It seems like lightning attack for melee and full auto for range are the way to maximize damage leaving solo shot weapons like missile launchers and plasma cannons in the dust. Not only can you score multiple hits, but it makes it harder to dodge as well since they're are likely to need multiple degrees of success and not just one.

Would it rebalance the scale if weapons with accurate had to be dodged by degrees as well? So if a player was hit with enough success to get both bonus d10s, he'd need one dodge to knock off 1d10, 2 dodges to eliminate the other bonus d10, and a third to negate the base hit.

Also what about letting some using aim change their +10 bonus to hit into a -10 dodge for the opponent?

Not sure if it helps but the changes to how those attack modes work in BC/OW compared to DW/DH make these a bit better. You may want to consider the below:

Lightning attack and full auto now give penalties to your attack roll while single swipes grant bonuses to your hit roll. This means that the attacker needs to be better and overall will reduce their number of shots going out slightly.

Defensive now also works with each DoS or 2DoS for Semi Auto/Swift Attack dodging an equivalent number of inbound attacks. You dont get penalties to dodging multiple inbound IIRC so its easier on the defender.

Accurate, most weapons I see with that by default are things like sniper rifles and silenced weapons for quiet kills. If you are using them correctly then you only need that one shot which is taken silently and the target receives no bonuses. The bonus damage is probably since the time was taken to arrange the perfect shot and hit the target square between the eyes (or somewhere sensitive). I see what you're saying though that it hits a less vital or killing point...

Yes the -10 to full auto is a penalty compared to the +10 of a standard shot (and way less than dw +20), But figure even with the penalty, a devastator style marine can still be easily north of 70% hit chance with that heavy bolter. Say 70% is his hit chance and he rolls a 50. Thats 3 hits meaning the target needs to roll 20% below his dodge to avoid all hits. Say the same marine then switches to his plasma cannon and now has a 90% hit chance given the change of rate of fire. First shot is a 89 barely hitting, and the second shot is an 01. Both shots are dodged with equal chance.

I understand that the one hit wonder weapons only have toughness/armor subtracted out once while full auto gets it with every hit, but it seems like the latter scale much stronger with experience than the former.

in my games I always compared the DOS of the attacker vs the defender. Thou I usually just give a point or two of damage if the defender fails by a narrow margin.

an example of this happened when one of my players was fighting a giant statue of the Emperor. the statue swung and got 3 DOS on the player who then dodged and got 2 dos. So I ruled that he almost got out of the way but one claw managed to nick him anyway so he took 2 points of damage ( ignoring armor and toughness just to keep the game moving)

I find that it keeps the game a bit more dangerous for everybody and still lets people with good attributes get a benefit from them.

I find that it keeps the game a bit more dangerous for everybody and still lets people with good attributes get a benefit from them.

Actually It makes it less dangerous, at last for foes that would be otherwise strong enough to get through your TB/Armor anyways.

But btt:

Single Shot weapons are pretty good, a Long Las for example can deal huge damage and yes, it might get dodged, but keep in mind most enemys can only dodge once. So if you party member also concentrates fire you are golden and, to be frank, that is what the NPCs should keep doing If they want to have a chance in some encounters.

The Plasma Cannon sucks, simply because it is a plasma weapon (BUT BLAAAAAST). They always suck more or less in FFG RPs. The missile launcher on the other hand has Blast 5 Frag Missiles, try to dodge that on a direct hit without at last an Agility score of 60 - you cant for this is an automatic fail.

The example of a frag missile just drives home my point. An undodgeable 2d10+2 will net what, 5 damage? (13 average roll, 4 TB 6 armor) Lightning attack with a power sword on the same target would do 7.5 on average per hit . While they can parry/dodge, the fact that you can use multiple degrees of success to make it harder means you're likely get a hit with the possibility of multiple hits.

So... 5 damage on several mooks, lets say... 3? The possibility to load some Krak missile? I'd consider that a decent gun.

And please compare ranged guns with ranged guns. Melee weapon are always more effective in the hands of a skilled combatant than most ranged weapons. That is just normal.

But yes, to a degree weapons with higher RoF can cause more damage, though there are dedicated Single-Shot weapons like the Long Las that do great. I do not get what the problem here is?

Hail of bullets right in your face? Ofc they are harder to dodge than one bullet. Be happy that you can even try to dodge a bullet at all.

Ok, replacing power sword with heavy bolter just magnifies my point even further since its 1d10+12 instead of 1d10+6 (I left out SB above).

I was just trying to type out the average damage a turn at low level vs high level comparing a lascannon to a hb but the probabilities are more challenging than i can do in my head. I'll have to find time to run a monte carlo.

There is a valid point though and possibly sidetracking you, the dodging mechanics can be somewhat crap.

If I take a Las-Cannon and aim at a big thing like a greater daemon I get one really big shot and can probably get around +50 in bonuses on top of a rough average of 40BS (+30 for size, +10 for half action aim, +10 for single shot) meaning I'm rolling less than 90. Say I roll a natural 1, eight full DoS or nine if I use human adroit ability and picked BS. That many DoS which is a splendid shot anyway but the natural one is to me one of those glorious successes where I should be celebrating and as a house rule we tend to say "Yes you're getting away with it as passing just because it's a 1".

Under the dodge rules though all they need to do is just pass the **** roll and they can avoid it. So lets assume I'm using an Unclean One with Agility 21. Somehow (I havent the slightest clue how) he manages to roll exactly 21. Despite then being the size of a small starliner, right up close to me, he manages to dodge the shot so despite millions of DoS, one lucky roll only just being bang on has meant all eight DoS of mine have just been given the middle finger by ONE bland success. That to me doesn't sit right for big single shot guns. Multi shot like a HB would also be inefficient on such targets due to their low average damage output and likely not getting through armour and TB.

As explained though, the only thing you can do is rinse then enough so that they can't dodge it all. I don't think anything gets more than 2-3 reactions per round.

I agree 100% with what's been said. I've been playing a missile launcher devastator in DW for years now and acutely know this pain of being dodged and the joy of the well place power hit turning the tide.*

But DW at least has one piece of gear that inflicts a penalty on the dodge (the targeter) and there is a deed that lets negate a dodge chance.

Lets say I'm sitting at 100% hit chance. If i aim with my HB the extra +10 cancels out my minus 10 to leave me at 100% and helps the odds of getting one more hit. If i fire a krak missile, aiming does nothing for me since i'm either hitting, jamming, or dodging.

Allowing aim in the later case to be a penalty to the dodge rather than a bonus to hit would still make it useful. But would it make it over powered compared to a full auto build, a lightning attack build, or a psychic barrage build?

*(Hey Mr. demon engine! How'd you like that 72 point blank melta shot huh?!!)

I must admit I agreed with the 'compare DoS' method - until I tried it. Basically it means that ANYONE with high agility simply becomes untouchable (you thought Eldar were bad before? Hoo boy...) and if you have average or middling agility you might as well not bother to get Dodge at higher levels.

Honestly, I think some kind of middle ground needs to be found, both for the sake of realism and the sake of getting dodging 'right'.