>does everyone agree on the Necrons being the overarching focus for Outreach

If only because Necrons are fucking NIGHTMARE MODE compared to Chaos. YES YES YES!

>>6760947
All right. Especially in comparison to Chaos here, since Tau are heavily resistant to corruption.

>>6760923
Necrons are a good threat. Chaos is largely wasted on the Tau due to their miniscule warp presence. The whole corruption deal just doesn't work as well as it does on humans.

Necrons, however, are the undefeatable, inevitable death of all life which rears its head when people investigate things that are best left undisturbed.

>>6760923
Tau base stats:

WS 15
BS 20
S 20
T 20
Ag 20
Int 20
Per 25
WP 15
Fel 20

Add 2d10 to each, as usual. In addition to this each player gets a caste bonus.

Fire: +5 BS
Earth: +5 Int
Air: +5 Ag
Water: 5 Fel

Not sure about the WP penalty. My reasoning is that most Tau are used to delegating decisions to their betters. You may prefer to replace this with a caste specific penalty.

Death...has come for you at last.

>>6761034
Ah, spiffy. And yes, I think I will change that to a specific penalty. Probably a strength/toughness one for the Air Caste, but I don't know what the ones would be for the others...

>>6761120
Air Caste, a strenght bonus?

Have you seen those guys?

A dark eldar could break a Air Caste's back over the knee.

>>6761150
That's why I was referring to penalties when I mentioned it.

>>6761154
Oh sorry. I should stop reading /tg/ while being attacked by my horrible cat.

>>6761120
Strength for Air caste, going along with the human Void Born penalty.

-Fel for for Fire seems like an easy choice, though maybe -WP might be better. Falls in line with the Feral Worlder penalty. Though they also get a Fel penalty.

A further WS penalty for Water caste might be in line, or perhaps a Toughness penalty. WS is probably going to be seen as a "pointless" stat, so further reductions from it may seem to not really be a penalty at all.

As for Earth...maybe a WP penalty? Natural curiosity for technology and all.

>>6761182
I think that the equivalent for planetary types in this game will be the different septs. I'm just not sure how I can make them all distinct, unless I make individual stats for each planet.

>>6761221
I disagree. For humans it makes sense to distinguish and vary them by their homeworld type. Tau are the product of specialised castes which hone their members with selective breeding. Caste matters more than homeworld, say.

>>6761259
The castes seemed more like career paths to me than homeworlds. If I do use your suggestion, there won't be a lot of division between Tau members of the same caste, though that might be thematically appropriate.

>>6761275
Indeed. A homeworld largely shapes what a human does in his early life. For a Tau its his caste that dictates what he learns.

As such, I'd limit each caste to 2 or 3 different careers. A fire caste is always going to be militant in his skills, while a water caste will always be a people person. He might focus more on talking or on studying different cultures, but he's going to be focused on inter-personal matters.

Alternatively you could scrap careers and just let players take skills/talents at your discretion. It's alot less work, but it requires more judgement on your part and one bad decision can brew much discontent.

>>6761301
Hmm. I like the idea of scrapping careers altogether, but what problems would it cause?

Lexicanum seems to suggest that different Tau worlds have reputations for producing different personalities, but God knows how accurate that is.
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Tau_Empire

I agree that Necron study is very important to Outreach, but please, please, PLEASE don't sideline Chaos. It can fill the horrible threat we don't fully understand role that the necrons have for the Imperium, which is a nice reversal.

>>6761319
Every time a player wants to take a skill or talent he goes "can I take this, and what does it cost me?" There's only your judgement to decide what they can and cannot take. You, as one man, can make mistakes. With a career system you're going to have something solid to mull over and something which other people can review and criticise. You need only work out the first few ranks of each career to begin with. That would be the sensible thing to do, at least. Be careful to consider what talents and skills should become available when. Mighty Shot is a very, very powerful talent. The only classic DH career to get it early is the assassin, who gets it at rank 3. Everyone else gains access to it around rank 7 or not at all, which is very late game in terms of rank progression. As such I'd restrict early access to it to whichever Fire caste career which emphasises ranged attacks over everything other aspect of warfare. The others should be able to pick it up later, of course, and other castes shouldn't get access to it at all.

>>6761378
Hmmm...

I've never actually played Dark Heresy before, so I'm not quite sure how everything is balanced. I know that this might hurt me if I come to run this game... can you tell me possible balance issues for other skills and such?

>>6761407
That'd take forever. What I can do is link you to two pdfs which list every skill and talent and which careers get them at which ranks. Rank 1-3 = early game, rank 4-5 = mid game, rank 6-8 = late game. The first three ranks come and go quite quickly in terms of experience (you have access to rank 4 at 2000xp spent, the cap in DH is 15000xp). Lastly, bear in mind the Adepta Sororitas career is quite powerful (intentionally so) and as such is not good to base notions of balance on.

http://rapidshare.com/files/264746700/Skills_with_Errata_5c.pdf

http://rapidshare.com/files/264746810/Talents_with_Errata_5c.pdf

>>6761461
Ah, thank you very much.

>>6761466
Unfortunately, neither link is working for me because I'm not a premium member.

Now, I suppose I'll just ask how much hope people will want while playing this.

>>6761591
I won't answer your hope question. I was one of the "relentless grimdark" posters from the older threads. I will upload those pds elsewhere, though. I keep forgetting that rapidshare is a cunt.

Something to consider when it comes to mechanics is that the pulse rifle is massively, massively powerful compared to the regular starting weapons of DH (lasguns and slug throwers). You're probably looking at 1d10+6 E, Pen 5 for a pulse rifle, and that's a a lowball estimate. If memory serves they punch through power armour on the tabletop and easily put down space marines. That's a hell of alot of power.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=56GMLJNR - Skills

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=3FGBV7VE - Talents

>>6761708
Ah, so Tau players might have an easier time against physical threats than humans, at first?

>>6761731
It says these are "temporarily unavailable."

>>6761708
Your memory does not serve right.

lasgun/autogun 24" rapid fire strength 3 ap - (doesn't ignore any armor, wounds regular dudes on a 4+ and marines on a 5+)
pulse rifle 30" rapid fire strength 5 ap 5 (ignores normal guardsman armor / eldar guardian armor, wounds regular dudes on a 2+ and marines on a 3+)

So it's much more powerful but still lacks meaningful armor pen

>>6761750
Assuming that they've got pulse weaponry, yes. The only downside is that their weapons probably won't be Reliable like a lasgun is. High performance, high tech weaponry probably needs a good deal of maintenance, though it's still a long way from the Unreliable trait.

Kroot Rifles (as seen in Rogue Trader) do 1d10+5 damage with Pen 1. This is a modified primitive rifle that has been modified to fire pulse rounds, so 1d10+6 Pen 5 isn't unreasonable for a proper pulse rifle. It will make tough foes much less threatening, though there are ways to deal with this.

1) More foes. A huge damage output doesn't do much good if it's only putting down one enemy.
2) Unnatural Toughness. Necrons, daemons and (if you're being really mean and include them) space marines have this. Most of their ability to soak damage comes from using double their Toughness Bonus to reduce damage rather than regular, mortal creatures that just use their flat TB to soak. A particularly tough daemon (Toughness 50+) will reduce the damage from each hit he takes by 10. Pen allows you to bypass armour, but it does nothing against Toughness.

>>6761846
All right, then. I'll keep that in mind.

>>6761811
Ah, only Pen 5? A bit less killy, then. I'd go with Pen 3 or maybe even Pen 2, then. Hideously powerful for a "standard" weapon, but military grade armour affords some protection against it.

>>6761800
Just checked the links, working on this end. Make sure you copy ONLY the URL, not the " - description" bit on the end.

>>6761884
All right, now they're working.

bump

I don't know what else to say. I'm not a big expert on the Tau, but their civilisation away from the battlefield hasn't been touched on too much. There's loads of examples of Imperium tech, but none for Tau. You're in the realm of "make shit up," OP. You may want to plunder the DH armoury anyway and make up some Tau equivalents to most of the gear there.

>>6762232
Fair enough.

I'll reiterate the question on how much grimdark/hope people want in a Tau game, because for some reason I never get tired of hearing new opinions on that.

>>6762253
Bumping to ask this question one last time?

>>6762253

I'd say dawning horror at realisation of true scale of Grimdarkness would be a good idea. Fits with the Tau's position in 40k. Start 'em off hopeful and optimistic, but make it progressively more awful the more experianced they get. something like

level 1-2/3 : the Tau empire is awesome! All hail the greater good! We're kicking ass and taking names!
Level 3/4-5 : Oh dear, this is a lot harder than we thought it would be. Never mind, I'm sure the Greater Good will prevail in the end... right? Right?
Level 5+: Oh my various Gods we're screwed.

>>6762610
Fair enough, although I'd make an addendum to the end: "We're screwed. Probably. But we'll keep on fighting anyway, because there just might be light at the end of the tunnel..."

>>6760923
>similar to Chaos for the Inquisition?

Completely wrong. My current DH game has my team set up against an AI. I do not think the Necrons make a good enemy for the outreach, way to unsubtle, they're either there or not.
Make it Tyrranids.

>>6762253

Plenty of both. Make sure the players get his with the same grimdarkness as human acolytes would. But always end it optimistic.

>>6762630

>Probably. But we'll keep on fighting anyway, because there just might be light at the end of the tunnel...

Ideally. Whether individual Tau live up to it is another matter entirely. See http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GoMadFromTheRevelation
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DespairEventHorizon
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BreakTheCutie

In potential plot terms, a Tau that goes too far over the despair line could become very susceptible to corruption by Nurgle.

In very basic terms, 40k Universe = As Grimdark as it gets. The more exposure to it you have, the grimdarker you become. Remember - When you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.

>>6762715
Are Tau really susceptible to corruption from anything? They're all blunts, after all.

>>6762737
Tau are not blunts. They do have a soul and it is corruptible. It is hard to do and the rewards are of lesser use than pretty much most humans.
Note that we were pretty much the same as them during the first human galactic empire, and we fell, very hard. If the tau gain sufficient power, chaos will be up in that motherfucker.

>>6762768

>Tau are not blunts.

Tell that to the Inquisitor game. Tau have the Blunt special rule in there, it means they're twice as hard to detect for warp creatures than humans are.

>>6762737
It's possible. Whispers in their ear shouldn't be an issue, but if they pick up a daemon weapon then bad things are going to happen. Potentially including a big boost to the psychic potential of the Tau in question, which could be interesting.

I'm with the other guys. It should become increasingly apparent as the game goes on that things are much worse out beyond the Tau Empire than they expected. How the characters deal with this knowledge is up to them, but it'd cheapen the setting if they just shrugged it off. It might not break them, but it may bend and twist them. You may find a character taking actions that'd make an Inquisitor gasp to preserve the Greater Good.

Also, consider AI as a foe at some stage. The rule of the setting is that true, self-aware Artificial Intelligence will always result in tragedy. It might not happen immediately, but sooner or later it'll go rogue and bring misery down upon its former masters.

>>6762778
They're not, however, nulls/blanks. They've just got a smaller presence in the warp than humans do.

>>6762810
All right, then...

Would it be totally, impossibly contradictory to the setting if the players had a chance to dramatically increase the power of the Tau Empire all in one go? That doesn't involve joining Chaos.

>>6762850
Depends what the dramatic change would be. The "best" thing I can think of would be an advance in warp travel technology. I'd be a harrowing thing to bring about, though. Warp drive/gellar field failures don't end well. Then the Tau would be able to strike further afield, making them a much greater threat to all the galaxy. It'd also mean they'd encounter more horrors more frequently, which would be grand.

>>6762878
That wasn't quite what I had in mind. If you want to ask me what it is to avoid spoilers, my AIM is DracoCron.

>>6762768
>>6762810

Tau could very well have different levels of bluntedness, just like everyone else in the galaxy. Psychic Tau will be a lot rarer, and will almost certainly less powerful than humans or Eldar (an Alpha-plus Tau psyker would probably only be as good as an average human psyker), but the Tau will not be expecting them *at all*. Certain events can also trigger psychic powers to develop in otherwise non-psychic individuals (the drug Spook, for instance, to say nothing of Chaos involvement). If you have a soul, you have the potential to be psychic and/or corrupted by chaos.

re: AI. Alongside the standard mad AI possibilities, True AI can be turned to chaos. The Kaban Project, for instance. Developed during the Horus Heresy by rogue Techpriests, was convinced that it needed to join chaos to survive. Murdered it's only real friend. Last seen as a rampaging khornate during the HH novel Mechanicum.

>>6762253
dont make the tau empire perfect- make tau discriminate some races ,be anti-religious etc.
make them as similar to real cold war commies as possible

>>6760923

The Necrons being the main enemy is perfect, it's the Old vs. the Young.

As for Homeworld/Careers, the Homeworld choices should simply be the Sept Worlds that the Tau comes from. Each Sept World produces different personalities much like different Imperium Worlds. The link provided earlier is accurate; this information is in both of the Tau Codices.

Careers would simply be the four Castes (for Tau at least; Gue'vesa and Kroot would possibly need their own set of Homeworlds and Careers).

I think it makes the most sense this way. Don't switch Homeworld with Castes or anything like that, there's no reason to when we already know that each world produces Tau with different characteristics.

>>6762890

This isn't like the renegade Space Marine Librarian thing again, is it?

>>6761708

Pulse Rifles are just as if not more powerful than Bolters on the tabletop. They would be very powerful weapons in Dark Heresy especially since the common infantry is armed with them. Just have the players go up against really tough armored enemies.

>>6762850
Well, the use of "totally" and "dramatically" make it difficult to decide.
I would say that it doesn't make good story telling.

>>6762894
Hmm. Psychic Tau would be quite an interesting plot point... would they be too rare to be playable?

>>6762898
They'll stay like Tau.

>>6762908
It's probably several thousand times worse, actually...

>>6762935
The reason I'd want to do it is to allow the players to make a major difference in the setting. Where's the issue with bad storytelling?

>>6762927

Or have the opponents use stealth and ambush tactics. Or just put them against opponents that can't simply be shot. Political/social enemies.

>>6762901
Young vs. old is catchy, but other than that, nah. there is no subtle threat, no discussion, no true investigation.

>>6762955

Not even Rogue Trader, which has the players venture among the stars, claim whole planets for the Imperium and vanquish incomprehensible alien threats that make Chaos look like a friendly walk in the park, allows the players to make a major difference in the setting. Not even Apocalypse, that allows players to field armies on a cataclysmic scale, lets the players make a major difference. Not even the official tournaments held by GW to determine the status of the wars in 40k allow the players to make a major difference. At most there's a minor balance shift. Who are you to go against that?

>>6762937

Far, far, far too rare. Like, one in several million rare. However, they would make excellent plot devices for investigation - imagine how horrible it is for an unsanctioned human psyker. Now double it and place it in a society that has absolutely no safeguards in place to prevent a psychic blow-out.

Best case scenario: dealing with events like a terroist atrocity.
Likely scenario: dealing with demons.
Terminus Class Total Party Kill scenario: Enslaver plague.

>>6761034

Do not make the Ballistic Skill of the Tau too high. In the wargame, they only have a BS of 3 which means they miss half of the time. In the fluff, the Tau are actually pretty horrible shots because of the way their eyes are setup. Their helmets only bring them up to standard human level shooting.

I suggest that you make the BS no more than 15 for any Sept World. This helps offset their powerful weapons. If they want better BS, you can work in bonuses from the helmet or markerlights.

>>6762955
It kind of goes against the theme of 40K. But your interpretation seems to be a lot different.

To be honest, I wonder why you don't homebrew a setting with a Tau-like race.

>>6762997
An overly optimistic whore?

What's the most that players can hope to accomplish in Dark Heresy, typically?

>>6762955
Giving them a bit new whatsit to increase their power might feel good, but its way more fun to actually reduce their power, set the empire in crisis and prevail.

>>6763036
Stop a Chaos cult from accomplishing a plan with only a near TPK of most of the party dead from a gruesome end is the usual way it goes.

>>6763025
Because the Tau are the most fun when they're here and can successfully contrast the rest of the place.

>>6763038
True, true.

I would like to run that idea I had past other people, but I don't want to spoil anything for people who might actually play this...

>>6763036

Surviving to the end of the campaign with a few useful skills and not too debilitating corruptions/insanities.

>>6763036

Typically? Survive more than a week.

If you are phenomenally good you might one day stop a potentially devastating threat, like a demonic manifestation that would destroy a world. One world. In an empire of millions.

>>6763036
Escape with their lives, possibly maintaining the status quo.

>>6763036
They can save entire planets from chaos cults, save sectors from conspiracies, but they have to be prepared to lose life, limb and sanity in the process. They can slow the advance of the forces of Chaos by throwing their bodies into the gears.

>>6763046
A minor chaos cult, may I add.

>>6763055
>>6763046
>>6763054

These. Dark Heresy is not a game you win at. The tone is very much Call of Cthulhu/Delta Green. Whatever you accomplish is insignificant in the grand scale of things and the cost will be high, especially for you personally. It's about facing down the worst that the galaxy has to throw at you as mere mortal men and trying to push back the darkness for another day. You will probably perish, but your name will be entered into the gilded tome of those that died in service to the Inquisition, mankind and the Emperor.

>>6763083

There are optimists who think they can change the universe. They are almost always misguided at best, or pawns of darker powers at worst.

>>6763052
Just tell it. Otherwise the gasps of suprise might just be annoyed groans.

>>6763083

Well, it won't be entered into THAT gilded tome. It might get jotted down on the back of a business card and added to the giant pile of names of nobodies who died in the service of the Inquisition, with only a vague idea of the threat they were facing or their reasons for fighting it.

>>6763096
Indeed. Or at least give us an inkling of what you intend. You could always do something extravagant like type it into a big 2000x2000 pixel image and upload it so you can't read it from a thumbnail or something.

>>6763096
Do you have AIM?

>>6763083
Hmmm... all right, then. I'll keep this in mind.
There's one large difference between the Inquisition and Outreach; Outreach is much smaller and has more invested in keeping individual operatives alive.

>>6763101

If you are a really, really good servant of the Administratum or the Adeptus Mechanicus, you could realistically have your skull turned into a servoskull so that you can still serve in death.

Y'know, so long as there is enough of a head left to use.

>>6763046
>>6763076
>>6763055
>DH = fightan chaos
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF
play ordo xenos agent

>>6763083

Dark Heresy is a system and a setting. Exalted is taking the system and creating a new setting for it, Ethereal Dawn. He can make it however he wants to; it doesn't have to Grimdark simply because it uses the Dark Heresy system.

With the Tau, optimism is expected since they aren't threatened by anything serious (yet) and they are still a young and naive race.

>>6763119

Outreach is basically a Tau Section 9, right? I propose you use Rogue Trader-rank starting characters instead of DH-level, to represent that it recruits from elite, exceptional individuals.

>>6763121

Alright then, in the interests of balance:

You could die by Tyranid - this could range from having your brain sucked out by a Lictor, to being infected by a horrific bacterial agent that will render you down into a pool of biological sludge.

You could be manipulated into doing something terrible by the Craftworld Eldar before being eviscerated by an Exarch. If you run into Dark Eldar you wish you had been eviscerated by an Exarch. God help you if you run into Harlequins.

Other: There be freaky stuff out there which even the Inquisition can't properly classify. Guess who gets to be the first person to try and classif it?

>>6763134
Absolutely. What people here are saying (or I'm saying at least) is that I'd expect a horrible wake up call if I was a player in this. A realisation that everything isn't bright and sunny beyond the sept borders.

>>6763150
This man might have a point. Rogue Trader starting characters are the equivalent of a rank 5 DH character. It would require you to do more groundwork to begin with, however, to deal with all the little boosts and extras that RT characters have over DH ones.

>>6763166
A small peek behind the fluffy pheromone curtain?

>>6763119
No, don't have aim, >>6763112's idea works well enough.

>>6763150
All right. That's starting to look like a better and better idea; I'll need to pick up RT too.

>>6763101

>>6763202

>A small peek behind the fluffy pheromone curtain?

"Thank the Greater Good those maniacs are outside our borders... what do you mean, they're already here? "

>>6763212
It may be, but Rogue Trader may also be beyond what you're after. RT characters command a starship, have wealth and influence so vast that it has to be handled in abstract and will have several thousand men (at least) who call them "master."

>>6763225
How hard would it be to remove the background options?

>>6763225

Yeah, but in terms of pure individual stats, they're pretty much just rank 5 DH characters with a few slightly more powerful special abilities.

>>6763239
What background options? The character thingies? easiely done, probably easier than DH.

The whole profit thing? Its what drives RT, so a bit harder.

>>6763288
All right, then.

I'll download RT. It does make sense that Outreach members would start out as being rather elite.

>>6763305

RT characters are like young Inquisitors and their immediate cronies.

If you are intending to set the game quite a long time after the creation of the Outreach project it might make sense, but if it is still a reasonably new creation I maintain that Dark Heresy would be better.

>>6763355

Outreach members are supposed to be a crack team of the Empire's best and brightest. I say RT is appropriate.

>>6763355
I disagree, these would be the elite from every caste avaliable. Though their knowledge should be lacking, their skills should not.

>>6763395
>>6763415
These. They're smaller, so they need to be better.

The players may well be able to find their own retinue at some point.

>>6763555

Actually, I see no reason why a Outreach Water Caste diplomat wouldn't get to command a small Kroot Kindred for killteam missions.

Actually, the RT careers work better for Outreach members than DH ones anyway.

Firewarrior: Arch-Militant/Missionary
Water Caste: Seneschal/Rogue Trader
Air Caste: Voidmaster
Earth Caste: Explorator

>>6763600
True. What exactly is an "explorator," though?

>>6763751
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Explorator

>>6763751

A Techpriest who voyages to the stars in search of Acheotech. Usually.

>>6763869
Ahh. Well, I think that most Earth Caste members would stay closer to home than that, although the classes are probably similar enough.

>>6763600

The rules for RT are more oriented towards starship combat anyways, though.

>>6763940
That's why I think I'm using RT starting character stats, but RT rules for everything else.

>>6763953
The rules are the same bar a few changes to autofire/semi-auto that make the game more mobile (no sitting still so you can full-auto for the whole combat). RT only adds more rules for starship combat.

>>6764003
All right, then.

Does anyone have any more input on tone or things like that?

>>6764259

Yeah, you need to read more 40K fluff.

>>6764259


>>6764271 - He/she/it has a point. Even if you don't like the Imperials, you are going to need to find out about them, if only to set them up as enemies. Try a novel or two, read the Dark Heresy books carefully. Lexicanum or even TV Tropes would be a good place to start.

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Main_Page
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Warhammer40000

BE WARNED: THESE SITES ARE NOT ALWAYS CORRECT / UP ON THE FLUFF!

They do however digest a lot of it into bite size bits.

>>6764309
I am, in fact, reading that now. And indeed, I'll look into the Imperium more.

How often should the Imperium be enemies, in comparison to more eldritch forces?

>>6764386

Not much. The Imperium only makes contact with the Tau near the Damocles Gulf. After the crusade, the Imperium had essentially left the place alone. The worlds around that area relatively peaceful. The only humans that are making contact with the Tau are farmers and colonists. They usually don't mind the Tau and even trade with them for technology.

The Imperium isn't seeking active war against the Tau either, so there's essentially no significant military presence there.

>>6764436
Ah, so it is entirely possible for two factions to get along in this universe.

>>6764436

>The only humans that are making contact with the Tau are farmers and colonists.

And Rogue Traders. Who can and will disrupt Tau supply convoys with hit-and-run raids.

>>6760923
Necrons are the focus for who?

>>6764452
For as long as the Imperium's too busy keeping all the plates spinning? Yeah.

Soon as there's enough spare force, you can bet some guy is going to try another crusade for a name for himself.

>>6761150
>A dark eldar could break a Air Caste's back over the knee.
That's not saying much, Dark Eldar are as strong as any other Eldar (and Eldar are pretty damn strong; there's a reason they don't bother with genetic engineering, it's because they're already a race of designed supersoldiers). More so when they get the combat drugs flowing.

>>6764452

They have before. I'm willing to bet that major Imperium and Tau military forces have worked together more often than they have fought one another. They generally keep out of each others businesses. When they do run into each other, it's often because of a third faction causing trouble. At that point, they would be more inclined to help each other than start a three way war.

However, it's still the Imperium we're talking about. They would destroy the Tau if given the chance. They just have all their attention and military forces focused elsewhere.

>>6764497
Space Marines are stronger.

>>6764475
Outreach, the Tau Inquisition. Kind of; it's less ruthless, but it focuses on fighting the same sorts of things, although it's much more heavily weighted towards aliens than daemons or the almost nonexistent heretics.

>>6764464
Those may well end up being a problem.

Another question. The Tau aren't just working on dissecting Necron tech, but Eldar tech as well, and probably Imperial stuff too. How much of this would players plausibly have access too (in DC, the Tau are stated to have already analyzed Eldar shuriken and laser weapons).

>>6764452

Humans on the Imperium-Tau border are inclined to defect to the Tau for better living conditions and technology. That's likely why the Tau have been able to take so many Imperium worlds; their Water Caste broker deals and friendship until they've effectively bought out the planet.

>>6764532

I would shift the item availability table for all Imperial equipment up by two places.

>>6764532

Eldar stuff would be rare. A common infantry weapon such as Shuriken Catapult would be listed as "very rare" with other weapons being special equipment that players couldn't normally obtain through searching.

>>6764386

The Imperium is already fairly unsympathetic. What makes it seem more heroic is because we as players and readers get to see the reasoning for their actions. Almost all of their actions are the best possible action they could take in an unbelievably awful situation. The Tau won't get it. Even if they accept some of the logic, they won't accept the realities of dealing with demons, for example, because they have absolutely no frame of information.

Y'know how the Eldar are always going in and dealing with burgeoning Chaos Cults before they can do anything, because in the time it would take to convince the Imperial forces to do as they ask it would already be too late to stop them? That's how the Imperium are to the Tau. Even if they do stop to explain their actions, they won't be convincing. So the Imperium, especially the Inquisition, will constantly be fighting to get at Tau worlds for reasons beyond simple Manifest Destiny. A Tau won't understand why it is vitally important that the tomb of Saranath isn't opened a hundred years after his banishment, and it would take to long to explain, so the Imperials will have to just go in anyway. They may get a reputation for insanity as a result. The fact that as a whole the Imperium is so much more dispersed and individual leaders have so much more power probably won't be understood. There are more humans on a single hive world than many whole Tau systems - this really throws the Tau.

>>6764532
You can't manufacture Eldar tech without bone singers, you have to scavenge and trade for it I think.

>>6764690

From a Tau perspective, what you have here is an unfathomably vast, populous, theocratic fascistic state, with a highly inefficient governement system and war machine which venerates it's past rather than develops a future. A horrifying combination of Nazi Germany and the worst excesses of the Holy Roman Empire and medieval catholicism. Their war machines can seem ridiculously disturbing but impractical (titans), or could be very, very effective but are made from sub-standard parts and are very badly maintained. Imperial tanks are basically retrofitted tractors - seriously, that's what they are. If you accept that some of the Adeptus Mechanicus voodoo is actually having some kind of psychic effect on their technology, it will always appear far worse than it actually is if the tech is taken by the Tau. They won't understand why developing new technology can have terrible problems, or why the Mechanicus plays it safe, or why Imperials are so distrusting of AI - they haven't had a robot uprising yet, they haven't had all that much experience with the Necrons, they haven't really seen too much in the way of Chaos corruption. They know about these things, sure, they are aware that there are dangers, but they are nowhere near as aware of it as the Imperium.

>>6764712

The Imperial War Machine appears even more frightening and brutal from the outside. The fact that the Imperium is so militarised, glorifies war and raises it to a religious experience to the point where they are at war with everything else in the galaxy will seem barbaric. The meatgrinder Imperial Guard regiments like the Tau will be disgusting on a philosophical level, while the fact that there appears to be entire million strong armies of specialist soldiers for specific conflicts will seem unbelievable. The fact that the Tau seem to find humans everywhere from radioactive deserts to worlds blasted by centuries old wars, to horrible jungles teeming with vicious beasts to the frankly dystopian Hives will be awful in itself, but the fact that they do then use living in these environments to give themselves advantages in the field of combat? Madness. Especially given the fact that they do all that without the benefit of battlesuits.

>>6764727

The fact that they win a hell of a lot of their wars with just substandard equipment, determination, faith and seemingly ludicrous tactics will be unnerving.

The Space Marines will be the stuff of nightmares. Chaos corrupted versions of IG and Marines will be even more sphincter-tighteningly scary - a single Night Lord in a Tau City will do far more damage to the Tau Empire than a single Ultramarine, even given the Ultras' legendary plot armour.

Inquisitors will be an even greater order of magnitude of horror. Approach the fluff in Dark Heresy from the other way - these killers/zealots/tech-cultits/insane psychics/criminals/unforgiving lawmen are trying to destroy me, my family, and my entire culture. They have the resources to do it. Worst of all, they think they are doing a good thing. They don't think what they are doing is evil. As a member of Outreach, they are doing exactly the same thing as I am.

>>6764727
Do tell me when you're done; I'm listening closely.

>>6764747

That was the last two bits, actually. I could probably go on though.

>>6764761
Could you? I'm finding this very interesting.

>>6764780

What do you want to know about precisely? It's almost 1am here and I need to be in bed fairly soon.

Not right now though.

>>6764805

good for at least.... ooh... call it an hour or so.

>>6764805
Why would the Inquisition be going up against the Tau? Don't they have many, many other worse things to worry about?

>>6764835
Not him, but the tau cultural expansion and greater good influencing humans is exactly the stuff the Ordos Xenos was made to combat.

>>6764835
Ordo Xenos are quite worried about the Tau and their ability to 'corrupt' entire legions of guardsmen.

>>6764880
Ah. So they may show up in the Damocles Gulf again for some more killing action?

>>6764710

Good mission for Outreach: Escort and a high-ranking Ethereal and his Water Caste envoys securing a trade agreement between Eldar and Tau for weapons and tech. Obviously, the price the Eldar request will be something more obscure or sinister than trinkets or guns.

>>6764891

Hint: Inquisitorial agents are at work right now in Gue'Vesa settlements, gathering information, sabotaging industries, inciting riots and funding/training insurgents. Take the fluff for cults in the various DH supplements and simply make them Imperial working against the Tau, and you have the Outreach's most frequent opponents.

Maybe when it's all set and done, when the BBEG gets defeated and the protagonists live, you can pull a Fallout-type ending where the surviving members are too 'tainted' to be allowed back into Tau society.

>>6764948
Spiffy. I think I might switch over from primarily fighting the Necrons to primarily fighting the Inquisition.

If anyone has good Dark Heresy teams from their campaigns, I might even use them in mine...

>>6764835

As others have noted, the Tau greatly concern the Ordo Xenos, but more than that, there are, quite practically speaking many, many reasons for the Inquisition going after the Tau.

And many of them will probably involve the Tau unwitting stepping on the Inquisitions metaphorical toes; screwing with an anathematic artefact, unwittingly (or wittingly, in the case of the Nicassar) dealing with a psyker race, or cultists, or a witch. For Outreach, stepping into a bad spot, in such a way as to tweak the Holy Hell out of the similar, but greatly senior, Inquisition is not difficult for us to imagine.

And, Hell, if nothing else you have the Tau researching Necron bits and pieces (in addition to other heretical Xenos creations); that alone would warrant a reaction if the Inquisition were to find out.

>>6764995

This applies doubly to Kronus. Shit, the Tau population will be very suspicious of the human population, and the reeducation camps and stuff isn't helping things.

>>6764995
There was a guy who posted a Rogue Trader scheme he had, which basically involved fucking over the Tau. It involved stealing Chaos relic and then planting them on Tau worlds. I can't remember if there was any actual money making in the scheme or if it was purely to fuck with the Tau.

>>6764995
>>Spiffy. I think I might switch over from primarily fighting the Necrons
How would that even work? Necrons just appear from nowhere with overwhelming force and abduct nulls or vapourise settlements.

>>6764835

Inquisitors all have their own independant plans, ideas, experiments, modes of thought and so on. They have the freedom and resources available to pursue these lines of investigation. Some will inevitably focus on the Tau. They are a threat to the Imperium, just as Orks and tyranids are.

First, they represent a threat to the Manifest Destiny of humanity to rule the entire universe. Monodominant Puritan Inquisitors would like nothing more than to burn every single xeno creature in the universe, from the smallest slime to the largest tyranid, on a might pyre before the Golden Throne. Most inquisitors are a bit more moderate, and are happy to leave the safer species like Jokero to their own devices, but the Tau... yeah, that isn't an option.

The Tau are an aggressive, expansionistic empire deliberately targeting Imperial worlds on the Eastern Fringe with armies and propaganda. They engage in the foulest heresies, from technological ones like the embracing of AI, to the moral ones like attempting to unite all sorts of other filthy xeno under one banner. Their active research programs present a moral threat to the orthodox Adeptus Mechanicus, especially when they break apart Imperial tech to see how it works, while also raising the horrible spectre of a return of the Iron Men. They accept traitors to the Imperium into the ranks, which is bad from a law-and-order perspective, to say nothing of potential sources of corruption. They don't listen to the Imperiium when they try and warn them about some of the mistakes they are making (poking Necrons is a really bad idea, Space Hulks have bad reputations for a reason, there are really good reason for prayers and chanting around a Chaos artefact...). When the Imperium went to war with them, the result was a stalemate. They are a tremendously young race that within

>>6765019
Would the Inquisition be more concerned with fermenting revolt on Kronus, or destroying the Thur'abis research complex? Also, what exactly are the inherent dangers in technology that the Adeptus Mechanicus are afraid of, that actually exist?

Imagine how horrifying fighting a deathwatch team would be to some tau grunt.

>>6765044

>what exactly are the inherent dangers in technology that the Adeptus Mechanicus are afraid of, that actually exist?

Primarily, Chaos possession. Especially advanced AI's are ripe targets for Chaos. Which is interesting since an AI presumably has no soul, but whatever. All Terran AI's went insane during the Dark Age of Technology, the few that didn't fell to Chaos during the Heresy.

Damn it, cut off a bit...

>When the Imperium went to war with them, the result was a stalemate. They are a tremendously young race that within

the living memory of old Drednoughts, but stilll living memory damn it... went from cave dwellers to ultra-advanced monoculture.

>>6765128

The Ordo Xenos is specifically charged with rooting out, investigating, understanding and destroying aliens. That's their job. They will have many, many, many Inquisitor's and their respective acolytes who do nothing but monitor the Tau and engage them in secret war. Some will be interested in pheremone thing, others the relationship with other xeno races, others with the technology and the speed with which they got that advanced. Some will focus on the possible links to the Eldar, others with the possible links to the Necrons. And those are just the ones focusing on the Tau - Inquisitors tend to splat any threat in front of them, they just are extra good at dealing with their specialism. Tau involved in digging up Necrons will be splatted by Necron specialists. Tau fighting against the Tyranids will be monitored by tyranid specialists, some of whom will be actively helping to divert the Hive Fleets towards the Tau. Others will be trying to prevent the tyranids from winning here for as long as possible, because if the longer it takes for the 'nids to eat the Tau the more time the Imperium has to prepare.

>>6765085
Ah, I see.

So: Imperium is the main enemy, Chaos, Necrons and Tyranids are sort of side enemies or objects of investigation. The Orks would probably be straight military matters for the Fire Caste.

>>6765134

The other Ordos will also be keeping an eye on the Tau. Farsight proved that the Tau can rebel, which will interest the Ordo Hereticus. The traitors and heretical humans who abandon the Imperium to join the Tau will also attract the gaze of this Ordo. The Tau's wierd psychic nature will interest the Ordo Malleus. Any time the Tau encounter Chaos forces it will interest both of these Ordos, especially if they start taking too much of an interest in chaos artefacts. The Ordo Malleus will be watching the Tau like a hawk to see if they begin to be corrupted by Chaos, or their technology becomes corrupted by chaos - either of these situations could doom the Imperium as it would send another demonically powered army into an area of space already stretched thin by the 'nids.

>>6765085
really? I always thought that chaos had little to do with the AI, and that it was a matter of the dark age humans building new AI without knowing shit about safety parameters, allowing it to decide it didn't like humans any more.

>>6765085
There was no AI to go rogue during the Heresy. The Legio Cybernetica didn't use self-aware AI, their bots were programmed like videogame enemies. It's self-aware AI that there are prohibitions against, and the Tau haven't reached that tech-level yet.

>>6765044

As >>6765025 said, it depends on the focus of the Inquisitor. However, it's quite likely that Xenos investigating the abominable technologies of the Necrons would attract at least some Inquisitorial attention, should it get out.

Honestly, though, I feel that combating an Inquisitorial Retinue shouldn't be a focus, but rather simply sharp punctuation. Very sharp, as a point of fact; the equivalent of several exclamation points, heh. I would suggest using them to highlight the Inquisitions nigh implacable nature, the awe-inspiring depth of it's resources, and how deadly it and, more impotantly, how mind-blowingly dangerous the threats it - and, by extension, the Outreach program - faces are.

>>6765134

>Tau fighting against the Tyranids will be monitored by tyranid specialists, some of whom will be actively helping to divert the Hive Fleets towards the Tau. Others will be trying to prevent the tyranids from winning here for as long as possible, because if the longer it takes for the 'nids to eat the Tau the more time the Imperium has to prepare.

This is an awesome campaign hook right here. Make both those Inquisitors the same person, he approaches Outreach and gives them intel on Tyranid attacks, with his help the Tau Empire is saved, yada yada, later the party digs up evidence that he was the one that orchestrated the Tyranid movements into the area by careful planting of Genestealers onto Tau staging bases...

>>6765158

Both happened. In the Golden Age the AI went all HAL 9000 on humanity, while during the Horus Heresy the Dark Mechanicus specifically developed AIs and turned them to Chaos of their own free will. See the Kaban Project, for instance

>>6765170
What should be the focus, then? Or should there be any specific focus at all?

>>6765194

If you were selling it in a single pitch: The Inquisition run by Tau.

>>6765044

As I recall, a mixture of daemonic infestation and vestigial code from the Iron Men infests all particularly advanced pieces of Imperial tech that aren't based off an STC-pattern discovered post-Heresy. This makes them extremely vulnerable to possession, and requires anti-daemonic litanies to keep the "Machine-Spirits" pure. As a side note, I've been toying around with the idea that Machine Spirits actually exist as the Mechanicus believes they do. Given that the warp is primarily a reflection of human belief and emotion, it doesn't seem too illogical that an entire galaxy's worth of human souls all believing in the existence of some sort of machine spirit might cause said spirits to actually exist. This might manifest itself in a local "technological" manifestation in the Warp which surrounds all pieces of Imperial technology, effectively granting them a real Machine Spirit.

>>6765194

At this point, you're better off cataloging all the different threats Outreach can encounter, and making a sourcebook pdf with fluff and starting stats/skills/careers. Let the DMs running ED decide who their Outreach players will face.

>>6765213
I meant a focus for enemies.

>>6765247

The main threats to the burgeoning Tau empire are the Tyranids, the Imperium, the Orks, and Commander Farsight. The Imperium, while interested in monitoring the Tau empire, has too much to deal with beyond the Tau all across the galaxy, and would likely pay them little attention for the next few centuries should the Tau not attempt to colonize Imperial space. The orks are more of a local problem, and, while always dangerous, don't represent a threat to the Empire as a whole. If anything, the two biggest threats come from without (the tyranids) and within (possible civil war instigated by Farsight).

>>6765284
I keep forgetting about Farsight. Which is probably something I shouldn't do in-game.

>>6765284
I imagine kroot could be a problem, they could be bought off by an inquisitor or what ever.

>>6765194

There are many threats facing the nascent Tau Empire; that Outreach is concerned with those hiding in the shadows means that - like the Inquisition - they will have no shortage of enemies, and a probably low supply of trustworthy friends.

More specifically, I'd run a campaign like this as a series of Mini-Arcs - something comes up, the players bleed and struggle to see it put down. And they may well succeed. Maybe.

Just a question, are there DH/RT stats for Necrons yet?

pic nominally related

>>6765307

Honestly, I consider Farsight to be the biggest threat the Tau Empire can face. He was one of their foremost military commanders who went rogue, and represents something dangerous in the minds of Ethereal leaders. "They are capable of rebelling." Now, I'm not necessarily implying the existence of mind control, but the Ethereal caste does have a remarkable hold on the hearts and minds of the other Tau castes. Farsight, though his enclave is small, represents something infinitely more dangerous to Tau leaders. There are also implications that Farsight is daemonically possessed, or even has ties with Necron technology, which, if true, make him even more dangerous to the stability of the Empire.

>>6765284

Bear in mind that official Imperial policy is that the Tau aren't worth the hassle of bothering. Not every Imperial organisation has to follow the official line.

Yes, that's right, Space Marines. Space Marines like the Black Templars. Black Templars who relitively recently had a very successful crusade against the Tau on Nimbosa
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Nimbosa_Crusade

They could very well decide to go for round 2.

>>6765344
I think that Outreach will be able to have more friends than the Inquisition, although its operations would still need to be clandestine by nature.

>>6765376
The Space Marines aren't much more subtle than the Orks, so I don't think they'd be a primary foe of Outreach. They may run into them from time to time, though, as very formidable threats.

Also, Exalted, while I normally find myself on the opposite side of any argument with you, I think that you have in this provided something constructive, interesting, and even compelling, and for that I wish to applaud you.

>>6765358

It's the unknown factor that makes Farsight so disturbing. Until they can isolate what went wrong, the Ethereals cannot be sure that it won't happen again.

>>6765414
Thank you. I know I'm a little overzealous when it comes to the virtues of the Tau, but I'm hoping to find a good compromise between that and the nature of 40K to make something a little bit more uplifting than the usual fare.

Fluff says that some Necron Lords retain their individuality and consciousness. Wouldn't it be interesting if Outreach was contacted by a Necron Lord interested in working together for the purpose of archaeological discovery? Of course, once the tomb entrance is dug up, it's every blueskin for himself, but I think it'd definitely be interesting. And humorous.

"So tell me, how does that staff work?"
"I.Will.Not.Tell.You. Do Not Ask Again."
"How bout that glowing headpiece? What's that do?"
"..."

>>6765504
I considered that, but I've been told that the pact binding the Necrons to the C'tan makes any rebellion impossible. And that they'd probably just kill the Tau because of that.

It'd be humorous, though...

>>6765540
That's the thing, he's not rebelling. He's trying to awaken the tombworld, but he's a little short on doods so he's looking for hired help. And the party is the closest bunch of things around.

Not like the Tau know what Tomb Worlds are. And they'd probably shit themselves over a chance to interact peacefully with Necrons.

>>6765619
Why would a Necron Lord have trouble awakening a tomb world? Don't you just have to knock?

Was it a necron lord or was it the Deceiver who was pretending to be a Governor for some just as planed stuff?

>>6765504

Mostly the ones with brains pretend to be Mechanicus explorators so they can poke around in tombs and their weird habits won't get noticed. Nothing to stop them from imitating Earth Caste leaders though...

"G'uy, why are we here? Why haven't we waited for the Fire Warrior team?"
"They will only slow us down. Besides, it's not far now."
"How do you know that?"
"Uhh... I'm just guessing, fleshy one."
"..."
"..."
"... I thought we agreed not to talk about my weight issues."

I just thought of something: A DH/RT game based upon a small group of Orks, Blood Axes or Freebootas, who, attempting to be sneeky, try to disguise themselves as ethereals and infiltrate the blueskinz to steal as much loot as possible.

>>6765674

"Olroit, ya louzy blue gits, us Efereals want yer gubbins!"

>>6765627
Well, after 18 billion-odd years, I imagine a lot could go wrong. Like a rockslide that covers the entrance and requires a lot of digging. A lot of digging that sharp Necron hands aren't suited to doing.

>>6765692

Oh, and also competing against such fellows like Kaptin Badrukk to sell their services, and fights against them while attempting to be sneaky gits and etc.

>>6765708

Plus, it's a whole *world*. It's just the very surface which is alive, the rest is all Necron underneath. You might need to get deep inside to flip the on switch, tell the rest of the Necrons that you are awake, started warming up the billions of warriors in their individual stasis tombs, wake up the Tomb Stalkers, Spyders, scarab swarms... lots to do, really.

>>6765708
Can't a Staff of Light fire gauss blasts? Those things can go through tank armor with no problems whatsoever. I apologize if I'm nitpicking.

>>6765692
I lol'd.

This is my take on Necron fluff. The C'tan exist, and are powerful, but do not interfere with individual Necron lords so long as they give them a tribute of life energy or whatever every once in a while. This makes them more hands off. The C'tan would no longer lead Necron armies into battle, as that's kind of silly. It would be equivalent to a Primarch or even a Chaos God leading their respective armies into battle. Instead, the seeming C'tan are in fact insane Lords who have modified their necrodermis and instead believe themselves to be the C'tan. Also, while they can have their plots going on, I don't want to make them directly responsible for every bad thing that has ever happened, as is suggested in the fluff. I want to give individual Necron lords more personality and more autonomy.

>>6765765
And the jackasses from the next world over snuck in while you were asleep and tipped everyone over.

Goddammit.

>>6765785

Fun fact: GW is stopping their authors from writing about the Necrons in their novels, due to major rule and fluff changes coming.

>>6765785
Would you allow any individual Lords to be somehow rebellious?

>>6765824

I wouldn't object. I think it would be kind of interesting, actually, for inter-Lord civil war. I don't think that it would be outright rebellion, though. More of a "conflicting interests" scenario where one lord wants to set unlock a hidden tomb world and the other wants to glass the planet completely, not knowing that there's stuff beneath the surface.

>>6765873

More likely that one wants to glass the planet, the other wants to leave it a little longer so there is more life to harvest on it.

The other thing to remember that is that the Necrons will always have completely inscrutable motives.

>>6765937

That's fine, too. Two tomb-worlds are warring and no-one knows why.

>>6765946
THAT's the kinda thing that could potentially draw a C'tan's attention.

And lets be honest, its the deciever's attention. Nightbringer is too busy chowing on SOULS to care.

And wherever the deciever's involved, big shit is going down.

I predict that the two "Necron Lords" in conflict were the deciever and Cegorach all along.

>>6766468

And it turns out the entire plan was just to allow the Tau to get enough bits of Necron tech that 500 years from the final battle a small but vital bit of back-engineered Necron technology turns on them in a really, really big way.