So, I have to say I'm really rather fond of Proven (X), and I'm sort of sad that it more took off in other FFG 40k lines, and not here, but I can still happily use it. The idea that my gun won't accidentally roll snake-eyes, and make a plasma pistol seem more like a laspistol, and the Guardsman forgot to whiz on the battery, that morning, is sad. So, the question is, is there a way to add Proven to a weapon, or a good way to reflect that it can have it, mechanically?

I ask because, in my endless efforts to pimp out my fiction, I come to that ridiculous fool of mine, Aedan Qel-Drake. The Dragon is armed with a relic inferno pistol, Dragon's Ire , which counts as a Best-Quality Inferno Pistol. That alone is pretty good, and in my rendition of the universe, all Melta weapons still have Melta, so this gun is no exception, but I kind of want it to seem even cheesier (I'll be honest), as it, and its twin, Dragon's Wrath , which Aedan doesn't use, are at least as much relics of the Qel-Drake line, on from the times of Drusus, as it is a weapon Qel-Drake actually uses (we'll be honest, IPs DO have their liabilities, even if they won't roast you; he carries a bolt pistol for lots of "regular" stuff, and whips out the "one-shot wonder cannon" for show, or especially tough foes). I want to say they are a bit plain, when compared to other guns, but they do an extra die of damage, can Pen Terminator suits, and so I can't actually say that, and not have the entry just delete it as fabrication; they are pretty **** good, barring range, and clip size, and Aedan, at least, loves closing for melee combat, so his gun choice seems to fit, for me (just don't want to put the gun under an enemy's chin, pull the trigger, and roll double 1's).

Blah, blah, blah, I was thinking of giving it Proven (2 or 3), if for nothing else just to help along the 3-shot clip, and was wondering if it would be unfair, mechanically? Also, I'm not sure if you can add Proven to a weapon, or if it really has to come down to luck, destiny, and your own skill with that one weapon. How much Proven stops being fair? I'd think 3 is as much as you can ask, barring one BC Inquisitor with Proven (4) on her plasma pistol, but she's an Inquisitor.

Thoughts? Opinions? Can you get it, and how much is not too much? Thanks much, and have a good one.

Up to Proven (5) is perfectly fine, actually, considering that since it was introduced in Deathwatch it's been overvalued by the designers. There's also the issue that with the mechanic of replacing a low die with your DoS, any sort of die-altering rule based on rolling under a threshold will be less meaningful if there's a resultant higher chance you'll never trigger that threshold, but evaluating that is a mathematical mess that we're not getting into.

Before we start, let it be known that without any modification the average damage of a d10 is 5.5. In general, the average value of a discrete uniform distribution (ie, rolling a fair die) is the average value of its endpoints.

See, the thing is that if you roll lower than the relevant value then Proven will set your die to an appropriate floor. This sounds cool, but in practice doesn't trigger often and only effects a relatively small change when triggered. Hence, in the case of Proven (3), you'd add +2 damage if a 1 were rolled or +1 damage if a 2 were rolled. Not much of a change, is there? Mathematically, the change in average damage per die on Proven (X) is equal to ([X-1] + [X-2] + ... + 1)/10, or a tenth of the [X-1]th triangular number . This occurs because we're checking the altered damage based on moving from 1 to X, from 2 to X, and so on through X-1 to X. And since we're calculating average damage on a d10, each of those changes is multiplied by .1 (the probability of any given outcome occurring on a d10).

But at least we're not dealing with Terminal Penetration here. That's even weirder, since in that case you're not setting a value to some floor but actually rerolling it once if it's under that threshold. The average damage for Terminal Penetration (X), then, is 5.5 * (X-1)/10 + (X+10)(11-X)/20 = 11(X-1)/20 + (X+110-X^2)/20 = ... = (12X+99-X^2)/20. Basically, with probability (X-1)/10 we're just rerolling the die for the same unmodified average value, while with probability (10 - [X-1])/10 = (11-X)/10 we're keeping the existing value whose average without rerolling is (X+10)/2. And hence the resultant change from the unmodified average is (12X+99-X^2)/20 - 5.5 = ... = (12X-11-X^2)/20.

Honestly, what I prefer to use as a houserule for Proven and Terminal Penetration is simply to reroll until you're no longer under the threshold of X. Mathematically it's easy to evaluate at an average of (X+10)/2 or a change of (X+10)/2 - 5.5 = ... = (X-1)/2, which is actually perfectly fine for game balance considering that as noted before Proven was overvalued and hence never went higher than 3 in most cases. In any case, here's a table of changes to the average value of a die based on using each different scheme. (I've referred to this last variant on the topic as Brutal in reference to a very similar mechanic in D&D 4E.)

X  Proven(X) TP(X)  Brutal(X)
2    +0.1    +0.45   +0.5
3    +0.3    +0.80   +1.0
4    +0.6    +1.05   +1.5
5    +1.0    +1.20   +2.0
6    +1.5    +1.25   +2.5
7    +2.1    +1.20   +3.0
8    +2.8    +1.05   +3.5
9    +3.6    +0.80   +4.0
10   +4.5    +0.45   +4.5

As we can see, Proven is actually not that great most of the time unless you push for a really high value, and of course there's no way to stack it. Most weapons with the property stick to thresholds of 2 (the ^%&* is the point?) or 3 (zzz...); a handful of weapons do grant Proven at 4 or even more rarely 5, but given this chart that's still only really worth +1 or +2 (if you value consistency) to damage. (Plus they're generally weird/rare/completely unavailable to PCs, like a few Dark Eldar weapons or an ability for Khornate daemon princes.) So thus you see where my answer came from, that Proven as written is heavily overvalued and that assigning even Proven (5) to a weapon will not make it overpowered in the least.

Thoughts? Opinions?

Well, you already mentioned you want to go for cheese, so .. knock yourself out? It comes down to GM fiat, but I'd say the gun being a relic does open up potential for all sorts of crazy effects, including Proven. One could even make it a Houserule that Proven is added to Good (2) and Best (3) Quality weapons by default.

See, the thing is that if you roll lower than the relevant value then Proven will set your die to an appropriate floor. This sounds cool, but in practice doesn't trigger often and only effects a relatively small change when triggered.

It's purely a matter of psychology. A player sees their low roll and automatically feels bummed by bad luck, even if the weapon itself still has various amazing qualities to cancel it out. After all, the roll and thus the effect could have been even better , right? So the Proven trait is rather clever in that it makes the player subjectively feel better about it ("whew, at least Proven means the shot won't suck as much after all!") whilst objectively only having a minimal effect on the result, as you correctly pointed out.

venkelos' example with the laspistol is a perfect example of how this "mind trick" works -- an amazing las shot could be interpreted as hitting a weak spot, whereas a poor plasma shot could just be a glancing hit. Yet even though plasma weapons already come with a higher "indirect Proven" built-in (1d10+ 6 vs 1d10+ 2 ) in addition to the Penetration bonus, rolling low will always feel as if you've missed out on damage even where it could be explained away (glancing blow). You could add Proven to every single weapon there is, but in the end you're just stacking it with something that is already there by default: the additive damage after the d10.

The real culprit here is "random damage"; it's something I've come to consider a flaw, and it exists in 95% of all RPG systems because D&D made it some sort of Established Industry Wisdom, something that every "proper" RPG just needs to have because all the other cool kids are doing it, too. Thus, in the end, I feel the best solution of them all would be to simply remove random damage and make it depend entirely on a weapon's inherent qualities combined with the accuracy of the attack.

It's purely a matter of psychology. A player sees their low roll and automatically feels bummed by bad luck, even if the weapon itself still has various amazing qualities to cancel it out. After all, the roll and thus the effect could have been even better , right? So the Proven trait is rather clever in that it makes the player subjectively feel better about it ("whew, at least Proven means the shot won't suck as much after all!") whilst objectively only having a minimal effect on the result, as you correctly pointed out.

venkelos' example with the laspistol is a perfect example of how this "mind trick" works -- an amazing las shot could be interpreted as hitting a weak spot, whereas a poor plasma shot could just be a glancing hit. Yet even though plasma weapons already come with a higher "indirect Proven" built-in (1d10+ 6 vs 1d10+ 2 ) in addition to the Penetration bonus, rolling low will always feel as if you've missed out on damage even where it could be explained away (glancing blow). You could add Proven to every single weapon there is, but in the end you're just stacking it with something that is already there by default: the additive damage after the d10.

The real culprit here is "random damage"; it's something I've come to consider a flaw, and it exists in 95% of all RPG systems because D&D made it some sort of Established Industry Wisdom, something that every "proper" RPG just needs to have because all the other cool kids are doing it, too. Thus, in the end, I feel the best solution of them all would be to simply remove random damage and make it depend entirely on a weapon's inherent qualities combined with the accuracy of the attack.

But in that case it's still a trap option. Proven is presented as if it's a pretty good weapon property, but in fact it's basically a deception with little value. Similarly, Primitive is presented as something to avoid, but in practice hinders things rather little as well. I study math, so at least for me it's not too hard to spot the stuff that's actually good against the stuff that's pretending to be good. But I also understand that most people don't have my level of experience, and may very well pick something that's tarted up to sound cool even if it's not so great.

As for your comment on random damage, I can understand that. If nothing else it's an extra processing step, which is why I've enjoyed seeing official stuff like what ORE or CoD Storyteller have done to integrate attack/damage into one step, or the promise of someone's damage-based-on-DoS houserules on these forums.

Is it possible to graze someone with an inferno pistol? If so, then rolling snake eyes represents that grazing shot (1 chance in 100). If grazing someone's pinky finger with an inferno pistol, in your galaxy, means that the entire arm will probably be burned off anyway, then Proven is one method to represent that eventuality.

That's where Proven is equipment-based. I prefer Proven as skill-based. Each DoS adds 1 level Proven to the damage (i.e. hitting with 3 DoS means Proven 4).

That's already something of a rule with DoS-replacement (ie, replace one die with the DoS if the latter is better), so would your thing be to upgrade the existing rule? (As above, this is difficult to meaningfully analyze but is a secondary reason why Proven as-written is so marginal.)

But in that case it's still a trap option.

I wouldn't really call it a "trap", it's just more of a feelgood option rather than being mechanically as big as impressions may imply. Which is why I think it's cool! Anything bigger might mess with balance. Isn't this pretty much the best possible outcome of a rule: something that makes people like it in the game, without actually risking to push combat math too far into one direction or the other? (example: see guns with multiple d10s, and how it resulted in FFG feeling it necessary to rework Deathwatch's entire weapon list)

I also don't believe it has to do anything with experience (in fact, that sounds a bit arrogant); it's just that rolling dice makes people believe they are responsible for / have some way of influence over the result, simply because it flows from their hand. There's a level of agency that makes us feel stupid for "failing" a roll in spectacular fashion, such as when rolling snake eyes. Proven takes the potential for "fail" out of the equation, and turns awful rolls into acceptable ones.

RNG can be a result of great joy or immense frustration, and with damage in this game actually being the result of two rolls (attack + damage), the chance for frustration is increased. After all, if your shot goes wide, then that's that .. but once you hit, you do expect results. And in a game with excessive levels of soak (Armour AND Toughness Bonus), every single point can count.

Thankfully, DoS for die replacement was at the very least a step in the right direction.

If the various weapon quality options were just that, options, and I could pick, but only pick so many, Proven (X) might seem more like a trap, but since most weapons aren't made that way; they either have it, or they don't, Proven seems rather good, too me. Also, I believe Proven might've, at one time, been worse, when it was more like "re-roll 1's among your damage results", but now that it can be "minimum die result X", where X might be 3-5, that seems pretty nice, at least to my non-analytical mind. Also, I never remember the sub your DoS for 1 die result thing; my brain wants to believe it was from only the later systems, OW and on, or something, so I didn't take that into account.

I don't know if I would've liked a more FFG SW-like feel to damage, where say a lightsaber does 10 damage, plus your extra successes, but I think I might've. Most RPGs I've played, over the last 15 years, certainly make you roll for damage, whether to make you survive longer when the enemy has the good weapons (hearkening back to a conversation where no one wants to be on the receiving end, on foot, of an NPC lascannon team), or just to reflect the range of possibles in combat.

I can appreciate this game, to a degree, keeping health to a minimum (if not a tank, or Monstrous Creature), so if you CAN get past the Toughness bonus, and any Armor they are wearing, you only have to a couple of times (I love d20 style games, I love D&D, but when an enemy has 180 hp, it almost doesn't matter what you've got; this fight will take a while)...

...and in this system, you eventually come to a point, much like in d20, where the question isn't "DID you hit?" (of course you did, you rolled for it, and your bonus is HUGE), but more "how HARD did you hit." One of the things this game's community talks a lot about is optimization, and making yourself very good at hitting is very easy. Depending on your GM, even your level, if you will, won't really determine your combat prowess, so how much damage your weapon does will matter a lot more, if you want the combat over.

As for me, I'm sure part of it was, as said, not only do I not want to feel like a failed, by rolling weak damage, but the preconception that "this weapon is made to kill TANKS; it should smoke anything less." Now, to be honest, if I grab the stat blocks from Only War, or Deathwatch, I'm certainly NOT going to 1HK a Land Raider, or a Carnifex, even a Crisis Suit, even with a melta weapon, but it's the image the weapon has. If this tank-busting pistol comes to point in your direction, you shouldn't still be there, after, and, in this case 2d10+, and possibly RF, I've got pretty good odds, but against the things an inferno pistol is called upon to fight, I want every bit of damage the thing can crank out.

Okay, I rambled there, quite a bit, sorry. For me, be it psychological, or actually mechanically sound, I seem to like Proven. I'm thinking Proven (3) will get added to the gun, for all the difference it'll ever make. Thanks everyone for your thoughts on the matter. Have a good one!!!

Most RPGs I've played, over the last 15 years, certainly make you roll for damage, whether to make you survive longer when the enemy has the good weapons, or just to reflect the range of possibles in combat.

What sort of possibility does rolling for damage reflect, though? Hit location should be determined by the shooter's accuracy, and the shot itself depends wholly on the weapon. It does feel pretty redundant -- even the added survival is questionable, considering that it applies to players as well as NPCs: bad luck may result in the players taking too long to take out their foe, increasing the NPCs' chance to pwn them with ridiculous crits.

FFG seems to have acknowledged this, given how they decreased the level of randomness in their Deathwatch weapon stats -- for example, a 2d10+4 bolter became a 1d10+9 bolter. Similar average damage, but higher minimum and lower maximum.

I can appreciate this game, to a degree, keeping health to a minimum (if not a tank, or Monstrous Creature), so if you CAN get past the Toughness bonus, and any Armor they are wearing, you only have to a couple of times (I love d20 style games, I love D&D, but when an enemy has 180 hp, it almost doesn't matter what you've got; this fight will take a while)...

I'm with you here! I find that Lethalty just adds "something special" to the game; perhaps because the enemies are as vulnerable as you, which makes careful planning and clever ideas all the more important for winning combat.

Fights of attrition, where you have two characters just hacking at each other with their swords until someone's hitpoints run out, sound incredibly dull in comparison... especially when they rely largely on chance (see above).

Unfortunately it doesn't scale really well -- the naked Space Marine tanking plasma pistol shots with his face comes to mind, but even in Vanilla DH it's a bit sad that a weapon as iconic as the lasgun often just don't come into play anymore in mid to late game because even flak armour starts to render people semi-invulnerable once they start stacking TB (Toughness 60 isn't hard to achieve), not to mention the fate of those poor 1d5 knives.

But I'm starting to grind my anti-TB axe again here. Anyways, thanks for the Star Wars story bit!

The DoS-replacement mechanic first showed up in RT, so it actually predates Proven by a year or two.

I guess you can put Proven (3) on that inferno pistol but it won't do much between the analysis I've shown above, DoS-replacement, and the innate damage bonus of the gun. (This is why powerfists and to a lesser degree are so good in melee, because they add a bunch of static damage to the roll.) And rerolling 1s is no slouch, either. Regardless, my point is that when designing things it's best to make them feel interesting and be interesting. But honestly, it's your game, so if you and your players are fine with it then more power to you.

Something weird about the 40K RPGs that this thread has brought to focus is in the interaction between character-scale combat and vehicle-scale combat, or rather the fact that they don't work well together. A lot of the really powerful man-portable weapons out there (well, technically man-portable after you purchase or cheat-via-implant the appropriate talent) aren't designed to take down characters as they're designed to take down vehicles, such as lascannons or melta weapons. I understand that for the sake of showing off the setting those sorts of weapons basically had to be implemented, but 5d10+10/Pen 10 doesn't work so well with characters who've got at most 20 Wounds and 10-15 points of damage reduction. What sorts of games have done this interplay between individuals and vehicles well, anyway? I know a number of things will basically just place vehicles off to the side or simply separate the two facets altogether.

I think several of the Star Wars RPGs had rules for combat between characters and vehicles? Shadowrun as well.

I suppose the problem isn't even the vehicle's weapon, for if it's a heavy one the ruleset could either make it really hard for them to hit, or not allow direct hits at all but rather have them deal AoE damage, justified by the weapon and its turret being designed to track and attack larger/slower targets. On the other hand, if it's an infantry weapon, it's just going to have the same stats as what the characters are already accustomed to.

The real culprit is probably manheld anti-tank weapons turned against people, combining the excessive damage of an anti-materiel gun with an infantryman's accuracy in targeting nimble foot soldiers. I'm afraid I don't really have much of a solution here, aside from just copying the aforementioned "cheats" (perhaps to a lesser degree) and/or making them less practical to use ( very limited ammunition), thus limiting their attractivity.

That's already something of a rule with DoS-replacement (ie, replace one die with the DoS if the latter is better), so would your thing be to upgrade the existing rule? (As above, this is difficult to meaningfully analyze but is a secondary reason why Proven as-written is so marginal.)

Yes, just this. It seems rare that Proven comes into effect when skill is considered. Players tend to maximize their chance to hit. "I aim with my red-dot sight on my accurate pistol."

Something weird about the 40K RPGs that this thread has brought to focus is in the interaction between character-scale combat and vehicle-scale combat, or rather the fact that they don't work well together. A lot of the really powerful man-portable weapons out there (well, technically man-portable after you purchase or cheat-via-implant the appropriate talent) aren't designed to take down characters as they're designed to take down vehicles, such as lascannons or melta weapons. I understand that for the sake of showing off the setting those sorts of weapons basically had to be implemented, but 5d10+10/Pen 10 doesn't work so well with characters who've got at most 20 Wounds and 10-15 points of damage reduction. What sorts of games have done this interplay between individuals and vehicles well, anyway? I know a number of things will basically just place vehicles off to the side or simply separate the two facets altogether.

Yep, that's always been a thing of weird note to me, too. You have this gun that either hurts people, and won't hurt a vehicle, or can hurt a vehicle, but then must pulp a person (what most players are), and then you have to worry when they incidentally encounter one. Like you said, lascannons. You're playing Only War, and are expected to assault an enemy fort? This is (sadly) completely plausible for Guardsmen, but much like they measure much of their military strength in tanks, and staying power in expendables [bLAM!!!] brave infantry, the enemy will, too, so they'll have a few lascannons mounted on the top of the walls, along with some autocannons, and/or heavy bolters. While that lascannon is impractical for infantry pinging, it's certainly efficient, if you can hit with it, and as soon as the players don't have a vehicle (better target), they will have to dodge S9, AP2 shots, at long range (just to borrow from the TT). On the other hand, to keep a gun from pulping a player, it really can't be efficient on vehicles. DW had this problem, if I recall. Your typical (distraction) Carnifex is literally tailor-made for assaulting squads that can't hurt it, and being a can-opener to dreads, tanks, and whatnot, but, in DW, so they wouldn't literally laugh Space Marines into confetti, or maybe a better reason, they couldn't really be tasked to handle even a Rhino well, to say nothing about if the PCs actually requisitioned a Land Raider, or something. The Zoanthrope was still a floating, psychic turret, able to rip vehicles up, if I recall, but not the Fex; was sad.

Slightly off-topic, the ONLY game I have ever played that seemed to differentiate infantry and vehicle damage, if you will, was the Dawn of War games. Like them, or hate them, every unit had a separate rating for their damage against Infantry types, vehicles, and buildings. If they were good at it, the did their decent damage, and if not, it was negligible. Necron Immortals were good against vehicles/buildings, but if you left them to guard your base, and waves of infantry showed up, they couldn't hope to hold it off, while if you upgraded a squad with a specific weapon, you might make it good vs one, and then crap against the other(s). Yep, these were the ONLY games I can think of, and they were video games. For RPGs, there were some spells, or something, that were more effective against non-living things, or something, that might've hurt the boat, but not so much the people on it, but that was rare. Usually, anti-vehicle weapons might still suck against those vehicles, but pulverize regular joes, just as you'd expect they would. Star Wars HAS gotten around it, in the past, by having most vehicles not take damage from personal-scale weapons, while they had such penalties to hit targets that much smaller than them that it didn't matter, but that's as close to it as I remember.

Star Wars HAS gotten around it, in the past, by having most vehicles not take damage from personal-scale weapons, while they had such penalties to hit targets that much smaller than them that it didn't matter, but that's as close to it as I remember.

Isn't that basically the justification for why Dawn of War's weapons work as they do, too? A separate set of weapon stats only really makes sense if the same attack's efficiency is altered by circumstance, after all. And DoW certainly didn't invent this, either; it goes all the way back to the original Command & Conquer (or earlier), where tanks did minimal damage to infantry, but caused it to "go to ground", suppressing movement.

The Panzer General, Allied General , etc. games got the damage differential correct, but that's strictly a turn-based wargame. They termed targets as Hard, Soft, Air, Naval, and each unit had a different Hard Attack, Soft Attack, Air Attack, etc. number. The problem game companies seem to have had in translating that to RPGs is in armor penetration, which FFG did a decent job with...and as Lynata pointed out, they don't seem to take into account that an autocannon might be hard to point at an individual infantryman. That's too bad, since FFG did bother to think through pinning...the answer seems to be right around the corner from that.

Star Wars HAS gotten around it, in the past, by having most vehicles not take damage from personal-scale weapons, while they had such penalties to hit targets that much smaller than them that it didn't matter, but that's as close to it as I remember.

Isn't that basically the justification for why Dawn of War's weapons work as they do, too? A separate set of weapon stats only really makes sense if the same attack's efficiency is altered by circumstance, after all. And DoW certainly didn't invent this, either; it goes all the way back to the original Command & Conquer (or earlier), where tanks did minimal damage to infantry, but caused it to "go to ground", suppressing movement.

Suppose so, but I hid behind the caveat of "stuff I've played" Never got around to Command & Conquer, or too many similar titles. Most of my computer games were adventure-style, or Starcraft, and it's various clones, like Dune, and every other Stargcraft with a different skin they did.

Something to note about those games is that they're all about ordering multiple units as a group, rather than only making decisions for a single character. Any differences in class become much more pronounced at the latter scale, when you're focused on just one piece instead of many.

That's too bad, since FFG did bother to think through pinning...the answer seems to be right around the corner from that.

That's a thought I have in regards to a lot of flaws I see in FFG's systems -- there's some pretty broken stuff out there, but the basics are sound, sometimes even quite clever. And, this being an RPG, the mechanics are at least easy to modify.

Think I'll add this heavy weapons stuff to my "list of things to ponder about". This thread is inspiring!

Never got around to Command & Conquer, or too many similar titles. Most of my computer games were adventure-style, or Starcraft, and it's various clones, like Dune, and every other Stargcraft with a different skin they did.

Oooh, you missed out in regards to C&C! But I approve of StarCraft.

With Dune, do you mean the really old ones? Coz' those were from Westwood as well; maybe even older than C&C, and I think they used similar mechanics.

Lynata, I think it's hidden somewhere in the Suppressing Fire concept. They make that action a -20 BS penalty. Instead, maybe all crew-served weapons should be -20 BS to target infantrymen or similar targets, but any of those weapons with a certain RoF, or explosive (X), have the Suppressing characteristic. There are other problems. DH 2.0 made things better but didn't solve the problems.

Agreed, and agreed. I like your idea!

With Dune, do you mean the really old ones? Coz' those were from Westwood as well; maybe even older than C&C, and I think they used similar mechanics.

C&C was second RTS by Westwood, Dune 2 was first RTS at all ( if we don't start to remember Spectrum and something like Nether Earth).