Die hard stops bleeding and space marines don't really bleed. All space marines get true grit.

Yet both of these traits are available to imperial fists and the liek on their chapter advances tables.

I'd like to throw as few house rules at my players as practical so as to reduce the amount of material that they have to deal with in the game.

Yet if a player were to choose to play a character from a chapter with these lame advances on their table, I'd like to give them some alternatives so they have less reason to be unhappy with their choice.

What would be some good alternatives.

Would an "even more gritty" trait that divded critical damage by 3 rather than by 2 be a good idea?

How about sound constitution (x3) for 100 xp each? (I think that sound constitution is absurdly overpriced in terms of xp for marines)

Any other thoughts?

Yes.

http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/69724-poor-crimson-fists-and-other-chapters/

http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/36655-crimson-fists-chapter-rules/

I'll update the download on the latter thread. It's pre-RoB, so not up-to-date but can serve as inspiration.

Alex

[EDIT] I should take the time to actually read. Give them Duty Unto Death instead, it's a bada** talent. I know I did in my house rules.

I can't find the page where it specifically says Imperial Fists chapter advances includes that. Can you page ref? All I can find is the one in RoB p49

Sound Cons IMO is reasonable. Deathwatch marines are already rather powerful anyway in their system what with the exceptional quality of power armour (compared especially to BC), the daft Unnatural Toughness x2 which scales, the large number of existing damage mitigation and cover rules plus the silly potency of Apothecary healing abilities and to cap it all off, 3-5 fate points. I disagree, it's perfectly reasonably priced. It means characters need to prioritise between taking useful skills/talents or stat upgrades or spend about the same on a wound or two.

You're right, this doesn't apply to the imperial fists, just to the Crimson fists. thanks

Sound Cons IMO is reasonable. Deathwatch marines are already rather powerful anyway in their system what with the exceptional quality of power armour (compared especially to BC), the daft Unnatural Toughness x2 which scales, the large number of existing damage mitigation and cover rules plus the silly potency of Apothecary healing abilities and to cap it all off, 3-5 fate points. I disagree, it's perfectly reasonably priced. It means characters need to prioritise between taking useful skills/talents or stat upgrades or spend about the same on a wound or two.

I do not share your opinion in this particular matter. It seems to me that no sane player is going to choose to take an additional one wound point instead of a useful skill/upgrade. The one wound doesn't add appreciably to either characterization or to utility. Thus there is no prioritization to be done, the matter is already settled. Your description of the resilience of the characters in the game seems entirely consistent with sound constitution being of very little benefit and therefore worth less to the character.

Not having it as an option at all would (in my opinion) be better than having it as a 500/1000xp option for players who aren't mechanically savvy to take foolishly. Your argument regarding how tough the PC's are and how undesirable increased survivability for the PC's seems to be even in line with this.

The way it has been setup points towards it more being made is that a marine is significantly tough already therefore to further augment their endurance to higher levels than that will requires significant investment in time and experience as the potential maximal levels off. Its as they say it's difficult to improve on perfection thus requiring one to put more time into that which they would put into combat doctrine.

I would also agree that sound constitution can easily be done away with entirely. In fact in all I've only ever had a few characters take it and that was because there were no other advances I felt would better suit the characters development and their intended combat style so it was more used as an XP bin to allow me to hit those XP spent levels for next rank.

Duty unto death does seem to match the theme implied by Die Hard and True Grit

Is 600xp appropriate? Did you only give them one additional option after realizing that two of the options on their list were irrelevant?