I read some topics here looking at how people try to balance automatic fire, and came up with this rules:

1) Bulging Biceps: talent now allows to brace weapon using one's own body(no need for bipods/tripods) and reduces penalty for firing without bracing by 10

2) Semi-and Auto-fire changed: additional hit is awarded for X degrees of success,

where X depends on range bracket: 1 for point-blank range, 2 for short range, 3 for medium range, 4 for long range and greater ranges

Reasoning:

As I see, problem with standard rules lies in three facts:

1) Bulging Biceps makes bracing irrelevant

2) Range has no effect on additional hits, bonus/penalty effectively affects first hit only

3) Getting additional hits with semi-auto burst is harder than with full-auto

Your thoughts?

Personnaly, I've tried to balance single vs auto by changing some talents or mechanics, but I couldn't come up with something relevant. Then I looked at Black Crusade rules, and I think it kinda fix the problem. Single Shots feel more like "That one shot you don't want to miss", and auto shots feel like discharging your clip with anger (as we say with my players : "Envoyer la purée" !). Semi-auto shots are a combination of both : a controlled volley.

My players agreed with me on this changes, feeling it was more correctly handled this way. But we soon came up with another problem : Single shot are still easily dodged compared to a burst. I house ruled the following :

"Every talents increasing the effectiveness of Called Shots (be it melee or ranged) have an additionnal effect : you attack with such efficency that your target struggle to dodge it. Every 2DoS on your BS/WS test, the target suffer a -10 penalty on his dodge/parry test"

This way, I've also up Called Shots ... maybe too much. But, Emperor forgives me, I love my devastator player, and I think its a fair reward for his constant, and brilliant, role-playing.

as a missile launcher devastator i can say the big disparity between single shot and full auto doesn't come from the to-hit bonuses. It comes from the dodge mechanic where you're entire lascannon shot whiffs on a dodge where the heavy bolter is likely to get a hit. If you want to house rule stuff, I'd look at ways to inflict dodge penalties. Maybe aiming can be -10 dodge rather than +10 hit or the like.

Well, can't agree on that. Problem lies in fact that hitting targets with autofire doesn't scale properly. I think you will agree, that hitting 6 out of 6 at point blank range is totally believable, and hard to dodge at that. At same time, hitting 6 out of 6 at 300m would be quite unrealistic. My fix changes precisely this. So why would you want to change dodge mechanics in my case, when hitting targets more than once with full auto at distance would be quite rare case, bringing number of hits more in line with launchers/cannons but wasting more ammo and being less effective(damage wise), while keeping advantage at very short distance, as it should be?

whether the genestealer is 200 meters away or 5, you're lascannon likely has a 95% chance to hit but a 50% chance to miss because of dodge. No matter how good a shot you are, statistically you'll only kill a GS once every other round.

Even using BC rules where full auto is -10 you're heavy bolter is likely to kill a GS close to every round.

In a single player game I would agree with that statement 100%, but for a squad based game, that admittedly severe weakness is somewhat mitigated by the limited number of reactions opponents have. If the opponent has already dodged on that turn, the lascannon only has a 5% chance to miss, while the heavy bolter may or may not put enough shells on target to get the job done. Obviously that puts some of the power into your opponent's hands in terms of which attacks they choose to dodge, and a *lot* of power into your squadmate's hands in terms of forcing desirable targets to use up their reactions, but that's all part of the beauty of the depth of the combat system in my book, and isn't a debilitating issue unless the lascannon wielding devastator goes immediately after the enemies, in which case he has to either be ineffective or delay (effectively burning a half action) every turn until after his target gets prepped for him.

In terms of the modifications you initially proposed, that looks great! I would only add that you should also consider flipping the bonuses- single shots get a +10, semi auto is +0, full auto is -10, following the example of only war.

Other possible modifications (take em or leave em, they're only thoughts, and none of em are playtested) would include:

Aiming provides a penalty to dodge for the opponent instead of a bonus to hit, when using single shot weapons. Rewards sniper type characters, helps balance out the discrepancies in the "strength" of a reaction vs the different modes of fire Kamikazzijoe pointed out, and helps deal with the fact that, though someone trying to max their hits on a heavy bolter or assault cannon will always need more ballistic skill, after a certain point it can stop being important to someone firing single shots, since regardless of the degrees of success, it's still only one hit. Your players will love this, until they realize it also applies to the hordes of lascannon wielding enemies they face, at which point they will hate this. Makes the game *much* more lethal.

Called shots provide a bonus to penetration, either instead of being able to choose the hit location or in addition to that effect. Way too many enemies are "All X", making called shot nearly useless in the vast majority of situations. This returns it to usefulness, and reflects that just because an enemy has consistent armour throughout their body, weak points (like the throat, the armpits, etc) will still exist, and due to the need for flexibility, will still provide less protection than the majority of their armour. Once again benefits sniper type characters, but as long as you have it only apply to basic and pistol class weaponry, it for the most part will simply help rectify the overall weak stat lines of those types of weapons. As a result it doesn't have nearly the same impact on the overall lethality of the game as the suggestion above.

Delay no longer uses a full round action to gain a half action. Instead, it permanently shifts your spot in the initiative order to whenever you choose to take your turn. Provides much more tactically interesting choices, and the continually shifting tides of the initiative order will better represent the shifting tides of battle, and require both players and GMs to pay attention to what's going on. In such a setup, you would still let someone who was delaying take a half action during someone else's turn like normal (using all the normal rules), but they would then take their other half action after the turn of the listed individual, and their spot in the initiative order would then be after that individual going forward.

One thought I've been toying with is making accurate dodged in degrees. So assuming a full hit, first dodge success knocks of a d10, second the other d10 and then the third eliminates the first weapon hit..

I've ... always played Dodge DoS as opposed to BS/WS DoS. Ie, you get 3 DoS on your BS test, and the target gets 2 DoS on Dodge, you've still hit them, as effectively 1 DoS, which for single shot doesn't usually matter unless the Accurate trait is in play.

If that isn't actually RAW ... then that's a houserule that's probably reasonably effective for the desired purpose.

yeah, I've always played under a similar houserule for parry vs weapon skill (as it never made sense to me that someone with 1 degree of success on their parry can effectively parry someone with 10 dos on their weapon skill test), it really makes master level enemies stand out more. Never tried it with BS and Dodge (I suppose WS and dodge would be similarly opposed), but it sounds feasible and interesting

Well, I always thought that called shots was means to deal with enemy in cover, as per rules if they want to shoot they need to expose head and one arm. So, placing called shot on such location effectively eliminates cover. Still, I agree, that called shot being generally harder should provide more than that, +2 pen for example. Though, sniper already gets +1pen/DoS from talent.

Personaly I find changing single/semi/auto bonuses to OW rules pointless on it's own. While it makes hitting with full auto harder, once you hit you'll still make a lot of hits. it turns to all or nothing. Why? Generally, original bonuses represent concept "more bullets fired - higher chance to hit overall". Range brackets represent " the farthest target is hardest to hit". Still, per original rules once you manage to hit with burst, hitting additional bullets becomes easy. In case of full auto - too easy. And since there is no proper scaling, once firer increases his BS past certain point, hitting 6/6 at any range becomes regular occurence. F.e., good shooter will have around 70 BS, with +20 from full auto and +10 from predictor, it's already 100, giving ~50% chance to score 6/6. With Heavy Bolter it's almost always short range, so another +10. against hordes/large targets another +10/20 is often present. So getting maximum +60 bonus isn't that rare, and with it we already at ~80% chance of 6/6.

Way too easy if you ask me, and all that distance changes is +-10 at best.

Even if we change rules to OW, all it will do is reduce said numbers by 30 at worst, with them being at least~20%, but since it is a bonus to test, achieving +60 still possible so up to 80% 6/6 for high BS character as if you changed nothing. At same time single shot will go from 80 (unaimed)/100(aimed-accurate) to 90/110; and that's taking red dot and aim bonus only, with distance and other bonuses it will be another +20 at least, with almost guaranteed hits even without OW rules. Not a significant change if you ask me. Indeed, making aim reduce enemy's chance to dodge by 10/20 will help Single weapons way better. So, for auto fire weapons, even if we change rules to OW, it will reduce base bonus only, they will keep on hitting 6/6 as easily as before just somewhat less often.

What I propose, is make difficulty of landing additional hits depend on distance. That way, high BS guarantees that you regularly hit target with autofire on all distances, but quality of that now heavily depends on distance. What does it achieve?

First, even starter characters can reliably hit with auto fire a lot if they properly choose distance and target (40 BS, +30 point blank, +20 FA = 90, 1hit/degree ~40% 6/6). Second, even if your BS is 70, there are shots that plainly can not be done. 70 BS +20 FA +10 MP + 30 Massive = 130, but 1hit/3 DoS for med range, ~10% 5/6, no way of 6/6.

As for how it affects enemies. obviously it means you do not want to let horde with heavy auto weapon get close, or for you to stand in front of them, you'll be shredded. So you have to plan approach. On the other hand you know that at distance they are not as bad issue as that guy with rocket launcher. So, as Dev you can either blast them afar with frag rockets without much of danger, or risk to get closer and devastate them with HB at short range.

Edit: remembered that +20 FA is bonus to test, so even if you change it to -10, getting +60 overall still possible. Corrected text in regards to that.

As for how enemies dodge single/ auto, as Dr. Quinn said it is means of rewarding players for cooperation and good tactics. In that regard, auto fire indeed breaks that somewhat. Still, with FA moved to heavy weapons and basic not scoring that much hits (except for imbalanced StormBolter) it's not that severe. My changes just make distance relevant, so Heavy Bolter at long range will be less effective against dodgy targets than at short range.

So you will most likely shred 'stealer at point blank with one burst, but it will take much more effort at distance.