Inquisitor Weapons - The good, the Bad, and the Ugly?

[Okona]

Greetings all, hope this is in the right area...

Well as I'm sure you've gathered by my previous posts, I'm very new to Inquisitor. I am also now in a position where I can assemble my warband and finally get playing (whay!). However, I was wondering if I could get some advice on the various weapons in the game, so I can decide what to equip my characters with. With there being so many variables in a game, and me not having played any, it is hard to tell on paper which weapons are good, which weapons are grotesquely overpowered, and which are plain useless. Now I'm certainly not looking to equip my guys with the most powerful weapons around, but equally I dont want to spend time lovingly converting a character, only to find that his equipment is useless.

Now, I gather that power weapons and bolt weapons are powerful and best used in small quantities if at all, but can someone give me an overview of the other weapons in the book. Just as an example, I quite fancy giving my Rogue Trader an archaic Plasma Pistol, but on paper they seem woefully inaccurate, and the recharging time seems to limit them too much... is this the case?

Sorry if this seems like a lot to ask, but it's all fairly overwhelming for a new player, and I'd appreciate any help you could give!

[Shannow]

First of all, if you have not done so I would highly recommend downloading Marcoskoll's revised armoury, it has far better values and a wider range of guns than the book, and he has also accompanied almost all of them with notes on their power levels.

In my opinion, las weapons are fantastic, great variability in the revised armoury and they are powerful weapons (unlike in 40k) yet not too powerful. Almost all the revolvers are workable, as are a lot of the stubbers, the heavier ones are ok but they should be balanced by deficienies in other areas or a suitably middle-ish Bs I would say.

Shotguns, depending on the selected ammo, can be killers but as long as you don't abuse them they are fantastic. Same goes for sniper rifles as well. Alien weapons are more about being able to justify their presence rather than them being over powered.

I think a key point to make is its how the weapons are combined, for example a neural shredder on a guy with strong Wp, psychic powers and a psychic hood is a monster, but if you remove the high Wp and psychic hood, he is well balanced.

Most close combat weapons are ok, be wary of power weapons as you say, as well as force weapons, daemon weapons rune weapons and equipping them with high Wp characters. The same goes for very powerful weapons and high Ws just be sensible.

I think caution should be used on the exotic weapons like agoniser etc, but again its all about what accompanies the weapon, a mid-high Ws, low armour and average speed certainly doesn't over power you.

Quite tired when writing this and don't have the rules to hand, but certainly hope this helps a little, without giving too many specifics, will hopefully add a bit more depth tomorrow, or at least someoe else might.

If in doubt, post the character before modelling him, and we can give feedback too how he might be altered or if he is perfectly fine

Rob

[Brother_Brimstone]

I think something you should consider carefully is the 'characterfullness' of the weapons. Game balance is important and definitely vital, but i think before anything you should have an idea of the character. If the idea is fully 'three-dimensional' it should be fairly obvious what weapons that character would use and have available to them. For example, a tough guy off the streets of the underhive is probably going to use hard hitting solid slug projectile firing weapons because they are low-tech and thus easier to manufacture and maintain than las-weaponary (which, while common in the 41st millenium, is more of a military and official type of weapon in my opinion) - giving him a boltgun without any good reason would be wrong - for a start, how would he keep getting ammunition? A religious fanatic may tend towards flamers (clicheed but just an example), due to the old 'fire purges the sin' idea. An inquisitor may carry a bolt pistol if it has some sort of significance to him/her - Inquisitor Drake Kaled, IIRC, has a special bolt pistol he carries because it was gifted to him by a space marine. Heavier weapons generally tend to go to people whose jobs revolve around using heavy weaponry - a specialist gunner for the Imperial Guard may carry a heavy bolter, but an Inquisitor or rogue trader isn't going to lug something that cumbersome around when he can have a minion do it.

Once you have a character idea and their weapons become apparent then you should start to think about balancing the character as a whole, not just their weaponry. As Shannow says, you have a few things to consider - a speed 5 character with weapon skill 80 and a chainsword or powersword is an absolute monster in close combat and will destroy most opponents, but a speed 4 weapon skill 63 character with a chainsword or powersword is less of a problem. The chainsword and powersword are not unbalanced in themselves, it depends who is using them. Similarly a character with a bolt pistol but low BS because he barely uses it may be fine, but a character with BS 75 and rock steady aim and hipshooting and a bolt pistol is going to blow the heads off a lot of opponents. Then there is how fragile the character wielding the weapon is. If a character has very little armour and a low T it may be okay to make them quite powerful; they are a 'glass cannon' and you will have to make sure they are protected to even get to use their powerful weaponry!

I would say that no piece of equipment is overbalanced in isolation (even a lascannon, if wielded by someone incompetent enough, poses relatively little threat!), it's who is using the equipment and what other equipment they have.

Shannow's suggestion is a good one, post a bit of background and stats and equipment for your characters and then we will be able to tell you if we think they are overpowered. No one is going to judge you in a negative light when you are new and are genuinely making an effort to balance things (even if you weren't, i don't think anyone will be openly hostile, but posting a power armoured, boltgun wielding, alpha level psyker would probably bother quite a few people!).

Hope that helps.

[Shannow]

Yes, certainly character is something is I neglected to place enough emphasis on and definitely the most important aspect really, everything Brother_Brimstone said is good advice.

Another idea is also to browse other characters on the conclave as they can give good baselines to compare too. Certainly when designing my first characters, I looked at many other characters to make sure that I wouldn't be able to smash them into the ground.

Rob

[Kaled]

A couple more things to consider...  Firstly, in my opinion a cool model counts for a lot - so if your model looks best wielding a huge chainsword, then go with it even if you think it might make him over-powered.  Likewise if he looks best with a laspistol, don't give him a massive shotgun - just change his background so the pistol is most appropriate. Secondly, people have already mentioned balancing powerful weapons with low stats and vice versa, but it's always worth remembering that some characters should have high stats and the best equipment, and to give them anything else would be out of character (and some characters should have low stats and poor equipment). Inquisitor is not meant to be balanced, so don't strive too hard to achieve it, especially not at the expense of character or coolness.

[RobSkib]

I'll echo the Rule of Cool comment - if it looks good, roll with it! Even if something becomes horrendously powerful - if its characterful and cool, then 9 times out of 10 I'd say it's fine.

A word on plasma weapons - I've played extensively with plasma weapons and I can give a bit of feedback. They are devastatingly powerful if they hit, that's a given. However, this is balanced out by the four turns of recharge time, where unless the character has another ranged weapon, this can leave him completely defenceless. They also have terrible accuracy, so that one shot every four turns you do get should be spent wisely - spend some actions aiming!

Finally, plasma weapons are all risky actions to fire anyway - you can get around this by spending your first action pausing for breath, you can see if you roll more ones than sixes and choose whether to fire or not. Some people see this almost as 'cheating', but I let my players do it, as I see it as very characterful and a valid tactic. IMO the Risky Action rule is in place to make characters slip up when doing something particularly dangerous, representing them forgetting a vital piece of safety in the midst of battle. If a character uses up a single action (which is quite a lot for most speed 3 or 4 characters) to pause for breath, that represents them checking the heatsinks on their plasma gun, or making sure he's pulling the pin and not the grenade!

[Elva]

Note on Plasma weapons. Its always fun when a character has Heroic and a plasma weapon. I had a Guard veteran(technically he was an officer) like that , though, he couldn't hit worth anything, eventually meeting his end(or was it?) to a genestealer purestrain.

Though, I wouldn't recommend giving all your characters with plasma weapons Heroic, unless its justified.

Another thing that I've noticed, is that some people have weapon preferences, and it shows a lot in their characters. I for example, love plasma and las, with a bit of a side obsession with shuriken tech as well, and my leaders usually have at least a las rifle, and if I choose a sniper, they get a long las. But I guess that goes to the what you think is cool rule, which is what I love about Inquisitor, you can design your characters based on what you want.

[Myriad]

As others have said, is it fun and characterful is a good starting point when judging weaponry.  As far as plasma weapons go, they're a long way off overpowered, but with a few aiming actions that one shot often counts.  I'd avoid characters whose only ranged weapon is plasma, who from my own experience these can end up spending alot of time banging their weapons and hissing 'recharge, recharge' in Hruddic.

[MarcoSkoll]

Almost all the revolvers are workable, as are a lot of the stubbers, the heavier ones are ok but they should be balanced by deficienies in other areas or a suitably middle-ish Bs I would say.

There's actually pretty good justification for that. I've included the "big pistols" like the Desert Eagle equivalent because... well, gamers kinda expect that kind of thing, but it's very unlikely that any experienced shooter (i.e. someone with high BS) would carry such a thing into combat.

Obviously, you can

Though, I wouldn't recommend giving all your characters with plasma weapons Heroic, unless its justified.

I'd steer clear unless it's appropriate in how the character acts. Heroic is more than just "uses a plasma weapon without it exploding". It's a mix of good luck, decisiveness and the courage to do things most people would consider crazy.

If I want to represent a character having decent luck or talent for certain tasks, I usually make it so they ignore the first 1 on their action dice for the purposes of Risky Actions (usually specific only to certain actions, but sometimes for all actions). It's about the same effect on risky actions as Heroic (as while Heroic's re-roll might come down as a 1 again, it could also come down as a 6 and cancel out a far more major fail), but without the chance of an extra action.

But, as those who have read the Revised Armoury will know, I've largely moved away from using Risky Actions. However, in the vein of what RobSkib talks about, there will be a rule for checking a plasma gun prior to firing in the next version. It might reduce the severity of a fail, avert it completely or if you've done extended checks, it might even provide a bonus.

~~~~~

Now, on the note of my own approach to balance, as a few people will have probably noticed, I have a bit of a habit for shorter versions of close combat weapons - things like Short Chainswords and Power Shortswords.
Mostly as an opportunity to write less formidable weapons, and usually rationalised with the fact that the full sized versions are probably heavier than you want to carry around on a regular basis. Still nasty weapons, but not quite as lethal.

You'll usually find me doing things in the same manner that Brother Brimstone talks about - the balance between character strengths and weaknesses. However, I don't begin to pretend that all of my characters are equal on the tabletop. Compare Frost - a very skilled and well equipped* mercenary - to Shayna - part of the internal structure of the Commissariat, and who carries weapons mostly for show/ceremonial purposes.

*Although well equipped more means rare weapons than necessarily powerful ones.

The point is really to avoid models which don't give their opponents a chance to fight back (i.e. those which are able and likely to take opponents out quickly - as well as being near impossible to stop), rather than worrying about models being balanced/equal.

[precinctomega]

Some of my most memorable game moments have come from imbalanced encounters with powerful weapons.

When Inquisitrix Kang-Ju Ki had her face blown off by her former pupil's bolter, that moment had amazing narrative force.

When Marech "Lucky" Val's luck finally ran out in the face of a duel with a Valkyrie's nose-mounted lascannon, it was a fitting end to an eventful and hilariously unfortunate existence.

But sometimes, it doesn't even need a weapon to make things memorable.

Inquisitor Necris had a near-terminal meeting with fate at the very moment he was elected to the position of Lord, following nothing more dangerous than a gentle push.  The fact that he was standing on a balcony several tens of feet above a rockcrete floor was what lent the moment its narrative lethality.

And in another of my best-remembered games, the victorious player was controlling a single character armed with nothing more threatening than a laspistol (and didn't fire it!), while the other two controlled tooled-up warbands of hardened killers.

So don't get too hung up on weapons.

R.

[GAZKUL]

Autoguns combine a decent amount of hitting powere with a good rate of fire.