Peacekeeper_b said:

I'd like to make a couple of remarks myself:

1) 40K Roleplay isn't designed to be a realistic or to satisfy the simulationist's viewpoint. That's not bad game design, btw, but a design choice which one either likes or does not like.

2) Wound Points are not just for heroes but also for the lowliest of NPCs. So instead they are just an abstract metric of how severely wounded a person is. Abstractions are a game design tool in order to unburden the game from more detailled but more time- and effort-consuming mechanics.

3) Critical Hit Points. Since I was only recently made aware that 40K Roleplay does use a different rule than WFRP, I consider using the WFRP rule. It might make people harder to kill but actually the high damages in DW make it possible to overcome armour Unnatural Toughness and True Grit and deal enough damage points to kill. Two considerations to mitigate this are this: A. Allow every NPC to roll for Righteous Fury (Not using the DW version though). B. Allow Critical Damage Points to accumulate in the torso only. All other locations are subject to the old WFRP rule. The goal is to have the mechanic so designed that you can have a large spread in criticals (many crits should be low to medium but a severe crit to an instant kill should happen even against Marines if they get hit too often or by the wrong guys).

Alex

Charmander said:

Well, RAW it isn't but that doesn't mean that it cannot be. Of course, that's a self-evident truth if one accepts that one can simulate a universe as batty as the 40k universe one, but as long as you've got a solid framework of interpretation (which means that you've spent the time filling in all the various blanks left in the universe) it can certainly work.

Charmander said:

The usual way around this is to keep everything believably consistent, which is where most people seem to be having a problem vis-a-vis the scaling between the various game systems, which as peacekeeper_b points out seems to be an outgrowth of the home game "engine," WFRP, coupled with the desire to have the various iconic weapons of the 40k universe in there and yet still survivable. As Charmander points out, one of the primary conceits of many RPGs is that the players are special so... Yeah, you can see why it was done regardless of whether it was particularly successful or elegant.

Ultimately it seems that the weapon homogeneity of the original system, at least from the perspective of a relative outsider, seems to be the cause of many of the problems and for me is typified by the fact that a Marine can take more damage then powered armour, or at least more damage will get through power armour than a Marine's naked torso. It really doesn't matter what weapon it is, but a Marine can stand there and take the hit as well or if not better than the armour at at worst have a 75% of being incapacitated (read: cut in half or whatever) regardless of whether they're in their armour or not?

I'm not saying that it doesn't work, just that it breaks my suspension of disbelief even when attempting to think within the constraints of the system in question.

Ah well, YMWOV. There just seems to be too much "hero factor" in the "grimdark" 40k, where you will not be remembered because everyone is varying shades of awesome.

So, yeah, liberally add d10s to weapons. Perhaps even go for multipliers for weapons (4d10*4 ), up the effect of armour, etc. I'm all for Marines being awesome, but when two Marines hugging effectively invalidate the purpose of power armour...? Nah. Necron weapons that automatically vapourise your Acolyte? Hot diggity dang! Maybe you should think twice before squaring up to an ancient power that could shake the very foundations of the universe, facing them only with an Inquisitorial rosette and "civilian bolt gun?" I'm pretty sure that the Necrons did not sign some form of Geneva Convention that recognised your right to be awesome and be able to take one or two hits from their molecular disintegrators before you began to wonder whether it was a good idea to go toe-to-toe. That's when you call in the Marines who... should be scared because those darned things are molecular disintegrators that are light years in advance of their power armour...

Sorry for the somewhat tongue-in-cheek examples and for the semi-rant. The games do well in ensuring the "heroic" nature of the characters, which given the oft-focus is obviously going to appeal since players never like "TPK's."

Kage

Kage2020 said:

In my experience, only the most sadistic of GMs is fond of obliterating an entire group at once; quite frankly, the hassle of having to rework an ongoing game to account for new characters every three sessions (accounting for Fate Point expenditure) outweighs whatever momentary catharsis that might find in annihilating the players' characters, and it tends to have a detrimental effect in the long-term as players quickly try to avoid becoming attached to their characters because if the inevitability of a swift and pointless demise.

And, quite frankly, when you've got the unrestricted resources of a GM, what's the point in slaying characters left, right and centre?

N0-1_H3r3 said:

My error was following through with what I had seen "TPK" to be used as in the past. While I understood it to mean "Total Party Kill," I have seen it used seemingly refer to "Total Player (Character) Kill." That is, rather than instantly obliterating the entire party, it refers to instantly obliterating a single (N)PC. Seemingly, the concept of a weapon doing so much damage that it could not be survived, at least in what I remember of the thread(s) in question, was one of the justifications for the homogenous weapon and armour damages that are at the core of this particular thread as well.

So, with the idea that "TPK" refers to a single individual in this seemingly mistaken use of the term, I'll stick with what I was saying. That is, it is not inappropriate to have weapons of sufficient damage that they are capable of bypassing the defenses of an individual in a single go. Thus, "lascannons" could and perhaps should be capable of turning even a Marine into some smoking boots (as an example). Why bother nerfing weapons merely to make them survivable? If getting hit by a bolt round is meant to cause significant damage that, if you're hit solidly, is going to put you down for a long time? Then do so. If players aren't of sufficient power level that bolters aren't going to be a horrendously scary concept

Frankly it was a surprise to see it interpreted as my advocating for killing of an entire party in a single random event. I didn't take the time to explain further since that seems like such a narratively ludicrous and unappealing act to consider. Hell, even for a shipful of Rogue Trader characters it is more narratively appealing to leave an exciting, action-packed out... for some if not all of the characters (depending on the GM, the players, and the narrative of course).

Do people intentionally kill of entire parties that it needs such a post as the above? I'm somewhat horrified.

Kage

Kage2020 said:

I've never heard 'TPK' used to represent killing a single player, but regardless, if you have weapons that can kill a player in one go, that often leads to TPKs, as the rest of them get vaporised as well.

I do agree that it seems silly that you can take 4 bolt rounds to the chest before it starts to tickle, but where it balances it out is personal preference to a degree. I will point out that a Lascannon will, on average, at least severely crit a marine, so that seems to work out realistically (again, plasma and melta need buffing).

It also wouldn't be unreasonable to shift more of the Marine's soak to armor than toughness (say, chest armor in the 14 range, avg rank 1marine toughness of 50, no unnatural toughness). That makes psychic powers and similar that bypass armor much stronger, but makes more sense than having las rounds blow through ceramite to bounce off the flesh beneath. I'm sure they were just trying to follow the precedent set by the power armor in DH, while making the marines much tougher than a normal human.

I think the weapons were so much less powerful in DH (don't have WHFRP, so I can't comment on that) is so that there was not a huge jump or power gap between the haves and have-nots when it came to bolters and similar. Placing the DW stats bolter in the hands of a DH character means either the opposition is completely outmatched and the majority of his party is just there to pick off the stragglers, or there is an odd jump where autoguns and las weapons go from being 'ok' to completely useless because their foe suddenly required bolters to injure.

All that said, the system is pretty well set by this point. Until they start releasing DH/RT/DW 2nd edition, these imbalances and realism issues will continue to exist.

Radomo said:

With the caveat that you don't just need a weapon to TPK, at least according to the definition that I have now found, it ultimately doesn't make a difference. I used the term erroneously as did the people that I've seen use it to refer to an individual (or perhaps I misinterpreted when they were talking about the individual concatenating to the party?). Either way, I was wrong with the use of the term, though still since I was talking about individuals... Meh, whatever.

Radomo said:

To a degree. I think that so many threads are started about this and related topics that it might be considered suggestive of... something.

Radomo said:

I must admit that I had never looked through Deathwatch for longer than an hour or so (First Blush review) and based it mostly on the relative stats for plasma guns and melta guns. I LOL'd quite loud, but you're right with regards to the DW lascannon.

Radomo said:

I'm sure that is the reason, and perhaps they were successful with it. A lot of people seem to think so. And you're right about the weapon damages in DH, I would guess.

Radomo said:

Might require a bit of a paradigm shift, but you may be right.

Kage

I kind of have to make a frowny face at the rules for using Astartes brand weaponry. I could buy them being treated a size larger when I imagined that the Astartes were all gigantic huges that were 8 feet or more in height. But then the book makes them 2.1m and I'm not really feeling it. I mean, I could rationalize it because Astartes are going to always be assumed to have their armour and its recoil compensators, and as such they got weapons where the designers got to go, "lol recoil what's that bro?" but it's kind of dissatisfying.

It's also kind of ridiculous that the only difference between an RT powerfist and a DW powerfist is that the latter explicitly mentions you can't use your hand for much other than hucking things and you can't get it at chargen (my archmilitant has a powerfist in our RT game - it's so cash, since I have +10 to hit and +2 damage with melee weapons). Maybe the RT version got errata'd, but I missed it. Oh, wait. The RT powerfist is 13kg vs. the 25 kg of an astartes model. Encumbrance is never a big deal in games I'm in, but it's something, I suppose.

There's an Into the Storm errata that makes the version of the thunder hammer, a version intentionally made for mere mortals to wield single-handed, rather attractive in giving it double SB to damage on top of 2d10+4e damage. Granted it has Shocking instead of Concussive, but there's enough relative value to each trait that the mortal version seems more attractive particularly in light of how gimped melee tends to be.

I'm in the camp where I'd be fine everything else was as lethal as the bolter. The astartes chainsword is a joke - it's like 1 damage and 2 pen over a regular one. The astartes power sword gets a whole +1 damage and +1 pen over a mortal version.

To briefly address the topic's initial purpose, another thing that makes the tau pulse rifle a marvel of technology is that that's the weapon of the rank and file. That is the tau's most basic weapon. It is their version of the lasgun. The tau 'flashlight' is comparable and in some ways superior to the weapon of arguably the Imperium's finest soldiers. A bolter is a cantankerous beast of a weapon to build, service, and employ, iirc, and this isn't true of the tau pulse rifle. I bet now that this's come up.

Kage2020 said:

Yeah. In gamer nomenclature, TPK is Total Party Kill. Rocks fall, everyone dies, brosef.

It's actually a feature of older editions of Dungeons & Dragons - dungeons were designed as meat grinders, some to the point where the only recourse to survive them was to read the book about the dungeon itself. No amount of logic or prudence would save you. No amount of min-maxing or cheesing the system could protect you.

And OSR enthusiasts love it. They hate that newer editions of D&D make player survivability so high, even in classes that generally remained featureless and bland such as the Fighter. You would not believe how divisive fourth edition of D&D was to the player base.

Radomo said:

'Personal preference' only really rules a person's reaction to a set of rules, not the inherent viability of the rules-design.

Now then. while this is a thread about DW and therefore the superhuman marines, the points i made earlier related to normal humans as the baseline for determining how weapons and the damage mechanics are scaled and related to the wound and injury system. Marines are perhaps just a little further up the scale.

But i think the point still remains - there are (and have been) many threads about and around the basic issues of how players expect weapons and damage to work according to their understanding of the fluff and how the core 40kRP 'engine' models those expectations.

In a mechanic that clearly sets up that a typical unarmoured PC cannot be killed by a single shot from a lethal weapon such as an autopistol (and that's not even invoking the 2-4 'get out of death free' cards that are the Fate Point system), there's a certain amount of cognitive dissonance there that makes most players double-take the mechanic.

For me there are two ket areas at issue;

1. What is the damage/injury system modelling? Are 'Wounds' actual wounds (as it seems in the rules for healing and the lack of a mechanic that allows attacks to bypass wounds completely)? Or are they 'ability to avoid damage' (something i'd struggle to interpret from what the rulebooks state and how the whole injury thing functions)?
2. How does weapon damage baseline and scale against that?

I think its very unclear how the rules approach point 1, and therefore clear that point 2 is not effectively integrated into point 1. This is on the face of it at least - poor rules design.

Coupled with that, the seemingly random stats for the panoply of pointlessly similar weapons, the inconsistencies between the three 'phases' of the core rules, and the fact that weapons and their effects don't seem to scale against each other nor reflect the 30 years of fluff development surrounding how they work and their effects, i think its why so many people keep butting up against the '<weapon here> is rubbish' thread.

My simulationist contention - that in simulating the 40k reality a lethal weapon like an autopistol should be able to put an average human in the morgue with a single, well placed shot, (something that isn't possible (or is exceptionally difficult) with the inherent damage rules as written) THEN of course bumps into the gamist cries of 'player survivability', etc.

This for me has always been a non-arguement and an untenable position to defend. Player survivability is ALWAYS in the hands of the GM. 'Rocks fall everyone dies'.

The rules should simulate the reality of the setting and we know from the fluff that, for example, a single hit from a bolter will pretty much kill an unarmoured human (and even blow the limbs of an armoured marine) because thats what its designed to do.

Surviving that sort of ordnance therefore comes down not to rules that make is stupidly impossible for botlers to do this sort of thing (an exageration to prove a point there) but to good roleplaying that sees the players avoid combats they can't win and take cover or bug out when they're in trouble and likely to recieve said bolt the the noggin...

It also comes down to the GM ensuring the the simulation and the game aspects serve the narrative that is unfolding - at which point game design steps up a gear from the GNS theory into the 'Big Idea' theory.

But for the arguement that 'PCs should never be faced with weapons that will 1-hit kill them'...i find that astonishing really. Or rather i find that astonishing in the context of the 'grim darkness of the far future' milieu set up by 40k where 'there is only war' and 'you will not be missed'. Modelling that 'reality' should be lives that are 'nasty, brutish and short'.

There are certainly games where the comedy of 'rubber PCs' that can take a pistol shot to the brainpan at point blank range and walk off with songbirds tweeting about their head is appropriate. Toon springs to mind, or Paranoia - and those games are great.

WEG Star Wars modelled the 'hail of blaster shots hitting nothing' combat of the films excellently.

Yet 40k seems to me to belong more in the camp of games like Pendragon, Cyberpunk and other 'hard' settings where a PC has to be roleplayed very carefully to avoid a few months in hospital or a one way trip to the grave. Of course in terms of DW, the average marine is 'upscaled' in terms of the capacity to take damage (or better to continue to operate effectively despite damage). But they should still have to face death, but theirs will be more 'heroic' one supposes.

As Radomo and i already said though, the rules are now set. We have to accept that unarmoured (N)PCs will be able to take a couple of bolter shots before going down, probably three or four before they get blown to bits; a fate they then bypass with a Fate point burn, ad nauseum...something that certainly doesn't fit well with the 'grimdark' that so regularly gets mentioned.

For those who find that all a bit odd (and there ceartainly seem to be a few who do), houseruling is the way forwards...but as you point out, you need to set your houserules carefully for fear of overbalancing other parts of the rules. The law of unintended consequence is a hard taskmaster for rules designers (*glares at the autofire rules*)

How to kill civilians with one shot of an autopistol without invoking RF:

Civilian: Toughness 25, Wounds 8.

Autopistol: 1d10+2

Under the Sudden Death rule a roll of 8+ will kill that civilian.

Question for you Luddite: what is the average life expectancy of a Deathwatch Marine in your interpretation of 40k? (I started a topic about it some time ago.)

Alex

Never really thought about how Fate Points just dont fit in the setting. I mean, they do, to an extent, but in execution, in the mechanics, they seem to erase the rest of the game.

Anyway, here are a few ideas I have as to why we have these weapon stat problems.

TOO MANY GUNS: Ever since the Inquisitor's Handbook came out we have had way to many patterns and designs of what are essentially the same weapon, but really they are not the same. To differentiate between Gun A and Gun B the game is forced to alter the stats, be it range, damage, penetration, qualities and so forth. So by the time you get your eight lasgun or fifth bolter, things start getting skewered in wierd directions. This has culminated with the super bolter of astartes death doom nike logo mastery.

TALENT, NATURAL, SKILLED: Combat is regulated by talents, not skill. Other then characteristics that end in the work skill (Weapon Skill, Ballistic Skill) the true power of combat comes in too many, overly complexed, mixing of talents. Switching to a system of more precise weapon skills over talents (treat most as basic skills, test at half WS or BS, able to get +10, +20 and talented talent for them) and characters may be less inclined to play MUSICAL WEAPON OF DEATH then normal. As it is, usually a PC only had to spend a handful of XPs to get the next talent for a wepaon (Las, Bolter, Plasma) and they have no reason to not trade up. Yet if you already had Laspistol at +20 you may be less inclined to change to Plasma Pistol at +0. But first the game needs to be streamlined of all those nasty talents.

WHICH DAMAGE SYSTEM ARE WE USING?: Between wounds, criticals, fate points, fatigue and Toughness Bonus (not to mention Characteristic damage) there gets much confusion are to what happens next. Being hit in hand to hand combat causes a level a fatigue, but getting shot in the gut with a bolt pistol does not (unless you are crited). A level of fatigue should be taken every time you lose more wounds then your TB (so Spesh Mareens are still very durable) and TB should be treated as primitive armour. Fate points should transform damage, not replace it with 0 and a escape card. For example, in my game, when PCs burn a fate point to live, the damage the fatal blow is usually transformed to Insanity Points or divided amongst characteristics as permanent loses (Fellowship for scars, Agility for damaged arms/legs, and so forth).

So maybe this isnt making any sense. Maybe Im just rambling. But these are some of the kind of things that should have been discussed as each "game" was planned out.

ak-73 said:

I agree with the assessment here by AK-73. Criticals have to go, or officially be assigned only to characters with Touched by the Fates.

Page 250 already has an optional rule (in a black box) that states any minor foe dies when taking any critical damage.

Sudden Death Critical Damage

ak-73 said:

It's an interesting option, but then isn't this simply a short-circuit around inherently bad rules design?

I'd contend that it is (similar to other things like unnatural traits), but then i'm sure others would disagree.

Again it depends on the simulation/gamism dichotomy and where BI/FFG see the rules as intended to 'sit' in design terms.

Clearly they've designed it so that any character can fairly easily survive one or two good shots from the average handgun - unless the GM opts to apply 'Sudden Death' to mooks to keep his paperwork down (something made irrelevant by the horde rules in any case?)

But...anyway, i'm not talking about 'How to kill civilians with one shot of an autopistol without invoking RF'. I'm talking about how the apparently endless threads related to the issues around weapons and damage might be so prevalent.

'Cognitive dissonance' i suggest. The players have an expectation of how things in 40k work that isn't supported by the rules mechanics. Put an autopistol to a captive's head and pull the trigger and the rules will have him stare back, probably not even near a critical wound. Rules fail that means i as GM would step in at this point, restore sanity and have the poor chap's brain exit his ear...

Hence the problems many people seem to keep bringing up - 'Yet more bolter trouble...'

ak-73 said:

Well, its an interesting question and the answer depends on your point of view.

In terms of 'in the fluff' - i.e. the context for a simulationist response its very much 'it depends on the missions given'. A new recruit might be thrown into the heart of a tyranid swarm and last about 30 seconds, or might spend decades in loyal service on more survivable missions. I think its almost impossible to 'average' since we have so little source material to go on. I suspect the Inquisition is very unlikely to expend such a valuable resource lightly though so i'd say they have a good few years in service at least.

I think its worth noting that DeathWatch actually skipped a few 'power levels' in metagame terms - like D&D going from Level 10 to Level 20 instead of Level 11 - at least in fluff terms.

DW marines aren't basic space marines. These are the absulote tip-top best. The veterans of endless years of service with their chapters. The Deathwatch only bings in those marines seen as excelling even above other marines - yet they are mechanically modelled as little better than the characters in Rogue Trader...odd. So we don't really get what a 'normal' marine should actually be like.

However, back on track, in terms of mechanical life expectancy i'd expect a PC to survive as long as possible given that he makes the smart choices and avoids unneccessary harm. For front line comat characters like marines this means if they are played smart, like the tactical geniuses they are supposed to be, they should have a long and happy life of slaughter ahead of them.

Ultimately, as a GM, PCs will survive as long as the narrative says they will. My player's PCs are always eponymous and therefore key to the plot/narrative. As a result they are 'plot armoured' to a certain extent, although stupidity (or insane bravery) will always get them killed of course, so they will survive as long as their narrative story arc runs and the player is interested in continuing with them.

In my games PC death is rare, usually only occuring when the player chooses it (its time for a heroic death, or the PC has drifted too far from the direction of the plot and is 'retired') or if they do something patently lethal and deserving of a good whupping...my old group still recounts those few times when beloved PCs finally bought the farm...

So, a DW marines life expectancy is entirely conditional on his missions, how he's roleplayed, and the decisions the player makes.

HOWEVER...back on topic i feel

One thing about the captive with the gun to the head, there is a rule about a helpless target: I think it was autohit and add a 1d10 damage.

I really am thinking of adding in a critical from whatever goes over your armor and toughness. I just need to go through the statistics of it to see what can be somewhat balanced. Maybe I'd want some different critical tables at some point to add variety also, but the basics ones are fine for now.

Previously I've been on other side of this argument. I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with the system just how they've decided to implement it. For all I care they could have a 1d10 per point of TT str and adjusted the toughness and armour to match but in IMHO the weapon damages are all over the place.

I don't mind that in most situations a single shot isn't going to kill a player, in DH that was a must, plenty of characters start without armour and / or could non combatants. But the implementation quickly reached it's limits.

• It's nice that armour reduces damage but, BUT at this stage we are starting to see the problem. With damage reigned in it's easy for weapons to not be able to damage PC's at all (so the horde rules are there, to fair I'd rather roll a single major attack than a load of attacks that have small chance of wounding.
• Conversly armour isn't good enough. Power armour is supposed to be frikin sweet but unless you are a space marine it's pretty irrelevent when they are blasting around this many dice. Especially with the very favourable ammo types for bolters. In the table top the Vengence rounds can penetrate power armour in DW kraken rounds can pentrate PA so they needed another ability (lets see if Hellguns and Thousands Sons Hellfire rounds get the same when they are released.

So in conclusion if ammo's no problem (and the way DH is written it isn't) the only reason you wouldn't use a machine gun (or bolter in this case) is if it was incapable of hurting something. For some reason they don't actually have anything that can't be hurt by a bolter.

Bearing in mind that Guardsman can't hurt a SM (without RF) in this system but a SM can hurt a Hive Tyrant or Deamon Prince even before RF so yeah, something wrong there.

Face Eater said:

If the proportions between Guardsman and Hive Tyrant are correct though, then we can safely assert that this means Space Marines specifically have been given a boost. It stands to argue that in this case that was a deliberate decision by the game designers.

Personally, I will probably run Oblivion's Edge RAW this weekend (except for the stupid RF rule) and after evaluating that likely shift to the weapon stats that I have posted recently in the House Rules subforum.

Nerfing the Heavy Bolter and boosting the Tyrannid weapons seems to be a priority.

Alex

Luddite said:

Perhaps, in another thread of course, it would be interesting to see these "basic Marine" statistics reverse-engineered. I know that people have said that it merely comes down to removing their "Xeno Kill" Talents/Traits, but based upon this discussion it might be a bit more than that?

Kage

Wouldn't it basically be removing the Deathwatch specific training (in xenos stuff), and not spending the 1000 starting xp? I thought that 1000xp was specifically meant to represent the experience they had got over a starting Space Marine (ok, it is mainly to give the players some way to customise their starting characters, but the background explanation was that it was their experience before joining the Deathwatch).

borithan said:

This makes the most sense to me. Most of the other starting skills/talents seem like things all Space Marines would have.

borithan said:

For Marines who are Tacticals bordering on becoming Veterans, yes. More inexperienced Assaults or Devastators should have some lower values.

Alex

So you want just out of the scout company marines?

Maybe any/all of C. Lore( Astartes, Imperium, War), S. Lore (Codex Astartes), Tactics(Choose), Nerves of Steel, Killing Strike, reduce Unarmed Master to Unarmed Warrior, Quick Draw.

The issue is that much of their starting skills are things that are inherent to being a super soldier (Unnatural Characteristics, base characteristics of 30, Bulging Biceps, Heightened senses, etc.). The Lore skills are probably hypno-indoctrinated, so you're probably limited to removing a minor handful of talents/skills. It could be hard to justify starting them at 25+2d10 on par with RT characters, but that is also a simple fix.

Radomo said:

You see this is probably where I differ form a lot of the crowd but I don't see that as inherant higher characteristics. Apart from, say, strength, thoughness and agility, what gives them better stats. None of their implants say make them a better shot, better at melee etc. I always considered that a Space Marines skill was because he was selected as the best and trained to the be best but otherwise had to put the time in get better.

So I would say a scout at least would be +20 for Ws and Bs (although lots of chapters will have +5 to one of these for their 'homeworld'. Even S and T could be as they'll have unnatural by then anyway.

And Int, Fel would probably be quite low too.

Mind you, I don't even agree with DW starting with +30 to Fel and Int. I know they aren't supposed to be stupid but I've got nothing saying that they are the Imperiums greatest scholars either. A fellowship? They spend there entire adult lives around the same hypno indoctrinated monks (or space vampires or space vikings etc) and they are still more at easy around normal folk than a hiver on his own world. Must have missed the write up about the 'Andrew WK' gland Even if it's just that they have got better at working in teams they should at least have a penalty when dealing with non Astartes and / or non military types.

But most Astartes have already had years of training by the time they get out of the scouts, so there is no reason they start at 'just pretty good' human level.

Int and Fel are part of the genetically superior package. Amongst each other, they have no penalties and amongst the general populace they have the general awe and/or fear everyone has for the Astartes. They spend all their time in training or study. Why do they have to be ignorant brutes?

WS/BS comes from better reactions and senses due to their superior genetics. Same for Per. WP is pretty self explanatory. Really, the issue is that RT chars start at 25 across the board (they should be 20's, with 2 + 5s for homeworld, 1 x -5, imo. Then you could have marines with 25's, and 2 x +5 for their chapter specialty, as well as + 5 Str & T.

I thought another thread would be more appropriate but... Errr, 1000 XP is meant to reflect "super veteran" status? I would have guessed that argument would be presented but... Does 1,000 XP in the game make them "super-super veterans?"

Kage

Kage2020 said:

As with Rogue Trader, there's a difference between the amount of XP available to spend at character generation, and the 'effective' XP total of the character. A starting Rogue Trader has got 5,000xp, though only 500 of that is his to spend freely (the rest of which is covered by the Origin Path and the inherent +5 in all characteristics, equivalent to a single advance in each of them), and similarly a starting Deathwatch character has 14,000xp, 1,000 of which is available to spend on advances and so forth (covered in skills, talents, traits and having +10 in all characteristics - two advances - above a starting 0xp Dark Heresy character).