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.

If you're adding your characteristic -bonus- to the final tally of degrees of success, don't. That's not how it works.

Basically, a roll looks like this:

You have 40 BS. You roll a standard attack, meaning you need a 50 to hit.

DoS for hits are:
41-50: One

31-40: Two

21-30: Three

11-20: Four

1-10: Five

To reiterate: You do NOT add characteristic boni to DoS. Hope this helps with your issue

Wouldn't you add the characteristics bonus as well? Also for large degrees of success I've seen examples of people granting damage bonuses etc. how would you do that/ to what degree? Should I just ignore these unless they're specifically stated by the rules? E.g lightning attacks, razor sharp rule etc.

I'm just trying to get my head around where my players should get bonuses dependant on how well they roll. Also when rolling for things like common lores, how would You suggest I grant information based on DoS there?

Sorry, this seems to be a very broad topic

To a regular roll? No. The moment you do that you get ridiculous DoS, as in your initial post, which is simply not how the rules work. The only time, and this is really the only time, you add a flat number to degrees of success is when you have an unnatural characteristics trait for that characteristic.

As far as damage rules go, RAW you gain certain boni from specific talents. These are, generally, fairly clearly stated. Melee attacks, as a rule, also add a characters strength bonus to the roll for damage.

Lore skills, oof... I would orientate myself on the boni for the task. For example, is the heretic trying to recall things off the top of his head? Depending on how obscure it is, that may well be very imprecise knowledge, even with a good success. Is he looking it up in a database or library? The result is likely to be very precise knowledge. Is his Int score around 70 and half his brain computer chips? Then he's a walking library and probably has a clearer recollection than most unaugmented humans are capable of. Generally speaking though, a good rule of thumb is "the better the roll, the more exact the info", given a high INT stat is more likely to generate more DoS anyhow, so it stays more or less realistic.

Where you are getting confused is with unnatural characteristics. An Unnatural characteristic, say BS, adds half its amount to the Dos.

Say i have 40 BS full auto with UN BS of 4. I need a 30 or less for the full auto attack. I roll a 28 giving me 1 Dos plus 2 more for a total of 3 DoS.

That has helped a lot. Thank you very much. I think my players will find their opponents a bit more fun to fight against now. Thanks;D

No probs!