Deathwatch (RPG)

Deathwatch
RPG published by Fantasy Flight Games
Rule System	d%
No. of Players	3+
Session Time	10+ minutes
Authors	Ross Watson, Jay Little, Sam Stewart
First Publication	2010
Essential Books	Deathwatch Core Rulebook The Game Master's Kit The Emperor Protects Rites of Battle Mark of the Xenos The Achilus Assault First Founding The Jericho Reach Rising Tempest Honour the Chapter The Outer Reach Ark of Lost Souls The Emperor's Chosen

Not to be confused with the titular Deathwatch organization, though it is about them.

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 starting-level 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 or even make your own, 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, First Founding and Honour the Chapter contain "advanced specialties" that can be taken in addition to the normal ones: Blackshield (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 (one part emissary, one part kill machine), 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.

Honour the Chapter describes the Sword Brothers and the Emperor's Champion, a tougher Black Templar with a selection of mission-long buffs and a one-time upgrade that turns you into the toughest motherfucker on the Kill Team but it lasts only one mission and costs 500 xp that you are not getting back, and the Storm Wardens specific Tempest Blade, who wield massive two-handed Power swords around on the battlefield duelling worthy enemies, which will eventually end in their deaths.

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.
• Mark of the Xenos - Extra content on enemies and aliens.
• The Achilus Assualt - Gives a bunch of background fluff on the setting, Jericho Reach.
• First Founding - Finally getting around to adding the remaining four First Founding Chapters and gives additional information about the other First Founding Chapters along with the Traitor Legions, along with ways to use the latter as antagonists.
• The Jericho Reach - Another fluff book, this one focuses on notable kill-teams and their locations in the Reach. Also comes with a pre-written adventure as well.
• Rising Tempest - Interesting adventure book focusing on the Tau trying to weasel their way into Imperial space, and what will happen if the naive blueberry cunts do it.
• Honour the Chapter - A shitton of new Successor Chapters from the later Foundings for players to use (such as the Blood Ravens), as well as rules for Successors that don't know their parent chapter or aren't closely linked to them.
• The Outer Reaches- Extra content introducing the Eldar (Craftworld, Dark Eldar, and Harlequins), as well as the local Necron dynasty.
• Ark of Lost Souls - Pre-written adventure book that takes place in a Space Hulk. Provides rules for generating your very own space hulk!
• The Emperor's Chosen - Pretty much another Rites of Battle, with the first half being fluff on legendary missions and the latter half on playing and equiping 'inheritors' to those legends. Adds squad-level prestige classes/doctrines, allowing even more coordinated rape of the GM's plotline, and an adventure to try out said crunchy bits.

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.
• The game can be exploited to do hilarious things, like caber-tossing Chaos Lords in Terminator armor almost 200 meters, or Assault Marines running at 276 km/h.

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?)
• Critical Damage tables remain unchanged from the other 40k RPGs because FFG copypasted them, so take enough damage and you'll see your badass Space Marine start whimpering and acting in a very non-Space-Mariney way. E.G.- "...gasping in wretched pain." "Screaming incoherently, he twists about in agony for a few seconds before collapsing to the ground and dying." etcetera.
  • "A blast of energy envelopes the target’s head, burning his face and hair, and causing him to scream like a stuck Grox. In addition to losing his hair..." Very much copypasted, because everyone knows being bald is a requirement to be a space marine, hair-esy aside.
• A fanmade Salamanders codex that hews closer to the spirit of the chapter than the FFG version.

To be expanded

Links

• Dark Reign - A W40kRPG fansite, it has additional fan-made materials for all the W40kRPG line.
• Character Folio - Yet another huge character sheet, now Deathwatch flavored.

Warhammer 40,000 Role-playing games made by Fantasy Flight Games
Dark Heresy - Rogue Trader - Deathwatch - Black Crusade - Only War - Dark Heresy Second Edition