Dark Heresy Second Edition
- This page refers to the newest edition of Dark Heresy. For the first edition, see Dark Heresy.
| Dark Heresy 2nd Edition | ||
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| RPG published by Fantasy Flight Games |
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| Rule System | d% | |
| No. of Players | 3+ | |
| Session Time | 10+ minutes | |
| Authors | Andrew Fischer | |
| First Publication | 2014 | |
| Essential Books | Dark Heresy 2nd Edition
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And lo, on 0556013.M3, the gods did decree to place upon us Dark Heresy 2nd Edition.
Dark Heresy 2nd Edition is a repainting of Only War to make it palatable for hunting heretics and daemons. As such, it has ported many aspects from Only War, which makes it varying degrees of both awesome and/or fail, depending on who you ask.
They have added and statted out Graviton Guns (Pistol and Basic) for DH2nd. 1d10+3 or 6 Dam, Pen of 6 or 8? And the Graviton Trait means anything wearing armor that is shot by the weapon immediately takes the number of the armor rating as Damage? In other words, God-Emperor save us...
Already infamous for having a fucking horrendous binding. Seriously, this shit was falling apart weeks after it was released. However, FFG showed their This Guy-ism by sending out free copies of the books to those who bitched.
So, what's new?
In Dark Heresy Second Edition, a number of game mechanics have been overhauled from the first edition. If you've played that clusterfuck known as Only War, you'll be familiar with some of these changes;
- Character Creation: Character creation has been significantly changed, with career paths and ranks being replaced with backgrounds and roles. Unlike before, where each home world limited your career choices, an acolyte has the freedom to select whichever world, background, and role they want. The main problem with the new system is that they removed rank advancement, and swapped it with "aptitudes" that affect how much skills and talents cost.
- Aptitudes:
- Skills and Talents:
- Psychic Abilities:
- Influence and Subtlety:
- Righteous Fury:
Character Creation
The Class system is now 3 levels deep. This can allow for some pretty ridiculous characters, like a Feral World Tech-Priest Psyker or a High-born Adeptus Astra Telepathica Assassin, but if you've got good players it can be pretty neat-o, too. Since the roles are generic, if you have an idea of what kind of character you want to play, like a Tech-Priest or a Bolter-bitch, you can pretty much make it with the new rules.
Homeworld
First is the homeworld for your first aptitudes, characteristic modifiers, fate points (and chance of getting an extra Fate Point from the Emperor's Blessing roll), and homeworld bonus. The homeworld bonuses are a mix of old standbys from the previous edition and some new ones. Homeworld choices are:
- Agri-World: An Agri-world Character starts with the Brutal Charge (2) Trait
- Characteristic Modifiers: Bonus to Strength and Fellowship penalty to Agility
- Starting Fate Points: 2 (Emperor's Blessing on 7+)
- Aptitude: Strength
- Starting Wounds: 8+1d5
- Feral World: When a Feral Worlder wields a low-tech weapon, it is no longer considered Primitive and gains the Proven (3) quality.
- Characteristic Modifiers: Bonus to Strength and Toughness, penalty to Influence
- Starting Fate Points: 2 (Emperor's Blessing on 3+)
- Aptitude: Toughness
- Starting Wounds: 9+1d5
- Feudal World: A Feudal-world Character ignores the maximum agility value imposed by any armour he is wearing
- Characteristic Modifiers: Bonus to Perception and Weapon skill penalty to Intelligence
- Starting Fate Points: 3 (Emperor's Blessing on 6+)
- Aptitude: Weapon skill
- Starting Wounds: 9+1d5
- Forge World: Forge World natives begin with either Weapon-Tech or Technical Knock.
- Characteristic Modifiers: Bonus to Intelligence and Toughness, penalty to Fellowship
- Starting Fate Points: 3 (Emperor's Blessing on 8+)
- Aptitude: Intelligence
- Starting Wounds: 8+1d5
- Frontier World: Frontier World Character gains +20 bonus to tech use tests when applying personal weapon modifications, and a +10 bonus when repairing damaged items
- Characteristic Modifiers: Bonus to Ballistic skill and Perception, penalty to Fellowship
- Starting Fate Points: 3 (Emperor's Blessing on 7+)
- Aptitude: Ballistic skill
- Starting Wounds: 7+1d5
- Highborn: When a Highborn would have to reduce his influence, it drops one point less than it would normally.
- Characteristic Modifiers: Bonus to Fellowship and Influence, penalty to Toughness
- Starting Fate Points: 4 (Emperor's Blessing on 10+)
- Aptitude: Fellowship
- Starting Wounds: 9+1d5
- Hive World: Hive World characters can move through crowds as if they were passing through open terrain, and gain a +20 bonus to the Navigate (Surface) skill when in enclosed spaces.
- Characteristic Modifiers: Bonus to Agility and Perception, penalty to Willpower
- Starting Fate Points: 2 (Emperor's Blessing on 6+)
- Aptitude: Perception
- Starting Wounds: 8+1d5
- Shrine World: A Shrine World character rolls 1d10 when spending a Fate Point; on a roll of 1, he gets to keep the Fate Point.
- Characteristic Modifiers: Bonus to Fellowship and Willpower, penalty to Perception
- Starting Fate Points: 3 (Emperor's Blessing on 6+)
- Aptitude: Willpower
- Starting Wounds: 7+1d5
- Voidborn: Voidborn start with Strong Minded, and gains a +30 bonus to tests that involve moving in a zero gravity environment.
- Characteristic Modifiers: Bonus to Intelligence and Willpower, penalty to Strength
- Starting Fate Points: 3 (Emperor's Blessing on 5+)
- Aptitude: Intelligence
- Starting Wounds: 7+1d5
Background
Next, you pick your background to determine starting skills, talents, equipment, background bonus, and background aptitude. Background bonuses are mostly new stuff. Background choices are:
- Adepta Sororitas: (Introduced in Enemies Within) The bolter bitches are immune to Corruption, but receive extra Insanity points any time they're exposed to something that would normally cause Corruption. Additionally, only they can take the Sister of Battle Elite Advance.
- Starting Skills: Athletics, Charm or Intimidate, Common Lore (Adepta Sororitas), Linguistics (High Gothic), Medicae or Parry
- Starting Talents: Weapon Training (Flame or Las), Weapon Training (Chain)
- Starting Equipment: Laspistol or hand flamer, chainblade, armored bodyglove, chrono, dataslate, stablight, micro-bead
- Starting Aptitude: Offense or Social
- Adeptus Administratum: Dealing with the Administratum's clusterfuck of bureaucracy lets characters with this background count the availability of an item as one level more available than it would usually be when requisitioning (e.g. an item of Average availability counts as Common).
- Starting Skills: Commerce or Medicae, Common Lore (Adeptus Administratum), Linguistics (High Gothic), Logic, Scholastic Lore (player's choice)
- Starting Talents: Weapon Training (Las) or Weapon Training (Solid Projectile)
- Starting Equipment: Laspistol or stub automatic, Imperial robes, autoquill, chrono, dataslate, and medikit
- Starting Aptitude: Knowledge or Social
- Adeptus Arbites: Arbitrators can reroll any Intimidation and Interrogation test, substituting their willpower bonus for degrees of success on the reroll.
- Starting Skills: Awareness, Common Lore (Adeptus Arbites, Underworld), either Inquiry or Interrogation, Interrogate, Scrutiny
- Starting Talents: Weapon Training (Shock) or Weapon Training (Solid Projectile)
- Starting Equipment: Shotgun or shock maul, either Enforcer light carapace armor or carapace chestplate, 3 doses of stimm, manacles, 12 lho sticks
- Starting Aptitude: Offense or Defense
- Adeptus Astra Telepathica: Experience dealing with the Warp allows an Adeptus Astra Telepathica character within 10 meters that rolls on the Psychic Phenomena table to increase or decrease the number rolled by his willpower bonus, making them a godsend to psyker-heavy parties. If the character is a Psyker himself, he will also gain the Sanctioned trait for free; anyone else with the advance is considered a rogue psyker, which never ends well.
- Starting Skills: Awareness, Common Lore (Adeptus Astra Telepathica), Deceive or Interrogation, Forbidden Lore (The Warp), Psyniscience or Scrutiny
- Starting Talents: Weapon Training (Las), Weapon Training (Low-tech)
- Starting Equipment: Laspistol, staff or whip, light flak cloak or flak vest, micro-bead or psy-focus
- Starting Aptitude: Defense or Psyker
- Adeptus Mechanicus: The cogboys' obsession with cybernetics makes all cybernetics two levels of availability higher than usual (e.g. Rare becomes Average).
- Starting Skills: Either Awareness or Operate (player's choice), Common Lore (Adeptus Mechanicus), Logic, Security, Tech-Use
- Starting Talents: Weapon Training (Solid Projectile), Mechadendrite Use (Utility)
- Starting Trait: Mechanicus Implants
- Starting Equipment: Either Autogun or hand cannon, monotask servo-skull (utility) or optical mechadendrite, Imperial robes, 2 vials of sacred unguents
- Starting Aptitude: Knowledge or Tech
- Adeptus Ministorum: Those who serve the Imperial Creed gain a 20+ bonus to tests instead of the usual 10+ bonus when spending fate points to gain bonuses to tests.
- Starting Skills: Charm, Command, Common Lore (Adeptus Ministorum), Inquiry or Scrutiny, Linguistics (High Gothic)
- Starting Talents: Weapon Training (Flame), or both Weapon Training (Low-tech) and Weapon Training (Solid Projectile)
- Starting Equipment: Hand flamer (or warhammer and stub revolver), Imperial robes or flak vest, backpack, glow-globe, monotask servo-skull (laud hailer)
- Starting Aptitude: Leadership or Social
- Imperial Guard: Team players as well as fighters, Guardsmen can reroll damage rolls of 1 and 2 if attacking an enemy that an ally attacked since the end of the Guardsman's last turn.
- Starting Skills: Athletics, Command, Common Lore (Imperial Guard), Medicae or Operate (Surface), Navigate (Surface)
- Starting Talents: Weapon Training (Las), Weapon Training (Low-tech)
- Starting Equipment: Lasgun (or laspistol and sword), combat vest, Imperial Guard flak armor, grapnel and line, magnoculars, 12 lho sticks
- Starting Aptitude: Fieldcraft or Leadership
- Outcast: The dregs of society are tougher than they seem, counting their toughness bonus as two levels higher when determining fatigue.
- Starting Skills: Acrobatics or Sleight of Hand, Common Lore (Underworld), Deceive, Dodge, Stealth
- Starting Talents: Weapon Training (Chain), either Weapon Training (Las) or Weapon Training (Solid Projectile)
- Starting Equipment: Autopistol or laspistol, chainsword, armored bodyglove or flak vest, injector, 2 doses of Obscura or Slaught
- Starting Aptitude: Fieldcraft or Social
- Mutant: (Introduced in Enemies Within) Being a warp-tainted freak forsaken by the Emperor isn't entirely terrible. Sure, you start out with 10 points' worth of corruption and a mutation (obviously), but on the bright side you can choose to fail tests to resist malignancies and mutations and choose to take a mutation in the place of a malignancy.
- Starting Traits: One of the following: Amphibious, Dark-Sight, Natural Weapons, Sonar Sense, Sturdy, Toxic (1), Unnatural Agility (1), Unnatural Strength (1), Unnatural Toughness (1)
- Starting Skills: Athletics or Acrobatics, Awareness, Deceive or Intimidate, Forbidden Lore (Mutants), Survival
- Starting Talents: Weapon Training (Low-tech, Solid Projectile)
- Starting Equipment: Shotgun (or stub revolver and great weapon), combat vest, heavy leathers, grapnel and line, magnoculars, 2 doses of Stimm
- Starting Aptitude: Fieldcraft or Offense
Role
The last level of character creation is your "Role", which determines the last of your aptitudes along with a talent and role bonus. Most of the role bonuses are geared around added bonuses for use of fate points in game, with the two exceptions being Mystic and Desperado. Role choices are:
- Assassin: Cold-blooded killers dedicated to the precise elimination of their targets. They can act as stealthy ambushers, snipers, or experts in poisons, and may spend a Fate Point to inflict bonus damage on an attack dependent on their degrees of success on that attack's first hit.
- Aptitudes: Agility, Ballistic Skill or Weapon Skill, Fieldcraft, Finesse, Perception
- Talent: Jaded or Leap Up
- Chiurgeon: The obligatory combat medic, specializing in keeping his allies alive and well (as far as that's possible in the 41st millennium, of course). However, they can also double as torturers, using their knowledge of medicine to inflict as much pain on their victims as possible without causing permanent injury or death. They can spend Fate Points to automatically pass failed First Aid tests with degrees of success equal to their intelligence bonus.
- Aptitudes: Fieldcraft, Intelligence, Strength, Knowledge, Toughness
- Talent: Resistance (Pick one) or Takedown
- Desperado: Pirates, renegades, and other criminally inclined types, with silver tongues backed up by their wits and the occasional concealed weapon. They can perform a standard attack with a pistol after moving as a free action.
- Aptitudes: Agility, Ballistic Skill, Defense, Fellowship, Finesse
- Talent: Catfall or Quick Draw
- Hierophant: A typically fanatical priest/cleric, who uses his charisma to rouse his allies' spirits even as he charges in with a chainsword or flamer. Fortunately for him, he's as good of a meatshield as he is as a face. He can use a Fate Point to automatically pass any Charm, Command, or Intimidate skill test with degrees of success equal to his Willpower bonus.
- Aptitudes: Fellowship, Social, Offense, Toughness, Willpower
- Talent: Double Team or Hatred (Pick one)
- Mystic: A psyker, who naturally begins with the Psyker elite advance. All the stuff that applied to psykers in 1st edition applies here (which is to say, beware Perils of the Warp).
- Aptitudes: Defense, Knowledge, Intelligence, Perception, Willpower
- Talent: Resistance (Psychic Powers) or Warp Sense
- Sage: The nerds and smart guys, useful for the inevitable lore tests. They can spend a fate point to auto-pass a Logic or Lore test with degrees of success equal to their Intelligence bonus.
- Aptitudes: Intelligence, Knowledge, Perception, Tech, Willpower
- Talent: Ambidextrous or Clues from the Crowds
- Seeker: Natural detectives with a knack for ferreting out even the most insignificant of clues to an investigation. They can use Fate points to automatically pass an Awareness or Inquiry test with degrees of success equal to their Perception bonus.
- Aptitudes: Fellowship, Intelligence, Perception, Social, Tech
- Talent: Keen Intuition or Disarm
- Warrior: The name says it all- they're the go-to combat specialists. After making a successful attack test, they can spend fate points to substitute either their WS or BS bonus (depending on the attack) for the degrees of success scored.
- Aptitudes: Ballistic Skill, Weapon Skill, Offense, Defense, Strength
- Talent: Iron Jaw or Rapid Reload
Elite Advances
There are three elite advances in the core book. Psyker, Untouchable , and... God-Emperor help us all... Inquisitor. Yes, Inquisitor is now a class that can be achieved with specific Talents, which are fairly re-donk. For example:
- Jack/Master of All Trades
- For the low, low price of 450/600 XP or 900/1200 XP, (Depending on your aptitudes) all non-Specialist skills which are unknown to your inquisitor will jump to Known, and the second level makes all Known skills become Trained.
Sisters of Battle were also introduced as an Elite Advance, and naturally they gain access to a bunch of faith-based powers.
Differences from 1st Edition
- Character creation is very different, being a reskinning of Only War's for Inquisitorial twats. Whether this is good or bad, you decide.
- Like the majority other of the FFG 40kRPGs, there is not a codified system of money; rather, DH2nd does away with singular thrones and uses a stat called Influence that's used in a similar way to Rogue Trader's Profit Factor mechanic.
- The technical term used to describe the PC party is now "[Inquisitor Name Here]'s war band", which is pretty bad, but when compared to Dark Heresy's "The Acolytes," just take your pick.
Splat Books
- Game Master's Kit: Standard stuff, comes with a screen with some meh art on one side and handy rules on the other, and a book containing a fairly entertaining adventure in the charnel houses of Hive Desoleum.
- Forgotten Gods: Three-part splat in which the warband tries to stop some cultists from resurrecting some ancient gods. It starts in the wastes outside of Hive Desoleum, leading onto a Rogue Trader's ship and ending on some BFE cemetery world with lots of trees. Allows using the three locales visited in the adventure to be used as new homeworlds for character creation.
- Enemies Within: The first full supplement, focusing on the Ordo Hereticus and the myriad cults that infest the Askellon sector. Known additions include the addition of Frontier Worlds, Feudal Worlds, and Agri-Worlds as selectable homeworlds, along with new backgrounds and the addition of Sisters of Battle as an Elite Advance. This book is also memorable for the Vaxi Atrocity - an event source of much skub among neckbeards, who cannot agree if it is awesome, interesting and useful as it shows why the Inquisition respects due process and stuff and never lets things get more out of hand than in the Calixis Sector, or just Wardian-level bullshit. It was released in the first quarter of 2015.
| Warhammer 40,000 Role-playing games made by Fantasy Flight Games |
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| Dark Heresy - Rogue Trader - Deathwatch - Black Crusade - Only War - Dark Heresy Second Edition |