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The origin of the Deathwatch got retconned post the RPG a few years ago in the War of the Beast series. Which is at best, a series of mixed quality. Details in link. http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Deathwatch Tl:Dr. Massive Ork invasion attacks a complacent 32k humanity. Shenanigans ensue. The original recruits were survivors of multiple chapters from a disastrous early attempt to defeat the Orks.
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Mar 29, 2018 17:01
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God knows no-one could exist for a sensible reason for once in 40k. And the secrecy thing stood out to me because I played Dawn of War II, and I remember Sgt. Cyrus, who is otherwise a pretty smart guy, pretty clearly recognizing signs the Nids are coming from his Deathwatch days but not actually explicitly pointing it out because his work there was secret. I think one of the things that annoys me most in 40k is it didn't used to always be the Marines initiating and doing everything. Like here, the Deathwatch exists because some people brought a fairly reasonable proposal to the Chapters and the Chapters agreed. You used to have little notes in Guard codices about how Marines are actually pretty poor commanders for human troops, because most can't understand human limits and try to push the men to destruction. Etc. Now? Every war is led by a Space Marine. Marines do everything. Night10194 fucked around with this message at 17:08 on Mar 29, 2018 |
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Mar 29, 2018 17:04
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Battle Mad Ronin posted:We'd probably do the same if it wasn't for television. That's basically what roleplaying is, if you think about it.
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Mar 29, 2018 17:19
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Night10194 posted:I think one of the things that annoys me most in 40k is it didn't used to always be the Marines initiating and doing everything. Like here, the Deathwatch exists because some people brought a fairly reasonable proposal to the Chapters and the Chapters agreed. You used to have little notes in Guard codices about how Marines are actually pretty poor commanders for human troops, because most can't understand human limits and try to push the men to destruction. Etc. Now? Every war is led by a Space Marine. Marines do everything. The Relic entertainment games are pretty good at displaying the Space Marine/Guard interactions with the Space Marines being fairly respectful of the Guard, deferring them to their own commanders, and basically going "no, you guys did the hard poo poo before we got here. But now that's our job. Just hold the line." Basically what I'm saying is Relic Entertainment should be in charge of 40k's story bible.
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Mar 29, 2018 17:30
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Kurieg posted:The Relic entertainment games are pretty good at displaying the Space Marine/Guard interactions with the Space Marines being fairly respectful of the Guard, deferring them to their own commanders, and basically going "no, you guys did the hard poo poo before we got here. But now that's our job. Just hold the line." Dawn of War II is basically exactly what you should be doing in a DW campaign. It's made clear over and over that there are billions of other soldiers fighting the Nids, but your Marines have the mobility and flexibility to show up and blunt enemy breakthroughs, strike critical objectives, and assassinate enemy leaders. Conveniently, those are all jobs that work great for an RPG party.
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Mar 29, 2018 17:32
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If you want to make Tyranids a more 'interesting' and 'understandable' enemy you kind of have to go with Genestealer Cult stuff, where a lot of what you'll be fighting would just be people but then whoops here are also some things that can open up Terminator armor like it's a tin can. The normal ones have the very real problem that while quite a lot of them actually are intelligent, it's not in a way that is anything like a human. They aren't even able to recognize an attempt to communicate because you're Prey-That-Fights, uppity biomass that requires pacification before consumption. While there are Tyranids that have a tactical or even strategic value, there is no such thing as one that is 'important'. They're horrible nightmares of spines and claws and plates and muscle that get spawned by the Hive Ships to facilitate their reproduction and they're all just going to crawl back into a pit of acid at the end so their biomass can be reclaimed since it's inefficient to try and keep them alive during travel. There's no Mek-King Bignutz to kill in an epic battle full of one-liners, there's just a thirty foot tall hellmonster who's stronger than you in any way that could conceivably matter in a fight who equally is entirely expendable and easily replaced in the end. Killing it can serve valuable goals, but in the end if it takes any of you with it you still lose, because a Deathwatch marine doesn't get poo poo out fully formed on some gross space whale whenever they're needed.
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Mar 29, 2018 17:55
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Huh, no section about the Necrons? You'd figure they'd be one of the more important enemy groups for the Deathwatch to learn about and learn how to fight.
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Mar 29, 2018 17:55
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Cythereal posted:Huh, no section about the Necrons? You'd figure they'd be one of the more important enemy groups for the Deathwatch to learn about and learn how to fight. I think they're trying to retcon the Necrons out of being a 'thing' since they wrote themselves into a corner with the initial Necron book as far as how hosed the galaxy was. Necrons are the sort of enemy you'd send your party to fight if you hate them frankly, since they combine the 'better guns than you' of the Tau with being super hard to kill. Also depending on the version some of them are even more 'shoot this fucker before it gets close to you' than genestealers because lol C'tan Phase Blades. Feinne fucked around with this message at 17:59 on Mar 29, 2018 |
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Mar 29, 2018 17:56
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I don't play Warhams, but I remember when the Necrons were introduced they were a mass of nearly identical troops that were super shooty and almost impossible to kill. Didn't they have to diversify them somewhat, introduce some melee specialists and such?
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Mar 29, 2018 18:08
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Cythereal posted:Huh, no section about the Necrons? You'd figure they'd be one of the more important enemy groups for the Deathwatch to learn about and learn how to fight. The Necrons aren't talked about in much detail because the Necrons are sort of a hidden, ticking time bomb on the setting instead, to be used at GM's discretion. You'll probably be happy about the setting chapter. Also, yes, the Necrons have a very strong 'nu-UH' factor where they're better than you at everything and you can't even actually kill or beat them. These would also be the old Necrons, who didn't have anything approaching a personality or anything you could really do with them, as opposed to 'we vaguely copied the Tomb Kings in space.' which was kind of lame but at least *something*. I think we finally get rules for them around Black Crusade and they're incredibly unfun to fight in every way. But then, it's really hard for me to get across the sheer degree to which the scaling and mechanics are a mess. What's weird is I've played high level, even superhuman Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay PCs. I've played an Exalted Chaos Lord built out of a Bretonnian Knight with the most powerful Virtue. I've played a Vampire Lord. The system felt able to handle those crazy as gently caress characters. Here, everything is generally in pieces on the floor to the point that again, it doesn't even really come up how insanely busted Techmarines and Librarians are because the system is already on the floor crying in agony. I mean, this is a game where they had to go through and redo every single weapon to tone them down while going back to tone down the critical hit rule because otherwise your standard HMG could kill anything in the galaxy. Night10194 fucked around with this message at 18:14 on Mar 29, 2018 |
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Mar 29, 2018 18:12
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I'd only want to use a single Necron (with maybe a twist reveal of a couple more at a really inopportune moment) to terrorize like a Dark Heresy party, Terminator style, chasing them through some hive and leaving carnage everywhere. And maybe they could take it out by luring into a smelter, a la T2 or Alien 3, rather than fighting it directly.
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Mar 29, 2018 18:19
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Wikipedia Brown posted:I'd only want to use a single Necron (with maybe a twist reveal of a couple more at a really inopportune moment) to terrorize like a Dark Heresy party, Terminator style, chasing them through some hive and leaving carnage everywhere. And maybe they could take it out by luring into a smelter, a la T2 or Alien 3, rather than fighting it directly. I once freaked out a Dark Heresy party with a Necron wraith... that was helping them. Silent, flying, phases through walls, has surgical blades for hands and a tail, and it kept turning up to butcher cultists just as the PCs arrived. The acolytes were quite rightly not sure what to be more scared of, the Chaos cult they were tracking or the Necron wraith that seemed to have an enemy in common with the acolytes.
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Mar 29, 2018 18:28
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I used a necron soldier-drone (or whatever) to great effect in a Rogue Trader game. They were scavenging from a space hulk when they found a group of descendants of survivors in one of the parts of the various ships that still had life support. They were a mechanicus heresy cult that worshipped, among other things, some mysterious (and lucrative looking) box. Of course, after getting it onto their ship the overly curious techpriest woke up the necron inside and it wreaked havoc Alien/Terminator style. They eventually fought it out onto the hull of their ship, then knocked it off into the oblivion of deep space with a maintenance pod. This also necessitated the brave and mildly voluntary sacrifice of some faceless crewman NPC that they retroactively gave a name, backstory that somehow involved individual, separate stories of him helping all the PCs, and a memorial plaque on the bridge of the ship. It helped that only a couple of the players were familiar with necrons from the minis game. When I was planning the session, I looked up a bunch of different homebrew necrons (I don't think the official FFG take on them existed at the time?) and they were all pretty garbage, either weak-rear end cannon fodder that could just get up again and again, or insane badasses that would put an entire squad of marines on their heels.
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Mar 29, 2018 18:36
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Those are both dope Necron stories.
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Mar 29, 2018 18:56
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As usual the best way to use 40k stuff is "any way except the way 40k uses it."
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Mar 29, 2018 18:58
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I remember the Tau so well because the DW game I actually played in, rather than ran, had us as a rookie kill-team fighting a war with Tau on a valuable, life-bearing hive-ocean world. We had been called up before the extensive training and our first experience was 'Sweet Emperor their guns are better than ours!' combined with 'Get the Assault Marine in there pronto', followed by a series of brutal street-fights, commando on commando actions against Stealthsuits and Pathfinders, and eventually running into a Tau special ops team investigating why one of the rebel groups they'd been working with was so crazy, where we and they both realized it was because of a Genestealer cult and decided 'gently caress this' and went back to back to fight crazy xenomorph aliens alongside our original enemies. It was fun to be both on the back foot and also fighting an enemy that actually used tactics and had objectives, who you could also potentially talk to when you realized you had to clean something out *fast* or everything was going to get way worse for both of you.
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Mar 29, 2018 19:01
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The Tau are also notable among foes of the Space Marines for understanding two major concepts: 1. Mobility is king. 2. Humans are really easy to bait into traps.
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Mar 29, 2018 19:14
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This is even the special ability on their commander unit in the RPG. Tau have a ton of weapons that can attack your Cohesion and then their commander goes 'Their formation is broken, strike now!' and they all get a ton of bonuses when your Cohesion hits 0. So if you overextend with squad powers and then take some hits from disrupting and suppressing weapons, they spring their trap and gently caress you up.
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Mar 29, 2018 19:16
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Scion: Hero Sacrifice To The Gods, For They Sacrifice To You The Teotl are the gods of the Mexihcah, and many other pantheons see them as brutal and savage. The Teotl don't care - they know the other pantheons are lacking in dedication. Blood is what powers and feeds the gods, and without the gods, the universe would end. Outsiders cannot question it. It's all about the nature of sacrifice. The price must be paid. It all began with the creator-Primordials, Tonacacihuatl and Tonacatecuhtli, who brought forth the four Tezcatlipocas, who then brought forth the other gods and were tasked to populate the universe. However, while they tried, they were constantly thwarted by the giant, crocodilian Cipactli, who consumed all they made. The Black Tezcatlipoca shoved his foot into the void to distract her, and she quickly devoured it, but was ambushed by the other Tezcatlipocas, who tore Cipactli to bits and used her to make the universe. Her head became the heavens, her tail the Underworld, and her body the World. With her gone, five worlds were made and destroyed, along with all of their people. Each had a sun, and each sun was put out. First was Tezcatlipoca, the Jaguar Sun, who lit the world by leaping into the sacrificial fire, but the wounds left on him by Cipactli weakened him, and his light was dim. Quetzalcoatl knocked him out of the sky and took his place, but Tezcatlipoca was furious and set his jaguars to consume the giants that had populated the World. So second was Quetzalcoatl, the Wind Sun, but under his rule, the people grew lax and decadent. Tezcatlipoca turned the worst of them into monkeys, and the rest were swept away in Quetzalcoatl's great hurricane. He stepped down as sun, defeated, and abandoned the few remaining monkeys to eternal darkness. Third was Tlaloc, the Rain sun. He was bright, and his people were loving, until Tezcatlipoca stole his wife, Xochiquetzal. In grief, Tlaloc failed to send the rains, and the World was consumed by drought. Humanity begged for aid, but he became enraged and sent a rain of fire to burn them all to ash. From the ashes, the gods remade the World, and Tlaloc was replaced by his wife, Chalchihuitlicue, the Water Sun. However, Tezcatlipoca was jealous of her kindness to humans and their veneration of her, so he questioned her sincerity and made her cry so much that she drowned the World with her tears. At last, Quetzalcoatl descended to Mictlan to retrieve the bones of past humanity. He sprinkled them with his own blood, making today's humans. The humblest god, Nanahuatzin, sacrificed himself to become the Fifth Sun, the Earthquake Sun, but to do it, he needed the heart's blood of all of the Teotl to set him in motion. As their blood burned into the sky, he rose, and became the final sun. There cannot be another, for if the Teotl fail now, earthquakes will tear the world asunder and celestial horrors will consume humanity. The gods know their duty now, and there is nothing they will not sacrifice to ensure the sun rises again. They expect the same devotion in return - and rightly so. The Teotl are a fearsome but devoted pantheon, passionate but fatalist, calm yet knowing they can change the future. They have a rigid hierarchy, but encourage their Scions to innovate and push boundaries. They are dedicated to preserving the Fifth Sun, yet they are also capable of terrible infighting. Chalchihuitlicue, She of the Jade Skirt, is also called the Water Sun, Acuecucyoticihuati and Matlalcueitl. She is the queen of Tlalocan and wife to Tlaloc, and she has mastery over all rivers, oceans and running water as well as women in childbirth. She is beloved by her people and freely shares her blessings. The farms she favors never know drought, and mothers under her protection never lose a child. She blesses married couples and midwives, and offers her patronage to mortal and Scion equally. She will even make water bridges from the World to the 13 Heavens for Scions who earn her favor. Her traditional appearance is a Mexihcah noblewoman with elaborate headdress, tasseled shawl and green skirt. She is often found in the rooftop gardens of Mexico City when not ruling in Tlalocan. Her incarnations and Scions alike are often found in leadership roles as sailors, farmers, agricultural experts and guardians of the needy. Chalchihuitlicue's Callings are Creator, Guardian and Leader, and her Purviews are Beasts (All Aquatic Animals), Fertility and Water. Chantico, She Who Dwells in the House, is also called the Ruler of Ehecatl. She is the goddess of the hearth, volcanos and precious things. She often appears as an eccentric but wealthy businesswoman, all in red, with rouged cheeks and fiery lips, and is a common sight in Mexico's halls of power. She owns Securidad Chantico, a private security firm specializing in home security, and Banco Chantico, one of the best banks in Mexico. Both are tied to the commodities market and sponsors of volcanic national park preservation. Homes that Chantico protects are rarely robbed, and when they are, Securidad Chantico promptly retrieves the belongings. Alarms she blesses do not fail, and her vaults are practically impenetrable. She is the protector of the home and its people, and she is almost obsessively materialistic. She loves precious things, and those who steal from her must fear her volcanic temper. When enraged, she becomes a giant red serpent crowned with cactus thorns and a plume of aztaxelli warrior feathers. Her warlike aspect is as terrible as any war god's, and the wise give her a wide berth when she's retrieving her things. Her Scions are often equally hot-tempered and passionate. They often specialize in protection and transport of rare goods, or are bankers, volcanologists or artists. Chantico's Callings are Healer, Liminal and Sage, and her Purviews are Fire, Forge, Order and Prosperity. Chicomecoatl and Centeotl are the Deity of Maize and Corn, also known as Xilonen and Centeocihuatl. Maize is sacred to the Teotl and Mexihcah in a way few can understand, granting strength and vigor, growing where other things can't, and able to be sacrificed to the Teotl. Quetzalcoatl gave it to mankind, but Chicomecoatl and Centeotl are the guardians of it. Chicomecoatl is a benevolent mother to the Mexihcah and one of the most beloved of the gods. Her husband, Centeotl, helps her provide sustenance to them. Chicomecoatl used to be wife to Tezcatlipoca, and she can take on many forms. She is often a young woman in a feathered headdress, with face, clothes, hands and feet painted red and carrying ears of corn. She is also a young woman holding water flowers, a woman whose embrace means death or an elderly woman bearing a sun-like shield. Centeotl is a golden-skinned young man with a headdress full of maize, from whom the energy of the land radiates. They preside over massive harvest festivals to bring luck and food to the people. They are not as martial as other Teotl, but more well-loved. Their Scions tend to be energetic and vibrant, with a positive outlook. They bring luck and prosperity with them and are often skilled healers, taking jobs as farmers, sages, environmentalists, green businesspeople or doctors. Chicomecoatl and Centeotl have the Callings Healer, Guardian and Judge, and their Purviews are Earth, Fertility and Prosperity. Huehuecoyotl, the Old Coyote, is also called Xochitl. He is a god of music and dance, a reveler and decadent with an endless libido. He's a notorious trickster and is by nature a loner, despite his massive entourage. He mostly avoids the other Teotl except for Xolotl and for having sex with Xochiquetzal. Despite appearing young, he has old eyes. When not partying, he becomes philosophical and knows many things. The price for his advice could be anything from an evening of karaoke to seducing a god, but it's never boring. His natural form is a human-like coyote, but he can take any shape. His lust is hard to satisfy, and sometimes he abandons his parties to go spread chaos and war out of boredom. Most recently, he convinced the Mexican government to cancel a defense contract with Aesir-backed German firms in favor of local Mexicah arms manufacturers. Other gods prevented war with the Aesir, but he likes to cause mischief. His Scions are lively people, intelligent and puckish. They make excellent revelers and spies, idle rich or prodigal musicians. Huehuecoyotl's Callings are Lover, Sage and Trickster, and his Purviews are Chaos, Epic Dexterity and Passion. (Not Beasts, though, for some reason?) Huitzilopochtli is the God of War and the Sun. He is also called the Blue Tezcatlipoca, Lord of the South, Patron of Tenochtitlan and Champion of the Mexihcah. He roars to the dawn each day, flashing his Xiucoatl to banish night and escort the sun into the sky at the head of his army of the fallen. He becomes the noonday sun, banishing shadow, and as the sun sets, his warriors retreat on hummingbird wings to be replaced by the Cihuteteo, skeletal women who died in childbirth. They fight madly against the dark until the sun is swallowed into the underworld to be reborn. He never tires or retreats. He helped make the world, and it was he that marked the promising tribe from Aztlan for greatness, leading them south to Tenochtitlan, the center of the universe. He has since instructed them to abandon the name Aztec, for it is the past, and one must never look back. Now, they were to be Mexihcah, and few ever try to test this in his presence. His Scions are aggressive warriors, but always ready to sacrifice themselves for the people. They are modern Eagle warriors or gang members with hummingbird tattoos, fighting the flower wars to capture rivals for sacrifice, or they are politicians, corporate leaders or celebrities dedicated to economic and cultural conquest. Huitzilopochtli's Callings are Guardian, Leader and Warrior, and his Purviews are Beasts (Eagle, Hummingbird), Death, Epic Strength, Prosperity, Sun and War. Next time: Itzapalotl, Mictacacihuatl, Quetzalcoatl, Tezcatlipoca, Tlaloc, Xipe Totec, Xochipilli and Xochiquetzal
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Mar 29, 2018 19:21
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SQUAD BROKEN
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Mar 29, 2018 19:27
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Wikipedia Brown posted:I'd only want to use a single Necron (with maybe a twist reveal of a couple more at a really inopportune moment) to terrorize like a Dark Heresy party, Terminator style, chasing them through some hive and leaving carnage everywhere. And maybe they could take it out by luring into a smelter, a la T2 or Alien 3, rather than fighting it directly. Played that. It was fun. Didn't have a smelter, but we wound up knocking it into the a giant puddle made by some kind of runoff from the underhive. We weren't sure if it was acidic, but only God knows what was in it and it didn't get out again.
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Mar 29, 2018 19:29
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I love how in the context of all the bad dumb grimdark Hamtime poo poo you can just casually throw out something like "the Sister Hat Incident" and I will know what you're talking about immediately because that name encapsulates "the time a bunch of Grey Knights flayed some battle nuns to use their blood as a holy armor coating because Matt Ward thought it was a cool idea and he's an idiot" perfectly.
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Mar 29, 2018 19:43
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Hostile V posted:I love how in the context of all the bad dumb grimdark Hamtime poo poo you can just casually throw out something like "the Sister Hat Incident" and I will know what you're talking about immediately because that name encapsulates "the time a bunch of Grey Knights flayed some battle nuns to use their blood as a holy armor coating because Matt Ward thought it was a cool idea and he's an idiot" perfectly. The fact that everyone knows at least the basics of 40k by nerd osmosis makes this a lot easier to do. The Grey Knights book where they did that would be released 1 year after this book. I do appreciate how the Ultramarine Insanity track is 'become more like Matt Ward thinks you are', however.
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Mar 29, 2018 19:55
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Night10194 posted:The fact that everyone knows at least the basics of 40k by nerd osmosis makes this a lot easier to do. From the supplement that has the rest of the First Founding chapters, the Raven Guard insanity track appeals to me. They become "Please stop being suicidally aggressive morons, guys. We'd get so much more poo poo done if we took our time, planned things out, snuck ahead quietly... Guys? (sounds of massive carnage in the distance)"
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Mar 29, 2018 20:13
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Old necrons still annoy me somewhat because their first book came out around the time they changed the fluff style in the codexes. I don't remember if it was them or the Tau first but basically the older 3e codex expository fluff was written with an in-universe perspective that left a lot of ambiguity, in some cases you got different versions of the same events that gave a little leeway into who was right. The Eldar codex for example had some imperial scholar writing about the war in heaven as a myth. Then the new style was very much a detached out-of-universe style that very explicitly told you what happened so you learned exactly what happened during the war in heaven and how the C'tan were secretly responsible for everything from Khaine to New Coke.
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Mar 29, 2018 20:15
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 Tor, Roskva, and Loke. This is the only interpretation of Norse mythology I accept.
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Mar 29, 2018 20:30
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gradenko_2000 posted:1.) In your experience, does death happen often, or even at all, during the Adventure Path? 1.) In my experience we had 1 actual death and a few very close-death encounters. This is partly due to our party set-up and optimization, and partly due to how the AP is constructed in places. We had a Skald (non-sucky Advanced Class Guide one) who could give Fast Healing to party members and a Witch to provide for magical healing. For our Barbarian/Rogue it wasn't very hard to jack up his AC with the rings/armor/cloak magic items. Overall the Northlands is quite fond of the low-fantasy aspect especially at earlier levels. You're going to fight lots of warriors, huge beasts, and giants who gear more towards big HP damage than save-or-dies, and high-level spellcasters in general tend to be rare. The AP is also quite fond of using mobs of mooks, which depending on your party set-up can end up very easy or very hard for your players. Personally there were quite a lot of these that artificially extended the length of the AP, so I had a habit of combining multiple encounters into a few grand battle set-pieces. That may have played a role in the low death rate as well, but I'd much prefer a shorter flashier gaming session than an endurance run. There are several adventures in Northlands Saga that involve overland travel, and random encounters are done every day. This means that every combat during those times will have the spellcasters and per-day-use class features at full restoration. But there are quite a few adventures with time-sensitive missions where if the PCs dilly-dally you get a sort of nonstandard Game Over where everything gets hosed as a sort of counter-balance. 2.) That's likely the best way, although on the publishing side of things it frees up word count and space. :P
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Mar 29, 2018 20:39
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Der Waffle Mous posted:Old necrons still annoy me somewhat because their first book came out around the time they changed the fluff style in the codexes. In general the trouble with the Necrons is just...we already have a ton of faceless, nameless death-monsters in the setting. Yet another quiet, murderous enemy that won't talk, has no weaknesses, and on top of it has a bunch of annoying Chaos God knock-off types running around getting written into everything just felt redundant. The best Tau story is the one where they kill a Keeper of Secrets as their first big demon and run around excitedly telling everyone they saved the galaxy, because they wasted that Slaanesh thing everyone was so worried about. 
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Mar 29, 2018 20:56
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The Tau are such lovable fully automated communist space frogs, and it's a shame that GW couldn't just live with their big, giant flaw being that they had no idea that everywhere in the galaxy except the tiny bit they had already been to was full of murderous assholes who hate fun.
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Mar 29, 2018 21:04
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Night10194 posted:The best Tau story is the one where they kill a Keeper of Secrets as their first big demon and run around excitedly telling everyone they saved the galaxy, because they wasted that Slaanesh thing everyone was so worried about. I love this, almost as much as I love the idea of the Tyranids and Necrons becoming best friends based on their shared hatred of all life in the Milky Way.
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Mar 29, 2018 21:15
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Night10194 posted:The best Tau story is the one where they kill a Keeper of Secrets as their first big demon and run around excitedly telling everyone they saved the galaxy, because they wasted that Slaanesh thing everyone was so worried about. Tau interacting with Chaos is still the best poo poo.
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Mar 29, 2018 21:30
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Night10194 posted:In general the trouble with the Necrons is just...we already have a ton of faceless, nameless death-monsters in the setting. Yet another quiet, murderous enemy that won't talk, has no weaknesses, and on top of it has a bunch of annoying Chaos God knock-off types running around getting written into everything just felt redundant.
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Mar 29, 2018 21:33
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What I'm really getting at is goddamnit did we need a WH40KRP game from the perspective of the Tau, where you face the galaxy with a can-do attitude and optimism for the future in your multi-species hero team, and then when everything inevitably turns to poo poo you remind it you still have a rifle that can blow a hole in the back of a Leman Russ battletank, at minimum. "Oh no, we could never have conceived of the horror that awaited between the stars! Woe is us for we are ash and dust before the arcane might o- And it's dead." Night10194 fucked around with this message at 21:41 on Mar 29, 2018 |
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Mar 29, 2018 21:37
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Night10194 posted:What I'm really getting at is goddamnit did we need a WH40KRP game from the perspective of the Tau, where you face the galaxy with a can-do attitude and optimism for the future in your multi-species hero team, and then when everything inevitably turns to poo poo you remind it you still have a rifle that can blow a hole in the back of a Leman Russ battletank, at minimum. I always liked the idea that the Tau can only get away with what they do because they're so tiny - their gear is ludicrously expensive and maintenance-intensive. They can afford to kit out their armies with that stuff. But the Imperium operates on a completely different scale, and even if it was physically possible to manufacture Tau-level gear on the scale just the Space Marines alone would require to outfit them all with it, it would ruin the Imperial economy. Economics is an enemy that neither man nor space marine nor chaos god can fight against and win.
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Mar 29, 2018 21:54
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Tau are still lovely imperialists and only look good because they're the only ones who don't explicitly want to kill you/torture you/steal your soul/all of the above in a random order
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Mar 29, 2018 21:55
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Der Waffle Mous posted:Tau are still lovely imperialists and only look good because they're the only ones who don't explicitly want to kill you/torture you/steal your soul/all of the above in a random order Original book Tau are pretty literally Starfleet, but blue which is to say, kind of, yes, but from that Star Trek paternalism
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Mar 29, 2018 22:08
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Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay: Deathwatch and Rites of Battle: Part 12 If we just attack everywhere at once, we'll win faster! I like the Jericho Reach, because unlike Calixis it has things going on, places with distinct conflicts, and if you squint, it even has an actual theme. Considering FFG's fluff work, I'm even pretty sure it's intentional. Jericho is a region taken during the Crusade 10,000 years ago that was lost when the Imperium had its first crazy enormous post-Horus civil war, the Age of Apostasy. Somehow, while the Sisters of Battle were busy being created by an insane civil war provoked by an adminitratum nerd, the Imperium simply lost its records of the Jericho Sector and communication became much more difficult. For five millennia, the Reach has had no-one to collect its psykers, no-one to enforce any sort of wider sector order, and the Imperial order has fallen into dissarray in what was known as the Age of Shadows. Jericho Sector was renamed the Jericho Reach and marked as beyond human intervention until such a time as the Imperium could afford a proper crusade, but they could never muster the funds, manpower, or strategic necessity. Everywhere that bordered it was busy with other matters. Then they discovered a warp gate half a galaxy away, in Calixis, a sector that has so little going on that it can afford to muster a great crusade. This is a giant, alien structure that somehow allows for rapid, almost instant transit without any risk of Warp incursion or going off course. It single-handedly permits the attempt to retake the Reach. It is also built by Necrons, this much is very clear, and the setting hits you in the face with the idea that the angry robots are probably going to wake up and gently caress everything sooner or later, but it's an implied-hitting-you-over-the-head, not an outright statement. You are free to make the Gate anything else, and probably should, because...well, Necrons. The Imperium has only known about the Gate for about 500 years. It has been open the entire time, and the Imperium has no idea how to close it. They keep it surrounded by a naval cordon that they're 'sure' can blow it up, but so far it's impervious to anything they have. The area just around the gate is corrosive and damaging to ships, and ships have to simply pass through and get to a minimum distance from what they dub The Well of Night. Realizing that the gate wasn't going to close, and that this was a grand opportunity anyway, the Imperium mustered a great Crusade to go and return the Jericho Reach to the Imperium of Man. The only Imperial forces in the Jericho Reach before the Crusade were forces like a few Watch Stations of the Deathwatch, standing a vigil to keep an eye on the region and make certain it didn't grow into a threat to its neighbors. Now, with the Achilus Crusade coming through the portal, they finally felt they had the forces necessary to take a more active role. The Deathwatch had, until this point, kept to itself on on Watch Fortress Erioch, an ancient and massive space station full of guns and built around an ancient vault that was old before the ancient Emperor-era Imperials ever built anything around it. Most of the inhabitants are the servitors, serfs, and acolytes of the Inquisitors and Marines who stand the long vigil. Erioch is much more populated than it used to be now, with the arrival of the great crusade and the opening of the region to the rest of the Imperium on a larger scale. We get some perfunctory details on Erioch but I'm going to save those for the Rites of Battle bit, since it populates the place and fills in a lot more detail to let you use it for adventures rather than as just a home base for your Marines. The important person is our first major personage, Watch Commander Mordigael. He is your overall canon commanding officer. He is a useless idiot, and I am certain this is intentional. He is a handsome, angelic Blood Angel, five centuries old and long associated with the Deathwatch. He has only been Watch Commander for 10 years at this point, and his obsession is with things remaining as they are and were during his long, pre-crusade vigil. He dislikes disruptions in the normal routine of his station, and he hates any implication the Deathwatch is supposed to be tied directly to the Crusade. While in the core book they only mention he is a massive perfectionist who likes to spend hours practicing his martial disciplines, Rites of Battle will make clear he spends a lot of his time organizing tournaments of honor and attending to ritual combats with captured aliens, enjoying the trappings and pomp of his position. He is a Marine covered in glory who is not actually doing very much to lead or help anyone. The local head librarian is obsessed with ancient lore and mostly dull. The local head Inquisitor is, rightfully, terrified of what could happen if the Achilus Crusade fails. She points out, rightly, that if the crusade is pushed back to the gate and back through it, whatever beat the crusade will now have a direct route into a corrupt, poorly defended sector with very little experience with full scale war. She is obsessed with finding a way to blow up the gate, just in case. Inquisitor Hezika is a bit conventional, but noted to be very good at herding Marines and managing their egos. Now we get to the meat of the setting: The Achilus Crusade. When the Crusade first arrived a few decades back, under the conservative but competent Lord Militant Achilus, it stayed focused and began a cautious program of slowly sweeping forward, conquering and thoroughly pacifying worlds it encountered. Achilus was a veteran of many wars, and he believed the primary strategic value of the Reach was to open up a new front with the neighboring Tau Empire, which had given the Imperium so much trouble in prior attempts to defeat it. Achilus' forces found the war much harder than intelligence had led them to believe, encountering plenty of dangerous renegades and heretics, including Chaos forces stemming from a dark Mechanicus forge at the planet of Samech as well as much more numerous and better dug in Tau forces than Intel had ever reported. Achilus was not well liked by the Astartes, because they saw his cautious nature and delays to address these obstacles as cowardice. Nine years into the crusade, however, he and all of his most critical staff were simply lost when their ship's warp drive mysteriously malfunctioned. The fact that the new Lord Militant stepped in and immediately purged any remaining staff who thought like Achilus tells me Achilus' death was likely not an accident, but this is implication and conjecture on my part. Lord Militant Tetarchus is a dashing, plucky, can-do officer who is convinced any situation can be won if you just have sufficient willpower. He also thinks of himself as one of the greatest strategists in history, and his response to 'we are bogged down and the war has encountered much more resistance than expected' was 'NONSENSE! We'll split the army in three and win three times faster! I'll be hailed as the greatest leader since Macharius!' He predicted his new strategy would completely conquer the Reach within a decade. It has been thirty years. His synchophants have mostly proven unable to adapt to or handle the difficulties they face. The Imperium is stalled or losing on all three fronts. When your Marines arrive, the crusade is at best a bloody stalemate and at worst, is actively being driven back, and remember that the Gate is two way and Calixis is absolutely not ready for being invaded by Tau, serious Chaos warfleets, or worse. Tetarchus' brilliant plan of 'you need to want it more and attack more often! That'll win the war!' has backfired so spectacularly that it puts the worst case scenario on the table, and his incompetence as a commander and inability to plan for the worst threatens more than just his armies. This is the theme I was talking about. Across the Reach, you see people believing Imperial propaganda and acting like it's all that's necessary, like failures of war are failures of will and not a matter of not having enough guns and hands to hold them. It is steadily losing the Imperium the war when you get onto the scene. You have a chance to turn things around, of course; you're Space Marines, the main characters of Warhammer 40k, permitted plenty of agency to act. But things are not going well and will get worse if you don't. Glorious proclamations and martial spirit alone aren't going to save the Jericho Reach. And you may've noticed Mordigael doesn't have much besides those, back among your Astartes command staff... Next Time: The Salients of this disaster
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Mar 29, 2018 22:34
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 Chapter 5: Þurisaz, New Monsters The chapter states that the Northlands is full of all sorts of monsters, and that many from the Pathfinder Bestiaries and Tome of Horrors Complete make sense with some caveats. First off, they should fit the environment: a monster that needs to lair in intense flames isn't going to be hanging out in the forests of Estenfird, but may be more suitable when the PCs explore Mount Reik. Monsters imported should not be too magic-centric or overtly reliant on supernatural powers, given that Northlands is intended to be overall low-magic in tone. Finally, monsters which are keyed too close to mythologies outside the Nordic source material may not gel with the themes. The Adventure Path proper more or less sticks by this, with one exception. They're totally willing to borrow from non-Norse mythology in a few places. One encounter in Beyond the Wailing Mountains involves a Yuki-Onna albeit reflavored as a vengeful Ulnat spirit, we see a wendigo and a manitou in the later adventures (both from Native American folklore). The Broken Shieldwall has an Egyptian-style necropolis guardian and karkadanns (rhino-like being with a magical horn). In some cases it seems rather arbitrary, although the final example makes a bit of sense given the adventure's location. Before new monsters are introduced, we get discussion for an optional subtype, the Sceadugengan (or "shadow walkers"). Less a true variety of monster than a superstitious cultural association with unknown creatures, they are "horrors without a face that haunt the cold and darkness of the North." More known monsters such as giants, dragons, and merely larger versions of mundane animals do not count; they can be frightening sure, but they don't have that otherworldly unknowable horror. Generally speaking, Aberrations, Fey, Magical Beasts, Monstrous Humanoids, and Undead are all universally Sceadugengan plus a much larger list of subtypes. In mechanics terms, sceadugengan monsters force a Will save that imposes the Shaken condition on somebody from a culture in the campaign setting (includes dwarves and Ulnat as well as the people of the 8 regions). Although the save is only done on "first meetings" and not every encounter, it is in practice rather cumbersome and may feel odd if your valiant fantasy Vikings are getting scared all the time. Although the early parts of the Adventure Path have mostly human and "low fantasy" enemies to make such a subtype rare, it is not something I bothered with when running the campaign.     New Monsters We have 18 new monsters, 21 if we count the subtypes of beavers and trolls and they tend to be on the lower scale of power. Every monster here has an accompanying picture, but I'm only going to share a few of them. The chapter notes that every entry here is drawn from Germanic and Nordic legends. First up is the Ajatar (CR 9), a giant evil furred serpent which can change into the form of a beautiful woman to lure men into traps and eat them. They have a hypnotism power along with typical giant snake stuff (cosntrict, poison, climb speed). The Northlands Aurochs (CR 7) or Dire Kine are elephant-sized prehistoric cattle on the verge of extinction. Their horns are prized trophies and more than a few foreigners prized them to use in bullfighting arenas albeit with a heavy cost to the participating matadors.  Beavers (CR 1/3rd, 1, & 7) are exactly what you think. They come in larger varieties such as the Dire Beaver (size of a person) and the Giant Beaver (size of a horse). Their bite attacks can ignore a certain amount of Hardness of wooden objects. Blood Eagles (CR 10) are powerful undead named after a now-banned form of execution. A "blood eagle" is where a person's ribs are cracked and pulled out the back to simulate a pair of bony wings, and then the internal organs are pulled out through the back and sometimes salted to cause additional pain. Those executed in this manner consigned the victim to the realm of Hel rather than Valhalla, as it was considered a coward's death. The desperate fear this generates results in a 10% chance of the executed arising as a Blood Eagle, even more if an undead creation spell is used as part of the slaying. As a result the practice became banned in the modern era of the setting. Blood Eagles tend to be single-minded, seeking death and destruction against those whose souls who still have their honor intact as well as the people responsible for its execution. Oddly enough, there is not much comprehensive discussion on the real-world Nordic practice as to whether it actually happened, was a literary invention, and the specifics of its practice: was it used liberally or for only certain types of criminals? Some sources claim that if a person does not scream out in pain during the execution it is taken as a sign of valiance and the deceased is guaranteed an honorable spot in the afterlife. Bog Hags (CR 8) are the undead remnants of Andøvan human sacrifices drowned in bogs. They hate all life and are particularly feared for their ability to drive people insane or shift one's wyrd for the worse with but a touch. They also have a respectable array of spell-like abilities. On the anniversary of their murder they can leave their swampy prison, accompanied by Bog Horses and Bog Hounds to ride through the countryside on a campaign of terror. Bog Horses (CR 3) look like mold and fungus-covered horses which are servants of Bog Hags. These animals were also sacrifices of the Andøvans. They have sharp fangs for biting and can swim as fast as they can run.  Bog Hounds (CR 4) are the other animal servants of bog hags. They are loyal servants of the hags and their howls can strike magical fear into others.  An Erdhenne (CR 5) is a rare sapient monster which can take the form of a pool of moonlight or a rotting hen. Their peck carries with it a wasting curse, and those killed have their souls devoured and turned into eggs of pure gold and silver which the monster lays. They typically haunt houses, their only telltale sign clucking sounds at midnight. I get the intent of the horror of a seemingly harmless domesticated animal hiding among farmers, but after Terry Goodkind's infamously cheesy evil chicken incident I don't think most gaming groups will be able to take such a monster seriously. Common Giants (CR 5) are the most frequently encountered Jötnar in the Northlands. Stronger than ogres but weaker than hill giants, they are believed to the the race least blessed by the foul magics of their kind. Some claim that stronger giants evolved from their kind and the remnants are a stunted throwback. Common giants live in groups and practice a polygamous lifestyle, where having a large amount of "brood-wives" is a sign of status. Male common giants of lower status often band together with their peers or find ogres to bully and take as servants.  Grendel (CR 12) is one of the more powerful new monsters in this chapter. There are more than one but thankfully are rare. They were former humans whose souls were consigned to the Ginnungagap but managed to claw their way back to Midgard via the aid of spirits possessing their host bodies. A grendel is large and incredibly strong, along with the ability to perfectly mimic the voice of any person it kills (but no shapeshifting ability). They often come into a community and slaughter all who resist, establishing a local tyranny to extort ridiculous sums of tribute and the occasional human sacrifice from the subjected populace. They become more powerful the more people they eat (this is not a game mechanic, more a bit of fluff text). Grimmswine (CR 5) are the progeny of Sæhrimnir, a divine boar in Valhalla whose flesh regrows after each feast. The grimmswine are the children one of the many mortal boars it mated with throughout the Northlands. Gwimmswine are particularly-prized catches for their reputation, but are quite intelligent (INT 12) and their fur is full of razor-sharp bristles for defense. Although a magical beast, it is not a sceadugengan on account of its place in myth and folklore.  The Jomsbeast (CR 13) is the most powerful of the new monsters and a unique species in its own right. It lives on the island of Jomsburg, with an uneasy peace existing between it and the Jomsvikings. It has the physical features of a man, bear, and dragon. It is virtually immortal, coming back to life, even if disintegrated, as long as the enchanted spring in its lair remains tainted. There are mechanics included for how to dilute this (raising/changing the water level, using holy magic, etc) which gets past its fast healing ability and deals automatic damage.  Nachtjägers CR 2) or "night hunters" are flying monstrous humanoids who are fond of burning villages and swooping off with captives to kill and eat. They can cast produce flame as a spell-like ability and come equipped with shortbows, but besides their flight speed do not have any other significant abilities. A Swarm of Degenerate Mephits (CR 3) are created when small populations of these elemental beings are cut off from the rest of their kind and devolve into barbarity. They are little better than beasts, swarming over and attacking all others for sustenance. Thrydreg (CR 3) are the generations-long result of the unions of trolls and captive humans. They are less powerful than normal trolls but are smarter. They used to control almost all the known Northlands until the newly-arrived Northlander/Heldring humans fought them off. There is another species of thrydreg known as...sigh Skraelings. They are the result of humans and trow (detailed later) who live far off to the east in the mythical Oestryn Isles. They are amphibious and Chaotic Neutral rather than evil alignment, and in one of the later adventures in the AP have explicit Native American cultural trappings. I'm just going to note that the term "Skraeling" was a word Scandinavian vikings used to describe indigenous Americans encountered in Greenland and what is today eastern Canada. Although not of evil alignment, there is a host of problematic tropes when real-world ethnic groups, especially ones viewed as primitive/savage/etc, are cast into the role of orcs, goblins, and the like. I'll just leave a link to my blog post on why this is not a good idea than getting into it any further. Trow (CR 6) are a race of Jötnar who emerged from the primordial seas. They cling to shallow coasts and deep lakes, using natural camouflage to kill and drown people for sport and sometimes to eat. Mechanics-wise they are very similar to standard trolls, save with a swim speed, are stronger (STR and CON 25) but dumber (INT and CHA 4). Vlkodlak (CR 4) are Bearsarkers and Ulfhanders who cared only for the animalistic power of their cults without the mediating influence of moral codes. In their pursuit of power they became permanently trapped in a man-animal hybrid form powered by an endless rage. They are strong monstrous humanoids who have an innate barbarian rage along with the ability to access rage powers based on how much hit dice they have. They have Damage Reduction which can only be penetrated by holy weapons, lending credence to the belief that weapons made by the gods are the only hope of killing one. Some, but not all, have cast their lot in with the Beast Cult of Shibauroth.  Our final monster is the Woldgeist (CR 9), a good-aligned fey (but still a sceadugengan) which is a rare creature that inhabits the Forest of Woe in Hordaland. It may be the only one of its kind in existence, and it is a friendly creature which subtly aids the innocent and those of heroic reputations. It is capable of disguising itself as an overgrown boulder, and sometimes places itself in the path of travelers to secretly deliver a beneficial touch spell to them. They are only really violent against those who are evil and needlessly destroy the natural world. It has a host of druidic spell-like abilities and summoning to aid its cause, and it has ties with allied fey and humans indebted to it. Random Encounter Tables in the Northlands So far we covered 80 pages of this 807 page doorstopper. The random encounter tables cover an additional 90. The reason for its length is that the specifics of special encounters are repeated for every region, artificially expanding the length. The tables cover just about every region of significance in the Northlands, along with an in-depth description of more special encounters. I do not feel that it's warranted to cover them all save perhaps for a few of the more interesting ones. The regions vary widely in the possible challenges, in some have separate tables based on the season (usually summer/winter), and use a 1d100 percentage die roll to determine the results. Some regions, like the Bloody Pass in Estenfird's winter, can range in encounters from a herd of CR 1/2 to 2 mundane animals to a game-ending CR 17 wendigo or CR 20 tor linnorm, but enerally speaking the majority of encounters hew to the lower end of the spectrum (CR 1/3 to 9). Generally speaking only the 90s and above on the 1d100 approach high levels. The Adventure Path proper uses the actual tables sparingly, often going with its own localized tables in line with the average party level. Some of the more interesting encounters include a drunken hunting party who ask the PCs if they'd like to engage in a friendly competition to hunt an animal, along with rough pranks by the other hunters which can cause non-lethal damage; landholders who may invite the party to dinner if there is a skald among their group or the PCs are famous heroes; destitute travelers who if the PCs help may show up later to pledge themselves as loyal householders if one or more PCs become jarls (which can happen in the AP); a freak ice storm which is supernaturally dangerous and cold if the PCs angered Althunak during the Adventure Path; a scientific expedition of Southlanders searching for the magnetic pole of the world of Lloegyr, the planet of the campaign setting; a Nûk hunter on a spiritual quest who is aided by an earth elemental; a Southlander warship on the hunt for Jomsvikings and pirates; and a strangely welcoming village in Vastavikland whose inhabitants plan to rob the PCs while they sleep at night. In conclusion the new monsters are quite thematic and can be easily inserted into other styles of campaigns. The Sceadugengan subtype is cool as an idea but rough in its execution, and the random encounter tables aren't generally my style for campaigns in general. Next time we'll cover the Northlands Saga Adventure Path and its first "prequel" module, Spring Rites! Libertad! fucked around with this message at 01:48 on Mar 30, 2018 |
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Mar 29, 2018 23:07
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All this is really making me want to have another crack at running Deathwatch. My players did enjoy themselves it was all the clunky rules baggage, especially the original crazy weapons rules that put me off. Looking at the living errata, it looks better. I mean don't get me wrong, trying to hang post-human supermen with plasma weapons and power armour onto the skeleton of WFRP 2 is still a terrible idea, but it might just be playable.
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Mar 29, 2018 23:22
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I feel like even if they wanted to give them some more character they really should have maintained the reason to give a poo poo about the Necrons, namely that their objective was to literally destroy the Warp because they hate these cheating assholes with their loving magic bullshit and if they can only get rid of that Science Will Prevail and they can finally exterminate all the trash their ancient enemies strewed across the galaxy. Tomb Kings in space is literally worse than no character at all imo. And this from a fan of actual Tomb Kings.
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Mar 29, 2018 23:48
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