Special Abilities Ideas

[Shannow]

Litanies of Tranquility:

That sounds perfectly 40k, the power of the Emperors Words drives the warp away leaving an eyes of the storm (so to speak  )

Also gives me nice images of characters having to pass nerve tests in order to recite accurately under fire to help the manic mumbling psyker 

[SpanielBear]

I hadn't thought of that, but it is a nice idea. 
I now have this wonderful image of some terrified, newbie guardsman cowering in a fox hole. His sergeant is lying dead beside him, entire head blown off by a stray bolter round, the shelling hasn't stopped once in the last twelve days, there's a particularly bloodthirsty commisar yelling over the vox-thrower that if the regiment doesn't start to return fire he will, and now the sanctioned psyker is clutching his temples and crying tears of blood. It's at times like this one really doesn't want to have to ask oneself "Now does the litany begin begin with "In the Emperor's name" or "In the name of the Emperor"?

[Aurelius 12]

I like liturgies, it gets a thumbs up from me.

I've been thinking about risky actions, and how frequently actions that ought to be second nature to certain characters still end up blowing their own faces off. To this end I propose a couple of new rules which represent a character's specialisation with particular equipment.
 
Grenadier
The character is comfortable using grenades and explosives. When rolling for actions involving grenades they may re-roll one '1' on the action dice for the purposes of determining whether the action was risky. (Note this re-roll will not grant them an additional action regardless of the number rolled).
 
Explosives Expert
The character has spent much of their life dealing with explosive devices. When rolling for actions involving grenades or other explosives, they may ignore one '1' on the action dice.
 
Plasma Weapon Specialist
The character has been using plasma weapons for some time, and is aware of the risks and dangers involved. When rolling for actions involving plasma weapons they may re-roll one '1' on the action dice for the purposes of determining whether the action was risky. (Note this re-roll will not grant them an additional action regardless of the number rolled).
 
Plasma Weapon Expert
The character has mastered the difficult art of handling plasma based weapons. When rolling for actions involving plasma weapons (not including plasma grenades) they may ignore one '1' on the action dice.
 
Sneaky
The character is adept at sneaking. When moving at a sneaking pace, they may re-roll one '1' on the action dice for the purposes of determining whether the action was risky. (Note this re-roll will not grant them an additional action regardless of the number rolled).
 
Stealthy
The character is a natural master of stealth. When moving at a sneaking pace they may re-roll one '1' on the action dice. This re-roll may grant them an additional action, however it may only be used for sneaking.
 
Silent Running
The character not only moves quietly, they move remarkably quickly. The character may sneak 3 yards per action rather than two. This movement is still risky, and only characters who are sneaky or stealthy may take this ability.
 
So, any thoughts? I know things that minimise risk are generally discouraged, but I certainly don't imagine that many characters will be deserving of such rules. I'm thinking of the occasional grenadier, or stealthy ninja-esque character I encounter, rather than anyone who happens to carry a plasma pistol or grenade.
 
Plus it's not like the risk is removed entirely- it's just a bit safer for those in the know.

[MarcoSkoll]

"Re-roll one ‘1’ on the action dice for the purposes of determining whether the action was risky" and "may ignore one ‘1’ on the action dice." aren't actually that different.

Admittedly, the first is not a guaranteed cancellation of a 1, but it does give a chance of rolling a 6 and cancelling out a more serious fail. I've lost count of the number of times I've rolled two 1s and some combination of 2s to 5s on the other dice, only for Heroic to completely cancel it out by coming up 6. (Which is usually awesome.)

However, the latter does have the problem that any character acting at Spd 1 (which does occasionally happen), cannot fail a risky action, which is part of the reason I've personally stopped using the rule.

One variant I have been trying out on Maya (who was failing a few too many risky actions to be able to use her psychic powers effectively) is to count both 5s and 6s against 1s.
Surprisingly, while this sounds like it would basically negate the chances of a risky action entirely, it's actually less effective than Heroic. There's about a 30% chance of the dice coming up risky normally, depending on the character's speed value
Heroic tends reduce the chance by to about a third (again, depending on the character's speed value). The 5s & 6s variant hovers around 17-19%, with surprisingly little variation with speed value...

However, while I haven't looked into it, I expect it dramatically affects the chances how likely it is that 2nd, 3rd, etc actions will both be reached and the dice being risky, so it probably makes later actions in the turn much safer. I'll need to do the maths.

[Aurelius 12]

Perhaps the 5/6 might be better yeah. I've never encountered a speed 1 character outside of GM control so in my games that point is somewhat academic. I  hadn't thought about the posibility of rolling another 6. More thought required methinks.

[MarcoSkoll]

I've never encountered a speed 1 character outside of GM control so in my games that point is somewhat academic.

Not entirely. I've had injury reduce characters to speed 1. It's rare (and usually limited to the toughest characters) but it does happen.

NOTE: Error in previous post. It should have been "to a third", not "by a third".

[SpanielBear]

If the goal is to reduce the risk of catastrophic, blowing your arm off kind of problems, then instead of re-rolling the risky action why not change how the consequence roll works?

For example, if I recall correctly then the grenade failure goes something like: roll a d6, 1= dud, 2-3= scatter dice, 4-5=minor damage, 6= boom. If a character was a grenadier, then instead of rolling d6 have them roll a d10: 1-4=dud, 5-7= scatter, 8-9= minor damage, 10= boom. That would mean that they still have some chance of failing, but doing so wouldn't be as outright fatal as for those without training (dropping from 1/6 chance to 1/10)

Maybe this isn't the kind of thing you had in mind, but it does seem to avoid the 'turning failures into successes' problem.

[Shannow]

Got to agree with spanielbear, seems a much cleaner solution than fiddling with rerolls and the like, certainly would help with my grenade based character who blew himself up twice at the IGT.......

[Aurelius 12]

The reason I went for the re-roll is because they're basically role-specific forms of Heroic. Personally I find it's less hassle to have a re-roll (or Marco's 5/6 idea) than re-writing the tables for plasma weapons and grenades just for your one character!

[SpanielBear]

Fair enough, I bow to the gods of streamlined gameplay