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StoryKeeper
2012-05-31, 05:04 AM
So I've been running a game of Rogue Trader off and on for a while now, and I'm still trying to get a grasp of the scale of the system and how the game relates to the other 40k RPGs (such as Dark Heresy, Death Watch, and Black Crusade.) Here are some specific questions of mine:

* Exactly how powerful are Rogue Trader PCs? Sometimes they seem to nearly get one-shotted, and other times they seem impossible to stand against (especially if they're using their full resources.)

* What are the advantages of being an RT PC rather than, for instance, a DH PC? One of our players is a Sanctioned Psyker (using DH rules) because RT's astropaths seemed ridiculously weak and starved for options next to Sanctioned Psykers.

* Why would a navigator or astropath character leave the ship for a standard adventure? Unless you specifically use plot hooks that tie them in somehow, it seems like a bad idea to ever actually send such valuable assets into danger.

* How do you actually use astropaths in a game? I know they're supposed to be essential, but their abilities seem too limited or niche to actually be used in most adventures.

* I'm having trouble figuring out what scale our adventures should be set on. Why would our rogue trader (with access to a massive ship and extremely populace crew including a death cult) ever set foot on a planet to solve a problem when he can just send in the troops instead?

* How do you make all the characters feel important when introducing plot hooks? Point-in-case, I keep having the NPC seneschal report to the rogue trader about plot hooks, and the players keep wanting to chime in with opinions on courses of action (a habit from Pathfinder where the party is generally in the same room.) The problem is that the other PCs aren't actually in the room and have no real way of knowing about the plot hooks in the first place.

Thanks in advance for the replies, guys.

king.com
2012-05-31, 06:56 AM
* Exactly how powerful are Rogue Trader PCs? Sometimes they seem to nearly get one-shotted, and other times they seem impossible to stand against (especially if they're using their full resources.)


How powerful relative to other systems? They are a 5000 xp Dark Heresy character with higher stats but far few skills. They are much weaker than a Deathwatch or Black Crusade character. The system isnt one which has a person's survivability increase with levels (well not much anyway), it only increases their skill set. They are ultimately humans (except for those playing aliens :smalleek:) and a couple of direct hits are going to bring them down very quickly. Their gear is what gives them any kind of survivability from some solid armour, bionic implants, guns, force fields etc.

Your going to have to be a little more specific on the 'how powerful' description. What exactly are you needing them to compare to?



* What are the advantages of being an RT PC rather than, for instance, a DH PC? One of our players is a Sanctioned Psyker (using DH rules) because RT's astropaths seemed ridiculously weak and starved for options next to Sanctioned Psykers.


Imperial Psykers tend to go BOOM if they are unlucky while an Astropath can use powers with less force and never risk perils of the warp if they need to. The Astropath is the only one who is capable of intersteller communication. Being a Rogue Trader party member he gets a free item of very rare or less (versus the Dark Heresy character who spent his entire life being very poor previously). Astropaths are more likely to get a free pass versus just a Psyker but thats very GM dependent. The big Astropath powers are easier to pull off and you always have the option to Push to give yourself very good odds as an Astropath. Has access to some VERY big powers like Reprogram. Not as great as Ascension level psykers but Im not going to talk about that.

Ultimately the Dark Heresy characters have an advantage purely from the large amount of skills they come into the game with at 5000xp. The Rogue Trader characters eventually overtake thanks to the free +5 in all stats them but when you get to higher levels Dark Heresy characters take the lead again as they max out on their class.



* Why would a navigator or astropath character leave the ship for a standard adventure? Unless you specifically use plot hooks that tie them in somehow, it seems like a bad idea to ever actually send such valuable assets into danger.


Success of the Rogue Trader Dynasty means success for themselves aswell. The Navigator gets a share of the riches and the Astropath gets to benefit from the ship being safer and stronger.

As to why take them along? Why do you take anyone along in warhammer 40,000? Because the are useful, and anything that can keep the captain alive longer is something that gets to come along.

An astropath by default is your backup Vox unit and one which doesn't need to be hauled around! You can jam vox units but you cant jam an astropathic transmission beaming from the party to their ship (well you CAN but if your dealing with psykers actively jamming you, your party is in some SERIOUS trouble). This is not to mention that you have a whole choir of Astropaths aboard your ship, why not take the one who has demonstrated to be most capable off the ship (i.e. the player) with you? They have a bunch of sweet psychic powers to back you up if something goes wrong and if your going down to negotiate they can READ MINDS! This is perhaps the single most useful ability in any kind of negotiation, hence its a nice idea to keep them around. For the potential loss involved, the rewards are definitely worth it.

Navigators are completely up to the players in terms of why. You see a Rogue Trader does NOT want to upset a navigator house, that would result in navigators being far more difficult for him to find. You usually have a couple on your ship anyway so bringing a Navigator along is not too much of a risk particularly if THEY tell the captain they're coming with them. Thats okay because they come with a big bundle of keeping your backside safe. They have a mess of very scary and very dangerous powers not to mention their expertise with any kind of space travel and navigation usually comes in handy AND if your ever stranded for whatever reason, the Navigator is the ONLY person who can get you out of there (stealing a ship doesnt matter too much if you cant navigate the warp)

Those are a few reasons, theres many more available but those might get you started. Ultimately, its the reward of keeping them close outweighing the risk of losing them. You could also just pull the 'close companions and advisers' logic and have anyone kept around for the specific purpose of coming up with ideas....much like a roleplayer does.



* How do you actually use astropaths in a game? I know they're supposed to be essential, but their abilities seem too limited or niche to actually be used in most adventures.


Long range communication, mental assault/control/reading and looking into the future, tracking items, telekinesis and various mind bullets are too niche? I don't really know what kind your running but I have never seen the problem here. Sure they dont start with many but no character in these system do. Maybe your just comparing him to a Psyker whose gone up 4 ranks already?



* I'm having trouble figuring out what scale our adventures should be set on. Why would our rogue trader (with access to a massive ship and extremely populace crew including a death cult) ever set foot on a planet to solve a problem when he can just send in the troops instead?


Depends on the problem, often brute force doesnt solve it. Theres some situations where orbital bombardment works but that normally results in destroying ANYTHING of value on the planet as you have basicly crippled any economic growth and seriously damaged the environment which, given the frontier life in the Koronus Expanse, means that planets likely to just be abandonned.

Deploying armies of troops and crew down to planet solves the problem of fighting an army or overruning an opponent but if thigns were as simple as that, someone whould have done this already.

Given the Rogue Trader is usually the best negiotator on the ship, he doesnt get to negotiate unless hes down on the planet talking to an ambassador or merchant into something which can get your dynasty some profit factor.

Rogue Trader characters dont go around investigating things a Dark Heresy characters would. One of the scenarios you can buy details an Ork invasion of a world rich in natural resources which they are willing to sell off to Rogue Traders. All those mining rights become worthless if the planet gets overrun so the Rogue Trader party has to arrive on the planet make sure all the local forces, Imperial Navy, various other Rogue Traders and of course the planets government all work together to hold off this ork invasion. All this combined with a bunch of Eldar up to no good.

This means the military invasion is going on for players with troops to get into, a big fleet battle in orbit and the political negotiations of the various factions for the players to deal with.

The scale of the game is explained when you find out players dont have money but a Profit Factor of all their exploits across the universe. They dont count coins, they count century long investments. You dont make money finding something valueable and selling it. You make money saving and taking control of a sector-wide network of Xenos Artifact smugglers who are constantly turning a profit and handing it over to your dynasty.

Sure you can just go into someones house, kill everyone and take all their stuff but that doesnt make you enough for Profit Factor to increase. You instead need to get these people to work for you on terms they are happy with (so they dont immediately stab you in the back) and they can start cutting you in on whatever money-making scheme they have going on.



* How do you make all the characters feel important when introducing plot hooks? Point-in-case, I keep having the NPC seneschal report to the rogue trader about plot hooks, and the players keep wanting to chime in with opinions on courses of action (a habit from Pathfinder where the party is generally in the same room.) The problem is that the other PCs aren't actually in the room and have no real way of knowing about the plot hooks in the first place.


You have a few options here:

One you can use the Magic Meeting Room from Star Trek where anytime the Seneschal has a report for the Captain, everyone gets called to the briefing room to discuss things.

While its not a stated requirement, the player characters dont need to be the 'best' on the ship or even the heads of the departments. They are simply the go-betweens for the Captain and the departments. Their whole job is to stick with the captain and pass on to their own department heads. This is actually supported by Rank 1 RT characters.

Take the Explorator for example, they dont have the skills or the competency to run a Warp Engine. Those are reserved for the ship's Magos to operate. Instead the Explorator was chosen because out of all the techpriest they were determined to have the 'best' social skills and are sent to deal with the captain while everyone else does the ACTUAL work. Similiar an Astropath is not the head of the Astropath Choir but instead acts as the personal messenger for the captain, staying with him at all times. Arch-Militant is a military adviser/bodyguard for the captain but doesnt not actually run the troops on board etc etc.

This means that the party is stuck together AND you have have the plot hooks come from all the various heads of departments - Head Techpriest, Head Medicae, Head of your Troops, Head of your fighter squadrons, Head Quartermaster, Head Seneschal etc. Different plots come from different people based on their own personal connections and skills. You can also create strong personalities so when the party goes 'oh DAMN we that skill...dont worry Doctor McCoy in Medical probably knows about that!'


I find I ramble on WAY too much in these kinds of posts, hope you can get past the wall of text and find something useful.

Dsurion
2012-06-01, 11:03 AM
I find I ramble on WAY too much in these kinds of posts, hope you can get past the wall of text and find something useful.I find your walls of text quite helpful in understanding WH40K systems, personally.

king.com
2012-06-01, 11:26 AM
I find your walls of text quite helpful in understanding WH40K systems, personally.

Glad someone is getting something out of it. Half the time all I think im doing is provoking arguements :smallsigh:

Hylas
2012-06-03, 12:21 AM
I'm actually playing a sanctioned psyker (telekineticist) in a Rogue Trader game (which is unfortunately getting delayed due to life) and I've also DMed some Warhammer Fantasy, so I can give you my take on balance. This will all be from the perspective of my character. Note that I went down the scholar tree because I wanted as many powers as possible.

Pros:

An Imperial Psyker with 5k exp will definitely have a lot more abilities than a starting level Astropath, and if you want to do something like pyromancy or biomancy it's your only option.
You get a lot more starting exp to boost up your willpower. When we were planning the game I made an Astropath and an Imperial Psyker to see how they were and my Psyker had 10 more willpower.
The rules, at least for me since I did Warhammer Fantasy before, are similar to what I already knew. But the other rules are just as easy to learn, so eh, this is really a middle ground.
Start with lots of skills and talents, and many can be at +10 or +20.
Unnatural Willpower makes you all-powerful.
Telekinetic powers in DH compared to RT are, in general, much better as it often uses willpower in place of WS or BS tests, which is usually much much higher, and in general makes you more single stat dependent.


Cons:

Rogue Trader characters have higher starting stats, on average, using the same rolls.
RT characters all get a special ability which no Dark Heresy character will get.
After a few thousand exp DH characters will start lagging behind due to RT characters getting exp to start boosting up their stats and getting a larger skill list.
RT characters get better starting gear. I had to haggle just to get some common quality armor for my psyker while others are starting with plasma pistols and best quality armor.
Astropaths are much less likely to get perils of the warp as they only get it on doubles on a d100 rather than "on any and all 9s rolled on xd10". On top of that, they can just simply manifest* powers without even risking perils of the warp. Even if they do get perils of the warp they get an extra d10 to replace any d10 of their d100 to make everything nicer. Psykers have to wait until they get 6200 exp to buy Favoured by the Warp. (maybe just 6000, I'm not sure on the rules)
Astropaths have an extra fate point, on average, at character creation.
Astropaths are blind, which is pretty cool.
Rogue Traders are pretty much proficient in all weapons, or become so very easily.


So yeah, if you're not playing very long, or expect to die (I'm waiting for a couple bad rolls to turn me into a demon, which almost happened on the first session when I rolled numbers in the 90s 5 times in a row), or even doing a one-shot, a DH character can be pretty nice looking. But in the long run a RT character will be much better off. Ascended? I dunno, but you do eventually get unnatural willpower.

*I don't know if manifesting is the right word, but it's what I use thanks to D&D.

WitchSlayer
2012-06-03, 05:05 AM
king.com is definitely the king of FFG40k RPGs. Any suggestion/anything he says is pretty accurate.