Dark Heresy Questions

[Abaddon87]

I've played 3.5 and GURPS for about 7 years now, and was excited to learn of Dark Heresy. I love 40K and would be very interested in running/playing some DH games. Is the play system solid? What is the feel? Is it like GURPS?

I guess my question is: How would you describe Dark Heresy to someone who has never played it?

Or at least, where can I find more information about it and how its played/rules/a "Dark Heresy Lite" :smallbiggrin:

Thanks Playgrounders!

[Kaun]

Its like your playing a secret branch of the SS tasked with fighting ghost demons and satanic cults only its the far future, but technolegy is kinda backwards.

Ow and some people can shoot mind bullets.

[Abaddon87]

And the system is run kinda like GURPS with all d10s? Thats about all I can find online right now. Does it use "character points" to buy "advantages" or does it use XP to buy things? What is the character economy?

[Kaun]

Ehh, nah gurps probably isn't what i would go with.

The game runs all on D10's and primarily on % dice.

Basicly when ever you are trying to perform a skill you have to roll under your associated stat on a d100.

So if you are shooting at somebody you have to roll under your ballistic skill (BS) stat. There are a lot of modifiers both posative and negative and how much you succeed by all so effects the outcome.

The system is kinda points buy, kinda class system and kinda randomly determined.

You pick your home world which determins your starting stats which will ususlly be something like. 15 to 25 +d10. Then between your home world and your career (class) that determins your starting skills and gear.

As you play you are awarded xp which is spent on buying improvements from your selected career list.

Thats a fairly basic run down of the game, and by fairly i mean very.

Its a good game, fun system and awsome quality books (tho a little expensive.)

The game can be very deadly and starting players will soon learn that you cant just expect to fight your way out of things because often if your not prepared the odds will be stacked heavly against you.

It plays a lot like shadowrun more then anything even tho the two rule systemsare nothing like each other.

[gdiddy]

Every session and at the completion of each mission, you are given XP.

Every character starts with between 0 and 100 in a stat, these are rolled.
You can increase your stats in 5 point increments, buy abilities and tricks, or increase their skills.

Every character has an allowance accorded to them by their rank, which the inquisitor gives them for the month. Characters can scrimp and save, to buy nice things.

Otherwise, you are a scrappy team of redshirts a very scary man throws at minor problems he can't be bothered to attend to.

[king.com]

d10s yes but everything is run as a percentile roll for skill checks and d10s for damage and certain special things. You use xp to level up your character (havn't used gurps so cant comment on difference) and every threshold of spent xp you get new tables of skills for your class to pick from (or alternate packages you can go for at various points.

The character ecnomy works like this. Anyone playing a noble has more money than common sense but their vendetta causes them to repeatedly need to buy really expensive augments to replace their limbs. The rest of the party (except maybe the cleric) has this kind of scale:

Barely able to feed and clothe themselves => Barely able to equip themselves => desperately scavenging together for enough money to buy a weapon capable of hurting their enemies.

There is literally a tough question for Dark Heresy players as to whether they unload a clip of bolter ammunition to stop the demon rampaging through the party and not doing it because that means they use up over a month of income.

Players get give monthly budgets for their employment based on class and maybe some additional stuff from their inquisitor but their budget is ultimately very tight.

[Kaun]

I have always seen the budget thing as up to the GM.

I know the careers generate you a certain ammount of income every so often but i always thought of that as the characters personal coin.

[king.com]

I have always seen the budget thing as up to the GM.

I know the careers generate you a certain ammount of income every so often but i always thought of that as the characters personal coin.

I've heard of people playing it that way but if your not running the game with income as somewhat important, the Noble character background is so harmful as their big income advantage is taken away.

[profitofrage]

Its a great system, unlike the boardgame the main obective of Dark Heresy is to keep with the awesome fluff that is no doubt drawing you to the game.
There is no sense of "leveling monsters" or encounters...you fight a daemon? expect to make it out a little more insance then when you went in.

It is rather realistic..in that combat is extremly deadly, the only way you have a high chance of survival is if you make use of the incredible technologies of the Imperium...these all of course out of reach by anyone without vast sums of money.

The good news is, is that while money is limited theres nothing stopping you from taking advantage of the setting.
In other games..the GM would need to think of a reason why you cant steal the rocket launcher from the arms smith..because it would "ruin balance"
here? its the WHOLE PARTY getting a lucky break, because now they can actually HURT vehicles. Not to mention that Ammo is always low on supply with teh bigger weapons, so if you really want them to scale it down..limit ammo.

The only suggestion I will give is to avoid Acension like wildfire.
Acension is taking DH to the next level...letting you BE vindicar assasin's and Inquisitors...the only issue is that this is where things break down.
As a game..theres no such thing as balance at this stage. The psyker has more power then god..and when applied to the low level scaling powers..they one shot Greater daemons...this isnt a case of keeping to setting..its just broken mechanics.

DeathWatch is great, works really well
Rogue trader ALSO a great game, though again totally different scale to DW or DH.

[Wings of Peace]

A bit of advice, a good thing to remember, you progress to new tiers within your class based on how much xp you've spent not how much you posses.

[a_humble_lich]

I agree. Dark Heresy is a great game. I would say it is like GURPS in that characters in both games can be very fragile.



The only suggestion I will give is to avoid Acension like wildfire.
Acension is taking DH to the next level...letting you BE vindicar assasin's and Inquisitors...the only issue is that this is where things break down.
As a game..theres no such thing as balance at this stage. The psyker has more power then god..and when applied to the low level scaling powers..they one shot Greater daemons...this isnt a case of keeping to setting..its just broken mechanics.


I somewhat disagree with this. I just got through an Ascension game up to about rank 14, and we didn't see much balance issues. The combat based classes can indeed be very powerful, but that isn't what Ascension is about. Why would an Inquisitor and retinue personally go after a Greater Daemon, that is a job for acolytes. Like Rogue Trader, Ascension operates on a larger scale: you don't attack a Daemon, you stop an invasion of Daemons. Thus most of the advancements on the class list tend to be things like Peers and Good Reputation. And guess which careers tend to have a fellowship too low to get those...

[profitofrage]

A bit of advice, a good thing to remember, you progress to new tiers within your class based on how much xp you've spent not how much you posses.

Ah on this note, there is no branching out from your chosen Carreer.
Ounce you pick one thats it, done. The only options you have then are background packages or elite advances, which either substitute levels from your existing career, or give you specific traits and talents on the spot.
Each of these almost always come with rather specific Fluff attached to them that no GM should ever ignore as they use it as a form of balance.

EDIT:
The psyker doesnt need them, as they can use various psychic powers to dominate any of those peers rather easily. But this isnt something I want to go into...Ive had my fill of DH balance threads.
Some people like Ascension, but ultimatly I feel that it could have been done 100x better then it was.

[king.com]

Each of these almost always come with rather specific Fluff attached to them that no GM should ever ignore as they use it as a form of balance.


Thats mainly as in regards to radical handbook stuff as almost in that book is broken unless you consider the "your probably a heretic in everything but name" factor.