Hey

this is my 1st time GM'ing anything and i've already played through chapter 1 and a tiny bit of the way into chapter 2 with my players and have so far found a couple of discrepancies/errors in the NPC's and antagonists section

My party is a Bishop Cleric, a Magistrate Abitrator, an Assassin-at Marque Assassin, and a Shock Trooper Guardsman all at 8.5k xp (rank 7) - with them atm are 2 jaccabian merc seargents, 8 jaccabian mercs and an astropath

1st: the Enemies and Allies section of chapter 2 (pg 28) states that there are a dozen bands of Pilgrims of Hayte that can be encountered in 2's or 3's across the upper and mid levels (this implies that there are 24-36); while the Pilgrims of Hayte section of NPC's and antagonists (pg 66) states that there are about 20 left (this implies that there are about 15-25 left) - which would you use?

2nd: the Pilgrims of Hayte section of NPC's and Antagonists (pg 66) states that they can be represented by Cult Zealot or Cult Magus entries slightly improved with better weapons -I found the Cult Magus (p337 - basically a low level psyker with sorcery) but can't find the cult zealot anywhere in the core rulebook or in any of the other books - the only mention of any kind of a cult zealot is in this pre-made - i think either the cult zealot would be equivalent to the cleric rank 7 career path with the same talents and skills as available by this rank or better versions of the cult fanatic or cult initiate as i imagine they're supposed to be made up of a mixture of sorcerers and non sorcerers

A bit of advice needed: how would you suggest I do the battles in the background between different factions - these will have an effect on how many of each faction there are left at each point in the campaign and when the players encounter them and the amount left of the 2 pseudo-firendly factions will determine whether they're willing to work together yet or not

also i've distributed the three elements as follows (the PC's were suddenly boosted up to 8.5k from 5.2k xp and told that they'd done the 1st 3 Haarlock legacy investigations in the downtime):

Acolytes have the keystone (can't change this as i've already told them) and will probably have navigator benhamin nostromo later as he's the easiest guide to get hold of - A talisman now and a guide coming later

Miss Book has the grey skin Psalter (it says so in the NPC's and antagonists section) and her or someone else in the syndicate has the Black sun amulet (from HoDaA) - a Pattern and a Talisman

The pilgrims of Hayte have the remains of the widower (from Tattered fates i think) - A guide

Inquisitor herrod and his retinue have a copy of the grey book and the deamon in the mirror (not sure what form this is - apparently the daemon will tell ppl things about haarlock if they promise to release him but the mirrors are full length mirrors which when they face each other and are both complete release the daemon as far as i can tell) - a Pattern and a guide

I think giving each faction either 1 or 2 of 3 makes it more interesting as they either have to kill each other or work together to get to the end

I'm playing the next session of this at 11am GMT+1 tomorrow morning so quick responses will be welcome

Hi,

the "zealot" are the "cult fanatics" in DH. It is just "wrong word". The Pilgrims are just fodder. Your pc will wade through them. Especially as they have some Janissar with them.

Talking numbers...well, do not bother. Take the number you are fine with. I would not try to role dice or other things for the fights "off screen". Modify the numbers as you deem fitting for the flow of your game. Just get sure that you have a vague idea about who ran into whom and who killed whom.

yeh - i can see that - they have 10 or 15 wounds - which means my PC can kill them outright (even including critical wounds) outright especially as the cult fanatics appear to have no armour and the cult magus have AP 4 - the cult magus has Minor Psychic powers equal to WBx1.5=6 - which 6 minor psychic powers would you say are plausible for these - some that come to mind as particularly damaging to enemies are things like weapon jinx (this would be quite powerful for the guardsman with 1 massive gun and a couple of much worse smaller ones or the assassin sniper who uses a nomad and has 2 pistols otherwise), healer and things that require a willpower test to remain in control -such as touch of madness, spasm, flash bang, forget me, distort vision (would be good to counteract the assassin's high BS and skills), deja vu, fearful aura (tho this may back fire and scare away their allies - they might be stupid enough to use this - maybe roll Int to see if they are while they still have allies), chameleon, open wounds (if the PC or their allies appear wounded), suggestion (not sure what they would use this for), space slip and time fade to escape maybe or to confuse opponents - if they teleport far enough away in the ice station (say 5m away) they might become inaccesible to the PC's due to the nature of time and space on mara and near to the blind tesseract

Gregorius21778 said:

Either this or abstract the results of such fights statistically. I do the latter mostly even for "on screen" fights between different NPC groups. In a current example my players are supported by a few Arbitrators against a rival acolyte group supported by the local PDF. The Arbitrators and the PDF concentrate on each other to simplify and fasten the combat a little and let the focus be on the two rival acolyte groups. So I checked the numbers and values of the respective NPCs and simply ruled that every eigth shot by the PDF kills (or maims) an Arbitrator and every fifth shot of an Arbitrator kills (or maims) one of the PDF. On the other hand you could also abstart it by rolling large amounts of dices (one for each combatant) as for the tabletop game (like for example on a D6 4+ to hit, 4+ to wound/kill and maybe an armour save of 6+ or 5+).

ok - i'm liking the number method - can u explain in more detail how i'd do it pls - say we have 5 groups of 2-3 pilgrims, halve of whom have 10 wounds and the other with 15 wounds AP 4 and 6 minor psychic powers (i.e. the pilgrims of hayte) and the enemy is an inquisitor and his retinue sneaking around and the 2 slaught with 12 mercs who all have different wounds armour weps and powers

It is not a hard and clear-cut method as such. Simply assume that half (for professionals) or one third (for amateurs) hit with their weapons and of these again one third, a half or even two thirds (according to the respective weapons used) kill/maim an opponent. An AP of 4 could lead to one third of those killed/maimed being still alive and kicking. Repeat until one side is dead or you assume they would flee.

Psychic Powers are harder to abstract but you could simply assume they are additional attacks or reduce the chance of being hit or whatever.

Still, for these "off screen" fights I would recommend to do it the way Greg mentioned (i.e. "modify the numbers as you deem fitting for the flow of your game.")

I use the Wing Commander method. If the players win, the allied NPCs win.