component takes up 2 space and 2 power, and I would either assign it 1SP or nil, depending on the situation.

It implies that you have to have a cargo hold to do trade Endevours. Looking at my answer, I shouldn't have used the word explicitly, as it is quite obtuse. I do go on to explain how a ship would transport cargo without a hold, but for the scale that RT is set at, that's not a trade Endevour, it's trading during an Endevour which is a different animal.

But W40K operates off of the rule of cool, if you and your group agree on something, it's perfectly acceptable for your game.

Cheers for clearing that up, thought I was missing something!

I'd like to add that it's possible to engage in trade endeavors, even if you don't have any cargo bays, as long as the endeavor itself doesn't require you to transport cargo. For example setting up a trade route is a trade endeavor but doesn't necessarily require the rogue trader to transport cargo. The endeavor might be all about negotiating contracts, getting access to certain resources, eliminating certain enemies, etc. and the actual transporting would be done by other ships.

Also in answer to your other questions:

1) Any achievement points gained in excess of the number required to succeed in an endeavor get turned into extra PF. The usual suggested rate is +1PF for every 100 additional achievement points. This can get a bit excessive though, so the consensus on these boards normally is to curb the extra achievement points to just the ones that are actually used in the endeavor (i.e. if you transported nothing your cargo bays don't add any bonus achievement points, if you transported only a limited number of things your achievement point bonus only counts partially, etc.).

2) If it tickles the explorator's fancy then I would absolutely let him get away with it. There are so many ways in RT to get overpowered, why not allow the ones that explicitly follow the rules. Players are even supposed to be overpowered. If they have too easy a time with the enemies they encounter, just keep adding greater daemons until the problem is solved

3) I think the writers decided that listing all career and rank requirements with each talent and skill would take up far too much space, so they didn't. The rule is: if it isn't listed with your rank for the career you've chosen, you can't take it (of course if you already have it, you keep it). The exceptions to this rule are: Starting skills and talents you get automatically, even if not listed in your rank/career. Which these are, I think, are pretty obvious. An Elite advance is a skill or talent not listed in the player's current rank/career the GM may grant a player as a boon (i.e. he may buy it) for some accomplishment. This should be done as little as possible though in my opinion, as it screws with the whole rank/career system. If you are unsure about elite advances just forget about this rule.

4) Has been answered pretty adequately I think

@ 2) What exactly is the problem? You're looking at, essentially, a potentially unlimited use of a talent that let's you make an attack at 1d10+wp at ten meters. For an Explorator you're probably going to be seeing 1d10+5, maybe 1d10+6 at most, with Shocking. Now, if we go ahead and take a look at what would happen if he, oh, carried a Bolt Pistol, dealing 1d10+5X with 4 Pen and Tearing, with two shots per round at up to 120 meters. I'm going to say let this one slide...