So in general I like the idea of character creation. Home World + Background + Role - makes a lot of sense.

But I'm not really liking the Home Worlds at the moment. As it stands they are poorly balanced and more importantly quite bland.

For balance - well the first two are a perfect example. The Feral Worlder get 1-2 Fate threshold and the Heightened Senses (Smell) talent. From a Forge World you get 1-3 Fate and Technical Knock.

Even if you don't think Technical Knock is all that useful, it is at least getting you onto a talent tree. HS (Smell) though just seems like a bit of a joke, couldn't it have least been HS(Sight) or something else that might actually get used? And to start with less Fate just rubs it in. The Hive Worlder meanwhile gets 1-3 Fate and a bonus in combat, which seems like it will be pretty useful most of the time. The Voidborn is still 1-3 Fate but a very niche ability to ignore zero gravity. There are discrepancies here.

But actually my major concern is that the homeworlds aren't very distinct, and it'll be easy to forget later in play. The characteristic modifications are actually very slight, 3d10 drop lowest raises the average by about 3-4 points but that's all, less impressive than a say a flat +5 bonus. So being from a Feral world will probably give you a bit above average strength, but with no chance of being a mighty warrior.

So once a character has rolled his stats and Fate there's very little to say he's from the world other than the bonus. And in the case of a useless ability like HS (Smell) or ignoring zero G you will probably forget this.

It's worst for the two worlds that start with talents as a bonus. In the case of the Forge World you start with Technical Knock. But then if another party member, from say a Hive World, buys that talent you no longer have anything special about yourself. The same could be said for the Feral Worlder, but I have serious doubts anyone else will want to buy HS (Smell).

Some of the bonuses seem like they might come up a few times, but others not so much. Maybe each home world should start with a talent and a non-talent bonus? At least some attempt at making them interesting and balanced would be nice. Off the top of my head Feral Worlders could re-roll Survival rolls... infinitely more interesting and useful than Heightened Senses (Smell).

This is a very going and I agree.

Something that allows you to customize your home-world in greater detail like an only war regiment would be great.

Or is that too much?

Agreed on all fronts.

Background faces similar issues; not every member of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica is a Psyker, and as such gaining the Sanctioning trait does very little for them. The Imperial Guard's boost to carrying capacity will help him much less than the Arbite's ability to demolish cover.

This is chance to get the GOOD parts from DH 1.0- all of those nifty origins and their abilities.

For a company that reprints a number of things, you would think that this would be a good chance to recycle

I dont think anyone would mind- I guess its more of a problem of space. I would say that the Original DH had a LOT more flavor when it came to character creation, in terms of giving life to the character (Superstitions and all of that.) which is taken for granted here.

I agree, the options are pretty uneven, the favored/weak stats are almost meaningless and some combinations of chargen options create nonsensical characters, like an Untouchable with Psyniscience.

I found "Smell" to be a rather weirdly specific bonus. Not so much because I think that it was too weak or anything (unless I'm playing with 12-year-olds I don't expect my players to have the nerve to complain about some perceived disadvantages on the level of individual skills/talents) but mainly because I don't see a plausible reason for exactly this advantage - sure, the cliched barbarian/feral worlder always complains about the stench of civilization and suchlike, but when I picture a feral worlder his delicate nose isn't really the first thing that springs to mind...

Addendum: Generally I like the new character creation concept. It lacks a bit flavour and customization, but it is pretty streamlined the idea of background as a past job and the role as the current/future path is nice. The old classes' advance paths were pretty hard to shoehorn into a campaign - As I see it, an acolyte STOPS being a guardsman or arbitrator when he enters an Inquisitor's service, so in most cases the paths didn't make much sense to me.

So - I'd recommend adding a couple of options in there (like a choice between two or three different bonuses per stage) and giving the opportunity to buy some of them with a higher amount of experience anyway (e.g. "sanctioned") would be sensible.

Indeed I do like that some of the careers are now backgrounds, as yes it made no sense to still be an artbitrator. That bit works for me but as for homeworlds (and even backgrounds, though to a lesser sense since at least you get more from them) there's just not enough flavour.

And yeah Smell doesn't even really make sense! Is this supposed to be some sort of "savages can smell their prey" thing?

Yeah; I think even a little change like "heightened senses (choose one)" would have been more interesting.

Lets open up this topic in the appropriate forums.

Should it go in games mechanics, or general?

I think mechanics would be fine - question is: is it a matter of rules balance or rules flavour?

If you can move it to one (I would probably say general but either is good) then go ahead.

I suppose in this case it's both balance and flavour.

I think its a healthy mix of both: the two issues need to discussed equally when introducing expanding on this idea.

I will create a new topic right away, and keep it organized as well.