BaronIveagh said:

Oh, and incidentally, all three of those Comissars are melee monsters in their own right. And by that order of proficiency.

 Just saying that we might not want to be too strict on symantics simply because the Guard have been sort of loose on hierarchy naming conventions, mostly because of too many chefs in the kitchen when it came to fluff creation but in universe because not all regiments use the same terms. This is going off any article about hierarchy in the Imperial Guard.

That said I'm not saying we shouldn't change the name to Officer, I'm totally indifferent to it because I'm not an armchair general nor enlisted man. I simply wouldn't know better.

Radwraith said:

I actually prefer to leave the Sergeant as is for the following reasons:

-At the start of a campaign the players probably aren't going to be part of a command squad.  Keep in mind they only have a logistics rating of 10 to begin.  This is in line with them being enlisted men.

-In the table top game a squad of troops is lead by Sergeants/Veteran Sergeants.  While I suspect your argument is based on how it is in the US military, this is not  the theme of this RPG.  Any confusion about what a Sergeant character does can be cleared up simply by reading the specialties description.

-The kind of officer you are describing would have more in common with loner characters like the Commissars and Stormtroopers and would require a reworking of the character concept.

BirdofHermes said:

Point 1: Unless they're tech priests, priests, Sentinels, Commisars, snipers, armored just about anything, or heavy support just about anything.  Since all those report to the command squad, not the gopos they're attached to.

Point 2: So you're saying that the theme of this game is that Sergeants spring up out of the ground and promotions never ever happen in the rank and file?

Does not just fly in the face of logic, it flies in the face of fluff (After all, the 112th Rough Riders were being lead by a former sergeant turned colonel following the fighting against the tyranids on Coriana.

Point 3: not seeing the reason it would require that level of rework.   Unless there's some reason from GW that it would, I know they've been a pain in the ass for approving things.

JuankiMan said:

Actually it would be Gaunt/Cain/Yarrick.

As far as all three being exceptions, the only one who actually is would be Gaunt, due to his position.  There's this weird thing I've noticed in 40k that anything that does not agree with the speakers point of view is 'an exception' even if,in reality, they're basing their entire position off one line in one codex three editions ago and the bulk of the examples make that the actual 'exception'.  (We ran into this problem with Space Marines and lances when Betaing BFG FAQ 2010.  There was an absolutely rabid response that SM could not ever have lances ever because there was a line in BFG armada that stated that the IN and IQ were concerned over the Nova class frigates superior performance as a capital ship killer, and it was armed with a lance.  Never mind it was faster and more agile than IN frigs as well as packing that F/L/R lance, it was obviously just the lance they were talking about.  Despite the fact that a dozen sources could be brought from BL and Codecies that said SM had lances on strike cruisers)

BaronIveagh said:

Conter-point 1: Priests and Commisars are attached to the Squad, though technically respond before Echlesiarchy and the Comissariat respectively. Snipers and heavy weapons specialists report to the Squad leader because they're part of the squad. If a Sentinel is attached to the squad or they have a Chimera transport, their operator too respond to the squad leader, because they're nominally part of the squad and he's in charge and if the squad is part of an armoured company, the "Sarge" is the tank's commander, so everyone inside the vehicle responds to him.

Counter-point 2: Promotions do happen to the rank and file, but the soldiers who get promoted are those that show aptitude in leadership and command. If you have no charisma whatsoever you'll never rise above corporal, no matter how good a killer you are. Regardless, Sergeants can "spring from the ground", springing from the ground meaning that during training they are singled out and promoted, either through exceptional aptitude, upbringing or nepotism. After all, a freshly minted regiment has a fully functional command structure before its baptism of fire.

BaronIveagh said:

If you think Comissars like Gaunt or Cain are the rule you need to reread the Imperial Guard fluff. All three execute people on extremely rare occasions (hell, both Gaunt and Yarrick lack the "Summary Execution" rule!) and lead through example and inspiration, while most lead through example and abyect fear. And Cain… well, let's just say that either he is a magnificient actor or whoever promoted him to Comissar was drunk.

So to reexamine the points being made here, what exactly is the issue again?

That the commissar lacks key aptitudes/skills?

They get Command or Intimidate (the inspire/terrify ability or the outright strongarm/scare skill)

They get CL(Imperial Guard) (I know the structure of the guard!) and Scholastic Lore(Tacita Imperialis) (Tactics!)

Their talents are appropriate.

Aptitudes:

Agility - Useful for those in close combat/need mobility to engage

Finesse - Represents the use of martial skill/prowess

Leadership - Ties to the command skill (the most important skill a commissar will be using for their job in this game)

Perception - One must see the coward to shoot the coward

Fellowship - Commissars are morale officers, they are at least to a certain extent, "socialable," be it by giving speeches, inspiring the troops, or terrifying the troops.

Weapon Skill - They are good in melee

Willpower - They need to resist fear.

About the only thing here even remotely out of place -might- be perception. But even that has its uses (scrutiny). And what would it be good to replace with? Intelligence?

Remember, this is just what is XP efficient. By no means does any of this limit what any given character can do with enough XP.

About the only thing here even remotely out of place -might- be perception.

I don't think even that is out of place. It's somewhat hard to punish infractions when you don't notice them going on right under your nose.

KommissarK thank you for reminding us that this thread was concerning Commissars and not Sergeants.  I have created a new thread for anyone else who would like to continue the Sergeant conversation.

JuankiMan said:

Perhaps the best solution would be to houserule different versions of Commissars, depending on whether the group one is playing in prefers the GW-variant or a specific novel author's interpretation?

Lynata said:

It's true that the Cain (and Gaunt) books feature contradictions with the general depiction of the Commissariat, but the point there is the contractions are intentional and acknowledged by both the characters in-universe and the authors out-universe. 

And you can totally build something approaching a Cain or a Gaunt without houserules, it mostly resolves around focusing on different talents and purposefully not buying Summary Execution, among other things. It's just a matter of throwing enough XP at the PC, since Gaunt and Cain are clearly high-level characters in RPG terms. I actually drew up a just-for-fun Gaunt, and it's a matter of throwing talents like Master Orator and Into the Jaws of Hell in place of things like Intimidate +20. But ya, that's the bright side of the freeform advancement scheme OW offers. 

I personally don't allow Commisars in my OW campaign because I believe that having one player with power over the life or death of the rest of the squad is unhealthy in an RPG group. Now, you can play a benevolent Comissar that raises morale through power hugs, but I get the distinct feeling that the players who begged me to let them roll a Comissar aren't gonna take Gaunt or Cain as inspiration, and I don't think the rest would have much fun with Comissar Blamsalot in the squad 

JuankiMan said:

This is very true.  I actually got the go ahead to play the Commissar in a friends campaign.  I was thinking about handling extreme insubordination by killing comrades first, since they will likely back up exactly what the player character is doing.  Thoughts?

I think if you have players that are that eager to kill fellow PCs you have a bigger problem on your hand that doesn't stem from the Commissar class, but rather the players themselves. I would trust my PCs to be able to handle being a Commissar the right way without killing everyone all the time, and I would think if they didn't the other PCs would respond appropriately rather than just sit idly by and die (unless you're somehow letting the Commissar PC get to shoot an ally without the chance for him/her to roll dodge, fire back, whatever). May just be my experience with RPing, though.

HTMC said:

According to fluff, handling a Comissar right implies being a very nasty person indeed, even without the executions. And the other PCs can act accordingly and try to defend themselves, though the Comissar usually gets the first shot and you can't dodge a bullet to the back of the head, but a Guardsman killing a Comissar for any reason is a grievious offense punishable with a horrible death (being whipped to death, for example), while a Comissar killing a Guardsman is bussiness as usual.

While that is technically true, remember that this is an RPG group with friends.

First, he shouldn't be eager to kill fellow PCs. Although off screen punishments like a months KP duty is fine.

Secondly if he does kill PCs it should be for a damn good reason. Yes he can kill your comrade for having an untied bootlace ("But Sir! These are loafers!" *blam*) but unless he catches you summoning demons he shouldn't just kill PCs for the fun if it.

Thirdly while he can auto-kill comrades, PCs still get to roll initiative.

Fourthly if you do have a problem child who keeps killing PCs, getting waxed and then rolling a new Commisar tell him there are no more spare Commisars. There are only so many in the brigade and you've gone thorugh the junior offiicers. The Commisar Lord is too busy elsewhere and is not going to babysit an obviously troublesome unit. But he did send word back to Sector Command and they are sending out a special officer to investigate. Too bad his ship hit a Warpstorm. He should be there any decade now.

Sometimes you need to metagame the table.