Hero Mode: Help with rules.

[General Strike]

I've been thinking that I want to run a RPG-esque campaign at my buddies new game shop once this is all over. I was hoping to get some help making this work. We would use the basic 40k rules, but I want to make characters much harder to kill. Each person would play as one character, and I would be the enemies. How would you guys make characters tougher, and what are some cool abilities they can unlock as the game goes on?

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Allow a character to double their Strength and number of Attacks for one Turn, reducing their Strength to 2 and number of Attacks to 1 the subsequent Turn- or removing one Wound- as the consequences of using combat drugs and/or a Primaris Marine's Belisarian Furnace? (I proposed the same when I created my own Special Characters for a homemade Codex supplement.)

[tychobi]

I would not go too ham. Captain stats with a little support could work fine. Possibly a few extra wounds, but let a power fist be scary. It should be!

 

A down but not out rule at 0 wounds similar to kill team would go a long way to keeping players around even with high damage weapons. Chaos dread boss fight I can see it now!

[Bjorn Firewalker]

A down but not out rule at 0 wounds similar to kill team would go a long way to keeping players around even with high damage weapons.

Good idea! Taking inspiration from the Hitman computer game, let's restore all the Character's Attacks when he reaches 0 Wounds; if this Character successfully kills an enemy in this state, then 1 Wound will be restored to him, as a reward for being Too Stubborn To Die.

 

If there are two opposing Characters with this Special Rule, have each Player roll dice, with the Character of the Player who rolled a higher number being the one for whom this Special Rule activates?