In the Only War Core rule book on page 173 for the weapon quality scatter it says the following:

"The standard ammunition of these weapons spreads out withen fired, hitting more of the target. If fired at a foe within Point Blank range, every two Degrees of Success the firer scores idicates another hit. However at longer ranges this spread of small projectiles reduces its effectiveness. All Armour Points are doubled against hits from Scatter weapons at Long or Extreme Range."

On the GM screen for scatter it lists the following:

"At Point Blank Range, weapon gains +10 to hit and deals +3 damage. At Short Range, weapon gains +10 to hit. Any longer ranges, weapon suffers -3 damage."

As both of these versions of the scatter quality seem to be handled a bit differently from each other I was wanting to know which one was the indended one the game was going for.

The one in the book seems to have much more of high to low damage range if you get into point blank range as you could get multiple hits, but it also doesn't say a limit of how many extra hits you could score.

The one from the GM screen seems to have a less high damage total but at the same time less of a damage penalty at longer shooting ranges.

I don't know which one is supposed to be correct, but the one from the screen is much easier to work with when using Semi- or Full-Auto with shotguns. I also like that it has an effect at Short Range since most combats I've seen don't have too many shots fired at Point Blank (excepting Pistol weapons used in Melee).

I like the GM Screen version better, but have to ask if that stacks. If it does, Shotguns has a +40 to hit at Point-Blank.

Which is a buff I'm pretty okay with, but still.

Scatter was changed in Black Crusade to the version listed on the GM screen. Previously, Scatter had worked as described in the Core book.

This was an instance where OW seemed to have reverted a change introduced by BC, going back to the way it was before. I was unhappy to see this (re)change, as I was very pleased by the Scatter rules as written in BC.

I hope they end up using the BC / GM screen version. I will, anyway

If something seems like it may be a proofreading error, then it probably is when FFG is concerned. To me it sounds like a copy/paste error. I suspect it is meant to be the one in the screen (much smaller document makes it much easier to check). As far as limits on extra hits: There isn't any. However, as it is only for every 2 degrees of success (I presume they mean extra degrees of sucess… again, looks like a copy/paste error) you usually won't get too high a total.

As far as the original version (the one in the rulebook, which is the way it worked originally in Dark Heresy), the Scatter effect and Full/Semi auto mechanics are applied seperately. You do not work out how many hits Full Auto gets and then work out how many bonus hits each hit results.

ie: Four extra degress of success: 4 hits from Full Auto + 2 from Scatter, total 6 hits NOT 4 hits from full auto, which then each produce an extra 2 hits from Scatter, total 12 hits. Of course there aren't that many full-auto shotguns anyway (unless there are in Only War?), so you normally wouldn't even get that high.

I have to say the change in BC was actually one of the better changes in my opinion. Some aspects of the the original Scatter rules didn't make that much sense (especially the hard cut off at Point Blank Range… the sudden change at such a short range isn't terribly convincing). Not saying that is how I would have done it if it had been my choice, but it was a relatively easy to use change that you could see the rationale for (even if it wasn't quite as fun as the original one was at Point Blank).

I use my own houseruled version:

Scatter gives an additional hit for every two degrees of success in short range. At PBR, you deal an additional hit per DoS. Shotguns can take Man-Stoppers, but they remove Scatter. Slugs double the weapons range, removes Scatter and gives the weapon Tearing.

borithan said:

The Ogryn's Ripper-gun is a full auto shotgun. So your attempt at an explanation confuses me. Does full-auto and scatter stack or not?

So if Lenny the Ogryn sprays full-auto at advancing Ork boyz and rulls a 16 out of 46 he would score 3 full-auto hits and 1 extra hit with scatter?

Let me try explaining. Scatter and Full-Auto are completely separate for purposes of additional hits. So, you don't get +5 Scatter hits from 10 full-auto shots.

If you have 2 DoS on a S/-/2 weapon, that's three shots total. You have two shots from FA because of the RoF limit, and one from Scatter.

Questionable Methods said:

Almost right… well, I don't know what the stats of the ripper gun are, so I don't know the RoF, but if it has a RoF of 4+ it will generate 5 hits: 1 standard hit for hitting in the first place, +3 bonus hits from the 3 degrees of success for full-auto, +1 scatter bonus hit.

If the Ripper Gun is capped at a RoF of 3, then yes, the total would be 4 hits (as the number of normal hits from Full Auto are capped at 3, +1 for scatter).