below is a list of all the characteristics, skills and tier 1 talents that a given specialty has 2 aptitudes for. numbers in brackets show how many of each they get.

Heavy Gunner (1/1/4)
Toughness
Scrutiny
Double Team, Iron Jaw, Resistance, Sound Constitution

Medic (2/12/6)
Perception, Intelligence
Awareness, Commerce, 3 Lores, Linguistics, Logic, Medicae, Navigate, Scrutiny, Survival, Trade
Blind Fighting, Combat Sense, Heightened Senses, Light Sleeper, Meditation, Total Recall

Operator (0/8/6)

Acrobatics, Linguistics, Medicae, Navigate,Operate, Security, Stealth, Tech Use
Catfall, Leap Up, Lightning Reflexes, Rapid Reload, Technical Knock, Weapon Tech

Sergeant (1/4/6)
Toughness
Athletics, Command, Parry, Scrutiny
Air of Authority, Disarm, Iron Jaw, Radiant Presence, Resistance, Sound Constitution

Weapon Specialist (2/3/8)
Ballistic Skill, Agility
Acrobatics, Operate, Stealth
Ambidextrouse, Catfall, Deadeye Shot, Leap Up, Lightning Reflexes, Quick Draw, Rapid Reload, Weapon Training

Commissar (1/3/3)
Agility
Acrobatics, Athletics, Scrutiny,
Leap Up, Quick Draw, Sure Strike Weapon Training

Ministorium Priest (1/8/6)
Fellowship
Athletics, Charm, Command, Deceive, Inquiry, Interrogation, Intimidate, Scrutiny
Air of Authority, Disturbing Voice, Enemy, Mimic, Peer, Radiant Presence

Ogryn (3/2/10)
Toughness, Weapon Skill, Strength
Athletics, Parry
Ambidextrous, Beserk Charge, Double Team, Frenzy, Iron Jaw, Resistance, Sound Constitution, Street Fighting, Take Down, Unarmed warrior

Ratling (4/9/16)
Fellowship, Agility, Ballistic Skill, Perception
Acrobatics, Awareness, Charm, Deceive, Inquiry, Operate, Scrutiny, Stealth, Survival
Blind Fighting, Catfall, Combat Sense, Deadeye Shot, Disturbing Voice, Enemy, Heightened Senses, Leap Up, Light Sleeper, Lightning Reflexes, Mimic, Peer, Quick Draw, Rapid Reload, Unremarkable, Weapon Training

Psyker (2/10/4)
Willpower, Intelligence
Athletics, Commerce, 3 Lores, Linquistics, Logic, Psyniscience, Scrutiny, Trade
Meditation, Total Recall, Unremarkable, Warp Sense

Stormtrooper (1/3/7)
Weapon Skill
Acrobatics, Operate, Stealth
Catfall, Double Team, Leap Up, Lightning Reflexes, Street Fighting, Take Down, Unarmed Warrior




what is immediately apparent, is that it's cheap to be a ratling, and heavy gunners are a bit shafted. its by no means a hard and fast guide, but considering you have 4 stages of skills and characteristics to buy, its not a case of starting fast/slow.
im still not sold on Stormtroopers WS aptitude, making them into ogryn-lites. also ratlings have lots of aptitudes that mesh perfectly.

Its important to note that most regiments made by players will have an extra aptitude coming from them, and the possibility for overlap is high enough such that most specialties will probably have an extra off aptitude at start of play. This would greatly effect how this works out.

Also, while there might be multiple "cheap" advances, others may have a broader set of aptitudes allowing things for still relatively cheap. With the newer XP costs, its not quite as prohibitive to only have 1 aptitude in an area. Also, not all characteristics were created equal. BS, while useful, is greatly supplemented by things like aiming, range, sights, etc. Toughness on the other hand, is fairly static.

I will say the heavy gunner's lack of finesse is pretty rough in the shooty category, but toughness/defence makes up for it. I once ran how "defensive" classes can be, and after Ogryn/Sergeant, Heavy Gunner was next in line (the math was handled by weighing XP costs vs. a list of about 20 possible ways of improving skills/talents/attributes that exist to prolong a characters life).

Its important to note that most regiments made by players will have an extra aptitude coming from them,

I don't think that's a true statement, if only because I have made several regiments that don't. If this is an assumption, than something is wrong with the regiment creation rules.

Its a heavy metagaming statement. Its a realization that having more aptitudes is almost always superior than having some one off skill/talent added. That getting the aptitude will generally make things more xp efficient, and therefore, better to take.

For example, I could take Favoured Foe, gain Hatred/Forbidden Lore. Alright if I have none of the aptitudes tied to those, that is effectively worth 1200 XP. Or, I could take Die Hards. The Toughness aptitude ties to quite a few key talents, quite notably, Sound Constitution. Suddenly, Sound Constitution goes from 600 xp to 300 xp. It pays for itself in 4 wounds. Given the standard TB of most is going to be around 3 at start, they can always get up to at least around 6 wounds from SC no problem. Add to that easier Toughness advances.

And all you're doing is slightly altering the fluff of a regiment. That stage of "Doctrine" is less official, and generally just describes the regiment, it does not set what it is into stone (i.e. it is distinctly different from say Mechanised Infantry in how it looks on paper to the Administratum). Therefore, the party is hardly "sacrificing its morals" or munchkining too hard by making a decision for Die Hards over Favoured Foe.

Close Order Drill/Hardened Fighters are about the only two that are just cheaper than the aptitude choices. Close Order Drill gives an option between two tier 1 talents. So 600 xp value max.

Hardened Fighters might be the best of either of these, but still, the +2 WS and Street Fighting (another tier 1 talent) is hard to compare to cheaper Toughness or Willpower advances. And many players may very well try to aim for an aptitude with high overlap. My party (Commissar, Medic, Psyker, Weapon Specialist) opted for Iron Will, because 3 of the 4 possessed Willpower already, and cheaper Will advances are always helpful, given it ties to the psyker aptitude, which only one specialty has anyway.

EDIT: Also, of the 7 options, 4 of them have aptitudes tied to them. So, all things being equal, yes, most regiments will have an added aptitude. It may very well you were going for the big spenders too early.

Those aptitudes are Willpower, Toughness, Agility, and Ballistic Skill. All of those are quite common among many of the Specialties. Unless all players are the same specialty, it is probably quite difficult to avoid an overlap.

All specialties at least have one of them. Storm Trooper has 3 of them.

Its a heavy metagaming statement. Its a realization that having more aptitudes is almost always superior than having some one off skill/talent added. That getting the aptitude will generally make things more xp efficient, and therefore, better to take.

Therefore, I stand by my conclusion. Something is wrong with the regiment creation rules. If there are options that no one should take because they are sub optimal, that is a flaw in the system which needs to be addressed during this beta test phase.

Its more an issue with your definition of "wrong." True balance is impossible. Some options will always be smarter than others, even to the most finite degree. As it stands, the aptitude options are very powerful over any of the others, yes. But they are the majority of the options.

As it stands, there are only 2 "bad" options of the 5. If you're low on points, and the other options taken are "must haves" then the remaining two options are not terrible, its just a tough decision.

I will say Favoured Enemy is most certainly trash, simply because point wise it does not compare to the others. But the 2 point options have their place. Close Order Drill is a close second for worst.

KommissarK said:

There is plenty of room for improvement, and I say this as the guy who wrote the original version of the regiment creation rules. The rules for aptitudes underwent some fairly significant and far-reaching changes since I handed in the original versions of the doctrines, and some doctrines have come out ahead of others in part because of these changes.

One of the things I plan to suggest during my big pile of feedback (which I still haven't finished assembling) is that every regiment grant at least one Aptitude, preferably by having either homeworlds or regiment type doctrines (not both, though) always grant one as part of the package.

I think it'd be possible to add aptitudes to the current regiment doctrines to bring them in line without having to mess around too much with homeworlds.

Of the 3 doctrines missing aptitudes:

-Add Intelligence to Favoured Enemies. It has less overlap with most, and would aid in making that Forbidden Lore skill actually useful for some.

-Add the Leadership aptitude to Close Order Drill to represent the nature of the drills, and how that has given them a stronger ability to work together.

-Add the Strength aptitude to Hardened Fighters, to actually make being a melee oriented regiment worth something.

No one mentioned it yet, so I'll point out that a few aptitudes were shuffled around in the last update. In particular Commisar switched strength to Fellowship which them gives them the cheapest rate for command and the 7 fellowship talents.

Its also rather important to point out that several specialties do not even have dual aptitudes in something critical to them.

Heavy Gunners cannot raise their strength or ballistic skill easily. They're also completely screwed on skills

Operators don't get agility… or for ANY attribute for that matter.

Weapon Specialists have two of their better attributes with double aptitudes, though its arguable whether they'd be better fit for single aptitude on both BS and WS, or doubles on both instead, as Heavies really need BS.

Stormtroopers are better at melee than hellguns?

Looking at it I believe all specialties should have two attributes with doubles, unless they have all of them at single…

But one way or another, there's some serious rebalancing to be done right here.

With the new advancement costs, having just one Aptitude is seriously good enough for most stuff important to your specialty. I wouldn't worry too much about the lack of doubles.

Its less the direct lack of than the comparative lack of.

Its hard to justify the high end having a devastatingly large difference of potential compared to the Commissar and Heavy Weapons Guy.

Im currently playing a Operator and yeah the lack of crossover's on the Aptitudes is something of an issue. Few things at all have crossover for the Operator which makes their advancement in skills/stats/talents slower overall then the rest of the part. Yes they are only advancing the things that they get doubles in but it still seems off when your group is sitting there going "oh ill get this, this, and this!" and the Operator responds with "oh I'll get this,cause its all I have xp for"

Also; the lack of crossover on skills and Agility seems odd. Most of the others have crossovers in one of their fields required Aptitudes but not operators.

I

The operator has it similar as to how sergeants and commissars have it with fellowship/command; you're expected to boost the skill, not the attribute, to improve your chances with the vehicle. And ultimately, true perfection (skill+attribute) is simply out of reach (or just slightly more expensive).

The operator's strengths come in with a fairly powerful comrade perks (when operating a vehicle). It allows the vehicle to pretty much operate independently of the party.

You can't really say as much for the Commissar [no comrade, though the execution trick is a bloody impressive heal], or heavy.

Tis not as if the Medic, Ogryn or Ratling lack in comrade abilities, either, and there remains the questionable spread of xp-costs when compared to what a specialty is supposed to be doing.

Which sounds great until you get to those groups that don't have multi seat vehicles or the times the Operator needs to get out. Also the big thing is most multi person vehicles NEED you to have higher Agi due to the mobility penalty that most of the time counters the +10 +20 trained bonuses. And if your looking over the Operators skills/Talents as well as stats you tend to find that their vehicle centric options are few and far between right now. There are some good Tier 2 and 3 talents and very few skills that double up. And of the skills to choose from? Operate isnt a great choice since there is the Hot Shot Pilot talent that gives you the first rank in all of them. Might as well buy that since its a cheep one for Operators. Medicae is nice and tech-use is needed but if your averaging out at the 30s for Int your gona want to plug those higher. And since its been mentioned repeatedly in other places here that they are good to round out with other abilities your going to want to spend something on other skills and maybe some weapon talents in case you need to cut the pintle mounted weapon off the wreckage of your lemanruss and cover the downed team mate while someone tries to heal him enough to get out of Dodge.

Yeah, but having only half the aptitudes doesn't mean its inaccessable either. Also, Hot Shot Pilot, while useful, doesn't really equal Operate(Surface) +30 which is more what I meant.

Certainly, not having a multi person vehicle would stink for them, but at that point, many of the classes would be well served piloting them. Operator is just half mechanic.

On foot they're useful for having tech use/security, and thus being the combat engineers who can get into places. I do think they need more base wounds, they're too squishy.

Also, why would an operator only have an average (30) int? Thats a very important stat for them. It should be high 30s (and probably their second highest stat).

Once again, they have 2 of the 4 possible additional aptitudes, they could easily convince the group to get one of those, and thus be able to select an aptitude like finesse.

Well, despite all NPCs being almost painfully obviously built off 25+2d10, about 31 is going to be your average int result, so its not an unreasonable starting point.

Intelligence and Agility are both single-aptitudes for the Operator, so gunnery and actual piloting has more potential if you instead roll up a Ratling [well, for a given xp amount nothing has quite as much potential as a ratling]. The operator is a better mechanic, but not actually as good a pilot.

Kiton said:

Ah, I guess you must have a GM who failed the test then. See, the whole "roll stats in place" thing? Thats a complete load. Its an exercise in rule 0. Any GM who understands "fun" would allow the players to select where stats go, therefore exercising Rule 0.

Also, NPCs aren't a great thing to compare to. They're about a 93 point buy character with sub standard selections. PCs can do better.

That's a bit more of a houserule, there.

While I do not necessarily disagree with houserules [some should've been official, some are pretty good either way, some are bad ideas and some make you want to stay away from whatever group came up with it], one cannot judge a system with them applied. Their inclusion to one's campaign is, after all, an indication that something was, at least from a subjective point of view, lacking, erroneous or imbalanced with the system.

I've no problem letting my group apply their rolls like that, but to say that this makes things fine when the system does not actually have this option cannot be counted as a point in the system's character generation any more or less than a group using 2d12 for generation, or playing sentient Leman-Russ Machine-Spirits would.

Imperial Guardsmen [Troop] are either a 104 point buy off 20 [with excellent allocation for their duties] which equates to a reasonable, slightly above-average set of rolls… or a 59 pointer off 25+2d10, making them the mooks. A Stormtrooper is either looking at 136 points or 91. A Commissar NPC? either 140 or 95. While there's obviously some racials involved, a regular Kabalite Warrior adds up to 190 or 145.

So there's quite a few NPCs out there that are worth far more than 93 points off a 20 base.

You're forgetting to calculate in regimental/specialization bonuses into the guardsmen NPC point buy.

As far as house rules. I'll grant you that its certainly a failing of the system to not include the option. Then again, a point buy system is hardly "fairer." But I would say its a greater failure to go with a system that basically crushes a players dreams of playing their selected character well, by arbitrarily setting their stats one way over another.

Well, since for once we're talking about a beta that's actually getting changes done [rather refreshing, really, after what videogame alphas/betas/weswearitsreadyforreleases have become] perhaps we can actually suggest something.

Now. There's something to be said for allowing yourself to fall to chance; even if your total points are higher, it won't necessarily be anywhere you need, let alone want it, after all, and sometimes the results are just plain bad. We're also looking at wanting to offer at least a solid chance for players to choose what they want to craft, as well, correct? And even with the regimental and specialty values, that NPC stormtrooper would still be in the high 120s.

So how about just offering three options:

1] 21+2d10 for each stat, down the line, no assignment. You do get to perform one reroll as normal

2] Base 20, 100 point pointbuy.

3] 20+2d10 nine times. Assign as you will, and you may then [and only after assigning] perform a single reroll. Of course, that could turn your worst stat into your best stat, but there's at least a little bit of chance involved.

This way, there's a mild, but only mild, incentive towards allowing yourself to begin with a clean slate. We need not explain the sheer advantage of being able to place your stats as you wish, but while the point-buy is worth one higher in the total, its nevertheless got less potential.

I think what was recommended earlier is a wise choice, baking the Aptitude bonuses at Regiment Creation into either Homeworld or Regiment type (or both, if you wanted more Aptitudes) and removing them from Doctrines entirely. Doctrines should be bonuses and tricks to round out the training type the soldiers recieved, rather than something so essential. It would also make less 'optimized' doctrines more viable and appealing if it wasn't a choice between 'minor but flavorful bonus' or 'All your EXP costs are lower'.

Similar, the point about Hotshot Pilot is apt. Our Medic in my group took Agility as her bonus Aptitude (since she already had Willpower and they took Iron Discipline) and suddenly, after taking Hotshot Pilot, she has the same piloting advance as an Operator and all the Operate skills. She could serve about as well as an Operator, in general, while having better Wounds and a wider variety of other skills. She might not be a great mechanic (though still not bad, with her high Int and Int aptitude), but she can drive or fly just as well. This seems problematic, to me.