Now you can get involved into the coming fecal matter storm!

I will add more later I gotta work in the morning so I'll keep it simple.

My favoured marine was killed in combat and the DM says the rest of the Khornate (is it ite) berzerkers and rest of the chaos heretics will kill me even after I burnt a fate point. Now I told him I will burn all 5 of my fate points to survive. But yet he still says no matter what I will die. They will simply rip me apart.

But earlier in the whole grand campaign a Blood Angel had survived with literally 1 heart, 2 lungs and his head. Nothing else, but now here with me they simply kill me. No nothing.

The example in the book page 204 of the Deathwatch book gives an example of a Marine getting hit by a warp drive implosion. It states he survives but it is up to the DM and player to work it out. Now here I don't believe it is nearly as bad as stated above. It simply doesn't add up.

I feel I am being shafted here and it hasn't here before. He also severely nerfed our Librarians to the point of all the players complaining (even the non Librarians).

Does your GM has some kind of hatred against you and Librarians?

For burning Fate Points it's usually enough to burn one (1) and if Nuclear/Plasma explosion, Being buried under whole collapsing Hive or Warp Implosion is not included there should always be some kind of way to survive.

One of my player was perforated by 20 odd Hellgun shots from short range (Normal humanbeing in OW game). If he had not burned his Fate point I would probaly had descriped him being "Well done" But as he made the decision to evade Death, His armour absorbed most of the damage but after that heat he made the Toxic Avenger look pretty.

GM should always have the last word what you can survive when burning Fate point but still forced player killing is a nasty thing to do.

PS. May I ask you to tell us in what way he nerfed your Librarians?

P205 Burning Fate. Under the rules for it, your Librarian should have been left with zero wounds and left unconscious on the floor in horrible pain and agony but still alive. Flicking forward to P261 (bottom left corner) the rules on unconscious say that a KO'ed target is unaware of their surroundings and cannot take any actions and also is counted as a helpless combat target, meaning that the Khornate ones can go at you again. There is nothing anywhere saying that a KO'ed character on the floor cannot be targeted by further attacks or by other effects and therefore it is entirely possible for you to be hit by something else or for someone else to try and mutilate the bodies, particularly Khornate who will hate all librarians and want to obliterate you. It's a bit of a dickish thing to do to a player character but a GM is allowed to do it. Usually though if you're lucky, your battle brothers are able to swarm around you and protect/extract you.

Your example is the bit further down which mentions in situations where there is no clear way out, the player is supposed to discuss with the GM of a suitable resolution however the thing to consider is that there may be times where your GM will have to put their foot down and state "No, you are not burning fate to survive this". Such situations may include being on a ship which collides with a star. Under that example, no amount of fate burning will keep you safe if you're on a vessel which hits that. You're dead. End of. There are times when as a GM, if they did not make reasonable efforts to escape (and even sometimes if they did) then you have to rule escape is simply not possible.

Regarding the Blood Angel, it is possible to survive missing almost all your limbs (See Marneus Calgar) but under the fate rules they still should face the same risks of people trying to kick them while they are down. They should burn a fate point and be left with zero wounds on the ground KO'ed and either in terrible pain/missing limbs until recovered which, given they are missing a good 2/3 of their mass, shouldn't be that hard! Were they also targetted while on the ground or were they ignored?

Can you also specify how he has been mean towards librarians as well?

You do run into a problem when khornites are trying to claim your skull.

Don't forget there are other fate point options when facing terminal situations. The rules for character remake tie into this and aren't harsh at all.

Snipparoo

They were a little bit too strong. Particularily Smite & Iron Arm and the Force Dome gave us problems. That was someone else by the way.

My fellow was a Tactical Marine. I am fighting hard for the survival of the character. He is rank 6 1/2 and I role play him well. You think that he would have some leeway. The only way I could survive is if my battle brothers/pcs kill 40 berzerkers, 12 bloodletters, 2 magnitude 200 hordes and 4 hell drakes. A little unfair yeah. And some Rhinos I believe.

Me and another player had a challenge (friendly) to see who could survive the longest. So far we are tied but he died a few sessions ago, heroicly. We were sad to see him go yeah, but also accepting it. I know a few other players are in agreeance with myself.

With the Librarians he said they weren't nearly as powerful as the Deathwatch book put them out to be. I am impartial to this. There are some extremely strong Librarians out there. But at the same time he doesn't realize you have to survive to get that strong. Not to mention that everything essentially targets them. I figure nerfing smite to 1D10 + Psy rating with Pen 4 is kind of good.

Our GM is very good and puts up with a lot of crap, and I respect him for it. I like his games but not how he has to have it his way with an Authoritarian twist.

Thinking about it now, I will ask him that my character survives but I won't play him equal to a number of sessions we see fit, as he has to recover. Im thinking 3-6 sessions. Maybe a campaign arch if I like my new one.

The way it is made to sound here kind of makes Burning Fate redundant. That being said, I feel there could be more to the story and that I'd like to hear the GM's side as well. Maybe they had a good reason after all?

Usually it isn't this complicated but there was a newish player there. Normally we just argue like mad men until one side concedes. It works quite handily haha. We don't want him to see our bad side, but naturally it comes out. You get attached to a character you don't want to leave him.

I can answer more questions if needed. I was also wearing terminator armour currently with iron halo and storm shield. This is a hard session and I figure I would die to protect my lower ranking friends (3,4,4,4,1).

I'm the Librarian in this scenario. My previous character was a Techmarine and then Forge Master that I had played for about 2 years. A couple of months ago I had made the Librarian.

Anyways, the situation is that we are on a Necron Tomb World, outside of the tomb and facing an army of Chaos soldiers ranging from cultists to vehicles to Bloodletters to Berserkers to a Khorne Daemon Prince. We were in a bad spot with our 2 Terminators and 1 Dreadnought being slow to retreat to our fallback point. To buy time, our second in command for the mission challenges the Daemon Prince to a 1 on 1.

It was an honourable fight, with neither side interferring. Our Tactical barely survived and took some attacks from the Chaos army, despite them not actually having Initiative. Our own guys had higher order so we're not sure exactly why we were skipped in this situation. More detail is that we had prepared to move the moment either lost. GM hasn't given any reason why but after arguing a little bit on it, he's going to accept that we have a chance to save him. His view is that we have to kill everything on the Chaos side in one turn. The only way to survive is as stated previously.

I have a plan that won't require all that, and I have kept it to myself and the Tactical Marine in order to keep it a secret. I do side with the fact that he can be killed still, as burning a fate point does not make you immune.

I was under the impression that it was common for there to be a "Gentlemen's Agreement" regarging Burning Fate more or less guaranteeing survival of the relevant encounter, though the GM may assign various penalties (such as lost limbs) as a consequence of what exactly took a character out in the first place. The GM should work with the player to find ways to explain the character's survival, such as (in this case) the enemy not being aware that someone is still alive, and for whatever reason also not being interested in defiling their body to a point that would actually kill them after all. For example, the character could be buried under the corpses of allies/enemies or rubble, or the enemy has to withdraw in timely fashion.

Normally I would agree with you but there are situations whereby doing this would disrupt the integrity of the story but also the lore itself. In this example, if a Khornate were to leave the Psyker alive on the floor unconscious and not finish them off, it would greatly offend the Blood God and therefore I would see it as justified to allow them to go for the coup de grace on an injured player if the opportunity arose and expect them to check every corpse to ensure that they have fallen and take every skull for the Skull Throne. There are a number of folks whom I RP with who would find it an affront to the concept of Chaos were I to defy it and would expect nothing less. Harsh but whatever rule I enforce on a player also is applied to my NPCs, for better or worse! Feel free to disagree with me on that point though...

Fate points are redundant though, they are a horrible concept at times as they make players complacent. I have read of countless stories where players have thrown themselves into needless risk (myself included, admittedly) knowing that if I get too badly beaten up I can save myself with a fate point. "Massive rampaging Hive Tyrant? I'll go and kick it in the teeth. So what if it chews me up, I have 3 fate points and a rulebook saying I'll be fine whatever happens." I am really starting to go off the idea. Personally scrap them for survival completely. One idea I have seen, I haven't picked up DH2 but from the hints in the errata it looks like Fate points are starting to be made into a saving throw whereby if you had three points you have to roll 8+ or better to survive the fatal blow. Survive and it gets reduced to 9+, means that survival is more down to luck and makes one careful. Not sure if that is what is in there though...

Mr Meme, the thing I don't think your GM grasps is that Librarians are stupidly powerful and the rulebook does do them justice but they are also their own worst enemy. No other archetype has the potential to eradicate themselves from existence without any hope of burning fate points (double 0 on perils table). Librarians whenever they use their formiddable powers have the risk of making a situation a million times worse (summoning blood letters, ripping the world apart, making the atmosphere uneasy etc) and this is what balances out abilities. They don't get the lethality in melee till late in their career tree, they are average with ranged weapons but excel in knowledge and pure power. Effectively a Librarian is a glass cannon, monstrously lethal with things like Smite, Vortex of Doom, Possibility Shield or even on a single attack roll and manifesting their killing will through the blade but can easily be their own worst nightmare which is why I feel they are balanced. I think your GM is unwise to want to reduce their potency as a result of this.

Normally I would agree with you but there are situations whereby doing this would disrupt the integrity of the story but also the lore itself. In this example, if a Khornate were to leave the Psyker alive on the floor unconscious and not finish them off, it would greatly offend the Blood God and therefore I would see it as justified to allow them to go for the coup de grace on an injured player if the opportunity arose and expect them to check every corpse to ensure that they have fallen and take every skull for the Skull Throne.

Sure, but (or so I think) it's not very difficult to find an excuse for such a situation. As mentioned before, he could simply be forgotten as the battle rages on elsewhere or the CSMs have to retreat. They could also take him prisoner, planning to sacrifice him in a dark ritual (simultaneously creating the plot for a new mission, where the player takes on a temporary alternate character to participate in his own rescue).

Besides, some would say the game is pretty good at disrupting its own integrity, anyways. Acts of Faith, anyone? Lifting and Throwing Rules? Unnatural Traits?

I sort-of still agree with you on the point that sometimes it can appear too silly, but I just don't think it would be the case here. Hell, the rulebook's own example is "a player trapped on a spaceship during a warp drive implosion". To me, that seems a lot less likely to survive than a bunch of roaming CSM who may easily have something else on their mind than beheading you!

As far as Fate Points as a whole are concerned, I'm also inclined to agree only partially. To me, it seems to hinge a lot on the individual player - taking myself as an example, I am extremely shy when it comes to spending Fate, even just for normal bonuses. It's something I also notice in videogames where I end up with a ton of consumables simply because I refrain from actually spending any, thinking they could be of more use another time.

In FFG's 40k RPGs, it manifested as a sort of personal rule that I'd be willing to spend all Fate except for the last point, which I'd keep in reserve to escape death. But as mentioned before, I rarely spent Fate anyways.

The other extreme are players who, as you suggested, might use all of their Fate to escape death again and again. That being said, this means they'd have to sacrifice the option of using Fate on other benefits, and as we know from countless novels, some people can be quite lucky. Is the mechanic itself really that bad, just because a few players (assumption; I don't personally know anyone who "abused" it that way) might overdo it? Isn't survival by Burning Fate nothing but the opposite of Righteous Fury?

(okay, I'm a bit hypocritical here, because I dislike Righteous Fury as too unrealistic myself ..)

Anyways, I feel it sounds similar to that Rogue Trader "problem" of players technically being able to send a whole regiment of mooks down to the surface instead of going themselves, but I've never really considered that an issue either. It all comes down to how the GM and the group handle such situations.

That being said, the Save Roll idea is interesting!

I think fate points are there to save your character. The GM will have to be patient, if they get into impossible situations they will burn all their fate points and will be left without any. The ship locked in a course for a sun is easy by the way ... escape pods and even if there aren't any wouldn't a SM survive space?

While you can use fate points to save your character from death, the Common Sense Rule still applies. The GM has to have a reasonable expectation your character can be saved. For instance: You're fighting on a ship near a black hole, you get hit with explosive weapon. You fail your agi roll to avoid being knocked off, and your re-roll. You burn a fate point and somehow, you get tangeld up in some exposed wires.

In your situation, surrounded by bloodthirsty berserkers without the aid of your team to come and save your unconcious butt. Well I'm sorry to say I can't think of any way to keep you alive in that situation. Next time, don't do that!

Now for something, slightly different.

I don't think a daemon prince would ever, EVER, care about being in an "honourable fight". And most enemies in the 40k universe wouldn't give a rats ass about a challenge. (Matt Ward just wanted to bring the fantasy rules he liked into 40K.)

Fighting 1 on 1 with a DP is a good idea for the DP, because space marines are tough and can hurt him. So it makes sense for him to do it, "If they're stupid enough to attack me one at a time, I'll just kill them one at a time."

There is no honor in the actual fight, perhaps in delaying the DP through your sacrifice so your squad can get away.

There is Glory though, in taking on such a monstrous opponent one on one. But Glory and honor are two different, though sometimes linked, things.

In your situation, surrounded by bloodthirsty berserkers without the aid of your team to come and save your unconcious butt. Well I'm sorry to say I can't think of any way to keep you alive in that situation. Next time, don't do that!

...or if you are going to do that make sure you have a reserve plan and go out taking a lot of enemies with them.

I know of one librarian who, when confronted by a nasty horrible daemon which wanted to tear the KT apart, he opted for a death and glory move since he was lowest on Fate. Now I should point out he was a max level character who had maxed his PR and taken a load of abilities to boost it. Took one action to grapple with it in melee, use force sword to pin it and hold it down (somehow passing) before manifesting Vortex of Doom, Push level focused on the place where they both stood.

At 1D10 Energy x PR, the result was horrible considering an effective PR of 14 (10 for max upgrades, three for pushing and one for one of the talents adding +1 when pushing). It was something like 100+ damage to the both of them and both Daemon and Player were banished to the Warp.

Now if you're going to die, make it a good one.

The ship locked in a course for a sun is easy by the way ... escape pods and even if there aren't any wouldn't a SM survive space?

You mean the example from the rulebook? It specifically states that the characters are trapped on the ship (so no escape pods), and that the vessel is in that very moment suffering an implosion from a warp drive failure, rather than the ship "just" being locked on a course into a star.

I guess I could conjure an excuse for a character's escape, but it's going to seem a hell of a lot less sensible than what would be required for OP. We're talking Draigo levels of silliness here.

In your situation, surrounded by bloodthirsty berserkers without the aid of your team to come and save your unconcious butt. Well I'm sorry to say I can't think of any way to keep you alive in that situation. Next time, don't do that!

What's wrong with my earlier suggestions?

Some GMs may go out of their way to kill a player character - not even out of maliciousness, but because they think they deserve it because their actions were stupid. But that still doesn't change the fact that the situation is not addressed in a neutral manner. And I'm sorry, too, but a bunch of "bloodthirsty berserkers" stopping and spending minutes to try and slice through Terminator armour in order to detach the guy's head, rather than proceeding to fight the other Imperials that are still in the vicinity and are at that very moment in the process of killing their buddies - that just seems a tad too constructed to me.

Especially if the enemy didn't even move and attack according to the rules before.

Mutilating the enemy's corpses is something we can assume you can do after the battle is over.

And as has already been pointed out, they could also just take him prisoner for a ritual (allowing a potential rescue mission). Chaos does that from time to time - even Khornates!

It comes down to what the GM wants to achieve here. Having the players have fun .. or make an example.

I fully agree with your comment on the DP, though!

Now if you're going to die, make it a good one.

Indeed. The most important thing is going out with a big boom.

I feel the manner of a character's death is as critical as their creation/background. Imho, retirement is a boring and way too cliché fate...

Well I have now caused four Fate Points to be burned in my campaign for my poor players. I don't try and kill them, but I do tailor the tactics used by my baddies based on what they are. Beasts and hordes of dumb enemies will tend to just run at them and get killed. But this past weekend the kill team faced off against an equal number of Plague Marines led by a very potent Nurgle sorcerer. Two players died that night. But in both cases it was due to massive tactical errors on the players parts. The assault marines kept leaving the Force Dome that the Librarian was maintaining and consequently none of them escaped being in Crit category by the time it was done. One of them burned a point to survive. The second player who had to burn a point decided not to dodge an attack from the Nurgle sorceror thinking he was just wielding a power weapon and he could take that. But it was a force weapon and he took like 40+ Damage ignoring armor and toughness...

In the past two other FPs were burned. One was when a kill team member discovered that the magos that he was talking too was actually a member of the dark mechanicus from Samech...and was promptly shot in the leg with a tau plasma rifle and righteous furied. The last one was a marine who sacrificed himself to hold a meltabomb onto the back of a hive tyrant.

These things happen...but the main concern for me was how the enemies would treat the downed players. In all these cases the enemies were WAY too busy dealing with a rampaging kill team of active marines to worry about the guy who is out of action on the ground.

Mr Meme, the thing I don't think your GM grasps is that Librarians are stupidly powerful and the rulebook does do them justice but they are also their own worst enemy. No other archetype has the potential to eradicate themselves from existence without any hope of burning fate points (double 0 on perils table). Librarians whenever they use their formiddable powers have the risk of making a situation a million times worse (summoning blood letters, ripping the world apart, making the atmosphere uneasy etc) and this is what balances out abilities. They don't get the lethality in melee till late in their career tree, they are average with ranged weapons but excel in knowledge and pure power. Effectively a Librarian is a glass cannon, monstrously lethal with things like Smite, Vortex of Doom, Possibility Shield or even on a single attack roll and manifesting their killing will through the blade but can easily be their own worst nightmare which is why I feel they are balanced. I think your GM is unwise to want to reduce their potency as a result of this.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy playing his games, but when I don't agree with something I will voice it. I've seen him posting on other threads talking about how we "complain" (to put it nicely), I'm tempted to bring that up with him. This isn't the place for that however, so forgive me.

My Powers were changed to the Only War versions. My Smite can hit multiple times for each Degree of Success on my Focus Power test, and I have about ~100 on an Unfettered, so I average around 6-7 hits. However the damage being 1d10 + Psy Rating with Pen 4 means I am not doing damage vs anything of Space Marine level unless I roll near max damage. Sure, I can hit 8 times, but it's just killing them with bug bites trope.

Regarding powers, our GM's complaint was that they are far too powerful compared to tabletop. Issue is that this is an RPG and it won't be a very long campaign if you have the mortality rate of tabletop.

He says my Smite can easily one shot any high level enemy he puts up against us, which is true. It's not easy, but it could happen. I'd have to either roll near max damage on Unfettered or Push the power, making the needed damage easier to achieve, which I almost never do considering the risks. As mentioned previously, I am capable of playing a single character for a long time. I almost never fail my Focus Power test since my WP is at maxed at 70 and my PR is 5 so I will be successful in casting. However, the enemy is capable of dodging my Smite making whatever damage I can do a moot point. Not to mention at rank 5+ gameplay any non-mook we fight has force fields as well. I've only had this character for a few sessions, and my kill total with Smite has been less than I have fingers on one hand. The Smite may jump but everything we face is spread out, rending that aspect moot. It may seem odd, but I'm not about to accuse him of lying about dodge or shield rules, I trust him to be honest.

The biggest issue I had with powers was actually with Iron Arm in DW being changed to the Iron Arm in OW. They are only the same in name only, and I much prefer the DW version. I don't view it as overpowered as I cannot use the arm for ANYTHING else but Parrying. I admit the OW version has it's uses as a more overall defensive ability, but as I was beginning to come into my own as a melee Psyker with a MC Force Weapon, it hits me in a bit of a soft spot.

Again, I enjoy his games but I do critique changes when they don't add up.

In a completely unrelated situation, what would be the approximate effective range of a MC Teleport Homer?

Well you can Teleport to and from planet surface with just normal Teleport Homer. Don't know what Master Crafted would bring in game effect.

Better signal strength to be able to Teleport from underground?

Have to ask what other rules has your GM ported from Only War?

Regarding powers, our GM's complaint was that they are far too powerful compared to tabletop. Issue is that this is an RPG and it won't be a very long campaign if you have the mortality rate of tabletop.

Although your GM has a point, I feel he needs to consider that the entirety of the Deathwatch game is intentionally built around a rather "heroic" power level. Just nerfing your attacks is not only half measures, it's also going to negatively affect the game in the manner you described. Might as well give the entire team DH-level bolters and watch a single encounter with CSM take four hours because every character has that ridiculously high soak where people have to rely on Righteous Fury to actually accomplish anything.

I can empathise with your GM as I prefer an experience closer to the TT fluff myself, but it would take a lot more tweaking to actually get there. Due to how every element in the rules interacts with at least one other factor, you can't just change one detail and expect the game to run fine on all other fronts.

Well you can Teleport to and from planet surface with just normal Teleport Homer. Don't know what Master Crafted would bring in game effect.

Better signal strength to be able to Teleport from underground?

Hah, at first my brain was stuck at "MC = Monstrous Creature?!" .. thanks.

Signal strength sounds like a good effect. And more accuracy. Perhaps a bonus to saving throws when anything goes awry (after all, teleporters are not perfectly reliable!)

Well you can Teleport to and from planet surface with just normal Teleport Homer. Don't know what Master Crafted would bring in game effect.

Better signal strength to be able to Teleport from underground?

Have to ask what other rules has your GM ported from Only War?

Planet surface to Deathwatch Ship on the other side of the moon, possibly in battle of their own. The flight with Thunderhawks was about a 2 hour return flight.

I believe we are also using the Full Auto rules and I know we are using the Righteous Fury adds a d5 critical from the applicable damage/location chart. I'm trying to think of what else we may be using, but the most relevant of things for me to pay attention to is the Psychic Powers so I'm not exactly 100% on what else.

Regarding powers, our GM's complaint was that they are far too powerful compared to tabletop. Issue is that this is an RPG and it won't be a very long campaign if you have the mortality rate of tabletop.

Although your GM has a point, I feel he needs to consider that the entirety of the Deathwatch game is intentionally built around a rather "heroic" power level. Just nerfing your attacks is not only half measures, it's also going to negatively affect the game in the manner you described. Might as well give the entire team DH-level bolters and watch a single encounter with CSM take four hours because every character has that ridiculously high soak where people have to rely on Righteous Fury to actually accomplish anything.

I can empathise with your GM as I prefer an experience closer to the TT fluff myself, but it would take a lot more tweaking to actually get there. Due to how every element in the rules interacts with at least one other factor, you can't just change one detail and expect the game to run fine on all other fronts.

He recently got himself his first army set, and I've felt he may be doing as you suggest and not considering the intentional power level of the game's design.

In the current fight, I had used a Smite on a Bloodletter. They were all spread out so I only hit one. I rolled about mid range damage at Unfettered PR 5 and landed 3 hits with that damage, which from his description seemed to accomplish minimal damage, thanks to Warp powers bypassing the Demonic trait.

You mean Semi/Full-auto is Half action.

Did he include new Dodge/Parry action from OW?

So you need as many DoS, when using Dodge/Parry, to negate attacks? Example you need 5 DoS to Dodge 5 attacks.

or is it still

"Just pass and you are A-Ok, even when enemy has filled the air with so much lead even single strand of Hair couldn't fit in"

You mean Semi/Full-auto is Half action.

Did he include new Dodge/Parry action from OW?

So you need as many DoS, when using Dodge/Parry, to negate attacks? Example you need 5 DoS to Dodge 5 attacks.

or is it still

"Just pass and you are A-Ok, even when enemy has filled the air with so much lead even single strand of Hair couldn't fit in"

Apologies. I don't use a Heavy Bolter as a Librarian but I believe our Devastator is subject to the -BS from page 245 of the OW rulebook regarding Full Auto instead of the +20 from DW pg 239. Considering the Devastors actions, I'm lead to believe it's still Full Action.

As for the other thing, it is the former. # of DOS negate # of attacks. This makes the most sense.