Warhammer & 40K RPGs Thread III: With Friends Like These, Who Needs Heresies?

[The Glyphstone]

The Tabletop thread in Other Gaming might be a better place to be asking for advice of that nature, since those nuts are all about the plastics.

[Wraith]

Hey, so I just started building a Skitarii army, and I was wondering if anyone in the Houston,Texas area could point out a place where I could possibly get into a show-you-the-ropes kind of game?

Have a handy-dandy Games Workshop Store Finder app.

Any GW Store should be more than happy to run through an intro game with you, so long as it's not during rush hour and there's dozens of people to serve. If you asked nicely at one of the Independent Stores, someone might be willing to give you a walk-through, too

[AGow95]

Has anyone here had experience running or playing the "Rough Night at the Three Feathers" adventure for WHFRP? I'm interested in running it for some friends, basically want to know how difficult it is keeping all the different plotlines on track, and how much it varies between groups, if anyone's ran it for different parties. I hear amazing things about it but sometimes I struggle to keep relatively open ended content on track for my regular players

[Malak'ai]

Spoiler: Question about Xenos (Marlowe, you know the deal)

Show

So the group I'm running DH2e for is coming up to the end of their first mission (had a few weeks delay due to various reasons) and I'm starting to plan out the next one for them.
I'm thinking about having a distress signal being picked up on an uncharted world that's just recently popped out of a Warp Storm.

The signal is coming from an Imperial Navy supply ship that was lost about 2000 years ago in an attack by Chaos raiders while in the middle of a journey through the Warp.
Now this is going to be a straight forward mission to confirm that the supply ship is actually the one that was lost, and to report back if it might be worth salvaging.
The ship itself is a shattered pile of scrap, but some of its cargo will be able to be saved (how useful it'll still be is another matter), but the world it's on has, due to being in the Warp, evolved some... interesting wildlife. The main population being anthropomorphic pig men.

I was considering using the stats for the Kroot for a base, but changing some things around as these creatures will be somewhat similar to neanderthals in the evolutionary track.
I'm away from my books at the moment, but what are some changes you can suggest for me to make?
I was thinking of giving them Frenzy, Thunderous Charge, Natural Armour and Unnatural Strength and Toughness.

[Marlowe]

Well, we got mistaken for prostitutes and almost died but we have successfully caused our first completely unnecessary giant smoking crater! Sieg Zeon! There shall be more.

Szofiya needs to get herself a better pistol. It's annoying to get hit after hit on someone just to see someone else get the finishing shot in. But people died and they weren't us so I call that a win.

[The Glyphstone]

For people who have played RT, what do you like or dislike about the ship combat system? I really enjoy the shipbuilding minigame and tactical combat, but I find myself distinctly in the minority and I can see why; combat tends to boil down to the pilot and gunner being the only important characters, while everyone else just piles bonuses onto those two as supports. Have your experiences differed or concurred?

[LeSwordfish]

I always found it trivially easy for even low-level PCs to stack bonuses so high they're very unlikely to miss/fail, while NPC ships have much more trouble. I also didn't enjoy having to essentially play each NPC ship as a seperate party with several people in order to compete with the PCs at all.

[Destro_Yersul]

For people who have played RT, what do you like or dislike about the ship combat system? I really enjoy the shipbuilding minigame and tactical combat, but I find myself distinctly in the minority and I can see why; combat tends to boil down to the pilot and gunner being the only important characters, while everyone else just piles bonuses onto those two as supports. Have your experiences differed or concurred?

I like the shipbuilding, but I feel like the combat could use some abstraction and needs to include more stuff for other people to do.

I always found it trivially easy for even low-level PCs to stack bonuses so high they're very unlikely to miss/fail, while NPC ships have much more trouble. I also didn't enjoy having to essentially play each NPC ship as a seperate party with several people in order to compete with the PCs at all.

There's also this. NPC ships suffer in the action economy. My solution is usually to increase the crew rating a bit, and just give NPC ships a couple actions each.

[qechua]

Just using the core rules, I've found NPC ships are terrible, and even low level PC's can expect to take on ridiculous odds. Either NPC ships get staffed with PC's (which takes ages), or watch as your players take down a battlecruiser with their frigate

With the additional rules in Battlefleet Koronus, NPC ships aren't too bad (NPC ships take 1 order in addition to their movement and shooting, and the effect is determined by crew rating) so as an example Target Lock gives +5 Detection and +5 BS to a crew with a rating of 20, but +15 Detection and +20 BS to a crew with a rating of 60. You can then reserve a PC crew for proper boss fight ships

The BF:K squadron rules are a little janky sometimes (it's ridiculously easy to break formation, particularly with Orks whose ships can all be different speeds), but also very dangerous (a squad of frigates can do a lot more damage than 4 individual frigates). It also speeds things up from a GM perspective, since they take a single shared movement, shooting and additional order (each resolves individually, but you don't have to think as much)

In either case, the RT gives their command bonus to someone (probably the gunner), the pilot flies, the gunner shoots, everyone else prays to the machine god or shouts at the ratings. For this reason, I've house ruled that a character can only shoot one gun, and also given my PC's two ships (thus splitting the bonus potential)

[Incorrect]

Does anyone have weapon stats for a single macro canon shell hitting a ground target, like a tank.
Damage, pen and blast?
#AskingForAFriend

[Destro_Yersul]

Does anyone have weapon stats for a single macro canon shell hitting a ground target, like a tank.
Damage, pen and blast?
#AskingForAFriend

Sort of. The 'question of scale' sidebar on pg 221 of the Rogue Trader core book covers this. quote: "if a player or vehicle were ever hit by a starship's main weapons, the results would be as horrifying as they would be fatal." You don't roll damage. Whatever got hit dies, full stop.

[Incorrect]

Yeah, that makes sense alright. But I was hoping someone had something like stats.
Or at least a blast radius.

Alternatively, does anyone know something ground based that does not die from a macro canon shell? From the expansive lore perhaps.

[LeSwordfish]

Macrocannon shells are big but not exterminatus weapons. A well-buried bunker could survive one, as could a reasonably defended place a distance from the impact point.

[Grim Portent]

A titan with it's void shields up should survive, as indeed should most things with such a shield. Going to be an issue if the shot destroys the ground around the shield mind you, titans aren't great at climbing up and down rubble slopes.

I don't think any unshielded vehicle exists that could survive a direct hit, some would maybe be able to survive if on the far edge of the blast radius. Biotitans maybe, not sure how shielded they are in general.

[Wraith]

Alternatively, does anyone know something ground based that does not die from a macro canon shell? From the expansive lore perhaps.

We're talking Titans and Tyranid Bio-Titans here.
There are very few things in the 40k universe that can survive point-blank Titan-grade weaponry, and the smallest kind of starship macrocannon (Called a Deathstrike cannon) can sometimes be mounted upon one of the largest kind of Titans (called Warlords). They're just a whole order of magnitude bigger and more powerful than any kind of conventional weapons, even artillery.

Similarly, you could maybe include Greater Daemons and some of *the* most powerful (known as Alpha-Plus rank) Psykers. By the time you're reaching that kind of power, however, things like physics and thermodynamics are completely off the table so you can do whatever you want and say that they will probably win.

As for blast radius, they're typically measured in terms of kilotonnes; have a browse through YouTube and you can probably find an appropriate image. The video that I opened showed a 1kilotonne explosion having a blast height of 1300 feet and a diameter of about the same; the bomb dropped on Hiroshima was about 15kt and had a diameter of about 2 miles, plus fallout. Make of that what you wish for the weapons in your game, but sufficed to say your characters probably aren't going to outrun them.

[comicshorse]

" We should Macro Cannon the site from orbit. Its the only way to be sure. "

[qechua]

Does anyone have weapon stats for a single macro canon shell hitting a ground target, like a tank.
Damage, pen and blast?
#AskingForAFriend

Once again, Battlefleet Koronus has your back

(E)ach separate shell or energy blast affects a relatively small area of little more than a few dozen metres across, and anything directly hit is completely destroyed. However, the sheer volume of fire and the ensuing kiloton explosions, raging plasma fires, and hellish blast waves affects everything within ten square kilometres. Damage: ... Individuals and Vehicles 4d10+5; Pen 4 (unless the individual is within the initial impact radius, at which point they die, and must spend a Fate Point)

I'm not going to go into the physics of an kinetic strike from orbit only insta-killing 'a few dozen metres', but there's the rules on the matter

[Grim Portent]

Now I'm wondering if personal energy shields would/should protect against such hits in game. It could be quite amusing if nothing else to see a character with an 80% protection chance be left standing on a tiny pinnacle of rock in a crater, or plunge into the crater as the world around them cracks.

[Sinewmire]

Now I'm wondering if personal energy shields would/should protect against such hits in game. It could be quite amusing if nothing else to see a character with an 80% protection chance be left standing on a tiny pinnacle of rock in a crater, or plunge into the crater as the world around them cracks.

You'd have to play it by ear. Either no as the characher asphyxiates and burns alive from the constant fire (as opposed to a single plasma bolt) or yes and the character is flung free of the blast area by the concussion, but is largely preserved from serious damage (maybe a broken arm for versimiltude).

[Marlowe]

Well, Szofiya captured herself a bolt pistol, we killed a whole bunch of cops, blamed it on the Ministorum, and obtained possession of a Haywire mine capable of shutting down an entire Hive. It's a matter of when now, not if.

Currently off to stealthily and subtly rescue someone without caused unnecessary casualties. No. Really. That's the plan. And you know what people say about plans.

[Sinewmire]

...obtained possession of a Haywire mine capable of shutting down an entire Hive. It's a matter of when now, not if.

By the Dark Gods! Such archeotech is rare, but poweful! If you've read Necropolis you'll know the sort of damage those things can wreak.

Edit - Warp take it, those were some heretical typos!

[Wraith]

That's how you know that your GM is setting you up for a fall.

"Wow, a Bolt weapon, all of my very own! Only 3 more adventures' worth of pay, and I'll be able to afford to fire a whole clip!"

It's one of the hidden - but irrevocable - rules of Dark Heresy, along with "only Bad Things can be found in books" and "Friendly Navigators exist solely to teach you how to make WP tests".

[Malak'ai]

[QUOTE=Sinewmire;23192607]

...obtained possession of a Haywire mine capable of shutting down an entire Hive. It's a matter of when now, not if.
QUOTE]

By the Dark Gods! Such archeotech is rare, but poweful! If you're read Necropolis you'll know the sort of damage those things can wreak.

I wouldn't do that *shifty eyes*

[shadow_archmagi]

For people who have played RT, what do you like or dislike about the ship combat system? I really enjoy the shipbuilding minigame and tactical combat, but I find myself distinctly in the minority and I can see why; combat tends to boil down to the pilot and gunner being the only important characters, while everyone else just piles bonuses onto those two as supports. Have your experiences differed or concurred?

This is certainly an issue. Ships tend to be similar enough that your party will find their ship-combat wheelhouse and stick to it, and that wheelhouse is usually shoot a big gun very accurately.

Another issue (for me at least) is that, much like the old D&D "The wizard's spellbook is so vulnerable that the rules of fun actually make it invulnerable" the ship is pretty much the whole game. Certainly, the party could eventually get a new ship, but that's a campaign arc in and of itself. Heck, even severe ship damage technically takes a long and expensive time to repair.

[Marlowe]

That's how you know that your GM is setting you up for a fall.

"Wow, a Bolt weapon, all of my very own! Only 3 more adventures' worth of pay, and I'll be able to afford to fire a whole clip!"

It's one of the hidden - but irrevocable - rules of Dark Heresy, along with "only Bad Things can be found in books" and "Friendly Navigators exist solely to teach you how to make WP tests".

Don't worry, I scrounged 2 extra clips. By scrounged I mean, "took them off the bubbling pop-eyed ruin of the previous owner."

I wanted a hot-shot laspistol. But our Skitarii scored that. I got gun envy.

By the Dark Gods! Such archeotech is rare, but poweful!

And I; for one, don't want anything to do with that damned thing. As a Voidborn Szofiya's entirely pragmatic fear of such things trumps even the superstitious fear the other have. On a Hive city such a thing would wreak havoc; on a ship or orbital habitat it's a death sentence for everyone on board.

Still, better we have it than the enemy, right?

It's not as though we would cause destruction for no reason; right?

Only when it's funny.

[Sinewmire]

This is certainly an issue. Ships tend to be similar enough that your party will find their ship-combat wheelhouse and stick to it, and that wheelhouse is usually shoot a big gun very accurately.

Another issue (for me at least) is that, much like the old D&D "The wizard's spellbook is so vulnerable that the rules of fun actually make it invulnerable" the ship is pretty much the whole game. Certainly, the party could eventually get a new ship, but that's a campaign arc in and of itself. Heck, even severe ship damage technically takes a long and expensive time to repair.

Yeah. I found that my group were 2-3 times faster than the base speed of their ship, and could annihilate anything in their weight class in a round or two, to the point where they were dispatching squadrons of similar sized vessels with ease. Yet, if I put them against something bigger, if they got within weapons range they'd be popped like a bubble. This was their first ship combat.

It was not really something I could balance - if I was running it again I'd have to seriously overhaul the shipboard stuff to make it harder for the players. It's a fairly faithful representation of the ship battles in Battlefleet Gothic, which is fine for a game where one player controls a dozen ships but simply isn't entertaining for a game where a half-dozen people control *one* ship. I think I'd have to do stuff like have someone working to get the void shields back up, rather than have it happen automatically, and have social characters rallying the crew to reload in order to allow the gunners to fire full salvos, maybe?

Still, better we have it than the enemy, right?
It's not as though we would cause destruction for no reason; right?
Only when it's funny.

Denethor: Not used, I say, unless at the uttermost end of need, but set beyond his grasp, save by a victory so final that what befell would not trouble us...

[Marlowe]

Denethor: Not used, I say, unless at the uttermost end of need, but set beyond his grasp, save by a victory so final that what befell would not trouble us...

In case you're wondering, we've got it installed into Jenny (our Arvus Lighter) so that Jenny can chose, if she so wishes, he detonate it herself. No, this wasn't my idea. I think our Adept thinks of it as a final revenge-from-beyond-the-grave option should we get TPKed.

Szofiya doesn't really like this. Seems too Federation. And she thinks of Jenny as kind of her kid and doesn't like her being asked to make that sort of decision.

[Malak'ai]

Szofiya doesn't really like this. Seems too Federation. And she thinks of Jenny as kind of her kid and doesn't like her being asked to make that sort of decision.

Which is funny, because the Machine Spirit of the Arvus Lighter (Jenny) thinks about all of you as her soft, squishy, meat-sack children .

[Marlowe]

Which is funny, because the Machine Spirit of the Arvus Lighter (Jenny) thinks about all of you as her soft, squishy, meat-sack children .

You really should read those Culture books.

[Anonymouswizard]

Yeah. I found that my group were 2-3 times faster than the base speed of their ship, and could annihilate anything in their weight class in a round or two, to the point where they were dispatching squadrons of similar sized vessels with ease. Yet, if I put them against something bigger, if they got within weapons range they'd be popped like a bubble. This was their first ship combat.

It was not really something I could balance - if I was running it again I'd have to seriously overhaul the shipboard stuff to make it harder for the players. It's a fairly faithful representation of the ship battles in Battlefleet Gothic, which is fine for a game where one player controls a dozen ships but simply isn't entertaining for a game where a half-dozen people control *one* ship. I think I'd have to do stuff like have someone working to get the void shields back up, rather than have it happen automatically, and have social characters rallying the crew to reload in order to allow the gunners to fire full salvos, maybe?

This is the problem in all games with ships. Either it's really difficult to get a ship able to take on another ship in the same class in a straight fight and fly away without needing to spend months being repaired, or player ships quickly become powerful enough to take out squadrons of military craft.

One thing you can do is to start to rigorously apply limitations on the cargo they can carry. Sure, adding more powerful engines might seem like an obvious choice but you have to remove something to make space for the larger engines and increased fuel/remass requirements. What will most players remove? That's right, cargo space, and that means less potential profit from every trip.