The book says "The Deathwatch Techmarine begins with Speak Language

The advancement tables intentionally contain doubles (in case someone enters the career without the basic training or sth like that).

Basically you can choose during your times whether you want to keep your parry/dodge in reserve or whether you want to spend it on a standard attack with the servo-arm. Very handy when fighting hordes because you normally have no parry/dodge there.

While there's a partial overlap, Auto-stabilized is better as ít allows you to do something besides burst firing (can't choose another attacking action though).

Alex

Ok thanks.

A couple other quick things.

1. Right now we are looking at 2 or 3 people playing regularly. Sometimes we might have a couple more. Mostly due to scheduling conflicts. Is that doable? Do we need an apothecary NPC? It would be me as a super tanky Tech maine and a dual wielding lightning claw assault marine.

2. Speaking of dual wielding. I know i read somewhere a talent combo that made it have no negatives to attack. I can't find it now tho. Did I dream that?

3. Can you use both the iron halo and a storm shield or would that just be silly?

1. 3 is very doable, as long as your GM understands that the level of action may need to be a little less. You won't typically shred hordes as fast as you would with a Devastator and that will require rebalancing horde opponents to not be too lethal and slow combat down too much.

An Apothecary NPC is not a bad idea. In fact it's one of the easiest roles to NPC because it doesn't majorly tread on PC toes the way a major damage-dealer or lore-monkey would. However, other Astartes can learn Medicae and even requisition Nartheciums (critical to maximizing heals). The Techmarine is in a great position to do well as a healer with his normally high Int. What you're missing out on is the +10/+20/Talented in Medicae (maybe useful, but the roll is usually very high without just due to the Narthe); Master Chirurgeon (probably will miss it but maybe not); the Apothecary special ability that allows for +1d5 healed (definitely will miss but not gamebreakingly so).

2. I *think* the best you can get is a -10 with Ambidextrous + TWW.

3. Fields don't stack. You use the best Field rating of all equipped Fields. That being said, the storm shield does provide a shield (+AP, Defensive) as well. I'm AFB but there's nothing wrong with having a Storm Shield for the parries and a Halo for a better Field rating (if it has a higher Field than the shield). The Halo is not a thing you can normally Requisition though, you have to earn it in game as a deed and it has a suggested Rank minimum.

1. Yes, it's very much doable. Space marines are very capable and very flexible. Also, I find the difference between a rank 1 Space Marine and a rank 4 Space Marine not that big. The only issue is introducing new PCs into a running mission but that's for the GM to figure out. An apothecary changes the game completely from the GM's perspective. It means that the kill-team will be more or less completely healed between combats. At least to a very fair degree. Which means he can push harder with intermediate battles. Without Apothecary he must be more careful to not take out players early. Although expending unused fate points for healing at the end of a session can help a lot.

2. There is Dual Shot/Strike but it's only of specialized use (against targets with high Toughness that you struggle to even wound otherwise). Other than that I can't think of anything.

3. You can only have one force field in effect at a time. So one would be the back up for the other in case of overload. Not really worth the Requisition points.

Alex

The book says "The Deathwatch Techmarine begins with Speak Language

(Techna-Lingua) and Tech-Use as Trained Advanced Skills."

So I start with tech-use as advanced. Does that mean my rank 1 Tech-use upgrade just gives me a +10 to the skill? What about the rank 3 and rank 5 Tech-use advances?

I guess my main point is what is the point of the rank 1 tech-use advance if I already have tech-use for being a techmarine.

Also I've read that the servo arm can be used to attack using the reaction. Does this mean during combat I can shoot, and attack with my servo arm but then I don't have a reaction? Or that I can parry and counter using my servo arm?

So as space marines we all have bulging biceps. Wouldn't that make becoming auto stabilized redundant?

Sorry if these questions come off as dumb. We have only ever played D&D before so this whole system is very foreign. Just want to get some stuff confirmed before we start playing.

Every skill in the game is either an Advanced skill, or a Basic skill.

Advanced skills MUST be trained to use. Without training in an Advanced skill a character can not attempt any test with that skill and will AUTOMATICALLY fail any test he is forced to take.

Basic skills MAY be used without training, but at 1/2 the character's characteristic associated with that skill. A character with 30 agi without Dodge trained can use the Dodge skill, but he tests at 15 rather than 30. You only divide the characteristic score, talented and difficulty bonuses are not halfed.

All skills must appear on the advance tables of all the specialities, even if the character already has access to them. It only makes sense. It also helps in the case the character forgets the skill (mind wipe gone wrong, stayed in stasis too long), if the character's skills were not available in an advance tree, they could NEVER regain them.

If you choose to burn your reaction to attack with your servo arm, you loose your reaction for that turn. Certain Talents give players additional reactions (such as Step Aside), you may still use these ADDITIONAL reactions granted by talents even if you burned your normal reaction for the attack. Despite using a reaction to perform, this attack is not a reaction to an attack. This ability and others like it (Furious Charge) merely use up your reaction to gain an additional attack, this attack must still be done during your turn.

You cannot make ranged attacks while engaged in melee, only combat actions with the melee subtype may be performed.

As others have stated:

Bulging Biceps = no need to brace

Auto Stabilized = no need to brace PLUS bonuses when firing full auto while moving

Ok thanks.

A couple other quick things.

1. Right now we are looking at 2 or 3 people playing regularly. Sometimes we might have a couple more. Mostly due to scheduling conflicts. Is that doable? Do we need an apothecary NPC? It would be me as a super tanky Tech maine and a dual wielding lightning claw assault marine.

2. Speaking of dual wielding. I know i read somewhere a talent combo that made it have no negatives to attack. I can't find it now tho. Did I dream that?

3. Can you use both the iron halo and a storm shield or would that just be silly?

1: It's really up to your GM. If he is capable of making appropriate challenges for that number of players, have at it.

2: The Talents (plural) you are looking for are Ambidextrous (all space marines have this) and Two Weapon Wielder (Melee). Unfortunately, while these talents give you 1 additional attack with the off-hand it only decreases the penalty to -10 on ALL attacks (main and off hand).

3: Force fields do not work together. A character may only benefit from a single force field. (A terminator suit's thick plate is an exception as the armor provides the same protection as a force field, but it is not one and therefore may be combined with an actual field and can never be turned off.)

As a side note I really hate how First Aid is summed up as a Full Action even outside of combat. Having access to consistent full heals between each combat encounter really reduced tension for both me and my players. IMO it should take longer.

Wow, Really guys thanks so much. I am really happy this game still has support. We've been big 40k fans for a while now and been playing D&D (and a little of the star wars rpg) for about 11 years now.

I really just didn't want to get off on the wrong foot. I can't wait to start playing. Thanks again for the support.