@Tom Cruise Aye, keep in mind that every Power roll usually only produces one phenomena in the original rules. Multiple Despairs symbols should only give more dice or a bonus to the phenomena roll.

I'd suggest having Lores their own part as skills just as in DH. Because they were special. IE: All the Common, Forbidden, and Scholatic Lores as indidivual skills.

I always liked that. Knowledge is greedily hoarded and distributed in 40k.

Right now I'm working on a Phenomena table using what's given in the DH 2nd ED CRB. Will post it here once I'm ready.

If I'm going to do separate Disciplines as skills, I might end up borrowing pretty heavily from the discipline specific Perils tables DH2e's original beta had. They were really nice and thematic, helped each discipline feel unique. No idea why FFG scrapped the idea.

21 minutes ago, Tom Cruise said:

If I'm going to do separate Disciplines as skills, I might end up borrowing pretty heavily from the discipline specific Perils tables DH2e's original beta had. They were really nice and thematic, helped each discipline feel unique. No idea why FFG scrapped the idea.

2nd ED Psychics in general seems very sloppily designed. Especially the "attempts" to balance. 12h Cooldown for week healing powers is not balancing.

And yes, I forgot about the beta. I'll scrap my list and make a list for those. Totally forgot about them. Give me an hour, and I'll post something neat. ^^

Edit: I don't have the PDF anymore. Nvm, found it.

Powers and Perils.

Tell me what you think.

Of course, this is only a first attempt/sketch.

powers and perils.pdf

And here's the font I used if that interests you.

heretica_inquisitor.ttf

I'm about to hit the hay, I'll take a look at your psyker stuff tomorrow Hugh.

Anyway, one last thing before I go to bed; Melee Weapons! All the base melee weapons are done, although they might need some tweaking as usual. Let me know what you guys think.

Google Docs link

PDF link

Great Job so far, man!

However, I'm not sure I am on board with melee weapons that do set damage.

Here's what I came up with if you want to take a look.

I've had a couple of people elsewhere comment on the flat damage, and in hindsight it probably wasn't a smart move; someone at Brawn 4 or 5 (not uncommon for melee specced characters) would be much better with a regular sword than with a chainsword, which feels wrong.

I've reverted chain weapons and power weapons to brawn based damage. Also took a look at your rules @gorthano and decided to put the Dangerous quality onto the Eviscerator like you had. Mine's a little more simplified (and less nasty), but still likely to kill a careless player.

Won't update the PDF just yet, I'll wait until I've got something more substantial, but the Google Doc is up to date.

Okay, bigger update this time. Added my first pass at armour stats. Let me know what you guys think. Power armour ended up utterly breaking the Genesys guidelines on armour design, but it's meant to be ridiculous, it's power armour. Not the kind of thing that's gonna be attainable to most acolytes anyway.

Here's the Google Docs version.

Here's the PDF updated with all the recent changes.

Triple posting because apparently I'm on fire with content creation today. Now we've got Careers and rules for ammunition (both mundane reloads, and special ammunition types like Tox Rounds and Dumdums).

For the careers I went with making them only provide four skills, and the other four being free choice. I think that lets players have a bit more flexibility in making the type of character they want to play.

The custom ammo rules are something i came up with on my own, not based on any existing Genesys/Star Wars rules, so they might be a bit wonky, let me know what you think of the mechanic.

Also, gonna stop providing Google Docs links from now on, it's a bit too fiddly to keep updating both sides. I'll do a general Google Docs release when we get to release stage, but for now everything's gonna be in the PDF.

Link!

@Tom Cruise what's your opinion on the sketchy psyker stuff i worked out?

Great job @Tom Cruise ! I'll read your PDF with interest because I am planing on running a Necromunda game with some friends.

@player1303422 Thanks! A necromunda game would be pretty interesting, let me know how you find the rules if you do use any of them, feedback helps a lot.

@Hugh Salamando Filth It's looking good, although I'm a little wary that there seems to be a bit of work in working out perils; I'd prefer something a bit faster, although I haven't really given much thought to the specifics of how I'd do that.

Update time! I've done all cybernetics except for Mechadendrites now. The pricing and rarity in here isn't final, so don't pay it much attention. I ended up going with a hyrbid of the Genesys and Edge of the Empire rules for cybernetics. Characters can install a number of cybernetics equal to Brawn without penalty. Beyond that, each one reduces strain threshold by one.

LINK

@Tom Cruise I thought that myself.

But it's better than this super random stuff like the original mechanics where simply kindling a candle could tear a hole in time-space and eat everyone's souls.

And I don't think it takes that long.

Phenomena/Perils are a rare enough event as they are.

A quick check: "Oh, dayum, Perils!"

GM asks: "What you got?"

PC: "Sec. [2sec later] Four Threats and one Despair."

GM: "A'ight, five dice. [one dramatically hidden roll later] Well, you're all dead. Time for pizza!"

Sure, the 2nd ED had you see a phenomena easier (just double numbers), but you still had to roll, and count in the background trait from any Astra Telepathica members.

My players were quite fine with it. From the theory they heard. We didn't got the chance to test in in a game yet.

Another idea from one of my guys would be to stack some sort of "Psychic Static" in the area with [whatever] threshold. Every psyker in the area of the encounter adds to that threshold. Once that threshold is reached, every further addition might discharge and create a Peril. "Somewhat like" the Hazard mechanic from I AM ZOMBIE if you know that one.

You make a fair point, it's not going to be happening all the time so the added complexity might not be the end of the world. I'll give it some thought and revisit it in more depth when I get up to making Psyker rules.

Anyway, small update this time, just added the rules for Mechadendrites, and tidied up the cost and rarity of cybernetics.

Link!

Corruption rules are.... done? I'm not sure, really. There's a fully functional ruleset here but it's all very untested territory so I'd like to hear some opinions on it. The design is very inspired by the Corruption system in WHFRP 3e; anyone who has read those rules might notice some strong similarities.

Being able to reduce Corruption might seem like it's against the themes of Dark Heresy, but in this set of rules, Corruption isn't the measure of your ongoing damnation; malignancies and mutations are. Corruption is more of a resource which refreshes from mission to mission. The idea is that, if you can manage to avoid pushing your corruption up to the threshold on your missions, and make good rolls to reduce it during downtime, you'll be able to keep your head just above water. Malignancies and Mutations never go away though, and those are the things which will eventually get your character turning into a gibbering warp spawn or a mentally corrupt monster. These rules make the Discipline skill really important, so I'll probably be shifting Fear rules over to Cool, to keep things a bit more balanced.

Let me know what you think.

LINK

Oh, my players will love those Corruption rules.

We're running an antagonist campaign, and reaching Corruption thresholds will be much more satisfying for them.

Also they will act more towards gaining Corruption. I'll probably increase their Damnation and Oblivion limits, though.

You'll do something similar with Insanity?

Insanity I'll likely base on the trauma rules from the Horror tone in the Genesys core book, just expanding on them a bit. I like the idea of the two systems being substantially different. The trauma rules are based a lot more on narrative; the kind of mental problems your characters develop are based on the source of their trauma, and are tied in with the Fear rules. I like that; Corruption is random and unpredictable, as suits chaos, but trauma is a more mundane, human issue.

Also, I've been chipping away at Psyker rules, and while they're nowhere near ready to see the light of day, here's some general thinking on how I want to approach them.

Each Psychic Discipline is a skill, with a different characteristic. Biomancy (Brawn), Divination (Cunning), Pyromancy (Willpower), Telekinesis (Intellect) and Telepathy (Presence). Psykers can learn as many as they have the XP to put into.

Each Discipline comes with access to only a limited number (currently looking at 3-4) of psychic powers, with some being unique. For example, only Biomancy, Pyromancy and Telekinesis can be used to Attack. Curses are created using Divination and Telepathy.

Heal is unique to Biomancy. Enchantment (from Cyvaris' excellent magic rules ) is exclusive to Telepathy. Divination (also Cyvaris') is exclusive to Divination. Telekinesis will get a power for moving things around and manipulating the environment, which I've yet to work out any details for. As for Pyromancy, I'm not sure what to go with. Some kind of sculpt flame spell is the obvious option, but it'd feel a little gimmicky and restricted. Idea?

Dispel is governed by Discipline, and so is Utility - Utility represents the minor powers from DH1e; little inconsequential utility abilities that don't fit a discipline clearly. Conjure will be removed entirely; Psykers in 40k don't tend to create material objects like that, it's not a good fit thematically.

I plan to rework the spells and their special effects tables to some extent to help get the right flavour and range of utility.

How's this all sound so far? Very vague at the moment, I know.

I'd go away from unique powers and let psykers "do what they want" according to the GNS rules.

Psykers will be free and could do more funny stuff. The way psykers should've always been.

Rest sounds fine.

Eh, I think limiting powers to some extent is kind of required to make the Disciplines interesting, and to make them fit the fiction. Healing with anything but Biomancy wouldn't make a ton of sense (Pyromancy can cauterise wounds, but that's a pretty limited application). Same with anything but Telepathy being able to manipulate thoughts; it's very exclusively a Telepathy thing. Limiting the Disciplines in scope gives Psykers incentives to spread their XP instead of just going all in on one Discipline, and it lets the Disciplines' capabilities actually match what they achieve in the fiction.

I didn't say psykers should be able to heal with Divination, or Pyromancy, etc.

Because that, of course, makes no sense at all.

The skills are fine, and a psyker should be limited to the possibilities of the skills (IE Disciplines) she has.

Like in MAGE with its Spheres.

You could lock those additions (forgot the right term) to add effects like AoE, Burn, Range, etc., behind talents. Once you know how to make your fireball explode, you'll also know how to explode your kinetic ball, or affect the mind of multiple targets, and so on. And/or add only one effect per skill level.

The players will already be limited enough by that. You could add "guidelines" for powers, or example powers. But I think GNS' free casting system is perfect for WH40k (limited to Disciplines -> Skills).

And mind you, usually there will be only 1-2 psykers at the table. Give them something to play with. Let them play with the warp and add difficulties how they feel like.
They want more, they add more risk. As WH40k psykers should be, and actually are. They'll soon get retaliated by the Warp real quick if they won't limit themselves. xD

This all looks amazing! Keep it up! I really want to try this out.

Alright, here's my first pass at Psychic Power rules. Everything is done except for most of the perils tables (I've completed one so people can get a feel for how the others will look). Big credit goes to @Cyvaris for their alternate magic rules , the Augury and Compel powers are the Divination and Enchantment from those rules respectively, with some modifications.

Ultimately the spread of powers ended up being that every Discipline gets access to three powers (some using the spells from Genesys, some new), on top of Dispel and Utility. All the disciplines except for Pyromancy got a unique spell to call their own, but I tried to share the love a little by giving Pyromancy a few nice extra effects in the extra effects tables. I toyed with the idea of creating a power focused on flame manipulation, but ultimately that just fits better into barrier, utility and attack.

Here's the PDF, please let me know what you think!

Nicely compressed and Perils are quickly determined. Great work.

Update! We've now got a functional talents chapter, with a selection of new talents based on those from Dark Heresy. Some are direct ports from Star Wars with some tweaks and name changes, most are original. Also done some minor tweaks to Psyker rules, mostly restoring the strain cost to manifest powers (in hindsight it makes sense to keep it there, especially when threats are going towards Perils instead of straining the Psyker).

Let me know how you guys think the balance of the talents is, and if you've got any suggestions for stuff that's missing.

There's also a small sample of what will be a whole NPC chapter. Just a few in there for now.

Link!

EDIT: I've tweaked the talents section significantly and added some new stuff (and a few talents taken from Star Wars that seemed suitably thematic), but I'll wait until I have something more substantial tomorrow to push out an update.