Before I begin I have to state, I'm SERIOUSLY not looking for an argument, just sense. Most people here must remember the days when Space Marines were nothing special. Yes, better than humans (for example IG) but on a par with Aspect Warriors and no match for a 'stealer in close combat. It might just be me but they are way out of whack. Yes, Deathwatch are all champion level characters or above but even a 'normal' Chapter Master will have trouble taking on more than a squad of 'stealers or a Farseer and they should. It just seems like the system has bought into the 'fluff' surrounding SM's. They are not anywhere near indestructible. A few Orks with bolter's can do the job if the players stupid enough to get caught in the open. After a few playtest firefights this is a way from being consistent with the tabletop. Please understand I'm just trying to get some input on the matter and not trolling.

The concept of Table top is far different than what is presented in Deathwatch. One could make that arguement, bu thten what about Space Hulk? Those Genestealers die Preeety easily when it comes to a squad of terminators firing bullets down their throat.

I still think Genestealers are a terror in close combat in DW. They do major damage, and Ive seen them take off a head once, it was really really bad.

Orks I don't think have been made for DW. It's a whole new set of rules that they'll need to be a horde (as even Tyranid's needed a buff against the almighty space marine).

But the real question I have to ask is, beyond everything, do you want Deathwatch characters to die more? Is that what you're asking?

Not pk'ing. Just comparing power levels to some of the other published stuff. Personally I'd start players at pre-scout level intro then them into the party a scout level before they get anywhere near even a whisper of Deathwatch. I just think they've got the power levels a bit off.

Frostfire said:

Storm bolters should have that effect but in close combat the stealers own even Terminators in Space Hulk, the tricks not to let them get there.

colony said:

The problem is you're missing an elegant solution in it all. Deathwatch handles a few things that all other systems proposed haven't got in them.

1. It actually builds a marine. A space marine at the start of DW is considered built. Why is this important? Because he differs from any normal character in DW and RT in almost every way, having 20-60 years of experience. The difference being that at the start of DW, you're a space marine of renown, just not much. Building this character out of someone from DH would be tremendously hard, having to model your character first as a violent 14 year old. Also frequently overlooked is that in the beginning, you're an aspirant. And only a limited number of those make it to being a scout, let alone a full marine. Out of a group of 6 people, three people would have to at least die during the scout phase to try represent the turmoil. Everybody would probably die twice to accurately represent it.

2. Though I think it would be cool to be a scout, and many people would, I don't think most people would. I think most people would want to start off like they currently do. With a speciality, which isn't picked as a scout till you've done a few laps through the chapter. DW as it is allows you to pick a class and rock it hard, rather than waiting in a scout company where everyone in the group is the same class for however many sessions. Being the stealthy guy sniping and scouting isn't for everyone, and honestly? I think going through and being a scout at the beginning of a campaign would be novel once . I think every other time, we'd try to switch out to be normal marines at the start anyway. Simply for the reason that why watch other people be marines when you could be doing it now?

3. Deathwatch elegantly, and I cannot stress this enough, elegantly handles the matter of different chapters put together so well it's like it was written for it. Instead of everyone arguing what chapter everyone in the group should be, or trying to cobble together a reason for why marines of different chapters were thrown into one place, Deathwatch allows everyone to be their own marine, from whatever chapter they want to be, to whatever type of marine they want to be, and allows them to work together in a common setting with common goals. I put that challenge up to anybody to try to allow that in any other place but the deathwatch.

So, do you start off as a scout? No. Is it a match of convience? Yes. But it's one that works beautifully.

Now, all that said. You wanna run a campaign where everybody starts off as scouts? Nobody's stoppin' ya. Take away the power armor, put everyone together in one chapter, take half the skills off and lower the exp by 3000. You can totally do it. It's your campaign. But I think the feel of what makes Deathwatch what it is won't be there for you.

.

colony said:

colony said:

I'm somewhat unsure: is your belief that DW marines are too powerful, or not powerful enough (vs the table-top)?

If the former:

In a White Dwarf article some years back (issue 300), GW presented a tongue-in-cheek list called the "Movie Marines," a 1500 point army list that consisted of exactly one tactical squad and a rhino. Each marine was strength and toughness 6, multiple wounds, and bolters had effectively the same stats as an assault cannon. The writer described this as being what marines "should" be, according to the novels. Players were encouraged to reenact scenes from Thunderhawk Down, We were Space Marines, Calgar's Heroes, and Saving Battle-Brother Ryan.

In the prelude to this list, the author wrote that the table-top game is designed for balance first and foremost. All players should (theoretically) have a fair chance of winning. Stats are homogenized (is a Striking Scorpion really as strong as a marine?) in order to make for an enjoyable experiennce. This list was a semi-serious attempt to illustrate just how ridiculous the Black Library marines can be.

If the latter:

I've honestly never seen this argument before. I really hope you meant the former. The only thing I can do is point you to some of the ridiculous feats people have described taking place in their games. One heavy bolter gunning down a Hive Tyrant in a single round of shooting? Haven't seen that happen on the tabletop in a while.

Ultimately, FFG adheres more to the fluff than the tabletop. The PCs are Space Marines, the glorious defenders of mankind. Each is a veteran of dozens of campaigns and the vanquisher of countless horrible monstrosities. Balance is secondary to this. The players are meant to feel like the genetically-enhanced supersoldiers they are. Yes, this is still Warhammer 40,000 and you can die a thousand different horrible, grisly deaths, but you sure as shooting aren't going down without a fight.

Frostfire said:

Well spoken sir!

all valid points and well made.

So if a player was playing , say an Eldar or a Ork for instance, should they be rebalanced to the level of DW then? An Eldar Warlock or a Ork Boss should be an even match for a Deathwatch Space Marine, all being Champion level Characters. An Eldar Exarch or Ork Warboss should take an entire squad to take down. A Hive Tyrant or Greater Deamon should be too powerful for all but the most experienced of Squads. A Deamon Prince for instance should outclass anything that a single character can come close to. It would take almost an entire army to even catch it's attention.

colony said:

Yes. This is why all the things you've listed are considered "Master level" enemies. EG, whole group has to work to take them down. Well, the only one listed, I think, is the Demon prince. The other two haven't made their DW appearence.

Frostfire said:

It doesn't need to wait for supplements though. From what I've learn't of it, it's a heavily adapted version of wfrpg (btw and better than). The only part of the system I think needs some more work is the Careers caper. I'm still debating how I'm gonna deal with that for the RT and DH players. I didn't like careers in wfrpg and still don't but I'm sure I can house rule around them with a bit of player consultation.

I ran a test melee duel between a rank 4 tactical marine and a genestealer earlier and the marine was killed in 3 rounds.

Individually, the space marines arent that powerful, in a kill team they are awesome, especially using squad abilities

well thanx to all 4 the input. gonna go have a vodka and think about it for a bit.

First of all, have a look at my thread here:

www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp

In short, Bolt Weapons are very powerful, too powerful for some people's taste as the number of hits act as multiplier on any single difference in damage points (might shot gives +2 to damage, if you hit 7 times with the Heavy Bolter that is an additional 14 damage points for the attack).

Secondly, certain enemies might still too easily killed for your taste. If so, add to all those enemies another level of Unnatural Toughness. Note however that enemies like the Hive Tyrant or Daemon Prince can shred through Space Marines easily in close combat, so you might end with lots of dead PCs.

Thirdly, fights against Boss enemies in DW are unlike fighting Dragons in D&D. It's a do-or-die affair. If you don't kill the Daemon Prince before he gets to attack in melee, heads will roll. Literally.

Alex

Its a scale thing. They had to make Genestealers deathly scary in Dark Heresy and in turn had to make Space Marines that much more Speeesh Mahren. Truth is, you lower the genestealer a fraction, you cna lower the space marine the same degree. A couple points of Gene Stealer armour and damage and you can reduce the buffness of the marines.

But thats in the past. Deathwatch is not your Space Marine RPG, its your SPECIAL VETERAN DEATH KILLERS game. If you want to play normal space marines, on a more sane level, the Dark Reign PDF on Space Marines works much better then DW. Its a shame FFG didnt use more of that.

I think the game is called Deathwatch.....Hey what is the Deathwatch....wait isnt it an elite xenos fighting force of the best xenos fighters from each chapter...yep thats it....so why are they such good fighters..."loop to start"

PS, If you want to play a lower power level run your game at a lower power level....or play dark Heresy...its a great game.

major shultz said:

Yeah, Im pretty sure thats what I said.

Peacekeeper_b said:

It is a scale thing, but it's perhaps more complex than you're suggesting here.

A human PC - those in Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader - has to, by necessity, have room to grow from their 'untrained' characteristics. Consequently, those creatures which are defined as being superhuman in some way need to stand above human characters... not just the average, untrained human profile, but most or all of the potential for normal human development. It doesn't make sense if a human being can, with training, become tougher than an Ork or faster than an Eldar.

A Space Marine, by merit of being superhumanly strong and tough, needs to be stronger and tougher than an unaugmented human can be - they literally wouldn't be superhuman if the results of their extensive augmentation could be replicated by intensive training alone. Thus, a Space Marine, like an Ork, must be tougher than a human can be. Given that we already knew how protective Power Armour was meant to be from the moment DH was released (and it really can't be any lower without clashing with Carapace Armour, and you can't reasonably lower the other forms of armour without devaluing them), that can't easily be scaled back, so the full protective benefit of Power Armour gets added to the necessarily superhuman resilience of the Astartes...

The Astartes can't easily be lowered without lowering the upper-limits of normal human potential, and thus they are extremely powerful.

In my opinion, Unnatural Toughness is the problem here. It's a flat multiplicator that simply breaks the game by doubling every advance in Toughness, which results in the funny fact that naked Marines are actually tougher than the armour they wear. Additionally, the combined effect of a TB of 6-18(!!) and an AP 8+ results in the enemies simply having to be "bumped up a notch" in order to still be a threat. And to balance that out, the weapons themselves had to be improved to levels which are simply unexplainable by the fluff. So yes, it very much seems to be a scaling issue due to ridiculous stats.

It likely would have been better for the entire system to have normal people only apply half their TB to the armour, and Unnatural Toughness being a trait that simply allows a 100% TB. That still is (in a way) a flat multiplicator, which is never a good thing to have in any game, but at least this would avoid characters getting tougher than Baneblades. Alternatively, Unnatural Toughness may have just been a flat TB bonus. Oh well, too late for that now.

Lynata said:

Don't know where you're getting that. Every characteristic advance is +5. Meaning you need two of them to go up a rank and double your toughness. Furthermore, you're only allowed four on a certain characteristic. So that's +20 only. So assuming that you're an ultra marine, and you have a +5 in toughness, you rolled a perfect 20 during your stats, that means the limit is 75. Doubled over means 14 reduction. Sounds like alot? But considering you only have 23 wounds without sound constituion, and a Hive tyrant can do 1d10+22 damage in just one swipe, it really adds up.

Lynata said:

Yep they have 2 great games Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader where you dont have to worry about this pesky toughness stuff.

Frostfire said:

Ech. Of course, you're right. For some weird reason I added the characteristic advances directly (i.e. +1), thus messing up the formula I was working with. I blame it on still being sleepy.

Still, yes, a Reduction of 14 even before armour comes into play is ridiculous when compared to normal people. Marines are abhuman, but they are not living gods (despite some novels making them look like that, but this seems to be normal for any kind of protagonist in 40k books).

Of course an encounter with a Hive Tyrant has to hurt. They are the leaders of entire Tyranid invasion forces and supposed to cut through even Astartes with ease. To bump the stats of DW characters just to deal with them and survive multiple hits from their scything claws may make for an epic battle but does not seem like an accurate depiction of the setting to me. Similar to how I would not expect a DH group to survive an encounter with Necrons. Not everything has to be killable by 5 people alone, so I'd either not let them encounter such creatures or, alternatively, not make them encounter them alone but with a lot of backup firepower.

That said, even the devs have described DW to be close to movies such as "300", so it all depends on what you expect from a game - gritty realism or surreal heroics. Both can be fun, they're just not very compatible with each other. As Shultz just pointed out, we do have multiple games to choose from, all offering unique gameplay experiences and different levels of awesomeness.

If you get your toughness up to 70 there is alot of stuff that can only kill you with blood loss. You can have a marine fighting something that has taken his leg, arm, eye, until he is a chicken nugget but trugrit and really high toughness keeps him alive.

Sorry, I just had to.

I find that the non mook enemys are way hard enough for my PCs to handle I just did 28 points of damage to one of my marines pen 18 tough as the nid has razer sharp wich means double pen if you get 2 degrees of success. Chaos Space marines are as tough as marines and are as easy or hard to kill as other marines I have huse ruled that they do not auto rightus fury xenos as that was just to much damage and they are genraly skilled enough to confirm.