Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 ratchetsg Feb 16, 2009 14:49:13	HI, im running a short game with my group while our normal DM is unavailable for a few weeks. The game is basically going to be the old GW game Space Hulk. The only real rules modification im willing to make is a new custom race "Adeptus Astartes". This is only going to be a quick game run over a few sessions so im not hugely worried about knocking game balance out of whack a bit. **As a note, these guys are supposed to more powerful than the average PHB race, but im going to be scaling the encounters up slightly to compensate. This is supposed to be a difficult game for them. ------------- RACIAL TRAITS Average Height: 7´ 6˝–8´ 2˝ Average Weight: 335–420 lb. Ability Scores: +2 to two ability scores of your choice Size: Medium Speed: 6 squares Vision: Low-Light Languages: Common, High Gothic and one of your choice Bonus At-Will Power: You know one extra at-will power from your class. Bonus Skill: You gain training in one additional skill from your class skill list. The Black Carapace: toughness feat Centuries of Training – Proficient with all weapons and armour God Amongst Men - Add Con Modifier to Healing Surge. And they shall know no fear – Second wind is only a minor action At character creation you must choose a chapter background Imperial Fists - Fortress of Humanity – Stand your Ground - Move 1 less square when pushed, pulled or slid. Dark Angels – Never Forgive, Never Forget – (infernal Wrath Iron Hands – Hard wired Signum – Elven Accuracy Space Wolf – Scent of Blood - BLoodhunt Salamaders - Son of Nocturne – Fire resistance (like a teifling) Blood Angels – The Black Rage – Dragonborn fury White Scar – Steppe Born – Wild step Iron Snake – First cast killer – improved initiative Ultramarine – The cCdex speaks of this– Second Chance Blood Ravens – Honour the wisdom of the ancients – Eladrin Education ------------------- The party will consist of Sargeant - Warlord Assault Marine - Tempest Fighter Company Champion - Paladin Librarian - Sorceror/wizard Scout - Archer ranger Special Weapon - Wizard Equipment Power Armour = Plate Armour Chainsword = Bastard sword Bolt pistol = repeating Hand xbow + counts as melee weapon in Melee. Bolt gun = Repeating xbow. Powersword = +1 bastard sword, enc power - att vs ref. Power Fist = Waraxe + guantlets of ogre power. Thunderhammer = +1 Lightning craghammer. Sniper rifle = Great bow. Combiflamer = superior xbow + staff of fire Im umming and ahh ing over the Special weapons trooper. I wanted someone who specialised is burst style attacks to represent the combi-weapon. I think wizard is the best option at the mo but I have been tempted to swap him out for a Chaplian (Invoker/Cleric) All of the powers are going to me renamed to have a more 40k relevant name. Originally I had decided upon using Kruthik as the Tyranid standin BUT looking through the Monster Manual ive decided that drakes make a much better tyranid standin. All the need is a reskin. Spiretop Drake - Winged Ripper Needlefang Drake Swarm - Ripper Swarm Guard Drake - Hormaguant Spitting Drake - Termaguant (I've consider giving this one a FLY speed of 8 and making it also stand in for the Gargoyle) Rage Drake - Genestealer I'm also going to upgrade a Rage Drake to a Elite and make this the Genestealer Broodlord. I've decided on using a Young Black Dragon for a Hive Tyrant stand-in, but im not sure if he will actually make it into the game. I'm a MASSIVE fan of the minion rule, so a lot of the encounters are going to be with minions. Really gives a good way of emphasising the power of the Astartes AND the "endless swarm" nature of the Tyranid threat. Thoughts/comments/critisisms?
#2 burritoalpastor Feb 16, 2009 19:39:06	I like the idea quite a bit, and I have no issues with most of your mechanics. Issues I do have: You don't need to break the standard rules for racial stats just because they're Astartes; as long as none of the PCs are less powerful than an Astartes, regular racial power levels are fine, because PCs are more powerful than NPCs anyways. If you had, say, a Sororitas in the party, you'd either need to make her character less powerful than the Astartes characters, or make the Astartes characters more powerful - but as long as there's nothing less powerful than Astartes, the existing baseline is fine, and that makes encounter planning easier. You might want to replace Common with Low Gothic. The extra at-will power is also rather above the normal power level, and I'd suggest removing this for about the same reasons. I'd suggest that the bonus skill be based on chapter rather than from class. Athletics for Iron Snakes and maybe White Snakes, Diplomacy for Ultramarines, Endurance for Imperial Fists, History for Dark Angels, Nature for Space Wolves, Arcana for Blood Ravens, etc. Replace your current Black Carapace benefit with proficiency in Astartes power armor. Maybe bundle the Second Wind benefit into Gods Amongst Men, and give them +4 to defenses and saves against powers with the Fear keyword instead for They Shall Know No Fear? I like your chapter powers, but you should probably try to make sure every chapter gets a power and not just a feat. (Stand Your Ground is probably fine as is, since Dwarves don't get a racial power, and it's pretty useful.) This will also give your players a better base of feats to choose from, since you can then adapt the racial feats that modify said powers. You can probably just go to town with Iron Hands and Warforged material, for example. A Charge power like the Minotaur has might be good for Blood Angels or Black Templar. The Shadar-Kai power is probably good for Raven Guard. Shifter powers would be good for Space Wolves, the Genasi "Promise of Storm" power would be great for Salamanders if you change the energy type, and the Orc power might be good for Iron Snakes. With the exception of your Librarian, I'd suggest that you only allow martial and divine power source classes, and implement special weapons via item powers. (They can be at-will, remember!) You're in a tough spot for some of these, and in large part your life will be made easier or harder by what heavy/special weapons are actually in your group. A flamer is easy - dragonborn's Dragon Breath power is a good template for you to copy, or maybe the Burning Hands power. A plasma cannon or missile launcher also wouldn't be too bad. A heavy bolter would be the worst; either something with lots of secondary attacks (like the sorcerer power that makes secondary attacks on an even attack roll?) or something targeting a straight line area, maybe? Armor is going to be the hardest thing to represent - namely, Terminator armor, which should be roughly as powerful proportional to heavy armor as heavy armor is to light armor. Some kind of super-heavy -2 speed armor might be best? Sounds very interesting; good luck with this! (Also, there's rumours floating around that we'll be seeing a new Space Hulk boardgame in q3 of this year...)
#3 Cyber-Dave Feb 16, 2009 19:57:00	Go to the GSL forums up above and check out work on Amethyst by Dias Ex Machina. It should be released fairly soon, and once it is, its pretty much technology rules that are compatible with 4e D&D rules (and 4 new 4e classes specifically designed to work with technology rules and firearms). I will be honest, one of the biggest reasons I am waiting for that products release is so that I can run a Warhammer 40k style rpg game using 4e D&D rules. You might be interested in it.
#4 burritoalpastor Feb 16, 2009 20:16:39	Of course, if you really want to run a Space Marines game, your best bet is probably this exquisite fanmade Space Marine supplement for Dark Heresy. DH is a fantastic system on its own merits, but it's not normally balanced for a player to be playing an Astartes - but if the whole party is Astartes, it should be pretty much perfect. In fact, now that I think about it, discard everything else I said previously and just consider the entirety of my advice to be "Use Dark Heresy".
#5 Cyber-Dave Feb 16, 2009 20:58:32	I can't bring myself to use Dark Heresy. The system looks too much like 2e AD&D (from my very brief read through) for me. I think I am just spoiled on 4e D&D. It seems to me that 4e D&D would allow the game play of Dark Herresy (levels 1-10), the ability to actually play an Inquisitor (levels 11-20), and the ability to rise above your station and become something... more. Something approaching the power of the God-emperor himself (levels 21-30). At first glance, I just like the 4e system much more. I have been hoping that someone would convince me that the Dark Heresy system is actually good enough that I would not be disappointed by buying it... but nothing so far. Then again, I have not really looked into it as much as should in order to form an actual opinion. All I have is my first impression from flipping through the book. Great setting, great fluff, great art, system seems kind of iffy. Very "generate your ability stats randomly, players are not balanced against each other, luck dictates everything, and not a lot of choice in terms of character generation." Very 2e.
#6 burritoalpastor Feb 16, 2009 21:36:06	Well, you're partially right. Starting characters have very little customization or power. (The Inquisitor's Handbook makes this rather less the case, with class-specific background packages that give you stuff reflecting particular affiliations or experiences.) But the inflexibility at character generation falls away the second you start playing. When you create your character, you're given 400 xp you can use to customize your character, but you can only buy skills from your starting rank - and the starting ranks have almost nothing in them. This would be more of an issue, except that the first rank hardly counts as a rank at all, because once you've spent a total of 500 xp, you can access the second rank, which is where you start having real options. So by the time you've completed your first session, your options are dramatically more robust, and a largely homogeneous party will diverge and specialize into very discrete characters fairly quickly. Players are mostly balanced against each other, although there's certainly room for powergaming - the Sororitas class from the Inquisitor's Handbook, for example, comes with a very specific clause warning that you probably shouldn't allow the class in your game at all unless you're certain you know what you're doing. The only real balance issue I could see is that I have doubts about how useful the Adept could be in combat, and since I've never seen one played, I'm not really sure how much of an issue that is. (And in 40k, those Forbidden Lore skills can be worth a dozen plasma guns.) Is it luck-based? Somewhat. It's a game where most of the time, stuff will work the way you want, but every now and then, everything sudden goes totally to hell. But that's kind of appropriate for a GRIMDARK setting like 40k, and players have a mechanic (fate points) they can use for rerolls and to not die horribly. It just requires a certain amount of discretion on the GM's part regarding just how deadly he wants his game to be. The printed modules are excellent, too. Much better than anything being put out by, say, WOTC.
#7 fragsie Feb 17, 2009 10:28:58	When I noticed that you were going to be using stand ins for tyranid mosters, i thought i should give you a poke and then jump up and down whilst pointing at my homebrewed Genestealer Cult, it may come in handy. [jumping] Look!! It's there; in my sig [/jumping] :D
#8 Cyber-Dave Feb 17, 2009 14:53:01	Well, you're partially right. Starting characters have very little customization or power. (The Inquisitor's Handbook makes this rather less the case, with class-specific background packages that give you stuff reflecting particular affiliations or experiences.) But the inflexibility at character generation falls away the second you start playing. When you create your character, you're given 400 xp you can use to customize your character, but you can only buy skills from your starting rank - and the starting ranks have almost nothing in them. This would be more of an issue, except that the first rank hardly counts as a rank at all, because once you've spent a total of 500 xp, you can access the second rank, which is where you start having real options. So by the time you've completed your first session, your options are dramatically more robust, and a largely homogeneous party will diverge and specialize into very discrete characters fairly quickly. Players are mostly balanced against each other, although there's certainly room for powergaming - the Sororitas class from the Inquisitor's Handbook, for example, comes with a very specific clause warning that you probably shouldn't allow the class in your game at all unless you're certain you know what you're doing. The only real balance issue I could see is that I have doubts about how useful the Adept could be in combat, and since I've never seen one played, I'm not really sure how much of an issue that is. (And in 40k, those Forbidden Lore skills can be worth a dozen plasma guns.) Is it luck-based? Somewhat. It's a game where most of the time, stuff will work the way you want, but every now and then, everything sudden goes totally to hell. But that's kind of appropriate for a GRIMDARK setting like 40k, and players have a mechanic (fate points) they can use for rerolls and to not die horribly. It just requires a certain amount of discretion on the GM's part regarding just how deadly he wants his game to be. The printed modules are excellent, too. Much better than anything being put out by, say, WOTC. The luck you talk about, is it luck DURING the game while it is being played (something along the lines of rolling to hit, suffering critical hits that drastically effect your character temporarily, that sort of thing) or while your character is being created (rolling your stat points, hit points, and basically having a character that is permanently drastically better/worse based purely on luck during the initial character creation process)? If its the former, that is fine. If its the latter, that's one of my deal breakers for which games I will and won't play.