Hi all!

---minor Edge of Darkness and PtU spoiler----

My group consists of 5 players of almost 4th rank and we are currently about to finish an Edge of Darkness sequel. The problem I have is the groups Assassin with his rather mundane Hunting Rifle. While the groups Tech-Priest and Psyker deal around 3-12 damage with their Las Pistols when (if…) they hit, the Assassin seem to hit with every shot (BS 54 + Accurate + half round aiming + short range = 84% chance to hit) and most of the time deals a horrendous amount of damage thereby (almost half of all shots (44%) deal 3D10+3+2 (Mighty Shot) damage with Pen3 (man-stopper); ie. an average of 22.5 damage (-3 armour) without taking into account any possibel extra dices for Emperor's Fury). Even the Arbitrator’s full-auto Thollos and the Guardman’s Meat-Hammer are laughable against that. Is the Accurate-rule broken somehow? (Aim – Single shot -- Aim – Single shot -- Aim – Single shot -- Aim – Single shot -- Aim – Single shot…) It is far more powerful than any Plasma weapon…

Just recently during the encounter with the Churgeon (edge of Darkness) he was the first to act with a 13 Ini and shot the Churgeon to the head with 26 damage (-4TB and -1 reduced armour = 22) resulting in a critical. I desperately threw 3 Body Snatchers, a Homunculite and the mechanical spider in the way and gave the Churgeon the Touched by Fates talent to even the odds and keep the Churgeon alive for at least a few rounds…

The groups next mission will be Rejoice for you are True from PtU. I am just seeing it in my mind’s eye how Thodosia will drop from above and the groups Assassin will deal another >20 damage shot to the head.
What can I do? Anyone else having this kind of problem?

I think the Errata should have said the extra dices for damage in case of two degrees of success for aiming Accurate weapons should only be applied in case of a full round of aiming instead of any (including half-round) aiming. That way it would be a true sniper bonus and not a bonus you can get every single round...

I don't see a problem with the accurate rules. If I want my group's sniper to not one shot the big boss, I make sure that there are more pressing matters for him to deal with. Like being shot at on full auto from somewhere closer, or being charged by an Ogryn on meth. And if he wants to still go for the head shot to the Big Boss, he's got to make a difficult Willpower Test to ignore the obvious threats and aim.

As far as the Rejoice for You are True game... Seriously. Remember to enforce the no obvious weapons rule that Hive Sibellus supposedly strictly maintains. And if they pull out the "we're Inquisitorial acolytes" card to get around that have Theodosia cut his losses and disappear. The game is about political intrigue so if you have someone walking around openly with a sniper rifle and nobody from the hive is stopping him for breaking the rules your doing something wrong.

1. Have the assassin ambushed by a flunkie. Close combat will remove the sniper rifling from the equation in the short term.

2. Fill the room will dense smoke obscuring the target beyond 3m.

3. Fake a warp-effect roll thiingie of "technology failure" from a psychic power that fails to go off and don't tell the assassin what has happened. With luck the sniper will take first action with high initiative and aim-fire. The result is a jam (one wasted bullet) and a turn required to clear the jam before firing again. The assassin will have to choose between clearing the jam and ditching the weapon for an alternative.

Side-note: Has this character bought a red-dot laser for the rifle yet? That would be a <94 to hit at short range.

I play an assassin and have recently had an odd experience with sniping. In one session I hit a psyker emerging from the smoke with 39 damage to the head and another random that was thrown into view by a frag grenade was shot in the leg as he appeared dealing 39 damage. Both at normal range, both died. I also faced two door guards with autoguns at close range. Shot one, minor damage. Was shot in return and successfully dodged. The second guard hit...on full auto... with 6 degrees of success. A total of 7 bullets hitting and me starting on 3 wounds with no reaction moves left in the turn. 17 damage made it through. Fate point burned!

I'm surprised that nobody's mentioned cover yet. It doesn't matter how many degrees a marksman scores on his attack roll if the bullet strikes a hit location that's behind cover. The Tactical Advance action will help your bad guys stay mobile without exposing themselves to a readied action. Of course, Running is also useful, imposing a -20 penalty to anyone trying to shoot then. This leaps up to -40 if the character has the Hard Target talent. There's also the option of limiting what the sharp shooter can do. Pinning is of useful, limiting the old 1/2 Aim+Standard Attack combo to once ever 2 rounds. The next is to present them with an enemy they're not designed to tackle. Packs of mook-grade enemies are particularly threatening to those using Accurate weapons. Killing one with a 30+ damage shot isn't much good if the other three gun you down on their turn or, worse, charge into melee with you.

Accurate weapons exist to punish people who make themselves easy targets. The solution isn't to tone down the Accurate rule but to try and have your bad guys fight smart. It's also worth considering introducing your own heretical sharp shooters. People who do nothing but 1/2 Aim and fire can make remarkable easy targets, especially if they can only Dodge once a round.

It doesn't matter how many degrees a marksman scores on his attack roll if the bullet strikes a hit location that's behind cover.

Since cover only provides additional AP: Yes, it does matter. By the RAW, they still roll their 3D10 for damage. As a houserule, you could of course say that the shot deals the additional damage only if it penetrates the cover

Luthor Harkon said:

Hardly, Ol' Theo is pretty wicked when it comes to dodging. Also the assassin should get penalties when trying to aim at Theo because of several reasons. First Theo jumps in as a surprise so every PC should have to ready their weapons first (highly unlikely that they run around with sniper weapons ready for action in the midst of hundreds of civilians), second I don't believe any assassin (except for maybe Vindicare Assassins) being able to pick out Theodosia running like a madman in a crowd of people (like he does in the scenario), so the assassin should quite justifiably suffer several to-hit penalties when trying to aim and shoot a cybernetically enhanced heretic running and dodging through a huge crowd of people.

The accurate rule is not broken at all. Sniper weapons should be extremely deadly when used under the right conditions. When the accurate rule didnt have the errata, sniper weapons were almost useless in comparison to any gun with full auto capabilities.

Cifer said:

You've got a point there. I'm tempted to adopt that rule, unless an half-aiming before firing allows you to find invisible faults in rockcrete walls. Still, the more durable forms of cover are potentially a solution even without a house rule. AP 16 is nothing to scoff at.

I must admit I (as a GM) saw the new accurate rules as a problem, but I did like where they where going. I changed it slightly so that the Accurate trait only comes into play with a FULL action aim. Otherwise my groups and I felt that it was a tad overpowered, as my players too have to face accurate weapons once in a while.

My two thrones

I've had to dumb down down the accurate rule too. It's not just in normal firefights and cover (which can be offset by talents). It occured to me when some of my group was in combat with a monster (Khorne Minotaur) and the Assassin retreated to point blank range and fire into combat every turn until the guy took an a$$ load of damage.

At the very least it should require a called shot, how accurately can you be aiming when randomly hit someone on the arm? But even this gets offset pretty quickly. I've said that it requires the target to be unaware of the attack but he isn't happy with it (and I'm not really).

Full action aim+called shot=fixed, I think.

I don't realy see a problem, I prepare my combats carefully and make sure they will run as I want them to do.
My npc's goons are highly fanatical and will use the alternative dodge rule from IH to catch any shot for their master.

The problem is, snipers used to be too weak, now they seem a bit strong, don't forget, the enemies can have hunting rifles too.

Face Eater said:

How was he doing that? I know you can make an Acrobatics check to Disengage from melee as a 1/2 action (and taking a Standard Attack if you mess fail the check), but that only leaves time for an unaimed shot before the daemon's next turn. At which point it will, presumably, move into melee range and resume smashing.

How was he doing that? I know you can make an Acrobatics check to Disengage from melee as a 1/2 action (and taking a Standard Attack if you mess fail the check), but that only leaves time for an unaimed shot before the daemon's next turn. At which point it will, presumably, move into melee range and resume smashing.

I assume the daemon was kept busy by the other group members and the assassin shot into melee (which should have gotten him a -20).

Luthor Harkon said:

To put things into perspective... the assassin could have started with an autogun instead. Assume a die roll of BS -10 (most favorable to the Accurate weapon, 4 DoS for the hunter rifle, 3 DoS for the autogun). Quick run-down:

• Hunter rifle: full action (half-aim + single shot) +20 BS, red dot laser sight +10 BS, Dam 3D10+3+2 (Mighty Shot)/Pen 3
• Autogun: full action (full auto fire) +20 BS, 4x(Dam 1D10+3+2 (Mighty Shot)/Pen 3)

With an autogun your Chirurgeon would have taken 4D10+4 (each already reduced by TB+penetrated armor) or an average of 26 damage with an extra die to trigger Righteous Fury (not subject to further reduction because hitting with a '10' already exceeds TB+armor) though at -10 BS to confirm. And while the autogun is using more Manstopper bullets and has a slightly higher chance to jam, part of the burst can still hit where a single shot is dodged and every extra DoS (like when you're at point blank range) is only increasing the autogun damage further.

It requires very high (unnatural) toughness targets for sniper shots with half-action aiming to surpass the damage of the alternative full auto burst. Here's a chart for damage at various BPH values (bonus per hit = 3+2-TB, simplified with no armor as it is subject to Pen) and assuming the favorable 4 and no more DoS for the hunter rifle (or 3 DoS for the autogun):

• TB 4 -> BPH +1 -> 3D10+1 (max 31+RF, average 17.5) versus 4x(1D10+1) (max 44+RF, average 26)
• TB 6 -> BPH -1 -> 3D10-1 (max 29+RF, average 15.5) versus 4x(1D10-1) (max 36+RF, average 18)
• TB 8 -> BPH -3 -> 3D10-3 (max 27+RF, average 13.5) versus 4x(1D10-3) (max 28+RF, average 11.2)
• TB 10 -> BPH -5 -> 3D10-5 (max 25+RF, average 11.505) versus 4x(1D10-5) (max 20+RF, average 6)
• TB 12 -> BPH -7 -> 3D10-7 (max 23+RF, average 9.535) versus 4x(1D10-7) (max 12+RF, average 2.4)

(Better to normalize and calculate with BPH in order to remove TB, Mighty Shot and weapon damage bonus from the equation.)

Cifer said:

Yes indeed, Iearned a lesson about frenzied bosses being vulnerable to that. But yes having other people keep in combat (read getting the crap kicked out of them) he disengaged, snap shot the first turn (or aimed i forget) and aim - shot the next.

And yes he had the -20 (which he's accepting for the characters entire life and even shot their cleric in the head in the Illumination) but with the +30 offsetting it he was on good odds.

My point remains that the pinpoint accuracy of the weapon shouldn't be an issue at point blank range.

With an autogun your Chirurgeon would have taken 4D10+4 (each already reduced by TB+penetrated armor) or an average of 26 damage with an extra die to trigger Righteous Fury (not subject to further reduction because hitting with a '10' already exceeds TB+armor) though at -10 BS to confirm.

Not to forget that one bullet can only trigger Righteous Fury once, meaning your hunting rifle has a chance of 27% to trigger fury once while every single FA hit has a 10% chance to do so.

Cifer said:

Really, Im not so certain, could you give me a page referance for this?

Well... 195. If any die of a damage roll comes up 10, you test if you get Righteous Fury. I've read "If any" to mean "If at least one", not "for every".

Yes I know. That's why I wrote extra chance though I know depending on BS it could very well be possible for the 3 dice with a chance for RF to exceed the damage of 4 dice at a relative -10 penalty to confirm the RF. I just didn't want to introduce another parameter (base BS) to calculate damage. It isn't complex but I wanted to show how in the situation the OP mentioned an autogun would have had an equally devastating effect for unloading a full action. I consider the Accurate rule quite balanced... has its uses against the right targets... just like Dual Shot, just like full auto fire... depending on the absorption.

I do favor every character to pick a preference for some kind of weapon... if every mode has a moment where it can shine it's all balanced.

Compared to other forms it does seem fine on paper. Certainly I'm not ruling it out but I just can't help think that as it's written it's able to be used in situations that don't make any sense. And of course it add damage to a single shot (to make it more powerful than a plasma or meltagun) means that it is way better against a single hard target than spraying with multiple weak hits (emporers wrath aside which is similar between the two)

I would say calling a shot is nescesary because it doesn't make sense without it.

I would say calling a shot is nescesary because it doesn't make sense without it.

Actually, it does make sense because you aim for something anyway. I consider un-called shots to mean "I'll take the body part that I can hit most easily at the moment" while called shots would be focusing on one body part despite it not being the easiest to hit at the moment. I mean, seriously: How do you aim at the torso? And what do you shoot at if you don't aim at the torso?

Cifer said:

Well when you aim a sniper rifle or a marksman weapon of some kind you steady your position, raise the weapon to a comfortable position (bracing it if you have the opportunity), steady your breathing, tracing you target through the scope for a few seconds in order to make sure you know which way the target is moving and possibly anticipate any sudden movements it might make. When you're ready to fire you take a deep breath and make sure to empty your lungs before you squeeze the trigger (not pulling at it as pulling will result in the rifle jerking slightly sideways), while also making sure that you keep your eye open and not blinking.

Some snipers also advocate taking the shot (or shots) between your heartbeats as the pulse of blood pumping might have an effect on your muscles.

If at long and extreme ranges the shooter will have to take that into account, angling the rifle slightly upwards so the bullets trajectory will coincide with the intended target.

If the area is plagued by wind then that will have to be taken into account as well, the shooter might have to aim slightly beside of the target (left or right depending on the wind direction). Although before shooting a sniper will usually adjust his scope so the crosshairs centre on the target even while the rifle is aimed those increments beside and/or above the target.

Adjustments will also have to be made if the target is located uphill or downhill from the snipers position, usually by using the Pythagorean theorem if the sniper has access to the relevant instruments.

Aiming at the torso is standard practice due to the centre of mass being located there and you aim in order for the bullet to sever the spinal column and kill the target immediately (which is usually a much more reliable way rather than aiming for the head). However if your intended target is behind cover then you usually have to wait for them to stick their head out and aim for the head (but such situations are generally unfavorable to the sniper and a sniper is usually expected to get into a favorable position before taking his shot or shots).

THis is usually the case for military snipers, and they usually always aim for the torso. Only police force snipers (e.g SWAT-teams) usually have the benefit of close-range sniping work (like 80 meters) and have the opportunit to aim for small areas like the target's hand, held weapon or head.

However in the heat of combat where characters in Dark Heresy are usually finding themselves to be, these procedures would be unrealistic to go through and anyone with a scope on his accurate weapon will probably try to snap of shots at the largest target (this being the torso area).

If you dont aim at all ("not" aiming at the torso) then you probably snap off shots in the general direction of your target, rather than actually lining up the crosshairs/iron sights of your weapon properly and taking the time to steady your aim.

That's aiming, not calling shots.

Cifer said:

Well, calling shots involve trying to hit a specific bodypart which in turn gives you a penalty when trying to hit. In real life, you'd have to AIM pretty carefully.

Still doesn't answer the question what differentiates aiming and shooting from aiming, calling a shot to the torso and shooting.