Artaxerxes said:

I might be able to help you out there if you want it. I've been using your supplement (good work btw!) in my RT game. While the Necrons have yet to make an appearance, I have a small group of them stated out as well as a Lord who's trapped in a stasis field. I'm still working out his stats and options and, if you would like, I can post them up here or send them your way for consideration in the updated Necron pdf. I've been looking at the chonometron, reserection orb, gaze of flame, lighting shroud, phase shifter, and solar pulse primarily for my purposes, but can include all the options for the codex in a way that is more geared to DH and RP as opposed to TT if you think that'll be helpful.

You have my blessing, I suggest you stick a post in the House Rules forum and we can all pile into it

Have to say I like those rules. Especially I like this little bit: "Resistant to Mind Reading - Though technically living Necrons are all but mindless, shells of the race they once were, Psychic powers that affect the mind have there thresholds increased by 10 and quite what a successful mind reading achieves is entirely up to the GM…"

Too many people think Necrons are robots when they are actually not... I see them more like metallic-bodied zombies who still have some twisted and broken semblance of original psyche down there. After all, lots of things necrons do have the ritualistic qualities no machine would need or do (decorations in vehicles, warrior shells, lords wearing cloaks, ritual flaying of enemies and wearing their skins and so on...)

Hey, thanks for the pdf, it'll help a lot. I think I may hold this idea for a little bit, until the characters have gained a few ranks.

Just out of curiosity, how do the necrons repair/heal? Do they need a source of metal? Or do they just regenerate it from nothing? I still have an idea for lower powered versions, but I don't know enough of the details.

As far as them being on dead worlds, yep I did understand that. The world I'm going to place them on is basically made of salt, sand and water and not much else. And I was going to use a single (rather small) tomb ship rather than having the characters discover a tomb world. The concept I had was this ship was heading away from a major battle, it and all its passengers (cargo?) were pretty heavily damaged. It entered orbit around a young star that still had a dust cloud around it (pretty much went into the cloud to hide) and was stuck there when the mass shutdown happened. Over time the small planet that had be building up crossed paths with the ship, by that I mean it pretty much ran into it more or less crashlanding the ship on the planet. The rest of the dust eventually was absorbed by the planet (or by one of the other 4 in the system).

Fast forward 60 million years (give or take a few). Currently the world of Salara has a mining settlement on it. This settlement is around half a million people, as it was established only a few hundred years ago. Supposedly the original governor of the planet was a rogue trader who decided he'd had enough of space travel, so he gave his ship and charter to his eldest son and used his political clout (money) to gain a settlement charter and some equipment (an enviro dome, massive air purifiers, colonists, etc). His real reason for settling this rather barren somewhat toxic rock was due to a reading he'd had taken of the planet, which showed a large mass of heavy metal embedded in the planet. He figured it was something valuable, so he set up a settlement thinking to dig down to it in few decades at most, this was 400 years ago and now his great-great-great(etc) grandson rules as governor.

The characters are originaly sent there because the governor has been assassinated, and while this may call for inquisitorial attention, the planet is such a backwater that the inquisitor doesn't feel its an important enough issue to take care of personally.

John24 said:

The Necron bodies are made of "living metal", a stuff so advanced that it is impossible for even Tech Priests to create. Their regeneration works because the metal itself is practically indestructible and no matter what kind of weapons the necron is hit with the metal will only be bent or blown out of shape but not "destroyed", this metal "lives" and thus rearranges itself to correct any damaged functions. If enough of the "living metal" is blown away and scattered around that the necrons energy cores are shut down (as will happen if the necron is hit with hugely overwhelming firepower) the necron cannot produce enough energy tp rearrange itself and will phase-out to nearest tomb where the tombs will provide it with the energy needed to rearrange it.

On some occasions necron units that are critically damaged to the point of eventual phase-out have succesfully repaired themselves. This is because of a device called "Resurrection Orb" which makes a fusion reaction like a miniature sun, and the Necrons feed off the solar radiation and enhancing their living metal's regenerative properties.

Polaria said:

Ok, good to know. The only question I have then is can the metal corrode?

John24 said:

Everything about the description say's it shouldn't. It repairs it's self andis nigh indestructable. But still there have been plenty of necrons painted as corroded. Perhaps the outer layers can slowly tarnish or corrode over many years if the Necron is deactivated.

John24 said:

The fluff says the necron surface looks worn and corroded after all the millions of years they have lain in their tombs.

Fluff (as per Codex) also says that extremely corrosive acids can damage necrons but they can regenerate from damage suffered from it. The fluff also says that other C'Tan living metal artefacts (like the blades used by Callidus assassins) are impervious to all known methods of harming metal up to and including acids. I take this means that even if damaged, they will always repair back to the original shape (like necrons do).

In my games I've always imagined that because filth and little rust doesn't really affect the combat-worthiness of a necron warrior the surface (maybe 1 mm) of necrons living metal isn't actively repaired or cleaned by nanobots in order to conserve energy for more important things. This leads to necrons looking a bit worn on the surface after all the years but inside they are still as deadly as ever.

The only vulnerability C'Tan living metal seems to have is direct contact with warp energies. At least C'Tan living metal necrodermis seems to be particularly susceptible to warp spawned magics and psykers and a powerfull warp-based attack can shatter the living metal necrodermis even if the C'tan itself lives on as a being of pure energy.

MILLANDSON said:

Except that I puposefully pointed out that it would be a "once-in-a-lifetime" event - some type of anomaly. I think you might be too used to delteing posts (as you so often do on the Dark Reign forums) rather than reading them. Please fully read my post before commenting on it - especially if your comment challenges it or approaches it in a negative way.

flightmek25 said:

1) No need to bring your single post being deleted on Dark Reign onto this forum. You broke the rules by insulting people based on their opinions, you have to deal with it. In fact, I don't know why you bring it up, it has no bearing on this at all, especially when it was you that sent a very insulting PM to me on the DR forums and then deleted your account so you could have the last word. Very childish, I might add.

2) This is an open forum, last time I looked. People are allowed to dislike ideas. It's generally how you make ideas better, through criticism. Just because you don't like criticism doesn't mean people shouldn't give it. It would sort of destroy the point of a forum, or at least your posting ideas on it, anyway.

Either way, an anomaly could work, though coming up with a deeper reason for it, such as the presence of another group of xenos, or daemons, could lead to a better story, as your players could then investigate what is causing the weakness in the Necrons, so that they might take it back to the Imperium for testing as a weapon of some sort that the Imperium could use against the Necrons.

MILLANDSON said:

Is it that they chose dead worlds for their tomb worlds? Or is it that they destroyed all life on them and then made them into fortress worlds for their war effort? The galaxy may never know. Especially since there have been two instances of Necron Tombs not being dead worlds... Though, admittedly, those were in the video game, and for some reason people don't like to consider those entirely canonical.

-=Brother Praetus=-

Brother Praetus said:

Two more besides that. Nightbringer, in the novel of the same name, was dormant beneath the surface of the world of Pavonis, which wasn't a dead world, and the Dragon is suggested to have laid dormant beneath Terra's surface until it was displaced to Mars by the Emperor, tens of thousands of years before the Imperium.

MILLANDSON said:

On breaking your rules: I simply stated an opinion - something you seem not to have a problem with - and I did it as respectfully as one could expect. In the PM you reffered to as "very insulting" I -again- stated an opinion that I thought the forums you moderate were undesirable and lacked substance. That message was completely devoid of insults. I deleted my account - not to dodge your response - but because I believed that there was little to gain from such a venue and it is blatantly obvious that there still isn't. It's a black and white image on a screen; it's not a violation of your 1st Amendment Rights. Your entire argument -here and there- is a hypocritcal fallacy.

To the op : I apologize for polluting your post with this nonsense and I won't do it again, but on topic....

I like the idea of the sparse collection of boltguns and ammo. I think it would definately accomplish that "time is running out" horror feel. Maybe the PCs can even be waiting on a transport that won't arrive for several hours or is delayed. Very cool stuff!

Also - as far as the governor's stash goes: maybe it would be a "convenient" time to throw in a forgotten suit of power armor with a weak battery? Just a thought if you want to play it up like a Schwazzernagger action hero game.

*rolls eyes* Whatever then flightmek, if you realy think you didn't offend anyone (given that people complained because you made some fairly strong judgements about people with opinions other than your own, and the fact it wasn't just my decision to remove the post, but that of all the DR staff), I'm not gonna try to convince you. Either way, at least DR doesn't have to deal with you anymore.

On-Topic: Lack of ammo could work as a way to ramp up the tension, but you need to balance it so that the players don't feel like they are being railroaded into a single option of "run". Let there be other options, like bringing down tunnels on the Necrons, stuff like that. There's a reason they do it in the fluff and the novels so much, and that's because it works... at least to slow them down

Can we have this dog fight ommitted from the thread, from now on? Thanks!

The Laughing God said:

As indicated in my post, I'm done with him now. Got better things to do.... like talk about Necrons

But yea, Necrons almost always have their tombs underground now, given that they got buried over time. That's why I suggested having them in tunnels which could be blown up to slow the Necrons down (if it doesn't destroy them), because that at least gives the players an option other than just running away.

MILLANDSON said:

See, I like this idea because it gives the PCs (who I personally believe should be all but completely outclassed) a chance to do something that gives them the upper hand, without resorting to rolling for initiative and gearing up for a beatdown.

Especially when the Wraiths start awakening... [devious GM grin]

Alright, first off, I'd like to thank everyone who's participated in this discussion so far.

As far as designing the adventure I'm going to run it as a follow up so the local governor will have a reason to give the pc's some extra firepower. The first part of the adventure is a fairly basic investigation into the murder of the former governor. After they get through that there will be a disaster at the mine, or at least there will be no communication from the mine. Considering the miners rotate "shifts" every 2 days, and its been 3 or 4 days since anyone's been seen coming from there, the new governor will ask if the players would be willing to take a look. As an added incentive she'll be willing to loan them a few bolters and some ammunition (30 rounds/ pc) "in case there's some sort of trouble down there". The pc's will also be outfitted with blasting equipment (basic enough for no skill checks, "set down, get around the corner, push the detonator" type) in case of a collapse. There will also be 5 npc's to accompany them for heavy lifting, and as guides. When they arrive at the last planned blasting site they find the area littered with bodies, and the far wall is metalic (rather than white/beige, like the rest of the tunnel walls), reminiscent of a ships hull with a big gaping hole.

The necrons I've decided to use are pretty much a powered down version of the warriors, and only a few actually have weapons. My idea for this is this ship was carrying a laborer type rather than actual warriors. When a warrior teleports out of battle, these are the guys who do any sort of welding that may be needed (i.e. if a warrior shows up in multiple pieces rather than just dented out of shape), they also do most of the welding, wireing and general maintenence any ship may need, to get it up to speed faster (and the emperor only knows what else an immortal race may need laborers for) . As such they are quite agile, but rather fragile as well. Their main weapons will be cutter torches, which are actually a part of their left hands (at the finger tips), with a couple of the disintegrator guns (litterally, 8 laborers only 2 have ranged weapons, and since these are "lower powered" I'm also ruling that they need a round to charge as well) . As far as anything else goes I may use a wraith, but more as a plot device to induce paranoia, rather than a planned encounter (though, it may be a "boss" type character).

Ideally the characters will go in, find the necrons beginning to wake, take out what they can and seal the rest in with the explosives. I'll just have to hint at the whole "seal them back in" thing (possibly through vox communication with the governor).

John24 said:

You mean the Tomb Spyders? Those are the labourer types, the ones that maintain and repair the tombs and the fighting troops, and they're actually a lot tougher than warriors are.

wiki.reliccommunity.com/Tomb_Spyder

wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Tomb_Spyder

Gah, thanks for pointing that out Mill, I can't believe I forgot about the Spyders. Huh, well....... I guess I should stop posting at 1am >.<. Otherwise I guess I'll just have to wing an explanation if its needed. maybe they're not fully powered up (they're still waking up?) or maybe they're the necron equivalent of pilots. Maybe I should work a different angle and the necrons. Oh well thanks for the help, even when it makes me look like a fool lol.

Well, the scarabs also help in construction and maintenance, so you could use those, since they have no ranged weapons, and are weak enough to be killed by a normal person. Then you could possibly have a Spyder as a "boss", before your party figures out what's up and tries to blow up the place/run away/become gibbering wrecks (as required).

Scarabs work pretty well as "entrance level" opponents since they are not so deadly as full Warriors. "Civilian" type Necrons are also quite possible angle... After all, C'Tan decided to retain the Necrontyr as electronic ghosts in their living metal bodies and use them, not robots, as the main force of their army for some reason. Maybe humanoid Necrons with their electronic ghosts can do some things better than purely robotic units (Scarabs and Spyders) can't? Considering that Necron fast attack units like Wraiths and Destroyers are Necrons instead of robots a Necron pilot would make sense.