I posted this on the Deathwatch forum but it applies equally here

I know that there has probably been discussion about this, but how much is Black Crusade an evolution of rules in Deathwatch.
There were 2 rules which struck me as different, Storm of Iron and Zealous Hatred
In Deathwatch Storm of Iron allows for a doubling of the amount of damage to a horde, causing massive damage. On the other hand, in Black Crusade it would be half of the BS bonus, which would mean, on average, 2 extra damage to hordes, which is much more toned down and modest (doubling would be pretty crazy)

The other one I thought was interesting was Zealous Hatred which in Deathwatch allowed someone to roll another dice. In Black Crusade it allows 1 damage. This actually makes more sense as a heretic with an autopistol could probably nick a Space Marine if he were lucky, but causing a massive wound with the same weapon would be outrageous.

It made me think that that would cause a change in how hordes cause damage. Rather than adding dice to hordes based on magnitude, the GM might just assign 1 damage per 10 points of magnitude. That would mean that it would take a loooong time to kill Space Marines, but that is kind of the point. Space Marines die after fighting lots of heretics after a long time, why should they be felled by a lucky shot.

Anyways, just my thoughts, I feel that the Space Marine rules in Black Crusade are probably due to tweaks in Deathwatch and I am curious how this might appear in the Deathwatch errata (which, strangely, has not been changed since May 2011)

There are some other changes, but mostly in the same vein.

Whirlwind of Death is now 1/2 WS bonus not doubling as well, Mighty Shot is plus 1/2 BS bonus rather than plus 2.

Semi-auto, Full-auto, Swift Attack, and Lightning attack and work differently and are half actions.

Its a good rules clean up really.

Also posted in Deathwatch forum:

We had a game convention here in Denver this weekend, Genghis Con (yeah that's really what it is called). I was privileged to be in a Deathwatch session ran by Ross Watson called "Honor of the Chapter." We used Black Crusade combat rules because they are "much better" and meant to be "compatible" with Deathwatch (Ross' words).

I wish I could provide concrete specifics but I did not keep my character sheet. Ross was subbing for a sick game-master on Friday night and needed the sheets for his scheduled Saturday morning session. Plus I do not own Black Crusade so I don't have much for comparison. I sure wish I could remember how my bolter damage totals were calculated... I think I rolled 2d10s, picked the higher number and then added *something* to the total (a d5? extra d5 based on the number of successes? Arg!! I played about 9 hours of WFRP on Saturday so Friday seems a long time ago).

I know I'm not really answering your question about "how much" but I thought this might shed a little light on the subject. But I think you are safe to assume that the lower damage totals for Storm of Iron and Zealous Hatred can be substituted in Deathwatch.

P.S. Ross is a fantastic GM and the scenario was a total kick in the pants!

Black Crusade is an evolution of Deathwatch which is an evolution of Rogue Trader which is an evolution of Dark Heresy.

So... yes.

Yes, they are an evolution, but they are not meant to be used with Deathwatch. Each game line (Dark Heresy, Rogue Trader, Deathwatch and Black Crusade) are meant to be self sufficient, ie, you won't need any product from the other lines to play them or use their relevant supplements. Black Crusade doesn't serve as an errata for Deathwatch, though you are of course to use the rules as a basis for house rules that is entirely up to the player themselves).

borithan said:

Do the Deathwatch optional combat errata rules match those found in Black Crusade? The distinct impression I got from Ross Watson is that they were to be as a replacement (at least with regard to modifiers on full-auto, aimed shot, etc. and with regard to weapons characteristics).

No, the errata/optional combat rules don't really match the Black Crusade rules except in the area of weapon damage ratings.

Aside from the "optional" weapon profiles, which the stats for Black Crusade are clearly based on, there hasn't been any root-and-branch errataing of Deathwatch combat system, so it remains much closer to the DH and RT rules than the Black Crusade ones. You are meant to be able to play Deathwatch with the one book. They wouldn't require you to have Black Crusade as well, and such a massive errata as to make them match would make people who had bought Deathwatch quite unhappy (as a large part of the material in the quite expensive book is now redundant). Also, I feel many of the stats for the newer books just wouldn't work quite as well with the new rules (Many of the larger creatures seem to be built with the old Righteous Fury in mind, while the new one, which I approve of, just wouldn't balance properly in my mind) .

Hey Eradico!

I was also at Genghis Con, and was one of the ones who played in Ross' Saturday morning game. It was fantastic!

Also, I ran Black Crusade on both Friday and Saturday night for the first time...

They went well, but I have to say I kept the 'If you roll a natural 10, roll to hit again and then roll and additional 1d10 for damage' instead of using the Zealous Hatred rules. I figured since it's a Con game everyone deserves the possibility of that ONE hit that does 30+ wounds...

L-

PS - From what he said, Ross no longer works at Fantasy Flight!

I consider the games to be essentially four editions of the same system. Should there ever be a second edition of Dark Heresy, I'd expect it to look a lot like Black Crusade (or whatever game will be the last of the first round).

All in all, should you have both BC and DW, it's probably worthwhile to treat the former as an errata for the latter although the changes are too extensive to be written into an actual errata file.

HPLustcraft said:

HPLustcraft,

Cool! A gaming buddy of mine was in your Friday night session and said it was a blast. Nice job!

As for Ross... I guess that explains the Dark Millenium Online t-shirt he wore. Maybe he's working for them?

I was in a WFRP session on Saturday night--wished I would have played in your game instead. Maybe see you at Tacticon in the fall.

Eradico Pravus said:

Given I still talk to Ross on Facebook after he left FFG, yea, he's working with Virgil on the Dark Millennium MMO, or at least he was last time I heard (there have been rumours of it being cancelled, but I've not had them confirmed or denied by anyone in the know yet).

Also - Zealous Hatred is better for BC than Righteous Fury because you are trying to lessen the gap between Marine and Non-Marine players. If generic spod off the street can still break bones in a Marine's hand with a lucky burst of gunfire (because everyone gets Zealous Hatred), then marines feel less overpowered compared to combat-minded Disciples.

Righteous Fury, on the other hand, is there to mark out specific characters for ridiculous uberness, and to give one marine a realistic chance of doing a meaningful number of wounds to a 'fex. Only important characters having it means non-Marines have to be in hordes or have high-powered weapons to achieve anything. Which is more the point of Deathwatch.

Evolution of rules? I sincerely hope so. I posted the below in the Dark Heresy forum some time ago:

My players and I are wondering about the core rules for roleplaying in the Warhammer 40,000 universe and how they seem not to get better as more books are being released.

Take for example the Unnatural Characteristic trait in Rogue Trader, which works differently/was changed from the one in Dark Heresy. Progressive insight and a finetuning of the rules system, one would say. But then in the third setting to come out, Deathwatch, we're back to the rules from Dark Heresy. Enter Black Crusade and we have yet another version of the rules for Unnatural Characteristics.

Take Awareness. Halfway in Dark Heresy the designers must have realized this skill was largely superfluous and not different enough from basic Perception ... and that anyone not having this skill tests at half Perc, per the RAW. An undesireable consequence, so they (FFG or Black Industries, dunno) came up with a clumsy fix in the Inquisitor's Handbook: with Awareness you can lower the difficulty of the Perc test. This works completey different than all other skills, a solution that is alien to the system. It should have been a Talent. Anyways, out comes Rogue Trader, and then Deathwatch, and Awareness appears with the quick fix from the Inquisitor's Handbook ignored again!

Autofire also works differently in Black Crusade from all the earlier games, which differed amongst each other in this rule too.

And I've never quite reconciled myself with the fact that Daemonettes, Orks, bolters and krak grenades in Deathwatch are different rules-wise than they are in for example Dark Heresy.

I know that some settings might require different rules and/or different emphasis. But that's not what seems to be the case here.

My point: is FFG really finetuning the core system of rules, combing out things that don't work and making well-thought out changes for the better, or is it just 'anything goes' with whatever new core book is released?