As you should know from reading my very intelligently titled "Marco does something" thread, I'm working on a Battle Sister.
This is not a character sheet - partly because I'm still trying to decide on her name (I'm thinking something Celtic, but not sure yet). This, therefore, is rules wittering.
Now, before we get into it, a Battle Sister is obviously a powerful character. Give a girl power armour and a bolter, and she's not going to be a pushover. Straight off the bat, I'm going to say that I intend to not tweak the guns or the armour. Tempting as it is to knock the armour value down to 8 and call it "Light Power Armour", I think toning down her equipment would spoil the experience of playing a Battle Sister.
I intend to compromise for her power in the other members of the warband she eventually joins, not by making her less powerful than she should be.
That's not why I'm here, anyway. To start with, I'm looking to try and think over some rules for Faith, because I think the ones Andy Hoare wrote for the Sisters of the Emperor article are a little dull and limited.
Frenzy is useless (it confers no bonus, just restrictions) and you'd usually be better off using a Healing action than the Regeneration (because unless you need to heal more than two levels, a regular healing action doesn't require an additional Wp test to work).
Fearsome might have a little potential (although it's unlikely to do much), as could Word of the Emperor - but as I see it, Acts of Faith should be doing things outside conferring an Exotic Ability for the turn.
So, I'm thinking a free action would be more appropriate, with abilities such as (and with names blatantly stolen from the Witch Hunters codex):
- Hand of the Emperor: Channelling the Emperor's wrath, you may convert a hit to an automatic critical (possibly including shooting attacks).
- Divine Guidance: Guided on your path by the Emperor himself, you may re-roll all failed action dice this turn.
- Spirit of the Martyr: The Emperor is not yet ready to accept your soul. Immediately take a healing action for each injury level taken. This is not limited to healing only two levels of injury on a location. (Probably needs a hefty Wp modifier, possibly use extra Faith points and use actions)
- Light of the Emperor: Looking upon you, all quail in fear of the Emperor. Gain Word of the Emperor and Terrifying for D3+1 Turns.
- The Passion: Filled with holy fervour, you gain a +20 bonus to Strength, Initiative and Nerve for D3+1 Turns.
Anyway, that's just some witterings I've mostly made up while I was writing this post (they're certainly not the same as the ideas I had when I started typing), but I think they're more interesting and useful than the original version of the rules. Feel free to critique - as I say, some/most/all will need Wp modifiers (but I don't see that they're that different in power to some of the psychic powers out there) - or add other ideas.
And yes, I have looked at the Sororitas rules in the Inquisitor's Handbook.
I'd have to think a bit longer about the revised Acts of Faith, but going into this thread, I was going to suggest that the Sororitas have "light(er) power armour" - to sort of de-abstract from the 40k idea that a 3+ is a 3+ is a 3+. Even with Armour 8, she'd still be a formidable threat.
QuoteI'd have to think a bit longer about the revised Acts of Faith, but going into this thread, I was going to suggest that the Sororitas have "light(er) power armour" - to sort of de-abstract from the 40k idea that a 3+ is a 3+ is a 3+. Even with Armour 8, she'd still be a formidable threat
I thought the weakness of Sororitas power armour is that it didn't confer any strength bonuses? It still has the same level of protection, but lacks the servo assistance that add to a SM's already enormous strength?
I imagine it's the difference between strapping plasteel plates to your body, much like a sci-fi form of plate armor, and having them supported by internal mechanisms. Looking at the difference in design between the SM - big hulking knights and AS - sculpted form fitting plates, that's what I would guess. The idea of making it lighter I don't think really works, because it's meant to be one of the distinctive characteristics of the Battle Sisters.
You could make her slower, to represent the weight she is carrying, perhaps. Or you could have areas of vulnerability where the plates have gaps between them. You could also make it immune to haywire grenades, because it quite literally is sculpted plates attached to her. You could also get rid of the filters and gas-resistances which power armour normally confers.
Quote- Hand of the Emperor: Channelling the Emperor's wrath, you may convert a hit to an automatic critical (possibly including shooting attacks).
- Divine Guidance: Guided on your path by the Emperor himself, you may re-roll all failed action dice this turn.
- Spirit of the Martyr: The Emperor is not yet ready to accept your soul. Immediately take a healing action for each injury level taken. This is not limited to healing only two levels of injury on a location. (Probably needs a hefty Wp modifier, possibly use extra Faith points and use actions)
- Light of the Emperor: Looking upon you, all quail in fear of the Emperor. Gain Word of the Emperor and Terrifying for D3+1 Turns.
- The Passion: Filled with holy fervour, you gain a +20 bonus to Strength, Initiative and Nerve for D3+1 Turns
I like the names, very characterful, but I'm concerned that she's already a combat monster and this will make her almost unstoppable. Would she have all of these abilities or just one?
Divine Guidance is great, I like that and I wouldn't change it. Hand of the Emperor seems too good, especially when you already consider she's carrying a boltgun. Why not change that to an increased modifier to hit on a successful WP roll? That gives you an advantage without the ability to kill stone dead an enemy character each turn.
Light of the Emperor is good, though I think it should last for just a turn or two, as it's another hugely powerful ability. I like the Passion, but I think it has to have a downside too. The Passion is classically an altered state brought on by feeling the touch of the Divine. It doesn't focus particularly on clear thinking or reasoning. Perhaps the GM has the chance to make one of her actions in the way he sees fit? Or maybe, on a roll, she succumbs to fainting or the speaking of tongues for an turn as she has become so involved in these great mass of emotions enveloping her.
=][= U
The Acts of Faith look good and i like the Idea of the "light" Power Armour.
Have you read "Blood of Martyrs", also? There you can find 35 different Acts of Faith. Soul Storm, Righteous Frenzy, Flames of Faith, Repel Daemon, Daemon Trap, Resurrection, Revelation,...just to name a few.
On the note of the power armour... maybe, but I'd have to think about it, because it would mean changing the standard Power Armour formula of AV 10.
However, I suppose that standard Power Armour in Inquisitor means either Tyrus' Armour or Artemis' Armour (but bear in mind, the SM's armour's extra bulk is partly represented in the ablative layers), so I suppose it is a lot less bulky with less plate metal in there - but I have to put a lot of that down to GW's scaling being a lot more "chunky" than my sculpting. And a degree of artistic licence with exaggerately feminine armour.
Maybe, but if I do drop the AV on the basis of less bulk, I will probably also drop the bonus for spotting a character in power armour too (see the DM Space Marine article). She's a darn sight more lithe than some of my normal models, so if we're assuming the armour's femininity is more than just artistic license, then the modifier for spotting the big bulky human tank should go with it.
(Still, if you see do see her though, you'd be unlikely to mistake that silhouette as being a hive citizen out for a bottle of milk.)
Quote from: UlgavitchI thought the weakness of Sororitas power armour is that it didn't confer any strength bonuses? It still has the same level of protection, but lacks the servo assistance that add to a SM's already enormous strength?
The wording is mostly that way to justify SoBs still having Strength 3 in 40k, rather than being boosted to Strength 4. However, as I see it, because it's not wired in via the superior Black Carapace, it can't safely use as much extra strength, lest it injure its user. It's still power armour - and by definition, power armour is powered and does have the Servo assistance.
I intend to just keep using the regular rules of increasing strength by a fifth, because her <60 strength will gain less from that than what a Strength ~120 Space Marine gets.
QuoteI like the names, very characterful, but I'm concerned that she's already a combat monster and this will make her almost unstoppable. Would she have all of these abilities or just one?
The names are stolen
straight from the Witch Hunters codex, I'm afraid. They don't necessarily have quite the same effects though.
She will probably have them all (these represent the kinds of ways a Battle Sister's faith will manifest. My planned Dialogus will have different faith abilities), but remember that she will only have a limited number of Faith points and will still need to pass a Wp test to make them work (And yes, there will be various modifiers). Going through in order:
Hand of the Emperor: Shooting critical should be read as "Placed Shot", not "Double Damage". I'm not too keen on this, as it's not really a very tangible bonus (Placed Shots aren't rare in the first place), but double damage was just too much for a bolter.
One other idea I had was to have it roll damage twice and pick the highest, or cause Tearing damage (working addition to the Revised Armoury, but entirely nicked from Dark Heresy - roll extra damage die, discard lowest) - but when you've got a weapon like 2D6 (such as her Chain-Sarissa) or her punching the snot out of someone with her D3+4 armour gauntlets (which is entirely possible, as if she loses her bolter, she'll be down to a knife, her gauntlets and a couple of grenades), it doesn't exactly inspire the image of righteous smiting.
One option would be to just layer on X extra damage (decided after the hit is made, but before damage is rolled), but I'd need to think about how much. Perhaps 2D6 - it would add fair punch to her CC, and while obviously it would be nasty with a bolter, a lot less so than doubling.
Light of the Emperor: My problem with the original rules is that the abilities lasted for only the one turn, which was usually next to useless. D3+1 turns was a short, but not stupidly short time period.
I have also considered treating it like a Persistent psychic ability, but I don't know if that would make the Acts of Faith feel too much like Psychic powers without the psychic. Still, perhaps that would be better in the respect that it would stop anyone knowing when the Faith would run out. (i.e: "She's about to run out of Terrifying, I'll wait until next turn to charge.")
The Passion: I had considered including Frenzy in it, but I generally prefer to roleplay psychological effects. After all, Frenzy would have her just go after the nearest person, regardless of what circumstances have inspired her fervour.
In any case, assume that I'll be exercising common sense as far as when any of the abilities are used and how she will act. After all, they're not psychic powers, they rely entirely on her emotional state.
Quote from: phil-o-mat on May 06, 2011, 07:54:01 AMHave you read "Blood of Martyrs", also?
Unfortunately not. Much though I'd love all the rules and background, I don't play enough of either Inquisitor or the 40k RPGs to justify spending a few hundred quid on getting a complete FFG book collection.
Marco do you have the Blood of Martyrs book for DH theres faith powers in there, also i believe the thorian source book has some alternate "Word of the Emperor" powers that might work, another power to think about is the Demagogue ability from the recongregators source book i imagine that a battle sister could perform a rather rousing inspirational speech
if your interested in the blood of martyrs abilities let me know might be able to sort something out
No. As I said at the end of my last post, I've got very little DH stuff.
As far as the alternate Word of the Emperor skills, bear in mind, this girl is eventually going to end up in an Ecclesiarchy warband!
She's probably going to join a Missionary (who explains the finer points of the Emperor's creed either with a big book or a big chainsword, depending on the cooperativeness of the audience) and a Dialogus (because not all the unenlightened will speak proper Gothic). There might also be a poor sod who has to carry around a heap of religious texts. Perhaps even a porta-pulpit with big braziers and caterpillar tracks (so as to better preach to the masses).
There's going to be no shortage of oratory from the other characters, so while I've built WotE into one of her Faith abilties, I'd prefer not to give it to her as a straight skill, given I'd like each character's faith - or possible lack of it - to affect the game differently.
~~~~~
It occurs to me that I should add a way of resisting psychic powers to her Faith abilities. Watch this space.
Personally I'd stick with the standard Power Armour, not because a 3+ is a 3+ is a 3+ but because it is power armour.
When the Ecclesiarchy asked the Mechanicus to build the first suits of Sororitas Power Armour I would hardly expect them to have asked for it to offer less protection.
The Mechanicus will have made the suits more slender and form fitting because that was how The Machine was best praised, the asthetics being an integral part of The Machine Cult. If the asthetics impaired the performance though that doesn't praise The Machine and therefore would not be tolerated.
At most I'd reduce the Torso armour a little... Not because the armour is lighter but because its design has an unfortunate tendency to funnel impacts to the chest inwards as often as outwards (a cleavage on a suit of plate armour is a bad idea m'kay ::) ).
She's already absent the Ceramite Abalative plates and her strength and toughness are unlikely to be high enough to cause a vast issue (she'll probably be easier to kill than Tyrus for example) so the balance of her warband should be sufficient.
For the Faith stuff...
I'm not keen on the faith rules (in general rather than yours specifically) personally - they come from a system where power creeps from codex to codex and where special characters and special abilities outweigh tactics and leadership. Maybe I'm just a curmudgeonly old bitter-vet but...
My first step therefore would be to separate the Faith rules from any potential conflict with Psychic abilities, remove the miracle factor and focus them inwards rather than outwards, toward your own rather than the enemy.
The simplest would be to allow her to unhinge her own sense of self-preservation, her immortal soul is promised to The Emperor after all, allowing her to switch off Fear and perhaps even Terror effects, or at least ignore the worst effects for a time.
A similar justification could be used to ignore wounds (not heal them but simply ignore them) which is always a nicely double edged sword.
Inspirational devotion will, of course, inspire the faithful so it would be reasonable to allow a leadership style "buff" to those aware of her should she wish it - I would limit it to people with a level of faith (Word of the Emperor, Faith and other faithful characters) but then I would also have it apply to anyone of faith aware of her... and that means the enemy too ;)
After all, if you believe that smashing the face of this chronogladiator is the Emperor's will and suddenly an inspiring hymnn is raised, it doesn't matter whether the bint who's raised it is on your side or not, you're going to feel inspired.
On the flip-side, if she is on the opposite side and seems eager to protect the Chronogladiator then, while inspired, you might also wonder whether smashing his face is really the Will of the Emperor...
So perhaps a Confusion factor should weigh in there too.
Quote from: InquisitorHeidfeld on May 06, 2011, 04:41:10 PM
For the Faith stuff...
I'm not keen on the faith rules
Whereas I am the opposite (hohoho balanced view times!), I think that given how much faith has a central role in all things fluffy, (or at least a large role) I think its underplayed in Inquisitor except against daemons!
However his most honourable Inquisitor Heidfelds suggestions are also very good I think! Particularly the idea that she can ignore fearsome/terror to a degree.
I do think they should have an impact on psychic abilities as I see faith as an integral aspect to resisting these eddies in the warp (why is he in the warp I hear you cry!!)
Anyhoo all looking good generally!
R
Quote from: InquisitorHeidfeld on May 06, 2011, 04:41:10 PMWhen the Ecclesiarchy asked the Mechanicus to build the first suits of Sororitas Power Armour I would hardly expect them to have asked for it to offer less protection.
I doubt they'd have phrased it as such, but the armour is deliberately intended to make the opponent's gender rather blatant. Dark Heresy does include rules for light power armour, so I expect the Mechanicus are prepared to make "not so heavy power armour" where the situation requires it.
Still, the Witch Hunters codex can be quoted as saying:
"The power armour worn by the Battle Sisters of the Orders Militant is based upon the same archaic systems as that worn by the brethren of the Adeptus Astartes. It provides the same degree of armoured protection, yet must forego the more advanced life-support systems and strength enhancing abilities used by the Space Marines, as the Sisters of Battle are not implanted with the Black Carapace that allows the Astartes to interface fully with their own armour. Despite this, the Sisters of Battle are one of the few Imperial forces outside of the Space Marines to be granted the right to wear such formidable armour, and they are trained to deadly effect to utilise its abilities to the full."There are two relevant notes in there, that its protection is comparable (but whatever happens, I'm not boosting it with the ablative, which would be too much) and that it doesn't include many of the systems in Space Marine armour.
So some of the lesser bulk will be simply because the armour omits things like drug injectors, some of the electrofibre muscles and the extra ablative plating.
I might tone it back to 8 points (but not less, it should at least be noticeably better than carapace armour), I might leave it at 10. It depends on how game dominating she turns out, whether I eventually make her a helmet (swappable, of course) and the exact details of the allies she eventually gets.
~~~~~
On this general note, I suspect that the Sororitas might actually be the most common users of power armour in the galaxy.
There are supposed to be of the order of a million Space Marines (a thousand chapters of a thousand), but I can see there being more Battle Sisters.
Their genetic profile is a lot wider than the Space Marines (in that they only need to be the right gender, not the right gender
and compatible with the Geneseed), the Ecclesiarchy can basically siphon off any of the female Progena they choose and it's their only permanent fighting force.
So it's quite possible that there are more suits of Sororita power armour than any other type. But whether or not they're more numerous than the Astartes' suits, they're almost certainly the most common design for normal humans.
QuoteNot because the armour is lighter but because its design has an unfortunate tendency to funnel impacts to the chest inwards as often as outwards (a cleavage on a suit of plate armour is a bad idea m'kay).
Let's just go with the standard fantasy approach that somehow this is practical armour design, because I don't want to have to explain "Yeah, she's got a lower AV on her chest 'cos she's got tits".
QuoteShe'll probably be easier to kill than Tyrus for example
I'm expecting she'll be about Toughness 60 (but she won't have True Grit like Tyrus). She is of course a trained and dedicated soldier (and probably has some serious muscle tone under that armour), so I'm making her around the range I'd put a typical Guardswoman.
QuoteI'm not keen on the faith rules (in general rather than yours specifically) personally - they come from a system where...
Well, that's the way Sisters are currently portrayed, with faith so strong that it can be tangible. I don't have the 2nd Edition Sisters Codex, so I don't know what, if any, rules there were back then, but I've got the original 3rd edition Chapter Approved list, and they're factored in as far back as then.
While there are newer additions to the canon and universe that I "forget", this one has been that way since I got into the hobby (more than half my life now, so a long time by my standards), so I'm planning to stick with it.
Well, already you seem to be getting a lot of contradictory points of view; this is clearly one of those junctures where different peoples' interpretations of 40k clash.
I think that AV8 is superior enough to Carapace Armour to offer great protection. I also would have absolutely no problems about removing the penalties to detection, as she would be lithe.
However, there are a number of ways to go here and you won't please all of us.
Thinking to the Faith powers, you don't make it explicit in the first post - are these unlimited, or are you going to be giving her "faith points" closer to the 40k army? If so, is there any way for her to regain those faith points? It might be better to allow her to "psych herself up" rather than giving her (effectively) a free action each turn (even if that action is severely restricted.) I have no objection to her declaring her power outside of the turn sequence (like an inhaler implant, for example), I just wonder about letting her do it each and every single turn, as whilst she's always going to be faithful, it takes away from the "specialness" of it if she's capable of doing it all the time.
Also, it strikes me that as the Brides/Daughters of the Emperor, "Light of the Emperor" should make her inspiring to the faithful, as well as terrifying to the faithless.
Quote from: Molotov on May 06, 2011, 08:11:04 PMThinking to the Faith powers, you don't make it explicit in the first post - are these unlimited, or are you going to be giving her "faith points" closer to the 40k army?
I'm planning on giving her a limited number of faith points. Perhaps not the D6 the original version of the trait, but some random number or other. I don't know about regaining them, as they're obviously fairly formidable abilities with no explicit downsides and should be limited.
The other thing is that a limited stash adds the idea of perhaps using more Faith points for a bonus on the WP test to use the powers - but I'd need to work out how an extra Faith point would be worth on the test.
Good idea on the Light of the Emperor by the way. I'll have to think that one out.
QuoteAlso, it strikes me that as the Brides/Daughters of the Emperor, "Light of the Emperor" should make her inspiring to the faithful, as well as terrifying to the faithless.
I like this idea as well.
In terms of getting faith, could it be that the more she experiences, the more she can do. If your faith is rewarded, you will believe it more and go further.
Equally if your faith is unrewarded, then you'd feel bereft and would find it more difficult to summon up the energy to believe. Something like, use a WP test to see if you succeed. If you succeed, you get the power and another faith point, which can be used again. If not, the Battle Sisters WP might drop to represent the slight loss of faith at the this lack of effect....
That way, success will be upon success, but failure will also be potentially damaging. That would build in some dis-advantages to her skills.
Right, current thoughts:
Sororitas Armour: AV 8 to all locations except head. Shoulder Pauldrons and backpack provide +2 head armour against hits from the sides and rear. Boosts strength by a fifth.
Armoured Ione pattern backpack: An alternative to having to replace a power cell every few hours, the Ione pattern backpack is an unusual variant of Sororita power pack used by some Covents in the Segmentum Pacificus, and is occasionally seen in the Carthax Sector.Now, I had considered borrowing from the DM Space Marines article here, but to be honest, the idea of the backpack simply being extra armour to the rear with a chance of the power shorting out didn't seem right when I looked at it. It felt more like it should have a damage table of its own... so, here's my WIP version:
~~~~~
Any hit to the Chest or Abdomen locations from behind is resolved against the backpack instead. It has AV 10 and Toughness 80. Hits to the backpack do not count against injury total, but System Shock is resolved as normal, except tested against the backpack's toughness. (This might, for example, represent a power surge which overloads the user's neural implants, or a hit hard enough to incapacitate her anyway.)
GM's should adjudicate other effects. For example, poisons are unlikely to work, but shock weapons could temporarily overload the power systems.
The backpack obviously cannot be healed like flesh, but the user (or an appropriately trained assistant) can spend actions engaging reserve systems or activating damage control circuits. This is effectively a healing action tested against Sg with bonuses for any appropriate technical equipment.
Light: Sparks fly, but the damage is mostly cosmetic or insignificant.
Immediate: No effect.
Heavy: The power systems blip.
Immediate: The character falls prone. The armour's Str bonus is lost for the next D3 turns.
Serious: The armour temporarily loses all power. When the systems restart, power is heavily reduced and the armour's movements are sluggish.
Immediate: Stunned for D3 turns
Persistent: -1 Speed, all Strength Bonus lost.
Acute: Something vital is hit, and the power cuts out completely.
Immediate: As Serious.
Persistent: Armour now counts for Encumbrance, and aside from its inherent AV, the armour now provides no bonuses.
Crippled: The plasma core explodes.
Immediate: Resolve as per a Plasma Grenade.
Persistent: As acute, and if you even weather the blast, you'll need more than reserve systems to fix this one.
If necessary, it is possible to deliberately detach the backpack, taking two actions. In this case, the armour will obviously be unpowered.
~~~~~
Still probably needs tweaking, but that's the idea so far. It's harder to seriously damage than the Chest/Abdomen locations, but serious damage is far more detrimental.
I'm not sure on it though. It would make her more resistant to hits from behind (as the AV and T are higher and it's not affecting her normal injury/damage) - but then, it does seem like if you put a huge chunk of armoured machinery in the way, then it's going to take the hit, not you.
~~~~~
On matters of Faith:
Quote from: Ulgavitch on May 07, 2011, 11:41:47 AMIf your faith is rewarded, you will believe it more and go further. Equally if your faith is unrewarded, then you'd feel bereft and would find it more difficult to summon up the energy to believe.
I'm not sure I agree with this.
One, Wp damage would bring it ever closer to psychic powers.
Two, I think that a Sister's faith is at a level where her belief in the Emperor is unquestionable. She doesn't need miracles to prove the Emperor's divinity to her.
Three, people that religious are more likely to believe that when things go against them, it's part of their god's plan, not that their god has forsaken/ignored them.
~~~~~
Now, as far as the mechanism, here are the options I've got in my head:
A) She starts with a small stash of faith points. D6, 2D3-1, D3+1, whatever. She uses these a bit like Will points in Lord of the Rings, spending them to use her Faith powers.
Perhaps if she aces the Wp test on a 01-05, then she gets to keep the faith points she spent on it.
In this case, an extra faith point can declared in advance, and will provide the option to re-roll a failed Faith (Wp) test.
Persistent Faith is like a persistent psychic power, except she can spend a Faith point to re-roll a failed Wp test to maintain the power.
B) She isn't expressly limited, but each successive Faith test accumulates a -X% penalty. If at any point, she fails by more than Y%, then she can no longer use her faith that game.
Powers:
Hand of the Emperor: (Cost: 1 Faith point. Difficulty: -10%. Declared: Immediately before rolling damage for an attack)Channelling the Emperor's wrath, you may add 2D6 damage to an attack. This will also count as a blessed/holy attack.
Divine Guidance: (Cost: 1 Faith point. Difficulty: 0%. Declared: Before rolling your action dice.)Guided on your path by the Emperor himself, you may re-roll all failed action dice this turn.
Spirit of the Martyr: (Cost: 2 Faith points. Difficulty: -40. Declared: Immediately after going out of action for any reason, including death.)You lie broken, burned and Emperor knows what else, but he has plans for you yet.
You miss D3 turns, but at the start of the next turn after this, immediately take a healing action for each injury level you have taken. (This is not limited to healing only two levels of injury on a location.)
Light of the Emperor: (Cost: 1 Faith point. Difficulty: -20%. Declared: Before rolling for actions.)Touched by the grace of the Emperor, you become a beacon to the faithful, yet the faithless shrink in terror. All "Faithful" (GM's discretion) who can draw LoS gain the Heroic ability, but must pass a Wp test to perform any actions which would oppose the Sororita. (For clearly, she is a vessel for the Emperor's will...)
Additionally, she gains Word of the Emperor and Terrifying. This Faith power is Persistent.
The Passion: (Cost: 1 Faith point. Difficulty: -10%. Declared: Before rolling for actions.)Filled with holy fervour, you gain a +20 bonus to Strength, Initiative and Nerve. Persistent.
Deny the Witch: (Cost: 1 Faith point. Difficulty: Half the psychic success. Declared: After a psychic power has successfully been cast at you.)The foul powers of the Warp shall be denied. The psychic power is immediately nullified.
~~~~~
I'm not set on the difficulties or exact effects yet, but they're working ideas. Anyway, too much typing, not enough model making.
I really like your powers here i think the trick now is maybe figuring out how many faith points she should have so that you can use one or two powers (maybe since your going to have a whole warband of faithful ish servants of the emperor how about having each character have different faith powers and having the faith points as a pool between the warband
I'm not sure about the idea of a communal faith pool, because building the faith of all those different characters around a points system won't help make them play in distinct ways.
I'm thinking that the Missionary's faith will be largely based around some of the Word of the Emperor abilities (because he likes shouting prayers at the top of his voice). The other possibles I have still to decide, but in some cases, it might just be a case of a generous Wp & Nv. Depends on how strong their faith is.
Marco - I'm advising a fellow player on creating a Sister Hospitaller character, and she'll be using similar acts of faith, so I'll let you know how our playtest goes.
I know this tread isn't exactly fresh, but I've developed an opinion on acts of faith that I thought I'd share.
I think that faith doesn't need a points system. Causing miracles shouldn't exhaust a character's supply of faith, that doesn't follow. I also think the power of faith, while potentially potent, is better left ill-defined. It should allow the faithful to achieve what a sceptic or an atheist might claim they could have done without the faith. A powerful faith is still a major asset though, so it should be represented such in game.
I think it is best represented in re-rolls. About to take a really important shot? Focus on the power of your god and then if the dice say you miss, take a re-roll. What do you know, the shot hit based on your ballistic skill, faith played an important part in the mechanics of the event, but on the other hand nothing happened that couldn't have happened without faith.
I'm not quite sure how best to implement it but I guess it would work a bit like concentration. For each action you spend focusing on your god, praying, chanting or just trusting etc, you may re-roll a complete roll of something you intended. So three actions trusting before a shooting attack might lead to re-rolling the to hit roll twice and the damage once. An action trusting in preparation to being engaged in close combat could be used to force a re-roll of the to hit roll, allow a re-roll of the parry roll or force a re-roll of the damage rolled or hit location.
What do people think?
That's actually a pretty interesting idea - and it does simplify things. I think I'd want to include action dice within that, because one could imagine a Sister praying to the Emperor to show her the path/see her safe in a task.
One downside is that it would mean putting things like her resistance to psychic powers on a different system, the idea of faith being a shield against the powers of the warp being one I want to keep, but that could simply be -20% to target her with psychic powers or something.
I must say, Cade, that's fairly brilliant. Seems obvious in hindsight (as all the best ideas do), but somehow it never occurred to me. (Or anyone else, apparently.) I'm not as ambitious as Marco sculpting-wise, but if I ever find a decent mini on which to base a Sororita I know how I'm handling acts of faith. ;D Cheers, mate.
I'll agree (as far as the mechanics go) that you've really hit on something great Cade. Having an ability which is akin to aiming but with faith seems like a great and characterful way to display the strength of the battle sister's beliefs.
That said, I think you've been doing some great work Marco in terms of developing "Miracles" that could be utilized in-game. I think it's worth looking at as an article on overall acts of faith. The Ecclesiartary could definitely use something like that to flesh out and jazz up their characters. It makes a fiery preacher much more interesting (and frightening) in game terms to know that he could randomly strike out with a blow guided by the emperor's hand.
Anyway, I think adopting/adapting Cade's idea is right on for what you're looking for (and avoids to messiness of creating a brand new system) but you've gotten too much good stuff to just abandon. Maybe something to put on the backburner. If you aren't interested then I may want to steal some of your thoughts at some point, once I finish the mountain of stuff already in front of me (if Dapper is reading this he's probably cursing me adding yet another obstacle in front of the article we've been working on...).
As I've got to take a Sister Famulous to Molotov's INQvitational this weekend, I went back to the Acts of Faith and rejigged them in a fashion based on Cade's suggestion.
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Acts of Faith:
The character can spend actions praying, which requires a successful Wp test. For each of these successful tests, the character gains a "Faith Point". Each of these faith points allows the faithful a re-roll of all the dice in any one roll, or to force a re-roll on enemy character whose action directly affects (GM's discretion) the faithful, and keep the result of their choice. Spending multiple faith points can break the normal "only one re-roll" rule.
At the start of each of the character's turns, their pool of unspent Faith Points is reduced by one.
Additionally, a faithful character may attempt to nullify psychic powers (and recover any associated Wp damage in a similar fashion), but does not otherwise count as a psyker.
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I'm not sure quite how these will work out. Faith points are obviously powerful if the character can work up a large stock of them, but given that it takes spending actions and their pool is automatically reduced by one every turn, getting up that large stock for just when you'd need it is no walk in the park.
However, pretty simple and has a "plausible skepticism" angle (in that it doesn't allow anything to happen that couldn't have happened anyway).
Letting them nullify psychic powers with their faith... I'm less sure about this mechanic, but I definitely want faith to be usable as a shield against "magics". I'll report back on this one.
Nullifying powers is a good thing I think, but it should never cause psychic overloads for the psyker, it is merely resisted, there won't be much in the way of backlash I think, and if the power would affect multiple characters I think that it should still have an effect on them, just not on the faithful character. Perhaps it should also cost a faith point.
With my normal house rules for nullifications, they cannot cause overloads. I use a ranged Wp roll with a penalty equal to the amount the psychic test was passed by - success nullifies, failure doesn't.
This makes nullifications a bit more risky (as the nullifier takes the penalty, not the caster), as well as making multiple nullifications less of a "brain explodes out of ears" threat (as the penalties no longer stack).
But, in any case, a suggestion has already been made on that front that it's changed to "resist" the power, rather than nullify. This does mean it will never stop the power affecting other characters, but I have instead extended its demesne slightly in allowing the resistance of things like force weapon damage. After all, force weapons lost their instant kill effect versus Sororita in the Witch Hunters codex.
Unfortunately though, it seems everyone is getting hung up on critiquing that half of the talent, which is not the half I'm worried about. There's nothing particularly special in game about being able to counter psychic powers - any psyker gets to do that. Plus there's hexagrammic wards, various degrees of psychic null, etc...
Being able to bend the whims of fate is definitely the more unusual part. Although, as the many failures of fate points that I've suffered in the 40k RPGs have shown me, the ability to re-roll dice when you might need to is not a sure thing.
In any case, I'm changing it. Any faith points have to be declared before the roll is made.
This just seems perfect to me, fixing all of the potential problems I could see. It makes the prayer much less generic and nebulous when you're spending it on specific things rather than being able to use it to tweak whatever roll goes wrong.
It tones it back heavily too, stopping you screwing over the opponent who gets his one in a million chance to work by suddenly dropping a re-roll on him, and making you potentially waste faith points on rolls that would have gone your way anyway.
However, all of the potential punch is still there. It can still let you do all of the same miracles, provided you gamble the faith points at the right time.
(I had instead considered dropping the "keep the result of their choice" term, but I had that in there because I don't feel that faith should end up making a roll worse.)
That way it indeed would be better, preventing it from being too powerful. It could also be an idea to have a maximum number of faith points in storage, otherwise a few turns spent praying can give a character a pile of re-rolls for when the fighting starts.
That was the purpose of losing a faith point from the pool at the start of every turn - it's not possible to save them up over more than a turn or two, and even the complete committal of every turn to nothing but prayer won't let them build up at any great speed.
So it's very unlikely a character would ever build up more than 2, maybe 3, at a time (and even that would take some effort, plus luck with the timing) - but I wouldn't want to stop a faithful character spending several turns committing themselves to the Emperor and then performing total miracles.
The alternative solution I had considered was limiting a character to only generating one Faith point per turn (they could pray more than once, but no matter the number of successes, they could only generate one point) and giving them a maximum "pool" of one plus their Wp bonus. This pool would not however be reduced each turn.
I felt this offered a bad incentive to just stockpile them rather than "generating" them as they would be useful/needed, though.
Stockpiling indeed is what has to be prevented, otherwise faithful characters get quite boring. The solutions that I thought up so far however would fail at that, but as it is with many things in the game, the player should have the characters act in a characterful way.