Unnatural Characteristics for PCs

By rolls_badly, in Dark Heresy

Posted at

linearblade said:

I kinda see why people like the +1 increase as opposed to the multiplier increase, but really the major problem again with unnatural stats is when they are applied to certain classes that have balance issues...

See I don't think so. Multiplying TB results in multiplying damage and that screws the core of the system completely.

We have to make space marines tougher than humans. The only rule that does this is unnatural toughness. Therefore marines are now TB8. They wear awesome armour too, so now we need to give marines guns that can actually hurt themselves. Woops now we have guns that are better at taking out tanks than plasma guns.

Now there are guns that shouldn't really have a set of damage dice to roll, because they're going to kill almost all enemy targets in a single shot.

If for example, marines got +1TB from their biscopea and +1 from their haemastamen, then they'd have a TB of around 6 or so. A normal human couldn't get that, so would never reach it. A hive Tyrant might have 4 levels of UT, or maybe 5. Now a hive tyrant looks scary compared to a marine, without requiring a massive arms race in weapon damage.

The weapon damages in DH would be fine for most of the setting if Unnatural Toughness didn't multiply the damage reduction of targets like it does.

So in my opinion, reducing unnatural characteristics to single point advances solves more problems than it causes. After all, there's nothing stopping you giving something 8x unnatural toughness to simulate its 'dreadnought' like physique.

Therefore, single digit increases are superior in all ways, because they can represent ranges between normal and double and still represent double without REQUIRING double.

hellebore

Posted at

i haven't wade through 5 pages of replies, so it might have been mentioned before. But the unnatural characteristic is limited to steps of 5. so x2 means a maximum of 10 toughness. this does not add up to 22 but to 18 in the OP. I think that in itself is balance enough.

Posted at

Lasers said:

I'm thoroughly unimpressed. Like Bombernoy said, it's the Heavy Weapons, particularly the Autocannon (and Assault Cannon) you should fear. Case in point, the Arch Militant in one of the games I play in:

Twin-Linked Best Quality Autocannon, with Suspensors, Targeter, Motion Predictor, BS 73, Weapon Mastery, Mighty Shot

4d10+5 (Base) + 4 Damage (Mighty Shot/Mastery) * 1.3439 (Probability of RF with 4 dice) = 41.66 Average Damage per hit. 4 Pen

His effective BS?

73 (Base) + 10 (Targeter) + 10 (Motion Predictor) + 10 (Mastery) + 10 (Short Range, almost all of the time) + 20 (Twin Linked) + 20 (Full Auto) = 153

His Autocannon is Best Quality so it can never Jam, and he will always get tons of degrees of success. Average roll is 50, so let's look at how this works out:

153 - 50 = 103

103 / 10 = 10.3 (10)

Add that to the hit for a basic success, and the additional hit due Twin-Linked = 12 hits. Sadly we only get 10. This is possible because the Twin-Linked Quality discharges twice as much ammo (but we can also make the assumption that this doesn't count towards the maximum possible hits if you like).

so 10 * 41.66 = 416.6, and we ignore up to 4 AP from each hit.

If we assume that Twin-Linked doesn't allow us to hit up to 10 times, counting only one bonus hit:

6 * 41.66 = 249.66

Not Twin-Linked? We still hit with all 5 shots:

208.3

Suddenly the Power Fist ain't looking so powerful.

Note that with a BS this high, he could do EVEN BETTER with a Best Quality Assault Cannon (though his ability to penetrate armour/high toughness would be lessened).

Where do you find targeter and assault cannons and autocannons(books and pages)?

Can lascannon take Motion Predictor and does it help?

Posted at

wolph42 said:

i haven't wade through 5 pages of replies, so it might have been mentioned before. But the unnatural characteristic is limited to steps of 5. so x2 means a maximum of 10 toughness. this does not add up to 22 but to 18 in the OP. I think that in itself is balance enough.

Where is that from?

And thor:

Assault Cannon/Autocannon are page 177 of the IHB, targeter is 179 of IHB.

Posted at

wolph42 said:

i haven't wade through 5 pages of replies, so it might have been mentioned before. But the unnatural characteristic is limited to steps of 5. so x2 means a maximum of 10 toughness. this does not add up to 22 but to 18 in the OP. I think that in itself is balance enough.

Could you give us a reference ? Because I'm quite sure this is not RAW or even RAI

In Creature Anathema take a look at the Osedex p44 S: (12) 60, the Genestealer p90 Ag: (12) 60 and the Lictor p94 S: 63 (12), no limits there.

It comes even more obvious in Ascension : The Burning Princess p197 WP: (14) 75, Marabas p204 S: (12) 63, T: (21) 72 & Int: (27) 99 and the Slaugth Intendant Recusant p208 T: (12) 61 & Int: (14) 70

Posted at

Meatpuppet said:

wolph42 said:

i haven't wade through 5 pages of replies, so it might have been mentioned before. But the unnatural characteristic is limited to steps of 5. so x2 means a maximum of 10 toughness. this does not add up to 22 but to 18 in the OP. I think that in itself is balance enough.

Could you give us a reference ? Because I'm quite sure this is not RAW or even RAI

In Creature Anathema take a look at the Osedex p44 S: (12) 60, the Genestealer p90 Ag: (12) 60 and the Lictor p94 S: 63 (12), no limits there.

It comes even more obvious in Ascension : The Burning Princess p197 WP: (14) 75, Marabas p204 S: (12) 63, T: (21) 72 & Int: (27) 99 and the Slaugth Intendant Recusant p208 T: (12) 61 & Int: (14) 70

That's odd, I could have sworn I've read it sometime. But reading back (granted not in my original CR so maybe its in there) I can't find any reference to it anywhere. So you're right the rules don't state the limitation. Anyway if peeps think its overpowered you can always use it as an houserule.