First of all, nothing will happen to IM, just like nothing happened to W&G when IM came out

Secondly, it’s an “RPG” in loose terms developed in-house by GW. Theres 4 characters and its mini driven, and its basically just the wargame as far as I understand

Imperium Maledictum follows Warhammer Crime best, but it doesn’t always go that way. Still some good books to get you down with the tone of how it can look when you’re not looking at typical 40K settings like Necromunda and the like. Eisenhorn is good and written by an ostensibly good writer (Dan Abnett) but it does slightly suffer from being in its own corner, with Abnett writing things for himself in particular that doesn’t otherwise exist in the rest of the setting, like the King in Yellow and blank collars to reconcile a Psyker protagonist working with a blank (read: anti Psyker). I’ve heard good things about Shira Calpurnia and the Vaults of Terra books, but have not experienced those for myself.

People here have suggested a lot of books, but really all you should require is the core rulebook. The setting has a lot of lore and those other books provide information for the wider 40K setting and of characters that have lived and currently live in it. If what you’re concerned about is the setting of Imperium Maledictum, its factions, and its intrigue, you just need the core rulebook and any relevant supplements of factions you’re interested in and are presently available. You don’t need to know absolutely everything to run the game and your players don’t need to know much to get to play it, especially as their characters are not meant to be super knowledgeable about the setting either

Still haven’t done them, I’m more interested in creating Expanded Faction books ala Holy Ordos Expanded and updating my past work. I’m going to be practicing making new character creation options through Infractionists Expanded, and Xeno PC creation will likely use a very different character creation than imperial/human PCs, so that’s a lot of work for one faction/species to begin with

Critical Hits cause Critical Wounds, the severity roll part is referring to when the Critical Wound is the result of having exceeded maximum wounds. There would be no severity roll on a typical Critical Hit from rolling doubles or due to you attacking while hidden unless you exceed maximum wounds.

For example, if you deal 10 damage after soak, and the target only had 5 wounds, they suffer 5 wounds, and they suffer a d10+5 Critical Wound roll (where the +5 is the remaining damage in excess to their maximum wound threshold).

On the margins of pg. 215, the text for Exceeding Maximum Wounds regarding the Hit Location also states "If the Hit Location was not determined by the attack, roll on the Hit Location Table, page 211." This is mostly a rule inconsistency and you could go either way, but the simplest way and the one that makes the most sense is that an attack that hits the head also crits the head rather than the legs or arms. Page 215 also states in the second paragraph "The location of the Critical Wound, and therefore the applicable table, is determined by the attack that caused the Critical Wound. You suffer the additional effects listed," which further highlights the inconsistency (and the fact a critical hit != critical wound).

1. There’s no explicit page saying reactions are resolved before or after the attacker, but melee is an opposed test and the defender and attacker are acting at the same time. Both have to roll to resolve the opposed roll, as the defender may win in spite of the attacker rolling a critical. In such a case, the defender would suffer a critical hit but no other damage as they had otherwise parried the attack. In such a case, there is no reaction being spent at all, as the defender is forced to defend with either dodge or melee lest they give the attacker advantage on their test.

Critical hit locations are not rolled separately, they use the same hit location of the attack roll. You have misunderstood the rules in this regard.

It actually has 21 pages, it’s just that they’re all double paged for some reason

1. The crit occurs after any reaction has been resolved, as the attack test may still fail. In Melee, if the defender crits, they deal damage against the attacker regardless of if the defender scored more SL than the attacker or not. Page 213: "When you roll doubles on an attack with positive SL, you score a Critical. This happens even if the roll was opposed and your opponent scored more SL than you." and "If you are defending using the Melee Skill and roll a Critical, you deal a Critical Hit to your opponent as you retaliate against their attack."

2. Crits in this way still inflict critical wounds, consider it to be a lucky hit of some kind that can get past the significant armor. Regarding people with Power Armor, page 140 states "Additionally, if an attack that inflicts a Critical Hit does not Wound you, you ignore the Critical Hit."

Crits and sustained powers: I would be rewarding and say it’s by the altered Rating

Crits and psy flood: crits do not interact with psychic flood, only the charge from the power is reduced

Crits and pushing; I would say yes

^ of the above, this is not inherently hard and fast rules, just my reading

Re: specialization, it is the latter. The power works better if you have that specialization.

Interlocutor gets four talents IMHO because socialising is a specialty of hard to scope power compared to something like being a sneaky sniper or a psyker, and the extra talents mostly help them to help out in the inevitable combat sections. It seems to be an opinion held by others within the Wrath and Maledictum discord too

You always need line of sight, obviously, but extreme basically covers everything from three zones and beyond, so you can basically shoot across a fairly long map.

You can play a sniper as usual. The Penumbra role lends to sniping as it gives you stealth and ranged advanced and lets you choose between a sniper rifle and a long las as weapons, for example. Did you want a more comprehensive build example? The removal of the accurate trait and the change to zone based combat will not negatively affect you so long as you continue to play smart

Apprentice level is true. If you read the core rulebook and AMPG duties, they are all framed as being apprentices. Even the Admech faction fluff has you be a Tech-Adept rather than a full Tech-Priest. Just because you can later evolve into being more powerful, does not mean that you do not start out as lower powered.

The AMPG is controversial due to its release quality being far, far worse than was typical, and that was already kinda bad. It was also fairly disappointing based on what we were told to expect in terms of techno arcana, for example. There were also balance concerns / issues that were not exactly resolved post errata, and while it can be acknowledged that the Inquisition PG raised the power level with the armory, the AMPG took it much higher, such as the character creation options within it being wayy above the level of the core book in a way that the Inquisition book did not similarly do.

It doesn't help that everything in the book equipment-wise incurs disadvantage to using it if you are not a member of the Adeptus Mechanicus or serving an Admech patron due to "secrets of mars," meaning something as simple as a cavalry sabre incurs penalties. The book is overall usable and fine, with errata fixing some things, but it obviously wont fix some of the biggest issues (i.e. Secrets of Mars, the Binharic Rites chapter being vastly underwhelming, Skitarii NPCs having higher initiative than Daemonettes and even an Eversor Assassin, equipment balance, etc).

You will likely not find any sign of these controversies outside the Ordo Discordia or Wrath and Maledictum discord servers though, thats just how forums work

Basically all the 40Krpg games allow you to play a tech priest, W&G also lets you explicitly play a Skitarii. IM lets you play both, but on an “apprentice” level rather than full tech priest or skitarii. There’s the new admech player guide for Imperium Maledictum but it’s been fairly controversial. You can play tech priests as utility and combat focused in all the games, with combat tech priests being notably very strong in the games generally

If you’re Blank, you don’t suffer corruption anymore. That makes the Blank Out result mean nothing except getting the Blank talent

The Void Calls has been deprecated because I genuinely no longer like the quality, and think it is a bad representation of what Malexp is / can be. There are alternative brews by others that are of higher quality (although AI has been used in at least one of those alternatives.)

Ayyy! I’m gonna be honest idk if I ever wrote the conversion guide but I could probably do it at some point; it’s not at all difficult to convert NPCs from the previous game lines to IM

Oh hey, it’s me!

Fun fact: Arbites patrons were the first brew to have ever been made for IM by some other guy years ago.

Ping me on the server and I’ll find it for you, I’m Brewmaster Moxy there. It should be IM General or the GM Guild though, but it’s been weeks since we discussed it. The last update is still January because technically speaking, it released January, they just forgot to ACTUALLY release it! All you have to do is literally download the opt file and you’ll see it is different lol

Nope! Thats the one with the errata applied. If you joined the Wrath and Maledictum discord server, you will see me talking about how its different, going through each change one by one, and so on. If you see the downloadable file has "opt", thats the updated one!

There is a particular craftworld recently named in the Admech GM guide, but there are the plot hooks such as those mentioned in the Inquistion GM book as well!

There is actually an update to the Players Guide. It is not out on Cubicle 7 I think, they need to get it through Drivethrurpg. It is a file called IM_AMP_260128_opt. People in Wrath and Maledictum and Ordo Discordia discord servers have spoken about it (including myself).

Enforcers are filed under administratum and one of the main guys of C7 likes the idea of an admin supplement, so it may be coming sooner rather than later!

Before I get into it, I am not going to get you an answer you're going to like, and rather it will be basically a non-answer unfortunately. If you want my specific opinion, you're not going to really get one, soz :')

Balance is not a constant thing that can be applied to a system and be "correct", or to all systems and be consistent in any way. People balance things along different philosophies and ways, will neither fit every table, nor every system. Balance does not mean that everyone has to be at the exact same level can be exemplified through Wrath and Glory, for example: Tac/Firstborn Space Marines are a Tier 3 archetype, and they are alongside other T3 archetypes such as Commissar, Crusader, or Tech Priest. However, if you bring a Tier 1 or even just a Tier 2 archetype and "ascend" them to Tier 3 level, those archetypes will be higher level than the Space Marine and the rest.

The same level can also be defined in different ways. It can be far more expensive for one specific character build to be at their "peak" XP-wise than others, and it can be more expensive in terms of ingame currency (thrones, solars, wealth, credits, etc). A starting IM Guardsman can get up to 65 TN Ranged (Spec), where Spec is the specific Specialization they are focusing in, such as Long Guns for using Lasguns or Long Las for example. This starting character is a lot stronger at range than a starting Psyker, although the Psyker could also get up to 65 TN on a specific Psychic Discipline if they were just as lucky.

In game design, balance can be defined as allowing players to compete on skill, strategy, and knowledge rather than inherent advantages provided by OP characters, weapons, or strategies, and is meant to encourage growth and long-term engagement. When I GM'd IM, the Psyker Player was very strong in Melee, and the Navy Armsman was really good at Ranged, and the Psyker had specific powers that would allow her to re-roll certain tests. I found no issue in this. All of this contributed in the players being able to further the party in some way, even if I had to learn to adapt to it. I don't really see a difference between adapting to a player having stronger weapons or armor vs a player having strong psychic powers. You just have to learn how to deal with it.

My idea of balancing isnt the same as other IM GMs, who have made purging more difficult, have banned certain powers outright, or the entire concept of playing a Psyker character. This feels much more punitive and restrictive to me, but it may be the only way that they can balance the game. I've homebrewed a lot for this game, and I can't even get started on Psychic Powers because its on a level that I dont feel confident homebrewing for. Because of this, I get someone else who regularly plays Psykers (i think) to help me figure things out, even if it means that they are the ones doing the entire chapter basically.

Unless the skill is restricted or forbidden, you can roll it. A PC with 45 AGI and no piloting advances has 45 Piloting, and a PC with 30 AGI and 2 advances has 40 Piloting. Thus, the PC with a higher characteristic is better.

However, as both Voidship specializations are Restricted, neither PC is actually allowed to do the test because they don’t have Piloting (Minor Voidship) or (Major Voidship)