So, what I really wanted from a Second Edition - a unified 40k RPG line - wasn't meant to be. Sucks, but you've got to roll with the punches.

I'm curious, though: What's the potential for adding on racial templates? I tried my hand at it.

Below is a suggestion for an Adeptus Astartes template, as a sample. My question is two-fold:

1. Do you think that racial templates, such as this one (but not necessarily with the stats I listed), are possible? Or does the d100 system inherently prevent characters scaling up like this?
2. How would you model a racial template for an Astartes (or another race)?

The idea is that Racial Templates are something similar to Home Worlds/Backgrounds/Roles, but chosen before any of those. Once you've chosen a race, you continue with character creation as normal. The Human Template would just be a blank one - humans are the average against which all else is measured.

Again, I'm mainly curious about the potential of the system overall, more so than my quickly-scribbled stats for a Space Marine (but would enjoy comments on both).

Adeptus Astartes

This is intended to represent a "fresh" Astartes with absolutely no training (even excluding his trials in earning his implants). If you want a more experienced one, add starting exp as necessary.

Worth: 4800 exp (this is intended as a balancing factor, if you want other characters to be comparable - it should not count toward this character's rank!)

Starting Traits :

Size (1), Regeneration (1), And They Shall Know No Fear*, Immunity* (Poison, Blood Loss), Unusual Strength* (25), Unusual Toughness* (25)

Starting Talents

True Grit

New Traits:

Personally I wouldn't like it. When you introduce something like that you have to do it with everyone because many of the special things in the Imperium are technically different races. Space Marines, Psykers, Navigators, Astropaths, they're all technically different. Then it leads to having xenos in your group and I really only feel that's appropriate in Rogue Trader. That's just me personally.

I'm not especially keen on the grounds that with the obvious exception of the Astartes, nearly all the groups are essentially humans. Maybe you class navigators as something different as ThenDoctor mentions, but the rest - even psykers - are not different species. They're just mutations.

And I kind of don't like introducing different racial stats within the same species. I think minor variations such as a group native to a particular Feral World, are already handled by the minor points adjustments. I imagine we'll see new Home Worlds for such things. After all, if "Highborn" is a Home World, all sorts of origins can be.

I think keep this back for Rogue Trader 2nd Ed., as ThenDoctor suggests. It's more appropriate for Xenos than humans. Astartes and Navigators are the only two that I can think of this working for and the latter I would think would be better handled as an Elite Advance.

I dont understand why you need the unusual characteristic.

Why not just give them +25 compared to regular charactets on theses attributes ?

So imstead of 2d10+25, they would get 2d10+50 for strength and toughness.

Perhaps I wasn't clear in my intent. I wish that there was a universal 40k system, rather than the current isolated systems (with limited intercompatibility). I'm not suggesting that we be able to create Astartes and Orks to join the Inquisition - I'm suggesting that I would like to run a Deathwatch (or, hell, run Imperial Fists) campaign. I would like to run an Ork Raiders In Space campaign.

Despite the compatibility problems that DH2 may or may not have (that's a separate discussion and I'd like to stay out of it here), one of its great strengths is the very modular structure with open-ended roles and free-floating talent trees. I think DH2 might be very easy to customize without having to do a lot of house-ruling (add on a new talent tree, but don't modify any existing rules).

My question is more along the lines of: Do you think an Astartes with a maximum Strength of, say, 130 is going to break the d100 system?

Do you think it's viable to shoe-horn in other races (including Xenos) with minor modifications (add new talent trees, roles, rules - but don't break or change existing rules)?

I think keep this back for Rogue Trader 2nd Ed., as ThenDoctor suggests. It's more appropriate for Xenos than humans. Astartes and Navigators are the only two that I can think of this working for and the latter I would think would be better handled as an Elite Advance.

Elite Advances might very well be the way to go. I felt that they were "off" because of the chronological order of things (you're an Ork before you're a Warrior), but mechanically it shouldn't make a difference, it fits in better with the current system, and it actually makes more sense in some cases (you were born and potentially had a background and a role before you became an Astartes).

I'll have a second look at doing this with Elite Advances.

I dont understand why you need the unusual characteristic.

Why not just give them +25 compared to regular charactets on theses attributes ?

So imstead of 2d10+25, they would get 2d10+50 for strength and toughness.

You're right that it doesn't make much sense with what I posted - it was a confusing way to list it.

The reason I had introduced it was because I was playing with an Ork template, where I had an idea that their Strength and Toughness would scale with their Influence (and had some other rules modifying their Influence gains and penalties). As such, I needed the trait to give a variable bonus that could change over time.

Since I didn't post the Ork profile, that wasn't very clear - sorry.

A universal system doesn't seem like a good idea to me. Better to make a system that focuses on a specific area and does that well than to make a jack of all trades, master of none, system.

A universal system doesn't seem like a good idea to me. Better to make a system that focuses on a specific area and does that well than to make a jack of all trades, master of none, system.

I...what?

Okay, sure. Deathwatch v2 is released, and once again we have a 40K RPG that cannot scale with a predecessor grounded in the same setting. Let's just start that ball rolling all over again, shall we?

Not.

While I do like the idea of a unified WH40kRP, so much that I'm slowly cobbling together my own, I do not think that differing species and races can, or should, exist on the same generalized scale.

Which is precisely why I'm leaving out Astartes and Xenos from my own generalized system, even if I may return to them later and create specific rules for them and their specific ways of progression.

I always thought it was a terrible idea in Black Crusade to have CSM and Humans side-by-side and expect that it wouldn't either break the generalized system it operated under, or break the suspension of disbelief ever-so-hard.

If you intend to make Astartes you need new roles. Space Marines start as scouts unless they're chapter is like the Black Templars or they're training to be a Librarian and even then they might still need to do scout duty if that's what the battle plan needs. Then they lern to be (I think in order) Devastators, Assaults and Tacticals but this might just mean "can use heavy weapons" and "can use jump pack" so just 2 talant they get when made Battle Brothers.

At this point you can start with Chaplains and the like.

The current system honestly isn't built with scaling in mind. Because it's a closed system where starting human PCs are already half way up the scale, any extraordinary creatures like Xenos and Astartes will have the issue that their statistics need to be way high, meaning the system starts to collapse very fast, like we've all seen in Deathwatch.

If this system was being created with scaling in mind, it'd need to either be an open ended system, or have human PCs start with MUCH lower stats.

I am not so sure the scaling wouldnt allow for even DW to be integrated.

I played convdrted houserules for about one year, where I converted both DH and DW into the same system. It was odd at first, but worked after some tweaks.

A space marine would start at values of around 40 on average on all characteristics beside strength & toughness which would be around 60. If we say they have also 10 ranks and may increase their characteristics the same way, they could get + 50 on their characteristics in max. So the highest average value would be 60+50 = 110.

No problem at all - if you look at the nurgle daemon stats you can also find values like that.

It just means that some tests are so easy for Space Marines that they do not need to roll. Difficult tests still have a chance of failure.

Weapons would be listed separately as Astartes weapons, also astartes power armour can be stated separately. Also no problem here.

If you make a couple of Astartes only traits and talents, this can also integrate it well.

The issue I have with super high characteristics is that, when you consider modifiers for skills, equipment, talents, etc, it's basically going to be a case of your Astartes characters passing every test they need to roll, automatically. Consider that a starting DH2e character can have characteristics as high as 45 (higher with divinations). That means, realistically, you'd be looking at bases of 50-60 for marines, and that's being generous. After a few thousand XP of advances, they'd quickly be broken as hell.

We should also consider Ratlings and Ogryns. I can't see a problem with Ratlings but Ogryns are stronger than Space Marines in TT.

The issue I have with super high characteristics is that, when you consider modifiers for skills, equipment, talents, etc, it's basically going to be a case of your Astartes characters passing every test they need to roll, automatically. Consider that a starting DH2e character can have characteristics as high as 45 (higher with divinations). That means, realistically, you'd be looking at bases of 50-60 for marines, and that's being generous. After a few thousand XP of advances, they'd quickly be broken as hell.

That's exactly the point that I'm curious about. Will it really be broken?

Let's say we have a Strength 150 Astartes - that's probably high, even for them.

They'll pass anything short of a -60 test automatically. But a -60 test is "Hellish" (or whatever they're called now) for a human . Why should it be hard for a superhuman? Astartes don't have problems lifting tires - they have problems lifting tanks. Lifting a tank should give more than a -60 mod.

Can't we just scale the difficulties? Extreme modifiers for extreme characters. Call lifting a car a -100 test and that Astartes isn't such a sure bet.

I don't think statistics beyond 100 necessarily mean that the system has failed. As GauntZero says, it just means that some tasks aren't a problem for a space marine, just as lifting a book shouldn't be a real issue for human PCs.

Combat might get a bit wonky if WS and BS get past 100 (actually, no more of a problem than for human PCs reaching 95, which is possible). Even then, I'm okay with the idea that some beings are just so incredibly good at aiming that they will never miss a static target. But if the target is just as good at evading (or has ridiculous toughness/armour to not care), then that still isn't an auto-wound. It just makes both combatants seem more capable.

EDIT: On second thought, the real kicker in combat would be 100+ stats for Evasion. That'd be horribly broken in the old editions, but with the new opposed test, even that isn't really an issue.

Scaling the modifiers is a fair point, actually. It'd mean that an Astartes+Humans campaign would never really work too spectacularly, but I've never really thought that it should anyway, honestly.

As for BS and WS, it could easily be handled by using appropriately statted enemies. A Howling Banshee's evade capabilities should make it easy to counter the absurd BS, assuming the stats are made with Space Marines in mind.