Maybe it is just a lingering trace from playing WH40K since, well... Rogue Trader, but plasma weapons have always been frighteningly powerful weapons eager to spit barely-contained melty DOOM on their unfortunate victims, assuming the user does not flash-fry their hands or face in the process of overloading the capacitors or some other rookie mistake.

They certainly do NOT live up to that billing in DH. I can understand some reduction in the 84% lethality rate from the pistol and "rifle" versions used in tabletop in the name of game balance, but the stats on these weapons are just unforgiveably anemic.

Bolt weapons were similarly gimpy at publication, but the eratta for them has fixed that problem rather nicely without overbalancing them.

Tabletop plasma (pistols to limit the jumble of numbers to a single item) have a Strength of 7 and AP2. What this means is that for a model with 4 or less toughness (almost anything infantry, INCLUDING space marines) suffer a lethal wound on a D6 roll of 2-6 (84%) and no armour short of Terminator tactical dreadnought armour or a force field is going to stop it. A supremely tough target like an Astartes company commander might be able to take 2 hits from this, but even the most unkillable human model is INSTANTLY killed regardless of woulds due to the crass overkill of the attack.

We clearly do NOT want plasma weapons to be "dodge this or burn a fate point", but at 1D10+6E Pen6 Recharge, Overheats we have quite the opposite problem. Sure, they hit a bit harder than a laspistol or a stub pistol, but not by all that much. The penetration is reasonable for the weapon, but the base damage is feeble for it's type. A Hellpistol with a hotshot pack loaded has fairly comparable performance and is a bit less prone to kill the shooter. A stock model bolt pistol by comparison is going to outperform a plasma pistol in most cases in DH: 1D10+5X Pen4 Tearing, plus an option for burst fire and the option of making rude fire-selector modifications to the weapon.

For the record, tabletop bolt pistols have a Strength of 4 and AP5, meaning that a hit on a Space Marine has about a 50% chance of scoring some serious damage in the remote possibility that it gets through their armour (which is doubtful). The same hit on a typical Imperial Guardsman has about a 66% lethality but is going to completely ignore their armour unless they are one of the few IG forces to wear carapace armour instead of flak.

Considering my particular game has a Guardsman and a Techpriest doing 2D10+5 I Pen4 and 2D10+3 R Pen4 respectively in melee without using power, chain or other iconic weapon technologies or utilizing any talents other than weapon training and have been doing so since about rank 2 I officially call "foul". There is just NO way that a big hammer or axe (even mono) is 2-3x MORE deadly than vomiting barely contained starfire out of a particle acceleration chamber onto someone.

It gets funnier....

Pistol and basic versions of the weapons have the same damage and penetration values, A fair ruling, since only range and firing options differ between a pistol and a "gun" version in 40K. We also know that it is common practice in Imperial Guard and Space Marine infantry formations to replace a trooper's lasgun or bolter to help blast through massively armoured targets (like Chaos Marines!), light to medium vehicles and so on. Unless the target has alot of armour the 2-6 hits (2 single shots, 2 bursts or similar) you can score with a basic lasgun are far more deadly than the one shot, pray to the Emperor your gun does not melt, then wait for it to recharge cycle. The performance of the "cut down for mortal hands" bolt pistol obviously well outpaces the humble but reliable lasgun that is giving our fancy plasma a solid race (1D10+5X Pen4 Tearing with single or burst fire). Now if we compare an Astartes bolt pistol/bolter it just gets sad: 2D10X Pen5 Tearing with single/burst fire options. Our mighty plasma weaponry is now a substantial and signifigant DOWNGRADE for the poor Astartes warrior honoured with the care of such a sacred relic of the Dark Age of Technology!

While adding the Tearing quality was sufficient to fix the underperformance of bolt weapons in DH it is really not a good fit descriptiveness-wise for the puny plasma weapons. Short of some fancy new weapon quality yet to be seen in Rogue Trader (ships next week finally?! Yay!) these poor languishing relics of ancient and mighty weapons technology are in desperate need of a damage adjustment. Off the top of my head 2D10+(5-6) E Pen6 Recharge, Gets Hot OR 1D10+10 E Pen6 Recharge, Gets Hot are certainly worthy of some playtesting and consideration.

I could likewise comment on the melta-weapons, but at least with a Pen of 12 they do what they are supposed to do: Breach bunkers, destroy solid objects, melt vehicles, turn humans into pudding, etc.....

Check out rogue trader when it is finally released. I don't have the book yet so can't post any details but reports from those that got a copy at gencon say that plasma weapons have had a power buff.

From what I've heard about RT plasma guns is that they loose the Recharge and Overheat traits unless they fire in high power mode, in which case they get an additional 2d10 damage. Even then, though, regular fire plasma weapons still seem inferior to bolt weaponry.

The plasma weapons in Rogue Trader have a couple more guaranteed points of damage than the Bolters, and they have more penetration as well.

Example:

Bolt Pistol (Ceres-pattern) does 1d10+5 X damage, Pen 4.

Plasma Pistol (Ryza-pattern) does 1d10+6 E damage, Pen 6.

The only thing I really would consider a drawback to the plasma weapons versus bolters is that they take longer to reload, but if you're reloading in the middle of battle you didn't bring enough gun in the first place.

Plasma weapons in the standard rulebook are too weak, yes, but I think the ones in the IH really work much better. The Sunfury and the Plasma Blaster both are extremely powerful, powerful enough to justify recharge.

Though it is perplexing why weapons that are rapid fire or pistol (can have 2 shots) in the tabletop game can often only fire once every two rounds.

Now this is where the fun starts, at least for me.

Back in 2nd ED Plasma weapons had the recharge-rule to PREVENT overheating. Only the live-hating Chaos Marines were so crazy to fire them every round, but risked overheating.

To add insult to injury: The overheating plasma-weapons were declared 'defilded technology' by the AM.

Now, with the 3rd ED suddenly ALL plasmaweapons could fire every round with the risk of overheating.

And the plasmaweapons in DH ... have to recharge AND still overheat!

Boyaah!

You are all correct so far. The way I play them is with the following changes:

1 Add 1d10 damage to all Plasma weapons

2 Plasma weapons only overheat on a natural roll of 00.

Optional: For every shot fired in an encounter the chance to overheat increases by 1. i.e. the second shot has a chance of 99-00m the third shot overheats if 98-00 is rolled.

Optional: A techpreist can modify a plasma weapon to not need to recharge. In that case the recharge characteristic is replaced with the standard Overheat rules.

I had a thought about adding a trait to Melta and Plasma weapons instead of upping their damage.

Searing: Due to the extreme heat generated a weapon with the Searing quality is not reduced by the targets TB after it penetrates armor. A target with Unnatural Toughness has its multiplier reduced by half before damage is applied to their newly modified TB.

A human has no TB vs. Searing
A Space Marine has Unnatural T x 2 reduced to x1 so they have their unmodified TB vs. Searng
A Deamon with a Unnatural T x4 would only have Unnatural x2 vs. Searing

The major counterargument is that WH40K, models that are removed from play are not necessarily dead. They may be dead, but equally they could just be knocked unconscious, or so badly injured they no longer take part in the battle. This certainly used to be explicitly stated in the rules, though I haven't seen them for an edition or two.

Meanwhile, in DH many people use a rule whereby "mooks" (i.e. normal enemies who aren't fully developed villains) are assumed to die the moment they take critical damage.

This may go some way to explaining the discrepancy.

Face Eater said:

This was really clever. I like giving my players strategic choices. I believe I'd do it with a stronger effect on the overheating/cooldown. More bookkeeping, but fun. choose one of the following actions:

Fire single shot on low setting: do decent damage: (1d10+8, pen 6)

Fire single shot on high setting: +2d10 damage, gain one "overheat marker". Consumes 4x ammo

Fire semi-auto, any setting: gain one "overheat marker" (in addition to the one from high setting). This option is only available for weapons with the appropriate number in the semi-column, so not pistols.

Do not fire the plasmaweapon for a complete round: Loose one "overheat marker"

Every time you fire, there is a 5% risk per "overheat marker" alrady on the gun that the plasma gun will overheat. This risk of overheat does not include markers you gain from this rounds shooting.

I'll try to explain the tactical choices I see, of course pretty simplified. Average damage does not consider chances of EF.

1 You can comfortably fire continous single shots on low setting for steady reliable damage, generally BS+20% (red dot sight and half round aiming): average damage: 13.5-TB

2 You can fire semi auto on low, every second turn without risk. Generally BS+10%. Average damage on hit: 13.5-TB, or on 2RoS: 27-2*TB

3 You can fire a single shot on high, ever second turn, without risk. Generally BS+30% (full aim, red dot). Average damage 24.5-TB (higher average damage over a few rounds than semi on low, but consumes more ammo)

4 You can fire a semi auto, high setting burst every third round without risk. This is useful for targets with seriously high TB (nurgle marines and similar). BS +10%. Average damage 24.5-TB, or on 2RoS 49-2*TB

5 Dualshot with two plasma pistols on low setting, every round BS+10% (red dot): average damage on hit: 27-TB

6 Dualshot with two plasma pistols on high setting, every second round BS+30%(red dot, full round aim), average damage on hit 49-TB (And pretty effective due to the Armorpenetration of 6, wich makes most non-marine armors worthless). This is reasonable only thanks to pistols having shorter range and less ammo capacity than the Basic.

This gives the plasma gun about the same damage per hit as the autocannon (av dam 27, pen 4), wich is prefectly fine with me, and suits how the weapons are pictured in the tabletop game. On low settings it is a small damage improvementover the boltgun. It gives the player the ability to choose when and how to take the risks involved with such an awesome weapon.

To wait or not to wait: The safe choice is of course to aim, reposition, throw grenades or maybe fire a quickdrawn sidearm during the one or two turns it takes to loose the overheat markers. The fun choise is to keep firing highpowered shots on semi auto :-)

As an afterthought, the Plasma Blaster should probably have one or two "permanent overheat markers", or be unable to cooldown properly, except between battles. Wich makes it pretty safe to shoot twice with it :-)

I made them do 2D10+10 (about equal to one guardsmen's power fist) damage, pen 12 and counting TB as armor for the purposes of damage reduction. (meaning armor pen ignores TB like it would armor.) Yeah, it's burn fate, dodge or die. And with a pistol that melts and knocks over armored cars, I think it's in the right place.

To counter the vastly improved damage I dropped Recharge and made plasma weapons gain +10 on the to hit roll for every shot after the first one for the purpose of overheating. Every turn the gun is not fired one of the +10 counters is dropped. Or worded an other way, every shot after the first drops the overheat threshold by ten. Thus: If a plasma gun fires semi-auto it would overheat on the D100 result of a 81 or higher. If the shooter has big brass ones and decides to fire again the gun would overheat on a 61 or higher. (This is per shot fired, not per Round fired)

I also added effects to the surrounding area, making plasma a poor choice around things the players didn't want damaged. Like if fired down a wooden hallway a plasma gun would set all the hallway it passed through on fire wit ha burst around the point of impact. Any mobil thing caught in a on fire zone tests Agility with bonuses for distance from the plasma shot. Plasma shots melt metal set things on fire and generally mess huge amounts of things up.

Seeing as I run campaigns on the more subtle side of things, having a gun that is almost certainly going to destroy all evidence; kill the hostages; burn down the hab the players are fighting in; Ect. Ect. I find them fairly fair.

SomVone said:

Isn't that Meltas?

Darth Smeg said:

For taking out "light vehicles" such as armored tranports, mobile artillery and scouting vehicles a plasma weapon will do the job just fine. For taking out serious battletanks and bunkers you want a melta weapon. Even so, most heavy tanks have a weaker rear armor that can be penetrated by plasma weapons fired from the right angle. This is all based on the tabletop game.

DarkPrimus said:

two tiny things to add to this.

1) the standard fire of a RT plasma pistol no longer has the Recharge special rule.

Recharging only has to be done after firing a gun at Maximal setting.

2) All Plasma guns can be fired at maximal which adds

+1d10 dmg

+2 pen

+10 range

+1 blast if the gun already has blast (ie plasma cannon)

firing this way uses 3 rounds and the gun must recharge next round. This is what makes a plasma gun worth having IMHO.

Most of the time its a bolter, but it can also do a fair impression of a melta.