Hi everyone,

I was perusing the RT house rules forum a little while ago, and came across an alternate damage system which meant that crits are applied not only when wounds reach 0. I have been scouring the forums today and I couldn't find the original post! so if the original poster of that system (I've based my own home brew system heavily on yours so you should recognise it I hope) is around I'd love to hear how your system works in play and give you a lot of credit for inspiring me to build my system. I have not scoured the DH forums though, but if anyone has seen other similarly-designed or inspired damage house rule systems I'd really appreciate a link.

In any case, this is the alternate damage and crit system which I've adapted from those ideas I found on the RT forums. I'd love feedback on people's opinions of the system's efficacy and dramatic effect. It does add more book-keeping to damage dealing and taking, but I am hoping not a significant amount of book-keeping which would slow down play too much (a very subjective judgement, but short-hands on the maths make it fairly simple, at least to me).

Cheers,
naracances

DEATHWATCH ALTERNATE DAMAGE RULES
naracances June 2011

CRITICAL HITS, WOUNDS AND FATIGUE
Critical hits are taken when damage in excess of a CRIT THRESHOLD (CT) is taken. A character's CT is equal to two times (2x) his UNMODIFIED Toughness Bonus (i.e. ignore Unnatural Toughness mulitpliers). For headshots, the CT is halved.

For every point of damage taken which is in excess of the hit location's CT, a critical hit is determined as per normal crit charts on DW Core book pp. 252 - 259. For Space Marines (and others with the talent), the True Grit talent operates as normal.

When a character's Wounds reach zero, all CTs are reduced by the number of wounds past zero the character is at, to a minimum of zero CT.

Every damaging hit taken which takes a character to, or when at or below zero, wounds, automatically inflicts an extra 1 level of fatigue which cannot be resisted/negated. A character that passes out from fatigue loss (when they take more fatigue levels than their TB bonus) while at or below zero wounds enters a coma and may die.

COMAS AND DEATH
If a character enters a negative wound and fatigue induced coma, treat him as though he had the Blood Loss trait applied (10% chance of dying per round unless stabilised). If the character survives unaided for a number of rounds equal to 12-TB (to a minimum of 3 rounds), then he no longer has to test for death, and is considered in a stable coma. A Hard Medicae (-20) test, as well as advanced medical equipment, is required to revive the character.

Note that as soon as a Marine with a functional Sus-an Membrane falls into such a coma, he will automatically enter suspended animation, as per rules in the DW core book p. 36.

ARMOUR DAMAGE
Any critical hit a character recieves automatically reduces the AP in the area hit by 1 point, until the armour can be repaired.

POINT BLANK DAMAGE
Damage inflicted at point blank range from ranged weapons does additional damage equal to the DoS of the original attack roll. This DOES NOT APPLY if the attack is made during active melee combat (e.g. firing a pistol during melee); this is fully applied against stunned, prone, surprised or successfully grappled/ captured targets when at PB range. The latter conditions should also be applied to melee attacks - i.e. incapacitated or suprised targets take more damage from melee attacks as well.

EXAMPLE
Randy the Space Marine has a Toughness of 44. His TB is 8 (from unnatural Toughness) but his unmodified TB is 4; therefore, his CTs are 8, except for his head which has a CT of 4. He has 22 wounds at full health and as a Marine has the True Grit talent.

Randy takes a lascannon to the face, suffering 16 wounds after armour and toughness modifiers are taken into account. As Randy's head has a CT of 4, this would counts as a damage crit of 12... thankfully the True Grit talent halves the crit level to 6, merely melting his face instead of blowing his head off. He now has only 6 wounds left, and his power armour loses 1AP for the head until repaired.

While lying in agony on the ground, waiting for the painkillers to kick in, the sadistic ork with the lascannon decides to hit Randy again, this time hitting him in the body. After armour and TB is taken into account, Randy takes a further 10 wounds. As this takes Randy below 0 wounds to -4, all his CTs are reduced by 4 points. As such, his body's CT is now only 4 (instead of 8), and he therefore takes a level 3 crit (6 damage over his CT, halved by True Grit). He also takes an additional point of fatigue (on top of the 2 from the crit), as well as reducing the AP of his power armour in the body by another point.

Between his melted face and injured body Randy has reached nine fatigue levels, which would normally knock him out (his TB is 8). However, as he is on negative wounds, he enters a potentially fatal coma. Unfortunately, Randy is from the Black Templars chapter, and therefore has a dysfunctional Sus-an Membrane. As such, he will have to check against dying (a 1 in 10 chance) every round, up to 4 rounds (12 rounds minus his TB of 8). Randy's player is lucky, and rolls a d10 every round for four rounds, but at no point does he roll a 10 and therefore avoids death. Randy is instead in a stable coma.

However, the ork who was firing the lascannon has now come up to inspect his handiwork, and pulls out his bolt pistol to make sure the humie is dead. He makes a point-blank called shot against Randy's armoured but injured head and succeeds in his (very easy) attack roll by 5 DoS. Considering that Randy's helmet is damaged (worth 1 less AP), and with the +5 damage bonus from the point-blank strike, he manages to inflict 8 wounds. As Randy's CT at his head has been reduced through damage to 0, this translates as a level 8 crit, exploding Randy's head like a watermelon. Furthermore, anyone who wants to salvage his body, will have to repair 2 points of AP damage to the helmet, and 1 AP to the body, of the power armour.

Poor Randy.

CONSIDERATIONS FOR PLAY
Clearly this system increases the amount of book-keeping required for determining and recording damage, but does not alter the horde mechanics in any way, so large-scale combat should not be slowed down (apart from different PC Marine damage of course). The system is used for PCs (of course), and should be used for important, challenging, interesting or dramatic NPCs. However, for less important NPC opponents, presuming that the Horde system is not into play, the coma and death rules may be ignored if GMs are happy to have NPCs become incapacitated when they reach 0 wounds (a short-hand which I have often used with the vanilla damage system up until now anyway).

Crits are easily calculated with the following table/ short-hand - a level 1 crit occurs when the amount of wounds inflicted are equal to:

UNMODIFIED TB HEAD BODY/ARMS/LEGS
1 2 3
2 3 5
3 4 7
4 5 9
5 6 11
6 7 13
7 8 15
8 9 17
9 10 19
10 11 21

Made a mistake in my own **** example... the final headshot does a level 4 crit because of Randy's True Grit (8 damage halved). True Grit is so **** OP... lemme think about this one.

Ouch. Certainly very deadly, considering the foes faced by Astartes and that the unnatural toughness doesn't count. Doubling head criticals is probably excessive, especially considering that they are normally more nasty than other locational hits.

For example; a decently strong but fairly normal orc will be swinging for at least d10+12 Pen 2. A horde of them will easily be delivering immediate criticals on even a half-decent dice rolls. As those critical levels of damage stack, our Marine is going to be long dead by the time he reaches the Warboss.

Pretty much any decent blow to any location from any master level foe is going to kill the player, too. For example, the broodlord and even just the genestealers in Final Sanction deliver 2d10+12, Pen 5 with rending claws. Assuming the rending claws 'work', that's 23 Pen 10 on average. Or 13 damage, which is a level 3 critical. With a small amount of misfortune and the blow landing on the marine's head and a slightly higher than average damage result, we're looking at a marine hors de combat. And that's an average roll!

Very interesting indeed.

I wouldn't double head criticals without a Called Shot. Maybe even say that Called Shot = halve CT? Would make sens (you're aiming at the weak points), and make the "I try to one shoot with mah Lascannon" strategy realistic (you have to aim at the heart to make sure the man is blown up at once, else you'll just have to give him the second salvo ).

But I would only use it on "weak" attacks, as what Siranui said is absolutely true.

What's more, I hope you don't use it on NPCs. I've seen a Blood Angel Assault Marine inflict like 50 damage in one strike. Bye bye, Carnifex, we loved you...

So I think there are some adjustments to be made, still

Thank you Siraniu and Stormast for your feedback, much appreciated.

I admit the idea of making the hits deadlier is part of the point a little though, although you're absolutely right that it's probably too much. I haven't played TT 40k since 4ed, so my memory of the combat probabilities of a regular space marine are both fuzzy and probably obsolete now (I have no idea what a 7th ed TT SM looks like). My memory from that game was that when I had a squad of Marines, one or two of them would usually go down from a horde of Ork bolter fire every turn or two... although I could be thinking of 3ed come to think of it... but in any case, I suspect that SMs have been buffed with each newly revealed codex, or at least it seems that way from reading DW rules as they stand. And part of my disinclination towards the use of wounds as a buffer stat is that it reduces the unpredictability of combat, where wounds are used as a strategic resource that are managed - when wounds are up run in, when low run out. A more vicious randomness is definitely what I'm after - for and against the PCs - but I want to keep the balance right so that the stats of the creatures in the books I don't actually have to change (and everything else... the smaller the tweak the better). At the same time, I'd like to see the low level wounds kicking in earlier rather than later - they add a lot more colour to the fight as you can see PCs and NPCs taking fatigue, getting stunned, losing advantage etc. from solid but not slaying hits (as the crits from 1-3 are usually fairly minor anyway - and with the True Grit talent it's very hard for regular attacks to get much higher than this early on anyway).

I was taking the original unmodified TB as the base CT as I felt that by doubling it due to Unnatural Toughness, the marine was getting the same bonus twice as they were already stopping damage from hitting them due to the higher effective toughness. However when I was trying to get the scale right I neglected to think of the big nasty monsters - I was thinking more on the DH/RT scale of effect (which I have played previously to DW, which I am about to run). The trouble is, the scale I'm looking for is where the crits kick in are reasonably (I admit not exactly) close to when a character is at zero wounds, and crits kick in with the old system anyway. At the big end of the scale (which SMs are up against) this doesn't hold as well, but at the middle and lower scales it seems to still hold.

So, perhaps this for now:
Head CT is the same as the rest of the body
For every level of Unnatural Toughness, add +2 to the TB before doubling it.

So a SM with a Toughness of 44 has a TB of 8 and a CT (all locations) of 12.
A monster with a toughenss of 60 and Unnatural Toughness level 2, would have a TB 18 and a CT of 20.

Is part of the scaling problem that for Marines (and other chunky aliens) that Righteous Fury is too easy to get? I am tempted to restrict RF to only one dice in the damage pool (so on a 3d10 damage roll, one dice is chosen as the special dice, and only if that dice rolls a 10 does RF have a chance to kick in, not if any of them roll a 10; otherwise the odds for RF become extremely disproportionate at the big end of the weapon scale). Thoughts?

What are the stats for a Carnifex at any rate? Surely if you're hitting it with 50 damage in one hit you're killing it in vanilla DW anyway?

Thanks for your comments guys, keen to think if the changes above help balance it out a little,
naracances

Man I gotta lay off the typos:
* For every level of Unnatural Toughness, add +2 to the TB before doubling it to determine the CT.

Cheers,
naracances

First, don't forget, DW is not TT.

TT has balance issues: if a squad of Space Marines can ass-r*pe a whole army of orks (as you can read in some novels), you're in deep trouble making players have fun (what's more in a game where everything is decided via dice: to get a statistically correct situation, you need more than 10 models ).

DW doesn't have those issues, and can therefore focus on the "superhuman superheroes" side of the Marines. As has been stated a few times on this forum, DW would be between TT and "Novel Marines": a Guardsman won't have the chance to kill a Marine, whatever he does (whereas in TT he'll always have something like one chance out of 36 or something, don't remember the numbers right now), Marines as nigh-unstoppable killing machines, and you'll fac ethem with the real terrors of 40k before they really need to go to the doctor.

Well I won't be digressing any longer, but with that you can already see the point I think. The idea is, outright killing a PC is not a fun thing to do when he's in good shape, so the more control you have on damage, the nicer it feels when you play it.

I'll say that I really like the idea anyway. I am quite disappointed that, most of the time, when you get to the Critical table, it's more or less a death sentence, and that system of yours should allow us to see the "funny" effects of Criticals more often, which is AWESOME

As for the 'fex, don't remember the exact stats, but you can expect it to have at least 100-150 wounds, so no, 50 Wounds in one hit shouldn't kill it. Yeah it's incredibly tough, but it's a Carnifex!

Now, on to the new idea. I like it. It needs testing anyway, but that may be the right idea. As for Righteous Fury, your idea is nice, but there are other problems. For example, do Tearing dice count? If I throw 2d10 Tearing, should I declare one die out of 3 as the "RF die", or one out of 2 and if it gets replaced by the Tearing die, you get RF? (not really possible anyway since you'll throw 3d10 and keep the 2 bests, but hey)

Now, let's see what happens with your system...With his 50 damage, the Marine will more or less inflict 32 damage to the 'fex (don't remember their armor, so let's just say that the PEN of the weapon nulls it, for simplicity's sake), which amounts to 12 Critical. If the 'fex has True Grit (and really, there is no reason why it shouldn't), it'll do a Critical 6, which is acceptable. So, no horrible one-shot, though the 'fex might feel bad about that blow (and he should, 50 is crazy high and really worthy of the Emperor's grandchildren!)

So maybe that's what you need (anyway, 50 damage in a turn doesn't come up that often, it's just that you need to have that possibility in mind). As I said, needs testing.

Have fun with your DW games, that rule could really make them gritty and violent as we all like

Thanks for the feedback, agreed about the fact that sudden crits make often for very unhappy players - I've run highly lethal crit-based Rolemaster and Spacemaster RPG campaigns for years - but that's why the Emperor gave the PCs fate points. And it'll be attrition damage that will hopefully take down most of these big chunky mothers most of the time anyway - unless they're up against something that's meant to kill them, like a lascannon or carnifex... 150 wounds, Jaysus.

Am about to start this DW campaign in the next week or so, will playtest the damage system and see how it works and will come back and post it out, even if it falls flat on it's face. Will give the RF thing a go, see how that one plays out, but yeah, I agree that's tricky as well.

I'd concur, in the Deathwatch - unlike Dark Heresy and WFRP - is aimed at a fairly heroic level of play, rather than a gritty one. What marines can do in the scope of the TT wargame is very different from how they are portrayed in fiction, 'box-outs' in the TT fluff and rules, and within the Deathwatch RPG itself.

Another great example of the level of play and heroism would be the Norse and Icelandic warrior sagas, and tales of Arthur's knights.

Game mechanics need to be tailored to fit the theme of a game, and whereas Rolemaster and Spacemaster are utterly lethal environments (where screwing up a roll for walking down a set of stairs, or an irate wasp can kill you), Deathwatch is lethal by the magnitude and capabilities of the foes faced, rather than integral to the system. With that in mind, higher lethality is perhaps better reflected by throwing another 2 genestealers at the party than by making critical hits more common.

Remember also that any critical taken is recorded as critical damage and added to the next critical. This will become a horrific problem to my mind, as earlier encounters will inevitably cause the odd crit or two through chance, which will pretty much ensure that later foes deliver terminal blows. Five level 1 crits mean an automatic +5 to any further crits sustained.

Fate points play a part, but those three fate points are for the entire *career* of the character, rather than the first three adventures. Given that survival to level 8 and 40,000XP of spending should at least be theoretically possible, we're looking at 25-ish missions, and burning only one fate point per 6-8 missions. Even harsher considering the 'slippery slope' of burned fate points giving players less fate points to spend on re-rolls and d10s of wounds. I don't think a more lethal model gives any realistic chance of characters surviving their full term within the Watch.

I wouldn't count it like that.

To me, if a crit happens when you still have Wounds left, you apply the effects of the crit, but that's all. It's only "negative Wounds" that should make the next hit worse.

Sorry I don't think I made this point clear - crits aren't cumulative in this system. When in negative wounds, the reduction in CT will eventually allow small hits to do big damage, but each hit is independent of the others. The accumulation of lots of small hits will mean the character will eventually go into a coma if no nasty crit emerges - which will usually kill normal humans but Marines are likely to survive in suspended animation.

I understand your argument about keeping the DW heroic theme and I agree. However, in DW I often feel that much of the crit system is superfluous. Hit locations are largely superfluous as well. All the damage data is mostly colour, because in most combat situations (as Stormast mentioned earlier) a crit is a death sentence, and even if it's a small low level crit, any further damage is almost guaranteed to kill. Apart from variable armour on hit locations they don't count much if crits become deadly almost invariably (and with the amount of damage marines are both taking and dishing out means that you're not often likely to be taking small amounts of damage when hits connect, especially if you're already wounded).

You're right that burning fate points is not a reasonable mechanism for preventing sudden crits all the time - I was being largely facetious when I made the original comment. We'll see during playtest how nasty the crits come out on PCs and whether there are other ways of mitigating them. But once again, i f the amount of damage that causes a big crit in this system is depleting most of the PCs wounds to zero or near zero, in one hit, then I am satisfied that this system is working as designed. Wounds in vanilla DW (and HPs in D&D) are ablative, strategic resources. They enhance the bravery of players because players are very cognisant of how many hits they've got and structure their gameplay choices accordingly, but I find it less dramatic and, to our style of play, less 'heroic'. The style of play we're going for is that heroic moments in the game should come from activating demeanors and squad abilities in character- and situation-relevant ways under immense pressure, not by adding more genestealers.

In any case I don't want to start a discussion of how DW should or should not be played, and which themes should guide play (as there are a number of themes that DW adventures can explore) and rules tweaks. I'd rather talk about the numbers themselves to see if it would work with the playstyle that I am (implicitly) advocating.

I think I will run with restricting Righteous Fury to a single damage die - in the case of tearing, throw all the dice at once and take out the best ones (so, if it's 2d10 damage + 1d10 tearing, roll 3d10 and take the best 2 dice). If the 'crit die' rolls a 10 you would keep the result anyway, so it's not a big problem. This will keep the odds of RF from initiating to 1/10, as every extra die you are adding is rapidly increasing the odds of a crit (meaning lascannons, on top of their already obscene damage bonuses, will almost certainly always initiate RF with 6d10).

The other problem is Felling (X) damage which reduces the level of Unnatural Toughness in a target (cf. p. 142 DW Core book). This will require the re-calculation of CTs taking this into account (so, effectively, every level of felling reduces the CT by -4, until all the UT is negated). This will require a little bit more bookwork, but hopefully shouldn't come up routinely in play and only when Marines are prepared against a big badass boss of some kind.

Once again, thanks for the feedback.