Hello everbody.

So, I just read Edge of Darkness for the second time and I still can't figure out one point. Maybe it's because my english ist not the best, maybe because there is a garbled passage in my digital copy of the scenario. Haven't found something via Search either, so I'm pretty sure it's a dumb question (sorry for that).

Spoiler ahead!

What on Terra happened to Saul Arbests living quarters? When the Akolythes are supposed to go there, they find Lilly Arbest hiding in her brother's room and it's been apparently been broken into. She mumbles something about "staying here just one more night, and it saved my life!", and I honestly don't understand what happend or is happening. Did she break into the room? Why should she? How did it save her life, who tried to murder her (she would doubtlessly say something if she had escaped a Body Snatcher attack)?

Also, the scenario mentions two Body Snatchers coming after Akolythes who try to stake out the apartements at night, and I fail to see why these should be in the quarters of the Arbests (seeing as Saul Arbest is already gone and Lilly apparently supposed to be dead). I'm honestly a bit lost here, any clarification greatly appreciated.

And while I'm at it: Does anybody have some advise for ramping up the opposition (stat-wise) to better fit a group of rank 3 characters instead of beginners? That would be very kind, thanks in advance!

Lone Pilgrim said:

Well, I always supposed that she started to hide there. After asking to many questions and the reaction of the Enforcer, she start to sense that she might have raised the wrong attention. So, she decided to hide in souls hab. After all, who would FIRST search a room of somebody who was already searched. I am not sure if she broke into the room or some looters did this after it was known that Saul was missing. Crime happens..

After the Snatcher looked for Lilly in her appartment and returned empty handed, the Chirgeon might have had the smart idea to make them search in Saul´s aparment again, counting two and two together. IF this is where the PC encounter them (I cannot remember clearly).

@Boosting the Snatchers
Well, Raising the Wounds to 18 or 20 would be my first guess. Raising their WS to 30 is not a bad idea as well. Giving them Unnatural Toughnes (2x) helpt to keep them standing a little longer. Finally, Furious Assault (and all-out-attacks) might be helpful as well as the "Crushing Blow" Talent (adding +2 to the close combat damage).

Gregorius21778 said:

No. Stop it. Unnatural Toughnes (2x) is a bad trait and you should feel bad for applying it.
On a toughness bonus 4+ monster is just draws out the fight in a unfun way by decreasing the players effectiveness. If you really want to make the monsters tougher and you want to use the toughness bonus to do so then give them Unnatural Toughness (+2) (i.e. the Black Crusade variante of Unnatural Attribute)

Even better than an extra toughness bonus would be some natural armor. In general it acomplishes the same effect while still allowing the PCs some way of countering the increased toughness.

Lone Pilgrim said:

Lone Pilgrim said:

LARGE SPOILERS AHEAD!

I guess the sister broke in to find clues why Saul went missing and to be there when/if he came back. She also says that spending the previous night in her brother's chamber saved her life because when she went down to her own apartment earlier today on level three, somebody had broken into it and destroyed everything in it but stealing nothing (thus no ordinary burglary).

Lily isn't supposed to be dead, as far as I know.

The snatchers have lots of reasons to come back to the habstack:

1. they might want to get Lily specifically since she has complained to the officer (if she isn't in her own apartment, she might be at her brother's place)

2. they might want to take care of other family members, because when a whole family is gone, others probably won't complain or report it

3. they just want to take ANYONE and EVERYONE in the whole habstack

If the Acolytes are staking out the place outside the habstack or in a corridor in it, the snatchers can accidentally stumble across them. I guess they aren't too smart, nor too picky of who they drag back to their masters.

To make the enemies more deadly, I have a couple of suggestions: give the weapons a of Pen. 2-3, increase their WS by 15-20 and add 1 attack/turn, up their TB by 1 and add 5 Wounds.

How many players do you have? what kind of gear do they have? what classes are they?

EDIT: Double quote? How did that happen?

Ah yes, that part about Lilly’s apartement being raided seems to be missing in my copy (there's a whole passage where two sections from other chapters are somehow fused together, strange enough I’ve not found a functioning copy around…).

Makes sense this way. Saul goes missing, she reports it, pokes around too much, raises the wrong kind of attention. The Churgeon sends someone after her, but Lilly (who already is suspicious of her surroundings) decides to wait one more night in her brother’s chamber, hoping for him to come home finally, before she leaves Coscarla. The Snatchers raid her own rooms but don’t find her and return empty-handed. Therefore, the Churgeon sends them back the other night to look for her again, where they (maybe) meet the Akolythes.
I think I’ll just leave out the part about Sauls room being broken into. Could be fun for my players to figue out how to get into the apartement without being seen.
Thanks a lot for the help!

Concerning the opposition:
Vehzeel, I have three characters, a feral world assassin, a schola progenium arbitrator and a voidborn psyker. They all have very good attributes and reasonable equip (methinks), and thanks to an infernal luck still have their fatepoints all. The Arbitrator is a tough guy (13W, flak armour and helmet) and equipped with a “St.Varnee's Wrath Handcannon” and a Mark III Lasgun, the Assassin is an Agilty-monster wielding some immense twohanded blade (Fedrid something, don't have the books with me right now), and my Psyker is a non-combattant type who favours tricky powers like Psychic Stench and the like.
They are fairly clever and way to careful for my taste, so better to give them something hard to chew on than to bore them, I believe.

Lone Pilgrim said:

You could add implanted weapons. My PC's were not really successfull in EoD and Sybas Moran and the Churgeon escaped with most of their assets, so I used the Gateway 17 scenario from DarkReign and placed the Logicians there again in one of the warehouses. This time though the Churgeon had time to improve the performance of the Body Snatchers and so (and because the PCs were already rank 3) they featured implanted flamers, heavy stubbers and/or chain knives.

Lone Pilgrim said:

I ran EoD for a 3rd level party. I just doubled the number of "grunt" bad guys, and turned the Chirgeon (I renamed her The Fleshsmith) into more of a video-game-style "boss monster"- multiple limbs tipped with a variety of surgical "weapons": bone saw, cauterizing laser, hypodermic needles, etc.