Hey folks been a while.
Going to start up a RT game soon and needed to try and figure out what upgrades to apply this time around.

Of concern at the moment is.
Starship combat and how to even out some of the bumbs (like macro battieries being somewhat nasty and good PC crews being able to out fight, and out flight a NPC ship) I was considering using the Mathhammer patch but….. well honestly math was my dump skill and I may not really "get" it. So any suggestions and discussion would be nice.

PC power creep. It really gets annoying to have to pump everything to hellish (-60) in order to give the Ad mech a pause if even for a moment and the rest of the PC's aren't too much better. Honestly my solution last time around was just go cinamatic with most stuff but I would like a better tool set for dealing with it this timew around.

Force shields. Again a concern cause these can turn a fight into a slog. Thinking of patching in a effect of if damage is high enough it strips out some of the protection or maybe edges the shield closer to overload.

Combat and skill rolls: My players tend to either roll pretty well….or in the high 90's with little middle ground. First time around i gave them a set number of re rolls per roll but that had its own batch of problems. this time around I was thinking maybe a set number of re rolls per session or maybe having them be like fate points and reward them.

Orky Colorz. A while ago I thought up of Orky upgradz in the form of paint jobs. Red = faster fire rate Blue = a bit more damage, etc etc and that it would only work for Orks. Good/bad idea?

How to deal with the fact that the PCs tend to bring a Platoon of arms men with em during exploration. I mean yeah I don't feel bad for having them get eaten like popcorn but It scales the combats into stupid complex things.

These are my main concerns but I will listen to any other ideas that may come up so please…help a GM out.

Fixing Starship Combat: Just use the math-hammer rules. It's not that bad, I just use the RTSU spreadsheet with modified values. Consider it an errata.

Fixing PC power levels: I limit my players to +30 (+40 in specific situations) bonus from wargear and cybernetics and limit Assistance.

Force Shields: There's not a lot you can do that doesn't slow things down worse than the current system, unfortunately.

Combat and skill rolls: …They have fate points for a reason.

Platoons: I typically use their armsmen as background detail; "The orks bellow with fury and charge into your lines, suddenly turning the formation into chaos and disarray. Caught up in the melee, you catch sight of the warband's leaders making their way directly for you!" So the players have their priority targets while the other soldiers are fighting off the rest of the orks. Use the soldiers and orks as an abstraction; roll d10s for them. First group to reach a target number has overwhelmed the others and joins in to the PCs' combat!

RE: Force Fields

If you read my thread about this very problem, there were several solutions presented that I did not use. But recently my group decided to revisit the issue and we came up with a decent compromised system.

Fields work as normal, but can only absorb a number of hits in any given combat equal to the tens digit of the field score. These hits must have done enough damage to bypass Armour + Toughness Bonus. After that is reached, the field must be reconfigured (no roll) which takes approx. 5 minutes (aka after combat is over).

Now we actually check fields LESS than before (we always check Armour + TB first) and they'll run out under concentrated fire. It rewards PCs to take cover, dodge, parry and generally be responsible for their own life instead of relying on the field to save them all the time. It also doesn't create that much more work, merely making hash marks somewhere to keep track of absorbed shots.

@ Errent
Yeah I know but as I said very little middle ground in their rolls. I once had the Broker (Like HELL I can spell the real name) make four rolls under my broke as hell system….. it went 95, 96, 97, 99. I don't want them to burn all their " I wanna LIIIIIIVE" points on getting past a door that is surprisingly stubborn….then again may be I can fix that by tossing the Arch Militant a Melta.

@ Larkin
Hmmmm that could work.

Larkin said:

So the field only kicks in if the shot has already proven it can punch through your armour? Sorry, not for me.

HappyDaze said:

*shrug* We're going with a more thematic approach, so it works for us. Anything less than that is absorbed anyway, so either it's by AB+TB or a Force Field it really doesn't matter. The RAW rules work fine anyway.

Hmm yeah RAW does work fine……. ehh I'll do some test runs see what feels best, fudge it around the corners if need be.

Now I know this thread is for "What mods I should slot in" but since I already have a thread here and I don't want to clog the boards up I'll also through some of my kit bashed stuff up here as well and get some opions on them.

First up Necron warriors. Now I know that they have stats in one of the other books "Black Crusade i think" but since I am not getting a whole rule book just for some baddies (though I might have to steal the rules for minions) I figured I might be able to use the Xeno generator in the latest beast book to fudge something together. i will not gointo over much detail cause my players sometime get on this board (you know who you are) but for base line grunt I was thinking Unnatural tough X4, Regen, Undieing, Machine traits is a given, Link it to gestalt to try and get the whole Robo undead thing going half the movement speed (since necrons is slooooow) throw in a few flavor skills and talents and try and figure out how a Guass flayer stats.

So what ya think?

Hmm, I don't think we're allowed to post a cut-and-paste from the rulebook…

That's actually a bit much for unnatural toughness. The warriors really only need x2 or so considering these are a) the basic expendable grunt, and b) they have decent armour. Armour and toughness should give them a total soak of, say 13 to 15. With that, regeneration, and twenty odd wounds, even the basic warrior could be fairly tough to take down. The Necrons also appeared in Deathwatch, and I noticed the DW stats are significantly different from the BC ones. Evidently, the Spehss Mahreenz needed a bit more of a challenge…

And Gauss weapons are pretty **** horrid. Black Crusade seriously revised the Righteous Fury rules, so the Gauss rules don't translate well. Even so, they're still nastier than bolters.

Cheers,

- V.

And here I think people will call me mad (I hope so then I can use the line "They called me mad but I'll show them, I'll SHOW THEM ALLLLL!")

So doing a bit of reading in ye new Beasty Book and I happened across the Mad Doc and the Squig Cannon and well I came up with a new foe for the Traders.
"Howlin" Mad Doc Smackgob and his terrifing "Orkification Process" were he/it surgically transforms a another species into a ork! (he is working under the idea that if a Loota and a Mek can make Stuff Orky then HE should be able to make things Orky as well Gork Smash it!)

Da Rulez: Mad Doc needs to sedate (I.E. KO) a victem. After preppin fer Kuttin he needs to make a Hard (-20) Medicae roll, for every degree of Success the victim gains a Orky Talent or Trait and looses 1d10 of Int and Fel (period just one roll) on a failure the poor sap loses 2d10 wounds no armor saves (toughness still works) and if 10's are rolled he looses a random limb.

I figure he works best at the end of a adventure (possible started by the party seeing a orky Eldar!) So what ya think?