hi to all. as the title say, i made some change in weapon stat for my upcoming campain. basicaly i tried to buff the ranged weapon, other than the bolter class.

instead of nerfing the bolter, i updated the others

here we are:

plasma cannon: 150m S/-/- 4d10+11 pen 10 clip 16 reload 5 full special blast 1 volatile overheat

plasma rifle: 100m S/2/- 3d10+9 pen 8 clip40 reload 4full special: volatile overheat

plasma pistol: 30m S/2/- 3d10 +7 pen 6 clip 12 reload 3 full special Volatile

i added more dice of damage that sinergize well with the volatile quality. i also added overheat to all but the pistol, creating a high risk, high damage weapon.

they can still fire in max mode, with the usual benefit.

for the melta class, i added a new quality (unnamed atm) wich is:

+1 critical damage for pistol

+2 critical damage for meltagun

+3 critical damage for multi melta.

this is for increased killing power, and (against veicle) an increased chance of dealing impressive critical with the righeous fury against veicle meccanincs in rites of battle ( i don't know if it's against forum rule to post an entire pharagraf of rule, so i hope you understood)

as a color note i added devastating 1 to all the flamer.

and at last, for the melee weapon, i changed the tunder hammer to mounted, with the option to use it two handed in power armour

and added razor sharp to the chain fist, to match it's renown of tank opener.

i didn't got much time to playtest it, so your review will be much apreciated! thanks to all!

i almost forgot!! felling 2 and devastating 1 to the assault cannon. it's a mounted weapon after all! should be better than the heavy bolter, at last!!!

also, need som advice for the storm bolter. i think it's ridicolusly overpowered, but i don't know how to nerf it without rending it useless.

absolut OP, you straight overshot the goal...

Vendettar said:

What this guy said. I'm curious if you GM at all? The problem with the old bolters is that they tore through anything thanks to their high rate of fire which only helps pump out more damage in one round of attacks. The problem wasn't that the other weapons felt weaker at all. People were tearing through Daemon Princes like they meant nothing, and that was just wrong!

I think they went the right way with the new errata.

The only issue I have with the new bolter, is that with out Full Auto, they can no longer be used to supress. This sucks, as the only weapon that gives marines this option in a fight would be the heavy bolter and the assault cannon I think.

with "new bolter" that should apper in the errata what do you mean ? i saw the alternate weapon profile table at the end of the errata, but that should be an alternate ruleset, just for rolling less dice of damage. or did that change also affect weapon balance ?

It greatly changes the balance of weapons. Eratta to me never means "alternate." Errata to me means, "we messed up, here's some adjustments to help bring the game back in line." I don't have the books on me right now but... from memory...

Old Bolter: Damage: 2d10+5, ROF: S/2/4

New Bolter: Damage: 1d10+9, ROF: S/3/--

So the new bolter doesn't get full auto any more. You're only able to fire it single shot or semi auto. If you just look at the stats presented there, here's a rundown of what a player can do damage wise. Realize I'm assuming all bullets hit. Someone else who's better at math and spreadsheets can probably give you more details.

Old Bolter: Damage: 6 - 25, On Full Auto: 24 - 100

New Bolter: Damage: 10 - 19, On Semi Auto: 30 - 57

So the damage for the bolter over all has gone down. Realize that there is a lot of variation of course. On semi auto, you only get an extra bullet hit for every 2 degrees of success, where as an old bolter on Full Auto hits for every degree of success. So yes, the new stat lines for the weapons do help a lot of head aches that GM's were having with the the bolter weapon.

You'll notice the Heavy Bolter also went through changes and now can only fire 6 rounds on full auto instead of 10, as well as had its damage stats modified.

Looking at the new above damage stats, you can see they raised the minimum damage a marine can do up, and lowered the max damage they can do rather drastically I think. I believe a Tyranid Warrior has 10 toughness and 8 armor. I think penetration stayed the same, someone correct me if I'm wrong. We'll just say both old and new bolters were doing 4 penetration. So with the old bolters, a player has to roll at least a 8 on two dice to do damage. Realize that's really easy to do with 2d10, and reroll your lowest for tearing purposes. Players would do a maximum of 12 damage as well, for a total of 48 damage which can kill a Tyranid Warrior, ignoring righteous fury of course.

Now with the old bolter, they need to roll at least a 4 to do damage to a warrior, and with semi auto they will do at most 6 points of damage per bullet that lands, ignoring righteous fury of course, for a total of 18 damage if every bullet lands.

To add to that, I believe most the energy weapons had their damage increased or their penetration increased to account for the fact they are a stronger weapon to be using. So yes, give the old tables a look and play with them a bit before going the route you went. They are good changes and really do help bring the OP level marines use to be, down a notch. I've found as a GM it's been easier to balance encounters. Granted, there are still OTHER problems =P But at lease a marine can't look at a Carnifex and cause it to die, and ranged guys don't make the melee guys feel all that jelous anymore.

Chioxin said:

One thing worth noting is that the errata weapon stats are the same as those written for Legion weapons in Black Crusade, and the combat changes in Black Crusade do make a fair bit of difference in how useful the post-errata weapon profiles are. For example, Black Crusade allows Semi-Auto weapons to use Suppressive Fire, but only imposing a -10 on the Pinning Test, while Full-Auto weapons inflict a Pinning Test at -20.

I hope we're nearing a stable set of rules because it's getting confusing for those rounds which have multiple GMs with different product lines.

Alex

ak-73 said:

I really agree with this. I find it absolutely frustrating now that my rule book, which is already a mess and hard to navigate, is also out dated and needs updates. It's nice having an Erratta, small changes are forgivable, but they've made a lot of major changes and fixes at this point.

I think they would have benefited better by releasing a "Core 40k Rule Book" with other books released based on those core rules. So the Deathwatch book would quite literally be like a player's guide is in DnD, and it contains all the stuff needed to make a marine, the stats and talents they use, and leveling trees. Also some new creatures and possible Antagonist. But oh well. Wishful thinking