Warhammer and WH40K RPGs II: Burning Witches, Heretics, and Fate

[Ceiling_Squid]

Does anyone know why it's so hard to get the ability to fight even half decently while unarmed? Getting the talents to do even mediocre damage with your hands requires such a high rank that by the time you get it you should have enough concealed power blades, implanted weapons, baleful eyes and mutations that you don't have a use for the talents anymore.

Actually...I need to pull out my books here to confirm this, but unarmed fighting can be effective, just not in the way you think. It's not particularly lethal as per RAW, but it's not about lethality here.

When I get home I'll thumb through the rulebooks, unless someone else is kind enough to check this before I do. IIRC, unarmed fighting deals fatigue levels, and unlike armed combat, it does this consistently every time you deal damage. It's been a while since I looked into it seriously, but that's more important than raw damage in determining it's effectiveness as a fighting style.

Now, you can only suffer fatigue levels up to your toughness bonus. Beyond that, you fall unconscious.

That's why unarmed fighting is even remotely effective. As long as you can build up the counts of fatigue, you can knock people out of the fight without having to kill them through raw damage.

This becomes increasingly difficult, however. I believe they errata'd things so that you have to actually do at least a point of damage (after reduction by toughness and armor) to actually inflict fatigue. Before this, unarmed would inflict fatigue levels every time you hit the target, even if no net damage was actually done.

That actually made unarmed combat strangely overpowered. A swarm of peasants could beat even a space marine into unconsciousness as long as they could keep hitting him.

The balance may swing the other way now (making unarmed combat underpowered), but you should at least have a decent chance against a guy who's not wearing armor. And I think that's the intention...in the 41st millenium, martial arts aren't a thing you use against the nasty threats present in the setting. You'd get your ass handed to you unless you were wearing powered armor and using a powerfist. You could, however, probably beat the crap out some low-level cultist or hiver scum if he wasn't decked out in armor.

So long story short, unarmed is for beating people into submission, not killing them outright. If you want to make your hands into lethal weapons, get a power fist. At that point, your punches should be gibbing people's limbs, and you should be peeling open tanks with your fingers.

[Grim Portent]

Basic unarmed damage is 1d5-2 +SB I think, and I'm fine with that, it makes sense to be weaker than a knife, what doesn't make sense to me is that the careers that can improve it tend to not have access to the talents to make it better until ranks 4 or 5, though there are other ways to improve it such as augmetics/generic combat talents.

[Ceiling_Squid]

Basic unarmed damage is 1d5-2 +SB I think, and I'm fine with that, it makes sense to be weaker than a knife, what doesn't make sense to me is that the careers that can improve it tend to not have access to the talents to make it better until ranks 4 or 5, though there are other ways to improve it such as augmetics/generic combat talents.

Yeah, I'm not too keen on it being such a high rank, especially considering that it's not a lot to gain.

The way I see it, the rank rating of that advancement was probably determined before unarmed combat was properly errata'd. In the early days of DH, unarmed combat was already decent at early levels because you could reliably beat people into unconsciousness without needing to actually deal net damage to them.

I think, with that in mind, the designers probably thought that actually making your strikes deal more lethal damage would be something that would be a higher-level consideration. Non-lethal, non-damaging strikes were still "good enough" for a lower level character because fatigue is an excellent status effect to inflict.

Now that you have to deal damage just to take advantage of unarmed combat in any way, I'd probably lower the rank requirement for those advances. If you can convince your GM (or if you're running it yourself), I'd suggest dropping the requirements a rank or two. That way you can bring unarmed combat online earlier.

Until that point, you're only good against people with no armor.

[Rikandur Azebol]

Psionics+Martial Arts ?

[Grim Portent]

Yeah, I'm not too keen on it being such a high rank, especially considering that it's not a lot to gain.

The way I see it, the rank rating of that advancement was probably determined before unarmed combat was properly errata'd. In the early days of DH, unarmed combat was already decent at early levels because you could reliably beat people into unconsciousness without needing to actually deal net damage to them.

I think, with that in mind, the designers probably thought that actually making your strikes deal more lethal damage would be something that would be a higher-level consideration. Non-lethal, non-damaging strikes were still "good enough" for a lower level character because fatigue is an excellent status effect to inflict.

Now that you have to deal damage just to take advantage of unarmed combat in any way, I'd probably lower the rank requirement for those advances. If you can convince your GM (or if you're running it yourself), I'd suggest dropping the requirements a rank or two. That way you can bring unarmed combat online earlier.

Until that point, you're only good against people with no armor.

From what I recall DH doesn't have the talents at all anyway, just RT and onwards. Reverse compatible though, so it's not a big deal to take them as elite advances, though they are in Ascension for some reason.

I think that unarmed peaks at about 1d10+6+SB non-primitive damage, and that requires a rather... cheaty, exploity (insert negative word here) interpretation of the rules and a kind GM.

[Grytorm]

What are the Death Cults mentioned in the assassin entry like? Not the major ones on Holy Terra but the smaller ones that show up in a variety of places, I guess. I can guess that they probably recruit children and train them as killers, but I'm wondering what otehr information their is about them.

[shadow_archmagi]

What are the Death Cults mentioned in the assassin entry like? Not the major ones on Holy Terra but the smaller ones that show up in a variety of places, I guess. I can guess that they probably recruit children and train them as killers, but I'm wondering what otehr information their is about them.

(Un)fortunately, the official answer is that the 40k universe is a big place and there's no default and the only unifying factor of death cults is the death.

That said, the Lexicanum does mention a few- http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Deat...n#.Urz_uLQQQv0

[Grytorm]

Interesting, the sample groups weren't much like the idea I had. Hooray I now have two slightly interesting ideas for Dark Heresy characters which I have decided to describe here, mostly to know how far out there they are.

First the assassin who was recruited into a death-cult that believes life is precious and should be enjoyed. They enforce this through brainwashing and drug regimes in the recruits who are chosen from children who are condemned to die on (probably) a hive world. He is perpetually cheerful, flamboyant, kind of a party animal who holds himself strictly to vow of chastity because the members of the cult consider themselves dead.

The other character idea I have is a Cleric from yet another cult thing. His order are the primary spiritual guides of some backwards agrarian world. They believe themselves to be unworthy and inferior servants of the Emperor's will because they are the descendants of Imperial Guard soldiers who did not die in battle. Members of the order take up egregiously long names expressing this guilt and preach martyrdom and the glory of dieing as the Emperor wills.

I just realized I want to play characters to fit stereotypes I made up for them. Weird.

[Wraith]

Does anyone know why it's so hard to get the ability to fight even half decently while unarmed? Getting the talents to do even mediocre damage with your hands requires such a high rank that by the time you get it you should have enough concealed power blades, implanted weapons, baleful eyes and mutations that you don't have a use for the talents anymore.

The true power of unarmed combat comes from grappling. Build a character that is good at grappling and good at getting around the battlefield unmolested, and you have a degree of battlefield control that is difficult to match.

Simply put, find the enemy combatant that is causing the most trouble - the Psyker, the Sorcerer, the guy with the big gun, whatever - run up to him and grapple him. That enemy is now removed from the fight for as long as you desire or until you kill him, a valuable and much appreciated resource for your allies.

It's more true of WFRP than Dark Heresy, since it's harder for a human to get close to a guy with a Boltgun and Power Armour than it is for a T5 Dwarf to get close to a peasant with a bow, but with an appropriate build it still rings true until you reach the REALLY scary stuff like Traitor Marines and mid-to-high class Daemons.

[Rikandur Azebol]

And you really would want to grapple Nurgle Daemons ?! It's death sentence ...

[Blightedmarsh]

...Said the daemonette to the bloodletter.

[TimeWizard]

Slaaneshi demonettes on the other hand...

[shadow_archmagi]

Interesting, the sample groups weren't much like the idea I had. Hooray I now have two slightly interesting ideas for Dark Heresy characters which I have decided to describe here, mostly to know how far out there they are.

First the assassin who was recruited into a death-cult that believes life is precious and should be enjoyed. They enforce this through brainwashing and drug regimes in the recruits who are chosen from children who are condemned to die on (probably) a hive world. He is perpetually cheerful, flamboyant, kind of a party animal who holds himself strictly to vow of chastity because the members of the cult consider themselves dead.

The other character idea I have is a Cleric from yet another cult thing. His order are the primary spiritual guides of some backwards agrarian world. They believe themselves to be unworthy and inferior servants of the Emperor's will because they are the descendants of Imperial Guard soldiers who did not die in battle. Members of the order take up egregiously long names expressing this guilt and preach martyrdom and the glory of dieing as the Emperor wills.

I just realized I want to play characters to fit stereotypes I made up for them. Weird.

I think those both sound neat!

[Ceiling_Squid]

Interesting, the sample groups weren't much like the idea I had. Hooray I now have two slightly interesting ideas for Dark Heresy characters which I have decided to describe here, mostly to know how far out there they are.

First the assassin who was recruited into a death-cult that believes life is precious and should be enjoyed. They enforce this through brainwashing and drug regimes in the recruits who are chosen from children who are condemned to die on (probably) a hive world. He is perpetually cheerful, flamboyant, kind of a party animal who holds himself strictly to vow of chastity because the members of the cult consider themselves dead.

The other character idea I have is a Cleric from yet another cult thing. His order are the primary spiritual guides of some backwards agrarian world. They believe themselves to be unworthy and inferior servants of the Emperor's will because they are the descendants of Imperial Guard soldiers who did not die in battle. Members of the order take up egregiously long names expressing this guilt and preach martyrdom and the glory of dieing as the Emperor wills.

I just realized I want to play characters to fit stereotypes I made up for them. Weird.

Excellent ideas! The second one is interesting because it also implies elements of the world's attitudes towards military service and the imperial tithe.

As shadow_archmagi put it, you've got a lot of freedom to come up with fluff. By-and-large, take 40k tropes as a guideline and then work your way up from there. There are tens of thousands of worlds in the Imperium, and the only unifying element between them is adherence to the Imperial tithe and a vague belief in the Imperial Cult. How they characterize worship of the Emperor is different from place-to-place, and individual customs vary across the board.

Think of it the same way that historically, major religions would co-opt pagan rites to their ends rather than stamp them out entirely. Chances are, some death-cults or other means of worship might have roots in non-Imperial customs that have since been turned towards the Emperor.

Finding out what makes your homeworld unique, culturally-speaking, is fun.

[The Glyphstone]

And when in doubt, take the most GRIMDARK of 2+ options you can't decide between. Gotta keep the spirit of the setting, after all.

[Grytorm]

Still thinking about the assassin character. My ideas for him have gotten more and more strange as time has gone by. I'm not going to end up playing him any time soon but right now I want to research Michael Jackosn and have come to the conclusion that his training in the cult might of involved breaking into others homes and shaving the people residing within.

Edit: And he will be the best cosmetologist assassin serving the Inquisition. All of this makes sense somehow. I swear.

[Dead_Jester]

Still thinking about the assassin character. My ideas for him have gotten more and more strange as time has gone by. I'm not going to end up playing him any time soon but right now I want to research Michael Jackosn and have come to the conclusion that his training in the cult might of involved breaking into others homes and shaving the people residing within.

Edit: And he will be the best cosmetologist assassin serving the Inquisition. All of this makes sense somehow. I swear.

If you end up with this character, remember the core tenet of Wh40k; it has to be Grimdark, and anything can be made Grimdark if you dehumanize it enough. A kid that gets picked up to join the circus happy people murderhobo inc will definitely not grow up to be a nice, stable individual.

[Grytorm]

Depends on how you define stable. I define stable to include content to remain in his sound proof chambers with recordings of the laughter of little children playing eternally. The silence gives him a headache. BarneyisadinosaurFromourimagination,Andwhenhe'stal l,he'swhatwecallAdinosaursensation!Barneyisadinosa urFromourimagination,Andwhenhe'stall,he'swhatwecal lAdinosaursensation!BarneyisadinosaurFromourimagin ation,Andwhenhe'stall,he'swhatwecallAdinosaursensa tion!

[Cheesegear]

Well, my players have finally done it.

1. Summon a Daemon. Use Pyniscience. Kill it. Write down findings. Gain XP.
2. Summon two Daemons. Use Psyniscience. Kill it. Write down findings. Gain XP.
3. Summon three Daemons. Repeat.
[...]
X. Accidentally summon a massive Daemon. Run away. Go to 1.

There must be a downside to systematically summoning and killing Daemons like this. Like Curie getting radiation poisoning or something.

Also, the Salamanders Apothecary wants to find a cure vaccine for the Genestealer Helix.
EDIT: The cure is 'Kill it with Fire'. But I think the Salamander already knows how to do.

[bluntpencil]

Well, my players have finally done it.

1. Summon a Daemon. Use Pyniscience. Kill it. Write down findings. Gain XP.
2. Summon two Daemons. Use Psyniscience. Kill it. Write down findings. Gain XP.
3. Summon three Daemons. Repeat.
[...]
X. Accidentally summon a massive Daemon. Run away. Go to 1.

There must be a downside to systematically summoning and killing Daemons like this. Like Curie getting radiation poisoning or something.

Corruption points. They add up. Also, is their psyker using Holocaust? That power actually permanently destroys daemons.

[LeSwordfish]

I imagine that would attract a significant amount of the wrong kind of attention.

[Cheesegear]

Corruption points. They add up. Also, is their psyker using Holocaust? That power actually permanently destroys daemons.

Until he gets 31+ CPs, he's willing to put up with it. Which means he wants to do the ritual about five times, more or less. The only tricky part seems to be finding the proper Summoning Sites without, well, creating one themselves. And honestly, it shouldn't be that hard to find a mass grave or battle site in 40K, so I haven't really put any restrictions on it.

And, well, 'The Inquisition is out to get you' is old hat. Especially when what they're doing essentially amounts to research on Relative Warp Strengths of Daemons and their Surrounding Phenomena Relative to a Scholar of Arcanum and the Ways in which to Combat and Nullify.

[bluntpencil]

Until he gets 31+ CPs, he's willing to put up with it. Which means he wants to do the ritual about five times, more or less. The only tricky part seems to be finding the proper Summoning Sites without, well, creating one themselves. And honestly, it shouldn't be that hard to find a mass grave or battle site in 40K, so I haven't really put any restrictions on it.

And, well, 'The Inquisition is out to get you' is old hat. Especially when what they're doing essentially amounts to research on Relative Warp Strengths of Daemons and their Surrounding Phenomena Relative to a Scholar of Arcanum and the Ways in which to Combat and Nullify.

I'd be willing to let him run with it, really. Maybe insert daemons of Tzeentch that discorporate too easily, to trick our scientific Psyker into thinking that certain classes of daemons are weaker than they actually are.

"Yes, Class IV Change Daemons are allergic to citrus, sir. Says so in the book here. Apparently we need to switch our blessed promethium tanks for flasks of lemon juice."

[Cheesegear]

"Yes, Class IV Change Daemons are allergic to citrus, sir."

[shadow_archmagi]

I'd be willing to let him run with it, really. Maybe insert daemons of Tzeentch that discorporate too easily, to trick our scientific Psyker into thinking that certain classes of daemons are weaker than they actually are.

"Yes, Class IV Change Daemons are allergic to citrus, sir. Says so in the book here. Apparently we need to switch our blessed promethium tanks for flasks of lemon juice."

you sons of swine

I did a spit-take

I WAS EATING SAUSAGE AND EGGS

my monitor will never be clean again

[bluntpencil]

you sons of swine

I did a spit-take

I WAS EATING SAUSAGE AND EGGS

my monitor will never be clean again

Just as planned.

[Grim Portent]

Doesn't summoning a daemon outside of BC give you something like 10 corruption points? And then there's the warp shock for anyone who fails their fear test as well.

[TimeWizard]

Which game is this summoning happening in?

[Cheesegear]

Doesn't summoning a daemon outside of BC give you something like 10 corruption points?

It gives you D10 Corruption Points.

[Leon]

Which isn't to bad. I created a Explorator for a game that never really got off the ground on these boards that started with enough insanity points from rolling that technicaly I should have rolled on the minor insanity table but the GM let it pass.