I've spent some time searching the forums…

Someone said they were treating Toughness differently in their Dark Heresy games: using it more like it was presented in Inquisitor, to represent how well a character resisted the effects of getting hit, or some such. I cannot find that post on the forum. Nor can I find my copy of Inquisitor to give it a go-over myself. Does anyone know how that mechanic was house-ruled?

Thanks.

EDIT: Never mind; I've just located my copy of Inquisitor.

How would YOU hoserule it? Also, what about the lethality toughness being removed would bring on both sides?

Okay…

I've read through many threads where people have had an issue with Toughness "outshining" armour. I think the problem is built directly into the system, and is rooted in a very old game mechanic. In 1st Edition Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, GW used the same mechanic: add armour value and Toughness together and subtract that total from the total damage rolled; damage in melee (in most cases) was typically dX+SB, and there was no such thing as Pen. Certain weapons (relics or Daemon weapons) would ignore armour completely, but there was no such thing as weapon upgrades (like buying better quality weapons crafted by Dwarf weapon smiths), and I think adding Pen to weapons has "broken" the old mechanic.

Next, you have to factor in Character advancement: in 1st Ed WFRP you followed a Career Path, but it was structured MUCH differently. Spending XP allowed you to move from one Career path to another, and each path had specific Advancements-moving from Road Warden to City Guard might have allowed you to Advance your WS +10, BUT only if you hadn't already taken a +10 Advance in WS, otherwise you had to move into a Career with a +20 Advance in WS, in which case you were still only allowed to add 10. Please note that I only explain this in brief; PC advancement was really weird in that game, and required some bit of record keeping that was a pain; but I do have a point, and that is…

In Dark Heresy you don't jump from one Career to another. PCs stay in one Career, and any XP they gain can be used to purchase Advancements: Skills, Talents, Characteristic Advances, etc. Many Players quickly realize the chances of their PCs' survival relies heavily on three things: armour, Toughness, and Wounds. The same thing happens time and again…Adepts and Tech-Priests and Clerics and Psykers spend valuable XP on things like Sound Constitution and Toughness Advances, and tot about at 2nd or 3rd Rank with little else to do but act as default warriors because they have no other appreciable/useful/pertinent Interaction/Investigation Skills or Talents. You end up with Adepts wearing Light Carapace, and strutting about with a TB of 4 and 14 Wounds. This annoys me, as I'm sure it annoys many other GMs. AS Players are allowed to freely spend their XP on their PCs' Advances as they choose, ALL PCs will soon become relatively immune to the humble laspistol/lasgun or knife wielded by some unruly mob of mooks…and I mean very soon, as in the GM has to escalate his campaign threats well before he/she intended just to make things "challenging". Not that getting into gun fights and wild swirling melees are all Dark Heresy is about, but it is expected. Getting into gunfights and wild swirling melees where you literally wade in without fear of harm, laughing directly into the faces of your opponents, happens far more often than it should. It is a waste of valuable gaming time to set up an encounter; meant at least to delay PCs a few Rounds while the big baddie attempt to make good his escape; when PCs run directly into, through, and past mooks, soaking automatic weapons fire and attacks of opportunity all along the way…all that dice rolling can be avoided, the whole scene played out in narrative cinematics (like some bastardized version of the Amber diceless role playing game…[gag]), and I just find that a bit boring and unsatisfying, for Players and GMs alike. But I ramble…

I would ask the forum to consider the following simple House Rule, and offer its insight. An amendment to the current combat mechanics within the game; it works both ways, so PCs and NPCs benefit: have done with the Pen values listed for ranged weapons; do away with them altogether; and alter weapon damages upward by their listed Pen value. Melee weapons are excluded from this House Rule.

It does reduce the variety in weapons. You can't have a weapon which doesn't do much damage to flesh but is good at bypassing armour, for example. I have heard of applying Pen to TB as well as Armour

The best way to think about the TB is not that it soaks 3 damage, but that TB 3 is the baseline. Rather than an autogun doing 1d10+3 damage it does 1d10 damage to most people, 1d10+1 to weedier people (TB2) and 1d10-1 against tougher people (TB4). Even if they get TB 5 it isn't too bad. It only becomes a glaring issue when you get into the 6+ crowd.

I don't know why your players "quickly" got really tough unless you do a lot of combat. I don't think any of my players spent any of their first 1000 xp (we didn't really get any further than that) on toughness or wounds. It went more on skills, characteristics other than toughness, and talents, fear resisting ones being particularly popular where available. Put a variety of issues in their way and players are likely to develop on less one dimensional lines. As far as armour, where the heck are rank 3 PCs getting light carapace from? Where did they get the money? Even if they have it, put them in situations where clanking around in sci-fi plate armour is not an option.

Ah, Toughness. One of the biggest issues at the core of FFG's RPGs, in my opinion. The way it is handled has a rather negative effect on the balance between character progression and available enemies, making people immune against weapons where that just shouldn't happen. I also deem it responsible for the massive gap between normal humans and Space Marines, and the resulting loss of compatibility for crossover games, at least as far as combat is concerned.

It doesn't actually become a problem in Dark Heresy at first, but changes in higher levels where you suddenly notice that some weapon becomes incapable of even wounding a PC. This usually means the GM has to up the threat level of opponents - better hope that the other player characters will be able to deal with that!

Ever since seeing GW's Inquisitor ruleset myself, I found myself considering its handling of Toughness smarter, in that it isn't just treated like a second layer of armour but actually deals with a character's resistance against attacks which do not get completely neutralized.

To port this system over to Dark Heresy, an idea I had would be eliminating Toughness from the damage calculation entirely - and instead insert it as an additional buffer in-between Critical levels. Such a houserule could be as simple as "for every 2 TB, you get an additional buffer point for Criticals".
Thusly, where an ordinary human has a Critical pool of 10 hitpoints as per RAW, under this houserule a character with TB3 would have 20 (with only every 2nd point of damage into Crits actually giving him an Injury), and a Space Marine with TB8 would have 40 (with every 4th point of damage into Crits giving him an Injury).

The end result of this would be that characters with a high Toughness score do not magically become invulnerable, they are just capable of suffering a lot more wounds until they eventually give in and collapse. The absence of Toughness would make armour the only important component in damage calculation; as long as AP can be overcome, a weapon will wound. It may have to wound its target a lot of times, but gone is the risk of weapons becoming completely neutered, allowing for uniform stats of gear and enemies across the board. Lastly, injuries (and the need to deal with them) would become somewhat more common, rather than characters dropping to Crits in one round and already dying in the next.

We've just finished the Haarlock Legacy. Although there were no (permanent) deaths, it got pretty hairy many times and fate points were burnt. That is with most of us having TB4 and the others all wearing Carapace. That is because the enemies were capable of harming characters thus equipped. My point; that we were well suited and equipped for the adventures we were playing

If you don't wan't have to escalalte the guns and monsters (Slaught OMFG!), then don't let your PCs run around in heavy armour, they can't buy it if it's not availalble. Simple. Emphasise that it is a street level game focussed on investigation if that is what it is. Make sure they know that they need to spend their xp on more than combat to be able to succeed. You also need to make sure that the themes and tone you intend for the game meshes with what the players expect, and/or want.

Don't forget that the system is meant to be abstract. I think the toughness system is fine. The last thing you want is to add another roll everytime someone/thing makes an attack. Do tougher characters take less actual damage or does it just affect them less? up to you, because it is abstract.

I don't think it is broken. To use the Space Marine example, yes they are VERY tough, and in relative terms TOO tough with respect to DH characters, however, Deathwatch is a separate game and I'm in the school of thought that believes that they were never meant to be directly compatible.

My two cents.

Interrogator Z.

I think they were meant to be directly compatible. However, they aren't

I have thought how I would represent Space Marines, and I decided the simplest way was just to take Unnatural Strength and Toughness away from them, and just give them a base characteristic if around 50 (rather than 30 for average people). This is meant to be "heroic" levels of toughness and strength, and I don't see an issue with them "only" having 50, especially as that would be a starting point. It also, handily, operates very similarly to having base stat 40 with Unnaturals, except on the bonus department.

I think I'm going to run with this for the next few weeks:

1- Toughness Bonus no longer reduces Damage.

2- Toughness Bonus is added to Wounds total.

3- Toughness Bonus represents a Critical Injury "buffer": A) when a PC receives damage resulting in a Critical Injury he/she may ignore (shrug off) the severe effects (the descriptive text) of Critical Injury results that are equal to or less than their Toughness Bonus (IE: an Acolyte with a TB3 may ignore Critical Injuries up to -3); B) each 3-point bracket of Toughness Bonus allows a PC to ignore the severe effects of one (1) Critical Injury (IE: PCs with TB1-3 ignore only the first Critical Injury sustained, PCs with TB4-6 ignore the first two Critical Injuries sustained, etc. [up to the limits outlined above]); C) regardless of TB, each time a PC ignores a Critical Injury result he/she must take a Challenging (+/-0) Toughness Test, with failure resulting in the PC suffering a level of Fatigue equal to the Critical Injury, +1 level of Fatigue per DoF, -1 level of Fatigue per DoS (to a minimum of zero [0] levels of Fatigue) (IE: a PC with Toughness 37 (TB3) ignores the severe effects of one Critical Injury result of -2, rolls 53% for his/her Challenging Toughness Test, and so suffers 2 levels of Fatigue [the Critical Injury result] +1 level of Fatigue for one DoF, for a total of 3 levels of Fatigue). This means PCs may shrug off the severe effects of one or more Critical Injuries, but may still be rendered unconscious due to Fatigue. D) Once a PC has shrugged off the severe effects of his/her maximum "buffer" number of Critical Injuries any further Critical Injury results are resolved as normal. E) Critically Injured PCs, even if suffering only from Fatigue, are still considered to be Critically Injured for the purposes of healing. A special note here: PCs with the Autosanguine and/or Hardy Talents are considered Lightly Wounded unless they have suffered a Critical Injury (not including Critical Injury Fatigue).

View Fatigue as if it were trauma shock.

In effect, PCs are considered to be at zero (0) Wounds, but lessen the effects of one or more Critical Injuries to Fatigue (or nil) results until they have reached the threshold of their individual endurance, at which point they are literally being stalked by Death.

Unnatural Toughness- Each Unnatural Toughness multiplier reduces Damage by its base value (IE: Toughness 44 with Unnatural Toughness x2 [total TB8] reduces Damage by 4 points), adds +1 to the maximum number of Critical Injuries that can be ignored (shrugged off), and provides a +10% bonus to the Challenging Toughness Test to avoid accumulating Fatigue (IE: Toughness 44 [TB4] with Unnatural Toughness x2 [total TB8; Ork Boy, pg. 98, Creatures Anathema] reduces Damage received by 4 points, can ignore 3 Critical Injuries, receives a +20% bonus to Challenging Toughness Tests to avoid accumulating Fatigue, doubling the number of DoS (standard DoS rules for Unnatural Characteristics). An Ork Boy wears Flak Armour (Body AP2, +2 [see below], total AP4), would have 20 Wounds, and the Hardy and True Grit Talents.

True Grit (Talent)- There are no changes required; the Talent works exactly as described on pg. 122 of the Dark Heresy Core Rules. In effect, this means PCs with this Talent are even more hardy and resilient. So, PCs (and NPCs) with the Die Hard and True Grit Talents are foes of considerable resilience.

Special: Daemonic Trait- Unless the weapon being used against them is a Blessed/Sanctified/otherwise Holy Weapon/Relic, creatures with the Daemonic Trait reduce Damage by their FULL Daemonic TB score. Weapons with the Qualities listed above will reduce a Daemonic TB by its base value, exactly as with Unnatural Toughness (see above).

4- All base AP values (aside from those of vehicles) are increased by +2. To be specific, this includes Primitive and non-Primitive armour, the Natural Armour and Improved Natural Armour Traits, Cover, and any AP provided by Psychic powers/abilities, and does not include the Machine Trait or the Flesh is Weak Talent.

5- There are no changes/alterations needed regarding weapon Damage or Pen values (at this time).
Some thoughts here regarding special ammo: Man-Stopper rounds behave exactly as their name would imply, and are quite good (within the game mechanics) of doing as intended. Dum-Dums, on the other hand, are disappointing and (within the game mechanics) useless. I've hit upon the following solution: Dum-Dum rounds will do +2 Damage to unprotected locations (such as a bare head…or a rabbit) and to "monstrous" creatures possessing the Natural Armour or Improved Natural Armour Traits, and reduce the effectiveness of 3- A) (see above) by -2 (IE: a PC with Toughness 37 [TB3] that suffers a Critical Injury caused by a Dum-Dum round can now only ignore up to -1 severe effects (descriptive text). So, Dum-Dums would be a viable ammo choice when shooting at Orks, especially since the majority of their lot tend to wear quite a bit less armour. Also a good choice when targeting Genestealers, but not so much when assaulted by professional mercs kitted in full carapace. Man-Stoppers for one task, Dum-Dums for another.

Now, consider the Genestealer (pg. 90, Creatures Anathema). Still a horribly dangerous threat; an extremely high Movement coupled with the Hard Target Talent, it may Dodge twice per Round at 70% (doubling its DoS), attacks up to three times per Turn (likely at a much higher Initiative), gets +2 AP (AP6 all locations), and increases its Wounds total to 22 (from 16). However, it does NOT benefit from the Critical Injury "buffer" House Rules. Why? Sure, it's a Genestealer, but to the Tyranids (and thus GMs…at least this one) it's just a mook. Ork Boyz might shrug off a few minor Critical Injuries with little or no Fatigue, but keel over dead with the first severe effect (descriptive text) Critical Injury. However, a Lictor might go the full distance…
Ultimately, it's GM fiat.

Note: This is primarily intended for use with the Dark Heresy Core Rules. Obviously, I suggest all creatures with the Daemonic Trait and NPCs with the Touched by Fate Talent use the above House Rules (1-4). Likewise, they should be ignored (insofar as bullet point 3, the Critical Injury "buffer") when considering mooks, goons, scrubs, etc. They may also be useful in Rogue Trader, possibly Deathwatch, but I'm certain they will fail if used with Black Crusade, especially when you consider the Unnatural Characteristics and Zealous Hatred mechanics as presented in that Core Rules set.

Alekzanter said:

I agree with much of what you say and it's something I've pondered however in realtion to this may i siggest suppressive fire and then grenades? If the group have been pumping all their XP into direct survival skills their Willpower probably won;t be too good. You can have the occasional group of mooks who know what they;re doing. They'll set up crossfire with full auto weapons to pin the group down, a sniper or two to 'pop' any character who exposes themselves and grenades to flush 'em out into kill zones. You can't do it too often as it'll get boring but some heretics will be prepared!

I like borithans idea and may incorporate a version it for my next game. i'm thinking of getting rid of Toughness as something that provents normal damage and just acts as a soak for critical damage, i.e. a TB of 3 means 4 points of critical damage would result in 1 point of critical damage. i recognise this would need work but bar a TPK I have a year or so to work on it!

Alekzanter said:

Stop right there. Remind me to NEVER play in your game.

You may be making great rules changes that make complete sense in the normal world. But this really is a Heroic (yes really) fantasy game that we're talking about here. Some level of realism is OK and to be expected.

Also remember that many players get into a campaign to escape the real world, not to live it!

But if you just turn Toughness into wounds, characters won't be able to stand up to the 'hordes' that may come their way with a full scale warp incursion. So change it if you feel you must, but remember that when you do so, you must then likewise change all the enemies so that the players can't wiped out easily by such an incursion or other such tactics.

I agree with Denmar1701, if you take away how toughness works then acolytes can kill Space Marines quite easily seeing as they will only have the bonus of say 10 armor body and 8 armor limbs. But that's your game and if your having trouble dealing with your acolytes then who am I to say what you do with how toughness is worked. I just think it's just easier to make things have to be kept simple.

Evidently, Denmar1701 and Phi6891 failed to read any farther than the first two bullet points?

As it indicates in my post, the House Rules as presented are for use with the Dark Heresy rules set, possibly being workable for Rogue Trader and Daethwatch ("possibly" being the operative word there), and I recommend against using them with Black Crusade.

Next: Yes, the Acolytes' opponents operate under the same House Rules.

Next: I clearly indicated I would be trying the House Rules I had written for a few weeks, not indefinitely.

Try reading a whole post next time, and then read it again before getting bent out of shape. I'm simply providing my thoughts and experience to many others on these forums that have expressed the EXACT same concerns I have with regards to Toughness "outshining" armour.

For those who have adopted my House Rule on a trial basis: Shields and Ballistic Coats do not receive the +2 AP adjustment.

Finally: Denmar1701, you are cordially reminded not to play in my games.

What are people's issues with Space Marine Toughness? I think it's fine except for the immune to fire thing.

bogi_khaosa said:

Basically, it makes them immune to weapons they shouldn't be. It's practically the whole reason why someone came up with Horde Rules or the Felling weapon trait just so Marine PCs can actually feel threatened once in a while.

Also depends on one's favoured interpretation of the setting, though. A lot of people are convinced that Space Marines shouldn't fear lasguns at all, regardless of what it says on the tabletop or in GW Codex fluff. Then again, that should also mean that lasguns are just as impotent in Hordes as they are when wielded by a lone individual, so obviously there's a bit of a loophole in that logic.

And it's not just an issue with Space Marines; "normal" player characters can move into crazy range as well once they raise their Toughness to 60+, or actually manage to gain the Unnatural trait via some equipment or cybernetics. Toughness working like a secondary layer of armour just opens a whole can o' worms when you consider that the maximum sum of TB and AP outreaches the potential damage of weapons that, as per your own personal interpretation of the fluff, should still pose some risk to the characters. In short, some people think that the extreme end of protection is too far removed from the average range of damage. To some, this is what makes a game more heroic, for others it may make it boring or unrealistic.

Space Marines are just singled out in this criticism because for them, this extreme end is actually the default. The issue itself concerns any campaign, I think, unless the GM finds a way to limit his player's progression in terms of armour. On their own, there's nothing wrong with a high Toughness or high-grade armour, it's just when you add both of them together that things become weird.

I suspect that the issue is more low weapon damage than it is a high toughness. It is also impossible to kill normal humans (in fact, I suspect, without looking at the stats in the corebook, that it is impossible to kill dogs) in one hit with weapons that should logically be able to kill them. Also in contradiction to the fluff as well as real life. To kill somebody with a TB of 3 and 10 Wounds with a laspistol in one hit is impossible. The reason is presumably player survivability.

Realistically, every weapon should do some spread of damage that can bring a character down to death in one hit.

Granted, given that this is a roleplaying game, absolute realism may not be what is called for - but on the other hand, the potential range of damage can seem really big, going all the way from "omgonehitkill" (with some weapons, at least) to "meh, not even a scratch".

This is somewhat less apparent in, say, the Inquisitor RPG, where you do not even have hitpoints but where damage not mitigated by armour translates directly into injuries, the extent of which is influenced by a character's Toughness score. A guy might still not lose a leg or so, but something happens, which helps deal with the idea that your character was just his by a miniature rocket or a glob of superheated plasma. Which really should have some effect, regardless of whether the recipient of such an attack was a normal human or an Astartes.

Here's another update, based on game play so far…

1- Falling Damage: Toughness Bonus (TB) reduces falling damage as normal; ignore/resolve any Critical Injuries sustained from Falling Damage as per bullet point #3 (IE: a Critical Injury may be ignored but still cause Fatigue).

Another update for those who have adopted my House Rules…

Concerning Ranged Attacks:

1- Primitive Armour does NOT receive the +2 AP adjustment.
2- Dum-Dum Rounds do NOT count ANY Armour AP values as double. If they cause ANY Wounds, +2 is added to determine the total Damage caused.
3- Standard/Special ammo do NOT count Primitive Armour AP as half. A Man-Stopper will blow clean through Primitive chain mail (AP 3) , but Primitive plate (AP 5) still affords some protection.
4- Mooks/Goons/Scrubs taking more than half their maximum wounds total from one ranged attack are considered Out Of Action (severely wounded, bottling out, etc.). Note that GMs can opt to add an extra layer of "cinematic" interaction here by instead making such Mooks/Goons/Scrubs take a Difficult (-10) Will Power Test, with success keeping them in the fray. Regardless, Mooks/Goons/Scrubs reaching 0 (zero) Wounds cease to be a threat.
5- To prevent Mooks/Goons/Scrubs (who typically appear in greater in numbers) from quickly bringing down Acolytes (our supposed heroes) with an overwhelming volume of ranged attacks I have adopted the following GM "fudging"…

A)- Standard Attack (Half Action): +10 to WS/BS Tests. Damage is calculated as normal.
B)-Semi-Auto Burst (Half Action): +/-0 to WS/BS Tests. Rather than scoring an additional hit/Damage die, just add +1 to calculated Damage for each 2 DoS.
C)-Full Auto Fire (Full Action): -10 to WS/BS Tests. Rather than scoring additional hits/Damage dice, just add +2 to calculated Damage for each DoS.
D)- Accurate Weapons: Rather than adding additional Damage dice, just add +3 Damage for each 2 DoS (Max 4 DoS/+6 Damage).
E)- Dodging Ranged Attacks ( PCs ): A successful Dodge allows a PC to avoid Damage calculated from the die roll, and each additional DoS allows the PC to avoid the additional Damage caused from "multiple hits"/Accurate (IE: Evan, a Warden of the Divisio Immoralis, is wearing Enforcer Light Carapace [AP 7] when he gets hit by sniper fire from a nearby bell tower. The sniper (a "Mook") is using a Hunting Rifle with standard ammo, and hits Evan in the shoulder with 3 DoS. The Mook rolls his damage die and it comes up a 7+3, and adds +3 for DoS, for a total Damage score of 13. Evan subtracts the AP [7] of his Enforcer Light Carapace, reducing the Damage score to 6. Had Evan known the attack was coming and successfully dodged the Damage score would have been 3, which would be soaked by his Armour. Evan ducks behind a nearby trolley car…).

PCs and "elite" NPCs/named villains also use the bonus/penalty adjustments for ranged Attack Actions, but continue to calculate the number of hits and Damage as per the standard rules, bestowing upon them the mark of distinction and significance they deserve.

I'm working on an alternative to the current Initiative mechanic. The current mechanic lumps large groups of GM-controlled adversaries together, and I find that to weigh heavily for one side or the other, depending on Initiative scores, which works fine in an exchange between a few vehicles or void ship combat, but not so much for representing the ebb and flow of ground-level "cops and robbers" tactics. I'll be incorporating it into this week's game, but will start another thread if it pans out.

In my game as wll i was dissaponted by the fact that certain weapons where more dangerous to someone wearing armour than to someone with a TB of 5. Say a Plasma Pistol with a Pen of 6 ignores Carapace but you still subtract the TB from it's damage roll. So a carapaced character is worried by the Plasma carrying vilain only so long as his armour is concered?

So in my game the Pen of the weapon cuts through everything. The naked Ork with a TB of 8 is very worried by a Hellgun with a Pen of 5. As should be. It makes thew game a little more lethal but characters are supposed to enter fights with great trepidation and well prepared, or when desperate.

konst80hum said:

It seems this simply adds PEN to the weapon's damage:

Wounds = Damage roll - (AP + TB - PEN) = Damage roll + PEN - (AP + TB)

I assume the house rule limits the "bonus damage" from PEN to no more than the damage reduction. E.g.: If a character with AP 2 and TB 3 suffers a hit for 10 damage with PEN 10, he suffers 10 Wounds, not 15…

So in essence applaying pen to both armour and toughness. I've heard about such a practice but it makes things much more lethal. Everybody would need more wounds to balance this.

All of these houserules seem to get why toughness doesn't work in the system but instead of fixing the problem they just create new ones.

So why doesn't toughness work in DH? Because characters become immune to damage they shouldn't. The solution is not alter the way toughness works. The solution is to alter the way damage works, namely by adopting the only war version of righteous fury.

Any damage roll of a 0 causes righteous fury. If the character takes any amount of damage roll a d5 on and apply the critical effect from the correct chart. If the character would have taken no damage from the attack the character instead takes 1 wound.

This gives you the proper effect, which is that a lucky strike from a club even on a dude wearing power armour will still do something. Large numbers of enemies are still dangerous.

It's a heck of a lot more elegent than completely altering basic system math.

Droma said:

I really dislike some of this forum's tool usages.

Sure, elegant. Simple. But…

Meh. So an Acolyte with a TB4 wearing Flak Armour gets whacked by a club-wielding Nancy. Nancy gets a lucky "10" and does 4 or 5 points Damage plus a -1 to -5 Critical, at which point I (personally) feel any Critical Damage is too severe. The other end of the Spectrum is an Acolyte with a TB5 wearing Storm Trooper Carapace getting hit by the same lucky Nancy. Big whoop, one point of Damage. Let's say Nancy gets lucky on this same Acolyte 5 times…5 points Damage, all of which can be healed by a Psychic Ability, the Medicae Skill, or by spending a Fate Point, which still leaves me in the same rut of rolling dice over and over just to have said Damage healed and all that combat dice rolling I just did was a waste of time, and Players feel cheated because there was no real, lasting challenge or threat. Imagine the frustration of rolling attacks for 4-6 mooks per Acolyte…just endless bouncing dice, taking SO MUCH TIME. It looked good on paper when Black Crusade dropped, but in play it seemed either excessive or pitiful. [sarcasm here] YAY! Nancy wounded the Chosen Chaos Space Marine…for one lousy point. Pitiful. YAY! Jenny wounded the Apostate for 4 points and a -5 Critical. Excessive.

The PROBLEM is not Toughness Bonus OR Damage…it's weapon Pen. The mechanic being used is the same mechanic from WFRP 1st Edition. You rolled dice, added strength, subtracted TB and any armour…done. Rune Weapons ignored armour completely. Adding variable Penetration values for certain weapons, ammos or upgrades DOES make sense, but doing so foils the entire mechanic.

You say the solution is to use the ZH/RF rules of Black Crusade/Only War, but I disagree. IF you're going to have Penetration values, then instead of adding a +2 or +3 (or more) modifier to any weapon to indicate (supposedly) how hard it hits an average Human (or how much TB it bypasses) it is SIMPLEST to remove TB from the equation. It is FAR MORE SIMPLE for a Player to reduce any Damage taken by one number (AP) than it is to A) subtract any Pen value from armour, then B) add remaining AP and TB, then C) subtract that total from the Damage taken. As most Dark Heresy PCs do not have Unnatural Toughness the math becomes succinct.

And yes; I understand there are monstrous creatures that have Unnatural Toughness but little armour, but my House Rules SPECIFICALLY address that. A creature with Unnatural Toughness (x2), TB4(8) and Natural Armour 2, then gets 8 MORE Wounds, receives +2 AP, and ALSO reduces Damage received by the base of its TB, which is 4.

The humble Carnifex (whose base is adjusted for yet more damned typo inconsistencies): 100 Wounds becomes 118; 10 AP becomes 12, Damage negated by TB is 12. It loses 4 points of Damage reduction through the use of my House Rules (because it loses 6 of its TB but gains +2 AP) and it gains 18 Wounds. With Bolt Weapon errata Damage it can take another 1-3 boltgun hits.

In short, in its most pure form, it is easier to add +2 AP to most armours and remove TB than it is to change the Damage values of EVERY WEAPON. The Critical Threshold is for PCs and "special" NPCs only, but not necessary for the overall use of my House Rules, so if it's not to your liking you can trash it. My way is simple, no more lethal (since players actually use the set dressings for cover now) and makes as much sense in the context of "realism"-game mechanics.

Now see, I was kinda thinking "Naaah" up until this point. But now I'm kinda like "Hmm, the lad has a point"