I will be running FS next week. I read the adventure and the rules but I still have a few questions. I hope somebody here can assist me ...

In the monsters statblokcs, what do the R and I after the damage stand for?
For example :
crude melee weapons (1d10+3 R; Pen 0)
stub rifle (100m; S/-/-; 1d10+3 I; Pen 0)

Do monsters and npcs check for righteous fury ?

The horde rules section speaks of horde traits (disciplined / overwhelming) but the stat blocks of the creatures in the adventure lack this info. Am I missing something ?

Any help would be appreciated!

Jerre said:

It's the critical type. If you don't own Dark Heresy or Rogue Trader (or later Deathwatch) you can disregard it for now. If you do, it determines on which critical type you roll the critical. (Normally when chars reach negative wounds level they are not necessarily dead but critically wounded. This got simplified for the demo.)

Righteous Fury: NPCs don't unless you rule they do. This is normally reserved for end bosses. If you feel the kill-team is having a too easy task purging GS, give the broodlord Righteous Fury ability.

Horde traits: don't know if any hordes have the traits displayed, if not, it got included only for highlighting the system features. Advertisement. :-)

Alex

Alex

Thanks for the quick response!

I will be running the adventure for a party of 7 marines. Each of the pregens will be represented, with the 7th player taking another devastator. How should I upgrade the encounters? Add more hordes or increase the magnitude? I know this is far from ideal but I won't have the time to run the adventure twice for two smaller groups.

Jerre said:

Make the hordes larger (better not too much to magnitude) and when you realize that the players have a too easy time, add a horde on the fly. The hordes are not meant to kill the players (unless some act totally stupid), only to cause some light to medium wounds - so that there will be higher tension against the GS towards the end.

Alex

Multiplying the magnitude by 1,5 is too much? So a horde of 30 becomes 45.

I thought of also multiplying the number of GS in an encounter by 1,5. so 2 become 3, ... but not more than one per marine in the final battles.

Jerre said:

I would start with 1.5 and then add needed if you're unsure. Although I would like to state that in one encounter there's 8 GS for 4 Marines. If they all focus on the SM and can ambush the players you'll have a dead kill-team. Just start low and keep adding enemies as needed to make it difficult enough but not too difficule for the players.

The real challenge will be the broodlord. I wound add a few wounds to the broodlord and use a good deal of GS to busy about half of the kill-team to make it a challenge. If it's too easy for the players, let the broodloard withdraw and set-up ambushes from the multitude of pipes.

As a rule of thumb, if a GS makes it into close combat, that SM's life is in grave danger. He will probably not survive 4 rounds or so unless the GS gets killed first.

If the SM is wounded, even one successful GS attack can very much spell the end (save fate points, of course, which they'll expend like there's no tomorrow then).

Alex

If you are considering adding a second Devastator marine to the mix... I would recommend against it. The Hordes are quite easy enough to tackle with one in the group, adding another may make the game super-easy. The heavy bolter is just particularly powerful in combination with the Devastator's ability to deal double damage to Hordes.

I would recommend playing perhaps a second Assault marine. My playgroup generally divides tactically into a fire-team (Tacticals & Devastator) and an assault-team (Assault & Apothecary). You will be 2/5 adding more fire support. You could potentially balance this better into a 3/4 situation.

Things to remember:

- Add the player's strength to the melee damage listed for the assault weapons. The powerfist does 2d10+14 (Str 4 > tripled to 12, add 2 for power armor)
- starting ammunition is not mentioned, but the generally agreed upon number is 3 clips per weapon, per player
- remind the players to refer to use their Fate Points
- make them track their ammo expenditures. We've adopted the poker chip method suggested by someone. It's physical, it's simple, and oddly fun.

Resources:
- Court Jester's wicked Final Sanction satellite map of Lordsholm http://fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=179&efcid=3&efidt=342626
- Rabidchild's Turning Point suggestions http://fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=179&efcid=3&efidt=345946
- Sithlet's excellent reference sheets http://fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=179&efcid=3&efidt=340805

J-Tech said:

I would like to add this interesting thread for inspiration:

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3331224&pagenumber=1&perpage=40#post380079499

Alex

J-Tech said:

Is the power armour strength bonus not also multiplied by the powerfist? Not sure myself, I normally would do it, but in this scenario, I guess it's not that much...

Final Sanction, pg.19
"A power fist adds a multiplier to the wielder's Strength Bonus. (Note: A Space Marine already doubles his Strength Bonus from his Unnatural Strength trait. Therefore, the Power Fist increases the multiplier by one, tripling the Space Marine's Strength Bonus"

Since we already know that the Power Armor's +2 bonus is added on after the multiplication modifier to produce their standard Strength Bonus of 10, we simply use this same formula to produce the Power Fist's bonus. Str.4 x 3 = 12 + 2 = 14

J-Tech said:

What method are you referring to? I'm curious to know a better way of tracking ammo and this reminds me of Deadlands and Fate Chips... so naturally, I'm all ears.

J-Tech said:

Exactly right. Use (SB*x)+2 to calculate the relevant SB for a specific marine to apply to his melee attacks whilst in their Power Armor.

-=Brother Praetus=-

While preping the adventure, I came upon another question: do you calculate 25% of the starting magnitude (at the start of the combat) or 25% of the current magnitude (at the start of the round) when you check for breaking a horde?

So if a horde of magnitude 20 has 12 left, do you take a break test when it takes 5 hits (25% of 20) or 3 hits (25% of 12) ?

And very similar: when calculating the number of ranged attacks of a horde, do you use the starting magnitude or current magnitude ?

So a magnitude 20 horde would get 2 ranged attacks even when its magnitude is 19 or lower? If not, what happens when the magnitude goes into single digit?

And off course this would also be relevent when calculating horde damage ...

Jerre said:

1. "When a Horde’s Magnitude is reduced by 25% in a turn..." so in your example it's a break test if magnitude decreases by 3 or more.

2. Current magnitude.

3. I'd rule one attack as a minimum.

Alex