I'm wondering what the effect of playing with the original weapon stats (not the optional ones from the 1.1 errata) while having Righteous Fury replaced by Zealous Hatred. Effects that would normally auto-confirm RF (like Deathwatch Training against xenos) will allow a re-roll of the d5 result for ZH (as per the Chosen's ability from BC). This would be the only BC rule imported over simply to minimize adjustments to a great many other things that would result in too much work for me and my players.

I'm hoping to have more of the cinematic injuries that will arise from using Critical Hit charts without having to bottom out wounds as well as opening these options up to the bad guys (that will often get the secondary ZH result that they only inflict 1 point of damage on tough-as-nails armoured Astartes). I'm also hoping to avoid having to determine "errata-compatible" stats for weapons not covered in the 1.1, such as those from later supplements.

Anyone try something similar? If so, how did it work out? If not, any guesses as to how it might work out?

Pretty much you'll be looking at a lot more Fatigue on your enemies.

Kshatriya said:

That doesn't sound like a bad thing, particularly against Elite and Master opponents. Wearing them down seems much more appropriate than them operating at 100% until they suddenly crash.

We changed over to BC rules and then fought a carnifex (the pcs were rank 3-4.) The PCs definitely had the better position with it 200m away climbing uphill toward them. They had some IG to keep the little things at bay (until the raveners popped up from beneath them) so 4-5 marines unloading on it at a time kept it stunned or only getting a half move so it couldn't run to cover the distance too quickly. It still lasted long enough to get to melee for one round. Then the AM and Librarian finished it off.

I'm not sure if it was easier or harder with the change honestly. If we hadn't changed then all those crit effects would have been extra d10s of damage, but it still would have been likely to reach melee range a whole lot faster.

I'm not planning on changing over to the Black Crusade rules except for replacing Righteous Fury with Zealous Hatred. Just this one change.

I'm wondering if this one change will make the Boltgun (with RoF of S/2/4, Damage of 2d10+5X and Tearing) work out reasonably OK or if it will still be too powerful. Same for the Heavy Bolter and other weapons. I really do not want to have to use the optional revision of the weapons from the 1.1 errata since many weapons - both among those of the Deathwatch and among the opposition - didn't get covered by it (and I hate half-ass patches like this one). I also am a bit irritated that the weapons in Honour the Chapter seem to only have stats consistent with the optional errata.

I especially want the bad guys to have the ability to get ZH results against the PCs. Both for the possibilities offered by some of the Critical Hit results and for the ability to still inflict 1 point of damage with a shot that otherwise couldn't penetrate Armour and Toughness. These are great the way ZH does it, but giving either version of Deathwatch's RF to the bad guys just ends up with dead PCs.

Many of the more recent creatures seem to have inflated wound totals in order to compensate for the original RF rules. That is the main issue I could see.

That, and maybe slowing the game down by having to refer to the critical tables repeatedly.