What makes the techpriest "tanky", namely cybernetics and heavy armour is something everyone else can get as well. A Techpriest does not inherently have more TB than anyone else. For example, an Arbite can go to any arbite station, check in and requisition his equipment for a "special assignment". That means FREE carapace, assault shotgun and shock shield. Add a pistol grip to the shotgun, go two weapon fighter mixed and you have a stunning, semi-automatic fire using blaster that simply shreds things to bits.

Umm..yes he does. Machinator Array +10T. Also flesh is Weak for roughly 1 more armor per 2 ranks that stacks with worn armor. So for a given armor a tech priest wearimg it would be a lot more tankier than any other class.

Also, I didn't mean broken in the way that it makes the game unplayable and can't be challenged (that's the psyker), but that there's simple almost no mechanical reason to pick something over tech-priest for most roles.

I also gind the sniper example greatly exagerrated. Aming with an accurate rifle yelds you about 3d10+4 damage. In order to get the -10 critical effect on an average damage roll you would need your target to have less than 7 hp. Somehow I find it unlikely.

The seven wounds takes into account 3 TB I assume from my calculations?

3d10+5 pen 3 (nomad), or 5d10 pen 8 (angelus with solid rounds instead of standard bolter ammo), mighty shot for +2, crack shot for +2 critical damage and ammo for either more pen or armour depending on the situation. suddenly you drop people on an average roll if they have 12 wounds where most "standard" cultists have 9 wounds, not including special ammo. Allowing modification of either the rifle or the ammo to, for example, inflict tearing can further augment instagib levels, refer to IH for precise crafting rules, they explicitly state you can add special qualities to weapons with crafting.

As for the mechanical reason of not picking a techpriest, assume a party of four cogboys. They aren't going to get information from or infiltrate in the churches, arbites offices, administrata and telepathica offices with any degree of subtlety if they get in at all. It's nice being a good social face, but if you have no one to talk to you're useless. If you are a tank but have nothing to tank or shoot because you are lacking clues, what are you going to do?

As I see it there are plenty of valid reason of picking something else than a techpriest, both for combat and for other roles. The thing I'll hand the cogboys is that they have one of the most complete and interesting lores in the W40k universe, so that's a big selling point for me, not the mechanical rules of the game.

Cogboys are everywhere. Even assumimg you're not finding anyone willing to talk to you (this is whete max persuasion comes in handy) you can akways get your info from local cogboys. Most large groups have a ton of tech that needs tending to.

Hrm, honestly, I'm not seeing it. A face needs to be able to universally fill that role, so mechanicus implants simply aren't a thing, because tech priests aren't welcome everywhere to the same degree. Stealth and shadowing, not seeing it either. Then there's the tank role, with one measly TB more, and otherwise no Combat Master and no True Grit. Admittedly high AP armour is lacking for people who aren't arbites or similar, and high pen weapons as well, but your average mob of cultists not only gains a ganging up bonus, if even one of them has a krak grenade, the toaster is burnt, simply because mob grapple plus grenade UNDER armour bypasses armour entirely. While this is not explicitely a rule, there are several precedents, including what I'm looking at right now (organgrinder rounds), that make a tank character facing multiple opponents extremely vulnerable to just being mobbed down and restrained.

If you have combat master, all that is suddenly a lot harder, and with true grit, you'll remain standing ad extremum.

As far as loremastery goes, literally nothing beats an adept, and they can grab a psy rating as well. The cleric has a private army, even the scum has connections and can go places no other character can without a sufficient disguise, which the tech priest is incapable of.

In other words, I see plenty of solid reasons not to play a tech priest.

You seem to be makimg an awfully lot of assumptions that just aren't in the rules, and with which I disagree from a fluff standpoint.

You see plenty if reasons not to play tech-priests, many of us don't. In the end we'll just have to agree to disagree.

Well, if your DH games were a party of tech priests, who somehow had access to everything just because "We're the admech", I'm not surprised.

Well, if your DH games were a party of tech priests, who somehow had access to everything just because "We're the admech", I'm not surprised.

Well, if your DH games were a party of tech priests, who somehow had access to everything just because "We're the admech", I'm not surprised.

Avtually they just played close to the rules, didn't hand out benefits of talents like Peer and Good Reputation to people for free and didn't deliberately skew situations one way or another ti favor or disfavor a certain class just to pretend it's balanced.

The point is that "Rollplay" instead of "Roleplay" in this case makes no sense. By "the rules" techpriests with high persuasion get **** done, to quote 1d4chan . The point is that a techpriest doesn't get in a conversation that will allow said rolls if you would stick to roleplay. some lies / persuasion just won't work if they are too far fetched.

Pre-Lathe book, Techies were strong and powerful, but limited. Both in crunch and fluff. Not everyone is gonna talk to a techie and when they do, they won't act the same. An Arbites can intimidate, a scum can charm, a cleric has the might of the Imperial Creed ingrained into everyone to draw on, Psykers have their powers, etc.

Techies are great and if you go overboard, yeah, you can break them. But they had limits (not to mention the problems with trying to go undercover/blend in, remember, they usually have their lower jar removed and replaced with a metal grill).

The real issue is when the Lathe Worlds turned it on it's head, opening the doors to the stuff techies never got before (being the party face, psy powers, etc.). Then overpowered gear/implants, crazy weapons with tons of ammo and then made an insane techie guardsman hybrid.

Well, if your DH games were a party of tech priests, who somehow had access to everything just because "We're the admech", I'm not surprised.

Avtually they just played close to the rules, didn't hand out benefits of talents like Peer and Good Reputation to people for free and didn't deliberately skew situations one way or another ti favor or disfavor a certain class just to pretend it's balanced.

The point is that "Rollplay" instead of "Roleplay" in this case makes no sense. By "the rules" techpriests with high persuasion get **** done, to quote 1d4chan . The point is that a techpriest doesn't get in a conversation that will allow said rolls if you would stick to roleplay. some lies / persuasion just won't work if they are too far fetched.

I don't think most people refuse to outright talk with tech-priests. That would be needlessly antaginizing the AdMech and given how little understood 40k tech is, one's need of the AdMech is a matter of when, not if. Next time your toilet clogs up, what you want to hear from the AdMech is 'we're on our way', not 'drowning in organic fecal matter is the rightful punishment of the Omnissiah for ignoring his servants'.

Most people would just be reluctant to talk to tech-priests because most are distinctly inhuman and aloof (which is reflected in game by lack of fellowship advances). Thing is, a Factor of the Lathes with max fellowship with social skills is not your average tech-priest, but one specially designed to interact with organuc beings. He's a lot more human looking, when you say 'hi' he says 'hi' back not '01011100', when you ask 'how are you?' he answers with 'fine' and not a scientific description of his physical state etc. As long as ypu don't flat out refuse to talk to him (which again, I believe most people won't) he can roll his social skills.

Also, AdMech is an irganuzation with huge reach, second only to the Ecclesiarchy. Every group that has access to some tech has a few guys part of, or trained by the AdMech to take care of it, so you're pretty likely to find simebody sympatjetic to your cause almost anywhere. This also means that a tech-priest going about their business in most tech-abundant places raises no eyebrows. Coupled with the fact that most imperial citizens can't tell tech-priests appart and are completely ignorant of technical procedures means you can get away with a lot of stuff in plain sight. The average cultist probably has no clue how to tell apart Joe the average tech-priest fixing the AC from an inquisition acolyte rigging the AC for remote detonation.

So what you're saying is the kasballica, chaos, genestealers, tau and everyone else who might be doing something shady in the Imperium just lets tech priests walk right into their stronghold to "fix" things?

If they've infiltrated an Imperial organization they'd have to if they don't want to look extremely suspicious. Unless they've infiltrated every organization in which case they'd know these particular tech priests aren't on the list.

It comes down to personal interpretation of just how necessary tech priests are and just how much leeway they're given.

How to put this, then? Going by that assumption, tech priests aren't OP in DH1, they're OP in literally any game they're allowed which operates under that premise. It has nothing to do with their stats, mechanics or whatever. Those aren't actually superior. Everything that makes them "good" mechanically, other classes can get as well, and with the talents to make it work on top. Talents, I might add, which they do not have access to.

They're OP because the DM is lax enough to let them get away with anything because "We have the technology".

They're OP because the DM is lax enough to let them get away with anything because "We have the technology".

Sure let's blame the DM, not FFG for having to make more supplements that had incredibly ridiculous power creep or anything.

Even then, while getting access to a place is useful it's rarely an entire adventure. The adventure doesn't even have to take place near an imperial organization, or the tech rites on that particular planet may be different, perhaps there's an identification necessary that usual tech priests for such a thing would have but they don't.

Even in Inquisitor's Handbook it was easy to see that Tech Priests could get out of hand very quickly if you weren't careful to monitor the situation.

Techpriests wouldn't be inspecting air-conditioners or performing on-site tech-support for any and all organizations which use cogitators or other tech in their day-to-day operations.

They have laymen for that kind of thing. Technomats, ad-mech certified personell either staffed in-house by various orgs or other 3rd party contractors.

Just like how you don't take your car to be serviced by an employee of the manufacturer, you take it to an authorized service/dealer (who at best will be a franchise-holder, not actual employees of the manufacturers organization).

And they don't know how to build the **** thing, they just know how to replace Part A when maintenance test B tells you that Part A is faulty.

^Agreed. A techpriest showing up for mundane repairs would strike people as odd in my game. Very odd.

As for the power creep, suffice to say everything can get "out of hand" if you give players full gear access. Mechanically, if you want to rock, though, a tech priest isn't your ideal choice. It's the obvious choice, but if you really, really want to power build, and your GM won't let you go SoB, go cleric, assassin or arbite. You can get all the combat cybernetics you need with those careers as well, and your talent selection is simply better for the job.

You can also "take off" the uniform if you need to. Mister squiggly mechandrites can't do that, and he's not half as good as he's cranked up to be, because his main asset, cybernetics, is universally applicable. True Faith or a solid talent selection for investigation or infiltration combined with combat prowess is something tech priests don't get.

A lot of posts for me to run through nice!

Cymbel, where in the Lathes do techpriests gain a psyrating? anyone can take it from radicals handbook, but i've not seen it in Lathes. The gear (you mean the integrated stuff right?) is powerful, but very expensive and not readily available on any world (lathes only...), so unless you disregard that as a GM the powerlevel of a cogboy isn't that impressive, if he / she undertakes the journey and survives (hint), it's a nice reward. The same, btw, goes for the machinator array, you can't just "find" them when you take the talent.

Lordblades: I don't mean no one will talk to you as techpriest, but the conversation will be about "my ac broke, can you fix that and send the bill to the church." this priest (as an example, same goes for other organizations) will then go about his business as he sees no reason to talk to said techpriest or answer questions not related to the repairs.

Also, a factor of the lathes will not be send to do repairs, plain and simple as he is not a techpriest in that sense of the word. he doesn't even GET tech-use and the social skills only go to +10, so it's not "I roll, i win, he tells me everything hurr durr" as you make it seem.

You also seem to assume that a techpriest can rig stuff in plain sight for use against the cultists. Thing is that the cultists aren't really in a public area most of the time, so why in the name of the god emperor would they even summon a cogboy into their hideout? If a GM does that he should suffer the consequences and rightly so for doing something so stupid

Doctor, you make a good point about being able to get into a building for "repairs", but this doesn't mean that the people inside it are willing to talk to the techpriest about heretical things or even answer his questions. Darth smeg also makes a good point about they don't send a techpriest for that kind of thing...

In your second post you state that we shouldn't blame the GM, but everything that has been said in this thread so far is either "techpriest too stronk" and no reasoning, "techpriest too tanky too OP" which I disproved quite a while back and now "Techpriest can do everything, too stronk" which was then turned into "there are no mechanical reasons to pick something other than techpriests". This is bull and only true if you have a GM that doesn't know the setting and will not roleplay and thus allows stupid rolls to be made in places where none should be allowed. You yourself even give a few reasons as to WHY a partyface isn't allowed into *random place*.

"even in IH techpriests could get out of hand quickly" are you going to go back to the already addressed notion, and all arguments that go with it, that a secutor is somehow OP... I am not going to argue the same point over and over.

In your second post you state that we shouldn't blame the GM, but everything that has been said in this thread so far is either "techpriest too stronk" and no reasoning, "techpriest too tanky too OP" which I disproved quite a while back and now "Techpriest can do everything, too stronk" which was then turned into "there are no mechanical reasons to pick something other than techpriests". This is bull and only true if you have a GM that doesn't know the setting and will not roleplay and thus allows stupid rolls to be made in places where none should be allowed. You yourself even give a few reasons as to WHY a partyface isn't allowed into *random place*.

"even in IH techpriests could get out of hand quickly" are you going to go back to the already addressed notion, and all arguments that go with it, that a secutor is somehow OP... I am not going to argue the same point over and over.

I still don't really feel you've proved much of anything. You've only proved that if you pit them against smart, organized, and equipped enemies that they will have problems. Well I'll alert the presses. In the core of the book and generally any enemy that isn't a named NPC they'll be fine if not unobstructed from what I've seen save some Xeno threats and most Malleus threats but they take out anyone.

While there isn't a reason to take anything but tech priest if you allow Lathe Worlds it's obviously not going to happen save in a very particular group. Even then that makes for a really interesting game if you play it out right.

I do agree with the tech adept over priests, it was just an example of something that could happen. It'd definitely be suspicious.

Lastly I said out of hand not op. Secutors are easier to deal with than most other things. Even then at this point has your question been answered/are you just going to house rule it? The only thing you'd need to do is house rule the implant the talents and skills you can get on your own, unless they get a talent that I'm not remembering that's necessary for what they do.

In your second post you state that we shouldn't blame the GM, but everything that has been said in this thread so far is either "techpriest too stronk" and no reasoning, "techpriest too tanky too OP" which I disproved quite a while back and now "Techpriest can do everything, too stronk" which was then turned into "there are no mechanical reasons to pick something other than techpriests". This is bull and only true if you have a GM that doesn't know the setting and will not roleplay and thus allows stupid rolls to be made in places where none should be allowed. You yourself even give a few reasons as to WHY a partyface isn't allowed into *random place*.

"even in IH techpriests could get out of hand quickly" are you going to go back to the already addressed notion, and all arguments that go with it, that a secutor is somehow OP... I am not going to argue the same point over and over.

I still don't really feel you've proved much of anything. You've only proved that if you pit them against smart, organized, and equipped enemies that they will have problems. Well I'll alert the presses. In the core of the book and generally any enemy that isn't a named NPC they'll be fine if not unobstructed from what I've seen save some Xeno threats and most Malleus threats but they take out anyone.

While there isn't a reason to take anything but tech priest if you allow Lathe Worlds it's obviously not going to happen save in a very particular group. Even then that makes for a really interesting game if you play it out right.

I do agree with the tech adept over priests, it was just an example of something that could happen. It'd definitely be suspicious.

Lastly I said out of hand not op. Secutors are easier to deal with than most other things. Even then at this point has your question been answered/are you just going to house rule it? The only thing you'd need to do is house rule the implant the talents and skills you can get on your own, unless they get a talent that I'm not remembering that's necessary for what they do.

It seems that people forget that the enemies should be organized, well equipped and intelligent. the book even states multiple times that the enemies are human, not mindless drones and as such are intelligent, afraid to die and will try to get their own agenda through one way or the other. ANY class will have no issue against a mindless host of enemies except maybe the adept with no weapons

"while there isn't..." really now man? People have given AMPLE examples that show techpriests are not the end all answer, even with lathe worlds. I'd like to see new examples, not a reference to examples that have since been shown to be incorrect...

What's the difference between "out of hand" and "OP"? since these terms seem to be used for mostly the same thing.

Lastly, my question about porting a secutor to 2.0 has been answered in the first few posts, however people started bashing the "OPness" of techpriests and the discussion devolved from there...

How to put this, then? Going by that assumption, tech priests aren't OP in DH1, they're OP in literally any game they're allowed which operates under that premise. It has nothing to do with their stats, mechanics or whatever. Those aren't actually superior. Everything that makes them "good" mechanically, other classes can get as well, and with the talents to make it work on top. Talents, I might add, which they do not have access to. They're OP because the DM is lax enough to let them get away with anything because "We have the technology".

-More Toughness than your stats+ advencements allow ( Machinator Array)

- One extra attack in addition to your equipped weapon (ballistic mechadendrite)

-More armor than your equipped armor and cybernetics allow (Flesh is Weak)

- Infinite Hellgun ammo (Luminen Charge)

Infinite hellgun ammo: Pointless. You're not going to get that many shots off.

Extra attack: For the price of your reaction. Furious assault is a far better option.

Extra toughness: It's nice, but it's not half as good as True Grit. If your strategy is giving up your reaction, you had better hope your first attack eliminates the enemy.

Extra armour: Bit of an edge there, but it's nothing that can decide an engagement. In the end, if it can punch through power armour, it can probably punch through your own armour well enough, and as soon as you're in the criticals, your lack of true grit is going to hurt. You can, and will, get shot to pieces easier than dedicated combat classes.

If you're using this combo, you will die against any foe that isn't a mindless drone. Your hellgun does not pack enough potential to deal with a group adequately, you will be forsaking the ability to dodge and react, and your one extra soak will not save you. If you add the armour to that, you're still not immune against the same thing that kills SoBs in power armour, namely intelligent mob tactics. There's a thread over in the DH1 forums where someone was making this exact argument on why battle sisters on a fuedal world are de facto immortal. It got shot down with grapple. WIthout combat master, you have no way of negating the various ganging up boni you get in that situation, meaning, you are dead. So you need combat master. And still, it's a massive amount of rolls raining in on you, which you have no proper way of countering, because you're using your reaction to deal more damage with an inefficient crowd control weapon.

Your extra armour does not matter. They will tear it from your helpless body, and they will make those checks, because you are immobilised and cannot mechanically cancel out their assists.

Now, here's what you do with various classes to effectively fight:

Arbite: Free carapace, free surcoat, free weapons. Shock is immensely useful, take a shock shield. Get two weapon fighting melee and ranged, get a recoil glove, one-hand your shotgun and go to town. Combat master, true grit and lightning attack with a shock quality weapon will make your day. You are the official master of crowd control. The only problem is your strength is expensive as hell.

Assassin: Doge dodge dodge uninhibited while putting out a massive amount of attacks. Or max stealth, grab a heavy bolter or an autocannon(I kid you not, assassins get heavy training bolt...), and start sniping with extreme prejudice. You don't need soak. They do not see you coming.

Cleric: Requisition appropriate armour and equipment from the ecclesiarchy to deal with the threat. If sororitas get power armour, so do you. Invest in true faith talents, holy flame throwers, bolters and stay ranged, while buffing your party with wrath and hate. The moment a daemon pops up, the toaster is toast. You can rip through it in one round instead.

Guardsman: Actually has it a bit tougher, because he has to buy his own gear. He's arguably weaker than the tech priest until late game, but true grit plus fearless and the highest melee damage output in the game make him a rather fearsome frontliner. Also, combat master helps massively with mobs. Basically, it's a weaker start, but in terms of raw power, it has all the tools necessary to become a beast when properly equipped. The trick as a guardsman is actually getting that gear.

High Strength, incidentially, is the best grapple counter there is.

Incidentially, sniper route lets you play assassin as well, and dictate the terms of most engagements. This is something the tech priest simply cannot do.

Scum: No money, no luck, no anything. Piss poor in combat, solid outside of it. Your main edge is in RP, not the mechanical.

Tech Priest: Gets enough talents to be decent in combat, but it is missing the cheap damage output of the guardsman, only gets fearless at the final rank of the right tree and lacks the agility to properly utilise its step aside. It has a slew of melee talents, but strength increases are expensive. Its only real assets are cheap T and WP over the other classes, and it does get a lot of shiny toys, the real problem is, if you gave them to someone else, they'd be more effective. Tech priest isn't a bad class, but it's far from broken in combat. The soak can be negated as detailed above, and without soak, it has nothing. The other characters will be more mobile, better capable socially, and better at clearing mobs, because they picked more efficient weapons for the purpose than a hellgun, utilise ambush tactics, and they do more damage with their mob-clearing talents in melee, due to cheaper strength.

So we're back to assuming arbites ans clerucecan just walk in and demand stuff but tech-priest for some reason can't.

There's also such a thing as a D'laku hellgun.

Who said tech priests can't?

Tbh it's just better to drop it, since it'spretty obviously nobody is convincing anybody they're wrong.

Tbh it's just better to drop it, since it'spretty obviously nobody is convincing anybody they're wrong.

There are people willing to concede a point, and then there's people who run from the discussion when they have all their arguments disproven...