Force fields to powerful?

By PhaKnight, in Black Crusade Game Masters

I'm the GM of a campaign and its only 4 session in and our korn berserker has a power field protection of 50 and he has Insain parry/dodge skill. It's become to the point of its not fun. Another of my psykers also has a termy armour. Don't ask how he got it he got it. So I was wondering... Any ideas how to either cripple their force fields to the point of it not working? Or other ideas?

Btw side note they were on a ship in the eye of terror but the ship had to be spat out of the warp due to almost everyone gainig a random gifts of the gods/mutation and they have to figh tothe galler fields to shut it down and im going to have it end up near the planet Mordin. I'm going to let them start a revolution there so any ideas will and ill thank you.

Forcefields are fairly easy to overload if you keep a constant volume of fire focused on the target. Any weapon with twin-linked or storm on full auto will generate plenty of hits and you should be rolling for each one; a rack with a pair of twin-linked autoguns and a belt feet may even be enough (FA 10x2 + twin-linked; you will get an obscene amount of hits). This is something a decently well-trained soldier should know; never mind the default reaction of a lot of commanders in 40k is "keep shooting and toss more bodies at it". Once the field overloads, it needs proper maintenence and a skill check to be put in working order again. Unless you've somehow given them shields that only overload on a 1 (why would you give that to a new character?), you should be fine.

Alternatively, haywire. Look up a nasty little weapon called "static repeater". Fielding those makes smart astartes move in the other direction.

http://www.40krpgtools.com/armoury/weapon/black-crusade-core-rulebook/static-repeater/

Though admittedly, I'm at a loss why a gun that works like any other gun is an exotic weapon, but eh, that's beside the point.

Edited by DeathByGrotz

Talk to your players if you're uncomfortable about the power level they've attained so quickly. Throwing More Dakka at them is only going to fuel an arms race, whereas telling them, "Hey, let's pace this out a bit because I'm having trouble keeping up with you guys" will likely go over much better.

And after you've talked to them, you could always weave it in a plotline that they get captured and lose some of that equipment or something in the process. Don't just force them to give up their things I'd say without narrative context.

Edited by Gridash

In addition to the above, Haywire weapons/grenades.

say after 2-3 encounter enemies can and will change tactic. Haywire, constant auto-fire, capturing is ok but only after you let them enjoy the characters toys a little. Preludig is the most important. Also as a Chaos Space marine he should battle against hordes of lesser and bands of equal enemies where dodge and parry count very little and his powerfield only has a 50% of defend making battles riskier. (Alternative: if I'm right force field does not protect against sufficating, nerve gases, mind altering psy powers, maybe falling(??)).

You don't need to throw powerful weaponry at them at all. Killing a forcefield is about quantity of fire, not quality of fire. :)

The other way to cancel them out is to have a discussion about how you wish to use them. There are two main ways that a shield in most systems will function:

1 - Point defence, the shield exists a very small distance away (usually a matter of millimeters/inches etc) from the users body thereby providing protection from all sources of damage.

2 - Field based, projecting a good few meters/feet away from the subject.

You might want to discuss with the group whether they would be happy interpreting it as the latter. It would mean that shots or blows from outside the field are affected as normal but if they get close enough they can slip past the field. This would be something you need to discuss with them though. Now as for the terminator armour you can't really ignore that since the 35 field save is actually worded as a deflection chance as opposed to field save. Things like combat shields though, just shoot them from behind. I don't care what you say if you have a sodding storm shield, the 65 field save will not save you from being shot in the back with a lascannon as it should be directional protection which is why one should watch their flanks.

Other solution though as these guys have already said, EMP. In fact an EMP will be a death sentence which hasn't been mentioned so far. A field will protect them from damage however it does not state anywhere (and rightly so) that it will grant immunity from being in a technological dead zone. It doesn't seem logical that an energy field will protect from a zone where technology has been disrupted or fried and will likely shut it off straight away so unless it has been somehow shielded from the knockout pulse which would negate its functionality, it's being turned off. Additionally it'll shut off or cripple the power armour and terminator armour. Given it'll cease to function then, they will have to stand there suffering -40 (or -60 for the terminator) strength checks to even move and it takes at least 5-10 minutes to remove power or terminator armour properly so he can't throw it off and be mobile again. Under those circumstances you can forget about dodging or parrying quickly out of the way so when it's been disabled you can just wail on his brass and soon to be bloodied face. So for EMPs then that's either Eldar, Tau, Imperium stuff.

Alternatively you could really go cruel and go with C'tan Phase Swords. Fluffy description and their long standing use such as in DH2 I think, basically means that a power field will be useless against it. The blade would pass through any material or field irrespective of its physical properties. So this would mean the force field does naff all. If he tries to parry, the phase sword will cleave straight through it and both the AV10/16 power/termie armour would be like paper. Damage is only like a decent dagger but it's a dead cert to actually nip the little sod.

Vindicare Assassins will also show them up as will any member of the Officio Assassinorum. One Shield Pen round will ignore the field and additionally Exitus Ammunition is slightly homing which imposes a penalty on the targets dodge, meaning its harder for them to duck out the way. Finally an assassin will be a swine to kill given they all have silly numbers of dodges per round (far more than them and with more proficiency) and stupid stats.

Failing that, look to damage them in other ways rather than directly. For example you may want to explore Grav Weaponry such as those found in the Deathwatch series of books (and probably other places, can't think where). These again do not do direct damage and say whatever you like, a power field plus armour will not stop an area of high gravity pushing you into the ground and crushing you under your own weight for a consistant amount of damage ignoring armour. While pinned by this it is also fair to say that dodging or parrying will be nigh on impossible so again, wail on them.

Fall damage, not reduced by armour or force fields. Not much stops gravity...just have to have something to knock or lob the sod in the air and have fall damage do the rest so crumbling walls etc. In fact, and this is the dubious side if you wanted to play purely rules, it's highly likely and is an amusing story from Deathwatch you could manage this given that with a combined SB/TB of 16 (about average for a CSM) you can LIFT up to 1.3 metric tonnes which should easily be enough assuming youre able to grapple with him. Then you can lob them up to SB x DoS meters up. So...fall damage calculates at 1D10+meters ignoring armour. I'll leave you to work out the consequences of this.

Worst case scenario, just run the bastard over with a leman russ! Not much survives being run over by a tank considering that modern things like the challenger 2 are around 62 metric tonnes and that a rhino/leman will arguably be even heavier. It's called tank shocks for a reason :)

Edited by Calgor Grim

Hah thanks to all the comments my psyker keeps saying he will just flicker out but I got plans. Anyways thanks for all the comments. Really useful info. I'm use to my players playing only war and in that its more fun I think but I like black crusade. It's just t seems abit over powers but ya tha me for all the thoughts and suggestions I will use some.

Flicker? Easy. Use overwatch.

That's fine. He goes incorporeal so use the Sisters of Battle against them from DH2. One holy seal which they can't cross to do anything.

If He swift dimension does it means the daemons can sense interact with him in the other side? Good getaway plan but a bit dangerous some time...

Also for the original topic: maintain and repair forcefield after overload are not easy to do. maybe needs some session to be ready again...

Edited by Athanatosz

If He swift dimension does it means the daemons can sense interact with him in the other side? Good getaway plan but a bit dangerous some time...

Also for the original topic: maintain and repair forcefield after overload are not easy to do. maybe needs some session to be ready again...

It absolutely does mean that, if you look at the "flicker" mutation from Tome of Corruption. There's an increasing percentile chance of daemons noticing you per use that only resets to 1% after a daemon actually shows up.