Wrath & Glory Character Creation

This is a fairly hefty chapter, with a sort of clunky layout - it essentially tells you how to make the character twice, printing the 20 tables in this chapter both at the beginning (well, ~5 pages in), and in their relevant areas. Why aren't these at the back of the book? Who knows.

In Summary

We start with a 3 page summary of the 8 steps to create a character, then the 21 tables.

To reiterate what I posted in my previous W&G run-down, those steps are:

0) Establish a Concept

1) Species

2) Archetype

4) Attributes

5) Skills

6) Talents

7) Wargear

8) Special Abilities 

9) A Background

Actually step 9 is part of step 8 but I mean, come on.

And we'll be going through them. Prep for lots of tables.

Conceptual Beginnings

The concept stage is tied into a couple other choices that have been made here, by either the group or the GM. These things are the Tier and the Framework of the campaign.

The Tier is a rough power level, ranging from Tier 1 "One Among Billions", to Tier 3 "Elite Guardians" and even up to Tier 5 "Agent's of Fate". In this capacity, you can play as poor bloody guardsmen, Deathwatch members and Rogue Traders, or even as an anime super-protagonist from Gurren Lagann. Tier is normally expected to remain constant throughout a campaign, but there are rules for changing it known as Ascending. 

Depending on your starting Tier, different archetypes will be available to you. Going up in Tier never bars archetypes off, it just unlocks more - for example while the Eldar Corsair archetype is Tier 1, you may select it in a Tier 3 game with no problem, as the higher-tier Archetypes are more expensive to purchase, and you'll still benefit from Tier 3. The Tier also dictates how many Build Points you have to create your character.

The Framework has no mechanical function, but rather serves to define the scope and goal of the campaign. Are you guardsmen struggling to maintain control over a ball of actually useless dirt versus orks? Are you freebootin' orks running around causing chaos? Maybe you're an actual Rogue Trader crew. The Framework is what defines this.

Personally, I'm slightly more of a fan of the Dark Heresy-esque setup of "band of disparate characters brought together to be problem solvers". It gives it more freedom than the more militaristic setups. For that purpose our framework will be essentially that band aka an Acolyte Cell, and we'll go with Tier 2 to permit some of the more fun options - that, and the generic poor bloody guardsman doesn't generally hit the ranks of the Inquisition, even as an acolyte.

This gives us 200 Build Points, with some associated Maximums.

These Attribute Maximums are further capped by Species.

Species: Select Xenos Only.

The available Species available to us are Human, Eldar, Ork, Adeptus Astartes, and Primaris Astartes. Yep, the Xenos known as Primaris Astartes (hah) are selectable, but not at our Tier - they require Tier 4. Interestingly, Adeptus Astartes are available at Tier 2, so you can have Space Marines (of limited capacity) alongside other types of troops without wholesale outscaling them in power. Apparently. 

No Tau or Kroot (meh) just yet, but hopefully we'll see them at some point. 

Since we're angling the Dark Heresy route in our Framework, that tosses out Eldar & Ork - I doubt the Eldar are interested in ferrying out evil within the Imperium, and Orks are Orks. Primaris are out due to Tier restrictions, leaving us with Human and Adeptus Astartes.

Considering Adeptus Astartes aren't exactly my bag, and placing one (even though it's limited to a mere Scout at Tier 2*) in an Acolyte group is odd, we're going Human.

*More on that in the next section

Humans as a species have no Build Point cost to select, have a Base Tier of 1 (Adeptus have 2, Primaris 4, Eldar 1 [yep], and Ork are 1 as well), have a "Speed" of 6 (that'd be meters of movement in a turn), and have no Attribute Modifications. They also have access to most of the Archetypes (species-specific ones excluded, obviously) Your normal bog-standard baseline RPG species.

At Tier 4, simply being a Primaris eats 1/4 of your BPs.

Bonus image:

"Just keep track of all the implants, bro". Freakin' SMs.

Archetypal Roles

Archetypes are the game's version of a class, but much more "open." If you remember DH 2.0 or Only War, it works mostly via Keywords being granted to you, and specific abilities, gear, talents, etc requiring you possess a Keyword.

Each Archetype has a Build Point Cost (although it might be 0), has some Pre-reqs (Tier, Species, Attributes, Skills), and grants Benefits in the form of Keywords, an Influence modifier, a special ability or two, and some base wargear.

For the sake of full disclosure, here they are, organized in an "Association: Archetype (Sub-choices), etc" format - these subchoices might apply to all archetypes of an association, or just one. Most subchoices have a small mechanical effect, usually a situational bonus.

Adeptus Ministorum: Ministorum Priest, Crusader, Death Cult Assassin
Adepta Sororitas: (Order), Sister of Battle, Sister Hospitaller.
Astra Militarum: Imperial Guardsman (Regiment), Tempestus Scion, Commissar
Agents of the Imperium: Inquisitorial Acolyte (Ordo), Inquisitorial Adept (Ordo), Inquisitor (Ordo), Rogue Trader (Dynasty), Sanctioned Psyker
Adeptus Astartes: (Chapter), Scout, Tactical Marine, Primaris Intercessor
Adeptus Mechanicus: (Forge World), Skitarius, Tech-Priest
Scum: Ganger, Scavvy, Desperado
Renegades: Cultist (Mark of Chaos), Heretek, Chaos Space Marine (Mark of Chaos, Legion), Rogue Psyker
Aeldari: Corsair (Coterie), Ranger (Craftworld), Warlock (Craftworld)
Orks: (Clan), Boy, Kommando, Nob

Whew. As you can see, plenty of options, and with them all you can essentially cover all of what the previous books have done.
Each association/category also includes 3 "Objectives" - narrative hooks that you roll a d3 for each session to determine which one, if you can apply to that session, will generate Wrath (once). You may also come up with your own Objectives - the game suggests you make 3, and thus change the die roll to a d6, rather than a d3.

Archetypes with minimum tier requirements

With all these options, it might be hard to choose - some of them are quite open even in themselves, such as the Inquisitorial Acolyte and Adept (the Acolyte in particular is very generic), and all of the Scum having a free "Keyword" attached to them, so you can associate them with most everything.

To make it simple, however, I'm going to go with a simple Tempustus Scion, as that is the picture I had used in the previous blog entry related to character creation, although the temptation to pick a Psyker or Skitarius is still strong.

We're a Scion, named "Russ Dradur", relatively fresh out of Ordo Tempestus training  and attached to a Acolyte cell, chosen because an Interrogator needed a cell with a bit more "oomph" that could be trusted to handle more martial problems.
.
Our "built-in" objectives as being part of the Astra Militarum  include:
1) Express confidence (or the opposite) in the virture of overwhelming numbers and firepower
2) Explain how the Imperial Infantrymans Uplifting Primer has a lesson appropriate to the current situation
3) Reminisce about your far-flung home world and compare it to the current situation.

The Scion Archetype

So right off the bat our 200 Build Points (from starting at Tier 2) is reduced to 170 to spend (30 on the Archetype), and we know some of our minimum attributes and skills we have to aim for. We've also got an assortment of fun war-gear, including our ever-important Uplifting Primer, which we'll be sure to study in full, daily.

Attributes

The next step would be to purchase our Attributes. Given that we're Tier 2 , we may spend at most 100 BP on attributes. For disclosure, that number increases to 150 at Tier 3, 200 at Tier 4, and 300 at Tier 5. We also know our Base Attribute maximum at Tier 2 is 5.

The game offers pre-assigned attributes and attribute arrays as suggestions for your attributes but if you like you can simply spend the BP as you wish. The Tier 2 suggestion would be "Three Attributes at Rating 4, Four Attributes at Rating 3" and would cost 94BP. For humans, Rating 3 is average, 4-5 is "high average" and Rating 2 is "poor" - Rating 1 is the minimum an attribute can be. 

The Almighty Point Cost Table

The suggested attributes are a good solid spread, but I like characters having at least one "under-performing" Trait so I'm going to make our Fellowship to 2 - Russ is a bit more rough and martial-focused than others, not having time for niceties. This leaves us with three attributes at rating 4 (costing 54 points), three attributes at rating 3 (costing us 30 points), and one attribute at 2 (costing 4 points. This sums to 88, which actually leaves us a potential 12 points to spend on Attributes before we hit the cap. Let's bump a Rating-3 attribute up to a Rating-4, increasing its cost by 8, leaving us at 96pts used.

So with our ratings chosen, we have to slot them into the attributes. We know we need Strength, Initiative and Toughness all at least, so they'll all be at least a 3 - which is easy enough, given all of our attributes except are going to be at least a 3, and that "one" is assigned to Fellowship. I know I want to be a good ranged fighter, given I am armed with a Lasgun (so increase Agility), and I want to not fold too quickly in combat (which is derived from Willpower, Toughness, Initiative) and be able to act fast if necessary (Initiative)

This leaves us with a final attribute array looking like this:

Looks pretty good!

The "adjusted ratings" aren't adjusted at all, but that's because my Species lacks any modifiers, and I have no fancy power armor to increase them. Mechanically, you would use your Adjusted rating for tests, stats, thresholds, etc, and your "normal" rating for advancement costs and requirements.

Now that our attributes have been assigned we have to calculate our "Traits", also known as "derived attributes" - these are simple numbers taken from your Attributes and Tier.

All pretty simple fill-ins, except that Passive Awareness..

Skills

After all this, we're at 200-30-96=74 build points remaining. These will be spent on Skills, Talents, any additional wargear, and any Special Abilities (which we won't have, as those are Psychic Powers).

Skills are purchased exactly the same as attributes, with suggested packages and arrays, and their own BP cost table - the one for Tier 2 costs 70BP, so I don't think you're meant to save too many past this point.

For skill value "meanings" or qualitative statements, we have: 0 is Untrained, 1 is Novice, 2 Initiate, 3 Educated, 4 Accomplished/Professional, 5 Artisan, 6 Master, 7 Grandmaster, 8 Savant. Given we're Tier 2, our max is a skill level of 5, which is fine - they get pretty expensive anyways (20 pts for a single Skill rating of 5, and 10 pts for a Rating of 4!)

Rather than explicitly use their suggested skills, I'm going to fiddle around to create a relatively standard character that specializes in a few things, then has a large amount supplementary skills, keeping in mind I have only 74BP remaining, I have a couple pre-reqs due to being a Scion, and any potential training my character might have received in the Schola Progenium and Ordo Tempestus.

With that, I end up with one Rating-5, one Rating-4, four Rating-3s, four Rating-2s, and four Rating-1s, at a total of 70BP. That Rating-5 is Ballistics Skill, and due to being Tier 2, is the highest I can ever raise it! Unless of course, the Tier is increased (which is intended to be a very significant event). This is perfectly fine, as there are still ways to improve my shooting ability if desired, via talents and wargear.

Not so good at talking unless it's bullying. Alas.

Talents

With 4BP remaining I'm not exactly rolling in the options - Talents are all 20-30+ in cost (and you can start with a max of 3 at Tier 2 - who the heck is affording this?!). There are a few that catch my eye, such as Hardy to make a Toughness test in combat to restore Shock, or Marksman to improve my ability at making Called Shots. Also a fun note, although I cannot get it: characters possessing the Chaos keyword can get a minion/familiar via the warp, as a lesser daemon. In expected behavior it's kind of an asshole and liable to betray you, but, neat.

Wargear

After Talents we're left with Wargear. Wargear is interesting for me, as due to my Influence being only two (Fellowship [2]-1, plus 1 from Scion) I am not likely to be able to acquire much in-game without the help of my fellow cell members, or large stashes of wealth or liquid assets. There isn't too much I immediately want here, except an upgrade from "Carapace Armour" to "Tempestus Carapace Armour" - unfortunately this is out of my reach, and given its value of 6/Very Rare, might stay that way for a bit. It'd be neat, though, as it lets you see in the dark and has a built-in vox bead, among other things.

Some basic armours. My starting armor reduces my speed from 6 to 5.

Selecting wargear past replacing what I have (which have specific rules - EG my armour can only be swapped with another piece of armour appropriate to species & archetype, maximum value of 3+Tier) or adding upgrades to my weapons are up to GM discretion. The Framework itself might also include given equipment, but given that "The Framework" is essentially "the premise for the campaign" and doesn't include anything mechanical in the rules, that's really just a fancy way of saying "You also get whatever the GM gives you."

With my 4 remaining BP I can buy some upgrades for my Hot-Shot Lasgun. Some of them seem helpful, such as a bandolier to carry more Reloads (2BP), a Bayonet Lug to slap a bayonet on it (1BP), a monoscope (4BP), but given their cost in BP I find them ultimately too expensive, even at 1BP.

Last in Wargear, we all get a free "trinket" item, which is something small and more of a decoration piece, but can be used in some purposes - eg a flask of brandy might be a worthy bribe for somebody. It can be all kind sof stuff, and they have 3 d66 tables if you can't think of anything yourself. I like the example ones, so I'm going with "A thick tome of the Imperial Creed, its cover sealed closed by an archaic lock." This feels like something a Scion might carry around, rather than something too much a "harmless curiousity", such as a knife, with the blade melted by acid.

Backgrounds - Where you came from, last.

Technically also "Special Abilities", but, again, no Psychic stuff here, so just backgrounds.

Backgrounds are phrases indicating where they come from, what they have become or achieved, or what drives them. It's intended as a narrative, aid, but offers mechanical benefit; once made, they are assigned a "category", where each gives a different bonus. There are 4 categories of backgrounds: Origin, Keyword, Accomplishment, Goal. 

Origin: This ties to where you came from or what prominently shaped you early in life, usually your home world. If chosen, you get either +3 Shock or +1 Wound.

Keyword: Associating yourself with a Keyword ties you closely to that organization, giving you access to a contact in it that can provide benefits once per session, and making NPCs part of that organization have a higher initial "Reaction" to you than normal.

Accomplishment: Any noteworthy tasks you have completed (if any). If chosen, grants you either +1 Influence or +2 Wealth.

Goal: This might be a personal goal, or a large "will require many lifetimes" goal. It's intended to be a long-standing one, and should be noted it's not necessarily a primary focus for the campaign. If chosen, you gain +1 Glory in addition to gaining +1 Wrath any time you accomplish an Objective.* Presumably, this will only trigger once/session just like the Wrath gain is, but, hey.

Given that we've decided Russ is somewhat fresh out of the Ordo Tempestus (although not 100%), we'll rule out Accomplishment. I also don't have any long-standing Goal in mind for him, so that ones out. That leaves us with Keyword and Origin. My Keywords (Imperium, Astra Militarum, Militarum Tempestus) sort of all speak for themselves without too much wiggle room in them (the examples in the book compare Evil Sunz Mekboy to Evil Sunz Bikey Boy) given Scions are simply Scions, and Imperium/AM are just broader umbrellas for MT, so I want to do something with Origin.

Origin's tables and text largely focuses on home world. I'm tempted to pick a Death World just because that's exciting, but I don't feel my skills properly reflect such harsh living (namely, Survival not being approximately level 5). With that, I like Hive World the most, as it guarantees they will learn combat skills, how to push people around to survive, and isn't a terribly pleasant life, such as some agri-worlds might ultimately end up being. That, and Shrine Worlds are boring. We'll call our made up Hive World "Oeridor II" which yes I just made up with no thought and doesn't entirely fit "traditional naming style" of Imperium planets. I'll go with +3 Shock to represent an enhanced "willpower"-esque style of resilience rather than necessarily physical sturdiness.

Ooga Booga, where my nids at?

Das it, Mane

And now we have a fully completed character, excluding the actual character development of personalities, prejudices, morals, and so forth. Being a Scion imparts some specific stuff onto that, such as the Imperial Creed being stamped directly onto their forehead brain, and morals being "roughly nonexistent."

This was a fairly pleasant enough process. Having extensive Build Points in your character generation system tends to make it susceptible to fiddliness and odd min/maxing (See: Shadowrun, my god), but for purposes of min/maxing I feel the attributes are all fairly useful (Well, Tech-Priests might fail to see any value in Fellowship, given their Influence is tied to Intellect...) as they dictate various core derived traits. Strength is of course a stand-out as usual, but it's tied to ammo carry amount for ranged weapon users (as well as a cap on how big of a weapon you can carry effectively), and is extra damage for melee users - a fair amount, at that. 

For example, a knife has 2+1 ED damage, and you add flat Strength to the damage, so my average strength character becomes 5+1ED with a knife. Proper (chain, force, power, eldar, ork, etc) melee weapons have baselines of 5-6, with +2ED or so.

For ease, well, it's essentially impossible to be as simple as a "you have 5 attribute points, put them wherever you want", and the rapidly scaling costs for purchasing stuff with relatively minimal costs for lower level skills means it incentivizes a nice spread of skills and attributes and not hyper-focusing a single thing, especially because your character generation resource is the same as your advancement resource (Again, you can compare to Shadowrun 5es priority system here - abysmal, if simpler.). I think it was fairly simple. I'd probably still be tempted to make a basic excel sheet*, just to calculate your costs for you. I just did mine as a simple tally system in notepad, but, hey. The relatively small skill list helps keep this manageable, as well, and the game gives you "arrays" that are quite useful, although I feel their attribute ones lacking any noticeable weakness is unfortunate.

*I do this with many things though, to be fair.

A bigger complaint one might have is Talents. If I recall correctly, Talents were quite more important in older 40kRPGs (and indeed, most RPGs in general) - here they are massive purchases. As an example, Favoured by the Warp (Roll twice for Perils) costs 40 BP here, while in DH2e it'd cost a Psyker 400 exp. Wrath and Glory suggests a few BP per session, while DH2e recommends 400 a session (provided "multiple encounters"). The W&G talents seem extraordinarily out of reach, and given the relatively low skill/attribute caps, they might end up some of your primary goals. Or, you could easily just increase all of your skills due to their paltry cost (1BP to raise it to Rating-1, 3 total BP to raise it to 2, etc). I don't expect really any characters to start the game with a Talent, unless they're very high in Tier. Even then, I don't think they expect that. Quick napkin math shows a Tier-4 person has 400BP, can spend 200 on attributes (and you probably should spend as much as possible here, given how important they all are), then their suggested skill package is 137 BP. Given you're likely going to want an Archetype, that sets you back another ~50, leaving you with about 15 or so BP. Not enough for a single talent.

On Psykers, their high innate cost (50 for the archetype) combined with their expensive Psyker powers (5 for trivial ones, 8 for most minor ones, 15 for the bigger ones) mean you're probably not going to be doing much else other than using your small repertoire of abilities. Is that good? Dunno, up to you. I'd have to build one to see if they looked satisfactory, but I expect they'll look very thin outside of their few sort of hard to pull off abilities. Then again, producing fire out of nothing is a hell of a drug.

My Character

Here is the form-filled character sheet /.pdf with the dude I created: click here
If you want an empty form-fillable CS, you can download that at Ulisses' Website here

Am I even allowed to upload these images like this?

Addendum: I forgot I had to spend all my BP at chargen, which included 4BPs. I spent those points on increasing Medicae from 1 to 2 (costing 2 more BP), and buying Investigation & Leadership to level 1 each. I figure medical training is important to all special forces, they're all trained somewhat in analytics and logic, and basic leadership is always expected from experienced and elite troops.

Wrath & Glory Reading & Rules Outlines (No Character Creation)

The latest WH40k RPG, now managed by Ulisses Spiele (rest in pepperoni FFG 40k).

It's significantly different from the classic ones, moving from a d100 "roll-under" path-based system to a pool o' d6 threshold system, while opening up all sorts of character options by blending Archetypes, Races, and Keywords, notably used for dictating talent acquisition (no more paths, remember?)

You can be (for a very limited example) an Ork+Nob, an Aeldari+Corsair, an Adeptus Astartes+Scout, a Human+Scion, and a variety of other things. Plenty of human support, but Xenos are only present as Orks and Eldar (no Dark Eldar)

The Core System

1) You build a pool of d6s based on the applicable skill and its linked-attribute for the task
2) Add bonus dice from items, talents, whatever else
3) Determine the "Difficulty Number" - the amount of successes you need to pass the test, GM-dictated. The "Standard" is 3, where Routine is 1 and Challenging 5, scaling up to 11 for "Near Impossible"
4) Roll the dice. A 4-5 is a success, a 6 is 2 successes. 1-3s are discarded. If you meet or exceed the DN, you pass.

Simple enough - the fun part is where you use excess rolls of 6("Exalted Icons") to buy benefits, such as more info, better quality, or an increased speed. You might also buy Extra Damage Dice in combat, or gain up to 1 point of Glory. This process called "Shifting". Overall, it's like Degrees of Success from old, but with less division, and acts more as a per-test currency.

There are various options like "buying" success where you create your pool, divide in half, and that's the number of "Icons" (successes) you have, although that's capped based on your character's Tier, at 2xTier.

There's an extra die (or more?) added to every pool, as well - the "Wrath Dice." If it rolls a 6, you get a Critical Hit (in combat) and a point of Glory. If it's a 1, a complication is added. This die doesn't care what the end result is, so this can create non-binary check resolutions, where you might "succeed at cost", or "fail with a benefit" rather than merely pass/fail, beyond what buying benefits for a good success offer.

I find it a bit odd they go for "Icons" and "Exalted Icons" rather than a more normal "Success" and "Critical Success", but, hey, gotta get that theme, right?

An example of a dice roll from the Example-of-play comic

Dammit Jim, I'm a Player, not an Author & Failing Forward

If you're more of a binary success/failure kind of player, there's a heading that offers options to adjust all these rolls to be a simple pass/fail - no narrative complications from Wrath, and so forth. It does, however, empower the GM with more Ruin.

Meshing totally with this concept is the idea of "failing forward" which they discuss and as this is not an essay on GMing, briefly said: Failuring Forward is the idea that a failure does not (usually) end an action with a simple "no", but rather introduce consequences in itself - obviously some actions have built-in consequences for failure, but there might be better options. The example that were in the W&G preview where they rolled to find a hidden base in the snow storm, where a failure might have meant they found it, just not after possibly suffering some damage.

The question is changed from "Do they find it at all?" to "Do they find it in a safe and expedient timeframe?"

Characters (Lite)

Characters are made up of several components, and each component is bought with a pool of "Build Points".

1) Species
2) Archetype

4) Attributes

5) Skills

6) Talents

7) Wargear

8) Special Abilities 

9) A Background

The species offer mild bonuses - or in some cases (spacemarines) fairly large bonuses.

The archetypes dictate starting Tier (or more practically, the GM does and you choose the associated ones) might have a species restriction, a minimum attribute and skill, and will provide mild benefits & keywords, which are used as prerequisites for gear, talents, and special abilities.

Tiers are a rough equivalent of "Levels" in other RPGs - there are 5 of them, although only the first 4 are proper starting options.

Space Marines have a list of 9 Chapters they may select from, as a Species option, each with a benefit and a drawback (traditionally related to a "Tradition" they try to uphold).

For a more in-depth look at Character Generation, see this post.

Tempestus Scions are the best the Imperium has to offer.

Wrath and Glory

There are 2 "meta-resources" you have: the eponymous "Wrath" and "Glory."

Wrath is replenished per-session, resetting to 2 every time for each player character. It's used to re-roll failures, restore Shock, improve a "Defiance Check", or declare a minor narrative element (as permitted by the GM). It's also restored mid-session via roleplaying, objectives, and campaign cards, GM-permitting.
This is a fairly standard meta-resource, designed to offer some narrative control and RNG-mitigation options to the players, while incentivizing getting invested into the game's drama and moving it forward.

Glory, contrasted to Wrath's being a personal resource, is a group one. Its only sources of replenishment are via Shifting (again, once per test), or a 6 on a Wrath Die. Glory has a cap of the highest between 6 and the number of players+2: excess is lost.
It's used to add a die to a roll (although interestingly, only after Wrath-based bonuses have been used), and has a limit based on tier. It might also increase your damage in an attack, improve a Critical Effect, or Seize the Initiative in combat.

Ruin awaits, as well.

The GM possesses a resource known as "Ruin", which acts as a sort of "Wrath for GMs." It's gained via failed Corruption tests, failed Fear tests, and when the GM rolls a 6 on a Wrath die. It's used to activate Ruin abilities on NPCs, interrupt the PCs initiative order in combat, seize the initiative, re-roll failurs,, restore shock, and Soak wounds; essentially it does all that Glory and Wrath does for players, and more.

It's lost at the end of a session, is reset to the amount of players at the start of each one, and is capped at the number of players.

Yeah, but how Skilled of a Doctor Medicae are you?

As said before, the d100 system is out, the d6 pool is in.
So what does it look like to build this pool?

It's pretty simple: you have 7 different Attributes, and 18 different skills (boy, they've cut that list down a lot, huh?).
Theoretically your Attribute can scale up to 12 (or higher?) but at Tier 1 ("normal people"-tier), you're not going to be above 4, and even at the highest Tier of 5, which is essentially superhero level, you're capped at 10 (good luck with that cost, though).  There's a few options to select how your attributes are done - pre-set arrays, attribute "packages" (eg, five at rating 3, two at rating 2), or just the total cost for buying at a specific number.

Just one of the options for Attribute Selection.

Skills go up to 8, where 4 is the scale most professionals will be at for their livelihood, and 8 is maybe an ancient Eldar Warlock who has spent centuries studying their craft.

After that, figure out for a test what skill is necessary, then build a pool of the skill level + the attribute level. That means a solid professional will have a pool of 8 or so (4+4), while the average mook doing a thing he has no training in will be about a 2 or a 3 (from their attribute)

The attributes are Strength, Agility, Toughness, Intellect, Fellowship, Willpower, and Initiative.
These are all standard enough, although Initiative is the stand-out. It's made even more interesting how it's actually not used to determine Initiative in combat (usually)

Your options for skills are, in their full glory:
Athletics, Awareness, Ballistic Skill, Cunning, Deception, Insight, Intimidation, Investigation, Leadership, Medicae, Persuasion, Pilot, Psychic Mastery, Scholar, Stealth, Survival, Tech, Weapon Skill.

The "do anything with technology" Tech makes an appearance again, and 6 Social skills listed. Note that Cunning is not actually lying (that'd be Deception). It's more of savviness and making connections, tracking things down. Awareness vs Investigation provides "High-level detail vs more extensive investigation (!)" axis.

Where is the Glory without Combat?

Combat can be burdensome in its rule amount (it's a 40page chapter here, for the record), so we'll be "brief."*
*Haha, yeah right.

Initiative is back and forth with player, baddie, player, baddie, and so forth. Who acts when is entirely up to the acting side - you can have your Initiative-1 Admech Skitarius act before your Initiative-4 Space Marine if you so choose. It can be interrupted with "Seize the Initiative" via point expenditure, to temporarily delay handing initiative back to the other side. There is an optional rule for Random Initiative, that involves rolling Initiative, counting Icons, and going from there, with PCs winning ties, ties there being higher base initiative, and then simply choosing.

While Acting, you have 1 move and 1 action, as well as 2 simple actions and any number of free actions. You can try to do more actions, at a penalty, and still a cap of 3 actions per turn.

Movement is meters-based, with a Human speed being 6 and an Eldar 8. Interestingly, they suggest grids (if used) to represent 2 meters of distance (rounding up movement to nearest even)

Attacks are the relevant Attribute and Skill (interestingly, Melee is based on the Initiative attribute - and the only Skill based on it at all...), trying to beat the target's Defense. Given Defense is calculated as "Initiative-1", that likely won't be too high.

You can make "Interaction Attacks" with a variety of skills (Athletics, Deception, Intimidate, Persuasion, Tech) to impair an enemy, making them Hindered (+1 to victim's DN) or Vulnerable (-1 Defence). There's also a special rule to use Ballistics as an Interaction Attack as "Suppressing Fire." These seem quite potent, given the already apparently-low DNs and Defence stats.
This is, to me, an interesting way to set up a generic "support actions" attack-type, and even lets you use social skills in combat. Nicely done.

When making an Action, you have 13 Combat Options - Aiming, Called Shots, charging, grappling, Salvo Fire, Suppressive Fire, etc. Unfortunately, nothing increases your chance of Critical Hits - Called Shots merely increase the amount of damage you do via Extra Damage Dice (see below)

A Mild Note On Vehicles & Voidships

There are rules for Vehicles and Voidships, as well as using them in combat. They're not extensive (don't expect to easily port over much of the minutia of Rogue Trader, for example), but they seem serviceable for the moment, and don't look hard to homebrew for in the slightest.

Voidships (and vehicles) do get a Crit Hit chart for that explosive goodness.

Impairment and Damage

There are 14 Combat Effects (aka statuses, conditions) ranging from Bleeding, to Exhausted, Poisoned, and Terror. These can be cleared in-scene, or will auto-clear at the end of it (provided they don't kill you, first)

If you roll a 1 on the Wrath Die you'll suffer a Complication, of which there are 10. These might be "Out of Ammo" (lose a reload), "Weapon Malfunction" (have to fix it), "inconvenient target", or other such things.

Damage is largely static based on the weapon, being formatted as Damage+ED ("Extra Damage Dice" - roll em and any Icons are +1 damage) associated with the weapon, modified by a few things (such as Wrath and whatnot). Given that a simple Lasgun is 7+1ED and a "'Nids Go Home" Lascannon is 18+3ED, it seems like this damage is going to be fairly consistent, which I personally appreciate.

Once you've calculated your final damage, you compare it to the target's Resilience (which the game seems to write as "Resistance" in some areas, making Ctrl-Fing the .pdf inconsistent). There, it goes one of two ways
1) If your damage is equal to Resilience, you inflict 1d3 Shock.
2) If it exceeds it, inflict 1 Wound for every point over.
Note: your Resilience is calculated via your Toughness Attribute and Armour Rating, so that stays similar to previous 40kRPGs.

"Shock" is essentially a health bar for fatigue & determination - if it hits 0, you're Exhausted. Shock at that point turns into Mortal Wounds, which are Wounds that bypass normal defences to inflict auto damage. Scary. Shock is calculated as Willpower+Tier.

Losing all your Wounds will KO you, if it doesn't kill you outright. You suffer penalties the more wounded you are ("Lightly" and "Heavily"). Wounds is calculated as Toughness+Tier.

Given how low both those values are, and how much damage can do, armour appears to be very important, and a few bad rolls can and will down your character (although not necessarily kill.)

Both Shock and Wounds can be recovered via Medicae tests, although Wounds are "stickier" (being harder and slower to remove), and Shock can be restored via Wrath.

A mechanic called "Soaking" exists, to help mitigate Wound damage and turn it into Shock damage. Both PCs and NPCs can do it, although it costs Ruin for the NPCs.

Critical Hits

Essentially a selling point of 40k in general, here they're handled with 2 questions:
Did you successfully hit (not damage!) your target?
Did you roll a 6 on your Wrath die?
If both are yes, flip over that Wrath Deck (a deck of cards, ah, jeez.)*
*Stop making proprietary stuff for your games, thanks.

Luckily there's a nice chart, and here's part of it.

Aw, yeah, click me for the good stuff

Yes, Critical Hits are specific results achieved via a secondary die (that Wrath Die) - they're not "overkill damage" anymore. If you roll very well, this means you can Laspistol shot the full-armor Space Marine and blow his arm off with a "(66) Grisly Amputation", as their Effects happen regardless of their Resilience.

Weapons, Armour, and Tools

You've got an assortment of stuff here. 4 pages of ranged weapon tables, then several more with little pictures and descriptions of each, and similar for melee and armour.

Ork Tekknology included, weapons, armour, tools and cybernetics

Beyond weapons and armour, you've got an assortment of tools, cybernetics (with included rules on installing and removing them). Your gut can be augmented. You can be Darth Vader. You can have not-totally-creepy robot arms you control. You can swig some Ork Fightin' Juice and scream madly as you ignite guardsmen with your Burna applied directly to the forehead.

Why The Heck Everything Gotta Cost Money?

Money in this game uses the DH 2.0 and "newer" 40k RPG systems of abstracted wealth, in the form of Influence and Wealth. Influence is dictated by Fellowship (mostly), Wealth by Tier.

Influence is used for the Test to acquire any item, while Wealth can be permanently reduced to add an Icon to your Influence Test. An interesting aspect with Influence is while it's usually based on Fellowship, it's noted that if you possess the Adeptus Mechanicus keyword, then you use Intellect. Similarly, Orks care about Strength.

The Influence Test is a standard test, using the Influence Attribute, but can be modified by the Rarity of the item. Items are assigned a Rarity, but this itself can vary on location and available as the GM dictates.

In addition to Wealth and Influence, you have a more fluid resource known as "Assets" which are thematically just specifically valuable items, and can be spent as Wealth, 1:1, boosting Influence tests.

This interacts oddly with Wealth - Wealth is the abstract form of financial prowess, and to my understanding seems to be applicable to anybody, while Assets are a specific form of wealth. The book uses an example of "a handful of teef" for orks or for humans an "an ancient box reputed to contain a saint's finger bone". You might be able to use the teef with Orks for your test, but the humans won't care for it, and vice versa.

Adding on to that, Wealth can be +1'd via converting 3 Assets (at GM discretion), or is increased via any normal way of earning larger sums of money - jobs, mapping systems, rewards by powerful NPCs, etc. It is, however, capped at Tier+3.

You know this is the Psyker end goal 100% of the time.

Psykers

Psykers are some of my favorite stuff, but I was disappointed at how they were handled in Dark Heresy 2.0 - ripping off the Psyker powers from Only War left them a bit too focused on murder for my tastes, although it was an understandable balance adjustment. They seem better this time around.

Psykers draw from the warp in one of 3 ways - Bound, Unbound, or Transcendent, and each one is more potent and more dangerous than the last. This is simply done - Bound has 1 Wrath Die, Unbound gets another one, and Transcendent can add as many as you want up to the highest of your Tier or Rank Bonus. These are added to your Psyker Test to activate a power.

Transcendent is also liable to knock your Psyker out, giving them Shock Damage equal to the Wrath Dice they gained.

Considering Psyker use is nigh-heretical, Wrath Dice do not grant their normal benefit (IE no Crits, no Glory gain), but they do result in Complications - namely, Daemons Perils of the Warp. 

Oh, Perilous Warp, My Perilous Warp

Perils of the Warp is a d66 chart (or another deck of cards). If you roll a Complication on your Psyker Test, you get to roll on that. For every further Complication roll, you add 1 to the tens digit rolled (or, for cards, do awkward shuffling and deck separation)

We got stuff ranging from "being harassed by the hash slinging slasher" to "Oh god my poor ears, why are all the rodent dead", "No John. You are the daemons." culminating with "Who knew the Psyker's head was actually a disco laser show of death all along?"

The Powers

In summary: lodsepowers

Minor Psychic powers are back (15 of them), as well as the Disciplines of Biomancy (No Palpatine imitations, but you can become a ghost?), Divination, Pyromancy, Telekinesis, Telepathy, Maleificarum, Runes of Battle.

Those last two are specific to Chaos and Aeldari, respectively. Like the tabletop wargames, the Runes are 2 powers in one, although they cost a lot of points to buy.

Pocket flash bangs. What more do you need?

Power selection is limited by Tier, then limited to max amount of minors, discipline, and psychic powers.

There's no apparent need to go "up" the Discipline in a specific order, so if you just want "the best" power from a Discipline, you can buy it straight up.

I find this area to be a bit odd, and I might be missing a key note somewhere, but how you're expected to reach the Max Psychic Powers without hitting the other 2 Caps before Tier 4 is a mystery to me. Perhaps the "Discipline Powers" is per-discipline? All the "standard" Psyker archetypes start with a Smite power part of the "Universal Psychic Discipline" that doesn't count towards the limit.

As well as that, we're offered 'A psychic character may purchase up to 2 Minor Psychic Powers and (Tier–1, to a minimum of 1) Discipline Powers chosen from an appropriate psychic discipline" in the paragraph above the above picture, and in character generation rules, those first 2 columns are instead labeled starting caps. An example Sanctioned Psyker (Tier 2) ends up starting the game with Smite, 2 minors, and 1 Discipline, and it notes after creation she can only have up to 5 powers, unless the Tier increases.

The Bestiary

Enemies are one of four "Threat" types - Troops, Elites, Adversaries, or Monstrous Creatures.

Troops act as mobs, acting as one, Elites are significant individuals, and are equivalent to a hero in combat but aren't cool enough to have names, Adversaries possess names and personal ruin (a Ruin pool just for them), and Monstrous Creatures are...Monstrous Creatures. Like a Carnifex.

Threats are given a stat-block, a threat classification type per tier, and sometimes a "sub-type" for that threat, that modifiers some stats and gear, such as the "Veteran Trooper" subtype for the "Astra Militarum Trooper"-type threat.

A Chaos Cultist Leader Threat

The stat-blocks are nothing special - they're simpler than the d100 ones, largely because there is (not yet) a dozen special abilities, and they print the ability out for the threat.

The pre-made options take rom the Imperium, Chaos, Orks, Eldars, and a small mix of "Others", suchGenestealers, Clawed Fiends, and Gilead Night Scarabs. No, no Carnifex or 'gaunts of any kind.

Saying that, both the Ork and the Eldar sections are anemic, offering only 4 and 2 real options respectively. There's not even an Eldar Warlock or Dire Avenger. The Imperial and Chaos threat listings will serve as a decent base, as long as you go for nothing too off the wall.

For making your own "off-the-cuff" Threats you have essentially a table to go off, a suggestion to look at the derived attribute section for PCs. Beyond that, it's up to the GM.

Your "oh god the PCs are out of control" arrays

Given that the game does qualify what an attribute is roughly (EG a 4 is a "Professional"), and there is a decent smattering of special abilities on the pre-made threats, it shouldn't be too hard to make up your own monsters.

The Lazy End

The core rules seem to be fairly solid, though there is a bit of "bean counting" with the various meta-resources, although nothing too complicated and certainly not new to RPGs at this point. The smattering of optional rules throughout is encouraging to the game's apparent versatility, as I believe most of them would work well.

For replicating WH40KRPG rules, at the moment these largely cover an Only War or Dark Heresy experience, with a decent bit of Rogue Trader, Deathwatch and Black Crusade flair. I imagine those experiences will easily be improved with future dedicated expansion books.

The First Post

"No text" goes in the title.

Welcome to "everything is my first draft.".blogspot.com