Has anyone got any good ideas for rules conscerning servitors? Some of the issues I would like to see addressed are:

• How can they be controlled effectivly in an combat situation?
• How can they be Hacked, and how difficult should it be?
• The Binary Chatter Talent, any real benefits betone the +10 to control servitors?
• How are they "programmed"?
• More typical Servitor functions?

I have already started a Servitor Appendix, but before I get too far, I would appreciate inputs of good ideas from fellow GM's or players.

Any thoughts or cool ideas that fits with the WH40K setting? :-)

• How can they be controlled effectivly in an combat situation?
Well, if the servitor is in your service (i.e. programmed that way), you can order it around verbally (voice controlled) or maybe also through an MIU just by thinking an order. So, in a combat situation you could probably give it simple (or not so simple) commands like shot this, attack that, kill all visible living creatures or guard this passageway. More complicated orders (attack any approaching danger, search for and kill all Eldar within an area) might need a Tech-use test by the user and/or an Int-test by the servitor addressed.

• How can they be Hacked, and how difficult should it be?
They could be hacked differently in my opinion. One option could be to try to imitate the voice of its controller (very difficult (at least -30) tech-use and/or disguise test). Another more promising way could be to hack its data port via ‘electro graft use’ or via binary chatter (still at least challenging (+/-0)).
The difficulty depends on the servitor itself, its ‘craftsmanship’ and the degree of hacking (besides the above mentioned way of hacking). To hack a praetorian battle servitor in combat or the personal MIU-controlled servitor of an Arch-Magos to attack its master is certainly far more difficult (if at all possible) than to hack some garbage-control servitor running more or less uncontrolled through the lower regions of a hive city to pick up the trash from the other side of the roadway.

• The Binary Chatter Talent, any real benefits betone the +10 to control servitors?
Binary chatter is in my opinion more or less the only way to give servitors instructions without having a direct link (through data-port and electro graft use or an MIU) or using a voice control (if programmed that way in the first place). In addition it is a much faster and clearer way to give more difficult and longer commands/instructions. An uncontrolled servitor can also only be addressed that way over a distance imo.
In our campaign the Tech-Priest PC recently used it to order a combat servitor to open fire on another nearby servitor instead on the PCs (had to take a -10 tech-use test though).

• How are they "programmed"?
In the same they may be hacked (see above), through the process takes a while longer and is more profound I would say (again depending on the complexity of functions it has to execute).

• More typical Servitor functions?
Anything from garbage-control in the lower hive to loading the ordnance of an imperial battleship. From minor maintenance tasks in a manufactorum to heavy industrial weight lifting on a space dock and from piano playing on a pleasure world to bunker breaking in ground warfare…

I have my techpriest only able to take a number of Servo-skulls equal to their WPB, and Servitors up to half their WPB.

Giving simple orders to a Servitor (a short sentence) is a +0 Tech Use check. A complex order will be a -10 test, and a complicated order will require a -20 test. Giving a simple order is a free action, but complex or complicated orders require a half action.

If the player has an MIU, they can issue the orders via the MIU: but the Servitor must be hooked-up on a complex series of cables and cannot go beyond 5M. A Wireless version can be rigged, but the farther the servitor is, the greater the signal degradation and the more choppy the orders get. For every 20M from the player the servitor travels, the player takes a cumulative -10 penalty on issuing new instructions via MIU (IE - 20M = -10 penalty, 40M = -20, 60M = -30M, etc.). Issuing an order is always a free action. Rolling a 100 on an attempt to issue an order via an MIU gives the player a stroke - the effects of which are decided by the GM.

They can be hacked with Binary Chatter or directly fidgeting with the delicate cogitators installed in the head with an opposed Tech Use check.

How goes the work on your Servitor Appendix? Interested to see what you've come up with...