Armoury of the Forge Worlds

[RobSkib]

So there's a few fancy codexes that GW has released that flesh out the Adeptus Mechanicus as an army in it's own right (specifically the Skitarii and Cult Mechanicus), as opposed to just the occasional red-robed priest tagging along in a squad. This has introduced a wealth of super cool Adeptus Mechanicus toys into the 40k universe - radiation rifles, phosphorous pistols, coil guns that shoot 10,000 year old energy, homing fletchette pistols, rapid firing plasma rifles. None of which, however, has translated to any other game system (like Dark Heresy or Rogue Trader), leaving all the best AdMech toys firmly in the realms of the tabletop game. I'd like to fix this.

With a bunch of Adeptus Mechanicus characters planned (and no small order of bits in the mail...), I'd like to throw it out to the community to help me with a small project - namely converting a bunch of the coolest AdMech weaponry for use with Inquisitor. I'm going to be using Marco's RIA as a guide, but for some reason 'radioactive lightning gun' isn't a common rifle type, so I'll be doing a lot of extrapolation and guesswork.

I've not really done any hard thinking on stats, but I'm going to list off the weapon types and their descriptions below. I'll also add any comments as to why I think they'll be cool and/or appropriate for Inquisitor, and try and come up with special rules ideas.

Arc weapons
Arc weapons are powered by bulky permacapacitors shipped from Mars' Great Repositorium. Some of these zinc-plated blocks store energy from the days when the Imperium was young. They discharge with a loud crack, firing bolts of blue-white electricity that can fry a man's brain or overload a war machine's datacortex in a second.

I love the clumsy look of these. I see this as my bread-and-butter AdMech weapon, operating like a souped-up lasgun. They have the 'haywire' special rule, so perhaps some neural shredder-type effect?

Fletchette blaster
The flechette blaster is lightweight but lethal, a favoured tool of the Sicarian Infiltrator. It fires hundreds of tiny darts, each of which bears a dormant cerebral cell awakened in the gun's chamber. Where one dart hits home it emits a bioelectric pulse that attracts others, resulting in a series of impacts that burrow through bone.

Rapid fire pistol with homing ammunition eh? I could see this attached to a mech-assassin or well-connected gang lord.

Galvanic rifle
Modelled after the hunting flintlocks of Mars' past, the Mk IV Arkhan galvanic rifle is a precision tool in the hands of a Skitarii Ranger. Its bodywork is that of an antique, with a polished wooden stock and curlicues that echo the sandy seas of Mars' desert. Yet the galvanic servitor-bullets inside are incredibly advanced. When such a bullet strikes home, it causes all the potential energy of the target to burn out in a killing blast of electric force.

How would you represent the "burning out" of a target's potential energy? Rolling a number of D3 equal to the target's Toughness divided by 10?

Phosphor weapons - pistols and blasters
Though the crawling horror of phosphex weaponry is all but forgotten in the Imperium, the blinding white fire of phosphor weaponry is still utilised by the Skitarii to mark out high priority targets amongst the battlefield murk. If those struck by the burning spheres fired by these weapons are not killed by the initial trauma, they are soon felled by the light-guided volleys that follow.

A kind of brutal marker-light with an acid effect? In 40k it describes them as reducing cover saves too, so definitely a reduction of cover and/or armour points under repeated assault

Plasma caliver
As volatile as it is deadly, the plasma caliver exchanges range for a truly terrifying rate of fire. A squad of Skitarii armed with several plasma calivers lights up the night with each volley. To say they risk life and limb in the process is a grave understatement, yet to their Tech-Priest masters, such collateral damage matters not at all.

This one looks like a fairly easy modification of the current plasma gun/carbine, swapping range out for a greater rate of fire. I love the idea of a devoted mechanicus cultist with a rifle permanently set to 11, cackling and blasting away, desperate to bask in the warm plasma-y embrace of the weapon's spirit.

Radium weapons - pistols, carbines and jezzails
Radium weapons are so volatile that they eventually kill their wielders. Their baroque beauty belies a singularly vile function – not only to strike, but to render the battlefield as deadly as the rad-wastes of Mars. Each weapon's bullet cylinder is so thoroughly bathed in radium that a volley can cause a localised rad-storm. Those inside soon find their flesh blackening  and sloughing away.

Who doesn't love the idea of turning the battlefield into an irradiated hell-storm? The idea of imposing radiation poisoning on both the shooter and the target gives me a sick thrill - can your lowly Skitarii initiate take out the remaining enemy footsoldiers before succumbing to the wrath of his own weapon?

There's a load more I want to delve into, such as the arc mauls, taser goads, transonic blades, and some of the even weirder stuff like the electroleech stave that literally sucks the bioelectrical energy from it's target. I'll have a bit more about them when I find some more time to post.

[MarcoSkoll]

I'm going to be using Marco's RIA as a guide, but for some reason 'radioactive lightning gun' isn't a common rifle type, so I'll be doing a lot of extrapolation and guesswork.

I have looked at the newer Ad-Mech weapons. Unfortunately, the problem is that while many of them have obvious rules, these are often also bad rules.

For example, the Radium weapons. One "obvious" way to represent radiation poisoning would be with toughness penalties, representing how the body is dying on a cellular level. Problem is, Toughness is a major stat where changing it can seriously mess with the balance of a character (an already frail character could be pushed well below the threshold of being a playable, interesting character) and requires a lot of bookkeeping (having by far the most derived characteristics and modifiers).
(While the RIA's Rending rule does sort of affect Toughness, it doesn't really have the same issues. Because it only applies to calculating the effect of that hit, it requires no additional bookkeeping. After the damage is done, it's treated exactly the same as normal damage).

There's also a lot of powerful weapons that it's rather difficult to keep interesting, not having any real drawbacks to balance them out.

Arc weapons
I love the clumsy look of these. I see this as my bread-and-butter AdMech weapon, operating like a souped-up lasgun. They have the 'haywire' special rule, so perhaps some neural shredder-type effect?

Well, Inquisitor already has Haywire weapons. A brief shorting out of bionics and the like might be truer to the concept than the neural shredder rules.

As a S6 weapon in 40k, I think these are going to present one of the bigger balancing challenges.

Fletchette blaster
Rapid fire pistol with homing ammunition eh? I could see this attached to a mech-assassin or well-connected gang lord.

This is probably one of the more viable options, although you don't really want it to turn into an "all or nothing" thing where hit bonuses either result in a chain reaction where a couple of lucky rolls snowball into the target being hit with an entire burst or bad rolls early on making it highly ineffective.

Galvanic rifle
How would you represent the "burning out" of a target's potential energy? Rolling a number of D3 equal to the target's Toughness divided by 10?

That would probably just result in doing two injury levels to the target. The more dice you roll, the more statistically average the result becomes.
A Toughness 60 character would be 6D3, which is going to mostly come out pretty close to 12; minus a bit for armour and you get about two injury levels.

Really though, I'm not sure how to make sense of "Potential energy burning out in force"; it's just sciencey sounding words thrown into a blender.

However, if I had to pick a "coilgun" out of the AdMech weapon lists, "Galvanic Rifle" really makes the most sense; "Galvanic" is mostly used as 40k-speak for electromagnetic propulsion (for example, the Tauros ATV used by the Elysians is described as being powered by galvanic motors), so that's more consistent with the broader fluff, is much more scientifically logical and matches its 40K rules reasonably.
Personally, I'd take a bit of a liberty with the weapon's own fluff and chase down that avenue instead.

Phosphor weapons - pistols and blasters
A kind of brutal marker-light with an acid effect? In 40k it describes them as reducing cover saves too, so definitely a reduction of cover and/or armour points under repeated assault

The loss of cover saves seems to be more from the fact that being "painted" makes you an easier target.

These ones definitely fall into the "tough to make fun" bucket, given they're high damage and seem to have an excuse to also use the rules for catching fire.

Plasma caliver
This one looks like a fairly easy modification of the current plasma gun/carbine, swapping range out for a greater rate of fire. I love the idea of a devoted mechanicus cultist with a rifle permanently set to 11, cackling and blasting away, desperate to bask in the warm plasma-y embrace of the weapon's spirit.

I don't know there's much I can add here, but I didn't want to leave it off the list.

Radium weapons - pistols, carbines and jezzails
Who doesn't love the idea of turning the battlefield into an irradiated hell-storm? The idea of imposing radiation poisoning on both the shooter and the target gives me a sick thrill - can your lowly Skitarii initiate take out the remaining enemy footsoldiers before succumbing to the wrath of his own weapon?

Beyond what I've said earlier about the challenges of not just keeping radiation poisoning simple and balanced in game, a horrific death like that is going to be very difficult to make fun.

I think these have a very tough argument being an Inquisitor character's standard weaponry - they're brutal eradication weapons intended to salt the earth, and not at all the kind of thing that has any place in an underhive investigation. Forcing a character's hand such that they've doomed themselves to fight is just going to derail scenarios.

It might - might - be possible to go somewhere with the idea if the effects of the rad poisoning on the user were fairly passive (rather than  progressively killing him, it's more of a flat penalty) and there were non-intrusive rules for how it affects its targets, but even then it's tough to explain the weapon having a valid place in Inquisitor.

(And I say that as someone who has actually written Inquisitor rules for a plasma cannon the size of a tank, even if somewhat jokingly).

[MarcoSkoll]

Having thought a little further since last night, I might go for a bit more of a compromise on the Galvanic Rifle. The base weapon itself could be some form of high velocity coilgun (as opposed to the subsonic coilguns I've written rules for previously), which could then potentially be loaded with a variety of odd ammunitions.

Exactly how a "potential killing energy force" bullet would be handled in the rules is another matter, but separating it into a special ammunition might be a way to rein in the overall level of the weapon (which is more powerful than a bolter in 40k) to something more Inquisitor appropriate.

[RobSkib]

Posting off a phone, so no fancy quote formatting I'm afraid.

Slight clarity; I'm personally going to be using the rules on a fallen/heretic Mechanicus warband, one of them being a fairly mad cultist with little regard for his own life, just the joy of bathing in the holy light (read: Radiation) of the omnissiah. Although these weapons are hype and grossly overpowered, I don't see them out of the scope of Inquisitor games so long as they are treated appropriately. We have rules for plasma cannons and super-krak missile launchers after all, and as long as people treat them with similar reverence (albeit more man-portable versions) I don't think there will be a problem.

So yeah, I agree they don't have a place in an Inquisitor's regular arsenal, but I think they should be treated like servitors, space marines or other weapons of war. It'd be nice to have some usable rules.

What about something like having no 'damage' stat, but outright doing d3 / d5 levels of injury on a location when it strikes? I'm not sure on the statistical balance, I like the idea of having a kind of alternate damage model without having a bundle of extra rules

[MarcoSkoll]

one of them being a fairly mad cultist with little regard for his own life, just the joy of bathing in the holy light (read: Radiation) of the omnissiah.

Right. He's been playing too much Fallout, I see.

We have rules for plasma cannons and super-krak missile launchers after all, and as long as people treat them with similar reverence (albeit more man-portable versions) I don't think there will be a problem.

We do have rules, but anything heavier than a bolter or maybe a plasma pistol seems to fall almost exclusively into a GM-only category.
My Razorback, Sentinel and Wraithguard all have very heavy weapons, but none of these are things I've ever used as a player.

Gav and Kaled both have pretty heavily armed combat servitors, but they're about the only time I've seen 'Clavers put heavy weapons on anything vaguely "PC-ish".
Even then though, a multi-melta or plasma cannon somehow feels less alien to Inquisitor than a weapon that actively penalises you for not starting a fight.

If I really had to do a radiation weapon?
Well, if it was a rad cleanser "flamer" type weapon, probably something that does little actual damage, but causes lots of extra "bleeding" effects. While not quite as dramatic, scary or realistic as a toughness penalty might be, it's going to be easier and less problematic in game.
For a rifle type weapon with contaminated bullets, probably some "bleeding", but probably a level (or maybe two, depending on the damage stat) of Rending because the body is also being attacked on a cellular level.

What about something like having no 'damage' stat, but outright doing d3 / d5 levels of injury on a location when it strikes? I'm not sure on the statistical balance, I like the idea of having a kind of alternate damage model without having a bundle of extra rules

As far as the statistical balance that's pretty much the same thing as the IRE/RIA drafts call "Unnatural damage". Take X injury levels (effectively bypassing all toughness and armour), take D6 injury total for each of those*.
*Which I feel balances up slightly better than "do the minimum injury total needed" that GW used for things like the Power Breacher or Decapitators. It makes it a bit more random and reins the most powerful hits in (and means that one injury level doesn't mean just one damage!).

At the moment, though I normally reserve it for attacks that ignore physics (like certain psychic powers or Wraithcannons) or those that are so horrendously powerful that physics just gives up anyway. The problem is, it makes the weapon able to make a mess of anything, regardless of its toughness or armour. Whether you're shooting at a small rat or a Land Raider, it doesn't matter.

Off the top of my head, there's only four things I think have any significant defence against Unnatural damage: Psykers with Instability (who might be immune to some Unnatural weapons), Impervious daemons (can't take more than one injury level per hit), Kaled's Ogryn rules (two extra injury levels - and even that's not a lot here), and Leander**.
** Her hypothetical "what if" rules give her up to twelve injury levels on some locations, and it would have to take down her void shields first. (And if you're wondering how resilient she is versus conventional weapons: none of her armour values are less than 20 and she has a "Hardened" rule that halves the effectiveness of armour piercing attacks).

In a way, it's almost an Inquisitor equivalent to low AP Destroyer weapons. It can be tuned a bit with the exact roll used , but it's still not really a rule that strikes me as the right feel for the Galvanic Rifle - it's a weapon that's S4 AP4 in WH40k, not something that can punch through Terminator armour like wet tissue paper.

Like I say, I'd still make it a fairly simple coilgun. Damage on the high end of rifles (something around 3D6+3, 4D6 or maybe 3D8), a decent range like D or G, not so great on the rate of fire (nothing more than Semi(2), if they can rapid fire at all).
The potential electricity explosion power bullets can certainly be handled as an ammo type. For an idea off the top of my head, they reduce the target's system shock value. They'd possibly need a drawback too, as that is fairly powerful, but you seem to want something that scales up a bit against tougher targets, and that does. (Weaker targets are likely to be testing anyway, so it's going to be most effective against characters who are normally too tough or well armoured to exceed their system shock).