I have had 2 negative impressions when taking first glance at the talent section:

1. The root of the talent tree is composed of 1 talent... that's a bit boring. Seriously, character generation is the first impression of a new game... give the players a bit variety at the start of a tree. At least 2 root talents per tree, plus a special rule that you can buy the other root node(s) anytime. Yes, I know book space considerations but... it's doable.

2. The more physical talents (melee!) were a bit disappointing because they are too familiar for DH1 players. Yes, there's new mechanics at times but... I was hoping for more new and flashy maneuvers... :/ Nothing over-powered but... more new.

That's my general impression, it seems not bad but a bit... bland. Might be the lack of illustrations. More specific issues later.

Anyone else?

Alex

Alright. Finally had a chance to look through all the talents again.

I like the talent trees. I would've preferred a slightly different system (have the categories that we have now, and then have tiers instead of the trees; to buy from tier 2 you must have purchased X talents from tier 1, etc.), but I appreciate that this would be a big change, and that the trees are more aesthetically pleasing, which isn't unimportant.

It's definitely better than the BC/OW pool of talents, which were incredibly confusing for new players.

I'll generally only list talents that I think are problematic, unless I feel that specific talents need to be called out as being great additions. If a talent isn't mentioned, my opinion is that it's fine as-is.

Some of these have been mentioned elsewhere, some haven't.

• Can Deflect Shot reduce damage from grenades? It seems weird, but that seems to be the case as written.
• Nimble is broken. Agility is already too good - don't replace Toughness. At least weaken it somewhat, like "if you fail an Evade(A) test, you may replace Toughness with Agility for the sake of damage reduction", so the character at least has to spend the AP to dodge. This would also solve problems like being able to use Nimble while stunned or unconscious.

• Keen Intuition is ridiculous as-written. Perhaps make it a single re-roll with no penalty?
• Contact Network seems very powerful at first glance. Hard to get a real good feel for it, since Influence is hard to estimate at given experience levels...
• Does Thunder Charge add damage to the charge based on movement? It's not that clear in its description.

• Cold Hearted is a really annoying talent. Immunities are never fun. Give them some resistance, but don't make them completely immune.
• Warp Sense makes Psyniscience available to non-Psykers? Weird.
• Bastion of Iron Will and Strong Minded should swap places. Then you'd have the right path for psykers and the left path for everyone else.

• Quick Draw should maybe have a limit? Since holstering a weapon is now also a Ready action, you can get into some pretty crazy scenarios with free actions. I'd limit this to one free ready action per turn.
• Does Preternatural Speed add to charge damage? How does this relate to Thunder Charge? This one seems weak. Maybe it should add 1 to Ab for all Movement actions (including charge)?

• Rapid Reload is somewhat less impressive with the AP system. You want this for the weapons with long reload times, but reducing the reload time of a Sniper Rifle from 6 AP to 5 AP isn't much help. Would halving the AP be too powerful?

• I generally find the idea of social skills affecting a limited number of characters really awkward in play. This makes the entire first two rows of talents really weird for me. I like the idea of a social tree, but I wish these could be replaced.
• Loving the rest of the tree - especially Radiant Presence and Into the Jaws of Hell. Wish there were more "aura" effects like these.

• Technical Knock has taken a dive. If you have time for retries, you usually also have time for extensive retries. This is an annoying tax to pay to get started on the tree.
• Not really a talent issue, but related to Mechadendrite Use: It doesn't seem like the mechadendrite types are specified anywhere. Is a Manipulator mechadendrite a utility or a weapon? If it's utility (as would be my guess), then Ballistic is the only weapon mechadendrite in the book? That makes it hard to justify taking the talent to use it.
• I love Armour Monger and Weapon Tech. This is exactly what I would want a tech character to do.

• I think Blade Dancer and Gunslinger could be combined to a single talent. Less bloat. I also think that dual-wielding is too powerful, but that's a separate discussion.

I'll try and find the time to go over Elite Advances later.

I believe Mechadendrite Use (Weapon) would also cover using the manipulator mechadendrite as a weapon (it counts as a warhammer) so there's that.

As for Warp Sense, Psyniscience is avaliable to non psykers, they just can't raise it beyond -10, which I think is fairly reasonable.

Good topic. I'll throw some thoughts out there.

I have had 2 negative impressions when taking first glance at the talent section:

1. The root of the talent tree is composed of 1 talent... that's a bit boring. Seriously, character generation is the first impression of a new game... give the players a bit variety at the start of a tree. At least 2 root talents per tree, plus a special rule that you can buy the other root node(s) anytime. Yes, I know book space considerations but... it's doable.

I've thought the exact same thing regarding all characters having to take the same starting talent if they're interesting in buying anything on that talent tree. Agree it'd be an improvement to have multiple starting points for the sake of limiting PC sameness in a Cell.

2. The more physical talents (melee!) were a bit disappointing because they are too familiar for DH1 players. Yes, there's new mechanics at times but... I was hoping for more new and flashy maneuvers... :/ Nothing over-powered but... more new.

Only thing is, we've all seen plenty of complaints in this forum about, "How could you take out <whatever>." I think if they didn't have a lot of those melee talents there'd be the opposite complaint. Just a thought.

Defence:

• Can Deflect Shot reduce damage from grenades? It seems weird, but that seems to be the case as written.

Looking at the specific sections on page 98 "Deflect Shot": " ...when being hit by thrown weapons or ranged weapons with the Low-Tech quality ." I would suggest it's clear from the context and its qualifier of 'primitive weapons' in the descriptive section that the qualifier of 'Low-Tech quality' applies to all attacks that Deflect Shot works against. That would be weird!

Investigation:

• Keen Intuition is ridiculous as-written. Perhaps make it a single re-roll with no penalty?

Yup, seems ridiculous. Gives a PC 2-5 consecutive attempts at success depending on whether the Characteristic Bonus in question is 2-5. "Each new attempt" almost seems like a sustained typo or something.

Investigation:

• Does Thunder Charge add damage to the charge based on movement? It's not that clear in its description.

I like your question, though I hadn't questioned that it does add damage. I took it as an upgraded Charge Action, so since a Charge Action does damage so would an upgraded Charge Action, since that's really the point of it.

Mental Fortitude:

• Warp Sense makes Psyniscience available to non-Psykers? Weird.

No, actually Psyniscience is a Skill and therefore every PC already has it at Rank 1. Warp Sense Talent simply reduces the Action Points to use the Skill in Structured Time to zero (Free Action).

I hear you that it seems a little weird, but it's growing on me. Non-psykers can never increase their Psyniscience Skill above Rank 1. So a non-psyker but universe-savvy Acolyte can at times - when they think to check for it - feel the hair on the back of their neck go up or to smell the unnatural stench of the warp...and that's about it. I'm thinking substantial negative modifiers and/or obstacles (greater DoS) for non-psykers to determine much more than that. I don't anticipate allowing the Warp Positioning function of the Psyniscience Skill to non-psykers...maybe with a big DoS they can determine which direction the stench is coming from - if the stench is super strong....etc.

Mobility:

• Quick Draw should maybe have a limit? Since holstering a weapon is now also a Ready action, you can get into some pretty crazy scenarios with free actions. I'd limit this to one free ready action per turn.

You make a good point here. I was under the erroneous impression that Quick Draw made the Ready Action a "Free Action", which would informally take care of this - Free Actions on page 197 " There is no formal limit to the number of free action one character can take in one turn. However, the GM should use common sense to set reasonable limits on what can be done in the five seconds of each round. " FFG should either formally limit it to a # of Quick Draws per Turn, as you suggest, or make it a Free Action thereby officially leaving it up to the GM. (Obviously, per Rule Zero pg 12 the GM can limit it anyway but it's always nice for that talent's rule to be there for you.)

• Does Preternatural Speed add to charge damage? How does this relate to Thunder Charge? This one seems weak. Maybe it should add 1 to Ab for all Movement actions (including charge)?

Another good point. Gosh, I would hope this 600xp talent with its one meter increase would also add 1 point of damage! Only thing about your suggestion is you're bumping into the Sprint talent (pg 108) immediately below Preternatural Speed. I suspect that the main import of Preternatural Speed will be that you have to take it to obtain Sprint, which is a legit 600xp talent.

Technology:

• Technical Knock has taken a dive. If you have time for retries, you usually also have time for extensive retries. This is an annoying tax to pay to get started on the tree.

You're on a roll. I suspect it would be pretty rare for a PC to attempt the Commune or Repair function of Tech-Use in Structured Time. The only reason you spend 200xp for this talent is to get access to the rest of the Technology talents, just as you say.

All preceding thoughts are one man's opinion!

Cheers

Regarding psyniscience, I'm absolutely sure I've seen a case or two of well trained, mundane Inquisitors essentially using Psyniscience in Black Library stuff. Maybe in the Eisenhorn books? I don't remember the specifics, unfortunately. The Warp as an observable science makes sense, plus every human is warp sensitive to a minor extent (excepting blanks, naturally).

Had a little time to look at Elite Advances. Still haven't looked through Psychic Powers - but I guess they aren't counted as Talents anyway.

Note that for all of these (and my last post), that while I appreciate answers to my questions, the point isn't to clear up the issues for me - it's to make sure it's clearly written in the book. Ideally, readers of the final version shouldn't have to come here to get answers.

I'm going to ignore the fluffy problems with Untouchables - those have been discussed elsewhere. Mechanically speaking I actually prefer that they're not immune, though I'm at odds with how it works with the fluff. Immunity is never fun in a game, so I think I'm okay with it.

Anyway:

Inquisitor:

• Inspired Intuition is a very vague, hand-wavey sort of talent that's completely left up to the GM. It's also incredibly similar to Flash of Insight. I'm really not a fan of this type of talent. I think I'd completely replace it with something like "Inquisitorial Authority: +20 Influence bonus when dealing with law-abiding institutions." to further evoke the feel of being an Inquisitor (yes, Inquisitors already have high Influence, but I'd want them to stand apart from other PCs who also have high Influence at this point).

• Soulless is fluffy, but it's not a talent. If it doesn't have an effect, there's no point in it being there. Why not make it a permanent Fellowship penalty towards everyone except other Untouchables?
• Warp Disruption/Bane/Anathema: I like these, but they do seem a little underwhelming. Shouldn't the PR penalty scale somehow? -1/-2 PR is okay at low levels, but it will quickly be very unimpressive. I'd prefer if the range was static (5 meters?) but have the PR penalty equal WPb. I always liked the idea that Eisenhorn was huddling up real close to Bequin to get her protection.
• Psychic Null, similarly, seems a little on the weak side. Perhaps it's just because the name (Null) evokes something different. Again, I'd rather have the bonus scale (maybe 5xWPb?) but have the range static (as above).

I think the mechandrites in general will benefit more once the full book is out maybe. Right now there seems to be too much dividing between them. First it splits the skill up 2/3/0 between weapon and utility (assuming the manipulator counts as a weapon, and the reference it makes to an Exotic one?). But then the actual Ballistic arm is a bit...meh. I think more of a range of actual weapon arms would help (flamer, melta, chainsaw maybe?).

Inquisitor:

• Inspired Intuition is a very vague, hand-wavey sort of talent that's completely left up to the GM. It's also incredibly similar to Flash of Insight. I'm really not a fan of this type of talent. I think I'd completely replace it with something like "Inquisitorial Authority: +20 Influence bonus when dealing with law-abiding institutions." to further evoke the feel of being an Inquisitor (yes, Inquisitors already have high Influence, but I'd want them to stand apart from other PCs who also have high Influence at this point).

What if the talent allowed an Inquisitor to "push" his influence, adding +20 to Influence but at an additional cost of Subtlety, as they show their hand?

Also, on the topic of Inquisitor talents, does Jack/Master of all Trades increase Psyniscience for non-psyker Inquisitors?