What do you think?
Rate this book
Dark Heresy RPG (second edition)
Dark Heresy Core Rulebook
Dark Heresy Second Edition is a roleplaying game of danger, mystery, and brutal violence set in the decaying far future of Warhammer 40,000. Players take on the role of defenders of humanity and embark on hazardous adventures into the dark heart of the 41st Millennium. As an Acolyte of an Inquisitor, you’ll serve at the front line of a great and secret war to root out dangers that imperil all of humanity.
The 448-page, full-color Dark Heresy Second Edition Core Rulebook contains everything you and your friends will need to serve the Emperor in the Askellon Sector. Rules for character creation, combat, and adversaries are supplemented by informational source materials that will help Game Masters bring the Askellon Sector and its horrors to life. The Dark Heresy Second Edition Core Rulebook can be used to enjoy enjoy standalone adventures and ongoing campaigns in the grim future of the 41st millennium.
The 448-page, full-color Dark Heresy Second Edition Core Rulebook contains everything you and your friends will need to serve the Emperor in the Askellon Sector. Rules for character creation, combat, and adversaries are supplemented by informational source materials that will help Game Masters bring the Askellon Sector and its horrors to life. The Dark Heresy Second Edition Core Rulebook can be used to enjoy enjoy standalone adventures and ongoing campaigns in the grim future of the 41st millennium.
327 pages, ebook
First published November 1, 2013
2 people are currently reading
40 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
November 11, 2022
The Fantasy Flight-era of the 40K RPGs was getting a bit creaky by the time DH2's core rulebook came out, but this does a decent job of providing a version of the game with a somewhat higher power level than DH1 assumed. That said, DH1 was essentially a reskinned WFRP, and if you approached it like that it worked fine so long as you accepted suitably WFRP-ish low-powered and grubby assumptions, and one questions whether Fantasy Flight's attempts to patch the system to support higher-powered play was in the long run misguided, especially since Wrath & Glory handles such play more elegantly now. Full review: https://refereeingandreflection.wordp...
July 12, 2020
Four stars for the setting and fluff, -2 for the system and explaining it. Very, VERY crunchy game system presented in a very verbose manner makes it hard to grok. The idea of characters as acolytes (henchmen) of the Empire's Inquisition allows a lot of moral considerations should the gamers be so inclined.
November 18, 2016
Damn, there's so much to like about this setting and system, but the more I read, the more all that was covered by stuff which I explicitly didn't like.
The mechanics here are roughly what Warhammer 2nd Edition was, but with a bunch of changes - some of them pretty good, others adding what I see as somewhat pointless complexity on top of a system that never felt like it needs to simulate very specific situations. There's a few pretty unique systems here - like the Subtlety track and Inquisitor Influence - but both seem mishandled, at least on paper. They feel like busywork which puts numbers on top of narrative stuff which should pretty much stay narrative.
For all the richness of the setting, the game feels severely limiting. All those different characters you could play feel like they can be boiled down to either different kinds of fighters, or a tech/science person, or a psyker which plays as either of the previous categories. For all the small modifiers, weirdly specific class "powers" and the plethora of gadgets available, it doesn't seem like the game allows for many playstyles.
It's definitely geared towards a very specific way of running scenarios, as the Game Master chapters seem to suggest by being very perscriptive. They're written in a way which says "You need to do this, you have to do it this way, that's the way you should structure play." way too often for my taste. If that's the intended way of playing Dark Heresy, then I'm not sure if it's inticing enough for me - there's a big focus on either stealth, or straight out combat, and non-combat abilities (outside of social skills, which seem essential) look to be useful, but simplified to just single tests to see if your character has in-universe knowledge.
Maybe I'm overthinking this. I'm hoping to run a game or two before my final verdict, but from the first read, the corebook is a bloated monster, with way to many specific rules for my taste and with a lot of lore and fluff which somehow doesn't make me feel any more informed about how I should run this game.
The mechanics here are roughly what Warhammer 2nd Edition was, but with a bunch of changes - some of them pretty good, others adding what I see as somewhat pointless complexity on top of a system that never felt like it needs to simulate very specific situations. There's a few pretty unique systems here - like the Subtlety track and Inquisitor Influence - but both seem mishandled, at least on paper. They feel like busywork which puts numbers on top of narrative stuff which should pretty much stay narrative.
For all the richness of the setting, the game feels severely limiting. All those different characters you could play feel like they can be boiled down to either different kinds of fighters, or a tech/science person, or a psyker which plays as either of the previous categories. For all the small modifiers, weirdly specific class "powers" and the plethora of gadgets available, it doesn't seem like the game allows for many playstyles.
It's definitely geared towards a very specific way of running scenarios, as the Game Master chapters seem to suggest by being very perscriptive. They're written in a way which says "You need to do this, you have to do it this way, that's the way you should structure play." way too often for my taste. If that's the intended way of playing Dark Heresy, then I'm not sure if it's inticing enough for me - there's a big focus on either stealth, or straight out combat, and non-combat abilities (outside of social skills, which seem essential) look to be useful, but simplified to just single tests to see if your character has in-universe knowledge.
Maybe I'm overthinking this. I'm hoping to run a game or two before my final verdict, but from the first read, the corebook is a bloated monster, with way to many specific rules for my taste and with a lot of lore and fluff which somehow doesn't make me feel any more informed about how I should run this game.
April 11, 2020
Mamy ten sam system co Warhammer fantasy 2ed jednak w przyszłości. Gra wydaję mi się kiepska mimu kilku poprawek wniesionych w porównaniu do fantaziaka ale moim zdaniem nie pasuje do wcielania się w inkwizycję i prowadzenia śledztw w imieniu BOGA IMPERATORA!
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews