Hello, and Welcome!
I play the Ironhands Techmarine in Rogal Dorn's campaign (though I don't think he's aware that I am posting on this board under this name, so let's not tell him!), and I have an endless array of ideas and thoughts for things I want to do. My main problem is that I have *too* much stuff I want to do, and I know that Rogal Dorn can't possibly cater to all of it, much less spend the time trying to make sure my crazy ideas are balanced and fair while still making the wheels of the campaign turn and giving everyone else their chance to shine in the spotlight.
As I just want to do cool technosorcery things, and not overly burden him, I figured I could offload some of the work, and posit my insane ideas here, that they might with your help get polished into gems worthy of consideration from their rough and raw form. I'll be using this thread then, to put forth my ideas as they arise, in hopes that you will be able to provide feedback on how feasible / balanced / cool they are. Any and all feedback (*including* if an idea sucks or is totally imbalanced) is most assuredly welcome! That being said, let's stop this boring intro and get right into the delicious technocraft!
The Auxilio Pattern Servitor:
This is my current pet project (pun intended!), as I am working on building myself a follower. The ultimate goal is to provide us with some limited form of healing (we've been doing without an apothecary, it's rough), assist with moving around incapacitated people / non-combatants, and to allow us to transport heavy / important assets (like bombs, relics, ores, that kind of thing) without tying up anyone's hands. Think limited auto doc plus self aware pallet and length of rope, and you've got the idea. The submission I made to Rogal Dorn is below, I'm currently waiting to hear back if it will be approved for construction as non-heretical and in compliance with STC design standards. Input is appreciated on how it might be improved upon.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qWHChuOmvODkzmiu1qREl2IOryujgM_H5_4um13KK8I/edit?usp=sharing
Self Augmentation- Maglev Grace:
Being an Iron Hands, my character is obsessed with excising weakness within himself whenever and wherever he discovers it. Recently, he crawled on the outside of a ship moving through hurricane force winds while an Eldar craft was strapped to it, which promptly tried to shake him off. Strange but true, he feared for his life during that sequence of events, which he has taken as weakness that must be corrected. I am looking at getting Maglev Grace, so that in similar situations, he can fall off of his vessel, without dying spectacularly from the impact with the ground below. However, Maglev Grace is not actually able to be taken at any rank by anyone. Rogal Dorn has said I can possibly pick it up at a later rank, I'm just trying to identify the best way to determine a fair cost for it. It's a talent not in the listed progression, the very definition of an elite advance. In Rogue Trader, it's a talent worth 500XP. In Black Crusade, it's a cybernetic enhancement able to be acquired like any other cybernetic. Should it be treated like a talent, costing XP, like a cybernetic, costing requisition, or both? Regardless, what would be a fair XP / requisition cost for such an enhancement?
Improving Gear:
Rogal Dorn uses an Armory system for our wargear (read more here: http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/110538-the-armory/ ), so the gear that we have is semi-permanent, and changes between worlds (if we spend the time to do so), rather than between missions. The idea is for us to have gear that develops its own quirks over time (using RT stars of inequity quirks as a solid start to that), and which is more valued to us and less disposable than "lascannon 21", as allowing wargear to be lost or destroyed means we must do without it until we can resupply, a potentially crippling loss. It also has the benefit of making specialty ammo a resource to be conserved and valued, as once we're out, we're out. Overall, I'm very excited about the system.
As I am soon to be a forgemaster, and don't want to dishonor the spirit of the system by crafting new gear or ammo, we've been talking about my being able to instead improve the craftsmanship of gear during downtime between planets (when I'm not having ever more cybernetic implants replace the continually more scarce human flesh in my body, or building a new servitor of course!) This should add to our unwillingness to part with our equipment, as replacements won't have the improved craftsmanship, ideally working with the system rather than against it.
What we haven't decided, and what I need input on, is reasonable timeframes in which for this to occur. I don't want to be able to upgrade every piece of gear during our first voyage, but nor do I want to still have failed to upgrade our "main" or more aptly "signature" wargear before the end of the campaign. It is only logical that gear would need to be upgraded to good before being able to be upgraded to best quality, and that those would be separate processes. I had toyed around with the idea of determining the number of successes or days required based upon the difference in requisition cost moving from the base item to its improved variant.
My tentative, rough thought, is that any given piece of gear would require a number of degrees of success on the appropriate tech use / trade rolls equal to the difference in requisition points, with each roll representing a day of effort, and gear requiring a minimum of half the required degrees of success in days to be completed? I had also thought that the degree of difficulty of the test could be modified by the renown level required for the item, and with the end craftsmanship level desired. The base degree of difficulty for "initiate" level gear to go from common to good quality would be -10 (let's face it, any improvement to Astartes gear is at least a little hard), with a cumulative -10 with each level of renown or craftsmanship.
So, with that, upgrading a Power Sword from common to good quality would require a test per day at a -20 (for being respected), requiring a total of 10 degrees of success and a minimum of 5 days to successfully upgrade. Meanwhile, a good quality Atomizer Cannon being upgraded to Best quality would require tests at -50 (-40 for being famed, -10 for being good quality), and would require 38 degrees of success (base cost 50 req x1.5 makes it worth 75 req at good quality, x1.5 going to best quality is an increase of 37.5, rounded up), and a minimum of 19 days to upgrade. Thoughts?
On being able to soak fire:
Having 1.5x or more the ability to take damage compared to your peers is a very nice thing. Being an Iron Hands Techmarine, loathing weakness in all forms, and seeking to make yourself virtually impregnable, it's bound to happen. However, it also is absolutely no benefit to your team mates, especially when enemies learn to not shoot at the person they're not hurting, and instead shoot at the (relatively) squishy folks all around him. Representing both his continuing (and clearly justified!) belief that the Flesh is Weak, and that those lacking his numerous cybernetic replacements and augmentations are inherently weaker than him, as well as his growing desire to work well with them as a team and cohesive unit, the Marines Errant defensive stance from Honour the Chapter is perfect. As a squad mode ability, it's balanced in cost (uses cohesion, you can't dodge the incoming attack, uses your reaction, which for a techmarine comes in lieu of firing from the servo harness, etc), and thematically, it's perfect. As I've never once used the Iron Hands defensive stance, I'm reasonably certain Rogal Dorn would be willing to let me simply trade out my existing chapter defensive stance for that one, as doing so shouldn't unbalance anything, and fits my character perfectly.
However, the thing that is less than ideal is that using it requires them to be prone or incapacitated. As it's not a "let me save you" kind of thing, but more of a "you're too weak to take this hit, I am not" kind of thing, I would prefer if I could use that even when they are not prone or incapacitated, not only to have greater use and flexibility from this, but also to better represent the cold, calculating nature of the decision to take the hit instead, rather than some heroic, sacrificing mentality. Obviously at that point the squad mode is more powerful than it is at its base level. Even if you account for giving up the rank 5 enhancement to the ability (which I would regardless, moving that far is *not* thematically appropriate for my techmarine!), it seems that it would need something else to balance it. Perhaps having that enhancement as a talent or elite advance taken? Perhaps limiting it to only 1x the agility bonus? Eliminating the option to parry the attack? All of the above?
Sorry for the Massive first post, there was quite a few things backlogged in there! Future ideas should come at a more sedate pace as I come up with them. And Thanks, to anyone who actually read through all of that! You are a gentleman (or woman!) and a scholar!
Edited by Dr. Quinn