Clerics dont seem to have Unshakeable Faith on their advance list anywhere....

And sword-wielding Assassins dont get Wall of Steel until the top of their advance tree....

And why do only Scholar psykers become Favoured of the Warp.. Are their militant brothers are disliked by the warp? ?

Ok I have to admit some of that is a bit weird.

Infact it all is but as for the psyker maybe you could see it as the scholar is studying more thus has more time and chance to unlock the hidden secrets of the warp. Besides you can always buy these advancements special right.

Clerics without unshakable faith is kinda scary though.

Its not Odd, it is because the career and advancement and creation rules for characters in Dark Heresy are flawed, heavily. You cant really build a character you want to start that is interesting or unique. He or she is just a variant of a prescribed set of skills and abilities.

As much as I love Dark Heresy (and it will contnue to be the game I run even after Rogue Trader comes out), this has been in my opinion, the worst aspect of the game.

The game would have worked better with the fantasy variation on careers. Curse not as free or liberatimg, but career fields so to speak. Guardsmen would stay guardsmen and warriors and what not, but could branch out ot Religious Zealot, Mercenary, Traitor Guard, Deserter, Sergeant, Officer and so forth.

Anyway, I think the current system is just too heavy one the "elite advence" fall back. Might as well make the entire game based on Elite Advances.

It would have been nice to just get 1000XP and buy your skills, talents and abilities to start with and have all skills and abilities have a flat across the board fee to allow custome design of characters without careers and ranks.

Clerics can buy Unshakable Faith at Preacher rank. It's between Peer (Middle Class) and Sound Constitution.

Militant Psykers get Favored by the Warp at Preceptor Savant rank. It's between Discipline Focus and Pistols (Melta).

The late availability of Wall of Steel for assassins isn't that strange, though. Their training is primarily focused on killing people without them knowing that you're there - so teaching dueling/mass combat maneuvers wouldn't necessarily be high on the basic curriculum. It is a little odd that scholar-clerics get it a rank earlier. Especially since Ballistics is their cheap weapons skill.

Lathi- you are quite right. I had scanned for those talents not once but twice and hadnt spotted them. Thx,!

SJE

Thats the issue as well. Too many talents, too many ranks, too many skills, gets confusing trying to figure out when and where you get a skill, talent and so forth for any given career.

A master list of each skill and talent outlined the exact same was the career ranks, but with the rank listed for when a skill or talent is available would reduce the number of pages per career down to 3 not 8.

Personally, if they ever do a revised edition, Id love to just see them drop the entire character creation/progression system for some other open-ended system. Point based, or number of skills base or whatever.

Peacekeeper_b said:

That is available PKB. Check out the stickied thread above or just click on the link in my sig. It has talents and skills broken down by career and level and includes the alternate careers.