Rules

for A

Teleportarium

Using a Teleportarium in your game is fun and gives a GM many possibilities, BUT don´t under-estimate your players. They will find ways of using a Teleportarium you haven´t even considered. And every GM hates spoilers, don´t you? Therefore we decided to limit it by limiting it´s range, capacity and introducing time to recharge and a certain degree of danger.

The Teleportarium in our campaign has the following stats:

Range: max. 5000 km

Capacity: 10 fully equipped persons

Recharge: 10 minutes

Why 5000 kilometers? According to the Core Rules this is half of 1 VU which still gives you plenty of room for boarding actions, but robs your players of the opportunity of boarding other ships without getting themselves into danger.

10 fully equipped persons or the equivalent amount of other material (eg explosives) offers all of your players the chance of joining in and even taking a squad of soldiers with them.

A recharge time will strand them at their destination at least for a couple of minutes. They are cut off and have to survive without any help until another squad can teleport down and support them. This gives the GM plenty of time for nasty encounters if they so desire (and believe me they do desire it!).

Some thoughts on how a Tele-portarium is run. First of all you do need Tech-priests to do all the necessary rituals and prayers to make a Teleportarium work. It can NEVER be done without Tech-priests. But on the other hand a Teleportarium is ancient technology and quite a few Tech-priest would be honoured to be given the chance to study it. Thus it shouldn´t be too difficult to find a bunch of Tech-priests to run and maintain this masterpiece of Archeotech. There should be a least five Tech-Adepts present to chant the proper prayers and perform all the rituals necessary.

A Teleportarium will send your player right through the Warp which is dangerous, but don´t make it too dangerous because otherwise your players will refrain from using it. The Warp endangers your players body and mind, that´s why the players will have to test on Toughness and Willpower. If you are really nasty feel free to change the tables we use in our campaign.

By the way, don´t tell your players about the rules. The Tech-priests won´t know about the effects. They can tell your players about the maximum range and that they will be exposed to the Warp which in itself is dangerous but that´s it!

Have fun!

1. You have to scan the target area. Use your ship´s augur array according to the rules. A Vox signal sent from the target area will help you focusing and gives you a bonus of +10 on the roll.

Every degree of success gives +5 to the Tech-use test.

2. The Magos has to make a Tech-use test. This test is modified by the bonus of the scan above and the distance between the ship an the target area.

Distance: Modifier:

0 - 1000 km +20

1001 - 2000 km +10

2001 - 3000 km + 0

3001 - 4000 km -10

4001 - 5000 km -20

Every degree of success gives your players a bonus of +10 on the Toughness and Willpower test.

3. Now your players have to see what happend to them during their Warp transit. Depending on the distance they have to check against Toughness or Toughness and Willpower.

Up to 2500 km:

Toughness test modified by the degree of success of the Tech-use test done before.

Success: Teleport doesn´t unsettle you.

Failure: You feel dizzy. 1d5 minutes -5 to all actions.

1-2 degrees You really feel sick. 1d10 minutes -10 to all actions.

3+ degrees Your body didn´t like the Warp! You are out for 1d5 minutes.

More than 2500 km:

Toughness and Willpower test modified by the degree of success of the Tech-use test done before.

Toughness test - see above

Willpower test

Success: Teleport doesn´t unsettle your mind.

Failure: You´ve seen strange things. Gain one Insanity Point.

1 degrees Your trip was quite unsettling. Gain 1d5 Insanity Points.

2+ degrees You experienced horrible things while exposed to the Warp. Gain 1d10 Insanity Points.

4. Another teleport is not possible before the Teleportarium has recharged itself which will take 10 minutes. No roll necessary.

Cain over and out...

Hey, good set of rules, I might well nick 'em at points.

However, in the interests of using 'em as a plot device for a DH game I'd been running, I concocted my own too. Not at all as well thought out, but it shows a slightly different approach.

Operator: Someone who can use the **** thing. Not anyone can. My acolytes have a (suitably skilled) Space Marine operating the controls, but in other cases I'd go with the 'requires techpriests or hereteks'.

Once targets are set (elaborate, esoteric process using a fair few tests in more detailed rules, but instead we'll just count as...) Tech-Use test to use.

Value of 'off' distance determined by second digit in Tech-Use roll.
Scale of 'off' distance determined by degrees of success in Tech-Use roll.
DoS Scale
3+ Superb precision, exactly as intended
2 Decimetres
1 Metres
0 10s metres
-1 100s metres
-3 kilometres
-4... Lost in Warp

Pad-to-Pad:
Coords require series of routine tests to pinpoint. Can take minutes to cogitate depending on location.
+20 Tech-Use test to operate.
+30 Int test vs 1 Insanity Point from witnessing TP
-10 Int test vs D5 Insanity Points from teleporting (until passed then you're 'immunised')
+30 Toughness test for TPd vs D10-1 E damage.

Pad-to-Site:
Coords require series of challenging tests to pinpoint. Can take dozens of minutes to cogitate depending on location.
+0 Tech-Use test to operate.
+10 Int test vs 1 Insanity Point from witnessing TP
-10 Int test vs D5 Insanity Points from teleporting (until passed)
+10 Toughness test for TPd vs D10+1 E damage Pass (or fail) inflicts min 1 wound.

Site-to-Site:
Coords require series of difficult tests to pinpoint. Can take hours to cogitate depending on location.
-20 Tech-Use test to operate.
+10 Int test vs 1 Insanity Point from witnessing TP
-10 Int test vs D5 Insanity Points from teleporting (until passed)
-10 Toughness test for TPd vs D10+3 E damage Pass (or fail) inflicts min 1 wound.

This represents the fact that, for the most part, it's only really Space Marines, Inquisitors and daring IN folks who routinely use teleporters. Salamander, IIRC showed us even the Astartes getting bleeding gums and horrid feelings from it, and it means it's actually quite risky wherein acolytes (and Explorer) can recieve quite a lot of damage from botched tests. I'm not decided on whether to apply armour and toughness to the damage, I suspect I shall permit them though (explains Terminator useage and that, exception 'mad scatters' you don't usually end up too mutilated). And, of course, safest way to do it is teleportarium to teleportarium.

Just thought I should mention that our group have invented certain house rules for the teleportarium. One vital aspect of successfully teleporting several armed people acros large distances is the oh so vital homing beacon. The beacon itself is a bulky affair that pretty much ties up the hands of the beacon operator (think equipment similar to a portable vox unit used by Imperial Guard vox operators). Aside from that, every member of the teleporting party has to have a portable device with a live feed to the main beacon unit that constantly supplies the beacon with updated coordinates of the teleporting member's relative location. Otherwise the home teleportarium will have no way of knowing where you are and thus cannot teleport you back to the home vessel.

This means that the party will pretty much have to stay together as a group and not stray too far from eachother, because if they do they'll have no way of getting back as quickly and efficiently as they arrived.

Once they decide that they want to be teleported back home, the beacon operator initiates the relevant sequence of activation and this cause the beacon to send a massive, coded vox pulse capable of reaching across the vast distance of the teleportarium's effective range pretty much instantly (just imagine what would happen if the teleportarium didn't activate instantly an one member "sneezed" or something just before activation. The results would not be pretty).

I have yet to create rules for pin pointed teleportation, and I assume that it would require a lot of difficult tech-use tests to be able to pin point the coordinates of a person not wearing the live coordinate feeding device and who's not standing close to a beacon unit.

Hi Xisor!

Thanks for your comment! Your ideas are quite nice, they give me new ideas of what happens if a critical failure occures. I really like the ideas of "off distance".
Basically we don´t want to spent too much time on detailed rules for a Teleportarium or other things. My fellow GM and me like to use the rules as rough guidelines. That way we can flesh things out according to the situation. Imagine a situation when a player teleported a distance less than 2500 km, failed his Toughness check by 1 degree and thus has a malus of -10 to all his rolls. Additionally we might tell him that his nose is bleeding. On another occasion he might have random spasms, that´s why he gets the -10. Running our game that way saves the time of consulting all the necessary tables! We focus on good roleplaying and everybody´s fun.

In our campaign none of the players is able to operate the Teleportarium and none of them will actually do it because that way they can´t join in and have to stay on board.

Site to site teleports are not possible in our campaign, you have to go via the Teleportarium . That´s intended for otherwise our players get fancy ideas and that´s not the style and atmosphere of our game.

My fellow GM and me agreed on a special way of how to protect yourself form the dangers of the Warp. Holy relics and sigils will do the job, but so far none of the players had the ideas of getting some. On the other hand it´s not that easy to lay your hands on sigils that really work.

Thanks again for your good ideas!

The Emperor protects!

Cain out...

Hi Tybalt!

We also use some kind of homing beacon, a strong vox unit that as you said has to be carried and operated by one person. Otherwise the Tech-priests won´t know when to activate the Teleportarium again. But in our campaign the players don´t have to wear a personal beacon, they have to stay close to the vox unit. During a teleport the vox unit is the center of the portal, if you are not within the portal´s circle, well you stay where you are. If you are only partly within the circle, ohh... that´s pretty nasty!

To love the Emperor means to die for him!

Cain out...

One thought I had...

Should a geller field interfere or block a Teleportarium. It is meant to block the Warp and the Teleportarium uses the warp to travel between points. This would seem like a usefulecessary restriction as what would stop anyone from just beaming in a bomb on to the enemy ship. This would effectively mean that to use the Teleportarium you would have to disable the geller field first(via traditional hit and run or critical hits).

This would also mean from a role playing point of view, that Void Masters who took Small craft piloting as a special ability would still get to play an important role in any space combat.

Andyb6905 said:

I've never heard that the Teleportarium uses the Warp to function. BUT, according to ORT (Original Rogue Trader) and several WD's, Teleportariums do not function through any sort of Power Field or Void Shield.

Personally, I'd say no. It wouldn't work through a Gellar Field. But then again, the only time you'd normally have that up is during Warp Travel.

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=160&efcid=3&efidt=220286&efpag=0#225227

This topic has been 'done'. Although I wasn't really presenting new rules, merely reminiscing. You might find it interesting.

This sort of thing has come up a couple of times in my games most notible with the 2nd free scenario. I usually use my judgment, if the warp drives dont work and you dont know why chances are teleporters wont either, also they had planned a teleport assualt for their next mission, but ive told them this would be risky as they intend to port into a hive city.

I'm considering to use your proposed rules, my players got a teleportarium and I thought it was a little too good in ship to ship combat. Not to mention them trying to teleport over bombs to blow up the ship without doing anything. This willpower limitation is a great way to make them use it sparsely, as this sort of rare and ancient technology should be. Using it every combat round ever to do hit & runs seems very unfluffy.

This still allows people to teleport over bombs on the enemy ship, a rather cheesy tactic. I'm not sure how to dissalow this, exactly, as it turns shipcombat very redundant if they can teleport over a bigass bomb. Although, I suppose there are very few bombs that are man-sized, if the teleportariums pads can only carry man-sized people, and any bomb at the size of a man or less, won't probably do any serious damage(other than blowing a big hole), unless propperly placed by a crew... and then again, a hit & run attack.

Is 5000km enough to teleport down to the surface?

Further, I also propose that you cannot teleport aboard another ship if the void shields are up. How void shields protect against extremly brief warp-transisions is beyond me, but I remember when I read in the official fluf of the Warhammer rulebook, it was specifically stated that, with arrogant triumph, or the last shred of humanity acting against him, Horus lowered the shields of his Battle Barge, allowing the Emperor to imidiately teleport to him.

So in short, you need to have hit the enemy ship with a weapon salvo the same round as you try to use a teleportarium hit and run.

Good thinking folks who've contributed since my last above!

Graham; I like your approach with that. For my part, excepting the first few uses (which are done to illustrate to the players how I'm dealing with it), I shan't be consulting tables all the time. The Teleportarium is largely a narrative time-saver, but explaining my choice for its limitations gives them a more precise idea of how its used. Excepting precision-gambles, I intend to let the narrative determine it. So I'd think "On or off target?", usually answering "On" or "Off and have an engagement or a side-puzzle/opportunity presented through it". Legislating the mechanics is good for a guideline IMO and helping players and GMs figure out what they're thinking/dealing with, but they needn't be adhered to religiously.

With that in mind, in future uses I think I'll be adopting the 'no site-to-site' and 'must carry about overlarge, awkward and bulky technology'. Simply, if one had access to Star Trek Transporters, many problems would be easily solved.

Regarding Limitations & Fields

I think it's important to stick to the 'Not through Void Shields' method, mainly because perhaps one of the most massive conceits of 40k rests soley upon it, namely Horus & the Emperor at the Seige of Terra. (Not Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra)

By way of rationalisation, the 'transport' might be via the warp, but the 'signal/marker beam' may indeed be through realspace. If this beam is blocked/scrambled/interfered with, you can't reliably choose your destination.

However, with regards to Geller fields, I think the Teleporter totally should work . My understanding of the Geller Field is not so much as it 'retards the warp', but that it 'projects reality'. In that sense it isn't the 'bubble shielding a chunk of reality', but that it forms the reality within the warp. This isn't a uniformly applied principle, but it is one which appeals to me.

Imagine: each 'bit' of reality is its own metamomentum, but the Geller field extends that 'sense of reality' as a field, not just for real 'stuff'. Hence why daemons can't just materialise into a starship, but they can break through 'as per weakend veil'. And if patches appear (like holes in swiss cheese) within the Geller Field (rather than the bubble shrinking?) then daemons can penetrate in such places. Psychic stuff still works when within a Geller Field, so I don't see why the TP shouldn't work.

At least: this is what seems sensible to me. I could be a dribbling twerp.