Hello there, I am a new dark heresy gm and I have a noobish question I cant seem to find the answer to. In regard to force weapons and their ability to channel additional psychic damage, does the previous strike need to inflict wounds for the ability to be triggered? Here's an example: a powerful warrior psyker engages in melee with an Ork BigMek in MegaBodyArmor. The Meks toughness modifier is 10 (5x2) and the torso armor for MegaArmor is 14 for a total of 24 damage reduction before AP. In the combat the psyker strikes the Mek but does not do enough damage to inflict any wounds. At this point my psyker tells me that he should now be able to take the psychic test for the additional force weapon damage, because it states in the rules the test can be taken any time the psyker "damages" an opponent i.e. anytime the psyker rolls damage he can then take the test. Since no mentions of wounds is made, it must be unnecessary to inflict wounds, all that is needed is the damage roll. I find this to be dubious at best. I am a new dark heresy gm but I have played the tabletop in the past and it always seemed to me that a wound needed to be inflicted before the power could be used. I realize these are two entirely different games with different rules, but I would imagine a certain amount of continuity would exist. I can find no direct wording for finding out if infliction of wounds (even just 1) is needed before the activation of additional psychic damage. Please help me to know the right way to adjudicate this, thank you for your time and consideration.

-RedMars

"Damage" means "cause wounds."

In the aforementioned case, the player could not roll for additional damage. He would have to at least bypass Toughness and Armor.

Otherwise the wording would be "succeeds at a melee attack."

Thank you very much.

since we are talking about force weapons already:

the IH (pp187) states that a force sword in the hands of a blunter is just a good quality mono-variant of its original form.

so a force sword would be 1d10 R, pen 2 with +5 to melee attacks IIRC

now it is listed as 1d10+1 R, pen 2 in the accompanying table, what do you guys treat as the correct values? has that been corrected in an errata already? i did not find it. same with staff and axe (which seem to be screwed up as well and of which the latter is awesome 1d10+3 damage basic)

To my knowledge that hasn't been addressed.

My interpretation was that the "in the hands of a blunt, it functions as a Good Quality Mono-Variant" is not intended to describe the weapon listed in the tables.

i.e. a "standard" Force sword in the hands of a blunt is 1d10 R Pen 2 with +5 to Melee Attacks.

A "standard" Force Sword in the hands of a psyker is exactly as listed in the table. 1d10+1 R Pen 2 with additional Damage/Pen for Psy Rating.

The two aren't, by RAW, the same thing necessarily.

I do not, however, know for certain if this has been cleared up already. It might be best to tone down Force weapons a little anyway, as they can quickly break games in the hands of a Templar Calix.

Actually I'm wondering if the example of the force weapon at the bottom of the paragraph is correct.

IH: pg 187 "For example a force sword wielded by a character with Psy Rating 3 would inflict 1d10+3 R (plus SB) and have a Penetration of 5."

That doesn't make sense since the baseline stat for the weapon is 1d10+1 R, Pen:2. Shouldn't the example be 1d10+4 R, Pen 5 with a Psy Rating of 3?

Typos, Typos everywhere...

Raw says that Non-Psykers holding the weapon treat is as a Good Quality Mono-sword. Now this is the tricky part does it get +1 to damage or is its just 1D10? I think Raw would say that the Example is a typo and the Listed Damage is correct.

Spirit of the Rules would ask that you set a precident and choose between giveing Non-Psykers and Psykers the +1 damage and assume that it ment that the Weapon's listed damage; or don't give it to either and assume the weapons damage listed was the typo.

I say GM's decide:

Pro's: It doesn't really hurt the game if you give the Non-Psyker the bonus damage, because a Best quality Mono Sword is only 190 thornes, where the Force sword is 3500, and the Best Mono Sword is better for him.

Con's: You just gave the Psyker one more damage at the cost of 3500 thrones. which is going to do amazing amounts of damage in the opposed will power test and that +1 might decide whether or not he is elegiable for the extra damage.

Personaly I say give it to him.

You all are missing the point, it states that the force sword is treated as a good-quality mono-sword meaning it has the weapon profile of a good-crafted sword with the mono upgrade not the profile of a force sword

It's only a typo!

In the "Damned Cities" adventure book is a reprint of the Force Weapon Rules (in case IH isn't owned) for The Templar Calix Lo-Tan. There is no +1 Base Damage, only a +1 for every point of Psy Rating and it's clearified that the extra damage the psyker can channel into it's foe is Energy Damage while the Base Damage (including the Psy Rating) is Rending.