Hi. I am starting a game in a couple of week and the players have agreed to start as acolytes (not Ascension) but one player wants to play a Grey Knight. Any suggestions on how I can fit him in the party and try to equalise the power levels?

Thanks.

SC_Andy said:

Put siimply, you can't. Explain that you are playing Dark Heresy. Even in Deamon Hunter it says that the Grey Knight options aren't appropriate for retinues of Acolytes.

Zakalwe is correct, there isn't any plausible way to put a starting group of acolytes in with a Grey Knight. Not only because of the sheer OP'ness of the Grey one but also because in terms of lore the lowly acolytes would have to be horribly murdered for even so much as seeing Mr. Knighty pants. If they are really set on playing a Grey Knight then perhaps you can run a parrel campaign where your group also get to play as a band of Grey Knights that ride in a kick the snot out of daemons that the regular acolytes have dug up.

If they continue to whine, tell them to go play Deathwatch or something.

Yeah, you might as well suggest you bring a tank to a cowboys'n'injuns game.

The Grey Knight starts out at 13.000xp, so if you give the regular pc's double that it should bring some balance.
I would advise against it.

Of course you could offer the possibility of the Grey Knights coming in to clear out a demon infestation the Acolytes uncover and let the whole party play Grey Knights for that one-off mission.

I have a similar scenario tucked away in my mind which features Space Marines bought in by the Inquistor to deal with a foe that is too tough for the PCs as a 'heavy combat light relief' interlude.

The group agreed to be Ascension-level characters. I've never GM'ed Ascension before, so I'm not too sure how to run a campaign with such high-level PCs.

SC_Andy said:

Don't!

Not only has the Ascension book some major problems, gaming on that level is pretty hard to do things right People have no feel for how to play an acolyte and how things work. Let them start as normal accolytes instead and slowly advance them to Ascension levels. At which time you can allow the Grey Knight to enter.

It's a little late for that since the players have already created their characters and we've had our first session. The players are well-seasoned DH veterans but I'm treating the party as high-level acolytes to make things easier for myself. Unfortunately, most of the PCs have psychic abilities, though only one true Pysker excluding the Gray Knight, and no really talky chars. They shoot first and ask questions later. And their attitudes (the PCs) and actions tend to piss people off. Well, I get to plan the backlash later, which isn't too bad.

Let them keep doing that. Then let them gun down the important informant with the info they needed, and watch them try to interrogate a corpse.

Dead men tell no tales, which can be a drag when you're investigating a covert cult or something. "Drat, we seem to have killed our leads. Well, no other option then: Nuke from Orbit!"

The thing is that they're playing Radicals, even the Grey Knight. Every PC seems to be having some issues withing, such as failing faith. Now, I don't have any issues with this but they just polished off a Herald of Slaanesh in one round - having 4 players with psychic abilities, as they are allowed to take Sorcery powers.

Fortunately, I have something of a greater challenge (esp to the psykers) and I'm not sure to spring it on them in the next session. I had planned for them to come into the story when they have done sufficient investigation. Unfortunately, they happen to be a big fan of 'Tell us/do as we say or we torture you', even after they frighten the plebs with psychic powers. Any suggestions on how to make the fight last longer than just one or two rounds, short of flinging untouchable extra tough & high damaging titans.

Thanks.

Andy

Well some time ago I had great idea to play as Ascension Thrones Agents. I can tell that I never had such horrible experience with RPG. Making enemies for group was not fun and we almost dropped WH RPG for good. Don't play Ascension as it is Forbidden Lore and it will corrupt your soul. I'm not kidding.

SC_Andy said:

You're guy/girl is playing the Grey Knight radical? So, he's not doing what he's meant to be doing in killing everyone for even thinking about dabbling in sorcery? Grey Knights CANNOT. BE. RADICAL. it literally goes against everythingt hey are and everything they stand for. You must punish this player for his/her poor roleplaying skills by sending a squad of his order to murder everything in a 20 mile radius. If one of my players tried such cheek I'd ***** slap them so hard the handprint would never leave thier face.

TehNuffster said:

http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Grey_knight

Well If GK can kill Sororitas and bath in their blood I can say that they are quite radical, all right

coolzyg said:

You do know what a Radical is, right? It has nothing to do with Ward's terrible fluff-butchering of a story.

Also, I agree with TehNuffster - that is such bad roleplaying that is close to achieving 2 Hendersons on the Henderson Scale of Plot Derailment.

The less said about that Matt Ward nonsense the better I think.

If the party is behaving like radicals, and I mean actually skirting falling to chaos, then I would imagine an opposing inquisitor may very well decide it is not worth the risk of the parties continued existence, and sick a culexus assassin on the party. The party is actively dabbling in sorcery. That alone crosses the line of what is "too far." It is one thing to understand with an intent to combat, it is another to use.Any Grey Knight would immediately turn his nemesis force weapon and storm bolter against any such individual found using such abilities.

You really need to reign your players in. You claim to have a Grey Knight behaving almost like a radical. Without details, its hard to proceed, but that simply sounds a bit too out there. A player can want to be a special snowflake, sure, but this may very well be too special of a snowflake. About the biggest struggle a GK should ever have is with the fear that realizing they may in fact have the dishonour of being the first Grey Knight to fall. Certainly, its possible, but its so unlikely it just doesn't happen.

Honestly, I got no real suggestions for you. The Grey Knight needs to realize that they are working with those who are committing grievous blasphemy. Encouraging party PvP though is simply never a good thing though, so in all honesty I don't know what to suggest.

Are you fine with the parties alignment, and just looking for a way to drag out combat? More enemies (look at horde rules), endless daemonic incursions (every time they destroy a horde, a new one appears. The goal is not to defeat all the enemies, but rather to stop the ritual). Make combat less about "kill all the enemies" and more about "we must do X before time runs out." Up the price of failure. Going into a straight up fight will always make the true enemy flee before they are ever at risk. Its fine that combat is lasting so few rounds, in all honesty, that's about as quick as a firefight like that should last, what you're players have to deal with is that they let the enemy get away if they engage too early. Do your players always seem to go first? Examine why that is, and make sure the opposition is able to keep up. If all else fails, cheat. It is a GM's right to use such a tool. You are keeping your rolls secret, correct? As long as it is for the purpose of keeping the game exciting, to keep the players on their toes, then they cannot hate you for it.

Perhaps a Herald of Slaneesh has 3 dodge actions and 75 agility, how the hell is the party supposed to know? Do they read the bestiary? Are they openly acknowledging to having out of character knowledge? It sounds to me like you have a fairly optimized party on your hands, their opposition should be equally skilled.

About the best I can come up with is a TPK, blank slate the thing, and get some nicer, low level acolytes in play up against more manageable foes, and back down to a scale that is humanly comprehensible at the start of play.

Sorry if I sound all over the place on this topic; it sounds like you have a real mess on your hands.

Just wondering - is Ascension really that bad?

Inquisitor Muffin said:

Check the links here for opinions on that:

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=101&efcid=3&efidt=665269

Interrogator Z

Thanks you very much. Quite an interesting read.

TehNuffster said:

The Grey Knight is not exactly a radical but more about having a slight faith issue / or with his order's creeds - one or the other (at least that's what he described his char). The players are, however, can be described as power players. I heard from one of my players (who's GM'ing in another game with the same players) that they took on 2 daemon princes and won, and they're not even Ascension-level.

In fact, the way they're playing, they tend to skip/ignore the less battle-side of the campaign ie. political, social aspects.

I intend

Ignore the "I intend" at the end of my last post. I meant to write more but posted it before I completed the sentence.

"took on 2 daemon princes and won, and they're not even Ascension-level."

HOW THE HELL DID THEY DO THAT IS THE KNIGHT KALDOR ******* DRAIGO!!!

But seriously Magnus the Red would have trouble with with two deamon princes.

there monsters

The group agreed to be Ascension-level characters. I've never GM'ed Ascension before, so I'm not too sure how to run a campaign with such high-level PCs.

Unfortunately, politics and intrigue. If you just try and rack up the power level, the knob falls off - the WHFRP engine (which is what it is at its heart) does not cope with really high level characters well. You cannot really provide a purely combat-threat challenge to these people; as you found youself when they broke open daemon princes.

Flattening a herald and a bunch of daemonettes isn't too hard - as with Deathwatch characters, lesser Heralds, Chaos Marines, hulking mutants, and other things Black Crusade, Deathwatch and Only War would tag as 'Elite' opponents are essentially a one-per-PC opponent....

The challenge is finding them.

Mission briefings should be intentionally fairly vague - an Inquisitor no longer receives 'orders', he or she is requested by the conclave to investigate rumours that all is not well on a given world. The sum total of briefing (using an example we've had previously) might be that an individual murdered on Piety two days ago (astropath and other transmission lag) was a senior Inquisitiorial agent, operating undercover as a minor functionary in the Kasiballica crime syndicate. He had reported that recently the Kasiballica appeared to be engaged in an underground crime war with....err.....someone. He didn't know whom, but they were well equipped and organised. Within 24 hours of sending this message, he was gunned down by a sniper in a spire commercial market, taking an Angelus calibre bolt round to the head.

This sort of mission fits far better to the ascension style; there is still the opportunity for the combat monkeys to strut their stuff, but you can threaten the party with other things than lasbolts. Temple Assassin is all well and good, but in the last campaign we played, the Vindicere lost a fate point and spent a mission hospitalised from failing Disguise and Deceive checks, not Dodge checks; he and the stormtrooper ended up boarding orbit-bound lighters, using a false identities the vindicere had provided saying they were dockworkers (which really weren't as convincing as they thought they were).

Bombs set by a syndicate agent detonated whilst the lighters were in flight, sending them on a nearly uncontrolled re-entry back down to the surface. The Stormtrooper had Pilot+20 and Drop Trooper . The Vindicere didn't.

If you really want to push the level of combat threat, I would advise getting some of the Deathwatch sourcebooks. If they want pure combat (and I think they're kind of missing the point if they do) then things like Hordes, Tanks and Bio-Titans are the only logical escallation I can suggest.

"took on 2 daemon princes and won, and they're not even Ascension-level."

HOW THE HELL DID THEY DO THAT IS THE KNIGHT KALDOR ******* DRAIGO!!!

But seriously Magnus the Red would have trouble with with two deamon princes.

there monsters

In the fluff, sure. Hell, they're tough even in Deathwatch. Written in the game, some of the Ascension careers can solo them with extreme ease.