What happens when you mix 40k, Mekton, and Arthur Rex? No idea, but I kinda want to find out.
I'm looking for others with the same curiosity. Right now I'm prepping a rule set based off of [Chivalry Intensifies], which itself is a ruleset for the Only War 40k RPG that lets players take control of Knight Titans. I want to give people the opportunity to design and field their own warmachines in a very, very 40k-like (read: 40k) setting.
For those who aren't familiar with them: Knight Titans are 30ft tall, one-man death machines piloted by the equivalent of feudal lords who have taken to the stars on grand crusades in the name of their God-Emperor. I think it's cool as hell, but I also want to include certain elements of creativity that are usually found in mecha campaigns. To that end I'm working ad hoc-ing creation rules from Mekton Z. I have about 2-3 months of material for a homebrew campaign prepped as well.
What I want to know is if people want to play something like this. Is there interest? What do you want to see from the rules? Do you like the original knights and hate that I want to change them? Do you love the original knights and love that I want to change them? Hate space? Hate knights? Speak and be heard! I want to hear any and all questions and comments or shouts for me to get on with the game already.
Hell yeah! That sounds cool as hell!
That sounds amazing. I love 40k, I love mecha, I love the imperial knights.
Uhm, this sounds perfect.
As soon as you told me about the Knight Titans when I was creating my Devastator for your other 40k game, I wanted to be one so badly.
Count me in!
Edit: what would be even cooler would be if you incorporated some (read: just a few) Pathfinder/D&D classics into the game as enemies as well. That great wyrm red dragon razing your village? Got ya covered. Stuff like that.
There can be space dragons, sure. We can do that. That's suitably knightly.
Are people more interested in using the normal marks of knight titan or would everyone like to make their own?
Playing as glorious space knights is always excellent. I'd like to (even if using normal knight titans) see the ability to upgrade and/or customize our mechs. Depending on how much you are looking to change the knights I'd prefer completely custom (or some common base that we all build off of if we are trying to keep the Imperium motif together.)
Both sets of the normal knight titans and customization rock. They're the right size for Battletech style play without the 200 foot tall Imperium Castle titans crushing buildings as they walk.
So color me interested.
This sounds pretty awesome. And customization always seems to make much games better. What kind of robot jockey in their right mind WOULDN'T want to customize and fine tune their several hundred tons of ceramite and adamantium?
Alright, that's a good chunk of interested peoples. I'll start getting together the player's handbook. I'd say a conservative estimate is to expect an update within a week if no one has any other questions. Fortunately for me there's a lot of ctrl+c/ctrl+v involved. I can provide some preliminary information to give people an idea of what it'll be like:
“‘I will uphold the honour of my house, our brotherhood gives me strength. I will show no mercy to my foes, none shall withstand my fury. I will defend the sanctity of Sacred Mountain, no enemy shall tread Alaric Prime unpunished. I will never forsake my oath, only in death does duty end.” – House Degallios Oath of Becoming
STARTING APTITUDES, TALENTS, AND MODIFIERS
Characteristic Bonus: +5 WS or BS, +5 WP
Starting Aptitudes: Weapon skill, Ballistic, Skill, Willpower, Offence, Finesse, Fellowship, Agility, Social
Starting Skills: Awareness, Parry, Command, Scholastic Lore (Heraldry), Scholastic Lore (Knight Houses), Linguistics (High Gothic), Charm or Deceive
Starting Talents: Lightning Reflexes, Weapon-training(Low-tech, SP, Las), Sure Strike or Called Shot
Starting Traits: Rite of Becoming
Specialist Equipment: 1 pistol class weapon up to Very Rare availability, 1 melee weapon up to Very rare availability, Scion Armored Bodyglove, House Attire, Personal mementos and trinkets, 1d5+FB Retainers
Descendants of the defenders of mankinds earliest colonists, the noble Scions of the Imperiums Knight Houses are set apart from all other nobility in its vast realm. They and they alone have the birthright to ride Knight Armours into battle, enormous walking warmachines capable of destroying super-heavy tanks or slaying gargantuan monsters with a single strike from their Reaper Chainswords, dwarfed only in power by the Titans of the Collegia Titanica. Despite being hot-blooded chivalric warriors, Knight Houses are centered around the drudgery of their courtly life when not in combat. An endless repetition of tradition, ritual and courtly intrigue which drives many Scions to find any excuse to don their Armours and take to the field. However, the power of their traditions should not be ignored. It is what has kept the Knight Houses alive since before the dawning of the Imperium and the augmentation received in the Rite of Becoming enforces the importance of chivalric ideas, tradition and duty within the mind of a Scion. This rite also enforces the dominant traits of a Scions already existing personality and gives them an endless ambition, driving them to compete and outdo each other in every field. This, alongside their duties to further their House leads to endless plots and intrigue within and between Knight Houses, other Houses of Nobility within the Imperium and its institutions and conflicts in the shadows using catspaws and very rarely, open conflict between Knight Houses themselves. Most often this is handled by the Scions consort, who easily become masters or mistresses of intrigue, as the chivalric honor of a Scion often rails against such subterfuge. But it would be a foolish Scion who does not understand that all battles cannot be settled by the strike of a Reaper or blast of a Thermal cannon. Some Scions however find this existence intolerable, are cast out of their House due to some shame or are the last survivors of a fallen House and wander alone. These knightly Scions are known as Freeblades, Imperial Knights who travel the stars with a small coterie of Sacristans and retainers taking up whatever causes they like and joining what campaigns they will as lone wandering heroes of legend.
Interested. Would we need the Chivalry Intensifies book to play?
I don't think I can endorse it because it has some naughty language compared to what normally flies around the boards. I'll be transcribing all that you'll need as I go.
Would there be a mix of in and out of mech action, or is this more in line with actual 40k where if Knights have been called in it's not likely a scenario where you'll be leaving the mech.
Action wise almost all foreseeable combat will be done in the mechs. Intrigue and RP are what happens outside of the titans.
Do we need the Only War RPG book to play? I'm not familiar with the newer FFG system, so I just wanted to confirm. I can get it without issue.
Yes, we'll be using Only War
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I have Only War but can I ask where it actually lists the stats for Knight Titans?
Ever since I backed the kickstarter for the latest battletech game I've been DYING for some hot armored combat death robot action, so I'll throw in for this!
Mind you, there was a comment about customizing, and, yes, if that can at all be on the table, that would be very very very great to have. =) (If everyone just is driving the same robot, it would just feel too much like...1st edition AD&D fighters. *shiver* Ugh.)
@Atlas2112 - Knights aren't in Only War. Google "Chivalry Intensifies"
I wonder if the Knight's power supply is capable enough of running a Graviton Cannon...
Quick update. I've put together tables for construction of the Titan's body and have begun working on weapon creation. Progress with that is slow, as I'm having a hard time pinning down an appropriate range of damage that should be available. If there's anyone here with some experience with Mekton Z I'd love some suggestions.
Mekton Z with the advanced guide, or Mekton Zeta Plus?
Z+
Well based on the setup of 40K, Imperial Knights are the size of tanks, and not considered war machine scale or Titan scale. A standard battle cannon is a 120 mm smoothbore, which equals out based on the old Mekton Zeta rules around 4K of damage, with the properties Ammo dependent and Armor Piercing. So you're probably looking at weapon ranges in the Kill scale, along with the Warhound Titan probably having Corvette Scale (tens of kills) with units like the the Tyranid's Bio Titan and the Stormsword/Blade/Hammer/Super Heavy Tank with an awesome but cheesy name being on that same scale. Or, if you want to avoid that, make the Knights middle of the scale with 6 to 8 K weapons and armor, with the Titans having 10 to 12 K and the big ones corvette scale.
My problem lies more in figuring out the conversion rate. How much is 1 kill of damage in terms of Only War?
1 kill of damage in terms of only war is equal to 10 points of damage in the Mekton rules. Humans usually have 1 to 10 hp of damage in a mekton game they can survive, with things like power armor adding HP and then anti-personnel weapons doing damage in hits, then kills with heavier weapons. 1 kill weapons are things like light machine guns, or light laser weapons, or small rockets.
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Hi there!
I have no idea what you're talking about, but sometimes numbers can answer themselves. =)
If we're equating a 120mm cannon with 4K, and a RF Battlecannon does 3d10+10 Pen 8, then we could, theoretically, add those numbers up (5.5+5.5+5.5+10=26.5) then add the Pen 8 (because most things we'll be shooting at will probably use that all) which gives us 34.5. Dividing that would gives us 8.63 = 1K.
Or we could just round it out to 10. =)
Just throwing some numbers around. =)
In Mekton Zeta Plus, there are 4 scales of combat. HP or life points, Kills, Corvette Kills, and Starship kills. Each one = 10 of the last. So a 4K cannon does 40 pts of damage to a person, who at the highest end has 10 Hp before things like body armor. Atlas's scale is a good start. I would need to see the system FFG is using to come up with a decent conversion. A high end mecha weapon would do 10K, not counting special abilities like armor-piercing, shock, yada, yada.
That brings up a good point Atlas. What should the fraction of Pen be? 10-to-1 for damage is a nice, clean ratio for damage but Pen isn't included. If we just add Pen to that ration then we're buffing the damage.
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I'm sure I haven't played 40K as much as you guys, but for the bit I did play, it seemed that almost everything we shot at had more armor than we had Pen. ^_^ Hence, to add it straight to damage amount, doesn't seem a huge stretch.
I mean, it's your campaign so of course you'll have better access to the numbers than I would, but just to take an example, the mighty mighty RF cannon we've been talking about only has a Pen of 8, but even the lowly Tyranid warrior has 8 armor (on all locations). Hence, the Pen 8 translates directly to +8 damage.
If we really wanted to get into the deep math numbers, we could have a direct inclusion up to a cap (say, +10) and then only have Pen beyond that included at a lesser ratio (like one-half or somesuch.)
Obviously, though, pen only applies when armor is factored in. Too much pen against an unarmored target and all of that extra damage goes to waste.
So if players are being allowed to create their own weapons using MZ+ it's important for me to know where to factor Pen in.
I need to look at both rules set to make a difference. Is there a basic download of Only War playtest somewhere?
On the character creation side, how would you like us to do starting characteristics? Point buy? Are you thinking we'll be from the same Household, or should we each make a household with the Only War and Chivalry Intensifies rulesets?
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And how interested are you in the non-mecha side of things? It sounds like you're ready for some GoT-esque political backstabbing, but what about economics? Logistics? Would it be possible to invest in wealth creation and take along a pack of anti-armor infantry? (not unlike a noble might surround himself with lackeys and hirelings. =)
I need to look at both rules set to make a difference. Is there a basic download of Only War playtest somewhere?
Search google for the "Eleventh Hour" web adventure. As far as I'm aware it can be obtained for free legally. It has some basic rule summaries in it.
On the character creation side, how would you like us to do starting characteristics? Point buy? Are you thinking we'll be from the same Household, or should we each make a household with the Only War and Chivalry Intensifies rulesets?
I'll probably be using pt buy for generating Characteristics.
The adventure I have prepped assumes everyone will be a Freeblade at the start of it. If you wanted to create a House of your own I can provide the necessary information. If everyone wanted to be from the same house that's also something we can look at.
And how interested are you in the non-mecha side of things? It sounds like you're ready for some GoT-esque political backstabbing, but what about economics? Logistics? Would it be possible to invest in wealth creation and take along a pack of anti-armor infantry? (not unlike a noble might surround himself with lackeys and hirelings. =)
Only War abstracts economics and logistics, so they'll be present but there won't be a huge amount to manage. CP will be something to consider when upgrading/repairing knights. You're also free to invest some resources into recruiting some men-at-arms type folk but you should know that they wouldn't be able to bring the kind of firepower to the field that would influence fights on your end. Knights in this specific ruleset are the equivalent of a super-heavy unit.
What is a Knight without his squire? His retainers? His waifu? A scoundrel and a peasant, that’s what and that’s terrible. Sacristans especially are important, because they are what keeps a Knight Armour functioning and repairs the damage it sustains in battle. His retainers can be anyone from Men-At-Arms who support him in battle and guard him while he sleeps, who in turn can be anyone from mercenaries to House troops, to advisors, minstrels, Ministorum Priests and etc. The consort is his trusted lover, advisor and who can be invaluable as a political marriage and is the primary weapon of intrigue you have, as that sort of thing is beneath a true Imperial Knight. Basically, these people should almost always be with a Scion and be as dear to him as his Knight Armour and opens for excellent roleplaying opportunities. Especially as part of a larger household in a group of Imperial Knights the party would play as. I personally see these as an important part of an Imperial Knight game and I would advise against not having them around.