So I don't become "the guy who hates the Beta'" and so this has a thread, I want to hear wha people like about the system so far.

The cut down on skill bloat is absolutely wonderful. Remembrance instead of a few dozen subdivided Lore skills is a much-needed change. The ability to choose which Characteristic is used with each skill is also nice, as it solves the a number of classic debates (which stat for Intimidate; Fel or S or WP?)

The new character creation system is elegant and clean. It also easily allows for new Home Worlds to be added.

The promise of all-Inquisitor play is enough to make me drool.

The system does a pretty good job at covering what I perceived as pretty gaping holes in DH.

-Reactions are more clearly written (removing the "cannot be used during your own turn" phrasing that was troublesome in DH, since nobody seemed to care)

-Delay is now clearly written. It prevents some pretty shky rules lawyering that could come up in DH (i.e. I interrupt your turn and attack, thus preventing your reaction to evade). This is more a result of the first point, but bears mentioning.

-The use of cover is more clearly dileniated. It is recommened to cover certain portions, but others will inherently be exposed if making attacks from cover.

-clear turn order/order of events with regards to conditions/AP generation

Beyond complexity with the conditions/wound tables, it does seem that combat should go a bit faster. ANd with familiarity/ease of access to those tables, doesn't seem like its that bad.

Thanks Plushy for pointing out this thread already existed.

Like KommissarK, I too feel that a number of the holes in DH Original have been address in the errata.

Specifically for me it's :-

Beta was bit of a cold shower for me, but still:

+character creation is nice, flexible and could support lot of character concepts, just need more polishing

+this is probably the best redux of skills in 40kRPG yet, elegant and flexible yet again

+just skimmed it but Investigation shapes nicely, with Subtlety and Overt operating

+Influence yay! (I realy hated the Game of looking for some Thrones into which DH could devolve)

+specific Insanities and Malignancies tied to character origin

Beta was bit of a cold shower for me, but still:

+character creation is nice, flexible and could support lot of character concepts, just need more polishing

+this is probably the best redux of skills in 40kRPG yet, elegant and flexible yet again

+just skimmed it but Investigation shapes nicely, with Subtlety and Overt operating

+Influence yay! (I realy hated the Game of looking for some Thrones into which DH could devolve)

+specific Insanities and Malignancies tied to character origin

I forgot to mention how much I like Signature Trauma/Malignancy.

Also, "Game of looking for some Thrones" made me giggle. Thank you for that, Torog.

Beta was bit of a cold shower for me, but still:

+character creation is nice, flexible and could support lot of character concepts, just need more polishing

+this is probably the best redux of skills in 40kRPG yet, elegant and flexible yet again

+just skimmed it but Investigation shapes nicely, with Subtlety and Overt operating

+Influence yay! (I realy hated the Game of looking for some Thrones into which DH could devolve)

+specific Insanities and Malignancies tied to character origin

Good call on the investigation stuff. Given that it's just as big a part of the game as combat, it's great to see more specific rules for it.

The whole chapter on narrative tools seems like a wonderful addition to Dark Heresy with Influence and especially Subtlety and not to mention Investigation being given some love (in a game about investigation).

I also like character creation which seem able to create colourful characters that feel like they belong.

I am eager to see how Action Points and the new wound mechanic in actual play and hope it will create a more desperate and "realistic" feel of combats where cover, fire fields and cold thinking rules the day (a bit strange though that pinning isn't a standard tactic anymore).

All in all I haven't been more eager to run Dark Heresy/40k than in a very long time and I cannot wait for more info on the new sector.

I like the new Perils tables for Pyskers, I also like how buying a higher psy rating isn't just making it more likely to perils.

Vehicle combat could be fun, we've never done much in our campaigns

Weapon Repairs and stuff could get clunky, but adds a bit more inter-team interaction, especially for the Tech priests

More investigation and intrigue is always good, seeing as I prefer support characters to combat ones

The way Characteristc bonus increases are bought, with the multipliers is interesting

New wound system, (is clunky, with a lot of note taking that takes forever to kill someone) adds a lot more narrative into a combat, with damage not just being a number.

I like the new wound/critical tables (though it needs tweaking for balance).

The character creation rules are nice and streamlined.

The psychic rules looks good.

The tweaks to the skill system looks good as do the rules for malignancies.

Liking the investigation more and more, shame I cant see social combat like one in Tome of Excess, it would sit nicely in core but alas, not every day is Christmas.

The ability to choose which Characteristic is used with each skill is also nice, as it solves the a number of classic debates (which stat for Intimidate; Fel or S or WP?)

The promise of all-Inquisitor play is enough to make me drool.

I don't remember using different characteristics really being banned at any point previously? It was always something that struck me as an option, even if the skills were overwhelmingly used with a certain characteristic.

All-Inquisitor play? Erk... is DH going all high powered like the rest of the series? Boring....

The ability to choose which Characteristic is used with each skill is also nice, as it solves the a number of classic debates (which stat for Intimidate; Fel or S or WP?)

The promise of all-Inquisitor play is enough to make me drool.

I don't remember using different characteristics really being banned at any point previously? It was always something that struck me as an option, even if the skills were overwhelmingly used with a certain characteristic.

All-Inquisitor play? Erk... is DH going all high powered like the rest of the series? Boring....

You're still Acolytes at CharGen, and stay that way for a long while. The option for Inquisitors is simply stated to be there, and there's little in the Beta about it beyond a barebones Elite Advance.

The ability to choose which Characteristic is used with each skill is also nice, as it solves the a number of classic debates (which stat for Intimidate; Fel or S or WP?)

The promise of all-Inquisitor play is enough to make me drool.

I don't remember using different characteristics really being banned at any point previously? It was always something that struck me as an option, even if the skills were overwhelmingly used with a certain characteristic.

All-Inquisitor play? Erk... is DH going all high powered like the rest of the series? Boring....

I respectfuly disagree, high-powered isnt necessary boring, or Ascension-Vindicare level retarted.

The ability to choose which Characteristic is used with each skill is also nice, as it solves the a number of classic debates (which stat for Intimidate; Fel or S or WP?)

The promise of all-Inquisitor play is enough to make me drool.

I don't remember using different characteristics really being banned at any point previously? It was always something that struck me as an option, even if the skills were overwhelmingly used with a certain characteristic.

All-Inquisitor play? Erk... is DH going all high powered like the rest of the series? Boring....

I respectfuly disagree, high-powered isnt necessary boring, or Ascension-Vindicare level retarted.

Ultimately a good RPG should be able to support both.

I'm in the low level camp myself (I raise an eyebrow at DH2 bringing in 25+2d10 for starting stats rather than 20), but I know plenty of people who really like high level play and ascension (except for Vindicares of course).

I think DH2 has all the makings of being able to do this (something as simply as having evade/dodge removing DoS rather than flat passing makes a big difference), my hope is that the beta stage can knock enough of the rough edges off to make it a really quality system.

I really like the new character creation system. Much more open than the original.

I also like the skill condensation and the talent trees. Good way of handling progression in my opinion.

The think that evade is more like an opposed skill check is a good change.

I think the AP system looks good, opens up a few more options than full/half action.

Im a bit weary on the armour scaling and the wound system, but I am open to concept.

+ Chapter VIII: Narrative Tools: Hands down, wonderful piece of work and finaly realy comprehensive write-up on non-combat activities which are bread and butter of acolyte cell (honestly, despite everything DH1 was mostly about combat), Investigation, Exploration and Social Encounters should be useful for GMs of every 40kRPG

Going to add my comments here as well

Character generation is great

The narrative Tools is great.

Influence and Subtlety are great.

The psychic powers are great- and probably a section that I was worried about the most.

Things I (and members of my play group I've spoken to so far about DH2) like so far:

Subtlety and investigation

Homeworld + Background + Role instead of just Homeworld + Career of DH1 feels almost like Rogue Trader with all the combinations possible

New wounds system purely for the realism over the 'I still have 1 HP' mentality in a lot of other RPGs

I (and my group) must be some of the few who like the Talent Trees, because my gaming group hated the Only War system of Aptitudes and free-access to all the Talents, because it made picking Talents and Skills take much longer, and too much book work was involved

Elite Advances opening up new options for players (even if Untouchable is fairly weak)

Vehicle combat being included

Interactions having different modifiers based on the personality of the target being interacted with

Only recently started reading and have to say I love the new evade, doesn't outright negate singelshot, as long as the shot is good enough! Great balance feature.

I forgot to mention the Talent tree & the IDEA behind the wound system, which my players also love.

Keeping in mind that I find the talent tree to be a perfect mix between the free form [You can start off what-ever branch you want, go go warrior adepts] and are still organized so that you cant beeline for "that one build".

I forgot to mention the Talent tree & the IDEA behind the wound system, which my players also love.

Keeping in mind that I find the talent tree to be a perfect mix between the free form [You can start off what-ever branch you want, go go warrior adepts] and are still organized so that you cant beeline for "that one build".

Wound system could be great but it desperately needs to be simplified. Lets hope Beta will bring some changes.

Liking the investigation more and more, shame I cant see social combat like one in Tome of Excess, it would sit nicely in core but alas, not every day is Christmas.

Just steal it outright; one of the good things about this is that most of the non-combat stuff can mostly be taken and integrated into previous Wh40k rpgs with a little bit of fiddling. The same is true in reverse, with mechanics unique to RT, DW or BC based on their specific stats (PF, Renown and Infamy) being more or less transferable wholesale.

For instance, the subtlety stat can mostly be directly ported to RT and BC, to see how notorious the players are when their presence isn't announced, especially if they are involved in criminal activities. This gives me hope that much of the non-combat stuff will be backwards compatible, or easy enough to reverse engineer.

The more I learn about the combat system -- especially the wound effect mechanic and AP -- the more I like it.

Evasion of an attack being an opposed roll thrills me. It's so deflating to roll 01 on your attack and have an enemy just manage a Dodge check. Now those degrees of success actually matter for hitting.

Positives, huh? Okay:

+ Character creation is a great idea, even if particular options could use some fine-tuning.

+ New skills are very cool, streamlined and flexible.

+ The change on how DoS are calculated is small but very welcome, as is the new way of determining the hit location.

+ I absolutely love how the new psychic powers rules introduce the element of a gamble rather than being a straight up "more is better"

That's what strikes me as most unambiguously positive in the new rules. At the very least, I'm going to adapt these changes to my 1.0 games.