OK over the Easter Brake (long Weekend and Uni Holidays) I plan to run A test game of DH as I wait for my FLGS to get in a new shipment of DH stuff (I only have the Core Book), should I start with "Shattered Hope" or "Edege of Darkness" . Or are both Adventuers too tied to the Example Characters included with them?

The Characters I have so far are A Hive World Arbitrator with Ok stats, She has bean alowed to trade around her Equipment (but nothing has bean free) a bit and has a Cbt Shotgun, opted for a Mesh Vest and also has Gang Leathers.

A Imp World Assassin of Noble Blood with Good stats espechily WS, she has abandoned any Ranged Weapons (Except for some Throwing Knives) and uses a Mono Sword, also clad in Mesh Vest and "Gang Leathers".

An other character being madeup at the moment is a War World Guardsmen with Good BS and OK other stats, who's going to go for a LAZ Gun with a good supply of Overcharge Packs and other usefull Tech at the expence of the Shotty.

other posible characters are a Warp Born Navagator and a Adept or Tech Preist.

Will this Roaster work for those adventuers or will their be problems?

The example characters have no connection to the adventures, so you can easily replace them with your PC's characters. Shattered Hopes doesnt take much time (I played it in 3 hours) but its a very linnear dungeon crawl. The far better and more interesting adventure is Edge of Darkness, which I strongly recommend.

Edge od Darkness is an excellent introductory adventure which highlights a dark brooding investigative style. Shattered Hope is a pretty uninspiring dunegon crawl which is mainly focused on introducing the DH rules and combat system.

Drop Bear said:

Is your assassin mortriat? if not i'd recommend it.

Turpin said:

Don't know the term, ATM where just working out of the Core Book, Realy need to get the Inquisitors Handbook, not just for this but for the main game we have planed.

"Shattered Hope" and "Edge of Darkness" are both good for what I have planed, so what one should I do first?

Personally, i would go with Edge first (and toss Shattered unless you find something about it that you just really like).

Edge of Darkness is a much better representation of what the default setting of Dark Heresy is all about and what players can expect in a default game of Dark Heresy. It is much more engaging, pulling the players into the story and forcing them to take the wheel as opposed to just taking them for a ride. Shattered Hopes is not very indicative of the setting and even gets parts of the game specific setting a bit wrong (the shatters and the entrance to the Gorganoid Mine spring to mind) as well as having a logic hole you could drive a rhino through: whole platoon of guardsmen couldn't handle what was in there, but surely 2-4 random rag-tag Inquisitor stand-in's can! And what's better, they shouldn't even get any help from all those combat ready well armed fellas waiting outside the mine, nope! After all, the wariors of the Emperor pale in comparisons to the martial might of air conditioning repair men, clerks, and beat cops. And never mind about the infamous Pit of Acolyte Incompetence...

To sum it up, if you're looking to entice some new players to the game or get into it your self, you're better off with Edge of Darkness then Shattered Hopes. If you're looking for more pregen scenarios though, there are three other fan made ones up on the DH sight. You don't need to settle for Shattered Hopes.

Well they want to play we just need to work out the Rules propaly, and so far the PCs that have beqan made up are Combat Heavy as to their Skill & Talant sets.

Really, Shattered Hope is fairly bland. Even if it might be more suited to your group's talents than Edge of Darkness I wouldn't recommend it. Your three characters sound well equipped and so could be able to brute-force the scenario if they're smart and lucky. You might want to tell your noble born player that being exclusively melee is very risky business, though,

As for the additional characters I'll assume you meant psyker rather than navigator as there's no rules for navigators and they're generally too strange looking (if not outright twisted in form) to go undercover. A psyker can be both a boon and a bane; there's Warp Phenomena and a vast populace which can be sent into hysterics by the presence of a wytch, but their powers can do things nothing else can. When one of my groups ran through EoD the psyker made great use of Sense Presence during a running battle with the Enforcers. An adept will bring a great deal of knowledge to the table and could help spot oddities in how Coscarla is run. A tech-priest will have a few specific uses during the adventure and will most likely flip when the acolytes confront the prime heretek.

If you are really into "Shattered Hope" and "learning how to dice"... I would recommend a player based re-write I found on the forums here a long long while ago.

It made a lot of the stuff much more enjoyable (and took out the point where all used pc turn into something unplayable in the end).

Unfortunatly, I do not have a link or topic for you, but if you are into "dungeon crawl" you really should spend the time searching around here a little bit. It was a really good alternative that "safed" the game pretty much... besides still being the dungeon crawl it is!

Apart from Me no one in the group has done any serious gaming in over six months (just a few pick-up games hear and there), one of the players hasen't done any gaming what so ever in over 18 months and an other in almost two years, so I want something quick and simple to Blow the Pipes Clean as it where. "Shattered Hope" looks about right, and if we go over to our main planed game strait after in stead of continuing with this campaign "Edge of Darkness" will make one hell of a kick off for the continuing campaign I have planed, I kind of don't want to waste it on a one off if I can help it, but if this dose turn in to a regular game EoD will be a kick in the pants to shift the group from Doungen Crawling to real Role Playing again.

I think the Assassin plans to "Go Large" on a Laz -Sniper angle when she picks up Ranged Weapons again, ATM I think she wants to exploite her 40+ WS for all it's worth, also the Arbitrator and Gardsman are alredy very Shooty, I think the Player want's to be diffrent.

P. 158 lists Navagators as a type of Psyker, I thought "Hugh?" myself when I first saw it, but hell GW has some stranger turn arounds in the past and I can't think of a fair reason to not alow it.

AFAIK there's no rules for Psykers being Astropaths, but they UST have a third eye in their forehead that kills anyone who looks at it -.-

Astropaths: Soul-bound to the Emperor and blinded by the experience, their talents are used in sending messages across the void between planets, systems and even sectors. Most burn themselves out quickly, loosing their minds and vitality and are condemned to be nothing more than members of an Astropathic Choir until they pass away, goaded into aiding the efforts of other, less degraded astropaths.

Navigators: More of a mutant than a psyker, the members of the houses of the Navis Nobilite are generally twisted in form from millennia of inbreeding. Their one constant feature is the third "warp-eye" embedded in their forehead that allows them to see the ebb and flow of the warp and guide a ship through the currents. They keep their warp-eye covered when not navigator for, as rumor goes, to look into it is to invite death upon yourself. They also benefit from a large degree of immunity from Imperial Law, though they're not above the Inquisition.

Both are quite different from the standard Imperial Psyker career path. Both will be available to play in Rogue Trader, I believe, but for now you'll have to house rule them in. That said, both stick out far more than a "regular" psyker does and are not suited to acolyte work. The former are blind and rarely have talents beyond projecting messages across the void while the later could well be declared mutants by most Imperial citizens and are far, far too valuable to risk in such a fashion.

Like I said I'm Familuar with the old Canon, but when I saw P. 158 I though WTF? but lived with it bacause GW has done stranger shake ups in the past.

On to New Bisuness the Navi is fair in Combat and Physical Stats, but is a Veretable God(ess) when it comes to her Willpower, Perception and Interlect,

The Adeptus is also a very Mentaly inclined character, and he is actualy at the poor end of avereage or below average when it comes to Combat and Physical stats, have to go beound the concept stage with the Tech Preist.

With "Shattered Hope" I'd run it as a one off adventure for D&D players. Honestly there are a number of ways to kill off the entire group, or several characters. Edge is a great start. Then you might try the adventure in the back of the main book. The Creatures book has a fair adventure (some people really love it). The Purge the Unclean book has 3 decent adventures (if very different). The key to the last adventure is grapple rules:

http://darkreign40k.com/forum/index.php?topic=1580.0

The harlock book looks to be a great set of adventures leading into the Rogue Trader release. Or you could run a few and then start making your own. This site, and dark reign are full of great ideas.

ATM I'm working from the Main Book and DL's only Thease characrters are only to get a feal for the game (well that's the Plan) untill I can get a few more books like the Inqusitors Handbook, Problem is my FLGS has a Supply chain problem with anything that isn't WotC, or at least a OGL content product.

I'm Impresed with Edge of Darkness and Ilumnasion, but both would suit the Sisters of Battle Game the players want to start perfectaly as the 1st & 2nd adventures.

I ran Shattered Hope as a demo in my FLGS before FFG picked up the game. It was over in about 2 hours, which is fine for a demo of combat game, but you can skip it for a campaign.

I ran Illumination before Edge, but either order would work. Illumination is a little more structured, events happen that will pull the party into the plot, and the events are driven more by the BBEG's agenda than what the party does. So it's easier to run than Edge. Edge is very freeform, which is great, but you might want to get the rules under your belt first.

Ok ran Shattered Hope, Done & Dusted in just over an hour and a half, I think I messed up fire combat a bit in reguards to Shotguns and Criticals, the Tech Preist got targeted by three of the four Cultists and took Two to the Chest and one to the Face, in one round. Even with the Flack Vest the Damage to the Chest was enough to kill him (as I read the Rules) and the Head wound killed him again, Shoties are just herendous If I'm playing them right.

Shotguns are lethal against poorly armoured opponents (they bounce off power armour though).

From the erratta-

The Actions section starting on page 190 should include a
special note concerning combining semi-auto and full-auto
fire with the Scatter quality, which reads “When firing a
semi- or full-auto burst at point blank range with a weapon
that has the Scatter quality, the extra hits for rate of fire
and scatter are worked out separately and both applied. For
example, Horatius Kane fires his combat shotgun at Heretic
X. Kane is at point-blank range and fires a semi-automatic
burst. Kane rolls 01 with his modified Ballistic Skill of 70
(30 BS, +30 for point-blank range, +10 for firing semiauto)
and hits by an amazing six degrees of success. He gets
one hit at 70, one hit for semi-automatic at 50, and a third
hit for semi-auto at 30 (he does not get a fourth hit at 10,
because the combat shotgun’s rate of fire is 3). He would get
additional hits for scatter at 50, 30 and 10, for a total of 6
hits on Heretic X, most likely shredding the cultist to bits in
the Emperor’s name.”

SJE said:

Mmm... Shredded Cultist...

But yes, the above example is correct, and shotties are quite lethal. My personal favorite close-combat oriented weapon is the Hack Shotgun from the IHB with a Red-Dot Scope . If you get the chance, it is quite devastating to most anything. Remember, Tearing doesn't just apply to the first "hit."

-=Brother Praetus=-

so the Mutie and Cultust Chum that was produced when the Arbites cut sick with whe Cbt Shottie is normal?, I don't feal so bad now, except for the Guard guy Who's built him self up to be a Bad Ass Laz gunner only to look impedante standing next to the Chick with the Shotgun. Perhaps he needs a (Laz) Hell Gun or somthing.

Oho forgot to say that with all his Fate points Burnt the Tech Preist meet a Messey end later in the adventure, The Psyker and Adept couldn't make last nights game, but they have just rocked up for Edge of Darkenss that I'm running this arfternoon and tonight.

I've got many a player who neglects the noble lasgun for something which throws slugs. The lack of full-auto fire has alot to do with it. There's only three non-heavy las weapons that can do full-auto fire, those being the D'laku Hellgun (serious Forge World tech), the Fury Laspistol and the Minerva-Aegis Las-carbine. The primary benefit of las weapons is their vast supply of light weight ammo and their reliability, or at least until you pick up a hellgun. Solid Projectile weapons, on the other hand, seem to perform better in the fast, lethal shootouts that occur most often in Dark Heresy.

I take it their all in the Inqusitors handbook?

an other reason to get the Game Store in town reorder the bloody thing PDQ.

The Adept and Psyker/Navagator joined in today/tonight, Dispite bean given the Tech Priests Armour the Adept ended up on the wroung end of the Crit table four times, three of them "Killed" him and he only had two Fate points.

The Tech Preist is being replaced by a Scum "gun fighter" (well that's the players plan), the Adept's player is making up a Cleric who has (what the Character believes to be) the Auto-Gun of St. Augstina (who He's decended from), A Good Quality Autogun with Fire Selector and an Exterminator Cartarage it also will act as his Charm