Force Storm

By bogi_khaosa, in Black Crusade

There was no point to make. It's a trivial test. If he can't reasonably fail it, no need to test it. It's the same reason you don't need to test Toughness for breathing or Agility for getting your bottle of drink to your mouth.

Agility for getting your bottle of drink to your mouth.

This can be failed. I've seen it done ;)

Consider Force Storm with Aegis of Euphadros... Blasting Titans in one round ;)

This relies hevaily on Warp Weapon affecting vehicles -- something that is not really spelled out.

Warp Weapon ignores armor, melts right through it... And if it isnt spelled out that it does not affect vehicles, then the assumption is that it does affect vehicles. Still have to deal with the Void Shields, which takes like 3 hits or some such.

Why? Because, at least in everything that comes to mind atm, if something is unaffected by something it is always spelled out in the description of the trait, quality, talent etc. Like some psychic powers not affecting Machine, Deamons etc - Bloodboil for example...

So yes, Force Storm + Aegis of Euphadros flattens titans in short order. Also the only way to approach Alpha level stuff flavor-wise in the game. Abusers should be punished though.

There have been numerous disputes on these forums about the Warp Weapon vs. vehicles issue, and also the related issues of Force Weapons vs. vehicles. (BC doesn't have rules for vehicles to begin with, so we have to assume rules for other games.)

The problem with Warp Weapon vs. vehicles is that the armour on a vehicle may very well be thicker than the weapon attacking it is long (admittedly this is an issue with melee weapons mainly) and so the Warp Weapon quality should be irrelevant. Your Warp Weapon knife can't get anywhere near anything that matters in the vehicle to begin with.

BTW if Void Shields work approximately as fields do (see this is something that isn't spelled out) you will not be able to take one down with 3 hits, or any number of hits, because they affect attacks, not hits. Your Force Storm will take down the first Void Shield and stop.

Edited by bogi_khaosa

Traditionally in the TT, Force Weapons have not affected vehicles. At least since 3e; does anyone who has better than my fuzzy recollection of 2e and earlier know any different?

Warp Weapons? Who the heck knows. Some of them (like Impossibly Sharp) should probably cut through vehicle armor. Others, like the weapons that are just supposed to damage your opponent's soul, might not work. Case by case?

If Force Weapons don't affect vehicles (which I agree makes no sense -- what is the Opposed Willpower check against?), should they affect Necrons and other roboty things?

Well, Necrons aren't vehicles, now are they.

Indeed they have spirits - and a Willpower, so I'd argue Force Weapons work just fine against them

They're machines, which is the same thing as a vehicle in this respect. Albeit yes though they have no souls they have a vaguely defined "spirit." Right?

But then what about wraiths and such? Tau Drones? They have a Willpower stat but no soul or mind, really. They are explicity robots.

Edited by bogi_khaosa

Tau Drones have a mind, just no soul. Kind of like Necrons, I'd think.

They have sophisticated moving bits that process information. They're computers. Do Force Weapons attack that?

BTW they should also affect Land Raiders if this is the case, esp. because LRs have actual organic parts.

At least formerly Necrons had a "spirit," I think. Or am misremembering something?

I am fuzzy as to whether or not Necrons have souls. I mean, at one point the C'tan were eating them, but I'm not sure if they still have them.

Good point about the Land Raider. The most accurate source to go to would probably be the old GW Rogue Trader rulebooks, as that's where force weapons come from IIRC. Mine are in storage so I can't check as to whether or not they affected vehicles back then.

Just checked it, in RT Force Weapons worked just fine against vehicles...

The question is how to translit this. vehicles don't have a Willpower score, and an Opposed Test vs. WP0 doesn't seem right...

To be fair, that was back before you had the pseudo-psychic power insta-kill on the force weapons.

I don't think anyone is arguing that the force weapon + psy rating to pen and damage shnouldn't work against vehicles.

Specifically regarding the Titan example: Anyone who doesn't Ward a machine that expensive against warp attacks deserves what he gets.

Considering Void Shields, I was referring to the existing rules for Titans, in the only W40k RPG that has em... Ie Deathwatch if I remember correctly. There each layer of Void Shield absorbed a set amount of dmg each turn, think it was 40 or 50. Now a Titan has a few layers of Void Shields, depending on make and model. So yes, Force Storm with Aegis flattens em pretty fast.

And then we can go to the closest thing in BC, The Auruntaur(or some such) in Tome of Fate, or that Slaaneshi daemon engine in Tome of Excess, or that badass Daemon Engine in Tome of Blood. All of those are mentioned to be almost Titan size anyway and a Force Storm + Aegis would flatten them in an instant.

And with regards to Force Weapons vs Vehicles, against normal vehicles no extra dmg test possible. Against daemon engines, sure thing. Granted the bonus to dmg and Pen from Psy-Rating would still be there, since that is a "sharpening" effect IMO.

On the other hand, one could rule that the Force effect is just a massive amount of killing energy being released, in which case it would work against vehicles and other soulless thinga'ma'bobs... And not something that cuts the spirit of the target...

But then again, in most RPGs we have to live with slight inconsistencies like this. DnD Halfling Rogue with daggers vs Dragon and Backstabs, rules-wise perfectly legal - does it make sense, hells no. Friend of mine killed an Ancient Dragon that way, granted if I was GM it would never have happened.

//Necrons are completely soulless. They are machines pure and simple, sometimes sentient and all that jazz, but still machines. Its partially why the Ad-Mech considers them such abominations, no "Machine-Spirit". All their souls were munched by the C'tan during the Biotransference. Actually they used to be even more soulless than that back in 3rd edition, they were back then basically the inventors of the Pariah gene.

It doesn't flatten them. (Well it might, but it is not clearly stated how they work.)

What it says is that the void shield stays up until it is brought down.

It does _not_ say that excess damage from the attack goes through past it (which is exactly how force fields function, since they block _attacks_ and not _hits_. If you hit a force field with a full auto burst, if you Overload it, some of the shots do not fly through and hit the target).

In other words, your Force Storm will blast the shield and overload it.

Then you have to fire another Force Storm to overload the second shield.

Only THEN can you attack the Titan itself.

(Which BTW is how ship void shields function in Rogue Trader as well, which is why I am pretty sure about this.)

BTW Khorne Daemon Engines are immune to psychic powers, period.

Edited by bogi_khaosa

Actually Void Shields discounts hits, and since Force Storm does multiple hits... 1-2 hits per layer of Void Shield. And that is how it works in RT as well.

Macrocannons are capable of multiple hits up to their Strength number, and if you put in a good Broadside you might smash through every layer of Void Shield. Say you get in 3 hits with one Macrobattery/Broadside and the ship you're firing on has Void Shields with rating 2, one hit still gets through to do dmg. And every other weapon your vessel fires that same turn will also go through. Just check the example on p.221 Rogue Trader Core.

Granted, the dmg from hits on that hits the Void Shield does not carry over. So for example one hit does 37 dmg and the next does 35 - enough to collapse the first layer in total. Then the next layer takes 1 or 2 more hits. If you fire a Force Storm with 10 hits, thats still 6 hits that go straight through - with Warp Weapon that would be some major dmg on said Titan, with Psy Rating 10 190-250 dmg.

Yeh those Khorne machines are imba that way... Argument still valid though vs the rest of the Titanesque Daemon Engines.

Ie hits are not totalled for dmg... A full auto burst of four hits counts as four individual attacks when it comes to dmg.

Unless it's a Macrocannon, but even then it is after counting away hits for Void Shields...

Time for a minor necro.

For vehicles, I'd just judge that half the PR applies to the Force Weapon for the purpouse of resolving the attack. For warded vehicles (as most Imperial or chaos vehicles above a certain value or application would no doubt be), I'd assign a Willpower value based on the intricacies of the ward, again for the purpose of resolving the attack.

However, was there a consensus on how to effectively solve the issues of Psychic Barrages and Psychic Storms ? Or should one simply nerf the amount of damage powers that are classified as these do?

There's nothing wrong with Barrages/Storms. It's damage scaling that becomes the issue. As evident in Force Storm.

There's nothing wrong with Barrages/Storms. It's damage scaling that becomes the issue. As evident in Force Storm.

So, nerf individual powers then, I presume?

Force Storms are mighty. Yes, you could argue that they scale faster than any other psypower but that is just a nuisance.

In the end Psykers are intended to be powerfull. In fact overpowered by fluff. That is what they are about - being overpowered. If you, as a GM allow a psyker to be part of the group my opinion is that you accepted one character to become overpowered. He has the dangers of his powers though when he becomes stronger they get for some powers neglectable. That is also part of being a psyker. The stronger you get the more reliable you are.

I as a GM hence only allow a Psyker after the group agreed that he will most likely outshine the others in some or more ways. Also I do only allow them if the campaign wont affected by him to a degree where it would be broken.

Nerfing some powers makes no sense for me. What do you target with the Nerf? That his power is now only as powerful as a heavy bolter though his psy-rating of 5-6 shows a quite decent and powerful being? We are speaking about the psykers, the WH40k epitome of a "Wizard" that basically also "cheats" in fluff constantly.