One us of Angel of Death from RoB is to ignore an enemy's armour for one round. Logically, this would include tanks and dreadnoughts. Is this insanely OP or fair?

No, I doubt any kind of talent can allow a character to ignore half a foot or more of reinforced steel, adamantite, or ceramite.

As for "rules say" stuff. A character wears armor, a tank is a tank.

I'm not really talking about the fluff aspect- tanks have weakpoints that an 'angel of death' is able to find since they're a legendary, well, angel of death.

What do you mean by 'rules say' stuff? It says the character can ignore an enemy's armour for one shot. It does not specify that the enemy must be a character. And clearly tanks DO have armour.

There is a diffence between personal Armor and vehicle Armor. And you can be pretty shure that Angel of death is not meant to irnore the Armor of vehicles. Just read the text and use some common sense...

The "rules say" argument is used by people trying to ignore common sense or the concensus of the majority by stating time and again, "the rules say exactly X and Y." Such an argument focuses on a much to literal reading and interpretation of said rule. Those who argue in such a manner with ignore or dismiss each and every argument against their personally chosen interpretation. No matter how well thought out the counter-argument, or the so obvious common sense its equivalent to a sledgehammer in the face counter argument, or any other argument. Their dismiss is almost always limited to and based solely off their "the rules say" statement. They can produce no effective reasoning why the counter arguments are invalid. They simply continue to repeat their original statment, "The rules say." Generally, at least in non-internet examples, when someone uses such a debate tactic they've lost their argument and immediately lose all credibility on said topic.

Alas, such is the internet those who use this argument can continue to push the 'reply' button. They never get to see the faces of their peers as they look on in contempt, utter confusion at their idiocy, or pity for continuing to beat a thouroughly dead horse.

Clearly N/PCs wear armor.

Clearly Tanks are MADE out of armor.

herichimo said:

Not sure who you're addressing here. You seem to be agreeing with me since a) I didn't cite the 'rules say' part and b) 'tanks are made out of armour' implies that it can be ignored by the talent. A minor quibble from me would be that 'common sense' means different things to different people so it's not really, you know, common. Obvious to one person is not necessarily obvious to another.

To VENDETTAR, there is clearly a difference between personal armour and tank armour but again, the talent is unclear. I haven't played Deathwatch much so I am unfortunately unable to make such bold assumptions (i.e., that tanks are 'better' than infantry*).

*which would be bloody obvious in most settings, but 40k is wacky

Let me be a little more clear.

Angel of Death should only affect body armor.

If I were to buy an FN Five7 and somehow get the military issue armor piercing rounds, should I be able to take out a tank with it?

As for arguing week points, well thats the difference between tabletop gaming and roleplaying. In the tabletop game hand to hand gets to attack the weak rear armor of a tank even if they are in the front or side facing because there is no mechanic in the tabletop to represent going for the vision slit or the like.

In roleplay these these things aren't simplified. If you say you are just punching the tank, well you just walk up to the tank and punch it right in the center mass. On the other hand if you say you want to jump up, pry open one of the hatches and drop in a grenade, then the GM sets up the tests you need to do in order to do just what you say.

Weak points in personal armor would be easy to find. The joints are usually a good start. The weaknesses of an enemy's body is also easy to find. The sensory appendage (Human head for example), or the central body mass (where most vital organs are generally to be found). To get to any weak points in a tanks armor requires more than simply walking up to it and hitting it on the side. First you must know the weakpoints (Knowledge: War perhaps?) Then you must get into position to attack these weak points (climbing on top of the tank's engine compartment over the grills). Finally, there is no way in any universe a weapon that normally would be stopped (or at least slowed) by thick slabs of reinforced armor (much more than anything an N/PC could wear) would suddenly slice through as if the armor wasn't there.

Roleplaying games don't make blanket talents or skills that allow you to skirt something like ignoring a tanks armor simply because you have the talent. Could you imagine if they did. "Your D&D character has dragon-killer perk. Whenever you successfully land a hit on a dragon it immediately dies." Imagine how boring that would be.

As for my comparison, it looks like I need to go a little more indepth.

N/PCs wear armor, either leather stuff, plate, power armor, etc. This type of armor requires weaker areas so the armor may facilitate movement. An N/PC also has a toughness bonus, his physical robustness. Finally the N/PC has wounds. Most body armor is designed to stop only serious wounds to certain parts of the body. An N/PC wears armor on top of his body, he still has all the weaknesses of his body, even if he gets better armor later.

A Tank has armor, huge slabs of it. Covering every reasonable direction of attack. A tank does not have a toughness, the thickness of the tank's armor is how a tanks robustness is measured. A tank has wounds in the form of structural integrity. Tank armor is designed to stop all attacks from damaging the vehicle. Tanks are literally built with their armor. Tank armor IS the body of the tank. There is no weaker vehicle inside wearing the tank for an extra set of protection.

Thanks for the well thought out reply Herichimo. You've clarified a bunch of points that upon further analysis, make perfect sense.

herichimo said:

Alas, at least one RPG DOES have these kinds of rules, namely Deathwatch. The talent "Angel of Death" lists one use of the ability as being able to "...choose for one of his hits (determined once a successful hit has been landed) to igore all armor points or toughness points". The problem is that tanks (rules for which were introduced in the same supliment, so not like the designers need to pre empt, just read their own rules and think) have Armor. One could argue that since it says "or toughness" that it only works on things with toughness, and since tanks don't it won't work on them (not a good option in my opinion, 'coz it is a realy odd use of an "or" to act as an "and" for inclusion into a particular set). The better way to deal with it is to make a house rule in your game limiting the talent's use, but it is important to make it clear that this is a house rule, the origional rule (with many in DW) is broken because the designer's have not fully thought out the ramifications of certain things.

This is not to say I don't like the system, I think the basic combat rules are pretty cool, players have options and usable tactics, which is good, but some of the rules are vague, or downright ambiguous, and that will always cause problems.

Should this situation come up in game, I'm inclined to rule that, given that a vehicle's armour is a factor of its structure and composition, not just the armour plating on the surface, that abilities that ignore all armour when used against vehicles simply count the vehicle's armour value as halved instead (this goes for attacks from Warp Weapons as well).