Can anyone explain to me why the reload times on some weapons are so ridiculously long?

The Plasma Gun has 8 Full Actions reload time... Now I can understand it's meant to be reloaded in "Story-Mode" as opposed to during a fight. That's fine with me and I can accept that. After a brief gripe session over long reload times it was pointed out while playing in our local game last week, that the Plasma Cannon, the big boy in the plasma weapon family, has a reload time of only 5 Full Actions. Really? Can anyone explain why a weapon with a backpack fuel cell has a faster reload time than a weapon with a fuel cell that's smaller and incorporated into the weapon itself?

Is this a typo? I'm assuming not since it's been printed the same in both the Rulebook and in the weapon summary of The Inquisitor's Handbook.

It almost seems like plasma weapons aren't worth taking. Long reload times and the ability to overheat at the drop of a hat aren't really stellar sales points.

Yeah I dont get it, cos if you look at the othe plasma weapons in the family ( at the end of inquistitors handbook) they dont have any kind of uniformity either.

FFG seem to have been abit silly with the uniformality of it but I can tell you I would not desire to be rushing the reloading of a fuel canister that can kill me three times over on a bad roll. For thje record, plasma weapons and infact melta weapons are hugely underpowered and for such aqn advanced peice of equipment you would think it would be easier to reload.

In my games I heavily augment my plasma weapons to suit my ideas from playing 9 years of 40K, and reading books.

I don't blame FFG for this initially since these two books were created before FFG took over the licensing.

This is an inconsistency though in the game and could be addressed with errata unless there is some solid reasoning behind the differences. Maybe I'm just not seeing an answer that is right there in front of me.

Might be a type-o? In RT, while the plasma guns are a specific pattern, they all have a rld of 5 rounds except the pistol which has a 3. So, perhaps that 8 is supposed to be a 5. If not, alter it to suit your needs and view.

Maybe it takes that long to get into the rad suit?

Plasma Guns aren't very good weapons either. All they have going for them is Pen 6, otherwise give me a Bolter - it can fire every round, doesn't overheat, and doesn't take 6 months to reload. Sure, it has expensive ammo, but it is easily more consistent in every way.

I didn't even think to check RT to see if the stats were comparible. Doh!

Hopefully they update the stats in the next printing of the rulebook if the information in RT is what was intended from the beginning.

Yeah, I'd use the RT stats because right now in DH Plasma weapons are pretty much useless. Bolters are almost as powerful, fire faster, have a shorter reload, etc. I would specifically caution my Acolytes to not waste the money on them if they were going for the standard rulebook ones.

I did hand out one to one of my players but I used heavily modified stats. For one It rolled an additional dice of damage, and only overheated on a 100 (although this chance went up by 1% for every shot after the first in an encounter). it certainly gave the OMG plasma gun effect.

I'm going to get RT to see what they did in that.

Would someone mind posting the RT rules on plasma weapons? I also think they are too weak as it is. I used to think some houserule would work well but I can't remember it anymore and the PCs are about to get powerful enough to get plasma weapons and proficieny now.

What they did for Plasma weapons in RT is gave them 2 modes of fire. You choose between "normal" and "overcharged" or somesuch. Choose normal and you get the same highly dubious damage as we have all ranted about for years, but the accursed cooldown requirement goes away, so you can fire like this every round. Choose overcharge and you do more respectable damage but inflict the dreaded cooldown on yourself and use 3x ammo on the shot. It is pretty half-assed, but it beats RAW in the DH core book.

The house rule most of the GM's seem to use is to take the plasma weapons as listed in DH and add a D10 to the damage. So in this case a Plasma Pistol would be 2D10+6 E Pen 6 Recharge, Overheats. Still far from perfect, but at least someone would consider USING a weapon with this stat line. I would personally the Recharge as well. The last 3 versions of the TT game have had plasma potentially overheating on a crappy roll but does not suffer from hindered ROF. A plasma pistol can be fired every turn while moving or twice if stationary in TT so inflicting a recharge time is a bit hard to justify. Does this make them powerful? Yes. Is that contrary to the setting? Nope. Plasma weapons in the 40K universe are mighty and terrible things that regularly reduce mighty space marines to puddles of goo. The fact that every once in a while they overheat and flash-fry the user is just part of the big risk:reward ratio.

The funny thing is overheating plasma weapons has only been a problem for Imperials since 40K 3rd Ed. came out. Prior to that Imperial plasma weapons were priceless relics of a lost age but were completely reliable. CHAOS plasma weapons suffered from the overheat rule back then as a reflection of their twisted and debased nature. Funny how things change.

When I first saw plasma weapons I was confused, they certainly did not warrant the price tag nor did they live up the expectation, they should be nearly the most powerful weapon you can get a hold of:

As such these are my rules for them (I also buffed the relevent plasma weapons in IH and the melta weapons accordingly)

Damage: 2d10+5

Pen 7

Range: 90m

ROF: S/2/-

Clip: 30

Reload 3 (cannot be shortened by rapid reload as the ammo is dangerous)

Overheats.

Kas said:

Why not make it Reload 6 full actions or 3 with Rapid Reload?

I designed my own Plasma Weapon rules as they were just far too naff for what they should be.

I upped damage, changed the special rules and reduced reload times to something reasonable.

http://www.darkreign40k.com/weapons-and-armour/rewrite-of-plasma-weapons-lights-stubber-rules-2.html

Kaihlik

The fact that every once in a while they overheat and flash-fry the user is just part of the big risk:reward ratio.

In the tabletop, they overheat in one of six shots. I think I like the toned-down version of RT a little better...