Sister Cat said:

A lesson in badassery:

Two guys sit at a table and try to stare eachother down.

The first guy draws his chainsword and revs it a bit before placing it on the table, looking mighty smug with himself as he cross his arms. Confident that his opponent will be extremely afraid because of this intimidating move.

The second guy don't even flinch, he locks his stern gaze with the other guy, and pulls out... a rusty spoon with some suspicious looking stains on it and place it on the table next to the chainsword.

The first guy finds this funny at first and smile a little... Then it dawns on him, while the grim guy with the spoon is still looking dead serious. The "spooner" is clearly equipped with a big ass sword on his back... Yet he pulls out a friggin SPOON to call the first guy's chainsword shenanigan. Clearly the spooner must be the most badass psychopath in the vicinity, because he's apparently confident that he will take down someone armed with a chainsword and roughly the same size as him with nothing more than a rusty spoon.

If your goal is to be badass, then you're not gonna need ***** enlargers in the form of bolt guns.

-"There is no spoon you say? Im quite certain you'll be of a different opinion once I've lodged it five inches through your forehead you little pipsqeak..."

Yeah, Varnias is right, look at the TT 40k what is more badass to you: charging the milenia old lord of chaos with thunderhammer and stormshield enclosed in Tactical Dreadnought Armour, or doing the same in flak coat and Mars pattern lasgun with bayonet in hands?

TorogTarkdacil said:

before I can answer your question, I need to ask you one of my own: which of those two fellas would look badass 3 seconds latter. In your answer will be mine ;-)

Graver said:

The guy with the spoon of course.

He's the archetypical "strong eagle" (or "aquila" since it is 40K) that doesn't need to flaunt it's claws. He had a big ass sword strapped to his back, yet he chose to use a rusty spoon as a method of intimidation and to prove a point. The first guy on the other hand trusted his ***** enlarger and hoped that it and it's jagged, motorized teeth would discourage the stronger eagle.

The stronger eagle wasn't discouraged by the ***** enlarger at all and is confident in his abilities and certain in the knowledge that if a fight were to break out between the two, 3 seconds later he would be the one scooping brain matter with his spoon out of the shattered skull of the first guy armed with the ***** enlarger.

Maybe I am just lucky, but my players have a pretty diverse collection of weapons without any real urging or nudges on my part. Each character selects their weapons IN CHARACTER, subject to availability.

Assuming they are not on a mission that restricts their choices:

Cadian Guardsman (officer & prime): Choice of storm bolter, hellgun or lasgun; custom bolt pistol; heirloom powersword; adamantine bayonet; frag(4) and krak(2) grenades.

Frontier Guardsman: Combat shotgun; chainaxe; autocannon; 2 monoknives; assorted grenades; augmetic punches (he has had full cyber-resurrection)

Sanctioned Psyker: Laspistol; staff; herself....

Chantry Cleric: Autopistol; long las; throwing monoknives (5)

Hiver Assassin: Twin Armsman-10 stub autos; Mordian powersword; Nomad sniper rifle; assortment of small pointy mono-things

Schola Adept: Laspistol, monosword

Battlefleet Techpriest: Omnisian axe; archeotech laspistol; custom las-dendrite; utility dendrite

Notice the decent representation of las weaponry? Many of my players love having weapons that will not fail them short of being cut in half. On several occasions their opponents have jammed autoguns, splinter rifles and assorted other "spray and pray" weapons. Our assassin is from one of the Fane "families" on Scintilla (no Metallican Gunslinger package though, "too limiting") and loves slugthrowers, both from a tradition standpoint and the practical (he uses ALOT of bullets!). As you would expect, the Cadian swears by all things las and bolt.

I use whatever gets the job done. Period.

If the job is to intimidate some cock-face I use the tool that has the best intimidation value (no weapons, soft voice, dry grin and a bullet-proof poker-face works best for me).

If the job is to kill some cultists I'll save myself from undue hurts and aches by shooting them from range with long las or just blasting the whole roomfull of 'em with combat shotgun.

If the job is to kill some real nasty xenos or daemons, then I'll get out the heavy weapons (stormbolter being a personal favorite).

Except for one assassin player who got his hands on a helgun, most of my players, including the guardsman have gone for the slugthrowers. Well slugthrowers and just about any pointy edged weapon they can lay hands on. I'm not sure why?

Due to the manstopper bullets (great pen value while not giving up any magazine capacity) and having semi-auto and full-auto options the autogun is simply the best cost/effect value... At least as long as you are constantly around places where autogun bullets are available on every retail shop around, which, by the way, is not the case in many of my games since I see no reason why Imperium would allow unrestricted sales of military grade manstopper bullets to normal citizens.

The reason why laser weapons are the standard in pretty much all canon material is not because they are better than autoguns but the fact that once you get one in your hands you never have to worry about to ammunition again as long as you are anywhere near electricity, and if you are not... you can always build a nice little campfire and "bake" the energycells overnight

If you assume Acolytes always have unrestricted access to local arms dealer then they will probably go for automatic weapons and manstoppers. If you start to enforce the rules of the restricted availability, then you will see a gradual shift towards lasers and other powercell powered weapons.

If you want to see your Acolytes use boltguns more, give them boltgun ammo for free from your Inquisitors military contacts... Hell, boltgun ammo being both extremely dangerous in hands of the uninitiated and extremely rare I wouldn't ever introduce a legal retail shop where it is available or allow my Acolytes to encounter it on black market anyway... At least not without arresting and executing the heretics that sell stolen Imperial Military hardware.

Polaria said:

That's no guarantee. Manstoppers are of Scarce availability, and while it will provide a penalty to try and find them, most groups of Acolytes usually contain at least one guy/gal who have good social skills and work as the general "fixer", finding places where the Acolytes can buy stuff they need.

It's usually when ammunition reach the Rare and Very Rare availability when things tend to get difficult, but if we're talking about enforcing rules here, then it wouldn't be appropriate to increase the rarity and availability of manstopper bullets (which aren't really "military grade" since the Imperial military opts for lasguns rather than autoguns most of the time. The choice between dumdums and manstoppers are basically the same thing as choosing between different kinds of hunting ammunition, which are available to civilians)

Military grade I'm inclined to say no, but arbitrator grade yes. I could see a shop/ dealer that is favored by the local authorities being allowed to get some in legal for the officers to carry in their off duty weapon. But this would be a closely watched transaction, course it's also got the potential for graft. As well this sort of thing only works in the more controlled and built up areas.

Toharent said:

There's not really any standard gun laws throughout the Imperium, much less standardized ammunition laws. I'd say that the Availability rating is based on a number of factors, "legality" being one of them. The more rare a type of weapon or ammunition is, the more likely it is that it is proscribed on certain worlds and might require less-than-legal ways to acquire it, at least on the open market.

But the fact that even lowly underhive gangers have means to acquire rare types of ammunition like plasma fuel flasks and bolt shells seem to indicate that, regardless of legality, if you have the right amount of thrones, you can get the ammunition you need.

It should be noted that the tactical situations that the acolytes find themselves in most often will strongly influence what they will try to get for weapons. If they are always fighting small groups (say six or so) of moderately tough enemies, the Armageddon would be perfect for the job; the fight will likely be over before that small magazine becomes a serious problem. On the other hand, if they're being swarmed by 30+ cultists all at once (something that my GM has done on more than one occasion), that 15 round mag suddenly becomes a serious liability.

Let's also not forget that ammunition is heavy. For your reference, a box of 2,000 rounds of .45 ACP ball ammo is going to weigh about 55 kilograms, and the box only measures approximately 42 by 33 by 20, in centimeters. Rifle ammo is likely to be much worse.

-Kirov

Varnias Tybalt said:

Okay, Varnias. While you are one of my DH Forum-heroes, I just have to take exception to this. And here's why. First, I was trying to think in terms of power-gamers, of which I have a great deal of experience, since my group of players are prototypical examples of such. While you, I believe, are speaking of players in the opposite sphere. Myself personally am somewhat of a gamer-moderate. I enjoy both aspects. However, even from a "role-playing", rather than "roll-playing" aspect, Bolt weapons are the epitome of power and wealth in the Imperium, at least if my limited experience with the 40K universe is valid ... which should imply at least two things: one, that the bearer is both wealthy enough not to worry about the cost of ammo, and two, the the bearer is well-connected enough to not only acquire a Bolt weapon, but also to support it's use. In my mind, anyone who knows anything about the way of things in the 40K universe, would have to stop and think twice about that. Now, I may be wrong here, and if so, I apologize to the gurus. But, I don't see anyone who's not a "truly epic badass" ignoring this. Now, I do understand your point about intimidation, or "implied badassery", however, when it comes down to it, the "spoon-wielding" thug is going to be in a serious way if he doesn't have something "else" to back up his play at intimidation, assuming the "other wannabe-badass" calls his bluff. Just sayin' ...

That, or it's some sort of deadly daemon spoon. You can never be too careful.

(one thing about rarity is that the population needed for a significant bonus to rarity checks is actually vanishingly small in 40k terms. Basically, if you're in what a 40k character would recognize as a city, you're probably not suffering the full modifier in acquisition tests).

While I do love VTs "Spoon Example", I'd like to point out that it only works if a) The spoonwielding thug actually *is* capable of killing someone with a spoon in considerably short time or b) No-one calls the bluff... Because, otherwise c) The chainsword guy calls the bluff, cleaves the spoonman in half and wonders where the world is going to...

The lesson #1 in intimidation is that implied threat of violence works most of the time better than actual violence.

The lesson #2 is that for those times it doesn't you'd better **** well be prepared to back your implications.

Symbols of status (like a boltgun) that imply you have the backing of some powerfull organization are many times pretty usefull. If you think of it, the Inquisitors Rosette is just such a piece... Think of an Inquisitor High Lord who would have nothing else (no armor, no weapons, no retinue, no psychic powers... nothing) than the Rosette. The simple implication of "This Is A Man To Be Feared" just by showing the Rosette would work pretty well 99% of the time in Imperial Space and it might work even better than full retinue in some cases. It wouldn't stop him from getting killed, dismembered and eaten when faced with Ork Warlord in full gear.

Polaria said:

But then again, you wouldn't threaten someone with a spoon unless you were **** sure that you could take the person out swiftly and painfully with the spoon in question now would you?

Hence, it isn't really a "bluff" but rather a "dare". In the term: Would you dare to assume that im bluffing when I threaten to kill you with a spoon before you can even bring your silly chainsword to bear?

Polaria said:

Im not sure the rosette would work very well for a naked and unarmed man 99 % of the time. Inquisitors keep retinues and weapons for reason. The reason being that you have to be clearly able to enforce your authority that the rosette grants, otherwise the rosette will just be a useless piece of metal... Unless of course, the Inquisitor is such a badass that he/she could actually kill a better armed opponent by burying the rosette itself in the temple or the eye of that opponent... Ouch!

Varnias Tybalt said:

Going by the prevalent Necromunda example of "what hive gangers can obtain", it should be remembered that Necromunda is a significant producer of munitions (and that the main six gang types are all extensions of the main six manufacturing concerns in the mid-hive), so consequently guns and ammunition will be more plentiful in the hives than they might be in a hive that mainly produces tractors. Gunmetal City on Scintilla is a good comparison - everyone owns a firearm, because the entire city and its culture exists around the manufacture of firearms.

As for the rarity of plasma fuel flasks... am I the only one who comes to the conclusion that it's the containers that are rare, rather than the ammo? The fuel for a Plasma Weapon is afterall hydrogen, the single most abundant element in the universe.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

That's why I refered to the flasks rather than just saying "plasma ammo".

N0-1_H3r3 said:

Manufacturing may be a significant part of the cost. There is, after all, plenty of hydrogen on Earth. Could you pick me up some plasma while you're out at the store?

Hodgepodge said:

Manufacturing may be a significant part of the cost. There is, after all, plenty of hydrogen on Earth. Could you pick me up some plasma while you're out at the store?

It'd be a mistake to assume that the Imperium can only produce hydrogen in the ways we do on any sort of scale. Amongst other things, being a spacefaring civilisation gives them far greater access to hydrogen than we do - farming nebulas, mining gas giants, industry that consumes whole worlds, etc. The fact that essentially every starship and Titan in the Imperium is powered by what is likely to be a fusion reactor, the production of usable hydrogen in vast quantities seems inevitable, really. By comparison, the amounts you'd need to blast away with a plasma gun are relatively insignificant...

Personally I and my players use a variety of weapons. notions of 'badassery' aside, you use the most effective tools for the job. there are ways one can counter 'weapon sameness', a few posters have suggested them.

in and of itself, i don't see this as powergaming or a negative matter. in a real sense, its a damned dangerous universe out there with all manners of nasties, armoured nasties and super powered armoured nasties. its actually a fairly smart tactic for those wishing to truly think about survival. when ammo runs out for one Acolyte he can ask, hey bud toss me a mag and feel sure that it will work in his weapon. its sure helpful in a firefight, I've been there.

as a matter of cost effectiveness, another plus. you have the best bang for your buck. its the reason ppl love them big box stores. i personally would never purchase an item that i cannot maintain. i'd keep it. toss it in my collection. 'i found this shiny bolter and pried it from the dead hands of so and so. its a real keeper.' when i was in somalia back in '93, the Bekaraa Market was this arms bazaar, that had all manners of very antique weapons and all kinds of other weapons of past wars..poorly maintained no doubt but some things rarely seen. i digress..

u have a weapon that can pour on the rounds, solid stopping power and a decent armour penetration for a fraction of the cost. ammo that can be found much more easily than the bolter and weighs less. the lasgun is a solid weapon but suffers from lack of armour piercing potential barring being weighed down with substantially heavier las options.

i'd say these are some fairly smart Acolytes. they haven't tried to load the game up with all manners of show stopping powers and abilities. they've merely decided to use the same tools of the trade. which again, there are all manners of ways to either deprive them of or make them less than effective. i wouldn't bother trying to railroad them into seeing or buying your perspective on their choice (or lack thereof) of weapon usage. if your having fun and their having fun. c'est la vie...there will be many situations, if your clever enough, i'm sure to have your way without railroading them.

I've not had this happen very often, but those times that I have had players wanting identical exotic gear, it has been the Nomad, which seems to be the god-emperor of sniper rifles, save the Angelus. I've ruled against this however, as the Nomad comes from practically only one world, and having more than one would cheapen the overall awesomeness of it,

I really don't see a problem here, if you don't want your players to always use the same weapons then simply don't give them the option, you are the GM, you control what weapons and ammo they find, it's that simple!
I see alot of people complaining that certain ammo is to expensive...then lower the price? again, you are the GM, you set the rules for your campaign and I have yet to play an RPG that is to be followed to the letter where you aren't allowed to change things you don't like.

Like I've said in other threads, I'm really worried about the type of players playing DH as it seems to me they all have the MMORPG bug "kill kill kill loot loot loot" but RPG are not about just getting the best gear, it's about roleplaying and yes the weapons your character carry does affect this, why should an adept carry some specialized custom pistol? adepts aren't about weapons and combat, they're about knowledge and learning...I really think alot of people have miss understood the idea behind this game.

At least the Eldar Ranger Long Rifle presents the Nomad with healthy and interesting competition.

On the other hand, they really shouldn't need that much range very often, and there are much better guns (or just cheaper in the case of a Long Las with a Hot Shot pack) out there if your target happens to be less than a kilometer away.

Cryxx said:

But what if the player wants to play an adept who has got a special quirky fondness for specialized custom pistols? Perhaps this is an adept who is tired of being an adept (god knows that pretty much all of them are certainly close to becoming burnt out by their mind-numbing work)? Or perhaps going to the shooting range is how this particular adept blows of steam (which is certainly built up every day by such a boring line of work he/she's got). Perhaps the adept is a very paranoid adept who wants to be able to defend him-/herself and being a bit high brow and nerdy as they tend to be, this particular adept might have looked up the most "suitable" weapon to keep for self defense and that's what this customized pistol is built for.

The character classes in Dark Heresy are already extremely shoehorned as they are. Blaming and trying to prohibit players from making choices that aren't already dictated by the career paths in question will certainly not promote more roleplaying from the players side. If the player has a vision of an adept who's got a morbid and abnormal fascination with guns, then I say fine, let the player play such an adept. But I want some sort of in-game motivation for why the adept in question is so obsessed with guns. If the player can come up with that, then I don't have any problem with the adept being a hobby gun nut as well and I don't see any reason for why it would be inappropriate as a role to play. Adepts are people, and people aren't all alike just because the have the same line of work...