This is slightly bare bones in terms of fluff, but I put this together with the invaluable help of some friends, and I'd like to present it here for anyone who cares to give it a once-over. Comments and criticisms please, I'd love to hear some feedback.

Deathwatch House Rule: Mentor Legion Chapter

I'd have pasted the entire thing here, but apparently I can't, so I do apologize for that.

I've liked the Mentor Legion since they were first introduced in White Dwarf (and have a combat squad of them painted with the old owl head insignia). This looks pretty good, although given their secretive nature I'm not sure Fellowship is the best choice for an attribute bonus; I'd probably have gone with BS instead.

You might also reflect their Chapter's predilection for using new and advanced technology by allowing a Mentor to treat his Renown as one Rank higher for the purposes of requisitioning equipment, or (if that is too munchy), perhaps allowing them to begin with one piece of Exceptional equipment.

I might also suggest a Solo Mode that reflects their unorthodox tactics and weapons of war, perhaps reflected in higher performance when using their weapons and wargear solo... maybe treat all their gear as Exceptional in Solo Mode (not in addition to the benefits you already listed, just suggesting an alternative).

I'd also give them a Chapter-specific discount on Signature Wargear, maybe 400xp instead of 500.

Thanks for the Chapter build!

Thanks for the feedback Direach. I don't recall much about the secretive nature of the chapter, I just remember them being sent out to numerous other chapters, guard regiments, and so forth, and that commonly, especially when attached to guard regiments, they spread the attached mentors out as leaders. Given that aspect of the doctrine, and the focus on fellowship for leading, it made a degree of sense. BS could work too, and I thought about it, but I wanted to try and avoid gearing this chapter into being *too* shooty (it's already pretty shooty as is).

I toyed with several ideas to represent the Legion's familiarity with high tech gear (and how often they are given it), so I figured an extra purchase of Signature Wargear, adding Tech-Use and Technical Knock would be a decent enough way of covering it. I toyed with adding requisition somehow or playing with Renown, but those don't seem to scale well and it'd be really hard to work them in without giving them another Chapter-specific special ability which would involve giving them some sort of penalty, which wouldn't work since their gene-seed is pure and they don't have a tendency to not have specific types of marines. Additionally, increasing Renown is something that is pretty potent early on (it turns the marine into a better-gear factory when everyone hands him their Requisition) and something that doesn't fit fluff-wise, the chapter only being a few hundred years old and all. Requisition is even worse, since there's no good way to award more. A flat bonus is trivialized by larger missions, and a bonus per objective can get overwhelming very quickly, and since you can share requisition, it's very easy to abuse.

As far as improving the condition of wargear used, that has with it two problems. One is that it's really a pretty minor benefit overall, the individual benefits for quality are really tiny compared to the awesome abilities available in Solo Mode. The other is that it loses all use when you can just get the better equipment through requisition. There shouldn't be an ability that can be trivialized through just having better gear.

I do rather like the idea of decreasing the cost of the bonus Signature Wargear talent, though I may change it to an additional Signature Wargear (Master) instead, to represent practice with advanced and familiar pieces of gear. It would balance out the fact that you can get two Signature Wargear, but only one Signature Wargear (Master). I could try and shove both in, but I'd have to something else to make room.

Thanks again for the feedback. I'm looking forward to giving this game a spin soon.

I dig it. Going to review it a little more in depth later. I copied and pasted it into to my folder of fan made Chapters for use in my hopefully upcoming campaign.

According to the WD article on them, the Mentors are broken into two aspects, you seem to have the Seconded part of the chapter. The other was more like a normal space marine chapter. They are actually pretty open compared to other marines, they get along with the other chapters probably better than any other space marines. Their ability should reflect the fact they will end up knowing how to use just about anything, instead of Cryptology I would give them Tech or Archeotech lores, since that seems their focus rather than code breaking. I see these marines as the guy that when the killteam finds some new weapon everybody looks at the Mentor.

Wow! I really like this writeup. It's very good, and very different from any of the published Chapters. I personally am really glad that you avoided any mucking about with Requisition or Renown. The Mentors themselves may have a lot of specialized and advanced equipment, but that shouldn't mean that they can consistently bag some from the Deathwatch when they serve there.

My concerns would be two-fold. First, I think that their Solo Mode ability is too focused on Shooting, and not on Tactical Superiority to the foe. It's not wrong or overpowered, but it doesn't seem to capture the spirit of the Chapter, in my own opinion. I would perhaps try to think up some rule that reflected their ability to be creative and flexible in combat. I don't have a good suggestion at the moment, however. Perhaps they could get additional Reactions or attacks based on making Knowledge (of the particular foe) rolls or Tactics (appropriate to the situation) checks.

Second, I would think about adding the "hypno-learning" talent (I forget the name right now) and removing Exemplar of Honor. I think Good Reputation would be sufficient, to represent their standing in Imperial Forces, though I would probably also add Peer as an option for their Chapter.

Infused Knowledge? That's a definite possibility. Replacing Cryptology with a tech-related lore could work pretty well also. I like these a lot. I may focus the Peer and Good Reputation talents a bit more, since they wouldn't have, say, Good Reputation (Ultramarines). The UM's tend to see these guys as upstart jerks who disrespect the Codex Astartes, I would think.

Solo mode granting additional reactions is a possibility, the big question would be what to do with those reactions (other than parry and/or dodge) given that it's a solo mode. I can see tons of uses in conjunction with squad mode, but those are specialized and not available in solo mode. I went with suppression fire bonuses because keeping an enemy suppressed gives a solid tactical advantage. It's far less likely to kill enemies than full or semi-auto (-20 to hit, only get a hit every 2 DoS), but the pinning of the foe gives the kill-team time to regroup, catch a breath, and so on, it gives you a good number of tactical options. With the increase to angle and the continued fire penalty to anyone trying to shake off the pinning, this means that a Mentor Legion Marine can keep potentially several groups pinned and can later on attempt to pin everything around the kill team. I designed it as sort of an inversion of the Storm Warden's Thunder's Call Solo Mode ability. It actually works pretty well for even melee classes, since it can pin a group of enemies long enough for the melee class to charge into them and tear them to shreds, without having to worry about things like full or semi-auto fire (since pinned characters have only a half action).

Currently the Solo Mode is a great way to mess with groups, particularly hordes. Another way to do this (using the reaction model as a starting point) might be to, say, use a reaction to notice a flaw in the enemy's formation or tactics with a Tactics check. For every DoS, you get some sort of bonus when dealing with the horde, either offensive or defensive, say, doing additional hits on an attack, or increasing armor/cover against the horde by a point per success. There'd have to be some sort of way it would work against individual targets too, though, and the extra hits doesn't necessarily translate into extra damage (and extra penetration gets way too powerful). I was also hoping to avoid using a direct damage/defense mechanic, though this might be perfect for another chapter, who knows?

These are some things for me to think about for certain. Don't be surprised if you go back to look and there are a few changes here and there. Thanks guys.

I am definately adding your write up to the list of Chapters my players can choose.

Baradiel said:

Right now I'm wrestling with Infused Knowledge. It's a great suggestion and it really fits nicely with the chapter, but there's that little part of me that really likes Exemplar of Honor, and that's not anywhere else save the Ultramarines Chapter Specific list, and it's a fantastic squad/tactics talent.

Still, I've altered the skill choices so that now Cryptology is replaced by Forbidden Lore: Archeotech, and Good Reputation (Any) is replaced by Good Reputation/Peer Imperial Guard/PDF/Imperial Fleet/Adeptus Mechanicus. Given that I've limited the scope of the Good Reputation and Peer, I could conceivably fit in Infused Knowledge as well and it wouldn't be terribly game-breaking (they're not as well loved as Ultramarines, but they're book-smart), what do you guys think?

Thats cool. It will be a while before I get my game up and running.

Okay, this should be the final version of the Chapter rules for the moment unless something else strikes me in the near future or someone comes up with something awesome. The next few updates will likely be fluff oriented. Thanks again guys for the kind words and suggestions.

all I can say is this is brilliant, well written, well thought out and doesn't throw the game out of balance.

thanks for posting this.

I've never even heard of this chapter so I have no idea how it stands up to the lore written about them. Who is their Primarch?

I read some brief tidbits about the chapter and came to the conclusion you have done a really good job with this particular chapter, which brings me to my next question.

Why did you feel the need to make the Chapter Advances list so long, and almost 50%/50% on skills/talents. Most other chapters have a lot of 60%-70% of one and 23 items long compared to other chapters (Black Templars 12, Blood Angels 14, Dark Angels 17, Space Wolves 18, Storm Wardens 11, Ultramarines 17).

Perhaps that list needs to be shortened and/or refined slightly?

Thanks for the kind words, Malaclypse . I'm glad you enjoyed it.

Warhawk X , according to the fluff I've read (and remember), they were a chapter founded in the 26th founding, and no mention is ever made to a Primarch or founding chapter. They were supposedly created from collected Geneseeds from the stock tithed to Earth by all Space Marine Chapters, so it's likely that they don't have a single Chapter to look at as a founding chapter. It's possible they were bred from similar stock as the Chapter they replaced (Star Scorpions, as I recall), but that's only conjecture and rather meaningless at that due to the fact that they were a later founding Chapter as well.

The advances list may seem long, but it's actually shorter than it may appear. There are several things listed, true, but many of them are limited, compared to the extremely expanded skills and talents on other lists that simply state (any). Now, it's entirely possible it's still too much, in which case I will need to go back and edit the list again somewhat, but that was the rationale I used at the time. Good point in either case though, I'll be thinking about it as I go on.