knasser2

I've created a template and data store for weapons as well now. If it seems a little odd that I'm creating draft output formats before resolving all the mechanical details, I find it motivating to see something like a final form becoming populated. Even though this is likely to get embellished a lot before I put it all together.

Old Man - I do not wish to even talk of the recent abomination. It's also a disaster waiting to happen as GW reveals books designed to encourage young children into the setting and a parent inevitably realises that setting includes elves that literally have to torture people to live and "mutants" are sought and slaughtered by an Inquisition and they're the 'heroes'. It's like the childcatcher from Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang. Ninja-Bear. I wouldn't call the Black Market "legit", but yes, it's been going on for a while. Especially the Forge World models which can be upwards of £400. Do not buy suspiciously cheap WH40K minis from Chinese addresses!

Oh, I assumed Ninja was talking about one of the role-playing games like Deathwatch. If you're talking about the tabletop wargame, then yes - balance is all over the place and always has been. GW mess up the balance every edition and codex and it's widely presumed to be an attempt to keep people buying new armies as many younger players like to have the strongest faction. Though I've heard that 8th edition is actually shaping up to be a huge improvement in terms of balance. Also... Noise Marines. If ever anyone thought WH40K wasn't gonzo enough...

I tidied up the vehicles a little and I also took the time to create a preliminary layout template for them. There will be similar for creatures, characters and weapons / armour. Here's an early-stage preview. Now onto building all this stuff properly with CP and fleshing out the details.

Ah, that blip mechanic where you'd never know how many genestealers the blip represented so you'd take a chance, open a door and three of the buggers would leap out and shred you. I looked up their stats earlier for this. The current tabletop has them moving 1.5x as fast as humans but the FFG RPG version had, I shit-you-not, 4x the speed of a regular human. Closest thing to a teleport a living creature can get! I don't know what I'll do for them in this yet, but they'll definitely be calibrated as Space Marine level opponents. For anyone who doesn't know what we're talking about, GW took the creatures from Alien, gave them two extra arms and a life cycle that was twice as terrifying.

The carapace seems to have been dropped in later editions. Their power armour is going under equipment and is not being paid for with CP. Same as everyone else's equipment.

That's right - I was going to use DN as suggested. I'll revise my vehicles to use that. Well currently I'm building this as an analogue for the FFG game lines. So it's humans only. If an Ork shows up, it's an enemy. That said, orks are pretty terrifying regardless. I recall a line from the legend of Ghazghkull Thraka where when subduing an exceptionally ferocious warboss it's accounted that he had to cut off the warboss's head twice before he finally surrendered. I see no reason why orks can't be pretty horrifying. I mean there's not many species where if you hold a severed limb in place long enough it will reattach itself. (For anyone not familiar with the setting, orks are essentially fungi. They grow from spores). I don't intend to try and balance orks and Space Marines, in short. It would be pretty easy to create an ork character that was if you wished, though.

Outline of a few of the iconic WH40K vehicles just so I can complete the final vertex of my triangle of balance along with armour and weapons. Whilst it might make vehicles seem tougher than in table top, I'm keeping in mind that a turn in table top represents multiple shots back and forth. (At least I figure it must unless a large combat engagement lasts 18 seconds). On to proper draft weapons, characters and powers, now.

Thanks. I was looking for a way to do the not bleeding out thing, and lo! and behold! it actually exists. I've already added Life Support and Longevity. I'll post an updated one in a bit. I'm currently working on vehicles as I want to make sure the weapons vs. vehicles matches up fluff wise next. Once that's done I'm going to begin doing proper write-ups.

I fully intend to share it when done. I'll hopefully write it up as a proper little document with sample opponents, equipment and abilities. A setting that has a character named "Orkimedes" who is a genius ork, or where the Imperium of Man has actually codified in their strategic documents how many lives one day's loss of production is worth for a particular Hive World city (it's one million lives per day, if you're wondering), deserves a good rule system!

I don't think factoring in gear to the character builds will work. It would if I were trying to build a tactical war game of set units like the actual WH40K game, but for a role-playing game where gear will frequently be looted, requisitioned or assigned by mission superiors, it's not going to make sense.

Tabletop has a simple 1-10 scale for strength with regular humans being on 3 and Space Marines on 4. It's not very helpful and the RPG line which was percentile based, tried to follow it. And then had to put in some very ugly hacks called "Unnatural Strength" and "Unnatural Toughness" to say that they got more strength bonuses than their strength score. All in all, it's not very helpful and I'm sticking to the fluff. The fluff varies (as somewhat do the Space Marines themselves) too, though. You have the Primarchs who are the founders and were only 20 18 of them. Regular Space Marines... I'm looking at the strength chart in 6E1 and grizzly bear is at 20. They should be able to wrestle a grizzly. That's nicely cinematic and certainly fits. They should probably be able to carry a horse over their shoulders (strength 23) and I'd say they could lift up the end of a sportscar and turn it over, but picking it up is pushing it. There's also the issue of their power armour which in some fluff enhances strength and in others is kind of glossed over. I did find a 24 page debate on how strong a Space Marine is (including the opinion "as strong as five small ponies") so I'm just going to settle on 23 being the standard. I'll be okay if the occasional Space Marine is lower or higher.

Thanks. I've grabbed it and found the military templates. Yes, this might be helpful. Lasguns aren't really weak penetration. They're more the settings basic firearm. Everything else gets compared to them. The next step up are bolters which only elites tend to have. I'm putting Reduced Penetration on Needle weapons, which are poison weapons. They're extremely lethal but get blocked by a winter coat. What's going to be really fun is next up I need to do melee weapons. WH40K has some of the craziest melee weapons ever (including one that injects and expanding pellet of monofilament wire into your opponent's body).

Okay. That makes more sense. I was going to say the same as Old Man. If you've ever seen Gods of Egypt, then the way they showed the gods against the mortals is about how the Primarchs (who are bigger than Space Marines again) roughly are. My reason for pitching it there was that I'm basing this on the guidelines in 6E1, pg.35. It listed the upper bounds of Heroic as Char 10-23 and as that's around the CP that I was using as my starting point, I figured 20 was about right. I wanted to leave a little room to grow. And according to the Strength chart, at 20 you can lift a grizzly bear / 400kg. That is lower than our real world deadlift record however (500kg). The increase to STUN and END is interesting. I've been running Hero in a realistic fantasy setting and our END and STUN are much lower. There aren't guidelines for these by power level unlike other attributes so I guess I've been a bit off on what is normal. Should I also increase these for the Imperial Guardsman (a normal soldier) earlier, do you think? I left TF and a few others blank for now because this is a provisional template. Different actual characters will have different particulars based on role (e.g. some might fly anti-grav vehicles, some bikes, some jetpacks, etc.). Thanks for the help. I'll raise Speed then, but it will be across the board, not just for marines.

I think to reflect that most "powers" are in devices which are typically provided or obtained in this setting, I'm lowering the CP points for each of the tiers down by one. So I'll have: Inquisition Tier: 100 CP Rogue Trader Tier: 175 CP Space Marine Tier: 225 CP. I've now created a standard Space Marine. Please let me know what you think, especially if anyone has familiarity with WH40K. Note it's significantly more heroic than Massy's, earlier. Which is intentional. I want something closer to the books where they're more fight on for hours, run for days, Know No Fear types. These people start at around 7½' tall and have genetically engineered muscles, bone density, secondary heart... But they're still flesh and blood. Basically as good as advanced science can make them and still be human (ish). Space Marine (193 CP); STR 20 DEX 15 CON 20 INT 15 EGO 20 PRE 18 OCV 8 DCV 8 OMCV 3 DMCV 3 SPD 2 PD 9 ED 9 REC 9 END 50 BODY 20 STUN 40 Skills: Combat Driving, Concealment, Knowledge (Space Marine procedures), Knowledge (Chapter History), Knowledge (Xenos), Language (Native world), Stealth, Survival, Tactics, Teamwork, Transport Familiarity, Weapon Familiarity (Las-weapons), Weapon Familiarity (Bolt-Weapons) Heightened Senses (Sight), Heightened Senses (Hearing) (+2 Per roll on each) N.b. No Space Marine character may have any characteristic below 15. Different chapters of Space Marines have different specialities and gifts, so I figure the remaining 32CP can easily find a home in minor abilities and extra skills. Thoughts?

I see. I can see the sense of it. But I don't think OCVs and DCVs will get too out of hand. Most play will be in the Heroic range (from Standard, Powerful and Very Powerful categories). You get some very heroic characters in WH40K and some naturally very skilled ones (Eldar Harlequins, Exarchs and Dark Eldar come to mind) and they'll push it up into the 10+ range. But in WH40K a lot of the power progression comes through deadlier and deadlier firepower. I think DN is probably best kept for vehicles and vehicle-equivalents (like the larger Tyranids) in that case. I don't actually want Space Marines to be immune to small arms. Just immune in practice if that makes sense.

I am using 6th. Why would that be better? (This is not snark).

Anyone got any thoughts on the Imperial Guardsman I posted earlier. If not familiar with the setting, Imperial Guard are your regular army so just think standard soldier. He seemed to only cost 66 CP to get him to what seemed right so either I'm missing obvious things he needs or I need to scale back the points values in the book (he's supposed to be Competent Normal, 100CP) to account for the fact that this will be very Gear based.

Yep! Exactly what I was just looking at. To be honest, I'm no longer that concerned about the short ranges. I'll boost up the sniper rifle as suggested and give it IMR and RMod. Maybe something for the mid-range weapons like Lasguns and Boltguns, too. On review, I'm not too worried about melee being diminished. If a fit human (14m Run) can almost cover 30m in a Turn, then it's not a problem. I mean, if Usain Bolt can run the 100m in under ten seconds, imagine what a Tyranid Hormagaunt can do. ?

Unlike my faith in the Emperor, that which I place in table top rules is somewhat more finite. Still. there are logical reasons for some of it. Bolters fire actual tiny, explosive-tipped rockets. They're self-propelled so who can say what their realistic range is. Las weapons are very sci-fi. Again, it's reasonable to be a bit negotiable on that. But autopistols, autoguns, heavy stubbers - these are our real world pistols, SMGs and machine guns. Effective range of a pistol seems to be around 50m (massive generalization) which seems far to me. 30m seems alright but I might compromise and put it at 40m. With the range modifiers they'll already be at -6 by that point which is plenty. 100m seems the right effective range for an SMG (Autogun) so this is starting to look alright, actually. Sniper Rifle has 1,000m though which is way over what the book gives. I'm probably willing to compromise a little on realism here as melee combat is a big part of WH40K. Engaging your enemy from 1,000m makes that difficult. But then on the other hand, how often do I run adventures set in a featureless desert?

Good call. I need to have a serious think about how to do ranges in this. Currently they're a cut and paste from the Dark Heresy game so I had a starting point. But I suspect they're based directly on the table top game as they seem like they are a little off in places. I'm fine with a pistol being 30m. Sniper Rifle at 200? Not so sure.

That's interesting Lucius. Good to have a reference as the next stage is to start building these properly now I have the desired stats. Massey - I take it back. I originally pitched the terminator armour higher but I had to reign it in a bit in the end. That said, I have my power armour significantly above yours. I think that's because I don't want to directly reflect the table top outcomes. After all, in tabletop each turn actually represents many shots plus I want to shade this a little bit more towards the fluff. So whilst I want to keep what is possible in table top possible (someone with a lasgun killing a Space Marine), I want to make it the preserve of skill or fortune. I think with the stats I've worked out below I can have some heroic and skilled PC(s) with lasguns take down a Space Marine, whilst still have that same Space Marine slaughter their way through two dozen of the PCs' comrades in arms. I think Flak Armour + Lasgun vs. Flak Armour + Lasgun works fairly well. What do people think for a start? You don't need to know the setting, just if there seems to be a reasonable power balance between the armours and the weapons? If I'm happy with this as an outline, I'll start building them properly and add all the extra little powers like strength boosts for Power Armour and deadly malfunctions for plasma weapons...

Ha ha! Well AIs are banned. Or perhaps more accurately can no longer be created. And for good reason. There's a historical period that details the "Iron Men" which was essentially when robots tried to enslave / wipe out humanity. So AIs were largely destroyed. That's one of the reasons the Imperium of Man is in such a mess technologically. There are tech priests and a lot of them actually do understand science (somewhat), but most of the technology was built with advanced AI / computers which they no longer have. It's like how you might understand all the principles of fusion and how you could create a magnetic containment field to hold the plasma in a torus, but without systems that can perform the thousands of computations per second to make it work, it doesn't matter. You can't build one. They've got all this incredible technology lying around and they can use it, but not build it. There are automated factories that churn out vital components necessary for war machines and nobody dares touch them or stop them to take them apart and examine them because they might not be able to start it up again. Imagine you have a computer that you don't know how to turn on. And it has all your vital work on it. And there is no backup. There are actually some AIs still in existence. Of a limited kind. They call them "Machine Spirits" and try to please them. So if you accidentally activate your tank's auto-pilot and it starts careering across the landscape to some long-gone city with you stuck inside it, you've angered its machine spirit and you'd better hope there's a tech-priest around who can recite the Psalm of Manual Operation that will placate it. ?

I don't think anyone can afford GW's miniature prices any more. I think they're classed as a commodity now and people just trade in Futures on them. If Bitcoin fails when the world's economy collapses, we'll survive by returning to gold, silver and Games Workshop character models.