Dark Heresy!

[Saph]

So, now that the 3.5 sandbox game I've been running for my group has finished its first season, and one of the other guys has had a try at a time-travelling Star Wars Saga game in the meantime (it didn't work all that well) our old GM from our Seven Kingdoms game is going to be running Dark Heresy. It's the first time any of us have tried the system - so far our group's only played d20 and White Wolf.

At the moment the party consists of my Assassin (Imperial Worlder, with warts) a Psyker (74 years old, hairless), and a Tech Priest (the player's trying to make her look like Seven of Nine, which will be difficult since like all Tech Priests she's missing the bottom half of her face). A fourth player's thinking of playing a Guardsman. The Psyker and Tech Priest's players don't know much about the Warhammer 40k universe, but me, the Guardsman's player, and the GM are all pretty familiar with it.

We're all curious to see what the system's like - anyone have any good experiences, advice, or stories?

[Myshlaevsky]

So, now that the 3.5 sandbox game I've been running for my group has finished its first season, and one of the other guys has had a try at a time-travelling Star Wars Saga game in the meantime (it didn't work all that well) our old GM from our Seven Kingdoms game is going to be running Dark Heresy. It's the first time any of us have tried the system - so far our group's only played d20 and White Wolf.

At the moment the party consists of my Assassin (Imperial Worlder, with warts) a Psyker (74 years old, hairless), and a Tech Priest (the player's trying to make her look like Seven of Nine, which will be difficult since like all Tech Priests she's missing the bottom half of her face). A fourth player's thinking of playing a Guardsman. The Psyker and Tech Priest's players don't know much about the Warhammer 40k universe, but me, the Guardsman's player, and the GM are all pretty familiar with it.

We're all curious to see what the system's like - anyone have any good experiences, advice, or stories?

I've known a couple of GMs who let Tech Priests get away with only bionic lungs, instead of the full respirator face implantation. I've GM'd Dark Heresy quite a bit but I can't think of much to say other than what you probably know: the system is highly lethal, the setting is built with bricks of grimdark.

Are you using the errata? It makes some good changes to sniping weapons and curbs some abuses relating to psyker powers. The actual mechanical system for DH is pretty straightforward although class power sort of falls apart once you get to higher ranks, especially in Ascension. A note should probably be made that having a skill is indicative of a core level of competency, you shouldn't have to roll for mundane tasks involving it.

[Saph]

Are you using the errata?

Didn't know about it. What does it change?

[Myshlaevsky]

Didn't know about it. What does it change?

Of the top of my head: it makes Accurate weapons a viable alternative to full auto, stops Corpus Conversion shenanigans and means your Tech Priest won't stop breathing every time the Psyker decides to use Weapon Jinx.

It also fixes mistakes in the advancement schemes and clarifies some rules: link. There's also errata there for the Inquisitor's Handbook, which I heartily recommend including in your game if your GM is cool with it. The same goes for the Radical's Handbook although it doesn't offer quite so many player options.

[Saph]

Cool, that's helpful. Does seem to change a few things. I was thinking of going the sniper route with my Assassin, so that'll be handy.

[holywhippet]

Two things you should look into - armor and bolt weapons. Given how lethal combat can be it's a good idea to have the best armor you can afford to reduce your damage a bit. The system uses lookup tables based on what type of damage you are inflicting when you someone is being damaged past their maximum number of wounds (hit points basically). If you are using energy weapons your shots might not take your enemy down if you don't inflict enough damage. Bolt weapons use the explosive lookup table though which is a lot more kill happy - soften tough enemies up with other weapons then put a bolt round in them.