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The Count and his cold-bodied accomplices

Started by mirryhalo, April 07, 2013, 07:46:10 PM

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mirryhalo

So you may or may not have seen my post on the modelling threads but I've basically got the idea of a vampire bounty hunter, one of the last vampires in the universe I'm still not too sure on all of the story how he came about, what his aim is etc. but I thought I should put up my rules to see what people think about them.

Dragos Danesti "The Count"

I took the statlines from warhammer of an Empire General and a Vampire Lord and ran them against each other working out the percentage differences of each stat then I applied these to the random rogue trader stats while leaving the Wp, Sg and Nv as being a Vampire wouldn't affect those stats, but here they are:

WS  BS    S    T    I    Wp  Sg   Nv  Ld   Spd
  98   83   90  76  99  90  77   87  98     6

Equipment: Hunting RIfle + range finder - 1 reload, Web Pistol - 2 reloads, Blooddrinker (magic sword, heirloom of vampire counts' days,     after armour add d6 to injury and - d2 to the count's injury value) carapace on groin and right arm, 3 everywhere else, 0 on head

Special Abilities: Suck Blood (same as vampirism but gives regenerate afterwards), Force of Will, Lightening Reflexes, 'The Light!' (flash grenades, photon flares etc. count as frag grenades)

Psychic Abilities:
Gaze of Death
Raise Dead; Difficulty 10 The count Raises d2 zombies up to 10 yards away

Zombies

WS  BS    S    T    I    Wp  Sg   Nv   Ld    Spd
40    0    62  43  23   0     0   N/A   0      2

Equipment: Clawing hands (reach:1 Dmg:d6+2)

Special Abilities: Fearsome, Zombie Shuffle (can never:evade,sprint,dodge,parry), Brain Dead (count as Invulnerable daemon power)

With The Count in his gang I was going to have a kind of butler figure called Mr. White who was going to be the person who people met up with to arrange hits etc. but I'm unsure of that now and I may just have him with a couple of servitors (always reminded me of kind of futuristic igors) or maybe a thrall so no rules for him/them at the mo. But there it is the rules for my Vampire Bounty Hunter and His Zombies C+C very welcome!

MarcoSkoll

... erm. Could you sort the formatting out please?

That's just unreadable like that.
S.Sgt Silva Birgen: "Good evening, we're here from the Adeptus Defenestratus."
Captain L. Rollin: "Nonsense. Never heard of it."
Birgen: "Pick a window. I'll demonstrate".

GW's =I= articles

mirryhalo

Yeah sorry don't know how that happened it was all nice and laid out like that when I posted it

Adlan

My first inquisitor character ended up being a vampire with very high stats too. There was quite a lot of stuff on vampires, and a whole Ordo dedicated to wiping them out, but I'm not sure if any of it survived from the older versions of the conclave.

I'm not sure the concept works. I'd rather see his terran origin be one of many stories he puts out about his past and nature. Is he possed by a demon? An Alien Parasite? Is he a psycher with very strange abilities, just an odd mutant or what?

And if he really were one of the few remaining vampires from terra, He's millennia old and he's just a bounty hunter? Surely his knowledge and wisdom have made him immensely powerful and rich? More suited for a Villainous Big Bad for a campaign than a pc.

mirryhalo

Yeah I see what you're saying but I was thinking that he was very well established in the imperium but due to witch hunters or a certain witch hunter he had to disappear and that he did but he had to start out again somewhere and as he's very good at killing things and as it gives him a kind of licence to kill things (he can then suck a little blood from) it's all the better, that was my way of thinking any way

Koval

The last time I tackled vampires, they ended up being the still-living "victims" of a bacterial infection devised, ultimately, by Nurgle (but hijacked by the other three). One ended up in direct sunlight just so I could tackle that part of vampire lore; for what it's worth, he "sparkled" -- or he did if you replace "sparkle" with "develop a few thousand final-stage terminal cancers in the space of thirty seconds and disintegrate into a fleshy cancerous puddle". (It didn't help that he was shirtless at the time.)

As for the count, we'd need some proper background before we can really critique him properly, but as far as the game stats are concerned, he's disgustingly powerful -- all those 90s will need a fair bit of justifying. (And "he's ancient" isn't really much of an excuse in and of itself, considering that extreme age also opens up the possibility of him being physically and/or mentally decrepit.)

For that matter, Blooddrinker sounds like an attempt to do a daemon weapon without any drawbacks -- that will also require some justifying. So I look forward to seeing what happens here.

Kaled

Quote from: Koval on April 08, 2013, 04:46:35 PM
as far as the game stats are concerned, he's disgustingly powerful -- all those 90s will need a fair bit of justifying.
More importantly, in my opinion at least, all those 90s will make him really boring to play and to play against.

Thus I'd suggest giving him more 'normal' human stats with maybe either WS & BS in the high 70s and the other in the high 60s, an above average Strength and Toughness (say in the mid 70s), drop his Initiative a little (maybe low 80s) and knock 5 to 15 points off each of his mental stats.  I'd then give him a daemonic ability such as Invulnerable or Impervious to represent his otherworldly nature.

Also, to save on dice rolls I'd have the sword add D6 to injury total, and half the amount (rounding up) to the Count's injury.

Finally, my gut feeling is that the difficulty on the Raise the Dead power is too low.  With a Wp that high (even if you do lower it a bit) and up to six actions per turn, the enemy is likely to be quickly overwhelmed by hordes of zombies.

Otherwise I think he has the potential to be a really good character.
I like to remember things my own way... Not necessarily the way they happened.

Inquisitor - Blood Bowl - Malifaux - Fairy Meat

greenstuff_gav

here's Charax's Zombie Rules which i run for my zombies; they're proper hard 'n' scary :)

Neurone Plague Victim:
Ws: -2D6
Bs: -3D10
S: +2D10
T:+2D10
I: -3D10
Wp/Sg/Nv/Ld: 0
Abilities:
Braindead, Zombie Shuffle!, Infect, True Grit.
Mutations:
Bestial Face, Rotting Flesh, Dead Meat, Enhanced Senses

Braindead:
Force of Will and Nerves of Steel. Immune to psychic powers that allow Wp tests to be taken. Neurone Plague victims lose the ability to use any Bionics or Implants they may have, and are immune to Toxins or Combat stimms

Zombie Shuffle!:
As per two Atrophied Legs
Atrophied: One or more of the alien's limbs is withered and feeble, with little or no
muscle and power. A single atrophied leg reduces all of the character's Movement rates,
except crawling, by -1 yard and means the character cannot sprint. If both legs are atrophied the character is affected as for one leg. In addition, they count moving faster than a walk as a risky Action and if they fumble their action roll, will fall over and spend the rest of the turn prone.

Infect:
Any character wounded by the victim's Bestial Face attack must take a Toughness test at -20% or become infected. If they pass by a margin of less than 30 they must roll again at the start of every turn until they pass by 30 or more (50 or more, including the -20% modifier)
The Neurone Plague, Zombie Plague or Rage reduces all characteristics by 2D10 every turn until the character dies. D3 turns later they rise as a Neurone Plague Victim, with characteristics based on their original profiles

Bestial Face;
[The Zombie] may make an additional bite attack in close combat in addition to those it would normally make. This has a reach of 0, does D6+Strength bonus damage, and cannot be used to parry. In addition the alien now counts as having the Fearsome ability

Rotting Flesh:
This horrid mutation means that the alien's skin is constantly dying and sloughing off, exposing fat and muscle. This disfigurement gives off a disgusting stench and leaves them susceptible to injury as even glancing hits can rip off hunks of flesh. The character reduces their base injury value by -1 and they can be smelt by other characters on a successful Awareness test up to 10 yards away and will be smelt automatically within 5 yards.

Dead Meat:
Zombies are unnaturally tough, and notoriously hard to kill. Double the Victim's Base Injury Value for all hits against any location other than the head.
In addition, Victims do not show up on Bioscanners, Infrascopes or most types of Auspex due to their body temperature being the same as the ambient conditions.
Neurone Plague Victims suffer no additional damage from Location Injury, or from Bleeding.

Enhanced senses:
The alien has preternaturally sensitive sensory organs; eyes that can sense heat or radiation, ears that are tuned to hypersonic vibrations or olfactory senses that can discern the prey's scent from leagues away. It can track its prey by the most minute traces in the wind or on the ground. To represent this, the alien may add +30% to
its Initiative characteristic when testing for awareness.

The Plague Zombie rules / profiles were created by Charax & used with permission
i make no apologies, i warned you my ability to roll ones was infectious...

Build Your Imagination

mirryhalo

ok well I've got an idea brewing for his nemesis that nicely explains his current situation. The inquisitor Aldus Hale, not sure what ordo he'd be from, but overview is he was investigating on the system Dragos was a powerful member of and after some unique occurrences, dead not always resting easy, giant bats, people turning up with a couple of holes in their necks (you know usual vampire behaviour) Hale did a bit of research into old books archives etc. and discovered what vampires were and set it his mission to purge the universe completely from all undead becoming the inquisition's first vampire hunter. After doing more probing Hale found out Dragos was one of these night walkers and as vampires would of course be abominations against the emperor Hale setes out to turn him into dust, literally. He started to undermine and destroy his credibility and well established extravagant life he had made for himself as well as turning the populace against him. Being unable to combat Hale at that time Dragos had to flee his system with as only a few possessions (angry mob with torches and pitchforks kind of affair). He had to find business as a bounty hunter and is slowly biding his time, building up information on Hale until he's in a strong enough position to strike and claim back what is his. That's kind of the basic basis of his back story.

With the stat line being so high I mean it's because he's a vampire they are immensely powerful and I kind of thought he'd be more of a one man band, just him and a few zombies.

Blooddrinker the sword was supposed to be based on the idea of the magic weapons from WFB because they are essentially daemon weapons but they don't have the problems with battling a source of evil power as the magic is bound into the weapon for good to stay there I was kind of going of the it's an old family heirloom sword so it'd be like its from that era. Also the idea about D6 to injury total and receive half makes more sense

In respect to the Raise dead power my basic idea was that he was only allowed to have two zombies with him at one time not summon a whole undead horde that would be a tad excessive and because vampires are magical creatures who tend to raise zombies the whole time I didn't think it'd be too tricky for him. Actually just had a brainwave the difficulty could start on 15 and gain another 5 for each zombie on the table so in that respect he could have some back up but I don't really think he needs it I thought 2 was enough

Thought of some extra weaknesses for him that may counteract his strengths vampires are supposed to die with a steak/similar pointy stick through the heart so maybe hits to the chest (with weapons like a crossbow or something similar, maybe Hale and his retinue have special Vampire steaks to take them out with) count as double damage, as the invulnerable rule, which would greatly counteract his high toughness. Or alternatively I could lower his toughness to a 'high average' 60 or so and give him a kind of Invulnerable special rule so half damage to all body locations but make it double when hit in the chest with particular weapons like the crossbows steaks etc?

So his warband would essentially be him and two zombies at a time but it would start off as just him every time unless I lowered his stats and gave him someone to work with but I thought that wouldn't really be in with the sort of guy he is. So with that in respect what do you thing is he still too overpowered if it's just him there rather than with a full warband?

P.S. I think I may write up some rules for Hale and his retinue   

mirryhalo

thanks for those rules gav I think I may work them into my Zombie rules, I wanted them to be still your classic zombies but with a bit more of a playable and useful aspect for my vampire as he'll be by himself.

I think I'll replace my brain dead with your one and you reminded me that I forgot to put all that stuff about Force of Will and Nerves of Steel and being Immune to psychic powers to do with Wp but yeah I think I'll factor in those.

I was contemplating the whole once bitten you're infected thing but I thought those kind of zombie are more virusey ones and the ones that a vampire would raise would be more just kind of animated corpses, just my reasoning, I also thought it would be a bit unfair to be running around with a vampire like this who can summon minions who could potentially turn an opponents entire warband into brain dead slaves within a short matter of time

The rotting flesh I think is also interesting but I may rework it a little so that as it is so disgusting unless a person has force of will then the suffer a -5% modifier in combat because the sight/stench is so repulsive.

Kaled

Quote from: mirryhalo on April 08, 2013, 07:48:14 PM
With the stat line being so high I mean it's because he's a vampire they are immensely powerful and I kind of thought he'd be more of a one man band, just him and a few zombies.
Bear in mind that most warbands are only three members anyway, and often one of those will be a character who's not that capable when it comes to combat, so in that regard your warband is not really going to be outnumbered.  Also, remember the point I made about him being a character whose stats are so high he's no fun to play or play against - if his stats are so high then there's not  much fun in facing him because you can almost guarantee that every time he takes a characteristic test he will pass and whoever he shoots or swings a sword at will get hit.  Plus, having a warband with only one real character, even if he is accompanied by a couple of mindless drones, can be another recipe for a dull fun game as it only takes one lucky hit and he's out of action.  Even if he's only stunned for D3 turns, those are turns that aren't going to be much fun to play.

Thus I would re-consider what other characters you could use with him - maybe a Renfield-type servant, cultists or anyone else who might have been drawn into his circle.  Then in some games you could just use him and his zombies, but you'd have options you could bring for use in different types of scenario.
I like to remember things my own way... Not necessarily the way they happened.

Inquisitor - Blood Bowl - Malifaux - Fairy Meat

Koval

Quote from: mirryhalo on April 08, 2013, 07:48:14 PM
Thought of some extra weaknesses for him that may counteract his strengths vampires are supposed to die with a steak/similar pointy stick through the heart
Deconstructed by Dan Shive.

In any event, being impaled through the heart by just about anything will kill most creatures, whether they're vampires* or not. ::)

QuoteBlooddrinker the sword was supposed to be based on the idea of the magic weapons from WFB because they are essentially daemon weapons but they don't have the problems with battling a source of evil power as the magic is bound into the weapon for good to stay there I was kind of going of the it's an old family heirloom sword so it'd be like its from that era.
This doesn't sit right with me, because "magic weapons" don't really exist in 40K (at least, not in the way you describe). As such, the only way I can imagine it working without being a daemonic or Chaos weapon is if it's a very specialised type of psychic conduit for a power that he himself possesses (and which he would therefore be able to use, to a much lesser degree, without the sword).


*I'm pretty sure the staking thing happened when they were down, anyway, to stop them from getting back up. In some versions of vampire lore, it's done through the mouth or stomach instead; originally, it happened while they were still corpses, to stop them from becoming vampires in the first place.

mirryhalo

Quote from: Kaled on April 08, 2013, 08:12:45 PM
Also, remember the point I made about him being a character whose stats are so high he's no fun to play or play against - if his stats are so high then there's not  much fun in facing him because you can almost guarantee that every time he takes a characteristic test he will pass and whoever he shoots or swings a sword at will get hit.  Plus, having a warband with only one real character, even if he is accompanied by a couple of mindless drones, can be another recipe for a dull fun game as it only takes one lucky hit and he's out of action.  Even if he's only stunned for D3 turns, those are turns that aren't going to be much fun to play.

Thus I would re-consider what other characters you could use with him - maybe a Renfield-type servant, cultists or anyone else who might have been drawn into his circle.  Then in some games you could just use him and his zombies, but you'd have options you could bring for use in different types of scenario.

Yeah I suppose that does make sense I will probably dum his stats down a bit then but the only thing is I'm unsure of what sort of person would go with him, maybe a thrall when he needs one or possibly an Igor kind of thing I'll have to mull it over and think of a model to represent him/her/it

@Koval
in regard to the steak my idea would be that it was a weakness so that is why it would deal double damage it would damage most people but it would do significantly more damage to him than relative damage to other parts of his body

and the magic sword idea was that you wouldn't find anything like it in the 41st millennium it is unique my idea of it any way

Koval

#13
Quote from: mirryhalo on April 08, 2013, 10:45:46 PM
@Koval
in regard to the steak my idea would be that it was a weakness so that is why it would deal double damage it would damage most people but it would do significantly more damage to him than relative damage to other parts of his body
A steak is something you eat. :P

And again, I don't exactly see why specific things going through his heart would do more damage than others -- it'll do damage anyway and I already explained where the stake-through-the-heart thing comes from. Sometimes it would even be something sharp and metallic instead.

Quoteand the magic sword idea was that you wouldn't find anything like it in the 41st millennium
Yes, that's exactly why I'm trying to think of ways that you could make it work without clashing with 40K background.

Kaled

Quote from: Koval on April 09, 2013, 06:31:31 AM
And again, I don't exactly see why specific things going through his heart would do more damage than others -- it'll do damage anyway and I already explained where the stake-through-the-heart thing comes from. Sometimes it would even be something sharp and metallic instead.
While all this is true, the common mythology of vampires is that a wooden stake to the heart is the way to dispatch them, and I see no reason to throw away that mythology when creating a character that is based on the concept of what if a vampire based on that mythology survived through to the 41st millenium.

QuoteYes, that's exactly why I'm trying to think of ways that you could make it work without clashing with 40K background.
I don't have a problem with it being referred to as a 'magic' sword - depending on his age, the character may well have lived much of his life during a time where magic was thought to be real so that's how he refers to his sword. In reality the weapon may be a type of daemon weapon or force weapon or something, but the character doesn't have to know that - and we don't really need to know it in order to play or to play against the character.
I like to remember things my own way... Not necessarily the way they happened.

Inquisitor - Blood Bowl - Malifaux - Fairy Meat