Deathwatch (RPG)

Yeah, these guys.

Not to be confused with the titular Deathwatch.

Deathwatch is the third Fantasy Flight Games Warhammer 40,000 Role-Playing Game, and the first to focus on Space Marines - specifically, the alien-hunting Deathwatch stationed in the Jericho Reach. It's pretty cool; /tg/ uses it to make custom chapters.

System

Identical to the companion games published by Fantasy Flight Games (see below under See Also), Deathwatch uses a roll-under-or-equal 1d100 system. Also unchanged are the 9 primary stats, similar in range to those in Warhammer 40,000, which you roll against when making tests. The lethal combat of the other 40K RPGs is preserved, but at a much higher scale; players may pick weapons that deal far more damage than human-standard ones, but enemies are now more powerful, cunning, and can come in a Horde variety that is capable of pulling down a Space Marine through sheer numbers. The core rulebook states that Dark Heresy characters with 12000 XP are roughly equal to Deathwatch characters.

Weapons and gear are requisitioned in Deathwatch, rather than bought. Each mission assigned to the kill-team comes with a certain number of points for each marine, and each piece of the Deathwatch's armory (apart from the usual standard issue boltgun etc.) comes with a points cost. At the end of the mission the requisitioned equipment is returned to the armory, and the players requisition new gear at the start of the next one.

Playable Chapters

The Chapters found in the PHB are the Ultramarines, Blood Angels, Dark Angels, Space Wolves, Black Templars, and Fantasy Flight's own chapter, the Storm Wardens. Rites of Battle added the Imperial Fists; First Founding brought in the Salamanders, Iron Hands, White Scars and Raven Guard; and Honour the Chapter added a shitton of Chapters in the form of the Blood Ravens, Red Scorpions, Marines Errant, Flesh Tearers, Crimson Fists, Howling Griffons, Novamarines, Raptors and the Charcharodons. Of course, you can play as any chapter you like, thanks to the Space Marine Chapter Creation Tables from Rites of Battle

List of Specialties

Deathwatch uses the term "specialty" to refer to what other games call "classes." The specialties available in the main rulebook are: Tactical Marine (all-rounder/command), Assault Marine (close combat jump troop), Devastator Marine (Heavy Weapons Guy), Techmarine (engineer), Librarian (psychic powers), and Apothecary (medic).

Rites of Battle and First Founding contain "advanced specialties" that can be taken in addition to the normal ones: Black Shield (effectively a Chapter rather than a Specialty; makes your chapter a seeeecret!), Champion (a hero-hunter), Chaplain (buffing & "spiritual guidance"), Dreadnought (walking rape-machine), Epistolary (super-Librarian), Forge Master (super-Techmarine), Keeper (guy who has to guard rooms? I don't know), Kill-marine (solo operator), and Watch Captain (The Hero, and the guy who gets all the bitches).

First Founding provides Chapter-specific Specialties: the Deathwing Veteran and Ravenwing Veteran for the Dark Angels, the Sanguinary Priest and Librarian Dreadnought for the Blood Angels, the Wolf Scout and Wolf Priest for the Space Wolves, and the Tyrannic War Veteran and Honour Guard for the Ultramarines.

Splatbooks

• Core Rulebook - The Player's Handbook, which also contains everything that the DM will need.
• The Game Master's Kit - Not the Dungeon Master's Guide, despite the name. Contains a prewritten adventure and a DM's screen.
• The Emperor Protects, The Achilus Assault, The Jericho Reach, Rising Tempest - example adventures and background information on the Jericho Reach setting.
• Rites of Battle - /tg/'s favourite supplement, Rites of Battle is the biggest expansion to date, containing not only rules for creating your own chapter, the Imperial Fists, and advanced character creation, but also advanced Specialties letting you play as Chaplains,
• Mark of the Xenos - Extra content on enemies and aliens.
• First Founding - Finally getting around to adding the remaining four First Founding Chapters.
• Honour the Chapter - A shitton of new Chapters for players to use, as well as rules for Successors that don't know their parent chapter or aren't closely linked to them.

Things that rock

• Contains rules that actually encourage roleplaying
• Lets you play as whatever Chapter you want
• 80% of the equipment you can give models on the tabletop can be given to your PCs here
• Uses a similar system to the other 40k RPGs, allowing for some interchangeability of characters

To be expanded

Things that suck

• The Ultramarines are once again shown to be the best Chapter ever at everything
• Characters are so overpowered compared to normal humans, making it very hard to use characters in the other 40k RPGs (But what did you expect from Space Marines?)

To be expanded

See also

The companion games to Deathwatch, also published by Fantasy Flight Games:

• Dark Heresy
• Rogue Trader
• Black Crusade
• Only War