Dark Heresy

[Nevermore]

Ok, I've started a Dark Heresy game based on two players with max xp... ones an "Arbitrator" the other is a "Sanctioned Psyker." They are junior Inquisitors. At the moment they are onboard a Rogue Trader vessel overwhelmed with drooling cultists... but the two Inquisitor players let the fact I was running the game out and now they want to play. I want no more Inquisitors... how should I start the new players out?

[sleepy]

The Inquisition can "acolyte" (i.e. press gang) pretty much anyone outside the Astartes or high in the Imperial beaurocracy. Assuming you want the new players to be part of the party, it's both easy and fluffy to inform their character, which can be of any non-heretical background or denomination, that their services are demanded by the Emperor and failure to comply will result in torture and death. Revealing anything further is just being nice... which the Inquisition is not.

If you don't want the Inquisition involved with the new players in any way you need to give some plot information so we can give better ideas. Though you could have the existing characters conscript them, by means friendly or otherwise.

[Nevermore]

Understood... but how much xp etc should I give them?

[Swordguy]

I've found that the starting pool of 400 xp is pretty darn limiting. I'm aware that PCs in DH are supposed to start way low on the power scale, but the response from my players was that they were so low on the scale as to be useless. Somebody said:

"Why would the Inquisition be interested in me? I suck so hard that ordinary people are better than me, and I'm a Guardsman anyway. If I'm just a Private, what about me makes me special?"

I was hard-pressed to answer.

My modification to the system was to do the following:
-All PCs start out at 900 xp instead of 400 xp.
-You gain some extra d10's to roll on stats. You can roll an extra d10 on either WS or BS. You can roll an extra d10 on either S, T or Ag. You can roll 2 extra d10 on Int, Per, Will, or Fel (but they must be spent on separate stats).
-Each PC receives x3 the amount of starting wealth listed (if you got 120+3d10, you get 360+9d10).

This was unanimously lauded by my players as having enough experience to differentiate PCs of the same class from each other, as well as being able to customize the characters more fully, stat-wise, without making it easy to create combat monsters.

There's not really a downside to doing this - you still start off with pretty inexperienced, not not-terribly powerful characters. They're still easy to kill, but it makes the players SO much happier.

[Nevermore]

Sounds decent, I'll cut down on it a bit but 900 or so xp and x3 starting money sounds beautiful..... I'm still gonna make them roll to see where they are from or what they are.

[evisiron]

I do like that stat system. I played my first Dh game that past weekend, and while combat was rare, we were so bad at it. It was a consant steam of misses and failures. I know its a more 'lethal' game but to have to roll lower than 32 on percentile only for it to be halted my armour is demoralising to say the least.

At least our foes were as inept as we were.

[Bryn]

Do remember that there are a lot of modifiers that can help in combat. Taking actions to aim your gun, shooting point blank, firing on full auto or semi-auto: all these things will give you a much better chance to hit. It also helps to buy a scope, and purchase Ballistic Skill upgrades, etc., etc.

Also, a shot getting completely negated by armour? What sort of enemies are you facing? Unless, of course, you rolled a 1 for damage, but that's a rare event.

Anyway, I love Dark Heresy! It's a fantastic system, wonderfully dark and gritty and it has a very nice sense of humour as well. Plus it's roleplaying and 40k, a combination of two very good things.

[Nevermore]

No kidding! They're an awesome combo I gotta say though, my group of players HATES heavy stubbers. They seriously murder nearly the entire party on a regular basis. I always roll a 1 or 2 to hit, causing a massive number of hits to pile up.