I find the weapons that tear up vehicles in canon seem less than effective in the 40k rpgs. So two possible solutions, some nicked from elsewhere (would credit if I could remember sources):

* Weapons traditionally designed for tearing or piercing vehicle armour gain x3 Pen versus vehicles. These include melta bombs, krak grenades, power fists, krak missles, lascannons, melta weapons of all sorts.

* PCs can choose to target weak spots on vehicles (e.g. hatches, viewports, gaps between hull and tracks) at penalty (-20 upwards depending on target) but get to halve vehicle armour for that attack if successful.

Any thoughts?

Warning: I'm about to pointlessly ramble.

I like to think, in my opinion, that one of the failing in this sort of thing is always "players aren't vehicles", and if a weapon can pop a little tank in no time, then it can pop a character in one shot. Unless you are using a system where players are PHENOMENALLY more difficult to hit then their Chimera/Rhino, or invent rules that somehow make metal weaker than sinew and flesh, no one wants to be the infantry guy around a man with a tank-buster, once he's out of tanks to bust. He has no obligation to quit the field, and then every following round is either "he shoots, someone honestly died", or "he missed, let's get closer". The attrition rate is appropriate to NPC Guard, but i feel players don't want to have to be on the same field as that whoever NPC who, with no time investment in him, can "lucky pop" players each round; you'll run out of Fate sometime. In a game like TT, it is SLIGHTLY alleviated by the fact that most anti-vehicle weapons are either single-shot, and a squad of guys is a squad, maybe a mob, and they are nobodies, or that rules call for bonus Pen, when that doesn't really apply to infantry in the requisite way. In an RPG, though, every PC is a player with a character they've invested hours of time, sweat, and BS into, and none want to be taken down by one shot from the lascannon, but if the lascannon DOESN'T one-shot a 20 Wound character, how can it be expected to down a 50 SP, heavily armored Land Raider, or a 100 Wound Carnifex whose as protected as a Terminator? The answer: a lot of people seemed unhappy with the damage output in DW, vs. big nasties and vehicles, also sometimes BY the big nasties, AGAINST vehicles. It's the fine line between save vs. Death and weird "I'm hardier than a Titan" roles, even without Toughness armor BS.

I know in Dawn of War games, up to Soulstorm, at least, they track damage to infantry, vehicles, and buildings each separately, and if it's the one your weapon is NOT good at, you don't do crap for damage. You build a missile launcher, or post a lascannon out there, it'll pop a tank, but NEVER kill infantry, even schlub Guard, before their "not good against buildings" weapons STILL blow it up. It vaguely works in that game, but try explaining it in the RPG? Tau might not NEED Crisis Suits, after all.

As an off note, it made me sad that RT doesn't keep Melta as a weapon property, sort of in keeping with your "tank-killers actually killing tanks" theme. I have a character with a BQ relic inferno pistol, and I say that it, at least, still has that rule, regardless of whether "regular" melta weapons in RT do, or should, have it.

I know that this probably isn't helping solve the issue at hand, but I feel the issue often stems from stuff more durable than players, but you want the PLAYERS to be what lives. Only War has several talents, such as Tank Hunter, and various Weapon Masteries, many of which increase your Pen, possibly your damage, if you want it to be more "this toon with this gun can do amazing things", rather than "this gun can do amazing things, especially to your face", so you might try to port some over, if the RT talents aren't already doing so, under a different name.

venkelos, did you note that my suggestions made the weapons only better against vehicles? PCs wouldn't be left any more or less vulnerable to anti-vehicle weapons from these changes. I do appreciate the response though.

My reasons:

1. Vehicles can physically take more damage from a hit. My logic stemming from the concept of overpenetration. An anti-tank missle might have ripped through a fleshy human before detonating, instead of exploding inside a vehicle when it hits that. Lascannons can only deploy so much energy to a small target before it bleeds off or punches straight through. Etc. So I feel quite justified in anti-vehicle weapons being more effective per shot against vehicles.

2. It seems ridiculous to me that the rules as given don't take weak points into account, apart from differences in armour between front, back and sides.

3. PCs actually *are* much harder to hit than vehicles, thanks to size , dodge, force fields, etc, etc, etc.

4. As you say, PCs have been invested in by players. Hence, I've no interest in upping the damage and/or pen of the big guns.

I find the weapons that tear up vehicles in canon seem less than effective in the 40k rpgs. So two possible solutions, some nicked from elsewhere (would credit if I could remember sources):

* Weapons traditionally designed for tearing or piercing vehicle armour gain x3 Pen versus vehicles. These include melta bombs, krak grenades, power fists, krak missles, lascannons, melta weapons of all sorts.

* PCs can choose to target weak spots on vehicles (e.g. hatches, viewports, gaps between hull and tracks) at penalty (-20 upwards depending on target) but get to halve vehicle armour for that attack if successful.

Any thoughts?

+1 I like it. I see nothing wrong with this.

Of course, don't forget about movement of the vehicles when factoring negative's to hit. Oddly enough, most of the anti-vehicle weapons don't seem to add any bonus to targeting vehicles too. Example: Target Lock Odd, Range Finder, etc etc.

Well most vehicles do tend to be size category 6-7-8 which adds a pretty good bonus to hit. If you've ever tried hitting ANYTHING with a lascannon in the video games you know you need a bonus to hit or a moron just standing there. The things have to build charge before they fire. Probably just to keep them from sniping everybody, but it is a freaking lascannon.

I worked around this a bit when designing Fan Cove's "constable" Happy, with the armorbane rule. Put simply it allows specific rip and tear type weapons to forget hurting the vehicle itself and rip the bloody armor off the **** thing till you can fire a lasgun at the crew if you so feel inclined.

I would say that the anti-tank weapons are in a pretty good spot (well, except melta) right now. I mean Lascannon's 5d10+10 pen 10 is gonna hurt a tank (as long as we're not talking about some of the riddiculous DW profiles), even if it's not gonna flat out one-shot it. As for melta weapons, we simply doubled the pen of melta weaponry against vehicles on short and Point Blank range.

Decessor,

Yeah, I definitely noticed that the weapon's effectiveness boost is only against vehicles; my babbling was the usual "how is that supposed to be a thing?" The weakest thing in the equation is the person, made of person-bits, and MAYBE wrapped in clothing, cardboard, riot armor, or the occasional suit of time limit armor ONLY players seem to think is worth the investment (I can only think of 2-3 NPC RTs who are stated, and who wear PA; your GM might change it, but the time limit, coupled with the size bump...) I usually find it hard to understand why the special rules ONLY work on vehicles, and not the squishy people, other than convenience.

Yeah, I suppose the vehicles ARE rather easier to hit, sorry. People CAN have Dodge, and might invest in (mandatory to me) fields, while most vehicles don't, but other than RT, where each character in your group really does have cart blanch authority to pimp their gear with exactly what they want, AND the resources to get groups of field projectors, BQ armor, and on, most parties won't be universally equipped in such things. I appreciate that the player is durable where even a vehicle might get wrecked, but I don't always understand how it is supposed to work, how a melta weapon does extra damage to my tank, but not to me (suppose I will probably die, anyway, of course, but...)