Dark Heresy 1st edition vs 2nd edition

[saithor]

I'm thinking about starting a Dark Heresy PbP, but don't knwo what edition to make it. I've looked around, and it seems to be really split between the 2nd edition being completely terrible or better than the first, so I'm curious as to what the opinions on here are about which edition is best.

[Sayt]

Personally, I find Dh2e to be better, for a few reasons:
I like the aptitude system (some people don't). It means that parties aren't locked out of access to certain skills because nobody took given class, or someone took an alternate rank, or the wrong path down a tree. It lets take the things you want to take when you want to take them (Gated by XP costs and other required talents, of course). This system is much, much more dynamic and organic than DH1e's relatively rigid paths, which didn't necessarily give you access to things you could easily have learned to do IC in a session without the GM's express permission.

On the other hand, it does mean that you need to do much more cross-referencing Tiers, tables and what your aptitudes are, instead of just looking at the price (Counterpoint: The reference tables follow consistent rules that you can get your head around). It also means that players can assemble quite strong combinations with comparatively little 'waste' of XP (This speaks to a somewhat more adversarial PoV than I take as a GM for Dark heresy).

The Fatigue System is overall better, I think. The penalties you take are proportional to how much fatigue you have as well as how good you are at particular things. Gone is the "Oh, you have 1 level of fatigue, and your friend has 5 fatigue? You both have a -10 to everything.)

Talent Consolidation: DH1 through Only War had two feats for melee called shots, and two feats for ranged called shots. The first moved you to -10 instead of -20, the second made it no penalty. DH2e said stuff that, you have one talent, when you take it choose melee or ranged. You take no penalty for called shots with that.

Combat Tweaks: The answer to any given combat is no longer "Everyone pulls their autopistols and full autos. (I think this might actually have kicked in during Only War, but it was retained in Dh2e). Two-Weapon Wielding was simplified and talent taxes relaxed (Dual shot/Strike are now part of the core, Swift/Lightning work on both hands) and the gap between ranged and melee has arguably shrunk (ha ha) Sorrynotsorry

Editing: Dark heresy 1 was a gorram mess. The Psyker's advancement tables were out of order, bolt weapons had tearing left out of their special qualities. Dh2e, the only significant print error I've found in my copy is that the chimera's storm bolter has a range of 40m

Bestiary: DH2e has, in my opinion, much neater stat-blocks for NPCs and enemies, and most NPCs have something unique that they can do (Crime Bosses can order their dudes around and grand them half-actions, heavies can push enemies around with melee hits, Redemptionist Fanatics don't hurt allies with flamers, that kind of thing.

Dark Heresy Second Ed has a mechanism for determining appropriate threats to a party. Setting appropriate combat challenges in DH1e was the bane of my existence as a GM. I don't know how well adjusted the system is, but it does provide a quantifiable metric.

On the other hand, DH1e has "This is a little Scary", "This is moderately Scary", and "This is EXTREMELY Scary!" The latter ranking including everything from an Arcoflagellant to a Daemon Prince, If I recall.

[Anonymouswizard]

Being such a Dark Heresy 1e fan that I refuse to touch Dark Heresy 2 until they either put careers back in or someone else buys me the book, I have to say that the two are actually rather close in quality and it should be a matter of personal preference (if anybody said to me 'we are playing Dark Heresy 2e' I'd only not play if the PCs weren't a cell of acolytes meant to do investigations). To counterpoint Sayt:


Personally, I find Dh2e to be better, for a few reasons:
I like the aptitude system (some people don't). It means that parties aren't locked out of access to certain skills because nobody took given class, or someone took an alternate rank, or the wrong path down a tree. It lets take the things you want to take when you want to take them (Gated by XP costs and other required talents, of course). This system is much, much more dynamic and organic than DH1e's relatively rigid paths, which didn't necessarily give you access to things you could easily have learned to do IC in a session without the GM's express permission.

I personally let PCs buy training in basic skills for 100XP and start them off with an extra five, which makes starting characters nice and balanced. The paths are also incredibly useful to those either unfamiliar with the setting or only familiar with the war aspect of it. Otherwise, I agree that the aptitude system is probably better, I just like the evocative Careers.

[/QUOTE]On the other hand, it does mean that you need to do much more cross-referencing Tiers, tables and what your aptitudes are, instead of just looking at the price (Counterpoint: The reference tables follow consistent rules that you can get your head around). It also means that players can assemble quite strong combinations with comparatively little 'waste' of XP (This speaks to a somewhat more adversarial PoV than I take as a GM for Dark heresy).


It's pretty much dependent on how much you like simple-to-advance characters, or how much you want 'my character is how I envision them'. I personally don't care. It would be nice if 1e made all the skills and talents cost the same for everyone though.

[QUOTE]The Fatigue System is overall better, I think. The penalties you take are proportional to how much fatigue you have as well as how good you are at particular things. Gone is the "Oh, you have 1 level of fatigue, and your friend has 5 fatigue? You both have a -10 to everything.)

Yes, but Dark Heresy 1e has simple fatigue, although more of a penalty near the edge of falling unconscious would be good. It's simpler to remember 'if fatigued -10 to all actions' then 'penalties depend on level of fatigue...'


Talent Consolidation: DH1 through Only War had two feats for melee called shots, and two feats for ranged called shots. The first moved you to -10 instead of -20, the second made it no penalty. DH2e said stuff that, you have one talent, when you take it choose melee or ranged. You take no penalty for called shots with that.

This is a matter of preference, do you prefer being able to go 'I am able to accurately shoot!!!' or do you prefer to represent learning how to make your shots land on target? Neither is better, it's just that the first is more popular.


Combat Tweaks: The answer to any given combat is no longer "Everyone pulls their autopistols and full autos. (I think this might actually have kicked in during Only War, but it was retained in Dh2e). Two-Weapon Wielding was simplified and talent taxes relaxed (Dual shot/Strike are now part of the core, Swift/Lightning work on both hands) and the gap between ranged and melee has arguably shrunk (ha ha) Sorrynotsorry

This depends on how important combat was to your games. I really don't have a problem with 1e combat because I'd pull it out once a session for a serious combat (and occasionally when the party fails their intimidate check on muggers to convince them to flee), but 10 cultists with autopistols was the deadliest fight featuring mortals I ever ran, so I can see the need for rebalancing.

I don't really think two-weapon wielding needed to be simplified, but that's a to-may-to/to-mah-to point, there's never anything wrong with simplification.


Editing: Dark heresy 1 was a gorram mess. The Psyker's advancement tables were out of order, bolt weapons had tearing left out of their special qualities. Dh2e, the only significant print error I've found in my copy is that the chimera's storm bolter has a range of 40m

Huh, never noticed the bolt weapons bit. You can get used to it, but editing is apparently better in 2e.

Oh wait, I forgot, they managed to misspell 'acolytes' throughout as 'warband' didn't they? Do they also misspell cell? :smallannoyed: I liked how 1e referred to them as 'the acolytes', it made it feel like it wasn't a combat game.


Bestiary: DH2e has, in my opinion, much neater stat-blocks for NPCs and enemies, and most NPCs have something unique that they can do (Crime Bosses can order their dudes around and grand them half-actions, heavies can push enemies around with melee hits, Redemptionist Fanatics don't hurt allies with flamers, that kind of thing.

I don't really think every enemy needs special abilities, especially if the game isn't intended to be combat focused (whether 1e was combat focused or not is a different matter entirely).


Dark Heresy Second Ed has a mechanism for determining appropriate threats to a party. Setting appropriate combat challenges in DH1e was the bane of my existence as a GM. I don't know how well adjusted the system is, but it does provide a quantifiable metric.

On the other hand, DH1e has "This is a little Scary", "This is moderately Scary", and "This is EXTREMELY Scary!" The latter ranking including everything from an Arcoflagellant to a Daemon Prince, If I recall.

I actually like this about 1e, it highlights that the 41st millennium isn't fair, and that the acolytes want to avoid combat as it'll be deadly as often as it is a curbstomp. 'Appropriate combat challenges' wasn't really something that DH1e really thought were worthwhile, as combat was only meant to happen as a consequence of actions or when you burst into the cult in the middle of the ceremony and kill everyone, having planted explosives under the alter a few hours ago.

[Chijinda]

Both systems have their pros and both systems have their cons. For me personally, the simplicity of DH1 appeals to me far more than the aptitude system of DH2. I will not pretend that the career system is without its flaws, but at the very least it has sheer simplicity going for it. It's very easy to get your character concept, and assuming you have a flexible GM, it's easy to work out Elite Advances. The only cons I really have with the system is how hard Guardsmen get the short end of the stick.

While DH2 is more flexible, and a great number more possibilities are available to you, actually GETTING those possibilities require a lot of bookwork and studying of the system, unless you want to spend hours in character creation because you can't get your aptitudes just right.

As I'm much more of the: "Let's just get the game started and figure out the finnicky details as we go along" DH1 appeals to me a lot more. You can have a completely fresh group of players who've never touched the system before be ready in an hour.

For DH2 it took me twice that just to figure out how to get my aptitudes.

This may be going on a little bit ranty, but I find that in DH2 you often have to juggle a lot more, and the aptitude system may actually cut into your ability to roleplay. You want character X, who has this backstory, from this planet, to fit into this role? Oh, the background and planet don't give you the aptitudes that you need to make his role work? Well, either you're playing the swordmaster who has 500 XP base Weapon Skill advances then, or you have to come up with an entirely different concept, and that can be disheartening.

In DH1, while it was rarely a perfect fit you could generally get at least the stereotype of the character you wanted to fit into at least one of the careers, and get a passably decent character doing that.

So overall, I prefer DH1. It's got plenty of problems, but the simpler system appeals to me a lot more, even if it's a bit more restrictive.

[Destro_Yersul]

I'm a fan of DH1. I consider it to be better in pretty much every way. I also consider it to be better for people who are new to the games, system and/or setting, given the more structured character creation. DH2 sacrificed structure and coherence in favour of flexibility.


Personally, I find Dh2e to be better, for a few reasons:
I like the aptitude system (some people don't). It means that parties aren't locked out of access to certain skills because nobody took given class, or someone took an alternate rank, or the wrong path down a tree. It lets take the things you want to take when you want to take them (Gated by XP costs and other required talents, of course). This system is much, much more dynamic and organic than DH1e's relatively rigid paths, which didn't necessarily give you access to things you could easily have learned to do IC in a session without the GM's express permission.

On the other hand, it does mean that you need to do much more cross-referencing Tiers, tables and what your aptitudes are, instead of just looking at the price (Counterpoint: The reference tables follow consistent rules that you can get your head around). It also means that players can assemble quite strong combinations with comparatively little 'waste' of XP (This speaks to a somewhat more adversarial PoV than I take as a GM for Dark heresy).

I'm one of those people who hates the aptitude system. DH1 had a fine mechanic for taking stuff outside your career scheme: Elite advances. XP costs were not artificially inflated, because the talents and skills were structured by ranks, rather than by how much you had to pay to get them.


The Fatigue System is overall better, I think. The penalties you take are proportional to how much fatigue you have as well as how good you are at particular things. Gone is the "Oh, you have 1 level of fatigue, and your friend has 5 fatigue? You both have a -10 to everything.)

If your definition of 'better' is 'more annoying to keep track of', then sure. It's 'better.'


Talent Consolidation: DH1 through Only War had two feats for melee called shots, and two feats for ranged called shots. The first moved you to -10 instead of -20, the second made it no penalty. DH2e said stuff that, you have one talent, when you take it choose melee or ranged. You take no penalty for called shots with that.

Combat Tweaks: The answer to any given combat is no longer "Everyone pulls their autopistols and full autos. (I think this might actually have kicked in during Only War, but it was retained in Dh2e). Two-Weapon Wielding was simplified and talent taxes relaxed (Dual shot/Strike are now part of the core, Swift/Lightning work on both hands) and the gap between ranged and melee has arguably shrunk (ha ha) Sorrynotsorry

This, on the other hand, is the one thing I think DH2 did right. A bunch of skills and talents have been combined, which is usually a good thing because it means you don't have to track things like Conceal and Move Silently as seperate skills. Course, it also raised the prices on a lot of stuff, so that's annoying. I've never had an issue with everyone running around firing off autopistols and things at full auto, because generally those guns aren't really strong enough to hurt the nastier sorts of gribblies my groups run into. Your mileage may vary.


Editing: Dark heresy 1 was a gorram mess. The Psyker's advancement tables were out of order, bolt weapons had tearing left out of their special qualities. Dh2e, the only significant print error I've found in my copy is that the chimera's storm bolter has a range of 40m

FFG is known for this, but I'm not convinced the Bolt Weapon Tearing thing was initially a mistake. It got errata'd in later, and I suspect they did it to make bolt weapons more powerful, given the cost of ammo. You can't really call this a black mark against the game, though. Editting errors hardly make the mechanics worse.


Bestiary: DH2e has, in my opinion, much neater stat-blocks for NPCs and enemies, and most NPCs have something unique that they can do (Crime Bosses can order their dudes around and grand them half-actions, heavies can push enemies around with melee hits, Redemptionist Fanatics don't hurt allies with flamers, that kind of thing.

Point. Unique stuff is cool! None of the human enemies in DH1 core have special unique stuff. A lot of the aliens and daemons do, and of course a GM can always add whatever they like to their NPCs, though, so while this is good it's not something that can't be emulated with DH1.


Dark Heresy Second Ed has a mechanism for determining appropriate threats to a party. Setting appropriate combat challenges in DH1e was the bane of my existence as a GM. I don't know how well adjusted the system is, but it does provide a quantifiable metric.

On the other hand, DH1e has "This is a little Scary", "This is moderately Scary", and "This is EXTREMELY Scary!" The latter ranking including everything from an Arcoflagellant to a Daemon Prince, If I recall.

I fail to see any problems with this. Kitbashing Necron statblocks out of Deathwatch and Black Crusade and throwing the result at rank 3 acolytes is entirely a valid tactic. Genestealers are a level appropriate encounter at rank 2, and once you hit rank 5, well, it's Lictor and Dreadnaught times. Honestly, if your PCs aren't screaming and running from every other combat encounter, you're doing something wrong. :smalltongue:

In all seriousness, though, "appropriate threats" is going to depend a lot on playstyle and what sorts of characters you have in the party. It's also going to depend on what tools the GM scatters around the area for the PCs to find and make use of. In Dark Heresy especially, I feel this sort of thing will only be worked out with time and experience, no matter which system you use for it. In the end it's a game, and the players should be having fun with it, and the GM should be having fun with it. Find what works for you and your group, and go from there.

[Anonymouswizard]

Dark Heresy 2 is also a lot less of a descendent of Dark Heresy 1 than it is of Only War, and some people feel like the baby got thrown out with the bathwater.

Otherwise, Destro_Yersul and Chijinda have said why I prefer 1e much better than I did.

[saithor]

Alright, thanks for your opinions so far. Given how split the issue is, I might just leave it to the players, but then what do I do when they split perfectly down the middle lol? :smallsmile: But thanks for all the points and opinions so far, let me chime in with my own.

1. On the aptitude system, I get why people dislike it since it's a lot of extra book-keeping and getting rid of careers is annoying. On the other hand, a good point about nobody having to be forced into one career because of a vital skill/role that needs to be filled, so that's a plus in it's favor. Overall, I'm ambigous, in a PbP game at least people will have plenty of time to figure it out.

2. I think that the combat tweaks and talent mergers were probably a good thing.

3. It's Dark Heresy, from what I've heard the enemy rating shouldn't matter at all, as long as it's deadly.

4. Unique abilities for Human NPC's are cool.

5. Yeah, the fact that's it's much like a port of Only War is concerning for me, if this was directly GW I'd accuse them of just renaming the gam to make more money, but this is FFG so nope. The similarities might end up making it boring.

Overall I actually like 1st edition despite the points for 2nd edition, but not by much. Probably will be elft up to the players. I've already said, but thank you all for your advice and points.

[Sayt]

On enemy ratings...well, Dark heresy isn't DND or deathwatch, the point of the game isn't dungeon dives and slaying monsters, I'll admit.

On the other hand, if every fight is "Okay, drop smoke, and leg it" things might get a little dull and players might feel impotent. If fights swing between steamrolls and "You have no hope to survive, flea yea mortals" it's a little jarring.

Having a number of appropriate combat encounters, that can be resolved with a little tactical thinking and careful application of force at first (Genestealer cultists), then ramping up to some quite difficult opponents (Genestealer Hybrids) that can be dealt with, and then revealing the Purestrains and broodlord. That, in my opinion, is how you ratchet up interest and tension. Shake with one hand slip brass knuckles onto the other.

Also, re Autopistols: three guys with them, aiming and then full-auting can quickly get through anything with less than 13 damage soak, or more, if they have fancy bullets.

Another good combat tweak in DH2/OW era: Dodge and parry negate degrees of success on attacks, rather than just saying "Nope, sorry."

Furthermore: Explosive AOEs no longer scale linearly with each extra KG of explosives (I think that's how it worked in DH1?)

I had a lot of fun running DH1, I'm not saying it's a bad system, just that I like 2e more, is all.

[Destro_Yersul]

Also, re Autopistols: three guys with them, aiming and then full-auting can quickly get through anything with less than 13 damage soak, or more, if they have fancy bullets.

Another good combat tweak in DH2/OW era: Dodge and parry negate degrees of success on attacks, rather than just saying "Nope, sorry."

Furthermore: Explosive AOEs no longer scale linearly with each extra KG of explosives (I think that's how it worked in DH1?)

I had a lot of fun running DH1, I'm not saying it's a bad system, just that I like 2e more, is all.

Aiming and then full-autoing takes two rounds. Sure, it'll shred unarmoured cultists, but you do not want to stand still for one round doing essentially nothing against any of the game's nastier opponents. Also, where do you get 13 soak from? Barring Righteous Fury or supporting talents, max damage from an autopistol is 12, and the average is 7-8. It's really unlikely for an acolyte to get all six hits off, even with full aim beforehand. On something with about 6 soak, which is on the low end really, the average result is going to be 1-2 wounds per successful hit, which means you need 9 successful hits minimum to kill one guy with 10 wounds, because 0 wounds =/= dead. So yeah, your three guys with autopistols will probably scrape up enough hits between them to kill one average Toughness human with a flak jacket every two rounds. More with fancy bullets. It's not that good a strategy.

Re: dodge/parry: Not sure where you're getting that. Parry in DH2 goes 'nope sorry' to individual hits, and so does dodge. Degrees of success negate extra hits, but they did that in DH1, too. Also parry is a skill now, so that sucks.

Explosives aside from grenades were only really introduced in the Inquisitor's Handbook. They do scale linearily. Explosives aside from grenades in DH2... don't exist, as far as I can tell. I can't find any. There's melta bombs, but those didn't scale linearily in DH1, only explosive materials did. Grenades have never scaled.

[Razgriez]

I admit, I'm very new to DH (2nd edition), and while I haven't played yet, if I'm reading correctly, Aim is now a Half or Full action, (the amount of an action used, affects how much bonus it provides for your next attack action)

If I've been reading around the net as well correctly, where as DH 1st ed had Righteous Fury as an Exploding Dice damage roll, 2nd edition Righteous Fury is "Roll a d5 on the appropriate critical table, OR. Deal 1 Wound if the attack failed to cause any damage due to armor reduction."

On a side note, how exactly does the Storm rule for weapons work? Does it mean if I make a 4 shot Full Auto attack with a Storm weapon and score 4 degrees of success, it does 8 hits? Or does it simply mean it maxes out at 4, but I only need to score 2 degrees of success to get that?

[Morty]

I consider the aptitude system and three-step character building much better than careers. It's more flexible, more modular and more friendly towards trying out weird combinations.

[Chijinda]

I consider the aptitude system and three-step character building much better than careers. It's more flexible, more modular and more friendly towards trying out weird combinations.

Flexible, yes. More friendly towards trying out weird combinations? I disagree. If you've never worked with the system before, it can be almost impossible to get the right combination for the character you're looking for. I remember trying to help a friend create a highly intelligent, lightning quick gunner. It took us over an hour and a half to figure out how to make him, and to do so, completely ruined the backstory for the character, because his original backstory involved growing up on a Feral World and joining the Imperial Guard, neither of which provided any of the aptitudes needed for this kind of character (and he was not willing to put in another hour and a half to try and make his next character idea workable).

The aptitude system does give the player more agency, yes, but unless you're extremely experienced with the system, it strikes me as overly convoluted, and could be done away with entirely. To quote a different friend of mine: "The aptitude system is really just a career system that's trying to pretend it isn't a career system." And as my own personal add-on. It's a career system that new players don't know is a career system until they start getting hemmed in by it.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Well...I just picked up both Rogue Trader and 2e Dark Heresy, and I must say, comparing the two, I think I like Dark Heresy 2e's flexibility, at least as far as I've read. I'm still new at Warhammer 40,000 in general, let alone these RPGs, but I find them incredibly cool.

I've got a friend who prefers 1e Dark Heresy, though, since it allows him to play a Grey Knight.

[TimeWizard]

I liked how 1e referred to them as 'the acolytes', it made it feel like it wasn't a combat game.

DH1 absolutely isn't a combat game. That's a really great way to get murdered. DH1 is a "we are totally, completely over our heads and we need to figure how not to die until we stop this problem" game.

[Anonymouswizard]

DH1 absolutely isn't a combat game. That's a really great way to get murdered. DH1 is a "we are totally, completely over our heads and we need to figure how not to die until we stop this problem" game.

Yep. DH1 is a game of 'okay, we investigate. Oh my God there's corruption. Phew, it's just normal human corruption. Oh wait, all the corrupt people are linked to a cult. False alarm, it's just a variation on the Imperial Cult. Hey guys, I think I found some mutants, get the flamethrower.'

DH2 being more of a combat game disappointed me, because the first three games tried to go for different styles:
Dark Heresy tried for investigation.
Rogue Trader is exploration* (and profit making)
Deathwatch was combat.

I'm not sure about Black Crusade, but Only War went for combat again, and from what I've heard DH2 leans that way as well (the inquisitors warband? Try 'the cell' or 'the acolytes').

* These are the voyages of the overly fancy starship. Their lifelong mission to seek out new worlds, make craters of new life and new civilisations, and to boldly go where no man has made a profit before!

[comicshorse]

* These are the voyages of the overly fancy starship. Their lifelong mission to seek out new worlds, make craters of new life and new civilisations, and to boldly go where no man has made a profit before!

The unofficial motto of my last Rogue Trader group 'Kill aliens, steal tech '

[Anonymouswizard]

The unofficial motto of my last Rogue Trader group 'Kill aliens, steal tech '

Sounds like the right way to do it. Ideally give it to the Explorator who can declare it to actually be STC tech the aliens stole and reverse engineer it for instalment on your flagship. :smallwink:

I really want to play or run Rogue Trader, it looks like the best of the games.

[Surrealistik]

2E is the better system.

I didn't find the aptitudes significantly more complicated than 1E's advancement scheme, nor did my friends in the live game I run. In the meanwhile they allow for much more flexibility, without having to resort to a kludge like Elite Advances.

Balance is much better; Psykers are no longer 3.5 wizards/godlings that can solo greater daemons with sufficient optimization while being able to cover most aspects of an investigation to boot, thereby reducing the rest of the party to his glorified bag carriers and meatshields. Full auto-weapons, while still extremely powerful due to Suppressive Fire + Grenade tactics (which are still usually the best idea) aren't the alpha and omega any longer. Melee is much more effective and is closer to parity with ranged weapons. Firebombs aren't as insanely overpowered for their availability. Las weapons have become much more competitive vis a vis SPs due to variable settings and the reduction in full-auto effectiveness.

As mentioned before, a lot of stuff that should have been consolidated/simplified has been consolidated (Stealth skills and feat taxes and Unnatural Characteristics for example). Stuff that merited more granularity has gained it (Fatigue).

Threat ratings are very welcome as they help a great deal in encounter design and management.

My single biggest issue with 2E is the fact that it didn't keep risk free Fettered casting from Rogue Trader which was a brilliant innovation.

[Anonymouswizard]

2E is the better system.

Heresy! *BLAM"




I don't own the book, so I can't argue this this, I just personally think careers work for Dark Heresy, they give people a role in a cell.


Balance is much better; Psykers are no longer 3.5 wizards/godlings that can solo greater daemons with sufficient optimization while being able to cover most aspects of an investigation to boot, thereby reducing the rest of the party to his glorified bag carriers and meatshields. Full auto-weapons, while still extremely powerful due to Suppressive Fire + Grenade tactics (which are still usually the best idea) aren't the alpha and omega any longer. Melee is much more effective and is closer to parity with ranged weapons. Firebombs aren't as insanely overpowered for their availability. Las weapons have become much more competitive vis a vis SPs due to variable settings and the reduction in full-auto effectiveness.

Okay, this sounds good, especially the las upgrade. I'm already one step away from banning psykers (I don't like powers to have the potential for a TPK), so dropping Psykers isn't a gigantic deal for me.

As mentioned before, a lot of stuff that should have been consolidated/simplified has been consolidated (Stealth skills and feat taxes and Unnatural Characteristics for example). Stuff that merited more granularity has gained it (Fatigue).

Threat ratings are very welcome as they help a great deal in encounter design and management.

My single biggest issue with 2E is the fact that it didn't keep risk free Fettered casting from Rogue Trader which was a brilliant innovation.[/QUOTE]

Rogue Trader is, IMO, the best of the games. I agree the classes could do with being looser, but swap out 'Profit Factor' for 'Influence' and it becomes my perfect version of Dark Heresy. As it is, the rest of this is mainly a matter of taste (I like having to just guess what would be a decent opponent, it feels more natural to me, so I don't pay attention to threat ratings). So, um.... not-heresy? *anti-blam*

[Tome]

I don't own the book, so I can't argue this this I just personally think careers work for Dark Heresy, they give people a role in a cell.

I'm just going to point out that choosing a Role is an explicit element of character creation in 2e. So it's still there. It has, however, been disconnected from background now, as the two are different selections. Really, I don't quite get why folks are saying careers are gone. You still choose a clearly defined role in play and a strong tie to a setting background element, both of which affect your future advancement, they're just handled as distinct concepts now.

The only real change is that you're not shackled to a strict, and often aggravating, list and progression of advances. I, personally, vastly prefer not being straight jacketed in how my character develops.

Oh, and I'll also point that 2e has a very detailed set of mechanics for guiding investigations and such. It is still very much an investigation game. In fact, I'd say it's far better at it, considering how things like the subtlety of you presence on a world have actual mechanics now. There's a substantial chunk of word count dedicated to this. The reason the combat system is so different isn't because DH2e is more of a combat game, but rather because they've had four games in between with which to refine the mechanics and didn't see any reason to revert it.