I have heard many mixed reviews about the new version of Dark Heresy. Many of the Naysayers are expressing displeasure with the new rules which has made me sceptical. Is there anyone who really likes the new direction of the rules and would say it is an improvement over the old mechanic?

I definitely see the majority of the changes made as a big improvement. There's a few issues in the minutae, but overall it's a solid system I look forward to running and playing.

I would.

There are several good reviews in here, too. They just aren't as loud or acidic as the nay-sayers. You might find that the generally positive reviews are often backed up with data (summaries or actual numbers) from real play-testing, whereas the negative reviews generally seem to come from merely reading the rules.

There's definitely stuff that needs fixing. It's far from a perfect system. But there's a lot of great stuff in here, and the first edition is hardly the holy grail that many make it out to be. It sorely needed an update.

There is improvement, but it's mostly just a step sideways in my opinion. There are a lot of things that just don't seem to make sense and makes me wonder if the writers have ever heard of the 40k universe.

You'll find that the loudest people on forums rarely have positive things to say, but yeah there are people who like it. There's an entire topic of Positives of the new edition on here somewhere.

I ran my groups first session this weekend of it and they all enjoyed it. They like the idea of action points due the flexibility of what you can do in a round, but also the strategy behind do I all out attack or save some for defensive purposes. As a GM I found that keeping up with enemies health and conditions was alot easier and players liked the idea that getting one shot wasn't gonna happen each time they went into combat. The skills are alot easier to use and offer some interesting sub-uses. Also every player enjoyed the advances in the talent trees.

The one thing I was skeptical about xp cost. I thought initially that characteristic costs were cheaper than they were. After a player brought up its the cost in the book (which is current modifier of the characteristic x cost of characteristic) and that you must raise different characteristics to progress in a talent tree usually this was alleviated.

All in all it was a good session. They were quick on the investigations and enjoyed some new rp options, while combat never brought anything down and was very fast paced. Good preparations like providing wound chart to players to keep up the status effects and a blank wound chart to keep up with elite and master enemies wound charts help out.

Howdy,

We were underwhelmed.

The system still needs a LOT of work, and there are still NUMEROUS stat and typo fixes (weapons, armour, vehicles, etc). Some of the flavour and 40K detail has been leeched out, which always makes me nervous.

With work, the system may be perfectly adequate, but it really does not offer enough to make us jump to it. Since we mix games in our campaign, we will simply stick to DH 1.0 (modified with some of the changes from BC) as compatibility is a big draw.

Cheers,

Ken

I am extremely happy with the big-picture changes (fewer skills, generally higher level of competence, separating background and role, the Action Point based action system). There are certainly kinks to be worked out, but I'm confident the final product will be good.

However, it's worth noting that during the beta, specific criticisms are much more useful than general praise, so most of my posts are/will be attempting to point out specific problems (blah seems too strong, this set of traits seems oddly chosen, why is XYZ so expensive and similar).

I am liking it, it is definantly a beta but it is enjoyable.

I'm not... hating it. Honestly, I see where they are going, and I generally appreciate what they are trying to do, but I'd say the execution has a few iterations to go before it's anywhere ready for release.

I'm not... hating it. Honestly, I see where they are going, and I generally appreciate what they are trying to do, but I'd say the execution has a few iterations to go before it's anywhere ready for release.

Yeah, that's kinda my problem as well. Maybe 1e 40k as seen in OW and BC wasn't the perfect roleplaying game system (though for the needs of me and my group, I'd say it was **** close), but it had the great advantage of being regularly improved upon over half a decade.

Now, all that progress made in the past goes down the crapper, and we're left with new rules that may have some good ideas going on for them, but are in a very early, messy state that requires both us and the writers to go through the whole process again. That's... disheartening, especially seeing that I don't really share people's opinions on previous ruleset's flaws.

I like it. It's rough, and needs work, but I like it.

The 2e beta addresses all of what we see as the big weaknesses in the WFRP2e iterations. And mostly the spirit of the changes are what we've been wanting to see. But in practice, those of us who've bothered to buy in (we're not planning on testing it) are a little bit sceptical.

Hit Points have finally been kicked. To us, that's a big, big thing. A lot of people love HP, and there's nothing wrong with that. To me personally, HP is kind of like watching a movie where the boom's in frame or the camera guy's reflected in every mirror & window. To my co-nerds, it's just not 40K at all.

Only, instead of getting 2 different combat systems, one for skirmish combat and one for narrative combat, the skirmish mechanics have just been pounded into a really odd shape that's never light & fast enough for narrative combat, but looks suspiciously like it will often be too abstract to make for fun skirmish combat. And.. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't worried about an additional pile of table-consultation, but several people here claim that's not actually an issue.

Toughness, Armour & Damage have gotten a major overhaul, which is largely a massive nerf across the line. Again something we all very much approve of. But it seems to me that Toughness is still overpowered, and that Armour is still underpowered. And to be honest, I would have liked to dispense with random damage altogether. I was hoping to see attacks have a fixed, but modifiable, Strength value instead.

Psykers no longer potentially unleashing a Daemon Prince or whatever the Epic Fail of DH1e is, is a huge plus in our opinion. But personally I'm worried about the lack of minor powers. In DH1 they were greatly overpowered, but I worry that as more material is published, Psykers will end up with a complete set of even more overpowered "I invoke this and now I'm better at everyone's specialities than they are" powers. Which would suck.

Investigation, infiltration, intrigue, mission and mystery mechanics... Still aren't really present. DH1e has Corruption, Insanity and Mutation, all of which by RAW escalate at speeds I can't really see working for anything but one-shots.

Those mechanics are pretty much unchanged in the beta, though now Subtlety and Influence has been added as well. Don't get me wrong, I think both have been missing and am very pleased to see them. But they don't exactly provide the framework that might have finally turned DH into the kind of game it proclaims to be, and they're a little bit too abstract.

Not really a separate point, but on the purely GM-meta side of the agent'y things, why isn't there a framework for generating and running factions, friendly, neutral and hostile?

The Job system in DH1 is a mess of missed opportunity. Instead of enabling covert play and empowering players to slide in and out of jobs, careers and identities as circumstances dictate, it locked everyone into real identities that sooner or later were pretty much guaranteed to clash hard with campaign fiction.

Sadly the DH2e beta makes no attempt to rip the locks off the career & job system, or offer up a new mega-pile of more generally applicable options, and it certainly doesn't in any way pair all of that would-have-been-great stuff with identity and income mechanics. It just kicks the lot of it out the window. And hey, that really does solve the problem of the career and job system, and it really was a problem, at least to us. But man... It's like the worst possible way to solve the problem.

The Skill stuff though.. That I have nothing but boundless praise for. Thank you FFG. If we switch to DH2e, this will likely be the reason.

... I could go on, but I'll cease my ranting here. I know most of what I said is rather negative, but.. Most of what I've complained about is either better or no worse than DH1.

You'll find that the loudest people on forums rarely have positive things to say, but yeah there are people who like it. There's an entire topic of Positives of the new edition on here somewhere.

That and this is clearly a beta. Which means more complaints than normal, because there is the hope that the complaints can be fixed before release.

I like what FFG is trying to do with it. Most of the complaints are with minor details that can be easily fixed.

Well, i haven't played it for real yet (9 days to go!) but from a read through and running the character generation i'm very impressed.

As others have said its definitely in 'beta' and needs a lot of work on the refinements, but i think the basics are sound.

I can't quite put my finger on it but i found 1st Ed an unplayable mess really, but there's something about this second Ed that seems to tweak things enough to keep my attention.

OVerall so far, beta-flaws accepted, i really like what i'm seeing.

You'll find that the loudest people on forums rarely have positive things to say, but yeah there are people who like it. There's an entire topic of Positives of the new edition on here somewhere.

That and this is clearly a beta. Which means more complaints than normal, because there is the hope that the complaints can be fixed before release.

I like what FFG is trying to do with it. Most of the complaints are with minor details that can be easily fixed.

I can't have much of and opinion on the matter as I haven't played yet, but I have the same sentiment. Some of the changes look interesting and good and some look like they need some work. There's stuff in every 40k rpg that I like and I don't like, and I doubt they'll every make a perfect one.

I definitely see the majority of the changes made as a big improvement. There's a few issues in the minutae, but overall it's a solid system I look forward to running and playing.

Couldn't have said it better, really.

I'm not a fan, and will ge sticking to homebrew fixes.

I have heard many mixed reviews about the new version of Dark Heresy. Many of the Naysayers are expressing displeasure with the new rules which has made me sceptical. Is there anyone who really likes the new direction of the rules and would say it is an improvement over the old mechanic?

I think you have to understand that some of this is simply criticism of stuff they think/feel needs improvement. Just like with movies, I can nitpick Pacific Rim to death but I still love that **** movie.Same goes for Dark Heresy 2. There's alot I love in the rules, but the things that don't seem to work that well needs fixing and thus i'll voice my concern about. Doesn't mean I don't see alot of potential!

I'm not a fan, and will ge sticking to homebrew fixes.

This.

The wound system will never work for anyone who does not like consulting multiple tables every time a shot is fired, and as long as it's in game, combat drags.

You mean consulting one table, and only when the damage exceeds 10? Sounds like another system I know.

Well, its not just when the damage exceeds 10. It is also for every hit that does damage after more than 2 hits have been received, as every damaging hit after that will have a minimum of +10 on the table.

You mean consulting one table, and only when the damage exceeds 10? Sounds like another system I know.

And not needing to consult it for non-important NPCs, such as standard antagonists in a combat situation.

I'm not a fan.

Change in damage, change in some of the traits attributes, action points and the loss of money puts me off.

Change in physic powers, dodge and the vehicles I like.

I could probably make a 1.5 with the two that plays to my wills, but i'll be sticking with 1 for the near future