Hey folks!

One of my players want to take a Jump Pack as his Signature Wargear (Master), which got me to wondering:

What kind of extras would you give a Jump Pack on Exceptional And Master Craftmanship?

The simple answer, going by the rules for device crafstmanship, is that it adds a bonus to the pilot test.

You could of course decide to treat their agility as 1 or more points higher for the purposes of determining movement distances when using the Jump Pack or have it add an additional multiplier to the range instead.

I would go for range bonus first as well. Or maybe give it a pilot test on bonus the first level and then the range bonus on the next level, if you feel the extra movement is to overpowered.

It could also be smaller/more compact pattern that allows for it to be less intrusive in tight spaces.

Maybe a more stealthy device than typically portrayed. The billowing black clouds and earsplitting roar is replaced by a shimmering heat wave and wisps of light smoke with a high pitched whine.

Something different and unique, something other than what other out-of-the-book devices grant is always more fun and meaningful for the players.

ItsUncertainWho said:

Make that *HAD* a ravenguard assault. he took some of the Old Ones power into himself in order to defeat a Daemon of Malar, and was honorably executed by the Emperor for gaining his 100 corruption and insanity.

Stannis Ravensight said:

Similar discussions have cropped up about a marine stealthing with a jump pack.

To be clear, this isn't something thats plausible. For all intents and purposes you can't silent move while using a jump pack.

Silent move requires you move quietly and carefully. Taking off with a rocket engine flying through the air, then having 600+ pounds of Astartes land on the ground at 50+ mph isn't quiet or careful.

In the same vein, you wouldn't be able to conceal yourself with concealment if you were carrying around a Neon sign above your head. Some things do not allow, or will cause an auto fail for, certain tests. He can still sneak around on foot as long as the pack is off, but once he fires it up he should auto-fail any silent move tests. He shouldn't even be trying to silently move with it in the first place.

Aside, It wouldn't be possible to silence a jump pack from a mechanical point of view. Trying to silence a jump pack would require ducting and slowing the airspeed of the exhaust. This would increase weight and drastically decrease thrust, meaning it wouldn't be able to lift the marine anymore. Additionally, Stummers are good for guys walking on foot, but even these aren't powerful enough to do much about the roaring of a jump pack, its just too loud.

I'm sure the Ravenguard have found some way to adhere to their combat doctrine with their assault marines, for if they didn't the sneaky assaults they are famed for, wouldn't be famed for it...

Yes.

Its called dropping onto the planet in noisy thunderhawks. Riding in noisy rhino's until they get to their combat area. Getting out. Carefully and quietly sneaking by walking and/or crawling to their positions. After getting into position and waiting for hours, days, or longer for their target to appear, then using extremely loud and noisy rocket engines to jump out of their hiding place and suprise their targets.

Raven Guard are sneaky, and they use jump packs. This doesn't mean they are sneaky using their jump packs. Its just kind of hard to really capitalize on the shock and suprise of a stealth team that spent days getting into position when they have to run 50+ meters to get into range, or crank up the ole' rhino to really cover ground. The jump pack solves mobility issues when you make your ambush. But you can't use it when getting into position, cause it will give away your position.

Just because you are sneaky doesn't mean EVERYTHING you have, HAS to also be sneaky. Similarly just because you have something that isn't sneaky, doesn't mean you can't be sneaky carrying it, it just means you can't use it if you want to be sneaky.

Understand, Jump packs ARE NOT subtle. They are not meant to be a primary method of transportation either. They are meant to provide a mobility advantage to the user in battle situations.

To be clear, the Ravenguard aren't about being sneaky to exception of everything else. They're doctirine is special forces style warfare. Stealth is a large part of it but so is the occasional loud but fast entry from a thunderhawk or a jumpack..

Like the SAS circa world war two. Where they were equally at home slitting sentries throats as blazing through enemy airfields firing machine gns from jeeps.

Stannis Ravensight said:

The idea I had was more a change from:

Stealth + Jump pack = Not a chance

to

Stealth + Archeotech Jump Device = -60 to Stealth test

Similar to what a supressor does for a weapon. If you know what you are hearing you'll think jump pack, but you will think it's further away than it actually is. There is always the possibility it could be mistaken for a high flying plane, a broken servo skull, or a piece of machinery that needs repair.

If you find the idea of a being able to blast a half ton of Space Marine at your enemies in utter silence to be beyond the realms of the plausible (and who I am to argue) you might want a another bent.

What about a pack that has longer exhaust fans and superior fuel mixing that is hardly visible except from directly behind the Marine. Sure that's going to be obvious that there's an assault marine around but pin pointing them at distance is going to be difficult at night.

In place of a Master Crafted 'Astartes Jump Pack' possibly some archeotech/modified xeno tech to be more of an antigravity device. It only makes noise if you're using the flyer option. If what you're going for is stealth it'd do the job without being completely unbelievable.

That is if imperial anti-grav technology is silent. And if its actaully possible for the Imperium to create an anti-grav system that small. And if there is a power supply capable of powering it.

Longer ducts, 'superior' fuel mixing!?

So you want to increase the weight, check. So thats a decrease in performance.

You want something thats even better than atomized arosolled fuel injection (what jets use today), gotcha. You also want to give it enough time to completely burn inside the device without visible exhaust, understood. So we'll need a different type of fuel for starters, and we have to slow the airspeed of the exhaust down to give it time to burn up inside the machine, and thats another decrease in performance.

Just because I don't agree with your personal powergaming "bent" doesn't mean I should go somewhere else. You're posting in a public forum, my point of view is just as valid (if not more so) as yours.

In any story it is the limitations and the hardships that makes them really interesting. Yeah LotR would have been MUCH shorter if ring-guy would have just rode the **** eagle to the mountain in the first place, but talk about boring, "Old guy gives ring to ring-guy, wizard guy tells ring-guy to destroy ring in volcano. Ring-guy hops on his trusty ex-machina bid of flying, flies over the volcano and drops in the ring. The end." Games are ment to be fun, wheres the fun in, "oh my guy doesn't worry about this tense situation because of my powergamed x or y."

Accept the things you can't do, use your imagination (you know what that is right?) and come up with some way to get around them. Have fun doing it, and feel good about yourself when you succeed.

The main character in Lord of Night had a near silent jump pack so there precedence in the fluff, I would say that running it in silent mode should always have a dawback though.

The Raptor in our Black Crusade game has a best-quality jump pack, he built a mini for his character that had repulsor-plate style "wings" (mainly due to a lack of jump packs in his bits box) and the GM ruled it as a pre-heresey archaeotech device that he can use it to glide or fall silently but gaining altitude would always be noisy. He's since gone a bit Batman, climbing up onto high ledges and then gliding down to sneak attack sentries and so on.

It seemed like a fair ruling to me as it made the pack a lot harder to get hold of and the player is having a lot of fun. The suggestions for a bonus to Pilot test or extended move range/hover time sound good as well if the above are unpalatable.

Anti grav is an option, but you'll notice that the imperiums Anti grav vehicles all have massive 'rocket' engines as well.

All in all I'd say you might be drifting out of the realms of Master-crafting a jump pack into the realm of similarly functioning relics.

For one, if you have antigrav packs then it doesn't need to land at all and is actually a Jetpack, rather than a jump pack. Pretty sure the Imperium used to have jet packs.

The idea for our Raptor's JP was that it combined a grav chute and a rocket pack, so manoeuvres that required thrust would still create noise, such as taking off, using the pack in hover mode, gaining altitude etc. But it also had suspensors similar to the ones in grav chutes allowing him to glide from a high vantage point or fall silently at the cost of increased bulk (it's similar in size to the winged packs used by the Blood Angels). Both of these are well within the level of tech shown by the Imperium, who have been known before to use anti-grav to make guns lighter or even just to let fat people move around a bit easier. the technology is extremely rare and expensive, but Space Marines are the sort of people who can get super rare and expensive gear.

I take your point through that this could be conidered a relic rather than merely a master crafted item so in a Deathwatch game I'd maybe up the requisition and reknown requirements needed to higher than that of a normal master crafted jump pack.

The problem with Anti-Grav is that its designed to maintain a certain height off the ground, usually in the 10-15m range. The greatest use within the Astartes is the Landspeeders which do fly, but as Face Eater said, they use rockets to get from point A to point B. Personally I would scrap that idea.

I would stick with a simple solution, such as increased pilot checks, longer distances, maybe a higher flight characteristic, etc. The Mechanicus' idea of 'bigger, bulkier, less efficient' would mean that old tech is generally better than master crafted normal tech.