What's going on with this editor?

If I understand correctly, the problem is that characters develop damage reduction abilities that elevate them beyond concern for mundane weapons, e.g. the trusty lasgun. This sort of "immunity" is certain to be detrimental to the theme of the game: The thrill of the desperate struggle against the forces of ruin and corruption is undermined when the enemy does not actually represent a threat..

It is a natural development. The game challenges the players to have their Acolytes survive, so the players find ways to help them survive: More Toughness, more Armour, more Wounds. In order to survive the challenging threats, they find they've suddenly outpaced the mundane ones.

While it is tempting to look at the game system and see how it can be tweaked to allow mundane threats to remain threats while the Acolytes evolved to deal with the challenging ones, it seems oh-so-simple to me to instead come to an agreement with the players and set a limit to how much protection the Acolytes can have.

Let's say you want a lasgun to remain a significant threat, first notice that it does 1d10+3 damage, meaning that a lucky shot (barring Righteous Fury) will deal 13 damage at most. Now all you need to agree on is how many wounds an Acolyte should lose on this sort of lucky hit. 1 wound? Then your max damage protection is 12 points. 5 wounds? Then it's 8.

I know this may sound crazy, but it seems a lot easier to achieve than to mess around with the rules system in the hopes of achieveing the same thing.

-K

Asking Players to limit themselves on purchases, equipment, gear, weapons, Skills, Talents, Advances…why not redact what you don't like from the Rule Book in that case? Don't let them use their books. They can only use yours, and the long, blacked out stuff just isn't available.

Or, I can implement this House Rule, which brings (and keeps) everything in balance, regardless of what they take, buy or get.

I've run this campaign since 2008. Every PC, collectively, has shared about 1500 Thrones of pay. My Inquisitors are cheap bastards. So, Players buy up Toughness, Sound Constitution, damage-mitigating Talents. Then they beat the crap out of leaders and loot their bodies, taking a suit of Light Carapace here, Flak Armour there. Then they buy cheap shields. It gets hard to simply hurt them, so I throw in one Common Quality Boltgun. It gets looted.

With this House Rule I can continue to do what I've done from the beginning, OR I can throw in everything plus the kitchen sink. It won't matter. The playing field is even, from the Mooks all the way to the Evil Bastards.

I think you may be confusing "asking" with "telling".

My point is that trying to steer the player into a certain type of game with house rules is a lot of work compared to simply asking them to use moderation. If you ask them nicely and they agree then your problem may very well be solved. If they don't agree, well, you're no worse off than before.

Please note that this moderation isn't about of removing options from the players. All the options are still available, but the player must adhere to certain limits and tailor his choices accordingly. I agree that this reduces the total number of combinations the players can explore, but isn't the root cause of this thread that some of those combinations break the game ? I mean, if you are playing WoW and the a bug in the game causes the server to crash each time somebody says "Leroy Jenkins", the quickest of fixes is to for all to agree not to say it!

And, please. There is room to be flexible and further cater to the players personal preferences. Maybe primitive armour doesn't have to count its full AP toward protection. The system has location-specific AP, so maybe an Acolyte that leaves an arm unprotected can have have better protection on his body location.

Now, I'm not going to tell you that you have to chuck all your hard work. Just don't fall so deeply in love with it that you blind yourself to what may be a simpler solution.

@Alekzanter

Without going into a giant discussion on why I'll simply say that your monster math doesn't work because you're not adding enough wounds to make up for the loss of toughness. Also it is in fact more difficult and annoying to add values to all armors in the game as well as large changes to the npc stat blocks than to use the system as presented.

Your point about excessive dice rolling is noted. Why don't you try using the horde rules from DW instead for large groups. Modify the extra d10 dmg to occur at every 20 magnitude instead of 10 and you should be good to go.

Most of the issues you have are solved a lot more easily than wholesale changes to the system math that you've only half thought through. That being said we're both tossing around houserules so if you like the changes you've made and so do your players that is fine keep going with what you're doing. However I disagree with your reasoning for creating the houserules the way you did.

Droma said:
Quote- "…it is in fact more difficult and annoying to add values to all armors in the game as well as large changes to the npc stat blocks than to use the system as presented."

First , you're NOT changing stat blocks at all, you're simply using one (unchanged) Characteristic differently…by doing simple math. Second, If you cannot be bothered to remember something this simple, then how do you remember to adjust your weapon's penetration value for using Man-Stoppers, or to adjust your opponent's AP values (oh no, possible fractions!) and your weapon's Damage when using Dum-Dums, or (deep breath) to add the AP of a Shield and then add bonus AP due to the use of a Psychic Ability then subtract the Pen value from your final adjusted AP then add that remainder to your TB then subtract THAT from the Damage?

Me: Are you wearing any Primitive armour?
Player: No.
Me: Add 2 to all your AP values, except for Ballistic Coats and Shields.
Player: Okay.

Done.

Me (looking through NPCs): Hm. I'll add an Arbitrator to the list of foes. They wear Storm Trooper Carapace (glances at AP value of 6, writes "Carapace, AP 8"). They have TB3, so add 3 to (glances at listed total) 15 (writes "18 Wounds").

Done.

Me: You get hit for X Damage, Pen 2.
Player: *(subtracts 2 from AP, then subtracts remaining AP from Damage)

Done.

And…
Quote- "I'll simply say that your monster math doesn't work because you're not adding enough wounds to make up for the loss of toughness."

Simply put, I never considered "adding enough Wounds to make up for the loss of Toughness" because Toughness, Wounds, and Armour are not system foil. More specifically stated, variable Penetration values are the system foil, and to continue using variable Penetration values Toughness (as it is written) simply does not make sense. It cannot. Rather, it is quite baffling. How can a Hand Cannon loaded with standard ammo be so powerful as to better penetrate Armour, yet a naked target's Toughness ignores the Penetration value? Boltgun shreds my Light Carapace, but my Toughness ignores its Pen? Sure, weapon Damage is supposed to reflect the severity of injury, but all weapon and attack Damages are incorrect, and have been from the beginning (see below). If you just stop for a moment, and really look at the mechanic, you'll see using variable Pen values foils the game mechanic's intention. The only "Penetration value" that makes any kind of sense in context of the mechanic is the Warp Weapon Quality. And don't give me real-life facts or examples, because translating real life to Dark Heresy would be like playing HarnMaster 1st Ed, or MERP. So rather than altering and rewriting weapon Damage and Pen for every weapon/attack in the game, it's far easier to add 2 (first graders do it all the time) to the listed AP for a PC's or NPC's Armour (unless that Armour, as noted in my House Rules, is Primitive, Ballistic Coats, or Shields). Again, add TB to Wounds and you're done. Adding TB to Wounds just re-purposes how Toughness "protects" a PC/NPC from Damage. It's not meant to account for the vast amount of variables spanning every possible Armour/Weapon/Penetration combination.

And…
Quote- "Why don't you try using the horde rules from DW…"

Don't get me started on Hordes. Simply put: it is a "lazy game-developer's mechanic", implemented to "fix" A) weapon/attack damages that were incorrect at the time of printing, and B) Unnatural Toughness (which wouldn't be an issue if, from the beginning, they had A) created correct weapon/attack damages, and B) never introduced variable Penetration values).

( I know some of the game designers/developers are going to see this thread and think "So, you think you can do better?", and the answer isn't necessarily yes OR no. I just think it was a tried and tested mechanic [sans variable Penetration values], one that saw NO changes through three editions, and they botched it in Dark Heresy by adding…you guessed it…variable Penetration values. A variety of weapons would have been enough. Every "special" ammo type [and the Mono upgrade] could have been simply represented by a Damage modifier. And I think they should have taken more time to think about the Critical Damage tables.)

Blah…lethal game of heroes defying extinction or damnation. Someone has to get hurt…but not die…so we have a game instead of a real-life/real guns LARP. I'm just trying to help others (like myself) who don't like THIS PARTICULAR mechanic of the game.

kjakan said
Quote- "The system has location-specific AP, so maybe an Acolyte that leaves an arm unprotected can have have better protection on his body location."

I honestly do not know where to begin trying to make sense of this statement.

Another update for those implementing my House Rules…

1- The Flesh Is Weak (Talent), the Machine Trait*, and Sub-dermal Armour (and other bionics/cybernetics that add to AP) do not receive the +2 AP bonus.
2- Bionics/cybernetics that add to/subtract from TB instead convert to a Wounds modifier.
3- The Psychic Ability "Telekinetic Shield" provides +3 AP rather than +1, and adds +1 AP for every 10 points Overbleed on the power roll.
4- Talents that increase Toughness (such as Machinator Array), and Toughness Advances will increase Wounds as the TB increases, 1:1.
5- Sound Constitution: Nothing changes.

It's obviously cheaper (XP-wise) to raise Wounds via Sound Constitution rather than through Toughness Advances, but a lower Toughness makes it harder to resist the Toxic Quality, among other things. Just sayin'.

*Machines (and the Machine Trait) are meant to represent circuitry and mechanics in function, and the Machine Trait AP already represents the amount of punishment that things like Servitors, Cyber-constructs, and Cogitators can sustain before breaking down and ceasing to function.

Gah! It takes me a day to realize I thought something but failed to type it…

Regarding Bionics/Cybernetics: When bionics/cybernetics add to/subtract from a specific body location TB (IE: bionic heart, +1 TB Body location) the TB modifier is instead converted to Wounds (1:1)

I really need to gather all of this is one place…
I'll work on that.

In the meantime…

Some have expressed misgivings regarding the conversion of TB to Wounds, claiming there is a disparity between the protection once afforded and the newly adjusted Wounds score (I neither deny nor care about this). However, while surfing about the forums I stumbled upon an interesting facet of anatomy/body structure I hadn't considered: Size Modifiers; found on pg. 249 of the Deathwatch Core Rules. (Not for use with Swarms/Hordes)

A creature's Size will adjust its total Wounds score by the associated modifier, representing how frail/sturdy its body is.

Minuscule: +/-0*
Puny: +/-0*
Scrawny: -3
Average: +/-0
Hulking: +6
Enormous: +12
Massive: +24
Immense: +36
Monumental: +48
Titanic: +60

*Minuscule represents something roughly the size of a common field mouse, and Puny a Servo-Skull. In both cases it is unnecessary to make any further adjustments to Wounds as those listed (most probably) correctly represent the creature in question.

Using the Size Modifiers above in conjunction with the remainder of my House Rules…

An Eldar Wraithlord (pg. 57 of The Koronus Bestiary) looks like this:

Armour- 15
Damage reduction from Unnatural Toughness (x3)- 16
Wounds- 118

My Deathwatch Librarian looks like this:

Armour- 10/12
Damage reduction from Unnatural Toughness (x2)- 5
Wounds- 38

My Warden of the Divisio Immoralis (DH Acolyte) looks like this:

Armour- 7 (Head 0)
Damage reduction from Toughness- 0
Wounds- 15

Please remember that I suggest against using these House Rules in Black Crusade/Only War. There are some subtle scaling differences (such as Unnatural Characteristics) and significant mechanic changes (such as Zealous Hatred) in those Core Rules that I haven't even considered. For Dark Heresy, Rogue Trader, and Deathwatch, these House Rules scale evenly across the Core Rules.

Armour Damage, similar to how cover is damaged? This way the Space Marine that tries to wade through oceans of lasgun fire eventually ends up naked.

The idea of combining penetration and damage seems good for creating an even more deadly game, with the 10 wound T3 human mentioned above dieing from a lasgun shot to the head a lot more of the time, increase all AP values by 2 or 3 to compensate?

Alekzanter said:

I thought that's what Unnatural Toughness was supposed to represent.

Not that I'm complaining; creature size affecting Wounds does make sense. I've always regarded Unnatural Traits as redundant and unbalanced ever since first seeing their rules in Dark Heresy.

space blanket said:

It's not a bad idea, come to think of it. Personally, I wouldn't rule it in a way that has AP disappear completely … even a damaged suit of armour will always confer some protection. At the same time, the concept that armour works just as well after a salvo of lascannon blasts or plasma shots as it did before is almost as bad as having characters "end up naked".

Perhaps a rule where an attack that causes an amount of base damage (no Pen) equal to the target's AP reduces it by 1 point for future attacks, up to 2/3 (rounded up) of the original protection value (for example power armour being "mauled down" from 8 to 6 AP)? This way, there will be armour damage (that can later be repaired) and characters end up more vulnerable, but never completely without protection. You could even have armour quality affect this condition, by requiring the attack to cause AP+1 damage to dent it, or -1 for poor quality. And the best thing, this hits high level characters much more than it would hit low level ones (with a suit of armour having to be at least AP 3 to lose any protection at all, and even then it'd be just 1 point).

Just a thought that sprang to mind, thinking about how "ablative armour" was handled in the Inquisitor RPG. Though there such a suit just had a certain amount of "one-time bonus AP" which were used up directly when soaking damage. This would be another option, of course, and one that is even more lethal.

I'm sure there are many more ways a concept like that could be pulled off, such as connecting it to Righteous Fury rolls, or using a weapon's Pen value instead of base damage as a condition for armour fatigue. Or even a combination of minimum base damage and Penetration, with a high Pen value requiring a lower base damage to cause damage to a suit of armour (such as: minimum base damage 10, but each point of Pen lowers the threshold by 1).

Hi All,

Straight off, I'll agree with that the game could be more realistic, it could be more dangerous. Personally I've not had a problem with it being too safe. It's hell out there, and if you are worried that your well equipped accolytes are surviving too much fire from spods then you aren't hitting them with hard enough stuff (if you don't want to put a melta gun out there because your acolytes will nick it then thats a different issue).

BUT, my only problem, other than the long winded rules change. Is that this drastically changes the class balance, you'll notice that the guys that can by cheap toughness advances have expensive agility advances and usually their dodge skills are few and far between. When the only difference between characters soak is a few wounds before they die (and as you say extra wounds are cheaper than putting toughness up) then dodge is only thing that's going to reduce the amount of damage you take on a turn by turn basis.

We've all heard apocryphal tales of Tech preists being immune to all basic weapon, but there's still plenty of things in the DH that will hurt or outright kill them which they have a very very slim chance to dodge.

Been using this in our games of Dark Heresy and Deathwatch for about twelve weeks (sessions) now. There have been further refinements, but it really is no more difficult to incorporate into our games now we're familiar with it's mechanics. Particularly, I find this gives Deathwatch a boost of "epic"…PCs have wound totals of 30-35, Damage mitigation is still between 11-20 depending on the Pen of weapons being used to attack them, and there isn't quite so much opportunity for Marines to have an unlucky moment take them down in one kerrang. Now, it takes two or three kerrangs. Cover has become more critical, but this creates a greater depth of game immersion for both the Players and the GM (me).

The Critical Threshold has had the greatest amount of revision. When a Marine takes -2, -8, and -9 Criticals all in one Round, this Critical Threshold is a life saver…in that there is a slim chance for excessive Fatigue and blessed unconsciousness (ignored by Stimm injectors) rather than just flat out death and Fate Point burning. This also gives Daemon Princess, Chaos Space Marine Lords, and other significant opponents a little more edge at the end of their days.

There has also been a few minor revisions to Flesh Is Weak/Machine Trait…basically having it stack with armour AP and any Unnatural Toughness/Daemonic Traits against Flame Quality attacks (great vs. Heavy Flamers/Avenger and Sonic weaponry).

I haven't read of anyone else giving these House Rules a try, so I thought an update might spark renewed interest in the topic and debate.

Anyone interested in seeing the revised edition of these House Rules feel free to PM me.