WH40K: ROGUE TRADER - 10 Essential Tips Before you Begin (Beginner's Guide)

hey everybody it's party leite and today we're taking a look at Warhammer 40K Rogue Trader the latest from alcat games this time adapting a great tabletop system set in the Warhammer 40K Universe into crpg format if you played DND or Pathfinder or games based off of those systems you can toss a lot of that knowledge out the window here as Rogue Trader uses a D100 system and has a bunch of mechanics that'll be completely unfamiliar to you and because this is an adaptation of the tabletop system there are some differences between the tabletop rule book and this game too so whether you've played crpgs and tabletop RPGs before whether you've played this specific game on tabletop or during its Alpha and beta periods there's lots for us to dive into I'll find parallels where possible and if you have any questions or specific topics you'd like to see covered in follow-up videos let me know in the comments below but for now without further Ado and with time stamps down below let's begin a rogue Traders opportunities first things first it's important to understand that as a rogue Trader you have some pretty far-reaching powers in the game for those of you unfamiliar with the lore you're allowed to do a lot of things that would typically be considered highly illegal or heretical in this universe because of your status as a rogue Trader bear in mind though that the options you choose throughout the game along the lines of what is expected of a good citizen versus one who is willing to break the rules just because they're allowed to will impact your character how they're perceived and the kinds of options that are actually open to you through choices you make you can either become more dogmatic thetical or iconic class and your actions will result in you accumulating points for the three with thresholds crossed at 15 75 150 300 and 600 each unlocking a new more powerful modifier some of these will have a significant impact on your play style and party setup as an adherent to dogmatic views for example you're more likely to inflict burning damage and cause more fire damage retical unlocks will often push you into using psycher powers that are typically avoided because of the danger they invite as an iconic CL you'll find your party members more resilient or otherwise able to tap into their best abilities much more easily again these extra effects aren't the only impacts of your character leaning towards one of these three categorizations or another there will be a direct impact on how party members non-player characters and the story at large respond to who your character becomes and being a rogue Trader opens up many more options than snorting the occasional line of heretical hallucinogenic the tasks you take on are in the interest of both the greater narrative and your personal narrative too there's a threat to humanity and a massive plot for you to uncover that's your main mission you'll come across companion missions and the usual slew of side quests standard operating procedure for any crpg but beyond that you'll also come across rumors from time to time these rumors are sometimes worth investigating opening up new opportunities while at others they're Wild Wild Goose chases leading to dead ends keep an eye out for rumors and weigh your options when investing in them then there are contracts these will typically be trade opportunities for your trade Empire taking resources you or your Empire have collected and trading them for others sometimes resources that are for the smooth operation of your Empire and at other times tools that you will directly be able to use between you and your party members and yes as a rogue Trader you are at the head of a trade Empire this means you'll be managing colonies establishing new ones mining resources building structures fulfilling contracts all in the interest of improving your capabilities in various ways pay attention to the trade contracts available to you and seek out opportunities accordingly scanning planets acquiring and using mining equipment or otherwise packing loot as cargo to use for trade instead alcat likes to have game mechanics that go beyond the traditional crpg mechanics of you know exploring and conversing and battling and here it's your trade Empire profit Factor relationships and loot the way trade Works in Rogue Trader is quite different from most crpgs I'm not just talking about the large scale trade alluded to in the previous section where you're shipping raw materials and Cargo in exchange for goods and other resources but also the more personal trade where you're buying and selling equipment for immediate use for one profit factor is a reflection of your wealth rather than collecting individual gold coins or some other form of currency your immense wealth is tracked using this more amorphous representation of the assets you control a lot of the trade you do missions you complete and the contracts you fulfill will increase or decrease your profit Factor impacting what you'll have access to in terms of purchases planetary upgrades and opportunities in general wealth isn't the only thing affecting what you can and cannot get though as reputation plays a key role too as you converse with different vendors you'll see that each of them is aligned with one of the handful of factions in the setting in your your dealings with them either through trade or conversation you will improve or damage your reputation with each of the factions across multiple levels and as you cross these thresholds you'll gain access to more and more of their goods if you have a particularly low reputation with a faction they're not going to give you access to their best goods and depending on the faction some of their high level goods are very tantalizing so it's a combination of your profit factor to reflect your actual you know asset wealth as well as your relationship with these various factions to determine what their willing to trade with you one last unique factor to keep in mind when it comes to trade and Rogue Trader is how it handles loot for one any time you leave an area any obvious loot will automatically be presented to you for gathering before you leave this ensures that you don't have to go from Corpse to corpse individually clicking on each to get stuff if you do decide to do that you can rest assured that clicking on a single corpse will actually pull together loot from a bunch of nearby corpses into a single window which is just another nice quality of life thing but of course some loot is meant to be uncovered by player action and these won't be displayed to you as you leave a region make sure you hold down tab to highlight all interactive objects so you're not missing out on a particularly juicy item now as with most crpgs you'll often end up with an endless flow of useless items that your party has grown past in Rogue Trader these are not as useless as in other games in Rogue Trader this loot can be collected as cargo stored away on your ship to be traded for great reward you can go into the cargo holds to take specific loot out if you so choose or you can move inventory items into your cargo hold but as you'll quickly notice cargo is categorized by type you can think of each of these as a shipping container and when you're trading with vendors selling them a full shipping container of any category of cargo is a great way to increase reputation though of course you lose all the specific loot inside said cargo so make sure you're not ignoring loot from low-level enemies even the scrap used auto gun is worth something when it's added to a massive shipping container's worth of weapons there's a buyer out there for nearly everything character upgrades and specializations but we'll talk in depth about character creation in another video that'll Link in the pinned comment as soon as it's been released we need to touch on it briefly here to ensure you're approaching progression properly as you get into character creation and as you get further along in the game exploring upgrade options and opportunities for your party members it's important to keep in mind the value of party specialists in Rogue Trader anytime you're required to do a check the person with the highest Associated skill level or characteristic is the one who rolls first as long as you have your entire party selected if it's a check that can be done multiple times the game then has the person with the second highest Associated number do the check then the third so on and so forth if you keep failing until you finally succeed sometimes checks are based on characteristics like strength or toughness while at other times they're based on skills like Athletics or Tech use take a look at your party memb starting stats and keep in mind that these numbers are quite literally their percentage chance of succeeding in a check Rogue Trader uses a D100 system so it becomes really easy to see just how likely success is at any given time obviously checks will have modifiers that make things easier or harder to accomplish but it all boils down to this upgrading your characters will allow you to invest in characteristics and skills both and you'll quickly see that the skills are derived from an Associated stat with a modifier added on top based on your character so for example a strength of 45 would result in an athletic skill of 45 but due to the character's origin here his skill is at of 50 instead meanwhile a toughness of 45 should mean a carouse skill of 45 but his choice to upgrade caral while leveling up allowed him to get a carouse of 55 with a single plus 10 upgrade another way to do the same would be to upgrade tough but characteristic upgrades are slower so he'd need to upgrade it twice for plus 5 each as you can tell getting beefy stats takes a long time and you cannot have party members who are Jacks of all trades this is why specialization is so important and the game even encourages it by showing the associated numbers of other party members in the upgrade screen when you're making a decision this allows you to see if somebody else is already significantly better at a task than the currently selected character will ever be and it allows you to make a choice accordingly because characteristics are so expensive to upgrade you can look at them as a key decision-making Factor on how to specialize your characters but don't underestimate how Origins and backstories can impact skills either arenta for example has middling agility but her demolition skill is going to be hard to beat at 60 right from the start so when the time comes unless you hate arenta for some reason and never want to take her in your party don't try and have somebody else catch up instead Double Down down on arenta skill here it's not a terrible idea to have backups in case the first person fails a roll or becomes otherwise unavailable of course and if you have the option to take multiple attempts you of course want to improve your odds across all of those multiple attempts specialization applies to melee and ranged classifications as well somebody with a high ballistic skill should be using ranged weapons more often than not and somebody with a high weapon skill should be using melee weapons more often than not instead High perception and Agility help an attacker land hits in melee as a way to counteract enemy Dodges too so don't forget to take that into consideration as well also consider weapon and armor proficiencies not everybody can use every weapon in Rogue Trader and you should keep that in mind as you commit to new talents another thing to keep in mind when leveling up is the importance of the 10 digit in characteristics these are known as bonuses in other words our character here has an agility bonus of three and a perception bonus of three as well despite the two stats being different these bonuses are essential in a lot of the math that goes on in the game perception bonus and Agility bonus come together to help determine initiative order for example while toughness bonus impacts how much HP the character has and strength bonus helps determine how much damage is dealt in melee there's a lot more of that going on as tool tips will tell you so generally speaking keep in mind that while the entire number when it comes to characteristics is important for determining chance of success the bonus is important in determining the quality of said success so looking back at the agility and perception bonus of three each if given the opportunity to upgrade either by plus five when leveling up you can see that choosing agility will not only increase the chance of success in general but it'll also increase the quality of any agility related successes because the bonus will go up to four leveling up perception would increase the chance of success sure but it wouldn't increase the bonus needing an additional upgrade later on to do so this is all essential to keep in mind as you Dole out upgrades but keep in mind that it is a very long game and you will certainly be able to master a multitude of things you just have to prioritize based on present needs don't underestimate non-combat roles support roles are extremely important in Rogue Trader perhaps more so than most other crpgs I've had the joy of playing without good supports in place you will at times find yourself slamming your head against a wall as an enemy keeps dodging your attacks as your damage output feels negligible at times or as you otherwise find yourself outdone when it comes to the action economy I'm not going to delve into every special ability here as that would just be a video of me reading out tool tips for an hour but I will say this make sure you read these tool tips they can definitely feel very convoluted at times especially if you're not familiar with the system or with crpgs in general but I'll highlight a few things worth keeping an eye out for applying exploits on an enemy will make them take more damage from the next attack that hits per stack of exploit these can be applied with actions like dismantling attack or analyze enemies to name a couple exploits can also be used in other ways such as with the exposed weakness ability that removes all exploits and an exchange decreases the targets Dodge hay and armor until the start of the character's next turn this makes them significantly easier to hit and damage by all other party members something like prence will boost an allies intelligence perception fellowship and willpower increasing perception is a great way to help them overcome an enemy's ability to dodge MP stands for movement points and AP stands for action points boosting the former allows the character to cover more ground while boosting the latter allows a character to perform additional abilities note that unless otherwise specified you can only do one attack per character per turn some abilities will add free attacks for example argenta's run and Gun that's just her supporting herself sure but it's an example of an ability that's worth investing in for a certain kind of character not just acquiring it during upgrades but also actually using it like the charge ability consider as well something like kill's own strategy that forces enemies to reroll successful Dodge and Parry checks within an area meaning they're much more likely to fail what's more enemies that are hit and left with HP less than a specific threshold as determined by the stats of the character using the ability will immediately die this is powerful stuff look at the raid ability increasing Allied damage output against marked targets based on the character's perception bonus Blitz strategy can allow a bunch of allies to Run for Cover or dive into melee as needed or consider a sign objective where ass signing and killing a Target within a turn can have a huge impact on momentum something that can absolutely change a battle as we'll discuss shortly there are a ton of intertwining systems like this you'll want to keep an eye on abilities that adjust Dodge and Parry chances increase damage output allow for free attacks and movement or otherwise adjust the odds and you'll also want to keep an eye on which characteristic bonuses apply in making the quality of those abilities that much better and you'll want to make sure to pick and choose them accordingly keep in mind that it's a game of odds so use what you can to stack them in your favor prepare multiple weapons this one's a quick tip but an essential one keep in mind that swapping between weapon sets does not cost action points and you can do so freely at any point in time during a character's turn so make sure that when possible you have two weapon sets for all of your characters unless they're pitiful in either melee or ranged you'll want one set for each and keep in mind that while pistols can be fired while stuck in melee other ranged weapons can't so if somebody has a really high ballistic skill and a really poor weapon skill you'll want to give them a weapon set with a pistol so they're not entirely useless should they get caught in melee there are a few different types of damage output and you want to take advantage of damage over time from time to time as well with things like burning but above all keep in mind that different weapons have different areas of effect make sure to study the options for each weapon and the action point cost and cool down for each type of attack and remember to swap between weapon sets to take advantage of these areas of effect as needed keep in mind as well again that you can swap between sets at any point in time during a turn so for for example you can hit an enemy with avalor's shotgun then swap to his melee weapon set and use his charge ability that would otherwise be unavailable when not using a melee weapon these are just a handful of examples of how you might want your weapon sets to be organized and why you might want to swap between them the point is don't forget that it's an option and above all don't forget that it's free to do the order of operations bear in mind how the use of an ability impacts following actions in the previous section I suggested that you could use Run and Gun to perform an extra attack after adjusting position while this is absolutely true the eagley among you may have notice that there's a downside to that approach unless the follow-up attack is in melee a risk that you'll have to weigh based on the circumstances you're in let's use Run and Gun as an example for this section as you can see it adds a stack of winded to the user for return which hits them with a -10 to their ballistic skill this means that after using run and Gun the user reduces a chance to hit until the winded status is gone at least with a ranged weapon so if you use Run and Gun before you use argenta's regular attack you'll suffer a penalty to set regular attack if it's done using a ranged weapon instead you'd want to first use a regular ranged attack then use Run and Gun and then perform the free attack sure the penalty applies to the free attack if it's from range but hey it's a free attack at least you haven't negatively impacted your regular attack this winded status does last until the end of the following turn though so it might be time to switch to melee for at least a turn or just take the reduction and hit chances for the turn instead you'll often see these kinds of status effects applied to your characters or you'll be able to apply them to your enemies keep an eye on them to see how they might impact your approach and adjust your attack accordingly fatigue reduces damage output and melee blinded reduces all attack and defensive capabilities side dampening reduces the potency of psychic abilities so on and so forth momentum heroism and Desperation momentum is a game-changing mechanic in that it literally changes how you should approach the game at times when combat kicks off you'll notice a half-filled bar that indicates the current battle's momentum as determined by various combat actions and events a character's resolve determines how much momentum is gained at the start of each turn if they haven't already performed a heroic act or desperate measure resolve also determines how much momentum is gained after killing enemies Modified by the strength of the enemy that was killed at times you'll see abilities that explicitly State how they'll increase momentum for the party the enemy successes meanwhile will similarly reduce momentum as momentum tips one way or another your characters will eventually gain access to heroic acts and desperate measures the former when momentum is greatly in your favor the latter when it's greatly against you these are extremely powerful abilities and you want to make sure to use them to take down powerful enemies or large groups of them these are tide turning abil ities generally speaking keep in mind though that while Desperate Measures look similar to their heroic act counterparts they do come with an additional negative modifier weigh the cost before pulling the trigger here keep in mind also that the first use of a heroic act costs 75 momentum while each subsequent use costs 25 more so make that first heroic act truly heroic the veil and psychic phenomena in combat another Factor you'll need to to keep an eye on is Veil degradation without getting too deep into the lore there are two planes of existence on top of each other in the 40K Universe the material realm of Mortals and the immaterium or imperion where all manner of demons rule the veil between these two Realms is naturally weaker in some places but it can be further degraded through the use of psychic powers psychers tap into the immaterium for their power after all every time a psycher uses psychic abilities there's a slight risk of psychic phenomena kicking off on the lower side of the spectrum psychic phenomena will reduce party momentum cause bad luck or otherwise apply debuffs to your party in rare circumstances when the veil is particularly degraded you'll see Perils of the warp show up instead summoning demons causing damage or doing much worse the chance of any of this happening increases the more degraded the veil is and every time a psycher uses their psychic abilities the veil gets worse and worse off by an amount determined by the ability being used the veil repairs slowly in any turn that psychic abilities weren't used but Relentless use of such abilities will eventually degrade the veil to the point where psychic phenomena become significantly more common and as mentioned before to the point where they might cause Perils of the warp to trigger sanctioned and unsanctioned psychers have slightly different levels of risk here with unsanctioned psychers being more dangerous higher level psychers with higher sigh ratings will also have an increased chance of triggering phenomena and perils the higher s rating is what allows them to be more effective to begin with keep an eye on Veil degradation and use psychic abilities at opportune moments giving the veil time to heal outside of desperate circumstances there's nothing quite like a demon showing up to ruin your day when you've already almost won the fight rate of fire and recoil apart from abilities that allow for multiple attacks some of your ranged weapons will inherently have multiple different rates of fire that you can tap into as the situation calls for it keep in mind a few things when doing so though for one using burst fire as opposed to single shots will bring about an increased penalty to your chance to hit recoil will reduce the ballistic skill role by The Recoil value of the weapon for every shot after the first and this can be a pretty significant drop you also won't get any bonuses that would be applied to your hit chances when firing a single shot instead second burst fire will shoot a number of times up to a maximum of the weapon's rate of fire third keep in mind that these kinds of attacks will have an element of spray and prey to them shots will deviate from the central Target and this can cause friendly fire or it can cause multiple enemies to take significant damage make sure you're positioning your attacker appropriately for maximum damage output finally keep in mind that ranged weapons have ammo and you will need to reload to shoot repeatedly using burst fire will eat a clip up faster with less General accuracy meaning you might find yourself reloading more often than otherwise needed this isn't the end of the world though truth be told I find burst fire to be quite an effective tool especially when it's coming from a Bolter of any shape or size investigate first know your enemy it applies here as it does anywhere else before jumping into combat a simple rightclick on an enemy will tell you a lot of information about how they might behave what they might excel at and where they might be weakest knowing who has a higher or lower chance to pass a willpower check for example will tell you where you might want to focus on of your abilities like taunting scream knowing who is impacted by various Battlefield effects will also influence who you prioritize in combat you'll also want to keep an eye on top of how much armor your enemies have so you can appropriately decide where to focus attacks with armor penetration versus those without this will allow you to position better for the fight to come and if you're feeling cheeky you can even kick things off with a surprise attack that gives you a major upper hand to start with bear in mind that you can use right click to see enemy details after combat starts as well so check frequently double check often and make decisions based on what Stacks the odds most in your favor aside from details tucked away Behind These pop-ups you should also consider the layout of the battlefield and the ability of your attacks to either knock enemies back into each other or into walls and chasms to cause additional damage or death or their ability to penetrate through a Target to the person behind them you should also pay attention to sight lines as many abilities require line of sight to work and make sure you're using the UI to your advantage when planning moves you can plan a move command without actually issuing it and then see which of your abilities can be used on which targets from that position friendly or otherwise use this information to adjust positioning before actually giving a move command and using those movement points and finding yourself potentially out of position this is especially important for things like planning charges that have a minimum and maximum distance or to check if you've calculated ranges on weapons and abilities correctly directly that's a lot to take in I'm sure and there's plenty more we could talk about ship-to ship combat travel through the Imperium a deeper look at the various skills stats talents and abilities the list goes on if you want to see more let me know in the comments below and if this video helped you come to grips with some aspects of Rogue Trader consider hitting the like button for more tactical RPGs strategy gaming and city building consider subscribing to the channel too and as always a massive Thanks goes out to all of the channel members and patrons who've been supporting the channel on a monthly basis Keep Us Alive and running smoothly and of course a big old Thanks goes out to each and every one of you for watching until next time cheers

Channel: PartyElite

Views: 99,641

Keywords: rogue trader, rogue trader 40k, wh40k rogue trader, rogue trader gameplay, rogue trader 40k gameplay, rogue trader 40k guide, rogue trader guide, warhammer 40k rogue trader guide, how to play rogue trader, how to play wh40k rogue trader, rogue trader tips, rogue trader game, new crpgs, new crpg 2023, partyelite

Id: dIxGlDxsWYg

Length: 25min 43sec (1543 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 08 2023