Okay, here's the deal. I've been thinking for quite some time about how the damage and penetration mechanics work together against armoured targets. So far, I don't like it. I want to illustrate this example with power armour.

Now according to the fluff, power armour litteraly tend to completely shrug off damage from certain small arms fire (like lasguns and autoguns). In Dark Heresy, power armour have an AP value of 8, which is the highest amount of any kind of armour (save for best craftsmanship power armour which would have 9).

Now lasguns and autoguns do 1d10+3 in damage. The average result would be 8, which of course wouldn't penetrate power armour. But that's when everything is standard and nominal. Once you start to break out firepower that is a bit more heavy (heavy but still not anti-tank that is) even power armour can seem quite whimpy. Especially when talents and armour pierceing ammunition is involved.

It seems to me that what provides the most protection most of the time isn't exactly any suit of armour, but rather a high Toughness Bonus. I don't think that makes much sense. If you actually feel the need to create a powered, full-enclosing exo-skeleton then obviously you must be of the opinion that the constitution of the wearer will be quite frail against some weapons.

What I'd like to see is a more tactical rules set in how damage and penetration works in correlation with eachother. Sometimes, certain weapons can do ridiculous amounts of damage in one hit, but not have much in the way of a penetration value at all. But at certain levels of damage, penetration will simply be insignificant, because the damage is more than enough to nullify any effect a set of armour could have.

The thing is, im not sure of how to rectify this. The first thing that comes to mind would be that remaining AP, not nullified by Penetration absorb more than just one point of damage for each hit (perhaps absorbing 2 points of damage, or even as much as 4).

That way you would have to use a weapon with suitable penetration capabilities against armoured targets, rather than just sticking with the one that does the most damage. But im afraid that doing these changes would have other rammifications that I've yet to consider.

Please, share your thoughts. But refrain from flooding the thread with "Well, I kinda think the current system is good as it is"-types of responses, because as genuine as they might be, they don't really help in adressing the issues im concerned about. Thank you!

From my perspective it seems like you are just looking for a way to make things more complicated.

Varnias Tybalt said:

Varnias Tybalt said:

Varnias Tybalt said:

Varnias Tybalt said:

ItsUncertainWho said:

No, im trying to come up with a solution that forces the players to think in a more tactical sense, rather than just sticking with the biggest gun all the time. While at the same time not overhaul the rules as they are too much. There is quite a difference.

ItsUncertainWho said:

We're not talking about baseball bats here, we're talking about chainswords and firearms. The comparison with a baseball bat just doesn't work since it is way off scale. Also here's one for you, there are certain types of armour today where you could wack a person (beefcake or whimp, it won't make any difference) with a baseball bat and they would barely feel it. Perhaps get knocked down if sufficient force drove the bat, but not sustain any injury.

It would be reasonable to assume that if you want to create armour that protects the wearer you'd try to achieve that same kind of effect against the weaponry that the armour in question is expected to face.

Well if that's the case, why bother putting armour plates on at all? If the intention is merely to make the soldier be able to carry more load and enhance his strength, what's the point in bogging down the machinery with the extra weight that armour plates would provide?

Im sorry, but that argument just doesn't make any sense. Even current military projects surrounding powered exo-skeletons have the intention of protecting the wearer with armour that a non-enhanced wearer would be able to carry.

After all, a dead soldier is a useless soldier. What good will a lone, strength boosting exo-skeleton do if the pilot can be killed by a rifle round?

Also a pretty shaky argument. The very reason why certain weapons are adept att penetrating armour is because they use a lot of brute force. But consider a weapon using poison or fire. In Dark Heresy these types of weapons rarely have high values for Penetration, but they can effectively nullify many armour types anyway.

And this would be bad and going against reasonability and reality how exactly?

Would you go up against Chaos Space Marines wearing Terminator armour with a lasgun? Would you go up against an angry mob of unarmoured heretics with an MP Lascannon?

Of course not. Because some weapons are intended for use against certain targets. The problem is that the current system doesn't emulate that well enough in my opinion. And the flaws seem to stem from the disharmony between Penetration and Damage.

The way it looks it seem to favor a "Always stick with the biggest gun you can get your hands on"-mentality. And also, the current system does not do the concept of Power Armour any justice at all. According to the fluff, there's not much indication that a wearer would have to rely on his or her Toughness to shrug off lasgun or autogun salvoes, but according to the current rules set you pretty much have to. I just want to rectify it in a more fun and tactical way rather than just nerfing all weapon damage...

The problem with power armour in DH may be its low armour value. The RAW for pen and damage seem to work for the other armour types, as from the fluff of 40k weapons like las guns can easily penetrate flak, and manstopper rounds are ment to punch through armour like mesh and light carapace. A simple suggestion would to simple increase the armour points of power armour to, say 10, which would mean that it would become very dificult for the low pen weapons ( slug guns, lasguns, needle weapon) to penetrate without using hotshot packs and manstoppers.

Would you go up against Chaos Space Marines wearing Terminator armour with a lasgun? Would you go up against an angry mob of unarmoured heretics with an MP Lascannon?

Of course not. Because some weapons are intended for use against certain targets. The problem is that the current system doesn't emulate that well enough in my opinion. And the flaws seem to stem from the disharmony between Penetration and Damage.

Well... no. But at least those examples show how the system is pretty good: The marine will likely soak somewhere around 12 points (of 13 maximum, assuming noone has RF) with his armour alone. And the angry mob will likely close to melee where you can't use the Lascannon simply because you can't shoot enough of them while they're away (at best one per round).

This is so dumb I can't even begin to wrap my head around it. If you think powered armor is too weak, kick up the amount of points of protection it gives you. And Space Marines and Sororitas, I think it's safe to assume, use a much better form of powered armor, that doesn't require another battery or whatever after 5 hours tops. So the bigger badder dudes have bigger, badder armor. Not to mention Unnatural toughness, etc. As ItsUncertainWho said, guys with armor are tough, tough guys in armor are even tougher. Although I'd argue that the point of powered armor is at least as much to provide protection as it is to allow people to pack more heat.

Nigh7gaun7 said:

Or you're simply too dumb to understand my point. A much more probable explanation, so im gonna stick with Occhams razor on this one.

Keep it friendly and constructive or stay out of the thread. And also, keep your obvious sentiments from other threads out of here. Our differences in other threads have nothing to do with the subject at hand.

Nigh7gaun7 said:

That's interesting, considering the fact that Sisters of Battle in the table top wargame have the exact same armour save as Space Marines do and they are both wearing power armour.

Look im not saying I don't understand the "Tough guys in armour are even tougher" argument, but from the looks of it it seems like the individual Toughness bonus is doing the most the keep damage of, not the armour. And what would be the point of strapping armour onto someone who isn't a space marine if you just expect that the toughness of said individual is supposed to save him or her from the bullets coming their way? It doesn't make any sense.

So yes, I find power armour to be too weak in Dark Heresy. Or at the very least too weak in relation with how the surrounding game mechanics work with eachother...

Ok, I find it dumb because it seems to me you're saying that ther'e's no point in armor if you're tough. Well, my psyker right now has a Toughness Bonus of 3, but he's wearing Stormtrooper Carapace Armor, which IIRC is 7 points of armor. So if Joe Goon shoots at him when he's not wearing the carapace, he takes 3 points off the damage total and then sucks down the rest in wounds. If he were wearing his carapace, there's a reasonable chance that between the carapace and his toughness, he could shrug it all off. Now let's say Joe Goon happens to have brought along a Melta or some other weapon with penetration. That weapon will go through a lot of the armor, but maybe not all of it, and then there's whatever armor is left and the toughness bonus to help my psyker out. Thus, people wear armor to augment their toughness for the purpose of preventing damage.

Space Marines wear armor because tough as they are, their skin isn't enough to straight shrug off las and stuuber rounds, and definitely won't stop a bolter shell. But wearing armor will allow them to ignore a large portion of the damage from the bolter shell, and completely ignore, barring lucky shots, low-powered weapons. I'm sorry, but I just can't see how you don't understand how armor helps prevent damage.

As a side note, I am keeping that other thread out of this thread, I just have no idea what you're talking about because it seems fairly obvious to me.

Nigh7gaun7 said:

Actually that is bery much the case in Dark Heresy, which is an oddity that is certainly related to my reasoning.

From experience with the system, me and my group have learned that enemies and monsters (even unarmoured ones) with high Toughness Bonus are A LOT harder to kill than enemies relying on armour.

If you chuck a few crazed Sororitas at us wearing power armour then we'd have characters able to gun them down without breaking a sweat. But when you send stuff like The Widower from Tattered Fates against us, things tend to be a lot more tricky.

And what's even more strange is that very few attacks are actually able to nullify Toughness Bonus, but there are quite a few weapons that can nullify the effects of armour.

Which proves my point yet again that armour seems kind of irrelevant in comparison to toughness bonus. I don't like that, mainly because I don't like the idea of inhuman toughness. Especially not when supposed "normal" people (like PC's without any cybernetic implants or any other form of toughness boosters besides characteristic advances) can reach such levels in Toughness themselves.

Armour should outshine Toughness, not the other way around. And why?

Well let's take a real world example. If I shoot a whimp and a beefcake, both wearing ballistic armour, they'll live. They might get a bruise or at the very worst a cracked rib, but they'll live and both will probably still stand up after taking a hit. Now if I shoot the same people when they're not wearing armour. Both will pretty fast, and provided that I didn't graze them, they will either die from bloodloss or suffer a severe injury. It doesn't matter if you're a tough beefcake or a skinny whimp, guns are the ultimate levelers.

Though it's not as if im looking for ultra realism here, but rather something more reasonable and easy to relate to or at the very least see some form of logic in. The RAW as they are, show some serious flaws in logic. Heck even the fluff makes more sense than the RAW...

Varnias tybolt.

The most obvious way of making armour more important than a characters toughness bonus, would be to rewrite how the entire damage and penetration system works in DH. As you stated that you dont wish to do this, i am not sure if there is a resonable way to achieve this without doing such a thing. One system that might work, as an idea of the top of my head, is that toughness bonus is only applied when wearing armour, or reduced by half when not wearing armour.

Armor is a static physical thing designed to protect against the lowest common threat that it will encounter. Toughness is more ethereal and is taken to represent the resilient nature of the human body.

Another thing to consider is that the players are the exceptional examples of humanity amongst the masses. They should be tougher, smarter, and more resilient than the majority of people. They are also going up against inhuman creatures. Inhuman toughness is something you have to learn to accept pretty quick or you have picked the wrong genre.

The key thing to remember about Power Armor is that it gives a Strength bonus. This allows for a greater carrying capacity for weapons and ammo. I did not say that it didn’t provide armor. I consider the word armor in Power Armor to be self explanatory.

Toughness is ultimately a type of natural armor. Your answer might be to consider Toughness Primitive vs. non-primitive weapons.

If you have a problem with a Carnifex or a Space marine being inhumanly tough, then GTFO. this game will never work for you.

And most people will never get a Toughness bonus to rival powered armor, either. Except maybe a tech-priest who really works at it.

Something worth considering, that is almost always overlooked, is that the protective value of armour is never used by itself, while toughness is - armour should be thought of as a bonus on top of toughness, rather than as a competing value as seems often to be the perception here. A suit of Guard Flak Armour has a value which improves the ability of the wearer to withstand damage - its armour value is all but irrelevant when considered independently of a wearer - the numbers are out of context (same can be said of damage - damage values are written with the assumption that at least toughness will be subtracted from them - the lasgun and autogun deal 1d10+3 damage against an average TB3 human for a reason).

Beyond that, the setting does contain plenty of examples of raw resilience and sheer bloody-minded determination allowing characters to survive where they reasonably should not - just within the current Imperial Guard codex, we have Commissar Yarrick and Colonel "Iron Hand" Straken, both normal, mortal men who have demonstrated such a determination to not die that they can suffer what should be mortal wounds and still achieve feats that will be enshrined in legend (and, in Straken's case, is now heavily augmented with bionics and even tougher than he was before). It's an assumption of the 40k universe that even ordinary mortal human beings have it in them to sometimes withstand the impossible... and the system reflects that quite well.

As for 9 being the highest armour value... it's not. It's the highest personal armour value in the rulebook, but between the additional utility of cover (applied on top of armour, AV varies but can be as high as 16 or 32 in the case of the heaviest forms of cover), forcefields (2d10 and 3d10 armour as listed in The Inquisitor's Handbook on top of armour), extremely heavy armour (Ork Mega Armour: AV14 in Creatures Anathema, Brother-Sergeant Agamorr's Armour: AV 10-12 in Purge the Unclean) and vehicles (Apocrypha free supplement, a Chimera APC has 27 armour on the front, while a Rhino has 21 armour everywhere but the top and rear), it's hardly the be-all and end-all of armour values.

Nigh7gaun7 said:

He doesn't seem to have a problem with how touch creatures and nightmare solders are, he has a problem with the inherent toughness of an individual no matter their make or model being superior to the toughness of armour. Armour acts only to augment toughness but, if a situation were to arise where you were given a choice between 4 points of armour or an additional 4 points of TB, you would be insane not to go for the TB as it is vastly superior to AP. The superiority of TB to AP no matter the scale is what he has problems with.

A low scale example would be the armoured weakling (TB 2, AP 3) verses the unarmoured beefcake (TB 5 AP 0). Without pen entering the equation, they both have the same damage mitigation. How ever, if you were to shot each of them with a hand cannon, the weakling in ballistic armour will be hurt a lot more then the unarmoured beefcake. If that beefcake was also armoured, so much the better for him, but , in the end, that 1 point of AP (after pen) doesn't matter as much as those 2 points of TB that the beefcake has on the weakling. What he's having problems with is he feels whether one's wearing armour or not should have more effect on how hurt one becomes and not how tough they are.

One solution is to do away with TB soaking damage. One's inherent resistance to punishment is dealt with by wound points as well as TB, and if you adapt DH to fallow the RT way of doing things, TB already helps determine starting wounds. In cases of unnatural Toughness or Daemonic, you can consider the boosted TB to be armour and thus it soaks damage and ignores pen to model those horrors of the night etc. That might be an easy solution to the problem your having, though it will lead to a deadlier game (which, in my book, isn't bad at all > )

Other then that N0-1 has a good point of view worth considering.

Nigh7gaun7 said:

Are you purposefully trying to create completely non-constructive posts or is it just a natural gift you have?

Where have I ever stated that I have a problem with Carnifexes or Space marines being inhumanly tough? Could you point out those exact lines, please? If not, then you should GTFO post haste, my friend.

First of all, neither a Space Marine nor a Carnifex is human. They are INHUMAN. Meaning that inhuman stats of any kind would be appropriate. So far I haven't expressed any problem with that.

The problem here is that most acolytes ARE SUPPOSED TO BE HUMAN. This is not a game of playing Carnifexes or Space Marines, you play as humans. And if you don't see a problem with unarmoured humans being able to eat lasbolts and stub pistol rounds for breakfast without even chipping a tooth (yes, this CAN actually happen in Dark Heresy), because the player have maxed out his Toughness characterestic, then CLEARLY you are completely unable to post constructive comments in this thread.

Seriously, most of the other posters have come up with some sort of suggestions and motivations for them, even if they didn't agree with me on every level. So far your best efforts have been calling my reasoning dumb, or telling me to GTFO. SERIOUSLY, how does that help in any way or form?

What you're doing is trying to silence discussion. You are acting like a religious nutjob who invades threads discussing different branches of atheism and their scientific or theoretical legitimacy. Such people clearly don't see the point of atheism, since the don't reject the idea of a God themselves. Therefore they are unable to understand people who do reject the idea of a God. You're pretty much doing the same thing here in this thread.

You don't agree with me. I get that. You think the current system is perfect and flawless. I GET THAT. But such sentiments are still completely irrelevant. You've made your point, but clearly it's not working to change MY mind in the matter. So either play along and come up with some constructive suggestions or some decent analysis of the rules set, promoting discussions of the pro's and con's of possible changes to it and what rammifications it would have on the game or just keep your nose clear of this thread.

Can you see the logic in that?

Nigh7gaun7 said:

Highest possible Toughness for a Feral Worlder or Volg Hiver from the start of the game = 45 (starting Toughness = 25 + 2d10. Assuming the feral worlder/Volg Hiver rolled a 20, it would be 45).

Now if it is a feral worlder and it follows the rulebook, and said feral worlder becomes a Guardsman or Assassin. Then for 2.500 xp (that's just level 4) that feral worlder could buy a Toughness of 65.

If it was a Volg Hiver and the rulebook is used with the RAW controlling the choices of career paths, then the Hiver could play as an Arbitrator or Tech-Priest. And both of them would only have to pay 1.600 xp to have a Toughness 65. That's a tier 3 character right there.

For simplicity, we'll exclude the usage of any combat enhancing drugs, special equipment and armour for now.

Let's take a situation with a baddie armed with a las pistol. Pretty standard side arm throughout the imperium. they do 1d10+2 in damage. A d10 will on average roll a result of roughly 5,5. This would be completely soaked up by Toughness. Half of those times the additional +2 will either just be able to punch through with 1 point of damage. Other times it will punch through with 2.

Now on average a feral worlder will have 11-12 wounds, a hiver 10-11. This is provided that none of them have bought any Sound Constitution talents at all, and they rolled the average results when rolling up starting wounds.

This means that you'd have to hit the feral worlder or Volg hiver somewhere between 6-12 times with a las pistol and roll an average or above damage result each time for that character to actually become critically damaged.

Now, one could argue that: "Well, it's just a las pistol. Burning light might not be so harmful after all." and due to them being sci-fi weapons I can relate to that sentiment. But the fact that a standard autopistol (which we have in this day and age) does the same amount of damage as a las pistol, pretty much shatters such an argument.

Even with a "bad" hit from a real world autopistol (autopistols can be pretty much anything from a sub machine gun like the MP5 to a machine pistol like the beretta M93R), and by "bad" I mean a hit that doesn't do maximum damage like a clean headshot or a shot that manage to pierce the ribcage and puncture the heart, but rather a shot that perhaps hit an arm, leg, non critical intestines, bones etc. You would like a sack of bricks. And I don't care if you have the physique of Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime, you would definetly feel just ONE shot. And even of the odd chance that you do not on the first shot you will most certainly on the second shot and be out of commission for quite some time.

That's quite a contrast to feral worlder/volg hiver supermen who could quite feasibly stand up to somewhere between 6-12 "bad" shots without breaking a sweat. Grazing shots doing less than average damage wouldn't even hurt them at all. And boy, if they strapped on some flak armour, they would most likely not even get a bruise, unless the shooter is able to achieve righteous fury.

But for some reason, a character with more average toughness, wearing the same armour could get torn to shreds by a single salvo of an autopistol or at the very least be seriously hurt.

Clearly Toughness play a much bigger role in the RAW than Armour does, as my example have illustrated. Now I know my examples of how real world "autopistols" would affect a target, regardless of what size. And I want to stress the point that im not aiming for ultra realism at all, but rather something that is logically reasonable. Something that makes sense. The RAW do not make sense, as I have illustrated. You can't deny that no matter how much you'd like to.

Now we could simply amp up the damage factor of las pistols and autopistols of course. But if we did that then we'd have to keep things relative. Meaning that we'd have to increase the damage factor of all other types of weapons as well. And that would mean that even a heavy stubber would be able to slaughter people wearing power armour, if we want to keep everything relative that is.

The RAW as they are seem to be like an obstinate newtons cradle. You pull two of the metal balls and when they strike the others, three fly off and it doesn't matter in which order you pull them, too many balls still fly off.

Im looking for constructive solutions that will still keep things balanced and reasonable. Im going to look into the suggestions that others have posted (like only giving Toughness Bonus to a target if the target is wearing armour, and halving or completely remove it if it isn't wearing armour etc.)

If you have any suggestions of your own, then im all ears. If you have any points about how the already suggested solutions would affect the game flow in general, then by all means do share your theory.

But if you intend to keep up the ranting and some sort of "valiant defense" of the RAW, then im really not interested. I explicitly stated in the OP that I did not want to see the thread flooded with such statements, but you just ignored that. You proceeded to call my reasoning dumb, which is clearly unfounded as my example (oh! and I have more of those as well) have clearly shown.

Quite simply: I have found a problem with the game, that I wish to rectify to suit my tastes. I have isolated and explained the problem, and if you keep denying that it is there, then I have no choice but to consider you delusional. I have been pretty specific about what kind of suggestions im looking for as well, but you have shown blatant disregard for that.

So, being as polite as I could possibly be, either get a grip and "get in the game" or simply get out. Thank you...

N0-1_H3r3 said:

As for heroic characters being able to survive mortal wounds, I kind of consider the Fate Point mechanic, that you can not only burn fate points to survive deadly injuries but also use fate points to "instantly" heal 1d5 points of damage to represent heroic people pushing their limits.

The toughness mechanic should more be considered as the "bread and butter" way of soaking up damage without any heroics or pushing the limits (after all, it is what the non heroic villians will have to rely on to survive, and if they are not "speshul" villians 'a la Disciples of the Dark God's with fate points of their own they will suffer from these mortal injuries when they are subjected to them)

And also like I've said: I have no problem with inhuman and monstrous creatures having wicked sick toughness and being able to shrug off injuries that would have slain mortal men ten times over. It's part of what makes them scary, and scare-factor is always good when it comes to monsters and inhuman entities. It's just that, they won't be that scary if the players aren't actually the "mortal men" which they are supposed to be.

As for your other points in the post, I'd have to consider them for a while. The very first issue that comes to mind is that one should assume that Armour Points alone are simply taken out of context when not adding Toughness Bonus as well. If that's your point then what does it mean when you shoot at unliving objects that do have an AP value but no meaty creature behind that object with a Toughness Bonus of it's own?

I mean, why should something so rigid and stiff like power armour be considered to be in it's appropriate context as long as it has a wearer with it's own toughness, when a piece of ferrocrete also provide AP but doesn't care in the slightest of any accompanying TB?

Still, you have some fair points though, but im sensing a few flaws with them.

from france

waow night... can't you wright in a any post without an agressive stand? i agree that the system here don't work (well it is not the only problematic rule) . i just finish ravenor 3 and the death of lucius worna puzzle me. he survives a shot from a grenades but not lightning ( yes i know in this case it was special) so my question is ? whats saves him his armor or his touhgness.

i don't know who is right because for simplicity sake we just add and substract bonnus, but thybias as here pointed out a good question.

from france

oh i forgot this one gfto? what that mean? also what the expression take a bow mean? thanks

considering how the RAW is structured and integrated as it is, you have a tough task ahead of you if your are looking for a balanced outcome. with any such decision you will have to accomodate a series of new house rules. i DO see the point you are trying to make, however. i've done a rewrite of a number of things and quite frankly, i cast the idea of game balance aside and looked towards what made sense to me. i am in no way beholden to FFG and their ruleset, nor are you.

the RAW as written eases gameplay and speeds things up. the approach i have taken is a 40K one to an extent. weapons have an inherent AP that automatically penetrates armour with an equal or lesser AP. the TB acts as a damage reduction from the damage rolled. to factor in the chance of a lucky hit that finds a *****, connective equipment, crap manufacturing, whatever. i use a rule similar to Righteous Fury. if while rolling to hit the Acolyte lands a 10 on any dice your shot or blow has penetrated the armour. done this way took some rejigging of weapon AP values and Armour values. but it has worked out well enough throughout gameplay.

as far as the particular issues that you have with the TB itself, not sure about that one. the Characteristics Benchmark chart in the DHRC has always seemed to me to be a wonky. i've always questioned why someone with Feeble, Poor, or Inferior stat classifications should recieve a bonus...a small child recieving a bonus? anyway i digress. you can always try limiting the maximum human threshold to say a score of 40 or 50. this keeps them well within the realm of human frailty and fearful enough of the big bads out there.

the 8 spider said:

Well I can tell you that it is an acronym for Get The Feck Out.

the liegekiller said:

Interesting idea! Is the fallowing close to what you did?

Give each weapon an AP value equal to it's current PEN value + Average Damage. Adjust all armour AP's up to exceed the adjusted weapon's AP that it is supposed to be able to stop while keeping it under the AP of weapons it can't stop. In order for the weapon to do any damage at all, it's new adjusted PEN must equil or exceed the Armours new adjusted AP, unless either attack dice come up 0.

If so, that's quite intriguing and cuts down on the amount of math done in combat...

Graver said:

This makes certain weapons obsolete.

Why would anyone bother to carry a weapon if you knew you couldn't do any damage to certain enemies?

Why wouldn't you just load up on extra ammo for a bigger gun instead?

Are you adding an additional mechanic for Primitive and Unarmed combat?

Why not go the route of 40k TT and just have armour giving you a save against damage

ie if the armour saves you take no damage but if it doesnt you take whatever is rolled minus your toughness?

Graver

i was more abstract, basing my values on what I saw fit (i've been around 40K since the original Rogue Trader days) trying to keep in line with the spirit of the values in DHRC. your more mathematical approach can work also. it doesn't make a difference how you scale the values,ultimately its the principal that matters if you wish to utilize this within ur games.

basically yes, that is the idea. other expanded rules follow below if you are interested further.

ItsUncertainWho:

it doesn't make any weapon obsolete what it does is make it harder for them to be able to score wounds for those that fall under the Armour Value. one would carry a weapon because that is what Acolytes do. you make do with what you have.

the ability to target Armour weakpoints via the Aim action seeking out helmet faceplates, knee/elbow joints, whatever, was enhanced to accomodate an additional AP commensurate to the bonus (half action +10 +1AP; full action +10 +2AP) in exchange for the additional bonus to hit. so for example a lasgun has an AP 3 and hits carapace armour AV 5 with an Aimed shot +20. this will reduce the AP for the location by 2 points. making it equal to the carapace value of 5. therefore causing damage.

another option that i have manipulated are the Burst attack options. Acolytes have 2 choices upon usage 1. to use as is if they have scored a10 on an attack roll, or 2. they can roll for all shots expended hoping to score a 10 on one of them. the control over shots expended gives the players more control and choice although slowing the game abit..it does ratchet up the tension.

pertaining to your questions about Primitive and Unarmed combat. there needs be no mechanic. no extra calculations nor doubling of numbers. if it can't hit. it can't hit. but like anything else it has a CHANCE to nonetheless. within my game i use much more expanded rules for unarmed combat than offered in the RAW. unarmed combat is not just a series of strikes but also joint manipulations and throws.

i play with a mature crowd of gamers we're all in our mid to late 30's (yes old fraggers), we all believe strongly in the investigation and the roleplay..but when combat shines we like some grit...the enemy moving in heavily armoured and shots spinging off of them and the elation that is felt when one goes down. but this also calls into play MUCH more usage of cover and concealed positions. thinking tactically. setting up deliberate and hasty ambushes and lethal crossfires.

also my players didn't start off as gimps. my inquisitor didn't want new jacks and those looking to get their 1st blood on his watch , he wanted experienced Acolytes. as GM you control what ur players get access to and when. sometimes the PCs have to have the good sense to perform a tactical withdraw and regroup or just RUN. the items i have given have been granted when i felt it was appropriate.

cheers

the liegekiller said:

I just wanted to say I appreciate what you write. Combat is all about creating meaningful choices for the players (and using lots of gory special effects of course). I'm going to nick some of your ideas.

Cheers!