I'm new to the game but I've played a bit of Rogue trader. My group is choosing characters and I'm planning on playing a Dark Angel devestator marine. My ony other exposure to the setting was playing some Necromunda in the mid 1990's. When I played Necromunda I was always enamoured with that sexy plasma cannon that I could never afford to get for my heavy. Now I'm thinking that I'd like to work towards getting access to one for my devestator, bu *** looks to me like my standard issue heavy bolter is gong to do as well most of the time and I can get several talents to make the bolter better, and because it is cheaper It would be easier to get access to better scopes and fancy ammo.

For me, unless I'm using a really flexible system (such as Ars Magica 5 with lots of supplements or Hero System), playing a character that's significantly sub-optimal is like having a moquito buzzing in my ear. It's a sort of low level annoyance throughout the entire game.

So my question is are there ways to make plasma cannons sufficiently competitive with Heavy Bolters so that I can revel in their blast radius coolness while avoiding the feeling that I'm playing a character who's become artificially weak to accomodate the style choices that I've made?

Tyrrell said:

Not without nerfing the HB severely.

www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp

Alex

I feel ya brother, the plasma cannon is one of the coolest 40k weapons imo but is really weak raw in comparison to th hb.

Maybe talk to your gmsee if he would be willing to upgrade it for your game. I would give it another d10felling at least.

Ask the GM to add Tearing to all Plasma weapons. It imroves to base dmgimproves the chance for RFwith it Volatile drastical. i my grp ive´s seen a lot of 40+dmg shoots from plasma pistols.

I've found that adding an extra d10 of damage to plasma weapons, having them activate RF on a 910,nerfing heavy bolters to 2d10+3 dmg pen 56, ROF -/-/6 helps quite a bit with weapon balance, although i have chanced quite a few weapons to fiddle with things (bolter is at 2d10 dmg)

Firstly: There's a better plasma cannon listed in Rites of Battle.

Secondly, if you change 'volatile' so that instead of autoconfirming RF (something that PCs do on xenos automatically anyway) it potentially causes RF on a 9-10, then they get a lot better. It's a really simple change that works well. Add Tearing as well if you think it really needs it, and job's a good 'un.

Gotta agree with Siranui on this one.

Our volatile doesn't auto-confirm (since we're fighting xenos and do that already) it RFs on a 9 or 10.

The other suggestion I have:

Play with a Tech Marine. Granted ours is somewhat advanced in rank currently and has the upgrade specialty from Rites of Battle so I'm not sure where he gets the ability, but having him remove the recharge from my plasma gun so I can fire on maximal every turn combined with master of arms giving me a blast of 2 (4 with the plus from maximal ) or felling 1 makes me a happy plasma gunner.