An Obliterator Librarian... and some other questions.

[psycho]

Everyone has told me that Inquisitor Marius Dire is over-powered, due to the fact that he has Power Armour, a Power Fist and a Bolt Pistol with a reload and 3 Inferno Rounds. Dont know why he is over powered, as he was once almost decapitated by an Imperial Guardsman with an eviscerator. so no hes not over-powered, just very much a Kick-Ass character.
the idea of the game is to create, not an uber model, but someone that has cool, calculated potential!
When i designed Interrogator Davlire Freed, he is a basicly a younger, under-powered version of a character ive always wanted to build. This means that in campaign terms, i can keep him going until i feel the need to make the Uber mini i want him to be. Not powerful in stats, just an awesome mini

Kerby

[Kaled]

Everyone has told me that Inquisitor Marius Dire is over-powered, due to the fact that he has Power Armour, a Power Fist and a Bolt Pistol with a reload and 3 Inferno Rounds. Dont know why he is over powered, as he was once almost decapitated by an Imperial Guardsman with an eviscerator. so no hes not over-powered

Just because it's possible to beat a character doesn't mean he isn't over-powered.  In this game it's possible for a small child to beat a marine if the child gets in four quick slaps to the head, that doesn't make the marine any less powerful.

[MarcoSkoll]

Don't know why he is over powered, as he was once almost decapitated by an Imperial Guardsman with an eviscerator.

It's not about being beaten once (and even that depends on whether the Guardsman's statline was reasonable). It's about the character's overall performance.

Your character has the some of the best armour in the game, one of the most powerful ranged weapons in the game and one of the most powerful close combat weapons (as well as hexagrammic wards).
He also has five stats of 81+. Compare that to the five characters I rotate through my normal warband, who only have three stats of 81+ between them - and one of those is only due to a bionic arm.

I don't quite get why you can't see that that level of power really isn't "standard". You're probably going to tell me "But he's exceptional", but almost ALL Inquisitor characters are already exceptional.

[monkhmer]

 

OK, back to my lame argument for overpowering a character for sake of scale.  In the fluff, Horus stabs his Lighting Claw through an armoured female human and she is dead dead dead.  Why wouldn't an Obliterator Librarian in Terminator Armour be able to do the same?  Is it because he was a Primarch?

I now understand that the game isn't meant for stats like that.  How might one tailor it to do so?  For instance if I wanted to have a group of Grey Knights hunting daemons or a Deathwatch Xenos Killteam going after some Tyranid or Necrontyr?

I've read Ravenor and Eisenhorn and duly appreciate the cyberpunk aspect of Inquisitor but there's also the epic ass-kicking side that 40k does so abstractly that it really isn't fun.  At least not for me.  I was hoping Inquisitor might be able to do that.

[Dosdamt]

How I would tailor the game for those encounters - Round all stats up to the nearest 100. Divide all stats by 100. Apply the 40k rules as I would suggest you go and play Killteam. Really. If you're looking for small groups of SM killing select targets etc etc - you need Killteam.

Inquisitor is all about the detail - the gritty encounters. The down and dirty business of keeping the Imperium safe from the clutches of various, nefarious types. The grappling on the floor, splashing in puddles, last ditch efforts to waylay the bomb / kidnap the contact / prevent a catastrophe world of 40k.

If the CSM-Lib-Term-Obl Lightning Clawed anyone, my assumption is that they would be dead dead dead. I am quite certain that any average damage with the ridiculous minimum damage would kill most things.

But, quite seriously - if your attitude to Inquisitor is going to be "OMG WOH WUD WIN IN A FIYT BETWIN HORYUS AND EMP IN INQUIS?" you really are in the wrong place. Go back to 40k, be amongst your own people. It's fine.

However, if you're willing to learn about Inquisitor, the realm in which the game operates, then be prepared to be welcomed with open arms.

-Ben

[Kaled]

Why wouldn't an Obliterator Librarian in Terminator Armour be able to do the same?  Is it because he was a Primarch?

I don't think anyone is suggesting that an Obliterator Librarian in Terminator Armour shouldn't ought to be hugely powerful (although, just because a character can kill someone with one hit, doesn't mean it should be automatic - this is a game after all), they're suggesting that such a character has no place in most games of Inquisitor.  That all said, if you make an awesome 54mm model of a hugely powerful character then people will probably be queuing up to play you to to have a go at taking him down (and a good GM will give them every chance to succeed!).

How might one tailor it to do so?  For instance if I wanted to have a group of Grey Knights hunting daemons or a Deathwatch Xenos Killteam going after some Tyranid or Necrontyr?

If you want to tailor the game so it is mainly based around those sorts of epic encounters, I'd look at lowering everyone's stats so the game is still fun - so for example instead of strength 100 being the human maximum, make it the maximum for a marine.  That way, you don't have the problem of it almost being pointless rolling the dice because it's almost a foregone conclusion that a character will pass any test they're called on to make.

Or go play Killteam.  Or use a combination of Necromunda and 2nd Ed 40k rules.  They might be a better starting point for such games.

Remember also that games of Inquisitor work best with 3-4 models per side and no more than about 10-12 on the table at once.  The games slows to a crawl if you have more than that many and so isn't suited for squad vs horde games (unless you're in a position to play games that go on for several days).

[Simeon Blackstar]

But Obliterators generate Terminator armour anyway, and are probably too insane to use psychic powers, so a Terminator armour-wearing Librarian infected with the Obliterator virus would just become a standard Obliterator...

Like other people have said though, Inquisitor is primarily made a game featuring cinematic conflict between humans.  You don't add in Obliterators and stuff like that more than once in a blue moon, simply because the system starts to break down if you do, and everyone else gets frustrated about your Uber-character wading through everyone else invulnerably.  Imagine the character as equivalent to turning up to a Necromunda campaign and wanting to use a squad of Deathwing in their Land Raider Crusader.  It's an almost forgone conclusion that you're going to win and mess everyone else's gangs up in the process.

Space Marines are bad enough.  Believe me, one of the first models I made was a Captain with a power fist and storm bolter, and every time he's come out, he's single-handedly achieved his objective while dropping everyone else and coming out virtually unscathed.  If I wasn't so happy with the conversion, I'd redo him.  Equally though, I'm going to make a really nasty Chaos Marine for an end of campaign bad guy, which is really where power-armoured hulks belong.

Still, please don't let this put you off - Inquisitor is a great game when you aren't trying to force it to be Kill Team or 40k.  Necromunda...  Well, I'd love to do a small Necromunda-style campaign with Inquisitor rules, but I still have to convince my mates I could make it work! 

[MarcoSkoll]

In the fluff, Horus stabs his Lighting Claw through an armoured female human and she is dead dead dead.

Inquisitor's rules aren't the fluff. Nor are they a 100% depiction of reality.

Laspistols are exceptionally dangerous in the fluff - one shot can easily be fatal. However, in Inquisitor, it can take 5 or 6 shots to simply knock a character unconscious with one.

What you need to bear in mind is that in the fluff, a weapon's power is defined by the needs of the plot. If the author needs a character to survive a plasma gun shot for the plot to work, then they'll survive it.
Similar thing with the accuracy of anyone involved. If their target needs to survive, then they'll miss. Main characters are naturally hard to kill.

It's a similar thing with Inquisitor, except Inquisitor assumes EVERY character on the table is a main character, so in most cases, a single hit, regardless of the weapon, is seldom enough to prove fatal.
Even a single head shot would need to do 3*BIV+1 damage to prove fatal in one shot, and that can demand damage even a bolter is unlikely to do in one.

I now understand that the game isn't meant for stats like that.  How might one tailor it to do so?

Like Kaled suggests, then scale the overall stats/damage so that the character's stats are all within the 0-100 scale (even the Marines). It's stats of over 100 that break the game if they are present in anything other than the sparsest quantities.

[Koval]

It's a similar thing with Inquisitor, except Inquisitor assumes EVERY character on the table is a main character, so in most cases, a single hit, regardless of the weapon, is seldom enough to prove fatal.
Even a single head shot would need to do 3*BIV+1 damage to prove fatal in one shot, and that can demand damage even a bolter is unlikely to do in one.

For this reason I migrated to Dark Heresy. Sure, it's still not especially easy to kill a guy in one shot with a bolter, but it's a hell of a lot easier than Inquisitor's system (which, for want of a better expression, has characters that might as well be steel eggshells)

That, and everything is as lethal as it's meant to be; not so for Inquisitor, where characters can survive a direct hit from weapons designed to blow up tanks (multi-melta, lascannon)

[psycho]

Yeh Marco the rules on here are the old ones, before i realised that characters that are "powerful" arent fun to game with. Hes a character that doesnt come out much, although when he does i must say he is generally accompanied by a Savant and Marius' faithful Cherubim. The armour i can understand, but in 40k it seems everyone has a bolt weapon anyway, read any of the Gaunt's Ghosts novels or Gav Thorpes Last Chancers and youll see an abundance of Bolt Weaponry. Now i know INQ isnt the Fluff but surely if its ok for the dudes that write the fluff then it must be ok for an extremely zealous, fire toting, Emperor fearing Witch Hunter that simply wants to rid the galaxy of every single Witch, Psyker (human or not) and basically anything that threatens his Imperium.

Kerby

[N01H3r3]

Now i know INQ isnt the Fluff but surely if its ok for the dudes that write the fluff then it must be ok for an extremely zealous, fire toting, Emperor fearing Witch Hunter that simply wants to rid the galaxy of every single Witch, Psyker (human or not) and basically anything that threatens his Imperium.

Different contexts. The novel series' you mention deal with front-line combat units - Imperial Guard forces for whom the supply of effective munitions is a necessity. Further, they tend to deal with the 'heroes' of those units, the ones who are most likely to obtain powerful weaponry like bolt pistols (commissars and officers are not a representative sample of the population when determining whether or not a weapon is commonplace) rather than the billions of tonnes of ambulatory meat that make up the rest of the regiment...

Beyond that, Inquisitors and their staff are different - they aren't inherently soldiers, though they may be warriors. What might be desirable to own for a Guardsman still within his regiment is not necessarily so for a servant of the Inquisition, even one who was formerly a Guardsman himself.

Bolt Weapons are expensive to maintain, expensive to supply, bulky and none-too-subtle. When you need to shoot an Ork in the face and have the resources of the Departmento Munitorum to supply you with ammunition, it's great. When you're undercover for months or years on end, working your way through criminal fraternities and seditious groups to find the particular heretic you're looking for... you might want something a little more subtle. Alternatively, you might simply want to do things in a more personalised manner, favouring the reliability of the laspistol tucked into your belt to help out when the grox-dung strikes the atmospheric recycler, or the simplicity and familiarity of the customised revolvers you've been using for over a decade.

On a similar note, it's always worth considering a character's equipment within the context of his background, even if only in a cursory manner. Rare equipment in particular should often have at least the barest hint of a story behind it - why does this character have a power sword? Of what significance is this bolt pistol? Was the sword a gift from a Tech-Priest you assisted decades before, the bolt pistol a relic from an old crusade centuries before, wielded by a now-sainted hero?

Many items, particularly the powerful ones, in the Imperium outlast their owners by a significant amount. Weapons and armour are passed from owner to owner... they shouldn't just be thrown onto a character 'just because'. Especially when dealing with the Astartes, for whom the legacies of their wargear are of vast importance, considering the reasons behind a choice of equipment is not a matter to be ignored.

[MarcoSkoll]

not so for Inquisitor, where characters can survive a direct hit from weapons designed to blow up tanks (multi-melta, lascannon).

Perfectly possible in 40k as well, I would note, on a wound roll of 1.

Yes, Inquisitor's weapons aren't as powerful as they should really be to be "realistic", but like I said above, Inquisitor is not a depiction of reality, it's a depiction of a "Hollywood reality".

The armour i can understand, but in 40k it seems everyone has a bolt weapon anyway, read any of the Gaunt's Ghosts novels or Gav Thorpes Last Chancers and you'll see an abundance of Bolt Weaponry.

I'll be echoing N01H3r3 a little here, but I will add that when you're on a 40k battlefield, you can almost count on using your weapon, justifying its weight.
Inquisitors do find themselves in sticky situations, but they're not in a warzone. They'd be stupid not to carry a weapon, but a weapon as bulky as a bolter is a lot to carry around on the unlikelihood they'll need it. And that's not just need a weapon, that's need a bolter. The number of situations where a bolter is necessary (and where a stubber wouldn't do) are few and far between.

On the note of subtlety, Inquisitor Skoll's equipment is low key enough to allow him to walk into almost any building without raising a big fuss. He can investigate subtly, because he doesn't look all that out of place in most places, be it in a casual bar or walking around a government building.
People would see Inquisitor Dire from a mile off. (Obligatory quoting of PrecinctOmega's Inquisitor Haiku: Power armoured tank! Force halberd and storm bolter! Your informant flees...) In other words, he would look out of place almost everywhere except a battlefield.

Marius Dire is more a "Battlefield Inquisitor" than the normal "Dark Shadows Inquisitor". Yes, I have no doubt that such Inquisitors exist, but they're far more likely to be found leading a vast army than skulking in shadows. So really, more of a thing for 40k than for Inquisitor.

[Koval]

not so for Inquisitor, where characters can survive a direct hit from weapons designed to blow up tanks (multi-melta, lascannon).

Perfectly possible in 40k as well, I would note, on a wound roll of 1.

You know what I meant. In 40K you can probably say it wasn't a proper hit -- it just frazzled the target's hair and maybe burned his ear off as it went past, or for something bigger, it just skimmed off an armour plate or something and amounted to very little. Not enough to incapacitate, certainly not enough to burn straight through (which, let's face it, is what a direct lascannon hit should do to a human, on top of partial or total atomisation)

Obligatory emoticon,

[Serge]

not so for Inquisitor, where characters can survive a direct hit from weapons designed to blow up tanks (multi-melta, lascannon).

Perfectly possible in 40k as well, I would note, on a wound roll of 1.

You know what I meant. In 40K you can probably say it wasn't a proper hit -- it just frazzled the target's hair and maybe burned his ear off as it went past, or for something bigger, it just skimmed off an armour plate or something and amounted to very little. Not enough to incapacitate, certainly not enough to burn straight through (which, let's face it, is what a direct lascannon hit should do to a human, on top of partial or total atomisation)

Obligatory emoticon,

Same in Inquisitor.

A hit in the arm that doesn't do much damage can be a bullet flying by, scratching the skin and jacket in true hollywood fashion.

A crit to the head that kills outright, however, deserves to be called a critical hit.

And my warband has only one boltweapon. (An executioner-pistol), The inq however has a paladins shield, which is slightly less sneaky than power armour, right? Well, you'll hear him before you'll see him, since he's more of a faith-mongering orator than a warrior, even if he's a 7´0" beefcake.


And I am no powergamer. Emelie is but a GM tool to annoy powergamers. She's just more awesome than an orbital strike (model wise, but than again, I haven't seen any interstellar inq.scale spaceships yet).

[Koval]

Same in Inquisitor.

A hit in the arm that doesn't do much damage can be a bullet flying by, scratching the skin and jacket in true hollywood fashion.

A crit to the head that kills outright, however, deserves to be called a critical hit.

Not arguing about that, I'm arguing about a hit from a sufficiently powerful weapon that does a fair amount of damage and still leaves its target very much alive. Take a lascannon in this setting, which has 4D10 damage as the rulebook wants it, and fire it at a character like Sergeant Stone. Short of a Crippling head shot, you're not going to kill him at all if he's starting from full health. Average damage will be around 22 from 4D10, which would still cause him a serious injury, but he'd still be breathing, and possibly even getting back up for another go when logically he should have a giant smoking hole bored straight through him.

This has been argued back and forth hundreds of times, and as it is, we still have the slap-to-the-head situation almost creating a paradox with the lascannon example, with no in-system* solution in sight until INQ2 comes out.


*By which I mean, at the moment I'd rather run a game using Dark Heresy or GURPS. The Inquisitor system is a fair starting point but just falls behind really quickly.