have you made any progress on crunch?

Also, links to the last five threads:

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/6717352/
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/6730953/
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/6734050/
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/6746251/
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/6760923/

>>6849844
Rapidshare's been a huge dick to me, so downloading the RT stuff has been slow, but I'm just about done with it. I'll be modifying the career paths from there.

Right now, I'm on the fence about whether or not I introduce separate career paths in each caste.

>>6849881
And I'm using RT power levels for starting characters, since Outreach takes only the best and the brightest, at least in its infancy.

Have you decided on what classes/castes will be and if homeworlds will play into it, or it will be entirely based on caste?

>>6849900
Individual homeworlds might have minor modifiers, but caste is far and away the most important distinction.

>>6849913
So will there be classes aside from castes?

>>6849881
I would, have earth, water, fire and kroot in there regardless of anything else.
If you need ideas/help on the carreer path like RT, I could draw up (mspaint, mind) what I would do.

>>6849941
I'm not sure yet. Mostly because I really don't think I'm very good at MSpaint.

>>6849946
I would love it if you could do that.

>>6849965
Wait, MSpaint? I meant game balance.

Bump? MSPaint guy seems to be gone...

>>6849965

>>6850184
A lack of patience, you have.

>>6850301
Ah, forgive me. And thank you very much.

>>6850301
I would like it if you could go into a bit more detail about what it means, though.

>>6850301
The first rank is basicly the planet the tau player grew up in.
The second rank is the call of the greater good, What made the Tau guy leave his world.
The third rank is the action the Tau guy embarked on, his greatest achievement.
The fourth is the aline species he encountered, be it in war, trade or just being stuck with them for a time.
The fourth is caste.

The kroot path is a bit different, only one planet. Second rank asks the kroot player if he started as a Tau kroot or a merc,
The third rank asks him if he believes in the greater good, or in profit.
The fourth rank defines how he got the attention of the Tau empire, the last his carreer.

>>6850352
The skills and talents each step gives is semi-obvious, though for the sake of balance and not breaking my mind just yet, I have not gone into details just yet.

>>6850352
Ooh, right. I need to design Kroot career paths too.

I'll get on that, then.

>>6849891
Are you going to give them a spaceship and the attendent tens of thousands of crew?

>>6850381
No, they'll only have the power levels.

>>6850301
Is it of any use?

I may as well bump this again.

How mych have you fleshed out so far, actually?

>>6850814
Crunchwise, not much. Fluffwise, quite a lot. What exactly would you like to know?

>>6850839
What parts of the rules you're going to lift right out of the rulebooks and which you going to do mostly yourself.

>>6850920
The mechanics and general rules system, I'm going to lift straight out of the rulebook, although I'm modifying insanity and corruption (corruption points accumulate much more slowly, and insanity can be reduced by whole levels, so it is possible to get rid of disorders).

>>6850972
Career paths are going to be modified forms of the ones from DH or RT, applied to Tau through a sort of caste system. I'm not sure what I'll do about Kroot, though.

Also, I'll be gone for while. I'll try to be back soon, though.

>>6850972
I'd modify Insanity and corruption differenty.
Discord, gained when the players act out of accordance with the greater good. Hard to cure.
Deviance, automaticly gained when not in presence of an etehreal, starts very, very lightly but grows in time. Automaticly cured by being in the precense of an ethereal.

>>6851089

You know, that's not such a bad idea.

>>6851089
I'm back. And that's quite an interesting concept... insanity and corruption seem fairly universal, but if Tau mental processes do work that differently, then that idea could be quite a good one. What would penalties from these conditions be like?

I am very much interested in this. Followed the first few threads. Also, which classes did you end up settling on?

>>6851236
I'm working on it. If I do split the castes into careers... I've got scout/battlesuit operator for Fire, engineer/pure scientist for Earth, and diplomat for Water... I need a second Water career if I'm to do that, though.

>>6851257
Trader for water class.

Has a monetary bonus along side other stuff.

>>6851310
That could work, although I don't know how much mileage that'd have in a Dark Heresy-esque game. I think the players will be requisitioning their equipment in any case, not just buying it outright.

Possibly some kind of arbiter/administrator.

>>6851257
are you going to have a drone centred class? if yes what caste it would be? because e.g. sniper drones are controlled by fire warriors but they are definitely build by earth caste. Will there be any vehicle specialist?

>>6851368
I don't think a drone-centered path would have much mileage; all Fire Caste members will have the option to gain drone skills, though.

As for vehicle operators, that could be another Fire path. I don't think Air Caste members will be playable, since they wouldn't have much to do outside their ships.

>>6851257
Second water = trader.

>>6851233
Loss of willpower, gains in strenght. Quicker to anger (needs some GM guidance. perhaps discribing the situation as more threatning than it really is.) gaining of the light sleeper talent. Decrease in inteligence.

>>6851257
will vespid be playable? I think you should have as much races as possible for the classic star trek multi-spices federation feel

>>6851400
Would this be Discord, Deviance, or both?

Also, having one's Ethereal die would probably give you quite a lot of Deviance points all at once.

>>6851332
Trade has several option, remember that Tau rfequently trade their technology for other, less advanced things, to increase their power and alliance with others

>>6851421
I hope to make Vespid playable, although they seem to all belong to the same career (Stingwing). I don't know whether I want to make Kroot playable, though; they serve the Tau as mercenaries, unlike the Vespid, who are genuinely loyal to the Greater Good. And Outreach is an exclusive group.

>>6851429
That could be, but I'm not sure why a standard diplomat couldn't deal with most of those.

Maybe the trader could also double as a financier.

>>6851400

Perhaps extra penalties to resist being tainted by chaos artefacts? They are going to effect the Tau, after all.

>>6851451
That'd work. Would it be too much to track all four stats?

>>6851427
This is mostly deviance.
Discord should have more obsessive compulsive effects, jittery, ichy fingers, restless nights.

>>6851440
well if you look at career as an equivalent of squad type in tau army than kroot also follow only one carrer

>>6851553
Whoops, Stingwing is the species name. My error.

Vespid kind of seem to me like they'd all be warriors, somehow.

>>6851440

The Kroot hold a very necessary role in Tau society though: that is "the only individuals really capable of punching evil in the face".

Your guys will generally have abysmal WS. Kroot will not.

Plus, if they are on a permenant contract you won't have problems. Assume they are being very well rewarded for their services (perhaps a much higher wage than other classes?). It's not like real world armies don't use mercenaries - Gurkhas, for instance, are technically mercenaries in the service of the UK.

>>6851588
Also, I have no idea whatsoever how I'd track mental degeneration for Vespid...

>>6851588
Vespid are a really bad Idea, in my opinion. Since their way of interaction with the tau empire is disputed. Some claim its mind control.

>>6851600
The thing is, that works with the Kroot serving in Tau armies, but Outreach isn't the army. It's the Tau equivalent of the Inquisition, except much more tightly knit, and it requires its members to be very trustworthy. I don't know if I can see the Tau trusting any Kroot that far.

>>6851609

I really don't think you should have them, personally, but if you insist, think about making them more feral. When under stress they may revert to insectile hive creature instincts. If you have the Inquisitor's Handbook, use the Mind-Wipe character stress chart at the front as a basis.

>>6851629
Another problem with Kroot is that they can gain power just by eating their enemies.

are we going to play a session of this on sup/tg/?

I'd be in on this one. Admittedly, mostly because I like Kroot a lot.

>>6851588
I'm going from memory now but I think vespid have a complex society, and the development of their equivalent of mass destruction weapons forced them to pecefuul co-existence with each other so I'm preety sure they are not all warriors(but kroot are and you dont seem to mind that)

Kroot belong in this game, apart from the obvious WS monkey. Their inclusion into the outreach shows that the Tau empire doesn't just talk the talk about racial inclusiveness.

>>6851629

A nescessary evil. There are situations where ranged weapons are really bad ideas - reactors, industrial areas, places with fragile equipment - and there are enemies that you will not see until they are tearing off your head. Give them better equipment than standard kroot, more wages and the chance to harvest genes from really funky enemies and you will secure their loyalty.

Besides, the Holy Inquisition recruits gutter scum on a regular basis. You need individuals who are perfectly willing to do jobs that normal Tau won't. Kroot won't care about Tau morals, just that they get paid.

Also, the god-damn Pope uses mercenaries as his personal guard. You want to argue with the Pope?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_Guard

>>6851685
I'd like to, but that'll take a while longer. I have quite a lot of crunch I need to refine.

>>6851642
a kroot can gain +5 to any stat in acordance with the race it eats, say eat 5 of a particular race and you mutate. Though you will gain adverse effects like deviance while not near a shaper or you drift away and slowly become feral.

>>6851710
do you have an IM program?, i'd like to help you on this', I have experiance with alot of DH homebrewing.

>>6851708
That's the kind of role I could see the Vespid playing; fluttering around and shredding their enemies.

I mean, I could use Kroot, but the Kroot deliberately hold themselves apart from the Tau Empire, and the Tau don't like them all that much. The Vespid seem much more trustworthy. Plus there's the whole absorbing-the-enemy's-genetics thing that'd need to be balanced.

>>6851729
I've got AIM; my name there is Dracocron.

I also have MSN and YIM if you don't have AIM.

ethereal dawn you say? what is this?

>>6851749
MSN please.

>>6851736
The genetics thing takes a long time. Just make it a single Rank 8 advance of which they can only have one. Be it wings, ork regen, whatever.

>>6851642

Two ways to deal with this:

Base off the mimic alien in Creatures Anaethma.

or

Talents. Simply say that they need to ingest more than one example of a beasty to take it's genes. It would also probably take some time for any changes to manifest. Talents taken when leveling up represent them adopting some of the useful traits. After all, you don't see kroot suddenly developing masses of human characteristics after fighting Imperial Guard, do you? Takes time for that to show up.

>>6851757
Dracocron@hotmail.com

>>6851776

Would you mind if I added you as well? I've been following since the first thread.

>>6851716
+5? thats too much
i would propose that kroot can buy skills/traits/whatever/of that creature- eg kroot eats a unnaturaly tough enemy- he can now buy unnatural toughnes(of course for a very big amount of xp)

>>6851786
Please do. I'm always happy to have new people to talk to about this.

For Kroot powers I suggest Exalted look at the Techpriest career - they get a lot of unique powers (like limited levitation and the ability to shoot lightning) that don't hilariously break the game.

I admit that I never thought Kroot would be this popular.

I'll look into your power suggestions.

>>6851789
I like this idea
Kroot eats a winged enemy - it can buy himself flight, doesn't just gain it for free.

You could make the player decide what single trait he wants to gain from the eaten enemy and he would be able to buy it until the next time he would eat someone.Cool ,simple ,not game braking.

>>6851872
Winged is a extreme thing.. very extreme. Unatural speed, agility or strenght is more probable.

Kroot arent capable of manifesting massive physiological changes over short periods of time. A Kroot that eats massive ammounts of birds is going to get lighter bones and longer arms. His kids will have wings that allow them to flutter and glide. their kids will be true Vultures.

Kroot evolutionary advancements gainable by an individual would be things like +5 stat boosts, poison immunities, heat/cold tolerance, that sort of thing. If you want poison spit or wings, you have to start out with them.

>>6851872
Think of it like cybernetics, except in this case the "recovery" time is the front end gorging and molting to develop the trait.

>>6851928
yes it is extreme but the cost would also be extreme- and if the player wouldn't have enough xp he wouldn't be able to buy before the next act of cannibalism, and on the other hand if he would only eat winged enemies he could have the winged trait "selected" until he would have enough xp. to buy it- and it would actually be fluffy

How about the tau gain XP as normal, but a kroot only gets XP by eating corpses of his opponents?

>>6851946
So, wait. So if a Kroot ends up eating alot of humans you suppose they'll all have kids with sickle-cell anemia and diabetus and shit?

>>6851992
This is not a videogame, XP is an abstract and they get it for completing encounters/endeavours like everyone else.

>>6851992
kroot players would eat all the corpses in the game to get more XP, fuck they would raid cementaries, there would be no corpse to examine after death

>>6852000
More like lower strength but ridiculous endurance, hand-eye-coordination, and higher creativity/superstition.

>>6852002
But it is used to buy advances, which is all that matters in the end.

>>6852027
>corpse to examine
btw- who will be the medic class? its god-damn important in DH to have a medic in your team

>>6852045
>>6852027
>>6852002

Eh, fair enough, silly idea then.

>>6852058

That is a very, very good point. Perhaps the so-far unrealised second Water career?

>>6852045
>More like lower strength
kroot can select the genes they will absorb- you think they would chose one that makes them weaker?

>>6852080
they don't they just absorb the host's traits, why do you think shapers are there and why krootox and kroothounds are illegal in kroot society.
Cause it's dead end gene's that make you savage.

>>6852096
>krootox and kroothounds are illegal in kroot society
what?how are they illegal? is eating them illegal or what?

>>6852072
Hmmm. It's an idea, but I think that it sounds largely scientific and would therefore be a job for the Earth Caste... of course, that'd leave the Water Caste rather underutilized for career paths.

Or we could just eliminate careers altogether and have each caste have a wide variety of skills from which to choose.

>>6852096
They're not illegal. Everything else is. Those krootforms have proven to be stable, and are allowed to exist in the wild and are herded/raised for war. other particularly deviant forms are Killed on sight.

In the Deep Jungles of Pech, there are some pretty nasty abominations still clinging to survival

>>6852058
Fire and Earth should probably get access - Fire will have combat medics, while earth do the majority of the civilian jobs, such as doctoring

>>6852116
Guy's poorly communicating.

they arent part of kroot society, except in the same sense that Dogs/Wolves and Horses are part of ours, or elephants are part of indian society.

>>6852123
herder could ba another "class" for kroot- he could train kroothounds or krootox

Possible Kroot specializations: Shaper (combat+ knowledge, master hunter), Merc (heavy combat, learns to use armor and various weapons, some social skills), Beastmaster (durr), Shaman (psyker with some melee abilities)

So... Kroot are really that popular, are they?

>>6852211
they had their own army list - what did you think?

>>6852211
Some people like the primitive-seeming, smarter-than-they-look sneaky pragmatic nature guy archetype.

>>6852225
>>6852236
I suppose I can see why people like them. It's just... using mercenaries for intelligence services, especially when a lot of the intelligence is supernatural, and where commitment is a hugely important aspect of character, doesn't fit right with me.

>>6852211
Well, they have more unique flavor and distinctive culture/features that TAU do, some would argue. , they're more interesting than Greys with railguns. Tau are only cool because of their position in the 40K universe as young idealistic underdogs. Kroot are just cool regardless of their surroundings. Transpose them into D&D or Star Wars, and they;re still cool.

>>6851440
>>6851472
For using kroot as a race, you can have them be treated like an inquisitor's cadre are in the inquisition. Trainees, basically.

Kroot are more worldly than average Tau. Sometimes, when your race has no night-sight, you need the guys with sniffer abilities to guide you to a flashlight.
Besides, race has no meaning to the Greater Good.

>>6852263
Secrets? Who are they going to tell? The equivalent of cash and pulse carbines in large enough quantities will make any red-blooded merc pretty damn dedicated.

Besides, Kroot can still beleive in the Greater Good. It;s a sensible and logical idea. they just dont get all weird about it like Tau and Gue"vesa do.

>>6852208
Kroot don't have psykers. If you want to give them powers give them Sorcerous arcana.

>>6852303
Wouldn't that make them not be playable, though? Effectively, the players are the Inquisitors in this.

>>6852315
I'll give you the first point, but the Kroot aren't at all committed to the Greater Good. They only work for pay.
That's why I think the Vespid would be better.

>>6852263
well most mercenaries- but remember the PCs in DH and RT are exceptional individuals - maybe the kroot pc has gained tau trust by serving an eteral fo a long time and saving his live on few occasions- the potential causes of his involvement with the outreach could be a part of the character building process

>>6852328
Yes they do. old merc 'dex allowed master shaper to take minor psychic powers.

It's logical that they should have psykers. they just wouldnt be able to shoot fireballs and whatnot.

>>6852263

Kroot are important. Their inclusion in the outreach is paramount to their entire inclusion into the tau empire. If they see and realise the need for the greater good in a hostile universe.

>>6852348
unless they would eat high quantities of eldar meat

>>6852330
the bigest problem with vespid is that we dont really know much about them...we know few things about kroot thanks to their old army list

All right, you win. Kroot will be included as possible player choices, but to match that, I want to include possible Vespid. And gue'vesa.

However, I do hope that if we get a party for this thing, it'll either be majority or plurality Tau.

hey exalted -you mentioned in previous treads that you dont want air caste playable because they have problems working in normal conditions - in DH there are voidborn who could be seen as air caste equivalent and hive worlders have problems working outside the"proper hub" jet they are playable, and the tau codex mantions that planetary crafts are piloted by the air caste....so why no Air caste PC's?

>>6852428

Not being argumentative can you tell us why you actually think playing as Vespid would be fun? Or even playable?

They don't realy have much of a career path that can't be done better by someone else and their involvement brings up sticky questions of "mind control helmet".

>>6852458
I suppose they could be playable, but they'd have to be played by people who enjoy doing nothing but being pilots or gunners.

>>6852465
They have a melee warrior-ish career path; similar to the Kroot, but they aren't really worse off. As for the mind control helmets, there's no proof of that, so I would ignore it. Probably all they do is make Vespid susceptible to the calming presence of Ethereals.

i want to play an old assed demurg with a beard so long it drags on the ground, gnarled, ancient, tech priest style class. smokes a pipe, and tells the rest of the party what it was like in HIS day, when HE was young, how they did things RIGHT. then promptly falls asleep in the middle of his next thought.

>>6852458
Caste is also a job. If an air caste is not shooting stuff down or ferrying stuff or piloting he's doing it wrong.

>>6852428
The vespid needs a communion helm. I would think that an hive insect civilization would have hesitance ith being alone, therefore a true warrior or worker this should not be. A scout, however, could work.
It should start with flying ability, obviously, some natural armour and high aglity. Extremely low fellowship and low willpower.

>>6852490
hes so old that he actually has been cyber rezzed because everything but his mind is shutting down, but his mind just keeps going

>>6852520
It should not be a melee class, since stingwings are not that good in melee. It should be better than Tau though.

>>6852348
Actually the only reason they have Psykers is from feeding on humans, and it's that particular genetic line that developed it. The Kroot, as a race did not actually have psykers! I mean, they do now... but it's from contact with humans.

>>6852573
It should be able to crawl in dark corners, Holding still with perfect silence.
Its a perfect sneaky class, if you ask me, climbing on ceilings like a real bug. flittering around and zapping heavily armoured baddies rfom behind.

>>6852465
>sticky questions of "mind control helmet"
actually I don't think the mind control helmet would be such a major issue - it would make them obey the tau leaders-the eterals, which the tau PCs would also have to do, and as someone before suggested the mind-wiped rules could be adapted to work for vespid when the helmet malfunctions.

Gue'vesa are way harder, since they are not easy to classify (DH & RT have a couple books about it, though)

>>6852611
So they can never take their helmet off?

>>6852610
Ooh, that sounds quite good.

How much do you want to include gue'vesa, by the way?

>>6852733

Me, not that much at all, However you said you wanted to add it, and /tg/ gets things done so I am thinking.

>>6852573
well vespid shouldnt be better fighters or be stronger than kroot but if I remember right their "hands" have very sharp and hard claws that they use for tunnelling in rocks

>>6852728
why should they? without them no one could understand them

>>6852761
I'm neutral on gue'vesa. I can see reasons why they'd be included, and reasons why they wouldn't be.

>>6852803
You could just add a higher rank DH carreer, except the obvious ones (psyker, techpriest.), that would be doing the least possible, however.
As for a viable solo carreer path, I'd do a social skill monkey, as used in the story with the space marine, perhaps with some close combat skills added in.

>>6852803
well if your going to have humans you should have two kinds of origins for them- outsiders(probably ex-imperials, have some knowledge about the galaxy) and born in the tau colonies

>>6852803

Perhaps you should just focus on doing the Earth, Fire, Water & Kroot classes first before getting into other ones.

I mean, you are building very different career trees with associated traits and weirdness which might function function very differently from Dark Hersey, without very much experience playing the Rouge Trader/Dark heresy game itself. Your work will be hard enough as it is without adding all kinds of other mad stuff.

Besides, those four give you major archetypes of a player group: Science (as a substitute for magic), long range fighter, melee fighter and talky guy. Stick to the easier ones so you have a grounding in what works and what doesn't and then add in the Vespid and humans later if you feel like it.

>>6852937
And the Kroot are quite definitely important enough that I should work on them before the Vespid?

>>6852945
Yes, kroot are awesome and easier to implement than vespid, which are truly alien.

>>6852865
>>6852864
I think the careers for the humans could be modified scum ans guardsman from DH - the outsider scum would be a smugler or criminal running from the imperium while the tau-born would be a social skill guy working along with the water caste , the outsider guardsman would be a deserter or mercenary while the tau-born one would be a part of the human auxiliary troops

>>6852945

1) Kroot appeared long before Vespid in the game. There is also more than one unit of them to help inspire classes.
2) they have a much better defined culture
3) they have an army list you can loot for ideas.
4) They are just that cool. A race of reptilian/avian cannibal Chewbaccas? YES PLEASE!

The basic Kroot mercenary also already has a stat-block, whereas the Vespid doesn't.

>>6853070
All right, then. Where can I find the Kroot army list?

>>6853242
For RPG stats? Try here:
>>6851943

>>6853278
Ah, thank you.