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My and my friends expectations over DW were really high and while it was not compleately wasted we had to make some changes to adjust to the fluff.
I'd like to hear what you guys think.

Skills and Talents:

Since all Space Marines one way or another have to spend time as Assault Marines, Pilot (Personal) is a basic trained skill.

All Astartes starts with use a melee and a ballistic weapon as if they had Two Weapon Wield (Melee, Ballistic), this does not allow to use two melee or two ballistic at the same time, you want to do that you buy the talents.

Two Weapon Wield (Ballistic) and (Melee) can be aquired as General Marines Advances at Rank 1 for 800 points each (this way Assaults still have an edge).



Weapons Changes:

Powerfirst: Change Unwieldy with Unbalanced if used in Power Armor. Lose Unbalance withTerminator Armor.

Lightning Claw: On Power armor 1 claw is Unbalanced, both are used lose the trait. On Terminator 1 claw lose the Unbalanced trait, gain Balanced if both are used.

Thunderhammer: Unbalanced if used in Power Armor 1 handed, lose it if used 2 handed. Lose Unbalance on Terminator Armor.

Relic Blade: Unbalanced if used in Power Armor 1 handed, lose it if used 2 handed. (the relic blade isn't really a 2 handed weapon in TT)

Those seem like pretty logical changes to me.

Thanks, we had some chances to test run this house rules (with the exception of the relic blade or termi armors) and so the game goes smoth without been broken.

I agree, these changes seem quite reasonable and logical. I personally have taken to starting characters at rank 2 with some extra Xp to spend, after my 3-man killteam got killed in the House of Echoes in Final Sanction... Granted they were weak from an earlier battle with a pair of Genestealers, having burned fate points to keep from dying, but it was still pretty bad. I was even fudging some rolls to try and take it easy on them...

Same feeling here. Rank 1 feels more like fresh Battle Brothers our of the Scout Company rather that seasoned marines. Rank2 or 3 starts to feels more like DW.

Only super headstrong space wolves use jump packs so it they dont all know how to use them

True... so maybe it should just be included for a low cost on the General Space Marine advances, with a prerequisite to be a non-space wolf chapter

Then Untrained Basic Skill. A Jump Pack is after all linked and controlled via power armor which is connected to the marine nervous system. Betwen that and the advanced machine spirit of the PA anyone can sort of fly it once plugged in. And whould also reflect the EXTENSIVE training an assault marine has with it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
We are also thinking about get rid of Two Weapons melee and ballistic and simply merge everything into ambidexterity. If you are ambidextrous (natural or trained) and you use weapons for as long and as hard as Astartes does you can fight with both without truble (exept the -10 as normal of course). It's just xp sink to need 3 talents to do the same thing. This specific thing goes for our games of DK and RT games as well...

First change I made was that Unnatural [Characteristic] doubled the base characteristic for figuring out the Characteristic Bonus, and did not double the Characteristic Bonus itself. That sounds arcane, but what it meant was that a Strength of 40 gave you a SB of 8, a Strength of 45 gave SB9, and a Strength of 50 gave SB 10, rather than SB going directly from 8 to 10. It made those 'mid-level' bonuses a little better.

I'm also wondering if the whole Righteous Fury mechanic is overly complicated. If you roll any tens, then you roll to confirm Righteous Fury (assuming you aren't a DW Marine fighting a Xenos), then you roll your entire damage roll again. If you roll ANY more tens, you can roll another entire damage roll and add it AGAIN (rinse and repeat, no need to confirm after the first one).

It seems very odd. You are much more likely to score Righteous Fury with more damaging weapons (which is fine, but it helps out with the weapons that need the least help), and it adds the most damage to the most damaging weapons. One marine did about 40 Wounds to a tyranid warrior with one shot (which was suitably impressive and heroic), though it made the other shots in the burst seem kind of wimpy, and the Devastator with the Heavy Bolter scored so many Righteous Fury rolls that it wasn't funny, though they were all irrelevant, as he was fighting a horde which automatically took damage from every hit. I'm not sure about how (or even if I need to) fix it, but it seems weird to have a small chance of adding a LOT of damage. I think I might rather just allow you to automatically add damage, without rolling to confirm, but instead just let you add another d10 for every 10 you roll, instead of adding your full damage roll again.

Finally, since my players are the determinedly experimental type, I changed "You cannot fire a Basic or Heavy weapon in melee" to:

You can, but you don't get the bonus to hit for Point Blank Range (since the guy you are trying to hit can wrestle you for the gun).
Any attack roll that misses by less than one degree of success hits you (or an ally in the combat), since the enemy is, as stated, wrestling you for the gun.
Any enemy in melee with you (not just the one you roll to hit) gets a free attack, just as if you had moved from combat without a Withdraw maneuver (but this is simultaneous with your shooting). You can't kill them first, nor can they kill you to stop you from shooting.
Your weapon automatically Jams after the shots, as your enemy has undoubtedly done something to your weapon in desperation.

Thus, my guys still aren't shooting in close combat, but they know that they COULD.

I also ruled, clarified, or created the rule, that a Melee attachment on a Basic Weapon must be wielded two handed. You can't duel-wield Chainsword attachments on Bolters in close combat (unless you are an Angry Marine, in which case you MUST duel-wield Chainsword attachments if you have two bolters, and not a Power Sack of Doorknobs).

Son of Ultramar wrote:Then Untrained Basic Skill. A Jump Pack is after all linked and controlled via power armor which is connected to the marine nervous system. Betwen that and the advanced machine spirit of the PA anyone can sort of fly it once plugged in. And whould also reflect the EXTENSIVE training an assault marine has with it.

i'd say the thing that is most fair to the assault marine is to simply make it a rank 1 skill at around 500xp in the general marine category. that way, chapters that train extensively in jump packs can have the characters take it while others that don't aren't forced to. also, you keep the assault marine "special" by having him still have it for free. using a jet pack is definitely not a basic skill; they're generally the ones that involve no tech.

But it should be for "veterans" like DW marines. Granted SW are the only one not trained at all in it (afaik), all other chapters do train in them at one point or another before being posted in Combat Companies (or however they are called by other non codex chapters). I'm trying to make DW rules make sense with the fluff and TT.

unfortunately, fluff and game balance don't always go completely together. otherwise, a space marine in 40k would cost 600pts each or IG would be 0.15pts each since the fluff says they're the equal of 100 guardsmen. simply making it a buyable ranked skill at rank 1 accomplishes your goals (everyone can afford it for a starting character if they want to be "fluffy") but doesn't give away one of the key starting bonuses for the assault marine for free like making it a basic skill would.

calling a skill like flying a jet pack "basic" is a bit much; basic skills are things like talking, climbing, looking, etc.. things every single non-disabled human is capable of to some degree. jump packing is something that marines must be TRAINED to do, not something that comes naturally like other basic skills.

Son of Ultramar wrote:Then Untrained Basic Skill. A Jump Pack is after all linked and controlled via power armor which is connected to the marine nervous system. Betwen that and the advanced machine spirit of the PA anyone can sort of fly it once plugged in. And whould also reflect the EXTENSIVE training an assault marine has with it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
We are also thinking about get rid of Two Weapons melee and ballistic and simply merge everything into ambidexterity. If you are ambidextrous (natural or trained) and you use weapons for as long and as hard as Astartes does you can fight with both without truble (exept the -10 as normal of course). It's just xp sink to need 3 talents to do the same thing. This specific thing goes for our games of DK and RT games as well...

Ask yourself this question. Why would anybody want to actually play an Assault Marine in your game if you make these changes? You are effectively giving away most of the advantages they get to everybody. They get Pilot Personal at first level,and get access to both Two Weapon wielder feats at first level. If I remember correctly,Tac Marines get Two Weapon Ballistic at around level 5,and everybody else has to buy them as an Elite advance. Anyone who wants Pilot Personal can take it once they hit level 3. With these changes,everybody in your game that wants a CC character will be making a Librarian and be running around with a Jump Pack and dual wielding Force Swords once they hit level 2.

Even though it may not jive exactly with the fluff,the game is set up the way it is so that the classes maintain game balance. You can argue through fluff that since Assault Squads and Devastator Squads also have Sgt.'s leading the squad,then anybody should be able to take the Tactical Marine's "Tactical Expertise" ability.

Similarly,the weapon changes that you're making make several weapons useless to borderline useless. The heavy hitting weapons like PF's and TH's are unwieldy for game balance. If you want the massive damage,then you lose the ability to Parry. That's so you have to combine them with another less damaging weapon for defense. The way you have them set up,now,everybody will just be dual-wielding Thunder Hammers as soon as they can. There is pretty much no other logical CC weapon outload,unless you make a Libby.

Whatever1 wrote:
Ask yourself this question. Why would anybody want to actually play an Assault Marine in your game if you make these changes? You are effectively giving away most of the advantages they get to everybody. They get Pilot Personal at first level,and get access to both Two Weapon wielder feats at first level. If I remember correctly,Tac Marines get Two Weapon Ballistic at around level 5,and everybody else has to buy them as an Elite advance. Anyone who wants Pilot Personal can take it once they hit level 3. With these changes,everybody in your game that wants a CC character will be making a Librarian and be running around with a Jump Pack and dual wielding Force Swords once they hit level 2.

Because Assault Marines have compleatelly different talents ? A difference characteristic advance table ? Different special abilities ? Attitude ? There are plenty of things that makes an assault marine different from a Tac or a Dev, but then again maybe I mistoke this for an RPG and not an MMO...

Whatever1 wrote:
Even though it may not jive exactly with the fluff,the game is set up the way it is so that the classes maintain game balance. You can argue through fluff that since Assault Squads and Devastator Squads also have Sgt.'s leading the squad,then anybody should be able to take the Tactical Marine's "Tactical Expertise" ability.

They sure as hell should have something related, or you want to tell me Devs and Assaults doesn't have SGTs because I have some thousands points of SM army that says otherwise.

Whatever1 wrote:
Similarly,the weapon changes that you're making make several weapons useless to borderline useless. The heavy hitting weapons like PF's and TH's are unwieldy for game balance. If you want the massive damage,then you lose the ability to Parry. That's so you have to combine them with another less damaging weapon for defense. The way you have them set up,now,everybody will just be dual-wielding Thunder Hammers as soon as they can. There is pretty much no other logical CC weapon outload,unless you make a Libby.

As above I remember this been a RPG and not an MMO, so bad buys (expecially traitors) have pretty much the same equipments DW has, or other forces have similar solutions one way or another. We are trying to stick to Codex as much as possible even with DW. Me and my group we are all in our 30s and TT players since 2nd Edition and if one of us ever try something like that he got smaked down by the most pissed Tech Brother down the armory for been silly

Son of Ultramar wrote:

Whatever1 wrote:
Ask yourself this question. Why would anybody want to actually play an Assault Marine in your game if you make these changes? You are effectively giving away most of the advantages they get to everybody. They get Pilot Personal at first level,and get access to both Two Weapon wielder feats at first level. If I remember correctly,Tac Marines get Two Weapon Ballistic at around level 5,and everybody else has to buy them as an Elite advance. Anyone who wants Pilot Personal can take it once they hit level 3. With these changes,everybody in your game that wants a CC character will be making a Librarian and be running around with a Jump Pack and dual wielding Force Swords once they hit level 2.

Because Assault Marines have compleatelly different talents ? A difference characteristic advance table ? Different special abilities ? Attitude ? There are plenty of things that makes an assault marine different from a Tac or a Dev, but then again maybe I mistoke this for an RPG and not an MMO...

Whatever1 wrote:
Even though it may not jive exactly with the fluff,the game is set up the way it is so that the classes maintain game balance. You can argue through fluff that since Assault Squads and Devastator Squads also have Sgt.'s leading the squad,then anybody should be able to take the Tactical Marine's "Tactical Expertise" ability.

They sure as hell should have something related, or you want to tell me Devs and Assaults doesn't have SGTs because I have some thousands points of SM army that says otherwise.

Whatever1 wrote:
Similarly,the weapon changes that you're making make several weapons useless to borderline useless. The heavy hitting weapons like PF's and TH's are unwieldy for game balance. If you want the massive damage,then you lose the ability to Parry. That's so you have to combine them with another less damaging weapon for defense. The way you have them set up,now,everybody will just be dual-wielding Thunder Hammers as soon as they can. There is pretty much no other logical CC weapon outload,unless you make a Libby.

As above I remember this been a RPG and not an MMO, so bad buys (expecially traitors) have pretty much the same equipments DW has, or other forces have similar solutions one way or another. We are trying to stick to Codex as much as possible even with DW. Me and my group we are all in our 30s and TT players since 2nd Edition and if one of us ever try something like that he got smaked down by the most pissed Tech Brother down the armory for been silly

One of the biggest differences in the AM talent tree IS getting both Two Weapon Fighting talents and getting them at first level. That's a big part of their schtick,which you are effectively handing to every other character in the game. One of their other differences is they have Pilot Personal at first level,while other classes have to wait for it. Now,anybody else can have it at first level.

Obviously,it's an RPG and not an MMO. However,most good GM's realize that when you start getting vastly different power levels within a group and/or somebody's character simply doesn't stack up with the others,then they are not going to have fun no matter how great the storyline is. The AM is focused towards charging into CC wielding two weapons. When you give everybody else that focus,PLUS other specializations,it's not difficult for anybody to see how somebody playing an AM in your game is going to feel like the 5th wheel.

You keep bringing up this RPG/MMO statement and I have to wonder if you understand the difference yourself,since you don't seem to understand the need for game/class balance in an RPG. This isn't D&D 2nd ed where you have a ridiculous number of classes available through a seemingly infinite number of books. There are 6 classes,and you're basically turning one into a "throw away."

That's my 2 cents on the topic at hand. I think they're bad changes,and that's already becoming evident by the fact that you've admitted yourself that you'll have to make arbitrary rulings as the GM to keep players from taking advantage of power gaming loopholes in the house rules. Obviously,it's your game,and you can make whatever changes you want,but I think it's already apparent that these changes will cause problems.

so, yo, this thread got me to register.

anyhow. i understand not wanting to tread on the AM's nitch too much, but lets think about it. the idea, imo, in a skill being "trained" means you are a bad mo-fo at that. you have been trained and are quite skilled at it. this is not "i can drive a car" this is "i am a bloody race-car driver!" so, AM's get "i play basket ball with a jetpack just for giggles." i think its not un-reasonable for Pilot (personal) to be "basic" for all SM's, because they have been trained to use them. they might not be very good at it, but they can drive to church. if they don't have it as basic, they cannot use the pack's at all which doesn't make sense. if you give all marines it as basic, you let them use them, but not be very good at it, at least untill rank 3.

the two weapon traits... i think i like them as they are actually. just because you carry two weapons doesn't mean you are good at using both at the same time. mabye you just like options. but i would make the combo use of it as a third version. so there would be two weapon weilder (melee), (ballistic), and (mixed).

Da Butcha wrote:
I'm also wondering if the whole Righteous Fury mechanic is overly complicated. If you roll any tens, then you roll to confirm Righteous Fury (assuming you aren't a DW Marine fighting a Xenos), then you roll your entire damage roll again. If you roll ANY more tens, you can roll another entire damage roll and add it AGAIN (rinse and repeat, no need to confirm after the first one).

Sounds like you might be messing something up, or maybe it is just the way you worded it. When you get Righteous Fury you only re-roll the 10s you rolled, not the other damage dice.

So if your Heavy Bolter damage rolls are 10, 8, and 4 (extra die for Tearing) you roll to confirm Righteous Fury. Damage from the dice at this point is 18. If you confirm, then the 10 is rolled again. If you roll another 10, the damage is now 28, and you keep rolling the 10 until you don't roll a 10.

But I will agree, Righteous Fury does benefit big weapons more than small ones, because of the increased chances for it to happen. With Righteous Fury and an AMAZING to hit roll, I nearly gunned down the Hive Tyrant in the small adventure in rulebook. It was supposed to fly away, but my four man group killed it in a single round. With the Librarian failing to accomplish anything, so really only three attacks killed it.

Actually, he's right. Rightgeous fury in DW is different from the other 40k RPGs from FFG: instead of just rerolling the tens you rolled, you make another to-hit roll and if successful you add another damage roll to the first. See Deathwatch page 245 for the exact wording.

When you get Righteous Fury you only re-roll the 10s you rolled, not the other damage dice.

page 245's example says otherwise. it shows the player re-rolling both dice after confirming a righteous fury.

rolling natural tens is nasty in this system.

Yes, as it makes RF not only common, but devastating. Against xenos it's even more effective with their deathwatch training.

Cthulhubeard wrote:so, yo, this thread got me to register.

anyhow. i understand not wanting to tread on the AM's nitch too much, but lets think about it. the idea, imo, in a skill being "trained" means you are a bad mo-fo at that. you have been trained and are quite skilled at it. this is not "i can drive a car" this is "i am a bloody race-car driver!" so, AM's get "i play basket ball with a jetpack just for giggles." i think its not un-reasonable for Pilot (personal) to be "basic" for all SM's, because they have been trained to use them. they might not be very good at it, but they can drive to church. if they don't have it as basic, they cannot use the pack's at all which doesn't make sense. if you give all marines it as basic, you let them use them, but not be very good at it, at least untill rank 3.

the two weapon traits... i think i like them as they are actually. just because you carry two weapons doesn't mean you are good at using both at the same time. mabye you just like options. but i would make the combo use of it as a third version. so there would be two weapon weilder (melee), (ballistic), and (mixed).

The issue with allowing Pilot skills to be Basic skills,and be used untrained as a result,is that there is next to no benefit for being trained in the skill. It even says under the description for Pilot that under normal circumstances,you don't even have to make a Pilot test at all. You just fly along automatically. With all the other Basic Skills that can be used untrained,you have to roll every time you use the Skill.

I think you're definition of trained is a little off for use in the DW system,too. If you are "Trained" in a skill,then you can that skill at your base statistic. The "average" statistic for a DW SM is 40. That means that on Challenging(+0%) tests,you only have a 40% chance of success. Tasks deemed Routine(+20%) still leave you with a 40% chance of failure. Even on a Simple(+40%) test,by average,you will fail one out of every five attempts. In the sale of Trained and Untrained in the world of DW,Trained is the equivalent of somebody with their driver's liscence. A race car driver is somebody with Pilot +20. Piloting a Jump Pack is also far more technical than that other skills that are classified as Basic,such as Search,Command,and Inquiry.

The other issue is that I'm not really sure where some are getting the idea that all SM's spend time in an Assault Company. That's not my understanding of the fluff of SM advancement. For Codex chapters,all SM's begin in the 10th "Scout" Company. From there,they are promoted to one of the Reserve Companies(6-9) based on their particular proclivities. The 6th and 7th Companies are composed of nothing but Tac Squads,the 8th Company is made up of Assault Squads,and the 9th Company is made up of Devy Squads. From there,they are promoted to one of the Battle Companies(2-5) as casualties and their advancement allow. Then they go to 1st Company,the Veteran Company. I think people are getting confused over a sentence in the Jump Pack entry,which states "Most Battle-Brothers receive the specialised training necessary to operate these devices as part of an assault squad,". Some are reading it as,"Most SM's spend time in an assault squad and receive the training," and not "Most SM's who have the training get that training by spending time in an assault squad."

Well, the main idea i have is that getting to use the skill at half the characteristic is enough of a reason to want to train. That is a 50% increased chance of success over a basic. I have never liked the idea that i can't roll a skill just because i don't have a dot or something, so i like the "basic" idea of this system. Obviously that would exclude stuff like lore. If you can pilot something without training under normal circumstances, why should you automatically fail (not get to roll) when something even moderately out of the ordinary happens?

Your example of 40 average means our "un-trained" space marine using a jetpack would have a 20% chance of success if something goes wrong or he attempts something fancy. I guess it falls into just what you are going to make someone roll a test for. I don't see 20% hurting the want / need for trained in pilot (personal) if you are going to be using a jetpack much at all. 20% chance is about 10% higher than i am used to for "snowball's chance in hell", and that is if it is default difficulty. hard difficulty kills any roll.

In the original fluff (4th edition and previous) Space Marines started as scouts then graduated to Tactical Squads. After that they moved on to either Assault or Devestator. Then finally they ended up as Veterans / Terminators. In the latest codex they ret-conned the fluff so that Space Marines must prove themselves as both Assault Marines and Devestator Marines before joining the ranks of the Tactical Squads (SM Codex pg.59).

From a fluff perspective, I can see why you'd want to give all Deathwatch Marines access to Assault abilities. However, why not grant them Devestator abilities for the same reason.

From a game balance perspective, I don't think it's worth tinkering with the system.