Hi all, please discuss the changes in Update #1 posted 7 August here, and thanks!

Well, while I'm waiting for the update file to show up correctly, I'll take a swing at the questions posted in the news:

• Did the game mechanics feel natural to use?

Core mechanics do feel natural. I'm still getting used to the idea of the new way of calculating DoSs, but I'm not objecting to it yet. I feel I understand that the core game mechanic at least does work.

• How did Character Creation go overall? Was it easy and fun to use? If not, what got in the way?

I felt that it was pretty simple, but allowed a good bit of creativity. I like the concept of roles. That I can make my character a "whatever," and a role just defines my XP efficiency. I disliked that none of the bonuses had "fluffy" names, and were just "Forge World Bonus," "Hive World Bonus." I'm sad to see "X or Y" options gone. I wish I could choose this talent or that talent, or this gun or that gun.

• In Character Creation, are there certain combinations you would choose every time for mechanical reasons? If so, what particular aspects of these combinations made them so powerful?

I really like the Adeptus Ministorum mechanic. +30 instead of +20 from Fate points seems useful. The Desperado role bonus seems head and shoulders more useful than others in combat.

• Are there certain combinations you would never choose for mechanical reasons? If so, what particular aspects of these combinations made them so unappealing?

Combining Desperado and Ministorum does seem pretty useful for a "I need to win this encounter right about now" sort of mechanic.

• Once your starting group has been assembled, do any specific combinations feel too powerful to begin with? Too weak? How do they combine with the three Elite Advances?

Unable to answer this.

• Was it clear how Elite Advances function, and how characters go about acquiring them? If not, what was the cause of the confusion?

Yes, Elite Advances were pretty clear.

• Were there any Elite Advances that unbalanced the game from a rules standpoint?

None seemed OP. Inquisitor is pretty nice, but as it should be.

• Were any Elite Advances completely unappealing mechanically? If so, why specifically?

Untouchable is pretty useless at the moment. Minor decreases to PL just doesn't cut it.

• How would you change the character sheets to best capture your character’s information for easy use when playing? Were any important elements missing from them?

More on this later, never wrote the stats into the given sheet.

• Were there difficulties in spending experience points or acquiring additional equipment? Were there items or options that you would always take for gameplay reasons, or would probably never take?

No difficulties.

• Did the “Give the Character Life” section feel thematic and useful for completing your character?

I love the listed questions.

The ranges on the guns are all still way too low.

A quick glance of the update seems very nice. I like the Vengeful quality, and some of the other balancing is nice as well. Robes now provide a much more realistic level of armor. Very pleased to see how much feedback was incorporated into this! I will answer the requested questions when I have a moment.

Very very good update, that solved a lot of issues in my opinion.

Weapons feel much more distinctive now and the Pen and armour values now look way better.

Only issue i have are the plasma weapons. They seem way too strong now.

There is no reason to take anything else now, especially when I compare the plasma pistol to the bolt pistol.

The plasma pistol is so much better that it hurts.physically.

I would change Plasma Pistol to 2d10+2 damage with Pen 6 and the gun to 2d10+2 with Pen 8.

Thats still quite good, more in line with DH1 and a good Positioning of the weapons between a bolter and a melta.

Also the Boltpistol and Gun should get Pen 3 or 4, otherwise they are even laughed at by the hot-shot Las

Smaller question:

Why are the Sniper Rifle and the flamers not Single-Shot ?

Smaller question:

Why are the Sniper Rifle and the flamers not Single-Shot ?

Many real-life sniper rifles will happily let you shoot "semi auto" sequences with no bolt-action reload. As for flamers, they are mostly "continuous fire" weapons that will spray as long as you depress the trigger. It makes sense that you can have short or long squirts, so I see no problems with this.

Now that Storm no longer exists as a weapon quality, Fragmentation Rounds don't do anything good. They need fixing.

The other changes are interesting. I shall do some playtesting and report back.

Yeah, it feels the pen values of plasma guns are just a bit off. I can understand 6-8 maybe, but 12/15 is just a bit overkill. At least at that availability modifier.

@Darth Smeg: still, note that the sniper rifle here has a clip of 3. Thats just not enough to justify semi auto firing. Or rather, clip 3, reload 6 AP (5 AP with rapid reload) kinda leads to trying to make each shot count.

Interesting to see the removal of the Storm quality (or rather, limiting it to fewer weapons). Should it be assumed its entry is deleted elsewhere? At least Dire Avengers no longer mop the floor completely when they use Bladestorm. Still, it should be noted that Bladestorms 180m Spray attack is insane.

Interesting to see Pinning now handled by Fear(Cowering). I think it works, and its good to see the vocabulary of the game reduced when there was no need for it to be that large (then again, the book had failed to mention just what pinning meant).

Glad to see the change to novice NPCs dying when they suffer 2x defence score in damage. Of course, seeing that the sniper rifle is now 2d10 (seemingly in an attempt to make more use of vengeful), I am sad to see the change in damage (1d10+10 would have been particularly useful for exceeding defence score by that much).

Overall, I think this is getting closer with regards to weapon balance. Armour seems fine now (assuming the pen on weapons are reworked well enough). Still room for improvement. Too many weapons of the same availability category seem to be wildly different in effectiveness (boltguns and plasmaguns sharing the same -30 avl, a shotgun and a flamer sharing -10 avl). Obviously this is where some of the subtly rules come into play where certain weapon types might draw suspicion, but its just a bit much. Especially considering the difference of flamers and shotguns. Sure, flamers have 2/3rds the range of a shotgun, but deal more damage, pen, and have the newly improved flame quality. SImilar weight and reload times cause ammo issues to be negligible. Both have the same RoF and are spary weapons (so either weapon forces you to be careful around allies).

As a side note, shock mauls seem far more difficult to acquire than they should be. They're practically the nightstick of 40k. Also should they be Basic weapons? These things are commonly depicted as one-handed weapons.

Future changes I would still like to see:

-Either give Chirugens at least a respectable Agility advancement scheme, or make First Aid use Intelligence (or at least Int OR Agi)

-Could Bastion of Iron Will be made useful for non-psykers? Strong Minded is still a useful talent, but its annoying to consider that you have to buy a 600 xp useless talent just to get there if you're not a psyker.

-Should Shotguns really be Spray weapons? the idea that a shotgun can hit 2 different targets that are 16m apart, and 30m away from the shooter is... odd? I'm not sure what system would be good in its place though. DH1 Scatter rules were pretty junky. I would almost say make it a limited version of Storm, with a reference to the ability to allocate hits to nearby targets.

-Psychic powers are still pretty weak, especially considering the boost alot of the range weapons have now been given.

As far as the changes to wounds go, I'm not sure of the reasoning behind them. Flesh wounds are now even more likely, but they still add +5 or +10 to the next wound? The narrative description has changed to make them sound more harmful, but this still seems kind of strange. I thought maybe that getting a result of 10 or lower didn't add a bonus to future wounds anymore, but the text explicitly states "no mechanical effect beyond the wound itself." which implies that the wound still adds a bonus. This means that the high RoF weapons, which have now been buffed to have enough damage to punch through armour and toughness more, are even more powerful! Have the single shot weapons really been buffed enough to compensate? Definitely not in the case of the ones with no buff, and arguably so for the other weapons. I feel like this update may have actually had the effect of taking the argument that the high RoF could easily cause a bunch of non-important wounds allowing for an easy kill with the second shot, and made it more true. Am I reading the rules correctly on this?

That's definitely a problem, and something that needs to be looked at - but what I did like about the changes to the Wounds table is the uniform system that 1-10, on every table, is a "glancing hit" that doesn't need to be looked up. That means the first couple hits, unless they're really strong hits, don't need to be looked up. Hopefully that'll lead to faster battles.

I'm liking the using stat bonuses in weapon profiles. It makes them skill dependent, which is great, and makes every stat count. However, the ones, such as the power sword, which can allow for multiple attacks per AP will seriously outshine the likes of power mauls. Effectively, a character with 50 WS, which a starting character can have, could make 2 attacks for one AP with a sword, but one for 2 APs with a maul (which also needs two hands). This makes the maul come out a lot weaker for skilled characters. Some incentive to use the other weapons for skilled characters would be nice. Concussive Sb/2 might work?

The 'Heavy' weapon class' effects on Subtlety needs looking at. Sniper Rifles and quarterstaffs shouldn't lower Subtlety, but they do. Conversely, Power Fists do not. Removing the effect heavy weapons have on Subtlety, and introducing traits such as 'Overt' or 'Unsubtle' might work.

I'd also like to see shields for our Adeptus Arbites.

Furthermore, I'd recommend weakening Flak Armour, and improving Enforcer Armour, renaming it Enforcer Light Carapace. Light Carapace should be renamed 'Carapace'. This means the Arbitrators will be wearing Light Carapace, and it will, rightly, be better than Guard armour. Also, it will mean that Inquisitors can run around in Stormtrooper armour.

Not only the plasma pen seems to much, also 3 d10 is a way to high risk for righteous fury.

@Smeg: your comment is right...longer spraying should lead to more damage...though not sure if this couldnt also be said for meltas.

I'm all for Plasma being super powerful as long as they make it less painfully easy to avoid the negatives of overheating. Make firing a plasma gun a very real risk which could end with you dead. Not 'oh it got hot better drop it'.

I definitely think plasma weapons should be fearsome weapons, and I like the 3d10 damage. The pen could probably do with being lowered a bit though.

Just to repeat what everyone else has said.

I already thought of plasma as being powerful in the old DH1, but this level of awesomeness is ridiculous

Pen 6-8 is way enough and still melting all regular armour, with even only minor effects from Power Armour.

And 3d10 for damage ??? 3 ? Too much. Thats a righteous fury on every second salvo. Reduce to 2d10+X i say, and dont make X too large either.

OK, first flush skim through, pretty good changes. Some initial observations.

Odd to see 'Storm' fall by the wayside and turn into a 'special' rule for Storm bolters.

Plasma weapons are now CLEARLY the weapon of choice. Insane amounts of damage and RF possibilities. Did someone slip on the keyboard and accidentally type that damage stat in?

Wound Effects are now much harder to achieve across the board, with 1-10 now being 'no effect other than 1 wound'. It's now almost functionally impossible for any attack with a damage potential of less than 1d10+4 to score any wound effect on a first shot. (assuming you roll a 10 against an unarmoured TB3 opponent you'll get 11 and achieve the lowest wound effect that actually does something).

PCs and major NPCs are now pretty close to immune to wound effects from first shots by most standard weapons.

I'll digest the rest over the weekend.

I already thought of plasma as being powerful in the old DH1, but this level of awesomeness is ridiculous

On the flip side, I found the plasma weapons in DH1 to be incredible weak. Bordering on the ridiculous. A plasmagun should absolutely not be balanced against a lasgun.

The RF odds on Plasma Weapons don't seem that crazy to me...

EDIT: As Darth Smeg correctly points out, I fail at math.

Suffice to say: Boltguns, Sniper Rifles, Lasguns, Autopistols, Autocannons and Chainblades (with Ab 5+), along with many other weapons, all have a higher chance of RoF per AP spent (assuming everything hits, which is less likely for high RoF weapons).

I'll save myself the humiliation of showing off my math skills to more of you

You do have crazy max damage, but also a very low minimum. The average is good, but nicely outweighed by the Overheats rule (remember you have to spend AP to avoid the damage now).

EDIT: I do think the Overheats rule could do with increasing the "Jam" range. Maybe increase it to 91+. Makes things more interesting.

My only concern is that the Penetration is very, very high. Absurdly high. There's no personal armour that gets anywhere near, and I don't think of Plasma Pistols as anti-vehicle weapons (plasmaguns, maybe - but not really; plasma cannons might be another matter).

Meeting in the middle is key probably.

And give those bolters at least 3 Pen, better 4.

Plasma Pistol and Plasmagun are effectively 15% RF per AP spent (3x10%, 1/2 RoF)

For comparison:

Lasgun is 20% RF per AP (1x10%, 2 RoF)

Boltgun is 20% RF per AP (2x10%, 1 RoF)

Your maths is wrong. Probabilities do not add linearly like that.

Chance of getting a 10 on x dice is not x*10. If so, you would be guaranteed a 10 on 10 dice, but this is not the case.

The proper way to calculate such odds is as follows:

Calculate the odds of NOT rolling a 10 on all the dice, then subtract this from 1 (or 100% if you prefer).

Odds of NOT rolling a 10: 0,9 (or 90%).

Odds of NOT rolling a 10 on 2 dice = 0,9*0,9 = 0,81 (or 81%).

Odds of NOT rolling a 10 on 3 dice = 0,9*0,9*0,9 = 0,9^3 = 0,73 (or 73%).

Subtract these from 1 to find your odds of rolling AT LEAST ONE 10 on x dice. So:

1 die = 90%

2 die = 19%

3 die = 27%

etc

The RF odds on Plasma Weapons don't seem that crazy to me...

Assuming everything hits (which is harder for high-RoF weapons, granted):

Plasma Pistol and Plasmagun are effectively 15% RF per AP spent (3x10%, 1/2 RoF)

For comparison:

Lasgun is 20% RF per AP (1x10%, 2 RoF)

Boltgun is 20% RF per AP (2x10%, 1 RoF)

Sniper Rifle is 30% RF per AP spent (2x30%, 1/2 RoF)

Autopistol is 30% RF per AP spent (1x10%, 3 RoF)

Autocannon is a whopping 40% per AP spent (2x10%, 2 RoF)

Chainblades can get between 5% and 70% per AP spent (with Agility Bonus ranging from 20 to 90)

You do have crazy max damage, but also a very low minimum. The average is good, but nicely outweighed by the Overheats rule (remember you have to spend AP to avoid the damage now).

EDIT: I do think the Overheats rule could do with increasing the "Jam" range. Maybe increase it to 91+. Makes things more interesting.

My only concern is that the Penetration is very, very high. Absurdly high. There's no personal armour that gets anywhere near, and I don't think of Plasma Pistols as anti-vehicle weapons (plasmaguns, maybe - but not really; plasma cannons might be another matter).

I think one of us may be doing our math wrong on this (it may well be me). I calculate the chance of righteous fury as 100-(percent chance no RF on first roll X percent chance of no RF on second roll X percent chance of no RF on n...). This formula is basically asking "what are the chances of me not rolling ANY righteous fury". If you multiply the chances of RF succeeding, however, your question would be "what are the chances of me getting a RF on every roll. I also don't think you can just add multiple probabilities to get the probability of them happening. I may be wrong, though, as probability is a tricky math.

So the numbers I'd get would be:

Plasma weapons: 13.55 per AP spent

Lasgun: 19 per AP spent (requiring 2+ DoS)

Boltgun: 19 per AP spent

Sniper Rifle: 25.5 per AP spent

Autopistol: 27.1 per AP spent (requiring 3+ DoS)

Autocannon: 34.39 per AP spent (requiring 2+ DoS)

Plasma Pistol and Plasmagun are effectively 15% RF per AP spent (3x10%, 1/2 RoF)

For comparison:

Lasgun is 20% RF per AP (1x10%, 2 RoF)

Boltgun is 20% RF per AP (2x10%, 1 RoF)

Your maths is wrong. Probabilities do not add linearly like that.

Chance of getting a 10 on x dice is not x*10. If so, you would be guaranteed a 10 on 10 dice, but this is not the case.

The proper way to calculate such odds is as follows:

Calculate the odds of NOT rolling a 10 on all the dice, then subtract this from 1 (or 100% if you prefer).

Odds of NOT rolling a 10: 0,9 (or 90%).

Odds of NOT rolling a 10 on 2 dice = 0,9*0,9 = 0,81 (or 81%).

Odds of NOT rolling a 10 on 3 dice = 0,9*0,9*0,9 = 0,9^3 = 0,73 (or 73%).

Subtract these from 1 to find your odds of rolling AT LEAST ONE 10 on x dice. So:

1 die = 90%

2 die = 19%

3 die = 27%

etc

My math is most certainly wrong. Thanks for catching that - I've edited my post.

Still, the point stands: The RF chance of Plasma Weapons isn't abnormally high compared to many other weapons.

Maybe the feel was worse than the maths then - at least regarding RF.

Still leaves the quite high average damage and the much too high Pen.

My thoughts on the updates, with + being positive changes and - being negative ones or areas that haven't been updated but very much need it. Most of the issues with the beta, I'm sure most people will agree, are the armoury and combat sections, so I'll focus on them.

Armoury:

+ With the exception of bolt weapons, most of the changes made to the weapons are quite good. Plasma weapons are potentially lethal but not reliable, and flamers are now much more usable. The special qualities have also been cleaned up and changed for the better.

+ Many melee weapons now benefit from higher SB due to it being tied to Pen or Damage.

+ The Chimera was fixed.

- Bolt weapons are still far too weak. These things shoot armour piercing mini-rockets, yet most armours in the game aren't negated by their penetration.

- Las weapons still have very small clips, which does not fit in with the fluff at all. Also, despite what tabletop 40k would suggest they do have some armour piercing capability, shooting lasers as they do. Necromunda had them being objectively better than an autogun or comparable ballistic weapon.

- Sniper rifles and Staves have very random damage. This is more an issue for the rifles; you would expect that a high-powered rifle will do some damage to a human even on a glancing hit.

Combat:

+ Slightly less book-keeping than before with flesh wounds being universally changed to a wound result of 10 or less.

- Wounds in an attack still do not add to the next wound table result within the same attack, leading to one character taking the credit for punching an enemy and making their head explode after their companion had previously shot said enemy four or five times in a previous attack.

Overall (And not sorry one bit for ranting):

I'm still quite disappointed with how the beta is turning out, although realise there is time to go before the finalised product. There are some things about the beta I do like, such as the separate psychic disciplines having their own perils of the warp tables, and the more streamlined character generation; HOWEVER...

Combat is still a mess. I simply cannot see the thought process that you, the developers, underwent while making the game.

If I had to guess I would say that an overall attempt for balance was being made, but I feel the need to say that balance is not what 40k is about. It should be far easier for a character or npc to die in a single turn (not round, TURN). The characters and most of the npcs they fight are human or have a similar physiology, so the following things should be kept in mind when designing weapons and combat mechanics:

> Almost all non-primitive weapons in the 40k universe are equivalent to or better than their contemporary counterparts. For futuristic weapons such as lasguns, plasma weapons and similar weapons, this is doubly true. Getting hit even once is a BAD THING for a human.

> Ranged weapons and the damage tables should always be designed with a view of how many shots, on average, it would take to kill an unarmoured human with. I am not saying that you should get rid of toughness soak; there is room for shrugging off some wounds in a Dark Heresy game, however at present it is quite possible for a unarmoured character to take damage that would kill an ordinary person many times over.

> Following on from this, the damage tables are too long and take too much book-keeping. In principle, having every shot do damage is a fantastic idea, however the now 1-10 wound range on each table simply should not exist. That sort of cosmetic damage is what soak is for. Any damage that gets through soak should have an effect.

> Being hit multiple times is a BAD THING and should hurt RIGHT NOW, not when the weedy hive-worlder next to you decides to punch the enemy and winds up stealing what should have been your kill. Allowing wounds within the same attack to add +5 or +10 towards the next wound table result caused by the attack is far more sensible than the current system, and while that change alone will not fix the beta it will go further than just about anything else towards doing so. Removing the flesh wounds from the wound tables is also something that should, in my not-so-humble opinion, be done. Yes, it will make the system a lot more lethal, and yes it's almost unfair to have a well thought out character die in a single hail of bullets, but that's what 40k is supposed to be. A lethal, unfair and uncaring universe. That's the appeal of it. The ENTIRE POINT in fact.

Not apologising for the rant, all criticism I have aimed at the system is deserved. That said, there is still more than enough time to implement such changes with just a few lines of errata and the omission of a few design flaws. I really hope the FFG team in charge of this edition will take what I've said on board and please fix the problems with it before it's too late. The game has a lot of potential to be good, but has to change from the ground up rather than fiddling with damage values (although they're important too). Thanks to anyone who actually bothered to read the entire thing!

TL,DR: Nope... no summary for you. Go back and read it.

Plasma weapons are now CLEARLY the weapon of choice. Insane amounts of damage and RF possibilities. Did someone slip on the keyboard and accidentally type that damage stat in?

I do not mean to sound snarky but this Is a roleplaying game. While there need to be some balance inbetween the weapons a lot of "balance" comes from the way plasma weapons are treated; powerful, bulky and barely understood archeotech that will make half the unwashed masses cover at your feet and the other half come gunning for your priceless artifact!

I really like how plasma weapons are turning out; beasts capable of melting a marine on the spot but never to be trusted. Imagine rolling tripple ones when you expect to evaporate that heavy infantry!