Greetings, brethern,

since my players do not (get to) spend much time with the rules books, they rely on me to coach them as what Talent is good for what. As one of my players recently asked me "what is Streetfighting good for?" I replied with "actually, not much!" since I normally use some kind of mook rules to speed combat along (see Creatures Anathema Minion rules; in general a non-named npc is out as soon as he has taken more damage then he has wounds).

Now, I bother that this approach (while helping to actually spend some time on RPG and not only on playing out another non-final-combat) is making some talents nigh useless. Besides Streetfight, their are numerous other talents which make the owner shine as soon as it comes to "apply critical hits".


What is the experience of you other guys and girls around (both as player and/or gm)?
Is anyone part of a group incorporating "minion rules" but still finds this talent useful? Is talent that will only come worthwhile "in this final battle" worth purchasing to you? I do not have the experience here, but want to be a good coach for my players.

What is the experience of you GM´s out and about? Any advise for me how to design my adventures and missions in a way that such talents are not totally wasted?

In general, I try to reduce fight so that not every evening does sport a two hour dice-fueled carnage.If "meaningless" (i.e. for the story as a whole not mandatory) fight occures, I just "mook about" and let those players enjoying a fight to flex their muscle and shine in their own glory.
If these are important opponents (or my pc need a real fight since they will grow careless about combat as a whole) I throw in somebody worth and do use critical tables (like I did with famed "Theo" from PtU).

Thanks!

Perhaps the answer is to simply allow these critical damage talents apply their damage to mooks even though they still have wounds. That way PCs who are good at inflicting vicious hits will be better at taking out redshirts.

Outside of mook fights these talents are awesome. When my high-ranking RT players were fighting veteran Word Bearer marines with a TB of 12, armour 8, 40 wounds and true grit any extra crit damage was like gold-dust.

Alternatively, just call the last five wounds of a mook critical damage (though without the special effects) and be done with it.

Unfortunatly, there's a lot about the DH system that is primaraly focused on long indepth tactical combat and if you don't do/use that, then the elements of the system that relly or take advantage of such will indeed become next to useless. That's just a problem of trying to go more cinematic with a system that was built to be tactical or, indeed, changing the focus and flavor of any system that didn't take such a flavor into consideration when it was designed.

First of all, thanks for the replies.

I think I will treat the last (TB) wounds of a "minion npc" to be "critical" so that pc with "critical damage boosts" are able to lend a more "telling blow" as it comes to finishing somebody. Kinda "coupe de grace" or whatever it is called in france.

thx!

It's not come up in my game yet, but I reckon that +2 Critical Damage should translate to +1 Damage vs Mooks. It's easy to remember/apply and doesn't match the bonus gained from Mighty Shot and Crushing Blow.

I tend to use the Mook rules quite a bit. Not just the 'one hit = one kill' variety, but they have anywhere between 15 and 25 wounds depending on what they are, and once wounds are reached they are removed (standing rule is that Kill by Impact/Rending damage - you can take their stuff, killed by Energy/Explosive weapon - their stuff is too damaged to take). But I usually put enough 'full rules' bad guys into encounters to make Criticals worthwhile.

And it's not usually just the BBEG at the end of a section, I usually have low level commanders or specific 'tough' bad guys.

For example, the group just finished fighting Skitarii forces on a Forge World. They had numerous enemies to face - Combat Servitors, Security Servitors, Gun Servitors, Praetorian Battle Servitors, Skitarii Troopers, Skitarii Elite, Skitarii Tribunes and a unit I called a 'Skitarii Hunter' (fast, agile, very difficult to hit or capture). The Combat/Security/Gun Servitors, Skitarii Troopers and Skitarii Elite all had simple rules - no wounds = death. The Paetorian, Tribunes and Hunters all had full rules, and I did the whole 'Criticals' thing with them. They also had comparatively better rules than the others (the Praetorians we know from the IH) and were more dangerous threats - but there were a number of them, not just one leading a host of smaller Mooks.

I tend to write scenarios to benefit the way the characters have developed, writing things into the plot that allow the players to make use of the things they've chosen for their characters. For example, a player took Gambling and Gambling +10 because he thought it made sense for his Guardsman, and there was a previous episode of the campaign where we spent some time (5 hours) playing Texas Hold'em (in character). I wrote a section into a later campaign that involved gambling rolls. Another involved the players discovering an ancient text at the centre of a long-dead Chaos Cult, allowing the Priest in the group to put his Scholastic Lore (Occult) and Common Lore (Heresy) skills to the test, gaining tangible benefits (and some negatives!) from using them.

If there are Talents and Skills that your players want to take then I'd say don't stop them because you don't plan on putting anything in that lets them use them. Look at the other way around - put things into your campaign that allows them to use them. Make them see that their choices are just as important as your preparation.

BYE