Both Black Crusade and Deathwatch recommend 500xp per 4 hours of play (so they have the same baseline for XP rewards so should have similar advancement speeds), however Black Crusade characters advance far more quickly than Deathwatch characters.

A Librarian in particular needs to spend 1/4 of their lifetime XP rewards just to get Psy Rating 10. A Black Crusade character spends half as much (at most and may spend as little as 1/4 the spend of a Librarian). Then if you look at the powers, the Deathwatch powers cost twice to four times as much.

This difference in progression speeds is felt through out Deathwatch and kinda sucks in that players need to go through multiple sessions to see a marginal improvement. Have others come across this at all? Would be keen to hear from people who have been running Deathwatch for longer (only done 1 session, though I have been running Dark Heresy for a couple of years - very fast progression in Dark Heresy - don't even get me started on the differences there!).

No, not really. If anything Black Crusade feels way too fast, especially with how the book says you should hand out infamy. Players in my group have felt happy with their DW characters, every session they're buying a talent or two that changes how they play.

Also I like how you so casually threw out "just to get Psy Rating 10"

Thanks for the feedback

What I meant by "just to get to Psy Rating 10" is that, for a Dark Heresy Psyker, it costs them 4000xp out of a maximum 50 000xp over their lifetime. So less than 1/12th of their total life time available XP to get to Psy Rating 10. For Black Crusade it costs between 3200xp and 5600xp to get to Psy Rating 10 out of a maximum of infinity (unlikely in practice). For a Deathwatch Librarian it costs a whopping 9200xp out of a maximum 37 000xp. 1/4 of their total life time available XP to get to Psy Rating 10.

It feels out of whack compared to what I am used to in Dark Heresy (3 times as much available XP required) and doesn't seem to fit into Black Crusade either. Then again poor Deathwatch characters often have absolutely no where to go in terms of progression (poor Devestator has like 3 total options for most ranks!).

I'm not sure how your characters are buying a talent or 2 every session unless you are having marathon 8 hour sessions or handing out a lot of XP as most talents beyond rank 1 cost 400xp+ and quickly ramp up to 800-1000xp

Well I use the Exp reward chart based on objectives, which is more generous in its handouts. Then again we do play from 7pm to 1am so we play longer as well.

It seems about right to me. Progression is slow enough so that we're not going to max-out and get to rank 8 too quickly to enjoy the campaign, but fast enough to keep players happy. Bear in mind how powerful DW characters start, too. It wouldn't make much sense to rocket up in XP when your PC is already veteran of a dozen war-zones, and capable of taking on thirty guardsmen without breaking a sweat.

This only causes problems when you try to run crossover games with characters from different 40k systems - then, the Space Marine can kinda feel like a retard when he spends three sessions' worth of exp on something the DH Acolyte buys for half a reward per game.

But in a pure DW game, no it shouldn't pose a problem. Also, remember that DW Marines get a lot of cool stuff that BC CSM can't get at all, namely Solo and Squad Modes. I'm not saying it's balanced per se, but it's more complex than exp costs suggest.

Thanks for the input all.

I don't have that much of a problem with the progression of most of the specialities, so I may just end up tweaking the Librarian (and maybe the Devestator). I will be converting the Psychic Powers over to the system in Black Crusade so I will probably reduce their cost at that point also.

winternight said:

Progression in DW is okay, you just need to lower Respected Renown level's lower bound to 15 Renown, maybe even 10. Upper bounds of 40 is fine though.

Alex

I find that way that talents and skills are done in Black Crusade being different then in Deathwatch can be answered fluff wise. IF you think about it, the whole way that Space Marines are trained Pre and Post Horus Heresy has completely changed. Instead of Space Marines (Legionnaires) picking and choosing what they want to excel at the Chapters now tell you what you are going to be allowed to learn. Personally it was that freedom of choice that helped sway several of the Legions to follow Horus all so long ago.