I have a player in my campaign whose character possess this.The Gifts of the Gods have a rather curious entry that makes me wonder, because at face value it seems rather broken. It says that opponents within range suffer a -20 to initiative. At face value, this says to me that anybody who faces this man will always go last in combat, because there's no way anybody with a -20 to initiative would go anything but last. Should this mean something closer to -20 to Agility for the purposes of initiative?

Can you give a page number? I couldn't find what you're referencing.

He was referring to the Tail, witht he Nurgle extra bits. I always took it as face value, meaning everyone not wearing some sort of respirator took a -20 to initiative, meaning that yes, you managed to stun a Berzerker into going dead last while you pummel him because DAT NURGLY.

Yes, that was the one I was referring to. Didn't have my books to hand.

I see it now:

I didn't see anything in the Errata, but I still feel like something like that is way too overpowered.

So? The rest of Nurgle's entries are severaly underpowered.

Exactly,

I think the Nurgle tail is A-OK for those very reasons.

I think the issue is that it doesn't nearly compare to anything else in the same bracket. -20 is completely and utterly insane. I don't think anyone has ever had that much Initiative in any of my games. Highest I've ever seen is 18, and that's a Human Heretic just stacking things like there's no tomorrow.

RAW, this pretty much forces everyone in 20 metres to act based on their Agility Bonus and nothing else, and then start rolling against eachother if they have the same Agility Bonus.

This should be changed, if not because it's clearly not RAI, and if not because it's crazily powerful, then at least for the sanity of the GM having to roll all opponent's Agility against eachother.

Powerful?

My PCs don't want initiative, they want to be able to react..

I think it is meant to convey that characters and npcs should STAY BACK and SHOOT at the slimy bugger rather go hug the walking bag of diseased puss.

Question :how far can berzerkers or other space marines charge/ jump? Because if i only had melee weapons i'd be inclined to jump at papa-nurgle's-favourite-son and let my momentum burry my twin chainaxes in his filthy flesh. BFTBG!

I think it is meant to convey that characters and npcs should STAY BACK and SHOOT at the slimy bugger rather go hug the walking bag of diseased puss.

Question :how far can berzerkers or other space marines charge/ jump? Because if i only had melee weapons i'd be inclined to jump at papa-nurgle's-favourite-son and let my momentum burry my twin chainaxes in his filthy flesh. BFTBG!

More than 20 metres, easily. With a Jump Pack or a good Acrobatics roll, even further.

If you take the raptor ad-ultima, longer, far far longer than 20 meters. That's peanuts with a jump pack.

Yes. But that's assuming that everybody we fight is going to be equipped with jump packs or standing back and shooting with long arms. No other Gift of the Gods so utterly dominates gameplay and combat in the same way.

It's not really that big of a deal, unless all you're tossing at them is genestealers or other things completely without a ranged option.

See this is why Nurgle is often grandfather Nurgle.

Don't you always get your best gifts from your grandparents?

Yes. But that's assuming that everybody we fight is going to be equipped with jump packs or standing back and shooting with long arms. No other Gift of the Gods so utterly dominates gameplay and combat in the same way.

Don't forget the rolling, the mad amount of rolling it'll result in, if it's any large-scale fight, if you go by RAW. I'm not saying you should go by RAW in this case, I'm just saying that if you do.. it's mad.

And I'm not even sure how to narratively excuse a -20 to Initiative. I could accept an immediate -20 to Initiative at a much closer range, such as being adjacent to the nurglite in question, having failed a Willpower or Toughness Test or something.

Whether it actually has a massive battlefield effect or not really doesn't concern me that much, because after all the rolling and after everything is said and done, all it really does is guarantee that a whole bunch of people will be forced to move last, after the entire party.

What concerns me is that I don't think that this can possibly be intended. There is no precedent in the rules for something so massive. I think it was intended to be -2 Initiative, but in the interest of not making players wail, I could even stretch it to -4, which is a large, but not broken amount. But no way, no how do I think that -20 was intended.

FFG used to have a good "Rules Questions" section, but I'm no longer getting any answers there, so I'm not sure how to figure this out, given the dismal amount of Errata that comes out.

See this is why Nurgle is often grandfather Nurgle.

Don't you always get your best gifts from your grandparents?

Unfortunately, no. Never really had present grandparents, and now they're all dead. Not that it would've been that hard to beat most of the gifts I received growing up, we were pretty poor. Still are, actually, but now at least we're poor separately.

Whats worse is they addressed the tail in the errata and didn't change this.

/Devil's Advocate

Enforcing the view that it doesn't need changing..

It's transparently obviously a typo and should be -2.

Or it should be -20 Agility. Either work.

BYE

Or it should be -20 Agility. Either work.

BYE