signoftheserpent said:

0. Adversaries aren't bought through XP. They are most likely converted from 40K to DW. If you want a a challenge rating, take the points values from 40K, exaggerate the Marines values substantially and there you go.

signoftheserpent said:

Susbtantially given the difficulties in statting out weapons properly and in a balanced manner.

signoftheserpent said:

No use in that as the list of enemies gets continually expanded. Besides the seperation is good indeed: you need to learn a set of standard traits and talents so while game-mastering you only need to leave open the page with the xeno stats. If you know the standard abilities you don't have to flip pages, as the special traits are right before you and the standard talents/traits you have in your head.

signoftheserpent said:

Normally GMs don't build monsters, they assign values instead. Of if there is a random generator, they do a few rolls.

signoftheserpent said:

If you think it's not too difficult, why are you complaing? It should take you not much time and effort to roll your own. Just as I don't complain about having to assess the challenge rating intuitively.

signoftheserpent said:

Different philosophy of gaming. NPCs are not constraint by the same set of rules as PCs. And it makes **** sense too: it's by far easier to assign stats to NPCs just like that without having to worry about XP costs.

signoftheserpent said:

Well, 40K is different in that regard. So is Shadowrun (at least 1E/2E), Cyberpunk (1E/2E), Harnmaster, Aliens, Palladium, Twilight 2000, Recon, CoC, Traveller, Paranoia, etc etc etc.

signoftheserpent said:

Well, as a gamemaster you always have to do so some extra work and since you implied that it's not a difficult nor lengthy thing to do.. go ahead. I have no idea what you are complaining about here then.

Alex

signoftheserpent said:

We're not critical because we *assumed* that you're not willing to 'whip up' your own rules. We were critical because you told us that you weren't willing to, didn't want to look any up on the Net, and complained at length that the exact rules that you wanted weren't present, even after we tried to help and explained *at length* that the solution to the problem lays in your own hands. We were not critical of you wanting clarification on how things work - in fact we offered advice. We were critical when you then criticised the need to possess what is a crucial GMing skill and made claims that 'other games' didn't require this knowledge without citing anything else.

Maybe our information has been useful in some way. We don't know. We've certainly offered a ton of advice, but all we've had back is negative feedback about things that are not under our control anyway. Rather than a single 'thanks, I'll take a look at that' or 'I'll give it a go', we've just been met with a string of complaints about the contents of the books, the nature of GMing, the effort required to run a game, the lack of something that doesn't exist, and finally our attitude. Every time we write a reply, we are spending our own time in trying to help you, yet you don't seem to want the help: You want a miracle.

Every RPG is a trail by fire as far as GMing the first game goes. All you can do is look at stats -as has been suggested- and make a rough personal assessment, bearing in mind the conditional difficulty modifiers and your own knowledge of the party. You are once again asking for something that does not exist. And once again, you've frustrated us further by repetition: You've complained about lack of 'monster XP cost', we've offered the reasoning why such things are moot, and yet we're back to square one again. I'm pretty sure I was woken up last night by the intercontinental echoes of Alex banging his head on the keyboard.

I don't see Alex's posts as patronising. I see him - and other posters - as trying to be helpful, and that then being thrown back in their face repeatedly. Speaking for myself; I'm simply frustrated with the way that you seem to be blaming and repeatedly complaining to the people who are trying to help for the manner in which the book was produced. Why is the book like that? Who knows, who cares? It doesn't matter: It's like that now and no amount of complaint is going to change it. Have you taken any of what people have said on board at all and even tried running the introductory scenario yet?

It takes about 30 seconds to determine the relative power of some potential adversary in a vaccum by looking at its stats. Seriously, people.

signoftheserpent said:

I doubt any of the adversaries were built using an XP budget (which is what D&D 4th ed does). More likely they first looked at the what they are trying to represent, and compared it to the established values in the game (average human has 25-35 on all stats, for example) and how much better or worse they were meant to be compared to those things. Space Marines, for example, are meant to be extremely well trained and tough. If 25-35 is normal for someone with semi-decent training then Space Marine values will normally be higher. 35-45 is the realms for BS and WS for elite troops or veterans, so we will give them states in that realm. Space Marines should be much tougher and stronger than normal humans. Very strong normal humans are 45 odd, and Space Marines are past even that. Now, we could go even higher, but that starts just getting daft (Strength 60-80?) and also leaves us little room to make things better on top of that so we will avoid that. Instead we will give them Unnatural Toughness and Strength instead. Now, we are wanting to generally make them better than normal humans so we will give them "elite" stats across the board, 40+ (personally I wasn't keen on that decision... no good reason a Space Marine should be much more intelligent or skilled socially than an average human). There... basic stats done.

Now, look at the skills list and decide what they know, what they are good at and determine through that what skills they should have. Are they very experienced at it, or even better at that thing than their stats would generall needs consideration are Dodge, Awareness and in some cases the more practical skills like acrobatics, climb, concealment, silent move etc. If it is a goon the fact that theoretically he should have Forbidden Lore (Random Cult) doesn't matter.

Then look at the talents... what fits what they do and (most commonly) their fighting style? Should they hit hard? Maybe give them Crushing blow or something. Are they a mobile melee hitter? Assassin Strike maybe? Long range sniper? Does Marksman seem to fit the bill? Again, simplify as much as possible. Talented (Scrimshawing) is probably not relevant, unless fleshing out a major ongoing adversary... and even then it is a stretch.

Do all this keeping an eye on the important stats of the players (like toughness and the like). Will they die in one hit or are they actually unable to harm the players? Probably hordify them. If they would be too powerful as hordes then maybe just boost them slightly so they can at least function as standalones. Are they able to deal and receive damage on about the same broad scale as the party? Then they are probably elites (this is a broad area... Tyranid warriors have far more wounds, higher strength and toughness, but they are still within the elite tier). Should they be far more resilient than a normal Space Marine and deal out a lot more damage? Master level. Will they kill your entire party in one hit... probably think about the thing again.

As said, xp cost doesn't tell you that much about the combat ability of the players (or any theoretical xp built NPCs) aside from the fact that they should be better the more xp they have (but if they have spent 1000 xp on knowledge skills they are not any better off in a fight than they were 1000xp ago). Hit points don't get that much better compared to many systems (best you can get is 15 extra wounds, and many nasty attacks I have seen can remove that many or even more in a turn). Damage reduction improves (if you are boosting toughness), but not on exponential terms (4 more barring fancy armour or being a Tech Priest). Talents are not universal in their impact levels, and different specialities get them at different costs and times. Extra attacks are extremely good, as are extra dodges or parries. Things like Combat Sense on the other hand are at best unimpressive (Perception Bonus for Initiative rather than Agility bonus... yay. Agility is normally more important in my mind and it costs the same as perception for the Tactical Marine, so you might as well improve agility and not bother with Combat Sense. In fact, all the Initiative Talents seem pointless, aside possibly from lightning reflexes). Yet Lightning Attack for an assault marine costs 600 compared to 500 for Combat Sense for a Tactical Marine. Others let the player do different things, yet their impact is... difficult to gauge.

Siranui said:

To be honest, after his response to my apology, I am not sure if he's trolling. Anyway, I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt, same here.

But in short, if I can't say that it's part of a GM's job to prepare without being accused of being patronizing, that's his problem. It's my opinion that it's so and if he feels that it was a remark aimed at him personally even after I have said that it's, I can't help him.

Alex

basically the following is why you cant make CR ratings for monsters in this game. conditions of the battle vary tremendously based on party composition, terrain, who gets the drop on who, I will demonstrate with opposite ends of the spectrum. I will use the new optional weapon rules

party composition 1 = level 1 apothecary, level 1 devastator with heavy bolter, level 1 tac marine level 1 assault marine

scenario 1 . the party manages to get the drop on a mag 30 horde of tau fire warriors in the open at short range (30 meters). assume that the party is concealed in trees and the fire warriors are convoying through a valley that the party is overlooking

round 1 : devastator attacks, large horde +short range +unaware opponent means almost certainly a +60 bonus. the dev almost certainly has bs in the region of 50 (average of 40 +5 for chapter bonuses, +5 for simple bs increase). the dev probably gets 6 hits +1d5 mag damage +1 for explosive weapon. we will call it approximately 8 mag damage

apothecary attacks with a frag grenade. normal range +large horde +unaware opponent means +50 bonus. assuming about 40bs thats very likely a hit. potential for 4(blast) +1(explosive) damage. total of 13 so far

tac marine attacks with frag grenade. same as the apo. total of 18 mag damage so far

assault marine charges with jump pack. attacks with his chainsword with a +10 for charging and a +30 for unaware opponent. assume ws of 50 that means almost certainly hits. he does probably an average of 2-3 mag damage +1d10 from that wings of angels charging ability. total of about 26 mag damage.

round 2 the tau fire warriors with 4 magnitude left automatically break, they can fire back some but with 1d10+12 pen 4 they will only do a few wounds before the party finishes them off

party composition 2 = level 4 apothecary, level 4 devastator with heavy bolter, level 4 tac marine level 4 assault marine

scenario 2. exactly the same but in reverse. assume the party is in a marching line and standing within a few meters of one another

round 1. Tau attack. they get +10 for short range, +30 for unaware opponents +10 for semi auto and they aimed for a full round before so the maximum bonus of +60 to hit. tau are BS 35 so 95 to hit, 75 is 2 hits 55 is 3 hits. most likely outcome is 3 hits. also because it is a horde of 30 they get three semi autos. that means an average of 7-8 hits. because the party is unaware they get no dodges. assume the party members have neither earned the iron halo honour or the terminator armour honour (which are supposed to be very special at level 4). average toughness and armour in the party is going to be no more than about 10 and 10. so every hit inflicts 3d10-4 wounds. average of 12 wounds per hit. average of 24 wounds per party member. that will put almost the entire party into critical damage, or force 2 or 3 of the members to burn fatepoints or die.

round 2. if the tau rolled high enough initiative to attack before the party they can attack again, doing even more damage. it is possible for the party to suffer a TPK in this way without even firing a shot.

as you can see depending on combat scenario (basically its very easy to stack modifiers, so really its dependant on who fires first) the same mag 30 horde of firewarriors can be killed by a level 1 party that is almost unscathed. or can TPK a level 4 party that isnt quite advanced enough to have iron halos or terminator armour.