Is it just me, or do the Organgrinder rounds from Into the Storm seem overpowered?

Into the Storm , page 128:

Organgrinder rounds

Effects : These shells do damage equal to the weapon’s
regular damage. If the target takes Damage from this shell,
after reduction for Armour and Toughness Bonus, he must
make a Toughness Test with a –10 penalty for every point
of Damage taken. Success means the shell has either failed or
is not powerful enough to cause further injury. Failure deals
an immediate 2d10 points of Rending Damage to the victim
with no reduction from Armour or Toughness Bonus.
Used With : Hand cannons, heavy stubbers, and any Bolt
weapons.

So, at the very least, it'll do the damage of the original rounds. If you take any damage, you need to roll toughness to avoid taking 2d10 extra damage? And that's a -10 to the Toughness test for each point of damage inflicted?

Now, I usually play Dark Heresy so I might not be entirely up to speed when it comes to the toughness of opponents. But Bolters are usually pretty decent weapons, that normally inflict at least a couple of points of damage with each hit. I haven't crunched any numbers, but let's assume you manage to do 3 damage to a guy with TB 6. That's a -30 toughness test for him to avoid taking another 2d10 damage. With the full auto capability of the Locke pattern Boltgun, that seems way overpowered to me.

Most other variant ammo types come with some sort of drawback. You bump Penetration, but lose some damage. You bump damage, but change damage type so the criticals hurt less, etc. The only drawback on this seems to be it's availability.

Yeah, they're pretty evil, but the availability hurts even for a rogue trader character.

As a GM I would only allow these to be acquired in small supplies, maybe one magazine at a time.

Organgrinder rounds are only 2d5 extra damage. Yes they are viscous, but some other ammunition is likewise only positive. See inferno shells and tempest bolt shells.

Moribund said:

They deal 2d10 armour and toughness ignoring damage per hit and can be used in Storm Bolters.

Also, the description at the top doesn't fit with the mechanics. The description talks about a slow lingering death, the mechanics cause a quick death. Then there is the fact that the description is incompatible with an exploding bolt shell, since the organgrinder needs to be intact to work.

Which leads to these quick house rules:

- Organgrinders can't be used in bolt weapons. Bolt ammo generally explodes, organgrinders don't, and I don't feel like arguing over how much of the damage comes from the explosion.

- The damage isn't instant. Instead a round will deal its damage at a rate of one wound per round, until it reaches its rolled damage or the target dies.

- Since they take a while to kill, removing them becomes an option. As does the round dissolving in acid blood.

- Targets with something stronger than flesh and bone at the hit location should take less damage or have outright immunity.

Bilateralrope said:

ehh... Saying a Bolter can't fire a round that doesn't explode on impact (i.e. narrowing the ammunition type to a single type) is like saying a shotgun can only fire pellets, not slugs or dragonfire shells. A boltgun is simply a gun made of durable metal alloys and a huge barrel to accommodate huge bullets. An Organgrinder isn't a bolter shell + organ grinding bullet. It is an organ grinding bullet.

Maybe Bilateralrope was referring to Bolt weapon's damage type as well, which is Explosives (X) ?

But I have to agree, it is quite (over)powerful to have a tearing weapon, which could deal extra 2d10 ignoring armour and bonuses if the victim failed a toughness test with (-10 x damage taken).

WhiteLycan said:

I'm not saying that they can't fire a round that doesn't explode. I'm saying that if they do fire such a round, the lack of explosion would reduce its initial damage. But I'm too lazy to decide how much damage they lose, so I'm just taking the simple option of banning them.

its definitely 2d5, not 2d10. I'm looking at the book right now.

What book are you reading it off?

Into the Storm pg 128 has it at 2d10 Rending

Agmar_Strick said:

Agmar_Strick said:

Odd. My copy says 2d10, no change mentioned in the errata. The OP contains what looks like a copy/paste from the digital version.

Which one of us has the misprint* ?

*Is misprint the right word when talking about digital copies ?