The argument has cropped up before that for the assault marine, the advances in Deathwatch Champion are mostly either redundant or incredibly expensive, after paying 4000xp into get into the class.

Hence, a proposed tweak to make it slightly more palatable (and which changes surprisingly little);

All advances in Deathwatch Champion cost a maximum of twice of the lowest cost in that character's advance schemes, unless they could not normally gain that advance.

The real effect of this for an assault marine?

Combat Master: 1500 becomes 1000

Crippling Strike: 2000 becomes 800

Step Aside: 2000 becomes 1600

I haven't looked at the impact for other classes but suspect most costs will remain pretty high as no other class actually has all of those combat talents.

Any thoughts?

Well, they sort of are redundant for an AM. I question Champion being what an AM should be striving towards anyway.

But for a Tacmarine, a melee-focused Techmarine, a Librarian, or an Apothecary, they're pretty awesome. I don't know that reducing the cost for them is a great idea, given how the baseline DW Champion special ability is great…no not the insta-gib part, that sucks =P And why would an AM buy them on the Champion table instead of his own in the first place? He gets them earlier and cheaper…well I guess your idea isn't a bad one. I do think that getting it earlier in Champion should carry an extra cost though

I think something is badly wrong if the specialty described as being trained by the "finest combat masters of the Deathwatch" is something that an assault marine should not or would not aspire to. But mechanically, the class is poor value for an assault marine while opening up options to the non-melee specialists. Which seems…bizarre. Frankly, I'm wondering if I shouldn't go further, considering that limiting the costs of advances to *twice* their normal cost does so little. Getting good talents early should cost if even possible, but there is such a thing as overpricing.

Aspiring to it doesn't mean that you should want every single Talent on its sheet. In my opinion at least. It's not an advanced specialty "made for" AMs in the same way that Epistolary is made for (and restricted to) Librarians or Forgemaster is made for (and restricted to) Techmarines. Hence why the redundancy doesn't bother me…because it's only redundant for AMs, for everyone else it opens up options that literally would not be available barring Elite Advances (which shouldn't be handed out like candy for combat Talents anyway). An AM dipping in solely for the Specialty Power is getting a pretty sweet deal. Not to mention Dodge advances and Signature Wargear.

I don't hand out many elite advances and I'm especially wary of elite combat talent advances. So what the specialties give is pretty much it in my games, bar a handful of campaign appropriate skills such as Common Lore (Koronus Expanse).

The specialty power is pretty campaign specific though. If the characters are usually battling tech-heretics or chaos forces, then the anti-xenos ability is redundant. Intimidate is only useful against enemies that can be terrorised. So whether the talents are reasonably priced or not is still an issue. I think some are very fair and some are overpriced, hence this thread.

I would never treat that Intimidate rule as usable only by Champions. I consider it a stealth-addition to skill competency, much like the expanded skill uses in Inquisitor's Handbook. And nowhere in the Champion write-up does it mention Distract being Champion-only either, aside from the final line of that expanded skill description, perhaps. Eh, I am very leery of giving skill specialties only to one class or another. That sort of thing fits special powers better than narrowing skill use, or limiting the expansion of applicability of a skill.

I am fine with the Champion power being very specific to xenos…being that xenos are the primary prey of the Deathwatch. Even if they fight Chaos sometimes. I wouldn't call it campaign-specific…if your Deathwatch campaign doesn't focus primarily on xenos, I'd say you're the odd man out as far as campaigns go. No offense intended, it's just that the whole conceit of the Deathwatch in-setting is xenos-killing, and the game hews pretty close to that even if it presents some alternate opponents.

Some may be overpriced for what they do. I don't consider the extra-attack stuff too much, because it is a huge force multiplier. Some things that are really good are more expensive relatively, but it's not so bad in the raw numbers, e.g. Assassin Strike (which is awesome). 3 Reactions at Rank 4 where you'd otherwise have to wait til Rank 6 for Step Aside? Appropriate cost increase.

Which Talents specifically do you think need cost reduction?

The intimidate use is debatable and one I considered. Nowhere in the text does it say the use is allowed for non-champions.

Fair enough point on the focus on xenos in campaigns.

On assault marine relevant talents:

Assassin strike is fantastic, but by the time an assault marine has gotten into rank four and then spent the 4000xp to get into champion, he may as well wait a few hundred xp more and pick it up for half the price. Also, it's an oddity for non-assault marines, who cannot normally acquire acrobatics unless they are from specific chapters.

Blademaster I have no issue with.

Combat master is a bit expensive. The number of times it is actually useful are limited if marines are fighting lots of hordes. Marginally more useful under my own house rules in those scenarios but I mix elites and hordes for most battles anyway.

Crippling strike is massively overpriced. It simply isn't good enough to warrant being among the most expensive talents in the speciality.

Fearless and the signature wargear talents are fairly priced.

Step Aside is very, very good. The price might be appropriate.

Decessor said:

The text barely supports that it is Champion-only. Only the clause about Hordes supports that, the rest of the paragraph uses the very neutral "Battle-Brother.

I don't think Combat Master even applies to Hordes. The Horde is treated as effectively one unit with a health score that works differently than normal solo units. Any bonuses it gets to hit are from its size alone, not ganging up and surrounding an enemy like 3 solo units might.

I agree with your assessments on cost though. So are Assassin Strike and Crippling Strike the only ones you really think are overpriced? Just trying to understand.

If the designers had intended for the skill use to be available to all, they should have made that clear. That said, your point on the language is a good one. After a quick check of a few specialty's abilities, the trend is to use that specialty's name in the description. So the intimidate skill use is an exception to that trend, which implies that it is for general use. It is annoying that it's part of a specialty's writeup instead of being placed elsewhere.

I have a houserule which allows for attempts to dodge/parry hordes at a penalty based on their magnitude, where combat master allows a reduction in that penalty. Not a massive difference, but it makes the talent not worthless against horde in my games.

Well, I've listed my thoughts. Some are obviously overpriced in my view and others are debatable.

Decessor said:

Completely agree.

Hm, I think there are 3 categories here:

(1) Completely overpriced regardless (e.g. Crippling Strike)

(2) Overpriced for the Assault Marine, very good/reasonable for everyone else (e.g. Lightning Attack, Wall of Steel, Step Aside)

(3) Correctly priced (e.g. Signature Wargear)

I think (1) is a bigger issue than (2).