lurkeroutthere said:

I never said it was Adeptus Astartes Terminator Armour, and I never stated that it was purchased. Maybe I should of mentioned that an extremely powerful/legendary RT could of acquired one or two civilian models. But anyhoot, it's completely up to the GM if you want your players to be able to acquire a set. I've never had anyone ask for a set, and hopefully I never will. Would be a very long endeavor indeed to procure said artifact.

Cryhavok said:

I was going to do this with a Void-Master in a game that never manifested.

I just don't think there are civilian models in the conventional sense. Yes a very few inquisitors supposedly have some, but who the heck knows where they got them.

lurkeroutthere said:

The same unknown source that Rogue Traders access to get it? Hell, RTs get around a lot more than Inquisitors, so it's not too unlikely that they have access to things beyond even the reach of the Inquisition.

I don't know how you figure that, it's possible, even probably that Rogue Traders do more travel but it's usually going to be on the fringes or outside the empire. Inquisitors will do most of their busines within the empire itself. Presumably getting a set of normal human spec'd terminator armor is a matter of either getting ahold of an existing suit, or finding one of the few forge worlds that can make terminantor armor and then persuading them to divert a suit and refit it in your size.

Basically I think that Rogue Traders do not have things beyond inquisitors reach. Rogue Traders have a lot more raw wealth then Inquisitors, but actual power and authority? They have nowhere near. We can of course disagree on this.

lurkeroutthere said:

I'd say that they have parity as far as artifacts go- Rogue Traders have direct access to xenotech and forbidden artifacts via going out into the expanse and grabbing some from the locals, and Inquisitors can harvest xenotech and forbidden artifacts from the heretics and xenophiles that the Rogue Traders sell the artifacts to.

Likewise, a Rogue Trader's tremendous services to the Imperium (If he's in the habit of colonizing planets and then turning them over to the Navy, or something similar) can give him nigh Inquisitorial levels of influence as far as asking for shinies goes.

I disagree a Rogue Trader going out and colonizing planets is essentially doing their job they are doing the bare minimum of what the Imperium expects them to do. I'm not saying they can't win accolades and gain favors with organizations, including the sort that might specifically allow them to be gifted with, or request terminator armor be prepared for them, but I do not believe it's the norm.

Part of this could be me but one of the big differences I see in some here's read on Rogue Traders. People seem to want to characterize Rogue Traders as well respected and powerful individuals, and they are in a lot of ways. They certainly fall somewhere above many planetary governors and things like navy captains. But amongst the high echelons of the Imperium, the sector, subsector, admiral and general rank? I kind of see them as barely tolerated to loathed because of their freewheeling nature. That's not to say that individual relationships can't trump and certain rogue traders and their dynasties can't be held in high esteem, but I don't think that's the default.

This particular discussion is about Terminator armor. Terminator armor is rare and for a while there wasn't even being made anymore (I guess that got corrected or retconned or something?). Almost every suit that gets made is earmarked to go to a chapter of space marines somewhere. Of the Space Marines who make up a elite tiny fraction of humanities military forces only 1/10th of their number are worthy to wear terminator armor because of it's rarity. Do some inquisitors get ahold of it? Yes some have. I havn't gone back and looked at inqusitiros handbook again but it wasn't a normal thing. But it's important to remember that inquisitors, depending on whose writing them have in theory unlimited power within the imperium. They can command or oder destroyed space marine chapters, execute high lords of terra, commandeer fleets and order populous planets put to the sword. Rogue Trader by comparison are really really wealthy conquistadors. They cannot command or requisition anything their charter doesn't expressly give them leave for. They can purchase a lot and they can earn favors but the two really aren't on the same scale.

Now it's all subjective and people can certainly run their game as they see fit and I could potentially be wrong. But this is basically my read on the setting. Trying to bulk Rogue Traders up to be on the same level as Inquisitors is false and I think comes from people not being able to grok the concept that while they are special little snowflakes they are a slightly bigger fish in a much bigger pond.

It also comes from the fact that the core rulebook explicitly says "The Warrant also elevates the recipient to the highest of ranks to which a servant may rise, granting him equivalent status with such men and women as Imperial Commanders, Inquisitors and Space Marine Chapter Masters. They are granted the power to deal with such peers of the Imperium as equals, and the Warrant allowing them to call upon what aid they can negotiate."

It also gives 50 PF as the resources for a lesser inquisitor, and 120 for a Lord Inquisitor

My brother is my peer, someday he hopes to be a cop. Then he will be entitled by law to arrest people (with cause and all that stuff) carry a gun into a bunch of places I legally can't and other powers.. Just because I am his peer doesn't mean i get those same powers

Basically Rogue Traders are no longer Serf's int he grand scheme. That's not the same thing as having the same authority those other power blocks have. Also personally the PF chart in the book is horribly skewed to the point of being worthless. But honestly it doens't matter, an individual Inquisitors resources are kind of moot when they can point and go. "That naval task group, mine."

susanbrindle said:

Inquisitors have unlimited power inside and outside (this is debatable, as in "who has the bigger gun) the Imperium. A RT has unlimited power outside the Imperium. Only in the RT's wording of the warrant are they allowed to commandeer resources from Imperial organizations. While the Inquisitor has the authority to commandeer that RT's entire Dynasty if he so chooses at any level of rank. Of course, reprocussions can enfold for both sides. Nuff said on that matter.

But this debate was about Terminator Armour, that, as mentioned, was once very very very very very (did I mention very?) rare. As I mentioned earlier, I don't have the BC book that has human Terminator in it, but I do recall Inquisitors being able to acquire said armour. How they procured it, I have no idea. In the 20,000 some years of the Imperium's glorious history, I'm sure some human (civilian?) Terminator Armour was fabricated though. So in theory, a powerful RT could of acquired himself a set through the ages. Would the AdMech pay dearly to have that suit? Depends if they made it for the RT or if the RT found it. *shrugs* All in all though, it is ultimately up to the GM anyway. Happy gaming people.

I would say it is certainly possible to get one. But not from an acquisition roll. For me, they would have to meet certain requirements. In death watch the player has to meet certain glory requirements to be able to get one. As the imperium has the terminators earmarked for those great warriors of the astartes, getting someone to send one your way, legally, would require fame and renown that would eclipse all possible spacemarine choices for it. Then it would require a very friendly contact of great worth, who would have the skills neccessary to alter a tech artifact/relic, coupled with the will to do so, and the power to survive the accusations of heresy doing so might cause. Personally I would require at a minimum 150 profit factor, peer (highest level) with an arch magos of a major forge world, good reputation (highest level) with ALL space marine chapters who are supplied by said major forge world, Have role played into an actual friendship type relationship with said archmagos. And then I would make them deal with the consequences of pissing off all the jealous people, all the people who think it is heretical, and all the people who think your character is not fit to bear such a sacred relic into battle.

But legally isn't of course the only means. There is battlefield salvage (might be legal, but the chapter who lost it will likely hunt you down and take thier toys back.), but it might be more valuable to return it to the chapter that lost it than to try to adapt it to human use, and this would still bear the problem of adapting it. There is blackmarket/other illegal criminal ways of acquiring one, that could be an adventure in and of itself. And then there is always the option of going to the people who aparently forge human sized terminator armors and sell them: the dark mechanicus of the screaming vortex… you could have other diversions while you are there

lurkeroutthere said:

You either didn't read the full quote given above your post or you are unable/unwilling to understand what it is saying.

Here it is again:

"The Warrant also elevates the recipient to the highest of ranks to which a servant may rise, granting him equivalent status with such men and women as Imperial Commanders, Inquisitors and Space Marine Chapter Masters. They are granted the power to deal with such peers of the Imperium as equals, and the Warrant allowing them to call upon what aid they can negotiate."

You'll note that the first sentence talks about status while the second talks about power - a RT has both equivalent status and equal power to Imperial Commanders, Inquisitors, and Space Marine Chapter Masters.

I am unwilling to get the same incorrect reading you are, yes. Raising you to a peer puts you in the same social stratta as those people, which is a very important aspect in and of itself in the neo-feudal society that is 40k. You actively have to read it the wrong way completely ignoring:

"They are granted the power to deal with such peers of the Imperium as equals, and the Warrant allowing them to call upon what aid they can negotiate."

If they had real power other then an elevation in social status (remember, neo-feudal, lord vs commoner) it would grant them specific powers or abilities to command troops or the like, not imply they negotiate with others. You don't negotiate for something you already have.

Basically what it means to me at the end of the day. Everyone below those august ranks has to call you sir and render you all appropriate customs and courtesy's of your rank. That's a big deal and I'm not really downplaying it, but it's not the same thing as having the raw power of any of those other listings.

We're also way off topic and tracking things even further so so i'll restate my specific points and bow out.

1) Rogue Traders have lots of wealth and huge amounts of latitude from normal imperial rules and authority. Just the ability to travel unrestricted in the imperium is a huge deal, let alone leaving it's borders and dealing with xenos. They also receive elevated social standing and basically the ability to grab all the wealth they can lay their grubby hands on without breaking a few distinct Imperial bylaws. However their actual authority in the Imperium is really very limited. That's ok because money and favors goes a Long Long Way.

2) Having said that, there are some things in the Imperium that can't be bought with thrones alone and their acquisiton should not be represented by just an acquisition test. These either represent their rarity, their special nature, or both. Terminator Armor is one such example. Just because Inquisitors (who are flat out perhaps the most powerful singular individuals in the setting, if not the most powerful). As a lesser example the Storm Trooper detachment improvement is a lesser example showing that at the very least you need some solid contacts in the guard to get it.

Re: Terminator armour thing- people are aware that the original Tactical Dreadnought suits were up-sized militarised versions of the exo-armour suits used in starship construction, and maintenance- issued particularly to those engineers who had to do work inside an active plasma drive, right?

Human-scaled versions (without the cool military-grade sensors and communications equipment, or possibly the outer layer of armour plating) are still around on the oldest of ships, and are probably being made and used at the larger (and AdMech) shipyards. For that matter, they may well still be in use in the more important planetside generatoriae.
Getting hold of one of them doesn't even need to bring the Astartes into it at all. Granted, it won't have the nifty toys the astartes suits do, like autosenses and targeting-assist HUDs, or networked noospheric datalinks, but those have already been established, by the RT core, as available as after-market add-ons.

It's still not going to be easy to get hold of (and will likely leave the Dynasty massively in debt to the Mechanicum, and/or the Navy or whichever body runs the shipyard in question), but it's now at a stage where you don't automatically have to worry about dealing with sociopaths in powered armour.

Alasseo said:

Actually I figured that all of those suits would have been snapped up or used up long ago. The technology was near lost as at the time of the space marine legions founding. I figured outfitting said legions probably consumed many of the civilian suits (or maybe not). But since then it's been a couple millenia and there's been a lot of upheaval since. I'm not saying it's impossible there's some baseline Extreme Hazard suits around, just that it seems unlikely that more are getting made.

Basically if they are having a hard time producing the militarized equivalent for their super elite forces I doubt there's anyone who even bothers trying to make the civilian model, which coupled with the time factor means they've probably been lost.

lurkeroutthere said:

An Inquisitor doesn't really have any more raw power than what he can negotiate with others to accomplish. He typically needs troops seconded from others, relies upon the voidships of others for transportation, and so on. Even his immunity to Imperial law can be rendered moot by another high level peer of the Imperium. The Inquisitor's 'negotiations' often fall into the realm of intimidation, but a RT can go that route too (and since he often has one or more vessels that can reduce entire hives to slag in moments, he can be rather intimidating). In a feudal-based society, the ability to negotiate with other high rollers as an equal is raw power and the exchange of favors is the currency of such power.

You are pretty much functionally flat wrong per literally droves and droves of setting material, codex items, pages and pages of Black Library books and other canon sources.

There is no negotiation to an inquisitor's request. There is more then a little intimidation involved, because theoretically someone could get it in their head to say no. Their life expectency within Imperial Space could be measure in days if not less, but I could happen. It will just not end well. The only forces within the Imperium that have stood up and refused or combated the Inquisition are a few Astartes chapters, and more often then not it has gone very poorly for them on the whole.

lurkeroutthere said:

I think you simply don't understand what I'm saying, nor do you understand the meaning of the quote this discussion is based upon.

What power does the Inquisitor have that does not come from others? How is he/she different from anyone else (like a RT)? He/She can't really do squat without going through others because he/she is just one man/woman. Humans are all social creatures and all organizational power is negotiated. That is what the bit on the power of a RT mean - he can negotiate to exert organizational powers on par with Inquisitors and Chapter Masters.

Note also that I'm not talking about the powers of the Inquisition (the organization) but rather those of an Inquisitor (the individual). Any given Inquisitor may or may not have the ability to direct the forces of the Inquisition in any given situation, as there is likely a great deal of countering checks and balances within the Inquisition acting in any given instance. A RT with connections to the Inquisition could hold more sway with it in a given instance (via his ability to negotiate with peers) than a given Inquisitor. In such a case, things may go very poorly for the Inquisitor that tries to move against the RT.

lurkeroutthere said:

Given that the Lexicanicum article on Inquisitors includes the quote "Learned Inquisitors show discretion and request the assistance of the Space Marines and attempt not to anger the Adepts of Mars" this suggests that significantly powerful entities may well resist an individual Inquisitor (Likewise, the traditional "Not even a High Lord of Terra may refuse the order of an Inquisitor without good reason" means also that "A High Lord of Terra with good reason may refuse the order of an Inquisitor" which shows that they really can be flat out told no at the highest levels.

The lone wolf operating system that many Inquisitors use is also extremely detrimental to their power. In the Eisenhorn books, Eisenhorn mentions that many Inquisitors simply wander off in the unknown and are never heard from again, or operate in secrecy for many years at a time. At several points in the series they encounter Inquisitors that had been simply written off as dead because no one had seen them in awhile. So while it's true that quietly killing an Inquisitor who gets irritating is a dangerous business, it's also very possible that no one will even suspect foul play for decades. "Elijah Lanthorn? You know, I do think he passed through here awhile back. Didn't stay long, didn't say where he was going, just turned his collar up and brooded a lot."

So yeah. Inquisitors can only get what they can demand safely, and how much they can demand before people start having doubts depends on their reputation and connections, influence being something measured by profit factor.

In theory, an Inquisitor can order around anyone they like within the Imperium with no limits.

In reality, the Imperium is a byzantine mess of feudal obligation, backscratching and webs of influence and alliance. *No* individual, no Inquisitor, no High Lord of Terra can act completely unilaterally. Some come close, in specific areas and times, but the idea an Inquisitor has simply unlimited power does not mesh with the reality of the Imperium.

A rogue trader who builds a web of alliances and cultivates favour with other mighty peers can play the game of power and politics and even win against individual Inquisitors.

As for acquiring suits of mortal sized Terminator armour, it can be done but it is staggeringly rare. An Inquisitor detailed in Dark Heresy: Radical's Handbook managed to obtain an archaic suit somehow and refused to explain how.

Cryhavok said:

I bet the Inquisition, Ecclesiarchy, Arbites etc love these guys….

Visitor Q said:

Some of those characters are not well loved by the imperium at large, however most of them have developed close working relationships with various parts of the inquisition, and that helps mitigate the hate quite a bit. As a group the arbites and them kind of just leave each other alone, but the ecclesiarcy lol, well they have had to fight off ecclesiarcy funded crusades lead by the sisters of battle and a puritanical Inquisitor, crusades focused solely on the groups destruction. To everyone else, they end up being to useful to hate so much…

… all except that explorator, the group itself put him down.

I came here expecting a discussion about power armour and any game balance issues, and found this thread massively de-railed!

Back on topic, the only thing i'd be wary of is Explorators with Best-Crafstmanship heavy Power Armour and Flesh is Weak trait…. that gets scary.

…especially if the armour is lathe-wrought

eBarbarossa said:

Obviously upgrades and subsystems make this even more potent a combination.
The explorator in my game had a wrist mounted, backpack-ammo fed Storm Bolter. Oh and an MIU. Suffice it to say that i am glad he never stuck around in my game long enough for combat to happen!