Dark Heresy 2e Advice

[ColorBlindNinja61]

So, I'm joining a Dark Heresy Second Edition campaign in a week or so. The GM has stated that he's not very good at investigation, so the game will revolve around mostly suspense and combat. Our party so far consists of mostly Imperial Guardsmen and a Adeptus Mechanicus Blank. I was thinking of going with an Adepta Sororitas Chiurgeon, since I figure we'll need a healer and that's a character archetype I enjoy playing.

Basically, I want to know:

A. Is this character concept viable?
B. Are there any essential stats that I must have and which ones I should dump.
C. How badly are we all going to die?


I appreciate any assistance answering these questions and any other bits of general advice.

[Anon_issue]

I've only played 1e Dark Heresy, so take it with a grain of salt:

a) Yes, but try and be good at at least one other thing as well. The utility of normal healing is very situationally dependent.

b) You will want to buy Intelligence and Willpower. Basically every single DH character needs high willpower in addition to whatever their primary role is.

c) if you are lucky, death will be the only thing that will happen to you...

[ColorBlindNinja61]

I've only played 1e Dark Heresy, so take it with a grain of salt:

a) Yes, but try and be good at at least one other thing as well. The utility of normal healing is very situationally dependent.

Kind of suspected as much.

b) You will want to buy Intelligence and Willpower. Basically every single DH character needs high willpower in addition to whatever their primary role is.

WIllpower, got it.

c) if you are lucky, death will be the only thing that will happen to you...

Thanks for answering my questions.

[Anon_issue]

Thanks for answering my questions.

You're welcome.

[ColorBlindNinja61]

Before I forget, are there any must have skills or traits in DH 2e?

[Anon_issue]

Before I forget, are there any must have skills or traits in DH 2e?

Fuck, it's been so long I've almost completely forgotten. I remember "Jaded" being a good talent (you no longer have to make sanity checks for "normal " violence), but that's about it.

In general anything that protects you against Chaos/corruption is good. 1e DH had an extremely unforgiving mutations table, and if you rolled badly you were basically doomed.

[Koumei]

So for Adepta Sororitas Chirugeon characters, I'd say the three best Origins are:
1. Forgeworld: +Int, +Tough, -Fel, and it gives Technical Knock or Weapon-Tech (select the latter), Intelligence Aptitude. That's already a great start, and you can justify getting medicae mechadendrites and stuff like that. Not as good if you want to be a friendly doctor, but if you want to be a torturer on the side like most Inquisition medics then I think that uses Wil so you're okay there. Note that you get Int Aptitude from your role so because you already have it you can select any other characteristic, which will likely be Willpower.
2. Shrine World, who woulda thought? +Fel, +Wil, -Per. When spending Fate, you have a 1/10 chance of not actually spending it but keeping the benefit, which is handy given the Dedicated Healer special ability and the possibility of becoming a Sister of Battle and taking their Faith talents. The small bonus to Fellowship is nice if you're doing the "nice friendly healer" thing but you can also basically ignore that if you like, and the penalty to Perception can be annoying - especially if the MC expects you to make Perception-based tests as part of your "applying medicine".
3. Voidborn: +Int, +Wil, -Str. Practically the perfect set there. Pretty good Fate points too (3 with a 5+ for a fourth). Strong-Minded as a bonus Talent, and... I'm not sure you care about the bonus to move in 0-G. Again, you double up on Intelligence aptitude so you get to pick another one.

Skills you might want to take include Awareness, Commerce (getting stuff, potential bonus on requisitioning a neutron laser and refill on morphia), Dodge, Interrogation (if you want to go down that path), Logic (if you want to do forensics stuff on the side or if the MC wants you to use that to figure out symptoms despite Medicae being "the skill for all medical stuff"), Scrutiny (if you're interrogating), Tech-Use and perhaps Scholastic Lore (Bureaucracy or Chymistry). Obviously you already have Medicae.

Talents you might want to take include Blind Fighting (remind me again what the first part of the game system's name is?), Die Hard & Iron Jaw for when people try to punch their doctor (or more likely, when any other combat happens, and in etc. etc. only war), and you can certainly benefit from Jaded, Keen Intuition and perhaps Peer. Remember that if you're looking to become a Sister of Battle down the track, you get that specific Peerage for "free".

My suggestions here are probably basic enough that you already knew all that: it's just advice on having "the skills you already wanted" and at slightly higher numbers, and not needing to pay as much XP for them. I can't really offer advice on what side things to do, or specific "X weapon rule will fuck you up if an enemy ever has it, so you want to take Y" or whatever.

[ColorBlindNinja61]

Before I forget, are there any must have skills or traits in DH 2e?

Fuck, it's been so long I've almost completely forgotten. I remember "Jaded" being a good talent (you no longer have to make sanity checks for "normal " violence), but that's about it.

In general anything that protects you against Chaos/corruption is good. 1e DH had an extremely unforgiving mutations table, and if you rolled badly you were basically doomed.

Got it.

So for Adepta Sororitas Chirugeon characters, I'd say the three best Origins are:
1. Forgeworld: +Int, +Tough, -Fel, and it gives Technical Knock or Weapon-Tech (select the latter), Intelligence Aptitude. That's already a great start, and you can justify getting medicae mechadendrites and stuff like that. Not as good if you want to be a friendly doctor, but if you want to be a torturer on the side like most Inquisition medics then I think that uses Wil so you're okay there. Note that you get Int Aptitude from your role so because you already have it you can select any other characteristic, which will likely be Willpower.
2. Shrine World, who woulda thought? +Fel, +Wil, -Per. When spending Fate, you have a 1/10 chance of not actually spending it but keeping the benefit, which is handy given the Dedicated Healer special ability and the possibility of becoming a Sister of Battle and taking their Faith talents. The small bonus to Fellowship is nice if you're doing the "nice friendly healer" thing but you can also basically ignore that if you like, and the penalty to Perception can be annoying - especially if the MC expects you to make Perception-based tests as part of your "applying medicine".
3. Voidborn: +Int, +Wil, -Str. Practically the perfect set there. Pretty good Fate points too (3 with a 5+ for a fourth). Strong-Minded as a bonus Talent, and... I'm not sure you care about the bonus to move in 0-G. Again, you double up on Intelligence aptitude so you get to pick another one.

I'm probably going with a friendly healer, since the rest our party seems to have no social skills.

Skills you might want to take include Awareness, Commerce (getting stuff, potential bonus on requisitioning a neutron laser and refill on morphia), Dodge, Interrogation (if you want to go down that path), Logic (if you want to do forensics stuff on the side or if the MC wants you to use that to figure out symptoms despite Medicae being "the skill for all medical stuff"), Scrutiny (if you're interrogating), Tech-Use and perhaps Scholastic Lore (Bureaucracy or Chymistry). Obviously you already have Medicae.

Talents you might want to take include Blind Fighting (remind me again what the first part of the game system's name is?), Die Hard & Iron Jaw for when people try to punch their doctor (or more likely, when any other combat happens, and in etc. etc. only war), and you can certainly benefit from Jaded, Keen Intuition and perhaps Peer. Remember that if you're looking to become a Sister of Battle down the track, you get that specific Peerage for "free".

My suggestions here are probably basic enough that you already knew all that: it's just advice on having "the skills you already wanted" and at slightly higher numbers, and not needing to pay as much XP for them. I can't really offer advice on what side things to do, or specific "X weapon rule will fuck you up if an enemy ever has it, so you want to take Y" or whatever.

Thank you very much for the advice.

[Fwib]

Reminds me of Brother Nursey, the healer-marine we had in our team to be played by the guy who didn't always turn up. When his player did turn up, he tended to roll incredible shots in firefights on top of being a great healer.

[ColorBlindNinja61]

Well, my character is now finished. I took pretty much exclusively social skills (aside from Medicae), as well as the Jaded talent. I have no idea if my (mostly guardsmen) allies took Jaded. If not, I guess my character will be more blasé toward blood and gore than they will.

To my amusement, the only ranged weapons my character could be proficient in were Las Guns or Flamers. I pretty much said, "Praise the Emperor and pass the promethium." I totally dumped my Ballistics skill as a result. I maxed INT, Willpower and Agility, and I took the Dodge skill. I did end up dumping Toughness (it's a 25) and I couldn't get better armor than my default (which gives a mere 2). I hope that doesn't come back to bite me...

The campaign won't start until 2021, but I'll be sure to describe in detail how we all die horribly what becomes of us.

[ColorBlindNinja61]

The campaign won't start until 2021, but I'll be sure to describe in detail how we all die horribly what becomes of us.

Apparently, what happened was the damn game got canceled because the GM is an immature asshole.

[Anon_issue]

Apparently, what happened was the damn game got canceled because the GM is an immature asshole.

What a shame.

[Lord Charlemagne]

Apparently, what happened was the damn game got canceled because the GM is an immature asshole.

That sucks, but at least you didn't get in too deep into the campaign before you learned that info.