One could argue that there is no intent or even requirement for the various elements of the game to be 'balanced'. The Navigator is arguably the most powerful career in the game when it comes to combat if their Eye is able to be used; despite this, of the five games I've run so far I've always had to use an NPC Navigator. You aren't competing against other groups of players, you aren't supposed to be competing against yourselves, you're meant to have fun playing a game with your friends.

Gokerz said:

The idea is: if A and B are unbalanced, it doesn't matter as long as you and your players have fun.

renoh said:

That's good news for FFG!

In the future, they will never have to get playtesters anymore, who cares if the mechanics they provide us with don't work? We can fix them or have fun anyway!

They don't even need authors anymore, just some software that creates random strings of letters and puts them in a book. We can figure out fun things to do with them ourselves.

Your position is, quite frankly, ridiculous.

We are humans, we can have fun with however little basis we want. The rules need to be balanced, because they are the only thing we can't normally provide on our own. If you can have fun without the rules, why the heck are you buying FFG books to begin with? why don't you save the money and just look at sources like Lexicanum to get all the fluff you could ever need to have fun with your group?

 Well, just an opinion though, if we dont like something in the game, dont use it. If we dont like many things in the game, dont play it. O__oa

Gokerz said:

The mechanics as interpreted by the fluff work fine. A Dynasty bearing a Warrant signed by the Emperor himself is - unless something has gone completely and utterly wrong in their collective lives - outright better than a new Dynasty that was given a Warrant to force them to depart the Imperium and stop asking awkward questions about why the High Lords of Terra need a hundred heads of Adepta Sororitas and a set of croquet mallets every time they hold a meeting. This doesn't mean the rules need to be balanced, it means that the players get to decide how powerful they want their Dynasty to be at the start of the game. If they're incapable of not taking the mechanically best option at the expense of their original concept, then that's a problem for you to deal with. It doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the concept.

If the idea truly offends you so much, remove all the PF, SP and -tech choices from the Warrant Path, then use the Core Rules, rolling for everything instead.

Errant said:

wow, you really have no idea what the problem with the Warrant Path is, do you?

Hint: It's not that an older warrant gives you more points. In fact, an older warrant can end up giving you less points, depending on choices.

Telosse said:

You show a staggering inability to read this thread or understand what this thread is about.

Gokerz said:

Belittling my position won't do any good to this conversation.

Rules exist to create believable outcomes given the context, maintain a subjective equilibrium between players and add a controlled unpredictability for fun. I insist on the subjective word as a seneschal will never be balanced with the arch militant for example but both players can have fun with their respective characters.

Considering these elements, rules are necessary but balance is irrelevant.

The ship & warrant origin path add some consistency to the rogue trader history but don't need to be balanced at all. Balanced against what? A PC ship played with another GM?

I think Errant nailed the issue pretty right: "If they're incapable of not taking the mechanically best option at the expense of their original concept, then that's a problem for you to deal with."

renoh said:

I am not belittling your position, I am showing why it's ridiculous.

You are trying to apply the D&D way of balancing purely for combat to support your argument. That doesn't work. Under the RT paradigm, which is much more oriented towards giving everyone niches of competence, the balance between Arch Militant and Seneschal is just fine.

The Warrant Path doesn't have to be balanced with anything but itself. But it should balanced with that. It isn't right now. Which was my question when I opened this thread.

And Errant nailed only his lack of a good argument, by trying to blame players for a fault of the system. Also, remove that magic "original concept" that he deems everyone to have from the equation, and his argument falls apart even more.

If you have an original concept, then what do you need the Warrant Path for? You already have made all the decisions the Warrant Path could help you with.

No, the S&W origin path system doesn't have to be balanced with itself. And balance main issue is combat, nobody cares if your explorator has a unfair advantage in tech use or your senechal knows all forbidden lores.

Balance is needed to give fairness to all players in a game. The S&W origin path affects all players equally as they are part of the same crew on the same ship (unless you have several groups interacting with each other in the same campaign). Thus balance is not required.

If you feel that your players are screwed because they have 30 SP instead of 40, it is your perception and has nothing to do with balance. As a GM, you have to adjust the opposition accordingly.

Your expectations toward FFG and this system are conceptually irrealistic.

If you dislike this system so much, my suggestion would be to use it for fluff only (ignore the mechanics) and use the rulebook version to determine profit and ship points. Or you can create a point based system and give a value in SP to archeo and xeno components.

renoh said:

Your understanding of balance is so simplistic and weak, I don't really think there is much we can discuss.

Balance is about giving PCs equal chance to shine and feel like contributing to the groups' goals and actions, without being dependand on the players' abilities to achieve that. Combat is one small part of that. Not insignificant, but also not more than one part.

In the case of the Warrant path, balance is about making all the choices equal in the benefit they provide a group with, so that mechanics do not influence a groups ability to chose a path to any degree, however small that degree may be.

renoh said:

What, to think FFG can try to make their rules as balanced as realisticly possible for the means at their disposale is irrealistic?

What world do you live in, the problems with the Warrant path are not rooted in some complicated and arcane matters of complex interactions between different parts of the system. Making the table balanced isn't hard! Just look at how many good ideas for changing the table there are in this thread alone. Even you have given one.

Gokerz said:

You seem to be looking for video game balance where it is bad from to give the player a lesser option. RPG's and 40K especially have extremes of all sorts. If you find fault in a chart that not every choice is equal, then that is a personal view point. Mine and many others viewpoint is that having the option of not being the biggest, best, richest, most powerful Rogue Trader in the expanse has as much validity and fun available to it as any other. Mechanical advantage should NOT be the driving factor of making choices with the S&W path. 

Gokerz said:

I agree with your first paragraph, i disagree with your second.  The Warrant path is balanced in the sense of your first paragraph.  It allows all players to shine, and contribute to the groups' goals and actions just fine.  It just depends on their choices in what way they shine.  They can start as a group that's on top of the world, and shine by maintaining or expanding on that.  Or they can start as a group that's down on it's luck and shine by overcoming adversity and rising to heights nobody could have possibly forseen who knew their humble beginnings.  Either case: the career a player chose will not matter as all careers are equally important for the succes of a rogue trader crew (that's why the system is so cool, really).

Your second paragraph would imply that choosing to have your background be that you got a warrant to get rid of you only 10 years ago, with the condition of accepting a suicide mission but needing to use your own resources to pull it of; should have no ingame effect when compared to choosing a background that means you got your warrant handed down from your father, who was only the second to last in a very long and proud line of rogue traders to hold that warrant throughout the millenia since the Emperor slew Horus and who've made their fortune and then some ever since.  It makes no sense whatsoever to take that position.

Next you state "so that mechanics do not influence a groups ability to choose a path to any degree".  How does the warrant influence their choice?  It is entirely up to them to choose whether they want to go for a destitute dynasty or one already fat on power and on the ascendant.  They can choose the options they want.  But every option has it's consequences.  There is no mechanic in the warrant origin path that says you cannot choose to maximise your ship points and profit throughout the path.  Nor is there one saying that you as a GM cannot rule that they have "free choices" on the path or that you cannot award them more SP's or PF or archeotech or whatnot.  The path gives an option to those of us who lack imagination, are short on time, feel like having each member of the group decide one aspect of the background, ... .  That's it's function.  It does not differ at all from the consequence of choosing a seneschal over an arch-militant.  Or being an explorator rather then an astropath.  Each choice means you give up a number of options that the other choice does allow.  Want to have mechandendrites?  Fine, but no cool "i can kill you with my brain" powers.  Want to be able to shoot the hairs of someone's arm without hitting anything else?  Fine, but good luck at navigating the ship through the warp.  A choice has consequences.  You're essentially saying that a choice should not have consequences, which is ludicrous.

Well as you said you got an official response that it's not meant to be balanced in the way you intend, but you're the GM you can change it in any way you like if you feel that will make it more balanced. From their response it doesn't sound like they'll be errataing it any time soon. As going by peoples responses here a lot of people have no issue with it but you do. You could always just use the Warrant paths for flavour and to help your players get inspiration as to how they came into service with the dynasty, just give them the 90(?) profit factor that was the default before into the storm and let them bite into that for their ship points. It worked well for a long time so perhaps it might work for you and your group? Not a radical solution I know but I'm trying to atleast make some suggestion that isn't too complex that might work for you.

I've found the into the storm warrant path great in the two campaigns I've run it in letting players take turns picking. One group ended up being a bunch of infamous privateers who were given a warrant in the hopes they would run off and die... which they did not much to their enemies dismay. The players built on this and took pride in being the first of the Dynasty even if it was one of ill repute (the master gunner's player chose that they should be pirates which the Rogue Trader player was a bit annoyed at but tried to move the dynasties holdings away from). The rogue trader got working on an heir as soon as he could. He married the princess of a feudal worlds largest Empire as part of an alliance and their first child is on the way!

The other party came from an ancient martial line that almost went under only a few centuries ago but has been ascending until their fathers vessel was destroyed by chaos pirates! They've gone the privateer route and have their eyes set on rebuilding their dynasty's fortunes upon the corpses of pirates with strength of arms and cunning.

I give these as examples as I'd believe the primary goal of the ship and warrant path is to help the players and GM firmly establish a background that they can draw upon and build upon. If you think that certain paths are better than others you can rebalance it yourself in some form but it's a useful aid to adding flesh to the bones of the dynasty.

I just had another idea, the warrant path is hard to balance because it has only has PF, SP and archeotech/xenotech components as mechanical bonuses. You could always add in other bonuses in other parts of the path to help give more variance that are not dealt with in simple PF/SP as most of them are. Perhaps Sanction:Angevin Crusade could get a bonus to interactions with devout worshipers of St. Drusus? This is just an example and I am sure people can come up with others. I imagine however that it would take a while for you to balance it to a degree you are happy with. PF/SP are easy to quantify but if one path give extra bonuses to dealing with religious folk then parties could use that to their advantage if they are planning on setting up religious colonies or getting backing and political clout by endearing themselves to Ecclesiarchy types.

You are getting aggressive and deriding some of the others on the thread, perhaps it would be more productive for you if instead of argueing with others that the system is unbalanced and try to ask for other peoples input into balancing it mechanically as this seems to be what you want to do.

Is the path mechanically balanced perfectly? No

Is the path imbalanced taking into account non mechanical factors? Argueable, I have no issue with it but you do so I've tried to come up with alternatives for you.