When I think about the weapons for whom accuracy is to be a reasonable replacement for sheer quantity of bullets, I expect a well-placed shot to do similarly and correlatingly well in the Inflicting Damage department. Where a hail of bullets might stop the armored truck, I'd expect a precise shot could do the same or better by striking weak points in armor or destroying/hampering necessary systems and functions.

I think what I'm saying is that weapons that do very precisely what you want them to do, in the hands of the real expert shots (like your aforementioned assassin), really aught to do some truly stupendous things. There's not much that should stop a well-placed, defenses-defying, no-warning solid slug of metal (or destructive energy) to the face, barring something inhuman like a Space Marine or a Daemon.

I do agree that Semi-auto and Auto aught to be separated more, in terms of giving each firing mode a unique touch.

Not only should they be given unique touches, but perhaps Pistols could be given some of their big brother Basic's ability. Uncle Heavy could perhaps be the next step out: Always +1d10 damage for every 2 degrees of success, but Pistols are limited to +1d10, Basic to +2d10, and Heavy to +3d10.

When the Spray-and-prayers are busting out Autocannons as dakka incarnate, a dedicated sureshot could step up with a Heavy Basic weapon with the Accurate Quality and the sheer destructive power of a heavy armnr-piercing round, and put a much larger chunk of penetrating metal hurtling at a much higher velocity with a much larger force, and even the Speeeeeeece Mahreeeeeeeeeens aren't getting up from the round you put through their noggin (or heart, or neck). And that power supply or gas tank or relay station for that vehicle? Friction-irradiating precision means hot death just went straight through it.

Of course, all weapons pale in comparison to The Radical Handbook's Xenarch Death-Arc, capable (despite its inability to benefit from Aim) of both a spray of up to 6 lasgun-strength shots and, simultaneously, the ability to only treat armor and toughness once against multiple hits! Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that means that Accurate's paltry +2d10 damage is actually pretty **** lightweight against xenotech, when a good/lucky shot on full auto could end up at six times a lasgun's damage for a single target, deducting armor and toughness only once?

(Did I mention it also has the Shocking quality and decent range? Don't even get me started on Shuriken technology...)

In my pal's game he replaces the additional damage damage dice with tearing dice (so with 4 successes you roll 3 dice and keep the highest). It's OK there's still uses for accurate weapons but it's really all down to RF if they have armour or any real toughness, and in that case you might as well be auto-firing, i guess it costs less.

I'm still caught up with accuracy still applying at point blank ranges. It really shouldn't matter how accurate a gun is at that point,but only because all guns should be accurate enough at that range, at least all single, aimed shots. But that's gonna make point blank shots way overpowered.

Good thoughts on the sniping, all. i agree that it shouldn't be too easy for SP and Bolt sniping as indeed air thickness, planetary rotation and curve, wind, humidity and all that jazz have an impact on the ballistic trajectory of a projectile. But to be the devil's advocate here;

Las weapons: speed of light, a trajectory straighter than an arrow, no recoil unless mechanically introduced, not even a visible beam of light unless tweaked to the visible spectrum

One could argue that atmospheric interference might play with the damage a bit on long ranges, one could even say; 'let's hope your target is not too shiny'.

But in general I'd argue that it's easier to snipe something with a las rifle than with a projectile rifle, no?

Meph said:

Bolt rounds are mostly self-propelled. There's significantly less of a ballistic curvature in their flight path than a normal bullet.

-=Brother Praetus=-

Meph said:

Just get yourself a laser pointer on the same frequency* as the Longlas. Any interference on the shot should equally affect the laser pointer, meaning you will hit where the pointer says you will hit.

*And a way for you to see it, since you probably don't want a frequency your target can see.

Bilateralrope said:

That's what the Holo-visor is for. Seeing red dot sights which are not in the spectrum of light visible to the human eyes... I think those are in Ascension if I'm remembering right.

-=Brother Praetus=-

To get back to the core argument about Accurate weapons being OP - why not then require a talent to unlock the +1d10 dmg/DoS? Would that alleviate your concerns that anyone can pick it up and become Uber?

I think I might have come up with another solution, which also solves a couple of other issues in the game:

One of the things that didn't quite make sense to me, was that it it was perfectly possible to get a +2d10 (with 3x RF chance on top of that as well) at All ranges with an Accurate Basic Weapon and at the same time, you couldn't perfectly do this with an accurate duelling pistol at even a distance of five meters. I also found that +2d10 to pure Dam, wath a bit unrealistic (when you look at the other weapons that your find in the game), especially when you take into consideration the 3x chance for RF.

I have taken a closer look at this, but before I write any more, I must saythat I use the rules for Called Shot from the Rogue Trader Game (A Called Shot being a Full Action for a Single Shot), so it is pretty much based on the idea that you actually have some idea of what you are aiming for when you make the shot, even if you don't spend 3-6 additional second to use the AIM action. The Aim action itself is not needed for any of the rules below to be applied, but it will possibly increase your chances to both hit and to do damage automatically.

Here is the changes as I have made them so far:

"Accurate".

+10 to Hit when using the Called Shot Action, or single Shot at Long and Extreme Range.
+1 Dam for Each Dos, to a maximum of +4.
IF the Pen of the attack is equal to or more than the Armour of the target at the location hit, then you may add +1d10 to Dam (which can not cause an RF). This +1d10, does nor work against targets with the Daeomic or Living Nightmare Traits.

"Deadeye Shot Talent"

In addition to reducing the difficulty of making a Called Shot to -10, it also grants a +1 Critical Dam for each DoS, to a maximum of +4.

"Sharpshooter Talent"

In addition to removing any negative modifiers for making a Called Shot, the talents also grant +1 Pen for each DoS, to a maximum of +4 (in addition to the +1 Critical from Deadeye Shot).

"Called Shot Action (Full Action Single Shot)"

Dodging a Ranged Called shot is now Hard (-20).
Making a Called Shot at Point Blank Range with a Ballistic Weapon, now adds +1d10 Dam, assuming that you did cause Damage in the first place (i.e. the target lost one or more wounds, after reductions for toughness and armour). No additional Dam vs. targets with Daemonic or Living Nightmare Traits. This additional +1d10 has no chance of granting a RF. Accurate quality takes presedence over this dam bonus, so you won't get +2d10.

In effect, this does several things:

-Makes nearly all weapons more deadly at Point Blank Range, if the attacker bothers to make a Called Shot. Noy, you can actually blow someone's head off with a Hack-Shotgun, without having to roll RF's. Or any other weapon for that matter. This allows for what I like to thing off as more realistic gaming situations. If someone is pointing a gun at your face at 2 meters, you might now cosider listening to what he has to say, even if you have a bit of armour or above average armour. also works for excecutions, and cool assassinations.

-It makes ALL Accurate weapons more dangerous. A noble with a duelling pistol can now be equally dangerous as a sniper with a rifle.

-It ties the +1 Critical Dam/DoS and the +1 Pen/DoS) to those who might reasonably have some actual training with making precise and deady shots, but still allows anyone to effectivly use Accurate weapons. Especially the Sharpshooter will benefit from this, as he reduces the enemies the efect of the enemies Armour, and thereby increases his chances of scoring that +1d10 to Dam. Being a professional Sharpshooter now means something more than just having a high BS and a scope.

-You can't no longer do unrealistic damage to Vehicles. Your sniper Rifle will never equal a Melta Gun.

-Removes the 3x chance of scoring RF', which I think served to make accurate basic weapons comparable in pure Dam, to weapons which they should never have been reasonably compared with, especially in the hands of relativly untrained peronel.

-Makes weapons and special ammo with a higher PEN very powerful in the hands of snipers, but still won't let them to amazing amounts of Damage with no actual ability to Penetrate some Armour first. Now, remember that Manstoppers (Pen 3) and a good Shot from a Sharpshooter (Pen +4) grants a total Pen of 7, which allows you that +1d10 (as well as +4 for Accurate on top of that regardless), with just the basic Hunting Rifle. You will however, have some slight problesm hurting the likes of SPace Marines in power armour, but if they don't justify you having to get a proper Sniper Rifle, than what does? You will still probably wound them. Add to this, the possibility of +4 to Critical Damage if you do get a target down to a +1 Critical.

-Remeber that the Mighty Shot and Crack Shot talents will make you even deadlier still.

Questionable Methods said:

Chaplain Uziel said:

Well, I certainly can see these changes adding a bit to realism, and giving your players/NPCs more tactical options. So, I like this version more than your first iteration.

I do like the idea of giving Accurate Pistol weapons some of the same benefits as Accurate Basic weapons. But I think I would keep it simple, say:

All Accurate Basic weapons get the damage bonus on Aimed shots, but only at Medium or longer ranges. While all Accurate Pistol weapons only get the damage bonus at Medium or shorter ranges.

But like some others, I (personally) don't see the need for them. They unnecessarily add to the complexity, IHMO. And, added complexity tends to slow the game down.

Again though, if that's what you're going for, then by all means your version seems a reasonable alternative.

Some CONSTRUCTIVE critisism at last. :-)

One of the things I based the damages around, was the Helpless Target rule in the rulebook. If you can stand with a pistol aimed at someone's head at point blank, how can a sniper with a rifle 200 meters away reasonably claim to hit even a moving target, and deal a hefty potential +2d10 damage to his shot? After all, any damage based on the power of the weapon itself, is represented by it's Dam and Pen values in the first place, and something like a scope only lets you perceptivly get closer to your target.

I also wanted there to be a marked diferense between an untrained sniper (talent wise) and one that was just a good shot (BS). It might also make Guardsmen players conscider the "sniper" direction after rank 6 more often, as this is now not something eveyone is nearly equally skilled at.

I liked the idea of the pistol not getting the damage bonus at beyond medium/normal range. I'll cosider adding that. Thank you :-)

Sister Cat said:

Glad you liked it.

And don't get me wrong, I actually like your ideas, and the reasons behind them.

But when I consider them practically, for my games, I just feel my players would consider them unnecessarily complex to keep up with ... especially for those who were highly-trained snipers.

So ... there ya go.

Sister Cat said:

Personally, I've ruled that Accurate Pistol weapons can get a single bonus die of damage on an aimed shot with 2DoS on the attack roll. It's not as beefy as the basic weapons, but gives a decent enough benefit to use the things. Makes the needle pistol a little more frightening.

Otherwise, I just use the rules for Accurate as written.

-=Brother Praetus=-

Brother Praetus said:

Since you already agree with my suggestion of giving up to +1d10 for Accurate Pistols, what are your thoughts on giving Accurate Heavy weapons up to +3d10?

Unusualsuspect said:

I'll have to try it out and see how it flies. Not very many Accurate heavies that I recall seeing, but seems like it might be an okay idea.

Though, now I've got the thought of a pattern of MP Lascannon with Accurate truly devouring a tank in one well placed shot. Which, honestly, they should be about able to.

-=Brother Praetus=-

Brother Praetus said:

None in the books as far as I remember, but I've got a some home brew ones.

They were Anti-tank rifles though. The thought of a Las cannon with up to +3d10 is horrifying but a type of Las Cannon with Accurate does seem to fit though,. It might be best to cap it at +1d10 but able to add it against vehicles as well as people.

Sister Cat said:

Right then, I think I know what I'm going to go with. I like a good deal of what you are saying Chaplain but for my games it's too cumbersome.

1. For all aimed shots BS increased by +10
2. If called shot is made (called shot al la the RT rules and DW rules) then for every 2 successes they may add +1d10 damage up to a maximum of 2 additional d10 for a basic weapon but 1 additional d10 for a pistol, heavy or mounted weapon.
3. Additional damage does not apply to Vehicles or targets with either the Deamonic, Amorphous, or Stuff of Nightmares traits.

I think this should be enough limits, I was considering not allowing RF, in a way you are replacing the lucky hit with a well placed blow, but I think it would limit it too much.

Can't recall seing any Accurate heavy weapons either, but I think that if there is one that I do kind of miss, it is the Heavy Sniper Rifle (comparable to the 12,7mm ones that exist today). This could be a heavy weapon, with the ability to damage light vehicles and the like in DH. I imagine that such a rifle would requre a Bipod to keep it steady, at least for a true "accurate" shot anyway. With the exception of the Lon-las, there doesn't seem to be any military specific sniper rifles (SP) in the game so far. I haven't gotten my copy of Deathwatch though, so I can't say if they have something there.

I imagine the reason that the reason that there is no such thing as an accurate Lascannon (although technically possible workmanship-wise I guess), is that a shot to someone's head vould more or less leave someone without a head in the first place, and that it would be hard to justify doing any additional damage, claiming you hit the eye or something similar. I think this would be more than covered by the normal damage roll, and the RF rule in the event of an extremly unlikely hit occurring.

Brother Praetus said:

I understand. :-) Taking "Lethality" away from players is rarely a popular choice after all, especially after they have spent some XP on gaining some skill or another. You easily get the "you're replacing my precious Bolgun with What?" reaction. hehe

I think that players who "were" highly trained snipers would still find themselves being so.

A sniper with just a regular hunting rifle with Man-stopper rounds loaded, could still grant the following Damage:

1d10+9 I, Pen 7, +6 Critical Damage. Add to this +1d10 I if the Pen of the attack was equal to or more than the target's AP on location struck. This is after choosing hit location as well mind you. In most cases, a shot would be an instant kill. :-)

I personally don't think this is more complicated, as the DoS are easy to calculate (and you still would need to do this according to RaW anyway).
In general there are less 1d10's to roll for, which translates into fewer RF's and following BS Tests) and f a target is hit well, there is probably less of a reason to keep track of the lower criticals on the tables (as they most likely will be quite dead on account of the Critical Damage Bonus). The only thing that complicates things a little bit, is the Pen of the Attack vs. the AP of the rmour, but that is not especially hard or tricky after all. If penetrated, just add +1d10 to dam.

I know it seems complicated, especially to the Accurate Description in the RAW alone, but I don'tthink this will pose much of a problem at all here. I think that it might actually speed up the game in fact, but in truth, that remains to be seen. Haven't gotten the chance to test it out yet, so...

Sister Cat said:

Chaplain Uziel said:

Well, there is the Sniper Rifle in IH... it seems to be essentially a heavy sniper rifle like the .50 cal, and has damage comparable to or better than the Heavy Stubber. We don't have stats for light armored vehicles in DH yet, but I imagine these weapons could take on normal vehicles at the least, or poorly armored light vehicles. It's not like a Barret .50 cal has much chance against a Bradly IFV anyway, and we already have rocket and missile launchers for such.

BTW, anyone else think it silly that Krak grenades have the same damage and penetration as an RPG? You'd think a large rocket in a tube would have better charge than a small handheld one....

Friend of the Dork said:

In game terms, the Krak grenade fired by an RPG launcher (as opposed to a missile launcher) is just a krak grenade; the charge is identical in all ways except the method of propulsion. The Krak Missile, from the Inquisitor's Handbook, deals more damage and has a higher Pen value.

As an aside, I have seen a total of one Accurate heavy weapon; the Thermal Lance in the Rogue Trader rulebook.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

Well it's even more silly to think that grenades meant for throwing, that has to be armed manually and is muscle-propelled can be put into a rocket-proppelled grenade launcher and launched... I mean there is no rocket to propell it!

Therefore it is naturaly to assume hand Krak grenades and those for RPGs are not quite the same but are supposed to perform similar enough that there is one damage etc. for each. The one in IH seemed to me an improved version and not the default RPG. To be honest the game designers were just lazy here.

When my PCs buy grenades (and since i let them buy the nice backpack ammo /power pack from Ascension and house-ruled it to be able to hold 60 grenades) i always aks them which one they want:

Hand-held,

40mm-launcher or

rpg-launcher sized.

the same way i always tell them to write down how much ammo for what weapon they have since i don't let them use sub-auotpistol-rounds in hand cannons and vice versa. Yes, i am a mean GM. Oh, and since fire bombs are in my eyes simple molotov cocktails, they can only be found in the hand-held variaty.

Back to Topic:

i house-ruled that accurate only receives it's damage-bonus against organic being (or being with enough organs to be vulnerable), meaning that things with the Machine 5+ trait, Daemonic, From Beyond and so forth do not get extra damage. Makes deamons rather tough, but my group has enough other ways to deal with such things.

Often enough simply running away.

Brother Praetus said:

Actually, I like that. *YOINK!*

But I still think I'll keep the limits on range for the extra damage ... medium or longer for basic weapons, and medium or shorter for pistol weapons.

Let's face it, rifles were not made to be accurate at SHORT range. They were designed to shoot things far away. And the reverse can, arguably, be said of pistols.

Sister Cat said:

Hmm no rifles were made to be generally accurate. Pistols were made to be easier to wield, use from horseback, and carry. Pistols are in no way more accurate than rifles at short or even point blank range. The only real drawback of a rifle at point-blank range is that you need to move more to adjust aim for moving targets, and moving a rifle is harder than moving a short pistol. Short range for a hunting rifle is 75 meters, and if you really think such a rifle is MORE accurate at 200 meters... [appropriate unsult here]. In RL sniper wants to be further from their target to avoid detection, not because they cannot hit well at 30 meters (and civillian snipers generally shoot at what we would call "short range" in DH).).

Giving Accurate pistols bonus die at short range only is a pretty good rule though, since pistols are generally easy to hit with at that range (10-15 meters).

I'm stealing the +1 die of damage for Accurate pistols as well. But I won't bother with the range limitations, partly for simplicity's sake.

But more importantly, I'd rather "nerf" full auto pistols by making more viable choices for players to use, rather then just breaking FA. The Carnodon seems like a bit of a beast now though...Dual Shot with aiming, accurate, Laser Sight etc. It might be necessary to houserule that Dual Shot is considered a single damage roll for the purposes of Accurate so only one extra d10 is possible.

Its still a bit too early to tell, but so far it seems like a decent enough change.