You're not wrong, but the problem with that is now you're just making stuff up to make life difficult for your players, and I think that kinda defeats the purpose of the game. Challenging the players in Deathwatch is very hard. Last time we played we fought a room full of Kanz and Deffdreadz, and hardly broke a sweat. Then we went and fought a small army of Mega Armoured Nobz lead by a Warboss riding a Squiggoth. Came out of that no issue problem.

The only two times where we've had things go badly for us is when we had a round from hell (my gun jammed, followed by two major Perils resulting in one Psyker vanishing whilst the other one summoned a Nurglesque Daemon Prince that stomped him in HTH combat), or when one of the players (usually the same player) insists on taking something huge on with just his knife (he took on a Hammerhead, one with my Meltabombs already strapped to it, and the bombs blew him to pieces, or when he took on three crisis suits with his knife... and got blown to pieces).

And it's the same against other Marines as well. We played through the adventure from the last DW book - Emperor's Chosen or whatever it was, the one with the really complicated heroic legacies. Came up against that bunker with the Chaos Marines led by the Champion in Terminator armour. No problem at all. 4 Marines, out numbered by Chaos Marines and a guy in Termy Armour, and they walked over them. It was only slightly more ridiculous than the swam of Raveners that they took on before that that crumbled before the Kill-Team because they couldn't Dodge the Marine attacks, couldn't hit the Marines 'cause they kept Dodging, or couldn't do any damage 'cause they didn't hit hard enough (Scything Talons are a useless weapon).

I even remember a session where my Black Templar Sword Brother took on and defeated a Keeper of Secrets 1-on-1 because I had Counter-Attack, could Parry on over 100, and wanted the Keeper to attack me because every time it did I did more damage to it because you can't Dodge on your own turn, meaning the Keeper had no way to stop my Counter-Attack.

Some of it comes down to needing fail conditions for non-shooting Tests. Right now shooting fails on a 96+ (or worse for some high-ROF weapons). Melee combat has no such problem. Neither does Dodge/Parry. If you dropped your weapon/fell over/took half-damage from a 96+ melee swing/Dodge/Parry, then there'd be some extra challenge in there. Right now a natural 100 on a melee attack means nothing other than "I missed" . It should mean more than that.

BYE

See, the fact that to make it difficult you need to simulate a Daemonic Infestation tells me that the game is too easy. You put a Kill-Team up against the various encounters from the adventure books and they breeze through them, and that's after the weapon errata. If you have to send 40 Plaguebearers at the players to give them a challenge... well... then that's a problem.

BYE

Too easy compared to what standard? The worn-out "You are a bunch of 20 year-old, broke dudes meeting in a tavern, ready to go adventuring"? Also the 40 Plaguebearers were not meant as a challenge. They were meant as an unambigious signal to the KT: you cannot win this, you better don't try. Just withdraw. It worked.

I don't disagree. I'm having fun with DW now , with my players in the lower Ranks, but I really have no idea what I will throw at them when they hit the upper Ranks. Yes, anyone can cook up one challenging encounter ("Nurgle-corrupted Titan!"), but I'm talking about session after session- how can you maintain an ongoing narrative at extreme power level...?

Sounds slightly exaggerated. A single Tyranid Warrior in melee will be a challenge to anyone but an Assault Marine or Librarian even at higher ranks. Now how to get the Nid Warrior there? That's the problem for the Hive Mind to solve. And if you want a ranged challenge, bring chaos tanks.

In short, the 40K codices are full with stuff to throw at players. DW GMs just need to break out of the D&D mindset and treat a DW kill-team for what it is: a small 40K army.

And it's the same against other Marines as well. We played through the adventure from the last DW book - Emperor's Chosen or whatever it was, the one with the really complicated heroic legacies. Came up against that bunker with the Chaos Marines led by the Champion in Terminator armour. No problem at all. 4 Marines, out numbered by Chaos Marines and a guy in Termy Armour, and they walked over them.

Once players hit Respected, a single Terminator is not a huge threat. Melta takes care of him as easily or even easier than a normal marine. What weapons did the Chaos Marines have? Bolters? Because 8 Chaos Marines with Melta/Plasma are bad news unless the KT is decked in Storm Shields.

I even remember a session where my Black Templar Sword Brother took on and defeated a Keeper of Secrets 1-on-1 because I had Counter-Attack, could Parry on over 100, and wanted the Keeper to attack me because every time it did I did more damage to it because you can't Dodge on your own turn, meaning the Keeper had no way to stop my Counter-Attack.

Why does your GM allow for more than one Counter-attack per turn? I know I don't, for the sake of game balance. Also, the KoS has Wall of Steel and Counter-attack himself. So why does your PC live against 2d10+18 Pen 8 Warp Weapon and 180 Wounds? Also the Aura of the KoS gives you -20. Sounds like you have been fighting a weak homebrewn one.

Alex

You're not wrong, but the problem with that is now you're just making stuff up to make life difficult for your players, and I think that kinda defeats the purpose of the game. Challenging the players in Deathwatch is very hard. Last time we played we fought a room full of Kanz and Deffdreadz, and hardly broke a sweat. Then we went and fought a small army of Mega Armoured Nobz lead by a Warboss riding a Squiggoth. Came out of that no issue problem.

The only two times where we've had things go badly for us is when we had a round from hell (my gun jammed, followed by two major Perils resulting in one Psyker vanishing whilst the other one summoned a Nurglesque Daemon Prince that stomped him in HTH combat), or when one of the players (usually the same player) insists on taking something huge on with just his knife (he took on a Hammerhead, one with my Meltabombs already strapped to it, and the bombs blew him to pieces, or when he took on three crisis suits with his knife... and got blown to pieces).

And it's the same against other Marines as well. We played through the adventure from the last DW book - Emperor's Chosen or whatever it was, the one with the really complicated heroic legacies. Came up against that bunker with the Chaos Marines led by the Champion in Terminator armour. No problem at all. 4 Marines, out numbered by Chaos Marines and a guy in Termy Armour, and they walked over them. It was only slightly more ridiculous than the swam of Raveners that they took on before that that crumbled before the Kill-Team because they couldn't Dodge the Marine attacks, couldn't hit the Marines 'cause they kept Dodging, or couldn't do any damage 'cause they didn't hit hard enough (Scything Talons are a useless weapon).

I even remember a session where my Black Templar Sword Brother took on and defeated a Keeper of Secrets 1-on-1 because I had Counter-Attack, could Parry on over 100, and wanted the Keeper to attack me because every time it did I did more damage to it because you can't Dodge on your own turn, meaning the Keeper had no way to stop my Counter-Attack.

Some of it comes down to needing fail conditions for non-shooting Tests. Right now shooting fails on a 96+ (or worse for some high-ROF weapons). Melee combat has no such problem. Neither does Dodge/Parry. If you dropped your weapon/fell over/took half-damage from a 96+ melee swing/Dodge/Parry, then there'd be some extra challenge in there. Right now a natural 100 on a melee attack means nothing other than "I missed" . It should mean more than that.

BYE

I'm really glad that you're posting on the forums again. I missed your contributions.

Too easy compared to what standard? The worn-out "You are a bunch of 20 year-old, broke dudes meeting in a tavern, ready to go adventuring"? Also the 40 Plaguebearers were not meant as a challenge. They were meant as an unambigious signal to the KT: you cannot win this, you better don't try. Just withdraw. It worked.

Once players hit Respected, a single Terminator is not a huge threat. Melta takes care of him as easily or even easier than a normal marine. What weapons did the Chaos Marines have? Bolters? Because 8 Chaos Marines with Melta/Plasma are bad news unless the KT is decked in Storm Shields.

Why does your GM allow for more than one Counter-attack per turn? I know I don't, for the sake of game balance. Also, the KoS has Wall of Steel and Counter-attack himself. So why does your PC live against 2d10+18 Pen 8 Warp Weapon and 180 Wounds? Also the Aura of the KoS gives you -20. Sounds like you have been fighting a weak homebrewn one.

From the top:

1. Then it wasn't a fight. It was purposefully meant to be a no-win situation that they'd run away from rather than fight. Not exactly a good example of giving the players a challenge. I've done that to my players as well - we probably all have - present an overwhelming situation that they cannot hope to win as a narrative way of saying "Time to run guys!" . It's not exactly a good way of representing or demonstrating how the rules work in structured time combat.

2. They were the adversaries straight from the adventure, so 8 Chaos Marines w/Bolters, 1 Chaos Marine w/Heavy Bolter and 1 Champ in Termy Armour w/Heavy Flamer & Lightning Claw. 4 KT Marines walked over them. They then later walked through twelve more Marines, four of which had Heavy Flamers. This is after earlier killing 12 Raveners without breaking a sweat.

3. Why wouldn't you get more than one counter-attack a turn? It happens when you Parry, Wall of Steel gives you two Parries. Furthermore who cares what damage the KoS does when he can't hit the Marine in the first place (Wall of Steel + Step Aside). And the KoS can't Parry, because his sword is Unwieldy and his Claws are Natural Weapons, and you can't parry with those. And the -20 from the Aura gets cancelled out by the KoS's size.

BYE

Furthermore who cares what damage the KoS does when he can't hit the Marine in the first place (Wall of Steel + Step Aside). And the KoS can't Parry, because his sword is Unwieldy and his Claws are Natural Weapons, and you can't parry with those. And the -20 from the Aura gets cancelled out by the KoS's size.

LOL. Being a KoS is suffering .

1. I didn't think I was supposed to give a fair challenge. You said the game was too easy, it doesn't make sense to me because external party balance is secondary as the GM can always ramp up the difficulty (example: 40 Plaguebearers versus a Rank 2 Kill-Team, an encounter that took place on the ship of a Daemon Prince), up to omniscient/omnipotent enemies. It's only relevant as far as it can mess with the power level he would like to have for the stories he wants to tell.

2. Yeah, as suspected. The weaponry is inadequate to seriously challenge a decked-out Kill-team. It's more than a challenge for a Rank 1 KT with Initiated renown. Because Boltguns with Kraken rounds won't be too scary in return either. Once the players get their hands on melta and plasma and power weapons (and force fields), the equation changes totally. Chaos Marine NPCs must have better gear to pose a serious challenge (look at Chosen gear). Or come in larger numbers. But in general the impact of gear is underestimated by a number of DW GMs. (Also, it's a good thing that gear is important, as it gives importance to Renown.)

3. Ah, yeah. **** talents/rules-bloat, I think I wouldn't have seen this in-game either. I can't be bothered to take a time-out and study every NPC's abilities for 5 minutes to make sure I really don't overlook anything. I am a bit surprised the Etherblade has been modeled as Unwieldy too; doesn't look that cumbersome in many depictations. Still, the KoS can safely hit you with his weapon, thanks to Feint. Defending against that will get you the -20 WS without an offset for size.

Anyway, the situation you described is exactly why Counter-attack should be limited to one per turn. Especially with things such as Stalwart Defence or Tactical Spacing (which needs to be eliminated or completely revamped in any case). The talent was apparently designed when parries per turn were limited to one or two. In DW, this breaks down which means reinstating a hard limit is a meaningful house rule.

Alex

This thread is really perplexing. Why is a guy who came in spouting ignorant nonsense and then admitted to not knowing what he was talking about getting the kid gloves? This guy should be laughed at mercilessly for posting such a crappy post.

Secondly, your rage about D&D 4 and the changes in your hobby are good. Use that anger. But you can't just "Hulk SMASH!" every game company when they come out with a new edition or change things up. Not all changes are bad, and not all changes are made to screw the consumer. Just because one company does it, doesn't mean every company does. You have to individually examine each situation. And you hadn't here. You just reacted from the gut and went all Wolverine on FFG without taking some time. You could've come on here and asked and wondered about the exact same things as above without getting all angry and whatnot.

Nice subtle inference that D&D 4E was a cash grab and not an in-earnest attempt at making a better version of the game. Got any internal WotC corporate memos you can share about how to maximally bilk gamers out of their money with a game designed to screw the consumer?

I can see that inference. My bad. I am not mad at WotC making 4E as a cash grab. In fact, when I talk about cash grabs and gaming companies I'm usually talking about GW. Not that anyone here would know that, since I'm new.

My references to cash grabs was simply because OP was referencing DH2E as a cash grab without any real data, just an assumption.

My problem with 4E, personally, is that it radically changed the game in an attempt to be like WoW. WoW is good. D&D is good. They are both good for very different reasons because they are on very different platforms (paper v. computer). D&D Next is a lot better specifically because they are making it more like the original P&P, at least from the beta I played.

I'm using a fairly modified DW system with some rules form Only War to tone down the insanity of the power level. It's helped a lot, but I would definitely appreciate a second edition asap.

I had my players in the early game killing heavy vehicles with nothing but bolters and their insane critical hit ratio. I'm limiting it to one crit a round and + 1d5 damage and it's helped tone down the stupidity.

It was getting hard to GM a fight because it would take HOURS of real time to have a fight large enough to challenge them in the default rules. So I had to fix the rules, to which end I get no end to the sheer amount of bitching.

Second edition now plox.

You're using errata 1.1, right? Because there is no way you can significantly damage heavy vehicles with Bolters under 1.1.

Alex

You're using errata 1.1, right? Because there is no way you can significantly damage heavy vehicles with Bolters under 1.1.

Alex

This was before the errata.

FWIW, Righteous Fury in the second edition is a lot more fun and less ridiculous. Instead of adding an extra dice of damage if you succeed on a new hit roll, you automatically inflict a Critical Damage result equal to the roll on 1d5. This doesn't cause any extra damage, but it makes Righteous Fury a whole lot more exciting and can seriously incapacitate someone if you roll well. I much prefer it to the old "whoops, I did 40 damage with my lasgun" method.

It also means that a group of PCs tend to walk out of combat with at least one injury that has a narrative effect, not just "oh, I lost wounds".

All the more so with higher level, well armoured characters - we had a magos as part of our DH party, and several house guardsmen opened up on her on fully automatic with autoguns - doing nothing, aside from one damage roll of a '10' (mechanicus-wrought powered armour and all the augmetic upgrades going) - which did one wound, which turned out to have taken the augmetic little finger off her right hand.

It makes even super-duper armoured characters vulnerable to the odd glancing wound (because anyone can do it) but prevents the aforementioned Hellfire-shell-super-righteous-fury-cascade where you one-shot a tyranid warrior or something....

I know this topic has been covered before, and naysayers are ruthlessly criticized by FFG loyalists but I have something to say and then I will give FFG one final one finger salute.

People say the new rules are better, that may be true but it is a matter of opinion. I don't think they are better but they are different. They certainly rely more on miniatures and a whole assortment of accessories which I am sure FFG will be more than happy to sell to us. As a matter of fact I am positive that this is the whole reason for the second edition.

THEY PULLED THE SAME STUNT WITH WARHAMMER FANTASY!

I love the war hammer universe, both the fantasy and 40K, but I am done being fleeced for my cash by FFG.

I let them get away with their cheesy behavior when they released all the 40k rpg's as separate books when it should have been one unified rule system for all the lines: DH, RT, OW, DW, etc, but the books were so well done and I love the setting so much I let it slide.

NOT THIS TIME!

Wizards of the Coast pulled the same stunt with D&D 4th edition, and their fan base is still punishing them for it.

FFG, you have betrayed the trust of your customers all to make a buck. There is only one price for betrayal, and that is...HAH! Scared you didn't I? I will not give you the same punishment that the emperor visits upon traitors, but for a money grubbing business it is almost as bad...I wont be handing you my money anymore. Perhaps enough other people will have the sense to do the same as me. Then your company will die the slow death of all businesses that make huge mistakes.

I am done with you.

Number 1) I'd like to invoce poe's law. I don't know if you're just trolling or being sincere, that's how bad fanboyism outrage has become.

Number 2) To a certain degree you're right, quality of rules are a matter of opinion. And just because some is better doesn't mean all of it is, so it's hard to say since you never specify anything about which rules you have issues with. But DH one has a few fundemental issues that are difficult to get around. Such as rightous fury theoretically allowing you to oneshot a daemon prince with a laspistol. The "new" RF gives you alot more flavour in combat and can make sweeping changes to the flow of battle.

Or how full auto is flat out better then semi, and singelshot is mostly only worth it if its accurate. Semi is never used.

Income disparity becomes a huge issue as the scum will have to take up RP time in order to do scullduggery and keep up moneywise.

Your careers are rather pidgeonholed, you're an arbite, you're a guardsman. In the new system you can be a bountyhunter, arbite, guardsman, feral warrior, hive ganger, torpedo or whatever you want with alot looser. You can in DH1 as well, of course, with homebrew but if we're going to talk that then why rate the offical rules at all?

DH2 has alot of new and fun systems to use, like a personality system giving intimidate, charm and persuade a ruleset players can follow. Maybe it's just my group, because I give all NPC's a personality and give hidden modifiers based on that without telling them, but them knowing there's a system behind it and being able to read up on it makes them invest more time in conversations, trying to figure out the best angle to use.

Subtletly as well, do you want to go guns blazing or leave without anyone knowing the inquistion was there? Heck, you can even spend influence to "buy" NPC assistance for when you find a chaos cult and although I'll gladly admit the influence system has...issues, but for this i feel it works fine and lets even the most bookworm'ish character to contribute when the bullets start flying.

And best of all? These systems are entirely optional. But with better combat rules, better rules for dialogue, rules for vehicle combat, a more open character creation and character progression rules I'm pretty happy. And I can still use pretty much all the GM DH stuff with minor changes.

My major beef with the system is the increased power level and the problems inherent with the influence system. But all in all I'm happy with the system. If it's not for you then that's your decision but you're not adding anything to the conversation. You're not mentioning rules you have problems with and propose changes, you're just ranting.

Number 1) I'd like to invoce poe's law. I don't know if you're just trolling or being sincere, that's how bad fanboyism outrage has become.

Maybe next time try reading the thread.

Whops, this is what happens when one gets bored during lunch break. Terribly sorry!

I would like to see a move to make DH,BC,DW,RT and OW use the same system so that the cross over of both bad folks and PC is very seamless. That way I can take my Grey Knight to any of the systems and work or any other combo.

I would like to see a move to make DH,BC,DW,RT and OW use the same system so that the cross over of both bad folks and PC is very seamless. That way I can take my Grey Knight to any of the systems and work or any other combo.

Well, the aptitudes system goes a long way towards making the games consistently compatible, and it shouldn't be too hard to convert RT and DW to those rules.

Actually, even some of the web based adventures ffg have been releasing seem to be driving towards a unified system. I expect that if DH2 is successful, we will see updates to RT and yes, DW! I for one would love to see it! I have always used DH as the 'baseline' against which the other systems are measured. Basically, DH characters are normal people. The other systems represent what happens when people get further and further away from said norm. From what I've seen of DH2, This is still the case. if one were to "borrow" the crossover rules from OW Hammer of the Emperor; You could see characters being playable from Feral world savage warrior all the way to Deathwatch Marine! I for one like the vast majority of what I've seen so far!

DW2 needs to happen to fix the mess that is its balance. I'm currently having my players use the Only War system with some modifications by myself until a DW2 comes out.

I'm really against the idea of a unified sysyem. There are far too many genres that exist within the 40k RPG line and tacking on additional rules to fit the theme seems like bad form. I would actually like the systems for each game to be better sculpted to reflect the themes and content of each game. Dark Heresy already tries to be a game about combat, intrigue, investigation, and horror and really only has a developed subsystem for combat.

Dark Heresy already tries to be a game about combat, intrigue, investigation, and horror and really only has a developed subsystem for combat.

Sadly true for maybe 90% of RPGs out there

I think that cards for psychic powers would be handy and a quick reference for skills and talents would be good as well for those talents that you don't often see or use.