/40krpg/ 40K Roleplay General

I don't even go on this thread, but Donald trump wills it to be.

For all your questions on Dark Heresy (1st and 2nd Editions), Rogue Trader, Deathwatch, Black Crusade, and Only War.
Not the wargame. Not Chapter Master. Or Space Hulk.

Book Repositories (If you're planning to download any Rogue Trader materials, read the .txt file in the RT directory)
mega.nz/#F!Pl0UgbJa!vDtTXMKnvZ26fUbuw4X9tg

There is a new Homebrew Megafolder option in above MEGA directory containing several things formerly listed individually on this post.

40K RPG tools, a site that contains stats or references for almost all weapons, armor and NPCs/adversaries. Not updated past DH2 core.
40krpgtools.com/

40k RPG Combined Armory (v6.45.160417), containing every piece of gear in all five lines. Now containing some of the DH2 content up to the first supplement.
mediafire.com/folder/i3akv9qx9q05z

Fear and Loathing (Ver 1.5.2) and The Fringe is Yours (Ver 1.6.0), Veeky Forums made Rogue Trader homebrew supplements for playable xenos, Knights, Horus Heresy gear, and other things. Now found in the Homebrew Megafolder.

Additional Resources:
Now found in the Homebrew Megafolder.

Other urls found in this thread:

discord.gg/FpVfNKp
channel-zero.net/2014/10/dark-heresy-house-rules.html
twitter.com/SFWRedditVideos

Mandatory Discord Server reminder: discord.gg/FpVfNKp

Come voice chat with faggots.

How do you fight necrons?

By sending someone else to do it.

Last thread died after 17 replies. Just as I went on how awesome and interesting Deathwatch can be.
Thanks, Obama

Speaking of Deathwatch, has anyone made an attempt at making a 2nd Ed. as it were. Bringing the ruleset more in-line with BC and the later games?

I have no idea why people only run DW as a combat game, surely there's room for more

Probably though I'm not aware of any.

Would be eased with how Deathwatch starts you off with 4 or more exp tracks that you can translate to aptitudes.

1. Call the Deathwatch.
2. Get the fuck out of their with everything not nailed down.

My players barely spent two mags worth of ammo throughout an entire year, except for the assault marine who only fired literally one shot. And we're im a rather combat heavy game mind you.

So lots of melee?

There should be, and there is to a degree, but then again, it's also a game about the organization whose sole existence is to fight Xenos threats, and composed of genetically-engineered super-soldiers whose sole purpose for existence is war, and have little real desire for anything else.

How does that work?

That's true, definitely. Though I guess in a way the player characters are special, what with fate points and everything.

I think one of the hardest parts of deathwatch is getting that desire for other stuff going. It's possible, but difficult to buy into, especially if your spess mareen just wants to be a robot.

A spess mareen who can alternate between the former human and the unstoppable legionary is a joy to see, however.

Hey, how drastically do your groups change from beginning to end of the campaign?

>Rogue trader game begins
>have enough players to get a full crew
>They are all pretty normal sane and greedy traders
>Skip to the end of campaign
>Rogue Trader: Owns and operates several Paradise worlds and even accommodates for the xeno love.
>Missionary: Takes up animal control and owns several Godzilla size monsters as pets, also "found" an imperial knight walker and is "trained" to pilot it
>Astropath: Ended up becoming a swole 9'(2.75m) tall psybro in power armor who talks like macho man randy savage
>Archmilitant: Decided to merge his body and a lascannon together, sort of worked
>Explorator: Had at least 7 bolters attached to himself and his armor, not including the ones he wielded
>Navigator: Cyclops power gaming fuck who can destroy shit like a mofo, mutations led him to be a fatty tho
>Seneschal: Kinda a coward till he had half of his face torn off, decided he wasn't gunna take it anymore and went full reaver/colombine enthusiast
Void Master: Owns a company of 100 power armored junkies that he uses to pull pranks on the populous of what ever planet they're fucking up.

All in all, campaign ended well. I always end my campaigns with a pvp mission where they fight over control of the ship. 10/10 would GM again.

I've got Enemies Within and Without, is there any reason not to get Beyond for the full set?

How does getting into 40kRPG work? Do I use all sourcebooks semi-simultaneously or focus on just one as a DM? If so, what's the newfag book for everyone and some suggested reading (besides rules) for inspiration?

Each game line (Dark Heresy, Rogue Trader, Deathwatch etc.) has its own core and source books, similar to the World of Darkness games. There's some cross-compatibility, but you don't need the sourcebooks from one line to play the other, and will generally need to do some massaging of stats between lines to make it work.
Of the lines, I recommend either Rogue Trader or Dark Heresy to start out. They're all fine, but Dark Heresy provides a nice street level view of the setting, while Rogue Trader has one of the best basic set ups for a game I've encountered.
In case you are unfamiliar, Rogue Trader is about the PCs being in command of a star faring vessel and adventuring beyond the borders of the Imperium, essentially acting as Space Conquistadores, while Dark Heresy has them as agents of the Inquisition, secret police/spies who investigate threats to the Imperium's stability and terminate with extreme prejudice. Of the two, Dark Heresy is the lower powered. Both require a bit of house ruling to flow smoothly, the game system is a bit crap but I've come to work with and love it.

As far as reading goes, "Eisenhorn" and "Ravenor" trilogies by Dan Abnett are very good. "Ciaphas Cain: HERO OF THE IMPERIUM" is also a fun, comical take on the setting that many find endearing. The other books are hit-and-miss, but those tend to give you a nice feel for the setting.

Since I wanted to run a quick commando-like campaign, I've been recommanded Only War. Do you have any advice running such a campaign?
I've started reading the rulebook and I'm already familiar with the setting, but it's my first time GMing, so I'm looking to avoid the most common mistakes.

I got a question.

Can I play a 'hound master' type of character in any of the games? Working with a pet 'n shit, some sort of super xeno dog of sorts and stuff like that.

Black Crusade is your friend.

For Only War, I would recommend looking carefully at the modifiers for combat rolls. Remember, a singe shot is at +10 in Only War *before* you aim!
If you're planning on doing "commando" type stuff, ensure that everyone has Stealth skills/gear, and make sure the skills necessary to complete the mission are present in the party IE if they gotta blow up a bridge, make sure someone knows how to use explosives.

Thanks, I will look out for that.

Actually it's more of an open campaign in the jungle, so the PCs will have to figure out how they want to play it. They'll have to deal with tyrannid scouts and rogue Imperial Guards, the endgame being them butting in a confrontation between Chaos SM and SM in a forgotten Titan's cave.

Reading the 11th hour campaign got me the idea of slapping a tomb of Necron under the Titan. The dead awakening should put a stressing time limit to their escape, since their orbital support will also want to fry the whole area.

I liked the idea of having a time limit rendered as abstract "time points", but I'm wondering if it works well in game. Any experience with that?

Mind going over into details?

Black Crusade has the minion mechanic that lets you make followers or hordes or other such things.

An ability called Minion, it comes in lesser, plain and greater. There is also the Word Bearer Dark Apostle who gets bonuses to controlling minions.
Long story short you can make an NPC you can boss around.

Thanks!

Actually, how good are minions? Are they useful or is it something that horribly falls of later in the game, or is just plain out weak throughout?

Fairly lots of melee, but team is fairly balanced choppy and shooty wise.
A lot of time is take by roleplay, dialogues, investigations and doing fun/silly/metal stuff and lots of laughs. I had few of my stories archived somewhere, but lost the link again.

Plus my players are dodging some combat encounters as of late after learning it's sometimes better to leg it (which makes it funny to see new protesting new members not understanding why they're being dragged away from approaching enemies)

I had a player who really liked it but as he was one of those "If it's not broke that just means I haven't gotten round to making one" type players I don't know how easy or hard it would be for someone else to make it work. He was great fun to play with.

On the subject of cheese what would you say the RAW, RAI and your DM call on DH 2e Adepta Sororitas gaining corruption in character creation? For example any psycers not ATT get corruption points so would they become insanity points there may be other things in that you wish to comment on I can't be the first to think it up.

Looking over the prerequisites, it seems that a lot of fellowship is required to get something good.

Tzeentchian sorcerer who uses feral hounds as his muscles perhaps?

Fellowship is Slaanesh if you want to min max but Tzeentch isn't expensive.

Not digging the idea of Slaanesh minion master. The idea of well-composed Tzeentch-looking motherfucker who's smooth while holding something that looks like a child of a t-rex and a dog on a loose leash sounds really fun to me.

Follow your dream user you crazy diamond.

In my experience, they are pretty good if you ruthlessly specialize them. Don't try and build well-rounded, sane human beings; you don't get enough points. But if you build a murder servitor or a servo-skull or a slathering cyberhound and just leave all non-relevant stats at 01, they can be pretty handy.

I half guessed and I wasn't planning on making a human-like minion, just beasts.

Dark Heresy 1st ed Book of Judgement has robodog handlers

Dark Heresy 2nd ed Enemy Within has physic powers that summon or control animals.

>tyrannid scouts
Huh..?
>rogue Imperial Guards
These things don't really mix too well...
>then suddenly Necrons
This is all so adjunct and slightly disjoint, either I'm missing context or well, it's disjoint.

Need ideas for a character for my only war game tonight. Crunch our GM gave us:
Penitent Regiment
Sanguine leader
Hunter-Killer doctrine
Die Hard talent
Extra equipment to your standard kit:
Chain sword
Micro bead
Respirator
your choice of 2 grenades: smoke, stun or frag

For fluff we went with an Aztec theme. The characters so far are a sergeant whose name means Chocolate Man in Nahuatl and an ogryn masked wrestler called El Jefe because the player doesn't understand the difference between aztec and mexican.

>and an ogryn masked wrestler called El Jefe because the player doesn't understand the difference between aztec and mexican.

Truth be told, I'm a wishy-washy kind of GM so usually things progress at the speed of PLOT and the PC arrive when things get the most interesting. I've run a few games where time was a factor, usually to be considered during decision making. Basically, the more elaborate shit they wanna do, the more time it'll take and the more dangerous things might be by the time they arrive. I
For a military campaign, it could work well with navigating rough terrain. Say they're supposed to link up with an armored unit at a certain location at X time. A failed Navigate roll adds an hour per two degrees of failure, meaning that if they blow their rolls or slow down too much to investigate targets of opportunity, they might show up and find the Tankers have left without them (assume comms are fucked, because comms are always fucked when you're a commando).

As far as your campaign idea, consider tightening focus. I'd go with either SURPRISE! NECRONS! or SURPRISE! TYRANIDS! but not both. Chaos renegades are a good antagonist, as a relationship can be developed with them, PCs can observe their personalities and come to hate/respect particularly tenacious foes, while 'Nids tend to be just an overwhelming horde. The idea of a big fight over a Titan that's hiding something even nastier is fun.

>Scouts
I'm assuming user means Lictors/Genestealers and the like.

>ogryn masked wrestler called El Jefe because the player doesn't understand the difference between aztec and mexican.

That sounds hilarious.

If you're a Hunter Killer regiment, you potentially get to start off with a hellhound, right? That vehicle's going to need a driver (Operator, because operator) and a gunner (Weapon Specialist, because an inferno cannon that can also suppress whatever it attacks sounds pretty good).

I do believe we start with a hellhound (Xiuhcoatl), yes. Can you really use the Weapon Specialist ability with vehicle weapons?

From what I can tell by the rules, as long as the comrade is in cohesion, 'all of the targets of the weapon specialist's attacks this turn must take a challenging pinning test or become pinned'.

Problem is, the hellhound only has three seats - not enough room for you, the operator and both your comrades. One of them may have to sit on the hull and use the turret as cover or something.

Though, once you get to 2500XP, you get to switch classes - and if you started off as an Operator, and later became a Weapon Spec so your comrade can use Gunner AND Hail of Fire...
Yeah, maybe an Operator is of greater priority.

Are there stats for Chaos Marines in DH 2E anywhere? I've thumbed through the core and Enemies Within/Beyond but haven't found any, unless I missed something glaringly obvious.

I'll second DH 1e with robo-dogs and the ability to modify any animal if you get the right stuff. I don't think you get any special abilities for those though. Pyskers can get an animal as a pys focus. Thats not even talking about servo skulls

Use OW stats.

Right, thanks.

Hmm, sounds like a really fun campaign.

I'm actually an aspiring GM and am thinking about running an RT game soon and would appreciate any advice people on this board could give me.

I have two big worries.

First, that given the openended nature of Rogue Trader that some locations and characters will be much more fleshed out than others. If the PC's go to a planet I didn't expect, for example, I want there to be something fun and exciting for them to do there even if it does not directly advance the "plot." But without prep time I'm worried that the system may come across as "drab," or that the characters I introduce there may seem overly generic. I know I can't nearly plan or prepare ahead for everything, so how to you fellow GM's create settings, cultures, and characters in a sandbox universe?

My second worry is that because there is a general "plot" (I want to take the backstories of the different characters and use elements of each of them to drive the PC's towards certain objectives), that I will be either accused of railroading or that it will be transparent what I want the characters to do. How do I create a world with different factions serving their own ends and consequences for PC actions without sounding like I'm punishing characters (e.g. "By ignoring those chaos raiders and continuing to loot the Eldar temple you allowed them to seize a massive battleship that's now pillaging the sector")? [Obviously I would not do something quite that destructive to player agency, but you get the idea]

there is a space marine chapter in the fluff that took on an entire Hrud Migration. like holy shit..that would be an epic campaign or something.

How do you guys think a Chaos version of Only War would go? Something where you play a traitor regiment sounds pretty cool

You mean Black Crusade?

What sort of house rules would you suggest for dark heresy?

Is there anything for actually playing a traitor regiment for BC? I always thought it was more of an agents of Chaos thing.

There's a specific regimental drawback for that sort of thing.

Well, I run 1e, and I think 2e is supposed to fix most problems. Mostly, we just clarify and streamline a few rules. For example, we've established that a player chooses to use their dodge or not before forcefield saves are made. Basically, you can't see if your field works and then leap out of the way, you decide if you wanna dodge or save it for later in the turn and trust your field.

We allow the Fettered/Unfettered/Push rules to be used by low rank Psykers.

Enemies get Zealous Hatred.

All elite advances are at +50 xp, with GM discretion.

Logic can be used as an interaction skill when speaking with Tech-Priests and other like-minded creatures.

Rather than worry too much about weight and encumberance, we usually use "Slots". Everyone gets 5 "slots", a long arm takes up two, a pistol takes up one, a heavy weapon takes up three etc. So you can run with a rifle, a pistol, a sword and some grenades. This is stuff that's easily accessible, you can carry more gear but it'll take longer to get it out in the heat of battle.

I'm not running a low rank game anymore, but I've been toying with the idea of making all Common Lores start as skilled, to represent the basic knowledge of an Inquisitorial agent, with maybe the exception of Feral Worlders who would get some kind of bonus to compensate. It just gets a bit silly when very few people say... know that Scintilla is the capital planet or something, who aren't from complete backwaters.
I'd also consider offering a "Basic training" package for like 200 xp that gives you the sort of skills an acolyte would need (Stealth, Awareness, etc.).

I'm thinking Etzli and Itzli, twins, for character and comrade. I'll be using tats to keep count of hearts sacrificed. Does this sound good Y/N?

That sounds good. Especially the skills bit. I'm fuzzing up some homebrew rules after reading this:

channel-zero.net/2014/10/dark-heresy-house-rules.html

Hey, 40krpg, I need some ideas for my Only War game. The basic idea behind it is "[enemy] is to Imperial Guard as modern is to WW1". What sort of stuff can I do for that? Tau? homebrew some stuff?

Necrons.

You use the same reskinned material, giving your players the illusion of choice.

There is a hyper advanced word in the Jericho Reach ran by a DaoT cogitator.

The answer is always Necrons.

Bump

Enemies Beyond gives you some pretty cool talents and gear to work with
Specifically armor mods, loads of those.

Ive seen 25k guardsmen do it with accurate weapons.

Still had 3 of 7 killed and the others left for dead in a boarded ship.

Got a potential problem ahead of me, about to GM an OW game, and the heavy is in a position to grab a man-portable lascannon. That's a whopping 55kg for one man to carry, and it's a solid gun, not something that gets broken down like a mortar - and this is leaving out the arms and armour the regiment starts off with. (Admittedly, the comrade could carry the ammunition, but that's 50kg to try lugging over distances).

What would Veeky Forums suggest? Should I allow the Players to take it in turns to carry the big gun, or is it really the heavy's (and his comrade's) responsibility to move and utilise it? Or am I just going to have to warn the Player that he may need to invest in Str/Tough and the Brute of Burden talent to avoid fatigue?

Ask yourself, could Arnold do it?

GOTTA GET HUGE, SON

You could just not be a faggot and let people have fun

Probably, but Arnie's got a fair bit of XP, this guy's going to be fresh off the bus
Well, that's fair enough I guess
Nah

I guess you could just look up how much his carrying capacity is, and go by that.

I'd say go for it if it's the only thing he's carrying besides some body armor and the weapon has a good carrying case.

A quick google search "how much weight do soldiers carry in combat" shows that the average modern marine combat load is between 97 and 135 pounds. 135 pounds is about 61 kg... so it is possible to carry this weight in combat. It being 40k, I can see it possible the soldiers are weighed down even more than a modern military with gear because badass/grimdark. Of course it's all up to you how you want to play it.

Does this help?

I'm thinking of running a Skitarii game in Only War. the players would be Skitarii hand crafted from various 'heroes' by a Magos who would serve as their boss. They're on an explorator fleet, and thus can't readily replace their comrades due to the restrictions their magos places in making each skitarii. They'd travel the galaxy looking for STCs and getting into all sorts of shenanigans while being reminded that underneath the modifications they are all too human.

Good Idea? Nics pics?

They'd be hella OP unless you put them up again SERIOUS SHIT

Take a peek at the Lathe Worlds for Dark Heresy 1e, lots of fun OP Tech shit in there.
I say go for it. 98% of what Explorator fleets do is wake up Things Man Was Not Meant To Know. Being on the security team for the guys who wake up Mecha Cthulhu is one heck of a job.

>reminded that underneath the modifications they are all too human

This part is easy to fix. Just have the commander trigger the right doctrina imperative and then RIP AND TEAR.

could be really cool. id advise you to really look into all the lesser known alien races of 40k though , after all explorator fleets do go far far beyond the imperiums borders. you could have encounters with the slauth,strixis,hrud,demigurg, and you could even make some up.

>Delving into ruins so old it seems like they have existed for eternity
>Just walking around is dangerous and life threatening
>Shit has collapsed and become structurally unsound over the aeons
>The sins of the past are waiting for you in the shadows as you delve deeper

Hell yeah dog, I can get behind it

>98% of what Explorator fleets do is wake up Things Man Was Not Meant To Know.
No, 98% of what Explorator Fleets do is map star systems and enter roughly the following data again and again.
>Star catalogue designation: 94798 Frezzem. Main-Sequence Blue-White Dwarf Star, no anomalous properties.
>Inner system holds one celestial object, an airless low-mass planet composed primarily of nickel-cadmium alloys, as well as dense rad zones
>Life belt holds no planets but does have an exceedingly dense asteroid belt.
>Outer system has a gas dwarf and two airless ice-balls.
>No sign of past or present colonization by any species known or unknown.
>No anomalous properties
>Colonization priority: MINIMA
>Military relevance: MINIMA
>Scientific relevance: MINIMA
>Overall Designation: LEAST CONCERN.
>Other notes: Dear sweet omnissiah this is fucking boring.
The 2% space cthulhu is the light, exciting break.

There are carry limits based on SB+TB on p. 37 pf the OW core book. At a glance it looks like he'll need a SB+TB total of at least 9 to carry the lascannon alone without suffering encumbrance penalties (also on p.37 of OW core).

So I am currently running a DH2e campaign that starts on a feudal world with all of the party members being natives of said world thus having very limited tech and knowledge. In general I am a very open GM so, while I leave plot hooks and clues all over the place I also have no issue letting them take direction.

However I am planning a small battle for the next session in which the party will be accompanying a small army into battle. The problem is that I want the players to have a choice of work in command or combat. I'm just not sure how much to limit the command role.

I was thinking of the command role being limited to using subordinates to run orders, or set up horns to signal certain orders. How difficult should I make it for a few players to direct a force 40 infantry men against a small fortified location?

That is what comrades are for.

How well trained are these 40 men? What relationship do the players have with them? That will have a lot to do with it. Also, military culture.

If they're barbarian types, they're probably solid individual fighters but likely to ignore or disobey orders they don't trust. If they're from a culture that has standing armies and a chain of command, ala Romans, then a small unit of 40 dudes will probably be fairly easy to coordinate.

Also, depending on their dispersal 40 men really isn't that much. You might have runners and horns, but really you'll probably be able to command them by just screaming really loudly and hoping your subordinates understand and echo your commands.

The psychology of an assault on a fortification is an interesting thing to think about too. Unless there's some trickery, the odds are solid that you'll take heavy casualties no matter what you do. Do these warriors come from a culture that would embrace that sort of thing, or are they more raiders who try to maximize profit and minimize loss, and would likely scatter if things get rough?

The setting is basically renaissance with black powder weaponry available but not super common in the specific region.
The 40 men are trained soldiers. The players are under the orders of the "retired inquisitor" who is essentially a high ranking noble. The players have no relationship to the soldiers, but have been given command under the noble's order.

The attack is part of a much larger attack on enemy army. All in all the allied forces number about 800, however the 40 with the player character are heading towards a guerilla deployed enemy artillery battery.

The 40 soldiers have chainmail at best, with 12 being musketeers, 20 being spearmen, and 8 being lancers.

The fortification they are going up against is defended by 38 combatants, although 10 are manning cannons, the rest have an assortment of crossbows or muskets. Although there will be roving enemy light cav that may come into the fight

Two of the PC's are psykers, although only the party is privy to that knowledge since warp foolery is heretical

never 5get

Did not expect feels at the end. ;_;7

Yes user squad mates leaving the escape craft without permission and dying always makes people feel upset by their getting themselves killed needlessly.
He had magnetic boots.

Hello guys, i need some help.My party wants to play Black crusade in Sabbat Worlds. But i can`t find any map of this. Only a few very bed jipeg. Anyone who have Sabbar crusade poster - may you scanned it? Please.

Are you drunk?

no, english not my native language. Sorry

Ouch. 40 men attacking a roughly even force with a cannon and a fortified position is gonna be harsh. This sounds like a suicide mission, though Psykers could easily tip the balance massive in the PC's favor.
Personally, I would play up the soldier's resentment of the PC's suddenly being assigned to them, and the fact that this mission is going to leave a lot of them dead. I wouldn't quite have them mutiny, but they'll probably be surly and suspicious of the players, and may just retreat if things look especially bad and the players don't make a lot of good decisions.
Morale is going to be huge in this assault. Hope one of your players is good at giving speeches about dying for God Emperor and Country!

Yeah, I do expect a lot of my players but I also try to give them as much latitude as they can find. Their soldiers are more organized and have better weapons and two of the available approaches to the position will give them cover from treelines. Also the enemy cannons won't be able to target them due to the placements, although the fortified position does have 2 heavy crossbows mounted in the firing window to allow for defense so they will still get big projectiles coming their way.

Additionally there are 6 PCs and one is a mutant monster who last session shrugged off a doombolt. But yeah I'm definitely hoping to see how they handle the situation.

And great point about morale, since the soldiers under their command are mercenaries, and the person who gave the PC's command is basically an unknown recluse, who carries an extremely high ranking title, but barely anyone even knows about him.

Now for the setup I'm trying to consider if I should furnish the PC's with resources to make a smoke screen and If they should be given grappling equipment.

I'm open to hear ideas on things I could provide the PC's that could be used creatively to help their attack.

So I made Daft Punk as an arbitrator for a campaign

any ideas I could add to his Lore?

Official Name is Deimos "Daft" Prondel and has a tech-priest friend that makes all technology look smooth and sleek rather than just an amalgamation of grim machine parts

His body is all fucked up from a fire that his twin brother Pronsias "Punk" Prondel, making him have deadpool skin

He's still all about funk and I already got him to have the performer skill despite being an arbitrator

Any ideas I could add to him?

I have two short stories about him that I could add

That sounds pretty cool desu

Best quality heavy bolters loaded with non-standard ammunition that either boosts AP sufficiently to go through the clockwork men or ammunition that boosts damage enough to make it irrelevant.
Whichever you can get your hands on.

Even a Necron won't walk away if all shots hit their mark.

Problem is getting enough of such specialist equipment.
In addition, this will only work on the standard infantry.
If they bring anything bigger, you either need multimeltas or lascannos.

Of course, there's also daemonic weapons that will also do the trick and Tech heresy might also help as well as some of the Tau heavy weapons.

Heavy bolters on everything is my solution though.

Whyh not autocannons?

Because autocannons work on everything already, user. That weapon is the universal solution.