Greetings, fellow heretics!

I'm planning on starting up a campaign shortly after the new year. My current plans are to run the adventure in the back of the core book (as it seems like a good way for the characters to meet up), follow it with the adventure from the GM-kit, and then develop future adventures based on player input and how their characters act, letting them develop their own compacts when appropriate.

Every player have allredy rolled up their characters and here is a quick rundown:
Human Psyker - Former Sanctioned Psyker for the Imperial Navy. Fell to chaos when her hunger for arcane lore that caused her to mutate reptilian features.
CSM Chosen - Former Ultramarine. Fell to chaos on a mission to secure a colony world that had been infected by a minor zombie plague. He thought the population could be saved, his battle brothers disagreed. Embraced the teachings of Nurgle when he personally realized how brutal the Imperium really is.
CSM Sorceror - Thousand Sons. One of the original Marines from the Horus Heresy, but died during his Legions invasion of Fenris (The Battle of the Fang). Later resurrected by his legion. A pretty classic Tzeentch follower.
Human Renegade - Former Imperial Navy trooper. Got tired of how his superiors ran things so he joined a mutiny to take control of the ship. Now leads a small pirate crew.
Human Heretek - a mad scientist once part of a Mechanicum Explorator fleet. Embraced heresy after he connected to a corrupted cogitator core onboard a space hulk, which "enlightened" him. Sacrificed to rest of the boarding part so he could learn more from it. Later got rescued up by a band of scavengers when the hulk reached the Vortex.

Any input/suggestions/tips on possible plot hooks and the like would be much appreciated, and I would be happy to answers questions on some of the things i already have planned.
If anyone who have already run the pre-written adventures would care to comment on them, that could help as well.

Thank you in advance!

Yargoth said:

I played the adventure. it was pretty hilarious. finaly an adventure that does not even try to create a story around battles. it's like a videogame. fight your way down the tower. your CSMs will have a blast, and your humans will cower in fear. the final boss will insta-gib one of your space-marines and probably kill the rest of the group in round 2.

That sounds like quite a harsh fight
If the last fight really is that bad I might actually tone it down a bit. I have nothing against challenging my players, i just don't think anyone would have any fun if they all got slaughtered at the end of the first adventure.

Yargoth said:

My group's experience with that encounter was quite different. While our heretek got pushed to the brink, and our renegade got killed twice (he's got something like 5 points of infamy left), our space marine didn't really take that much of a beating, despite being hit a few times. Likewise, Copax got his ass pounded. However, he did get possessed by a greater Daemon of Nurgle on the first round due to Perils, so

Likewise, the remaining space marine (Sorcerer) has a rather well designed Daemon weapon, since we led into this adventure from Broken Chains and got some downtime.

That said, having read the adventure after the fact, I gotta say I think a lot of the outcome depends on if you have psykers (especially with force weapons, or god forbid psychic hoods) on the player team. If so, Copax becomes far less of a threat, due to Flicker being far less useful, and the penalties he'll take on his focus tests. The Abomination is a threat, but if it sucks some focused firepower, it goes down pretty quickly.

Check what kind of group you have, and how combat built it is, and then think about tailoring enemy strategy before stats. If none of your characters are especially hardy, don't use Bolt of Change. Just don't, because if you do you WILL instagib someone. Sure, it can be dodged (easily, it's a single bolt) but 6d10 is not the kinda damage you throw at something that doesn't stand a chance of making it. It's not fun for whomever you hit.

Also, DO play up the lead up. Give players time to do the tertiary objectives, take your time with the Oracle meeting, allow them to rummage around the libraries and give them time to get to know the other characters a bit before the meeting. Otherwise it truly will feel like little more than a video game grind, which is IMO not very fun, even for the combat monkeys. Let the adventure breath and move at a casual pace.

oh the final battle was different for us as well. I was talking more about a "normal" warband.

in our final, my weapon-less marine killed the creature in 2 rounds, prayed to khorne, charged copax who threw 5! bolts of change with Rating 9 (equals 9D10 dmg each) at him, which khorne (and the lucky wp roll of 34 in conjunction with the anti-psyker talent) poofed into thin air. I then grappled him, which is the end of even the most powerful psyker and crushed his puny bones.

vogue69 said:

Reverend mort said:

oh all bolts follow the burst fire rule (every 2 success generate a hit)

and yes it's an unarmed marine, an arena fighter of some hive world. but he was too good, now I have the equal in human form (which is almost as sick, but doesn't have to face hordes lol)

Only psychic bolts that are classfied as barrage or storm cause adittional hits. Normal psychic bolts are 1 bolt only.

Jackal_Strain said:

sweet you probably saved a lot of lives with this one lol

A crusade of the not quite so bright variety.

Tsk... what's with all the political incorrectness? You're supposed to call it a Chromatically Challenged Crusade

vogue69 said:

Considering how dangerous the bolt of change could be to the PCs I think i may have Copax not use it, or just have him use it fettered to lower the damage output. The only problem then would be the toughness check which could still possibly kil the target...
It really is a horribly powerful power


Cifer said:

double post

When I ran this, I had my PC's tell me everything about their character, especially my CSM Sorc. Who was more than happy to tell me several different things he had, including, Precog. Dodge. And then somehow, I forget the exact details, but someone got a Perils of the Warp either Copax or the Sorc and got Blood Rain, where all Pysker powers instantly caused a Peril. I believe a Bloodletter and some other things were summoned in the process. And despite the book's saying "Only use Bolt of Change once". I actually used it once on the party, and then two more times to kill the Bloodletter. It was pretty messy, but over-all fun.