Hi all!

Just wondering if anyone has any house rules for Deathwatch already?

One I'm thinking if implementing is for Righteous Fury. Rather than rolling your entire damage again and adding it (which I consider to be overkill), I was thinking of only rolling the dice which came up 10's. So if you get any number of 10's you make a single hit roll again as normal, and if you succeed you may re-roll any and all dice which came up 10's.

This way Righteous Fury is still open for use by NPC enemies, but the PC they're attacking doesn't get one-shot-killed by a lucky NPC roll that would have normally just scratched a little. Also the reverse would be true regarding that big Boss fight you had planned which was ruined due to the first shot getting Righteous Fury and thus rolling a total of 4d10+10 damage with their "paltry" bolt pistol.

Any thoughts?

We just found this out over the weekend actually. We were playing using the Dark Heresy/WFRP 2.0 system where you only roll 1d10 (were doing that in RT as well). This additional damage roll is new to us.

I am fine with it, though am considering removing the ability for Hellfire to cause Righteous Fury on a 9 or 10, as its a bit overpowered currently IMHO.

Space Monkey said:

Yes: WWTT (What Were They Thinking).

Alex

Howdy!

Starting Characters
-Dodge and Intimidate are Free All Hands Trained Skills but not on the Character Sheet
-Survival is a Free All Hands Trained Skill
-Any Skill available at a higher rank may be purchased as a Basic Skill at half cost at a lower rank and the points will apply towards the cost of the Trained Skill when the required rank is reached
-The following skills are available to ALL HANDS at rank 1 at 200 points each: Ciphers (Any), Common Lore (Any), Scholastic Lore (Any), Search, Tactics (Any), and Trade (Any)
Stats- Roll 3d10 pick the best 2d10, reroll 1’s (roll 10 characteristics pick the best 8, and take one 20)
Wounds/ Fate Points/ Trappings/ Armor History- Roll twice, pick the best and reroll 1’s
Experience- Base of 12,000 + 2,500 to spend for a total of 14,500
Reknown- 5 (except Black Shields- 0)
Gear
Weapons can have numerous types of sights but can only benefit from one sight per action.
Combi-Bolters have full sized bolters, and an additional weapon with half magazine capacity (vice one shot).
All weapons with Accurate come with a telescopic sight for free.
The missile launcher loader system counts as a backpack slot.
Astartes Heavy Bolters are rate of fire S/-/10.

Black Shields-“Deathwatch for Life”
They arrive at the Deathwatch Watch Towers with their armor and their right shoulder pad painted black, and a hood concealing their helmet. They are the last of their chapters, sole brothers continuing the eternal fight against the zenos threat. Or they are lone brothers from the traitor legions that remain loyal to their oaths to the Emperor. They swear to spend their blood, and sweat fighting for the Deathwatch until death releases them from their shame. “We are not judged by the good we do, but by the evil we destroy!”
Starting Characteristics
+5 WS/BS/TO/WP, -5 FEL, and +2 Wounds
Starting Reknown- 0
Chapter Advances
400 Forbidden Lore (any) skill
800 Fearless talent
500 Hatred (any) talent
400 Frenzy talent
500 Paranoia talent
400 Hardy talent
800 Duty until Death talent
Chapter Ability
“Deathwatch for Life”- Black Shields can use squad mode abilities activated by other squad members as if they are from the same chapter as the activating member, while in squad mode.
Chapter Trappings
Black Shield Hood- +3 to Intimidate rolls
Chapter Psychic Powers
Pick Chapter psychic powers from another Chapter

Space Monkey said:

Personally, the house rule I'm implementing in both my Rogue Trader and Deathwatch games regarding Righteous Fury is to make it so that it more closely matches the way it works with vehicles in Into the Storm - if one or more natural 10s are scored on a damage roll, confirm the Righteous Fury as normal. If this second roll is successful, roll 1d5 on the appropriate Critical Hits table, subject to normal modifiers for Critical Damage (Crippling Strike, etc), in addition to the normal damage. Against nameless NPCs, taking any Critical Damage is immediately fatal (much the same result as with a Rules-As-Written Righteous Fury, really), while significant targets start to suffer minor criticals during the fight as well as at the end of it.

major shultz said:

Howdy! How about 1d100 (or 1d50 if you're a limp-wristed and not a tough he-man GM) Insanity/corruption points?

Alex

ak-73 said:

How about 10d10+10 points to be split amongst Insanity and Corruption at the player's preference?

GalagaGalaxian said:

WHy? CP have no effect on space marines until they reach 100 at which point the character is removed from play so adding a bunch of CP at character gen is just artificially shortening the characters life.

If I were running, then I would offer players corruption points to re-roll dice during character creation. I am uncertain how many would be appropriate.

NO-1, I have to say I do like that little rule you gave. Have you play tested it on characters yet or is it just something you're toying with using?

Major, as far as stats go I've always (DH & RT) let them roll 2d10 10 times and the lowest (unless they wish to keep it for RP potential, but they never do) and then assign the remaining 9 stats wherever they want. I also let them re-roll the Starting Wounds dice if it only gives them 1 bonus wound. Survivability in DH was a rare thing so this always helped a little, and with the DW PC's supposedly being the best of the best it seems I'll be continuing this tradition.

Keep those house rules coming in, peeps!

Space Monkey said:

I'm planning to use it, and my Rogue Trader campaign started last week, but we've not had any combats yet so it hasn't actually been used as of yet. I'm pretty confident that it'll work in the way I think it'll work - I've normally got a fairly good eye for whether or not a rule works, which is understandably helpful when it comes to writing them.

Out of curiousity, with Deathwatch would you then half the 1d5 Crit result due to their Talent or would you give them the full 1d5?

Wargamer said:

It should become a threat for them given their background, yes. And personally I am of the opinion that a future supplement should add rules making marines more susceptible to Chaos once they cross the 50 points barrier. Yes, Marines are specially selected to resist the lure. But once they reach that barrier (or let's say 66 points if you want to) a daemon or two might start to notice.

House Rule suggestion: PCs who commit to not wearing a helmet (unless atmospheric conditions necessitate it) gain an additional karma point and an additional renown point per mission.

Alex

My House Rules (so far, more coming I'm sure):

Righteous Fury is always confirmed and the damage bonus is +1d10. Rolling a second 10 on any of the damage dice (even the additional ones coming from Righteous Fury) adds another +1d10. (I've used the "auto-confirmed" rule ever since DH came out, since I like my firefights quick and brutal and I don't want additional to-hit rolls slowing down to flow of game)

Astartes Weapon Training gives the skill to use Astartes Sniper Rifle.

I don't think I'd make players choose between the solo and squad special abilities from their specialties. I'd give them both. That way they'd have a fair chance both in and out of squad mode.

One thing I will be changing is the ultramarines Favored Son Ability.

It will effect only non-first Founding Chapters. So all your orginal Chapters will be uneffected by an ultramarine. However they get +10 to influence chapters that came from them, and a normal roll against Imperial authorities. Reason for this is do you think a Space Wolf, Dark Angel, Blood Angel, Give a rats <Censored by Inquisition> about the ultramarine trying to pull the, "My Daddy is bigger then your Daddy!" tactic against them?

Space wolves would laugh. Dark angels may cut themselves in anger, or punch the ultramarine (Hey Lion did it to Russ.). Blood Angels Do not care, as at least their primarch went down swinging at Horus. Where was Robut Gulliman, thats right licking his wounds!

<Prepares himself for the Ultramarine fanboy attacks.(has a good natured rivalry with them, no hate.>

Ranek7212 said:

Horus was so scared of the Ultramarines, the first thing he did was send them on an ambush too keep them busy while he did what he wanted on Terra.

Lucius Valerius said:

Same of the Space Puppies. Cept when they were done with the Thousand Sons, they left straight for Terra, and Horus was so scared of them (and the DA) that he made a fatal mistake.

ak-73 said:

ak-73 said:

I think some of the chapters should be more susceptable than others, such as Dark Angels and Space Wolves (of the starting ones), to corruption.

I thought SoB were supposed be Inocorrupable too but they have to not get any where as Space Marines can be summoning deamons all day long so long as they stop short of that 10th one, something not quite right there.

Ranek7212 said:

Scared of or knew they were stupid and easily distracted?

Face Eater said:

Face Eater said:

The Dark Angels, maybe or maybe not, they are too paranoid to tell the truth of it. The Space Wolves not so much. Remember that the 13th company of Space Wolves have Survived in the Eye of Terror for over 10000 years. The problem is that Corruption or Taint of Chaos has a different effect on Space Wolves in the Fluff. First they become more beastial as the Wulfen fights off the taint, becoming more Wulfen in nature. This keeps them from being tainted and becoming chaos marines. Not saying that they can't become one, despite how distasteful it is, but to say they are more suspectiable to taint is incorrect as well then say the Ultramarines or Blood angels.

The bottom line is that they become Wulfen, not plague or khorne marines. They will still fight chaos, but do it better when led by a wolf priest or rune priest.

As for being Easily distracted....Well I do run around the house yelling ,"Fluffy tail!" And "Squirel!" With my dog.

And here's a potential house rule I'd like some feedback on.

Requisitioning special ammo by the clip seems a bit expensive to me. I think if you're gonna pay for a kind of ammo, you should just have access to it. So my house rule would be that if you requisition a given type of bolter shell or whatever, you've got an unlimited supply. Like with grenades. What you y'all think?

One houserule I am considering is allowing players to spend personal renown in order to gain what is effectively requisition as per signature wargear.

Like allow them to spend 5 renown and get 40 requisition to add to their personal gear.

Its good as it allows them to take what they want for longer term, but in so doing decreases their rate of access to cooler toys. I can see it having issues at late game (post hero) renown ranks though (they just start buying everything until mission requisition is pointless). Or heavy use of oath of glory to get as much renown as they can.

KommissarK said:

Let us know how that goes, I can see it be abused though. Still it depends on your players really. Mine would easily abuse it as it is right there to be abused.

Re: Signature Wargear

The Requisition rules for Signature Wargear seem wonky.

What about 25 XP per requisition point of the base item, and 25 XP per requisition point in modifications. No more than 15-points of modifications. Round up to the next 100 XP.

. . . and Signature Wargear (Master) replaces 15-points of modifications with 35-points of modifications . . .

. . . and Signature Wargear (Hero) replaces 35-points of modifications with 65-points of modifications . . .

. . . and perhaps change the cost of Exceptional and Master to . . .

Exceptional +5-requisition (per rank of Renown required)
Master +10-requisition (per rank of Renown required)

Initiated [5/10]
Respected [10/20]
Distinguished [15/30]
Famed [20/40]
Hero [25/50]

. . . and perhaps allow Signature Wargear to buy Exceptional quality, and Signature Wargear (Master) to buy Master quality. Prerequisite character renown be damned.

. . . and perhaps keep Signature Wargear (Hero) to heroes.