"Fluff" Purchases

By Cymbel, in Dark Heresy Second Edition Beta

One thing that irks me from the change over from fixed lists with fixed costs to the freeform buy anything was the advances I just bought to advance to the next level. By themselves they didn't mean much, but they helped to flesh out the character, like the Arbites who took crushing blow boxed on their time off (and later won a bare knuckle boxing fight in an underground arena), the other little skills and talents (like how often did you roll a carouse test? But it sure fits for the picture of a hard drinking Arbites). The Psyker taking Performer: Musician and playing her viola during downtime. It just is a shame that these little things that you took to advance but end up adding great moments to their history are gone. Now all you have is the best option looking forward to, getting some more Dodge, a talent, a new rank in charm. It is all open from the start of character generation.

I get why it is going (elite advances were always a hassle, now they aren't as one quick example), but I can't say that I won't miss it going. Just like thrones and saving up for that ONE item you really wanted, like a Cadence Spectre (the only gun any self respecting mercenary would own) or that new set of carapace to replace your worn out and ragged flak armor, something great about DH 1e is going away and I will miss it.

If you were buying those things from rank charts, chances are you'll buy at least some of them from the open advancement list. It's a matter of player approach more than system's. Those who weren't interested in fleshing out characters like that went for characteristic advancements first anyway.

Whereas, by contrast, I'm thrilled to see the advancements charts gone because now my players will be free to get advances that actually support the background, interests and in character events of the character they are playing rather than those forced upon them by the charts.

If you were buying those things from rank charts, chances are you'll buy at least some of them from the open advancement list. It's a matter of player approach more than system's. Those who weren't interested in fleshing out characters like that went for characteristic advancements first anyway.

Yeah, but aptitudes makes it hard to pick up a lot of them, which is where my issue comes in. And the point was how a throwaway item on the table getting picked up slowly started to change your PC in ways you wouldn't have thought.

Whereas, by contrast, I'm thrilled to see the advancements charts gone because now my players will be free to get advances that actually support the background, interests and in character events of the character they are playing rather than those forced upon them by the charts.

I get that, there are positive aspects to the new change. The problem is aptitudes restrict your choices in a new way and this time penalize you with high XP, while before (as Morangias mentioned), they could always avoid the fixed table by just advancing their stats

...Just like thrones and saving up for that ONE item you really wanted, like a Cadence Spectre (the only gun any self respecting mercenary would own) or that new set of carapace to replace your worn out and ragged flak armor, something great about DH 1e is going away and I will miss it.

I completely disagree. Hording coins is an outdated D&D ism that has no place in in games that do not (or should not) revolve around Treasure Hunting. I find it always disrupts 'suspension of disbelief' in my campaign when the PCs loot bodies of used armour to sell in town, because Hard Currency is a major factor in PC power.

Imagine how jarring it would be if one of Inquisitor Eisenhorn's retinue said "I can't wait 'til next payday, so I can but better armour!" It's almost as bad as the old Top Secret game from the '80s assuming that spies have to buy their bullets out of their own pocket, because damned if the agency they work for will provide them with the minimum equipment necessary to undertake their 'fate of the world' missions...

If the GM is letting you loot every body you find and sell them to a shop (which asks NO questions where this is all coming from), something is wrong. DH isn't a game of treasure hunting, acolytes may be always outnumbered, underfunded and ill-equipped, so they may work to supplement the income somewhat (maybe place a bet in an underground fighting pit while asking questions, maybe "hiring" themselves out as Mercs to some organization they are trying to learn about it (explains why they are an odd group of well armed folks travelling about), maybe grabbing some of the cult's assets in throne pouches on the way out, but that is never the focus. There were problems with the last system, but a GM SHOULDN'T let the game devolve into D&D looting.

Now let's look at the looting. Do you think the shop won't call the enforcers or such about where all this damaged, blood stained gear is coming from? And why would he even buy it, unless in a lower hive or some area desperate for any kind of armor, I don't see them buying it and if they do, it would only be for pennies on the dollar.

Think of all the attention it could bring on them!

I think the wealth system needed an update, like the Inquisition providing some gear (with more as they rise up) and other ways (like fixing the disparate salaries, which makes little sense as it was written, especially because being an acolyte seems more like a full time job (with some decent down time between missions if possible, but not guaranteed).

On worlds where the Abundant or even Plentiful items are, I would recommend that they be easily found without a roll especially "fluff" items.

Edited by Elior

In DH1, I never let my PCs sell any gear they looted from enemies. I explained that selling massive amounts of looted weapons through black market dealers (the only people who would realistically buy a pile of dented, bloodied firearms from a total stranger) would only end with the weapons being sold to the very heretics the PCs were fighting. Not something that would be approved of by their Inquisitor, for sure.

However, I was OK with them taking weapons from fallen enemies to upgrade their gear. This actually doesn't happen very often for my group; since I have fairly strict limits on the number of weapons PCs can carry, oftentimes they'll only loot weapons that are direct upgrades to the weapons they already carry. I've pitted them against enemies with grenade launchers and flamers in the past, but they declined to loot either of those (perfectly functional) weapons because they preferred the tactical flexibility of their own guns.

Elior, I wish the rules reflected that, it should be easier stocking up with essentials before a mission, just like how it isn't said how much ammo a PC starts out with for their gun.

Yeah CiW, PCs grabbing some gear here and there is fine, adding to their arsenal (and reminding them about weight limits). I know of exactly ONE game where we did D&D style looting and to be fair, it was a crazy campaign where we started out as infiltrating a Necromundan gang to slowly work to take it over and we used our "looted" weapons to arm our underlings mainly or sold them to the gang itself to help fund our investments (like a dance club we used to launder thrones and conduct busines deals in). Not to mention in that game we ended up overthrowing the governor of Necromunda and putting his nephew on the throne (who owed us more than a few favors).

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Edited by Cymbel