Hey again,

I have posted some of the house rules in another topic but I was asked to seperate the changes so that they could be better compared against the existing core rules. This is basically a cut and paste job so their may be some grammar issues.

The first change is a fairly dramatic one as it relates to the bolter. It is clear to me that a weapon that is put in the players hand at the very beginning of the game should not outperform high cost specialized weapons in most cases. Some people may argue that on a shot per shot basis the plasma gun outperforms the bolter and they would be right some of the time. If, however, you take into account specialized rounds like the kraken variant and full auto that difference becomes quite absurd.
The bolter changes are as follows:

Bolter (Godwyn): Range 100M Damage 1D10+8 Penetration 4 Type (X) Special attribute Tearing

While this is an obviously significant decrease in potential damage output it does immediately make other weapons more viable. As for the fairly limited affect the weapon has against hard targets like a Space Marine, I feel this is true to the cannon as it has been stated that the Astartes power armour was designed to be able to take a bolter round at 20 feet. That said, with just 5 requisition the bolter can still do a decent job of putting even a Space Marine down. All bolter weapon types are similarly reduced in damage with the Heavy bolter having range 150M 1D10+12 penetration 5.

This is really an effort to bring the Deathwatch ruleset into line with the existing core books so that a rogue trader character could actually play with a marine.

Hadriel said:

Have you had a chance to play test these out at all? The static damage bonuses can be a double edged sword, I'd be interested to see how they played out on a real table with real (unreliable and average defying) dice. The average damage profile of yours versus RAW isn't that different, so I'd expect to see the real good/bad in the extreme ranges.

I would think that lowering penetration by 1 point and removing 1D10 to add a +3 to damage bonus is a fairly significant change to the core.

Hadriel said:

I believe your approach is the right one for integrating the 3 systems. However from a pure game mechanic standpoint I like the 2d10 as they have greater variance and therefore greater dramatic potential (just consider scoring a double-0 against a master class enemy). Since I do not desire to systematically integrate the 3 40k RP systems, only ad hoc converting DH/RT stuff into DW (which usually can be done without too much work) , I prefer the 2d10 approach.

In fact what I propose for the Boltgun (2d10 + 2 or 3, Pen 5) is on the same level as your suggestion, iirc.

Alex

Hadriel said:

1d10 + 8 is average of 13. 2d10+5 is 15 damage average, right? What I'm saying is 'on paper' it just looks fairly close in the mid range, and I was wondering how it had played out (the proof is always in the pudding).

Do not forget that you have to multiply the damage difference by the number of average hits. If you count in the Penetration this is a serious and in my opinion somewhat justified nerf. I haven't tested my reduced damages yet off-putting all house rules (except for the old RF) for the time after Final Sanction and Oblivion's Edge so I'd like to hear any test results too.

I think this decrease is basically necessary: you need to reduce damage and ROF of the HB, this is a must. That in turn triggers that you must nerf the damage of the Bolter too because otherwise the Storm Bolter rules, right? Now you mustn't nerf too hard or else you don't hurt the CSM or Nid Warriors seriously enough and Close Combat starts to become king. What justifies a good nerf otoh is that the players have various ways of pushing the damage which in the case of Bolter and Storm Bolter and HB then gets multiplied by ROF again. I trust my ways to stack every stuff they can which is in my eyes in the spirit of being a Space Marine, a killing machine on two legs.

"And thusly the light of the power-gaming instincts of the players shall overcome the darkness of the GM's nerfs, god-emperor-bless you."

Alex

I've played a bit with 1D10+8 pen 5 boltguns and I find that it works well.

The fact that there is no 3rd dice for damage mean that damage roll are ever so slightly faster, and the high static damage number means that almost all hoards are autowounded.

It also makes bolters much less random, giving them more of a place where you know it will work and when you need something heavier.

The only problems I've had is that fighting CSM early on without specialized weapons (Kraken bolts help so much) takes a lot of ammunition and is hard at long range. I don't really have a problem with this but it is something to think about.