Below are a list of House Rules we will be playing with. Please feel free to comment on them both before and after we play... use the discussion page!
A page for
player suggestions for house rules can be found here.
Optional Rules In Use
Free Row during character creation is
Motivation.
Shooting into Melee - missing by 1 degree or less hits a random party in the melee rather than the person you were shooting at. Roll it.
General
Rules from Black Crusade
These are currently only suggestions from Tom, pending group discussion.
- The following Weapon Qualities use the Black Crusade rules instead of the Rogue Trader rules:
- Melta (p150)
- Reliable (p151)
- Scatter (p151)
- Shocking (p151)
- Twin-Linked (p152)
- Unbalanced (p152)
- Unwieldy (p152)
- Patterns of las-weapons with variable settings are available (p153-4)
- Autocannons are an available weapon type (p154 and 156)
- Chain Daggers and Chain Halberds are available (p162 and 164)
- The following Weapon Modifications are available or use the Black Crusade rules instead of the Rogue Trader rules:
- Belt Feed (p169)
- Extended Magazine (p169)
- Red-dot Laser Sight (p169 and 170)
- Spread Limiter (p169 and 170)
- The following Special Ammunition types are available or use the Black Crusade rules instead of the Rogue Trader rules:
- High-Grade Promethium (p172 and 173)
- Purified Plasma (p172 and 173)
- Stalker Bolt Rounds (p172 and 173)
- The rules for human power armour in Black Crusade replace the rules for power armour in Rogue Trader (p174 and 175)
- Armour Upgrades are available (p177 to 178)
- The following items of Gear are available or use the Black Crusade rules instead of the Rogue Trader rules:
- Clip/Drop Harness (p179 to 180 and 181)
- Rebreather (p180 and 181)
- Respirator (p180 to 181)
- Survival Suit (p181)
- Void Suit (p181)
- Alcohol (p181 and 183)
Righteous Fury
The following rule replaces the bonus damage rules for Righteous Fury, and is still in testing:
After you confirm, re-roll and add all damage die results of 10.
E.g.1. If you hit with a Thunderhammer for 2d10+18 damage, and your dice come up a 3 and a 10, then after confirming you would roll 1d10 additional damage. If this second roll is also a 10, you would roll 1d10 again, and so on.
E.g.2. If you hit with a Thunderhammer for 2d10+18 damage and roll 20 on the dice (both dice are 10s), then after confirming you would roll 2d10 additional damage. If any of these dice roll a 10, you reroll them and continue to add.
E.g.3. You hit with a Lascannon and roll maximum damage - 50 on 5d10. You re-roll all five d10s, and roll 2, 3, 6, 10, and 10. You re-roll two more dice and get a 5 and a 3. Your total damage on the dice for this hit is 89.The
Tearing weapon quality does not apply to exploding damage from Righteous Fury, only to the initial damage roll.
Character Creation
Seeing as how it's now come up - some rules:
- Start on the same XP as your character that went out, including any unspended XP.
- New players will get the lowest XP value in the group - the theory being that any additional XP is attributable to session write-ups.
- Choose equipment you want - I'll tell you if you can have it. This is rogue trader, so you can go a little crazy. Not too crazy though.
- No unique or near unique items
- Don't complain if I veto something, just... find something else.
- Write a back-story. Put it on the wiki. I'll be giving out free stuff related to your back-story, the magnitude of which is based on how awesome I think it is.
- As GM I reserve the total right to decide what's awesome when it comes to back-story.
Session Write-Up
Each complete session write-up will net you 50xp.
Fate Points
- Spent points return at the end of a session. Burned ones are gone till I give them back. Remind me to give these out for cool stuff! And that isn't just fighting.
- Burn a fate point to (along with RT uses):
- not die
- cause an NPC to automatically fail a test
- pass any test by 5 degrees (even if not actually possible).
- Whilst this allows you to automatically succeed acquisition tests, it does not negate the fact that modifiers which take your PF below 0 automatically fail.
- Spend a fate point to (along with RT uses):
- adjust one of your tests by 10%
- to gain an additional half action in a combat round. You may still not repeat actions within the same round.
Talents
Universal Weapons Talents also include the primitive weapons group. You would have thought the name would imply that, but apparently not. So now it does.
Psychic Technique: Psychic Scream has been house ruled. It now:
- Always targets the head;
- Ignores Armour and Toughness;
- Has its Damage reduced by the target's Willpower Bonus.
Warp Conduit is clarified - it means that when Pushing a Psychic Technique, you add 4 to your Effective Psy Rating and 10 to the resultant roll on the Psychic Phenomena table. (That's +4x5=20, minus 10 for the effect of the Talent.)
Skills
Trade Skills Can be used to assist RT Commerce rolls to increase profit factor for a relevant Acquisition Test. No roll required to assist, standard assist benefit rules apply.
Carouse
The Carouse skill, and both of its levels of Mastery, are available as an Elite Advance to all characters for the cost of 300xp each. For every three Carouse Tests that your character fails, reduce the cost of the next advance by 100xp to a minimum of 100xp.
e.g. Jak does not have the Carouse skill, but has so far failed three Carouse Tests. He can purchase Training in the skill for 200xp, and then will be able to purchase Carouse +10 for 300xp - until he fails three Carouse Tests, at which point that first level of Mastery will cost 200xp.Availability
In the Calixis sector,
availability ratings from the Inquisitors Handbook and the Dark Heresy corebook apply. In the Maw and the Koronus Expanse, the RT rules apply. Unless otherwise stated, if it isn't in the RT book you can't get it in the Koronus Expanse. The opposite is not true.
Differing stat lines - When choosing a stat-line for a weapon purchased, use the rules from the book relevant to the sector you acquired the item in.
Weapons
Hunting Rifles are available in the Koronus Expanse, just as in the Dark Heresy core book.
Combi-weapons have a clarification regarding sights. Here is is in Haiku form:
Combi-weapons: one sight
Both of the guns benefit
Attachments don't stack
Missiles
Additional missile types are in the table below.
HR-3: Missiles | Warhead | Damage | Penetration | Special | Weight | Availability |
|---|
| Anti-Plant | 3d10 E(Plants Only) | 0 | Blast(5) | 1kg | Extremely Rare |
| Blind | - | 0 | Smoke(2d10+10m) | 1kg | Very Rare |
| Frag | 2d10 X | 4 | Blast(6) | 1kg | Average |
| Hallucinogen | - | 0 | Blast(8) | 1kg | Very Rare |
| Krak | 3d10+10 X | 10 | Blast(1) | 1kg | Scarce |
| Plasma | 2d10+6 E | 10 | Blast(3) | 8kg | Extremely Rare |
| Virus | 3d10 I | 4 | Toxic, Blast(3) | 1kg | Near Unique |
All missiles can also be purchased as
Heavy Ordnance. Range becomes 20km with no range increments; Blast radius is doubled; multiply all Damage rolled by 2; and the weight is increased by a factor of 15. Their internal guidance systems provide a +10 bonus to BS Tests made to hit with them. Any missile more avilable then 'Near Unique' increases it's rarity by 1 step. These munitions can typically only be fired from vehicular or emplaced launchers and when used as vehicle armament each missile takes up the same mounting as a single heavy weapon mount.
Weapons Mod
Shoulder Mount Availability:
Rare Weight:
3kg
Designed to work in conjunction with a Mind Impulse Unit or MIU Weapons Mod, this highly complex piece of tracking and stabilising equipment allow users to mount any Pistol or Basic weapon (or Exotic at the GM's discretion) and fire it without being unduly affected by the movement and recoil of the weapon. It also contains the auto-sighting and targeting equipment required to provide the feedback the MIU user requires to aim the weapon. Whilst almost all users are delighted with the system, it can cause hearing issues due to the proximity of the weapon to the ears, although the articulation allows the weapon to be held at ease - rotated behind the shoulder it is mounted on or rotated behind the head - if desired, allowing for a clear line of sight when necessary.
Heavy Shoulder Mount Availability:
Extremely Rare Weight:
8kg
Works as a
Shoulder Mount but allows equipping heavy weapons. Weapons fitted to this unit count as being equipped with a Common-quality Suspensor.
Poor-Craftsmanship Suspensors do not grant the Auto-Stabilized trait.
Bionics
MIU Weapon Mod - only one modification per person, only one weapon per modification. You can not also have a standard MIU if you have the inferior Weapon mod. Other than that, works as advertised - dak on.
Armour
Power Armour
Power armour is never reduced in weight when its quality increases.
Best Quality Power Armour does not run out of power (Fusion powerpack - beware bad critical hits (see Deathwatch))
Good Quality Power Armour lasts the full 5 hours (Energizer Lithium)
Poor Quality Power Armour lasts 1 hour (Lidl SuperPower Plus Ultra Platinum)
Armour Component Weight
If you need to know the weight of a piece of your full-body armour, divide the total weight like so:
Head 10%
Torso 30%
Arms 30% (each arm 15%)
Legs 30% (each leg 15%)
Starships
Components
Teleportariums have an expanded rule set - see their page in the wiki.