Advice on my two of my characters

[The Pirate Captain]

Hey folks,

Pirate captain here,

I wanted to ask your advice collective advice on two of my lead characters: Inquisitor Penelope Lorraine and Adanalii

She is supposed to have "recently graduated" from being an Acolyte:

Penelope's History

Penelope grew up on the planet of Hafros. Hafros is quite a harsh planet, prone to violent crimes and brutal murders. Sometimes the law was enforced under very heavy cost of bodies over bullets.

The weather is no better either. When the wind picks up the ensuing storms can last for days at a time and if it rains then the streets quickly turn into rivers. On more than one occasion Penelope would have to miss a whole week or more of classes because of the conditions. A lot of what she knows she has picked up from books and her Scribelite.

Penelope's parents were big game hunters and very wealthy. They were drafted to Hafros to "help control" some of the larger members of the wildlife community. She has two older brothers.

When she was very young, she enjoyed a good read. A lot of what she read was biographies of various famous people such Ciaphus Cain. She had had a very lucky childhood: she was loved; she had money and opportunity. When her parents were killed, not long after turning 19 life became harder. Life with her brothers was rocky but for the most part stable. She knew she was loved.

Her brothers were very old fashioned and boyish and spent a good deal of what their parent had left them funding pseudo military games involving role play with each side reenacting a famous battle from the past. Penelope, not wanting to feel left out, joined in and on occasion was known to pull a surprise "rebel ending" to a battle. No one was expecting Ezekiel Abbadon to be defeated by some lowly barbarians on one of his first excursions.

While her brothers preferred the larger guns, she would often be left with even smaller arms, usually pistols. At first she didn't like the idea but after a several "battle" using them, she quickly saw the brighter side.

Eventually she left Hafros and entered the Schola Progenium with a view to becoming a Commissar. This was befitting a young lady of her wealth and stature.

After graduating from the Schola Progenium, second from the top, she was picked up by Lord Inquisitor Markus. This is where Penelope's story begins.

Penelope's Personality:

Penelope is forward and headstrong and is good at what she does. She does not get particularly close to the people she works with, they will be dead soon anyway, but shee does make the effort to have a good time and make the others laugh however. Part of being a good leader is having a team that obey her, and the best way to do that is with respect, not intimidation. On several occasions John Crowley has tried to talk with her about herself and she remains something enigmatic, there is however something going on under the surface. John feels that she is hiding something and that at some point she may do something very surprising.

Penelope dislikes the plethora of nicknames given to her by Trigger and Nix but does not seem to mind being affectionately referred to as "Pen" by Elsiah.

She still cares for Wayne and resents Adanalii for his parasitic position.


WS   BS   S   T   I   Wp   Sg   Nv   Ld
55   61   47   52   70   75   65   45   75

Rules: Leader (12 yard range); Keigh-Foi**

Equipment: [using guns from InqMarcoSkoll's revised armoury]
Dragonfly - [High-frequency, low power Laspistol]
A Mid Magnum Revolver;
Flack armour on all locations (head is naked)

**Penelope is well trained in Keigh-Foi a type of kick boxing common to Hafros. She mixes this with some brutal street fighting techniques. She has the following advantages:

1. When striking blows she has an unarmed reach of 2
2 Her unarmed close-combat attacks deal 1d10 damage (plus strength)
3 If an opponent attacks and misses her in close combat or if she counters, she immediately launches an attack of opportunity. This causes no damage but knocks her opponent back D3 yards.


The Second Character is Adanalii, a daemonhost possessed by a Herald of Slaanesh:

Adanalii is a "Slaaneshi Herald of Chaos:" a daemon entity striving to instil pain and psychic torment in the form of nightmares and misery to all nearby.

He is currently a parasite in the mind and soul of the veteran Wayne.

Wayne was good friends with Penelope during her time as an acolyte for Markus. During a skirmish in dungeon cavaty filled with strange glowing cylinders he takes a psychic blast from a young sorcerer. The blast ricocheted of his face and left him with deep lasting brain damage.

Originally Markus was going to have Wayne exorcised and restored as a servitor and put to good use. Penelope, however, refused to allow this and argued with Markus over his fate. Eventually Penelope was allowed to be his handler and Wayne processed to protect him from the reality tearing nature of Adanalii and his dark and twisted sense of humour. She has also bolted his hands together and shackled his ankles so any attempt to move is severely restricted.

What is left of Wayne is in constant battle for control over his body and often his personality and memories break through. Other times Adanalii is leading and at this time his psychic powers are formidable, creating vast and horrifying illusions created from nightmares that his victims had forgotten. Drawing on the painful memories of his foes he can quickly turn the direction of a battle by rendering many of the foes totally comatose, screaming in agonising misery at some of the crimes they may have committed, or wanted to.

For the majority of the time he is a quivering wreck and nothing that comes out of his trembling mouth makes much sense. To take him into battle Penelope garbs him with a series of chains which contain slates on which are carved spells of warding. He also has the pleasure of wearing Pentogramic wards which vastly constrict his daemonic powers.

Adanalii has the ambition to conquerer small worlds and in many ways the means to do so should an opportunity come to pass...

Characteristics:
WS    BS    S    T    I    Wp    Sg    Nv    Ld
44    0    73    59    42    74    93    62    23

Chains (see below*)
Special Abilities

Daemonic-Harrowing**
Possession
Fearsome
Soporific Musk: All characters within 5 yards are temporarily reduce weapon-skill; Ballistic skill and initiative by 20. This does not affect Adanalii nor does it affect anyone with either Hexagramic or Pentagramic Wards
In addition Adanalii's close combat attacks have the Mind Stealer deamon weapon attribute.

Psychic Powers:

Psychic shriek
Symphony of Pain

*Chains: In addition to the equipment above the chains restrict movement. Adanalii may not do the following:

1. Move faster than running speed, except when charging
2. may not Parry nor counter attack in close combat
3 May not use hands for anything such as holding a weapon or any equipment

**Harrowing: Characters in close-combat with a Harrowing character must take a WP test at the end of each turn. If they fail the test then they suffer D10 damage to their injury total. This does no location damage. Faithful characters such as Priests or any appropriate alien substitute will score critical damage on the roll of up to 20% of their "to-hit" chance.

The reason I am asking is because some of my friends would rather they were a bit more powerful but sometimes I think they are a bit too powerful and I am thus, in a quandry.

cheers for any and all feedback
Pirate Captain
XX

[MarcoSkoll]

To address background as well...

No one was expecting Ezekiel Abbadon to be defeated by some lowly barbarians on one of his first excursions.

It depends on where Hafros is in the galaxy, but normally, I'd say knowledge of Abaddon would be rare. For the average citizen, knowing more of the Heresy than "there was a traitor called Horus who mortally wounded the Emperor" would be unusual.
Of course, if affected by a Black Crusade in the last millennium or so, Abaddon might be better known. Still, not likely to be more than myth.

I'd also say it was odd for a 19 year olds though to be "messing up the story" too.

Eventually she left Hafros and entered the Schola Progenium with a view to becoming a Commissar.

If her parents died at 19, I'd say she was too old to enter the Progenium by then. And, by a general rule, there are not a massive number of female commissars. Not to say there are none, but the skill set required overlaps very heavily with that of the Adepta Sororitas, and the Ecclesiarchy get "first choice" of the Progena, so female candidates who could be commissar material usually end up as Battle Sisters.

My suggestion - if she were quite a bit younger (probably closer to 9 than 19). She gets the idea in her head from watching her brothers' wargames that she wants to be a hero in her own right, and asks them to enroll her in the Progenium. That fixes most the issues (still not sure they'd be that familiar with Abaddon though).

Keigh-Foi a type of kick boxing common to Hafros.

The initial two are reasonable enough - that's just short sword material.

The third has issues. Firstly, it's a bit tough on her opponent if they get knocked back every time they fail a CC attack - if you're WS 48, getting shoved back more than half the time is a bit tough. The second is that you can't parry (and thus counter) when unarmed. In any case, counters are pretty powerful anyway (given a good counter-attacker can double the number of attacks an opponent has to deal with a turn) and don't really need the bonus.

A suggestion, although one I've not tested or worked out the exact mathematics of (so it's possible it's not that fair):
"If she waives the normal +20% dodge modifier, and then passes her dodge roll on less than her opponent's hit roll, she may make a counter attack. She can choose to dodge vs. missed attacks. "

That lets her counter-attack despite being unarmed, and capitalise on her opponent's missed attacks (although, at the cost of building up her parry/dodge divider).

~~~~~

However, I wouldn't object if she gained a few points to some of her lower stats - WS, maybe S & T  (given she's presumably quite physically fit, if she's a martial artist - does depend on her build, though) and almost certainly her Nv... a stat of 45 represents a very un-confident Inquisitor.

Daemonic-Harrowing

This is pretty steep, damage wise. Compare to Void Chill, which only does D6 damage under similar circumstances (T test rather than Wp). I'd also say that the drawback (which I assume is supposed to be read as doubling the critical chance of faithful characters) isn't really that significant.

I'd perhaps make it that (non-faithful) models in base contact take D6 injury total on a failed Wp test, but if he's in contact with a faithful character, he has to take the test instead!

Soporific Musk

Hmm. I'd give characters a T or Wp test (depending on what you consider the mechanism to be - actual vapours, or a warp aura) to resist this. Effects that automatically affect other characters wholesale aren't normally something I like doing.

~~~~~

But, on the other end of things, a couple more psychic powers wouldn't hurt. It's not exactly like he's got a heap of weapons to give him massive close combat impact.
Daemonhosts are mostly psychic warriors and so few powers is hindering his potential impact on a game - he might be heavily warded, but any daemonhost is heavily warded (well, provided the maker has any sanity left) so that's not a vast issue.

[Koval]

I'm in a bit of a rush this morning, but I will point out that interfering with established characters' backstories is a Very Bad Idea, because you don't own the character -- GW does. So no, your character did not defeat Abaddon, as it's up to GW, not you, to decide what happens to him. Please get rid of this.

I'd also drop the references to Cain, although that's more tolerable.

[Dolnikan]

To be honest, the reference to Cain is only that she read about his stories, although timewise that is a bit hard, they are very close to the present after all. The refernce to Abaddon would indeed have to go out, knowledge about the likes of him is not commonly available, and anyone even thinking of playing a heretic such as him would be seen as one, and the punishment for that is very well known.

[MarcoSkoll]

So no, your character did not defeat Abaddon, as it's up to GW, not you, to decide what happens to him. Please get rid of this.

I think you misunderstand, possibly because I quoted it out of context - it's talking about wargames/reenactments in which she decided to "change the story", not her actually defeating Abaddon.

I'd also drop the references to Cain, although that's more tolerable.

This, however, is a point. As I recall, the Cain archives are available only to the Inquisition. So while she might have read official biographies, she couldn't have read his autobiography. (And as Dolnikan says, it wasn't released until the early 42nd millennium anyway, so her present day would have to be a good few decades into M42.)

[Koval]

So no, your character did not defeat Abaddon, as it's up to GW, not you, to decide what happens to him. Please get rid of this.

I think you misunderstand, possibly because I quoted it out of context - it's talking about wargames/reenactments in which she decided to "change the story", not her actually defeating Abaddon.

Possibly. I was rushing about like a lunatic this morning, after all. I'd still label it as "questionable", however.

[The Pirate Captain]

Hey guys, Pirate captain here,

Yeah, the reference to Abbadon was mean't to be all "reinactment" style role-playing, sort of like "the 40k equivalent of Laser-Quest."

The Cain thing was literately something that I added after I pasted it in here because I thought it would be a throw away remark to another character who had adventures etc.

Also, where do you folks get all this information from, I'm starting to feel a little out of my depth!  I've read the 40k rule books and the Inquisitor stuff, and I recently found the massive collection of extra data from InqMarcoSkoll's mediafire grouped

I would have thought that a Abbadon was a known name by quite a few, given that he has launched 13 massive wars, but again, I defer to your greater wisdom. =)

Thanks for the advice

cheers
Pirate Captain 

[Koval]

Accumulated, in my case, over a decade of sitting with a rulebook in one hand, a codex in the other, and a Black Library novel or six on the shelf waiting to be read. It doesn't matter that my memory's awful that way when most of the current background is burned into the back of my brain.

[MarcoSkoll]

Similar to Koval, really. Having been playing games set in the 40k universe on and off over what is now 13 years, I've picked up a lot from rulebooks, codices, novels, White Dwarf and forums over that time.

It's something you pick up over time from a really wide range of sources (much like real life general knowledge), not just something you can say "read this book, it'll tell you everything".

[Dolnikan]

Same here, I have read a ton of things over the years and sometimes some of it comes in handy.