Im starting a new campaign and I and my players are new to RT. After rolling I allow my players to swap 2 stats after rolling. One of my players said that there might be a imbalance in the rules for starting explorators, so please your opinion:

- His highest roll was 19 (could have been 20) and swaps this for the S stat.

- He spends 100xp on S +5

- He takes the muscle graft implementation (which is allowed for explorator RAW)

- He spends 400xp to upgrade this graft to best quality giving him SBx2 (again RAW p.72)

- Starting gear is a power axe 1d10+7 pen 7

- He takes 'deathworld' as background giving him an additional +5 S

so:

Strength = 25 + 19 + 5 + 5 = 54 so SB = 5 times 2 = 10

Giving a STARTING player a weapon that does 1d10 + 17 pen 7

This sounds to me like a starting Astartes. So is this a gap in the rules or is this acceptable for a starting game??

Obviously I can overrule this, although my player already mentioned that he won't take this route, he just found it an interesting observation and (like me) was wondering whether this is not over the top...

Rogue Trader is a game for powerful characters.

I don't see a problem with him starting off able to chop his way through everything he faces ... not all problems can be solved with an axe!

And if his Explorator is pumping so much into melee, he's going to be falling behind his potential for tech-stuff.

BlackSpike said:

+1

Plus 1d10+17 is not that big deal, since an Arch-Militant could take a Multi-Melta (I think you could also take a Man Portable Lascannon) as their starting Acquisition.

Rogue Trader is a game of powerful characters and combat isn't even the main focus of the game (unless your group chooses otherwise, of course), you are more likely to be invited to a banqued or to discuss how to open a new factory on a Hive World or just explore and map a new system than your chances to be in direct combat.

I've been storytelling two different and simulteneous RT games for over the past 8 months and we have had very few individual combats on both games. Most of the violent confrontations are eighter Space Combat or Mass Combat. And when they face enemies on individual combat they are very powerful, so having a good weapon really helps.

Thanks for replies. As I said, we're both starters so we have little reference (my references are WFRP 2nd and Dark Heresy) which indeed are less epic. I too agree that if an explorator is focussing too much on combat that he will lack more important skills (and I guess my players knows that too as he won't go that route). We were just wondering... so in short, no big deal, thanks.

Those BC muscle grafts come with a -10 agility penalty. Slower and less dodging ability. Sure. the explorator can hit hard but he's sacrificing elsewhere to do so. My own explorator/Magos Militant invested in combat pretty heavily so it took him a lot longer to get up his tech skills than a purely tech-focused character. I found the trade-off worthwhile but some prefer specialising in one field more.

Anyhow, as people have pointed out not every Rogue Trader scenario can be overcome with an axe. Murdering one's way through the expanse when you don't need to is a great way to make enemies.

wolph42 said:

wolph42 said:

I did the other way around, I started with Rogue Trader and now I'm planning a Dark Heresy game and said "wow, this people is really poor". =P

Although, to be honest, that's why I like DH. A more minimalistic and intimate approach to the same setting.

Welcome to the wonderful world of Explorators. Please feel free to contact us again once he has Machinator Array and Genetor advances!

Mine got a hold of a Thunder Hammer and does 2d10+25 Pen 10 with it. He hasn't used it yet as he enjoys the Autocannon he's got (and got early) way more. He's so happy with it in fact, that when the group fought a Great Unclean One, he was only going to hop out of the gun cutter and melee it when he ran out of ammo. But then again he ran out the same Round the Basilisks finally got on target and elevated correctly, so the GUO was no more.

Welcome to Rogue Trader.

Larkin said:

right... this will be something to get use to. I've ended my WFRP campaign on epic scale after 3,5 years real time play... here they take off where that campaign ended...

You mean he didn't take an Omnisiah Axe as his starting acquisition as well? You got lucky.

CaptainStabby said:

Nah, Omnissiah Axe is too awesome to be taken as just a Common item. You have to go for the Best Craftsmanship version. =D

At least that's what I did with the Explorator player-like NPC I made for one of my RT games. Insted I chose to start with a Best Craftsmanship MIU, and I bough the BC Omnissiah Axe with a lucky roll on the first session. =D

Maese Mateo said:

He's never used the Omnisiah Axe (best quality) that he's got. He just LOVES his autocannon. He's also lugging around the Darloth Chain Cannon from Lure, and STILL uses the Autocannon.

Darloth Chain Cannon?

wolph42 said:

our arch milatant recently died a heroic death. he was replaced with what the player described as his rank 4 explorator milatant. had tough 100 with 10 wep mechadendrites. used the back story of a skatarii officer disgraced and joined the group. since he was the muscle it works, we have another explorator with the brains.

>100 Toughness

That's not possible with character creation. Absolute highest you can get, cherry-picking origins solely for toughness across the entire chart, is 67. +20 from spending experience upping it, cap of 87. Also, having 10 weapon mechadendrites is rather wasteful since you still can't make more than one Attack action per round.

I don't have the books in front of me but surely multiple mutations could tip the toughness up further? Of course the character would then be a mutant which brings its own set of issues and roleplaying opportunities...

Errant said:

+10 for Machinator Array = Toughness 97

And here I tough my Rank 4 Explorator with Toughness 50 was awesome. =(

About the 10 Ballistioc Mechandrite:

Havin more than 1 CAN be very useful since you could attack on your turn plus attack (with another mechandrite) spending your Reaction. If you manage to have up to 3 Reactions per round (your basic one + extra parry from talent + extra dodge from talent) you could fire up to 4 Ballistic Mechandrites per round (1 on your turn and 3 with your reactions). So up to 4 Ballistic Mechandrites seems useful... but yeah, 10 is just too much (unless you want several different mechandrites with different weapon sets).

Maese Mateo said:

Umm...No.

Step Aside and Wall of Steel grant extra reactions that may only be used to Dodge or Parry.

Genetor gets to take Brute which is another 10 toughness, so 107 *smirk*

base 25, good roll +20 forge world +3, contaminated world +6 and +10 brute mutation, warrior +5, dark secret +3, no joy unexplored +3 mechanator array +10, +20 stat improvement. = 105

death world +5 but doesn't make sense for explorator.

necrophage +10 but comes with drawback of only raw meat diet and is another mutation. causes problems.

so it could be as much as 117 but hey who's counting.

house ruleing fixed the mechadendrite problem. the player likes combat type play and the Gm is good enough to balance out the kinks it causes. it works for us.

Multiple mechadentrites allows you to have a variety of loadouts. Las for the annoying civilian, plasma for the annoying space marine, melta for the annoy hive tyrant, chainblade for the parry bonus and no-hands fencing, web pistol for non-lethal takedowns, needle pistol for sneaky stuff, etc, etc, etc.

Trader Austin said:

I beg to differ on Death World origin for explorators. My magos militant came from a research outpost on one. It suited his straightforward and often brutal approach to solving problems. That said, he wasn't as focused in combat as some of the characters described here.