Quote from: Ghost Whistler;452290And now for the snark.

QuoteHow Broken Is Deathwatch?

Neighbor, remove thy plank.

Quote from: jgants;452293I don't understand how you can get all the stats for everything in the entire 40K wargame right now and for a couple hundred bucks total; yet can't get even 5% of the stats for those same creatures by buying FFG's entire catalog (which runs you a whole lot more).

Hey guys, guess what?

40k uses a 1-10 scale for stats.  DH uses a 1-100 scale for stats.

What's 10 * 10?

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;452290And now for the snark.

I didn't say i wasn't inclined to creativity. I said that I didn't want to do all the work of creating balanced stats for 40k monsters and enemies when I could be using FFG's own efforts (which, presumably, would be balanced and accurate) to write and plot adventures. Expecting someone new to the game, and quite an involved game, to design, from scratch, necrons or whatever for himself is a tall order, and it's also unreasonable.

Not really. I did it from my very first DH game onwards, and the guy I'm playing with right now does the same thing, and most of the people I see discussing it online (at, for example /tg) do it as well. It's very similar to my experiences with most roleplaying games in that respect.

QuoteStats from different games are scaled differently and are hardly economical purchases.

The stats don't "scale differently". It's the same scale. Some enemies are comparatively weaker, some are tougher, but even DH-scale enemies, presented as hordes or equipped properly can pose a threat to Space Marines. Last night I had an enemy commander, represented by the "Imperial Field Officer" from the back of the DW book with a xeno weapon from Radical's Handbook, nearly kill a Space Marine PC in a single shot.

Just echoing Pseudoephedrine.  I've done that for everh Warhammer RPG since 1st edition on up to 2nd, then DH and beyond.   The monsters aren't really that different from each other.  Some may have a special ability but really they are pretty similar when you look at an orc vs a chaos marine vs a dark elf.  You don't need a million different monsters each with their own rules and exceptions.  Just pick a stat block and skin it.  That's basically all they are doing in the rule books anyway.  Taking a base 'average human' stat block and making +/- 10% changes to it to slightly vary it.  

About the only thing I draw from the creature books is the fluff.   Which I personally think is of a significant value.  In fact if they put out a creature book with 90% fluff and their stats basically said it's like a tougher human and can shoot a stream of strength 6 acid.  I wouldn't even bat an eye.

It's not about being creative or clever it's just about keeping the game flowing.  It's easier to stat things out on the fly then it is to flip the page to find it.

I now make a rule of not posting in threads that include the word "broken" in their title.

Wait a minute.

DAMN! :banghead:

I have no problem with anyone doing anything they want for their game. You want to create stats? Good luck to you.

But surely the point is that you shouldn't have to. We aren't tallking about esoteric information - we are talking about basic adversaries.

Now calculating stats for baddies is one thing, but how do we model supernatural stuff? Where do you begin? Perhaps its easier if you have experience with the system and all the books, but that's not what I want to buy into nor is it something I can afford.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;452296Either that or it's deeply cynical marketing.

Yes of course. I'm quite fond of the Rogue Trader game they put out. But it's plainly obvious that FFG want to squeeze the supplement tread mill as hard as possible.

Here's an excerpt from a recent review on DarkReign of the new RT splat which focuses on space combat (you know, all these years after the core rulebook... someone realizes that this should be in the game):

QuoteXenos Starship Component Sidebar, pg 74

On behalf of all of us GMs that so callously asked for this information, I'm Sorry, FFG, that players might have purchased your previous product, Into the Storm, and enjoyed playing orks to the point they want to do an 'all ork' campaign.  I know that you find the idea that GMs might want to build custom enemy ships to challenge the Rogue Trader and their Crew to be distasteful. And, God Emperor preserve us, how dare players use the not-Ion Cannons in this very book to disable Chaos ships and take them as prizes, foolishly following existing canon about what valuable prizes said ships are to the Imperium, particularly when taken intact.

Please Forgive us for Daring to Run our Games as we see fit, oh Powerful Masters of the 40k RPG Franchise! /sarcasm

I'm not sure how other GMs feel, but being told, basically, that I do not need such information because the game is not supposed to be run a certain way just, really, gets under my skin.  I know I'm not the only person to have asked for this information in FFG's forums at one point or another, particularly after Into the Storm came out, and people wanting to play as Orks and Kroot came pouring out of the woodwork.   Add to this the deliberate removal of the Space and Power stats from all the NPC ships in an attempt to prevent us from working them out on our own, and frankly at this point I smell another $45 book just of Xenos and Chaos stuff in the works.

Being told to fuck off for wanting xenos ship components? That'll be $45 please, thanks.

http://www.darkreign40k.com/drjoomla/index.php/news/1-latest-news/1313-the-imperium-expects-the-baron-reviews-battlefleet-koronus

One of the downsides of the non-D&D part of our hobby is people who demand that every game do in one book what takes D&D three.

Quote from: J Arcane;452332One of the downsides of the non-D&D part of our hobby is people who demand that every game do in one book what takes D&D three.

I was just thinking along those lines. Like, why is a secondary antagonists book such a problem for some people? Worked for D&D, worked for the Buffy RPG. I was chatting with a hardcore 40K fan the other day who thought that the core book for DW was more than enough to run a solid game of Xeno or chaos hunting, with antagonists drawn from DH material if GMs want more.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;452328I have no problem with anyone doing anything they want for their game. You want to create stats? Good luck to you.

But surely the point is that you shouldn't have to. We aren't tallking about esoteric information - we are talking about basic adversaries.

Now calculating stats for baddies is one thing, but how do we model supernatural stuff? Where do you begin? Perhaps its easier if you have experience with the system and all the books, but that's not what I want to buy into nor is it something I can afford.

No I'm not arguing that you should have to, only that doing so isn't a big deal and that not having those things is far from crippling because Warhammer has never been a game about battling the new monster of the week.

There is enough information in the core book to run campaigns off of.  More if you have other 40k stuff.  Or perhaps I should word that I personally find there is enough information.

However in terms of price how many monsters do they include, how expensive and big do they need to make that core book before it makes everyone happy in terms of contents or becomes to expensive.  There's a balance there, some people are fine with the current product others aren't.

Comparing it to D&D because production values are about the same you get the Players hand book, the GM's guide and some monsters for $40.  Seems priced about right.

Quote from: Windjammer;452330Yes of course. I'm quite fond of the Rogue Trader game they put out. But it's plainly obvious that FFG want to squeeze the supplement tread mill as hard as possible.

I would actually forgive them for that if it didn't take years for the next book to come out, still be incomplete, and rife with issues.  I mean, it's one thing to have space combat be a separate book.  It's another thing for that book to come out 2 years too late and still suck.

Quote from: J Arcane;452332One of the downsides of the non-D&D part of our hobby is people who demand that every game do in one book what takes D&D three.

I certainly don't demand it in one.  I do, however, think that after the first dozen or so overpriced books that don't contain any info whatsoever, one tends to get a bit annoyed.

Quote from: Géza Echs;452335I was just thinking along those lines. Like, why is a secondary antagonists book such a problem for some people? Worked for D&D, worked for the Buffy RPG. I was chatting with a hardcore 40K fan the other day who thought that the core book for DW was more than enough to run a solid game of Xeno or chaos hunting, with antagonists drawn from DH material if GMs want more.

I'm 1000% cool with an antagonist book that would actually contain everything like a monster manual does.  What I hate is these large, overpriced hardcovers that spend 80% of the page count on things we aren't asking for, then barely scratch the surface of what we do want.  It's not even a half-assed job.

The core book for DW sucks ass for antagonists.  You are either lying, or the 40K fan is clueless.  There are a whopping 3 enemies listed in the DW book.  How the hell can you run more than an adventure or two based on that?

And no, porting over antagonists from Dark Heresy, where the power level is about half the level of DW, doesn't really work.  At least not without messing with the stats.



Here's what I don't get - why are there so many people falling over themselves to apologize for the fact that FFG doesn't want to give people the game they actually want?  I don't get it.

Quote from: kryyst;452338No I'm not arguing that you should have to, only that doing so isn't a big deal and that not having those things is far from crippling because Warhammer has never been a game about battling the new monster of the week.

There is enough information in the core book to run campaigns off of.  More if you have other 40k stuff.  Or perhaps I should word that I personally find there is enough information.

However in terms of price how many monsters do they include, how expensive and big do they need to make that core book before it makes everyone happy in terms of contents or becomes to expensive.  There's a balance there, some people are fine with the current product others aren't.

Comparing it to D&D because production values are about the same you get the Players hand book, the GM's guide and some monsters for $40.  Seems priced about right.

Some monsters?  There's 3.  3!!!

How is that plenty of info to run a campaign off of?  Seriously.


How many times do people have to say it?  What people want is a Dawn of War style RPG.  We do not want Call of Cthulhu in Space.

Quote from: J Arcane;452332One of the downsides of the non-D&D part of our hobby is people who demand that every game do in one book what takes D&D three.

But the D&D core books are half the price of the 40k core books. Also the D&D monster manual has, i'm guessing, a fairly complete list of monsters. Creatures Anathema, for example, doesn't. What it gives is a selection of specific entities which, again, you will have to twist if you want more. The chaos section had a few specific demons of FFG's own construction. No toolkit for the creation of your own daemons for instance. It's all so haphazard and it' sno thelped when information is distributed seemingly at random across books, so core book contains a couple of things, GM screen gives you a dark eldar, book 3 gives you a chaos dude, and so forthe.

Quote from: Géza Echs;452335I was just thinking along those lines. Like, why is a secondary antagonists book such a problem for some people? Worked for D&D, worked for the Buffy RPG. I was chatting with a hardcore 40K fan the other day who thought that the core book for DW was more than enough to run a solid game of Xeno or chaos hunting, with antagonists drawn from DH material if GMs want more.

Quite a large caveat.

DH is probably the most complete of the three corebooks, from what I can see. But DW is the one most about combat and has relatively little.

Again it's not really acceptable to say 'use antagonists from across the DH books'. I shouldn't really have to buy DH books, scale them up accordingly (and i bet the DW book gives no advice on how to do this), and edit them into what I want, when what I want is fairly basic stuff. It's a very odd setup.

I have no problem with secondary books, so long as the primary source is enough. By all means expand on that, but first lets have something to work with.

I'm also completely comfortable coming up with my own stuff, but I dson't think it's at all unreasonable to want officially statted stuff from a game line that comes from a world where everything is officially statted. It's the 40K way.

I used to get hassled all the time for "making stuff up" in 40K. It ruffled my feathers at first, then I sort of learned the mindset. There's a stronger element of competition and reliance on fairness in the 40K world that I think the games miss an opportunity to capitalize.