Hello I'm new to Dark Heresy having just bought the core rule book my question for you is in character creation how to do you know what the total wounds of your character are and also how do you figure out those numbers for armour and defence as they relate to what is pictured on page 93 of the core rule book. I feel like I'm missing something obvious but I've scanned the book several times and I still can't seem to find it.

Starting wounds are based on your homeworld and are listed in with the Aptitudes and other bonuses. See page 30.

You defense is your Toughness bonus (10s digit of your Toughness score) plus any armor you have that adds armor to that location. Remember that weapon penetration reduces armor but not toughness (so if you have TB 3 you're subtracting 3 damage from every hit you take, even without armor). This is explained on pages 144 and 227.

Also, I found this little tidbit while searching for these page numbers:

The attacker can replace the result on a single damage die with the number of degrees of success from his attack roll.

Is this new? I had no idea about this rule.

The attacker can replace the result on a single damage die with the number of degrees of success from his attack roll.

Is this new? I had no idea about this rule.

Nah, its actually rather ancient (i.e. Black Industries days), and a little known rule of the system. Largely its there to give high DoS attacks that roll poor damage a chance, but often players forget it.

Nah, its actually rather ancient (i.e. Black Industries days), and a little known rule of the system. Largely its there to give high DoS attacks that roll poor damage a chance, but often players forget it.

Consider my mind blown. I brought this up in a chatroom with a dozen 40k nerds and ONE person knew this rule existed. Gonna chalk this one up to FFG's stellar editing.

Similarly blown here. I always thought this was just a semi-popular houserule.

The attacker can replace the result on a single damage die with the number of degrees of success from his attack roll.

Is this new? I had no idea about this rule.

It was one of the rules that actually attracted me to the system, as it happens. I like systems that reward "high skill" and not just "big damage".

Oh neat, what's the page ref on that?

It was one of the rules that actually attracted me to the system, as it happens. I like systems that reward "high skill" and not just "big damage".

The reason for why I keep thinking RPGs should just do away with the "established industry standard" of random damage rolls in general. There's a variety of alternatives -- from simply using fixed, gear-dependent values to extrapolating it from the attack roll!

I had completely forgotten this rule. I will put it back in my games!

So much to my chagrin, I did pull out my DH1e book, and I was wrong, it wasn't in the Black Industuries writing, however it was added as early as Rogue Trader. Definitely feel it was a good addition to the system (although again, rarely used in my experience).

Thank you guys !!! I realized where wounds were the morning after I posted this who knew a nine hour shift at a fastfood joint could be so tiring ? Alot of the information in this thread clarified somethings that I thought were a little ambigious at first thank you.

Nah, its actually rather ancient (i.e. Black Industries days), and a little known rule of the system. Largely its there to give high DoS attacks that roll poor damage a chance, but often players forget it.

Consider my mind blown. I brought this up in a chatroom with a dozen 40k nerds and ONE person knew this rule existed. Gonna chalk this one up to FFG's stellar editing.

Which is unfortunate, because it's a really excellent rule, given how swingy d10s of damage can be, when people have ~10 hit points.