Before Only War True Grit halved critical damage, now the toughness bonus is applied twice.
Just seems off - we drop the orks to zero and then need to stab the almost dead creature about 5-6 times to actually really kill it. Because adding crit damage 1 at a time doesn't actually affect their ability to fight that much.
Just a rules based Huh? comment more than anything else... and that Hathin should have kept hold of his plasma...
Mark, I know, it seems... ridiculous?
True Grit
Tier 3
Prerequisite: Toughness 40
Aptitudes: Toughness, Defence
The character is able to shrug off wounds that would fell lesser men. Whenever the character suffers Critical Damage (after reduction for Armour and Toughness), reduce the amount by his Toughness Bonus (to a minimum of 1).
I wasn't sure myself thus my earlier query to make sure I'm interpreting correctly. As written and it's why these G-D orks have made this combat last so effing long!
Aye - bit rough sticking a Tier 3 talent on a Tier 1 adversary... but who said they needed to make it easy for the Corp? :P
lol well I have it as well so I dont mind. :-)
Everyone,
It's been a few weeks but here's a partial summary of my con experience in order that I played them--I was late to the Black Crusade game and lost my spot. :(
Only War! -- Played an Elysian Drop Troop demolitions expert. The standard firearm was a shotgun which really wrecked some havoc. The fighting was inside structures so most of the fighting was up close and personal. Would have been interesting to see how combat w/short-range shotguns would have changed outdoors. They seemed way more effective than lasrifles, that's for sure. I really liked the feel of the guardsman squad and I thought the various roles--medic, weapons specialist, tech priest--really meshed well. In addition to the shotgun, I had a grenade launcher which I used to lay down smoke and also launched a krak grenade into the open cargo door of an enemy shuttle and immolated the crew... that was fun!
I think this was my favorite adventure of the weekend. Had that right balance of danger and ability to dish out damage.
Deathwatch -- Played a "Bone Collector" sniper home-brewed by the GM. The GM was an art major in college and had some immaculately painted minis. The kill-team had to secure and clear out a xeno research station. Lots of mayhem and carnage.
This one was the least fun because A. A few of the players kept making jokes trying to out-nerd each other with their 40K fluff knowledge (that got old REALLY quickly) and B. The kill-team was never in any real danger. The couple of big baddies the GM had planned were dispensed with pretty quickly. We used Deathwatch RAW and I was reminded a little of our team's showdown on Tantalus--kind of anti-climactic. The GM only threw one horde at us too so I think he underestimated how much firepower a five man team can dish out.
Rook, I'm actually looking forward to using the nerfed rules from Black Crusade in our DW game.
Rogue Trader -- I played the explorator so I was right at home as the tech guy. :) This was fun... first time I played RT and I liked the "away team" feel of the adventure. The group did a great job of utilizing their various talents. No ship combat which would have been interesting to me but would have slowed the game down considerably.
Some thoughts/observations:
1. I'm really thankful for the crew that I play with here on the Paizo boards with DW, DH, and OW. The quality of play, collegiality, and general friendliness is outstanding. Thanks so much everyone.
2. I play WFRP, 3rd ed. face to face about twice a month. The game is lethal (in a year I've lost three characters and another was retired). The sense of mortality is palpable and definitely influences decisions. Sort of the opposite of the DW encounter I played. I love the DW fluff and love playing a totally bad-ass superhuman space marine. I love my character, Brother Emeric, but I would actually be OK if he were to fall in play. I don't have a death wish for him but I'd rather cross the fine line of danger than not come close to it. Hope this makes sense. And Rook, please understand in no way is this meant to be a criticism of you or your game.
As a side-note Rook, how would you handle PC death? Do replacement characters come in at rank 1 or do you allow players to replace at the same xp level as their lost character? In Only War I think I will do the latter.
3. Once the initial ork combat ends I'm looking forward to facilitating some character development by Squad Mire. There are already some developing personalities and there are some story lines I will pursue. I had fun as "Boomer" the demo guy in my game.
That's it. Thanks for reading if you made it this far!
Sincerely,
Eradico
|
Thanks for indulging me a little on the request about the con, Eradico, it is greatly appreciated.
Since my face-to-face RP'ing is pretty much non-existent at this point due to lack of time, friends all having families and work, etc, this gives me some insight into how the experience is with the games from the 40K line in a tabletop setting.
All the games sounded very cool, and it sounds like you had a lot of fun with some interesting scenarios. I'll admit to being a tad envious, :)
I'm glad you like our Paizo groups, too. I can't say enough about all of you guys, you make the games worth playing for me.
Eradico, I'd also like to say that the Only War game has been awesome so far. It really is nice to be able to play in a game instead of GM'ing and it really helps me see things better as a GM, having a player's perspective for a change.
I also can't stress how much having one of you guys on the 'other-side-of-fence' GM'ing has helped me. Having someone as a sounding board and knowing that someone shares my 'love/hate' of building battle-maps and web-formatting combat text blocks, is great. It's hard work, but it's always been worth it.
I'm in total agreement on the Deathwatch observation though, the Rules As Written are very flawed when it comes to giving an accurate sense of danger/challenge for space marines. With the full understanding that space marines should be nigh-unstoppable juggernauts of the Emperor's wrath, I still think they overshot that mark and the some. I'm glad it reared its ugly head in Tantalus before the start of the campaign proper, and I believe using the errata/Black Crusade rules will help greatly. It was quite anti-climactic for me, too.
Don't get me wrong, I think Astartes should be paragons of power, but there is no fun if there is no risk, and most of the adversaries/weapons/situations that can effectively kill a space marine come off as too immediate/deadly. When you add a large Kill-team with numbers to the equation it quickly becomes an escalating arms-race to balance encounters. While I believe there should be a place for 'easy' encounters, like slaughtering an assault squad of flak-armored cultist-soldiers, removing the risk of mortality makes any role-playing game just a video game in God-mode. My sincere hope is the modifications assist with this.
I might not quite be what you'd call a 'soft' GM, but the players I came up with tended to become very attached to their characters, and more often than not, story superseded bad die rolls---of course, every GM fudges from time to time---but I recall using a variation on Fate Points very early with my first D&D campaigns---essentially, you got 'X' number of mulligans at character creation for bad dice rolling/ending up in untenable situations (particularly for save or die situations), and after that, 'oh well'. I did kill players, though, one of them pretty regularly by pure, unintentional coincidence (we still joke about his bad luck to this day). Making poor decisions never was an excuse though. I'm very much in the 'death should be part of the game' camp, and although dying from a drunken orc can be depressing, some of the best characters in my campaigns have been those who have gone out in epic fashion. My brother once sacrificed his beloved dwarven cleric against an adult green dragon that was routing the rest of the wounded party through root-tunnels under a giant tree in Cormanthor, and those are the things you remember fondly.
Prattling on a bit, sorry.
I totally understand what you are saying about Emeric and character death, Eradico, and do not see it as a criticism at all. I feel exactly the same. The Deathwatch thing is hopefully fixable though. As far as new character creation, what I've tended to do to maintain equitable power levels is have new characters come in with a comparable but not equal amount of accumulated XP. I've always held that anyone who is bored of their character or otherwise disenchanted should just say so, it happens, and we can work out something---between missions in Deathwatch this can be as easy as your Vigil ending, for example.
Don't worry, Eradico, I know you love Emeric, lol.
I'm really looking forward to seeing Squad Mire in some downtime, too. You know things are shaping up well when you are already starting to get some characterization in what has mostly been a combat so far. I have to say, I think FFG was right to make a more 'gritty' military setting for Warhammer 40K after Deathwatch/Black Crusade, being the regular grunt and surviving the odds is often more satisfying than anything a high-powered game can manage.
That was great post, Eradico, I'd like to see the OOC get flowing a little more in the other campaigns, too. I know I've neglected them lately.
Lorm, you are pretty far from the other members of the squad. You might want to run north so you can get to them next round.
Oops. And the grizzled Eradico Pravus makes a cameo in the Only War campaign. Guess it was just a matter of time. :)
lol and Kaltos makes an entry
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
What is unbelievable though is the sheer number of jams/natural 100's being rolled in OW and DH of late, it's almost comical at this point.
Rook,maybe the next DH campaign can be the acolyte's investigating corruption within the Department Munitorum. Seems like lots of shoddy craftsmanship! lol
Who do you think would do that? It would be a perfect plot of worshippers of chaos. It would be pretty easy for them.
Hathin will soon be on a short vacation to the land downunder for a whirlwind feast of familial visitation, bacon and egg muffins and iced coffee. Departure is scheduled for this evening at 11:55 PM GMT+8. Characterful service will experience a slight delay in response time during the period and if patience could be extended that would be delightful.
The Hathin unit should be returned to normal function and reliability on the evening of the 23rd of April GMT+8.
Have fun, Mark. I think the rest of us are jealous.
Yeah, really. What is this magical land of bacon-egg muffins and iced coffee? Will you also ride unicorns at the gumdrop factory?
Have fun!!
Has anyone else picked up Hammer of the Emperor? - at first glance looks pretty decent... bunch of pre-built regiments, mounted combat and expanded regiment creation rules... oh and advanced specialities :)
|
|
I have, Mark, it's actually pretty good. I've read about half of it, and the regiments added are pretty good selections, and expand upon some of the options in Only War's core book.
It does a great deal to expand upon the rules for regiment creation, and actually adds some things that might be pretty applicable to the Oremor 4th if Eradico was OK with some ret-conning of our current build. The mixed regiment option is neat, too, though clearly designed in such a way to allow characters to play a divergent group of different regiment characters, a la the Deathwatch conceit. It has some pretty rational justifications for this mechanic though, and doesn't feel shoehorned in.
The rules for mounted combat also create an interesting mechanic, one which I never really had considered for the Warhammer 40K setting, but the Attilan Roughriders (think Mongol cavalry guardsman) and the Death Riders of Krieg (Death Korps on quasi-post-apocalyptic skinless horse-things) are pretty nifty in their write-ups.
The Advanced Specialties are great though, and use an interesting new mechanic to qualify for them.
Basically, whenever you get to a 2,500 XP increment, you have the option of taking one of these Advanced Specialties, essentially gaining some abilities/equipment and changing your full compliment of Aptitudes (while keeping your existing skills and talents). The selection of Advanced careers are a pretty good swatch of roles, from Brawler to Tank Ace, and are geared specifically for the core Guardsman classes in Only War. I can only assume the specialists (Commissar, etc) will get their own treatment in a subsequent volume.
Only niggling beef I have with the book is with the editing quality (this might be more me than anything else). Although there aren't as many typos as some of the recently released Warhammer 40K volumes, they are present, and most would have easily been detected with a good vetting. They aren't bad, but annoying to stumble across when the content is otherwise very good.
All in all a solid addition to the line, while not as essential or expansive as the Inquisitor's handbook is to DH, it definitely gives you a lot to work with.
Rook,
I haven't had the cash to make that purchase but will endeavor to do so. I'm very open to making ret-con changes as more fluff/crunch become available from FFG.
Word of the continued lack of proper editing is annoying to me and inexcusable in general.
For the Oromor 4th Penal Legion I think there's two main areas that could be used:
1) Take a drawback to get a few more regiment points to spend.
2) Use mixed regiment rules to reflect the split between the more hardened Sporchi and the rank and file of the group (ok, so this ones just selfish :P)
I must admit the
Cost: 5
Starting Talent: Double Team or Combat Master
Standard Regimental Kit: 1 lascarbine (Main Weapon) with four charge packs and the Compact modification per Player Character, 1 mono knife per Player Character, 1 suit of light carapace armour per Player Character.
Special: Members of regiments that specialise in Close Quarters Battle gain an additional +10 bonus to all Ballistic Skill Tests made at Point-Blank Range.
and
Cost: 4
Standard Regimental Kit: 1 pair of magnoculars per Player Character, 1 chameleoline cloak per Player Character, 1 handheld targeter per Player Character, and 2 pict recorders per Squad.
doctrines both look very very tasty.
Team,
Posting will be spotty at best as my work laptop is being re-imaged and I'm going camping this weekend with my cub scout. Will try to post actions on Thursday/Friday before leaving.
Rook, feel free to NPC me in the Oremor and Jericho campaigns.
Eradico
My vote would be for split regiment. Would fit that we have two seperate outlooks in how we wage war.
I'm very open to the split regiment approach during ret-con.
OK, I'm back in town and I have my laptop back. I will have to reinstall some software like Maptools so please continue to show patience as I revamp for the next stage of the adventure.
So the question would be around the split-regiment.... would it be along the lines of:
Sporchi vs normal criminals
or
Penal colonists vs Schola overseers?
I'm leaning towards the former. Could be along the lines of native Oremite vs. off-world/sporchi penal troops.
Heh - I think Lark is the only one that qualifies for the second column then?
While I'd love to tailor a regiment list specifically to Lark, I'd feel a bit selfish though...
Mark, that was fun roleplay with you. Now you see why Doc gets along with the prisoners.
Lark gets along with everyone :).... honest...
---------------------------------------
Summary of Oremor 4th Penal Legion--Regiment Creation (12 point budget)
Penal Colony - 2
Commander Phlegmatic - 1
Reconnaissance Regiment - 3
Doctrine (Hardened Fighter) - 2
Doctrine (Fieldcraft: Jungle) - 4
Regimental Favored Weapons: Plasmagun and Heavy Flamer
Upgrade of primary weapon to lascarbine - 5 pts
Add laspistol as sidearm - 5 pts
Chrono - 2 pts
Survival Suit - 3 pts
--------------------------------------------
This is how the regiment stands at present, and any changes to it would obviously need buy in from everyone as it would take character sheet adjustments and what not.
Eradico - were you thinking that the core of the regiment remains with the set-up above, and it's just the off-worlders and Sporchi that get a different loadout?
No book handy where I am right now, but I'll check out some of the new Regimental options in Hammer of the Emperor and post them here tonight so everyone can have a look at what Mark and I are excited about.
I think some of the options would work really well with the Oremor 4th.
I leafed through the book at my local game-store. Don't have the cash right now but from my cursory glance it looks great. Thanks for doing the leg-work on this, Rook and Mark.
Assuming Colorado forest fires don't get worse, I'm heading up to the mountains for a couple of days. Might now post again until Sunday night. Rook, feel free to NPC me in other campaigns.
Have fun Eradico.
Fantasy Flight has put on their site the Living Errata for Only War.
Hey, thanks for that heads up, Lorm. Will definitely be reading that.
Rook, this was of interest for Brother Emeric. The quoted Only War FAQs below answers some questions I think we both had. We should probably apply it to the Deathwatch campaign. The most immediate effect is that Emeric would currently have a melee penalty with his servo-arm since he's not trained in Mechadendrite Use (Weapon).
=========================================================
Question: Does a character add his Strength Bonus to Damage
with mechadendrites (such as the manipulator mechadendrite,
medicae mechadendrite, and utility mechadendrites found on
pages 207–209 of the Only War Core Rulebook) he uses to
make Melee Attacks?
Answer: Yes. Mechadendrites that can be used as melee
weapons are treated as such in all respects.
Question: How does a character gain the appropriate
Weapon Training to use the above mechadendrites as melee
weapons?
Answer: Via the purchase of the Mechadendrite Use (Weapon)
Talent (see page 148 of the Only War Core Rulebook). If
he does not possess this Talent, he suffers the penalty for
untrained weapon use when using his mechadendrites as
melee weapons, even if he is trained in their use as tools via
the Mechadendrite Use (Utility) Talent.
OK, everyone, thanks for your patience. Should be able to devote time to the campaign on Tuesday.
Your welcome, Eradico.
Ellipsis, in case you did not notice, I made an edit in my last Commissar/Drususon post about 15 minutes after the initial post. Thanks.
Once more sorry for the delays. Very busy weekend and in the morning I'm going in for surgery for two small hernias. Joy. My incapacitation should not last too long, however, and I've got the next little phase of the scenario lined up. Thanks!
Advanced warning that your friendly neighborhood sporchi will be on vacation starting 27th June all the way through to 17th July. We will be taking our first big ol' vacation in six years and swanning off to Hawaii (both Kauai and Oahu). Our first trip to the US, and despite needing about 16 hours in a plane to get there - we are still super excited :)
However since we'll be travelling with only an i-pad for computer support both my predeliction for sesquipedalian loquaciousness and the relative alacrity and frequency of posts shall suffer most terribly during that time. So in essence Hathin will be relatively inactive while I'm off sinking deep into Kalua pig, malasadas and loco moco. Fear not for I shall return fully recharged and reinforced for the onward push towards shooting everything that moves.
If in the case that DMPC or PCPC will be required, Hathin's responses will tend to follow the following logic:
1) Say something sardonic.
2) Plasma gun on maximal.
Hope you heal up quick Eradico. And don't worry about us and take the time you need.
Thanks, Bal. Doing pretty well today. Must be the vicodin.
Mark, excited for your trip! Enjoy! De'Lark's actions duly noted. :)
Also, Rook, sorry about the hockey game last night. Reminded me of the Broncos-Ravens AFC playoff game the way the Bruins snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.
|
|
Thanks, Eradico, I'm not a huge hockey fan, but was watching just the same. It was a tough one.
Enjoy Welker this year, he is fun to watch!
(It would be nice to still have him this year with the Hernandez fiasco... oh well, we'll see if Tebow goes into savior mode for Bill and logs snaps at Tight End.)
Thanks Rook,
While I am feeling better. Doc told me I will be down for at least another 3 weeks.
Mark brings up a good question and one I'm not sure I have an answer for. Can a guardsman engaged in melee make a ballistic skill attack? What would the modifiers be? Thanks.
Look at two-weapon fighting on pg 252.
Happy independence day, everyone.