Profit Factor

• Profit Factor is a game mechanic that represents the Explorers’ wealth, power, influence and other resources. Profit Factor means that a Rogue Trader character doesn’t really need to track “pocket money.” The group’s Profit Factor determines their relative success, meaning that the players can track how far they have come, or discover how far they need to go to reach their goal. Naturally, the higher the group’s Profit Factor, the more resources at their disposal. Towards the higher end of the scale, the Rogue Trader dynasty may control a fleet of starships, own entire planets, or establish a legend that shall be remembered for millennia.
• Profit Factor works much in the same way as a characteristic – rated between 1 and 100 (however, in the case of the very poor or the very rich, it can be higher or lower). The PCs start off ‘sharing’ their PF (since it represents the resources of their dynasty) but this can change later on and starting PF (modified by a few factors) starts between about 30-40, much like a characteristic. When a PC (or the group) want to acquire a new item, retainer or whatever they make a test against their PF and see if they get it—or if they have to wait—or it just isn’t available or out of their reach.

Acquisition Tests

Whenever an Explorer or the group wants to buy an item or commandeer an new resource, they must make an Acquisition Test.

• To Succeed at an Acquisition test you must roll equal to or under the dynasty's Profit Factor on 1d100.
• This roll is modified based on the Availability, Craftsmanship and Scale of the Item.
• If the roll is greater than the dynasty's Profit Factor, then the item is not available for the time being.

Availability is usually determined by the Narrator, while Craftsmanship and Scale are determined by the Explorers.

Automatic Success and Failure

Some items are always out of reach for explorers, while others are ridiculously easy to come by.

• If the bonuses to an acquisitions check ever increase the dynasty's Profit Factor to 100 or more before rolling, then the test is automatically passed.
• If the penalties to an acquisitions check ever decrease the dynasty's Profit Factor to 0 or less before rolling, then the test is automatically failed.

Combining Acquisitions

Some items can be upgraded to combine two or more items together. In this case, when testing to acquire the combined items, compare the Availability of the item's components and use the greatest penalty to determine a base availability modifier. Each additional component results in an additional -5% penalty to the base availability modifier.

Acquiring Starship Components

Starships and their components are some of the most astronomically expensive pieces of hardware that can be acquired by a Rogue Trader's dynasty. Starship components use the Availability and Craftsmanship modifiers but replace scale with a modifier based on the kind of component to be acquired.

Availability of Components

Component Type Modifier

Acquiring a Starship

In some cases, the explorer's may wish to acquire an entire starship. The base acquisition modifier of a starship is equal to its hull's cost in Ship Points. No additional modifiers are applied for Craftsmanship or for Scale.

Cost Is No Object

Sometimes a Rogue Trader has to stretch their resources to the limit to afford a needed item, make much needed repairs to their starship, or to acquire an early edge in a trading market to hedge out other investors. In these cases the Explorer may permanently burn his profit factor to increase his roll for this acquisition. For each point of profit factor permanently burned, the explorer receives a +10% bonus on the acquisitions check. Note that this should only be done for acquisitions that the whole group considers worthwhile.

Making Multiple Acquisition Tests

While profit factor is an exceptionally flexible resource, it is not infinite, and can be threatened by overuse and spending just like any normal resource.

• Once a player makes an Acquisition test in a session (successful or not) each subsequent test by that player has a cumulative -10% modifier. In addition, there is a cumulative 10% chance that he has attracted some unwanted attention or forgotten some detail of day to day life as a Rogue Trader.
• If a player ever fails an Acquisition test by 5 or more degrees, he must roll on the Misfortunes table to see if his reckless spending has damaged his resources.

Upkeep Tests

Even after acquiring an item, it may still be a drain on the dynasty's resources. An upkeep test may be required when:

• An acquisition is expended, damaged, or destroyed.
• When a rival or adversary attacks the dynasty's holdings or tries to steal their goods and retainers.
• When misfortunes befall the dynasty.

An upkeep test is identical to the acquisition test originally made to acquire the item, including the various acquisition modifiers for Rarity, Craftsmanship, and Scale. If successful then the item is maintained, repaired, or otherwise covered by the dynasty's resources, if not successful then one of the following choices must be made about the item in question:

• Discard the item or resource: The explorer's cannot use the acquisition until it is reacquired. An acquisition lost this way may not be reacquired until the explorer's profit factor increases.
• Downgrade the Item or Resource: The Acquisition's Craftsmanship is reduced by 1 level. This may not be selected if the item is already of poor craftsmanship.
• Downsize the item or resource: The Acquisition's Scale is reduced by 1 level. This may not be selected if the item is already of negligible scale.
• Overstretch Profit Factor: the explorers incur a -5% penalty to all Acquisition checks until their profit factor increases or until they make one of the other choices on this list.