Going over the various stats for for primitive weapons I noticed that spears are basically identical to swords except that they don't get the balanced attribute. This seems odd since they posses no positive attribute. I would think they would either reveive a bonus to damage, pen, or range. By range I mean some substitue bonus to exibit the greater range of a spear, like there is no ws bonus for charging anyone with a spear.

They are there for flavour reasons, not as something that your PCs would actually want. Just like how a Ghost Sword is equal or better than a Fractal blade in all areas.

Hmm, ok. Seems like a shame. At best qualtiy with the mono upgrade primitive weapons are at least decent.

Oh they can be useful. But your PCs are rich enough to go for the expensive gear for themselves, like best quality power weapons.

I guess so, I'm just looking for a way to spice things up. Everyone using power swords gets kind of boring.

ReaperOfTheLost said:

Encourage your players to have minions and require your players to equip them. Just remember the mass combat rules (page 292) and the scale modifiers (table 9-32 on page 272). The player characters will still have the best gear, but their minions will not, especially if they want a large army.

Though if you don't want your players to all use power weapons* you can always tempt them with daemon weapons (Disciples of the Dark Gods or Radicals Handbook) .

*Some people will prefer the extra damage of the power axe, even with the parry penalty. Explorators can attach a utility mechendrite and use that to parry

I guess I wish there were more varieties of higher level weapons. Also I just got into rogue trader and I don't own any of the dark heresy books. Kind of sucks because RT seems kind of lite on gear and enemies right now, but I know that's how core books usually are. Because you start out with such powerful characters the lesser weaopns seem obsolete. I wish they would have included some more exotics. Oh well, I guess I can go around finding out wich dark heresy book has the best assortment of gear and badies and just work with that for now.

The Inquisitors Handbook has a lot of gear. If you want the books for gear only, buy that book. But even there, most waponry will be low budget weapons.

For spears, Ichecked out the WFRP 2nd Edition and they got the special quality FAST. Which makes them harder to dodge and parry (-10). Give them the mono upgrade, shocking upgrade or power upgrade and you are talking about a nasty weapon.

Alternate WFRP 2n Edition weapon is the Halberd. A weapon that can be used as either a spear (with its spearlike tip) or a great weapon with its axe blade. Considering the power of the great weapon and the fact that weapons like Halberds are often used for ceremonial purposes, it could be a weapon you will encounter quite often.

Hmm...

There's nothing in the book to say you can't use circumstance to give advantages to certain weapons. Spearmen are supposed to be good at resisting charges, right?

"I'm betting the Ork's going to run up to me and gut me, I wanna brace my spear and impale 'im."

[Me, looking blank] "Right, we'll call that a kind of melee Overwatch, with +2 Penetration if you hit."

This, and the more boring aspect that the spear stats are what you get for using a basic weapon with a bayonet in melee.

ReaperOfTheLost said:

For gear I'd start with the Inquisitors Handbook. For enemies you will want Disciples of the Dark Gods and/or Creatures Anathema. The Radicals Handbook has ways for you to temp characters down a dangerous path. The last three do make references to the Dark Heresy rulebnook (mainly referring to psychic powers), so parts will be hard to use without it.

You could even try making some rules up. RTs and their companions are supposed to find strange items, and if you want a power-spear or shocking bloas enough, you can make it happen.

On the subject of power-halberds, the Grey Knight Terminators use them. So they're there if you want them, but good luck getting them to give one up.

Ah, the Nemesis Force Weapon - a two handed weapon for psykers, with a built in bolter.

(After having left 40K more'n a decade, now re-reading the old compendiums...)

I've given them the ability to be thown (range 10m) and also given the player the ability to either brace (+2 damage if charged) or to have reach (+2 to initiative on the first round you attack) you can't use both it's either or.

Great suggestions, I like the bonus to initiative, hadn't thought of that.

Col. Orange said:

Nemesis Force Weapons tend not to have the bolter element these days; instead, the Grey Knight carries a Stormbolter mounted on the back of his gauntlet, leaving his hands free to wield the halberd-like force weapons, as shown here .