Hi,

One of the players in my group wants to "upgrade" his bolter to a daemon weapon, using the nurgle daemon they encountered during Broken Chains. I've read through the rules but I have trouble understanding it all. This is how I interpreted it. First you summon the daemon with the necessary ritual and then you make a Daemonic mastery test to inject it into the item? If one succeds, what decides how many times one can roll one the charts? I guess the binding strength decides but here's the problem. The book have an example where a bloodletter have been bound. It have a total binding strength of 1 and a WP bonus of 3, therefore will roll two times. So…. WP bonus - Binding strength = number of times rolling? If so, then the character who wants to make a daemon weapon will be rolling many times. Lurgach, the Nurgle daemon, have a willpower of 50. So if There will be a DoS of two or one, does that mean he will then be required to roll three or even FOUR times!? + infamy of 25 will result in a great bolter. Should I take away the infamy score or deliberatly lower the Wp?

Also, the characteristic damage everyone will suffer in the aftermath, is it permanent? 2D10 damage to all if I'm not mistaken. What reason to have a daemonic bolter when you can't even hit something with it. Must the summoner spend exp later on to replenish his lost strength, agility, fellowship and the rest or will they all regenerate slowly over time?

That's all I can come up with for now.

One of the players in my group wants to "upgrade" his bolter to a daemon weapon, using the nurgle daemon they encountered during Broken Chains. I've read through the rules but I have trouble understanding it all. This is how I interpreted it. First you summon the daemon with the necessary ritual and then you make a Daemonic mastery test to inject it into the item? If one succeds, what decides how many times one can roll one the charts? I guess the binding strength decides but here's the problem. The book have an example where a bloodletter have been bound. It have a total binding strength of 1 and a WP bonus of 3, therefore will roll two times. So…. WP bonus - Binding strength = number of times rolling? If so, then the character who wants to make a daemon weapon will be rolling many times. Lurgach, the Nurgle daemon, have a willpower of 50. So if There will be a DoS of two or one, does that mean he will then be required to roll three or even FOUR times!? + infamy of 25 will result in a great bolter. Should I take away the infamy score or deliberatly lower the Wp?

Firstly, you indeed summon the Daemon, likely via a summoning ritual like those detailed on page 229 and 230. To control it, the summoner makes a Daemonic Mastery Test.
Secondly, you enact another ritual, Forge the Accursed Weapon (page 200). This involves no Daemonic Mastery Test yet, but the test described in the ritual text (Forbidden Lore Warp or Daemonology, starting at -60). You are then correct in that the number of ability rolls are depending on the WP bonus minus Binding strength, although only one of those rolls has the Infamy score added to it - so only one of its abilities has a chance to be, for example, Stream of Corruption or Pestilent Stench. Of course, once the Daemon Weapon has been created, the prospective wielder must indeed Daemonically Master its occupant (though this might be redundant if the wielder is also the summoner of the daemon that initially cowed it in the first ritual).

Sounds like you'd like as little degrees of success on the ritual as possible? Initially, yes, but there's a catch: Every point of binding strength (which makes the weapon weaker ability-wise) makes the daemon suffer a penalty of 5 points on daemonic mastery tests. Now consider that you have to roll Daemonic Mastery against the bound daemon every single time the character is stunned, rendered unconscious or suffers enough WP damage that his WP falls below that of the daemon. Sure, take that once-bound bolter. And have lots of infamy points ready to reroll daemonic mastery so you don't get posessed (see page 142) by your own weapon that will roll its 45 remaining Willpower against yours whenever it senses a weakness…

(Also note that infamy points of Nurgle-aligned PCs can't be used to reroll tests… )

Also, the characteristic damage everyone will suffer in the aftermath, is it permanent? 2D10 damage to all if I'm not mistaken. What reason to have a daemonic bolter when you can't even hit something with it. Must the summoner spend exp later on to replenish his lost strength, agility, fellowship and the rest or will they all regenerate slowly over time?

Unless the characteristic damage is explicitly called "permanent", it never is. You regenerate one point of a trait per day.
(That also means you should not touch the weapon until your WP has regenerated to semi-safe levels!)

What he said. Unless you have a very powerful will, mastering the uber weapon is going to be a pain in the bum. Let him dig his own grave.

He'd be far better off and safer upgrading his weapon to a Legacy. Their abilities are not as powerful, but its much easier to get/create one and it doesn't try to take over your soul every other fight.

Of course, no Daemon or Dark God is gonna tell him that, is it?

On the other hand, having a legacy weapon means you can't switch between it and anything else that is ranged. Better hope you don't encounter anything that your boltgun can't touch…

Hello,

My character recently created a daemon weapon out of a Lord of Change, with a binding strength of 16, which meant the daemon rolled with -80 to the check. This naturally means the weapon only has one roll on the ability table, but that really didn't matter as the damage and pen bonuses are quite nice already. The ability I rolled was Sorcerous Force, which makes the weapon function like a force sword, but using the bound daemon's willpower (80) to determine the extra damage.

I had a bit of an easier time doing this since my character is aligned to Tzeentch, so I made sure I had the mastery-talent for Forbidden Lore Daemonology to begin with, then I had a few assistants who all added 1 DoS per helper, after which I used an infamy point to add a further 1d5 success levels.

You should remember that the daemonic mastery test for controlling the daemon uses the summoning modifiers - so, if you are aligned to nurgle, know the daemon's true name etc. you are already rolling with quite a hefty set of bonuses.

Hi,

Assisting in this case was for the bit that mattered - the binding.

The rules in BC handle assisting a bit differently from other books, as far as I can remember how they do it: If you have the skill in question, you can give one extra level of success to the binder, without a skill roll.

All the characters assisting got to share in the corruption and attribute damage from the ritual, but as we didn't have Tome of Blood available at that time, we used the regular summoning rules.

Basically, if you have the right mark etc. summoning the daemon becomes rather easy. Ofcourse the -60 to the binding roll is nasty, but with the Master y talent, it's not really an issue, since you're not even rolling for the binding check, instead you're just spending an infamy point to gain intelligence bonus number of success levels.

As to the leniency of the GM, I think it boils down to the fact that our campaign doesn't really hinge on our weapons, or martial prowess of single characters. We're imperial citizens on Malfi, working to bring about a civil war and disrupting the Koronus Crusade supply route. I've often regretted spending any points outside of charm, deceive, fellowship and peer-talents before maxing them out.

M

Don't mastery give you these DoS only when all summed modifiers are at least +0 (I don't really remember as we don't use this talent). Also I think that max bonus from assisting characters is capped at +20.

Yes mastery only applies when the Final modifer is +0 or better

No skill levels are not capped at +20 as per the other systems, skills can get up to +30 but mastery no longer gives the +10 to the skill

In regards to getting that +0 modifyer, its quite easier if you have assistance

"only the character who is actually making the test rolls the dice, but every other character giving assistance reduces the difficulty of the test by one step. If the test succeeds, the character performing the test gains an extra Degree of Success."

Now there are limits, One of which is that only 2 characters can assist with a test, As a GM i would say there is exemptions to this rule, yes only two people can help breaking down a door but 5 or 6 people sitting around a table working out a battle plan (tactics) totally makes sense. AND it doesnt have to be other PC's so minions and NPCs are free to help

But if your GMs being strict with the rules only 2 can help, but that is still reducing the difficulty by two steps so the hellish test is now Arduous (-40)

now depending on your interpretation of the rules,Items which gives bonuses to skill tests (combi-tools, Auspex) count as modifiers to the test it self; so if you happened to have good quality cerebal implants (+20 to lore tests) that would mean the forbidden lore test is now at Hard (-20)

All you need now is a couple of the summoning modifers (ie weapons creation reflects the nature of the patron god which is easily enough done with the good aplication of slaves)

if your still stuck at getting the extra few points, see about aquireing a couple of text from places such as Q'sal (ie Deamon weapons for dummies)

Now that you are at +0 spend the Infamy point and automatically suceed, with a lot of degrees of sucess

Cryhavok said:

tl; dr "Screw you, player, for daring to have your PC do anything impressive."

Cryhavok said:

Each assistant on a task effective gives +10 (by lowering the difficulty by one step) and also grants one additional DoS if the test is successful (Core rulebook p. 38). Of course, you're limited to two assistants in most cases. OP said 'a few' so assuming he's got two assistants, he's got 2+ Int bonus intial degrees of success (which could easily be like 8 if he's got cranial implants or demon organs). Add another one for the unnatural 2 for Cranial Implants, and then roll a 5 on that d5 you get for the infamy point, and you're at 16 DoS completely legit. Of course, you've just made a greater demon into a demon weapon with only one ability, which kind of defeats the point.

However, the particulars of the circumstance that you replied aren't really that important, but your endorsement of punishing game mechanic alteration against a character trying to create a powerful demon weapon is. The assistance rules exist for a reason, so that a chaos-worshipping magus can have his expendable, snivelling cultists help him with this kind of stuff. The insistance that each member of a ritual have to complete the separate parts of a ritual on their own smacks of a knee-jerk reaction nerf without the understanding of how the mechanics involved actually work, as it makes having assistants on a task like this functionally useless.

Cryhavok said:

Reverend mort said:

Cryhavok said:

The issue is that your viewpoint is explicitly 'The books are wrong.' Which would be fine, if you had good evidence for the books being wrong. As it stands, butting into another person's thread and being all 'yeah you did that but even though the books say you can your GM is too lenient for letting you do so' is just worthless.

I'm wondering how it got to the point where you could bind that daemon though. A Lord of Change would be rather unlikely not to know, or quickly figure out what's going on.

Daemonic Presence for -20WP and Fear 4 certainly make an angry hostile Lord of Change annoying to try and deal with, but more importantly, if you rolled a 01 so that you'd actually GET your int bonus' worth and then some out of the skill, why didn't he make you reroll with Weaver of Fates?

Also I'm wondering if Strong-minded and psychic resistance shouldn't be applying, in this case, to attempts to bind them: even if using int base on the ritual, you're performing sorcery. That's some serious chances to resist, and they get plenty of DoS as well.

One thing though: -80 isn't possible. Tests are always -60 to +60. It can add up to -80 for purposes of trying to get bonuses to cancel all that out, but the test will always just be at -60 at worst. That Lord of Change will be rolling mastery against 21, not 01. He probably loses the ability to force you to spend infamy and reroll at that point however though. You will fail it at some point, and when that happens the results should prove spectacular.

… for the audience. Please do tell us ALL about it when he finally snaps out.

Says your GM: "Just as planned"?

Kiton said:

Presumably, the daemonic mastery tests prevent it from acting against you. And IIRC they never state how long it takes to actually bind a daemon into a daemon weapon in the first place, so quite possibly they appear and get bound within less than a single round. The -20 could also be sidestepped by being 20+ meters from it, which may not be impossible either.

As for the "you rolled 01" well, he can't be forced to reroll. Even assuming that using skill mastery for an automatic success is considered a roll in the first place, you can only spend infamy to reroll failed tests, and he didn't fail it. Ergo, the Daemon can't make him spend infamy to reroll it.

As for Strong-minded and Psychic resistance, I wouldn't apply them. Daemons being boundable is something that's inherent to their nature and existence, and I don't think them being able to shrug off doombolts and dominate should go towards being able to ignore one of the fundamental risks of their existance.

EDIT: Oh, and for the modifier thing, do you have a pg reference for that? I know the Difficulty table lists actions from +60 to -60, but that's for difficulty, not modifiers.

While its a risk, I see little reason why the Daemon, if it wishes to not be weaponized, would not use its abilities to its fullest. Notably, Resist Psy and Strong-minded are not found on a Great Unclean one or most other daemons. The Daemonic mastery test is certainly psy/sorcery in nature, as you get to add +5 x psy rating to the mastery test, and Page 229 notes that the ritual IS modified by the target's Daemonic Presence "and other pertinent factors".

Its true that skill mastery lets you "not roll", but opposed tests go by how many DoS/DoF you have over the other, so at least we should be verifying the LoC's own, for purposes of the difference between the two. This is where strong-minded and their effective Psy Rating 9[so +45] would come in handy.

Tables aside, which in the case of summoning/binding, 201 and 229 state at the top of the tables that their maximums are +/- 60 outright rather than only implying, there's 241.

Page 241, though in the combat chapter, states: "If a situation calls for two or more bonuses or penalties, simply combine all modifiers together and apply the total to the appropriate Characteristic. The maximum total bonus that can be applied to a test is +60. Conversely, the maximum total penalty that can be applied to a test is –60. When adjudicating difficulty, common sense should prevail. Regardless of the usual limits on test penalties, some actions are simply impossible"

Personally, I'm just trying to figure out if everything went fubar for the daemon's rolls[very unlikely but certainly possible; anyone can roll a 100 sometimes, even two despite dumping infamy on there], or if the player was just led to believe that was the case.

Kiton said:

Isn't everyone not a null considered to have some level, even if far too low to be usable, of psychic potential? We're dealing with controlling the Immaterium here, and the fact that Psykers can use their rating certainly does more to imply its psychic in nature than the fact that anyone willing to give themselves to the Dark Gods can do the ritual [mark of tzeench makes you a psyker if you weren't one, even].

A bigger question is why the Daemon doesn't get to add it, but chances are that was either left out because most daemons aren't psykers and they forgot you can summon more than nurglings while writing, OR because that would make some of them impossible for those not specifically dedicated to the act.

I'm not involved in that game, but what does interest me is the rules here. I'm not denying that the psyker didn't have the advantage; that would be like trying to wonder how the sniper's got his accuracy so high.

The limitation on tests I'm seeing is "final". You add up all that stuff together: Psy rating, marks, etc, and the final mod is "stat +/- 60". It makes sense that you wouldn't need a high binding if you're marked by the god: That's as friendly as things get, and there's little they can do if you know its true name. Of course in ideal conditions you've got an easy time dealing with it. Non-Tzeench aligned folks don't have it quite as cheap or easy, but if you know a daemon's true name and you're good buddies with its God, you've kind of got an 'in'. The mark helps greatly if you're otherwise weaker; like not a psyker or dealing with daemons of great infamy, as any Greater oughta have really, as its the final total that's +/- 60. "Would be useless" aside, just as problematic is the idea that the most willful and powerful of daemons are stuck in there permanently. At least without consistently spending an infamy point every time you might fail if the LoC has 21 to test against… though it ain't bloody likely if you're the one who put it in there in the first place, obviously.

What I do think, though, is that just like there's nothing telling us what "a single standard type of ammunition is" despite it being perfectly possible for grenade and missile launchers to be the weapon in question, no one thought to see how much they could break the mastery tests [which when you look at it are obviously intended to be nothing but "Daemon WP -5*binding strength" once in the weapon, though obviously this is not the end result by having said 'daemonic mastery test'] by letting every aspect of the original summoning get used instead.

Perhaps a quick rewording of the rules to better account for all the variables would be needed?

Isn't everyone not a null considered to have some level, even if far too low to be usable, of psychic potential? We're dealing with controlling the Immaterium here, and the fact that Psykers can use their rating certainly does more to imply its psychic in nature than the fact that anyone willing to give themselves to the Dark Gods can do the ritual [mark of tzeench makes you a psyker if you weren't one, even].

By that logic, should a character be allowed to apply Strong-minded to resisting persuasion tests, because someone with some smidgeon of psychic potential is trying to influence their mind? And, furthermore, if this is is so psychic in nature as to count as a psychic power, why can Khorne-aligned people do it? You know, the guys who by the rules lose ALL psychic powers and potential when they align to Khorne? If a Daemonic Mastery test counted as a psychic power for the purpose of the rules, Khorne-aligned characters would not be able to do them. No, trying to finagle resistance and strong-minded into applying to Daemonic mastery tests seems to stretch it far too much for me. You'd reason that if they were meant to make it harder to command those Daemons, it would be explicitly mentioned somewhere.

A bigger question is why the Daemon doesn't get to add it, but chances are that was either left out because most daemons aren't psykers and they forgot you can summon more than nurglings while writing, OR because that would make some of them impossible for those not specifically dedicated to the act.

Or maybe because they didn't want Daemons to add their psy rating to the test. We can guess the motivations of the developers all we want, but at the end of the day you don't, by the rules of the book. Furthermore, it wouldn't benefit the Lord of Change even if you did. He doesn't actually have a psy rating. He has a special ability that lets him use psychic powers with an effective psy rating of 9, but he lacks the psy rating talent and an actual psy rating.

The limitation on tests I'm seeing is "final". You add up all that stuff together: Psy rating, marks, etc, and the final mod is "stat +/- 60". It makes sense that you wouldn't need a high binding if you're marked by the god: That's as friendly as things get, and there's little they can do if you know its true name. Of course in ideal conditions you've got an easy time dealing with it. Non-Tzeench aligned folks don't have it quite as cheap or easy, but if you know a daemon's true name and you're good buddies with its God, you've kind of got an 'in'. The mark helps greatly if you're otherwise weaker; like not a psyker or dealing with daemons of great infamy, as any Greater oughta have really, as its the final total that's +/- 60. "Would be useless" aside, just as problematic is the idea that the most willful and powerful of daemons are stuck in there permanently. At least without consistently spending an infamy point every time you might fail if the LoC has 21 to test against… though it ain't bloody likely if you're the one who put it in there in the first place, obviously.

Yet on that table listing the modifiers there is mentioned neither psy rating nor binding strength. And with no overarching rule capping modifiers to 60, you're conjecturing here. And it makes just as much sense that a master psyker with immense experience dealing with daemons, the favor of Tzeentch and unrivaled sorcerous potential would be far more capable of binding a daemon than a middling psyker with passing experience in dealing with daemons, even if they both have the mark of Tzeentch.

As an aside, you don't apply the Daemon's infamy on Daemonic tests either, just the test to create a daemon weapon. The one that isn't opposed.

What I do think, though, is that just like there's nothing telling us what "a single standard type of ammunition is" despite it being perfectly possible for grenade and missile launchers to be the weapon in question, no one thought to see how much they could break the mastery tests [which when you look at it are obviously intended to be nothing but "Daemon WP -5*binding strength" once in the weapon, though obviously this is not the end result by having said 'daemonic mastery test'] by letting every aspect of the original summoning get used instead.

Perhaps a quick rewording of the rules to better account for all the variables would be needed?

I don't think these tests are that broken. So yeah, a decently competent psyker built to deal with the warp and with the mark of Tzeentch can bind greater daemons of Tzeentch into Daemon weapons. It still costs him 2d5 corruption points, two lengthy rituals, a couple of human sacrifices etc and at the end of the day he gets a scary gun or killstick. Fair trade I say.

Now, if you wanna break daemon weapons, the key there is getting far less binding strength so you get to lather on qualities, and then just sustain Protean form all day and put it all in unnatural Willpower. You become just as impossible to beat in the mastery test, but you got a blade oozing with psychic death and all manner of bling. Or, you know, you could just skip that whole daemon weapon thing and hit someone with a regular force weapon for 10d10 or more points worth of no soak damage.

Regarding Strong-Minded, I'd say that as soon as a Psyker uses their psy rating in the test, they're definitely trying to crush the daemon's will with a manifestation of psychic power - so that certainly works.

So, yeah, it still seems quite plausible that a Greater Daemon could be bound by a competent psyker. Now, the Master of Plotters power could throw a wrench into things. That said, I don't see how a plan could apply to a contest of wills like that, but whatever.

Simply don't let it come to a fair contest - the daemon subverts one or two of the psyker's aides beforehand who go on to sabotage the ritual. It leaves fake True Names lying around for clueless mortals to find. It locates the prospective ritual sacrifices and corrupts them into unsuitability. It sends out a Rogue Trader to buy up all the blue and gold paint he can find.
There are lots of ways to change the outcome of that ritual and its aftermath - and the Lord can see most of them.

Even then, the Heretic could hurl 2 or more infamy points into 1d5 extra DoS per point to counter that.

Apart from me being rather suspicious about the possibility of using multiple Infamy points on the same benefit for the same test: So could the Lord of Change. It's got 5 Infamy Points and presumably nothing better to do with them…

Also, if the psyker is going into the whole thing with several powers sustained, there's little reason to think the Daemon wouldn't do the same - after all, it never rolls its powers anyway, so why wouldn't it have a permanently active Psyphon, Protean Form, Host of Fiends and the like?