Effectively, the characters story will be that he's a Black Shield Librarian (to avoid having the PCs mind wiped) who is brought as an expert on a demon-heavy mission the characters are going since the players don't have a party librarian. I'm painfully aware from previous campaigns that I played in about the perils of a GM character that is better than the players so I figured I'd post my initial ideas here to avoid adding something too powerful.

Basically, I'd give the marine the Daemonhunter GK stats boosts (+5 ws/wp) as well as the recommended starting psychic powers/level (2 powers from telepathy/divination/grey knights and psy level 2). The character would choose from the general GK and GK psychic tables plus the strike squad table for advances instead of the typical chapter/class/deathwatch ones. For equipment, he'd get Mk8 armor with the aegis as his armor ability (basically -5 to psyniscience test vs him) as well as a force halberd and stormbolter as his starting equipment. He'd get no solo or chapter squad abilities as a grey knight. There are a few things that need tweaking (like Warp Bane as a starting talent.. probably will just switch that to Sanctioned Psyker instead). He'd be a bit better in combat than a standard librarian but definitely crappier in the psychic parts due to the slower GK advancement there. For a group that is rank 3 and respected, I don't see the above as anything mary-sue-ish. Is there anything I'm missing?

Why exactly do you want to use a GK? Is there any particular reason you want to use a GK instead of just another psycher? It seems to me to be adding an unnecessary amount of complexity for a character designed to fill in a necessity of the party, and from what I recall about the GK I can't seem them lending one of their own to the Deathwatch.

Autarkis02 said:

Throwing in a grey knight spices things up a bit more and add some extra RPing to the game as there is an obvious gulf between what the players know (i.e. that grey knights exist and what they use/do) and what the characters know (hey, that blackshield librarian has a force spear!). Also, I've got the fig left over from a previous army I sold off. As for the last part, the Daemonhunter book specifically states that the GK do indeed lend out individual members (always a Strike Squad GK.. hence my build) for certain types of Deathwatch missions.

Grey Knight Librarians are like other Librarians, you can use the same advancement tables for them.

What I really want to know is why you even need stats for him. You can just assign him a few psychic powers and maybe one other stat (WP) based on what he will be doing in the mission. In combat you can just say he kills and appropriate amount of bads per turn and takes actions that flow with those of your players.

I stat out all my important NPCs, regardless of whether I use any houserules for them. I find it easier to run them when I actually have the numbers in front of me. Any opinion on the power level of what I proposed?

Sanguinary Priest said:

I see no major issues with those stats personally, will your players know that he is a Grey Knight or will that be a reveal later? Personally I see no issues with adding Grey Knights since they are approx the same power level and mind set, and though the Daemonhunter book talks about mindwipes etc I think more likely most of the time Grey Knights (in games like Assension level Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader) would simply say they were Astartes and rely on most people not knowing the difference between Chapters anyway, for Deathwatch the idea of a Blackshield works fine. Having said that I would only do that if it made sense within the game. Having a heavy Daemon mission would make some sense, but I would ask yourself whether it really adds anything to the game though. If your players don't know anything more than that you have an NPC in the group for the game then you gain nothing.

At the end of the day it is your game and so long as your players enjoy themselves then the game is a success and that is what matters.

Eldath

The players occasionally have trouble separating player knowledge from character knowledge so adding in a character whose fig is clearly a grey knight will generate a bit of player buzz and keep them on their roleplaying toes. I'm not planning on ever revealing the NPC's origin to the characters (so no mind wipe necessary for them). The mission I'm planning on sending them on will require a psyker of sorts and the party has none; I've stayed away from missions that need or benefit greatly from that specialty so far but I'd like to mix things up a bit for this mission. While I could obviously just make the librarian an Ultramarine, keeping the players on edge (hell, they don't know if their characters will be mind wiped at the end or not!) sounds cool. I freely admit that its a gimmick but it's one that I think we'll all enjoy in the end as long as the character himself isn't too powerful compared with the party (a risk with GM characters).

I've been looking at the overall powers and benefits and came up with the following comparing the two for both NPCs and PCs:

GK pros/benefits:

1) Immunity and Resistance to Immunity/Corruption: doesn't really come into play for an NPC, slight advantage here for PCs in the long run if the GM uses Insanity/corruption generators heavily.

2) GK specific Wargear: my party is rank 3/respected so access to a force halberd and stormbolter (my proposed loadout) really isn't too much better than what they have themselves (only real advantage here would be the wrist mounting of a basic weapon, something they don't have access to). The Aegis rule replacing the normal armor ability is probably worse than some existing starting armor abilities. Overall, not really game changing for either NPCs or PCs.

3) Psychic Ability and Powers: Definite plus here for GK compared with the existing party as they don't have a psyker and only the black templar has any upgraded psychic defense. Having a shooty or stabby class PLUS some basic psychic abilities is definitely a boost for both NPCs and PCs. If the party had a real librarian, they could see the toned down psychic power of a GK compared to a librarian but that's not the case.

GK cons/disadvantages:

1) No solo abilities and limited squad abilities: Pretty much as written. For the NPC, I'm planning on keeping him noticably separate from the commraderie of the squad (he'll never choose to join squad mode with them) so the lack of even basic codex squad abilites is pretty big. For PC's, I'd see them occasionally joining into squad mode so not as big a con there. Squad mode activations can competely turn around an encounter and the NPC won't be a part of them so no chance of outshining the party here.

2) Different Talent/skills: The general marine/Deathwatch/Class talents and skill upgrades seem to be a bit better and obviously more suited to a xenos-centric campaign. GK demon-centric skills and talents only come into use occasionally and the psyker ability tends to dilute the character a bit to a jack of all trades. Slight advantage overall I think to normal characters.

If you don't have Daemon Hunter (a Dark Heresy Supplement) get it. The GK are detailed there and it could answer all your questions about character generation (i.e they dont have librarians - they're all psykers - also allow the gk to use the general sp marine advances from the DW core book). But I have a real problem understanding why the ordo malleus would allow one of their militants to serve under the ordo xenos at ALL, ever. It just makes no sense to me - they want the Gk to be a secret weapon. Exposing him to Ordo Xenos scrutiny would be a mistake. But to each his own. Good Luck.

The Deathwatch and the Grey Knights have worked together before. There is an example in Daemon Hunter where a Killteam and some Knights destroyed a daemon infested hulk. For some reason or another the Killteam wasn't mind wiped afterwards. You can bypass the mind wipe if you really want to, or if you feel the events of the mission warrant it.

Honestly, he's a GM PC that's super mysterious, your falling into exactly what you said you wanted to avoid falling into. You've fielded yourself an uber special and mysterious GMPC because it will totally cause buzz amongst your players that out of character they will know your playing your super duper Mary Sue super sekrit grey knight "blackshield".

If you want to have a vaguely mysterious NPC companion an Ordo Hereticous inquisitor could solve all the same issues without the anything you can do I can do better aspects of the Grey Knights, never minding the fact the thamitic issues of how unlikely it seems for the GK to deploy a single knight to assist a kill team, if their going to send their own knight they might as well send their own squad and take the X factor out of it.

In short the GK don't leave anything up to other organizations that they can do themselves based on my reading they might work with the Deathwatch, but just all this bit about a blackshield seems like an excuse to have a "look what you can't do" GMPC character. Either the Deathwatch KT is going to be read in to what's going on, or their going to not but it is extremely unlikely that the DW is not aware of the Gray Knights existance at least at some level, and because of the open nature of information in the DW it's possible that the PC's might be familiar witht he proper lore rolls.

Final parting shot: Blackshields are an extreme rarity to the point of the names should be well known in DW circles, to have a super seekrit mysterious blackshield show up is just bad form in my opinion. If you absolutely insist on playing your super seekrit better-than-you Greyknight GMPC I recommend introducing him with. "This is Brother Blah, he works for a chapter called the Grey Knights which is closely affiliated with our allies in the Ordo Hereticus, he has a skillset that you will need to successfully accomplish the next mission." bing bang boom done and requires less active retardation on the DW or the GK's part.

Parting shot part deux: Why are the deatch watch handling a demon heavy mission requiring a psyker? While they don't shy from dealing with non-xenos enemies on an ad-hoc basis that's not their mandate.

lurkeroutthere said:

Going to have to nitpick. Nothing he is doing here is out of character for the GK. They can and will deploy a single GK at the request of anyone that has a valid reason. There are many reasons for them to do so. The Grey Knight commander in the region may not have the resources to take care of the problem himself, so he asks the deathwatch to help and sends them one of his men to ensure the job gets done. Or its possible that he isn't in range, but has a squad in range that can spare a single marine. There are literally infinite possibilities.

Second, if you had read the thread you would know he is trying to keep the GK at an even power level with the PC group.

Third, the grey knights are not the chamber militant of the Ordo Hereticus. They are Ordo Malleus, the daemon hunters.

Fourth, the Deathwatch does what they must. If they need to fight demons they do.

Fifth, if you are going to be condescending you had better be right. On every point. As it stands, your argument against this is full of holes.

lurkeroutthere said:

DJSunhammer pretty much handled most of the issues (thanks btw) so I'll just add a bit. The character I'm proposing isn't "better-than-you" as I'm specifically trying NOT to take something more powerful, hence my breakdown of the abilities from reading my copy of daemonhunter. I simply don't see a low level GK as anything other than on par with what your average rank 3/respected PC would have. The characters would simply know that they've been assigned a specialist for the mission; the PLAYERS can read whatever they want and try to roleplay out some suspicion for our mutual enjoyment but that's simply to add a bit of spice to that particular mission. As for your part deux, I've already answered it.

Sanguinary Priest said:

They've run several mission against both major types of fully statted out xenos (the tau and tyranids) and even they have expressed an interest in facing something different. Either way, I'm reconsidering the whole idea as frankly some people seem just opposed to it (and so might a player or two statistically) despite not indicating any mechanical issues with it (just that they don't like the idea in general). I'll probably just assemble the fig using the grey knight bits and add an ad-hoc exorcist shoulder pad to him, making him a custom chapter librarian (from rites of battle) instead.