guest469 said:

Hehe, I super charge it and kill the Chaos Marine! Yeah.. right. But seriously the fluff supports the ability to kill a SM with lasguns, but that either requires an extremely accurate shot or tons of them. Even Power Armor has weaknesses and someone can find a weak spot and hurt the SM.

But one shotting is impossible in the rules already (which is a matter of balance and playability rather than fluff or realism), as SM has at least 8 TB and usually 15+ wounds. Unless you get Fury, which is not that unlikely with a hotshot charge (tearing).

BTW for that reason alone you might consider instead of getting fairly high + damage and penetration you get Tearing instead..

And yeah lots of good responses here. As I said, this has been debated heavily before and you're not the only one wanting to change it a bit

AppliedCheese said:

Yikes you want Afghanistan style combat in DH? Sure realistic, but frankly I don't think the system holds up to it. Yeah you can of course just tell the players they can't see the enemies (despite having +70 Awareness skill) at 100 meters and try to force them to return fire (instead of just running towards the enemy with Hard Target giving them -40 BS)... but the one with Crack Shot and the talent that allows shooting at extreme range with no penalty might be upset about that.

The rule about suppression only allowed on half base range of weapon also kinda ruins that part. In other words you need so much house ruling for this you might as well switch to GURPS: Modern warfare with all the advanced rules... Or maybe Twilight 2000 where most of the bullets you fire at full auto at range will be auto-misses and you only have a slight (say 3 to 5 on d20) chance to hit with a handful of them each round.

BTW alot of the ammo a soldier carries may noy be pre-loaded into box magazines, as modern ammo is fairly light. Standard 5.56mm NATO cartridges weigh about 12.3 KG for 1000 rounds - easily carried by a soldier (not counting whatever else he may need to carry). Soldiers knowing they might have to operate away from constant supply chains will want to carry as much as they can, sacrificing mobility.

But as my point was : "In the grimdark galaxy of Mankind, there is no Realism. There is only War!"

This is a game where shoddily crafted ork shootas outperform high-tech weapons, where "red goes fasta", where soldiers willingly run shooting TOWARDS the melee horde instead of moving back or and "chainswords" work, I don't really mind people standing and firing full-auto at point blank range.

The supply argument stands - the Empire has chosen the Lasgun for a good reason, it's just that the system doesen't always back up the fluff. If the system stands they would still use the Lasguns for training, and for fighting other humans, but would have alot more "Stormtroopers" with Autoguns (with alot of dum-dum and manstopper ammo) to deal real damage, and squads would be alot more Heavy Weapons focused, with Heavy Stubbers and Heavy bolters in every squad they can afford.

Most of the ballistic weapons in DH could use a lot of love to make them a little more interesting, little more like guns rather than stat blocks and diverse. But I don't have enough hours in the day to ret-con all that, then work, eat, sleep, annoy people on the internet and write adventures.

Lightwave stuff really isn't my game, its kinda close and I know a bit about low power, communications and industrial lasers, industrial masers sort of by default in a few areas. The thing with a laser is that it cuts the crap out of things with a lot of energy and in a lot of ways it would cause some really gruesome injuries not disimilar to being set on fire, explosive rupturing of fleshy tissue and lots of good old fashioned cutting **** up. But its real value is that training someone with it would be so **** easy- no windage, no projectile drop, no recoil: Just aim properly and you will hit what you're point at.

Now, as much as its often stated, the las gun is made for a number of purposes- ease of manufacture, maintenance, reliability, logistics and use, we shouldnt forget that the las guns primary purpose is to kill a variety of threats against the imperium.

i would remove the Extreme range penalty and reduce that to Long

I would add the following-

Variable rates of fire from single shot, multiple shot burst and fully automatic depending on the weapons design.

A larger magazine capacity for the power cell(s)

Increase the PEN by about 2 on Pistols and 3-4 on Rifles

All las weapons are accurate, ever seen an inacurate laser? An innacurate laser is a flashlght The laser hurts because you shot someone/something in a sensitive place that takes a lot of skill to do with a projectile weapon

Adjust the damage slighty, maybe +1-2 on Pistols and +2-4 on Rifles

They're really noisy, high capacity discharges of energy are very noticable!

They leave no traceable connection to the firer, the cops aren't going to drag a slug or chunk of shrapnel out of someone and trace it back to you

its not a lot, but it would make them a much more appealing weapon over a slug chucker and not punching too far out of their league.

Again a lot of replies...

@Catachan

I'm wondering whether the ceiling(T/ 2 ) houserule vs E and X isn't also interesting, though a bit time consuming and I get the feeling that this tips the scales tremendously vs the heavier encounters (which *is* a bit your point).

@Stormrodent:

Storhamster said:

Just to be sure:

The rules you use (as derived from your description) are:

FA: BS + 0, +1hit/DoS

SA: BS + 10, +1hit/DoS

Its not really logic I would gather its either +0 or +10 for both, or am I misinterpretating?

Edit: @MKX, missed your rep. while writing this. Basically you're saying +1-2 dam AND +1-2 pen on pistols and double that on rifles AND giving them more semi and auto burst. With such modifications I would have to swap the title of this topic around. I can see picking one of them, but certainly not all.

Let's summarize - note this summary is my interpretation incl. modification on what has been said :

The answer to my question: 'no you're not missing anything'

In all I think the 'charm' of the SP are the SA and FA, this is their area. You *can* have Las with SA and FA but they're just a lot more expensive and rightly so because of the immense power drain you have to do with every shot. So I would argue that Las shouldn't get any (extra) bursts. This leaves either:

1. nerfing SP
2. improving damage of Las.

1. I believe there has been one suggestion to nerf SP, which sounds attractive:

Remove the +20 BS on FA but increasing SA by +1 hit/DoS

2. There have been a LOT suggestions to improve Las:

• Add pen, e.g. 1 on pistols, 2 on basic and 3 on heavy (or double these numbers)
• Add damage, e.g. dito pen.
• Half T (rounded up) vs E (and X)
• Allow modifications (depending on quality of weapon): common +1 dam, 2 charges; good +2 dam, 4 charges; best +3 dam 8 charges
• extreme range = long range

There have also been given quite some reasons why Las (circumstance wise) is better then SP:

• there are circumstances that Ammo IS an issue
• charge packs can recharge (SP obvisouly not)--> Net 1 hour; In Bright Sunlight 8 hours; Overcast 12 hours.
• untraceable
• highly accurate
• easy to use/learn to use
• shooting with las into (so not from within) water is not a problem (although your angle might be slightly off due to the refractive index of air-water), with an SP it is. (The latter is confirmed by Mythbusters)
• its less pollutant (which really matters if you live in a Hive)

Stuff I certainly disagree with (mainly because I majored in physics):
Las is silen: No it isn't High energy discharges make a LOT of noise (unless in Vacuum of course)
SP doesn't work in Vacuum: Yes they do, they do not need (extra) Oxygen for combustion, its cealed within the compouns (else it wouldn't be an explosive).

Oh, I've got a ton of stuff to stuff to do to SP as well with the added bonus I personally know a lot about firearms, from their construction, mechanics and effects. Not a lot of hands-on experience with pistols, but a lot with rifles and some military odds and sods, so they to would be given a bit of love across the board rather than leaving one skewed in favour of the other.

Probably not inordinant amounts of bull sci-fi, but they have plenty of room for improvement with what I know about conventional weapons.

Plasma while Im at it also needs some fixin...

wolph42 said:

wolph42 said:

No he meant that SA should be inherently more accurate (because of less recoil I wager).

About MKX I agree those suggestion would seriously overpower the Las Weapons. After all, they are called "flashlights" for a reason and their technology is based on Star Wars and Star Trek realism...

The reason why I haven't really changed those weapons much is because just adding +2 damage is a serious boost in this game. +2 dam +2 Pen means the damage will be higher than the Heavy Stubber, while retaining the advantages of virtually unlimited ammo and being reliable. That alone is enough for most characters to want to get Las training asap if they don't begin with it, and stubbers will be simply for low-tech worlds or poor gangers who can't get anything else (although the cheap ammo means they will be forced to use las as well if they can get them).

So I would be very careful when boosting Las weapons, they are not THAT much worse than stubbers and only really bad compared to the ones in IH and of course those with Full Auto (which is the problem in a nutshell). Either boosting SA or nerfing FA is usually enough. Maybe giving laspistols SA mode (which frankly it has in the fluff) and boosting carbines +1 damage (reduced range should be enough).

MKX: After reading your new post I realize you intend more than just fix Lasguns, you want to overhaul then entire combat system. It seems all weapons will be overpowered after this, and you'd have to boost armor or something to compensate or accept very lethal combat.

I've edited the OP with the summary.

FA +0 and SA +10 because of recoil... sounds reasonable.

wolph42 said:

That is indeed the rules we play by

SA is more accurate simply because you have much more control over the weapon when firing on this mode. FA is hampered by recoil and an intense mussle flash (which can and will obscure sight for large caliber weapons).

wolph42 said:

It seems I didn't comment on these:

1. This doesen't nerf SP, it Nerfs Full Auto, which most SP weapons don't have. I agree it may be a good idea anyway. Still, a good quality or better .54 Tranter is generally a better choise than any Las pistol, including the Hellpistol which requires a **** backpack to use. I would also like to give the ordinary laspistol either a free Compact upgrade (with same damage and range) to represent it's sleek design and light weight, or simply SA RoF 2 to make it comparable to the Stub Automatic (which has higher damage and RoF but less ammo capacity).

2. IIRC on Mythbusters they proved that it quite some water to slow down the bullet enough. Firing IN water might be a different story, but from air into water (to hit a swimmer) would be possible with pistols and the like if the swimmer was not to far down (about 8 feet). Another potential problem with the LASER might be reflective surfaces like glass that might reflect or divert light beams.. not too good with physics to confifm that.

Silent.. well that's a stretch but it could be less noisy than a supersonic projectile. No stealth weapon, but maybe not the ENTIRE hab block hears it. But anyway it is described as a loud whip-crack noise.

Less polutant: Hardly matters compared to industry in a Hive - SP weapons being generally common in Hives also confirms this. Remember, in 40k there are no Liberals - there is only WAR!

Khouri said:

I thought it is also possible for Las weapons. Anyway, I would allow it for Las weapons as well in my game. Apart from that, most people have the Quick Draw talent anyway and armed with a Mark V Command Las Pistol (or however it is called) from the IH, you can switch the hot-shot packs right fast and therefore shot every round...

Hellpistols/-guns are also effective as...well...hell...against armoured opponents (who is not armoured in the 41st millenium?), especially the ones from RT.

The Lasgun’s reliable is not to be forgotten,

As a guardsmen, I started with a lasgun and choose to start with a shotgun. I spent most of the game gleefully firing off my lasgun to great effect while ignoring the shotgun completely. Finaly, we were in close quarter firefight when my lasgun pack finally drained, so I decided to pull out my shotgun and go for it. Aimed at the closest heretic, pulled the trigger and….

98

Fraking thing jammed. Needless to say, my guardsmen, after a few choose curses, threw the shotgun down, switched packs in the lasgun and righteous fury’ed twice. Now my guy is using his Hellgun to great effect, but still keeps that lasgun in mint condition mounted on his cabin wall.

Mood wise it is obvious why they would the Las Gun, it solves the problem of getting ammo to the frontline, the laspacks can be recharged...
The "normal" lasgun is reliable and can be considered to be the AK-47 of 40k.

Key is that it is great for starting player characters and great as antagonist weapons as they nicely balance RoF and damage to a survivable level.
The humble lasgun is a great weapon and if a player realy loves it why not award his loyalty to the weapon with an Archeotech Lasgun when he reaches higher levels...

Archeotech Laspistol: Range: 90m, S/3/-, 1d10+3E, Pen 2, Clip 70, Rld Full, Accurate, Reliable, 4 kg, Near Unique (from RT: Core)
Archeotech Lasgun: Range: 200m, S/3/6, 1d10+5E, Pen 5, Clip 150, Rld Full, Accurate, Reliable, 4,5 kg, Near Unique

Sovereign said:

well thats why it jammed... you threw the shotgun on the ground, disrespecting the machine spirit, what else did you use the gun for? propping open doors? paddling a canoe? playing baseball/cricket?

kids these days no respect for the simplest machines...

Friend of the Dork said:

1. I already updated that in the summary in the OP, I realised as well that its not really a SP nerf, just a rebalance

2. true, if the speed of the bullet is not TOO high it can still kill a swimmer at the surface, high velocity though are smashed to bits on the surface.
the 'less pollutant' well it was also mentioned as a plus... though come to think of it, if you look at the whole footprint, I doubt it.

Malkith said:

It did the jamming before i threw it on the ground, before that it had been lovingly maintained by myself and the tehpreist of the group

SP machine spirits, so fickle...las weapons are that way to go, awlays there when you need them:)

Hey guys,

I've been reading through this thread with some interest. I'm a bit of a supporter of Las over SP and I think that the Las weapons in DH are a little poorly represented. In the tabletop game/necro etc, Las weapons are on par with SP. Same damage, same range - main difference was Las used to give a -1 save modifier and passed an ammo roll on a 2+ rather than a 4+. Both gave +1 at short range. Not the best basis for figuring out how the weapons work, but the earliest understanding I had of weapons in 40k.

I'm in nearly 100% agreement with the logistical argument - a big part has to be ease of ammo aquisition. DH makes a big allowance on ammo being easy to pick up - no real differentation between pistol ammo on planet A or on planet B, despite the fact it would probably be very difficult to find an exact match.

Accuracy should be a big bonus for Las weapons. You point, pull the trigger and the shot goes where you pointed. No accounting for the fact the gravity on the planet the IG came from is 0.8G and the gravity on the planet they are going to is 1.1G... Lots of established fluff has autofire Las weapons - it could probably be argued that the rapid fire ability the lasgun had in 40k 3rd Ed was a full auto ability.

At the same time, I think full auto is a little too powerful in DH - I appreciated that at first tbh. D20 full auto rules generally suck, and I like my games to be harsh. Bullets kill - even a 'light' gunshot wound is going to put you on your bum. But when players are running around with uzi type stub guns purely due to full auto rules, then thats something that needs looked at. Probably less that the abilities of Las weapons (which I do think could be beefed slightly).

Oh, one other thing - fluff has las weapons setting things on fire. Fire has a particular place in the Imperial Creed, the holy light of the lasgun and the purging flames, etc. Another reason (albeit fluff related again).

Friend of the Dork said:

Shooting firearms at people is typically lethal, otherwise I'd send my NPC's and PC's in with rubber bats and harsh language. Most of the stuff I've done in the past when writing for RPG's is extensively tested by pet munchkins that can quickly tell me just how **** broken/worthless or otherwise silly something is in a live environment. I just gave some suggestions to beef up las guns a bit, mostly because since the game has been out and I've been running it, people piss the las gun off and go buy **** near anything else that isn't completely crap. As GM, I don't even bother giving NPC's a las gun anymore, they may as well be throwing rocks and to be honest, it isn't that bad a weapon from the lore. It isn't write home to mom awesome either, but its nowhere near as sh*tty as the examples in the base book or even the ones in the Inq HB.

Well, take for instance the one from the Imperial Infantrymans Primer, (I'll write it out for what its worth) Its AK-47 tough, quite a few words about that but I won't bother repeating.

The Standard M-G Short Pattern Lasgun

The lasgun possesses the following virtues-

• Lightness and strength
• Simplicity and ease of stripping in the field
• Ability to fire in bursts or in a succession of single shots

It operates on a nineteen megathule range and can therefore utilise any Dept Munitorum sanctioned power packs. It can be fire on two power settings, low and high. The lasgun has a distinct sound which can be useful to know on the battlefield. On the low power setting it has a whining sound and on a full power a sharp cracking report

Although of a universal design, variations do exist, usually dependant on the type of raw materials available on the planet of manufacture. You may come across either of these types which are most prevalent in this galactic sector.

1st Type (a) Wood Butt (b) Low foresight and backsight set in A/A sight blocks

2nd Type (a) Skeleton butt with metal cheek rest (b) High foresight with backsight set in A/A sight blocks

These specifications are universal for models constructed throughout the Imperium

(ii) Particulars-

• Service designation- Standard MG short pattern Lasgun/Lasrifle
• Weight- 2.3kg
• Length 90cm
• Magazine type- 19mt's (inc rechargable)
• Type of fire- Single shot or Fully Automatic
• Rate of fire- 220 shots per minute
• Shot intensity- low to high
• Sights- adjustable, back and front sights w/ optional laser sight/integral optics

Fair bit about field stripping, reloading and recharging- they charge off anything, heat, sunlight and of note they don't actually require any tools what so ever to take apart aside from something like a screwdriver (my bet is that the guard on a bayonet would do)... and lots of prayers

I also noted in the diagrams, there are optional barrels you can screw on for this particualy pattern, there's an extended barrel to turn it from being a carbine into a rifle and the long las barrel to turn it into a sniper rifle. It also has a slider bar so you can ramp the power up from "Tickles Gretchin" to "F**k Off" for when you need to make marines go away and 4 settings on the selector switch- A = Automatic R= Repetition - Single shot and S = Safety

Also much more sensible weights, I don't think anyone at BL knew what a kilogram was when they originally wrote it, 4kg when you walk with it on a strap for 10km gets REAL heavy, really quickly! It doesn't have an awesome ROF, about 1/3 of an equivalent contemporary assault rifle, but thats probably offset by having 2-3 times the magazine capacity for an overal higher cyclic rate of fire between reloads.

So if I was to design this as a package, I'd throw together something like this-

Las Gun (Standard Carbine)

Class- Basic

Range- 60m

RoF- S/2/6

Damage- Special*

Penetration- Special*

Magazine- 90

Reload- Full

Special- Reliable, High And Low Power*

Low Power does 1D10+3 Pen 2

High Power does 1D10+5 Pen 4 and uses 3 shots instead of one

Las Gun (Rifle Barrel) As above, Increase Range to 100m, Weight by 0.5kg, 3 rounds to change barrel

Las Gun (Long Barrels) As above, Increase Range to 150m, Weight by 1kg, 3 rounds to change barrel

Availability- they're everywhere!

wolph42 said:

1. I already updated that in the summary in the OP, I realised as well that its not really a SP nerf, just a rebalance

2. true, if the speed of the bullet is not TOO high it can still kill a swimmer at the surface, high velocity though are smashed to bits on the surface.
the 'less pollutant' well it was also mentioned as a plus... though come to think of it, if you look at the whole footprint, I doubt it.

Hmm yes BTW I guess this is talking about still water. IIRC it's the film on the water's surface that works as the "solid" part that smashes the bullet, thus firing at someone who just dived into the water (breaking the film) I suppose the bullet would remain intact. It would be similar to having bubbles rise to the surface in a pool designed for diving training to prevent bodily harm from body slam/splash.

BTW one thing no one has mentioned yet is another flaw for Lasguns: The energy critical table is probably the least lethal of them all, and although you may be permanently disfigured (Fel BECOMES 1d10!) most crits are just x levels of fatigue or maybe some stun (at a level which would otherwise be either death or Blood Loss).

Of course that's just as bad for other weapons such as Flamers and Plasma guns (which also are horribly underpowered in the main book).

MKX said:

Ok this deserves a reply in it's own post:

First: Weight, 4 kg is actually not that bad. Remember.. Boris the Blade: "Heavy is good. Heavy is Reliable. And if it doesen't work, you can always hit someone with it!"

My own country's rifle until recently actually weighs over 4 KG, and it was not unusual for rifles until the assault rifles became common. The 4 kg rifle is a ***** to carry, especially with heavy ammunition, but this was the norm for soldiers for centuries and I wager that with the lasguns, provisions and armor an Imperial Guardsman carries as much or more than our contemporary soldier, usualy 30-40 kg except for extreme situations.

If you want a lighter weapon the Las Carbine or the Autogun are lighter and more comparable to modern assault rifles or carbines.

Many weights in the game are weird though, especially for the autopistol and stub auto, and of course the fantasy weapons. A chain axe is ridiculously heavy for a melee weapon, which can even be used in one hand. It's alot heavier than medieval two-handed swords for instance. I'm not even going to mention the ridiculousness of chain weapons in WH40k at all... it was never meant to be realistic, but good fun and excaggerated combat.

Do you really want a realistic system? Do you realize what it entails? Combat in RL is dangerous. In fact, it's so dangerous that at "equal" terms combatants generally withdraw, take cover and wait for backup. In real life combat is often extremely one-sided, but because everyone knows that in a "fair" fight it's pretty much 50-50 who will win. Any untrained freedom fighter with an ak can easily kill an expert special forces soldier at short range (and at point-blank range it would be very difficult to miss at all). And despite their training, reflexes and armor, this unskilled "noob" can kill him in less than a second.

In real life there is no such thing as a "toughness bonus" that acts as armor, the skin simply don't ward off bullets. A well placed or lucky shot from the lowest calibre can still be lethal. Also, there is no guarantee that a rifle shot to the head means the enemy can't fire back and kill you, humans have been known to take seemingly deadly hits and still keep going. It takes several seconds for a man to die even when shot in the heart, in which time he can cause deadly injuries on several others.

So how do you want combat in your game? Do you want to play it safe so that acolytes will actually survive for a time, or do you want them to burn fate points in almost every combat encounter? In the first case that means having the enemy be completely suprised and the acolytes having vast firepower at their disposal, in addition to good cover. Or it may require the acolytes to have suberb intel and refusing to go into a building unless they have had surveillance on it for days to figure out how many cultists there are and where they are, or maybe they will just burn down or blow up the whole thing.

Real combat isn't fun. It's anticlimactic, it's one sided, or it's suicidal. Damage takes forever to heal, and many wounds will never heal. The system already assumes that acoytes will be injured quite frequently in combat, which is why we have "wounds" which basically is the same as D&D hit points (yes it is!) which is an arbitrary number of damage that does nothing to the human body.

So you might as well just remove the wound system altogether and have all damage suffered after armor and TB go directly to critical hits, or maybe just remove the TB and double the armor bonus (after all armor matters alot more than your inherent "toughness").

Of course despite all this the combat system will not magically be realistic, since real life is so much more advanced. There are so many factors to incporporate unless you are willing to eschew it for a more abstract system like the DH one. I have tried systems attempting to simulate realism as much as possible and concluded that they are essentially unplayable, and takes alot of math and time to play with.

So nowadays I settle for playability and "rule of fun", cause that's what it's all about.

As for your Lasgun rules: You do realize that there is almost no reason not to use the high setting all the time? It totally negates common armors, and deal enough damage that you could reliably take down an enemy soldier in a few hits or a single lucky one. The low setting, although better than the original, is not necessary unless you're down to your last power pack with no chance of recharging. You still get 30 shots out of it, which is as as good as the autogun.

I'd use the Energy Crit table from RT, Head 6+ are all fatal.

I dont understand the need to change the rules. If you want to run a heroic, cinematic game let them use SP and never worry. If you want Gritty and Grim, send them on a planet with zero ammunition factories and local black market dominated by Chaos cultists who dont deal in imperial money...

Netherek said:

Disregard this, I read the wrong table, they are arranged in a different order in RT.

For energy crits I'd just add a toughness save or die on the level befor fatal as all other crits do the same.

Netherek said:

I hadn't indeed noticed the lesser fatality of the E crit table. I'm curious to your rule but your description is too vague.

Do you mean if you get a crit of 6+ on any table you need to save a T test or die?

As for MKX and FotD's epistols. I fully agree with FotD, I've held a lengthy epistol myself once concerning 'realism' in the Warhammer Fantasy setting and it always boils down to the same rule

game realism = inversed(game simplicity)

and since:

"Fun" will only be found between:

too simple - fun - too complex

And 'simple' and 'complex' are very subjective terms, its everyone for himself. Though as RPG is generally played in groups and groups only stay together when its fun... the stuff will balance itself out to a playable system.

I don't have my book handy, but I believe it'd 7 and 8 for head and body and 8 for arms and legs. Check Rending and Impact crits, I think it should have the same save or die as those....

BTW, here is a list of critical tables, in order of lethality:

1. Explosive

2. Rending

3. Impact

4. Energy

I've perused these quite alot since I made my own Ballistic critical table since I thought impact/bludgeoning and bullets don't mix. My Ballistic table is somewhere between Point 1. and point 3. on the lethality scale. Bullets are dangerous in my game, but tends to deal alot less fatigue and can let you fight on even if you've taken lethal damage.