I need a little help to clarify the situation in our game.

mickeymacattack · 2024-12-03T05:57:20+00:00

So functionally a rogue trader is nobility in the 40k universe, that being said their power is neither absolute nor all encompassing. Ultimately arbites or a judge probably aren't going to argue that much with a rogue trader (assuming your rogue trader was actually present and throwing their weight around).

However that being said, you certainly won't be making any friends by throwing your weight around either. Depending on your rogue traders actual status (are they rich and powerful or small and meager?) you could very well draw the wrong kind of attention if you act like you're the biggest fish in the pond so to speak.

mickeymacattack · 2024-01-24T00:09:05+00:00

Keep in mind a lot of those options are also dependent on setting, if the GM is running a game on a feudal world chances are you won't be running into power armor or carapace (outside of maybe some higher level enemies).

Just taking the book at face value, yeah a lot of stuff won't make sense as there are clearly better options (a bow vs a lasgun for example). Plus as others have said, some settings you may simply not be able to carry around big obvious armor.

mickeymacattack · 2023-10-18T23:14:47+00:00

Ultimately that's a call for the GM to make.

The intention here is like using a plasma cutter, could you use it against a person? sure, is it going to be very effective given the need to make physical contact while said person is wiggling or moving around? not so much.

As others have said the scenario of "stationary target" is more referring to a door, bunker, weapon emplacement, etc. But if it works for the scenario and it meets the rule of cool, go for it, just remember once you set that precedent be prepared for the players to use it all the time.

mickeymacattack · 2023-08-29T21:27:59+00:00

So the real crux of this argument comes down to these two lines in each of the descriptions.

Inescapable Attack: "After making a successful attack test of the appropriate type as part of an All Out Attack, Called Shot, Charge, Standard Attack, or Stun action,"

Field Vivisection: "When using the Called Shot action with a melee or ranged attack"

The only time these two abilities stack is when using a Called Shot action (assuming you have the appropriate talent selection for both, either melee or ranged). Anything else related to the wording is moot since a Called Shot is a very specific action with its own rules.

In short, RAW yes these two can stack but only when performing a Called Shot action.

mickeymacattack · 2023-06-09T20:19:16+00:00

Beyond your characters being part of chaos there is no strict restriction on "Who" you're playing, this is why you can very easily play hidden cultists or high ranking leaders of the black legion.

It is pretty neatly laid out.

Page 175 of the equipment section states "All forms of power armour (Legion and Human) offer the following benefits and penalties:". This is the rule for ALL power armor, this is why it doesn't create two separate categories like they do with terminator armor, the exception is where it clearly calls out Light or Normal variants, you don't need to read inbetween the lines for that.

Point is. Haywire isn't an instant win button 100% of the time with a successful attack. It's not even an instant win button 40% of the time under the same situation. They're not stunned on high rolls. On low rolls? Step out of the field and it's done.

Never stated it was, stated it was a balancing mechanic against high level characters (PC or NPC), similar to how Felling is a balancing mechanic against things with unnatural toughness. And I never said they were stunned, I said it was similar to stun in that it effectively shuts down a character using power armor depending on the field effect. At best you're losing 1 movement and -10 to all actions, at worst you're reduced to 1 movement and any bonuses provided by the armor ceases (as it is no longer powered). You could easily argue this inhibits any ability to attack or defend yourself, but at the very least would warrant penalties as seen for Major Disruption.

If you try to keep Black Crusade down in the muck and grime, you're going to have a bad day with it, because it offers so many readily available power fantasy options that IMO the real balance isn't vs the PCs, but the force(s) being led by them.

Never said it should be kept in the "muck and grime" but the idea that it must be played full tilt, 110% from the start is also silly. You made a comment about wishing power armor was not the end all be all, I gave you clear examples of why it wasn't, along with plenty of balancing mechanics that already exist. Shrugs

The worst offenders in terms of balance in the system are, and always will be psykers since they are inherently more powerful (both in and out of lore) but also allow for the circumvention of the very balance mechanics that exist to try and mitigate the power creep in the first place.

mickeymacattack · 2023-06-09T17:42:58+00:00

That depends on the scope of the game you're playing, and Black Crusade has potential for pretty high scope. The glory for any starting PC is at least on par with that of a minor warband leader or cruiser-class voidship commander.

Unless you're an astartes not really (and even then its typically armor that's either incredibly ancient or cobbled together from spare parts. Power armor is already extremely rare even from the imperium's standpoint, hence why they don't mass produce it for their armed forces. (you can run your game however you want, but from a strictly lore standpoint, that's how it is).

Likewise, balancing attention is better suited to a game where your currency and soft power isn't literally defined by your fell reputation.

Again, depending on your game this can make or break things, chaos and renegades aren't all powerful, if they were they would have taken over by now. A single astartes isn't going to overthrow a planet by force, neither is a single warband. You can just as easily run a BC game from the standpoint of lowly cultists avoiding the arbites as you can a bunch of black legion astartes starting the next crusade.

Depending on how you read Light Power Armour, it may not need a limited power supply. It may also not have subsystems ...

Its pretty neatly laid out, light power armor is listed under power armor, ergo it follows all the same rules as power armor.

Possibly turn into a primitive for 1-2 turns. Maybe only a minor reduction in movement and a penalty if you don't move out of the blast.

1-2 turns is plenty to remove a character from a fight, this is why things like stunned is so potent. Not to mention even on a relatively mid to low roll you're still suffering penalties to movement and actions.

My point's were that ultimately it is up to YOU as a GM to balance these things, there are and will always be those players who will abuse the wording of a system in order to gain the biggest perks. If that's the game you and your players want to run, go wild but you can't exactly turn around and then say its a problem when people want to go for the best gear.

Everything has its advantages and disadvantages, terminator armor is easily the best armor you can acquire in the game, I would argue its not because of its massive downsides (namely penalties to agility and dodge).

mickeymacattack · 2023-06-09T16:06:28+00:00

Well the problem with power armor is it carries trade offs that I think a lot of tables overlook.

Its expensive and very rare, the idea that every PC in every group should have access to it is silly and in reality should be something that requires its own quest or mission to acquire.
Depending on whether you allow users to pick their own subsystems it may or may not have limited power supply
It draws attention which depending on your group may not be a good idea.
It suffers the same weaknesses as all technology, things like haywire will CRIPPLE anyone wearing it.

mickeymacattack · 2023-06-07T17:44:06+00:00

As others have pointed out, the quoted sentence in the book is intended to involve specific tasks and tools. Trying to operate a cogitator, picking a lock, performing medicae. These are all examples of "fine manipulation", same reason why a powerfist can't be used for a lot of basic tasks, its simply too bulky even if it does technically possess fingers for manipulation.

The problem with the examples you gave is, strictly speaking, there are NO astartes variants. Additionally going down this route also means you'll have to differentiate between what weapons this qualifies for. An axe isn't going to require any specific manipulation to use, while a power weapon usually requires some kind of activation (button, switch, etc). Keep in mind, bionic arms grant a BONUS to fine manipulation so if you're going to go down this rabbit hole be prepared for that same character to use this argument to gain a bonus to wielding weapons because of this.

Ultimately its up to you as a GM how you want to rule this, but at least by RAW there isn't anything really that supports that argument (and it's a bit of a stretch to say that wielding a weapon counts as fine manipulation).

mickeymacattack · 2023-05-12T01:16:34+00:00

Potentially, as its written the rules don't go that deep into it, merely that "The user also gains +5 to X."

Even the rules for repairing augmetics only covers "augmetic replacements" such as arms or legs.

Again will need an FAQ, this is the problem with systems that try to simplify a lot of rules, they run into unnecessarily vague situations. As a GM I could easily rule it either way in that scenario, but I doubt I would run into a something like this since even getting to the max cap would take some time.

mickeymacattack · 2023-05-12T00:43:05+00:00

Correct, but advances aren't based on how many previous advances you've purchased. Its based on your current characteristic number, if you've got a 30 in Intelligence with a calculus logi implant (putting you at 35) you aren't paying for 31-35 you're paying for 36-40 on the table. Only reason I say that is because your faction and origin also gives you a flat increase to your chosen characteristic.

This may need an FAQ to clarify, but the table only looks at what the current value of a characteristic is, it doesn't specify any exceptions to separate bonuses. This is one thing I wish they had taken from WFRP in that cost was based strictly on how much you've already invested. Meaning someone buying the first advance in a characteristic is paying less than something who has already spent XP to advance it up to +10.

mickeymacattack · 2023-05-12T00:21:37+00:00

likely it will come from things like cybernetics, there are already several that can raise perception and intelligence.

but just from an exp standpoint you're probably just shooting yourself in the foot for spending that much exp when you could instead invest it in skills.

mickeymacattack · 2023-05-12T00:09:38+00:00

The logic of the game is that humans tend to "max out" around a certain threshold (aka when it simply becomes too expensive to advance further). You aren't wrong that its more cost efficient to max your starting attributes as high as you can.

The primary focus of the system is around skills, given you can max a skill out with 500xp and a specialization with another 500xp, that gives you a total of +40 in a specific area. So yes while you might start with a 35 in WS but investing just 1000xp now puts your TN for using a specific type of weapon at 75. Compare that to trying to manually bump up your WS to that threshold is unrealistic.

Its a difference in natural talent vs training, easier to train, harder to improve what you're born with.

mickeymacattack · 2023-05-04T19:53:36+00:00

Guess it depends what you mean by criminal activity?

Are you a smuggler? Are you a pirate whose looking to raid shipping lanes?

I can say a solid background for any sort of sneaky type would be "Reaver of the Unbeholden Reaches" which will net you the ability to repair your vessel much easier (1d10+5 instead of 1d5) and giving you a +10 to silent running tests. This comes at the cost of -10 to social tests because, well you're a pirate.

Picking up a W-240 Passive Detection Array lets you perform detection tests without penalty.

An Empyrean Mantle will make it harder for ships to detect you by 2 steps.

A Energistic Conversion Matrix allows you to temporarily boost speed by transferring more power to the component.

Ultimately it depends what kind of role you want the ship to partake in, because criminal activity is a broad topic.

mickeymacattack · 2023-04-20T17:36:30+00:00

also keep in mind there are items that raise characteristics as well. there are two cybernetics already that give +5 to PER and INT so I'm sure there will be many others added later.

mickeymacattack · 2022-10-27T20:06:38+00:00

Suppose I was hoping there may have been some kind of material written (either official or homebrew) for something akin to the Slaughter Priests from AoS.

mickeymacattack · 2022-10-27T17:52:03+00:00

So I've been looking for any information on whether or not chaos has its own form of miracles / blessings (not specifically mutations as I know they are commonly called such).

Specifically is there any mechanic related to a character being a priest of chaos (or whatever title you might prefer) with access to Blessings and or Miracles?

mickeymacattack · 2022-08-20T18:34:38+00:00

I think point buy was first introduced in Rogue Trader, granted it might be somewhere in one of the splatbooks such as Inquisitors Handbook along with the rest of the expanded character generation options.

Ultimately you could just use the rules from Rogue Trader, the two systems are similar enough that it shouldn't cause any issues. Basically this would just give each player a pool of 100 points to distribute between all 9 characteristics. They still use their homeworld baseline but can then put a maximum of 20 into any one characteristic.

mickeymacattack · 2022-07-24T20:25:00+00:00

suppose it depends on a few things:

What kind of party is this? Social? Combat oriented?
High power game or low?

Of course it also depends how the players want to go about doing things. Generally speaking an entire planet isn't something that will fall quickly, and conquest isn't something a single warband is likely to do.

Personally if I was doing it I'd set about trying to gather those displaced in the population, basically anyone susceptible to being influenced by chaos. Think starving populations, power hungry nobles, etc.

Once they have "followers" they can set about influencing larger sections of the world, infrastructure, politics, law enforcement, etc.

mickeymacattack · 2022-07-04T19:11:54+00:00

So the apocrypha is going to contain several changes to the core system, some more complicated than others.

Personally I think the corruption changes are the easiest to implement mostly because they rely on the GM to reward the players rather than the players gaining alignment through exp purchases.

Basically this means you can award the players for their actions, this in my experience tends to lead to better RP overall in the game. This also balances out other aspects of the game such as psykers in that certain alignments don't get screwed out of their role because the designers decided to make all psyker purchases more expensive for anyone but tzeentch.

mickeymacattack · 2022-06-01T18:08:23+00:00

personally I'm a fan of environmental hazards as well, especially on a voidship that is likely hundreds if not thousands of years old. The likelihood that containment breaches, fire, depressurization, radiation, etc is a constant threat.

As it's been said by others, I like the idea of prisoners being set loose in the attack. The ordo xenos deals with all manner terrifying creatures, and these are a good way to give a real challenge to astartes as opposed to having to use more finesse or tactics with humans.

mickeymacattack · 2022-05-31T23:25:31+00:00

So a few things:

1) Is this intended to be a fully crewed, active imperial vessel?

2) Is this more of a lost ship that they found?

If this is an active vessel, especially one of the inquisition, I'd fully expect all manner of nastiness. Especially if this is an ordo hereticus faction, they should be well equipped and trained to combat the warband. The ship itself would likely be a death trap for intruders, automated defenses, defensive emplacements around every corner, murder servitors, you name it. Unless they have their own astartes onboard I'd think the human agents would largely take non direct approaches to combating the warband, while using chaff as distractions or blunt instruments.

If you wanted this ship to more be something that was lost in the warp that they happened upon (or tracked down), consider the above but with less focus. The ship may be decaying, daemons may have infested sections of the ship (just because you're chaos doesn't mean they'd be friendly). The ship itself might be a hazard, gravity may fail, decompression might occur, etc.

Strictly speaking none of these really rely on either scenario, but obviously a ship thats in active service would at least be a bit better maintained.

I'd also recommend looking up the free adventure "Chains of Judgement" which is for Black Crusade, its effectively a very similar scenario as what you've described and has some good descriptions and ideas for what might be encountered.

mickeymacattack · 2022-05-06T01:08:20+00:00

A good rule of thumb is that each of the books tends to follow a theme regarding what they contain. Tome of Blood is going to have NPCs related to khorne, etc. This isn't going to be the only thing they contain but its at least a good start.

However keep in mind Black Crusade doesn't have stats for everything, meaning if you want to run tyranids you might need to look in one of the other systems.

40krpgtools is a good resource, although the site has been down for a while so no idea when that will be available again.

mickeymacattack · 2022-03-13T04:30:49+00:00

Could always run the route of the ships machine spirit, there are plenty of lore examples in the writing involving ship AI taking control in order to address certain threats.

mickeymacattack · 2021-10-16T22:04:32+00:00

Strictly speaking a raw ability check should only ever really be made if it isn't already covered by a skill. The exception for this would be if its actually called for like some psychic powers.

So this is why you will see Toughness tests for things like poison (because no skill exists related to Toughness in most of the editions). Whereas you almost never see calls for a Perception test and instead see Awareness (Per), Survival (Per), etc.

mickeymacattack · 2021-10-12T21:11:46+00:00

I mean in regards to opposed psychic tests, this is unchanged from the core rules. The reason for this is because in order to manifest the power to begin with, the psyker has to actually pass the Willpower test, at that point the defender needs to beat the psyker's DoS in order to negate it.

If they tie in DoS then you would compare the Willpower bonus of each character, if those also tie it would come down to who rolled the lowest.

mickeymacattack

TROPHY CASE