knasser2

This thread being: https://www.herogames.com/forums/topic/97080-champions-now-information/'t I don't recall ever posting in it but my browser keeps beeping at me every time someone posts in it (I have notifications turned on for the sake of threads I am subscribed to). It's reached the point it's so annoying I'm just turning notifications off for this site now. I can't see any way to unsubscribe from it. I think it's because it's pinned, maybe? Does that force you to be subscribed to a thread?

List sounds like something from some Hero software? I don't have any such - I'm going straight from the rule books. I've actually coded up my own way of storing all this data and formatting it out. It was a little more work up front but I'm now cranking out new entries at a very satisfactory speed. Just added... three Eldar units (Dire Avengers, Fire Dragons, Dark Reapers), three new types or armour and melta weapons. It's settling down into something that feels accurate to the setting now. I did some rough maths of a Melta Gun vs. a Land Raider tank and it gave appropriate results to the WH40K table top game and fluff. I'm also writing up a few small adventures to go with this when I'm done and I think what I'll do to popularise it is I'll run a few one-shot pre-gen games in the evening online to work out the kinks and to get people into it.

?? They're both in there, left-hand column.

Thanks. I created some standard formats for characters, vehicles, weapons and armour. I'll probably do some generic equipment versions as well. The HTML version is automatically generated from these files and the stylesheets just lay everything out as seen. So if I need to make some refinements later on (which I almost certainly will because I can make it look much more atmospheric than this), everything gets updated all together. Equally, as I type in new entries, they automatically get formatted and included.

Thanks. I'll need to redo the power armours then but thankfully that's not much. I've now also done layout for characters and started populating that. So looks like I'm well on my way to having a bare bones conversion (weapons, armour, characters and vehicles). There's a documents section on here, isn't there? Can anyone upload and share their conversions?

I realised I may have made a mistake. I've applied the advantage and limitation modifiers to the suit as a whole. Should I just be calculating the different powers of the suit independently as if they were all separate pieces of equipment and then just add them all to get a total? E.g. I've now added an advantaged of Hardened +¼ to the suit but this is specific to the protection, not the Life Support for which it has no meaning. So should I treat Life Support as it's own calculation? I looked at Power Frameworks but they seem to be for switching between powers and for the suit, all of its qualities are permanently on simultaneously.

That makes it a bit fiddly. Some of the powers are persistent but I also have a strength boost in there. So Space Marine Power Armour (the next level up)... I've added the Knockback Resistance as well.

I want to give the Light Power Armour a charge duration of 6 hours. The rule for Fuel Charges says to decrease it by -¼ if it's a limitation or increase it by +¼ if it's an advantage! So I guess it's just 0. And the same will be true of the Space Marine Power Armour which has a far longer duration of a week. It's just always going to be 0. Correct?

Okay. So it's not as bad as I thought. Looking at the charts on 6E1,pg.368/9, I'd build it with 1 charge but move it down 8 levels for a 1 day Continuing Charge. Meaning it would be +¼ Advantage. Is that right? And I should increase that advantage by a further +¼ to make it a Fuel Charge, representing it can be turned on and off? The Power Armour can't (reasonably) be used without power (you could just about move in the Light version), but you could take it off and put it back on again.

Heh. Let me put it this way - ever had a full body cast? EDIT: Fuel Charges seem the correct approach but looking at the table it's going to get insanely expensive. I might have to make a custom limitation for it as it's not _normally_ going to come up in play but will on occasion.

Okay. That makes a LOT more sense. I can't figure out how it's calculated before deducting Defence by the wording in the book because it reads to me as if it's the BODY damage that's actually taken by the target. Which is why I've been stuck on this. I thought it must be the amount dealt initially. Yes, Power Armour of all kinds is crazy heavy. Even the light version of power armour is 40kg. Space Marine Armour is 180kg according to the RPG version of WH40K. I'm building it with the 0 mass quality though as it has motors to compensate for its own weight. Terminator armour is essentially walking around in a tank bodysuit. I didn't know Knock Back resistance was a thing that existed, but this is Hero, so of course it does! I'll add that to all versions of Power Armour. Good call! How do you think it's looking? Think it's shaping up? EDIT: I should probably add a power limit to the Power Armours. Space Marines would be very long - on the order of days or weeks. But the Light Power Armour in the book was listed as being only around 5-10 hours. Do you think that should be handled with charges?

Got it. Yes, that's the source of my confusion. Plus I had missed that it was specific to Killing Attacks. So... there's quite the difference between Knockdown and Knockback. The former of which is the default for Hero level settings like WH40K. I can see Knockdown making sense on any killing attack. A knife may not have the force to knock you down in and of itself, but if you get stabbed, stumbling back 2m is a pretty instinctive response. But in practice, I'm not sure how much difference it's going to make. If it only triggers when you take more than half your Body in damage, it's only going to come up in cases where the character is blown half to Hell already. Whereas it might be nice to have someone knocked flat by the impact but their armour prevents any actual damage.

Have now done the template for armour and have started populating it. Screenshots at the bottom. What I have so far are these (because it's a bit hard to read in the images):

Well it's already got increased DC reflected in that it does 2d6 RKA whereas the less powerful lasgun does 1d6+1E. And it already has one level of Penetration and +1 StunX. So in terms of damage and armour piercing, I think the fluff is mostly taken care of. I just thought adding a chance to knock people back / down would be a nice touch to represent the micro-explosion.

I'm a bit confused why it's a limitation. That implies everything does Knockback by default and this is a downgrade to Knockdown. And that is actually how I read the rules but earlier you said weapons don't do Knockback/Knockdown by default. Should it not be a +¼ Advantage to bolt weapons of Does Knockdown?

Well the real world purpose of explosive rounds is (I believe) to improve effect against armoured targets. But in the original fluff yes, a human body is sufficient to trigger the detonation. The fluff varies a little but the basic principle remains Hit -> Microsecond Delay -> Explosion (ideally inside someone), if their armour prevents penetration then I still expect it to explode. It's in a bit of a gray area with Beam. It's certainly going to do more than a bullet or a lasbolt. So that seems to be a good call. I'll remove Beam from it. It's not going to be a great way of bringing down a wall and you're not going to be able to crawl through a bolter hole (unless you're a rat) but it could certainly bring down a wall with enough fire. For the rest though, this is honestly sounding too complex to be fun in play. I appreciate the effort at verisimilitude but when players get their hands on one of these, they're going to want to just blast somebody. I'm just trying to add a little extra to them to separate them from bullets.

There are over 350 published WH40K novels, 60+ anthologies of short fiction and then we begin on the novellas, rule books and codices. So I can't pretend to have read them all but I am curious where you're getting that from. For reasons given earlier, I'm not convinced that is the case and in fact I've seen it directly stated that autopistols are like those we have today.

Very small rockets, but yes, they are rockets. I'd kind of like an effect that knocked people back a bit but I honestly find the Knockback / Knockdown rules some of the most confusing in the book (next to Multiform). For Knockdown it only kicks in with Impairing and Disabling wounds. Both of these are also optional rules but by implication you can't not include them if you include Knockdown. I presume you can disregard the effects of Impairing and Disabling wounds and just use them as entry criteria for Knockdown. But even if you do that they have some very heady entry requirements. You have to inflict half or more of the targets Body. Given the nature of Impairing Wounds and that it doesn't say otherwise, I presume this is after subtracting (resistant) Defence. If someone takes half their body in damage from an attack, I'd imagine falling on their arse would be one of the least of their worries. What would make sense to me is if someone's armour stopped the bolter shell they might not be hurt but they would be knocked back. In fact, if the attack is less likely to knock them back if it does damage in reality (damage being the energy from an attack overcoming the integrity of the body and being knocked back being the body's integrity withstanding it). Knockback is easier to get my head around but is very powerful. 2m x the difference can have people going back 10m! I couldn't find a limitation called "Does Knockdown" but there is a reference in 6E2 to converting the Does Knockback advantage into Does Knockdown (+¼) which means it automatically does Knockdown without requiring an Impairing Wound. Is this what you meant?

Firstly, thanks very much for this. This is exactly the sort of feedback that is useful for someone who has read the rules but doesn't have the experience to know what is standard or what will and wont work well. Secondly, I don't know how to switch the new forum editor to markup and I can't split the quote up into bits so I've just highlighted the parts I'm replying to. What you describe are slug throwers in WH40K terms like the autogun and autopistol earlier. Bolt weapons aren't firing solid projectiles. The ammo is miniature rockets that ignite in flight then accelerate into the enemy. They have explosive tips. There's also a fractional delay on the detonation to try and make them go off inside the enemy / enemy armour. What I was seeking to do (though it appears I've failed) is make them different to slug throwers but still a basic weapon without too much complexity. They are already different to slug throwers by virtue of the higher damage and the penetration, but I have added +1StunX and Double Knockback to reflect you're not just getting hit by a bullet but a tiny explosive. The knockback (which I confused with knockdown) isn't intended to be the primary effect of the weapon, but as a nice little extra to show it's got some kick, even if the target survives. 8m knock back does sound a little high, but they're .75 calibre weapons that fire explosives. This is a bolter (see image). It would be good to have some kind of effect to make them a little more cinematic (and make the players feel like they're badass) but falls short of making them wildly different. Bolters are the standard weapon of 7½' tall Space Marines, so they should be quite powerful. Regards Beam, I've currently given it to all the firearms regardless of type. Lasguns are a little vague in how they work in the fluff but they seem to be treated a bit more like energy bolts rather than coherent beams of light.

I'm basing autoguns on real world equivalents. So autopistol is a mid-range modern day pistol more or less (I may lean slightly to the heavier side in all examples because I figure that's how they'd build them in the 41st Millenium). And actually that was my starting point for most of the other weapons. I haven't read the TV Tropes article but I'm inclined to just disagree. For one, we don't know that it would be better than our real world equivalent. The setting is not one of high technical understanding. There's a factory on one world that one day just started churning out a different model of tank and nobody knows why! If Flak armour is mass produced on a world it could be anything from using materials we've never dreamed of to pre-kevlar. There's always the eternal balance of weight vs. stopping power. If you come up with a stronger material then maybe you get better stopping power. But equally you might decide to keep the same stopping power but make it lighter. The Imperial Guard don't fight (usually) like our modern Western forces. Instead they fight in massed battalions like the Soviets. When you don't get to deploy for an afternoon by helicopter and then go back to base afterwards, you start prioritising lighter gear. Plus, finally, the Table Top Game turns aren't equivalent to real world turns. So if they're basing anything at all on the odds of being killed by a particular weapon, it's off because a single shot in the TT game might be a dozen or more shots in the RPG version. As regards Feral worlds, absolutely. I want to support the widest possible range of adventures from infiltrating high society to gang warfare in the underhive. How do you see it impacting this? Are you referring to the Primitive / Modern categories in the FFG line? EDIT: I've just read the TV Tropes entry. Admittedly it is true that people refer to IG armour as "t-shirt armour"...

I've also decided that I'll reserve Damage Negation for powerfields, void shields and so forth.

I haven't done the armour templates yet for nice formatting but you can see my draft values that I posted earlier in spreadsheet form. Generally I'm having ED and PD be the same because in WH40K there's a broad mix of las, bolt, flame and slug weapons and they're all very standard. Energy weapons aren't anything unusual in the setting. If I make gross disparities in the armour, it will add a degree of differentiation that I'm not sure would be good. Bolt guns should be, except in very rare circumstances, a big step up from lasguns, not a situational advantage. That said, I have made some minor changes and there will be several special cases. For example, Fire Dragon armour will be very heat resistant and I'm making Eldar vehicles and armour very slightly extra energy resistant because I think thematically it fits.

I've now done some of the basic Imperial Weapons and started on the Xeno weapons. I need to do Flamers and Melta Weapons to pad out the Imperial roster and I should get the slug throwers (auto weapons and heavy slugger) done as well. I've also tweaked the layout template so you can see the design details for each weapon in the section as well. If anyone wants to see the weapon builds so far, I've also created a very rough export template that makes it easier to see the weapons builds themselves if anyone wants to take a look.

Question: I should be building all my guns as OAF (-1), correct? EDIT: Actually can someone just sanity check my Las Pistol build, please? If this is good I'll go on to do the rest of the initial weapons collection. Las Pistol (RKA 1d6+1E; Autofire (3 shots) +¼; Charges (30) +¼; Beam -¼; No Knockback -¼; Real Weapon -¼; Limited Range (30m) -¼; Str Min (5) -¼; OAF -1) Active Points: 30. Real Points: 8.

Varies a great deal with edition. For example, in 2nd Edition with the release of Ere We Go and Waargh Da Orks you'd have been hard pressed to beat orks with anyone except perhaps Imperial Guard who could use their standard tactic of "bury them alive in our corpses". Unless the ork player really didn't know what they were doing, you'd just get this unstoppable green tide. I once created a very tailored Eldar army to fight against orks. It was nothing but Dark Reapers and Dire Avengers (basically supreme vehicle and infantry killers respectively). I think I had some scatter lasers in there too. I had so many model substitutions with the agreement of my opponent, just to see if I could beat them. It was like trying to push back the ocean. Whist in, iirc, 5th, Orks were widely regarded as useless. They are however, both terrifying and hilarious in equal measure.