Does anyone have a suggestion for how to handle a tech priest upgrading a weapon so its capapble of semi and fully automatic weapons fire, I personally thanks its perfectly reasonble for my players to make upgrades and changes to thier weapons but Im a little unsure of how to determine what the stats of a modified weapon should be. If a weapon does not have a auto/semi auto profile how should I adjudicate making it semi or fully auto?

Okay,

I would always depend on the gun and I would often give a negative trait in return:

A normally accurate weapon might loose that trait, a automatic Lascannon might become subject to overheating, a plasmagun might become unreliable, a full auto lasgun might loose reliable.

I would also look at the degree of success when actually modifying the darn thing.

But yes, with the proper research I would allow it.

GrtZ,

Santiago...

Thank you for the tips Santiago. I also suppose if a player wanted to elimaite drawbackas after making the modifcations that wold be like making a higher quailtiy weapon? forgive me if this is in the rules but how do you go about making high qaulity weapons?

I don't allow improving the quality of an item in general.

For example, the Techpriest wants to make a best quality sword from a normal sword, the only way that would be possible is to melt it down and use the steel to forge a new blade, thus actually creating a new one.

Well as for eliminating drawbacks which are due to tinkering with for example a gun, no I would not allow that unless the player got really creative.

For Example:

Silas the Techpriest has been tinkering on a MP Lascannon, he wants it to fire burst. After weeks of researching the STC he finds a way, it would however quickly overheat the capacitor if the lascannon would fire bursts.
He goes for it anyway and manages to create a Lascannon that can fire twice in quick succession (Firing rate S/2/-).
He was right about the capacitor overheating to quickly after Corperal Gregor used it and scorched of his hands.
While tinkering on the prostetic hands for Gregor he had a spark of inspiration.
What if he build a N2 cooling system around the capacitor, that would prevent the thing form overheating again, an easy task for Silas.
The only side effect that the extra cooling system has is that it increases the weight of the Lascannon by 20kg, making it a Burst Lascannon and no longer manportable.

Two weeks later the Techpriest was executed for Tech Heresy...

Tech-heresy! You know I've been wondering just how far a Tech Priest can really go (with regards to equipment modification) before they should probably make themselves scarce.

Perhaps this was a bit soon to cry Tech Heresy, it was more or less a joke.

I do think however that Tech Priests should be extremely carefull modifying the holy STC's, weapons are pretty safe I guess though improving Logic Engines and so on is risky, since there is a great fear of AI's.
Also any tempering with the most holy Machine Spirit would probably be heresy.

But besides from the obvious major Tech Heresies mentioned in DothDG it is hard to say what the line is.

Personally, I would think in general it should be a fine thing for a tech-priest to be able to do. I would think there would normally be some drawbacks.

Some examples:

-A semi-auto handcannon. Seems doable and somewhat reasonable. I would expect such a weapon would be prone to jamming with the increased load/fire speeds. Make it unreliable when used in that mode.

-Upgrade a lasgun for full-auto. I'd probably think of something similar to Overheating and/or Unreliable when used in that mode.

So, introduce limited negatives such as overheating, unreliable. Also, increase weight, size, etc. You could also reduce damage, citing the increase in firing speed reduces each individual shot's overall thrust, or reduce Pen. Range is also something that can be reduced. There are all sorts of minor and situational negatives that can be introduced. If you don't want to penalize it too much, make the negatives situational only. They only apply when the weapon is used in the 'new' mode. Etc.

Rules for crafting are found in the IH. Rules on upgrading the quality of an item is on page 248 (BI edition).

Adding semi auto or full auto functions (doable in realife with little drawback) I would say is equivalent to adding a fire selector (which is mentioned as an example).

Basically it says you can only upgrade something by 1 level. It is actually harder to upgrade an item than to build it from scratch (at the higher quality level). It does however take less time and would be much cheaper.

Santiago said:

Plus, if the Tech Priest is in a party of non-Ad Mech characters and the TP decides to do a little heretical tinckering on a weapon, who are they to argue with someone that represents a member of the organisation that decrees what is and isn't heretical? Basically, what I'm suggesting is that a TP could potentially get away with it as long as the other characters have little/no knowledge as to what is and isn't heretical in terms of technology.

...or if they don't care. lol

every forge world makes it's own version of a lasgun and yet none of them have been burned to the groung for viloating the original design. Weapon modification should only be tech heresy in ridiculous cases, like a gun that eats babies for ammunition or a set of armor that turns you into a ghost.

Action_Carl said:

Thing is, the Mechanicus actually play quite fast and loose with their definitions of minor Tech-Heresy, and they're extremely cunning in this regard. Officially, and objectively, the Space Wolves' replacing the autocannons and heavy bolters of a group of Predator tanks with lascannons because they're facing an entrenched force of Iron Warriors is a heresy - they're altering a sacred STC design... but the matter was pondered for centuries (during which time the design spread through Astartes chapters anyway) before deciding eventually that, actually, the STC design is inherently adaptable enough that the modification was, while unknowing and ill-advised, entirely legitimate. Many variants of the Predator, Land Raider, Leman Russ and Chimera armoured vehicles are battlefield modificiations which have been sanctioned after the fact by the Mechanicus, often decades or centuries after the first instance of the modification (for which the person doing the modification will have been forced to do penance for his sin).

As explained on page 14 of Creatures Anathema, what can be classed as Tech-Heresy is an extremely broad category, and many of the minor ones are necessarily overlooked because the major ones are so much more dangerous.

Just because it's not on the same level, or punished to the same degree, as raising the dead, producing artificial intelligence, binding daemons into machines or most forms of genetic engineering doesn't mean it isn't a sin against the Omnissiah.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

Severity is also bound to depend on the sanctity of the equipment being modified. Nobody cares if you make some personal touches to some shoddy Volg-produced autogun. But messing around with a Godwin-De'Az bolter would be a heinious crime!