Okay, aside from the fact that bolter names don't fit earlier fluff ("Godwyn" patter bolter which is here described as being Deathwatch-issue, is, according to earlier sources the same weapon Adepta Sororitas use... and according to FFG AS don't use "real mens" bolters) and bolters being ridiculously enough more powerful than plasmas and meltas I recently found out that the weapon statistics don't even match FFG:s own fluff, right there in the same book:

"Even the Fire Caste's standard issue weapon, the pulse rifle, is a marvel of technology, surpassing even the Adeptus Astartes boltgun in its destructive capability" ~core rulebook, p 365

ORLY?

Pulse rifle: 150m, 2d10+2E, S/2/4, Pen4, Gyro-stabilized

Astartes Bolter: 100m, 2d10+5X, S/2/4, Pen5, Tearing

Now in which way exactly does this "marvel of technology" surpass AA bolter?

I'm seriously thinking of rewriting all the **** weapons because the original writers have obviously done piss poor job at it. The weapon stats is easily the worst chapter in DW book and probably some of the worst blunders FFG has ever made... I would have expected more from a game so focused on combat.

Obviously they forgot to add "at ranges in excess of 400m (excluding special bolter ammunition types)"

In seriousness, I agree. While I find the book to be fantastic on many counts the irksome mistakes with some of the mechanics is disappointing.

Polaria said:

The sisters actually use the Godwyn-Daez pattern boltgun, not the Godwyn . This is stated in the Witch Hunters codex. The Godwyn is still described as being one of the most commonly issued patterns in the new Space Marines codices, though there are numerous older patterns in use; the Dark Angels use the Mk. IIIa Godwyn . I was surprised that the Tau Pulse Rifle didn't include the accurate quality in its specials. It seems it would make an excellent sniping weapon.

Go about fixing what you feel is off. After all, according to the IHB for Dark Heresy the Angelus Bolt Carbine (page 109) fires Astartes grade rounds at only 2d10 damage.

-=Brother Praetus=-

Remember, if you don't like how things are and feel they should be changed it is perfectly acceptable to do so. It's your game....play it how you feel it will be best.

muzzyman1981 said:

No, no if he does the vegan police comes and takes his powers away

I agree that the bolter damage seems high compared to other weapons. However I can understand why it was set at 2d10+5 rather than 2d10. 2d10 is very random - even with tearing - and you don't want to make the default marine weapon so unpredictable or unreliable as that could well create a negative play experience.

I reckon you could be better off upgunning other weapons rather than downgrading the bolter - perhaps some of the bolter damage (in my head the +5) comes from the ridiculous amount of training all marines get with the weapon. the angelus 2d10 reflects the normal effectiveness of the weapon in mundane hands.

I plan on giving all meltaguns the same damage as multi-meltas as at the moment I cannot see why anyone would carry them. Plasma guns might need a slight bump in rate of fire on maximal but are otherwise still pretty good.

Brother Praetus said:

Except if we trust Witchhunter codex Godwyn-Deaz is fully comparable to Godwyn pattern... Which would mean same caliber ammuniton with same properties etc. But that is beside the point unless I'm running Deathwatch against Ordo Hereticus (unlikely) campaign.

As for bolters themselves I'm thinking of dropping them to 2d10+Tearing flat. Yes, it means that Loyalist and Chaos marines have to start using auto-fire to kill each other but I think this depicts the fluff more accurately than might shot talented tactical marine doing single-shot kills. Against lesser equipped foes with no unnatural toughness... Well, they mostly come in Hordes so the damage doesn't matter much. Even one point is enough to lower horde magnitude by 2 (X quality bonus included).

The other option would be to buff pretty much all other weapons, but I'm loath to do this because it would make them far more lethal against player characters themselves. I'd rather downgrade players killing power by little than dive into "one-hit-one-burned-fate-point" world whenever enemies have some support weapons available. Thats said, I'm still giving meltas and plasmas Felling quality (1 for plasma 2 for melta).

As for plasmaguns and Meltas being weak in comparison to bolters. I have read this a few times and looked through the weapon table again today.

Why do you think of them as being so weak? I mean they can get +1d10 damage to their basic profiles, if you either are very near the target, or
are using them at full power. With that they would make (at least on a single target) much more damage per hit than a bolter does (or am I overlooking something here?)

RyueOkami said:

Remember you can hit 4 times with a bolter (or 8 with a storm bolter). The full auto gives you a massive boost in accuracy and you outrange meltaguns by 320m (520m if you have krakens). A tactical marine with Krakens can bang out 4 hits at 2d10+7 pen 8 tearing with no need to cool down or get close so generally unless the target has enough toughness/armour to completely negate the bolter damage it will be superior to the meltagun or plasma gun in my opinion. Since bolters get all the special ammo and can fit fire selectors to increase ammo capacity they are really flexible as well.

I haven't read all the posts but I agree with the OP. Luckly I found that I was pretty happy with things if I just changed it so that every Astartes weapon that got an additional 1d10 of damage instead got +2 damage. Its a quick fix but it keeps the weapons much more in scale IMO. The only one im not to happy about was the Lascannon as Into the Storm showed that Fury Interceptor lascannons did 5d10+10 and I dont think Astartes ones should do more.

Hope that helps.

Kaihlik

I'm just considering retcon'ing all Bolters in DH & RT to Astartes levels.

@Kaihlik: The problem in significantly nerfing "Astartes" weapons is that they tend to turn harmless to Astartes themselves... Which in turn makes Loyalist vs. Chaos Marine matches turn a bit silly.

@Darknite: I've been using 2d10, Pen5, Tearing as the "baseline" for DH and RT bolters for some time now. The "baby-proofed-bolters" of DH/RT core rules were just idiotic idea to start with.

I'd be quite happy to swap the 2d10+5 for the Bolter with the 2d10+2 for the Pulse Rifle and vice versa. That way, the Bolter isn't quite so powerful and the Tau DO have a better weapon

What about making them 1d10 + 10? This would give them a damage range of 11 - 20 and assire they dont get a silly low amount of damage.

Darq said:

Except that I could imagine that Space Marine bolters would suffer, somewhat, from "over penetration", where the bolt penetrates a person so well it comes out of the other side before exploding, which, whilst still doing damage in the form of a bullet hole, would not do the damage that the bolt exploding inside the target would. As such, the possibility for both a high damage roll, and a very low one, works.

This is why I tweaked most bolt weapons in DH/RT to do 2d10 like the bolter in DH that uses Astartes rounds, because, to me, it represented the two extremes in damage I imagine bolters doing.

Why not increase the Pulse Weapons to 2D10+5 Pen 5, with Bolters to 2D10+3 Pen 5? On TT Pulse Weapons have AP 5, but Pulse Weapons are Str 5 while Bolters are Str 4. It's only a 2pt difference for the Bolters and a 2-3 pt difference for Pulse Weapons.

I think you all have been overlooking one very crucial point: Space Marines (including Chaos Space Marines) all have the TRUE GRIT talent.

Thus, if you nerf any weapon damages, you'll end up with critically wounded SM and CSM shooting and shooting at each other.

Let's take a look at a hypothetical hit by a boltgun on the torso of a CSM... The weapon does on average 16 damage but if we take Righteous Fury into account, let's bump that up generously to 21 points on average. The CSM absorbs 8 + (10-5) = 13 points of damage. That equals a Critical Damage of 4 - not good enough to kill a CSM on any damage table.

In order to kill a CSM hitting the body you need Crit Damage of 8 (same with other location except head). That means 16 damage points need to get through. With a soak of 13, it means you need to have 28 points (rounding up) of damage with 2D10+5 tearing. Not an easy feat.

I can see many SM and CSM fighting with a number of amputated limbs.

Secondly, you need to take the progression of 40K into account - from the venerable standard bolter to the Lascannon. Now take a look at the progression of damage and Penetration in DW... do weapons like the Plasma Gun or meltagun have their right. Not to mention that it's harder for Enery Criticals to kill the being hit.

Giving the Plasma Gun and the Meltagun an additional D10 is by no means excessive if you calculate it through, taking True Grit into account. (Which is the most valuable combat skill to have, I find.)

So, I think - don't nerf bolters, boost certain other weapons.

Alex

I'm really baffled why it's so hard to model the weapons in a way that is consistent with the fluff or with the other 40k Roleplay lines. These are professional game designers and I've written homebrew rules that were far more internally balanced and well thought out. In fact, I think I'm just going to finish my 40k adaptation of the Shadowrun system and be done with it. Then I don't have to deal with this nonsense or the other ridiculous design decisions FFG has made. I'm still pissed at them for including a mere six chapters, and then making the chapter rules completely non-modular and non-transparent so that custom chapter creation is a pain in the ass.

Atheosis said:

****, I just typed in a post comparing 40K Weapon Strength and DW Damage stats and it seems I didn't send it off properly. Don't want to type it all in again now... so now in short:

Just try to boost Plasma Gun and Meltagun by D10, I think it will work. Assault Cannon needs an overhaul (but that's a weapon for higher ranking SM anyway) and a few xeno weapons too. But it seems to be manageable. Unless I'm overlooking yet another special rule, I have to ask myself though - what were they thinking? Parts of the book seem to be a rush job.

I guess the problems will get smoothened out in the next few weeks though House Rules.

Alex

Polaria said:

When you have 150% of the base range and a trait that allows more accurate fire out to the extremes of that range, you do have a pretty big advantage.

Polaria said:

If you look at the numbers:

Pulse Rifle Range 150
Short 3-75 @ +10
Medium 76-300 @ +0
Long 301-450 @ -10
Extreme 451-600 @ -10 Gyro Stabilized

Bolter Range 100
Short 3-50 @ +10
Medium 51-200 @ +0
Long 201-300 @ -10
Extreme 301-400 @ -20

Pulse Rifles are in medium range while Bolters are at long range, and the Pulse Rifle has an effective range 200m longer without the big penalty for extreme range. That is a HUGE advantage, especially when you look at the fact that every Fire Warrior in a squad will have this range. That 200m equates to 10 rounds of running that most infantry will need to do just to get into extreme range with them.

I used to have a job where I finished all my work for the day in about an hour. I would then spend the other seven (7) hours of the day surfing the internet and debating online. That job helped my writing skills considerably. After loosing too many hour long arguments to the ether I started typing them up in Microsoft Word, and then transferring them over. It works well.

ItsUncertainWho said:

It's actually a -30 at Extreme Range.

For my part, I don't know exactly what I will do for plasma guns, but I will probably double the penetration of a Meltagun at short range (more or less as in the TT game), beacause for the moment, a meltagun cannot nearly hurt a rhino tank with AP 30+ !

And according to the tremendous amount of damage it should cause to armoured targets in its description, it is for the moment much more easier to shoot down tanks with a heavy bolter... o_O

Quileurbist said:

Hmmm... beyond short range it does now do on average 19 points of damage with a Pen of 13. That would mean that with AP30 2 points would penetrate. If you used my suggestion and gave it another D10 damage and added D10 penetration at short range instead of damage, it would mean 13 points would pentrate (at short range). If you instead double pen at short range, it means that about 20 points would penetrate per hit.

Don't have vehicle rules so I can't callibrate the guns against vehicles though.

Alex