In the rules for critical damage if you take 10 crit damage then amunition explodes in some of the cases dealing 1d10+5 damage. This in effect killing of the group of players when they charge in with all weapons that cause either energy damage or explosion damage.

This poses a severe problem for characters that deal allot of damage but is a bit squishi on the damage taking side like the assasin or the psyker.

Anyone got any ideas on how make the effect not as prominent to kill of large parts of the the PC group.

With energy weapons, the solution is simple: Aim at any part of the enemy except for the body. Explosive weapons... well... some things just aren't meant to be fired point-blank.

sincji said:

I say 1d10+5 points of damage or unlikely to kill any pc.

Even if you take "worst case" (15), the first 2 to 4 are negated by TB. Lets say we are left with 12 damage. Most pc do wear some kind of armour. This will take out another 2 to 4 (or perhaps more). Let´s say 3. Then, you have 9 points of damage. Even a wimsy pc does not die from the loss of 9 wounds. Unless, he was badly hurt to begin with. In which case, nearly every substantial attack (like a monosword in the hands of a traitor) is a threat.

Gregorius21778 said:

Flak is wear it is at against this result. Since even in melee, you are technically not at the direct epicenter of the explosion, and thus would benefit from armor 5.

-=Brother Praetus=-

Gregorius21778 said:

Especially considering that the character would need to either own a power weapon, or using heat/explosive pistols in melee. In the first case the character is probably rich, in the second they shouldn't be surprised.

that is some valid points ... but if there is about five or so explosions per round where every one of the do about 3 wounds of damage to anyone within 5 meters of the person being killed then it will tally up to alot of damage. and this can be achived with the common laser pistol. a crit on the body that does 10 points of critical damage and it is 50% chans that the amunition will go of in a bang. this i find like it is some sort of rule that say that if you go into melee then your friends will kill you even if they dont aim at you but the enemies beside you.

i suppose i can use the rending crit table for power weapons and such but laser and bolt weapons do tend to make things go BOOM. in everyone of those tables there is a number 10 critical that makes ammunition and grenades blow up and send shrapnel 1d10 meters.

Or simply save the crit table for NPCs that matter, and let the fodder hit the floor dead when they get to zero wounds.

If you like the descriptions on the crit table for illustration just pick one that's fun.

Next, have your players engage at actual range when using bolt weapons. If I'm fighting someone with a gun I prefer to stay behind cover and more than 10m away.

Lastly, it's not been my experience that we hit that magic 10 every time, given that just about anything over a 6 is a kill shot. Sometimes it happens, but not all that often,

Charmander said:

Especially with all the fatigue results in the energy critical table. Knock an enemy out through fatigue and you can deal with them later, unless they are either on fire or caught in something else exploding.

Explosive damage is much worse for making enemies explode. However I only know of one explosive melee weapon, and that's a grenade that Orks use as a club (It normally deals impact damage, a 96-00 roll makes it explode). For results caused by ranged weapons, if you were silly enough to use explosives against a target near you or your allies, you deserve the results you get.

Indeed. Generally the crit table is meant to be used for PC's and major players in the game, not for mooks - mooks are suggested to be dealt with in alternate matters (such as the always popular : you hit them twice, they are dead, do more than 10 damage, they are dead in an extremely gory fashion). Melee weapon users will typically be doing Rending or Impact damage, which isn't explosive. Energy damage can come into play with some late game equipment, which you will have late game stats and armor to back up.

If the unfortunate "squishy" PC is standing next to an exploding teammate thanks to an unfortunate series of events involving too many grenades and a bad guy packing a plasma pistol there is still some hope. If the character still has their reaction left they may attempt to dodge out of the explosion (assuming their Agi bonus is high enough to get out of the blast). If your players are routinely exploding and taking each-other out then I would propose that they have not been paying attention and deserve it at a certain point. Since it is energy and explosive weapons that tend to produce this type of result it is often a matter of using some common sense... "I punch the guy with the heavy bolter right in the ammo-backpack with my powerfist" does indeed have a very good chance of killing your target, but the stupidity of such a move is on the epic scale. If you are skilled enough to routinely make use of weapons that can do this then it is not exactly a stretch that you should be reasonably skilled at shifting your aim point away from the more explosive parts of your foes. Sure, this still leaves the random "lasgun hits a grenade" moments, but those are unsurprisingly rare.

Of course if they are several Fate Points into the team's tactic of "Cover the Guardsman in explosives and then have him charge" and are still doing it then Darwin and the Emperor both expect you to die a martyr's death.

Rakiel said:

Which makes several Talents near-useless.

I don't use mooks in my games I use people.

Inquisitor sapiens potensque said:

Indeed it does, but on the plus side, they tend to be useful for bosses and what not. However I would venture if exploding people are an issue for melee characters, they can always just remove the exploding ammo when using energy based weapons.

I dont really understand why there would be five or so explosions per round though.

Rakiel said:

I don't get the explosions thing either.

Really it depends on the kind of game you want. I play it as a film noir/horror game in which gangers, much less soldiers, should be dangerous, so my NPCs get the full critical tables and Righteous Fury. If I were going for a pulp action feel (which doesn't interest me personally) I would do otherwise.

One issue I have with using the crit tables for the mooks is they tend to reach the blood genade (blood everywhere for 6m in all directions) stage at some point. This get a bit overused and frankly a little too much blood. I can't believe a body has 6m radius blood in their body.

6m radius = ~100m^2

1L = 0.001m^3

So: 10L of blood over 100m^2 area is 0.0001 m thick = 0.1 mm thick

That's is not much at all, you would need more like at least 1-2 mm of blood to make it slippery in any fashion.

Makes it more like 5-10m^2 area as more realistic, and it's probably more in an arc. So pick 5-10 squares that become the difficult terrain.

Actually if you follow the RAW it is more likely that an enemy will suffer from Blood Loss and die that way, or be knocked out from Fatigue loss, than be slain immediately (just like real life).

Also, your average run-of-the-mill adversary like a ganger or criminal or mercenary, as opposed to a fanatical heretic is going to run away or give up when he gets seriously injured, not stick around.