What ARE the minion rules? Has anyone been able to have a look to find out? Is it just 1 hit point monsters or what?

Hellebore

At the risk of drawing the ire of our hosts...

You have 2 levels of minions. The basic level is functionally the same as the original True 20 Minion rules, they die if they get wounded, etc. The advanced minion is more complex and tougher, able to take more than one wound, but I don't remember the exact details. They are very good, simple, rules that would allow some great "desperate stands against hordes of enemies" moments.

My FLGS had Creatures Anathema in stock today. I had a chance to glance through it. Two big thumbs up BTW.

Xathess Wolfe said:

You had me at... erm, no, you didn't have me at all. Thanks for taking the time to explain that, though. It kind of reinforces my first impressions of the system that I have not developed through playing, but I shall leave it at that. Obviously system-related materials is not going to be something that I'm overtly able to talk about insofar as it addresses the characters... erm, but there we go.

Kage

And while minion rules are definatly important combat and for combat gods, the rules for social conflict with minions is equalably important, which is what I'm hoping will be expanded as well later. Because while its all great and good to determine relative powerlevels for Guardsman and Space Marines via mook/minion rules, it doesn't work so well for social characters like certain builds of Psykers, Clerics, Scum, Arbitrators and definatly Adepts.

While no one likes their combat being bogged down with minions that take 4 hours to kill, no one likes to bog down their stories either with having to spend hours of having some Inquisitor interrogating some 1 die mook either.

Xathess Wolfe said:

So, apply the same rules: one success wins. Your Inquisitor is interrogating a mook, make an Interrogate check. You succeed. he breaks and spills everything he knows. No fuss, no muss (well maybe a little muss). The only problem then is the annoying need to roll a 30 or less on a D% but fixing that little flaw requires slightly more modifications to the overall system.

LuciusT said:

Oh I agree its fixable and doable with a number of houserules, but I guess my point is that a gamesystem's powerlevel shouldn't strictly be based upon how many people you can kill in 1.2 seconds when the game system isn't all about combat.

While combat is important, its not the only thing in powerlevels that need to be concidered when designing a game.

Kage2020 said:

I never said the system was perfect, nor have I said it was for everyone, and since you've never slammed your issues with the system down everyone elses throat like certain other people, I have no worries.

One of the ways we houseruled fixed it was that attribute picks do not effect what tier you belong to. Its not a perfect fix, FAR from being perfect, but it helps in some ways fix the issues that the hardcap brings to it. The drawbacks are that attributes are the Emperor of Dark Heresy, so it can be easily abused, but a good GM can cover those bases to a degree.

Still, I'll admit that there are certain problems inherant within the system, but that's standard to any and all RPG systems on the market today. I have yet to find the perfect system, and I've been playing for YEARS.

Still its a very good system, as long as you have a good GM and some good Players who don't overly abuse the problems in the system and abuse the simple houserule fixes. But like most systems, it breaks down quickly when you get the powergaming munchkins who try and work the system for everything it has.

+++++The only problem then is the annoying need to roll a 30 or less on a D% but fixing that little flaw requires slightly more modifications to the overall system.+++++

That is the big flaw. Is there anything at this point that can be done to fix it? I think it needs to be done as soon as possible before, like 40k itself, it hardens in to an unmovable baggage that no one can change because it is so ingrained.

It is just gonna be so hard to be proper heric with a 50% chance of looking like a doofus.

--

I'm surprised to see mook rules get a free pass. Where is the 'where is the challenge in killing one hitpoint mooks?'

:0)

Man, if they had had mook rules from the getgo I'd have been so much happier.

Course, point blank autofire from a 15BS is still hitting on a 55 or less. So lock the doors and hope they don't have guns.

Have any of you ever been in a real firefight? Most Soldiers I know will hit a stationary target on a firing range with just about every shot (0ver 90%) of the time. From the prone position, not rushed, at a stationary fixed target with time to aim, sounds like a +60 modifier to me. But once a real fire fight starts their accuracy suffers as the enemy is moving, concealed, behind cover, firing back and not letting them fire unrushed or with aim.

Seems quite like Dark Heresy to me.

Most good mechanics are probably in the 35-45% range for their mechanic skill. Add in taking extra time, proper equipment/tools, assistants, technical manuals and using associated skills (Lore: Mechanical Vehicles) and its not unreasonable for them to gain upwards to a +40, +50 or even +60 modifier, allowing them to fix most mechanical problems with a near 100% accuracy. But to fix the same mechanical problem with chewing gum wrappers, chicken wire, a leatherman and in under two minutes they would be at around 25%, makes sense to me.

There is nothing inheritly wrong with the system. In the above examples the degree of success and failure determines the final outcome. Perhaps the GM likes the idea of the PCs hotwiring the broken down old space marine cycle the evil cult has kept in their secret bunker armoury so the PCs can make a get away, but wiff the Tech Priest fails by 1 degree, well the hit wiring works, but only for 1D10 rounds. Congratulations, you removed yourself from one firefight location to another location.

The wiff factor is not a flaw in the system, it actually represents a good deal of sci-fi and action films quite well. Not every shot hits, its just a matter of truth, but you can do things to stack the odds in your favor.

However, I do believe that Fate Points should do more then reroll a failed roll. Perhaps add a +10 or +20 bonus.

In my experience Call of Cthulhu leads to a keystone cops style farce as people constantly fail rolls and no one ever seems especially competent.

And the hated CoC has much higher skill values than DH...

--

I agree that the important thing is to start measuring levels of success and avoid a 'fail' making your character look like a total loser.

Maybe to at least ease the issue we can code in to the rules that under 1* the skill you score a Major Success. Under 2* the skill is a Minor Success while under 3* your skill is a fail.

So 30 becomes 30%/60%/90% and only a 10% chance of outright failing to do what you were trying for.

Dezmond said:

The Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game is meant to allow people to play out their fantasies of what it would be like to experience Lovecraft's stories 'first hand', not to powergame the Cthulhu mythos. In that end, a relatively increased rate of failed rolls (I note that you have exaggerated again) serves a fundamental purpose - Atmosphere . Similarly, in Lovecraft's stories, his protagonists never really succeeded against the alien horrors - otherwise it would have gone against what Lovecraft was trying to say thematically.

In a similar vein, I see Dark Heresy like that. The 40k universe is not a nice place - even Space Marines get butchered. I think it's fitting that characters aren't always succeeding in their rolls, for it adds tension and atmosphere.

What do you mean when you write, 'hated'? Call of Cthulhu is considered one of the greatest RPGs ever. It is still selling today after years of being in print.

I totally agree with Peacekeeper_b on this one. It seems to me that the unmodified roll indicates a sort of "barebones" situation under challenging conditions (the +/-0 test difficulty is called "Challenging" after all). As Peacekeeper said, time and tools as well as other things would provide bonuses, while adverse weather, particularly stressful circumstances, etc would give penalties.

This actually reminds me a lot of Unknown Armies, another % system where they did something similar. In UA there are three kinds of checks: Minor, Significant, and Major. Minor checks represent situations with lots of time and no risk - you pretty much auto succeed if you have the skill, though the GM can make you roll to see how well you succeed. These are things like reading a book or taking a picture. Significant skill checks are for situations that are challenging but present little actual risk - if you have the skill, you only fail if you roll really poorly, otherwise it's just a matter of barely succeeding or succeeding with style; if you don't have the skill you can only hope to achieve a weak success, but it's still possible. Finally there's the Major checks which cover stressful situations with lots of risk, eg combat. There's only success or failure, no in between.

Anyway, I figure that skill check paradigm introduced in UA can be applied to DH, but without changing the system, just changing how people roll. Good conditions should give bonuses as readily as bad conditions give penalties. Also, I figure anything under normal conditions that's not dramatically important should be an auto-success, as long as they have the skill. Somebody earlier mentioned being dissatisfied with PCs having a good chance to fail at tying their shoes or crossing the street. But I figure you shouldn't be rolling for mundane things like that unless someone's pointing a gun at you or you're being chased by slavering mutants while they're happening, and then suddenly such checks are dramatically appropriate. Heck, you could even use some of these ideas to deal with the "PCs miss the vital clue because they all rolled bad" problem. Instead of making it success or failure, make it auto-success but variable time. The better the PC rolls, the quicker he finds the clue. Best roll finds it first. If all the PCs roll bad enough, they still find it, but just as generic really-incovenient-encounter happens, complicating their lives immensely.

In fact, if there is a fault with the Dark Heresy rules, I would say that it's in the writer's not explaining better how this is suppose to work. My PC group flubbed way more checks than we passed, till we all figure out that the GM was supposed to be throwing out a lot more bonuses to rolls, and that the PCs were expected to take advantage of situational modifiers. Once that clicked, things went fine. It just seems to be a different way of handling a system than a lot of other mainstream games out there. But yeah, more guidelines on how to use the system, and better fleshed out social interaction rules would be really nice. Which, it sounds like we're going to get in Rogue Trader, actually (coming vaguely back to the forum topic ). Definitely something I'd be looking at using in Dark Heresy games, if RT does in fact have it, to facilitate better the crazy behind the scenes politics that can go on. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

One of the things I would like to see for DH/RT/DW or 40KRPG overall is a definative GMs guide that explains how to incorporate things like 40K atmosphere, rule interpretations, and other items found in various GM style books from many other games.

I still think the game for 40K should have started out with core rule books (like World of Darkness does now days, or what BRP is trying to do) and then Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader could have been campaign settings.

Maybe after Death Wing they will release a core rule book overall?

But still if Rogue Trader follows the same level of quality as Dark Heresy, then I will be there for every book!

Peacekeeper_b said:

I think this is already essential. I'm looking at my shelf where DH, IH, and DotDG currently lurk. already with only three books the rules bloat and total disorder of core rules across these theee books is a bloody nightmare.

I really think taking the approach contrary to 'core crunch book supported by theme books' is a mistake. Theres a very good reason why this has become the insdustry standard approach...it works.

Peacekeeper_b said:

I'm pretty much dropping DH in favour of RT.

It looks far closer to what i was expecting from a 40k RPG so there's the personal preference there, but i'd also expect that 'lessons have been learned' so that it won't have the flaws I lament from DH.

I can't wait!!

Honestly I dont want my PCs to be stuck in one 40K genre. I would like to see them kind of bounce around between the two settings.

But yeah, A 40K core rule book that incorporates all the mechanics would be great. As it is I have to flip thorugh the core book, IHB, DotDG and the Vehicles Apocrypha to run my complete games.

All these "rules" could go into one "rule book".

Gygax had it right when he released AD&D in the three core books. But hey, I still think it is a fine line of books.

+++++What do you mean when you write, 'hated'? Call of Cthulhu is considered one of the greatest RPGs ever. It is still selling today after years of being in print.+++++

Because as soon as the hated CoC is invoked people start going on about how great it is to play Stanley the one legged retard, and we get things like DH that need major reworking to have a functional combat system or allow play of 40k icons. Most of the problems with DH can be traced to trying to be to much like a mythical CoC experience than a 40k experience.

If we accept that people want to play Cool characters, and like to kill things, we will be far better off. Instead of patching in mook rules or wondering how to make more powerful characters without having a laundry list of traits, the system could have been built to cope from the start.

Dezmond said:

Interesting you should be critical of the low level side of the system, personally I had more trouble with the higher level where the combination of high evasion (Dodge/Parry) and armour meant that generating a reasonble threat was quite difficult.

For the most part I had little issue with the percental system, there is nothing wrong with a hero only having a 50% chance to do something difficult, if you are making the players check everything little thing yeah its gonna ruin the mood. If as a GM you feel a task is easier than the 50% the players have thats where the modifiers comes into it.

As I said I did have problem with the high evasion and armour. High Evasion made certain players almost impossible to kill expecially when doubled with the chance to hit by the hostile in the first place. When you do eventually hit, armour and toughness take the bite out of the damage and the daily spend of fate points make healing up at high levels trivial.

As a GM it makes me want to have hostiles who hit almost 100% and do high damage to overcome toughness and armour. Of course not everyone in the party is blessed with massive avoidance and soak and when they get targetted bad things happen. Similary the defensive evasion and soak of the hostiles needs to be enough to make it non trivial for the multi-attack reroll miss ignore armour high damage characters but unfortunately at the same time makes it basically impossible for the non-maxed players.

Well, DnD 4e removed armour that subtracts from damage for just this reason - it makes it difficult to hit the sweet spot where low level threats do a little damge but high level threats don't one-shot everything. (The Space Marine from PtU is a good example - most things can't hurt him, but anything that does has a good chance of killing him outright. So you get a binary state of Fine or Dead, which makes it difficult to know when to withdraw.)

So it might be better to move to a more traditional hit point system whereby toughness is indicated by lots of hit points, instead of increased damage resistance/evasion.

(It is also worth noting that the 50% thing is really critical outside combat - when you want to climb something or jump bettween rooftops and you know you have only a 50/50 chance of doing it really puts a damper on things. The GM CAN say that a miss isn't a disaster, but IME they often don't.)

--

Actually, for retooling for heavy combat, I was wondering if you could get a talent that means the avoiding death element of fate points becomes a Spend rather than a Burn. So you get it back when your points refresh. So when your character finally fails his dodge roll and is one-shotted by a lascannon, he effectively only drops out of this one fight (so long as he has a point left)

Simply put, the game is about becoming the Icon, not being it from day one. Once your character hits the high notes (upper ranks, Ascension-level, etc.), your character will be an icon, and will also have the depth and breadth of history that such icons are supposed to have, not an "ex-nihilo" of a one-page background and stats purchased all at once. I rather hope Rogue Trader is something like that. The climb to the top is an extremely entertaining ride - that's why superhero movies frequently focus on the origin story of the heroes.

Quite. And the PCs have as much chance of falling from grace and becoming super villains as well, in both 40K role-play settings thus far. You have the increasingly more powerful element often countered by the weakening sanity and / or radicalism in DH, and the temptation to engage in xenos tech heresy or worse in Rogue Trader.

The business of seeing your character develop from humble roots, with all the fallability that comes with it is one of the attractive elements of role-play to me. If it's all too easy from the start, then the threats have to be commensurate with that, to give players a sense of challenge or engagement. The 40K universe is vast in scope, and the PCs should very rightly be made to seem very small against that background, even if they become heroes. The whole idea of trying to stem the tide of enemies to the Imperium is like a metaphorical Canute trying to order back the tide, and it's this, conceptually (as well as the D10 system!) that keeps it similar in theme to CoC - a much loved system amongst those I know - with an impressive catalogue of finely reaearched scenarios I might add - that I think draws so many players in.

For many, 40K role-play was the best thing ever to have happened to gaming a few years ago - so eagerly awaited - you have to either love the setting or move back into RPs that suit your style of play more closely.

RedMike said:

I think that it should also be remembered that "40k RP" is something that has been largely co-opted by the Dark Heresy etc. 40k RPG franchise. "40k RPG" is not something that inherently means Dark Heresy , or Rogue Trader , or whatever. To many it means merely roleplaying in the 40k universe, and in that regard Dark Heresy et al . are merely the newest kids on the block, as it were. Just because they have a GW stamp on them does not preclude other explorations of the setting.

In that regard, at least, the suggestion that if you don't like the officially endorsed "40k RPG" you should "move back into RPs that suit your style of play more closely" is something that can be taken in the wrong fashion. Indeed, Dave Allen suggested something similar, in that if you didn't want to accept the interpretation of 40k that they were presenting then surely you're not playing 40k? This is, of course, problematic in a universe that is defined only by its imagery, with how one arrays the imagery and the background leading almost exclusively (probably entirely exclusively) towards idiosyncratic interpretation. That is, Kage-verse, or Phil-verse, or Hellbore-verse, or whatever.

So, I would change the above sentence. "You have to either love the setting as portrayed in Dark Heresy or realise why, and shape your own 40k RP experience into something that suits your style of play and your own interpretation of the 40k universe."

Kage

Dezmond said:

I'm going to try and contain my scorn for this entire line of thought, but its going to be hard, so forgive me in advance.

But I'm going to concentrate on this line, since your other rubbish is a worthless piece of insulting tripe.

Actually people don't want to play cool characters and like to kill things, YOU like to play cool characters and kill things. There are plenty of people who hate Rifts, Exalted and Scion simply because its too over the top gonzo. If everyone liked to play COOL kill things people, then AD&D would simply start at 20th level and work from there, and yet it doesn't. Call of Cthuhlu wouldn't be one of the top selling games of all times.

Just because you, in your little world, prefer the trench coat wearing, katana wielding Half-vampire, Half-werewolf, half-mage destroyer of worlds, not every player does.

Players like conflict, and conflict does not equal killing things and taking their stuff. Conflict also includes social conflict, which most mature gamers like.

And the funny thing is that you fail to realize is that in your mind you want to play a Space Marine to see how high you can get your kill count, while failing to realize that the creatures as a Space Marine you should be facing off against aren't going to give you that kill count. Yet, you'll play a Space Marine game where you take on teir 1 scum, and fail to ever meaningfully take on a platoon of your equals, a Chaos Marine, simply because that won't give you the kill count you desire.

Most gamers like a challenge when they game. If I want a kill count I'll go play Halo and Gears of War on easy mode and watch the numbers tally up. I prefer a challenge, and I don't simply want another Warhammer 40k game that acts like a tabletop game. This is an RPG, and in RPGs social conflict is as important, if not more so in certain games, then physical conflict

Once you understand that you're in a minority for wanting high kill counts, low chance of death you'll understand why you're constantly being derided.

Dezmond said:

This is all well and good if your a Space Marine facing a cilivian model lasrifle, but not so good if you're a Space Marine facing a Chaos Marine issue las cannon. Truth be told, if you're facing a civilian model lasrifle the your hitpoints are probably a better judge of your ability to shrug off damage, since technically your being hit by it, but just not being effected by it. You poor enough lasrifle fire into a spacemarine, his regen isn't going to save him.

Facing a Chaos Marine however, they use weapons designed to kill heavy targets, like your vaunted Space Marine, and when it hits its going to HURT.

And since you can already spend Fate Points (not burn them spend them) to regain hit points, and according to the rules you can do this non-stop, it still reflects the ability for your Space Marine to shrug off damage that would kill a normal human, and yet still forcing them to burn a fate point when they get burned down by a Chaos Marines lascannon.

But again, you are thinking in terms of high powerlevel vs low powerlevel, when you should be thinking in terms of equal powerlevel vs equal powerlevel, in which case your chances stay about the same. Sure your "skill" to his may be at +40, but when you're getting a -40 do to difficulty it washes out as much as someone with a skill at +0 but getting no penelty due to difficulty.

You want to play a stronger character that's your perogative, but then you should be facing stronger foes. Exalted Solars didn't die because they fought mortals, they died because they fought their equals and LOTS of mortals.

At the end of the day one person's "cool" is another person's "silly", and vice versa. I appreciate that FFG at least appears to be listening to the fan base, and putting out books like "Ascension", which allow for high-powered game play, without fundamentally altering the game and stepping on the toes of the folks that like the low-powered scene. Personally, I like the range. I love playing gritty, investigative, sci-fi film noir types, but I'm also looking forward to kicking some ass as a Space Marine when Deathwatch comes out! So pretty much whatever they publish, I'm happy.

Xathess Wolfe said:

I am so turning this description into an Arch-Heretic villian NPC

Xathess Wolfe said:

What a nasty post... Especially considering your argument basically boils down to "You don't know what people want, I know what people want".

Can you at least accept the idea that the system should be able to cope with multiple power levels of play?