My friends and I have just started playing this game. I am GMing for the first time ever, and only one of our number has ever played a W40kRP game before. We've come up against a few issues so far, and I'm looking for advice to resolve them:

1) Do hordes suffer the effects of fear? One of the marines has the power armor history that generates 1 point of fear, plus 1 point from his chapter trapping. We were rolling will power tests to see if enemies in melee with him would end up with something bad on the fear table, but I feel that this makes it far too easy to break a horde and that most of the entries in the fear table don't really apply well to whole groups.

2) Also related to hordes, if they fail a will power test and flee, is there any chance that they can stop fleeing and return to combat? Or do they just run until they leave the combat area?

3) One of my PCs is playing an Ultramarine Apothecary. He wants to use his Reductor as a melee weapon, saying that the high penetration makes it an excellent weapon. I think that from a role-playing prospective, an Apothecary would not use such an item lightly (the rules for the item state something similar - that item has a sombre purpose and that it would be disrespectful to use it so), and I told him he couldn't do it, especially as an Ultramarine, who stick so strongly to the rules. He got a bit annoyed with me, and I think that he thinks I'm being unreasonable. What thinks the hive-mind on this?

4) Dodging - is there a limit to the number of times in a round a character can dodge? I had a genestealer in melee combat with two space marines at one point and it kept dodging every time they tried to hit it. Can it only dodge once per round, or does it get to roll agility +10 every time they attack it (with melee and ranged)?

5) Last one! Can a space marine use a power sword looted from a human opponent? The PCs killed a rebel general armed with one and the assault marine took it, saying that it was more effective than his chainsword. Fair enough, but I felt that a human powersword would be too small for a space marine - the only thing is, I can't see any penalties for using a small melee item, only ranged weapons.

1) Hordes get a bonus to resist Fear and Pinning equal to their Magnitude - a Magnitude 30 Horde gets a +30 bonus, a Magnitude 40 Horde gets +40, and so on. Beings with the Fear trait will ignore Fear-causing enemies that do not have a higher Fear rating than them. So a Horde of Fear (1) beings ignore other beings that cause Fear (1), but not Fear (2). Certain Traits, such as Fearless and The Stuff of Nightmares, enable monsters to ignore the rules for Fear.

2) They will generally run out of the combat.

3) Page 176 in the Deathwatch core rulebook:

Although generally regarded as disrespectful to the machine’s sombre purpose, it can also be used as a melee weapon that does 1d10+2 R with
a Penetration of 10. If used as a weapon, a reductor does not add the Battle-Brother’s SB to Damage; its design emphasizes control and precision, but does not provide adequate leverage to take advantage of the wielder’s strength.

So yes, it can be used as a melee weapon. It's considered bad form, but if you don't have any options left it can be done. Note that since the weapon does not take advantage of the wielder's strength bonus, it will typically be inferior to most other melee weapons in any case.

4) Most beings have only one Reaction per Round, which they may use to Dodge or Parry. The Step Aside talent grants one extra Dodge Reaction, and the Wall of Steel talent grants one extra Parry Reaction. Some beings have special abilities that let them Dodge or Parry more often.

5) A normal mortal's Power Sword wouldn't use the same stats as the weapons listed in the Deathwatch book, as a normal human would not be using Astartes weapons. Of course, a normal mortal's power sword could still serve a member of the Deathwatch well....as a Power Dagger. If your player insists on using the weapon, I would treat it as an Astartes Combat Knife with the Power Field quality and Penetration 4. At your discretion, you may also give the weapon further penalties to reflect its poor craftsmanship (at least compared with an Astartes weapon).

In response to hordes breaking after a failed wp test.

They "could" reform, but the fact their break test is essentially the mob succombing to their fear of being killed... it shouldn't be easy. An enemy that has been broken from combat in the way hordes do (and fear) is essentially running for his life. and will keep doing so until he thinks he's safe. There are new horde traits and rules in Mark of Xenos that give a hordes the ability to rally, reform, or absorb other broken characters. Again, these occurances should not be routine.

Generally as the GM this falls in your purvue. You are the goalkeeper, the storymaker, its you who decides these things. Some examples of a rallying horde would be: A commisar in a nearby horde says something encouraging (or points a bolt pistol at the fleeing troops) and if he passes a command test with whatever modifiers you wan't (or auto passes if you so decide) then the fleeing horde gets back into the fight. Or a horde could be broken but sees their buddies coming up to help and decides to turn around and put the hurt on the guys who just killed all their friends (willpower test perhaps?).

Just remember, this isn't just a benign rule. These guys are scared out of their brains of being stabbed clubbed or ripped in half. They are running for the hills to save their own skin. While the use of a rally when done right with good roleplaying background can put a lot of tension back into the air, don't overuse it. It should be a rare occurance, you don't want your players to feel gipped when the 30 guys they've just been fighting ferociously with run like scared whipped girls only to turn around for no reason and start fighting again. If this happened in my group It would take out a lot of the sense of accomplishment, I'd start to expect it all the time (and therefore loose the suprise factor), and probably would begin to resent my GM for continuously using it.

GMing an RPG is more of an art than a science. Feel free to break the rules but remember, a GM isn't battling against the players, he should not be specifically trying to kill his players. His characters may be, but making a game hard simply to try to kill your friends is NOT good GMing. Rather he makes his games and missions difficult and challenging to give his players a fun time, to build up suspense, and to add a real sense of accomplishment when they succeed.

saladin said:

In my opinion he may use it (with it's normal stats) but he has to give it away after the mission.
Battle Brothers have no property, no stuff that belongs to them.
They get standard gear for every mission and can requisition some more.
Signature Wargear is special as they get it for every mission without requisition but it still doesn't belong to them.

The only thing that more or less belongs to them is their chapter trapping.

So they can use what they find but to keep on using it for other missions they must requisition it or take siganture wargear (wich the GM can just decline).

Some weapons made for mortals might be too small to use properly with PA without modification.
Like the trigger guard being too small to fit a PA finger into. Again a possibility for the gm to keep a SM from doing something.

In the case of a mortal sized power sword I'd make it unbalanced instead of balanced because it's made for smaller hands.
Apart from that I'd use it's normal stats. (Taken from DH or RT books)

Thanks for the responses.

I like the solution for the power sword, with the lack of personal property. I was talking to the player in question who has decided he's not happy with the idea of a Space Marine using a looted weapon in place of a holy chainsword, even if he handed the chainsword to another battle brother on the kill-team who didn't have a melee weapon better than his combat knife.

What we've decided on is that either he gives the power sword to an NPC, either a PDF leader or the Lord-Governor, or I have it destroyed due to its lesser quality.

PrinceOfMadness said:

Here is a question that came up in my game similar to this, and I nerfed it because that's how I roll, but the group often is wiser and more fair than my knee jerk responses.

If you have both Step Aside and Wall of Steel, can you combine the talents to get 2 parrys and 2 dodges in a single turn. I can't find anything that outright stops it. It all started when someone used Wall of Steel with a dodge, as wall of steel simply states that it grants 'one extra parry per turn' and that the action can only be used to 'attempt to parry a single attack' (meaning no re-rolls).

And FWIW, Power Sword stats for Dark Heresy are 1d10+5 pen 6, so not significantly less than the (eratted) Marine power sword, and I think about on par with the Rogue Trader power sword.

Charmander said:

Yes you may dodge or parry twice with one (or both) of those talents. Keep in mind though:

A character with both talents may:

1. Dodge twice and Parry once.

2. Parry Twice and Dodge once.

3. Dodge or Parry twice

4. Parry once and Dodge once.

5. Parry of Dodge once.

The same character may NOT parry or dodge 3 times.

Unless specific rules expressly specify.

For the sake of completeness: he may also neither Parry nor Dodge.

Alex

PS Hi, Charmander.

herichimo said:

Thanks for the insight, it's probably a more fair way of doing it than my knee jerk reaction of "NO!"

And it is something that might help advanced marines actually survive a close encounter with some of the more powerful adversaries.

ak-73 said:

Hi Alex, I've been MIA for a while, "life" got in the way of hobbies again

As to '1' we ruled that a character who causes Fear delivers an automatic point of Horde damage per point of Fear each turn when visible and in combat with one. No other effect is suffered by hordes from the Fear.

This gives Fear an effect against hordes, without requiring any extra dice rolls or similar.

As regards the powersword, others have made points as to size issues and that it should not share a stat-line with Astartes weapons. You've also made the 'give it away or break it' rule call, which to my mind is spot-on. PCs should not be running around looting stuff, and need to get away from that mind-set when playing marines.

Regarding the Reductor: I think it's pretty bad roleplay to use it as a weapon (especially an Ultramarine) in anything but dire straits. More to the point, the other PCs might object! It's a sacred instrument for removing THEIR geneseed. What if it's got tyranid goo on, and that corrupts their seed? What if the Apothecary breaks it somehow and their seed cannot be recovered. It's well worth raising with the other players, and their unhappiness with it can also be reflected via the in-game mechanic of reducing Cohesion.