Hey this isn't exactly a rules question but I'm not sure where to post it so I'm just going to post it here.

A group of friends and I have been playing a game Dark Heresy for quite some time now but I'm starting to wonder after reading several posts around the forum if my character is overpowered. By this I mean both in stats and equipment, but mostly equipment as I can't help the fact that I rolled well for my stats. He is a rank 8 (just barely spent 10,000xp) Assassin who focuses mainly on sniping but is quite good in combat as well, he is pretty much a generic assassin good at sneaking, sniping ect with a pretty good melee damage output too, as I like him to be versatile in combat. He is a Feral Worlder from Dusk this give him a nice strength + toughness + perception boost + willpower. As with most Assassins in Dark Heresy he is very much only good at 1 role, killing.I don't mind this though as it suits my play style quite well ^.^

His Stats are as follows

Weapon Skill : 55 (upgraded 4 times) (I rolled 33)

Ballistic Skill : 60 (upgraded 4 times) (I rolled 38)

Strength : 45 (upgraded twice) (I rolled 30)

Toughness : 45 (upgraded twice) (I rolled 30)

Agility : 55 (upgraded 4 times) (I rolled 35)

Intelligence : 31 (I rolled 31)

Perception : 33 (I rolled 30)

Wilpower : 35 (I rolled 37)

Fellowship : 26 (I rolled 31)

You may be wondering how I have 60 for my ballistic skill and 55 for my weapon skill if I only rolled 38 and 33 for them.The answer is I didn't, when rolling for my divination I got the one that added +2 to my Weapon skill and ballistic skill.I am pretty sure the stat i rerolled was ballistic skill as I didn't roll that good for it and I was planning on sniping.

Now I personally think my stats are very good for my level and I have poured TONS of xp into them.

Now for my equipment this is what I have :

Armour : I have common quality synskin with a camo lining (same effects as wearing a camo cloak with synskin I just didn't want to go around with a cape so GM let me put it in as a lining.)

Total Value for armor: 2500 + 500 = 3,000

Weapons:

Ranged Weapons :

Nomad common quality (Basic weapon Damage 1d10+5 pen 3 s/-/- clip: 4 Rld: full Reliable and Accurate)

Upgrades fire selector and silencer total Value 2000 + 200 = 2,200

Sacristan Bolt Pistol good quality (Pistol Weapon Damage 1d10+6 pen 4 clip: 6 Rld full Reliable and Tearing)

Upgrades red dot sight total value 380 x 3 = 1,140 + 100 = 1,240

Total Value for ranged weapons : 2,200 + 1,240 = 3,440

Melee Weapon

Great Lathe weapon (a great weapon formed in the shape of a two handed katana with the lathe weapon upgrade, I like to think of it as a samurai sword)

(Melee damage 2d10+2 Pen 5 Unwieldly + 10 WS)

Total Value for Melee weapons 100 + 2500 = 2,600

Total Value for all weapons = 3,440 + 2,600 = 6,040

So in terms of gear I pretty much have a Sniper a backup pistol and a katana for a melee weapon. I like to use 3 different kinds of ammo in my nomad though because I like to be able to tailor my ammo for specific targets.Although I use basic bolt shells in my pistol.

Nomad Ammo type 1 : regular bullets but inside the tip is a strong poison give my shots the toxic quality (these rounds are intended for lightly armored targets)

Nomad Ammo type 2 : hyper density penatrator rounds these halve the weapons range but give it + 2 pen and the tearing quality (these rounds are intended for heavily armored targets)

Nomad Ammo type 3 : these are the exact same as ammo type 2 but they are blessed (these rounds are intended for Daemons.)

I have only recently obtained the exotic rounds via my inquisitor as my latest mission was on the extremely dangerous death world of Malfi and as a result we were each given some fancy equipment I chose the new rounds. I usually carry 2 mags of each type 1 of each 3 in the rifle and 1 of each three as spare.

Ammo type 1 costs 10 per round 10 x 4 = 40 per mag 2 mags = 80.

Ammo type 2 costs 100 per round 100 x 4 = 400 per mag 2 mags = 800

Ammo Type 3 costs 100 per round 100 x 4 = 400 per mag 2 mags = 800 (they also have to be blessed by a priest)

Total Value for ammo = 80 + 800 + 800 = 1,680

Total Value for ALL equipment = 3,000 + 3,440 + 2,600 + 1,680 = 10,720

So what do you think? is my character overpowered or not? Btw once I reach ascended rank I plan on becoming a Vindicare Assassin.

Please reply as soon as you can.

The only thing that strikes me as not so much overpowered as just an attempt at powergaming is the 2h weapon, but that's my personal preference against assassins using those. There is a 2h katana in IH, by the way - it's called Longsabre and has a much more appropriate statblock (Great Weapon is for things like giant axes, zweihanders, that kind of stuff).

More importantly: for the love of God-Emperor, don't use Vindicare as written! He's not overpowered, he's downright broken, to the point where the only thing in the game capable of killing him is the even more broken Primaris Psyker, and even then only through a rather silly loophole. Well, that, or a whole army firing at you simultaneously.

Stats - no problems. It's up to you how to spend XP.

Armor - it would be more honest to use the "Cameleoline upgrade " from Radical's Handbook (p.154), but the only difference is the cost (1,000 instead of 500).

Weapons.

Nomad - ok. But how do you PC get h-d penetrators? They are Rare even on the Lathe Worlds, it should be a separate quest itself. Blessed h-d penetrators - ok, you PC have Priest friend, but sanctification of each reload will cost additional 500 and require (-30) test from the Priest (look at Blood of Martyrs, p.126 ).

Great Lathe Weapon (Very Rare, btw). Two-handed-only katana called "No-Dachi" ("two-handed sword for the field") and is a very unusual weapon. I suppose that Armourers of the Lathes need more motivation than just money to forge that. ..

Thanks for the comments also if the vindicare assassin is so broken what will I use for my ascended character? I'm a sniper so a death cult assassin is out of the question also about the hyper density penatrator rounds I received those because during our briefing before our extremely dangerous mission to the world of malfi we were each given some sort of item of our choice and I picked some hyper density penatrator rounds and we could get 20 of our bullets blessed but I instead had 8 of mine blessed because they were so good. In regards to the sword same reason as for the bullets there are four of us 2 guardsmen 1 arbitrator and me the assassin the 3 of them each got power armor! So my GM allowed me to get the special rounds and the great lathe blade but if the great lathe blade is too powerhouse what could I use instead that is still effective enough not to suck Please reply as soon as you can and thank you for the comments

I apolagise for asking for a different weapon after looking into the long sabre I found that it is much more appropriate and realistic the only problem being even with the lathe blade upgrade it has 1 less damage and pen than a power sword although it does get the + 10 WS bonus do you think it would be ridiculous if I got one of these with the lathe blade upgrade? stats would be (Damage: 1D10 + 4 pen 5 Balanced)

Well, if your job is so hard that your Inquisitor gives you the power armor ... Then, no questions asked.

I personally think that him giving the other 3 power armor is a bit ridiculous but I'm sure he will realise that once they take about 1000 bolt gun shots to the face and not give a ****. But do you think the lathe forged long sabre is reasonable or a bit far fetched also thanks for the quick reply ^.^

If I were the GM (well I wouldn't have allowed half this stuff anyway, but let's roll with it) I would not allow both a great weapon and a huge honking rifle, since you have nowhere to carry both of them.

Fair enough if you think that's ridiculous but considering the previous comments I have now decided to use a Lathe Forged Long Sabre while it does require 2 hands to use it only weighs 3kg. Also for the record I don't think it's ridiculous to have a great weapon and a big sniper rifle at the same time, you could have back mounted holsters and put both of them across your back in a sort of X shape. Thanks for the comments anyways I'm quite surprised at how quickly I'm getting responses.

But do you think the lathe forged long sabre is reasonable

If I was your GM - you would have a separate adventure , in which you would get a sword. Or you would have enmity of the Divine Light of Sollex, or Myrmidons, or Magister Samadhi Assassins... Depending on your behavior - t his is a role-playing game after all. But I'm not your GM...

I apolagise for asking for a different weapon after looking into the long sabre I found that it is much more appropriate and realistic the only problem being even with the lathe blade upgrade it has 1 less damage and pen than a power sword although it does get the + 10 WS bonus do you think it would be ridiculous if I got one of these with the lathe blade upgrade? stats would be (Damage: 1D10 + 4 pen 5 Balanced)

That's perfectly reasonable in my book.

As for the Vindicare, the really big problem is his Temple Assassin trait, which gives him Agility Bonus in extra Dodge Reactions. Coupled with Unnatural Agility and Dodge Skill through the roof, this lets you easily ignore more attacks per round than most GMs I know would care to adjudicate.

My idea for fixing that, which I didn't have the opportunity to test, is to instead give the Vindicare an inherent field save with no chance of overload to represent his preternatural reflexes. I'd either set it at flat 50 protection rating or, say, Agility -20. This way, you'd still be super dodgy, but with a palpable chance of screwing up. Also, it removes the theoretical possibility of stacking a field save on top of those extra dodges for full-on immortality. Again, I haven't tested it, but I did run many characters with field saves throughout other systems, and I find them quite manageable - powerful, no doubt, but not gamebreakingly so.

On the other side of things, another problem with Vindicare is that his Exitus weapons kinda suck. It may not seem that way at first glance, but without special ammo, and unless you're shooting guys in power armor, the average damage output of Exitus Rifle will just barely exceed that of the Nomad, and with less effective range at that! It's not a bad rifle per se, but hardly seems as that absolute apex of sniper rifle craftsmanship it's supposed to be. Had I my druthers, I'd change the damage to something like d10+12 and up the range to at least 300m, 500m being preferable.

Well I agree with what you are saying about the ridiculous ability to dodge so many attacks but again like you I haven't tested this, I was thinking that considering I have step aside I would get 2 dodges then every dodge after that would receive a -10 penalty that stacks for example when I ascend I will gain 5 agility making my agility 60 so the first two dodges would be a challenging (0+) test, then the third would be (-10) the fourth would be (-20) and so on. As for the exitus rifle I believe it does (Damage 2d10+2) combine this with accurate trait and the mighty shot talent it would end up being (4d10+4) that is if I get 4 degrees of success to hit for an average total of 26 damage with a very high pen. Now that it isn't too shabby considering the Nomad has an average damage of 23.5 with both accurate and mighty shot but its pen is only 3. Combined with the fact that the exitus rifle has god rounds I think it will have no problem dispatching most foes Although maybe I'm wrong you are probably more experienced than me.

As always thank you everyone for the swift replys

Average 26 damage is kinda "meh" against the kind of opposition Vindicare is supposed to deal with. I generally detest weapons which have lots of dice but weak base damage, it creates rather unsatisfying situations when a well-placed shot from a theoretically powerful sniper rifle barely deals damage at all.

For comparison's sake, the Deathwatch Stalker Bolter after errata has the following stats: d10+9 Tearing, Accurate Pen 4, 200m range. With master craftsmanship, it goes to d10+11 (craftsmanship works differently in DW), and with readily available special ammo, it ups the range to 300m and the Pen to 8. Note, post-errata bolter stats from DW are in line with Grey Knights bolters from Daemon Hunter, so this is the kind of damage Astartes sniper is supposed to deal in DH as well. Vindicare is supposed to be head and shoulders above Astartes in this regard. What I'm proposing is still on the conservative side, and easily within the system's capabilities to handle.

Well what I can't 1 hit with regular rounds I can 1 hit with the special ones I'm just trying to think of an opponent who isn't special or tough enough for me to use a special round but still tough enough to survive a regular round.

What I'm pretty much asking is if the exitus rifle's damage is under powered give me an example of when it would be like certain enemies that shrug it off that shouldn't because I can't think of any.

Well, that average shot we've talked about (26 damage, Pen 9) will not take out any enemy in the Ascension's antagonists chapter. At best, it can send them few points into crits. That includes some targets on which you probably want to use special ammo (greater daemons, horrifying xenos overlords or blasphemous hereteks augmented through the roof), but it also includes a completely human secessionist governor, a mad psyker and an Eldar Exarch. If you need either special ammo or an above average luck on your shot to one-hit a normal unarmored human, I'd say there's something wrong with the rifle that's supposed to be the be-all, end-all of long distance death dealing.

For the mad psyker and eldar exarch I would probably use special ammo as for the governor I'm fairly sure I could one hit him with regular ammo. Also as a side note can an exitus rifle use some form of hyper penatrator ammo and I don't mean turbo penatrator rounds I mean rounds that give it tearing but aren't ridiculously difficult to aquire.

For the mad psyker and eldar exarch I would probably use special ammo

For the psyker, use of Shieldbreakers makes the most sense. While it negates some defenses she can muster, it won't help much with the damage output.

Using special ammo for a Dire Avenger Exarch (a figure roughly equivalent in importance to a Space Marine sergeant) seems rather wasteful.

as for the governor I'm fairly sure I could one hit him with regular ammo.

You could, but you're far from guaranteed to pull it off.

Think about it for a moment. The best sniper Imperium can train, using the best sniper rifle hand-crafted by the most skilled artisans of Mars, versus a regular, unarmored human - a battle-hardened veteran, but still just a mortal - and you still need exceptional luck to one-hit him!

Also as a side note can an exitus rifle use some form of hyper penatrator ammo and I don't mean turbo penatrator rounds I mean rounds that give it tearing but aren't ridiculously difficult to aquire.

Exitus weapons only work with the special ammo listed in Ascension. The availability of those bullets is per one round, not the whole magazine, by the way, so have fun requisitioning enough special ammo. (Yeah, Ascension is a stupid book overall.)

Well if the exitus rifle is ridiculously unlikely to 1 hit an unarmored human then a good solution other than increasing the damage is a special rule I found on a pdf it goes like this:

Well if the exitus rifle is ridiculously unlikely to 1 hit an unarmored human then a good solution other than increasing the damage is a special rule I found on a pdf it goes like this:

One shot one kill

Prerequisites: Sharpshooter

You are trained to eliminate targets with a single shot. If you make a called shot for the Head of your

target, all damage that gets past Toughness is doubled. This Talent has no effect on objects, Daemons,

creatures with no head (such as Chaos Spawn), or anything with the Machine trait.

This won't help much if you just roll poorly, as Exitus Rifle is prone to do. Note that my proposed change doesn't actually improve the weapon's top performance, but protects it from just that - shots so weak they only deal a few points of damage.

But I'm not sure my GM would allow me to bump up the damage.... anyways if I find the exitus rifle not working out I will just show him this and hopefully that will change his mind ^.^ Thanks you Morangias for your reply's

Proven (5)

But I'm not sure my GM would allow me to bump up the damage.... anyways if I find the exitus rifle not working out I will just show him this and hopefully that will change his mind ^.^ Thanks you Morangias for your reply's

Don't get me wrong, it's not like it's a weak weapon per se, just... not what I'd expect of a 2m-long futuristic Barrett fielded by Imperium's Men in Black.

There was this one time my girlfriend and I played in a Deathwatch game, and my girlfriend made a Raven Guard sniper. The GM is a total bro who loves handing out cool stuff to people, so he gave her character a custom-made sniper rifle with the stats of the Exitus as part of her backstory. She was pretty excited about it, until in play it became apparent she can't really keep up with the team when shooting the thing and seriously considered giving up on sniping in favor of more... proven solutions. I asked the GM to retcon her rifle into best craftsmanship Stalker Bolter, which he did, and advised my GF to stock up on specialist ammo. The effect was, she started kicking all kinds of butt like there's no tomorrow. This was when I reached the conclusion that if I ever need to run an Exitus Rifle in any of my games, it's going to be significantly buffed to preserve it's status as the best darn sniper rifle in existence.

Proven (5)

Also an acceptable solution. I'm still in favor of cutting down on the amount of dice thrown whenever possible.

From the sounds of things proven (5) seems like a good solution I'm fairly sure I've gotten my answers.Thanks for the replys

if I have any more questions I will be sure to post them.

dude your character sucks that aribtrator sounds way better