Agh, the reply button is too close, I always mistake it for the edit button

@MILLANDSON

You seem to be seeing this as a game problem, when I personally think that, if a GM is throwing anti-Astartes weapons at humans, it's actually a GM problem.

It might also be a player problem, at least if the GM has made clear that the enemy will be in possession of AA weaponry and the players don't figure out a way to motivate their enemy to not shoot the squishies with them (which usually means "bring the Astartes along so they'll shoot at them", but it might have other solutions).

@Zaldrak

It also takes away the thrill of doing something risky, like running towards an enemy firing a bolter, because with the old rules and old criticals, a very lucky hit from an astartes bolter could indeed kill a marine on the spot (and thiings like that happen in the fluff), but now it's impossible: a group of three guardsmen in heavy cover handling a mounted heavy bolter 90 meters far away? Meh, I run to them, I'll be in melee in 3 rounds, that's 3 criticals in worst-case scenario, no risk at all. Sure, even with the old rules they were hardly a threat, but at least there was a little risk involved.

Unless the heavy bolter or auto-fire rules massively changed, I'd say that's more like 30 criticals in the worst case.

Yes, there are a few weapons that get de-fanged with the talent - the ones which can only fire single shots, have no Felling and don't go much beyond the ordinary soak. Once a weapon lacks one of those drawbacks, the risk is right back.

Hmm, I dunno, you might pheraps, uh ....duh... UNBALANCE IT WAY MORE????

As a certain web-comic once said: "Don't worry about the overkill. Dead is dead - you'll just get there faster than most." I don't particularly care if my mortal character got one-shotted to crit-10 or crit-20. Once the weapons that are dangerous to Astartes are in play, I make **** certain they don't get to fire at me.

Cifer said:

Hum, Assuming BS of 30, they fire in auto mode at -10, plus -10 because target is running, so no, that's 3 criticals worst-case. Less if the marine is at full wounds.

And you still didn't provide any reason why these rules are better. At most, you provided reasons for why it doesn't make any difference, and I don't even agree with that...

Also something people forget about the whole 40k ffs system.

GRIM< HARD<UNFROGIVING

Everything is easy to kill in 40k with a little applied pressure and a falling tank... That said the whole "burning" fate point system is there for that. As I understand most AA weapon ar s/-/-. So yeah he may drop one or two pc but the rest of the party should be able to kil the rest when you have that odd AA weapon in an encounter.

Yes players will run out of fate points, it's the freaking game too... Where they have to roll a new toon that will think before charging a bunkered in plasma canon position, etc.

Also: yes, in normal conditions enemies with heavy weapons would treat astartes as priority targets, but you can bet that the moment humans start to pose a real threat, for example by whipping out melta weapons or uber psy powers (i.e. doing something useful against enemies that might pose a challenge for marines) then the enemy will use their "anti-astartes" weapons to one shot the mortals, if given the chance.

You're a loyalist space marine: would it be better to use your plasma gun to slightly injure a Chaos Marine (after that, on average it would require at least 4 more hits to bring him down) or to annihilate that human with a (insert uber heavy weapon here) in one shot? In most situations, the latter is the more tactically sound choice.

I'm not playing NPCs as morons for the sake of non-existant balance in the rules (unless they really are morons, of course).

It depends on the chapter:

- Dark Angel may not spend a fraction of time looking at the human before doing anything in there power to mince down the traitor marine...

- A World Eater will take the first one to get in the way of is chain axe...

- Codex Chapter will taken down your heavy target by order of priority but your humans should all be behind those hardened covers that give like +20 armor against said AA weapon else they deserve to die... OK if that jump pack assault marine jumps in the middle of them they are toasted but that was the job of the traitor marine to goat the assault marine into charging him... etc

No balck and White m8ta, just a lot of grey...

In my group, we use the unmodified Toughness bonus. Including the Unnatural Bonus would just be silly. Honestly. Marines, and Humans with Unnatural Toughness bonus' should not be able to survive 10 consecutive boltgun hits to their exposed face, no matter what that badly phrased Talent states. I mean, come on. Not even in some of the more outrageous Space Marine novels does this happen.

I agree melta gun in the hands of a human PC is just as deadly as in the hands of a chaos marine. Of course you shoot the human first.

crisaron said:

I said loyalist marine, not world eater. And you can bet that if the human was armed with a lascannon, then Dark Angel would spend more than a second looking at him...

Marines are the best warriors out there because thy excel at strategy and tactics, not only because the're superhuman badass motherf*****s

In the situation I described, a standard marine, no matter the chapter, would take the course of action that gives him and his brothers the highest chance to win the fight. And in most situations, that course of action would be to one shot the mortals with heavy weapons or psy powers, before starting to chip away slowly at the Chaos Marines criticals...

In short, I think that this rule makes enemies with heavy weapons MORE likely to shhot humans instead of marines, not the contrary...

So you will not be using True Grid, making the Marine more of a target, and not dying in 10 AA shots to the face, but in mimimum 2

Your human still dies in 1 shot

Still shooting the human first, True Grid Marine or not ...

Caboosebe said:

I see nothing wrong with a Marine dying from two sufficiently powerful hits. That's why you have Infamy.

Not to mention, that, instead of not using true grit, you could, I dunno, CHANGE the rues?

Like using the old one, which is still borderline overpowered in my opinion, but at least not completely insane.

Hopefully we'll soon get an errata that fixes it, I still hope for the sake of future rulesets that this isn't what the game designer intended...

I ruled as a GM that True Grit only counts your natural Toughness Bonus. My players agreed.

I just don't understand what you are so mad about.

If you read the Game Master section, there is clearly a paragraph wich says: "A Game Master may addept to rules to make the game more fun"
It's an RPG - adapt to the situation.
The rules are guide lines. You said it yourself that you will use other rules for True Grid. What is the point of being so mad about it?

Heh, do not mistake my seriousness with anger.

Caboosebe said:

The fact tat I can make up rules is no excuse for them being stupid or incorrect as written, I expect better from a $60 book. True grit is the most outrageous example, but there are other mistakes as well that could have been easily avoided.

What is stupid and incorrect is in this case your opinion, clearly many people disagree.

You cant expect the book to accomodate your wishes alone. So if theres something you dont like, you have the power as a gm to change it.

Zaldrak said:

Well since you don't use all the rules indeed...

if you use

cover, dodges, and all those nice other features, where players can move around and use the terrain,

edit : suppression fire, blind shooting, grenades, jump pack, force fields,...

2nd edit : I forgot (face palm) fate point to reroll dodge or parry, burining a fate point to not die...

you realise the true grith only allows the SM to charge that battle line because in big fights you actually take down the guy that will hit your front line 1st... or most soldiers will react like that under durress of combat. Like in all the movies, when they are behind a crate or a corner and going pew pew then one says cover me I will charge...

Anyway it's all editable if your players lack imagination or the envy of playing a scifi with guns game and you decided to always react like you have god sight and know that this player hidding behind cover as a plasma canon so if i want to win I have to take him down 1st, etc.

and one last thing 40k is not DnD, it's not fairy save the princess, it's quick, grim and dark... man DH as a 5 min pc creation system, you get the point? Yes 5 min to create a pc... So BC may be different but still in the mind set of the game. It's just the most exploded in term of free creation of the 4 system.

Ecthelias said:

Sorry Ecthelias, I didn't mean you

Ecthelias said:

That has precedent in the Tabletop game, where bonuses to Toughness (Mark of Nurgle, riding a Bike, etc) are not counted against Instant Death attacks.

--------

And this argument that "The guys with the Big Guns will always attack the Marines only , and the guys with normal weapons will always attack the Mortals (or form into Hordes to attack Marines, but inexplicably split up if they get close to a Mortal PC)" came up in a previous thread about balancing CSMs and Mortals. I find it just as weak now as I did then- especially the accusation that if a Big Gunner ever targets a Mortal with what will surely be an auto-kill attack (because his line-of-sight to a CSM is blocked, for example), it is all the GM's fault, and not a responsiblity of the game to make combat, if not balanced , at least survivable to all characters of similar experience.

STARTING CSM are way soakier than STARTING mortals. Once Inviolable Flesh rears its stinky head, mortals can gain the same, or higher, soak ratings as astartes. To say nothing of the human-only Protean Form power.

Someone said that True Grit somehow makes fights boring for PCs. I entirely disagree; if your character is taken from full to zero wounds, the player is DEFINITELY going to be paying attention.

The first time the PCs in one of the games I've been in, I sent a CSM against them at rank 2. They didn't have any special gear... other than a sister of battle's. The psyker pelted him with krak grenades, and the sister of battle hammered him with bolter round after bolter round. Even so, the only reason they won is because the CSM kept missing or being dodged, while the sister of battle scored Righteous Fury after Righteous Fury (3 total in one fight).

And, you know, I think that kind of feel is appropriate. CSM aren't Star Wars stormtroopers. Everyone knows, very well, that if you fight them, you bring the right tools for the job. They created Vengeance rounds, in a galaxy where new research is utterly anathema, JUST to kill CSM. Although its a ridiculous exaggeration, it even says in Deathwatch that if CSM attack a planet, the defenders are doomed, unless loyalist astartes are there to help.

Its not a bad thing that CSM require their foes to either get serious, or just surrender.

Adeptus-B said:

Exactly.

And as I said before, in combats meant to be challanging for marines, if the opposition is smart mortals are either ineffective (if they don't wield uber weapons/psionic), or a priority target (because I if there are multiple targets capable of dealing huge amount of damage I want to take out the one that dies in one hit first).

@ Crisaron

Bunch of nonsense and totally wrong assumptions about me and my group.

Why the *rapid fire stream of obscenities* would it be? I LOVE the fact of PC's not dying. It's not even worth mentioning critical damage with trash mobs anyways. Those NPC's that my GM would give that to are likely to be those he wants to recycle later on in the story. That whole idea of "Unnatural Toughness" is the fact that its UNNATURAL!

I agree with the people feeling that true grit is a silly talent at its current power level. I have a feeling our group will nerf it but I also have a feeling that we wont be mixing CSM and Humans, its just (IMO) a recipe for disaster and relies way too much on the good grace of the GM.

We mixed Marines and humans in our games right from the start. It was never a problem.

BYE