Im posting this in hope of getting some GM feedback on it before i make a final choice on bringing it into play.

In the rulebook it gives the option of crafting your own/or remaking a current weapon. What im looking at is the possibility of making a specific alteration/addition to weapons that get forged with the BQ level. At current it will give the weapon ( ballistic-reliable trait to ignore overheat and jams / melee-plus 1 to damage and +10% WS hit rolls ) BUT what im looking at is this.....in addition to this ( only if the player specifies ) making the weapons weight do the same thing as what BQ armor gets ( half the weight )...only in this case perhaps giving it the compact trait ( in a melee weapon half range = blah..lol...so not a problem...and losing 1 point of damage is well worth the savings in weight ). The idea that prompted it is to create more scaled to size powerfists/lightning claws ( afterall the BQ shock gauntlets are made to look almost identical to regular finely made leather gloves instead of a typical " gauntlet" style appearance...Instead of altering the weight OR overall size...why not allow the use of BOTH traits as a compact design only allowed for the custom ordered BQ items in question ( all classes/types where applicable of course )? Of course the said item would only be allowed to be a custom order and would have an additional multiplier to the cost ( BQ=10X and drops the availability 2 steps and the COMPACT=50 throne extra and half the weight but in this case would be an additional multiplier of say 5X and 1 step lower on availability for a total base cost multiplier of 15X the original price and 3 steps harder to find )...What do you all think?

Hi

I would simply take one of the benefits from better craftsmanship (like "good") and substitut it with the change of weight. Why stacking all this things if it is about the weight to you?

To take it a step further, you could simply make a list of "desirable effects" (smaller size; less weight; +5-to-hit-Bonus; 1-damage-bonus; etc) and rule that each of them will take up 1 to three "goody slots". "Good Craftsmanship" would provide...let´s say two "goody-slots" while best gives you three our four.

If you do the effort once, you and your group can go custom-crazy about any weapon or piece of armour you/they want.

A +3 shift in availability would make most of the items in your example nearly impossible to find, even on Scintilla, Malfi or a forge world. If you are looking to have a special system in place for making custom gear changes based on quality then I would go with something along the lines Gregorius mentioned. Simple and flexible is better than complex and cumbersome in almost all cases.

The one thing I would caution strongly against is allowing players to use the melee weapon quality traits (more accuracy and damage) on non-thrown ranged weapons. It is FAR easier to stack up bonuses for shooting attacks than melee attacks and the difference in weapon traits is deliberate from a design and balance standpoint.

I don't know if this will help you out any or not, but I did something similar for my group. For Good and Best quality weapons, they get to chose additional traits to add to the weapon customizing it a bit however, in order to do such they have to contribute a bit to the game world in the form of pattern names and weapon back-stories and it seems to work wonders. Each character currently has one Best Quality weapon with an interesting back-story complete with lovely barbed hooks should I need an idea for that nights story. It should also be noted that these rules were intended only to function with non-specific generic weapons -I have them making the patterns of the Calaxis Sector as opposed to using the weapons from IH.

Either way, the rules I gave my players for custom designing good and best quality weapons:

Good Craftsmanship
Weapons, Armour, and Items of Good Craftsmanship tend to have distinctive branding names called their Pattern. The Pattern Name is usually derived from either where the item is manufactured (Mars, Lathe, Armageddon), the manufacturer (Hax-Orthotic, Sollex, Belosco), or named after the one who discovered the STC or successfully petitioned the Temples of Mars to sanction alterations to an already consecrated pattern.

• Items: boost their characteristic bonus' by +5 or some other minor boost in performance and reliability. Not all items will need to fallow the naming conventions.
• Weapons: chose one new trait from the Upgrade Traits List . Likewise, one Downgrade can be selected from the Downgrade Traits in exchange for an additional Upgrade Trait .
• Armour: increases it's AP by one for the first hit it soaks per round.
• Servants and Services: reliable and will make all service related tests against a characteristic of 40

Best Quality
Best Quality items, Armour, and Weapons not only fallow the naming convention of the Good Quality versions but they must also receive a Unique Name which they had been given at some point in time during their long and luminous service. The player must also create it's back-story explaining what makes it such a magnificent item.

• Items: boost their characteristic bonus' by +10 or, generally see a marked over-all improvement in performance
• Armour: only weigh half as much as it normally should and it's AP would be permanently raised by 1.
• Weapons: have two new traits chosen from the Upgrade Traits List and can an additional trait from the Downgrade Trait List for an additional Upgrade Trait .
• Servants and Services: the best money can buy and will make all Characteristic Tests in performance of their duties against a 50.

Upgrade Traits

• Accurate : +10 to hit on aimed shot
• Shocking : weapon can stun opponent
• Balanced : +10 to parry
• Customized : halves reload time
• Reliable : hardly ever jams
• Twin-Linked : double the weapon for double the hit
• Work of Art : +10 to fel tests
• Extended Clip : ammo capacity raised by 50%
• Powerful : Base Pen is increased by 2
• Deadly : Base Damage is increased by 2
• Combi : combines another different weapon with the original
• Far Reaching : Range is increased by 50%
• Toxic : weapon potentially dose an additional 1d10 pts of dmg.
• Gene-Locked : weapon will only function in it's owners hand

Downgrade Traits

• Overheats : overheats on an attack roll of 91+
• Recharge : weapon can only fire every other round.
• Unbalanced : weapon suffers a -10 to parry.
• Unreliable : weapon jams on 91 or higher.
• Unwieldy : weapon cannot be used to parry
• Small Capacity : weapons ammo capacity is reduced by half
• Primitive : modern armour's AP counts as double against it
• Low Damage : Weapon suffers a -2 to dmg
• Inaccurate : weapon gains no bonus for the aim action
• Short Range : weapons range is halved
• Complex : doubles reload time

This listing of traits can, of course, be built upon for things like weight (I don't really worry about that over-much) or anything else that comes along that you feel would make a smashing addition. Also, it goes without saying that not all traits would be appropriate for all weapons all the time. Common sense and a GMs ability to say "no" would need to be exorcised when using this system.

Thank you all for your input. I like how Graver has the setup streamlined and thinking about it i agree with what Zilla said about the availability issues as well. Ill use a modified version of what Gravers method is thusly.

It will be the same as mentioned only the cost multiplier in thrones will be added in as well. (base cost multiplier as stated in DH rulebook PLUS a 2X multiplier for each "upgrade" and a 2X for each "downgrade". So a best quality powerful twin linked reliable short range pistol would have its cost multiplier as follows ( 10X (BQ)+2X (powerful) +2X (twin linked) +2x (reliable) 2X ( short range) = 14X cost multiplier . So even a very low cost "base chassis" weapon to begin with would be very costly ( turn a 50 thrones base price into a 900 thrones pricetag for example ) and would seriously curtail PC's from "loading up" on serious custom gear.

Thanks again for the input my friends

Hi Graver!

I spotted one thing on your "upgrade list". Adding "+2 to damage" is always superior to "+2 to Pen". PEN is only helpfull IF the opponent has armour. DMG will do the trick all the time.

You could change this be reducint the "damage add on" to +1.

My two cents.

some of them you might want to limit to certain classes of weapons. For example SP weapons might need better / different ammo to gain damage improvements, others include:

• Super reliable: never jams, rolls of 96-100 are just misses (reliable weapons only)
• Rapid cycle: the weapon gains a fully automatic rate of fire of double it's semi-auto fire rate (semi auto weapons only)

Also instead of two upgrade traits a Best quality weapon can have a single Perfect Upgrade.

Perfect Upgrades

• Super reliable: never jams, rolls of 96-100 are just misses
• Storm: The weapons is a perfectly executed twin linked weapon
• Reliable: hardly ever jams (unreliable weapons only)

Which is bringing in the originaly best quality gun trait.

I've thought of another downgrade trait:

Limited Fire (Fully automatic weapons only) : The weapon looses the ability to fire on the fully automatic mode. Other modes fire are not effected.

So a good quality weapon with this and the following two upgrade traits:

Accurate : +10 to hit on aimed shot
Far Reaching : Range is increased by 50%

Would be a marksman version a fully automatic weapon, like an autogun.

Very nice, Grave! Only one small quibble:

Graver said:

By the Ascension rules, this is actually the Storm (p. 137) upgrade. Twin-Linked (p. 137) increases the chance to hit by 20% and gives one additional hit if you have 2° of success. So you could have another upgrade option there.

I feel strange posting in a topic that's more than three months old...

I'm trying to implement this system in my home game, and I thought about some things that I think are lacking from the list.

-Underpenetrating: Weapon suffers a -2 to Pen (Weapons with Pen 2 or higher only)

-Limited Action: The Weapon loses it's semi-auto setting. Other modes fire are not effected.

-Semi-auto: The Weapon gains a semi-auto mode which is either it's halved full-auto mode or a value shown below:

Laspistol, Stub Revolver, Grenade Launcher, Needle Pistol/Needle Rifle - 3

Long Las, Plasma Pistol - 2

Weapons with a clip size smaller than 6 can't receive this trait.

-Flechette: The weapon gains the Scatter quality. (SP weapons only)

I like your system Graver, although individual traits seems poorly balanced. For example, why take Unwieldy as a negative trait when Unbalanced can be taken instead?

For this system to work (except for heavy GM fiat, as in everything needs to be approved), it would be better to have the upgrades and downgrades to be worth various points, for example Deadly could be worth 3 points, Powerful 2, and Extended Clip 1.

I like the incentive to make your own weapons with story and all, but I fear it's a bit too easy to mix advantages and disadvantages on a min/max basis rather than "what fits." For instance a weapon with Deadly might fit together with Small Capacity and Unreliable, which makes the extra damage a real tradeoff espedcially for weapons that rely on high ROF, like Autoguns.

Nice catch with the Unbalanced/Unwieldy.

Now I don't think this system should be given to players without GM control, quite the contrary the GM should be a sounding board for this type of stuff. But I can't agree with your idea of setting "point values" to the traits. This would make using this system worthless because comparable guns from the Inquisitor's Handbook would always be a better option.

E.g.:

A Combat Shotgun with the Rapid Cycle trait costs 450 Thrones. A Vanaheim-Pattern Assault Shotgun costs 300 Thrones and has already upgrades worth 75 Thrones inside.

Additionaly the percieved unbalancing of stanard paterns from the main book flies out of the window when you realize that there's always a better gun. Having a pimped out standard Autopistol, with that monstrous and unfair +1 to Damage via the "Deadly" trait, won't help you when the enemy pulls out a Hecuter which costs 50 Thrones less (and has the Reliable quality and a semi-auto mode). Friend of the Dork no matter how you spin it this system does not unbalance the game. With a maximum of 2 positive Traits for a good quality weapon and 3 for a best quality one, you can't really get a better gun than what's already there. But you can create a more customized and fitting weapon for a character, hell, you can even reproduce some current designs this way.

Arag said:

Well the weapons from IH are already unbalanced compared to the ones in the main rulebook.

Take your Vanaheim example (easily the best shotgun in the game). Sure, with only one quality it will be hard to surpass it. But give it Rapid Cycle and Deadly, in exchange for say Unbalanced and a mono-bayonet and you get a superior shotgun (1d10+6!) for only about 200 thrones extra (in my game this is not an exorbitant sum).

Even so, yes it might be dificult to outdo some of the weapons in IH, but the point is that the individual traits are not balanced with each other!

Deadly+Toxic and Inaccurate on an Autopistol could very well beat the Hecutor in damage output, especially with Manstopper rounds which the Hecutor benefits little from. Losing Reliable is not good, but you don't jam THAT often. Inaccurate is hardly an issue for an Autopistol anyway, while Toxic means the enemy might have to take multiple Toughness tests or suffer unsoakable damage in addition to the normally high damage of 1d10+4.

Shocking is also a nasty combo with full-auto - especially if you let the Stun stack (if not it's "just" almost guaranteed Stun if you hit multiple shots.

So yes, these guidelines requires a heavy GM hand to prevent from being broken, and that's why I suggested numerical values to simplify this. A Toxic Autogun SHOULD require more investment than just a Reliable one.

Threee things before I get to really responding to your post:

First, not everyone sees the InqH as unbalanced. Some see it as just a collection of specific stuff. But this is neither the place nor the time to discuss this issue.

Second, this is a houserule. Using it without the GM's control is not smart at all. As said before, leaving a housrule solely in the hands of players is a Bad Idea®.

Third, I think all here agree with the point Gregorius21778 made about Deadly. Moving it from +2 Dmage to +1 Damage changes things for the better.

Which leads me to my observations. This system was made/designed for all weapons melle and ranged, this is why melee traits are mixed with ranged traits and universal traits. Common sense and a GM's eye will quickly spot the powergamers attempts to add melee drawbacks to ranged weapons for a freebie upgrade. I would as a GM laugh the player out if he came to me with a Rapid Cycle/Deadly/Unbalanced combo. A shotgun is not a melee weapon (even with a melee attachment or by being the Cypra Mundi Ironclaw). In fact the trait list would benefit from tagging it with appropriate markers identifying the type of trait in question (melee, ranged, universal).

Moving forward, you may houserule Toxic and Shocking to test only once for an attack. This makes the weapons with them no less useful but more balanced. Additionaly this is only a house rule, you can as well remove thos two traits from the list. Hell, you don't even need to use this rules, if you want you may limit your players to main book equipment only.

PS: The Hecuter does benefit from Man Stopper rounds a lot. A Metallican Gunslinger equipped thusly can mow down a lot of armored enemies (especially with Mighty Shot and Rapid Reload).

Arag said:

You do know that the manstopper rounds have been errataed to set the weapons pen to 3. they do no longer increase it by 3. The hecuter is still a good weapon, but not very much better than any other autopistol when you are using manstopper rounds.

Mellon said:

I do know this, but I'm talking about relatively low-level characters. A Metallican Gunslinger can take Mighty Shot at level 1 and most enemies that characters fight against at levels 1-3 don't use carapace armor. A 1d10+5 Pen 3 gun is nothing to sneer at then, later it fall out compared to other weapons (like Bolt Pistols or Plasma). Besides, using Man Stopper rounds in a Hecuter would give the weapon Pen 3 either way (because as you ALL know the Hecuter has been errata'ed to have Pen 0 instead of Pen 2).

So your post changes nothing in the overall example.

Yes, indeed. Although, consider that the hecuter only has clipsize for two rounds of full auto, and one semi. Of coure, you can usually carry another pistol and quickdraw rahter than reloading.

Arag said:

Hecutor: I hadn't even noticed it is errata'ed, but that just strengthens my point: You can indeed make as powerful or more powerful weapons with Gravers house rules. Now the Hecutor is just an autopistol with reduced capacity, Reliable, and Greg's version of Deadly, at a slightly cheaper price than the much more customizable good quality autopistol. So a Metallican Gunslinger could be just as powerful with the good qual. autopistol, more actually since he could fire 3 FA bursts instead of just two +1 semi-auto for the Hecutor. And no, I don't consider the added Semi-Auto mode much of an advantage all things considered. Mighty Shot is a talent that improves ALL ranged weapons, which doesen't really benefit one more than another except for higher rates of fire (so autoguns/heavy stubbers are better for more potential damage).

If you like these house rules you pretty much indicate you agree that the IH versions of weapons are generally more powerful than the Core book counterparts. If you don't think so then any house rule that allows you to generally improve core high-quality weapons will risk unbalancing them.

A GM should not make house rules without first considering how they may be exploited or if there may be unforeseen. That's the whole reason we are discussing here, to help people make more balanced House Rules and to allow other GMs to use other peoples rules that work. So any House Rule requiring the GM to ok every possible combination of traits any more than he needs to ok every possible talent, skill, and purchase from the normal rules is inherently flawed. So no, the GM needs control, but he also needs proper rules and not just guidelines.

Melee/ranged: Well a ranged weapon with melee attachment becomes a combi-weapon and can thus have traits from both groups. A mounted mono-bayonet can indeed be unbalanced (in fact it should be as standard IMO). It may be better to consider the attachment an individual weapon that needs to be good quality by itself in order to get special traits. But if not, justifying Unbalanced together with Rapid Cycle isn't that far fetched, since the latter might require additional weight and things jutting out of the weapon that makes the whole thing more Unbalanced. So not that unrealistic, but still unbalanced as melee is not a primary function of the weapon - this is basic min-maxing.

Toxic+Shocking: I can do more, I would suggest these traits to be disallowed for any weapon that fires faster than Single shot mode. Also, the first changes the weapon into an exotic one, while the latter changes it to one of the Shock weapons. This to prevent people modifying a hunting rifle to get a cheaper, more damaging, better ranged version of the Needle Rifle that even uses Basic (SP) training.

Either this or just remove these from the list as they are intended for specialty weapons, some of which are rare and costly.

Rapid Cycle might be a neat suggestion, but to be honest this opens up so many doors for abuse I suggest not allowing it at all. If you want it you should get a weapon intended for it, this is the age where gun schematics are carefully guarded and people don't just experiment and change on trusted designs (except for hereteks).

Ok I will stop with examples. You said "no matter how you spin this it can't be unbalanced", and that "you can't make a better weapon than those listed in IH" and you were wrong on both accounts. And my point still stands, these "guidelines" either needs careful considerations and adjustments, or stay solely in the hands of the GM. For the latter the system works well as the GM designs all the options while the players are only told what traits weapons have, and then have to ask for each individual case. A weapon that is specifically made for the PC is per definition "Unique" and thus extremely hard to get for all but the best connected Acolytes.

Still I seriously consider to add a few of these to my game - it's like using specifically chosen weapons from IH except the players cannot read them beforehand and then use Inquiry to get them.

Hecuter: The Hecuter was just one example. From your posts I have gleaned that you don't consider money an issue. Not everyone plays this way, I for example like to make them feel the 50 throne difference but it's your game. I see that you casually discarded the semi-auto burst and the reliable quality. So I really don't think that we can agree on looking at the weapons from IH from the same angle. Because to me those are real benefits and not something that you can casually ignore. Yes, you can make a different weapon with the rules here than the Hecuter. But it won't offer the same versatility and besides how do you even qualify a weapon as better in your eyes?

"If you like these house rules you pretty much indicate you agree that the IH versions of weapons are generally more powerful than the Core book counterparts. If you don't think so then any house rule that allows you to generally improve core high-quality weapons will risk unbalancing them."

I'll take answer number three - the weapons from IH (of comparable type, availability and price) are neither more or less powerful than the weapons from the core book. The weapons from IH just offer more choice, sometime uniquely so (vide Howdah Pistol).

A GM should not make house rules without first considering how they may be exploited or if there may be unforeseen. That's the whole reason we are discussing here, to help people make more balanced House Rules and to allow other GMs to use other peoples rules that work. So any House Rule requiring the GM to ok every possible combination of traits any more than he needs to ok every possible talent, skill, and purchase from the normal rules is inherently flawed. So no, the GM needs control, but he also needs proper rules and not just guidelines.

Well the only thing we are discussing here is your dislike of the IH weapons and this very system. The only thing you really offered to this topic is an ephemeral construct made out of unnamed "point values" that would make this easy system into a tedious unusable wreck.

And a small side note - I haven't seen a game where the GM allows the players to run havoc with item creation house rules without at least checking the end product before giving his blessing for it. This is and always have been a recipe for disaster. Plus, a system of cooperation between the player and the GM allows for a more flavor-coloured approach to new equipment (sometimes just shopping for an item is worth an adventure).

Melee/ranged: Well a ranged weapon with melee attachment becomes a combi-weapon and can thus have traits from both groups. A mounted mono-bayonet can indeed be unbalanced (in fact it should be as standard IMO). It may be better to consider the attachment an individual weapon that needs to be good quality by itself in order to get special traits. But if not, justifying Unbalanced together with Rapid Cycle isn't that far fetched, since the latter might require additional weight and things jutting out of the weapon that makes the whole thing more Unbalanced. So not that unrealistic, but still unbalanced as melee is not a primary function of the weapon - this is basic min-maxing.

Not in my games. A melee attachment makes the weapon work like a spear, but it does not make the weapon into a spear. The damage might be the same but not the use by a skilled user. I can accept the idea of a specialized attachment made out of a seprate weapon, but the player would need to come to me first and discuss it with good arguments. Plus the whole argument behind rapid cycle/unbalanced is too far gone, full auto does not require so many changes (unles you are changing a battle rifle into a HMG).

Toxic+Shocking: I can do more, I would suggest these traits to be disallowed for any weapon that fires faster than Single shot mode. Also, the first changes the weapon into an exotic one, while the latter changes it to one of the Shock weapons. This to prevent people modifying a hunting rifle to get a cheaper, more damaging, better ranged version of the Needle Rifle that even uses Basic (SP) training.

Either this or just remove these from the list as they are intended for specialty weapons, some of which are rare and costly.

And what have I said earlier about removing them?

Rapid Cycle might be a neat suggestion, but to be honest this opens up so many doors for abuse I suggest not allowing it at all. If you want it you should get a weapon intended for it, this is the age where gun schematics are carefully guarded and people don't just experiment and change on trusted designs (except for hereteks).

Seriously, these rules are for creating new weapons out of unnamed Patterns from the main book, so your argument is wonky. Besides rapid cycle would make only a few guns from the main book better, of which none would fall into the grossly unbalanced category.

Ok I will stop with examples. You said "no matter how you spin this it can't be unbalanced", and that "you can't make a better weapon than those listed in IH" and you were wrong on both accounts.

Really? You failed to prove this and back it up.

And my point still stands, these "guidelines" either needs careful considerations and adjustments, or stay solely in the hands of the GM. For the latter the system works well as the GM designs all the options while the players are only told what traits weapons have, and then have to ask for each individual case. A weapon that is specifically made for the PC is per definition "Unique" and thus extremely hard to get for all but the best connected Acolytes.

We get it by now. You don't like this system even though you said otherwise. Instead of contributing working solutions to the percieved flaws you just go on saying it's unbalanced.

I see our discussion at an end, you aren't contributing to the matter at hand and everything else is just off-topic.

Speaking of which I thought about the unwieldy/unbalanced problem (both being on the list) And I thought about making Unwieldy the choice for weapons that are already Unbalanced and Unbalanced for the weapons that aren't (weapons that are Balanced would just lose the Quality). This would make the axe and the hammer Unwieldy and everything else Unbalanced. This would clear a lot of confusion I think.

Additionally putting tags on traits might solve some problems. I would also add the following text to the Shock trait:

"This trait can only be applied to a primitive Melee weapon, this weapon from then on requires the Melee Weapon Training (Shock) talent to be used properly. "

No, I don't consider 50 thrones an issue. Apart from the first few ranks most characters will have no problem getting such an amount. For 50 thrones you can get a bottle of amasec, some packs of Lho sticks or a couple of nights og Mid-grade accomodation. Or a cheap handgun, after all this is 40k!

In my own game the Rank 10 acolytes are wealthy, so these sums matter little. In other games money may be an issue, but even so acolytes might well save a little extra just to get a few rounds more of clip size or +1 damage. After all this gives them a real edge.

Semi-Auto burst I discared because full-auto is simply better. Duble bonus to hit, double chance of scoring extra hits, and only 3 more rounds spent per burst. In any case there is a general consensus on these forums that Full-Auto is better, and some say it is unbalanced.

Reliable is good, but then again you can get that or something else you prefer which can be better with the rules as suggested.

But in any case, it's clear your mind is set on the issue.

"Well the only thing we are discussing here is your dislike of the IH weapons and this very system. The only thing you really offered to this topic is an ephemeral construct made out of unnamed "point values" that would make this easy system into a tedious unusable wreck."

I have to comment this specifically. In addition to being slightly insulting it's also wrong. I like the DH weapons in general, even if I think some are poorly balanced with the Core ones (although the Errata sure helps). I also liked the general suggestion Graver made, but pointed out certain unbalancing factors (including the Unbalanced+Unwieldy, which you already said "nice catch" to...). So now I'm "not contributing" simply because you disagree?

The point value thing was just a suggestion, not a finished system. Also one could rename it as one would want. The point was and remains that some are generally better than others. For example, +2 damage is ALWAYS better than +2 Penetration. Someone suggested to reduce the damage to +1, but there are other examples. For example. got an automatic weapon Unreliable is far worse penalty than Inaccurate. To keep it simple one could simply make two cateogries: good quality traits and best quality traits, and then divide the traits into those categories. How this would make the system a "tedious unusable wreck" is beyond me, it's no worse than the current system of poor, normal, good and best quality items.

In any case you are clearly not interested in a rational debate and scoff my my suggestions and citicism as "off-topic" despite the fact that you make suggestions very similar to mine (requiring shock talent for weapons with Shock Quality, for instance).

Also since neither the OP or Graver is answering anymore, I'll stop replying to your posts.