Lynata said:

Umm... given that Rogue Trader and Ascension were written before Deathwatch, the Unarmed Warrior and Unarmed Master talents appeared in those books first. It's far from it being a matter of a Deathwatch-specific rule creeping into DH or RT.

Damage is abstract, remember; the combination of brute force, precision, location struck (is it a flesh wound? Did it graze the bone? Did it strike a major organ?), timing and a variety of other factors. A character with Mighty Shot deals more damage with the same lasgun than someone without that Talent because he knows how to better employ the weapon's power, and the power that weapon discharges is the same with every pull of the trigger - the variable nature of damage is a matter of circumstance and blind luck as much as anything else. Same with basic weapons with the Accurate quality - a Long-Las discharge isn't more powerful than a plasma gun, but it is far more precisely applied than a normal lasgun discharge, granting it the effect of extra damage in game terms.

A character dealing 1d10+4 damage with his fists, feet, shins, elbows, etc, isn't strictly applying greater force than a Lasgun discharge... what he's doing is ensuring that the force he is applying is going where it is most effective.

Sorry, I should have probably worded it otherwise. It was meant as a general criticism that seems to take all three game systems into a "more powerful" direction. I am well aware of the fact that Deathwatch is fairly new (at least in comparison to the other books).

As for the effects of the talent in question, I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. The difference between Mighty Shot and Unarmed Mastery is ... hard to put into words, really. 2 points of damage as a result of experience and/or training strikes me as powerful, yet still believable. Doubling the dice and removing the Primitive quality? Nope.

Not to mention that the sheer randomness of dice rolls does not really convey the whole idea of "knows where to hit" very well, considering that a 1 on a 1d10 is the same as a 1 on a 1d5. A different way to do this might have been to give the character something like a +2 bonus like the one from Mighty Shot, or a guaranteed minimal damage like from the Proven quality. Anything that gives a flat bonus instead of added randomness. "Knowing where to hit" is how Crippling Strike is explained, too, by the way, though this talent takes a far more (semi-)realistic, if less efficient approach.
This leaves the removal of the Primitive quality, but here I am at a loss how exactly the combatant's knowledge is supposed to affect the nature of his opponent's armour. There's some impressive stuff that people can learn via body control, but I still like to maintain a difference between punching through a wooden board or a brick, and punching through power armour.

... Let's just say I would have done it differently. But, as always, it's a subject of personal preferences.

Lynata said:

I think what you meant to say could be derived from what you said. Seems N0-1_H3r3 is trying to give you a hard time.

Lynata said:

Understood.

Lynata said:

Two points per hit. Which means with the DH Heavy Bolter up to 20 damage points.

Lynata said:

It's a pointless debate insofar as 40K Roleplay isn't a simulationist game. The question is less "is this realistic" (unless you want a complete simulationist revamp) and more "is this fun to me? does this feel right?"

And there is still no accounting for taste.

Lynata said:

Well, Space Marines can punch holes into Astartes Power Armour. That should settle the debate on whether they do too much damage vis-a-vis the Bolter. The question is if they should be able to do this. I'm okay with it. It adds to the super-human, epic flair.

Another thing to consider is that an Unarmed Attack needn't be a punch or kick. It might be snapping a neck or breaking an arm, as well. Or even a throw Just consider the attack/parry rolls an abstraction and roll with the result description-wise as a GM. Be creative in fleshing out (no pun intended) what happens.

Alex

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but I don't see any indication that Astartes can punch through power armour. They can do damage through it, but that's completely different. That's transmitting force through the solid shell to what's on the other side, not breaking it in two.

ak-73 said:

Well, at the point where all 10 shots of a heavy bolter hit their target, I think it won't be much of a difference whether the target may eat 220 or 240 damage, plus penetration. And that's with the new stats.

Judged and compared individually, 2 points isn't that much. Though, as I said, it is still a very powerful talent (so much so that you could consider it mandatory).

ak-73 said:

You have a point there, I'll give you that. It still leaves a bad taste in my mouth, mechanics-wise (it doesn't feel right, as you said), but such descriptions may at least solve the issue from a narrative PoV (which I admit is more important). I'll be sure to pass that on to my current groups, should one of us ever pick this talent up. =)

@bogi_khaosa: How would you describe such a transmission of force doing Impact damage to the target's torso? Arms, legs and head can, on second thought, be easily explained using the "movie stunt" idea as outlined above (basically having the player character overcome the enemy armour's augmented strength to twist the wearer's limbs), but a torso hit might be more problematic, if you want to explain it with special knowledge rather than raw strength. Unless you go out of your way to come up with a description such as the PC throwing his target on some other object to explain how anything was able to get past those layers of ceramite and flexsteel.

(ironically, now I actually remember some thread in the forums regarding the most efficient way to kill a Hive Tyrant, which was to throw him in the air - but that issue had since been errataed, I believe, and was an unintentional oversight on part of the rules for falling)

Lynata said:

The same way you transmit impact damage through a metal plate to whatever's on the other side by punching it or hitting it with any other blunt object. If you put a tight metal barrel oround your body and I start punching it (if I were a lot stronger than I actually am), you're going to feel it. You're going to get bruises, possibly even broken ribs and broken internal organs, as the barrel, pushed by my fist (which in this alternative universe is extremely large and manly), smacks into your chest and abdomen.

A fist might be able to do this:

"If you put a tight metal barrel oround your body and I start punching it (if I were a lot stronger than I actually am), you're going to feel it. You're going to get bruises, possibly even broken ribs and broken internal organs, as the barrel, pushed by my fist (which in this alternative universe is extremely large and manly), smacks into your chest and abdomen."

But it is now a very broken and useless lump of hamburger.

To break the ribs and and internal organs through hard armour you have to break the armour. I like Space Marines as much as the next guy, but this is all getting a bit silly don't you think?

Yup, but then again an Astartes isn't really built like your Average Joe. It's all about spending half a century undergoing special medical treatments and hard training in order to be one of the toughest mofos in the Galaxy.

Though I'd admit that it doesn't explain everything. Don't forget also that an Astartes who tries to be punching through a Power Armor while naked is insane He should be power armored too (and therefore the thing seems a bit less crazy).

If you're really uneasy with that, you could house rule that Unarmed Master doesn't remove the Primitive quality, but that the Astartes Power Armor (or even, say, any Power Armor) does.

Zakalwe said:

No really you don't have to break armor to damage what's on the other side, unless the armor magically absorbs 100% of kinetic energy.

bogi_khaosa said:

Lynata said:

And those special techniques are all about the application of force - of strength. A character aiming for weak spots (in power armour, the joints are a collection of major weak points, being necessarily flexible) will achieve more than one swinging wildly at the breastplate.

I do like what Stormhast has said about the power armour.

But getting technical it isn't kinetic energy that kill peeps in these examples, it's trauma i.e. making parts of the body broken and/or bleeding so it doesn't work so well anymore. And yes, that includes guns.

No matter how big and strong, it's still a fist, it isn't moving at the speed of sound or anything like that. I'll buy the power armour angle but remeber every action has an equal and opposite reaction, even for Space Marines.

Now before replying, remember, I'm not saying the Space Marines aren't the finest warriors inthe galaxy, just that even they have limits and their punches should not do more damage than a bolter.

And isn't attacking lightly armoured joints a called shot?

We're still arguing realism as if DW was a simulationist game. The question is if you want Space Marines to be able to cause these enormous amounts of damage with unarmed fighting or not. And I have to say that I am okay with it.

To me it's part of making DW different from other games, I'm interested in the change of tactics it causes if a solider can inflict such pain bare-handed. And on average they don't cause any damage attacking another Marine in PA. So, it's okay.

S 45 = SB of 10 vs. T 45 = TB of 8 + AV of 10 (Torso) => Space Marine needs a 9 to cause a bruise of 1 WP.

Alex

@ ak-73

"It's not a simulationist game".

Very much agreed mate, the rest is all opinion and flavour and I'm going to leave it at that. It's so easy to argue oneself into a position that fails to capture how we feel abvout the game as a whole so even though we disagree on some details, we agree on the approach to the game.

Zakalwe said:

A buddy of mine used to used to beat up on old water heaters because his punching bags kept wearing out on him. He was fine, built up callouses over time I guess.

Anyway, it's somewhat inaccurate to say that you have to "break the armour", a mace doesn't try to break medieval plate afterall, just transfer its kinetic energy through the sheets of metal and chainmail. Yeah the armour will get dented and mashed, but it's hardly broken. The person underneath not so well.

Which brings us to...

Stormast said:

Quite true, as bone is already pound-for-pound stronger than concrete, these aren't just anyone's fists we're talking about here. A Space Marine has his bones strengthened far past the point of a human's.

And finally, it's absolutely disingenuous to bandy about the idea that a Space Marine is 'ignoring' any armour they're punching just because they don't have the primitive quality anymore. That Pen of 0 is a big deal, not to mention lacking things like Tearing. So guess what? Anything less than Power Armour is going to be vulnerable to a Space Marine's punches, which is probably how it should be anyway. Can anyone seriously see Flak armour, or even Carapace, providing a serious impediment to the fist of an Astartes? Or do you more likely imagine it cracking like an egg, along with the skull of the poor fool wearing it?

And as for the character's strength vs. special techniques they've learned, it's not like there aren't any other Talents that same situatio applies to. Bulging Biceps for example. It's stupid to nitpick over any single one (or all of them for that matter).

Oh yeah, about simulationism for a moment... I agree, it's not one of those games. But neither is it some wildly off base thing that totally dispenses with the scale already inexistence in the fluff like some people are always arguing.

"a mace doesn't try to break medieval plate afterall, just transfer its kinetic energy through the sheets of metal and chainmail. Yeah the armour will get dented and mashed, but it's hardly broken. The person underneath not so well".

Actually it does 'break' the armour because it's dented and mashed. The armour must be physically displaced to cause trauma to the target beneath. Please don't turn this into a semantic arument about the definition of 'broken'. Without mashing the armour you can't mash what's underneath, otherwise the mace bounces off.

You can't 'dent' ceramic armour without breaking it in some way, even if using HESH. This kinetic energy thing killing people is a myth guys and gals. Same reason people don't go flying across the room when shot, they just fall over (and I have friends who have shot people so they would know), and the same has happened to the small furry things I've shot or have seen shot. They just fall over and their bits are so broken they don't work anymore (Ultimately everyone dies from lack of oxygen to the brain). Hit someone with a mace, and you have to crush something to do damage, because that crushing trauma effect IS the damage, not some kinetic energy ****. It might be kinetic enery (force) that gives the mace the momentum to overcome the strength of the armour, but it is not the energy which kills people.

Go out the back and hit your mate with a sledgehammer. Take him to the hospital and tell them don't worry about the crushing damage, it's the kinetic energy that is going to kill him and see how long it takes them to laugh at you.

Ever been knocked out? I have. It's the brain rattling around inside the skull which causes it, not kinetic energy. Your punching them has physically moved the skull faster than the squishy bits inside could keep up. No kinetic energy needed to explain that.

The ammount of kinetic energy delivered by a bullet is minimal, it's the fact that it causes a massive trauma cavity inside the target that kills things. Dum dums don't kill better because of kinetic energy, they kill better because they have a much larger trauma cavity. If it was kinetic energy then everyone who got shot would be affected similarly. People survive guinshot wounds all the time and some don't even notice they've been shot until later.

"Hey you're bleeding man".

"I ain't got time to bleed".

Please note, having made my peace with AK-73 I have only posted again about this kinetic energy killings people thing, and not about how hard Space Marines can/should punch (they are of course the galaxies greatest bad asses either way).

Blood Pact said:

The latter. It then begs the question whether an unarmed attack then shouldn't rather been given Pen instead of such a high damage? Maybe in 2E.

Anyway, my thoughts for this would be sth this: Pen 4, still counts as Primitive -> max(0,(AV-4))x2 gets subtracted from 1d5 + SB.

Alex

Lynata said:

Essentially dw is not supposed to be compatible with dh rather its supposed to be compatible with ascension. Only book were both characters have a comparable level of xp or can even achieve a comparable level of xp.

RogalDorn said:

It's not the xp that is a problem, it's the different mechanics (squad mode, demeanours, trappings, corruption/insanity, ...) and equipment (uncanon efficiency disparities, as much as lots of Marine fans don't want to hear this), further made worse by the broken Unnatural traits and their flat modifiers. Now, this doesn't matter at all when you're playing DW, which has been designed from the start as a game where you play legendary superheroes doing epic stuff (where these differences add to the experience), but it is likely to become a problem when doing crossovers with more "gritty" systems such as DH/Ascension and RT, because you will have characters seriously outperforming others in areas where it shouldn't happen.*

The only combat careers from Ascension who are remotely useful in DW are probably the Primaris Psyker and the Vindicare, which would say more about the Ascended psychic rules and the Exitus rifle than about DW.

As someone else said, every existing game of the RPG line was primarily created to be fun in itself. Compatibility was not a concern, and if it exists, it is there by accident. Part of why I think that a 2nd edition (if it ever gets made) should start with a uniform core rulebook for everybody and then just go from there.

There's a reason for why the Grey Knights in the upcoming Daemon Hunter book will receive two unique rulesets, depending on which system you want to use them with. I just hope the DH/Ascension version of the GKs gets adapted sufficiently to allow the kind of cooperation we have seen in some novels etc.
And for those who want them DW-style ... they get their own rules. Everybody wins?

(*: going by GW studio canon, of course - I know there's a lot of DW players who prefer FFG's interpretation and its Movie Marines; there's certainly enough threads over in the DW forums regarding the recent attempt of fixing their weapon stats ... YMMV)

Lynata said:

The sad part being going by fluff the assasins and the psyker should be really the only people who could match a space marine in terms of combat power. In the Vindicare assasins instance he probably should be better stat wise and the psyker can mind melt people so I gues he sort of can too. In ascension they introduced certain character paths that are not equal fluff wise to one another (storm-trooper looking at you).

Second there is a deeper root of compatibility issue in how the two games tone differ from each other. Deathwatch get called in to kill things. They don't investigate, or persuade people they get called in when its time to extermiante things. Throne agents exist to investigate and destroy when necesarry but in the worst case scenario they call in the deathwatch or the ig. Different tones make for different mechanics. And I'm going to ignore that whole equipment disparity remark because I don't feel like getting into that argument again. Speaking of which you can't be to pleased with how the recent fluff treats the sisters of battle with matt ward at the helm.

RogalDorn said:

Aye. Which is why I can totally understand why these differences exist, and their benevolent effect on the respective games. Of course, a side result of this is that careers which get implemented into one game would receive different mechanics than they would get were they introduced into the other. In essence, every career (not just the GKs) would need two sets of mechanics, only then could you do crossovers which allow for appropriate representation and are fun for all.
Well, either that, or create a new edition that aims for this from the start. I'm curious to see how Black Crusade will work in this regard.

RogalDorn said:

As long as he doesn't write their next Codex... SoB players have become used to the phenomenon commonly called "Sisters snuff" a long time ago, so it doesn't surprise or bother me the least. In fact, I rather like it - it emphasizes the grimdark nature of the setting and that Grey Knights are not White Knights.

I presume GK players are way more bothered by Ward making Grey Knights corruptable. This was the bit that surprised me. Well, that, and all the daemon stuff suddenly in their arsenals. I have to admit, I preferred the older version as well.

I wonder how FFG will work with this in the upcoming Daemon Hunter book, i.e. if they adapt to the new fluff or interpret it in a way closer to their roots.

Zakalwe said:

My admittedly primitive knowledge of physics tells me that punching moving the skull* is a result of the kinetic energy transferred by the punching to the skull.

*which is BTW a form of armor.

Zakalwe said:

I'm afraid you did a better job of turning this in to a semantic arguement, than I ever could have, since I was never going on about kinetic energy itself, but simply in the context of how a ******* mace manages to negate armour...

And the fact of the matter is, you're wrong on a few cases.. It's the kinetic energy which starts the brain bouncing around inside someone's skull. And it's the kinetic energy that slams in to their torso and snaps several of their ribs. Bullets too actually, since the reason why a hollow point is better at killing someone than FMJ is because it spreads out and is able to transfer its force in to the body better than the latter, tumbling around and tearing things up, while a bullet that holds its integrity could blow right through someone leaving a neat little hole. Though this is a highly simplified explanation, given how complicated a subject ballistics are.

And no, a few dents in some chainmail or armoured plates isn't broken. You could hammer it all out in five minutes. People are acting like a Space Marine's fists will blow great big gaping holes through someone's armour. Like they need to do that to be able to hurt anyone. They don't need to dent the ceramite/ceramic armour to hurt the person beneath it, just like how modern hard shell body armour doesn't stop punches completely, even if they don't break the plates with their fists. So yeah, you really don't have to mash or break the armour, to break the person underneath.

Lynata said:

Again with this about the Unnatural Traits. You think they're broken, but I think they're fine because Space Marines really are just that strong and tough, and certainly aren't breaking with the established content of the game. The Astartes are superhuman warriors of awesome power. This isn't some fantasy that's been cooked up and exaggerated, because Space Marines wouldn't be great enough as they 'really' are in the fluff. And yes everyone is awesome in their own novels, there's still a scale there. Gaunt and his men considered it a great feat to battle off a squad of Chaos Terminators, while Space Marines are depicted as slaughering whole armies with little trouble (and Chaos Marines being an even match when you set aside other factors)... I won't even touch weapons.

I entirely agree that Ascension characters can't really stand in the same group as Space Marines, but that's also to be expected, frankly. They're weapons of war, and how can any Inquisitor, Primaris Psyker, or assassin, really compare to them on the battlefield? While those three things are generally fighty, they're not built for it, they specialize in different ways. The careers from Dark Heresy are more geared toward investigation and suberfuge, dealing with the deadly games of cat and mouse that take place in the shadows of the Imperium, whether it's something as 'mundane' as politics, or an insidious cult.

I really don't think the Grey Knight's rules will be that different between the two systems, like you're hoping. They'll probably use the same weapons stats from the DW errata, whether they're in DW or DH. And since their psychic powers will be able to overbleed to the rest of the group, I doubt they'll be very different either. In fact, I imagine that there'll be less diferences between how they play in DH vs. DW, rather than more.

And this pipe dream people just won't let die, about a 2nd edition where everything builds off one uniform core rulebook... It's not going to happen, and if it does it's not going to be the dream world you all envision. Because you either need to make a book that has the rules in it and absolutely nothing else, or you have what's basically the Dark Heresy book we have now, and then everything builds off it. And then you need to buy 2 books to get in to any one game. Or you need to buy Dark Heresy to be able to play DW / RT / BC / anything else they make. And guess what, that just means the system sucks in an entirely different way it does now.

I really, really, really don't get this burning need that some people seem to have to make Ascension-level characters comparable to Space Marines. They're not, with the exceptions on Vindicares and Primaris Psykers, and they're not supposed to be, and it makes so sense for them to be.

I suspect the real reason is that one particular person is really really upset that her Sister of Batlle is weaker than a Space Marine and will never ever be able to tag along on a Deathwatch adventure as a combat-capable equal (*sob*) -- which is exactly as it should be. Because, next to Marines (and Temple Assassins and suchlike), Sisters suck. Deal with it.

Blood Pact said:

I'm sorry, but this is a nonsense: why 2 set of different rules if Grey Knights will be identical to DW?

There will be ADDITIONAL RULES to use GK in DW, because they are made firstly for DARK HERESY!