RobIsRob
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Posts posted by RobIsRob
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Kshatriya said:
1. It's crap to give potentially 30 automatic CP for a history of fighting Astartes. That history has nothing to do with the Ruinous Powers or Warp nastiness. And I question the +10T…and the need to "balance" that with a BS penalty. I might change it to "+5 T, +5 to any Characteristic, but suffer -10 (-15? something like that) Fel in any social interaction with non-Minotaur Space Marines"
2. Some of your Pasts reference events that have yet to happen in FFG's setting, e.g. the Badab War. Small nitpick, but just wanted to point it out. Also I'd just flat-out make up some other times they creamed other Loyalists, because these pasts are way too focused on one single conflict.
3. Giant Slayer: why is this Solo Mode Active? It has all the indicia of a Passive-type. And I think it's a little too hyperfocused on fighting Astartes, unless you rule that Tau battlesuits count as "power armor"…I mean, technically, they are powered armor. =P Give it a Rank 5 and 7 bonus too. Better yet, move the "automatic Razor Sharp" up to Rank 5 and put in new stuff for Rank 3 and 7.
4. Let None Escape looks OK, but clarify this for me. As-written under the right circumstances, it would allow a Kill-Team to spend their actions on a full-auto burst, then have a Minotaur (or Tacmarine, or someone with Assault Specialist, or anybody with Forging the Bond) call Let None Escape and immediately use their Reactions to Charge into melee? I mean, that's actually less powerful than Furious Charge, since that's a Free Action and you can do the exact same thing without needing a way to extend Chapter-specific Squad Modes to everyone.
5. Shield Wall is vague. How many additional Parries does each character benefiting from the Squad Mode get? As-written it appears to be infinite, or you can parry every single non-Horde melee attack coming in at you. What's considered "next to them?" Standard terminology for distance in Squad Mode is Support Range, so perhaps that? Or "within 5 meters" if you want them to be very close together? This is also properly priced at 3 given those effects as they are very good, especially with a Tactical Expertise Tactical Marine or your players have bought Forging the Bond.
6. I might switch Hatred: Xenos (any one) for Hatred: Adeptus Astartes. Table looks great, especially the 3 CHEAP Sound Constitutions.
7. Quicken is…really good, I probably wouldn't let it be sustained…and does it really fit the Minotaurs' aesthetic?
8. Terra's Call is a straight-up Cure Critical Wounds spell rather than something that grants temporary Wounds e.g. the Dark Angel modes. I'd instead make it like the latter: a spammable Vigor, if you will. If you want it to be a healbot spell, I'd also not allow it to be sustained because…that really confuses how it works, and make it Rank 3+ if not higher. Look how the Imperial Fists' Golden Son works for reference. This is too good especially at R1.
9. Facets of Fate works on allies too, yes? I'd make it a PR-scaling penalty, not flat untrained penalties. Flat untrained is going to be next to nothing at the endgame.
10. History's Shield looks OK, but this game is not big on automatic effects, I'd make it a Toughness or Willpower Test at a PR-scaling penalty to save vs. losing more actions. And as-written it won't work on Hordes, so.
11. Simulacrum: the test is way too easy to pass, not that marines are really hurting for Fate as it is.
12. A Razor Sharp Chapter Trapping? Really? The stats aren't bad, but I question that Quality on something you don't have to pay for at all.
STUFF I WOULD ADD:
-My personal idea of the Minotaurs as them with a Chapter Ally in the High Lords of Terra. Therefore, I gave them something like +5 T and the First Among Equals distinction, but they cannot give to or take from a community requisition pool at all.
-Another trapping or two, maybe totems taken from Astartes that you've killed.
-Add additional Solo and Squad Modes like First Founding did. I might go with something akin to BAs' Crimson Tide for attack.
1. I realize the 3d10 corruption is a lot and may end up scaling it down. My idea of the role of corruption is to represent a lack of connection to the social norm around the character, not non-matrimonial warp relations. I wanted to use it to convey the extreme estrangement from most Astartes mindsets. As per your -10 fel suggestion, they have Rivalry (Adeptus Astartes).
2. The pasts were written assuming a campaign set after the Badab war (as mine is) which I keep forgetting is not the… I hesitate to say canonical time. As such I wanted to demonstrate that the entire chapter was fighting at the time of the war, and as such would all have important experiences relating to it.
3. My concept of the rules may be a bit fuzzy, but I thought that active solo modes (but not passive ones) drained the cohesion pool when used in squad mode. I had the idea that a Minotaur demonstrating his prowess at decimating power armor would make his kill team edgy and uncomfortable.
4. Because a Minotaurs character is unlikely to play a tactical marine, Let None Escape is really more intended to provide as much chapter character as possible when larger groups of them are together, such as in Badab War campaigns. I liked the idea that it let all Minotaurs in squad mode essentially charge as a group before the enemy can react. I'll have to look up furious charge again though and see if it needs tweaking. I may have to disallow the use of Minotaurs Squad Modes with Tactical Expertise.
5. I definitely need to adjust the wording on that. It should indicate that characters can parry for their allies using the exact rules used for parrying for themselves, assuming they are within yes, approximately 5m. This means they would spend their reaction to do so and could NOT do so in any circumstance in which they could not parry for themselves.
6. I figured hatred (adeptus astartes) was a bit much considering that a minotaurs character operating within the deathwatch would be tasked by his chapter with cooperating with the other marines. I also don't see the character of the chapter as being anti-space marine, only less interested in cooperation. I decided on hatred (xenos) because it says in the wiki **cough**mainsourceofinformation**cough** that they tend to be exceptionally xenophobic. Whether that meant xenos or anything besides themselves was a bit unclear.
7. The reason quicken is sustained is to lure players into nearly killing themselves through its use. Using it in a situation where the psyker was alone would be pointless if it was not sustained, as they would essentially get one turn per usual and take damage for it, as well as allowing enemies in range more attacks.
8. I really liked the idea of a kill spell that came back and bit you in the ass. There is a lot of room for adjustment on that one, but a push over the top that can kill you is the sort of way I love to see characters die. I may have to fiddle with the requirements or damage as you say.
9. I tried very hard to keep Facets of Fate from being too good. Most unmodified enemies have crap for BS, so I designed it as a way to ignore less potent ranged enemies and charge in on the big-bads.
10. I think History's Shield is pretty balanced the way it is. It's essentially a hail Mary in a sticky situation, and forcing the brother to push a power as a consequence for a temporary abatement seems an even trade considering this can kill them and potentially other members of the party outright.
11. It is pretty easy to pass, but remember that spending a fate point on such a test would be redundant and stupid. On a non-psyker character the odds are less than 50/50. I considered it just giving the brother an additional fatepoint to make up for what I took away in other places, but elected to essentially give them half of one.
12. Comparing it to a chainsword it parries at -20 less WS, has no tearing, and has a possibility with enough successes to do 4 extra damage that tearing will usually make up anyway. I think if anything this trapping is underpowered, especially if the player wants to keep it for late game for roleplaying's sake.
I actually debated with myself on giving them space marine trophy options as trappings, but as they're only allowed to carry one per the Deathwatch's strict rules I decided they wouldn't want to antagonize other marines any more than they already do by their mere presence. One of my focuses in making the chapter was to represent the estrangement between them and the larger pool of Astartes without making it impossible for them to play Parcheesi together.
Thank you very much for your suggestions and I'll be sure and take a look at the rules with them in mind!
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Hello all!
I thought it was time to share the Minotaurs Rules I've cooked up in my spare GM time over the past month.
You can find them here on Google Docs:
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B_bfV8YzZsZwWVR2SFNQeWt5QXc
(Sorry for the imperfect quality, both MS word and Docs like to fight with PDF files)
A player of mine had wanted to create a Minotaurs character a little while back and wanted to do so by making a sort of off-brand assault marine. I liked his ideas but I thought they could use a full chapter write-up, so I decided to create one for him instead. I had a lot of fun doing it, but it's far from complete. I'm aware that it needs a good amount of tweaking, so please feel free to give critique or suggestions for things you would like to see in later versions. I will at some point be adding relics and deeds, but I may wait to release those until I can do so as part of a larger supplement I've been working on. This early release is so I can have some experienced feedback from the community and hopefully you folks out there can do some playtesting!
Cheerio,
-Rob
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I have an Iron Hands character that has taken so many augmentations (min/maxing son of a…) that I allow the techmarine to make first aid tests on him using the tech-use skill.
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I must say I absolutely love this idea. I've been mulling a few ideas over for banner rules for my own Kill Team, as the rules presented in the book are hardly inspiring. I love the pooled fate points Idea, but most of all the black banner that the kill team itself adorns makes me all tingly inside. Can't thank you enough!
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I've been running a DW campaign for about eight months now at the local game store (Massachusetts) and I love the system and some of the roleplaying that's been achieved around our table, but I'm hitting a few social snags. Because I run the game officially for the store (discounts are delicious) I have to allow anyone that would like to to play, which results in a playgroup that is:
- always changing
- occasionally enormous
- inexperienced with roleplaying
The first two hurdles are easy enough to deal with or ignore for me (or at any rate it feels that way because I've been doing it so much) but I'm having problems getting some people into the roleplaying spirit. Deathwatch has some great mechanics that try to overcome this, like the Demeanor system (thankyouthankyouthankyou) but some of my players would rather just spend fate points than spend ten seconds in character. Unfortunately one of the worst perpetrators of this is trying to play a classical U-marine Tac-marine that is semi-consistently squad leader. He in particular has refused to my face to role-play.
How can I get my players to stop playing a turn-based strategy game and start playing a role-playing game?
So far my ideas on the subject include:
- Squad leader term limits
- One mission where I disallow the spending of fate points, forcing demeanors to be used.
- Requiring that all fate points be roleplayed.
- Having characters speak in past tense: "I raised my chainsword and charged!"
I have had more than a few runs that simply did not involve combat, but I've found that during those my more RP-oriented players do all the talking and I worry that the rest feel bored or left out.
Advice on implementing these ideas/other solutions are greatly appreciated!
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It's an interesting thought, but note that Deathwatch is really centered around well… the Deathwatch. Doing runs with a limited chapter set or outside of the Reach are things I've wanted to try for a while, so I'm curious how it would turn out though. Right now I'm writing a chapter supplement for Minotaurs, which is forcing me to research the Badab war quite a bit.
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I must say this was quite helpful. A devastator in my player group's ubiquitous righteous fury with the original rules was really trying my patience, as at rank 1 he was constantly doing over 200 damage in a round, making elites in small numbers and especially master level enemies pointless, as it made everything hinge on who shot first (Han).
Marines of Wrath
in Deathwatch House Rules
Posted
The rules presented in Rites of Battle are intended for both GMs and players to create new chapters. As such they leave quite a bit of things unexplored to try and maintain balance. If you want to make a new chapter just for your group, you can essentially use your best judgement on everything. If anything gets out of hand later, you have GM power over every PC and can nerf your previous mistakes on the fly. If you want to publish your own chapter for other GMs to use, make sure it's something you'd be comfortable having it in your run first, and that it's complete. This means psychic powers, solo/squad mode, history, primarch's curse, chapter trappings, chapter advances… etc. Anything beyond those adds great depth to the chapter and can be a lot of fun, but don't start worrying about those until the core concepts are there. If your chapter is a successor that's reasonably close to the original chapter in behavior and organization you have far less work to do. In that case all you need to do is add one or two rules that tweak their original concept without breaking it or making it entirely better than the original chapter, explain their history, and maybe (if you want to emulate Rites of Battle) throw an adventure seed in there. At that point the chapter can be released for other GMs to try, though they will likely be less excited about just one new successor. Still, don't let that discourage you if it makes sense for your chapter. If the chapter is too similar to their origin chapter DO NOT write entirely new rules for them. They will feel forced and uninteresting.
In the end the point is to have fun and add more options to the game either for yourself or others, so go have fun!