madMAEXX
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Posts posted by madMAEXX
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I don't know where it came from, but whenever my group needed to bluff their way into somewhere they always ringed, pushed the Kriegian Death Corps Soldier to the front and said they were "from accounting".
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As you stated, "Real Power Armour" isn't out yet, so you can't really say that "Light Power Armour" sucks in contrast, because you don't have something to compare it with. I would not advice comparing the DH2 Light Power Armour to the DH1 or other lines of the WH40k RPGs. Although many stats are similar they did make quite a few changes, that are bigger, the older the other system is. So RT to DH2 is a greater difference than OW to DH2.
I totally agree that the Eldar Power Sword sucks ass. Maybe give it the Accurate trait.
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My players drafted some of the wandering pilgrims and some PDF personnel on the spaceport to help in the fight with the Daemonhost. They acted as meatshields so the players could land some hits with a LongLas (A really scary weapon to single big boss encounters, doing a whopping 8-35 damage if hit with enough DoS). In the middle of the fight Halbrel appeared and started his binding ritual. One of my players got the good idea to shoot at the magic tome he was reciting from. I decided that the tome, being a powerful artifact, was indestructible, but it was flung out of Halbrels hands. The daemonhost from then on raced to get his claws on the book, because he wanted to destroy it. That gave the players time to target the daemonhost and Halbrel, who fought over the book, and take them both out. Halbrel survived because he is Touched by the Fate.
After the fight, more players got LongLas, because it is just so friggin good.
For the Herald of Nurgle, they realized pretty quickly, that they would be going up against some pretty powerfull foes and got help (the Sororitas Canoness from the core rule book). It held of the Herald for long enough that the players could shoot it to shreds with their LongLas. Because the Herald was not able to kill the Canoness it could only either move or make an attack. Therefore he couldn't even get out of the fight to kill some random mook and get the full range of options in the next fight, but was stuck in there.
In regards to both fights: Sanctified ammo would reduce the damage absorption of all three endbosses by an significant amount. And they are a finite ressource. Once they are shot, they are gone.
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That is actually a neat trick. I also like the use of Awareness for "standard" settings description. BUT
I think there are certainly situations in which it is not hard to guess for the PCs that their next Awareness roll is going to be about surprise. Like when they are sneaking through a decrepit tunnel in some forlorn part of the lowest levels of the main hive ...But nevertheless I think I will stick to your suggestions, the input is appreciated, thanks.
This trick also works in said tunnels. Crank up the suspense, than let them make an Awareness check. Then, like in a bad horror movie: BAMM! JUMPSCARE! In reality there was just a friggin rat, that jumped through the tunnel in front of them. The Arbiter will think twice to assume that a test is important (and thus spend a Fate Point), only because the setting might indicate something.
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A player in our round actually had a wooden leg implanted, because it had to go really fast. The Inquisitor promised to get a better leg as soon as they were back in the HQ. He kept the promise.
Lynata and Talon of Anathrax reacted to this -
Limb loss and other such severe critical results will still be a problem and may just require replacment characters or fudging of bionic replacement times. You could also perhaps allow the burning of fate to avoid an injury that would take them out of the campaign just like they could if they suffered a fatal blow. Just have them rendered unconsious and survive the fight and not suffer the long term effect of the critical hit.
Or just have a medic bolt on a low quality augmetic leg, because it's the only one available. Then inject him with stim and some healing chems to let him be active with the freshly implanted leg.
The doc/Inquisitor/AdMech promises to get him a better quality leg as soon as possible, but that may take some days.
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In the Lathe worlds book for 1st edition (page 33) there was something called praecursator grid:
Using scarcely understood devices from the Dark Age of Technology, the Lords Dragon [super secret boss cabal of calixian AdMech] establised an extensive monitoring network - the Praecursator Grid - across the Pondus system, using the space around their new home as a field test. If their system allowed observation without direct interference, then they knew that they could expand the grid to cover all the forge worlds that would eventually be built, and even some worlds outside the Mechanicus' sphere of authority.
On page 34, there is a description of what is possible with access to the grid:
If the Acolyte gains 3 or more DoS, he gains complete access to the Grid on that planet, and may look through any pict feed and access any archived data.
This implies to me that (at least forge worlds) have a cogitator network, that lets you access data from many places. This is a form of internet.
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Reading an obscure dialect, or containing uncommonly used words, or even damaged text/recording, can be handled the same way it's done now: Make a skill roll of the appropriate difficulty. Pass and it's understood, fail and it's not.
Someone who hasn't studied the language will have a harder time understanding it than someone who has. But if it's still in Low Gothic, I'm not willing to say that understanding is impossible. Just more difficult.
If the obscure dialect is so different that it's not Low Gothic, then someone who has studied Low Gothic will not be able to read it because it's not Low Gothic. If they still want to read it, they either need to have that specific language skill, or use trade (linguistics) to leverage their knowledge of languages in general. If it's similar to a language they know, then I'd have them make two rolls. First for the similar language. Each DOS on that roll gives a bonus to the trade roll.
No hard cutoff between "You can attempt to read this with a roll modifier of x" and "you don't get to roll the dice even if the guy with the Low Gothic skill would get +60".
I studied the german language at universtiy and that included middle high german. If you have not studied it, you may recognize words and think you got the gist of it, but most of the times, you would be wrong. Words change their meaning, grammar and spelling change considerably and you got a whole lot of false friends in there. Without a good dictionary you are f***ed up most of the times. Add that to the difficulty of reading the texts from that time at all (the letters look a whole lot of different) and you got a really good mess. It has a reason why everyone who studies it has to take a language course.
And to the middle ages it is just 800 years. Thats a lot shorter than the time spans in wh40k.
Try your luck with Old high german without studying it. No chance!
The same applies to the forefathers of modern english as well.
As middle high german is part of the genesis of the language you can assume that it would be part of the Linguistics (German) skill.
The GM might (if the circumstances fit) allow you to test Intelligence with the untrained modifier (+ a big malus imho) to understand some strange dialect, but if you studied Low Gothic you can reverse engineer the changes in language and deconstruct a dialect someone who speaks Low Gothic as native tongue can't even try to understand (= roll Linguistics with a lot smaller malus).
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You repeat what's in the rulebook without saying why FFG chose to make that distinction at the cost of losing the distinction between characters who can speak low gothic and characters who can not speak it at all.
I can only assume that FFG did it for convenience. It is assumed everyone can speak it, so that a group of Acolytes hailing from different backgrounds can communicate with each other. But nothing hinders you to play a Character that is not fluent with Low Gothic. And of course there is nothing that speaks against (I'd even say it is likely) NPCs that don't speak Low Gothic or have only a little fluency in it.
And you lose a rule for distinction of a char who can or cannot speak Low Gothic, but you get a rule to differenciate someone who speaks it from someone who has studied it. I like it better the way it is, because you don't need a rule to say someone just doesn't speak a language, but you might need a rule to see if someone can identify a text written in some obscure dialect.
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What I don't get is why FFG went with this convoluted method. What was wrong with DH1s method of giving everyone low gothic during character creation ?
Everyone knows how to speak Low Gothic at character creation. It's just that Linguistics (Low Gothic) is used for the finer details of the language. It's like in reality: Everyone knows their native tongue, but not everyone knows the history of the language, has studied it or is a poet. Speaking Low Gothic and having Linguistics (Low Gothic) is like heating a pre-made burger in the microwave and cooking a five-star dinner: Both can be eaten, but one is far more advanced.
It could make sense, though, if the game wants to push a difference between just understanding Low Gothic, and using it as a basis for translations. In other words, you have to specifically buy the Skill if you want to try and understand other languages (= being allowed to roll a Test) as opposed to just talking with your own people. Then, if you successfully mastered the other language too (= purchased it as another Skill for XP), you can use it without rolling the dice.
I would totally agree with this. It is much easier to learn new language, if you studied one before and know how languages function on a basic level. That's what Linguists learn. To apply this knowledge to some other form of communication lets you make educated guesses, which really helps.
As for using it without rolling the dice: I'd say that just speaking a language that is not entirely alien (that is: it is based on the human mind and therefor understandable concepts) is manageable without dice rolls, as soon as the GM decides that you are fluently enough for the concept that you try to communicate. "Hello my name is ...", "I'm thirsty", "Give me a beer, please" are easy sentences even a beginning learner can put together.
By the way High Gothic in my opinion is Terran Gothic. So psykers knows it, but as their "background" language, as well as homeworld one.
I always thought of it as Low Gothic being my native tongue and High Gothic being classical latin.
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Everyone knows Low Gothic. If you come from a home world that has a different language, you know this as well. As a noble you can speak High Gothic, as a feral worlder you know the cant of your homeworld, which is most likely based on Low Gothic, so everyone who knows Low Gothic well enough (= you have the Linguistics(Low Gothic) skill) is able to roll with an appropriate modifier. If you don't have the skill you are not versed enough in the language to speak variations that o beyond a dialect.
To be able to learn new languages to speak, I'd say you need some kind of tutor (a person, cogitator, dictionary, ...) and time. If you invest that I'd say that, as long as it is no complete alien language, you can speak it. If you want to be really good in it (to write literature, speak to the unwashed masses, etc.) you need to buy the Linguistics skill.
If you want to learn a completely alien language (Eldar, Ork, Tau, etc.) you need to have a tutor and I'd say you need to buy the Linguistics skill.
Talon of Anathrax reacted to this -
Watch as your players shred through all of your carefully-wrought encounters, and laugh maniacally as they moan when you do it against them.
They have to get into melee range first. If they get that close without encountering barrages of lead or las, they are either very clever (and deserve the easy win) you did something wrong as a GM.
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I also make the encounter fitting to the setting of the mission. And I design missions my players can win.
This.
But also: If the players act really stupid and get themself into trouble, they couldn't realisticly survive: Give them a possibility to get out, but if they don't take it, kill them!
Talon of Anathrax reacted to this -
I somewhere read that there was a heretical faction within the Inquisition (I think it was called Ordo Hydra, or something like that) that tried to link a giant portion of humanites souls with a warp active virus to create one big psychic entity, then sacrifice them to create a Chaos god of humanity, which in turn (they hoped) would fight the other chaos gods.
As far as I know it stems from some novel (which I haven't read, so someone more knowledgeable than me could enlighten us).
A similar process might be able so severly weaken a chaos god. Use a warp active virus to eradicate (or supress) the desire/wrath/fear of death/ambition in the souls of humanity and the corresponding Chaos God would suffer a big loss of power. Wich in turn could lead to the other three ganging up on it.
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I would go with Nurgle as the most dangerous. Death and more importantly Decay are his domain. Not only on a personal level, but as concepts. That is the reason why the Ascellon sector is of so much of interest to him (stated somewhere in the book, also expressed in the fact that the daemons in the Corerulebook are all his). But it's not only the Ascellon sectoer: The whole Imperium is in a constant state of Decay, slowly sliding towards the inevitable collaps.
So while Khorne thrives on the wars constantly fought in the Imperium, Tzeentch strives on the schemes inside the different Adeptus, Slanesh strives on the decadent and perverted noble, Nurgle strives on every aspect of that, because they are all expressions of the same fact: The imperium is doomed to slow and crawling death.
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If they ignored all the clues and just left after the ships with the tithe are on their way, just drop hints of the tainted food (Novabella food packages, shipping papers, etc.) with the cults / mutant uprisings / chaos incursions they encounter in later adventures. If they make the connection: good for them, if not: just escalate it further until they notice.
A whole IG regiment turning to chaos worship after getting a big shipment of Novabella food is not easy to miss.
Talon of Anathrax reacted to this -
I would always try to play the NPCs realisticly. It is absolutly realistic that a group of Acolytes would murder the crap out of a small group of poorly armed gangers. If the players encounter such a situation I would always let them win easily. But as stated above, if they feel invincible after a few encounters like this, let the enemy be prepared. Set an ambush, use Autoguns for Pinning fire. Let the enemy set up a heavy stubber. Organised cults can easily aquire one or two sniper rifles / long las. Use them.
My favorite tactic for organised opponents (I like to use: 11 cultists with Autoguns, 2 with Sniperrifles, 2 with 1 heavy stubber):
Try to surprise them. In the surprise round. Snipe one or two players (the ones that look most threatening) and pepper the area around them with full auto fire (forcing them to roll WP-20 or jump into hiding). After that, let 1/3 of the enemies fire every round (so the roll to snap out of Pinning is still hard), 1/3 (including the snipers and the heavy stubber) use overwatch to kill the crap out of every player who carelessly returns fire and 1/3 of the enemies try to flank the PCs (through their surperiour knowledge of the place) to drop some grenades (firebombs are incredibly easy to get) or just shoot them to death from behind.
Of course the enemy stays in cover, maybe they even brought some reinforced crates along (AP 7 plus the armor of the cultist of 3, and the toughness of 3 equals AP 13 for the cultists).
Also of course the cultist try to ambush the players in an area where the PCs have no to almost none cover. Don't forget that cover degrades.
That tactic can easily wipe out starting characters and is easily adaptable for stronger Chars by giving the cultists better weapons, armor, ammo and BS.
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Of course everybody can read the GM section. It's just that (as in most horror themed games) it is more fun to encounter the horror without knowing everything about it.
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Don't forget that Krak Grenades get Vengeful (9) against vehicles. It's not that much, but it adds that little chance of doing critical damage.
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Yes, Accurate is powerfull, but (as said) only against single targets. I never had a problem with it, because as a GM I tend to run not only a single enemy, but many smaller ones. Even the Big Bad Boss Guy still has helpers and underlings (with autoguns/lasguns/equivalent) around, who really threaten snipers.
If the sniper wants the benefit of Accurate he can't do anything else in that round (aim: half action / shoot: half action). The goons with the autogun can shoot and move (Try to flank the sniper / Move out of Sight and get closer / etc.). They can force him to make Pinning tests. And they can target more than one PC with Pinning (or even damage if the they are too close to each other), while the sniper can only target one enemy at a time.
Gridash and Talon of Anathrax reacted to this -
You could go with the faith route and make him a pilgrim on the road to the eternal salvation in the light of the Emporer (or whatever He is called on Novabella) and use his status as an Acolyte to travel from shrine to shrine in a pilgrimage. Or you could go for a more introspective role and he wants to gather knowledge of the creed from all over the universe to write a complete history of the Most Holy of Terra (pure insanity, but he might not know that).
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As a GM I asked the group wether they wanted to roll or buy the stats. They decided to roll them. When the dice rolls didn't mesh with the character concept the player had, I allowed him to switch two (max. 3) values around, so it would make sense. For example, I allowed the Feral World - Warrior character to switch WS (which was really bad) with FEL (which was really good), because it fitted his character concept of the space barbarian.
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In Enemies Within, under the Forge World (Binary something something, I don't have the book with me) there is a power hand axe, that is one handed and can even be thrown with a 5m base range. It is in the profile of the Ebon Sentinels, but can easily be adapted for PC use.
Talon of Anathrax reacted to this
I think there are certainly situations in which it is not hard to guess for the PCs that their next Awareness roll is going to be about surprise. Like when they are sneaking through a decrepit tunnel in some forlorn part of the lowest levels of the main hive ...
German Players for roll20 Campaign wanted
in Dark Heresy Play By Mail/Email
Posted · Edited by madMAEXX
Hi there,
a friend and I plan to start a roll20 campaign and we are looking for players. Since we are both native german speakers we want to play in said language.
I will be the GM (first time using roll20, so it could be a bit clunky at first, but I'm confindent that I will sort out any problems that might arise).
It will be set in the Askellon sektor using all official books (Core, the 3 Ordos, Forgotten Gods, GM-Screen, Errata). Until now I don't plan to use house rules, but I'm open to discussion on that topic.
We have 1 slot left.
If anyone is interested, PM me and we can talk the details.
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Hallo zusammen,
ein Freund und ich planen eine roll20 Kampagne und wir suchen nach Spielern. Wir sind beide deutsch Muttersprachler, daher wollen wir auch auf Deutsch spielen.
Ich werde Spielleiten (zum ersten Mal mit roll20, also könnte es am Anfang etwas holprig werden, aber ich bin zuversichtlich, dass ich alle Probleme, die auftreten werden, lösen kann).
Die Kampagne wird im Askellon sektor angesiedelt sein und alle offiziellen Bücher verwenden (Grundregelwerk, die 3 Ordo Bücher, Forgotten Gods, Spielleiterschirm, Errata). Bis jetzt plane ich keine Hausregeln zu verwenden, aber da bin ich für Diskussionen durchaus offen.
Wir haben noch 1 Platz frei.
Wenn jemand interesse hat, PM an mich und wir reden über die Einzelheiten.