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Beer4TheBeerGod posted:If that's a rule it makes a lot of sense. Do you know what page it's on? Page 202: "If a lance weapon is installed on a vessel of frigate size or smaller (transports and raiders, for example), it must be installed in a prow weapon slot. Lances are large and cumbersome weapons and in respects to smaller vessels, can only be installed on ships specifically designed to carry them. If a ship of frigate size or smaller does not have a prow weapon slot, it cannot carry a lance. "
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Feb 25, 2013 09:00
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Signal posted:Page 202: Thanks! That makes a lot of sense. I tweaked the ship so it has two Sunsear batteries. Beer4TheBeerGod fucked around with this message at 14:42 on Feb 25, 2013 |
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Feb 25, 2013 14:39
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Beer4TheBeerGod posted:Yeah it can be a royal pain finding a good ship. Here are a few that I've been goofing around with. Please note these use the Mathhammer rules, which is why the armor is wonky. Thanks for posting these, it's always cool to see what other people are putting together in their games, especially people with more experience with the system. I probably won't swipe any of them wholesale for my own game, but they give some great benchmarking for what you can do. How do you feel about the Orion-class with the modified rules? I read over the discussion of them someone posted and it seems like it makes it generally tougher on smaller ships, which makes that low (ie, no) armor even more of a liability. I mean I think that it's appropriate that something like an Orion can't hold up to a Broadside, and will need to rely on speed and manuverability to avoid getting caught in one, but it'll be rough if they can't even exchange macrobattery fire with another small ship like a raider (which will likely have higher armor). I will probably end up just going in with it and tweaking stuff as needed during our game - it wouldn't be the first time we've had to walk things back during a game because we didn't understand something in the system fully prior to implementation. They aren't headed for any fleet engagements or skirmishes for some time, so I can also just house-rule allowing them to upgrade the armor on the ship at a later point if it seems needed, despite the ship trait.
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Feb 25, 2013 18:16
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Feel free to do whatever you want with them. I'm a huge fan of making starships (it's what got me into sci-fi). I think the Orion-class is fine under the new rules. I haven't playtested it in a real firefight, but from a fluff perspective it's appropriate. It's a paper-thin courier designed to run away from combat as fast as possible. The whole point of such is a ship is that if it gets into a firefight it's already lost.
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Feb 25, 2013 18:36
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I think I'll try to run some playtest stuff with it against a couple of things and see how it goes. I certainly don't want it to be able to stand up to a larger ship or even something comparably sized fitted for combat (like the Meritech or a Corvette), but my two big concerns are that whether it is likely to get crippled before it can actually get away from a larger ship, and whether it can stand up to anything. It's not supposed to be a fighter, but I don't want to give the players something that gets smoked by like a tramp steamer, or can't approach a smugglers den because a wing of attack craft is too much for it. I probably have a few sessions before I need to hand them any real details on the ship, so I can work it out. If it's really too fragile I'll swtich back to the Meritech (or maybe a Corvette, dunno) Edit: Worth noting that I have done basically nothing with ship combat before, so I have no idea what to expect. I really need to run some playtest stuff just so that I understand what is going on and how it's supposed to work, then start loving with the ships. Ashcans fucked around with this message at 19:10 on Feb 25, 2013 |
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Feb 25, 2013 19:02
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Also consider a Loki Q-Ship. All the fun of a transport plus guns and armor.
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Feb 25, 2013 19:27
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Eh, ship combat is a teensy bit awkward. Printing out a sheet of combat actions to give to the players helps, otherwise unless they're all leafing through their own copies of the rulebook 3e-wizard-style you end up having to constantly remind them of options.
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Feb 25, 2013 20:48
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Rogue Trader campaign. My group genned up a very old warrant meaning a lot of SP and low PF. Having spent a while looking at what they could get for their points, I realised the sensible thing for them to do would be to take a fully-kitted out frigate and then 'trade up' in the future. That option seems to me to take away some of the cool of putting depth and flavour into the ship (rival port/starboard affiliations, servitor-rickshaws and a steam train for getting around the ship, arboretum of carnivorous plants, forgotten stowaways who've got their own culture and traditions etc). How much trouble am I in for if I let them start out with something like a cruiser or a grand cruisier (was thinking Repulsive for GC and unsure on the Cruiser), albeit in disrepair, missing some of its weapons, systems badly in need of upgrade etc? Talkie Toaster posted:Eh, ship combat is a teensy bit awkward. Printing out a sheet of combat actions to give to the players helps, otherwise unless they're all leafing through their own copies of the rulebook 3e-wizard-style you end up having to constantly remind them of options. I found these, haven't gone through them to check all the numbers/rules yet, but these might help: http://www.scribd.com/doc/99750295/Rogue-Trader-RPG-Action-Cards-v1-05 PST fucked around with this message at 00:22 on Feb 26, 2013 |
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Feb 26, 2013 00:19
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PST posted:How much trouble am I in for if I let them start out with something like a cruiser or a grand cruisier (was thinking Repulsive for GC and unsure on the Cruiser), albeit in disrepair, missing some of its weapons, systems badly in need of upgrade etc? I would say either a light cruiser or a monitor ship (the Adeptus Mechanicus system ship that comes with 2 void shields is pretty awesome) would work fine, or that Star Galleon that lets you take both transport and cruiser stuff. Also don't forget that even frigates are still a mile long and have the population of a small city, so there's nothing preventing you from having wacky stuff that suits you. Better yet, why not let the players join in the fun and have a ship-building party? Let them decide if they want the super ship (that Mercurial I posted earlier is 70 SP) or a lower-level cruiser. Have fun with it!
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Feb 26, 2013 00:39
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Beer4TheBeerGod posted:Better yet, why not let the players join in the fun and have a ship-building party? Let them decide if they want the super ship (that Mercurial I posted earlier is 70 SP) or a lower-level cruiser. Have fun with it! I definitely think this is the way to go - don't just hand your players a ship, spend some of your first session having them build it. They can trade off rolling for Complications and stuff, let them throw open the books and dig around looking at hulls - obviously you get a veto, but they're probably be much more excited and happier if they've had a hand in the whole thing. The ship is basically one of the characters, so let them work together on building it. Heck, I am half-tempted to do this even though it makes very little sense for where my game is. Because none of the specific details of hull and components have been important so far, I kind of want to throw it open and let them work on it so that they can get a ship they are pumped about cruising around with, rather than one they hate and are hoping to ditch as soon as they can manage something better.
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Feb 26, 2013 02:29
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Is there anyone who can tell me if Rising Tempest or The Emperor Protects are good modules to run my group through? Structure-wise I know that all the adventures in them are pretty much self-contained, with Rising Tempest having a way to tie them all together. What I want to know is what are they like? I don't want something where my group is going to be locked on rails, but I'd like enough good hooks to keep them moving along.
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Feb 26, 2013 02:53
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Ashcans posted:There are serious issues with executing a Navigator anyway, I think Will the characters even know this? How is a scum, for example, to know that Navigators are Superior Abhumans and not just freaky mutants to be purged?
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Feb 26, 2013 12:28
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So I'm loving Only War right now me and my group are playing it regularly on Friday nights. But I've been confused about one thing, armoured units. For example, if they wanted to be a Leman Russ squad would they all play as Operators, or only the driver, would the sponson gunners have to be heavy weapon specialists? Or are they all in separate tanks? Since I assume you would use a comrade as the loader, but if you have 5 people you can't fit 10 of them in a Russ, maybe a Baneblade. Sentinels I can understand everyone getting their own, but would they all be operators as well?
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Feb 26, 2013 13:54
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Liesmith posted:Will the characters even know this? How is a scum, for example, to know that Navigators are Superior Abhumans and not just freaky mutants to be purged? Well, some of them will know. The group has a Voidborn Psyker, for instance, who is more likely to realize this sort of thing, and I think the Tech-Priest would have some chance of knowing as well. Whether or not they manage to communicate that to the others (the Scum and Assassin are less likely to realize what's up immediately) is probably in the air. Our group has definitely had it's share of moments where someone does something insane and reckless without really thinking about it. If they incapacitate or capture him instead, the authorities they are working with should tip them off before they get too crazy with interrogation stuff, assuming they don't set to it immediately. I've been trying to dissuade them from just torturing everyone they capture with demonstrations that it often gives bad information and false confessions and stuff. In the background I have sketched up the Navigator is a member of one of the smallest families and is currently out of favor with his clan - it seemed like you would have to be pretty down and out to sign on with a broken-down grey-market trader. So if he does end up getting killed the fallout will be appreciable but not devastating; their Inquisitor might have to intervene and be pissed at them, and they'll have to cope without a Navigator until they can make amends.
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Feb 26, 2013 15:21
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Voidborn? Yeah I'm pretty sure he'd know "don't kill the guy who lets you actually navigate between star systems in the first place" by heart. (Also I'm under the impression that you generally have multiple navigators on a ship so they can work in shifts over the quite possibly a week or longer voyage through the Warp and you have backups in case they choke on a chicken bone or are a PC and routinely poke their nose into hazardous situations personally.)
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Feb 26, 2013 15:44
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Yea, that is one of the things that I am sort of trying to work out. I mean for stuff like technical staff you obviously have an Explorator who is in charge, and then there are whole levels of underlings who are Tech-Priests, Enginseers, down to the guys whose job it is to pour the sacred oil onto the gun tracks three times a day while chanting (or whatever). It's weirder with people like Navigators and Astropaths because they are simultaneously characterized as being extremely rare and essentially irreplaceable, but also apparently needed in fair amounts. And it's complicated by the fact that the ship is supposed to be a busted-up smuggler that usually runs on regular trading routes within the Imperium, and only takes the occasional, unsanctioned, jaunt to other places - rather than the standard Rogue Trader template. So, for instance, I decided that they probably don't have an Astopath on board - 95% of the time they are operating safely within Imperial space where they wouldn't need one, and when they're off-course who are they going to call anyway? I also thought that because they are mostly on known routes and stuff they could make do with a single real Navigator, and have him supported by conventional chartists and cogitators - it would only be on the off-route travel that he would be doing serious work. I suppose the ship could have a number of Navigators, even just people with the gene who are still in apprenticeship or whatever? But if the Acolytes execute the head Navigator, it's not like the rest of his family/underlings are going to stay on, and they really can't compel them to (at least not in an Imperial port, if they were jacking the ship in the black it would bea different matter I suppose)
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Feb 26, 2013 15:58
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KomradeX posted:So I'm loving Only War right now me and my group are playing it regularly on Friday nights. But I've been confused about one thing, armoured units. For example, if they wanted to be a Leman Russ squad would they all play as Operators, or only the driver, would the sponson gunners have to be heavy weapon specialists? Or are they all in separate tanks? Since I assume you would use a comrade as the loader, but if you have 5 people you can't fit 10 of them in a Russ, maybe a Baneblade. Sentinels I can understand everyone getting their own, but would they all be operators as well? The armoured regiment all start with Operate(surface) so any character can pilot the tank, the operator will just be better at it, and having the correct operate skill for the vehicle allows them to use any weapon on the vehicle as if they were trained in it's use. Pretty much all the regiment types that get a vehicle start with Operate(surface) with the exception of the Reconnaissance Regiment which would need an operator (or a weapon specialist or storm trooper who is ok with spending the exp) Tardcore fucked around with this message at 18:21 on Feb 26, 2013 |
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Feb 26, 2013 18:17
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Ashcans posted:Yea, that is one of the things that I am sort of trying to work out. I mean for stuff like technical staff you obviously have an Explorator who is in charge, and then there are whole levels of underlings who are Tech-Priests, Enginseers, down to the guys whose job it is to pour the sacred oil onto the gun tracks three times a day while chanting (or whatever). It's weirder with people like Navigators and Astropaths because they are simultaneously characterized as being extremely rare and essentially irreplaceable, but also apparently needed in fair amounts. Keep in mind even the smallest ships have like thirty thousand people on them or something. Having 5 to 10 each of Navigators/Astropaths isn't a lot percentage-wise. (Do note that the Astropath class in Rogue Trader is a really awesome one, I'm fairly sure most are just normal-blind instead of "blind but using psyker tricks to see just fine" thing.) That is a good excuse to not have Astropaths on board, but unless you have some weird archeotech or heretek thing, navigating without a Navigator consists of making blind jumps very short distances, inflating travel time a whole lot and giving you more opportunity to have accidents. (Especially since you can't tell where you're coming out.) The Navigator's job is to stare out into the bare Warp and make sense of it, so, well. I'm not clear on how interstellar navigation worked before the creation of Navigators, but that leaves me in the same boat as most of the Imperium!  ... You also wouldn't have an Explorator, since the ship isn't heading into unknown territory like Rogue Traders do, you'd have some lower-ranking tech-priest to oversee all the poo poo done by the rank and file. The Navigator Primus (and probably his subordinate Navigators) and the Enginseer Prime would need to be in on things, of course, but the Astropath phone bank might not even know what shift it is.
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Feb 26, 2013 20:08
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Zereth posted:Warp-capable ships are about as replaceable as Navigators and Astropaths, really. Maybe less so, there's very few shipyards capable of building them from scratch instead of refitting derelicts around, and you can always breed more Navigators are have the Emperor burn out the eyes of some psykers if you need more. There are a number of smaller hulls that only have 7-15,000 crew, though (which is probably the sort of ship they'll be getting), but that doesn't really reduce the need for number of Navigators. I guess this is one of those areas where I feel like the fluff is all tangled up, because clearly in Rogue Trader there are a huge range of vessels and it's clear that there is a lot of commerce and contact going on, but it doesn't really jive with some of the scarcity stuff that appears elsewhere (like how rare/important Astropaths are). If there are a dozen of those dudes on every little ship, it hardly seems like they should be as scarce as they are on many Imperial Planets. quote:That is a good excuse to not have Astropaths on board, but unless you have some weird archeotech or heretek thing, navigating without a Navigator consists of making blind jumps very short distances, inflating travel time a whole lot and giving you more opportunity to have accidents. (Especially since you can't tell where you're coming out.) The Navigator's job is to stare out into the bare Warp and make sense of it, so, well. There are actually some special components that are supposed to let you function a little better without a Navigator, but it's still pretty terrible. I was trying to work out if it would be viable for anyone to roll without one in a small enough region using very stable routes. Basically whether or not, in a pinch, the players could limp along until they sort it out. It would probably be really frustrating though, and limit them severely to only that sort of travel. But it would create a justification for not having a full complement for the ship. quote:I'm not clear on how interstellar navigation worked before the creation of Navigators, but that leaves me in the same boat as most of the Imperium! I am not sure its ever really spelled out, but I think that prior to the development of Navigators (which is pre-Imperium anyway) that stuff was actually handled by computers and AIs. The issue is that the cogitators that the Imperium does use are fairly limited, so they can only handle small, predictable jumps. Presumably at the same time people were building Men of Iron and so on they had better computers that could handle more. quote:... You also wouldn't have an Explorator, since the ship isn't heading into unknown territory like Rogue Traders do, you'd have some lower-ranking tech-priest to oversee all the poo poo done by the rank and file. That's true, I was using Explorator as the shorthand for the bridge position (person in charge of keeping poo poo running) without really thinking about it. The Enginseer Prime (that sounds like a good title, so I'm taking it!) is in on things and dabbling in some tech Heresy (as are some of their more trusted subordinates) but I hadn't really worked out how deep the Navigator needs to be in things - obviously he/they knows that the ship is going off to odd places, but it would be easy for him to believe that it's sort of low-level smuggling and off-warrant trading rather than something as serious as gun-running. I want to give the players some leverage on him to allow them to rope him along without making it so that he seems so corrupt and untrustworthy they'd rather not risk having him on board (and steering). If I add in the other Navigators though, they can always choose to get rid of him and promote one of the others to being in charge.
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Feb 26, 2013 20:49
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KomradeX posted:So I'm loving Only War right now me and my group are playing it regularly on Friday nights. But I've been confused about one thing, armoured units. For example, if they wanted to be a Leman Russ squad would they all play as Operators, or only the driver, would the sponson gunners have to be heavy weapon specialists? Or are they all in separate tanks? Since I assume you would use a comrade as the loader, but if you have 5 people you can't fit 10 of them in a Russ, maybe a Baneblade. Sentinels I can understand everyone getting their own, but would they all be operators as well? I haven't done it myself, but I was planning out a tank encounter for my players, and I was thinking each person would get their own tank and enough comrades to operate each part of the Leman Russ (total of 6 crew), or jam them all inside one tank and have them leave behind their extra comrades. Giving each player their own tank is cool, but kind of tedious, as there is so much to do in one turn (4+ weapons to fire a turn) so I'm thinking of having them all in one tank together. Also having the sponson gunners being heavy weapon specialists isn't needed, as they'd lack the ability to fix the tank in a pinch, and if you are capable of operating the vehicle, you don't need the weapon proficiencies to fire the guns on it.
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Feb 26, 2013 20:59
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Ah, yes, good point. Something on stable routes could definitely get away with a smaller number of navigators, but unless you're one of those crazy entirely-automated Mechanicus exploration ships or something, the answer to "can you get by without a navigator" is "not unless it's an emergency". The more well-travelled and old a route is the easier and faster it is to travel, so you don't need good or a lot of navigators like you do if you're a Rogue Trader going somewhere inside a warp storm that might have literally never seen a warpship before, but the Navigator corps' job is to stare into the naked warp for the entire duration of the journey. Which I feel compelled to point out is also Chaos. The Navigator might be contracted to the ship rather than the captain, so as long as your PCs aren't obviously xenos or enemies of the Imperium or the like he might just shrug and go along with it. Keep him in booze or whatever his vice is when not on the job and who cares who's in charge or where you're going?  As for the Astropath, it's the only way to get messages to them other than sending them to a port you think they're going to be in soon and waiting, and the margin of error on warp travel is enormous. As in "ships have come out hundreds of years after they went in, or literally arrived before they left". Not likely if you're on a schedule well-worn route, but better safe than sorry, especially if you're making side trips! There's regular commerce, yes, but it's relying on very old infrastructure they can't really replace. And I'm pretty sure they process hundreds of thousands of psykers a day with the Black Ships, which is where astropaths come from, so there aren't really enough for everything the Imperium wants them for but there's enough anything but the shittiest penny-ante warp-capable ships can have one or two. This is one of those places the scale of poo poo gets really weird and confusing, though. Not to mention the usual "left hand is writing something and has no idea the right hand is writing something about a similar topic" stuff. 
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Feb 26, 2013 21:06
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Take whatever number you think Games Workshop came up with and multiply it by 100,000, now you have a realistic number of things that are happening/available/whatever. Or just go by whatever ADB or Dan Abnett say, because they know whats up. You can have 1 Navigator, or 1 primary navigator and a bunch of lesser apprentices (2nd cousins in the house, whatever) per ship. Of course that means there are millions of Navigators. It makes sense, the Imperium spans an entire galaxy! You can have 1 astropath, or no astropaths, or a choir of astropaths. If the ship has none then they have to find places to stop to send and receive messages, way stations and the like. Jerkface fucked around with this message at 21:24 on Feb 26, 2013 |
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Feb 26, 2013 21:14
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There's lots of details about this in the Navis Primer. Astropaths as well, it's more a "non-daemon warp-related stuff" book than a "Navigator book" for RT.Zereth posted:That is a good excuse to not have Astropaths on board, but unless you have some weird archeotech or heretek thing, navigating without a Navigator consists of making blind jumps very short distances, inflating travel time a whole lot and giving you more opportunity to have accidents. (Especially since you can't tell where you're coming out.) The Navigator's job is to stare out into the bare Warp and make sense of it, so, well. You can also use sorcery, or better yet, cut a deal with a Daemon! 
Hodgepodge fucked around with this message at 21:29 on Feb 26, 2013 |
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Feb 26, 2013 21:27
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I just finished DM'ing my first session of Deathwatch with my usual Hunter: the Vigil group. We're used to playing fairly fast-and-loose Task Force: VALKYRIE games, so going up to Deathwatch was a logical progression for a try. The team: Imperial Fist Tactical Marine Ultramarine Assault Marine Iron Hand Devastator Raven Guard Techmarine Salamander Apothecary Since this was our first game and I only had the base book, I made up some quick rules for the non-core chapters on the fly and gave the party a straightforward first mission: an Ordo Xenos Inquisitor lord working with a Rogue Trader managed to steal a civilian Tau ship and turn it into a trojan horse loaded with Elysian Drop Troops and the Deathwatch team to kick in the teeth of a Tau planet before the main Imperial invasion force arrives. The team's goal is simple: take an Orca, land in the planetary capital, and cause as much damage as humanly possible. Some highlights: * Crashing the Orca directly into the planetary communication nexus, killing a public broadcast by Aun'o Vre'deshan (the Ethereal ruling the planet) about how the planet would easily repulse any Imperial invasion mid-sentence. * The Techmarine persuading the machine spirit of a Hammerhead to turn against the Tau who showed it no respect, then using it as another trojan horse to enter the planetary defense command center, which those silly Tau put on the surface of the planet, and empty the railgun's magazine into the facility. * Breaking into a top-secret Tau bioresearch lab under the command center and finding a live Venomthrope in stasis. The Apothecary and Techmarine unhooked the Venomthrope in its stasis pod, carried it to the city's central water processing/treatment facility, and dumped the live Venomthrope into the city's water supply. * The Assault Marine landing on a Crisis Suit in flight, ripping the cockpit/helmet off, and ripping the pilot head-first out of the suit. * A Greater Knarloc was supposed to be the big boss fight. Then the Devastator boiled its brains until its head exploded with his lascannon. Particularly fluffy? Maybe not, but everyone had a blast. Next session will be the assault on the planetary Ethereal sanctum.
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Feb 27, 2013 00:36
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So wait if their insertion vehicle was crashed, how did they get back off-planet?
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Feb 27, 2013 01:02
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Zereth posted:So wait if their insertion vehicle was crashed, how did they get back off-planet? He said its in advance of an invasion, so I don't think extraction is a 'thing'. That story sounds awesome, and perfectly fluffy.
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Feb 27, 2013 01:07
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Zereth posted:So wait if their insertion vehicle was crashed, how did they get back off-planet? They'll be catching a ride with the Imperial invasion force that started arriving shortly after the players started blowing up the Tau planetary capital along with the Elysian commando teams. The players and Elysians were there to disrupt the Tau planetary defenses before the invasion fleet arrived. For next week, I'm trying to come up with a good plot hook for the players to discover inside the Ethereal sanctum - something the Tau definitely don't want the Imperium to know about, much less get their hands on. Ideas: 1. A suit of Terminator armor with the markings of no chapter the PCs can identify. 2. A Heresy-era relic of the Dark Angels. The engravings mention a great rift in the Legion, as Dark Angels turn upon one another. 3. A bioengineering facility, where the Tau are vivisecting and genetically sequencing Tyranids to understand their biotechnology and perhaps reproduce it. 4. A daemon weapon that the Tau are studying, and the daemon is very much awake. 5. As the PCs confront the head Ethereal, his flesh melts off to reveal a shard of the Deceiver. 6. As the PCs finish killing the Ethereal leaders, a survivor laughs and reveals itself to be a daemon of Tzeentch, who thanks the Marines for their service to Tzeentch's designs. Cythereal fucked around with this message at 02:03 on Feb 27, 2013 |
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Feb 27, 2013 01:07
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I think really a game like Deathwatch sort of presupposes, almost, winning all the combat pretty handily, so revelations that shake their faith or put them in a position to make decisions or do things differently later are really important. Also things that drive them apart, like choosing between individual glory or preserving Chapter secrets vs holding together as a team, even if its to help out individual members with their own agendas while putting the Inquisition's objectives second. I would definitely give them opponents who appeal to their sense of honor, shas'el who challenge them to single combat or whatever. That way you can develop sympathetic frenemies for use in the future, or if they kick consistent amounts of rear end, any survivors could form the next cadre they face. Or you could flip it around and the Tau pack up and leave without much more of a fight- maybe the "ethereal sanctum" is a trap and the battle-brothers don't realize it until they "capture" a fire caste volunteer im fancy robes packed to the gills with cybernetic ally implanted explosives. Somehow the Tau knew they were coming! Maybe the Tau are working on a colony of captive hybrid genestealers, and they've worked out that the Hive Mind follows genestealers activity. Maybe they have all the tools necessary to try to throw one of Dagon's tendrils right into the Crusade rear lines. Stopping them here might be enough to delay a devastating hit like that, but maybe a flexible mind could persuade the Tau to try using their genestealer lure project on the Stigmartus instead. Maybe they break into the final chamber of the Ethereal and receive their updated orders- to covertly extract him off the planet and return him to a waiting Air Caste ship.. What kind of deal did the Inquisition make? DOCTOR ZIMBARDO fucked around with this message at 03:52 on Feb 27, 2013 |
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Feb 27, 2013 03:50
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Hmmmm. I didn't put much thought into this first session, as this was our first experience with the game and gave them a free-form "you have six hours to blow up as much of this city as you can" mission accordingly, not to mention that I don't have serious in-depth knowledge of 40k. So far, three potential plot hooks have come up already. The Hammerhead is the big one - the lady playing the Raven Guard Techmarine wasn't familiar with 40k, and did some quick reading up from the main tabletop game rulebook and Marines codex the guy playing the Salamander brought with him. After reading about the machine spirits, and when they burst into a Tau motor pool and massacred the largely unarmed crew, she asked if there was any reason she couldn't talk the Hammerhead's machine spirit into siding with the players. Some made-up-on-the-spot rules and dice later, and she succeeded. The players hopped out to wipe out the planetary command center, but are back inside now as they head for the Ethereal sanctum (basically the governor's palace) - the Hammerhead waited for them and refused to open up for the Tau reinforcements. I could see the Adeptus Mechanicus being very interested in this, one way or the other. The Techmarine is of the opinion that if it's not Chaotic and is willing to serve the Emperor, it is a machine spirit to be protected. Second is the biolab, where the Tau were experimenting with the Venomthrope's toxin on Tau, Kroot, Vespid, humans, and orks, trying to see if it could be made harmless to the first three, or at least turned into an effective area-denial biochemical weapon against humans and orks. Finally, as an incentive to keep the players on the move, there's been an AX-1-0 hounding them every step of the way (it's what shot them down as they arrived). I haven't named the pilot yet, but he/she could certainly turn into a recurring adversary. The smurf character has certainly expressed an urgent desire to kill that pilot out of respect for his/her abilities. Or one of your ideas could work. Another option I'm considering is finding an Astartes relic belonging to one of the PCs' chapters inside the sanctum, and the Tau will claim it was given to them fairly in return for certain services the Tau provided to that chapter. I'm iffy on picking on one of the players like this, though, as only the Salamander player is a warham, while the Imperial Fist and Iron Hand players know some about the setting already.
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Feb 27, 2013 04:12
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How much freedom/leeway do the players get in Deathwatch? I haven't played it but it seems like they are pretty much on their own during missions, and then when they get back to base they have to report in to a fairly rigid command structure? One of the things that I have enjoyed in Dark Heresy is that the players can be on their own doing stuff for a fairly long time without any real oversight - so they have plenty of opportunity to get up to all sorts of things and create whole new issues for themselves. So for instance, our Tech Priest found a bunch of tech stuff in an abandoned section of a station. He figured cool, took it all, and has never really bothered to report it in to any Mechanicus - because he wanted to use it in building his own stuff. Sounds fine, but it also means that while it looks alright to him, there is some stuff in there that isn't very accepted - he could sure make some interesting things with it, but when a ranking Mechanicus gets a look at it he might have some serious questions to answer.... I don't know if Deathwatch allows you to set up hooks in the same way. Like the Hammerhead thing, well, that could be fine but maybe someone else would consider them meddling so readily with Xenos tech a little radical? What if they get wind of that, and decide they need to hide just how extensively they've been working with the Tau machine stuff? After all they did it purely for the sake of the mission, surely the Mechanicus is just being overly strict. This can easily get them into a situation where the group has internal divisions about how to handle it, or where they are all basically hiding something from supposed allies/etc. Once they're down that road, it's easy for things to continue to spin out as they have to keep the lid on things. I like adding this sort of thing because having some tension in the party (and especially between the party and their organization) can do a lot to keep the game interesting. Especially if the shooting things element tends to go rather smoothly. I usually find that my players are more than capable of creating their own hooks. Like they'll decide that some random NPC they hassled is part of a greater conspiracy and decide to follow them for three days and then break into and search their house. I mean, I had intended that guy to be a throwaway source for a rumor, but if you're so dead set on it, maybe there's more to it than that after all! In related news, last night was the session where my players got to ambush the bridge crew. I was a little worried going into it, because I had basically pulled some basic RT characters and NPCs to use for the bridge crew and their bodyguards and wasn't sure if they would be too tough (the players aren't quite at the equivalent level to a RT character yet). I decided to let it roll ahead as planned because the players did a really good job setting things up, shadowing the crew from their landing and preparing the ambush with a lot of environmental advantages. This was one of the first times they have fought a group of people seriously well armed and armored though, and the ability of some of the RT crew to soak damage was pretty terrifying for them (the Arch-Militant in particular was a beast in that regard). Normally they fight larger numbers of weaker dudes. Ultimately the whole thing rolled out pretty well. They managed to capture the Seneschal and Voidmistress mostly undamaged, and while they took the Captain into critical condition (hacking off his kneecap) he'll survive for interrogation. They've probably killed the Arch-Militant though, who went down with a gaping headwound. The Scum and Tech-Priest ended up pretty banged up (which I'm kind of glad about - the Tech-Priest has been able to tank all sorts of poo poo without worrying too much, so having the Arch-Militant crump him a little put some fear into him). The Assassin did fine mopping up the guards, and while the Psyker didn't actually take any damage he did get too carried away with his powers and ended up wracking up his first Malignancy (Fell Obsession). Best part was that during the preparation for the ambush the group unanimously and spontaneously decided that the Voidmistress was probably some sort of powerful Psyker and freaked out worrying about how to possibly counter or contain a RT-level Pyromancer. I have no idea where that came from, I think that it was basically because she wasn't heavily armed (despite the fact that the group psyker is heavily armed!) and I mentioned in passing that she had some elaborate tattoos. It was pretty funny when that threat just failed to materialize. Thanks for all the input you guys have given so far, I think things are going pretty well!
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Feb 27, 2013 18:17
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Space Marines are their own keepers pretty much. A single marine can be left alone, on a planet, for a 10 year tour of duty of just 'watch out for poo poo' with no one to report to. Let em get up to whatever mischief they can think of.
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Feb 27, 2013 18:19
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Most of the space marines in Deathwatch are basically bad dudes that their chapter put in time out because they hosed around too much instead of ritually praying 24/7. It makes sense for them to have all sorts of random poo poo going on that they don't fully disclose to their Watch Commander.
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Feb 27, 2013 18:26
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Not sure if it's fluffy, but I settled on an overall unfolding plot for the Deathwatch game: during the Cursed Founding, one chapter was founded in the Jericho Reach known as the Dusk Guard. Unbeknowest to most, they were one of the rare attempts like the Blood Ravens at creating a loyalist Chapter from Traitor Legion gene seed. In this case, the Dusk Guard were created from the gene seed of the Emperor's Children. Suffice it to say that things went horribly wrong after their founding, leading the Inquisition, Adeptus Mechanicus, and Blood Angels to purge the foundling chapter and attempt to erase all evidence of their existence. They didn't entirely succeed, and for thousands of years the relics of the Dusk Guard and their origin lay undisturbed in the Jericho Reach. Then the Tau established a colony on what would have been the Dusk Guard's homeworld, and found relics that survived the purge. In addition to all the problems and threats presented so far, the Tau managed to secure a stasis vault holding a sample of the Emperor's Children gene seed used to create the Dusk Guard, and are looking into adapting the Astartes creation process for their own Fire Warriors.
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Feb 27, 2013 18:42
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That sounds pretty cool to me, and it doesn't sound like you have any hugely irritating people that might care to pick too much at the fluff (there isn't actually anything in what you wrote that jumps out as wrong/unreasonable, but sometimes you get people who are just looking for reasons to complain). It sounds like it gives you a lot of ways to move forward, too - the potential for super-Tau, the possibility that the Tau will be tripped up by the same issues and end up with beserk super-Tau loving poo poo up, and all the implications involved with re-creating the Emperor's Children and then purging a whole chapter of fallen Marines. Tons of mileage there!
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Feb 27, 2013 21:54
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I don't know how anyone can argue with 'these xenos you dont understand use science you dont understand to experiment with stuff where all important information has been purged'. Seems tough to explain why its wrong. Additionally it could be fun to introduce the gene that lets humans interact with the warp be passed on to Tau. Suddenly makes the species susceptible to chaos but it doesn't kick in until the Tau super soldier project is spread throughout the entire Fire Warrior cast. With regards to individual player leeway in Deathwatch, your players are definitely on a bit more of a tighter rope than Dark Heresy players (given they are big hulking kill machines I assume its impossible to no be keeping tabs on them) but given that they are as likely to be isolationists now they are outside their chapter they can do some stuff on their own. A Deathwatch character can be either the dodgy member of the chapter or a beacon of how awesome their chapter is. Generally though marines are not the most trusting of their own personal secrets to those outside their specific chapter, so hiding their personal gear/effects is not as difficult. Though handing in all your special stuff after a mission is going to make it harder to smuggle stuff around. Out of curiosity Ashcan, what kind of equipment did the players have versus the Rogue Trader party? kingcom fucked around with this message at 04:18 on Mar 1, 2013 |
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Mar 1, 2013 04:09
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Cythereal posted:Not sure if it's fluffy, but I settled on an overall unfolding plot for the Deathwatch game: during the Cursed Founding, one chapter was founded in the Jericho Reach known as the Dusk Guard. Unbeknowest to most, they were one of the rare attempts like the Blood Ravens at creating a loyalist Chapter from Traitor Legion gene seed. In this case, the Dusk Guard were created from the gene seed of the Emperor's Children. Suffice it to say that things went horribly wrong after their founding, leading the Inquisition, Adeptus Mechanicus, and Blood Angels to purge the foundling chapter and attempt to erase all evidence of their existence. They didn't entirely succeed, and for thousands of years the relics of the Dusk Guard and their origin lay undisturbed in the Jericho Reach. Then the Tau established a colony on what would have been the Dusk Guard's homeworld, and found relics that survived the purge. In addition to all the problems and threats presented so far, the Tau managed to secure a stasis vault holding a sample of the Emperor's Children gene seed used to create the Dusk Guard, and are looking into adapting the Astartes creation process for their own Fire Warriors. Until your third sentence, I thought the traitor legion was going to be Death Guard, since their original name was Dusk Raiders, and your name seems to be a combo of the two. It's not a huge deal, but it's quite possible that it could lead your players astray as to which traitor legion was the source of the geneseed. Or maybe you can take advantage of that 
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Mar 1, 2013 04:44
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Pyrolocutus posted:Until your third sentence, I thought the traitor legion was going to be Death Guard, since their original name was Dusk Raiders, and your name seems to be a combo of the two. It's not a huge deal, but it's quite possible that it could lead your players astray as to which traitor legion was the source of the geneseed. Eh, I just liked the name. Other possibility is calling them the Dawn Guard, which seemed less... Space Marine-y. quote:I don't know how anyone can argue with 'these xenos you dont understand use science you dont understand to experiment with stuff where all important information has been purged'. Seems tough to explain why its wrong. Additionally it could be fun to introduce the gene that lets humans interact with the warp be passed on to Tau. Suddenly makes the species susceptible to chaos but it doesn't kick in until the Tau super soldier project is spread throughout the entire Fire Warrior cast. What the players are going to encounter in next week's session is a live Space Wolf Rune Priest the Tau have been experimenting on, since one of our usual group couldn't be there this week and is a fan of the setting. The PCs will learn that the Tau have gotten very interested in the Astartes, are trying to capture and dissect/experiment on live Astartes, and know that gene seed is the key to it. The mystery will start to arise when an unusual Khornate warband arrives in the Reach, which according to the Ordo Malleus includes a World Eaters battle barge that dates back to the Horus Heresy. But this Chaos force has only hit Tau positions of seemingly no value. Thus, the race will be on between the Deathwatch and World Eaters to dig up this mystery of the Jericho Reach before the Tau unleash something best left buried. As far as my players go, we've been gaming together for years and I know them and how they play. They certainly can do a dark, serious, horror-y type game, but frankly we get together weekly for beer, pizza, and fun. The guy playing a Salamander Apothecary is the only real warham, but a couple other players are familiar with the setting and the rest were willing to learn. So far, I've deliberately downplayed the chapter drama - the Raven Guard and Iron Hand players are new to the setting and liked the brief blurbs of lore about those two chapters, while the guy playing the smurf just liked the chapter's colors. I may introduce more serious stuff about role-playing Astartes once the players get more comfortable.
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Mar 1, 2013 06:18
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I like the Cursed Founding chapter idea, making up Renegades and chapters like that is neat and you've done a good job of avoiding the Special Snowflake traitor marine geneseed thing by making the chapter wiped out and just their relics left. In my game I've got the Dawn Crows who're a renegade warband which is mostly Raven Guard but some of their successors and the odd marine from other chapters as well. They're motivated by Corax' meddling with geneseed to accelerate the growth of the Raven Guard post Istvaan and the idea of genecrafting even better Space Marines. They feel that they're following in the true footsteps of the Emperor and their Primarch and that if they were around today they'd be trying to continue the Astartes geneseed experiments and continue crafting even better generations of Marines, not just accepting what they've already got. It's been neat to have a renegade force that is well outside the Imperium and strongly condemned by everyone but they still think they're doing the right thing and once their experiments work out they'll be recognised as the saviors and guardians they really are.
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Mar 1, 2013 06:33
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Cythereal posted:As far as my players go, we've been gaming together for years and I know them and how they play. They certainly can do a dark, serious, horror-y type game, but frankly we get together weekly for beer, pizza, and fun. The guy playing a Salamander Apothecary is the only real warham, but a couple other players are familiar with the setting and the rest were willing to learn. So far, I've deliberately downplayed the chapter drama - the Raven Guard and Iron Hand players are new to the setting and liked the brief blurbs of lore about those two chapters, while the guy playing the smurf just liked the chapter's colors. I may introduce more serious stuff about role-playing Astartes once the players get more comfortable. Nah, honestly the stuff your doing now sounds right, race against bad guys to be the biggest baddest dudes. Be all space marine in grim dark universe. Your plot idea and introduction to it all seems pretty solid. Maybe throw in some Aliens Resurrection style monsters (deformed Tau/Space Marine experiment stuff) and your golden. Bonus points if the abominations are wearing your player's chapter colours.
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Mar 1, 2013 06:41
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You could always have detailed notes written by Fabius Bile or one of his acolytes (maybe a surviving Dusk Guard apothecary?) somewhere in the labs at the heart of the Marine/Tau hybrid project. There's your standard evil tome wrapped in human skin deep beneath the facility under lock and key (perhaps with a horribly tainted Ethereal or earth/water caste scientist reading it), but annotated excerpts are throughout different labs with the most obviously chaotic parts redacted so its not immediately obvious how badly things are about to go wrong. It's a little cliché, but the players could then find these alongside experiment logs as they explore, with Tau scientists expressing shock at how supernaturally well things are going or expressing unease about certain aspects of the project. You could even have the Kill Team meet some of them as allies of convenience later. The question then becomes how the Tau got the notes in the first place - maybe instead of just coming across it in a vault, someone deliberately allowed it to fall into their hands and has been helping behind the scenes. Whether that's to try and resurrect the Dusk Guard, to somehow use the Tau as incubators for Space Marine progenoids or just because it would be funny is up to you.
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Mar 1, 2013 13:38
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