I am a player playing the (generally difficult) role of a Tech Priest in an Inquisitorial Cadre. We recently have reached DH: Ascension levels and I was, unsurprisingly, looking to upgrade my Tech Priest to becoming a Magos.

I have been boggled by the Magos' XP purchase list, more than half of the XP purchases in each Ascension rank are Talents requiring Fellowship 30+, a good number of which seem to be extremely desirable for a Magos Tech Priest for both playability as well as the Ascension Influence system.

BUT ...Tech Priests are completely unable to raise their Fellowship, from both basic Tech Priest and for the Magos. Quite the opposite, 75+% of Tech Priest content is designed to severely reduce their Fellowship, if they want to be more one with the Omnissiah's blessings.

Even with bending (but not breaking) the rules and adjusting points from character creation and progression, a Tech Priest cannot have more than Fellowship 45 [= 25 (hive world) + 20 (2d10 "roll")]. And this assumes the Tech Priest never takes (or his hit by) anything to reduce his Fellowship, making him the fleshiest devotee of the Machine God ever. And this still restricts him from a quarter of the Ascension Talents, which require Fellowship 50+(!).

I want to be able to have a Magos that is in good standing with the Adeptus Mechanicus (Peer & Good Reputation), be able to contribute to Influence rolls in the appropriate field(s), or at least avoid getting branded a heretek from working with the Inquistorial Cadre rather than against.

1. Am I missing something in the Dark Heresy &/or Ascension rules regarding Fellowship progression/requirements?

2. Why even have XP purchases that Magos players are 99% likely to be unable to purchase/use?

Hi, yes you are missing something. From the RPG Support page:

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_minisite_sec.asp?eidm=50&esem=4

Is an addendum, called Heed the Higher power:

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/ffg_content/dark-heresy/pdf/heed-the-higher-call-web-quality.pdf

It's got some nice additional material including a note on page 16, "The Magos Ascended Career may use his Intelligence
instead of his Fellowship to qualify for the prerequisites of all Peer and Good Reputation Talents."

Which I'm sure is what you were looking for. Nice to see a Magos character actually worrying about that rather than where his next TB point is coming from (it's seems the designers didn't expect anyone to need it either and relegated it to the web content )

Ah hah! I missed that addendum, it being so tucked away like that. Yeesh, the book writers seem to expect the players to act like an Administratum scribe-sage to find something like that . Speaking as a Game Master & Player, the books and reference materiel are so disorganized and disjointed for reference, at times.

Reading it now, being able to use Intelligence in place of Fellowship for those "Fellowship 30+/50+" talents now makes much more sense. I was afraid I would draw strange looks being a Tech Priest who was more biologically (almost no cybernetics) and gregarious (high Fellowship) human than the most of the Cadre. ([me]: "Praise the Omnissiah! Praise the Machine!" [scum]: "Dude, the guy in light power armour next to you has more metal than you...")

And yes, I am trying to balance between roleplaying the techno-Luddites that the Adeptus Mechanicus are, often being dismissive &/or contemptuous towards the Inquisition's authority and methods (especially Radicals); whilst also trying to be a team player as a Player. Something sadly and probably lost on my play-group, I think .

I worry less about my next Toughness Bonus (well...less so, Tech Priests still need to make many of Toughness checks to power their tricks) since much of the rest of the group are combat heavies. This leaves me to have to fill the skill & function role (aka "support role") for the group, whilst playing previously-said antagonistic-type character as a Tech Priest.

Thank you very much for the rules' help, Face Eater .