Hi i've been on the Dark Heresy forums for a while and i'm thinking of picking up Rogue Trader needless to say i have a few questions.

I hear it meshes very well with Dark Heresy, do the books come with table to move one to the other? Is that even neccecary?

What sort of Roleplay options does this offer? I know you are no longer with the Inquisition so that should broaden things.

What sort of power creep am i looking at?

I'm thinking of getting "Into The Storm" for it's vehicle stuff is this reccomended? Is it an additional rulebook or a stand alone adventure or a setting?

Thank you for your time. Comments and opinions are both welcome.

It does NOT mesh cleanly at all. There will be frequent need to house rule patches to make things work.

Into the Storm is a suppliment and, while it does include vehicle rules, they are rather half-hearted compared to the Only War core rulebook. Of course, Only War is somewhat less compatible with DH, so…

Into the storm includes vehicle stuff, and some other more general stuff. (Extra pshycer and navigator powers, playing Orks and Kroot etc…)

The Rulebook has a small mention as to the relative power a base rouge trader character is to a DH character, and makes mention of how to handle thrones. But it would require much work with rules and the such to make the games work together well.

So just checked and a RT character is equivelent to a DH character who has spent 5000xp at rank 1.

NoodleNaught said:

Holy Crap i was lied to. Why are they so different??? Allright that is all good to know, now what would rogue trader offer me that DH doesn't?

I'm looking into Only War, Rogue Trader is my first choice because well my local game store carries it. Although as far as tabletop goes i only do business with them so you know i could just have them order it.

Would buying rogue trader be good for figuring out space travel times in dark heresy?

How does ship to ship combat work? How involved would the players be? How different is the economy?

I know these are alot of questions and i really appreciate the help you guys (and girls?) give. Thank You in advance.

I have limited experience with DH actually playing, and a read the rulebook some time ago so I can't say about travel times.

Ship combat is fairly involved on the part of the players. Ship combat is basically split into three parts.

1. Manuvering, during this the ship can change it's heading, move forwards different speeds, dodge astriods etc… Each of these actions require one PC to take a test to try and accomplish whatever manuver they are trying to carry out. As different weapons have different ranges etc… there can be quite a bit of thought to this. Also you can ram enemy ships and board them.

2. Actions, anyone who isn't flying the ship or firing the ships weapons, can attempt to carry out one of a variety of actions such as, carring for wounded, effecting emergency repairs, scanning the enemy ship for weak sopts and specific systems to target. Also small scall boarding actions from shuttles can be carried out, or boarding actions from the enemy can be repelled. All of these can either use the skill tests listed in the rulebook, or the players can actually make small adventures during these actions. Up to the GM.

3. Firing weapons, one PC or more PCs can fire ship weapons whether cannons, energy lances, torpedos etc… This requires ballistic skill tests, (and sometimes other tests), also it can require timing and actual player accuarcy, and strategy, with torpedos and the such.

As for the economy there is no thrones, players instead acquire profit factor which is used to acquire items. Basically a player might have say a profit factor of 50, and wants to acquire a new lasgun. First he goes to a world that would have lasguns avaiable, up to the GM (but pretty much anywhere). Once there he makes a percentile role agianst his profit factor, if he rolls his profit factor or below he acquires the item after a set number of days. (or months/years, depending on item rarity and the size of the local population. The rulebook includes guidelines to all of this)

All items in the armoury have a fixed rarity which either makes these rolls harder or easier, also the population size of the planet can make it harder or easier. Obviously the GM might make it easier to acquire certain items on certain worlds cause thier forge worlds etc… Also the GM can make the players have to travel to a very specific world to acquire a item.

In addition to buying equipment, players can of course also buy the services of ports, mercenareies, merchant guilds etc… information about all of this is included in the rulebook.

I have found that the easiest way to mesh the two systems together is to simply use the book any one character is from as the basis for rules for that character. This represents the differences in training and how they react/act in different situations due to past experiences, etc. The systems are close enough for this to work, but it takes some knowledge of the differences between the two systems.

For example, player A has an assassin from DH and wants to spend a fate point for some random thing. He uses the rules in dark heresy to do so. Player B also wants to spend a fate point but he is an Archmilitant from rogue trader, so he uses the fate point system found in the rogue trader book. Both systems are fairly close at first glance, but different enough that combining them any other way requires a ton of little tiny house rules.

Speaking of house rules, this is one I use with the above system: If you want to use another systems version of something, treat it like an elite advance and let them take it at the same point on thier class that thier normal version has it. This represents the influence of the other systems characters effecting each other.

As for equipment, simply treat the different verions of the same thing in the different systems as seperate patterns of something (IE hellgun in inquisitors handbook vs hellgun in rogue trader core book)

Guards said:

Rogue Trader makes the PCs fantastically more powerful. Not in a numeric, tear-down-titans-with-bear-hands sort of way, but in terms of their social status and freedom. Acolytes are essentially nobodies forced into the worst job imaginable. Explorers are equal parts baron and pirate king. They can talk to Space Marine Chapter Masters and Inquisitors as equals, and depending on the circumstances, they might even have more clout.

Not only that, but outside the Imperium, Rogue Traders are the voice of the emperor, and may do as they see fit. A typical scenario might be that your party discovers a long-lost forge world that has embraced Xeno technology, and the party can then attempt to negotiate with the forge world for powerful alien-inspired weapons, destroy it and loot their artifacts, try to convert them back to the TRUE doctrine of the adeptus mechanus, etc. It's really up to them, and the decisions they make are felt across entire sectors.

They'll still swashbuckle pirates and hunt beasts with giant pointy teeth in much the same way that acolytes might, but the Explorers do it not because they've been ordered to, but because they think it will be fun and make them look good. Plus they usually just don't trust redshirts with anything important (Note: Star Trek is an excellent source of plotlines and ideas for Rogue Trader, since it *also* follows the adventures of a handful of important people in control of a huge and powerful ship, who discover new worlds and make the decisions that determine the fate of said worlds. Just remember to account for the completely different worldview of the Imperium)

Note that the roleplay is actually inherently a little more restricted in Rogue Trader, since you have to play someone that's of the sort of colonial era fortune-and-glory mindset that Rogue Traders have, since your characters are far too powerful to be doing this against their will. However, within that there's still tremendous room for variation. Just be warned that ruthless pragmatism is something your players should explicitly be casting aside.

I just started using the Dh with the RT setting.

Basically, I am just adding the ship combat rules and I am using the kronus expanse setting. I am keeping the same principal idea, the players are hunting the enemies of the imperium, and their ship/Rogue trader status is just a means and cover.

The two systems mesh fantastically when it comes to the world view. When the acolytes grow to high power status, travelling along side a rogue trader is definately something that can take the campaign to the next level.

Mixing the careers and other stats stuff can be harder, as there are subtle but significant differences there. Using ship combat in rogue trader and keeping DH for the rest sounds like a good compromise.

If you are looking for an up to date system, only war is the newest release and can be regarded as the "latest" errata. There has been a lot of work on converting dark heresy careers to only war, check Plushy's site:

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=292&efcid=46&efidt=760030

In my campaign I use rogue trader ship to ship combat, only war combat rules and dark heresy for the rest and it works marvously.

My group started as a bunch of lowly acolytes following around after an Interrogator, and eventually, when my players were experienced enough they nominated one of the group to become an Interrogator from the DH:Acension book. After that, they meshed their RT and DH games together, where basically the group of PCs they have for RT ferry the DH group around, interacting with them, trading items, information etc. with each other. They like the way it works, and at the end of the campaign for each, they time-skip back and then find out what happened from the other groups perspective. It helps keep the DH group from getting too carefre with the amount of destruction they do to each planet and it's businesses etc. seeing as the RT group have contacts, business arrangements and whatnot on most of the planets the DH group visit anyway. Keep the systems Seperate but still have them interact with each other