You know, for a putative 'Militant Inquisitor', giving them access to squad and solo modes isn't a bad thing - for a suitable price. If they've made a career out of fighting alongside astartes whilst being undeniably soft and squishy, then clearly they're going to know astartes combat doctrine as well as the boys in black.

Let her buy an elite advance - call it 'Inquisitor To The Chamber Militant' - and give her Scholastic Lore (Codex Astartes) and something similar to 'blood brothers' - except rather than counting as the same chapter for squad mode abilties, she counts as another marine for same (so can use codex abilities but not chapter ones)

If you want to pull in an inquisitor, I'd make the following suggestions:

1) Don't go with a psyker. DH psychic power work differently to DW psychic powers, which will only confuse matters. Plus the ascension rules make them ridiculously harsh (hello, primaris!)

2) I concur that the same requisition process (ish) should work for an inquisitor - she should be arming up for a specific mission and not be loaded out with a million, billion tonnes of best-quality gear. However, I don't think it's unreasonable she should get more stuff - it's her contacts and authority that make her better than the astartes, not fighting stats.

3) I'd be tempted to use the adepta sororitas palatine archetype for an inquisitor - intelligent, pious, and with a standard issue of awesome wargear (by non-marine standards). Spend your 500 Xp on 'observation mastery' (for inquisitorial fiendishness) and Price of Piety (for interaction stats) or Battlefield Promotion (for command skill) for the transition package. Play down the faith talents unless you specifically want a psyker, although it is quite cool to let them - temporarily - match a space marine through raw hatred of the enemy and willpower. You start with a best-quality bolter and armour (which an inquisitor intending to take to the field of battle would acquire quickly unless they have a deathwish - I have a mental image of Inquisitor Hand from Daemonifuge or Inquisitrix Amberly Vail from the Cain novels here), so don't need to gun yourself up too much, but equally aren't carrying a megatonne of random equipment. Plus, they have the ability to swap their bolter for a sensible but not excessive selection of non-best quality weapons - flamer, storm bolter, I think inferno pistol if you take the celestian option at level 5.

4) If you want to make sure she's not overly dominant in wargear, allow her to requisition wargear and equipment at the same price as the astartes - but she receives good or best quality normal gear. (i.e. requisitioning a best-quality bolt pistol costs 5 requisition - but obviously it'll be a mundane bolt pistol not the scary-as-hell 1D10+9X hand-held howitzer the astartes carry)

5) I would represent influence by giving the inquisitrix her 'influence' score as an extra whack of requisition which can be spent each mission (just like some of the kill-team patrons improve your requisition or standing). However, this requisition is inquisitorial influence and as such doesn't let you plunder the watch-fortress vaults - instead it can only be spent on reserve requisition as guard, navy, astartes or inquisition assets for the mission. Which, amongst other things, lets you pay lots of requisition to acquire the seriously arcane items an inquisitor might take that don't have parallels in Deathwatch. Or have inquisitorial agents as minions to hide behind.

Magnus Grendel said:

Surely you aren't suggesting giving Inquisitors access to those stupid skill packages? They are broken as hell in Ascension already, but in DW, where your usual marine often pays the same or even more for a single level of a single skill?

Morangias said:

Yes. Observation mastery gives +20 to those skills, putting her on a par with the marines. A space marine is at a +20 to start with thanks to +10 for Heightened Senses (Sight) and +10 for Auto-Senses, and comes with awareness in his default bundle of skills. Yes, it makes her better for scrutiny and search, (though the astartes probably have higher perception), but surely that's the point of the throne agent in the party anyway?

The point of a Throne Agent attached to a Kill Team is to bring a different mindset and a different set of skills to the table.

The point is not to make Astartes characters look like retards when the Throne Agent buys ten skills at +20 for the price it takes an Astartes to raise one skill to +20.

To each their own. I always figured the higher cost astartes were paying for skills is because the stats which fuel those skills are generally better, and because they have several unique (or nearly so) sort-of-stats-but-not quite like heightened senses, toughess rerolls, etc.

There aren't that many skill masteries in the Palatine's tree, anyway. Weapon Training Expertise doesn't really count as you'll be fighting with your own kit most of the time anyway.

Magnus Grendel said:

The higher costs are because it's an entirely different game line with entirely different costs. You'll note that in Black Crusade - another game line too - that Chaos Space Marines and human characters largely pay the same costs for the same skills. The only package deal seen there is with Legion Weapon Training.

HappyDaze said:

This.

Ascension is Dark Heresy's "Epic Level Handbook". It allows further progression for characters who have already completed their advancement schemes from the earlier book. This idea informed many of the rules included in that book - I'll refrain from ranting about the execution of this idea yet again, but that was the assumption used in making that book.

By contrast, DW is a completely new game that starts with more powerful characters. A starting Inquisitor from Ascension and a starting Marine from DW may theoretically have the same experience total, but one of them is a Rank 9 character after many trials and hardships, while the other is a relatively fresh character - experienced enough to warrant the honor of joining the Deathwatch, but his greatest tests and adventures are still before him. This even applies if you make an Inquisitor from scratch, due to how advancement in Ascension is structured.

This shows through in a lot of ways. By the time they reach Ascension, DH characters regardless of specific career have had the chance to pick up extra melee attacks, extra Reactions, and many skills and talents to master their chosen fields of expertise. DW Marines start with better stats, Unnaturals, and a couple of Talents and Skills, but as far as character progression goes, they are pretty much blank slates. Also, their progression is in many ways stricter than that of DH characters - not only do they pay more for same advancements, but their specialties dictate their roles much more strictly than DH careers do for Acolytes.

All in all, this creates a fundamental disconnect between DH and DW characters that reflects unfavorably on the Space Marines in the event of a crossover game. Sure, Unnatural Strength and Toughness, power armor and bigger guns make Marines quite fearsome, but a Guardsman at 13k exp will in many ways be superior to an Astartes - he has more attacks, more Reactions, at this point he most likely dodges better and quite probably has a better success chance on his primary mode of combat thanks to having already bought all four Advancements for his chosen characteristic, and possibly also bonuses from best craftsmanship gear. At the same time, he can be a superior driver/pilot with a decent knowledge of technology and first aid. If he specializes in heavy weapons, it's even debatable if the Marine is better at killing at this point, as human-sized heavy weapons are easily damaging enough to threaten even the toughest targets. Don't get me started at DW Librarian vs Primaris Psyker or psyker Inquisitor, or anything in DW vs Ascension Magos.

Obviously, the idea that different 40k games are balanced between each other is a very rough guideline at best. The disparities between advancement costs in different games will quickly make any attempt at a crossover game widely unbalanced and downright weird at times. That's why it's a much better idea to homebrew a new progression for an Inquisitor in a DW team.

I'd be willing to let Ascension sit by the wayside; I know that 98% of all the people who have ever lived on Earth hate it, the way a pious priest would hate the Necronomicon Ex Mortus. I could build with the Deathwatch rules, but am unsure how you would make up, in that system, that they are so much weaker, with inferior physical stats, often no Unnatural Attributes, etc. They SHOULD have better social skills, as their ability with other people is how they make their living, rather than being 8' supermen who rarely interact with other types of people (though certainly not the super gap between the Unleashed Ascension build, and the more believable DW progression, and might need a smidge better gear, to be a bit more durable against the Space Marines' superior foes.

If I was going to use Ascension, or at least some bits from it, I might be a bit of an ass, and say that the Inquisitor can sub his Influence for the team's Requisition; having friends helps. With the average Inquisitor having Influence 50-70, it might be a bit more than the average team might get, but not by so much. He can use the same rules for gear as they do, maybe with a slight bonus on Rank (he's a damn Inquisitor, but you don't want him to dwarf the Astartes). Sig Wargear could also be a great boon, getting the Inquisitor that Plasma Pistol and Daemonhammer permanently (in truth, that weapon is probably in the same field as the Termie suit, and unattainable via Sig. Wargear, but Inquisitorial Artificer Armor is popular). Using Influence for many of the other things could be troubling, but many Imperials look at Space Marines with awe, so the need to make Influence tests might not be so frequent. The combination of the Emperor's Angels of Death, coupled with one of his Hands, might balk the "standard" Imperial whatever so much that actually making the check isn't necessary; of course they'll do what you say. Being able to "borrow" a group of troops, to create a distraction for the Space Marines to reach the critical foes, could also go a long way toward success, without a thousand little schmucks pelting them with lasfire, as they race across the field. Enemies, like so many others, don't care about an Inquisitor's Influence, so it's no use.

While I know that Black Crusade is a radically different system, they have a really cool Inquisitor in that book, who might be able to prove a decent milestone bar to aspire to, as an Inquisitor PC in DW. The game could have done well to just toss out a book that fleshes out the non-Space Marine possible characters, knowing that there would be some people who, even being in a game of DW, don't wish to play a Space Marine. I really do want to sit down with the Character Build Chapter of DW, and try to flub it up for an Inquisitor build, but i don't know if I could do it justice.

venkelos said:

Enemies do care about ten Basilisks bombarding their position.

Enemies do care about a thousand more soldiers engaging them,

Enemies do care about being blown to smithereens by a focused barrage from voidships.

Influence can make all these things happen, time and time again.

So, why do you think that enemies don't care about the Inquisitor's Influence?

Morangias said:

Enemies care about all of those things but arguably the Influence system doesn't provide a means by which any of them can actually occur.

While Influence doesn't conjure armies out of thin air, it does let one take control over all available Imperial assets, or at least a significant part of them (depending on how well one rolls).

This is in direct thematic contradiction to the rules of Deathwatch, where such external aid is scarce - you have to pay for it with Requisition at the cost of your personal gear for the mission, or you have to somehow convince the commanders of those forces to grant you assistance, most likely a task requiring a series of social rolls and perhaps even spawning a new Objective. Space Marines are figures of legend and inspiration, but their presence doesn't obviate existing orders. Influence does, thus letting everyone stack up on gear and negating entire layers of possible mission complications. Mind you, this is not due to player ingenuity or anything like that, just a simple roll of the dice.

Morangias said:

Sorry, the primary use of Influence I was mentioning would be at the initial Requisition phase, while back at the Watch Fortress. Unless the mighty Space Marines keep garrisons of lowly Imperial Guardsmen, and Machine Temples filled with stored tanks Space Marines don't use, even a super-Influence Inquisitor can't influence->Requisition a unit of men, or an Artillery Unit of Basilisks. Depending on where they are going, there might not be a standing force of Guardsmen present to commandeer. Say the mission in the main book; the Guardsmen are already wiped out by the Nids, but an Inquisitor could have a vested interest in assuring the Magos is recovered. In his current condition, said Magos won't listen to an inquisitor any more than to the Space Marines. If they did go to a site with a standing, coordinated, allied Guard force, then yes, he/she could do stuff with them, maybe split from the SM's, and help coordinate the Guardsmen, or maybe use his Influence to get a favor or two, maybe rig a distraction, for the Space Marines to perform and insertion, or arrange a Basilisk/Manticore to eliminate a particularly problematic door, or enemy big vehicle. Still, they will probably stick with what they have, and stick with the Space Marines, leaving the Guardsmen to periphery stuff. On the other hand, it's just as likely that, wherever they are going, the only allies are themselves, and they must contend with masses of Nids, Tau, or worse, who don't care about the Influence tests.

Morangias said:

I don't want to break said system. Again, such resources are not available often at the Watch Fortress, and depending on the locale of their mission, there either. If such assets were available, I'm relatively sure that the appearance of Space Marines would persuade said Guardsmen to cooperate as able, with or without the Inquisitor; their presence signifies things are worse than the Guardsmen knew. Space Marines = a good chance at victory, so one would readily assist them.

If the Influence just replaces the Req score at the Watch Fortress, it shouldn't be too overpowering, with the usual Req number I saw in the book being around the average an Inquisitor might have for Influence. Influence might be higher, but again, that's the Inquisitor's advantage. Otherwise, I suppose I don't know how Space Marines req stuff like military units. If the WF doesn't keep them on hand, and you are going  a bit blind into a battlefield, you wouldn't know how many points to save, if you needed to spend them on location. If it's stuff they MUST get at the WF, so would the Inquisitor, and in this case, the Inquisitor wouldn't keep rolling for stuff; the Influence stat IS his Requisition stat, so it's still a fixed number, and he spends it for each mission. If he would make tests against IG units on scene, it might happen sometimes, but it wouldn't always be convenient for him to, while numerous battlefield sites wouldn't present friendlies to enlist.

Basically, Influence represents two things:

1. The fame and political power the Inquisitor holds, and

2. The assets he can call on to help conduct his business.

In DW, 1 is represented by Renown, and 2 is represented by Requisition. So why introduce a new stat? Especially if it's going to be new in name only?

venkelos said:

One thing to remember is that the Deathwatch is often required to operate covertly, without direct support from any other Imperial forces. In other cases, the Deathwatch may not have the political leverage to requisition allies (the Canis Salient is a good example - Lord Ebongrave doesn't trust the Deathwatch, and typically doesn't allow his forces to be borrowed by the Deathwatch). The presence of an inquisitor provides a layer of insulation - the Inquisitor can call upon resources that the Deathwatch may be situationally unable to obtain, without directly involving the Deathwatch.

Beyond that, an inquisitor will often have political influence above and beyond what a Deathwatch Kill-Team can muster - he'll have connections that they won't, with ties to powerful individuals in the Administratum, Adeptus Arbites, Ecclesiarchy, Adeptus Mechanicus, etc that may allow support and options that would elude all but the most politically-adept Astartes.

 I think what someone needs to do if that want to make an Inquisitor career for Deathwatch is first decide what should the Inquisitor's role be. Is it that of a team leader? A tactical marine already does an excellent job at that. Most of marine carrers however, have difficultly with any social skills other then command and intimidate, so that seems a good avenue. N0-1_H3r3 is correct when he says that an Inquisitor can open up a lot of doors for a kill-team.

Another thing to consider is gear. Requisiton helps a space marine aquire gear beyond there basic kit, which in the grand sceme of things is highly formitable. What is basic kit for an Inquisitor?