We've been playing Deathwatch since release (a year or so?) and we have come across so many glaring 'broken' abilities/synergies that we are ready to stop playing. Please understand that this is just our experience and my opinion!

Yes, we could houserule the hell out of it, but at this point...it seems more broken than working.

Someone might say, "It's a roleplaying game, don't break the system". This is not the point. A game system should be able to 'withstand punishment', otherwise it's a poorly designed game. I'm not talking about using obscure rules and supplements and houserules, I'm talking about abilities in the core rulebook that are poorly thought out. Perhaps a larger criticism is that the game itself either needs major work or is otherwise 'broken'. Some of this comes down to powergaming players (please read what I just said!).

Problem 1) The core mechanic of Deathwatch is a player is 'defence rich, hitpoint poor'. I'll use an average character:

Armour: 10/8, Toughness: 8-10, dodge/parry, possibility of a storm shield (negates 55%!! of attacks); later possibility of iron halo etc, which doesn't even overload. Squadmode ability which lets marines share reactions (forget the name). This means that if a Master level creature (say, a demon prince) is attacking the melee character (let's give him 60+15 from storm shield= 75 WS), he can parry pretty much all the attacks. However, IF the demon prince gets a lucky hit or two in, the character is DEAD. (2d10+25+felling, Pen.6 and adds +4 to crit damage). This means that the character takes 37 average (2d10--> 12, +25) , gets 2-4 armour, and 4 toughness (felling, remember) from an average hit point pool of approx. 22. This puts him on critical 3, add 4 for 'killing blow', critical 7 (doesn't *quite* kill you) in one hit. Now, here's the problem I have and others might not. It's *very* hard to balance fights around a system like this, since it's based thematically on the tabletop game- the 'all or nothing approach'. I find players either emerge unscathed or there are horrific casualties. This only gets *worse* at high levels when they get better stats, gear and stuff and fight harder foes.

Problem 2) Troubling abilities/items

When this game first came out, there was a big problem with heavy bolters- they were OP. However, next to psychic powers...the fact that Librarian's abilities cannot be resisted (seriously...our Librarian rolls at 130+ for his powers without risk of Perils of the Warp) and the sheer damage/utility with no cost, makes them overpowered in the true sense (outshines other party members- don't care if they melt hordes!).

The fact that everyone can take a jetpack and storm shield (eg) and render most fights trivial. (You could *arbitrarily* say they can't have them, but I'm talking about the rules, not someone elses' game here.)

Hordes are trivial except for specific circumstances. (devastator marine who is a dreadnought can usually do about 70 magnitue per round)

Well brother, I'm coming to your rescue. There is a very easy solution to your problem, and it's called the Black Crusade rules. I'm running a DW campaign right now, and we could see the writing on the wall. You see, the core issue with DW is that it's based on the Dark Heresy/Rogue Trader rules, which is a poor match. DH and RT are low-power games, while DW is high powered, and ends up breaking that system.

To their credit, FFG has realized this and completely revamped the system in Black Crusade. My advice to you: pick it up, read it, and convert your DW game to using those rules. You and your players will be much, much happier. Obviously you should keep the chapters, specialties, and advancements from DW, but use the combat rules, talents/traits, and weapon qualities from Black Crusade. That rules set is the best balanced version of the 40k rules, hands down. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that the Black Crusade rules are some of the best RPG rules I've ever seen.

Enjoy, and keep on ganking those xenos!

fleshbearer said:

I find this to be pretty true, but I also find it to be a matter of perception. The trick is, I think, a lot of players perceive being hit in this way as 'unlucky' rather than the inverse- being 'lucky' they survived in one piece. It is a very much kill or be killed system, and the combat is fairly fast and brutal.

I'm not trying to take away from what you're saying here in any way, as enjoyment of a game is also a matter of perception and opinion. Many other games are the opposite, and are hitpoint rich, so if you're coming from that space it will be pretty tough to get your brain around the system. I also have found it is tough to get players to get into the concept of being a Space Marine, and the thought of death isn't the same as it might be in a different character/setting. To me though, this doesn't make the system broken, it just makes it...kill or be killed.

Balance is a trick in this game, and can be quite difficult- for me the balance trick comes in the form of fudging enemy counts or abilities. I don't find that to be a huge problem because I tend to do that anyhow (and roll behind a shield).

fleshbearer said:

I cannot disagree that some of the abilities seem amazingly out of control. I think this ties into the difficulty with balancing combats- you really have to tune your adventures to the capabilities and personalities of your team. Even with a jetpack and storm shield, you can create encounters that mitigate or outright defeat the benefits they get from those; again, this isn't to take away from your comment. This puts a big strain on the GM in these cases as the GM has to do a lot more work to create 'balanced' encounters/missions. Again though I'm not sure this is necesarily a problem with the game system itself (not to say that they don't have some pretty significant balance issues).

Regarding hordes, I have found that in many cases they are supposed to be trivial, but if you play them smartly/tactically they can either do a lot of damage to PCs or alternately they can create barriers that force the players to be smart about how they advance. This ties into the above though, and requires more adventure planning by the GM.

I do think Hehateme hit it on the head- DH/RT rules were based for low-mid power, and the higher you crank a system the harder it is to support things. Most epic level games have similar problems. I've not seen the BC ruleset, but I do hear a lot of comments on these boards that list BC rules as a solution to some of the problems people have, it might be worth checking out.

Aah Black Crusade...I hadn't thought of that as a solution to the issue. I was more worried about the PCs playing chaos space marines and murdering each other in the first five minutes. Charmander and Hehateme, you have solved my problems! Even though there are some things that need tweaking, I think I'll steer us towards BC. As you said, DH (which I've also played a fair bit) works with this system because you are squishy humans and you are at low levels, kind of surprised NOT to explode when shot with a decent gun...translating that to DW was always going to be tricky.

I am not familiar with BC but I am not sure how it's going to adress the basic problem, a problem which also exists with DH Ascension. A problem which most epic level (non-comic super-hero) RPGs have.

What do you do with not a single but a whole team of super-heroes? Seriously 5 Rank 6 Deathwatch Marines are an army unto themselves. This has little to do with adventuring. What is the challenge for these guys, what is the mission? And why do they go out collectively instead of leading individually teams of lesser marines?

To me this is the basic problem with DW 1+ year after and it's a question unresolved. In fact I do not think it can be resolved in this edition. I think DW needs a 2E, with the optional weapon stats made official and permanent and with a toning down in abilities and a toning down in speed of progression in personal abilities. Watch Captain, seriously should be a Rank 7+ "I am going to retire this character for the most part" option.

I like that there is lots of angles from which you can make bonuses stack, however those bonuses are individually too high. What is needed is a design that gives the players a high level of competence to begin with (as-is) but then every additional bonus needs to be hard gained and the players need to be creative in making multiple bonuses stack on a test.

I am not saying the DW system is bad. It's a good system which has scaling problems - which isn't uncommon but rather to be expected. The problem isn't the system, the problem is the intended scope of the scale. Starting PCs are already good in DW, unlike DH or D&D or Rolemaster. Therefore you don't need to give players as much benefits as in other system as they progress. Small benefits which can be made to stack are good enough.

Alex

ak-73 said:

I think this is a key question; it is one that I attempt to resolve through the adventure itself- lucky for me my group isn't hellbent on shooting their way through every situation which means social situations, puzzles, or tactical situations can still create a challenge for the players.

Regarding BC, I think it's that they modified and streamlined a lot of the combat, and nerfed things like auto fire and such which makes everyone slightly gimped. It seems surprising to me overall that they made such wholesale changes in the combat system in their latest game, and it does make me wonder if this is the direction they'll be going when they eventually come out with 40k 2nd Ed. That said, I tend to agree that a new edition for DW with overall scaled back abilities and progression could be quite cool.

@Fleshbearer: Take a look at some of the forum posts on issues people have had converting some or all of the rules into DW. You're may have issues like talent cost, etc., that needs to be dealt with. There are some threads out there about how the rules mismatch that might give you some good pros and cons.

I don't think anyone is going to argue that the WFRP system is a perfect (or even very good) fit for running Space Marine adventures.

I'd like to see a second edition of Deathwatch use whatever the current Dungeons and Dragons system is, because for heavy combat adventures you won't find better.

Course, with the announcement of DnD Next/5th edition there won't be a stable DnD rules set for a couple of years.

Ideally, even drawing more inspiration from modern video games - no wound tracking (or any other bookkeeping) between fights and no permadeath for a start.

Some goals might include -

-A level one Marine is no more mechanically complex than a level one DnD character

-More managable enemies stat blocks (less than 50+ feats frex)

-No 'save or die' effects, so you can use things like lascannons more easily

-More satisfying, drawn out combats with lots of swings back and forth

-Properly balcanced, so each side has something like a 50/50 chance of winning every fight, rather than the string of one-sided beatdowns that roleplaying games tend to feature

By and large every fight should be as satisfying to play as a modern shortish boardgame.

In closing, why settle for rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic when we could have a system designed specifically for Deathwatch adventures?

Combat takes long enough as is and you want to make it take longer? No thanks.

So we accept the rest of the critisisms?

:-)

It is more an issue of having the right number of hit points that deplete at a steady rate rather than None or Lots. So attacks reliably don't do either nothing or one shot something important.

I think everyone agrees that having combats decided by one roll would be... unsatisfying. Conversely, they can drag on to long. Our goal is to find the sweet spot in the middle.

And remember I am not talking about a modification of the WFRP system - I mean a whole new system where exchanges can be much faster.

AluminiumWolf said:

I think that theory depends in large part on the themes you're going for. I agree with avoiding the "none or lots theory," I think a lot of people find the swings difficult to deal with, but I'm not sure fast/furious/deadly is a bad thing. You can still create combat not decided by a single save versus death magic but have it unforgiving and still have fun.

Case in point is DH- you cannot tell me that DH wasn't also brutal and deadly. One burst from an autogun and a less than stellar dodge roll and most characters are a puff of red mist. Personally for me the 'ease' of balancing that game came from the fact that you could guess that most PCs would have a toughness bonus of 3 and an armor of 3 at early levels, and a GM could scale back the weapons the enemies had knowing that they were almost certainly going to do damage.

But to Alex's point, there is a strange advancement curve to DW right now that as a player and a GM is also unpredictable and a little over the top- Storm of Iron at rank 4 doesn't mean you get to do 1d5 or even 1d10 more mag damage to a horde, it outright doubles the damage you do. Unnatural traits don't incrementally increase your capacity to perform actions, it doubles them. Iron out the wrinkles in a handful of areas and you've got a system that can scale a little better- reform the unnatural system and maybe bump the health a bit, keep the new weapon stats, fix multiple attacks (a bane of every system I've been in), make stacking a more creative endeavor or make each talent smaller scale so only when all the talents are combined does it go crazy.

I don't think it's in need of a complete rebuild, just some alterations; I'm also not sure if the fanbase or the authors would really like to have a "40k except for space marines" book and a "40k only space marines" book.

Alex brings up some good points there, the DH/RT system was just not made to accommodate the power level of DW. That's why BC was made. I would personally love to see a unified set of rules for all of the 40k lines, or a 40k Core Rulebook. Then, each line could have sourcebooks detailing what is specific to DH, RT, DW, and BC.

Regarding converting your DW game over to BC, this is what I did and here is my advice:

1. Keep character creation, specialties, advances, xp costs, squad/solo mode, and requisition/renown from the DW system as is.

2. Use the BC versions of Talents/Traits, Weapon Qualities, Combat rules. It is my personal opinion that the BC versions of these items are much better than the DW versions.

3. Optionally, you can also 'port in the Skills rules from BC, like I did, but that isn't necessary. BC consolidated alot of skills from the previous games, and simplified them somewhat. My players and I liked it, so we used it.

4. Pages 283-286 in the Black Crusade book provides a quick and dirty overview of all the changes to the system from DW to BC. You can use this guide to facilitate the conversion of your campaign and the characters within it.

As I mentioned, my players and I are really enjoying the new rules, as they are far better balanced than the original DW rules. However, Space Marine characters become slightly (not greatly) weaker by the BC conversion. If you have players that are overly concerned with the power of their characters, be prepared for some griping. My advice is to just be fair and even-handed about it, and apply whatever "nerfs" the players get to your enemies/NPCs as well.

Cheers!

Oh I forgot, one more piece of advice: use the errata weapon stats rather than the stats originally published in the DW book!

Cheers!

+++++I think that theory depends in large part on the themes you're going for.+++++

For a Space Marine game, and note that I am not talking about Dark Heresy here, I feel one of the themes must be that watching muscle bound bodybuilders in powered armour hitting orks with Chainswords is Totally Sweet.

For Deathwatch, that features combat so heavily, combat must be as entertaining an activity as possible.

I dunno. I don't think that they were trying to make a point about combat being Unforgiving and Deadly. The game is just badly designed and doesn't produce the right kind of experience.

Unfortunately a rules-heavy combat system is almost always antithetical to fun in an RPG.

AluminiumWolf said:

I don't know 4E but I don't hold D&D in high esteem in general. Neither the system, nor the Forgotten Realms setting. I think it lives off the brand.

AluminiumWolf said:

Complete disagreement. Even though it might be burdensome, it's what makes Marines bad-a**. Marines ideally must be wounded all over and still be able to keep going. That's what the system ideally should model. And the way to accomplish that imho is to return to the WFRP mechanic of critical damage not stacking. You don't add previous crit damage to the one you are getting now to read the result but you treat each wound individually. This can work with DW because of the all-or-nothing system.

AluminiumWolf said:

I don't think that is necessary. You just need to mark some stuff more as optional, like the less important organs or squad mode abilities. Give starting a players a clear core to learn and tack the fancy stuff on in an addendum at the end of the rulebook.

AluminiumWolf said:

LOl, I think I was the first one to point that out when I saw Nathan's Bloodthirster. Which was well modelled but too complicated. Sometimes it's better to abstract a dozen feats into "He gets +15 to hit, an additional attack and +4 damage instead."

AluminiumWolf said:

I dunno. I like the ability to field save or die weapons as GM. It promotes thoughtfulness on the player's part. Diversity is always good.

AluminiumWolf said:

I dunno. I don't like D&D style hit point systems. "Oh, that 10d6 fireball hits my 120 hits barbarian? bring on the damage, GM." It gets even worse if a 100 hits character is attacked by 7 goblins or so. I mean, you can have drawn out combats if you field large hordes and how exciting is that?

Do-or-die isn't entirely uninteresting. The problem is more with mortals. Mortals can't withstand a single successful attack by an Astartes. Which means they probably have to surprise the Astartes and have probably one attack to hurt an Astartes before they die. See page 68 of TEP. It might be realistic but players aren't really scared of mortals. Ever. Or perhaps it's the result of a not well-thought out encounter. Drahj is a wealthy man, why do his bodyguards have worthless armour and weapons? It's like fighting rank1 acolytes.

Alex

First off the idea of moving DH or any FFG game into a d20 based system is just silly. High mitigation, with low health shows how brutally fast and deadly the 40K universe really is. (Very similar to the original Samurai themed Five Rings system.) True death is avoided with Fate Points, which is why you start with so many.

Like others have said moving all talents/traits over to the BC system is ideal. There are issues and they will crop up, but house rule it and go on. BC does a good job of limiting the power creep, but there are still issues. Dual wielding, lightning attacks come to mind. Don't let the rules get in the way of having fun, but being fair and practical to the players is also important.

I dunno. I don't think combat in Deathwatch is unfun for any deep philosophical reason. The game just doesn't work properly.

I think it does work, it just has some scale and balance issues. Point being with some alterations to the system (too many probably for mere errata) you could really bring it into line. The little problems here and there do add up to quite a bit, IMO, and my main issue then becomes that making things like combat fun, interesting, and appropriately challenging is so much more work. If you aren't being creative in how you structure things, it does become exactly what you're saying- an essentially broken system.

@Alex Re: Mortals: But is that such a bad thing? A lot of the themes, especially of DW, is that you're better than mortals and you're around to fight the things that scare and kill mortals by the score. If you can face down a Hive Tyrant why would a thug with a hand cannon be a threat- and why should it be a threat? I do feel it limits the scope and direction of what you can and can't do with DW adventures, but I'm not sure that's a bad thing. Specifically regarding Drahj, I wondered the same thing and figured it was oversight regarding his bodyguards craptastic load out. Though it does tie into the idea that it's not the destination of Drahj that's the adventure, it's the journey of getting/finding him - which does sometimes feel out of place for a combat focused RPG.

AluminiumWolf said:

What are your specific reasons for thinking so?

Charmander said:

1. I have no problem with the DW combat system per se. I think it's great that a Hive Tyrant can slash a PC into half with a single attack that connects. Now maybe he shouldn't have 2 attacks per round, that is the problem. It would make melee with him more survivable. Also I renew my call for making critical damage non-cumulative. It makes PCs much more survivable. If only I would get to test this any time soon. I want bloodied marines who keep on going like a deadly machine. And I want room service.

2. Marines are better than mortals but it is the way of heroes that they will unusually often run across unusual mortals that will be able to challenge them. You don't gain in atmosphere this way, you only create predictable fights for the most part. The PCs see the load.out of the bodyguards and the players and the GM know what's going to happen boring. That is my problem: don't create predictable combat encounters or combat encounters where it becomes apparent after first round what's gonna happen. Might as well say: "Okay, you kill those heretics. Let's move on please."

3. A major problem of DW is that the capabilities of most enemies are pretty well understood by those who are familiar with the TT. Now FFG had to deliver those baddies, I understand. But in hindsight (and it is always perfect) what is necessary is variations on the standard 40k MCs and xenos. You need to prepare the monsters like this: a) this is the standard 40K average critter and b) here is some cool rules variations and special abilities (or sizes) to surprise your players. You need to be able to build different specimen of a species at a glance.

That said, I don't think DW is broken at all, except at higher levels. There is no significant problems at ranks 1-3 and corresponding renown. So far I don't detect a need to take anything from BC either. The real problem of DW apart from scaling is getting some players into the spirit of the game. That requires lots of work and planning, it doesn't come natural for a fair number of them.
Kill-or-be-killed is what makes master-tiers special.

Alex

So, if death only occurs at high-end critical damage (9 or 10 range mostly), and critical damage is non-cumulative, and True Grit halves damage taken (so one hit will never inflict more than 5 critical damage)...how do marines ultimately get killed?

Kshatriya said:

You change the mechanics of True Grit.

Alex

ak-73 said:

Ach, dude, surely that is the failure mode of the system. SURELY you would rather have epic battles of legend with lots of tactics, comebacks, clever strategies and whatnot.

I dunno. Sit down some time and play Dungeons and Dragons with the mat and all the miniatures, or maybe just a boardgame or cardgame like settlers or magic. You will probably despair at the non-games that a lot of roleplaying games have as their combat system.

Or even World of Warcraft!

AluminiumWolf said:

Been there, done that, am glad that DW isn't more of the same.

You know what I don't want from role-playing? That it's basically the same stories and the same mechanics in a different dressing. D&D is a bad system in a bad setting that lives by its name. Not sure if I'd want to take that as game to aspire after. Until Ross Watson has the status of Gary Gygax, I recommend trying to do better than D&D.

Super-deadly BBEGs foster strategical thinking. Comebacks? That is what burnt fate, Demeanours and (in some cases) non-stacking critical damage house rules are for. Or just spending Fate Points to regain some wounds. (Makes it so much more valuable if crit damage doesn't stack.) Or you pour everything into a last attempt at downing the baddie with Killing Strike and Feat of Strength and all.

Also I am familiar with the combat systems of dozens of RPGs out there and still not desperate. :-)

This is okay, as far Hive Tyrants and Daemon Princes go. It's the baddies like Tyranid Warriors that need proper balancing. (Not saying they are unbalanced.)

Alex

ak-73 said:

Heh, good point. Suggestions?