Warhammer & 40K RPGs Thread III: With Friends Like These, Who Needs Heresies?

[Lord Torath]

I think there's also rules for collecting spent ammo that missed.

If not, suggest a house rule that, say, 75% of fired ammunition is recoverable. Then the GM counters with 25%, and you settle on 50%. Or something along those lines.

Best of luck!

[HMS Invincible]

You'll want to grab Rapid Reload as soon as you can. Lets you reload your bow as a free action. I think there's also rules for collecting spent ammo that missed.

The rule is 50% per shot.
Can you spend 100xp to gain any talent? Or must you choose a new career first?

[Morty]

We played a mini session last night, and combat is pretty rough, and slow. Everybody keeps missing since everyone has below50% hit rate. My other thoughts are that range really gets hosed. You get penalties for firing into melee, you lose half actions to reload every turn, you have to pay for ammo(which adds up since you miss a lot). One poor PC tried to throw their throwing axe. It was much easier to just surround a bad guy, and stab with hand weapons.

Sounds familiar. WFRP 2E combat is just like that, I'm afraid.

[LeSwordfish]

The rule is 50% per shot.
Can you spend 100xp to gain any talent? Or must you choose a new career first?

It needs to be from your current career, or you can negotiate an Elite Advance with the GM for an extra 100xp.

[Aneurin]

We played a mini session last night, and combat is pretty rough, and slow. Everybody keeps missing since everyone has below50% hit rate. My other thoughts are that range really gets hosed. You get penalties for firing into melee, you lose half actions to reload every turn, you have to pay for ammo(which adds up since you miss a lot). One poor PC tried to throw their throwing axe. It was much easier to just surround a bad guy, and stab with hand weapons.

Stack modifiers as much as you can. Short range, surprise, aiming... the works. If you can think of a reason something might give you a +10 then try it. WFRP does not encourage fair fights. The advantage of ranged is that you can't dodge or parry it in 2e. If you land your attack roll, the enemy just gets hit - which is amazing against good Parry and Dodge Blow scores. I appreciate that isn't much of a consolation right now, though. Your best bet right now would probably be to make an opening volley with the bow, then drop it and move up to flank in melee unless there are unengaged enemy running around (like other archers).

[HMS Invincible]

Stack modifiers as much as you can. Short range, surprise, aiming... the works. If you can think of a reason something might give you a +10 then try it. WFRP does not encourage fair fights. The advantage of ranged is that you can't dodge or parry it in 2e. If you land your attack roll, the enemy just gets hit - which is amazing against good Parry and Dodge Blow scores. I appreciate that isn't much of a consolation right now, though. Your best bet right now would probably be to make an opening volley with the bow, then drop it and move up to flank in melee unless there are unengaged enemy running around (like other archers).

I didn't see the a short range bonus in the book. What page is it on? Do I get a bonus to my Ballistics skill because I outnumber the enemy?
My weapon skill is only 23 and I don't have any armor...I guess with all the bonuses, it's about the same as my bow. And it's free.

[Aneurin]

I didn't see the a short range bonus in the book. What page is it on? Do I get a bonus to my Ballistics skill because I outnumber the enemy?
My weapon skill is only 23 and I don't have any armor...I guess with all the bonuses, it's about the same as my bow. And it's free.

Huh. Apparently short range bonus is not a thing after all. I started with the 40k RPGs (which have it), then went to WFRP 2e and apparently just assumed it was always there. Oops.

You do not get a bonus to hit due to outnumbering when shooting, I'm afraid. Only in melee.

My advice about getting into melee is less about you doing lots of damage, and more about providing a Ganging Up bonus to your friends when shooting isn't a viable option. Open with shooting, pick off anyone who isn't engaged in melee at a range, but once everyone's stuck in you're probably best off flanking and relying on the fact that you're not very intimidating to survive while making it easier for your friends to kill the enemy.

[rax]

I didn't see the a short range bonus in the book. What page is it on? Do I get a bonus to my Ballistics skill because I outnumber the enemy?
My weapon skill is only 23 and I don't have any armor...I guess with all the bonuses, it's about the same as my bow. And it's free.

There's no specific range modifier for short range because there are only two range brackets - short range and long range - and short range is considered the "normal" attack range.

OTOH, the Combat chapter encourages the GM to use modifiers to reflect the difficulty of a particular shot, so a nice GM could grant you up to a +30 bonus for a particularly easy shot. Otherwise, the Aim action is your friend as long as you have beginner's BS, and once you've gotten a few advances under your belt and useful combat talents, you'll quickly notice a marked improvement in accuracy and damage. The key is to get into a combat oriented ranged weapon career ASAP.

Also, don't forget to use your Fortune Points. They regenerate daily and can get you a re-roll or an extra half action to boost your chances of hitting.

[HMS Invincible]

Is vagabond a combat ranged oriented career? Because that's what I have for the next 5 sessions.

[rax]

No, it's more of a scout type IIRC. To me, a typical combat oriented Basic career provides +10 in WS or BS and a couple of combat talents as well. Look up mercenary and soldier and you should be able to tell the difference compared to vagabond.

[The Glyphstone]

So I could use some brainstorming help, to generate small plots/adventures for my newly started Rogue Trader campaign.

The game itself is a very open ended sandboxy/hexcrawl-type, in a newly discovered and mostly uncharted/unexplored homebrew fringe subsector post-Indomitus Crusade. What I need are adventure-seed ideas, and the associated Imperial factions that might request them of the dynasty.

Examples:
(Adeptus Mechanicus) - A secret research outpost has stopped transmitting data, investigate its silence.
(Imperial Navy) - Particularly ambitious pirates are raiding convoys and ships to colony worlds.
(Underworld) - An anonymous nobleman desires a unique xenos artifact for his secret collection.

[Lord Torath]

So I could use some brainstorming help, to generate small plots/adventures for my newly started Rogue Trader campaign.

The game itself is a very open ended sandboxy/hexcrawl-type, in a newly discovered and mostly uncharted/unexplored homebrew fringe subsector post-Indomitus Crusade. What I need are adventure-seed ideas, and the associated Imperial factions that might request them of the dynasty.

Examples:
(Adeptus Mechanicus) - A secret research outpost has stopped transmitting data, investigate its silence.
(Imperial Navy) - Particularly ambitious pirates are raiding convoys and ships to colony worlds.
(Underworld) - An anonymous nobleman desires a unique xenos artifact for his secret collection.

Caveat: I've never played Rogue Trader, nor read through any Rogue Trader adventures

How about:
(Inquisition) A bunch of inquisitorial agents request an orbital lance strike in exchange for a captured Necron ship.
(Underworld) An acquaintance needs to transport a number of young psykers quietly off-world. Obviously none of them are secretly daemonhosts. That'd never happen.
(Tau Empire) A Tau commander needs to stage some raider attacks to encourage some neutral planets on the edge of Tau space to join the Tau empire, and is willing to pay handsomely for it. He'll provide IG deserters if you need additional man-power for the raids.
(Adeptus Arbites) The Arbites need you to transfer a bunch of personnel, some prisoners, and lots of unspecified (but totally not-heretical-or-booby-trapped) cargo from a hive world to an Arbites Prison world.

A little more seriously:
(Imperial Navy) Civilized worlds need evacuation ahead of a Tyranid hive fleet. I'm sure no Tyranid organisms will try to sneak aboard, right?
(Underworld) A bored noble wants you to acquire some dangerous animals for her to hunt and kill in her private reserve. She has no ulterior motives. I mean, why would she? It's not like she wants to train them to attack and kill on command, right?
(Adeptus Mechanicus) The Mechanicus has discovered a new mineral/prometheum/unobtanium deposit on a death world, and wants your help setting up their mining facility.

[The Glyphstone]

With the caveat that it's taking place outside of the Imperium proper (also no Tyranids here), that's definitely good stuff and the general sort of ideas I was looking for!

Underworld, AdMech, Ecclesiarchy, Navy, Inquisition. Navis Nobilite...

[Lord Torath]

Glad you like them! I shamelessly stole the first four from someone else. Did they sound vaguely familiar?

OK, here are a few more:
(Navis Nobilus) A rival Rogue Trader family is trying to put you out of business, sniping (in the eBay sense of the word) your jobs, leading you into ambushes, and generally just making you look bad.
(Navis Nobilus) A low-ranking member of your own dynasty thinks they could do a better job than you, but won't have the chance unless they can get you removed.
(Any) The transport job you just completed went great, except that your customer was kidnapped/killed by chaos marines/cultists before you got paid. Take your fee out of the kidnappers'/killers' hides. And, you know, loot their ship and such. Plus, you just might gain a favor out of the group whose member you rescued/avenged.

[HMS Invincible]

No, it's more of a scout type IIRC. To me, a typical combat oriented Basic career provides +10 in WS or BS and a couple of combat talents as well. Look up mercenary and soldier and you should be able to tell the difference compared to vagabond.

I got fleet footed and marksmanship 5% BS talent. The class comes with 10 and 5% BS and WS as advancements. But you're right, it doesn't feel combat oriented due to the lack of Dodge, and no money or trappings.

Another session yesterday, another advancement. Not sure what to do with this one. I'm thinking either WS for better parry, or more Int/Fellowship to be less crappy at skills. I have 40 agility that I have no idea what to do with.

[rax]

Since you have to complete a career to move into another one, what advances you decide to put your XP in doesn't matter much after you've gotten the ones you most want or need from a career.

The fact that Vagabond can give you +15 BS from talents and characteristic advances is actually very nice. It sets you up to be a plenty good archer once you've moved into a career that can give you some ranged weapon talents. Of the listed career exits, Scout is actually a very nice combined stealth/combat career, but for 200 xp you could also choose to enter any other basic career that has talents or advances you like.

Nice archer talents include Rapid Reload and Sharpshooter. Rapid Reload makes reloading a free action with a bow, and Sharpshooter increases the benefit of the Aim action to a +20 bonus. Together, they enable you to load, aim, and shoot once in the same turn, effectively providing +20 BS for the cost of 200 xp.

[Anonymouswizard]

So I just picked up Wrath & Glory, and I'm liking how it attempts to combine all the previous WH40kRPG games into one core rulebook, although the archetypes leave something to be desired. You're not allowed to be a proper Tech Priest below Tier 3 for example, despite Tiers 1 and 2 clearly being the Inquisitorial Cell level (although thankfully the more freeform character creation allows another archetype to become the tech specialist, and the Skitarius is a cool Archetype to have). But as the character creation is point-based without these annoying 'Aptitudes' getting in the way it's fairly easy to build many missing archetypes with the existing rules (with potential homebrew abilities).

I also noticed that there was clearly the intent for species-based wargear at some point, but at least in my version that's not a thing. The end result is that RAW the Sactioned Psyker, Cultist, Heretek, Rogue Psyker, Ork Boy, and Ork Kommando begin with absolutely nothing to wear, and most Archetypes that grant armour don't give additional clothing. While this makes a decent amount of sense for the Orks, I'd have expected most careers to get a set of clothing even if they did have armour, because I remember the Commissar models having trousers as well as coats. It's also interesting that nobody gets any kind of Vox, you'd assume somebody somewhere is at least making handheld phones for Inquisitors but apparently anything between an earbud and a large radio is lost technology.

[Destro_Yersul]

It's not that cellphones don't exist, it's just that most people don't have high enough clearance to know about the =][=phone

[Morty]

So I just picked up Wrath & Glory, and I'm liking how it attempts to combine all the previous WH40kRPG games into one core rulebook, although the archetypes leave something to be desired. You're not allowed to be a proper Tech Priest below Tier 3 for example, despite Tiers 1 and 2 clearly being the Inquisitorial Cell level (although thankfully the more freeform character creation allows another archetype to become the tech specialist, and the Skitarius is a cool Archetype to have). But as the character creation is point-based without these annoying 'Aptitudes' getting in the way it's fairly easy to build many missing archetypes with the existing rules (with potential homebrew abilities).

I also noticed that there was clearly the intent for species-based wargear at some point, but at least in my version that's not a thing. The end result is that RAW the Sactioned Psyker, Cultist, Heretek, Rogue Psyker, Ork Boy, and Ork Kommando begin with absolutely nothing to wear, and most Archetypes that grant armour don't give additional clothing. While this makes a decent amount of sense for the Orks, I'd have expected most careers to get a set of clothing even if they did have armour, because I remember the Commissar models having trousers as well as coats. It's also interesting that nobody gets any kind of Vox, you'd assume somebody somewhere is at least making handheld phones for Inquisitors but apparently anything between an earbud and a large radio is lost technology.

I ran a short W&G campaign, and I mostly agree. It's good, but it's got strange blind spots in it. And sadly, trying to cover as much in one book makes it broad but shallow. The book's editing is also pretty poor, but we're getting a re-release that'll hopefully fix it.

[Anonymouswizard]

It's not that cellphones don't exist, it's just that most people don't have high enough clearance to know about the =][=phone

That's kind of my point, I understand that the Gangers, Guardsmen, and the like to have anything other than a micro-bead at most, but I'd expect the Inquisitor and Tech-Priest at least to have some sort of communications device in their wargear.

But it's more a comment on how much seems to have been glossed over, nobody gets a communicator at all (and Astartes definitely use them regularly), and as I said several Archetypes don't get clothing. I vaguly remember comms being more common in DH/RT/DW, especially the latter two.

[HMS Invincible]

Since you have to complete a career to move into another one, what advances you decide to put your XP in doesn't matter much after you've gotten the ones you most want or need from a career.

The fact that Vagabond can give you +15 BS from talents and characteristic advances is actually very nice. It sets you up to be a plenty good archer once you've moved into a career that can give you some ranged weapon talents. Of the listed career exits, Scout is actually a very nice combined stealth/combat career, but for 200 xp you could also choose to enter any other basic career that has talents or advances you like.

Nice archer talents include Rapid Reload and Sharpshooter. Rapid Reload makes reloading a free action with a bow, and Sharpshooter increases the benefit of the Aim action to a +20 bonus. Together, they enable you to load, aim, and shoot once in the same turn, effectively providing +20 BS for the cost of 200 xp.

I figured that Scout was good, but don't you need all the trappings first before you can enter a new career? Armor and guns are expensive.

[comicshorse]

I figured that Scout was good, but don't you need all the trappings first before you can enter a new career? Armor and guns are expensive.

Yeah you need to have the trappings first
Its not unusual in my experience for wise GM's to set up jobs where the rewards/loot are trappings P.C.s need to help move them into the careers they want

[Anonymouswizard]

I ran a short W&G campaign, and I mostly agree. It's good, but it's got strange blind spots in it. And sadly, trying to cover as much in one book makes it broad but shallow. The book's editing is also pretty poor, but we're getting a re-release that'll hopefully fix it.

Another thing is that it seems to rely a lot on the players knowing about the 40k universe, and one of the good things about the old lines was that their focus made them relatively good introductions.

Also, a personal bugbear of mine is the pushing of Space Marines, which the book continues. Two different types of Space Marine, in case your incredibly powerful transhuman warriors weren't powerful enough, and the example of character creation is a Space Marine. Not a Guardsman or Ganger, not a Tech Priest or Inquisitor, but the single most difficult Archetype to roleplay. I seriously think the Space Marines, Eldar, and Orks should have had their own books and that the corebook should have focused on humans.

Like, we don't have the Adeptus Arbites? That's a pretty big hole but at least we have multiple types of Space Marine. We don't have Explorators, but at least we have multiple types of Space Marine. We don't have Interrogators for Inquisition-focused games, but at least we have multiple types of Space Marine. What was the point of including an option that's just 'Tactical Space Marines, but better' when they could have used the page space to give us an additional two Archetypes rounding out the setting? The Arbitrator was my favourite Career from DH1e, I'm sad to see it got cut for more Space Marines. We could have had Ratlings or Ogryns, but instead we get supersupermen.

(Note I am not upset about the Adepta Sororitas, I wouldn't have cared if they'd had a third Archetype to let them fill even more roles.)

There desperately needs to be books giving more focus to other parts of the setting. Space Marine games were fun, I enjoyed them, but until they bring back Assault Marines, Apothecaries, Librarians, and Devestator Marines abs reintegrate Squad Mode then Death watch is just going to do them better. And I'm just a sucker for the Holy Inquisition.

[Morty]

Another thing is that it seems to rely a lot on the players knowing about the 40k universe, and one of the good things about the old lines was that their focus made them relatively good introductions.

Also, a personal bugbear of mine is the pushing of Space Marines, which the book continues. Two different types of Space Marine, in case your incredibly powerful transhuman warriors weren't powerful enough, and the example of character creation is a Space Marine. Not a Guardsman or Ganger, not a Tech Priest or Inquisitor, but the single most difficult Archetype to roleplay. I seriously think the Space Marines, Eldar, and Orks should have had their own books and that the corebook should have focused on humans.

Like, we don't have the Adeptus Arbites? That's a pretty big hole but at least we have multiple types of Space Marine. We don't have Explorators, but at least we have multiple types of Space Marine. We don't have Interrogators for Inquisition-focused games, but at least we have multiple types of Space Marine. What was the point of including an option that's just 'Tactical Space Marines, but better' when they could have used the page space to give us an additional two Archetypes rounding out the setting? The Arbitrator was my favourite Career from DH1e, I'm sad to see it got cut for more Space Marines. We could have had Ratlings or Ogryns, but instead we get supersupermen.

(Note I am not upset about the Adepta Sororitas, I wouldn't have cared if they'd had a third Archetype to let them fill even more roles.)

There desperately needs to be books giving more focus to other parts of the setting. Space Marine games were fun, I enjoyed them, but until they bring back Assault Marines, Apothecaries, Librarians, and Devestator Marines abs reintegrate Squad Mode then Death watch is just going to do them better. And I'm just a sucker for the Holy Inquisition.

I wouldn't expect WH40K media to ever not push Space Marines. It's honestly mildly amazing that the FFG systems managed to avoid that for the most pat. Other than that... well, yeah. The game as it is right now is broad but shallow. And I get the impression that the archetypes we got are those we'd see in the wargame - which does not include Arbites. We can only hope that the gaps will be filled once content starts being released. Until then, here is a staggeringly massive body of homebrew. Done by someone who had worked in the FFG systems.

[rax]

I figured that Scout was good, but don't you need all the trappings first before you can enter a new career? Armor and guns are expensive.

As noted, yes you need the trappings first, but a Scout doesn't need guns, so the most expensive items are the mail shirt and the horse. If your GM is so stingy that you can't afford to buy the trappings you need, the traditional WFRP method of acquiring them is to steal them or loot the corpses of your fallen foes.

[Anonymouswizard]

As noted, yes you need the trappings first, but a Scout doesn't need guns, so the most expensive items are the mail shirt and the horse. If your GM is so stingy that you can't afford to buy the trappings you need, the traditional WFRP method of acquiring them is to steal them or loot the corpses of your fallen foes.

The problem with the latter is defeating foes with better equipment. However there is a simple trick, simply loot your foes before you fight them

[Lord Torath]

The problem with the latter is defeating foes with better equipment. However there is a simple trick, simply loot your foes before you fight them

Seriously. If you can steal your foes' weapons and/or armor before fighting them, they down much quicker.

[LeSwordfish]

And on the plus side, anyone you do that to becomes a foe.

[Wraith]

If you wanted to be a real smart-ass, you could borrow the equipment you need off your party members.

Some of my players tried that once - they were both Wizards and needed a grimoire to advance. So they pooled their money, bought one between them, and tried to claim that while they were holding the book it was "theirs" so they could quickly advance and pass it along to their friend who then did the same.

When I suggested that if they handed the book away they would therefore have lost their trappings? "It's not lost at all! Look, it's right there, my friend is holding it for me!"

It didn't fly so well, but points for imagination.

[druid91]

Curious. With how open ended Rogue Trader is, does anyone know a good way of stringing a Narrative together?