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Okay this morning I have been burning time playtesting deathwatch and this has lead me to some questions;

1 Is it just me or is combat insanely fast,I pitted 1sm v. 1sm and the combat more often then not lasted only one or two rounds.
2 Now to the veterans out there is it common for PCs to die?
3 Also how do you guys introduce new PCs into a game? I ask this since in my standard d&d group my party adopts a very pyrrhic/japanese way to fighting.


I will update this as more questions come up.

1 Yes combat is fast, high damage output all around does that. Tell your players to stay in cover unless in melee, it helps.

2 Not that common really, unless they derp around.

3 Deathwatch uses kill teams, kill teams are a certain number of men/space marines. If all else fails just use that simple reason. If they die during the mission, be creative. If they die too much, don't bring them in until the mission is over.

Okay, another question, what does a protection rating do(like from SS and Termie armor)

Protection rating on armor mitigates damage. Check the main rulebook for the full rules.

Protection ratings on Storm Shields and Terminator Armour act like (or are) force fields.

So if it has a protection rating of 35, then you roll a D100 for every shot that hits you and on a 35 or lower the shot is completely negated. Of course, some force fields have overload values (listed as 1-5, 1-10, and so on). Rolling this means the force field overloads/burns out and will have to be repaired.

To combine the two, say you have a Combat Shield with a rating of 35, but an Overload of 1-10, and you get hit three times. You roll a D100 and score a 32 - first shot blocked completely. You roll a D100 for the second hit and roll a 63 - that shot makes it through, so work out damage/penetration/wounds as normal. For the final shot you roll a D100 again and this time score a 3. The shot is stopped, but the Combat Shield's field overloads and cannot be used until repaired.

Note that some things don't overload. Terminator Armour and some 'Protection of Chaos' effects don't overload.

The person playing the librarian nearly died three times during one session we had, due to the perils of the warp.

That happens. In the last Deathwatch game we played we had two Librarians pushing their powers every turn. By the end of the encounter there were three holes in the world and it was raining blood!

H.B.M.C. wrote:That happens. In the last Deathwatch game we played we had two Librarians pushing their powers every turn. By the end of the encounter there were three holes in the world and it was raining blood!

LMFAO I have a feeling so much of my party will be librarians now(last group had grapplers and barbarians and wizards, in otherwords PCs were killing each other.......)

It does not help that the librarian in my group is +10 to that chart though.

btemple0 wrote:The person playing the librarian nearly died three times during one session we had, due to the perils of the warp.

Tell him to stop pushing his powers then, I've got a player in my dark heresy game that does this for lawls and has accidentally summoned a demon and nearly been possessed twice. He finds it funny, no one else does. I put the hammer down.

I told him the consequences, and eventually there would be a target he would not be able to hurt, even IF he pushes a power.

Okay another question, how do you work an inquisitor into the requisition system that the SMs have, or do they keep thier standard item acquirement ules?

That's up to the GM to work out.

Taking the Inquisitor from career in Ascension and putting it into Deathwatch is easy. Their equipment would likely be whatever they want and whatever fits with theircharacter - they're Inquisitors after all. Virtually nothing is out of their reach.

H.B.M.C. wrote:That's up to the GM to work out.

Taking the Inquisitor from career in Ascension and putting it into Deathwatch is easy. Their equipment would likely be whatever they want and whatever fits with theircharacter - they're Inquisitors after all. Virtually nothing is out of their reach.

Well problem is I am the GM and in the sense of gender fairness I allowed a Female player to make a vendicare assassin, so I was wondering what other gms do or would do if this happened.

I'd wonder why a Vindicare was working with a DW team to start with...

H.B.M.C. wrote:I'd wonder why a Vindicare was working with a DW team to start with...

I am saying attached to the killteam partially as part of office politics, or just a debt the vindicare feels she owes and the watch commander doesnt mind having a proffesional assassin with the group

Well that's fine... I guess... a bit unorthodox if you ask me. In any case, then the Vindicare's wargear would be pretty simple since they only use their specific temple weapons.

H.B.M.C. wrote:Well that's fine... I guess... a bit unorthodox if you ask me. In any case, then the Vindicare's wargear would be pretty simple since they only use their specific temple weapons.

Then there's the issue of providing stats for the Exitus Rifle and Exitus Pistol without turning them into "What I point at dies!" weapons...

AlmightyWalrus wrote:

H.B.M.C. wrote:Well that's fine... I guess... a bit unorthodox if you ask me. In any case, then the Vindicare's wargear would be pretty simple since they only use their specific temple weapons.

Then there's the issue of providing stats for the Exitus Rifle and Exitus Pistol without turning them into "What I point at dies!" weapons...

lol but lascannons do that already lol

I would not see an assassing carrying one of those however, keep the gear basic otherwise the PC's will have those "PC Plans" moments.

btemple0 wrote:I would not see an assassing carrying one of those however, keep the gear basic otherwise the PC's will have those "PC Plans" moments.

Ya, I was just pointing out that the BBs do have something that is a similar I win button

Haywire fields work great.

AlmightyWalrus wrote:Then there's the issue of providing stats for the Exitus Rifle and Exitus Pistol without turning them into "What I point at dies!" weapons...

That's the easiest part. The Vindicare rules already exist.

Wardragoon wrote:Okay another question, how do you work an inquisitor into the requisition system that the SMs have, or do they keep thier standard item acquirement ules?

There is a table in the Deathwatch Core Rulebook that give you the requisition cost for items based on availability. A few pages later is another table that gives a multiplier to requisition based on quality. Those should help you work the Inquisitor into the requisition system.