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Greetings, Dakkanauts.

I'm soon partaking in a game of Deathwatch hosted online -- but I have a problem: I don't want to play as a Space Marine. The GM has allowed Guardsmen just as long as they're specialized enough to do a job that their OP counterparts can't.

So my question is this: what role would that be? Flamed? Vox? Etc.

Get the Only War book. It's Guardsmen with specialized focus.
Page 310 has rules to equalize your character with Deathwatch.

What Vector Strike said...

.... but, do realize, that you're going to be playing this game on Hard Mode, because the adversaries presented in Death Watch are meant to be a challenge to a team of 4 to 6 (Movie) Space Marines. Even though the characters in Only War are a cut above the standard Guardsman... they are still only human.

Why are you playing a game of Deathwatch if you don't want to be a Marine?

Play Black Crusade instead, you can mix and match marines and Heratics.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
Why are you playing a game of Deathwatch if you don't want to be a Marine?

Play Black Crusade instead, you can mix and match marines and Heratics.

This. Are the rest of the party interested in being the Deathwatch marines? If so, you could always gen a character from Only War, give him a ton of XP so he/she can have abilities that rival a Marine's starting prowess and roll from there?

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
Why are you playing a game of Deathwatch if you don't want to be a Marine?

Play Black Crusade instead, you can mix and match marines and Heratics.

If you can read the OP, I'm joining a game, not hosting it. Besides, Space Marines are Mary Sues and I don't find them appealing.

I'll discuss the higher lever character idea with the GM. Otherwise, I'll just bite the bullet and go SM.

Besides, Space Marines are Mary Sues and I don't find them appealing.

Which still befits my question, why are you joining a 40k game that's basically entirely about Space Marines?

Space Marines are Mary Sues?

That is a bit generalising, especially considering IG is not exactly free from that either. (Cain/Gaunt just leaps to mind)

Don't join the game is my advice. It is a game of Mary Sues. That's the point.

The primary problem with joining as an IG is that you are squishy and many enemies can shoot, so your big friends can't always shield you.

Alcibiades wrote:
Don't join the game is my advice. It is a game of Mary Sues. That's the point.

A game of mary sue's? Nah that's Maid RPG.

Marine's are infallible and all that, Even Ultramarines.

 Ashiraya wrote:
The primary problem with joining as an IG is that you are squishy and many enemies can shoot, so your big friends can't always shield you.

This. Unless you can fullfill some niche the rest of the party can't you'll most likely be a liability.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

Alcibiades wrote:
Don't join the game is my advice. It is a game of Mary Sues. That's the point.

A game of mary sue's? Nah that's Maid RPG.

Marine's are infallible and all that, Even Ultramarines.

The point is that Deathwatch is a game of, well, superheroes.

As an aside. as a GM nothing annoys me more than a player that insists on playing a character outside the setting genre, But I'm not the GM< so I'll shut up.

Alcibiades wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

Alcibiades wrote:
Don't join the game is my advice. It is a game of Mary Sues. That's the point.

A game of mary sue's? Nah that's Maid RPG.

Marine's are infallible and all that, Even Ultramarines.

The point is that Deathwatch is a game of, well, superheroes.

As an aside. as a GM nothing annoys me more than a player that insists on playing a character outside the setting genre, But I'm not the GM< so I'll shut up.

You are the most durable of the games, it's also the simplest to play as a result. A good way of introducing people to the rules of the 40k RPG's.

Though a bad GM will just make it fully fighty, gotta have social interactions even as a SM and allthat.

Deathwatch Marines are stupid powerful compared to Dark Heresy or Rogue Trader characters. One newbie Space Marine can kill a Rogue Trader party in combat. The systems are largely compatible, but a regular human would need tons of exp (like 10 000) to be able to hang around with the Space Marines. Even then, he would be weakest of the bunch. Also plot-wise, it can get kinda hard for regular humie as the scenarios often assume everyone in Power Armour, they can take place on a planet with hostile atmosphere or in a drifting wreck with no atmosphere at all etc.

Haven't played Only War, but I'd suggest a Techpriest or Psyker if you insist playing a Guardsman. Something special where you can have an useful (and credible) role and hang back when the going gets too tough for you.

My PERSONAL opinion however is not to play Deathwatch at all. It is really poorly designed system and hella-annoying to play.

The difference is simply nothing short of humongous.

Take some chaos snipers with long-las.

1d10+3 E damage on pen 1, assuming we nab the long-las from the RT rules.

Let's say our Marine has 50 Toughness (And he should, the 50 threshold is really important so you'll want to get it asap), he'll have 10 TB, plus 7/8 armour for his PA.

In short, unless you get Righteous Fury, a long-las is not going to damage a Marine.

In contrast, a Guardsman with armour 4 Flak and a TB of 3 or 4?

He may very well fare badly under sniper fire.

I play a Renegade under Black Crusade. For a basic guardsman, I am far more survivable than the marines I work with.

I have mixed RT with DW. Party ran with 3-4 Space Marines and a human Arbites. The RT character did have more exp than the marines but the character was still way under powered compaired to the Marines. As long as the DM is OK with it and you realize how dangerous marine scaled enemies are for a non space marine you could have fun. If you want to top the chart, and if the group has enough exp you could also play a dreadnought.

 Unyielding Hunger wrote:
I play a Renegade under Black Crusade. For a basic guardsman, I am far more survivable than the marines I work with.

Black Crusade CSM are far weaker than Deathwatch SM.

In all likelihood for the exact same reason you said: they are not supposed to be a nobrainer choice gameplaywise.

Backfire wrote:
Deathwatch Marines are stupid powerful compared to Dark Heresy or Rogue Trader characters. One newbie Space Marine can kill a Rogue Trader party in combat. The systems are largely compatible, but a regular human would need tons of exp (like 10 000) to be able to hang around with the Space Marines. Even then, he would be weakest of the bunch. Also plot-wise, it can get kinda hard for regular humie as the scenarios often assume everyone in Power Armour, they can take place on a planet with hostile atmosphere or in a drifting wreck with no atmosphere at all etc.

Haven't played Only War, but I'd suggest a Techpriest or Psyker if you insist playing a Guardsman. Something special where you can have an useful (and credible) role and hang back when the going gets too tough for you.

My PERSONAL opinion however is not to play Deathwatch at all. It is really poorly designed system and hella-annoying to play.

Thanks for the info. I've never played these systems before so I have no clue what I'm getting into, only that the GM straight out said Guardsmen were playable (I playlist Guard so I became interested).

When I get off work, I'll be sure to peruse the book(s) for info on Techpriests. It's just Space Marines in general turns me off, but I can get over it if it makes things easier for the group.

The Deathwatch RPG is specifically designed to be played by people wanting to play Space Marines. For people wanting to play Guardsmen, or otherwise-regular-people, they have their 4 other games.

As previously mentioned, DW is designed for people to play Movie Marines in an RPG. They start out just stupid-powerful, and only get worse from there. Prior to the FAQ/Errata, the standard Marine bolter had a higher damage potential than any other weapon in the system that wasn't mounted on a starship, due entirely to the dice it rolled and the qualities of the weapon (and how the rules for those work). As a Regular Joe human, though, you won't be allowed to touch these guns (no, seriously, Astartes weapons don't work for non-Astartes people in DW).

However, if the GM is prepared to handle a game of super-heroes, it can be really great fun kicking epic amounts of ass in the name of the Emperor. It's one thing to be the underdog (as you basically are in Dark Heresy, Only War and Black Crusade), and those games are all plenty fun, but it's also nice to only appear to be the underdog, because in DW, five Marines can slaughter 100 times their number in a Tyranid horde without too much trouble.

Also, there's enough templates in the book that allow you to build-your-own-Marine. While they give you examples from several Chapters to choose from, you can always talk oto your GM about making a member of a new Chapter if you have a fluff idea that would work.

 Psienesis wrote:
Prior to the FAQ/Errata, the standard Marine bolter had a higher damage potential than any other weapon in the system that wasn't mounted on a starship, due entirely to the dice it rolled and the qualities of the weapon (and how the rules for those work).

Yep, two D10 for damage plus tearing meant a lot of Righteous Fury.

Well, if you really want to play, get a ranged class to go with them. Regarding Only War, no Sarge (nooone to bark orders) neither a comissar (not his job to watch on marines). Medic can't sork on SM phisiology so he's out as well. Heavy Weapons, Driver or a Weapon Specialist seem quite good to tag along, though.

Still, it's a bit childish to think SM are Mary Sues. All factions have Mary Sues characters.

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
Prior to the FAQ/Errata, the standard Marine bolter had a higher damage potential than any other weapon in the system that wasn't mounted on a starship, due entirely to the dice it rolled and the qualities of the weapon (and how the rules for those work).

Yep, two D10 for damage plus tearing meant a lot of Righteous Fury.

Original DW weapons tables were mind-numbingly stupid. There was no point at all taking any other weapons except various types of Bolters - and that's before factoring in the Special ammunition types which are way too cheap. In our first mission other players ended up doing barely anything, as my Devastator just wiped out everything with his Heavy Bolter. We changed to Errata lists after that. Bolters are still best there, but at least the difference is slightly less obvious. I often take Plasma Gun or Missile launcher nowadays simply for challenge, as Heavy Bolter with special ammo still makes things way, way too easy.

I say one thing in favour of Deathwatch: there you really feel like you're center of everything, a superhero around whom the universe revolves. There are enough games where you play dirt of the Earth whom always gets the crappiest jobs and is treated like cannon-fodder: when you're a Space Marine, regular humans - even powerful individuals - stand in awe when you appear, lesser enemies wet themselves when they see who they're fighting against and you get to believably fight against most dangerous enemies of the Imperium, whereas in most RPG's (including, say, Dark Heresy) the fate of the universe is cast upon bunch of newbies armed with butter knives which kinda kills the suspension of disbelief, why would such an important job given to green recruits with minimal resources?

What's so great about it then you ask, isn't that precisely very Mary-Sue-ish? Well, all that can easily make you very arrogant and if GM is good, he can play that for great effect. Suddenly those Renegade Guardsmen prepare a huge, skillful ambush for you instead of running away, or that diplomat you insulted or mistreated turned out to be honoured war hero with big-time connections, or that Noble you summarily executed as an example had powerful relatives who turn for Ruinous Powers to gain their revenge etc.

Well, all that can easily make you very arrogant and if GM is good, he can play that for great effect. Suddenly those Renegade Guardsmen prepare a huge, skillful ambush for you instead of running away, or that diplomat you insulted or mistreated turned out to be honoured war hero with big-time connections, or that Noble you summarily executed as an example had powerful relatives who turn for Ruinous Powers to gain their revenge etc.

Don't forget the issues with arrogance that could turn one down a darker path and cause issues for the party in team coordination, an UM suddenly getting his curse and causing the whole teams effectiveness to drop at a critical time can be painful for some groups for example.

Vector Strike wrote:Page 310 has rules to equalize your character with Deathwatch.

I'm not sure "equalize" would be the right term ...

Deathwatch is basically "300 the RPG" in Space. Or "Movie Marines the Game". We are talking about characters who get a ton of special rules and exclusive perks designed specifically to make them feel more special and superheroic, from Demeanours (aka "yay, free Fate Points!") all the way to Squad Modes that let people negate lascannon blasts or attack multiple times per turn. Even more powerful than in Black Crusade, and it's already iffy there - to the point that they had to split Hordes into two different tiers of realism (one for the Heroic CSM, and an easy mode for the scrub humans just so that they don't die instantly to the magic damage bonus granted to Hordes just to make them somewhat dangerous to Astartes).



On the Deathwatch forums, there was a thread on the topic of munchkinism discussing how far you could push it with the RAW if you really wanted: "One on One vs a Bloodthirster"

I'm ... really not sure if playing any sort of dramatis personae that is not using that game's character creation is going to be fun. You don't even get to use the same class of weaponry, as the designers decided to slap a blanket +25% damage bonus on everything touched by the Marines and you'd be using "civilian" (direct quote) guns. Coupled with a Guardsman's lack of heavy armour and their general squishiness and the fact that scaling in this d100 system is abysmal, you're in for quite a ride.

At the very least I would petition the GM for a few houserules:
- ask for access to weapons with Astartes-level damage profiles. backgroundwise, there is no reason why you'd have to assume that one rocket-propelled .75 cal bolt does more damage than another, or why one flask of promethium burns hotter than another.
- ask for getting your own special rules and perks, such as a talent that makes you harder to hit (you are smaller than the Marines) or that gives you bonus Armour Points based on your cover

Ashiraya wrote:Space Marines are Mary Sues?
That is a bit generalising, especially considering IG is not exactly free from that either. (Cain/Gaunt just leaps to mind)

Every army has some areas where they get some ridiculous fluff just to make them appear more heroic.
The "problem" is that with Space Marines this is the case 90% of the time (especially in 3rd party material such as the novels and computer games), whereas for everyone else it's more like 10%. Combined with the Space Marines also hogging the limelight and receiving more products than any other army ... yeah, I can certainly understand how someone might get the impression that Marines are Mary Sues.

Fortunately, there's still the 10% where they aren't, but those bits of fluff don't seem to be very popular, or even well known (mostly because a lot of it is from White Dwarf rather than the newest book about Marine Heroes Kicking Ass).

 Lynata wrote:
The "problem" is that with Space Marines this is the case 90% of the time (especially in 3rd party material such as the novels and computer games), whereas for everyone else it's more like 10%.

A claim often made, yet never substantiated.

 BlaxicanX wrote:

 Lynata wrote:
The "problem" is that with Space Marines this is the case 90% of the time (especially in 3rd party material such as the novels and computer games), whereas for everyone else it's more like 10%.

A claim often made, yet never substantiated.

Try any marine-centric book. One guy called me childish, but SM are demigods lore wise -- veritable Mary Sues. Apparently this is evident in Deathwatch. I don't see why you're denying this, we're not insulting you or anything of that sort.

BlaxicanX wrote:A claim often made, yet never substantiated.

Obviously it depends on individual experiences (meaning: what you've read/seen yourself), but I think I am relatively knowledgeable when it comes to 40k fluff, and I do perceive a marked difference in tone when comparing the Marine codex with any other army's. It is "worse" in outsourced material, though - which is easily explainable by the use of plot armour for protagonists regardless of their nature. Note, for example, how Ashiraya's examples for Mary Sue IG are both characters from Black Libary novels. And with Space Marines dominating the vast majority of Black Library material, it doesn't take much to see where this is going.

Ultimately, this will of course be hard to prove as we can't exactly make a tally list encompassing 30 years of fiction, listing every single instance. You either agree with that assessment, or you don't.
Like I said, I can easily understand how someone might get that impression. Nothing more, nothing less.

 The Airman wrote:
Try any marine-centric book.

Try any Guard-centric book.

 Lynata wrote:

BlaxicanX wrote:A claim often made, yet never substantiated.

Obviously it depends on individual experiences (meaning: what you've read/seen yourself), but I think I am relatively knowledgeable when it comes to 40k fluff, and I do perceive a marked difference in tone when comparing the Marine codex with any other army's. It is "worse" in outsourced material, though - which is easily explainable by the use of plot armour for protagonists regardless of their nature. Note, for example, how Ashiraya's examples for Mary Sue IG are both characters from Black Libary novels. And with Space Marines dominating the vast majority of Black Library material, it doesn't take much to see where this is going.

Ultimately, this will of course be hard to prove as we can't exactly make a tally list encompassing 30 years of fiction, listing every single instance. You either agree with that assessment, or you don't.
Like I said, I can easily understand how someone might get that impression. Nothing more, nothing less.

While you're right that it's a matter of knowledge (though, considering that you by admission don't read much BL, one is left to wonder why you feel so confident in criticizing it), you're off the mark regarding how open to interpretation the reality is.

To wit, any instance of Astartes plot armor in a BL book you can provide, I can easily match with an instance of plot armor from a non-Astartes, Imperium-centered book.