Warhammer 40k RP: Dark Heresy

[Azdeus]

They generally start to become halfway competent around the end of rank 3 (2000 xp), reasonably competent at rank 5 (5-6000 xp), and downright frightening at 10.000-ish. Never managed to get to Throne Agent level, though.

 

The GM of the party I play in generally awards 200 xp per story, which tend to take 1,5-2 sessions to complete. We don't get any funding, nor loot, but we can requisition pretty much anything within reason. (And if something goes wrong - say, we get 200 liters of promethium instead of the stuff we ordered - we can sell the what we don't need.)

I, on the other hand, tend to follow the "detailed method" and give out xp based on how difficult the mission was (hereby punishing efficiency, but hey, if they are already efficient, they don't need the exp that much). Also, my players get their wages, and being an almost exclusively nobles-only cell, money is never an issue. 

 

 

It matches up pretty well with what I've expected, the new group makeup though has left us with noone wanting to play any kind of intellectual character, they go for the murdering feats pretty much exclusively, and as such always, always manages to die anyway. We've had a couple of characters reaching Throne Agent levels (Spoke about it a couple of pages back actually) and it was both fun and anguishing to play them! The thought of loosing a several years old character is quite haunting.

How well rounded do they typically end up being for you, or do they take a similar approach?

 

200 sounds like a pretty low amount, but that would depend, how long are your sessions?

We use an approach more similar to the one you're speaking about, the solid chunks were never popular since we also award extra effort and accomplishments. Though we've never had a full noble cell! Is that by design or did the players see the $$$?

 

The most wealthy character we've had in the group was a Scum, the player had managed to build up an armstrading/cold trade network, with a little help from the inquisition ofcourse. It was one of the more fun groups to play with, since we skirted the Radical line a bit and also tried to advance the characters personal goals just asmuch as the Inquisitions, while we normally play more puritan style.

 

We've rarely been given anything from the Inquisitor besides the normal pay, but we are ofcourse free to pilfer anything aslong as we don't get caught.

[aluminiumtrioxid]

 

 

How well rounded do they typically end up being for you, or do they take a similar approach?

 

200 sounds like a pretty low amount, but that would depend, how long are your sessions?

 

Though we've never had a full noble cell! Is that by design or did the players see the $$$?

 

 

 

The party I'm a player in consists of:

- a Scum: mix of support (with tech-use, medicae and barter), plus combat specialist (with the Metallican Gunslinger alternate rank, Mighty Shot and a ****ton of Dodge, BS and Agility advances) - strangely, little to no social skills, although at 44, he has the biggest Fellowship score in the party

- a Psyker: on the psyker-y path, specializing in Pyromancy; the player is often quite passive, so aside from the occasional Psyniscience check, Healer, Fearful Aura or Flashbang, she doesn't do much else

- a Tech-Priest: heavily specializing in Tech-Use and Medicae (with his godly Int score and assist from the Scum, he tends to succeed quite often). Also, he has The Bolter, but he's not as shooty as the Scum, has no Dodge, and only 9 wounds, so...

- an Arbitrator (courtesy of myself): tends to pick up whatever's needed to fill the gaps; currently I'm the party's spokesperson with my grand total of 31 Fellowship and basic social skills, since I'm the only one who's interested in that sort of thing, and the GM awards bonuses to the roll based on roleplaying. Also Security, some Forbidden Lore, a little sneakiness, minimal combat training - tend to tear enemies apart at close range with the combat shotgun and a decent BS score anyway.

 

The party I'm the DM of has:

- a Psyker: I've allowed her to pick up Favored by the Warp at rank 1 at the cost of 400 xp, some insanity and corruption, severe nightmares, and a pronounced interest of some yet-unknown daemonic entity as a unique background package. She has a fairly diverse skillset: actually payed for the Common Lore (Imperium) skill and Inquiry (at Fel 30, it was...surprising), almost no extra psychic powers aside from the ones she got from her Psy Rating talents, some generally psyker-associated Lores (Scholastic Occult, Forbidden Warp, Forbidden Psykers), and the Unshakeable Faith talent, so she's quite resistant to fear.

Initially she wanted to go with Imperial World, but since her backstory specifically mentioned noble origin, I've allowed her to swap the Fel and WP bonuses of the origin, and pick up some Ecclesiarchy-related lores instead of the Peer talents, in order for the crunch to better match her fluff.

- a Sister Famulous: she's a Famulous Protégé, so counts as Noble. Her unique background allows her to paint frescos and channel her faith through them (she can spend Fate points on miracles as if she was present, and if someone sufficiently pure would come forth - no connection to the warp, <10 corruption, belief in the Emperor - they could burn fate to reproduce the effect of such a miracle). She has mainly the staple skills associated with being a Famulous Sister - all social skills at basic level, some heraldry, Scholastic Imperial Creed, Forbidden Heresy, and - perhaps surprisingly - Tech-Use. I've also allowed her to pick up psy-resistance talents as Elite Advances, considering her cell-mates and the fact that daemons tend to hunt her because of her unique ability.

- a Navigator: the player wasn't willing to play as anything else, so I've allowed her to use a modified advance scheme based on the navigator of RT and the adept of DH. She's also lost every benefit associated with RT characters, but since the character's from a Magisterial House, she has the Wealth trait associated with nobles. She has mostly picked up pilot/navigation skills, and the shiny power talents.

- a Tech-Priest: he's a Disciple of Thule, and I don't yet know much about his skillset yet, since his first attempt at character creation ended up in a tangled mess of useless talents and skills. Since then, I've explained him that Dark Heresy's a pretty lethal system, and there is no shame in powergaming :D

 

Strangely, neither party was mowed down by the baddies yet, mostly because they know that they have to use cunning, tactics, and all the allies they can bring in order to survive a serious encounter.

 

They're usually 6-8 hours long, but about a quarter of this is lost to joking around. But nobody has a problem with it.

 

As you can see, it was neither Their character concepts pretty much neccessitated being blue-blooded

Edited September 13, 2013 by aluminiumtrioxid

[Azdeus]

Mm, sounds like good, well rounded, groups to me. We've not had psyker players for a long time, since the GM never lets us buy anthing prematurely (Though from rivalling paths for double XP is no problem) a psyker just ends up being a liability that noone in the group wants to play. We have a pretty bad track record, some really bad luck, with psykers having a tendency to, well - get possessed and murdering the rest of the group. :D

Our current DH group essentially consists of my assassin, since the rest of the group decided to fight the obviously badass monster instead of running and setting something up. Oh, well.

 

I like the composition of your second group, the one you GM for; It sounds like there are plenty of possibilities for some hatred back and forth, since you've got an Sororitas in there. Does'nt seem to be the most discrete composition that you could end up with though, since all but the sororita have obvious signs of what they are (3'd eye, sanctioning brand and Bionics). ^^

 

We usually pull about the same amount of time, though we generally tend to get roughly 200xp per session (Unless we don't actually accomplish anything, then we just dole out a small XP bonus for RP if that was the case). We have alot of joking around depending on what games we play, DH not so much since we go for the oppressive feel mostly, but Deathwatch, Black Crusade and Rogue Trader tend to get really silly!

 

I like the concepts, the reason why I asked was because we've had plenty of powergamers ourselves, doing things such as playing Nobleborn scum/assassin and such, just to get the moneys and kickass talents.

 

Speaking of conflicts, I'm now going to get ready to head to my mates and start building my new Commissar for Only War, a freshly minted commissar for a feral scout company... Several members of the group have already been sentenced to death by various (dead) asshat Commissars and traitors, so this will be an evening of lots of conflicts back and forth!

[aluminiumtrioxid]

 

Our current DH group essentially consists of my assassin, since the rest of the group decided to fight the obviously badass monster instead of running and setting something up. Oh, well.

 

I like the composition of your second group, the one you GM for; It sounds like there are plenty of possibilities for some hatred back and forth, since you've got an Sororitas in there. Does'nt seem to be the most discrete composition that you could end up with though, since all but the sororita have obvious signs of what they are (3'd eye, sanctioning brand and Bionics). ^^

 

 

This reminds me of the death of our guardsman - he jumped before a group of 6 snow bear-like xenos, bellowing a badass battle cry... two rounds later he was bleeding to death 

 

I, on the other hand, am not that happy with this: the insane amount of bickering eats away valuable play time, during which basically half of the party can only look at them with sad eyes and do nothing; in addition, the players involved have an infamous track record of derailed games. As an answer to this problem, I've created a houserule where everybody gets GM's Goodwill tokens for working toward a compromise or creating content related to the chronicle; if they want something really badly, they can basically buy compliance from their fellow players using these - but they're an important resource, because they can be used to buy the Goodwill of the GM, too, and settle a rules/fluff dispute in their favor if it doesn't interfere with core assumptions. (Or wouldn't make the game objectively more awesome, in which case it's allowed with no cost.)

[Azdeus]

This reminds me of the death of our guardsman - he jumped before a group of 6 snow bear-like xenos, bellowing a badass battle cry... two rounds later he was bleeding to death 

 

I, on the other hand, am not that happy with this: the insane amount of bickering eats away valuable play time, during which basically half of the party can only look at them with sad eyes and do nothing; in addition, the players involved have an infamous track record of derailed games. As an answer to this problem, I've created a houserule where everybody gets GM's Goodwill tokens for working toward a compromise or creating content related to the chronicle; if they want something really badly, they can basically buy compliance from their fellow players using these - but they're an important resource, because they can be used to buy the Goodwill of the GM, too, and settle a rules/fluff dispute in their favor if it doesn't interfere with core assumptions. (Or wouldn't make the game objectively more awesome, in which case it's allowed with no cost.)

 

 

Hahaha! That's a hell of a way to go! We once had a dispute about how to breach a door to a den of hive gangers that had info we needed, and they knew we were coming. The guardsman was ****y from previous engagements with his flak armour and decided that, hell, how bad can it be? Kicked down the door and the instant after that he started dancing to the rythm of Heavy Stubber fire that nailed him to the wall.

 

Ah, yeah, I can sympathize with that. We've rarely had much problem with it, noone has really minded when characters argue between each other and we let it slide even though it could take quite a long time. In the rare times it's been appropriate we've sent the two players of to another room, because their characters has been isolated.

 

We've had a couple of those ones in Deathwatch of all games, were we were about to head into an hive-ship, and before that me as a White Consul argued to off the Guardsmen that had defended against Tyranids for two months, on their own, because they could've been infected while the Black Templar and leader of the group said the opposite. We did settle down between ourselves that, okay, lets deal with that afterwards when a third, up until then - silent - player said "we need to deal with this now I think, but I lay down my vote" and thus forcing another confrontation (wich cost us 1d10+2 cohesion).

 

Anyways, we're usually pretty lax about these things since they can get some awesome moments going. Rules and fluff though, are a no go during sessions. We've got three GM's, and we've set down the rules, and as soon as fluff comes up we've got usually got two GM's to check it off damn near immediately.

 

Also came back now from our Only War session. We started at ~1800, with everyone being ready for an evening of introductions and basically "bonding"/getting to know each other. And at roughly 2100 the real first die was rolled. Introductions and loads of RP back and forth between everyone, except me, since I was the target of most said RP due to being a Commissar recently attached to the group and it was all done behind my back. At 23:30 we were in our first real combat, in wich 2 people froze with fear, one ran screaming and one ratling cackled manically and started shooting at the group. Or, well, the commissar as it turns out. And killed me. While I was absoutely petrified and could'nt defend myself. One burned Fate-point later; We eventually managed to off the creature that scared us ****less, after me being the only person that, were close to dying. Frickin' point blank combat shotguns!

 

This is'nt the only time this exact thing has happened to me either, it's happened to me 3 times before that my characters has been killed in the exact same way, though slightly different weapons.

Was good fun and a great evening!

[aluminiumtrioxid]

Also came back now from our Only War session. We started at ~1800, with everyone being ready for an evening of introductions and basically "bonding"/getting to know each other. And at roughly 2100 the real first die was rolled. Introductions and loads of RP back and forth between everyone, except me, since I was the target of most said RP due to being a Commissar recently attached to the group and it was all done behind my back. At 23:30 we were in our first real combat, in wich 2 people froze with fear, one ran screaming and one ratling cackled manically and started shooting at the group. Or, well, the commissar as it turns out. And killed me. While I was absoutely petrified and could'nt defend myself. One burned Fate-point later; We eventually managed to off the creature that scared us ****less, after me being the only person that, were close to dying. Frickin' point blank combat shotguns!

 

This is'nt the only time this exact thing has happened to me either, it's happened to me 3 times before that my characters has been killed in the exact same way, though slightly different weapons.

Was good fun and a great evening!

 

Ah yes, Only War. We usually play it as a side game, if too many (or too important) people can't come to Dark Heresy. We've had two sessions so far, the first ending in a TPK (we're playing without Fate points; guardsmen are disposable, after all), the second - surprisingly - with a completed mission (although mostly because the GM didn't have time for the grand finale). Highlights include the time when the Commissar has blown the whole party up with a misplaced grenade (except for my storm trooper with his insane amounts of soak, but seeing the incoming ork horde and the Commissar lying on the ground, bleeding to death, he quickly turned tail and ran, only to be shot afterwards for cowardice  ), or the incident when "the Heavy didn't die because we killed him".

It's a viciously fun game in small doses

[Syraxis]

Just starting a game with a group of people from class, doing character creation/rolls today and Friday will be our first official session. Can't wait! 

[melkathi]

Let us know how it went!

[Malcador]

Just starting a game with a group of people from class, doing character creation/rolls today and Friday will be our first official session. Can't wait! 

 

Hope it goes well for you.  Well and your GM allows you a little stipend to get some better gear than the default stuff (we got 100 thrones to spend, if I recall).

[melkathi]

The default gear makes for a very nightmareish first session

[Malcador]

No kidding, that crappy double barreled shotty. Argh!!

[Walsingham]

 

we're playing without Fate points; guardsmen are disposable, after all),

 

Tell that to Ibram.

[aluminiumtrioxid]

Tell that to Ibram.

 

 

...Yeah, "Gaunt the Gentle Commissar and his Magical Medi-Gun*" is really not a style I want to emulate in my W40K

 

 

*Because Commissars have a Talent to restore Wounds to a fellow PC by shooting their Comrade.

[Azdeus]

A while ago our group finished up our old Only War regiment and the characters associated with it in a glorious way by dropping a high security heretic prison into a magma chamber, so it was decided to start a new regiment.

This newly formed regiment is a bit... experimental... in it's setup, a cavalry "stealth" drop troop company riding flying maaru-beasts is a novel idea if nothing else.

 

5 players were present, we had two Weapon Specialists with grenade launchers, one Heavy with a RPG, one medic and a ministorium priest.

 

Since this was their first assignment they got shipped to a Severan Dominate controlled planet where they got settled in, one of the weapon specialists managed to get herself into trouble when her comrade lit up a fat one and she snatched it out of his hands, just in time for an officer to walk in on her. *Trollface*

 

Once they got their feet on the ground and settled in they were summoned by the company clerk, Faris van Spankelvink, for mission assignment. Tasked with dropping onto a plateau they and their platoon were to take out three artillery pieces covering one of the big passes that led up there. After getting their mission assignment gear and discussing things back and forth it turned out the priest did'nt have a clue how to actually ride the maaru, so they had to use more conventional drop procedures.

 

They dropped onto the plateau, there was quite alot of incoming AA fire that tore up their ride pretty badly but they chose to jump early so they were quite a bit off course according to the navigator so they had to doubletime it.

The trek through the rocky terrain was hard on the group and they stumbled onto a small patrol from one of the nearby caves, a lightly equipped group of 4 "guardsmen" that nearly managed to kill the group through catastrophically bad rolls and decisions from the players. Who could've thunk supressing fire and grenades would be that handy?

 

Eventually they managed to get to the ravine and decided to go to the side and rappel down the side and attack the first emplacement from above, they did'nt bother to look for mines and did'nt have an auspex so the pointman managed to quickly walk onto one.

This alerted the camp that sent out a patrol, but for once the group had luck with their rolls and actually managed to keep themselves hidden from the enemy, wich decided it must've been an animal.

 

Eventually they managed to creep through the minefield to the ledge above the emplacement and climbed down the rockface and started to clear it out, they lucked out and managed to take out the defenders without much noise using melee and a flamethrower only.

They noticed an opening into the mountain and followed it only to find the ammunition depot and loading carts for the guns, and decided to load a couple of carts with rounds of ammunition and democharges and push them down their rails towards the guns, using them as either a distraction or maybe even take out the defenders.

Shortly afterwards they had managed to push the carts to enough speed that they could carry themselves to the emplacements and lit the fuses and ran, since they debated the fusetime and runspeed and such between themselves well enough that they did'nt have to do any technical rolls they got close enough to blow up both the other encampments.

 

After the shells were exploded they surveyed the massive damage and tried looking for intel and loot, finding neither from the two demolished emplacements, they looted some guns from the first one and pulled out.

 

Back at base they stashed their loot and reported to the mildly impressed van Spinkelvink of their success, being massively crushed that he was'nt impressed that they had completed their main objective but also dissapointed in them not taking out any AA or finding intel. Bastard.

 

Overall the players were entertained, but pissed at the dices, but despite all noone died, but the average wounds level after the session was done was -3 or so wounds, even though they had their medic present all the time.

The only person in the group that has some tactical sense decided to play a ministorium priest wich showed on the overall performance of the group, no find 'em, fix 'em, flank 'em or any tactics at all used really. They never really spread out once they had contact, so the enemy did employ supressing fire and their grenades plenty, and noone took the hint. :/

 

The group was a fun bunch of characters though and I have high hopes for the group. I might be GM'ing another session tomorrow or so, but maybe the other GM(The ministorium priest) will host instead and let me play.

[aluminiumtrioxid]

A while ago our group finished up our old Only War regiment and the characters associated with it in a glorious way by dropping a high security heretic prison into a magma chamber, so it was decided to start a new regiment.

 

 

I sense another story worth telling... 

[Azdeus]

It's a nice teaser, is'nt it? :D

I intend to share it, but it was a semi long mini campaign that is kind of hard to summarize nicely.

[Raithe]

And they've now released the Tome of Decay for Black Crusade.

 

Rounding out all four of the Chaos aspects, only with this they've included the rules for taking a Chaos player and actually becoming an Ascended Daemon Prince,  along with how to run and lead a Black Crusade.

 

I have to say, I'm curious as to how that will all balance out...

[aluminiumtrioxid]

And they've now released the Tome of Decay for Black Crusade.

 

Rounding out all four of the Chaos aspects, only with this they've included the rules for taking a Chaos player and actually becoming an Ascended Daemon Prince,  along with how to run and lead a Black Crusade.

 

I have to say, I'm curious as to how that will all balance out...

 

Meh, balance has never really been a concern in Black Crusade. As much as I love that game, it has to be houseruled to hell and back in order to be playable.

[Raithe]

Meh, balance has never really been a concern in Black Crusade. As much as I love that game, it has to be houseruled to hell and back in order to be playable.

To be fair, Black Crusade is pretty much geared for fairly short campaigns where players will burn out rapidly and devolve into chaos spawn if they aren't careful...

[aluminiumtrioxid]

 

Meh, balance has never really been a concern in Black Crusade. As much as I love that game, it has to be houseruled to hell and back in order to be playable.

To be fair, Black Crusade is pretty much geared for fairly short campaigns where players will burn out rapidly and devolve into chaos spawn if they aren't careful...

 

 

True enough.

 

Which is a shame, IMHO. It has the potential for so much more.

[Raithe]

One thing I'd imagine would be quite fun would be to mix Black Crusade in with Rogue Trader and have the crew turned to Chaos and carry on playing through just to see how it would develop...

[aluminiumtrioxid]

One thing I'd imagine would be quite fun would be to mix Black Crusade in with Rogue Trader and have the crew turned to Chaos and carry on playing through just to see how it would develop...

 

I dunno, I pretty much already play Black Crusade as Rogue Trader with weirder locales and added HERESY.

[Nonek]

A quick question for any W40k loremasters amongst us, i've been coaxed out of retirement by a few old friends whom wanted a Rogue Trader game, but the scenario i'm building up relies on Eldar mindgames which i'm not familiar with (at least in the modern game.) Can the Soulstone of a powerful Eldar Farseer somewhat influence and perhaps even possess the living mind of a Mon-keigh?

 

The campaign will use my own custom ruleset and be set on a once devastated but recovered moon, which the Rogue Traders have set up as a home base and a source of wealth and manpower, but beneath the surface ancient beautiful ruins house armies of slumbering Eldar Wraiths. The game will begin with the ruins discovery and a small adventure inside, with the promise of great wealth strewn around, and build from thereon. However some measure of mind control by the long dead Eldar seems very necessary, as the secret of the colonies discovery mandates that contacting the Eldar for rescue is one of the endgame goals, thus no Eldar presence at the beginning.

[Raithe]

They did do a w40k novel where a Rogue Trader found himself developing psychic powers, and ended up with an Eldar Farseer having set things up so that when the Farseer was "killed" the Rogue Trader had his soulstone, and ended up getting "soul switched". So the Eldar took over the mon-keigh's body, and the Trader's "soul" was trapped in the soulstone.

 

There have been other instances where a powerful but "dead" Eldar was able to influence in various ways situations around their soulstone.

[Nonek]

Ah good that's one plot point worked out, much obliged Raithe.