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I recently discovered Dark Heresy and thought that it would be a great game to play, proplem is, I'm not sure how to start. Any suggestions would be great, how to get started, character creation, as well as how you feel about the game. I love role play, and mainly play AD & D, so I can handle complex rule sets, so don't worry about confusing me, I should understand anything that you bring up.

Well are you starting as a player or a gm?

I'll assume player for right now.

There are a few important things to keep in mind. One is to pay attention to your stats at character creation. The book goes into detail on what stat does what, but never, ever try to make toughness a dump stat.

Why? Dark heresy is different than dnd when it comes to hit points. You will see that "wounds" are quite low in dark heresy, while in dnd they grow larger and larger.

This is because toughness, combined with armor and hopefully (when present) cover, reduce damage taken before you actually get hurt. Example. Your toughness bonus is 3 (its 31, but the tens number is what the game looks at for this) and you take a hit from a las gun for 6 damage. You take 3, since 6 - 3 from toughness is 3. Add in some basic guard flak armor and thats 4 armor now, 6-4-3, well you take nothing!

Another thing is you level up as you go, you don't hit the next level in the game and magically get all the bonuses. Think if dark heresy as building yourself constantly, rather than needed XP to get better.

Knowledge of the 40k universe helps with the roleplay. Play what you know first, before getting into something else. Know alot about guardsmen? Play a ranged style guardsmen and focus on what you do best, shooting and being tough.

Beyond that, just ask questions. I'll try to answer them.

Yeah, characters are pretty squishy in Dark Heresy. If you're in combat and not in cover then you are probably going to die. Autoguns will be the bane of your existence.

As far as what you need to start, I'd suggest the Dark Heresy Core Rulebook and The Inquisitor's Handbook. Everything beyond that is completely optional (however useful), but those two books will give you hours of play. The Creatures Anathema would be the next one to get, for more adversary profiles, and then you can do what you want after that.

But what sort of game are you looking to play? As juraigamer said, are you GM'ing or playing? How many other people would be playing in this group? Give us some more detail and we can help more.

If you need more advice on surviving I've found out having a tower sheild can help a lot.

And unlike DnD where each class has it's own ground the DH classes overlap quite a lot so there is no problem with for example not having a cleric since both Guardsmen and Tech-Priests can get medicae.

Thanks for the help so far guys, I really apreciate it.

I'll be playing, not GMing, thw group will be around 4 people, possibley more, not including the GM.

So you die easily in this game, good. I never really liked the never dieing part of AD & D, it sort of ruined the story I often ceate to go with what is happening, so I'm glad that this game is more realistic.

How exactly does XP work? As far as I understand it so far, you earn XP, then spend it to gain new skills, so your constantly improving, instead of just gaining a bunch of new stuff suddenly like in AD & D, which sounds interesting. I also noticed a part of character creation is the rank, I understand what it is, but I'm not sure how you would progress to the next rank, since you don't keep XP, you spend it. Does anyone want to explain how that works?

Xp works like this. You play for a session, and at the end your GM gives you experience for what you did.

Say your gm gives you 300 xp. You can then go to your rank or lower on your xp boxes and purchase stuff. If your rank 1 (xp is in total 0-500) you can only buy rank 1 stuff and stat boosts.

Level, is based off rank. Xp totals dictate what rank you are. The more xp you get, and consequently spend, brings you closer to the next rank.

One thing to keep in mind is to know what the other players are doing. There is no good reason for you to make a character that focuses on tech use, if someone else is already doing this. Same for a fellowship character (diplomacy in dnd) or a melee character.

Try not to overlap "jobs" per say. As a gm I've found players will end up fighting over who will tech use or what not. It has actually forced people out of the group, course you may see different results.

I thought we might have a proplem with over laping jobs, particularly with guardsmen, cause everyone seems to like them. However since I discovered the game I think I'll get to choose what I'm going to do first, and everyone else will just have to adjust acordingly.

I found the core rulebook on scribd. I'm still going to buy my own, but I wanted to create a character just to see what is is like, any advice you guys want to offer would be appreciated, I'll post anything you want to know about him when he is done. Untill then keep talking, your input is very useful.

Give us a general idea what the other players are. After that, tell us what you want to do. I will gladly assist you in character creation.

Jobs isn't the "class". keep that in mind. Jobs is what does the character specialize in. There are skill jobs, such as tech use, medicae, ect, there is also the lore job, which is tricky and normally players all dabble in it, but there are exceptions.

Also if your GM told you what the general theme is, that would help as well.

Don't worry too much about role overlap. Make the character you want to set out to create. There are so many options you literally are limited by your imagination ( and whatever if any limitations the GM imposes of course. )

So me and my wife just finished playing through the Free Preview adventure for DH, and while I had a good time, there are a few things in the combat that I found to be pretty annoying, at least for low level characters.

Maybe it was just because we had 2 players, but I found we were missing WAY more often than hitting. Maybe I am doing something wrong? I guess I'm sure I was for my rifle, as "Accurate" and "Aim" should have been adding together to +20 and making my roll 59 or less, but still that is like 4/10 times I am missing; but most of the time I was just testing on a 49.

The most misses definitely came during close combat though, both of us were tied up by the mutated guardsmen, doing relatively no damage for several turns, just because we would all miss each other. If it is an opposed skill test, are you still testing against your skill? or just each other? Should someone always be getting hit in CC? My WS33+full on assault was still missing a horrendous amount of the time.

The battle with the 4 mutants at once was silly, they couldn't hit the broadside of a barn with their BS22+aim, and neither could we! not to mention a few jams (epic), can those be made easier to clear with modifiers?

I found initiative to be pretty clunky too, do you really have to do your agi+d10 for each round of combat? I guess once I got into the groove with it it wasn't too bad, doodling a quick map helped matters.

The last battle was quick, thankfully, grenade to the crystal ftw. I want to keep playing, but other than knowing my rules for fighting, is there anything else I should know about combat that makes it faster? Or was it just a combination of being noobs with terrible accuracy (I gave us some pretty decent guns, chainsword/bolt pistol on the Arbitrator and my assassin a silenced hunting rifle, laspistol, and mono-sword)?

Maybe it was just because we had 2 players, but I found we were missing WAY more often than hitting. Maybe I am doing something wrong? I guess I'm sure I was for my rifle, as "Accurate" and "Aim" should have been adding together to +20 and making my roll 59 or less, but still that is like 4/10 times I am missing; but most of the time I was just testing on a 49.

You will see later with characters that upgrade their ballistic skill that shooting with destroy stuff easily. Then again so will melee. Do you have the errata? From fantasy flight games' site? If you aim with a weapon with the accurate quality you do get +20 and you get an extra d10 of damage for each 2 degrees of success, up to 2d10. The players can get around their lack of ability to shoot with good placement.

The most misses definitely came during close combat though, both of us were tied up by the mutated guardsmen, doing relatively no damage for several turns, just because we would all miss each other. If it is an opposed skill test, are you still testing against your skill? or just each other? Should someone always be getting hit in CC? My WS33+full on assault was still missing a horrendous amount of the time.

When you roll to hit in melee, you just roll WS. An opposed WS test is each target rolls WS, and whoever did better wins. You don't always hit in CC, especially if your opponent can parry very well. Defensive weapon at that low level means you should parry 50% of the time. Later you will be able to swing multiple times per round, so don't worry. Oh and get free re-rolls.

The battle with the 4 mutants at once was silly, they couldn't hit the broadside of a barn with their BS22+aim, and neither could we! not to mention a few jams (epic), can those be made easier to clear with modifiers?

The only way to clear weapon jams is a talent you can get for some classes. Otherwise, you reload. It's related to 40k fluff, with people not understanding technology.

I found initiative to be pretty clunky too, do you really have to do your agi+d10 for each round of combat? I guess once I got into the groove with it it wasn't too bad, doodling a quick map helped matters.

Either I've always had it wrong or you do, but I always just get one initiative test per combat from everyone

The last battle was quick, thankfully, grenade to the crystal ftw. I want to keep playing, but other than knowing my rules for fighting, is there anything else I should know about combat that makes it faster? Or was it just a combination of being noobs with terrible accuracy (I gave us some pretty decent guns, chainsword/bolt pistol on the Arbitrator and my assassin a silenced hunting rifle, laspistol, and mono-sword)?

To speed up battle against lots of foes, the party using area of effect weapons such as flamers, grenades or even multi shot weapons (autoguns) is the simplest way. Yes, being new slows it down, but combats go quite smoothly later on when they know more. Make sure your players are putting their stats in the right places too. When I first started I was never told how useful something like toughness was... and after learning I was sad.

I looked at the errata before I actually played the game, I'll need to go back and look at it on FF's site, and look over the rules again before we do our next adventure.

I think I'll definitely be spending a few points on my stats like WS and BS.

Yes I was doing initiative wrong, you only do it at the start. Geez I feel like a nub.

Edit: So after looking at the FAQ quickly, a melee attack is only a half-action? So you can make 2 melee attacks in one round of combat? I guess I should have known that since you can feint, then make a melee attack as well. First time playing for the lose, I felt like I was just starting 40k again.

Question: So I took Furious Assault as an advance, which gives me an additional attack after I make a hit. So does that mean I can make my first attack, get a bonus hit, make a 2nd attack, and get a 2nd bonus hit? So 4 attacks? Seems OP with a chainsword

juraigamer wrote:Also if your GM told you what the general theme is, that would help as well.

This is definitely good advice in general for all RPGs. The GM needs to set some basic expectations with the group as to if the campaign will be focused on investigation, combat, roleplaying, etc.

I've found that even in campaigns where characters have a lot of secret background stuff, I prefer getting the players to discuss character abilities and roles together. There's no problem with saying, "I'm playing a brick that can take a lot of abuse" even if you want to keep "I'm also the last heir to the evil empire" secret. Makes for a group of characters that is functional and prevents characters stepping all over each other's abilities.

So I drew my characters real quick, and my colors didn't really come out how I wanted them too, bleh. I think I'll spend more time on a picture once we get a bit better equipped maybe a background and stuff.


http://galefire.com/2011/07/quick-dark-heresy-acolytes/

I dont have a book in front of me to quote but im pretty sure you can only take 1 attack action, even though it is a half action. I could be wrong but that seems to be how I'm remembering it

Wow. Go away for a day and I miss a bunch of replies. I'll try to cover everything off in one post.

Lyzin Locrian wrote:I thought we might have a proplem with over laping jobs, particularly with guardsmen, cause everyone seems to like them. However since I discovered the game I think I'll get to choose what I'm going to do first, and everyone else will just have to adjust acordingly.

It's possible to have people running the same career (Guardsman, Assassin, Cleric, etc.) yet still have completely different characters. Although FFG have never been a fan of the branching career paths (which is why it doesn't show up in Rogue Trader and Deathwatch, and why 'careers' don't even exist in Black Crusade, just Archetypes), the way it works in DH is quite good.

Take a look at your rulebook and look at the Guardsman for example. There are three branches you can go down, and the player heading down the Sniper route will play differently than the player heading down the Officer route. Same goes for other career types, such as the Cleric. The Cleric can end up being a paragon of Ministorum virtue, bringing the Light of the God-Emperor to the masses... or a nut-case Redemptionist running forward with a chain-blade and flamer, screaming curses at those that would dare oppose Him on Earth.

You've got a lot of room to play with (and even more once you factor in the alternate ranks, home worlds and starting packages from The Inquisitor's Handbook, Radical's Handbook, Blood of Martyrs, Daemon Hunter and, presumably, assuming it follows the same style, the Book of Judgement), so don't think that just because two people want to be the Psyker that they're both going to play the same.

Also, what I'm saying here doesn't mean that the other three RPG's don't have a lot of choice in them either. My main Deathwatch Character, Dark Angels Librarian Gideon Keyes, has gone heavily down the telepathic route, so he has Short- and Long-Ranged Telepathy, Astrotelepathy, and so on. His only real offensive powers are Smite and the one that acts like a Heavy Flamer... the name escapes me. He's not a very 'fighty' Librarian, he's more of a telepathic communications expert. Compare that to my friend's Space Wolf Librarian, who was all-out in-your-face attack (as a Space Wolf should be), who just had offensive powers and none of them telepathy/divination ones, or my other friend's Ultramarine Librarian, who was all about supporting the troops and giving bonuses (and even healing!).

The end result of all this is something I say to everyone - you get out of an RPG what you put into an RPG. If you think that these various careers will cage you in to a specific type, then that's exactly what they will do, but they don't have to do that at all. One Scum is not the same as the next one.

And as far as overlapping with specific skills (people have used Tech-Use and Medicae as two good examples), having back up party members is always a good idea. Take my Dark Heresy group as an example. We have:

1. Arbite.
2. Imperial Psyker.
3. Cleric.
4. Tech-Priest.
5. Guardsman.

Obviously the Tech-Priest is our 'Tech-Use' guy, but the Guardsman has decent knowledge in Tech-Use as well. One thing the RPG rules allow for is for players to help other players. It gives them an always-useful +10 to any Test they have to make, and all they need is to be trained in that Skill. So while the Tech-Priest is the one with the best stats for Tech-Use, the Guardsman can help out for an extra +10.

Same goes for healing, where the Tech-Priest and the Guardsman both have Medicae. Neither are all that great at it, but assisting one another they can do some good, and as they act as a back-up for our Psyker who heals everyone via the Warp, it's a good combo.

It's bad to have everyone take the same skills, otherwise no one feels like they have a role, but at the same time it's terrible if everyone has one thing they do particularly well with no back-up because if that character dies (and, as we've said, humans in DH are squishy!), then the group can be suddenly left without a vital skill.

daedalus-templarius wrote:Maybe it was just because we had 2 players, but I found we were missing WAY more often than hitting. Maybe I am doing something wrong? I guess I'm sure I was for my rifle, as "Accurate" and "Aim" should have been adding together to +20 and making my roll 59 or less, but still that is like 4/10 times I am missing; but most of the time I was just testing on a 49.

Welcome to Dark Heresy, where your character is remarkable only because he is slightly better than the rest of the dregs of humanity. You suck at combat because all starting level (1-3) DH characters suck at combat. Yes, most of the things you do will be below a 50% chance of succeeding.

But this is where modifiers come into it.

The +60/-60 capped modifier system is what the players need to make this work, and generally speaking it's why the game needs a GM. The GM assigns the modifiers based on the context of the situation - so if you're attempting to hack into a cogitator's database and there's no one around to stop you, the GM might say "This will be an Easy (+30) Security Test", but if you're doing the same thing whilst hiding under a desk trying not to get shot as your buddy keeps up suppressing fire on the enemy, then the GM might say "This will be a Hard (-20) Security Test."

Modifiers are one of the most important mechanics in the game, and Dark Heresy especially need to use them (they're not as important in Deathwatch!). Our Sniper lives and dies on his modifiers - BS52, +10 for Aiming, +10 for Accurate, +10 for Red-Dot Sight, +10 for Short Range (always remember what range you're at!). Makes him a very dangerous person.

daedalus-templarius wrote:The most misses definitely came during close combat though, both of us were tied up by the mutated guardsmen, doing relatively no damage for several turns, just because we would all miss each other. If it is an opposed skill test, are you still testing against your skill? or just each other? Should someone always be getting hit in CC? My WS33+full on assault was still missing a horrendous amount of the time.

HTH isn't opposed. It's just a percentage roll vs your WS + any bonuses you may have. So WS33 doing an All-Out Attack would hit on a 53 or lower. They would get a chance to Dodge if you hit, but that's all - once you hit you hit, roll damage, reduce for Armour/Toughness, apply damage.

And yes, starting level characters are bad at shooting and terrible at HTH. Low Strength + bad WS = not very good at HTH. Get yourself a Chainsword pronto. You're going to need that Tearing Quality.

daedalus-templarius wrote:The battle with the 4 mutants at once was silly, they couldn't hit the broadside of a barn with their BS22+aim, and neither could we! not to mention a few jams (epic), can those be made easier to clear with modifiers?

Given this was Shattered Hope that you were running, you'd be in the Gorgonid mines, and I doubt you'd be at very long ranged. Were you factoring in the +10 for short range? How were you representing the map?

As far as Jams go... not really. That's up to the GM. He could make it situational (I've had people clear jams automatically once combat is over because there was no time pressure to do it). That's the other thing to remember about tests - a lot of the time you can skip tests if there's nothing other than time stopping the players from completing it.

For example, if they come up against a locked door and there's no reason they can't spend the next hour trying to get it open, then just have them open it rather than rolling lots of tests. It speeds things up dramatically.

daedalus-templarius wrote:I found initiative to be pretty clunky too, do you really have to do your agi+d10 for each round of combat? I guess once I got into the groove with it it wasn't too bad, doodling a quick map helped matters.

As you've seen by now, no, it's just one Ag Bonus + D10 at the start of combat. Doing it every round would be crazy.

daedalus-templarius wrote:The last battle was quick, thankfully, grenade to the crystal ftw.

That's why you get the Grenades.

The alternative is to fight a Plaguebearer and die horribly.

daedalus-templarius wrote:Or was it just a combination of being noobs with terrible accuracy (I gave us some pretty decent guns, chainsword/bolt pistol on the Arbitrator and my assassin a silenced hunting rifle, laspistol, and mono-sword)?

So you have a Chainsword. Hmm... well they're pretty damned good starting weapons. I'd suggest a Red-Dot Sight for that Bolt Pistol as soon as you are able to get one. You do not want to miss with a Bolt Weapon - the ammunition is far too expensive to waste shots! I'd also get a back-up gun as well for that exact same reasons; some targets aren't 'good enough' to waste Bolt rounds on. An Autopistol would be good. Full-auto spraying out 6 shots is your friend. Auto-rounds are cheap as well.

And as has been mentioned already, the FAQ/errata is extremely necessary. The fact that it gives Bolt weapons the Tearing Quality is a bit enough change as it is, but the rest is just as important.

daedalus-templarius wrote:I think I'll definitely be spending a few points on my stats like WS and BS.

Get your Toughness to 40 or above as quick as you can. It will save your life. And you want your BS to be at a point where you can have around a 50% To Hit with most shots, including Aiming/Short Range/Red-Dot/etc. Anything over that is gravy.

daedalus-templarius wrote:Yes I was doing initiative wrong, you only do it at the start. Geez I feel like a nub.

Don't feel bad. We got flamers wrong for a full year (!) before we realised we weren't reading the rules right. Ditto for what happens with Corruption Points and Perils of the Warp.

daedalus-templarius wrote:Edit: So after looking at the FAQ quickly, a melee attack is only a half-action? So you can make 2 melee attacks in one round of combat? I guess I should have known that since you can feint, then make a melee attack as well. First time playing for the lose, I felt like I was just starting 40k again.

You can't do the same action twice in the same round, unless that action can be an extended action (like Aim, which can be a 1/2 action for +10 or a Full Action for +20, although the next action the player takes to gain the benefit of either type of aim must be a standard shooting attack). So you can't attack twice in the same round sadly. In fact you can't 'anything' twice in the same round.

For the most part this balances the game and it works fine. Where it falls apart is with Psykers, who have a few abilities that have to be used in Reaction to other player's/NPC's/adversaries' actions, and they can't use them if they've already used a power during their turn, defeating the purpose of these reactionary powers.

We house rule it. Psykers can make use two powers per round, although only one of those powers may be an 'attack' action (eg. our psyker can case Distort Vision and Bio-Lightning in the same round, but he cannot cast Bio-Lightning twice in the same round).

daedalus-templarius wrote:Question: So I took Furious Assault as an advance, which gives me an additional attack after I make a hit. So does that mean I can make my first attack, get a bonus hit, make a 2nd attack, and get a 2nd bonus hit? So 4 attacks? Seems OP with a chainsword

No, because of what I said above. You get one attack per turn.

In this example you need to make an All-Out Attack to get the benefit of Furious Assault. So you take your WS+20+any other modifiers that might be applicable (eg. your target is Size (Hulking), which grants +10, or your weapon is Best-Quality, which adds +10, -10 if you are Fatigued, and so on), and then you make your attack. If you hit you work out damage (assuming they don't Dodge or Parry the attack), and then you make your second attack with all the same bonuses (or penalties) that the original attack had, including the +20 bonus for making an All-Out Attack.

Any other questions, just let us know.

Bolt weapons WITH tearing?! That's just ridiculous.
She is the one with a bolt-pistol, and I'll be getting a red dot for it now asap, especially awesome since it stacks with "Aim".

So could I put that on my hunting rifle as well? Then I'd get +10 from the red dot, +20 from aiming (right? from the FAQ they changed it from 10->20?), and +10 from having an "accurate" weapon?

Yes, she has a chainsword, and I picked one up after Shattered Hope on my character... I may have given us a bit of extra cash and skill points to start with since it was just the two of us playing, when its usually meant for more.

I am the "GM" I guess, my character is pretty much just there for backup and she calls the shots. Maybe if I can get some of my other friends interested I can be a player sometime instead of GM, however since I am the rules guru in 40k, I have a feeling I won't ever NOT be in the lead.

Next adventure will be through edge of darkness, I've looked through it and it looks like it will be pretty exciting!
I definitely need to get the wet-erase map before we play through, doodling a map and circles for characters and enemies in my sketchbook sucks.

daedalus-templarius wrote:Bolt weapons WITH tearing?! That's just ridiculous.

It's what makes Bolt Weapons what they are. Tearing means your average damage goes up, and as you're rolling 2D10 picking the highest every time for damage you have another opportunity to roll Righteous Fury. The downside is that Bolt shells cost more than the average Acolyte can manage, which is why you need to pick your shots carefully and have a backup gun for 'lesser' targets.

She is the one with a bolt-pistol, and I'll be getting a red dot for it now asap, especially awesome since it stacks with "Aim".

daedalus-templarius wrote:So could I put that on my hunting rifle as well? Then I'd get +10 from the red dot, +20 from aiming (right? from the FAQ they changed it from 10->20?), and +10 from having an "accurate" weapon?

Aiming as a 1/2 Action is +10. Aiming as a Full Action is +20. The Accurate Weapon Quality adds a further +10 on top of that if you are aiming. So a weapon with the Accurate Quality that is combined with a 1/2 Action Aim will get +20. The other massive thing to remember with Accurate weapons are the Degrees of Success. For every 2 DOS you get, you get an extra D10 damage. So if your gun does, for example, 1D10+3 damage, and you are BS60 (after Aim/Accurate/Range/etc.), and you roll a 20, that's 4 DOS, meaning you'll be rolling 3D10+3 damage. Rapid fire weapons (and flamers) are for crowd control. Sniper weapons are for killing boss monsters.

daedalus-templarius wrote:Yes, she has a chainsword, and I picked one up after Shattered Hope on my character... I may have given us a bit of extra cash and skill points to start with since it was just the two of us playing, when its usually meant for more.

Look that's fine. If there's only two of you at the moment then upping the equipment to have more fun is no issue. I did it for my group - giving them some better weapons more befitting their characters - and there's five of them!

daedalus-templarius wrote:I am the "GM" I guess, my character is pretty much just there for backup and she calls the shots. Maybe if I can get some of my other friends interested I can be a player sometime instead of GM, however since I am the rules guru in 40k, I have a feeling I won't ever NOT be in the lead.

First game I ran was just myself and another friend. I played the GM and he controlled two characters. What was interesting is that he quickly identified with one character, and always said "I will do this", but the other character was always the "other" - "She will do this". I found that interesting.

daedalus-templarius wrote:Next adventure will be through edge of darkness, I've looked through it and it looks like it will be pretty exciting!
I definitely need to get the wet-erase map before we play through, doodling a map and circles for characters and enemies in my sketchbook sucks.

Just be wary that, at minimum, Dark Heresy sort of assumes GM + 3 players. Some encounters might be a bit big for a smaller group, especially when there's only two people playing.

HMBC, perhaps I will add another character to follow around my wife that I can control or something.

Also, I have a friend that might want to play, only problem is... he wants to play an Eldar. He plays Eldar in TT, and he is silly.

I found Eldar stats in the Anathame book, but they are pretty high. Would it be prudent for me to make him a ranger mercenary of some sort? and adjust his starting stats accordingly (lower toughness, higher agility, etc)?

I wouldn't make an Eldar character. If he wants to play a Xenos character he can play an Ork or a Kroot (from the Rogue Trader expansion Into the Storm), but this is a human-based game.

There are probably homebrew Eldar career rules out there, but as you're all new to this, I'd stick with what's there before you go throwing in a million house rules and custom rule sets.

Yea, maybe after he checks out the classes he will find something that he can play.

Also, I was looking at the Autogun like you suggested and I saw that it can fire a burst of 10 rounds. What in the heck would you need to roll for each of those to actually hit?

Pretty high. You'd need 9 DOS (you get one for hitting, and then one for each extra DOS). So hitting with all 10 is next to impossible, but if you're BS40, at short range, and firing Full-Auto you need a 70 or under to hit, you should get 3-5 hits, which is enough to kill most human-sized targets unless they have really good armour. This is why the Autopistol is such a nasty weapon. Get to Point Blank Range and go Full-Auto with that thing. That's +50BS. It's quite easy to get all 6 hits if you do it that way, and you will shred whoever you're firing at.

Is there a quick reference sheet for DH I can download with stuff like the modifier lists, critical hit stuff, etc without buying the goofy folding screen? I mean, I could make a spreadsheet myself, but I have to imagine someone has a pdf somewhere with that relevant data on it already.

I've not seen one. You can always buy the GM screen as a PDF, but there are mistakes on the screen. I've found the screen useful, but then again I'm sitting behind it with 5 players in front of me. If you're GM'ing and playing it probably wouldn't work all that well.

It's better to make your own, or print from a PDF of the rulebook/GM screen.

Yea I don't like sitting behind a screen either... I think it looks silly, and I can't really see who I am playing with.

I used some sticky note markers in my big book so I can find stuff quickly that will hopefully help.

I am still trying to get ahold of playing through a mission where the players can go wherever they want, I think I need to try and present what they are doing more narrativly or something; this GMing is a new experience for me.

So me and my wife finished Edge of Darkness, I KILLED THAT at the end, chainsword in the back, she got eviscerated! Trying to run from me with 3 levels of fatigue, I DON'T THINK SO!

So it appears that my wife actually likes this, I am astonished actually, I am super happy I have now gotten her started in 40k, and I do actually really enjoy Dark Heresy.

Can't wait to start the mission in the core rulebook! Also, I have 2 friends coming by tomorrow to make characters and start Edge of Darkness as well, should be fun! I think my friend who wants to play an Eldar will probably go with more of a sniper build, so I may slant my assassin more towards CC. Time for double-weapon wielding and 2 chainswords

Edit: Can someone clarify a couple things for me?
So I have read the FAQ, and it appears that to get the benefit of Swift Attack/Lightning attack, you use a full turn, but how does Furious Assault work into that? Is Furious Assault useless once you take Swift Attack? because why would you spend your full turn using an All-Out attack instead of just using your Swift Attack (I mean, other than the +20 from using all out attack)? Also, wtf always -10 even if you're ambidextrous and two-weapon wielder? Bleh. If you make a All-Out attack, do you get an offhand attack as well I assume? Might be useful sometimes just for that +20.

Yeah, there are penalties that stack like crazy when it comes to wielding two weapons.

The attack action for this is 'multiple attacks', and it allows you make - wait for it - multiple attacks during a single round. It's a full action to do so, whether it's an unskilled idiot swinging with two knives, or some crazy ambidextrous Assassin using Lightning Attack and an extra weapon.

What this means is that you cannot use your action for any other type of attack. Furious Assault uses the All-Out Attack method, and that's a Full Action by itself, so cannot be combined with multiple attacks. Sometimes the +20 is worth it, especially if you haven't got great WS and you need to finish something off. Multiple attacks are better against something that hasn't Dodged/Parried yet that round, or something that has multiple Dodges/Parries.

The good news is that if you are ambidextrous with TWW(M) and Lightning Attack you can make 3 attacks with one weapon and a fourth with the other. Until his Chainsword exploded our Priest made good use of that ability.

And yes, it's always -10. There's no melee equivalent of Gunslinger in Dark Heresy.

Well, I'll give it a go and see how it turns out. 4 attacks with lightning attack (next rank) will probably be pretty silly.

Now I need to get myself a hardened body glove to go with my camo cloak and I'll be super sneaky, but the carapace armor might be better since I like to just run in and crush stuff. I think I'd rather be a strong, hulking fighter than a lightning quick assassin, guess we'll see. Crusader or Assassin... hmmm. I don't think an Assassin would wear power-armor and crash into battle.

So I'm looking through the inquisitor's handbook, and there is a forearm weapon mounting. How does that interact with using 2 weapons? I'd still probably need dual weapon wielder(melee & ballistic) to fire it effectively, but then I could keep my weapons in my hands at the same time, yea?

Isn't there a halberd/extending halberd thing that is a power weapon I can buy? obviously I can't get a nemesis force halberd! Also, is there nowhere an acolye(or even a throne agent) can procure a stormshield? Crusaders have them in the GK codex dangit.

Edit: so I just discovered weight... is it just me or is the amount of stuff you can carry at low str absolutely brutal. With a chainsword weighing in at 6kg, and my max weight carry at 9kg.... wtf.

Edit 2: So in the Ascended book, it says that Crusaders sometimes use giant halberds two handed to break weapons upon their awesomeness, however I can't find a listing for any halberd-ish melee weapon in the book?

juraigamer wrote:Xp works like this. You play for a session, and at the end your GM gives you experience for what you did.

Say your gm gives you 300 xp. You can then go to your rank or lower on your xp boxes and purchase stuff. If your rank 1 (xp is in total 0-500) you can only buy rank 1 stuff and stat boosts.

Level, is based off rank. Xp totals dictate what rank you are. The more xp you get, and consequently spend, brings you closer to the next rank.

One thing to keep in mind is to know what the other players are doing. There is no good reason for you to make a character that focuses on tech use, if someone else is already doing this. Same for a fellowship character (diplomacy in dnd) or a melee character.

Try not to overlap "jobs" per say. As a gm I've found players will end up fighting over who will tech use or what not. It has actually forced people out of the group, course you may see different results.

Speaking of exp, how much do you DMs give your players?

Say for a 4-8 hour session. The rulebook suggests 200 exp per 4 hour session, but I'm not sure about this. Is it normal to take a year of playing an 8 hour session a week to reach ascension levels without factoring in shorter or less productive sessions?

Wow, I didn't expect this to happen.

I'm gone for a few days and someone else has started asking questions, I wonder how long we can keep this up.

While I was away I had a good look through the core rulebook as well as the inquisitors handbook, and I love them both! I don't really have anymore questions, but if anyone is interested I could show you the character I created, I rather like him, and I'd like to see what you lot think of him as well.