I know a number of us have looked into merging a number of the Black Crusade changes into our DW games. Most of the stuff I've changed, like the combat actions, are pretty straight-forward and make a lot of sense but how have people added in the Zealous Hatred / Righteous Fury rules?

I understand the basic principle behind giving the crit affect instead of the additional damage but I'm curious how this ties in with the Deathwatch Training ability to automatically confirm all RF events against Xenos. Surely automatically having it succeed with the crit/additional damage negates this so have those of you doing this just decided to remove this aspect totally or replace it with something else such as d5+1 (to a max of 5) against Xenos?

How exactly does it work in Black Crusade?

Bascially. If you roll a natural 10 and your attack with this is enough to cause damage (past wounds and AP) then instead of additional damage you cause the affect of a d5 crit on the appropriate table. If the attack is not otherwise powerful enough to cause damage then it will do 1 damage ignoring soak.

No additional rolling (other than the d5) is required for this.

So if I'm understanding this right, a crit with a rending weapon will roll on the rending critical effects table, with only results 1 to 5 coming into play.

I'm going to assume there is no roll to confirm. In that case, I might say things like Volatile, that give an auto-confirm add to your roll. If the result is more than 5, take the "overbleed" result and apply it again on the same table.

For example: Bob swings a chainsword and hits his target, a 'stealer, in the chest. He gets a 10, an RF. Instead of rolling damage again, he rolls d10 and halves the result. He gets another 10, corresponding to 5 on the Rending critical effects table. Since Bob has Deathwatch Training, he adds 2 to his roll. Since the combined result is more than 5, he takes the bonus critical damage and compares it to the same table again, corresponding to 2 on the table.

This way the players always gain a benefit from rules like Volatile and Deathwatch training. They get either a more favorable crit result, or two crit results, but can never instant kill a target.

It's too bad I can't edit posts.

If the crit results have the same effect, say a stun, add the two together. If the effect is, an arm or leg can't be used for a turn, combined with, an arm or leg is cut off, just take the result that is more damaging.

My suggestion would be to replace any effect that auto-confirms Righteous Fury with the special ability that the Chosen archetype gets in Black Crusade - roll two d5 on the appropriate Critical Hits chart and pick the higher result. It's simple, quick to do and has a noticeable but not overly potent effect (I'd avoid adding anything to the d5 roll, as that can lead to encounters ending far too quickly - a 7+ Explosive Critical to the head is a kill, afterall)

N0-1_H3r3 said:

Right. I've thought of that problem already. You might need to reread my post a few times before you get it. I'm not always successful at getting my ideas across.

The tearing effect for the critical roll is a simpler and better idea though.

I like that thought. Doesn't overpower it while still giving a benefit for their training.