Tom Cruise is right, here.

Being a "Guardsman" or an "Arbitrator" is more limiting than being a "Warrior" or "Seeker," leaving the player more freedom to decide what they are.

Tom Cruise is right, here.

Being a "Guardsman" or an "Arbitrator" is more limiting than being a "Warrior" or "Seeker," leaving the player more freedom to decide what they are.

Exactly. I think the game is much better for allowing a range of different characters based on the same background rather than all arbites or guardsmen being the same.

The only thing that could help would be a list of example combinations, for example an Arbite Sage being a Verispex or Guardsmen Seeker being a commissar, so that people who are looking for more specific roles can find them easily.

The Imperium of Man is limiting. The system should enforce this rigidity, but allow acolytes more deviations due to their connections. To allow as much freedom as it currently does goes against the setting. Anyone can be psyker, even if they're not sanctioned! The original DH system was good, but there should have been more branches in the advancement trees, and more like the adepts were you can choose one of two paths, but they both lead to the same choice afterwards.

Imo, the system should work much like it did in the original DH, except with one shared advancement table, sort of like how space marines had a table for their specialization, and for just being space marines.

The Imperium of Man is a **** lot less limiting than people seem to imply. The huge variance in worlds and how they run things can lead to a huge plethora of characters that aren't really explored in most of the fluff.

For example, which of the rigid classes in Dark Heresy 1e would I use to play a swordsman from a Feudal World? Sure, Guardsman is a fit statistically, but fluff wise it doesn't really work spectacularly. The generic titles for roles all but eliminates issues like that,

For example, which of the rigid classes in Dark Heresy 1e would I use to play a swordsman from a Feudal World? Sure, Guardsman is a fit statistically, but fluff wise it doesn't really work spectacularly. The generic titles for roles all but eliminates issues like that,

Well, lets see, feudal world is Imperial, so your choice are guardsman, assassin and scum. So it depends on what kind of swordsman you'd like to be. And I'd say both assassin and scum work statwise and fluffwise. I think people see the limits of the system instead of the possibilities. As a fellow player of mine once said "I'm not that kind of Scum".

The Imperium is very limiting because if people weren't limited they might start to hope that things would get better, or enjoy their lives too much, and that would give power to the Chaos Gods. Alternatively, the people in charge like being in charge and use this as an excuse to keep things that way.

See, suggesting that Assassin or Guardsman are viable effectively supports what FFG are doing with this system. A feudal swordsman hardly fits those professions to the letter, so you're basically interpreting the classes as open concepts that can be applied to things outside of their given title, if the fit is good. All the Role names do is remove the need to ignore the title. Instead of Guardsman, you have Warrior, because that's a much broader title that can encompass heaps of fighting based character concepts.

I suppose, in terms of how limiting the Imperium is, there's the point that it largely depends on which writer you ask. There's little to no internal consistency going on with this setting, so you get opinions ranging from the Imperium being strictly regimented and pigeon-holed, or there being a massive range of potential unique characters.

Sorry if I'm rambling, it's 5:30 in the AM and I really should be asleep.

Yeah, but ok. How does your feudal swordsman make a living? By fighting in an army? He's a Guardsman. By killing people for money or being a sellsword? He's an assassin. Scrounging up a living some other way? He's a Scum. Saying that it does not fit it to the letter is missing the point, nothing ever fits exactly to the letter of anything unless that letter is diffuse as all hell.

Warrior is a stupid term that means nothing. It's a collection of stats and experience costs. Assassin/scum/guardsman mean something in the setting, they're not just a set of numbers. Creativity often flourishes under restrictions, which the original spec system provides, while still being open enough to not be stifling. At least that's what I always found.

Just because its a strictly regimented pigeon-hole doesn't mean you can't have unique snowflakes. The Galaxy is a large place, and the Imperium covers most of it. But snowflakes must be unique within limits.

Warrior is a stupid term that means nothing? That's a bit of an audacious claim, really. It may not be a profession in that it has no means of income attached, but it's very much a title. " One who is engaged in or experienced in battle." Going by that definition, it's pretty clear what Warrior 'means'. It's the role for characters largely focused on combat.

Really, the only role I see in the game as it stands that is potentially dubious is Seeker, the rest make perfect sense as roles for characters, they just aren't assigned to specific organisations (because that's handled in the background step, anyway). The pidgeon-holing can be said to occur during the background stage. That's where your actual organisational affiliation is selected. Role just decides your, well, role within that organisation. Or, alternatively, the role you've taken as a member of the Inquisition. A fact the original Dark Heresy seemed to totally ignore is that when you join the Inquisition, you're not really much of a part of your old organisation. Gaining promotions and income when you're completely absent from your job is kind of silly.

Guardsman was a gross term to engulf the fighting men and women of the Imperium, using the most common term in the setting; a guardsman. That's why you can start with civilian clothes, an explosive collar or a merc license rather than having military fatigues and the uplifting primer.

The only real "limiting" careers are: Cleric, Adept, Tech-priest, Arbitrator, Psyker, Sister of Battle as those come directly from different branches of the Adeptus Terra (Even then one can always argue an adept is just a smart person rather than an Administratum person) Guardsman, Assassin and Scum are generic in thier background, with perhaps the Guardsman name bringing confusion...yet again, people were confused with how the starting gear was written in the DH core, they had to list'em all nicely in the errata, so no surprise they bucked with the word Guardsman.

As for the rank names, I always saw them as flavour names, or at the very least an indication of one's progress wihtin his own career.

And roles can be changed. A fact this edition seems to ignore. At least in DH, one can always manage to fill in the void if someone left or died. Our assassin had to fill in for the psyker when the player left, despite having sub-pas stats, and a few advancements and skill buys alter, she was charming her way around town.

Lot of roles are based on Inquisitors Henchmen from old Daemon and Witch Hunters codexes/codicii. Warrior was in. But we can call rabbit a smeerp and think of that role as "Militant"?

Wound tables for every wound type at every wound location for every single damaging hit, not just for criticals?

I wish people would read the rules, and find that this isn't the case for the majority of combats.

Mooks don't use the wound tables at all, and elites die on crits. It's only Masters and PCs that'll need to look at it much.

I was referring to PCs... Do you actually envision that PCs won't be wounded at all in the "majority of combats?" Extrapolating the rules out to mooks would make the situation even worse, but I see it as unmanageable even WITHOUT extrapolating the wound tables out to them,

The wound system is really not that bad once you use it for a bit.

The wound system is really not that bad once you use it for a bit.

The system itself isn't that bad, but it does involve more bookeeping than the previous system and performs poorly once different combat styles are involved. The uniform and arbitrary nature of the bonus to wound rolls for every attack just doesn't work when you have high RoF, high damage and dual wielding because it favors some much more than others. As long as dual wielding autopistols (or even shooting them with an autogun) results in faster kills than shooting people with a melta or a plasma gun, the suspension of disbelief between the (currently very much nonexistent) internal balance and the fluff of the system collapses. Everybody knows that bigger, meaner guns = more killy, it's a hallmark of 40k; right now, that just isn't the case. Now, only more dakka works, but somehow, 2 guns, even with less total dakka, still work better.

The wound system combined to the new RoF/AP is indeed flawed at its core.

Added to that the weapon statistics makes no sense currently, 1/3 RoF for Sniper Rifle is dumb (You can't even Aim + Called Shot with a Sniper Rifle, which sound like the most basis thing I would want to do), Pen 2 for Plasma Pistol is dumb.

The new talent trees are pretty terrible, the prerequisites makes no sense, and the abilities overall are pretty weak.

Mono giving "sapping" properties makes no sense either.

It doesn't even feel beta, it feels like someone just threw some rules together quickly and put them in a PDF, were those rules even thought out a bit? Were they even a bit playtested? Hell, it seems that even common sense was not considered here.

As far as I am concerned, unless major changes are made, I ll stick to playing DH1 with a few tweaks from Only War (like modifier for full auto etc)

It doesn't even feel beta, it feels like someone just threw some rules together quickly and put them in a PDF, were those rules even thought out a bit? Were they even a bit playtested? Hell, it seems that even common sense was not considered here.

As far as I am concerned, unless major changes are made, I ll stick to playing DH1 with a few tweaks from Only War (like modifier for full auto etc)

This is where I'm sitting too... It seems unfair to write the system off without playtesting it. But when I look at it, making myself learn a bunch of new rules I'm not enamored with, when I already have a whole lot of rules that work, if sometimes crudely, is a pretty major barrier. I'd rather have a clunky rule I'm not crazy about than a simple rule I hate.

Ok, Just finished a complete readthrough and I feel ready to make some informed commentary:

Negatives

INCOMPATIBILITY with other 40k RPG products! This is a deal breaker for me and if efforts are not made to fix it I will not invest in DH2 or it's supplements!

Character creation: Talent trees seem needlessly confusing and are not improvement from the OW system.

Combat: What can I say? It's broken. Horribly so! The first step before production should be to scrap this section and either A.) Go back to the OW/BC ruleset or, B.) Revamp the Armoury section to use familiar and reverse compatible gear along with tweaking the wound tables to allow for greater lethality. Additionally, add rules that make single shot weapons something other than a waste of time and, restore the explosion critical chart! (Yeah this essentially goes back to OW but I am intrigued by the no hit points damage system. It just needs work!)

Action points: Torn on this but leaning negative. Action points were a popular game mechanic in the early 80's but were largely abandoned as players often felt they were too "mechanical" feeling (At least in my games!). They are however playable (Although they need work in the RAW). We'll see if this generation is more accepting.

Armoury: Back to first complaint. There is no reason to completely revamp the equipment charts. Stick with what works!

Vehicles: Standard vehicles in this game seem to make standard groundcars tougher than some tanks! Big problem!

So in a nutshell: The combat and Armoury sections are completely screwed up and need a complete rewrite! While that is certainly possible It would probably be cheaper to stick with OW/BC system which can just be cut/pasted in in place of what's there!

Armoury: Back to first complaint. There is no reason to completely revamp the equipment charts. Stick with what works!

Vehicles: Standard vehicles in this game seem to make standard groundcars tougher than some tanks! Big problem!

Armoury wise, I think there's actually good call for a revamp; this system's combat and wounding mechanics are totally changed, so the math DOES need to be looked at it. They haven't done it too well this time around, but keeping the old stats would be just as silly, most likely.

As for vehicles, it's already been acknowledged by FFG staff that it was a typo, the car and the tank accidentally got their armour stats swapped around.

Armoury: Back to first complaint. There is no reason to completely revamp the equipment charts. Stick with what works!

Vehicles: Standard vehicles in this game seem to make standard groundcars tougher than some tanks! Big problem!

Armoury wise, I think there's actually good call for a revamp; this system's combat and wounding mechanics are totally changed, so the math DOES need to be looked at it. They haven't done it too well this time around, but keeping the old stats would be just as silly, most likely.

As for vehicles, it's already been acknowledged by FFG staff that it was a typo, the car and the tank accidentally got their armour stats swapped around.

The combat system as written basically allows a 5 point buffer (Similar to having 5 perpetual woundpoints). Going to old weapon/armor stats would not significantly change how the system works. Hell! It would probably be an improvement!

And unfortunately, there are rules for vehicles.

Even though I think thats space that could have best been spent on something else.

Actually, I am not sure- I am torn.

Maybe a couple of lines for vehicles... But this is just too much space for a game that's likely not going to use them nearly as much as any other of the line.

Car chase is fun from time to time- but do we really need to include it every session now?

it's a problem only if the vehicle rules are complicated and long winded.

The reason RT had problems with content and not including much in the way of starship detail was because the rules take up needless space. Every character has severl pages of xp tables. The Armoury includes lots of silly weapon details (rate of fire, penetration, damage, type of damage, special trait - are you kidding me?)

People want rules light games these days. That's where FFG need to be headed.

I tell you now designing 100 pages of wargear will be a waste of time. It assumes that players - in fact the GM as well coming to the game for the first time - will know what weapons are best. This is just impossible. It also means that players have to waste time at the table, tediously leafing through - one player at a time - the Armoury. Not only that, but each supplement will increase that Armoury.

It's this approach that is the problem with FFG's rules here. At its core the system is ok - not great. But there's so much bloat, so little incompatibility and, worst of all, nothing is particularly intuitive. DH has a separate set of rules for psykers than the other games, and for no good reason. The DH rules were fine - and they were simple. Later games have a tedious equation.

Look at the Emperor's Fury rules; what should be a simple rule for a good roll when attacking actually comes across as needlessly convoluted and not teribly intuitive. Surely all you need is: you roll well, the Emperor blesses you, double damage!

I hope FFG are listening; ditching Calixis is a big mistake. I get that they want a fresh start and can then include antagonists not included in Calixis, but those elements can be incldued without doing away with Calixis. This simply means that all the ideas created for 1e (rules aside) are now utterly redundant as many of them are Calixis depedent (Calixian Witchfinder, for example).

And unfortunately, there are rules for vehicles.

Even though I think thats space that could have best been spent on something else.

Actually, I am not sure- I am torn.

Maybe a couple of lines for vehicles... But this is just too much space for a game that's likely not going to use them nearly as much as any other of the line.

Car chase is fun from time to time- but do we really need to include it every session now?

I'm not sure they're intended for every session, but it's a pretty standard part of 40k fluff to have people driving around in a chimera from time to time (and is a good way to mix up combats every so often), which you'd want reflected in the rules.

Is there anything specific you'd consider a better use of space in the book?

It is? Granted I havent' read many inquisitor focused books (if anyone have any recommendations do tell!) but chimera's are military APCs, not someting acolytes should be driving around in. Heck, most 40k fluff state that cars are rare and that most people simply use their feet to get where needed. They could probably requisition one from the local PDF, but I'm not sure I see it happening all that often.

Not had many thoughts about what the space could have been used for myself, but maybe more investigation talents/specializations?

And unfortunately, there are rules for vehicles.

Even though I think thats space that could have best been spent on something else.

Actually, I am not sure- I am torn.

Maybe a couple of lines for vehicles... But this is just too much space for a game that's likely not going to use them nearly as much as any other of the line.

Car chase is fun from time to time- but do we really need to include it every session now?

I'm not sure they're intended for every session, but it's a pretty standard part of 40k fluff to have people driving around in a chimera from time to time (and is a good way to mix up combats every so often), which you'd want reflected in the rules.

Is there anything specific you'd consider a better use of space in the book?

It is? Granted I havent' read many inquisitor focused books (if anyone have any recommendations do tell!) but chimera's are military APCs, not someting acolytes should be driving around in. Heck, most 40k fluff state that cars are rare and that most people simply use their feet to get where needed. They could probably requisition one from the local PDF, but I'm not sure I see it happening all that often.

Not had many thoughts about what the space could have been used for myself, but maybe more investigation talents/specializations?

To be fair, Chimera isn't the best example as you pointed out, although I was reading an inquisition based short story (in planetfall I believe) where they grabbed a Chimera off the guard..

But generally having vehicle rules in the game so that players can tool around in Arbite rhinos, bikes and even a guncutter at high levels is certainly useful. Even just covering what happens when their groundcar gets shot up is a start.

That said more investigation based stuff is never bad, I guess it's just a matter of balance. Personally I like that they address a range of areas in the main book and then expand in further books, but I know other people prefer all the detail on an area in the main book, then add on books just for the new area (like tome of excess as added social combat for example).

it's a problem only if the vehicle rules are complicated and long winded.

The reason RT had problems with content and not including much in the way of starship detail was because the rules take up needless space. Every character has severl pages of xp tables. The Armoury includes lots of silly weapon details (rate of fire, penetration, damage, type of damage, special trait - are you kidding me?)

People want rules light games these days. That's where FFG need to be headed.

I tell you now designing 100 pages of wargear will be a waste of time. It assumes that players - in fact the GM as well coming to the game for the first time - will know what weapons are best. This is just impossible. It also means that players have to waste time at the table, tediously leafing through - one player at a time - the Armoury. Not only that, but each supplement will increase that Armoury.

It's this approach that is the problem with FFG's rules here. At its core the system is ok - not great. But there's so much bloat, so little incompatibility and, worst of all, nothing is particularly intuitive. DH has a separate set of rules for psykers than the other games, and for no good reason. The DH rules were fine - and they were simple. Later games have a tedious equation.

Look at the Emperor's Fury rules; what should be a simple rule for a good roll when attacking actually comes across as needlessly convoluted and not teribly intuitive. Surely all you need is: you roll well, the Emperor blesses you, double damage!

Ok, first of all some people want rules light. What most people want is consistent, easy to understand system. The old weapon system was even easier to understand than the new one (in both, you have damage, range, penetration and special qualities, but in this one, RoF is based on AP, or even Ag, while the old version was simply what you use for which attack action). By the continued sale of many rule heavy system (D&D and his ilk, SR, Eclipse Phase) people don't dislike rules heavy system if the rules are there for a reason, and they aren't overwhelmingly disconnected from the rest of the experience (SR driving/crashing rules, I'm looking at you).

As for the armoury, if the weapons is well designed. it will be balanced so there is no clear better option. Players will pick the weapon they think is best, or which fits the idea they have for the character. And sorry, but gear porn sells; it's not because CP2020 isn't throwing out Chrome Books every 10 minutes that people don't like having more shiny goodies. As for it making char gen a tedium, nothing stops you from restricting weaponry at char gen to a few books (even than, most Wh40k lines have you leafing through only 2 books for most weaponry).

The DH1 power system worked well enough, but it also made it extremely likely that Psychic Phenomena would be triggered because many powers required a bunch of dice, and the probability for phenomena was 10% per dice. The fettered/unfettered system allowed psykers to use their powers without too much risk most of the time (compensating for the loss of minor powers by allowing them to use their major powers essentially at all times), while also tying it to the same d% used everywhere else; in DH1, power manifestation is the only xd10 based test. Indeed, it's a direct port of the WFRP 2e one, but that one works slightly better because you needed doubles or triples to trigger Tzeench's Curse.

As for the Emperor's fury, I don't want to enter in the age old debate between exploding dices and multipliers, but suffices to say that the former is much more controlled and constant, while still allowing for truly amazing shots, while the other is a lot more variable in power, and can get very confusing when only some modifiers are multiplied. Saying "you roll a 10, you get another d10", or you roll a "10, add 10 to damage" is super simple. Saying "you roll a 10, multiply the damage by 2x (but not your S bonus, the accurate bonus, the ...)" is a lot more complicated.

Forgot to mention this in my previous post: No hardcap for stats. This is silly. Are acolytes orkz suddenly who just grow bigger and better the longer they live? It doesn't take many ranks before they're better than space marines, which is just silly.

Forgot to mention this in my previous post: No hardcap for stats. This is silly. Are acolytes orkz suddenly who just grow bigger and better the longer they live? It doesn't take many ranks before they're better than space marines, which is just silly.

Having stats reach up to 95 also completely destroys a d% base system, which usually start to collapse at around 50-70% base stat (fittingly, that's where high level marines where, so it's fitting as a standard cap). Just look at ranged combat; with 95 BS, the only way you can miss is if you Jam. You get to a point where the d% represents less than the stat and modifiers, a problem akin to what was seen in d&d with high level characters rolling 1d20 + 40-50, making the d20 itself nearly meaningless unless you decided to dump all your accuracy for more damage, something you can't do in DH.

Yeah. Honestly, they should have gotten rid of the d% system all together. I know, heresy, SACRILIGE!

But it's the best thing for the system they could have done I think. Linear dice systems are kind of flawed, and percentile especially. Should start using a 3d10 system or something akin to deadlands instead imo. 'Sides, its not warhammer unless you're throwing buckets of dice

As for the dh1 psyker system, its 10% per dice, but you don't have 50% chance to trigger with 5 dice. I much prefer it to the current system partly because it is a unique dice roll, which helps enforce the fact that psykerisms are different, and also because its a much more variable scale instead of a binary switch. At least DH2 doesn't have fettering so you can never avoid psyphen. I really don't like merging psychich phenomena and perils either.

See, I always found that pskyers are completely overpowered and ridiculous. They're like any regular acolyte, except they can also turn invisible, guarantee their next attack will hit, float, regenerate, and use what is probably the best melee weapons. But they were always balanced by the fact that each time they used their powers there was a slight chance that they would die, irrevocably and unpreventably. Or even worse, create a tpk. The higher powers really balanced this well, to make them likely to trigger, you had to roll lots of dice, but rolling lots of dice is dangerous, so you want to roll less, but then you might fail to manifest and waste your turn.... The results in general are a lot less dangerous now I feel.

I liked my psykers as walking time bombs with lazor eyes. It also gave players a good reason to actually dislike and distrust psykerisms like the fluff says one should.