Okay. I have DH and really like most if the game. Some of seems over complex for the amount of time I personally want to spend getting ready to play.

I just recently got Only War and have not read the whole book yet. Please forgive me if this question is covered in the book or has been asked a lot here on the forums.

Specifically: Is there a way to use the Dark Heresy character types and backgrounds without using their full career path/advancement charts?

I'd like to make it a little more freeform. Basically get rid of the dang charts and easier for some of my less experienced players to grasp.

From what I've read so far, Only War seems to do that. I could be wrong. I need to read it in full.

Only if you want to use house-rules careers or make your own using the Only War system. Otherwise, as standard? No, sorry.

From what I've seen, however, Only War is rather easy to mod - don't shy back from an idea just because you'd have to do some work before you get to play!

All in all, I would call it the superior system, in direct comparison to anything that came before. Each of the other games may have one or two things they did better (subjectively speaking, of course) than OW, but Only War is the latest installment of the rules and you can feel how they have evolved to get where they are now. The Aptitude system is, or so I believe, the biggest advantage, as it creates a much more liberal progression experience that may be more suited for what the characters actually go through.

And once the conversion work is done, I'd say it is easier for the players to learn, too.

Specifically: Is there a way to use the Dark Heresy character types and backgrounds without using their full career path/advancement charts?

Of course you can. Plushy, a reguler poster here, worked out his own house rules for creating DH style characters using the OW rules. Here is the url for what he came up with: https://docs.google.com/folder/d/0B517sKRcjGNrcmZmV21GSkVoVVU/edit?pli=1

If you don't like those, you can - with a little thought and a willingness to experiment - simply apply OW Aptitudes to the DH Careers instead of using the advancement charts.

Finally, perhaps the simpliest way to use OW to play DH would be a make an OW squad and assign them to an Inquistor. It is perfectly in keeping with the setting for an Inquitorial agent to commandeer a squad of Guardsmen for his own purposes. You could even create a "regiment" of Inquisitorial Storm Troopers (Schoal Progenium and Favored Foe would be good choices).

We still use the character advances and such from DH, but have switched almost entirely over to Only War rules for combat actions and such. And swapping a single damage dice roll for the DoS on the attack. Apparently this rule was in RT, but I never knew until like a week ago.

Aye, we have also kept the DH advancement tables, but that is mostly due to our campaign having been going on since 2008 (!).

I've recently tried to collect and codify our conversion and house rules, and if any are interested they look are available here . Comments welcome, as I've not really decided on all the details yet.

Note that we do not use Ascension, as it is a broken and ubalanced mess. But as the characters complete Rank 8, they gain access to the other branches of their career tree, as well as some alternative ranks if appropriate. There is still plenty to spend XP on

Hello.

I created a set of conversion rules to enable exactly this: importing OW mechanics into the Dark Heresy setting.

Here is the thread with introduction to and discussion of the notes:

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=292&efcid=46&efidt=780188

And this will take you directly to the notes:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/123289891/Import-Only-War-mechanics-to-Dark-Heresy

It should be pretty self-explanatory, but if you have any questions, feel free to contact me. Apologies for the delayed reply to your questions, and have fun!

I feel the need to plug my fancy houserules too , while everyone's at it. Mine might be a bit extreme in that they do away with classes/archetypes entirely, but hey, worth a shot.