Just start playing deathwatch, have a quick question about climbing? lets say my sm has strength of 45 so with unnatural strength that becomes a 90 correct? When i am climbing sheer surface (diffcult climb) for my climb test to i roll for 45 or 90? or some other number. I would say is 90 cause u have to make a a few of those rolls in a roll to climb this cliff and any fail roll u fall off…. my gm say it should be 45 cause if a sm has more than 50 strength he cant possibily fail if we took unnatural strength into the equation.

jinnyboy said:

You're a little off there.

Rolling with your example, we have a space marine with 45 strength (what you rolled at creation I assume).

Unnatural Strength (US) does many things for the space marine.
1: It doubles the marine's Strength Bonus (SB), it does not double your strength characteristic though.
2: It makes all tests using the characteristic 1 degree easier for each level of US
A Hard(-20) strength test for a character with US x2 becomes Difficult(-10), A Challenging(+0) becomes
Ordinary(+10) etc.
3: On opposed tests, a character with US adds his US rating to his Degrees of Success (DoS).
A US x2 character would add 2 DoS to a successful opposed strength test

So imagine a normal human with strength 45. His SB is 4 and he tests strength on a 45 normally. And thats it, he gets no other bonuses and tests normally.

A Space marine with strength 45 has a SB of 8 (SB is doubled) but still only tests on a 45, though all his tests get easier by 1 level and he gains +2 DoS on any successful opposed test.

Further adding to a Space Marine's strength is his armour. Which adds +20 to his strength characteristic while worn. This bonus is not affected by the space marine's US though, as it is the armour's muscle fibers not the space marine's muscle. This means the +20 strength (and +2 SB) is added after multiplying the space marines SB.

So your marine (Strength 45) adds 2 to his normal SB of 8 for a total SB of 10, but his Strength characteristic is now 65 (45+20). The space marine, when wearing his armour, now tests all strength tests on a 65 but because he is still US all his strength tests are 1 degree easier and still gains +2 DoS on opposed tests (per US rules).

Cool thanks a ton! that made more sense.

It is worth noting in a broader sense though, that there are situations where bonuses and other modifers can result in a "no fail" situation. I say this as your GM had noted that with 50 Str and an improper definition of US, you couldn't fail a strength check.

While weapons indeed can jam (96-100 range), it is entirely possible to have a target value higher than 100% when shooting, or to have some knowledge check at higher than 100%. I guess what I'm trying to say is that "no chance for failure" or a difficult roll is entirely possible, especially in DW with its higher powered characters. Obviously, at that point there should be handwaving of some rolls, but when it comes to discussing how the rules work, its a meaningful point to make.