Mellon said:

well said. its kind of like having that disruptive kid in the classroom. it just screws with the dynamics..and sooner or later, if done often enough, the fun, producing bad blood. bad GMs with good players, good GM or bad players or a combination of both ..anywhich way means bad juju.

as for the Moritat assassin. i don't see the problem either. a moritat with the possibility of being able to use a powerblade makes perfect sense to me. i see nothing within the text that prohibits the usage of a power weapon as long as its a blade. hence, no powerfist, no power maul, no power stake...blade.

also lets recall this is an assassin. assassins don't usually just kill your average citizen. they go after targets of high and or worthy value. ppl potentially well armoured (either a physical shell or field of some sort) or well defended. the most expert of the Moritat Cult will be able to use that kind of weapon to be able to exact their vengeance on well defended foes.

at least thast my take on it.

Cifer said:

Composite bow - check

Mono arrows - check

Tearing on arrows - just got the a-okay

I think we're good to go! Without fullauto mayhem I doubt I'll overshadow anyone, but it'll be cool.

Varnias Tybalt said:

Why? They're anti~psykers. I'd think Eldar would be the best target for Culexus, as because depending on who's writing, every single Eldar is a psyker of some level.

Culexus + Craftworld = Hastening of the destruction of the Eldar.

killfr3nzy said:

"Humanoid" then.

But not against the more monstrous and supernatural threats like daemons, tyranids and other near godlike abominations. That would be something more for eiher the Grey Knights and the Ordo Malleus to tackle (if it's a daemon or several daemons that is) or the Deeathwatch and the Ordo Xenos (in case of suspected alien monstrosities).

A Culexus assassin wouldn't be very effective against, lets' say, an unbound daemonhost or a greater daemon. Because even if Untouchables actually make it harder for creatures to manifest psychic powers and make warp enities suffer double damage due to warp instability, such creatures would simply be too powerful for a lone Culexus assassin to handle. After all, while psykers (including eldar psykers) might "tap into" the powers of the warp, daemons ARE the warp made manifest. And while an Untouchable might give lesser daemons a hard time (like Bloodletters, Daemonettes, Plaugebearers and Horrors), such concentrated warp energy as a greater daemon or a strong daemonhost would most likely overpower the Culexus' peculiar abilities.

I mean, being "immune" to psychic powers doesn't really help you if the psychic energy in question is so strong that it pretty much ignores the penalties to the Threshold and is so powerful that it can litteraly melt the ground which the Culexus assassin is standing on or if the psychic power is able to fling huge boulders of rock and squash the assassin under them.

That's was what I meant with my earlier post, although I guess I could have been a little more specific.

I suppose that GrayKnight Aegis might help a little, but other than that they've no defensive potential at all. Besides, going with your analogy of daemons being 'of' the warp, sending psykers against them seems to me like sending someone who's heard that there's this thing called science against Einstien or any other genius you care to name. ;p

Moreover, the Untouchable talent available for DH is pretty low~key; not only scaled down for DH characters, but scaled down so far that spending only your four hundred starting xp can be considered enough. Culexus, while I haven't looked them up for a long while now, are supposed to be pretty **** powerful Untouchables, and that's before adding in training, 'thing~helm' (yes, thing~helm is cannon] and those various anti~psyker/psychic things they have, made out of the Emperor's very biological material.

And while daemons may be the warp itself, they suffer from severe constraints while forced into the 'shell' of a host or even when/while able to manifest. Otherwise, given the uber power of the Warp, they'd never lose out even here in the Material World. Also, and this has just occured to me and is in no way related to any 'sanctioned' material I've come accross; as Untouchables affect so strongly those who can merely tap into the power of the Warp, might it not follow that those 'living' in and created from the Warp itself would suffer an even stronger, negative reaction?

And, heh, I've kind of played into the semi~exact same behaviour I so recently raged about in another thread. I think we might be a little less accusatory so far, but that's just me. Though as the op's question would appear solved we might only run the risk of having a discussion thread with a misleading title and first page.

Slaunyeh said:

Now you just need to get a repeating crossbow. That should get you a semi-automatic rate, but good luck in convincing anyone to allow a full-automatic version (well, you might convice someone of it, but you'll really need to stretch things).

HappyDaze said:

Well, going by the somewhat steampunk nature of FourtyK......

Van Helsing, anyone?

killfr3nzy said:

Wasn't that cross-bow more of a semi-auto crossbow rather than a full auto?

I don't remember that he just had to depress the trigger in order to rapid-fire the bolts, he had to pull the trigger for each shot (like a semi-auto weapon).

Also, there's the fact that constructing a full-auto crossbow is probably more ardous than simply constructing a machine gun, but I guess rule of cool makes that fact irrelevant?

Wasn't that cross-bow more of a semi-auto crossbow rather than a full auto?

I don't remember that he just had to depress the trigger in order to rapid-fire the bolts, he had to pull the trigger for each shot (like a semi-auto weapon).

I can't really recall much about the finger~pressing going on, but judging by how quickly bolts were getting chucked out there I'd probably put it on a level with full~auto.

Also, there's the fact that constructing a full-auto crossbow is probably more ardous than simply constructing a machine gun, but I guess rule of cool makes that fact irrelevant?

Well, this is a religious matter for them, and I think we all know to some degree that stupid things happen over religion. And 2; yes rule of cool demands a machine~bow.

Come to think of it, what's that varient bolter round? Kraken, maybe? Where they took out the explosive tip and just added more proppelant or something. If you constructed something along the lines of (a serious cut~down] gatling weapon, with only one "barrel" or launch tube/device, or perhaps a much~reinforced crossbow frame with the actual 'bow' parts removed, slapped a Helsing~style clip mechanism on that, and used suitable ammunition...

Maybe something like a giant~sized bullet? Like a 6~inch long metal stake with modified HMG~round casing? Limit the amount of force created to propell the 'round' (perhaps down to actual crossbow~levels] and/or insure the metal is hard enough not do deform as per a bullet, and it should meet Moritat methodology.

More bad~ass'ed, rule~of~cool'ed, steampunk'ed up than your standard autogun any day. Not that silent once it starts up, if you used the above method, but I thought Moritat weren't necessarily on the side of subtle. If you wanted, however, I suppose you could come back to the compressed~gas method from say a grenade launcher, scale it down a bit to fit the fact we're talking stakes rather than bulbs, and lump it into a gatling~gun array to allow each tube to build up pressure in time for the next shot.....

I freely admit that both of the above methods are based on my grasp on logic, which includes little to no awareness of this 'science' thing, so your mileage may vary. But I may just have an entertaining option to fall back on when my heretek~explosives AdMech finaly gets what's coming...

EDIT: Well... Wtf? Tried a few times to get quotes working, but the forums dont seem to like me today.

killfr3nzy said:

Not to complain on your idea or anything, but if I want a Van Helsing-esque crossboq, I'd just go with the Cathechist Pattern Stake Crossbow described in Inquisitors Handbook. Sure, it's not a semi-auto weapon, but I'd say from the description that it fits the picture quite nicely.

The Catechist is really cool. But Composite Bows have the Accurate quality, which basically makes them just better.

Katsue said:

Composite bows also have the Primitive quality, which makes all targets wearing non-primitive armour getting to benefit from double AP. Which means that if they are wearing normal Flak they get 6 Armour Points. 8 if they are wearing Guard Flak Armour or Xeno Mesh, and the Composite Bow won't even be allowed to use it's Pen of 1 against armour that doesn't also have the Primitive Quality.

The Cathechist doesn't have the Primitive Quality, and it also boasts a Pen of 3 (which will make short work of most flak armour, and only give the target an AP of 1 if it is wearing Guard Flak Armour or Xeno Mesh, which isn't something to trust your life with really).

It also does 1d10+4 damage instead of the Composite Bow's 1d10+2, which means that the additional +4 of the Cathechist will most of the time bypass normal human's Toughness Bonus (normal human NPC's usually have a Toughness between 30 or 40), meaning that the 1d10 damage will smack right home on their wounds regardless of whether they are wearing moderately common armour available or not.

Then there's also the useful factor that a Cathechist bolt always count's as "holy" against warp creatures and count's as having the tearing effect against any creature with a psy rating or the sorcerer talent. Also if more than 5 points of damage would be dealt bypassing Armour and Toughness (which it will roughly 50 percent of the time against human targets with normal armour), the bolt becomes lodged in the target's body and will cause 1D5 damage regardless of Armour and Toughness if it is removed by force.

So combining the fact that Composite Bow's have the Primitive Quality while the Cathechist does not, with the superior Pen of the Cathechist and it's extreme usefulness against psykers and warp creatures, im not sure I'd agree with you that the Composite Bow is basically better just because it has the Accurate Quality.

The Accurate quality is a wild card after all (it relies on the shooter having good BS, and that you roll enough degrees of success, and that you roll high numbers on the subsequent d10's for damage), you also have to use the Aim action in order to benefit from Accurate (which means making yourself a stationary target). I agree that Accurate is a good quality in general, but mostly in relation to weapons that don't have the Primitive quality. When a weapon has both, the usefulness of Accurate is sort of decimated.

While I agree that the Composite bow is a really good primitive weapon, and above all cheap (both to buy and to get ammo for in contrast with the cathechist) I would rather have a Cathechist at my side if I was working for the Inquisition than a Composite Bow. You never know when you might have to deal with a hostile psyker or daemon after all...

Varnias, I think you missed the above (house rule) suggestion about mono-edged arrows for the composite bow. With that upgrade the composite bow becomes close to a hunting rifle with manstopper rounds. In that case it's only really against daemons etc that the catechist is worth spending the considerable resources on obtaining.

Of course, it could be possible to get mono-edged stakes for the catechist as well... maybe for hunting possessed chaos marines *happy grin*

Mellon said:

That's exactly what I had in mind.

If the GM is going to let players have arrows with mono edges, then it would be unfair to not let someone with a Catechist buy mono stakes as well.

Varnias Tybalt said:

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[cut back to Lucretia]

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[end of transmission]

Varnias Tybalt said:

I don't see how "fairness" fits in, anywhere.

I havn't looked at the catechist crossbow, so I couldn't say anything about it. However, for my particular concept I doubt it'd work. Mono or no, stakes don't really sound edgy. As in, fitting with the whole Moritat idea.

Of course, right now I'm kinda 50/50 between a 'pure' Moritat sniper archer type and a forge world ashen tear-style tech-assassin using all sorts of custom bow and/or crossbow ammunition.

I don't think the Moritat would approve of explosive arrows, alas!

Mellon said:

Heeeey! My Battle Sister's favourite weapon is her trusty voss-pattern nightfire flamer with chainsword combat attachment. It is glorious.

She does need a holy crossbow though...

Slaunyeh said:

If arrows would be okay to use, I don't see why stakes wouldn't. It all depends on how they are fashioned (I mean an arrow doesn't have to have an edged arrowhead either, it could just be a sharpened stick with some feathers in it's trailing end, and I doubt any GM would really bother keeping track of exactly which kinds of arrows that are available).

Also, since the stakes actually have a chanve of getting lodged in the target's body, I'd say they are decked out with lots of nasty blade-like barbs that cuts ino flesh and then prevents any easy method of dislodging the thing.

Varnias Tybalt said:

That's all possible, but I'd rather not open the door for 'bladed' manstopper bullets. Or vanaheim shotguns loaded with razor blades. Arrows are, imho, already pushing it, but specifically allowed.

Slaunyeh said:

You wouldn't need to, since the Cathechist still use the Basic Weapon Training (Primitive) talent, manstopper bullets or shotgun shells wouldn't ever be applicable (since there are no weapons using the same talent what also use bullets or shotgun shells).

Also we can chalk it down to physical impracticality/impossibility. You can't put "blades" on a bullet, because it wouldn't be able to retain a straight enough flightpath due to aerodynamic instability. Also shotgun shells loaded with razorblades would pretty much always get lodged in the barrel and maybe even destroy the weapon (or at the very least demand some serious weapon maintenance), or they would only "hurt" at best to have shot at you. Buckshot pellets have their primitive spherical shape for a reason you know. If a shell was loaded with razorblades they would be too flimsy and aerodynamically unsound to be able to do any real damage to a target, aside from the odd, superficial cuts that is.

Then there's the final factor that Cathechist stakes costs 50 thrones A PIECE (meaning that you can't buy a quiver full of them in bulk numbers but you have to buy each one separately). When taking this into consideration, it most likely means that if you want a mono stake, you have yo buy the upgrade for each individual stake separate. That's some pretty expensive ammunition, so I wouldn't worry too much about it being abused...

Varnias Tybalt said:

the Moritat specifies edged weapons or blades...if you are going by the rule description, things like stakes would be excluded also as would arrows if shot from a bow. arrows used in melee (Legolas style) may be Ok but thats pushing it. the fluff seems to drive at a purely bladed specialist, a decent sized straight edge of some sort. that is IF you are going by what was envisioned for the Moritat, if not stakes and arrows it is.

also there is a way to have 'blades' in a shotgun. Varnias, do u recall or have you ever heard of flechettes? they have tested them for about 20 years or so through a number of weapons development programs and corporations. under the SPIW project (Special Purpose Individual Weapon) and the SCMITR, which was a special ammunition designed to be fired from shotguns as part of the CAWS (Close Assault Weapon System) project.

for those that aren't aware..flechettes are basically small darts loaded into a shotgun shell for use in combat shotguns. they are designed to penetrate rigid or composite armour at a range of 120 meters if i recall properly, and i have seen some new ones that claim 175 m at a defense show recently. the problem was 2 fold however ..one...they are expensive manufature. two..the actual damage was low, not enough to disable an opponent.

the SCMITR round was loaded with 8 of these flechettes.

i'm sure you crafty folks might find a way to make this weapon work in your campaigns if you so choose. its actually not a stretch from what we are working with in the way of Needler ammunition.

just my 2 cents.

the liegekiller said:

Somehow I doubt that when they say:

(thrown blades, knives and arrows are fine)

They mean "arrows used in melee Legolas Style", but rather arrows fired from a bow. Mainly because there's no description or stats for an arrow used as a melee weapon anywhere, and partly because it's just plain silly, and partly because an assassin starting as a moritat bg-package change his or her starting equipment for a bunch of swords, blades AND a crossbow pistol.

What would be the point of starting with a crossbow pistol if you won't be able to use it wihout taking Wp-tests and you wont get the bonus Tearing effect?

I'd say that the fluff seems to imply that Moritat assassins like their weapons and projectiles bladed and pointy. They don't like using "modern" weaponry (i.e weapons using gunpowder as propellant) but would be fine with most sword-like weapons and simple projectile weapons firing pointed, barbed and edged ammunition such as bows, crossbows, throwing knives etc. In other words, a large degree of weapons using the Basic/Pistol/Exotic Weapon Training (Primitive) talent.

Varnias Tybalt said:

complete plonker moment on my part, excuse the idiocy.

Well, I decided to use the Rules Question button on the bottom of the site, to ask FFG what their meaning was. This is it.

Essentially, no, it does not count for power weapons. It would only
apply when the power field is turned off.

Ross Watson
Senior RPG Developer
Fantasy Flight Games
[email protected]
>
>
> Rule Question:
> For the Moritat "Bloody Edge" trait, would a power weapon count
> under this rule, or would the fact that the power field is doing the
> majority of the damage mean that it doesn't count.
>
> Basically, does it only count for Melee (Primitive) bladed weapons?

MILLANDSON said:

Too bad you didn't ask about the WP-test in the same mail... I mean, even if the Moritat won't benefit from tearing, can you justifiably say that the assassin would have to take a WP-test to use a power sword in the first place? The weapon does have an edge after all, even if it is the turned on power field that does the most damage...