- I will also point out that Semi-Auto Burst and Full-auto Burst are now listed as half-actions, meaning you can move+semi/full auto or aim+semi/full auto in a round.

- Swimming and Climbing got combined into an "Athletics" skill

- Concealment and Silent Move got combined into a "Stealth" skill

- SM/CSM Bolters got changed from 2d10+5 to 1d10+9 (and tearing, of course)

there were a couple other changes that I spotted, but I can't think of them right now...

Personally, I like the changes.

These sound like great changes, I love the idea of truncating the list of skills.

Honestly, separate skills for Concealment and Silent Move was a rubbish idea.

No:12 said:

I don't think the old system was a problem myself. Part of learning to use a weapon is learning to use it defensively, so it made sense that as you became generally better at hitting stuff you became better at defending yourself as well. Yes, it did mean a dodge monkey could surpass parries, but getting balanced or defensive weapons can restore some of the comparability quite easily. There is also the fact that improving dodge didn't have any other knock on benefits, unlike improving weapon skill which improved both attack and defence.

I do worry what turning it into a skill will do. Ok, it seems basic attacks will get a +10 which will make them more likely to hit, but Parry, when maxed out, will be much higher in comparison (+30 for Mastery, +10 for balanced) meaning it seems likely that combats could get extremely... frustrating. Its not like you couldn't get a decent parry score in the first place.

I wouldn't say seperate Silent Move and Concealment was a rubbish idea. That are two entirely different things that require different skills. It possibly didn't make the greatest sense from a game design perspective as it did mean that a "stealth" archetype character had to buy both (Shadowing as well, truthfully)., but there are reasonable reasons for it being seen as a different skill.

borithan said:

Perhaps DoS in the Attack can become penalties for Dodge or Parry tests? I always thought that one should affect the other somehow. This would prevent endless fights between two "Champions" whilst simultaneously allowing a seasoned hero to "wtfpwn" some weak mook with his incredibly superior WS.

Either that or we could maybe get some special attacks that make the WS Test more difficult, but apply penalties to the opponent's defense as well. Either as talents or as weapon-dependent default options (similar to the 3 ranged attack modes).

Dan_of_Hats said:

It just causes a small problem by being such a drastic departure in that a lot of people were planning on getting the game as much to make villains for the other three as anything else, indeed, I see far more people outside this MB (And even some on the other games boards here) who it was the only reason they intended to get it for.

So it will be interesting, I'm actually worried that for all this might be the best mechanically of the 4 so far, it could well end up being even less popular than Rogue Trader, and that means less sourcebooks!

Well, despite different mechanics for leveling and combat, I do believe that it would still be easy to "translate" something from one game into the other. The game will still be based on d100s and d10s, it will still use the same characteristics, and combat still involves armour, toughness and penetration values in addition to the normal damage and wounds.

Even if many people may only get these books to make villains for the other games (which I find hard to believe - it'd be a sad thing if it were true!), I don't think they would be disappointed.

I wouldn't even be surprised if Black Crusade came with rough conversion rules for DH/RT/DW characters just for advertising the opportunity to play a corrupted version of one's old character as a feature! The three existing games already have glaring compatibility issues due to differences in both scope as well as mechanics, yet almost all their books hold some value for each. Black Crusade will be no different, you may just have a bit more work with importing/exporting stuff.

The most important change still seems to be classless leveling, and character progression is completely irrelevant for NPCs.

Keep the faith!

(... though I still hope for a uniform "2nd Edition" 40k RPG ruleset for everyone and everything ... some day, maybe ...)

Well, maybe we will see special attack modes, but without them fights between champions with an opposed test mechanic will actually favour the defender. If Parry is a skill, presumably based off WS, then Mastery will eventually get this to +30 over weapon skill. Against normal attacks (which seem to give a +10) this a +20 advantage for the defender. Put in a balanced weapon and this is +30. Now there maybe new rules to benefit the attacker, but from the look of it it will currently really favour the defender.

Agmar_Strick said:

To each their own. I actually think Move Silently and Concealment need to remain separate skills. Knowing how to be light on your feet =/= knowing how to properly use a gilly net or similar in concealing a position. One is a physical skill revolving around light footed movement, the other really more of a perception/intelligence based action revolving around how to best conceal a position within a given area of terrain.

Alexis

*smiles*

Hi,

Yes that was my initial concern with high parry's too... I guess against an individual with mastery of parry, you'd still have the feint option? Not guaranteed but still worth a shot.

Also (and I dont have Broken Chains so not sure on this) if swift attack offers extra hits per DOS and parry removes hits per DOS, wouldnt the natural variance in rolls favour the attacker over time? Being that each individual would have good and bad rolls, with only the attacker able to transfer winning DOS into effect? Two skilled opponents may just come down to who has a bad roll first...

Two Weapon Wielder may have an effect also if its a seperate attack... And having a mate to gang up on said parry master of course...

@Cailieg

The problem with that is that by that reasoning, everything could get its own skill. Concealment? What a broad category! We should have Urban Concealment, Forest Concealment, Concealment by Night, Concealment against technical gadgets, Preparation of Hiding Places, Finding a Hiding Place on the fly,...

Obviously by that reasoning your character sheet would become longer than the core rulebook. Thus, simplification is IMO quite in order. In this case, it gets even better: It eliminates rolls. I at least never really knew when to roll concealment versus silent move when a character did his generic Sam Fisher/Altair/Solid Snake/Garret impersonation and infiltrated an enemy base. Roll both? That gives twice the chance of failing. Just one? Which one, when many tasks involve both periods of movement and hiding?

Oh wait, there's even more: Shadowing! So when you're following someone, it's suddenly irrelevant whether you find good hiding places or are light on your feet - unless you like to roll thrice for the same single task...

No, a generic "Stealth" as other systems use it is a far better solution.

Cifer said:

I actually got fairly good at adjudicating this. The trick is working to individual, brief narrative beats

Silent Move is an active skill - when you're sneaking up on someone, you use Silent Move to avoid drawing their attention (because if you're in the open, but they're facing away from you, Concealment is irrelevant). Concealment is a reactive skill - you use it to hide from people looking for you. Shadowing is a little more fiddly, because it's less about not being seen, and more about not revealing yourself to be a threat - it's about keeping the right distance and moving in the right ways to be able to move through a crowd in pursuit of someone without them realising they're being followed.

Of the three, for base infiltration, Silent Move would be used most often - if you're quick, smart and careful, you'll seldom ever need to make a Concealment Test. Concealment is most commonly used by snipers setting up a hidden firing position (if you're several hundred metres away, Silent Move is largely irrelevant). Shadowing is ideal when tailing a suspect through a crowded street to the abandoned hab where he meets the rest of his co-conspirators.

I explained it in some detail a while back on the Dark Heresy boards:

N0-1_H3r3 said:

borithan said:

Honestly, I don't see this being much of a problem, provided they make a few changes to the parrying/dodging rules concerning single attacks (as I made mention to earlier in this thread). A seperate parry skills allows characters who aren't pumping their Weapon Skill all that high to still have a decent chance to defend themselves, allowing them to survive in combats they may find themselves dragged into by the more combative members of a party. If you have a good Weapon Skill on top of a good parry Skill, that just reflects your capabilities all the more.

It's only a big issue if the current rules for parrying/dodging stay as they are. If you make a single attack, no matter what kind of bonuses you get or how many successes you gain, an opponent only has to roll under their own Weapon Skill to nullify your attack in most cases. If they do as I suspect and change it to a contested roll, your degrees of success will actually matter, meaning the Parry skill becomes a lot more useful for people who aren't wanting to be combat mosters, but are still wanting to get by OK in any fights they may find themselves in.

Also, on a general side note, I think people are worrying a whole lot about the +30 skill cap in BC, which strikes me as odd; the cap may have been +20 in the other games, but there was the Talent called....well, Talented that added another +10 to the specified skill, so effectively the same cap level. It's just the fact that Talented didn't turn up on many progression trees so it had to be bought as an Elite advance, so until I know more about whether the Talented talent makes it into BC in addition to the +30 skill cap and how much it may cost to raise it that high I don't consider this too big a deviation.

You could also simply concentrate on Dodge to avoid the "need" for a good Parry. Works fine. Gets +20.

If they make Parry (and Dodge ?) contested rolls, I fear it may slow down melee combat. It had already been suggested as home rule (seen it on the DW forum at least), and playtest concluded it wasn't that interesting.

Stormast said:

By that logic, why have Weapon Skill and Ballistic Skill? Just have an "Attack Skill", saves time.

The reason we have doging and parrying is, quite simply, because people want the option to do both these things. Some people want to be master swordsmen who can parry, others want to be lithe assassins that can slip through streams of oncoming bullets, and some people want both. Since BC is not a game that is restricted by progression trees like the other games of this line, the XP goes where the player wants it to go, and if they want to make a character that favours one or the other or has both, they have the option to do that. For example, in a game of Deathwatch I played in, I rolled up a Dark Angel Devestator, and through random chance I got a kick-arse Weapon Skill but a low Agility. Guess what I did? I got myself a sword and I tried to make sure I was always in a position where I could parry rather than dodge. When I couldn't parry something, I would often have to rely on my armour and TB to mitigate the damage I would almost certainly take.

Also, how does making Parry and Doges contested rolls slow things down in combat? You're making EXACTLY the same amount of rolls; Player 1 makes a single attack with a WS of 60, gets 5 successes. Player 2 spends their reaction to parry, using their WS of 45 and gets 4 successes {rolling underneath their WS}. Now in the rules as they currently stand, that would result in a succesful parry. All I'm suggesting is that by making it contested, you compare the DoS and the higher result determines the result. How is that slowing down combat? No extra rolls have taken place. I'm not suggesting you do that to every single attack rolls, just that when someone spends their reaction to attempt a parry-dodge on a single attack, it requires they beat the opponent's DoS.

I can appreciate people have playtested it in their own games, and if they didn't find it that interesting, that's fine; no one is going to agree on every single rule after all. But I still think it's a perfectly acceptable rule that seems to be more in-line with the combat system as they presented in Broken Chains, and a possible indication of how things might be in the new book. Even if it's not, it's one I personally intend to run.

Cifer said:

You are more than welcome to your opinion Cipher, but, my group and I may like the rolling in of Athletics, we dislike the rolled up stealth. Hero Games 5th/6th Edition did it right, at least as far as we are concerned. Keep it simple, but Hide and Sneak (as they are called in Hero) should remain separate and will in our games. The 3 skills they gave us in DH work just fine. As a GM I have never had trouble calling for the skill I wanted the players to roll despite your assurances that I would need to ask players to roll thrice for something such as shadowing.

Some parts of the changed mechanics I like, others I dislike, stealth as a solitary skill I dislike. So, players in my game will still to work on Concealment advances. Shadowing I would let be rolled into "Stealth" with move silently though if my players do not object, since I feel that moving silently/surreptitiously or moving silently/surreptitiously while following someone are close enough to merge.

Alexis

*smiles*

Regarding Stealth, I've ran some "stealthy" characters in both DH and RT, and I've yet to see one who didn't end up advancing both Concealment and Silent Move. If they ended up with different levels of those Skills, it was not a character statement, but an artifact of the system.

Hence, I see the simplification here as a good thing.

Dan_of_Hats said:

Well my point wasn't "Use Dodge instead of Parry all the time". It was "if your WS sucks, then surely it's better to go the Dodge way than to Parry". If it's the contrary, then just Parry.

But generally - as your Dark Angel shows - you don't need both to be good. So "Parry as a skill is cool because people who suck at melee but still want to parry can now" is a bad justification. "Parry as a skill is cool as it's on the same line as Dodge" sounds much safer

Thing is, the overall system has a bias for Dodge at the moment (Dodge avoids Ranged AND Melee), don't know how it evolves in BC though. So if you suck at WS, it's quite the no brainer to buy up a non-totally-sucking Agility and get some Dodge love.

It also actually penalises lower level characters. As it is now a skill, that presumably means that untrained it is rolled at 50% of stat, while before it was a full stat (its general higher initial level mitigated by the fact that it cannot be used against ranged attacks).

I don't think there will be too many archetypes that don't get either Parry or Dodge as a standard skill.

Hope so, or they'll be in deep crap. Although you could look at the psyker from Broken Chains with her power that "makes you Dodge", and maybe say she wouldn't need Dodge or Parry.

Stormast said:

IIRC, she also has Dodge trained.

Sure, my point was that that kind of character could avoid training Dodge

Of course, that implies the potentiality of warp effects each time you have to dodge...But is it such a curse in the BC setting?

borithan said:

One observation: note that the Broken Chains .pdf lists "untrained" as a flat -20, instead of 50%. There's another little change in the rules for you.

Cheers,

- V.

@Stormast

Since this would probably spiral you towards the 100cp mark with its Prince/Spawn decision, yes, I think you should be careful about that.

Vandegraffe said:

Interesting change that one. People with low stats (less than 40) will have even less chance of making untrained skill rolls. Lets take the WS and AGI 30 crowd. They now only have a 10% chance to dodge or parry unless they are trained in it. Youch!