Guys

My search-fu appears weak on this matter.

I've got a couple of players in my group who tend to be somewhat miserly with spending their fate/fortune points through the evening and normally finish our sessions in most WHFRP/40RPG games with a couple left.

As our DW campaign is finally about to get started (delayed due to babies and other RL events) I'm trying to work out how best to limit their potential for seeing the clock at 5 mins to go and deciding to ensure that their character gets healed by spending them all on a couple of D10 points back.

Has anyone put any house rules that limit the spending of these points for healing at all, if not does anyone have any idea how best to balance this with a rule to encourage spreading their use through the evening instead of 'GM says No'

Face them with horrible beasts. They'd better spend their FPs on their failed Parry tests when it's against a Genestealer...Cause a stealer's attack does well more than 1d10. If they don't, that's their business, not yours

Why would you want to stop/limit them from spending Fate Points on healing, it is a perfectly legitimate?

As pointed out, in certain situations they are probably more effectively used to re-roll a failed Parry, or to try and kill an opponent quickly with Killing Strike.

If they're doing this, it's kinda their own loss!

Also, remind them that they DO get all their Fate Points back in the end of EACH and EVERY Mission. Many other game systems work under the assumptions that Fate Points (or Survival Points or whatever they are called) are either impossible or horribly hard to ever get back and players might just be used to that.

In my group we actually house-ruled the "Fate-healing" because it just seemed silly. All agreed that if Fate points were to be used for healing it would have to be in the same round as damage was taken (IE it does not heal anything, it simply reduces damage) This was to avoid the sudden and unknown mysterious healing powers of the astartes and replace it with a "you got lucky" -feeling.

Aaarrghh!!1!! Me legs come off!!!1!....(30 mins later) Never mind, i'm good, didn't really come off, just looked that way... thanks for carrying me btw =P)

(other players) "wat?"

It's just too meta...

stupid double post

The thing is, Astartes do heal at a silly pace, and that's what FP healing represents.

I'm not sure if it heals Critical Damage, though. Would sound alright. And anyway, if you had a critical hit that cut off your leg, the fact that you get back to positive wounds does not mean your leg is back. Just that you feel able to fight, with maluses of course.

Serialkilla said:

We have a similar rule allowing players to reduce damage on one hit. Works quite well. The rule was my suggestion to encourage other uses of fate points. Healing is just too good (compared with +10% on one check). Typically I'd be the only one regually to use fate pionts for anything else. Even in RT and DH healing seems to be the best option in most cases. Perhaps its because were to keen to be invunerable even at the expence of the mission (carn't get away from 3.5 arggghhh). I take the point the Astartes are suposed to heal up quick but for us this works better.

Spending on healing generally isn't as good as spending the FP to re-roll the parry roll from the big nasty critter in the first place!

It is completely legitimate for a GM to restore a spent fate point or even add a permanent fate point for incredible in game deeds. For example, the former for an impressive act of heroism for even space marines and the latter for a staggering victory against insane numbers of enemies.

It is the player's loss if they don't want to spend fate points. I've been in campaigns where I spent them just to make sure my character didn't look foolish from a bad roll (not even that important a task).

Siranui said:

Siranui said:

Totally agree. Especially when the guy in front of you can down you in 3 strikes and you have only 1 Reaction per turn.

If you have a 50% Parry/Dodge chance (not that high...), then re-rolling a Parry/Dodge virtually "heals/protects" you from 50% of the damage. And of course, the higher your score, the better it gets. When you reach the 75% chance (that you can get without being entirely focused on the thing), if the attack would deal you 12.5 damage, it's better to use a FP to parry, even if you would roll 10 on the 1d10 healing.

Not to say that you control that, and so you can chose to use it at the moment you need it most.

First of all Fate Points restore at session start, not mission start.

Secondly, it's perfectly legitimate to heal at the end of a mission. It allows you to start a new mission more fresh ('Ah, it's just a flesh wound'). Entirely plausible in the case of Marines.

The question is if your players aren't too attached to their PCs and don't want to lose them. Deathwatch is about losing characters. Every single PC will die eventually in combat. No Space Marine hits retirement. Now hopefully their PCs will die 200 years down the line but that cannot be helped.

If your players always hoard fate points, it's because they are not in the spirit of the game. Print out my post and show them.

Guys: Deathwatch is about doing the impossible and getting away with it. In one online game my PC (okay he was over-the-top crazy) punched a hole into a bridge column, put his belt with explosives into the hole, cast Iron Arm on himself and threw in a grenade and sealed the hole with his protected arm. It worked wonderfully and the bridge collapsed right on top of him causing him to burn 1 Fate point. No here's the point: totally worth it. It's a story I can tell for ages, longer than you get to keep your PCs and play the campaign with them. If something sounds like an act of super-cool heroism, do it and burn fate if necessary. And if the PC dies - make him die in a spectacular fashion, saving an entire planet from certain doom and the like.

That's the spirit of the Deathwatch.

Alex

Don't announce it, but you could always give XP bonuses for those who achieve cool and heroic things throughout the evening. This will of course be enhanced by spending fate points to change the course of events in their favour. Even in action movies the hero often starts a new scene wounded. If you send the message that being more heroic earns them more xp they'll catch on.

It's more in-line perhaps to hand out additional Renown than XP.

Ha ha I've been rumbled. I'm a DH player who posted because I'm interested in discussiong the fate point mechanic. I have to admit that I don't know much about renown but if it works how I guess then that would work too.

Zakalwe said:

Renown is what you need to get access to the really shiny toys. Every 20 points up to 80, your Renown increases a rank and lets you requisition gear/weapons of that Renown requirement or below.

@zakalw: basicially Renown = Influence

nope FP don't heal crit.
don't underestimate it, re-roll parry is fine, but reroll against a 6 degree succes melee strike with 47 WS is impossible for example. Healing would be wiser ^^

well or you suck both and run into the maw of the carnifex rip your grenades free, burn a fate point survive and the beast goes booom!

noteable. I like the Idea though... now there are those Carnifex rules....

Akil said:

Errr... parries are not affected by the attacker's DoS, so it's not impossible... it's a 47% chance! I'd take that chance if was a serious blow.