My group and myself have been playing DH for the last couple of months and are loving it and the more basic and uncomplicated rules. Having come from playing Rifts, a completely broken game system, it is very refreshing.

I just started looking into the rule changes that came along with BC and I do really like the changes that have been made. The upgraded melee and the balancing of burst firing are all thing that i really like and am going to implement in my campaign.

The one glaring problem that I see is the change to the called shot. Unless I am mistaken in DH to make a called shot it is a basic -20 to a regular non-burst shot. I felt that this was a sufficient penalty and didn't see any reason for it to change. In the new BC rules it is now a full round action that doesn't get the +10 for being a single shot. if you include and half aim action a person can take with a single you are looking at a 40% difference between making a regular shout and a called shot.

Rereading that last paragraph makes me wonder if I am making any sense. I will try an example to make it more clear

My group includes a Sororitas and she starts with power armor with an AR of 7 but no helmet. if I am to put her into combat with a group of your every day hood rat scum bag (BS 30, basic pistol) he has 50% chance of shooting her if he spends the full round going for it (BS 30 +10 for regular shot +10 for half action aim) and most likely that shot is going to hit her armor and have no effect. But she is clearly not wearing a helmet so why not shoot her right in the face. But when you do the math in the same amount of time it takes to make that 50% regular shot he only has a %10 chance to hit her in the head if he aims for it? (30 BS -20 for full round called shot)

This seems like far too large a difference and I always felt that the -20 alone was sufficient. Now am I just reading this wrong or missed something. Or has anyone else noticed this as well.

Sorry for the very long winded first post but I do appreciate any feedback

I agree with you, as you can see from a previous post on the same subject .

The change from a simple modifier to an independent Combat Action was made with Rogue Trader, and has remained unchanged since then. My advice would be to ignore this Combat Action, and to stick with the DH approach.

Thanks for sending me in the right direction. I took a look for related posts and didnt find anything but that probably says something about how hard I looked.

I like the servo skull example

Yes. Aimed Shots is most likely going to be most used by Sniper types, and it really screws with Accurate weapons as these NEED an Aim action to be used to their full potential.

By RAW you're best of spending a Full turn Aiming, then using the Called Shot on the next turn. This will result in a net +10 bonus to your shot, not taking into consideration bonuses from Range, Talents, Equipment, etc.

But compared to the alternate (DH approach) you could be putting out 1 aimed, called shot every turn with a net bonus of +10. So this change has basically halved your rate of fire, for no particularly good reason.

I am going to do the same as yourself and keep the DH rules for called shots. I never found it to be overpowered before so I don't see any reason why it would be now. Thanks for the help

Obviously neither of you has ever had his BBEG dispatched momentarily for staying within the style of 40k and not wearing a helmet.

Not quite sure what a BBEG is (Big Bad Evil Guy?), but there are situations in "the fluff" where Space MArines go down to a single headshot, even when wearing a helmet. (The Ultramarines movie comes to mind)

Then there are force-fields, Infamy/Fate Points for re-rolling Dodges, etc.

And if your Big Bad Guy is dumb enough to shown himself to sniper fire, then perhaps he wasn't the Big Bad Guy? A dupe? (Saddam had 4 lookalikes, I believe) Perhaps there was another Power Behind the Throne all along?

My point being, if you introduce an enemy who sticks to the stereotype and doesn't wear a helmet, a called shot to the head is doubly useful against him - not only does it trigger a meaner critical hits table, but it bypasses a lot of soak.

Called shots aren't and shouldn't be something even good fighters perform casually. A single round of combat is short and hectic - in a span of few seconds, you're dancing between bullets and blades, trying to land a hit or two. Called shots just aren't something that occurs casually in such an environment. And they shouldn't.

I disagree. If trained personnel right now can walk and aim for the head (SWAT teams, Navy SEALS, British SAS, etc) with a submachine gun, I'm pretty sure in the grimdark of 40k there are trained personnel that can at least stand still and aim for the head with a single shot gun.

Auto-senses, you're just one acquisition away from being able to make called shots as half-actions.

deadlyhammer said:

A lot of that is movie myths.

I doubt people will use this willy-nilly unless and until they have invested in the relevant talents to reduce the penalties. And in that case it seems a little mean and unnecessary to nerf them like this.

And if the justification is that you need to take the time to aim in order to shoot at such small targets, then why is there no such restrictions on shooting Scrawny or Puny size descriptor? And why wouldn't that extra aiming be covered by taking the Aim action first?

As things stand, I can aim and shoot at a doorknob, a flying skull or a knife. But I haven't the time to Aim and shoot at a leg. Give me an Accurate weapon, and my aimed shot at the bolt pistol will be easier than the shot to the leg. Or torso.

Darth Smeg said:

1. Because what you keep ignoring is, it's much easier to shoot a target that's overall small than it is to shoot a similarly sized part of a larger target. People's heads, arms and legs, for example, move much more than their torsos, thus being harder targets and possibly also getting in the way of a clear torso shot. A servo-skull just floats there, and if it tries to move to pose a harder target, it moves in it's entirety. Shooting a ratling's head would incur the usual called shot penalty and the penalty for it's overall lesser size, because the two are different things representing two different impediments to your clean strike.

2. Per the rules, shooting at a small object, either held or just lying around, is also a Called Shot action:

Called Shot
Type:Full Action
Subtypes:Attack, Concentration, Melee or Ranged
The active character attempts to attack a specifi c or vulnerable
area on his target. The attacker declares a location on his target
(e.g., Head, Body, Left Arm, Right Arm, Left Leg, or Right Leg)
and makes an attack following all the rules for Standard Attacks,
except the test is either a Hard (–20) Weapon Skill or Ballistic
Skill Test(depending on whether the attack is melee or ranged).
(Therefore, he does not get the usual +10 bonus for Standard
Attacks.) If he succeeds, he skips the Determine Hit Location step
of the attack and instead hits the declared location. At the GM’s
discretion, this attack may be used to aim at specifi c locations on
monsters or within the environment, such as shooting a door lock
from across the room or disabling a wall-mounted vid-recorder.

Your first point is good, and explains why the called shots are Hard. (Most body parts are bigger than a Bolt pistol or servo skulls, so using size modifiers alone a -10 might be more appropriate. And the head doesn't move about as much, which compensates it's smaller size).

But the second is just another reason why I think this Action is … strange.

A doorlock or camera doesn't even move, but shooting it now racks up the penalties for Called Shot (-20) AND it's miniscule size (-30). But trying to shoot the scampering rat moving around next to it will be much simpler, as you can Aim to cancel part of the size penalty (a net -10 if using an Accurate weapon).

I suppose you COULD argue that the camera is "unaware" or "stunned", but it get's a bit silly. The BS test assumes your target is making evasive moves to avoid being hit, which is not the case with most environmental targets.

Darth Smeg said:

The target doesn't try to be a hard target in the case of pieces of environment, but this being a combat situation, you are.

Can a good marksman take out a security cam? That's rather easy. Can he do that while three guys unload full-auto bursts on him, and two other guys are charging him, howling madly? Now that's a lot more difficult. Called Shot is a combat action, not a general statement on the difficulty of shooting an unattended object - again, that's what size is for, and the two both contribute to the overall difficulty of the action.

*Edited away for going sideroad from topic*

I tend to swing both ways:

There are situations that called shot can be plainly the only option. like someone having insane amounts of toughness and armor EXCEPT in one minor place, or the big guns running out of ammo and all is left are little pistols, that are no way gonna penetrate mediocre armor. Thus making it a valid option…

…and being able to shoot once a turn instead in two turns while aiming sounds better to me as a cheesy player.

But in the other hand, this applies to enemies too. If your players are so much hardcore, that they don't wanna wear specific parts of armor (GM may be also a factor in this), and the enemies know this, having a break once in two rounds can be a huge relief.