Hey guys, I'm needing some help with my game of Black Crusade. Recently the heretics conquered a world solely for the purpose of obtaining a special ore that only occurs 'naturally' on this world. Now the ore has some special properties and they're already aware of one of those properties, namely that the ore is super-resistant to Warp energies (to the point where a Greater Daemon was caged below the planet using only shackles made from the ore). The ore also works to block Warp energies (reflecting psychic emanations).

What I'm looking for are some harmful drawbacks to using the ore (since I know otherwise my players are simply going to coat themselves in the stuff). One I had already thought of would be to make the ore harmful to living tissue, leaching years off a character's lifespan. This 'life-leech' would increase proportionally to the amount of ore on your person - so a person wearing, say, an amulet of the stone might lose a couple years off their life, whereas a person in full armor would have months to live.

I've got some time to finalize the ore since they just started on the adventure from the GM's kit (I expect this to last roughly 2 sessions), so this isn't a super-rush or anything, but I would appreciate any and all feedback.

How would the players coat themselves with a metal without forging it into armor?

I would make them have to forge it, and the armor value be awful vs. bolters and sp rounds, making the armor almost not worth it. Having it be super malleable but super effective at binding daemons makes sense to me. It is a trade off. Also I'd ruler if a psyker is wearing it, he may not use any psychic powers.

Just make the ore specific to one use.

If you've seen the rules for Untouchables (most recently shown in Navis Primer) you have a ready made set of drawbacks that can cover someone fully insulated from the Warp.

It's radioactive.

Done.

Fgdsfg said:

**** that's clever, go with this one.

I would suggest that it makes trying to use psychic powers for the wearer (or someone holding a quantity of the ore/metal) take a penalty to using their powers first off. Perhaps have a penalty to benefiting from beneficial psychic powers too and not just the negative ones.

If you haven't nailed down how difficult to refine the ore into useable metal for forging or better yet the rarity of the ore this could be a good way of limiting the number of items that are made using it in the party. If the ore is rare and hard to find (even with loads of slaves and dark mechanicus allies helping to find it) meaning that gathering the materials is going to be slow. Perhaps the items will be harder to forge than initially thought. I wouldn't necessarily try and make it unusable.

Though radioactive is an idea to make people be wary of using it this might give a big advantage to any nurglite in the party as I think they can get immunity to radiation eventually! Still it is an idea. I would personally lean to something that might give a solid penalty for everyone but not be something that's going to make them feel that it is useless after all they went through. Say daemons have an aversion to this metal because of it's obvious uses so that any character with an item takes a penalty to all interaction tests when dealing with daemons.

Also I'd make it clear after the PCs have had a chance to examine the ore/metal more that it is by it's nature not something that could be used to forge a daemon weapon or daemonic war engine.

A metal that's warp-null and psychically reflective?

You mean it actively repels the warp?

I'd consider it hideously dangerous wouldn't you?

I mean it 'd repel any psychic being's soul, psychically displacing it from the relative warpspace of their body.

At best it'd allow you to spirit walk, at worst it'd tear your soul out=instantly lethal.

Askil said:

And then your corpse morphs into a Necron and starts killing everyone…

You could just make the stuff ruinously difficult to refine and shape - usable as bullets/bolts and shrapnel, maybe the occassional pointy stick, but those Mithril shirts are hellish expensive.

You could rule that armor forged from it are primitive. I mean, yeah, you might be able to block a bolt of change, but a Bolter round to the face will make short work of you. Amulets made from it would have no effect, since it is not covering the body (since the ore itself is resistant, it for not have a warp protection aura). Metals made from it would also be not so strong, giving it not so high AP. However, make it so that when it is attacked by warp weapon, it doubles AP and treats the warp weapon penetration as 0. Otherwise, the armor would be fairly useless against conventional attacks such as chainsword and bullets.

I personally don't see the problem. There are far more ways to deal with players other than psychic powers. An enemy with a las cannon would kill as easily.

If it's resistant to the Warp turn into something that dampens warp gifts and mutations and/or creates negative modifiers for each mutation or level of Psy Rating a character has. These modifiers could accumulate over time, gradually making everything the character does more and more difficult. They effects could be stronger for psychic powers or abilities from mutations that resemble powers.

For example, a Khornate Berzerker who wraps his armor in the stuff could gradually lose the gifts granted to him by his god or a Sorcerer could be forced to expend more and more effort to manifest is powers. Additionally, manifesting those powers could cause fatigue.

1 - The effects appear to be nullified but are simply postponed. A soon as removed the energy creates a backlash…

2 - it ATTRACTS NECRON LIKE THE PLAGUE

3 - it reacts invertly when in the warp (locking the metal on the planet) as soon as the metal enters the warp, all hell break loose as all deamons in a wide area go berzerk and are empowered by the thing. (gives them the possibility of doing sublight shipping… (see you on 10,000 years for WH 50k).

4 - it sentient, it's a snetient being the necron harvested to use for the living metal, it's the last surviving member of the specie and it as power over the metal shape, once the player find out what it is it uses the metal to try and kill them (hey my suit is suddently very tight, arrghhh).

Jeez, people, we're trying to balance it, not turning it into a smoking heap of useless junk.

puenboy said:

Point. Okay then, keep it simple and just give it the effects /counts-as of 'Sanctified' to the armour it's applied to, i.e. the AP still applies vs. Warp/Force weapons and so on, nothing beyond that except that a Heretic can wear it without dissolving.