Savage 40K - Part 1

Hacking Space Marines into Savage Worlds

As mentioned in my last post, I want to use Savage Worlds to play games set in the Warhammer 40K universe, particularly games revolving around Space Marines, much like FFG's Deathwatch RPG. To start, I'm working on the racial stats for Space Marines. Given that Space Marines are so much more powerful and impressive than normal humans, I'm ignoring Savage Worlds's advice on races having a net +2 ability on their racial traits. If I get players who want to play normal humans, I'll just give them extra XP to compensate for the power difference. I think the Space Marine is at +19 in terms of racial traits, roughly 50 XP. For Ranks, I'm sticking with the standard Rank system, but even Space Marines start at Novice, despite their massive advantage in terms of racial traits. So, a Novice Space Marine would be comparable to a 50 XP human, which would be at Veteran Rank.

At the moment, I've got the racial traits hammered out and one of the starting Professional Edges. The Librarian powers and Warp Backlash is being worked on, as are the rest of the Professional Edges. I'm not quite sure how I'm going to handle Chapters yet, but it will probably be via more Professional Edges to be taken at character creation. I didn't have a whole lot of time to work on this today, but hopefully I'll get more done tomorrow at some point.

Space Marine Racial Traits:

STR starts at d8 and can be raised to d12+2 via normal advancement, and to d12+4 with Expert and Master Edges

Vigor and Spirit start at d6

+1 Parry

+3 Size

+1 Toughness

In addition, Space Marines must choose one of the following Professional Edges at character creation: Apothecary, Assault Marine, Devastator Marine, Librarian (Arcane Background), Tactical Marine, Techmarine.

Professional Edges

Librarian (Arcane Background)

Arcane Skill - Psyker (Smarts)

Power Points - 10

Starting Powers - 3

Astartes Librarians are specially-trained psykers experienced in delving into the raw power of the warp to fuel their psychic powers.

Warp Backlash - When a Librarian rolls a 1 on his Psyker die (regardless of the Wild Die), he is automatically Shaken. On a critical failure, he rolls on the Warp Backlash table (currently in progress, mostly being based off of FFG's Deathwatch Warp Events and Perils of the Warp tables).