The situation is that my players have just sprung an ambush starting with sniper fire. The sniper is a human chaos cultist armed with the Overcharged Long-las from the Only War book. The ONLY tweak I made, was to have the weapon be "Chaos Blessed" (homebrew) which adds +1 dmg/+1 pen.

The weapon stats are 1d10+5, pen 3; Accurate, Felling, Overcharge, Chaos Blessed, Reliable).

Its attack stats are as follows; BS 35 +10 (aim) +10 (accurate) +10 (range) +10 (red dot) for a total of <75 to hit.

I have fired on two Astartes with it, both shots maxing out the bonus damage for the accuracy quality.

The damage is as follows: 3d10+5 (1d10+5+2d10(accurate)). One shot did 25 damage and the other did 26 before TB and AP. Because of Felling and pen, these have both averaged at 15 damage to the PC.

Don't get me wrong, I love actually damaging these demi gods of war. But that seems like crazy damage for the weapon. In my IC descriptions I simply attribute it to the favor of the Ruinous Powers with that particular sniper and his skill in finding "weak spots" in the armor. But from an OOC perspective I kind of just sit back and go... "Holy sh;tty balls."

Thoughts?

From a player's perspective, 1-5 damage is "meh, I can take hits like that", 5-10 is "wow, gotta watch out for that guy", 10-15 is "holy sh;tty balls, can't take another one like that", and 15-20 is "I was lucky that didn't one shot me. Retreat, retreat immediately". Obviously 21-25+ does in fact one shot me, in terms of taking me from 0 to crit, same with anything higher, and the reaction is the same as 15-20. If this is meant to be a credible threat, and comes from someone who can be dodged, where they can (and obviously in this situations should) use cover, etc, then you're right in line. If not, if this is just some podunk guy meant to be a speed bump, sure, tone him down, but that seems about right to me. +1 damage / +1 pen is the same mechanically as "mighty shot" (+2 damage) and helps cement him as a credible threat, but certainly doesn't take it from 0 to OP in one fell swoop, so that seems totally fine. Just my thoughts.

Consider as well that a long las is basically a sniper rifle, they are designed for single, slow, accurate but lethal shots. If they weren't potent weapons for long distance kills then they wouldn't be in use by the IG. These damage results are fine, I mean 26, subtract the armour and a TB and thats only around 15 which goes through, hardly threatening. A marine can probably endure two of those...just (thanks to halving crit results).

Damage is fine. The guy is a sniper, putting shots through vision slits and the like. BTW oft times when the background talks about how Marines are defeated they mention snipers are used extensively (see Celestian Lions).

The sniper probably isn't very tough so if the marines get a bead on him a Frag Missile should finish him off.

I discovered that in Deathwatch a PCs power sometimes goes to their heads and they start believing the hype of them being 'demi-gods of war' and so forth. This in turn is infectious so the GM starts second guessing their NPCs power level if they have the temerity to damage the marines. I've done this myself. But no, a marine is still just about a human and guns will harm them.

This is what I told myself and my players are awesome, none of them voiced any concerns about me over buffing the enemies. They were really just like, "Oh..****, maybe we SHOULD start using some cover and not just standing out in the open like nothing can scratch us." And in that sense it really was mission accompished.

And you are right, this dude is squishy and one of my players has already made it known that he is going to toss a frag grenade up onto his Sniper's roost. That is going to end him quickly. This has definitely set the foundation for what I intended to be a challenging battle.

I just wanted to make sure that I wasn't fudging any numbers anywhere. I really do love a weapon with the felling SQ. GET SOME.

Thanks for the replies everyone.

Indeed. Sniper weapons and similar should be challenging for players.

Gunning Down Goons, The Musical is fun for some missions but every so often it's good to put the tinboyz in their place. A well aimed, felling weapon can really do a number on space marines.

The real test is if they pass their awareness check to back-track the shot. Enhanced Senses and Autosenses should help - depends if this guy has any decent camouflage skills.

The worst case I ever threw at one of my kill teams was something similar; they wound up in the middle of a faction war between two inquisitorial factions - one (Amalathian) trying to stabilize a world the tau were making googly eyes at, the other (Istvaanian) trying to support xenophile factions and trigger off an incident which would lead to open war. Realising the kill team was the Amalathian's key asset, an Ordo Sicarius ally of the Amalathians secured the services of a Vindicere assassin.

The opening shot of the engagement was a turbo-penetrator round taking off the kill-team leader's arm at the shoulder joint...

That story is just brilliant. I am glad I am doing well by the GM Gods standards. Kill.

The real test is if they pass their awareness check to back-track the shot. Enhanced Senses and Autosenses should help - depends if this guy has any decent camouflage skills.

Yeah, sadly/luckily one of them rolled some 5 DoS on his Awareness check. So, he was able to maneuvre around and get an Astartes frag up onto the Sniper's roost.

But they don't know about the other sniper yet.