D&D 5E Warhammer 40k D&D 5E Hack - Heresy for the God-Emperor

[Mike Myler]

Stoked for Wrath & Glory and can't wait for the new Warhammer 40,000 RPG? Want to get your D&D group to try Dark Heresy, Deathwatch, Rogue Trader, Black Crusade, or Only War and they are afraid to make the jump?


This is for you.



Expect a weekly post with more new rules but for today, here's the races, backgrounds, and general rules (including headshots) for Warhammer 40k D&D 5E!

 

[Mike Myler]

I've forgotten to update this thread but the series has carried on! We have finally caught up to my backlog and from here on out it's monster statblocks every week for the Warhammer 40k D&D 5E Hack!

Last week I got more into the whole “reskin statblocks” bit for xenos and standard NPCs (along with some Space Marine statblocks) and today got back into the technology side of things. Plus a Librarian for good measure.

What are those first 10 hack posts about? Stuff for players!

First post general rules, the Corruption ability score, new skills, a hit selection system, races, character backgrounds, the psyker feat.
Second post the (shared) Resources party attribute, the Lucky Bastard feat, new martial weapons, new ranged weapons, new extremis weapons, power armor
Third post Apothecary monk archetype, Chaplains, and the Imperial Guard Veteran archetype
Fourth post Assault space marine barbarian archetype and the Imperial Commissar fighter archetype
Fifth post Psyker sorcerer archetype, Grey Knight warlock archetype, and Sisters of Battle monk archetype
Sixth post ASSASSINORUM CLADES! My favorite.
Seventh post Inquisitors (warlock archetype) and Grey Knight space marines (paladin archetype)
Eighth post Sneaky space marines (I am Alpharius) and Rogue Trader bards!
Ninth post Techmarine mad scientists and Tech-Priest scrappers (both are classes with free PDFs)
Tenth post One of the underappreciated bits of Abnett’s work (Enuncia; note that I took a few liberties with it) and doling out the chaos template before the monster statblock posts begin

 

[Mike Myler]

More NPCs this week: Cognitae Agents, Dreadnoughts, and Rogue Psykers!

 

[Mike Myler]

Today's post is going big with TITANS for the forces of Chaos, the Imperium, those sneaky Eldar, and da ORKS!

 

[Warmaster Horus]

So power armor is AC 14 + Dex (+2 max)? Bolt weapons do bludgeoning damage? Doesn't quite jibe with me.

 

[Ancalagon]

one of my biggest problem with the warhammer 40k rpg that was released was how to do auto-fire. Because of the high skill of space marines and the multiple hits, one burst from a bolter was extremely lethal.

 

[Mike Myler]

So power armor is AC 14 + Dex (+2 max)? Bolt weapons do bludgeoning damage? Doesn't quite jibe with me.

Power Armor (as in standard Ignatus Power Armor) does that, aye. Space Marine power armor does that, and it increases Dexterity and Strength, ignores at least 5 points of damage from all types but psychic, and grants resistance to cold and fire damage. Which with a feat means ignoring attacks that deal less than 7 damage I reckon, which is proper representative of space marines in combat (eldar would have the uber AC--space marines get hit often but keep on kickin).
Really though too much AC boost on the standard suit of badassery (which I recommend is a shared resource--don't just give one adventurer power armor, give everybody power armor) will make reskinned monsters useless pretty quickly.

Bolt pistols and bolt rifles (things that a veteran of the Imperial Guard might be sporting if they managed to requisition something better than a las-rifle) do only do bludgeoning damage, aye. If you're talking about space marine bolters, those are under the Extremis Ranged Weapons and deal bludgeoning + thunder (or for the combibolter bludgeoning and piercing), except for the storm bolter and autocannons. You can of course change them to fire/thunder damage as you like, but I tried to keep things spread around in terms of damage types and available weapons.

Either way thanks for checking out the hack!

one of my biggest problem with the warhammer 40k rpg that was released was how to do auto-fire. Because of the high skill of space marines and the multiple hits, one burst from a bolter was extremely lethal.

Aye. Headshots can make the game pretty lethal with this hack and that's sort of what levels things off between astartes/orks and humies/tau/etc. -- both can score high on their attack rolls so the chances of a targeted shot are pretty good either way, meaning high damage output for everybody. Not so much when you choose to autofire here (you get disadvantage on the attack/s) but you can still go all Rambo and empty the clip (which is it's own fun time).

Thank you as well! ^_^

I've got more titans for today--tau, squats, and my Lutomorbus --but after this there's only another 5 posts before the hack finally ends!

 

[Ancalagon]

... I'm not sure that really *fixes* the problem though does it? It becomes a game of rocket tag.

 

[Mike Myler]

... I'm not sure that really *fixes* the problem though does it? It becomes a game of rocket tag.

That's about the size of it. Of the various WH40k RPGs Black Crusade did the best job of making parties with both astartes and regular folks doable, but there's an aspect of any design for these that's inherently flawed--the space marines either are going to be (and feel) superhuman, or they're not and it won't feel like your playing WH40k. The fix here is those targeted shots and highly restricted access to magic, and in playtests what's resulted has been more of a Commissar Cain late 80s/early 90s WH40k experience (a bit bombastic and humorous) than a 2010 Commissar Gaunt super grim dark time. I am a big ol fan of Jurgen and squats though so obviously I'm very much OK with that.

 

[Ancalagon]

I'm away from my books at the moment so I'm only working from memory but...

First I have to a knowledge that it is very challenging to design for space marines, since they are so freaking powerful. But that isn't really what I meant.

Rather the design of the auto fire rules meant that one blast from a bolter (on auto) had a more than 50% chance of killing a chaos marine outright (who should be as powerful as a space marine). However the chaos space marine had almost a good chance of doing the same!

Basically auto fire meant that whoever won initiative was going to kill the other... And that isn't good game design :/

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