Necron Cryptek rules?

[Crystal-Maze]

Of all of the necron race, the crypteks and the praetorians are the two factions that have wandered across most of the galaxy, although I suppose that crypteks are better loners. The praetorian could be the squad leader of a group of subjugated (willingly or mindshackled) natives, which would explain why he has no necron buddies with him.

[MarcoSkoll]

Maybe trying a d10 rather than a d6 with more options would work. Lower the BIV and maybe have the results go up to 15 (with some results only being reachable with a bonus due to multiple BIV levels being done).

I'd probably recommend 2D5 or 2D6 instead.

If you look at both the Revised Armoury and my NPC rules, the Plasma gun rules and the System Shock roll (respectively) went through modifications that took them from modifying one die to modifying two.

The Plasma gun table went from a D10 table to a 2D6 table, and the System Shock roll went from D20 to 2D10. The intention, statistically, was to make the modifiers have a larger effect on the probabilities, by reducing the (relative) standard deviation.

For example, it very much fixed my earlier issues with the System Shock in my NPC rules.
In early trials with D20 rolls, a hit that did five damage or so after armour had a 25% chance of killing an average NPC, but one which did 15 damage had a 25% chance of being survived. Switching to 2D10 meant both dropped to 10% chances (ignoring the special exception for rolling doubles), meaning they were much less likely to explode when their face was slapped or soldier through being shot with bolters.

Although the final version (I use "equal or greater" on the SS roll now) did make them basically a damage point tougher (6% chance to go OOA at 5 damage points, 15% chance to survive 15 damage) - this should give you an idea about how it has a more interesting effect on how the probabilities change with what is an effective +1.

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The short version is reducing the standard deviation means each extra +1 multiplies up better - a +2 is worth significantly more than a +1, so it's the serious hits are most likely to have the most impressive impacts. (But it doesn't leave things off the top end of a damage table if a player just plain can't muster that much damage - he's just got to get luckier on the damage table roll).

I'm probably not being entirely clear about what I mean, but I'm like that a lot of the time...

[Alyster Wick]

Maybe trying a d10 rather than a d6 with more options would work. Lower the BIV and maybe have the results go up to 15 (with some results only being reachable with a bonus due to multiple BIV levels being done).

I'd probably recommend 2D5 or 2D6 instead.

I don't know why I didn't think of this but from a statistical standpoint it makes the table MUCH more interesting (as adding +s knocks certain results into a higher propensity category by virtue of the number it's attached to rather than repetition of the result on the table).

Don't worry, I totally understand what you're saying. I may have to think on this some more and put together a "big bad" damage generator. Not that a good GM would need this tool (they can just make things up on the fly) but I always like adding in some randomness. I find that can make for the most interesting games.

[Crystal-Maze]

Don't worry, I totally understand what you're saying. I may have to think on this some more and put together a "big bad" damage generator. Not that a good GM would need this tool (they can just make things up on the fly) but I always like adding in some randomness. I find that can make for the most interesting games.

I think this kind of big bad damage genator sounds like a great idea: whilst I agree that GMs should often make things up off the fly why the situation calls for it, having that element of randomness helps to stop you railroading the campaign/scenario into exactly the direction that you wan to go, and keeps the game player-centered. If you do end up creating somehing like this I would be very interesed to see the results