I have been somewhat frustrated with lack of interesting wargear options for librarians. The other PCs have considerable interest in ever higher renown and requisition to gain access to relic weapons and ammunition, but the Librarian has little to do other than buy armor and upgrade a force weapon. I have since started allowing Arcane weaponry to apply to a psychic hood, allowing psychis attacks to benefit from an additional trait thanks to the hood's specially designed psy-latticing or the like. One could come up with similar idead for the force staff which might encourage librarians to actually use them, but I would like to see more options. I am not necessarily looking for lots of power, Librarians get to be quite potent between force weapons, smite, avenger, and other combat powers, but I would like things with more flavor. I know Daemonhunter has Consecrated scrolls, but what about relic aegis armor or legacy psy-foci or other objects of the sort? What about thise great books librarians always seem to have, perhaps some flavorful rules explaining the purpose of those trappings and giving a librarian something to spend his requisition on besides a heavy weapon?

There's a great range of interesting wargear for Librarians - it's called Astartes wargear.

Because, you know, any Astartes can use any bit of gear bar a few. And Librarians can already use force weapons, which are one of the few restricted items. The other being servo-arms for techmarines and diagnostor bits for apothecaries. But otherwise you have free reign to take all the gear the other specialities take.

Personally, i think a Librarian is much more useful focusing on telepathy and divination than the direct offensive powers, so keeping requisition for some good arms and armour is a must.

When I got my wife into the game (she roleplays some, but not an extensive amount), I explained to her the neat things about space marines is EVERY specialty is a space marine first, whatever else they are second. The medic is a space marine. The tech guy is a spacemarine. The librarian is a space marine.

So her choice was a Dark Angel librarian. And what do Dark Angels love? Big long range guns. Her favored weapon at the time is an Astartes missile launcher.

What your librarian specializes is up to him, and as Kasatka suggests, keeping to utility abilities is very effective. Most of your direct punch will likely come from your main weaponry, and don't feel that a Librarian HAS to be a bookish weakling who uses his psycher powers all the time.

Fair points, but at the same time the novels I read and the descriptions of librarian action in various codices and games suggest that there is a wide variety of cool stuff I develop to flesh out librarians. Sarpedon from Soul Drinkers is described as using a bolter, it is true, but he also uses the hell as his signature technique and carefully considers the psyche of his enemy, intellectually and psychically, before unleashing it for maximum effect. Similarly Jonas Orion from Dawn of War II has some great visuals unleashing fire and lightning against the foes of the Imperium. Varro Tigurius has his Hood of Hellfire and Rod of Tigurius as wargear items that set him apart and add special features to him as a librarian. I know that the hood of hellfire used to be a generic item in previous editions available to all librarians, and I have used that as a basis for at least one item, but that is the sort of thing I am interested in.

I agree that Librarians are Space Marines, and that they could certainly focus on divination and telepathy and use Astartes weapons as their primary ranged attack options. My librarian used on his last deployment an Assault Cannon and a Cyclone missile launcher to complement the squad loadout of the killteam, since my tac on that mission had a stormbolter, my dev is using an autocannon relic I wrote up (mounted on tda), and my AM his favorite Thunder Hammer. Being a yes gm I want to let people play their characters the way they want to assuming it fits my vision of the universe. Librarian's nuking the enemy and benefiting from many arcane trinkets with the same storied history for a psychic hood relic as a bolter relic might have is exactly my vision for 40k. If it isn't yours, that is fine, and I have no problem with that. Just looking for some additional inspiration.

Edit: I have gotten a few requests to share a list of some of the custom equipment I have used in my campaign, so I shall make another thread with it for those who have interest.

Nothing wrong with some extra gear for a librarian, but consider this: A librarian starts better than all the rest. He has his psychic powers (Smite is still a killer) and a Force weapon that can kill anything that he hits. So gear is not the main focus of a Librarian.

To get similar results as a Librarian in combat other specialties need their gear.

My librarian currently sucks. The one time he has hit an enemy with his force sword in 3 sessions and he failed to focus his psychic wrath into the blade!
He's spent a lot of the time on <10 wounds, pushed-smiting his way to victory (and no small amount of phenomena)!

Does anyone know if there are rules for two handed force weapons? Not including the staff, or any of the Nemesis weapons in Daemon Hunter.

Nevermind! I just created my own. Here it all is. I also made changes to some weapons, like the Thunder Hammer and the Power Spear. I also (again) added some weapons that aren't Librarian centered. A Relic Ax and Spear, a Blade Encarmine for the Blood Angels, and a few other things you might find interesting.

DJSunhammer said:

Then I forget the link

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DJSunhammer said:

Those weapons seem more than a little overpowered... Too much use of the relic and power weapon trait in addition to force weapon trait. Do spacewolves really need 2 axes in addition to their frost blades? I'd rather keep things as simple as possible - an Astartes is so much more than his wargear, so a D&D style +1 magic weapon bonus approach doesn't really gel with the system in my mind.

Simplest thing if you really want a force axe over a force sword is to increase the damage by 1 point but lose the balanced trait, or for a 2 handed weapon increase it more but give it unbalanced or even unwieldy.

Some are potentially overpowered, but most of it is a first pass that's only intended to add weapon types that seem to be missing, starting with different versions of Force weapons, then adding Relics, because why not. There are more relic weapons than just swords.

The intent with most of these, like the Rune Axe (not a space wolves weapon, I still don't know what to name a two handed force axe), and any of the spear variations, is to make a weapon that has more tactical possibilities than just attack, attack +10. Case in point, the spears can be used three different ways; as a one handed weapon, as a defensive weapon when used two handed, for the duration of a turn, or as an offensive weapon, again for the duration of a whole turn. Same goes for the Rune Axe, you can use it in one hand, or you can use it in two hands. I'm probably going to edit that weapon, since thinking about it more makes me see that it isn't what I want it to be.

I'm not sure what '2 axes for thw Space Wolves' you are talking about.

Kasatka said:

I tend to agree. Most players I've played with are looking for expanded weapon lists for one of two reasons; the first is they want a weapon that's not in the norm, so they can be an individual. In that case, taking a weapon and adding a signature wargear trait or something similar, with a cool sounding name tends to do the trick. The other reason is they want the most powerful weapon in the system. IMHO, the book does an ample job of providing this, since most Librarians (sorry Kasatka) tend to suceed on their activation rolls and the force sword kills just about anything it hits, and thunderhammers are over the top currently.

Now from the list provided by DJ, what I really do like is the simple traits they confer in some cases - not the extra relic weapons and power fields and the like, but the 'this weapon confers flesh render' though I'm not sure all the stats have their kinks worked out. That's the type of stuff I like to add to weapons and items to give them flavor but not break them.

As to the OP: I'd follow the same line of thinking. Pick items in the book or otherwise and add small but unique bonuses to them- small bonus to perception, a bonus to the range/radious of psynicience (or however you spell it), something that helps focus specific powers. I don't have a personal list of things (the Librarian in my group isn't 'that cool' yet) to help you out unfortunately .

Though something else to think of is the special skills a Librarian can get- some of the forbidden lores and the like. Use those to unlock bits and pieces in your adventures and the Librarian becomes much more special than any of his trinkets could ever make him.

Charmander said:

Power Field on force weapons is there because I wanted the force weapons I made to be more closely related to Nemesis weapons found in Daemon Hunter. Relic Weapon is only there to say that the weapon with the trait has the same rules as the Deathwatch Relic Weapon from the core rulebook. It isn't anything new.

My KT's Salamanders Librarian mainly uses a meltagun. No need for more!

I think Librarians get a great deal with their starting wargear. The only specialty that automatically begins with a respected-class weapon for starters.

On the topic of two handed force weapons, I'm currently mulling over stats for a force greataxe for the Fleshtearer librarian PC in my campaign who is likely to achieve Keeper. This would be instead of the power weapon that specialty normally grants, considering he normally uses a force axe and chainaxe. The weapon would be 'common' quality and it would cut down on his current two weapon wielding but it still should be suitably impressive. I statted the force axe as D10+4, Pen 3, Force, Unbalanced so I'm thinking D10+9, Pen 3, Force, Unwieldly for the force greataxe.

The conversion algorithm for mortal weapon to mortal force weapon to Astartes force weapon is extremely simple and linear. I'll post it when I can access my books later today.

Mortal Sword: 1d10, Pen 0
Mortal Force Sword: 1d10+1, Pen 2
Astartes Force Sword: 1d10+2, Pen 2

We can see that the following:
The difference between a mortal primitive and force weapon is a difference of +1 damage, +2 Penetration.
The difference between a mortal and Astartes force weapon is +1 damage.

Mortal Great Axe: 2d10, Pen 2
Astartes Great Weapon (Sacris Claymore): 2d10+2, Pen 2
Astrates Force Great Weapon: 2d10+3, Pen 2

We don't have an example of a mortal or Astartes 2-handed force weapon. But we do have an Astartes 2-handed primitive weapon.

Under the above algorithm, a mortal force greataxe would be +1 damage, +2 Pen over the primitive one. So 2d10+1, Pen 4. You could make an argument for 2d10+2 though.

Under the above algorithm, an Astartes force greataxe should be 2d10+3, Pen 4. You could make an argument for 2d10+5.

Kshatriya said:

An easier way to look at a force weapon formula is this. Applicable power weapon damage and pen -4. So a force great axe would be something like 1d10+9 Pen 4, if you are using the errata stats for the Executioner Axe.

Interesting points. Thanks for sharing.

DJSunhammer said:

Ha, good point!

I think it's not that Librarian don't have good things. They start out with force weapons and psyker abilities can replace a large amount of different ranged weapons. It's rather that most astartes weaponry doesn't interest them. They are weak at ballasitic skill and quite frankly they have no melee upgrades they can get. Other then psychic hoods any there isn't really any thing exiciting they can get. Not including artificer armor. Everyone likes artificer armor. except wolf scouts.

That said if the team needs somethings, the Librarian is the one that suffers the least to provide the req for it.

The Rune Priest in my Kill-Team has taken it upon himself to be the team's designated marksman, as the Devastator prefers Heavy Bolters and Flamers. He's not the best shot in the group, to be sure, but when both of the Tactical Marines have taken advances that lead them down a melee path…

Gaire said:

In my group the Librarian has similar preferences. His normal warload is a stalker-pattern boltgun with auxiliary grenade launcher. Its actually wonderfully versatile weapon: With kraken rounds and accurate quality the stalker-pattern can drop the biggest monsters pretty far away and with auxiliary grenade launcher with frag grenades it can put some good hurt on hordes.

My Liberian got himself a stormbolter. Works wonders against hordes... and everthing else XD

also a psychic hood, motion predictor and metal storm rounds!

Power Field on force weapons is there because I wanted the force weapons I made to be more closely related to Nemesis weapons found in Daemon Hunter.

That's something unique to the Grey Knights; emphasising the holy-what-the-hell-bejezesus nature of the chapter's wargear - grey knights are a breed apart and even a line trooper's nemesis weapons and aegis suits are the sort of thing that even a chapter's chief librarian would be impressed and envious of.

Force weapons are already immune to the power weapon effect and they really, really don't need relic power fields...

Librarians can indeed take any heavy weapon. One thing I would point people at is the Dead Stations Vigilant - essentially a combat scholar whose special traits make his fighting power driven largely by his Int bonus - a real plus for Librarians!

Our librarian - has a horrific customised stalker acquired via signature wargear (hero) - best craftsmanship and with rather a lot of upgrades on it; shot selector, targeter, melee blade, vox activation, the works. Since he rolls to hit in shooting attacks using his faintly ridiculous intelligence of 75, and gets to add his Int bonus to damage in the right circumstances, he's not even bothered to take Smite .