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  1. - Top - End - #91
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    Default Re: Warhammer & 40K RPGs Thread III: With Friends Like These, Who Needs Heresies?

    For the Void Master - a set of keys.

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

  2. - Top - End - #92
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    Default Re: Warhammer & 40K RPGs Thread III: With Friends Like These, Who Needs Heresies?

    An alternative might be some kind of super-MIU that gives additional bonuses to pilot skills by linking him more closely to his craft.
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  3. - Top - End - #93
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    Default Re: Warhammer & 40K RPGs Thread III: With Friends Like These, Who Needs Heresies?

    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.
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  4. - Top - End - #94
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    Default Re: Warhammer & 40K RPGs Thread III: With Friends Like These, Who Needs Heresies?

    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.
    Last edited by The Glyphstone; 2016-03-11 at 12:15 PM.

  5. - Top - End - #95
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    Default Re: Warhammer & 40K RPGs Thread III: With Friends Like These, Who Needs Heresies?

    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.
    Last edited by LeSwordfish; 2016-03-17 at 06:43 PM.
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  6. - Top - End - #96
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    Default Re: Warhammer & 40K RPGs Thread III: With Friends Like These, Who Needs Heresies?

    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.

  7. - Top - End - #97
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    Default Re: Warhammer & 40K RPGs Thread III: With Friends Like These, Who Needs Heresies?

    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?
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  8. - Top - End - #98
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    Default Re: Warhammer & 40K RPGs Thread III: With Friends Like These, Who Needs Heresies?

    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

  9. - Top - End - #99
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    Default Re: Warhammer & 40K RPGs Thread III: With Friends Like These, Who Needs Heresies?

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

    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.

  11. - Top - End - #101
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    Default Re: Warhammer & 40K RPGs Thread III: With Friends Like These, Who Needs Heresies?

    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.

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  12. - Top - End - #102
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    Default Re: Warhammer & 40K RPGs Thread III: With Friends Like These, Who Needs Heresies?

    Quote Originally Posted by Tome View Post
    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
    Last edited by shadow_archmagi; 2016-04-19 at 07:21 PM.
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  13. - Top - End - #103
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    Default Re: Warhammer & 40K RPGs Thread III: With Friends Like These, Who Needs Heresies?

    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.
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  14. - Top - End - #104
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    Default Re: Warhammer & 40K RPGs Thread III: With Friends Like These, Who Needs Heresies?

    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.
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    78% of DM's started their first campaign in a tavern. If you're one of the 22% that didn't, copy and paste this into your signature.

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

    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.
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  16. - Top - End - #106
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    Default Re: Warhammer & 40K RPGs Thread III: With Friends Like These, Who Needs Heresies?

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

    Quote Originally Posted by Tome View Post
    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.

    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.
    Quote Originally Posted by Keld Denar View Post
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    Default Re: Warhammer & 40K RPGs Thread III: With Friends Like These, Who Needs Heresies?

    Quote Originally Posted by Coidzor View Post
    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.

    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.)

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

    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?

    Quote Originally Posted by Chijinda View Post
    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.

    Quote Originally Posted by Chijinda View Post
    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.

    Quote Originally Posted by Chijinda View Post
    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. 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.
    Quote Originally Posted by Keld Denar View Post
    +3 Girlfriend is totally unoptimized. You are better off with a +1 Keen Witty girlfriend and then appling Greater Magic Make-up to increase her enhancement bonus.
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    Default Re: Warhammer & 40K RPGs Thread III: With Friends Like These, Who Needs Heresies?

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

    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.

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

    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.

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

    Quote Originally Posted by Grytorm View Post
    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.

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

    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?
    "Reach down into your heart and you'll find many reasons to fight. Survival. Honor. Glory. But what about those who feel it's their duty to protect the innocent? There you'll find a warrior savage enough to match any dragon, and in the end, they'll retain what the others won't. Their humanity."

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

    Yep. Ask away, and we shall try to answer.
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    Default Re: Warhammer & 40K RPGs Thread III: With Friends Like These, Who Needs Heresies?

    Spoiler: The Last Jedi SPOILERS!
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    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.
    "Reach down into your heart and you'll find many reasons to fight. Survival. Honor. Glory. But what about those who feel it's their duty to protect the innocent? There you'll find a warrior savage enough to match any dragon, and in the end, they'll retain what the others won't. Their humanity."

  27. - Top - End - #117
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    Default Re: Warhammer & 40K RPGs Thread III: With Friends Like These, Who Needs Heresies?

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

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

    Thank you!
    "Reach down into your heart and you'll find many reasons to fight. Survival. Honor. Glory. But what about those who feel it's their duty to protect the innocent? There you'll find a warrior savage enough to match any dragon, and in the end, they'll retain what the others won't. Their humanity."

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

    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?
    "Reach down into your heart and you'll find many reasons to fight. Survival. Honor. Glory. But what about those who feel it's their duty to protect the innocent? There you'll find a warrior savage enough to match any dragon, and in the end, they'll retain what the others won't. Their humanity."

  30. - Top - End - #120
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    Default Re: Warhammer & 40K RPGs Thread III: With Friends Like These, Who Needs Heresies?

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