Old Stormies were just bad. They were given suggestions on taking BS talents, yet lacked Finesse and were made for melee? It was just ridiculous.

Like The Heavy not having Strength; there's even more oddities in char gen than the Storm Trooper.  And really, starting with NORMAL quality armour?  While everyone got some good quality items? tssk tssk..That's just moving a problem around rather than fixing it.

Braddoc said:

You do realize that out of 12 classes only 3 (Comissar, Storm Trooper and Enginseer) start with more than one Good quality item, right? And the others that have 1 include a Good Lasgun for the Weapon Specialist, which is a joke item, a Good Sniper Rifle for the Ratling, because a Good Long-Las is just as silly, and a Good Staff for the Psyker, so they might as well don't count. Is he really that shafted for getting a Common version of the absolute best armor available to the guard because two other members of the squad get Good quality things?

So you're syaing it is unfair that  the Scola trained and rather 'elite' specialists (Commissar and Storm Trooper) starts with good quality items (what with them being the elite soldier of the guard and the symbolic Political officer that's basically a beacon of imperial might) alongside the Tech-priest ( part of the ones controlling all tehcnology) the psyker (Terra-trained) and the Ratling (who is a sniper where every, and all, shot counts)

Don't see why a good longlas is bad; because it's already reliable and *you* think it gains nothing because of that?

Weapon Spec got a good quality lasgun? Good for him!  Mechanically it gains nothing, but game wise, it shows that he is a soldier's soldier (since it is still good quality)

So yeah: Specialist having good quality items make sense, they are support specialists; quality over quantity.  The guardsmen specialists are expendable: quantity over quality, therefore, no point in wasting Mechanicus ressource making quality weapons and armour for someone who's surely going to die 15 minutes after making planetfall.

Braddoc said:

Uhhh, no I'm not, and I have absolutely no idea how you would have come to that conclusion from my post.

What I was trying to say is that having a Common quality item is not a liability, it's not "moving the problem around instead of fixing it" because Good Quality items are nowhere near universal at chargen. And specially when such item is the very best set of armor available to the Guard. A Common Quality Storm Trooper Carapace is, by definition, of superior quality and craftmanship than a Good Enforcer Carapace by simple virtue of being a superior item, just as even a Poor Quality Astartes Power Armour would be light years more fine and advanced than even Best Quality Storm Trooper Carapace.

Even if they had Common Quality Storm Trooper Carapace and even a Common Quality Hellgun, the Storm Trooper would still be carrying the best equipment available.

Remember that the ST you play when you create your character is not an elite ST, veteran of dozens of campaigns, but a fresh recruit (with a training way better than other grunts, but still not a veteran). So I think a hot shot lasgun or a carapace armor is already a sign of trust and prestige from the Imperium, the character still have to prove his worth to deserve better craftsmanship items.

JuankiMan said:

So you would rather have, let's say, a rusty, broken, leaking BMW than a pristine condition Madza Protégé only becasue hey, it's a BMW: the fact that it cost me a pint of oil for 5 miles driven is small beans comparted to the fact that you have a (crappy and almost good for the scrap) BMW.  Ok, enjoy your bucket o' bolts, I'll drive with my pristine Protégé, having no problems what-so-ever with it.

We can always talk about how a set of carapace is better than another set of carapace, because one is 'light' version of the first?

The QUALITY of an item add the to the looks but also the CRAFTMANSHIP taken to produce said item.  Saying a common quality item is better purely because it just so happens to be lower on the chart or of great availability sounds like flawed logic to me. 

And as for Veterancy: my player rolled "Jaded" as demeanour for his Storm Trooper; and it says the character is jaded from seeing oh-so-much battles and war and such.  doesn't sound like a green recrui's experience to me, like the 'Old'describes that the character saw much warfare in his time..no green recruit there; All about the history you make for the char, not what the XP amount.  If you want to limit your char's history because of XP or whatever, fine by me. YMMV I suppose.

Braddoc said:

The comparison is flawed. Common Craftmanship does not equal defective. I would indeed pick a second-hand BMW if it is in good condition over the pristine Protégé, because even if the latter is brand new and shiny, the former has nothing wrong with it and is inarguably a superior car (at least I assume, the only thing I know about cars is that they have four wheels and go "vroom", but German engineering is renowed for quality).

And yes, Storm Trooper Carapace is inarguably superior to Enforcer Carapace because both weight exactly the same yet one offers 20% more protection than the other. Even Good Enforcer Carapace is inferior, because even though it can equal is bigger bother's level of protection, it doesn't do it as reliably. Given the equal weight, Storm Trooper either employs better materials in its construction or has the armoured plates more intelligently interlocked, but whatever the case, it is just plain better, no matter how pretty or adorned the other seems to be.

Braddoc said:

If your player wants to play a jaded ST then fine if everyone is okay with it, having fun is the #1 rule in that case. But the demeanour doesn't change the character, if you take an "incompetent" operator then he's not gonna have -10 to all tech-use test. I could have say "yeah but the ST player in our team took green as demeanour so all ST should be green."

And the ST new players not being elite ST as in the fluff is due to balance, If you stick to fluff or TT profiles, then the grunt guardman could complain because ogryns or ST are far better (and 300 more xp wouldn't change it that much). So even if it seems strange because normally a X should be Y, it is better so that every one as an equal (but different) character.

Oh, and i wouldn't like the idea of creating a characters that is already the elite of the elite that can only improve a bit because he has already progressed a lot before you played him.

The Ogryns and the ST are already better than the grunt guardsman at face value, but when you dig deeper, you see that everyone is better than everyone else in their niche skills/talents.

Skills/talents that was stolen from the ST to make him a well armed/equipped poor man's Weapon Specialist who can only shoot.

Braddoc said:

You keep repeating that bolded part. You are wrong.

You keep looking at the stuff that Storm Trooper gets for cheap, and ignore the stuff he gets for medium cost. Except the medium cost is not a baseline the way it was in BC or (sort of) in earlier systems. Having one aptitude in something denotes a dedicated specialist. Having two matching aptitudes denotes an absolute expert who effortlessly masters all intricacies of the chosen field.

A Storm Trooper is as good as possible in shooting - this is nothing if not fitting for a guy whose main distinctive feature is being issued and trained in the use of a very expensive, elite gun.

A ST is also unusually good in all other forms of combat, seeing as he gets all physical Characteristics and combat-related Skills and Talents at either cheap or medium cost.

All in all, he's an expert marksman who can easily adapt for and excel in all forms of combat. That's on top of him being pretty stealthy and having the second highest starting wounds number right after the Ogryn.

Never played BC, so can't talk about that;

Again, I just used the cheapest talents, so with 2 Aptitudes, so therefore absolute expert if I got it right.  This is where my "can only shoot" angle comes from.  I just want to show that the change from WS to finesse made the Storm Trooper extremely similar to the Weapon Specialist, just lacking the social Aptitudes and have more combat related ones instead.

But I admit, the more I think about it, having knowledge would make him something else.

Whereas keeping the WS aptitude would make the ST a worse shot than the Weapon Spec, but a melee fighter comparable with the Ogryn.

Which, again, makes no sense. ST's combat doctrine is predicated on having these really awesome guns that can puncture Astartes power armor like it's nothing. Obviously, the major part of this elite training of theirs will go towards making them as good at using these guns as realistically possible.

Of course the Storm Trooper has an overlap with the weapon specialist, both are first and foremost guys given a ranged weapon and expected to make good use of it. The difference is in their secondary set of skills, where the Weapon Spec is something of an all-rounder, fit for combat as well as life in the trenches, while the Storm Trooper is a well honed war machine.

And regarding the quality of the ST equipment, his gear is already an entire tier more powerful (and more hi-tech) than what the average guardsman gets.

Again, you weaken the Storm Trooper because of his primo gear.  I can see the weapon spec relying on his gear, but the ST ought to be quite capable WITHOUT them rather than being like I said, a powerful gun held by top armour.

Braddoc said:

My Storm Trooper used his 300 starter XP to pick Unarmed Warrior so he would be able to brutalize people with or without weapons, and with it plus Takedown and his WS of 36 I wager I could bring down an Ogryn in a fistfight with a mite of luck. Not being specialized does not mean being incapable, and weakening melee while strengthening ranged is a zero sum operation. The Storm Trooper isn't left any weaker for it, just shifts his focus around.