So the arch-militant in my group decided to rock a multi-melta, the gun seems pretty damned overpowered. Any ideas on how to tone it down a bit? Also, from looking at the black crusade book the multi-melta's damage is only 2d10, not 4d10, doesn't seem right?

The Multi Melta in BC has the Melta special which double penetration at short range...

BC: Range 60, S/-/-, 2d10+16, Pen 12, Melta, Blast (1)
RT: Range 60 S/3/-, 4d10+5, Pen 13, Blast (1)

I see the BC weapons to be the best and newest incarnation of weapon stats...I'd go for them...
As for the Multimelta, that thing is huge, consider how it looks if you pc is carrying it at a gala dinner

S.

fourtykiller said:

The weapon is fine as it is. The Multi-Melta is an anti-tank weapon, it's reasonable that if you use it to shoot at people, they explode. It's not very different from a Man Portable Lascannon.

Also, like Santiago said, you are not supposed to be walking around with a Heavy Weapon in an Imperial planet, the Arbites may not like that. So the use of the Multi-Melta is mainly for use when exploring non-Imperial worlds.

Santiago said:

Out of curiosity, has the OP or other respondants noticed that the Errata lists the correct firing modes as S/-/- for the RT Multi-melta?

Unusualsuspect said:

I have the last print of the Corerules, so my book has the errata on it. =D

Since the OP looked at Black Crusaded's Multi-Melta and mentioned that his problem was the damage, I imagine he saw the errata too.

Maese Mateo said:

And don't forget void-combat, missing with a meltabeam on a ship...whoops.

The Multi-Melta is perfectly balanced as is (with the errata). When you need to absolutely positively destroy ONE guy in the room, you use the Multi-Melta.

If you want to counter it as a GM, just send multiple enemies at them. Preferably really sucky ones. Don't send one chaos marine, send 20 cultists. The Arch-Militant with the Multi-Melta can kill exactly one of them per turn provided he hits them.

Shrike said:

Actually, the whole idea of the Multi-Melta is to kill several enemies at once, which is why it has the Blast (1) quality (for example, when several Cultists are inside a narrow corridor trying to get you). For single enemies, I think the Man Portable Lascannon is a little bit better since it does more damage (although it has a smaller Clip) and a lot more Range.

Thanks for the answers, I have seen the errata which is good, since semi auto would be ridonkulous. I think other than when he's out exploring i'm going to restrict when he can carry the **** thing around, via arbites and the like. Also I had already planned on having terrible things happen if he's shooting it on a ship or station and misses, been rereading the section on depressurization. Thanks again for the answers, i was just more curious about why the damage was so drastically different in the bc book as opposed to rt book

fourtykiller said:

Be cautious with that, you may find the players start waving their warrant around a lot more. I find it best to use indirect methods, ie describing how the Seneschal's bargaining to have the ship's torpedo stocks refilled is stymied by the nervous quartermaster's constant sidelong glances at the heavily-armed soldier behind said seneschal, or the rogue trader's flattery of the local governess falls on deaf ears as she's incensed at the gauche rudeness of him bringing someone armed for taking down a hab-block to dinner. The idea of it is to have the PLAYERS wanting him to leave it behind.

fourtykiller said:

On that score, the damage isn't really different, just formatted differently, in line with the DW "optional" weapon errata that reduced the number of d10's and increased the + amount. So, 2d10+16 for BC & 4d10+5 for RT are, on average, still doing roughly the same damage.

I wouldn't really penalise any PC for wandering about with an MM - it's really no worse than any other heavy. My players got themselves a Heavy Flamer, since it's in the hands of a Missionary, they carry it pretty much anywhere (swap to a regular Flamer when in 'polite society'). It hasn't given me too much grief since it has drawbacks enough without robbing the player of the joy of trotting it out.

Plasmafest said:

+1

Heavy Weapons are supposed to be powerful, I don't see a reason to penalize the player who wants to use one. Warhammer 40K is a war setting, and people during a war try to use the most powerful weapon they can get. Plus the Multi-Melta is not even the most powerful weapon around. Compare it with a Grenade Laucher with Viral Grenades, for example. Or just take as loot at the Thunder Hammer post-errata (it got the Shocking Quality and multiplies your SB x2 for calculating damage)... Are you going to penalize players who want that, too?

IMHO, as long as everyone in the group is not going around with Multi-Meltas and only 1-2 players work as Heavy Support, I don't see a true motive to start penalizing them for being prepared for combat. Warhammer 40K roleplaying games are extremely lethal and sometimes the players are going to need Heavy Support if they want to stay alive during some battles. For example, fighting an Ork Warboss with 85 Wounds and Power Claw (like 2d10+24 damage) is extremely lethal (he can literaly one-shot the players one by one) without heavy support on your side. That's when your Heavy-guy kicks in and starts blowing **** up.

When I started storytelling Rogue Trader, I had exactly the same issues you have when the Arch-Militant of my group got a Multi-Melta as part of his initial equipement. Then I just saw as my players started to die (burn Fate) even with Heavy Weapon Support at their side and how worse could have got without such support. So I'm cool with it now (as long as it's only 1-2 people, not the whole group).

Multi-Melta is lethal and this is good it was designed for that. But IMO Plasma Cannon is much more Lethal no mater if facing Armoured forces or Infantary. The Void Master in my group has Plasma Gun and it's gets scary when he shoots about 38 damage on semi auto. **** killing everything that can be thrown at him in 2-4 rounds of good shooting. And rest of group packs Massive fire power of Boltguns + one Storm Bolter of RT. Hail of exploding bullets with plasma sparkling everywhere. You played DoW and seen what Melta bombs do to Vechicels and other lethal weapons of such calibre. Attack them with fast eldar transport tank that they won't hit.

I play it easy with encumbrance, I really do. Rifle, pistol, main melee weapon, knife, armour, a few bits of miscellaneous kit, and I don't ask for a specific accounting. Once someone starts going over the "common-sense" limit or adding heavy weapons to their walking around outfits, I start adding things up. A multi-melta weighs 40kg by itself. That's not counting spare power cells or any of the other kit the player doubtless wants to tote. A SB+TB of 6 gives you a carrying weight of 36kg and a maximum of 72kg. By the book, you can carry between your carrying and maximum limit and there's only the one penalty. That's fine, but you bet I'll be keeping track of it.

I'll be using both RT and BC (heck, even DH) weapons whenever I feel like. It's nice to mix things up. Just need to make sure to note which is which.

The difference between the damage RT Multi-Melta causes and the damage BC Multi-Melta causes aren't as vast as they appear to be.

4d10+5 and 2d10+16 are essentially the same thing, assuming average dice rolls. The average on 2d10 added together is 11. Take 11 away from 16 and you get 5. So really all the BC version has done is take two of the d10's and assume you made an average roll on both, and added that to the total.

The difference lies in the Melta rule, and that RT MM's have a slightly higher Pen at longer ranges.

BYE

What about the range of the melta weapons?

80m extreme maximal range on a melta gun seem pretty high for me, concering that it has 12" range on the tabletop.
Not to mention the multi-meltas 240m on extreme.

In the book, there's no restriction on the meltas reach, but I hardly beleive that I can snipe somebody at ground floor, if I'm on the roof of a building and using a meltagun.

And a bolter has a range of 24" in tabletop, or 90m in RT. It's fiddled for balance in the tabletop wargame, but I think the range is reasonable for open world roleplaying under Rogue Trader. Don't sweat it.