Black Crusade

I don't know how many of you have access to this book but I have been leaning to for weeks changing things up and using if at the very least the weapon systems from that book. Psyker powers have been changed and balanced, as has a lot of other things. I'd like your opinions though as I consider intergrating more of those rules in. You guys haven't dealt yet with too many things with Unnatural Attributes and that is the first rule I'm considering bringing over. Allow me to explain:

In Rogue Trader, an unnatural ability confers a x2 to the AB. This means that if you have a ST of 40 and managed to get Unnatural Strength, you now have a AB of 8. That benefits your weapon damage in melee. This gets crazy when you consider Toughness. Say you are fighting an Ork with Unnatural Toughness x2 and its toughness is 50. That means that it has a Toughness Bonus of 10. Translating that into game mechanics, you would minus its Armor then TB of 10 from any damage.

Black Crusade on the other hand, handles it quite a bit differently. When you get Unnatural Attributes in there, it merely adds the number of Unnatural Attributes to the AB. As the Example above, Unnatural Strength adds +2 so then its only a Strength Bonus of 6.

This is going to sound mean, but this change is almost always meant to nerf the PCs but it does have the benefit of leveling it down on the NPCs too. Most of the time. So there you have it, the first rule topic from Black Crusade.

Weapons are a little more balanced over all, but the on going RT books are still going to be set in the old ways. The unnatural stat change does stop some abuse by the players, but like you said in most ways it does not stop NPCs. Most badies have been adjusted to have the same stats. Black Crusade's new rules stops mainly Power Fist (x2 ST), and unnatural ST (x2). It's the easiest to do with a Tech Preist. In the faq that would end up being x3 tho, but there are other ways of abuse. It's really a minor change....unless you're dealing with followers, as it gimps them badly for unnatural stats.

As another example. If Saint has the Mark of Slaanesh in RT he would have a Fellowship bonus of 12 (6x2), in BC he would have a bonus of 8 (6+2). 4 point differance. Not so bad for Fel as nothing really uses the bonus, but say I was a Navagtor with Stacking the Deck and Unnatural Int, that would end up as +60 to manuver or BS (12x5) or +40 to manuver and BS (8x5).

Also Psyhic Scream is a broken power and needed some balance. =P Not the most broken thing I've seen a Pyker do tho, that would be swinging a Witch Blade around with their mind. That's telekinesis Kyle.

Saint wrote:Weapons are a little more balanced over all, but the on going RT books are still going to be set in the old ways. The unnatural stat change does stop some abuse by the players, but like you said in most ways it does not stop NPCs. Most badies have been adjusted to have the same stats. Black Crusade's new rules stops mainly Power Fist (x2 ST), and unnatural ST (x2). It's the easiest to do with a Tech Preist. In the faq that would end up being x3 tho, but there are other ways of abuse. It's really a minor change....unless you're dealing with followers, as it gimps them badly for unnatural stats.

I just want to get things in place before I start having players trying to get mutations.

Saint wrote:As another example. If Saint has the Mark of Slaanesh in RT he would have a Fellowship bonus of 12 (6x2), in BC he would have a bonus of 8 (6+2). 4 point differance. Not so bad for Fel as nothing really uses the bonus, but say I was a Navagtor with Stacking the Deck and Unnatural Int, that would end up as +60 to manuver or BS (12x5) or +40 to manuver and BS (8x5).

I love the example you used here... Its as if you're trying to warn us. I agree though that it's Int, Tough and Strength that quickly get out of hand. Again, generally speaking these serve to limit the players. HOWEVER, one big positive I can see is this. We've talked about how it gimps your Ability Bonus but then, I wouldn't be so against the idea of allowing Unnatural Characteristics if it wasn't so overpowering. Lets go with the example of Intelligence you used above. INT AB of 5 with RAW Unnatural means AB 10 with a +1 DoS IF the test succeeds. Now if we allowed it to be purchased up to +4, that would be +2 DoS only resulting with an AB 9.

Saint wrote:Also Psyhic Scream is a broken power and needed some balance. =P Not the most broken thing I've seen a Pyker do tho, that would be swinging a Witch Blade around with their mind. That's telekinesis Kyle.

How many of the powers should we be open to allowing though?

The only issue is that BC does not cover all the RT powers with the new manifest modifiers. BC only covers the baseline Psy powers.

Excellent point. It would be a great deal of work but will it be worth it to balance out the system? As it stands, I definitely think it is worth it to bring over the weapon systems. When we decide to go that way, I'll have to meet with each player to change out weapon stats.