Is Strength Bonus included in the damage values presented on the pre-gen character melee weapons? Looking at the Heretek's luminen capacitors, it would seem not, however, looking at the amount of damage Chaos Marines would be doing if this was the case, seems insane. Asrodel would be doing 1d10+20? Babaroth would do 1d10+24 at pen 2. From looking at the NPC's, this annihilates pretty much anything, not to mention pretty much makes all human heretics obsolete in combat.

I have to imagine that SB damage is included, but then why not for the Heretek?

Second, is there more of a reason to play roles such as Renegade or Psyker? It seems that all of the CSM archetypes are just much much better. They have maybe one or two less skills, but that's the only downside I can see. Though there are a few moments in the adventure where a CSM has a little bit more trouble "fitting", I'm having a difficult time coming up with a valid reason for my players to choose humans careers.

My players are going to look at weapons, armour, stats, abilities, and skills, and undoubtedly ask me what the benefit of being a human is. What do I tell them?

Strength Bonus has been applied. The lumenin caps just have a weird profile which we don't know the rules to govern.

Bloodtyrant said:

Presumably because the Heretek's melee attacks involve him electrocuting enemies, rather than punching, kicking, biting, stabbing or slashing, and thus his damage capabilities are not based on his physical might at all.

Bloodtyrant said:

First things first, Astartes characters tend to be fairly poor at social interaction beyond intimidation, while the Renegade is quite proficient at such things (similarly, the Heretek has technical skills the others lack, and the Psyker can kill things with her mind - her Doombolt power is essentially a rapid firing high-pen weapon that requires no ammo and hits on a 70 or less (WP50 + Psy Rating 4). Astartes characters are really good at killing in very direct and brutal ways... human Heretics are valuable if you want to do something other than rip enemies limb from limb.

Beyond that, remember that this is only a demo adventure, demonstrating only a tiny sample of ways to play Black Crusade and the types of characters you can build.

I don't think SB is added to the capacitors since that attack means essentially just touching someone and unloading your surplus power into him. Strength doesn't help there.

As for the rest, yes, Non-CSM characters can't hold their own in combat when compared to CSMs. Big surprise there. However, compare the non-combat areas:

Nina has Charm and Deceive at +20 and a Fellowship of 53. Additionally, she gets an automatic additional DoS on Fellowship tests, meaning she has an effective skill of 73, or 83 as long as she's successful. Compare that to the pitiable amount of 44 that Ciro gets for Deceive only, with Charm not even existing for CSMs. If something can't be intimidated into submission, CSMs certainly won't be the ones to persuade it.

The heretek obviously shines with his 70 Tech Use and Medicae skills, with the 60 Security not far behind.

The psyker, finally, is probably getting screwed by the demo rules the most, as she's likely lacking a lot of her powers. Still, pretty much nothing is going to hit her with Precognitive Dodge at a 58 and her 68 Scrutiny is going to be very helpful to help Nina negotiate by telling her when her "partner" is trying to screw her.

(And now that I've noticed that Doombolt pretty much has a "Semi-Auto Burst" setting, it's pretty nice as well, especially since it can almost instantly end the first combat when the PCs are still lacking their weapons)

I'm considering giving the psyker some house ruled additional power, as she seems really bland at the moment. All she can really do is dodge, doombolt, dodge, doombolt, dodge...

Also, what happened to Parry? I heard it's been turned into a skill, but can it not be attempted at all? It seems odd that seasoned warriors wouldn't know how to block an incoming swing.

Not trying to nit pick, just questioning things that my players are surely going to be asking ME about.

Also, what happened to Parry? I heard it's been turned into a skill, but can it not be attempted at all? It seems odd that seasoned warriors wouldn't know how to block an incoming swing.

That one would be pure simplification in order to streamline the ruleset and fit the whole thing into the 32 pages it's printed on.

Anyone have any good ideas for implementing some of the extra NPC's mentioned in the GM guide? Especially Alaxtanis, I really like the idea of a completely nutty sorcerer causing havoc around the ship, as well as maybe being a future rival/ally for the group.

personaly i`m more of a fan of the dark eldar pirate but thats me as a TT dark eldar player.

all the extra charaters have an intresting hook both as npc (ally, neutral, enemy) or as a pc.

 still don`t know how that would work a dark eldar on the vortex, i bet not a lot of fun for the dark eldar i`m sure!

I read a critique about Broken Chain that addressed the characters balance.

This is the thing. The CSM are too powerful in combat compared to their human companions. The humans have social advantages, which is good. But social advantages are of not use if your companions use only brutal strength. Having at least one Khornate who despise any solution that avoid combat, it's easy that the game would be moved into the CSM terrain.

That's why CSM and SM are boring to me.

Anyone has played the adventure and faced these problems?

I haven't played Broken Chains, only read the Characters section really swiftly (hope I'll find some guys to play it, some day...).

The thing is, in any RPG, you'll have socially-focused characters and combat-focused characters. In any RPG, you have that problem of "Why do PCs always chose the violent solution?" And it's a problem you'll always have, mind you.

Of course, SMs and CSMs sound really powerful compared to the others in combat...But I don't think that's really the point. If they think a bit and play the team work, they'll be attracting the hits other more fragile humans couldn't take, and ensure everyone is efficient. That would be the best bet, even for them (if you ensure the adversaries are powerful enough to take down too arrogant SMs who charge recklessly).

Then you have the "Stupid Khornist" problem. I must say I'm a bit disappointed with him as is. He's just a mindless killing machine, one thing that was avoided with DW marines imho. Now, it's all about how PCs and the GM manage the group. If they stand up to the Stupid Khornist and tell him to shut up and lay down, I think he'll have to abide. And later on, I'd see the "normal" humans gaining much more variety and adaptability than the Marines.

But definitely, the best way to avoid that is to enforce social situations. You can't always bludgeon people to death to solve problems. Especially when they're your boss/more powerful than you/you're supposed to protect them (...)

 @Lord Ork

Considering the Marine is written as being content to let others lead as long as slaughter is involved somewhere down the line, it should be fairly easy for the humans to convince him that while this time they may talk, the talk is all about getting more bloodshed later on.

I would like to limit the character selection to no more than 1-2 CSM, but even so, the marines are going to be doing most everything during the adventure, as it's more physical/combat based. One CSM seems like it would work best, but then that means the rest of my four players are completely restricted in character selection. I sort of wish they had taken away one of the Chosen characters and replaced it with another human arch type for the demo.

Hm, I'll have to ponder this.

Interestingly enough, my players snapped up the human characters before the CSM ones (except Ciro, he is awesome-sauce).

As for the extra NPC's I am planning on adding all 3 in myself.  Will see how it goes.

I will also choose a human characters. ChaosSuperMen seem boring to me.

Speaking of the NPC's, how do the Dark Elves feel about Chaos worshipers?

The renegade was the only human that didn't do much in our run of it. I played the Heretek, and he ended up pretty much running the party since they relied on him to know where everything is in the ship and how to get from place to place. My girlfriend played the psyker, and everything she looked at just melted. Ciro made her his secondary weapon and just let her fire over his shoulder and he shielded her. My heretek felt kind of meh in melee, but with the aim action and Accurate on his lasrifle with infinite ammo, I could at least hit.