Where is the GK Librarian Special Character?

[thade]

Did I say "child fiction"? Not in this thread but I suppose I've made that assertion elsewhere. I do feel that - by and large - the narrative value of what's in the books is pretty limited in creativity; it disappoints me given the massive scope of the genre and the exceptional work done by some authors working for GW and BL. If I'm in the minority, so be it; since when does that stop any of us from sharing our feelings here? :) Enjoyment of that stuff is subjective, so it's not like anybody's ever really wrong about it.

 

If you love the story behind Draigo, I am envious. I have high expectations and that really only impacts me. It restricts the kinds of stuff I can enjoy. Aasimov, Tolkien, and Gibson have only written so much stuff, after all. It doesn't mean I don't like the themes (I do, they are awesome) and it doesn't mean I dislike all 40k fluff (Phil Kelly and A.D-B. I like; I suspect I'd like McNeil to). I do not like Mr. Ward's fiction. His rules are just fine. His ideas need extreme refinement.

 

And think carefully about your last challenge there. It'd be next to impossible to start any poll regarding the GK fluff's quality without it immediately devolving into a Ward-hate thread. We have quite enough of those. <3

[Crynn]

Did I say "child fiction"? Not in this thread but I suppose I've made that assertion elsewhere. I do feel that - by and large - the narrative value of what's in the books is pretty limited in creativity; it disappoints me given the massive scope of the genre and the exceptional work done by some authors working for GW and BL. If I'm in the minority, so be it; since when does that stop any of us from sharing our feelings here? :) Enjoyment of that stuff is subjective, so it's not like anybody's ever really wrong about it.

 

If you love the story behind Draigo, I am envious. I have high expectations and that really only impacts me. It restricts the kinds of stuff I can enjoy. Aasimov, Tolkien, and Gibson have only written so much stuff, after all. It doesn't mean I don't like the themes (I do, they are awesome) and it doesn't mean I dislike all 40k fluff (Phil Kelly and A.D-B. I like; I suspect I'd like McNeil to). I do not like Mr. Ward's fiction. His rules are just fine. His ideas need extreme refinement.

 

And think carefully about your last challenge there. It'd be next to impossible to start any poll regarding the GK fluff's quality without it immediately devolving into a Ward-hate thread. We have quite enough of those. <3

 

Ahhh I'm sorry Thade, I quoted the wrong post! It was the one above yours... Er my apologies. In regards to what you ahve said though my post commented on Draigo being one of the worst written charactors, I indeed despise his fluff as well. 2nd though I was not issuing a challenge just making a point and of course you are obliged to experss an opinion whether in a minority or not. I do believe however that special characters add a lot more to the game than they take away.

 

Regards,

Crynn

[The Holy Heretic]

What do they add Crynn?

 

I only see 'the broken super characters' fielded (as in those regarded as a better choice than standard, not necessarily game breaking), the rest are left to obscurity. This tells me that the appeal of SCs comes not from (poor) fluff, but from their rules of awesomeness :) So what they really do, is take out individual player creativity and involvement and substitute this with pre-digested solutions - sort of like eating at McDonalds compared to a home cooked meal, its easy, comes in colourful packaging and just bland :P

 

Now, theres nothing wrong in telling tales of heroes and even providing stats for them, but why not make these on a generic template as examples on builds, and then provide points costs for their 'special abilities'. Every Grandmaster is made of awesomesauce and unique snowflakes in their own right, why do we 'need' Draigo and Mordrak to be even more special than special? :)

[thade]

I actually do like the general ideas behind Mephiston and Calgar. The Sanguinor and Draigo are way over the top for me...characters like those two are where the fiction gets away from "Grimdark" and closer to "Power Rangers".

[breng77]

The posted character in either form is far overpowered (consider that a standard libby which ML 3 and all the powers costs, something like 230-250 points (I forget what the cost to upgrade to Level 3 is 30 or 50)

 

So basically this character gets for 35-55 points: a better statline, an over powered weapon (you are rarely going to use the +1 to both option, if you are in BTB with a power weapon, then 3++, otherwise he gets 4 attacks with force weapons, (you might pick this regardless as he can attack at S6 and initiative 10 (S7 or 8 in a squad), Power that either makes paladins or DCA into beasts or lets a deathstar shoot psycannons 36 inches, a hood that decreases the effectiveness of Runes of warding by 50% as you basically reroll failed psychic tests(oh and the character will never perils, 1/18 chance to begin with reroll he perils 0.3% of the time. The revision is better as points went up and ability went down.

 

That said special characters in general are fine by me, I do wish they were not almost always better than the standard equivalent. I want characters that offer something different, not just better.

[Oiad]

To be constructive, is anyone willing to post an example of what they'd consider to be a non-broken librarian SC?

[Liberame]

sure, 280 pts. basic librarian statline, psyker master lvl3, every psychic power, nemesis force sword with daemon bane, Rites of Battle

 

 

of course people are going to say that this guy isn't really all that special. you could just make some fluffy bs rule and call it "Psychic Attunement" That just lets everyone on the board use his leadership of 10 for psy test and any other leadership checks.

 

actually thinking about it, in making a sc of the librarian, you are essentially looking for a reason not to field a normal librarian unless pts are limited. so giving him every psychic power is dumb. Mephiston only has access to 3 powers, so maybe why not do the same to this guy that people are wanting to make?

[breng77]

For me it would be along the lines of

 

Generic Libby statline (most SC libbies have the same statline as the basic libby)

Give him a 4++ standard Invul.

Give him anti-Daemon powers (Hammerhand, Dark Excom, Maybe Sanctuary, Quicksilver, Might of titan and Null Zone(or equivalent for Daemons only))

Standard Hood

Allow him to roll just one invul vs perils (not reroll)(re-roll is far better)

Master Crafted Nemisis force sword.

Mastery Level 4

 

Cost him at about 225-250

[Crynn]

To be constructive, is anyone willing to post an example of what they'd consider to be a non-broken librarian SC?

 

Did you nto see the one I posted? I don't believe he was broken, tell me what you think. I tried to make him more interesting rather than broken.

 

In regards to a 3 librarian costing 230+ with 3 powers per turn, that doesn't mean a lib cant have 3 powers per turn and be less than that because we are all well aware that upgrade for 1 extra power is worth no where near 50 points.

 

Regards,

Crynn

[The Holy Heretic]

Master Reverian

 

WS7 BS4 S6 T6 W4 I2 A5 LD10 2+/5++/2++

 

Reverian suffers from a rare space disease that is slowly turning his body into indestructium - a very potent psychic metal, and also the hardest substance in the universe.

 

Psychic mastery 4, all powers but one - determine at random, as the disease messes with his concentration.

 

Psychic Conduit: All GKs can use his LD for their powers, but at the same time, all psychic powers used against Reverian, will be at +1 LD, and when using his hood against these, Reverian will be at -1 LD.

 

Master of Daemons: As daemons flock to Reverians bright beacon of psychic power, he has fought countless battles against them, and his mind is filled with unspeakable True Names. This allows the GK player to field 1 choice from the Daemon codex as Reverians retinue. Reverian must make an Ld test at the start of each opponents turn, if failed the daemons turn against him and attacks him in the assault phase, he then regains control at the start of the GK players turn. If Reverian is killed the daemons run rampant and starts moving towards while shooting and attacking the closest target. If Reverian summons any daemons, no purifiers can be added to the army.

 

The Rod of Power: A nemesis force staff made of pure indestructium, allowing Reverian to focus all his power into a deadly psychic attack. This takes up all his psychic power for that round, so no other powers can be used. The attack is a S10, AP3, Ordnance 3 with unlimited range.

 

Points cost 300.

[Crynn]

Master Reverian

 

WS7 BS4 S6 T6 W4 I2 A5 LD10 2+/5++/2++

 

Reverian suffers from a rare space disease that is slowly turning his body into indestructium - a very potent psychic metal, and also the hardest substance in the universe.

 

Psychic mastery 4, all powers but one - determine at random, as the disease messes with his concentration.

 

Psychic Conduit: All GKs can use his LD for their powers, but at the same time, all psychic powers used against Reverian, will be at +1 LD, and when using his hood against these, Reverian will be at -1 LD.

 

Master of Daemons: As daemons flock to Reverians bright beacon of psychic power, he has fought countless battles against them, and his mind is filled with unspeakable True Names. This allows the GK player to field 1 choice from the Daemon codex as Reverians retinue. Reverian must make an Ld test at the start of each opponents turn, if failed the daemons turn against him and attacks him in the assault phase, he then regains control at the start of the GK players turn. If Reverian is killed the daemons run rampant and starts moving towards while shooting and attacking the closest target. If Reverian summons any daemons, no purifiers can be added to the army.

 

The Rod of Power: A nemesis force staff made of pure indestructium, allowing Reverian to focus all his power into a deadly psychic attack. This takes up all his psychic power for that round, so no other powers can be used. The attack is a S10, AP3, Ordnance 3 with unlimited range.

 

Points cost 300.

 

Lol. I knew Mephiston had a brother.

[Oiad]

To be constructive, is anyone willing to post an example of what they'd consider to be a non-broken librarian SC?

 

Did you nto see the one I posted? I don't believe he was broken, tell me what you think. I tried to make him more interesting rather than broken.

 

In regards to a 3 librarian costing 230+ with 3 powers per turn, that doesn't mean a lib cant have 3 powers per turn and be less than that because we are all well aware that upgrade for 1 extra power is worth no where near 50 points.

 

Regards,

Crynn

Oh, I'm trying not to be too critical here. Personally I don't have much of a problem with people making their own characters and have always found them rather fascinating. It's just that with all the other remarks on here it would be interesting to see what everyone else classifies as a fair character. That way it probably makes things easier for the OP, if they decide to redraft their own work.

 

Also, it'll be helpful when I start work on the characters for a current codex project of mine too. ;)

[thade]

Oh, I'm trying not to be too critical here. Personally I don't have much of a problem with people making their own characters and have always found them rather fascinating.

To be clear, the reason I tried to steer us away from that is that it's not really an OI board thing; it's a Homebrew rules board thing. The relevant discussion to OI that I saw here was why there was no special character Librarian in the GK dex and whether or not that was a bad thing.

 

I'm not a mod, but I also have no interest in trying to balance a special librarian character. I dislike special characters in practice because - as another poster said - they tend to be super powerful instead of simply adding something new. I don't see any reason a model that's not an Eldar (with their super advanced psyker tech) should be able to disregard Perils of the Warp or any other power beyond already being one of the most powerful ICs in the game right now. I really like that the Librarian in the GK dex is both highly configurable and very powerful; I wish the same were true for all non-special character ICs.

[The Holy Heretic]

Lol. I knew Mephiston had a brother.

 

Well, thank you. Somehow I knew, you'd like him ;)

[Crynn]

Oh, I'm trying not to be too critical here. Personally I don't have much of a problem with people making their own characters and have always found them rather fascinating.

To be clear, the reason I tried to steer us away from that is that it's not really an OI board thing; it's a Homebrew rules board thing. The relevant discussion to OI that I saw here was why there was no special character Librarian in the GK dex and whether or not that was a bad thing.

 

I'm not a mod, but I also have no interest in trying to balance a special librarian character. I dislike special characters in practice because - as another poster said - they tend to be super powerful instead of simply adding something new.

 

except this exceptionally true. Most characters are actually rather horrible you just will mainly only see the powerful few on the table top. Ever see brother captain stern or the decapitatir played at high level competitive game or even really at all? I have played many games and never seen either, and this is just to name a few. It is no different from their being good and bad units in a codex, how Manu space wolf armies do you see with whirlwinds in their heavy support section? We all know it's long fangs and occasionally a pred so it's not just special characters that this happens with it's almost every codex that has these same issues with many slots. The fact is most special characters are really quite bad, but because you only see mephiston and coteaz on the other table you can get a screed view however it's no different from seeing a rune priest (very powerful their points cost) or a ravager which almost every Dark Eldar army has at least one of.

 

As for makig characters, I am not really into that either, I was only trying to make a character that was interesting and not over powered to show the OP as his character was severely over the top. Homebrew isn't my thing. Unless of course it's that mephistons brother character, hehe.

 

Regards,

Crynn

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

The generic Libby is so good you don't need a SC.

 

G :lol:

[Crynn]

The generic Libby is so good you don't need a SC.

 

G :lol:

 

Totally agree but it doesn't mean it wouldnt be cool to have one. I mean the GM is so convertable and good yet we have 2 special characters of those.

[Oiad]

Oh, I'm trying not to be too critical here. Personally I don't have much of a problem with people making their own characters and have always found them rather fascinating.

To be clear, the reason I tried to steer us away from that is that it's not really an OI board thing; it's a Homebrew rules board thing. The relevant discussion to OI that I saw here was why there was no special character Librarian in the GK dex and whether or not that was a bad thing.

 

I'm not a mod, but I also have no interest in trying to balance a special librarian character. I dislike special characters in practice because - as another poster said - they tend to be super powerful instead of simply adding something new. I don't see any reason a model that's not an Eldar (with their super advanced psyker tech) should be able to disregard Perils of the Warp or any other power beyond already being one of the most powerful ICs in the game right now. I really like that the Librarian in the GK dex is both highly configurable and very powerful; I wish the same were true for all non-special character ICs.

That's understandable but if the mods haven't reacted to the character creating (despite the subject having arisen a couple of times now) then there doesn't seem like much of a problem with discussing the points that will help the OP with their actual post either. After all it's only being polite in respects to the actual content of the OP, which wasn't really asking the 'whys' we expected. Looking back the title is perhaps something of a misnomer.