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I GM for Pathfinder and Shadowrun and I've been getting into the War40k universe since I got a lot of War40k stuff recently. I went out and got the Deathwatch Core Rules the other day since I was interested and I have a question:


Are the Fantasy Flight Games War40k RPGs compatible?

I was talking to my Pathfinder group and wound up with one guy interested in playing an Inquisitor, two interested in being Space Marines and one thinking it would be neat to be an Imperial Guard (It's his favorite army in the Dawn of War games.).

They follow similar mechanics, and there are occasional references to compatibility with others in the line, but, as far as I understand it, no, they aren't directly compatible, though they're probably close enough that with some aggressive house-rulings, you should be able to incorporate them.

Black Crusade does have rules for humans and marines together, which could be a good starting point. (Probably easier to incorporate gear and skills to that than to try to rebalance other systems to incorporate both marines and humans.)

edited to remove my mistake

It isn't ideal, but it can allow brief crossovers between the game systems. For the exact numbers wait for HBMC to comment, he'll probably know what I'm trying to say.

I think motyak has it a little off:

A starting Deathwatch Character is the same as a 9th level Dark Heresy character, and a 5th level Rogue Trader character.


For generic RPG-ing in the 40K universe, I'd go with Rogue Trader. Characters aren't quite as sub par, and the PCs have much better control on what they do, instead of being at the whim of the Inquisitor. I consider Rogue Trader to be 40K Star Trek, where the PC are the bridge crew. They do all the important stuff on and off the ship. And that is how it should be.

In B4 Lynata!

TimmyTheNerd: The above posters have given brief answers that are essentially correct, but really there are two answers to your question:

The short answer: Yes.
The long answer: Yes, they are compatible... mostly.

What it boils down to is that each of the five 40K RPG's represents a development of the previous one. Dark Heresy started it all, and was written by Black Industries (part of GW). It sold amazingly well, so GW decided to shutter the company (that's what you do when you have a game that's a runaway success, apparently). Thankfully, that perplexing decision was followed by the single greatest decision GW has ever made, in that they licensed the 40K RPG line to FFG.

The next two game lines for the 40K RPG were already decided upon (Rogue Trader, then Deathwatch), but FFG took over production and used what had been learnt from Dark Heresy to create Rogue Trader. So the games share a base set of rules, but differ in the details here and there (numerous talents and skills have been tweaked a little, some of the weapons have slightly different stats). There are some big differences as well, like the psychic power system being completely different, character creation/progression working on different principles, how you obtain gear is different and so on(plus there's the starship rules), but otherwise they should work with one another with few required changes or house rules.

Deathwatch came next and again was a refinement of the rules for Rogue Trader, so again we have a number of smaller tweaks, plus a few big changes that fit with the system (Deathwatch has a very different character creation and advancement system, and entirely new mechanics like the Solo/Squad Mode system, and so on). Deathwatch characters are considerably more powerful than RT and especially DH characters. A Rank 1 Marine is equivalent to the top rank DH character (and even then, Marines are going to outclass most things). Nevertheless, as all three games operate on the same base rule-set and still use the same stats and percentile system they can be made to work with one another.

Black Crusade represents a bigger paradigm shift as far as rules mechanics. The change from Deathwatch>Black Crusade was far greater than Dark Heresy>Rogue Trader and Rogue Trader>Deathwatch. It's a superior system in a lot of ways, as it fixes a number of the lingering legacy issues from the previous three games and adds a bit more granularity to the rules to give better balance over all. But, again, it still has the same base rule set despite the larger overall changes, so it can work with the other three games.

Finally, Only War, which just came out, is a further refinement of Black Crusade, just as Rogue Trader was a refinement of the original Dark Heresy. It's the one that's the most compatible with Black Crusade, but as I've said a bazillion times already, they all share the same base rule mechanics, so can be made to work with one another. BC and OW require a little bit more effort to get them to work with the other three, but the books actually contain a brief section on how to convert rules from one to another, and anything else can usually be done on the fly.

I hope that helps!

 Mattlov wrote:
I think motyak has it a little off:

A starting Deathwatch Character is the same as a 9th level Dark Heresy character, and a 5th level Rogue Trader character.

Thanks Mattlov, I knew there was some scale, just wasn't sure on the exact numbers (or even the order it seems)

motyak wrote:I think I've heard that a level 1 Deathwatch character can play with a level 4 dark heresy and a level 6 rogue trader character or something like that, to all end up at a similar level.
It isn't ideal, but it can allow brief crossovers between the game systems.

The biggest issue isn't even with XP. It's that some of the games use different gear that is just flat-out better. For example, for whatever reason FFG decided to make all Space Marine bolters 33% better than everyone elses, and this design philosophy extends to any and all weapons. So when you have a normal guy and a Marine shooting "their" version of a bolter, depending on what they are shooting at, there's a chance of one of the following two scenarios to happen:

a) stronger enemy: The Space Marine does normal damage, but the target proves to be invincible for the puny human's weapon
or
b) weaker enemy: The human guy does normal damage, but the Space Marine's gun rips it apart

This isn't even a matter of the games' rules evolving from one product to the next. This happens as well (see HBMC's post), but you have to understand that each of FFG's 40k RPGs also aims to portray a very specific style of narration. Just like you have different types of movies or novels where the "level of realism" and the vulnerability of its protagonists are determined individually. And just like you shouldn't expect Captain Miller from "Saving Private Ryan" to fare well in an epic movie like "300", I'd also not expect to have a Dark Heresy character to fare well in a game of Deathwatch. You could probably throw tons of archaeotech and holy relics at him in the hopes of leveling the playing field, but personally I'd deplore this style of artificially pushing a character's viability just because the system does not support crossovers that well. It could work this way, but to me it'd just feel like "welfare gear" because your character sucks and wouldn't be "good enough for the team" otherwise.

I'm sure crossovers are possible, but I think they would require quite some houseruling. And if that's too much work, I would recommend better keeping each of the games separate. Thanks to a certain power creep in the supplements, the games are already difficult enough to balance without outright banning some of the new stuff.

H.B.M.C. wrote:In B4 Lynata!

I love you, too.

By the way, I'm going to finally give Deathwatch a try now! My Dragon Age group decided we need a "backup game" for when one or more of the players cannot be present for our usual campaign, and we agreed that DW lends itself well for single sessions. I'm already quite hyped at building a new character. Going for a Celestial Lions Tactical Marine; he's going to be the Captain of the team.

Just make sure you use the errata weapon stats, otherwise combat's going to be mighty easy...

But you're Space marines. Combat should be easy. Of course I'm generally the only one in my camp but the corebook damage are higher up for the higher up character you get to play. Same reason why you start with a stub revolver and 6 bullets in DH and a Plasma pistol with X amount of reloads your pockets can carry in RT.

But for OP: They are compatible, as in you can use any item in any book for your own game and there is little problem to it (like rule change, or mechanics of things).

You can mix game systems, but that sits well with the first three (DH, RT and DW) as they share the same advancement mechanics, with DH and RT being the best, as DW may well makes things a bit over the top for your average human being- but it is still doable, yes.

BC and OW advancement mechanics are different, so gauging power levels might be trickier.

The core book damage profiles make combat far too easy. The sheer amount of dice you roll (meaning more RF, meaning more auto-RF due to Deathwatch Training), means that combat just becomes a time-consuming exercise in rolling dice to achieve a foregone conclusion.

Before the errata I had a guy with kill a Carnifex with a single Storm Bolter volley. The Heavy Bolter was basically the best weapon in the game.

It wasn’t fun.

Inquisitor Jex wrote:But you're Space marines. Combat should be easy. Of course I'm generally the only one in my camp but the corebook damage are higher up for the higher up character you get to play. Same reason why you start with a stub revolver and 6 bullets in DH and a Plasma pistol with X amount of reloads your pockets can carry in RT.

It's not just having different equipment, it's that DW basically uses different equipment "+1". They boosted all the stats - and regardless of my own opinion concerning this change, some cases such as the heavy bolter have shown that it was so much that it became ridiculous. At least that was the consensus on the DW forums back then, from what I've read.

As for Space Marines ... if combat is easy, then you're fighting the wrong opponents and the Imperium may just as well have dispatched the Guard for your mission.
Everything is relative, and fluffwise I always thought that well-equipped individuals such as the Astartes, the Sisters or high-powered Inquisitors don't actually get easier fights (at least not all the time), they just get more epic ones against tougher opponents. This goes doubly for the Deathwatch - small commando teams who don't even get to rely on the rest of a full company of Space Marines, often necessitating clever workarounds and careful tactical advances rather than a simple brute-force frontal assault to successfully resolve a mission. After all, your team just has so many people, but the enemy has dozens, hundreds, perhaps thousands.

Inquisitor Jex wrote:as DW may well makes things a bit over the top for your average human being- but it is still doable, yes.

Doable ... sure. It all depends on what people expect from doing so.
Remember that CSM you had the four of us fight against? Wasn't that a DW-grade opponent? It was an epic fight, but having someone like that in our team would've been like rolling around with some game's endboss. I've just completed rolling up my first DW character and ... hoooly sheet, all the bonuses. +20 to this, +30 to that ... jeez.

Black Crusade is actually built around the premise of having Marines work alongside normal people, and even though the Marines in there have been toned down a lot compared to DW (which goes to show that the games really aren't meant to tie into each other, and what happens when you mix DW with anything else), I'd still see issues coming up whenever you have an Astartes combat character and a non-Astartes one. Even past the innate physical superiority, the gear disparity creates a large gap. You can make it work when you have everyone who's not a Marine simply dedicate to something else (social stuff, sorcery, infiltration, rituals ...), but for some reason I just don't think a human Renegade will have much fun next to a CSM Forsaken. But maybe it's just that as a player you are not "supposed" to pick a human for a combat-centric character in such situations?

To defend the CSM, he *did* roll a fail and jammed his chainaxe on the corridor's ceiling and had to lower himself to using his combat knife.

That and he rolled horribly bad, he only hit you guys 2 times, 3 tops.

So elite, but thanks to the dices, he was acting like a Saturday mortoon Cartoon bumbling henchman

Yes, makes me wonder what would have happend if I had not rolled Righteous Fury two times in a row, too. And even then he took out our Psyker in a single round.

See what I mean about balance?

Still, it's something that will stay in memory for a long time to come, so thanks for that.

My pleasure!

That, with Mira's "she gives good head" comment are pretty much in my top things I will recall of this campaign...and Grendel's grenade bouncing back into the the airlock you're all in, blowing in your faces (good times)

(and gives good head as in, she is skilled at decapitation, and was humourly talking as her victim's head, not that other thing. Call it morbid assassin humour..)

And he was somewhat weaker; I gave him MkII armour, the combat knife was of 'lower quality' (primitive, his SB did the mosty punch really)

Worse case it would have been a case of having you go down one by one, then waking up on the meddeck, saved in extremis by the Eternal Sunset's crew, possibly by Captain Vouleur's 10 year old son (to add to the DRAMA) who disposed of the CSM in some overly complicaded Mc Guyver fashion.

Inquisitor Jex wrote:and Grendel's grenade bouncing back into the the airlock you're all in, blowing in your faces (good times)

Oh gods. That happened a couple times, didn't it? I remember we (jokingly) forbade him to carry any 'nades at all.

Inquisitor Jex wrote:[...] who disposed of the CSM in some overly complicaded Mc Guyver fashion.

With a boot string, an Imperial ration bar, a cogitator punch card and a bottle of Sororitas hair spray, of course.

 Lynata wrote:

Inquisitor Jex wrote:and Grendel's grenade bouncing back into the the airlock you're all in, blowing in your faces (good times)

Oh gods. That happened a couple times, didn't it? I remember we (jokingly) forbade him to carry any 'nades at all.

He *did* picked up Elana's 2 kraks, so that is the first time he had 'nades in...oh, 3-4 missions? I'm not even sure if he informed the others about that action....

Inquisitor Jex wrote:[...] who disposed of the CSM in some overly complicaded Mc Guyver fashion.

With a boot string, an Imperial ration bar, a cogitator punch card and a bottle of Sororitas hair spray, of course.

Actually I was gonna say "with Style" but those are good as well!
Oh- don't forget the Cadian Army Knife (rather than Swiss in this case) he always have

I don't know much about DW or BC, but getting a DH character to work in RT doesn't seem to require too much effort.
You can either start at a higher level than normal and simply use RT rules for your gear and skills/talents (both acquisition and stats) or (if you don't mind being a subordinate character for RP reasons) be one of the lower level officers on board.
Basically, you'll be the Wesley Crusher/Zach Allan/Na'Toth/Quark/Jake Sisko/what-have-you of the ship if you choose the latter option.
Edit: Fully agree with Lynata on the separate games' disparity being at least partway forigveable due to the different focus of each; in DH you're supposed to be underpowered compared to your adversaries so you go "oh crapcrapcrap, how do we get OUT of this ALIVE?", whereas in RT you're more in the "movers and shakers" realm, so physical confrontation isn't necesaarily that big a deal.