I would like to round out the preGen characters in 'Final Sanction' a little by giving them some relevant skills to use other than combat. I am having a brain freeze as nothing is jumping out at me as to what these should be. Probably because my lack of farmiliality with the SM genre in general. I have the rules for DH and RT.

Has anyone added any skills/talents to the preGens and if so what did you use?

Tam

Wrestling, dead eye, battle sign.

i doubt for the adventure it is critical, but if you feel the need for more flesh these would be appropriate perhaps

Forbidden Lore: Xenos, Command, Demolition, Drive, Inquiry, Search,Security, Tech-Use, Tracking.

All Battle Brothers spend time in their chapters equivalent of the 10th company as Scouts so the relevant concealment and stealth skills should be present.

Jonathan

This is actually a thread close to my heart at the moment since I've been pouring over skill lists and wondering just what skills every Space Marine would have, and what the various tactical and specialist types would have. (Slightly more generic than for Deathwatch Marines, of course.) Well, what skills they would have before you began to stack oodles of skills on them because they're Marines and, therefore, awesome at everything... or so some would have you believe.

For example, would every Marine have "Command" or would that be an acquired skill, representing the ability of the Marine to distinguish themselves from their more limited brethren?

Kage

I would say Command would be possessed by every Brother Sargent and above. Extensive survival, weaponry and martial skills are common. A variety of drive skills (land speeder, tracked vehicles and the like). Part of their training is hypno induction almost equivalent to Matrix style skill downloads.

That's kind of why I prefaced the question with "every Marine." It's really not hard to think of skills that an individual might acquire, but skills that every Marine has regardless of rank of specialist function? For example, are Marines trained specifically in survival in the various types of environment (desert, rain forest, etc.) or do they receive generalised training (e.g. "Soldier")? Are they trained with every weapon, or do they concentrate with their bolter? After all, even Space Marines are not Benedict of Amber no matter how much the fans often seem to want that.

Just a thought.

Kage

All terrain and vacuum survival and operations are trained. Scout training includes shotguns, all bolt weapons, close combat, needle sniper rifles, not sure on flame weapons. Tactical marines are crosstrained to use Lascannon, plasma weapons, chainswords, missle launchers and flamers. They are also taught to pilot landspeeders, bikes, rhinos, whirlwind and thunder hawks incase of assignment to devastater, vehicular, or assault roles. Ship board combat is also taught (when on strike cruisers and Fortress Monasterys. Drop operations and teleport ops are also trained. Besides the effects of their implants, All full marines have essentially an eidetic memory.

Scholastic lore (Own Astartes Chapter), Common Lore (Astartes), Common Lore (Imperium), Common Lore (Imperial Creed)*, Common Lore (War), Navigation (Surface). Technomat and / or Tech Use. Possible Forbidden Lore (Heresy), especially for first founding Chapters.

Maybe all at basic levels at least.

*possible replaced with Common Lore (Cult (filthy pagan rubish)) for some chapters.

In the book "Grey Knights", when the squad's psy-cannon marine dies in battle, one of his squad mates is designated as the new psy-cannon user and upon return to Titan, receives extensive psy-cannon hypno-training.

My guess is that marines are trained in just about everything at at least a minimal level, and receive extra training as necessary.

jonathan_sicari said:

At least according to the original 'fluff' only some Marines develop a functionally eidetic memory.

Incidentally, your skill listings bring into question the tactical division of the Marine Chapter, surely? Gone are "Tactical Marines" (generalists), "Devastator Marines" (heavy weapons specialists), and Assault Marines (close combat specialists), all to be replaced with "Awesome Marines." Okay, poking a little bit of fun, but one imagines that there should be a defined difference between the tactical and specialist roles in the Chapter that do not require every Marine to have the same skills as every other Marine...?

Cervantes3773 said >>>

My guess is that marines are trained in just about everything at at least a minimal level, and receive extra training as necessary.

That would explain the Final Sanction example character's skill lists. FFG just didn't want to write "All of them" under that category.

Kage

In addition, some of these may be trained at the 'basic' level. Similar arguments could be made for some Rogue Trader and Dark Heresy characters being trained in everything.

Every marine may be trained in the basics of sealth or tech use, etc. but they're not all fully trained. To use Rogue Trader as an example, all the characters can, and often are, leaders of their own subgroups on the ships, but only the Rogue Trader class actualy gets command as a starting skill. Having a skill fully trained in these systems actualy means beeing pritty **** good at it.

You see, that would be my natural inclination. In my system of choice it would be called "defaulting." There are certain elements that are going to be brought over from plain 'ole soldiering (camouflage, etc.), but there's a difference between being able to field strip a bolter and being a gunsmith (one would imagine).

Kage

Kage2020 said:

Keep in mind that Tactical Marines are actually the last phase of Marine training. As it stands Marines go through the following stages:

Scout->Devastator->Assault->Tactical

Now, a Marine can decide to stay at one of the earlier phases due to preference but any Marine in a Tactical squad is supposed to be tactically flexible enough to fulfill any role required.

Balodek said:

In most codex Chapters that is true. Of course it's funny to think that half the Chapters that are going to be available don't really follow that progression (Space Wolves, Blood Angels, and Black Templars).

Wrestling - intersting, I can see one of them rolling around with a genestealer and finishing it with a headbutt. I need to make sure I write that in

I had tried to think of the Deathwatch as a bunch of special forces coming together for a mission. A spetznas with a delta force alongside an SAS and a Legionare.

I think I will give

Assault Marine - Demolitions and tech use ( operating and maintaing jump pack and fist)

Devestator - wrestling?

Space Wolf - stealth and camouflage (if I remember right they do a lot of scouting with the new starts)

Ultramarines - command

Something along those lines, just to give them a few more options during the adventure.

thanks all.

I was actually throwing together a quick post on this at my site. So here is a summary:

Some things to remember when determining what skills 'Every Marine' may have:

Black Templars don't use scouts. Every neophyte marine is seconded to a Battle Brother as a squire, so they would have more bootlicking skills. (repair, cleaning and maintenance of equipment, etc)

Space Wolves scouts are little more than wild animals and are melee troops. Space Wolves get sneakier the further into their career they are, instead of the opposite, like Codex chapters.

By the Codex, the path of a Marine is thus:

Scout - Learning survival and stealth skills

Devastator - Supporting Brethren from afar

Assault - Close combat and strategic strikes

Tactical - Now that they know all the roles of the battlefield, they are at their true potential. Also proficient with all the weapons of the Astartes armory.

Also note, some chapters don't adhere to the Codex, like Black Templars and Space Wolves (Also Raven Guard, for when they appear). In most Deathwatch fluff they only choose veteran marines, so they would have gone through the full cycle before choosing their preferred role in Deathwatch.

Also, this doesn't apply to Librarians and Tech-Priests.

I still hold that these should be "Basic" skills for Marines, not Trained skills. Scouts may be able to sneak, but they are no catachan sniper. They may know how to clean their armor and bolter, but they're no Tech-Priest. Keeping them at basic skills also allows for more and better character development and advancement.

Quicksilver said:

Another game system handled this by a specific "Soldier" skill that represented the various skills that the military pick up that they might otherwise not be specialists in, e.g. camouflage, knowing how to field strip a weapon (but not being a Gunsmith), how to perform basic repairs to armour (but not being an Armourer), etc. (Notwithstanding the arse-about-face 'development' of the Marine...)

Kage

You run out of ammo, your knife is broken and part of your armour is broken what do you do?

miss dee said:

Simple, find the nearest enemy and take theirs

Or I suppose being an uber-marine just start punching with the plasmafist of doom!!

I now return this thred to its normal serious self.

DW

Requasition a new one. If you can't (or won't) do that, go see a Tech-Marine, or, if there isn't one in the area find a regular Tech-Priest. Even a Tech-Priest Engenseer if your desperate. The Local Genetorium or Magnifiactorium should be able to point you in the right direct of an apropirate Adept of Mars.