Do you let players loot mechadendrites off of defeated enemies? This seems wrong to me on all kinds of levels, but there's no rule stating that you can't do it. The Tech-priest character in my campaign has tried to do this on two separate occasions, and he's perfectly capable of installing the looted cybernetics himself (he has a very good Medicae skill).

On the first, he encountered the site of a 20-year-old battle and the corpses of some augmented tech-priests who had died defending a ship's engine room. He removed some mechadendrites and installed them on himself ; I allowed him to do this but gave him some Corruption Points. To a follower of the Emperor, his act would be analogous to harvesting the organs of human soldiers who gave their lives in defense of a cathedral/holy site.

On the next occasion, the party had just defeated a heretical tech-priest, and the PC wanted to loot the BBEG's mechadendrites and other implants. In this case, I flat-out said no -- the BBEG was heavily augmented and looting him would propel the tech-priest far past the other players in terms of gear quality.

Have you encountered any similar situations in your games? If so, how did you handle them?

Of course! And I also let the bad guys l oot the mechadendrites and other cybernetics from the PC Techpriest . After all, turnabout is fair play

Oooh, the Tech-priest's player will NOT like that

In case #2, I had an actual in-game reason for disallowing the player from looting the heretical tech-priest. The BBEG had shot a couple holes in the armorglass windows of the orbital station control room where the final confrontation took place. The tech-priest had a void suit, but since he'd been run through with a combat servitor's chainaxe and nearly killed it wasn't airtight anymore. Rather than risk exploding in a hard vacuum while looting the BBEG, the party decided to book it and reach safety.

I haven't played my enemies very intelligently in the past but I'm starting to change that as the party advances in level. My players tend to behave VERY recklessly when bullets start flying, especially the close-combat specialist Assassin; heretics have many ways to harm such players

As a random aside, that particular BBEG will return in the future. PCs are not the only ones with Fate points

My players are hard-core looters (residue from learning gaming via D&D )- I try to discourage it without flatly forbidding it thru GM fiat, but nothing has really worked. With cybernetics, I point out that the principle value comes from the surgery to attach the cybernetic, and not so much from the hardware itself . Plus, the delicate interface between the nervous system and the cybernetic will almost certainly be destroyed if the cybernetic is removed by anyone other than a qualified expert, so hacking off limbs to 'sell in town' will most likely result in lugging around hunks of metal with no more than scrap value...

Gorglefack mydooglik.

Looting... in my groups, it really depends. Grabbing a few bullets and a gun from that Cultist you just killed? Hell, why not? That Plasma Gun the Arch-Heretic you stopped from Doomsday-devicing the planet? Yeah, take it with you, but you'd better tell your boss about it. Might well be something wrong with it, that'll come back to haunt you...

I also use contextual discouraging, like "nobody likes looters" or "you are on a tight schedule"

Oh, and with the mechandrites... let them steal them... remember, the enemies they kill are hereteks... might have some real dire consequences later

I played an AdMech who did that to a heretek once. Took a couple hours to properly remove the mechadendrites from the corpse, then time and money to "re-educate" and purify the machine spirits. And someone had to assist me in reattaching them to myself, in the end.

If you didn't want the players looting equipment which could make them too powerful then you shouldn't have given them the opportunity to loot it in the first place. Besides, if they actually managed to kill someone with something of this calibre they pretty much deserve to get a good upgrade. Why not just make opportunities for the other players to find bits of equipment relevant to their character? There are many ways to get around "problems" without railroading the players away from their ability to impact the game and/or characters.

Edit: Forgot to mention a time where this happened to me

I was playing Exalted many months ago under the pretext that there is both sci-fi and fantasy in the game. It turned out to pretty much be a lie, but oh well, I'm still having some fun at least with my uber archer. GM throws this guy at us who somehow had power armour and a plasma gun when previously everything was very 12th century Europe, so I narrowly slaid him (after multiple attempts and GM retcon following a TPK) and went to loot his sweet armour and gun. I was a ranged combatant, so it made sense for me to have the equipment of another ranged fightr. GM decided that I was too powerful and had my closest allied NPC steal it in the night. We never really did manage to upgrade past our starting gear. I mean, we did manage to round out what we had, but he only ever allowed us to keep low to medium level equipment for any real length of time.

GM doesn't have a player base anymore.

I would say that according to Mechanicus doctrine mechadendrites are not some kind of piece of gear. They are part of your body, your True Flesh, an expression that is not meant figuratively. Looting a mechandendrite is no different from yanking off someone's arm and attaching it to your body, which as well as being repulsive is probably heresy.

(Hmmm, are there organ transplants in 40K?)

Anyway in general I think looting breaks the setting and mood and is a horrible idea.

Basically, dump them with a *ton* of corruption and some other obstacles if they do something so scummy

Anyway in general I think looting breaks the setting and mood and is a horrible idea.

Then the game should have a better gear system than "everything good is too expensive for you to ever legitimately afford."

Anyway in general I think looting breaks the setting and mood and is a horrible idea.

Then the game should have a better gear system than "everything good is too expensive for you to ever legitimately afford."

As I wrote in another thread, Dark Heresy was originally designed as Space Call of Cthulhu, sort of.

You're not supposed to have good stuff.

Or rather, you're supposed to find it, just so the GM can take it away from you! MUHAHAHAHAHAHHAAAA!

Anyway in general I think looting breaks the setting and mood and is a horrible idea.

Then the game should have a better gear system than "everything good is too expensive for you to ever legitimately afford."

As I wrote in another thread, Dark Heresy was originally designed as Space Call of Cthulhu, sort of.

You're not supposed to have good stuff.

I don't buy into the idea of printing stats in player-books for good gear if it's never feasible for them to get it.

My issue with looting is not based on the power level of the looted equipment- of course I don't give NPCs anything that I wouldn't want the PCs to have- it's the disruption of 'suspension of disbelief' that results when they try to 'cash in' their loot, D&D -style. Whenever they are looking for a place to hawk used armour, it takes all of my willpower not to say "Seek ye a dwarven smythee? Dost ye desire payment in Electrum Pieces, mayhap?"

Coins should not be a principle determinant of PC power level in the 40Kverse. This is one of the things I'm most looking forward to with DH2 : good-bye to coins!

Looting a mechandendrite is no different from yanking off someone's arm and attaching it to your body, which as well as being repulsive is probably heresy.

You're forgetting that this is a universe where valued servants are converted into servo-skulls upon their death, underperforming "menials" are converted into servitors, and they actually make rations from dead human bodies. It'd probably be more of a sin to let such technology go to waste (barring tech-heresy/corruption obviously).

My issue with looting is not based on the power level of the looted equipment- of course I don't give PCs anything that I wouldn't want the PCs to have- it's the disruption of 'suspension of disbelief' that results when they try to 'cash in' their loot, D&D -style. Whenever they are looking for a place to hawk used armour, it takes all of my willpower not to say "Seek ye a dwarven smythee? Dost ye desire payment in Electrum Pieces, mayhap?"

Coins should not be a principle determinant of PC power level in the 40Kverse. This is one of the things I'm most looking forward to with DH2 : good-bye to coins!

Wealth IS power, in any universe. Equipment, hirelings/mercs, greased palms, etc etc. In any universe I've ever read about/played in/lived in (real life), if you've got valuable stuff you don't need, and you need money, you find a place to hock said stuff.

Now, we can argue from a fluff standpoint whether agents of the inquisition should really need to be scrounging around for cash instead of being issued top-of-the-line gear to accomplish their objectives (at least once they've done enough to not be considered mouth breathers)...

Absolutely! When you "buy" a mechadendrite, or a bionic limb, don't think that it's likely to come from the factory line! No sir! Just like the armours of the Space Marines have served the chapter for millennia, all the brothers having worn it carving their names on it as time goes by, these wonders of technology have spirits of their own and have probably served many people before you.

Perhaps they even retain some of their quirks and mannerisms.

Makes me think of a hilarious and somewhat inappropriate scene where a bionic arm might just snap to attention or extend a "sieg heil" whenever someone with high leather boots and a snazzy uniform walks by

You're forgetting that this is a universe where valued servants are converted into servo-skulls upon their death, underperforming "menials" are converted into servitors, and they actually make rations from dead human bodies. It'd probably be more of a sin to let such technology go to waste (barring tech-heresy/corruption obviously).

This is Holy Flesh of the Omnissiah, the True Flesh. Not technology. Technology in our sense doesn't exist in the minds of people in 40K, actually.

It is literally the same as grafting somebody else's arm onto you.

What you let a a player do that? It's technologically possible.

If anyone has the right to decide whether or not to graft the Holy Flesh of the Omnissiah onto themselves, it's Tech-Priests.

Wasting technology is a sin, in that sense.