Executioner rounds in autopistols...

[Metellus]

Hello all, I'm new to Inquisitor, and just have a little question based on the combining of the fluff and the rules:
In the Armoury section of the book, Executioner rounds are special ammo for shotguns.
Yet in one of the Black Library books I read (think it was The Bleeding Chalice) there's an Inquisitor with an autopistol full of executioners.
Now, I thought that Inquisitor was meant to be a rather fluffy game that left room for inspiration from books... so what gives?
Would you permit someone to put executioners in an autopistol? And if you would, would you let it go any further e.g. in an autogun?
Floor's yours, thanks in advance for any responses.

[Kaled]

The rulebook only covers a fraction of the weapon types available in the 41st millenium.  I don't see any reason why an Inquisitor couldn't have a limited supply of Executioner-type rounds for a custom autopistol or autogun - I wouldn't use the same profile as the shotgun rounds though.

[MarcoSkoll]

Perhaps... 

Shotgun projectiles are pretty big things. Plenty of room for guidance systems.
Autopistol bullets are not that big, and it would be a nightmare trying to fit the technology into a smaller bullet, let alone include the guidance fins.
(This is quite beside the fact that shotguns are lower pressure firearms than pistols and accelerate their payload less violently.)

I wouldn't say no, but I would definitely scale back the damage from the shotgun version, and possibly add a measure of unreliability to the more fragile circuitry in an autopistol round. I'd keep them very scarce and rare as well.
It would be further trouble to fit that circuitry in an even smaller rifle bullet. Again, not impossible, but should probably have caveats.

As Kaled says, the Inquisitor rulebook is far from inclusive. While I've spent a long time trying to write "The Revised Inquisitor Armoury" with a whole heap more options and weapons, I'm still explicit that even the hundreds of options within are far from inclusive - the project is designed to make it so that the player has to make fewer rules up from scratch, but it's not capable of completely negating the need.

[TheNephew]

I'd have thought there simply wouldn't be room - even allowing for the amazing powers of miniaturisation the Imperium can pull out of thin air when necessary - for the bullets to exist in numbers that could fill a clip (or magazine, or other correctly named storage medium - sorry Marco).
I suppose this could just be another one of those amazing rarities that gets lost in the massiveness of the Imperium - like Glavian skin circuitry (which can surely be used more widely and effectively than it is) or all these improved tank models that fly out of only that one unique Forgeworld.

I guess if your character were to have a link to a world that produces such things (perhaps the originators of the Executioner round) then a handful of rounds for just about any projectile weapon could be produced.
I still think the very idea of an Executioner round is more suited to accurate, single shot weapons - shotguns and machineguns seem a little too messy-by-design to fit with the most accurate weapon in the universe.

[Alyster Wick]

I'd have thought there simply wouldn't be room - even allowing for the amazing powers of miniaturisation the Imperium can pull out of thin air when necessary

I think the issue may more be the pistol than the rounds.  After all, a bolt pistol carries rounds far large than shotgun cartridges and retains its status as a pistol.  It is perfectly feasible that an Inquisitor (IMO) could have a customized pistol that fires executioner rounds.  The bullets may have to be custom made, but if he has a firearms expert in his party that is able to take the guidance system out of regular executioner rounds and convert them for his master's firearm of choice then I would say you're good to go.  The Inquisitor could easily secure about 100 boxes of regular executioner ammo for himself and have it converted on an as-needed basis.  Plus, it's kind of awesome in a Judge Dredd style way. 

Mind you, for all of the reasons listed above you should figure out a rule to reflect just how difficult it is to make the bullets.  The damage should certainly be different from the shotgun profile (since it's the guidance system you're transferring, not the entire round) so you would do well to just make a range change and leave it at that. 

As far as the autogun goes, I like to picture executioner rounds as more surgical as opposed to autogun rounds which get thrown out like candy to spatter all your enemies.  It would feel wrong to me, I mean why spend all that time making custom rounds just to throw ten of them away in a matter of seconds?  In the end I'd leave it up to you and your GM, but that's my two cents.

[phil-o-mat]

i also think it was in "the bleeding chalice" were that inquisitor used those executioner rounds. the gun was described as a regular autopistol and the bullets were the "special" part. the inquisitor had 1!!! clip of them and the bullets were traded for something worth of a whole starship!!! (the book was not very precisely what it really was)

bye, phil

p.s.: the bullets had not the name "executioner rounds".

[precinctomega]

Just for info, in INQ2, Executioners remain "shotgun only".  My thinking, FWIW, was threefold: first, it acts as a brake on the weapon's overall effectiveness; second, in most familiar canon, only Arbites use them and then only in their shotguns; third, I figured that tracker rounds would need to be pretty high-gauge, even given the Imperium's technical competence.  Fitting that sort of technology (remember, the round needs some means of altering its vector in-flight) into a round the size of an autopistol bullet would be beyond difficult.

That isn't to say "don't do it".  More: don't make a habit of it.

R.

[DapperAnarchist]

Based on what Phil-o-mat said - I rather like that attitude to such bullets - so legendary you would swap your ship for them.

[Shard]

As well as the difficulty of altering the bullets being difficult, would it really be worth it? I can see it being valued in a shotgun, as that can do some meaty damage and is designed to be aimed more than in an autopistol, where it's more a weapon to just spray down an area and hope you hit something!

[kamikaze watermelon]

I would say that you could make the guy from the book into a character, and then use the damage and range from the bullets, the other stats from the pistol, which is fine as long as only that one guy can have them.

[Jozan-LastChance]

In the Inquisitor Rule book, the Tech Priest has a stubber armed with Executioner rounds.  I know it's not an auto-pistol, but it does show that using the same type of round in other weapons is at least feasible.

[MarcoSkoll]

In the Inquisitor Rule book, the Tech Priest has a stubber armed with Executioner rounds.

Sorry, but what Delphan Gruss has is Hellfire rounds.

Admittedly, those aren't normally stubber ammunition, but they're not Executioners either.

[Jozan-LastChance]

You're right, I miss remembered the entry.

It does still show that it could be feasible to duplicate a special round in a different weapon.

For the Executioner round in an autopistol I would have to say a link between the character and the Techpriests of Glavia would be a necessity.  The 'Hot-shots and Head-shots' pdf describs the techpriest that belong to the Cult of the MicroOmnisiah.  They might be able to make them.

[MarcoSkoll]

It does still show that it could be feasible to duplicate a special round in a different weapon.

Perhaps. But there's a big difference between making a smaller acid vial (Hellfire) and miniaturising a guidance system (Executioner).

Compare, if you will:
- I go into a coffee shop, and ask for a small coffee rather than a large one. I get charged less.
- I go into a computer shop and ask for a smaller laptop rather than a large one. I get charged an absolute fortune.

Making a chemical concoction smaller is easy. Just use less quantities when making it.
Making electronics smaller is very expensive, because it requires far more precision making the components. You can't use "half a transistor" or "two thirds of a capacitor" - you have to invest huge effort in making a smaller part that can do the same job.

Same thing would apply here.