ak-73 said:

Except it isn't an accomplishment. It just happens - just as nothing the GM can do can change that dice roll (by your statements, the supposed advantage of such pseudo-achievements), nothing the players could do could influence it in the first place. It's blind, dumb luck, and there's only so far that'll go - in my experiences - before the "thrill" of success through dumb luck becomes rather tired and meaningless.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

In your eyes. Countless gamers will feel different about it. If in football (what you call soccer) a player, just drives the ball forward from far away and the ball ends up in the opponent's net, then it will be a quite satisfying goal even though skill or planned effort was not involved and it was just a matter of luck.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

In game design it's helpful to not assume one's own standards of accomplishment and reward (or that of one's own social circle) but that of the customer base at large. And winning through pure luck is de facto rewarding to a substantial amount of people.

If it feels like an achievement to gamers, it is an achievement to them, no matter how else calls it a pseudo-achievement.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

If the "success of dumb luck" becomes tired and meaningless then it's only because it is a repeat occurence. Which would be a flaw of game design.

If people find a $100 note (or be given it at random by someone else to avoid a whole different argument) then the luck factor makes them feel quite happy. Being very lucky makes people feel blessed by fate, as illusory as that notion is.

And it makes people become the topic of conversation too: "Did you hear how George took down a Hive Tyrant in one shot?" - "Yeah, Howard told me. 137 points of damage with one roll, woohoo!"
It also creates memories: "Remember how I took down that Hive Tyrant back then?
It also gives bragging rights: "Ah, what a Daemon Prince only, GM? How's that supposed to be a bigger challenge than your Hive Tyrant last time?"

You may consider all that detestable but in my observation such "pseudo-achievements" are part of what makes gaming fun to a significant number of players.

Note the "part of" part above.

Alex

now we're just arguing for the sake of arguing.....

There is no accounting for taste.

Alex

I think it's more a case of perception than taste.

Rolling well isn't really achieving anything because you cannot control the dice. That doesn't mean it doesn't feel good to roll well, and I'm sure people can feel like they've achieved a result when they have a good round. Just depends how much of that 'good round' you feel was because of your own choices or because of what the dice came up as.

BYE

I've been dealing with various incarnations of the Righteous Fury rule for about ten years now, starting with WFRP 1e, then 2e, then all 40k games, both as a player and as a GM.

From my experience, the potential for infinite damage is only fun for the person rolling it right now, not so much for the rest of the group. Any time someone manages to one-shot a tough opponent through sheer luck is one time other characters can't shine fighting this opponent, which is especially aggravating in Deathwatch, where every player character is supposed to be a lean, mean combat machine. I bet you were really looking forward to duking it out with this Daemon Prince, eh, mister Ultramarines Librarian? Sorry, the Devastator rolled multiple Furies on his heavy bolter autofire, and now the Prince is dead before you could lift a finger. Have fun cleaning up the mooks with the rest of the team. What's with the sad face?

It can also be very frustrating for the GM when you stat up a tough as hell opponent, set up the battlefield carefully and hope for a climactic, brutal fight where the players will have to use all the best tactics they can think of if they plan to survive and prevail, only to see it devolve into a comedic curb-stomp when a lucky player decapitates the enemy with a combat knife.

Now, imagine that happening multiple times in the span of a single campaign. I've had this happen numerous times. Hell, it's happening to me every time we play any Warhammer game. I'm running a WFRP 2e game right now and so far, three insanely powerful bosses got curb-stomped like that, two of them by the same character. Last time I ran a DH game, two Acolytes managed to down a Carnifex with two autopistol bursts. One of them managed to kill two Juggernauts of Khorne in one round using the very same autopistol. The first time I played Deathwatch, a buddy of mine managed to one-shot two Master-level enemies in the span of two game sessions. It's become really ridiculous.

Another problem with infinitely exploding damage is the issue of player knowledge vs character knowledge and world knowledge. While not everyone who pulls a ridiculous RF gets to be named a living saint like Grendel, it's pretty natural that if the group routinely curb-stomps overpowering threats, they will be seen as especially gifted/blessed and assigned appropriately challenging missions. This can get really frustrating for the players who realize all their amazing successes were due to sheer luck and they can't hope to reproduce them reliably.

Ever since we switched to BC's Zealous Hatred, it managed to produce some unforgettable moments without robbing anyone of the sense of accomplishment. I love that the new rule cuts both ways, something our Renegade learned the hard way after finding herself on the wrong end of a Splinter Rifle.

Hey, Morangias: carnifexes and khorne juggernauts taken out via auto-pistol??!!!!!!!! You, sir, are a far, far, faaarrr nicer GM than I could ever hope to dream to be.....

....cause that don't ever happen in my little corner of the grimdark, no no. My players would flay me alive if i let such things occur.....they've played the tabletop, and they know what carnifexes and juggernauts do.....lovely unstoppable monstrosities.....i doubt i could let an autopistol do anything overly significant to even a hormagaunt.....but that's us....

Though, as you say, you guys found this to be a problem too; so, I'm curious: what's the mechanic of Zealous Hatred? And has adopting it instead of Righteous F. eliminated/mitigated the problem? Are your players more challenged/satisfied now?

[i guess I should state that whenever the rules do things that don't make sense, we ignore them. The rules exist as a framework to allow us to enjoy 40K....when the rules fail that test, out they go!!]

Yeah, carnifexes and juggernauts are what I use to put the fear of god into me players....wouldn't do to have 'em one-shotted by some punk dark heresy acolyte when i need them to chew on two-hundred-year-old DeathWatch space marines!

Zappiel said:

If you roll 1 or more natural 10s on your damage and your attack dealt damage after reductions for Armour and Toughness bonus, immediately roll 1d5 on the appropriate Critical Hit table for that location and the damage type you're inflicting. This roll does not cause normal critical damage, merely the effect listed on the table, and the roll is never modified by talents like Crippling Strike or True Grit (at GM's discretion, minor NPCs struck by a Zealous Hatred attack are just killed outright). If the attack did not cause damage after deductions for Toughness Bonus and Armour (for example, a crossbow against a Terminator), it instead deals 1 wound.

I've personally found that it's worked wonders to both add a cinematic element to the game - minor injuries occur during combat with reasonable regularity, changing the dynamics of the fight by making a character's capabilities shift in the middle of the battle. It's also eliminated the problem of vast and ridiculous damage rolls, particularly in conjunction with things like Hellfire shells and Blood Frenzy which make Righteous Fury more common. My players enjoy it as well - a lucky hit from an enemy will more likely present a complication to overcome than an immediate gruesome demise, while their own lucky hits produce moments of weakness in the enemy for them to capitalise on.

Morangias said:

Yeah, that's a matter of proper callibration though. Noone argues that repeat occurence of such aren't a hindrance to fun. I bet you that nerfing the Heavy Bolter makes one-shoting Hive Tyrants much less likely. As evidenced by most of the responses to the later nerfs.

The point is that unusual luck has to stay unusual or else the system isn't properly balanced.

Alex

Zappiel said:

auto weapons in the table top are equivlent to las weapons, also " anyone who mocks the las gun hasnt had to charge a thousand of them across open ground"

everything can hurt something it just takes great rolls/luck.

zelous hatred doesnt let the dice explode rather it causes critiacal effects similar to the damaging vehicles in ROB, and if the attack couldnt cause damage it still does becuase it was a lucky shot though only 1 point.

Zappiel said:

auto weapons in the table top are equivlent to las weapons, also " anyone who mocks the las gun hasnt had to charge a thousand of them across open ground"

everything can hurt something it just takes great rolls/luck.

zelous hatred doesnt let the dice explode rather it causes critiacal effects similar to the damaging vehicles in ROB, and if the attack couldnt cause damage it still does becuase it was a lucky shot though only 1 point.

@Zappiel

Hey, Morangias: car nifexes and khorne juggernauts taken out via auto-pistol??!!!!!!!! You, sir, are a far, far, faaarrr nicer GM than I could ever hope to dream to be.....

....cause that don't ever happen in my little corner of the grimdark, no no. My players would flay me alive if i let such things occur.....they've played the tabletop, and they know what carnifexes and juggernauts do.....lovely unstoppable monstrosities.....i doubt i could let an autopistol do anything overly significant to even a hormagaunt.....but that's us...

Well, my players would be much more pissed if I tried to fudge it in enemy's favor. We're not rules-lawyers, but the dice gods must never be ignored. And when it comes to bosses and righteous fury, the dice gods are clearly on my players' side. Like, all the time.

@ak-73

Yeah, that's a matter of proper callibration though. Noone argues that repeat occurence of such aren't a hindrance to fun. I bet you that nerfing the Heavy Bolter makes one-shoting Hive Tyrants much less likely. As evidenced by most of the responses to the later nerfs.

The point is that unusual luck has to stay unusual or else the system isn't properly balanced.

While some of those hits wouldn't indeed happen had we used post-errata Heavy Bolters and RF (RF rerolling all weapon damage was the most ridiculous rule in DW if you ask me), they are a small minority of the lolrandom curbstomps that happen to occur nearly all the time when my players pick up the dice. Again, Khorne Juggernaut one-shot with an autopistol.

Morangias said:

I happen to think that DW's critters have a bit too low soak (T bonus?) and too high damage (especially master-tier) for my taste. I think combats are a bit more interesting if the enemies can withstand high ROF, low damage weapons better and marines can survive at least one attack by the baddies (without burning fate).

Alex

ak-73 said:

I agree. With the soak a hundred percent, not just for the RoF weapons, but for the escalation factor. If you've based the enemies on what a standard marine can do with a thunder hammer you can bet that by the time a PC comes to actually hitting one with a thunder hammer he'l be doing 50% more damage. DW is especially bad (or good if you are player) because there are so many ways a pc can upgrade. A made a joke to our group, when describing the PC's in DW, that you got a +3 stat of your choice depending on what colour socks you are wearing.

For the masters damage game playwise, you're also right, especially prior to RoB. It doesn't make for a good game where the big bads slaughter you evertime they hit. But then RoB proved what was in the back of mind, that when vehicles were introduced they weren't actually capable of touching most of them. And you can see that they don't do that much damage more than and efficiently equipped Marine. It's a difficult balance to get right. being able to damage a tank (or more to the point, a dreadnought) but not wasting a Marine in one hit everytime, the TT does a fair jo (assuming a multi wound character) but that's part of the effect when you combine damage, armour and wounds into one roll.

I also think that part of this would have been resolved by aiming the straight one on one fights at being balanced against elites (to a greater or lesser extent) and having the masters based enitrely on what you can do as squad, with squad modes that make up the shortcomming against the single boss.

Sorry double post, this forum software huh

Face Eater said:

I think it's fun to begin with. The problem is that the game should allow players to grow and they all develop into "150+ pts character models" eventually. But 4 to 6 Space (near "Movie") Marines make short work of about everything they encounter.

The only thing you can do about this as GM without rewriting the whole crunch is increasing player, scratch that - increasing PC fatalities. (Increasing player fatalities is not recommended.) Not sure how much fun that is so with a mixed bag of PCs, some high level, some low level. I mean you can pull this off to some degree if PCs at least have Respected renown. A meltagun is still a meltagun when it hits.

Another interesting aspect is that melee is highly talent-dependent and ranged combat highly equipment dependent. I understand it is much easier to have critters have the same Armour levels all over. But especially elite and master -tiers should require the PCs to aim their guns at less protected regions. You know (or can localize) these regions by passing a FL(Xenos) test (subject to a race dependent modifier). Such sweet spots need also a to-hit modifier and a lower protection rating.

Through such a mechanic you can afford to increase the soak significantly. Disadvantage is that you are hitting melee hard too unless you are an Assault Marine and get no negative modifier for "called strikes".

Face Eater said:

Yeah, they have not found a consistent way to model 2d6+S Penetration (in 40K terms) into DW. I suggest halving vehicle armour values against attacks from MCs, meltas, etc. Or you make it dependent on DoS, like Razor Sharp.

Face Eater said:

But against which rank and gear do you balance elites? Also I think especially elites need to exist in different degrees. You might encounter a Nid Warrior strain that is more powerful than the usual ones (and therefore not advisable in 1-on-1 unless you are a Blood Angel Assault Marine). Or the Warrior you run across might be of a less powerful than usual species and you can off it single-handedly.

That ties in with my concept of keeping the game somewhat unpredictable for GMs and players alike.

Alex