I get it that the mess with plasma weapons was inherited from BI (and I'd really like to know what were they thinking when writing them up like this in the first place) but why wasn't this fixed either in errata or in subsequent printings? Sneak errata such as "Military Grade Plasma" in Ascension is always inferior to actual errata, and those IH plasma weapons don't look "civilian grade" judging by their prices and descriptions.

As for all those "same as corebook, cosmetically different stats" weapons, you said yourself the game is not just about combat, so why wast all the good space on listing dozens cosmetically different autopistols/autoguns/lasguns/whatever? Just short writeups of their producers and the few actually unique models would be okay. Customizing your equipment is cool, but being forced to choose between a weak autopistol from your home hive and a vastly superior Orthlack, not so much - it actually punishes people mechanically for sticking to a theme with their characters. And if someone is really hell-bent on introducing this much variance with the equipment, the superior way to do this would be introducing a list of modifiers for each weapon category in which the producer specializes, something along the lines of "All pistol and basic Las weapons by Sollex-Aegis add +2 to damage but lose the Reliable quality, and they interact with special ammo in the following way". Then, like I said, specifically list those few weapons that really break the mold, like Vanaheim, Meat Hammer, Nomad, Angelus, and a few more.

Inquisitor's Handbook is the most bang for your buck if you can only afford one.

Thanks all. It looks like I need to save up to buy at least one book

Morangias said:

I think you may be completely missing the point of producing stats for unoptimal weapons / firearms / armour. Just because my wealthy character would never be caught with an arbites shock-maul or a wretched gutterforged armour doesn't mean an ex-arbite gone slaaneshi wouldn't use one or an underhive mutie-scum gang to wear such.

In short: Some (crappy) stuff isn't for the characters to use, it's for the opposition. It creates a far better atmosphere to have the antagonists use setting and-or theme-appropriate gear instead of any generic common stuff. Also, the cheap easily available stuff tends to, well, suck. In today, as in the 40th millennium.

And some of the GM's are not made with the creativity, talentedness or have the experience required to make up their own. Personally, I like it, because it gives me ideas and saves me the trouble to come up with what a poorly-armed desperate guttersnipe would use against characters. (And can be used as a different approach to challenging the players: Quantity lacking in quality. How many magazines did you carry for that bolter...?)

Blood Pact said:

Small derailment/rant.

Chung himself did not have an inherently negative effect on Exalted, unless you consider it a "negative effect" to be the first person to see how very, very badly the underlying system was written. And he kept saying that, even when people said "no, you're playing the game wrong" or "no, you're reading the rules wrong," when in fact a lot of the detractors were so emotionally tied to the game and the system that talking about flaws or bad writing was effectively taboo, or people just didn't get the system well enough to see how gaping huge the flaws were and are. For a long time I didn't want to believe him but when you break it down, he's right. I don't see how that's negative. A game system is not a sacred cow; bad parts need to be challenged, and publicly, hopefully so the game line can fix them. Otherwise you end up with a shoddy foundation underneath a skyscraper, and that's never a good thing.

Chung figured out that the system was broken when people (hell, when paid writers) didn't even see how it worked yet, and pointed it out. People tend to dislike him because he speaks the uncomfortable, unvarnished mechanical truth about Exalted, which is that it's a cool setting with cool themes backed up with a really godawful mechanical system that, taken to its logical extreme, prevents all the cool bells and whistles from ever being used. And it eventually devolves back into the (incorrectly used) narrativist-simulationist argument and Rule 0 fallacies. It's all very nice when the current writers for Exalted vomit forth new magic powers every other week...except the vast majority of those can't be used in the system with its 8-year-old resource paradigm without heavy houseruling or deliberate and extensive ST rules-avoidance. The leadership of the current writers seemed to love this smoke-and-mirrors game of "fixing" certain sourcebooks (read: power creeping extraordinaire) without touching the basic systemic flaws at the point I finally stopped keeping up with the updates. What can I say, at least they're more crunch-competent than some of the old writers who didn't even understand how that system worked at all...

This coming from someone who was, at stages, a hardcore Exalted fanboy, an anti-Chungian, a person who accepted the unfortunate truth of Chungian mechanics, an Exalted apologist, and now an ex-fan who wishes he hadn't wasted 8 years playing in that abortion of a mechanical system.

Ascension was a frustratingly bad addition to a system that is overall pretty good but with a few flaws, many of which have been ironed out, by stages, with the development of RT, DW, and BC. By contrast, the Exalted game system is flawed in its foundation on a level that no fix will be a true fix without burning it all down and starting from scratch.

End rant.

At the same time, even when you're playing in Ascension...you're not really meant to be Eisenhorn or Gaunt or Kryptmann. At least I don't see Ascension as modeling super-plot-characters on that level in that way. Saying "the Emperor exists and has heavily influenced the setting" is a false-positive with regards to PC potential. Your PC will likely never see Terra, let alone replace the Emperor, because in the end no matter how badass you are, you're human and the Emperor is fundamentally not human, at least on a spiritual level. Hell, your Primaris isn't just not the Emperor, he's not even Malachor the Sigilite in terms of power. And that's OK, because there are plenty of stories to tell about him right where he is, born and dead in Calixis.

I think that's OK, but it seems like people with AluminumWolf cry foul at this. I don't have a per se problem with built-in limitations, so long as the limits are extremely high and there are a lot of other high-level things you can do. Unfortunately Ascension only really facilitates good use of Ascended-level combat, while the Influence stuff could be interesting in theory but just a complicated, underpowered pain as-written.

As to top 3...

Disciples of the Dark Gods - a great GM antagonist/plot supplement

Radical's Handbook - antagonists or unexpected allies, and a look at the darker side of the Inquisition as well as humans who ally with either Chaos or xenos

Book of Judgment - great for a GM who wants a more structured approach to the cell's investigations, even though I had to walk my GM through the phases of an investigation with rolls...that bit of crunch was not super-easy to parse, or at least it wasn't for him.

furashgf said:

Having said that about the IH, I still maintain that the core book was well done and is everything you NEED. All the others are NICE to have, but only the core is NEED to have. With the exception of some gear, my Rank 6 Feral World Assassin is straigt out of the core book and he kicks ass.

I was just flipping through the core book the other day surprised at the content I had missed on the previous (iteration-X) times I have read through it.

In agreement with a lot of people in rating Inquisitor's Handbook as a high up the list. I have found even the weapon descriptions have given me ideas, and there are various little rules elements including some that were added in the IH and never really talked about elsewhere (expanded skill uses for one). It also includes the career entry for the Sisters. Now, many (quite possibly most) people consider that to have been outmoded by Blood of Martyrs, but frankly I don't like the presentation there suits the game. I will accept it is fairly difficult to find exactly what you want in it though. The equipment entries are a bit subjective in their layout (what belongs in the "forge world", "hive" and "war" sections is sometimes tricky to work out). I would disagree that the weapon rules have been outdated, except maybe melta and plasma weapons, which were obviously were designed with a strict power curve in mind (las/SP to bolt to plasma to melta), but it massively undersells the more powerful weapons. Matters less in DH, as melta and plasma damages are still nasty in that context (even if not as nasty as they should be), but it is still inconsistent with the background. Plasma weapons being both Overheats and Recharge doesn't fit with the lore. They have in the past always been presented as one or the other, but never both.

Disciples of the Dark Gods I would also agree is a great book. It is probably the single most enjoyable to read purely for its own sake. It is largely a "Campaign Setting" book, the main focus not being rules as such, but more fluff on elements of cults and mysteries in the Calixis Sector, though there are some rules like the first appearance of the sorcery rules. Various conspiracies are documented, with stats for related adversaries and suggestions on how to use them.

After that? Not so sure. I am not keen on Book of Judgement and Blood of Martyrs. Blood of Martyrs is a very obvious case of power creep, and presents Sisters of Battle in a way I don't feel does them justice (Sisters of Battle are just not appropriate as starting characters. They are experienced, well trained soldiers... which the starting stats of a Dark Heresy character just don't reflect). The fluff is... well, frankly I found it meh, and most of the artwork was awful in my opinion. Book of Judgement I am less sure of any power creep, but the fluff is mediocre. It basically presents the judges in the Calixis Sector as a bunch of meatheads who rage at the idea of reading books. I don't remember seeing anything in it that was terribly important rules wise.

Creatures Anathema might be the one, but it is a bit more specific, ie dealing with monsters and creatures. If you are dealing mostly with investigations of people it is unneeded. Radicals Handbook I don't actually remember that much about. That suggests to me that it was perfectly good, but didn't have anything that struck me as essential or particularly exciting.

I have used Disciples of the Dark Gods a lot, and to some lesser extend Creatures Anathema. If you are going to run the Haarlock campaign you will need Disciples of the Dark Gods.

I find the faith rules in BoM interesting but havent got around to play with them, so I don't know how they work out.

Some people dislike ascension and to some extend I agree with the issues, it will require some house ruling to make sure it fits with your campaign. Many of the issues are not really ascension's fault, but more problems with the rule set, and if you want better rules, look to Rogue Trader or even better Black Crusade.