So I've heard quite a few people around here, even people who are overall proponents of DH2, express acute dissatisfaction with the Weapon Quality known as Accuracy. I'd be very interested to know what house rules people have instituted (or would suggest instituting) to nerf it into something less maligned. My thanks in advance.

In my party we are considering increasing the necessary degrees of success for added dice and messing around with dice caps. Though we leave it open that if the PC spends a full round to aim he gets it at its normal rules.

Our intent is to not do away with it completely but tone it down so that the huge dmg has a trade off.

My GM changed it so instead of the extra d10s of damage for degrees of success it gives vengeful (9) from a half action aim and vengeful (8) from a full action aim. In addition, unaware targets are counted as helpless as well giving extra damage. It still keeps the extra +10 to hit from aim actions.

If it's really a problem, then make degrees of success add a 1d5 instead of 1d10, or just 1 or 2 extra damage. Done.

I don't recall it really being overpowered, since on average it's 11 more damage if you get enough DoS and it only works for certain single-shot weapons that aren't terribly great without the property. It's decent for a starting weapon, but there are a number of things (mostly weapons that aren't lasguns or solid projectile) that will outclass it fast once purchased.

Accuracy is a little overpowered in my experience. I had a sniper in one of my 2E games.

If you want your characters' sniper blowing away evil overlords, gun servitors, tanks. and chaos space marines in one shot, then by all means run accuracy as 1d10.

It probably belongs at 1d5.

Okay I don't quite understand all the hate for accurate weapons. Yes a sniper rifle can oneshot a human leader or a gun servitor, that's what it's supposed to do. As for tanks, are they all driving backwards? Are they just skimmer vehicles? good luck shooting a chimera or even a rhino without getting torn to pieces. The point of the weapon, crunch and fluff wise, is to take out high priority single targets. It can't kill tanks, and you have to be loading your dice for someone to have a reliable chance of one-shotting a chaos space marine.

then again, im an avid sniper rifle user, as trying to hit and damage with most weapons other than flamers, snipers, and grenades often feels like an exercise in futility. If anything, it just shows how bad your standard lasgun and autorifles are at killing even standard grunts.

I feel like i missed a memo or something where inquisitorial acolytes are supposed to be incapable of fighting other humans without substantial backup.

I honestly don't find it too much of a problem. Accurate weapons hurt like hell, but then they're just as easily dodged as any other shot; a weapon which delivers its damage increase via extra shots (like a semi-auto burst) is a lot harder to avoid entirely.

They're also a lot harder to use tactically; because so much of their effectiveness is bound up in aiming, firing on the move isn't practical, nor can you use them for suppressive fire - which frankly is one of the most powerful options available in the game; a half-competent spud with an autopistol can pin down three or four guys with rifles from 100 metres away easily. He won't hit them, but that's not the point.

Essentially, you want both to make an effective combat unit. The autoguns fire full auto suppressive bursts and keep people's heads down (passing a Wp check with a -20 is **** hard) whilst the snipers take their time and shoot people dead.

I agree on the difficulty of bringing down goons with guns, but I guess that's an issue baked into the basic mechanics - the problem is that the acolytes are essentially identical statline wise to generic opponents - and you don't want them to be one-shotted by some dude with a stub-gun.

It's surprising how lethal you can make a 'normal' gun, by the way, in the hands of a competent fighter. Mighty Shot and Deathdealer (Ranged) stacked together can almost double the lethality of 'normal' weapons.

I honestly don't find it too much of a problem. Accurate weapons hurt like hell, but then they're just as easily dodged as any other shot; a weapon which delivers its damage increase via extra shots (like a semi-auto burst) is a lot harder to avoid entirely.

They're also a lot harder to use tactically; because so much of their effectiveness is bound up in aiming, firing on the move isn't practical, nor can you use them for suppressive fire - which frankly is one of the most powerful options available in the game; a half-competent spud with an autopistol can pin down three or four guys with rifles from 100 metres away easily. He won't hit them, but that's not the point.

Essentially, you want both to make an effective combat unit. The autoguns fire full auto suppressive bursts and keep people's heads down (passing a Wp check with a -20 is **** hard) whilst the snipers take their time and shoot people dead.

I agree on the difficulty of bringing down goons with guns, but I guess that's an issue baked into the basic mechanics - the problem is that the acolytes are essentially identical statline wise to generic opponents - and you don't want them to be one-shotted by some dude with a stub-gun.

It's surprising how lethal you can make a 'normal' gun, by the way, in the hands of a competent fighter. Mighty Shot and Deathdealer (Ranged) stacked together can almost double the lethality of 'normal' weapons.

The fact is there are multiple ways to end an encounter quickly and with minimal losses, and they're available to nearly everyone. For some reason though people seem to focus on specific weapons or abilities to no end. My gm was kind of cross with me once when i two shot an enemy psycher. Sheet metal cover does not make an effective counter to firearms in real life or in 40k. That said, i did jack squat for damage against a summoned bloodletter, who got beat to death by a shock maul, a mawfluke, and an untrained power sword hit >.> the great random giveth and the great random taketh away.

Yes, Accurate is powerfull, but (as said) only against single targets. I never had a problem with it, because as a GM I tend to run not only a single enemy, but many smaller ones. Even the Big Bad Boss Guy still has helpers and underlings (with autoguns/lasguns/equivalent) around, who really threaten snipers.

If the sniper wants the benefit of Accurate he can't do anything else in that round (aim: half action / shoot: half action). The goons with the autogun can shoot and move (Try to flank the sniper / Move out of Sight and get closer / etc.). They can force him to make Pinning tests. And they can target more than one PC with Pinning (or even damage if the they are too close to each other), while the sniper can only target one enemy at a time.

In my hardboiled mod, I had accurate simply add one damage per degree of success if you aimed and fired single shot. Seemed to work ok.

The tank killing power is mainly what has ****** me over. Not in Dark Heresy, but in OW. We had a ratling popping off ork tanks somehow.

As a GM, I would simply say that the bullet ricochet.

Unless there is something too evident to bust a tank one shot, a single bullet should never do that.

The system, in general, was just not made to deal with tanks. While I can accept that constant machine gun fire on a tank will eventually knock out its optics; I can never accept a sniper rifle bullet penetrating the hull of tank. They should have probably separated soft tops and hard tops in the rules.

i get the feeling it was less an ork tank and more an ork trukk, ork tanks are imperial and space marine tanks with spikey bits attached

It was a looted tank. It was not a truk.

I'll ask the guy and try and get more details, but it was ratling sniper who was just blowing holes in this thing.

Let's do an example

Sniper Rifle 1d10+4 I Pen 1

Long Las 1d10+3 E Pen 3

These both seem fairly innocuous weapons. If you are using them properly with special ammo though you should stack up a lot of 1d10's

Sniper BS ~40 Starting ~50 Experienced ~60 Endgame

+20 AIM

+10 ACCURATE

+10 SHORT RANGE

+10 RED DOT

+4 MODIFIED STOCK

+5 CUSTOM GRIP

Target Value is around ~99

79 = 1d10 + 1d10+X

59 = 2d10 + 1d10+X

Mix that with the correct ammo and you can damage tanks. The hobbit had a 'to-hit' value well above 100.

still, he has to flank and not hit the turret otherwise hes just going to do at most maybe 4-6 damage on triple 10s, Even hitting the rear, average damage would still only be 5 damage barring good rolls.
Even the best roll couldn't kill the tank unless he crit the motive systems hard and it crashed into something that destroyed it. If thats what happened, well RNG happens sometimes. the odds of someone oneshotting a tank with a sniper rifle are one in several hundred at best, as he would have to crit, hit the motive systems, and roll a 5 to crit, with the tank then running into something that would destroy it when it collapsed on top of it, or run off a cliff. Then, it would be the crash that killed the tank, not the sniper shot.

All of this assuming a looted tank has similar (most likely better) stats than an IG chimera.

Also, bonus damage dice can't crit, if that happened.

~Sniper Rifle 3d10+4 Pen 1 Mean 21.5 avg

~Long Las 3d10+3 Pen 3 Mean 22.5 avg

~Krak Grenade 2d10+4 Pen 6 Mean 20.0 avg

~Krak Missile 3d10+8 Pen 8 Mean 32.5

The system, in general, was just not made to deal with tanks. While I can accept that constant machine gun fire on a tank will eventually knock out its optics; I can never accept a sniper rifle bullet penetrating the hull of tank. They should have probably separated soft tops and hard tops in the rules.

This is what sniper rifles are actually for in real life. We have rifles that are specifically designed to shoot through engine blocks to disable equipment.

~Sniper Rifle 3d10+4 Pen 1 Mean 21.5 avg

~Long Las 3d10+3 Pen 3 Mean 22.5 avg

~Krak Grenade 2d10+4 Pen 6 Mean 20.0 avg

~Krak Missile 3d10+8 Pen 8 Mean 32.5

yeah krak grenades kind of suck.

The system, in general, was just not made to deal with tanks. While I can accept that constant machine gun fire on a tank will eventually knock out its optics; I can never accept a sniper rifle bullet penetrating the hull of tank. They should have probably separated soft tops and hard tops in the rules.

This is what sniper rifles are actually for in real life. We have rifles that are specifically designed to shoot through engine blocks to disable equipment.

There is such a thing as an anti-material rifle. Neither a long-las or a sniper rifle represents this at all. There are weapons in DH first edition that do. I have no problem with a Barrett sniper rifle equivalent existing in 40k. They don't use Barrett sniper rifles against tanks in the real world or in the tabletop. They are made for knocking out engine blocks of unarmored vehicles. I have zero problem with small arms destroying the 40k equivalent of an Opel Blitz.

My main point though is that

Tabletop and Reality

Krak Grenade >> Sniper Rifle or Long Las

Dark Heresy Second Edition

Krak Grenade ~ Sniper Rifle or Long Las

The best way to get a tank in this system though is by stacking crits or fire. I just don't believe a bullet could ever hurt an armored vehicle.

Don't forget that Krak Grenades get Vengeful (9) against vehicles. It's not that much, but it adds that little chance of doing critical damage.

Good call did not know that. They should really have that on the GM screen.

Don't forget that Krak Grenades get Vengeful (9) against vehicles. It's not that much, but it adds that little chance of doing critical damage.

40k RPG really needs to stop putting important rules inside flavor text paragraphs.

Yeah. I get caught because of that all the time. Fortunately, my high level game is over, so I have less nightmares coming from weird gear and talents I've never heard of before.