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So I've played Dark Heresy but have been looking to expand and I've been wondering how well does Dark Heresy work with Rogue Trader, Death Watch, or Black Crusade? Anyone have experience combining them? Any issues or problems? I would be interested in hearing about other peoples experiences on whether they work well together.

Dark Heresy, Rogue Trader and Deathwatch all have the same base rule set. Combat mechanics in all three games are largely identical as is the way you make Skill Tests. Some talents may differ here and there, but otherwise they match up. Rogue Trader and Deathwatch just have more things, and have codified certain special rules into actual rules, changing the wau a few things work.

The difference is in the larger game-related details, so there is no equivalent to the starship combat and endeavour system from RT in either of the other two games. Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader lack the Horde mechanic from Deathwatch, as well as Deathwatch's Solo Mode/Squad Mode system, mission structure and requisition structure. Generally these game-specific mechanics should stay within their own game (Squad Modes wouldn't really work with Rogue Trader, and Profit Factor and Crew Morale wouldn't make much sense in Dark Heresy). Rogue Trader and Deathwatch also have a vastly different method for psychic powers than Dark Heresy, and attempts to merge the two have been arguably not all that successful (see Dark Heresy: Ascension).

Black Crusade differs from the other three in that it is a full revision of the mechanics originating in Dark Heresy. It still has the same base rule set, but it changes a number of key elements. For starters the combat system has revamped. The methods are the same, but the details are different, especially in the way multiple attacks are handled. A number of Talents work differently, the Skills have been streamlined (eg. Silent Move & Concealment have become a single skill, Stealth), and some traits and weapon qualities have been updated or more defined. The psychic system is similar to the RT/DW one. The mechanics for Skill Tests are a little bit different, but not by a huge amount. It makes for a better game IMO, and cleverly FFG saw fit to include an entire section on how to convert the games back and forth between rule sets.

The only thing I'd say was 100% incompatible between the games are the methods of character advancement:

Dark Heresy has a tree-based system, where paths branch off and determine what advances you can take.

Rogue Trader has a point-A to point-B to point-C method with no deviation.

Deathwatch has a multi-table system, where Marines can usually pick between 4 different advance tables at the same time (Deathwatch Advances Ranks 1-8, Space Marine Advances Ranks 1-8, their chosen speciality (Tac, Dev, Apothecary) Ranks 1-8, and special Chapter sub-table).

Black Crusade has an open tier-based system, where any character can pick any Skill/Talent at any time, each one has a set cost based upon its tier and which Chaos God you are aligned with, and what choices you take eventually determine what Chaos God you are aligned with.

None of these systems work with one another, and attempting to adapt them would be, IMO, an exercise in futility. That's not to say characters from one game can't work with characters from another (having an Ascension Inquisitor with a bunch of Deathwatch Marines, or putting a Explorator into a group of Acolytes would still work), but each type of character should stick to their own advance schemes to avoid head aches.

I hope that helps.

The systems largely use the same general "type" of rules, though there are notable differences in stuff like how psychic powers or corruption works. The most annoying issue would be that each of the games is tailored to a specific style of narration, and whilst Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader are indeed largely compatible (so much so that you should be able to import weapons, NPCs or even classes from one game to the other, though the latter will require some tailoring as HMBC mentioned), the gap to Deathwatch is quite simply too large, as the Space Marines there do about twice the damage as normal characters (with equivalent weapons) and are twice as resistant as normal characters (with equivalent armour), which unfortunately results in stuff like "civilian bolters" (yes, the games actually have invented a "class system" for weapons) not being able to harm a Marine at all, or enemies tailored to giving Marines a challenge insta-killing anyone else (which is why Deathwatch has different Genestealers than Dark Heresy, for example).

It can be brought in line and made compatible to allow "crossover scenarios" such as the ones you may know from the GW books or some novels and comics, but you'd have to invest some time to straighten things out.

I'm still confused as to why FFG made many of the mechanics which should have been similar between the games so different...

I think there's a number of potential reasons for that.

First, much like with the tabletop strategy game, it's an ongoing development much like you see it between the various versions of other RPGs (D&D, TDE, Shadowrun, etc) - the writers have now seen their rules in action on a better scale than some internal playtests, are now better aware of shortcominds and strengths, and are thus enabled to work on improvements. Others may have gotten new ideas, possibly even because new people joined the team. These ideas may then require other parts of the system to be revamped, etc pp ...

Secondly, the rules seem to be meant to serve a certain "playstyle" depending on the game's theme. Often, people compare Dark Heresy to Cthulhu, Rogue Trader to Traveller, and Deathwatch to Exalted. Although the GMs will find little trouble implementing aspects from each game into the other to make it more (or less) complex depending on the group's preferences, the rules themselves are undoubtedly tailored towards a specific approach.

Then, it's also a matter of expectations and pleasing the fans, and due to the depiction in various novels or computer games, a lot of people simply prefer Space Marines to be "more awesome, more badass" than GW's own fluff actually makes them to be. Which is why the developers of the RPG may have felt compelled to forego the compatibility that some may expect in favour of artificially increasing the gap between Astartes and other characters beyond what would seem reasonable when looking purely at GW material.

With the 40k RPG in particular, we also have to keep in mind that it has not just gained a few new people, the entire studio has switched from Black Industries to FFG. Perhaps this is part of the explanation behind the ongoing supposed "power creep" that some people are convinced is going on in the later books compared to earlier core rules. It's not something differing only between the different core rulesets, it seems.
Case in point, the new Arbites shotgun being better than any boltgun a puny human could hold in his hands.

Alpharius wrote:I'm still confused as to why FFG made many of the mechanics which should have been similar between the games so different...

Which mechanics in particular?

You can easily use rogue trader with just about any other 40k system. Dark heresy, rogue trader, and ascension work just fine on their own.

Trying to use deathwatch with any of those listed above can work, just keep in mind the fact that the game won't play the same way. Psykers are your only real change, ruleswise.

Now comes the issue: Black crusade. It's quite different. You can use the space mechanics from rogue trader with it, but anything else is going to cause you a headache to some degree.

Not that much of a headache. As I said, the book has a section dedicated to how the four game systems can be combined.

The only thing that won't work between games are the character advance mechanics.

Isn't getting the psychic systems to mesh between the games a bit clunky too?

Alpharius wrote:Isn't getting the psychic systems to mesh between the games a bit clunky too?

Having all four of the core books in front of me I would have to say that would be a pain to have a psyker from Dark Heresy, involved from any of the other three, unless you find some sort of compromise between the systems.

Honestly I am entertaining meshing Deathwatch, Dark Heresy, and Rogue Trader into a single game within the next week or so, and there is a lack of players that want to be psykers, so I benefit thus far.

Psykers being my favorite part of 40K, and specifically Librarians, means that this is particularly problematic for me...

The psychic systems in Deathwatch and Rogue Trader are the same (from what I can tell). The Black Crusade psychic system is almost the same (but opens up the types of characteristic you can test against, so it's not just always a Willpower Test).

Dark Heresy... utterly different. Even Ascension is different. Making it work with the other three is difficult.

H.B.M.C. wrote:As I said, the book has a section dedicated to how the four game systems can be combined.

That's pretty much an alibi section, though. Just because it claims so in the book, you're bound to run into a ton of issues when having, say, a Dark Heresy character tag along in a game of Deathwatch - if only because of the giant gap in terms of damage and resistance. You mentioned in the last thread on this question that DW Horde rules don't work in DH, for example, so what would happen in a mixed game? For what it's worth, the "band-aid" of making harmless weapons dangerous by slapping huge bonuses on them when they are carried by more than a single person is pretty dumb regardless of where it's employed; either a gun can harm someone or it can't. It's like Smith & Wesson revolvers penetrating the armour of an M1 Abrams tank explained by dual-wielding.

The P&P is fun, but I keep hoping for a revised version that does away with the artificially increased power gap and allows for full compatibility as well as uniform rules for psykers, corruption and insanity.

Lynata wrote:

H.B.M.C. wrote:As I said, the book has a section dedicated to how the four game systems can be combined.

That's pretty much an alibi section, though. Just because it claims so in the book, you're bound to run into a ton of issues when having, say, a Dark Heresy character tag along in a game of Deathwatch - if only because of the giant gap in terms of damage and resistance. You mentioned in the last thread on this question that DW Horde rules don't work in DH, for example, so what would happen in a mixed game? For what it's worth, the "band-aid" of making harmless weapons dangerous by slapping huge bonuses on them when they are carried by more than a single person is pretty dumb regardless of where it's employed; either a gun can harm someone or it can't. It's like Smith & Wesson revolvers penetrating the armour of an M1 Abrams tank explained by dual-wielding.

The P&P is fun, but I keep hoping for a revised version that does away with the artificially increased power gap and allows for full compatibility as well as uniform rules for psykers, corruption and insanity.

Which is why if you run the game versus play, you get to arbitrate on how the rule actually works, you do not need to use their rules verbatim.The sections in the books where the red blocked white text suggest potential rules so you do not end up with a PC argument lasting two hours, or better yet do not have to do the rather rude way of saying "because I say so." As for that huge gap in resistance, I explain to all players when I am running a game of Deathwatch, that wish to play, say a guardsmen, that by doing so they forfeit any rights to complain about damage potential, that the game is about playing a role, not playing a damage table, and they chose the low end of the damage table. As for insanity and corruption, I have my own way of running those particular sections of the game.

The best answer to the situation is to bend the rules so that players can have fun, it is going to be a game of give and take if you try to blend them together.

Lynata wrote:That's pretty much an alibi section, though. Just because it claims so in the book, you're bound to run into a ton of issues when having, say, a Dark Heresy character tag along in a game of Deathwatch - if only because of the giant gap in terms of damage and resistance.

I disagree here, not because I think you could run a DH character in Deathwatch, but actually for a different reason - I don't think you should. FFG has always treated each RPG as a separate game. They have a familiar 'base' of rules, and are all of course 40K based, but to FFG each one is a separate game. Just because they can work together doesn't mean they should though, and what you see as an artificial gap in damage and resistance I see as perfectly natural for different types of games.

Lynata wrote:You mentioned in the last thread on this question that DW Horde rules don't work in DH, for example, so what would happen in a mixed game?

I'd be a creative GM and use heavy weapons to fight the Marines rather than Autoguns, because in order for Autoguns to fight Marines they need to be in such numbers as to make regular DH characters redundant.

Lynata wrote:For what it's worth, the "band-aid" of making harmless weapons dangerous by slapping huge bonuses on them when they are carried by more than a single person is pretty dumb regardless of where it's employed; either a gun can harm someone or it can't. It's like Smith & Wesson revolvers penetrating the armour of an M1 Abrams tank explained by dual-wielding.

It really isn't. It's using a rules abstraction to represent something that already exists in the fluff - Marines being overwhelmed by lesser forces. A guy firing a Lasgun at a Marine shouldn't do any damage. 50 guys though... well one of them is going to catch him in the eye. That's where the bonuses come in. I'm not a fan of the way the Horde mechanic has been executed because it doesn't scale all that well and there are gaps in the system, but the concept for it is sound.

Lynata wrote:The P&P is fun, but I keep hoping for a revised version that does away with the artificially increased power gap and allows for full compatibility as well as uniform rules for psykers, corruption and insanity.

I've seen people call for a "40K RPG Rulebook", but I don't think it's a good idea. Dark Heresy =/= Rogue Trader =/= Deathwatch =/= Black Crusade. And while it'd be nice to have certain older systems updated (a 2nd Edition of Dark Heresy would be good, to bring in all the Talents, Weapon Qualities, psychic mechanics and other improvements we've had since Dark Heresy came out), having a central rulebook is a bad idea. They are not all the same game, they are four different games with a similar base.

H.B.M.C. wrote:FFG has always treated each RPG as a separate game. They have a familiar 'base' of rules, and are all of course 40K based, but to FFG each one is a separate game. Just because they can work together doesn't mean they should though, and what you see as an artificial gap in damage and resistance I see as perfectly natural for different types of games.

I actually tend to agree here, I just don't think this is an ideal basis. More compatibility to better recreate the scenarios that can happen in the fluff would be nice.
Could well be that I'm in the minority and that, at least judging from certain comments over in the FFG forums, most players prefer to let their Awesome Marine keep to themselves and flaunt their superiority, so in the end one could argue that FFG was only catering to the masses, just like Black Library novels tend to exaggerate their protagonists to make the books appeal more to the fans of whatever faction they focus on. A logical business decision, even though it's very bad for consistency.

H.B.M.C. wrote:A guy firing a Lasgun at a Marine shouldn't do any damage.

But he should. Well, not as per FFG, obviously, but let's be real here. In theory, 50 guys shooting 50 lasguns shouldn't be resolved as a single attack dealing XXX damage, it should be resolved as 50 attacks dealing X damage each, to be individually counted against the target's armour and toughness. What the Horde rules do is "cheat" by allowing an attack that would otherwise not threaten a character at all bypass these layers of protection, thereby suddenly becoming much more dangerous. So I do think my comparison was fitting, if somewhat exaggerated.

Let's try it out. As per the Vehicle Apocrypha, a Rhino APC has an armour protection of 21. A guy with a stub revolver doing 1d10+3 has little chance of penetrating that much metal. Let's take 50 guys, suddenly the damage potential of this revolver jumps up to 3d10+3. Much better, huh? Now, should a stub revolver have a chance of punching through a Rhino's hull? You be the judge.

Yes, I realize it's meant to be an abstraction, but it's one that warps how things work even within the same game - just like that one squadmode that allows the Marines to magically divide the damage from a lascannon blast aimed at one of them between the entire team, thus negating it. You'll probably say this is another abstraction, but my suspense of disbelief shorts out right there. Horde rules in particular are a band-aid designed to turn enemies into a threat that should have already been a threat individually. To do so, it uses the aforementioned method which has a high chance of allowing sillyness to happen. Just as it allows an extreme pendulum swing between "yawn" to "OMG OMG INSTAKILL" depending on how these three dice end up being rolled. And said enemies not being a threat individually is only the result of yet another flaw, the obscene way of how Unnatural stats scale. Basically, the system has a number of issues right at the core, and it gets more and more obvious the more you get to the top as the designers do not fix said core problems but rather try to work around them. The "Felling" quality is another such example of how all this evolved.

And statistically speaking, a single trooper out of those 50 has a chance to "catch him in the eye" as well. Not that it should actually be necessary depending on which fluff you follow, but I am all too aware that FFG has chosen to make Space Marines and their equipment much more powerful than they are in GW's own material, just like I know that you are well aware of the many threads over in the FFG forums regarding how many seconds it took a Marine to kill a Hive Tyrant and how many hundred Genestealers a Kill-Team of just four guys can wipe out in a single battle thanks to the Horde rules giving them one or two hitpoints each. I like the basic idea behind the Horde rules, too, but they end up turning high power enemies weak and low power enemies strong as if their weapons magically start doing more damage or, conversely, their bodies suddenly can't take as much pain anymore. A battle between a Guardsman Horde and a Space Marine Horde would be wicked fun for sure... I'll have to roll it some day.

Now, it's obviously a matter of personal preferences and how people perceive the 'verse; me, I'm not a huge fan of "Draigoism" and I think it's somewhat sad that a great opportunity for mixed groups like they are possible in "Inquisitor" has been wasted.
The irony being that GW actually only came up with the Deathwatch to allow mixed Marine-and-normal-human teams in the first place, and now it's FFG's Deathwatch RPG that makes it impossible (well, let's say "unfun").

Still, the system lends itself well to modifications by the reader, so all of this can actually be dealt with by a group that is willing to spend some time brainstorming over the issues. I don't even think it would take a lot of effort to whip up something doable!
Or, of course, one could focus on limiting oneself to just one of the games, keeping everything else out and just enjoy what's possible there - but that's not what this thread is about.

Have you played Black Crusade with mixed Marine/Human teams?


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Oh and I'm not saying the Horde mechanic is flawless - it certainly falls apart when applied to the vehicle rules (but a lot of things don't work with the vehicle rules...).

H.B.M.C. wrote:Have you played Black Crusade with mixed Marine/Human teams?

Nope, not yet. Got the book and I am kinda itching for a game. Judging by the rules, however, I remain convinced that human combat characters will be utterly useless/unfun as soon as you have a Marine in the group, for even though they've slightly nerfed Unnaturals the artificial equipment-induced gap for the kind of damage they can do (and thus affect an ongoing battle) remains in place. I'm thinking it would still work well as long as you simply avoid playing something like the Renegade, however. A character that can simply step back and watch as the CSMs carve up the opposition can at least shine in psionics or influence- and knowledge-based areas. Plus: minions. The rules say you're not man enough to carry a proper boltgun? Recruit CSM NPC bodyguard, problem solved. One simply has to accept the fact that in spite of some expectations not every character concept will actually be a viable option for a fun game.

Not that the minion construction kit wouldn't have its fair share of problems itself, but those can be easily overcome. And the possibilities are really tempting - just glancing over the stuff I got half a dozen ideas.

Well, maybe some day. Perhaps I'll even give Deathwatch a shoot. For what it's worth, I can believe it to be fun when you really limit it to what it tries to be and simply exclude all the other games, as you said. I recall one of the devs likened it to the P&P version of 300 in SPACE or something?

Having played a lot of Deathwatch games (and we play-tested Black Crusade) I can say that:

1. Deathwatch is a lot of fun.
2. Marine/Human groups in Black Crusade work fine. Marines are generally better in combat, but so they should be. The two are significantly different to one another, and there were a host of things that my Apostate Priestess could do that the Night Lord and Iron Warrior guys couldn't do, and vice versa. And yes, minions do close the gap a little. My Priestess had a tiny little minion (who was her driver), and a big scary combat-servitor who made sure no one got near her. Combat was fun for everyone involved, and all of us were different enough to contribute different things.

H.B.M.C. wrote:Marines are generally better in combat, but so they should be.

Oh, no disagreement there at all! I'm merely disappointed by how much better they are. The gap in ranged weapons exists solely in FFG's RPG, and it prevents people from at least dishing out the same amount of hurt whilst still being squishier, which would have been a sufficient enough difference and actually what is portrayed throughout the studio material. But again: perceptions and preferences.
In general I just think GW's own Inquisitor RPG did a better job there, also in terms of how it deals with injuries - it feels as if in DH etc you'd have few "opportunities" to actually get them, as in 99% of the time either everything gets soaked by your auto-regenerating wounds leaving not even a scratch, or you get killed almost instantly as soon as it goes into the ten criticals. Having read up on the Inquisitor rules only after playing DH, I have to say I found the idea of Toughness not being a "second layer of armour" but rather a buffer between crit levels sounds much more interesting.

And yeah, I remember reading about your Priestess. Glad to hear you've had fun, maybe one of these days I'll get around to try it out as well.

Thanks for all the replies guys. You've given me a lot of information to consider. I am thinking of picking up a copy of Rogue Trader and incorporating some of the aspects into a Dark Heresy campaign. It sounds like I might have to do some tweaking but seems doable.

Those of you who have played Black Crusade, do you think radical or renegade DH characters would work well in the campaign or do they already provide a class/ career for that?

In terms of character creation and progression, Black Crusade differs from the other three games in that it does not actually offer careers but "archetypes", which you can use to sort-of build whatever character you have in mind from by picking the appropriate skills and traits out of the master lists. Of course, the system is somewhat tiered, so you can't go for the most powerful traits right away but need to work towards them. Depending on the stuff you pick, the character will slowly be shaped into whatever he's supposed to resemble.

Thus, I'd recommend taking said radical/renegade DH characters and "rebuild" them using the system BC has in place. There's four archetypes you can push everyone into:
Apostate = Cleric
Heretek = Tech-Priest
Psyker = Sanctioned Psyker
Renegade = anyone else

Take note that the archetypes can be much more than just "mirrors" of the aforementioned careers, though. For example, a Guardsman who has turned into a raving Khornate may be better suited as an Apostate than a Renegade if he starts converting people to his belief and tries to build his own cult for the glory of the Blood God. Similarly, a Scribe who started to dabble in Warp Sorcery and, fueled by the taint of Chaos, has started to unlock his psychic potential would be better off going down the Psyker route just to have access to the appropriate powers.