OK, so Lightning Strike at our session gives you an amount of extra hits equal to degrees of success in WS roll, but no more than WS bonus. I'm playing a weird customised Missionary that hangs around with a best Power Rapier, has awesome WS etc. Excluding Bionics and extremes (like daemon weapons of khorne), is there some way to get unnatural WS? It can come from any book of any RPG40k system except for Ascension and Deathwatch (and Deathwatch add-ons).

I dunno, get Minion via the Minion talent from Black Crusade, that is able to cast Warp Time on you? I seem to recall there was some way to do that.

I suppose it might be possible using a Daemonic Pact (from DH), but that is very much an extreme.

I think some combat drugs (I'd have to check but maybe 'Slaught or Barrage?) might get you close to it, but a) it wouldn't be a permanent thing, or even necessarily up to the levels of WSB you'd get from an Unnatural stat; and b) they come with downsides. Often nasty ones. True, it's possible to circumvent those downsides, but only through use of implants (specifically, drug glands) as the delivery mechanism.

My gut is telling me there is another method, but offhand I can't place it. I'll do some checking.

Getting a sane GM to agree to a Psy Rating 6+ Minion that knows Warp Time is... unlikely, at best. Especially if you're expecting said minion to confer the multiplier version of unnatural statistics rather than the additive.

Other than that, there's no real way to do it that I'm aware of, save for GM fiat. Take Two-Weapon Wielder and use both weapons for lightning attacks?

Accept that you're probably not going to get more than 7 attacks in a round and move on with your life? I think your GM is already insane for agreeing to this.

There are not actually very many ways to boost your WS, as most drugs focus on your Strength or Toughness. Would talents like Frenzy or Hatred which boost your WS count towards giving you an extra attack?

As with Unnatural Willpower, the only real way to get Unnatural WS is to get your GM drunk. Very, very drunk.

Question: what would having Unnatural WS add to the narrative of your character?

Alex

I actually want to do this to show him how broken this mechanic is (and killing a carnifex equivalent in one turn with a fragile rapier seems like a way to go) I happen to know there are some NPCs with this, and fighting those ain't gonna be fun. Will-burn-a-fate-point not fun.

Strictly speaking, the only 'broken' thing about that system is that it's a half-action, and that you can do lightning attack with two weapons as that single half-action.

Anything else is the ridiculously high level that PCs can get their stats up to.

I do not allow Unnatural WS or BS in my campaigns... ever.

Isn't 14 power weapon attacks in one round normally enough to kill a carnifex? With high-level lightning attacks in the OW system, I get the feeling you can pretty much kill anything bare-handed. I've made it up to 1d10+21 unarmed damage with an Arch-Militant, at least

You WANT to break the game? Well, shame on ya fer admittin it.

If you are using the rules from Only War then unnatural WS may not help you at all as I think (and please someone feel free to correct me if I've got this wrong) that it specifically states its based on your unmodified WS bonus.

Regards

Surak

Not true. The OW core book says nothing about it being unmodified.

Cheers Magellan,

I knew it was how our group has played since the end of the OW beta but I couldn't remember if it was a house rule or offical one and my book wasn't to hand.

Its certainly the fix we applied to the Vindicare to reduce the dodge related sillyness there.

Regards

Surak

Cheers Magellan,

I knew it was how our group has played since the end of the OW beta but I couldn't remember if it was a house rule or offical one and my book wasn't to hand.

Its certainly the fix we applied to the Vindicare to reduce the dodge related sillyness there.

Regards

Surak

Interesting point - if you have trouble with players abusing the vindicare's dodge anything rule then consider this:

Dodge as a skill check requires you to be aware of what is about to harm you, so a sneak attack or a sniper shot wouldn't allow such a dodge. All the Vindicare talent does is add the option to roll Dodge for pretty much anything, but doesn't specify you can roll it when unaware of something. Perhaps require the Vindicare to roll Awareness followed by Dodge?

Interesting point - if you have trouble with players abusing the vindicare's dodge anything rule then consider this:

Dodge as a skill check requires you to be aware of what is about to harm you, so a sneak attack or a sniper shot wouldn't allow such a dodge. All the Vindicare talent does is add the option to roll Dodge for pretty much anything, but doesn't specify you can roll it when unaware of something. Perhaps require the Vindicare to roll Awareness followed by Dodge?

Oddly enough, that is how I did it. Though I do remember something in there about Surprise attacks, which lead to another debate on the rule. Not so fun that Ascension stuff. Not so fun at all........

Are you saying that the Vindicare - and nobody else - should have to roll Awareness every time he wants to dodge? In any case, I'm a firm believer in the principle that negating the ability to dodge should not be as easy as saying "I stick my gun in my pants and shoot through my pocket". At least not once combat has begun.

Though then again, if you allow Ascension classes to begin with, you've thrown all *my* principles out the window already, so I couldn't say if they'd be able to guide you anywhere useful.

Do I actually have a point to make with all of this? I thought so, but upon reading my own post again, I'm not so sure. Anyway, successfully sneaking up on the Vindicare and putting a number of bullets in his brain during the surprise round should work, but it does kind of lessen the experience for everyone when there is only one thing in the entire game that can challenge a character.

I think people tend to greatly exaggerate the effectiveness of OW/BC Lightning Attacks. Yes, if you have Lightning Attack, a high Weapon Skill, and Two-Weapon Wielder, you can theoretically gtet a ridiculous number of hits, but the chance is very small.

Consider. A WS 60 Genestealer with LA gets 4 Lightning Attacks. Assuming he doesn't Aim with the first one, he has a 60 - 10 (TWW) - 10 (LA) = 40% chance to hit with each one. He has the _possibility_ of getting 16 hits (wow!). But the chance of that is... 0.01%. One in 10,000.

Assuming that it does 1d10+8 damage, against an unarmoured target with a TB3 it will do an average of 16.8 wounds a round with this attack (trust me, I'm not showing my math).

So, yeah.

I'm not sure about your math, Bogi. Could you PM it to me?

If he's going to get four attack rolls with a 40% chance of hitting with each roll, and each DoS granting one hit, then from:

31-40 you get one hit

21-30 you get two hits

11-20 you get three hits

01-10 you get four hits

Right? Model that as rolling a 1d10 with a one, a two, a three, a four, and six zeroes, and yeah, you have a one in ten-thousand chance of getting 16 hits... but on average (and not accounting for dodges) you're going to have four hits per round, no? (sum of total number of hits which can be rolled [1+2+3+4=10] divided by number of rolls possible [also 10], 10/10=1, four attacks rolls with an average of one hit per attack...)

The real killer here is the broad spread of the curve- the standard deviation rounds to 2.8, which means that 68% of attacks will hit between 1.2 and 6.8 times. If you're rolling for more than two or three 'stealers odds are good that you'll get some rolls on the high end. Assuming a 1d10+8 damage profile with no special effects (though I think genestealers ought to have Tearing, at least), against someone with TB 8 (eight, not three) and no armour, that still looks like 22 average damage per round per genestealer.

Did I make an error somewhere?

Edit: I used the Troll dice roller/calculator here to analyze this further. I used the following to run the numbers for damage where each hit does a simple 1d10 after all modifiers, then hit the "calculate probablities" button:

Yeah, I usually count on an Arch-Militant with 80WS, BQ Weapons, Melee Specc and Frenzy when I explain why lightning attack is so devastating. 8 Hits on average per attack, maximum of 9. If more than a couple of those 1d10+20, Pen 7 attacks hit, most enemies will be paste.

The BC/OW mechanic for multiple attacks factored in the generally lower player attributes and other mechanics within those systems to balance it out. Simply slapping that rule into DH/RT/DW doesn't really work.

Buuuut, in OW you can increase your WS infinitely with advanced specialties.

I don't have the books in front of me but im sure i could build an arch militant using the ITS origin path options that would have a WS approaching 100 by the time im done...

It's been a few years, but if I recall correctly, Stubjack/Warrior/Dark Secret will leave you at 60, with +20 from advances. +10 from Frenzy, you're at 90, maximum of 9 hits per round. Other bonuses are to hit, and are virtually the same across systems, aside from the AM's specialisation bonus.

Assuming point buy in both cases, a Hardened Warrior Feudal or Feral Worlder can get 50 to start, +20 from advances, +10 from Frenzy. One less attack per turn than the arch-militant, and he's caught up with that once he hits his first 5000xp.

I'm not saying the AM doesn't have an easier time of it, but there's hardly an incalculably vast gap between the two.

Of course, the Arch-Militant never actually gets Lightning Attack at all, and only gets Swift Attack if you go into the Gland Warrior alternate class. He has to wait until Rank 6 before he gets Two-Weapon Wielder (Melee), and that's 21.000xp into the game. By that point, the Weapon Specialist could have hit 110 Weapon Skill, and would certainly have all the close combat talents he could ever want.