So when you use 2 degrees to add another attack, does the damage for lightning claws still go up?

example: Using Swift Attack with a single Lightning Claw and rolling 4 degrees of success would mean 3 attacks altogether each one dealing 1d10+10.

It feels like I'm missing something because that just seems... dirty.

That's correct. Some rules are a bit dirty.

Its probably the correct way to do it but it does seem a little like it wasnt intended. It seems weird that you both get improved damage AND improved number of attacks through successes.

The rules do state that each hit has separate damage rolls, but that's about it.

If you are afraid of it being overpowered, you could reduce the damage bonus to only work on single attacks or only on the first attack when doing lightning attacks / swift attacks much like its generally accepted that you can only use the force weapon ability on 1 attack no matter how many attacks you generated.

Crate said:

I have never heard of this limitation before, could you elaborate? The Focus Power Test is a free action whenever damage is inflicted, so can technically be used after each hit. Do you mean it's a common house rule?

Yes, he means its a common house rule, although it isn't one I agree with. If a player wants to kill the entire party to take down one big bad, let them. The Focus Power test for Force Weapons is considered a psychic power, and has all the advantages and disadvantages of one.

DJSunhammer said:

In DH I rolled up a psyker with a SOB in the party... he died from a bolter round when I rolled my first peril >.<

GunslyHoneycutt said:

She killed your char just because you rolled Perils of the Warp, and your party didn't back you up? Idiots... my DH psyker has saved every party member, including the mureens, many times due to Catch Projectiles.

Deinos said:

I'm pretty sure some parts of the Imperium require this response - the armed guards moving around near Astropathic Choirs aren't only there to keep intruders out, they're also there to execute any of their charges who become dangerously unstable. Same with Commissars and the Overseers assigned to watch over Sanctioned Psyker squads serving the Imperial Guard.

Deinos said:

In Dark Heresy this was not only in tune with the setting, as N0-1_H3r3 said, but also very much a natural precaution. I believe the dangers of Perils of the Warp was later toned down in the later games. I have yet to analyse Black Crusade.

Well, my poor little BC witch has allready been slain by a Bloodletter via perils, but she is quite willing to push a doombolt when needed. :-)

Don't worry tho, she got better (infamy loss to live).

I'd say it's pretty fair. They're capped at the WS Bonus even while lightning attacking, and 1d10+10ish points of damage is pretty much the same as a Heavy Bolter on Full-auto, which is both easier to get AND requires fewer talents to really operate well.

So no, Swift or lightning attacking with lightning Claws and getting a shitload of damage is not especially horrible in anything but the math department. It aligns pretty well with other similar "tiers" of weaponry for both melee and ranged guys in terms of damage delivered.

Reverend mort said:

1d10+10 damage wouldnt be so bad, but it maxes at 1d10+20+SB (which can easily be 9 for a CSM) at AP8 and you will be making 6 attacks (and if you allow 2 x lightning attack per round that can double). If we ignore the psychic powers that truly push this into the stupid range its still insane damage.

This is just with the lightning attack talent and 2 x lightning claw, if you have even more melee talents it gets even more disgusting.

Of course then you have 2 ocupied hands and you can't shoot or open doors

Thankfully I went renegade, so its not AS broken as a CSM.. but it still can get pretty close if i add crushing blow. All in all, my GM ruled the damage will be added only to the first one. We did just a "what if" scenario, and surprisingly i overshadowed the CSM.

Yeah, 2x Lightning claws, both making lightning attacks with TWW, and both getting a damage bonus because of having two LCs seems a bit like double dipping on the benefits.

Crate said:

Yeah, it maxes out at that. At 7 degrees of Success, which is a roll of 01 for a WS 61 character. 71 if he lightning attacks to get those 6 hits. And to do that much damage two times both rolls would need to be that insanely good. And not to mention they're both 2 extremely rare weapons and the character can't use his hands for much of anything else unless he's managed to pick up extra limbs.

So I'm gonna stand by my assessment. Yes, lighting claws are very good if wielded by a melee specialized chaos space marine who manages to get into close combat with them and cares for nothing but the up-close murder spree. But they're not that much worse than, say, a armor mongering chaos space marine with a Blastmaster Who deals 3d10+10 points of damage to anyone within a 8 meter wide sphere at ranges up to kilometer away. Hell, with a single talent he'll be taking those shots without even a penalty!

And he'll be unable to socalize like the Apostate social monster, or pack as much hidden destruction and utility as a psyker. Because combat isn't everything, and while it's fun, having one guy be really good at is not game-breaking.

Besides, so what if he can cut up anything that he can get into melee with? Once all those things friends see the rather obviously looking to close into melee space marine slice up their friends like so much kebab, do you think they're gonna let him get that close!? Of course not! And once they start running away, he's gonna have a hard time doing anything but run after them, since he, you know, has no hands with which to fire a ranged weapon with!

Point is that, yes, a min-maxed Space Marine dual-wielding lightning claws can do rather large amounts of damage (especially if he uses psychic powers to buff himself with), but that's the statistical anomaly that requires incredibly large amounts of effort to reach.

Will your average player do this much damage? No. Will he deal a more reasonable amount of damage most of the time, until he reaches a late game stage where he's gonna be fighting next to friends playing psy rating 8 Tzeentchians psykers and army leading Slaaneshi Apostates? Yes. Is it especially bad if he DOES do that much damage? In my opinion, no.

Reverend mort said:

Arm mounted weapons..

Those only exist if your gm houserules them or imports them from Rogue Trader

The only BC existing hands-free weapon I know of is the Doom Siren, which is a 30m flamethrower equivalent without the flame.

So once again, I stand by my argument.

That said, if one is intent on downgrading the Lighting Claw, an argument could be made that the increase in damage from wielding two is meant to be the Lightning claw equivalent of, well, two-weapon fighting, and one can thus not make a second swift or lightning attack. Then again, considering the rules on that are so contradictory and unclear to begin with, dark gods know what the actual intent of that entire subsection of rules is actually meant to be!

Jerrith said:

Activating the "killing will" in the Force Weapon is activating a Psy Power, which thus was covered by the "You can only invoke 1 Psy power per round"-rule.

Noctus said:

That's no longer true, I think. You may not do more than one action with an attack subtype or more than one with the concentration subtype, or perform the same half-action twice. The focus test for the killing will has no subtype and is not a half-action. So unless I'm missing something, you can do it every time you damage an opponent. Of course, putting a hard cap on the amount of times one can do this, as per the "common sense clause" of the free action description, isn't out of the question if a player starts combining it with multi hit monstrosities and thus starts rolling a bunch of consecutive opposed willpower rolls that grind the game to a halt. Apart from painful game slowing situations like that, however, I'd let them do it every time they damage their opponent. Even if that is more than once a turn.

This also means you can use a half-action power AND invoke any number of free action ones, presuming none of them have the same subtypes. You can then also use reaction ones, even if they have the same subtype as the ones you used on your own turn, since said turn has passed.

Wouldn't wanna be standing close to the psyker that does though...

I have claw right now so this discusion is close to my heart.

But in our games i think that LC won't be OP. Firstly in CC and range combat we compare DoS. So to hit someone you must win in oposed test WS/BS vs Parry/Dodge. If you win with LC you will get even less DoS so less aditional dmg. Also I think that if you use LA or SA each aditional hit will have less DoS so each aditional hit will have less aditional dmg. You can be afraid abouth 2 LC + jump pack, but if someone have them he don't have balanced weapon, shield, range weapon and he should be CC monster.

Noctus said:

In addition to this, in order to send the killing will into a weapon, the weapons must have a Psy latice which requires is different construction than a power weapon/ lightning claw. Ergo its not possible to activate send the killing will a normal LC.

I am under the impression that a Nemesis force weapon (can't remember where I read it from) is a force weapon with a power field but its very large and I've only seen it on a Grey Knight Dread Knight frame. If my understanding is correct then only with those weapons can you do that.

The size of a Nemesis weapon is very large. Even if you have Nemesis claws, its may not be possible to fit that on a weapon on a normal character arm (maybe a dreadnought) so it'd be unwieldy by nature if not impossible.

@deepstriker

In the Tabletop at least, Every close combat weapon wielded by the Grey Knights is a Nemesis Force Weapon. From the paired sabers that give extra attacks to the Great Sword the Termies Carry to the Dreadknight's ginormous Hammer/Sword.

So yes, there are large Nemesis weapons, but there are small ones too.