Fortinbras said:

Are you certain about the extra d10 in the subsequent damage rolls?

"Can you imagine a crew with shotguns and lasguns (which is a big upgrade) trying to stop a Rak'Gol boarding action?"

Yes. This is why Rak'Gol are bloody scary, and the explorers will (a) be required to intervene personally if the ship gets boarded, and (b) likely to find a trail of butchered armsmen and crewmen when they do so.

Remember that a boarding action will either be a personal scale fight or a mass combat. In the former, any crewman caught up in it (that aren't 'house guard' equivalents armed with assault weapons) are essentially just bullet-catching redshirts and should be treated as such. In the latter, the damage bonus for the size of the unit makes shotguns and stubbers capable of hurting a mob of Rak'Gol. A bit. Maybe.

"Um...except this is exactly what Terminator armour and storm bolters were devolped for...cramped fighting in the volatile environment of a starship (boarding actions) and particularly inside space hulks....not to mention their compliment of support weapons - assault cannons, flamers and on the original terminator armour rapid fire grenade racks...

Unless of course terminator armour can survive rupturing a plasma coolant duct (which they can of course, being developed from civilian industrial armour capable of surviving orbital micrometeor strikes, and working inside plasma reactors)."

It is. The other key thing there is that terminator plate is generally used in offensive boarding actions, and many astartes chapters...shall we say skim read at best the Codex Astartes chapter on 'collateral damage'? By comparison, a Rogue Trader's armsmen will generally be fighting on his own ship, which is his single most valuable dynastic asset after his warrant.

But ultimately, the very first post was about right; a Rogue Trader or his trusted companions can essentially have any weapon available inside or outside the Imperium. And Bolt and Energy weapons are better. The only real reason for weapons that chuck hard rounds are either very special circumstances (literally needing to fire 'silver bullets' or something) or a sense of style. As with most of a rogue trader's personal effects, the latter is more important. You don't have to fight a fair fight if you don't want to. That's what the house guard and orbital fire is for.

It terms of background, I might claim:

1) Maintenance (a bit) because whilst there can be little difference in reliability between an autogun and lasgun, once it's bust the autogun is easier to get firing again - energy weapons needing anything beyond strip and replace require a degree of tech-lore that Jeff the Grunt is unlikely to be given. (irrelevant on a ship with hundreds of enginseers, though)

2) Also it doesn't require a power source - lasgun clips wouldn't be left charged any more than you'd store a clip with the bullets in. (also irrelevant on a ship with a massive plasma reactor)

3) Autoguns are cheap. This is why they get issued to militia and PDF forces (such as the Vraks Militia -see Imperial Armour: Siege of Vraks - and Siege Regiments units - see Epic Armageddon: Swordwind), and their effectiveness is not much lower when expecting 'normal' human adveraries. Also, as noted, they more often have a full auto capability than their las counterparts.

4) Starting to stretch out of rules into fluff, but a slug weapon is harder to detect and counter - things like haywire grenades and assorted psychic wierdness are likely to have more trouble affecting a purely mechanical device than an electronics laden energy weapon, or complex bolt ammo. Equally, a suitably sophisticated auspex might be able to spot a loaded energy weapon significantly more easily than a compact revolver stowed away somewhere as a backup weapon.

HappyDaze said:

Yeah, as far as I know Righteous Fury isn't Tearing, even if the weapon is.

ItsUncertainWho said:

Because it's self-evident.

Do you give Righteous Fury its own special damage value too? Why would you roll 1d10+5 for the Bolter's weapon value otherwise? Does penetration go out the window? How about being good/best quality? Do you factor that in? Would a flamer lose the flame quality on a Righteous Fury reroll? Do you reduce a Power Field weapon's damage and penetration on a RF reroll? Would you take away the Inaccurate quality from a weapon on an RF reroll? How about a shotgun's scatter? Would you deprive a Storm Bolter of its Storm quality? Does a primitive weapon with the mono-quality suddenly magically get its penalties for being a primitive weapon back on an RF reroll? No. No. No. No. No. And No.

If you look at the Tearing quality, nothing in it says any exceptions for damage rolls that it doesn't apply to. All it says is on any damage roll, roll an extra die and discard lowest. On Righteous Fury it says jack squat about not applying to tearing. If the developers were concerned about someone just rolling 10's up into infinity they should have capped Righteous Fury to being a single added damage effect instead of allowing it as long as the player keeps rolling 10's.

Also, backstory-wise in the Witch-Hunter's Codex the Bolter is associated with being the Emperor's wrath, which is what Righteous Fury is supposed to all be about, so I figure it makes sense to include the tearing quality in Righteous Fury as being an extra chance to have his blessing when using his favored weapon.

Fortinbras said:

I forget that for some reason Righteous Fury in RT hasn't been fixed by the errata to match DH and DW.

Righteous Fury in both DH and DW works like this after you have confirmed your attack : “If that second attack hits,the attacker may roll one additional Damage dice (1d10) and add it to the Damage total.” With a result of a 10 on the bonus die allowing for another 1d10 to be rolled.

This being the reasonable way to handle RF I would guess that the next version of the RT errata will contain this correction to bring it in line with the rest of the game line.

The damage value of RF is purely as a multiplier to the damage that has already "gotten through" due to the actual attack roll hitting, it is not an additional attack as the first part of your response seems to be implying.

ItsUncertainWho said:

"This being the reasonable way to handle RF..." Really? Who says? I like to err on the side that gives the players an advantage. After all, we're talking about Rogue Trader, not Dark Heresy: The New Adventures of Scooby Doo. They're larger than life, and slay things more powerful than them on a daily basis. RF saved one of my players from being eviscerated by a Rak'Gol Marauder last night.

Your own post contradicts your own point. You roll WS/BS a second time, A.K.A. "If that second attack hits". Therefore it is an additional attack. If it's not, why am I rolling my WS/BS a second time? The fact that you don't roll BS/WS again and again after the second time is irrelevant, it's simply a nod from the developers acknowledging that the player is on a roll and it's implied subsequent hits are successful from a renewed RF roll.

Rogue Trader Corebook, P.245:

"This calls for a second attack roll that is identical, all modifiers included, to the original attack."

In addition, in the example given in the RT corebook, the player's initial damage is 1d10+2. He rolls 1d10+2 a second time in the example for Righteous Fury. This indicates that you include the weapons base damage. It is not simply an additional 1d10 bonus. It's a separate hit that is entitled to all the bonuses that the other hits get. Or is that just conveniently something that needs to be "errata'd" too?

I'm glad you're so versed on the DH/DW rules. You seem to like them more, so perhaps you should go play them instead. I am really tired of DH players telling me "their way" is right with no Rogue Trader-related evidence to back that up, or getting pissy when I suggest they use the RT base archetypes/rules instead of simply hamfisting a DH conversion with little effort into it. Or DW players telling me "just use horde rules". I play Rogue Trader because it's Rogue Trader, not because it's written by the same people who released Dark Heresy. If and when RT gets updated in the errata, I'll use those rules. Until then, your argument is as worthless as a house rule.

Your own post contradicts your own point. You roll WS/BS a second time, A.K.A. "If that second attack hits". Therefore it is an additional attack. If it's not, why am I rolling my WS/BS a second time? The fact that you don't roll BS/WS again and again after the second time is irrelevant, it's simply a nod from the developers acknowledging that the player is on a roll and it's implied subsequent hits are successful from a renewed RF roll.

You roll WS/BS a second time because the designers wanted to make sure that a good combatant can profit more often from RF. It's as simple as that. Righteous Fury doesn't in any way impact a weapon's rate of fire.

As for the actual topic, several good points have already been raised.

Why should a Rogue Trader entourage use anything other than a bolt weapon? They shouldn't, unless the mission calls for it (in which case it will usually be a sniper weapon, a digital or similarly undetectable weapon or a melta for killing tanks and tank-like creatures). Bolt guns are the weapon for the imperial elite.

Why should the crew not be equipped with bolt weapons? With several thousand shooters, sheer chance dictates that someone is going to hit something expensive. In game terms, I would assign stronger weapons (manstopper, boltgun and up) a number between 9 (manstopper) and 2 (melta). After each round of boarding combat in which significant numbers of armsmen are armed with such weapons, roll a D10. If the roll exceeds the number, you've just damaged a random component of your ship.
The AdMech concern has also been noted - outfitting several thousand smelly peons with the very icon of imperial weapon tech? Sure, why don't you smear feces on the Aquila while you're at it?
Finally, there's maintenance. Bolters have been noted to require excessive care while lasguns and most SP weapons are far easier to maintain.

llsoth said:

I might even go so far and say we are thinking along the same lines, only using different words. While i would allow the RT to train his IG to use Bolters, i would find it strange not to let them receive other training as well, like correct care and use of carapace armor along with other survival skills, and then the NPC might still end up as stormtrooper material.

Voronesh said:

I think the question isn't: Can a RT can train his troops to use better (Bolt) weapons, armor, equipment, etc?

I think it's more a question of: Is a RT paranoid enough about possible mutiny by such a well trained and well armed force that he would equip and train them in such a manner?

In regards to the Righteous Fury rules:

Hey Sam,

I was just wondering when, since the Righteous Fury rule in Deathwatch (which was the same as the RT one) has been changed to match the DH Righteous Fury rule, is RT going to also have it changed to match Dark Heresy?

Yes, it will.

Sam Stewart
RPG Designer
Fantasy Flight Games

ItsUncertainWho said:

Well any troops given advanced equipment would probably have more moral and be more loyal to the one who gave them the shiny toys. After all those upgrades may mean their life and death. Also by giving them such expensive hardware the RT is showing that he does not consider them as completely expendable.

As to mutiny well your loyalists will also have the better weapons so that is almost a wash (there may be a little extra danger if the mutineers get to shoot at the RT though).

So I guess it comes down to do you fear the extra danger of a mutiny (small as it is) or Ork boarding parties?

As a side note, the whole way mutiny is handled should be taken with a huge grain of salt and whole platters of GM adjudication.

Thank you for clearing that up (er... having that cleared up), Millandson.