Sunday I ran the first half of Final Sanction, here's some feedback:

The hordes system works basically but it gets dull when there's plenty of hordes fighting involved. Turning points or random battle event tables are a must then. Other than that, it might be better from a game mechanics viewpoint to let the Brothers fight a single menacing horde than an endless stream of less challenging hordes. The latter, as mentioned requires work from the GM or scenario author to break up the numbers crunching.

One point that came up during fighting hordes was ammo consumption. If there is a let's say about 3 to 1 rate of actual horde members and horde magnitude, it's not believable to assume that each shot that hits (reducing horde magnitude by 1) actually kills 3 enemies. In short: reducing a horde like the ones in FS seems to ask for higher ammo expenditure but that's probaby a house rule. Right now I am considering adding another attribute to hordes: horde density.

Also to give the player an impression for the kills they have inflicted I had let them roll a d3 after each horde hit. I multiplied that roll with the magnitude damage inflicted and totaled that up at the end of the session to give the players an estimate of their body count. The Devastator had one of 230 kills.

Anyway, for shooting at hordes I don't adjust for horde size but for how much a horde of a given size is exposed to the shooter. As a result I apply a modifier of +0 (small or severely decimated horde that's entrenched) to -30 (huge horde in the open).

Demeanours are doubtful. To be fair: without guidance by the corebook, it's been hard to figure out how to properly roleplay the Marines (Personal vs Chapter Demeanours - which takes precedence and how much can you stray from your Chapter) and all and it has been an improvise session too besides. Demeanour appear right now to be a cheap way to get an additional reroll. It didn't came up during play but I predict the improvement voting won't work: players will always be inclined to vote with yes. Either because it's to the group benefit (thus their own) anyway and more importantly because they won't want to cause any bad blood, possibly leading to them being down-voted next time too.

Overall role-playing was little but that's largely owed to the scenario and the aforementioned difficulties of getting into being a Space Marine without good guidance.

The session had two highlights, both thanks to the Dark Angel player. The first was 'Breaking Point' turning point. The Ultramarine failed to raise the morale of the troops, thanks to botching both the fellowship rolls, as well as causing his weapon to jam after delivering a supposedly rousing speech. The Dark Angel player made a very good Int test though and so I told him (especially since it's the introductory scenario) that he needed to do sth totally foolhardy to raise the PDF's spirit. He made the right choice and left cover. He won the turning point for the kill-team in the end thanks to his Stoic Defense ability.

The second highlight was I described how Captain Ascote took them aside and, took of his cap and started changing in appearance. The Dark Angel player, apparently fearful of Genestealers, shot Syndalla right in the chest with his bolt pistol. She fell to the ground in disbelief, severely wounded and when she made motions to get up (now as a woman), she was shot again, this time fatally I ruled. Yep, they actually killed Syndalla before they had a chance to speak.

They can only be glad that her Inquisitor isn't around to punish them for that. (What punishment is there for SM actually? Tribunal before the chaptermaster?)

The feedback of the players was positive but don't read too much into that: it has largely to do with never having fought with character against such a fast number of enemies and killing so many so quickly in a firefight. That part will get old quickly, I expect.

In the end they went towards the PDF HQ and failed to stop the siege thanks to some bad luck because I managed to pass the morale checks twice in a row.

Anyway, I preordered the Rulebook on Monday.

Alex

Couple things.

Horde Magnitude doesn't represent the exact size of the Horde (there is no Magnitude X = Y members). They also represent morale, cohesion, fighting ability, etc. Thus, a reduction of magnitude could be the fact that Johnny Rebel is charging a bunch of marines and sees his buddy's head explode and he loses his nerve. Or maybe he takes some bone shards or other shrapnel in the eye, leg, whatever, and he's no longer able to fight. Also remember that a bolter shell may go right through several unarmored individuals in the horde.

The size modifiers do make sense. If you're shooting an Enormous horde that you can only see through a 2 x 2 ft window, you shouldn't get a bonus.

For Demeanours, I don't think they need a lot of explanation. None take precedence as it's up to the player to decide how he's reacting. I do agree that the vote doesn't make sense. A better option would be simple GM fiat. If the player makes a good effort, give it to him. If your players don't know how to roleplay marines, I'm not sure Demeanors are going to fix that directly.

As for shooting the assassin, I find that doubtful. Judging by the Vindicare, she should have had at least a AB of 45-50 along with Unnatural Agil x2, for a dodge target in the 90-100 range along with Temple Assassin to allow tons of dodges. Your game of course, but I wouldn't have let them get away with that so easily. Try, yes, but success would be unlikely.

Radomo said:

The core book actually just suggests the vote thing as a simple method of deciding, rather than stating that that is the way to do it. GM Fiat is entirely acceptable, by the book, too.

Radomo said:

Horde Magnitude: okay, that's a way to interpret it, agreed.

Demeanours: Can you have conflicting demeanours? How is that resolved? A hot-tempered and rash Ultramarine? A studious and careful Space Wolf? In such cases when can you invoke the demeanour? Always? :-)

Assassin: You have to understand the situation - I told my players that the Captain was taking of his hat, lowering his head and they saw a change in hair colours taking place and hairs getting longer while the body frame getting sleeker. Syndalla didn't look at them, not expecting to get shot (I didn't). One (one!) player did get nervous and trigger-happy and shot the transforming Captain. 19 damage points, I believe. I ruled that Synadalla was shocked and severely wounded then trying to get up in disbelief. That's when the Dark Angel shot again. I ruled that was the end for Syndalla.

Too bad they won't get punished for that. Speaking of punishment - anything about that in the Core Rulebook? :-)

Alex

Demeanours: Can you have conflicting demeanours? How is that resolved? A hot-tempered and rash Ultramarine? A studious and careful Space Wolf? In such cases when can you invoke the demeanour? Always? :-)

Whenever you can plausibly demonstrate how your chapter's or your personal demeanor would benefit the situation, I assume. For personal demeanors in conflict to the chapter's demeanor, I'd also expect a good explanation from the player on why he of all people would be sent to serve the Deathwatch.

Assassin: You have to understand the situation - I told my players that the Captain was taking of his hat, lowering his head and they saw a change in hair colours taking place and hairs getting longer while the body frame getting sleeker. Syndalla didn't look at them, not expecting to get shot (I didn't). One (one!) player did get nervous and trigger-happy and shot the transforming Captain. 19 damage points, I believe. I ruled that Synadalla was shocked and severely wounded then trying to get up in disbelief. That's when the Dark Angel shot again. I ruled that was the end for Syndalla.

Even so I'd consider it quite possible for her to dodge. Firstly since she would doubtlessly have that one reflex talent that allows for an awareness roll against surprise - I believe it was Rapid Reaction. Secondly, her Temple Assassin trait explicitly allows her to dodge everything - including at least a few things that should be physically impossible to dodge. Temple Assassins are about as inhuman as Astartes.

But it's your call of course.

Cifer said:

Demeanours: that isn't the question. The question is if there is such a thing as a rush and hot-tempered Ultramarine or not?

Assassin: if you don't expect an attack *and* you don't see the attack, it's fair that you can't dodge, everything else amounts to the rule that a character can dodge every attack all the time, I didn't assume that here. And I wasn't inclined to leaf through a rulebook to figure out if she might have a talent to possibly dodge. I got surprised, the other players got surprised, she wasn't looking. The player was trigger-happy, I don't feel I have to protect him from his own decisions. Especially not in an introductory adventure.

Alex

Read the Uriel Ventris novels. He is rash and hot headed at times, and definitely struggles with a conflict between his personal beliefs and the chapter's. Since Demeanours are once per adventure, I'm not sure how they could conflict. They are mainly an RP tool with an game benefit on the side. If your personal and chapter conflict, then you have to play the character as one divided or fighting against his true nature to be faithful to the chapter or something. You invoke the demeanour when you provide a significant enough RP reason to do so.

As for Assassins, they are super human. As Cifer said, they can dodge things that are not strictly possible to dodge. If you wanted to say she didn't see the first shot coming at all, she most certainly should have expected another (even if they said 'oops...' she'd be worried). Even considering prone, she'd still have a 60-80% chance to dodge. Regardless, I was just mentioning the way I would have handled that. If you don't know the background well enough to know that temple assassins are on par with (or higher, for some tasks) than marines, you have to play it how you did.

For Magnitude, the adventure itself states that Magnitude is an abstract measure of a Horde's determination and numbers, not any 1 to X mapping. We'll have to see if the full rules expand on that. The Dev Diary says something similar and describes how bolter fire may be killing an entire front rank. Maybe consider that even 'misses' from a full auto burst are probably hitting targets, but that is just rolled up into the magnitude mechanic. javascript:void(0);/*1280968235188*/

Radomo said:

You can have conflicting Demeanours, since the Chapter Demeanour is how the Chapter has taught you to act, and your Personal Demeanour is your personality.

As they've said, she should have been able to dodge it. She has the talents to dodge even Surprise attacks. As for punishment, yes, you can have Renown deducted from you for failures, etc. Killing an Imperial Temple Assassin who was to brief you of your extra orders would count as a massive failure in my game.

And yep, the rulebook says the same thing as you posted. Magnitude represents morale, determination, numbers, etc, and is not at all intended to be used as a "1 to X" mechanic.

MILLANDSON said:

I would agree with this wholeheartedly.

After all, there are many times in the space marine novels that a single space marine fires at a target and hits something other than the intended target. Even if that other target hit was an enemy, should the force commander/sergeant notice that you missed what you aimed at, you will be subjected to disciplinary action (Usually they tell you "Brother, assign yourself 10 hours of marksmanship penitence for not checking your lines of fire before engaging the enemy.")

Not verifying that your target is indeed an enemy before engaging them is a cardinal sin even in modern-day fighting.

Now, should this have been an Ultramarine, he would feel ashamed at himself due to his lack of fire discipline... but if this was a Space Wolf? Well, he might just shrug and say "Oops..."

MILLANDSON said:

Demeanours: Surely a shy Space Wolf would have had a hard time, right? Groups influence to a degree its members and I'm sure chapters only pick recuits fitting their mindset? Anyway there are no rules preventing a shy Space Wolf, I guess. Now that would be a role-playing opportunity!

Assassin: Even with all that has been said and with all the training, Syndalla is still human, that means she can get taken by surprise, especially by an attack she didn't see. Plus, don't forget: she was a non-fighting character. Sure I could have assigned her a Dodge value but again: no need to protect players from their own decisions in an introductory scenario. Anyway, in other games I would suspect the party to keep silent on the incident. In Deathwatch however the Battle Bothers can be assumed to deliver a full and complete Mission Report, right? Uh-oh.

What would have happened if the Inquisitor had stayed alive, btw? Summary trial?

Alex

Demeanours: Surely a shy Space Wolf would have had a hard time, right? Groups influence to a degree its members and I'm sure chapters only pick recuits fitting their mindset? Anyway there are no rules preventing a shy Space Wolf, I guess. Now that would be a role-playing opportunity!

Which is why I'd expect an interesting story behind that.

Assassin: Even with all that has been said and with all the training, Syndalla is still human , that means she can get taken by surprise, especially by an attack she didn't see. Plus, don't forget: she was a non-fighting character. Sure I could have assigned her a Dodge value but again: no need to protect players from their own decisions in an introductory scenario. Anyway, in other games I would suspect the party to keep silent on the incident. In Deathwatch however the Battle Bothers can be assumed to deliver a full and complete Mission Report, right? Uh-oh.

Temple Assassins are pretty much what you get when you take a human and replace humanity with efficiency, so...

Cifer said:

Efficiency != Perfection.

Can't dodge an attack you don't see, nor expect. Unless you have a kind of 6th sense/premonition. I ruled she didn't or it didn't detect this, end of story.

Alex

ak-73 said:

Actually, in the case of Temple Assassins, yes they can. But that's not detailed in any way in the adventure. However, it does state that " anything short of a Broodlord or multiple Genestealers presents her with no significant threat ," Final Sanction page 27. Given that the broodlord is a hearty adversary for the whole kill-team, that says a lot about Syndalla's combat abilities.

But then, this was never intended to be a discussion or disagreement on what happened when you were running the demo, but an example of how things could go very wrong very quickly. Given the very general and limited information within the demo, and whether I or others agree with, your ruling on the matter was somewhat reasonable given your description of events.

That said, in the Read or Paraphrase box it states " a ripple seems to run down the captain’s body and his form distorts and shimmers taking on a new shape. Before you stands a lithe female, clearly a member of the Callidus Assassin Temple—shape shifting killers and favoured tools of the Inquisition. " That alone indicates the kill-team members should be perfectly aware of what she is; whether the players understands what it means or not, the characters do.

Just my two gelt.

-=Brother Praetus=-

Brother Praetus said:

Please let me repeat:

'Can't dodge an attack you don't see, nor expect. Unless you have a kind of 6th sense/premonition. I ruled she didn't or didn't detect this, end of story.'

I'd like to use this occasion to point out one game-mastering principle that I have found out years ago while running Shadowrun: unless your NPC is an actual deity, no matter who they are don't make them too perfect. Whether they are Space Marines, Immortal Elves or Ancient Dragons.

In the case of SM one rules/realism argument for that would be is that while they are highly trained they are much less skilled than other beings/entitites which implies a substantial potential for improvement, especially in comparison to the major heroes of their chapter. I would hold out that this even goes for Syndalla.

But that isn't the main thrust argument, just a side note. If your major NPCs are too perfect they become too predictable. Of course an Assassin always can dodge every attack all the time, a dragon practically always sees someone nearing his hoard even while sleeping (they never sleep very, very deeply), the Immortal Elf will always sense an impending attack and have a handful of spells at hand to deflect and counter it, etc.

The cardinal sin of that isn't so much the question of realism; even if it was realistic in your eyes given the setting, don't go there. The cardinal sin is one of predictability. Your players know that they will never have a chance of catching the dragon on the wrong foot and reach the hoard because even if he's asleep, his Perception skill is so high, he will alerted; there is no chance to catch the Immortal Elf of the high-level assassin off-guard, etc.

Sorry for disgressing. Anyway, there is no point in debating this: I realize one could argue that her training may or may not have allowed her to dodge. One may argue that according to the scenario a GM would have had grounds to give her a dodge. One cannot argue however that there had been a necessity for a GM to give her a dodge and that makes any debate futile.

Brother Praetus said:

Yeah but you see, given that I run the sessions in my native German language, I don't switch to reading out sections out in English (all that language woudn't be a barrier) because it's odd to switch in language back and foth. Therefore I described what was happening in my own words in German, trying to raise the tension. Mind you that all the players were very experienced players, including the one who shot Syndalla. So I didn't expect what happened.

But let that be everyone a reminder that even experienced and skilled people fumble. Which ties in neatly to what I said above. Too much perfection, even in super-heroes, is predictable and this boring. And boredom is the prime cardinal sin in RPGing. ;-)

Alex

Shooting a temple assassin in the chest, accident or no, is a pretty extreme failure on the part of both the group and the assassin. After making a move to get up and giving the Kill Team time to register "oh ****, she's a Callidus", the second shot is just grats.

Simply telling the Inquisitor/Watch Captain "She should have dodged it, it's her fault" isn't going to work for this one, I think...

Aye, that'd be a fairly hefty Renown penalty in any of my games, because it is a massive failure and resulted in a prized assassin (there aren't tonnes of Temple Assassins to throw around at problems, after all) being killed by friendly fire. Not only that, but I have the impression that her colleagues aren't going to be too impressed, and having high-ranking Inquisitorial acolytes and Temple Assassins pissed off at you can't be healthy, even for a Space Marine.

MILLANDSON said:

True.

Still I agree with ak-73 about his ruling of the situatiog. Players shouldn´t be restricted uneccesiraly, but they should be held responsible for their actions. &i think that this little incident/accident could provide nice sideplot for the kill-team in longer campaign. Local Master of the Callidus Temple would learn about such thing somehow, and he/she surely has word in the ear of kill-teams Inquisitor/Watch Captain. "Accidental" into the world in final stages of Tyranid infestation or "mistaken" target priorities of Eversor Execution Force during warp transit might be quite funny

I would allow players to make such a mess, but then I will let them to deal with it.

@ak

But that isn't the main thrust argument, just a side note. If your major NPCs are too perfect they become too predictable. Of course an Assassin always can dodge every attack all the time, a dragon practically always sees someone nearing his hoard even while sleeping (they never sleep very, very deeply), the Immortal Elf will always sense an impending attack and have a handful of spells at hand to deflect and counter it, etc.

The cardinal sin of that isn't so much the question of realism; even if it was realistic in your eyes given the setting, don't go there. The cardinal sin is one of predictability. Your players know that they will never have a chance of catching the dragon on the wrong foot and reach the hoard because even if he's asleep, his Perception skill is so high, he will alerted; there is no chance to catch the Immortal Elf of the high-level assassin off-guard, etc.

I disagree not with the cause, but with the effect. If you don't want your characters unable to catch the enemy with his trousers down, don't cheapen the immortal elf, but send them against a lesser foe. if you get out the Big Bads of a system, make them be the Big Bads. Make the players sweat and give them enough help to be capable of pulling it off and just barely crawling out there. And if the Big Bads have particular strengths (like never sleeping deeply enough to be surprised) and the players don't bother to work around them, give them what they deserve.