I'm starting a new Rogue Trader campaign for the first time and I was just wondering, when new characters get their free item acquisition at +0 modifications do they count Scale when doing so?

A player is just wondering if he can start with a Good Craftsmanship Heavy Bolter (Very Rare (-20), Good Craftsmanship (-10), for One Person (+30)).

Yes, otherwise there'd be very little that they'd be able to get.

Some GMs agree even on taking multiple items that way. I.e. 5 common quality heavy bolters.

The only place I wouldn't allow this is bionics, and only that in the case of multiple purchases (no +30 for one cranial implant, sorry).

My Rogue Trader also used it to get 1,000 (Major -10) acquisition of Meritech Assault Las-guns (Average +10) so that he could get house troops from the getgo.

I'm starting a new Rogue Trader campaign for the first time and I was just wondering, when new characters get their free item acquisition at +0 modifications do they count Scale when doing so?

Certainly! How else would people start with power armours and the like?

A player is just wondering if he can start with a Good Craftsmanship Heavy Bolter (Very Rare (-20), Good Craftsmanship (-10), for One Person (+30)).

I don't see a problem. Mind you, unless he has Bulging Biceps, he still needs to brace it.

Some GMs agree even on taking multiple items that way. I.e. 5 common quality heavy bolters.

That would be me (and presumably others).

Just remember that ship components do not take modifiers from scale, they are always bought as 'just one' and the modifier is already included.

Ok. Wasn't sure if that would be overpowered. Like I said never ran a game before, Heavy Bolter looked a touch powerful for a beginning character.

I don't see a problem. Mind you, unless he has Bulging Biceps, he still needs to brace it.

He also took Judged and Found Wanting and chose Common Blackbone Bracing as his starting bionic.

Ok. Wasn't sure if that would be overpowered. Like I said never ran a game before, Heavy Bolter looked a touch powerful for a beginning character.

It kinda is, but that's one of the things to learn about RT (as I play it anyway). Characters will be insanely well armed. I mean, senechals start out with an inferno pistol!

I recall an RT who collected digi-meltas. He had more than he had fingers, but refused to loan them out because they were his collection.

A heavy bolter helps you in exactly one type of situation. Combat. Against medium-heavy infantry and possibly light vehicles.

Against lighter targets, it's overkill. Against heavier, it's irrelevant. In investigation or social situations? Irrelevant. Ship-to-ship combat? Irrelevant. I personally consider Lumen Heraldry far more powerful, but that may just be how my games tend to be run.

I don't see a problem. Mind you, unless he has Bulging Biceps, he still needs to brace it.

He also took Judged and Found Wanting and chose Common Blackbone Bracing as his starting bionic.

Ah, atleast he hadn't missed that trick.

Mind you, that's cost him an arm and a leg in my campaign. Arm or a leg anyway.

Some GMs agree even on taking multiple items that way. I.e. 5 common quality heavy bolters.

Some even allow non-items. I've had players buy ship components, vehicles and retainers with theirs.

That said, I'm famously stingy with acquisitions otherwise.

It would be impressive if they could buy a ship component given that there's a flat penalty for component types, and you can't apply scale modifiers to them.

By RAW, you're right of course. In those cases, we only counted the modifiers from BFK, and not from the core book.

It would be impressive if they could buy a ship component given that there's a flat penalty for component types, and you can't apply scale modifiers to them.

IIRC, and as mentioned I might well be wrong.

Supplemental components that cost 1 SP are aquired at +0 (Table 8-8 on p. 207 in the core book, table 1-6 p. 19 of BFK). Now to table 9-36 )p. 274 of the core book) which further penalizes aquisitions of some types of components. We will find that macrobatteries aren't avaialble (-30 War) but Structure components, which is the default category and explicitly mentions observatories and holds are penalized at ... +0.

Now, scarce, scale irrelevant, +0. That's still +0 unless my math is very far off.

Now, what was the limit for starting aquisitions again?

Obviously you can't aquire just any component like that, but certain nice little bits are within range.

not to mention that ship upgrades are acquired like normal acquisitions if I remember right. Also they game I am running now I let the players trade in the starting acquisition roll to receive +1 SP that would not be refunded into PF if not used. I figured this representing them bring personal resources to help the ship before the campaign began... that and they managed to start at 28 SPs so they needed a little help