Trying to wrap my brain around "Unnatural Characteristic."

By Nile2, in Dark Heresy Rules Questions

Bready said:

If characteristic bonuses are multiplied, doesn't that make creatures with unnatural toughness nigh on impossible to hurt?

It depends on what you're trying to hurt them with, but then, that is the point. With lasguns and autoguns alone, bringing down an Ork (TB8, and lets assume 2 points of primitive armour) is very difficult and takes both a lot of time and a lot of shots. But it isn't impossible. It's soaking 9 points of damage per shot... but a Lasgun (or equivalent 1d10+3 damage weapon) can deal more than that - you just need to roll a 7 or higher to deal 1 or more wounds.

IMO, that's a good thing - if it's sufficiently tough to justify giving it Unnatural Toughness, then it should be extremely resilient... and it just makes Orks scarier, as they can weather hails of bullets that would reduce a human being to a pile of meat... often without noticing. Orkflesh is extraordinarily tough, the Orks themselves largely unconcerned with pain or physical injury... doesn't matter that bullets are digging into their flesh and lasburns are pock-marking their bodies, they just keep on fighting.

And then the Chimera's multilaser unleashes its own brand of hell. Each hit is still dealing 3d10-5 damage after reductions for Toughness Bonus, and on average, it'll take two of those to drop an Ork and start dealing Critical Damage (or kill it, if you're using sudden-death criticals).

Action_Carl said:

Old WFRP, there was a whole section on it.

Errr, this is neither WFRP. Anyway, the conversion system was abandoned because it produced messed up results, right? There's a reason you have to qualify which edition you meant.

I think it's important to keep in mind, that this is an investigative game.

The game was not designed to have players running around viciously mangling greater daemons with their bare hands, posing for a crotch-shot while smoking a big brown cigar embroised with the impirial aquila.

It's a sneaky little game where you and your friends play agents of the inquisition, digging up dirt on nobles, look for unsanctioned psykers, unravel cults or deal with bigger and more complex plots. Point being that while the game presents the characters with alot of heavy weapons and armor and the POTENTIAL for fighting big bad daemons, this should not be mistaken for a need to. Keep in mind that these players are acolytes. They are spies of the inquisition, not warriors. Even the guardsman, recruited as an acolyte, rather than an inquisitorial stormtrooper, is only recruited because the inquisitor can't deny that there might be some spontaneous violence. But mostly the job of the inquisition's acolytes is to gather intelligence and report it to the inquisitor or a fitting authority.

In case of a cult, call the Adepta Sororitas or the ecclesiarchy.... hell if you're mad enough drop a note by the red redemption and RUN.

In case of daemons, call the Grey Knights.

In case of Xenos call the Deathwatch.

And in case you don't happen to have a spacemarine chapter on speeddial, then think like an acolyte. Spread rumors of these emperor-forsaken activities, take photos, gather proof, wrap it in brown paper and make some civillian deliver it to the local comissars for 2 thrones.

In each and everyone of these situations a martially inclined acolyteband might feel a need to prove their brawn and take the fight to the heretic, but if they do so, they disserve to take all the enemy can throw at them, straight in the teeth, and roll new characters unless they think of something brilliant.

Dealing with daemons or xenos with skyscraper stats is not really for the acolytes to do, and IF they do something incredibly stupid or simply display an exceptional amount of bad luck, then they should definately run for it. Run for it, prey there's a tank around the corner, or take cover in a building, and lock the door while they rig the **** with explosives.

A guardsman armwrestling with a Bloodletter doesn't seem like very 40k'ish storytelling to me. So if you ABSOLUTELY MUST have Strength x4.000.000.000 stats on your monsters at least be polite enough to give your acolytes a nuke to throw at him.

Truth be told, you can run your campaign any way you like, but just keep in mind that a person who would send 5 people to fight a Lord of Change, while wearing gymshorts and brandishing sharp sticks, probably wasn't gonna make it to Inquisitor in the first place.