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winternight

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Posts posted by winternight

  1. Posted

    Yeah I think I am going to go with 30km or so across. Which is really more of a town than a city and you would be able to walk as the crow flies from one side to another in 6 hours or so. Of course, you can't actually walk in a straight line, so any kind of transport that isn't a nefarious tunnel, takes longer. That should give some advantage to the zombies.

  3. Posted

    Hive Sibellus is pretty large, it is twice as large across as the US (8000 km), which is pretty mind boggling if you ask me.

     

    I think I will go with Sinophia Magna being fairly small with it previously being the domain of the nobles and the wealthy. As Sinophia started to fall, the dwindling population started to congregate there after the Hive was abandoned.

     

    This also makes more sense as looking at the map, the city is probably only 20 or so km wide, otherwise the harbour is barely a harbour.

  4. Posted

    Sorry, perhaps I should have said so far from anywhere important in the city.

     

    There is no scale provided on that map, so I can't determine if Sinophia Magna is extremely small for a (formerly) major city on an imperial world, or things are extremely far apart.

     

    For instance, how long is it likely to take to drive from the Folly to District XIII. Is it 30 minutes, is it an hour, is it 2 hours? 

     

    Each of those distances still implies that the city is extremely small in Imperial terms, but they still mean that it is going to take the zombies 6 hours, 12 hours or 24 hours to walk (shamble?) that distance. 

     

    I'm thinking that an extremely small city is the way to go.

  5. Posted

    I'm about to run Damned Cities with my players and I have a bit of an issue with the distances involved.

     

    How far out of the city if the Folly? It seems to be a fair distance away (unless the city is tiny), and yet there is supposedly an underground tunnel that goes from the folly all the way under the city to the Celestine Wharf.

     

    I don't understand how the risen would ever be able to go back and forth using this tunnel unless they were walking for days on end.

     

    Has anyone else encountered this issue? If so, how did you deal with it?

  6. Posted

     Thanks for the input all.

     

    I don't have that much of a problem with the progression of most of the specialities, so I may just end up tweaking the Librarian (and maybe the Devestator). I will be converting the Psychic Powers over to the system in Black Crusade so I will probably reduce their cost at that point also.

  7. Posted

    Thanks for the feedback :)

    What I meant by "just to get to Psy Rating 10" is that, for a Dark Heresy Psyker, it costs them 4000xp out of a maximum 50 000xp over their lifetime. So less than 1/12th of their total life time available XP to get to Psy Rating 10. For Black Crusade it costs between 3200xp and 5600xp to get to Psy Rating 10 out of a maximum of infinity (unlikely in practice). For a Deathwatch Librarian it costs a whopping 9200xp out of a maximum 37 000xp. 1/4 of their total life time available XP to get to Psy Rating 10. 

    It feels out of whack compared to what I am used to in Dark Heresy (3 times as much available XP required) and doesn't seem to fit into Black Crusade either. Then again poor Deathwatch characters often have absolutely no where to go in terms of progression (poor Devestator has like 3 total options for most ranks!).

    I'm not sure how your characters are buying a talent or 2 every session unless you are having marathon 8 hour sessions or handing out a lot of XP as most talents beyond rank 1 cost 400xp+ and quickly ramp up to 800-1000xp

  8. Posted

    Both Black Crusade and Deathwatch recommend 500xp per 4 hours of play (so they have the same baseline for XP rewards so should have similar advancement speeds), however Black Crusade characters advance far more quickly than Deathwatch characters.

    A Librarian in particular needs to spend 1/4 of their lifetime XP rewards just to get Psy Rating 10. A Black Crusade character spends half as much (at most and may spend as little as 1/4 the spend of a Librarian). Then if you look at the powers, the Deathwatch powers cost twice to four times as much.

    This difference in progression speeds is felt through out Deathwatch and kinda sucks in that players need to go through multiple sessions to see a marginal improvement. Have others come across this at all? Would be keen to hear from people who have been running Deathwatch for longer (only done 1 session, though I have been running Dark Heresy for a couple of years - very fast progression in Dark Heresy - don't even get me started on the differences there!).

  9. Posted

     I am really surprised that no one brought up the novel Angels of Darkness which presents an alternative view of the Dark Angels.

     

    Whilst it is not confirmed canon (and appears even less so given the details presented in Deathwatch), in my mind it presents a much more compelling reason for why the Dark Angels are so obsessed with hunting the Fallen to this day and opens up far more opportunities for roleplay.

  10. Posted

     I don't see what a bonus to Fellowship has to do with that story (as entertaining as it was).

     

    All you are describing is roleplaying. That is honestly fantastic, but the designer still dropped the ball with Space Wolves. The demeanor is more than enough to help with the gregarious nature of the Wolves that the designer chose to focus on. Every other chapter however gets bonuses that directly help them out in combat and yet in spite of mentioning again and again how good the Wolves are in combat, all they get are "soft" skills and a bonus to Fellowship. Weird. Maybe they were supposed to be the leaders of the kill-team? Though it would seem an Ultramarine is the natural choice there.

     

    For my campaign, my fixes will be a change to +5 perception and +5 to stat of choice to reflect the improved senses and that they may be drawn from any stage in their life (Blood Claw might like +5 str, Grey Hunter might like +5 WS, Long Fang might like +5 BS, Scout might like +5 Agi and Wolf Guard might like +5 Fel). I will also allow them to exchange the combat knife for a Chainsword.

  11. Posted

    Honir said:

    I was considering a couple small special rules to to help give them a little more flavor, since the Blood Angels are the craziest, ragiest chapter in the book and the writers seemed to be struggling to find them a similar niche.

    Special Rule: Unstable Gene Seed: You may choose a result on the altered stock table in Rites of Battle and add those changes to your character.

    Special Rule: Scrapper: Space Wolves are comfortable using melee attachments on their guns. Starting characters may add any melee attachment of Rare quality or lower to any ranged weapon in their starting gear. Space Wolves get +5 WS when attacking with the attached melee weapons and do not take penalties to BS when firing a weapon with a melee attachment.

    New Talent: Ferocious Charge: Space Wolves learn melee combat as blood claws long before they're handed jump packs.  A charging Space Wolf does 1 extra damage against a single target or 1 extra Magnitude damage against a horde, plus 1 for every 2 degrees of success, when charging.  This does not stack with any bonuses to charging with a jump pack.
    Requirements: Space Wolves only

    These are really good Honir, thanks for that :) I might use a slight variation on Furious Charge as a different Solo Mode for the Space Wolves (though the addition of the Wolf Helm now doesn't totally negate their default Solo Mode).

     

    Of course you can always fall back on "Its a roleplaying game, do whatever you like!" however it is just a bit sucky that whoever was designing the game seemed to fluff things so badly with Space Wolves.

    For example the text talks about how potent the Canis Helix is and how Space Wolves are turned into hunkering beasts. Yep that sounds about right. This is later followed up by:

    "In temperament, most Space Wolves are blunt and plain speaking, even to the point of giving offence to those not used to their ways. They abhor pretension and despise politicking."

    Yep that also sounds about right... so what stats to the Space Wolves get? +5 Toughness or Strength sounds about right based on the first bit, +5 Perception also seems about right given their strong senses. So what did the designer give?

    +5 Perception, ok looking good. +5 to Fellowship? Huh? Aren't they blunt and prone to causing offence? Where do you pull +5 Fellowship from? Oh right, the +5 Fellowship is because once you get to know them you realise they are a great bunch of guys but you can actually tell this up front?

     

    It feels like to me that once they had done Blood Angels as a combat chapter, then the Mary Sue Chapter (sorry I meant Storm Wardens) as a combat chapter they realised they needed someone with some really soft skills so decided to shaft the Space Wolves.

  12. Posted

     Really? Oh how times have changed...

    javascript:void(0);/*1317769253113*/

    I guess there are just 9 pages about how Space Wolves are perfect out of the book...

    I mean it would appear that the guy who wrote the Space Wolves entry hadn't really read: the Codices, the Chapter Approved, the novels. It is like all he read was, they like to drink and have a strong sense of smell. Give them drinking skillz!!

    There is nothing that reflects Blood Claws, Grey Hunters, Long Fangs, Scouts of Wolf Guard in any of the rules for Space Wolves. The are just treated like generic marines who drink and have a big nose. 

    I was hoping that some fans had gotten around to making some more flavoursome rules but I guess not. 

    Cheers anyway!

  13. Posted

    I picked up Deathwatch when it first came out, quickly flipped to the Space Wolves section, read it and realised that the person who wrote their rules knew absolutely nothing at all about the Chapter other than how to spell it.

    So now that some time has passed, are there any recommended house rules that better reflect the nature of the Space Wolves chapter?

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