Support Skills

I think the kill team is seriously lacking in support skills, people constantly go on about how hard marines are and how we can kill anything and yet when it comes to ranking up they go straight for another combat ability or +WS/BS/S.

I think people should think more about what they can do to help the team as a whole, yeah i know people wana be powerful but the team realy needs stuff like demolishions, scholastic/forbidden lore, TECH USE! ect. Atm we are just an elite combat squad who kills everything it comes across with full auto and charge not a squad that can achieve anything it wants by applying a range of different chapter attributes and skills.

Obviously some people have gone down this path like chris for example and robs wolf scout too but everyone should be picking up a few skills specific to thier class/chapter to help out

Just my thoughts.

z4carlo wrote:scholastic/forbidden lore, TECH USE! ect.

I've already bought tech use, forbidden lore: Astartes, drive: skimmer and have Interrogation all up until +20. I've never had an opportunity to use any of them, maybe albeit tech use. Rather than buying the +20 to an interrogation the GM always seems to want me to role play the interrogation to get the information, and of course I'm not a very confident role player so I always fuck up by killing old guys by throwing them too hard into walls. Seriously, you got to break a few eggs to make an omelette . Otherwise there's no need for the +20.

My chapter is all about three major forbidden lores, traitor legions, Astartes and Inquisition as far as the upgrades go so I can use any xp on them if need be, except for Astartes unless I need any plusses, after all I am running out of things to buy from both General advancements, my class advancements and even Deathwatch advancements. However we’ve never really needed them, plus we know more than our characters and our characters know more than us all in different regards, for example not every marine knows about the dark ages but we do, we know about the Fallen but everyone albeit Aslan (But even he’s a special exception) doesn’t. The same regards as we might not know everything about the Deathwatch, but our characters do, etc. Plus most of the time the GM won’t bother with lore tests as they’re pretty hard to work into a session, as well as most of them being unnecessary, either to the current session or in general.

However I do see what you mean, we have nothing as far as key skills that would help if the situation required it. Eventually there will come a time that the party will either suffer or, as painful as it is to admit it, people run out of combat talents and are forced to buy skills.

I can see what Carlo is getting at as tech use was highlighted as an issue in the last session with only Rob having it.

Memnon has +10 forbidden law Tyranid, Trained Forbidden law Tau & Xenos & Stealth & recon, but as rik has said, I've never used them in game. because the situation hasn't required their application.

Pilot is an important one. I think only Chris has this at the moment.

All that aside, are we saying Memnons BS bonuses were wasted? think we should ask the Defiler... oh wait... we can't!

Wow i just wrote a big reply and then lost it so lets see if i can muster it up again!

R.I.K wrote:However we’ve never really needed them, plus we know more than our characters and our characters know more than us all in different regards, for example not every marine knows about the dark ages but we do, we know about the Fallen but everyone albeit Aslan (But even he’s a special exception) doesn’t. The same regards as we might not know everything about the Deathwatch, but our characters do, etc. Plus most of the time the GM won’t bother with lore tests as they’re pretty hard to work into a session, as well as most of them being unnecessary, either to the current session or in general.

This i totally agree with.

Now that you guys start listing your non combat skills i start to think that maybe people have more of them than i thought and that its more that the GM / the player arnt bringing them to the fore enough.

Personally i would like to see the skills being used more in investigations, rather than people just figuring them out. During the investigation part of richys mission it was basically chris figuring stuff out by himself because it only required one person, everyone else started to get bored as they wernt needed and so wandered off, wanting to be the first person to get to the next part of the investigation. If instead a wider range of skills where needed more people would feel engaged in my opinion. This isnt exclusive to richy's mission btw it was just most apparent because there were 7 members of the team.

By making people need skills to investigate properly i think it will encourage people to take them as they dont want to be left as the boring combat character who just sits around when everyone else gets to figure it out and reap the rewards for doing so.

If i get a chance to GM that is definately the direction i will be taking it in, but thats just my opinion. I also think that it would help if the day's GM read through peoples character sheets before a game so that they can figure out what could be useful, let the players figure out when thier skills are needed rather than just giving them a challenge that they can just think through.

But thats just my thoughts whats everyone elses opinion?

I see where you're going with this one Carlo, but think we need to strike up a balance between the two aspects. not an easy task, but one im willing to participate in.

I also know that Chris has been really unselfish in pulling his character together to ensure that the killteam benefits from his advancements. However, we also do need some combat specialists within the team. Memnon & Haakon certainly seem to fit this role, Spam's dude (can't remember his name) also appears geared up to this as well.

Leaving, Aslan, Luther, Cristus, Jorvick, Nathanial & Errata. some of the charracter classes & chapter origins lean these characters towards other less combat orintated advances.

Ultra - Leadership & cohesion
Techmarine - Tech skills & pilot etc
Dark Angel - Forbidden laws
Apothecary - Medical skills
Scout - Blowing shit up etc etc

I also see our DW as a progressive hobby, we're all learning all the time & if we find a way to tweak things as Carlo has suggested then we should give it a go.
We just need to remember balance & the fact that Memnon needs to kill things (no he's not a Khorne deciple.... yet)

I'm happy to plug a few more points into some useful skills, though as has been mentioned I probably need to put stuff into combat skills more than anything else at the moment since I put most of my initial spend into command abilities.

There have been a few abilities that have caught my eye but a lot of them are going to be a waste of points unless the GM conjures something that requires them - I agree that that's an issue as combat skills are always going to come in handy.

Personally I wouldn't mind taking something like tech-use or demolitions if it's going to be useful but if a couple of others already have those skills it seems daft to spam them.

I'd also planned on taking a few tactics skill but since the missions I've played so far tend to involve being thrown in to a completely unknown situation they don't really work - it's hard to make a tactical assessment of something you can't see and have no prior knowledge of (damn Chaos-worshipping Inquisitors and their "need to know" mandates).

The support skills Cristus currently has are as follows:

Pilot (Flyers)
Charm
Command +20 (combined with Air of Authority I can use this to command allied troops i.e. Guard or other Marines (just not the people in the Kill-Team, it seems)).
I've also got Scholastic Lore: Codex Astartes +10, as you would expect.

Personally I thought Polyglot might be worth taking, as well as Inquiry and Scrutiny - but they all rely on the GM setting up the situations that would make them useful.

I'd also be happier to learn some other pilot skills too.