Your experience with dark heresy?

[Spuddles]

I just started playing DH with a friend who loves 40k lore. I taught him DnD and he picked up my optimization habits. We both run and prefer rules heavy, relatively high op games.

I'd like to know how typical my current DH experience has been.

Before we started playing, he told me that you survive DH by being smart and ruthless, abusing cover, grenades, and squeezing every ten percent out of a roll you can.

So we started as 400 xp rank 1 neophytes and did just that. Combat was brutal, gory, and unforgiving. Thanks to fate points and slightly above average stat arrays, none of us dipped below crit 4 or 5. Against minor demons and mutants our rounds would just bounce off and we'd have to roll a lucky crit or get pasted by a club or claw.

We've hit rank 4 via wits, luck, and sustained automatic gunfire. Thanks to abuse of arbites privelege, we've got around 30,000 gold and access to black market IG goods, which means full carapace, synthskin, man stopper rounds, best autoguns, grenade launchers, and a mother****ing autocannon.

Now we're tearing through orcs and demons with our autocannon, concussive grenade launchers, and tearing storm autoguns.

There arent any skill monkeys- doors are breached with melta, suspects are kidnapped, and most rolls involving anything that isnt emptying a magazine of the emperors blessed lead are flubbed.

Has anyone else had a similar experience of carapace clad operators chewing through demons and cultists with double barreled assault rifles?

[Destro_Yersul]

I'd like to know how typical my current DH experience has been.

Well...


We've hit rank 4 via wits, luck, and sustained automatic gunfire. Thanks to abuse of arbites privelege, we've got around 30,000 gold and access to black market IG goods, which means full carapace, synthskin, man stopper rounds, best autoguns, grenade launchers, and a mother****ing autocannon.

Now we're tearing through orcs and demons with our autocannon, concussive grenade launchers, and tearing storm autoguns.

There arent any skill monkeys- doors are breached with melta, suspects are kidnapped, and most rolls involving anything that isnt emptying a magazine of the emperors blessed lead are flubbed.

Has anyone else had a similar experience of carapace clad operators chewing through demons and cultists with double barreled assault rifles?

This being the case, can't say I have. In my opinion, if rank 4 acolytes have thousands of gelt, you're doing it wrong. This sort of thing is the purview of Ascension, which is broken as hell. Dark Heresy when I run or play it generally involves more of what you experienced in ranks 1-3. Unforgiving death and scraping by through luck, fate, and the skin of your teeth. If it starts feeling easy, that's when you need to be most paranoid, because plans going well means the other shoe hasn't dropped yet.

Not to say that your method of doing it is actually wrong, and if it floats your boat go for it, but I don't think it's very typical. Best Quality anything is usually beyond reach, as is carapace.

Oh, and Synskin doesn't stack with armour. That got errata'd.


Synskin on page 147 should be listed with other armours instead of clothing. As it counts as armour, its +2 Armour Points do not stack with other armour. If worn under other armour, the wearer does not benefit from the bonus to Concealment and Silent Move tests, but is still rendered invisible to infra-red goggles and Dark Sight unless he is wearing power armour.

[TimeWizard]

I'm with Destro. Dark Heresy is the Dark Souls/Dead Space of Tabletop RPGs: it's fun because you're chance of dying is extremely high.

[Drakefall]

My experience also aligns more closely to Destro's. My GM is a huge 40k fan, well more of an Imperium of Man fan, and likes to keep things fairly grimdark. As far as acquisitions go, things such as a best quality, mono'd sword for instance wouldn't be too hard to get a hold of but carapace armour and powerswords are rare and powerful things that we really only get to play with at higher ranks after we've proven ourselves useful and earned extra monies.

In our lost adventure we actually did manage to come across a power blade, a bolt pistol and an inferno pistol throughout the course of exploring the creepy, haunted mansion that turned out to be built upon a buried forgotten titan. The scum even managed to loot a ridiculous sum of money by looting everything that could conceivably fetch a price. All the silverware was ours! Granted, about half of this is going into getting my arbitrator new arms and lungs, considering I managed to lose the former and damage the later through a combination of not-quite-so-much-suicide bombing a warp ghost and picking up an evil book.

On a related note. It's surprising how effective an arbitrator can be with only a powerblade strapped to a stump and the iron clad will of Imperial law enforcement.

[Grim Portent]

I can sum up my Dark Heresy experiences with a line I am fond of saying when we kill things.

'Loot their guns, loot their ammo, loot their armour and loot their shoes or we're sleeping outside tonight.'

I mean seriously, monthly wages for some careers doesn't cover a meal and bed for each day, so unless you get along well with the party cleric you struggle for stuff like that when the GM bothers to track it. Pawning anything of even vague value has been the basis of several parties incomes.

Lethality isn't too high in our games since we tend to pull punches when GMing in normal DH and several of us can snatch survival (and sometimes victory) from the jaws of a genestealer defeat.

[Spuddles]

Well we got all the thrones via looting a minor house's mansion the day before the inquisition purged it. And several of their operations around the arcology. I dont think the DM anticipated us being so successful, but he rolled with it.

Almost all the carapace was loot, which meant we had to fight the guys wearing it.

I'm terrified of facing twinlinked heavy weapons. Being on the receiving end of an autocannon is going to be messy.

Good to know about synskin- 8 armor all locations with toughness 4 is pretty OP.

[Kaun]

You sound like your playing Only War more then DH... But hey, if you guys are all having fun then your doing it right.

[MonochromeTiger]

actually my experience was the DM getting bored 2 sessions in and declaring that an ork invasion ship crashed into the hive we were in killing us all instantly... quite possibly the only time I've ever laughed so much at "roks fall everyone dies".

[Leon]

Aside from the assorted online games ive played with mixed results the RL campaign i was in ended in a TPK ~ We stole a Valkyrie and then crashed as no one knew how to fly it and given it was mildly damaged from the hijack in the first place the impact made it all the more worse.

[MickJay]

Occasionally DMs go with the "your wages are your spending money, get yourself a pack of lho sticks after an assignment", as Inquisition is rich enough to give basic gear even to the lowliest acolyte (the fact you ARE an acolyte means you are worth something, even if very little, to the organization). Nobody expects guardsmen to buy their own armor, weapons and ammo - they get standard issue stuff; what's standard issue for the inquisition? Whatever your inquisitor deems you'll need to complete the job for him. Of course, anything fancy will have to be earned, found or bought with personal savings/looted goods anyway.

The first game of DH I was in, the group was indeed looting and trading, since we got very little gear at the start, it took nearly two dozen sessions before we got paid (hive setting, lots of things happened in a very short time). We actually got "promoted" (on the XP table) 3-4 times each before getting first wages.

When the group eventually switched to Rogue Trader, we never managed to get rid of the DH mentality and pretty much always charged into the action personally (despite having thirty thousand crewmen at our disposal)... it turns out that crashing a light, unarmed and unarmored shuttle with all of the most important people on board into the bridge of the enemy spaceship IS the most effective way of winning space battles. :smalltongue:

[The Glyphstone]

When the group eventually switched to Rogue Trader, we never managed to get rid of the DH mentality and pretty much always charged into the action personally (despite having thirty thousand crewmen at our disposal)... it turns out that crashing a light, unarmed and unarmored shuttle with all of the most important people on board into the bridge of the enemy spaceship IS the most effective way of winning space battles. :smalltongue:

It's how Star Trek solved all its problems.:smallcool:

[Spuddles]

We're currently fighting hullghasts and mutants. I wanted to just send the armsmen down there with their carapace and space autoshot guns, but it turns out fear 1 and the standard poison grenades that ghilliam get absolutely ruin their day.

Goddamn red shirts. Actually they're wearing inquisitorial black, but still.

[MonochromeTiger]

We're currently fighting hullghasts and mutants. I wanted to just send the armsmen down there with their carapace and space autoshot guns, but it turns out fear 1 and the standard poison grenades that ghilliam get absolutely ruin their day.

Goddamn red shirts. Actually they're wearing inquisitorial black, but still.

inquisitorial black is clearly designed to look red to the eyes of xenos, mutants, and heretics.

[shadow_archmagi]

Most enemies of the imperium see in thermal vision- everyone looks red.

[TimeWizard]

it turns out that crashing a light, unarmed and unarmored shuttle with all of the most important people on board into the bridge of the enemy spaceship IS the most effective way of winning space battles.

Man, where have I heard that before (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RW_hGOFukMQ)?

[Axiomatic]

We had plenty of money, mostly because the campaign took place over an extended period of time, so between missions, the GM was like "Okay, six months pass with nothing that interesting going on." So we'd get six months of income to buy stuff with, and it assumed that our characters thus had the time to earn money, track down rare weapons dealers, and buy that incredibly awesome heavy laser or whatever.

Also, we all had Trade skills, and so it was assumed that during that time, we were also doing THAT as a job, and we got extra income besides the standard income we got from being a Techpriest or whatever.

We were kinda skill-monkeyish, though, in that we had both a techpriest and a psyker for solving problems in a variety of ways.

We never did interrogation much, not since we went "CAPTURE THAT GUY FOR INTERROGATION" and the Arbites immediately shot his head of in an explosion of gore and fire (she was using incendiary shotgun shells).

[Destro_Yersul]

Also, we all had Trade skills, and so it was assumed that during that time, we were also doing THAT as a job, and we got extra income besides the standard income we got from being a Techpriest or whatever.

This is actually covered in a sidebar in the Inquisitor's Handbook. If you have a Trade skill, you are considered Trading class for purposes of income, unless your regular income would be higher.

[Axiomatic]

I don't believe we used the Inquisitor's Handbook as anything other than a shopping list.

[Destro_Yersul]

That's its main use, but there are a large number of useful extra rules near the end of the book.

[Doorhandle]

Dark heresy has been mostly ranks 1-3 for me as well. The entire thing was a comedy of errors, and we scraped though by judcusious application of looting, fate points, amorality, and shooting people at point-blank with autopistols for quadruple headshots. Still, many lost fate-points and horrific madness all round.

[Axiomatic]

That's its main use, but there are a large number of useful extra rules near the end of the book.

I don't consider "this extra rule means I get less money and can buy less hardware" to be particularly useful, myself.

[Grim Portent]

I don't consider "this extra rule means I get less money and can buy less hardware" to be particularly useful, myself.

For Guardsmen and a few others it's a useful rule. Trading class gets more money than they do. Clerics and the like can just ignore it because it only counts if your income is less than that of trading class.

[Axiomatic]

For Guardsmen and a few others it's a useful rule. Trading class gets more money than they do. Clerics and the like can just ignore it because it only counts if your income is less than that of trading class.

Sure, but we were using it as additional income rather than replacement income. Admittedly, we didn't have a guardsman - I believe the Arbites was the lowest paid.

[The Glyphstone]

And while it might not be useful for the players, something like that can be useful as hell for the GM. Rather than 'get your regular income, do you have a trade skill, what trade skill, look up the income of that trade skill, get that income', it becomes a simple 'are you Cleric/noble, do you have a trade skill, yes/no, give income'. Much simpler bookkeeping, and a net benefit if you don't have any Clerics or Nobles.

[Axiomatic]

Probably why he made us do our own book keeping.

[Destro_Yersul]

Sure, but we were using it as additional income rather than replacement income. Admittedly, we didn't have a guardsman - I believe the Arbites was the lowest paid.

Mm, yes, you were, but that's a houserule. In games where said houserule does not apply, which is likely most of them, that rule is a God-Emperor send. Especially for Scum, if they can get a Trade skill.

[Grim Portent]

Mm, yes, you were, but that's a houserule. In games where said houserule does not apply, which is likely most of them, that rule is a God-Emperor send. Especially for Scum, if they can get a Trade skill.

I think every career has access to at least one trade at rank 1.

[Destro_Yersul]

I think every career has access to at least one trade at rank 1.

You'd be wrong, actually. By default, Arbitrator, Assassin, Guardsman and Scum do not have trade skills at rank 1 or 2. You need to take an alt-rank, background package, or elite advance to get them.

[Grim Portent]

You'd be wrong, actually. By default, Arbitrator, Assassin, Guardsman and Scum do not have trade skills at rank 1 or 2. You need to take an alt-rank, background package, or elite advance to get them.

Sadly those include the three careers that need increased income the most. :smallfrown:

[The Glyphstone]

Clearly, service in the name of the God-Emperor is the only trade they need.:smallcool:

[Grim Portent]

Clearly, service in the name of the God-Emperor is the only trade they need.:smallcool:

You may be thinking of Clerics. :smalltongue:

[MonochromeTiger]

You may be thinking of Clerics. :smalltongue:

no, fairly sure he means everyone...look busy, commissars are watching.

[Jlerpy]

We looted a fair share of stuff, but we also had a GM who was relatively generous. In particular, he noticed that the basic Arbitrator armour was something no Arbitrator could have, so he remedied the situation and let other characters have some other cool toys.

[Axiomatic]

Another kindness our GM showed us...well, showed me, was that buying the talent that let you have a particular sort of mechadendrite automatically came with an example of said mechadendrite.

So I didn't buy the ability to use a medical mechadendrite, for an example, and find I didn't have a medical mechadendrite to use it with.

[EndlessWrath]

This system is one of my favorites.
-I do love the mechanics of the game, as many have mentioned. Combat is well done, people are MORTAL as opposed to the 200 life barbarians or whatever you were playing. Guns are done really well in this system. Not perfectly mind you, but much better than in D&D 3.5 systems and otherst hat I've seen. Combat is quick but it is meaningful and dramatic with lots of tension because HEY you are a mortal. Combat involves you actually risking yourself. This particular piece goes well with my next point.
-Despite how heavy people talk about the mechanics in this game, the mechanics are designed to be less constrictive and easier to streamline. They're not overly complex for the most part. One of the reasons for this is its not a combat system. This game is very focused on Roleplaying. You are investigating, you are researching, delving into mystery and danger and you do this heroically as you risk your life in service to the Emprah. I have developed much more in depth characters in this game than I have in ANY other D&D game I've played, and the same goes for my party. This is the first game we've had all 6 players submit backgrounds prior to the first session, and the backgrounds are pages worth of story. Its impressive for typically I get 3 paragraphs on average from my players. I've been DMing for nearly a decade at this point.

TL:DR?
-Mechanics are great
-Guns are Well done
-Combat is meaningful
-System highly encouraging character development and Roleplaying by streamlining rules and filling in fluffly character options.

EDIT: Didn't talk about my experiences. I'll spoiler in case any of you are doing the pre-made adventure in the back of the core book.
My character is a Guardsman from an Icemoon with a Norse theme. He is really good at combat and combat/soldier oriented things... however he is not so good with Fellowship, willpower, Perception, and Intelligence. End boss battle involves a Daemon of Deceit possessing an Abbot while our NPC psyker is being well..deceived by the daemon of deceit into performing a ritual causing his body to be a more suitable host. We had to charm our NPC into breaking free of the daemons deception with 15 degrees of success (we didn't know this at the time, we just kept trying) After several seeminly unsuccessful attempts to charm the NPC, the Daemon boss comes over and rips one of our friends in half. The friend is my character's younger sister. Enraged I turn and, having said nothing to this NPC at this point for fear of my 7% charm test chance failing, yell at the npc asking the following. "Will you stand there and do nothing you pathetic waste of space as servants of the Emprah die fighting. Will you do nothing as your friends die while you commit such heresy." My friends look at me funny as the DM says "Roll your charm test. Roll: 3. The NPC responds with "No.. I am reviving a saint.. i.. am a servant of the emprah, no.. i.. i am justice, I am righteous!
Being norse, and having just finished the thor movie again, I had to respond with the only line I could (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YCcxL8oO9o). Everyone blinks. DM says roll charm, Roll of 4. Success, and the success that knocks the battle in our favor freeing the NPC having him purge the daemon and saving the world. /goodtimes.
-Wrath