(which is not so much a retcon, rather a continuation, as the Armageddon story ends with a cliffhanger, so while your preferred version of them dying is implied , it's not stated)

But that's my point -- it's a lame comicbook-style pullback where the hero who was already considered dead mysteriously gets saved again in the next issue. It's like Star Trek III to Star Trek II, where they revived Spock just because the audience was crying. And I actually like Spock as a character .. but such "narrow recoveries", in my eye, just take away from the consistency of the setting. And it's not really a cliffhanger when it ends with the heroes vowing to die here. To me, that always was the conclusion to their story.

Though I'm sure my perspective is coloured by personal preferences here; you already know I like my 40k to be "gritty and realistic".

My perception could even be affected by actual existing cliffhangers for characters I like being retconned into confirmed deaths (not ADB's fault!). Though I only noticed the comparison now, it's possible that I was subconsciously aware of it earlier, and feel that this "mirror treatment" is applied in exactly the wrong cases. Rather than using the cliffhanger for an expanded story, they take a conclusion and change the accepted outcome.

the Lions, who only contacted a fellow Chaplain of Dorn to receive the final rituals [...]

Wh-.. but why? Even a lowly Sergeant of the Lions should be more versed in Chapter culture than some Black Templar Chaplain. This isn't the Adepta Sororitas -- these guys all follow different teachings and values!

Eh, I guess it's okay in that it can be overlooked to write a cool story. If it were just this. But it is another point on a growing list of things that "don't feel right", at least for my own interpretation of the setting.

As much as I enjoyed the discussion I had with ADB, from what I've seen so far, I can't say that his stories appeal to me. This is just a matter of taste, though, so not where we actually found our common ground. I'm not exactly what you'd call the target audience for most 40k stories.

Also, the gene-seed of the last battle's casualties are presumably collected by the arriving Templars - if half of the 96 died, it yields a hundred or so gene-seed, which is not half bad

Yeah, but who is going to implant it? Are the Templars donating their Apothecaries, too?

Then again, Lexicanum mentions a "temporary detachment", and if they can spare an entire Strike Cruiser including thousands of serfs (why? the Lions did not lose any ships ), I guess they can spare a few of their ~50 Apothecaries, too.

PS: We've gone horribly off-topic, haven't we?

PS: We've gone horribly off-topic, haven't we?

These days apparently we tend to do that a lot And I didn't even touch upon what goes on over there - let's just be nice and say it escalated quickly

the Lions, who only contacted a fellow Chaplain of Dorn to receive the final rituals [...]

Wh-.. but why? Even a lowly Sergeant of the Lions should be more versed in Chapter culture than some Black Templar Chaplain. This isn't the Adepta Sororitas -- these guys all follow different teachings and values!

Eh, I guess it's okay in that it can be overlooked to write a cool story. If it were just this. But it is another point on a growing list of things that "don't feel right", at least for my own interpretation of the setting.

As much as I enjoyed the discussion I had with ADB, from what I've seen so far, I can't say that his stories appeal to me. This is just a matter of taste, though, so not where we actually found our common ground. I'm not exactly what you'd call the target audience for most 40k stories.

I read the story a long time ago, so I just checked. The Templar was actually invited over by a Chaplain of the Lions, implying he wanted to involve him in the Inquisitor business, but the guy died before they could meet. He was only asked to perform the rituals when he showed up during the preparations to the final showdown.

Anyway, I (grudgingly ) accept your dislike. I guess it shows I slightly overrate perceived literary niveau as opposed to faithfulness to already established facts. Oh well, at least I learned a valuable lesson about myself today

These days apparently we tend to do that a lot And I didn't even touch upon what goes on over there - let's just be nice and say it escalated quickly

You and your timing. Just a minute ago I was posting there as well. Too late now, mister!

The Templar was actually invited over by a Chaplain of the Lions, implying he wanted to involve him in the Inquisitor business, but the guy died before they could meet. He was only asked to perform the rituals when he showed up during the preparations to the final showdown.

That makes a little more sense, but I still don't get why the Lions would involve an outsider into something as intimate as a Chapter's rites. As a guest, sure, but leading them is rather atypical, given how he'd know little about the Chapter's history, its heroes, its tradition. Hell, with a Black Templar joining the gathering of African Marines, we could half-expect him to go "You want me to do what? WHAT IS THIS HERESY?!"

Of course, that could be merely my perception.

I guess it shows I slightly overrate perceived literary niveau as opposed to faithfulness to already established facts.

I suppose that must be our divide ... I've often mentioned how much I'd appreciate a consistent background, and how infuriating it is when more and more fans of the franchise are unaware of the original material because they're only reading the novels.

I can accept minor discrepancies (sadly, very few stories do not contradict anything ), but in this case I guess my perception of the Lions has solidified long ago, both regarding their identity as well as their fate.

You guys have been helpful, so I'm thinking screw the ork and just say no but the sister I think that as a modified Black Templar without the Space Marine enhancements (starting at 20+2d10 instead of 30+2d10)

No luck convincing the player to try a Marine, then? Ah well...

But 20+2d10 for starting characteristics would be for "fresh" DH characters, which in the case of the SoB amounts to a Novice. I would recommend at least 25+2d10 (Rogue Trader level), though technically there is no reason why the character should not start with 30+2d10 as well.

It depends on how much of an experience gap you envision -- ironically, freshly anointed Battle Sisters actually had more military drill than newly made Space Marines, owing to being trained from infancy rather than teen age. However, Deathwatch Marines are usually veterans, so they should probably have a couple decades under their belt, depending on the backstory.

On the other hand, when I was still working on that DW fan-supplement, I envisioned the SoB to be a veteran as well, in part because I wanted to replicate a progression between the three games: Novice and normal Sister in DH -> normal Sister and Elohim in Rogue Trader -> Superior and Palatine in DW.

I guess ultimately it mainly comes down to how much you want to create a level playing field.

By the way, if you do implement the Acts of Faith I proposed, please let me know how it went! I'm very much interested in any feedback as to how useful or useless they were, and how intuitive (or not) the system felt to players.

Good luck with your game!

Yeah 2d10+10 is going to bone that player. Experience points wise that runs into the thousands I'd expect. Not to mention loss of marine implants. Is the character getting unnatural toughness and strength out of interest?

Things like WP and Fel in particular there's no special reason that Sisters of Battle should be worse than Marines.

Yeah 2d10+10 is going to bone that player. Experience points wise that runs into the thousands I'd expect. Not to mention loss of marine implants. Is the character getting unnatural toughness and strength out of interest?

Things like WP and Fel in particular there's no special reason that Sisters of Battle should be worse than Marines.

Sisters don't get unnatural stats and are not genetically enhanced like a marine and starting them with 2D10+20 or 25 is fairly reasonable. They do however get a SLIGHT bonus from the sister pattern power armour which in DH2 gives a +2 bonus to their SB. How this will be translated into the system where unnatural stats are mostly multiplier over additive is up to the GM to determine. In terms of raw physical strength and capability the sister will mostly be screwed over.

What will make them dangerous and balance out is their Acts of Faith. It'll be those acts which keep them alive and shrug off or keep fighting by their divine fervor and relentless devotion to the Emperor and service. There are a few really nice ones in DH2 which work off their Insanity bonus such as a buff to their Armour value for the round, extra damage, buffs to allies, repelling daemons or warp entities etc.

They do however get a SLIGHT bonus from the sister pattern power armour which in DH2 gives a +2 bonus to their SB.

+1, actually. It's fairly crappy, at least when compared to their codex fluff or DW power armour, hence the argument to just use the stats for Marine armour.

Alternatively, here's a more unique write-up for DW that does away with what I'd regard as Marine-exclusive gadgets:

Yeah 2d10+10 is going to bone that player. Experience points wise that runs into the thousands I'd expect. Not to mention loss of marine implants. Is the character getting unnatural toughness and strength out of interest?

Things like WP and Fel in particular there's no special reason that Sisters of Battle should be worse than Marines.

Sisters don't get unnatural stats and are not genetically enhanced like a marine and starting them with 2D10+20 or 25 is fairly reasonable. They do however get a SLIGHT bonus from the sister pattern power armour which in DH2 gives a +2 bonus to their SB. How this will be translated into the system where unnatural stats are mostly multiplier over additive is up to the GM to determine. In terms of raw physical strength and capability the sister will mostly be screwed over.

What will make them dangerous and balance out is their Acts of Faith. It'll be those acts which keep them alive and shrug off or keep fighting by their divine fervor and relentless devotion to the Emperor and service. There are a few really nice ones in DH2 which work off their Insanity bonus such as a buff to their Armour value for the round, extra damage, buffs to allies, repelling daemons or warp entities etc.

I know sisters don't get physical enhancements I was just curious if the GM in this instance is handwaving it. In game terms the PC is at a massive disadvantage

Acts of Faith really aren't going to cut it frankly. Apart from the fact that they are limited and often situational (vs psykers etc) or actually buff allies (which does nothing to readdress power balance) marines effectively have their own acts of faith called solo mode abilities Codex abilities and squad mode abilities.

That said if you started a DH1 character from scratch and gave them 15000 experience points allowed them to use Ascension and Rogue Trader. It would be interesting to see what Battle Sister could be created.

My suggestion would be to simply roll up a Black Templars as normal but say the character was some kind of living saint. Her acts of faith conveniently manifest as unnatural strength immunity to poison etc

Acts of Faith really aren't going to cut it frankly. Apart from the fact that they are limited and often situational (vs psykers etc) or actually buff allies (which does nothing to readdress power balance) marines effectively have their own acts of faith called solo mode abilities Codex abilities and squad mode abilities.

Indeed -- that's part of why I recommended my own take on Acts of Faith. In addition to craving additional feedback.

Some of the DH2 AoF are actually quite nice "out of the box" (and massively superior to the DH1 BoM ones), so much that I think I'll incorporate some of those ideas into a future version of my own, but I believe that them being limited by Fate Points (a resource already used elsewhere) basically just extends their range of limited abilities, rather than giving them a set of additional ones, if you get my drift.

Especially considering that some of the AoF are actually inferior to FP use. Why spend Fate on lowering the impact of Fatigue via an Act of Faith, when you can just as well spend Fate to completely remove it with an option available to everyone ? Design oversight?

As for Squad Modes -- I would actually say to just make them available to the Sister as well, just using the Black Templar set (as they share a related mindset). If a Space Wolf can join Squad Modes with an Ultramarine , there's no reason why a Sororitas shouldn't do so either. They do train with the very same weapons, after all.

That said if you started a DH1 character from scratch and gave them 15000 experience points allowed them to use Ascension and Rogue Trader. It would be interesting to see what Battle Sister could be created.

I think that would just end up with a character overloaded with a gazillion Skills and Talents, making her extremely unwieldy to play due to all the options and special rules you'd have to remember (especially for a novice player!), whilst still missing the "raw damage" and soak of the Marines.

That's another reason for why I'm betting on Acts of Faith -- both as a counterpart to Astartes Unnaturals, but also to essentially represent a "streamlined" power package for a veteran warrior; an alternative to having to keep track of ~30 Talents.

In general, I always advise against "crossing the streams", meaning taking something from one game and just inserting it into another without giving it a balance pass. FFG presents it as an option, but arguably this is not how the games were written, considering that even some of the basic rules change from one game to another, or how advancement costs change between games. They are, in all respects, independent product lines, even if they were born of the same d100 system. It'd be like taking a D&D character into a game of the Warcraft RPG: many things may seem similar, but in the end, something will look weird.

My suggestion would be to simply roll up a Black Templars as normal but say the character was some kind of living saint. Her acts of faith conveniently manifest as unnatural strength immunity to poison etc

Also an interesting solution, but it does sound fairly "special snowflake".

(Correction I said 2d10+10 when I meant 2d10+20)

I know sisters don't get physical enhancements I was just curious if the GM in this instance is handwaving it. In game terms the PC is at a massive disadvantage

Acts of Faith really aren't going to cut it frankly. Apart from the fact that they are limited and often situational (vs psykers etc) or actually buff allies (which does nothing to readdress power balance) marines effectively have their own acts of faith called solo mode abilities Codex abilities and squad mode abilities.

That said if you started a DH1 character from scratch and gave them 15000 experience points allowed them to use Ascension and Rogue Trader. It would be interesting to see what Battle Sister could be created.

My suggestion would be to simply roll up a Black Templars as normal but say the character was some kind of living saint. Her acts of faith conveniently manifest as unnatural strength immunity to poison etc

Yeah I did wonder on the 2D10 thing

If you wanted to give them a little more clout, consider giving them the AoF from the Sister Canoness support character as well. Additionally while you say it only works versus Psykers, there's a lot of Xenos which are technically counted as Psyker. Depending what fluff and books you read and when, some argue that synapse creatures are counted as Psykers for all intent and purpose. Eldar, Ork Weirdboyz, some xenos. The new powers though don't just disrupt psykers and work against anything with corruption which expands the potential.

I'd still be inclined to do it but then this is just me and I'm a massive fan of home brewing a Landraider load of stuff for fun.

The Canoness Support Character sucks, though. Apart from her crap gear, two of the AoF just make the Marines even better than they already are, and one is way too obviously Space Magic rather than the ambiguous "miracle? skill? luck?" thing they've got going on.

I admit it's a matter of interpretation, but I'm generally sceptical against attempting to use the downscaled DH stuff when you want this character to succeed alongside buffed Marines.

I have an idea for a Brighthammer setting which allows the Imperium to mainly focus on 4 things, the Orks, the Necrons, the Tyrinads, and the Forces of Chaos. So we got the idea to add in each of the different races but got no idea where to start. Orks are in this case working on both sides of the divide so stats for them would be helpful. Dark Eldar are a pain to everyone so don't make them unless your making them as an enemy type. This group would be very helpful.

The Canoness Support Character sucks, though. Apart from her crap gear, two of the AoF just make the Marines even better than they already are, and one is way too obviously Space Magic rather than the ambiguous "miracle? skill? luck?" thing they've got going on.

I admit it's a matter of interpretation, but I'm generally sceptical against attempting to use the downscaled DH stuff when you want this character to succeed alongside buffed Marines.

If it were me I'd be using home brew AoF using the 3E codex as an example. Mocking up something to give an invulnerable save equal to an armour save? Yes please...

Extra +2 S in melee, I'm having that...

Call those weak :-)

If it were me I'd be using home brew AoF using the 3E codex as an example.

Coincidentally, that's exactly what I did with those homebrewed AoF .

I just added the ones from d100 Inquisitor on top.

Still need more playtesting, though, as I'm not sure about how those numbers work out in detail.

Another wanted to something entirely different as well, he wanted to be an ork who believed he was a Space Marine

There were a couple of fan-made comics doing the rounds on /tg/ about a bunch of orks masquerading as space marines, but for the life of me I can't remember the title.

I know we're way past this, but I don't have players wanting to try Sororitas in Deathwatch, so I had to sit that one out. On the other hand I found this, and I figure it might still be good for a laugh. It was not a comic, but a Rogue Trader campaign called Deffwotch .

"DID DA HERO OF THE IMPERIUM COWER WHEN HE FACED DA TIN-HEADED XENO, DA KULTS OF GENESNEAKERS, AND THE BLUE GITS? NO. HE DID IT AND YOU WILL TOO! DA RAKGHOLS GOT WOT? 6 ARMS? HOW MANY DO YOU GOT? I SEE 2 ARMS. 20! 1000 ARMS RIGHT AND PROPPA, WOT'LL DO A NUMBER ON ANY XENO DAT DOESN'T EVEN REGISTER ON DA BASIC GUARDSMAN'S PRIMER!"

It reminds me of the old "looted" Ork vehicles - those were always a real outlet of creativity. Let me remind you guys of the looted Carnifex model

Ohboy.

The worst part is, the way ork tech works (It works if you believe it will work) that could actually happen.

Mekboy: "Orr yeah! We'z lost lotz a boys captoorin it, den lost loadz more boyz puttin on da kontrol 'elmet, before nob Zogbash knocked it out wiv iz 'ard 'amma! Onze dat wuz in place we could get on wiv tamin' it. Den we only lost a few boyz okazionally"

Slaver: "Bezt idea ah evah 'ad! All da fight an' foul temp'ment uf a squigoth, just not az big. Itz dead Killy!"

Mekboy: "Az 'ard az a dredd!"

Slaver: "Now fer dem biovorez, dey iz look familiar ta me sumhow...."

Not sure if this has been said already, but the Ork who thinks he's a space marine story is called "Deffwotch", Deathwatch in Ork cockney.

Generally, the entire concept is known as Orkhammer 40k. My favorite is Orkquisitor.

So my question to all folks... Does anyone have a rule set or document with stats and mechanics for either Assassins or Sisters of Battle out there? I know that there are lore and fluff issues but I am looking for something like the SoB beta Acts of Faith from above, but finished. I have a hard time creating my own that have balance since I have not had enough experience with all the systems to make stuff work. Any help all? Thanks!

As for non marines in deathwatch you could play a full blown AM tech priest. I mean the total cyborg guy with like 4 servo arms, maximum armored body that makes power armor look like flak, defense fields, cyber augmentation out the ass (possibly literally!) and some of those "HOLY $@#%! " level weapons that the AM keep for themselves.

As to why he's there, necron tech above what mere techmarines can comprehend, needs to be escorted on a mission to salvage some, the AM is unwilling to risk it's own forces, or an inquisitor wants the tech for the inquisition and the tech priest has agreed to study it for him, whatever. Maybe a KT has been specialized in a fighting necrons and he's been assigned to them.

If you wanted to commit some beautiful heresy, I got you covered.

http://rpng.freeforums.org/daughters-of-death-female-astartes-chapter-deathwatch-t406.html

36 minutes ago, pearldrum1 said:

If you wanted to commit some beautiful heresy, I got you covered.

http://rpng.freeforums.org/daughters-of-death-female-astartes-chapter-deathwatch-t406.html

*munches on some popcorn*

I got plenty.

On 12/9/2015 at 5:41 PM, sponge said:

If you wanted to commit some beautiful heresy, I got you covered.

http://rpng.freeforums.org/daughters-of-death-female-astartes-chapter-deathwatch-t406.html

One of those things that should have been a thing when GW first printed the material. so, to be fair around a mouth of popcorn, you should go in there again and rework the primarch's curse to include willpower test etc to maintain composure under fire when the triggers occur.

plus, cause i love it, more history and get into their philosophy and combat doctorin further, really could make it shine with some additions.

Nice work, thanks for the popcorn.