What do people consider the top 3 non-core Dark Heresy suppliments to have (the "must-haves")?

Daemon Hunter.

I would Say Book of Judgement, but I don't think it's all it could have been.

I would say that the following ones are the ones that are most useful to possess. I would say that the first two are the ones that I can really say that you should get while the third is a much more alternative choice.

Inquisitor's Handbook - for generally expanding the setting and the alternatives for making characters

Disciples of the Dark Gods - great for getting the hang on the antagonists that can be expected to be faced by the Acolytes

Radical's Handbook - expands more on the radical side of the Inquisition and gives more plot hooks for that.

Inquisitors Handbook - everyone needs more gear

Disciples of the Dark Gods - very nice book with alot of scenario potential

Radicals Handbook/Creatures Anathema - for more flavour within the Inquisition or more monsters.

I don't think by any means that Daemon Hunter, Blood of Martyrs and Book of Judgement are bad books, they're just not up to par with those above IMO.

1) Disciples of the Dark Gods
Without this little bugger, "Forbidden Lore(Cults)" is nigh senseless since it gives you all the nice little cults!

2) Inquisitors Handbook
Not only for gear & character options but for the added background material that comes along with it!

3)... is tricky. I would say the thir book depends on the needs for your group/your campaign. Blood of Martyrs, Daemonhunter, Creatures Anathema or Book of Judgement.

Disciples of the Dark Gods, Creatures Anathema and Radicals Handbook if you are a GM. These give you a good range of plots and adversaries to throw at your players.

Inquisitor's Handbook, Radical's Handbook and Blood Of Martyrs (Sisters of battle more balanced in here than in Inquisitor's Handbook) if you are a player. These give you the almost complete range of character creation and levelling options, barring the overpowered Daemon Hunter (with it's Grey Knights) and all too niche Book of Judgement (very specific Arbitrator/Scum options in here).

Gurkhal said:

Absolutely, even in that order.

Desciples of the Dark Gods is the single best sourcebook, from the GM's point of view, hands down. Tons of labor-saving info and great scenario ideas on almost every page- and a hell of a fun read, besides.

Beyond that, most of the sourcebooks benefit the PCs more than the GM, so how useful they are depends on the make-up of your party. If they are mostly religious fanatics, then Blood of Martyrs will obvoiusly be much more useful to your group than, say, The Radical's Handbook, while if they are committed Radicals, then the reverse will be true.

The Inquisitor's Handbook is wildly over-rated- I hardly ever use it. Some of the background packages and alternate ranks are good, but the bulk of the book is just a headache-inducing jumble. Good luck looking up a specific piece of new equipment without an Index...

1. Disciples of the Dark Gods

2. Daemon Hunter

3. Blood of Martyrs

Creatures Anathema would be the number four, but these three give you plenty to work with.

I think Book of Judgement is more important to a GM - most Dark Heresy games are inherently investigation based and I think the ideas and application of the fluff relating to the laws and the rules for investigations and clues are fairly valuable.

I would say for a GM;

Disciple of the Dark God's.

Book of Judgement.

Radical's Handbook.

I think these 3 provide the best context for setting an interesting game that fits most DH games. (Creature's Anathama is cool and all but how many times is a genestealer or an ork really going to be confronting the pc's who usually are doing investigations within the Imperium?)

For a player;

Inquisitor's Handbook

Radical's Handbook

Blood of Martyrs

These I think offer the most all around value for pc creation in terms of weapons alternative character concepts and rules.

If you're trying to get the best 3 and you're the only one buying:

Disciples of the Dark Gods (Unless you never gm and your gm won't borrow it)

Inquisitor's Handbook

Radical's Handbook

Finally; get last or don't bother getting at all Ascension.

As a long time player my list would be, as determined by how often I use it.

1. Ascension.

2. Inquisitor's Handbook.

3. Book of Judgement.

The top two books are...

The Inquisitor's Handbook

and

Disciples of the Dark Gods

After thatit's really a tossup between a few different books, depending on what kind of game you're playing/running. My mind immediately jumps to suggest the Radical's Handbook, and unless you have a more specific focus for your game/character it's really the best choice. Obviously if the Ordo Malleus is featuring prominently then Daemonhunter is what you want, and so on, etc..

Ascension isn't a bad choice, but it is a rather flawed book (but one must acknowledge that certain problems are only highlighted, and not caused by it. Namely psychic powers and unnatural traits). That said, it is quite servicable if you stick with the good bits.

As a GM I've gotten the most mileage out of Disciples of Dark Gods, Radicals Handbook and Creatures Anathema... oh and the freebie- DH Errata 3.0

PC's tend to find the other's are "RPG porn" to some extent or another.

Side note: The Inquisitor's Handbook is better than it looks. Apart from the obvious stats for weapons and such, there's tons of fluff in there. Just very well hidden. In other words: it's a mess.

Examples: The Empty Men of Sinophia Magna, Maccabeus Quintus and its Black Priests, Volg Hive on Fenksworld, The Colleges Hetaireia Lexis, The Moritat, the Mara Landing Massacre, the Disciples of Thule, the Divine Light of Sollex, Malygrisian Tech Heresy, the Aegis Data Fragment, the Fanes of Gunmetal, how to catch a ride to another planet, saints of the Calixis Sector and and and... it's all there.

Finding it can be a ***** though.

The big problem with IH is, all the crunch in the book is ridiculously outdated. The fluff is still pretty cool, if erratically distributed - the book has really helped me understand the life in the Imperium. All in all, it's a mixed bag.

Hmm...

Inquisitor's Handbook is primarily The Big Book of Equipment Porn, which to me ought to put it second-last in the must-have pile, right above The Big Book of Monster Porn. But the thing about IH is that it also contains workable rules for NPCs-as-resources, miracles of faith, expanded character options that aren't just the DH version of D&D Prestige Class Porn, but are actually useful in rounding out parties and letting players develop their characters more in line with their character concepts. It also has a pile of drag'n'drop ready fluff, and what is without question the best (and arguably only) player's primer sort of thing for Dark Heresy.

Overall, if you're going to get just one book, IH should be it.

Blood of Martyrs and Radical's Handbook are extremely useful for puritan and radical campaigns. Unfortunately Blood of Martyrs has some significant bits of questionable design, and devotes a lot of space to covering ground already covered in the IH (though BoM admittedly does it better). Still, if you're not (only) playing published modules I'd suggest getting both books, or at least getting the one most in line with the party's ideology (radical/puritan).

Creatures Anathema is The Big Book of Monster Porn, so at least as far as I'm concerned it's the least essential book of all. However, if your group has a Creature Feature play style, then having a good monster book is your absolute top priority, and CA really is a very good one. The worst thing I can say about it, is that it's much shorter than it ought to be. Other than that, though, it's the second best monster book I've read, and as a bonus it has a bunch of drag'n'drop ready fluff, and solid advice plus mechanical bits on critter and villain construction. Incidentally, the best monster book I've read (which is a fair few, but obviously not all in existence) is the old WFRP2e bestiary. I mention this because if you are a creature feature kind of group, you should find a copy of that as well. Don't worry, the DH rules system is essentially an updated version of the WFRP2e rules system, so The Old World Bestiary should plug in with minimal fiddling.

I won't say the rest of the books aren't useful or worth the asking price, but none of them are what I'd consider essential for groups that stick to the scope of play outlined in the core rules.

Morangias said:

How so?

That it's a mixed bag is probably FFG's greatest flaw (other than their spellchecking process: tip - spellcheck software still requires humans to oversee); they don't really have a cohesive approach.

signoftheserpent said:

The Sororitas and Faith portions of IH have been superceded by Blood of Martyrs. A few bits of kit have been revised since IH in various places. That's pretty much it, I think.

Still, in my opinion the last 3-4 chapters alone makes IH essential. Especially for new groups.

Sororitas and True Faith rules are made obsolete by Blood of Martyrs. All those weapon tables combined retain less than 10 positions that still hold water in the light of new weapons in Daemon Hunter, Blood of Martyrs and Book of Judgement (not to mention Ascension, but let's not touch that). Alternate Careers are often cool fluff-wise, but tend to either be very weak and generic or extremely strong and bloated.

Morangias said:

So?

The game isn’t just about getting the next best weapon to replace the weapon you’re already got. Why does the presence of powerful weapons in other books invalidate the weapons in the Inquisitor’s Handbook?

BYE

Please delete double post

Well said H.B.M.C., it shouldn't and indeed doesn't. For example something that is slightly more powerful than a weapon you have in your possesion is going to be useful to your Acolytes and seen as an upgrade to their effectiveness. The potential that a 'theoretical' weapon exists that is potentially better in comparison in a number of areas and would be their 'first choice' makes no difference if that weapon is not available to them at the present time. This could be due to location, the situation or opportunity they are in and 'needs must'.

It seems a lot of your arguments Morangias are basically that there is something better out there and a number of items are 'useless' in comparison, and this is most certainly not the case. Your opinions come across as a tabletop (TT) 'win at all costs' (WAAC) gamer, you criticise the less 'cost efficient/useful' things/items/skills/talents etc because they don't fit into your sphere of power, they are essentially 'duff' options in comparison to other more efficient ones. This is a reasonably common thing amongst TT gamers but we are all participating in Roleplaying which is an entirely different beast. I feel slightly sorry for you and your group if you pour over the minutiae of details and lose sight of the story as a whole. Indeed a number of my Acolytes regularly put themselves at a disadvantage because of their characters beliefs or personalities and will not just buy the most powerful weapons available to them or blast someone quickly because there is a potential they might be a heretic. Another thing is that even though out of character you and your group may know every last in game stat of each weapon and so on does not mean that all the Acolytes know them and indeed have any idea that there is a better option out there for them.

Back to the OP. All the books that have been mentioned here are indeed worthy of inclusion into your library. I would also say that Ascension, even with its 'mechanical' flaws is a great source of inspiration, with many ideas and concepts that can be introduced into your games which you can tailor as you see fit if you find any problems ( of which there are a number of threads on the subjects).

I tell you this as a friend, Morg.

Don't turn in to the Jon Chung of 40K RPG's. Because I'll have to kill you, among other reasons. The real Chung has already had too much of a negative impact on Exalted, another game I really like (admitedly he's had a good impact too, but I think the negative outweighs it).

H.B.M.C. said:

In this particular case, it's not so much a problem of power creep (though it is in the case of plasma weapons) as it is a problem of quality creep. Most of the weapons in IH are simply boring, either flat out better than those from the corebook or with differences so minimal, one wonders why they printed out so many of those stats in the first place. There are some gems in there, though, but it could have been handled much more efficiently and elegantly. And it's kinda sad for a book that consists in about 1/3 of those weapon stats.

Yes. Some of the weapons in the IH are no different to the core rulebook ones, and the only difference comes from their background fluff. Or, to put it in a slightly 4-chan-ish way:

thatsthepoint.jpg

I'm not saying that there aren't mistakes in there (but plasma weapon 'power creep' isn't one of them - plasma weapons were badly written in the original BI books and FFG have gone out of their way to fix them, especially introducing the concept of 'military grade' plasma weapons in ascension), but there's nothing redundant about the weapons in the Inquisitor's Handbook or the Inquisitor's Handbook itself (other than the Sisters/Faith talents).

If someone wants to use a weapon that is no different to the core rulebook weapon, but chooses it because it goes with their character's back story... then why can't they? Why does each new weapon they get need to be 'better' than the next one, and why does new powerful weapons in a new book make old ones worthless? This isn't an MMO. This isn't Skyrim. I'm not ditching the sword I've had for the past 20 hours of gameplay just 'cause I found one that does 2 more damage, I'm getting this sword because it looks cool, or fits with my character. Not everything is about combat stats.

BYE