/40krpg/ 40k Roleplay General

30k was a mistake

Let them roll up one or more additional squads, and when convenient (like their current squads get rotated off the frontlines for a while, or a TPK, or half the squad dies at once or whatever) let them play one of these other squads. That way you don't need to abandon much, if anything, and the action is always rolling.

DM played out my Black Crusade marine's start of darkness with me.
Guy got abandoned by his fellow loyalist marines (to die in a macrocannon bombardment) and had no idea why they left him to die. Just that they were being increasingly suspicious. By the end of it (when they left him to die), he could no longer trust them, or himself.
And it's okay. He has the party (who are closer to radical inquisitors than out-and-out heretics) now. Nothing, not even his old chapter and company being on the metaphorical horizon, can end his freedom. He'll die before he goes back to the chapter.

Also, I've noticed photon grenades and stun grenades don't interact with hordes nicely. I've brewed up two rules that I think will rectify this:
>When a Photon Flash Grenade is used on a horde, the horde makes two +10 agility tests. If neither fail, nothing happens. If one fails, reduce the horde's bonus to its damage (from magnitude) by 1d10. If both fail, reduce this bonus by 2d10. The horde is blinded (ie having its bonus damage reduced) for a number of turns equal to the lowest of the two DoF it got on the rolls.
>When a weapon with both the Concussive and Blast traits is used on a horde (such as a stun grenade), roll the Concussive trait as normal. If the horde fails the test, reduce the number of attacks the horde may make by the value of the Blast trait (to a minimum of 0 attacks).

Thoughts?

I'm curious to see the Thousand Sons' rules, but desu the ones I'm looking forward to are Emperor's Children
And I probably will run an Age of Darkness campaign for Blood Angels someday, but that's not an immediate concern.
As for specialities across the gamelines, I'm torn... I don't think I really have a favorite; I like them all. I do tend to default to making agile, shooty characters, though; I'm the sort of person to consistently minmax for Ag and BS, so Finesse is a must-have in DH2e.
>tfw my DH2e ex-Administratum totally-not-a-Heretek ganger has 60 Ag just a few sessions in and doesn't care about BS anyway because he uses grenades and they always Scatter just where the Emperor intends
At least I can start funneling XP into other things now

Black crusade question for people

character with jump pack and preternatural speed talent

Base moment x 3 or x 4 when used in conjunction? (double of a double is in effect). Why or why not?

Does any have the non-scan versions of Faith and Coin and the Lathe Worlds?

Also, it is bad that I'm using 20 pages of homerules for Rogue Trader? I love the setting but damn they did they not balance the rules for shit.

>is it bad i'm using 20 pages of houserules
No.

Please post them.

I need to double check something with you guys. The storm quality says:

"This Quality doubles the amount of hits inflicted on the target and the amount of ammunition expended. For example, when firing a weapon with the Storm Quality in fully automatic mode, each Degree of Success yields two additional hits (up to the weapon’s firing rate, as normal)."

Does this mean if you had, say, a storm bolter with full auto 4, that one degree of success is enough to fulfill that max rate (2 and then 2), or the degrees of success need to go up to the firing rate aka at 4 DOS you can have a max of 8 hits? Since it starts with 'doubles the ammo expended and hits earned', and if you're firing 8 shots, why can't you land 8 hits?

I have a small problem i think.

im starting a deathwatch campaign and all 5 of my players approached me at different times asking if they could be an alpha legion infiltrator similar to the pasta that was floating around.

What do guys? i literally have a game of "i am alpharius" going on and none of them know it as none of them know each other

Nevermind, I found the answer in the Deathwatch FAQ in the errata

"Question: Does a weapon with Storm generate a maximum number of hits equal to the ROF of the weapon, or double the ROF?
Answer: Double the ROF"

Belt-fed and dual-wielded. Maximum of 24 hits a turn. Time to get gross.

I mean...you could always do an Alpha Legion team having replaced/impersonated a Deathwatch squad, or just be an Alpha Legion team doing...Alpha Legion stuff and backstabbing NPCs.

Backstabbing PCs is tricky, because some players jump the gun.

I've always wanted to do a game where I approach each player to play a doppelganger who replaced them, but they don't know each other character was replaced too. I don't think it would pan out.

They're all alpha legion infiltrators, then.
But none of them know the others are.
All of them being in the same team is not a coincidence.

What stats would you give a Borg cube in rogue trader? And how should drones be statted?
I want the crew im a GM off to face off a Borg-like alien species around the halo stars.

Went into a Deathwatch game expecting anything other than lolrandumb humor and gimmicky battles.

Hello, Nestor.

>spoiler
Yesssss. Welcome to the fold, Brother.
You can't shoot both of them on automatic at once until you get TWW, but you can just pop off a single shot of your standard issue boltgun to burn a dodge and then let rip with the stormbolter.
Not sure where you got 24 hits from, though. Two 8-shot guns firing at once is 16. If you're killing Hordes, Explosive damage type adds one kill per hit, doubling to 32. If you use Hellfire ammo, another kill per hit, so 48. Metal Storm has Blast 2, so it adds one more kill per hit than Hellfire, totaling to 64 Magnitude popped in one turn just from equipment.
But wait, there's more! Take the Bolter Drill talent and your base RoF goes up by 1, before Storm doubles it, leaving you with a pair of ten-shot guns doing four kills per hit and two hits per DoS. That's a maximum of 80 Magnitude deleted in one round, son. And here comes the best part: the Storm of Iron talent ignores multipliers stacking and doubles Magnitude damage AFTER all those bonus kills per hit get totaled up. Two talents and two stormbolters loaded with Metal Storm can let you delete 160 Magnitude of Hordes PER TURN. Make a Tactical Marine for free specialist ammunition and Bolter Mastery granting +10 to hit and +2 damage with bolt weapons in dolo mode. Make an Imperial Fist successor so you get early access to Bolter Drill from your Chapter advances table. Then dump everything into BS and grab a decent pistol in case anything gets into melee; I recommend hand flamers for hordes and plasma pistols for elites since pistols are restricted to singleshot when in melee. Infernus pistols are even better than prasma, but harder to find, and a bit special to treat as a backup weapon. You'll also want a Fire Selector for each sturm, so you don't waste hordemulcher shots on big guys and vice versa.

A word of caution; there is a Horde trait that grants immunity to these shenanigans, and your GM WILL find it and use it. Furthermore, you're gonna have trouble with heavy armour, though critfishing helps there, and one good Vehicle crit can trigger Weapon Explodes and cook off their ammo, doing more damage than your dinky little main weapon did.

Note the errata clarifies that the bonus from Explosive damage is one additional hit per attack, not per hit, almost halving those calculations.
84 per round is still utterly nonsense levels of horde damage though.

Huh, really? I thought it was just Devastators' extra 1d5 that was once per attack.
>Almost halving
Naw, Metal Storm is Blast 2, so 1 base plus 2 for Blast is still 3. 75% of the absurd 160 is still 120, or 60 without Storm of Iron, more than enough to mulch most Hordes.
As a GM, I'd respond with more tough enemies that Metal Storm can't hurt without Fury, enemies flanking so Independent Targeting is needed to divide the guns between targets, enemies smart enough to spread out too much for the "allocate additional hits from RoF to nearby targets before rolling damage" rule, and the occasional Relentless horde, which RAW only ever takes 1 magnitude damage from any ranged attack without Spray or Flame. (FFG really screwed the pooch in Deathwatch with some of their wording of 'attack' versus 'hit.')
I'd also throw in some longer missions where ammo has a chance to run out, and maybe cut down on requisition for smaller missions. Storm Bolters are cheap at 20 apiece, and you can sig two of them by Rank 5 and even Master Craft one, but that still leaves you paying for Fire Selectors, possibly vox-operated for hands-free use of the fire selectors, and any specialist ammunition beyond a Tactical's one free magazine. Granted, you pay the same cost for special mags as a regular boltgun does while the Storm Bolter makes it last longer and hit harder, but that still adds up. A Tactical Marine dual-wielding Storm Bolters loaded with Vengeance ammo for heavy targets Metal Storm ammo for hordes, and regular boltshells for trash mobs is just nasty, though.

As far as I can tell the math works out like this:
40 (for 20 Blast(2) bolt shells with Bolter Drill and Metal Storm) plus 2 for 2 explosive attacks (bonus is applied per attack, not hit), then you double that for Storm of Iron and get 84 magnitude damage.
There is no mention of Blast(2) being in addition to the first hit, so it seems to simply replace it. If there was a Blast(4) grenade would do 6 magnitude damage tops, would it not?

I'll open up the book and check this evening, but I was pretty sure it's additive. I used to think it replaced the base hits, but I was corrected by a fellow player - and if it replaced base hits, there would be zero mechanical reason to ever take Metal Storm ammo when Hellfire costs the same, doesn't have a penalty to damage, adds a bonus magnitude damage vs hordes, adds Vengeful (9), and ignores natural armour. I took it anyway when I thought it was worse just because I wanted to see a volley of bolts explode into shrapnel and razorwire to make Ork salsa instead of bioacid shells making Ork soup, but Hellfire is usually fluffier for the Deathwatch since it was designed to fuck over Tyranids and other monstrous creatures.

Would it be possible to run a WFRP style game in the 40K setting? A game where the player characters were normal, everyday people until dire circumstances recast their fate? Or is the 40K setting just too hostile to the little guy?

I have the pdf available:
"A Blast weapon that hits a Horde hits a number of times equal to its Blast value. So a grenade with Blast (4) will automatically hit four times if successfully lobbed into the Horde."
So a Blast(2) Metal Storm bolt shell would (by that reading) hit twice. Hellfire rounds are arguably better. But Hellfire Rounds can't help if you need a Blast value.

Dark Heresy 2e.

Isn't that about Inquisitors, though? I gather they're not exactly everyday people.

Take a look at the book. DH2e is very adaptable; just avoid Roles and Backgrounds that aren't appropriate, like anything that grants the Tech aptitude, and alter the weapon proficiencies.
It's not about Inquisitors unless you want it to be; by default it's about the schmucks who do the Inquisiton's legwork, scrambling around at the whims of an =][= trying to deal with any heresy before it gets too bad.
Well shit, I'm houseruling that; frag grenades need all the help they can get. I can't think of any time you'd need a Blast 2 value.

It's about acolytes, moreso. So is DH.
You think inquisitors choose to go in and get murdered by genestealers or heretics when they can send in disposable idiots instead? Amberly Vail was the exception, not the rule.

You've read The All Guardsman Party, haven't you?

Missed that you wanted it to be 40K setting, not Fantasy outright. Roles and proficiencies don't need alteration, then, but I'd still strongly consider restricting Backgrounds. Otherwise it's exactly what you asked for.

Frag grenades with blast(4) hit 4 times but they (probably) have the explosive damage type. They do 5 magnitude damage, user.

Yes, they do. I'm still houseruling Blast as additive; most Blast effects are singleshot and won't be rendered OP by a single extra kill, while it gives Metal Storm a niche purpose over Hellfire as the premiere mulcher of Hordes.

Tell me, I'm kind of fascinated by Malfi.

Any of you ever played or ran a game on Malfi?

I might be sending my players there and need inspiration.

I like that idea. Plus, that will give them a chance to play another unit type, like armor, etc.

Thank you kind user.

Anons, I am going into one of my first DH2 games. I know the mechanics and what I am doing, but have never roleplayed with the inquisition. I am planning to roleplay an Asta Telepathica Mystic with the Astropath elite advance. Is there anything I could do to stand out from other psykers without seeming snow flakey?

Don't worry about "sight through the warp". The GM pretty much said that Astropaths have almost perfect sight even though they have no eyes anymore.

I Found You.

It'd be funny if he was surprised by something and rubbed his eye sockets in disbelief.

Remember that every world and culture has it's own opinions of what psykers are and mean.
What is the culture of your own world, and how does it figure into your opinion of yourself and duty?
>Example
My current pc is a low strength (PR3) witch who doesn't consciously use his powers, hell, doesn't even believe he is a psyker and would deny if fervently if someone told him he was.
This is because on his world, psykers are either bad fortunetellers that roll chicken bones in mud to tell your fate (bullshit), astropaths that send messages in the void (legit) or IG psykers that blow everything the fuck up (scary as shit).
My pc has powers that are rumored to be possessed by the "great hunters" of old, sight beyond normal men, reactions that belie belief, can "feel" the world around them on a whole different level, all psyker powers with no visible manifestations to clue them in on what is going on.
Think the nonsense (truth) the Space Wolves believed about Fenris on a personal scale.

INTRODUCING CHAOS WORLD, BLACK CRUSADE RPG SYSTEM

This is a fan made Black Crusade RPG that uses the Dungeon World mechanics. My friend made this after we tried to play Black Crusade, but the rules bad. We found it to be a lot of fun, check it out and see if you like it too.

The guide does not have the depth of lore that the official Black Crusade book has, so I suggest keep a hold of your copy. There are currently 16 classes
Berserker. The bloodthirsty front-line melee combatant.
Chaos Dreadnought. The walking tomb that provides heavy support.
Chaos Raptor. The flying terror, destroyer of hope.
Chaos Sorcerer. The true master of sorcery and the Warp.
Chaos Spawn. The loathsome failure transformed into a mutant horror.
Chosen. The champion whose undertakings please all of the Chaos Gods.
Dark Apostle. The reverent and faithful servant of the Chaos Gods, pure in evil.
Exemplar of Slaanesh. The arrogant and agile warrior.
Exemplar of Tzeentch. The manipulative mystic.
Noise Marine. The hedonist who uses sonic weaponry.
Ork Freeboota. The orkish pirate.
Plague Marine. The nearly invincible soldier of foulness.
Possessed. The chaos space marine possessed by a daemon.
Rubric Marine. The immortal, soulless ghost.
Veteran of the Long War. The 10,000-year-old marine who despises the Imperium.
Warpsmith. The master of machinery and forbidden science.

drive.google.com/open?id=0B5YFWXuYbtXbRUFjazItWTF4TVU

Why does every header look monged?

Seconding this. Post em.

Take a guess

Cause the author spent more time on the game, and less time on crafting the perfect header

... That's great, but just having it stay on one line, or at least not split the letters of single words between multiple lines, would be nice.

Up to 1/4 page wasted on formatting failure is just being difficult.

I'm actually getting ready to run a game sorta like this. My players are all going to be Feudal worlders who don't actually have any knowledge of the rest of the Imperium. They have been hired by their local lord to look into some unusual murders and I plan to have them stumbling into an Inquisitorial investigation later on.

I'm running at using 2E and I did have to tweak the backgrounds a little bit. Home worlds are now fluffed as just what sort of area you grew up in since they are all from the same planet. The Background I allowed all had to be tweaked slightly for gear and talents, but it was pretty easy to do. Limited the available Roles but otherwise didn't change them any.

One big change I made was to split Weapon Training [Low-tech] into melee and ranged. I have a few other house rules but they are just minor tweaks that I prefer over the RAW. I like to call it Dungeons & Dark Heresy.

I'll pass that along. What do you think of the game?

I haven't played DW before, but I'm looking at getting a group together to try this.

So here's an interesting idea:
If a player in Black Crusade turns in to a chaos spawn, but the game has progressed enough that the group as a whole has a rather sizable force of chaos worshippers, maybe some daemon engines and some other things running about, would they reasonably be able to just have that chaos spawn be a part of their forces? Preferably kept somewhere away from everyone else, of course, but a useful shock troop nonetheless.

I'd say so, and advise having them make an up-and-comer from among the warband rather than adding plot of someone else joining up with the leadership so as to avoid distracting from whatever else is going on, unless that plot is desired. I assume if you guys are hitting the Corruption cap that you've got other plots going on and writing in a new character from outside the warband would be jarring.

Just from peeking at your post, could use Exemplars for Khorne and Nurgle, since the other two get both those and the associated Cult Marine. I like the idea of Exemplars.

Thats true. Part of that was from the lack of Green God and Red God fans in the crew. There should be a little something more for the those factions.

Part of the reason I am posting this: the game is being overhauled to be more tactical, so people could use their miniatures if they wanted to. Its a living project, like most fan projects, so it could really benefit from having some more "eyes on it".

Considering that you've got Raptors listed and describe Dreadnoughts as heavy support, Havocs might be worthwhile, though they could possibly be handled just by giving a Chosen or VotLW a heavy weapon. Similarly, Mutilators and Obliterators might as well have rules since other final fates - Dreadnought interrment and Spawnhood - have classes.
So then Exemplars and Cult Marines make 8, Chosen, Veterans, Raptors, and Havocs make 12, Possessed, Dreadnoughts, Obliterators, and Mutilators make 16, and Sorcerers, Apostles, and Warpsmiths make 19. Could maybe throw in Bikers too? It seems like you've got a lot of stuff that's in the Codex but not necessarily BC; might as well go whole hog and give a rule for each Traitor Astartes-based unit, as opposed to mortals, machines, and Daemon Engines.

I'm a bit leery of the name, but I'm never going to say no to seeing more houserules, to pick stuff up for my own games. Mind posting what you have?

Dark Heresy 2e question

My astropath has unnatural senses and can "see" out to 36m, which is his Willpower score

Can he only see line of sight like a normal person would, or does he see everything out to 35m using is psychic awareness?

Like if there was an open door 10m away could he see 25m of the next room if he's not directly in front of the door?

Also can I stack Psy Focuses?

>Can he only see line of sight like a normal person would, or does he see everything out to 35m using is psychic awareness?
Ask your GM. Literally no one else can tell you how they're going to rule it.

No, cheesemonger.
This. The game is fairly open about what Unnatural Senses provides.

Just curious if there was more detail elsewhere in another book I'd missed.

Thanks.

As far as hard crunch changes, my tweaks are pretty minor. I've implemented a monetary system instead of using Influence for purchases (Influence is still used to purchase social favors though). I prefer combat to be on the dangerous side, as to persuade my characters from going full murder hobo as they are often want to do even when they have been specifically informed that they should use more subtle tactics, so damage caps have been removed from most Primitive weapons and if a weapon has any Pen left over after armor, half of it (rounded down) is applied to the targets Toughness bonus. Primitive armor is as in 1E where it only counts as half against "modern" weapons, which makes the limited number of black-powder weapons available in the setting quite a bit more powerful, not to mention the super rare "magic" las-weapons.

Home worlds I'm allowing are Agri, Feral, Feudal, Frontier, Hive, Penal, Research Station, and Shrine. I'll allow Highborn in a special case since it would make a character an actual noble, and thus give them some serious social perks. Backgrounds are Administratum, Arbites, Guadsman, Ministorum, and Outlaw. Roles are Assassin, Chirurgeon, Crusader, Desperado, Fanatic, Hierophant, Sage, Seeker, and Warrior.

If you want to see what the starting gear/traits i did for the backgrounds just let me know.

Hi guys, so i'm a player in a dark heresy game and me and me and my group encountered our first signs of a existing chaos cult,

"Orbital bombardment" is in this case not an option, since we need the city as intact as possible.

How do we make sure, that all heretics are as dead as possible ?

Observe and infiltrate the cult. Identify the leaders, and as much of the rank-and-file as possible. Be subtle. Be quiet. Wait for them to be organizing a mass gathering. Then round up the Arbites, PDF, hired gangers and whoever else you can, go in loaded for bear and burn them alive.

Figure out how to gather them all in one place, lock the doors, and burn it down.

Okay, so "gather in one place and mass execution." got it !

Gathering them is good, but infiltration can be worth the risk, because it makes it harder for some to slip through the cracks and escape to refound the cult.

Turn to Slaanesh and join them.
You know you want to.

Also a decent option desu, especially if you can deceive and co-opt Inquisitorial resources to serve your ends.

Fortunately not one that affects us RPG fans in any meaningful way.

I posted here a few weeks ago. I'm planning our groups first OW campaign around the Ciaphas Cain novel Death or glory.

The campaign would start with the (not yet) squad on a transport in the warp. I was thinking that they'd have all of their equipment on them and in the same general area with the reasoning being that they were going to a live fire wargame sort of thing.

The transport is going to get pulled out of the warp early due to some weirdboy warp fuckery and the transport is going to get broadsided with some serious orc firepower. I'm going to have a few small boarding parties for the group to have to fight off on their way to some escape pods and maybe some zero gravity/zero oxygen shenanigans. Once they get to the escape pods and rewire it, they'll blast off towards the nearest imperial planet (their regiment's original destination). I was thinking that this would give them a chance to RP a bit and lay the groundwork for having such an unorthodox squad composition.

Thoughts? Any suggestions at all would be great.

Sounds pretty great. Keep in mind, though, the survivable nature of the decompression rules, and consider making your players aware of them too, so they realize they can survive sprinting through vacuum for shorter distances. Or don't, and watch a bunch of Guardsmen freak out over a situation they were never trained for.
You might want to have maps prepped in advance if you're not going to fiat them along the right path, but Imperial ships are so fuckbig that that's easier said than done - just have something in mind for dealing with forks, whether it's a Navy deserter leading them in exchange for protection from Orks or Orks rampaging. The xenos incursions, though, could just as easily motivate them to attack as to avoid, depending on the characters. What sort of Regiment did they make?

They made a cadian regiment since it's right down the middle. None of them are huge into 40k though and only one knows the lore passably well. I'm the only person with actual knowledge of the lore in the group. We're going to spend the first session doing chargen and I'm going to brief them on their commander, background, regiment info, mission, etc.

Are there any good maps for imperial ships? It's honestly gonna be pretty railroady at first I think, since this is more like a prologue than anything. Just a way to get the whole non-conventional group together in a lore friendly way. (pretty sure I'm going to have a Commissar and an enginseer, probably an ogryn, basically a mostly specialist party.)

Also, how do you guys work command structure? I'm going to have an NPC NCO leading them for the first few sessions but he's going to catch a bolter to the brain when I feel like it's time to take off the training wheels and the party is ready to do its own thing. We're going to have a Sargeant for sure (one of our better players, the other PCs will most likely want to follow him) but the commissar could override him if he wanted, right?

How do I handle command structure, or do I just let them figure it out with absolutely no input or nudging?

>basically a mostly specialist party
Ugh
Every time I try to play Only War it turns into this and I hate it
If I wanted to play a Command Squad of snowflakes I'd use R'Myr's rules for playable Tau

>Command structure
I'd let them figure it out, but lay down some ground rules during the ooc parts of the briefing and exposition during gen. Make sure they understand that Sarge is In Charge, maybe establish the Sergeant PC as a Corporal to keep him subordinate to the NCO and lay the groundwork for an emotional field promotion, but also that the Commissar has authority to countermand the sarge's orders and assume direct control. Above all else, though, stress that players should try to avoid being dicks to each other with command structure, because that's ruined far too many good games. It might also be worth pointing out ooc once they make planetfall that with no supply lines, Comrades will be hard to replace, and that the Commissar must carefully consider their worth before executing any.

>First signs of chaos cult
Oh fucking boy, the same thing happened to my group recently. Don't do the same thing!

>Be investigating new sect of the Imperial Cult on some planet to see if it's heretical or not
>Discover some definite Chaos at work in the lower class
>Planet's highest Ecclesiarchy member requests we "shake down" the planet's most powerful crime family
>Could help us in investigation
>Most of this crime family lives in an abandoned, crashed space ship out in the marshlands
>Walk right into trap: offered food in a room to wait for the family's Lord, doors seal shut, poison gas a la Phantom Menace
>Cut way out and fight through some guys
>Group finds ship's old munitions, huge bombs the size of a person
>Think, maybe we should try and sneak through at this point, get some information so we know what we're up against
>Nah, we'll blow up the entire ship
>Move bombs through ship with no way to remotely detonate them
>Not everyone is along with the plan but oh well
>PC kills himself to cause essentially a nuclear explosion in the home of the most powerful family on the planet
>Subtlety 0
>Star civil war on the planet
>Turns out they most likely weren't even heretics, and thought WE were heretics sent by the Ecclesiarchy (which is probably heretical)

>If I wanted to play a Command Squad of snowflakes I'd use R'Myr's rules for playable Tau
I agree wholeheartedly, but as soon as they made specialist a subset of classes, it was going to happen.

And thanks, I'm screenshottting this. I'm not going to put them through the meat grinder until they hit perlia's first city and they won't have a chance to get new comrades until then, so about 5-8 sessions in.

I'm really excited about this. Are there any suggestions for how to balance encounters? I'm our groups most challenging DM so I want them to be hard but not overly lethal.

Am I the only person who played OW and didn't have a mostly specialist party? The one game of it I got into, I was playing the only specialist, a psyker. Rest of the party was sergeant, weapons specialist, operator, operator, heavy gunner.

I always just wing it for balance. I have an intuitive sense of it that I have a hard time conveying, but my All Techpriest Party seemed satisfied while I ran for them and Deathwatch has gone well so far, with the players genuinely threatened by Tyranids' Razor Sharp melee biomorphs.
The main things to keep in mind are soak, raw damage, and evasion. If anyone makes a marksman, think about letting them elite Inescapable Attack, otherwise their long-las may do approximately jack shit as enemies only need a bare pass on Dodge to negate it. Carefully consider whether to give any bosses a force field, as it makes them more survivable but with a random element - I've seen a PR30 or so field negate every hit by one player in a combat, leaving him feeling useless while the rest of us flooded the boss with attacks to break through the dice gods' will and kill the fucking thing. As for soak, keep in mind four things: armour vs penetration, unnatural toughness vs felling, base toughness (vs the rare-as-fuck Fleshbane), and cover adding to armour. It's Only War, so don't be afraid to have the Boyz spam fullauto or use high-pen plasma weaponry; dakka has a small chance of landing hits on exposed heads or limbs while Guardsmen peek out to shoot, while high pen weapons will punch through rubble and wear through more solid walls. Try to prep maps in advance and decide early how many AP a bit of cover is worth, but if you keep FFF's table of exanple cover values open you can get away with winging it.

That leaves raw damage. Keep an eye on that and how it measures up to soak; remember that your PCs are benefitting from Lasgun Variable Settings, and then tally Armour plus Cover minus Penetration plus Toughness Bonus versus damage. I like to have a spread with no more than a 30% chance of bouncing with a 3- on a d10 or oneshotting someone into crits with an 8+, but this part is very up to you, especially for Guard versus Orks - Boyz probably won't bother with cover much.

When I played, I was the only nonAuxilary, a Weapons Specialist alongside a Priest, a Psyker, a dropout who doesn't count, and later a fucking Ogryn.
Ogryns fly in the face of balance, because they ignore conventional combat balance by being unable to Dodge or Parry in exchange for being so fucking tough that they really don't need to. They're either going to get torn apart or tank everything, unlike Guardsmen who can be genuinely threatened and srill prevail.

Now that shas is making a 30k book, people are occasionally talking about it. My poor filter can't catch EVERY instance of reference. I can only try to note who enjoys 30k filth so I can make sure to never invite them to my games.

>filtering anything
>ever
How does it feel to be a salty little milksop who can't handle different opinions or preferences?
Do you also ban anyone who's ever played D&D, or Shadowrun? Your playerbase must be pretty bland.

I've been told full auto is op. Is there some errata for balance that I can look up?

Fullauto is rare in Only War, and you'll need it if you want Ork shooting to threaten Guardsmen in cover, but you could import DH2e's rate of fire modifiers.
In 1e, singleshot is +0 and only scores a single hit (excepting Qualities that increase hits, like Storm and Twin-Linked), semiauto is +10 and scores an extra hit per 2 DoS up to the firing rate (so an S/3/- lasgun needs 4 DoS to land all three hits), and fullauto is +20 scoring an extra hit per DoS up to the max firing rate (so a -/-/6 Heavy Bolter needs 5 DoS to land all six hits).
2e reverses the bonuses, making singleshot +10, semiauto +0, and fullauto -10. This cripples Ork shooting but makes fullauto less of an autotake for PCs, as they need to already be accurate to capitalize on the better DoS returns. Given the difficulty of Guardsman logistics, I'd stick with 1e; fullauto tends to be either piddling in damage or a Heavy/Mounted weapon anyway, so they'll be sacrificing mobility if they want to man a ruined Chimera's multilaser. (Which would actually be a neat extended encounter - get to the Chimera, use it as a bunker to fight off encroaching Greenskins.)

Depends which of the games you're playing, it has different rules in DH1, RT and DW than it does in BC OW and DH2. In the older ones full auto/semi auto/single shot give +20/+10/+0 on rolls to hit, whilst the latter three are -10/+0/+10. If you don't want people getting more bonuses to hit at the same time as getting more potential hits you can just take the newer systems rules and use them in the older versions.
There's some argument to it being okay in DH1 since ammo supplies might actually be limited to a reasonable degree, meaning full autoing everything will make you run out occasionally if you aren't careful.

I'll take your advice. If I feel like the players are abusing it I'll swap to Thanks for all of your help guys. Out of curiosity, how railroady does OW tend to be? It seems like there aren't a lot of ways to handle encounters.

Like every other system, it's however railroady you make it. With the situation on Perlia, you should have the freedom to do things however you choose - you could let them bumble through the wastes, drop them in Ork-held territory right off the bat, or have the NCO lead them to a settlement where they get embroiled in fighting. The railroad tracks are always what you make of them - you could sandbox it, which isn't always doable but should be here, or you could use encounters, narration, and carrot-sticks to move them where you want them. It's all up to what you want to run and think your players will enjoy.

Advise on running Black Crusade? How much hand holding vs sandbox is it supposed to be?

Do the rules support playing a Scion/Stormie in Dark Heresy 2e, like even at a stretch?

>>Turns out they most likely weren't even heretics, and thought WE were heretics sent by the Ecclesiarchy (which is probably heretical)
user, everything is heresy. The letter of the law doesn't matter, nor does the spirit of the law, nor does basic fucking reality. Everything is heresy, you only need to apply the proper spin.

TFW I continually try to find a DH2 game to be a part of for 30 days now and get nothing.

Run one!

I really don't want to run another 40K rpg game. I am already running a Rogue Trader, Only War, and Deathwatch game. I had ran a DH2 game already and all I want to do is just play a campaign that won't die after 4 sessions.

>Imperial Guard Background
That's it really. I mean outside of the IG a Stormie is really only different from a regular guardsman by their armour and gun, and they would give both of those in once they leave the IG.

Why the fuck are you in so many games?

There wasn't enough 40krpg games out there so I felt like running a few for people, but now I am getting burned out and I just want to be the player for once.

Aight cool.

>play Only War(catachans)
>GM doesn't allow creating large pendulum log traps