Hi everyone

First time poster her long timer reader. Very short - I wanna thank all the posters in this forum. Love to read about your ideas, rule debates and creative work with Dark Heresy. Thanks a bunch.

I thought i'd try to give something to the forum as well and start out with the home rules I use as a GM in Dark Heresy.

I've been running a party of 5 players for about a year now (playing one evening every 14 days). They have about 5600 XP and I recently made a bunch of changes and additions to the system, so I thought I'd post them here.
One of my main thought behind the changes I made was, that I wanted more strategic choices for the characters and for the characters to put more of an effort into whatever they wanted to accomplish and also bring a story into it with those choices and challenges, as to break away from what sometimes can happen (in our group), which is to just throw dice at an obstacle until it goes away (especially with combat).

Also I was looking for a bit more dice-balance between the strictly combatskilled characters and the support characters.

The changes are a mix of own ideas, other systems (i.e. Warhammer Fantasy 2nd ed.) and your ideas here on the forum (thx again).

Changes

1. Changes to Talents
   1. Blind Fighting: reduces obscured vision pen. to -10
   2. Sound Constitution: reduce xp cost to talent (2 apt = 100 xp, 1 apt = 150 xp)
   3. Inescapable attack: -10% pr. 2 DoS to opponent evasion.
   4. Marksman – half penalties for firing long and extreme range. Requires half aim to take effect.
   5. Precision Killer – half penalties for called shot / called blow. Half penalties for size.
   6. Target Selection – half penalties for shooting into melee.
   7. Flash of Insight: removed from game.
   8. Infused Knowledge: Only Scholastic lore. No DoS bonus. All tests at -10
   9. Lightning Attack: Max no. of attacks = Ag bonus.
   10. Swift attack: Max no. of attacks = ½Ag bonus (round up).
   11. Unarmed specialist: unarmed attack gains the natural weapons trait and fighting against armed opponents are only at -10 pen.
   12. True Grit does not reduce bonus crits from righteous fury.
   13. Technical Knock: attempt unjam as free action
2. Aim: You can aim with psychic powers as well.
3. Accurate: gain +5 for half aim and +10 for full aim. Also applies to melee weapons.
4. Assassin Role Bonus Sure Kill : Gain +1d10 damage on first hit at 3 DoS on attack. Combined with the talent: Exotic Weapon Sniper this increases to a max of +2d10 damage (1d10 at 3 DoS and 2d10 at 5 DoS). Sniper added as new talent and weapon trait (see below).
5. First aid – heals int. bonus + 1 HP pr. 2 DoS (round up).
   Penalties:
   -10 if heavy damaged
   OR -10 pr. crit hit of 1-4 AND -20 pr crit of 5-10 (lol first aid a crit of 10 – necromance much).
   -20 Healing a crit while exposed to the elements.
   -30 healing a crit while under fire in combat or in a failing voidship.
   +10 healing in a medicae station
   +20 healing in a staffed med-lab
   +30 healing in a fully stocked surginarium with medic servitors.
6. Psyniscience – standard range is [perception bonus x psy rating x 5m.] This still varies and matter obstructs the range. Range in a void is easily [perception bonus x psy rating x 1km]
7. Combat Vest: max 7 kg and common sense size restriction.
8. When gaining Insanity points – subtract your insanity bonus from the amount received. This does not apply to corruption points converted to insanity nor does it apply to insanity gained from calling upon favors from spirits and Gods (see new elite advance “chosen of…”).
9. Weapon jams on 96+ (99 is stil critical fail as well). Jammed weapons don’t fire the turn they jam.
   Unjam by full action either a tech use +20 or BS roll.
   Unreliable jams 5 easier, plasma jams 5 easier and poor quality jams 5 easier.
   Jam with a grenade or missile = roll a d10. On a 1 it explodes in hand/weapon otherwise it’s a dud.
10. Fatique gives flat -10 to all characteristics tests no matter how much you have. Normal rules for high amounts of fatique still applies.
11. NEW FEAR rules. Creatures still have fear 1-4 but now with one or more keyword(s) attached. Here are 4 examples - more to follow. So no more shock table and snap out of it tests.
    1. Cowering: The victim is dazed for a number of rounds equal to DoF. A dazed person only gains one half action a turn and can’t make reactions.
    2. Fleeing: The victim runs away as fast as possible from the fear source for DoF rounds. If you can’t flee you are dazed with a -20 pen on all tests for the duration.
    3. Manic: The victim gain 1 insanity point pr. DoF
    4. Warp Shock. The victim gains one corruption point per DoF.
12. Ranged weapons discharged as a part of a melee uses WS to determine hits.
13. Heavy Weapons make 2 damage to cover. Blast and spray weapons make 1d5-1 dam. to cover.
14. All grenades with a damage profile gain +1d10 to damage.
15. Flak gains +2 AP vs all blast weapons.
16. Telescopic sight reduces penalties for range by 50% at ½ aim. Stacks with marksman for 100 % reduced penalties.
17. Full auto Burst is increased to a full action.
18. A roll of 99 is always a critical failure. Let the other players make a suggestion as to how the PC screws up.
    A roll of 00 is always a critical success. Let the player who rolled come with a suggestion as to what happens. Encourage storytelling among the players – also within the dice system.
19. Clarification: Common Lore is experienced based knowledge. Scholastic Lore comes from books and school. The two can and will often differ.
20. You can recieve crits on each bodypart. So a crit 5 on the body and a crit 4 in the arm is not a collective crit 9. This of course means more hitpoints for each player, but also battles that are far blodier and makes the players feel a lot of effects for the damage instead of just losing hit points again without any real consequence.

New Talents, Skills, Traits or upgrades

[Weapon & Gear Trait]

Impact (X) (like concussive but with stun for 1 round)

Fiendish Recoil (X) (-X x10 bs if moved in same round as fired)

Reflective (X) (+X AP vs las-weapons)

Aramide Plates (X) (+X AP vs Impact weapons)

Koroyd Scales (X) (+ X x10 vs Stun)

Ceramite Plates (X) (gain +X AP vs heat based weapons – I.e. flamers and meltas)

Power Supply (X) (gear runs out of power after X hours. For armour that means the character only have one ½ action each turn, no reactions and can only make standard attacks. It also loses any stat increases.)

Gyro-stabilised: Weapon never counts as being more than at long range. Heavy weapons only receive -10 pen. When not braced.

Enervated: the artificial muscles of the aged suit aren´t what they used to be. While they still carry the suits own weight well, the might of days gone by is no longer bestowed upon the wearer. The attribute bonus of a regular suit of this armor is not applied.

Slow response: the machine-spirit of this suit has grown stubborn over the ages. It isn´t following the wearers movement as it is meant to but is slow to respond to the demands of its wearer, indignant in its duty. The wearer suffers a -2 penalty to Initiative and a -10 to all Dodge, Parry and WS tests.

Hip actuator damaged: the suits artificial muscles were never restored in full, and parts of the hip remain stiff, hindering movement. The wearers MOVE is reduced by half and he suffers from (-10) on all Agility based tests.

Worn down armour: the suit had suffered heavy damage in the past, and the chest plates show it the most. While the damage was repaired, the armour smith who did this was for sure not as skilled as the artisan that had built the suit in the past. If an attacker targets certain spots in the chest (-20), the suits AP is treated as two points lower.

[Weapon Class]

Sniper (replaces the accurate+basic weapon damage bonus from the aim action.
These weapons gain +1d10 dam at 3 successes at full aim on the first hit)
Sniper is an Exotic Weapon Training

[Talents]

Swift aim [specific race][apt: perception, finesse][tier 2]:
use the sniper weapon ability at half aims.
Prereq (sniper and ag 40 – for xenos and demons also the specific forbidden lore)

Exotic weapon training (sniper)[same profile as standard exotic weapon training]

Combat Medic [apt: willpower & fieldcraft][tier 2]:
reduce heal modifiers “exposed to elements” and “under fire in combat or in a failing voidship” to -10 each.
Prereq.: (medicae +10)

Juggernaut assault :[apt.: strength, offence [tier 2]
as an all-out unarmed attack gain the natural weapons trait, felling (2) and Impact (0) for your attack.
combined with unarmed specialist – gain the deadly natural weapons trait.
Prereq.: crushing blow, ws 40

Superior strikes: [apt.: weapon skill, finesse][tier 2]
your standard unarmed attacks and unarmed swift attacks gain tearing.
Prereq.: unarmed specialist, ws 45

Fleet Footed: [apt.: agility, general][tier 2]

You gain a permanent +1 ag bonus when calculating your move.
Prereq.: ag 35

Lightning Parry : [apt. weapon skill, finesse][tier 3]
When you make a swift attack, lightning attack or whirlwind attack you can forego one of your attacks to gain an extra reaction that turn that must be used on a parry.
Prereq.: swift attack & ag 40

Trapfinder : [apt.: perception, fieldcraft][tier 1]
You are an expert at dealing with traps. You gain +10 % bonus to perception and pick lock tests that deal with locating and disarming traps.
Prereq.: perception 30

Alley Cat: [apt.: agility,social][tier 1]
You are at home on the streets. You gain +10 % bonus on concealment and silent move tests when in urban locations.
Prereq.: Stealth +10

Rover: [apt.: agility,fieldcraft][tier 1]
You are at home in the wilds. You gain +10 % bonus on concealment and silent move tests when in rural locations.
Prereq.: Stealth +10

Tunnel Rat: [apt.: agility,defence][tier 1]
You are at home beneath the earth. You gain +10 % bonus on concealment and silent move tests when in underground locations.
Prereq.: Stealth +10

I like a lot of the talents, nice little things to pick up that distinguish a character. I'm curious as to what drove you to some of your armoury choices however, what made you decide that armour should be customised against certain damage types/status effects?

Good question - it's part of the development I'm doing with the system.

In my opinion there's a problem with the armour classes, when the group starts to get better weapons. Armour very quickly becomes redundant. Most weapons have a very high Pen.

First thing I did was start to make additional weapons to make the scaling go little bit slower and for there to be more development for the players. Storywise this was explained with the weapons in the rulebook being the normal Imperial Weapons distributed in very large scale production often by the cheapest manufacturer. But to find the more interesting armoury you have to start explore the cities, planets and stories of your world(s), As in - let's build a story when we use Influence and not just throw some dice and write a new piece of equipment on our sheets.

But the problem was still there - armour very quickly became redundant vs high level opponents. So I started expanding on the existing armour list. Same idea as above - the armour in the rulebook was the normal armours found around the galaxy but there is a lot more once you start exploring. And with the additional armours came the stories as to - why are they building heavy flak here or customised power armour there. The armours were adapted to the enviroment (social and geographical) on the planet - and not just "well this one has +1 AP because this planet has more XP apparently"
Also it started giving the players things to think about regarding their equipment. What type of opponent do we seem to face here? What do we expect from our adveseries? What kind of planet is this and do they have a weak point we can explore?
So with different types of specialised armour came the reason for the players to really explore and take notes of their opponents and the cities and mysteries they uncovered- and they couldn't just pick up a rulebook or a fluffbook and get the answer. I found they started to resemble a real Inquisition team who didn't just run in guns blazing but who gave their actions more thought.

For instance - in the Lower Hive my players are in now, they have some of the most violent gangs among hives, but there are still arbiters - a few good men who still believe and are paid by guilders to resolve things that'll 'cause to much delay in lower hive resource mining.
Mostly the gangs use impact weapons and are **** good at it, so the arbiters adapted with the help of the guilders. But the guilders still consider them somewhat expendable (classic empire philosophie), so they wont put to much effort into it. So the arbiters got a hold of:

Mantis Enforcer Carapace
Covers: All
Armour 6
Max AG: 40
Helmet includes Photo-visors (normal qual.) & Micro-bead
Aramide Plates (2): (+2 AP vs impact weapons)

So they have pretty good armour (6) but vs impact weapons they are ranked as high as power armour and impact weapons often don't have near that amount of pen. Making these arbiters a force to be reckoned with and have a somewhat authority among the gangs even if they are grossly outnumbered.

To finish of this long rant - the arbiters also developed a tactic using cameras in servoskulls and heavily modified autoguns vs opponents who were many and good at hiding but often had poor armour.
They named these guns:

Daeva Autogun (rare)

Rng: 125, RoF: S/5/12, DMG: 2d10+3 (I), Pen: 1, Clip 48, Basic, RLD: Full

Reliable, Proven (2)

Fire Selector (3) , Fluid Action (+1 hit on semi-auto, +½ action RLD), Preysense sight (no darkness pen, +20 PER in dark), Quick Release (-½ action RLD), Custom Stock (+2/+4 BS at aim action)

Hope this wasn't to long a rant for your question. (I also have pictures of the armours and weapons if anyone's curious)

TL:DR: I wanted more armour types matching the hight amount of high pen weapons in the books and with it more strategic choices for the players instead of just always getting highest amounts of AP.

Not sure about the logic of an autogun hitting at 2D10+3...way too strong.

Otherwise, there is quite good stuff in all that you've written.

I can see the logic, and I like it. Whatever autogun you have that's hitting for 2d10+3 is one I want though!

Yeah, that's far too powerful for an autogun, especially with the insane rate of fire. It does more damage than a bolter, on average. Better range, damage (by far), penetration, fire-rate, magazine size, the Proven trait...

On top of that, a Preysense Sight alone is Very Rare; the Fire Selector, Quick Release and Fluid Action are Rare. That's far too easy to get for so many bonuses. I could buy one and part it out for the three equivalent mods and the better one, then still use the truncated version.

I could see some kind of designated marksman/anti-materiel rifle having damage like that, with a lower magazine size and much reduced fire rate (S/2/- to represent a good double-tap if it is semi-automatic, S/-/- if single-shot). Or something closer to the .50 Beowulf of the real world- that's what I'd consider a possible 2d10 'autogun.'

Yeah - I think I agree with it being to powerfull.

There's a couple of things I balance after. My players have an average AP+T of 8,6 (ranging from 7 to 12) and and average amount of wounds of 14. With that in mind it probably to powerfull.
But it's still in the hands of arbiters backed by guilders in one of the worst neighbourhoods of the sector.

I think I'll take it down to 2d10 Pen 0 - rng: 75
But i'll keep the rest of the stats. These arbiters shouldn't be something you want to face head on in my scenario. That's what some of the gangs are for. And I like the stats where there are no stabile added bonus to damage or pen. It's like the weapon is heavily modified to hunt things in dark spots and then just spray it away - but with more range flexibilty than a shotgun. The large variation in damage, I believe, will give that feeling of a weapon that sprays a lot of somewhat inaccurate bullets - hence 12 rounds going of at full auto, but usually only about 3 hits will occur, but with a lot of lead flying around your balls giving that extra flesh wound here and there (the more random damage).

Regarding it dealing more damage than a bolter - yeah, but I've modified a lot of the weapons and armours. I considered the bolter to weak in the rulebook for something that was standard issue for the Emperors finest (even if they have better versions) so I've taken them up a notch and so far the players have only met one person with a boltpistol and never faced him in combat. Bolters are extremely rare in my world.
I use these stats for the smallest version of an astartes bolter:

Astartes Bolter – Umbra Pattern (extremely rare)

Rng: 100, RoF: S/4/-, DMG: 1d10+6 (X), Pen: 6, Clip 30, Basic, RLD: Full

Tearing, Felling (2)

I consider the bolters found in the core rulebook to be smaller versions for normal humans and first and foremost a sign of great prestige more than it being an all powerfull weapon - it is after all a weapon for a space marine and they might event feel a little resentment towards these smaller imperial versions ("if you can't use a real astartes bolter - stay in bed little man"). Don't get me wrong - a bolter in the core rulebook is still awesome.

also - I play with the Felling rule reducing all Toughness bonus - not just the unnatural toughness. It just makes more sense to me, that weapons designed to tear through tissue and bone does so all the way through - and it opens op for weapons being really bad at penetrating armour but blowing right through flesh, whichs again makes for more choices when it comes to building a character and designing weapons. This makes the above bolter way more dangerous.

as for all the upgrades - the fire selector is cool, but the rest are minor bonuses in my experience, and my players have been playing for a year and have characters with 5600 experience - they need a little something now and then to keep them entertained. And I've actually never seen one of them pull apart his weapon for parts (don't know why) - except the Tech Priest.
It's true you could in theory just buy one and pull it apart - but the players haven't taken notice of the guns yet and they aren't in the rulebook, so this is something they have to discover first and find out how to get a hold of (it's not sold everywhere - since it's a special modified version made by the arbiters themselves) and I don't mind giving the players a lot as long as they themselves give a lot to the story and game.

Thanks a lot for the input - it really gets the ideas going.
And thanks for all the responses. If anyone have more input, critique, ideas - please keep them coming.

Uh... Those 3 hits ain't flesh-wounds. It's a minimum of 12 damage, maximum of 60. Each hit will average 10 damage or so, not to mention the doubled chance of Righteous Fury. Honestly, I'd suggest taking autogun damage and increase the weapon penetration; have it be designed to cut through relatively flimsy armor with ease, perhaps with Felling as well if you allow it to ignore normal Toughness bonus.

If you check page 297, you can see the actual Space Marine bolter stats; it's 1d10+9, 4 Pen for your average bolt pistol and storm bolter of the Astartes variety, with Reliable (and Razor Sharp for the storm-bolter). The ones in the Weapons chapter are the man-sized versions designed for paltry, mortal frames to wield, using smaller shells without the benefits of a Space Marine's physique and armor. By the math, the Space Marine version in the book is better than yours by one point; while it has lower penetration, the higher damage compensates (and when fighting things with less armor, more damage wins anyways). It doesn't have Felling though, which does make a difference against certain targets.

The Fluid Action pretty much guarantees an extra hit with semi-automatic fire, which is more accurate than full-auto. And Preysense sights are nothing to sneeze at, giving someone a +20 and negating a number of situational modifiers to stealth is a pain. Given the value of those systems, your players might notice and decide to take the parts; as-is, maybe they haven't found something worth the effort. Or just acquire one of these guns to move all the flash bitz and gubbins over to their preferred weapons. Perhaps you could not make most of those upgrades integral to the weapon, but saying the Arbites who acquire them regularly put them on for the work they do? The Rare Availability would make sense then.

My group is coming up on 16,000 experience at this point (force weapons for the psykers, power weapons for the duelist and tech-priest, bolt-weapon sidearms for plenty of folks, plasma everywhere for the Arbites, etc.), and at this point some of them would probably trade out for a Daeva autogun as their primary weapon, or as a potent sidearm (apply Pistol Grip, maybe Compact, now it's a submachine gun/carbine version that's easier to bring along).

One of my house-rules with the biggest impact on the game is Armor Penetration goes through Toughness bonus as well, though you do need Felling to bypass Unnatural Toughness. It's increased the lethality appreciably.

Hadn't even noticed that the astartes had better weapons (great that they've done that). Thx.

You make som compelling arguments - the best I think is how the weapon would fare in the hands of the players.

It's true that the weapon ranges from 12 to 60 damage with 3 hits (which is fairly average amount of hits), but gaining at least 43 damage from those 6d10 has 9,07 % of happening. And doing at most damage of 39 is 81,78 % - so ending up with way above 40 damage is not gonna happen a lot. And most players have 8 AP+T so they are gonna recieve in the ranges of about 16 damage from it when it really hurts.
That's heavy but going up againts hardcore arbiters shouldn't be fun imo - and you can survive. Also - since I play with each body location being its own crit location getting a crit or two is not as bad as just having 10 crit wounds all in all.

Of course the high rate of firepower can change this a lot in the hands of a skilled gunner. So the Fluid action has to go.
Also the Fire Selector can tip the balance to, so that'll have to go.

I'm gonna see if I can't modify the stats and still keep the 2d10 damage. It gives it a way different feel than just being a slightly changed autogun. And that skilled local gun craftsmen can make a better and different impact weapon than the standards of the imperium. That you don't have to switch to plasma or melta just to deliver big punches.

Hmmm maybe 2d10-2 damage. It makes it more unreliable in damage terms than just 1d10+X

And it also has to be a rarer gun. This might be the weapon for a squad leader and there might only be 2-4 ever made. Then there might be lighter versions with less damage. I like your idea a lot about a submachine/carbine version - that with less damage would still be pretty cool.

This is the first gun with 2d10 in its damage profile I made - and it hasn't been used in our playsessions yet. Glad I showed it here. The ekstra d10 combined with equipment bonus gives a lot to take into account.

Maybe I should post some more custom equipment (in a different thread probably) - there's a lot to learn concerning game balance on this forum.