signoftheserpent said:

signoftheserpent said:

I think it depends on what you mean by "scaled to suit". I've not got Creatures Anathema, but I understand that N01h3r3's Eldar stats are basically at the same power level - with a couple of tweaks to make them fit the DW Horde rules. They're *weak* compared to Space Marines but they kind of should be.

Are units that would be comparable in the wargame thus in this system?

It's not good designing an eldar kill team, if you like, to face off against the players if they turn out to be weak as kittens and no challenge at all. I'm not talking about Hordes. I'm talking about unit for unit.

signoftheserpent said:

Pretty much no - DW Marines are Fluff-style not TT-style (that is to say, they're actually statted as superhuman warriors, not just-slightly-better-than-guardsmen)

Arkhan said:

Chastity said:

I understand the Marines are tough. But I should be able to build an Eldar squad of warriors powerful enough to be their equal (ie without them losing in one round making the whole thing a massive anticlimax) without resorting to a Horde.

Even then the point still remains. How do you balance the Eldar from CA, for instance, so they are useable in DW given the power of the Marines?

signoftheserpent said:

By using your imagination, intelligence and a bit common sense. It really isn't that difficult, you can mostly go with your gut feeling when creating enemies.

You wanna create an Ork Waaghboss? Then you look at the CA Ork Nob stats and upgrade them where you think that your Ork Waghboss should be better. Better armor for instance. Plus some more wounds to make him last longer in combat. And some more dakka. And perhaps a higher strength value and some extra talents that give him more melee attacks per round. Voila, there you go.

No, they really shouldn't.

No 'normal' Eldar is the equal of a Space Marine. The Astartes were basically made to butcher the galaxy afterall. There aren't many things that are capable of standing up to a space marine, one-on-one, about the only thing that can is another Space Marine. A Guardian, or Kabalite Warrior, certainly aren't one of the things. Even Aspect Warriors are woefully outmatched in any area but their own little specialty.

signoftheserpent said:

You can. Without any particular difficulty. The Dire Avenger in Creatures Anathema has most stats comparable to or better than those a Space Marine, lacking in resilience or brute strength, but with greater skill and speed. They can't take on Space Marines in a straight-up fight, but the Eldar shouldn't be engaging in a straight-up fight in the first place: they should be fighting intelligently, being swift and elusive rather than trying to employ brute force.

All this without Horde Mode. Add an Exarch (such as the one in Ascension, though I personally don't regard it as an adequate representation of an Exarch's supposed lethality) to bolster them further if you want.

Blood Pact said:

signoftheserpent said:

That's ridiculus. As if statting an enemy is some kind of rocket-engineering which requires you to have three Ph.D.s. What group of autistic morons would cry out in agony if the Ork boss now has 61 strength and not 62? "Oh no! He is too weak! The game's broken!".

Honestly, do you really believe in what you write? Then perhaps stay with TableTop or Card Games or whatever, but keep your hand off RPGs, because they require a certain degree of creativity and flexibility, regarding story as well as regarding rules.

Keep in mind that a Hordes Magnitude value does not have to be a 1-for-1 representation.

Example, lets say you like the Dire Avenger, but don't feel it stacks up against the KT. Field 10 of them as a "Horde" with Magnitude 30. This gives them the extra damage and extra toughness, without much work on your end. If they KT does 5 Magnitude damage then say they killed one and badly wounded another. Go for a more cinematic combat than hard number crunching.

Arkhan said:

I didn't say it was rocket science, I said it was mechanical. Statting enemies and creating abilities for them or otherwise approximating them requires knowledge of the system. Some people are good at that, others are not. Does that make them stupid? Does that warrant abuse like this, or patronising comments such as 'stay with card games or whatever'? Good grief, grow up!

signoftheserpent said:

Strict application of the mechanics seldom serves the 40kRP rules well.

Sure, creating and adjusting enemies requires a little thought, but it's hardly complicated - its simply a matter of familiarity with the rules and an understanding of the background, and putting the two together. If you're not confident about your ability to put together a worthwhile foe... practice. Create a few foes, roll a few dice, adjust.

It took me barely twenty minutes to put together a decent Necron Warrior profile, complete with a unique special rule. It's the result of practice - it's a good way to see what a system can do, lets you build up a catalogue of enemies for your players to face, and makes improvisation easier (if you know the rules well enough, its much easier to pull something out of nowhere).

Did you base your Necrons on material solely within DW?

signoftheserpent said:

Ruleswise, entirely, right down to using the profile for the Flayer Rifle from The Emperor Protects for the Gauss Flayer, and using the Tomb Spyder and Wraith profiles in that book as a point of comparison to keep them consistent in terms of common abilities.

Background-wise, I'm working from the Necron Codex, the 2nd edition Necron rules, and the novels Dead Men Walking and Fall of Damnos .

signoftheserpent said:

Sans something concrete like a Challenge Rating, I've seen that it is more difficult to judge the power level of a DW SM than characters in other RPGs, even when the enemy stats are right in front of you and published by FFG. DW is, despite them not clearly calling it out, a bit of an advanced game. It really helps to have a very firm understanding of the mechanics. The system is less forgiving (than say DH) for having an incomplete understanding of the base rules.

Given that, what I would recommend is sticking with the sample adventure (Final Sanction and Oblivion's Edge)- if you want Chaos instead of Tyranids, consider swapping the human hordes out with some variety of cultist (they really just need a name change), toss in some possessed marines or the like, and sub out the brood lord with a chaos champion of the same basic stats (I personally upped his wounds so he lived more than 30 seconds). OE is a bit trickier to convert, but not too hard.

Using the stats from the sample(s), either as a one off or as a campaign starter, you should be able to get a much clearer picture of the rules and of the way your players play marines. This will help a lot when planning out what bad guys should face the characters when. As they advance in power and level, you can simply start to ratchet up the enemy profiles and complexity.

Once you've done this, statting out enemies appropriately will become much easier.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

signoftheserpent said:

Fine, in which case, no, but such pedantry is hardly appropriate to the situation. That doesn't mean I couldn't create Necron Warriors using only the DW rulebook, merely that I chose to use another book as a reference as well. And, while I referenced The Emperor Protects while writing them (as a source of pre-existing work on the matter, for comparative purposes), at no point is that book required to actually use them - the only rule in the profiles written up not found within the Deathwatch rulebook is the Phase Out rule, which I created myself and described in full. I personally view there as being a significant difference between relying on a supplement and using it for reference.

Judge for yourself - they're copied below.

Necron Warrior (Elite)

WS 45

BS 45

S 50 (10)

T 55 (10)

Ag 30 (3)

Int 20 (2)

Per 45 (4)

WP 45 (4)

Fe l -

Movement: 3/6/9/12

Wounds: 25

Skills: Awareness (Per) +10, Climb (S)

Talents: Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Gauss Flayer)

Traits: Auto-Stabilised, Dark Sight, Fear (1), From Beyond, Natural Armour (Armoured Shell), Phase Out (see below), Regeneration (5), The Stuff of Nightmares, Unnatural Strength (x2), Unnatural Toughness (x2)

Phase Out: Necrons are capable of repairing themselves from all but the most devastating of damage, and those who cannot repair themselves swiftly vanish from the field, returning to the Tomb to be repaired or have their consciousness downloaded into a new form. When a Necron suffers from a Critical Hit, roll 1d10, and subtract from it the Pen value of the attack that caused the Critical Damage. If this result is higher than the Critical Value, then that Critical is ignored as the Necron's body repairs the damage. Otherwise, the Critical Hit is suffered as normal. Should a Necron be damaged to a point where it would otherwise die, it instead phases out, teleporting away from the battle.

Armour: Armoured Shell (All 10)

Weapons: Gauss Flayer (200m; S/2/-; 2d10+5 E; Pen 8; Clip Infinite; Recharge, Volatile, Each damaging hit deals 1d10 Toughness Damage in addition to Wounds caused) with Mono-blade Combat Attachment (1d10+12 R; Pen 2)

None of the above requires the use of anything but the Deathwatch rulebook to use, and to be honest, doesn't actually require anything but the Deathwatch rulebook to create (because, when you think about it, whomever wrote the Necron rules in The Emperor Protects did so using only the rulebook for reference, as no other source yet existed - I just chose to take a short-cut to save myself a few minutes worth of time and effort by building on existing work rather than doing it myself).

I'm not being snippy. The fact that the info required to complete the profile requires the acquisition of a second book and one whose only use to me (i have no interest in buying published adventure books per se) was a tiny portion of its content is precisely my point.

Look, if money was no object then i'd happily buy the lot, but it isn't and these books are by no means cheap - irrespective of quality. Or if someone offered me the lot i'd chew their arm off to get that. But that's not practical and it's not realistic.

You might call it pedantic, but it isn't. Those are two separate books and I don't think it's remotely reasonable to just expect me to buy TEP solely for some Necron info - especailly as thats money that could be spent on something overall more useful, like RoB.

So, instead of putting some bits and pieces for the Xeno races randomly across books all over the entire 40k rpg lines, would ffg not have been better writing a straight up Xeno Compendium and covering all the races: Eldar, Ork, Tau (and client races), Necron, Dark Eldar, and Tyrannid? YOu can't tell me that's not feasible, even at 40 pages per faction tht's still 240p only, and you can't tell me it wouldn't be popular - the fact people have lapped up your own creations in this area tells me that there is clearly a demand. That one book would replace the cost for CA, MoX and the RT book that's due, with the cost of a single book and easily sell as much. Your work is great, but why are you having to do what FFG ought to be doing (which doesn't preclude people from doing it their way instead either, it just gives them the option).

And if need be FFG could follow them up with compendiums fo their own Xenos, like the Slaught for instance.

signoftheserpent said:

Info required ? No. As I said, none of the info in The Emperor Protects was necessary or required... it was merely a convenient time-saver, given that I was writing during my morning break at work.

signoftheserpent said:

I never said anything of the sort - indeed, as I've pointed out repeatedly now, nothing within The Emperor Protects is required or necessary for Necron rules... it was, at the time of writing, a convenient time-saver.

signoftheserpent said:

It's all very well to back-seat theorise, but there are lots of things that require and deserve attention in terms of rules and background, and producing a book takes a lot of time and effort. Some people want adversaries, some people want adventures, some people want worlds and locations, starships, plot hooks... the list goes on. There is only so much that can be squeezed into a rulebook, so it has to come in supplements, which again take time to produce (writing being amongst the quickest parts of the process). Adventures will include adversaries, as it's unfair to expect people to buy a bestiary in order to be able to run an adventure.

I don't know how FFG decide which books to prioritise, but they do have to prioritise. For every person clamouring for additional adversaries, there's another person calling for rules for a half-dozen other Astartes Chapters, or something else... there are only so many man-hours that can be devoted to developing those books at any given moment, so something has to come first and something has to go later.

Finally, I'm not having to do anything. I'm writing those rules because I want to, because I enjoy doing it, because I'm fairly good at it (judging by the responses I've gotten), and because it takes me very little time and effort to do during quiet periods between official projects. I've also done a complete rewrite of several species of Tyranid purely because I'd rather use my customised creations rather the ones in the rulebook (if only to keep my players guessing), and am working on some updated, fleshed-out Tau rules (including a set of Critical Hit tables for Crisis and Broadside suits to account for the fact that the pilot is only actually in the torso).

I get that FFG can't please everyone nor can they release books every five minutes to cover everything. But you are not going to convine me that a book on the other factions in the setting, a Xeno Compendium (you coudl even include Chaos and make it complete if you like), wouldn't rank in the top 3 books of the vast majority of players. There isn't a single 40k player that wouldn't want this information - and FFG have had a good few years now to work on something like this. I would like to know why they haven't decided to do this.

signoftheserpent said:

Well, that information isn't possessed by anyone outside of FFG, so I don't think you'll get an answer via this forum. There are other routes (various links to Contact FFG at the bottom of the page) to go about asking such things, though whether or not they can give you an answer is a different matter entirely.

signoftheserpent said:

You kind of are dude, that's why people have been hostile towards you. If this incenses you so why do you buy their products and post on their forums?

Charmander said:

You need to remember that a lot of people on forums are not so much fans as protesters.

I'm definatly a Deathwatch protester, on the grounds that it doesn't meet my criteria for being a three hundred page essay on why Marines are the most awesomest thing evar and is largely a joyless effort by people who just don't love Marines enough.

signoftheserpent said:

DEATHWATCH is less than a year old and Mark of the Xenos will be the 4th book out, and that's only if you count the core book.

Dark Heresy had both Disciples of the Dark Gods and Creatures Anathema. I think there were like the 3rd and 5th out, respectively.

Granted, it's been a long time coming for Rogue Trader, I will give you that. But all the complaints you've been making here really are absolutely baseless. Expecting way more than there is reasonable.