The Imperial worlder has no penalties and only a +3 to Willpower, gets some basic knowledge of religion and education, and a penalty to dealing with WHAT MAN WAS NOT MEANT TO KNOW. The Hiver has higher Fel, lower Tough, acts faster in a crisis, can run through crowds of people like they weren't there, and goes a bit crazy out in the wild. The homeworlds are pretty simple: The Feral Worlder has higher Str and Tough, lower Fellowship and Willpower, and can handle the wilds easier but hates formal social situations. You also pay diminishing returns for your stat boosts, now everything has variable EXP costs. Later, when we get to EXP, you can only ever add +20 to a stat over your career gone are the +30, +40 etc stat advances from Fantasy. Characters who have a bonus to a stat from their homeworld only get +5 now, and penalties are only -5. One thing the astute reader will notice immediately is that stats are on a much tighter leash than in WHFRP. To create a PC, you pick your homeworld (standin for species, all Imperial PCs are human, because 40k's maximum volume catholic space nazis are significantly less sociable than the Empire's 17th century Germans), pick your Career (The old Career system is gone, and also being from a certain world will prevent you from being from a specific career), roll stats (2d10 down the line, same as before, with the addition of a mostly-unnecessary Perception stat), reroll one stat that didn't turn out how you wanted (RAW, you MUST keep the second result, even if it's worse, which is stupid) in place of the old Shallya's Mercy rule (I prefer Shallya's Mercy), then roll wounds, fate, and Divination (giving you a minor statistical adjustment and a little bit of a fate-hook).
#WARHAMMER 40K DARK HERESY ARMOURY PC#
From there, we're right on into PC creation, which will be very familiar to anyone who has read the WHFRP2e review. It also has a short example of play of some Acolytes (PCs) investigating a missing Inquisitorial agent and hitting Daemonhost (a bad thing), as well as a little disclaimer that no, Chaos and magic and all that isn't real, don't get too into this junk. The game begins with the usual 'what is a roleplaying game' spiel and the bog-standard 'this is the 41st millennia and there is only war' thingy you get in every 40k Hams product. There is less space for the humble space rat catcher and their small but vicious space dog. The Shitfarmer To Hero arc is still good, but it doesn't fit into 40k quite as well as it did Fantasy because 40k has generally never been all that concerned with ordinary people, both during its more satirical periods and the recent push towards 'no actually fascism is cool and fun' it's suffered. I generally find it to be the inferior system and game, but there were plenty of challenges in porting the system over to a setting where everything was ramped up to maximum screaming all the time.
40kRP is built on the bones of WHFRP2e, changed to account for the more bombastic setting, to try some new things, and to deal with the existence of automatic and anti-tank weapons.
If that arc sounds a lot like the shitfarmer to hero arc of WHFRP2e, that's no accident. From there, your Sororita Initiates, Guardsmen, street thugs, gangers, and preachers slowly work their way up, becoming indispensable to their employer and possibly becoming Inquisitors or favored students (or finding a way to get out of this whole business with their necks intact and a healthy slush fund). Instead, you start out as a group of 3-5 rather bumbling but promising low-level Inquisitorial agents, people who are just competent enough that they might find something of value but who won't be missed if something happens to them while they poke around the darkness for clues and heresy.
It is a game about the Inquisition in Warhammer 40k, where you do not play as one of the all-powerful Inquisitors and their team of fellow supermen. It is a game that absolutely did not give fans what they wanted, originally, and I don't think I ever would have enjoyed it if it had. It's not a good game, though it is a game I have had a very good time with and that got me the RPG group I've kept for nearly ten years now. Post posted by Night10194 Original SA post Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay: Dark Heresy: Part 1ĭark Heresy is an odd game.