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So, I'm starting a BC campaign here and the players have left it to me to actually create characters after choosing archetypes and a direction they'd like to take their characters. I've ended up with a desire for a Thousand Sons Sorceror (who will basically be starting as an aspirant sorceror recently elevated to a Space Marine out to prove himself in the eyes of the raven god and earn the mark of tzeentch initially), a Chosen (playing a Raptor with a jump pack), a Heretek, and a rogue Inquisitor (human Psyker) with a John Crighton complex to help drive the story.

Now, looking over character creating I'd like to have them start a bit higher than the initial starting value so I'm thinking ~1000xp for CSM characters and ~1500 for human characters. However, it still feels like the humans, though more versatile, still may not be able to pull their full weight and the party may be lacking in potentially key non-combat skills for a campaign. I was thinking of either increasing the human characters equipment allowance or giving them a bit more additional XP for non-combat skills, maybe starting at ~1700xp or something. Anyone have any thoughts on that?

Additionally, I'd like to start the campaign off with some homebrew content for a while and segue it into the Hand of Corruption adventure, reading through the books it seems rather challenging at some parts, anyone tried anything like that before and have any decent ideas/tips for doing so?

First thing's first:

Accept that the squishy humans will never be as good in combat as the Marines, and that artificially buffing them to make them 'equal' won't solve the problem.

Right, with that out of the way, we turn to a very useful part of the BC rules - Minions. Minions make up the deficit between squishy humans and Marines. You can have a very good social/interaction/stealth/technical character and surround them with a gaggle of powerful HTH or shooting minions. It makes combat a little more complex, but it also means that the humans won't be totally ineffectual when you throw other Marines at them.

That said, I would agree on giving additional xp on top of what you start with. One of the benefits of BC is that there are no 'levels' or 'ranks', and the upper-limit on xp you can spend is extremely high, so gifting the players 1000+ xp at campaign start won't shorted the campaign by much, as it's not like you're starting them at Rank 3 and there's only another 5 ranks to go before they hit a hard-cap level limit.

H.B.M.C. wrote:First thing's first:

Accept that the squishy humans will never be as good in combat as the Marines, and that artificially buffing them to make them 'equal' won't solve the problem.

Oh, I understand that, and was never trying to make them equal in combat, rather was trying to give them additional utility outside of combat (as I noted, extra XP was to spend on additional non-combat skills) especially seeing as the party likely would be lacking many non-combat related abilities such such as inquiry, tech use, and the like, as being split between humans and CSM's they seem like they'll have to contend with the weaknesses of both and potentially not enough of the strengths, at least without making them basically cut/paste min/max characters from the get go.

Right, with that out of the way, we turn to a very useful part of the BC rules - Minions. Minions make up the deficit between squishy humans and Marines. You can have a very good social/interaction/stealth/technical character and surround them with a gaggle of powerful HTH or shooting minions. It makes combat a little more complex, but it also means that the humans won't be totally ineffectual when you throw other Marines at them.

Right, we just haven't really gotten to that point yet as none of the players expressed an interest in such an avenue at the time of character creation, desiring minions and gaggles of followers to develop as they actually progress along their adventure.

That said, I would agree on giving additional xp on top of what you start with. One of the benefits of BC is that there are no 'levels' or 'ranks', and the upper-limit on xp you can spend is extremely high, so gifting the players 1000+ xp at campaign start won't shorted the campaign by much, as it's not like you're starting them at Rank 3 and there's only another 5 ranks to go before they hit a hard-cap level limit.

That's something that immediately stood out to me as soon as I got the book so I didn't hesitate to start them a bit higher up, especially as there's little room for definition at the starting XP limits, especially for Marines, so good to see I wasn't off there.

I would use the starter adventure in the core book or use the Game Master kit adventure to get the group started off, to see how the group works together, or how they lacks cohesion, and then weave your own stuff into said adventure as the game goes on.

Yeah, I wouldn't go diving right into fighting Grey Knights and Imperial Guard. We started fighting pirates, and then rival cults/groups of Chaos worshippers.

For now I just have them fighting through street gangs and smugglers while engaging in some espionage activities as well to gain favor with a well connected criminal information faction, that can provide information on finding a warpseer who can help them unlock an artifact that's forming the core of a story here that'll eventually lead them to playing through much of the Hand of Corruption adventure.


Basically so far it's been:

COMBAT
Raptor goes in: people die in horribly messy ways every round.

Sorceror attempts to join in: fails all the WP rolls he attempts, misses every shot he attempts to take.

Psyker hides and occaisionally compels people to drop weapons and the like

Heretek takes potshots and uses an auspex to alert the rest of the party to stuff



then lots of Inquiry and Charm rolls on the part of the sorceror outside of combat to gain information while the heretek looks for stuff to make insane devices with.