There's no reason to pity the Librarian, he had plenty of opportunities to use Blood Lance instead. But yes, the idea is good and solid. I wanted to give him some Renown anyway, because he joined the campaign a few missions later - the XP gap was corrected at the beginning, but he is still a few Renown short, because I like that better when it is earned. Problem solved, thanks!

Bone white simply looks cool (especially with black). The possibilities are endless. On the other hand, I wouldn't put the Inquisition pauldron on. Silver hands are okay, but where do you put the Crux Terminatus? In this case a Deathwatch tabard might indeed bridge the gap with its display of the Inquisition insignia.

That's why it's so nice being the GM - the player doesn't know it yet, but they absolutely will have a mission to retrieve a relic force weapon, just a bit later, with appropriately buffed enemies. My Tzeenchian cunning is once again triumphant. Just As Planned. To return to the topic, the newest Deathwatch book, The Emperor's Chosen, details something very similar to your idea. The whole Heroic Legacy thing is quite interesting, but it looks like it was designed for high-level characters, so I'll pick it up only if the DW campaign takes root.

You're not planning to go easy on them, do you? Although it depends on the players' mentality. If they just want to try the game out, and are not yet fans of WH40K, you might want to give them a chance to discover what the characters are capable of, and not just in combat. Final Sanction is well-written in this regard, giving all kinds of enemies and always offering a meaningful choice. Oblivion's Edge is more railroad-y. If they like epic rip and tear, go with Berserkers, by all means, just not too many of them. Necrons are, on the other hand, nasty.

I'm not dead-set on punishing Librarians, I was only musing on the possible mechanics of Alex's idea. The Librarians, while they are not necessarily loved, are respected as keepers of the lore, and they're valued leaders and advisers in virtually every chapter. Although - to get back to your original question - it would be interesting to play out the relations between a Silver Skull Prognosticator, with his unique beliefs, and the rest of the Kill-Team. The statistically-most-likely-to-be-corrupted guy chastising everyone and generally acting as Chaplain? I can see that getting under the skin of some marines. And Divination through runes or the Tarot is cool anyway.

The horde / cleanup combo sounds good. Players eventually have to learn that letting a Genestealer close is a very bad idea, you have to keep the combat shooty to stand a chance - you might even throw in an NPC and let them get him first, to illustrate the point. The proposed scenario sounds like a good tutorial for basic combat tactics, new players could benefit from it. Edit: Huhh, censored. Well, English is not my first language.

Yeah, I wouldn't mind a fully fleshed-out Fists Chapter either. Did anyone try writing up some homebrew for them?

I recently took up GM-ing too, so here are my quite fresh experiences: a) I kept combat in Extraction on the low - players don't know half of their abilities anyway, so I used narrative heavily to establish the atmosphere (and scare them with whatever, even lone 'gaunts from time to time). b) The Shrikes are more than a match for the players this early, but it depends on the group size too. I started with two players and almost managed to kill them 10 minutes into the module with two shrikes. c) If you want to use Genestealers, use the stats from Final Sanction/Oblivion's Edge, since they're simplified and slightly scaled-down. Try, for example, combining the above suggestions, and let only one genestealer loose first, and if it was too easy, have a small group showing up next. Stay away from the Master level, the players first need to have an understanding of all the abilities they possess. As an alternative, you can use Hordes of Convicts, especially in location 7 (primary refinery unit) - just use the genestealer-infected renegades from Final Sanction. And check the skills and traits of both the baddies and the players thoroughly, especially if the players are new too - spare the headache for yourself.

I'd limit it to cases when the Librarian leads the team, if you want to do it. Or you can try it when a particularly wich-hating character leads. Otherwise I'd say let them roleplay it out. I have a Black Templar, who routinely rolls WP tests when a particularly bad psychic phenomena manifests, to stop himself attacking the witch, and it was his own idea. I like such initiatives.

Putting the Rule of Cool aside - although it's never entirely possible in 40K - I'd make it Deathwatch standard with a bone-white pauldron if he gained the Crux Terminatus (and subsequently the armour) while in the Deathwatch. In this case you could have the initiation to the Inner Circle made by a fellow Dark Angel serving the Long Vigil. Epistolary Zadkiel from the Jericho Reach supplement might be a good choice. Alternatively, you can have the initiation made by a Dark Angels force participating in the Achilus Crusade. In this case the gear is supplied by the brother's Chapter, and the colour might be a subject to negotiation (and an awesome roleplaying opportunity), as Alex suggested. If, however, he retains the original colour to some degree, I'd make him suffer, at the minimum, the negative consequences of the Chapter Heraldry Tabard of the Black Templars (Core Rulebook, p. 169), since the character emphasizes his loyalty to the Chapter over his Kill-team, but I'd permit him using his own Chapter Trapping. At the maximum (and I lean toward this), the white or chequered armour would count in itself as a Chapter Trapping, with the Heraldry Tabard's positive and negative effects.

Well, the Deathwatch in Headhunted (Heroes of the Space Marines) is on to something, having an Exorcist shadowing the Librarian all the time, just in case. If it wasn't so **** tiresome having a permanent NPC kill-team member, I'd emulate the practice when having a Silver Skull Librarian/Chaplain in the team. Or, even better, I'd have an Inquisitor convince or bribe (for example with better war gear) one of the players to keep an eye on the liability. Playing a Prognosticator could be an interesting challenge for both the player and the GM - I would try to corrupt the player continuously, just to see how long he can hold

Sorry for necromancing the thread, but check out the Silver Skulls. Their Prognosticators fit the bill almost exactly. While they do have Chaplains in Honour the Chapter, I faintly remember some novel or short story where the description of the Prognosticator was uncannily Chaplain-like (with no mention of actual Chaplains). The fluff is there, mash up something

If I can recall it correctly (and I don't have the books ready at the moment, mind you), you can use the extra damage every time the weapon normally makes a hit and you roll for damage. If it touches flesh, you can channel the baleful energies of the Warp at will

bogi_khaosa, could you elaborate a little more on this?

I already brought the topic up with the player - he explicitly stated he wants to earn the sword. The guy is an experienced roleplayer, and, while new at DW, sees that the Librarian is insanely powerful, so he has no irresistible urge to go full munchkin on me immediately. We already established he'll try to persuade the Forge Master, thus creating an excellent roleplaying opportunity. The exact details of why he is going swordless are being worked on at the moment, but I'd like to give him creative freedom in drawing the backstory. At the moment I'm making him read all the Blood Angels literature in the world, we'll see where it goes. The issue with voluntarily giving up the sword is that it's stated that DW recruits are experienced warriors with decades of honourable service behind them - it's hard to imagine someone who is deemed fit for service in DW would go without proper equipment to bring out his full potential. The dispute on the other hand is a good idea, I might use that, thanks.

And I stand corrected, thanks. Multiple arms: yes, Two-Weapon Wielder: no. So we're back to four attacks on the factory standard GS. Not that it's not enough to dismember a SM And one more heads-up: players only rarely check the ceiling

Fair enough, I did miss it. That's why I keep coming back here, there's always one obvious rule hiding in one of the tomes, trying its best to avoid attention. The rules are legion, and I am but a man So the Genestealer has 5 attacks in a full action, all at -10, but gains +10 Toughness (and the +10 Strength bonus when moving around). Hmm, my players have only met the watered-down Final Sanction Genestealer - looks like they're in for a nasty Purestrain surprise

I'd suggest reading through this thread: http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/95446-question-about-dodge/ The Genestealer is used as an example there, so its abilities are covered in details in the second half. But to recap: 1) Lightning Attack: In short, as a full action, you may make 3 attacks. But here comes the important part: If the character has the Two-Weapon Wielder Talent and is wielding two melee weapons, the character gains the advantage of Lightning Attack with only one of the weapons, and a single attack with the other. That's 4 attacks so far. 2) Ambidextrous: The talent doesn't give more attack opportunities, it just means you can lessen the penalty: When combined with a Two-Weapon Wielder Talent, the penalty for making attacks with both weapons in the same turn drops to –10 3) Two-Weapon Wielder: You could use a Full Action to make two attacks at -20. However, the description of both Lightning Attack and Ambidextrous specifically states the effect when combined with Two-Weapon Wielder, so it doesn't automatically stack up with those effects. So, all in all, in standard laboratory conditions, the Genestealer may use a Full Action to attack four times, with a -10 penalty to each attack. If there's an incorrect interpretation, please correct it, but basically that's the Standard Issue DW Genestealer righ up there. If you involve crunch from the other FFG 40K games, it might change drastically, but that's uncharted territory for me

It sounds reasonable - if you use some sort of a phylactery, you can use it to flex the players' tactical muscles. You can use the Librarian's psyniscience - or, if the players are trigger-happy, his force weapon - or hide it in some xenotech device to utilize your Techmarine, if you have one, or just let the smarter players figure it out.

It does now, thanks - the PR multiplier being dependent on the power level was the missing piece. I'm really grateful for the help I continue to get here, guys.

Well, I think this part in Core Rulebook, p. 185 is relevant: You may add a bonus to your Focus Power Test equal to 5 times the Psy Rating used for the power. A Focus Power roll of 91-00 always fails. While the rule doesn't put a cap on the modifier itself (thus it cannot prevent stupidly high DoS), at least it gives some room for failure.

Thankfully my new Librarian became quite active in trying to understand the rules, so here I am again with the next force weapon question. So, in Core Rulebook, you can hand out additional psychic damage after a successful hit by doing an Opposed Focus Power test, adding d10 damage after every DoS. Errata rules that to make the additional psychic energy damage after scoring a hit, one has to choose the power level. How does that modify the possible damage? The way I understand it, the extra damage is still d10 per DoS on the opposed test, this was not cancelled explicitly in Errata. Psy Rating bonus (PRx5) to Focus Power Test is constant and flat, so setting the power level normally only modifies PR when counting the effects (and perils) of a Psychic Power Action. I really don't see how does it affect the actual number of dice thrown, which still depends only on DoS. Any ideas? Edit: This thread touched upon the subject, and cleared up that PR adds a constant PRx5 bonus to FPT, but never explicitly answered my dilemma: http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/36429-force-weapon-question/page-3

Yeah, I think he'll have a Dark Secret as a reason why he was shipped off unceremoniously to Deathwatch. I always wanted to pit the team against a Daemon (Prince) at some point, so win-win

Thanks for the info, so he should have gotten one right at the beginning. Well, never mind, I'll spin the story so that he'll be seriously indebted to the crazy Space Wolf Forge Master of Erioch to get one - here's a good adventure seed if I ever saw one I just have to retcon how he lost his original one in the first place - any ideas regarding that?

Help me out here a bit, please. A Librarian recently joined my campaign at Rank 1. While Core Rulebook p. 28 (Starting Equipment) lists force weapon as Deathwatch Librarian Standard Issue, the Armoury chapter, p. 154 (Table 5-8, Meele Weapons) pegs Force weapons requisition to the Respected renown rank. Does the Librarian get his own force sword at the beginning? He could of course bring one from his Chapter, but this would essentially give him a Signature Wargear for free, and before he meets the requirements. Or does he have to earn the renown to get one, and make do with basic stuff until a few sessions into the game? I went with denying the sword for the first session, based on the simple logic that in the future it will be easier to give out a toy than take it away, but fluff heavily implies force weapons are something of a must for Librarians, and the player is confused, not to mention myself. So what do you allow for beginner Librarians in your own campaigns?