Hello everyone,

I am as you may have guessed, new to GMing. After years of searching for that perfect group of friends who are not only excited to play Deathwatch and worked it into their schedules (bi-weekly Mondays), but are also highly knowledgeable of the Warhammer 40,000 universe.

In the introductory mission, after they are met by the "Master of the citadel" I created, the players are split up and have to find their way through a maze. Each maze will be different and I will be tracking their movements through maps I made on my laptop. It will literally be a "I turn left, I turn right, I go straight, blah blah blah". I will mention how many paces they move before each turn comes up so that if they wish, the players may draw out their path to help remember. Throughout the maze, they will be attacked randomly xeno life forms. Possibly Genestealers. Orks would be fun, but I honestly see Orks tearing the place up rather than wait to ambush someone.

Once each of the players are out of their mazes, they will be reunited into a large room with many dueling circles. There they will be pitted against each other in duels of honor to test their martial skills.

With that being the actual playing part of the mission, I guess I just need help figuring out how much exp and renown to hand out. I was thinking…

400 exp. Winners of duels gain 2 renown and the overall winner of the duels gains an additional 1 renown and 100exp.

Does that seem fair, or am I just doing it wrong and quit GMing?

Bayard91 said:

A few things come to mind - are these new characters as per RAW or are you giving them any additional XP or equipment etc? If these are basic recruits to the deathwatch then throwing them into mazes full of genestealers will kill them (especially solo! only an assault marine or librarian (depending on powers) even stands a chance here).

I'd suggest dropping them into the same maze but at different points. They have their helmet comms on verbal only - no other unit vitals, positioning data etc available. The challenge is for the players to meet up, survive the maze, and find a way out. This allows you to scale the enemies - as the players reunite and approach the exit you can bring out more than lurking gaunts/genestealers… maybe a lictor or particularly nasty warrior?

as for rewards, i'd say more like 500xp and 1 renown base, 1 extra for winning a duel, and a ceremonial blade for the overal winner (think up some stats that make it better than a combat knife but not as good as a proper relic blade.

Bayard91 said:

I can see this leading to some hard feelings amongst the players; I recommend keeping the compitition within the group limited to trying to outperform each other during the mission, rather than actively fighting each other.

And, like Kasatka said, genestealers are too deadly for one-on-one combat with Rank 1 characters; hormagaunts would probably be more appropriate (but I don't have the books handy- chech to make sure their maximum damage has a chance of overcoming a Space Marine's Armour+TB).

I don't believe a lone Hormagaunt can injure an armored Space Marine.

Captain Ventris said:

Load it up with 'biomorphs' (Crushing Blow,Unnatural Strength, etc.) until it can overcome AP + TB. Or weaken the genestealers.