WH40KRP Play-By-Post: Now Playing (Session #1)

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**NimbleJack3**

Question: How far apart are the thugs?

Suggestion: Putting the combat on a standard square or hex grid would make it a lot more empirical and easier to determine distances.

**motyak**

Thats a good point, I'll do that now. And I'll be back with an answer for you once its done.

Admittedly it changes some of the half actions before I think, but we should just take this as a starter, this combat will be over soon, I'll adapt a better grid as soon as I can

**NimbleJack3**

We can hammer out the below details later - it's only that you still haven't told me how far apart the thugs are.

Usually games like this use a square grid, with each PC, NPC and other human-sized objects occupying one square. Larger objects may occupy 2x2, 3x3 or any combination of dimensions.
An example is thus:

Spoiler:

The standard scale used on maps like this is 5ft square per grid square, hence the idea of the 5-foot step from games like D&D, but other scales such as 1-meter-per are also in use in other systems.

Which brings me to another question: What's the scale on that map? I can see that there's 4-5 squares between each thug, but each thug roughly occupies a 2x2 space. DH doesn't make any assumption about map scale, but I find that 5-foot is the easiest.

**motyak**

Ho humm this is an issue, I just had the opportunity to go camping this weekend, which I won't have the chance to do again until summer, so...gah...I'm really sorry guys, I'll sort this out good and proper when I get back. It was short notice and I leave tomorrow.

The thugs are about 3m from 1 to 2, and 5m from 2 to 3.

The next combat will be smoother, I promise.

**NimbleJack3**

It's cool. The first time I DMed, the players burned through my prepared material in the first session. They then proceeded to hack and slash their way through the intricate post-magical-apocalyptic setting I'd devised, reaching a hastily improvised conclusion that satisfied no-one.

I've posted Gaius' response. He gets out a grenade and throws it - the fastest way to stop a gunfight before they all get bogged down and the local Arbites turns up, or, worse, he's shot.

EDIT: It's missed, and landed ~2m behind Thug #2. Frag Grenades are Blast (4) - are both Thug #1 and #2 caught in the blast?

**motyak**

I'd say no, sadly

**NimbleJack3**

So who is? Thug #2 is caught, at least. I aimed 2W and 3N of #2, and it rolled 2E - meaning that it's still directly 3N (and not 2 meters away, my bad) of him, and therefore within the Blast (4) range of the Frag Grenade.

**motyak**

yeah, sorry, he definitely catches some, but no body else.

**NimbleJack3**

Awesome. I'll have a damage roll and stuff up later today. Too late over here at the moment. Apologies if I'm holding anyone up.

EDIT: Maybe people can go before I calculate damage, assuming it doesn't affect gameplay too much?

EDIT 2: Frags are awesome. Gotta love BS tests without skills for blast weapons.

**DOOMBREAD**

Motyak, you did check to make sure that I was at point-blank when I shotgunned Thug 1, right? I haven't been able to find a definition for point-blank in my DH book.

**NimbleJack3**

Why no crit tables for everyone? That's the best part of Dark Heresy. It's rewarding and hilarous for an enemy to cook off and kill his buddies on a lucky hit with a plasma gun.

**motyak**

@Doom
Yup you were point blank

@Nimblejack3
I may bring them in for later combats, if the group at large would prefer everyone to have them

**Melissia**

I'm okay with not being brutally murdered through crits...

You know.

Just saying.

**motyak**

haha we'll see how you go...

**NimbleJack3**

Melissia wrote:
I'm okay with not being brutally murdered through crits...

Really? DH is probably not the game for you, then. It's pretty lethal most of the time, in a Hero Of The Imperium black-comedy sort of way. Most characters don't reach level 8. Think along the lines of Call of Cthulu or Gamma World, where you're guaranteed to die after a few sessions, but not as drastic and IN SPACE.

I'd actually be pretty okay with Gaius dying, especially if it was hilarious or awesome. I'd gladly accept the result if I had to roll on the crit table, and I'd probably deserve it for doing something stupid in a fight.

**Melissia**

You're reading way too much in to this.

Stop psychoanalyzing. Or RPG-o-analyizing. Or whatever.

**JMZ**

I'm all for the use of crits,... somewhere down the line. Right now, getting splattered by random street thugs who roll well seems like a very anti-climactic end to our would be heroes.

I did however have a question. How are we handling fate points? For in person, it's a use per play session, right?
Do you want to break it down via you get a new renewed fate for each story chapters? or just see how things go and refill at GM discression?

**motyak**

I think we'll just see how it goes, depends on just how fast you guys end up going through your fate.

**JMZ**

sounds good. Gonna wait til necessary and then hopefully splatter some baddie with a super shot to da face,

**NimbleJack3**

If you take a crit, you can always spend fate to slip out of it.

And besides - while Dark Heresy can be brutally unforgiving if you just shoot away at everything, if you plan and fight carefully there's no reason why you can't make it out alive 9 times out of 10.

**Melissia**

By plan the fight properly, you of course mean hide behind the guardsman/techpriest/arbitrator, right?

**motyak**

/sister in power armour

**Melissia**

Hey, you're giving me power armor?

**NimbleJack3**

Melissia wrote:
By plan the fight properly, you of course mean hide behind the guardsman/techpriest/arbitrator, right?

Nah - hide behind solid cover every opportinity you get, make liberal use of frag grenades and supressing fire, and always try and pre-plan an advantage (stealth, prepared killing zone, disguises, etc.).

**Melissia**

I like my idea better.

**motyak**

Melissia wrote:
I like my idea better.

Trying to con yourself into power armour?

**Melissia**

No, using teammates for shields.

It's worked all the other times I've played Adept (which, now that I think of it, is surprisingly often).

**JMZ**

I'm glad you didn't mention hiding behind the scum character's Mel, you're just as likely to end up as the human shield on that one.

**Melissia**

Scum aren't that much less squishy than adepts anyway. Same with assassins or psykers.

Although at least assassins and scum can dodge.

**NimbleJack3**

Hello, GM? Are you still there?