Why aren't we talking about this?????

Ok, so I propose that "Glancing hits"- you add a section from 1-3, right in the 1-6 "Fairly Minor Harm" that would be- no effect, does not add any wounds BUT adds a level of fatigue.

So a guy that gets slogged down in combat with hundreds of foes that can't really hurt him- only really doing one point of damage, will eventually tire him out and overwhelm him when he's unconscious.

Or something along those lines. It would prevent a scenario where someone getting shot at full auto, taking five hits- but each hit only dealing one damage, exploding when the next guy with a knife manage to deal 1 wound +25 modifier.

That seems like a pretty good idea, although you'd have to find a way to make it interact with vehicles. The lowest levels are already pretty small penalties, so I don't know what could work; maybe penalties to speed? But that doesn't work for weapons, so they get penalties to using them maybe?

we wouldnt need to change it for vehicules because it is literal "Exception" to the rules built into each wound table. It would specify there and then that this attack "Does not add a wound, only a level of fatigue instead."

Sounds like it has potential, especially given the new fatigue system.

It doesn't seem to overpowered given that most characters would need 4 fatigue before feeling the effects (which would otherwise be +20 wounds, very nasty) and you could actually choose to do it when attempting to capture someone without killing them.

About the only problem that comes to mind is that it's a little book-keeping heavy for a GM keeping the fatigue levels of the opponents, but then simply adding something like Novice opponents always pass out at 4 fatigue or something would deal with that.

Yeah- it also helps mitigate the players suspension of disbelief, if they roll badly and do like, 2 damage. Suddenly the Mook dies. Thats gotta be like... "Really? So that's really a mook? His whole purpose is to die :P"

I really like the idea of using fatigue for low damage, helps mitigate the whole papercutting enemies to death thing.

I really don't like how ballistics rolls don't effect ranged weapon damage rolls on the wound table. The ability to target and hit a weak spot is not a random occurance, but rather a function of skill. The idea that they bounce a shot or just wing soemone after rolling 6 DoS to hit is absurd.

DoS doesn't affect how good a hit you make so it's nonsensical to criticize only winging someone with 6 DoS. Those 6 DoS mean instead that you got more hits, depending on the RoA. At least at first, that is. Once you get to the Wound Effect entry, your DoS might factor into the condition the target takes.

You target weak spots with Called Shot: the mechanic there is to force a suitable wound effect role. If you want to slow the target down, call his legs so he might stumble or fall. For example, with a result as low as 7, you can temporarily immobilize your target on a leg shot if your DoS is greater than his WPb.

We've had a short game session using new wounding rules today. In general, the idea worked for us, but we've had a... strange... occurence

That Unbreakable Ratling Skull

Tech-priest silently drew his trusty Hand Cannon and aimed it slowly at the back of an unsuspecting ratling's head. Took a deep breath to calm his nerves, then gently pulled the trigger - bullet hit the target squarely in the head...

...taking into account how the ratling was Unaware and all that, we threw in an additional D10 dice for damage roll, and in the end came up with a result of 13 (defence value already substracted). Ratling's TB in the head was 2 and, being one of the mission targets, he was a "Master" class NPC.

Old rules:

Ratling has 4 wounds in the head (his unmodified TB), so the result of 13 would mean a Crit 9, which is a gory and lethal outcome. Farewell, little fella, good knowing ya...

New rules:

... The ratling staggered and fought for concentration as the attack smashed into the bridge of his nose (!) , shattering the cartilage and shaking his skull.

In the end, the guy ended up with 2 levels of Fatigue and became Dazed for a single round.

... The tech-priest, staring at the surviving little pest somewhat increduously, pulled the trigger again...

This time he came up (second damage dice aside, as the ratling was no longer surprised) with a damage result of 6, then added +5 for a previous wound... Whoa, a whole Wound effect 11!

...The strike clanged off ratling's skull, rattling his brain and leaving his ears ringing...

He became Deafened for three rounds.

... Tech-priest, spewing obscenities, discarded his apparently useless, Omnissiah-cursed gun and went for the knife...

Here we just ruled out that Ratling WAS killed by a next attack, as the whole thing was getting on the wrong side of hilarious

Old rules:

Ratling has 4 wounds in the head (his unmodified TB), so the result of 13 would mean a Crit 9, which is a gory and lethal outcome. Farewell, little fella, good knowing ya...

New rules:

... The ratling staggered and fought for concentration as the attack smashed into the bridge of his nose (!) , shattering the cartilage and shaking his skull.

In the end, the guy ended up with 2 levels of Fatigue and became Dazed for a single round.

... The tech-priest, staring at the surviving little pest somewhat increduously, pulled the trigger again...

This time he came up (second damage dice aside, as the ratling was no longer surprised) with a damage result of 6, then added +5 for a previous wound... Whoa, a whole Wound effect 11!

...The strike clanged off ratling's skull, rattling his brain and leaving his ears ringing...

He became Deafened for three rounds.

... Tech-priest, spewing obscenities, discarded his apparently useless, Omnissiah-cursed gun and went for the knife...

Here we just ruled out that Ratling WAS killed by a next attack, as the whole thing was getting on the wrong side of hilarious

This sounds like a little bit of an unfair comparison. Firstly how did the ratling have '4 wounds' in the head, shouldn't it have had at least 10 or more wounds in total to begin with, so the first hit wouldn't have done much if anything in old rules but strip some wounds.

Secondly a weak ratling doesn't sound like a master level opponent, it should have been a minion and died on the second wound. A master ratling in the old rules would have had at least 20 wounds and possibly even a fate point.

Not saying that there aren't quirks in the new system, just that this seems like odd comparison.

This sounds like a little bit of an unfair comparison. Firstly how did the ratling have '4 wounds' in the head, shouldn't it have had at least 10 or more wounds in total to begin with, so the first hit wouldn't have done much if anything in old rules but strip some wounds.

Secondly a weak ratling doesn't sound like a master level opponent, it should have been a minion and died on the second wound. A master ratling in the old rules would have had at least 20 wounds and possibly even a fate point.

Not saying that there aren't quirks in the new system, just that this seems like odd comparison.

The number of wounds in the head generally equals your TB - that was the whole point of shooting in the head in DH1. The one exception to this rule were creatures with Strange Anatomy trait, when indeed a total number of wounds was used no matter what location we hit. An extremely healthy (and overfed) ratling has TB4, so - 4 wounds in the head. Everything over that value goes to critical damage. 13 damage in the head thus means "4 to wounds, 9 to crit's".

This sounds like a little bit of an unfair comparison. Firstly how did the ratling have '4 wounds' in the head, shouldn't it have had at least 10 or more wounds in total to begin with, so the first hit wouldn't have done much if anything in old rules but strip some wounds.

Secondly a weak ratling doesn't sound like a master level opponent, it should have been a minion and died on the second wound. A master ratling in the old rules would have had at least 20 wounds and possibly even a fate point.

Not saying that there aren't quirks in the new system, just that this seems like odd comparison.

The number of wounds in the head generally equals your TB - that was the whole point of shooting in the head in DH1. The one exception to this rule were creatures with Strange Anatomy trait, when indeed a total number of wounds was used no matter what location we hit. An extremely healthy (and overfed) ratling has TB4, so - 4 wounds in the head. Everything over that value goes to critical damage. 13 damage in the head thus means "4 to wounds, 9 to crit's".

Erhm, what rule set are you playing, dark heresy doesn't have location based wounds. Just a wound pool that goes down no matter which location you hit. You only have to look at the npcs in the back of the book, there's no location based wounds there.

The point of shooting someone in the head is to get a better crit or because they aren't as armoured there, that's all.

I'm more than happy to be corrected but can you actually point to the page with this rule on?

That's too boring - to have no location ties for hits, I mean.

Much funnier (and realistic) way is to use location-based critical damage and to differentiate wound pool between head and body. In this way a headshot actually matters and a critical damage to a knee does not influence a severity of a next crit you get in the arm. Not sure if it was in the official rules (have a nagging suspicion it IS there somewhere - could be wrong, of course), but that's the way our group played... well, since the start of v.1.0 actually

The problem is, while in the old system such a conversion was possible (and easy to achieve), adjustments to a new system would require an overhaul of a table, which personally I very much prefer to avoid...

The point stands however - a successful headshot used against an unprotected (and surprised!) creature is not something it should be able to walk away from unscathed. A space marine or a carnousaur - perhaps (but they have high TB value and good armour to represent their increased survival chances) - but in no way a puny ratling / gretchin / whatever

That's too boring - to have no location ties for hits, I mean.

Much funnier (and realistic) way is to use location-based critical damage and to differentiate wound pool between head and body. In this way a headshot actually matters and a critical damage to a knee does not influence a severity of a next crit you get in the arm. Not sure if it was in the official rules (have a nagging suspicion it IS there somewhere - could be wrong, of course), but that's the way our group played... well, since the start of v.1.0 actually

The problem is, while in the old system such a conversion was possible (and easy to achieve), adjustments to a new system would require an overhaul of a table, which personally I very much prefer to avoid...

The point stands however - a successful headshot used against an unprotected (and surprised!) creature is not something it should be able to walk away from unscathed. A space marine or a carnousaur - perhaps (but they have high TB value and good armour to represent their increased survival chances) - but in no way a puny ratling / gretchin / whatever

This isn't really a complaint with the new system though, given that the old system didn't support your style of play either without house rules (sounds like a interesting take on combat, although I imagine you'd have a lot of player deaths with head shots taking out players on full wounds).

If anything, the new system better represents this approach than DH1, with wound effects to the head meaning something earlier than ones to limbs or the body (and with harsher results).

Plus there are still plenty of house rule options, make head shots apply double on the table or always make them critical wounds if it's not harsh enough for you.

The issue with the wounds system is that wounds giving lower than +5 damage gets upgraded to +5 damage, and wounds giveing more gets downgraded to +5 damage.

This kind of "normalization" serves to simplify the system at the cost of "fairness".

I still have not gotten the change to play test this, but an alternative I think about is clearly just recording all the damage taken. So if a player does 8 damage during an attack, the next attack will have 8 damage extra on their wound rolls. I would still keep multiple hits from the same attack simultaneous. Whenever the rules refers to a wound, for instance when healing, it means removing 5 damage taken.

I would also think that the novice npc rule of taking 2 wounds, should just be 10 damage, so a single high hitting damage is enough to take them out.

The issue with the wounds system is that wounds giving lower than +5 damage gets upgraded to +5 damage, and wounds giveing more gets downgraded to +5 damage.

This kind of "normalization" serves to simplify the system at the cost of "fairness".

I still have not gotten the change to play test this, but an alternative I think about is clearly just recording all the damage taken. So if a player does 8 damage during an attack, the next attack will have 8 damage extra on their wound rolls. I would still keep multiple hits from the same attack simultaneous. Whenever the rules refers to a wound, for instance when healing, it means removing 5 damage taken.

I would also think that the novice npc rule of taking 2 wounds, should just be 10 damage, so a single high hitting damage is enough to take them out.

This seems like a perfectly elegant way to deal with wounds if you don't like the proposed system. Myself I'm going to suggest to my play group to use the rules as written to begin with (things can often seem weird in a vacuum yet play well in practice) but it's nice to have a fall back like this.

Keep in mind that when you take any damage in excess to 5 damage, you also check that number out on the table.

Someone that say, takes 17 damage, removes his TB and Armor Value, Lets say five and then he goes to check out #12 on the wound table. He doesn't go back to check #5.

Next round, he adds 5 to the damage, so the attack, if it deals any damage, has effectively been upgraded by five points of damage.

There's no issue with that part of the game: a strong hit hurts quite a bit at the beginning, and of course hits after start hurting more and more.

The system breaks in two ways- 1) When a hit that is supposed to kill, doesn't [the much loved commissar example] and when a hit that's not supposed to kill does [A child stabbing you with a pin and inflicted one point of damage after you've been on receiving end of full auto power which left you with no visible effects [1-6 Damage on most of tables for example], causes you to BLOW UP. Which is ridiculous.

The first one is sort of difficult to resolve, but things cant't fix it like adding the 2d10 extra damage to helpless target or surprised targets shot in their soft, unprotected heads. Or having mooks die after taking double their TB in damage in a single shot. THe masters that survive a hit like that- well, keep in mind that combat is an abstraction. So they moved their heads just enough so that the commissar barely misses and they suffer the effect listed. After all, masters don't want to die.

The second one is more so resolved by making low damage attack on the players [1-3] inflict fatigue instead of a wound. I would go as far as to say that attacks that inflict less or equal to someone's toughness bonus should inflict fatigue instead of a wound. This is likely to be the best balancing effect and give toughness even more of a roll in its "Tanking" capacity.

All of the first lines on all of these damage tables should read, in addition of what they say right now "If you've just taken less than your TB in damage, you do not add an extra wound but an extra level of fatigue instead."

This would VERY neatly, I find, resolve that issue- which is the more glaring between the two, seeing as a Commissar shooting someone in the head can easily be resolved in a cinematic.

The issue with the wounds system is that wounds giving lower than +5 damage gets upgraded to +5 damage, and wounds giveing more gets downgraded to +5 damage.

Importantly, the wound system does more than give +5 modifiers to the damage of hits from subsequent attacks. It also imparts conditions. Doing more damage with any hit implies inflicting a harsher condition on the target. The point of the modifiers, I think, is to simulate that characters who have already taken hits will be more vulnerable to further hits.

This would VERY neatly, I find, resolve that issue- which is the more glaring between the two, seeing as a Commissar shooting someone in the head can easily be resolved in a cinematic.

First my apologies for double posting. I'm still getting used to the multiquote functionality here.

I think the other example, the child stabbing you with the pin, is also a matter for cinematic narrative rather than combat. Just as the combat system is not set up to simulate a Commissar executing a Guardsman, it's also not set up to simulate being stabbed with a pin by a child. To wit, I don't think being stabbed with a pin, all things being equal, would result in even 1 damage.

Keep in mind that when an attack inflicts one damage and kills the target, the numerical damage result is merely an abstraction used to translate a mechanic into narrative. The mechanic that in turn does this is the wound chart. So even if you do a mere on damage from the hit, what actually happens in the scene will be described by the 29-30+ entries on the wound chart.

For example, if you make that killing hit on a target with 1 damage from a knife attack (let's say to a limb), what happens is "The slash hacks off the limb entirely and passes through, heading towards the target's torso. An arterial jet spews forth from the dismembered individual, coating the area around him in slick, crimson blood."

I agree that my example was ultimately too cinematic as well, and I should have went with something closer to, for a example, a Nurgling [which are the book] horde devouring you, bits and pieces. Every attack would do about one damage or show- and the damage doesn't get more "Severe", the first nurgling should not be so much stronger than the last one that his attack tears off your arm. He's got the same tiny sized claws as the previous one. And the one before it, and the one before it.

They are likely to inflict 1-2 damage per round against an armored, tough acolyte.

I do see what you mean when your talking about the narrative description, but I do feel that the amount you role, even though technically in universe "does not exist", plays a large part around the table [where players will cheer when rolling a Ten and a Fury, or when a Boss rolls a 1 on his attack, granting them a moment's reprieve].

The mechanic should be able to more accurately translate that feeling into the game, and not turn the dice rolling into a purely menial exercise- as this is still a Roll-Playing game. By scaling the damage to the value of this dice, and adding fatigue instead of a wound on damage thats lower than a target's TB, it does not make the system any less lethal- but it allows for hordes of enemies to overwhelm a group of players- capture them alive for example- or, devour them completely after they are down on the floor and then start ripping them to pieces limb by limb trough sheer numbers.

Part of the problem with the 'narrative' escape clause is that the rules clearly state that narrative events have to finish before combat encounters begin. According to this, as long as the combat encounter is going on, it uses the combat rules.

While good sense would dictate the use of a narrative there, RAW precludes it.

Hey

I don't want to say I told you so, but...

It happened more or less I predicted it.

My boss got auto-fired for 4 attacks, he took no damage each time, only stacked wounds, 3 of em and a Critical.

He attacks a player after, dropping him into horrid amount of wounds. The player in question suffers blood-loss, but has the acid blood malignancy, and ends up dealing ONE point of damage to the Boss.

Boss goes down like 26 on the energy table or something, catches 1d10+2 burning, rolls a 9, dies at the beginning of his turn.

Went from "no visible effect" to a spray of acid blood in his eye for 1 damage caused him to burn up in a fiery inferno.

Quite terrible

Yeah, we had it happen to a player last night. 4 wounds and then the adept get's stabbed in the foot with a knife by a prone and half dead mook. The mook rolled 4 past defense but previous wounds made it a 24 taking off the adepts leg. Previous hits had only bruised him.

I'm wondering how these issues didn't show up in previous playtests, or if previous playtests just consisted of "I read it."

I'm wondering how these issues didn't show up in previous playtests, or if previous playtests just consisted of "I read it."

You'd be amazed how many problems playtesters report that gets brushed aside and make it into the final product. In a way, this really is a true sequal to Dark Heresy as Black Industries playtesters reported many of the problems that DH's combat system suffered from before it ever saw the light of day, as well.

According to what I've heard, some of the playtest teams refereed to the changes to the combat system as 'unneeded and unwelcome'. Has not slowed FFG down in the least.

For real hilarity go bare handed. It's like Fist of the North Star. You do six to seven tiny hits and then the seventh explodes their skull or blasts through their torso..