musungu
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Posts posted by musungu
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You say that but I think you can get neural implants which start to make someone more machine like. Just stay away from EMP or you shut down!
Yeah, but that's just implants..
Technically, I'm sure it would be possible to have something a la Ghost in the Shell, where you just upload your consciousness into a cybernetic brain -- but in 40k, I'd expect it as archaeotech at best, and probably Tech-Heresy as depending on one's perspective, you essentially become an Abominable Intelligence?
I guess it depends on whether people in 40k define AI as an intelligence that was never human to begin with, or if they include consciousness that had a human origin, a la "soul being reborn as a machine spirit" or something like that.
It may well be an example of different beliefs debated hotly within the Mechanicus clergy, mirroring the stuff the Ecclesiarchy Synods talk about.
There was a short story somewhere with a Space Wolf trying to harvest the gene-seed of an Iron Hand Dreadnought after a joint engagement and getting a lascannon shot in the face for his effort after he sees (and is horrified by) what's inside. It's at least heavily implied that there's no biological component left anymore.
It's an easily circumvented issue anyway - it's always handwaved away both in-universe and out of it by stating that no space marine ever died a natural death, so sooner or later every single one can fully expect to fall in battle. I'm comfortable with leaving to personal interpretation whether they get some more wrinkles before that or not
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They didn't. After the AI ship took over their armour systems and mechanical components, and they suffered casualties from turned AdMech servitors and Genestealers, they finally managed to do an emergency teleport to get out in the very last second due to an unlikely intervention (the ship blocks the teleport signal, but a Black Rage-affected guy crashes in, and they're released long enough to get outside and get a lock on the homer), but the ship, with its systems now repaired, managed to escape before they could destroy it along with the hulk. Utilising this story arch in Deathwatch, of course, sets the team up for failure, so that later they can rectify it and slay the dragon they unleashed, so to speak.
The novel ran with multiple parallel story arches, one about the Blood Drinkers and the Curse, and one about the Novamarines First Company Captain, culminating in a huge Space Hulk cleanup operation with almost two hundred Terminators of the two Chapters deployed, so of course the scale needs to be adjusted. The usual AdMech "Oooohh, shiny, let's disregard all warning signs and bring mortal danger to everyone involved to get it" storyline is thrown in for good measure, but it's usually working in the setting, however cliché it may be (although it probably needs to be added that the Chapters were also bribed with a Strike Cruiser each). Anyway, these events take up about one chapter towards the end from the 23 or 24 in the book, so this info is about all - I hope it can provide some inspiration for your game.
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Oh, I forgot one more thing (to drive the point home even more pronouncedly) - in the novel, the ship tricked (and, in the endgame, kind of forced) the protagonists to fix some broken subsystems in it - it was secondary generators, IIRC. If the thing inside Mortis Thule could pull off something similar, that would be both delicious (for you) and devastating (for the players)
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In game finder threads it usually helps if you put up 1) your preferred system for playing (which, although it's a bit unclear, seems to be Skype here), 2) your timezone, 3) the period when you're generally available and 4) whether you're looking for a GM or for players. Good luck!
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Sorry for necromancing the thread, but recently I had to delve deep into the topic of healing, and I see occasional references of people planning to ask FFG for clarifications on the healing rules. This place seems to be as fitting as any to ask: did anyone at any point get a definitive answer from some kind of an authority?
Also, for the sake of having the collective wisdom in one place, in addition to the thread Avdnm linked up there:
Pain suppressor and critical damage
The main bone of contention seems to be the handling of Critical Damage, particularly in the case where some effect, be it Talent or Wargear, raises the threshold of Lightly Wounded over the number of wounds the character possesses, and to a lesser extent the mechanics of Fate Point healing. The first issue is up to interpretation (both trains of thought have some merit), but even after reading through all of this, I still have no idea how fate healing is supposed to work if the character's in Critical territory.
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Sure thing. I'm in a bit of a hurry, so here's the tl;dr version:
For the plot hook to work, the thing in the centre needs to have at least a rudimentary self-awareness, or be controlled by some kind of intelligence - it might be of any origin, Necrons included. In the novel, a Space Hulk always pops up around star systems of the same class, dispensing Genestealers wherever it goes and has an unpredictable movement pattern not tied to warp currents. At the end it is unveiled that the same type of stars are needed for the ship to collect fuel (in this case to leave the galaxy, but it might have any number of other nefarious reasons), and the 'stealers, while hated, were kept to bring the hulk to the attention of the Imperium, so that while trying to destroy it, the ship in the centre could be set free.
This is a variation of a basic and age-old plot: the party working very hard to reach the centre and possibly loot it or destroy it, but all of their actions are anticipated, or even planned for, by the entity in the middle (clues can be dropped, and the big bad might even directly influence some events on the hulk), and the Kill-Team's success means actually unleashing something much worse than a space hulk on the universe. How's it?
PhilOfCalth reacted to this -
Thanks, guys, that's extremely useful, exactly what I needed. I'd rather show them at least something, because the mission description includes this: "Included among the astropathic utterances is a frantic, yet disturbingly well-detailed sketch of the Watch Station’s layout."
Just a 'heads-up'- I tried using Space Hulk tiles for a 'bug hunt' DH mission set on a space station. My plan was to have a different layout for each floor, but Space Hulk tiles take so freakin' long to set up- and my players' attention was rapidly drifting as I did so- that I decided to just use one lay-out for every deck. FYI.
Yeah, that was the reason I wanted to slap something together in advance, mapping it all out on the fly does indeed sound like a recipe for failure.
On a slightly unrelated note, I'm just loving the RT Broadsides with their Two-Weapon Wielder and Dual Shot talents. Fire all systems in one round? With a shield and a spotter drone? YES PLEASE
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3/ I always appreciate general suggestions. Anyone have any?
Whatever is inside, you could always to a twist like in the BL novel Death of Integrity (obligatory *spoiler alert* - also, read it, it's one of the better Space Marine Battles books), where there's an intelligent Dark Age of Technology ship in the centre which actively manipulates events to get out.
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I'm running the last episode of Rising Tempest (Comes the Ghanathaar) tomorrow, which takes place at Watch Station Belarius. Now the problem is that the game night was originally scheduled to take place later, and I'm sort of caught with my proverbial pants down. I planned to create some maps with the Space Hulk tile-set to help the immersion, but I'll be unable to finish it in time, so can anyone point me to someplace where I can find sci-fi (preferably 40k, but I'm not picky) space station deck plans, blueprints, layouts or somesuch?
And while we're at it, I'm working on upping the vanilla threat level a bit for my 5-man, Rank 4 Kill-team (hence the lack of time to tinker with maps), so if you made some successful modifications to the module, I'd love to hear about it.
Edit: Sorry for the topic title, typing from work
it was supposed to be Space station deck plans (and a bit of Rising Tempest), but apparently I can't edit that -
1/ Is there official information on what is at the centre of Mortis Thule anywhere outside the "Ark of Lost Souls" book?The Achilus Assault splatbook has a few pages on Mortis Thule (pp. 61-66.) which might be worth to read, but as it pre-dates AoLS, the information it contains is even more vague - it only mentions a possible connection with the technology of the Warp Gate, and the Omega Vault's special interest. Also, when dealing with the Farseer, don't forget the best item in Table 5-2: Renown Penalties in RoB (p. 202.)
Action: The Battle-Brother makes an alliance with xenos, even if he later kills them / Renown Reduction: –2: This applies even if the alliance was ordered upon the Kill-team by their commanders
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If anyone's interested I can make a topic when I show my full calculations, including Agility, Movement, Willpower, Fellowship and such.
As a matter of fact, I'd like to see it, if it's no bother to you.
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I was always interested in this - how do you do the TT conversions? Are there some basic mathematical formulas to do the heavy lifting, and you smooth the rough edges later with game balance in mind, or is it purely based on intuition and comparison with existing DW gear?
Also, if Termie armour, what about the Tartaros? God forbid I use one in my games, there's enough bling available for the team as it is, but I'm interested in the conversion mechanics.
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Good modifications overall. Since this one was one of my first try-out adventures as a fresh GM, I ran the unmodified, vanilla version - and now you made me feel regret about all the missed opportunities to embellish it.
I removed Inquisitor Quist totally. I'd rather use Inqusitor when his/her presence has some greater purpose (like, Puritan who wants to sabotage the deal with Tau, or Radical who wants to use Kill-Team for his/her own shadowy goals), than just use it every mission. In my vision of Deatwatch, Watch-Capitain oversees the mission, Inquisitor only appears in few situations. But it's a matter of personal preference, nothing rules-wise.
If one wants to establish Quist as a powerful player in Erioch and Ordo Xenos politics, her unhealthy interest in xenos technology is one of her defining traits, so this is actually a good place for players to catch the first glimpse of her. Otherwise I agree, her involvement is non-essential.
I removed the Archeotech Luminators from the adventure. They made it way too easy. I informed players that no one knows what exactly happened (all previously discovered Dellirium Trellises were broken and no one realized what are their effects, so no one made the connection). This way, players actually had to think what happened and mission wasn't just "Arrived, killed, use Archeotech Luminators, kill some more, return". It was a good choice - players really felt that there is something unknown going on, and this feeling of mystery made them much more interested in it.
Besides, as a Bonus, after mission I told them "look, there is a Lexicanum article about your adventure!" and gave them link to Lexicanum page about Delirium Trellis, saying that after their report, Omega Vault opened, revealing Archotech Luminators. That look on their faces.......
- Since I decided that no working Trellis was ever found until now, this also made for some interesting realization. Players rolled their Forbidden Lores and find out what it is, but they were also surprised, because it was working and evidently dangerous for the Tau. They immediately started to think about ways of using it as weapon (or, in case of a Black Templar, the quickest way of destroying every single one of them).
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Important note: I actually removed humans from third Trellis. I'm going to make an entire campaign based on Delirium Trellis, so players will learn about it's influence on normal humans on a different mission, on a bigger scale.
That's evil. I like it. Seriously though, having to discover the (nature of) Trellises without help greatly changes the scope of the adventure, which requires careful planning. While I see that some Forbidden Lores could be useful for figuring the Trellises out (Archeotech, possibly The Inquisition, The Warp and Xenos springs into mind), low-level players are unlikely to have the majority of those, save the Xenos one, and if you plan to run Rising Tempest later, the players will make the connection with the Ghanataar much easier. What'd be interesting to know is how much info did you actually reveal at this point, because every crumble of knowledge has implications for later adventures.
Basically the point is, if you plan to run a longer campaign based on Shadow of Madness, like you said (cleverly hidden in the text as it is), these fundamental changes are good. If one wants to run it as a one-shot, the adventure's pacing and balance is probably better off with the Luminators staying. The combat tweaks would, however, benefit the game in both instances.
Keep doing these reviews, because you gave me some pretty good ideas to implement in my games. Overall 9/10, would read again
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This is the description of the weapon special quality Power Field (Core, p. 143) (emphasis mine):
"A field of power wreathes weapons with this Quality, increasing their Damage and Penetration. Such modifiers are already included in the weapon’s profile. When the wielder successfully uses this weapon to Parry an attack made with a weapon that lacks this Quality, he has a 75% chance of destroying his attacker’s weapon. Weapons with the Warp Weapon Trait and Natural Weapons are immune to this effect."
Is this what you were looking for?
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There is a Deed of Disdain in Rites of Battle (p.87) called Gene-Seed Anomaly. It provides player with Medicae Skill on Trained (and also a +3 and -3 to any two Characteristics) for 300 xp.
That's actually a good one - it escaped my notice somehow, but it does have real potential both in crunch and in roleplay, thanks for pointing out.
Another way is to give players a Medicae servo-skull. I've seen it being done with 20 Requisition cost, Int 20, Medicae +20 and some Medicae Talents. Not as good as Apothecary, but definitely better than nothing.
Is it just a normal Servo-skull with the free skill slot used for Medicae, or a specialist skull listed somewhere? I wouldn't give it extra healing talents, at least not for the +5 Req it costs over the normal 15 Req price of the Skull, but I can see situations where it might be necessary. On the other hand, the premise is that there's no Apothecary in the team, so I'd probably allow it as a Follower.
There's also the Astartes Combat Webbing in RoB (p. 144) with a Medicae Pouch - this doesn't give the character the Medicae skill in itself, but for 3 Req offers a dirt cheap way for a +20 bonus on it.
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This one, while looks promising, hasn't been updated since February 2015. Just sayin'.
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I feel ya.. I'm always up for that sort of debate, though - it's interesting how different people's preferences and perceptions are when it comes to the setting.
I always prefer mystery and ambiguity as a general rule, especially if it's about world-changing events on such a scale. From a sort-of-mechanical viewpoint it gives me more leeway as a GM with my stories, but generally it's more about how the pieces fit together in your head. Anything breaking the ever-important suspension of disbelief (in my case, if I may plug that in, see my quite strong opinion on awful Dog Latin
) is detrimental to the enjoyment of all, and the more specific you get, the less room you leave for the readers' interpretation.Take Dark Angels as an example. If one lets go of the sheer idiocy of the whole Fallen premise (sorry, DA players
), it is one of the better-written mysteries of the whole 40k setting, with real psychological depth and conflicts. In turn, that is only possible because it's unclear who is right - was the Lion a traitor? A pragmatic opportunist? A loyalist saint? A psychologically broken figure, crippled by inner darkness and constant suspicion? Any and all is possible, that's why it's fascinating to read about or play out DA lore. Since there's no fixed event, no-one is right right, so one has to grab different handholds and really delve deep into the psyche of the character, be it Cypher, Asmodai, Sapphon or your own DW marine.Now if the next HH book tells you a sequence of those events, you can state a million times that there's no canon
, it will still inevitably colour the perception of the community, and a mysterious Fallen, either naïve or equally possibly a master manipulator, who is thus far a well-written antagonist, will come across as plain right or plain wrong, or, at best, misguided.There are millions of similar events, where the Primarchs, the pinnacles of humanity, come across as ignorant idiots (seriously, taking the babbling of suspicious xenos psykers at face value, Alpharius?), and I already have a player in my group, a fan of the HH series, blurting out direct quotes from the Primarchs themselves at the most inappropriate of moments (luckily OOC, but still).
/rant - 30k has the possibility to be fun, but leave the cataclysmic events alone, or show them from the angle of a more marginal character.
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They are invaluable in protracted/high risk missions/long-running campaigns.
This is true, using Fate Points and combat drugs creatively only gets you so far, so if you embark on a long campaign (especially with low-level characters), it is worth bringing someone trained in the Medicae Skill along. Outside the Apothecary advancement table, the skill at Rank 1 is available only for the Ultramarines' Tyrannic War Veterans, but if in a pinch, you can always offer it as an Elite Advance. For higher-tier campaigns the Wolf Priest gets Medicae quite cheap at Rank 4 (but, admittedly, the WP is a half-Apothecary anyway), and the Ultramarine Libby gets Glory of the Emperor, a healer psychic power, at Rank 5.
Note that a number of GMs opt for running an Apothecary as a recurring NPC Kill-team member, especially in smaller groups lacking the xp or desire for branching out into healing.
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Sound advice, all above. What I'd add is to communicate with your players before starting your campaign to see what their expectations are. DW is admittedly a very over-the-top game, but it never hurts to see what kind of fun they're hoping to get out of this: the game can just as easily be a silly over-the-top shoot-'em-up as a grimdark violent bloodfest or a politics-heavy cloak-and-dagger thing.
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I have minimal experience with running high-level campaigns, so I can't tell yet where does it stop being fun, but on the low end, above rank 2 or so a player already has access to enough nifty talents and wargear to be able to pull off some awesome things.
Challenge level is a whole different story, it has too many variables to give a 'one-size-fits-all' advice. The thing is, even Rank 1 characters (themselves already veterans in the narrative) are insanely powerful in the 40k setting, and if the players are new to 40k roleplaying, I'd definitely run a few adventures at rank 1 or 2 to familiarise everyone with the existing skillset of the characters. If you're worried about low-level combat balance, check the free adventure PDFs (Final Sanction, Oblivion's Edge) for a few ideas and enemy scaling: they are well-written, and while Oblivion's Edge is a bit pushing it (a handful of marines taking down a Hive Ship), Final Sanction proved to be absolutely absorbing for my new group at that time.
I don't know whether this answers your question, but specify further, and I'll gladly tell you what I know
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Glad to be of assistance. If you have any interesting developments, do share it here.
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To get an artificer armour, you need Signature Wargear (Hero). The talent's description doesn't say whether it needs to be a completely new one or an upgrade, although Signature Wargear (Master) specifically allows upgrades.
I'd say it's up to your interpretation as a GM - in my case a Techmarine's armour would definitely stay the same as he painstakingly reworks and upgrades his own suit, but not so much in a different Marine's case, where they usually get a relic off the shelf or altar, and not a re-work - just as Kamikazzijoe says. Note, however, that Rites of Battle explicitly allows the player to choose both the mark and the history of the Power Armour with the GM's blessing (RoB, pp. 152-153), so in your example your player might opt to take a different Mark VI suit with new histories, or even the same suit with one additional history rolled.
This should have a good in-universe reason, like the player did a favour to the Armamentarium, and the Master of the Forge owes him one so he upgrades the suit, or some Captain pulls some strings to get the same Mark for him from the armoury, but ultimately whether you choose to introduce the new item as a replacement or as an upgrade has nothing to do with RAW.
Terminator armour is a whole different beast - you can't get it as a Signature Wargear, as it costs 100 Req, so it's definitely rolling (or, again, choosing) something new.
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Hey, thanks for the information! The autism in me is not strong enough to start converting FW rules on something that inconsequential like this
No clue where might I have picked the idea up, because I'm not very well-versed in the HH books*, but my Techie is an avid reader of the series, so it's good to nail the little things too.
*it has something to do with knowing how it ends
it also takes away the mystery of some events which IMHO should stay mysterious, but that's a different debate alltogether -
We were having a discussion within the group the other day about Astartes shields following a particularly gruelling close quarter combat encounter, and after some checking, we were surprised to find that the supposedly abundant (or so I recall having read about it here and there in BL publications) boarding shield is missing from the DW books.
So the first question (mostly to TT players, I guess): Is it a retired 30k piece of equipment, or is it still in wide use in the 41st millenium?
If it's still available, how does it compare to the Combat and Storm Shields? The Lexicanum article (admittedly not the perfect source, but I didn't have time to pore over the Codices and FW publications) states it uses the same field generator as the Combat Shield, so it's weaker than the Storm Shield, but seeing equipped on the minis it appears to occupy one hand fully, so crunch-wise it would be inferior to both shields available in Core.
I have no problem fluffing out either a Combat or a Storm Shield as a Boarding Shield in my game, but if it is readily available and different from both, I want to house-rule something to have my players more freedom of choice. Also, my Techmarine is quite anal about these details, so all info would be greatly appreciated.
), it is one of the better-written mysteries of the whole 40k setting, with real psychological depth and conflicts. In turn, that is only possible because it's unclear who is right - was the Lion a traitor? A pragmatic opportunist? A loyalist saint? A psychologically broken figure, crippled by inner darkness and constant suspicion? Any and all is possible, that's why it's fascinating to read about or play out DA lore. Since there's no fixed event, no-one is right right, so one has to grab different handholds and really delve deep into the psyche of the character, be it Cypher, Asmodai, Sapphon or your own DW marine.
Corruption mechanics and the role of the Apothecaries
in Deathwatch Gamemasters
Posted
I've been wondering about the effect of racking up Corruption when under the spotlight of an Apothecary. The rules are not specifying any mechanical effect, and in theory Marines are resistant to outright major mutations until they reach the 100 Corruption cap. On the other hand, Apothecaries can specialise in reducing Corruption (the Guardian of Purity Special Ability), and the Red Scorpions Chapter, obsessed with biological and genetic purity, also have some abilities and Squad & Solo Modes working towards the same. Now the Librarian's similar abilities can be easily explained by the extraordinary mental resistance they supposedly possess, but the Apothecaries are focussing on the biology and genetics, so it's harder to handwave it away with Warp- and sorcery-related wibbly wobbly timey wimey mumbo-jumbo.
So I guess my questions are these:
According to fluff, the members of the Apothecarion (both PC and NPC) are routinely testing the Brothers for (genetic) purity. Is there any chance they might catch the scent of Corruption in Marines - perhaps somewhat similarly to the Mind Probe and Reading Psychic Powers? If yes, what might the limit of the probing be? And what for the narrative effects? For example, what happens to a Marine caught with some minor genetic level irregularities/mutations? Please note I'm not necessarily planning on homebrewing a comprehensive crunch guide for Corruption, I just want to a) keep my more corrupt players on their toes and b) allow my rather reserved Apothecary player a chance for greater immersion and understanding of his role.
I always felt that in Deathwatch - perhaps due to a lack of GW background detail - the Apothecaries are demoted from their Codex-approved authoritative and sacral role, on par with the Librarians or Chaplains, to a battlefield medic and part-time science guy. This is somewhat understandable: genetics is hard science after all, and a basic understanding of it is part of educational curricula in most parts of the world, so if GW or BL or anyone delves into too much detail on the topic, they quickly risk breaking the immersion and suspension of disbelief. It's just I find it slightly unfair to take away the majority of combat spotlight from the player and not giving much in other fields in return.
The finer details of the Apothecaries' role are also glossed over in BL publications - I can't recall any (loyalist, non-HH) novel where an Apothecary is the main hero, and the story revolves around his roles and responsibilities, save for one ancient short story, Apothecary's Honour from the Dark Imperium anthology, and that, too, is a relatively straightforward gene-seed extraction story (with a twist visible from miles). I like to compile reading lists for my players to improve immersion, and there are complete cycles about Librarians and Chaplains, but there's virtually no meaningful Apothecary presence. Does anyone here know about any useful GW/BL/other 40k material?
Also on a slightly related note: did you have any Apothecary as a player, who instead of going for the +1d5 in healing, rather picked the toxin-creating or purity-related special ability? How did it pan out?
For the sake of full disclosure, especially if someone from my group wanders here: I'm handing over the GM mantle to a guy in my group to have a couple of months off to rest (and of course plot) a bit, and as a player I'll bring a Red Scorpion Apothecary (Purest purity of the pure is pure! Catholic Space Nazies for the win!) and I plan to play it straight - my group is rather mature, generally willing to compromise, which is generally a good thing (outside 40k I mean), so I wanted to introduce a PC to be a thorn in their side in his unbridled hatred, limitless contempt, hardline stance and unrealistic expectations. That still means I'm looking for answers for my future campaigns - my current PC will be feasible as it is, but getting some info would provide some enhancement there too.
I hope this all was comprehensible. Sorry for the wall of text, but this line of thought bugs me for some time - all feedback would be greatly appreciated.