I recently discovered Dark Heresy and thought that it would be a great game to play, proplem is, I'm not sure how to start. Any suggestions would be great, how to get started, character creation, as well as how you feel about the game. I love role play, and mainly play AD & D, so I can handle complex rule sets, so don't worry about confusing me, I should understand anything that you bring up.

Well are you starting as a player or a gm?

I'll assume player for right now.

There are a few important things to keep in mind. One is to pay attention to your stats at character creation. The book goes into detail on what stat does what, but never, ever try to make toughness a dump stat.

Why? Dark heresy is different than dnd when it comes to hit points. You will see that "wounds" are quite low in dark heresy, while in dnd they grow larger and larger.

This is because toughness, combined with armor and hopefully (when present) cover, reduce damage taken before you actually get hurt. Example. Your toughness bonus is 3 (its 31, but the tens number is what the game looks at for this) and you take a hit from a las gun for 6 damage. You take 3, since 6 - 3 from toughness is 3. Add in some basic guard flak armor and thats 4 armor now, 6-4-3, well you take nothing!

Another thing is you level up as you go, you don't hit the next level in the game and magically get all the bonuses. Think if dark heresy as building yourself constantly, rather than needed XP to get better.

Knowledge of the 40k universe helps with the roleplay. Play what you know first, before getting into something else. Know alot about guardsmen? Play a ranged style guardsmen and focus on what you do best, shooting and being tough.

Beyond that, just ask questions. I'll try to answer them.

Yeah, characters are pretty squishy in Dark Heresy. If you're in combat and not in cover then you are probably going to die. Autoguns will be the bane of your existence.

As far as what you need to start, I'd suggest the Dark Heresy Core Rulebook and The Inquisitor's Handbook. Everything beyond that is completely optional (however useful), but those two books will give you hours of play. The Creatures Anathema would be the next one to get, for more adversary profiles, and then you can do what you want after that.

But what sort of game are you looking to play? As juraigamer said, are you GM'ing or playing? How many other people would be playing in this group? Give us some more detail and we can help more.

If you need more advice on surviving I've found out having a tower sheild can help a lot.

And unlike DnD where each class has it's own ground the DH classes overlap quite a lot so there is no problem with for example not having a cleric since both Guardsmen and Tech-Priests can get medicae.

Thanks for the help so far guys, I really apreciate it.

I'll be playing, not GMing, thw group will be around 4 people, possibley more, not including the GM.

So you die easily in this game, good. I never really liked the never dieing part of AD & D, it sort of ruined the story I often ceate to go with what is happening, so I'm glad that this game is more realistic.

How exactly does XP work? As far as I understand it so far, you earn XP, then spend it to gain new skills, so your constantly improving, instead of just gaining a bunch of new stuff suddenly like in AD & D, which sounds interesting. I also noticed a part of character creation is the rank, I understand what it is, but I'm not sure how you would progress to the next rank, since you don't keep XP, you spend it. Does anyone want to explain how that works?

Xp works like this. You play for a session, and at the end your GM gives you experience for what you did.

Say your gm gives you 300 xp. You can then go to your rank or lower on your xp boxes and purchase stuff. If your rank 1 (xp is in total 0-500) you can only buy rank 1 stuff and stat boosts.

Level, is based off rank. Xp totals dictate what rank you are. The more xp you get, and consequently spend, brings you closer to the next rank.

One thing to keep in mind is to know what the other players are doing. There is no good reason for you to make a character that focuses on tech use, if someone else is already doing this. Same for a fellowship character (diplomacy in dnd) or a melee character.

Try not to overlap "jobs" per say. As a gm I've found players will end up fighting over who will tech use or what not. It has actually forced people out of the group, course you may see different results.

I thought we might have a proplem with over laping jobs, particularly with guardsmen, cause everyone seems to like them. However since I discovered the game I think I'll get to choose what I'm going to do first, and everyone else will just have to adjust acordingly.

I found the core rulebook on scribd. I'm still going to buy my own, but I wanted to create a character just to see what is is like, any advice you guys want to offer would be appreciated, I'll post anything you want to know about him when he is done. Untill then keep talking, your input is very useful.

Give us a general idea what the other players are. After that, tell us what you want to do. I will gladly assist you in character creation.

Jobs isn't the "class". keep that in mind. Jobs is what does the character specialize in. There are skill jobs, such as tech use, medicae, ect, there is also the lore job, which is tricky and normally players all dabble in it, but there are exceptions.

Also if your GM told you what the general theme is, that would help as well.

Don't worry too much about role overlap. Make the character you want to set out to create. There are so many options you literally are limited by your imagination ( and whatever if any limitations the GM imposes of course. )

So me and my wife just finished playing through the Free Preview adventure for DH, and while I had a good time, there are a few things in the combat that I found to be pretty annoying, at least for low level characters.

Maybe it was just because we had 2 players, but I found we were missing WAY more often than hitting. Maybe I am doing something wrong? I guess I'm sure I was for my rifle, as "Accurate" and "Aim" should have been adding together to +20 and making my roll 59 or less, but still that is like 4/10 times I am missing; but most of the time I was just testing on a 49.

The most misses definitely came during close combat though, both of us were tied up by the mutated guardsmen, doing relatively no damage for several turns, just because we would all miss each other. If it is an opposed skill test, are you still testing against your skill? or just each other? Should someone always be getting hit in CC? My WS33+full on assault was still missing a horrendous amount of the time.

The battle with the 4 mutants at once was silly, they couldn't hit the broadside of a barn with their BS22+aim, and neither could we! not to mention a few jams (epic), can those be made easier to clear with modifiers?

I found initiative to be pretty clunky too, do you really have to do your agi+d10 for each round of combat? I guess once I got into the groove with it it wasn't too bad, doodling a quick map helped matters.

The last battle was quick, thankfully, grenade to the crystal ftw. I want to keep playing, but other than knowing my rules for fighting, is there anything else I should know about combat that makes it faster? Or was it just a combination of being noobs with terrible accuracy (I gave us some pretty decent guns, chainsword/bolt pistol on the Arbitrator and my assassin a silenced hunting rifle, laspistol, and mono-sword)?

Maybe it was just because we had 2 players, but I found we were missing WAY more often than hitting. Maybe I am doing something wrong? I guess I'm sure I was for my rifle, as "Accurate" and "Aim" should have been adding together to +20 and making my roll 59 or less, but still that is like 4/10 times I am missing; but most of the time I was just testing on a 49.

You will see later with characters that upgrade their ballistic skill that shooting with destroy stuff easily. Then again so will melee. Do you have the errata? From fantasy flight games' site? If you aim with a weapon with the accurate quality you do get +20 and you get an extra d10 of damage for each 2 degrees of success, up to 2d10. The players can get around their lack of ability to shoot with good placement.

The most misses definitely came during close combat though, both of us were tied up by the mutated guardsmen, doing relatively no damage for several turns, just because we would all miss each other. If it is an opposed skill test, are you still testing against your skill? or just each other? Should someone always be getting hit in CC? My WS33+full on assault was still missing a horrendous amount of the time.

When you roll to hit in melee, you just roll WS. An opposed WS test is each target rolls WS, and whoever did better wins. You don't always hit in CC, especially if your opponent can parry very well. Defensive weapon at that low level means you should parry 50% of the time. Later you will be able to swing multiple times per round, so don't worry. Oh and get free re-rolls.

The battle with the 4 mutants at once was silly, they couldn't hit the broadside of a barn with their BS22+aim, and neither could we! not to mention a few jams (epic), can those be made easier to clear with modifiers?

The only way to clear weapon jams is a talent you can get for some classes. Otherwise, you reload. It's related to 40k fluff, with people not understanding technology.

I found initiative to be pretty clunky too, do you really have to do your agi+d10 for each round of combat? I guess once I got into the groove with it it wasn't too bad, doodling a quick map helped matters.

Either I've always had it wrong or you do, but I always just get one initiative test per combat from everyone

The last battle was quick, thankfully, grenade to the crystal ftw. I want to keep playing, but other than knowing my rules for fighting, is there anything else I should know about combat that makes it faster? Or was it just a combination of being noobs with terrible accuracy (I gave us some pretty decent guns, chainsword/bolt pistol on the Arbitrator and my assassin a silenced hunting rifle, laspistol, and mono-sword)?

To speed up battle against lots of foes, the party using area of effect weapons such as flamers, grenades or even multi shot weapons (autoguns) is the simplest way. Yes, being new slows it down, but combats go quite smoothly later on when they know more. Make sure your players are putting their stats in the right places too. When I first started I was never told how useful something like toughness was... and after learning I was sad.

I looked at the errata before I actually played the game, I'll need to go back and look at it on FF's site, and look over the rules again before we do our next adventure.

I think I'll definitely be spending a few points on my stats like WS and BS.

Yes I was doing initiative wrong, you only do it at the start. Geez I feel like a nub.

Edit: So after looking at the FAQ quickly, a melee attack is only a half-action? So you can make 2 melee attacks in one round of combat? I guess I should have known that since you can feint, then make a melee attack as well. First time playing for the lose, I felt like I was just starting 40k again.

Question: So I took Furious Assault as an advance, which gives me an additional attack after I make a hit. So does that mean I can make my first attack, get a bonus hit, make a 2nd attack, and get a 2nd bonus hit? So 4 attacks? Seems OP with a chainsword

juraigamer wrote:Also if your GM told you what the general theme is, that would help as well.

This is definitely good advice in general for all RPGs. The GM needs to set some basic expectations with the group as to if the campaign will be focused on investigation, combat, roleplaying, etc.

I've found that even in campaigns where characters have a lot of secret background stuff, I prefer getting the players to discuss character abilities and roles together. There's no problem with saying, "I'm playing a brick that can take a lot of abuse" even if you want to keep "I'm also the last heir to the evil empire" secret. Makes for a group of characters that is functional and prevents characters stepping all over each other's abilities.

So I drew my characters real quick, and my colors didn't really come out how I wanted them too, bleh. I think I'll spend more time on a picture once we get a bit better equipped maybe a background and stuff.


http://galefire.com/2011/07/quick-dark-heresy-acolytes/

I dont have a book in front of me to quote but im pretty sure you can only take 1 attack action, even though it is a half action. I could be wrong but that seems to be how I'm remembering it

Wow. Go away for a day and I miss a bunch of replies. I'll try to cover everything off in one post.

Lyzin Locrian wrote:I thought we might have a proplem with over laping jobs, particularly with guardsmen, cause everyone seems to like them. However since I discovered the game I think I'll get to choose what I'm going to do first, and everyone else will just have to adjust acordingly.

It's possible to have people running the same career (Guardsman, Assassin, Cleric, etc.) yet still have completely different characters. Although FFG have never been a fan of the branching career paths (which is why it doesn't show up in Rogue Trader and Deathwatch, and why 'careers' don't even exist in Black Crusade, just Archetypes), the way it works in DH is quite good.

Take a look at your rulebook and look at the Guardsman for example. There are three branches you can go down, and the player heading down the Sniper route will play differently than the player heading down the Officer route. Same goes for other career types, such as the Cleric. The Cleric can end up being a paragon of Ministorum virtue, bringing the Light of the God-Emperor to the masses... or a nut-case Redemptionist running forward with a chain-blade and flamer, screaming curses at those that would dare oppose Him on Earth.

You've got a lot of room to play with (and even more once you factor in the alternate ranks, home worlds and starting packages from The Inquisitor's Handbook, Radical's Handbook, Blood of Martyrs, Daemon Hunter and, presumably, assuming it follows the same style, the Book of Judgement), so don't think that just because two people want to be the Psyker that they're both going to play the same.

Also, what I'm saying here doesn't mean that the other three RPG's don't have a lot of choice in them either. My main Deathwatch Character, Dark Angels Librarian Gideon Keyes, has gone heavily down the telepathic route, so he has Short- and Long-Ranged Telepathy, Astrotelepathy, and so on. His only real offensive powers are Smite and the one that acts like a Heavy Flamer... the name escapes me. He's not a very 'fighty' Librarian, he's more of a telepathic communications expert. Compare that to my friend's Space Wolf Librarian, who was all-out in-your-face attack (as a Space Wolf should be), who just had offensive powers and none of them telepathy/divination ones, or my other friend's Ultramarine Librarian, who was all about supporting the troops and giving bonuses (and even healing!).

The end result of all this is something I say to everyone - you get out of an RPG what you put into an RPG. If you think that these various careers will cage you in to a specific type, then that's exactly what they will do, but they don't have to do that at all. One Scum is not the same as the next one.

And as far as overlapping with specific skills (people have used Tech-Use and Medicae as two good examples), having back up party members is always a good idea. Take my Dark Heresy group as an example. We have:

1. Arbite.
2. Imperial Psyker.
3. Cleric.
4. Tech-Priest.
5. Guardsman.

Obviously the Tech-Priest is our 'Tech-Use' guy, but the Guardsman has decent knowledge in Tech-Use as well. One thing the RPG rules allow for is for players to help other players. It gives them an always-useful +10 to any Test they have to make, and all they need is to be trained in that Skill. So while the Tech-Priest is the one with the best stats for Tech-Use, the Guardsman can help out for an extra +10.

Same goes for healing, where the Tech-Priest and the Guardsman both have Medicae. Neither are all that great at it, but assisting one another they can do some good, and as they act as a back-up for our Psyker who heals everyone via the Warp, it's a good combo.

It's bad to have everyone take the same skills, otherwise no one feels like they have a role, but at the same time it's terrible if everyone has one thing they do particularly well with no back-up because if that character dies (and, as we've said, humans in DH are squishy!), then the group can be suddenly left without a vital skill.

daedalus-templarius wrote:Maybe it was just because we had 2 players, but I found we were missing WAY more often than hitting. Maybe I am doing something wrong? I guess I'm sure I was for my rifle, as "Accurate" and "Aim" should have been adding together to +20 and making my roll 59 or less, but still that is like 4/10 times I am missing; but most of the time I was just testing on a 49.

Welcome to Dark Heresy, where your character is remarkable only because he is slightly better than the rest of the dregs of humanity. You suck at combat because all starting level (1-3) DH characters suck at combat. Yes, most of the things you do will be below a 50% chance of succeeding.

But this is where modifiers come into it.

The +60/-60 capped modifier system is what the players need to make this work, and generally speaking it's why the game needs a GM. The GM assigns the modifiers based on the context of the situation - so if you're attempting to hack into a cogitator's database and there's no one around to stop you, the GM might say "This will be an Easy (+30) Security Test", but if you're doing the same thing whilst hiding under a desk trying not to get shot as your buddy keeps up suppressing fire on the enemy, then the GM might say "This will be a Hard (-20) Security Test."

Modifiers are one of the most important mechanics in the game, and Dark Heresy especially need to use them (they're not as important in Deathwatch!). Our Sniper lives and dies on his modifiers - BS52, +10 for Aiming, +10 for Accurate, +10 for Red-Dot Sight, +10 for Short Range (always remember what range you're at!). Makes him a very dangerous person.

daedalus-templarius wrote:The most misses definitely came during close combat though, both of us were tied up by the mutated guardsmen, doing relatively no damage for several turns, just because we would all miss each other. If it is an opposed skill test, are you still testing against your skill? or just each other? Should someone always be getting hit in CC? My WS33+full on assault was still missing a horrendous amount of the time.

HTH isn't opposed. It's just a percentage roll vs your WS + any bonuses you may have. So WS33 doing an All-Out Attack would hit on a 53 or lower. They would get a chance to Dodge if you hit, but that's all - once you hit you hit, roll damage, reduce for Armour/Toughness, apply damage.

And yes, starting level characters are bad at shooting and terrible at HTH. Low Strength + bad WS = not very good at HTH. Get yourself a Chainsword pronto. You're going to need that Tearing Quality.

daedalus-templarius wrote:The battle with the 4 mutants at once was silly, they couldn't hit the broadside of a barn with their BS22+aim, and neither could we! not to mention a few jams (epic), can those be made easier to clear with modifiers?

Given this was Shattered Hope that you were running, you'd be in the Gorgonid mines, and I doubt you'd be at very long ranged. Were you factoring in the +10 for short range? How were you representing the map?

As far as Jams go... not really. That's up to the GM. He could make it situational (I've had people clear jams automatically once combat is over because there was no time pressure to do it). That's the other thing to remember about tests - a lot of the time you can skip tests if there's nothing other than time stopping the players from completing it.

For example, if they come up against a locked door and there's no reason they can't spend the next hour trying to get it open, then just have them open it rather than rolling lots of tests. It speeds things up dramatically.

daedalus-templarius wrote:I found initiative to be pretty clunky too, do you really have to do your agi+d10 for each round of combat? I guess once I got into the groove with it it wasn't too bad, doodling a quick map helped matters.

As you've seen by now, no, it's just one Ag Bonus + D10 at the start of combat. Doing it every round would be crazy.

daedalus-templarius wrote:The last battle was quick, thankfully, grenade to the crystal ftw.

That's why you get the Grenades.

The alternative is to fight a Plaguebearer and die horribly.

daedalus-templarius wrote:Or was it just a combination of being noobs with terrible accuracy (I gave us some pretty decent guns, chainsword/bolt pistol on the Arbitrator and my assassin a silenced hunting rifle, laspistol, and mono-sword)?

So you have a Chainsword. Hmm... well they're pretty damned good starting weapons. I'd suggest a Red-Dot Sight for that Bolt Pistol as soon as you are able to get one. You do not want to miss with a Bolt Weapon - the ammunition is far too expensive to waste shots! I'd also get a back-up gun as well for that exact same reasons; some targets aren't 'good enough' to waste Bolt rounds on. An Autopistol would be good. Full-auto spraying out 6 shots is your friend. Auto-rounds are cheap as well.

And as has been mentioned already, the FAQ/errata is extremely necessary. The fact that it gives Bolt weapons the Tearing Quality is a bit enough change as it is, but the rest is just as important.

daedalus-templarius wrote:I think I'll definitely be spending a few points on my stats like WS and BS.

Get your Toughness to 40 or above as quick as you can. It will save your life. And you want your BS to be at a point where you can have around a 50% To Hit with most shots, including Aiming/Short Range/Red-Dot/etc. Anything over that is gravy.

daedalus-templarius wrote:Yes I was doing initiative wrong, you only do it at the start. Geez I feel like a nub.

Don't feel bad. We got flamers wrong for a full year (!) before we realised we weren't reading the rules right. Ditto for what happens with Corruption Points and Perils of the Warp.

daedalus-templarius wrote:Edit: So after looking at the FAQ quickly, a melee attack is only a half-action? So you can make 2 melee attacks in one round of combat? I guess I should have known that since you can feint, then make a melee attack as well. First time playing for the lose, I felt like I was just starting 40k again.

You can't do the same action twice in the same round, unless that action can be an extended action (like Aim, which can be a 1/2 action for +10 or a Full Action for +20, although the next action the player takes to gain the benefit of either type of aim must be a standard shooting attack). So you can't attack twice in the same round sadly. In fact you can't 'anything' twice in the same round.

For the most part this balances the game and it works fine. Where it falls apart is with Psykers, who have a few abilities that have to be used in Reaction to other player's/NPC's/adversaries' actions, and they can't use them if they've already used a power during their turn, defeating the purpose of these reactionary powers.

We house rule it. Psykers can make use two powers per round, although only one of those powers may be an 'attack' action (eg. our psyker can case Distort Vision and Bio-Lightning in the same round, but he cannot cast Bio-Lightning twice in the same round).

daedalus-templarius wrote:Question: So I took Furious Assault as an advance, which gives me an additional attack after I make a hit. So does that mean I can make my first attack, get a bonus hit, make a 2nd attack, and get a 2nd bonus hit? So 4 attacks? Seems OP with a chainsword

No, because of what I said above. You get one attack per turn.

In this example you need to make an All-Out Attack to get the benefit of Furious Assault. So you take your WS+20+any other modifiers that might be applicable (eg. your target is Size (Hulking), which grants +10, or your weapon is Best-Quality, which adds +10, -10 if you are Fatigued, and so on), and then you make your attack. If you hit you work out damage (assuming they don't Dodge or Parry the attack), and then you make your second attack with all the same bonuses (or penalties) that the original attack had, including the +20 bonus for making an All-Out Attack.

Any other questions, just let us know.

Bolt weapons WITH tearing?! That's just ridiculous.
She is the one with a bolt-pistol, and I'll be getting a red dot for it now asap, especially awesome since it stacks with "Aim".

So could I put that on my hunting rifle as well? Then I'd get +10 from the red dot, +20 from aiming (right? from the FAQ they changed it from 10->20?), and +10 from having an "accurate" weapon?

Yes, she has a chainsword, and I picked one up after Shattered Hope on my character... I may have given us a bit of extra cash and skill points to start with since it was just the two of us playing, when its usually meant for more.

I am the "GM" I guess, my character is pretty much just there for backup and she calls the shots. Maybe if I can get some of my other friends interested I can be a player sometime instead of GM, however since I am the rules guru in 40k, I have a feeling I won't ever NOT be in the lead.

Next adventure will be through edge of darkness, I've looked through it and it looks like it will be pretty exciting!
I definitely need to get the wet-erase map before we play through, doodling a map and circles for characters and enemies in my sketchbook sucks.

daedalus-templarius wrote:Bolt weapons WITH tearing?! That's just ridiculous.

It's what makes Bolt Weapons what they are. Tearing means your average damage goes up, and as you're rolling 2D10 picking the highest every time for damage you have another opportunity to roll Righteous Fury. The downside is that Bolt shells cost more than the average Acolyte can manage, which is why you need to pick your shots carefully and have a backup gun for 'lesser' targets.

She is the one with a bolt-pistol, and I'll be getting a red dot for it now asap, especially awesome since it stacks with "Aim".

daedalus-templarius wrote:So could I put that on my hunting rifle as well? Then I'd get +10 from the red dot, +20 from aiming (right? from the FAQ they changed it from 10->20?), and +10 from having an "accurate" weapon?

Aiming as a 1/2 Action is +10. Aiming as a Full Action is +20. The Accurate Weapon Quality adds a further +10 on top of that if you are aiming. So a weapon with the Accurate Quality that is combined with a 1/2 Action Aim will get +20. The other massive thing to remember with Accurate weapons are the Degrees of Success. For every 2 DOS you get, you get an extra D10 damage. So if your gun does, for example, 1D10+3 damage, and you are BS60 (after Aim/Accurate/Range/etc.), and you roll a 20, that's 4 DOS, meaning you'll be rolling 3D10+3 damage. Rapid fire weapons (and flamers) are for crowd control. Sniper weapons are for killing boss monsters.

daedalus-templarius wrote:Yes, she has a chainsword, and I picked one up after Shattered Hope on my character... I may have given us a bit of extra cash and skill points to start with since it was just the two of us playing, when its usually meant for more.

Look that's fine. If there's only two of you at the moment then upping the equipment to have more fun is no issue. I did it for my group - giving them some better weapons more befitting their characters - and there's five of them!

daedalus-templarius wrote:I am the "GM" I guess, my character is pretty much just there for backup and she calls the shots. Maybe if I can get some of my other friends interested I can be a player sometime instead of GM, however since I am the rules guru in 40k, I have a feeling I won't ever NOT be in the lead.

First game I ran was just myself and another friend. I played the GM and he controlled two characters. What was interesting is that he quickly identified with one character, and always said "I will do this", but the other character was always the "other" - "She will do this". I found that interesting.

daedalus-templarius wrote:Next adventure will be through edge of darkness, I've looked through it and it looks like it will be pretty exciting!
I definitely need to get the wet-erase map before we play through, doodling a map and circles for characters and enemies in my sketchbook sucks.

Just be wary that, at minimum, Dark Heresy sort of assumes GM + 3 players. Some encounters might be a bit big for a smaller group, especially when there's only two people playing.

HMBC, perhaps I will add another character to follow around my wife that I can control or something.

Also, I have a friend that might want to play, only problem is... he wants to play an Eldar. He plays Eldar in TT, and he is silly.

I found Eldar stats in the Anathame book, but they are pretty high. Would it be prudent for me to make him a ranger mercenary of some sort? and adjust his starting stats accordingly (lower toughness, higher agility, etc)?

I wouldn't make an Eldar character. If he wants to play a Xenos character he can play an Ork or a Kroot (from the Rogue Trader expansion Into the Storm), but this is a human-based game.

There are probably homebrew Eldar career rules out there, but as you're all new to this, I'd stick with what's there before you go throwing in a million house rules and custom rule sets.

Yea, maybe after he checks out the classes he will find something that he can play.

Also, I was looking at the Autogun like you suggested and I saw that it can fire a burst of 10 rounds. What in the heck would you need to roll for each of those to actually hit?

Pretty high. You'd need 9 DOS (you get one for hitting, and then one for each extra DOS). So hitting with all 10 is next to impossible, but if you're BS40, at short range, and firing Full-Auto you need a 70 or under to hit, you should get 3-5 hits, which is enough to kill most human-sized targets unless they have really good armour. This is why the Autopistol is such a nasty weapon. Get to Point Blank Range and go Full-Auto with that thing. That's +50BS. It's quite easy to get all 6 hits if you do it that way, and you will shred whoever you're firing at.

Is there a quick reference sheet for DH I can download with stuff like the modifier lists, critical hit stuff, etc without buying the goofy folding screen? I mean, I could make a spreadsheet myself, but I have to imagine someone has a pdf somewhere with that relevant data on it already.

I've not seen one. You can always buy the GM screen as a PDF, but there are mistakes on the screen. I've found the screen useful, but then again I'm sitting behind it with 5 players in front of me. If you're GM'ing and playing it probably wouldn't work all that well.

It's better to make your own, or print from a PDF of the rulebook/GM screen.

Yea I don't like sitting behind a screen either... I think it looks silly, and I can't really see who I am playing with.

I used some sticky note markers in my big book so I can find stuff quickly that will hopefully help.

I am still trying to get ahold of playing through a mission where the players can go wherever they want, I think I need to try and present what they are doing more narrativly or something; this GMing is a new experience for me.

So me and my wife finished Edge of Darkness, I KILLED THAT at the end, chainsword in the back, she got eviscerated! Trying to run from me with 3 levels of fatigue, I DON'T THINK SO!

So it appears that my wife actually likes this, I am astonished actually, I am super happy I have now gotten her started in 40k, and I do actually really enjoy Dark Heresy.

Can't wait to start the mission in the core rulebook! Also, I have 2 friends coming by tomorrow to make characters and start Edge of Darkness as well, should be fun! I think my friend who wants to play an Eldar will probably go with more of a sniper build, so I may slant my assassin more towards CC. Time for double-weapon wielding and 2 chainswords

Edit: Can someone clarify a couple things for me?
So I have read the FAQ, and it appears that to get the benefit of Swift Attack/Lightning attack, you use a full turn, but how does Furious Assault work into that? Is Furious Assault useless once you take Swift Attack? because why would you spend your full turn using an All-Out attack instead of just using your Swift Attack (I mean, other than the +20 from using all out attack)? Also, wtf always -10 even if you're ambidextrous and two-weapon wielder? Bleh. If you make a All-Out attack, do you get an offhand attack as well I assume? Might be useful sometimes just for that +20.

Yeah, there are penalties that stack like crazy when it comes to wielding two weapons.

The attack action for this is 'multiple attacks', and it allows you make - wait for it - multiple attacks during a single round. It's a full action to do so, whether it's an unskilled idiot swinging with two knives, or some crazy ambidextrous Assassin using Lightning Attack and an extra weapon.

What this means is that you cannot use your action for any other type of attack. Furious Assault uses the All-Out Attack method, and that's a Full Action by itself, so cannot be combined with multiple attacks. Sometimes the +20 is worth it, especially if you haven't got great WS and you need to finish something off. Multiple attacks are better against something that hasn't Dodged/Parried yet that round, or something that has multiple Dodges/Parries.

The good news is that if you are ambidextrous with TWW(M) and Lightning Attack you can make 3 attacks with one weapon and a fourth with the other. Until his Chainsword exploded our Priest made good use of that ability.

And yes, it's always -10. There's no melee equivalent of Gunslinger in Dark Heresy.

Well, I'll give it a go and see how it turns out. 4 attacks with lightning attack (next rank) will probably be pretty silly.

Now I need to get myself a hardened body glove to go with my camo cloak and I'll be super sneaky, but the carapace armor might be better since I like to just run in and crush stuff. I think I'd rather be a strong, hulking fighter than a lightning quick assassin, guess we'll see. Crusader or Assassin... hmmm. I don't think an Assassin would wear power-armor and crash into battle.

So I'm looking through the inquisitor's handbook, and there is a forearm weapon mounting. How does that interact with using 2 weapons? I'd still probably need dual weapon wielder(melee & ballistic) to fire it effectively, but then I could keep my weapons in my hands at the same time, yea?

Isn't there a halberd/extending halberd thing that is a power weapon I can buy? obviously I can't get a nemesis force halberd! Also, is there nowhere an acolye(or even a throne agent) can procure a stormshield? Crusaders have them in the GK codex dangit.

Edit: so I just discovered weight... is it just me or is the amount of stuff you can carry at low str absolutely brutal. With a chainsword weighing in at 6kg, and my max weight carry at 9kg.... wtf.

Edit 2: So in the Ascended book, it says that Crusaders sometimes use giant halberds two handed to break weapons upon their awesomeness, however I can't find a listing for any halberd-ish melee weapon in the book?

juraigamer wrote:Xp works like this. You play for a session, and at the end your GM gives you experience for what you did.

Say your gm gives you 300 xp. You can then go to your rank or lower on your xp boxes and purchase stuff. If your rank 1 (xp is in total 0-500) you can only buy rank 1 stuff and stat boosts.

Level, is based off rank. Xp totals dictate what rank you are. The more xp you get, and consequently spend, brings you closer to the next rank.

One thing to keep in mind is to know what the other players are doing. There is no good reason for you to make a character that focuses on tech use, if someone else is already doing this. Same for a fellowship character (diplomacy in dnd) or a melee character.

Try not to overlap "jobs" per say. As a gm I've found players will end up fighting over who will tech use or what not. It has actually forced people out of the group, course you may see different results.

Speaking of exp, how much do you DMs give your players?

Say for a 4-8 hour session. The rulebook suggests 200 exp per 4 hour session, but I'm not sure about this. Is it normal to take a year of playing an 8 hour session a week to reach ascension levels without factoring in shorter or less productive sessions?

Wow, I didn't expect this to happen.

I'm gone for a few days and someone else has started asking questions, I wonder how long we can keep this up.

While I was away I had a good look through the core rulebook as well as the inquisitors handbook, and I love them both! I don't really have anymore questions, but if anyone is interested I could show you the character I created, I rather like him, and I'd like to see what you lot think of him as well.

ph34r wrote:
Speaking of exp, how much do you DMs give your players?

I give experience based on preformance and bonuses from good roleplay (each person must contribute once before someone can give the rp xp bonus again. Keeps one good roleplayer from giving everyone bonuses over, and over again) I also give xp based on other variables, and I lessen it depending on what happened.

For example, if the party just bum-rushes the target instead of making sure they did their mission, to clean up all the loose ends, I make the xp reward less.

If they do very well, such as my last game where they completely made a mockery of a death world by gliding trough it, with no trouble at all really, then bonuses.

I do adhear to the 200 xp per every 4 hours, but that's just a general guideline. If the simply does nothing for the game session, the xp will represent that.

I could show you the character I created, I rather like him, and I'd like to see what you lot think of him as well.

Go ahead.

We tend to play in 12+ hour sessions at a time, so usually 1000-1500 at the end of each day.

H.B.M.C. wrote:We tend to play in 12+ hour sessions at a time, so usually 1000-1500 at the end of each day.

So would you say you tend to give 1.5x-2x as much experience as suggested? That amount of experience you describe should supposedly take 20-30 hours to earn. Would you suggest giving this somewhat higher amount of experience, and have you tried it the lower experience way too?

ph34r wrote:

H.B.M.C. wrote:We tend to play in 12+ hour sessions at a time, so usually 1000-1500 at the end of each day.

So would you say you tend to give 1.5x-2x as much experience as suggested? That amount of experience you describe should supposedly take 20-30 hours to earn. Would you suggest giving this somewhat higher amount of experience, and have you tried it the lower experience way too?

What the book says is a guideline. A really good dark heresy group can make a mockery of missions that lesser players would take twice the time or longer to deal with. It also depends on the campaign as to how fast you want to give XP out.

Yeah, "Time Spent Playing = XP Gained" really isn't the best method.

H.B.M.C. wrote:Yeah, "Time Spent Playing = XP Gained" really isn't the best method.

Ah, I see. I read your "Opening Moves" campaign report, very interesting scenario. How long did that take you, and how much experience did you reward for it?

That took most of a day (it was the second game two of us had played, and the first for the other two players). There actually wasn't any XP given out for that game because it designed as an 'intro' to get us used to the rules, and if their characters died they'd just start a new one for the campaign proper.

Ahh, I see. Are any of your reports of games that were part of the normal continuum, where exp was awarded?

I myself just started GMing a Dark Heresy campaign and my six acolytes (techpriest, confessor, adept, guardsman, denounced and condemned SoB, and detective/cult stalker arbitrator) are approaching rank 4, having started at rank 1. They've had a campaign arc on a hive world that involved investigating and combat with gangs, an arc on a Forge World where they had to deal with the various factions of AdMech, fight their way out of a warhouse full of scrapcode-zombie servitors, and do battle with some hereteks in an exploratory mine. They are just leaving the Forge World, though there may be more in store for them there later, and I want to make sure their characters are strong enough for "real" acolyte jobs now that they are transitioning out of the "worthless goon recruit" stage of acolytehood.

I have read up on as many Dark Heresy stories as I can, but most people don't talk about how long the story takes in real time or how much experience they gave out for it. I don't want my Acos in over their head, but I also don't want them to be stuck mucking about with "hereticus minoris" and "malleus minoris" adversaries forever.

You mean to tell us that you weren't throwing Genestealers at them from the word go? What kinda pansy-ass GM are you?

I might be a bit hesitant to massacre the Acos.
Last campaign ended in act 1 while exploring the sewers for cultists.

Cult magi attempts to cast Fire Bolt, 1 power dice
Rolls 9
Psychic Phenomena
Rolls 88
Perils of the Warp
Rolls 96
Willpower Test -30
Failure
Roll stats for Daemonhost
Roll for binding
Rolls 06
UNBOUND DAEMONHOST
Everyone in room going inasne from Fear (4), Daemonic Presence, WP test at -40.
Fire Discipline
Casts Holocaust
1d10+9 damage to everyone in room
Entire party takes 17 damage, no armor, no toughness, no fate points, FINAL DESTINATION




Fission Mailed.

Wow... that's insane. That's really bad luck.

As to your question, yeah, we've had roughly 10 sessions (excluding the three 'prologue' games), all in the 12-14 hour range, and everyone in the group is now Rank 7 (all started at 3).

Everyone will be rank 8 fairly soon, and I'd say we have as many sessions ahead of us as behind us, so eventually they'll have everything on the trees.

Ha ha don't worry about the randomness of those rolls.

Played a rank 4 dark heresy game with 6 players were a simple inspiring presence caused an unbound demon host to appear on a pleasure world during a capture mission. Killed the demon host somehow. I remember seeing it rammed with a truck...

Played a deathwatch game with 4 rank 1 space marines, enemy sorcerer caused a demon prince to appear. We killed it, thanks to our flamer carrying man basically detonating his fuel supplies underneath it.

Oh and holocaust is nothing. A maxed out firestorm does something stupid like 5d10 + wp bonus in a two foot diameter. You can't dodge it most of the time, kills players dead.

So how would an Eviscerator work with a wrist-mounted bolt pistol? Any additional attacks in close combat with the pistol?

I think only if you have Two-Weapon Wielder (Melee) and Two-Weapon Wielder (Ranged). All I’m certain of is that you cannot use any Melee talents with ranged weapons, so you can’t get into HTH and use Lightning Attack with your Bolt Pistol.

Just be careful with the Eviscerator though, there’s always a change you could hit yourself!

H.B.M.C. wrote:
Just be careful with the Eviscerator though, there’s always a change you could hit yourself!

Not if your a redemptionist!

With a bolt pistol and a eviscerator, you can use both in melee up to your limit of attacks. With the right talents, you gain more attacks of your choice each round and less penalties.

Well I am most certainly not a redemptionist :p

how could you use both in melee if the Eviscerator is a 2h weapon? I mean, the only way I figured it would even be acceptable is if it was wrist mounted, but I still think that's a bit iffy.

I'm still trying to decide... an Eviscerator, or 2 chainswords. Hmm? What say you guys?

So decided to finaly post my character, enjoy.

Name: Darius Hachett (so far as he knows)

Home World: Mind cleansed Career path: Guardsmen Rank: Conscript

Divination: Do not ask why you serve, only ask how Quirk: Scarring

Gender: Male Build: Well-built Height: 1.85m Weight: 89kg

Skin colour: Tan Hair colour: Black Eye colour: Grey Age: 26

WS: 41 BS: 34 S: 35 T: 37 Ag: 36 Int:35 Per: 37 Wp:41 Fel:23

Skills: Awareness, Deceive, Intimidate, Search, Drive (Ground Vehicle), Speak Language (Low Gothic)

Talents & Traits: Melee Weapon Training (Primitive), Pistol Weapon Training (Las), Pistol Weapon Training (SP), Basic Weapon Training (Las), Basic Weapon Training (SP), Engram Implantation, Failsafe Control, Imperial Conditioning, Through A Mirror Darkly, Light Sleeper, Hatred (Mutants), Jaded

Advancements Taken: Weapon Skill (Simple), Strength (Simple), Tranch War Veteran (Perhaps?), Awareness

Wounds: 12 Fate Points: 3 Insainity Points: 10 Degree of Madness: Unsettled Corruption Points: 0

I won't bother listing equipment, it would take up to much space, if anyone wants to know they can just ask.

What main equipment does he use?

Standard Lasgun, with red dot sight, Las Pistol, Combat Knife and Guard Flak Armour. I was thinking of swapping out the Lasgun for a Armagedon Pattern Autogun, but wasn't sure if I should.

The Armageddon-Pattern... hmm... it's pretty good. Extra damage and a bit of extra range certainly doesn't hurt, and neither does Reliable. Downside is three Full-Auto Bursts drains more than a full clip, but at the same time you waste less ammo as you're not drilling 10 shots into the air every time you pull the trigger.

Given that it's Reliable, and that's one of the major features of the Lasgun, the Arma-Pattern is a good choice as you don't lose anything by taking it, other than clip-size.

Armageddon pattern is by far the best starting weapon. Once you've put a fire selector on it, you have 9 turns of full auto for massive damage. If you haven't won combat after shooting 90 armageddon pattern shots at something, then your plan has gone horribly wrong. Heck, even doing full aim and full auto every other turn is viable. You'll last 18 turns.

EDIT: Also duplex mags to reload faster

Any reason why your weapon skill is highest but you don't seem to have a melee weapon?

He is supposed to be an amazing knife fighter, but now that I think of it that doesn't seem to be a very good idea, because knifes don't do a lot of damage. I'm still going to keep it, because I think it gives him some character. I'll just need to find a way to balance it out so that he can do more damage, perhaps a mono edge for his knife, or maybe starting with a few extra skills would help.

So I almost cut myself in half with my eviscerator tonight. Thankfully I had a fate point to reroll that...

If I hit myself, I will instantly be in critical damage unless I roll a 1 I think.

So... once you have Blademaster, can you reroll the 96-00 that you would hit yourself with once ?

I don't know if 2 Chainswords would be better at this point, I don't like having to worry about gibbing myself.

Didn't I say "be careful with that Eviscerator" not 11 posts ago?

The moral of the story is: "Live Dangerously, so long as you have one fate point remaining."

It is not nearly as bad as the first fight I had to run in Deathwatch: "The consequences of telling the space wolf he cannot finish his mug of ale prior to deployment."

Nor as embarrassing as the first thing my players did when they entered their first combat area - fail to open a door for several rounds in a row. That door was their greatest enemy.

So, none of my new players passed their intelligence test in the room filled with promethium tanks... and then wanted to throw a grenade at the enemy that emerges.

Just as one of them was about to throw the dice to throw the grenade, one of the other ones stopped them "that pink stuff on the floor might be flammable."

Lyzin Locrian wrote:He is supposed to be an amazing knife fighter, but now that I think of it that doesn't seem to be a very good idea, because knifes don't do a lot of damage. I'm still going to keep it, because I think it gives him some character. I'll just need to find a way to balance it out so that he can do more damage, perhaps a mono edge for his knife, or maybe starting with a few extra skills would help.

Check through the inquisitors handbook, there are a lot of good knives there, if you have the funds go for the chain knife. There is also a melee talent that allows you to choose were you hit, perfect for your idea.

juraigamer wrote:

Lyzin Locrian wrote:He is supposed to be an amazing knife fighter, but now that I think of it that doesn't seem to be a very good idea, because knifes don't do a lot of damage. I'm still going to keep it, because I think it gives him some character. I'll just need to find a way to balance it out so that he can do more damage, perhaps a mono edge for his knife, or maybe starting with a few extra skills would help.

Check through the inquisitors handbook, there are a lot of good knives there, if you have the funds go for the chain knife. There is also a melee talent that allows you to choose were you hit, perfect for your idea.

Even a power knife would be deadly used right.

Lexx wrote:

juraigamer wrote:

Lyzin Locrian wrote:He is supposed to be an amazing knife fighter, but now that I think of it that doesn't seem to be a very good idea, because knifes don't do a lot of damage. I'm still going to keep it, because I think it gives him some character. I'll just need to find a way to balance it out so that he can do more damage, perhaps a mono edge for his knife, or maybe starting with a few extra skills would help.

Check through the inquisitors handbook, there are a lot of good knives there, if you have the funds go for the chain knife. There is also a melee talent that allows you to choose were you hit, perfect for your idea.

Even a power knife would be deadly used right.

Poisons work well too.

Serpentine Power Blade would be a nice choice - 1D10+2 standard damage, Pen 6, Power Field... and the 'Fast' Quality, which is a very nice quality to have.

[EDIT]: To make matters easier, here's a weapon PDF summary that was made a while ago (it has DH Core Rulebook, RT Core Rulebook, Inquisitor's Handbook and a few other things - but not a lot of the latest stuff). It's good for starting players as it groups everything together logically in a way you can compare stats.

How do you guys go about creating your campaigns? any tips?

I started writing one and realized it would be a lot more work than I initially though, lol!

At least when I write about areas and people, its good artistic material :p

Go with a general theme and the things you want to have the party do, as general ideas.

Then find a way to link them together. Make sure you pick an ordos for who your running.

daedalus-templarius wrote:How do you guys go about creating your campaigns? any tips?

I started writing one and realized it would be a lot more work than I initially though, lol!

At least when I write about areas and people, its good artistic material :p

Depends how in-depth you want to go.

There's the very lose approach, such as "Your Inquisitor is named X, he works for the Ordo Y, and he's sent you to investigate Z. Each of you make a Rank 3 character of your choice - no psykers - and be here next weekend. E-mail me if you want any specific wargear or have any requests" and then you do a 'one-shot' style scenario where, if people like it, it can expand. We've done that for a lot of our Deathwatch games, trying out new characters almost every time and rotating the GM position.

Or there's the in depth approach, where you write everything out like it's a published adventure book, just like I have. I'm over 170,000 words in and even created my own sector. We've been playing the same campaign for over a year and we're about... 1/2 way through. But I'm crazy like that...

Well, I do want to do a scenario style thing... but its 3 acts, with at least 3 parts to each act, and multiple sub-parts for each part of the act!

Although that could change, I'll just try to finish writing the first part of the first act before we play next and see how it develops from there.

Sounds kinda like what I did. Mine was 5 acts.

Act 1 had was Shattered Hope with a changed ending, so two parts (at the Guard camp, within the Shatters).

Act 2 was on a Hive World, investigating what they'd found at the end of Act 1, and it had 3 parts (arriving at the Underhive town, exploring the nearby ruins, returning to the town and trying to stay alive).

Act 3 was far more expansive, and set mostly on a Forge World. It had 5 parts (arriving on the Forge World/kangaroo court, breaking out from their execution, helping the Tech-Marine locate his fallen brother, escaping the Forge World, fighting off the boarders that attacked their ship as they left).

Act 4 is huge, being partially sand-box based, and has so many parts it's only worth counting the beginning (counter-boarding the raiders, finding the Magos' hidden space station and taking him into custody, then going to the nearby planet on order from their Inquisitor... and they've been there ever since).

Act 5 is actually the smallest, but may end up involving a 'one-shot' Deathwatch mission (as I can't expect Acolytes to take on a Genestealer Cult Patriarch and his attendant Brood Lords, Purestrain Genestealers, Hybrids and Brood Brothers all by themselves, can I?).

Or can I...

H.B.M.C. wrote:Act 5 is actually the smallest, but may end up involving a 'one-shot' Deathwatch mission (as I can't expect Acolytes to take on a Genestealer Cult Patriarch and his attendant Brood Lords, Purestrain Genestealers, Hybrids and Brood Brothers all by themselves, can I?).

Have the Deathwatch mission as a one-shot that fails, then have the regular party have to do a desperate suicide mission to pick up the pieces.

And you could have undead grey knights as either set dressing ("The corpses shriek as you walk down the corridor...") or even adversaries (Does it count as being corrupted if you were literally killed first?)
"

Sounds awesome HMBC

I want to do a sort of clandestine mission on a pleasure world city, where the Logicians have setup a front and are operating out of a highrise in a high security city on the beach.

Also, I want their constructs to be much faster than those dumb body snatchers. 2 metre move and full move, wtf?! I am thinking a brass monstrosity with scalpel limbs and the only biological part would be a wired in brain... maybe with that white mind-control thing on it from edge of darkness.

But aside from figuring out where the logicians base is within the paradise city, they also need to break into it and steal the data that will lead to another, larger lab where I want to do an all out assault on it with their inquisitor and his bodyguards (http://galefire.com/2011/04/40k-an-inquisitor-vindicare-assassin-and-grey-knight-brother-captain-walk-into-a-space-hulk/ ) and maybe some other acolytes.

And that's just the first act.

Sounds good daedalus, but remember not to outshine the players. While they are just lowly acolytes, sending their inquisitor with them and having them watch as he blows away the enemy isn't that fun for them.

If you must, have a multi-pronged assault planned and roll randomly for the other groups. If any other groups fail, it's up to the acolytes to get out alive/succeed.

Ah see that is the plan.

The acolytes will be simultaneously attacking while the Inquisitor and his bodyguards are as well, so while they will be in the same compound, they won't be directly together, other than for perhaps a set-piece moment where they get to watch their Inquisitor and his bodyguard crush some guys/save them from certain doom.

Good idea though to roll for the other groups, to see if they accomplish their objectives I suppose.

So writing the opening scene... I am far too verbose, must be a holdover from when I was trying to write novels.

daedalus-templarius wrote:

So writing the opening scene... I am far too verbose, must be a holdover from when I was trying to write novels.

You can always give the players handouts, this eases your workload and they can read it in their spare time. I tend to have all the extra data on the next planet for my players on paper for them.

I guess that would work too. The way that they do it in the official books has you reading passages and stuff, so that was pretty much how I was doing it.

However, this is the opening reading, meant to set the stage, so I imagine it can be a little verbose.

Wow, I'd like to start playing Dark Heresy (with some friends) but I have a problem: we'd probably mostly play it during lunch breaks at school, which only gives us about 45 minutes each session, max. Now of course this would mean a lot less XP per session, but is this possible at all, or would there just be too little immersion and too little time to really get started, or would it be possible? Occasionally, we could do a long session during the weekends, but it is just really, really hard to get my entire group together anywhere else than at school.

So would it be possible to do such short sessions? The upside would, off course, be that we can do a really large amount of sessions.

Just give more xp and money?

I think 200xp for 4 hours is hideously low. I want to have fun and play a scenario, not worry about how horrendously weak my acolytes are.

Adeptus Noob wrote:Wow, I'd like to start playing Dark Heresy (with some friends) but I have a problem: we'd probably mostly play it during lunch breaks at school, which only gives us about 45 minutes each session, max. Now of course this would mean a lot less XP per session, but is this possible at all, or would there just be too little immersion and too little time to really get started, or would it be possible? Occasionally, we could do a long session during the weekends, but it is just really, really hard to get my entire group together anywhere else than at school.

So would it be possible to do such short sessions? The upside would, off course, be that we can do a really large amount of sessions.

It's better at that rate to give xp based upon completion of a mission or something.

So for my bronze scalpel monstrosities, any suggestions of how nasty I should make them for average level 2-3 acolytes? My personal character is a level 5 assassin, although probably shouldn't be since I ran missions with my wife and them, cc machine with decent shooting.

They will all be allocated some decent gear from the Inquisitor's armory on his cutter, so for the main fighting segment, I expect most of them to be equipped with chainswords, but not quite bolters for ranged; maybe I'll give our heavy weapon guy a heavy bolter, but that's it.

Classes will be: Power melee assassin chopper/sniper/pistols/sneaker (me), The talker Arbitrator bolt pistol/chainsword/carapace, heavy weapon dude Guardsman autogun/chainsword/guard flak, face melter Psyker monostaff/bolt pistol, support tech Tech Priest dunno/what/items/to/give/yet

juraigamer wrote:

Adeptus Noob wrote:Wow, I'd like to start playing Dark Heresy (with some friends) but I have a problem: we'd probably mostly play it during lunch breaks at school, which only gives us about 45 minutes each session, max. Now of course this would mean a lot less XP per session, but is this possible at all, or would there just be too little immersion and too little time to really get started, or would it be possible? Occasionally, we could do a long session during the weekends, but it is just really, really hard to get my entire group together anywhere else than at school.

So would it be possible to do such short sessions? The upside would, off course, be that we can do a really large amount of sessions.

It's better at that rate to give xp based upon completion of a mission or something.

But would such short sessions work at all?

daedalus-templarius wrote:So writing the opening scene... I am far too verbose, must be a holdover from when I was trying to write novels.

I used to go hoarse when running RPGs. I'm a pretty quiet person by nature, so my voice just wasn't up to reading big blocks of text and trying to keep control of the group.

I miss running a game, though. It's a good/bad thing as it's a major time suck for me (I spent a lot of time doing prep. I was the kind of GM that wanted my NPCs to at least kind of fit in the rules) but it was a fun outlet. Nowadays, though, i really don't have the prep time.

Balance wrote:

daedalus-templarius wrote:So writing the opening scene... I am far too verbose, must be a holdover from when I was trying to write novels.

I used to go hoarse when running RPGs. I'm a pretty quiet person by nature, so my voice just wasn't up to reading big blocks of text and trying to keep control of the group.

I miss running a game, though. It's a good/bad thing as it's a major time suck for me (I spent a lot of time doing prep. I was the kind of GM that wanted my NPCs to at least kind of fit in the rules) but it was a fun outlet. Nowadays, though, i really don't have the prep time.

Yea, I should be working on art.... however at the same time, my narrative generally gives me all sorts of ideas for said art, rather than just jumping into something I haven't written anything about/have no idea what I'm drawing (like those characters....)

Oh, so I got the Daemonhunter book, and are psycannons the most ridiculous weapons or what? Might take the alternate advance on Sicarus for my assassin at some point...

daedalus-templarius wrote:
Oh, so I got the Daemonhunter book, and are psycannons the most ridiculous weapons or what?

Not in the slightest. A mutli-laser with sanctified power pack is just as deadly, if not more. Any bolt weapon with storm basically outshines it, if you have say a psy of 6, since you can pump out more shots than a psycannon and have tearing. Remember the psycannon doesn't have tearing.

What you should really be worried about is a psycher with an accurate weapon with psy ammo. Toss in some psychic powers and you basically instant death things all day long. Unnatural aim and divine shot. Tearing + around 13 with accurate dice. Can't be dodged, only way to stop it is a power field. Goes through most armor. The rifle will in most cases have felling at some quality, so goodbye unnatural toughness. The shot to the head should average around 30 damage before reduction, what's left of it that is.

I figured since it was 2d10+15 with proven(4) it would still outdo a bolt weapon in most cases, but I guess a stormbolter on full-auto is still hitting with 8 shots as opposed to 5, with tearing.

So what you're telling me is that I should take the Sicarius Initiate on my Assassin and get Unnatural aim? I don't think I'll be getting psy-ammo for my regular mortal anytime soon though, hah.

Oh and I redid this picture of some of my acolytes... although its a shame since my character isn't even using that gear anymore really.

You would have to acend or start as a psycher to really make good use of psy ammo, simply take what you want.

Yea, I was mostly kidding

but really, are the alternate classes in the DH book good? I see the Sicarius initiate gets Psyker level 1, but I mean, with that low of dice its going to be rough getting any powers off at all.

Consider alternate ranks carefully, as they replace the rank you would have had (so you can miss something vital).

daedalus-templarius wrote: with that low of dice its going to be rough getting any powers off at all

With a standard willpower bonus of 4, you can basically auto-pass most power rolls for minor powers. Since you can't get major powers, having that low of a rating doesn't really hurt you. You just can't sustain more than one power.

Yea, I wish I could have skipped one of the worthless ranks that I didn't pick anything up out of earlier to grab the Sicarius stuff. Eventual force weapon + death cult assassin would be kinda sick.

daedalus-templarius wrote:So for my bronze scalpel monstrosities, any suggestions of how nasty I should make them for average level 2-3 acolytes? My personal character is a level 5 assassin, although probably shouldn't be since I ran missions with my wife and them, cc machine with decent shooting.

This may sound like a strange idea, but given your talents it may be a good way of solving this problem:

Draw one.

Seriously. Draw one of these bronze beasties and put it up here, then we can see what it looks like in relation to a regular squishy human and work out its stats from there.

daedalus-templarius wrote:They will all be allocated some decent gear from the Inquisitor's armory on his cutter, so for the main fighting segment, I expect most of them to be equipped with chainswords, but not quite bolters for ranged; maybe I'll give our heavy weapon guy a heavy bolter, but that's it.

Heavy Bolters are stupidly expensive to maintain – over 1000 Thrones for a full belt of ammo. With no ability to fire less than 10 shots a turn you’ll be literally wasting money every turn you fire it. Truth be told you only really need a Heavy Stubber against most regular foes. If you need (as in really need) the stopping power of a Heavy Bolter then your Inquisitor is a sadist and is trying to get you killed. My group has a Heavy Stubber and they’ve used it once (the Arbite mud-taped it to his Cyber-Mastiff and used the dog as a gun platform!), and they’ve never really needed a Heavy Bolter (though they did once face a pair of automated Twin-Linked Heavy Bolter turrets... that was a tense game).

Also be wary about giving out too much equipment for free. If the players get everything for free all the time, it can get a little dull as they never feel like they ‘own’ anything or have earned anything. The Psyker in my group has a Best-Quality Force Staff, and he made that using the crafting rules. He actually got to roll the dice and go through all the steps, paying the costs (having a Noble class income helped there!), and using the in-game downtime of two weeks that I gave them between Acts I and II. I even used it as a character building moment where I had him write a small prose piece to justify him making his own force weapon, and he created a character which has since become part of their Inquisitor’s personal retinue of Throne Agents (Master Astropath Augustus Vard). It worked quite well and now that Force Weapon is his main weapon outside of Bio-Lightning.

daedalus-templarius wrote:Classes will be: Power melee assassin chopper/sniper/pistols/sneaker (me), The talker Arbitrator bolt pistol/chainsword/carapace, heavy weapon dude Guardsman autogun/chainsword/guard flak, face melter Psyker monostaff/bolt pistol, support tech Tech Priest dunno/what/items/to/give/yet

There’s only one weapon fit for a Tech-Priest. The Omnissian Axe. That is one of the things I did give the Tech-Priest in our group for free right at the start. I just can’t stand the idea of a Tech-Priest without one, so he got one immediately. And despite being given it, he has made it his own, using the crafting rules to modify it and increase its power supply (more damage).

daedalus-templarius wrote:I figured since it was 2d10+15 with proven(4) it would still outdo a bolt weapon in most cases, but I guess a stormbolter on full-auto is still hitting with 8 shots as opposed to 5, with tearing.

The Storm Bolter has a higher average damage and is a (mostly) more consistent weapon (more hits + tearing = consistency!). The Psycannon has a higher potential damage, especially when Psybolt ammo is factored in, because you’re not rolling 2D10 and picking the higher of the two but instead adding them together. Proven (4) certainly doesn’t hurt either.

So what you're telling me is that I should take the Sicarius Initiate on my Assassin and get Unnatural aim? I don't think I'll be getting psy-ammo for my regular mortal anytime soon though, hah.

daedalus-templarius wrote:Oh and I redid this picture of some of my acolytes... although its a shame since my character isn't even using that gear anymore really.

I actually saw your Inquisitor/Grey Knight/Vindicare picture on 4Chan before I saw it here, believe it or not. Keep making these. They’re great.

Draw a bronze beasty? Yea, I can probably whip something up real quick for the purposes of using it in a story (although I actually have a Dark Heresy commission I am working on right now )

We did the "armory" thing and they didn't actually request anything that outlandish, mostly since they don't really have the skills for most things. Maybe I will give my tech-priest an omnission axe though. No heavy bolters for them, although I think I will give the guardsman a "armageddon" autogun, but he can pay for the fire-selector/etc himself.

The Omnissian axe seems pretty powerful, that's for sure, but I still think he should get it. They insisted I not give them any skills, so no chainswords for any of them; I don't think I'll be able to make my bronze scalpel monsters that tough.

Wow my art is showing up on 4chan?
Wild.

You could always give your techpriest an unpowered omnission axe, treat as a mono great weapon.

Multi-lasers are better than heavy bolters for the cash striken party. In fact any las weapon is, such as death light and delaku hellguns and hell pistols. I played a game with a terrible GM were we were forced to get las weapons only, even at rank 7.

You can always use a pre-made creature as a template for the bronze things you are looking to make. Check the servitors and other robo stuff in the radicals handbook and the creatures anathema.

juraigamer wrote:You could always give your techpriest an unpowered omnission axe, treat as a mono great weapon.

Multi-lasers are better than heavy bolters for the cash striken party. In fact any las weapon is, such as death light and delaku hellguns and hell pistols. I played a game with a terrible GM were we were forced to get las weapons only, even at rank 7.

You can always use a pre-made creature as a template for the bronze things you are looking to make. Check the servitors and other robo stuff in the radicals handbook and the creatures anathema.

Yea, I think I will give him an unpowered Omnission axe then, that sounds pretty reasonable.

I am going to let my heavy weapons guy decide what he wants in the future, I just wanted to give them all some baseline gear so they weren't so weak; and my Inquisitor (whom HMBC referenced, with his GK and Vindicare bodyguards) has nooby weapons to spare in his armory

I was looking at the anathma book, one of my friends picked it up the other day, so I'm sure I can pick something out of there. I was thinking about just making it like a metal genestealer... then I looked at the genestealer stats.

I've only recently got into the RPG hobby, and I've just bought the DH game. I'm writing my own campaign based on several different 40K novels, chiefly Sandy Mitchell's "Death or Glory". This campaign will see the newly formed acolyte team stranded behind enemy lines. More specifically, in the middle of a desert continent overrun by millions of orks. Their original mission would have been to discover the fate of a previous acolyte team which has not reported in from their mission. On their way towards the "friendly continent" the players will piece together a sequence of events which will tell them what happened to the previous team, and will force the players to finish the previous team's mission.

SgtSixkilla wrote:I've only recently got into the RPG hobby, and I've just bought the DH game. I'm writing my own campaign based on several different 40K novels, chiefly Sandy Mitchell's "Death or Glory". This campaign will see the newly formed acolyte team stranded behind enemy lines. More specifically, in the middle of a desert continent overrun by millions of orks. Their original mission would have been to discover the fate of a previous acolyte team which has not reported in from their mission. On their way towards the "friendly continent" the players will piece together a sequence of events which will tell them what happened to the previous team, and will force the players to finish the previous team's mission.

It's almost like the grimdark version of The Hangover!

SgtSixkilla, given you just got into this and are writing your own campaign, I'll give you one piece of advice:

Don't use your best ideas first.

For those first few sessions both you and your players are going to be spending most of your time learning the rules, so much so that whatever awesome narrative you've concocted will be largely ignored or at the very least become a background element whilst everyone figures out how to shoot and reload in the same turn.

I started with three small 'prologue' games with a couple of the my players at a time so that by the time we started the campaign proper everyone had one or two games under their belt (and I'd GM'ed at least 3 games). Worked very well.




And an alternative to the powered Omnissian Axe is to make it a Omnissian Chainaxe, just take the bonuses to interaction and combi-tool bonuses that the regular Omnissian Axe gets and give them to a standard Chainaxe. I've done that for a couple of the AdMech bad guys that my players have faced.

H.B.M.C.:
I came to the same conclusion, albeit from a different direction. I've got a few small encounters and such on the troop ship which the players hitch a ride on to the planet where their mission is.

Plus, the campaign is "designed" to give as much sense of freedom as possible, using some tricks and cheats I've learned as I've taught myself card and coin magic. The whole campaign is a chance for the acolytes to gain experience (not XP) with the game concepts. I thought many of the pre-made modules were a bit too constrictive and way too complex/involved for a group with no experience with the game and it's concepts. At least one of the players in my group has no experience with Warhammer at all.

I can't give my players a sandbox, they have too much freedom if I give them some clues and let them loose. They all just kinda sit there and wonder what to do. Maybe my players are just a bit slow...

I'd say with the current scenario I am creating... I am leading them down a path with branches, lol; eventually I'll have to make a sandbox, I have no idea how they will handle that though.

So... finished writing the first segment of the module I'm working on.

Only 3700 words, lol!

Call me when you get to 170,000.

So you guys aren't afraid that the "telling of the story" will bog the flow down then? I write a lot of fiction, but I've restrained myself when writing this campaign, because I'd hate to bore my players with too much "telling". How do you strike the balance? I'm at a loss..

Instead of telling the story through text, set the stage and then let them live the story as they play. Provide clues and hints as they go as to the overall state of whats going on. In my campaign for example, I keep placing strange xenos equipment on their enemies, and they are starting to see the link between these xenos and what's going on.

Thoughts?

Scalpel Monstrosity
WS BS S T Ag Int Per WP Fel Wounds
40 - 35 40 40 10 45 40 10 15
Movement: 4/8/12/24
Skills: Awareness, Concealment +30, Dodge, Silent Move
Talents: Swift Attack
Traits: Fear(1), natural weapons(scalpel limbs)
Weapons: Scalpel Limbs (1d10+3 R, Tearing)

Sort of based of a daemon from the big book.

Also, got a WIP up of a new Dark Heresy commission I am working on... http://galefire.com/2011/07/40k-commission-piece-iceworld-inquisitoress/

Not to nitpick, but it'd be Concealment (+20), and then Talented (Concealment) if you wanted to get the full +30.

I should probably change it to +20 anyway, rolling 70 or less to conceal ones self is probably way too easy for an npc.

What about the stats? Too punishing? Too easy? We are doing a scenario our psyker made now, made us fight a daemon yesterday that he didn't realize had unnatural strength and toughness! I'm amazed we didn't die, but we did manage to pull it off.

The best part was when we came up against 3 mercs in a underground shop. I capped the first one with my Nomad, on my next turn tossed my Nomad to our tech-priest, drew concealed power blades, ran out into the room whilst a heavy stubber was blazing away, cut another merc in half, then slid into cover with an acrobatics test beside the workbench in the center that the heavy-stubber dude was using as a prop for his gun

If this thing is made from machine parts, shouldn't it have the machine trait and thus have some armor?

Probably, its just most of our guns aren't amazing at the moment, and I'll be throwing about 6 of these things at us at once (5 acolytes) and their handler (think the tech priest guy in the BRB), and we will be in a small cargo elevator, so its going to mostly melee.

There is also a chance they won't even get to hit the armory before we go, if they do it wrong, therefore won't have much in the way of decent weapons to combat these things. Also later on in the mission, these things strength will be increasing (more armor/toughness/strength, etc) as they get closer and closer to their objectives. So these will be the first set of them they fight.

I was going to do some "VR training" with them if we have a chance today, maybe before the guy GMing the current scenario gets there, just to get a rough estimate of how we will do against them.

Also was just thinking: would it be possible to have a kill-team, of say, 4 players, go up against an IG player with an army in a tabletop setting? I imagine 4 kill-team guys could take out alot of guardsmen and chimeras... Surprised I can't find the stats for a Chimera in the huge spreadsheet armory I have, would the armor for it be like, high 30s?

Well, I am kinda mean in my games. If you want to make them really scary but beatable, put a clever weakness or situation that involves multiple ones. That way people are forced to think about how to kill these things rather than just "running and gunning"

Yea, specifically if the acolytes find out how, say these things you made detect their targets, they could try to interfere with that, thus lowering the things ws/bs.

They could look at them and find a week point, such as aiming for the head, which has no armor or something.

As to if a team of 4 players could take a tabletop guard army, provided you use the fluffly list of lotsa infantry, some transports and heavy weapons mixed in then yes, and acolyte group could easily take them down. Keep in mind guard normally just have lasguns, and your players should be able to shrug that off easy, the only other problem is flamers, plasma, grenade launchers, chainswords and the guns on the vehicles. One psycher with weapon jinx and fear goes away pretty fast.

I'd given the Machine (2) Trait + Armour Plating. That gives them a solid 4 armour, which is enough to protect them without making them immune to lower level small-arms.

For the 4 man group vs the guard army, I actually meant a Deathwatch kill-team, not acolytes; although apparently in our current DH scenario, we will be going up against a large IG army, but with some unlikely allies.

Machine (2) gives 4 armor? I guess I need to check out the bestiary at the back of the BRB, but I'll probably give them something like that.

Machine (2) gives 2 armour. Armour Plates gives a further 2. Machine (4) gives 4 armour, so really Machine (4) vs Machine (2) w/Armour Plating is a much of a muchness (although it can have a bearing on damage from being set on fire - Machine levels count against it, whereas regular armour is ignored) - it just depends on what better represents the type of creature you're making.

Oh, well using guard vs deathwatch marines is a whole different story. You basically have to put the guardsmen in a horde or they can't hurt anything.

Yeah. Lasguns can't really hurt Marines. The Horde rules are a necessity for those sorts of situations.

Yea, the whole idea of doing some deathwatch vs a bunch of guardsmen was just to screw around and show our IG friend the deathwatch rules, etc.

They would be in hordes, several perhaps, along with chimera backup.

I will check out some of the rules for the machine creature, which you're right, is about what I want to create.

So, bout done with this... http://galefire.com/2011/07/40k-commission-piece-iceworld-inquisitoress/

Also, can Assassins REALLY not get crushing blow? That +2 damage PER HIT sure would be nice when I use lightning attack!

So HMBC, whats up with the new combat rules in Black Crusade? A sign of things to come? Maybe you could give me a hint on how parries and dodges are supposed to work in the new system so I can give it a shot (mostly concerning multiple attacks, offhand attacks, etc). Do I get to make a lightning attack with both of my hands?

So I tried the DoS extra attacks for swift attack, yea, don't like it at all. I'll keep my attacks being separate, thank you. Until I just found out, from the FFG forums, that there isn't a limit to the amount of hits you can get... just for swift attack it is every 2 DoS; and lightning attack is every 1 DoS? Still have no idea how it works with 2 weapons though. Need to get myself a best quality power sword, 55ws +10 aim +10quality, 75ws... 6 successes maybe!?

It's a balance thing. Imagine if you had access to all the talents with one class, not exactly much choice for players.

You could get crushing blow for an assassin as an elite advancement, but they better work for it, no crushing blow using daggers, tell them to grab something bigger before they start working towards it.