I would like to lower the renown threshold for Respected. Initiated takes too long as it is really only fitting for the very fresh DW members, while Respected, which gives access to some of the still common Astartes items, could last a bit longer instead.
I am unsure, however, whether to simply drop it to 15 or whether to drop it to 10 and Distinguished to 35.
Thoughts?
Alex
I use an other solution for the renown : I keep the actual threshold, but I scale the renown based on the rank of the PC. Like, when you're an Initiate, you'll earn renown pretty fast because the Deathwatch doesn't know your capabilities yet (even if they recruit you because you're a good xenos hunter) and you have to prove yourself. Whereas when you're a Distinguished member of the Deathwatch, you're known to be a great xenos hunter and all the stuff, so you will have to be even more epic to gain renown, like :
Initiate : Yay, killed a Tyranid Warrior yesterday !
Captain : Good job, newbie !
Distinguished : Yeah, I killed one too yesterday.
Captain : Yeah ... but you already killed 12 for the last two weeks.
If I simply adjust the ranges, I don't have to modify each renown reward according to renown rank. Instead, the scaling is implicit in the ranges, therefore defeating enemy X will always give the same reward for all players. I think it's better this way.
I just wonder what you guys would consider appropriate ranges.
Alex
I use an other solution for the renown : I keep the actual threshold, but I scale the renown based on the rank of the PC. Like, when you're an Initiate, you'll earn renown pretty fast because the Deathwatch doesn't know your capabilities yet (even if they recruit you because you're a good xenos hunter) and you have to prove yourself. Whereas when you're a Distinguished member of the Deathwatch, you're known to be a great xenos hunter and all the stuff, so you will have to be even more epic to gain renown, like :
Initiate : Yay, killed a Tyranid Warrior yesterday !
Captain : Good job, newbie !
Distinguished : Yeah, I killed one too yesterday.
Captain : Yeah ... but you already killed 12 for the last two weeks.
Don't forget renowned characters kill renowned foes
The initiate can be proud of killing a couple Tyranid Warriors, while the Captain can pride better kills like a CARNIFEX
missions foes scale with party experience, after all
To clarify: I think it's easier to assign 5 renown to killing the Dagon Overlord and have an Initiate need 15 to reach the next rank, a Respected 20 and a Distinguished 25 than having to decide ad hoc: oh, you get 4 renown, you got 5 renown, and you get 6 renown. Progression is best built into the table.
Nobody with any thoughts on my initial question? So does that mean... it does not make much difference?
Alex
The primary reason for renown thresholds is, I think, to scale the available equipment and challange . So I think it does indeed not make much of a difference. It only restricts the items the Kill-Team can use and how challenging different enemies will be. So I see no problem with lowering the threshold, even to ten, because you as GM designs the encounter. But I only have experience with a Play-by-Post Deathwatch Round and there I was rather generous with xp and renown, because the round is rather slow in comparison with real role playing group at the table. But I think it would work out rather nicely and the Initiate phase is rather long. Even after the two missions Final Sanction and Oblivion's Edge, a Kill-Team would only be halfway through and I think that is a rather long time. From this assessment I would lower it two 10, which would be two missions, and the next one to 35 sounds ok to me.
KT in my experience are supposed to earn between 3 and 5 Renown per mission, judging by pregen missions. So it takes forever to get some specialist weapons. On the other hand, the traditional Deathwatch gear of Bolters with special ammo should be taken for a while. So I decided to drop to 16.
However, then I started to think. I would like to enable players to give more smaller renown rewards. For killing a horde leader or whatever. Part of that is that I think Ross Watson did a great job of modeling the 'coming together as a brotherhood' aspect. But at the same time there is fierce competition about who is the greatest, which is the greatest chapter. So i want my players to constantly compete for renown against each other, while mastering missions/enemies together. This conflict is part of what makes DW so interesting.
So, in order to improve granularity, I suggest multiplying renown and renown requirements by 10. Which means that my Renown requirements for Respected would become a 160.
To compensate for granting additional multiple little reward renown one could stretch out renown ranks and make hero be renown 100/1000. If one does not use the renown usage rules from RoB, that's unproblematic. Alternatively use a fixed value per renown rank (suggestions in brackets).
0-150 Uninitiated (40)
151-400 Respected (50)
401-650 Distinguished (60)
651-999 Famed (70)
1000+ Hero (80)
It also makes for a nice goal... trying to reach Renown 1,000.
Alex
The basic question is how powerful do you want your players to be and when?
Instead of playing with the scales, you could just load in a few secondary objectives that are relatively short to play through giving them the early boost.
You can always Santa Clause them with renown, or they can do it themselves with oath of glory plus no helmet.
For an alternate take, the greyknights threw out renown entirely and just made gear available per rank. That sets a steady progression (if a bit exponential) power growth for the characters over time.