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I figured I'd start a new thread on rules questions instead of clogging up the new release/preview DW thread with them since i have a few. i personally haven't gotten past char gen yet so most of my questions will relate to that for now.

1) do all marines start with the traits listed on the second page of the character sheet? so every marine starts with bulging biceps as long as he meets the strength requirements for instance? (as a side note, does that make the suspensor harness less useful? it seems like the only benefit that would give you would be to fire as a half action as the others are redundant for beefy marines). from my reading, all marines get the deathwatch training talent but its not listed there. is this a typo?

2) are there any other mistakes on the official character sheet (see above)? i glanced through the FFG forums and it seems like there are some skills not labelled correctly on the character sheet in the book. if so, which ones?

3) you can only activate one demeanor per game. is this one personal and one chapter or one total?

4) solo mode abilities... you get one from your chapter demeanor and the normal codex ones available for your rank. is there any other way to gain one? (in case i missed a talent or somesuch that does that)

i know i have more but that's all i can think of at the moment...

I don't claim any special authority (though I have read a good bit (i.e. most) of the book and some parts twice).

1. I'm assuming that ALL marines get the trait Bulging Biceps, whether or not they meet the strength requirements. It lists all marines as having it, and the strength requirement is listed as required for CHOOSING the trait. As you didn't choose it, but were given it, I assume that you have it automatically. All marines are listed as having Deathwatch Training elsewhere, so I assume this is a type here, and not a typo elsewhere. This seems to make more sense to me than the other assumption. The suspensor harness IS less useful for Marines, but's that's fine. The equipment needs to list exactly what it does, since you might use it to equip a Guardsman, or Inquisitorial henchman, or the like, even if that function isn't useful for Marines.

2. Don't have the book in front of me to cross-reference the sheet. I will say that the manner of listing and explaining Basic (and basic skills used untrained), Advanced and Skill Improvements is the most confusing thing to read, for how simple it actually should be in play.

3. It says you can only activate one Demeanor, so I would assume one Demeanor total. Given that all Marines have at least 3 Fate Points, I think that 3 Fate Points and one "Fate Point" from Demeanors would be sufficient.

4. I don't think there is currently any way to get extra solo mode abilities, save from Chapter and Codex ones. I haven't seen any Talent that lets you do so.

Da Butcha wrote:4. I don't think there is currently any way to get extra solo mode abilities, save from Chapter and Codex ones. I haven't seen any Talent that lets you do so.

I think you are right in this. Though there is talk of more coming out in the first supplement.

Da Butcha wrote:I don't claim any special authority (though I have read a good bit (i.e. most) of the book and some parts twice).

1. I'm assuming that ALL marines get the trait Bulging Biceps, whether or not they meet the strength requirements. It lists all marines as having it, and the strength requirement is listed as required for CHOOSING the trait. As you didn't choose it, but were given it, I assume that you have it automatically. All marines are listed as having Deathwatch Training elsewhere, so I assume this is a type here, and not a typo elsewhere. This seems to make more sense to me than the other assumption. The suspensor harness IS less useful for Marines, but's that's fine. The equipment needs to list exactly what it does, since you might use it to equip a Guardsman, or Inquisitorial henchman, or the like, even if that function isn't useful for Marines.

while i agree on the rest, i'm not sure about that one. they get the trait but the rules don't say anything about ignoring the requirements; most game systems specifically say when you can ignore other rules and i don't see any general rules in DW about changing that. that being said, i don't see it as too big of an issue as marines get a decent amount of strength to begin with and plenty of ways to increase it; if someone wanted to be a devastator and actually wanted to use that trait, they could easily get there even with low rolls.

i read through the rules a few more times and have decided to start out the campaign very light. i've got two players signed up (one who plays 40k and the other who reads a few books) but neither have any P&P rpg experience. in order to ease all of us into the rules (including me as the GM), i'll be starting them out as a codex chapter scout combat squad (with the sergeant obviously in the other combat squad) who are almost ready to graduate to full battle brothers. their starting equipment will only be the default (bolt pistol, grenades, etc) and scout armor with the rest requisitioned (except for the power armor obviously) using the regular rules. they can take any specialty other than psyker (don't want to try those rules out for a few games). when they get to rank 2 or respected renown (haven't decided which), i'll graduate them to full battle brothers and give them power armor. when they get to rank 3 or distinguished renown (IIRC that's the third category), they'll have a choice of continuing on with the single chapter RPG or being "seconded" to deathwatch. they can keep the XP they've earned but will be able to change their characters as they see fit (including using psykers, other chapters and wargear, etc) if they choose deathwatch. if they choose to stay with the chapter specific campaign, they'll be veterans with similar options.

warboss wrote:

Da Butcha wrote:I don't claim any special authority (though I have read a good bit (i.e. most) of the book and some parts twice).

1. I'm assuming that ALL marines get the trait Bulging Biceps, whether or not they meet the strength requirements. It lists all marines as having it, and the strength requirement is listed as required for CHOOSING the trait. As you didn't choose it, but were given it, I assume that you have it automatically. All marines are listed as having Deathwatch Training elsewhere, so I assume this is a type here, and not a typo elsewhere. This seems to make more sense to me than the other assumption. The suspensor harness IS less useful for Marines, but's that's fine. The equipment needs to list exactly what it does, since you might use it to equip a Guardsman, or Inquisitorial henchman, or the like, even if that function isn't useful for Marines.

while i agree on the rest, i'm not sure about that one. they get the trait but the rules don't say anything about ignoring the requirements; most game systems specifically say when you can ignore other rules and i don't see any general rules in DW about changing that. that being said, i don't see it as too big of an issue as marines get a decent amount of strength to begin with and plenty of ways to increase it; if someone wanted to be a devastator and actually wanted to use that trait, they could easily get there even with low rolls.

i read through the rules a few more times and have decided to start out the campaign very light. i've got two players signed up (one who plays 40k and the other who reads a few books) but neither have any P&P rpg experience. in order to ease all of us into the rules (including me as the GM), i'll be starting them out as a codex chapter scout combat squad (with the sergeant obviously in the other combat squad) who are almost ready to graduate to full battle brothers. their starting equipment will only be the default (bolt pistol, grenades, etc) and scout armor with the rest requisitioned (except for the power armor obviously) using the regular rules. they can take any specialty other than psyker (don't want to try those rules out for a few games). when they get to rank 2 or respected renown (haven't decided which), i'll graduate them to full battle brothers and give them power armor. when they get to rank 3 or distinguished renown (IIRC that's the third category), they'll have a choice of continuing on with the single chapter RPG or being "seconded" to deathwatch. they can keep the XP they've earned but will be able to change their characters as they see fit (including using psykers, other chapters and wargear, etc) if they choose deathwatch. if they choose to stay with the chapter specific campaign, they'll be veterans with similar options.

From Page 36,Paragraph 1...

"All Space Marines go through a period of hypno-indoctrination and training that provides them with an array of special skills and abilities. To represent this hypno-indoctrination in the game,Space Marine characters begin play with the following Skills,Talents,and Traits. Note that many of the starting Traits are provided from the list of Implant game rules listed below. The Space Marine DOES NOT NEED TO MEET THE PREREQUISITES(if any) FOR THESE STARTING SKILLS AND TALENTS."

So all SM characters do get all the listed starting skills/talents,regardless of whether they meet the prereq's or not. In the case of Bulging Biceps,it makes sense because you have to remember that the SM Power Armor's "Servo-Augmented Musculature" ability grants the SM +20 Strength. So long as a SM is inside his Power Armor,the absolute minimum his Strength could be is 52(30 base+20 for PA+2 assuming double 1's on the player's Strength stat roll). The only time that the ruling would logically come into play is if a character is firing a heavy weapon outside of his PA without bracing it,but in that case,he would still get the benefit of Bulging Biceps.

well, that would be an example of the type of exception needed and i missed it.

here's another question for those more experienced with the DH/RT/DW system regarding psychic powers. the DW rules say that the focus test is modified by the level you're using the power at. the rules state that you add PRx5 to your focus test but the examples (both of them) change that to challenging (+0) for an unfettered test and an ordinary (+10) for pushing a power. both rules seem to indicate that channeling MORE psychic power makes the test easier (the warp is seductive and it should be harder to only tap that power without abusing it) but i get the feeling that this is a copy-paste error or possibly a holdover from DH/RT. it seems like it was changed in playtesting/development and not corrected throughout. i'll be going with the PRx5 in my campaign as thats what the rules say and because the examples in DW seem to be horrendously edited (as in they frequently contradict the rules).

Yeah, if you want an example of more copy/paste mistakes go and look in the adversaries section... they constantly mix up the names in the descriptions of the creatures (I.e. Chaos Cultists being referred to as Chaos militia).

I would actually follow the examples. If you had +5 bonus for every point of PR, that would make tests laughably easy for even a beginning character. If the average librarian has a WP of 50, and starts with a psy rating of 3, that makes the bonus for a pushed ability at +30. Of course, that may have been intended, but it still doesn't seem quite right to me. Also consider psychic foci, such as a force staff, that further buff the test. You can easily make it nearly an auto-pass.

Both ways still have the danger of psychic phenomenon though, so it really is just a matter of interpretation until we get an FAQ/errata.

FoxPhoenix135 wrote:Yeah, if you want an example of more copy/paste mistakes go and look in the adversaries section... they constantly mix up the names in the descriptions of the creatures (I.e. Chaos Cultists being referred to as Chaos militia).

I would actually follow the examples. If you had +5 bonus for every point of PR, that would make tests laughably easy for even a beginning character. If the average librarian has a WP of 50, and starts with a psy rating of 3, that makes the bonus for a pushed ability at +30. Of course, that may have been intended, but it still doesn't seem quite right to me. Also consider psychic foci, such as a force staff, that further buff the test. You can easily make it nearly an auto-pass.

Both ways still have the danger of psychic phenomenon though, so it really is just a matter of interpretation until we get an FAQ/errata.

yeah, the deeper i go into the mechanics, the less i seem to like FFG's editing work. outside of palladium books' products (whose rules don't make sense to begin with even when written appropriately and without error), i don't think i've ever seen such poor editing in a mainstream RPG product. as someone COMPLETELY new to their products, i found several mistakes on their character sheet the very first day i was reading through the DW book. i learned to stop trusting their examples when i read the one showing how to calculate damage from a shooting weapon that uses a lascannon vs marine and completely ignores Pen in their calculations. uggghh...

yeah, i see that psi stuff can definitely be min-maxed but i see inherent disadvantages in it too. pushing makes you automatically roll on the psychic "whoops" table with a 1/4 chance of a perils and fear rules seem to affect psykers a hell of alot more than anyone else. they're the only class that can actually kill themselves with their starting "weapons" if they're too aggressive in using them. also, the foci and staves seem to affect invocation tests which require a full action to use in addition to later using the psychic power. i'm ok with someone getting off a pretty awesome effect if they spend two turns trying (with no guarantee of success as they still fail on 91-100). all the above of course is opinion without the benefit of much experience as i only ran a small combat encounter so far to test out the rules (and my knowledge of them).

I agree, even though this is their first printing, it seems like their editor is definitely not reading through things as thoroughly as he should be. A lot of grammatical errors are present too, minor stuff like missing commas and the like, but it still is a bit lacking for what you would expect. The quality of the book itself is high, though, and the printing is excellent.

I just want my FAQ already

It does sadly appear as if FFG have the same editor as Forge World. The quality of their proofreading is about the same.

Which is also the reason why I didn't buy the collector's edition. I knew there would be plenty of errors. FFG isn't used to publishing such big books on such short notice. There's lots of oddities in the books.

I don't know if its the same in deathwatch, but limitting the amount of Full autos and semis is a nice way of not making the heavy weapon the insta answer to all the problems.

Heavy Weapons haven't changed in DW.

So some of them only ever fire on burst mode, so despite having 250 shots, a Heavy Bolter Devastator Marine will still only ever get to shoot 25 times.

Yep, the Heavy Weapon guy quickly learns when to actually use the Heavy Weapon, and when to produce a sidearm and shoot somebody with that one instead. On a lot of opposition, 10 Rounds of a Heavy Bolter is just overkill. Our Devastator wiped out most of a horde of Hormagaunts with his first burst of full auto fire, but when he got jumped by 2 of them, it was much easier for him to just draw his sword and kill the things.

Also, it's a bit unclear (at least, to me) exactly how much ammo you get when you requisition special ammo for a Heavy Bolter. It says that you get one clip, but it also says that the Heavy Weapon automatically is equipped with a Backpack Ammo Supply of 250 rounds, rather than clips of 60. I ruled that you got a Heavy Bolter clip (60 rounds) of special ammo (which I think is what was intended), but since you can't use a shot selector on a Heavy Weapon, it's much less attractive to requisition special ammo for it anyway (or it seems that way to my players).

I concur that the editing is amazingly sloppy, especially for a book with so much information, background, and high production details. The introductory adventure is ridiculously confused, mislabeling some sites on the map, not labeling others at all, and leaving some material off the map entirely. Also, this book (as well as at least two others I have read from Black Library/FFG keep confusing "spore" and "spoor". While Ork spores could be spoor, indicating the presence of Orks, one would hope that you could detect the presence of Tyranids without actually having to have Tyranid spores floating around.

You'd get 60 shots, not a backpack of ammo. And you're right, to use it you'd have to make a reload action to disconnect the old ammo feed and put in the clip of special ammo.

Personally I wouldn't have a problem with players loading Hellfire Shells individually though - half action load, half action shoot.

here's another question for you. does dodge/parry work the same way in DW as in DH? it seems a bit counterintuitive for me to believe that they're not opposed rolls. since they're just challenging checks, it's no harder to dodge a shot that passed with 4 degrees of success than one that passed by one percentage point from my understanding of the rules. would it be too devastating to the players if you houseruled that to dodge degrees of success reduce attackers degrees of success?

Dodge already does that. If you get shot by a Full Auto gun and it hits you 5 times, and you Dodge with 3 Degrees of Success, you Dodge 3 of the 5 shots.

And I'd support Dodge/Parry being opposed tests if you could do them once for every incoming attack. Given that a Dodge or a Parry is a Reaction, and a Reaction is a finite resource (one per round), the fact that it's an either/or skills based test on the character doing it is perfectly balanced IMO.

H.B.M.C. wrote:Dodge already does that. If you get shot by a Full Auto gun and it hits you 5 times, and you Dodge with 3 Degrees of Success, you Dodge 3 of the 5 shots.

And I'd support Dodge/Parry being opposed tests if you could do them once for every incoming attack. Given that a Dodge or a Parry is a Reaction, and a Reaction is a finite resource (one per round), the fact that it's an either/or skills based test on the character doing it is perfectly balanced IMO.

Exactly. The other issue with making Attack/Dodge a contested roll based on degrees of success is that it will often put the defender in a situation where he simply has no chance to dodge at all. For example,a character with a WS of 40 declares an All-Out attack to get +20% and drops a "29,"for three degrees of success. The defending character has an Agility of 30 and the Dodge skill,but even if he drops an "01" on his Dodge roll,he can only get 2 degrees of success,so he gets hit no matter what.

Whatever1 wrote:

H.B.M.C. wrote:Dodge already does that. If you get shot by a Full Auto gun and it hits you 5 times, and you Dodge with 3 Degrees of Success, you Dodge 3 of the 5 shots.

And I'd support Dodge/Parry being opposed tests if you could do them once for every incoming attack. Given that a Dodge or a Parry is a Reaction, and a Reaction is a finite resource (one per round), the fact that it's an either/or skills based test on the character doing it is perfectly balanced IMO.

Exactly. The other issue with making Attack/Dodge a contested roll based on degrees of success is that it will often put the defender in a situation where he simply has no chance to dodge at all. For example,a character with a WS of 40 declares an All-Out attack to get +20% and drops a "29,"for three degrees of success. The defending character has an Agility of 30 and the Dodge skill,but even if he drops an "01" on his Dodge roll,he can only get 2 degrees of success,so he gets hit no matter what.

if i made that change, i'd say that you could dodge/parry *every* attack that allows the respective roll in the round... not just one. i'd also include the DOS (degrees of success... is that a standard acronym for the system?) that the defender gets and subtract them from the attackers. basically, i'd use the full/semi auto rules for single shot and close combat. you have less of a chance to do it successfully, but you'll get it against every dodgeable/parryable attack on you.

on an unrelated note, i was glancing through the creatures anathema book and saw that eldar have agility x2 with an AB of 10 on average there... and they have a talent that allows them to use double their AB for initiative. am i missing something or does that doubling stacked pretty much mean the eldar will ALWAYS win initiative regardless of what a marine rolls? say the marine is particularly agile at 60 and rolls the max, as well as having the armor history that adds +1. he'll get a total 17 which doesn't equal the eldar bonus of 20 let alone the roll of d10 that is added.

That's where YOU try to get lightning relexes.

Ie 6*2+1+10 =23
Meaning the eldar still can roll 3 or under.

the_ferrett wrote:That's where YOU try to get lightning relexes.

Ie 6*2+1+10 =23
Meaning the eldar still can roll 3 or under.

lol, that sounds like a fairly fruitless effort. you have to pay for a talent and then have a snowball's chance in hell of going before the eldar.

Why would you expect to go again st the eldar. You use that for the chaos lads and the Tau, ect.