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I picked up Black Crusade during a recent FLGS sale (they apparently bought a literal truckload of minis and books from FFG during their xmas sale and passed on most of the savings to local customers) and had some questions about the character equipment generation. I used to both play in and run a Deathwatch campaign so the more typical "rolling for equipment" mechanic is new to me personally. A starting character gets additional free equipment equal to their infamy bonus (typically 2) with a final availability of -10 which doesn't require a roll. Is my math for the below correct or am I missing some key rules/issues?

Legion Terminator Armor (with Ancient Warrior Extremely rare) -30
Trade in a starting chainsword (extremely rare) +30
Upgrade the armor to best craftsmanship -20
Single item +10

Total: -10 and therefore available to starting players.

Obviously, the GM could simply disallow it but I'm trying to figure out if I'm got the mechanics correct. With the wealth option of another item (roll), it seems like you could potentially kit out your starting character with the 40k equivalent of master crafted melee and ranged weapons as well as artificer armor (all best crafted) as long as you trade in your freebie starting items.

I'm a 3rd edition D&D vet player and GM as well as others (Shadowrun, rifts, robotech primarily) so the idea of just rolling for stuff feels too random for me personally. The idea from a GM's perspective of a player rolling a 02 and getting some ultrarare piece of equipment feels foreign. I could simply disallow it or tack on tons of modifiers to effectively make it impossible but that feels like cheating and defeats the express point of having a roll. From a player's perspective, my gut feeling is that leaving it to a random roll will just end up with me inevitably trying to replace a chainsword on a heretek forgeworld and rolling a 98 to find out that they're completely out. IIRC the other 40k games use a similar random mechanic (although I think you may have to actually pay some currency on top of that roll to get it that is missing in BC)... how does the randomness work out? Has anyone tried overlaying a barter type system on top of the roll? You roll to see if it is available and then have to trade something of equal value. That would of course lead to d&d style "looting" of npc's but I'm not sure that is a bad thing. It works in D&D and it feels in character for a chaos based campaign as well.

You have it about right.

Whether the GM lets a player use the trading mechanic on his initial equipment is a GM call, but if he does, then yes, terminator plate is an option for starting players. As a note, you'd be better off trading in your Legion Power Armour (for fairly obvious reasons).

Things to note:
a) This isn't unreasonable. The frost-father starts with an armoured war dinosaur. The Pirate Prince starts with a freakin' starship. Black Crusade players are not as riduclously laden with special rules as Deathwatch marines, but there's a real sense in which they're a Deathwatch Kill Team with a Rogue Trader's resources.
b) Remember that just rolling a 02 doesn't get you the item. First, you need to pass an inquiry test (or similar) to find them, then you need the infamy test to buy them.
c) Infamy represents wealth and resources and reputation and general awesomness - if it was a charm test to convince people to let you have the item, then no-one would have an issue.
d) Re the chainsword - firstly, availability is not an absolute. On a heretek world, legion-forged weapons will be less rare. Secondly, the fact that they have one doesn't mean they'll let you have it. A legion chainsword represents months of effort for a skilled craftsman.
e) Failing an infamy test for acquisition isn't the end of the world. Infamy is a stat, hence you can spend infamy points on both rerolls and bonuses to said rolls.
f) Remember you can burn infamy to auto-pass the roll, with the GM's approval. So you can buy the weapon, but be left poorer for doing so. Be sure it's important...
g) Just because you failed the roll, and failed the reroll, doesn't mean you can't get it. It means the current owner isn't prepared to part with it for what you're offering. This is the perfect opportunity for the GM to offer a deal of some kind. Perhaps the weaponsmith has a rival you could eliminate, or he owes someone (or something) a significant debt you could settle on his behalf?
h) As a rule, don't worry about the players being able to 'buy' whatever common-ish items they want. If they want to buy terminator plate and reaper autocannons, let them - just scale the adventures to match. Hell, going the other way, a perfectly reasonable acquisition is several hundred soldiers trained to imperial guard standards. Have your terminator plate; I'll stand over here behind four magnitude 50 hordes of soldiers....

 warboss wrote:
Legion Terminator Armor (with Ancient Warrior Extremely rare) -30
Trade in a starting chainsword (extremely rare) +30
Upgrade the armor to best craftsmanship -20
Single item +10

Total: -10 and therefore available to starting players.

Looks right to me. Though, the character won't have any weapons, just the armour. Weapons would have to be obtained separately IIRC. And if the character has Terminator armour why would they keep a Chainsword they can't use? Stands to reason to trade in useless items for items that would work with the equipment they want.

The idea from a GM's perspective of a player rolling a 02 and getting some ultrarare piece of equipment feels foreign.

To be fair, the roll doesn't make the item ultra-rare. The ultra-rarity is what you have to roll for, so if you're afraid of it being a case where the better the roll the better equipment they get, it's the reverse of that. The better equipment they want, the better roll they have to make, and that will always be determined by their stats and the modifiers you set (or are set by the items).

Of course, the Black Crusade Core Rulebook does say (on page 306):

"Players and GMs should both note, however, that these are simply the bare mechanics for obtaining items and services. In the course of playing BLACK CRUSADE, this process should never be as simple (and frankly, boring) as a series of dice rolls. Instead, the GM and player should collaborate to narrate the process.

At its core, Acquisition Tests are a Heretic using his reputation to obtain what he wants. Therefore, one of the fi rst things the GM should consider is where and whom this item might be coming from, since it’s unlikely to appear from nothing."

... and then it lists some examples, so it's not just rolling (or it doesn't just have to be).

locarno24 wrote:
You have it about right.

Whether the GM lets a player use the trading mechanic on his initial equipment is a GM call, but if he does, then yes, terminator plate is an option for starting players. As a note, you'd be better off trading in your Legion Power Armour (for fairly obvious reasons).

Thanks for double checking the rules. In a game where you have squishy normal humans in carapace armor, I'd imagine that an astartes starting in TDA would be a huge gulf in combat power. There are obviously ways to help mitigate this (the TDA would naturally attract much more fire as a bigger threat) but it did seem a bit odd coming from my deathwatch experience where everyone is *roughly* the same starting out.

locarno24 wrote:

Things to note:
a) This isn't unreasonable. The frost-father starts with an armoured war dinosaur. The Pirate Prince starts with a freakin' starship. Black Crusade players are not as riduclously laden with special rules as Deathwatch marines, but there's a real sense in which they're a Deathwatch Kill Team with a Rogue Trader's resources.

It is my impression that the classes you list are "advanced" and have several thousand XP baked into them compared with core rulebook characters. I don't own any of the supplements yet but that is the impression I got from leafing through them. If that is the case, I wouldn't have as much of an issue because those advanced characters start with more talents, skills, and even gear than core rulebook ones and I'd be less concerned with a TDA starting out. If someone wanted to play the original archtypes, I'd give them the difference in XP as well as an extra roll or two to balance it out. I'm not sure how I'd handle a player owned starship as I'm not sure what the official rules give you in the average scenario (do you get orbital strikes?).

I've already made the decision that I wouldn't allow trading "in" items to better the infamy but I would allow a player to swap it out for something else of the same rarity and general type (so a legion powersword for a legion power axe). If you allow trading in items to lower the infamy penalty, you can easily end up with a starting character with best quality armor and best ranged and close combat weapons.

locarno24 wrote:

h) As a rule, don't worry about the players being able to 'buy' whatever common-ish items they want. If they want to buy terminator plate and reaper autocannons, let them - just scale the adventures to match. Hell, going the other way, a perfectly reasonable acquisition is several hundred soldiers trained to imperial guard standards. Have your terminator plate; I'll stand over here behind four magnitude 50 hordes of soldiers....

That is a good point. Are there specific rules in one of the supplements about acquiring hordes or is that more of a GM fiat thing? I know there are rules for the minions in the core book but to my knowledge those are generally for a single NPC with more detail (although I don't see why you couldn't just incorporate hordes into that as well).