Hi everyone.

My group has just started the third adventure in one of the FFG trilogies that has a reputation for being rather combat heavy. Our GM offered us all 'Fearless' as an elite advance for 200xp because we are a fairly martially oriented group with low average willpower scores.

So it would make me immune to Fear and Pinning, which would be awesome, BUT, I then have to succeed at a willpower test to disengage from combat or back down from a potentially violent situation. Given my PCs's high intelligence that just doesn't fit. But just because he prefers to 'pick his fights', that doesn't mean he should be afraid of scary things when so far he has been really successful at wasting them. So far I don't think anyone has taken the GM up on his offer.

How has this worked out in you games? I have already spent 250xp to get my WP up to the lofty total of 26, I have got 'Resistance - Fear' which helps, and I can't really spare 500 to get to WP31. Will buying fearless just get me dead really fast? My group already relies on my character to take most the risks and lead by example so I need him to be strong in the face of scary stuff, but he is too smart to want to fight everything and not back down when it is going badly for us.

How have other groups handled this? It has always been one of my peeves about the system that all the combat characters poo their pants and run away at the first sign of anything scary leaving the less martially minded scratching thier heads and wondering what all the fuss is about and why they have to fight the 'deamon' or whatever without the tough guys help.

Finally, if I did take it, what about the 200xp I spent on Resistance - Fear. Seems like a waste.

In my campaign I have abandoned the talent entirely, and it only operates as a kind of “insanity” that can be available for characters where it is a meaningful affliction.

Instead I have created talents for immunity to pinning that requires nerves of steel, which is available to those career paths that used to have fearless (same cost). The players in my campaign hate pinning as I use it pretty often (its easy to put some minions with autoguns into the fight:)

I have also talents that reduce fear levels, so fear 3 becomes fear 2, and with multiple purchase of this talents its possible to build up some form of immunity to fear. This fear level reducer requires resist fear and unshakeable faith and is 500 xp a pop. It is an elite advancement that can only be purchased after certain frightening encounters.

So far it works out fine.

The key question you need to ask your GM is what is the definition of "disengage" in the context of the Fearless talent.

By my reading, the core rules make no attempt to state that it means disengage as a combat action (as in, the full round action to back away from an opponent with whom you are locked in melee). In other words, yes, a fearless ranged combatant may very well back away from an enemy that has locked them in melee combat, so that they may open up with a full auto burst the next turn. With that in mind, "disengage" then means to willfully flee from a combat encounter (e.g. run back down the hall, full retreat from the area, etc.). One could easily remain behind cover until the test is made.

Having run with the GM before, how often does he actually throw an enemy at the party, of which there simply is no chance of survival (that is to say, how often have you had to fight a chaos warhound titan, while only armed with lasguns)? If you generally always have the tools needed to defeat your enemies, Fearless is an excellent talent, as it helps remove quite possibly the single most lethal mechanic to a parties economy of actions. It enables all members of the party to ignore a significant mechanic. Whereas in DnD or Pathfinder enemies might swallow party members whole or turn them to stone, Dark Heresy uses fear a key method of taking party members out of the action for an encounter.

You (as a party, not as an individual) could ckeck if one of you gains access to those talents who make the rest of the party immune to fear when the leader has it.

If that's the case this pc could (if he's willing) take fearless and once he reaches it that talent and the whole party is save without everyone having the drawback of fearless.

As I've never played the leader in DH I don't quite remember the name of the talent I'm refering to.

Umbranus said:

"Into the Jaws of Hell" I believe.

well something to think about is the more Insanity points you get the less fear affects you. Here is a quote of what the book says

"The more insane a character becomes the less horrific things seem. After all, what are the monster of reality compared to those once sees whenever once closes ones's eyes? If the first digit of a character's Insanity total is double or more a thing's Fear Rating the character is unaffected by it and does not need to make a Fear Test"

So the anwser is just become Insane after all only the Insane shall prosper

I think it's entirely appropriate that Fearless isn't affected by your Intelligence score (OP suggested there was a contradiction). If you're in the middle of a nasty fight with a slavering deamon, then the intelligent thing to do normally is to run away. It's only the metagaming motivation of the Player that thinks a 70% chance of victory is worth gambling their character's life over that makes it seem otherwise.

Shadowrun had a similar trait - it was a flaw. And an expensive one too. In any game I ran, a player would have to be mad to buy that trait.

Fearless might not be worth it if you aren't an extremely hard target to crack. The real question I have is. How did you manage to get only 21 WP at the start of the game?

DJSunhammer said:

Possibly a feral worlder who rolled a total of 6 on willpower?

Anyway, I think the fearless isn't useless. It is very rare when your game master puts you up with something that you cannot beat, so you are just saving yourself from risky business of rolling on the shock table.

One thing to point out:

If you know you can't win the combat with your current abilities (e.g. I got a lasgun, and a leman russ battle tank just burst into the room), is it really "fleeing" to leave the area so that you can actually acquire the right gear for the job?

The main issue, is that once you take fearless, you should sort of play to the notion that your decisions to leave combat are not out of "fear," but necessity.

PnPgamer said:

You got it, Feral Worlder who rolled a six for WP.

*puffs some smoke after inhaling from sherlock esque pipe, and tips his hat*
Elementary, dear Watson.

Also KomissarK made a fair point. When do you even have to roll if you just want to get a bigger gun?

PnPgamer said:

The rule is that you have to make a roll to disengage from combat, period.

This is not fearless as in "calm equanimity," which is having a high Willpower stat and/or Unshakeable Faith. This is fearless as in "being psychotically detached from reality,"

bogi_khaosa said:

Yes, but define "disengage." The talent clearly does not mean the actual combat action "Disengage" (full round action to move away from a melee locked opponent without being attacked). Its talking about a broader ability to flee combat.

Also, how frequently can this test be made, and at what (if any) action cost? The fact that it doesn't even designate it as a Challenging (+0) test says something. And honestly, if its allowed once per combat round, what is keeping a character from keeping their head behind cover as they wait to make the roll? The talent just talks of disengaging, not forcing a character to uselessly attack. Could fearless PC's choose to make this roll at the start of combat, and continue to attempt it until successful, even if they have no doubt they will mop the floor in combat? What I'm trying to point out is how horribly defined the rules around the fearless talent preventing disengaging are written. It just broadly says test WP, with no real definition for the test.

Once they make the test, is the PC forced to actually flee? If they make the test, must they continue to make it each turn as they try to disengage?

Finally, what GM would actually do this? Obviously in certain cases a +60 modifier might be entirely appropriate, even for the insanely fearless. Sometimes its just that obvious you're going to need a bigger gun. And what, is the GM trying to derail his game? To force a TPK? By no means is this ever the case (and well, if it is, then its high time the game end anyway).

Once again, if I was playing a WP 26 character and being offered Fearless as an elite advance, I'd take it (then again, I know the DH system well enough to not put my weakest roll into WP, even if I'm playing a combat oriented feral worlder). Its also a fairly useful method of drastically slowing down character death due to insanity (as one of the most codified sources of IPs in this system is from the fear/shock table).

Just my two cents here. Being to stubborn/crazy to know when to get out of a hopeless fight can be deadly. But at least you try to fight the good fight instead of cowering all of the time because something scary is happening. I to played the strong and determined warrior who should be an example to his fellow acolytes if not for the irritating fact that he kept running awa yor feinting in fear al lof the time. At least with Fearless, I could play him as I intended depsite the risk.

It could result in a quick PC death yes, however it will prevent PC-Character death first.

bogi_khaosa said:

Totally agree Bogi, which is why I'm asking how it has worked out for others. My PC is smart, not psychotically detached from reality, (even if he does really like fighting! )

Kommissar K: Why did I put the '6' in WP? Because we had to keep them in the order we rolled.

Zakalwe said:

Well all having to make a WP test is going to do is make you stick around in combat for about 4-5 rounds longer than you might want to, and only in the fights you intend to flee from. Sure, that is rough, but once again, you can spend that time hiding behind cover. The Fearless talent makes no mention that each turn must be spent attacking. Only that you cannot disengage from a fight. In your case, this may be more of an analyzing a situation before completely giving up on it.

Also, sorry to hear you GM chose to not toss out that stupid rule in order to follow rule 0 of RPGs. The roll stats in order of DH is absolutely stupid (sure, maybe it leads to "interesting" roleplay, but an adept that rolls a 2 on their int is about as SOL as a guardsman that rolls a 2 on their BS). Then again, I tend to go easy on them (roll 10 times, take 9, assign as you see fit. Then ensure that each players average roll is within 1 standard deviation of party average).

A character needs a reason to be fearless so that it can be role played correctly. My guardsman has no problem with the drawbacks of the fearless talent because he has the physical stats to make it work. The same with the arbitrator in our group. The scum and assassin in the group, that also begged the GM to get the talent as an elite advance, have a much harder time to make it work.

Some things we do as fearless characters that we probably won't do normally are actions such as:

- Actually hoping to be ambushed by the enemy since it would make them easier to find.

- Thinking 10 genestealers isn't much of a problem, while witnessing a squad of troops being torn to shreds a second ago. then being upset that the genestealers wasn't big enough since the Primer clearly tells us that we should shoot "the big one".

- Telling a demon that "we eat demons for breakfast" and then calling the demon as "pancakes" form then on.

Well he is pretty tough and confident in his abilities. The pertainent information would be:

WS45, BS44, S38, T43, AG40, INT40, PER32, WP26, FEL30 WOUNDS17 DODGE+20, STEP ASIDE, TRUE GRIT, RESISTANCE-FEAR, RESISTANCE-PSYKIC

He has a broad range of combat abilities rather than being specialised. He has some stealth skills, some investigation, is the pilot, and is most likely out of the party to become the Interrogator because he is the one who has most of the ideas, follows up leads, assigns researchers to tasks (he has a pet Adept he rescued and then saved from getting mind-wiped after one of the adventures), and works to create a network of contacts, and heh, a 'cute' touch - he has a Servo-skull with literacy to read for him into a micro bead.

I have already spent 200xp on Resistance-Fear, so I will have to negotiate with my GM about the Fearless, but I think I'll probably take it. I think it was what you said KommissarK about just because you can't flee that round doesn't mean you have to stay in melee (he DOES NOT have Frenzy talent, he carries Frenzon for that - heh, he doesn't actually take it himself, he gives it to the Cleric when he thinks thing are going to go pear shaped, he's SOOOO BAAAD!)

Thanks everyone.

I'm wondering what your character's motivation is to step in front of a krak missile voluntarily?

For my character it comes down to him believing that the Emperor's protection extends to actual physical protection and any injury he receives is due to some his lack of faith. Some such 40k religious logic (or lack of it) like that. A character has to be some sort of crazy to be fearless, because he is lacking or ignoring basic human survival instinct at that point.

Indeed, it would have been appropriate to list a certain number of Insanity Points under prerequisites for this talent