Hey all.

I just started a new Rogue Trader Campaign with our Game group, i am a fairly fresh GM and its our first RT game (got a DH game going but im not the GM)

in the first session the group's Explorator asked about making and improving upon some weapons using "Trade (Armorer), the weapon he asked about was a Lasgun.

now my first instinct is that this would be Heresy since it is forbidden to take it upon yourself to change stuff, but i said to the player that it was possible to do so.

Now my question is. what do you my fellow GM's think about this?

Is it Heresy?

And what would be the consequences of a Explorator doing so on his own?

And if he does it how should i handle the tests involved?

Cheers

R

As long as the upgrades fall within an accepted template for the weapon then upgrades are a non-issue.

The only people who would be able to tell if an item was Tech Heresy or not would be the AM. Then the only ones who could call the item into question would be someone higher than the Exploritor within the AM. Servitor conversion would be appropriate for the user and possibly the creator, but then they might just convert the user and promote the creator into a position within the higher-ups house doing here-tek research.

Well, Explorator's are Tech-Priests (with special allround license), so they are the ones who are allowed to improve weapons and the like. They can go even further than an ordinary Tech-Priest, i.e. they may use xeno-tech etc.

Doing standard conversions on a lasgun is nothing a true explorator would even think about reporting to superiors.

True. they might be the ones that are allowed to do stuff like that.. but according to all the fluff out there, the tech in the Imperium is stagnating and actually going backwards. so if every Tech-Priest and higher up's in the AdMech are alloved to go around creating and improving designs then how come the imperium isnt advancing in tech.

I read somewere (cant remember where) that upon making an advance in some tech they keep it under testing for decades even centuries to make sure that the new tech isnt tainted.

Remember that the Imperium is extremly paranoid and fearful of new things.

i think it was mentioned in the Horus Heresy book "Mechanicus" that one of the Magos there who got killed was comitting Heresy when she was inventing new tech. and had to keep it secret, or else suffer the wrath of the fabricator-general.

It depends entirely on what they want to actually do to the weapon, if they plan on somehow making it sentient then of course that is a big no for them. if he just wants to alter its power intake to increase its damage, maybe change the barrel to increase range or silence the shots, anything similar or the same as the upgrades in the rogue trader rulebook are fine, if he can do them himself it just saves him some money, not that a rogue trader needs that.

There are many examples of people modifying weapons somewhat (i just can't recall any right now).

What does the explorator intend to do with the weapon in question?

What he wants to do is improve upon the weapon itself, longer range for example.

Making a las weapon's range is a simple matter of making the barrel more like the one on a long las. (In fact some models of lasgun have screw-in barrels) and making the damage higher would involve including hellgun parts. These are examples of STC friendly (and thus non-heretek) upgrades.

Cyric313 said:

As I see it, there are bound to be inventive types aplenty within the Adeptus Mechanicus, and they carry out experiments with technology both old and new. However, they most definitely don't want there to be any sizable improvement of the Imperial industrial base, as that would endanger their precious technological secrets: the Tech-magi would have to reveal the secrets of the fundamental basics of production to their juniors, thereby diluting their own power.

My view is based on the idea that only the highest ranks are aware of the actual laws of physics, and the lower one is situated in the hierarchy, the more ritualistic their conseptions of technology are. At the top you have the demented scientists who ponder the inner secrets of the cosmos, at the bottom the technomats who have no idea it's the heat of the welding torch, not their ritual prayers, that melts steel. Of course this idea is, in turn, based on the assumption that our science is right and the beliefs of the Machine Cult mere superstition.

To sum up: it's not so much tampering with technology that I consider the fundamental issue with the AM, but the exposure of trade secrets. Since the Explorator in this case is doing the modifications himself I see no problem.

Modifying an item is Heresy, until it's proven to be "good." Proving it to be "good" can take hundreds of years.

Text example: The Land Raider Crusader. The Black Templars had a handful of landraiders that got their lascannons wrecked, their techmarines went well, we've got a ton of spare bolters... let's strap'em to the side in the old mounts and pray the machine spirits forgive us cause otherwise, we're sitting ducks out here without armored support.

Three hundred years later, the AM accepted that as always having been an intentional modification by the Land Raider STC design... in other words, they didn't want to pick a fight with the Black Templars, plus, it worked... it took them THREE HUNDRED YEARS and that was a space marine chapter.

Modifying the lasgun (assuming that it's not something that's already been done) would be the same. Honestly, if he wants longer range, there's the longlas, harder hitting, that's the hellgun, more accurate? longlas or strap a scope to it.

We also must remember, he is on a rogue trader ship. Unless he is commitiing some serious heresy (say, daemonic power source, or just building a new type of gun even) it's cool. There is a line between legal..and getting caught Of course, if it goes a bit past the norm and is clearly non-standard, it would be best to hide it when his other ad-mech buddies are around.

As far as the player, I wouldn't punish him for being the tech-guy he thought he signed on to be. Just make sure he knows that all actions have consquences.

going off of the description of the Explorator given in the RT core rulebook, they are supposedly prone to a little bit of experimenting beyond the generally approved bounds of technology. It warns that there is great risk involved in this, but I'm assuming that for a simple upgrade to a lasgun, the risks of falling in with chaos are a little slim.

I'd assume, also, that unless it's a really serious thing the Explorator is doing, nobody on board the Rogue Trader ship is going to question him much. He seems to be the top-tiered tech-priest on the ship, after all. How is the Rogue Trader, or the voidmaster, or anyone else supposed to know that what he's doing is wrong. Technology is all still pretty mysterious to them, right?

If he's messing with some xeno-tech or archeo-tech, consequences are a lot more likely, I'm sure, but this seems like a simple upgrade. If any of the rest of the crew is suspicious, I'm sure the Explorator could pass a quick blather test to bore them with techno-babble, and they'd lose interest, or assume he knows what he's doing.

The Explorator is on a Rogue trader ship. On this ship, he is the Adeptus Mechanicus and he gets to decide what is tech-heresy and what is not, as long as the Rogue Trader (who basically is the Emperor on his ship) doesn't disagree with him. Of course, it might be a bad idea to carry his improved lasgun when they disembark on more civilised worlds...

He is the AdMech on his ship,a nd it's deffinately in his purview to do what he does, but he'll fall afoul of the same thing that trips up Rogue Traders if he's not careful Out in the reaches of space beyond the Imperium, he's fine, but as soon as he runs into a high ranking puritanical Magos he'll be in trouble, and the whole RT Ship with it.

BrotherHostower said:

And that's what makes this game fun

Remember that the delivery depends on the judge. I mean if you ask to a puritan inquisitor, you are in deep troubles, but if you ask to a radical one he may even ask you to do the same thing to his weapon. A Tech priest will also say that its ok while no Zeno-artifact is used. I recommend you to think in the "personality" of the planet or void where this thing happened. If you are in a shrine world, feral world, or imperial world, then your soul and flesh are damned. If you are in a exploration void, research center, or forge world, then you are just safe.

Have fun and keep rolling!!!!

It's also worth noting that the Adeptus Mechanicus are primaraly mechanics and engineers, not scientists. While they know an increadible amount about how to construct, adjust and repair techonlogy, they know very little of the principals behind the technology. Your Exploritor may know exactly what each part of a lasgun does, the exact specifications nessisary for the focusing lenses and even what effect modifying the arc of the lens might have. But at the same time, the Explorator would be compleatly unaware of the the principals of refraction, or even that light comes in wavelenghts and photons.

The reason why the Adeptus Mechanicus doesn't invent new things (even the herateks really), is because as much as they understand the technology, they don't understand the science at all. So without something to copy from, your looking at essentialy random changes to a piece of equipment that was perfected 10,000 years ago by a culture that actualy knew what they were doing.

Modifying a lasgun is not heresy....linking it to an alien powersource is.
Otherwise the fanes of Gun Metal City would be Heresy central.