Hey

Upfront this is my first thread so go easy on me

I am fairly new to WA40k Dark Heresy and one of my players loves his Tech Priest. He though wants to play the believe of his character differently, that he would actually try to adapt new and found technologys so that it could be used with only small or non negatives.

The idea is that he finds something find out what it is and figures a way out to change something excisting to make it better.

Creating new attachments or better and improving things.

As far as I know there actually is a part of the Tech Priest Order which does something similar, so he asked me to look into it. Though I found nothing of how I could actually let him involve Xenos technology into the game or old one. Like Eldar, Chaos, Tau and others.

Anyone got a rule book or advice how to handle it? Would be nice

Actually to top onto to that one.

How would it work if the Tech Priest would take Weapon or other things apart to try to creat their own blueprint?

The Inquisitor's Handbook has detailed rules for crafting items, including combining multiple pieces of gear into a single attachment. That would be a good starting point for any crafting-related shenanigans.

If you're looking for xenos tech, Creatures Anathema has an Eldar section that includes a couple of their weapons (shuriken catapult and pistol, Ranger long rifle). Black Crusade has a whole bunch of Chaos equipment and includes a few random xenos weapons (Dark Eldar splinter rifle for example), though the BC rules are slightly different from Dark Heresy. Deathwatch has lots of Tau weaponry, but their guns are insanely powerful by DH standards -- a Tau pulse rifle does 2d10+4 damage with Pen 5! Note that messing with such technology is considered Radical by the Ordo Xenos and heretical by the Adeptus Mechanicus, so if the character's superiors find out about his activities he could be executed or worse.

Alright that is already a lot of help.

The only thing I have to think about now is how I would let him make the checks to actually figure the weapons among other things out of the xenons.

Would probably take long time and a strong penalty check on Tech Use for him to try to figure out the "ritual" of the weapons of how to use them, and then even harder to take them apart and use them with other things.

He is aware of that and I did tell him. Though he does not seem to scared of it. I guess he truly has an explorer soul for that character haha.

Thanks for the Help Covered in Weasels. I will have a look into the books to figure more out.

As far as stats are concerned, it's also worth keeping in mind that the different games of FFG's 40k RPG line all follow their own rules and as such feature differing stats. For example, the aforementioned Tau Pulserifle has different stats in Only War than it has in Deathwatch!

I would recommend basing any new items you wish to include in your campaign on the equipment profiles from Dark Heresy. If you have access to the 40k tabletop rulebooks, you could also use those to help get a feeling for potential differences in power between the various guns. I've explained this suggestion here in greater detail.

Also, I would recommend using both carrot and stick to deal with your player's plans - meaning, that his ideas are a viable and interesting long-term goal, but that (a) it should be a process taking a lot of time and resources (probably even a lab and assistants) and (b) that there is at least a risk for consequences. The latter could even open up entirely new plot roads, should your group decide to help that player out and redirect any investigation away from this radical Tech-Priest and towards either political enemies of the party, or towards a heretical cult that would get purged anyways, or towards random people who are quite simply unlucky enough to get caught in a cover-up operation and serve as sacrificial lambs.