2 Sisters of Battle Looking for a play by post Game

By Servant of Dante, in Dark Heresy Play By Mail/Email

On 2/24/2017 at 6:02 PM, Covered in Weasels said:

On 2/16/2017 at 11:57 PM, Servant of Dante said:

How we doing?

On 2/24/2017 at 9:33 PM, Lynata said:

On 2/24/2017 at 6:02 PM, Covered in Weasels said:

On 2/16/2017 at 11:57 PM, Servant of Dante said:

Posted.

On 2/4/2017 at 2:12 PM, Covered in Weasels said:

Just quoting you here to see if notification will lead you directly to the forum location.

Yes, it brought me to the right location.

On 2/24/2017 at 9:33 PM, Lynata said:

On 2/16/2017 at 11:57 PM, Servant of Dante said:

16 hours ago, Covered in Weasels said:

Got a post in.

On 3/2/2017 at 3:53 PM, Covered in Weasels said:

How we doing?

On 3/2/2017 at 3:53 PM, Covered in Weasels said:

Feeling ok?

On 2/24/2017 at 9:33 PM, Lynata said:

On 2/16/2017 at 11:57 PM, Servant of Dante said:

How we doing?

I've got to look at my notes actually for this next bit so I'll get a post in tomorrow if I look at them tonight.

On 3/2/2017 at 3:53 PM, Covered in Weasels said:

On 2/16/2017 at 11:57 PM, Servant of Dante said:

Hows it going?

Well, I forgot to check this forum for a couple day. Ugh.

Anyway, apparently Estelia is supposed to have blond hair, but in my head she generally has black hair (and I think initially I intended her to have reddish hair). I think for me, it's going to stick in my mind that she has black hair, so I'm going with that (rather than continuing this schrodinger's hair situation I have going on in my head right now). So Estelia has black hair.

The other thing is the color of her flak armour. I hadn't really thought about it, so by the time I did, it had kinda cemented itself as Cadia green in my head, so that would probably be easiest.

Edited by Servant of Dante

Is it 1000 XP per character, or all together? :D either way, I'm still enjoying this. And so is Estelia, as far as I'm aware.

I'm enjoying the game as well! Balthazar now has Hatred: Psykers (as any loyal citizen of the Imperium should), among some other improvements. Balthazar's Aptitudes are spread pretty thin, but he's now reached the level of Basic Social Competency. Making him into a melee character without the Weapon Skill aptitude is going to take a little while :P

The character sheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1HsPKw_D8WBYVexPe4yUn1mzHmlBZY5p31ftJ-abEx6Y/edit?usp=sharing

I'll add the link to my signature again.

After much consideration, I have went with the following:

Agility (Simple) 100

Agility (Intermediate) 250 Bringing Estelia's Ag to 45

Two-Weapon Master 400 tier 3 talent :D

Acrobatics (Trained) 200

I aaaaaalmost went for Two-Weapon Master, but I really don't want to get shot :P so 2 dodges with a base target of 60 seems like a good idea, even though I'm going to be working with an effective BS of 30 till I get T-WM . Perhaps I should have invested in a BS advance, but again, I want that dodge. Next time we get some experience, T-WM is going to be a priority I imagine.

Edit: No! Wait! I changed my mind! I'm doing T-WM since it's so fundamental to the character archetype I'm going for. I better not get killed by a cultist because I only have 1 dodge . . .

Here's the updated character sheet! https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B6I7dUBoJLwfRHcwcHV4d2N1UnM

Edited by Servant of Dante
indecision

Oh! I have a query ... looking at knowledge-based skills, I noticed that Common Lore Skills are replicated in Scholastic Lore, representing deeper insight into an organisation's workings. Do you need both the Common and the Scholastic Skill to properly represent in-depth education, or does the latter include the former? Is there any advantage to having both?

5 hours ago, Servant of Dante said:

Is it 1000 XP per character, or all together? :D

For this question I'm going to spend 300 of your XP on more stuff for Ariel. :P

10 hours ago, Servant of Dante said:

Is it 1000 XP per character, or all together? :D either way, I'm still enjoying this. And so is Estelia, as far as I'm aware.

Per, I've never split xp in DH, and I've never seen it suggested.

9 hours ago, Covered in Weasels said:

Thanks, if all of you could send an updated link that'd be good too.

7 hours ago, Servant of Dante said:

Edit: No! Wait! I changed my mind! I'm doing T-WM since it's so fundamental to the character archetype I'm going for. I better not get killed by a cultist because I only have 1 dodge . . .

Here's the updated character sheet! https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B6I7dUBoJLwfRHcwcHV4d2N1UnM

I mean we'd have to get in a fight for that to happen lol.

4 hours ago, Lynata said:

Oh! I have a query ... looking at knowledge-based skills, I noticed that Common Lore Skills are replicated in Scholastic Lore, representing deeper insight into an organisation's workings. Do you need both the Common and the Scholastic Skill to properly represent in-depth education, or does the latter include the former? Is there any advantage to having both?

All Common Lore skills represent the common knowledge an individual might know about the general information, procedures, divisions, traditions, famed individuals, and superstitions of a particular world, group, organisation, or race. Such information is deeper than mere knowledge of the subject’s existence, and more reflects a degree of familiarity that indicates a measure of dedicated interest in the area. This skill differs from Scholastic Lore, which represents scholarly learning one might gain through study and research, and Forbidden Lore, which involves hidden or proscribed knowledge. Common Lore deals with basic information gained from prolonged exposure to a culture or area.

All Scholastic Lore skills represent information that an Acolyte would need to learn in a formal setting or institution of learning, whether from a knowledgeable mentor, an organisation, or even the careful study of rare tomes. Unlike Common Lore, this information is not readily available to the average inhabitant of a planet, but differs from Forbidden Lore in that it is not proscribed from study.

That's from the Core. The advantage would be different information on a test.

10 hours ago, ThenDoctor said:

That's from the Core. The advantage would be different information on a test.

Yeah, I did read the description of course; I just didn't feel as if it answered my question sufficiently. Like, where exactly do you see the difference in, say, Common Lore: Ecclesiarchy/Sororitas/Creed and their Scholastic versions? "Scholarly learning" as gained "in a formal setting or institution of learning" sounds as if it should include anything that people would just pick up "on the fly" in the former... To exemplify my problem: if Common Lore: Adepta Sororitas would include knowledge of "traditions and famed individuals" already, does that really mean that the organisation would not teach this to its people when they study for the Scholastic Lore skill? To be more precise, if Common Lore would have an outsider know that Alicia Dominica was a founding saint of the Sisterhood, does that mean an insider who studies only the Scholastic Lore would not be aware of this fact, even though it would (realistically) show up in a gazillion texts when studying?

Ultimately, I just need to know where exactly you would see the differences between the Skills, or more precisely how you would handle this difference in the Tests you might throw our way.

Edited by Lynata
7 minutes ago, Lynata said:

Ultimately, I just need to know where exactly you would see the differences between the Skills, or more precisely how you would handle this difference in the Tests you might throw our way.

It's not that they don't teach these things, Common represents what you learn from simply being around and suffused in the material with more than a passing interest.

In Scholastic in your example you'd learn specifics about her life, miracles she performed, when she was canonized, holidays around the galaxy about her, the historical impact she had on the various Adepta ect. and for the Sororitas you'd learn specific dates involving the founding, the divisions of the Orders, how they interact with one another and the Imperium at large.

Common lore basically gets you "Alicia is a Saint from the Sororitas that killed Vandire back in the Age of Apostasy." and stuff like, "Sororitas keep to themselves, but they have a small holding on our planets moon, they come down once a year for recruiting if they haven't lost too many."

Both are fine to have, it is what you want to know about the subject. If you don't take Scholastic this doesn't mean that you weren't taught, it means you weren't a very good student necessarily and didn't take to remembering it all. At least in this case because of your background.

Estelia isn't opposed to fighting :D I might be a bit hesitant to do anything too suicidal, so hopefully I can keep her from getting herself killed :P

3 hours ago, ThenDoctor said:

...

That makes sense and works for me. Thanks! :)

I'm going to pick up the Common Lore skills I'd consider mandatory right away, and the Scholastic ones at a later point, to not throw all those juicy XP at knowledge stuff.

My purchases:

  • Weapon Skill +5 (-250 XP)
  • Unarmed Specialist (-450 XP)
  • Common Lore, Ecclesiarchy (-200 XP)
  • Common Lore, Imperial Creed (-200 XP)
  • Acrobatics (-100 XP)

I still had 200 XP left from chargen; I've taken the liberty to already enter the advances into the character sheet where the list of purchases should allow easy tracking of expenditures.

Another question! Do kicks count as "unarmed attacks", or would one be limited to using hands in melee? ^_^

8 hours ago, Lynata said:

Another question! Do kicks count as "unarmed attacks", or would one be limited to using hands in melee? ^_^

You can describe it in the narrative as you wish, of course some circumstances might require one limb over the other.

It's Tuesday so I'm busy, but I'll do my best to get a post up tomorrow evening, since it's an introduction it'll be a bit longer so it'll take a bit longer.

1 hour ago, ThenDoctor said:

You can describe it in the narrative as you wish, of course some circumstances might require one limb over the other.

Sweet, thanks! :)

I was indeed mainly interested in the narrative effect, though there are a few mechanical concerns as well. For example:

  • using a melee attack that is more effective than the shotgun as an improvised weapon*, without first having to drop the shotgun
  • counting as "armed" in melee combat even when not wielding a melee weapon or a pistol, without first having to drop the shotgun

I'd see these as (very) situational advantages to the Unarmed Specialist Talent and I think they make sense from a realism and (in particular) "Hollywood realism" PoV, but since they are merely inferred rather than called out in the description, I guess it's better to ask your opinion beforehand. Granted, dropping the shotgun would be a Free Action anyways, but I think it's (a) a bit silly and (b) I may have to spend an Action picking it up again.

*sidenote: weird how a rifle butt is supposed to do less damage than a truncheon; a small WS penalty would make more sense than -2 dmg

Looking forward to the next phase of our game! :)

[edit] I guess point 2 doesn't actually matter since I could just declare the shotgun an improvised melee weapon, thus counting as armed anyways

Edited by Lynata

Well, I went through and built Inellia in DH 2E. Her mix of Aptitudes is certainly not the most optimal for the advances she took, and I wasn't really counting XP, just taking what felt right. I could probably cut out some of the talents pretty easily. I cut out a couple thousand points, but I'm still kinda embarrassed about how many XP I spent :P

I haven't entered the purchased talents onto the sheet yet (they're just in the list of advances she has in the spreadsheet) and I haven't touched equipment. I stayed pretty close to the 1E version of her in terms of characteristics and skills, and tried to keep the same themes with talents. I bumped Perception 5 higher than it needed to be, because of how useful it is to her, and I took ALL the Willpower advances, so maybe 1 more than was necessary. I added Athletics and Acrobatics, and give her a +10 in Scrutiny, and buffed her Scholastic Lore (Imperial Creed) (since it was after character creation that I realized that was a hobby of hers) because it felt right, and most of the skills she had maxed (+20 in 1E) I have at +30 here. And Mastery in the case of 3 of them.

I'm honestly not super into the Enemies Within Sisters talents. Better than the (imo) atrocity in Blood of Martyrs, but still not my favorite. Some of them feel a bit too much like actual miracles for my tastes, particularly anything that buffs people other than the Sister with the talent, and (although I know Lynata is going to disagree with me on this one) I'm not a fan of how many use Insanity. It's mental fortitude, strength of will and faith, training, and determination that define a Sister to me, not gaining ability by losing her mind. And yes, Inellia is only half sane. She's a special case in so many ways :D

Anyway, here's the sheet so far, just for fun. https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B6I7dUBoJLwfd2tJdWYweG95MFk

Oh, and Doc, I didn't know what her influence should be. I have it at 30 from character creation (I did the 60 point buy with 40 max in any one characteristic that we used before) and it needs to be at least 50 to get the Sister of Battle Elite advance. I was going to leave the exact number up to you

Admittedly, this character sheet might better represent Inellia, say, 60 years later (100 years into her time with the =][= ) but eh. Though she'd probably have more insanity points then. :P

Edited by Servant of Dante
On 3/19/2017 at 9:52 PM, Covered in Weasels said:

How you doing?

I totaled my car on Thursday, so things have been a little busy on my end. I'll get a post up tonight or tomorrow.