I considered making a post just like this but then I tried the gabled SEARCH functionality.

I have some of the same concerns as the op, but my argument is one of balance rather than realism.

I've also skimmed through this thread again and it seems to me most of you think the rules work well as they do.

But right now I'm about to play a module where the enemy is supposed to have autoguns, revolvers and axes. Now 1 out of 3 here it primitive. Although they are supposed to be menacing, in fact they are ridiculously bad because the PCs non-primitive armors means they can easily shrug off most hits from axes. Is this realistically? I don't know, 40k isn't realistic. Is it balanced? Well axes are fairly cheap, but melee weapons suffer a lot of disadvantages already. The worst part is "is it fun?" I can allow alot for the "rule of fun" or "rule of awesome", but although It could be cool if the attackers rush into melee as soon as they can there is no mechanical reason to do so.

I know the arguments, a knife should have little chance against 40k armor. But people fail to take into count a few things:

1. Armor is not all-covering. Even Guard Flak has alot of weak spots if you look at the fluff and pictures, if nothing else the faces are completely uncovered. AFAIK, only Power Armor is all-covering with no unarmored points. Thus is should be possible to jam a dagger into the face of a Guardsman and kill him. By RAW this is impossible without divine intervention (also known as Righteous Fury, which almost no people are entitled to).

2. Primitive weapons are ubiquitous. Not even counting Feudal planets, it seems common for soldiers and civilians alike to drag around swords, hammers, axes etc. that are primitive. Why do so if most cheap common armor makes these weapons useless? Why isn't Mono upgrade standard issue?

3. In real life a sword has no chance of actually penetrating plate armor. It could potentially find weak spots or maybe slip through a crack somewhere, but to actually penetrate it you'd need a great weapon or a fast flying projectile. Even so plate only give 5-7 armor vs primitive melee weapons (the latter being best quality full plate), while even normal quality guard flak armor, gives better armor than that. So even if Flak is much better vs swords and daggers than Kevlar is against sharp objects in real life, why should it be DOUBLE? Isn't it enough that the armor work just as well vs swords and spears as it does vs bullets and las bolts?

Therefore I suggest this simply house rule:

Primitive armor works only half as well against non-primitive weapons (as normal). Non primitive armor has no special advantage against Primitive weapons.

To compensate somewhat, the Mono enhancement is gives either Penetration 3 (instead of 2), or +1 damage.

Now how do you think this would work? I think it would change little except that the PCs would be more vary about letting goons come close to them with melee weapons. Primitive ranged weapons are already so bad that they have a hard time damaging people with ANY armor. For instance, crossbows has 1d10 damage which is consievably less than a strong man with a dagger and Street fighter can do. An acolyte in my group was attacked by 20 ork archers for 3 rounds, and despite my ad-hoc rule letting some arrows do damage unaffected by armor, he still was a more or less lightly damaged pincushion at the end of it. Ridiculous.

A Guardsmans armor is built to take an axe in the chest from an Orc and still hold (well, at least have a chance to hold), so it seems quite logical to me that primitive weapons just aren't very good against them. We are after all talking about armor that has a chance to stop large rocket-propelled exploding bullets and all sorts of strange sci-fi stuff.

As for the fun and balanced part, I agree that this should always go first. But isn't it easier to fix the other way around? If the mutants attacking the players need a bit more damage then give them unnatural strength. Should that scum leader be a real threat in CC then give him a mono sword he stole from a officer, etc. A well armed group is not going to be send against peasant rabble, the Inquisition has better uses for them.

Think about it. If your group is playing heavily armed and armored acolytes, why in the name of the emperor would a bunch of thugs with nothing but half-empty revolvers and primitive axes attack them? And if they for some reason do, let the players be the unstoppable heroes for a while. Give them some glory and then bring in the real threat that was lurking behind the scenes.

Does anyone remember the first Dark heresy adventure at the end of the core book?

We played this at rank one. I was a guardsman with flak armor and 3 toughness (IE 11 Damage reduction against clubs)

The 'goons' in the very first encounter with regular clubs nearly killed me. They had 4 str, and dealt 1d10+4.

primitive weapons CAN and ARE effective. On primitive worlds where I cannot walk around with high tech armor on (unless its xeno mesh in disguise), I still fear the 'goon', even at rank 8.

What I really dread is is the 'super goon' the goon with crippling blow and a Great weapon. I strongly suggest reading crack marrows entry in tattered fates.

He has a great weapon, and is very strong. you will change your opinion of primitive weapons after he swats you.

Honn said:

The axe of the Ork is really a Choppa, which actually lacks the primitive quality. And if you're talking about Bolt Shells, then no, flak armor including guard flak is worthless against bolt shells because of their penetration. Quite simply guard flak is a fairly nice armor able to protect against a many different sorts of dangers. It is not 100% though, and a full auto burst with autogun, a strong sword slash, or a lasbolt to the face can still kill the guardsman.

In my scenario the PCs are attacked by... pirates (trying to avoid spoiler here). These enemies have no unnnatural strength, and a single one is not supposed to be a challenge for the acolytes, but there are 30 of them so... well a certain amount of danger would be nice and some incentive for them to charge into melee instead of just taking cover and using autoguns in the boring realistic way.

linearblade: I've played both those scenarios. In the first, my Guardsman in guard flak and TB 4 laughed at the clubmen, as they had to roll almost max damage just to hurt me somewhat. Me on the other hand had a Greatweapon with mono, and one-shotted these goons with ease. I killed the S-Thing with the same weapon despite his regeneration and insane TB. The GM even punished me for solving the situation so straightforward instead of looking for weaknesses other than his lack of a non-primive weapon (the "thing" had only unarmed with unnatural strength).

crack marrow was one shotted by my acolytes and never got a chance to fight. That's what happens when you don't have any armor on the head, you die in the first round.

Actually the flak armor is great help against bolters, since if you where unarmored you would have no soak at all due to the penetration. With the armor you get at least some soak left if you have a decent TB. But your right, I overstated things a bit when I said they where made to actually stop such bullets

As for the... pirates. How can 30 of them not pose a threat? If five or so gang up on each character they should be able to do some real damage even with primitive weapons. Heck, in that situation the only thing stopping the characters from getting slaughtered in seconds would be armor. And if the characters actually have enough armor that the pirates weapons cannot do anything at all (such as if everyone runs around in power armor and high TB), then I would have to question why the pirate leader would order his poorly armed troops against such heavily armored foes? Get some more high tech weapons before you attack such people.

Honn said:

Not sure where you're getting that from - against a Pen4 weapon like a Bolter, a TB3 man in Flak Armour is no better protected than a TB3 man wearing nothing but a t-shirt. Pen doesn't affect Toughness Bonus, so 4 or less points of armour provides no protection against a Pen 4 weapon one way or another, while the character's TB always remains in effect.

@Friend & all of those siding with him
For your point of view, it might be worthwhile to say that ap against primitive weapons is not double, but gains a bonus of equal of 50% (rounded up)

Light Flakk Coat (AP:2; Flakk) would turin into AP:3 against primitive weapons
Flakk Vest (AP:3) would turn into AP:5 against primitive weapons
Flakk Armour (AP:4) would turn into AP:6against primitive weapons

Since the (perceived) problem occurs in the AP:4 section ("this turns into AP 8 +TB! The goons will -never- hurt him!"), it might solve the problem for you.

Take Note: The "reduction" (half primtive ap against modern weapons) is something I would keep. Simply to reflect that the means of killing advances quicker then the means of protecting (my personal assumption! No vaild proof for this!)

Friend of the Dork said:

Your problem is you're concentrating on the weapon and not the npc. In your quest to challenge the PCs with 30 odd pirates or what not armed with axes, you should be looking at the npcs and not the axes.

Why would 30 some odd axe armed npcs charge the pcs and how could they do this and be a threat? Simple! They have WS and S of 40 (about right for thugish but dangerous axe guys), Crushing Blow, Berserk Charge, Frenzy, and Double Team.

Now, with 30 fellas like that against say 5 soon to be dead guys who manage to cut 10 of the frothing nutters down before they closed combat, that wouild be 4 axe wielding maniacs against each pc. Frenzied, and with their double team, that gives them an effective WS of 100 (untill they start dying at which time their effective WS begins dropping off). With 4 of them with such a high chance of hitting, the characters will almost certainly get hit once if not 3-4 times. Using the primitive axes combined with their crushing blow and frenzied state gives them an effective damage of 1d10+8. Assuming the PCs have a TB of 4, and AP of 4 (doubled to 8), the berserkers would cause wound loss on a roll of 5+ on an average of 2 successful hits (assuming the PC has step asside or wall of steel and succeeded on both reactions). Granted, it's not supper crazy dangerous, but really not too bad. A few (un)lucky for them could ruin a pc's day and Fate Point total without taking them outside the realms of normal juiced up nutters with axes. Toss in the odd Big Freakin' Axe (great weapon) here and there, and you'll have a fairly dangerous situation. Even more so if the pirate like fellas have friends who don't care about the fate of the beserkers (juiced up slaves perhaps) and start chucking some interesting psychoactive chemicals into the mix (treat as hallucinogen grenade, and, on the plus side, the frothers wouldn't be affected by any of the fear causing components of the chemicals), perhaps some tox-spray (if they're using axes, it sounds like another weapon right up their ally), and other small things to shake the fight up and make it varied, interesting, and more dangerous while the axes swing.

My point, if the npcs would want to charge the pcs with axes, then you need to make npcs who would want to do just that ;-)

Well your suggestion isn't bad Gregorius. Still a bit hard against knives and stuff, but alot better.

I don't really see why Guard Flak should be better against medieval weapons than armor specifically designed to counter those weapons (plate armor). I would think primitive armor could even be BETTER against primitive weapons than modern armor.

But ok I can accede the point that 40k armor is designed to work against a myriad of threats. That's why I suggested giving modern armor full armor value against all types of weapons and then let the Penetration values do the rest.

Honn, you might want to read up on the rules regarding TB and armor. Never heard of the "naked dwarf syndrome?"

And 30 pirates might not be that dangerous as:

1. The PCs are not fighting them by themselves, they're just the most competent and willing.

2. The PCs don't have to fight them all at the same time, due to limited space and potential sniping.

3. The pirates have no idea that the PCs are so dangerous, they think they're attacking fairly soft targets

Graver... I don't really see the problem here. These guys are not meant to be THAT dangerous, and I expect the PCs to handle them fairly easily, with a few memorable moments. While I can certainly throw in a couple of close-combat monsters, It would be silly if some random pirates were more dangerous than Kill-Squad troopers or "elite" soldiers.

Also they will have autoguns and stubs. By shooting they will provide a certain risk (full auto can be dangerous). I plan on having a couple target a PC or two with an RPG to turn the heat up a bit

They have axes because they are plentiful and fits, and except for the rules it makes sense to use them in close combat instead of using firearms. I could just make all the axes Mono, but that wouldn't make sense in game because that would require more resources than they got and wouldn't be a wise investment anyway.

Also I don't want to change the rules because of one single encounter, it is my experiences with previous fight with primitive weapons that has convinced me.

Otherwise I might introduce "improved" called shots instead to allow you to hit vulnerable areas (chinks in the armor), or just keep giving every enemy mono or improved natural weapon.

I have to say that after playing this game weekly since it was released, I have had no problems with the Primitive weapons. As stated before, they do hurt people in armour simply because of Dam+SB can get pretty high, usually Primitive weapons are used by the masses meaning more hits and usually damage over time vs outright kills, and because they tend to be legal and easily obtainable.

If you are running games and don't feel like you are doing enough damage, up the NPCs' SB or make it Unnatural (x2), give them great weapons or throw in one or two mono'ed blades in a group of attackers and watch the players' eyes light up in fear when they find out that not all the of the ruffians are Primitives. Hell, go evil and make one a Warped weapon possessed by a minor daemon.

The easiest thing when dealing with PCs with high-tech armour is a mass of people all grappling them. The WS bonus goes up quickly and even though you simply do unarmed damage and armour counts as double, that 1 point of fatigue knocks PCs out and then they are helpless. Even better for a GM, since the PC is down but not dead. If not, add an ogryn with a great weapon (oh, 2d10+8 damage, Prim so an average of 19 damage means even a 4 TB and Carapace armour (AP 5) is taking about 5 points of damage on average.

There are always ways to balance even Ewok-warfare.

-Cynr

Friend of the Dork said:

Yeah, I had missed the rules about penetration not affecting TB. Good to know

I kind of like that fact that attacking sci-fi solders with primitive weapons is a bad idea, its always nice to be able to throw something against the characters that they can defeat easily. Still, I am all for house-ruling anything that makes the game more fun and if I was the GM in the same condition I would consider a rule about "superior metallurgy", or something similar. Weapons with this trait would be made from modern materials that can be sharpened and hardened far above normal steel. The weapons would loose the primitive trait, forming a middle-ground between primitive and mono-weapons. The pirates would be armed with the same kind of metals made to create the hi-tech arms and armors and would be kind of effective, but a thug on a feudal world using 12:th century technology would still be at a disadvantage.

I would probably make it a part of the design as well, so that characters get a chance to know how i a sword is dangerous or not before it carves them in half

Honn said:

Attacking sci-fi soldiers should be a bad thing because they can rapidly shoot you from afar with lethal weapons, not because they are invulnerable in melee combat. Just like the main disadvantage of using primitive gunpowder weapons is reload time, not (just) poor penetration.

But I have no problems seeing sci-fi soldiers like Starship troopers (movie) ripped apart by claws no matter their armor, or the ones in Aliens easily killed. They're only human and armor only goes that far. Space Marines on the other hand, is another matter entirely with their power armor, like in Starship Troopers (book), where you would need something insanely dangerous to take them on. As in Eldar, monsters with unnatural strength, living weapons etc.

The game I am currently a PC in has us on a Feudal World, becoming ever more wrapped up in Galactic events. All of us started in "fantasy" careers, and are moving to the 40k world.

Our gm as a matter of course had issues with this very situation.

So our "fix" is really just a house rule to bend the rule.

NON-Primitive Weapons double their PEN versus Primitive Armor as opposed to halving the AP.

Primitive Weapons halve their PEN versus NON-Primitive Armor.

As you can see we left it all to PEN. But reading some of these solutions I may talk to the GM and see what she thinks.

This has been ruled as an anaomoly in the materials and construction processes used on Navastarr, meaning that should we find another Feudal World their weaponry will follow more standardized rules. Our planet, however, has been ruled as being in a "technologically advanced feudal state". World specifics such as Ghoststeel further mark our planet as different.

Alexis

*smiles*

Similar to one of my older posts about the weapon damage and armor value vs pen....i wouldnt worry about pen for the "softer" armor types ( such as flak bodygloves etc ...anything ruled ap4 or lower by the rules ) as anything that does impact damage of melee variety ( like a maul or staff ) will still cause injury reguardless of the armor thanks to one simple realism....its cloth not a hardened plate therefore while it may stop a bullet ( like kevlar will ) it will still allow blunt force trauma to take effect ( aka breaking your damned ribs if hit solidly enough ) which WILL cause damage NOT penetration..against hardened armors the impact factot is mitigated ( hitting a guard in carapace armor is only gonna hurt your hands when the staff or hammer suddenly stops abruptly and vibrates. Those of you who have read my posts in past know that like a few others of you i see here i am prior military and have a good idea of how things actually work vs common conceptions of them and their drawbacks...same as every member of my gaming group is prior as well. We use realistic simple rules for it...your weapon has to have a pen = or greater than the AP of the armor to do damage BUT if its a soft armor you still get stuck with the blunt force trauma of it that can wind you or even actually hurt you since a piece of cloth will NOT protect you from a 5lb hammer swung by a 200lb goon i dont give a **** what its AP is..common sense rules are easiest and quickest to work with but dont be afraid to bend them some every so often for a good "flare" and some group amusement at times as well. Anyone who wants the specifics of the house rules we use can either look up my posts in past or contact me directly and ill be happy to give them to you and you and / or your GM / group can use them in whole or part however you feel best or not at all even....to each their own.

Another way of looking at is don't feel constrained to give NPC's primitve weapons, if they are general spods (but not actually from low tech worlds) give them weapons that arn't primitive OR mono'ed. Part of the problem as I see it is that, there's only the Punisher baton in the I:HB that fits this category, but with a bit of thought you could give NPC's appropriate armour.

nything that does impact damage of melee variety ( like a maul or staff ) will still cause injury reguardless of the armor thanks to one simple realism....its cloth not a hardened plate therefore while it may stop a bullet ( like kevlar will ) it will still allow blunt force trauma to take effect ( aka breaking your damned ribs if hit solidly enough ) which WILL cause damage NOT penetration.

So it's your contention that many layers of "cloth" will do nothing to ease the damage from impact? Rather strange, take a look in the rulebook at the guardsmen in their fine "cloth" flak armour. It's quite thick and I know for a fact that such armour will ease impact damage. AP4 is not ever going to stop all impact damage anyway, take away quite a lot of it yes, but not stop it completely.

And then there's "cloth" armour like mesh. Yeah, it's described as really fine space-chainmail but with one important difference. It becomes rigid if struck, sort of like oobleck.

I'll buy your argument for gang leathers and beast furs which offers really low Ap anyway, but the rest is combat armour designed for battlefields where melee is an even bigger part than today, It's going to be designed with such combat in mind. And indeed, secondary sources such as the infantrymans uplifting primer confirms that guard flak is not just a kevlar vest with a fancy name.

All in all, it's not "cloth armour". It's "armour with cloth elements". Real experience with real body armour means nothing. This isn't that armour, just as your combat knife isnt a chainsword. This isn't reality in 2010, this is fiction in 40K.

Point is, there's not that much in fluff about magical flak armor making you immune to swords, hammers, clubs, knives etc.

Game mechanics does not equal setting, and most of the arguments here is that 40k is different.

This is the same 40k remember where orks with crude axe-like weapons are fighting Space Marines in power armor.

Point is, there's not that much in fluff about magical flak armor making you immune to swords, hammers, clubs, knives etc.

There's the IIUP which describes flak armour as "impact absorbant". But then again, puny claws.

Game mechanics does not equal setting, and most of the arguments here is that 40k is different.

This is the same 40k remember where orks with crude axe-like weapons are fighting Space Marines in power armor.

Yeah but we have stats for those weapons. Not primitive , has penetration and tearing. So it's not really primitive that's the problem there, you can take more damage in an RPG but that's the game parts influence, it's not as much fun when the first lucky shot means you roll up a new character.

Honn said:

5 vs 1 person with the Grapple rules soon starts getting distinctly nasty as the '1' goes down, gets peeled out of his armour and their sh*t destroyed in short order. Dont even bother having them swing a weapon at something they can't damage, you might lose one if they get hit on the way in, but even with 4-1 odds are at least getting to the takedown stage.

Graspar said:

IIUP, that's the fluff booklet that claims that orks are week and eldar are puny, right? I'm guessing this is mostly propaganda. Would YOU tell your cannon-fodder that theirm standard issue armor was highly insufficient against the myriads of enemies in the universe?

That flak WORKS against swords etc. isn't an issue, the question is why it magically works better than against bullets, lasbolts etc., and why it works BETTER than full plate armor designed to make one almost invulnerable against primitive weapons. .

It's true Choppas lacks the Primitive quality. I'm not sure it's a rules oversight, if it represents that these weapons are often chain-like, or if it's just Ork magic tech (like "red goes fasta"). In any case it's an example of crude technology that works as well for primitive orks using medieval-style gear to the modern ones with shootas and blastas.

Another problem is how armor works in DH. You either have armor on a body part or not. For example, even if using a reinforced hat or open-face helmet you're still just as protected against and arrow to the face. Actually there are no rules on called shot to the face, which means by RAW a gutterscum cannon jab a knife into the throat of someone unless he managed to deal enough damage to bypass the armor from the helmet AND deal critical damage.

It's very easy for the PCs to get full coverage of mesh armor or better, granting them essentially invulnerability to primitive weapons because of the insane doubling of armor. NPCs on the other hand are generally statted out lacing armor both here and there, meaning the PCs can with two talents autokill them with called shots at no penalty. Even someone firing out of a firing port/arrow slit will only have cover on legs and body, meaning they can hit him as easily as normal.

There are rules that circumvent this, but it's highly circumstantial and was used in Illumination (core book adventure).

yes what we really need are called shots to the eye,face,throat, the armour intersections which are covered less

you can't add AP bonus for quality of weapon because quality means how well balanced is your weapon rather than how sharp is it (it may also mean better steel but you could use i.e. mithrill sword)

You might try revising your oppinion of primitive weapons after running/playing Tattered Fates.

And what the heck are your agents doing running around in full-coverage armour at all times for?! Sure, on the combat-excursion type missions it makes sense, but when you are doing a covert investigation in a hive-city?

High Tech armour is deliberately good in the 40K universe. It has to be! Look what gets thrown at it! That said, a riot is not dangerous because of one punk with a rock... It is dangerous because of the 4,999 assholes standing next to him with rocks too. A non-ascended character (and even most of those) will have between 1-3 reactions in a turn. After that a hit is a hit. Say there is only a 20-30% chance of damage getting through per-hit... That is still going to add up fast.

Of course it requires no rules changes to place a feral-worlder with a great-weapon in your group's way. SB 4-5 and a 2D10+SB pen 2 primitive weapon will still pound through flak or even carapace with a halfway decent swing. Add Crushing Blow and Sure Strike to the mix and the guy hits even harder, all while stiking at less armoured locations whenever the opportunity presents itself.

You can likewise use "modern" construction and forging methods to create such weapons that while not "mono" still lack the Primitive quality. There is even precident in the Inquisitor's Handbook of a few normally low-tech items with high-tech construction losing their Primitive trait. So maybe that gang leader has a fancy new tungsten-head axe with a polymer fiber and aluminum composite haft... AKA: "1D10+1 R pen 0 Unbalanced"

Sooner or later I WILL introduce an NPC who wears "modern" chainmail simply because it seems cool. Titanium links or some-such. Probably at least good quality too, with little "Aquila" etchings in prominent locations and of course bedecked with Purity Seals! Sure, IG flak is still superior in performance, but try telling that to the frothing Preacher who is busy sermonizing the crowd in this stuff!

By the rules "Mono" modifies a primitive weapon to lose the Primitive trait and adds 2 to the existing penetration, but it also spells out that it is a "catch-all" term to describe the effect. After all, a "Mono-club" is just silly, but a a "Gyro-actuated pneumatic hammer" is potentially pretty cool, it would simply be a waste of valuable space in the rulebook to come up with a different name for each weapon type. So if you want to craft a "middle-ground" weapon upgrade it is easy enough to declare that a properly forged "modern" melee weapon can lose the Primitive trait without gaining the +2 pen from "mono" by paying an extra 20 Thrones for it. (Half of mono's price, handy isn't it?). Call it whatever you want.

I love my Pneumo Bayonett

but there are primitive weapons without the primitive keyword (/rule) if you are GM anyways just use them as guidance and create the not so primitive Axe.... from carbonfibertitaniumcompositematerials only produced on a planet of your choice like ZillaPrime suggested... adjust the price a bit and done

Friend of the Dork said:

I'm nort sure I would call that a problem, I would probably choose "heaven sent" or something similar. I wouldn't want to keep track of a characters armor value on the face, the throat, the elbows, the feet, etc etc. Hitting the unprotected area is represented by the damage you do. Roll fantastic damage and you hit the throat, roll to little to even do anything and you obviously glanced of the helmet instead. Sure it's an abstraction, but it is a really handy one.