Sorry if this thread has already happened, I took my time to search the forum but couldn't find anything. However, some new discussion might be dredged up given that people may have had time to adapt.

So, since the release of Black Crusade, what rules have you transplanted to Deathwatch? I know the Swift/Semi/Dodge/Parry whole kaboodle is a common swap as it's more elegant, and that the BC weapons follow in line with the DW 1.2 Errata's optional list, but what other rule changes have you found work in Deathwatch with success? Possibly things that you've now had time to test out?

I'm trying to figure out how to best implement the new Zealous Hate, but it seems DW has some issues with it, such as Marines halving critical damage. Maybe have, since it is just the effect afterall, that this ability doesn't reduce the 1d5 roll on the Critcal charts?

WittyDroog said:

As I worked on the Black Crusade rulebook (and put together the conversion tables in the GM's Chapter of Black Crusade), I've known about the rules changes long enough to plan for this well in advance (my players aren't under NDA, so they don't get see the stuff I write until it's released), and the changes were successful in my games. I've moved across the combat actions, talent descriptions, trait descriptions and weapon qualities, along with Zealous Hatred (which I'll go into below). There's not actually that much difficulty in making those changes. Skills are one of the more complex changes to move across, as it requires rewriting the advancement tables somewhat.

WittyDroog said:

Essentially, yes.

I've used what became Zealous Hatred as a house rule long before I knew about Black Crusade - indeed, several of us came to the table suggesting that change separately when BC development began - having adopted it from the Righteous Fury against Vehicles in Into the Storm. The 1d5 roll should be unmodified by any factor - if you allow bonuses from Talents and Death is Joy armour, characters will slay big enemies outright on lucky hits, while if you allow True Grit to take effect, you essentially render Righteous Fury irrelevant against such creatures, including Space Marines. It should just be an immediate 1d5 roll on the Critical Hit table. My personal suggestion is also that you follow the Zealous Hatred rules closely, so you remove the need to confirm Righteous Fury, and replace any rule that lets characters auto-confirm with the "roll twice and pick the highest for Zealous Hatred" rule that Chosen characters have in Black Crusade.

Cool, that was basically how I was going to do it. Good note about the reroll to the d5. Have there been any issues you've ran into using the BC combat actions versus how things work in DW like abilities, talents, squad mode stuff, etc?

wow, that is very different than my group. They really hate the new zealous hatred rules so they want to keep with Righteous Fury. I'm not currently running a DW game right now but the same group also plays in DH and BC. So it will be fun to see how things work.

RIght now I am doing a Dark Heresy campaign using all the rules from Black Crusade, sort of. Bad guys get Zealous Hatred, good guys get Righteous Fury.

Since the game is not an inquisitorial retinue and the characters are only Guardsman, Scum and one techpriest I am only giving the bosses they fight access to Zealous Hatred. But the rules set for combat actions is better and smoother. Its just getting these DnD hack and slashers to learn how to count their bonuses and negative modifiers thats driving me nuts.

DrgnScorpion said:

Yeah I got a player who hates how Zealous Hatred works now and in the BC game he runs we just roll extra d10's. He argues that it adds too much bookkeeping and prefers the extra d10 of damage. But I like the fact it brings the critical tables more into play (which, as a long-time WHRP 2nd Ed player, the Critcal Chart should be frequent) and gives damage more flavor than just straight hit points. I mean my players love when they rip a guy's arm off, but since you don't do Righteous Fury on minions (if you want your game to progress at all) you never really see those spectacular effects. Since Zealous Hate is just the effect of a critical I think it really adds some flair to combat without letting the enemies survive a turn longer than they should.