Hello All.

I just recently (last week) started trying to learn Deathwatch and Warhammer 40K at the same time. I have the Core Rule book and Rites of Battle so far and hope to get another book next month. While I have been DMing and GMing a variety of games since 1980 this series is all new to me.

My question is weather or not there is a specific base characteristic cap in the game mechanics. I havent spotted a "heres the limit for ..." statement yet however an entry on page 196 of DW has me wondering Might of Heroes ... "While this power is in effect, the Blood Angels Librarian adds +5 X PR to his Strength (to a maximum of 95), ..." So is there a limit on the base Characteristics of 95? and if so does that apply accross the entire game system for every critter etc. Is there a massive bady out there with a base Str, Will or Int of 250 plus any situational/training modifiers?

Along the same lines is there a cap of (x11) for unnatural traits? I want to design a longterm campaign where the team eventually finds and hunts down a false Primarch and Id really hate to find out I designed it far tougher than an actual one!!!!

Thank you for your time.

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All tests, no matter what, ALWAYS fail on a 96-100, so theoretically, all statistics or modifiers, etc. over 95 are pointless.

You know, I've been looking for that rule in the book and can't find it.. I know under weapons there is the jamming rule, and the things that remove jamming just make you miss. but I can't find that under skills or anything else...

Yeah it means that you could end up with autosuccess on certain rolls, but if you are that good at something (70-75 Char +20 skill) and doing an easy enough task (anything with a bonus at that point) failure basicaly wouldn't happen even one in a hundred times. still means an actual characteristic would have no reason to go over 100.. (160 technicaly then so the maximum penalty would still mean you could never fail but what would be the point of having stats then. it just plain wins.)

If a character was lucky enough to roll 50 for a stat and then spent the XP to gain the maximum 4 stat increases of 5 he'd still only have a base characteristic of 70. There are very few ways (with the exception of some bionics) to increase a base stat further than that. Therefore a base stat of over a hundred is extremely unlikely.

Marines come with unnatural toughness and strength but there are no talents or skills that give permanent increases to natural characteristics so they're not going to change much anyway.

Basically what I'm saying is that the system itself prevents such high 'base' scores anyway ;-)

Captain Ventris said:

right and wrong. going over the "cap" is only marginally pointless. tests can have negitives and having extra can keep you at or over cap meaning you retain your "i only fail 5% of the time". so if you have stat of 150(not possible but go with it) then you get a penalty of 45% you still have 105% out of 95% possible.

for a PC the cap is 70+initial chapter mods (usually +5) but since the OP was about making an uber bad guy to fight that would be beyond the scope of a standard PC in power they could go beyond that limit. the question is what's the point. basicaly there isn't any real point in having an actual stat much higher than the normal Space Marine range.

If you realy need them to be uber at something you give them Unnatural Whatever. It helps all your tests and all those cool things the multiplier go with. The highest I've seen on a stat block is x3 but I've never seen a real 'cap' on Unnatural multiplier. The example x11 given in the OP is fairly ridiculous. The bonus on tests would cap out well before that and there just isn't a point in fighting something with a stat bonus in the 50-100 range. That is a "oh it killed half the party and we can't do a thing, I guess we try to keep it busy until they can nuke the planet" scenario.

I still haven't found the automatic fail on 96-100 rule though...

Nathiel said:

Hi there, I think its in the core rulebook under page 249. Look under weapon jams where it states an "unmodified result of 96-00, in addition to being an automatic miss, also indicates that the weapon has jammed. Auto failure for focus willpower tests is 91-00 (Page 185).

which covers ranged attacks and focus power rolls. but no mention of skill scecks or such. We've decided to house rule it in but still can't find it in the death watch or dark heresy books. we haven't looked in rogue trader yet, maybe it's in black crusade with all those other rule changes?

Automatic failures were one of my least favorite elements of d20, I have frequently played without automatic failure rules anyway and it has seemed fine. Honestly, with the preponderance of re roll opportunities and the difficulty of succeeding with a 90+ roll on anything crucial it hardly seems to matter.

Nathiel said:

Which reminds me, I don't seem to recall seeing that either. Skills do not seem to fall under this category. So its somewhat like testing a skill against a difficulty or opposed rating. Like D&D there are more bonuses to the outcome of the skill test with more degrees of success obtained.

Modifiers like difficulty of terrain, or assistance from friends affect the skills being tested. Factors like basic/ advanced requirements also affect the difficulty of test. There are two main types of tests. Opposed skill tests and Difficulty challenges. Something like awareness vs concealment, and difficulty to climb eg a vertical wall.

Finally, for opposed skill tests, there seem to be degrees of successes measured like dodge, etc or success. Don't seem like an automatic failure range for dice rolls. I stand corrected as my understanding is not as solid as the other players in the forum.