New to Conclave: Old to Inquisitor

[MrMasochist]

Hey there guys,

just wanted to post a hello, introduce my warband and tell you all how much i am loving your forum. My mate and I are just getting back into inquisitor after a short 5 year hiatus... We have been building terrain and buying and building new minis like madmen and i cant wait till our first game. Have randomly generated some profiles from the "birthing a monster' character generator and wanted some feedback on them...

Inquisitor Aggot Dargon (based on Eisenhorn Miniature):
  WS-78, BS-80, S-60, T-75, I-73, WP-88, SG-81, NV-89, LD-84
- Leader, Regeneration, Lightning reflexes.
- Telepathic abilities - Telepath, Psychic Shriek
- Has a bolt pistol, Basic Staff, Conversion Field, 2x Cybermastif


Interregator Jes Ar Gunn (Based on Slick Devlan Legs/arms and covenant torso/head):
  WS-65, BS-65, S-63, T-58, I-74 WP-71, SG-70, NV-73, LD-74
- Lightning Relfexes
- Biomancy abilities - Boil Blood
- Has Plasma Pistol, Bolt Pistol w/ range finder & 10 hellfire rounds, Combat Knife, Flak on Abdomen, Right Arm, Right leg


Preacher Ank (Based on Josef with covenant sword)
  WS-59, BS-62, S-64, T-66, I-70 WP-60, SG-73, NV-70, LD-60
- Word of the Emperor
- Has Hand Flamer, Power Sword, both eyes and ears Advanced Bionics, 1 Frag Grenade, 1 Medpack


Tomard Vie (ex-Pit Fighter Based on Covenant Legs and arms, slick torso, josef power hammer, eisenhorn head)
  WS-82, BS-62, S-71, T-67, I-59 WP-60, SG-43, NV-78, LD-55
- First Strike
- Has Pump Action Shotgun, Power Hammer, Average Bionic Left Arm, Flak on all locations ex head, 2 points ablative armour on left Arm, Filtration Plugs


Kien Harthewn (Imperial Guard Sniper scratch build)
  WS-49, BS-69, S-61, T-73, I-63, WP-55, SG-52, NV-66, LD-84
- Quickload
- Has Longlas with infrascope, Dueling pistol with 10 Manstopper rounds


Almost finished the miniatures for all of these guys and have some basic back story fleshed out which I will put up in a while.

Let me know what you think about these completely random character generations. Everything from the stats to the special abilities to the weapon classes and equipment is random.

The plan for our campaign is to have the characters make rolls to get new skills and weapons between scenarios with experience points of some description. We will have more control over what we get so any upgrade suggestions would be great for when we get going. The other thing we will be doing with our scenario is recruiting new randomly generated characters if and when people die. So any ideas for complementary characters would rock.

We have 5 NPCs for different scenarios and i am going to make some generic stats for them too. They will basically act as guards/civilians/cannon fodder as each scenario asks for it. I think the following stat line is ok - advice is welcome.

Basic trooper
  WS-45, BS-45, S-55, T-50, I-45, WP-40, SG-40, NV-40, LD-45
- Lasgun, Flak on chest and abdomen

i think they will suffice but suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

thanks heaps guys


MrMasochist

[Alyster Wick]

WELCOME TO THE CONCLAVE!

Okay, so I'm not as good with text as others are but I'm sure someone can give you a proper welcome with the bold yellow.

Anyway, to be honest you're going to run into some possible opposition as the Conclave way of playing Inquisitor is rather counter to what you have presented here. It's general practice to avoid any kind of randomization (aside from very specific sets of circumstances) and to let a character's (fully fleshed out) background dictate the stats that they receive. In addition to that, a likely critique will be that your characters' stats are generally "too high" and that they equipment they have is "too powerful."

I put those in quotes because those comparisons are both reflections of gameplay style as opposed to any concrete measure.

To briefly explain, the problem you will run into is that with the load out your characters have there are lots of powerful weapons that can not only take a character out in one hit, but are likely to completely kill them (which can lead to fairly short, and in the opinion of some, uninteresting games). Coupled with the relatively high stats and you're taking a lot of the randomness out of the game (if any of the characters you have below spends one or two actions aiming they will have an almost negligent chance to miss their targets, even from a long distance).

That said, if you're playing games that frequently have "side characters" getting killed and replaced and you use a fair amount of NPCs then you can still have fun games. Many will say things such as, "that doesn't play to the strengths of the Inquisitor gaming system." While I would agree with that statement I would also say that the most important thing is that you have fun.

Something you may want to strongly consider though if you're going to go ahead with some kind of experience system is that your characters don't have much room for improvement. Many people scoff at power gaming but I've played games with powerful characters and found it entertaining. Others say that a codified system of gaining experience doesn't exactly make sense in the Inquisitor system and I would agree that while games like Dark Heresy are a better place for that (and indeed they have an actual system for that in place) you should do whatever you find fun. However, if you combine power gaming and an experience system then I just don't really see how it would successfully work. If your warband already has plasma/bolt guns and power weaponry along with stat lines that are mostly about 60 (I counted only 2 that were below 50 in fact, and one of those was Sagacity) then there really isn't any room for noticeable improvement. Sure, you may not have to aim anymore to pick a rat off at 50 meters, but that isn't really a rewarding goal to work toward.

Anyway, hope that was helpful!

[MrMasochist]

Thanks for the 'yellow' greeting lol.... mines red


Your comments were very helpful indeed.

I was hoping for this sort of advice. I really like the random generation as a tool to make interesting stats (example my old inquisitor rolled low on his strength but high on his toughness - making him feel venerable like the back story says he is) but i have no issue in starting with a lower base for the rolls (i guess cutting 10 or 15 base points off every stat line would work easily enough to bring the basic stats down for every one evenly...)

the reason i wanted such advice was that i haven't played inquisitor since i was younger and power gaming was all i knew. I am really into the narrative side of things now and i am hoping to have epic campaigns in the near future.

All of the equipment was randomly generated but there is no reason i cant change it to a lower version of itself. That said we are going to be playing several missions with xenos as NPCs and they are going to be hard to kill (T-150+) so some of the high end equipment is necessary. There is no reason however that they cant have 'access' to that equipment and not use it on missions where it is not necessary.

As far as NPCs go 90% of missions will have several NPCs wandering around, be they unarmed civilians, poorly armed gangers, or well armed guards/troopers as well as the xenos i mentioned (based on trollbloods from warmahordes)

I agree that the stats as they are aren't really going to improve alot in a meaningful way but the way that our experience system works (so far) is that you can use experience points to improve a specific ability through training (the more experience you spend the more likely to gain the stat increase) or when shopping for new equipment (the more xp you spend the more likely you are to find what you want) but you cant do both between each mission. So a character like Inquisitor Dargon would be much more likely to try to find an upgraded staff or some armour than stat line increases, while Interrogator Gunn would probably try to increase his toughness or Balistic Skill especially if every stat drops by 10 points...

I guess I need to play test some more but i think that some 'nerfing' of the stats is in order

thanks


MrMasochist

[MarcoSkoll]

While I've argued against random character generation in the past, it has grown on me a bit since I've started playing the FFG RPGs.
It can make you consider ideas you might not have otherwise - for example, a low Strength roll for my Dark Heresy assassin resulted in a shorter and more slender character than I had originally considered, and that has turned out pretty well.

However, I do stand by what I've said before - ultimately the game profile should yield to the concept. It might be able to lean on the concept, but if one has to give to the other...

xenos as NPCs and they are going to be hard to kill (T-150+)

The problem with an arbitrarily high Toughness in Inquisitor is that with the default injury rules (assuming the player hasn't misinterpreted them, as often happens) it means that lots of trivial hits will fast cripple the character, but a direct hit from a lascannon will only result in a flesh wound.

It'd be better to give them a lower toughness (perhaps 80-90), but with special rules to toughen them up.
A good one that sometimes gets used is to give them an extra light injury level on all locations - essentially, there's an extra injury level between light and heavy injury, which uses the same injury effects as a light injury.
Issue 2 of the Dark Magenta magazine includes revised rules for Space Marines that also address the issue, so that's definitely worth a look too.

As a general rule, the game doesn't much like stats near or over 100, so it's usually better to find a special rule to represent extreme competence in an area than just using very big numbers.

[MrMasochist]

Thanks Marco

Yeah i like that idea for the lower toughness coupled with a special rule. Given that they are based upon troll models from warmachine/hordes I was thinking of a special rule similar to 'tough'. Perhaps the model rolls on a 3+, 4+, 5+, 6+ for light, heavy, serious, accute respectively and if they pass the 'tough' roll they would only add half the damage to their location and injury total.

So a model with toughness 80 takes a hit to the chest that does 10 damage after armour (if they have any). They pass their 3+ tough roll and only suffer 5 damage to their injury total and therefore apply no injury type to the chest.

The same model later takes a second hit to the chest resulting in 16 damage after armour. They pass their 4+ roll and add only 8 to their injury total suffering a light injury.

Later, he takes a third hit, worth 18 damage to the chest (this guy has a magnetic chest lol) and fails his 5+ roll and add the full 18 to their injury total and suffers a serious injury.

Without play testing I can only guess how well something like this would work but I think i prefer a sliding scale over a fixed number because it is harder to shrug off damage if you are already hurt. You also cannot ignore damage that would take you into a crippling injury.

I also think that the Tough rule might not apply to the head but instead would add a serious location to the trolls head which has the same result as a heavy injury. (thanks Marco)

'Tough' would be coupled with stats like:


Space Troll (I need to come up with a better name for the race...)
WS-41, BS-35, S-92, T-83, I-46, WP-34, SG-27, NV-79, LD-38
Flak on chest & abdomen, spear, throwing javelin


Would love some thoughts.

Thanks


MrMasochist

[DapperAnarchist]

How about the name "Arashi"? It means "laying waste" in Japanese, and is used to mean... Internet trolling, or spamming. Other interesting words found in the Wiki article for this are Krean (Thai for internet troll, literally "cropped hair person", like the Irish "croppy boy", but meaning schoolboy), Thurs, which is just Icelandic for Troll (and so the source of the english noun troll, though not the verb!) and Nak-si, which is Korean for "fishing" and again means the act of trolling.

[MarcoSkoll]

Based on your description, it sounds like you're playing damage has to equal or beat the Base Injury (BIV) to do an injury level.

I don't know whether that's a house rule or a misunderstanding of the injury rules (normally damage up to and including the BIV is one injury level; exceeding the BIV and up to twice BIV, inclusive, is two injury levels; etc.), but having tried it myself, I can't really recommend it.
It means many of the less powerful weapons can only do injury total damage (particularly if the target has any armour at all) and become largely useless.

~~~~~

With the standard injury rules, these are options I've seen used:

- True Grit, or the more drastic version:
  >> A character is immune to system shock and ignores injury total. This means they have to be taken out through raw injury levels - good for necromantic type stuff.
- An extra light injury level on all locations.
- Regeneration.
- Feel No Pain (one of mine): For the purposes of System Shock and Consciousness, the character's toughness is increased by half. The character halves any speed reduction as a result of injury (rounding the reduction down).
- Natural armour: Give the character extra armour for their thick/scaled/diamond hide.

By the way, don't combine all of them, or the other players will hate you.

[MrMasochist]

@DA

i really like those ideas. Good to see someone doing a little googleing on my behalf (mwhahaha - my plan is going according to... plan...) thanks alot. I think Arashi is best personally.

@ marco

yeah that's a misunderstanding based on my part - played my first game in 6/7 years the other day (look out for the battle report - coming soon) and we were very rusty. Thanks for pointing that out. That said i don't really like the idea that you could have a crippled result by five individual his that each caused only one damage... seems odd. I guess five bullets punching into your arm would still wreck it in the long run even if the armour mostly stopped them...

I have reassessed the special rule i laid out before and i have changed it to a toughness test that has a negative modifier based on your injury total.

So using the guy posted before:

He takes a 14 damage hit and passes his 83% 'tough' test, reducing the damage to 7 and suffering a light injury at that location rather than heavy.

Then receives another 18 damage hit and passes his 76% 'tough' test,  reducing the damage to 9 and suffering a serious injury at that location rather than acute.

Takes a third hit totaling 12 damage and fails his 67% 'tough' test and the injury becomes crippling.

If this were at three different locations however (which is more likely) he would have 1 light, and 2 heavy injuries and an injury total of 28.

A character without this rule but the same toughness would have 2 heavy and 1 serious injuries and an injury total of 44 causing him to lose consciousness (greater than t/2).

I need to play test a few different ideas. Do you think that this would be more appropriate?

The best part about all this is that these rules will apply to a race of xenos that my friend owns... i wont even be playing with them - they will be my enemies. I just really want to make them authentic to their background as far as rules go.

That's the thing i like the most about Inquisitor I think - I don't really care (long run) if I win or lose, as long as the battle is entertaining and authentic and tells a good story (don't get me wrong, I love winning during the moment of victory - as long as victory doesn't come cheaply)


MrMasochist

[MarcoSkoll]

That said I don't really like the idea that you could have a crippled result by five individual his that each caused only one damage

This is a common worry about a rare event.

I've been playing pretty much since the game was released and for any character to take enough minor hits to accumulate four or five on a single location without getting out there, dealing with the problem or being eliminated through sheer injury total is almost unheard of.
If it does ever happen, overriding the rules when needed is built right into the GM's job description.

That's the thing I like the most about Inquisitor I think - I don't really care (long run) if I win or lose, as long as the battle is entertaining and authentic and tells a good story (don't get me wrong, I love winning during the moment of victory - as long as victory doesn't come cheaply)

That's the beauty of the game.

The example I always give was from the 2010 Spring Conclave - I completely failed to complete my objective (he was kidnapped by another player), but when the game includes a four-way Mexican standoff, a plasma bolt fired as a warning shot (and actually, the only shot in the game), my Inquisitor nearly downing a Valkyrie (scratch-built in 54mm) using a pile of gravel and two half bionic characters having a chainsword duel underneath the wing of the same aircraft (while it was on fire!), how can you lose?

[MrMasochist]

That's hilarious.

We don't play with a GM. Mainly for a lack of having one. Hasn't been an issue yet. We are pretty open to making the narrative work and simply discuss what we want to happen and go from there. It's pretty good.

I completely understand and agree that the 5 small wounds crippling is a small chance event (1 in millions) it just seems strange. But we will deal with it when it happens.

MrMasochist

[MarcoSkoll]

We don't play with a GM. Mainly for a lack of having one.

Well, if that works out for you and the players are all willing to make the right/interesting decision rather than the one that's best for them, then for this kind of thing it doesn't really matter whether your GM is an individual or just the players all performing the role together.

There are other areas where it is quite inconvenient not having a separate GM, but that really depends on what kinds of scenarios you want to run.

[MrMasochist]

We played our second game last night and there was one part where we had a squabble over declaring intention and then changing it without any outside influences within 2 actions. after some heated debate I managed to make him see that he was changing his mind based on information that the character himself didn't have and we went on our way - other than that it was good.

[MrMasochist]

i have redone the character profiles now.

they are quite low compared to what they were. Im pretty happy with them - would love some feedback.

Inquisitor Aggot Dargon is a rogue, although his retinue do not know that. yet...
WS-49, BS-56, S-54, T-58, I-56, WP-68, SG-54, NV-61, LD-66
Stubber Pistol w/ 1 reload, Staff, 3 points on all locations bar head

Jes Van Horst is Dargon's Interregator and is unaware of his leader's rogue status.
WS-38, BS-50, S-39, T-40, I-55, WP-50, SG-49, NV-60, LD-53
Lasgun w/ 1 reload, Stubber pistol w/ 1 reload, knife, 3 points on chest, abdomen, groin, 2 points on arms

Tommard Vie is a pit fighter who Dargon saved from execution for killing the lord governor sub-sector's youngest son in a cage fight at the local carnivora where the son was ' slumming'. He would follow Dargon into the warp.
WS-56, BS-34, S-47, T-49, I-50, WP-49, SG-46, NV-58, LD-39
Great Hammer, Shotgun with 10 scatter shells, 3 points on chest and abdomen, 2 points on arms, legs and groin

Confessor Ank is a purist and is the main reason that Dargon has not told the team about his rogue status.
WS-57, BS-33, S-47, T-53, I-44, WP-47, SG-43, NV-61, LD-42
Sword, Stubber with 1 reload, 2 points on all locations bar head.


Thanks again for any comments and critiques. hopefully these are more inline with how you guys roll...

I played this team the other day and all of them went out of action and only took down one of their opponents in return. was a great game but i failed spectacularly.


MrMasochist

[MarcoSkoll]

You've slashed those statlines far more than is necessary to meet Conclave Standard.

I'd say most are about 10 points below what I'd expect...
- Dargon's S, T, Wp and maybe Nv should probably stay about the same, although his Sg could probably do with a larger boost of 20.
- Van Horst could probably just take 10 to all stats.
- Vie... boost all the skill (WS, BS & I) and physical stats (S & T), and a big bonus to Nv, although probably give him a lower Sg.
- Ank's skill and physical stats are good, but he should have a much higher WP & LD (he is a devout priest!), and he's probably reasonably educated, so +10 to his Sg wouldn't be unreasonable.

Ultimately, Inquisitors and their retinues are some of the best humanity has to offer, so while they're not impossibly competent, they should be very decent.

And while a lot of the equipment is good, Dargon could certainly find something a bit more impressive to beat his enemies up with than a wooden stick, and Vie's pump action wasn't in anyway unreasonable.

However, there are three stubbers on that list, so I'd suggest that at least one is replaced by something else to break up the pattern - if you don't like what's in the rulebook, then consider looking at my Revised Armoury, which expands dramatically on the options in the rulebook and rebalances most weapons' stat-lines.

[MrMasochist]

The stats will go up by about 10-15 points over the course of our campaign. we have stat increases on a inverse characteristic test based on competing certain actions during a mission, as well as training and shopping. so the overly modest stats are to compensate for that fact. My inquisitor's first move between this mission and the next is to try to get a force staff or similar at the 'shops'.

Basically I expect the shooty characters to get shootier, the melee-y characters to get melee-ier and so forth.
I was attempting to go for stubbers as the main pistol for narrative - the inquisitor outfits his team and its easier to buy bullets in bulk than for serveral different types of weapon, (but i suppose that that isn't how it works in the campaign - each character shops for their own equiptment/ammo) so i guess i can change it. would probably go a stubber for the inquisitor, an auto pistol for the preacher and a las pistol for van horst.

looking over your revised armoury atm.   thanks heaps

MrMasochist