Dark Heresy Revamped : Chapter IIIa - Skills Part 1

And now we're moving onto Chapter III, Skills. The most important thing I've done here is the addition of two new skills, followed by a few alterations to aptitudes and specialisations and a revamp of the Lore skills. Let's have a look at the new skills today shall we?

New Skills :

In addition to the skills presented in the Dark Heresy Core Rulebook, characters have access to the following new skills and begin play with both at Rank 1 (Known). After the description for each skill are several Benefits of Success and Consequences of Failure that additional degrees of Success/Failure can be spent on after determining the result of the roll.

Endurance [Toughness] :

Aptitudes : Toughness, Defence
Skill Use : Free Action, unless otherwise noted.

Endurance covers acts of physical resilience, such as fighting off the effects of a disease or poison, or withstanding physical trauma over short or long periods of time.

This skill is particularly valuable to explorers, labourers, and others with physically intensive and exhausting professions. Likewise mercenaries, soldiers and the like often develop this skill as they take and survive injuries and trauma.

Whenever a character would (under the basic rules) be called upon to make a Toughness test, they instead make an Endurance test. Likewise any Athletics tests that would deal with acts of physical endurance or stamina become Endurance tests instead of Athletics tests.

The GM can call on a player to make an Endurance test when...

• They are travelling in harsh conditions and must withstand the effects of exposure.
• They wish to push past their usual limits even when they would normally be exhausted (This has been moved from Athletics to Endurance).
• They need to withstand sudden physical trauma or torment that would leave them incapacitated.

Resolve [Willpower] :

Aptitudes : Willpower, Defence
Skill Use : Free Action, unless otherwise noted.

Endurance covers acts of mental resolve, such as fighting off a psychic assault, resisting interrogation, or maintaining your composure when a foe is taunting you or attempting to drive you into a frenzy.

This skill is vital to anyone who risks physical violence as part of their everyday life, as it allows them to keep calm under fire and push forward instead of panicking. Likewise anyone who has secrets to keep or regularly comes into possession of valuable information would do well to develop this skill in order to resist intimidation or interrogation.

Whenever a character would (under the basic rules) be called upon to make a Willpower test to resist Fear or any sort of mental influence, they instead make a Resolve test.

The GM can call on a player to make a Resolve test when...

• They are resisting interrogation and torture.
• They are under fire and need to resist their opponents attempts to suppress them.
• They encounter a terrifying foe or situation, and need to prevent themselves from fleeing in fear.

Design Notes :

So this one's nice and short, but let's have a look at why I've changed what I have.

Endurance and Resolve have been added for reasons I've already gone into in an earlier post. They allow characters to be particularly tough or strong willed without necessarily having to spend insane amounts of XP on increasing Characteristics they may not have the aptitudes for, especially when it's so easy for antagnoists to add bonuses to the tests to resist Shock, Toxic, Fear and the like. It's a balance issue I've run into more than once.

As usual, if you've any ideas or feedback please let me know, and I'll be carrying on with this in my next post.

Until Next Time
Happy Gaming
Michael

Dark Heresy Revamped : Chapter IId - Character Creation Part 4

With this post we're getting to the end of my alterations to Character Creation in my revamp of Dark Heresy. This time we're going to take a look at Roles and how I've decided to alter them. These are pretty much all alterations to the roles Role Bonuses, so this is a much shorter post than the last two, thankfully. I'm sorry for the late update too, but it's been a hell of a week and I've been very busy. Unfortunately it seems like that'll be the case for at least the next two weeks, but I'll do my best to keep up regular updates.

Ace (Enemies Without p.38) :

• Role Bonus “Right Stuff” : An Ace character may spend a Fate Point to automatically succeed on an Operate or Survival skill test involving vehicles or living steeds with a number of degrees of success equal to the appropriate Characteristic bonus.

Assassin (Core Rulebook p.62) :

• Role Bonus “Sure Kill” : After hitting an opponent with an attack, an Assassin character may spend 1 Fate Point to deal additional damage equal to their Weapon Skill bonus for melee attacks, or their Ballistic Skill bonus for ranged attacks to the first hit made with that attack.

Chirugeon (Core Rulebook p.64) :

• Role Bonus “Dedicated Healer” : A Chirugeon character may spend a Fate Point to automatically succeed on a Medicae skill test with a number of degrees equal to their Intelligence bonus.

Crusader (Enemies Beyond p.34) :

• Role Bonus “Smite the Unholy” : A Crusader character may spend a Fate Point to automatically pass a Fear test with a numer of degrees of success equal to their Willpower bonus. Additionally the first time in a round that a Crusader character hits with a Melee attack against a target with the Fear trait they increase the Damage and Penetration of that attack by X, with X being equal to the targets Fear rating.

Design Notes :

The Ace has been altered slightly to bring them in line with my alterations to how the Operate skill works, namely that not all Operate tests are based on Agility. We'll get into the details of that in the Skill section, but safe to say your Agility counts for little when you're at the helm of a Luna class Cruiser...

The Assassin's Role Bonus has been altered in line with some changes I'm making to the Combat Rules, based around the Benefits of Success / Price of Failure mechanic I introduced in an earlier post. Allowing them to benefit from their degrees of success twice would be somewhat unfair, whilst giving them a set bonus streamlines things a little.

The Chirugeon has had the effects of their Role Bonus broadened to apply to all Medicae tests instead of just First Aid. Whilst admittedly being skilled at first aid is useful, it is purely a combat based benefit when I think Chirugeons should be equally skilled at distilling curatives, analysing outbreaks, and performing autopsies as they are at stitching people back together. Likewise they can use this ability to simply pass a test in the same manner as a Sage, Seeker or other Role.

The Crusader has been...toned down somewhat. Their base Role Ability makes them terrifyingly powerful against anything with a fear rating, which as it stands can lead to Daemons, Aliens and the like huddling in a corner, screaming their apologies whilst the Crusader beats them to death. I've limited their damage/penetration bonus to only being applied to one attack per round in order to bring them down to the same level as other characters, that said I'd like to alter their role ability so it's a little less specific, so we'll have to see if anything else springs to mind in the future.

When I get around to finalising my alterations to the combat system, the Desperado and Warrior may see some changes. However we'll see what happens once I've done a bit more playtesting with them.

Well, that was nice and short compared to the last two posts. That's it for character creation, as I'm not going to take a look at Elite Advances until I'm further on with this little project. As they draw on so many other rules (especially in the case of Psykers), I'd rather get those rules set in place before I start to mess around with them. For the same reason I'm going to leave Alternate Character Creation rules and the like alone until I've done some more work on the system in general.

As usual, if you've any thoughts or recommendations please let me know!

Until Next Time
Happy Gaming
Michael