Aussault Cannons are mounted. Unless your Kill-Team is rolling in Terminator Armor, they shouldn't be allowed to use one. Also, I don't know what the loadout of your Storm Shield carrying Marines is, but if they're walking around with heavy weapons as well, keep in mind that's against RAW. Heavy weapons require two hands to use.

Remember that Force Dome doesn't stop melee attacks, so the key is having enemies close the distance with the Librarian quickly and force him into melee if the Multi-Melta is jacking your bad guys up. I also have no idea why you consider Blood Frenzy overpowered. It's a nice ability no doubt, but it doesn't last very long and I never considered it broken.

While there are certainly some balance problems inherent in any high-power game such as Deathwatch, D&D, Pathfinder, Exalted, etc., it helps to check up on some of the things your group is doing to ensure that it complies with the rules. DW is actually much better balanced than D&D is at higher levels, and Exalted starts off at broken, and gets absolutely ludicrous. I'll take Deathwatch any day.

Blood Frenzy is overpowered when its being used by a character with a tearing weapon and Flesh render and multiple attacks.

The ability has three discrete elements:

1) RFing on a 9 or 10

2) The ability to reroll the damage dice

3) An modest bonus to Pen.

Consider the following scenario:

You're rolling three dice (1 base, 1 tearing, 1 for Flesh Render) and picking the best result while righteous furying on a 9 or 10. If none of the dice come up as 9 or 10, you just reroll the damage.

If you RF, you get to repeat this, often resulting in a massive chain. On my old character, I once did 216 damage in one hit.

I've nerfed the ability down to once a game session and hard-capped the damage to double the maximum possible without RFing, but its still pretty nasty, especially as a canny player doesn't trigger it until he's charged on the previous turn and can go full blend for two rounds (at rank 4). The extra penetration is just icing on the cake.

Good point about the Force Dome. I guess I need to enforce rules as written more tightly. Part of the problem is that somethings are strangely arbitrary (but work from a balance angle). For example, it seems odd to me that a massively strong, cybernetically enhanced Techmarine, couldn't design an Assault Cannon that he could use in his custom Artifacter Armour or that a Librarian couldn't alter the size of the force dome he's casting.

Lucifer216 said:

That's not a problem with Blood Frenzy. It's a problem with Righteous Fury; change that, and you solve the problem. My preference (as it has been for a long time) is to use the Zealous Hatred rule from Black Crusade (unmodified 1d5 roll on the appropriate Critical Hit table instead of bonus damage).

N0-1_H3r3 said:

The evidence is against that because outside of this configuration RF works fine. I even still run multiple die RF and it still works for me. Do not the psychological thrill of being able to roll 40 or even 50 points of damage with a single attack for players. That is part of what is making the dice game entertaining. A 1d5 Critical Hit is nice in comparison but less thrilling. Doing 70 damage points with a Lascannon is just epic and fits the style better than a 1d5 Crit.

Alex

Lucifer216 said:

@ the blood frenzy: The ability is once per combat only and only usable in close combat so it does have natural limitations that way. The way I try to handle stuff like that is by using my old 3rd edition 40k tactic of "shoot the assaulty stuff and assault the shooty stuff". Having a mix of units (or a mix of enemy entrance points from all angles to keep backfielders on their toes) is key. Also, another limitation is that the enemy can simply dodge. If you're the GM and your big important NPC is about to be hit by the blood angel and killed in one shot, simply dodge it with some behind the screen jedi handwaving. If it's a normal mook, actually roll for it and you'll still have a chance. If you still find it overpowering, stick with the once per game thing you mentioned. The combination of needing to actually get to the enemy, actually hitting them, having them NOT dodge, and then rolling the above for a once per combat ability is more than enough balance IMHO, though.

As for the Techmarine designing an assault cannon, it isn't a question of whether he COULD but whether he SHOULD. In the superstitious world of 40k, it's an affront to the machine god to design a new weapon without the proper centuries of prayer, testing, and supplication according to the fluff (and I'm not exaggerating). While techmarines tend to shorten that time to a few years or decades out of practicality compared to regular AdMech, they still don't just bust out with weapon designs willy nilly. Just because the player "wants" something doesn't mean that it fits the 40k universe no matter how much they think its cool (see any thread on female marines). My players had a D&D mentality about them when they tried to keep a plasma pistol they found on the corpse of a commissar while they were initiates without access to their own; I told them that I couldn't stop them from keeping it but doing so would be an affront to their chapters honor and the thousands years old Deathwatch Armory Requisition traditions if they kept it for actual use. Keeping trophies of chaos/xenos is one thing but looting the imperial dead is another which gains you corruption. If your techmarine wants to go radical and not follow the rules of the machine god, do the same. Or require that it takes him several months of effort in game with multiple rolls. Or turn it into a separate long term secondary objective in which you sprinkle parts needed to make it throughout adventures. Simply just letting him do it because he's a techmarine and wants to and then complaining about it is about the worst option you could have chosen.

Also, as stated, you're allowing the use of heavy weapons with storm shields which requires more hands than any human character has. Unless the players are literally dropping the heavy weapons to the ground (requiring a move action to pick up) to parry with their shields, I don't think you're allowed to use both at any one time. A good rule to use is that if you never see it on the tabletop in any marine codex, you should think twice about allowing it. That doesn't necessarily mean you shouldn't but it should give you definite pause. To be honest, I think you need to tighten up the ship when it comes to existing rules that restrict your player characters. While the RPG rule of cool is a good one (allowing things that are technically against the rules but cool to exist), stuff isn't cool if it unbalances your campaign by breaking those rules.

crap lack of editing. Correction: they don't have to drop the heavy weapons but would be unable to USE them if holding a storm shield since heavies require two hands to fire. They'd have to drop the shield to the ground to fire it again, making the shield useless for parrying more than once and thereby losing the field effect. I'd also say that unless they're actually wielding the shield, they don't get the field simply for carrying it on their back.

ak-73 said:

Having been using what is now Zealous Hatred as a houserule long before work on Black Crusade began (I wasn't the only one to suggest it as an official rule, either) for quite some time (over a year now), I can honestly say that my experiences don't really match this. I've run Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader games with the original RIghteous Fury rules, and WFRP 1st and 2nd editions before that which had a similar mechanic, and while I've seen the excitement caused by a lucky big hit, a large and essentially abstract number doesn't seem to compare to the variety of immediate visceral effects produced by a roll on the Critical Hits tables, or the way it can shift the dynamic of a combat by imposing a status effect on an enemy in the middle of a fight (stalling the killing blow dealt by a Hive Tyrant's claws by staggering it with a well-placed or lucky shot is a moment to rejoice). It also tends to be significantly more cinematic...

N0-1_H3r3 said:

There's no accounting for taste. Personally I prefer the potential to fell a large beast with a really lucky roll and get a lethal crit for it. Of course I'll also test the old WFRP rule of crit damage not stacking very soon.

Alex

I have to concur with N0-1 here, the cinematic effect afforded by ZH over RF is almost immeasurable for us. Reversing it works well too, as mentioned earlier in the thread: enemies causing unpredictably minor-or-massive damage leaves players (including myself) with no concept of control over it.

ZH results tend to vary between 'theatrical flesh wound' and something which can almost be relied upon to allow a canny player to take advantage. Called shots to encourage likelihood of stunning results, for instance. Capitalising on fatigue amongst multiple Elite foes.

The opportunity for a spectacular damage roll, whilst entertaining, was essentially a bit dull. Abrupt. Anticlimactic. The simple shots gave a more...cinematic, prolonged fight sequence.

Climactic prolonged fights and multiple different crits are achieved by the WFRP system; abrupt spectacular endings are achieved with multiple RF dice. All you need to do is to change the rules for True Grit.

Alex

ak-73 said:

IMO, a fight is only epic or spectacular if there's a struggle involved - it has to be a challenge for a big climactic confrontation to be satisfying for the players. Entirely random abrupt death for the big boss monster pretty much removes the element of challenge - it was blind luck that took the beast down - and thus steals the sense of accomplishment from the victory. It's absurd to see a Bio-Titan felled by a thrown housebrick, but it's theoretically possible under the rules in the Deathwatch rulebook, and at that point, every fight essentially devolves to its lowest common denominator - attack the enemy until they fall down from a lucky Righteous Fury.

Yes, it's a matter of taste, but I've not yet encountered a player that favoured a random victory devoid of skill or wit (because there is literally no skill in rolling 130+ damage with that lascannon blast... it's all random chance and nothing more) over striving for victory against a challenging opponent.

It also makes setting up encounters far simpler, as you have a much narrower defined range of potential damage output to consider for any given character or creature.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

That's too simple. It is also very epic and very spectacular if you cut short a looming major struggle through a lucky hit. That is the stuff that makes heroes. The struggles are the daily bread of gamers as the GM tries to balance the encounters to provide such. But a rare clever idea or a lucky roll that makes that that all in vain, that's what stands out.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

What has that to do with a 1 in 1,000 shot? All you are achieving is another "Oh yeah, he's a BBEG, it's going to be a long, hard 'epic' slog." The prime directive of everything that dabbles in creativity is to avoid becoming too predictable. It's the cause of formerly successful TV shows as well as gaming companies: they have a formula for success, when formulas kill art. And the imagination of gamers.

We can argue as long as we want it comes down to taste.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

Not at all, its a dice game and such epic luck needs to be appreciated properly. Heroes welcome, decorations, etc. It's this stuff that makes players hot to roll damage next time around, wanting to score such a lucky hit too, glory-hounding.
And since these things are supposed to be rare, your average boSs fight will be your standard bog struggle.

That is clever game design.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

Yeah, that is a sound battle strategy: my PC is going to throw bricks at the Bio-Titan in hope of a Righteous Fury. And not get killed until he manages it on the 200 billionth attempt. It's gonna be a long night or one cut short by the bio-titans response. You might as well try to abuse your Crit System by having a substantial number of allied mooks stun-lock whatever BBEG and have the kill-team focus on dealing damage safely or clearing the rest first. That's all fake argument imho.

If the system allows for a brick to fell a bio-titan (and RAW it does), that is a risk I am willing to take. That possibility is so remote to not worry about it. But that a rare Lascannon roll can fell a Hive Tyrant in one swoop, that is something that is much more likely and something I consider desirable.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

Then your player might have not discerned your game designer's pattern of same old same epic struggle against BBEGs yet?

N0-1_H3r3 said:

You can always decrease variance by removing/downgrading dice and adding fixed damage. Btw, that would also have made the Proven quality redundant:
1d10+6, Proven(4) -> 1d5+10 or 11, no Proven.
5d10+10, Proven(3)-> let's say 4d10+18, no Proven.

Again I am a fan of a certain amount of variance, including variance to the lower end: a damage of result of let's say 27 could mean a near miss still doing some damage from the heat of the laser beam.

If you want to make the games more predictable and have more "epic fights", then remove all dice and use fixed damage only. Not sure if that is sound game design though; you need a fair amount of variance.

Predictability is good for after-work gaming where you don't want to have to think too hard and it's more a mindless hack&slash&gather items. If you want to thrill players on weekend games, you must hit them from angles they didn't expect and a large part of the fun of gming is having a random element beyond player decisions because after having played with guys for 20 years, some of their decisions become very predictable.

Personally I also think DW could use more things like the Psychic Phenomena and Perils of the Warp tables; they can throw an entire scene of course. I guess these tables just make setting up encounters too difficult for your taste? Because a bad Perils roll should be more likely than killing a Hive Tyrant with a single Lascannon shot?

Alex

ak-73 said:

A random element is necessary, warranted and entirely desirable. But make the random element too significant and you make choice irrelevant - because what does choice matter if the outcome is so unpredictable as to be beyond any control?

It's why I prefer the Power Level mechanic for psychic powers used since Rogue Trader - it allows a choice in the amount of unpredictable risk a psyker takes, at the cost of lessened power for lessened risk. The players choose how much risk to take and how much effect they desire.

Choice is more important than random chance, in my opinion; those choices should accept unpredictability, and account for it, but too much randomness cannot be accounted for. If choice is made irrelevant by randomness, then there isn't anything for the players to do but roll dice... and in my experience, they get bored of that really quickly.

And, quite frankly, if you're finding that the only thing that can differentiate between fights is whether or not someone gets a lucky hit in to end it all in one go... then that's a whole other problem. A battle is shaped by its context - enemies, strategies, terrain and each side's objectives - first and foremost.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

Probability theory controls die rolling. One can't expect players to be versed in that but the designers should be, they should be able to analyze what their weapon state can do and give a proper description in the rulebook so that the players understand. Actually they should have the concept in mind first and the come up with he numbers but that's a different issue.

In one sense it's also more adherent to the tabletop to not allow for such massive lascannon damage: lascannons can't one-shot MCs in 40K. Heavy Bolters can - due to their ROF they can cause multiple wounds.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

Yeah, although I am not sure if some powers don't have scaling issues.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

Yeah, it's the mix. Too much dice rolling, too much randomness is predictable in its own sense. In a way a GM is a variety artist, an allround entertainer - he needs to come up with new stuff and ideas frequently.

But you see, winning through a rare lucky shot is one of the legitimate ways for players to win against the GM. If the players win through tactic, they ultimately win through the GM deciding to honour their approach. It's the result of GM decision. Winning through a 1 in 1,000 die roll, that's a personal accomplishment, even if it's not due to skill but pure luck.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

It can be. Sometimes players don't care about strategies, terrain, objectives. Sometimes players actually just want to roll dice and smash face.

And at other times when detailed planning, etc is involved if their plans are supported by good dice-rolling. And if gets supported by unusually well-dice rolling they relinquish it all the more for they know that such is fickle and that their next plan might be foiled by bad dice-rolling

Dear N0-1_H3r3, please distinguish between steam-rolling over a BBEG due to extremely lucky die-rolling (that psyches up players) and steam-rolling due to over-powered characters (that bores players because that indeed means that there is not much challenge there).

Perhaps we're also approaching it from the wrong end: do we want a Lascannon be able to fell a huge beast like a Hive Tyrant in one shot? Yes or no? Let's ignore damages or how many wound point it has. And if the answer is "it should be very unlikely" then we'll have ask ourselves how likely we want it to be for our heroes.

For perhaps it's not a difference over rules and game design but one over game world interpretation.

Aöex

ak-73 said:

I don't regard an antagonistic relationship between GMs and players to be one to aspire to or endorse, and thus the notion of the players seeking to "win" against the GM is about as relevant and laudable as the notion of the GM trying to "win" against the players (when the GM fundamentally has limited resources at his disposal).

I regard the GM-player relationship as being a cooperative one; assuming a need for the players to beat the GM is something that I regard as entirely unhelpful.

I'm 100% with Nathan on this one.

Hell, one of the first things I did when we started playing Dark Heresy was sit my players down and tell them that I was not playing against them, and they were not playing against me - at no point should we be trying to 'beat' one another - and that I was simply the facilitator of a story.

And adversarial games against the GM are pointless anyway, as the GM is god and can do whatever he wants. "Oh, what's that? You've beaten all my Tyranid Warriors? Well now fight off 50 Carnifexes. And they get a Surprise round. Cry some more." And what about that sounds like fun?

BYE

H.B.M.C. said:

So who needs the nerfed Weapon stats, when the GM is God and can always send more and even badder baddies?

What an interesting red herring, but I'll bite.

1. Games have to be fun.
2. A game where the GM just throws impossibly huge amounts of enemies at you ('cause he can') is not fun.
3. A game where the players curb-stomp everything with their God-damned Heavy Bolters isn't fun either.

This is why the balanced (not 'nerfed') stats are a great way of making the game more playable.

BYE

H.B.M.C. said:

Good to have learned from you what fun really is!

There's really no need for you to be a snarky **** about this.

BYE

Did someone say: 'snarky ****'?!

just to cool or distract a tad....we do seem to be arguing taste and interpretation....and i see the validity of both camps....

CHoice HAS to matter; it's why we finagle players into our games - to make choices.

GM as god works until the players tell him to p!$$ off....then he's gotta find new players (or de-god himself significantly)...so that angle don't work....

And AK has a good point about players 'beating' the gm with a lucky roll: everything in the game is ultimately decided by the GM and the dice...having the GM allow you yer victory is fine and good; but having the Luck gods grant you a spectacular success in spite of the GM is satisfaction bliss. I don't think he was suggesting any sort of outright adversarial relationship (but maybe he was....what a jerk! )...I assume that all of us here are, more or less, role-players who understand that we're all making a cool adventure story together, for our own personal enjoyment...(As GM, the only real surprises i get are the players' hare-brained idears and their bloody vile luck....and i appreciate all of it; it makes my day!)

So, there, hope that helps. (in spite of my lack of focus...)

N0-1_H3r3 said:

And it still is present in an awful lot of gaming rounds, even if just in the sub-conscious. And it's not necessarily destructive thing either. Players are also competing implicitly among each other how they fare. Pure story-telling rounds are a minority.

Alex

H.B.M.C. said:

Both you and Nathan have been missing the point. "Winning" through lucky dice rolling means that you accomplish something in a session beyond GM's graciousness. Whether a tactics works or not is a GM's decision. But if you are having an honest GM, whether you kill the Hive Tyrant with a lucky shot or not is a matter of dice. It's not a matter of the GM implicitly patting you on your head and saying "you did fine, buddy". That is what "outsmarting" the BBEG comes down to because the GM can always decide to make your tactic fail (because the BBEG did foresee it or whatever).

Without cheating, winning through a dice roll is an objective "accomplishment", not a subjective one. You can't debate it, it is what it is. That is part of the fun of dice-rolling. Sometimes the players find a treasure chamber with the riches of the carribean, sometimes they awaken the Great Cthulhu (yes, he's Pacific-side).

Alex

Lucifer216 said:

I am not sure you can say anything about psychic powers are arbitrary. There is no real common sense way for them to work. Doesn't strike me as being that odd that as the power being pushed into it the dome increases in size.

Woops! wow, AK, you really were suggesting antagonism.......nawww, don't put up with that crap in my games.....i see yer point about players feeling good about their lucky rolls, bein' able to force the gm to grant them victory; but my players don't play against me, and I don't play against them - they'd all die. The End. If a player is just out to min/max the uberest character he/she can and destroy the game, they get kicked the hell out (after some serious humiliation, of course - god, I love hive tyrants!).

My players are out to beat my plots, my characters, not me. If they turn it on me, they get gooned, eaten, and shat out. It's all about story and character development, baby! Perhaps we were fortunate: this particular gaming group started with Twilight 2000 (gasp! how old am i?), some AD&D, some Traveller/Megatraveller, then slammed right into Star Wars (WEG d6 all the way forever! woo-hoo!!), Shadowrun, and 1st ed. Vampire. They were always always roleplay heavy, which, again, is fortunate. All these games emphasize teamwork and/or roleplaying. So, naturally, when we find a game that's not so rp heavy, we roleplay the hell out of it regardless.

Now, it does occur to me that my players do indeed take particular delight in throwing my stories off the rails.....and that this might constitute player/gm 'antagonism'.....hmmmmmm.......but, as i particularly relish such challenges, i assume they are not done vindictively....oh, i'm gonna hafta get my players good next time we meet........but, seriously, i'm pretty sure they just do it to see me sweat and to ratchet -up the adventure a couple notches, since, when they break the game, i tend to throw violence their way....

And [sliding right back onto topic], really, isn't that what Deathwatch is all about - ultraviolence in the grimdark? I think, in that regard at least, DeathWatch has done acceptably well...