So I have some gripes with some of the melee weapons presented in Enemies Within.

A minor one is the Axe of Retrebution. 6 Pen (8 with mono) seems a bit much for a low-tech weapon. However the thing is near unique, so it is not so much a problem.

The big one is the Flail of Chastisement. 1d10+8+SB; 2 Pen (4 with mono); crippling(2) flexible, snare(2), (without mono: Primitive (8)); rare

So what we have here is a one-handed low-tech weapon with a higher base damage then a figgin Power-Axe that can not be parried and weakens the opponent when it hits, that you can get as a starting item. All this with a weapon that is described as barbed-wire on a stick. This is beyond ridicules.

Another highlight is the Power Stake. With one extra D10 for every point of psy raiting on the target it makes killing grater demons so easy it makes you wonder what we ever needed Gray Knight for.

Please tall me this is an error.

Another highlight is the Power Stake. With one extra D10 for every point of psy raiting on the target it makes killing grater demons so easy it makes you wonder what we ever needed Gray Knight for.

Because many dice 10 more is hardcore, but the greater daemon in front of you will still oneshot you and **** your body in front of your friends, which will then commit suicide or go running away. The Grey Knight wouldn't.

The axe doesn't bother me, but I share your opinion about the flail. I'll have to get this book soon to read it up.

Another highlight is the Power Stake. With one extra D10 for every point of psy raiting on the target it makes killing grater demons so easy it makes you wonder what we ever needed Gray Knight for.

Because many dice 10 more is hardcore, but the greater daemon in front of you will still oneshot you and **** your body in front of your friends, which will then commit suicide or go running away. The Grey Knight wouldn't.

True but try to convince your players to be scared of something they can easy kill in one hit. And you can, I checked: The final boss in Forgotten Gods is a big old daemon prince and with the steak all you need to do is roll perfectly average to one-shot him. It just takes away form the unspeakable terror he is supposed to be.

You make a mistake. The daemon in forgotten gods is a wounded manifestation. There are two places where they put stats for greater daemon:

-Daemon hunter in DH 1 where you can roll them.

-Deathwatch has them in one of their bestiary.

I guanrantee that your power stake wielding acolyte with 9000xp will be flattened to the ground or sent screaming for his mother long before he can land one blow. And even if he does, he won't survive to see the daemon going to crush his friends after noticing the little bite he suffered in the leg.

Even if those rules come from other game lines than DH 2, DH2 has boosted the power levels of the ennemies of the game, so we can even think that the greater daemons would be even stronger (which is not necessary...they would flat out kill your warband).

You can also look in the deathwatch core rulebook where you've got rules for the Daemonprince which isn't interesting but a lot more powerful than the daemon in forgotten gods.

Edit: I just saw that I mistaken Forgotten Gods and the last campgain they put on for DH1. So I don't know the stats for the daemon prince in Forgotten Gods.

My gut says the reason it deals that much damage is to ensure the Crippling effect goes off. It seems they didn't want to modify the wording of Crippling by too much, but still want the effect of the weapon to be a sort of snaring/catching sorta weapon. It definitely seems fairly effective.

My gut says just rule that it cannot accept a Mono upgrade.

Power stakes were stupid as all hell in the tt too. You could fire one off a crossbow. My nids despised them since they ignore armor.

OtOH please go into a fight against Khorne daemons with the "my stake is daemon instadeath" attitude. The pummeling, get it on video if you do.

You make a mistake. The daemon in forgotten gods is a wounded manifestation. There are two places where they put stats for greater daemon:

-Daemon hunter in DH 1 where you can roll them.

-Deathwatch has them in one of their bestiary.

I guanrantee that your power stake wielding acolyte with 9000xp will be flattened to the ground or sent screaming for his mother long before he can land one blow. And even if he does, he won't survive to see the daemon going to crush his friends after noticing the little bite he suffered in the leg.

Even if those rules come from other game lines than DH 2, DH2 has boosted the power levels of the ennemies of the game, so we can even think that the greater daemons would be even stronger (which is not necessary...they would flat out kill your warband).

"It you stat it they will kill it" ist true in most RPGs and it is certainly true in DH. I have seen groups kill big named demons.like 200 wounds, great force of chaos big. It is challenging but by no means impossible. And don't use D eathwatch as a reference for anything but Deathwatch, it does't mix well.

Power stakes were stupid as all hell in the tt too. You could fire one off a crossbow. My nids despised them since they ignore armor.

OtOH please go into a fight against Khorne daemons with the "my stake is daemon instadeath" attitude. The pummeling, get it on video if you do.

Meh, even against Khorne it is still a +7 sanctified one-handed power-weapon. And Khorne daemons are relatively easy for any group that knows how to maximizes evasion. Unless I give them stuff like inescapable attack, I wouldn't even bother to sending them against my players as anything more them a side-encounter. And yes when I make stuff undogelbe TPK becomes a certainty but that is just bad GMing.

And don't use D eathwatch as a reference for anything but Deathwatch, it does't mix well.

Greater Daemon weren't made for DH. They were put into stats because only space marines can HOPE to kill them. If you don't want to use the stats that represents them, sure, your players will kill them.

And yes, they could, but they won't. Unless they're prepared as hell, have got all the weapons they can, prepared a daemonic banishing ritual proper to the specific daemon they're fighting...which is all the focus of a campaign.

It is sure that the witch hunter power stake is too strong if you don't give your adversaries the stats they deserve to represent them.

On my part, I had a game of ascended characters which had the focus of ensuring a terrible bloodthirster do not come back from his banishing. They were not sure at all that they would get through and still, one of the characters of the team was a daemonym seeker. All the campaign revolved around that bloodthirster and, in the end, even with all their stats, gear and such, I looked at the bloodthirster stats in Deathwatch and I knew that this would be a terrible challenge for them.

The stats in deathwatch represents what a Greater Daemon or Daemon Prince should be. If you use less than that, it is your choice, but you choose to give daemons and suchs things lesser stats to let you players fight them. It is not what represents the daemon, it is what represents something your player could kill. Then, it is sure that they will even if they shouldn't.

I think you misunderstand: What I meant to say was that you should not us DW because it uses very weird stat-lines compared to the other systems (including BC and RT which are very comparable in power-level to DW). If you want stats for great demons in DH2 the best place to check is BC since it uses nearly the same system, though I am sure you can find them other places.

And I completely agree with you: mere men should not be able to stand up to the great powers of chaos. But just because they shouldn't doesn't mean they won't. I have seen it, I have done it. In my last DH group we went up against Kairos Fatweaver (I think the GM used a beefed up version of the lord of change from the Ascension book though it is possible he fond stat for him somewhere), a giant version of a Logi Demonis and a bunch of Flamers of Tzeench all at once. And we beet it. Not by solving the riddle of plot-connivance to banish it but by shooting it with big guns. We shouldn't have! And the reason we were able to is because the GM just let us get away with stuff and would rarely say no (and because, for some reason, he did not instantly kill half the party with Holocaust, but that is neither here nor there). And of all the stuff we were rocking nothing would have done as much damage as that stake.

What I am getting at here is this: The players just should not easily get something that lets them overpower there enemies like that, since most of the fun on DH comes from, at least IMHO, overcoming impossible odds.

A weapon like that should be obtained by the players going through an entire camping in order to get it just to defeat a specific enemy and after that it should either be lost or locked away by the inquisitor for an emergency, but it should not be something you can just obtain by rolling good.

It lest that's how I fell.

Hi,

I understand you better now. But indeed, DW stats are a little "old" in comparison to those in the modern game lines (OW, BC and DH2), but they still do the job. As for your figh against that greater daemon, he should have jammed your weapons, then killed you with holocaust. It is sure that if your GM didn't play the daemon at is strenght, it was weakened. But yeah, I'm with you on anything you've said.

A weapon like the power stake should indeed be some super weapon players should have difficulty getting their hands on. And be very likely to lose it if they act stupid.