Heya,

So I'm curious. Currently I only have the Core Rulebook. I'm thinking of getting Into the Storm and Navis Primer for extra information on Navigation/Navigators in general.

Navigation in general is a pretty tough thing to do. Lots of rolls. Lots of steps. And not a lot of skills it seems to aid a Navigator to really do it, without being really specialized to it, which means not very great at anything else often. So, just looking for tips or information on things maybe I'm missing to help see combinations of effects or maybe things in the other books I just don't know about yet even.

Currently it seems that Navigation is heavily based on Intelligence & Perception. Talented Navigation (Warp) +10 seems to be the best you can get in terms of the skill. Does the Awareness +10, or +20 help modify the Awareness test? Combine with the Ordinary (+10) difficultly?

Any way to make leaving the Warp a less difficult roll, other than raising the hard-stat of Perception?

Thanks!

Very best,

There are items and ship components that make it easy. With Navigation +20, Talented and Foresight, you'll have a +40 bonus to int-based navigation tests. With a Warpsbane Hull, that's +60 to everything. You may want Talented (Awareness) if your perception is unusually crap.

By RAW, an implanted Auspex will allow you to re-roll any Perception-based test, including the Per-tests involved in navigation. I wouldn't count on it being allowed.

Personally, I think navigation is far too convoluted and it takes forever. You shouldn't need to spend an hour rolling dice to determine a couple of minor effects, most of which are nothing more than flavour text anyway.

Heya,

Hrm. I'm not seeing Navigation +20 in any of the 8 ranks. Foresight, I see, thanks for pointing that out, makes sense. I also do not see Talented (Awareness) in the 8 ranks. Are these available via some other book I imagine and beyond rank 8?

Yea, I'll avoid the Auspex, doesn't make much sense from a story point of view that it would help at all when trying to find a signal in the Warp.

Best I can find seems to be:

Duration: Navigation (Warp) test. Ranks and Talented bonuses apply here.

Astronomican: Ordinary (+10) Awareness Test (apply any bonus from ranks/talents to Awareness).

Charting: Ordinary (+10) Perception. No modifiers or bonuses, unless something exists that helps Perception rolls.

Steering: Navigation (Warp) test. Degrees of success from Astronomican, and Ranks/Talents bonuses apply here.

Leaving Warp: Hard (-20) Perception. No modifiers or bonuses, unless something helps Perception rolls.

That's just the core book though. Maybe there's more options and stuff in the other books?

Things that I see helping through the ranks:

Awareness +20. I don't see Talented Awareness (unless this comes from something?)

Navigation (Warp) +10. I don't see a +20 version in later ranks. Talented version is available though. Odd.

Foresight (for intelligence tests). This affects the Navigation (Warp) skill.

Almanac Astrae Divinitus. +10 Navigation tests.

So basically, Navigation tests can be pushed to +40 via Foresight, Almanac, Talented, & +10.

Awareness tests can be pushed to +30 via Ordinary and Skill +20.

Perception tests can be only be pushed to +10, and -20, via Ordinary/Hard.

Thoughts?

Very best,

You'd have to get Talented (Awareness) through your origin path. You can also get a +10 to navigation from Warpsbane Hull and +20 from Runecaster.

I guess you might be able to swing Heightened Senses (Sight) as affecting warp tests, but it's questionable. You could, however, have your Rogue Trader screaming in your ear through the entire process for a +10 to each test - if he enjoys being alive, he can take a couple of hours off from snorting cocaine off diamond-studded hookers and help out.

Heya,

Gotcha.

Too late for origin path changes at this point at least for this go around. Was mostly just thinking of the future, as the ranks advance and I have more options.

Not looking to max it out, really. Just realistic and obtainable ways to do it comfortably, without completely making the character into nothing more than a Navigator, since he has other advances that he uses for other functions too of course.

Very best,

Heya,

So new question... since most of the tests are not that difficult unless the GM specifically wants it to be super hard (and the Navi can't know that anyways until he rolls):

The Leaving the Warp tests is the hardest one, and has no skill or talent associated with it. It's just a hard stat test with a Hard modifier.

So the question is, is there a skill/talent/object/etc that exists in the other books (expansions) that perhaps makes the Leaving the Warp test a little easier? With Perception 60, I'm rolling against a 40 after the -20 modifier. Ouch! Even with 100 Perception (pffft), it's still a 60 for the roll. Pretty sketchy odds to come out of the Warp and not be in a moon or something, or in a star, or the wrong year, etc, considering the other rolls are so much easier.

Very best,

A nice combination of the Nomadic House package from the core book with the Navis Scion Alt Career rank from Into the Storm, a book I GREATLY recommend getting, would get you some nice access to skills, AND keep the good access to Nav (Warp), something that use of Navis Sion sort of cut you off of. My fanfic Navigator is this build, and she is very nice in skills, as well as among the best Navigators, ability-wise, that the character can get at Rank 3. Round it out with some ship upgrades, if you feel you need them, and you're set.

Heya,

Thanks, I'll try and see if I can find a decent used copy of Into the Storm and Navis Primer. I wanted to read them anyways. Just trying to find out if there's mechanics that are useful to me now before just buying it as it may or may not be useful in my current campaign.

I guess my biggest concern is leaving the Warp, as it just seems so difficult to get out of the Warp without it being a botched roll. At that point it's up to the GM to make it an ok thing, versus being a horrible thing and ruining the entire campaign as we kill our explorers by leaving the Warp in a bad place and ending up inside a moon and dead. Granted, my GM would probably just make it suck but not kill us to round it out and continue playing, but still. It's just the thought. I would think a seasoned Navigator at higher ranks would be a very good Navigator and be relatively reliable at getting in and getting out of the Warp without it being a crap shoot due to the Hard (-20) test to Leave the Warp versus a hard stat with no skill/talent associated.

Very best,

Leaving The Warp tests are more a reason for using a 'classic' flight profile, though. A 'normal' ship will jump in or out at the Mandeville Point - this has come up in quite a lot of 40k Novels (Priests Of Mars, Horus Heresy, Pandorax, etc) featuring space travel and is essentially a safe* distance above a star or planet for warp emergence, even if it results in several days toddling in-system under plasma drive.

If aiming to come out at the Mandeville Point or further out, a bad roll might see you off target, but that'll only put you elsewhere in free space; it might add or subtract a day or two from your journey in-system, but that's no big deal.

You can try and jump in far closer, but that's when there's the risk of things going horribly wrong and you need to be very good at your job. In Pandorax, for example, Azrael brings the entire Dark Angels battlefleet out of a tight warp jump in a planetary orbit beneath where a battle is going on, giving the chaos fleet just enough time to go "What the F..." before they all start exploding, but one assumes that the Supreme Grand Master's flagship is going to have a rather better navigator than any Rogue Trader can count on. Nevertheless, if you absolutely have to, you could risk dropping out of the warp really close to a target, but - at least by 40k background - it is and should remain a Bad Idea. Normally far better to re-enter real space way out in the fringes and come in on silent running.

* In so far as anything relating to warp travel can be considered "safe"

I want to point out that some Navigation tests have been changed in Errata, as I quick read through this post I'm not sure anyone pointed these out.

Heya,

Wow, thanks, that errata makes a HUGE difference. Navigation (Warp) can be +10 to +20 and Talented, so a -20 for the Hard difficulty can be made much much easier and less disastrous.

Thanks! That actually clears up everything because it's a skill base test which can be modified greatly.

Very best,