Okay, as implemented in the rules, this quality is pretty useless. The only mentions of it are for a Feral Worlder ability that grants Proven 3 to low-tech weapons, and Krak Missiles with Proven 2. How much extra damage is actually being added by this quality? In the case of Proven 2, there is only an average damage increase of 0.1, from 5.5 to 5.6. For Proven 3, the increase to damage is 0.3, from 5.5 to 5.8. This isn't even increasing average damage by 1 point, and the Tearing quality, by comparison, increases damage by 1.65 points, AND almost doubles the chance of getting a critical hit. All that the Proven quality does is increase the average damage of an attack, while not actually increasing its maximum damage. Not until Proven 7, when Proven adds 2 to the average damage, is the damage increase from Tearing even met or exceeded.

So what should be done for this quality? I'd suggest turning Proven 2 into Proven 7, and Proven 3 into Proven 8 (Proven 8 increases damage by 2.6)

I remember running the numbers back in the beta and realizing that any Proven rating less than like 6 was next to worthless. It's one of those things that sounds good, but when you look at the actual mathematical effect it has as written you realize it's kind of crappy.

While increasing Proven ratings across the board would actually increase damage (rather than merely appearing to), if you're rolling a die and you're going to ignore 7 of the 10 faces, why bother?

Well, it is a nice way to increase average damage while not increasing maximum damage.

The point of Proven is to increase the minimal damage. It looks pretty worthless... until you face it with 3-4 Wounds away from death, when it suddenly becomes pretty darn important to not get shot by the weapon that deals at least 4 points of damage.

Proven benefits heavily from additional d10 through various talents. It's only pointless when you add it to something that only does 1d10 + X damage, without any way to increase it via accurate, raptor, whatever. Proven (2) plasma pistol -> Pointless. Proven (2) Chain Hammer or sniper rifle -> Pretty **** awesome.

Am I taking crazy pills or is there literally only one weapon in the core book that even has Proven (krak missile, proven 2, lol).

Pretty much. It's less of a problem in OW where every weapon can roll proven via patterns (though things like an ogryn proof, proven 2 and delicate plasma pistol come to mind...). Proven (2) on something that does 3d10 ranged or 2d10 melee is actually worth it. If the fixed damage on the ranged weapon is high enough, prove (2) on 1d10 can be worth it as well, if just to ensure you'll always be likely to damage your opponent with the gun/explosive.

It's highly circumstantial, though, and doesn't really apply to DH2 currently.

Proven 2 on something that rolls 3d10 only adds .3 to the average damage total. That is still absolute garbage.

The point of Proven is to increase the minimal damage. It looks pretty worthless... until you face it with 3-4 Wounds away from death, when it suddenly becomes pretty darn important to not get shot by the weapon that deals at least 4 points of damage.

Given that instead of proven the weapon could just have gotten a better quality, more damage, or more penetration, Proven is pretty useless. Lots of other things could have brought up that damage total AND been more useful than the edge case of someone having exactly the right number of wounds left.

Proven benefits heavily from additional d10 through various talents. It's only pointless when you add it to something that only does 1d10 + X damage, without any way to increase it via accurate, raptor, whatever. Proven (2) plasma pistol -> Pointless. Proven (2) Chain Hammer or sniper rifle -> Pretty **** awesome.

As I said above, proven 2 is only adding a .1 damage to each average d10. Unless you're rolling 10d10, it's not even equivalent to just adding +1 damage! And that "equivalence" doesn't take Ito account that just adding +1 damage ALSO increases the maximum damage, which proven doesn't. Also, adding Proven 2 to a weapon with tearing increases the average damage by a whopping .03 damage. Woo!

For everyone: when considering the benefit that Proven X adds, remember that this benefit only applies to the roll when you roll below the proven value. That means proven 2 only even works 10% of the time. 90% of the time it does nothing. It's the equivalent of rolling an extra d10 and if you roll a 10 add +1 damage, to a maximum of 10. That is NOT good, even of you do it for several d10s.

Proven 2 on something that rolls 3d10 only adds .3 to the average damage total. That is still absolute garbage.

Key word here is Average. In reality, a few Wounds in even higher-tier WH40kRP games can make the difference between being virtually unscathed and just dying. Proven isn't meant to be some big damage boost, and you're comparing it to wildly different Special Qualities.

You say that "...instead of proven the weapon could just have gotten a better quality, more damage, or more penetration...". No, it couldn't have. The Special Qualities were never intended to be interchangeable. They vary greatly in utility, power, and rationale.

Not 100% sure the rule is still in DH2, but in OW Proven got devalued even more (particularly for 1d10 weapons) because you can always substitute your DoS for the result of one damage die. In my experience, on a 1d10 weapon that makes Proven(2) completely pointless because I already have this effect, and usually even Proven(3) is rather useless.

Not 100% sure the rule is still in DH2, but in OW Proven got devalued even more (particularly for 1d10 weapons) because you can always substitute your DoS for the result of one damage die. In my experience, on a 1d10 weapon that makes Proven(2) completely pointless because I already have this effect, and usually even Proven(3) is rather useless.

Could you point me to that rule in OW? Because I had no idea it existed, and no GM I've played with has raised the point, probably because it's buried somewhere no-one sees when they just skim over the rules changes from the last iteration of the rules.

Pretty much exactly where it is. The only reason I even know it is because once upon a time there was a massive rules lawyer in my group who conveniently knew such things, when they were to his advantage.

Yeah, right here, in the part no one ever reads, because they've read it three times already since DH1...

p. 250, core rulebook, Step four: Attacker Determines damage.

Proven 2 on something that rolls 3d10 only adds .3 to the average damage total. That is still absolute garbage.

Key word here is Average. In reality, a few Wounds in even higher-tier WH40kRP games can make the difference between being virtually unscathed and just dying. Proven isn't meant to be some big damage boost, and you're comparing it to wildly different Special Qualities.You say that "...instead of proven the weapon could just have gotten a better quality, more damage, or more penetration...". No, it couldn't have. The Special Qualities were never intended to be interchangeable. They vary greatly in utility, power, and rationale.

I don't see how you can claim that "average" is not "in reality" as the statistic is how we translate the ability into usable data. "In reality," 9 times out of 10 the proven 2 quality won't do anything at all. It's also not "a few" wounds. It's 1 wound. Over the lifetime use of the weapon, it's an extra .1 wounds. The effect of proven 2 is so miniscule as to be a waste of ink and mental energy to calculate. The benefit of proven 2 is way to miniscule in proportion to how often it occurs, hence why I'm suggesting bumping it up to Proven 7 and 8.

As for it not being interchangeable with other weapon qualities, of course they are not meant to have absolute parity. The point of comparing them is to show that Proven as a weapon quality is drastically worse than literally every other weapon quality or statistic. Hence why I'm suggesting that it be changed to have more parity and he more in line with how it is presented, as a quality on elite weapons.

Not 100% sure the rule is still in DH2, but in OW Proven got devalued even more (particularly for 1d10 weapons) because you can always substitute your DoS for the result of one damage die. In my experience, on a 1d10 weapon that makes Proven(2) completely pointless because I already have this effect, and usually even Proven(3) is rather useless.

If I recall correctly, this existed all the way back in dark heresy 1e or Rogue Trader, one. I remember pointing it out to my GM and him just shrugging and going "yeah, don't bother."

Probably should add that the DoS and proven vary greatly in value depending on what you're facing. If you have high speed opponents like aircraft or an Eldar harlequin, it's completely feasable to get penalties to hit ranging up to -60, which we recently had for orkish bombaz from the ground. When you're against a foe, or in an environment, where you're unlikely to score more than one or two hits tops, proven really shines with the right kind of gun.

If you never face that sort of opponent or fight in such conditions, and you're likely to score an average of 6-7 DoS per attack because you're able to pump it up to 120% hit chance, then yes, proven's a bit superfluous. It really depends on what's in front of the barrel of your gun and what kind of gun you're using.

Proven 2 on something that rolls 3d10 only adds .3 to the average damage total. That is still absolute garbage.

Key word here is Average. In reality, a few Wounds in even higher-tier WH40kRP games can make the difference between being virtually unscathed and just dying. Proven isn't meant to be some big damage boost, and you're comparing it to wildly different Special Qualities.You say that "...instead of proven the weapon could just have gotten a better quality, more damage, or more penetration...". No, it couldn't have. The Special Qualities were never intended to be interchangeable. They vary greatly in utility, power, and rationale.

I don't see how you can claim that "average" is not "in reality" as the statistic is how we translate the ability into usable data. "In reality," 9 times out of 10 the proven 2 quality won't do anything at all. It's also not "a few" wounds. It's 1 wound. Over the lifetime use of the weapon, it's an extra .1 wounds. The effect of proven 2 is so miniscule as to be a waste of ink and mental energy to calculate. The benefit of proven 2 is way to miniscule in proportion to how often it occurs, hence why I'm suggesting bumping it up to Proven 7 and 8.

As for it not being interchangeable with other weapon qualities, of course they are not meant to have absolute parity. The point of comparing them is to show that Proven as a weapon quality is drastically worse than literally every other weapon quality or statistic. Hence why I'm suggesting that it be changed to have more parity and he more in line with how it is presented, as a quality on elite weapons.

In all cases where you do not roll a 1, it has no impact at all. There's no such thing as a 0.1 damage increase, nor 0.2, 0.3 or 0.4. The system doesn't deal in fractions whatsoever. The average becomes misrepresentative. There's no such thing as 0.1 wounds, either.

Also, I was talking about Proven in general, not specifically Proven (2). The Proven Special Quality fulfils it's role as a increase of minimum damage and tightening the damage range positively. That's it's function, to help represent weapons that would do (X) damage and never below that value.

There is no parity because it's not meant to have one. You seem to regard Special Qualities as some kind of bonus characteristics that has to fulfil a certain arbitrary value, but it's not. It's simply a mechanic to manage the interpreted nature of weapons in the system, in regards to the setting.

If you want to make an argument for why a certain weapon should have a higher value, do so, but harping on the average impact of a weapon mechanic that is fulfilling it's function as well as can be expected isn't really constructive if that's what you're setting up to do.

If you ask me, a blanket increase of Proven 2 to Proven 8 sounds utterly insane.

DeathByGrotz, I don't need a consistent 6-7 DoS to make Proven superfluous, I just need 2 DoS, since Proven(2) is the best existing variant right now.

I have OW in my head currently, so sorry if this doesn't apply to DH2, but there are several Talents which allow you to add a DoS if you succeed at all, so 2 DoS can, in fact, be guaranteed (if you want to). Increasing it all to Proven(8) may be overkill, but Proven(2) is certainly too weak for my taste.

Because the data isn't useful. There's a difference between the average impact of something and it's actual impact in a given situation. Spreading the effect out over hundreds or thousands of samples gives a false impression, because it won't be applicable in the vast majority of those cases at all. There may be fights where it doesn't matter at all, and there might be fights where it continues to be relevant again and again.

So you're saying the data on how a weapon quality will perform, in general, is not useful because a lot of the time the weapon quality will not perform? I've already said that the quality won't perform a lot of the time; you're just restating that along with the reasoning that while avoiding the argument that this is not a good thing. Claiming that the quality will "continue to be relevant again and again" is giving a false impression, because as it stands the quality of Proven 2 is only adding 1 damage 10% of the time. The odds of this being relevant once are 10%, "again" are 1%, "and again" are .1% over the course of 3 rolls. Your average combat probably isn't going to see more than 10 damage rolls at most , and even an extended one won't see more than around 20-30. That's an extra 1-3 damage, on average.

Unless you have a good reason for why the standard method of representing probabilistic data does not fit in this case, your argument that the average is meaningless doesn't hold much water.

In all cases where you do not roll a 1, it has no impact at all. There's no such thing as a 0.1 damage increase, nor 0.2, 0.3 or 0.4. The system doesn't deal in fractions whatsoever. The average becomes misrepresentative. There's no such thing as 0.1 wounds, either.

A failure in your ability to understand and interpret representational data does not mean that it stops being representative. Again, if you have a better way than probability to interpret raw numbers generated by dice, then I'm all ears.

Also, I was talking about Proven in general, not specifically Proven (2). The Proven Special Quality fulfils it's role as a increase of minimum damage and tightening the damage range positively. That's it's function, to help represent weapons that would do (X) damage and never below that value.

And I'm saying that unless the Proven Quality is 7 or higher, it's not bringing up the average damage enough to be worth having. Just adding a flat increase to the damage total would also increase the minimum damage, while also increasing maximum damage. The amount by which Proven increases the minimum damage proves to be negligible to actual damage dealt up until Proven 5+, at which point it adds, on average, 1 damage or more.

There is no parity because it's not meant to have one. You seem to regard Special Qualities as some kind of bonus characteristics that has to fulfil a certain arbitrary value, but it's not. It's simply a mechanic to manage the interpreted nature of weapons in the system, in regards to the setting.

And I've already said that it's so much worse than every other mechanic, by FAR, in its implementation, that it should be changed or just gotten rid of, as it's a waste of space. Imagine if the Sage role got a +1 (not +10) bonus to talking to daemons while standing on his head and that this was his special ability. That would be a waste of space, the same way low values for Proven X is.

If you want to make an argument for why a certain weapon should have a higher value, do so, but harping on the average impact of a weapon mechanic that is fulfilling it's function as well as can be expected isn't really constructive if that's what you're setting up to do.

What is your expectation, here? That it makes something measurably better? Then yes, it succeeds at that. The problem is that the amount it makes things better by is miniscule. So small that it could just be rounded down to nothing. Its implementation has been Proven 2 or 3 in every supplement for every weapon that I can remember, so I'm speaking in generalities rather than calling out a single weapon.

If you ask me, a blanket increase of Proven 2 to Proven 8 sounds utterly insane.

Increasing it all to Proven(8) may be overkill, but Proven(2) is certainly too weak for my taste.

On average, Proven 7 (which i suggest changing all Proven 2 weapons to) will increase weapon damage by 2.1 damage. If you roll a 1, it adds +6, if you roll a 2 it adds +5, if you roll a 3, it adds +4, if you roll a 4 it adds +3, if you roll a 5 it adds +2, if you roll a 6 it adds +1, and if you roll 7, 8, 9, or 10 it adds nothing. 2.1 extra damage is not going to be overkill.

On average, Proven 8 (which I suggest changing all Proven 3 weapons to) will increase weapon damage by 2.8 damage. If you roll a 1, it adds +7, if you roll a 2 it adds +6, if you roll a 3, it adds +5, if you roll a 4 it adds +4, if you roll a 5 it adds +3, if you roll a 6 it adds +2, and if you roll a 7 it adds +1, and if you roll 8, 9, or 10 it adds nothing. 2.8 extra damage is not going to be overkill.

Please explain why an average increase of about 2-3 damage would be utterly insane or would be overkill. cps has put forth the only decent argument I've seen (that it kind of defeats the point of rolling), which would say to me that Proven might as well be eliminated as a useless talent in that case.

I don't mind having a gun where rolling mostly determines whether or not I get Righteous Fury... The point of Proven would be to make the gun more reliable, and to do actually do that, it really needs to be Proven(5+).

Perhaps Proven should lock a weapon to it's average damage? So a 1d10 weapon with Proven would always deal 6 damage? Would be a nice trade-off...

I'd just like to chime in, the rule mentioned earlier is in DH2, it is on p.227:

For all attack rolls, count the degrees of success. The attacker can replace the result on a single damage die with the number of degrees of success from his attack roll. If the attack inflicts more than one hit or more than one die of damage, the attacker can replace the result on one die of his choice with the degrees of success from the attack roll.

"Data: not useful" has got to be the single greatest thing fsdfsdf has ever posted. We cannot gain useful knowledge from analysis of the mechanics put forth in the rulebook, because somewhere, at some time, in some universe, the rule has been more useful than mathematical expectations would lead you to believe.

Anyway, if Proven serves to increase a weapon's minimum damage while not increasing its maximum, why not just just replace it with penetration and/or felling (the one that reduces TB reduction, I think)? The damage you roll is always reduced by armor and toughness, which there are already mechanics for bypassing. Adding to the weapon's penetration also increases its minimum inflicted (not rolled) damage without increasing the maximum rolled damage. They're obviously not totally equivalent, but penetration and armor/toughness are already integral to the system.

"Data: not useful" has got to be the single greatest thing fsdfsdf has ever posted. We cannot gain useful knowledge from analysis of the mechanics put forth in the rulebook, because somewhere, at some time, in some universe, the rule has been more useful than mathematical expectations would lead you to believe.

Anyway, if Proven serves to increase a weapon's minimum damage while not increasing its maximum, why not just just replace it with penetration and/or felling (the one that reduces TB reduction, I think)? The damage you roll is always reduced by armor and toughness, which there are already mechanics for bypassing. Adding to the weapon's penetration also increases its minimum inflicted (not rolled) damage without increasing the maximum rolled damage. They're obviously not totally equivalent, but penetration and armor/toughness are already integral to the system.

Or, hell, have Proven decrease armor AND toughness by 1 to differentiate it and keep its status as a sort of "elite" weapon quality.

+1

There is something truly boss about having, say; a Guardsman, take on something big and nasty - with a knife.

And triumph.

Or, hell, have Proven decrease armor AND toughness by 1 to differentiate it and keep its status as a sort of "elite" weapon quality.

I can buy into Proven (X) reducing the target's AP and/or TB by X to a minimum of 0, if that's what you were going for. It's distinctly appreciable and doesn't automatically make other qualities less viable. I mean, this version of Proven is similar to [Felling] with its Unnatural Toughness reduction and [Razor Sharp] with its Pen-tripling, but is different enough to still have a niche of its own. In a way, this "elite" weapon quality, which is a good way to describe it, keeps the spirit of helping low damage rolls hit for good damage anyway.