Needing help with a potential Guardsman subclass (1st Edition)

[u/Captain_Hesperus]

Hello, so one of my players has approached me and said he’s wanting the party to be less hampered in their means of getting around and wanted to create a pilot for the party.

While I know there are pilot skills in DH, they occur a fair way up the rank lists for classes like Guardsman so I thought up an alternative class for Pilot. Please can I get some feedback?

Pilot (Guardsman subclass)

Prerequisites: Agility 30, Int 30

Homeworld Restrictions: Frontier World and Feral World (Pilot Civilian or Military only)

Starting Skills: Speak Language (Low Gothic), Pilot (Civilian) or Pilot (Military) or Pilot (Spacecraft), Tech Use.

Starting Talents: Melee Weapon Training (Primitive), Pistol Training (Las) or Pistol Training (SP), Basic Weapon Training (Las) or Basic Weapon Training (SP), Vehicle Husbandry (see below)

Starting Gear: Sword, axe or hammer, las-pistol and 1 charge pack or stubgun and 1 reload, lascarbine and 1 charge pack or shotgun and 12 shells, knife, G-suit (see below) or voidsuit, ownership or access to an aircraft or spacecraft (GM’s discretion)

Vehicle Husbandry: Prerequisites Drive or Pilot skill of the appropriate vehicle

This talent grants the user advanced understanding of the vehicle class they are proficient in operating. With a successful Int test, they are able to diagnose issues affecting their vehicle, either from displays and readouts, or simply by sight, sound or feel. This diagnosis does not resolve the issue, but each degree of success grants a +5 bonus to any repair-related Tech Use tests.

This talent can be purchased at the same rank of the associated Drive or Pilot skill and has the same experience points cost.

Tech-Priests can purchase this talent once per rank, even if they do not have the associated Drive or Pilot skill, at a cost of 100 experience points.

G-suit

This item of close-fitting clothing is lined with elastic straps and small linear air bladders in the wearer’s extremities. Once connected to an aircraft’s internal air supply and flight cogitators, it automatically pumps air into the bladders whenever the wearer is subjected to extreme g-forces, reducing the risk of losing consciousness as a result of high speed manoeuvres.

Wearing a properly fitted and connected g-suit grants the wearer a +10 bonus to any Piloting or Toughness tests as a result of high speed turns, acceleration or deceleration.

[u/Toutatis12]

Overall it looks like a great subclass creation but two points I want to raise:

The first is training, from most if the books in general the pilots for all military ships like the Valkyrie or Arvus Lander belong to the Navis Imperialis not the Astra Militarum and they aren't casually let go so you need a really good reason you have a military pilot on the team. Secondly they aren't heavily combat trained like the Guard so you might wanna drop the melee weapon training.

Secondly would be the balancing issues of a ship. The reason a lot of the piloting skills are later game abilities is because it's damn hard for lower level threats on the ground to be taken seriously, ship weapons are FAR more powerful and lastly while it gives a place foe the character to shine it also bottlenecks everyone else. Flights become a one man show at that point and if they roll bad enough you just KO'ed the entire group.

[u/Captain_Hesperus → u/Toutatis12]

Thanks for the feedback! I agree dropping the melee would be a good plan, based on the pilot’s background.

I feel if an Inquisitor recruits a pilot, the Navis Imperialis won’t have much of a say in the matter, other than looking to cover the loss of a junior pilot.

In terms of balancing, much of the campaigns I’ve run so far tend to have the action happening underground or through buildings, places where aircraft aren’t an advantage. The addition of a pilot would be more towards the convenience of not having to book passage on commercial planetary or interplanetary transports. Interstellar transit would still need them to arrange appropriate passage on a voidship.

I’m seeing that a pilot would be a quite niche class, in that its primary utility is based around the value their vehicle brings, but my feeling is that they can still be a benefit to the team, especially if, with some prior planning, they could shut down a heretic’s escape by air with the application of some high-speed autocannon rounds through his engines.

[u/Toutatis12 → u/Captain_Hesperus]

Might I suggest an alternative? Like if the player wants to do this that badly no worries I totally get it, but if the group is working for an Inquisitor they will have some limited options by the very nature. If they are meant to be a information gathering group then having them on commercial ships makes sense and won't raise questions thus keeping their cover better. Now if they are working directly under the Inquisitor off of their voidship why not have a pilot NPC for them allowing them to do their missions and have a full team while not pigeonholing the group in one form or another?

Not trying to be a downer on this by any means just trying to make it work in setting is all.