Dark Heresy VOIP Campaign

[Heroka Vendile]

I guess if we're talking availability up to christmas then I should note I'll be away on the 20th Dec, our last before Christmas. I'm assuming that much like last year we may well not start back again till the 10th January?

[Koval]

Depends on whether anyone wants to restart earlier, I suppose. I'll still be here, but other people will probably have other ideas.

[MarcoSkoll]

As much as I would be the type to ignore my family to go and play imaginary soldiers, I have been assuming we'll probably skip several sessions around Christmas and New Year again.

[MarcoSkoll]

Have I ever mentioned how much I hate fear tests? At least I only got a 23 this time. (Considerably better than 'Sydra's record 149...)

[Koval]

And this one's only Fear(2) as well -- I've got things coming that have Fear(4)

[MarcoSkoll]

Oh great. Auto-fail time.

[Koval]

Shoulda bought more Willpower advances

[MarcoSkoll]

I have got the first Wp advance on my "to buy" list, but beyond that, they get expensive fast. I think Alyx is just going to have to hope that none of the other characters get too judgemental about her wetting herself in terror. (Although, fortunately for her, I don't think fear based incontinence is actually on the shock table.)

Well, at least I've got ideas about how she's going to go mad.

[MarcoSkoll]

Weapons Koval wishes he hadn't given Alyx: 1x MkIV Laspistol with laser sight.

It's a bit of a sticky wicket. Accurate weapons, with what is essentially a random number of D10s of damage, are rather unpredictable as far as their effects on a fight. Sometimes they're the same as a normal weapon (if you recall the fight with Immer, it didn't help Alyx's Fatebringer much)... then with the next shot, they'll stop a tank.

My best suggestion is to house-rule the errata on the "Accurate" trait to do D5s of extra damage, rather than D10s. It keeps the feel that the weapon can drop a tough target with the right shot, but is considerably less prone to those daft extremes.

Tempering the power of that pistol should save several headaches. The monsters won't need re-statting, there'll be fewer anticlimatic fight scenes, it'll make the overall balance of the group fairer and there'll be a bit less collateral damage - seeing as Energy criticals include "Target immolates and runs wildly setting things on fire" and "All the target's ammunition explodes".

Mind you, Alyx was throwing out mega-crits all around that session. Even the sword fight ended with her bisecting her opponent.

[Koval]

I had every intention of giving you the pistol, but it's your call.

For what it's worth, Righteous Fury did not help, and neither did giving the dragon / Masked Men only ten wounds each. This was mostly so that I could keep the numbers fairly simple for Ben, although MODIFIERS EVERYWHERE probably still confused him.

[MarcoSkoll]

There was some luck with some very high end damage rolls that then went righteous, but even doubling the dragon's wounds would have still put it on Critical 9. Because it was the arm, its high and unnatural toughness might have allowed it to survive that, but it would still have been fish in a barrel at that point.

If you don't mind, I think downgrading Accurate to adding D5s is better in the long run. It can still land sharpshooting hits to take lots of wounds off armoured targets (particularly as D5s do still count for Righteous Fury chance), but it's going to take more luck to put them down in one.
And yes, I do realise I'm an roleplayer sitting here saying "No, this +5 sword is too much. Can't we downgrade it to a +2 please?", but imbalance just isn't fun all around.

[Koval]

Okay, works for me, although successive GMs may have to re-evaluate.

[MarcoSkoll]

I can't imagine that our later GMs will find issue with their combats not being dominated by a character with a 3D10+6 pistol. Accurate was underwhelming in its initial version, and is horribly overpowered in its errata version - trying to balance around it is ridiculous.

~~~~~

I imagine the next session may include an awkward explanation to Greensail about why one of his stormtroopers is dead from a philosophical meeting. But I guess that depends on whether the space cake has worn off.

Alyx is also going to want to talk to Ernst. At least, she told me she wanted to. Unfortunately, I've forgotten exactly what she said it was about.

[Koval]

Uh, Greensail's going to be making a Toughness test for that one -- in either case he'll probably be out 'til morning, but if he fails he'll be spewing his guts up. (If he passes, he'll simply be very hungry.)

D10+2D5+6 looks uglier, but whatever, it's all for the better. (We hope.)

[MarcoSkoll]

If that's how badly he's coping with it, it seems it was a gorram good thing I avoided the cake myself. (We're really not doing well with our high ranking individuals, given one giddy Inquisitor and one stoned Interrogator.)

Yeah, mixing dice types is ugly (which may be part of the reason they didn't do it to begin with), but I'm using the D10s and D20 out of a poly-set as the extra D10 anyway (it's easier than finding actual D10), so the dice I've been rolling it with are all distinct anyway.