StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Played through the Shattered Hope demo using our own characters, will do another one once my book arrives..

A feral world guardsman, a feral worlder psyker, and a void-born Tech-priest enter a mutant infested mine. They engage in a fight with a mutated guardsman and take him down without much trouble or anything notable happening aside from a gruesome kill via the psyker's axe that disembowels it after it gets knocked down by a sword wound to the leg from the Guardsman.

The party proceeds on past several horrors and one terrified survivor before narrowly avoiding being caught in a mutant ambush when the tech priest notices it and momentarily disables them with a feedback screech. The psyker gets a good angle on one and ventilates his skull with that dinky little compact revolver they start with. The mutants are flushed from cover by a well thrown grenade from the guard which badly wounds two of them though they manage to get back into cover and start returning fire. The third isn't quite as fast as the others and though he avoids the grenade he ends up worse off with las wounds to right arm and right leg. The firefight proceeds with the tech priest and guard taking cover and exchanging fire, las carbine and lasgun vs. stub revolvers. Meanwhile the psyker juices his precog and goes on the attack with his ceremonial axe against the other mutant.

A brief scuffle occurs between pskyer and mutant miner that results in yet another disembowelment from the little semi-nutty guy.. he's good at that I guess.

The firefight is hilariously resolved when a las round from the Guard blows apart a mutant's head and sends it's headless, burning corpse running headlong into the last remaining mutant who flubs his agility test badly and gets fallen on by the burning mutie and promptly burns to death.

More exploration and nasty dead bits found before they stumble across a disguisting mutant abomination in a room full of leaking promethium tanks, forcing the fight to go hand-to-hand. There's much flailing around and flubbing of attack rolls on all sides as they commence a dance of death with the abomination being steadily worn down without doing any notable damage but evading roughly 80% of the hits thrown at it. At least until the tech priest lands some critical damage that blinds it. This is quickly followed up by a a maimed leg and finally the psyker putting the thing down with an axe blow that rips right through it's arm and into its torso, killing it instantly.

They move deeper into the mine and find the antithesis stone that has been causing the mutations, coming away without any of their own, lucky them, and find it just in time to have it spit out a plaguebearer. The tech-priest and the psyker fire and miss and the guardsman chucks a grenade which misses.. and scatters right into the antithesis stone. Grenade goes off, stone shatters, and the plaguebearer is sucked into the warp. XP is had by all with the GM giving the Guardsman an extra 10 points for disabling the entire table for a good 5 minutes while they laughed over the image of a headless, flaming mutant plowing into one of his own comrades and burning him to death.

That is so cool. I love how 40k is so over the top at times that something as gruesome as someone having their head exploded and their body running about like a headless chicken while on fire and then igniting a comrade is hilarious like that.

With any luck when I get home from school today I should have my copy. By the end of the week definitely.

My limited experience of PnP RPGs indicate to me that this is actually a pretty spiffy book. I'm enjoying the read; though I must say I miss some of the cooler pieces of equipment from Inquisitor, suchthe more varied gunsights, auspexes and close combat weapons, primarily. And servo-skulls. However, it's a different tier of character in Dark Heresy, as opposed to (most often) an actual Inquisitor and his personal retinue of hardasses, so I can imagine why it's somewhat limited (though you can get contact lenses that turn night to day and protect from flash grenades).

In all, I'm probably going to spend the day creating copious amounts of characters for fun.

Does anybody know the difference between S and T types of Skills/Talents in the range list? I looked everywhere in the book but I just can´t find it.


Edit: i´m so stupid

Skills
Talents

Hotfoot wrote:Skills
Talents

I noticed

Brother-Captain Gaius wrote:Yeah, rules for Orks are on my to-do list.

What's struck me as odd about the combat rules so far, though, is a lack of positional bonuses. They went so far as to make penalties for being "prone" after getting knocked down, but any kind of benefit to lowering one's stance is curiously absent in a combat system that also includes overwatch and suppressive fire. I'd've thought there'd at the very least be a prone action that gives you a bonus to Ballistic Skill tests and a penalty to any enemy trying to shoot you.

I noticed the same thing. Here is the action I came up with.

Going To Ground (Half Action)
Combatants that have Gone To Ground do not count as Prone/Knocked Down.
In the course of combat, it is often useful to go to ground, keeping your body low to avoid enemy fire. Going to ground automatically braces your weapon and limits it to a 45 degree firing angle. Any shots fired at the combatant who has gone to ground from more than 5 meters away suffer a -30 penalty to hit. Conversely, all melee attacks gain +30 to hit, and a combatant that has gone to ground suffers a -30 penalty to Dodge. A combatant that has gone to ground cannot use melee weapons, thrown weapons, or two-weapon fighting. While gone to ground, the Move action covers a distance up to 1+AB meters in any direction and allows the combatant to turn to face any direction. The Stand/Mount action negates all effects of going to ground.

---

I figured I wouldn't give a bonus to BS because since you can't move while prone, you'll naturally want to use one of your half-actions to aim.

That's not bad, Feil, but I'd recommend some changes:

To keep it in line with the rest of the rules and for standardization/simplicity's sake, instead of the 5 meter rule simply change it to Point Blank. I'd reduce the to-hit penalty to -10 (-30 is pretty excessive IMO, it's already hard enough to hit anything at low levels). The melee and Dodge modifiers seem alright. I'd give thrown weapons back (you can still chuck a grenade whilst prone) but halve the throwing range. And again for simplicity, change movement to just allow a Half Move as a Full action.

Is it wrong that the more and more I read this book, the more and more I want to set a game amidst an enormous rock festival infiltrated by the foul servants of the Ruinous Powers trying to summon some hellish warp-beast into being, culminating in an unholy psychic rock battle?

Because that's the impression this book is giving me.

Ford Prefect wrote:Is it wrong that the more and more I read this book, the more and more I want to set a game amidst an enormous rock festival infiltrated by the foul servants of the Ruinous Powers trying to summon some hellish warp-beast into being, culminating in an unholy psychic rock battle?

Because that's the impression this book is giving me.

Not at all

Gaius: I agree on thrown weapons, movement, and point blank. Need to look at the rules more before I make a decision about the difficulty to hit, but I'll probably end up going with your suggestion.

EDIT: modified version

Going To Ground (Half Action)
Combatants that have Gone To Ground do not count as Prone/Knocked Down.
In the course of combat, it is often useful to go to ground, keeping your body low to avoid enemy fire. Going to ground automatically braces your weapon and limits it to a 45 degree firing angle. (Pistol and Basic weapons gain a +5 bonus when braced.) Any shots fired at the combatant who has gone to ground from more than Point Blank Range suffer a -10 penalty to hit (Point Blank has +30 as usual). Conversely, all melee attacks gain +30 to hit, and a combatant who has gone to ground suffers a -30 penalty to Dodge. A combatant that has gone to ground cannot use melee weapons or two-weapon fighting. He may use throwing weapons at half their normal range. A Half Move in any direction may be made as a Full Action, at the end of which the combatant may face any direction he wants. The Stand/Mount action negates all effects of going to ground.

Feil wrote:Not at all

Good, good.

Incidentally, the variation in characters is such that even if I know what I want to do, I don't know what to do. Which is awesome.

In a convenient occurrence of serendipity, amidst watching this thread and making my replies, I've been composing a little guitar tune (which is coming along nicely, incidentally).

Looks good, Feil. Grammar nitpick: A combatant who has gone to ground...

Fixed yer nitpick, you nitpicking nitpicker.

And also added a parenthetical to a house rule I plan on using: "pistol and basic weapons gain a +5 bonus when braced."