This is a big hurdle for me.

Where are the rules and statistics for Eldar, Dark Eldar, Necrons, All Chaos, All Tau all Orks? There needs to be a Beastiary of some considerable size where I can find the rules, weapons and statistics for any enemy in the 40,000 universe. That I have to research through two books and errata sheets to find the proper Tau weapon damage is ridiculous.

Two words...

Paperback Adventures.

Not to pick a fight or sound dismissive, but how many Codeices would you have to buy to get that much info in the Table Top game? Likely somewhere around 7 on top of the base book. There likely will never be exhaustive lists like that, but FFG gives you a lot of the iconic stuff that you should be able to kitbash it to create the more esoteric stuff.

Kilbourne: two quick things. First, i completely agree that a comprehensive bestiary would be amazing and highly desirable (nudge nudge wink wink knowwhadimean knowwhadimean),but i worry that because of the wide variation in power levels and sometimes not so subtle variation in rules, that such a book would only fit in with any one of those games weakly. Second, what is the intent with paperback adventures? Just to have them or provde background or what? Thanks

Paperback adventures are cheap to buy and even cheaper to print/distribute. Big big money savings. And Killbourne is absolutely correct about having a single resource for 40k goodness.

And for you boot-wearin' types who failed their Common Lore rolls.....(yeah, lookin' at you, Doc, ol' man!)...your distinctive lack of insight, reasonableness, and, ahem, readin' skills has been noted. Help, or get out of the way. (And maybe read yer books a wee tad more carefully, you're obviously missing out on some very good stuff! Really, read it again....Ascension is only setting-specific???? So, Calixis is the ONLY place in the God-Emprah's realm with ascended characters....wow, that's good to know...d'ya got any other brilliant idears, there, Doc? Yeah, you're really not helping anybody here...)

Borithan: here's what i recall from what i've read of rt and dh:

Edge of the abyss - fluff, few/no rules, generally good book

Into the storm - general crunch, little Koronus, good/great book

Ascension - crunch useable in any setting, good/great

Blood of martyrs - general fluff 'n crunch, with some setting specifics, good/great

Inquisitor's handbook - mix of general and setting crunch/fluff, not bad per se....but not really good or great....

Radical's handbook - good general use, nice!

...and the rest haven't impressed me all that much (creatures anathema was ok, if you ignore the setting-specifics)

Zap,

Doc didn't say that it was ONLY for the setting, he said it was tied into the setting, with talk of specific politics and people and whatnot, which the book is, it has lots of mentions of Calixis type things in it. But like all of the FFG 40k stuff it can easily be adapted for use outside the specific intended setting.

Hello Tempest! (btw, I love yer oxymoronic name...and I know i'm steppin' out on a limb by using that term; but i'm confident that, if you have a name like TempestSatori, you know what oxymoronic means....if yer still a shade unclear: i like the name!)

Very nice of you to step up and try to moderate things....but, to speak for Dok for just a moment (hehe), he asked me to provide a dh/rt book that was not setting-specific...Ascension was my answer...he said: "...no, it's not..." , which is to say: "Ascension is not an example of a non-setting-specific book," or, a bit easier to understand with the 'nots' cancelled-out: "Ascension is an example of a setting-specific book." He did NOT qualify his response, as you so intelligently did, save to express that: "...many, but not all chapters...are tied to the background..." ....So, you are indeed correct, Tempest, the good doctor DID let slip an ever-so-slight concession...

As, indeed, shall I....yes, there ARE setting-specifics within Ascension...but I've been choosing to ignore the adventures, as I concede that they will all be written for Jericho, and I have no problem with that...and the rest are quite minor, not epically huge parts of the book...in short, the setting-specifics in Ascension are not so obnoxious that I would refuse to buy the book, given the predominance of valuable general rules info...

Lionus said:

Okay, first off, lets look at Codices. The Codices are short, not full color-laminated books that cost $20 right? Maybe $25? That book gives you some fluff, army rules and pictures of what they should look like painted. A Beastiary should be (Thanks Paizo for the excellent example) 300-500 pages (Yes, 300-500 pages) of all different kinds of monsters, aliens and daemons, and fluff about those monsters, aliens and daemons. Point is, when I'm making up a story/campaign, the last thing I want to do is spend more time during my week creating rules out of thin air that should already be balanced and available to me in a book.

Now, on the Paperback adventures. Go to your local game store. Look at the shelf with all the RPGs on it. Find Pathfinder. Holy Dog ****. Look at all those adventures. And their long adventures too!

A Hard bound book for adventures costs a lot more money and believe it or not, it's a pain in the ass. If I want to show someone a picture in The Emperor Protects, it's awkward to hold up a large hardbound book. Also, what if I want to scan one of the cool written letters in there, what a pain. Paperback Adventures are cheaper to produce, cost me less, are easier to handle and work with and are MUCH easier to scan. This is a no brainer and if you still think I'm wrong, look at how many books Paizo has on the shelf and look at how many book FFG has on the shelf. It works.

I must admit, while I like what I have so far, I would love an expanded bestiary that has stats for all the foes and threats in the Warhammer 40.000 universe. Some book that strictly states that this doesn't represent the foes in the Jericho Reach, but all the force that walk the vast planets of the Warhammer 40.000 universe. Added with a NPC statbook that includes Sororita etc (without having them to convert them from other lines) it took me an evening to create the stats for my villain and I still don't know if he is too powerful, or too weak :/ Just some clarification on my first posting in this thread. Thank you!

Zappiel said:

I am sure the Radical's Handbook had quite a lot of Calixis stuff.

An expanded Bestiary might be possible if they do what they did in Dark Heresy, ie have one sentence of information and then just have the character write up (though some characters really do have massive write ups). However, it would be a rather ugly book (page after page of stats blocks... exciting), and wouldn't be universally compatible. Certain things just had to be beefed up in order to make them viable threats in Deathwatch. The main ones I can think of were minor Daemons, who have changed quite a bit from DH to DW, and the two really are not compatible. Talents differ across the various lines, and some talents don't exist in some of the lines. Of course, if you mean just for Deathwatch this wouldn't be an issue (the errata'ed weapon stats aside), but then why would/should Deathwatch be the only series to get this treatment?

As far as character's being "too powerful, or too weak", a D&D Challenge Level system wouldn't work in 40k. There is no linear mathmatical improvement across different careers that can be measured against. All you can do is trial and error it until you think you have worked it out. Really, you should just give a character exactly what you think they should have, and then just play with that. See whether they pose any threat. If they are too powerful... well, that's what Fate Points are for (and truthfully, at least in Deathwatch, if they really pull out the stops almost any kill team will find a way to win... they just might have ahrder time of it). If they were a walkover, then find have your next guys be a bit tougher. Oh, and remember that a properly equipped assault marine is just utterly, utterly bent and will just kill anything you throw at it.

Sorry guys. Long time no speak. Long story short life got away from me for various reasons, I lost internet connection for a few weeks, but the Omnissiah was with me today and it is now back up. I'll be keeping my promise and updating this thread again. At this point that is looking to be Sunday.

Sorry if you thought I jumped ship. In hindsight I should have asked HBMC to do a quick post for me, but the 'various reasons' I mentioned above we there kind that were important enough that things such as this thread slipped my mind.

I genuinely mean what I said earlier that I like what was offered up in this thread so far. And I really want to sit down and do another update to get more feedback. So please sit tight as it is coming, but in the mean time feel free to put anything else up that comes to mind.

One point of note, and I will address this in the update, is that there is starting to be some back and forth that is bordering on attacks and partially derailing this thread's intent. So please try to keep your posts as opinions (counter or otherwise), and do what you can not to overly rustle each other's jimmies.

Stay classy folks.

Atma01

The factions of TT game we all know and love are, with the exception of Orks, NOT what the Imperium or Deathwatch are going to deal with. They are all quite rare. The main antagonists of the Imperium are rebels and local Xenos races.

There is nothing special about the Tau -- there are hundreds or thousands of Xenos empires of that scale. The Tau just happen to be the one that GW made a codex for.

You cannot have a big bestiary of the main opponents of the 40K universe because a) it would be thousands and thousands of pages long, b) most of them haven't even been invented, and c) the Eldar would not be in it.

It's much more interesting to throw something like the Slaugth or, better yet, something you made up at your players anyway.

Update 2

Sorry guys but this update won’t be as thorough as I would like. We finished playing at 2AM the other night, and I am still tired so I can’t focus on a wall of text for too long today. Will try and work on it some more in the next few days. But here are some other discussion points I drew out from what has been proffered so far. I’m interested to hear what people think.

I’m going to try and put together some direct responses to the points on update 1 that have been responded to as well. I love what was provided and want to respond, just don’t have the time or inclination today sorry.

But time marches ever onwards and onto update 2!

2-1 I want some adventures outside of the Reach

This is an interesting one, touches on some of the other items raised in its own way, and may be completely outside the realm of possibility since none of us know the agreement that FFG and GW have in terms of the IP use. Personally I love the idea raised (by Kiwamu) that the DW may have to send a task force through the gate to hold the other side, possibly against the unknown. Like some militant episode of Stargate SG-1.

Let us assume for the moment there is no standing blackbag order from GW on the DW RPG acting outside of the various sectors that FFG has license on (I.e. Calixis, The Hadex, etc), would you be up for this? And to what extent? Would you accept just a few PDFs that some made for love of the game that got approval, or would they have to be in print?

How about some ‘What if’ scenarios of some of the more famous battles or things in 40K? Would you be interested in that?

One problem I can see with this would be what if these were to become more popular than the official setting of the Jericho Reach. If FFG had limitations placed on them by GW and couldn’t expand upon it would this not only serve to annoy you by giving you a taste of the ice cream without letting you buy the whole tub through no fault of their own.

And lastly what are peoples thoughts on some stuff specifically designed to be cross-overs between the product lines? Would people welcome this as a chance to try something new, or just look at it as a cross marketing and money making exercise regardless of the quality?

2-2 We need some sort of official stance on the weapons changes

To update those not in the know, there was a change to the Bolt weapon stats for the most part due to it being shown it was horrifically overpowered, or simply too versatile to the point of invalidating other options. I can’t really argue here for the most part from personal experience, but always happy to discuss this issue for those that missed it the first time.

The original problem aside, ‘optional’ rules were put forth by FFG that are in the errata which pretty much everyone uses. The problem we have now is we are not entirely sure whether new enemies are being built around these new ‘optional’ rules, or the old and still technically official ones. This could really make certain enemies seem underpowered for those who don’t use the rules, and make it hard to build balanced encounters without tweaking stats yourself. At least if it is known which one is still being officially used by FFG for building the game we can try and plan accordingly.

So what to discuss would be whether they should be using the new, old, or a mix dependant on what you believe to be reasonable. Keep in mind there WILL be those out there completely unaware of the errata, and that we can’t go back and change the books already in circulation.

But when everyone who has been at each other’s throats for the last couple of weeks over various issues agree on something you know it needs to be addressed. OMG common ground guys! Build on that.

2-3 I want a condensed bestiary of EVERYTHING

I know I want this. I know HBMC should want this to some degree, since going through multiple books for rules for a single encounter is a pain. I think there isn’t really anyone opposed to the idea. Where the crux is, is whether this is a reasonable request given certain facts. These facts being that books are already in print, we would effectively be doubling up, and more books with stuff that should be included will be published in the future.

So rather than another discussion clamoring for everything all at once, what is the limit of inclusion for a book like this? Should it be core enemies only, i.e. no minor races? Only minor races to allow for a condensed version for the major races in the future? Would you be willing to buy something like this, hardback or PDF, even if you already owned all the content in other books? Would you be upset if it included new stuff as either an enticement or justification for printing? Etc. Think of the Monster Manuals for D&D (Any edition) to see what I mean.

Personally with the proliferation of tablet PCs and e-readers (I will be generous and include the iPad in that though it is technically neither ) I would murder several populated worlds for a PDF like this. Or a line of PDFs like this. Possibly even a yearly subscription or onetime fee for a living bestiary online which I could resource for my games. I think that addresses many of the foreseen problems with the concept, and lets those who want the cake have it, without the overheads of it going to print.

===

That is it from me for today folks. Apparently the Gears 3 DLC 4 dropped the other day so I have some Locust to kill.

And for no other reason than it deserves to be known. Should you be in the market for 40K-equse music go look up Two Steps from Hell on youtube. They have more than a few songs that fit the bill so perfectly it is hard not to imagine Tzeentch sitting down somewhere saying ‘Just as planned’. And if you want suggestions on where to start just let me know. But I highly recommend Road to Revelation or almost anything on their Nemesis album.

Stay classy bros.

Atma01

People in general don’t know what they want, you may think you do, but you don’t. Providing a backdrop for a campaign isn’t a bad thing.

Deathwatch is not designed to be ‘played across the imperium’ it’s designed to be played in the reach, you may not like that, but the backdrop provides a world for the game to take place in. You don’t ***** about WFRP not being a generic fantasy system, even if you can easily use it as such. Even D&D comes with a generic, abide very flat world.

This makes it easier to take and use the things you like and discard the rest, that’s what role-players do. If you want to adventure outside the reach go and do it, come up with your own sector or sub sector, the empire is a million worlds and there are enough of them for you to have your little bit of it. Writing sourcebooks that cover THE WHOLE OF THE EMPIRE OF MAN would be idiotic endeavours that not even the administratum could manage, let alone a small game outfit from the midwest could accomplish. If you like something use it, if you don’t don’t the Reach doesn’t take up that much space in the core book and you don’t need to buy the setting specific books, get Rites of Battle and First Founding and your good to go.

As for the weapons errata it seems that they are now considered the baseline, the same stats were more or less used in Dark Crusade and the new books, FF at least, seems to follow them.

The only reasonable thing you’re really talking about is a big tome of monsters, core book sized and yummy, I’d love that.

Deathwatch is NOT just for the Reach, thanks!

Ok guys, that horse is most definately very very dead. Lets just move on to something more productive in the spirit of this thread. I for one second the idea for a compendium of opponents encompassing whats already been put in other books, but there would have to be some kind of sweetner, as there are already some different versions of creatures in different books, and it's confusing to know when to use which. I did find it odd there's so many new tyranid creatures in Jericho Reach, and no new chaos or Tau. It seems like an error of planning or lack of time. Can anyone explain why? Mostly, the way the books are organized seems counter-intuitive. I think it would make more sense to organize them by salient, rather than a little of everything in one, then a note refrencing that in other books. More writing, double printing, more text in more sources to flip through for refrence. It just seems inefficient and needlessly redundant. The same thing with all the chapters being spread out across almost all the books, rather than just in one or two spots. And why in First Founding were there advanced options for chapters previously covered, but not for ones making their debut there? Again, it just seems like they ran out of time or inspiration.

Personally I think resolving (and errataing everything that doesn't fit) the weapon stats would be the number one issue. The thing is that that they aren't even used consistently within the same book. The main move does seem to be to the errataed stats (all the Relics and PC weapons in the books are clearly based on the Errata weapons), but they need to errata the NPC weapons to fit, and many of the enemies seem to be built so that they can still be a threat to players armed with the original weapon stats (the Tyranids in particular). The whole "optional stats" thing is daft, especially as they aren't really optional if you want to use any of the weapons from Rites of Battle onwards. Just admit the original stats were absurd and game breaking and be done with it.

It's either that or start producing two values for every weapon, the ones for the original weapon stats and ones for the optional weapon stats.