I've long been of the opinion that Dark Heresy weapons are rather dull. They do an adequate job of portraying the fluff, but adequate is all that can be said for it. In Dark Heresy,

bolters aren't the terrifying, flesh rending relics they're portrayed as in the lore. Plasma guns aren't the deadly, space marine felling weapons that are just as likely to kill you as they are to kill your opponent. I want to change that.

As well, it's a matter of creating interesting gameplay choices. I want each weapon category to be distinct. Each weapon should have very clear benefits and drawbacks, while still staying close to the fluff they're based on.

So far, I've got Plasma and Bolt mostly worked out. I plan to cover every ranged category, and maybe visit on melee weapons too if I'm feeling ambitious. Note that the Pen values etc are intended to be balanced against armour values as of the recent errata.

I plan to tackle Las next, then take a look at Melta. I see SP as a decent base point, so they might not get much alteration, I'm unsure. Any suggestions welcome! Criticism would be great, too.

Bolt Weapons

The main changes made here are increasing damage by two points (except for on Heavy Bolters, which are already adequate), increasing pen by one point, and adding a few important weapon qualities. I also tweaked Availability slightly. A storm bolter being more common than a heavy weapon which is mass produced for Imperial Guard use seemed silly, so I swapped their values. Storm bolters aren’t exactly common, after all.

The weapon qualities are a big deal. Felling and Vengeful make the weapons much more potent; they can really mess someone up once they get past armour. This was wholly intentional, though. Felling largely represents the nature of the projectile. It’s a literal explosive, which often detonates after penetrating the body. That’s going to negate a lot of the body’s ability to cope, so reducing Toughness bonus seems like a no brainer. Vengeful, combined with tearing, makes bolters fairly potent Righteous Fury machines. That’s also intentional. Bolters are the kinds of weapons that leave horrible injuries, and can end a combat very fast. I think these changes represent that.

Unreliable may seem like an odd choice, but I believe it fits the fluff perfectly. Bolters (other than those used by the Astartes) are stated in most fluff to be generally ancient weapons handed down through generations. They’re rare as hell, practically relics in their own right. They’re also generally described as being rather temperamental devices. I think a combination of age, temperamental mechanism, and the fact that bolters are more complex than your typical stubgun justifies the Unreliable trait. It also plays in well with the Archaic trait (explained at the bottom of this post), because it forces a constant upkeep of the weapons, like their fluff implies.

As well as their statline changes, there's a couple things I'd do to bolt weapons to make them less powerful. Firstly, reduce the range of special ammunition they have available by a lot. Flexibility of ammo is largely SP's area, and letting bolters have that reduces the appeal of SP hugely. Secondly, bolters should negatively effect Subtlety. They're practically relics, so carrying a bolter would draw significant attention. I'd just treat them as heavy weapons for the sake of subtlety.

Plasma Weapons

The statistics for Plasma weapons presented in the errata are fairly potent as is. Arguably too potent, in my opinion. But I've opted not to make any tremendous changes to the actual damage output.

Instead, I decided to go with representing them more accurately to the fluff. As Borithan pointed out in another thread, Plasma weapons are designed to recharge, but that can be ignored at the risk of the weapon overheating, which has been the grizzly death of many a guardsman. To that end, I created the Plasma quality, which creates an interesting decision of whether it's better to wait, or gamble a 1/10 chance of horrible injury (or death on a nasty roll).

I also reduced their range slightly, because Plasma weapons are described as ineffective at range in the fluff, so having them similar to Bolter ranges seemed iffy. I also reduced the pen to a more reasonable level. It still utterly slags light power armour, and will likely mostly penetrate Terminator armour, too, which is fairly fluff and tabletop accurate.

Weapon Qualities

Here's the two weapon qualities I wrote up for this, as well as some important changes to Overheats.

Archaic

This weapon is based on ancient STC technology, long lost the ages. The technology is little understood, making it very difficult to repair, often requiring complex rites and rituals. Any Repair test made to increase the item status of an Archaic weapon is made at a -10 penalty. This penalty is negated if the Repair test is attempted by a character with the Specialist (Adeptus Mechanicus) talent.

Overheats

Whenever this weapon would jam (see page 202), it instead overheats, and the character wielding it can choose to take a Challenging (+0) Agility test and spend 1 AP as a reaction to drop the weapon. If he does not, or the test is failed , he receives a hit to the hit location of the arm currently holding the weapon. This single hit cannot be avoided using an Evade reaction, and deals energy damage equal to the weapon’s damage. After it has overheated, this weapon cannot be used for 1 round while it cools down. Overheating reduces the weapon's item status by one level.

Plasma

Plasma weapons generate an extreme amount of heat, and require adequate time to cool between shots if the firer wishes to avoid some very deadly burns. To this end, plasma weapons are generally designed to be fired intermittently. When firing a weapon with the plasma quality, if the same weapon was fired on the previous turn, or if it is being fired multiple times within a single round, it temporarily gains both the Overheats and Unreliable qualities, for the sake of the current attack. This effectively means the weapon will overheat on a BS roll of 91-100.

First off I feel compelled to ask ... "lore accurate"? Whose lore?

Unreliable may seem like an odd choice, but I believe it fits the fluff perfectly. Bolters (other than those used by the Astartes) are stated in most fluff to be generally ancient weapons handed down through generations. They’re rare as hell, practically relics in their own right.

I would say "unless you work for the Inquisition" - but admittedly, this also depends on what source you're reading. I think your reasoning sounds fitting for the interpretation pushed forward by Dark Heresy, but doesn't fit to GW's own writings.

I also have a general comment, though. The guns have way too many traits, making the profiles seem unnecessarily cluttered. I'd have most weapons have 1-2 traits, reserve 3 for special cases, and never go beyond that number.

But of course this is a matter of preferences as well. Still, "exceptions add confusion" (to steal a quote from the Shadowrun designer's notes), and weapon traits kind of work like exceptions in that they make a gun behave differently than the standard rules for ranged combat, so personally I'd try to keep their number low.

Honestly, in this case it was largely a matter of finding a lore accurate way of giving bolters something to offset their deadliness. I didn't want to skimp on making them fairly potent, because that'd be cheaping out on the point of this, and focusing on what tend to be the common characteristics of bolters you'd find outside of the military (on which DH is one of the few sources to draw on, for better or worse) seemed like a decent way to do that.

I do agree things are getting kind of cluttered in terms of traits, but it's an issue I'm not sure how to handle, short of just combining pertinent effects into one catch-all trait for each weapon type (which is really not alleviating the issue, just dressing it up). Any suggestions are more than welcome.

Unreliable may seem like an odd choice, but I believe it fits the fluff perfectly. Bolters (other than those used by the Astartes) are stated in most fluff to be generally ancient weapons handed down through generations. They’re rare as hell, practically relics in their own right. They’re also generally described as being rather temperamental devices. I think a combination of age, temperamental mechanism, and the fact that bolters are more complex than your typical stubgun justifies the Unreliable trait. It also plays in well with the Archaic trait (explained at the bottom of this post), because it forces a constant upkeep of the weapons, like their fluff implies.

Archaic

This weapon is based on ancient STC technology, long lost the ages. The technology is little understood, making it very difficult to repair, often requiring complex rites and rituals. Any Repair test made to increase the item status of an Archaic weapon is made at a -10 penalty. This penalty is negated if the Repair test is attempted by a character with the Specialist (Adeptus Mechanicus) talent.

There's a difference between "Relics" and "technology predating the Imperium". Almost everything in 40k can be justified as an ancient relic, as typically technological items are hard-wearing enough to far outlast their wielders, and commonly regarded as more precious. Oh, and Astartes wargear is as likely to have been handed down through successive generations of warriors as anyone else's, if not moreso - the bolt pistol an inquisitor carries may have been a specially-manufactured one-off piece, while the sidearm of a Space Marine may have seen centuries, even millennia of service in the hands of dozens or hundreds of battle brothers.

That doesn't mean that they're ill-understood remnants of a long-forgotten age.

Bolters in particular are generally regarded as an Imperial-era weapon, having been developed, alongside the powered armour of the Adeptus Astartes, during the Great Crusade and Horus Heresy. They may be derived from STC technology, but that distinction makes something more understandable, not less (STCs are standardised, modular and rugged designs, and while only fragments of those designs persist to the 41st millennium, that's still more information than for items of truly mysterious archaeotech). An STC fragment is so valuable because it allows the Adeptus Mechanicus to comprehend and manufacture relevant technologies more easily.

The Archaic description mainly suffers from the issue that I wrote it entirely with the plasmagun in mind, before I'd considered applying the trait to bolters as well. The mention of STCs is a little hamhanded though, it confuses more than anything, I'll definitely change it at some point when it's not 3 AM.

As for the bolters, yeah, I did screw up there in terms of the Astartes mention. I believe what I was going for was that the Astartes have access to skilled professionals who keep things immaculately maintained, while often the best your average Dark Heresy group can hope for is a techpriest, assuming they're lucky enough to even have one amongst their ranks. But the wording doesn't explain that well at all.

Sorry if it seems like I'm just backpedaling a huge amount here, I just really need to get out of the habit of writing up topics in the late hours of the night. Creative juices might be flowing, but evidently clarity skills are a little dull past midnight.

Any thoughts on the rules, anyway?

Vengeful(9) seems a bit overkill, and theres already a means of giving boltguns Felling through the use of Amputator shells.

Personally I think their RoF should be examined. I feel a bolt pistol should at least be RoF 1.

Plasmagun availability definitely needs to be lowered.

I'm pretty against bolters getting access to a wide array of shells, though. I feel it's encroaching on the territory of SP weapons far too much, as it stands. RoF wise, I might well agree, I haven't really examined the RoF in too great depth (I was more focused on trying to really emphasise the lethality of the shots), but it seems like it'd make sense. It's just a matter of seeing how is sways balance.

In terms of availability, I likely will change that, yeah. It'd make sense from a gameplay and a lore standpoint, so I don't see why not.

I believe what I was going for was that the Astartes have access to skilled professionals who keep things immaculately maintained, while often the best your average Dark Heresy group can hope for is a techpriest, assuming they're lucky enough to even have one amongst their ranks.

I guess this is once again a matter of perspectives/preferences, then - I've never been a fan of Dark Heresy as "the scrubs game" where you play Necromunda with a badge. When the Inquisition gets involved, I expect resources. Not in the least because everyone, even the Space Marines, get their gear through the Adeptus Mechanicus, and the Inquisition has first claim.

FFG's Deathwatch RPG obviously canned that idea, but in GW's fluff, it's the Inquisition that equips DW Space Marines with the good stuff!

So, it really depends on whether you're aiming more for a "low power" game or wish to connect to material such as the original Inquisitor RPG. Hence my earlier question about which lore you're following.

Vengeful(9) seems a bit overkill, and theres already a means of giving boltguns Felling through the use of Amputator shells.

Hah, one of the reasons for why I'm no fan of Unnatural Traits to begin with. It makes everything even more bloated.

From gut-feeling, I still think that, say, a bolter really only needs Tearing. Unreliable would be a fitting trait if we'd be talking about a model built in some Hive gun shop rather than a proper AdMech forge, so I'd leave this in depending on the individual player character and where he or she got this weapon from.

Otherwise, I'd go with abstraction and try to shove further perks into the general profile.

(also, don't bolt pistols and boltguns use the same rounds...?)

I'm pretty against bolters getting access to a wide array of shells, though. I feel it's encroaching on the territory of SP weapons far too much, as it stands.

Isn't different ammunition also fairly established in the fluff? I feel like bolt weaponry actually isn't an alternate option to SP, but a straight upgrade (with the balancing factor being their availability/value, impressive weight and maintenance requirements), thus encroaching on their territory is absolutely fine. The only thing that SP really needs to compete with is Las, as I see them on the same level.

On a sidenote, I'm not entirely sure on the weight ... on one hand, the stuff should be heavy as 40k = bigger. But 18 kg for a Plasma Gun?

Also, for further inspiration, the weapon stats for GW's Inquisitor RPG as well as the Necromunda skirmish game are freely available here:

http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m2350169a_m1320029_Inq_Rulebook_part_1.pdf (page 56+)

http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m2360785a_m1330042_Necromunda_Rulebook.pdf (page 33+)

(just to throw in more material for inspiration)

I haven't actually touched the weights, they're direct from the beta rules. Carrying weight issues are a whole other issue I'm not really willing to touch just yet, so I'm going to leave things as written there.

There is different ammunition established in the fluff, albiet wholly different ammunition to the types avaliable in the book currently. I'd say it might be worth giving bolters their own set of specialised ammunition (Hellfire rounds, Stalker bolts, etc), but that could increase rulebook bloat fairly significantly.

Interesting point on them not needing to compete with SP. It's a fair point, really, bolters should be patently better than SP weapons for most applications. I still think SP should have access to a wider variety of rounds than Bolters, but I suppose a little overlap isn't a tremendous issue.

Unreliable is really a bit of abstraction, if anything, but it may be overkill. Basically, I was trying to hit up the idea of bolters needing constant maintenance, which is something FFG fluff has highlighted a lot, and I'm fairly sure other sources have done similar. Unreliable increases the chance of status being reduced (which rarely happens for ranged weapons), which increases the frequency repairs need to be made, giving a mechanical impact to the concept of constant maintenance. But having bolters jam up is a little problematic in its own right, so I'm not sure how to approach this one.

Thanks for the links to the specialist game stuff. I know it's there, but I never really thought to look to it for inspiration, so I'll definitely read over some of it tomorrow.

Really, my main goal here is just to achieve the 'feel' of the weapons as they're commonly portrayed in the fluff, along with making it so each category is a significantly different type of weapon. The RAW is relatively balanced overall, save for some minor screwups, but it's a bit bland for my tastes. And combat rules aren't the only way to balance equipment, for sure.

What about a new weapon quality called "Ancient Machine Spirit".

When aquiring the weapon, you need to roll 1d100 on a table to get a unique "character" for the weapon, similar to what was done in Deathwatch with Power armout History.

Would be awesome to have a boltgun with a rebellious character.

Or a loyal character...or an aggressive one.

These characters should both include benefits and flaws.

Honestly, given the changes to the melta and plasma weapons, bolters would probably be well served with an increase in RoF primarily, along with increased Pen and a damage upgrade. That gives them the role of "strong but not massive damage, high RoF" among the second tier weapons.

Honestly, given the changes to the melta and plasma weapons, bolters would probably be well served with an increase in RoF primarily, along with increased Pen and a damage upgrade. That gives them the role of "strong but not massive damage, high RoF" among the second tier weapons.

I agree with this. I think the main issue is that it's hard to tell what RoF is supposed to represent. It's currently used to account for actual rate of fire, but also used to account for how long it takes to bring the weapon to bear because of how action points work.

It's currently faster to snap shot a storm bolter than a pistol, despite the fact that a pistol seems like it should cost fewer action points to get a shot off. And

I think that perhaps including RoFs like 3/2 for heavy bolter to represent that it takes more effort on the firers part to bring the weapon to bear.

Its almost as if we need an "activation" AP cost, and a "sustained fire" AP cost.

Of course, that just seems to start to get really klunky.

I think a "Max RoA" might be helpful to keep certain things from getting too crazy, but allowing for a higher RoF to allow for less AP to fire.

Like give pistols a Max RoA of 3, but give them RoF 2.

Yeah rate of attack is rather questionable as is, I don't entirely know what to make of the system, I'd probably have to actually playtest it to get a good idea of things.

I do agree it's probably worth changing up the RoF though. I might remove Vengeful and compensate with a boost of RoF across the board.

Overheat: Your changes to overheat are brutal. The weapon now takes damage too? And you've re-linked Overheat to "flat numbers instead of a jam"? Not good. As is, even with their new damage output they're a questionable weapon choice due to high AP cost, low ammunition, and damage now TOO variable. Breaking down doesn't fit the fluff either.

I suggested a slow-ramp-up version of overheat elsewhere, It might do the portrayal you were hoping for?

Range is way too low as well; the real way you should be representing loss of effectiveness at range is not by cutting down the thing's range and accuracy; they're supposed to have the same effective range as boltguns and lasguns. Plus 90m always struck me as a strange, arbitrary value out of nowhere? Then again this is the same system that still has 75lb empty disposable launch-tubes firing half-pound Anti-Tank guided missiles. 18kg [not your doing] is still way too high as well. Especially given the new carrying capacity chart that seems to think fully trained soldiers at the peak of human training should have difficulty lifting their basic kit.

Plasma rule: I'd drop penetration to 8 base, and change that rule to this: Plasma weapons apply the overcharge bonus to both damage and penetration. That would let us drop the weapon to around 2d10+4ish and give it an RoF of 1.

The weapon now takes damage too?

Doesn't that kind of make sense? Why would an overheating gun damage the user, but retain its pristine condition? The gun's materials are likely fashioned in a way to deal with the extreme temperatures of normal usage, but I would interpret an overheat as an unintentional effect that dramatically increases the "wear and tear" any weapon is subjected to over the course of its use.

Actually, the overheating of plasma weapons represents them venting excess heat in order to prevent damaging the weapon, a process which is invariably quite dangerous for the user. The weapons themselves are described to suffer little, if at all, from the process.

Described to suffer little where? I have heard the venting bit in several sources, but I do not think that a plasma weapon is constructed more solidly than a suit of powered armour - so if whatever effect you want to have an Overheat produce harms a user even when they are wearing PA, then the weapon should take damage as well. Basically, think that the gun, just like a vehicle or a suit of carapace, has its own "AP".

In short, I would make any injuries dependent on how protected the character is, and scale weapon damage according to how powerful the malfunction is. When it's hot enough to "eat" through PA, then it's hot enough to slightly deform or melt something in or on the gun as well (these are very complicated pieces of technology, after all).

Perhaps just have the weapon lose item status if the damage suffered by the user is above a certain threshold?

Or, to again pull something from another game ... GW's Inquisitor RPG actually had a whole extra table for plasma malfunctions. Every time you get a malfunction, you roll 1d6:

Might be a cool thing to adopt? It's both more risky (in that it can go really bad) as well as more forgiving (in that there's a chance you only drop it for a round) than the standard rule.

Described to suffer little where?

I suppose the specific description I had in mind came from Only War: "Through their sturdy construction, even in the event of an overheat, the weapon is likely to survive, though the wielder is often less fortunate."

Feel free to disregard this, though, as it is obviously not original 40k lore ^^

Stray thought: shouldn't hvy bolters be vastly more abundant than any other types? Per the fluff they're standard hvy weapons, while personal bolt weapons are about as common as power weapons

What about a new weapon quality called "Ancient Machine Spirit".

When aquiring the weapon, you need to roll 1d100 on a table to get a unique "character" for the weapon, similar to what was done in Deathwatch with Power armout History.

That's actually a really cool idea, for sure, but I feel like it's probably a mechanic that should be kept in mind for creating unique relic weapons, not standard acquisitions.

I suggested a slow-ramp-up version of overheat elsewhere, It might do the portrayal you were hoping for?

I really love that idea, but I feel like it's a bit much to track for most people. I get the distinct feeling most players would end up losing track pretty quickly.

Stray thought: shouldn't hvy bolters be vastly more abundant than any other types? Per the fluff they're standard hvy weapons, while personal bolt weapons are about as common as power weapons

I actually agree here, I just wasn't sure where to put things balance wise. Plus there's the consideration that, while heavy bolters are more abundant , the cost to acquire them isn't necessarily lower. They are pretty huge guns, after all.

And, regarding the overheats damaging weapons thing; it's mostly down to the fact that currently plasma weapons CAN'T be damaged, short of getting hit with a power sword, and I think that's a bit silly. All guns need maintenance. It could easily be removed, but I feel like plasma guns should be subject to damage from 'jamming' like any other,

I'm thinking it might be worth making it so that plasma weapons go back to having a secondary profile for overcharge, instead of just a straight damage buff, so things like added range and potentially a small blast can be added. That'd be true to older tabletop rules, which seemed to do a better job of being flavourful rather than focused entirely on balance.

Okay, I revised bolt a little, and knocked up some revisions to Las weapons that I think are much needed.

I removed Vengeful and Unreliable; vengeful was kind of silly, and unreliable is a pretty flawed way of implementing what I had in mind, it's back to the drawing board with that one. Instead, RoF is now bumped up. I didn't touch the heavy bolter yet, but I might. I'm unsure, honestly. It makes sense that the Storm Bolter can get out just as many shots, it's got two barrels.

Now, time for las.

Changes made here aren't too complex. Firstly, ammo's back to the level it was in the other RPGs. Big capacity is one of the main draws of Las weapons, it deserves to be represented. As well, I updated the Long-las' RoF to 1, because frankly 1/2 RoFs are iffy as hell, and it makes it more of a competitive weapon vs the Sniper RIfle.

Hotshot pistols got slightly boosted damage (they should be doing more than a regular laspistol after all). but hotshot weapons have slightly lower capacity than their normal cousins.

As for weapon qualities, Reliable is back for all standard las weapons. This means they've got their two main qualities back; they're reliable as hell with big capacities. As well, I changed overcharge to variable. Variable is literally identical to how variable power settings worked in BC and OW. To save you guys looking it up, here it is;

Lasgun variable setting: Lasguns may be fired on overcharge mode, dealing +1 Damage but using two shots worth of ammunition per shot fired. Additionally, they may be fired on overload mode, dealing +2 Damage and gaining +2 Penetration. In this case they use four shots worth of ammunition per shot fired, lose Reliable, and gain Unreliable.

What do you guys think of these changes? Tear into me if I've made any dumb mistakes.

RoF of one on the Long Las seems fine, making it more of a semi-auto sniper than the one shot-kill sniper rifle. Not sure why you took out accurate though, that should a staple to all sniper weapons imo. I don't know yet how I feel about it not being silent - while the distinct lasgun whipcrack is hard to muffle, muzzle flash suppressors could serve the same purpose (at least mechanically) on the long las.

Oh, ****, that was a typographical error for sure, I meant to leave in Accurate. As for the suppressor, I just feel like using the silent rules is a bit silly, considering you can only really hide the flash. Maybe a special rules entry that states there's a -20 to Perception tests to figure out where shots are being fired from?

I like that idea, as I think the current implementation of silent (flat reduction in km the weapon can be heard) is a bit silly - especially on the long las, which RAW would be heard in a radius of -2km upon being fired, thus being completely impossible to detect by sound. Maybe make it Silent (X) with each instance of X giving a -10 penalty on perception tests to detect the origin of the shot?