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

[Destro_Yersul]

I am restarting my Rogue Trader game, and Im looking for a few inputs.
The group will get to own a planet rich on natural resources, but with an impending invasion.
Will they grab what they can and run, or will they defend their new planet..

1) Who is invading? I am looking for an invasion force that has been fortold (perhaps in eldar prophecies). It should feel like a force of nature, much like the tyranids; but some form of strategy that can be predicted would be fun for the players. Thirdly, I would like not to use the classical, well-known armies. Any good ideas?
Perhaps a combined force..

2) The planet will previously have been designated a fortress world, but construction has stopped. Does anyone have any good resources on fortress worlds? Maps, designs, or descriptions?

Perhaps more to come, as I panic to build a planet in a few days

1) Rak'gol are a good option. Yu'Vath are also good, but perhaps a little bit too spooky to drop on a starting group. Slaugth?

2) the classic fortress world is Cadia. There's lots of material on Cadia. I don't have any of it, but it exists.

[comicshorse]

Back on the topic of my own character, I still feel a bit...directionless in terms of what I want him to be like. Our GM said I don't need to worry about his story tying in to the themes of the story he's crafting, but that leaves me with no real idea what to pick for his motivations. Would a "druidic paladin" sort of theme make sense, not content to protect Laurelorn and striking out to smite Chaos and the occasional insolent human? Or does that mentality feel too "human" in terms of personality?

Druidic Paladin seems perfectly elven to me, after all the whole reasons the Wood Elves never obeyed the order to return home was love of their forest homes. Your character could, if the GM, approves have received a vision from the Gods revealing a evil growing outside the forest that if left unchecked will eventually bring ruin to his home. Whcih gives both a reason and a nice plot hook.
Of course your motivation doesn't have to be orders form on high. There is always curiosity about the outside world, the hope to gain new knowledge for minor facets of magic the other races may have gleaned. A desire for glory to return with tales of bravery and strange lands. Or tying in to the 'druidic paladin' ideal how about a romantic quest ? Your characters childhood sweetheart (and as Elves a childhood crush could last decades ) was sent forth on a mission some years ago and never returned. Now you set forth to find her and bring her home (of course whether she wants to come home is up to the GM's evil mind)

[lightningcat]

I am restarting my Rogue Trader game, and Im looking for a few inputs.
The group will get to own a planet rich on natural resources, but with an impending invasion.
Will they grab what they can and run, or will they defend their new planet..

1) Who is invading? I am looking for an invasion force that has been fortold (perhaps in eldar prophecies). It should feel like a force of nature, much like the tyranids; but some form of strategy that can be predicted would be fun for the players. Thirdly, I would like not to use the classical, well-known armies. Any good ideas?
Perhaps a combined force..

2) The planet will previously have been designated a fortress world, but construction has stopped. Does anyone have any good resources on fortress worlds? Maps, designs, or descriptions?

Perhaps more to come, as I panic to build a planet in a few days

You might look up information about the Siege of Vraks. Which was centered around a fortress that the Empire had to reconquer.
It was an important supply depo, and every generation improved on its fortifcations.
So did the construction actually stop? Or did the local governor get so currupt that he stole all the money from the construction budget for a few years? Less malicously, maybe the planet is waiting on main battery arrays to arrive, and they should be there any decade now.

[Guizonde]

hey guys, i'm gonna start running my very first dark heresy campaign, and i'm looking for tips and tricks. i was pretty familiar with the first edition, but due to screw ups, we're gonna play 2e.

first of all, how does influence work? i get that it's a stat that characters have to roll to find gear, but they've got low-30's, and even finding an average piece of kit like a comm-bead will be tough. how do you play it out? higher bonuses on hive and forge worlds? commerce checks? good roleplay? i don't want to give them heavy bolters off the bat, but seeing some availability checks, even an inquisitor wouldn't be able to pay for some of the stuff in the rulebook. it seems a bit too abstract a concept for me, and i'm considering reimplementing 1e's throne mechanic for small purchases like food, housing and bribes.

second, and that's a minor nitpick, is an autocannon really 3d10 damage? that seems absurdly overpowered, but everywhere i've looked, it's the same 3d10 profile. the thing hits harder than a meltagun or a heavy bolter. in the tabletop game, back when i played, an autocannon was pretty much on par with a plasma gun give or take, but a melta beat both in terms of power. so i'm a bit conflused.

when you play, do you stat out atmospheric vehicles, and if so how? i was planning of giving them access to a civilian shuttle, with maybe on chase scene, but i haven't seen anything relevant for what i had in mind. i might be using rogue trader's rules for voidships if the players insist on going in that kind of direction, but if not, i'll handwave it unless you guys have an easy mechanic.

any and all help is really appreciated. i'm a bit nervous, to be honest.

[Morty]

first of all, how does influence work? i get that it's a stat that characters have to roll to find gear, but they've got low-30's, and even finding an average piece of kit like a comm-bead will be tough. how do you play it out? higher bonuses on hive and forge worlds? commerce checks? good roleplay? i don't want to give them heavy bolters off the bat, but seeing some availability checks, even an inquisitor wouldn't be able to pay for some of the stuff in the rulebook. it seems a bit too abstract a concept for me, and i'm considering reimplementing 1e's throne mechanic for small purchases like food, housing and bribes.

In my experience, the answer to your first question is "poorly". Making gear acquisition dependent on the infamously swingy roll leads to the exact problems you've described. We did eventually switch to just having money.

[Destro_Yersul]

second, and that's a minor nitpick, is an autocannon really 3d10 damage? that seems absurdly overpowered, but everywhere i've looked, it's the same 3d10 profile. the thing hits harder than a meltagun or a heavy bolter. in the tabletop game, back when i played, an autocannon was pretty much on par with a plasma gun give or take, but a melta beat both in terms of power. so i'm a bit conflused.

when you play, do you stat out atmospheric vehicles, and if so how? i was planning of giving them access to a civilian shuttle, with maybe on chase scene, but i haven't seen anything relevant for what i had in mind. i might be using rogue trader's rules for voidships if the players insist on going in that kind of direction, but if not, i'll handwave it unless you guys have an easy mechanic.

any and all help is really appreciated. i'm a bit nervous, to be honest.

The original autocannon profile was 4d10. It was too good, so they nerfed it in subsequent appearances. There's a couple factors, here. First, while it does hit harder than a Meltagun, it's still worse against heavily armoured targets due to the comparatively low AP value. Second, autocannons are regularly mounted on vehicles, or used as light anti-vehicle weapons. Third, Heavy Bolters have been notoriously underpowered for what they are in basically every game line except Deathwatch. Finally, the tabletop game is a terrible metric by which to judge anything in the RPGs, due to the drastically reduced granularity of the system itself.

Several of the books have rules for atmospheric vehicles, most notably Rogue Trader. Vehicles in general have always been a bit of a handwave-worthy area, so just having them roll Pilot or something is a perfectly acceptable means of proceeding.

[Guizonde]

@morty and yersul: thank you for your input, glad i'm going the right way with my train of thought.

new question: i plan on having a band of dark eldar do a small raid. i've found stats for their splinter weaponry, but nothing on the raider or it's onboard dark lance. is there a profile for those things in the extensions? it took me about 2 hours just to find profiles for orks and grots. do i just reskin eldar guardians and swap out the shuriken catapults? the plan for context is basically have a dark eldar cabal be hired to steal gear but leaving the corpses behind in exchange for kidnapped slaves through the planetary defenses, leaving the clue that something is seriously wrong on a forge world since dark eldar don't bother with gear but leave few corpses. they will interrupt one of those raids, furthering the investigation. i don't plan on them wiping out all the raiders, just glimpse them. in this case, i also plan them to potentially chase the vehicle, which is why i was worried about vehicle armor points. there's also the potential chance they get on a high speed chase with one of the corrupt gang-bosses organizing the large amount of weapons being stolen.

[LeSwordfish]

@morty and yersul: thank you for your input, glad i'm going the right way with my train of thought.

new question: i plan on having a band of dark eldar do a small raid. i've found stats for their splinter weaponry, but nothing on the raider or it's onboard dark lance. is there a profile for those things in the extensions? it took me about 2 hours just to find profiles for orks and grots. do i just reskin eldar guardians and swap out the shuriken catapults? the plan for context is basically have a dark eldar cabal be hired to steal gear but leaving the corpses behind in exchange for kidnapped slaves through the planetary defenses, leaving the clue that something is seriously wrong on a forge world since dark eldar don't bother with gear but leave few corpses. they will interrupt one of those raids, furthering the investigation. i don't plan on them wiping out all the raiders, just glimpse them. in this case, i also plan them to potentially chase the vehicle, which is why i was worried about vehicle armor points. there's also the potential chance they get on a high speed chase with one of the corrupt gang-bosses organizing the large amount of weapons being stolen.

Dark Eldar stats are in the Only War line - particularly Enemies of the Imperium, or whatever it's called.

[Incorrect]

In my Rogue Trader campaign we got some extra players, and one guy didnt get the memo about this being a more political game, and basically made a D&D barbarian. That part is fine and I dont mind. He will just have a lot of challenges in the political play.
He is not a problem by himself, but the new combat brute character has worsened an existing problem.

All in all, I'm having a bit of a hard time making encounters.
My players are:
- Power armor and power field
- Good armor and very high toughness
- Good armor and very high toughness
- Medium armor and medium toughness
- Low armor and low toughness

Damage outputs are similar and not that much of a problem. But does anyone have any input on how I challenge all players without oneshotting the less combat oriented characters?

Many combats will be large scale, but I usually like to make "the eye of the storm" where the characters fight the enemy general while all the minions fight around them, and I know that my players will want the personal combat.
Open discussion, feel free to share opinions, experiences and so on.

[Lord Torath]

In my Rogue Trader campaign we got some extra players, and one guy didnt get the memo about this being a more political game, and basically made a D&D barbarian. That part is fine and I dont mind. He will just have a lot of challenges in the political play.
He is not a problem by himself, but the new combat brute character has worsened an existing problem.

All in all, I'm having a bit of a hard time making encounters.
My players are:
- Power armor and power field
- Good armor and very high toughness
- Good armor and very high toughness
- Medium armor and medium toughness
- Low armor and low toughness

Damage outputs are similar and not that much of a problem. But does anyone have any input on how I challenge all players without oneshotting the less combat oriented characters?

Many combats will be large scale, but I usually like to make "the eye of the storm" where the characters fight the enemy general while all the minions fight around them, and I know that my players will want the personal combat.
Open discussion, feel free to share opinions, experiences and so on.

I don't suppose the low-armor/low-toughness guy would consider being ranged support? Medium armor guy could set up between low-armor and the rest of the team. In the brief Deathwatch game I was in, the Devastator would set up alone (but still in com range) while the rest of us short-ranged or close-combat maniacs would dive right in.

Again, this depends on them being able to operate effectively from farther away, and being willing to do so.

[Aneurin]

In my Rogue Trader campaign we got some extra players, and one guy didnt get the memo about this being a more political game, and basically made a D&D barbarian. That part is fine and I dont mind. He will just have a lot of challenges in the political play.
He is not a problem by himself, but the new combat brute character has worsened an existing problem.

All in all, I'm having a bit of a hard time making encounters.
My players are:
- Power armor and power field
- Good armor and very high toughness
- Good armor and very high toughness
- Medium armor and medium toughness
- Low armor and low toughness

Damage outputs are similar and not that much of a problem. But does anyone have any input on how I challenge all players without oneshotting the less combat oriented characters?

Many combats will be large scale, but I usually like to make "the eye of the storm" where the characters fight the enemy general while all the minions fight around them, and I know that my players will want the personal combat.
Open discussion, feel free to share opinions, experiences and so on.

Hellguns, and other high-AP-low-damage weapons? Or just accept that the character's not going to shine much in combat, and if the player's okay with hiding behind the thickest cover they can find while spraying suppressive fire (and maybe screaming a bit), then they can have the focus at other times. Enemies are generally going to ignore the ineffective squishy in favour of killing the power-armoured juggernaut that's a bigger threat to them, anyway.

That said, I do feel your pain. In my Only War game I have an ogryn running around in Carapace with pumped up TB and True Grit, and a TB 3 character in Flak armour. It's interesting to deal with to say the least.

Oh, and flamers. Set them on fire. Armour doesn't help with that, and even high toughness won't stop them rolling around screaming in pain if they fail the WP test.

[Telok]

Flamers, explosions, and suppressing fire are all ways to reasonably threaten high armor/tough characters AND for less combat oriented characters to contribute.


Unrelated question: the PCs want to "harvest" necrons for necrodermis for vehicle and/or personal armor. They went to a tomb world. They have about 9 legs and 6 arms do far, being kept in separate ammo cans. The defenses in the entire system are now in the process of activating to deal with the threat.

Assuming that they gather more random bits, hammer them into sheets, and slap them on a random truck or light tank while fleeing the system at top speed... Long and short term results? Making shields out of it?

[The Glyphstone]

Short term results, regenerating armor.

Long term results, the necrodermis fully regrows into a functional (and extremely ticked off) Necron warrior or five.

[Grim Portent]

Short term results, regenerating armor.

Long term results, the necrodermis fully regrows into a functional (and extremely ticked off) Necron warrior or five.

Or imbues the object with a malign sentience aligned to the necrons. Like Honsou's arm, but with more independance.

A regenerating jeep is cool, but when it becomes a drone for the necrons and starts trying to run you over it starts to become kind of awkward to use.

[comicshorse]

I've been reading the Ravenor novels recently and they make frequent mention of a piece of tech that enables the wearer to be immune to having his mind read, sometimes called a 'blunter'. Does such a piece of gear exist in any of the 40K games (and where is it) 'cause if so I want to buy one for my Tech Priest !

[Telok]

Or imbues the object with a malign sentience aligned to the necrons. Like Honsou's arm, but with more independance.

A regenerating jeep is cool, but when it becomes a drone for the necrons and starts trying to run you over it starts to become kind of awkward to use.

Thanks. I'll have to look up Honsou, they're using a block of clear acrylic with an insane comatose vampire sorcerer cyborg with necrodermis legs, as a table (ex-pc). Sure, it's DtD40k7e rather than straight WH40k, but that just means I have more wiggle room.

[Grim Portent]

Honsou's arm never really went anywhere, but it was an augmetic arm made from necrodermis that he forcibly siezed from an Ultramarine.

He thought it had it's own sentience of a sort, it drank blood, absorbed metal objects fired at it including a missile from a man portable missile launcher, and was cut off from the Warp. Honsou could feel through it like a natural limb, but things like the daemonic presence in his axe weren't able to be felt through it. I think it was implied it reacted to threats on occasion to protect it's host.

There's probably more about it in one of the Uriel Ventris books, the Honsou and Ventris stories are intertwined and it was a character from the Ventris books who had it first.

[Destro_Yersul]

The arm only showed up in a couple of the Ventris books before Honsou swiped it. Mostly it was notable for eating metal and blood, and repairing damage to itself.

[Erulasto]

I've been reading the Ravenor novels recently and they make frequent mention of a piece of tech that enables the wearer to be immune to having his mind read, sometimes called a 'blunter'. Does such a piece of gear exist in any of the 40K games (and where is it) 'cause if so I want to buy one for my Tech Priest !

It's been a while since I read the Ravenor series, but I think you're referring to Wystan Frauka. He is the 'blunt'. He's an Untouchable, which means he's a psychic null. He wears a collar called a Limiter in order to prevent his Untouchable aura from affecting the world around him continuously.

That all being said, it's been a long time. So I might be mis-remembering a bit of gear.

[comicshorse]

It's been a while since I read the Ravenor series, but I think you're referring to Wystan Frauka. He is the 'blunt'. He's an Untouchable, which means he's a psychic null. He wears a collar called a Limiter in order to prevent his Untouchable aura from affecting the world around him continuously.

That all being said, it's been a long time. So I might be mis-remembering a bit of gear.

No there is definitely a bit of gear that makes ordinary people immune to being mind scanned. But that's all it seems to do, it doesn't shut down all pyschic powers like Nulls do

[Max_Killjoy]

In my experience, the answer to your first question is "poorly". Making gear acquisition dependent on the infamously swingy roll leads to the exact problems you've described. We did eventually switch to just having money.

Agreed.

I understand the desire to abstract wealth and get the "accounting" out of one's gaming, but... every abstracted wealth system I've ever seen has fallen down flat on its face and pushed me back to just using money.

[Telok]

Agreed.

I understand the desire to abstract wealth and get the "accounting" out of one's gaming, but... every abstracted wealth system I've ever seen has fallen down flat on its face and pushed me back to just using money.

I've actually ended up working out a sort of compromise.

Every kinda of significant treasure chunk or payoff becomes a raise or bonus to a wealth roll, a bankable one. Then they use them on missed wealth rolls. The thing is that while they can combine the chunks they can't really split them, which has created some interesting dilemmas for the players when using a chunk would be seriously over paying but they won't make it otherwise.

[Morty]

Agreed.

I understand the desire to abstract wealth and get the "accounting" out of one's gaming, but... every abstracted wealth system I've ever seen has fallen down flat on its face and pushed me back to just using money.

I don't mind abstracted wealth. Resources and other such merits in Storyteller games suit me just fine. It's when item acquisition becomes random that it just falls flat. Especially in a system as swingy as Dark Heresy's 1d100 roll. Even in Rogue Trader, trying to get my character a pair of good-quality chainswords became a comedy of errors.

[Guizonde]

No there is definitely a bit of gear that makes ordinary people immune to being mind scanned. But that's all it seems to do, it doesn't shut down all pyschic powers like Nulls do

there are two objects that fit the bill: wraithbone pendants can either stop psychic mind reading or (in the case of harlon nayl) allow the user to cast to a psyker. well, not really cast, but have a conversation with a psyker. i'm guessing it's some mumbo-jumbo psychic focus allowing the mind reader to read the thoughts and speech of the wearer.

the other, done by the bad guy zygmunt molotch are hexagrammic tatoos meant to shield the wearer from basic scrying, but a psyker can burn them out with enough force.

i'd just play it by ear, honestly, by adding a difficulty score to the psyker to cast his power and have its effect go through. the pendant would shield more than the tatoos, by i don't know... -30% for one and -10% for the other? maybe having to burn out the tatoo before nullifying the added difficulty?

[Lord Torath]

Deathwatch question:

Has anyone ever taken the Sound Constitution advances? They seem awfully expensive for gaining 1 hp, especially when you start with 19-23 of them.

[Anonymouswizard]

Deathwatch question:

Has anyone ever taken the Sound Constitution advances? They seem awfully expensive for gaining 1 hp, especially when you start with 19-23 of them.

Only time I've seen them being taken was when we used the Dark Heresy default beginning templates to get to play faster, and a friend of mine who played a game of Rogue Trader said his group came to the same conclusion: more hp would be nice, but other Talents are just better for the same cost. The games seem to be written around the assumption you'll want a couple of instances per rank, but they're not just worth it (early on if you do want to increase your survivability Toughness is a much better investment, later on you're potentially giving up Paranoia for the ability to survive an extra quarter of a lasgun blast).

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Question for the Rogue Trader players out there, just wanting to make sure I understand the rules right: all Astropath Transcendents start with access to the Communication tree of the Telepathy discipline, as that's what their job is, and after that, they can gain at most access to two other disciplines?

[comicshorse]

From the Astropath in the 'Rogue Trader' game I'm in :

3 disciplines in the main book-telekinesis;divination and telepathy. and yes you can eventually get the other two. You start with Telepathy discipline and a number of techniques depending on detail of chargen etc. Those techniques must fall under the telepathy discipline though

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Right, but there's other Disciplines in other books, Theosophamy in Into the Storm and Voidfrost and Soul Ward in The Navis Primer.

What I want to make sure I'm understanding is that the most disciplines any Astropath PC can have is 3, one of them ALWAYS being Telepathy, so I have to decide what other Disciplines I want to get later?

That makes it hard because the three I mentioned earlier are all pretty cool in their own rights (literally in the case of Voidfrost )...but it sounds like I'll have to pick and choose from two of them.

[The Glyphstone]

That is correct. You automatically get Astral Telepathy, and two other Telepathy powers of your choice to start - nothing requires them to be Communication, you just need to obey prerequisites. At ranks 3 and 6 you will gain access to the Psychic Discipline talent, opening up a new power tree. Since there are 6 trees and you can only access 3, you will never be able to learn all 6.