Table top bolters and lasguns have ranges of less than 50 meters. That alone disqualifies table top from a discussion of what "should" be.

Cynical Cat said:

sarcasm filter ON please.

making 50m2 combat terrain to play tiny toy soldiers so we may represent proper range of guns would be hard and time consuming. (not to mention how long measuring tape u would need) And please guys dont forget biggest WH40k rule : "Cool always beat real"

Yeah but even then, your average bolter has, like a 12" range, and your average Marine moves, like 6" a round (or even 12" when charging), so...

But yeah, abstraction, abstraction, abstraction.

My point indeed. Abstraction and game play considerations rule table top and GW's been clear about that since the days it was called Rogue Trader. Or, of course, you could just look at how the game works. That's why the ranges are crap, why you get so few shots as attackers close across open ground from the edge of gun range to melee, why a Greater Daemon costs as much as an Imperial Guard squad, and why heinously powerful Chief Librarians display nothing close to the Titan crushing power, army rending power that the very army book tells you they have.

I don't think anyone would argue with you that a gameplay considerations rate quite highly in GW's priorities for a game.

Yes there are abstractions all over the place, which is fine so long as it's consistant with itself (which becomes less and less true with each new codex admitted). 24" bolter range would be pointless if pistols weren't half that and heavy weapons only 1.5 to 2 times that despite how silly that is realistically.

But that's beside the point, on the table top a plasma or melta gun is a significant portion of the cost of a space marine, devastating but flawed in some way. Regardless of how many you can have that's gonna make you think twice as to weather you need all this gear.

RPG is a different game entirely, there's no reason not to have the best gear because you are only looking after one guy so you could make the weapons less powerful to the point that you can start with whichever gear you want or you can have a system of costs and prerequisites. Making you pay for stuff that's inferior is just wasting the pages you printed the rules for it on at best, at worst people that decide to have for thematic reasons are annoyed by being outperformed by the guys who stuck with the free weapons and have better armour now (for example).

Face Eater said:

I am not saying that meltaguns and plasma weapons should not be better then bolters meltas in particular I still think should be very good for their cost and range. Rather I was pointing out that people who want this game to be more likee tt and sighting tt as some kind of source for how this game should play are taking somewhat of what I think a backwards approach. This game can never be like tt because of the inherent rules abstraction in the game as we were pointing out range being to weak. You'd have to nerf bolters even more so that they will sometimes not do any damage to a gaunt and your also would have to lower everyone's ballistic skill to something like 20% to accurately reflect tabletop. Neither of which is good for an actual rpg system

Yes, TT is an abstraction. However, it still gives a basis for how powerful things should be relative to each other. RT does a good job of reflecting the power level of different weapons. According to the TT stats, a bolter and a shuriken catapult should do about the same damage and penetration. The original DW rules make bolters about as good as a shuriken cannon. Something is a bit out of whack there.

Also remember that a single die roll on table top is not a single shot. Each turn represents 15-30 minutes of fighting. Dropping a guy in TT isn't killing them, just disabling them enough to take them out of the fight. There used to be rules for longer campaigns and after the battle you'd roll to see how injured a guy was after the battle. He may have been just dazed, or he may just need a bionic hand, etc.

TT rules are the only impartial guidelines we have into the universe of 40k. I understand some people's desires to use a different standard, but that doesn't make those of us who want a game that closely reflects TT wrong.

deinol said:

Your not wrong if you understand the full implications of making this game closer to tt. Character death being very common and in some cases instantanous, A space marine who is trained since puberty in the ways of war have a maybe 30-35% chance of hitting someone after shooting at them for given your example atleast 7.5 minutes, Even after hitting them have a good chance of not actually hurting them with a minaturized rpg round. Melee, heavy weapons, or special weapons being the only practical weapon to take. You also have to factor in point cost. Ultimately the only way to make this game similiar to tt is if flagship actually came out with a point cost for each marine at a given xp level and then say to the dm this is what their capable of handling. Of course the equiavelent would be about a squad or two of gaunts unless they get within melee range then their dead. Their are alot of consquences if you want to make this game closer to tt and if that is your playstyle then by all means go for it however I don't think a rpg system can handle it. It would challenege to many rpg conventions and most of all you'd end up with a just a small scale version of the tt game with noncombat interactions.

Ultimately I want this game to reflect what I think is a more accurate portrayal of how 40k combat should look which means range weapons need to be deadly and meele enemies should need some means to get in close quickly or be a huge horde to be a threat. Thats what I thought they wewre going for with the orginal stats and they took it to far honestly enough. Heavy bolter being overpowered and the marines being immune to things at range didn't help matters. I like the new stats as long as they give bolters back a full auto mod hell make it 1/2/3 that would be fine.

RogalDorn said:

deinol said:

Not really: It's abstracted. The Shruiken catapult is perhaps better at sustaining fire over five minutes, and though worse than a bolter on a round for round basis, perhaps better in that way... as you so neatly point out in the next paragraph.

If I wanted a game that reflected TT, then I'd play TT. But it's been stated time and time again that TT marines are nerfed horribly for play balance reasons. If they were as good as novel marines, then it would make a poor wargame, because everyone would buy ten marines, and never need any more figures. The handicapping is obvious, given the amount of effort that goes into creating a marine and his wargear, only for him to be outmatched by five reluctant dudes with lasguns.

"f I wanted a game that reflected TT, then I'd play TT. But it's been stated time and time again that TT marines are nerfed horribly for play balance reasons. If they were as good as novel marines, then it would make a poor wargame, because everyone would buy ten marines, and never need any more figures. The handicapping is obvious, given the amount of effort that goes into creating a marine and his wargear, only for him to be outmatched by five reluctant dudes with lasguns."

First, while SM fans seem to say they've been nerfed for play reasons, I've never seen it from a credible source. I've been a fan of 40k since the beginning, and their stats have remained reasonably constant over the years. Actually, there's been a bit of power creep as later designers believe the imperial propaganda more and more.

Second, I must be reading the wrong novels. I've seen IG take out Chaos Space Marines with lasgun fire. The last novel I read 400 space marines died. Nameless spacemarines are killed all the time to make the named protagonist all the more badass when he defeats the enemy. What the lead character of a novel does is what a high level hero (Rank 8+ maybe) should do. Not the baseline every character starts as. Compare the special character stats in TT to the basic marine in TT.

So yes, I want an RPG to play the marines I've always known and loved, not the marines other people seem to have invented in their minds. Yes, an RPG has different needs than TT. That doesn't mean it should be a completely different universe.

Thing is... I don't see that much difference between all of them, once you take the format issues out. Sure in the novels SM's are utterly unstoppable at least the main protagonists are there seems to be a lot of dead face marines around in most of them.

Like wise in the TT most space marines seem to die pretty easily but the special characters are beyond nails, especially point for point, they go from the best value and hardest to kill for their points value to the most devastating period. This is a game where, just by virtue of the system a lascannon has a 1 in 6 chance of not killing a gaunt, so you can be forgiven for a bolter having a 2 in 6 chance of it not working.

As for the RPG, there's plenty of room for nigh unkillable, plenty of armour options, talents and a good chunk of FP's you can have truely heroic sessions if you do it right, of course there's a good chance that you won't it wouldn't be a game if there wasn't .

Siranui said:

Hey, those guys are Cadian shock troops, there's nothing reluctant about them, they are born for combat.

Face Eater said:

Except special characters have a tougness of 4 so anything with a strength of 8 can kill them outright. And you would still have to deal with the problem were on average combat would have to last about 2 hours as things are just shooting at each other ineffectively. Hell I have a hard time with gaurdsmen in dark heresy only having 40 percent chance to hit what their aiming ait and there supposed to be professional soldiers.

deinol said:

Well, like I say it would be profoundly stupid to produce a Space Marine roleplaying game that wasn't aimed at Space Marine fans.

Are you actually excited by the prospect of playing a rather underwhelming Space Marine or are you just being difficult?

RogalDorn said:

RogalDorn said:

Yep, there is nothing I have ever seen that say's there's any space marine should be surviving a lascannon shot. But there are some than can (true baddass's are eternal warriors), there is chance of anything being taken out before doing anything, there's no way you're getting anything that's even remotely approaching completely indestructable, it would stop being a game if there was.

In short, they've never nerfed SM's, they've been getting steadily better with each iteration, just not to the degree some of the novels would present. If anything they've the reduced the cost of troops, all troops. The games much more tanks and terminators than it is PA and bolters these days, you might call GW money grabbing but people love tanks and terminators and they'd be fools not to let people use em. It's not a surprised that the troops seem more than a little fragile compared to that.

40 sounds about right for your average but they'll always be at least an aim or semi auto +10, a 40% is a snap shot. That's only 50% but what's good for the goose etc. It certainly seems to stop being such an issue later on and in DW.

I believe one of the main thrusts of this thread is a feeling that it is anticlimatic to kill anything in a single attack.

If you make it so a hit from a lascannon is a guaranteed fate point loss, well, you probably are not going to see all that many lascannons deployed against the players.

deinol said:

Brothers of the Snake by Dan Abnett. A handful of Marines killing hundreds of Orks. Or Rynn's World novel.

Or let's have a look at the deeds of some of the chapter masters. If you can reproduce them against me in the tabletop, all my worldly possessions shall be yours. And I only bet when I have a 100% chance of winning.

Alex

Face Eater said:

The 40% was factoring aim or semi-auto burst as you can't use full auto with a lasgun.

AluminiumWolf said:

And it would be profoundly arrogant to assume that Space Marine fans are all of your mindset, or that you speak for all Space Marine fans.

I have no problem with marines mowing down a ton of orks. That's the right proper reason for the horde rules. I'm sorry if I also want a game where standing and firing isn't the optimal decision to make in any situation. I want a game where things like greater deamons and hive tyrants make marines pause to consider their tactics. I want to be able to run a Space Hulk style scenario where even a marine in terminator armor sweats it out.

In short, I want a role-playing game that represents space marines as they've been represented in every other game they've been in. From 40k to Space Hulk to Dawn of War to Titan Legions.

RogalDorn said:

40% is far, far above real-world accuracy for professional soldiers.

Let's assume 30 Ballistic Skill. Let's give him a Full-Action Aim (+20), which he would realistically get against a wall of charging hormagaunts in the archetypal WWI in Space scenario. +10 Semi-Auto, +10 Short Range, That's 30 + 20 + 10 + 10 = 70%.

deinol said:

How about the upcoming Space Marine action game, which like the roleplaying game is free from the needs of worrying about the feelings of the poor person who has to play the side who are not Marines?

bogi_khaosa said:

yes and no depends on the situation the soldier finds himself in. Which is why I think cover should be more useful and percentage chances to hit upped. As of right now there are no rules for a person wanting to lean around cover and fire then duck back in.

AluminiumWolf said:

While I've no doubt you play a badass in the game, I'm willing to bet you face enemies that make you pause, or enemies that turn out to be quite difficult. But we're all just offering conjecture there...