Dark Heresy 2: Malice Overhaul Part 4

Part 1 link: https://darkheresychainsofmalice.blogspot.com/2019/01/dark-heresy-21-fan-patch-in-work-big-wip.html
Part 2 link: https://darkheresychainsofmalice.blogspot.com/2019/06/dark-heresy-21-part-2-alpha.html
Part 3 link: https://darkheresychainsofmalice.blogspot.com/2019/08/malice-overhaul-part-3.html
Part 4 link: https://darkheresychainsofmalice.blogspot.com/2019/08/malice-overhaul-part-4.html
Part 5 link: https://darkheresychainsofmalice.blogspot.com/2019/08/malice-overhaul-part-5.html

Part 4:

Grapnel and Line Changes/Clarifications, Chase Rules, Fear Clarifications, Dropping Shit, Fervour Mechanic, Misc Rules: Fatigue, Succumbing, Doors, Carrying, Suicidal Actions; Narrative Tools: presentation, group rolls,  mutation changes, NPCs and Adversaries, Comrade system; NPCs: Corruption Array, Burning Fate changes

Grapnel and Line Clarifications/Changes

Sound

·      Grapnel and Line's pistol portion is loud enough to be heard from 10m away.

Firing

·      Grapnel and Line takes a Routine (+20) Ballistic Skill test to shoot.

Maneuvering

·      One can lower oneself onto a lower platform with no test as well.

·      Climbing over the surface a Grapnel and Line is attached to takes a Routine (+20) Athletics or Acrobatics test.

Failing

·      Failing means the character flails around mid-air

·      Rolling a 100 means they lose grip and fall.

Speeding Up

·      Speeding up the climb takes a Challenging (+0) Athletics or Acrobatics test and generally follows Simple Climbs/Sheer Surfaces rules. 

Swinging

·      Swinging while using a Grapnel and Line requires a Challenging (+0) Acrobatics test. Success lets a character reach to where they were swinging to. Failing means they flail in mid-air. Failing with a 100 means they fall.

Retraction

·      Grapnel and Lines can be retracted via a switch on the pistol portion. This folds the hooks and pulls the line back.

Chase rules

·      Chase rules refer to rules when one or a group of characters is chasing after one or another group of characters on foot. They can be used for vehicle-based chases or hybrids of the two, but generally, they will refer to foot chases.

·      Baseline Rolls The baseline of chases are opposed Athletics tests. Always revert back to Athletics when arbitrating rules and complexities pop up.

·      Acrobatics Can be used in special situations or to give bonuses to Athletics tests

The Opposed Test

·      Opposed Roll foot chase will be carried out by the fleeing character rolling a Challenging (+0) Athletics test versus a pursing character's Challenging (+0) Athletics test.

·      Pursuer Wins The pursuer will catch up to the fleeing character and be able to perform an action.

·      Fleer Wins the put more distance between them and the pursuer.

If The Pursuer Wins The Chase Encounter

·      Actions

o   Charge and Attack Take an Weapon Skill test to charge and put both characters in the engaged condition.

o   Charge into Grapple Take an Athletics Skill or a Weapon Skill test to tackle into grappling the fleeing character into the ground.

o   Add +20 Charge Bonus for both

o   Fleer is knocked prone even on Pursuer’s Failure to Win the WS test.

o   Intimidate the fleeing character into giving up with an Opposed Challenging (+0) Intimidation vs Willpower test.

o   Shoot, Throw Weapon, or Use Item Line up a shot or use an item

o   Whatever the pursuing character has in mind.

Pursuer Winning and Bonuses/Penalties and Range

o   When the pursuing character catches up, the penalty and bonus an attacking character has on a character using the Run action do not exist as it is assumed the pursuing character is at the same speed as the fleeing character. A Point Blank range bonus is not given either. Characters should assume they are short range from each other. An exact range being 6m when the pursuing character catches up.

The Fleer Winning

o   The character outruns or outmaneuvers the pursuing character enough that the pursuer has no chance of catching them

Winning or Losing Tests

o   Three Tests Generally, chases are won or lost with three won opposed tests. Either the pursuer catches up to the fleeing character, or the fleeing character makes it clean away.

o   Doing Very Well Diverging from this baseline, either type of character doing well on their tests can quicken or elongate this type of encounter. A character with 4 DoS over the other can count as winning two rounds. A character failing by 4 DoF can lose a won round.

o   Alternative One can make this a more organic experience by instead of having essentially points, one can make the flow of the story or just the flow of the gaming session dictate how long it lasts or how many rounds there are.

o   Stopping Early Both characters can choose to stop and give up or to confront the other at any time, changing the encounter into structured time combat or going back into narrative time.

Characteristics, Skills, Talents and Traits in Chases

·      Advantages Based on Movement For every half move value larger than the opposed character's half move value (3 vs 4, 2 vs 3, 5 vs 3) the character with the higher value gets +5 per point to their athletics test.

·      Example a character with 4 half move vs a character with 2 half move gets a +10 bonus to their athletics tests. (We are using half moves because pure Agility Bonus does not take into account crawling characters or quadruped characters).

Complicating Mechanics

Skills to Give Advantages or Disadvantages

All At Challenging (+0) Tests

·      Navigate Surface (Planning a Route) One can use this to plan out routes to take or possible ways a quarry or pursuer will go. Every degree of success on a navigation test gives a +10 to the Athletics or Acrobatics test to pursue or to flee.

·      Awareness (Finding Shortcuts) One can use this to a similar degree as navigate to find better routes, but as a quicker snap-shot decision. Each DoS on an awareness test gives a +5 to the Athletics or Acrobatics test to pursue or to flee.

·      Agility/Strength (Obstacle Creation) A fleeing character can create obstacles for the pursuing character such as knocked over furniture, barred doors, etc. A pursuing character can counter these obstacles via acrobatics or athletics tests. A pursuing character that fails to counter these obstacles gains a -5 penalty per degree of failure on their baseline athletics test. A pursuing character that succeeds by 4 DoS or more gains on the fleeing character using up time to try to obstruct them, with a +5 for 4DoS and an additional +5 for each DoS after the fourth.

·      Acrobatics Used to traverse difficult terrain that would slow down or be impossible for one just using Athletics to run or chase.

o   Augmentative Use each DoS of a successful Challenging (+0) Acrobatics test gives the character a +5 per DoS as a pursuer or a fleeing character.

o   Acrobatics Substitution for Athletics Depending on the terrain and chase, Acrobatics replaces Athletics as the baseline opposed test.

·      Command/Intimidate In a large crowd, a booming voice can get obstructing civillians out of the way or turn them into a mob to help you.

o   Remove Difficult Terrain Difficult (-10) Command/Intimidate test will remove a mass of humans or xenos as difficult terrain for you.

o   Stop Them! A Very Hard (-30) Command/Intimidate test will allow you to use the mob to stop or distract a pursuer or fleeing character, with a -10 penalty on the Athletics test per DoS for the opposed character.

·      Terrain and Setting Complications All other structured time complications from the core rulebook such as difficult terrain, darkness, smoke, etc. apply

Driving Chases

·      These can generally use the rules above but change athletics and acrobatics to Operate (Surface).

·      Although driving chases do not have the major weakness of 2E's core rulebook in the fact that the Run action in structured time covers more distance than a charge. Now in pure combat, this makes sense and I, the author of this fan patch, would never change it. However, in a chase, it makes the pursuer never able to actually catch a fleeing character.

Fear Clarifications

·      Fear tests, unless specified, are once per type of creature with fear per encounter. 

·      Example if a fight contained a Great Unclean One with Fear (4) and two plaguebearers with Fear (2), one would take a -30 Willpower Test for the Great Unlean One and one -10 Willpower Test for both of the plaguebearers.

·      Fear and Increased Numbers does not multiply with increased numbers of the same types. Fear does not multiply in general.

Dropping shit

·      Stuff becomes dangerous to drop starting at a height 10 meters with a weight of 25 kg. Similarly to falling rules, when an item that weight more than 25 kg falls from 10 meters, 1d10 damage occurs (do include total defense including TB and armour). Every two meters higher after adds +1 damage. IE dropping a chainsaw or a fire extinguisher on a fleeing character from a stairwell 30 meters up would cause 1d10+10 damage (plus the chainsaw's damage if active).

·      Every 10 kg after adds another +1 to damage.

Misc

Fatigue

Fatigue causing sources stack.

Doors

·      Kicking Door In Challenging (+0) Strength or Athletics test. If it has a door hinge and is made of material weaker than 12AP.

·      Shooting/Hitting Lock A Hard (-20) Test with all other bonuses and penalties associated. Failing by 5DoF with a ranged weapon ricochets and hits a random character in a room which includes the shooter. Failing by 5DoF with a melee weapon bounces back into the wielder's face and causes normal damage to the wielder.

Carrying

·      Carrying another Character A character can carry another character at half speed as part of a half Move or full Move.

·      Picking up a Resisting Character A resisting character that is not in combat takes an opposed Challenging (+0) Strength vs Strength test.

o   Normal Movement A successful Challenging (+0) Athletics test allows a character to move at normal movement speeds.

o   Running A successful Hard (-20) Athletics test allows a character to move with another character as part of a Run.

o   Sprint A successful Very Hard (-30) Athletics test allows a character to move with another character as part of a sprint.

Suicidal Actions

·      Structured Time a character performing a suicidal action either by their own will or via a psyker power such as Dominate or Puppet Master takes full damage but includes their total defense as part of damage reduction.

·      Narrative Time a GM can decide where a character's total defense counts as part of the action.

Narrative Tools

Presentation

Winning People Over Generally, to non-hostile NPCs, wearing clothes of good or best quality or rarer high class or high fashion clothes generally give a +10 to Charm and Deception tests. Unless they are a group that would not care.

Disguises Generally, when disguising oneself as a group, a successful Challenging (+0) Deceive test to disguise oneself gives +10 to Charm and Deception tests with 1DoS and +20 to Charm and Deception tests with 3DoS.

Group Rolls

·      NPC Collective Rolling When rolling Awareness or Stealth that involves a group of NPCs, the character with the highest Awareness or Stealth scores or the leading Elite or Master NPC type rolls for all of the group.

·      PC Collective Rolling When rolling Stealth that involves a group of PCs, the players can choose to designate a leader and give assistance to their roll via assistance rules, individually roll for themselves, or select if they would like to roll for a portion of a group or just themselves.

·      PCs or NPCs Rolling for each other NPCs can roll for a group of PCs and PCs can roll for a group of NPCs if they are included in that group.

Assisting Strength Tests

·      When assisting another character with a strength-related task, every assisting character after the first assisting character (which gives a +10 to a test) give an additional +5.

Mutations Changes

Serpentine Tail

Gives the Crawler trait and Unnatural Agility (3)

Razor Fangs

Changed to 1d10+SB damage

NPCS and Adversaries

Troops and Righteous Fury

·      Troop types can use Righteous Fury. Troop types die after losing all wounds, and do not go into critical damage. Troop types die when they suffer Righteous Fury from another character.

Comrade system

·      A marriage of the swarm system from Deathwatch and the squaddie system from Only War that is similar to grouped units from Edge of the Empire.

Grouped Units

·      As Characters Grouped units of 2-3 NPC act as one character. They occupy 1 meter (or square) on a battle map.

·      Grouped Bonus With each individual NPC characteristics are increased by +5 per NPC and damage is increased by +1 per NPC.

·      Grouped Unit Wounds Wounds are added together and when the equivalent of one NPC would have their wounds exceeded that NPC in the group dies and the bonuses are lowered.

·      Grouped Unit Abilities Comrades can give special abilities and bonuses depending on the unit. A heavy gunner can have a loader comrade that keeps feeding ammo. A priest of the Emperor can have a flagellant to tank hits. Comrades like those can exist.

·      Grouped Unit Options

o   Elites/Masters can have comrades of troop character types. In this case, the wounds are not added except for special types of comrades (see flagellant example above).

o   Troops can have a comrade of other troop types.

·      Grouped Unit Separation and Joining Comrade units of troops cannot separate from each other (Wildy unbalanced and eliminates the point of buffing up lower tier units and making turns faster).

o   NPCs cannot join together into Comrade units mid-combat.

·      GM Note As a note, this system is not supposed to be a staple of every single combat. It's for special occasions or times for mook-grinders when you want your higher experience players to feel badass for ripping through twenty guys but only having to face 6 units on a map so the turns don't take forever.

NPCs

·      Imperial Guardsmen troop types like Cadre Grenadiers have their lasguns equipped with melee attachments.

Corruption Array

·      If the array contains a range, the GM can choose the number of corruption points or roll for them with the proper dice.

o   Imperials/Non-Chaos touched or Non-Chaos worshipping Xenos: 0-20

o   Chaos-touched Xenos, non-Chaos worshipping mutants: 30-50

o   Troop Chaos Followers: 40

o   Elite Chaos Followers: 60

o   Mutant Chaos Followers: 80

o   Master Chaos Followers: 90

o   Daemons, Daemon Princes, Minor Chaos Gods: 100

Burning Fate Changes

Burning Fate Aftermaths

When a character burns fate during play, they lose one fate point permanently to have their character survive a fatal encounter. They can choose to have these three fates for the character:

1.     The Character survives but is unconscious and untargeted for the rest of the encounter (and narratively finds a way to survive until the end of it). They return to play with 0 wounds.

2.     The Character survives but is so injured that they need to be taken out of the field narratively. The player gives up the character for the rest of the adventure (or at least a significant amount of time for them to heal). They will return fully healed except for any permanent losses they incurred via critical effects such as a lost hand or leg. 

3.    The Character returns to the encounter with 0 wounds and no critical damage (yet still receiving the effects of prior critical effects including lost limbs and such) but with 1d5 fatigue. They wake up past when they should have been knocked down. 

Hey I split this into five parts because of Blogger acting weird with its size.
Part 1 link: https://darkheresychainsofmalice.blogspot.com/2019/01/dark-heresy-21-fan-patch-in-work-big-wip.htmlPart 2 link: https://darkheresychainsofmalice.blogspot.com/2019/06/dark-heresy-21-part-2-alpha.html
Part 3 link: https://darkheresychainsofmalice.blogspot.com/2019/08/malice-overhaul-part-3.html
Part 4 link: https://darkheresychainsofmalice.blogspot.com/2019/08/malice-overhaul-part-4.html
Part 5 link: https://darkheresychainsofmalice.blogspot.com/2019/08/malice-overhaul-part-5.html