bogi_khaosa said:

This isn't CoC though - this is WARhammer 40k. The PCs are expected to lug around bolters, powerswords etc. and actually battle demons insead of just running from them and dying horribly. Cthulhu is an investigation game where information and even magic rituals should be enough to defeat the alien horrors, and weapons are mosrly for police, army and criminals - while the investigators are commonly neither.

Acolytes on the other hand represents the Imperial Inquisition and thus have alot of resources at their disposal.

Still, the first battles against heretics when you only have starting gear can be really exiting

bogi_khaosa said:

You can have well equipped PC's and still keep the game within the horror genre.

Just let the players be horrified by the fact that the enemies they are facing are either vastly outnumbering them (meaning that they number more than every single bullet that the acolytes are carrying), or that their bolters are only marginally effective against the warp-powered monstrosities they are facing.

Just like in CoC, where characters frequently lug around all manner of shotguns, battle-rifles and tommy guns... But they rarely work against the cosmic horror they have to face. I'd like to see a player character managing to gun down a Shoggoth with a Vickers machine gun. The rate of regeneration those beasts have will make pretty much every form of firearm completely useless.

Varnias Tybalt said:

That actually remind me of a story where investigators somehow got hold of a biplane with machineguns and actually defeated a great old one. Ok, it reformed at a later time but still it had to be fun Not really in the spirit of CoC tho.

Friend of the Dork said:

Great Old One? Aren't they often supposed to be proficient magic users? Bringing down a biplane from the sky with a spell doesn't seem too unfeasible for a Great Old One in my opinion.

As for spirit of CoC:

-"Haunted mine you say? People disappearing in the tunnels or only sparse, slimy, half-molten remains being found you say? Allright lads, lets chuck a truckload of sticks of dynamite down the shaft and light it up. Not that we expect to kill whatever monstrosity is hiding down there of course, but we'll seal it up with tonnes upon tonnes of collapsed rock instead, and that without ever having to lay our eyes upon the beast in question, going bonkers in the process!

Be sure to put the kettle on while i prepare the detonator so we can have a nice warm cup of tea afterwards."

My current group. We are around 1200-1400exp.

Arleth Vann (Moritat Assassin, My character)

Monosword (Gifted by the mistress upon completion of the academy)

Knife (Taken from a fallen moritat brother after his death in the academy)

6 Throwing Knives

Crossbow Pistol

Black Bodyglove

5 fingers (Trophies taken from the chosen enemies of the moritat)

1 head (of a rogue psyker, awaiting the chance to send it back to the mistress)

Armored Bodyglove, black.

Skull Mask (Ritual from his sect, to wear the death mask of ones first kill in the academy untill the Trivial is completed)

143 thrones

Castus Centrus (Arbitrator)

Pump Action Shotgun

Autopistol

Nightstick (used outside of combat as a way to punish those who deserve floggings)

Book of Judgement (large tome of crimes and their punishments)

Tobias (Adept, void born, queezy sort)

Stub Revolver

Dataslate

Autoquill

Large Sack of thrones (which he uses for bribes and getting the latest fashion)

Salvanis (Psyker, unstable)

Laspistol

Psykenna Mercy Blade

Staff

Emperors Tarot

Alric (Cleric)

Autogun

Sword

Autopistol

Flak Vest

Aquilla Necklace

Robes

Book of Litnies

We all have poor quality walkie talkies, except for me when mine short circuted when trying to relay a very important message from a mile underground. As you can tell we really havnt gotten past the starting equipment, and spend most of our money on ammo.

Ira said:

Hehe, your Moritat Assassin seems to be a stark contrast in comparison to mine. Yours has recieved gifts from the mistress. Mine killed off his entire moritat cell (along with the mistress) because he learned that they murdered his parents in the past, which made him an orphan picked up by the moritat to begin with.

Thaddeus, psyker

-nothing (molten man burned everything he owned)

Gabriel 'Grim' Regis, guardsman

-Boltgun, flak armour, shotgun, hand cannon, various pistols etc

Solaria, Moritat assassin

-power sword, mono sword, landrian render, about 10 mono-knives, and recently, a chainsword. Wears a hardened bodyglove with stealth hood.

Alaric, Sollexi techpriest

- Sollex death light, flak coat, various mechadendrites, auspex, multitool, hellpistol, dataslate, etc

Francis Drake, Nobleborn adept

chamelioline cloak, good/best quality twinned autopistols, eviscerator, chimera pistol sword

This last one is causing some problems. While a competent player, the guy playing Drake seems not to grasp the idea that a noble using an eviscerator is really uncharacteristic and silly, not to mention an adept using gunslinger style skills is uncharacteristic (but preferable to this eviscerator silliness). He seems desperate to make his adept into a combat juggernaut, and in extremely unconventional ways that are iconic to entirely different classes, which is jarring and annoying to myself and the other players. While I can (and will) go about losing the eviscerator at the beginning of tattered fates, I feel this is simply dealing with a symptom and ignoring the cause. Is there a way to reinforce the identity and concept of an adept without going overboard? I don't want to force him into my narrow definition of an adept, but I want to push gently in the right direction (one far away from ridiculous gunplay and eviscerators, preferably)

Varnias Tybalt said:

Oh, mine has no idea of his childhood. He loves his mistress like his own mother. Very "by the code". Last game the arbitrator was organising a raid on a cult underground and he stated "Vann, you go and scout out the area. See what they are doing and report back to me, but dont kill anyone untill i give the order.".. to which I replied "I am no scout, nor your personal minion, I follow you for a chance to kill our enemies in the name of the Emperor.. order me around like that again and I shall spill your blood in His name, just so you know your place Law-Keeper."

Never been able to sink my teeth into a character untill good ol Arleth Vann. I shall be truely upset when/if he dies.

Ira said:

Seems like he acts and reacts in the way you'd expect a moritat assassin to do.

I don't think that my character would ever stoop to be so openly threatening. He's more of a disarming and almost friendly kind of psychopath (like Hannibal Lecter or Dexter Morgan). So if he were in the same situation he would probably smile in that warming (but slightly uncomfortable) way he always does, and say: "Of course. Anything to help a friend."

...Then he would probably get a bit carried away once he's on site, subduing and cutting open the cultists in the most gruesome and messy manner, with the same smile plastered across his face from before.

So while I would probably feel it to be quite a shame if he died (due to him being fun to play), I can't really defend him. Because if there is any player character of mine that really deserved to die, it would be him. Seriously, he's a sick puppy.

Locque said:

Why is this a problem and how is it silly that a noble uses an eviserator? Also, is there a reason why an adept can't or won't fire with two weapons given half the chance?

I tend to praise my players when they think outside the box and go for something more then a stereotype. If it expands on their character, I'm all for it. Hell, the adept in my group is toting around a great power weapon (though he as no talent to use it, he still holds on to it) because the idea of a medicae hulling around the symbole of death was just too good to pass up. Likewise, the little sick SOB has racked up more cold blooded murder then the gunslinging scum only helps that out. He used to tote around no less then six guns (but only ever fired one) because he was deathly afraid every time he had to leave his tower and fell back on his schola training days and latched onto mad weapons for comfort. There's no reason an adept can't collect and use crazy amounts of weapons like anyone else. What about the idea of an adept makes them less likely to have weapons? From what I understand, they're just as crazy and as potentially homicidal as anyone else in 40k.

After all, it's 40k, everyone, and I mean everyone, is strapped and packing.

My players are all rank 5-6.

Helim Crack, Hiveworld Scum and Infiltration Expert

-Modified Hunting Rifle (with all the mods you can dream of); Needle Pistol; Flamethrower; Chameleoline Mesh Cloak; Hunter Mask (modified helmet with an auspex array); Mono Bolo Knife; select explosives; cyanide capsule; stop-watch containing an endosteel filament rope;

Trix Castella, Voidborn Imperial Psyker

-Force Staff; Mesh Cloak/Stormtrooper Carapace; Hellpistol; Psykana Mercy Blade; Inquisitor's Signet Ring; Rosette.

(she has NEVER used any of the weapons or killed anyone in combat, goddamned telekinetic/telepath)

Ulric Armstrong, Adeptus Astartes

-Astartes Power Armour; Power Fist; Good Quality Long Power-Sword (Imperial Guard issue, taken from an enemy); the Luminous Reproach; Bolt Pistol; Heavy Bolter; Rocket Launcher; big old tattered robes for disguise; synth-mold up kit (used to uglify him into looking like an Ogryn at times); Pneumatic Great-Hammer. Desperately wants a jet-pack, but it's just not available.

(obviously he does not carry that around with him everywhere)

Violet of House Silvanus, Noble Scum

-Light Powered Armour/Mesh Cloak; Chainsword; Power Sword; Best Quality Compact Autogun (and you bet that thing was modded to hell and back); assortment of grenades; Thronecard; cancer-sticks;

And that's most of it. I'm probably neglecting to mention stuff not used quite as often (say, rebreathers), and it should be noted the group made aggressive use of contacts and has plenty of thrones to spend, so they could very easily be even better outfitted than they are now.

Graver said:

I'm all for characters being atypical and unconventional, but some ideas are just plain bad/don't work. In this case, we have a quiet, reserved, calculating, neat, immaculately dressed character. His chosen melee weapon (buying the talent as an elite advance, with much begging) is heavy, crude, dangerous, messy, inelegant, brutal, and iconically associated with the ecclesiarchy, who the adept is leery of. Secondly, there's nothing wrong with and adept firing pistols, but this player exerted quite a bit of pressure in levying me to create an Elite Advance package consisting of elements from the Xeno Arcanist and metallican gunslinger advances. None of the other players like the way he's trying to rambo his character up as much as possible, and the mishmash he's created is utterly unconvincing. No one says that his character must be cookie-cutter, but that doesn't mean his character's skills, proficiences and choices don't have to make sense.

Locque said:

Oh... okay, got it. Ya, that's problematic, tough it would be no matter the class he played. Good luck.

Friend of the Dork said:

If PCs were expected to lug around bolters, the ammo would cost less.

Seriously, I think you're right, but within limits. In the admittedly few published adventures (I haven't seen Tattered Fates), even though they have more combat than the average CoC adventure (OK, 90% of them), the big nasty actually usually is defeated using "information and even magic rituals." Putting out the eyes of the beasty at the end of Illumination, working your way into the Alabaster Court, figuring out that the mutant what's his-name can only be killed by a weapon soaked in the blood of the other what's-his-name -- these could all be the culmination of a CoC adventure.

Anyway I don't have a problem with being absolutely well-equipped -- I think characters should be relatively underequipped relative to whatever they're going to be facing. There should be the feeling of the Great and Inhospitable Universe and its Ultimately Unstoppable Horrors -- you shouldn't be casually blowing daemons away.

Locque said:

Um, basic question I know but I've been the guy on the recieving end of the "Your character is totally unconvincing with what you're doing" in other games and once I've communicated the rationale behind it, gotten everybody on board so I must ask:

Have you and your other players discussed your concerns to the Noble born Adept's player and what have his answers been? I ask because I could totally see the person you are describing being a secret Redemptionist (the cloak and hood come out at night baby!) who loves getting bloody when he has to, and by day is the immaculate, noble think tank everyone expects him to be. You've been presenting your case with some very loaded terms (ramboing his character up) so I'm wondering if there has been a communication disconnect somewhere? Honestly, I take a cursory look at the other character's load outs and I'm not seeing your problem. He's unarmored, if he pulls out the eviscerator it would seem he's very much in a "I have to kill this now or I'm done!" situation because that cloak is not going to conceal him when the two handed chainsaw with crude powerfield starts roaring like he intends to deforest the entire Pacific Northwest single handed.

jonathan_sicari said:

Points for making me smile. To be quite honest, no one's sat down and said "we need to talk about your character". There have been some brief exchanges asking him where his lore skills are, or commenting/enquiring about his character's bizarre weaponry or combat tactics. This oplayer probably won't respond well to "let's talk about your character" style serious disussion, so that's being kept in reserve, but I can assure you now that his viscerator usage is entirely down to the player thinking eviscerators are cool and nothing else, not any intention of having a nobleborn redemptionist. (the character dislikes the ecclesiarchy and redemption). I forgot to mention that the character wears a silk surcoat which hides flak armour, so he's not completely unarmoured. Long sotry short, the adept has fairly feeble lore and inquiry skills, seeming instad to favour getting elite advances for unlikely weapon combinations. The team is currently on fenksworld, and his biggest concern is in contacting Cadence so they can make him custom weaponry.

Why did this guy choose to play an Adept in the first place?

bogi_khaosa said:

He didn't. his first character was a cleric, who, despite being voidborn, insisted on chainmail armour, and whose combat tactics consisted of running across rooms holding a hammer, into the teeth of assault rifles. Otherwise his character was extremely quiet and mild and inquisitive, never mentioned the emperor or the ecclesiarchy or sin or heresy or repentance. Ever. When his character got gunned down for the umpteenth time (charging into hellgun fire across open ground) He decided to let the character die instead of burning a fate point, declaring that "this guy sucks". He asked me to choose a new character and I chose an adept, owing to the mild, calm demeanour he exercised as an ecclesiarchical member. The rest, as they say...

The sad part is, this guy wouldn't be happy playing a guardsman. He seems to be under the impression he's holding his own within the roleplay group, fulfilling a vital function, and coming off as credible, when his fellow cell members show him up almost every session with their prowess.

bogi_khaosa said:

Im wondering the same thing. I mean it's called a ROLEPLAYING game for a reason. The very purpose of roleplaying is pretending that you are SOMEONE ELSE than you. Meaning that you can't just go with what weapons YOU think are cool, you have to consider if your character would think the same thing. And I have a hard time digesting the thought that a noble born adept, who isn't even remotely interested in the Red Redemption, would lug around an eviscerator "just for the heck of it".

To use myself as a hopefully good example: I think that the more military grade weapons are the coolest, especially heavy weapons like heavy bolters, assault cannons and the like, along with really brute-force close combat weapons (powerfists anyone?), oh and pretty much everything that can cause major explosions and firestorms.

BUT, in a campaign (with aethel as the GM if you've met her on these boards before, Emperor bless her GM:ing skills.) I was supposed to play a noble born cleric. And I took great effort in spending the rather generous amount of thrones he got to begin with on items and weapons that would reflect that sort of character.

I could have bought a powerfist or an eviscerator if I wanted (I certainly had the funds for it, if im not mistaken). But it would look silly on a character like that. So instead I opted for weapons that were pretty useless from a tactical standpoint. Weapons like the Khayer-Addin duelling las, which might be good at inflicting heavy damage, but must be reloaded after each and every shot making it somewhat inferior to even a modest autogun or lasgun. He also got a Cathechist Pattern Stake Crossbow (which I admit to finding to be a really cool weapon, but it was not my primary reason for getting it), and sure it is a handy weapon to have when facing daemons and such, but the adamantium stake ammunition for it is so expensive (50 thrones per stake!), that if you were to face more "mundane" enemies than daemons, you'd be wasting a dreadful amount of thrones by using it against them.

Nowadays though the noble born cleric has hanged around with more military type acolytes and he has picked up a few clues from the battles he was forced to partake in, so as of late he bought himself a customized mauler bolt pistol which should work better as an all-round weapon (even though it still caters a bit too much to his high brow tastes, when he really should be using a standard bolter, lasgun or autogun for tactical reasons).

It's this kind of thinking that a player should engage in, instead of just drooling over the coolest weapons in the book and use his PC to go in over his head to get them as fast as possible. That's not roleplaying at all, that's just playing yourself.

Call me a fascist bastard if you will, but I would seriously consider reducing the xp amount given to the Adept player in that group for poor roleplaying. Had he played a Guardsman, Scum or Assassin it would suit suite perfectly (although a bit bland, since you already expect the Guardsmen, Scum, and Assassins to be violent weapon fetischists anyway).

Well, I have an evil plan at the moment...

Soon, I'm going to begin a (rewritten) Tattered Fates. (I just like the adventure too much). When the pc's wake up in the Red Cages (I'm actually going to have a good explanation as to why they end up there, involving a long running Beast House antagonist I have in my own game, as well as the PCs current nemesis, Archimedes Noxt). but I digress. The PC's will wake up in the red cages, and escape... but you bet your ass their gear won't. I don't have the heart tot ake the guardsman's boltgun without replacing it, but that eviscerator wil never be seen again. I'm hoping to appeal to his nobleborn nature during the adventure and seduce him with more elegant weapons and concepts, rather than have him commissioning Cadence for a tribarelled assault rifle/shotgun/grenade launcher with an underslung chainsword attachment.

It's not so much punishing him by removing XP, but it is making a renewed appeal to his better nature.

Here's an idea, why not let the player play the kind of character he wants? After all it IS his character and he decides what course of action to take, what gear and style he wants. I actually like the gun bunny adept concept, very different from "normal" adepts. I can't really recall exactly what an eviscerator is, but if it's a big tough gun with a good reputation it's not that unlikely that the adept has read about it and logically concluded that it's the best weapon he can use against his enemies.

It may be that the player isn't that interested in roleplaying his character though, but if thats the case and it's not just a prejudiced GM (I've had a few of those), and the rest of the players keep rolling their eyes at the character, then it's good idea for the GM to try to encourage the player to develop his characters personality and not try to punish the player for playing the PC a certain way.

And why wouldn't void born use a melee weapon? After all, they're used to fighting in confined spaces, and the void born navy background package actually gives a bonus to that.

In my game I have a Scum that actually carries around a Cleaver picked up from Iocanothos, and keeps it as he believes it is holy as it chopped out the eye of a demon! And this is actually a thief-type scum that usually tries not to charge headlong into combat. The Arbitrator on the other hand is a more discreet investigator type than the stereotypical judge dredd with heavy armor and shotgun.

The bottom line is that the players are there to enjoy themselves not to adhere to the GMs narrow-minded idea on how characters should be like.

But if this adept was just pulled over his head I'd just work out the character as something else more martial oriented of the players choise that fits with the character.

Friend of the Dork said:

An Eviscerator is basically an oversized chainsword/chainsaw (sometimes they have chainsaw grips instead of a more swordlike hilt), with a blade almost as long as a person. It is usually ONLY seen in the hands of cult fanatics (especially within the Red Redemption) and the Sisters Repentia of the Adepta Sororitas. The weapon in question carry with it so big a concept that no matter what kind of explaination it looks pretty wierd in the hands of anyone other than these groups.

And quite frankly, I don't see how Locque is narrow at all with this. It rather seems that his player is a bit too gun happy and too little concerned with the roleplaying bit about roleplaying.

It's not that I think that Adepts should be forbidden from carrying strange and sometimes oversized weaponry with them, it's just that there should be some underlying explaination to why the Adept is doing that, other than the "well, the player thinks that weapon is cool"-reason.

All the fluff have showed that Adepts belong to a norm of sorts, and if you as a player wish that your Adept should deviate from that norm then the least you can do is provide a reasonable explaination to why your character is such a deviant, in order to help your fellow players and GM with the suspension of disbelief.

And I stress the point once again, if your primary wish is to swing around oversized chainswords and getting more and more powerful firepower, why make an Adept to begin with? Sure if the player can provide a good and interesting reason, then im all game. But when it so clearly smells of juvenile gun-fetiscism from the players side, then the whole gaming atmosphere gets ruined, because you know that the player in question isn't roleplaying at all, he/she's just playing him/herself. And if you like that sort of stuff, why play an RPG to begin with?

If you like to play backgammon the most, why would you sit your ass down at a chessboard and try to play it like it was backgammon? It makes no sense...

@Tybalt

Maybe the player have gone too far, but the GMs argument that it wasn't fitting for this character left a poor taste in my mouth.

But teally, if the Eviscerator is the problem the Gm could keep it out of the Acolytes' hands in the first place, or require an insanse SB and or TB in order to wield it.

Or let the NPCs be the voice of common sense. Reactions to carrying such a weapon could be constant harrassment from Magistratum, or even some personal tetê-a-tetê with their Inquisitor who does not approve.. at all. Which could lead to the comfy chair or worse!

Much better solution than an xp penalty or straighjacketing the player somehow.

Though judging by the description I might ban the weapon from my game entirely, after all everything from the IH is basically optional rules.

Friend of the Dork said:

I wouldn't do that if I were you. Because it would effectively remove your option of sending crazed Red Redemption fanatics against the acolytes armed with eviscerators.

(something I intend to do in the next scenario in the campaign I run as a matter of fact... Oh did I mention that im an evil GM? )

And the weapon can be quite fitting for some characters (like Clerics with the Redemptionist background package and elite advance), but it just looks silly in the hands of other characters (like Adepts).

Varnias Tybalt said:

well, now, I wouldn't go as far as saying it doesn't belong in any adepts hands. I could see one in the hands of my groups medicae quite easily complete with some cheesy one-liner involving the word "surgery" before revving it up (though he is something of a mix between a cleric and an adept... a very religious adept?). His player was even considering getting one until she realized how much is WS cost to increase and realized she ad better tings to spend her xp on. Now she doesn't feel much like getting into melee with a WS of 30 and feels that trying to swing one of those tings around with that WS of 30 isnt the wisest course of action. Of course, that hasn't stopped her from desperately wanting to flip out with the power scythe her character now has... i guess it has a higher cool factor and the fact that there's not a 4% chance per swing of lopping off her own leg I also helped in her decision to take the scythe but not pursue an eviscerator. ;-)