Hello there fellow GM's,

I'm currently under the never-ending project of making deathwatch a more robust and fair game. As a large part of my houseruling, I have borrowed several rule changes from Black Crusade to use into deathwatch (especially the changes to "critical hits"). However, from what I understand FFG essentially looks to create a singular ruleset with a sliding scale depending on what character you are playing, making stats homogenous between DH, RT, DW, BC and OW. It has also been noted that with every new rulebook we have found that FFG has become ever closer to hopefully achieving their vision.

So I have been considering diving into the OW rulebook and applying the rules in that book to DW, with changes where applicable to the sliding scale. Before I dive in though, is this a wise idea? Has anyone done this, and have you met with success or is to too incompatible? I have some big problems with certain DW rules, but no-one in my group wants to play anything other than the Space Marines, so we would not be switching to other systems entirely.

Thanks so much for your time.

I haven't seen much of OW myself but as far as I know the changes aren't that drastic. It has the aforementioned critical hit rule, treats melee attacks like automatic fire, has rearranged bonuses for single shot/semi-/full-auto, etc.

Since the changes in BC and OW are partially due to perceived flaws in DW and earlier, the integration shouldn't be too difficult. But as I said: I have never played OW.

That said, what version of DW are you playing and what are your problems with it?

Alex

I am playing with the errata currently, and while I am mostly happy, there are some gripes I have with how combat vs hordes work as well as dodging. I also used to really dislike how emperor's fury works but with BC that has been more than remedied, and I am going to look at OW to see if there are some better changes as to how to handle other aspects of combat. Currently I feel the flow is a little off, it flows really poorly and there is very little good back and forth. It's difficult to explain but it's something that I thought became way less of a problem with the errata changes to bolters and my borrowing of the BC rules a month back.

Thanks for the reply ak-73, I'll see if I can take a good look at OW over the weekend.

One big change between the two systems is the bonuses to Rate of Fire: instead of +0/+10/+20, the new system is +10/+0/-10. Combined with Semi-/Full being changed to Half Actions, this change will probably have the most effect on DW - I can't say if it would be beneficial or detrimental.

The OW mechanics work great. I prefer them for the most part. They're more evolved rules. However the full-auto penalty paired with the errata RoF does neuter the heavy bolter a lot.

So I spent all weekend writing up the conversion for OW to DW. A few things have come up, and I'm wondering if I can get others opinions on this.

The main point of contention is how Lightning Attack works. Unlike DW rules, both swift and lightning attacks are half actions and play out quite a bit differently. To clarify; swift attack now is a single attack roll and you get an extra attack for every 2 degrees of success. If one is using two-weapon fighting than you roll an extra attack after the first is completed and gain an attack for every 2 degrees of success on your offhand, lightning attack works similarily except one gains attack for every degree of success.

Now, in Only War, unbalanced and unwieldy weapons can be used for swift attacks but not for lightning attacks, I decided to allow these weapons for lightning attack for now to compensate for Astartes Physique rather than the physical ability of a soldier. Then I witnessed first hand a rank 6 assault marine armed with a Thunder Hammer one shot a Carnifex, doing more damage than the most powerful single weapon a War Hound Titan can deal, and so I need to fix that rule. Do you guys have any ideas? Do I just forbid unbalanced and unwieldy weapons as per the Only War rules? I feel thats a bit inelegant and I would certainly piss off a few of my players. If you have any suggestions I would be super grateful.

Also the other consideration is how lightning and swift attack works with hordes, it seems like OW has no rules for hordes or the concept of magnitude. So in DW, every two degrees of success deals 1 magnitude damage, and something like lightning attack will deal anywhere from 3-4 hits. In OW rules, you realistically only roll a lightning attack once, so how do I make this apply to magnitude damage? Do I just use Full auto rules? This makes swift and lightning attack much weaker than usual, changing the damage from around 11-12 magnitude to max 6-7 for a high ranked player.

Do you guys have any opinions? If my writing wasn't clear I can certainly reword my statements, I just happened to write this out in class so it's in a bit of a rush.

So, they made the OW rules more or less into DH2 Beta v2.

Well, well. Actually I consider DW's ruleset stronger.

I don't fancy:

• Righteous Fury changes. Instead I allow re-rolling all 10s of a damage roll, subject to normal RF limitations. That allows for epic damage if you have epic luck. Just what I want in my DW game, not some random low critical.
• Melee working as automatic fire. A unified mechanic makes the game too streamlined, too samey. When melee worked differently, the game had more variety mechanic-wise.
• New automatic-fire modifiers are too harsh. Astartes might be able to deal with it but still. For reference have a look at this current thread:
  http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/100970-heavy-bolters-vs-autocannons/

Anyway... the Thunder Hammer got too strong due to the errata. Part of it was due to unbalanced weapon quality rules in DW itself (use those from OW/DH 2 instead), part of it was the SB multiplier increase. The TH should really have more or less similar stats to the power fist. So either use 2d10 for damage or discard the SB multiplier increase.
So that is something to consider regardless of what rules you use.

Otherwise I am not familiar enough with the new rules. Didn't they have those in BC already? BC definitely got hordes so you'll probably find an explanation there (Jesus, these different rulesets are a mess).

Alex

I have not allowed Lightning Attack with Unwieldy weapons. Astartes physique also means bigger weapons, so the overall effect is nil. This helps retain some balance.

And yes, the intent of OW's swift/lightning is to be identical to auto fire rules. It neuters them in that it doesn't burn through reactions as easily, but also increases the number of hits substantially.

Thunder Hammers are OP to begin with. I wouldn't give them Unnatural x3, tbh.