So, I am finding myself wondering, if you are playing a Rogue Trader and Friends, and you have ridiculous amounts of resources to get practically anything, is one of the things you or they shell out for, with limited number of uses of those huge resources, a force field of some kind? I've personally never been completely sold on Power Armor, with it having batteries, and mostly on it being one of the few games that remembers armor doesn't make you harder to HIT, but harder to HURT, and, in fact, this game makes you easier to hit, if you step into the real armor. With only a smidge more defense than the best unpowered stuff, and me imagining the power sword more for show, and my inferno pistol/plasma pistol/bolt pistol doing more of my talking (I'd be more ranged, obviously), i don't need the strength up, and don't want to give them an extra +10 to shoot me. However, there will always be that little min/maxxer in me, who wants to avoid attacks all together, making up for my fear of powered armor, and that's where the fields come in. Now, there aren't any in the main book, so I could suppose that, limiting your game to that, you, your buds, and the majority of the bad guys won't have any, but if you own Into the Storm, or any other book that has them in it, you might be tempted to get one.

Getting to the point, do you think they are worth the investment? Refractor fields are the only one in there I can easily see a "regular" character getting, while others smack of sleeping with the AdMech or Ecclesiarchy, and that's only a FR 30. Is that worth it? Do you shell out for the better ones? What's the overall opinion on them, and using them? If you were setting up your character, what's the best you NORMALLY expect to equip him/her with? Thanks much.

Small story:

Once my players where fighting orks in a jungle Death World. The Missionary took a hit that killed him, making his player burn a Fate Point to stay alive.

Then, I rememembered that all my players where equiped with Refractor Fields and that the Missionary didn't roll for his. I told that to the player and allowed him to roll... and he succeeded! Thanks to that 30%, he saved a Fate Point and could continue fighting.

So yeah, TOTALLY worth the investment.

All Warhammer 40K games are extremely lethal, so every little help is great to keep your character alive. A 30% chance of not dying is better than nothing and will save your ass 1/3 of the time stadistically (if you have played any Warhammer Fantasy or 40K wargame, is the equivalent to a 5+ special save).

One of the first things I picked up for my Explorator. 30% is still really good.

Get the best one you can as quick as you can. Mind you, I am also very partial to things like cameleoline (not so good for a flashy rogue trader) and certain xeno-tech fields. Huge penalties to be hit has a special attraction, especially against mooks.

I tend to lean toward light / concealed armor and camoline thus I really like the extra protection. That said there will always be a minmaxer who wants cybernetics, power armor, camoline, force fields, and other stuff to make them nigh unkillable. Though unkillable is a relative term in the 40k rpg settings.

My first proper RT character, Magos Militant Marcellus Lucien, relied more on his dragonscale armour, bionics and combat ability to survive. Though he did eventually pick up a refractor field, I wasn't too pushed about upgrading upon that. The only attacks that ever really threatened him were attacks that ignored armour and/or toughness (no-one's invulnerable after all).

In 40krpgs, I tend to grab fields sooner if playing a more scholarly/social character who needs protection but isn't inclined to wear tonnes of armour. My more militant characters aren't as pushed to obtain or improve upon fields since they have other means of protection.

In general terms, fields are so very useful in keeping a character alive you should certainly consider one. And social characters get the added bonus of appearing more vulnerable than they are to foolish enemies.

Isin't there another kind of shield that lets you roll 2D10 and remove that amount from the damage? Might be in one of the DH books.

Correct, they're in Inquisitor's Handbook.

My players got a set of five conversion fields, and love them! They have saved the party's arse so many times... They have easily prevented the burning of a half-dozen fate points by now. So, yes, totally worth it.

Cheers,

- V.

I've always found conversion fields tedious to deal with; forcing toughness tests to resist being blinded (on basically everyone that isn't the PCs, since they'll all take the ridiculously-available goggles/contacts that provide dark-sight) pretty much every round.

Good, it pleases me that they are so popular; never was to keen on the idea of the other high-end defense item, power armor, making one easier to hit, for just a bit more Defense, and refractors and their siblings were one of my favorite things from TT. I must confess, when I wrote this thread, I had thought that the Scale bonus fell off at Extremely Rare, rather than Near Unique, making most Field emitters considerably harder to come by. Related question; how easy do you make it for your players to FIND them? I know Rogue Traders can buy practically anything, but some items are notoriously hard to locate, even if you are loaded. If you were going to settle for refractor fields, I suppose an easy place would be the Navy/Guard, since their officers often wear such apparatus (even if DW's stuff doesn't reflect it in Antagonists), making that Peers/GR (Navy/Guard) talent set useful, again, but some seem more rare, still, and likely only held by the AM, or the Ecclesiarchy; do you just let them say what they want, and roll (the joy of a far-flung network of resources and contacts), or do they have to, say, fly out to the Lathes, and beseech the Cult Mechanicus to part with several con. fields? I don't know how much of it might be "roll to purchase, and then we'll say it was in the cargo hold, ordered some time ago, and arrived", or more "every time you want to buy something, we have to hop in the ship, fly out to BLANK, and put in a purchasing order, with the RPing, rolling, and such." Not shooting for a chance to dodge RPing, but if you had to go to the right planet every time you wanted to pick up that nice, new gun you decided you want, it could seriously slow things down.

On another note, has anyone experienced problems with fields? AKA, making combat and attacks almost completely pointless? I'm probably going to start a more mechanics based thread after a bit more research, but I figured I'd ask here first.

Larkin said:

I've seen a "Final Boss" of mine with a Force Field of 80% which never overloads be one-shoted for 132 points of damage on the first round of combat, so no, combat is still as deadly as it ever was, Force Fields just make it a little bit less lethal.

On similar note, the Rogue Trader in my game mounted a Vehicle Power Field (80%) on his Sentinel Walker and he almost die several times as well.

My current navigator has a penchant for either really well made (good or best craftsmanship) or really ugly looking items (generally poor craftsmanship). Poor blast goggles with best xeno mesh, that sort of style. I'm thinking five poor craftmanship refractor fields, all looking like crap and him slamming the next one on as they inevitably overload. He's not the combat monster of the group, his skills lying elsewhere. But a different spin on using fields.

Ooh! Thanks for reminding me, I forgot about my Assassin's Rosarius last session so I probably can have (some of) those wounds I took back. Yee-aah!

Where did I get it? From a corpse who counted on his heavy-stubber-armed servitors and lasgun-armed goons preventing my PC from getting into melee with him. Last mistake that heretic ever made.

Zakalwe said:

If there's something I've learned, it's never count any NPC as out of melee range. Doesn't matter if he's behind a barricade, on a roof, in a strafing gunship, or packing an assault cannon, my players will find a way to get into close combat, and then repeatedly kick him in the head until he dies...

Maese Mateo said:

How do you get 132 points of damage in a single shot?

eBarbarossa said:

Righteous Fury.

Maese Mateo said:

Yes, that would be why I nerfed righteous fury in my game. When weapons are rolling 5 or 6 dice of damage, it's just too easy to get...

Cheers,

- V.

@Vandegraffe: what you can do with weapons that deal more than one die of damage is to roll a die of different colour, meaning that only that die count for scoring RF. That way there is only a 10% chance that you score RF with a heavy weapon.

On the other hand, Storm weapons are still very powerful since you can easily score 2-3 RF per round with them.