Dark Heresy: Ascension

[Melissia]

You're acting as if the fellowship score means everythiing.

I assure you that, in the hands of a competent GM, it does not.

[Freefall945]

Well it doesn't mean everything, but it sure means alot! It's the thing you'll be rolling most times you open your yap in character. What it is is important. Significant.

Often enough there will be social encounters which are purely roleplayed (which give everyone a chance to enjoy their characters, so that's nice) but beyond that, social encounters that count on a stat other than Fellowship will be, to say the least, rare.

[Melissia]

The thing is, if the GM says "roll fellowship" and uses that roll to determine whether or not an attempt succeeds-- without paying any attention to the actual roleplay-- then the GM is kinda behaving irresponsibly.

Furthermore? If you insist on there being rolls, Willpower, Perception, and Intelligence are also useful in social situations. Intelligence for obvious reasons (especially for Lores and Logic), Perception to notice reactions and so on and so forth, and Willpower to resist a particularly charismatic person.

[Faultie]

I don't have the book, but I've glanced through it.
Quick question Mel: does each core career have upper-careers/PCs, or are there a handful of them and each career path can go into? What does a Judge go into? A Sister of Battle? Etc.?

[Freefall945]

The thing is, if the GM says "roll fellowship" and uses that roll to determine whether or not an attempt succeeds-- without paying any attention to the actual roleplay-- then the GM is kinda behaving irresponsibly.

Furthermore? If you insist on there being rolls, Willpower, Perception, and Intelligence are also useful in social situations. Intelligence for obvious reasons (especially for Lores and Logic), Perception to notice reactions and so on and so forth, and Willpower to resist a particularly charismatic person.

Well, I don't know how other gaming groups do it, but usually the way social interactions go with my group begins with the GM giving us a run down of the character we're about to try to sweet-talk some information out of, there will be some roleplaying, and when it gets to a bit where the acolytes are inevitably going to push their luck... ("So what do you think about this new Hive Governer? Kind of a jerk, am I right?") the fellowship rolls come out.

Furthermore, Guardsmen are terrible at Willpower, Perception and Intelligence, where the Cleric is awesome at everything. Apparently.

[DelphicFist]

I think Ascension is well done. A little tinkering may be in order for a specific group of players but that's true with the majority of rpg material out there.

[Freefall945]

I don't have the book, but I've glanced through it.
Quick question Mel: does each core career have upper-careers/PCs, or are there a handful of them and each career path can go into? What does a Judge go into? A Sister of Battle? Etc.?

I'm sure Melissa would say...

The Ascension book presents a series of end careers none of which directly correspond with the Dark Heresy careers. If I can recall them, they're Inquisitorial StormTrooper, Deathcult Assassin, Vindicare Assassin, Judge, Heirophant, Crusader, Sage, Primaris Psyker, Desperado, Magos, Interrogator, Inquisitor.

Some of them are restricted (Magos is naturally only for Tech-Priests; Inquisitor is excluded from Tech-Priest), some of them are heavily implied follow-ons (Judge for Arbitrator, for example) and have abilities particularly complimentary to the earlier career's style of play. Judge, for example, is saddled with a great deal of verbal authority as a powerful individual representative of the Arbites, giving him large bonuses to social interactions with law-abiding citizens.

For the most part, there is nothing stopping most characters from going in most directions. While Desperado is the logical extension for Scum, he might become an Interrogator (and later an Inquisitor), or heck, a sage, based upon some agreed upon story of transition between player and Storyteller.

Some careers - most notably Sister of Battle - have no logical follow on. There's no "Canoness" career presented, though the Crusader class has a significant enough "Holy Warrior" template to provide an adequate thematic scaffold for a Sister's progression.

Sister of Battle, unfortunately, is a little slighted because it was somewhat clumsily included in playable careers in the Inquisitor's handbook with the proviso that "This character is largely predetermined by the fact that they are a sister of battle! They will hate psykers and heretics and be really, really bad with the moral-grey you're often expected to paint things in as an acolyte!". One might suggest that they are not part of the "Core" classes, and if they do, there's at least one logical extension class provided for the "Core" classes. Some, like Stormtrooper as we discuss above, are arguably less valuable than others, but the restrictions upon class choice are few and sensible.