Hi

Today our BC campaign started (it was a blast, btw) but there are some things I´m not quite sure we got right.

Characteristic Bonuses: I´m not sure what some of them are good for and basically only picked up the most obvious uses of some bonuses.

WS bonus: determines how often you can possibly hit with a melee attack that is capable of hitting multiple times (swift attack for instance)

Strength Bonus: Get´s added to melee damage

Toughness Bonus: Most damage a character recieves get´s reduced by his/her/its TB

Agility Bonus: for Initiative and Movement speed

Infamy Bonus: got that too

Beyond that I´ve no idea what they do.

Critical Damage and Critical Tables

So you don´t roll on a table (like in WFRP 2nd ED) for instance, you just keep count of the critical damage and pick the according number on the table. Crit Damage stays until healed so if a character recieves crit damage again (like in the next round of combat) you just add to whatever he already had.

So basically that means a Character or enemy in combat will almost always die due to a 9 or 10 result on the crit table. Exploding as a whole, running around as a living torch or whatever, nothing dies without being splattered in some gruesome way. Seriously that seems off, even for "larger than life" 40k. So I have a slight feeling that we´re doing something wrong here.

Many stat bonuses don't actually do anything. Unnatural characteristics (stat bonus increase) add degrees of success equal to 1/2 of the bonus.

Note: Fel bonus affects how many minions you can have. You are limited to your Fel bonus in minions. Minion talents can be taken as many times as you like, as long as you only have minions up to your Fel bonus.

Per bonus doesn't really do anything, neither does Int, WP, and Infamy only has an affect on starting items iirc.

Critical effects are cumulative, like you said, but the death threshold is more like 8 than 9. Not a big deal really, dead is dead, most of the time. Its recommended that you not use critical effects for mooks, and only use the tables for PCs and important big bads and NPCs. This gives you more freedom when you are describing how mooks die and also speeds up the game since you don't have to reference the tables every time Ted and Ted II and Ted III get killed. No one really cares about Ted anyway.

I'm not sure what problem you have with critical effects though, they are fine as far as I can see.

INT bonus effects how good combat formation is, and govern's how many people someone can treat with long term medical care. There might be more, but I can't remember them.

PER bonus has no effect, save if you use combat sense.

WP bonus doesn't do anything.

FEL bonus controls how many minions a PC can have, and how many people they can sway with speach.

Air of authority, and Demagogue will massively increase that number though.

"...whenever someone with an Unatural Characteristic succeeds on a Test utilizing that Characteristic, they gain a number of bonus Degrees of Success equal to half of their Unnatural Characteristic."

Can be a big boost.

Wp +corruption bonus + maximum psy rating

DJSunhammer said:

Infamy bonus is also what determines your infamy points, which are kinda important.

As for the critical effects, they're really only meant to be used for PCs and other important characters, allies, villains, heroes and antagonists, who deserve a horrible splattery death, faceless mooks just dropd ead when they take any crit damage, at least that's what the book suggests you do so as to keep combat moving.

Int bonus also affects how much you heal lightly damaged characters when using Medicae for First Aid.

WP bonus has a minor effect on a psychic power or two, like Mind Link, as well as your max psy rating.

Thanks guys for clarifying things for me. You helped me quite a lot

And about crits:

DJSunhammer said:

For an application every single time they´re simply totally exaggerative. At least the killing ones. Some just are exaggerative, like the "Sea of Blood" spreading in a 6m (!) radius around the victim of "Rending - Leg 10". 6m radius is enormous, pretty unbelieveably enormous.

I also think that E is the wrong damage type for Power Weapons btw. Imo they should be whatever kind of weapon they are (Blade = R, Blunt = I). Obvioulsly the power field is energy, but I still thing the shape of the weapon should prevail. At least I´ve never read of a Power Fist or Thunder Hammer igniting things.

It is really the power field that does the damage, especially for power fists and thunder hammers.

moepp said:

As otherwise said, the actual weapon itself never touches the opponent - it's the power field that does all the damage, which is why it's Energy damage.

MILLANDSON said:

Sure but the power field pretty much mimics the fashion in which these weapons would attack without it. Other than a slight charing, I don´t think there´s much difference between a sword wound and a power sword wound of the same margin.

That power fists and thunder hammers smash and shatter things, rather than melt and ignite them was also pretty established, I thought.

This is also how it comes across in the novels. At least the ones I´ve read (I know they´re not consistent on such things).

The reason why Power Fists and Thunderhammers smash what they hit is because the Power Field already disintegrated most of the matter. The moment the actual fist/hammer actually hits the armour, the armour is basically a wet cardboard box. That is why it seems it "smashes" things.

As for using it against living targets: Most of the Criticals are over-the-top, so the high chance of putting something on fire should just be seen as an extension of that. Also, considering how many varied weapons have to be categorized into just 4 categories, I would not try to read the Crits literally every time and keep the exact weapon in mind while coming up with a new description but keeping the effects. Of course, as others have said, it is best to just have mooks die at 0 Wounds and reserve Crits for important characters.

Saibot said:

Not quite, they smash things because their power fields operate on a different principle. They burst the power field instead of creating an edge of energy that is literally infinitely sharp. This tends to produce an explosion that leaves holes in things. Think of it like hitting a rock with a hammer, as soon as the hammer hits a huge amount of additional energy is transfered in the same direction. One that is strong and one that is like a shaped charge going off right on the surface of your target.

@Saibot

Of course, as others have said, it is best to just have mooks die at 0 Wounds and reserve Crits for important characters.

It may be more helpful to grant mooks a certain amount of additional wounds (about 5) that are considered critical damage. Otherwise, players may feel cheated out of all the interesting talents and other game options that do something special when the target suffers critical damage.

I´ll suggest a different solution to my group.

My suggestion would be to follow crit procedure largely by the book, but when it comes to 9 and 10, these only apply if the target got reduced below 0 wounds by the same attack. If the target was critcal before, it´s simply dead on a 9 or 10, no special effects added.