Does anybody do this? If so, how?
I can't justify with myself why a space marine, who's just been shot with a plasma gun/melts gun would still have just as much armour in that body part as before.
Would anybody know how to work this? Or know where to find something addressing this issue?
From my understanding, AP reductions are not a thing due to the fact that most any mid/late-game weapon would completely melt armor (and the wearer) in seconds. This issue can be addressed by thinking of all Wound Damage as "cosmetic", only treating Critical Damage as true hits. Let me see...
Wounds aren't necessarily representative of how much damage a character can take. Taking a different perspective, Wounds can be considered the target's morale (ohmigod, that bullet just barely missed me) and Critical Damage is when the target actually starts getting hit (ohmigod, I just lost my ear). I like thinking of Wounds as a character's confidence (or lack of it) rather than how many chainsword strikes their cloth robes can absorb.
It's not that your high-damage shot did nothing, it's just that that consequences of your shot aren't immediately visible. I'd rather not have to play this card, but how would you feel if your character was immediately killed for not wearing a helmet? A clean headshot would certainly kill a man, which is covered under Critical Damage, so other head "hits" are ostensibly not direct hits. NPCs are bound to the same rules as players, with some exceptions.
Wounds are abstractions, not an actual measure of a character's physical durability. Realistically, a chainsword hit to the head wouldn't be soakable by any amount of human flesh and bone. Drumming up a successful attack as a near-miss or a hit that deals cosmetic damage help maintain a degree of realism. Similar to how bullets can ping off armor when they fail to penetrate, attacks that "hit" can chip that armour or shave off a few hairs. Armor and Toughess provide a sense of safety and superiority; wounds are that sense of protection being eroded away. This is how I view Wounds at least.
This is the context I use when addressing Wounds, but it can also apply to any non-Critical Damage. Once Wounds go into the negatives, that is when I would expect AP to start taking reductions.
Fair enough. I really appreciate the concept. It helps when explaining things to the players.
Any other ideas on this?
I find the "morale" route more believable than the "trauma" route, but I can sympathize with everything you mentioned. The combat system, as written, is primarily an abstraction. Otherwise many weapons would be instant-kills. Mechanically, a melta weapon might whiff and not reduce an enemy's Wounds to -8 or what have you, but the beam really should disentegrate any flesh it touches, no? To preserve my suspension of disbelief, I choose to make an abstraction of an abstraction and make non-Criticals non-lethal. I feel that the trauma route is only plausible if the Wound system is defenestrated or when fighting non-human targets. The bigger beasties can take a clean lascannon hit to the chest, but a human-sized PC likely cannot. Your mileage may vary.
The main problem I have is the Wound system itself, as it creates umteen points of Damage that need to be accounted for but can't impede the target too much. My "solution" lacks realism or elegance, but I'm using what I have available.
Yeah, I hear ya. The only alternatives I could think of would be the Inquisitor-style houserules I mentioned, or changing Wounds into "Luck" (which is fundamentally just a different take on your approach, with the same pros and cons).
As much as I like DH and its sister games, and keep on playing them, the high amount of resilience the characters have is one of my pet peeves. Though I still feel Toughness as per RAW is the biggest issue, seeing as it's (a) superior to actual armour in way too many cases, and (b) trivialises weapons that ought to be scary.
On a sidenote, though, your take on morale affecting combat readiness is perfectly compatible with my interpretation of Sororitas Acts of Faith.
Problem is that awkward role the TB play in this game for penetrating even a power armor is easily feasible with a simple kitchen-knife and once you get lucky the armor is reduced by one point making it easier for an entire auto-gun spay to go through.
I honestly do favor a more abstract way to do things for the game is already quite deadly. Actual wounds are always physical trauma in my games yet they are more or less narrative witohut an actually rule impact like the critical wounds. It may be a more action focused aspect and at some point some guy might just be like rambo but this is in favor of a "throw-away" system like inquisitor that expects frequent casualties and sets it theme around that. This is, at last for me, the very difference between a combat focused tabletop game with attached story telling for P&P is stronger story telling with attached combat to it. And some constant characters do actually benefit the story telling as every novel shows us.
Also given, that in Black Crusade you may run around with pretty sh*tty power armor that only suffered some sub-system damage over maybe 10.000 years of "constant" combat I somewhat disagree with 4 lasgun hits probably reducing that armor to 4.
Simple ideas:
1) Hits from weapons with pen equal to or greater than your armour reduce it by 1 in the zone hit.
2) 10s on damage die reduce zone armour by 1.
I can offer a view of the mechanical perspective: if you reduce armour from hits, soon your players will be without armour.
How survivable do you believe they are without armour? Considering the answer is "not very", and they know this as well as anyone, you're then looking to slow down your game.
The reason it slows is because you're going to have more character deaths, and thus spend more time on character creation and introduction. You're also going to see players spend way more time trying to trade for or repair their armour instead of actual progress towards campaign goals.
So by causing armour to degrade in such a rapid manner, you're looking at a game which progresses much slower and that also is constantly changing its cast of characters. You're also going to create a game where players will tend to take certain talents in order to counter-act this; extra wounds, Nurgle-alignment, extra-dodgy, etc. Basically you're going to end up with tougher and dodgier characters, which in-turn will make more encounters trivial, which in-turn will cause you to 'up your game'.
^ I agree, that's why I am suggesting: yes, have armour degrade, but only up to a certain minimum .
Even a carapace riddled by holes, or a half-tattered flak coat is still going to provide some protection. Just not as much as it used to!
Edited by LynataIncentive to go Nurgle is not actually a bad thing, since there isn't much reason to do so mechanically in core; especially not after the gigantic middle finger that was Tome of Decay.
I am with bore.
Such a change is a nerf to soak characters (TB+Armor) and even more promotes the always strong dodgy type.
A soaker is pretty much dependent on his defensive to be as reliable and high as possible. Where else a dodger still benefits from his great wargear and makes it last even longer for he gets hit less. So given that a Power armor might degrade to half its value a Dodger might be jumping around with more soak than the dedicated soaker.
Also especially armor like a terminator suit should not degenerate that way. It is designed to take hits - many of them and such simple degeneration just seems wrong. "For what am I carrying a Terminator suit that does not even allow me to dodge when it has less armor than a power armor after just one encounter".
Some would say soak characters soak too much. It's a matter of opinion and personal preferences as to just how resilient a character is supposed to be. As such it is also a matter of immersion -- personally, I find it much easier to stomach someone dodging a plasma bolt as opposed to catching it with their face and merely getting a nice tan. Of course, balance would be a concern as well, but I am convinced that an equilibrium can be found. And that it is not what the RAW currently does.
"For what am I carrying a Terminator suit that does not even allow me to dodge when it has less armor than a power armor after just one encounter".
Because it's still better than the suit of power armour after that same encounter?
That being said, it would also be easy to adjust the minimum threshold to one's personal preferences, such as setting it at the original value -2 AP. This way, damaged terminator armour would protect like powered armour, damaged power armour like carapace, damaged carapace like flak, damaged flak like heavy leather, and heavy leather could be ripped apart completely. Unless you add a 1 AP minimum. As the saying goes: all warpways lead to Holy Terra.
Personally, I guess I'm just not a fan of armour being made of Indestructanium. Not when it obviously can be penetrated, given how a character inside it can still be wounded. The suggestion made was simply to take these penetrating attacks into account by applying a chance of lasting effect, rather than entirely dismissing those big holes the moment damage was applied to the character.
The percentage is an abstracted way of adding those holes together for a permanent (until repaired) reduction in protection. In the end, the armour is designed simply to protect the occupant as best as technologically possible - this task is not endangered by applying a bit of realism. It just depends on how "gritty" (and detailed) you want the game to get.
Because it's still better than the suit of power armour after that same encounter?
Not necessarily for the regular power armor was not hit (or that often) because a dodgy bunny was inside.^^
Though I agree on a somewhat realistic take on the system I always wonder: Where does it start, where does it end.
If armors are to durable, so is flesh that can be easily repaired after some medicae test when that guy soaked 20 damage from las-cannons and what not. A jam does also not destroy all the ammo in that magazine and a starship has not constantly to use its engines to accelerate forward. In any reasonable setting melee weapons would have nearly no reason to exist even with technology like power fields and most encounters would happen at around 100+ metres.
I want a consistent setting but just as the fluff demands it I go with the rule of cool and hence some super tasty armor has to stay some super tasty armor. xD
Fair enough - as mentioned earlier, we all have our own thresholds of what we'd consider appropriate .. and the fluff depends on the source you're looking at.
The other things you mentioned can all be addressed by houserules as well - for example, the flesh-bit is something I've already suggested in this very thread a bit earlier, and the jam is something that is currently discussed over at the Only War forum.
As for melee weapons, this is more of a background question, though I would say that their existence in the setting absolutely makes sense if you consider that they are really only used for the following three things:
- backup weapon to offset ammunition shortage (how many spare clips do you think Marines or Sisters carry with them?)
- shock value for deepstrikes (swinging a chainsword when surrounded = more kills than shooting your bolter)
- ceremonial use and simple tradition (see modern armies still issuing bayonets)
The last point is
supremely
important to explain a lot of things in the setting. If the Imperium was truly about efficiency, a lot of things would be done differently, yet being governed by tradition as opposed to rationality is an important trait of the setting. In a way, this too merely mirrors aspects of our real world and dials them up to eleven -- why do modern armies have that silly split between commissioned and non-commissioned officers, as if one of them is "better", when they are both equally important parts of the chain of command? It's a relic from the times when the officer-caste was recruited entirely out of the nobility, and it is kept alive not because it makes sense but because ... yep, it's tradition.
It has been discussed in other 40k lines and is a rather common houserule for those who want a grittier, harsher enviorment. If you want that feeling, go for it!
Hi there,
reducing armour might be realistic, but it is numbers-crunchy, too. All in all, you add another level of book-keeping (besides, ammo, wounds and such).
If you want to do this, how about the following?
1) Multiply the RP of every armour you have in the game by 10. Then add a value of 9 to it ONCE and call that "armour value". This is the MAXIMUM armoru value of the said armour
Example: An Armour with AP:1 would have an armour value of 19.
2) Treat the tenth digit of the armour value as the AP (as usual).
3) When ever an attack hits the N/PC, reduce the AV by 1 to 3 (depending on damage dice and/or tearing ability) or by the penetration (whichever is higher). If the weapon is CORROSIVE (weapon trait) subtract the 1d5 from the AV , not from the AP!
Repairing the armour can be done with skill checks and material, restoring AV. Copy the rules for first aid/medical care, but use the Trade(Armourer) instead of Medica and perhaps tinker a little further.
Be warned: You will get HEADACHES as soon as you think about Horde rules and such AND your CSM Players will just hate you for being stripped of there perceived invurneablity.
Even more so if you destroy there CSM Legion 'Servo Armour.
AND Keep in mind that there might only be one wound score, but you have armour in up to 6 different Locations (Torso, head and four limbs in total)
Think twice....
EDIT: Turned RP (German, "Rüstungspunkte") into AP (Armour Points) and added a nice reminder of the number of potential zones you would Need to Keep track off once you start keeping track of armour
If you just want to add a Little itty-gritty layer over the RAW but spare yourself (and your Players!) the book keeping, you can try an approach that is a Little more "free style".
AFTER a particular battle, inform the Player that his armour is damaged. Use "GM fiat" here. Tell him that either he will have his armour repaired (tell him a check and a difficulty) or that he will suffer from (choose)
- the armour dropping one step in Quality
- the armour losing one Point of AP
- the armour being completely bypassed by every attack which damage dice Shows X
X is a valuable number that keeps track of how damaged that armour actually is. "1" means the armour is just damaged, "3" means it got a lot of harm and 5 means is might be Close to being wasted.
The mechanic behind it:
Letting any attack with an attack dice role of 1 (on a D10) Bypass means that minor damage normally blocked by it suddenly comes through. The more you increase the number, the more damage Comes through. It does not matter how strong the armour was to begin with, there is an increasing number of weak points.
In case of attacks with multiple damage dice, role the dice seperate but only Count the first one for this Little house rule.
Instead of "complete Bypass". you could rule that "an attack with a damage dice showing X gains X as (additional) Penetration". This makes sure that armour that was STRONG to begin with stays "stronger" then ist weaker cousins even when suffering the same damage...well, at first
This is about 2 highly linked issues. What do you think mechanically is best, what do you think gives your game the greatest sense of immersion, and how do those 2 interact? This is a subject that comes up a lot. I agree that realistically any clean hit from almost any weapon should kill any normal human or put him in deep criticals. Though personally when it comes to 40k I've always favored the stories where a catachan on a stealth mission has him arm bitten off, makes no noise to betray his position, kills the monster, and goes onto complete his mission, and return to base, minus 1 arm most of the way. I enjoy that sort of over the top pulpy comic book style silliness. So high soak characters don't bother me.
That said I've seen another GM with a different intended tone do it in a different way. He treated armor just like cover when it came to degradation. Any damage in excess of its AP loses one point of AP. This lead to a more pragmatic approach to how flashy their gear was, and I imagine how quickly and safely they tried to end combat. Though I think it was a socially focused RT game. That sounds really hardcore to me though in any game with a decent amount of fighting.
So if you want some sort of middle ground, the simplest mechanically would have been Lynata's earlier suggestion. Have armor be reducible -2 AP until repaired. Sort of like a universal but reduced ablative quality. At -2AP that's a serious penalty, but it still leaves armor as important. It drops a tier from PA to carapace to flak. Meaningful but dealable. I imagine it'll make whoever has tradecraft armorer feel like a champ. Or at least, it'll make keeping around the supporting NPCs slightly more urgent when it ties directly into their soak.
I actually sort-of stole that from GW's d100 Inquisitor game.
Although there this ablative armour was reduced immediately by any damage you took, basically only "feathering" the very first hit you took in combat. Even if it's just some guy throwing a rock. That's something I would not agree on.
Imho, the most challenging part in coming up with armour reduction mechanics is not to determine by how much you'd have it go down (or how to repair it), but when this effect could come into play. The part in me that enjoys a degree of realism would want for prolonged damage to take an effect over time. Simultaneously, this musn't come across as if the armour was made of paper so that any sort of damage would always diminish it - hence the idea with an abstraction based on the WS/BS test results.
But ultimately, many paths lead to Holy Terra, as the saying goes.