Dark Heresy Port

[The NPC]

For those of you who have been keeping better track of hints and previews. How well would you suspect that Starfinder could be used for a Dark Heresy or 40K based game?

[Fardragon]

Quite easily in terms of rules, but th CRB seems to be quite Golarionverse focused in terms of fluff text.

[Tarik Blackhands]

Sort of depends on what you mean by port. If you mean putting a WH40k skin onto Starfinder, probably not that tough since that's just an exercise in reskinning absolutely everything. Capturing the spirit of DH though? Terribly. Starfinder looks to be cut from the same cloth as PF which is that of heroic dudes doing heroic things which is a far cry from DH's unforgivingly gritty theme where you're a lucky bastard to start off with a 40% chance to succeed a +0 skill check (that you're good at) and fear results in half the party fainting or shooting each other rather than a piddly -2 to checks.

You can pull it off sure, but the game seems like a poor fit, especially since DH2.0 exists and fits the bill perfectly (even if it loses some of the grit 1.0 had and the psyker system isn't as great)

[Torbyne]

You might be able to just take the core book, remove some gear and call it good.

Let the PCs start with a very high level ship and an NPC crew for it and there is your Rogue Trader.

We know there will be Hellknights in heavy space armor, a system for biological and cyber enhancements, there has been repeated mention in interviews of "holy plasma rifles" and lots of references to Power Armor so there are all flavors of Space Marine pretty easily.

Flamers, spread weapons, lasers, plasma weapons, all kinds of exotic guns...

FTL travel through an otherworldly dimension that can be corrupted by hell itself.

Demons and Devils and a magic system that very well could be pyschic in nature. Go ahead and add in a roll check or overdraw rule to represent perils of the warp and that should be about it, yeah?

[Fardragon]

"Gritty" has more to do with the GM and players than the ruleset used. I could sit down with my players with a grim and gritty module in a grim and gritty universe, and it would soon turn into an episode of Red Dwarf.

[Tarik Blackhands]

Fardragon wrote:

"Gritty" has more to do with the GM and players than the ruleset used. I could sit down with my players with a grim and gritty module in a grim and gritty universe, and it would soon turn into an episode of Red Dwarf.

Even still, the rules and general progression of the game (at least in 1.0, 2.0 is far more forgiving) highly reflect a game where you're an Inquisitor's mook, not anything resembling a high roller at least till you're deep in your career. You can see that in the fear and insanity rules, the general level of individual aptitude at lower levels, the rank progression charts (many classes don't get skills as ubiquitous as Dodge till rank 3), psychic powers are liable to explode your head, and you're generally expected to horde every Throne you find so you keep your guns loaded especially if you find something like a bolter where it's somewhere near 20 thrones per bolt.

You can run an ultra noblebright heroic DH just like you could no doubt do a grim n gritty PF game but it certainly doesn't play to either system's strengths if you ask me.

[Fardragon]

You can use a setting without trying to mimic the progression inherent in a particular rpg set in that setting.

[The Sword]

Tarik Blackhands wrote:

Fardragon wrote:

"Gritty" has more to do with the GM and players than the ruleset used. I could sit down with my players with a grim and gritty module in a grim and gritty universe, and it would soon turn into an episode of Red Dwarf.

Even still, the rules and general progression of the game (at least in 1.0, 2.0 is far more forgiving) highly reflect a game where you're an Inquisitor's mook, not anything resembling a high roller at least till you're deep in your career. You can see that in the fear and insanity rules, the general level of individual aptitude at lower levels, the rank progression charts (many classes don't get skills as ubiquitous as Dodge till rank 3), psychic powers are liable to explode your head, and you're generally expected to horde every Throne you find so you keep your guns loaded especially if you find something like a bolter where it's somewhere near 20 thrones per bolt.

You can run an ultra noblebright heroic DH just like you could no doubt do a grim n gritty PF game but it certainly doesn't play to either system's strengths if you ask me.

I think aptitude in Pathfimder/Starfinder depends entirely on what DCs and monsters the GM throws at the party; fear and madness could easily be ported across using will as a save stat; psychic powers exploding your head is not fun for GM, Psyker or other players and is better dealt with in roleplay and story terms; lastly our teams worked for the holy inquisition so equipment was never a problem.

I think that it will port across just fine. I intend to cut out the mixed magic/combat classes and replace the engineer classes companion with a servitor but aside from that it should be pretty straightforward.

My big concern is how the rules for automatic weapons can be adopted as I feel these should do more shots rather than just more damage. It will be interesting to see how it works.

I disagree that the Dark Heresy rules were good, they were massively imbalanced and had really odd progression.

[The Sword]

It would be good to keep this thread going for ideas and suggestions as we go through though!