Hi all,

I'm a first time GM and I'm running 'The Price of Hubris', the first missing from 'The Emperor Protects'. If anyone has any tips, advice or experiences running this mission I would be very happy to hear them- thanks!

Hello! I have not run this one, but there have been several threads on this board dealing with that adventure book....use the search function to find them; there may be some useful info in here for you. ANd, of course, have fun!

I apologize...it seems that my answering of your post has scared-off other posters....if you want further advice from others, perhaps reposte this, and i'll try not to wade in....take care!

That's quite alright! My first post was a bit vague.

Anyway we had our first session and it went well. One of the first things I've done is to create a campaign page on Obsidian Portal. I've put a lot of handouts on there that other GMs playing that mission might find helpful- these include an overview of Aurum, a history of Imperial interaction with Aurum, a letter containing the objectives of the crew, a profile the Horizon’s Pride, a character description of the Captain of this ship, Diaz Lan, and a map of Haistand and its approach- all useful stuff for any GM running that mission.

There's a few other bits and bobs on the campaign pages (browse around!). Unfortunately the first episode log isn't up yet (I'm leaving that up to the players!) but hopefully it will be up there soon.

Obsidian Portal Campaign page- Episode 1

I ran my second adventure (the divested hunt) and it went... okay, but I was a bit dissatisfied, for the following reasons:

1. The first encounter with the smaller lizards went okay, but it was a bit of a foregone conclusion that the Marines would dispatch them handily, and they did, so it was not terribly exciting.

2. The second encounter with the flying lizards was the marines climbing a wall- because they were not aggressive towards the flyers, the flyers did not attack. I considered having them attack anyway, but was not sure how to handle the mechanics of combat while mid-climb.

3. This was where things really went odd. The module lists three events in a row: The climb, a tunnel cave-in, and then the toxic gases on the plain. Basically all three encounters amounted to the same thing: a challenge roll. It just seemed very 'samey'- roll for this, roll for this, roll for this- there was not a lot of opportunity for player creativity. I guess I should have made it more of a 'choice', do they take the tunnel or risk the plains? I think this would have made the players seem like they had more control, like if they'd gone another way there would have been a different challenge.

4. The fight with the Diablodon was also not particularly exciting- it was great when the fight started, the appearance of the giant lizard was cool, and it immediately took a big bite out of the librarian, but after that they sliced through it way too easily, just using direct combat, no tactics or event squad or solo abilities. I even bumped it's W from 75 to 100 and they still took it down without a single marine getting to 0W. I kind of thought this would be a mega-challenge, not just another fight.

So we're about to move on to Grensvayl- any advice on bumping up the difficulty?

Also, two things:

1. Now that they are moving on to Grensvayl, is there any reason to go to the black pits? I don't see why they would go there now. Is it okay to proceed without them?

2. How are they supposed to solve Sister Rachael's death? There doesn't seem to be a mechanism for them to do this, since they'll likely kill the conspirators before questioning them.

Any advice or thoughts would be appreciated.

The main thing to remember with these pre-made adventures is that it gives you guidelines on things so if you have an ideas of how to tweak things or make things more difficult then by all means do so.

When I ran this with my team, the big Dino chomped on the teams Libby as well and without the power armor he got pretty messed up. As far as town to investigate I had them run into the pits while en route there. This adds the other part of it plus if your teams does some investigation they can find out more about the Sister's death and so on. OR you could always have the information listed that in the Grensvayl area (IE a datapad laying around where she documented what happened and why she took her own life and so on)

If you want to add some difficulty then try throwing a lot of the genestealers at your team, they are mean in this adventure and a good group of them should give the team a run for their money. If you want to really get some results throw in a Lictor in there if you want to add something a little extra.

I haven't run this yet, but I'm not sure how the players are supposed to survive those Genestealers. Much less a Horde of them. 4 attacks with Razor Sharp that do 1d10 + 14 damage each + increase for Horde magnitude...

I ran this mission with a group of about 5 players. The thing I would suggest is that whenever running an encounter wit6h the genestealers give the players at least 1-2 rounds of shooting first. when I did it I nearly butherd my entire group with only 3-4 genestealers because they got ambushed.

As for other aspects remember when roleplaying the villagers they are not intimidated much by marines they are not part of the imperium as a whole it makes for some interesting diplomacy roleplaying in a game that focuses usually on combat.

Hope this helps.

just a word about the fight against the Diabolon.

Going in the jungle without armour and weapons is a challenge for any human, to do so to hunt a great lizard quite like a T rex is a death challenge. But the SM and in this case the players had already donr it some years ago to get access to the rank of the SM.

They are only doing again a trial they had to make when aged 12 and without any genetech. So it is not surprising that the lizard is no challenge to them.

But if you want to make it difficult for the players just play with stats and give the beast improved armour and weapon and you will see.

Thebigjul said:

Agreed, or give the diablodon offspring 2-3 depending on the size of the Deathwatch team. Just lessen the wounds and lower all stats by about 10-15. You could even have the offspring be the 1st targets they see only for the team to realise that they are the babies of a larger Diablodon.