Soooooooo..... How'd Dark Heresy Turn Out?

By LegendofOld, in Dark Heresy General Discussion

Check out 80s action movie; Die Hard comes to mind; McLain gets shot, cut, punched, thrown, hung, is shoeless all movie long, still keeps going AND wins at the end. Last Man Standing is similar; guy gets beaten royally, but still manages to go back to town and kill every mobsters there is.

At this point, might as well say any action movie with Bruce Willis..

They still show signs of being hit, though - this is what I'm getting at. They get slowed down, thrown to the ground, they stagger. The audience actually has to fear for the hero's life!

Sorry, I just don't get the same vibe from DH.

Actually no, I used no horde rules, no magical damage bonus....the only thing I did modify was the fact that arrows were Imperial made ('Modern' arrows) rather than being your garden variety medieval-age workmanship stock arrows. [...]

Huh - well, thanks for the detailed explanation; it's certainly interesting to see how that encounter came across. I suppose it must have been the Accurate trait which caused those bows to hit with multiple d10s of damage, then.

As to the argument at hand, you still aren't really disproving my point, though. My criticism was based on the combination of Hitpoints + TB + Armour, which your solution merely circumvented by exploiting the fact that my character didn't wear a helmet at the time due to not expecting trouble, and thus removing one of the three layers.

Granted, even with the helmet on, I suppose those attacks would have hurt. But surely throwing packs of snipers with Accurate weapons at the players to make any sort of weapon more dangerous than it would otherwise be can't be the solution here?

This is a little off Lynata. In TT, A plasma gun will automatically penetrate SM armor but you must still roll to wound (Which is analogous to rolling for damage.). The one difference is that with Plasma guns being S7, They will automatically remove any model with T3 or less regardless of wounds. This means that for normal humans, Plasma guns are in fact "Instagib" in TT. That being said, a "Wound" in TT does not necessarily mean a fatality. It just means that the figure is removed from play as a casualty. (It's not the same! In campaign lvl games a character may return in a later scenario.)

You're almost right - I've no idea how my mind managed to conjure up such a flawed rendition. Somehow I must have mixed up the TT's rules with the RPG's. After re-checking the book it turns out that the attacker still has to roll a 2+ on the d6 in order to drop their target.

Although plasma weapons make zero difference between normal humans or Space Marines; it's 2+ for both. There is no weapon that auto-kills; even a Strength 10 attack on a T1 target must still roll 2+.

I interpret the abstraction here that on a to-wound roll of 1, the target receives a heavy wound that just still isn't critical enough to actually drop them, whereas on a 2-6 it is - this is based on even a result of 2 being so horrible that the target goes down. For lesser weapons, a result of 1 might only be a grazing shot or a light wound, and the 2 is the heavy wound, because only 3+ neutralises the target, etc.

One could even expand this into whether the target is merely incapacitated or actually slain (with a result of 6 of course being the worst possible outcome).

Anyways, what I'm trying to say is ... in the TT, plasma = scary. Not so much in the RPG, due to the multiple, stacking layers of resilience. Don't get me wrong: it's still a powerful weapon, but the difference is notable.

Like, how would you "right way" a dead-on plasma cannon shot that only caused a meager 13 points of damage, barely depleting the target's Wounds pool?

No, he does have a point, sort of - in his use of abstraction, even a "dead-on" plasma cannon shot would be described as a grazing wound or something. Like, a ball of plasma whizzing by the target in half a meter distance; far enough not to leave them with critical injuries, but close enough to have them feel the heat from the insane temperature.

However, as I've already mentioned in an earlier post , this approach feels very inconsistent in that people only get this "luck" if they have a full pool of Wounds. You could even relabel Wounds as Luck if you go about it this way, given how it seems a lot more appropriate when - as I understand the implications of his argumentation - he says that in his games, losing 10 Wounds is not worse than losing 1 Wound in terms of describing the effect of an attack. I suspect this is just a matter of how we'd like to see damage being narrated.

As an addendum to my earlier criticism, however, it also feels very unintuitive when a mechanical result of high damage does not translate into the same in the story. At this point you may just as well remove damage rolls entirely and rely solely on the shooter's accuracy, assigning each weapon a fixed value.

Ironically, this would actually be slightly more realistic than what we have now.

Like, how would you "right way" a dead-on plasma cannon shot that only caused a meager 13 points of damage, barely depleting the target's Wounds pool?

No, he does have a point, sort of - in his use of abstraction, even a "dead-on" plasma cannon shot would be described as a grazing wound or something. Like, a ball of plasma whizzing by the target in half a meter distance; far enough not to leave them with critical injuries, but close enough to have them feel the heat from the insane temperature.

But then... where does the plasma cannon shot go? It is a bull's eye hit, yet it conveniently strays away from the target mid-air because... reasons? A half meter won't cut it anyway, because the plasma cannon shot has full effect in a one meter radius.

Sorry, but this is just straight out stupid :P .

Like, how would you "right way" a dead-on plasma cannon shot that only caused a meager 13 points of damage, barely depleting the target's Wounds pool?

No, he does have a point, sort of - in his use of abstraction, even a "dead-on" plasma cannon shot would be described as a grazing wound or something. Like, a ball of plasma whizzing by the target in half a meter distance; far enough not to leave them with critical injuries, but close enough to have them feel the heat from the insane temperature.

But then... where does the plasma cannon shot go? It is a bull's eye hit, yet it conveniently strays away from the target mid-air because... reasons? A half meter won't cut it anyway, because the plasma cannon shot has full effect in a one meter radius.

Sorry, but this is just straight out stupid :P .

A psyker did it :)

Like, how would you "right way" a dead-on plasma cannon shot that only caused a meager 13 points of damage, barely depleting the target's Wounds pool?

No, he does have a point, sort of - in his use of abstraction, even a "dead-on" plasma cannon shot would be described as a grazing wound or something. Like, a ball of plasma whizzing by the target in half a meter distance; far enough not to leave them with critical injuries, but close enough to have them feel the heat from the insane temperature.

But then... where does the plasma cannon shot go? It is a bull's eye hit, yet it conveniently strays away from the target mid-air because... reasons? A half meter won't cut it anyway, because the plasma cannon shot has full effect in a one meter radius.

Sorry, but this is just straight out stupid :P .

It's not stupid. It's not a bull's eye hit if it deals a meager few points of damage after armor and soak. You don't determine how accurate the hit was by rolling to hit - you determine it by rolling damage. Nothing gets redirected midair - it never hit that close to the mark in the first place. It's simple as that.

Like, how would you "right way" a dead-on plasma cannon shot that only caused a meager 13 points of damage, barely depleting the target's Wounds pool?

No, he does have a point, sort of - in his use of abstraction, even a "dead-on" plasma cannon shot would be described as a grazing wound or something. Like, a ball of plasma whizzing by the target in half a meter distance; far enough not to leave them with critical injuries, but close enough to have them feel the heat from the insane temperature.

But then... where does the plasma cannon shot go? It is a bull's eye hit, yet it conveniently strays away from the target mid-air because... reasons? A half meter won't cut it anyway, because the plasma cannon shot has full effect in a one meter radius.

Sorry, but this is just straight out stupid :P .

It's not stupid. It's not a bull's eye hit if it deals a meager few points of damage after armor and soak. You don't determine how accurate the hit was by rolling to hit - you determine it by rolling damage. Nothing gets redirected midair - it never hit that close to the mark in the first place. It's simple as that.

But then, what does it hit? If it didn't hit its target, then it would scatter, right? Except that it wouldn't, because it did hit its target :rolleyes: . You do determine the accuracy of the shot by rolling to-hit (otherwise, Aiming, for example, would give bonus to the damage). The damage roll only tells how hard the shot hits the target.

Like, how would you "right way" a dead-on plasma cannon shot that only caused a meager 13 points of damage, barely depleting the target's Wounds pool?

No, he does have a point, sort of - in his use of abstraction, even a "dead-on" plasma cannon shot would be described as a grazing wound or something. Like, a ball of plasma whizzing by the target in half a meter distance; far enough not to leave them with critical injuries, but close enough to have them feel the heat from the insane temperature.

But then... where does the plasma cannon shot go? It is a bull's eye hit, yet it conveniently strays away from the target mid-air because... reasons? A half meter won't cut it anyway, because the plasma cannon shot has full effect in a one meter radius.

Sorry, but this is just straight out stupid :P .

It's not stupid. It's not a bull's eye hit if it deals a meager few points of damage after armor and soak. You don't determine how accurate the hit was by rolling to hit - you determine it by rolling damage. Nothing gets redirected midair - it never hit that close to the mark in the first place. It's simple as that.

But then, what does it hit? If it didn't hit its target, then it would scatter, right? Except that it wouldn't, because it did hit its target :rolleyes: . You do determine the accuracy of the shot by rolling to-hit (otherwise, Aiming, for example, would give bonus to the damage). The damage roll only tells how hard the shot hits the target.

I don't get your logic why would it scatter? The hit was perfect but in the last moment character dropped to the ground trying not to get instagib by plasma shot. Role of GM is to describe it with logic or action movie logic ;) Anyway like i said earlier it's a game. Game can't be realistic more or everyone would roll a new character every session or twice on session. No system is perfect but this is not so bad. Want more lethality? Ignore wounds and roll on crit table after dmg penetrate TB and Armor but i guarantee that players won't care about their characters.

Like, how would you "right way" a dead-on plasma cannon shot that only caused a meager 13 points of damage, barely depleting the target's Wounds pool?

No, he does have a point, sort of - in his use of abstraction, even a "dead-on" plasma cannon shot would be described as a grazing wound or something. Like, a ball of plasma whizzing by the target in half a meter distance; far enough not to leave them with critical injuries, but close enough to have them feel the heat from the insane temperature.

But then... where does the plasma cannon shot go? It is a bull's eye hit, yet it conveniently strays away from the target mid-air because... reasons? A half meter won't cut it anyway, because the plasma cannon shot has full effect in a one meter radius.

Sorry, but this is just straight out stupid :P .

It's not stupid. It's not a bull's eye hit if it deals a meager few points of damage after armor and soak. You don't determine how accurate the hit was by rolling to hit - you determine it by rolling damage. Nothing gets redirected midair - it never hit that close to the mark in the first place. It's simple as that.

But then, what does it hit? If it didn't hit its target, then it would scatter, right? Except that it wouldn't, because it did hit its target :rolleyes: . You do determine the accuracy of the shot by rolling to-hit (otherwise, Aiming, for example, would give bonus to the damage). The damage roll only tells how hard the shot hits the target.

I don't get your logic why would it scatter? The hit was perfect but in the last moment character dropped to the ground trying not to get instagib by plasma shot.

That's Dodge. A whole different animal altogether. Also, if the character drops to the ground - the ground the plasma bolt is going to hit - then he is only going to worsen his situation :) .

Anyway like i said earlier it's a game. Game can't be realistic more or everyone would roll a new character every session or twice on session. No system is perfect but this is not so bad. Want more lethality? Ignore wounds and roll on crit table after dmg penetrate TB and Armor but i guarantee that players won't care about their characters.

In the modified 40KRPG rules we currently use, a plasma gun does 3D10+36 damage (in comparison an autogun does 2D10+8) with characters soaking ~6-10 points of damage with Damage Resistance and dropping dead if they suffer 30 or more damage (11 or more in case of a headshot). Accuracy is a non-issue, because weapon attachment configurations might provide a +100something bonus to your BS (the maximum so far is +252 BS, but that's for a sniper rifle).

Believe it or not, character deaths in structured combat are extremely rare... mostly because everyone eschews structured combat for more sophisticated solutions. Unless it would be completely one-sided for the PC's favor, then we usually jump into it just for the fun of blasting some mooks into ash :D .

In my experience, lethality only encourages smart play and vastly improves the usefulness of all non-combat characters. IMHO, both of these would be a welcoming change in Dark Heresy.

Edited by AtoMaki

Like, how would you "right way" a dead-on plasma cannon shot that only caused a meager 13 points of damage, barely depleting the target's Wounds pool?

No, he does have a point, sort of - in his use of abstraction, even a "dead-on" plasma cannon shot would be described as a grazing wound or something. Like, a ball of plasma whizzing by the target in half a meter distance; far enough not to leave them with critical injuries, but close enough to have them feel the heat from the insane temperature.

But then... where does the plasma cannon shot go? It is a bull's eye hit, yet it conveniently strays away from the target mid-air because... reasons? A half meter won't cut it anyway, because the plasma cannon shot has full effect in a one meter radius.

Sorry, but this is just straight out stupid :P .

It's not stupid. It's not a bull's eye hit if it deals a meager few points of damage after armor and soak. You don't determine how accurate the hit was by rolling to hit - you determine it by rolling damage. Nothing gets redirected midair - it never hit that close to the mark in the first place. It's simple as that.

But then, what does it hit? If it didn't hit its target, then it would scatter, right? Except that it wouldn't, because it did hit its target :rolleyes: . You do determine the accuracy of the shot by rolling to-hit (otherwise, Aiming, for example, would give bonus to the damage). The damage roll only tells how hard the shot hits the target.

I don't get your logic why would it scatter? The hit was perfect but in the last moment character dropped to the ground trying not to get instagib by plasma shot.

That's Dodge. A whole different animal altogether. Also, if the character drops to the ground - the ground the plasma bolt is going to hit - then he is only going to worsen his situation :) .

Anyway like i said earlier it's a game. Game can't be realistic more or everyone would roll a new character every session or twice on session. No system is perfect but this is not so bad. Want more lethality? Ignore wounds and roll on crit table after dmg penetrate TB and Armor but i guarantee that players won't care about their characters.

In the modified 40KRPG rules we currently use, a plasma gun does 3D10+36 damage (in comparison an autogun does 2D10+8) with characters soaking ~6-10 points of damage with Damage Resistance and dropping dead if they suffer 30 or more damage (11 or more in case of a headshot). Accuracy is a non-issue, because weapon attachment configurations might provide a +100something bonus to your BS (the maximum so far is +252 BS, but that's for a sniper rifle).

Believe it or not, character deaths in structured combat are extremely rare... mostly because everyone eschews structured combat for more sophisticated solutions. Unless it would be completely one-sided for the PC's favor, then we usually jump into it just for the fun of blasting some mooks into ash :D .

In my experience, lethality only encourages smart play and vastly improves the usefulness of all non-combat characters. IMHO, both of these would be a welcoming change in Dark Heresy.

I think that w40k systems have enough lethality but whatever suits you and your players. Imho with damage like that most of people i played with would just run with plasma weaponry all the time and combat is no longer structured but who shoot first contest. Like i said whatever you like.

I think that w40k systems have enough lethality but whatever suits you and your players. Imho with damage like that most of people i played with would just run with plasma weaponry all the time and combat is no longer structured but who shoot first contest. Like i said whatever you like.

Nah, your people would run around with Lance Blasters (2D10+64 damage) or Phased Burst Guns (3D10+42 damage w/ loadsa' shots). Or, if they would like someone absolutely dead, then they would use Fusion Guns (1D10+70 damage) or Warp Coil Guns (5D10+54 damage w/ Warp). Though, even with access to all these awesome weapons and sufficient ammo, players would use the humble las/SP weapons to maintain subtlety so that they can move from Point A to Point B without everyone and their kitten noticing them :P .

Combat is only a "who shoots first" contest if your GM equips everyone with high-tier weapons. But then, he probably wants to imply something ;) . For everything else, you can just counter the lone plasma gunner with sniping, suppression, indirect attacks, disruptive effects (smoke/flash grenades, psychic powers), sneak attacks, or whatever you can make up on the spot.

If that's how you want it, and if your group is fine with it, more power to you. Personally, I'd never want to play that, but that's just me.

My point stands, though - the system isn't flawed, you just don't like how it plays out, which isn't the same.

I think that w40k systems have enough lethality but whatever suits you and your players. Imho with damage like that most of people i played with would just run with plasma weaponry all the time and combat is no longer structured but who shoot first contest. Like i said whatever you like.

Nah, your people would run around with Lance Blasters (2D10+64 damage) or Phased Burst Guns (3D10+42 damage w/ loadsa' shots). Or, if they would like someone absolutely dead, then they would use Fusion Guns (1D10+70 damage) or Warp Coil Guns (5D10+54 damage w/ Warp). Though, even with access to all these awesome weapons and sufficient ammo, players would use the humble las/SP weapons to maintain subtlety so that they can move from Point A to Point B without everyone and their kitten noticing them :P .

Combat is only a "who shoots first" contest if your GM equips everyone with high-tier weapons. But then, he probably wants to imply something ;) . For everything else, you can just counter the lone plasma gunner with sniping, suppression, indirect attacks, disruptive effects (smoke/flash grenades, psychic powers), sneak attacks, or whatever you can make up on the spot.

And you can do that with RAW as well.

Btw For example RAW plasma gun have d10+7 with pen 6. So a normal player with 3TB or even 4TB not wearing power armor dies with 1-2 hits. Troops who don;t use crit table die in one hit so i don't see a problem with that. You don't need to give plasma overkill damage to kill someone since averege dmg is 13 or even more with proper talents. With your rules i can destroy anything with plasma. Ofc if you reworked all enemies and such ,fine but why not just make your own rules? From what i read you probably made DH another system entirely. However i don't think you can still call it a dark heresy.

Edited by felismachina

I think that w40k systems have enough lethality but whatever suits you and your players. Imho with damage like that most of people i played with would just run with plasma weaponry all the time and combat is no longer structured but who shoot first contest. Like i said whatever you like.

Nah, your people would run around with Lance Blasters (2D10+64 damage) or Phased Burst Guns (3D10+42 damage w/ loadsa' shots). Or, if they would like someone absolutely dead, then they would use Fusion Guns (1D10+70 damage) or Warp Coil Guns (5D10+54 damage w/ Warp). Though, even with access to all these awesome weapons and sufficient ammo, players would use the humble las/SP weapons to maintain subtlety so that they can move from Point A to Point B without everyone and their kitten noticing them :P .

Combat is only a "who shoots first" contest if your GM equips everyone with high-tier weapons. But then, he probably wants to imply something ;) . For everything else, you can just counter the lone plasma gunner with sniping, suppression, indirect attacks, disruptive effects (smoke/flash grenades, psychic powers), sneak attacks, or whatever you can make up on the spot.

And you can do that with RAW as well.

Btw For example RAW plasma gun have d10+7 with pen 6. So a normal player with 3TB or even 4TB not wearing power armor dies with 1-2 hits. Troops who don;t use crit table die in one hit so i don't see a problem with that.

The problem is with the fact that you need 1+ average/good hits to kill someone. 1+ any-sort-of-hits won't cut it, even against the most meager mook. Then, you realize that you are supposed to hunt Space Marines and their like with your plasma gun that in fact acts like a glorified autogun, and your immersion is gone.

I think that w40k systems have enough lethality but whatever suits you and your players. Imho with damage like that most of people i played with would just run with plasma weaponry all the time and combat is no longer structured but who shoot first contest. Like i said whatever you like.

Nah, your people would run around with Lance Blasters (2D10+64 damage) or Phased Burst Guns (3D10+42 damage w/ loadsa' shots). Or, if they would like someone absolutely dead, then they would use Fusion Guns (1D10+70 damage) or Warp Coil Guns (5D10+54 damage w/ Warp). Though, even with access to all these awesome weapons and sufficient ammo, players would use the humble las/SP weapons to maintain subtlety so that they can move from Point A to Point B without everyone and their kitten noticing them :P .

Combat is only a "who shoots first" contest if your GM equips everyone with high-tier weapons. But then, he probably wants to imply something ;) . For everything else, you can just counter the lone plasma gunner with sniping, suppression, indirect attacks, disruptive effects (smoke/flash grenades, psychic powers), sneak attacks, or whatever you can make up on the spot.

And you can do that with RAW as well.

Btw For example RAW plasma gun have d10+7 with pen 6. So a normal player with 3TB or even 4TB not wearing power armor dies with 1-2 hits. Troops who don;t use crit table die in one hit so i don't see a problem with that.

The problem is with the fact that you need 1+ average/good hits to kill someone. 1+ any-sort-of-hits won't cut it, even against the most meager mook. Then, you realize that you are supposed to hunt Space Marines and their like with your plasma gun that in fact acts like a glorified autogun, and your immersion is gone.

"Hunt space marines" , that's the moment when my immersion is gone.

Edited by felismachina

d10+6 Pen 6 is far too low for plasma to justify the risk of overheat. It's supposed to be a sound, in character choice to risk it, because it's just that much more damaging than other weaponry, to the point it can shoot big holes through walls (armour 20+...).

I think that w40k systems have enough lethality but whatever suits you and your players. Imho with damage like that most of people i played with would just run with plasma weaponry all the time and combat is no longer structured but who shoot first contest. Like i said whatever you like.

Nah, your people would run around with Lance Blasters (2D10+64 damage) or Phased Burst Guns (3D10+42 damage w/ loadsa' shots). Or, if they would like someone absolutely dead, then they would use Fusion Guns (1D10+70 damage) or Warp Coil Guns (5D10+54 damage w/ Warp). Though, even with access to all these awesome weapons and sufficient ammo, players would use the humble las/SP weapons to maintain subtlety so that they can move from Point A to Point B without everyone and their kitten noticing them :P .

Combat is only a "who shoots first" contest if your GM equips everyone with high-tier weapons. But then, he probably wants to imply something ;) . For everything else, you can just counter the lone plasma gunner with sniping, suppression, indirect attacks, disruptive effects (smoke/flash grenades, psychic powers), sneak attacks, or whatever you can make up on the spot.

And you can do that with RAW as well.

Btw For example RAW plasma gun have d10+7 with pen 6. So a normal player with 3TB or even 4TB not wearing power armor dies with 1-2 hits. Troops who don;t use crit table die in one hit so i don't see a problem with that.

The problem is with the fact that you need 1+ average/good hits to kill someone. 1+ any-sort-of-hits won't cut it, even against the most meager mook. Then, you realize that you are supposed to hunt Space Marines and their like with your plasma gun that in fact acts like a glorified autogun, and your immersion is gone.

"Hunt space marines" , that's the moment when my immersion is gone.

Yet, that's what you are supposed to do with your plasma gun, and not waste precious ammo on Joe the Average Cultist.

d10+6 Pen 6 is far too low for plasma to justify the risk of overheat. It's supposed to be a sound, in character choice to risk it, because it's just that much more damaging than other weaponry, to the point it can shoot big holes through walls (armour 20+...).

When plasma overheats you can drop it on the ground with free action.

Like, how would you "right way" a dead-on plasma cannon shot that only caused a meager 13 points of damage, barely depleting the target's Wounds pool?

No, he does have a point, sort of - in his use of abstraction, even a "dead-on" plasma cannon shot would be described as a grazing wound or something. Like, a ball of plasma whizzing by the target in half a meter distance; far enough not to leave them with critical injuries, but close enough to have them feel the heat from the insane temperature.

But then... where does the plasma cannon shot go? It is a bull's eye hit, yet it conveniently strays away from the target mid-air because... reasons? A half meter won't cut it anyway, because the plasma cannon shot has full effect in a one meter radius.

Sorry, but this is just straight out stupid :P .

Like, how would you "right way" a dead-on plasma cannon shot that only caused a meager 13 points of damage, barely depleting the target's Wounds pool?

Couple of points:

1.) The Plasma Cannon does not exist in the DH2 rulebook

2.) Assuming you use the rules for said Plasma cannon from OW, you would really have rolled poorly to do only 13 pts of damage! (It's 2d10+10 pen 8 without maximal setting!). This would sort of indicate that it was not a "Dead on" shot!

Doesn't really change the fact that plasma weapons are described to be able to shoot through solid walls, but RAW can't, because either their damage or their pen is too low. I'd have a plasma pistol do a flat 1d10+10, Pen 8. It's an incredibly lethal gun which poses a risk to its user in fluff, and it should remain that. With those stats, it can shoot through a wall, but the wall will soak most of the blast (which is how I imagine plasma guns to work). It's still possible to survive a hit, of course, but you won't be standing and running around, you'll be in the criticals, which is where you should be when you're hit with a plasma weapon.

Edited by DeathByGrotz

2.) Assuming you use the rules for said Plasma cannon from OW, you would really have rolled poorly to do only 13 pts of damage! (It's 2d10+10 pen 8 without maximal setting!). This would sort of indicate that it was not a "Dead on" shot!

With 5 DoS on the attack roll, you are supposed to have a dead-on shot, regardless of the damage rolled.

2.) Assuming you use the rules for said Plasma cannon from OW, you would really have rolled poorly to do only 13 pts of damage! (It's 2d10+10 pen 8 without maximal setting!). This would sort of indicate that it was not a "Dead on" shot!

With 5 DoS on the attack roll, you are supposed to have a dead-on shot, regardless of the damage rolled.

Nothing in the rules states that. DoS are an abstract mechanic, and the only solid measure of an attack's efficiency is the damage roll.

DoS are an abstract used to measure how well something succeeded.

Actually, as of Rogue Trader, a PC can substitute DoS for damage die. But don't feel bad, most people skip the combat rules, they're copy and paste with minor variation every edition. However, you've identified a rules redundancy. What is the point of rolling successfully to hit if the damage dice are going to rob you anyway? The system has too many moving parts to make individual rolls interesting.

Eating sawdust, taking medicine, hitting your own hand with a hammer, all roughly as enjoyable as rolling 40k rpg combat RAW.

I know about the DoS to minimal damage rule. Still, DoS don't tell everything there is to know about the attack. No matter how many DoS you roll, if you deal no damage or low damage, then clearly you didn't just shoot the guy right between the eyes, because that tends to be lethal even with the weakest weapons this game offers.

This "redundancy" is present in roughly 80% of the games I know, especially the ones with big focus on combat, because it's convenient to not have one-hit kills flying about if you want a lot of combat in your game.

Modern games get around this kind of weirdness by rolling only once for an attack.

I know about the DoS to minimal damage rule. Still, DoS don't tell everything there is to know about the attack. No matter how many DoS you roll, if you deal no damage or low damage, then clearly you didn't just shoot the guy right between the eyes, because that tends to be lethal even with the weakest weapons this game offers.

'cpet if you have a bad damage system that can't handle a (supposedly) lethal shot :P . IfyouknowwhatImean.