Rites of Battle (p. 129, "Becoming a Watch Captain") : "When a character gains the Watch Captain Advanced Specialisation, it is presumed that he is the default choice for the kill-team´s leader, unless an Inqusitor or the Watch Commander is personally taking charge."

So if handled that way a lot of the codex Squad Mode abilities could never be used as they are dependent on the oath, which in turn is dependent on the leaders specialty.

2 suggestions come to mind dealing with this:

- introduce a new oath specifically for the Watch Captain Advanced Specialty ("Oath of Flexibility"). This oath allows the use of all codex squad-mode abilities but gives no additional benefits. A successful Command Test could be required for this to work.

- give the Watch Captain a special ability analog to the Tactical Marine´s "Tactical Expertise" like this: " Tactical Flexibility "": The Watch Captain may use ANY codex Squad Mode ability even those not given by the kill-team´s current oath. Using an ability not given by the current oath requires a successful Hard (-20) Command Test. At Rank 3, the Command Test becomes Challenging (+0). At Rank 7, the Command Test becomes Routine (+20)."

Both of these options could be more difficult / expensive if the cohesion needed to be spent regardless of the command test´s success or the cohesion cost was higher than normal (+1 for example).

How would you handle this?

o6sidian said:

Allow the Captain to choose any Oath he likes. That's why he is the Captain. But you're right this should be errata'd then.

Alex

Good observation.

I'd proabably still restrict oaths to what the Captain knows from his class, but allow the Captain -as a special ability- to use any Codex Pattern at +1 Cohesion cost if it's not already part of the oath. That makes the speciality a lot more useful.