New "poison" idea - Spark

[DapperAnarchist]

I came up with this idea a while ago, but recently re-wrote it, and was looking for feedback

Spark - Not so much a poison as an electro-conductive acid, Spark works itself into the working parts of complex machines, corroding moving parts and causing short circuits. When  location is struck by a weapon loaded with Spark, as well as rolling for Damage, there is a 30% chance that any complex tool (any ranged weapon other than some Primitive ones, Chainweapons, Power weapons, Force weapons, scanners, bionics, targeters, etc, but not standard Close Combat weapons or armour other than Power Armour) on the location will cease to work, just as if affected by a Haywire grenade (but not limited to electrical objects). For Power Armour, hits to the arm reduce actions performed by that arm to half its original strength, hits to the chest or abdomen reduce the Speed by 1, hits to the groin or legs reduce movement rates by 1 yard and hits to the head impose a 25% penalty to Awareness tests (separate from damage to the Autosenses). For stored objects kept in pockets, reference to the model is recommended.

The complex rules for Power Armour were necessary, because of the location roll that doesn't exist for the Haywire grenade and it seems to be rare enough that it shouldn't come up too much...

[Metellus]

I can see this working on bionics/augmetics etc, but weapon upgrades? Surely you'd have to specifically target the weapon, and even then you'd have to have enough control of your sword etc to be able to hit a scope or something that small. That said, it's a nice idea, and I'd like to see how it goes.

[Brother_Brimstone]

I can see this working on bionics/augmetics etc, but weapon upgrades? Surely you'd have to specifically target the weapon, and even then you'd have to have enough control of your sword etc to be able to hit a scope or something that small..

I read it as meaning something slightly different - rather than disabling the weapon upgrade, I take it to mean disabling the weapon as a whole. The very beginning of the diescriiption says that it corrodes moving parts, so presumably if a weapon covered in spark hits a gun, it would corrode the parts of the gun, so they dont work any miore. Thus it isnt that it just disables the scope - it disables the gun. However, to leak into those parts of the gun, there would have to be rather a lot of it on the blade. Unless it's statically charged and is attracted to the metal or something (yes, I know, not great science there, but this is 40,000 years into the future, so perhaps they could develop some way of having it do that).

Still, sounds like it would play hell with an AdMech warband...

[Alyster Wick]

I had been toying with an alien weapon that "leaked" a cluster of nanitish things which corrode metal and had been struggling with what rules to give it.  Given, Spark is slightly different and if it's a "toxin" (even a somewhat rare toxin) then it would kind of defeat the specialness of the weapon I had in mind, but still, these rules are at the very least a good jumping off point.

[DapperAnarchist]

The character that uses it loads it into a needle pistol. And Brother Brimstone has the right idea - lets say Guardsman Murphyus is holding his lasgun with Infrascope in his right hand, and is hit in the right arm - there is a chance, 30%, that the lasgun and scope have been covered in the toxin, and will break. However, I'm tempted to drop the odds again, maybe 20% chance. And yeah, its intended to be an anti-Admech weapon.

Wick - If your weapon corrodes metals, it could use the breaking rules for anything it hits. Imagine if, instead of turning your lasgun into a club, it literally eats the lasgun away. Much more dangerous. I have another rule idea I'll PM you actually, might be of interest.

[Chipperz]

The character that uses it loads it into a needle pistol. And Brother Brimstone has the right idea - lets say Guardsman Murphyus is holding his lasgun with Infrascope in his right hand, and is hit in the right arm - there is a chance, 30%, that the lasgun and scope have been covered in the toxin, and will break. However, I'm tempted to drop the odds again, maybe 20% chance. And yeah, its intended to be an anti-Admech weapon.

Just reading that...  You want this stuff to splash over as much of the enemy as possible and it's VERY rare, so what if it was put into modified shells instead of needle ammo?  You could treat it as Flechette/Metal Storm ammo that damages equipment instead of the person wielding it? It just doesn't make sense to me to have something that needs to liberally cover something to seep in, and putting it in a precise delivery system.

Also, I'm fairly certain that Force and Rune weapons are just made of special psychoconductive metals, and don't actually have any moving parts.  Would they be effected?

[DapperAnarchist]

Hmmm... I didn't imagine it as very rare, a little obscure alright, and discouraged, but not much more rare than Bloodfire, say - well out of the reach of the average civilian, or even most soldiers, but for those as wot need it, its there. But, as for the weapon... that is tempting. The model's gun is in a holster, so I could say "its a stubber"... perhaps a special compact low magazine one. I don't want her packing some serious firepower, she's a support type, clever and determined, but not a gunfighter.

Force and Rune weapons would probably not be affected. I'll correct that.

[Chipperz]

Ahh yeah, sorry, I got the idea it was rare from Alyster Wick's post and ran with it.  Still, I think having a delivery system designed to explode a few feet from the target and splattering the dude you shot at would make more sense than a needle pistol.  A stubber would make perfect sense.

Actually, depending on resources* what about using grenades as a delivery system?  If your character isn't a dedicated fighter, grenades would offer a large enough margin of error that an inability to hit a barn door wouldn't be a problem?

*Resources aren't a massive issue either, paint grenades exist today, just replace it with Spark and you're good to go!

[Myriad]

I don't know about grenades, since that's running a little close to haywire grenades.  The idea of delivering it via fletchette rounds (or something, I'm reminded of hellfire rounds) is quite a good one though, since needle pistols generally inject the toxin at point of impact, which would be good against bionics / admech but unlikely to affect external equipment.

[Dust King]

I had a similar idea myself, but I had the poison make any bionics affected count as crude for the remainder of the game. Disabling a characters legs, arm, or even heart or brain for the remainder or a game seems over the top to me.

It really depends on what your opponents are like, for example against a mechanicus warband a weapon which can auto-cripple (although without adding to the injury total) any location with bionics, or possibly even auto kill if there's a bionic heart or brain would seem a bit to powerful. Still it all depends on your opponents

[DapperAnarchist]

I could swap it to "counts as crude, crude shuts down", that sounds interesting... But as for the power, there is already the Haywire Grenade, which is arguably even more powerful than this, as it doesn't seem to have a location roll (or have I misunderstood that?), or a chance to not shut things down.

[Myriad]

Haywire grenades shut down everything in the radius and are very powerful and rare.  Also, I believe, Eldar tech.  I like the idea of a less powerful weapon that still affects technology, since it's hard to believe this hasn't been looked at by the imperium.

[Alyster Wick]

Very cool background, sounds like fertile territory for players to jump into.  Perfect excuse for new Inquisitors to be developed or old ones to come in and take charge.  Given what must have been a flow of lawlessness following the treason it also stands to reason that a large number of ner-do-wells may be about as well, further increasing the warband potential.

[DapperAnarchist]

Thanks, but thats my other thread, I believe... 

[Aidan]

As an idea, I like this poison a lot - I do have an overbearing grudge against a certain kitted out techno-heretic (though that in itself is hypocritical as I am the one with an AdMech team...) - still, as has been raised, the delivery system is a little hard to picture. While someone mentioned grenades, and that would be quite easy to picture, it would be either be a tad over-powered (if there were a significant blast characteristic), or uselessly unreliable (if there weren't!). I think some kind of hellfire round equivalent  is the best bet.

This does provide an interesting alternative to haywire grenades, and would be very different in the application (probably much easier). The weakness of haywire grenades is that the area of effect is so small and so one walk action will take the effected character and their annoying gizmos out of its area of effect. "Spark" would provide a less reliable but longer lasting result.

The grenade comment does bring up some interesting ideas for corrosive gasses, though... I might have some new GM schemes to work on... 

-Aidan.