Hello Fellow Battle-Brothers,

to be honest, right from my first view I was surprised how low the characteristics of the emperor's finest are. After having played some sessions I did realize that there is no problem with low stats because there are a lot of talents and traits which compensate for it.

But after a second thought I ask myself if it is necessery to have such a complicate system.

Let's have a look at some characteristics and assume them to be 50!

1. Toughness:

I think one of the main issues is to shrugg of damage. And since you are no mere acoluth like in DH you should be able to compensate more damage and thus gain the Unnatural Toughness Trait. But why? Can't you just assume that your Space Marine has a Toughness of 70, 80 or even 90? Then you would have nearly the same damage reduction.

You think that score it too hight? Why? Let's think about resisting poison.

Your Preomnor gives you +20 vs. Poison and your Oolitic Kidney let's you re-roll failed toughness tests vs. poison. So by statistics to have twice a 70% means nearly 90 percentage.

It is the same with the Mucranoid which let's you re-roll failed Toughness tests vs. extreme heat or cold. To be able to re-roll 50% means you have chance of success by 75%.

So right from the start you could simply assume a space marine has super characteristics given by his super implantats and just say Toughness equals 80 or 90.

2. Willpower:

Similar calculations can be done with Willpower. To protect your Space Marine from being pinned you get Nerves of Steel . Again, two times 50% mean 75%. So why not give the space marine an upper Willpower of 80?

3. Strength:

I also do not understand this one! First your space marine has to deal a lot of damage with his melee weapon, so he is given again unnatural strength to double the bonus. But again in a mere contest of strength he is just a little above a well trainged arbitrator.

Since he has such a low strength score there must be another reason why he can wield heavy weapons without a problem where other people have to brace first. Another talent.

Why not simply raise his Strength score to 80 or 90 ? With that you have nearly the same damage bonus to melee weapons and could simply argue: "People with such a strength of 70 or more do not need to brace any more due to their sheer muscles!"

I think there could be many more examples.

With that adjustments you could skip a lot of traits and talents. You say that you have super characteristics due to super implantats.

And you do not have to calculate your boni each time to get a percentage in the end which is near 80 or 90.

What do you think?

Best regards,

TechVoid.

TechVoid said:

You're right Unnatural Ability mechanics is a bit contrieved. However the good thing is that in 40K Roleplay even super-duper mega heroes can fail tests. Willpower of 80 would be too high - how high would the WP of librarians have to be?

In the end, from a simulationist pov, the mechanics suck. But from a game pov, it make sense. If the Space Marines have a significant change of not succeeding, it keeps the game more thrilling. When arm wrestling with an arbitrator, I'd probably give them +10 to the test for each level of Unnatural Strength too.

Personally I don't mind minor glitches like this if the core system works well enough. So far (DH, RT) I think it does.

Alex

The difference is that a base skill of 80-90 nearly assures success on most tests, while a re-roll still allows slightly more room for failure and just feels better. Additionally, with an 80-90, you have little if any room for improvement via Advancements. Also, not all cases of taking a toughness test have a bonus applied, which allows for more granularity than a 90 across the board score.

Your suggestion removes some fairly simple rules for what benefit? You'd likely have to add additional rules, specifically toxins and such that apply a higher penalty to toughness tests to compensate.

@ak-73, The Unnatural Characteristics mechanics already include bonus DoS and decreased difficulty.

Radomo said:

I have said what I have said in knowledge of that. In fact I have said it because of these fairly "lame" bonuses.

Alex

Thanks for the replay,

my intention is to simplify it. As I said, I think you can just skip some traits or talents with their extraboni if you just sum up: "All these implantats lead to higher characteristics."

Radomo said:

Oh boy,

it is just a detail we are talking about. But even now, with a Toughness of 50, +20 from Oolitic Kidney and +10 from the Biomonitor from the Power Armour you have eighty percent and with re-rolling you have 96%. Even now a space marine ignores poisons or his Toughness jams!

Radomo said:

All I remove is calculating boni from two different sources and the fact that you have to roll once more.

Radomo said:

And even now, just read some line above, you need some really strong poisons which includes some penalty to threaten the space marine.

I think I have just a different picture in my mind about space marines and a different style of play. I think if you want to play truely epic there is no need tension in hitting the enemy. "Oh, a tyranid warrior. I have my full auto and he is enormous in size, together with tearing quality and an automatic confirmed rightous fury, you have a pretty chance to strike him down with one attack."

We are not talking about possibly striking down a tyranid. We are having the odds against us and see what can we do about it...

There are still plenty of actions that involve situations where the raw characteristic score is used rather than the characteristic bonus.

For example, during grapples- it's an opposed strength test unaffected by unnatural strength. Effects like suffocation are toughness checks. With an increased willpower, psyker would never have a chance of failing their focus tests while many talents do provide bonuses to passing other willpower tests.

Tidomann said:

Yes, as I said before that I do not fully understand how a superhuman with namely given unnatural strength has a plenty chance to loose in arm wrestling against an imperial guardsman. He has even a bulking bices which ignores weapon bracing - but only when concerned with weapons. While arm wrestling his biceps is shrinking...

Tidomann said:

And modified by your multi lung which lets you re-roll failed tests of drowning and suffocation. So with Toughness 50 you have by statistics 75%. Versus gases you gain +30 and may re-roll. So you have a 96% to ignore it. Again - you succeed or your multi-lung jams.

Tidomann said:

So what? You will tell me that a well trained space marine with psy rating 3 (in game terms) should have a chance of not succeeding? Yes, there could be a chance, but it should be very low.

Man, there are so many other factors like time and DoS.

What if your Psipower takes a full-round for example. Yes, you could wield it without a problem but then you would have no time to take cover. Will you risk it to stand openly on the battlefield? And since you sometimes depend on DoS, maybe you just did not roll so well and the enemy ignores most of your power.

Again, I just want to talk of another level. That it should not be the core question if someone succeeds or not but if he takes the action or not.

If you have four space marines and say six tyranid warriors. Yes, every space marine could kill one, but then two are left and will close to melee combat. Would you risk it or just take another tactic. What real advantage do you have, if you succeed in every action but that is just not enough!

Best regards,

TechVoid.

TechVoid said:

This assumes that arm-wrestling is even a test at all, which is the usual flaw with this argument (alongside failing to take into account how the Opposed Test rules actually work), whomever it happens to be about.

Fundamentally, I would never require arm-wrestling to be resolved by an Opposed Strength Test - the one who is stronger wins, just as I'd never make characters test against their height to determine who is taller. It's a simplistic demonstration of raw strength, and nothing else, and thus does not have rules applied to it. It's the GM's call as to whether or not a situation requires a Test, and speaking as a GM, this isn't a situation that I feel warrants one.

When it comes to wrestling - that is, grappling, which was discarded as the argument of choice by people complaining about the opposed test rules when they found out that the rules didn't work like they thought - the chances are more in favour of the Marine than they look, because no single opposed test represents absolute success or failure. Assuming a starting, unarmoured Marine with an average strength of 41, against an average (as per Dark Heresy) starting Imperial World human with Strength 31, a given Opposed Strength Test will be won by the Marine 40.9% of the time, won by the human 18.39% of the time (all but 0.1% of which comes from passing when the Marine fails), and result in a stalemate 40.71% of the time (when both fail)... except that the test only determines a single part of the overall grapple (during the attacker's turn, success deals unarmed damage, while failure only means that no damage is caused this turn, while on the defender's turn, success means escape and failure means you remain grappled)

Just to clarify on what No-1 is saying, remember that unnat char provides a bonus to DoS in opposed tests, and that the opposed test is also easier. Add to that the marines generally high statistics, and the system certainly favours space marines over others (unless of course, they have superior stats).

Of course, there is still some chance in the way things work, hence why there are dice rolls.

I guess my problem is, why are you trying to make it such that rank 1 characters are near 100% successful at things (before modifiers)? Things are interesting when there is a chance of failure. Not a chance of being less awesome. I mean, maybe thats how you interpret the fluff, and thats great, but still, being that this is a game, failure is very important.

While I can accept these changes "simplify" things, I think it is an oversimplification.

KommissarK said:

Agreed, Space Marines are Super-Human... not Super-Man... you know, the guy that makes winning inevitable.

Now, if we were talking about the Emperor pre-throne days... then you might be onto something.

SpawnoChaos said:

What do you mean?

TechVoid said:

I think he means that Horus was only able to hurt the Emperor because he must have had a fist full of kryptonite.

Alex

KommissarK said:

Yes, I agree totally. But for my understanding I try to get away from failure due to bad luck.

See, I think the mission in the core rulebook has an excellent example:

When the space marines encounter the poor pdf troop the author says that it is possible that the players just ignore it and go on. Because they have no time to spend. Think about it: The mighty space marines might fail...

... but not because of some dice but because they followed a wrong decision. They helped the pdf troop and ran out of time to finde the magos.

As I mentioned for myself in another thread, that we choose dice for taskresolution in a roleplaying game and for that reason we have to live with failure if the dice fall the wrong way. All I want to point out that this game might be an excellent example where you depend less on the dice but more on the players decision. More responsibility.

So I hope the next DW books show more of these situations like in Extraction. These are sources for good roleplay.

And for the simplification. I do not think that I oversimplify - all I point out is that we could skip a lot of talents and traits and thus following calculations, because it makes no difference if we add bonuses from two different sources and allow re-rolling...

... or just take a much higher characteristic score.

Best regards,

TechVoid.

If that's your goal, why don't you just play free-form and ignore the dice entirely? I don't see why it's a problem that the PCs can fail due to bad dice. It really sounds like you want a more cooperative storytelling experience than a game.

TechVoid said:

Re: Less on dice; to an extent, sure, but you can do that in DH, RT, White Wolf Games, or even D&D- just let the characters 'win' at what they're doing without argument. To me, that is more cooperative storytelling, like Radomo suggests- it's whatever the whim of the GM and his players decide. The reason we picked dice is covered by another thread and a half, but ultimately people seem to like dice. I think there was a game that was released years ago called Amber, or Alibaster, or something- the same company that published TMNT, that was touted as 'diceless roleplaying' and I don't think it sold very well.

As for Extraction, simply create adventure plot points or moral quandries in your missions and bam, you've got your RP opportunities you're looking for. You can also create these based on successful or failed roles, for what it's worth (oops, failed the charm test, now what do you do to get the information from the guard?)

Re: simplification; you could do this, and replace things with a higher bonus, but then what of certain other traits, like power fists that grant Unnatural Strength, or Felling weapons that remove unnatural toughness? What do you do with all of the enemies with unnatural characteristics? What do you do with the balance that they've put in the game (yeah, balance is its own argument)? How to you interface the game with Dark Heresy or Rogue Trader? Re-Rolling? What do you mean by that, the use of fate or righeous fury? Remember these rules were built off of an existing line, and are theoretically compatible. Blowing away the modifiers and just making your Marines have stats of 90s in everything feels, to me at least, as lessening the other lines unnecesarily and makes the Marines much less interesting as characters because they're too uber. I like my characters badass, but with a side order of vulnerability and fear.

Yeah,

maybe you are right: Don't tune a running system.

But sometimes it just feels so strange if I think about basic situations like bolter training. Guess the marine has to shoot a target and may aim which gives him a +10 bonus to BS. Now with BS 50 he reaches BS60. Let's assume standard circumstances (no size and no disctance bonuses). That's all?

That does not seem to be a bio-engeneered and upper-trained super soldier.

A friend of mine invented his own system with percentage. He has something like degrees of success but working differently.

Let's assume you have BS 90, then you hit better under 45 and hit best under 9. So he simply takes the half and the tenth part.

With that calculation his group plays space marines with balistic skills around 150 to 200%. They automatically hit, like I would expect from a space marine and sometime they hit better and on rare occassion deal instantly critical damage.

So what would happen if you give a marine BS 100%. With a single shot he always hits (assuming standard situation). And with full-auto you have 120% and you hit 7 times on average (5 from 100% plus 2 automatic success due to 120%). Is that so much? Maybe I really have just a different understanding!

For example, you decrease a horde's magnitude by 7. If you throw a blast (5) granat you nearly have the same effect.

I think I really have the picture in my mind: In DH you ask if you hit, in DW you just ask how well!

Best regards,

TechVoid.

TechVoid said:

Remember that the basic (unmodified) to-hit roll is against a target that is aware of you and trying to avoid being hit/making themselves a target. The unmodified chance of success for any test is meant to represent a challenging task. This applies everywhere in the system, but combat is a good place to demonstrate it.

A BS50 Marine, aiming for a second or two (half action) and shooting at a stationary man-sized target (such as an unaware enemy) will hit 90% of the time at between 51 and 200 metres. Whether or not the target is aware of you/moving makes a considerable difference.

Because the combat rules assume, not inappropriately, that combat is going on and everyone involved is acting accordingly, the basic chances of hitting a target are lower than they would be for simpler tasks like target practice.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

Yeah, but an average Dark Heresy mook is hitting on 70 in the same circumstances. And they could be hitting on 80 if they rolled as well as the Marine.

10 point bonus. Thats all there is.

I think that to try to keep commonality with the wargame stats they tried to go for Marines having piss poor stats and making up some of the difference with a laundry list of traits. That this makes Marines look unimpressive and means a Marine stat block is massive and difficult to distil down in to what you need to roll are unfortunate side effects that sadly won't be fixed until second edition ditches the WFRP system entirely.

AluminiumWolf said:

It's an easy shot. If anyone had difficulty doing it, then there'd be a problem.

AluminiumWolf said:

And whether or not that difference needs to be bigger is purely a matter of personal opinion. You're welcome to dislike it, but that isn't my problem.

AluminiumWolf said:

Again, purely your opinion. While others may agree with you, that doesn't inherently make it truth. Nobody in my Deathwatch group has complained about feeling unimpressive, nor have any of my other players in the Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader games I've run. It's an unimpressive statline only if you ignore how the game actually works, and while you may dislike the way the game works, don't assume that not liking the game and it being broken are the same thing.

I think it is a fairly big design flaw that a lot of peoples first impression of their Space Marine is going to be one of disappointment, and that what should be the entry level game (Marines being the big draw of 40k) is instead a mass of special rules and exceptions.

AluminiumWolf said:

And I think that it is a fairly big flaw in logic to think that a lot of peoples first impressions of their Space Marines is going to be of disappointment.

I also do not believe that it was ever FFG's intent to have Deathwatch be considered an "entry level game". Yes, this is the first rulebook of the Deathwatch series, and therefore is the "entry level" rulebook of the system... however, it is by no means an "entry level" game in the series using the same rule system.

In fact, it's the most powerful entry in their system, placing the PC's in control of Super-Characters that are normally reserved for the likes of the NPC's.

To assume that the final entry in this rule system that emphasizes the insane abilities of the Adeptus Astartes as only being a "mass of special rules and exceptions", is not having a clear understanding of what came before.

From a sheer power level perspective, your Space Marine characters could kill droves of Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader characters at the same time. It would only make sense that there would need to be some difference in how they were handled vs. the prior systems mechanics.

Also, I don't know anyone that I've talked to that has played either Dark Heresy or Rogue Trader and told me after playing Deathwatch that they were "unimpressed" with what their characters could accomplish.

The more I think about this topic the more I have the impression that it is simply from a game-mechanical point of view. You roll some dice and thus to keep things interesting there must be a pretty chance to fail.

These thoughte came up when I played again Death Angel or Space Hulk. In these games you play space marines (veterans?!) with terminator armours.

In Death Angel you have a 50% chance of success for each attack, in Space Hulk even 30%. But with these games it seems to be okay, there is no complaining that a terminator should hit a genestealer with every attack. Maybe he does but not everey attack is lethal and since the game is very abstract and simplified...

... the other way would be something like chess. There you have no random events only success or failure depending on your decisions.

And I think the more it gets personal the more you like to have the proper feeling. In Death Angel or Space Hulk you simply play a tactical wargame but with Deathwatch it is different. You play a Space Marine for yourself. You can make right or wrong decisions and maybe that is the reason why some people would like that a Space Marine is more responsible for his actions and need not cover behind the dice rolls.

SpawnoChaos said:

Well, I'm arguing that it Should be the entry level game, because it is the game most likly to bring in new players.

AluminiumWolf said:

Well, it was never Black Industries/Games Workshops intention that Deathwatch would be the "Entry Level" game either. It has always been thought of as the upper tier of the RPG from the original announcement years ago.

ItsUncertainWho said:

Yeah - and it was a mistake then and it hasn't gotten any righter since.