Good morning everybody,
soon, I will launch a campaign with a few friend. Therefor i wanted to introduce you my character: Inquisitor Ignatius Richter, Inquisitor of Ordo Haereticus.
WS BS S T I Wp Sg Nv Ld Speed
49 42 31 27 40 47 42 34 2+1
Ranged weapon:
boltpistol
Close combat weapon:
sword
Equipment:
Explosive,grenade (gravity), standard bionic arm (left)
Flak-armour (3) on abdomen,
chainmail on chest (4)
Special Abilities & Psychic Powers:
(leader), right-handed, nerves of steel, feint
telekinesis: machine emphaty
This charakter was created for al developing campaign. He will grow with the things he has to do. I hope I can upload some pics of the model to my image-shack-account.
I'm going out on a limb and assuming this is one of the first proper characters you've designed? It has all the hallmarks of one, that's for sure. Bolt pistol and sword, check. Obligatory psychic powers, check. Leader and Nerves of Steel for the fearless leader of the group, check.
That said though, there isn't an iota of background or character-building fluff, so I can't comment any further - you've given us a statline with nothing to flesh it out. Normally I'd point out that an *Inquisitor* with Speed 3, a Base Injury Value of 3 and no mental characteristics above 50 begs the question how he managed to become an Inquisitor in the first place.
This statline I'd expect from a mook or cannon fodder (and could very feasibly be without the psychic powers), but with no fluff to back anything up, you havn't given us much to work with.
It is not my first character, I have designed. For sure, there is not much background behind this character.
The only background behind this char is the following:
He was born on Thracian Primaris. His parents are unknown. The black ships took him with the age of 5 to the Ordo, because of his telekinesis powers. (I still need a name for his master) Shortly after his nomination to a full Inquisitor with the age of 23, his master was killed by a radical one. In the end, he fought against this other Inquisitor, where he lost his arm, but he succeded. That is the point, where our campaign starts.
Ignatius is a young Inquisitor of the Ordo Helican. (I like this idea of the "watchdog who watches the watchdogs"--> Ordo Haereticus). Because of his youth, he follows the idea of monodomination. He hates radical Inquisitors and he tries to hunt them.
This stateline is the result of many games, we played. Most time, I'm the gamemaster, so I have to write those scenarios. THe players create their own characters with statlines about 70~90. I always complained about and it caused a lot of discussion, so we decided all to start with (very) low characters, to make the game more exciting and there is the possibility of a development. With every played game, there will be a change (better statline, more abilities, more equipment).
(I hope my translation is okay.)
23 is awfully young to be an inquisitor, 53 would be more like it for a young inquisitor. Otherwise I must agree with RobSkib, he needs more background for us to review him. But the stats seem somewhat low for an inquisitor, especially the willpower is strange on what I assume to be a trained telekinetic.
Refering to the stats, the dice decided. Hm.. with the age, I was refering to the Eisenhorn-triology. He was an Inquisitor with the age of about 23.
Quote from: Syrias van Drake on March 28, 2012, 06:32:48 PM
Refering to the stats, the dice decided.
I might as well say it because if I don't, someone else will - what do the dice know about your character?
What generator did you use for the stats as they are very low - as others have said, they do seem too low for an Inquisitor.
Quote from: Syrias van Drake on March 28, 2012, 06:32:48 PMHm.. with the age, I was refering to the Eisenhorn-triology. He was an Inquisitor with the age of about 23.
It's pretty universally held around here that Abnett was WAY too low there. Would YOU trust someone in their 20s with ultimate authority? Our own politics shows it's very unusual for that young to reach positions of any real standing, and these are positions where their power is far far more limited and controlled than an Inquisitor.
It takes a long time to train an Inquisitor, and it's very unlikely anyone would choose to be mentoring a teenager - they wouldn't even have a "full" education and they're not emotionally developed enough to deal with the work of the Inquisition yet. In practice, an Inquisitor would be unlikely to have anyone below 20 in their entourage, it would take a few years for it to be clear that they had the potential to be an Inquisitor (rather than merely part of their staff) and you need to add a good decade or two for the training.
As such, promotions would be unlikely before 40. However, with rejuve, bionics and augmetics, the wealthy and powerful of the Imperium senesce at ~20-25% of the normal rate, so this is still very much young adult by those standards. Physically, an Inquisitor of 50 is approximately equivalent physically to someone in their mid-twenties.
Quote from: Syrias van Drake on March 28, 2012, 06:32:48 PM
Hm.. with the age, I was refering to the Eisenhorn-triology. He was an Inquisitor with the age of about 23.
To paraphrase Charax, giving anyone less than forty years of age the authority and autonomy of the Holy Ordos is like putting a two-year-old* in the House of Lords. 50 is a far more likely age, but still very young. I suggest trebling your given ages.
*The ages I use for that suggestion vary between two and six depending on what sort of mood I'm in. As it is, the classes I was teaching today made me extremely cranky, hence the mention of a two-year-old rather than a six-year-old.
I agree that you need to add about 20-30 to each stat in order to make him even fun to play. After all, there's no fun if it's a foregone conclusion about what will happen every time your character does something. Usually it's stats that are too high and basically result in "every shot will hit", but you seem to have gone to the other extreme, and he's likely to run up to someone and then get slapped to death by a small child (though it seems even more appropriate in this case). I would also suggest making him a bit older. My namesake is a full inquisitor, and biomedical testing places his age between 40 and 50 (he says 43), and he is still learning some of the finer nuances of his role. That said, most field inquisitors don't live beyond 200, as they tend to get killed a while before that, and anyone over 300 is likely either using a servo-frame to walk, or has given up on walking all together.
Think of it like this. If you take me, put me through uni, and then give me unlimited power and some shiny weapons, what's the likely outcome. My guess is probably a spectacular failure.
Of course, if you don't want to have someone that old, and want to be able to play and RP someone younger, how about an acolyte? My main character is an acolyte to my aformentioned inquisitor, which places some restraints on her, as she doesn't have the pull of an inquisiitor, and while Draco will occasionally support her, he mostly takes half of their little group and goes and does his own thing, using her as an inconspicuous piece in a setting where he would be noticed more easily. After all, an acolyte of 23 is easily possible, and might well have decent skills. However, being a psyker as well, I would be hesitant to have an acolyte under 30, as the psykana training will take some time (I'm a hypocrite, Marais is 27, but she's a minor psyker, and her training is ongoing under Draco), thus meaning that any psyker will be at least early middle-aged by our standards.
EDIT: Out of interest, what is
Quoteexplosive, grenade (gravity)
Hm... okay. I want a young Inquisitor. Not a INterrogator or an acolyte. But I like your idea Draco ;)
But if every charakter in this campaign starts with those low stats, there will be an "equilibrium", I think. If you want, I can report after the first games..
If every character in your campaign starts with low stats, then you'll quickly find that you're expending huge volumes of ammunition and swinging frenziedly with power swords, and maybe taking out the odd unlucky bystander. It's no fun if you can't hit your opponents.
I would like a battle report, but maybe increase stats by 10 across the board at least. The random generator you used seems like it starts with stats like 3D10 or 4D10, as opposed to, say, 50+2D6 that most random generators start with. That or it uses between 20 and 40 as a bse for each stat.
Think of it this way: if you have BS 42, and you fire at single shot with your bolt pistol at a target 11 yards away, you have a 1 in 5 chance of hitting. If you fire at semi (2) with said same weapon, you have a 1 in 10 chance of hitting with each shot. If you use marco's RIA rules for a bolt pistol, firing at semi (2) you're at -54 to hit, so can only hit with a natural roll of 01-05, and is unlikely to be able to stay aimed after shooting. Just something to bear in mind.
Quote from: Syrias van Drake on March 28, 2012, 09:34:29 PM
But if every charakter in this campaign starts with those low stats, there will be an "equilibrium", I think. If you want, I can report after the first games..
There might be an 'equilibrium', but it's not just a question of characters having stats of a similar levels. As Draco said, it's perfectly possible to have characters of roughly equal power, but which don't work in the game and aren't fun to play because the stats are too high or too low - and that's the situation you may well be in. If you want your characters to be playable then I'd suggest that you start with stats of about 50 - that would be a fair level for a competent character who could develop further.
Also, Inquisitor doesn't really have a levelling-up system. What rules do you plan to use for character development? I'm also curious as to what time period your campaign will be over. What sort of an improvement are you expecting your characters to achieve? Because it would be unrealistic for characters to improve massively over a short time period. As it is you're starting with an Inquisitor who doesn't have the abilities required to be an Inquisitor, even a young one, however I can imagine this campaign would work quite well if the characters started out as acolytes, which would explain their very low stats, and then over a period of many years they grow in abilities and get promoted.
We created a little system for showing "leveling-up". The idea of starting als alcolytes is a good one.. It would be a combination of Dracos idea^^
Here is an overview on our prototype of the system:
We are three players, everyone starts with one character, the leader of the group. We used the Profiles in the Inquisitor-rule-book, and we halved the stats (40+4D10 would be 20+4D10).
Every leader had the possibility to choose one rare weapon and a common one (or 2 commons) from the beginning on. Then 3 special abilities (+the abilities noted in the profile (leader in case of an Inquisitor)). Additionally, the leader can choose 3 things in the equipment section (only rare and common, no weapons listet in the character sheet under "Ranged weapons" and "close combat weapons")
In the end, we decicded, that the leader of the group could get 2d10 points of armour.
----
The leveling up works like that: If there are a lot of heroic actions of one charakter (e.g. jumping from roof to roof with a low chance of succes and he succeds, the game-master can decide, weather he gains a bonus. Maybe the rule "heroic" or a bonus on his "I".) This bonus gets noted after the game and counts for the next games.
The campaign will be devided in periods:
For example the stay on Thracian Primaris consists of three scenarios. After those scenarios, the player can decide a direction: for example the character is a gunfighter, so hist stats increase in "BS" and "I" by D6. The rest gains by D3.. Equipment can be bought, found, etc.
This is a short overview on the system. It was just a stupid idea and we wrote it all down and now we want to try it. If there are other idesa, they are welcome. Maybe, after a few testing-games, I can work something out, a sheet or something. It has still the "developing"-status.
In the span of our campaigns we have sometimes changed the stats of characters, mostly when some time has passed or they have just gone through some serious things. A system like this seems more like an attempt to make the game a bit competitive rather than the way Inquisitor is normally played. A weapons rarity says very little about its power, and if an inquisitor really wanted to he would get almost any weapon, without limits.
Rolling randomly for things like armour can also lead to some strangeness when the models are already there, some characters clearly have armour while others are virtually unarmoured. Not giving someone clearly dressed in carapace armour the armour is strange, as is giving much armour to someone who runs about naked.
In my experience it usually works the best to just assign stats after the model has been made and the background at least partially written, stats represent a character in inquisitor, a character does not represent his stats. I would do things based on concensus, in a good group things can easily be done like that, including things like getting higher stats.
But to stress the point again, the most important thing is background, that is who your character is, it leads to motivations to take part in scenarios and a playing style for the character.