I've never paid much attention to those, but when i saw that sling deals 1d10-2 I damaga, with primitive (5) I realised something is reaally wrong. That means that sling deals on avarage 2,9 damage. That's not enough to harm a fit human which has TB of 3. I'm not even mentioning armour. Thats stupid. Sling were used for a long time as a lethal weapon in ancient armies. And here you have to stand in front of someone for half an hour, and throw a stone (or metal balls) after stone at him to kill him. I know it can be used to throw grenades, but still.

Hand bow - same thing, primitive (5). It cannot be used even as a silent assasination weapon, because darts are too weak to deal even one dmg required for toxin to kick in.

Bow - primitive (6) - useless piece of junk. You'll need a full quiver and a lot of luck to kill someone. I would give it around 1d10+1, primitive (8)

Finally bolas - why it has primitive (1) quality if it doesnt deal any damage?

Amaimon said:

I will point Slings explictly mention the damage changes depending on what you're using as ammo, which offsets the damage issue a bit. Also, all Primitive weapons still Righteous Fury on rolled 10s, which also makes the potential for damage a bit higher.

Honestly, I don't see an issue with the low damage. You're probably right that slings were used in ancient combat (I don't know enough history in that sense to say) but there's a counterpoint I'd make today: when was the last time you heard of someone using a sling in real-life to attack someone?

There's a reason why people don't walk around using bows, crossbows, etc. in real life, and that's because guns are so commonplace and much better. Likewise in the 40k universe, las-weaponry is ridiculously commonplace, and SP weapons even more so, since this is a civilization that is ridiculously highly militarized. In most campaigns you're never ever going to pick up a Low-tech weapon, and why would you when the standard Guardsman is toting around a laser gun and elites are using fully-automatic self-propelled explosive-tipped grenade launchers? Look at the availability: a Lasgun is just as easy to find as a Crossbow.

No one would use a Hand-bow as a silent assassination weapon, because needle weaponry exists (and is much more effective, considering that anyone you'd want to assassinate is probably wearing at least half-decent armor if not a protective field).

The other thing about primitive, especially in regards to the regular bow, is primitive (6) means that half the time you are rolling a 6, and thus on an unarmored human you're still dealing 3 wounds a turn, and assuming the average humans has less than 10 wounds, that's pretty significant damage. And if they are armored, you're back to the point that you shouldn't be using a low-tech weapon to try to kill them, anyway.

I think you are right about the bolas, though, that seems like a mistake that the primitive quality is there.

Even by today's standard, the only way a sling is going to deal any real damage is if you hit someone in the head with a suitable projectile like a lead ball or something. Modern kevlar armor is more than enough to completely negate that sort of attack. I was in the army, we did all sorts of things to each other while wearing our IBAs and Kevlars, the only thing a sling could do would maybe be fracture an arm or leg bone, and even then that would be tricky.

Slings are terrible weapons for killing humans, ergo, they have crap stats. Maybe if this was Small Game Hunter 40,000, they would be a little better, but it's not.

Well I'm not going to argue that Bows and Slings are and were weapons capable of killing human targets but the 40k RPG Systems have never been realistic.
After all in a realistic system a single bullet from any weapon would incapacitate a character. If not by damage to the tissue then by the pain.

The only thing that bugs me is the reload times on flintlock rifles and pistols (note that muskets and flintlock rifles are very different). It took a trained soldier in the civil war about 6-9 seconds to reload a breach loading flintlock, about the same to reload a revolver back then (but the revolver had 6 shots making it better overall). A barrel loader took about 10-12 seconds for a well trained soldier. That's about a turn and a half, up to two full turns. If you pick to carry a flintlock then you ought to be trained in using it right… not a big deal just always bugged me. One thing to point out though is that many people use bows and crossbows today for hunting and even fighting in third world countries and rebel groups too. Knifes and arrows can cut into Kevlar like you aren't even wearing it. Also the new arrows that remove the Primitive quality from bows and crossbows and gives them Explosive damage make them good for an Assassin type.

Varn said:

Actually, the sling fell out of favor because the space required to properly use it [bows were used in tight groups for volley-fire] went against the tactics being used, and because it took as much training to use it properly as it did to make a bowman do anything more accurate or deadly than fire as part of a volley at a distance.

In terms of killing power, slings were actually extremely deadly. It was actually considered to have a range advantage over bows, and caused severe contusions. Projectiles ranged from a little under 50g to almost 500g, meaning you could concievably be using that thing efficiently with grenades or microgrenades. One good rotation is what it takes to launch it.

Unfortunately, as you've stated, modern armor made for penetrating impacts is particularly effective against something like a sling-stone. So the 'primitive' factor and lack of penetration certainly deserve to be there. But against an unarmored opponent, "can fracture bones" below kevlar in is certainly worth a bit of power, though the old "vs armor" version of primitive would suit it much better. That means something able to take an armored man into the criticals in one or two solid strikes.

I'd say remove primitive as-is, re-add the "double armor AP against the weapon", and let SB affect it.

Same with crossbows; surely we can find some uses for the things. At the very least, some specialized ammunition; though I'll agree that given how ubiquitous las weapon construction is, there's now little reason to make them, though modern materials and construction methods can give you a good 300lb draw and some serious big-game-hunting power with a loading speed and difficulty a child could handle. Though we're still looking at slower than firing single snap shots with a lasgun.

Kiton said:

Simplest solution would be to add arrows with the Toxic quality, or specifically address the ability to add poisons to your standard arrows (I feel like this has already been done in some other system's supplement but I'm not entirely sure). Then you'd have standard arrows, Toxic Arrows for lightly-armored targets, and Explosive Arrows (already in the Core Rules) for higher-armored/tougher targets. I think that would be more than enough, again given that the likelihood a given PC will ever need to use a bow is still very low, but at least there's a couple official options if they do.

No one would use a Hand-bow as a silent assassination weapon, because needle weaponry exists (and is much more effective, considering that anyone you'd want to assassinate is probably wearing at least half-decent armor if not a protective field).

Actually, death cultists using a hand-bow as an assassination weapon has quite a tradition. Needlers are hightech and quite expensive.

I think there are at least one or two primitive weapons that could do with the Accurate trait.

These would be fine if you could somehow bypass armour. In SR4 (shadowrun) you could make called shots to negate armour of your opponent. The mechanics was -1 dice, per 1 armour. Same could be appllied here. You shot at -10 per point of armour (so -40 to bypass flak armour). Of course you could say you shoot at -20 to negate only 2 points. This is explained by aiming at exposed parts of body, seams, joints, face etc.

This is a consequence of the change of Primitive from "Double Non-primitive armour" to "damage capped". This is obviously because FFG wanted to simplify the system (they removed the Primitive quality from armour as a consequence… which is not ideal in my mind).

Most primitive weapons should be terrible at penetrating "modern" armour (though as noted, sometimes real modern armours aren't great at defending against weapons they were not designed for, such as bullet resistant vests and stabbing attacks, which is why most British police wear stab vests rather than bullet-resistant vests). This needs to be accounted for in the mechanics. The new system does this, but does lead to the rather bizarre result that primitive weapons are not great against unarmoured targets as well. I like the opposing rule (Proven), which guarantees minimum damage, but I don't think this rule works.

Not sure what the problem was with the old mechanics, aside from a little maths being done during the game. It only needed a little clarification about whether Pen applied before or after multiplication (or division in the case of primitive armour), and that was dealt with in the errata. Non-primitive weapons were better enough as it was…

The problem was that the rule was complex and somewhat difficult to keep track of. It was essentially a bunch of if-then statements that were complex enough that getting everyone at the table to remember them was more of a pain than it was worth. The new rules, while less realistic, are much much easier to keep track of and considerably speed up the game when they come up. Another downside of the old system is that is artificially inflated the worth of the mono upgrade and made any Primitive weapon that didn't have said upgrade not really worth carrying or spending resources on in most cases. There really wasn't any benefit to using the old primitive rules, and there were several drawbacks. They were minor, sure, but changing to the current rules for primitive made for a pretty big jump in ease of playability, which can really only be a good thing for a rule that had such a small impact. And sure, there are places where this change makes little sense, such as in the case of the sling and its relative realism, but this is only a small drawback for a much larger gain.

DJSunhammer said:

I think that sums it up more or less. There's a few problems with they way primitive weapons and armor is handled right now, some of which have been pointed out by this thread.
Considering the setting and the fact that even a feral worlder could have access to a lasgun I don't think it's really something that the system should focus on.
Whenver you add something (like realism) you will lose something else in the proces (like playability or ease of use). That's the part where house rules come in (or modular rules for that matter but those can be complicated as well). If you are playing a game that will feature lots of primitie armor and weaponry it may be useful to write something up but the typical conflict in OW invovles the IG and some enemy of the IG. Since both parties will primarily use non-primitive weapons and armour there's no need for the rules to focus on them.

borithan said:

Anyone notice how awesome full plate is now? Its a straight AP 5, and only scarce. Its only drawback is weight.

KommissarK said:

Well with the change to carrying capacity the weight is not just a drawback its THE drawback. You need a SB+TB of 6 to carry it and that's without all the other gear.

KommissarK said:

Long have i played characters that use Best Craftsmanship Feudal Plate armour. 6 points of armour, and with its weight halved its quite manageable. Also gives you an edge visually and when making an impact socially

Well didn't the primitive armour rule hurt the in previous systems?

KommissarK said:

Primitive armour counted only half its AP (before substracting penetration) when being struck by non-primitive weapon, meaning a man-stopper round went through it as if it was shirt.

I personally preferred the old Primitive rules, even if primitive weapons have always been underpowered. Modern armor made them useless, but they were dangerous against unarmored targets. You need to remember that bows were used in war to kill, not to inconvenience, and a broadhead arrow is no less lethal than a bullet, just a lot harder to aim.

How about combining old and new rules?

Primitive quality works only when someone is equipped with non primitive armour. That way if someone is unarmoured or has only leather armour, you still can harm with arrows. Primitive armour would have to be halved against normal weapons as per old DH rule. Chainmail isnt real protection against gunshot.

So the wording of the rule would be more or less like this. I dont have the book with me right now.

If the enemy is wearing primitive armour or has natural armour (x) trait - ignore this quality. If the enemy is wearing non-primitive armour or has machine trait, treat any roll higher than listed value as listed value. eg with primitive (7) any roll above 7 would be treated as 7. Weapon with this quality would still inflict Righteos Fury on a roll of 10.

So whaddya think?

That could actually work quite well. It'd keep low-tech weapons viable against their intended targets (other low-tech equipped soldiers) while at the same time not rendering them harmless against more technologically advanced foes.

One problem usually found in earlier 40K RPGs was that if you wanted to put primitives as antagonists you either found ever more contrived ways to give them on-primitive primitive weapons (Lure of the Expanse, I'm looking at you) or you found out that your players were virtually invulnerable to anything their foes might dish out.

I still think that bows should do 1d10+3 damage and X-bows and muskets 1d10+4, just like in Fantasy RPG.

Musclewizard said:

So… medieval plate armour is now almost as good as carapace armour (weight aside). Derp… Bullets should make a total mess of that, but they won't.

"I still think that bows should do 1d10+3 damage and X-bows and muskets 1d10+4, just like in Fantasy RPG." - While it would be nice for total consistency , I think that would just make them too good compared to modern weapons, even with the Primitive quality. The two systems are very close (which makes sense, Dark Heresy being developed from 2nd ed. Feudal plate has 5 AP in Dark Heresy, the same full plate provides in WFRP 2nd. I did have a thought of trying to universalise the systems of WFRP 2nd and Dark Heresy a little while back, but one of the major issues I couldn't resolve was the "Primitive" vs "modern" weapons.

At least in Dark Heresy I saw plenty of use of primitive weapons and armour, but then the game didn't get that far into the campaign, and it seems much more common for PCs and NPCs not to be fully armoured in that game.

Thats why I said primitive armour vs non-primitive weapons should be halved (rounding up), just like it was in DH.

borithan said:

I honestly don't think so. It'd make them lethal, yes, but bows and arrows have always been killing instruments. But better? Not even close. They have relatively low range, no penetration whatsoever, low rate of fire and a clip of 1, which means you can't even move and fire without Quick Reload. And barring explosive or mono arrows (if your GM allows them) they have no unusual ammo. The only thing they have in their favor is that they're not as loud as firearms.

The best solution I've read so far is to ignore the Primitive trait when used against primitive armour. This shouldn't result in primitive armour being halved against non-primitive weapons, though - that would IMO be too much hassle.

@borithan

So… medieval plate armour is now almost as good as carapace armour (weight aside). Derp… Bullets should make a total mess of that, but they won't.

I disagree. Armour plates were still (rarely) in use in the trenches of WWI. While not as effective as they were in the age of chivalry, having a solid steel plate between you and a bullet does make quite a difference. However, considering that for only a little less protection (and no loss at all against shrapnel) you can get flak armour that weighs a third of the plate, I think the evolution is obvious.

Yes, there were armour plates used in WW1, but they were in no way expected to stop rifle hits. They protected against shrapnel, ricochets, and maybe bullets that were essentially spent due to range. They were little use against actual hits from rifle rounds (would it have been theoretically be possible to make a plate thick enough to stop a bullet? Yeah, but they would have been far too heavy to be usable). Plate armour, aside from that made from special materials (which is essentially what Carapace armour is), should provide little protection. Not none, but little (In Dark Heresy it would have provided 2AP, which good enough to me).

Honestly, I doubt any player is going to take this. For 10 points (at character creation), you're better off getting best quality guard flak armour over full plate. If a player wants to go for style (and eats the 30kg weight), then more power to em. And by the time your talking "best craftsmanship full plate" your on the exact same level of availability as common craftsmanship storm trooper carapace. Which are both effectively the same piece of gear.

It might happen during play, where a player wants a "cheap" upgrade from guard flak thats not light carapace, but the weight is still the downside.