I have decided to alter the lightning claw and power fist to better represent the specialized nature of each weapon.

Lightning Claw: melee 2D10+3 Pen 8 Type E Special: Tearing, special

Power fist: 2D10* Pen 12 Type E Special: unbalanced, -2 initiative. The initiative penalty applies regardless of what hand the weapon is placed on and does not stack. This is simply a mechanical means to describe these massive weapons and pull something from the table top.

The power fist is designed to be devastating to armour so I increased the penetration of the weapon to properly illustrate the difference between it and its other melee counterparts. I also altered the balance because I believe that the unwieldy trait was a holdover from DH and added a penalty to initiative because the weapon is powerful but slow. With the application of the DoS melee rule this weapon is clearly the best choice for destroying truely heavy targets.

No doubt there will be more house rules to come in the future as I have not looked at all the heavy weapons.....

The RAW wrist and shoulder mounting seems to be a cut and paste job from the DH rule book because it specifies that it is only effective with pistol type weapons. This makes the upgrade extremely situational in its use, not to mention the fact that there are numerous representations that counter that in the cannon. With that in mind I will allow basic weapon types to use the attachment unless it seems ridiculous.

Hadriel said:

So what your saying is you are posting house rules that have not been thought out? You haven't taken the time to look at ALL the weapons, as a whole, and then make judgments as to how changes on one will impact all the rest? Making changes willy-nilly seems a bit overzealous. I don't mean to imply any kind of personal attack, but spamming the board with random house rules, where you state that you haven't taken into account everything that will be affected by your rules, doesn't seem like the brightest of ideas.

I would sit down, look over everything in the area you think needs adjustment, make adjustments, then test them in your own games vs the RAW. After you have done that, then you have a better place to start from as to your own house rules.

1. This isn't an official publication for which you are paying money in order to get an already working and balanced system.
2. Weapon balancing is a complex issue. If you are suggesting that posting revised weapon stats should require a balancing of all weapons (especially a melee weapon vs a rnaged weapon) and only after all of them have then be tested against the RAW , I say don't expect any house rules in that area for the next two years.

Weapon balancing is tricky. I have posted my own house rules here which I haven't tested even once, I'll admit. It was only to boruta I believe that I realized the problem that the Storm Bolter would pose after nerfing the HB - without him I would have found out the hard way in a gaming session. If you require me testing all the changes first, including all the xeno weaponry, then good night, folks.

Nope I will continue to post proposed changes based on educated guesstimation. In fact doing so is a good way to receive feedback by people here that have probably more gaming experience than I do (or Hadriel perhaps). In fact boruta seems to be the resident high rank gaming expert here.

So sorry, I cannot agree with you, especially wrt to the "spam" since Hadriel had his changes in one topic and then was asked to put different changes in different threads by some (I remember that post). You just can't please everyone, I guess...

Alex

The problem is that Hadriel stated that he hadn't even considered other weapons, that is what i have issue with. You also stated yourself ak-73, that weapon balance is a horribly tricky issue with all sorts of trickle-down ramifications. Not paying any attention to how changes will affect the whole can get you into trouble. I was merely trying to state, poorly apparently, that changing small things without thought to other areas is going to catch up with you and cause problems.

As to the spamming comment, it was directed more broadly than what I typed. It was more in reference to the multitudes of people who seem to point the "It's Broken" stick at everything before they look too closely, or think about things from other perspectives. How many people were complaining about the Space Wolves getting Wrangling as a skill, when, to my knowledge, they are the only Chapter to run around with animals on the battlefield? I guess it boils down to the fact that I think a few tweaks hear and there are all that is really needed and the wholesale redoing of all things space marine seem like overkill.

To the question of the Wrist mount, here is a thread that was covering that specifically.

ItsUncertainWho said:

Hadriel said:

Alex

ak-73 said:

That's his problem with it. If he's not looked at the heavy weapons and the like, none of the rules changing weapon stats will be properly balanced. You have to take all weapons alongside each other, rather than separately.

MILLANDSON said:

First of all he represents Hadirel's words clearly. Hadriel he hasn't looked at all the heavy weapons, implying some have been looked at. ItsUncertainWho however puts it so as if he hadn't looked at non-melee weapons at all.

Secondly, the issues of melee and ranged weapon can very well addressed seperately. In my thread I have entirely focussed on giving ranged weapons the right right treatment. If the ranged weapons would then turn out to be under- or over-powered compared to melee, you apply as a quick fix a global melee damage modifier until a more precise modification gets made.

So... sorry, but I have to respectfully disagree. Nor do I agree that WIP house rules better not get posted here.

Alex

Let me re-tackle this as a two part post

Hadriel said:

Specifics about what Hadriel has presented.

All examples will use a Str bonus of 4 for the base. The base damage die will be 5 or 7 for a tearing die. The attack roll target will be 60 with a roll of 30.

Damage format = Damge die + weapon bonus + Str + DoS kicker = total

Standard Lightning Claw = 1d10+6 pen 8, Tearing with a DoS kicker.
Base damage = 7+6+10+3=26 pen 8
Minimum = 1+6+10+3=20 pen 8
Maximum = 10+6+10+3=29 pen 8
Paired claws = 7+6+10+6=29 Pen 8
Minimum = 1+6+10+6=23 pen 8
Maximum = 10+6+10+6=32 pen 8

Hadriels Lightning Claw: melee 2D10+3 Pen 8 Tearing, with the DoS kicker
Base damage = 5+7+3+10+3=28 pen 8
Minimum = 1+1+3+10+3=18 pen 8
Maximum = 10+10+3+10+3=36 pen 8
Paired claws = 5+7+3+10+6=31 Pen 8
Minimum = 1+1+3+10+6=21 pen 8
Maximum = 10+10+3+10+6=39 pen 8

Do Lightning claws need that broad of a damage spectrum, and aren't they lethal enough as is? How does adding a damage die accentuate the lightning claws specialized nature as a close combat weapon?

Wouldn't adding the Fast, or Razor Sharp traits be more appropriate for a close combat specialist, instead of a broad damage increase?

Standard Power fist 2d10 pen 9, Unwieldy, with a Str bump
Hadriels Power fist: 2D10 Pen 12 Unbalanced, -2 initiative, with the Str bump
Damages are the same, the issue is the pen, parry, and Init penalty
Base damage = 5+5+14=24 pen 9/12
Minimum = 1+1+14=16 pen 9/12
Maximum = 10+10+14=34 pen 9/12

Parrying with a power fist with Unwieldy is not possible, due to the slow and clumsy nature of the weapon.
Parrying with Unbalanced makes the parry available at a -10. Still a slow and clumsy weapon, just not so much. I could live with this, but you don't stop there. When you add in the Initiative penalty you are somehow turning the power fist into a lead weight that slows the marine down as a whole, yet allows him to parry faster, lighter weapons. This makes no sense to me at all. The need to “pull something from the table top” seems a poor reason to make changes that a lot of people are using.

A Rhino has Structural Integrity (SI) of 25 with a Rear Armor (rAP) of 20

Power Fist vs a Rhino
Pen 9- rAP 20 = rAP 11- 24dmg = 14dmg to the Rhino's SI 25 = SI 11
Hadriels Power Fist vs a Rhino
Pen 12- rAP 20 = rAP 8- 24dmg = 16dmg to the Rhino's SI 25 = SI 9

You are still going to average 2 hits to get through a Rhinos rear armor. A better way to handle increaseing the power fists effectiveness vs armored vehicles is via a trait, instead of a static pen increase. That pen 12 makes the Thunder Hammer a pretty useless choice because a pen 12 power fist just bypasses most armor. You could instead add a DoS kicker that bumps Pen, or you could create a trait along the lines of Razor Sharp that would double the Power Fists pen vs any object with AP and SI (vehicles).

You could for example make a trait like this:

Armor Destroyer: When rolling to attack a vehicle with this weapon, any attack roll with two DoS or more doubles the Pen value of the weapon.

Traits are the best way to tweak weapons without devaluing other weapons. Most people don't seem to notice that, as they are all too fond of adding or removing damage dice. A blanket increase of a stat doesn't make a weapon more specialized, it only makes it better than the rest.

Giving Lightning claws fast is an awesome idea. That would make them so cool.