I have only briefly skimmed through the Deathwatch source-book in the interest of a small personal project I'm hopefully going to be working on in the near future, which is going to involve creating a uniform list of the weapons in all the 40k RPGs, intended for use in Rogue Trader.

While Deathwatch appears to be very clear on how Astartes ranged weapons (and presumably Legion weapons, although I have not checked Black Crusade yet) work in the hands of non-Marines, I can find no such annotations in regards to using Grenades, Missiles or Melee weapons - even though they are clearly marked as being Astartes, such as Astartes Blind Grenade, Astartes Krak Missile, or Astartes Combat Knife.

I have not had the time or opportunity to really read through the book in it's entirety - I have only skimmed through the parts that interests me the most, since I am really not that interested in actually playing as Space Marines; To me it's a supplement to the other games.

Did I miss anything? Or are there no adjustments when a non-marine uses these weapons?

Since Missiles have to be loaded into an Astartes Missile Launcher, I would imagine they would be treated in the same way as an Astartes Missile Launcher would.

Space Marines are superhumanly strong and much larger than an average person (particularly in their armour). I seem to remember reading somewhere that a Space Marine's combat knife is the size of anyone else's broadsword. I would probably say that an Astartes melee weapon is too big and/or bulky for a normal human to use (particularly Thunder Hammers and other two-handed weapons).

Grenades are a weird case. I guess you could rule that the pin is too heavy for a normal human to pull out, but that seems laughable. More likely a Space Marine grenades is simply a great deal heavier than a normal grenade. So you could throw it, but probably not very far.

PrinceOfMadness said:

Well, yeah, if there are no rules, it's fairly easy to homebrew them. I didn't know that you needed an Astartes Missile Launcher to launch the Missiles, though; where does that say? I checked the Astartes Missile Launcher entry and the entry for the Missiles themselves, but it says nothing about having to be launched through an Astartes Missile Lancher, even though it can arguably make total sense.

As for Grenades, I would rule that they require a Strength roll in addition to it's Ballistic roll. This'd allow characters for which it would make sense to use such weapons - such as Orks - to actually use it. Simply slapping half range on that, or saying that the pin is in too hard and so on just doesn't make much sense to me. In addition to that, maybe use double Strength for Strength roll on non-Astartes throwing Astartes grenades if Hulking size?

Slap Unwieldly and roll Weapons Skill at -20 penalty on Astartes Melee Weapons unless Hulking size? Also, ruling that Power Field and Shocking special qualities doesn't work unless in Astartes Power Armor (which specifically only works for Astartes, obviously) may be another good way to limit their use?

Taking any other suggestions, unless someone happens to come across specific rules.

Fgdsfg said:

I don't think it ever specifically says that you CAN'T use an Astartes Missile in a non-Astartes launcher...that's just something I assumed. Similar to the way Astartes-caliber bolt rounds wouldn't fit in a non-Astartes bolter, I would think that Astartes missiles would be higher grade than the non-Astartes variety.

Fgdsfg said:

Sounds fair. I believe that Thunder Hammers, Lightning Claws, and Power Fists are all powered by an Astartes backpack power supply anyway.

EDIT: I just looked at the sidebar "Man's Reach Exceeds His Grasp" on page 146 of the core rulebook. I believe this is what you're looking for.

"Astartes Ranged weapons count as one Class heavier to anyone lacking in Space Marine physiology. For example a Pistol is a Basic weapon; a Basic weapon is Heavy, and so on. Furthermore, Astartes weapons impose a –30 penalty to all Tests made with them by presumptuous mortals due to improper scale, weight, and/or recoil— even in power armour. The GM may also choose to impose other problems from the rebellious machine spirit based on the nature of a weapon (a plasma weapon may require Toughness Tests from routine heat venting; a power weapon may run the risk of feedback, etc)."

So basically, all weapons impose a -30 penalty to attack rolls, Ranged weapons count as one class heavier (and I would think Melee weapons would count as being heavier, too - say a one handed weapon becomes a two-handed weapon, a two-handed weapon isn't useable for a normal human), and the GM can arbitrate bad things happening as a result of a very angry Machine Spirit.

I simply assumed that that applied to ranged weapons only, but now that you mention it, it doesn't actually say specifically ranged weapons after pointing out the size difference.

Thanks anyway, I guess that's all there is to it.

I can see that with most melee weapons. Although they aren't more damaging in most cases, they do of course have a lot more damage going through them and it's easy to see that they would be far more heavily constructed (which was mentioned with regards to the ranged weapons too but obviously it's more direct effect).

However I'd say that in the case of a combat knives it would only the equivalent of a sword with an un useful grip so I can't see why it would be worse than - 10 penalty.

Grenades are a little different though, they don't seem to be a lot bigger according to the rules. The frag grenades have about the same damage as good human sized grenades but more importantly if they were significan'tly larger they would be less than a StrX3 range. As it is they can throw them 10 times further than a human can. That alone is significant difference. If they were a lot bigger they could have been Str X2 or even base Str as range (which would incidentally be about the same range that a human can throw a normal grenade), so it does seem they went for the same sized thrown mich farther rather than a much bigger grenade thrown th same distance.