What it says in the topic title, really. It seems like force weapons are all conversions of their primitive weapon counterparts - rod, scythe, staff, all match damage and pen exactly. In fact, in the force description it states that "any primitive weapon can be made into a Force weapon, and increases its Availability to Extremely Rare" - implying straight conversion, just adding Force keyword.

It then describes how you get +1 to damage and pen for each point of psy rating you have. It even gives the example that a Force sword wielded by a person of psy rating 3 would inflict 10+3 (plus SB) and have a Penetration of 3.

All of that is quite clear. However, in the table of melee weapons, it lists the Force Sword as 1d10+2 R damage, 2 Pen. Why is this? Regular sword is 1d10, 0 Pen. Following the example in the Force keyword description, the psy rating 3 person using a force sword would do 1d10+5 damage, 5 pen.

Is a "Force Sword" different than a "Force sword"? Seems erroneous to me. Where'd that bonus +2 come from, and why?

Side question - Force description states that the force weapons become extremely rare, but all force weapons on the table are listed as near unique. Which is correct?

Personal theory? Because most of the other listed force weapons, especially all of those that get an entry and not just a statline, have something else beyond their mundane counterpart. The force staff counts as a focus, the Rod is extremely compact and subtle, the staff of change is a warp weapon and has that mutation effect. The Force Sword, to justify it's equal availability, gets a little extra damage and pen, to represent that, unlike the others it's an uncompromising design meant to kill.

This also neatly explains why they have a higher availability. They have features above and beyond their mundane counterparts, be that in extra damage or their use as a focus.

However, interestingly enough, the scythe has actually lost a trait in the conversion. And, more interesting still, can't be converted because it's not primitive. Neither can a sword, actually, for the same reason.

It's because a Force Weapon is a form of Power Weapon: they both have fields of crackling energy that reacts with matter. The Force Weapon just has extra abilities in addition to its energy field.

I think a Force Sword, barring its fancy abilities, is meant to be a Best Quality Mono sword. This would explain the extra damage (Best quality giving +2 damage, if I remember correctly, and Mono giving Pen 2).

borithan said:

Best quality gives a +1 to damage, but force weapons do not list craftsmanship; also, mono could still be applied. The way it's written, a best quality Mono "Force Sword" would be 1d10+3, Pen 4.

Pretty much every picture of one in action shows it crackling with blue energy, like a power weapon.

True but it does not have power field quility

...and it uses the Primary Weapon Training talent.

To sum it up: No, it's not a Power Weapon. It may look a little power-y because power glows, but it has no energy field.

Adeptus-B said:

Force weapons are supposedly made from psychconductive material or reinforced with such maybee that is where the bonus damage and pen is from also is a force wepaon i=not inc in the items immune to power field destroying ability?

Jerrith said:

And Best gives +10 WS… Should we consider that being true? My dual-wielding sorcerer would love to hear that >)

Generally what I see the rules as is that if you were to find a nice little sword during the start of your heretical career on some backwater planet and killed your worst enemy with that before ascending to space, you would likely want to make it into a Force weapon since it already has a legacy. So to give the sword the Force quality you could take it to a (not so) friendly Dark Mechanicus magos to forge into it the psychoinductive materials required and thus preserving it as Your Weapon. This gives the sword the Force weapon quality and the rarity modifier of making this upgrade is considered to be extremely rare.

Now lets say that your character is from a more of a high tech background and has researched that special weapons called Force Sword can be created by skilled artisans and you set out to find the finest weaponsmith living in Q'Sal. Once you find him and proceed to negotiate with him so that he makes a specifically made Force Sword that is created from the base materials into one, you will receive a Force Sword as is described in the armoury section.

As I see it, the difference here is that the Force Weapons in the armoury are weapons that have been created with the sole aim of creating a weapon for psykers and as such they are made out of finer materials (the sword getting extra damage and penetration, the staff acting as a psy-focus). Weapons that you make into force weapons are things that have been originally created to be normal weapons and then later on upgraded with some psychic techno-majik parts so that you can get some extra juice out of Good Old Excalibur you have been using to kill all the good/bad guys you have met on your joyous adventures.

Or then again the wordings on the rules might be left overs from DH/RT era when Extremely Rare was pretty much the hardest modifier for items. I personally want to think of it as I described. After all, its much easier to turn your primitive weapon-turned force weapon into a daemon weapon if it has a Legacy of Slaughter

From Dark Heresy's Inquisitor's Handbook, p 187:

Unless wielded by a psyker, force weapons simply count as a Good Craftsmanship Mono variant of their standard Primitive weapon type (see pages 128 and 142 of Dark Heresy).

While that may not be Canon for BC, it probably explains where this came from.

But the fine IH then goes on to confuse itself by giving the statline for the Force Sword to 1d10+1 R Pen 2 while the descriptive text quoted above continues:

Unless wielded by a psyker, force weapons simply count as a Good Craftsmanship Mono variant of their standard Primitive weapon type (see pages 128 and 142 of Dark Heresy). However, in the hands of a wielder with a Psy Rating, they are much more. For every point of Psy Rating the wielder has, the weapon’s Damage and Penetration increases by +1. For example, a force sword wielded by a character with Psy Rating 3 would inflict 1d10+3 R (plus SB) and have a Penetration of 5.

But that's not right! Psy rating 3 should add 3 to the damage in the baseline for a total of 1d10+4, right? And is this including the damage bonus from "Good Quality"? And is that reflected in the price? What if you wanted a Best Quality one? Ah.. sigh.

Then we have Only War, which is the latest and greatest, right? It says:

Force weapons have special rules when used by a psyker and otherwise count as a Best Craftsmanship Mono variant of the standard Low-Tech weapon.

I am honestly confused by this all, looking at the various books only makes it worse, the best thing is just for someone to ask FFG and get them to clear it up, because at this point in just DH, RT and BC they all are very different between systems. (I hate when items are different between systems, why are RT bolters full auto? Why do only BC lasguns get to adjust power?)

If I had to guess, I'd say that the stat line we have for the Force Sword was originally going to be a Legion Force Sword, and thus the extra damage and penetration. Then they decided not to split Force Weapons between regular and Legion, and we have what we have.

Well, the example for Black Crusade under special qualities says that a Force Sword wielded by a Psyker with Psy rating 3 would have 1d10+3 damage and 3 Pen, so that may be where that came from. The rules from Black Crusade have them counting as a Normal weapon, not Good or Best, unless in the hands of a Psyker.

Inconsistencies perhaps, but RAW they simply are normal swords with psyker-killiness.