I've read the intro adventure to DH2 and I think I must be missing something. Basically there just doesn't seem to be any way in **** a novice band of acolytes can do anything but get killed by the daemonhost. As powerful as the 'weakened' form is it seems like it could just pretty much instakill a starting acolyte per turn while the acolytes attacks on it are utterly negated by it's 14 damage resistance. 14 points of damage resistance, even if I gave the acolytes civilian bolters (1d10+5) most hits will do no damage at all. Autoguns, lasguns, why bother rolling? Sure lasguns could be fired on overload any maybe a few hits would do a point or two. Big deal.

Meanwhile the daemonhost is killing an acolyte per turn. Sure they have a few fate points, but the daemonhost Burns then off in it's hit and run attacks. Then maybe they burn fate to zero to survive a few more rounds, while barely scratching the daemon, then it just kills them all one a turn.

I suppose I can pull a deus ex with robin heretek and his merry men fighting the daemonhost until it's worn down a bit but that just reduces the players to an audience and that kind of sucks for the players.

So am I missing something or are the beginning players really supposed to have no chance to do anything but get terrified, driven insane, crippled and massacred until the heretek shows up?

As is if I ran this adventure I'm thinking my. Players wouldn't come. Back for a second one. After basically being reamed, steamed and dry cleaned in this one. I may cut down the daemonhost like by half to give them a chance.

And I am in kind of a bad mood for a. Lot of reasons that have nothing to do with anything here so I don't want a belittling, snarky reply. All others are welcome.

When I GMed this one I tried to make the whole fight into a running battle. Like the acolytes encounter the daemonhost while feasting on a transport caravan. The acolytes would get some attacks with the daemonhost basically ignoring them for the maggots they are . Then the monster would just break through a wall or vanish in some other way. Still following the daemonhost (using a psyker, an auspex or just the unnatural things like water dripping upwards the daemon leaves in its wake) they would then encounter the heretek with its entourage, who would make some of his servitors stall the acolytes. After the acolytes had overcome the servitors they would later encounter the heretek while trying to bind the daemonhost and enter the battle.

Btw: Some kinds of grenades and sniping rifles proved to be very useful and of course tactics! Use cover, use distractions, use the environment against the daemonhost.

Never run this adventure, but looking at the stats of Daemonhost...

Accurate weapon - longlas, sniper rifle etc. If the party manages to organize time for a sniper to aim, this additional damage can be very useful.

Sanctified weapon ignores TB from Daemonic trait and fire ignores armor, so (Heavy) Flamer with canister of blessed promethium (or at least some sanctified Fire Bombs) is one of your best friends. With Ag 18, praise be to God-Emperor, this unholy thing will burn very quickly.

3 hours ago, Jargal said:

With Ag 18, praise be to God-Emperor, this unholy thing will burn very quickly.

True, my warband (and I) did not even see this possibility. Very nice!

I'm just not sure how many virgin warbands will be toting anti daemon weapons. I. Mean I know some gear will waste this thing, I just don't see how a noob warband has them. Unless I pull some deus ex machina and have their kindly helpful Inquisitor say ''Here, my oracle said she saw you needing these... ' and tosses them some daemon busting weapons. Like a few clips of sanctified ammo.

Well, this Daemonhost has only Daemonic (3), so ordinary fire will be almost as effective...

And if adventure ends in Daemonhost-fight, really there is no hint of daemon incursion on the way? Maybe not from start, but somewhere in the middle?

I think I'll try to read adventure, maybeI'll have other ideas.

I think the point of the whole replacement character system also is that the acolytes do not have to fight all the battles themselves. Maybe they could request some inquisitorial storm troopers or well equipped arbites and use them as replacement characters?

Ok, after reading the adventure.

By the time of the first meeting with Suvfaeras acolytes already had some opportunities to anticipate the intervention of Chaos. Even if they don't prepare for such encounter in advance, you can give them some time before final battle. Even considering that as faithful Imperial citizens they know very little about Daemons, it's logical to bring to final fight all the firepower that they can find, and spaceport is a place there a lot of useful things can be found without arousing suspicion of deus ex machina/railroading behavior of the GM.

BTW, I can't imagine Imperial port without at least one shrine of the God-Emperor - and the priest in the shrine. "Cleanse it by the holy fire!" is very common phrase to most imperials, so...

OK some nice and useful replies. I'm thankful.

I was reminded of a. Movie called 'horror express' (good. Movie and public domain) where an. 'Evil' creature made it's first move in a train depot and a 'mad monk', Puzhardo (sp?) declared evil was present and made a minor demonstration.

So I'm thinking there will be a mad priest in the dock, one who had fought a daemon long ago, was driven mad and now mans a shrine in the spaceports, ever vigilant against evil. As the acolytes enter he is screaming out a warning about 'EVIL IS COMING! IT COMES! I KNOW IT'S FOULNESS, I HAVE FACED IT BEFORE! '' while perhaps a few kneel before him due to his mad charisma.

As the PCs walk by he points them and shouts ''REJOICE, CHILDREN OF THE EMPEROR! THE SERVANTS OF THE RIGHTEOUS COME! YE MAY YET BE SAVED, FILTHY AS THOU ART! ''

After The daemonhost escapes he approaches the players and calls them. The servants of the righteous and blesses them and their weapons. The blessing might restore all their FPs and maybe give them a few non renewable extra ones.

The rules on sanctified ammo seem a bit scarce. Can a true holy man bless ammo on the spot? ****, it's an plot device, right? The blessing simply negates the daemonhost's demonic resistance and I might say keeps it from regenerating wounds. I imagine if there's a tech priest he'll have to make a. Remark about 'deluded follower of a false god' but bless his ammo anyway as he serves the righteous.

I notice las weapon packs can't seem to be sanctified. Maybe that is a major weakness of the IG, their primary weapons can't be enhanced to fight daemons.

Yeah I guess as gm I can pull a deus ex like that. Thanks for the tips, everyone!

There were rules for blessing and sanctifying in the DH1 "Blood of Martyrs" book, but they were very short and somewhat contradictory: blessing of ammo is equal in difficulty and cost with permanent sanctifying of melee weapon, while temporary (for full duration of the next encounter) blessing of melee weapon can be performed by any cleric with Common Lore (Imperial Creed) and minimal ingredients for ritual...

8 hours ago, Techpriest support said:

I imagine if there's a tech priest he'll have to make a. Remark about 'deluded follower of a false god'

Official position of both Mechanicus and Ecclesiarchy is that God-Emperor and Omnissiah are one, but yes, a significant part of the tech-priests do not believe in this, in fact.

15 hours ago, Jargal said:

There were rules for blessing and sanctifying in the DH1 "Blood of Martyrs" book, but they were very short and somewhat contradictory: blessing of ammo is equal in difficulty and cost with permanent sanctifying of melee weapon, while temporary (for full duration of the next encounter) blessing of melee weapon can be performed by any cleric with Common Lore (Imperial Creed) and minimal ingredients for ritual...

Official position of both Mechanicus and Ecclesiarchy is that God-Emperor and Omnissiah are one, but yes, a significant part of the tech-priests do not believe in this, in fact.

Did you ever read Titanicus? It's a pretty great 40k novel that dealt with THE rifts between the regular imperium and THE AM. During a major chaos invasion.

Interestingly enough it deals with low level IG units, tankers and Titan crews but not spess muhreens.

7 hours ago, Techpriest support said:

Did you ever read Titanicus?

Re-reading it right now :-) Abnett is my favorite Black Library author (actually, he is the only Black Library author, from my point of view - all others just waste paper...)

7 hours ago, Jargal said:

Quote

I hope you read 'lord of the night '. That was a great 40k novel. I wish a sequel had been done.

On 10/8/2017 at 3:48 AM, Jargal said:

On 10/9/2017 at 2:59 AM, Jargal said:

Re-reading it right now :-) Abnett is my favorite Black Library author (actually, he is the only Black Library author, from my point of view - all others just waste paper...)

I'll give you that abnett is the best 40k writer but there are some good non abnett writers. '15 hours' and 'lord of The night' were great too.

Literary merits of the text can be evaluated subjectively and objectively. I've already expressed my subjective opinion, but I can clarify with respect to these examples - Scanlon isn't terrible and this is all good things that I can say about his texts . Spurrier is a perfect example of evil joke: "kill the beaver author graphomaniac industry , save the tree!"

I also have a lot to say about objective qualities of different BL texts, but my English isn't good enough to get any satisfaction from such discussion.