Dark Heresy (40K RPG) Review

[Ritterin Sophia]

I heard someone say there's talents and skills suited to making a guardsman from a penitent regiment, anything that would be suitable for a Krieger?

[Imperial Overlord]

I heard someone say there's talents and skills suited to making a guardsman from a penitent regiment, anything that would be suitable for a Krieger?

It's actually starting gear (armed explosive collar) that determines if you're from a penal regiment. Get GM's permission to start with gas mask and buy appropriate starting skills (beginning characters get to buy a bunch from their first career to represent life experience) and you're ready to go.

[NecronLord]

The book is festooned with various subtle and not so subtle jokes, the one that springs to mind right away of course being:

Forbidden Lore (The Black Library)

"Secret knowledge of the Black Library, its forbidden contents, strange industries, and the unspeakable, pale, hairless things that toil within its walls."

If that ain't a bit of good natured ribbing of themselves and/or corporate comrades, I don't know what is.

Aye. Spotted that, and let the pskyer player take it.

I've also informed him in no uncertain terms that the minute he speaks of it, a harlequin will turn up and kill him.

[Imperial Overlord]

Don't forget the Dune reference on the sanctioning table. "Pain through Nerve Induction. The skin on the back of your right hand is horribly scared. You feel uncomfortable around bald, robed women."

[Academia Nut]

Ah yes, I remember laughing heartily at that bit with the Sanctioning Psykers. I'm sure there are other hidden jokes in there, the rulebook is just so big its hard to remember them all. Good to see that the designers have a sense of humour beyond the splatter effects of the critical hit table.

[Hawkwings]

The splatter effects are scary, especially the 10s. Oh, and the "perils of the Warp" stuff is scary too.

[Imperial Overlord]

The splatter effects are scary, especially the 10s. Oh, and the "perils of the Warp" stuff is scary too.

Yes, they are. On the other hand, the only peril of the warp role I've had to make so far actually saved my character from near certain death. I was unstuck in time and vanished for three rounds, which was quite handy because the xeno in power armour wielding an oversized shockmaul was about to crush me flat.

[Academia Nut]

You know, out of curiosity, what did you (character and/or you the player) say when that happened? That sounds like something that would result in a major series of exclamations along the lines of "Oh crap... oh fuck... oh holy shit that actually helps!"

[Imperial Overlord]

My first reaction was "oh boy, let's see what I come up with. Hopefully if its something that fucks me it is something that also fucks the people in close proximity aka xeno dude." *Dice rolled, chart consulted.* "Hey, this isn't actually a bad thing. He isn't close enough to engage any of our surviving party members in melee [three people had burned fate points by this point in the game to be merely rendered unconscious instead of killed]. Steve, [Scum with autogun and a reasonably clear shot] rock and roll on him."

[Imperial Overlord]

First failed fear test of the game and it was a bad. Mike, playing an Imperial Guardsman, rolled about as badly as possible on his fear and shock rolls and average on his trauma roll (which was actually quite bad since how badly he failed his fear roll modified the roll). Which meant that he went catatonic for 5 hours, gained 10 Insanity points, and spent the next 14 hours obsessively cleaning his weapon and praying.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

At least Insanity's not so bad. You can keep it under control if you're willing to burn XP, plus only the insane shall prosper anyway...

[Coalition]

Our game had a Priest entering the laboratory, brandishing his pistol, looking all dramatic to shoot the doctor, and he rolls a 98, and jams the gun.

He was very glad he had a backup weapon. Especially when it had Manstopper rounds (ignore first 5 points of armor), and when the robotic familiar crawled off the boss' back, and came after him. It had 5 pts of armor.

The rest of us worked on the Red Eye guys (6 of them, trying to get by on the two sides of the table). Thank goodness we had our meatshields there, even if one had to burn a fate point (and rolled a 9) to get enough health back to remain alive.

My techpriest just stayed near the door, and sniped with a laspistol for the entire fight. Our psyker kept going for unnatural aim and then shooting. The Priest used his manstopper rounds and was solely responsible for killing the robot familiar. The NPC (Scum with autopistol) managed to take out the boss (full auto = 10 rounds fired per burst). We took the vivisection center fairly intact (except for a lot of laspistol and bullet holes in the walls).

Of course my techpriest was busy seeing how well we could get paid. The Scum managed to walk into the Workers' Union and find a job from the gang leader there, for us to kill the boss. My character began adding things up:
1) being paid by the Inquisition for this job overall
2) being paid by the gang
3) looting the psycho-doc's lair and selling the stuff
4) turning in the gang for the reward on them
5) looting the gang's headquarters for any weapons and money we could find

It looked like we could get paid five times for this mission, but we only got #1 and #2.

[Imperial Overlord]

Manstopper rounds increase penetration by 3, not 5.

[Coalition]

Manstopper rounds increase penetration by 3, not 5.

I forgot to mention he was firing it from a handcannon, which had 2 penetration to start with.

Right now I am going through the rulebook, picking out different tech items for my techpriest like a kid with a Toys-R-us catalog. Auspex, Power armor, MP lascannon, Bolt & Melta & Plasma weaponry, photo-visors, Combi-tool, Magnoculars, Pict recorder (much more reliable than an Auto Quill, though more expensive), and make it all Good quality.

After that I got into the Cybernetics section and was happy.

[Yuri2356]

So, what manner of technical stuff can a techpriest do during a campaign? Any ability to build/modify gear for the party? Screw around with mechanical enemies or set peices?

[defanatic]

So, what manner of technical stuff can a techpriest do during a campaign? Any ability to build/modify gear for the party? Screw around with mechanical enemies or set peices?

He can electrocute people with his own augmentics, but he suffers fatigue for that. I assume if anything computery had to happen, the tech priest would be there.

I found the contents and index slightly annoying. I was writing up a character, and got to the "Divination" part. The contents made no mention of it, and the index directed me to the divination psychic powers. For future reference, it is on page 34.

[Utsanomiko]

That still begs the question of equipment crafting and environment altercations.

I'm adoring just how stylistic the artwork is overall and its emphasis on the ignorance of Imperials not in the upper echelons of the Inquisition or heads of other agencies. Too many people get the idea that a lot of the horrors and foreign powers in the 40k universe are common knowledge due to the focus of the tabletop game; I've say before the rulebooks are actually a good guise as to everything a character *wouldn't* know about a given faction, and really there's plenty of stuff within the DH book for players to have a quintessential 40k game without pedantically resorting to Genestealers and Chaos Legions the way Star Wars RPG sends everyone back to Tatooine.

The only shortcoming I see so far is the layout is scattered by quite a bit, especially for the beginner. Lots of little important class & skill stuff to know when creating a character is separate from character creation, and not simply by an adjacent chapter.

Then again the first RP book I owned and read in-depth was West End Game's Star Wars revised 2nd Edition, which is like having 2nd Edition SWRPG taught to you directly by your awesome favorite uncle.

[Bob the Gunslinger]

I'm going to be getting my copy soon. Just FYI, if you live in OC, the Barnes and Noble and Borders at South Coast Plaza have a collective shitload of Dark Heresy. Someone must have ordered a bunch.

[SylasGaunt]

So, what manner of technical stuff can a techpriest do during a campaign? Any ability to build/modify gear for the party? Screw around with mechanical enemies or set peices?

Presumably that would make use of his tech skills. Basically if you need someone to repair a door or do anything fiddly with he's the one.

Oh and he's got a vial of sacred oil that instantly clears weapon jams which is neat.

[Losonti Tokash]

So, what manner of technical stuff can a techpriest do during a campaign? Any ability to build/modify gear for the party? Screw around with mechanical enemies or set peices?

Presumably that would make use of his tech skills. Basically if you need someone to repair a door or do anything fiddly with he's the one.

Oh and he's got a vial of sacred oil that instantly clears weapon jams which is neat.

There's also the skill "Technical Knock" whereupon the Techpriest hits a jammed weapon to convince the machine spirit to cooperate.

[Imperial Overlord]

At higher points in the career, the techpriest can buy a talent that means he doesn't suffer fatigue when electrocuting people and another one to levitate on the magnetic field.

Right now we want ours to figure out how to use a xeno vehicle we captured.

[DPDarkPrimus]

I wish they used semi-colons to better distinguish between different options of gear or skills on starting characters. Using only commas makes it difficult sometimes.

[Utsanomiko]

I'm starting to wish there were a few more guidelines to character progression past the main professions than simply "they'll probably become Interrogators or something. It's beyond the scope of this game." I mean the book is about the Inquisition, it'd be nice if it at least had some stats for Inquisitors or their close aides; by the looks of things it almost seems as if they never intend for the characters to ever encounter any of an Inquisitor's team proper.

[Academia Nut]

Yeah, rather funny that they don't give any sort of stats for the Inquisitors or their retinues, moving them sort of into the "you can't fight these guys" territory despite the fact that hey, they gave stats for daemonhosts and other things that can individually fuck you up way better than an Inquisitor can.

They were probably keeping that stuff under wraps with the intent of having Inquisitors detailed out in a later product, but hopes of that appear to have been torpedoed.

[DPDarkPrimus]

It's something that might have shown up in the cancelled books... one can hold out hope against hope that they might put something like it up in PDF form on their website.

Personally I think they canceled it to guarantee that all the copies would sell, and then they'll gauge the community's thoughts on it and come out with an amended version a few years later costing 20% more.