/40krpg/ General

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Oh. Looking at what it does, I don't think you'll find anything that specific for 40k RPGs.

Have you ever used anything from other games in your games? To clarify, I mean using stuff from Shadowrun or Eclipse Phase, not just using Only War stuff in Dark Heresy.

2000 in total. I'm leading a two squads of Guardsmen as a Penal Colony Assassin. The guardsmen (through a Commissar I sequestered) been trained to near Schola Progenium levels.

My GM calls it "Baby Deathwatch" because we all have Carapace and Bolters. The melee face-grinder of the party wanted to be the Color Sergeant, so he has a massive standard alongside his White Scars Eviscerator.

Shadowrun works pretty well for that Hive feel. Grimdark it a bit further for that 40k feel of course, but the broad strokes are there.

I enjoy using Stub Pistols. I know they suck ass and basically require GM fiat to be useful in any scenario outside beginning DH1e or maybe OW, but there's just something that feels nice about them.
Like vintage.
No heat bolts, no exploding rockets, no flashes of light causing intense, lethal, heat burns.
Just good ole fashioned gunpowder and lead.
Is it just me?

Would it be fun to have a game where you're lower ranked tech-adepts working for some bigwig magos and doing what might be considered inquisitorial things if you weren't Admech?

Does the Admech take kindly to inquisitors snooping around their worlds?

>Does the Admech take kindly to inquisitors snooping around their worlds?
Beaten up and left in a dumpster sort of kind, yeah.

>Would it be fun to have a game where you're lower ranked tech-adepts working for some bigwig magos and doing what might be considered inquisitorial things if you weren't Admech?
Personally, I'd love to take part in a game where you're only just high enough to be somebody to hive scum nobodies. Reclaimators, Scroungers, Underhive Merchants, etc.

Nope. One of the relics that our little retinue owns is a Heavy-Stubber called "The List," which is simply an M2 Browning. On the side of the weapon, there is etched the following...

>AFRICA
>ITALY
>FRANCE
>GERMANY
>KOREA
>VIETNAM
>LEBANON
Then on the other side...
>IRAQ
>AFGHANISTAN
>KOREA
>MEXICO
>CHINA
>MOON
>MARS

Then the list stops. We believe that it was due to the fact that the Mechanicus doesn't want anybody to further deface it. The few papers we can pull on the weapon state that it serviced multiple airborne vehicles. It's most notable deployment was getting blasted out of the sky and then being torn off by a Guardsman of an unknown regiment, who proceeded to use it to hold off a horde of demons before getting torn to shreds. It was then recovered, and then the weapon was sanctified by the Ministorum.

It still functions perfectly fine.

I like this

>what's the current power level of your current campaign?
The lowest player has 36k XP, the highest is topping out at 60k xp.
Don't ask.

How do these stats look for admech NPCs?

Looks quite alright, user.

Isn't this just Shas' stuff but slightly different?

Shas doesn't have NPC stats that I'm aware of save for the Tech Thralls. I derived everything on here from Mars needs women, though.

I have no idea how I did this. Opened the pdf and I was immediately at the page. (pg 54 for reference)

holy fuck I'm tired..... just reread.
The Thallax have rules in GBAL. I'm going to fucking bed. Good night user.

I used those stats, yes.
Thanks mate

Here you go, user. It's not the best cap but it's the one I have handy.

He does, though not in the books.
I know because I remember exactly how nightmarish fighting them was.

3D10+8 pen 4 with tearing and razor sharp is broken, you are averaging 23 damage with a re roll for a chance of higher damage and a chance to have pen that will get through power armor. that will 1 shot any player unless you role really low, your average player has 12 wounds and 3 toughness. even the toughest character the gaurdsmen who start will armour 4 all over and probably has toughness 4 16-20 wounds. they will fucking die, that is just too powerful. also lightning claws shouldn't have more pen than a power sword

No, I must know more

So I want to run an Imperial Navy game where the players start as mid-level deck officers or their equivalents throughout the ship. What system would work the best?

I'm going to guess it's the one with voidships, but you could use anything except the two where you play as spess muhreens.

I'm going to start a dark heresy session with my regular p&p group. is there a nice short oneshot with the thousand sons as antagonists? I don't want my group to be totally fucked in their first wh40k session but I want them to be totally fucked.

The lightning gun is a single shot autocannon on tabletop, except with shittier pen. it does have a chance of breaking even terminator armor if you're lucky. It seems fine for what it's supposed to be.

it's an antivehicle weapon, if you're shooting fucking guardsmen with it you're doing something wrong. and deathwatch marines can survive that, so it's fine.

I'm just using Shas's stats for those. Being a non-tt fag, even I was surprised to see how much rape Thallaxes are capable of putting out.

The ironic thing is that on tabletop thallax fucking suck.

In terms of points, not effectiveness.
They can't be spammed with impunity in order to delete meq forces, so of course 30k admech players don't like them.

The game has been going on for just short of 3 years.
You need to figure out what you actually want to do.
As a long time GM, the weight of the 40k setting isn't something that really comes across if you push the herp derp grimdark shit all at once, it make you look like a tryhard.

>your average player has 12 wounds and 3 toughness. even the toughest character the gaurdsmen who start will armour 4 all over and probably has toughness 4 16-20 wounds. they will fucking die
I'd argue that the average player has around 8 wounds and 25 toughness, but player CHARACTERS will vary by gameline. If the group is playing Black Crusade, they could easily have Chaos Marines with AP8 (negated by Razor Sharp), Unnatural Toughness (+4), Toughness 40, True Grit, and 20 wounds. So they're shaving off 8 damage from each hit that doesn't have Felling, they still get 4AP if Razor Sharp doesn't proc, and they have True Grit halving any critical damage they take. Even just Guardsmen can survive fine with, again, True Grit.

It's strong, and it has a good chance of gibbing mortals if it lands a hit on them, but the system is rocket tag, and avoiding hits is more important than soaking them. It's not broken or overpowered, it's a serious threat that the players will focus fire on to take out once they recognize the threat it poses - that, or they'll flee or surrender. There's no obligation to make things unable to oneshot mortal PCs, and Thallax are the Mechanicum's elite shock troops. Lightning guns have serious downsides with range and rate of fire, but they pack a huge punch and are wielded by jetpack infantry who can shoot through walls; cover will not help, which is the greater concern than the raw damage, but they're singleshot, so you only need bare success on dodge to avoid getting hit. And ultimately, that's how you survive in these games: don't get hit. The roughest, toughest, tankiest PC, be he Plague Marine or Deathwatch Techmarine, is ultimately a sitting duck for anti-tank if he can't evade it.

I suggest DH2e. Its Imperial Navy background is geared heavily towards playing officers, whether the proper commissioned sort or the slaves promoted to slavedrivers in the lower decks. You might borrow some ship-related mechanics from RT as well.

>There's no obligation to make things unable to oneshot mortal PCs

If the DM wants me to keep coming to his game, it is. If my character gets killed and nothing I had could defend against it, then I'm in a DM's novel, and I walk.

I dunno if burning Fate Threshold to avoid certain death only showed up in DH 2.E but that might be worth adding in.

Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out then.

My immediate reaction is to say:
>what game did you think you were playing? Did you think you were a hero?
>the system is rocket tag
I don't really mind this, but damned if it doesn't get annoying at times.
I'm in a high level game, and the stark realization that were it not for the rosarius I looted, I'd have been dead many times over because I keep finding myself alone and outnumbered horribly, and still had to pull some outrageous shit before I got it, means no battle is really satisfying unless enemies are also made of similar amounts of bullshit.
>taking on 12 dudes alone in a tunnel with just a sword and going full Grey Fox is still my favorite personal moment in a game, however

That's always been a thing, except that it wasn't called "Threshold," you just had a given number of Fate Points you could spend once per session or burn to use up permanently. Same mechanic, different terminology.
>If my character gets killed and nothing I had could defend against it, then I'm in a DM's novel, and I walk.
You could dodge. You could flee. You could not even get in the fight to begin with. Do you even Inquisition? Open battle is far from the only tool at your disposal, and Thallax, as noted, aren't typically gonna be deployed against squishy humans in the first place.
Agreed, it is annoying sometimes, and can make combat feel like a slog after more than a few months of combat with shield ratings in common use. It's a reality of the system, though, and it can be fun a lot of the time, even though anxiously rolling for PR50 and praying to the Emperor can be less fun than lower levels' greater emphasis on stealth/cover and dodge/parry.
>12 dudes in a tunnel with just a sword and going full Grey Fox
Are you that one Assassinbro teamed with the psychotic Sororitas who stormed a heretic bunker?

...

Deathwatch storytime featuring the elf-eating brother Arkio

>Are you that one Assassinbro teamed with the psychotic Sororitas who stormed a heretic bunker?
Yes, and now we are doing it again.
We found what we believe is their main base, located in the psyker holding lands of this world, and the sororitas has decided to lead a direct assault against it with 60 armed witches she has suborned to our cause.
I think it is folly to take a small force of bumpkins against a well armed, organized force of trained heretical warrior psykers, but I have no right of command.
So I'm talking a squad of 9 and leading a hard knock unit that will accompany me in a zone mortalis assault. I desperately hope the other players have plans in mind, because this is going to be bloody as fuck.

If you're playing a Warhammer based game and not at least half expecting your character to get fucking gibbed from 300 metres away by a stray shot from nowhere then your expectations are retarded.

These are specifically for a GBAL game set during the Imperial Fists' escapades on Mars. Not only is it a losing battle canonically, but the legionary strike team still has a full array of Auxilia, Legion, and Taghmata support at their disposal. I think the Thallax are fine for cohorts of mini-bosses.

Looking for ideas on what the acolytes will encounter in the daemon cult worshipping caves/daemonette lair.

Drugs

Sex.

I would have the PCs test against the hallucinogenic, shocking and toxic qualities to represent the bizarre ambient environment effects. Or have them test against some drugs, might be worth a laugh or drug addiction.

How would you go about playing a post-Gathering Storm campaign with high level inquisitors and his group? My current idea:
>they take all their assets to preven the destruction of the Gothic sector after the fall of Cadia
>traitor mechanicus in the ranks
>it's a fucking slaughterhouse
>they get voided
>they wake up
>a now 600 year old inquisitor that helped them out during their acolyte years goes "I'm afrair it's been 200 years"
>they go nuclear on the chaos fucking shits

How about making brewing something yourself instead of meddling in that bile of puke that is Gathering Storm?

Haha, great post!

My GM is having us convert to 2nd Edition Dark Heresy. I have to make my Psyker from scratch, and I've suddenly lost access to Minor Psychic Powers, lost the reward for investing in one discipline, and have lost half of my previous skills. Am I missing where they're supposed to be, or do Psykers just suck in this edition?

There are minor powers in the additional splatbooks, look it up.

Also, don't bitch you special snowflake. Psykers are still good, they are not so snowflake-y as they were. Now fuck off and read the splats before I slap you for making opinions before getting to know the material

What could I reflavor different archetypes to be? Should I make something like the regiment creation charts?

Which one? The GM only has the hard copy of the core rulebook.

Check out the MEGA on the first post.

I did. Enemies Within doesn't have any Psychic Powers mentioned in the table of contents. Neither does Enemies Without or any of the Character Creation supplements.

Aint helping you if you are so lazy

Not him but the powers in the splatbook are still pretty crap. Some are useful, sure. Most are garbage.

They overreacted regarding the brokenness of psykers when making DH2

I've scanned through both Within and Without now... I didn't see any mention of minor powers in either... And I wouldn't think it's lazy to be hesitant about reading 300+ pages of extra material when I'm, just looking for cantrips.

Beyond?

Enemies within, page 59, Minor Psychic Powers, right there in the table of contents

>And ultimately, that's how you survive in these games: don't get hit. The roughest, toughest, tankiest PC, be he Plague Marine or Deathwatch Techmarine, is ultimately a sitting duck for anti-tank if he can't evade it.

Yeah, isn't it nice how shitty our combat system is?

>dude, if you don't have a borked agility stat then don't even bother trying to be a front-line character lmao

Granted, I'm not sure how one would go about fixing that issue, but it sure does make it frustrating trying to create a melee character that isn't functionally a ninja.

Thank you.

I like to steal archeotech ideas from other stuff, like a Wand of Fireballs becomes a very portable grenade launcher

Fucking retard.

New to /40krpg/, and I could use some npc stats. Is there a book these come from I could look into getting, or is it fan made stuff I could find online?

That particular screencap comes from the Homebrew that is listed in the OP, specifically, Mars Needs Women. I would recommend using 40k bestiary to narrow down some NPCs that you want and then go and find the book that they are in.
The homebrew is good for additional content though.

Awesome, thanks!

>What could I reflavor different archetypes to be?
Don't do that. Give the players enough information to pick archetypes that correspond to the role they want to play.

You'll probably want to get a copy of Into The Storm for the ship roles (p224 onwards), regardless of whether you choose DH, OW, or RT.

I've been planning out this story arc for my DeathWatch players thats going to involve corn deamons and I wanted to make this big challenge for them of escorting a princep to a titan bay with some pretty serious consequences if they manage to succeed or not does that sound stupid to you guys?

So my players in Rogue Trader just found an Emperor's Children space marine that has been in stasis since the Horus Heresy on a ship that got lost in the warp on its way to attack Terra. Would that marine's armor have been repainted by then or would it still be using the old colorscheme?
None of them should know he's a heretical marine unless his armor would already be plastered with chaos symbols, since the closest Lore skill any of them has is Scholastic (Lore).
What will he do when he wakes up from stasis?

fuck him first. Establish dominance.

>repainted
Depends when he was interred into statis
>None of them should know he's a heretical marine ......blah blah
Yep, unless chaos symbology, heretical attitude, etc etc.

I mean, did they repaint right away? There's an NPC Order Hereticus Inquisitor traveling around with them and I want to know if she'll recognize the traitor right away or if she'd have to roll something.
Also, what's a good statblock to use for a Heresy era marine?

>I mean, *story congruent to my narrative*
Dunno lad, you decide.
>statblock
I would use the Deathwatch Chaos Marine entry.

Ordo hereticus might not know about the former color pallet of traitor legions since current ones are more used.

Well, depends on how it is executed. Rather a daemon incursion on an agriworld would be rather significant.

The real question is what happens when he finds out my players have a Runecaster full of soul stones built into their ship.

Well its going to start off as daemons want to diddle an important tithe world (Which I have yet to name) then goes full fucked in the face call in the adeptius titanicus mode, the princep's transport gets shot down and its up to my boys to go rescue his ass while putting down as many deamons as possible

That depends how well that chaos marine knows of what slaanesh likes.

The issue with that is that when titans deploy, they also have a fuckton of support from other admech forces and other imperial organizations. They could be the spear tip of rescue forces though, with a lot of allied NPCs to help out.

I'm working on an upcoming campaign of Rogue Trader converted to the updated mechanics of Only War and DH2e. Aptitudes, half-action full/semi-auto, melta guns that don't suck, the whole shebang.

I'm not great with Psyker stuff, though. Is there anything I should be cherrypicking from OW/DH2e psyker abilities to enable for an Astropath to use?

Why not just let them pick from OW/2e stuff as needed? They'll usually be a bit to a lot more powerful depending on the power.

>Escort gets shot down in mid transit as he's being escorted out of recently lost imperial stronghold on the planet
>princep survives crash
>my boys get sent via drop pod to reclaim him and escort him back to the imperial controlled part of the planet

>Give the players enough information to pick archetypes that correspond to the role they want to play.
What do you mean?

Shields (board-strapped-to-arm, not forcefields, though those are nice too... Storm Shields are a lovely two-in-one) help, but ultimately you still need some way to reliably get into melee. Once you're there most enemies won't risk shooting at you; Target Selection is an expensive talent, and without it they're taking -20 to hit and risking hitting whoever you're fighting... but Agility covers movespeed as well as Dodge, making it effectively mandatory for melee characters.
>crawling through ranks at a rate of 250-300 XP per session isn't fun
What is fun, then? Do you expect to pick up two skills or a tier3 talent after every session? 200-400 XP is just right for there to be a sense of progression without it feeling like the PCs are magically getting better at stuff in a day of Inquisiting than their whole life has made them. People bitching about not enough XP per session is exactly why some GMs assign XP at the end of the mission.

Funny thing, actually; there's an archeotech miniaturized grenade dispenser in the books that's basically exactly that.
One of my players once used some Eclipse Phase flavoring for a techpriest from an Ark Mechanicus, but I can't recall them ever seeking any homebrew or cross-system gubbins. Turns out they didn't generally care for 40K's tone and aesthetic and flavored their backstory accordingly; made for a fantastic character but ultimately different expectations from player and GM contributed to the game's demise.
As for me... well, I did start crunching out Lombaxes and Cybertronians as enemies for low-seriousness high-threat Deathwatch games, but never finished. I'm prone to throwing in weapons and enemies inspired by other stuff, though I still haven't sicced Oinkbane the mutant assassin on any players yet.
Uh, stub pistols are actually fairly good. I don't know what you're on about.
They don't have variable settings or ease of recharge like laspistols, true, and they can't do suppressive fire like autopistols, but more than any other pistol besides perhaps Bolt (which will attract notice to carry, and be a pain in the ass to get hold of in most games) it makes special ammunition matter.There's something awesome about partying with a gunslinger who keeps a Manstopper round in the notched chamber of his revolver, so he has five shots for unarmored mooks and one for the big bastard leading the filthy gangers.

To be fair that IS pretty kind for 40K. Lots of folks would go with lethal countermeasures rather than embarassing, but the Mechanicus have enough clout that they might be able to afford to send a message that way rather than needing to make sure that an Inquisitor poking around in their business is either convinced of their innocence or quietly executed.
I have a soft spot for that kind of low-tier game where you're not agents of the Inquisition, you're not members of the Imperial armed forces, you're random civilians or Adepta. I'd kinda like an Arbites game sometime, actually, but it'd be functionally pretty similar to Dark Heresy. Still, it could be fun, especially if it ended up working like a cop show except grimdark. Police procedural can be hilarious when Arbites are involved.

Since the melee focused strat characters discussion happened. I made a two handed weapon toughness and taking-a-hit dh2 character. How fucked am I?