One of my players recently brought Codex Defensive Squad Mode Ability "Soak Fire" to my attention. The wording of the ability, as per the Deathwatch Core Rulebook, is:

"Soak Fire
Action: Reaction
Cost: 2
Sustained: No
Effects: While a good formation covers all angles of attack, it also shields the squad from directed fire. This is especially true of Space Marines, who use their bulk and armour to shrug off hails of bullets, bolts, and beams. A Battle-Brother may use the Soak Fire ability whenever another member of his squad
currently within his Support Range is hit by a Semi or Full Auto fire attack and would be eligible to make a Dodge Test to avoid the attack. These hits are then divided evenly between the original target, the Battle-Brother, and those supporting him, provided they would normally be eligible targets for the attack. Regardless of the number of Battle-Brothers soaking fire, the original target always takes at least one hit. Note that Battle-Brothers soaking fire cannot Dodge attacks allocated to them.

Improvement: If the Battle-Brother is Rank 4 or more, both he and those supporting him may soak single-attack ranged weapons, such as a blast from a lascannon or a sniper’s bullet, dividing the Damage evenly between those involved."

So to clarify, my players are all higher than Rank 4, so they qualify for the improvement.

I have a Kill-Team consisting of five members. They activate the Soak Fire Squad Mode. They are facing off against Obliterators armed with lascannons (which, to my knowledge, deals the highest single target damage in the game). One Obliterator fires his lascannon at a party member, and manages to land a hit (bypassing the Space Marine's Dodge and Force Field). Say he rolls maximum damage (60, Pen 10). Now, because Soak Fire is active, the damage is split among the entire party. That works out to 12 damage apiece, and I'm assuming the weapon's Penetration is still 10. Now, each of my Kill-Team has a Toughness Bonus of at least 8, and access to both Artificer and Terminator Armour.

Power Armour: 8 + Toughness Bonus: 8 = 16 damage mitigation = 6 Wounds

Artificer Armour: 12 + Toughness Bonus: 8 = 20 damage mitigation = 2 Wounds

Terminatour Armour: 14 + Toughness Bonus: 8 = 22 damage mitigation = 0 Wounds.

Keep in mind the following: this all assumes that I'm rolling MAXIMUM DAMAGE with a lascannon (albeit no Righteous Fury), and that none of my Kill-Team has a Toughness Bonus of more than 8.

Here is my question: does the ability mean Damage, or Wounds? I know it says Damage, but if so that seems.....really powerful.

TL;DR: Soak Fire seems really powerful, it takes a lascannon to even hurt a Kill-Team of five Marines. Does Soak Fire's Rank 4 Improvement split Damage, or Wounds?

A few things as I see it.

First. Simple math error. the 10 penetration would only remove all 8 armor so in the power armour example it would be only 4 damage.

Second. you could interpret the 'provided they would normaly be eligible targets for the attack' part to mean that you would have to be close enough that someone using a semi/full auto weapon could have spread hits to them too. As in very close and rather good targets for a nice blast weapon which would not be spread around like this.

Third. The obliterators should be doing either Righteous Fury or Zealous Hatred from Black Crusade. These aren't just a bunch of unimportant squishy heretics that happened to get a lucky shot with a heavy weapon. I'd also give the individual dice out to each character starting with the main target, making it hurt a bit more than spreading it out.

Also there are other nice weapons. I wouldn't let them use it against any blast weapon so most other heavy weapons are just fine. the Multi Melta and Plasma cannon should do well. Even the good ol' krak missle should hurt them plenty.

Same as Nathiel. Pen value indicates armour penetration value. So a Pen 10 ignores armour up to 10 points. So your Power armour should be reduced to 0, your artificer armour reduced to 2 and your termie armour reduced to 4.

My first question would be to clarify what damage is being spread. Will all marines share 60 damage equally taking into consideration their own armour/ toughness? Or total the damage taken by a character or the total damage taken to be shared equally.

Let's say a marine in power armour takes 60 damage, then after their armour soaks the damage, then 60 damage remains to be spread amongst 5 targets = 12 damage/ marine. If in artificer armour then its 11.6 damage per marine and if the terminator takes the damage, 11 damage/ marine.

If its the latter case, then does armor and the pen divide equally amongst the other marines as well since the pen was already applied to the marine taking the initial shot.

To the more veteran players here, how would you guys see it? I am equally happy if my assumption is proven incorrect, if it benefits the TS. Thank you.

First, it says damage. You roll the damage and split it up. Not wounds.

Second, use explosives. Grenades and missiles will ruin a squads day every time.

Okay, I took another look at the ability and I was overreacting - I was under the impression that the ability lasted for the rest of the combat it was activated in. Looks like it only lasts for that round. Still pretty powerful though.

Also note when and how Soak Fire is used. It's a Reaction. That means the Marine has to choose between Dodging and Soak Fire (Wall of Steel/Step Aside notwithstanding). It's not just this ability you can activate and leave on just in case someone shoots you. It will eat through cohesion very quickly.

As far as the actual effects of the player being overpowered, I don't think they are. Big Hordes of shooters can end up with 3D10+X damage per shot and fire 2-5 shots a turn. Not much can withstand that and you cannot Dodge Horde shooting, so an ability like Soak Fire can be the difference between life and death. It's also pretty awesome vs Railguns.

BYE

The way I'd adjudicate it is that the wounds are spread, not damage. The split shots should be treated as normal, each shot getting pen and all reductions, but for splitting a single shot it should share the wounds. Otherwise, most high damage single shot weapons won't be noticed. 4 wounds to a party from a perfect roll on a lascannon - that doesn't seem right. The idea is as battle brothers, they share the injury. Everybody taking a little bit to prevent one brother from being turned into a charred husk with some bleeding meat limbs held in place from the power armor. But to make up for BEING SHOT BY A LASCANNON, everybody suffers.

I call for an errata. The whole section is a bit ambigious.

Who cannot dodge? From the wording it sounds like those who take over part of the damage can't. The original target does not participate in the ability, only benefits from it.

What damage get splits among PCs? Damage Total or damage adjusted by Armour/Toughness?

Also it should be added that the duration for this ability is one attack, otherwise a power-gamer might argue that the default length for abilties is 1 combat/encounter.

Alex

The description seems fairly simple to me. In order to activate the ability the target squad member has to be eligible to dodge the attack. If the player attempted a dodge and failed I wouldn't allow the activation of Soak Fire since the marine is no longer eligible to dodge the attack.

This makes Soak Fire a preemptive tactic meant to spread high amounts of damage among the squad where they can be weathered successfully versus killing a squad member outright or leaving it up to a dice roll.

Anyone who thinks its overpowered must refer to the errata changes on cohesion expenditures. Soak Fire is not sustained, can only be activated as a reaction, and has no listed duration. This means ever activation of the ability is made at the full cohesion cost making its use limited to only those times when you can afford it.

When using Soak Fire no one participating in the action can choose to dodge the damage. When the damage is spread it seems logical to me to do exactly what the rules state. In the example given above the las blast did 60 E w/ 10Pen. In a squad of 4 who are within support range when the ability is activated it would break down like so 60/4 = 15E Pen 10.

Meaning a shot that would have likely killed or maimed marine 1 is mostly shrugged off by him and his battle brothers. With a squad at 10AP 8TB that amounts to 7 wounds in damage a piece vs 52 wounds to a single marine. A very nice ability.

Of course damage mitigation is proportional to the number of battle brothers in support range, and their eligibility to have been the target of the initial attack.

The full/semi-auto attack rules function the same way spreading hits between those in support range again as listed in the description you can't dodge any of the attacks allocated to you.

Hope this helps explain it to those who seemed confused by it. To me it seemed pretty straight forward when you look at all the rules and factor in the increased errata cost of activating the ability.

When best to use it. When the attack can be dodged, but failure means the squad member would be dead or in critical wounds with no fate points. Short of this it really only makes since if you have the cohesion pool and the number of squad members in support to completely mitigate the attacks.

Edit: I realized I didn't address whether the target of Soak Fire could dodge.

It seems logical that if he always receives at least one hit from full/semi-auto attacks then no he cannot dodge either. If you spend the cohesion to Soak Fire and then let the player dodge and he succeeds, the cohesion cost of soak fire is essentially wasted. If he fails the dodge then it would proceed as normal. According to the rules this is allowable I believe until an errata says otherwise.

The cost of Soak Fire is paid up front (when the target is eligible to dodge) in the event the marine fails his attempt to dodge the attack. This seems consistent with the rules and the description fluff, and since it's not the targets reaction but that of a squad mates it seems perfectly legit.

Actualy the errata says Squad Mode abilities last "for the duration of a single combat if the ability is not sustained" and " some non-sustained Squad Mode abilities have a duration different" and lower down erratas some to be single turn only. There is no mention of this ability specificaly in the errata so sadly it's the whole combat/encounter.

I don't honestly see where anyone could argue that an ability that can only be activated as a reaction, is targeted, and can only be used when the target is eligible to dodge an attack would last for an entire combat/encounter.

Sorry, anyone who makes that argument should stop and consider the idiocy of that statement (I am not singling you out, but if you have players who would take that stand tell 'em the same thing). The aforementioned errata note aside ' that does not make sense .'

Nathiel said:

The errata says:

"“Some non-sustained Squad Mode abilities have a duration different than single combat and are indicated as such. These abilities can be activated multiple times in the same combat, provided the full Cohesion cost is paid for each activation.”

Some abilities like..... Soak Fire. Very clear and unambiguous. Don't get hung up on the other stuff when it specifically says abilities that have a different duration than a single combat turn, like Soak Fire, should still be treated as originally written.

You activate it once as a reaction if you can dodge to soak fire for a brother. Anyone that has an available reaction/dodge can do the same.

"A Battle-Brother may use the Soak Fire ability whenever another member of his squad currently within his Support Range is hit by a Semi or Full Auto fire attack and would be eligible to make a Dodge Test to avoid the attack. These hits are then divided evenly between the original target, the Battle-Brother, and those supporting him, provided they would normally be eligible targets for the attack."

Examples using las cannon aside, semi and full auto attacks can be soaked by anyone that would be an eligible target for the attack and no one else. So if your battle brothers aren't close enough to be an eligible target they can't elect to soak fire to help their brother in the first place. You might have ten in your squad but only a few will likely be able to step into the attack and soak damage for you.

bobh said:

Battle-Brothers don't need to have a reaction left, only one does - the PC that activates the power.

Alex

ak-73 said:

"A Battle-Brother may use the Soak Fire ability whenever another member of his squad currently within his Support Range is hit by a Semi or Full Auto fire attack and would be eligible to make a Dodge Test to avoid the attack."

Have you read this? In point of fact ONLY pcs in range of the attack and aleigible to get hit AND anyone BUT the broither getting hit can activate it. If none fo them are eligible or have reactions left NO one can activate it. In no way did I or the errata say more than one activates it. Read.

While we're getting specific, where in the text does it say that Soak Fire is one of the exceptions to the single combat duration? All the main book has is the 'not sustained.' I've looked in the errata and I see Bolter Assault, Furious Charge, Holy Vengeance, Fury of Sanguinius, Lightning Strike, Regroup, and Feel No Pain listed as one turn only.

So, as written, (as I see it very OP) one guy spends a reaction and 2 cohesion: As long as you stay close enough together that the enemies could have shot at any of the team members, all possibly targeted members could split the hits/damage from all (non blast but it's not too specific there either) attacks for the rest of the combat. so, as long as you keep yourselves visible so you are all eligible targets but nicely spread out to avoid the balst weapons you almost can't be hurt at range.

Now don't take this as me saying this is how it should be. My group has discussed this and all agreed it should be one round and definitely no blast weapons. But heck, for just one round that's still nearly broken. We might actualy start taking that oath now...

Other than the fact that your totally abusing what a 'reaction' is supposed to be - an instantaneous reaction to events that ENDS as soon as you act in said manner.

“Some non-sustained Squad Mode abilities have a duration different than single combat and are indicated as such. These abilities can be activated multiple times in the same combat, provided the full Cohesion cost is paid for each activation.” - DW Errata 1.1 page 5.

THIS is telling you what you need to know - Soak is one of these abilities - its duration is specific to a reaction as mentioned in its description. It is a NON-Sustained squad mode ability ---> see here page 223 DW Core Sustained? No.

All you can do is ACTIVATE it MULTIPLE times in a single combat. It is not SUSTAINED across an entire combat.

bobh said:

I was pointing out above that those who want to soak fire but don't have a reaction left can do so if another brother activates it. You don't need a reaction to take over the damge, only one guy does.

I consider that noteworthy, don't you?

Alex

bobh said:

You'd lose before rules court on that issue. The core rulebook says nothing like that. It does not specify any duration at all. It specifies an action cost (Reaction) and then it describes how the ability works without providing duration. We probably all agree on RAI but according RAW, I activate it once and from that point on I can use the ability everytime the other conditions of the power are met for the rest of the combat.

If you see it differently, the burden of proof is on you to provide the sentence in the description that specifies the duration of the ability.

Alex

PS Probably RAW is RAI on second thought. It calls for a clarification.

Obviously, I agree with bobh. Soak fire is a non-sustained reaction to a single attack . How does that qualify as lasting any longer than that single attack the book never says does, so it doesn't. It functions in the same manner as a dodge/parry to that single attack .

If it were a sustained ability then it wouldn't be activated as a reaction or it would say so. End of story as I see it. FFG doesn't put everything in an errata somethings are assumed, and if its a reaction to a single attack and doesn't say anything else about it then that's all it is .

@ak-73, that's in the description of the ability, but as bobh said the battle-brother activating can't be the person who is the target for it. As for anyone else activating it... then yeah as long as they qualify as being in support range and a potential target for the original attack they can do it.

If none of the battlebrothers in support range have a reaction left then the battlebrother is officially screwed unless another marine not qualifying to activate it can use another ability to give someone in support range another reaction thus allowing them to activate it.

That said it takes only one marine's reaction to activate it, and that marine can't be the target.

ak-73 said:

Action type is Reaction not cost. Cost is in cohesion ak73 i think you are confused ,and as for rules court... who's court, yours where things are being twisted.

The OP asked if its too powerful. Given its limitations and cost, I'd say, no.

@bobh: I said action cost, not cost. Since the entry under Action stipulates that this designates the action that the activator needs to expend to activate the power, it is a well-defined term. As for whose court, you made the claim that the description repeatedly states the duration of the ability and have repeatedly failed to prove your words. And given your claim the burden of prrof is on you. All the description states is what the activator is required to expend. If action cost is Free Action, does that mean the duration of an ability is the blink of an eye? There is explicit connection between action cost and duration; it probably has been intended in this case but that's all.

And I'd like to kindly ask you to avoid making remarks that make this more personal than necessary.

NGL said:

You are using a non-defined term "non-sustained reaction". There is no such thing - squad mode abilities are either sustained or not. They can cost a Reaction or something else. For the rest of your statements you have no basis in RAW.

NGL said:

No FFG puts about everything into the errata, sometimes you even wonder why they bother.

NGL said:

It's not a reaction. It's a squad mode ability that requires the activator to use up a reaction. There is no rule that links action cost to duration of a squad mode ability.

NGL said:

I don't read that, please provide the quote.

Alex

By that definition of duration then none of the powers would last for more than one round as they are all free/half/full actions or reactions.

The fact that the default for non sustained is clarified to be one combat, and the majority of non-sustained squad abilities were specificaly clarified to last one round only, then the ones not specified last the whole combat. that is simple logic.

This means that you spend the cohesion once as a reaction, then for the rest of the combat as long as you fit the other requirements, you have the option of using this ability. It is safe to assume it would be a reaction on the part of one of the non-target team members each time. so if there are enough attacks that they run out of reactions in the turn then ok, but I don't like the idea that you need a ridiculous number of enemies with heavy weapons to hurt a squad.

If you planned something expecting this squad mode and they surprisingly took a different oath it would completely destroy the whole group. (yes a good GM will tailor the encounters to the group at the moment but planning what seems reasonable shouldn't be based on one ability being present or not.)

I don't see where the argument is on the rules here they're fairly blatantly clear.

Spend a reaction and activate the ability. You may now use it's effect whenever it's requirements are met for the rest of the combat.

It says on page(219) that if a squad mode ability is not sustainable then it lasts for the remainder of combat. I don't get where the confusion is here o.O

Page 219 is amended in errata.

Specifically:

Using Squad Mode Abilities (page 219): The first paragraph
should change to “Squad Mode abilities function just like other
Actions and can be activated by any Battle-Brother—not just the squad
leader—in his turn or as specified by the ability’s description. There is
no test to activate these abilities. However, the Battle-Brother must spend
the required amount of Cohesion (as indicated by the ability) and be in
Squad Mode. He only needs to spend this cost once, however, and once
an ability has been activated, it remains so for the remainder of the
Mission (for Sustained abilities, until the Kill-team no longer chooses to
sustain it) or for the duration of a single combat, (if the ability is not
Sustained) and may be used by either him or any other members of his
Kill-team in Squad Mode.” Add the following at the end of the
first paragraph of this section: “Some non-sustained Squad Mode
abilities have a duration different than single combat and are indicated as
such. These abilities can be activated multiple times in the same combat,
provided the full Cohesion cost is paid for each activation.”

@ak-73, theres that non-existant non-sustained in the rules.