Great White Games/Pinnacle Entertainment Group

[Slugsabi]

Morning all,

Thought I would pick your brains (as usual) for an idea I am developing. I want to terrorise my group with a posse of Death Marshals and before I start sweating over the stats wondered if there may be something similiar in one of the classic expansions for if so I will just buy it and convert.

I developed the idea from some minis I picked up and as half the posse have the hindrance 'Wanted-Minor' and the set around terrorising the Guardian Angels with a vengeance thought I would call in a Hanging Judge but lead up to him via this posse.

For the last couple of weeks I have had them, at first seeing a cart on the horizon with (when they used a scope to view) four chained, long boxes on the back drawing towards them. Drawing towards but never arrives. Then the wanted posters started to blow through the camp, the creak of a cart being heard in the dead of night and most recently a wanted poster stabbed into the earth next to the bedroll of one of them with tracks coming from the pile of dead/burned Guardian Angels to them and yet disappearing again.

The next stage is that while they are happily resting in Shan Fan I'm going to interrupt their nights sleep with them being dragged through the windows by long chains into the street where they will start to battle the posse but will awaken part way through the battle (at some critical point or other, with with them starting to win or vice versa). If they were losing then they will awaken fatigued,

Anyway, looking for some decent stats to throw at a posse of 38-42 point chars (seasoned going on veteran), with one of the Marshalls being a huckster I think. Something that will truly challenge them and be a stepping stone to the Hanging Judge further down the line.

Anyway, if anyone knows of something similiar in one of the classic add-one then please, point me in the right direction (I'm a tad busy to scratch build it all you see, am writing this from my hotel bedroom overseeing an upgrade and the next session is tomorrow night!).

[geijhan]

Good to see I'm not the only one who went "OMG I want those minis NOW and use them in a Deadlands session!".

I'd planned to use them as an overly zealous anti-harrowed organization but having them be precursors of a Hangin' Judge is a stroke of genius!

Some abilities that might make sense and are based off of how the minis work in Malifaux: (Making these up as I'm typing this:)

Pine Box
A Death Marshal will want to show the accused what's waiting for them after the trial. If he gets a raise on an opposed fighting roll, the Death Marshal stuffs his opponent in his pine box. When being stuffed in the box, and every round thereafter he stays in the box, the poor sod gets flashes from his worst nightmare. Make a fear (-2) roll each round in the coffin. The cowbuster can try to escape by making a Strength roll (at -2?) at the beginning of his action. Killing the Death Marshal will turn the coffin inert.

Slow to Die
So intent are the Death Marshals on bringing their prey to justice, even Death itself won't stop them. Well, not immediately. When a Death Marshal takes a wound, they get one more action (and one action only) before shuffling off their mortal coil.

[MrDNA]

Sounds AWESOME.

One of my PCs has a supernatural lawman on his trail. Some of the things he has done/are going to do include:

Sending him telegrams no matter where he runs or what pseudonym he uses. The text of the telegram is the name, place and time of death of the person he killed.

One thing I was thinking is he could get a letter signed by Marshall Sutter and through some research find out that that was the name of the Marshall who used to patrol these parts before his untimely death.

The PC will be informed (somehow) of a showdown at high noon. He will, of course, hide his scrawny ass every day come noon. Until one day his watch stops on 11:59... and stays there... day and night... until... tick.
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Your friendly neighborhood altruistic pervert.

[JackMann]

They can terrorize the group with their greengrocer's apostrophe.

That aside, this sounds like an awesome idea.

How many of them are there compared to the party? And how lethal do you want it?

[Slugsabi]

Thanks for the lesson in grammar JackMann, appreciated and corrected. Hmm, but nothing about the un-needed second 'l'?

Shall we say, challenging, therefore I will accept a character death and it would be a good way to go (rather than random encounter death). I have a posse of 3 Marshals and another which I want to be the Huckster so a 1:1 ratio. My posse haven't come against a Huckster yet and he only really raises traits to date so I want to show them some diversity and how scary it is out there.

I like the telegram idea too MrDNA, sound like it would work really well and if I wasn't so advanced with their introduction I would have started out with that as a precursor.

[JackMann]

Hmm. So, you probably don't want to go all wildcards, then. Make the huckster a wildcard. Give the others the Slow to Die ability geijhan suggested. What sort of characters are in the party?

[Timon]

Damn Jack it has been a too long time since I last saw a grammar-hammer. I carefully checked all the apostrophe's, but I was after the edit, so I missed it. Good to have you back.

Ontopic:
Forgive the obvious advice about running a caster opponent as I have fluffed this all too often: make sure s/he has Missed Me running and cover: casters tend to go down really fast to ranged fire. Invisibility/Obscure are also useful.
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Biting! It's like kissing but there's a winner!
The Doctor's Wife

[JackMann]

A possible ability, though it could turn out to be pretty nasty:

Accept Your Mistakes: No bennies can be spent on failed rolls within 5" of the Death Marshal.

Your players would still be able to spend bennies on successful rolls (to try for a raise, for example), or on soaking, but not on an actual failure. It goes in line with the theme of chickens coming home to roost and mistakes catching up with them.

It is pretty nasty, though, so careful with it.

[ValhallaGH]

I'd give the Death Marshals the Hardy ability and a Wild Die, but no Wounds. They're consistent and tough, but drop to a wound just like other Extras.
A terrifying compromise, that shouldn't kill all the PCs.
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"Got a problem? I've got the solution: Rocket Launcher."
"Not against a Servitor."
"... We're all gonna die."

[Slugsabi]

Some bloody good ideas there chaps, much appreciated.

And Jack, you come across as someone with thick skin so appreciated you didn't take umbrage at my wee comment post editing (I actually learned something so not all bad).

I'll look at generating the stats and will re-publish for comments.

[troven]

Ooh somone else is using malifaux in Dl other then me and my freinds.
Anyway: If you wana use malifaux againsted wanted, a better fit would be leveticus and officers, but u want to use your Death Marhall Cre, so: unless theres a harrowed or two using death marshals will either be really easy (Having them as their undead counter)
or very hard (Have them as they are presented: undead scary sons o' bitches)
They should probably Have hard to wound, resistance to fear/sleep, ambidextrous and slap on Harrowed. They should also be aces, since they are strong but low on numbers. (Generaly 2-3 per group excluding LJ and Judge.)

[lunchmoney]

Death Marshals. Genius. I shall put my Malifaux dudes to good in stealing this idea for my posse's criminals

[Jonas Albrecht]

So much of Malifaux is right at home in Deadlands, and the Death Marshals are no exception. The Hangin' Judge's Bayonet Pistol stats would make perfect Peacebringers.

For the Coffins, I'd either go with Infernal Devices or Relics.

[Slugsabi]

Well, got around to adding this to the game and were rather effective I must say. Sent in the three Death Marshals along with a Damned Deputy (Harrowed Huxster) and turned out to be a nice little fight.

Anyway, here are the stats:
http://www.evilsunz.com/Images/Death%20Marshal.pdf