This thread could go into 2 different areas, the GM area or here, I decided to put it here.

So the story. I have been running my deathwatch game for about a year and a half. I have 3 players. 2 marines, and imperial arbite from dark heresy. We were originally going to have a 4th but scheduling conflicts stopped him from ever joining.

Well I have a friend who has inquired about playing. And getting a new player would help the group out a lot. He knows of 40k as he's a gamer, but not much about the world lore or history. However he is the type of gamer that never wants to play something that's more ordinary. I have had him game with us in the past and he's always looking to build a character that doesn't fit into the rules or normal lore. Even when he is not that familiar with the lore. He also uses that as an excuse as to why he doesn't want to make something that is available. Because he doesn't know it. He has a long gaming history in Rifts... Which has the whole kitchen sink mentality or play anyone you want.

So when we started discussing the topic of him playing and talking about what was available and some of the background of 40k and space marine chapters. He didn't even want to hear about the chapters that were in the books, and instead was curious if he could belong to a chapter that was wiped out. Like stuck in a cryosleep or some such. One from thousands of years earlier. I explained to him it was possible, and explained the different foundings some to him, and explained how different chapters would all still hail from the first primary chapters and still have genetic traits and traditions that were on par with them in some ways.

The next time we spoke he brought that up about fighting styles of different chapters. So we spoke about it. And then he asked me were their any chapters that used teleporting tactics and he used night crawler from Xmen as an example. I explained teleporting in 40k is pretty innacurrate, and risky. That I know on the table top that librarians had a teleport ability I wasn't sure in deathwatch as we don't have a librarian. He wasn't interested in hearing about librarians he was more like technology based teleporting. I told him about terminators, but it was not exact or precise. But normal marines not that I was aware of.

So after we got off the phone that time. I then recalled Grey Knight interceptors and their shunt packs. Sigh.... So this is what he wants, a chapter of marines that used rapid hit and runs with teleporers. A crusade chapter that waslost thousands of years ago. With him being found somehow as the only survivor. So what to do, what to do?

So the 2 questions

1. As a GM what would you do in a situation like this. I mean it is plausible for a chapter like this to have existed with older tech especially. If I do allow it his chapter will probably be based off of the imperial fists. As I see this as a good siege tactic.

2...shunt packs? How would you handle them. Are their official rules that have been printed? If so where?if note, has any one come up with some house rules? If not, anyone interested in discussing them now?

Thanks and sorry for the long post. I will probably come back and edit mistakes. As this was typed very fast when. I had limited time.

Eldar Warp Spiders. See Ark of Lost Souls for stats to build a template around.

Alex

Thanks Alex, I've actually got that book.so I will look at it.... I do have a third and final question. For players more than GMs but all feel free to chime in. Do you guys think it would be fair to allow this for one player when all the other players have conformed to regular chapters and accessories. Last thing I want to do is to have one of my regulars get upset or think I am giving special treatment.

I would just say no. Grey Knight teleport packs are above and beyond better than jump packs.

Or at the very least, acquiring one would require Distinguished or Famed Renown and cost maybe 40 Req. Yes, they are that good, check out DH's Daemon Hunter for details. Just cuz he's from an old chapter doesn't mean he gets the best possible war gear at Renown 0. Nobody else does, he shouldn't be able to circumvent the crunch balance with nothing more than good fluff.

I also...meh, I am just not a big fan of home-brew chapters as a GM. I feel like there are enough canon options to satisfy any theme or play style especially with Honour the Chapter out. I used to be OK with home-brew chapters but now they just seem like too much work to flesh out, I prefer to point the player at something in canon with canon sources that I can draw from for inspiration.

There are rules for Grey Knight personal teleporters in the Dark Heresy supplement Daemon Hunter . That said, I wouldn't recommend allowing them as standard gear in DW . From the way you describe it, it sounds to me like your friend is laser-focused on being a party-dominating Mary Sue 'special snowflake'. I'd put the brakes on that mindset a.s.a.p.

Players sometimes want to be a special snowflake (as Adeptus-B put it) which is a bit cheesy but then you as a GM can allow them to do that but make them pretty **** clear that there WILL be consequences if they wish to become all powerful. What the GM giveth with one hand he taketh away with another. Special chapters can be fun but they need to be terribly balanced. I created a custom chapter that regained extra wounds and stamina at a higher rate and on the counter argument, I nullified almost all psychic potential in the chapter so librarians are very rare and they don't get Resistance (Psychic Powers) right off the bat, working to defend the body over the mind. They also have slight reductions of willpower.

You don't want to give him access to super unique gear which imbalances everything. However, you can consider giving them the gear if you state quite clearly:

"Look you've been around for X years as the last survivor of your chapter, do you really think your gear will stay perfectly intact?"

You can then drop its reliability. These are not the Grey Cheese marines with access to all the really shiny crap that half the Imperium probably don't get because of GW preference...sorry, ranting there. Hate the Ordo Malleus. So you should be able to say they are using a lesser quality version which isn't as perfect. Allow the random possibility of a malfunction, get them to make a tech use test and on a 91+, bad stuff happens such as them getting relocated to the wrong place or it not working at all. It then allows them to keep jumping about but theres a 1/10 chance of a slight warp misstep. Additional misfortunes would be the constant warp trace which allows him to be located by any psyniscience test.

The wording for the squad from the Lexi implies that only the GK are able to keep making use of all this teleporting technology due to the immense amounts of sanctioning, protection and warding. You may at your discretion, allow them to have the gear but enforce that over time that the constant exposure to the warp will start to break him down and oodles of insanity and/or corruption will eventually accumulate. This would allow him to be exceptionally mobile but would keep existing characters happy as the more he uses it the closer he moves to damnation. It's been asked he is the last survivor of his chapter, well now you can perhaps see why. Consider as a plot hook using that, most of his legion brothers going lost in the warp or going mad and joining Chaos and eventually encountering one of them.

Just make it clear to the guy stressing that any such powerful advantage can and will be countered by sufficient penalties and risks.

Eldar Warp Spiders. For two reasons:

1. It fits better the Xenos theme of Deathwatch.

2. They are by no means über, the price of being a special snowflake. In fact, a PC should be given a few Wound Points more (like 10 or so). Gear is a problem but nothing an inventive GM can't solve.

Alex

You're suggesting there be an Eldar attached to a Deathwatch squad? Or "just" use of their gear?

I think he means "nick the rules for Eldar jump packs and adapt them to make them like an Imperial teleporter pack."

As theres no way in hell you'd be able to use one of their gear without being psychicly attuned.

No, I mean an Eldar Warp Spider PC attached to a Deathwatch KT. Oh, the sweet irony of going against the foundings principles of the xeno killers. But if it was the only way to stop, say, Shanyr the Traveller and thus save the reach from certain doom... the DW uppers might agree to a temporary alliance.

Alex

There is a (bad) Black Library novel called Warrior Coven by C.S. Goto which features a Deathwatch Kill-Team forced to team up with some Eldar, due to the conditions of an old 'covenant'.

-But I don't recommend allowing an Eldar PC in a Kill-Team, either. That's just more "Look at me- I'm the Special Snowflake and the whole campaign revolves around Meeeeeee!" b.s. that should be avoided at all cost.

Eldar and Tau at least make sense to temporarily ally with. Especially against, say, nids or crons. Pretty sure all DW KTs are expected to execute a sudden but inevitable betrayal ASAP though.

I must also disagree with the idea of a Xenos in a Deathwatch kill team that isn't an NPC. The social requirements and constraints, restrictions on what they can/cannot do and the difficulty of no fixed character progression and no proper skill and development chart...

I must also disagree with the idea of a Xenos in a Deathwatch kill team that isn't an NPC. The social requirements and constraints, restrictions on what they can/cannot do and the difficulty of no fixed character progression and no proper skill and development chart...

Hi there, first time posting. I whole-hearthedly agree with you. I would only allow Xenos in a tournament-like game session. For exemple, a group of players would be Xenos and the other group would be a DW KT with 2 separates storytellers and conflicting agendas.

As for the the "no fixed character progression and no proper skill and development chart" regarding Xenos characters, I have to disagree with you. DW does not incompass those but RT does. There are FFG books in the RT line outlining the rules for Xenos characters, as well downloadable for alternate careers options.

RT: The Soul Reaver for Dark Eldars Kabalite Warriors

RT: The Navis Primer for Orks Weirdboyz

RT: Tau Character Guide for... well.. Tau

I know this is a DW but I was curious so I looked it up.

Does cooking up advancement tables a la DW cost any of you more than 2h time? Gear and lack of solo/squad mode abilities are more serious concerns. But you can teleport.

Alex

Ya I'm not allowing Xenos pcs into the game. As it stands so far. Deathwatch and dark heresy characters only. The player has an idea for a character. Which we have been fleshing out how to possibly do.

Does cooking up advancement tables a la DW cost any of you more than 2h time? Gear and lack of solo/squad mode abilities are more serious concerns. But you can teleport.

Alex

Hey, it takes me 2hrs to build a good NPC character sheet with statline and backstory for GM'ing even if some of them only last 20 minutes. Making a good advancement chart would take me an eternity!

Allowing a xeno into the team would be devastating. -3 reputation every time they cooperate with a Xenos (even if they kill him later).

I could see making a blackshield lone survivor with the teleport pack from the greyknights. The catch is that he has to play a librarian to work it. It would probably be a burn of his mater signature or hero signature to keep the pack. And any damage from behind could permanently break it.

Just use the shunt pack from Deamon hunter. Make him have to take it as signature wargear and house rule that every time he uses it it he has to roll as if he was manifesting a psychic power. Doubles cause phenomena, a roll of 98-00 kills him as he fails to re materialise. Also make him make a pilot personal check when he uses it. Failure knocks him off course using the grenade scatter rules, possibly fraging him into a solid block of rock.

He'll soon learn to be careful about when to use it.

A thing on GK tele-packs; aspects of them, at least, require the Grey Knight's mighty psychic cheese. If your player doesn't want to be a Librarian, and you aren't just handing him a Grey Knight that automatically comes with PR, then the more cheesy options for the Interceptor packs won't work. For that, ripping off any of the different Warp Spider packs would be better.

As for having an Eldar with the KT, I'd shout bull. I don't care how fun it might seem, if the GM is even trying for realism, there HAVE to be any number of Inquisitors, Space Marines, and such, back at Erioch, who will cry foul and just murder him on sight; that's their fluff.

Most Space Marines don't deep strike via teleporters, though, so I'd just tell him no. They are supposed to work as a Coherent squad, and one guy teleporting all around the place, while the rest hoof it normal speed? No. That's more special snowflake than even I like, and your description of this player at the start could've easily been me, except we've never met. If he's not a Grey Knight with the squad (I've done it, it can be cool, if a bit "why?"), then no blink steps for him.

I don't even think giving them an Eldar Warp Spider pack would be any better venkelos. Eldar tech IIRC tends to be psychoreactive and requires their psychic abilities to even work. Without that they tend to be inert and just a dead weight. Even picking one up and trying to use it they would need silly levels of training and theres no guarantee of it working. It's like trying to use Project Indigo and there's no safeguards in place of it getting you in the right place or even able to rematerialise yourself at the other end and most certainly the mechanicus/inquisition would want that pack if they found out about it.

There are however other things you might want to think of. There is something in BC which might interest called a Displacement Field (I think, name is patchy not got the book). Basically it works as a forcefield and when shot at can move the player 3D10 in a random direction, trying to displace them out of the way of the shot however if there are any trebles then they suffer consequences. What about that as a compromise?

Sry, I more meant from the mechanics POV, since not every Eldar counts as a Psyker. The mechanical rules for a WJG don't call for a psychic-themed test, so having something LOOK like a GK pack, and use the rules for the Aspect Warrior's device would be mechanically sound. Using an ACTUAL Warp Spider pack? Nononononono! Between killing yourself (even a number of Warp Spiders can't use it, and they are made for those individuals) and the AdMech+Inq collective "WHAT?!?!?", no, not that.

BC's Displacement Field seems rather similar, though Corruption seems a better end than poof, gone in a flash. Might be a good option, if a case for one NOT made and used by Chaos can be put forth.

Fluffly speaking, there is no small-scale, controllable, purely technological teleportation solution. Warp Spiders and GK (and Warp Talons, for that matter) both use their psychic potential to protect them from the warp as the go popping about. To my knowledge, there never was a small-scale, controllable, purely technological teleportation solution.

Having said that, I would absolutely permit this. In addition to whatever rolls to make the teleportation happen, every time he uses it he rolls for psychic phenomena. Any time he rolls a Perils of the Warp, he gains 1d5 Corruption in addition to whatever else happens. He would, as had been previously mentioned, required to take Signature Wargear for it, as well as the Enemy (AdMech) talent. Also, portions of the DW would want him to turn the relic over to the DW Librarium.

This isn't DnD. The Deathwatch are Space Nazis. Xenos are Space Jews.

This is not a happy-happy universe.

Fluffly speaking, there is no small-scale, controllable, purely technological teleportation solution. Warp Spiders and GK (and Warp Talons, for that matter) both use their psychic potential to protect them from the warp as the go popping about. To my knowledge, there never was a small-scale, controllable, purely technological teleportation solution.

Don't Necron essentially teleport and they never usually have any risks plus aren't psychic in any way, shape or form such as the fluff which used to say damaged crons teleported back to the tombs? The Necron Deathmark is also claimed to occupy a pocket dimension and simply phase in/out when they need to. I'd say it counts as technological and small scale but its not going to be one available to the DW.