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Made in us
Humming Great Unclean One of Nurgle





In My Lab

Invuln saves are, with this rule, divided into one of three types.

Field
Crux Terminatus (Terminators), Ion Shields (Knights), Refractor Fields (Guard Officers). Also covers invulns by dint of sheer chonk, like that on Grotesques.

Field Saves are bypassed by weapons that are really strong. I haven't decided which is the better way to go about representing that, so two proposals below.
Spoiler:
Powerful weapons-Volcano Cannons, Demolisher Cannons, Railguns, other S10+ weapons, get a rule to apply a penalty to Field Saves.

A Railgun, for instance, could apply a -3 to Field Saves.
A Demolisher Cannon, -1.

The penalties are on the WEAPON SIDE, not the defender's. This is definitely the easier way to handle it.

Spoiler:
Field Saves have a range. So, a Guard Officer's Refractor Field might be the following:

S4-.......4+
S5-8.....5+
S9+......6+

Each Field gets its own set of saves against different Strength values of incoming weapons.


Regardless of which proposal is used, certain weapons (C'Tan Phase Blades, for instance) can apply penalties or entirely ignore field saves in addition to what's above.

Dodge
Holofields (Harlqeuins), Lightning Reflexes (Assassins). Anything that works based on just dodging the attacks.

Dodge Saves are reduced by Blast Weapons, auto-hit weapons, and homing weapons.

Blast reduces Dodge Saves by 1.
Auto-hit weapons reduce them by 2.
Certain weapons could be classed as "Homing", applying a -3 penalty to Dodge Saves.

Esoteric
Anything not covered above, like Daemonic Invulnerable saves.

Esoteric Saves have no universal reduction, and reductions are usually associated with Keywords.

For instance, Grey Knights could have a rule that reduces Esoteric Saves by 1 against any unit with the Daemon Keyword.

This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2022/11/28 16:36:57


Clocks for the clockmaker! Cogs for the cog throne! 
   
Made in gb
Lord of the Fleet






London

This seems like a fix for a problem that doesn't really exist, and may just add unnecessary complication to the game.
   
Made in us
Humming Great Unclean One of Nurgle





In My Lab

 Valkyrie wrote:
This seems like a fix for a problem that doesn't really exist, and may just add unnecessary complication to the game.
It's not a fix, so much as a change.
The idea wasn't "Invulnerable saves are broken, here's how to fix them." It was "Here's a way to make Invulnerable saves more thematic and have more verisimilitude."

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Made in us
Sneaky Sniper Drone




Pacific Northwest

I'd definitely like to see invulnerable saves reworked to be more true to the fluff. I've already made two threads in the past about how my Tau shield generators are functionally opposite how they're represented in the fluff: effective against lasguns vs effective against lascannons.
So if I read your suggestion correctly, incoming fire up to S4 save on a 4+, S5-8 save on 5+, S9+ save on 6+?
Would be nice if S3 and below saved on a 2+ so I can finally shrug off small arms fire...
But this seems like a strange chart to memorize. What if you took the SvT roll and tossed the 3+ and 5+, so anything weaker saves on a 2, equal (or 1 above?) saves on 4, and greater saves on 6?

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Made in us
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In My Lab

 kingpbjames wrote:
I'd definitely like to see invulnerable saves reworked to be more true to the fluff. I've already made two threads in the past about how my Tau shield generators are functionally opposite how they're represented in the fluff: effective against lasguns vs effective against lascannons.
So if I read your suggestion correctly, incoming fire up to S4 save on a 4+, S5-8 save on 5+, S9+ save on 6+?
Would be nice if S3 and below saved on a 2+ so I can finally shrug off small arms fire...
But this seems like a strange chart to memorize. What if you took the SvT roll and tossed the 3+ and 5+, so anything weaker saves on a 2, equal (or 1 above?) saves on 4, and greater saves on 6?
That was an example for a Guard Officer's Refractor Field.
That is NOT a universal table.

The reason why that proposal is a lot more work is that EVERY Field Save would have its own values.

Clocks for the clockmaker! Cogs for the cog throne! 
   
Made in dk
Loyal Necron Lychguard






 JNAProductions wrote:
...a Guard Officer's Refractor Field might be the following:

S4-.......4+
S5-8.....5+
S9+......6+

It'd be a lot easier to just have weapons with a Strength double or more the user's Toughness negate field saves entirely. The whole purpose of an invulnerable save is to lower the chance that your commander gets smoked from a single lascannon shot isn't it? What lore are you basing the idea that things like a rosarius would be less effective against a lascannon? If something is going to be weaker against better weapons then you might as well just make it add a bonus to save rolls or ignore AP-2 and/or AP-1.

Dodge
Holofields (Harlqeuins), Lightning Reflexes (Assassins). Anything that works based on just dodging the attacks.

Should either be -1 to hit, only hit on 3+, 4+, 5+ or 6+ depending on whether the unit is supposed to dodge attacks from skilled units, unskilled units or a bit of both.
   
Made in us
Fixture of Dakka





I like the idea of differentiating different types of invulns. However, I worry that splitting them up into three bespoke mechanics (possibly including a custom chart for various forcefields) seems like it might be adding a bit more complexity than is needed.

For the most part, invuln saves do an okay job of representing extra protection that works against attacks that bypass armor. (Admittedly, with some quirks like the shield drone example above.) Where I really notice invulnerable defenses feeling weird is when something bypasses them for a reason that doesn't make sense. Ex: Railguns shooting so hard that they bypass my holograms that were causing them to shoot in the wrong place.

So with that in mind, maybe a slightly streamlined approach would be to just give invuln saves one or more keywords (field, dodge, esoteric, etc.) and then give some weapons rules that interact with those keywords.

So maybe flamers have a special rule saying that saves with the dodge keyword take a -2 penalty. Railguns have a special rule saying that field saves take a -3 penalty. Etc. Basically, let some weapons have "AP" against invuln saves with the relevant keyword. This gives us some levers to pull to differentiate the types of invuln saves from each other, but the basic mechanics those invulns remain familiar and unchanged.


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Longtime Dakkanaut





 Wyldhunt wrote:
I like the idea of differentiating different types of invulns. However, I worry that splitting them up into three bespoke mechanics (possibly including a custom chart for various forcefields) seems like it might be adding a bit more complexity than is needed.

For the most part, invuln saves do an okay job of representing extra protection that works against attacks that bypass armor. (Admittedly, with some quirks like the shield drone example above.) Where I really notice invulnerable defenses feeling weird is when something bypasses them for a reason that doesn't make sense. Ex: Railguns shooting so hard that they bypass my holograms that were causing them to shoot in the wrong place.

So with that in mind, maybe a slightly streamlined approach would be to just give invuln saves one or more keywords (field, dodge, esoteric, etc.) and then give some weapons rules that interact with those keywords.

So maybe flamers have a special rule saying that saves with the dodge keyword take a -2 penalty. Railguns have a special rule saying that field saves take a -3 penalty. Etc. Basically, let some weapons have "AP" against invuln saves with the relevant keyword. This gives us some levers to pull to differentiate the types of invuln saves from each other, but the basic mechanics those invulns remain familiar and unchanged.


this would be my preferred approach as well. Keyword mechanics already exist so there's no reason not to lean on them.

In a similar vein, to the harlequin weapon strategems, you can have save strategems that provide a bonus against specific attack types if you have the specific save keyword.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/11/30 21:35:04


   
Made in us
Humming Great Unclean One of Nurgle





In My Lab

Makes sense to me. That sounds like a better proposal than what I originally had.

Clocks for the clockmaker! Cogs for the cog throne! 
   
Made in us
Fixture of Dakka





 JNAProductions wrote:
Makes sense to me. That sounds like a better proposal than what I originally had.

What? No. JNA, you aren't allowed to politely accept criticism. That's not how this works. Now kindly make personal attacks against us and double down on why your initial proposals are the clearly better option.



ATTENTION
. Psychic tests are unfluffy. Your longing for AV is understandable but misguided. Your chapter doesn't need a separate codex. Doctrines should go away. Being a "troop" means nothing. This has been a cranky service announcement. You may now resume your regularly scheduled arguing.
 
   
Made in pl
Tough-as-Nails Ork Boy




I agree with JNA, I figure a lot of weapons that exist in the present are beginning to lack a real purpose because GW has condensed a lot of the rules they shouldn't have. Looking at you in particular Eradicator Russ.

Perhaps this could be a BRB issue. Have each Invuln have a keyword attached, say "Iron Halo, this wargear grants a Invulnerable Save (Field) of 4++." Just have a short list of the keywords for invulns in the BRB, like Field, Evasion, or Esoteric and boom this introduces simple to write depth to the rules without requiring a forest of trees in new books.

I still like Flamers and Blast just seriously degrading Evasion Saves since I rarely see Blast Weapons work as they used too since few people take units larger than 6 or 10 in my local group unless they have too.
   
 
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