I ask this because it might turn out we'll want to update our characters to second edition, but it just doesn't seem possible.

It all boils down to rolling for each characteristic seperately. Don't get me wrong, I can get the appeal. You're supposed to roll for a homeworld, roll for stats and then, based on that, choose background and role.

But it fails completely if you have an idea for a character in mind, like for example, when you're trying to port a character from 1st edition. Let's say I want to create a melee fighter. And roll 2 for my WS score. Well, there goes my melee character.

And you can't really work around it, can you? In the previous edition you could just roll 9 times and then choose where to put which score. But since in 2nd edition some characetristic have to be ROLLED diffferently, you can't really do that anymore. Best you can do is roll 7 times and choose scores, but even those 3 stats you have to roll for, can very well **** you over.

So. How do I work around it?

In DH1 you don't get to distribute your 2d10 rolls, you are allowed to reroll one attribute. So you are playing with a house rule.

If you want to make a similar house rule in DH2, you can roll 3d10 for all attributes, having one die with a specific colour or something that gets ignored if the roll is placed on an attribute which does not use 3 dices.

Actually, the publishers did, indeed, provide you a workaround. It sounds like your situation is the prototypical candidate for the "Allocating Points" alternative. From page 1 of Update #5: " At the GM's discretion, players can instead use point allocations to determine starting characteristics in place of rolling for them ."

Enjoy

The current terrible system for rolling characteristics really does need to change though.

Rolling for stats randomly has always been terrible for exactly this reason. Just use point buy and make whatever kind of character you want.

Did they fix the point buy values?

Hmmm... Can I lower stats to get more points?

RAW, no.

Well, a quick math reveals that indeed we should be capable of working within that framework, if it comes to that.

In every single WH40k RP game I've played in, we either used a pregen statline, or rolled the 2d10*10, discarded lowest and applied them as we wished.

The current DH2ed system is bad, but it's not much worse than before.

In every single WH40k RP game I've played in, we either used a pregen statline, or rolled the 2d10*10, discarded lowest and applied them as we wished.

The current DH2ed system is bad, but it's not much worse than before.

That's how we've been playing for years. But suddenly I can't really do that anymore.

My best experience in WFRP and WH40K RP games does come from just "rolling with it" and letting dice decide everything for me, but porting existing characters from Dark Heresy 1 precludes that.

Rolling for stats randomly has always been terrible for exactly this reason. Just use point buy and make whatever kind of character you want.

Did they fix the point buy values?

Doesn't the new point-buy system lead to Vampire style nonsense since the price of rising your stats get's bigger, the higher the bonus is? So it's basically worthless to have even statistics and pays of to have a few very high stats? I don't know the exact math, but it seems like that at first glance.

If I think about it right... Why would I put, say, 15 points into my melee score, instead of 14? Because then I have 44 at the begining of the game. And it takes two upgrades to get bonus above 4. It's cheaper and the difference is miniscule...

This new system is weird.

Rolling for stats randomly has always been terrible for exactly this reason. Just use point buy and make whatever kind of character you want.

Did they fix the point buy values?

Doesn't the new point-buy system lead to Vampire style nonsense since the price of rising your stats get's bigger, the higher the bonus is? So it's basically worthless to have even statistics and pays of to have a few very high stats? I don't know the exact math, but it seems like that at first glance.

If I think about it right... Why would I put, say, 15 points into my melee score, instead of 14? Because then I have 44 at the begining of the game. And it takes two upgrades to get bonus above 4. It's cheaper and the difference is miniscule...

This new system is weird.

You can certainly game the point buy system, but not in the ways you're talking about. The cost of a characteristic advance doesn't change based on the characteristic score. It did in beta 1, but they've changed it back to the old way where it costs some amount of XP for +5 and each successive +5 costs more completely independent of what the characteristic value is.

In your example, it is smarter to start with a value of 45 so that one advance gets you to 50, assuming this is a characteristic where the bonus matters. The system rewards having characteristics in increments of 5.

Rolling for stats randomly has always been terrible for exactly this reason. Just use point buy and make whatever kind of character you want.

Did they fix the point buy values?

Doesn't the new point-buy system lead to Vampire style nonsense since the price of rising your stats get's bigger, the higher the bonus is? So it's basically worthless to have even statistics and pays of to have a few very high stats? I don't know the exact math, but it seems like that at first glance.

If I think about it right... Why would I put, say, 15 points into my melee score, instead of 14? Because then I have 44 at the begining of the game. And it takes two upgrades to get bonus above 4. It's cheaper and the difference is miniscule...

This new system is weird.

You can certainly game the point buy system, but not in the ways you're talking about. The cost of a characteristic advance doesn't change based on the characteristic score. It did in beta 1, but they've changed it back to the old way where it costs some amount of XP for +5 and each successive +5 costs more completely independent of what the characteristic value is.

In your example, it is smarter to start with a value of 45 so that one advance gets you to 50, assuming this is a characteristic where the bonus matters. The system rewards having characteristics in increments of 5.

Oh thank the Throne. This always made much more sense.

The average when rolling 2d10 is of course 11.

If you roll 3d10 and keep the two largest, you will increase the average by 2.475, and similarly if you roll 3d10 and keep the two smallest you will decrease the average by 2.475. However 2 is minimum and 20 is maximum for all three types of rolls, so the distribution curve is a bit skewed for the 3d10 rolls.

So you could roll 2d10 and distribute as in your old system and then just adjust by 2 or 3 in those attributes where 3d10 should have been used. Of course the player may then actually exceed 20 or go below 2, at the GMs discretion.