Adeptus-B said:

In straight combat, probably not.  I imagine if anything there will be two sides to Chaos; the vugular and blatantly obvious like a pack of Khorne Beserkers running down the street decapitating anyone in their way with their chainaxes and the subtle manipulations like the conspiracies that make up pretty much ALL of the Dark Heresy published adventures.  I could list a few of the truely sinister options that I would absolutely love to play but then I would have to admit that I've been checking my sanity at the door on this forum.  Suffice to say, I will definitely be one of the ones who quietly manipulates things from behind the scenes.  Aye Impertor, I do believe I'm actually convincing myself to buy this one. 

In all the 40K games rough power level is about the same and there is no reason to assume that it will be different from Black Crusade.  The objectives mentioned are high powered ones and that's consistent with the players being roughly CSM power.  Here are some of my ideas about viable characters at that level:

Chaos Space Marines

Renegade Marines, not necessarily pledged to serve Chaos (Nightlords for example)

Dark Mechanicus with forbidden and warpy tech augments

Chaos Warlord (Revolutionary, Pirate Lord, etcetera), with social skills and chaos gifts to compensate for not being a Marine.

Cult Magos with sorcery/social skills/chaos gifts

Chaos Sorceror

Renegade Pysker

Fallen Inquisitor

I'm sure people can come up with others, but that's a good start for a list of viable PCs that aren't Chaos Space Marines.

Cynical Cat said:

Actually, Space Marines from Deathwatch are superior to the Space Marines from Dark Heresy / Rogue Trader. That said, if Black Crusade does the Chaos Marines in a vein similar to DH/RT, I'd say it should be no problem to get a mixed group together. Naturally, certain character types will lend themselves far more to combat or sorcery than others, but with focus always comes a price - and whilst I'm sure that a mere cultist won't be able to boss a CSM around, I'm pretty convinced that FFG can come up with rules to make him a useful party member. And in the end that's all that matters.

And to be honest, I'd think a group with mixed hierarchy levels would be far more interesting than 4-6 Overlords all competing with each other about who is more awesome and get's to have the say. Rogue Trader and Ascension already give good examples on how to do it better.

 @Adeptus-B

I'm really wondering what player charater options actually compete with being a Chaos Space Marine? Yeah, I'm sure the rulebook will contain cultists, mutants, and sorcerers, but will they be viable options compared to a CSM, or just cannon fodder?

Is an adept cannon fodder compared to a guardsman?

In the combat department, I guess CSMs will be allround combatants (unless you choose appropriate talents to become e.g. a Khorne Berserker), while single aspects may be mastered by other classes - the Dark Mechanicus will likely be a toughness/armour monster like all tech-characters until now have been, certain mutants may become lethal hunter-killers and sorcerors will probably fare well in the Powers of Mass Destruction department. A cult leader might finally just send a few dozen of his devotees to die in the battle while he and his group take a step back and circumvent the whole engagement on their way to the mission target.

I wonder if there's a chaos equivalent of a vodoun - a sorceror who invokes daemonic beings into his own body to gain temporary powers (rather than permanently turn into a daemonhost).

Lynata said:

That's not true.  There's first of all one Space Marine stated out in all of DH/RT and that guy (who is Deathwatch) is from the second product published, which was written before they even had the corruption rules finalized.  Those aren't the only thing from that adventure that are revised.  The splinter rifles in RT have different stats as well.  The only thing he's an example of is the early guess work for what Space Marines should stat out to be.

Ascension and Rogue Trader have different levels of authority within the group, but the characters are all roughly equal in power level.  There are no rookie guardsmen in Ascension or Rogue Trader.  Some characters are better leaders and some are better fighters but they are all high powered.  There's going to be more variation in Black Crusade than in say Deathwatch where everyone is a Marine, but like Rogue Trader and Ascension everyone is going to be at the same general tier.

Cynical Cat said:

There's also the Angelus gun from IH which seems to strenghten the idea of 2d10 as proper Marine boltgun damage, though. DW's weapon damage is worlds apart (for no real reason given unless this is another retcon), as are its enemies, making it extremely difficult for DH/RT characters to "fit in". The game just takes place on a totally different narrative style (more "legendary" than "realistic") which is fine when you only have Astartes, but for Black Crusade you'd have to have all party members at least somewhat comparable. It would kinda suck if only a CSM's guns would be able to do damage (or, if enemies are scaled to "lower grade weapons", simply be overpowered in comparison).

Cynical Cat said:

I think so, too. This would mean to go back to the weapon damage as given in DH/RT, for example 2d10 for a CSM's boltgun. He'd still stand out as simply being insanely hard to kill (serving as the group's "tank" so to say), and likely a monster in close combat. Not to mention that 2d10 still means a double chance to trigger Righteous Fury.

Or would that be Immoral Fury? :P

Anyways, given that Black Crusade seems to be designed for a mixed party of all vocations from the get-go, I also expect it to be far more compatible to DH and RT than DW. Maybe it will even include instructions on how to convert DH/RT characters by making them become Corrupted? Both games already have mechanics that make characters start walking on the path of damnation, after all.

I'm not allowed to say much, but since my group contains both Chaos Space Marines and normal humans, and they've all been pretty relevant and, whilst being good in their own areas, don't overshadow each other too much, being a normal human is an entirely viable option to a Chaos Space Marine. In fact, depending on your campaign, it'd be the CSM that wouldn't be especially viable (unless they're Alpha Legion, do you see them being able to pull off political manipulation in a Hive like a human would be capable of?)

Basically, what I mean to say is, you don't need to be a Chaos Space Marine to be a viable character.

That's what I was hoping for.

Man, I can't wait to hear more details about the possibilities.

Lynata said:

The Angelus is clearly based on the early stats for the Space Marines.  The hellguns from Inquisitor's Handbook are also anemic compared to later weapons.  Again, an early (still over at Black Library) publication with later changes.  

Now the Space Marine is going to be the likely leader for personal combat badassery with others having sorcery/social skills/leadership abilities/whatever to compensate but let's remember how nasty this stuff can be at this level especially when heretical and chaos items are thrown in.  A melta is still a melta, some of the xenos tech items in RT are horrifically powerful, and then there are chaos/demon weapons. 

Cynical Cat said:

The changes for weapons and equipment and rules presented in Purge the Unclean and Inquisitor's Handbook are also in effect for DH and RT as I've clearly shown.  Why would the game designers feel compelled to stay with early design work when they've already overridden it?   Deathwatch level stats will work just fine and not be overpowered as long as PCs gain access to high powered gear/chaos gifts/sorcery as well.  No one doubts that the CSMs will be the kings of personal combat but there are scary, scary weapons in both DH and RT that are useable by unaugmented humans and that's without touching the daemon weapons or guns loaded with daemon bullets.

Cynical Cat said:

Come again? The 2d10 have not been errata'ed, as far as I'm aware. What is it that you've shown?

Cynical Cat said:

Because there was nothing that was actually overridden for DH/RT and these early designs work just fine where they are. DW however seems to take place on a different narrative scale, which is why it doesn't work as well in unison with the other games (or rather the characters thereof). Its weapons (whose different stats do not make sense in-universe) are scaled for a completely different kind of opponents, who are in turn scaled to be a challenge to a team of Veteran Marines using devastating Squad Mode mechanics. I'm sure you see what I'm getting at.

Of course it is just as well possible that Black Crusade will "buff" characters to superhuman levels via Chaos Gifts as you have mentioned (and as I've already theorized as an alternative earlier), but given that this will eliminate the opportunity to play normal ("tainted") characters I do hope that this is not the case. Extensive modifications to the body are something for later ranks in the game - just like in WHFRP's "Tome of Corruption" where you did not start out as a tentacled arch-heretic but had to work your way up. Plus, I'd like to think that Black Crusade will be more "down to earth" again, anyways.

The Corruption Rules in DH and everything else are different than those in Purge the Unclean.

The Splinter weapon rules in Into the Storm are different.

Hellguns designs post IH are different.

So yes they have changed things a number of things since that time.  So have bolter weapons and for good reason.  2d10 isn't high powered enough to be very effective against even Purge the Unclean level Marine, who are almost as tough as the ones in DW.  They don't have to formally errata Purge the Unclean, which was written before DH was finished.  If they want bolters to be reasonably effective against Marine level enemies (as the setting and game balance require)  then Space Marine bolters have to be better than 2d10.

If Traitor Marines are viable characters, and everything indicates they are, then they are likely to be the leading personal combat class.  Other classes have to be powerful enough to participate in some meaningful way in combat just as in RT the Arch-Militant is the best at personal scale shooting other classes aren't worthless in fights that will challenge the Arch-Militant.

Cynical Cat said:

I know things have changed between DH publications, I just would not be sure as to whether changes between the different lines of the RPG would or should carry over into the other. Or are you implying the Angelus from IH now does 2d10+5 damage?

Cynical Cat said:

There I do agree, but this is a general problem with both bolt weapons (whose raw damage seems a tad too similar to lasguns) as well as the application of flat multipliers (that make for overpowered Marines whose bodies rival the armour they wear in terms of protection). Lasguns are just as ineffective as non-Astartes boltguns against Marines, which clearly shouldn't be the case according to the fluff. Actually, the fluff before this RPG did not even know a difference between Marine and non-Marine boltguns - which kinda makes sense, given that they always fired the same caliber of ammunition and only ever differed in size/weight/durability/reliability.

From what I've read, the Horde rules in DW are supposed to deal with this issue, and make (to go back to the earlier example) both lasguns as well as non-Astartes bolters viable and threatening weapons against even player Marines again when used by groups of NPCs - but given that people won't play only CSMs in Black Crusade, this "workaround" will not be applicable here. In my opinion, it would be best for the entire franchise if FFG would just redesign the entire idea of Unnatural Stats (I've already heard two excellent ideas for alternatives on this forum) and make everything fit together without having to apply some patchwork extra rules to something to render it a worthy opponent. Black Crusade, with its aim to bring Chaos Marines and "normal" cultists together in a single group, could well be the first step on this bumpy but promising road.

It's a question of preferences, too, of course - as I already mentioned earlier, I would consider it somewhat lame if the entire party would be forced to start as Chaos Champions with half a dozen mutations already instead of working their way up the food chain similar to, say, DH.

I actually couldn't give a fig about chaos space marines, I'm much more interested in the low end of the power scale, lowly cultists and petty mutants struggling to survive.  I guess I'm hoping the power level range isn't Ascension to Over 9000.