Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader (CRPG)

its always hard to "not" choose the optimum play options in a tactical game.. I mean thats kindof the point.

not making cassia grand strat, so she doesn't auto go first automatically, is pretty huge for "balance".

her VA is solid, and the character is written well as a pyscho aristocrat. Also, good for revealing lies and secrets via her color vision. lots of insights.
Idira is good like that too, if you don't boot her.

its a shame the PC doesn't get insights like that if they are telepaths or diviners.

Finally finished act 3 after getting bored early on and taking a break for almost 2 weeks.

God I fucking hated Commoragh. Thank god I never played it before they fixed it so all your gear is re-equipped instead of just being dumped straight back into your inventory because that might have made me snap. I thought navigating Alushinyrra or doing Nenio's quest dungeon was unbearable but now those seem like paradise in comparison. The beginning when you're stumbling around with the crippling debuffs, the constant interruptions from the mind maggot, the dialogue game overs if you said the wrong thing to Dr Darkelfstein, Marazhai practically being crammed down your throat, the fact that I actually almost missed Ulfar because I didn't realize that you had to click on him directly rather than the thing over his cage.

Really don't see myself having any interest in picking this up again after I finish it.

mkopec said:

But to each their own.

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Given how wildly different our opinions are on this, I think that's all that can really be said lol.

TJT said:

Yeah, that is one thing I really hate about pathfinder is the Frankenclass dipping you're expected to do. I am very much a purist when it comes to classes even if I sometimes like dual classing. Quad-classing... yeah no.

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looking at CRPG Bro's playlist

Seelah - mounted tank pure paladin, foot tank frankenbuild

Camellia - shaman + prestige class, final vivi level unnecessary for build to function

Ember - witch + prestige class

Daeran - pure oracle

Woljif - ES + Vivi

Sosiel - pure cleric

Lann - mounted archer build is triple class but only because you're stuck with that stupid zen archer level, most builds would be dual or single class if you used toybox to respec him out of it

Arue - redeemed is pure ranger, corrupted dips mutation warrior

Nenio - Wizard + 2 prestige classes to make her melee viable on top of strong PK/Weirds, she'd still be perfectly viable if you ditched EK and just built her as Wiz + LM

Wenduag - slayer/fighter throwing axe or manticore shifter frankenbuild, she'd still be viable as a pure fighter or using toybox to ditch the fighter level for pure shifter

Ulbrig - pure shifter

Regill - both builds are tri-class, mounted regill only takes gendarme levels once he joins your party, foot regill takes the unnecessary demon slayer dip at 20 so is viable as just armiger/hellknight

Greybor - tri-class but the lvl 20 demon slayer dip is again unnecessary


So yeah even on Unfair frankenbuilds aren't "expected" and the vast majority of frankenbuilds are melee characters in classes with mediocre capstones where the demonslayer/mutation warrior/vivi dips are a way to squeeze out a bit more performance. On regular or core you could easily complete the game with nothing but single class builds aside from Regill and he who must not be named.

I screwed up Argentas path it seems. I wanted Fire, but got repentia.

edit:
yeah, its not like you HAVE to double+ dip in the pathfinder games. I've often talked about how they are tactical games, and how finding optimum strategies IS the game. theorycrafting, etc. But, its good in pathfinder like that. you can find powerful builds pure, maybe get small advantages for dual classing, and dips. (some busted, like xblooded sorc... not a fan..) going even deeper then that, requires real planning, research and understanding of the game. its not required. I find that FAR better then, here in rogue trader, where Cassia is just completely busted right out of the gate, and you have to actively avoid her to not abuse her. officer x2, and player sant pysker is kindof the same. jae is also busted, only over shadowed by cassia and the player..

Now that I'm near the end of Act 4 I think the overall situation in the expanse creates plenty of justification for your character to not be disposed of by the Inquisition, especially since you end up back with your ship first and immediately set out trying to restore stability in the region. If you mention escaping Commoragh to Calcazar he says to your face that they'll be keeping an eye on you but otherwise his hands are sort of tied because even if he didn't need you to retake the forgeworld from the cult, he still badly needs other figures to keep the Imperial presence in the region from totally collapsing. And depending on how things play out you might very well be the only Rogue Trader still alive.

I wish Yrliet's writing wasn't so stupid and inconsistent. The irony of her calling out the Crudarach survivors for their arrogance is off the charts. You'd think sparing her life after what she put you and your crew through would teach her to at least be a bit more circumspect but her attitude never changes.

so, I just realized cassia has hidden talents.. this is frustrating, I've never seen anyone mention this..

theres a thread in reddit complaining about master tacticians orchestrated firestorm doing friendly fire. I don't remember if I mentioned it here, but it does.
default is "attacks", can be buffed to use "area attacks", and "burst attacks".

Now, I don't know the logic of it. but I've had my PC use staff emperors wrath, and her aoe pyschic assault spell, and cassia does lidless stare. all aoe's with friendly fire.
So, I was responding to the reddit post, talking about the ways to deal with it, and how its actually a good thing, when I noticed something.
I couldn't identify where exactly I was getting this talent that nullified the friendly fire on lidless stare.

"Path of the open eye." also have a couple other "paths" When hovering over it, it says, "source:reveal the light". which yes. learning that skill learns a hidden talent, automatically.

Path of the open eye:
"allies suffer -perception% less damage from nav power and gain +(x2 nav percetion bonus) to resistance tests against them.
this makes her deal 0 damage to me via friendly fire.
reveal the light,

"path of the open soul" "all resistance tests against nav powers suffer -2xper bonus penalty."
zone of fear, notch of purpose.

path of the open gate. "all nave powers gain perc/2% crit hit chance"
held in my gaze, waking nightmare

So, I think theres 3 paths, and each is unlocked via the basic skills. with multiple ways.
Sure, you'll probably unlock all three accidently... but, you might not, if you didn't know. and I've never seen it mentioned, to make sure you don't.
I've not unlocked scrouge of the red tide. so, might be a 4th?
Im not sure which paths are tied to spot of apathy, glimpse of fate, or show the path.

for the record, I did figure out how to be even more op with PC and cassia.

so, I think I mentioned infusing and mend reality. well, her perception is over 100, so she has -100% damage to allies via that talent mentioned.
Lidless stare does zero FF damage, applies burning, and applies another stack of infusing. I hit myself on purpose.
+1 psy rating for my PC, and another stack of infusing. can do it twice a turn, even on normal turns with that +10 infusing, devastating staff.

and iconoclast "give a free HA" skill does let cassia use hers twice.

ok, so more testing on that. so, those talents are also dirty liars. they do not do what they say they do.

ok. test one. path of the open eye is lying.

SAYS perception reduction. and the tooltip says -137% unbuffed.. but in the damage tooltip. -65%.



test two added. mend reality first. path of the open eye DID increase its damage reduction via infusing. so, its not simply capped at 65%.

Its actually (perception bonusx5)%? 137=+13. x5=65. 156=+15. x5=75.

so, path of the open gate is also lying. nav powers can't even crit can they? so its SAYING it does +103%(nav per/2) crit chance. but the reality is +60% damage against enemies. and a flat -5% against allies. perception was 206 for this path of the gate test. so, its showing per/2 crit, but 60% damage buff would be +20 per bonusx3.

heres that 206perception friendly fire. this hit necrons for 170-200. my PC for 17.

-100% path of the open eye. +20x5 checks out again.

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Dogmatic pyro melee tank is insane, I can't imagine a MC build being stronger than this. It's basically the ST answer to Cassia's ridiculous AoE power. Eyes of the Joyeuse doubles my psy rating from 4 to 8, another +1 from setting myself on fire for 9, 10 once I get the 5th rank of dogmatic, and then two pieces of equipment that give me a total of 8x my psy as bonus damage to melee attacks. Wielding Djin Blade from the Act 3 boss for the stat leech effect and the ancient force sword for raw damage and armor pen in the offhand, and the boots that give you a free counterattack any time you parry. Then the heavy armor from one of the faction vendors that gives you 1 extra deflection for every 10 levels of coercion.

One of the earliest nasty fights in the corrupted forge world is the defiler buffed by the 4 plasma batteries and my MC beat it so badly before anyone else on my team destroyed any of the batteries that I probably could have just ignored the encounter mechanics entirely and brute forced it down.

kinda nitpicky but why the fuck are 75% of the heavy weapons in the game xenos or heretical, meaning they can only be used by a MC or merc? I have a space marine running around with a goddamn heavy stubber.

weapon options are very limited.
its one of the reasons I was saying argenta was better then ulfar. more options.

I think there is 1 heavy flamer.
1 ancient force sword. no named force swords.


he can use a heavy melta, heavy flamer, heavy bolter(early game sucks). 2 stubbers. basic and calibrated.
judex a late game heavy flamer.

Beat the game. It was a solid 40k experience overall but it really feels like it turned into a fucking Henry Zhou novel in the final act. The only positive thing I have to say about that absurd final boss is it actually lasted long enough for me to stack so many buffs and debuffs that I got to see a glimpse of what damage output was like before the big wave of nerfs came down. My final attack was a bolter burst from Argenta (bolter, not heavy bolter) that did a bit over ten thousand damage in total. Every other fight in the game got mopped up by warrior melee before she or Ulfar could ramp up their damage.

Really stands out how much less work the Dark Heresy d100 engine has had put into it compared to the 20+ years of tweaking/redesign and multiple previous CRPGs that the d20 system has had. I certainly didn't hate the game, maybe I even liked it better than Kingmaker, but it's definitely a step down in quality after WotR, which I'm probably going to dive into a second playthrough of here soon. Rogue Trader I don't see myself ever touching again unless the DLC is like Heart of Stone/Blood and Wine level of quality and I don't think anyone expects that.

ha. yeah. Im at the very end, but still not finished. haven't had the time to just side down without distractions.

I don't think "step down in quality" is exactly how I would describe it. Because this does have some great things going on. but, it does fall short in others. its the best lore/depiction of 40k I've played imho. the actual tactical gameplay and systems are fantastic. this mp/ap setup is great. even better then the 2ap systems. the guns, the abilities. the aoe, the single attacks, etc are all fantastic... might be the best I've played. But.. its horribly balanced. 2 or 3 more balance passes to make the actual combat tactical and not just totally trivial, and it would be stellar. its just TOO easy to be massively OP. it takes away from the game sadly. It never showcases the great design. bosses are trivial, and aren't showpieces, and theres no superbosses.

the other aspects of the CRPG are weaker then WOTR for sure.
no reactivity. now, this isn't something wOTR excelled at either. but it was better. class, origin, previous choices, etc here just never come up later.
Zones just end. as I noted, killing Gyatt, and Janus.. and you just leave. there's no followup. and its like this for every zone. kill boss. leave. no discussion on what happened. no followup with npcs in the area. nothing.
coming across necrons in that one ambush. nothing. then you go to the necron planet and suddenly HERE you get, "zomg what are these things?!"
saved winterscales son? he barely brings it up. or doesn't at all.

no replay. wotr has the 6 mythic paths that do impact gameplay and storyline quite a bit. fairly major changes in how the game plays out. here we got 3, and they barely change anything.
wotr has a ton of classes, which all play different. no the same here. all the archetypes are pretty firmly represented in the companions. only a couple Origin classes aren't represented by the companions. and those barely effect anything. noble/commisar/astra militarium commander.

Caliane said:

coming across necrons in that one ambush. nothing. then you go to the necron planet and suddenly HERE you get, "zomg what are these things?!"

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It was such a major narrative mistake to throw Necrons into a random rumor location when they were also the surprise bosses of the entire final act.

I can't really judge the gameplay when every combat was 'fight ends as soon as officer or warrior gets a heroic action' except for the final boss. I don't think they need a full on 'back to the drawing board' but I think it needs more than a couple balance passes. I don't care for the way they adapted the leveling system either, I prefer the fewer more meaningful choices from d20 than the 'leveling every five minutes and scrolling through pages of garbage talents trying to find one that actually provides a significant benefit'.

Gavinmad said:

It was such a major narrative mistake to throw Necrons into a random rumor location when they were also the surprise bosses of the entire final act.

I can't really judge the gameplay when every combat was 'fight ends as soon as officer or warrior gets a heroic action' except for the final boss. I don't think they need a full on 'back to the drawing board' but I think it needs more than a couple balance passes. I don't care for the way they adapted the leveling system either, I prefer the fewer more meaningful choices from d20 than the 'leveling every five minutes and scrolling through pages of garbage talents trying to find one that actually provides a significant benefit'.

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Ah mah god spoilers

Just finished now finally. just in time before the dlc patch. haha. I don't think I really have much to add. said most of anything I would have already.

I did find the "this is madness, you can't control it!" and then killing it in one round, and putting a leash on it myself(sortof) funny.

Caliane said:

and then killing it in one round

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How the fuck did you manage this? When I fought it the phase changes were forced with invulns, or did you just ignore the adds?

mkopec said:

Im looking forward to a new play through. Supposedly they are adding 2 new archetypes and it will be nice to get some more story and battles on the ship.

New Archetypes in the Void Shadows DLC - News - Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader

roguetrader.owlcat.games

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Executioner looks terrible. DoT builds never work in games like this.