Hey guys, first time posting for me. Warning, it is a bit of a wall of text.
As in the topic, I'm a new GM (new to roleplaying really), and have been playing Black Crusade for a few months with a couple of friends who have had little to no experience with Roleplaying. I just had a few questions about different things, that if you wouldn't mind, you'd just give me ideas on how to deal with these little issues, or clear something up for me.
Degrees of Success - A lot of you seem to know DoS like the back of your hand. I'd imagine from previous game systems, however, in BC, it's almost assumed knowledge. And it has taken me a fair bit of reading into the book to discover what I already now know. My questions are, when taking degrees of success into account, does one add the DoS to the roll? E.g. A character attacking at WS 40 (I think), attacking with an aimed, standard attack (needing 60 or less), rolls a 63. Would you add +5 to the roll? (4 DoS from WS bonus, +1 for the hit itself?) changing the miss to a hit? Also, if a character managed an 11 instead on the same situation, would you deduct 10 from the roll? (4 DoS from WS bonus, 5 for DoS in roll +1 for hit?) Meaning he/she scores a 1 and manages extra bonuses to hit hit?
Another question about DoS is, what do you add for successful DoS and how do you go about this? It seems that it becomes incredibly easy for your characters (all of my players are space marines), to score huge DoS. For example in case my question seems a bit convoluted. In my game, a starting character with a Chainsword and Boltgun, WS/BS of 45 makes a semi-auto attack with his boltgun, scoring a 40 (meaning 1 natural DoS, + the additional 4 from the BS bonus), meaning he scores 3 hits with his bolter, even though he only just managed to hit. If he scored better, what else would I add? More damage? Add criticals? Allow him to choose which eye he exploded? Or give a small narrative explaining how that opponent died? Similarly with the chainsword, assuming it was the same situation, however with an aimed standard attack, he scores a 5 (or a 1 based on my earlier question), granting a whopping 11 DoS (4 from WS bonus, 1 for hit, 6 based on needing a 65 or less, I think that's how it works?). With such a high DoS, does he gain more damage? Another attempt to hit perhaps? At what point should I add these bonuses if so?
I won't get started on my concerns about other skill based tests, such as Awareness, Athletics, or Lore tests. But if you guys could provide me a couple of examples to what bonuses you provide to your excessive DoS scores?
Sorry for the wall of text! Cheers guys and girls.
Edited by Var Zhul