Hi there,

I have recently started GM'ing DH and decided to start with Shattered Hope. While this it not my first time as the GM, it is my first time with DH so over the course of the day several questions came up to which I had no answers.

The first was what effect the varying degrees of quality had on bullets(or ammunition in general)? Is there any effect and if yes, than what kind of effect would it have? My thoughts tend to a small modiefier to BS or maybe, and that is a big maybe, a small increase in damage. Or maybe even range ?

Next was about parrying and dodging and degrees of success. What happens when you parry/dodge really good? My idea was that it may allow you to outmaneuver the enemy, allowing you to get into a better position for you thus granting you a bonus to either defence or attack. With 5 degrees of success maybe even a free attack because you found an opening in your enemies defence?For dodging it fit better if you moved so suddenly and in an unexpected direction that whoever targeted you looses sight of you for a split second.

Last but not least climbing. As anyone who played Shatterd Hope can tell you, there is a pit the players have to jump over and chances are they will not succeed. And after dropping they will need to climb out. My players, old roleplayers and paranoid little buggers all in all, smelled the trouble coming and had an idea. They had the guardsman (Mir) do the jump and the threw him the rope. Then they each bound the other end of the rope around their hips ( by the way: making knots in a rope, just an AG test or is there a skill?) and tried the jump.

None succeeded. However due to the rope the only dropped around 2,5 meters, smacked into the wall and where then lifted out by the guardsman pulling (nothing but a strength check) them up. Now how would you have handled that? As helping another PC thus a +10 bonus to climb or a raw strength check for the guard? I was not sure and ruled it as a pure strength check.

That is it for this time. Hopefully you have some solutions or ideas for my questions.

The first was what effect the varying degrees of quality had on bullets(or ammunition in general)? Is there any effect and if yes, than what kind of effect would it have? My thoughts tend to a small modiefier to BS or maybe, and that is a big maybe, a small increase in damage. Or maybe even range ?

RAW, there is no difference in bullet qualities, and I'd refrain from implementing one. You easily run into the risk of either making them not good enough to justify paying more money for them or too good so that you can easily slot some best quality bullets for your single-shot gun when the "boss" enemy comes.

Next was about parrying and dodging and degrees of success. What happens when you parry/dodge really good? My idea was that it may allow you to outmaneuver the enemy, allowing you to get into a better position for you thus granting you a bonus to either defence or attack. With 5 degrees of success maybe even a free attack because you found an opening in your enemies defence?For dodging it fit better if you moved so suddenly and in an unexpected direction that whoever targeted you looses sight of you for a split second.

RAW, nothing happens. And again, I'd keep it that way. Dodging and parrying already is pretty strong because you can't do anything against them apart from the Feint action (which eats up your second half action that would later be used for a Swift or even Lightning attack). Completely negating an attack that would have possibly toasted you sounds good enough to me.

Last but not least climbing. As anyone who played Shatterd Hope can tell you, there is a pit the players have to jump over and chances are they will not succeed. And after dropping they will need to climb out. My players, old roleplayers and paranoid little buggers all in all, smelled the trouble coming and had an idea. They had the guardsman (Mir) do the jump and the threw him the rope. Then they each bound the other end of the rope around their hips ( by the way: making knots in a rope, just an AG test or is there a skill?) and tried the jump.

Making knots in a rope sounds to me like there shouldn't be a test at all. If you're talking specialised knots, I'd have to agree with the Agility roll, though I'd let players substitute it for Climb (rolled on Agility instead of Str), Sleight of Hand or Survival. So my mechanic would be: Roll the test of choice from those presented above. If it suceeds, all is fine. If it fails and the knot is placed under great stress, roll 1D10. If it comes up higher than the PC's combined armour and toughness bonuses, he takes a single wound due to the badly-made knot chafing, slightly strangulating or otherwise inconveniencing the PC.

None succeeded. However due to the rope the only dropped around 2,5 meters, smacked into the wall and where then lifted out by the guardsman pulling (nothing but a strength check) them up. Now how would you have handled that? As helping another PC thus a +10 bonus to climb or a raw strength check for the guard? I was not sure and ruled it as a pure strength check.

That depends on what they'd like to do. If the guardsman is simply pulling the guy up, it's raw strength. If he supports the climber, it's a +10 to the latter's climb check. Finally, I'd also let the climber just try to find foot- and handholds as he is pulled up by the guardsman, meaning that it's the guard who gets the +10 to his strength check (probably the best solution when the PC is not experienced in climbing and would just make things worse with his fumbling).

In general, you should err on the side of handing out more bonuses. Dark Heresy is a system where the PCs have extremely low chances of success if you simply roll for it - a test on a basic skill usually has about 15% chance of success, which is not exactly conducive to the players seeing their characters as Heroes of the Imperium (but then again, they're not Commissar Cain, so...).

Talking bullets and ammo:

Just don´t add a "quality" to them. It is to much into "micro-management" then. Keep it with the weapon. If you really insist on having "bullet quality" you should not modify BS or DMG but Reliability.

Poor Bullets simply make a weapon more unreliabel since the weapons is more likely to Jam (bullet does not ignite/go off).
But a "good bullet" will not raise the reliablity of the weapon. Like good fuel wouldn´t make a crappy car any better.

As already mentiond: just don´t. To much mirco-management for to little game impact.