[Help to design] In the 41st millenium there is only...

[KjetilKverndokken]

Originally Posted by ed_209a

Based on my limited 40K tabletop and novel experience, I would advise putting the rulebooks back on the shelf, and concentrate on the universe's fluff.

In a galaxy of trillions of humans (and billions of Imperial Guard), there are probably less than 50 thousand Space Marines. They have the best training, best biomods and best equipment the Imperium can provide. They are considered barely ready after nearly a decade of grueling training. And the 40K rules tell us they are only 3 times as effective in battle as a IG conscript with a kevlar jacket and a laser rifle?

I think Space Marines would only be called in when the IG can't solve a problem by simply throwing more men at it. Just from the numbers, it makes sense to throw a battalion of IG at a target rather than call a single space marine.

I would make the Space Marines truly monstrous, and then never let the players see them up close. A tactical squad of Adeptus Astartes don't attack, they happen, like a tornado or earthquake.

Have the PCs survive a battle only because their sector was on the edges of the objective. One day their officers get jumpy and nervous for some reason. Several days later, they see a single landing craft come down in the distance. The next day, the battle is won. Grizzled senior NCOs are overheard whispering "Astartes" among themselves.

(Really, the entire IG garrison would probably be wiped out before the SMs arrived, but it is a RPG...)

Imperial Armor 5-6-7 Siege of Vraks is what I'm gonna base the campaign on, a few of the stories will involve the players as Dark Angels and Red Scorpions chapters. (I do recommend them for die hard military fluff)

The SM as totally invincible is just propaganda, they are hard as hell, but most fluff supports that they will fall under heavy assaults from any force - thay are tactical assault teams that are best used for special missions where speed and tactics are being used.

[Tema69]

I've compiled some of Naloth and my stuff into a PDF. It's guns, power/chain weapons, and armour for now. Also, it's "simplified", by which I mean that it's supposed to be used with books like Ultratech/High Tech to define more specific items (for example, the weapons are totally "plain". You could add folding stocks, or cut down the barrels, add scopes, red dot sights, flashlights, etc... For example, the "standard" Hellgun/hotshot lasgun has sights and a flashlight, but I opted not to include those in the basic stats. You can always add, but it's harder to remove).

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=U9Z3DLNH

Speaking of Hellguns, assuming we make the distinction between Hellgun and Hot Shot at the ammo feed (Hellgun = backpack feed, Hot Shot = overloaded magazine), how would you represent a backpack powerfeed?

Any comments/criticism is appreciated.

[Sam Baughn]

A couple of vehicles.

Vehicle		ST/HP	Hnd/SR	HT	Move	LWt.	Load	SM	Occ.	DR	Range	Locations

Rhino 		160	-3/5	13	2/24	35	5	+5	2+10S	100/70	??	2C,X
Chimera		170	-3/5	12	2/24	40	2	+5	3+12S	150/50	??	2C,T
Leman Russ	200	-3/5	11x	2/12	64	2	+5	6S	600/200	??	2C,T,2t

I marked range as '??' because I couldn't find any source which described how far imperial vehicles can travel. I'll keep looking and if I can't find anything, I'll make it up.

EDIT: The Leman Russ sponsons are the two 'independent turrets' (t).

[PPoS]

I have some problems with the damage stats of the Bolter weapons and of the Autocannon. Remember that the Bolters has a caliber of approx. 20mm and the Heavy Bolter 25mm. AFAIK there are no official statements on the caliber of the Autocannon, but comparing it to the Heavy Bolter it would probably be somewhere between 30-40mm at least.

When I first started to stat Bolters in GURPS I naturally went with the gyroc idea first. But Bolters in WH40k are kind of a the bastard child of a conventional firearm and a gyroc. It fires rocket propelled explosive bullets but still has empty shell casings flying and a hefty recoil.

Don't get me wrong here; your take on the weapons are the best I've seen so far. But I think that the damage needs a bit of tweaking.

When I statted my Bolters I used Vehicles and this is what I came up with (follow up explosive damage has been added from HT 4Ed):

Standard Bolter, Caliber 20mm (.75)
6dx2 (3) pi++ (treated as a short weapon) with a follow-up 1d-1 cr ex [1d]

Standard Heavy Bolter, Caliber 25mm (1.0)
6dx3 (3) pi++ (treated as a short weapon) with a follow-up 1d cr ex [1d+1]

Anyway, this is just my take on the Bolters and I'm not saying that you should use these stats. But I do suggest to increase the Bolter, Heavy Bolter and Autocannon damage and changing the pi+ to pi++.

[ed_209a]

Originally Posted by PPoS

Bolters in WH40k are kind of a the bastard child of a conventional firearm and a gyroc.

Given the spotty level of technology in the Imperium, I think it is likely that some Bolters are gyrocs, some are heavy bore assault rifles, and a few might even be electromag.

They are all collectively called Bolters because the Emperor says so, and that is good enough for the Chapters.

[Tema69]

Originally Posted by PPoS

Standard Bolter, Caliber 20mm (.75)
6dx2 pi++ (treated as a short weapon) with a follow-up 1d-1 cr ex [1d]

Standard Heavy Bolter, Caliber 25mm (1.0)
6dx3 pi++ (treated as a short weapon) with a follow-up 1d cr ex [1d+1]

I just finished calculating all the pros and cons of your stats vs mine, and I must say... bravo! These are really balanced, both fluff and tabletop wise. A Bolter will kill pretty much anything that isn't Carapaced with no problem whatsoever, and will be able to penetrate Carapace. You'd have to implement Semi-Ablative on all armour to justify Bolter vs. Power Armour though.
Max damage is currently 72, with average at 42, which means it'll take 5-6 hits at the same location before the marine will take damage.
That's a lot. And in the Ultramarine novels, Bolters are able to penetrate Power Armour "pretty" often. Doesn't deal a lot of damage, but it sometimes does.
That's why I'm thinking that changing it to 5dx2(2) pi++ would be best, even if that makes it a Carapace killer.
Anyway, 5dx2(2) pi++ will have an average damage of 35, against Power Armour (now reduced to) 75/50, which makes it able to penetrate and injure the limbs or the damaged torso. Unfortunately, it means that Carapace will be completely vulnerable against it (35 vs. now 25/15 due to (2) ). Then again, a solution would be to up Carapace to 75/50 or something like that (making it 37.5/25 after the bolter's (2) divisor)?


Edit:

Also, my take on the Powerfist (inspired by/stolen from Naloth):

Powerfist; Thr(10) cr; Reach C; Parry -2U; Weight 50; ST20
The Power Fist itself has DR50, while the support brace has DR30 and covers the arm. It grants Arm ST+10 and Striking ST+15, with that arm only. Arm ST is added to the user's ST to determine if he/she has enough to wield it. The actual weight is only counted towards general encumbrance. The Power Fist becomes unready after an attack or a parry, unless the user has twice the required ST (40 in this case, although the Arm ST helps to offset this).

Astartes Powerfist; Thr(10) cr; Reach C; Parry -2U; Weight 120; ST 25
The Astartes Power Fist has DR100, and attaches to the Power Armour arm. It grants Striking ST+30 with that arm only. The Astartes Power Fist becomes unready after an attack or a parry, unless the user has twice the required ST (50 in this case).

[PPoS]

Originally Posted by Tema69

I just finished calculating all the pros and cons of your stats vs mine, and I must say... bravo! These are really balanced, both fluff and tabletop wise. A Bolter will kill pretty much anything that isn't Carapaced with no problem whatsoever, and will be able to penetrate Carapace. You'd have to implement Semi-Ablative on all armour to justify Bolter vs. Power Armour though.
Max damage is currently 72, with average at 42, which means it'll take 5-6 hits at the same location before the marine will take damage.
That's a lot. And in the Ultramarine novels, Bolters are able to penetrate Power Armour "pretty" often. Doesn't deal a lot of damage, but it sometimes does.
That's why I'm thinking that changing it to 5dx2(2) pi++ would be best, even if that makes it a Carapace killer.
Anyway, 5dx2(2) pi++ will have an average damage of 35, against Power Armour (now reduced to) 75/50, which makes it able to penetrate and injure the limbs or the damaged torso. Unfortunately, it means that Carapace will be completely vulnerable against it (35 vs. now 25/15 due to (2) ). Then again, a solution would be to up Carapace to 75/50 or something like that (making it 37.5/25 after the bolter's (2) divisor)?

I'm afraid I haven't read any WH40K novels so I can't say much about that. It all comes down to the armour divisior and the DR of armour. IIRC I treated Space Marine armour as having DR 150 and the Bolters having an armour divisor of (3). My Bolter would do an average of 42 damage points which means that it normally wouldn't penetrate Space Marine armour.
Loading it up with "Kraken Pattern Penetrator Round" would increase divisior to (5); that would easily penetrate SM armour and injure the Marine.

I think that you are focusing on what is written in the novels and want to replicate that (damage vs. armour wise); and that is a good way to do it. You probably enjoyed the novels and want WH40K to play like that in GURPS. My vision of Bolters are as simple as "big freakin' guns firing 20mm rocket propelled explosive bullets"; and that's how I treat them in GURPS. I think you are on the right track; decide how powerful you want the Bolters to be and then decide how protective the armours should be.

I think that the Caparace armour should be able to give the wearer some protection against Bolters, but not much. A burst of Bolter bullets into the torso of an IG would probably be quite messy.

I think the best solution is to go by "feel" here. Go with what you think feel best for your games. The good thing about both GURPS and the WH40K universe is that you can do it just as you like to have it.

[Tema69]

Armour Divisor 3 seems high, doesn't it? Especially with 6dx2 pi++ damage...
That's gonna rip through Carapace too, even if it's boosted to 75/50 instead of 50/30. I'd scale it down a bit to 5dx2(2) pi++ or 6dx2(2) pi++...
The latter would have it punch through Carapace all the time, so I'll probably stick with 5dx2(2) pi++. Vs. Flak (30), Carapace (75/50) and Power Armour (150/100), it seems like the best way to go - killing Flak-armoured foes as if they were mere guardsmen (oh, wait... they are!), being able to kill Carapace, but not all the time, and just being able to have a stab at a Power Armoured Marine.
35 average, 60 max, vs. 75/50, which'll mean that 16% of the time, it'll achieve penetration against a limb or the face. That means it'll take a burst or two to kill a marine with a bolter. Seems good to me? And it fits my (indeed) beloved novels and fluff.


Btw, are there any Quality-rules for Armour? I'm thinking that older Power Armour Marks might be better Quality, thus increasing their DR and functions?

Edit: I forgot to ask what "treated as a short weapon" meant?

[PPoS]

Originally Posted by Tema69

Btw, are there any Quality-rules for Armour? I'm thinking that older Power Armour Marks might be better Quality, thus increasing their DR and functions?

I'm not sure. I can't recall seeing it, but I guess that quality should have an impact on armour as it has on other things.

Originally Posted by Tema69

Edit: I forgot to ask what "treated as a short weapon" meant?

I'm referring to the calculations I did in GURPS Vehicles.

[Tema69]

Okay, thanks.

Here's an update on the file.
Includes the changes to Bolters, some additional weapons, Powerfist, Lightning Claws, Chainfists and Terminator Armour.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=8ZM6BCEO

I'll look at the various Force Fields tomorrow, based on Naloth's ideas on page 1.

My first impression is to have them be 2nd line (armour takes damage first, and then the Force Field kicks in. That's how I can see it working to represent the Invulnerable save in 40k.
At least in armours like Termie Armour. Might not work for the gadget Force Field thingies.