Warhammer & 40K RPGs Thread III: With Friends Like These, Who Needs Heresies?

[LeSwordfish]

This is the thread to discuss all things related to Fantasy Flight's line of Warhammer 40000 and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying games, including Dark Heresy (Both editions), Rogue Trader, Deathwatch, Black Crusade, and Only War. Be it mechanical advice, campaign ideas, suggestions of which sourcebook to buy next, or even ideas for a 40k alphabet book, this is the place to talk about it. Please keep discussions primarily related to the wargames in their threads in the gaming (other) forum.


Useful links:
LeSwordfish's compilation of WFRP and 40k RPG games ITP (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=16620167&postcount=102): exactly what it says on the tin. PM LeSwordfish if you know of another pbp game on this forum that isn't on it.
Fantasy Flight Game's directory of RPGS, including all 5 40k subsystems as well as Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_colecciones.asp?eidc=2): You can find product descriptions as well as previews here, as well as free introductory adventures (Including a highly streamlined version of the system and pregenerated characters).

Thread One (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=255006)
Thread Two: Burning Witches, Heretics, and Fate (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?317976-Warhammer-and-WH40K-RPGs-II-Burning-Witches-Heretics-and-Fate&p=16549521)

[LeSwordfish]

I'm going to claim this post for the list of games, if I ever get back to it. Also, we were previously discussing the prospect of a new Fantasy RPG for the new Fantasy line, and what games could be used to run the 40K RPGs.

[Tychris1]

I love the smell of new thread in the morning. Smells like victory.

[The Glyphstone]

Drive me closer! I want to post here with my swordkeyboard!

[Caimheul]

Depending on the licensing agreement with FF, there may not be a new one in a new setting, unless they were planning on releasing a new one prior to the setting change. For instance, "Imperial Guard" is still plastered all throughout the DH2 book, despite GW mostly switching to the trademarkable Astra Militarum. Yes, there are references to Astra Militarum in the "Imperial Guard" background, but they didn't completely change the name.
However, if they do release another WFRPG, the fluff would likely be in the new setting for consistency's sake. But that depends on sales figures, projections, and GW licensing. They do have that strategy game using cardboard disks set for Fantasy and the card game but I don't think either of them are very fluff heavy, and the new setting would allow for new expansions.

[LeSwordfish]

For those of you not still following the old thread, new All Guardsmen Party.


Despite an absolutely glacial writing pace, the next chapter of the All Guardsmen Party is finally up!

We head out to catch a cool bug for our boss. Cells are repaired, an incredibly hostile system is visited, Space Marines are met, communications breakdown repeatedly, and a journey is started.

Here's the HTML, archive, and imgur links to The All Guardsmen Party: Tyranid Acquisition Experts:
https://googledrive.com/host/0B3Z9sXPTD9rpN2owNGdVWmdFWXM/agp.html
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/40747009
http://imgur.com/gallery/iVHrS//

---

As for licensing, even GW's own codexes still refer to the Imperial Guard. I'd imagine that the Astra Militarum is a name-change soley for copyright purposes that will be slapped only on models, codecies, and a handful of other places so it doesn't sound so wierd. Can you really blame FFG for largely ignoring the change?

If there is a new fantasy RP it probably won't be for a while, but I don't see any reason it couldn't inhabit the new universe. GW are happy to hand out their copyrights whereever they think there's money to be made - look at the slew of licenced videogames.

[Shoggy]

Thanks for crosslinking that for me, and expect a serious resurgence in fantasy RP if Total Warhammer does well.

[Destro_Yersul]

The all guardsman party kills me with laughter every time. This time through I am especially a fan of the amazing upside-down space marine, almost everything Twitch did, and the warp fungus.

[Shoggy]

Honestly I was very happy with how our DM handled the Marines. We'd sort of worried he'd wind up making them either too comedic and grimdark.

Glad you liked the fungus btw, that was a fun little flashback mission. Our DM has left all Nubby & co.'s shenanigans up to the imagination, so he can retroactively decide what happened when he needs something for the plot. In the middle of that bridge scene he had us all roll Knowledge:This Crazy-ass Ship, then suddenly shifted the setting. Very cool thing. He gets more mileage out of that trick in the future chapters.

[Turalisj]

Trying to ponder how much XP I should use for making an inquisitor.... Is there somewhere in the book with an experience suggestion for "experienced" acolytes? (DH2e)

[blacklight101]

New AGP was great to read during downtime at work today. Had to stop myself from laughing too hard a few times and got a few odd looks for it. Your DM comes up with some awesome stuff.

I know I've said it before: I love my group, but I envy you yours. You guys tell some fantastic stories.

[Shoggy]

Thanks, it's always good to hear that people are still enjoying our exploits.

[Anonymouswizard]

Trying to ponder how much XP I should use for making an inquisitor.... Is there somewhere in the book with an experience suggestion for "experienced" acolytes? (DH2e)

Basically whatever seems reasonable. (Assuming 1e because I like my careers) For an Inquisitor I'd suggest literally bottom of ascension for newbies and a thousand or two XP a year.


Out of interest, can anybody give me a point where an extra wound for 100 XP is worthwhile, before you've maxed out you're build's characteristics, skills, and talents? Because everybody I've met in person agrees with me that it's just not worth it if there's any other option useful to your build (which is why I don't like ascension suggesting players buy up lots of instances of sound constitution).

[MachineWraith]

I'm in a Rogue Trader campaign, in which I was the Navigator, but he ended up way more powerful than the rest of the party. The GM and I found a decent story-justified way to kill him off, and I'm making a Voidmaster instead, who's going to be the ship's pilot. Are there any talents, traits, or skills that would be particularly important to pick up for a ship's pilot? I'm working with 10,800 XP, if that's important. I think I'll be going Augmenticist for Rank 4, unless that's a bad idea. Any tips?

[blacklight101]

Ok, I decided to play my first caster/psyker, a librarian. Perils of the Warp and the setting being what it is, is there anything other than Rite of Sanctioning that will help keep him in one piece?

I know I have the armor and extreme toughness, but are there any little tricks I should watch for with odd little abilities or powers that arent obvious?

[The Glyphstone]

Librarians have enough raw power than they can still kick ass while Fettering their powers, so you only need to Push against boss enemies. There aren't any tricky talents though - the talents that help you channel better or reduce phenomena/Perils chance are pretty obvious.

The one DW game I played a while back, the Librarian got proficiency in heavy Melta weapon and carted a Multi-melta around, firing it and launching Smite blasts alternately as the melta cooled off. Between him and our Heavy Bolter Devastator, we pretty much annihilated everything.

[blacklight101]

I can say I had thought about getting a meltagun for just that reason. Good to know stuff isnt hidden like it can be in other systems.

I did figure I would have to push more often than against the boss monsters, but less Perils is a good thing.

[The Glyphstone]

Are you using the reduced weapon damages from Rites of Battle? Base DW is hilariously rocket-tag, one Heavy Bolter full auto burst can reduce pretty much anything in existence to paste even through significant armor, and pretty much any even-numbers fight is Win Initiative or Suffer Critical Damage.

[blacklight101]

Yes, the Errata'd ones from Rites. Just one more set of them to get confused with some other set of errata. :smallwink:

[Chijinda]

Perfect timing for this post to be up. Have a quick roleplaying query for anyone who can help out.

In my group's Dark Heresy campaign I run a Voidborn Psyker. Backstory is that he's essentially a Void-rat. Father was a pirate, mother was some generic manual labor worker. Got lifted from the Space Hulk he was living on, to the Black Ships where he was "saved" by his Inquisitor who trained him to serve.

Recently, through a variety of leaps, jumps, and shenanigans he has actually managed to marry a nobleborn girl of a family that is rapidly rising in power, and may very soon be one of the most powerful families on the most influential planet in the sector.

Basically put, my character has basically ended up in a position that should theoretically have been utterly impossible for any Psyker, let alone a Voidborn Psyker, to have ever achieved without abusing his powers, and he basically stumbled into it on a borderline accident. He knows the score, he probably has some inkling of exactly how absurd his current situation is, and I have no idea how he should be responding to his situation.

[Destro_Yersul]

paranoia, I'd say. Like it can't be for real.

[LeSwordfish]

Yes, exactly. Is someone out to get him, or is this not even real?

[comicshorse]

Preparing to defend his good fortune to his last breath

[TimeWizard]

If you want to reroll, you have a great out for that character who accepts an "Inquisitorial Sanction to Govern with Extreme Diligence". If not, it's probably a Heretic Trap. If it's not a heretic trap, I have no idea how your Inquisitor would allow you to marry a noble, but i got 5 thrones on an awfully vermillion nuptial, if'n yknow what I mean.

[Caimheul]

Another interesting point: Where is the woman in the line of succession? Depending on how low she is, her family might have figured having a sanctioned psyker in the family would be useful, bonus points if they work for the inquisition? :smallconfused:. Considering most citizens view psykers with fear and trepidation, this is a supremely odd situation... Paranoia and doubt are the most fitting responses.

My money's on a cult of Tzeentch, either the family belongs to one, or one is messing with the psyker's brain and this is all an illusion. :smallbiggrin:

[Shoggy]

I've finally started to work on getting some setting notes sorted out for the Occurrence Border. There's not much hard information there yet (and won't be until my GM or I can get some serious free time), but if anyone wants to use what there is so far (or add to it), here it is.

http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Occurrence_Border

[Chijinda]

As a handful of responses to my Psyker's situation. He's a cautious and paranoid individual by nature anyways.

As far as line of succession this noble family runs on matriarchal succession, so it's his wife that will inherit the title as head of the family, when her mother passes on, not him. Though obviously, at least in theory, he will have a name to swing around with some weight.

From what he has gathered, they do indeed intend to benefit from the fact he has Inquisitorial ties. Said nobleborn girl actually passed up the chance to marry the son of a Lord Commander. With regards to my own character, her father disapproves of the marriage, her mother is hesitant, but was in favor of the idea.

As far as why the Inquisitor would allow my character to go through with it, as mentioned he practically stumbled into it. Long string of coincidences. My character is the dutiful sort, who, when given a task will do everything in his power to complete it, regardless of unexpected surprises along the way. He met his future wife, at a party the Acolyte cell was infiltrating and ended up hitting it off with her. We found that the individuals we were investigating were targeting her for assassination. When the rest of the cell ended up following a Red Herring, my character managed to foil the assassination attempt and saved her life (much to the GM's surprise-- he'd had her slated to die in the attempt, and hadn't expected my character to be able to save her).

Later, we needed a way of cutting through the red tape to arrange a meeting with the planetary governor, so my character decided to see if he could use the "I saved your life" angle with the girl, to see if her family could use their influence on him. She answered that she was more than happy to do it, on the condition my character agree to marry her. My character is the dutiful sort, and saw this as a "small sacrifice" in the way of completing the assignment he was given, so he agreed, and well... my character keeps his promises. So now they're married.

[Caimheul]

AH! That makes MUCH more sense. The "Saved her life" angle counts for a bit, especially on top of at least somewhat liking your character. She's a) grateful, and b) going to be in a situation where she needs someone who can protect her who she can trust absolutely.
Besides having a name to throw around when necessary, the character's Influence/monthly income should be changing now... Not to mention it might be easier to access nobility in general.

@Shoggy: Love the write up of the Occurrence Border!

[Destro_Yersul]

"The Spooky Poker Room of the Damned" is my favourite thing on the Occurence Border.

[Chijinda]

I should add that specifically speaking, technically they've now been married for close to a year. GM decided to hasten events along, as our group's Assassin had met a rather ignoble end, literally the session he got married, so he hurried us along to our next assignment so the player's new character could start playing. There were a number of other details I could certainly include (including the fact that my character had to complete with aforementioned son of a Lord Commander for the girl's hand), but yes. Overall, as mentioned in my initial post, I'm just not sure how to play this character when he's interacting with his new family, or even how he should act with regards to his new position (to be fair, technically HE isn't married to the noblegirl. Technically it's the alter ego his wife's family made for him-- essentially a long lost cousin of another noble family that has been so crippled by recent events that they literally don't have the time or resources to figure out his story's bull****).


I'm not sure if he should feel ashamed of his ignoble heritage to the point that he can't use his title without another member of the family to back him up (how I've been running it so far), how much he should be using his influence, or even leaning on his family's resources (he recently had an eye torn out in a fight and doesn't have the funding for a bionic replacement). And as mentioned in a setting like 40k, and with my character's credentials, I'm not sure if he shouldn't simply be so thankful for his current position that he would avoid pushing the envelope, or if it might be more likely for someone in his position to simply embrace all the perks of the new status.

Either way, thanks for the answers so far. I'll be sure to play up his paranoia a bit more in his interactions with his new wife :P

[Caimheul]

I'm not sure if he should feel ashamed of his ignoble heritage to the point that he can't use his title without another member of the family to back him up (how I've been running it so far), how much he should be using his influence, or even leaning on his family's resources (he recently had an eye torn out in a fight and doesn't have the funding for a bionic replacement). And as mentioned in a setting like 40k, and with my character's credentials, I'm not sure if he shouldn't simply be so thankful for his current position that he would avoid pushing the envelope, or if it might be more likely for someone in his position to simply embrace all the perks of the new status.

Given the world of 40k and the status of sanctioned psykers, he should definitely feel out of place and unused to having that sort of influence/money. Obviously over time he'll grow used to it, but probably a gradual thing, as if he expects it to be taken away from him at any moment. As to the eye: I would fully expect the family to INSIST it be replaced with a Best quality bionic eye, (or a Baleful Eye if they have one as a family heirloom).

[blacklight101]

Any good pregen adventures for WFRP? Some that might be a bit shorter might be good, i'm looking at running a oneshot this summer if I have time. Any suggestions are appreciated!

[Dizlag]

Both of the free adventures on Fantasy Flight Games' website for WFRP (https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/products/warhammer-fantasy-roleplay/) called "A Day Late and a Shilling Short" and "Journey to Black Fire Pass" under the Player Resources have 4 pre-generated characters in each adventure for your characters to use. If you're running your own adventure, you've got 5 dwarves, a human female Roadwarden, a High-Elf Envoy, and a Human Grey Wizard Apprentice pre-gens from those two adventures you can use. =)

Enjoy!

Dizlag

[blacklight101]

Sweet, I'll have to give those a look. Thanks!

[Dizlag]

I ran a Day Late and a Shilling Short for my daughters in one night ... about 3 hours. But, that included making characters too. So, it really is a pretty good one-shot adventure.

I haven't run the Black Fire Pass adventure though. A bunch a dwarves in a greenskin infested pass ... I think ... what can be better? LOL

Enjoy!

Dizlag

[Leon]

Thoughts on merging aspects of the Psykana Templar from The Inquisitors Handbook into Rogue trader with a Astropath Transcendent in place of a Sanctioned Psyker.

I was initially going to go with a Witness of Dusk line of thought and after some consideration its really not the way to go for what im seeing for this idea and the Templar fit the bill much better with the Martial aspects and Psi progression.

[MachineWraith]

I've got a question on Rogue Trader. By helping them through some pretty intense combat, we earned a lot of respect from the Imperial Navy, and they (read: the GM) basically gave us free reign to design a raider-class ship to accompany our current battlecruiser. The rest of the party basically just handed a blank sheet to me. I had 60 ship points to work with, and I've got pretty much what I want out of it.

It's a Meritech Shrike-class raider, running Gryphonne-pattern torpedo tubes in the prow. My question is thus: should I mount Stygies-pattern macrocannons on the dorsal slot, or disruption macrocannons? I like the idea of being able to shut down enemy ships for capture, but we've never used torpedoes before, and I'm concerned that they have such limited ammunition. Thoughts?

Hell, while you're at it, are torpedoes even worth a damn?

[blacklight101]

Torps are absolutely worth it when they hit, 2d10+14 on basic plasma torps plus a single reroll on threes or lower is quite a lot of damage, even on larger ships. I like them when I have used them, at least. I can say im a bigger fan of sunsear lasers than stygies/disruption macros, but I like being able to outrange everything out there. Stygies if I had to pick though, ignoring armor is a nice thing to do.

Thinking on it, if a whole volley of torps hit (assuming 4 tubes) its 8d10+56 total damage. Granted, theyre rolled individually, but that could cripple a cruiser. Meritechs are a good platform for that stuff too. The free +5 to BS is nice.

[Blackhawk748]

Hello, im starting to plan out a Dark Heresy 1E campaign and i thim im gonna start the party out with a battle in an Underhive, mostly against mutants. Now i have two primary schools of thought on this: 1. Some flavor of Chaos did it, this leads through the classic trail of find the bad Chaos thing and break/kill it. 2. I have a custom created Inquisitor who is Excomunicate Traitoris that i've kinda been wanting to use. He is a mutant himself, though he has only good traits (im using the stats for a Chaos Space Marine Sorcerer for him) and he believes that mutants are the evolution of humanity. Yes i made grimdark Magneto.

Now while the initial mission isnt an issue, where to take the party from there is. Ill be honest, investigation missions are my weakest point of GMing. Interesting combat? Ya. Quirky characters? Totally. Basic Mystery? Nope, i fail. So i come before this august group of individuals asking for help.

Ill lay out the basics that i have so far:
1. Mutant attacks in the Underhive of X have increased.
2. The party goes to investigate and get attacked (the mutants are Beastmen)
3.The party gets backup from another tribe of mutants (different Beastmen)
4. Nice Beastmen explain that their ancestors where cursed by a Sorcerer for not helping him and that they still worship the Emperor. (hopefully the party decides not to shoot them) The go on to say that the Bad Beastmen have been attacking people because of *BBEG* Nice Beastmen point party in direction of Bad Beastmen's base.
5. Party begins checking area around Bad Beastmen base. Fight more Beastmen. Eventually figure out where base is. Purge it.
6. Find clue linking supposed BBEG to larger organization. Head to next mission.

So thats all ive got, and its pretty bare bones i havent committed to either path yet. Note that while the Inquisitor (his name is Tolbrun Kahn) is Excomunicate, he will not use Chaos powers. Hes pro mutant, not pro Chaos.

[Shoggy]

I've returned from the mountains and writing has resumed! Here's a short interlude from between where the last chapter left off and where the next chapter starts!

Now, this started as an intro piece, but it became far too large, so I split it off. As a result, the writing style is a bit different from usual, and significantly more raw party dialogue has been left in. So I'd like to apologize in advance if the language gets a little crude, it's Aimy's fault.

The All Guardsmen Party Interlude: Dewarp
HTML: https://googledrive.com/host/0B3Z9sXPTD9rpN2owNGdVWmdFWXM/dewarp.html

SupTG Archive: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/42204030/

Silly Image Thing: http://imgur.com/gallery/c0kerRl/

[MachineWraith]

Hello, im starting to plan out a Dark Heresy 1E campaign and i thim im gonna start the party out with a battle in an Underhive, mostly against mutants. Now i have two primary schools of thought on this: 1. Some flavor of Chaos did it, this leads through the classic trail of find the bad Chaos thing and break/kill it. 2. I have a custom created Inquisitor who is Excomunicate Traitoris that i've kinda been wanting to use. He is a mutant himself, though he has only good traits (im using the stats for a Chaos Space Marine Sorcerer for him) and he believes that mutants are the evolution of humanity. Yes i made grimdark Magneto.

Now while the initial mission isnt an issue, where to take the party from there is. Ill be honest, investigation missions are my weakest point of GMing. Interesting combat? Ya. Quirky characters? Totally. Basic Mystery? Nope, i fail. So i come before this august group of individuals asking for help.

Ill lay out the basics that i have so far:
1. Mutant attacks in the Underhive of X have increased.
2. The party goes to investigate and get attacked (the mutants are Beastmen)
3.The party gets backup from another tribe of mutants (different Beastmen)
4. Nice Beastmen explain that their ancestors where cursed by a Sorcerer for not helping him and that they still worship the Emperor. (hopefully the party decides not to shoot them) The go on to say that the Bad Beastmen have been attacking people because of *BBEG* Nice Beastmen point party in direction of Bad Beastmen's base.
5. Party begins checking area around Bad Beastmen base. Fight more Beastmen. Eventually figure out where base is. Purge it.
6. Find clue linking supposed BBEG to larger organization. Head to next mission.

So thats all ive got, and its pretty bare bones i havent committed to either path yet. Note that while the Inquisitor (his name is Tolbrun Kahn) is Excomunicate, he will not use Chaos powers. Hes pro mutant, not pro Chaos.

I will say that I find the Grimdark Magneto angle a lot more interesting than the generic "Chaos did it" option. Of course, you could always have both. Tolbrun could be getting funding and supplies from mysterious backers that turn out to be worshipers of Tzeentch or something, and would probably himself be unaware of their chaotic leanings. Gives you a nice "how deep does the rabbit hole go" kind of situation. It'll also set the party up to really hate the cultists, because if you play Tolbrun up to be an almost sympathetic baddie (which is how I'd run him), then the party will have to put him down, but may regret the necessity. Then they find out that he was unknowingly backed by chaos, and really hate the cultists for their mustache-twirling evil.

Personally, I'd place the backers very high up in local society. That way you've got your dirty, nasty, combat-heavy underhive, and a tense, almost political situation in the upper levels of the hive dealing with nobility. Gives everybody something to do. On top of that, it gives you a convenient way to let your players start getting some nice toys, if things do go south, politically speaking. That is, if they survive being on the receiving end of those toys ...

[Blackhawk748]

I will say that I find the Grimdark Magneto angle a lot more interesting than the generic "Chaos did it" option. Of course, you could always have both. Tolbrun could be getting funding and supplies from mysterious backers that turn out to be worshipers of Tzeentch or something, and would probably himself be unaware of their chaotic leanings. Gives you a nice "how deep does the rabbit hole go" kind of situation. It'll also set the party up to really hate the cultists, because if you play Tolbrun up to be an almost sympathetic baddie (which is how I'd run him), then the party will have to put him down, but may regret the necessity. Then they find out that he was unknowingly backed by chaos, and really hate the cultists for their mustache-twirling evil.

Personally, I'd place the backers very high up in local society. That way you've got your dirty, nasty, combat-heavy underhive, and a tense, almost political situation in the upper levels of the hive dealing with nobility. Gives everybody something to do. On top of that, it gives you a convenient way to let your players start getting some nice toys, if things do go south, politically speaking. That is, if they survive being on the receiving end of those toys ...

Thanks, thats a great plan. Now my only problem is doing political machinations. (not my strong suit :smalltongue:)

[MachineWraith]

Thanks, thats a great plan. Now my only problem is doing political machinations. (not my strong suit :smalltongue:)

Well, GD Magneto could be using a mutagenic chemical to create more mutants, on top of the ones I'm sure he can already find, and can be getting material support (ie guns) from somewhere. Both of those indicate treachery against the Imperium. The guns could be coming from a local aristocrat that has a hand in firearms manufacture on or off world. Since he's wealthy and well-connected - not to mention how many guns he's likely to have - the party won't want to take him on directly. They'd have to find a way to maneuver him out of favor with the planetary governor, or maybe with his people in the gun making business. This could range from simply ruining his profits or making him look the ass at a big social function to just straight up outing him as a traitor against the Imperium. The latter course would require significant proof, obviously.

For playing the aristocrat, I'd basically just go for a smart but supremely narcissistic ass, probably with a very competent majordomo. The nobleman shouldn't really believe he could ever be caught, and most of the action taken against the players should be his majordomo working to protect him from his own arrogance. Looking up character histories, discrediting them, cutting off resources and avenues of approach (ways to get into the fancy party) or escape (ways off the planet once the super-rich guy wants them dead).

The mutagen can be what's coming from your Tzeentchian cult. GD Magneto thinks it's just a chemical that induces changes in genetic structure, and that may be what shows up under a chemical analysis, but it's also got a dash of the ol' Ruinous Powers thrown in for good measure, both accelerating and guiding the mutation process, and making anyone who takes the drug at least partially under Tzeentch's influence. Unknowingly, Mags has been creating a superhuman army dedicated to Tzeentch the whole time. You could even have a dramatic betrayal by his second in command, and have him fight alongside the players against him. Anyway, point is, this is where your nasty combat can come in, with different types of mutants bringing completely different dangers into each combat, and all the fun **** that can pop up in a hive stack. Don't feel limited by what the book has for mutants, either. Use pop culture and find some fun stuff, like mutants who spit highly corrosive acid in a flamer template, or a small group of mutants that focus their collective telepathy on individual party members to make them stop fighting, or even turn on their allies.

Apologies if any of this is incoherent, I haven't had coffee yet this morning. :smallsigh:

[Blackhawk748]

List O' Wonderful Stuff

I love that last suggestion. Kahn is supposed to be a sympathetic villain and that right there sells it, also always of fan of stabbing Tzeentch, so much more satisfying than fighting Khorne.

[Blackhawk748]

Ok i have the party comp

Blighted Schola Adeptus Sororitas
Feral World Penal Legionnaire (at least im pretty sure he went with Penal Legionnaire)
Hive Mutant Assassin w/ Aberration and Hideous Strength (that she rolled 100 was the least surprising thing ive heard all week :smalltongue:)

They will be working for Inquisitor Staven Arcturos, well his Interrogators anyway. Right now ive only got one Interrogator planned out and i intended to have 3.

Ragnar Bloodklaw

Ragnar is a massive, grizzled bear of a man, who wields a massive Power Axe and an equally massive Shotgun. He is clad in thick slabs of Carapace armor at all times and looks more like a crazed barbarian than an Inquisitorial agent, the cloak made out of a bear that he killed with his bare hands isnt helping.

Ragnar will be their CO in the Lower and Underhive.

So i need ideas for two more Interrogators, one needs to be their CO in the Upper Hive and the other will probably be investigating things outside the Hive. Also i need a planet, though worst case scenario ill just make one up :smalltongue:

Edit: I've figured out just how the "True BBEG" path is going to go. The Party will be introdiced to Tolbrun, and probably think he's the main villain, then they find out he is being manipulated by the Upper Hive Noble (Tolbrun is aware of this attempted manipulation), the Noble in turn is a puppet for a Tzeentch Cult who is trying to simply destabalize the planet and hopefully the surrounding systems. Finally the Tzeentch Cult is being set up by a Phaenonite Cabal which was simply using them as a convenient deniable asset, as they wanted to know how well the mutagen and several weapons worked.

So the True BBEG will be a Phaenonite Inquisitor....who i need to create. Will probably be a heavy conversion cyborg and a Psyker.

[bluntpencil]

As I dislike the Influence rules as is (preferring to have it handled via a combination of Fellowship and GM fiat), I've been toying with a grid-based system for applying the 9 stats in DH 2.0. It allows for more powerful characters than standard rolling and point buy, but still quite random.

Note: I replace Influence with Intelligence for both Highborn and Feral Worlder.

First, you pick a Homeworld, then roll stats in a 3 x 3 grid. Your Homeworld's strong and weak stats aren't rolled.

I'll show it using an example.



Forge World
Agility
Perception
Willpower


Weapon Skill
2d10+10
2d10+10
2d10+10


Ballistic Skill
2d10+10
2d10+10
2d10+10


Strength
2d10+10
2d10+10
2d10+10



The same square can't be used twice. Pick until you've selected for the six stats on the table.

Then, for the strong stats (Intelligence and Toughness here): Roll 3d10(Pick Highest 2) + 20 three times, assigning the highest two as you like.

For the low stat: Roll 3d10 (Pick lowest 2) +20.


There are no re-rolls. The strong stats get a little stronger, the low stat a little weaker.

[Lord Magtok]

Strange (series of) question(s) time!

Is carapace armor magnetic?

How many frag grenades could one fit in a magboot?

If carapace armor is, in fact, magnetic, could you stick a magboot stuffed full of frag grenades to a major boss enemy's carapace armor midfight, run away, and then have a party member (like say, the firebreathing psyker) shoot the boot and explode the target? Would this work better with some other kind of grenade, or maybe a krak missile?

[Arcades]

From what I read on Lexicanum and the handbook, carapace armor is made of ceramite (ceramic derivative) and plasteel (a synthetic polymer, which is not made of steel, it just has steel like resistance), so no, it isn't magnetical.
I suppose it could be customized to add a magnetical patch to store things, but it isn't standard.

A frag grenade is the size of a clenched fist (DH hadbook) so if by magboot you mean a magnetic boot, I suppose 2, maybe 3.

By the way, I don't think that would be really that effective. Each grenade deals 2d10 damage, and your boss is going to have at least 10 damage reduction.
Krak things work MUCH better against single target heavily armored enemies. A krak missile is kind hard to get (and fire), but in dark heresy it is going to kill anything short of a demonhost. A grenade launcher with a few krak grenades is usually pretty easy to acquire (you just need someone with training in launcher weapons) and is usually able to incapacitate any humanoid enemy in one or two shots.

[Blackhawk748]

From what I read on Lexicanum and the handbook, carapace armor is made of ceramite (ceramic derivative) and plasteel (a synthetic polymer, which is not made of steel, it just has steel like resistance), so no, it isn't magnetical.
I suppose it could be customized to add a magnetical patch to store things, but it isn't standard.

A frag grenade is the size of a clenched fist (DH hadbook) so if by magboot you mean a magnetic boot, I suppose 2, maybe 3.

By the way, I don't think that would be really that effective. Each grenade deals 2d10 damage, and your boss is going to have at least 10 damage reduction.
Krak things work MUCH better against single target heavily armored enemies. A krak missile is kind hard to get (and fire), but in dark heresy it is going to kill anything short of a demonhost. A grenade launcher with a few krak grenades is usually pretty easy to acquire (you just need someone with training in launcher weapons) and is usually able to incapacitate any humanoid enemy in one or two shots.


Seconding the Krak Grenades, those things should just have "Boss Killer" written on them.

On an unrelated note what do you guys think Beastmen should have for mutations (im taking about the Goat Man variety) currently im thinking Unnatural Toughness x2, and having horns that do 1d10 I.

It looks kinda like this right now:
WS 32 BS 22 S 46 T 36 (6) Ag 32 Int 18 Per 30 Wp 25 Fel 20
Wounds 14
Traits: Brutal Charge, Natural Armor (2), Natural Weapons Horns 1d10+4, Unnatural Toughness x2
Skills:Climb, Common Lore (Underhive), Concealment, Speak Language (low Gothic), Survival +10
Talents: Basic Weapon Training (Solid Projectile, Primitive), Melee Weapon Training (Primitive), Sprint


Im considering adding Stampede as it seems fitting, im just sure how often its gonna come up. Im also considering adding Unnatural Speed as Beastmen are fast.

[Turalisj]

Idly made stats for the galvanic rifle:

Galvanic Rifle
Class: Basic
Range: 125m
RoF: S/3/-
Dam: 1d10+5 X
Pen: 5
Clip: 18
Rld: Full
Special: Accurate, Razor Sharp
Availability: ?

This is simply going off of the stats from the codex as a start. They're slightly better at punching through armor than a standard bolter, with a slightly better range. A cross between an assault rifle and a marksman's rifle, in one nice little railgun package. Extremely rare outside of the Skitarii, as the Adeptus Mechanicus doesn't like sharing their toys.

[Leon]

Carapace can have Mag strips added (such as in the case of the Arbites Set) for weapons and such but isn't inherently magnetic

[Blackhawk748]

Idly made stats for the galvanic rifle:

Galvanic Rifle
Class: Basic
Range: 125m
RoF: S/3/-
Dam: 1d10+5 X
Pen: 5
Clip: 18
Rld: Full
Special: Accurate, Razor Sharp
Availability: ?

This is simply going off of the stats from the codex as a start. They're slightly better at punching through armor than a standard bolter, with a slightly better range. A cross between an assault rifle and a marksman's rifle, in one nice little railgun package. Extremely rare outside of the Skitarii, as the Adeptus Mechanicus doesn't like sharing their toys.

Very nice, i would set it at Very Rare unless your on a Forge World, then its just Rare. I would so use this.

[Razgriez]

Hey everyone, so I know I began asking questions in this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?442659-Need-help-understanding-some-of-WH40K-Dark-Heresy-2nd-edition-rules). Didn't see this thread before hand, my mistake. So, going to post here now to help cut down on forum clutter. This is all for 2nd edition DH

Anyways, so here's some further questions from me, so I know what to do for character, and campaign building.

So game play question, does Armor Penetration from an attack reduce the effectiveness of Toughness bonus if it breaks through the armor, and still have points left over? I.E., Character A fires a shot with an AP of 6 at Target B. with a total AV of 7 (4 armor, 3 TB). Would the Damage Reduction that's ignored be 4, or 6, with 1 point of damage reduced?

Character Build questions:

1. What are the typical party roles for the Backgrounds and/or Roles? (I.E., Tank, "DPS" (or more acurrately, DPR, Damage Per Round), Burst/single attack Damage Dealer, Healer, Support, etc) Ignoring mage because that's clearly Psyker, with a few Tech-Priest builds. And what's their typical equipment?

2. Also, when creating my character, how should I spend the initial 1000 XP? Destro_Yersul told me the basic part (Read: Making sure to purchase things which I have two Aptitudes to keep XP costs down at first). But how much should I focus on Attribute advances, skills, and Talents?

3. Now, I know weapons can only receive up to 4 modifications. But, what about custom weaponry? I.E. Changing a weapon so it gains more or different special qualities. say for example, if my character was to walk up to a Tech-Priest and say "So, we're going to a planet, and there seems to be a slight Ork problem, and by slight, I mean "Full-Scale Waaaagh!". And since requisitioning a Storm Bolter may be a bit hard, I was thinking, could you hook up these two Lasguns/pistols, and turn them into a Las-storm weapon? (I.E. give a Lasgun, or Laspistol the "storm" or "twin-Linked" quality by getting a custom made double barrel Las weapon.)." If so, how would that affect rarity, and for requisitioning powerpacks?

Also, should my character be ready to duck any potential incoming Servo-Arm swipe for asking that?

[Destro_Yersul]

So game play question, does Armor Penetration from an attack reduce the effectiveness of Toughness bonus if it breaks through the armor, and still have points left over? I.E., Character A fires a shot with an AP of 6 at Target B. with a total AV of 7 (4 armor, 3 TB). Would the Damage Reduction that's ignored be 4, or 6, with 1 point of damage reduced?

No. AP only reduces armour. Toughness bonus can never be reduced, though there are certain types of attack which ignore armour and toughness completely.


1. What are the typical party roles for the Backgrounds and/or Roles? (I.E., Tank, "DPS" (or more acurrately, DPR, Damage Per Round), Burst/single attack Damage Dealer, Healer, Support, etc) Ignoring mage because that's clearly Psyker, with a few Tech-Priest builds. And what's their typical equipment?

2. Also, when creating my character, how should I spend the initial 1000 XP? Destro_Yersul told me the basic part (Read: Making sure to purchase things which I have two Aptitudes to keep XP costs down at first). But how much should I focus on Attribute advances, skills, and Talents?

3. Now, I know weapons can only receive up to 4 modifications. But, what about custom weaponry? I.E. Changing a weapon so it gains more or different special qualities. say for example, if my character was to walk up to a Tech-Priest and say "So, we're going to a planet, and there seems to be a slight Ork problem, and by slight, I mean "Full-Scale Waaaagh!". And since requisitioning a Storm Bolter may be a bit hard, I was thinking, could you hook up these two Lasguns/pistols, and turn them into a Las-storm weapon? (I.E. give a Lasgun, or Laspistol the "storm" or "twin-Linked" quality by getting a custom made double barrel Las weapon.)." If so, how would that affect rarity, and for requisitioning powerpacks?

Also, should my character be ready to duck any potential incoming Servo-Arm swipe for asking that?

1: They don't necessarily line up, since DH is not, by nature, an entirely combat focused game. A good guide is the role bonus. In general: Assassins are focused on attack, Chirurgeons on support/healing, Desperados on mobility, Hierophants on social skills, Mystics on Psyker Shenanigans, Sages on lore and general skills, Seekers on tracking and information gathering, Warriors on combat (though not tanking, because they lack the Toughness aptitude). There is a certain amount of possible customisation, though. A Voidborn Adeptus Arbites Chirurgeon could be built as a tank. A Hive World Imperial Guard Desperado would make a good infiltrator. Forge-World Mechanicus Assassins can handle healing and lore skills. Popular equipment (for literally everyone) is a grapnel gun with a drop harness. Auspexes, dataslates, some way to see in the dark, and a handful of skill-specific tools are all good investments.

One thing that's important to remember is that most healing takes place outside of combat. The only way to get in-combat healing is with a Psyker who's pretty deep into the Biomancy tree, and the Endurance power is only good for healing one or two wounds every 12 hours.

2: You want a good mix. If you're a combat character it's important to advance your main combat characteristic (BS/WS), with a smaller focus on Toughness, Agility (esp. if you have Dodge) and Strength (If you do melee). If you're a support character it's probably better to only buy a couple chracteristic advances for your most important stats, and focus on skills after that. Talents are always expensive, so don't buy too many of those at first.

3: Talk to your GM about that. As written, I don't think DH2 has any mechanic for your example. And yes, prepare to duck servo-arms. You may also consider porting in weapons from other game lines. The assorted systems are (more or less) compatible, especially the weapon statblocks.

[Chijinda]

Okay, new question, same character as last time. Our party's fallen on hard times, our former Inquisitor's ship is being run by a skeleton crew that's getting smaller every day. My character's decided to try and fix that by recruiting some new crew for the ship. For that, we need money. And a lot of it, since our group doesn't presently have a rosarius behind us.

Fortunately in a recent assignment the group discovered a species of xenos predator, thought to be extinct was in fact, very much alive. The creatures are still going around, and it so happens that the creatures (essentially gigantic wormlike beasts) are covered in scales of comparable hardness and durability to adamantium plates. A single one of these scales can sell for a hefty sum, and even a small one of these guys is covered in hundreds of such scales, fully grown adults, thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands.

So my character's decided to try and use this knowledge and start a business hunting and poaching the creatures. Or rather, hiring mercenaries and game hunters to do it for him.

Biggest issue is going to be equipping the mercs for the job. As mentioned above, these beasties are covered in scales that mechanically essentially functions as power armor. During our encounters with them, I believe we worked out that they have a damage reduction of around 13 or 14, with wounds in excess of 20. As such, if my character has to outfit a group for hunting them... he'll need cheap means of getting past such strong defenses.

Does anyone have suggestions as to cheap ways of getting past high armor, that could reasonably be arranged to outfit an entire hunting party for dealing with apex predators like this?

[Shadowy]

Poison. Get a giant canister of some Admech industrial waste, cover it in grox blood, drop it on the planet's surface and wait for a corpse. Cheaper then mercs.*

*Side effects may include mutation, hardening of scales, dissolving your intended prize, or mutating the predator into a titan-sized monster that spews acid.

[The Glyphstone]

Or rig corpses with grenades/melta charges.

But yeah, if these things are so tough on the outside, the simple solution seems to be to go at them from the inside.

[Lord Magtok]

Krak grenades are especially good at ruining armored targets, and aren't anywhere near as expensive as a meltagun.

[LeSwordfish]

This thread is not quite beyond the necro limit! Hello again all.

I'm running a game of Only War IRL next semester, and its going to be the first IRL game i've GM'd. Aside from any tips on that in general, i'd appreciate if some people could look over and give advice on the session plans i've written up. They're fairly simple plans for now, but I've got a while to flesh them out.

The party will be:

Seven interested players - so i'm going to guess at 5-7 per session.
Variety of skill levels- some have never played an RPG, some have played lots of FFG games.
They want to play urban Only War, with a light infantry regiment. Precise regiment details haven't been decided yet but i suspect we'll see a mixed regiment between some kind of sneaky light infantry and some kind of stabby feudal worlders - there's talk of kilts and bagpipes.
Enemies wanted are humans and orks. I'm going to keep that to Severans and Orks for the sake of simplicity, and not having the campaign be some ludicrous Dawn Of War-style free-for-all.



My plan is for session one:
The game starts with the players in the camp follower area of their own encampment. They’ve got some leave and are able to be flexible with their time. Just before the game begins, several members of the adeptus mechanicus and the atmospherics cadre pass through the camp past the players, escorting a rig of (though the players won’t know it) ice-coring equipment. The rig is escorted by a set of guards from the Scintillan 35th Fusilliers, who give the players scornful looks as they pass, possibly even spitting on any of them that look particularly rough.

While the players mull over this, they have some free time to act as they wish. The camp and regimental encampment will be mapped, so they can try and requisition equipment (through legitimate or illegitimate channels), get customisations done, drink, gamble, attempt to enact retribution on the Scintillans. I can flesh out certain locations and NPCs, and run this section fairly freeform. When it starts to flag, move on to:

First Mission! Players are contacted by vox or runner, and asked to meet their platoon commander for a tactical briefing. The ice-coring material is for measuring the thickness and strength of the river ice: the river is now frozen over and an all-out assault is being launched across it. The severan dominate has fortified the bridges with tank traps and gun emplacements, so the imperials are going to ignore them and go straight across the ice. The scintillan mechanised infantry is leading the charge, and the job of the players regiment is to infiltrate into the gun emplacements and destroy or capture them. The players’ squad has been tasked with one particular bridge. They have to reach it before the assault begins and then capture it at a specific time. Ways to reach the emplacement include sneaking across the bridge (difficult stealth, right into the teeth of the emplacement) across the underside of the bridge (agility tests, might be booby-trapped), across the ice (easier stealth, at night) - and an alternative i’m thinking of is a transit tunnel under the river, which would be guarded, meaning a fight.

The emplacement itself will be a tricky fight, though if they cross the river, the guns will be largely pointed away from them. It will include at least one defensible bunker, and probably a pair of lascannons set up to cover the bridge and the river. Inside the bunker will be a problem they can’t solve with shooting it - a suicidal severan officer with a primed grenade next to the gun controls, perhaps. Once the emplacement is captured, they can turn the guns on the fight on the ice and support the imperials for a little while before the severans launch a counter-assault. This will include a “boss fight” - a Leman Russ, perhaps - and will require the use of the emplacement guns to defeat. Once the counter-assault is defeated, the mission is over.

For session two:
With the imperial assault across the bridges complete and a significant portion of the city in imperial hands, the player’s squad is pulled from the frontline to act, with the rest of their platoon and a group of Scintillans, as escorts for a convoy of artillery moving into firing position. They take the rear of the convoy, but are summoned aside when a squad of Scintillans go missing. They follow the tracks of the scintillans to a manor house, which the nobles are looting for luxuries to sell on the black market. Valentine, the leader of the scintillans, is unashamed about what he is doing, and attempts to bribe the players to leave. This might include offering a duel to one. While this is going on, the owner of the house- who is still there, and did not leave with the other civilians when the fighting began- activates the house vox system on full blast, washing out all other transmissions and attracting the attention of the Severan Dominate.

As the players conflict with Valentine reaches it’s conclusion - in a fight, duel, or with the players helping the scintillans loot, the severans begin their attack with a bombardment. (This will conveniently save Valentine’s life, if he takes a killing blow.) While the bombardment continues the players must find the owner - a wizened little ex-guardsman, who was mostly just scared of the strangers in his house and trying to activate a beacon for rescue. They shut down the beacon, allowing them to call for help, and have to hold off a severan attack with the Scintillans until help arrives, in the form of the rest of the convoy.


So, any comments or suggestions? I want to tailor to the specific skills of the players, but having these two sessions down in stone will give me enough time to do that. In addition, any general advice on GM'ing the lines would also be very helpful.

[Rizhail]

Welcome to the wonderful world of actual tabletop DMing!

The scenarios you've posted sound like a lot of fun, but I'm going to give my one major piece of RL DM advice: expect that every plan you've come up with will go out the window. I know you've probably learned this from PbP, but it honestly goes double for RL gaming.

Unless your players are basically clones of you, they're going to come up with creative and hilarious things that end up derailing your plans, or they will attempt solutions that are completely out of left field to you but completely sensible to them. For instance, fully expect someone to suggest grabbing climbing equipment and attempting to skirt along the side of the bridge rather than over or under, on the basis that "well, of course they trapped the underside and have barricades on top, but who would expect someone to shimmy along the edge?" At least one will likely suggest some sort of scuba diving or something, since you mentioned that there is a large machine capable of boring into the ice (doesn't matter that it's for ice-coring and depth determination, one of them will try to find a way to steal/requisition its use). If my regular players ever started talking of a regiment involving kilts and bagpipes, I would instantly expect things to derail within the opening description of the scenario. See: the time they all, independently, decided to be Space Wolves in Deathwatch.

Now, none of this is meant as a negative, because I've honestly never had as much fun in gaming as when the players basically took over the scenario and made it their own, but be ready for some major improv. If you're prepared for it, you'll either be pleasantly surprised when they follow the plan, or you'll have a great time since you were prepared when the players hopped on the crazy train.

So, advice specifically for your first session:

-Make sure to give them some memorable NPCs amongst the Scintillans, someone who they actually like or at least respect; an NCO with a funny accent who actually likes their regiment or something. They NEED to have some reason to WANT to accomplish their mission on time, or something to regret if they screw up or things don't go their way. It's the Imperial Guard, after all; they could easily excuse being a little late on capturing the objective, leading to losses amongst the Scintillans assaulting across the bridge and not care that some of the noble bastards got shot. But if they know that Sergeant von Fontlebottom, the crazy old NCO who they were sharing drinks and tall tales with earlier is going to be leading the charge, they'll potentially want to actually get the job done promptly so they aren't having to mourn him later. Alternately, don't tell them he was part of the assault, and when they inevitably screw up, relate that he died for it and let the impact of being cogs in the Imperial machine sink in during the post mission debriefing.

Even if you want to really stoke the fires of competition between the two regiments, it helps to humanize someone on the other side, because if not, this is a game and the players will happily let bad things happen to them (which often leads to complete derailing of the campaign and over the top antics, at least in my experience. But if you like that sort of thing, disregard the above advice :smalltongue:)

-Rule of three: make sure there are at least 3 ways to solve any problem. While the players will likely provide more, they don't always, and may miss one or more of the solutions you've provided. It's no fun to have to basically say "You blew up the emplacement guns due to *random shenanigans*, now you're going to get killed by a tank" and having to fudge things too heavily. Maybe the enemy had some krak missile launchers or melta bombs on hand to back up the emplacement guns, or the players find out there are demo charges available on the black market in their camp before the mission and think "yeah, more explosives, THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT WE NEED!"

Because I can practically guarantee that the players will say "screw it, we're blowing 'em up" at some point during the process of assaulting the guns. Providing a little bit of a hope spot when the boss-tank (or whatever) shows up can go a long way toward avoiding the players losing enthusiasm ("well, we can't win without the guns that we blew up and there's nothing else to do. yay.") Finding out that blowing up the guns means they have to close to melta bomb range or get a rear shot with a one-shot krak launcher provides a nice bit of drama/suspense compared to finding out they're just plain hosed.

-Otherwise, nothing really to add. Sounds like a fun intro to 40k and tabletop gaming.

Hope that helps, and have fun!

[Blackhawk748]

Oh this is gonna be fun.

Firstly, heres their theme song (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCGB81DBzOc), no they dont get any say :smalltongue:

Secondly, everything Rizhail said. They will do insane off the wall things, one of them may beat someone to death with a bagpipe (i know i would). They all start acting like they are Gaunt'a Ghosts. In short prepare for madness! :smallbiggrin:

Seeing hat you have you should be fine, you seem to have a solid outline there with room to maneuver in case they use their Plotbane Monkeywrench

[LeSwordfish]

Welcome to the wonderful world of actual tabletop DMing!

The scenarios you've posted sound like a lot of fun, but I'm going to give my one major piece of RL DM advice: expect that every plan you've come up with will go out the window. I know you've probably learned this from PbP, but it honestly goes double for RL gaming.

True true - a big benefit of Only War however is that you can only go so far off-track while still achieving your mission objectives - While I will run some more freeform sessions, those that say, for example, "blow up this bridge" can be reasonably reliably assumed to include an attempt to blow up a bridge. 25% chance, say.



-Make sure to give them some memorable NPCs amongst the Scintillans, someone who they actually like or at least respect; an NCO with a funny accent who actually likes their regiment or something.
Will do. Will talk about this more later- since posting i've defined some clearer ideas for the campaign overall, and this ties into that.


Even if you want to really stoke the fires of competition between the two regiments, it helps to humanize someone on the other side, because if not, this is a game and the players will happily let bad things happen to them (which often leads to complete derailing of the campaign and over the top antics, at least in my experience. But if you like that sort of thing, disregard the above advice :smalltongue:)

My personal style tends far more towards "tell an interesting story and make interesting choices" than "bomb the poshos for giggles" so yes, definitely.

-Rule of three: make sure there are at least 3 ways to solve any problem. While the players will likely provide more, they don't always, and may miss one or more of the solutions you've provided.

Good advice! I'm hoping the players will bring along some AT of their own, but an additional route or two could be useful as well - there's no reason the severans wouldn't have an extra cannon rigged to cover the bridge, or a extra box of tank mines in the back, or something. That aside, there's always the option of sending something lighter in instead. One disadvantage of human enemies is that there are fewer good boss fights.

---

So! Overall campaign structure. This is going to be, at a guess, 8-10 sessions, and i'll probably write a few more for the inevitable situation when only one player turns up.


The players regiment, plus the scintillans, plus the Somethingth Something Big Artillery and a single Knight Freeblade, are deployed to Selene, a pleasure world on the edge of severan space. Both the Imperium and the Dominate want it because it's a good staging and flanking position, but the planet is just about to enter the hundred-year winter season of its orbit. Only one area of the planet will be habitable for this time - the capital city, heated by big geothermal generators. (So no, they can't just shell the planet and be done.)

Also on-planet: an archipelago full of feral orks. The dominate posted a naval fleet and a few fortresses around it to stop the orks from escaping, but have been steadily cutting back on this to redeploy the soldiers here to the imperium.

Just before the game starts, a Chimera full of supplies for the Scintillans has been pinched. The scintillans blame the players' regiment - which is why they're such ********s early on, not just a class thing - and Commissar Dunsterville - a well-meaning but naive young Junior, the Scintillan discipline officer - has been tasked with finding it.

As part of investigating why the Scintillans are such pricks, the players will run into Dunsterville, who it'll be pretty easy to get the information out of - technically he's not meant to say, but he's an easy target for Decieve or Charm. Mystery: successfully set up. Likable idiot in the Scintillan ranks: planted.

As the campaign progresses and the armies push through the city, more and more important gear is stolen - we can have a session or two with the players tasked with investigating this, so sessions less focussed on fighting. There is a Scintillan black market, as the players will discover, but they simply couldn't have stolen this much stuff, they're just a red herring. The final piece of kit to be stolen is the largest: The freeblade knight itself!

This turns out to be Ork Kommandos, working under the direction of a Big Mek who has arrived from offworld to shake up the ferals. The Big Mek has a kustom tellyporta large enough to transport vehicles, which he is using to steal the equipment. Fundamentally the Big Mek should get away from his encounters with the players, since he'll be back later. The orks can be used more if the players want silly, or less if not.

As the campaign finishes, the last few sessions are given over to one big mega-mission as the imperium pushes through the city. The players are tasked with infiltrating deep into the city to kill the severan leader - however as they start to do so the Orks launch an all-out assault, spearheaded by the Mek's biggest contraption yet - a massive icebreaker built from the purloined goods and a stolen battleship. The players are sideways ordered to sneak aboard and destroy it, but while aboard the tide turns, the severans successfully counter-assault, and the players are trapped between two enemy forces and a ticking clock.

The only way off the battleship? The Big Mek's tellyporta - which is coincidentally attached at the time to his (now extensively kustomised) stolen imperial knight. Boss fight! The players kill the mek, steal the knight/the smoking ruins of the knight, and hopefully arrive at the severan leader's front door in a crashing, exploding, teleporting ork walker. Session ends.

Final session: kill the severan leader, complete their mission, tea and crumpets and medals all around. (Yes, this one needs work, if only so as not to be overshadowed by the last.)

[blacklight101]

Well, congrats on getting a table game together as much organization as that takes. I think OW should be a good shot for your first time out, so to speak. My first was a game of RT that petered out (was having fun, just got a bit overwhelmed after a couple months) and FFG seems to put out a solid system for this sort of thing. It seems easier than d&d to a degree.

Seems like you have a relatively solid structure for the adventure so far and I know I cant wait to hear the after action reports. I cant give any real advice, what with my total lack of experience, but good luck nonetheless!

[Grim Portent]

I'm toying with the idea of running a Dark Eldar themed game using a modified version of Black Crusade, Only War and Rogue Trader all cobbled together, and I'm thinking of using the progression system from Black Crusade rather than the careers from Rogue Trader and I'm trying to think of some archetypes to use.

So far I'm thinking:

Mandrake (Stealth/Ritual) - special ability based on their shadow stepping.

Incubus (Melee combat, More melee combat) - not sure what to do for a special ability.

Trueborn Kabalite (Combat, Diplomacy) - Rerolls/Bonuses to command/charm/intimidate citizens of Commorragh.

Half-born Kabalite (Combat, Survival) - Rerolls/Bonuses to find/acquire rare goods, hidden information etc.

Scourge (Flying, Ranged Combat, Diplomacy) - once again not sure what to give as an ability. Flight alone seems insufficient since any DE could buy it in theory.

Reaver (Pilot, Mobility) - can use pilot tests instead of dodge while riding skyboards and similar equipment.

Haemonculus (Medicine, Lore, Tech-Use) - has the ability to gain 1d10 corruption points to stay alive as if burning a fate point.

Anyone got any ideas for DE archetypes I've missed or got any ideas for a special ability for Scourges and Incubi?

I haven't forgotten about Wyches by the way, I'm just not sure how to best represent them, maybe as a variant of the two Kabalites or something.

[The Glyphstone]

Some sort of hit-and-run or Spring Attack-like ability for Scourges, perhaps?

Incubi are most famous for being skilled bodyguards, in addition to melee combat. Maybe some sort of ability to intercede for melee attacks against nearby allies?

[Tychris1]

For Scourges you could go the Ratling way and give them added agility, reduced toughness, and Flight that scales off agility. Maybe some kind of reputation ability since killing a Scourge is a capital offense to the Dark Eldar.

As for what other Archetypes you might have missed, maybe a Beastmaster.

[Grim Portent]

Some sort of hit-and-run or Spring Attack-like ability for Scourges, perhaps?

Incubi are most famous for being skilled bodyguards, in addition to melee combat. Maybe some sort of ability to intercede for melee attacks against nearby allies?

Maybe something like 'While flying under it's own power a Scourge may make a Half Move action in addition to any attack actions made in the same turn, even it it would exceed the normal amount of actions they can make in a turn' so a Scourge could charge and then fly straight up, or fly by with a full auto splinter weapon barrage.

For Incubi maybe something like 'An Incubi may parry melee attacks aimed at allies within a distance equal to it's agility bonus in meters. This uses the Incubi's Reaction for the round. The Incubus parries after the targeted ally reacts to the attack. When an Incubus attempts to parry an attack it must move adjacent to the targeted ally'


For Scourges you could go the Ratling way and give them added agility, reduced toughness, and Flight that scales off agility. Maybe some kind of reputation ability since killing a Scourge is a capital offense to the Dark Eldar.

As for what other Archetypes you might have missed, maybe a Beastmaster.

How did I forget Beastmasters? :smallredface:

Probably best represented by making them minionmasters. Let their minions use their Willpower stat and get a bonus to hit while near them as long as the have the Bestial trait.

EDIT: Thinking about it, since balance isn't really practical in Black Crusade, let alone a Dark Eldar homebrew, something based on Grotesques might be fun as an archetype. Sort of like the Ogryn from Only War, but even dumber. Perhaps with an ability that lets them 'roid out for a while but also makes them explode if they die.

'A Grotesque can enter a state of rage for a number of rounds equal to their Willpower bonus by spending a fate point. While in this state the Grotesque doubles it's Strength, Toughness and Agility bonuses, not including Unnatural Characteristics. If the Grotesque dies while in this state it's altered physiology drives it into a blind rampage immediately prior to death. All possible targets within 5 meters must pass a -20 dodge test or be struck by the abomination's flailing limbs, dealing a number of wounds equal to the sum of the Grotesques' modified Strength and Toughness Bonuses, plus any weapon damage bonuses and relevant melee talents. The Grotesque may then burn fate points to survive death as normal.'

[The Glyphstone]

That'd work. Or, if you wanted a more Flyby Attack feel, have them get a free Standard Attack against one enemy they come into range of during a Full Move or Run action. Exclusive talents could improve the number of attacks they're allowed to make or the number of enemies they can attack, if that's a think in BC (talents with a particular Special Ability as a prerequisite).

For the Incubi, their parry could be upgraded to have retaliation attack bonuses, or riposte counterattacks.

[Grim Portent]

What I'll probably do is have a flyby talent chain that builds up to the same ability as the Scourges have, but have Scourges themselves start with it and let other characters take it if they have grafted on wings or use Hellion skyboards.

Think I'll just add a counterattack to the Incubi on a successful parry attempt.



Trying to decide if haemonculi services (grafts, body mods, weapon implants) should cost experience or be services that are requisitioned like augmetics.

[bluntpencil]

What I'll probably do is have a flyby talent chain that builds up to the same ability as the Scourges have, but have Scourges themselves start with it and let other characters take it if they have grafted on wings or use Hellion skyboards.

Think I'll just add a counterattack to the Incubi on a successful parry attempt.



Trying to decide if haemonculi services (grafts, body mods, weapon implants) should cost experience or be services that are requisitioned like augmetics.

You could have them be both, and have them replicate Ad-Mech abilities and bionics respectively.

[The Glyphstone]

Okay, now I'm the one who needs advice, as I am taking over GM of my Rogue Trader group next week.

The campaign arc I have planned has two loose 'main' plots, running in parallel or different directions, and both ending up at the same point.

Plot 1 starts with the NPC Rogue Trader of the dynasty dying. The players are tasked with locating his heir and bringing them back to take up the Trader's role. The problem is that said heir is missing; for safety, they were sent into the Imperial Navy under a false identity, but they haven't been heard from in several years.

With the false name in hand, they have a few options to pick up the trail, from the Port Wander Administratum to visiting Fleet Base Metis and asking the Navy directly, but the trail will lead to Footfall where the ship stopped to resupply before going on patrol in the Expanse. One option I have for them to pick up the next breadcrumb would be tracking down a deserter from the ship, who went AWOL instead of moving onward, and they have pre-existing friends in the Ecclesiarchy due to previous adventures who might have information, but I could use at least one more way to get each of the above breadcrumbs, as per the Rule of Three.

However they get the information, it tells them that the cruiser was going to a remote system to investigate a number of reported disappearances of ships visiting the mining facilities there. Arriving, they'll pick up the automated distress beacon left behind by the cruiser,and close to pick it up just in time to be warned about the Void Kraken they found in the area - which attacks. One of our problems with the pregen modules has been the boring nature of space combat, so battling a (wounded) Void Kraken will be a nice shakeup.

Next comes the system that the crippled cruiser jumped to. Here they'll find another beacon attached to the gutted wreck of the Cruiser itself, cold and empty and dead. This is where the pirates happened to encounter it, overwhelming it and capturing its crew as slaves with the officers taken to their secret base below.

The ending of this plot features a pirate base, where their Trader-Designate and numerous other captives from various ships are being kept captive. His cover is intact, so the pirates intend on ransoming him back to his (imaginary) noble family. The party might just buy his freedom, but they'll probably go for the actiony smash-and-grab rescue instead.

What I need are ideas for a few reliable ways to get them from Location A4, the site of the wrecked Cruiser, to the Pirate Base for their rescue.



Plot 2 starts effectively parallel with plot 1 - an angry scene with another Rogue Trader reveals to them that someone is staging atrocities and pirate attacks around the Expanse and loudly declaring themselves to be vassals of the Dynasty while doing so. They are clearly being framed, but the challenge is to figure out who, and prove their innocence before 'their' pirates upset too many faction or powerful figures.

As with 1, the first scene here is on Port Wander, with the Rogue Trader whose colony world was raided by the 'dynasty privateers'. The simplest way to throw the breadcrumb is to assume the party face (either of them) succeeds in talking the Trader down and agreeing to help, and I expect them to do so. If something goes drastically wrong, they can get the information from bar rumors.

Location 2 here is the colony world that got attacked. Depending on how they dealt with the Trader, the locals might be either friendly or hostile, but the 'pirates' left blatant, intentional evidence of the next system on their attack list. It's a trap, but I'd like some suggestions on how to leave these clues around where the party can find them in a way, preferably some that make the trap obvious and at least one that doesn't (the easiest to find).

Location 3 is the ambush site, with a few easy pirates and the BBEG of the arc, who turns out to be the heir and daughter of Hadarak Fel, the Rogue Trader they met during the introductory adventure (and who we ended up killing by shooting his engines and letting him ram an asteroid). She's out for blood and vengeance, arranging things to ruin the Dynasty's reputation and kill the Rogue Trader (whose actual death is still, hopefully, a secret), but at this point her role is to gloat a bit then run away while the pirate ships attack. Everyone involved is in Raider-sized hulls, and I can finagle the starting distances to ensure she escapes.

Location 4 is another raider attack. Not sure who gets attacked here, but it'll be someone with even more clout than the previous. Depending on timing, the party might actually get here fast enough to intervene and protect whoever it is.

The end location for this arc is the same Pirate Base, who are the freebooters Trader Fel hired to be her pawns. She has no idea that her mortal enemy's heir is being held captive here, but it's still a fairly well-defended place, and how difficult the attack is will depend on which allies the party has made.

What I need here is a way to point the party from Location 3 to Location 4, and if necessary to Point 5. I don't want to assume the party captures any pirates (our Raider is fairly well-armed for its size), so while they might get captives, I'd like another way for them to follow the pirate trail. I do have a contingency here in that they can just wait until they hear of another raider attack in their name, but that's a last-resort, and doesn't solve how they can get from 4 to 5.

And while I'm here, I could definitely use ideas for random 'side quests' to distract them with shinies and/or pad out the adventure length.


So, suggestions or ideas?

If it's relevant, the party currently consists of:
-Seneschal, party face
-Arch-Militant, sniper and bolter expert
-Missionary, backup face and melee fighter
-Explorator (with the Arch-Heretek alt rank from Hostile Acquisitions), unknown party focus other than tech-expert
-one unknown from a new, incoming player (not Rogue Trader or Navigator)

[shadow_archmagi]

I got invited to an Only War game. Given my herd of beefs with Rogue Trader, I'm interested to see if Only War is any more refined. I'm already really pleased with the game so far though, and I'm only partway through character creation.

1. Make a character with critically low willpower, but high charisma
2. Take the special abilities that give allies bonuses against fear and morale
3. Catastrophically fail all fear and morale tests yourself
"It's okay captain, don't cry. Listen, we're gonna go fight the hellspawn and then be right back, okay? It's gonna be fine."
*sniffle*
"Am I good Captain?"
"Yeah buddy you're doing great."

[blacklight101]

That does sound rather fun, I would love to get a table game of OW going if I can. Not now, but maybe soon.

[Blackhawk748]

"It's okay captain, don't cry. Listen, we're gonna go fight the hellspawn and then be right back, okay? It's gonna be fine."
*sniffle*
"Am I good Captain?"
"Yeah buddy you're doing great."

Best. Captain. Ever.

[LeSwordfish]

Lets do a session report!

The Selenian Immortals, Session One: Operation Shieldbreaker
The players enthusiastically roll up a mixed regiment: They're playing a combination highborn/feral regiment (oh god) with the Light Infantry type. The highborn are the Selenian Immortals, the last few hundred survivors from one of the regiments originating from the world they're fighting to save. The ferals are an unnamed regiment of techno-barbarians that have been hired into the immortals: their technicians have quasi-mystical status and they've taken the Close Quarters Battle doctrine, meaning that they're running around in carapace armour.

They're deployed to Selene, a pleasure world going into an ice age, alongside the Scintillan Grenadiers, who are even more posh and highborn, and the Gudrunite Bombardiers, a regiment of heavy artillery. When the campaign starts, the players have been on-world for eight months, repeatedly failing to take the river crossings into the city.

The campaign starts with the players in the camp followers area of the encampment. Thanks to scheduling issues, we've only got three players right at the start.

Sargeant McAllister - One of the highborn, and both the nicest and highest Fellowship in the group. McAllister is pretty typical nice sargeant, and his player is one of the more experienced roleplayers around.
Wei Thorn - Melee weapon Weapon Specialist. Doesn't talk much. Sniffs things - one of the more ferals of the ferals. Runs around with a chainsword.
Spiritseer Ossian - Operator, in the quasi-mystic fashion i said. Doesn't talk at all, instead communicating through his comrade, a servo-skull.


The session starts with these three together in the camp when the drill rig and it's escort of Scintillans moves through. They note that the Scintillans are unusually dickish today, including their corporal, LeVillian, spitting on Ossian. I was expecting a direct confrontation, but Ossian instead follows the group and crit succeeds on a Sleight Of Hand roll to pick the corporal's pocket. The Corporal is a named character and fully statted, so his stealable objects are all there, and Ossian picks his Hand Cannon. Sargeant McAllister decides to let it go. This is a surprise - the "stuff is being stolen" subplot is stillborn, it seems...

With their free time, the players split up. Thorn demands a fighting pit: there's probably one around, so she rocks up there and demands to fight "the biggest guy there." I shrug, add 5 strength and toughness to the standard Imperial Guardsman profile, and have them fistfight. She's only got 2 toughness bonus so goes down to fatigue within a few rounds of all-out attacks, and wakes up outside in the snow, devoid of the beer chit she offered to gamble with but with the rest of her gear intact, because she's a good customer. McAllister spars with a fellow highborn, picking up a few bruises, and Ossian decides to find someone around the camp to help, deciding to fix the heater at Jacks, the local unofficial bar. In exchange Jack agrees to put a good word in with Ted Brunch, the ratling head of the local black market.

Two more players arrive, and it's time for the briefing.

Notch Torque is a heavy gunner, a typically massive man with a high BS, a pile of Weapon Training skills, and a Heavy Flamer. His player is new to RP in general but gets really into it - and since his sheet mentions that he has a sister on-world, i've got big things planned for him.
Galad is a weapon specialist with a shotgun, and all his talents devoted to running up close and shooting people with it. I don't have a sheet from him but his player is an experienced RPer and also gets really into it. Said player is ex-military, which is a little intimidating to run a military game for.


They're given a mission to travel through the transit tunnels below the city and attack a fortification on the riverbank from behind. They have to spike the fortification's guns, so they're given demolition charges, rebreathers, and they get an additional box of needle rifle rounds. Before they set off on the mission, they head off to trade the needle rounds. Ossian goes to Ted and swaps half of them for hand cannon shells, while Notch attempts to trade the rest for flamer fuel but fails. Before they leave, Ted makes an offhand comment: strange that Ossian is buying hand cannon rounds after someone has come to him demanding the return of a stolen hand cannon. Funny, that. (Subplot is back on!)

On the mission they head into the tunnels. They do a very complex official-seeming method of scouting, and when they come across the civilians that i placed in the tunnel as a social encounter, Galad opens fire. He misses, however, and they surrender. He's already shot so the point of this encounter - shots will alert the Severans upstairs - is missed and instead its a simple "what do we do with these poor refugees" situation - they tie them up and leave them.

It becomes time for the attack. Just before they attack, one more player arrives.

16 - A highborn stormtrooper. I havent seen much of her character yet, but she arrives via botched grav-chute, crashing through the roof of a nearby station.

Once again I misremember how long-range flamers are, and Notch does most of the damage, taking out the heavy bolter nest and more than half the severans alone, despite being pinned. Thorn and Galad charge up into close combat with the survivors: thorn gets taken down into the low criticals with Lasfire, but gets up and slices her attacker in half anyway. The enemy with the grenade launcher misses twice, jams his gun, and the last few severans flee. The players rig their frag grenades up to destroy the guns so they get to keep the charges, and untie the civilians as an afterthought.

Next session: The players move up to support the push into the docklands, Ted Brunch calls in his favour, and the regimental rivalry gets a little more tense, in our next mission: Operation Spearhead.

[Incorrect]

Thank you for the report Swordfish, great writing and just what I needed on this dull monday.
It always surprises me how good equipment guardsmen start with. I am likewise surprised that your players didn't attempt to carry all the captured heavy weapons with them back.

[blacklight101]

Seems like you have a good game going so far and I look forward to more writeups of your sessions.

[LeSwordfish]

I in fact have one right now! It turned out really long.

Mission Two: Operation Spearhead
The players return from their previous mission and are immediately set to the task of defending the forward command post while Thorn (melee trooper) and Galad (scout) are patched up. Galad is recovered to full wounds, but Thorn only recovers a few. They're then given over to the command of Sargeant Gruber, a gudrunite from the artillery regiment, and given their next mission: accompany Gruber and his spotter team near to a severan fortification, help them call in a Manticore bombardment on the encampment, and extract. Ossian (quasi-mystical tech, speaks only through his servo-skull comrade) requests to drive the Salamander and is shut down hard by Gruber. The squad resolves to murder Gruber.

They accompany the team and their salamander over to the vantage point, a conductor's building in a railway yard overlooking the encampment. They sneak up at the target building using the lip of a frozen dock, and try and deal with the two guards - they make a complicated plan with a charge under covering fire and smoke, and McAllister (highborn sargeant) flunks the command test to implement it meaning that Galad and Notch (heavy weapons guy, carting around heavy flamer) get pinned. Some great long-range shooting by Thorn - this whole battle was at ranges of hundreds of meters - including a couple of successful hits from Suppressing Fire - recovers it and forces the pinning guard back - Galad chops the other's leg off with a greataxe and fills the doorway with blood. Notch has to make a willpower test to not murder the remaining guard: he fails and sprints upstairs to find him. The other guard is overwatching the staircase and shoots semi-auto at Notch from close-range... his gun jams. Notch grins broadly, and subjects him to a long slow cooking with the heavy flamer.

They move up the tower. From here they can see it's a proper big fortification: Concrete walls, emplaced guns, and a trio of Leman Russ tanks. Gruber and his team start setting up their spotting equipment, and the players make a plan for defending the tower, including the Salamander out in the open with Notch manning the autocannon, mining a gantry to come down, and Galad on the roof. It's at about this point they get a vox-message for Ossian.

The message is from Ted Brunch (ratling, head of the black market). Ted is planning on calling in his favour from not telling the Scintillans that Ossian stole LeCour's pistol: nip across the road and collect the client list from Helican Shipping, a luxury shipping company. Ossian, speaking as always through his servo-skull, looks to McAllister for guidance: McAllister devotes some time to swearing. Galad objects, but Ted reminds him that larceny on McAllister's watch is a very big deal, and they accede, sending Ossian and Thorn across the road into the Helican Shipping office. They break in and go searching for the files, finding a cogitator which they can set to print out the data.

While this is happening, Gruber announces that the missiles have been prepped and will be launched in five minutes. This is all well and good, but then they start hearing the thump of colossal footsteps, big enough to shake the building kilometers away - and then an imperial knight comes crashing through a warehouse wall. A chainblade the length of a chimera is in one hand: the other holds a massive battle cannon and an incandescent energy shield. The knight - rebellious freeblade Demetrius - brings it's shield up, puts it's head down, and charges - straight into the encampment and the target zone of the missiles.

Notch rolls a Common Lore (War) test: a full Manticore bombardment will paste the knight fairly quickly. They instruct the vox-op in the salamander to call command and cancel the bombardment... he picks up the vox-horn and immediately has his brain-pan evacuated by a sniper. Notch - also in the salamander - hops over the front and hides: but the vox is damaged and inoperable. Notch sticks his head out and the sniper misses him by three, putting a heavy dent into the Salamander. Galad and McAllister get Gruber and the remainder of his team into cover and consider their options. They bounce through several ideas in quick succession and I don't need to shoot down any of them - shoot the knight to get its attention? It's already taking heavy fire and wouldn't even notice. Drive over in the Salamander? Good luck getting in without taking a hit. Notch makes a sprint back from the Salamander and the sniper takes a snap shot, hitting with a couple of extra degrees and knocking Notch down to 0 wounds in one hit.

Gruber insists that the players stop the bombardment - it's his arse on the line if the knight gets destroyed. Galad asks Gruber for ideas and they get into a screaming match - what do you expect us to do? McAllister and Galad call for a retreat, but Ossian - a lover of tech - goes a little wild at the idea, and starts using his servo-skull to scream "The knight must be saved" over and over again. They call the nearest imperial forces on their microbeads and are answered by a Scintillan Sargeant named Valentine. They make their case to Valentine and Valentine says...

"You're the Selenians, yes? The ferals?"

"Yes."

"Sorry, sounds like my connection is breaking up. Can't help you."

Time for an interaction test - McAllister Commands Valentine - we saved your arse at the bridges! and the vox will be recorded - there's no way you'll get away with this! He rolls - seventy. Fate re-roll - ninety. Both fail. Valentine scoffs at them, obviously fakes a vox error and - before shutting down for good - tells them. "This is what you get, isn't it?"

So no can do on that! New ideas... can they try and shoot back at the sniper? This is what i'm expecting from them - a bit of covering fire - but McAllister shoots it down - with the Damage it did to Notch, the toughest in the squad, the others could easily get one-shot. A new idea, from Ossian - does the building he's in with Thorn have a vox? He rolls on his auspex to find it, fails, re-rolls and succeeds. He sprints upstairs to find it, leaving Thorn to collect Ted's client data. He finds the vox - it's broken. Rolls to repair... fails by one.

A funk falls over the table. That's it. They're out of idea. They don't have a way... Ossian checks his gear. "What does a MIU do?" It makes you pass that test, it does. One minute left: Vox is done. Ossian uses his voice for the first time in years instead of his servo-skull, and begs command to call off the strike. They do! The knight is saved.

They give the mic to Gruber, who calls the strike instead on the sniper's area. That's pretty close - better to be further away. Missiles launch - time to leave. Galad, Notch, and McAllister rope down from the top of the tower with Gruber and his driver - McAllister flunks the rope roll and twists his ankle, but then passes the command test to co-ordinate the retreat. They pop smoke, and then blow the mined gantry for cover - that brings half the building down - Thorn grabs the data for Ted and runs for it, leaping away as the building collapses, and they take cover just before the missiles hit, turning half the dockyards to rubble.

That's the end of the session proper, but they take the chance to loot the Helican warehouse, claiming a considerable amount of high-grade amasec for themselves. They also resolve next session to - and they're really serious about it - murder Sargeant Valentine.

Next session: The players investigate the emnity of the Scintillans, watch a Basilisk vanish from right under their noses, and meet the other villains of the campaign.

[Blackhawk748]

Ok, so im gonna be running a Deathwatch game in the near future, and while i know where i want it to go, im not sure how to begin.

The main antagonists of this campaign will be Hive Fleet Banshee. Banshee is a splinter of Behemoth, but has mutated in the extreme since it broke off. Instead of the usual "Unstoppable Juggernaut" approach of Behemoth, Banshee goes for a more subtle approach. All of its organisms rely on stealth to get into an advantageous position, and then blitzkrieg the opposition, relying on the suddenness of the attack to see them through. This coupled with Banshee's tendency to eat out of the way uninhabited planets, and to use smaller ships in its Hive Fleet have allowed it to go unnoticed for this long.

This has changed recently. Banshee has subsumed a small Kracken Splinter Fleet, and with that has gained access to Eldar DNA. This has allowed it to begin creating Neurothropes of significant power. Combined with Banshee's swift assaults on poorly defended worlds, this has thrown the Northern section of Ultima Segmentum into chaos. So the Deathwatch has sent a detachment to help deal with the problem.

So thats Hive Fleet Banshee, they are nasty and have a tendency to do Sneak Attacks, as well as loving Psychic Shriek. In short, they are nasty. While i want to run my PCs onto a Space Hulk, i dont feel like thats an appropriate way to begin, as they would probably spend a fair amount of time on it. So im open to ideas for where they should begin.

PCs are:
Blood Ravens Librarian
Silver Skulls Tyrannic War Vet Tactical Marine (Sarge)
Salamanders Devastator (Heavy Bolter and Heavy Flamer)

[Tome]

Hmm... drop podding into a hot zone to extract an Ordo Xenos Inquisitor who was researching the 'nids? Throw in, I don't know, a psychic Lictor as a surprise but otherwise keep the nid opposition fairly low key - the planet is still contested. Bonus objectives could include getting samples from the psychic Lictor and noticing that one of the Inquisitor's retinue has been infected by genestealers. Gives you an NPC to use later too.

Subsequent missions could then include some strikes on high priority targets to support the fight on the ground or more extraction missions to pull out valuable assets. Oh! Or maybe the Imperial advance is being halted by some nasty guerilla strikes from nids hiding in a swamp that just so happens to be tactically significant in some way and the PCs get asked (nicely) to help root out the dug in xenos so the guard can roll in.

Alternatively, a decapitation strike on a genestealer cult located on a planet that's just about to be hit by Banshee in order to keep the cult from weakening imperial defences. If either the Magus or Patriarch get away then the cult becomes a future problem.

[LeSwordfish]

Session Three

Only three players show up for this session because it's an unusual time - Galahad (the scout, who is called Galahad not Galad, whoops), Notch (heavy gunner with heavy flamer), and Ossian (technical Operator). These three are the more larcenous of the group, with Galahad referring to himself as an "ex-pirate." They sit down to make some plans. #1: Murder sargeant Valentine. All good, what I was expecting - if I can slow them down on that then it can happen in accordance with the planned plot. #2 Murder Ted Brunch and take over the black market. Um. Ah. I don't really want them doing that - Ted's too powerful to hand his powers to the players, and while having him as an opponent would be fun, that should be in a political way where he's strong, not in a shootout where he's, well, a ratling.

Negotiations With Ted
They talk themselves out of this fairly quickly though (and by the end of the session I have a contingency plan for Ted's death set up), and instead decide to start, two days after the end of their last mission, by trying to sell the Helican Shipping client data back to a Helican Shipping representative and to Ted, and pick up twice the reward. Unfortunately I can't really see how anyone from Helican - a civilian company mostly based behind enemy lines - would be hanging around on camp - so that doesn't happen, and instead they head over to Ted's. Ted has beefed up his security recently with Grunt, an ogryn, and Rosie, another ratling, plus a group of toughs, and they have to leave their weapons at the door. This successfully dissuades them from trying any funny business.

First thing first: provide the Helican Shipping information. In return, as well as, like, not being blackmailed, they request the opportunity to continue working with Ted. Galahad pretends not to speak Gothic so they can chat in their native language in front of Ted, and they decide to work with Ted, largely in order to betray him later. "Later" is good enough for me. They make a set of trades for the loot from their last mission - Galahad gets an autogun and some manstoppers, Ossian Forearm Mounts his purloined Hand Cannon, and Notch trades almost every scrap of everything he has for a down-payment on a meltagun.

Ted then gives them their task: investigate the hatred the Scintillans have for the player's regiment. It's bad for business, Ted says, and he makes a suggestion for where to go first: Lucius Mayford-Dunsterville, the naive, well-meaning commissar of the Scintillan Regiment. Pausing only to attempt some requisition rolls, the players head off to find Lucius. They decide to do their research first, and they hire Sargeant Gruber, a gudrunite sargeant who's career they saved last session, to investigate. Gruber is happy to help, and says he'll return in a couple of hours.

The Vanishing Chimera
As these couple of hours start, they're met by Notch's sister, Sylvia. Sylvia has lost a chimera - or, more precisely, had it stolen. She walked out to get lunch, and when she returned the chimera she had been working on has been driven around the corner into an alleyway - from which the tracks stop abruptly, as if the chimera has vanished into thin air. The squad searches the area for a while and finds... nothing. The chimera has vanished into thin air. It looks as if a heavy bladed weapon was used to break the lock on the door, and they find a large, tusk-like tooth in the snow outside. The building next door is the Munitorum, and they head inside to talk to the clerk. She didn't hear anything. They show her the tooth, and she gives it a long suspicious look before taking it and telling them to leave. They decide it's above their pay grade, and head off to meet the Commissar - not before providing Sylvia with a hefty punch in the face so she can pretend to have been knocked out.

Meeting Mayford-Dunsterville
Gruber gives them all the information he's collected on Mayford-Dunsterville - he's a bit of a soft touch as a commissar, newly-minted, very keen on both the rules and regulations and the imperial creed. He can also be found outside the mess hall right now. They move over to meet him there, and as they arrive he hastily stuffs a message chit into his pocket.

Galahad sets to furiously buttering Mayford-Dunsterville up, while Notch pretends not to speak Low Gothic, giving them an excuse to talk openly. They consider Mayford-Dunsterville an icon, they love him so much... as they do with all the Scintillans! But the scintillans won't talk to them - why could this be, Commissar? Could they please be told why? This was originally a social encounter but with all the social characters missing I have to fudge things a bit - Mayford-Dunsterville mutters something about inter-regimental difficulties and, Notch notices, gently touches the chit in his pocket. And so, the scam begins. Galahad shuffles sideways, forcing Mayford-Dunsterville to turn slightly to follow him in the middle of his long list of recommendations, and makes a charm test to directly ask what the cause of the rivalry is. He flunks this, of course - he has fellowship 24 - but by so much that Mayford-Dunsterville goes into Strict Teacher mode, distracting him sufficiently for Ossian to pick his pocket. Ossian rolls, fails, re-rolls, and gets a natural one. Not only does he get the chit from the Commissar's pocket, but he also finds a ring of keys. He takes those too, and they bid the commissar behind and leave hurriedly.

The message alludes to Scintillan supplies going missing, and commands the commissar to keep this information private, as a matter of regimental honour. They have a long discussion as to what to do about the keys, and decide that first they want to steal the information from Mayford-Dunsterville's office. It's right in the middle of the Scintillan part of the camp so first they have to brazen their way over there (passed Fellowship test), then distract bystanders while they break in. They do this by having Notch loudly talk in the feral language and soon he gathers a small crowd of patronising nobles. Inside the commissar's office they remember they can't read, but take a copy of everything with the color of the message chit, and then leave in a hurry. On the way out they are stopped, and they explain that they were searching for the commissar.

The Second Meetings
They head back to their sergeant, who can read, and find from the message chits that massive amounts of Scintillan gear have been going missing - and that Mayford-Dunsterville is just about the only person in the regiment who doesn't automatically believe that the player's regiment is responsible. This is plenty enough information for Ted, so they head over to him, and on the way they're stopped by Mayford-Dunsterville, accompanied by a Scintillan sargeant. He heard that they were looking for him? Galahad thinks fast and provides the commissar with his knife, telling him it's one of their world's traditions for a valued mentor. Mayford-Dunsterville is very grateful.

"Well, of course, should you wish to see a fine example of imperial soldiery, allow me to introduce -"

"Oh **** you, GM," one player says, "It's Valentine, isn't it?"

It is indeed. The players are formally introduced to Sargeant Valentine, who is the soul of politeness, despite having recently deliberately ignored their calls for help and trying to get them disgraced. Galahad drops enough hints that Valentine figures out who they are, and needles the sargeant gently before bidding them goodbye - Valentine with the sincere hope to work with him again too. Last thing that needs to be done - see what Ted will give them for the commissar's office keys.

When Ted is presented with the office keys, he's incredibly pleased. These are prime larceny material. In exchange, he offers to cut them in on a big score he's got planned - a chimera-load of supplies for the officer's mess, that will be sitting unguarded in the motor pool tomorrow night. All they have to do is go in there and collect them... what could possibly go wrong?

Next time: We get to the bit of this session that there wasn't time for, and it all goes wrong.

[Blackhawk748]

Hmm... drop podding into a hot zone to extract an Ordo Xenos Inquisitor who was researching the 'nids? Throw in, I don't know, a psychic Lictor as a surprise but otherwise keep the nid opposition fairly low key - the planet is still contested. Bonus objectives could include getting samples from the psychic Lictor and noticing that one of the Inquisitor's retinue has been infected by genestealers. Gives you an NPC to use later too.

Hmmm, this gives me an idea. They can land in the area where the Inquisitors ship went down. Upon arriving they find out that the bulk freighter he was on was infested with Genestealers and then try to locate him. *insert Space Hulk jokes* They find him holed up in one of the smaller holds with a few of the ships compliment left, who have all been getting a crash course in holding the line.

After they rescue him the party gets told about some of this Hive Fleet's peculiarities. One of these is a homebrewed Nid.

Im currently calling it a Revanthrope, as it resembles a Ravener but has Psychic powers like a Zoanthrope. This is where i got the idea (https://www.reapermini.com/graphics/gallery/4/14559_p_1_af.jpg). Basically the Revanthrope serves as a forward Synapse creature, saboteur, and assassin, as well as a supplement to the Lictor.

Typically Revanthropes operate in broods of 3 and, in a typical Tyranid invasion, serve as the vanguards heavy weapons. Once the invasion is in full swing they serve as a sort of in-between for Zoanthropes and Raveners, as they can do Psychic/Synapse stuff (though not as good as Zoanthropes) and can burrow and destroy priority targets (though Raveners are faster and are more capable in melee)

Im totally gonna use the Psychic Lictor as their first boss. Sorta the prototype to the Revanthropes.

[blacklight101]

Realized I had been away for a couple weeks and had to come back and see if you posted another session or two, LeSwordfish. Your group seems to have some crazy plans just like any good group should. A really good read too. Keep writing them up, I know i'll be back for more.

[LeSwordfish]

Session Four! The One Where It All Goes Wrong

Three people are here today: Galahad (scout, ex-pirate, dreams of taking over the black market), McAllister (Sargeant Tim Nice-But-Dim), and Ossian (Mystical technician, speaks through his servo-skull. They've been tasked by Ted Brunch, leader of the black market, with heading in to the regimental motor pool and looting a chimera full of officer supplies - amasec, cigars, fancy weapons, and comfortable chairs. This is more dangerous than usual since supplies for the rival scintillan regiment have been going missing: including, the other day, a vehicle which vanished into mid air.

They discuss for a moment and decide to keep things as quiet as possible by leaving most of their weapons behind, taking only carbines, "hand weapons" and Galahad's autogun. Watch the definition of "hand weapon" there. They approach cautiously and find the side door unlocked. They don't notice anything strange in this. They head inside and scan for heat signatures: Ossian flunks his perception and the enemies pass, so they find nothing unusual.

McAllister hangs back by the door in case anyone comes through. Ossian and Galahad move up to the chimera - the only lit-up area in the darkness. They open the chimera's rear ramp and a brilliant orange glow spills out...

It's beautiful. Cases of amasec, boxes of cigars- it's so full they can't even see whats in half of it. They start discussing how to carry it... and mid-sentence I interrupt them.

With heavy *chunk* noises, one by one the harsh strip lights come on down the motorpool. You are pinned to the ground, out in the open, like insects. High above on a raised gantry, ten Scintillan soldiers have their rifles aimed at the squad. Leading them is Commissar Mayford-Dunsterville (the only person in the regiment who likes the PCs.)

"Oh trooper Galahad, trooper Ossian... how disappointing..."

The PCs drop their weapons and Galahad moves forward, hands raised. There's some decent on-the-spot improvisation here - oh we're just poor fools who found an unlocked door- but especially with the Scintillan sargeant whispering in his ear, Mayford-Dunsterville isn't convinced. He instructs his men to take the PC's prisoner... and a little red dot appears on his forehead. A similar one appears on Ossian's head. A voice speaks from the shadows faraway down the hall: Ted's.

"Evening Gents. Looks like you folks are arguin' over my prize."

Ted quickly indicates his plan to kill everyone in the place and take the chimera for himself. Galahad tries to talk him down from this (and just avoids using his name) but Ted refuses. Mayford-Dunsterville passes a willpower check to not be cowed, and starts a countdown: if Ted doesn't stand down on three, he'll order his men to return fire. Three... Two... Galahad waits until One to interrupt...

"Please, Commissar, stranger... we can end this peacefully. Nobody's fired a shot yet."

I decide that i'm never gonna get a better cue than that: the rear door to the motorpool explodes inwards as if hit by a tank shell. The explosion clips the Chimera, rolls it back, and knocks, Ossian down. Through the hole in the door storms four orks - one is massive, easily twice the size of a man, and armed with a weapon that crackles and sparks with arcs of electricity, as well as a primitive force-field projector array on his back: this is the Big Mek. The three behind him are less massive, and armed with only pistols and blades, and wearing clothes that are nearly parodies of stealth gear - primitive camoflage, masks and bandannas, and silencers on their pistols that look like they would do nothing of the such. Several more similarly-dressed orks drop through the ceiling vents - several onto the gantries near Ted and the scintillans, one onto a rack of shelving next to Ossian, and one next to McAllister. At this point we discover that McAllister left his Chainsword behind and is expected to kill a Kommando with a knife. Oh.

With a thunderous WAAAGH the Mek charges, surrounded by the Kommandos. All three take Fear tests - Galahad passes, but Ossian and McAllister both earn a -10 to all rolls and an inability to approach the Mek. The combat then goes as follows:


Ted and Rosie - the ratling accompanying him - are attacked by the Kommando Nob, who they kill with close-range rifle shots. Rosie then blasts an ork off Ossian, but is killed when a second Kommando drops behind her.
The Mek fires his Shokk Attack gun at the Scintillans and blows the gantry from beneath several of them. He's then charged by Grunt, Ted's ogryn, and they beat each other up with a sound like grox head-butting.
Ossian is saved from one ork by Rosie, but jams his hand cannon when firing at the next. He unjams it but has to reload, so ducks into cover and throws a few grenades without much effect. I think his player was a little disappointed by Ossian's prowess in this situation - I should make sure there's some techie stuff to do next session.
Dunsterville and the Scintillans do a good job - four are killed in one shot by the Shokk Attak Gun, but the others take on and, with bayonets, kill four others with only three casualties themselves. Dunsterville alone accounts for two kills. In spare moments they take pot shots at the orks below, killing two with rifle shots.
Galahad dropped his axe and stepped away from it: instead he draws his autogun and opens fire, killing two orks with fully-automatic shots and even scoring a hit on the Mek through his force field. He then charges directly at an ork - more are dropping in through the vents - grabs his axe on the way, and manages to neatly decapitate it.
McAllister takes on a Kommando armed only with a knife, and for a moment it seems like he has a chance - he parries one blow, soaks another, and stabs the ork in the neck... but then the tide turns. Two Choppa blows hit home hard - one chops deep into his torso, and the other tears his leg off at the hip. The beloved sargeant goes down, his back against the cold concrete, and dies in a spreading pool of viscera.


The others don't even notice, thanks to their other problems - a swarm of gretchen is clambering over the chimera. They pass an intelligence test to tear open the cabin and climb inside, and then - on an 05 - a Tech-Use test to activate the engines. Ossian and Galahad have one turn to move before the Chimera reverses dramatically, straight towards the door. The Mek leaps aboard, ape-like, as it reverses, and uses his Shokk Attak Gun to blow the doors open enough for them to make their escape. The surviving imperials mop up the last few Orks - in total they killed about thirteen- and then it's time for the aftermath.

The Aftermath and Debriefing
The surviving scintillan soldier is a medic - handy things those fate points, right? - and he immediately gets to work on McAllister, restarting his heart and summoning a medical team. Galahad goes searching for Ted.

"Ted, man, what was that?"

"That was plausible deniability, Mister Galahad, though I didn't expect the greenies did I?"

"You knew this was a trap, and you sent us in anyway?"

"Of course I did. I aint stupid, am I? You blokes are helpful but you're still tools, like? If I weren't so lovely I wouldn't've come to pull your arses out of the fire."

"We had it under control!" They compare plans. Galahad admits that his "throw ourselves on the mercy of the commissariat" is probably worse than Ted's "start shooting and shift the blame off them", but that it was still a cluster****.

"I think it turned out alright!" Ted snaps. Galahad motions at Rosie's body. Ted tells him to go **** himself.

With that over they present their case to Mayford-Dunsterville, who buys it but remainders them in commissarial custody until the briefing a few days later, by which time McAllister is back on his feet foot. They pass over all their information to Fforbes, their platoon commander, Noah, the local chief commissar, and Mayford-Dunsterville. They hold nothing back, and in return learn that shortly after leaving the motorpool, the chimera vanished. Galahad overhears Noah muttering about Ork Teleportation Devices, and the three are warned never to speak of this to anybody.

Next session: Ted follows through on his promise to give the players revenge on Valentine. The Severan Dominate begins it's counter-attack.



---

I need help! I want an Orkimedes-style pun for the Mek's name, but I can't thing of one. Either great inventors or great thieves. Any suggestions?

[The Glyphstone]

I feel like something punning off Da Vinci would be appropriate. Leonardork Da Thinky?

Also, I guess Ossiran didn't think of trying (at least before the Gretchin got involved) to hotwire the Chimera's turret for extra firepower? That seemed like a spot-on opportunity for a tech-based character as I was reading.

[LeSwordfish]

Alas, the turret was closer to the big mek than he was, and he wasn't allowed to approach "the object of his fear".

[Blackhawk748]

So im currently hashing out an Only War campaign to play after our Deadlands and Deathwatch games peeter out (and who knows when thats gonna happen) and i've made a Rough Rider regiment....with soooo many problems :smalltongue:


67th Bustalian Jinetes, CO Colonel Shuja

Agri World-3
Rough Riders-5
Infiltrators-4
Skirmishers-4
Cavalry Mounts (Kubwa)-5
Maverick-2
Scavengers-3

Regimental Rivalry- (-2)
Poorly Provisioned (-4)
Cloud of Suspicion (-3)
The Few (-5)
Total-12


Attribute Bonuses(+3 Strength, +3 Toughness, +3 Agility, -3 Ballistic Skill)
Skills: Linguistics (Low Gothic), Operate (Surface), Scholastic Lore (Beasts), Survival, Stealth

Talents: Catfall, Ambush, Resistance (fear), Hatred (Scintillians Fusiliers), Enemy (General Malgus Scintillian Fusiliers), Enemy (Scinillian Fusiliers), Blind Fighting, Paranoia

One With the Land
Blind to the Horror
Limited Numbers
Untimely Inquiries
Overworked and Underfed

+2 Wounds



http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0bWioOntr98/URjlNiTokrI/AAAAAAAAH6I/BqQWdlsk2Dc/s1600/IMG_3824.JPG
Kubwa
This creature is about 1.5 meters at the shoulder and resembles a monstrous rat. Its nose is constantly sniffing for some morsel of food.
WS 40
BS 01
S 30
T 50
Ag 50
Int 10
Per 25
Wp 20
Fel 10

Dodge
Stealth

Crushing Blow
Hard Target
Hardy

Bred for War
Quadraped
Deadly Natural Weapon
Regeneration(1)
Unnatural Toughness (2)
Unnatural Strength (2)

Climber-Kubwas are natural climbers and can climb nearly any surface
A kubwa may climb up to its Full Move action without making a climb test. It must start and end its movement on a reasonably horizontal surface. Kubwas cannot climb particularly slick surfaces, such as Ice, and must make climb checks accordingly.

Wounds 14

Vicious Fangs (1d10+7 Pen 0)


Yes, they ride Giant Rats into battle, and this is whats caused all of their problems.

Now, on Bustalia, the Kubwa is a respected and loved animal as frequent electrical storms force the populace to shut down anything electrical or risk calling lighting down from the upper atmosphere. So for 3 months out of the year, during the height of the Storm Season, Kubwas are pretty much the only mode of transport available, besides walking. This is because, unlike other animals, they arent afraid of the storms and simply go about their business, instead of hibernating. As a bonus the Kubwa is surprisingly clean, despite its furs matted appearance and will happily eat pretty much anything.

When the 67th arrived on *REDACTED* to do battle with the Great and Terrible *REDACTED* a Scintillian Leitenant began making very rude remarks about their mounts. Obviously this angered the Riders, but, since hes a "superior" officer, they couldnt do much. Their Colonel, on the other hand, could. The conversation went something like this:

Posh Fop-"I cant believe they would allow giant rats into the Guard. Did you see their fur? Its all matted and they're probably infested in fleas and lice."
Colonel Shuja "So's your mother you inbred spireborn fop, but you dont see me making fun of her"
*Drops mic and walks off*

This would have just led to a Regimental Rivalry, which would have been fine. Except that The Fop, as he is now known to the Jinetes, has a 2nd or 3rd cousin that happens to be the General of this theater, and while he isn't real keen on his cousin, the Colonel did insult family. And so, he has been redirecting supplies, making it difficult for them to get reinforcements (which is hard enough when you're Rough Riders) and in general just being a giant pain.

So far the Jinetes have taken it well, but with a new push on it might get dicey.

Im not sure who im gonna have them fight. Ork Snakebites could be fun, as they use cavalry too, but Chaos Renegades are always a party, and then theres the Severan Dominate. So many options.

[Grytorm]

Hello again, I just wanted to record some ideas here. Mostly it is a somewhat altered setting for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. The idea was inspired by a discussion I saw where someone was looking for ideas for how to reduce the role of Chaos. Mostly because they thought the focus on Chaos vs Sigmar was a bit out of place. So that made me think and gave me an idea of how this could work with things working the same.

First: Cosmologicaly gods can be aligned with Order and Chaos. Order gods are associated with the creation of the world. Chaos gods with magic and the destruction of the world. This is not a clear good and evil divide, the Warhammer setting is not the first world where this battle has happened and it will not be the last. Ultimately the world shall be destroyed and be recreated. In setting people don't necessarily know that.

Second: Chaos worship is not inherently a bad thing. Getting to deep into Chaos sorcery has terrible side effects. And areas with significantly tainted with Chaos are bad news. But many of the commonly worshiped gods are ultimately aligned with Chaos, including the big four under a variety of names. This is relatively safe but Chaos has slowly been building up in the world making things more dangerous. Probably not because of a vast empire of Rat creatures lurking beneath the cities of the Empire. Definitely not that.

Third: The Inquisition and the main Imperial state are big anti chaos groups and in their propaganda condemn Chaos completely. This is because in the last few generations the Imperial culture assimilated a saxony like area previously controlled by the Norsca. Before then the church of Sigmar and the Emperors were generally against Chaos worship now they have started trying to control a large population which used to Worship the Chaos gods under their familiar names. So the Inquisition was formed to fight this. But the Inquisition is also used by the Church of Sigmar to try and push out other religions to gain more power. They push an absolutist creed which is not entirely accurate cosmologically speaking. It is also possible that trying to push out all Chaos could be what ends the world somehow. Just some thoughts.

[LeSwordfish]

Session 5: Ain't Valentine's Day

The session starts in medias res, with the players in a battered old truck on their way to the mission. It's a few weeks after the last battle - McAllister is sporting a clanking old augmetic leg, while the others have recovered from their wounds. The front line has stagnated, with the imperials dug into a series of fortifications and strongpoints just outside the range of the enemy wall guns, while the severans seem perfectly content to dig in on their side of the northern river. The players are being sent to one of these strongpoints to relieve the previous squad, when they hear a mysterious pinging noise on their voxes. As best they can tell it's only directed on their local frequency, but they still discuss whether they should go and look for it for, like, half an hour. Eventually when they metagame themselves into it. ("GM, do you want us to go and investigate this?" "Trust me, you want you to investigate.") they call it in, and go find the source of it - an abandoned imperial-issue truck in an empty factory. Thorn goes to investigate first, leaping into the truck and spilling the contents everywhere with a series of expensive-sounding noises.

A more sober search finds a half-dozen crates. The first contains a vox-beacon, a meltagun, and a letter from Ted: Sargeant Valentine is the commander of the squad you will be relieving. Enclosed within is your payment for services rendered. It's been a pleasure to work with you gents, and I hope we can continue to do so in future.

This gets them all excited and I confirm: This session is their chance to screw over Valentine. (So you don't need to read back, Sargeant Valentine is the sargeant in a rival Scintillan regiment, who was willing to hang them out to dry when an artillery strike went awry.) The crates also contain the gear they requested to take down Valentine: ten Scintillan lasguns, uniforms, and two grenade launchers, plus a map of the strongpoint, an old manor house.

They set to planning. Valentine leads a squad of ten, with a Chimera, so they'll need to take out all of them, plus possibly a vehicle. They've still got the demolition charges from the first mission, so they attach one to the side of one truck and load it full of spare explosives. That should deal with the Chimera: park alongside and blow them both to hell. For the rest of the squad, the plan is to dress up in the scintillan uniforms, blag their way in to the manor as the relief, and then blow the chimera as Valentine's squad boards: then ditch and burn the uniforms, and claim they arrived just after a stray shell or something.

They drive up to the manor, park alongside the chimera, and start unloading their gear from the trucks. Valentine's adjudant, one corporal Guilliame, asks them to halt and who they are. McAllister says "we're the relief" and Guilliame voxes up to Valentine, who starts heading down with his vox-man. Ossian takes the chance to scan the building: Three guardsman in the high gallery, three in the lower level. Guilliame and the driver down here outside, and Valentine and his vox-man on their way down. The squad distribute themselves outside and start smoking and acting natural, when Valentine arrives.

Valentine isn't suspicious at first, but does question why there's a scintillan squad here rather than the selenians he was expecting. McAllister answers more or less honestly: the selenians were delayed checking out a mysterious vox-signal in a nearby factory. Valentine seems worried: we'd better check in on them. Ossian, thinking fast, shuts down their vox so McAllister's microbead doesnt give the game away, and Valentine reports in the loss of contact, seemingly none the wiser.

Next question: Why have they arrived in a pair of trucks rather than the standard-issue Chimera? McAllister's player pauses a long time before answering, and I inform him that such a long delay OOC will represent a short delay IC. The final answer he gives is "Our chimera was stolen" (not entirely unreasonable when you remember that imperial equipment was going missing from the camp) and I ask for a sort of general-purpose Decieve check. McAllister doesn't have Decieve and massively flubs it: Valentine narrows his eyes, seeming much more suspicious now, but invites Ossian and McAllister to accompany him on a tour of the building while the others unload.

Once he's got Ossian and McAllister upstairs, he asks them a few casual questions. "What platoon did you say you were?" "Uh... Y." "Ah! That would be Lieutenant Javert's outfit, correct?" Galahad's player is itching to interrupt here, but McAllister continues on happily: "Yes! Lieutenant Javert. Him."

Valentine sighs. There's no Lieutenant Javert - the oldest trick in the book! - and he orders the squad taken into custody. McAllister is having none of that, and gives the order: it's go time.

Rolls of Initiative. Valentine wins, then the squad, then the scintillans. Valentine is too close for a charge, so he flourishes his sabre and steps up towards McAllister, offering him a chance to surrender: Ossian responds by shooting him in the face: he does barely any damage but scores a "Righteous Fury" and flings Valentine prone and a few meters backwards. Notch flames the Scintillans on the lower level, but manages to miss two of three, and Galahad wings another with an autogun shot. Thorn charges in and finishes Galahad's target by slicing his leg off with a chainsword, thus filling the room with blood. As the fight continues, Notch's flamer does as much damage as usual, while Valentine's grenadiers do heavy damage to Galahad and Thorn continues her usual ramapage. Up on the top level however, McAllister and Ossian are badly outnumbered (because, I should note, they allowed themselves to be) and try to pull out by dropping smoke. Wild suppressive fire from Galahad's vox-man pins them though, and Valentine has time to recover and come swinging in hard for a duel with McAllister. McAllister takes a nasty hit to his torso, but, partially shredded open, he still manages to slice Valentine's arm off. Valentine is ambidextrous (he's pretty stacked with "Duelling" abilities for exactly this eventuality) and comes back hard, but McAllister, just shy of crits, manages to take him down to near-dead and bleeding out. It would be the perfect time for a killing blow but they're being mobbed by the other troopers and trapped, away from the door.

Rather than trying to break out to the door, Ossian announces he's going to detonate the other three charges he's carrying. This will do approximately 9d10 damage. McAllister, trying to escape this, goes for the window - but it's a long drop from the top floor, and even an average roll for damage is enough to kill him. Despite my best "are you SURE you want to do this" GMing, he goes for it, rolls a six, and dies, last fate point, perma-death, on the ornamental lawn as the rain falls. Upstairs, Ossian triggers the detonation charges, blowing him, Valentine, and all but one of Valentine's squad to kingdom come. I start brainstorming way
s to spend his fate point... and he announces he doesnt want to: he wants to roll a new character.

It's hard not to have a bad feeling about this. PC's willingly going to their deaths feels like something that shouldn't happen if i'm doing my job right. It was a tough fight, but with all the benefits i gave them - forewarning, planning, a map, exact enemy numbers and locations - it needn't have been. Should I have pulled punches? Ossian's player insists he was simply dissatissfied with the Operator class and wants to roll up a standard Tech-Priest, which I hope is the case, but I should probably have a private chat with McAllister's player - he seemed so fatalistic about his death that i'm not sure he wasn't really upset about it.

The campaign ends with Galahad, Thorn and Notch taking command of the situation. Valentine is dead - presumably blown into fragments (if they aren't going to comment on the lack of a body, i'm not going to point them to the Touched By The Fates trait, am I?) and so is all of his squad bar one. Ossian, McAllister, and their comrades are also dead though, and they've comprehensively exploded the strong point they were supposed to be defending. As they stand there in the rain - wait, rain? This is midwinter, right? Shouldn't it be snowing?

It's pouring with rain, and a full-on thunderstorm is brewing overhead, cutting out long-range communications. The snow on the ground is melting. The temperature is indeed unseasonably warm, and from the sounds in the distance - booming cannons, squarking sirens, the crackle of long-range gunfire - a full enemy advance is approaching their position - the position they just blew up.

And that's where the session ends.

Next session: The squad is thrown into the middle of a desperate defense, some long-buried truths about the city are revealed, and the tide of the war turns.

[The Glyphstone]

So I need some ideas to throw at a wall and see what sticks. I'm about to dump my Rogue Trader group into a heavily modified version of the Citadel of Skulls adventure, but I need some ideas for unique, personalized treasures to stick in the Vault of Secrets for them to loot.

The group consists of an Explorator, a Voidmaster, a Seneschal, a Missionary, and an Arch-Militant. The Missionary and Explorator I already have ideas for (a relic Eviscerator and an archaeotech jetpack respectively). The Arch-Militant will be easy to please with an newer (well, older), shinier gun, but I'm drawing a blank on something to make for the Seneschal or Voidmaster.

Seneschal is the most fragile member of the group; in a fight, he takes cover and plinks at stuff with a hellgun while he waits for the screaming to stop. I'd really like to get him something that gives bonuses in social situations, since that's what he is built for and has the most fun doing.

The Voidmaster's trickier. He's already got a good gun, a force field, and decent armor; I'd like to give him something that really says 'super-awesome pilot, yo', but the only thing I can think of is a Flip-Belt since it requires the Pilot (Personal) skill. It's admittedly good for him, with Hover 6 and +20 to Agility tests like Dodge, but it feels less 'shiny' than the other prizes.

[bluntpencil]

For the Void Master - a set of keys.

To what? A relic Lightning fighter? A treasure chest? Who knows?

[LeSwordfish]

An alternative might be some kind of super-MIU that gives additional bonuses to pilot skills by linking him more closely to his craft.

[Destro_Yersul]

Well, since we're on the theme of cool technology, give the voidmaster an Imperial Jetbike. Those things are stupid rare, and the Imperium can't make them anymore. It's a huge status symbol, and also could have guns on it.

For the Seneschal... how about a really nice book? Or a collection of them. Encoded on a holo-emitter disguised as the gemstone on a ring. Some lost archive of information on the assorted Great Houses of the sector, full of potential blackmail material or other useful information.

[The Glyphstone]

I love the jetbike idea, I'm just not entirely sure how often he'd get to use it since they've done a lot of indoor exploration so far. Still worth considering, and he's already made noises about wanting to own a Sentinel despite that being even less practical.

[LeSwordfish]

Session Six: Meanwhile Back At The Ranch

On one side of the city, Ossian and McAllister are breathing their last as the explosion hits- on the other side, only those two players, by coincidence, can show up for the session. So, it's time to meet our first two replacement PCs:


Zacharias is a tech-priest of a decidedly puritan bent. He took Subskin armor, and is very intelligent and very tanky.
Regiam is a medic. She(?) is McAllister, but as a medic. This is fine by me, McAllister never caused any problems, and that player's way is a certain thoughtful stoicism in general.


They're stationed respectively as the technician and medic for an imperial guard forward command post in an old station, north of the river but behind the front lines. Their company commander is Captain Eberhard, and, one morning, he sends runners to fetch both of them. Zachariah snaps at his runner - whatever mechanicus'y business he's doing is far more important! He does go with the guy though, and meets Eberhard and his command squad, plus the medic, in one of the transit tunnels under the station, where a shift has revealed a side tunnel that vanishes down into a much larger area underneath the city. There's some fancy technology and what sounds like a wounded man in there, so the tech, the medic, and two guardsmen are being sent in. Zachariah grumbles about the waste of his talents, but Eberhard isn't having any of it. Away they go! It's nice to be able to make stupid combat decisions without the veteran calling me out on it.

The tunnel is comparable to that of the large hadron collider, with some sort of massive old machinery running down one side of an arched tunnel and a walkway on the other. Zachariah heads out first, followed by Regiam and a pair of nameless guardsmen. Zachariah fails a string of Forbidden Lore checks, and fails to identify the machine, or successfully get the diagnostic panels working: all he can tell is that it's not turned on.

Several minutes down the tunnel, they run into the wounded: a guardsman in the colours of the Selenian regiments, badly attacked as if by animals. He's accompanied by his sargeant, Winters, and another trooper. Regiam stabilises him, and they tell their story: they're scouts, and the rest of their squad was taken out by Severan forces. They fled into what turned out to be this tunnel, and nearly made it back to the lines before being attacked by feral dogs.

"Feral dogs?" Regiam asks. As if in answer, there are long, high howls from both directions.

Time to move! Regiam and Zachariah take the lead, with Winters and his squad as walking wounded in the middle. They're nearly halfway back to the tunnel up to the base when the dogs attack: half a dozen massive feral brutes cannoning out of the darkness. Neither the dogs nor the PCs can successfully land much of a blow, but with Winter's help, Regiam and Zacharaiah kill one each and the rest are driven off.

Back at base, Zachariah demands first that the nearest guardsmen and then that the company commander escort him into the tunnels to find out more about the machinery. The company commander declines, instead ordering that the tunnel be sealed: it's too much of a risk to have it in the base. The players go their seperate ways: Regiam escorts Winters' wounded men to the infirmary, where they're placed under quarantine in case of infection from the dog attack, while Zachariah petitions to the chief enginseer to be allowed into the tunnel. The chief enginseer tells him he'll try but it might be a while, and gives Zachariah a job: visit the local city planning office, and see if he can find the tunnels on the plan. Zachariah does so, but fails about twelve 80+ rolls in a row, and fails to get any information save a city map, which he saves to his dataslate.

Early the following morning, Regiam finds the quarantine ward slit open and all three of Winters' men gone. The camp goes on full alert, and Regiam is tasked with getting Winters back because she's the PC she's the one who's worked with him, she'll recognise him. She takes Zachariah with her because he's the other PC his auspex will be useful for tracking the signal. They successfully detect a second of signal from a non-imperial signal, and make a beeline in that direction, finding the signal in the basement of a high-rise hab. They go in loaded for bear - and perform the most underwhelming breach and clear ever.

They kick in the door, leap through, fail to hit or wound any of Winters' men, and then retreat when they each take eight or nine wounds in return. Winters calls out to them:

"You're making a mistake, soldier. Stop me here, and we all die."

Zachariah responds to this with a frag grenade. This does a lot of damage both to Winters and the massive console he's standing in front of. Winters responds with Suppressing Fire, and Zachariah is suppressed. Winters repeats his request, and Regiam passes a scrutiny test: she believes what he's saying. They agree to drop their weapons and talk.

Winters is a technician with the Severan Dominate. His task was to use the tunnel to get behind enemy lines, get to this console, and activate the machinery it controls: a section of the massive heating device that runs underneath the city. This massive Archeotech device prevents the city from freezing completely when the planet enters it's ice age. The severans want to activate it: trouble is, this one section is faulty. If they don't activate it here, this section explodes, probably taking out the forward command post and a good chunk of the city with it, which the Severans don't want. With their city plans and homeworld knowledge, the players can confirm this. Zachariah sets himself to repairing the console: he fails his Forbidden Lore (Archeotech) test to figure out how it works, which means he - humiliatingly - needs to ask Winters for help. They repair it, and decide that they need to let Winters go rather than risk another firefight. He does, they call the whole story in, and get ordered back to base.

Halfway back, the ground starts shaking - the rumble of the heat engine activating. Snow starts to boil, ice starts to melt, and the temperature increase twists the sky into a massive storm. Somewhere far away there is the explosion of the other squad detonating their explosives... and the sirens of incoming attack start to wail.

Next session: All of the stuff I said last session, except the hidden secret.

[The Glyphstone]

I think I traumatized my playgroup this week with Brute Ram Ships. I pit their shiny new cruiser against a Kroozer and a pair of Ramship escorts; the Kroozer flailed away pretty ineffectually for most of the fight, but two solid hits from the escort glued to their rear (and some lucky rolls on behalf of its Kaptin) came damn close to killing them...3d10+23 is brutal.

[Tome]

I've been having some thoughts on how to ameliorate the oft-cited problem with Black Crusade/Only War/DH2 that the aptitude system encourages min-maxed, highly focused characters. Nothing serious, yet, but I figured I'd bounce my ideas off some fellow players who probably have a better sense for the balance of the game.

For starters, reducing the increased costs for purchasing things outside of your aptitudes aught to help make things a bit less painful in that regard. In particular, I'd hope that bringing down the cost of single aptitude purchases to only slightly more expensive than double aptitude ones would make the idea of branching out that way or choosing character generation options that give mismatched aptitudes would become more appealing. So Rank 1 skills would be along the lines of 100/150/250 and rank 4 would be 400/600/1000, while tier 1 talents would be something like 200/250/400.

The second part would be to apply limitations on purchasing higher ranking talents and skills. So, say, for each skill you wish to purchase at rank 2 you need to have purchased two other skills at rank 1, and a rank 3 skill would require two rank 2 skills etc. Talents would be more along the lines of three tier 1 talents for a tier 2 talent and two tier 2 talents for a tier 3. Not sure on the numbers, but the idea would be to encourage characters to purchase a wider array of lower ranked skills and talents in order to access the more powerful ones.

How do folks think these would work out in practice?

[NoldorForce]

The first part sounds viable. My group also uses a modified chart for determining costs, but in this case the two metrics were to balance things around a harmonic mean (which is biased towards lower values, i.e. the things that players actually buy in practice) and to vary costs by +/-50 * [tier] * [difference in aptitudes]. Let's face it, if your character has no aptitudes for a given thing are you really going to buy it beyond the first tier?

As for the second, that's not really necessary in play. In practice I've already seen highly boosted skills being restricted just by their cost-to-benefit ratio. Similarly, T3 talents often have notable prerequisites to take them in the first place (such as lower-tier talents or investments in characteristics). And the very small handful of T3 talents without meaningful prerequisites (such as Sprint) are all perfectly fine for starting characters. The end result is that you'll just be requiring a bunch of extra bookkeeping in play.

Anyway, here are my charts of XP values. You'll see that in just about all cases, the price for buying something with two aptitudes has gone up (but is still cheapest), while the price for buying something with one or zero aptitudes has gone down or stayed the same (but is still more expensive than with more corresponding aptitudes).


Characteristic Advances
+5
+10
+15
+20
+25
Two Aptitudes
150
325
550
775
1000
One Aptitude
200
425
700
975
1250
Zero Aptitudes
250
525
850
1175
1500


Skill Advances
+0
+10
+20
+30
Two Aptitudes
125
250
375
500
One Aptitude
175
350
525
700
Zero Aptitudes
225
450
675
900


Talent Advances
T1
T2
T3
Two Aptitudes
250
350
450
One Aptitude
300
450
600
Zero Aptitudes
350
550
750

[Grim Portent]

Would it not be easier, and encourage more varied character builds, to just make all advancements cost the same regardless of aptitudes?

Or make aptitudes able to be purchased for exp like a talent.

[NoldorForce]

My scheme presumes that the group is intending to keep aptitudes as-is as a way to differentiate character directions, and flattens the cost to reduce the requirement on getting that perfect setup. But yes, giving everything the one-aptitude costs is another viable method I've seen suggested. After all, it was basically the default purchasing method in Black Crusade before you started pushing for the good graces of your chosen god. As for buying aptitudes? No, that has the significant problem that the actual effect of an aptitude varies wildly depending on how a character progresses. And if you're willing to buy it, then chances are that it's worth a lot to you. If you're going to grant access to more aptitudes then it's best to just give everyone a free one (or so forth) at chargen.

[blacklight101]

Wow, I realized today how long it's been since I've commented on something around here. Also how long since I've messed around with anything 40k with any of you. I'm mildly embarrassed by this.

LeSwordfish, your group seems to be handling the chaos fairly well. Definitely a neat read so far. I do hope you have kept the game going.

Glyphstone, when I tried Brutes, I didn't roll well enough for them to be effective and misjudged distance a couple times. If the game hadn't fallen apart over a busy summer, I had a second chance at them and the Roksteroid Field coming up in two or three sessions. I had the best success traumatizing my group with the Eldar, not the crazy bondage ones, just some vanilla Eldar. They're not a fan of Howling Banshees or Pulsar-armed Frigates right now. Good times.

Anyone else playing Battlefleet Gothic: Armada? I know I am.

[shadow_archmagi]

I've been having some thoughts on how to ameliorate the oft-cited problem with Black Crusade/Only War/DH2 that the aptitude system encourages min-maxed, highly focused characters. Nothing serious, yet, but I figured I'd bounce my ideas off some fellow players who probably have a better sense for the balance of the game.

I think that something more potent than XP costs needs to change. The fundamental issue with 40k RPGs is that it's really easy to get away with hyper-specialized roles because characters are rarely called on to do something they're not good at, and they can generally get so good at it as to make it a viable option at all times. You're a sniper confronted with a locked door? Shoot the guards and take their key. Confronted with a hostage situation? Shoot the hostage taker. Banking scandal? I'm sure there's SOMEONE to shoot.

My ideal solution would involve a two pronged approach: reducing and combining related talents into a single expensive package, (Instead of taking Improved Aim, Gun Mastery, Thunder Bullets, and Scope Polishing, just have a Sniper feat) and making it more beneficial to have a secondary character with some competency. By rolling semi-related things into one Talent, you make it impossible to specialize *too* much. Sure, you can take Sniper *and* Gunslinger to be really, really good at shooting, but Gunslinger comes with bluff and some other cowboy stuff and Sniper comes with wilderness survival so you're a well-rounded character by default. The second prong would be changing how Aid Another works so that it's very beneficial to have a second character who is at least half as good as you, so that everyone is encouraged to pick up secondary roles to "back up" the person with that primary role.

The final nail in the coffin of hyper specialization is varying the difficulty of options and the rewards involved. Sometimes sniping will be the easiest option and grant the best reward. Sometimes it'll be all but impossible but just one rank in zoology would've solved the problem for free

[blacklight101]

Well, due to a recent change in my circumstances, it looks like I may be pitching a campaign idea or two for my IRL group soon. One d&d 3.x and one Only War idea that I just started on the framework for.

Im thinking the OW game will be retaking a city from Chaos (yawn, boring premise) but for new players it may work. I have a handful of TPK-happy regiments for them to choose from that I knocked out real quick this morning. I kinda hope they pick this for the bodycount.

The 3.x is a more focused bandit campaign. For whatever reason they run off, go against the law, and survive as long as they can against the local sherrif/sergeant at arms and his militia.

Im having problems coming up with more than framework for them since I have a tendency to run games a little sandboxy/see-what-happens kind of way, but I will take any neat ideas for some hurdles in either game. Especially the OW since I know ill miss things on the urban combat end.


Otherwise, yay gaming! I dont do enough irl any more.

I hope all your respective games go well too, with a lack of That Guy and with tons of fun.

[blacklight101]

Well, ended up with a little vacation and really got a chance to flesh out the OW game.

Talked to them on Hangouts after i made that post and they latched right on to the idea of a higher bodycount game. Then the days off, parents wanted to watch their grandbabies and then this wildly overlarge, constantly expanding city map occurred over the next two days (and the largest part of the campaign framework) and what I thought would stop at maybe four pages (standard graph paper) turned somehow into a monstrosity of mining city that right now spans eighteen.

I added more last night too. I think it will stop at hopefully 20. I hope no more than 24. I think my problem is scale, among other things, but that aside...

I just hope I can make it fun, more than anything else. Trench warfare and urban combat that it is. I hope it doesnt fizzle quite as fast as the RT game I tried.

[Coidzor]

So is there a generally recommended priority when spending XP to advance characters in the Dark Heresy-related games?

So far I've been putting a priority on getting a broad skill set so that at least one of our characters could meaningfully interact with the variety of Lore checks and such that we kept running into, but with an average starting characteristic in the 30s, it seems almost like you're instead supposed to become actually competent at a particular skill before branching out again. Or possibly I'm not choosing the best moments to spend my hoarded fate points.

I think partially it might be my fault in this case for just picking a less-focused character archetype by going with a Cleric, because I found the idea of crushing skulls with a big ol' hammer for the Emprah to be most pleasing and not at all heretical in the slightest, and they don't really seem to have any real particular areas of focus.

Perhaps if I was more cunning as a player about how to recruit or draft NPCs to be my minions it'd be a bit more straightforward here.

[Tome]

Generally speaking, I go with characteristic advances first. Focus on your high characteristics and grab whatever skills work off of them.

If you're having problems making rolls you can also look for more equipment or circumstance bonuses.

[Coidzor]

Generally speaking, I go with characteristic advances first. Focus on your high characteristics and grab whatever skills work off of them.

If you're having problems making rolls you can also look for more equipment or circumstance bonuses.

Yeah, my ocular catechizers are quite handy, come to think of it. Feel kind of dumb now that I emptied my character's funds to get ammo for the Best Quality Boltpistol he got off of a dead Rogue Trader. Well, that and top tier carapace armor. Which has come quite in handy as the meleer. Feel a bit silly about the boltpistol now, really, since I've not yet had any opportunity to use it since the daemon boss fight we won by it accidentally killing itself by using firebreath on a man covered in grenades and autogun rounds and promethium and high-proof alcohol. While standing next to him. And badly wounded from fire attacks after revealing itself to be vulnerable to fire-based damage. :smallconfused:

I think one issue is that I inadvertently got a high Fellowship with a party member with even higher fellowship and Peers and such put the wazoo, so the only Fellowship skill where I'm not assisting is Inquiry if we split up to ask questions or Command because I'm the only one with it, but have had some difficulty figuring out how to manage using it, given we don't regularly have access to underlings and I can't always think of a good way to pressgang people, especially in ways that won't bog down fights with even more characters. Unless someone gets off a nice AoE attack which takes out half of one side in one go.

[Chijinda]

Yeah, my ocular catechizers are quite handy, come to think of it. Feel kind of dumb now that I emptied my character's funds to get ammo for the Best Quality Boltpistol he got off of a dead Rogue Trader. Well, that and top tier carapace armor. Which has come quite in handy as the meleer. Feel a bit silly about the boltpistol now, really, since I've not yet had any opportunity to use it since the daemon boss fight we won by it accidentally killing itself by using firebreath on a man covered in grenades and autogun rounds and promethium and high-proof alcohol. While standing next to him. And badly wounded from fire attacks after revealing itself to be vulnerable to fire-based damage. :smallconfused:

I think one issue is that I inadvertently got a high Fellowship with a party member with even higher fellowship and Peers and such put the wazoo, so the only Fellowship skill where I'm not assisting is Inquiry if we split up to ask questions or Command because I'm the only one with it, but have had some difficulty figuring out how to manage using it, given we don't regularly have access to underlings and I can't always think of a good way to pressgang people, especially in ways that won't bog down fights with even more characters. Unless someone gets off a nice AoE attack which takes out half of one side in one go.


This is DH1? Then yeesh. Yeah Bolt weapons fall into the Awesome But Impractical catagory. Though if you're running a cleric, you might be the only career in the game that can actually manage that.

Having high fellowship is still handy. Lets you tackle things solo if you want to, or pursue your own agendas within the campaign.

Does your group have a Psyker or Commander-branch Guardsman? If not, and you're still looking for a niche, you could go a heavy willpower build with party-wide buffs (Litany of Hate, Into the Jaws of Hell, Iron Discipline, etc.)

[Coidzor]

By the by, is there any way to environmentally seal armor in Dark Heresy without using something like the Macharian's Handbook that adds it by default to higher-end armors?

Would that be something to bring up with the GM once one of us gets Trade(Armorer) or we manage to recruit or find a friendly NPC armorer who we can hire to do it?


This is DH1? Then yeesh. Yeah Bolt weapons fall into the Awesome But Impractical catagory. Though if you're running a cleric, you might be the only career in the game that can actually manage that.

Thankfully it seems like a great thing to pump into boss monsters, especially when I got Righteous Fury or whatever on some incendiary bolts I fired into a giant horrific xenos that was only barely and partially contained by a kiddie pool of slime. Though not as nice of a "only use for heavies" weapon as the Sniper-Assassin's Accurate Melta gun that he used to finish off the boss after we were almost all killed by it throwing psychic bolts of raw pain at us. And probably just comparable to the krak grenade I slung at it. And now that I have a sling to lob grenades with, krak grenades seem nearly accurate enough to be worth using against large targets and if I have the time to aim.

I think I'll be fine as long as I use bolts sparingly or primarily just for big targets, which is fine, because I took Quickdraw, so I can just use another weapon on ganger trash and the like. Ate up a bit over a month's pay to get a clip of Inferno bolts and a clip of regular old bolts. I'm not sure how much more the guy who got the Noble track of paygrade gets per month, but it seems like a lot or he's going to be in a rude awakening with his plan to dual-wield bolt pistols. Unless I'm mistaken and you can't fire both on semi-automatic at once.


Having high fellowship is still handy. Lets you tackle things solo if you want to, or pursue your own agendas within the campaign.

True enough, though I can't really think of a secondary agenda for my guy, because he's not a closet heretic(yet?).

I suppose getting to the point where I can have minions or a valet or something would be nice, but I don't really see a way to arrange for that.

Been useful a few times for creating a distraction when the Blather-capable Skum was busy doing something else, though, starting a rousing bout of hymn singing or going on at length about the parable of St. Something-or-Othericus.


Does your group have a Psyker or Commander-branch Guardsman? If not, and you're still looking for a niche, you could go a heavy willpower build with party-wide buffs (Litany of Hate, Into the Jaws of Hell, Iron Discipline, etc.)

No Psyker and I don't know which path the Guardsman is going down. Need to get him a weapon heavier than an autogun or get him stocked up on grenades, though. I think we're planning on "requisitioning" a holy heavy stubber for him from the reliquary of a cathedral we're investigating, we just haven't quite figured out the best course of action for doing so.

I was thinking of boosting my willpower next, so I could probably look into grabbing some of those after that, thanks. :smallsmile: My current Fellowship bonus is just right for making the entire party better at hitting an enemy I hate with sticks, though I think I don't open that up until I reach Confessor or Zealot. I'll double check though. I think right now all I could pick up immediately would be Iron Discipline.

[blacklight101]

Have any of you used the formation rules in the Enemies book in OW? do they actually change combat enough mechanically on smallish (4-6 man) squads to matter? I can see the bonuses add up, but they just seem so much squishier by comparison.

I definitely like the concept of them and will definitely use them for now, but other than saving a few tokens on the board, are they worth using, or should i just give them a pass?

[lunaticfringe]

Any one ever run a game DH/2 where you work for the Ordo Sanctorum or for a Seculos Attendous Radical? Any tips on running such a game?

To save you a couple googles Ordo Sanctorum watches over the Ecclesiarchy and Seculos Attendous are Radicals who think the Ecclesiarchy is ruining the Imperium and should be BLAM!ed.

[Grytorm]

Well it seems like nobody has posted in this thread in a long time. Unless another general thread has popped up. Wonder why that happened.

But I was just wanting to post here because I have started to mentally go over an idea for a Dark Heresy story which I liked for the hypothetical game I could run someday.

The story would have the acolytes sent to somewhat backward planet which recently had a brief but brutal civil war. A young member of the ruling house had with the backing of a rogue trader slaughtered most of her family and siezed power. The situation was sufficiently under control that the noble was recognized as the new governor.

The PCs are sent to investigate the institutions but I don't know exactly what they would be looking for. Probably something to do with the imperial tithes and shady dealing with the trader. But I'm not certain.

Also I had an idea of a dead Chaos Space Marine, or possibly a crippled one being the foci of a cult in the backwaters of the backwaters planet.

[Chijinda]

Well it seems like nobody has posted in this thread in a long time. Unless another general thread has popped up. Wonder why that happened.

But I was just wanting to post here because I have started to mentally go over an idea for a Dark Heresy story which I liked for the hypothetical game I could run someday.

The story would have the acolytes sent to somewhat backward planet which recently had a brief but brutal civil war. A young member of the ruling house had with the backing of a rogue trader slaughtered most of her family and siezed power. The situation was sufficiently under control that the noble was recognized as the new governor.

The PCs are sent to investigate the institutions but I don't know exactly what they would be looking for. Probably something to do with the imperial tithes and shady dealing with the trader. But I'm not certain.

Also I had an idea of a dead Chaos Space Marine, or possibly a crippled one being the foci of a cult in the backwaters of the backwaters planet.


So a possible hook you could use is that the slaughtered family in question had some manner of relation to your Acolyte cell's Inquisitor. Maybe he had some dealings with them in the past, and a certain member of the family was an ally of the Inquisition so their sudden demise seems suspect to him and he wants the Acolytes to look into it. Maybe the Inquisitor has some suspicions about the civil war in the first place, and is sending the Acolytes to investigate the cause of it, suspecting heretical matters. Heck, maybe the deal with the Chaos Space Marine has given rise to a Chaos cult and THAT'S what the Acolytes are investigating rumors of, and they stumble upon this whole secondary plot in the process.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

I can ask questions both about Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and the various 40K-based RPGs like Rogue Trader here, right? It's not just one or the other?

[Destro_Yersul]

Yep. Ask away, and we shall try to answer.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

If I wanted to be an Empire College Wizard inspired by Luke Skywalker's shenanigans in The Last Jedi, would it be better to be a Celestial Wizard or a Grey Wizard? Celestial Wizards can "astral project," and a lot of their spells are good at mimicking using the Force to see "the future, the past, old friends long-gone," but creating convincing illusions is the whole shtick of Grey Wizards.

[Destro_Yersul]

Ok, having now seen The Last Jedi, I can actually open that and answer your question.

Jedi doesn't map precisely to wizard, but if I had to pick just one I'd go Grey Order. Apart from the illusions and mind tricks and whatnot, Grey wizards are the most martially-inclined of the colleges, at least in terms of swordplay.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Thank you! :smallsmile:

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Another question about this "Jedi" wizard I'm building. I'm trying to come up with a name for him and I can't decide on his surname. His given name is Symon. Should his last name be "Morgenstern" or "Osiander." Which of these fits the first name "Symon" better?

[Destro_Yersul]

I like Morgenstern, partially because it's a celestial reference and Star Wars likes those.

[comicshorse]

I like Morgenstern, partially because it's a celestial reference and Star Wars likes those.

And its the name of the guy who wrote 'The Princess Bride' :smallsmile:

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Crud, I forgot about that! :smalleek:

I'll need to find some other German-sounding first name for him that starts with a different letter.

Would Ambrose work? I've been told it sounds too "English." :smallconfused:

[comicshorse]

Crud, I forgot about that! :smalleek:

I'll need to find some other German-sounding first name for him that starts with a different letter.

Would Ambrose work? I've been told it sounds too "English." :smallconfused:

Ambrose sounds English to me. How about Adolphus .?

[Destro_Yersul]

What I do when looking for character names is just go to Behind the Name or something like that, find the subset of names I want to look at (German, in this case) and just scroll down until I see one I like.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

I don't use Behind The Name as a rule. It's REALLY not accurate, especially for First Nation names, Hebrew names and the names of the various African nations and peoples (I've been told that if a site just has a section labelled "African Names" or "Native American Names" that should be a SERIOUS red flag), to the point of being offensive.

[Destro_Yersul]

I don't use Behind The Name as a rule. It's REALLY not accurate, especially for First Nation names, Hebrew names and the names of the various African nations and peoples (I've been told that if a site just has a section labelled "African Names" or "Native American Names" that should be a SERIOUS red flag), to the point of being offensive.

That's not really a reason to not use it for character name inspiration, but you can always just pick another site with a similar idea if you want to avoid that one specifically.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Here's a question unrelated to the naming question: WHFRP has a...reputation, as a meatgrinder for player characters. That you shouldn't get too attached to your character because "In the Grim Darkness of medieval Europe, you will roll peasants and die of cholera." How true IS that reputation, as far as you who've actually played the game have seen?

The implication one gets from reading TV Tropes is that you'll be living hand-to mouth your entire life, never being able to afford even a mail hauberk to protect yourself, and the fun of the game comes from seeing just how many amusing ways the poor souls you play as can suffer and die, whether from a freak magical explosion from your party's wizard, from crapping your guts out due to poor sanitation, from the crude blade of one of the many, MANY beasties like Skaven or Orcs, or by your own hand after you inevitably get a mutation.

While part of me understands the appeal of such a playstyle (that's the whole reason Paranoia is popular in the first place), it feels like you never really get a chance to have a character arc because the whole of your character's story ultimately boils down to luck and the story will always end with one bad roll of the die. That you just have a "golf bag" of characters you aren't emotionally attached to just to get through the adventure.

I get that your character isn't supposed to become as famous or powerful as someone like Emperor Karl Franz or Gotrek Gurnnison, you're not going to be dueling Archaon to save the world, but is there ANY way to improve your chances of survival so you can have SOME meaningful impact on the Old World? Just how inevitable ARE mutations anyway? How many advances or career changes does the average WHFRP character get through before they die? Are some of the high-tier careers like Wizard Lord or High Priest just there to taunt players with a level of power and wealth they'll never survive to achieve?

What I'm trying to do is understand this game in practice, an understanding the books just can't provide on their own. For me, part of the Warhammer experience has always been "Yes, this world is cruel and unforgiving, but if you're smart, careful, and more than a little lucky, you can survive the worst of what it throws at you, and maybe even make it a slightly less crappy place."
I don't know if that feeling is exclusive to Total War: Warhammer or something. Thank you all in advance.

[comicshorse]

I'm speaking as someone who has played in multiple Warhammer campaigns using both 1st and 2nd Ed. One of which stretched over 6 years and ended with the two surviving PCs ( and most of the rest were lost to people moving away) who ended up VERY high in the Empire and very dangerous people.
From this perspective I'd say Warhammer's reputation, as you described it, is mostly untrue IF ( big if) you don't treat it as DnD.
If you decide goblin hoards are there to be charged, city guard to be defied and Nobles to be laughed at then you are going to DIE !
Use tactics, use smarts, run away when you have to and, probably most vital, accept there are some people (usually ones with Von in their name) that YOU DON'T ANSWER BACK TO ! ( You just plot behind their back to bring them down and steal their land :smallcool: ).

Yes horrible **** can happen but that's why the P.C.s get Fate Points to see them through the horrid luck and why wise G.M's know to change some of the killer campaigns released for Warhammer, and yes 'Something Rotten In Kislev' I'm definitely looking at you !
Warhammer's reputation is, IMHO, a combination of DnD groups trying to play it like DnD and the normal human desire to exaggerate things to make them sound cooler/more dangerous/ etc


To put things in perspective after 6 years of play both the P.Cs in the campaign I refered to above had both been through multiple careers, had the best gear money could buy and even had a couple of magic items. This meant they could take on, say, three average opponents in a fair fight with a decent chance of winning. But you know what we got to that level by avoiding fighting fair at every opportunity

[Aneurin]

Here's a question unrelated to the naming question: WHFRP has a...reputation, as a meatgrinder for player characters. That you shouldn't get too attached to your character because "In the Grim Darkness of medieval Europe, you will roll peasants and die of cholera." How true IS that reputation, as far as you who've actually played the game have seen?

The implication one gets from reading TV Tropes is that you'll be living hand-to mouth your entire life, never being able to afford even a mail hauberk to protect yourself, and the fun of the game comes from seeing just how many amusing ways the poor souls you play as can suffer and die, whether from a freak magical explosion from your party's wizard, from crapping your guts out due to poor sanitation, from the crude blade of one of the many, MANY beasties like Skaven or Orcs, or by your own hand after you inevitably get a mutation.

While part of me understands the appeal of such a playstyle (that's the whole reason Paranoia is popular in the first place), it feels like you never really get a chance to have a character arc because the whole of your character's story ultimately boils down to luck and the story will always end with one bad roll of the die. That you just have a "golf bag" of characters you aren't emotionally attached to just to get through the adventure.

I get that your character isn't supposed to become as famous or powerful as someone like Emperor Karl Franz or Gotrek Gurnnison, you're not going to be dueling Archaon to save the world, but is there ANY way to improve your chances of survival so you can have SOME meaningful impact on the Old World? Just how inevitable ARE mutations anyway? How many advances or career changes does the average WHFRP character get through before they die? Are some of the high-tier careers like Wizard Lord or High Priest just there to taunt players with a level of power and wealth they'll never survive to achieve?

The game certainly can be played that way, but it doesn't have to be.

There's always a risk of your character dying in a fight, but you have Fate Points that can be spent to save your character from death (and Fortune Points for rerolls, which can often avert said death). There is always the safety net there for if you screw up or just get unlucky. And a lot of GMs will let you earn more Fate Points through play.


What I'm trying to do is understand this game in practice, an understanding the books just can't provide on their own. For me, part of the Warhammer experience has always been "Yes, this world is cruel and unforgiving, but if you're smart, careful, and more than a little lucky, you can survive the worst of what it throws at you, and maybe even make it a slightly less crappy place."
I don't know if that feeling is exclusive to Total War: Warhammer or something. Thank you all in advance.

I think that's a pretty good summary of WFRP in general, provided you don't have a GM who thinks that having you all die of filth fever after wading through a sewer is the best thing ever.



I'm just going to drop a couple of links to some campaign logs for WFRP that I've seen that might be helpful in determining the different ways the system can be played:

The Shadow Of The Sun (sadly unfinished) (https://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?421186-Warhammer-Fantasy-2e-The-Shadow-Of-The-Sun&p=9523526#post9523526)
Troupe Of The Chiked Chicken (Actuall WFRP 1e, but you should get the feel - in progress) (https://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?568212-(Warhammer-1st-Ed)-The-Troupe-of-the-Choked-Chicken)
Letters To Helena (I've not actually read this one, or seen it before today, so I can't vouch for the quality or content) (https://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?816942-WFRP-2nd-Ed-Letters-to-Helena)

[Archpaladin Zousha]

I'm speaking as someone who has played in multiple Warhammer campaigns using both 1st and 2nd Ed. One of which stretched over 6 years and ended with the two surviving PCs ( and most of the rest were lost to people moving away) who ended up VERY high in the Empire and very dangerous people.
From this perspective I'd say Warhammer's reputation, as you described it, is mostly untrue IF ( big if) you don't treat it as DnD.
If you decide goblin hoards are there to be charged, city guard to be defied and Nobles to be laughed at then you are going to DIE !
Use tactics, use smarts, run away when you have to and, probably most vital, accept there are some people (usually ones with Von in their name) that YOU DON'T ANSWER BACK TO ! ( You just plot behind their back to bring them down and steal their land :smallcool: ).

Yes horrible **** can happen but that's why the P.C.s get Fate Points to see them through the horrid luck and why wise G.M's know to change some of the killer campaigns released for Warhammer, and yes 'Something Rotten In Kislev' I'm definitely looking at you !
Warhammer's reputation is, IMHO, a combination of DnD groups trying to play it like DnD and the normal human desire to exaggerate things to make them sound cooler/more dangerous/ etc


To put things in perspective after 6 years of play both the P.Cs in the campaign I refered to above had both been through multiple careers, had the best gear money could buy and even had a couple of magic items. This meant they could take on, say, three average opponents in a fair fight with a decent chance of winning. But you know what we got to that level by avoiding fighting fair at every opportunity
That's very reassuring, comicshorse. Thank you! :smallsmile:

[Incorrect]

It completely depends on the GM.
Just like in any other systems, the GM sets the difficulty.

A few of my friends did, in fact, have a campaign where they fought and killed Karl Franz. It might not have been completely canon and true to the original intent, but it sounds very rock n' roll.

[comicshorse]

I get that your character isn't supposed to become as famous or powerful as someone like Emperor Karl Franz or Gotrek Gurnnison,


Ironically in the Warhammer world Gotrek isn't that famous. His companion has written a few stories about him but they're not popular and widely disregarded as tall tales. Way back when White Dwarf even published stats for Gotrek as he was then ( this was probably only a couple of books in) and while tough he was far from invincible. He'd completed 3 or 4 careers and had a magic weapon if I remember rightly


Just how inevitable ARE mutations anyway

They're mostly not if you follow some simple rules.
(1) Don't make deal with demons
(2) Don't go near, let alone touch, Warpstone
(3) and no matter how powerful the chaos warriors sword/armour/amulet is you do not use it. Ever


Are some of the high-tier careers like Wizard Lord or High Priest just there to taunt players with a level of power and wealth they'll never survive to achieve?

They're reachable but it will take a loooooooong time (both IC and OOC) and luck, skill,planning and probably a couple of Fate Points

[Archpaladin Zousha]

So...common sense and I should be okay! Thanks!

Is there anything preventing a wizard from carrying around a pistol as a kind of ace-in-the-hole, backup weapon? I kinda wanna be like Avatar from the Ralph Bakshi film Wizards, in this epic battle of magic (https://youtu.be/4cZqRzHnI8s)! :smallbiggrin:

[comicshorse]

Absolutely nothing, apart from that he'll need to have the appropriate Specialist Weapon Skill to use it with any accuracy.
Also probably best not carrying around a weapon which needs a bag of gunpowder if you're a Bright wizard :smallsmile:

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Oh don't worry! I specifically didn't want to play a Bright Wizard since they got all the attention in games like Warhammer Online and Vermintide. :smalltongue:

Still struggling to decide between Celestial or Grey, though...

[Archpaladin Zousha]

I got another lore question. I know Eldar in 40k consider humans to be barely evolved primates and would consider having a relationship with one to be disgusting to say the least.

Do the High and Wood Elves of Fantasy feel similarly? One of the other players in my group wants to be an elf, and she likes to play "flirty" characters. I'm just not sure how flirty an elf would be with non-elves.

[comicshorse]

High Elves feel themselves superior to humans but not quite to the extent Eldar do. High Elves, for example, taught Humans about the Colours of magic and founded the Imperial Colleges of Magic. Granted so humans would be better equipped to act as a bulwark against the forces of Chaos and protect them.
Wood Elves are a little less superior in their attitude but rarely emerge from their forest holds. Though obviously adventurers are always unusual members of their races.
Sea Elves are the most social of the Elven races and have the most contact with humans.

Human/Elven marriages are rare but I got the feeling that flirtations and even brief affairs between the races are more common but not really talked about by Elves. And, as I said earlier, adventurers are always uncommon members of their races.
As a thought, it might even be that the PC's family, thinking her a little 'wild' have sent her out into the world to work it out of her system before returning to be a proper elf. ( That was the reasoning behind an Elf character of mine although he's weakness was more for gambling)

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Aren't Sea Elves just another name for High Elves? :smallconfused:

[comicshorse]

Not in First ED. , which is the one I'm most familiar with. Certainly the Elf colony in Marienberg definitely consider themselves Sea Elves NOT High Elves
Though obviously the line between all types of Elves, even Dark Elves, is geographical and social not genetic

[Archpaladin Zousha]

I see. Our GM seems to believe that elves from Laurelorn aren't Wood Elves because they're not in Athel Loren proper, but the books seem to indicate they behave basically like standard Athel Loren Asrai. Then again, the 2e books barely cover non-human cultures, aside from Halflings because they're so thoroughly integrated into the Empire.

[comicshorse]

I see. Our GM seems to believe that elves from Laurelorn aren't Wood Elves because they're not in Athel Loren proper, but the books seem to indicate they behave basically like standard Athel Loren Asrai. Then again, the 2e books barely cover non-human cultures, aside from Halflings because they're so thoroughly integrated into the Empire.

That was my understanding. Wood Elves are those who refused the order for all Elves to return to Ulthuan after the end of the 'War of the Beard' and choose to remain in their forest homes in the Old World. Athel Loren is the most important of these colonies but far from the only one

P.S
If you're interested there is a fan book for Wood Elves

http://www.liberfanatica.net/Elf_Project.html

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Thank you! I'll read it as soon as the internet outage at my house is over and I'm not stuck using a phone for web access. :smallannoyed:

I had some other random questions about the setting and rules of the Old World:

1. I'm aware that halflings can't become wizards as a byproduct of their natural resistance to Chaos energy, but can they channel blessings of the gods if, say, a halfling became a priest of Sigmar? Or does that count as another kind of magic, meaning halflings joining the priesthood are restricted to careers like Monk or Lay Priest?

2. Related to the flirty Wood Elf question, what exactly would happen if an Elf and Human got together "committed some heresy?" I know WHFRP isn't D&D, and the wiki and books don't say anything about "half-elves, so does it just not result in a pregnancy or is it more like Dragon Age where the resulting offspring would be considered completely human? And the same question extends to the other non-humans. What happens between humans and dwarfs? Or if the unthinkable should happen and a dwarf and an elf actually manage to fall in love?!

3. If someone wants to be a sharpshooter, is it better to stick with archery-style weapons like the longbow and crossbow, or will you get more bang-for-your-buck (literally!) by getting a firearm or a Hochland Long Rifle? And what careers lend themselves best to that kind of playstyle? My understanding is that a halfling PC will be surprisingly effective with a crossbow or arquebus, coupled with their Chaos resistance resulting in strong survivability, but apart from the obvious career progression of Apprentice Wizard to Wizard Lord, I'm not sure how to character build with these rules, and if there's any "traps" I need to watch out for.

[comicshorse]

1. I'm aware that halflings can't become wizards as a byproduct of their natural resistance to Chaos energy, but can they channel blessings of the gods if, say, a halfling became a priest of Sigmar? Or does that count as another kind of magic, meaning halflings joining the priesthood are restricted to careers like Monk or Lay Priest?



In 1st Ed. Halflings could cast spells and be wizards just like anybody else. Assuming you're using 2nd Ed. then Halflings 'Resistance to Chaos' means they can never become a 'spellcaster of any type'. So if a Halfling wants to become a Priest they are restricted to the Careers that don't give magic
( That said Halflings have their own diety, Esmeralda, and so presumably their own Church. It wouldn't seem unreasonable to me to allow Halfling P.C.s to enter religious Careers and buy all the Skils and Talents APART from the ones that provide Spells. But that would be up to individual G.M.s)


2. Related to the flirty Wood Elf question, what exactly would happen if an Elf and Human got together "committed some heresy?" I know WHFRP isn't D&D, and the wiki and books don't say anything about "half-elves, so does it just not result in a pregnancy or is it more like Dragon Age where the resulting offspring would be considered completely human? And the same question extends to the other non-humans. What happens between humans and dwarfs? Or if the unthinkable should happen and a dwarf and an elf actually manage to fall in love?!


I can't think of any time Half-Elves have turned up in Warhammer (aside from a campaign I was in and then they were simply stupendously rare). Certainly if Elves and Humans could reproduce given the unpleasant practices of the Dark Elves there would be loads of Half-Elves cluttering up Naggaroth.
As far as I'm aware the races just can't reproduce with each other.
As for a Dwarf and Elf falling in love, the answer is obvious. The Dwarf would do their duty to the Clan and never do anything about it. :smallsmile:



3. If someone wants to be a sharpshooter, is it better to stick with archery-style weapons like the longbow and crossbow, or will you get more bang-for-your-buck (literally!) by getting a firearm or a Hochland Long Rifle? And what careers lend themselves best to that kind of playstyle?


The problem with Firearms is they're rare ( and consequently Careers that give the necessary Specialist Skills are very rare to). Gunpowder is rare and expensive to and Firearms tend to take a long time to reload. Not to mention the problem with damp rendering you're gunpowder useless.
For rough life of an adventurer where you have to watch your pennies and don't know where the next re-supply is coming from (let alone a place sophisticated enough to sell gunpowder) you're probably better off going for a long bow or crossbow.
For killing things with a bow the best career is, IMHO, Targeteer. It's an Advanced career but can be got to through Bounty Hunter of Hunter, both of which lend themselves well to killing things at range. ( Which is the best way to do it )


My understanding is that a halfling PC will be surprisingly effective with a crossbow or arquebus,

Not unless he gets one specifically built to be used by somebody Halfling sized :smallsmile: Go for a short bow or sling

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Thanks for the prompt answers, comicshorse! :smallsmile:

One more question: are Bretonnian Grail Knights allowed to have kids, or do they need to get that out of the way BEFORE questing to seek the Grail, because presumably chastity is one of the virtues the Lady wants to test them on using a oath of celibacy or something?

[comicshorse]

Thanks for the prompt answers, comicshorse! :smallsmile:

One more question: are Bretonnian Grail Knights allowed to have kids, or do they need to get that out of the way BEFORE questing to seek the Grail, because presumably chastity is one of the virtues the Lady wants to test them on using a oath of celibacy or something?

Grail Knights are meant to be 'pure and noble'. Now this is open to interpretation but the Knights are based on Arthurian Legends which were big on the Knight finding his true Lady and then living happily with her and raising a family to continue his family name and protect his lands and serve the King down through the years. So, that said, I'd think Chastity wouldn't be required but faithfulness to his Lady absolutely would

[Archpaladin Zousha]

True, very true. The whole reason Lancelot failed wasn't his amorous misadventures in general, but his SPECIFIC amorous misadventure with the Queen.

Thanks again! :smallsmile:

[Aneurin]

Grail Knights are meant to be 'pure and noble'. Now this is open to interpretation but the Knights are based on Arthurian Legends which were big on the Knight finding his true Lady and then living happily with her and raising a family to continue his family name and protect his lands and serve the King down through the years. So, that said, I'd think Chastity wouldn't be required but faithfulness to his Lady absolutely would

An oath of chastity is an oath against have pre-marital sex, so they probably do take those since they fit nicely with the Arthurian theme (Gawain and the Green Knight has Gawain adhering to an oath of Chastity). Oaths of Celibacy mean no sex at all, and... I'm not sure. I'm leaning towards "no" they don't take them, because the King of Bretonnia is always a Grail Knight, and I believe Louen Leoncoeur is the son of the last king, who was a Grail Knight.

Might be wrong, though.

On a more political note, I'd say celibacy could go one way or the other; it'd mess with bloodlines (which are probably important culturally) and prevent the 'best' knights ever producing a set of must-be-as-good-as-them offspring which isn't great for the country as a whole. On the other hand, it works with the highly dedicated and oath-taking nature of the Grail Quest.

[comicshorse]

An oath of chastity is an oath against have pre-marital sex, so they probably do take those since they fit nicely with the Arthurian theme (Gawain and the Green Knight has Gawain adhering to an oath of Chastity). Oaths of Celibacy mean no sex at all, and... I'm not sure. I'm leaning towards "no" they don't take them, because the King of Bretonnia is always a Grail Knight, and I believe Louen Leoncoeur is the son of the last king, who was a Grail Knight.

Might be wrong, though.



Ah, I genuinely thought Chastity and Celibacy were interchangeable. Cool, I learned something new today :smallsmile:


On a more political note, I'd say celibacy could go one way or the other; it'd mess with bloodlines (which are probably important culturally) and prevent the 'best' knights ever producing a set of must-be-as-good-as-them offspring which isn't great for the country as a whole. On the other hand, it works with the highly dedicated and oath-taking nature of the Grail Quest.

I'd definitely think Grail Knights should be Chaste but not Celibate. Not just for the power of tradition ( 'Are family have served the De Lys family for centuries lad. So it was and shall be) and bloodlines but it'd be a political nightmare if ruling families kept going extinct, leaving their lands to be squabbled over by every noble within range. Brettonia would be in a state of constant chaos. I mean, even more so than usual.

[Sinewmire]

I got another lore question. I know Eldar in 40k consider humans to be barely evolved primates and would consider having a relationship with one to be disgusting to say the least.

Do the High and Wood Elves of Fantasy feel similarly? One of the other players in my group wants to be an elf, and she likes to play "flirty" characters. I'm just not sure how flirty an elf would be with non-elves.

In Gilead's Blood a novel with a high-elven protagonists he considers human women to be swollen and cow-like. Gilead is generally agreed to be a highly-strung perfectionist though.

There is also a high-elf (who stayed in the colonies after the recall to Ulthuan) with a half-elf child in the same story, so it's far from impossible.

A high elf might feasibly be attracted to a human, but they'd be considered pretty eccentric or even debased for doing so. High elves are typically reserved, but "usually" isn't "always"! A flirty high elf could be fun.

[Wraith]

I'd definitely think Grail Knights should be Chaste but not Celibate. Not just for the power of tradition ( 'Are family have served the De Lys family for centuries lad. So it was and shall be) and bloodlines but it'd be a political nightmare if ruling families kept going extinct, leaving their lands to be squabbled over by every noble within range. Brettonia would be in a state of constant chaos. I mean, even more so than usual.

Aneurin was almost correct; Louen Leoncoeur's father was not a Grail Knight, but he was and he had a bastard son who notoriously betrayed him during the End Times - The "Mordred" equivalent of the Bretonnian/Arthurian crossover.
So, Grail Knights can have kids of their own, despite being "pure" and supernatural beings.

Possibly you were thinking of Questing Knights? Grail Knights are exceptionally rare but there are many, many Questing Knights who try to live up to their ideals and examples. Questing Knights definitely are celibate by the wording of their ritual vow to undertake the Grail Quest; they foresake all mortal pleasures and even partially disown their families in order to concentrate solely on the goal of becoming a Grail Knight.


As for a Dwarf and Elf falling in love, the answer is obvious. The Dwarf would do their duty to the Clan and never do anything about it. :smallsmile:

I don't know about that; I'm sure there's been far, far worse reasons for someone taking the Slayer's Oath..... :smallwink:

[comicshorse]

Possibly you were thinking of Questing Knights? Grail Knights are exceptionally rare but there are many, many Questing Knights who try to live up to their ideals and examples. Questing Knights definitely are celibate by the wording of their ritual vow to undertake the Grail Quest; they foresake all mortal pleasures and even partially disown their families in order to concentrate solely on the goal of becoming a Grail Knight.


Is the Vow written down anywhere ?

[Archpaladin Zousha]

I've seen two versions of it. One goes:


I set down my lance, symbol of duty...I spurn those whom I love, I relinquish all, and take up the tools of my quest...No obstacle shall stand before me...No plea for help shall find me wanting....No moon will look upon me twice lest I be judged idle...I will give my body, heart and soul to the Lady whom I seek...

The other one goes:


Lady of grace and beauty, I set down my lance, symbol of duty, upon your shrine. I spurn those whom I love. I relinquish all, and take upon the tools of my journey. No obstacle will stand before me. No plea for help shall find me wanting. No moon will look upon me twice lest I be judged idle. I give my body, heart and soul to you, oh Lady, and I shall seek wherever thou might be found. This is my questing vow, and I swear before you, mistress of mercy, and beg that you shall strike me down should I falter.

Given the first appears to be just an abridged version of the second, I'm inclined to believe the second is the full vow.

[The Glyphstone]

So my current project is something I'm calling 'For The Greater Greed', a hack/overhaul of Rogue Trader with an all-Tau-and-allied-races party, and at the same time I'm also reworking the Careers/Experience system to match the Aptitudes of OW and DH2e. While it is still very much a work in progress, anyone willing to eyeball my races to see if any stand out as unbalanced relative to each other in terms of aptitudes or special abilities?

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1O_QW1Gu9B44G0im9rPNO9S-rZKPpjkkNjpoYjt7fexg/edit

[AGow95]

While we're on WHFRP 2e, what are peoples experiences with the Ashes of Middenheim campaign book from the Paths of the Damned arc? Is it particularly hard going on players or the GM? Roughly how much time does it generally take to play through the book?

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Had another question about Wood Elf culture:

That player I mentioned who wants to play a "flirty" Wood Elf has stated that her character's basic story is that she's "Immortal, bored, wants to see the world before settling down." My question is, just how "boring" can Wood Elf life get? While I don't know about any specific differences between Athel Loren's kingdoms and Laurelorn forest in the Empire, it seems Wood Elves don't bother with leisure time and cultural pursuits the way High Elves do because their life revolves around patrolling the forest to exterminate any Beastmen in their territory and scare off human lumberjacks, and they take these tasks VERY seriously. Maybe my perspective is skewed on that because my experience primarily comes from Total Warhammer where the whole goal if you play as the Wood Elves is "KEEP THE OAK OF AGES SAFE FROM BEASTMEN ATTACKERS AT ALL COSTS!"

Do Wood Elves even HAVE spare time to get bored in? Or should I advise my fellow player that her concept would work better as a High Elf (I know it wouldn't make a difference in terms of actual stats, but it's obviously make a world of difference in terms of story). The only real reason she's interested in playing a Wood Elf is because their outfits show more skin.

[comicshorse]

My question is, just how "boring" can Wood Elf life get? While I don't know about any specific differences between Athel Loren's kingdoms and Laurelorn forest in the Empire, it seems Wood Elves don't bother with leisure time and cultural pursuits the way High Elves do because their life revolves around patrolling the forest to exterminate any Beastmen in their territory and scare off human lumberjacks, and they take these tasks VERY seriously. Maybe my perspective is skewed on that because my experience primarily comes from Total Warhammer where the whole goal if you play as the Wood Elves is "KEEP THE OAK OF AGES SAFE FROM BEASTMEN ATTACKERS AT ALL COSTS!"


Wood Elf kingdoms tend to be inside human kingdoms, so most Beastmen will have got cut down by human soldiers long before they ever get to the Forests.
The Elves maintain forces to watch the entrances to the Forest (Waywatchers) but they are a dedicated military unit. Most Wood Elves will only be called up in times of emergencies
Given that I can see an Elf craving 'adventure and really wild things' is reasonable. Unusual but then adventurers always are weird.
Remember the Human kingdoms are stable political units, in which trade passes safely, taxes are collected and people live (mostly) stable lives. The whole ' Well its Tuesday, time for the weekly horde of Orcs/Skeletons/ Chaos Warriors' is fine for computer games and WFB because all they are about is the fighting but from the fact that the kingdoms exist as they do we can judge that such occurrence's are the exception not the norm. Unless you live on the Borderlands, of course. Where things get decidedly dicier.
So, IMHO, Wood Elves could decidedly have enough time to get bored. That's pretty much the reason my Wood Elf PC left home, that and a gambling addiction

Incidentally if you can find it 'Apocrypha Now' has a nice section on RP'ing Non- Humans in the human world

PS
Wood Elves are more likely to have come into contact with Humans than High Elves which could be what has sparked her curiousity.
(Even if the contact was only putting an arrow a hairs breadth from a logger's head along with a 'you won't get so lucky next time' message)

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Elves can have gambling addictions? I thought they'd be above such stuff!

[comicshorse]

Elves can have gambling addictions? I thought they'd be above such stuff!

Like I said, adventurers are always weird examples of their races. :smallcool:
Its why they aren't living ordinary lives

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Thank you! I gotta remember that more.

May I please ask you some questions via PM, comicshorse? The Glyphstone and AGow95 haven't gotten answers to their questions yet, and I don't wanna distract people from them or unwittingly hog the thread. :smallredface:

[comicshorse]

No problem

[Blackhawk748]

Hey all, so im gonna run a Rogue Trader game (starting tonight) using the DH 2e rules (and Rogue Trader rules for Ship Combat) and im just wondering what to look out for for when i front port Rogue Trader NPCs out of the book. Are they too much, are they weaker? etc.

[Graysire]

I've spent the past while designing a region in the Border Princes, and I ended up deciding to have a Necromancer prince, s I ran across a question

Can you have both a Dark Lore and an Arcane Lore? You can't have both a Divine and Arcane and you can't have 2 Arcanes or 2 Divines, but does the same exclusivity apply to Dark Lores?

[qechua]

Hey all, so im gonna run a Rogue Trader game (starting tonight) using the DH 2e rules (and Rogue Trader rules for Ship Combat) and im just wondering what to look out for for when i front port Rogue Trader NPCs out of the book. Are they too much, are they weaker? etc.

For starters, I'm using RT rules, but with MathHammer AV -12 rules for ship combat (https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/47672-mathhammer-making-ship-armour-count/). Things I've learnt about the RT stats:

For ships:
Ork ships are terrible. A sword w/ sunseer can take on 3 Ork raiders comfortably, even at level 1
Strike craft are terrifying (two squads of bombers may have made the explorers perform an emergency warp jump)
I'd expect an explorer vessel to punch one category above it's weight (explorer Frigate taking on Light Cruisers, explorer Light Cruiser besting Cruisers, etc)
Watch out for boarding, the RT's command value will quickly turn them into kerb stomps (and netting the explorers a new ship)

For ground:
The explorers won't be worried about any gun that doesn't have a pen of at least 2
Naval Shotcannons are hysterical for scaring explorers
Suppression fire will ruin the day of anyone with willpower < 40, but remember it works both ways (i.e. suppression hits everyone in the kill zone, not just enemies)
Normal humans may as well surrender if they don't have a soak of at least 8, or stupendous numbers
Ork bodies soak up ridiculous punishment, and that's without including Nobs/bosses (a boy literally ate a frag grenade and survived)
Space Marines aren't that scary unless they have power weapons, or stay back at range
Even lesser daemons are terrifying for anyone willpower < 60
Accurate weapons are deceptively powerful

[comicshorse]

I've spent the past while designing a region in the Border Princes, and I ended up deciding to have a Necromancer prince, s I ran across a question

Can you have both a Dark Lore and an Arcane Lore? You can't have both a Divine and Arcane and you can't have 2 Arcanes or 2 Divines, but does the same exclusivity apply to Dark Lores?

Like Arcane Lore Dark Lore specifies you can't have two 'such is the study and focus required' ( WFRP main rules, p97). Given you can't have two Dark Lores or two Arcane Lores and pointing out that's because learning even one requires such time and focus I'd say no you can't have both Dark and Arcane Lore (IMHO)

[Archpaladin Zousha]

This is different from my recent stream of questions. I'm also playing Rogue Trader with some friends on another forum, and my impoverished Rogue Trader is about to steal a new voidship (his old one was blown up by rebels against the Imperium). My GM has asked me to rank the following items in importance from 1 to 10, which he'll take into account when designing the ship my gang and me are about to hijack and I'd like some advice as to what I should prioritize:

Size

Speed

Warp Efficiency

Crew Morale

Armament

Endurance

Defense

Luxury

Piety

Xenotech

What would you folks advise? I'm leaning towards prioritizing the efficiency of the ship to increase its survivability (My character's already lost one voidship and he's NOT eager to lose another).

[comicshorse]

At the end of the day Rogue Traders are around to trade and make a profit. So what is the important thing in Trade ? Not being dead. :smallsmile:
Being dead drastically reduces you're chances to make profit.

So top three priorities are ways to avoid hostiles killing you :
1) Armament (Kill them first)
2) Defence ( Don't get hit)
3) Endurance ( Take getting hit)

After that you need to be able to move cargo quickly and efficiently

4) Warp Efficency (this will also lower chances of demons eating you)
5) Speed (also good for running away from hostiles)
6) Size (Mo' cargo, Mo' Money)

The rest are more individual factors

7) Crew Morale ( A happy crew work better, helping with the moving cargo and not dying. Also nobody likes having to put down mutinies)

8) Luxury (Helps with Crew Morale. Also impresses the customers 'If his ship is like this, his goods must be top class')

9) Piety ( As above, helps with crew morale and impressing the customers. And its always nice to have when the Inquisitor shows up )

10) Xenotech ( Nice tech advantages but can piss people off. Especially people even Rogue Traders don't want to piss off. Inquisitors, Ecclesiarchy, Space Marines, Mechanicum, etc)

[Sinewmire]

Had another question about Wood Elf culture:

That player I mentioned who wants to play a "flirty" Wood Elf has stated that her character's basic story is that she's "Immortal, bored, wants to see the world before settling down." My question is, just how "boring" can Wood Elf life get? While I don't know about any specific differences between Athel Loren's kingdoms and Laurelorn forest in the Empire, it seems Wood Elves don't bother with leisure time and cultural pursuits the way High Elves do because their life revolves around patrolling the forest to exterminate any Beastmen in their territory and scare off human lumberjacks, and they take these tasks VERY seriously.

Sure, but not all Wood Elves are soldiers. She could have been a bowmaker, a tailor, a gardener (those trees don't take care of themselves... sometimes!), a horse breeder, anything.

Even a soldier's life can be quite boring, outside of combat.


Maybe my perspective is skewed on that because my experience primarily comes from Total Warhammer where the whole goal if you play as the Wood Elves is "KEEP THE OAK OF AGES SAFE FROM BEASTMEN ATTACKERS AT ALL COSTS!"

Well yeah, Beastmen live and thrive in woods, and therefore come into more contact with Wood Elves than anyone else, as humans tend to be rightly afraid of deep woods.


Wood Elf kingdoms tend to be inside human kingdoms, so most Beastmen will have got cut down by human soldiers long before they ever get to the Forests.

Mmmmmmmmm....no. Humans stay out of the forests, and will cut back trees as far as they can outside their settlements. Human armies will sometimes march deep into the woods to find and kill large groups of beastmen, but sometimes they'll be ambushed and killed or more likely just find nothing, as the beastment melt away. Human soldiers have a LOT of demands on their time - chaos warbands, Orc and Goblin armies, unrest in Sylvania, seccessionists and civil strife, so beastment tend to be at the bottom of that list of "to do" unless they become a REAL problem, they're a low-level omnipresent threat that needs to be dealt with now and then, but never really goes away.

Beastmen are present in most forests in Human lands, and Wood Elves will 100% be fighting a war the humans don't know about to thin the herds and stop the corruption of the forest.


Do Wood Elves even HAVE spare time to get bored in? Or should I advise my fellow player that her concept would work better as a High Elf (I know it wouldn't make a difference in terms of actual stats, but it's obviously make a world of difference in terms of story). The only real reason she's interested in playing a Wood Elf is because their outfits show more skin.

Sure. Wood elves love song and poetry and good food and wine just as much as any other elf, which means downtime. They have their own complex culture, it's not all TOTAL WAR all the time.

A Wood Elf is probably closer to what your friend wants - she could have lived on the borders of human lands, and enjoyed messing with them - illusion magic, stalking them so they are scared, and generally teasing them to keep them out of the wood. After moving into human lands to adventure, she could keep that up. If she keeps her flirting as teasing, almost to the point of being threating I can see that working very well indeed!

[comicshorse]

Mmmmmmmmm....no. Humans stay out of the forests, and will cut back trees as far as they can outside their settlements. Human armies will sometimes march deep into the woods to find and kill large groups of beastmen, but sometimes they'll be ambushed and killed or more likely just find nothing, as the beastment melt away.

Ah no you misunderstood my point. It wasn't put well. I meant that any Beastman group or Chaos warband coming in from the chaos wastes would likely be destroyed or driven back by human forces before they ever reach the Wood Elves
As for Beastmen already living in the Forests my impression was the elves have their territories firmly established. While these Beatmen are a constant, minor threat they only become a real threat if re-reinforcements from outside the Forest reach them

[Sinewmire]

Ah no you misunderstood my point. It wasn't put well. I meant that any Beastman group or Chaos warband coming in from the chaos wastes would likely be destroyed or driven back by human forces before they ever reach the Wood Elves

Ah, I see! Yeah, invading chaos armies have got a long way to go 'til they reach Wood Elf territory, good point.


As for Beastmen already living in the Forests my impression was the elves have their territories firmly established. While these Beatmen are a constant, minor threat they only become a real threat if re-reinforcements from outside the Forest reach them

Up to a point. Beastment numbers often spike suddenly, and Moghur could be reborn anywhere, which will cause mutations, and Beastmen migrations. Waywatchers et al spend a LOT of their time hunting beastmen so as to keep their numbers low enough that the don't become a major threat. They don't always succeed, which leads to bigger fights.

[LCP]

Ah no you misunderstood my point. It wasn't put well. I meant that any Beastman group or Chaos warband coming in from the chaos wastes would likely be destroyed or driven back by human forces before they ever reach the Wood Elves

The majority of Beastmen in the Empire haven't come down from the Wastes; they're a native population that lives & multiplies in the deep woods. The Empire is covered with huge forests and they're endemic throughout pretty much all of them. Soft-hearted parents who give birth to mutant children leave their babies out in the woods for the Beastmen to take away.


As for Beastmen already living in the Forests my impression was the elves have their territories firmly established. While these Beatmen are a constant, minor threat they only become a real threat if re-reinforcements from outside the Forest reach them

Athel Loren is kind of a special case and very fiercely defended, but the Laurelorn forest melds seamlessly into the Drakwald, which is one of the most beastman-infested forests in the Old World.

[comicshorse]

. Soft-hearted parents who give birth to mutant children leave their babies out in the woods for the Beastmen to take away.


That doesn't mean there's Beastmen there just that Imperial peasants believe they're they are there.And when they vanish the parents can convince themselves they have found a new life with their own kind and suppress and ignore any thoughts about the forests being full of predatory animals :smalleek:

.
The Empire is covered with huge forests and they're endemic throughout pretty much all of them.

But as I said them being more than a nuisance doesn't make sense with the Empire ( and other human kingdoms) being stable states where trade happens and taxes are collected. It seems more realistic to me ( and so the way I'd run it) that the Beastmen within the Empire (big distinction) are relatively small colonies and apart from launching occasional raids no danger to anybody not dumb enough to go into their areas of forest.


On a side thought I've been more in favor of individual interpretation over 'Canon is god'. But this seems to me to be particularly important in Warhammer where the official canon is the whole world is a smoking cinder
:smallmad:

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Ugh, I know! It makes me wonder how Cubicle7 is gonna spin things with the new 4th Edition of WHFRP coming out this year, ESPECIALLY since after that they're bringing out an Age of Sigmar RPG at some point. Feels like having one's cake and eating it in a way (which is a phrase that's always bugged me, since if you HAVE a cake, what are you going to do with it BESIDES eating it?).

[AshfireMage]

*pokes head in catiously*

Hey, guys! I've been interested in Warhammer (both fantasy and 40k) things for a while, but was kind of overwhelmed by the sheer volume of stuff and couldn't figure out where to start.

But now it looks like my Vampire: The Masquerade group is going to start up a 40k game on the side, and this looks like the perfect opportunity to get started! Could anyone recommend a good way to get more up to speed on the lore?

I've already found the wiki, and I'm sure that a couple of my fellow players would be more than willing to answer questions if I had them, but does anyone else have any recommendations for stuff to look at? The details of the proposed game have not been nailed down yet, but the consensus seems to be that we're going to focus on the Imperium, although I know a couple of the players are still pulling for Eldar. I know very, very little, though, so anything would be potentially useful.

[Blackhawk748]

*pokes head in catiously*

Hey, guys! I've been interested in Warhammer (both fantasy and 40k) things for a while, but was kind of overwhelmed by the sheer volume of stuff and couldn't figure out where to start.

But now it looks like my Vampire: The Masquerade group is going to start up a 40k game on the side, and this looks like the perfect opportunity to get started! Could anyone recommend a good way to get more up to speed on the lore?

I've already found the wiki, and I'm sure that a couple of my fellow players would be more than willing to answer questions if I had them, but does anyone else have any recommendations for stuff to look at? The details of the proposed game have not been nailed down yet, but the consensus seems to be that we're going to focus on the Imperium, although I know a couple of the players are still pulling for Eldar. I know very, very little, though, so anything would be potentially useful.

Grab a novel that looks interesting to you and read it. I recommend the Eisenhorn trilogy.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Something that I've found really helped me understand Warhammer 40k was Bruva Alfabusa and his crew's long-running and hilarious series: If The Emperor Had a Text-To-Speech Device (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyiDf91_bTEgnBN0jAvzNbqzrlMGID5WA). It takes the inherent absurdity in much of the setting's lore and just takes the next logical step into utter silliness, and the results are GLORIOUS! They've also just begun a spin-off podcast series, titled (appropriately enough) If The Emperor Had a Podcast (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czAlG9oEaGw&list=PLyiDf91_bTEhQNza5N_mb1zRuUMb6vXLn), which goes into more detail on specific facets of the lore the storyline doesn't get an opportunity to cover, such as less prominent Space Marine chapters or some of the Imperium's early history.

On a related note, my GM is asking for some clarification on my ship ratings. He wants to know if I'm looking more for a light cruiser with some heavier armor and weapons, or a tanky frigate. My instincts are the frigate, since he's said "Anything they can't outrun, they can outfight," but he seems to think that with the suggestions you've provided I don't care about speed. :smallconfused:

[Lord Raziere]

Something that I've found really helped me understand Warhammer 40k was Bruva Alfabusa and his crew's long-running and hilarious series: If The Emperor Had a Text-To-Speech Device (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyiDf91_bTEgnBN0jAvzNbqzrlMGID5WA). It takes the inherent absurdity in much of the setting's lore and just takes the next logical step into utter silliness, and the results are GLORIOUS! They've also just begun a spin-off podcast series, titled (appropriately enough) If The Emperor Had a Podcast (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czAlG9oEaGw&list=PLyiDf91_bTEhQNza5N_mb1zRuUMb6vXLn), which goes into more detail on specific facets of the lore the storyline doesn't get an opportunity to cover, such as less prominent Space Marine chapters or some of the Imperium's early history.


This. so much this. If you want only one source of all Warhammer 40k lore, its Text-To-Speech device. sure it goes completely silly with it, but lets be honest, warhammer 40k is at its best when its being funny and ridiculous rather than attempting to be serious. WH40k practically runs on bathos.

[Sinewmire]

Hey, guys! I've been interested in Warhammer (both fantasy and 40k) things for a while, but was kind of overwhelmed by the sheer volume of stuff and couldn't figure out where to start.

There's a youtube video "40k Lore in 4 minutes" or something like that that'll detail the Horus Heresy and the basic setup of the Imperium.

Emperor's Text-to-Speech I wouldn't recommend for someone not already reasonably familiar with the universe.

Do you know which System you'll be playing? For Dark Heresy I'd recommend Eisenhorn (book) and Blade Runner (film). For Rogue Trader, I'd recommend Lagacy (Shira Calpurnia novel) and Master and Commander (Film, just imagine it in spaaaace!) or Event Horizon (film). For Deathwatch I'd recommend Warriors of Ultramar (book) and maybe Aliens (film)? For Black Crusade I'd recommend The First Heretic (book) and The Dark Knight Rises (Film - imagine you are Bane). Only In Death - 15 Hours (Novel - warning, it's quite bleak) or Necropolis (Gaunt's Ghosts novel) and Enemy At The Gates (film) and Starship Troopers (Film).

Computer games - Dawn of war: Winter Assault and Dark Crusade are decent. Especially the latter: there's a lot of characterisation of all the forces in Dark Crusade, and you get some cool arguments between each faction as your commanders engage in smack-talk. Dawn of War 2 is Space Marines only, but is pretty much an excellent Deathwatch-style dynamic. Space Marine give a great feeling of just how badass Space Marines are, and Captain Titus is a great example of a sensible Astartes warrior. If you're playing Rogue Trader then Battlefleet Gothic: Armada is a MUST.


Books if you just want a feel of the setting... The Shira Calpurnia novels (Crossfire and Legacy) give you an excellent look at how the Imperium works from the inside. The Eisenhorn novels (Xenos, Hereticus, Malleus) show the Inquisition, warts and all, as well as the corrupting nature of Chaos and the Warp. The Gaunt's Ghosts novels show how the Imperial Guard should work, I'd recommend reading in order to avoid spoilers, but Necropolis and Armour of Contempt are particularly good. The Ultramarines novels (Starting with Nighbringer) are pretty good, although they start getting wierd around book 3. The Horus Heresy series is mostly pretty good, with some outstanding books, but beware - it' set in the ancient history of the 40k setting, so a lot of the terms and themes aren't present any more.

If you can find a copy, the old boxed game had a book called Codex Imperialis which has an absolute ton of info in it, and it's how I learned the setting.

[comicshorse]

.

Do you know which System you'll be playing? For Dark Heresy I'd recommend Eisenhorn (book) and Blade Runner (film). For Rogue Trader, I'd recommend Lagacy (Shira Calpurnia novel) and Master and Commander (Film, just imagine it in spaaaace!) or Event Horizon (film).

That's what I dropped in to recommend. For the atmosphere of 40K at its nastiest, for the aesthetic of the game and for why sensible people are scared of Warp Travel its great. And its a good horror movie in its own right

For Dark Heresy I'd recommend 'Season of the Witch' and 'Dredd' for those investigations on Hive worlds

[Sinewmire]

For Dark Heresy I'd recommend 'Season of the Witch' and 'Dredd' for those investigations on Hive worlds

D'oh! How did I forget that?!

[The Glyphstone]

Something that I've found really helped me understand Warhammer 40k was Bruva Alfabusa and his crew's long-running and hilarious series: If The Emperor Had a Text-To-Speech Device (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyiDf91_bTEgnBN0jAvzNbqzrlMGID5WA). It takes the inherent absurdity in much of the setting's lore and just takes the next logical step into utter silliness, and the results are GLORIOUS! They've also just begun a spin-off podcast series, titled (appropriately enough) If The Emperor Had a Podcast (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czAlG9oEaGw&list=PLyiDf91_bTEhQNza5N_mb1zRuUMb6vXLn), which goes into more detail on specific facets of the lore the storyline doesn't get an opportunity to cover, such as less prominent Space Marine chapters or some of the Imperium's early history.

On a related note, my GM is asking for some clarification on my ship ratings. He wants to know if I'm looking more for a light cruiser with some heavier armor and weapons, or a tanky frigate. My instincts are the frigate, since he's said "Anything they can't outrun, they can outfight," but he seems to think that with the suggestions you've provided I don't care about speed. :smallconfused:

Having a reasonably skilled Voidmaster pilot makes a far greater difference in terms of combat speed than the small differential between a light cruiser and a frigate. Speed is important for life, but in terms of ship design its impact is smaller than stuff like armor or guns that a good pilot can't make up for.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Having a reasonably skilled Voidmaster pilot makes a far greater difference in terms of combat speed than the small differential between a light cruiser and a frigate. Speed is important for life, but in terms of ship design its impact is smaller than stuff like armor or guns that a good pilot can't make up for.
And I have a VERY good pilot (incidentally played by the same player who wants to play a flirty Wood Elf in WHFRP)! I think I'll go with light cruiser, then. Thanks, Glyphstone! :smallsmile:

[Blackhawk748]

Ok, more Rogue Trader/DH 2E questions. I just ran them through Forsaken Bounty (which gives a lot of Profit, which seems...off. If someone could elaborate on that, that'd be swell) and im gonna start them on the "main quest" of the campaign before i finish off the Forsaken Bounty story with Dark Frontier.

The idea im going with is basically a straight rip of Treasure Planet. A planet, almost literally, made of treasure is out in the Koronus expanse, the dumping ground of a millennia of a xenos' pirates treasure trove, and the PCs are going to stumble across part of the map that will point the way. The "map" is broken into multiple parts: The Projection Sphere, the Scarab Coin, the Voidwhale Coin, the Crotalid Coin, the Razorwing Coin, the Hound Coin, and the Ambull Coin. The Sphere is a golden orb with 6 slots on it for the various coins, and when the coins are placed correctly and the Sphere activated it projects a map. Now, the map can be read with only 4 coins, but it requires the user to be sure that the coins are in the correct spots which will be a Hard Logic test, with any less coins there isn't enough info for a guess.

Now, of course the PCs won't be the only ones going after the treasure. Currently two coins have been found, the Crotalid Coin by Captain Diutinus "John" Argenteus (aka Google Latin for Long John Silver) and the Hound Coin by Archon Irehia Baesrith of the Iron Claw Kabal.

Captain Argenteus is an anomaly. Not only is he a fairly well off Rogue Trader who came from, quite literally, the back end of nowhere by inheriting his warrant of trade, but he's also an Orgyn. And not just an Ogryn, an Ogryn cyborg, making his already fearsome physical presence even more so. He inherited the Warrant from the previous Captain Argenteus, who spelled out that his dynasty would go to a young man named John upon the world of Scylix VII. The only problem was, the world was inhabited by Ogryns, and, unluckily for the crew, one of them was named John. Fortunately, Argenteus' Seneschal, David "Black Dog" Pew, had connections with the Mechanicus and was able to get him the B.O.N.E. Head enhancment, which worked beyond all expectations. Now, Captain Diutinus "John" Argenteus, he took the Kroronus Expanse by storm, making a tidy profit for himself smashing enemies and looting ancient worlds. He controls half a dozen Raiders, 3 Frigates and a singular Light Cruiser, the Golden Hind, his flagship. He came into possession of the Coin on a small backwater moon. He found it in a cave among several hieroglyphics explaining what it was, and where it led.

Conversely, while Argenteus is on the up, Archon Irehia Baesrith is very much on the way down. Her Kabal has had a string of catastrophic failures and just over all bad luck. She was down to half a dozen Raiders and her Flagships, the Eternal Torment, when she stumbled across the coin. Now, with the promise of a literal planets worth of treasure she has been able to attract mercenaries and corsairs to her banner and he fleet has swelled to over 20 vessels of various descriptions. She is a cold and calculating opponent, all the more dangerous because o her desperation.


Ok, so theres who my PCs (in their single Frigate) will be facing. The PCs are going to get the Scarab Coin in lieu of traditional payment and so will start our adventure. What i need is:

1: Build ideas for the Big NPCs above (particularly how one goes about making an Ogryn in DH 2)
2. Ships for the above people. (Argenteus im probably gonna have to build myself, though id like more Deldar ship options if anyone has any recommendations)
3. Fun set piece ideas. I have several ideas for how to go about doing this adventure, but more is always helpful.
4. Other random complications.

[AshfireMage]

Thank you so much for the help, guys! I had forgotten that there were novels I could look at. Do they assume a certain level of knowledge of the setting (like some of the later Star Wars novels do) or can I just dive in?

[Blackhawk748]

Thank you so much for the help, guys! I had forgotten that there were novels I could look at. Do they assume a certain level of knowledge of the setting (like some of the later Star Wars novels do) or can I just dive in?

Eisenhorn is pretty easy to get into, as it tends to explain anything weird.

[Destro_Yersul]

Ok, so theres who my PCs (in their single Frigate) will be facing. The PCs are going to get the Scarab Coin in lieu of traditional payment and so will start our adventure. What i need is:

1: Build ideas for the Big NPCs above (particularly how one goes about making an Ogryn in DH 2)
2. Ships for the above people. (Argenteus im probably gonna have to build myself, though id like more Deldar ship options if anyone has any recommendations)
3. Fun set piece ideas. I have several ideas for how to go about doing this adventure, but more is always helpful.
4. Other random complications.

1: See if you can find a copy of the Only War rules. The ruleset is basically the same as DH2, and has Ogryn stuff in it.
2: Dark Eldar stuff is dealt with heavily in The Soul Reaver. If you have access to that book, you could swipe one of the prebuilts. For your Silver expy, I've always been a fan of the Dictator class.

I'm not the best guy to ask for the other stuff, so I'll let someone else field those.

[Blackhawk748]

1: See if you can find a copy of the Only War rules. The ruleset is basically the same as DH2, and has Ogryn stuff in it.
2: Dark Eldar stuff is dealt with heavily in The Soul Reaver. If you have access to that book, you could swipe one of the prebuilts. For your Silver expy, I've always been a fan of the Dictator class.

I'm not the best guy to ask for the other stuff, so I'll let someone else field those.

1: Figured i had to do that.

2: Thats convenient, however im using DH 2 for like 90% of things and using Rogue Trader for Ships and a few unique Talents, though i may loot stuff from Dictator.

[Destro_Yersul]

1: Figured i had to do that.

2: Thats convenient, however im using DH 2 for like 90% of things and using Rogue Trader for Ships and a few unique Talents, though i may loot stuff from Dictator.

Ah, you misunderstood me. The Dictator class is cruiser hull, from Battlefleet Koronus. It's the midpoint between Carrier and Cruiser, comes standard with a couple of launch bays for small craft. I was talking specifically about starships in my answer for 2.

[Blackhawk748]

Ah, you misunderstood me. The Dictator class is cruiser hull, from Battlefleet Koronus. It's the midpoint between Carrier and Cruiser, comes standard with a couple of launch bays for small craft. I was talking specifically about starships in my answer for 2.

*strokes beard* Ooooh, sounds sexy.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

I may have to appropriate one of those in my Rogue Trader game. My character IS a Calixian Privateer, after all! :smallamused:

The saga of the flirty Wood Elf continues. Now I'm trying to convince her that body paint is a SOMETIMES outfit! The GM is close to agreeing with her, though, seeing as she IS his girlfriend. :smallannoyed:

[Blackhawk748]

I may have to appropriate one of those in my Rogue Trader game. My character IS a Calixian Privateer, after all! :smallamused:

The saga of the flirty Wood Elf continues. Now I'm trying to convince her that body paint is a SOMETIMES outfit! The GM is close to agreeing with her, though, seeing as she IS his girlfriend. :smallannoyed:

Well if my GF wanted to use bodypaint as an outfit id find it hard to argue.... :smalltongue:

[comicshorse]

The saga of the flirty Wood Elf continues. Now I'm trying to convince her that body paint is a SOMETIMES outfit! The GM is close to agreeing with her, though, seeing as she IS his girlfriend. :smallannoyed:

I just hope the game is set somewhere warm :smallsmile:

[Archpaladin Zousha]

I just hope the game is set somewhere warm :smallsmile:
Oh, it is. We'll spending the majority of the campaign in Tilea.

At least she has armor listed on her sheet.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Here's a weird question: Among the Electoral votes for Emperor, the Cult of Sigmar has three votes for the Grand Theogenist and the two Arch Lectors. Normally these votes go to the Elector Count of Reikland as a matter of tradition, but in theory, could the Grand Theogenist or one of the Arch Lectors become a candidate for Emperor themselves? In the event that enough Electors voted in favor, would that mean the new Emperor must give up their position in the Cult, or does the Empire effectively become Anglican, with the Emperor-Theogenist now both head of state and head of the church?

[Sinewmire]

Here's a weird question: Among the Electoral votes for Emperor, the Cult of Sigmar has three votes for the Grand Theogenist and the two Arch Lectors. Normally these votes go to the Elector Count of Reikland as a matter of tradition, but in theory, could the Grand Theogenist or one of the Arch Lectors become a candidate for Emperor themselves? In the event that enough Electors voted in favor, would that mean the new Emperor must give up their position in the Cult, or does the Empire effectively become Anglican, with the Emperor-Theogenist now both head of state and head of the church?

I'd imagine that as the Grand Theogonist and the Arch-Lectors aren't Elector Counts they're not candidates, but I could be wrong.

[comicshorse]

Here's a weird question: Among the Electoral votes for Emperor, the Cult of Sigmar has three votes for the Grand Theogenist and the two Arch Lectors. Normally these votes go to the Elector Count of Reikland as a matter of tradition, but in theory, could the Grand Theogenist or one of the Arch Lectors become a candidate for Emperor themselves? In the event that enough Electors voted in favor, would that mean the new Emperor must give up their position in the Cult, or does the Empire effectively become Anglican, with the Emperor-Theogenist now both head of state and head of the church?

I always imagined that this was one of those unspoken' gentleman's agreement'. That while nothing was actually written down none of the religious Electors would ever run for Emperor as it 'just wasn't done'.
Which does of course raise the interesting idea of what happens when you get one power hungry enough to not care about tradition

P.S.
Ah no. According to the 2nd Ed. main Warhammer rules 'p216', the Electors who aren't actually Counts (the Grand Theogenist, the two Arch-Lectors, the Ar-Ulric and the Elder of the Moot) CAN'T become Emperor. They can only vote in his Election (and gather as much political influence, favours and land as they can for their vote :smallsmile:

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Ah, darn. I thought that'd be cool (what'd be HILARIOUS is if the Elder of the Moot ran for Emperor as a joke, and then, much to their own shock and horror, actually wins)!

[comicshorse]

So many comments spring to mind but probably all of them break the rules on Real World Politics comments :smallsmile:

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Yyyyeah...all I'll say is that at least halflings have some degree of humility.

I'm having trouble deciding what my Celestial Wizard's staff is going to look like. I can't decide what the top of the staff's going to have. Should it be an orb/crystal ball? A sunburst? A crescent moon? And should the crescent moon be pointing upwards or to the side? Maybe a sunburst AND a crescent moon?! Should it be an image of the Twin-Tailed Comet? And should the Comet be pointing up or down? All I know is I'm NOT a fan of the mechanical-looking staves you see in most Celestial Wizard illustrations with the globes and the astrolabes and the mini-orreries on top.

I know I want him to adopt the moniker of "Magister Eclipse" when he reaches the Magister Vigilant career (kind of like the "Magister Bane" character described in its entry in the Career Compendium), using the eclipse as an emblem to represent the light of Sigmar's salvation emerging from the shadows (a concept I am blatantly stealing from the Age of Sigmar Stormcast Eternal book), but should that actually be on the staff or would that be too obvious (since Vigilants are big on hiding their identity like a wizard Batman)?

[AshfireMage]

Well, it looks as though we have a pair of co-GMs and at least three players for this game, so it's a go.

It has also been more-or-less decided that we're going to be playing an eldar-focused game of rouge trader, so that should be interesting.

[Celticbear]

So I have a question about rogue trader, or any of the RPGs, psykers.


HOW DO THEY WORK?

It just doesn't make sense to me, and I need guidance.

EDIT: Specifically, how does the whole using psycjic techniques work becuase any of the books I've read do not make a modicum of sense.

[Chijinda]

So I have a question about rogue trader, or any of the RPGs, psykers.


HOW DO THEY WORK?

It just doesn't make sense to me, and I need guidance.

EDIT: Specifically, how does the whole using psycjic techniques work becuase any of the books I've read do not make a modicum of sense.


Okay, so I can help you with Dark Heresy 1 and 2, less so with the other systems (given you said "any of the RPG's" I'm assuming you mean Dark Heresy as well).

Dark Heresy First Edition
Every Psychic Power has a power threshold. Let's use Bio-Lightning as our baseline here. Bio Lightning has a Power Threshold of 13.

When you attempt to cast a Psychic Power, you may roll a number of d10's less than or equal to your character's Psy Rating, and then add your Psyker's Willpower Bonus to the roll. If you are equal to or higher than the Power Threshold, you cast the power. If you roll under the Power threshold, the power fails to go off at all.

Example: Bob the Psyker wants to Cast Bio-Lightning. As mentioned, Bio Lightning has a Power Threshold of 13. Bob has a Psy Rating of 3, so he may roll UP to 3d10 to try and cast the power. Bob also has a Willpower Bonus of 4, so he gets to add that. Bob decides to use his full Psy Rating to cast Bio-Lightning. So Bob rolls 3d10+4 and tries to beat 13. If he succeeds, something gets blasted by lightning. If he fails, nothing happens.

Certain psychic powers have bonus effects for scoring a certain amount over the threshold (for example with Bio-Lightning, for every 5 points above the Threshold, you extend its range by 5 meters, and for every 10 above the threshold, you can create an additional bolt of lightning).

The thing to remember with Psychic Powers is that if at any point the roll of a "9" is made on ANY of the dice you used to cast your power (not the total, just any individual dice), you trigger Psychic Phenomena, which can lead to Perils of the Warp. You make a Phenomena roll for each "9" rolled.

Dark Heresy Second Edition

They really simplified powers in Second Edition. Second Edition, Psychic Powers run on the same d100 system as everything else. When casting a Psychic Power, like most tests, you try and roll under your Willpower characteristic to cast the power. Different powers have different difficulties to cast, which depends on the power itself (some powers, for example, give you a +20 bonus to trying to your roll, others a -10, depending on the power in question).

You can further improve your odds of casting the power by "fettering" the power. To fetter a power, you simply cast it at a lower Psy Rating than your normal one, and you gain a +10 bonus for each level you fetter the power. So using Bob again, if Bob has a Psy Rating of 3, he can choose to cast a power at Psy Rating 1, and gain a +20 bonus to his roll to use his Psychic Power, at the cost of the power itself being weaker (as most Psychic Powers in Dark Heresy scale off the Psy Rating used to cast them).

Alternatively, you can try to boost the power of your Psychic Power, by "Pushing", in which case, which basically works the opposite of fettering. When you "push" a power, you take a -10 on the test for each Psy Rating you're pushing for. So if Bob has a Psy Rating of 3, and is trying to cast a power at Psy Rating 5, he's taking a -20 to his test, BUT if he does manage to get the power off, it'll be much stronger.

Psychic Phenomena also works a little differently. Basically when fettering or using powers normally you score Psychic Phenomena on any roll of doubles (so 11, 22, 33, 44, etc.). When pushing a power, you hit Psychic Phenomena on any roll EXCEPT doubles, if I'm remembering right (left my CRB at a friend's house last time we played).


------

Does this clarify anything? If not, feel free to ask for clarification on certain points. I believe MOST of the other systems (Rogue Trader, Only War and Deathwatch) tend to use Dark Heresy 2's system for Psychic powers rather than First Edition's.

[Celticbear]

Okay, so I can help you with Dark Heresy 1 and 2, less so with the other systems (given you said "any of the RPG's" I'm assuming you mean Dark Heresy as well).

Dark Heresy First Edition
Every Psychic Power has a power threshold. Let's use Bio-Lightning as our baseline here. Bio Lightning has a Power Threshold of 13.

When you attempt to cast a Psychic Power, you may roll a number of d10's less than or equal to your character's Psy Rating, and then add your Psyker's Willpower Bonus to the roll. If you are equal to or higher than the Power Threshold, you cast the power. If you roll under the Power threshold, the power fails to go off at all.

Example: Bob the Psyker wants to Cast Bio-Lightning. As mentioned, Bio Lightning has a Power Threshold of 13. Bob has a Psy Rating of 3, so he may roll UP to 3d10 to try and cast the power. Bob also has a Willpower Bonus of 4, so he gets to add that. Bob decides to use his full Psy Rating to cast Bio-Lightning. So Bob rolls 3d10+4 and tries to beat 13. If he succeeds, something gets blasted by lightning. If he fails, nothing happens.

Certain psychic powers have bonus effects for scoring a certain amount over the threshold (for example with Bio-Lightning, for every 5 points above the Threshold, you extend its range by 5 meters, and for every 10 above the threshold, you can create an additional bolt of lightning).

The thing to remember with Psychic Powers is that if at any point the roll of a "9" is made on ANY of the dice you used to cast your power (not the total, just any individual dice), you trigger Psychic Phenomena, which can lead to Perils of the Warp. You make a Phenomena roll for each "9" rolled.

Dark Heresy Second Edition

They really simplified powers in Second Edition. Second Edition, Psychic Powers run on the same d100 system as everything else. When casting a Psychic Power, like most tests, you try and roll under your Willpower characteristic to cast the power. Different powers have different difficulties to cast, which depends on the power itself (some powers, for example, give you a +20 bonus to trying to your roll, others a -10, depending on the power in question).

You can further improve your odds of casting the power by "fettering" the power. To fetter a power, you simply cast it at a lower Psy Rating than your normal one, and you gain a +10 bonus for each level you fetter the power. So using Bob again, if Bob has a Psy Rating of 3, he can choose to cast a power at Psy Rating 1, and gain a +20 bonus to his roll to use his Psychic Power, at the cost of the power itself being weaker (as most Psychic Powers in Dark Heresy scale off the Psy Rating used to cast them).

Alternatively, you can try to boost the power of your Psychic Power, by "Pushing", in which case, which basically works the opposite of fettering. When you "push" a power, you take a -10 on the test for each Psy Rating you're pushing for. So if Bob has a Psy Rating of 3, and is trying to cast a power at Psy Rating 5, he's taking a -20 to his test, BUT if he does manage to get the power off, it'll be much stronger.

Psychic Phenomena also works a little differently. Basically when fettering or using powers normally you score Psychic Phenomena on any roll of doubles (so 11, 22, 33, 44, etc.). When pushing a power, you hit Psychic Phenomena on any roll EXCEPT doubles, if I'm remembering right (left my CRB at a friend's house last time we played).


------

Does this clarify anything? If not, feel free to ask for clarification on certain points. I believe MOST of the other systems (Rogue Trader, Only War and Deathwatch) tend to use Dark Heresy 2's system for Psychic powers rather than First Edition's.

Okay, I think I'm getting it now. Thanks.

[Blackhawk748]

Ok all, I'm in need of advice on this encounter. My players plan on doing a bit of exploring, hoping to find something worth any money, maybe a nice Agri world to own. I plan on giving one to them, with a Forge Moon nonetheless. Here's the catch:

It will be under attack by a Hellbringer and a pair of Iconoclast destroyers. The planet is defended by a pair of Claymore Corvettes and a space station so the PCs will have to get involved with their Sword Frigate.

My question: is this hard enough? I plan on having one of the Destroyers turn on the Cruiser if the odds look good of killing it, thus letting the players get it. Might let them get the other one too, not sure though.

[Destro_Yersul]

I'm having trouble deciding what my Celestial Wizard's staff is going to look like. I can't decide what the top of the staff's going to have. Should it be an orb/crystal ball? A sunburst? A crescent moon? And should the crescent moon be pointing upwards or to the side? Maybe a sunburst AND a crescent moon?! Should it be an image of the Twin-Tailed Comet? And should the Comet be pointing up or down? All I know is I'm NOT a fan of the mechanical-looking staves you see in most Celestial Wizard illustrations with the globes and the astrolabes and the mini-orreries on top.

I know I want him to adopt the moniker of "Magister Eclipse" when he reaches the Magister Vigilant career (kind of like the "Magister Bane" character described in its entry in the Career Compendium), using the eclipse as an emblem to represent the light of Sigmar's salvation emerging from the shadows (a concept I am blatantly stealing from the Age of Sigmar Stormcast Eternal book), but should that actually be on the staff or would that be too obvious (since Vigilants are big on hiding their identity like a wizard Batman)?

I don't know if you'll like this, but something I think would be cool: a crescent moon fixture holding an orb that looks like the night sky. Bonus points if the orb looks like the night sky visible from wherever the staff happens to be at the time.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

I don't know if you'll like this, but something I think would be cool: a crescent moon fixture holding an orb that looks like the night sky. Bonus points if the orb looks like the night sky visible from wherever the staff happens to be at the time.
Ooh, that sounds pretty! But I also had an idea in the interim: the top of the staff is a winged skull with the mark of Azyr, the Comet of Power, etched into the skull's brow. Maybe with sapphires in the eye sockets. How's that sound?

But your design is cool too, Destro Yersul! Could I use it for the staff of Johannes' mentor maybe?

[Destro_Yersul]

Ooh, that sounds pretty! But I also had an idea in the interim: the top of the staff is a winged skull with the mark of Azyr, the Comet of Power, etched into the skull's brow. Maybe with sapphires in the eye sockets. How's that sound?

But your design is cool too, Destro Yersul! Could I use it for the staff of Johannes' mentor maybe?

Sure. I suggested it so you could use it. Skulls are always a solid choice for warhammer stuff.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

I can't let the Amethyst Order have ALL the cool imagery, can I? Especially since Morr is also a god of dreams, which are my stock in trade! :smallwink:

[Sinewmire]

Ok all, I'm in need of advice on this encounter. My players plan on doing a bit of exploring, hoping to find something worth any money, maybe a nice Agri world to own. I plan on giving one to them, with a Forge Moon nonetheless. Here's the catch:

It will be under attack by a Hellbringer and a pair of Iconoclast destroyers. The planet is defended by a pair of Claymore Corvettes and a space station so the PCs will have to get involved with their Sword Frigate.

My question: is this hard enough? I plan on having one of the Destroyers turn on the Cruiser if the odds look good of killing it, thus letting the players get it. Might let them get the other one too, not sure though.

In my Rogue Trader game, my crew were flying a Sword frigate. They annihilated anything in their weight category (usually even outnumbered 3-1). One time I put them against a cruiser - it threatened to one-shot them, so it let them go as unsatisfying sport. A light cruiser should (touching wood!) be a perfect challenging encounter.

Just remember the enemy ships will be boosting their skills with command crew rolls as well.

Don't be afraid to give the enemy ships extra HP to make the fight last a little longer.

[Blackhawk748]

In my Rogue Trader game, my crew were flying a Sword frigate. They annihilated anything in their weight category (usually even outnumbered 3-1). One time I put them against a cruiser - it threatened to one-shot them, so it let them go as unsatisfying sport. A light cruiser should (touching wood!) be a perfect challenging encounter.

Just remember the enemy ships will be boosting their skills with command crew rolls as well.

Don't be afraid to give the enemy ships extra HP to make the fight last a little longer.

Good to hear, heres the Destroyer and the Corvette im using


Speed: 10
Manoeuvrability: +25
Detection: +10
Hull Integrity: 28
Armour: 14
Turret Rating: 1
Space: 32/4
Power 35/2
SP: 29
Weapon Capacity: Dorsal 2

Weapons: 2 Mars Pattern Macrocannons (Str:3 Dam: 1d10+2 Crit: 5 Range 6)

Components: Command Bridge, Jovian Pattern 1 Drive, Strelov Warp Engine,
Gellar Field, Single Void Shield, M-1r Life Sustainer, Voidsmen Quarters,
M-100 Auger Array



Speed: 8
Manoeuvrability: +18
Detection: +17
Hull Integrity: 30
Armour: 17
Turret Rating: 1
Space: 38/14
SP: 38
Power: 41/3
Weapon Capacity: Dorsal 2

Weapons: 2 Sunsear Batteries (Str: 4 Dam: 1d10+2, Crit: 4 Range: 9)

Components: Enhanced Jovian Class 1 Drive, Strelov Warp Engine, Gellar Field
Single Void Shield, Combat Bridge, M-1r Life Sustainer, Voidsmen QUarters
m-201b Auger Array


The Forge Moon around the Agri World makes particularly efficient Plasma systems, thus why the Generator has higher than normal Power, and theres a crystal in this system that allows them to create a more powerful beam for less energy, thus why they use Sunsear Laser Batteries. The Station is gonna be armed similarly to the Corvettes, with a Sunsear and a Lance Battery on each facing.

[Sinewmire]

Good to hear, heres the Destroyer and the Corvette im using


Speed: 10
Manoeuvrability: +25
Detection: +10
Hull Integrity: 28
Armour: 14
Turret Rating: 1
Space: 32/4
Power 35/2
SP: 29
Weapon Capacity: Dorsal 2

Weapons: 2 Mars Pattern Macrocannons (Str:3 Dam: 1d10+2 Crit: 5 Range 6)

Components: Command Bridge, Jovian Pattern 1 Drive, Strelov Warp Engine,
Gellar Field, Single Void Shield, M-1r Life Sustainer, Voidsmen Quarters,
M-100 Auger Array



Speed: 8
Manoeuvrability: +18
Detection: +17
Hull Integrity: 30
Armour: 17
Turret Rating: 1
Space: 38/14
SP: 38
Power: 41/3
Weapon Capacity: Dorsal 2

Weapons: 2 Sunsear Batteries (Str: 4 Dam: 1d10+2, Crit: 4 Range: 9)

Components: Enhanced Jovian Class 1 Drive, Strelov Warp Engine, Gellar Field
Single Void Shield, Combat Bridge, M-1r Life Sustainer, Voidsmen QUarters
m-201b Auger Array


The Forge Moon around the Agri World makes particularly efficient Plasma systems, thus why the Generator has higher than normal Power, and theres a crystal in this system that allows them to create a more powerful beam for less energy, thus why they use Sunsear Laser Batteries. The Station is gonna be armed similarly to the Corvettes, with a Sunsear and a Lance Battery on each facing.

Sounds good! Let me know how it goes, I'd be interested to hear, as I might be running RT again soonish.

I would definately use the Unnatural (x) rule from Black Crusade this time around - their pilot was able to accelerate/decelerate 200,000 (20 squares) per round pretty much straight away.

[Sinewmire]

I'm running a 1 shot for Deathwatch this weekend, using Genestealer Cult. Sadly it looks like all the fan-made stuff I can find has died.

I'm clearly gonna have to make my own stats for cultists. I'll use the GS from Creatures Anathema with Razor Sharp on their claws. I'll make an even Unnatural-er one with psyker powers as a Patriarch.

Any suggestions?

[comicshorse]

I'm only a few sessions into playing in my first 40K game so I'm not familiar with the rules but I remember from the old wargame stuff that Genestealers have a thing called 'Brood Telepathy'. Where all Genestealers of a group are all telepathically connected to each other

[Grim Portent]

Any suggestions? Well obvious starting point is everything should be able to telepathically communicate with other 'stealers and cultists over long distances. Secondly I'd give them all the ability to dodge into bullets to protect the leadership trio of Patriarch, Magus and Primus.

Patriarch should probably be about as tough and strong as an Ogryn in carapace, as fast as if not faster than a genestealer and have a few psychic powers from telepathy.

A Magus is a good idea to add, as are the various cultist varients. Rough rule of thumb would be that the Magus and 3rd and 4th gens should be humans will higher willpower, roughly as much skill as guardsmen but with more stealth skills. The Magus should be a decently strong psyker with telepathy powers. Maybe psy rating 5 or 6.

Gen 1s and 2s and the Primus should be as tough as humans but have a strength bonus of 6 or so and genestealer claws. They're not as tough as actual 'stealers but they're almost as killy. Much more stealthy than normal humans. Heavy fondness for explosives and indifference to collateral damage would fit them as well.

Abberrations might be hard to fit in with the others, but a marine statline unarmoured bruiser with all the subtely of a brick wielding a power hammer leaping out of a squad transport to lead a charge or protecting the Magus would be quite fitting.



Individual cultists won't be a threat to marines, autoguns aren't much to worry about after all. I'd place a big emphasis on things like traps, ambushes and heavy lockable doors that buy time for cult forces to position.

A group of Neophytes popping up behind some rubble and plinking with autoguns so their buddy with a mining laser or demolition pack can skulk into a good position is how I'd expect the more humanoid ones to fight marines, and of course they can all chuck light explosives around or try to collapse a tunnel. If the heavy weapons guys or explsoive caddy go down the others either flee or try to hold the marines in place to buy other groups time to set up their own ambushes.

Acolyte's bursting from a side room and charging towards melee with things like bomb vests on a couple and a purestrain genestealer keeping an eye from a nearby air vent to see if there's a chance to join in at minimal risk is another tactic I'd use.

Demolition packs hooked to tripwires, shotguns rigged up at doorways and similar should also be a thing periodically.

[lightningcat]

Any suggestions?
Purestrain Genestealers and Broodlords are in the book Mark of the Xenos, along with some Tyranid psychic powers.
But Grim seems to have most of the bases covered.


I'm only a few sessions into playing in my first 40K game so I'm not familiar with the rules but I remember from the old wargame stuff that Genestealers have a thing called 'Brood Telepathy'. Where all Genestealers of a group are all telepathically connected to each other
Yes, its basically constant communication with any other genestealer within 1km.

[Sinewmire]

Thanks for the suggestions!


I'm only a few sessions into playing in my first 40K game so I'm not familiar with the rules but I remember from the old wargame stuff that Genestealers have a thing called 'Brood Telepathy'. Where all Genestealers of a group are all telepathically connected to each other

Yeah, they basically all have psychic vox-units, and are immune to fear effects. They'll also kind of all stare blankly sometimes when the Brood overrides their normal thinking, is my plan.


Purestrain Genestealers and Broodlords are in the book Mark of the Xenos, along with some Tyranid psychic powers.
But Grim seems to have most of the bases covered.

Thanks Lightningcat, I'll try and find those - the BL will do nicely as a Patriarch, and the powers would be useful too.


Well obvious starting point is everything should be able to telepathically communicate with other 'stealers and cultists over long distances. Secondly I'd give them all the ability to dodge into bullets to protect the leadership trio of Patriarch, Magus and Primus.

Patriarch should probably be about as tough and strong as an Ogryn in carapace, as fast as if not faster than a genestealer and have a few psychic powers from telepathy.

Yeah, the fluff has one going up against a Terminator Librarian.


A Magus is a good idea to add, as are the various cultist varients. Rough rule of thumb would be that the Magus and 3rd and 4th gens should be humans will higher willpower, roughly as much skill as guardsmen but with more stealth skills. The Magus should be a decently strong psyker with telepathy powers. Maybe psy rating 5 or 6.

I'd planned on the Magus being a secondary objective, along with the Primus. To make him a threat, I'll make him a bit higher than that, and give him some damage/defense abilities.


Gen 1s and 2s and the Primus should be as tough as humans but have a strength bonus of 6 or so and genestealer claws. They're not as tough as actual 'stealers but they're almost as killy. Much more stealthy than normal humans. Heavy fondness for explosives and indifference to collateral damage would fit them as well.

Yeah, the Primacii will be the elite troops. I'll load them up with the tool style weapons (ie Breaching Augurs), as well as the odd special weapons like grenade launchers and flamers. By now they've got access to PDF/Mechanicus weapons.


Abberrations might be hard to fit in with the others, but a marine statline unarmoured bruiser with all the subtely of a brick wielding a power hammer leaping out of a squad transport to lead a charge or protecting the Magus would be quite fitting.

I was thinking of using Ogryn statlines for the Maelignacii. Using them as minibosses, give them shock mauls, rock drills, that kind of thing.


Individual cultists won't be a threat to marines, autoguns aren't much to worry about after all. I'd place a big emphasis on things like traps, ambushes and heavy lockable doors that buy time for cult forces to position.

A group of Neophytes popping up behind some rubble and plinking with autoguns so their buddy with a mining laser or demolition pack can skulk into a good position is how I'd expect the more humanoid ones to fight marines, and of course they can all chuck light explosives around or try to collapse a tunnel. If the heavy weapons guys or explsoive caddy go down the others either flee or try to hold the marines in place to buy other groups time to set up their own ambushes.

Yeah, Hordes of Brood Brother PDF troopers was my baseline enemy, whose main strength is that they're indistinguishable from loyalists. Space marines are proof against single autoguns, but Hordes get extra damage dice for high magnitude.


Acolytes bursting from a side room and charging towards melee with things like bomb vests on a couple and a purestrain genestealer keeping an eye from a nearby air vent to see if there's a chance to join in at minimal risk is another tactic I'd use.
Demolition packs hooked to tripwires, shotguns rigged up at doorways and similar should also be a thing periodically.

Good point, traps would defo be a thing once the marines get into the cult's home ground (refinery and mining complex - lots of nice stone tunnels). I try to avoid them usually, as it's a bit of a "gotcha" move, but a couple of players will be scouts, so that sort of thing would play up their strengths.

I'd planned on having carbombs of Arvus Lighters loaded with promethium/mining charges as the cult's version of artillery, or even actual artillery as they have access to military vox-network.

The problem with single 'stealers is that they will just get annihilated by the marines in a single round... so I suppose that's a tactic they'd only use once or twice. I was going to save the purestrains for important locations, and have a dozen or so attack at once.

I was toying with the idea of having some mechanically augmented cultists too, like the mechanicus assassins, as an unexpected surprise.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

May I ask another question about a WHFRP character one of my friends is making to lore-check his backstory, please? :smallredface:

[comicshorse]

That's a big part of what the thread is for :smallsmile:

[Archpaladin Zousha]

I just don't want to annoy anyone. :smallredface:

In a nutshell, the guy is a Tilean Pit Fighter who learned his trade as a slave, his owner being a wealthy Tilean merchant who brought him to the Empire to win more money in their fight clubs, but the Empire's anti-slavery laws resulted in him getting freed. Since fighting is what he does best, he's now fighting for coin, whether in the pit or doing mercenary work, to raise enough money to free the rest of his family back in Tilea, who are still owned by the merchant.

Just trying to help the player iron out some details. My research indicates that, given medieval/Renaissance Italy had a solid slave trade (ESPECIALLY Venice), and that's what Tilea is based on, slavery would be found there, but would the Empire HAVE anti-slavery laws this guy could exploit to gain his freedom from the merchant? And furthermore, WHY would the merchant go to the Empire if he knew there were laws that would result in him losing his prize fighter, instead of going to, say, Araby, much like how the majority of the Italian slave trade went to the Moors in North Africa?

[comicshorse]

In a nutshell, the guy is a Tilean Pit Fighter who learned his trade as a slave, his owner being a wealthy Tilean merchant who brought him to the Empire to win more money in their fight clubs, but the Empire's anti-slavery laws resulted in him getting freed. Since fighting is what he does best, he's now fighting for coin, whether in the pit or doing mercenary work, to raise enough money to free the rest of his family back in Tilea, who are still owned by the merchant.

Just trying to help the player iron out some details. My research indicates that, given medieval/Renaissance Italy had a solid slave trade (ESPECIALLY Venice), and that's what Tilea is based on, slavery would be found there, but would the Empire HAVE anti-slavery laws this guy could exploit to gain his freedom from the merchant? And furthermore, WHY would the merchant go to the Empire if he knew there were laws that would result in him losing his prize fighter, instead of going to, say, Araby, much like how the majority of the Italian slave trade went to the Moors in North Africa?

The bolded is the heart of the problem. I'm not sure if the Empire have anti-slavery laws, certainly they don't seem in any of the games/books I can think of to have slavery of their own. However it's a big jump from not having slavery in your laws to pissing off other countries by stealing their property when they set foot on your soil. That seems like the kind of thing to cause diplomatic incidents, feuds and even wars over. And is really going to cut down on your trade when merchants can't bring their workforce with them

So I see two ways to go at it :

ONE : The Empire DOES have anti-slavery laws and the Pit Fighter was freed under them.
Why ? To pick an idea lets say the Merchant brought him in to take place in illegal, underground games. Bigger risks but bigger profits and he got greedy. The games get busted and the Pit Fighter is freed

TWO : The Empire doesn't have anti-slavery laws. So the Pit Fighter must be freed in another fashion. I can think of a couple of reasons he might end up free.
Gratitude : Perhaps he defeated a mighty opponent and won the Merchant so much money and renown he was freed as a reward. Or saved the Merchant from an attack by an assassin.
Desperation : The Merchant has a bad season, desperately short of cash he volunteers his prize Pit Fighter in a fight where the odds are severely against him. As a motivator the Pit Fighter is promised his freedom if he wins. ( Or perhaps is promised his freedom if he takes a dive and lives :smallsmile:)
Luck : The Merchant dies suddenly in the Empire. With none of his family there his servants take the opportunity to loot his belongings while his slaves (including the Pit Fighter) take to the hills.
Or a noble lady takes a fancy to him. Buys him, romances him and then dumps him when she gets bored (or her husband starts to get suspicious). But does at least give him his freedom.

[Destro_Yersul]

I just don't want to annoy anyone. :smallredface:

In a nutshell, the guy is a Tilean Pit Fighter who learned his trade as a slave, his owner being a wealthy Tilean merchant who brought him to the Empire to win more money in their fight clubs, but the Empire's anti-slavery laws resulted in him getting freed. Since fighting is what he does best, he's now fighting for coin, whether in the pit or doing mercenary work, to raise enough money to free the rest of his family back in Tilea, who are still owned by the merchant.

Just trying to help the player iron out some details. My research indicates that, given medieval/Renaissance Italy had a solid slave trade (ESPECIALLY Venice), and that's what Tilea is based on, slavery would be found there, but would the Empire HAVE anti-slavery laws this guy could exploit to gain his freedom from the merchant? And furthermore, WHY would the merchant go to the Empire if he knew there were laws that would result in him losing his prize fighter, instead of going to, say, Araby, much like how the majority of the Italian slave trade went to the Moors in North Africa?

Could always have the merchant and co. get jumped by Orcs going through the mountains. Or beastmen going through the forest. Merchant dies in the fighting, and the pit fighter is left with A: go to the Empire and be a mercenary, or B: go back to the place he got enslaved.

[Kobold-Bard]

Dark Heresy 1e: Ascension question. Should/Would you allow a Primaris Psyker to continue to buy DH Psychic Disciplines / Powers / Minor Powers?

Assuming they have no advances left in their DH1 career ranks, it appears that Ascension takes this option away for psykers, but weirdly allows Interrogators and Inquisitors to keep gaining them.

If the RAW says you can't, I'm thinking of making it an Ascended Trait option for Primaris Psyker, with the costs being half what they are for Interrogators, which matches up with the costs of ascended powers in the PS ranks. Seem reasonable?

[Blackhawk748]

Dark Heresy 1e: Ascension question. Should/Would you allow a Primaris Psyker to continue to buy DH Psychic Disciplines / Powers / Minor Powers?

Assuming they have no advances left in their DH1 career ranks, it appears that Ascension takes this option away for psykers, but weirdly allows Interrogators and Inquisitors to keep gaining them.

If the RAW says you can't, I'm thinking of making it an Ascended Trait option for Primaris Psyker, with the costs being half what they are for Interrogators, which matches up with the costs of ascended powers in the PS ranks. Seem reasonable?

Seems fine to me, no reason why they wouldn't keep gettin powers.

So i've finished creating my Chaos Fleet for the encounter. I added two Soul Cage Slave Transports to the fleet and decided that the Captain of the Hellbringer (whose name is The Defiler of Purity) is a Chaos Space Marine named Trayvus Volk, formerly of the Night Lords. As a former Nightlord, he clearly uses Intimidate instead of Command and his will be a 55. Now, in looking all of this over i cant find where you boost your underlings skill rolls with Command, so if someone could point out where that is id be very grateful.

[The Glyphstone]

Cross-posting this for anyone who doesnt also hang out in the 40K fluff thread.


For anyone who's interesting in keeping tabs on the upcoming d6-based 40K RPG:

https://mailchi.mp/2293b89450ff/wrath-glory-newsletter-february-2018?e=d4c39ae062

[LeSwordfish]

I like that idea a lot. I don't think it'll work but I like it.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Why don't you think it'll work? :smallconfused:

[LeSwordfish]

I haven't seen any of the ranges adequately balance guardsmen against marines against sisters against assassins before. I suppose perhaps I'm being unfair since its not FFG before but I think making such disparate levels of power balanced against each other is really really hard -especially with marines and guardsmen, say, who both fulfil broadly the same "shoot the guns until the bad men are dead" party role.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

I see what you mean. My own party sort of has that issue, where the Rogue Trader I play got his start as a Guardsman, and one of my companions is a Space Wolf scout...we KINDA meet in the middle? :smallamused:

[The Glyphstone]

To be fair, we don't have a lot of comparison data. Literally the only 40K RPG system that has ever been printed is the FFG series. We know that isn't balanced inter-game, but when your sample size is (1), it's hard to objectively say that it can't be done.

Looking at their example, I think they're on the right track. The Guardsman elevated to a Throne Agent, intended to be equally valuable as the Space Marine, isn't just escalating his Shoot Stuff Good skills, at which the Marine is pretty much guaranteed to outclass him. He's branched out with knowledge, allies, and contacts that the Space Marine doesn't have, and likely might not ever be able to obtain. That was the flaw of FFG's approach - piling an extra 10,000 XP onto a Guardsman doesn't help when the Guardsman is still limited to only buying what his Career track will let him, which is only Shoot Stuff Good.

[comicshorse]

To be fair, we don't have a lot of comparison data. Literally the only 40K RPG system that has ever been printed is the FFG series. We know that isn't balanced inter-game, but when your sample size is (1), it's hard to objectively say that it can't be done.

Looking at their example, I think they're on the right track. The Guardsman elevated to a Throne Agent, intended to be equally valuable as the Space Marine, isn't just escalating his Shoot Stuff Good skills, at which the Marine is pretty much guaranteed to outclass him. He's branched out with knowledge, allies, and contacts that the Space Marine doesn't have, and likely might not ever be able to obtain. That was the flaw of FFG's approach - piling an extra 10,000 XP onto a Guardsman doesn't help when the Guardsman is still limited to only buying what his Career track will let him, which is only Shoot Stuff Good.

That seems to be the way to do it. While a Guardsman shouldn't be a match for a genetically engineered killing machine in combat the Space Marine has, in all likelihood, never really talked to anyone who isn't a Space Marine ( or even probably not one outside his Chapter). Whereas an experienced Guardsman has grown up in a much less structured and restrictive environment. His made friends, allies and contacts (at least if he's made it past the first 15 hours he has) :smallsmile:

[Archpaladin Zousha]

That's a really good point, Glyphstone.

Honestly, if anything this new setup would make it even easier to model my Guardsman-turned-Rogue-Trader! :smallcool:

[Blackhawk748]

To be fair, we don't have a lot of comparison data. Literally the only 40K RPG system that has ever been printed is the FFG series. We know that isn't balanced inter-game, but when your sample size is (1), it's hard to objectively say that it can't be done.

Looking at their example, I think they're on the right track. The Guardsman elevated to a Throne Agent, intended to be equally valuable as the Space Marine, isn't just escalating his Shoot Stuff Good skills, at which the Marine is pretty much guaranteed to outclass him. He's branched out with knowledge, allies, and contacts that the Space Marine doesn't have, and likely might not ever be able to obtain. That was the flaw of FFG's approach - piling an extra 10,000 XP onto a Guardsman doesn't help when the Guardsman is still limited to only buying what his Career track will let him, which is only Shoot Stuff Good.

Agreed. If they're basing it vaguely around a Shadowrun style game it should work out ok. I mean, my Troll Gunslinger isn't as straight killy as our Gun Adept, but he's way tankier and has skills that the Gun Ad doesn't. Which is, as you say, the best way to balance them. Its probably why Black Crusade "worked" at all. The Humans had all the skills and the Marines just go murderilate.

[LeSwordfish]

Does anyone know of any attempts to make a conversion of Deathwatch for a 30k campaign? It would presumably be relatively little work to put together a Knight-Errant game.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

What is the cooler and more awesome Warhammer Fantasy metal to get stuff made out of (in your opinions): gromril or ithilmar?

[Lord Raziere]

Does anyone know of any attempts to make a conversion of Deathwatch for a 30k campaign? It would presumably be relatively little work to put together a Knight-Errant game.

I don't know, no but if I were to make a quick guess as to whats necessary:
-Mark V, Mark IV and Mark VI pattern power armors, No Aquila
-no need for a vast majority of the chapters, you can just cut it all down to twenty available legions, just take the chapter rules and treat them as your Legion rules
-at the same time, there is no specific rules for any of the Traitor Legions before they fell, so you'll have to make those up, legion demeanor's and whatnot. not all that hard honestly, the Legions and their Primarchs seem oddly predestined to become the daemonic beings they are now (thanks a lot Tzeentch), so you can just draw traits from those.
-if I remember correctly from the one 30k book I read, space marines have been forming some sort of unofficial "lodges" thing? even before the Horus heresy. but I don't care enough to look it up.
-the only real problem is figuring out why a small group of space marines from five different legions would be working together when they're supposed to be soldiers of these big primarch dudes, who could conquer entire sectors of space without meeting each other. you might have to be a little noncanonical with that and say the Emperor decreed it to happen for some reason, cause he is the ONLY one at the time with the power to make the Primarchs actually do that.

[LeSwordfish]

I was thinking specifically of the knights-errant, Malcador's proto-deathwatch special commandos - a group of marines including Garro, Rubio and Loken from various legions on a covert mission.

[comicshorse]

What is the cooler and more awesome Warhammer Fantasy metal to get stuff made out of (in your opinions): gromril or ithilmar?

Dwarves trade fairly regularly with the Old World so Gomoril weapons are merely very rare. Elves NEVER trade Ithilmar weapons so to get one you have to kill a Elf and steal his ( or find someone who has already done this)
So Ithilmar is obviously cooler :smallsmile:

[Sinewmire]

I was thinking specifically of the knights-errant, Malcador's proto-deathwatch special commandos - a group of marines including Garro, Rubio and Loken from various legions on a covert mission.

That could be cool. It wasn't unheard of to have marines on secondment to other Legions too, before the heresy, to improve relations and learn about each other.

There's the remnant Legions too, Salamanders, Iron Hands and Raven Guard who had to scram into whatever ships they could, and found themselves separated.

Or the Imperium Secundus forces - Blood Angels, Ultramarines, White Scars, Dark Angels et al who were cut off from Terra by the ruinstorm.

[JellyPooga]

Dwarves trade fairly regularly with the Old World so Gomoril weapons are merely very rare. Elves NEVER trade Ithilmar weapons so to get one you have to kill a Elf and steal his ( or find someone who has already done this)
So Ithilmar is obviously cooler :smallsmile:

Nah, give me good solid dwarven craftsmanship over that namby pampy elven rubbish; what good is it if you can't use it? A denim jacket I'm wearing and rocking the style is cooler than any leather one left on the rack. Cool isn't an objective quality, it's all in what you do with it, so while some skinny elf might be mincing over in Ulthuan with his Ithilmar ear-rings and think he's soooo fashionable, I'll be in the 47th deep of Karak Eight Peaks, bathed in the blood of night goblins, skaven and worse creatures, still slaughtering my way through the forces of chaos in my dwarf-craft gromril armour that was gifted to me by my best drinking/orc-slaying buddies from that tavern in Nuln...what was that place called again? Bah, I forget...too many blows to the head, I guess. Now, where's that blasted mage with the lantern? It's getting dark around here and I can barely see to swing my sword...*CLANG!*...What was that? Oh, just a rock bouncing off my shoulder. Wait...
...
...ARrgHargh! *schlurk**whiff**bonk**clang!*
Gerroff me!
*FWHOOSH*Dammit Wizard, watch where you aim that thing!
*fwup**crunk**squeeeee!*...
...
...

[Archpaladin Zousha]

I won't be able to wear armor, being a Celestial Wizard and all. I was more thinking in terms of swords, something I can stab things with when they're too close for me to zap. :smallbiggrin:

[Incorrect]

Hey guys. Quick Dark Heresy 1ed. question.
How do you make your rank 2 Imperial psyker, combat effective? Any fun and creative ideas?
I dont need to outclass the assassin or guardsman, but I know we will be in fights very often. The character is not build yet, but has a good array of stats between 27-40.

I dont see minor powers helping that much, and dont get the stats and talents to fight directly.
The only way I see before me is going for an accurate basic weapon and using unnatural aim to snipe.

[JellyPooga]

I won't be able to wear armor, being a Celestial Wizard and all. I was more thinking in terms of swords, something I can stab things with when they're too close for me to zap. :smallbiggrin:

Well, you know what they say; "a sword in the hand is worth two in the elf"...or something. A gromril blade will raise an eyebrow or two, especially from dwarven folk, but won't be scrutinised too much. An ithilmar blade, on the other hand, might bring down something of an inquisition down on your head should an elf catch wind of it. Nothing you shouldn't be able to handle, of course, but it's definitely a concern.

It raises the question of where, exactly, you got it. Did you kill an elf and pry it from his cold, dead fingers? Was it a gift? A prize? Did you find it in a ruin? The same questions can be asked of a gromril blade, of course. The real issue is not "what's cooler; gromril or ithilmar?" it's "what's cooler; the story behind obtaining said ithilmar or gromril blade?" and it largely boils down to who you want interaction with over it; dwarves or elves.

[Magua]

Hey guys. Quick Dark Heresy 1ed. question.
How do you make your rank 2 Imperial psyker, combat effective? Any fun and creative ideas?
I dont need to outclass the assassin or guardsman, but I know we will be in fights very often. The character is not build yet, but has a good array of stats between 27-40.

I dont see minor powers helping that much, and dont get the stats and talents to fight directly.
The only way I see before me is going for an accurate basic weapon and using unnatural aim to snipe.

Here are some possibilities. Most of what you want to do is stack bonuses to hit in your favor.

1. Be aware of the official errata that if you aim with an accurate weapon, you can get an extra d10 of damage for each degree of success, up to 2.

Get an accurate weapon, red dot sight, anything else you might be able to get your GM to agree to that will add to your BS. Unnatural aim (+30), aim (+10), aim (+10), fire (+10 from accurate, +10 from red dot sight) lets you fire every two rounds, and should give you +70 to hit (another +10 if you're within short range, which you probably are). With a BS of 30, this gives you a 95% chance to hit and an 80% chance of doing 3d10+whatever damage.

Enemies that dodge will ruin you, though.

2. Get a full auto weapon and use suppressive fire. Pinning checks are brutal, and BS and training are unnecessary to cost most of your enemies half their actions.

Outside of suppressive fire, just straight up full auto gives you a +20 to hit, +10 if you're within short range, and can generate multiple hits.

3. Get a combat shotgun. Run up to someone and use it point blank. +30 to hit from point blank range, another +10 if you have a red dot sight, with the possibility of multiple hits from scatter. Of course, you're right next to your enemy and so in a bad spot if they don't go down, but, yknow.

If you're already adjacent to someone, you can fire it on semi-auto for an extra +10 (but no red dot sight) and /really/ ruin their day with multiple hits /and/ scatter if you roll well.

4. Get a flamer. BS and training are unnecessary. Once an enemy is on fire (50% chance for something with an Agility of 30, even if you are untrained in flamers), without house rules allowing buddies to help or whatnot, they are almost certainly going to die (only a 10% chance to put themselves out each round).

[comicshorse]

It raises the question of where, exactly, you got it. Did you kill an elf and pry it from his cold, dead fingers? Was it a gift? A prize? Did you find it in a ruin? The same questions can be asked of a gromril blade, of course. The real issue is not "what's cooler; gromril or ithilmar?" it's "what's cooler; the story behind obtaining said ithilmar or gromril blade?" and it largely boils down to who you want interaction with over it; dwarves or elves.

Absolutely
Of course killing elves can be socially acceptable as long as they're Dark Elves. Indeed killing Dark Elves is generally regarded as a public service. Or of course you could have got it by killing a guy who killed an elf

[Kobold-Bard]

Hey guys. Quick Dark Heresy 1ed. question.
How do you make your rank 2 Imperial psyker, combat effective? Any fun and creative ideas?
I dont need to outclass the assassin or guardsman, but I know we will be in fights very often. The character is not build yet, but has a good array of stats between 27-40.

I dont see minor powers helping that much, and dont get the stats and talents to fight directly.
The only way I see before me is going for an accurate basic weapon and using unnatural aim to snipe.

Fearful Aura is underrated as a passive debuff. Fear Rating 2 means every enemy who can see you regardless of distance has to make a Willpower test at -10 or suffer anything from losing half an action to penalties on any tests for the rest of the combat to outright blacking out in terror.

[Blackhawk748]

Hey guys. Quick Dark Heresy 1ed. question.
How do you make your rank 2 Imperial psyker, combat effective? Any fun and creative ideas?
I dont need to outclass the assassin or guardsman, but I know we will be in fights very often. The character is not build yet, but has a good array of stats between 27-40.

I dont see minor powers helping that much, and dont get the stats and talents to fight directly.
The only way I see before me is going for an accurate basic weapon and using unnatural aim to snipe.

Shotguns, shotguns are your friend and they will mulch anything that isnt in heavy armor or a Daemon with a ton of wounds.


Fearful Aura is underrated as a passive debuff. Fear Rating 2 means every enemy who can see you regardless of distance has to make a Willpower test at -10 or suffer anything from losing half an action to penalties on any tests for the rest of the combat to outright blacking out in terror.

Also, do this.

[Kobold-Bard]

You probably saw, but Lord Inquisitor is officially kill (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ncjtMqRP74).

[LeSwordfish]

A Gameplay example of Wrath and Glory is up. It looks neat! Reminds me of the various Apocalypse World systems. I'm very much down for a less rules-heavy take on 40k.

[Blackhawk748]

A Gameplay example of Wrath and Glory is up. It looks neat! Reminds me of the various Apocalypse World systems. I'm very much down for a less rules-heavy take on 40k.

Hmmmm, i hope it has more crunch than Apocalypse world as thats actually too rules lite for me group. Fate is about as lite as we can get.

[Incorrect]

Thank you for all your great replies on the psyker combat question.

A flamer and fearful aura has a nice combined imagery, although not the most team-friendly. I will try and see if the gm will work with me on this :) If not a shotgun will be the way to go.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Question related to magic and elves: do elven spellcasters "attune" to the Winds of Magic the way humans do (i.e. Ghur makes you more solitary and hairy, Azyr makes you more dreamy and turns your eyes blue, etc.) or is that affectation unique to human spellcasters?

Furthermore, if elves ARE affected in this way, how does that influence manifest for elf spellcasters capable of using High Magic, since they've mastered all the Winds?

And when Dark Elves and Wood Elves use DARK magic, are they considered Daemonologists or Necromancers, considering those are the categories human Dhar users split into, or is there some third category of Dark magic user unique to elves?

Realms of Sorcery (and the wiki in general) only really talks about how HUMANS practice magic, since learning High Magic is "beyond the scope of the game." And has very little info on role-playing elves in the first place (you at least get flavor text for dwarfs in Karak Asgal, and for halflings scattered throughout Empire-related books). :smallconfused: