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I was in a DW campaign that was basically 'You are probably going to win your fights, but you'd better pick them loving carefully' because we were only a 3 Marine team and we were literally the only Marines on planet in a Hive World with one of its Hives overrun by local rebels and their Tau backers and the others active warzones. We had to manage propaganda, deal with the other Imperial commanders, Arbites, etc, with almost all our support structure missing, the Xenos Inquisitor who was supposed to be handing down our orders missing, and mostly only the gear we arrived with and standard stuff like rockets and bolt ammo. We spent as much time agonizing about where to fight and slowly getting ourselves hosed up worse and worse as we spent Fate to heal because we couldn't spend the time to actually rest as we did actually wrecking faces and it was probably the best 40k game I've ever played in. Deathwatch can do non-combat stuff and the stress of war very well, you just need to highlight the actual vulnerabilities of Marines and the remaining shreds and reflections of humanity they have. Sgt. Martinez was an extremely average (Like, almost all my stat rolls were 10-11) Marine of his Chapter gripped with a sense of his own inadequacy to stop the slaughter around him as we trudged through burning groundcars and dead civilians and Guardsmen to yet another grinding engagement, armor melting off our bodies and covered in bullet holes and injuries. Being the saddest goddamn Space Marine was awesome fun. I really want that campaign to come back (And the guy running it has said he'd like to go back to it some time) as we'd just discovered Genestealers involved in the rebellion and were going to have to stop the traumatized Navy commander from lancing Hives because she was flipping out, having fought Nids once before and being in an absolute panic. Hell, we were even considering trying to get a ceasefire with the Tau to save the planet from nids, first, then return to fighting them. Night10194 fucked around with this message at 06:23 on Nov 25, 2014 |
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Nov 25, 2014 06:21
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That sounds incredible, and a great illustration of the fact that even space marines live and die on their supply chain's adequacy.
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Nov 25, 2014 06:24
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We also still did all kinds of amazing poo poo. Like the time our Assault Marine rocket boosted the Techmarine onto a Devilfish and he just Servo-Armed his way inside of it and goo came flying out as he jacked it. We were mag-booted to the top of a speeding Rhino at the moment. During the same chase, I killed a Leman Russ with a frag grenade because I got a 01 and managed to get it directly into the commander cupola since she was unbuttoned at the moment and it cooked off the ammo. We also did a mid-air boarding of an Orca from a Valk for our insertion/entry. Oh, right, and we also accidentally got Ciaphus Cain into deep poo poo again.
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Nov 25, 2014 06:28
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I legitimately hope that FFG can stomach dealing with GW's grinding review policies enough to do a Deathwatch 2.0. I really want to like it but I just can't get over how clunky and fiddly it is in so many places compared to the later games of the line (which have their own problems admittedly but still).
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Nov 25, 2014 07:08
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Kai Tave posted:I legitimately hope that FFG can stomach dealing with GW's grinding review policies enough to do a Deathwatch 2.0. I really want to like it but I just can't get over how clunky and fiddly it is in so many places compared to the later games of the line (which have their own problems admittedly but still). Our GM eventually just told us to ignore Squad Mode entirely. It is a good idea, mechanically, to reinforce one of the basic themes (that alone you're a badass and together you're heroes) but holy poo poo is it the clunkiest set of rules I have ever read.
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Nov 25, 2014 07:34
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It's not just squad mode although yeah, that's one of the number one things I would love to see renovated...ranks, XP costs for advances in the quad-digits, the old skill list where things like "Concealment" and "Silent Move" are separate skills instead of just "Stealth," etc. Somebody recently pitched a PbP over in The Game Room and I've only ever had a few abortive attempts at actually playing Deathwatch so I was tempted...then I got to character creation and was just like "pffffffff never mind."
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Nov 25, 2014 07:54
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Just chiming in that I really enjoyed some of Dembski-Bowdens stuff, too. I've only read The First Heretic by him (I think), but it's really good.Mechafunkzilla posted:The Emperor's Gift by Aaron Dembski-Bowden. It's a book. Thanks, I'll check it out.
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Nov 25, 2014 09:12
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The Deathwatch chargen is the dumbest thing. Here have a billion different tables that tell you what skills and talents you can have! Have some of them contain the same things at different prices so you BETTER PAY ATTENTION. Have detailed descriptions of the special things about your marine, apart from the ones you don't have because you rolled badly on this table. Roll 5 times to decide what kind of power armour you have, everyone else is and you don't want to end up gimped compared to them... Whole loving thing needs streamlining.
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Nov 25, 2014 13:56
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Yeah, definitely, I'm kind of dreading running or joining games just because character creation is so difficult for me. It's also why I like Ogryns, because at least it's just straight up hit mans and not nearly as much to look up as the other ones. To try and strike a balance between Methwatch and Woad Warriors, smugglers might be a good occupation, gives the players a reason to be zipping around everywhere, between hives and through wastelands, switch between leisure suits and body paint as desired.
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Nov 25, 2014 19:28
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Oh hey, here's the kicker; there's feral Tyranids and Orkz roaming the wastelands between the hives. "...which is why our Tauroses are painted red and have Scything Talons." 
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Nov 25, 2014 23:07
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Everyone I know is an adult with a career who doesn't necessarily like fiddling with obscure character creation options, which makes this whole drat line a pain to run.
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Nov 25, 2014 23:14
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frajaq posted:What..what did your assassin fight to get 10 corruption points so fast? He was wearing daemonic armor that gave 1d5 insanity/corruption when he frenzied. Afterwards, praised Khorne for another 1d5 corruption. I rolled a 5 both times. The dude he was fighting was a Khornate cult leader.
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Nov 26, 2014 07:24
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Shadow Isaac posted:He was wearing daemonic armor that gave 1d5 insanity/corruption when he frenzied. Afterwards, praised Khorne for another 1d5 corruption. I rolled a 5 both times. Why did you do either of these things? Did you forget you weren't in Black Crusade, or were you just going for irony?
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Nov 26, 2014 07:27
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Night10194 posted:Why did you do either of these things? Did you forget you weren't in Black Crusade, or were you just going for irony? He wanted to see how quickly he could get the rest of the inquisitional squad to kill him for being a chaos worshipper
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Nov 26, 2014 07:28
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Night10194 posted:Why did you do either of these things? Did you forget you weren't in Black Crusade, or were you just going for irony? The armor is loot from the book we're running right now. The Khorne praise was because his backstory involves him hearing voices and one of the voices said some Khornate poo poo to him. The party is working under a radical inquisitor that hasn't made contact with them since their current operation started. I can't explain stuff too much right now because I know that some of my players are lurking this thread and I don't want stuff spoiled too much.
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Nov 26, 2014 07:31
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It's kind of similar, I suppose, to how Taar the Feral Repentia has actually not really even noticed she's a Sister Repentia in the Sister story I'm running. She has like a 20 Int and was literally rescued from Feral Khorne Worshippers as a child; she assumes the other Sisters gave her the eviscerator because she's a 6' 6" giantess who can break most people in half with her bare hands. If the Emperor says she should run forward with just a sword and ceremonial carapace and cut up demons and heretics, than that's how it be.
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Nov 26, 2014 07:34
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Also, as I mentioned earlier, the personalities of my DH group have turned it into something more closely resembling Paranoia in space at time, so I like to give them rope to hang themselves with, and the assassin's backstory is perfect for a Sin Eater, which is something I've been wanting to work with since I first read the Radical's Handbook.
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Nov 26, 2014 07:35
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The Sisters I ended up with are pretty weird. A pair of Feral giants, one from a failed colony world who is really more of Space Appalachian than Conan as their Retributor and the aforementioned Repentia, two shady hobo Hivers from lower hive sections rescued by missionaries as their Dominion and Seraphim, and a twitchy Voidborn Sister who was rescued from a Space Hulk. They were basically all plucked from terrible backgrounds in their youth and taken to Schola/training. They are a squad made up of the stones the builder rejected.
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Nov 26, 2014 07:39
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I like poo poo not going to plan. In the RT campaign I'm playing an RT in I just charmed the explorator into picking up an abandoned probe from the Age of Strife and it promptly took over the ship, warp jumped us to a shrine world, started an orbital bombardment, blew up a Navy cruiser, and we're currently fighting the Iron Men the probe has spawned to protect itself while we try to deactivate/destroy it. In all fairness, my character's successful evaluate roll told me it was really valuable and the Explorator's failed scholastic lore (archaeotech) roll failed so hard that he thought it was a hot tub.
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Nov 26, 2014 07:45
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To go back to the dunebuggy regiment from earlier http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...l#ixzz3JqbQ9XAX Yes, yes, I know, Dailymail, but apparently going around doing literal driveby shootings is a legit regiment build Ronwayne fucked around with this message at 09:39 on Nov 26, 2014 |
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Nov 26, 2014 09:02
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Well, it was a thing the SAS did in WWII, and 40K is WWII in space, though I was thinking of the Toyota War. So, a this would be a Rapid Reconnaissance regiment, with a toss-up between Combat Drugs, Electro-Vox Warfare, and Demolitionists. Probably take Mistrusted, because double DoF on failed Commerce and Requisition is a license for fun. I think Penal Colony homeworld is still probably the most fitting, although Ogryn homeworld Rapid Reconnaissance regiment is a close second. Also, don't drink and drive, shoot up on drugs while driving; Slaught, and maybe Frenzon, makes you a better driver...for a while. Actually, I that gives me an idea for a leash, since there's no one holding the triggers to the bomb collars; the Regiment is full of addicts and high command drops off a fix every now and again, supplies contingent on accomplishing objectives and meeting benchmarks. Maybe it's something that mitigates the side effects of Slaught/Frenzon/Stimm abuse or reduces cravings, like space Methadone. Or it's Ketracel White, artificial enzymes to keep your liver from exploding. And the promised reward at the end of the mission is rehab  Or more drugs  Huh. This sounds like a Savlar Chem Dogs Regiment.
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Nov 26, 2014 17:48
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Shadow Isaac posted:I like poo poo not going to plan. In the RT campaign I'm playing an RT in I just charmed the explorator into picking up an abandoned probe from the Age of Strife and it promptly took over the ship, warp jumped us to a shrine world, started an orbital bombardment, blew up a Navy cruiser, and we're currently fighting the Iron Men the probe has spawned to protect itself while we try to deactivate/destroy it. In all fairness, my character's successful evaluate roll told me it was really valuable and the Explorator's failed scholastic lore (archaeotech) roll failed so hard that he thought it was a hot tub. I ran a game where the severed head of an old Iron Man had been linked to a ship's cogitator and taken it over, but since in the grimdark future things like maneuvering jets are operated by chain gangs instead of the automatic controls it was used to it crashed the ship into an asteroid.
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Nov 26, 2014 18:12
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So after a 15 minute debate last session about how power fists and klaws were insanely overpowered compared to every other melee weapon in Rogue Trader, my group and I sat down and brainstormed out some alternate rules that keep from encouraging players to stack them with vat muscles and mutations for unnatural strength x3-x4 leading to power fist wielders dealing 20+ more damage per round than every other melee combatant in the game and one-shotting everything short of a daemon prince or Avatar of Khaine like our last campaign. First order of business was to completely remove unnatural strength modifiers, then buff damage slightly so that they were on par with an Omnissian Axe. Here's what we ended up with: Power Fist at 2d10+4 pen 10 E, power field, unwieldly, 13 kg + 25 kg backpack unless you're wearing power armor. Power Klaw at 4d10d2 pen 10 E, power field, tearing (x2), unwieldly, 17 kg, -30 to all fine motor tests if dual-wielded. Here's the math one guy did: http://anydice.com/program/4cb0 which shows that while the power fist has a fractional increase in average damage, the Power Klaw is more weighted towards high damage/critical wounds on average. Shadow Isaac fucked around with this message at 02:00 on Nov 27, 2014 |
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Nov 27, 2014 00:33
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Your post makes no sense and your avatar is weird and lovely.
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Nov 27, 2014 01:18
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Power fists are ridiculously powerful, yes, with the whole x2 SB thing. But then, 40kRP is basically Rocket Tag: The Game the second you get out of the flak and lasgun phase.
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Nov 27, 2014 01:46
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If Power Fists weren't overpowered, how could you crush the skull of a Master Sorcerer in your power-fisted grip? This is important.
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Nov 27, 2014 01:48
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Night10194 posted:Power fists are ridiculously powerful, yes, with the whole x2 SB thing. But then, 40kRP is basically Rocket Tag: The Game the second you get out of the flak and lasgun phase. What amuses me the most is people running around with chainfists, which are specifically a mounted weapon and only usable on terminator armor.
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Nov 27, 2014 01:51
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Night10194 posted:Power fists are ridiculously powerful, yes, with the whole x2 SB thing. But then, 40kRP is basically Rocket Tag: The Game the second you get out of the flak and lasgun phase. Yeah, it just reached the point where we had 2 guys punching chaos marines to death with a single blow by endgame last campaign, while everybody who didn't kit themselves out with vat muscles, power fists and unnatural strength mutations just ended up feeling like dead weight in the combat compared to them. I feel like it's important to make everybody feel like they have some kind of role they can play in combat, not just filler in the initiative count while the power fist wielders wait their turn to charge everything on the map.
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Nov 27, 2014 01:56
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Shadow Isaac posted:Yeah, it just reached the point where we had 2 guys punching chaos marines to death with a single blow by endgame last campaign, while everybody who didn't kit themselves out with vat muscles, power fists and unnatural strength mutations just ended up feeling like dead weight in the combat compared to them. I feel like it's important to make everybody feel like they have some kind of role they can play in combat, not just filler in the initiative count while the power fist wielders wait their turn to charge everything on the map. Well, obviously. It's the whole 'The Arch Militant is about as bad as the 3e Fighter' problem. I misunderstood that being the problem and thought your objection was more to 'if you don't dodge you die' being how high level combat goes in general.
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Nov 27, 2014 01:59
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The other problem last campaign was that our navigator and astropath both dropped out, so all we had were archmilitants, rogue traders, a seneschal and a kabalite.
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Nov 27, 2014 02:02
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Why would you want a PC Navigator, anyway? The Navigator in the last RT game I played ended up begging us to switch campaigns because she found the class so insanely boring. It's just 'roll some dice to do a thing that's kinda important for random encounters sorta' and then a crappy cutrate psyker.
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Nov 27, 2014 02:04
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I played a Navigator in my first campaign and had an absolute blast with it, personally. My character had a long running feud with our chaos-worshipping astropath, was the only person aware of the growing chaos taint on the ship, invaluable in exploring xenos ruins, and one time ended a boss encounter in a single round when I lidless stared 6 eldar farseers to death at once. There's a tremendous amount of flexibility to what you can actually do with them, at least in my experience.
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Nov 27, 2014 02:08
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Night10194 posted:Why would you want a PC Navigator, anyway? The Navigator in the last RT game I played ended up begging us to switch campaigns because she found the class so insanely boring. It's just 'roll some dice to do a thing that's kinda important for random encounters sorta' and then a crappy cutrate psyker. I've asked the same question. I also wish that RT's psyker class was just a sanction psyker vs the astropath which I just can't stop thinking of as some sort of glorified phone sanitizer.
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Nov 27, 2014 02:13
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Their powers are also very Dune-esque, with the stuff that lets you skip sideways in time as if you had made a different choice a few seconds earlier and such.
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Nov 27, 2014 02:13
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If you can't figure out interesting things to do with a navigator I feel like it's either a failure of imagination on the GM's part for providing opportunities for a Navigator to shine, or on the player's part for not figuring out interesting ways to utilize the toolbox available to you. I can understand in some ways that it's a little restrictive at lower ranks, but once you start to branch out and find different ways to choose and apply the powers and abilities at your disposal the only limitation to how you can build the class is your own imagination.
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Nov 27, 2014 02:38
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Hodgepodge posted:Everyone I know is an adult with a career who doesn't necessarily like fiddling with obscure character creation options, which makes this whole drat line a pain to run. Just get them to play the Star Wars FFG games. I've been put off for the same reason.
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Nov 27, 2014 02:58
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Tias posted:Just chiming in that I really enjoyed some of Dembski-Bowdens stuff, too. I've only read The First Heretic by him (I think), but it's really good. The Emperor's Gift is one of the very best 40k novels. Rockopolis posted:Well, it was a thing the SAS did in WWII, and 40K is WWII in space, though I was thinking of the Toyota War. And sometimes it's WW1. Sometimes it's the Napoleonic Wars. From it's deepest origin it's the Crimean War. Or it's any war you want to tell a story based on. But yeah, WW2 is a good - and common - default for 40K. Hodgepodge posted:Everyone I know is an adult with a career who doesn't necessarily like fiddling with obscure character creation options, which makes this whole drat line a pain to run. This is why I keep piping up with recommendations for the Apocalypse World hacks. 15 minute character creation, sweet narrative style, and a "play to find out what happens" admonition to the GM makes for a good game for busy adults. There's a finished Rogue Trader hack (that's had two PBPs die an ugly and premature death) that's really good. I have a Deathwatch hack and a Commissar based hack almost done, needing the combat rules from The Regiment ported in. The Regiment in its most recent release is also the best Colonial Marines RPG around.
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Nov 27, 2014 05:10
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Night10194 posted:Why would you want a PC Navigator, anyway? The Navigator in the last RT game I played ended up begging us to switch campaigns because she found the class so insanely boring. It's just 'roll some dice to do a thing that's kinda important for random encounters sorta' and then a crappy cutrate psyker. It has worked fine for us, actually. The Navigator is not only part of the crew, but also a scion of one of the most powerful and byzantine organizations in the Imperium. They can get into places (such as an audience with other navigators who are too gimped out and/or insane to talk to regular crewmen) and do things (psych-flame enemies and see into the warp? Hell yes!) others cannot. Integrating the navigator takes a competent GM, but then again, so does everything else.
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Nov 27, 2014 08:26
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Tias posted:Integrating the navigator takes a competent GM, but then again, so does everything else. Yeah, you need a good GM and a player that's incredibly confident in their RP abilities to make a Navigator PC satisfying, but when it works it really works.
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Nov 27, 2014 09:43
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Part of it was just that our group has never really enjoyed Rogue Trader. Strangely, the guys I play with do the Rogue Trader stuff (self-motivation and ambitious scheming) much better when playing BC.
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Nov 27, 2014 10:27
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