XP and Character Advancement in Orky Heresy

Rather than using the existing (and convoluted) Dark Heresy system for character advancement, the Orky port to DH will use the simpler rules from Warhammer Fantasy Role-Play. You'll need both WHFRP and DH to run Orky Heresy, I'm afraid.

Here's the briefest of summaries:

• Buying a skill or talent or +5% of statistic upgrade costs 100 xp.
• When you have filled all the upgrades of your existing career, you may pay 100 xp to advance to any career that's listed in the "Career Exits" of your current career.
• In the case of upgrades where you have choices (such as listing "Barter or Evaluate") you may advance provide you have at least one option from each choice, or can wait and buy every option first.

And here's ways this "Orky-port" varies from WHFRP and DH:

• The WHFRP rule that lets you pay 200 xp to restart at ground level by going to any basic career does not apply to Orky Heresy. Instead, you may pay 200 xp and act weird for a session or two to go to the Outcast career.
• Don't worry about meeting the prerequisites of Skills and Talents. The careers are set up to make it likely you'll hit the prereq's, but it's no biggie if you don't. They are still available as options. Your options are limited enough to prevent most abuses of this in an all-Ork campaign.
• When you start a new career, you immediately get all the trappings (items) of that career. This is a bit more generous than WHFRP, but again it's not unbalancing as long as everyone gets the same benefits. Roll the teef dice of your new career, and add them to your total.
• The system uses a few talents from WHFRP and some new talents. If at first you don't find it in DH, check here and in WHFRP.
• I recommend the flat XP awards from WHFRP instead of the more organic system of DH. Part of the fun of playing Orks is being able to screw up and not worry too badly, so flat XP works well to make the players not stress over success. Replacement characters should only trail a couple hundred XP behind the character that died for much the same reason.
  
• That said, the following XP bonus exists just for Orks: +100 XP in any session in which you took 1 or more wound. The fluff text of the 40k Ork books says that getting injured triggers a biological reaction in Orks to grow bigger and get 'arder. The rules should reflect that.
  

Again, this is all a playtest / prototype / beta / untested version of the Orky port for Dark Heresy. There's some rough edges, and the GM will have to improvise from time to time.

Good luck, and have fun!