Just complementing the forum's collection of weird stuff.

The group to which I GM just showed up with a Kroot that wants to do acquisition checks for getting a Macro Hammer. I cannot describe how brainfecked I was when I realized that was feasible.

He rolled a 2 for the commerce test on locating it and I will GM a separate side quest to compensate for the inherent weirdness that simply having the Kroot rolling Acquisition to buy the hammer out of a shop stand would be. Obsidian Emporial has it, and is charging in "services" for it.

If you are wondering how he knows it exist, he saw holopics from the ship's ex-IG veterans and fell in love with it. The kroot being such a melee-focused, adaptative race, I couldn't deny him at least having the dream of having one.

Terrible

Traejun, you are the Womanizer Swashbuckler Cold Trading Seneschal in our game. Stop being such a hater.

Edit 1: You even asked the Kroot if he wanted you to roll for him.

Edit 2: fixed yer titles.

Traejun, you are the Swashbuckler Cold Trading Seneschal in our game. Stop being such a hater.

Lol lol guilty as charged. Don't forget womanizer. I'm that too.

If you think kroots with Macro Hammers are bad, try Kroots with Power Klaws

Terrible.

Fortunately Into The Storm does say that Kroot physiology is so weird that they make installing bionic limbs nearly impossible (a fact that would be mitigated by a MekDok believing that it would work), and that psychologically they would reject a power limb. I don't see why you couldn't just give them a Power Fist however.

Fortunately Into The Storm does say that Kroot physiology is so weird that they make installing bionic limbs nearly impossible (a fact that would be mitigated by a MekDok believing that it would work), and that psychologically they would reject a power limb. I don't see why you couldn't just give them a Power Fist however.

By the description Power Klaws can be taken as an augmentic, not must be taken as such so nothing stops a Kroot from wielding one much like he would a Power Fist

Is this going to be another "Traejun hates fun" thread?

Lol

Fortunately Into The Storm does say that Kroot physiology is so weird that they make installing bionic limbs nearly impossible (a fact that would be mitigated by a MekDok believing that it would work), and that psychologically they would reject a power limb. I don't see why you couldn't just give them a Power Fist however.

By the description Power Klaws can be taken as an augmentic, not must be taken as such so nothing stops a Kroot from wielding one much like he would a Power Fist

Allow me to mediate between the two of you.

Lightning Claws!

You are welcome.

Is this going to be another "Traejun hates fun" thread?

Exactly.

----

Anyhow, it would be a SHAME if the former owner of the macro hammer they acquired was still alive.

Fortunately Into The Storm does say that Kroot physiology is so weird that they make installing bionic limbs nearly impossible (a fact that would be mitigated by a MekDok believing that it would work), and that psychologically they would reject a power limb. I don't see why you couldn't just give them a Power Fist however.

By the description Power Klaws can be taken as an augmentic, not must be taken as such so nothing stops a Kroot from wielding one much like he would a Power Fist

Allow me to mediate between the two of you.

Lightning Claws!

You are welcome.

I was so happy when Lightning Claws were finally added in Faith and Coin.

You think that's bad I have an Ork player who got his hands on one at level 1 with an equally improbably roll, between toughness and armor he's mitigating up to 16 incoming damage and he deals about 18-25.

Xenos are broken as **** for player characters, Kroot are probably the least broken though.

You think that's bad I have an Ork player who got his hands on one at level 1 with an equally improbably roll, between toughness and armor he's mitigating up to 16 incoming damage and he deals about 18-25.

Xenos are broken as **** for player characters, Kroot are probably the least broken though.

How does he survive furious zealots wanting to burn the Xenos with their flame weapons?

Xenos are broken as **** for player characters, Kroot are probably the least broken though.

What exactly does a Xeno have that's better in combat than an Arch-Miltiant or Explorator (especially later in the game) ?

How does he survive furious zealots wanting to burn the Xenos with their flame weapons?

By being the RT's pet and having a brand that says he is, hanging around the group who protect him socially so that they can throw him at their enemies, and a semi-munchkin build that means anything that would flatten him would kill the rest of the party on it's way to him.

It's probably be more of a challenge if the players started heading deeper into the Imperium but Port Wander so far is as far as they tend to go into Imperial space. He wouldn't be the only one who would have trouble either, other party members include a Tech Priestess who'se so liberal in her worship and views that she almost slips into heretekal thinking, a (kinda) reformed Naval officer who was pressganged into a pirate crew and became a Reaver before escaping, and an Arch Militant who isn't actually an Imperial subject at all but rather the product of an unintentional colony world in the expanse and who has interacted non-violently with multiple xenos races.

What exactly does a Xeno have that's better in combat than an Arch-Miltiant or Explorator (especially later in the game) ?

Later in the game is a bit of a different story but early on they're pretty OP.

1.They're doomed socially and they know it so fellowship becomes a dump stat and the focus narrows toward becoming a combat monster. While everyone else is sidetracked trying to get the skills and charicteristics that will make them capable of winning a campaign the Xenos player just sits there collecting talents that let him rip faces off.

2. Each xenos race has at least one thing that only encourages the combat beastdom.

-Orks have Unnatural Toughness which makes them really unkillable as soon as they can get the characteristic past fifty which isn't hard. Glue some armor craps onto that squid hide or buy a custom fitted set of armor and pretty soon they're mitigating about fifteen incoming damage. Wheich means that alot of weapons like say lasguns CANNOT damage them.

-If Orks are the immovable objects of melee combat then Kroot are the unstoppable forces, as soon as they can get their hands on a power weapon of some sort and get their Strngth to over fifty they'll be one shotting major enemy characters.

-Dark Eldar if built properly will gain temporary fate points left and right so they'll be re-rolling every single failed reaction roll and thereby mitigating the glass part of their glass cannon nature.

That and the characters themselves tend to be extremely one dimensional, one thing I hear alot from people who want to play xenos much like people who like to play the stranger races in other RPGs is they think playing as a human is boring because humans are boring. The reality is that there are three human characters in my game thbat are far more interesting than our Ork is. The guy role plays the Ork well but Orks are dirt simple creatures and playing a stereotype means you don't end up bothing with things like complex backgrounds, complex motivations and individual world views. All of the characters in my game started life as pretty simplistic archetypes or blatant ripoffs of popular characters from other works, a year later and only the Ork still is and almost everyone else's character has grown into a distinct individual personality.

Well they're bones socially if they interact with Imperial humans, but that's not the only thing out there,

If I had an Ork or Kroot I would have lots of interaction with Orks and Kroot.

Later in the game is a bit of a different story but early on they're pretty OP.

1.They're doomed socially and they know it so fellowship becomes a dump stat and the focus narrows toward becoming a combat monster. While everyone else is sidetracked trying to get the skills and charicteristics that will make them capable of winning a campaign the Xenos player just sits there collecting talents that let him rip faces off.

2. Each xenos race has at least one thing that only encourages the combat beastdom.

-Orks have Unnatural Toughness which makes them really unkillable as soon as they can get the characteristic past fifty which isn't hard. Glue some armor craps onto that squid hide or buy a custom fitted set of armor and pretty soon they're mitigating about fifteen incoming damage. Wheich means that alot of weapons like say lasguns CANNOT damage them.

-If Orks are the immovable objects of melee combat then Kroot are the unstoppable forces, as soon as they can get their hands on a power weapon of some sort and get their Strngth to over fifty they'll be one shotting major enemy characters.

-Dark Eldar if built properly will gain temporary fate points left and right so they'll be re-rolling every single failed reaction roll and thereby mitigating the glass part of their glass cannon nature.

That and the characters themselves tend to be extremely one dimensional, one thing I hear alot from people who want to play xenos much like people who like to play the stranger races in other RPGs is they think playing as a human is boring because humans are boring. The reality is that there are three human characters in my game thbat are far more interesting than our Ork is. The guy role plays the Ork well but Orks are dirt simple creatures and playing a stereotype means you don't end up bothing with things like complex backgrounds, complex motivations and individual world views. All of the characters in my game started life as pretty simplistic archetypes or blatant ripoffs of popular characters from other works, a year later and only the Ork still is and almost everyone else's character has grown into a distinct individual personality.

1. Because that totally doesn't happen with human characters. IMO arch-militant has an advancement table a lot more geared toward becoming a combat monster and little else than any of the xeno classes.

2. In almost every class you can find at least one thing that only encourages combat beastdom. Combat is a big part of the game. I dare you to find out of combat uses for the arch-militant's special ability or ballistic mechadendrites:P It's also my experience that most xeno classes (apart from Wych, haven't seen one in play yet) bring more out of combat utility than an arch-militant.

-orks may get unnatural toughness, but without taking DH/DW material, their best armor has 4 AP. Any human character can start with power armor if they're so inclined. Putting them roughly on par with a starting ork as far as damage mitigation goes.

-unnatural str is good, but I've always felt ranged>melee in RT. Also, kroot don't really get that much support for melee beyond Unnatural Str. They get Swift&Lightning Attack for example a lot later than most other melee-focused classes.

-I wouldn't call 1 FP per 8 pain tokens 'left and right', but that has been my experience. I got to admit that Dark Eldar are frustratingly good at dodging though.

3. That mainly depends on the player IMO, and while it might be an Ork problem (orks do tend to have a pretty straightforward mindset/personality), I see nothing preventing a deep dark eldar/kroot/something else, especially in a campaign that features other xeno interaction than shoot on sight.

Well they're bones socially if they interact with Imperial humans, but that's not the only thing out there,

If I had an Ork or Kroot I would have lots of interaction with Orks and Kroot.

With Kroot yes definately, hell if I see a good oppertunity to integrate some Kroot NPCs/stories into my game I'll do it in a heartbeat even without having a Kroot player because Kroot are really cool. Although I'll do it without ever bringing up the Tau because they're lame and have never meshed with the universe very well IMO.

Similarly while I'm not a huge fan of Eldar personally I think tehy do have their appeal and I'd probably throw them in alot if I had an Eldar player. Although with an Eldar player I think the challenge is less interaction with the Eldar and more interaction with human players and NPCs. While God Emperor fearing humans may tolerate and even like Kroot in some cases, and in rare cases even tolerate an Ork if they're lulled into thinking he "knows his place" or is "under control" they're always going to mistrust Eldar to a degree that's functionally problematic and Eldar are only going to respond to that insecure fanatical racism with even more pompous fanatical racism.

I was a player in a campaign where a Dark Eldar kept helping us but I expected she'd probably betray or at least decieve us to some degree, and she did because of course she did. Thing is though that's still better than you can expect when dealing with Orks. You can try to deal with them any way you like, but they'll just attack you because if nothing else they want to tear your ship apart and use it to build a million offroad capible exploding mailboxes or whatever.

I told the guy at the start I wasn't going to build my campaign to pander to his choice to play an Ork, I stopped just short of begging him to play an Ogryn instead if he just wanted to be a big dumb violent character. He wanted Ork though so he can live with the complications that entails.

1. Because that totally doesn't happen with human characters. IMO arch-militant has an advancement table a lot more geared toward becoming a combat monster and little else than any of the xeno classes.

2. In almost every class you can find at least one thing that only encourages combat beastdom. Combat is a big part of the game. I dare you to find out of combat uses for the arch-militant's special ability or ballistic mechadendrites:P It's also my experience that most xeno classes (apart from Wych, haven't seen one in play yet) bring more out of combat utility than an arch-militant.

-orks may get unnatural toughness, but without taking DH/DW material, their best armor has 4 AP. Any human character can start with power armor if they're so inclined. Putting them roughly on par with a starting ork as far as damage mitigation goes.

-unnatural str is good, but I've always felt ranged>melee in RT. Also, kroot don't really get that much support for melee beyond Unnatural Str. They get Swift&Lightning Attack for example a lot later than most other melee-focused classes.

-I wouldn't call 1 FP per 8 pain tokens 'left and right', but that has been my experience. I got to admit that Dark Eldar are frustratingly good at dodging though.

3. That mainly depends on the player IMO, and while it might be an Ork problem (orks do tend to have a pretty straightforward mindset/personality), I see nothing preventing a deep dark eldar/kroot/something else, especially in a campaign that features other xeno interaction than shoot on sight.

1. Yeah but it happens gradually and logically as the character grows over time, it doesn't happen halfway through rank 1 after three moderately lucky aquisition rolls.

2. Wait how can any human start with power armor? Like how as a part of their initial character creation aquisition? Maybe if they get an extremely lucky roll but honestly power armor is at the top of the list of items that if a player told me they wanted to go for with that roll I'd tell them NO just because a level 1 character in power armor is offensively stupid in the sense that it leaves you nowhere to go. Why even bother playing if you're going to start with the best possible gear? The game is all about aquiring things why start where you have nowhere to go? As for fluff even the Noble Born homeworld doesn't give you power armor and that would probably be the single most logical place a starting character might get it.

As for Arch Militant yeah per Core Rulebook it's kind of a blah class, so that's why you grab one or two alternate ranks. It's kind of like Voidmaster in that sense it just screams for alternate ranks. As for Kroot I said earlier that of the xenos they're the best balanced so we're more or less in agreement about them.

3. Well in my circumstance I think it's a mixture of the two, Orks if played properly really aren't super complex or nuanced personalities and while I don't dislike the guy he's a frustrating player to deal with for a number of reasons mostly to do with attendance and not reading the godamn book.

1. Yeah but it happens gradually and logically as the character grows over time, it doesn't happen halfway through rank 1 after three moderately lucky aquisition rolls.

2. Wait how can any human start with power armor? Like how as a part of their initial character creation aquisition? Maybe if they get an extremely lucky roll but honestly power armor is at the top of the list of items that if a player told me they wanted to go for with that roll I'd tell them NO just because a level 1 character in power armor is offensively stupid in the sense that it leaves you nowhere to go. Why even bother playing if you're going to start with the best possible gear? The game is all about aquiring things why start where you have nowhere to go? As for fluff even the Noble Born homeworld doesn't give you power armor and that would probably be the single most logical place a starting character might get it.

As for Arch Militant yeah per Core Rulebook it's kind of a blah class, so that's why you grab one or two alternate ranks. It's kind of like Voidmaster in that sense it just screams for alternate ranks. As for Kroot I said earlier that of the xenos they're the best balanced so we're more or less in agreement about them.

3. Well in my circumstance I think it's a mixture of the two, Orks if played properly really aren't super complex or nuanced personalities and while I don't dislike the guy he's a frustrating player to deal with for a number of reasons mostly to do with attendance and not reading the godamn book.

1. That depends. A let's say storm bolter with organgrinder rounds is two acquisition checks to turn an Archmilitant (or any other character) into a combat monster. As a starting character your gear and then base stats and weapon trainings matter a whole lot more than the class itself

2. A starting character 'may choose a single item with a total Acquisition Modifier of +0 or more without the need to make an Acquisition Test' A single power armor fits that description (-30 for very rare, +30 for scale, which is explicitly included in 'total acquisition modifier', as per the example of pag. 271). It's of course your prerogative to disallow it (though I find an approach of 'you're rich enough to own a grand cruiser but not rich enough to own a power armor' kind of silly) in your games but the game most likely operates and is balanced around the assumption that a character can get power armor at game start if he so desires.

Wait what starting characters have both enough ship points to get a grand cruiser and enough PF to be likely to make that aquisition roll? Unless you roll both randomly and get extremely lucky you're probably going to get one or the other or neither based on the relevant table.

As for power armor being more valuable than a spaceship....um yeah in alot of cases it sort of is.. I mean not the baseline models no and not when compared to the better ships no but power armor is one of those things that's basically unnatainable unless you're as rich as the head of a subsector or are an Astartes and therefore entitled to a suit....and only AFTER spending about two decades getting bossed around by the Scout Leader. Also like I mentioned in another topicTerminator armor in particular is so valuable it's not really even attainable in RT.

You don't need PF because there's no roll. You get one item without an acquisition test and that's it, so even if you get worst possible PF (highly likely if you have the SP to get a grand cruiser) you can still get a power armor.

As for Terminator armor, not really sure there would be too many people who would use it in RT, from a mechanical standpoint. Terminator Armor offers 4 extra protection over power armor in both DH and DW in exchange for inability to dodge. It works in DW because Marines suck at dodging (Dodge +10 at rank 5, +20 at rank 8, no Step Aside etc.). Not so much in RT where almost all classes get Dodge +20 by rank 5 and there are IIRC alt ranks accessible by all classes to get Step Aside (and most likely Dodge +20 too). Exchanging your (usually great) ability to dodge for +4 armor would be a bad trade-off.

And from a RP standpoint no, I really don't buy it that power armor should be more prestigious than warships. Less return for inevstment, less associated with Rogue Traders? yes. But I completely disagree it's harder to obtain a suit of run of the mill power armor than even the lowliest frigate (and the rules reflect that). Power armor takes a lot less time, effort and most likely knowledge to build than a warship, and I'm willing to bet there are several orders of magnitude more suits of power armor than warships in the Imperium. Terminator armor is a different matter altogether (AFAIK they're only manufactured for the Astarters, and the only human-sized suits that I've come across are most likely custom built for Inquisitors and the like), and finding one sized for a normal human or somebody willing to build you one would probably go waaaay beyond the scope of an acquisition test.

Profit factor is sort of a nebulous concept but power armor is considered "very rare" which per Battlefleet Koronus is the same relative value of a good craftsmanship lance weapon. An object larger than a saturn v rocket that can punch holes clean through a ship's hull.

So yeah power armor is and should be stupidly expensive, and I think it has much less to do with the materials required to make it than it does with the fact that it would have to be (due to it's numerous systems and moving parts) an extremely complex piece of machinery and as I understand it every single suit it hand crafted more or less individually by tech priests who have spent their entire lives learning to make it. The Space Marine Codex also implies it needs hours of maintenance every few days at a minimum.

Owning a suit of Power Armor in 40K is much like owning your own 747 in real life, awesome but totally impractical for almost everyone.

Profit factor is sort of a nebulous concept but power armor is considered "very rare" which per Battlefleet Koronus is the same relative value of a good craftsmanship lance weapon. An object larger than a saturn v rocket that can punch holes clean through a ship's hull.

So yeah power armor is and should be stupidly expensive, and I think it has much less to do with the materials required to make it than it does with the fact that it would have to be (due to it's numerous systems and moving parts) an extremely complex piece of machinery and as I understand it every single suit it hand crafted more or less individually by tech priests who have spent their entire lives learning to make it. The Space Marine Codex also implies it needs hours of maintenance every few days at a minimum.

Owning a suit of Power Armor in 40K is much like owning your own 747 in real life, awesome but totally impractical for almost everyone.

Good thing Rouge Traders are far from 'almost everyone'

Owning a 747 in RL is out of the reach of 99% of world's population, but then so is owning and maintaining your own private nuclear submarine. This doesn't mean the two would be on the same scale.

The way I see it, for somebody who already has the resources to own, maintain, supply, crew and fly a ship (which might be as big as a Grand Cruiser or Battlecruiser), owing one or more suits of Power Armor isn't something very difficult to achieve.