There are some character types such as Adeptus sororitas and certain Squad Mode abilities 'Last Stand' for Crimson Fists that use fate points. In the case of the Sisters of Battle to fuel Acts of Faith while in the case of the Crimson Fists the Squad Mode ability gives fate points.

Does anyone have any comments on how they handle these rules with NPCs. To clarify, I know you could give the touched by fates trait but that allows the NPCs to burn fate points and survive death which I think would generally be too much.

Do you simply give the appropriate NPCs 2 or 3 fate points they can spend but not burn or do you reserve fate points altogether for only the most special NPC elites?

To be hoenst I am really thinking about Adetpus sororitas here. They are meant to be a Chamber Militant of the Ordo Hereticus. As things stand, stacking them against the Deathwatch and Grey Knights is a bit unbalanced but if they routinely had access to Acts of Faith it would definitely even things up.

Allowing anyone to burn fate points to avoid death should be a luxury, not a privilege, both for players and NPCs. If they mess around and skirt death then I dont see why they should be allowed to burn a point to negate a perfectly avoidable to a sane person death.

That said, I do allow some NPCs fate points and will allow them to reroll or burn to trigger abilities which require it so long as said ability isn't used as a cheating death rule in a slight amendment to the touched by fates rule. Only significant NPCs though, I allow to burn points to avoid demise and only if there is a viable way out of the situation.

Thanks for the reply.

I wasn't really worried too much about the burning fate points side of things (generally only the meanest/important NPCs can cheat death in the same way a PC can. I was more focused on allocating fate points to NPCs for the bonuses (i.e Acts of Faith re rolls to hits etc). In a similar way can NPC space marines trigger deamenours?

Apologies good sir for missing the plot.

I would say it's perfectly fair, in fact many of them need it. On table top, witch hunters and sisters need fate points to not get beaten too badly and keep them competitive. Otherwise they get utterly floored ,however sometimes they still do, thank you who ever wrote the WD Sisters redo and will one day burn in the pits of Khorne! You know who you were...so a few allocated to the Ordo Hereticus is never a bad thing, although I play a Sisters army so of course I would say that

For an NPC that needs Fate Points, assume they have as many as they would if they were a PC. If you don't want to roll, give them 2 or 3. As long as you're using them for their abilities and not re-rolls, it'll never be an issue.

Temporary Fate Points can't be burnt. Certainly not with CF Last Stand. And, yes, NPC Crimson Fists should have access to those Fate Points. Rynn's World Incident proves that.

Alex

Thanks for the replies guys. Pretty much confirms how I was going to run things.

I am quite interested in looking at creating some Sororitas squads that are vaugely a match for the Deathwatch. It has always bugged me somewhat that the Ordo Hereticus gets the Sisters as a Chamber Militant but they are no where near as respected in fluff or crunch terms as the other two Ordos.

I am not really a huge fan of Sisters of battle as such but if they are going to be the Chamber Militant of one of the Great Ordos they need to do the job!

Anyway this is going slightly off topic so I might write up some of my thoughts then post them later.

To be fair the history of the Ordo Hereticus and the sisterhood has been a bit of a rough one with the whole Age of Apostasy thing and Vandire. The Ordo Malleus has been mostly issue free and the Ordo Xenos, again not that much that went massively wrong. Hereticus got the raw deal.

However as the events of that conflict proved, the original Brides of the Emperor, despite being only around 10k in number still managed to hold off forces from Mars and four Space Marine Chapters. If you're going to mock these up then the critical thing is that their faith is what keeps them going. You're looking at a human (maybe guardsman) stat line using Bolters/Power armour equipment loadout and loads of wonderful cleansing fire.

Might I ask what is potentially throwing them into conflict with the Ordo Xenos? It's going to hurt me to read this isnt it?

Might I ask what is potentially throwing them into conflict with the Ordo Xenos? It's going to hurt me to read this isnt it?

Two potential issues, both would be one off missions/encounters rather than ongoing enemies.

I GM in a custom Sector called the Hadros sector.

1) A culmination of events going back about 5 years real time and about 7 years Game Time (seriously!) spanning DW Only War and Deathwatch has lead to high ranking factions within Ordo Hereticus and Ordo Xenos to be at each others throats. There is a chance that the Deathwatch acting as an honour guard for an Ordo Xenos Inquisitor could end up in a confrontation with a Lord Inquisitior for the Ordo Hereticus with Sisters of Battle acting as his bodyguard. If they do have a full and frank exchange of views I don't want it too be completly one sided

2) A more likely encoutner will be when the Deathwatch Team infilitrates a library planet that has been put under the highest levels of Hereticus quarintine (No Exceptions!). Deathwatch really aren't meant to be there, and they really aren't meant to be removing some of the deep vault cogitator unit datablocks. Sister of Battle are acting as guards. Hilarity ensues.