Slaunyeh
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Posts posted by Slaunyeh
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Foolishboy said:
My core rulebook and Inquisitors handbook arrived today. I should be able to have a look at them after work.
Thank you for all of your repiles they have been very helpful.
Enjoy!
If all else fail, they are gorgeous books you should be happy to have on your shelf.
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N0-1_H3r3 said:
Edit: In short, it's not the rules themselves, it's how you choose to use them. GMs who are stingy with the circumstance bonuses may find that Dark Heresy doesn't work all that well...
That reminds me of the new World of Darkness. nWoD is likewise very dependent on "equipment modifiers" to skill checks. I mean, when wearing sneakers give you +1 to your jumping checks, equipment modifiers are common.
However, some GMs, still used to the old Wold of Darkness system can be very stingy with the bonus dice... in which case the nWoD dice system tends to break down.
Same thing with Dark Heresy... if you choose to not fully utilize the game the way it was intended, odd things result.
I think a big problem with DH is a matter of perception. When you look at your character sheet, it's very easy to tell that you have exactly 40% chance to hit with a gun. Some players find that unacceptable, not realizing that - in truth - their D&D character doesn't have better odds of hitting. They just can't tell as easily. And, add to that, DH have plenty of options for you to improve your odds if you care to do more than just stand and shoot.
I've had players quit the game over the whiff factor. Which was funny since he had a better BS than anyone else in the group, and he was the only one having trouble hitting anything. Yet, he refused to listen to advice because 'it wouldn't make a difference'.
Can't please everyone!
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Depending on your definition of really good, there's also the utility linked in my signature. It's not entirely updated with the latest releases, but it got all (most?) of the basics + Inquisitor's Handbook covered.
I just need to find a new place to host it... stupid adrive.
/s
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Kill the Mutant! is the name of a new campaign I'm working on. In it, the players will play the role of mutant insurgents operating from deep beneath the spires of Sibellus, for some dark and nefarious purpose (that I havn't completely decided on yet).
I thought I'd share some of these ideas with my fellow GMs. Maybe (hopefully) getting some useful feedback in turn. Or letting you leech if there's anything in my mad scribbles that you think you can use.
My first concern is the first three stages of character creation.
Stage One: Origin
I'm not quite settled on what to do with origin. The options, as I see them right now, are threefold: One possibility is to have certain pre-set mutation packages players can choose from. Another (possibly combined with the first) is to have origins be a sort of "how did you become a mutant" scenarios. With possibilities such as 'evolution', 'exposure', 'ruinous powers', etc. Each granting different starting traits. Lastly - and perhaps most appealing to me right now - is to just ignore origin entirely. The idea being that mutants, by their very nature, don't share a lot of common traits in the first place.
There may be options I havn't considered yet.
Stage Two: Generate Characteristics
Second stage worth consideration. What characteristic modifications should mutants have? I'm inclined to say an even Imperial World +20 to everything to get a good baseline statistics, modified by any mutations the character might be getting. As for mutations, I'm thinking of letting players start with 1d5-1 (minimum 1) minor mutations. I'm not really set on that number though... I want it to be enough to be significant, but not so many that you pretty much start with every minor mutation in the book. I've debated whether players should also start with a major mutation, or whether that should be left to chance. Might also expand on the list of minor mutations if I can think of anything appropriate.
Stage Three: Determine Career Path
This is where it gets interesting. I'm planning a number of custom tailored mutant "career" archtypes. Conceptually they will be combinations of existing DH careers with some modifications. Unlike regular DH careers, most of these will have prerequisites. These archtypes represent particular roles your mutations make you particular apt at, and hence there are some requirements you must fulfill to qualify. These requirements will usually be difficult to meet unless you have mutations that enhance those areas - but it shouldn't be impossible. I'm not entirely sold on what bases to cover, but these are my initial bunch:
- Dreg. This is your normal run of the mill mutant carving out a meeker existence in the underhive beneath Sibellus. Mechanically I expect them to be identical to the Scum career. Perhaps with minor variations where appropriate. This will be the default career for starting mutants and thus it has no prerequisites.
- Infiltrator: These are are the sneaky, underhanded mutants that may travel up into human habitats to carry out orders for their deformed masters. These could both be the physically mutated who're apt at keeping to the shadows and slip into guarded areas - or perhaps the slick-tongued mutant able to hide their physical manifestations and talk their way into human society. They will be roughly modelled on the assassin career, but given a more sneaky than murderous bend. Prerequisites: Ag 40, Fel 30
- Metaphage: Most mutants are just the unfortunate dregs of society, with little hope or faith in their lives. Not so for the Metaphage. These are twisted individuals who have given themselves in worship of Tzeentch, the Changer of Ways. Whether his mutations are a result of this worship, or what caused him to turn to the ruinous powers in the first place, the Metaphage is a demented zealot, preaching the unholy word of his god to his fellow abominations. The Metaphage will combine traits of the psyker and cleric, although drawing on the rules for sorcery found in DotDG. Prerequisites: No characteristic below 30
- Mindbender: These are the dangerous mutants who harbour undisputed psychic potential, able to absorb vast amounts of forbidden lore with their mutated intellect. They combine traits of the psyker and the adept, harbouring vast knowledge and psychic potential. Prerequisites: Int 35, WP 40
- War-beast: The war-beasts are huge, hulking behemoths. Grossly mutated frames functioning as little more than mobile weapon platforms. They will draw on the Guardsman career for inspiration, although with an emphasis on melee combat and heavy weapons. Prerequisites: S 40, T 40
- Warlord: These are the leaders of the mutant uprising. Large, physically powerful individuals, second in stature only to a war-beast, yet they possess a dangerously keen intellect and the gilded words that make the dregs of society willing to follow them in bloody revolt. They are the true champions of the cause. The Warlord will most likely draw inspiration from the Arbitrator and Cleric careers. Prerequisites: S 35, T 35, Fel 40
So, that's what I got so far. Next on my list is to expand on these careers/archtypes and plot out their exact focus. Thoughts? Ideas?
More to come!
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I try to discourage my players from being "married" to their equipment. It should be possible for your gear to be stolen, lost or destroyed. So, sinking everything you own into that rifle you've always wanted, only to lose it next session, would suck.
equip my NPCs with whatever makes sense for them to wield, with little or no regard for my players. If they find something they can use, they are more than welcome to loot it... fortunately all of them agree that lugging around several basic weapons isn't realistic, so when they pick up a spare weapon it's usually for a good reason.
I think it's a matter of players and GM seeing it in the same light. Don't be afraid to discuss this issue with your players between games. I think the worst thing you can do is trying to discourage looting through arbitrary rulings. Weapons don't mysteriously break. They don't mysteriously run out of ammo (unless that actually happened during the fight...). Don't arm your Malfian noble heretic's elite bodyguards with zipper guns (unless it, for some reason, would make sense).
Lastly, it's not like exotic weapons are that much better than the cheap stuff. A melta gun might hit hard, but the ammo capacity makes it nearly useless (unless you have a personal retinue to carry spare clips
). Power swords are cool... but few people are proficient with them at rank 3, and mono weapons should be more than sufficient at that rank anyway.That just leaves selling their newly looted gear... which you're very much in control of. Having lots of cash doesn't help very much if it takes three months of intensive searching to actually find the gun you want. And trying to offload exotic weapons on the black market is bound to have in-game consequences.
So in short: Talk to your players, and don't worry about it.
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N0-1_H3r3 said:
Just because it's not on the same level, or punished to the same degree, as raising the dead, producing artificial intelligence, binding daemons into machines or most forms of genetic engineering doesn't mean it isn't a sin against the Omnissiah.
Severity is also bound to depend on the sanctity of the equipment being modified. Nobody cares if you make some personal touches to some shoddy Volg-produced autogun. But messing around with a Godwin-De'Az bolter would be a heinious crime!
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kjakan said:
I don't much approve of adding a full 1d10 to the damage based on the success. This only serves to make the strength and penetration values less important.
Well, if we're talking about the official rule, it also serves to make sniping possible at all. Bear in mind, it's only a bonus on aimed shots with accurate basic weapons, so it makes sniping shots a viable tactic all of a sudden. I rather like that.
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Oly said:
xenobiotica said:
I agree with Graspar: when the session ends and you haven't used all your fate points, I think they should stay unused.
The thing is though that the players will quite often know when the end of a session is coming up. So as the time comes closer and they look down at their character sheets seeing that they still have spare fate points and have taken wounds they'll use them.
So I believe that it's going to happen anyway, if not right at the end then five minutes before it. I therefore tend not to worry about it, let it happen, explain it as a second wind and be ready to give them a tougher time next week.
That's the main reason why we changed that rule for fate points in our game. I felt it cheapened the seriousness of wound damage that you could just "burn" it off when you felt the session was drawing to a close. Instead, we allow you to reduce the damage of an incomming attack by spending a fate point, that way it's a little less of a no-brainer when to spend 'em.
But that's just us.
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As it is, the mutant scored 3 degrees of success, so theoretically he should have inflicted 3 more hits for a total of 4 hits. And Father Horst's Dodge roll, with only 2 degrees of success, would have avoided only 2 of these extra hits, so all in all our poor clericsman has suffered 2 hits, and not avoided all the damage as the example reads.
I don't have my books with me, so I might be way off, but wouldn't he dodge three hits with two degrees of success on his Dodge roll? -
Luddite said:
The Golden Throne fails and the Emperor dies...what happens next
Warp travel will become inexplicably hazzardous, perhaps to the point of the Imperium eventually collapsing. The Ecclesiarchy will continue to preach as they always have, the death of the Emperor will be known only to the High Lords of Terra and the most senior Adeptus Custodes who "shields" the mindless masses from the realization that their god is (was, that is) mortal.
Perhaps the Astronomican can even function to some degree without the Emperor's knowledge and nothing will really happen. Maybe it has already happened.
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Just this...
Locque said:
my PC's
A new GM is born. Welcome aboard!
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Artaxerxes said:
Stupid credit crunch and looming Christmas... I so nearly threw caution to the wind and bought this book last night, however nagging doubt over who might have bought what on my Amazon wishlist means I had to stop myself
*waits until January*
This is why I never put things I really want on my wishlist.
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Woot! Leisure Games are shipping my pre-ordered copy! Should have it by the start of next week.
*dances around*
It's freakishly expensive though. Thank the Emperor that the GBP is nosediving at the moment.
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Ichiban11 said:
The game doesn't take in vital organ damage when damage is delt out, so even one shot to the chest won't kill you. However, what if you're aiming for the shot right between the eyes? The way it stands death on the Crit chart for the heads at 7, right? So your average NPC 10 wounds 3 TB 7 on the Crit chart.
You'd have to do at min 20 points of damage to his head in one shot in order to kill him. A Lasgun does 1d10+3, unless you roll a 10 and then get your second shot in, you'd have to shot the guy twice. This doesn't include him wearing a helmet.
So this brings up the point of why bother to aim for the head or even wear a helmet. you have a 10% chance to get hit in the head so why bother when you can shrug it off till you close with him for melee or shoot back.
If you can just put a gun between a guy's eyes and pull the trigger, we're not talking a regular shot in combat. We're talking coup de grace or just plain dead without rolling. In combat, the guy is moving, your adrenaline is pumping, and gracing hits are much more likely. Your first shot in combat isn't going to be that one hit right between the eyes unless you're really really lucky. That's just the way it is, and Dark Heresy doesn't really treat that with more or less realism than other system. Once you're through the guy's wounds, we're talking critical hits and those can kill perfectly well.
For those situations where you really do have the time to line up the perfect shot, the sniper rules come into play. That minimum of 20 points of damage doesn't seem quite as far fetched when you're rolling 3d10+3 to damage.
As for why bother wearing a helmet? Well, because it's pretty free to do, and if you don't, that's some 3 or more extra points of damage for getting hit in an unarmoured location. That's just a stupid way to expose yourself if you really have a choice in the matter. I'd much rather soak 9 damage per hit, than 4, so an unarmored head isn't really "shrugging" anything off.
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Peacekeeper_b said:
As chair of DotDGA I would like to officially change the name to DHBIAGYA (Dark Heresy Books I Aint Got Yet Annonymous) as I realize we will be going through this again in February while waiting for Creatures Anathema.
All for?
My name is Slaunyeh, and I approve this message.
(Well, actually 'approve' is the wrong word. I bemoan the need for an organization like that in the first place! *whines*)
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Kage2020 said:
Seems to me that one of the iconic images of the 40k universe, one that GW have gone to the ends of the Earth to make more human are getting somewhat of a bad press.
Kage
Iconic or not, I find Space Marines rather overused (but that might just be me being bitter being the only non-space marine TT player I've ever met
). 40k material that doesn't involve crazy emphasis on space marines is a welcome change.Personal feelings aside (as aside they can come in a post that, obviously, express personal opinions), there are several issues with playable space marines.
First, they don't scale well. If a game starts out with the players being relative grunts (as the Dark Heresy setting is inclined to do), you're pretty much out of luck. People don't become space marines when they are cool enough. You're either chosen early, or you're not chosen at all. That's it. It's not something you "advance" into.
Secondly, they don't really play well with others if you want to stay remotely close to lore. They don't walk around on planets with their buddies and have a chat with the locals, poke their noses in some potential heresy and generally go about their business. They hang out in monestaries practicing the best way to kill stuff, while waiting to be sent out to kill said stuff. So while a group of space marines might be fine, a mixed group makes little sense.
Thirdly, it's simply not in the scope of Dark Heresy, and I'm glad they were left out. If Rifts has taught us anything, it's that including both vagabonds and glitter boys is inherrently flawed.
Of course, there's two sides to this. On one hand, Space Marines are giant, mindless (yet inhumanly intelligent), bio-engineered behemoths of destruction. The finest fighting force the Imperium has ever known. One marine is worth hundreds of regular troops. OBVIOUSLY outside the scope of Dark Heresy. On the other hand, the TT game doesn't really display them as that much more powerful than everyone else, in which case you could just roll reasonably well on your feral world guardsman, stuff him in a suit of power armour (without the stupid civilian power supply) and voila! Insta-space marine well within the scope of Dark Heresy.So, either totally impossible or totally doable.
On a final note, I disagree that you can't roleplay a space marine. Lore seems pretty conflicting on this, and I'd have no issue with it. In fact, from a role-play perspective it could be interesting.
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Peacekeeper_b said:
This is where I return to my status of love/hate the internet. Love to talk about this game and book and love the internet for that. Hate the internet for reminding me Im the only bloke without the **** book.
Hurry up **** USPS!!!!
Fortunately Im on mission all week and wouldnt be able to read it anyways.
Does it help with your appreciation of the internet to know you're not the only one who's suffering without the book?
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Valzin said:
Yeah, but just imagine a gunslinger with twin best quality Hecuters and red dots on each....say 43 base BS...+10 best, +10 red dot, +20 full aim, +20 full auto
Minor point, but good or best qualities don't add a bonus to accuracy for firearms. That's only close combat weapons.
Also note, as written, the bonus damage for aimed accurate weapons only apply to basic weapon, so no Fate Bringer sniping.
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Initially, I wanted to just let people start over from scratch. The difference in ranks isn't that huge in Dark Heresy, anyway.
Apparently, I was the only one who thought that was a good idea, so I'm working on a system that will essentially allow a player to 'level up' between adventurers. Each interval of 'free' xp (say, 200) requires a roll on a table of what has happened to the character to earn said experience. From nothing, over little unimportant events, to big permanently-crippled-or-dead stuff. Yes, you can actually end up dying in chargen this way... when that happens I'll allow three options: 1) Burn a fate point to play the guy anyway. Close call. 2) 'roll-back' one interval of xp - with apropriate feelings of impending doom. Or 3) Let the character join the Hall of Martyrs, and roll something else.
I feel it kinda follows in line with the spirit of Dark Heresy, and it solves both issues of new characters and players who miss a session being able to keep up with the others. However, I don't just want to hand out free experience. Experience comes with a serious risk of death, injury, insanity and corruption. This system (when done) will allow the players to choose whether they want to risk it or not (and will probably be a little harsher than actually earning the xp by sitting through a session).
Havn't quite worked out the tables for it yet though.
I think there are older systems that do something similar. Alas, I don't know any, so I don't have anywhere to steal ideas from. Right now I'm going on vague recolections of the Darklands crpg chargen and such.
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linearblade said:
Its a good adventure, except for the final encounter, which will wipe your players if they dont do some pre-emptive killing.
I was actually rather disapointed at how easy that last encounter was. I was expecting a real struggle, but the players put it down with little trouble.
Probably a combination of them figuring out its weaknesses right away, and it only hitting once.
Either way, I liked the intro scenario. My only real beef with it is that it tends to throw, like, full-scale warp incursions at your players a little sooner than I'd have done otherwise. For my own scenarioes they're still dealing with low-level not-so-supernatural cultists.
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Well, I adjusted the basic 40k introduction slightly, and that worked nicely to get my players hooked on the setting. It's not a detailed account, of course, but just enough to give a glimpse of the setting and hopefully promoting an interest in exploring it more fully.
For more than a hundred centuries the Emperor has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth. He is the master of Mankind by the will of the gods and master of a million worlds by the might of his inexhaustible armies.
To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruellest and most bloody regime imaginable. It is a dark and terrible era where you will find little comfort or hope.
This is the tale of those times.
If you want to take part in the adventure then prepare yourself now. Forget the power of technology, science and common humanity. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for there is no peace among the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter and the laughter of thirsting gods.
In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war.
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If you're new about the 40k universe, I'd suggest that you A) don't worry too much about it. You'll pick it up as you go along. And B) Don't pick a career that's heavily embeded in 40k lore, like Clerics, Imperial Psykers and Tech Priests.
Not that you can't play those, but they really need a decent understanding of their background and their role in lore, so it'll take some research to do them justice. The other careers are more straightforward.
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DocIII said:
@Domis
Just sent you an email.
I would have sent this as a PM so as not to waste everyone else's time w/ such things, but we don't seem to have that feature on the new forums.
By all means, keep it going. I'm sure we'd all want to know the answer.
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Ashen Victor said:
Yes, we have.
But still no Calixis enciclopedia of planets... -_-U
Aha! There we go. Thanks!
Plague Zombies and Infections
in Dark Heresy
Posted
I ran a scenario on Senophia, involving zombies. This was before the release of DotDG so I had to make up my own rules for 'em.
Basically, these zombies don't have a wound score. All hits are critical (read: messy) hits. However, critical hits are not cumulative, and only hits that destroy the body or the head stops the zombie. So, depending on weapon type you typically had to deal around 7 or so damage in a single hit, after Toughness soak, to have more effect than just making the zombie uglier.
It worked fantastically... players didn't really catch on to needing strong hits to take them down, so they were spraying all over the place with their autoguns and practically panicing when it had little effect. It helped a lot when I graphically described the soft, squishy sound of something falling to the ground, and they turned around to see this dissected corpse sitting up so its innards fell out of the open gut. Ew.
And then there was the poor zombie who got both his feet shot off, yet bravely continued it's duty, trying to claw its way over to the players who just couldn't take it down.
Overall, the zombies probably wasn't as dangerous as I had expected (they were slow) but the players were badly wounded by the time they ran into them, so it certainly had the desired effect.
My zombies (as well as their creator) were largely inspired by the Vhazilok from City of Heroes. Dead bodies "animated" by cybernetic implants in their joints. It was planned as a recurring villain... but I'm not sure whether to keep my zombies or use the official ones. I kinda like mine.