Falchion Sensei said:

Except for the firing squad. ;-)

Alex

H.B.M.C. said:

How are Unnatural Traits handled in DW? Do they give any bonuses to rolls (like IIRC in IH)?

The one (minor) problem that I continue to have with the current FFG interpretation of the Marine is that everything is geared towards buffing them. There are no real flavoursome limitations—they're just uber. Of course, since that's where your average 40k fan seems to see them anyway, perhaps that is the "right," or at least the most current and appropriate way to go forwards. MMV, though.

H.B.M.C. said:

Seems reasonable.

H.B.M.C. said:

This is always one of those abilities that I always felt came with a certain price. It could have been moderated in a number of ways but... Works well enough.

H.B.M.C. said:

One would hope that there is a limitation to this, since the Catalepsean Node doesn't really replace normal sleep, just allows them to function when they don't get as much. Thus you're going to hit a crunch time. (Though perhaps the assumption is that a Marine is going to get to sleep before this would ever happen because... See the first bit of the post. )

H.B.M.C. said:

I wonder why they double-buffed the poison/toxin ability rather than rolling it into the Neuroglottis (making it similar to the Phase 1-3 implants)? (Gotta have a question somewhere in the post otherwise people get testy... )

H.B.M.C. said:

Again, Zombie "I know Kung Fu." As you say, though, it should be interesting to see the specifics and limitations on this otherwise the munchies will be having Brain Burger ever time that they land on a planet. (Or wanting to play Chaos or Renegade Marines so that they can do so...)

H.B.M.C. said:

One that I'm certainly pleased about since I was never overtly fond of the idea that the Marine should be capable of breathing underwater.

H.B.M.C. said:

This kind of reminds me that it might be an interesting little cult that culls the battlefields "harvesting" the "poison glands" for xeno-grafting into the nobility. An aside alone.

H.B.M.C. said:

This is basically your Melanchrome as well, though that would take a certain amount of time (need to sweat those oils). Not so useful on explosive decompression, though. Also, as aka_mythos states, a certain amount of protection factor from radiation (however that is modelled in the system, if at all). Again, though, that first blast of radiation is going to be a git unless the Marine regularly goes around looking like an oily Adonis "just in case."

H.B.M.C. said:

I'm going to have to look up Toxic, since that Pen is making me highly suspicious. Is the Pen split over a certain number of rounds?

H.B.M.C. said:

While this has been suggested for years by the fans as a way of making Marines slightly more interesting, and more recently as a variation of creating a "heroic dynasty" along the same line as Pendragon , it's good to see that FFG have gone for this. I used a similar approach for my own interpretation, but kept it to allowing the purchase of certain "powers" depending on the character concept of the player in question.

Err, that being an aside.

H.B.M.C. said:

It's also armour. One has to wonder whether that is just incorporated into the Phase 1-3 stat buffs or just ignored?

All in all, though, not bad given the way that the system seems to model things. Well, IMO anyway.

Kage

Yup, all seems pretty slick to me!

(I never liked the Omophagea, though. It's my "James Bond's invisible car" moment.")

H.B.M.C. said:

That is...well "impressive" might be correct term here. I just have a nagging feeling that keeping track of all the buffs and stuff is going to be a chore.

Aajav-Khan said:

The full character sheets have a table with all of the organs named & their effects abbreviated. You'll still have to look up the specific effects but at least most of them are only relevant in rarer situations.

Kage2020 said:

Just a thought, but perhaps this might be balanced with Legion-specific flaws? I have no idea how it's handled in DW, but maybe something like:

Blood Angels- Black Rage

Space Wolves-Berserker fury

Ultramarines-irritating smugness

Dark Angels-incomprehensibly tedious backstory

Salamanders - slower reflexes

Raven Guard - sunburns easily

White Scars - errrr....

Imperial Fists - Pomposity/deeply repressed sexuality

Lightbringer said:

I couldn't help but snort at that particular quip.

That works to an extent, and certainly "flavours up" the Chapters, but it's certainly not what I was thinking. For example, some of that is just due to mutation rather than being a fundamental part of what a Marine "is." Hmmmn... How to illustrate the difference? I guess the difference is that the "buffing" that appears here is very much a case of take something away and you just lose a bit of buffing. Thus, for example, the Marine has the secondary heart taken out so now they're functioning on just their primary. The type of approach that seems to be operating would be to go, "Oh well, they lose that bonus." What I would suggest is that the Marine "system" is a tad more delicate than that. The loss of the heart begins to impact on other parts of their physiology. For example, they begin to fatigue far, far more rapidly. Organs whose use were previously automatic are now fatiguing, etc.

So, more synergistic system than Marine buffing. On the other hand, one might imagine that the Critical Hit charts might get into this. A hit to the chest might "...wound the Secondary Heart, causing it to function abnormally or even stop working at all. The Marine suffers twice the amount of fatigue that they would normally suffer from exhertion..." or something like that. Errr... consider that another question for the "Q&A" component of the thread.

Of course, as always YMMV. It's something that I recently took a look at with my own interpretation since, other than the odd ingrained limitation on a zygote, I was using the "buff" approach as well. Since then I've been tinkering around with the idea of essentially having certain zygotes "power" the Marine, and certain other zygotes "draw" from the Marine, while others are completely passive or require "additional power" on top of it. It's kind of crunchy, though, and I'm leaning towards the idea of "seat of the pants" approach (narrative determination), but it is one of those things that might also be interesting if applied to "Chapter creation," e.g. answering questions such as, "What does it mean that the Neuroglottis isn't working any more, or is working abnormally?"

The other advantage is that you can use external factors as "power," e.g. drugs and hypnotherapy. Again, crunchy, but usually one of those things that you can ignore until it actually takes a part of the campaign. Thus, for example, ignore it for the average combat encounter where the Marine has logistical support, but if they've been cut off for months...? Well, maybe begin to look at those effects. In that way it's much like cinematic ammunition counting, i.e. don't bother until it's narratively significant that they're "down to the last magazine!"

Anyway, just some random musings/thoughts.

Kage

I like your musings, Kage. Anything that adds nuance to the setting is good, in my view. The problem is always squeezing the square peg of a nuanced background into the round hole of a playable system without crushing it with complexity.

As we're musing, I'm interested in the influence the marine implants and zygotes have upon roleplaying. The idea that a marine's character might change over time to more closely resemble that of the primarch is, to me, a very interesting one. I'm hoping that there might be a nod to the old Vampire: The Masquerade approach, where an ancient progenitor still looms large over his descendants, changing their personality, haunting their dreams etc. This seems to me to be a characterful angle.

H.B.M.C. said:

No they aren't it's on page 37, the Melanchromic Organ.

SpawnoChaos said:

It would be the Ultramarine, of course.

darknite said:

Indeed I have been thinking of a house rule that in case two players have the same number of votes for being team leader, I'd use the issue of whose chapter is more Codex-faithful as a tie-breaker.

Alex

ak-73 said:

bah Bolt Pistols at Dawn!

Darq said:

How disgraceful, brother. ;-)

Alex

i know someone has asked this but would like to second it as we have not have a reply yet. may have been overlook.

what are the crit tables like then? any different from the other 2 games?

and a big thank you to everyone for posting about this book cheers you are the best

ak-73 said:

Actually, it wouldn't be the first time that a dispute was resolved between Space Marines by martial combat. Usually it's with melee weapons and goes on until first blood, the space marine bleeding being the loser.

SpawnoChaos said:

I am aware of the history of Dark Angels and Space Wolves, brother. In some chapters however the prevalent notion is that brother should not pull their bolt pistol on another brother. ;-)

Alex

MILLANDSON said:

No they aren't it's on page 37, the Melanchromic Organ.

Lightbringer said:

Dark Angels-incomprehensibly tedious backstory

LOL

They hunt down the Fallen Angles (those that went toward chaos) it is probably the only legion that was cut in two and the loyal part was not disbanded (through lots of cover up by the Dark Angels and the Fallen Angles not saying to loud because all Dark Angle would then converge there to kill him).

So in other words a Dark Angel could go against direct orders from is Team Leader when there is information on the Fallen available. It is the chapter's real flaw they have to go beyond the call of normal SM to destroy an proof and bring the Fallen to justice (questioning and redemption torture being a critical part of the process).

This is definitively a story arc GM should use as a tension builder inside the Kill team as this would clash directly with Black Templar and Ultramarine for various reasons well mostly all other chapter.

I just want to be certain ive got a load of rules correct, in terms of an 'update' from FS to the RAW.

power weapons do +1 hits in melee

explosive weapons do +1 hits

blast weapons deal their radius in damage to magnitude

devastators can double the number of hits with heavy weapons, and add d5 to blast damage above

size modifiers are based on a table in the book - i assume based on general magnitude

so a tactical marine firing a bolter at a horde would have +10 (tactical marine), +10/20/30 for size, +/- 10 for range, +20 full auto (lets say +50 overall). he would then roll to hit, probably getting the 3 DoS he needs for maximum efficiency. so with 4 hits, he would deal 5 magnitude of damage to the horde (due to explosiveness), providing he can beat TB and armour with 2d10+7 tearing.

the devastator would be attacking a similar horde with a heavy bolter at about the same, range making up for extra boltgun training, and ofcourse not needing to brace. gettting 10 DoS is still a big ask, so lets say 6 DoS, and 7 basic hits. plus 7 for his unrelenting devastation ability (assumed to be in squad mode), plus 1 for being explosive. so thats 15 damage to magnitude should he do enough damage.

a grenade should it hit would do 6 magnitude of damage, due to being explosive and having a radius of 5.

a power fist would do a number of hits based on combat score, where he may as well go all out as he cant react anyway. plus 1 hit for a power weapon. damage unlikely to be an issue here.

in retaliation, hordes would have multiple shots depending on size, with increased damage, but would gain no benefits for size, and if they hit him in the chest, he would have 18 points of soak.

all this present and correct? i suppose this is really an exercise in determining what has been 'upgraded' from FS.

Wouldn't the explosive damage apply per shot fired?

Cifer said:

indeed

Lightbringer said:

Indeed. As I said, I'm exploring it for reasons of flavour and perhaps as a way of offering some guidelines for dealing with the creation of Chapters, e.g. rather than just removing a buff, you should that the buff negatively impacts upon the synergy of the system (as above). Chances are that it's a tad too complex and the implications will be wrong and I'll stick with the delicate, but simple, interplay between various drug "dependencies" that fits into the idea that their physiology and biochemistry are shaped by the hand of "man" and are quite delicate as a result of this. Then again, my style of GMing and play have been mentioned before, as is how I deal with this even though I use a (I feel erroneously) labelled "very crunchy" system as a backdrop.

It's all good, though. As I've said before, one of the things that I enjoy about reading through the FFG materials is that it is a source of inspiration and, yes, "what not to do." That doesn't mean what they've done is bad, just that I know how I feel on certain subjects from a "designer" point of view and sometimes seeing how someone else does it (or doesn't do it) can be really helpful. Well, that and bar-steward playtesters.

Lightbringer said:

This is something that I have personally become more interested in as well, though perhaps not quite in the same way. I like the fact that FFG have jumped onto the bandwagon of something fans have suggested numerous times over the years in terms of creating that "heroic lineage." Amusingly if nothing else it also explains why they don't have the progenoids removed after 5 and 10 years, a feature that would make more sense —they have to be there to preserve the awesomez . The idea that the Marines are becoming "lesser" over the generations is always something that I find fascinating as a ways of "balancing" the various editions and interpretations.

With regards to them adopting the "personality" of the Primarch, isn't that what they already do with regards to the Chapter demeanour?

Edit : Also still interested to see whether FFG have crafted the Critical Hits chart to make them more flavoursome for Marines. It sounds like a somewhat obvious call given the system that they seem to have set up.

Kage

In terms of marines fighting each other, there has been precidence, i think i spelled that wrong, of marines actually fighting each other. There is one case, mind you this is only one, of the DA firing on the Black Templar cause they took a prisoner, a Fallen though they did not know that, that the Dark Angels believed was their prisoner. So it is rare but marines have been known to try and kill each other. Food for Thought.