knasser2

Q. What's the difference between a Good Guy and a Bad Guy in WH40K? A. When the Good Guy executes 1,000 people per day to consume their souls, he's doing it for a reason.

Wow. I'm creating some sample characters at different power levels so that I have something to work with in testing out weapons and armour levels. I'm going with the points values I had earlier and I'm having trouble spending them all in a way that I think is realistic for the character conception. For example, I'm creating a standard Imperial Guardsman (a typical soldier in the setting) and I seem to have successfully built him with just 66 points. Joe Guardsman (66 POINTS) STR 14 DEC 12 CON 14 INT 10 EGO 10 PRE 8 OCV 5 DCV 5 OMCV 3 DMCV 3 SPD 2 PD 4 ED 2 REC 5 END 30 BODY 10 STUN 20 Run 14m Skills: Combat Driving, Concealment, Knowledge (IG Procedures), Language (Native world), Survival, Tactics, Teamwork, Transport Familiarity, Weapon Familiarity (Las-weapons) Either I'm missing something (perhaps CSLs but they seem very odd and confusing to me) or I really need to adjust the standard points totals to account for the fact that equipment is provided. The above was supposed to be "Competent Normal" but he's not even close to needing 100 points.

It's one of the most extraordinary settings ever created. It segues from insane comedy to the blackest of themes and back again without ever really losing you as a reader. The novels range from bitter trench warfare to Machiavellian politics to Space Opera on a scale that would make Star Wars look like a one act play set in a small town bar. I pitched it to my players with "How'd you like to play Catholic Space Nazis rooting out free thinkers in galaxy-wide fascist regime?" (They said no so I rephrased it). It's theoretically fantasy in Space, but through a glass darkly. The original RPG had three rough tiers of play, each their own game line. Dark Heresy, in which you played agents of the Inquisition and is so back-stabby and treacherous it's the only RPG I've ever seen that includes Audible Range as a weapon characteristic. Rogue Trader in which you play the captain and command crew of a giant trade ship (literally a thousand people aboard is a low number) and is a mix of wild space adventures and "uneasy lies the head that wears the crown". And finally there was Death Watch in which you played members of the different Space Marine chapters. The ultimate warriors of Man. Which was very much focused around missions to win victories against the many threats to humanity. It's really an impossible setting to sum up, except perhaps to say it's the game that introduced the word "Grimdark" into the English language and if you want to see people in power armour slaying demons from the warp whilst being stabbed in the back by space elves, it's the game for you. There is literally a main battle tank in the game that has a giant altar and organ built into the back of it which shoots missiles from the organ's pipes. It's piloted by space nuns because the Ecclesiarchy was banned from maintaining a force of men at arms by Imperial Edict, so they created a battle force comprised solely by women to get around it.

You say you're not familiar with the setting but whilst this is probably too much for Imperial weaponry, it's oddly reminiscent of the 2nd edition rules for orks. Ork mekboys would sometimes have to roll for random results such as their Shokk Attack Gun which teleported snotlings (think tiny goblins) right up to the enemy to prevent them getting shot whilst trying to get close. Random rolls would have them appearing inside enemy vehicles, inside enemy armour (!) or on the very odd occasion, inside the enemy. There was also, iirc, a bouncing bomb. (Literally, it would bounce around the battlefield before detonating) and an anti-gravity weapon called the Lifta-Droppa. Which lifted enemies high into the air before cutting out and letting Mistress Gravity do her thing. I'll save this for orks but I'll use the CV modifiers for xenotech (alien weaponry) and maybe some of the more esoteric Imperial weaponry. It might be useful for Space Marine weaponry to stop regular people using it as well, although Strength Minimums will also help there. Thank you for this.

Perfect. It's more appropriate than you realise because technology in WH40K is archaic and treated with religious awe. Lasguns are designed to be incredibly robust and simple. Basically, put some poor kid in a uniform, press a lasrifle into his hands and make him charge at the enemy. Whilst something like a plasma gun probably has about eighteen different buttons and dials on it that the owner doesn't dare touch because his great-grandfather once pressed one and it spoke to him High Gothic. I think that would be more useful for vehicles than guns in general, but there are definitely some great cases where it would be useful. Thanks a lot for this idea.

Oh, that makes sense. My unfamiliarity with Hero showing! Yes, that would be helpful. In the specific case of Space Marine armour (power or Terminator), you can't use it according to the fluff without the right spinal implants. But there are other sorts of power armour and similar cases with other equipment. I can see how this would be useful. Thank you both. (Although the Gretchen with a Storm Bolter scenario is kind of funny. )

I think that's what I want. The ability to have a squad of Space Marines battling their way through an endless horde of cultists whilst at the same time not making them insanely different from the human baseline. (Just awesome). That sounds potentially better. Well, simpler. My feeling is that the current half-armour deal might be best though because it creates tiers of play a little. Halving armour makes a battle between two Space Marines more even whilst still creating a sort of power step between them and an Imperial Guardsman with his flashlight lasgun. I'm not sure what you mean by this. Abilities for the character that make them better with a particular weapon? I can see that being a useful ability but it feels separate from power-balancing the weapons. Incidentally, is there any way to switch to writing replies in BB markup rather than WYSIWYG? I don't know how to split up quotes in this.

I need to come up with some sort of approach to implementing reliability for weapons. Something that lets me make las weapons (a firearm you can literally throw the charge pack in your campfire to recharge it in extremes) highly reliable and things like autoguns (modern day SMGs) less so. That lets me do things like have Space Marine bolters be highly reliable and Imperial Guard ones the sort of thing that might back fire and take your arm off. So the axes of win-lose that I'm teasing out at the moment are: Damage - Armour. (The basis for everything) Armour Piercing - Hardened. (A common way differentiator for weapons) Strength Minimum (Going to make a lot of use from this. E.g. a shuriken pistol has very little recoil, a bolt pistol is like holding a panicking jackrabbit) Penetrating - Impenetrable. (Used less often and only for the really awesome gear like Terminator armour and Autocannon) I need to think seriously about how I'm going to handle autofire, as well.

I'm basing it primarily on the FFG role-playing games for stats, modified by lore where necessary. So the crazy variable history of the table top game I'm sheltered from, thanks! 14/14 sounds okay for Terminator armour. Perhaps a little low for mine, but I'm still working out weapon damages. This is a very preliminary draft (so not everything makes sense, like the ranges which are still just flat numbers and I'm just eyeballing some numbers at this stage).

Massey - those sample stats are great. I'm actually thinking I'll pitch Space Marines a little higher. I've been reading some of the Chris Wraight 40K novels and I see Space Marines as less elite mooks (aka table top version) and more heroic individuals. I want them to not be superheroic, but to have very little in the way of weaknesses. Able to fight for hours, yet still could theoretically be killed by a well-placed bolter shot or concentrated las fire. My provisional power break down for starting CP is as follows: · Inquisitorial Play: 175 points · Rogue Trader Play: 225 points · Space Marine Play: 275 points I'll set some characteristic minimums (especially in the case of Space Marines). Whilst that may seem low, WH40K is quite gear focused and I expect people to be able to obtain weapons appropriate to the tier of play. So a Space Marine character wont necessarily have to include Power Armour in their 275 points. (Anyone see a problem with that?) I notice you gave both the SM and the Howling Banshee Spd 4, btw. I was thinking Spd 2 for most "human" characters, and Eldar might have Spd 3. (Banshees with 4 might work. They'd be pretty terrifying but then they're supposed to be).

Penetrating and Impenetrable seem like they'd be a great additional axis for weapons / armour. For example, I could add Penetrating to weapons like Thunder Hammers which even if they don't penetrate I could see rattling you around in your armour like an egg in a steel box. Similarly, Impenetrable would be a great quality for Terminators and Dreadnoughts. I haven't got to the stage of tactics and similar, but you're saying there could be group tactics abilities that characters could purchase? WH40K is quite militaristic. It's entirely likely that you'd have the entire party comprised of Imperial Guard (regular army) or Space Marines (super soldiers) so special squad tactics, if there's a way to do this, would be amazing. Is there any way you could do this in Hero? Lets say hypothetically something like "Coordinated Fire Defence" - something each character participating would have to buy and let you do something like give a boost to each participating squad member? Or "Concentrated Fire" that let you combine attacks to overcome an opponents high armour. E.g. if a Space Marine Squad were working together to take down a dreadnought (stupidly tough things)?

Actually, "WH40K Hero" sounds wrong. I think for this setting the game system should be renamed "Protagonist" or perhaps "Least Awful". :D But humour aside, I'm taking a stab at building WH40K in Hero 6E. I've seen a couple of other people do bit of 40K in Hero and I think the system can work very well for it. Better than the Dark Heresy / Rogue Trader / Death Watch game systems did. I love the amount of nuance that Hero can bring to the setting. 40K is very weapons-heavy for example. A system that just says "Lasgun does 2d6, Boltgun does 2d6 and -2 to Armour, Plasma gun does 4d6... and so forth," doesn't reflect it well enough. Whereas in Hero, the Bolter can have a high Strength Minimum to reflect its rocket-propelled ammo, the lasgun can do energy damage, the plasma gun can negate armour and have splash damage and so on. This nitty-gritty feel is very important to capturing the feel of WH40K. I also like very much the way I can build different tiered games with it. Everything in WH40K is going to be at Heroic rather than Superheroic level. But within that I can fairly easily further divide it into Inquisitor (gumshoe level heroes who can get stabbed in the back), Rogue Trader (Awesome people who are still essentially mortal) and Space Marine (genetically engineered perfect warriors with the best equipment the Empire can provide). I think I'm going to have a dozen little questions so rather than flood the boards, I'm putting them all here. My first has to do with Armour Piercing. I understand how it works mechanically but I lack the experience to tell how it will effect the game long-term and this is a foundational decision for how I implement weapons and armour. In the WH40K table top game it's a simple roll of your armour value or higher to negate damage and some weapons have an armour piercing value (-1, -2) to reflect their deadliness. In the FFG role-playing game, it's a flat damage reduction, much like in Hero. Again, you have some weapons that have AP values (-1, -2) that offset the armour. This is pretty critical element of the setting. People in power armour should be able to wade through las-pistol fire with a low chance of being harmed whilst shuriken weapons have a good chance of penetrating. Should I liberally scatter stacked Armour Piercing and Hardened qualities throughout my weapon and armour lists respectively? Is this a good approach? So for illustration purposes only you'd see something like: Flak Armour (Defence 6) Carapace Armour (Defence 9, Hardened) Power Armour (Defence 12, Hardened x2) Terminator Armour (Defence 12, Hardened x3) Lasgun (2d6) Boltgun (2d6, Armour Piercing) Shuriken Catapult (2d6, Armour Piercing x2) Shuriken Cannon (3d6, Armour Piercing x4) And so forth. Basically, is throwing different ranks of AP and Hardening everywhere a good approach? WH40K is very combat and gear focused so one of the start points for my attempt is the guns and weapons. I want to pick the right way at the start as everything else will build on it. Really appreciate any thoughts, even just general ones.

Nice find. Going to try some of that!

I regret to inform you, I was. If I look at a system and it has detailed rules for hit locations, differentiation of armour values between physical and energy damage, rules for growing tired and other such nittiness and grittiness, I think of realism. Fooled, I have been, then!

Sometimes these forums feel like some medieval court, with a group of learned judges chewing over some fine point of law with each other. Is it really intended that way? I always thought it was intended to be a very nitty-gritty realistic system what with hit-locations, weapon lengths and all that. Might explain some of my confusion if it's meant to be more of a Princess Bride, Errol Flynn affair. That makes sense. But I steer clear of the Martial Arts rules as much as possible. That might be a huge mistake given I want a bunch of martial powers but I get confused by it for a number of reasons. Firstly it's written in places as if there are supposed to be named Martial Arts, as if a character will study Judo or Karate or Boxing but I don't really get how such things intersect with the Hero rules generally. The distinction between powers and martial manoeuvres is something I don't really understand either. So I've been trying to build martial powers as Powers. E.g. if I create a "Sweeping Blow" for a knight character that lets him knock all those around him prone, I build that as a power. I had initially thought that Martial Manoeuvres were simply pre-created powers but the interactions with CL and PSL sort of blurred the boundary for me. I don't think you can get CLs with Powers can you? Two shots someone might still get up. Three, less so! Yes, it's off-topic but it's my thread and they're great movies! Hmmm. I had better have another look at Grab and how that might break my game as well, then. Thanks. Can you explain what you mean by #2 on your list. I don't understand.

Huh. *goes back to re-read Blocking rules* So they do. Presuming they act in the same Segment. Thanks.

In my game, I don't use ED specifically for against magical attacks. Rather magical is the chief source of Energy attacks. It's an important but small distinction. I use the FHC suggestion that armour has half its rating against Energy attacks (with some nuance not worth getting into). I was trying to go for a little bit of Rock, Paper, Scissors given that mages are generally weak to physical attacks but knights are vulnerable to spells. I like synergy and tactical cleverness in my games so a well-rounded party is expected to have an arcane magic user amongst them. A further important refinement I made was to add Counter-Spelling. Arcane spellcasting in my game has a mandatory Spellcasting skill roll. Another mage can make an opposing Counter-spelling roll to "Block" the spell and they can do this on behalf of others just as you can use your shield to Block for others. When you put the two together you get a lot of tactical cooperation between PCs where the mage is a key element for using Energy attacks against opponents and for blocking incoming. It's a little Eggshells Armed with Hammers, but I like it. It encourages thought and planning.

Also, I'm probably being dense but could you explain what you mean by the above?

Too many replies to respond individually but thank you to all for taking the time. So the first thing to note is that I was unaware that there is a -2 OCV penalty for trying this. I looked up Disarm in the index and it said 6E2,60 so that was the page I went to and I read all the rules for Disarm under it. It only says "make an Attack Roll" and the penalties it does suggest are specific to circumstances such as two-handed weapons. Only after reading the replies here did I go back and look at what I thought was a summary table four pages earlier, but which actually turns out to contain vital information! Namely -2 OCV. I do seem to keep running into issues where the rules information is scattered. Okay, so now it doesn't seem as bad. I think combining it with some abilities that help prevent disarming it might be okay. It does favour certain types of fighter though. The nimble duellist with his rapier is going to find himself rather easily disarmed by the burly thug who has far more Strength than the dextrous defender. I don't know if that's realistic or not but it's certainly something I have to anticipate and deal with if I don't want light and agile PCs to be victims of casual disarming. Or vice versa. It's going to suck if every time "Zorro" fights an orc he finds his rapier stuck in a nearby tree. So how would I buy "Disarm Defense" for a character? And what would it cost?

Granted, it is realistic. There is a reason some knights had their weapon chained to their armour or belt. But that said, I'm not coming at this from the perspective of a player that the GM might use my own tactics back at me, I'm in the position of a GM that wants a variety of martial powers for characters and is trying to balance something and suddenly found the backdoor is open whilst I've been securing the front of the house. A melee focused character is likely to have a high strength, often higher than NPCs. Most characters, NPC or PC, will do their damage via a weapon. This is like in a Supers game being able to shut down an enemy's main power. I think I'll have to adjust it, maybe give a Strength boost to the defender somehow.

Seriously? I do not at all mean to be confrontational and hope I'm not, but I'm staggered. The PC knight Hero McLightsword squares off against Baron Badness, Both have their sword and shield in hand and Baron Badness wields the Dread Darksword, the grand finalé villain is prepared in his platemail. He's got high PD, rPD, Body, Constitution and Stun. In short, McLightsword is going to have to work hard to whittle down the tough old baron. But then he rolls an Attack Roll and wins a Str vs. Str (about 50/50 chance) and suddenly the Baron cannot hurt our hero. Well, he can flap at McLightsword with his hands but realistically without a weapon he's not going to achieve much. So he'd better toddle off and get it whilst McLightsword wails on the poor Baron. When the Baron has his weapon back (which he has to use his Phase to both go and then pick up again), McLightfoot can go again. In a pure one v. one, the additional disarm actions reduce the amount of damaging hits McLightsword gets in but it repeatedly neutralizes the Baron. Being able to render an enemy unable to damage you in exchange for giving up a single damaging blow is very powerful, imo. Especially given the subtle tactical benefits such as it opening up the ability to harm an enemy that would shrug off damage, to direct them where you want (you choose where to send the disarmed weapon forcing them to follow and it would be the easiest thing in the world to send it to a friend who could get it before the enemy's Phase), Plus it can be utilized against special items like a wizard's staff or wand, the Mighty Artifact of EndGame. It makes solo villains very hard to pull off with even two PCs vs. a single one because one can keep the enemy neutralized (and if the first fails one round the second can do it) whilst the second piles on damage.

I was just creating powers for a "Knight" character and wanted one of them to be an improved disarm that made it more feasible for her to disarm those she fought. So naturally the first thing I did was look up the standard disarm rules with the idea of maybe some PSL or something. But wow - all you have to do to disarm an opponent is a standard Attack Roll followed by winning an immediate Str vs. Str. It's not certain, but if your character is strong (as most PCs will be vs. standard opponents), you've a really good chance of taking their weapon from them. That's REALLY powerful in a Fantasy game. You instantly turn your opponent into someone who can't hurt you. And they have to go and get it if they want to be able to continue fighting. What do other people do for their games or have their players simply agreed not to abuse this? Or do they just mostly fight monsters rather than other characters who fight with weapons?

Thanks. I didn't spot that previous thread. I'm going to maintain that if that's official rules then it's pretty bonkers. I can't imagine it flying with my players.

Thanks. That would explain why I couldn't find it. For a rule-system that comes in two 400 page volumes, that sounds like an amazing oversight.

Thanks. That sounds sensible. Actually it allows for some considerable nuance in having environmental effects that run fast or slow - for example, navigating through some ice caves where movement sets off flurries of falling ice shards (high Speed) or the booming of some terrible titanic bell that feels like a body blow (low Speed). I like it. But is this a rule from the book anywhere or just something you came up with? Because I've been unable to find a RAW answer to this.