Hi all,

I got a question that came up when I talked to another GM from our group. For the background, we started playing Deathwatch with exchanging GM's and recently one came up with the Arc of Lost Souls campaign(for those who haven't played it yet - little spoiler alert!). Due to the alternation we talk a lot about the game mechanics and how we adjust them in some cases, to prevent rule abusing.

So back to the case, when it came to the fight with the beast of thule, it ended rather unspectacular, once our assault marine could land a hit with the thunder hammer, knocking the beast to the ground, going prone. From then on things were pretty easy(target on the ground and cant dodge/parry anymore), leading to fate-burning on the beast side(and a funny expression on the face of the current GM).

So in hindsight I talked to another GM of the group about how to counter the concussive effects from the thunder hammer, to prevent excessive hammering in the future, but so far we couldn't come up with good ideas(except throwing tanks at the players), so I thought maybe I'd just leave the question for a bigger group, so please tell me your opinions/ideas.

I'd probably give a size bonus to resisting most knockdown effects. Probably also a modifier for critters with multiple pairs of legs as well.

Also, unless you can one-round something, it can get right back up on its next action, and it will wait to dodge/parry the guy who knocked it down. Of course, because it's melee, there's probably swift/lightning attack available.

There's also the slight problem that prone targets are a step or two harder to shoot, IIRC.

Another house rule might be allowing parrying (if perhaps at a penalty) while prone, or dodging (with penalty) melee attacks, and melee attacks only.

Another way to compensate is to throw multiple opponents at them. Sure, you can knock a guy down, but his buddies are gonna be on top of you before you can finish him.

Or hordes. Also, ranged opponents that can exploit terrain to prevent or slow, the close to melee range.

Or, melee experts to prevent the knockdown hit. Also, there's a talent that allows getting back up as a free action, IIRC.

Well, I guess multiple arms should help for the stun test, as it provides +10 to toughness tests(I guess I forgot to mention stunning the the first post).

Prone target is +10WS, -10BS. Stunning gives additional +20 to attacks. Making +30 in melee, if you get your target stunned once, you can look forward to hammer it 3 times (lightning attack) with a +30 bonus (+additional bonus for size, weapon craftsmanship etc.), which leaves a high chance of stunning it again.

Basically, improving toughness and strength seem to be the only things possible of countering stun and knockdown.

Iron jaw largely nullifies the stun affect. As for the knockdown - If you don't have a high strength and armor/toughness to start with, you're not going to last long against a thunder hammer marine anyway.

Look at the bloodthirster for someone who can laugh at your TH.

Actually you can normally dodge and parry while prone (Deathwatch Core Rulebook page 249) but the issue does tend to be the stun/prone combo. If the enemies are failing the check constantly, you can invest in the Leap Up talent for them, put them in power armor, or give them Best Craftsmanship Cybernetic Limbs to help on the opposed test. Iron Jaw is also a great solution, as it allows a free toughness test (at no penalties) when stunned to negate stun. There's also a Cybernetic in Rogue Trader that negates Stun effects, so that is also worth looking in to. Finally on page 243 it's worth noting that you can spend a fate point to no longer be stunned, which really helps important NPCs be able to shrug that right off and retaliate in kind.

I personally wound up using a house ruling of Concussive is an opposed Strength test to knock opponents down instead of the passive number and removing the Stun effect altogether, as the Shocking quality also grants the ability to Stun (though I house-ruled that to just one round too). The party was okay with that because they realized that if they were ever hit with it, it would suck for them to be stun locked like that and didn't want it to happen to them.

Iron Jaw seems to be what we've been looking for. Spending a fate is also a nice idea, I didn't pay attention to the box before.

I don't think we're gonna weaken the TH/concussive, as we don't really fear enemies having stuff like that. We tend to be quite evil GM's, so it wouldn't be much worse than a normal day in the live of a DW marine in our games Furthermore, it would make Iron Jaw a bit less useful.

Besides, ruling shocking to one round only favors enemys, as the powerarmor negates stun effects after one round.