AKA: Go back to DH1/OW combat rules! That's my fix guys. The OW system works better, Period. You don't have to redo everything else, Just that! Reinventing the wheel for the sake of saying you did was silly! Much of the rest of DH2 is very well done! Particularly the narrative stuff! The combat system, while playable (Sort of!) is inferior to it's predecessors for a lot of reasons!

Obviously Radwraith, to each his own, and I agree this 2e-Beta isn't ready for prime time...and it stunned me to first learn 2e wasn't mechanically backwards compatible. However, I'm in the camp that, despite the nostalgic glow it seems to be enjoying on here, the DH1 system had quite a few significant problems not to be glossed over now. I suspect that most current DH campaigns are, as a result, heavily-to-very-heavily House Rule'd. I know mine was. OW modifications made the DH1 system more palatable but it still had significant issues. I kept playing because of the sick setting.

Given your comment that the "OW system works better, period" and that this is "Reinventing the wheel for the sake of saying you did", let me list the key areas that I find 2e already better than 1e. It's an important topic for all DH fans who are trying to decide whether a system upgrade is worth working on.

1. IMO, Action Points (essentially 4 quarter-turns) are a big improvement over Full Actions/Half Actions (2 half turns). Now a character can move, fire, move & go prone all in the same Turn. With Action Points a character can choose btw completely dedicating that Turn to an action or budgeting some of their Turn for Evading - or even multiple Evades. We always found Full/Half Actions to be clunky.
2. Dodge wasn't right. Attacker would roll a "3" on their To-Hit percentile roll, Target would only make their Dodge by 1 and negate the whole attack. Comparing Evade DoS against the Attack's DoS is superior and is a big change, because it comes up all the time. Moreover, I never liked that the 1e system essentially allowed you to Dodge no matter what a character was otherwise doing. Now in 2e, at least a character has to account for their Dodging (Evade) with Action Points.
3. Flamers with their auto-hit-but-you-can-try-to-Dodge were overpowered and a bit strange, falling outside the normal combat mechanic. One man's opinion.
4. There were WAY too many skills and too many tiny niche' skills (i.e. Blather) that needed to be rolled into another broader ones.
5. I like crunchy combat systems but DH could certainly get ponderous, "Okay, so your attack is +10, -20, +10...+10....right? Wait. How many +10's was that?"
6. I had more than one of my players ask me under what circumstances their best choice would be to use a Full Move vs. just Run for a short distance. Interesting question.
7. A character in DH 1e could have suffered multiple wounds and be in terrible shape but still be in a massive sword fight while carrying all 70lbs of their gear - all without any ramifications whatsoever. Yet they took one more shot & suddenly died. Sure, we just all shrugged and said "Pulp" (a.k.a. this isn't intended to be a historic reenactment) - but that doesn't mean it wasn't completely ridiculous.

There's always going to be folks who stay with the old - always - and it's all good. But let's the rest of us do this.

Ok, I'm sorry but I feel a rebuttal is in order! While I respect that each of us has an opinion I think since specific points were made they deserve specific counter arguments (So no disrespect intended).

1.) AP are absolutely NO different from the half/full/evade pattern of previous system other than tying them to a weapons rate of fire (Which is also ridiculous IMO!). They are simply labeled differently and handled in a more clunky non-organic feel to them. As I have pointed out before: This idea is not new. It was tried by GDW for some of the traveller expansions of the early eighties as well as some wargames. It was largely abandoned in later game since most players felt it made the game feel too 'mechanical' rather than a living character role. This was pretty much the common opinion of most players and gm's back then and I still feel the same way now.

2.) I agree with you on the basic thought but this could have been added to the OW combat system seamlessly (I don't doubt it was probably a fairly common 'house rule' at many tables.)

3.) I disagree with you here. A flamer works like a hose so it is going to hit unless you somehow get out of the way. Flamer's auto hit was mitigated by extremely short range and *** marriage ban in california (Joke! Sorry couldn't resist ). Also Flamer's base damage was comparable to a Lasgun so it wasn't THAT potent.

4.) This was largely fixed in later products. (Again OW and BC).

5.) I didn't find the modifiers to be that mathmatically challenging and neither did any of my players! Particularly if you had a GM screen to keep it all straight. Must just be me.

6.) Good question! Circumstance would dictate the answer.

7.) I agree with this. In DH1 (And later products,) The framework was there with fatigue, lightly and heavily damaged conditions but nothing other than healing times was tied to it. Again, This could have been added seamlessly w/o a complete rewrite!

As I've said before: I could buy into this if the new rules were obviously better! They aren't! This is just different! And arguably worse in many ways!

Well, of course, no offense taken Radwraith...but given how actually different Action Points are from the Full/Half Action scheme...I think the two of us just exist in two different gaming universes and leave it at that.

The better response from me to everyone else reading this thread in the Dark Heresy 2nd Edition Beta Forum is to re-emphasize this:

There's always going to be folks who stay with the old - always - and it's all good.

But let's the rest of us work on this quite promising 2nd Edition.

What kind of combats are you expecting to run with your ideas?

I would expect combats where getting hit with a lethal weapon could **** you up real bad and right away. Combats where a bullet to the head is a really big deal. Where armor is important, and the primary way to stay in the combat if hit by weapons that are comparable in "level" to the armor. I would expect a combat, where it is harder to hit your opponent but easier to kill when you hit someone. Toughness would primarily determine how bad the consequences would be when your arm is blown off, if you faint from fatigue, or if you die from bleeding - not as a kind of armor. I would expect someone to easily be able to dispatch of someone if they hit them with weapons that are superior to their armor, and that they would require a lucky shot to damage someone with armor that is superior to their weapons.

I don't mind melta and plasma weapons being incredibly powerful. They are relics of a lost age and among the most powerful weapons in a setting filled with things that are over the top. They are weapons used to kill daemon engines and greater daemons, not hive gangers or cultists. They should be extremely rare, and not a weapon often used against the PCs. If the PCs are actually up against someone with a meltagun it should be an extremely big deal, and the mechanics should reflect that. These weapons should be limited by rarity of the weapon and ammunition, low rate of fire (meltagun), low ammo capacity, being dangerous to fire (plasma), and by the extremely high level being totally overkill in most cases. You wouldn't need a meltagun til kill a crime lord wearing leather armor, a single well placed shot from a stub revolver or bolt pistol should be enough. Killing 5 cultists in no or limited armor should be quicker (and therefore less dangerous) with a fully automatic autogun than a meltagun.

Stub revolvers, swords, autoguns, las weapons and so on, should pack enough punch to be dangerous. Lasguns are weapons of war and should be treated as such. They should have a really hard time against carapace armors and especially power armors, but should be able to do something if you are lucky enough. Skill should matter with these weapons. A stub revolver should be unlikely to penetrate a flak armor, but a descent marksman should be able to hit an opponent in the face or another unarmored spot. These advantages of such weapons would be that they are cheap, ammunition is abundant, they are low profile weapons, they are silent (it's hard to silence a bolter or chainsword), and they don't need special training to use. Often they should be enough, since it hurts really bad to be hit with a bullet, and they are just as easy to aim as bolters and plasma guns.

I don't want balanced weapons. Some weapons are relics others are mass produced. The same thing with armors. But I want the "inferior" weapons to have a niche where they are useful.

I want the game to flow relatively quickly, but not so quickly that there isn't any room for details. I don't want combat to drag out forever and require constant consulting of many different tables. I don't mind spending a couple of minutes checking for lingering consequences when the combat is done and the disabled characters are given medical attention (but please, no random permanent stat losses).

It would be easy enough to do this in a light chrunch or narrative system, but this is not what I want (or at least not want from DH2). I think I could do this in a universal system, such as GURPS or Savage Worlds (depending on whether I want gritty or cinematic combat), but I don't want to have to do all the work necessary. I want other people (FFG) to do all the work and playtesting, and I would happily pay them for it, if I like the game. I want a beautiful and polished game, not my own house-rules in a text-document. But you rarely get everything you want.

What kind of combats are you expecting to run with your ideas?

I would expect combats where getting hit with a lethal weapon could **** you up real bad and right away. Combats where a bullet to the head is a really big deal. Where armor is important, and the primary way to stay in the combat if hit by weapons that are comparable in "level" to the armor. I would expect a combat, where it is harder to hit your opponent but easier to kill when you hit someone. Toughness would primarily determine how bad the consequences would be when your arm is blown off, if you faint from fatigue, or if you die from bleeding - not as a kind of armor. I would expect someone to easily be able to dispatch of someone if they hit them with weapons that are superior to their armor, and that they would require a lucky shot to damage someone with armor that is superior to their weapons.

AKA a normal firearms combat system.

Alex

What kind of combats are you expecting to run with your ideas?

I would expect combats where getting hit with a lethal weapon could **** you up real bad and right away.

I'm sorry to make this point a third time but it really is important. You keep saying you want a system where getting hit with a lethal weapon can kill right away. But the system gives you that. What it is, is a system where you don't get hit with a lethal weapon right away. These are different things.

You keep making this statement that you want lethal weapons to be lethal, but they are. When you say that they're not you're odds with what the rules actually say. If you roll a hit and score 5 on the wounds table and it says: "the weapon scores a gouge across your armour leaving you singed but not harmed", then that is what has happened. Not that you got hit full on but it unrealistically didn't do damage.

It's a really important distinction because the first damages realism in the game which is a flavour problem for many of us. The latter is fine from a realism / flavour point of view and only affects a mechanical choice of whether combat goes to "first shooter wins" or if there's more of a buffer in there.

It's important because I would have a problem with the first - just as I find Hit Points in D&D problematic, for example. I don't have a problem with DH2 because it's not saying you can take a solid hit from a lethal weapon and shrug it off, it's saying you can't get a solid hit from a lethal weapon right away. You have to base your criticism on what is in the book and the book nowhere says for a low level Wound result, that it's a deadly shot that you just shrug off, it gives alternate descriptions. The worst you get flavour wise is that those descriptions are a little generic (which they have to be unless you want separate tables for plasma guns, las-guns, las-cannon, etc.) and you as GM need to make very minor flavour modifications which can really be done in your sleep. Someone is temporarily blinded and dazed by a plasma pistol? No problem - the actinic glare of the plasma as it arcs right in front of your face leaves you dazzled and reeling.

The distinction is important and you keep saying things that actually contradict the descriptions in the book. The system doesn't let you survive a full on hit with a lethal weapon the first time. It says the first time, you don't get hit full on by the lethal weapon. One is problematic from a believability point of view. The other problematic if you want to have a game of instant lethality with a bad dice roll. And the latter is honestly a far smaller subset of groups.

It's a really important distinction because the first damages realism in the game which is a flavour problem for many of us. The latter is fine from a realism / flavour point of view and only affects a mechanical choice of whether combat goes to "first shooter wins" or if there's more of a buffer in there

Which modern firearm pen&paper RPGs have you played outside of 40K Roleplay?

Alex

Short answer: I also don't want a boring and predictable system, where it is only possible to make a near-misses the first 2-4 times you "hit" a target. Even at point blank against a man standing completely still and who is unaware of your presence. I don't want plot-armor, or at least not in this way.

Longer answer:

The system doesn't let you survive a full on hit with a lethal weapon the first time. It says the first time, you don't get hit full on by the lethal weapon.

Here we disagree as well, and I will be happy to back it up with actual rule examples.

These are the average wound effects from different weapons "hitting" an unwounded PC with TB3.

Plasma gun: the strike rips across the target's chest, charring a vertical line of embers into his armor or skin that threatens to spread to his whole chest.

Meltagun: the attack washed over the target superheating his armor and igniting his skin beneath.

Autocannon: the sudden blow catches the target in his side, denting his armor, rattling his ribs, and hurtling him to the ground.

Autocannon in the head: the shot smashes into the target's forehead, and his skull creaks under the pressure.

Sniper rifle: t he shot strikes the target’s head with an dolorous thump, deflecting off of his skull but perhaps inflicting a dreadful abrasion, gash, or fracture in the process. The exact narrative severity of this wound is left to the Game Master’s discretion, but it has no mechanical effect beyond the wound itself .

These are not near misses. It's a unarmored guy getting hit in the forehead by a tank killing projectile. It may be explained by plot-armor, but it's the complete opposite of what I want the system to be like. Fixing the wound effect tables so that these wound effects actually are described as grazes may fix the extremely unrealistic lack of lethality from a direct hit by a heavy weapon, but does not make the system any more interesting IMHO.

Short answer: I also don't want a boring and predictable system, where it is only possible to make a near-misses the first 2-4 times you "hit" a target. Even at point blank against a man standing completely still and who is unaware of your presence. I don't want plot-armor, or at least not in this way.

Longer answer:

The system doesn't let you survive a full on hit with a lethal weapon the first time. It says the first time, you don't get hit full on by the lethal weapon.

Here we disagree as well, and I will be happy to back it up with actual rule examples.

These are not near misses. It's a unarmored guy getting hit in the forehead by a tank killing projectile. It may be explained by plot-armor, but it's the complete opposite of what I want the system to be like. Fixing the wound effect tables so that these wound effects actually are described as grazes may fix the extremely unrealistic lack of lethality from a direct hit by a heavy weapon, but does not make the system any more interesting IMHO.

As I already wrote , it is trivial for any GM to alter / tweak the result flavour text to suit a specific weapon if they wish. Nor do I see the originals as problematic.

Let's take your examples and see how awful they actually are.

Plasma gun: the strike rips across the target's chest, charring a vertical line of embers into his armor or skin that threatens to spread to his whole chest.

That's fine. The target doesn't manage to fully evade the plasma bolt and the strike rips across their chest as described. Presumably then carrying on and leaving a very nasty mess on the wall behind them. This causes me no problem.

Meltagun: the attack washed over the target superheating his armor and igniting his skin beneath.

Again, they clearly aren't hit full on, but the heat still washes over them. Not a problem for me.

Autocannon: the sudden blow catches the target in his side, denting his armor, rattling his ribs, and hurtling him to the ground.

That's fine as is. It doesn't say "The point of the shell hits you perfectly perpendicular to your ribs" I'm not getting the problem here. It's an autocannon shell. If that's what the effect is, then clearly it was a glancing blow. If it was a small slug from a different weapon, then maybe it hit them in the side full on. There are a million variations.

Here is a key point:

What if the character is hit from behind by a bullet - are you suddenly going to say that the one about them being hit in the forehead is suddenly broken rules because it meant that the bullet must have looped back like a boomerang? No. Of course not. You just change "forehead" to "back of the head". It simply isn't possible to make wound tables for every weapon, every direction and so there is only one choice - that between having flavourless lists of mechanical effects, or things that a GM like me can take and use and tweak slightly if necessary.

Autocannon in the head: the shot smashes into the target's forehead, and his skull creaks under the pressure.

The shot smashes along side the top or temple of their skull or the shock wave of the detonating shell all have the same effect.

Sniper rifle: t he shot strikes the target’s head with an dolorous thump, deflecting off of his skull but perhaps inflicting a dreadful abrasion, gash, or fracture in the process. The exact narrative severity of this wound is left to the Game Master’s discretion, but it has no mechanical effect beyond the wound itself .

Case in point. The book itself in the above clearly suggests you tweak these results as needed.

I'm quite sure that you consider all my comments above attempts to dodge the question or re-write things. They're not. They're me pointing out that they're a complete non-effort in game play and that you're supposed to do this. The cost of FFG trying to publish results you would be happy with would simply be dozens of new Wound tables or - more likely - stripping all the flavour from the existing ones. The first is not possible and would be a nightmare in play if it were. The second is dull and loses a lot of the WH40K flavour and GM assistance and guidance.

Trying to do things your way is just making things insanely difficult for yourself and, were your feedback adopted into the final game, difficult for newbie GMs.

It's a really important distinction because the first damages realism in the game which is a flavour problem for many of us. The latter is fine from a realism / flavour point of view and only affects a mechanical choice of whether combat goes to "first shooter wins" or if there's more of a buffer in there

Which modern firearm pen&paper RPGs have you played outside of 40K Roleplay?

Alex

I have no idea. Quite a few. What does it matter to a discussion on DH2 rules? I feel that you're trying to attack whether my opinion counts or not.

I agree that you can just change the descriptions to better fit the situation or interpret all the hits as near-misses. It is really easy to do and doesn't require any mechanical change. The reason I post these specific wound effect descriptions isn't that they break the system and make it unplayable, it's because (as I read it) you argue that the tables describe most non-lethal hits as near-misses and that my interpretation is wrong because I contradict the description in the book. I completely disagree. I also think this "I am hit in the forehead by an auto-cannon and don't suffer any ill effect" is going to cause much more confusion than by changing the tables to present wound effects below 20 as actual near-misses.

But again, the actual wound descriptions are trivially easy to change, but will in no way make the combat system behave as I would prefer.

I agree that you can just change the descriptions to better fit the situation or interpret all the hits as near-misses. It is really easy to do and doesn't require any mechanical change. The reason I post these specific wound effect descriptions isn't that they break the system and make it unplayable, it's because (as I read it) you argue that the tables describe most non-lethal hits as near-misses and that my interpretation is wrong because I contradict the description in the book. I completely disagree. I also think this "I am hit in the forehead by an auto-cannon and don't suffer any ill effect" is going to cause much more confusion than by changing the tables to present wound effects below 20 as actual near-misses.

But again, the actual wound descriptions are trivially easy to change, but will in no way make the combat system behave as I would prefer.

Yeah. I understand. You and I really come from very different aspects of what we want. And I'm not going to try and play a card of whose view reflects the majority - the ideal is where everyone can be happy. Elsewhere I proposed the suggestion of an official "Optional Rule" side bar and you made the suggestion that you simply add +10 to all wound results, effectively discarding the early part of the rule tables. Would that work for you? I'm not about go through all the tables right now, but I think that would eliminate pretty much all the problematic items (maybe the odd description still needs to be tweaked).

I apologise if the above comes across as confrontational. You've been very reasonable in putting forth a position that is quite extreme to some of us. (Mechanically, your games are going to put a lot of power in the hands of whoever wins initiative).

I'd fully support an optional side bar of the kind you suggested and it's a simple change that is easy to do.

I agree that you can just change the descriptions to better fit the situation or interpret all the hits as near-misses. It is really easy to do and doesn't require any mechanical change. The reason I post these specific wound effect descriptions isn't that they break the system and make it unplayable, it's because (as I read it) you argue that the tables describe most non-lethal hits as near-misses and that my interpretation is wrong because I contradict the description in the book. I completely disagree. I also think this "I am hit in the forehead by an auto-cannon and don't suffer any ill effect" is going to cause much more confusion than by changing the tables to present wound effects below 20 as actual near-misses.

But again, the actual wound descriptions are trivially easy to change, but will in no way make the combat system behave as I would prefer.

Describing the wound effects as near-misses wouldn't solve the issue.

Sure, that autocannon makes more sense now. But suddenly you're hurt really bad by the near-miss of a fist from a small man?

The tables are never going to work as long as they attempt to describe many different weapons. The alternative is having 50 tables, and considering the whining (from myself, as well) so far about the amount we have to look up, that's hardly a solution.

I think you're going a little too hard into trying to pick knasserll's argument apart, and missing the point. Maybe the wound descriptions don't match with a "near miss" as knasserll's suggests it is, but the game effect does.

The game clearly intends to have a Wound 15 effect caused by a Melta-Gun to somehow not be a direct hit. We can argue back and forth about what the descriptions indicate and what they don't, but the design intent is pretty clear: People aren't supposed to die from the first couple hits, no matter what they're from. As with any RPG, when push comes to shove, it's up to the GM to justify this.

DH 2.0 - the grazing shots and near-misses edition.

Alex

DH 2.0 - the grazing shots and near-misses edition.

Alex

Works for me.

1. IMO, Action Points (essentially 4 quarter-turns) are a big improvement over Full Actions/Half Actions (2 half turns). Now a character can move, fire, move & go prone all in the same Turn. With Action Points a character can choose btw completely dedicating that Turn to an action or budgeting some of their Turn for Evading - or even multiple Evades. We always found Full/Half Actions to be clunky.
2. Dodge wasn't right. Attacker would roll a "3" on their To-Hit percentile roll, Target would only make their Dodge by 1 and negate the whole attack. Comparing Evade DoS against the Attack's DoS is superior and is a big change, because it comes up all the time. Moreover, I never liked that the 1e system essentially allowed you to Dodge no matter what a character was otherwise doing. Now in 2e, at least a character has to account for their Dodging (Evade) with Action Points.
3. Flamers with their auto-hit-but-you-can-try-to-Dodge were overpowered and a bit strange, falling outside the normal combat mechanic. One man's opinion.
4. There were WAY too many skills and too many tiny niche' skills (i.e. Blather) that needed to be rolled into another broader ones.
5. I like crunchy combat systems but DH could certainly get ponderous, "Okay, so your attack is +10, -20, +10...+10....right? Wait. How many +10's was that?"
6. I had more than one of my players ask me under what circumstances their best choice would be to use a Full Move vs. just Run for a short distance. Interesting question.
7. A character in DH 1e could have suffered multiple wounds and be in terrible shape but still be in a massive sword fight while carrying all 70lbs of their gear - all without any ramifications whatsoever. Yet they took one more shot & suddenly died. Sure, we just all shrugged and said "Pulp" (a.k.a. this isn't intended to be a historic reenactment) - but that doesn't mean it wasn't completely ridiculous.

1) I wouldn't have said the old system was perfect, but I didn't see that much of an issue with it. What was so clunky about it? And I am not personally sure that making it easy to fire and then go for cover is actually that good, as before you had to make much more of a choice of "Do I have cover, or do I fire and expose parts of myself?" Now you can do both, rendering that choice increasingly invalid. Ok, I will admit it streamlines the choice of "full-out attack" and "all out defence" as it is just a matter of how you spend your action points. Makes it a bit harder to manage NPCs though.

2) This was part of the way the game was designed. I am personally not convinced by this change to evading. Yes, it could be frustrating to have an awesome to hit roll spoiled by a dodge, but the number of reactions and their refresh at the beginning of the turn was an important part of the mechanics. It was the main method of survival, and was one of the major ways that huge damage weapons were balanced (your target dodging your one big attack made your one big attack a lot less scary). Now, I have to say I never really looked at a 03 as an big deal of a roll with a single shot weapon whenever I played, it was just "did I hit or not?" The fact that that attack got parried or dodged rather than one I just barely scored never bothered me. Making it an opposed test just balances it further in the favour of the attacker. I am also unclear what you mean by "no matter what the character is otherwise doing." The system presumes that characters are evading fire and attacks, and part of that was your one base reaction a turn (more as you got better at it). If someone was truly unaware then someone shouldn't have been able to dodge.

3) Erm... they didn't auto-hit. The roll-to-hit was just replaced by the opponent making an agility test instead. Then the target could dodge if they were still hit. At least that was until one of the FAQ answerers read the rules incorrectly and said you either dodged or made an agility to test to escape and couldn't dodge again... and then contradicted themselves in a later reply. The only real difference between flamers and other weapons is that 1) they target an area and can hit anyone in those area, and 2) the to-hit roll is replaced by an agility test.

4) That is a matter of personal choice and a design decision. The simple fact is that creeping around quietly (Silent Move) and following someone around while trying not to draw attention to yourself (Shadowing) are separate, different skills. ONe is the ability to avoid making noise, and the other is about making yourself seem innocuous so that even though the target can see you easily they won't pay any attention to you (all while keeping your eye on them). Just because one is good at one doesn't mean you are good at the other. However, it is likely that a character you want to be good at one you will likely to want to be good at another (as the "stealthy" archetype). If you presume that all players will choose both then yes, it make sense to combine them. However, it is not a given, and just depends on the style and tone of the game.

5) Hmm... I guess so. However, with experience most of the common ones became second nature. However, yes, I will agree this is a bit of a barrier for new players.

6) Full Move was not meant to be the move option for "when I move for my full turn". It was a measure for certain specific cases such as Tactical Movement etc, ie it was for when you were moving more than a walk, but were still being careful about your surroundings. Run was what you should be using if you were just getting from one place to the next.

7) Ok, yeah. Didn't bother me that much. It was a straight up HP system, with some interesting stuff happening for the last few hit points. As the HP never got totally out of hand, and damage always remained quite high in relation to HP, it didn't bother me. This newer system actually feels odder, partially because of the fact that it doesn't really get rid of HP, just it replaces them with about 5, and each damaging hit does 1 HP, with some special effects, and you cannot normally die for the first few hits, no matter how many you suffer. It's a strange halfway house, which I personally doesn't add that much more over the original system. Unless really tanking it up, or there were utterly miserable damage rolls, it usually took between 2-8 hits to kill someone anyway, and it generally involved less faffing around than this one did.

Also, just bearing on what others have said: the effects of an attack in the new system will often lack weight. See the Autocannon. Yes, it will get higher up the track on the wound effect, but if it doesn't kill, or inflict a critical, all it really means in the long run is a +5 on the new wound. This feels a hell of a lot less serious than suddenly going from 15 wounds to 3 (just a random number... fairly sure the original autocannon could kill a player in one shot if the damage rolls were average or slightly above), even if that drop from 15-3 doesn't actually impair your PCs fighting ability. The player knows the next hit from that weapon will pretty much certainly kill them. With the new system? Oh, they will have +5 on the next hit.

It would be easy enough to do this in a light chrunch or narrative system, but this is not what I want (or at least not want from DH2). I think I could do this in a universal system, such as GURPS or Savage Worlds (depending on whether I want gritty or cinematic combat), but I don't want to have to do all the work necessary. I want other people (FFG) to do all the work and playtesting, and I would happily pay them for it, if I like the game. I want a beautiful and polished game, not my own house-rules in a text-document. But you rarely get everything you want.

While I think Savage Worlds could do it GURPS couldn't. It certainly could be used to make a 40k rpg, but the system as designed means that anything that protects you from gunfire will protect you from melee weapons, fancy uber tech aside. Now, this is fairly realistic (if a gun cannot penetrate something, a normal guy with a sword isn't going to be able to either), but doesn't wit that well with 40k. Now, GURPS does have a framework for targeting chinks and gaps in armour, something that 40k RPG doesn't have, but even then you can get cases, particularly with power armour analogues, where even the chinks are too heavily armoured for anything short of a gun (or super science melee weapons) to even bother it.

Yeah. I understand. You and I really come from very different aspects of what we want. And I'm not going to try and play a card of whose view reflects the majority - the ideal is where everyone can be happy. Elsewhere I proposed the suggestion of an official "Optional Rule" side bar and you made the suggestion that you simply add +10 to all wound results, effectively discarding the early part of the rule tables. Would that work for you? I'm not about go through all the tables right now, but I think that would eliminate pretty much all the problematic items (maybe the odd description still needs to be tweaked).

I apologise if the above comes across as confrontational. You've been very reasonable in putting forth a position that is quite extreme to some of us. (Mechanically, your games are going to put a lot of power in the hands of whoever wins initiative).

I'd fully support an optional side bar of the kind you suggested and it's a simple change that is easy to do.

Describing the wound effects as near-misses wouldn't solve the issue.

Sure, that autocannon makes more sense now. But suddenly you're hurt really bad by the near-miss of a fist from a small man?

The tables are never going to work as long as they attempt to describe many different weapons. The alternative is having 50 tables, and considering the whining (from myself, as well) so far about the amount we have to look up, that's hardly a solution.

I don't like the tables, but I don't think they are going anywhere, so I might as well point out what I think is flaws in the system that can be fixed without the complete rewrite of the damage that I would prefer.

I think you're going a little too hard into trying to pick knasserll's argument apart, and missing the point. Maybe the wound descriptions don't match with a "near miss" as knasserll's suggests it is, but the game effect does.

The game clearly intends to have a Wound 15 effect caused by a Melta-Gun to somehow not be a direct hit. We can argue back and forth about what the descriptions indicate and what they don't, but the design intent is pretty clear: People aren't supposed to die from the first couple hits, no matter what they're from. As with any RPG, when push comes to shove, it's up to the GM to justify this.

The system actually says that specific things happen. If these things doesn't happen, the system should not say that they do. If the first couple of hits are actually near-misses, then the game ought to be very quite specific about this. Having the descriptions directly contradict the game effects are going to cause confusion and seems very counterproductive.

1) I wouldn't have said the old system was perfect, but I didn't see that much of an issue with it. What was so clunky about it? And I am not personally sure that making it easy to fire and then go for cover is actually that good, as before you had to make much more of a choice of "Do I have cover, or do I fire and expose parts of myself?" Now you can do both, rendering that choice increasingly invalid. Ok, I will admit it streamlines the choice of "full-out attack" and "all out defence" as it is just a matter of how you spend your action points. Makes it a bit harder to manage NPCs though.

Granularity of action results in more choice.

Previously, the movement rules (which are, it should be remembered, just as important as the shooting ones - a combat without movement is just dull) basically shut down any attempt to both move and attack simultaneously - the movement you got if you chose to do anything else that turn was too small to actually be of any use.

This was more pronounced in DH1/RT/DW, as Full Auto as a full action was the superior choice in basically all situations. That changed with BC/OW, but moving and attacking was still a sub-par choice compared to aiming and shooting.

The action point system allows greater flexibility - the cost of Ab metres worth of movement has been halved (as has the cost of aiming), allowing you to cover more ground without completely removing the ability to do other things. In essence, characters have a greater range of functional choices each turn.

Meaningful choices are vitally important in any game. This version of the rules gives you more meaningful choices than the previous one did.

Granularity of action results in more choice.

Previously, the movement rules (which are, it should be remembered, just as important as the shooting ones - a combat without movement is just dull) basically shut down any attempt to both move and attack simultaneously - the movement you got if you chose to do anything else that turn was too small to actually be of any use.

This was more pronounced in DH1/RT/DW, as Full Auto as a full action was the superior choice in basically all situations. That changed with BC/OW, but moving and attacking was still a sub-par choice compared to aiming and shooting.

The action point system allows greater flexibility - the cost of Ab metres worth of movement has been halved (as has the cost of aiming), allowing you to cover more ground without completely removing the ability to do other things. In essence, characters have a greater range of functional choices each turn.

Meaningful choices are vitally important in any game. This version of the rules gives you more meaningful choices than the previous one did.

Yeah, although DW at least allowed for full auto and some movement. However move-shoot-move is normally a no-no in game-design. The result of move-shoot-move is that suppressive fire and/or delayed actions are a must to counter it. If that's what you want - alright. However, it's a point that hopefully has been considered. It makes for more tactical gameplay but also more complexity. Players need to understand and learn how to use it to their benefit and how to counter it (flanking, so that the enemy has no cover to hide behind from one angle of attack).

If an enemy can't be flanked, you will end up with static combat. Think old western shoot-outs from behind cover. Just sayin', not disputing the approach.

Alex

1. IMO, Action Points (essentially 4 quarter-turns) are a big improvement over Full Actions/Half Actions (2 half turns). Now a character can move, fire, move & go prone all in the same Turn. With Action Points a character can choose btw completely dedicating that Turn to an action or budgeting some of their Turn for Evading - or even multiple Evades. We always found Full/Half Actions to be clunky.
2. Dodge wasn't right. Attacker would roll a "3" on their To-Hit percentile roll, Target would only make their Dodge by 1 and negate the whole attack. Comparing Evade DoS against the Attack's DoS is superior and is a big change, because it comes up all the time. Moreover, I never liked that the 1e system essentially allowed you to Dodge no matter what a character was otherwise doing. Now in 2e, at least a character has to account for their Dodging (Evade) with Action Points.
3. Flamers with their auto-hit-but-you-can-try-to-Dodge were overpowered and a bit strange, falling outside the normal combat mechanic. One man's opinion.
4. There were WAY too many skills and too many tiny niche' skills (i.e. Blather) that needed to be rolled into another broader ones.
5. I like crunchy combat systems but DH could certainly get ponderous, "Okay, so your attack is +10, -20, +10...+10....right? Wait. How many +10's was that?"
6. I had more than one of my players ask me under what circumstances their best choice would be to use a Full Move vs. just Run for a short distance. Interesting question.
7. A character in DH 1e could have suffered multiple wounds and be in terrible shape but still be in a massive sword fight while carrying all 70lbs of their gear - all without any ramifications whatsoever. Yet they took one more shot & suddenly died. Sure, we just all shrugged and said "Pulp" (a.k.a. this isn't intended to be a historic reenactment) - but that doesn't mean it wasn't completely ridiculous.

1) I wouldn't have said the old system was perfect, but I didn't see that much of an issue with it. What was so clunky about it? And I am not personally sure that making it easy to fire and then go for cover is actually that good, as before you had to make much more of a choice of "Do I have cover, or do I fire and expose parts of myself?" Now you can do both, rendering that choice increasingly invalid. Ok, I will admit it streamlines the choice of "full-out attack" and "all out defence" as it is just a matter of how you spend your action points. Makes it a bit harder to manage NPCs though.

2) This was part of the way the game was designed. I am personally not convinced by this change to evading. Yes, it could be frustrating to have an awesome to hit roll spoiled by a dodge, but the number of reactions and their refresh at the beginning of the turn was an important part of the mechanics. It was the main method of survival, and was one of the major ways that huge damage weapons were balanced (your target dodging your one big attack made your one big attack a lot less scary). Now, I have to say I never really looked at a 03 as an big deal of a roll with a single shot weapon whenever I played, it was just "did I hit or not?" The fact that that attack got parried or dodged rather than one I just barely scored never bothered me. Making it an opposed test just balances it further in the favour of the attacker. I am also unclear what you mean by "no matter what the character is otherwise doing." The system presumes that characters are evading fire and attacks, and part of that was your one base reaction a turn (more as you got better at it). If someone was truly unaware then someone shouldn't have been able to dodge.

3) Erm... they didn't auto-hit. The roll-to-hit was just replaced by the opponent making an agility test instead. Then the target could dodge if they were still hit. At least that was until one of the FAQ answerers read the rules incorrectly and said you either dodged or made an agility to test to escape and couldn't dodge again... and then contradicted themselves in a later reply. The only real difference between flamers and other weapons is that 1) they target an area and can hit anyone in those area, and 2) the to-hit roll is replaced by an agility test.

4) That is a matter of personal choice and a design decision. The simple fact is that creeping around quietly (Silent Move) and following someone around while trying not to draw attention to yourself (Shadowing) are separate, different skills. ONe is the ability to avoid making noise, and the other is about making yourself seem innocuous so that even though the target can see you easily they won't pay any attention to you (all while keeping your eye on them). Just because one is good at one doesn't mean you are good at the other. However, it is likely that a character you want to be good at one you will likely to want to be good at another (as the "stealthy" archetype). If you presume that all players will choose both then yes, it make sense to combine them. However, it is not a given, and just depends on the style and tone of the game.

5) Hmm... I guess so. However, with experience most of the common ones became second nature. However, yes, I will agree this is a bit of a barrier for new players.

6) Full Move was not meant to be the move option for "when I move for my full turn". It was a measure for certain specific cases such as Tactical Movement etc, ie it was for when you were moving more than a walk, but were still being careful about your surroundings. Run was what you should be using if you were just getting from one place to the next.

7) Ok, yeah. Didn't bother me that much. It was a straight up HP system, with some interesting stuff happening for the last few hit points. As the HP never got totally out of hand, and damage always remained quite high in relation to HP, it didn't bother me. This newer system actually feels odder, partially because of the fact that it doesn't really get rid of HP, just it replaces them with about 5, and each damaging hit does 1 HP, with some special effects, and you cannot normally die for the first few hits, no matter how many you suffer. It's a strange halfway house, which I personally doesn't add that much more over the original system. Unless really tanking it up, or there were utterly miserable damage rolls, it usually took between 2-8 hits to kill someone anyway, and it generally involved less faffing around than this one did.

Also, just bearing on what others have said: the effects of an attack in the new system will often lack weight. See the Autocannon. Yes, it will get higher up the track on the wound effect, but if it doesn't kill, or inflict a critical, all it really means in the long run is a +5 on the new wound. This feels a hell of a lot less serious than suddenly going from 15 wounds to 3 (just a random number... fairly sure the original autocannon could kill a player in one shot if the damage rolls were average or slightly above), even if that drop from 15-3 doesn't actually impair your PCs fighting ability. The player knows the next hit from that weapon will pretty much certainly kill them. With the new system? Oh, they will have +5 on the next hit.

Good stuff borithan, good stuff.

1)

I'm with NO-1_H3r3 when he states nearby, "Granularity of action results in more choice", which is to say it has a positive effect in one of the holy grails of game design - Player Agency . I don't root for or against my players - whatever happens happens - but I want them to have the maximum ability to operate their PCs in my universe. More tactical choices are better than fewer tactical choices - which is why 4 quarter-actions are better than 2-half actions. (I.e. It doesn't take 2.5 seconds to get up off the ground - but the Full/Half Action scheme said it did - clunky.)

2)

-- "I am also unclear what you mean by "no matter what the character is otherwise doing."

Being able to carefully Aim for your entire Turn at a target 200m away while at the very same time successfully Dodging out of the way of a sword attack and still getting full credit for a full turn of careful Aiming - and all of this within 5 seconds! DH isn't supposed to be a historical reenactment...but it's not supposed to be a cartoon-world, either.

--"Now, I have to say I never really looked at a 03 as an big deal of a roll with a single shot weapon whenever I played, it was just "did I hit or not?" Look at it this way, the PC's attack could have 7 DoS and the mook's Dodge had 1 DoS, but the mook is good to go. I guess your players had no problem with that, and that's fair enough - mine had a different reaction & I'm in their camp.

Dodge (Evade) is still a "main method of survival", as you say - nothing's changed that - but now the PCs are required to account for it in their small 5 second window by reserving 1+ Action Points for it or not. It's completely up to them, which gets back to players making choices. If they want to be able to dive out of the way of an Auto blast, then they don't get to Aim for the entire turn.

3)

-"The roll-to-hit was just replaced by the opponent making an agility test instead. Then the target could dodge if they were still hit."

Respectfully, that's just not the case. The rules clearly state, and even go into the narrative of why it's so, that Flamers don't have a To-Hit and all that remains is for a target to try their Dodge. Nowhere in RAW does it call for 2 consecutive Dodges for the target (not counting the separate AG Test to avoid being on fire). I think one would be hard pressed to explain why two consecutive Dodges even makes sense. As you say, FFG even clarified it for everyone in the Forum that what the rules actually state - no To-Hit and just a Dodge - is actually what they intended. It was clear on the Forum that a number of DH GM's seemed to assume that FFG intended 2 consecutive Dodges simply because Flamers would be badly overpowered otherwise (which I agree with) and understandably none too happy with FFG's answer. All the confusion was because most couldn't believe that Flamers were that out-of-whack. I suspect most GM's just House Rule'd Flamers. All of which is to say, Flamers have been a problem in DH.

4) "The simple fact is that creeping around quietly (Silent Move) and following someone around while trying not to draw attention to yourself (Shadowing) are separate, different skills."

The large number of skills would not uncommonly tend to thwart a player's best efforts of what he wanted his PC to be good at. "Your high-Fellowship-with-Charm-Mastery character is extremely charming & engaging - but you didn't take Blather? Oh bummer, Blather's an Advanced Skill so you have absolutely no chance of distracting the bartender." Of course, I could hand-wave that ridiculousness but I'd be hand-waving because of a problem with the system.

5) It had a recurring tendency to slow down combat, whether the players were experienced or new.

6) "It was a measure for certain specific cases such as Tactical Movement etc, ie it was for when you were moving more than a walk, but were still being careful about your surroundings. Run was what you should be using if you were just getting from one place to the next."

That's the narrative explanation for what a Full Move is for and what you said sounds good. But I was referring to when is it mechanically & practically called for given DH's system. Under what set of circumstances does a player, given the system's rules & modifiers for various types of movement, obviously decide Full Action is the specific action he should use? I would suggest that's not easily answered. Mechanically there's not much point to a player choosing it.

7) "Didn't bother me that much. It was a straight up HP system, with some interesting stuff happening for the last few hit points."

Yes, indeed, DH 1e is not alone among RPGs in having no ramifications for badly wounded characters wearing 70lbs of gear engaging in sword fights. Simply stated, I'd prefer that a system provide ramifications for badly wounded characters trying to perform very strenuous acts. YMMV. A character having to switch to his offhand because of a first hit disabling his primary hand, for example, I find a desirable type of feature in combat. That wouldn't happen in 1e unless the arm is pretty much coming off and the character pretty much dying or bleeding out. In 1e, irrespective of wounds, you're either in tip-top fighting condition or you're dead/close-to-dead.

2e is striving to do this better. As you point out, whether using +5 for any previous Wound is the right parameter is an open question - and that's the reason for having a Public Beta and having a Beta Forum, of course.

"Also, just bearing on what others have said: the effects of an attack in the new system will often lack weight."

You may very well be right - and that's the purpose of the forum. I personally am thinking the right path is to simply use the damage incurred as the accruing Wound Modifier. If a character took 1 point of damage than the next attack will be a perfectly represented +1 on the Wound Effect table. If a character took 21 points of damage then the next attack will be a perfectly represented +21 on the Wound Effect table. This would fix both nicks being reflected too much and large hits being reduced too much.

Good stuff borithan, good stuff.

Also, just bearing on what others have said: the effects of an attack in the new system will often lack weight. See the Autocannon. Yes, it will get higher up the track on the wound effect, but if it doesn't kill, or inflict a critical, all it really means in the long run is a +5 on the new wound. This feels a hell of a lot less serious than suddenly going from 15 wounds to 3 (just a random number... fairly sure the original autocannon could kill a player in one shot if the damage rolls were average or slightly above), even if that drop from 15-3 doesn't actually impair your PCs fighting ability. The player knows the next hit from that weapon will pretty much certainly kill them. With the new system? Oh, they will have +5 on the next hit.

This just isn't true, and I've seen a lot of arguments to this effect.

An average damage roll from an Autocannon (which is an extreme example, I agree in advance - but you brought it up) will, against a completely unwounded target (PC/Master) with TB 4 (let's ignore armour completely, since the Pen will most likely tear it apart anyway), hit a 17 (10+5.5+5.5-4) on the wound chart.

Limb : Ballistic Decay (1d10) [possibly not so big a deal], and the limb is Crippled for 3-7 rounds [probably the rest of the fight, at this rate]. If that's an arm, that character can now only use light weapons - hope they got one. If it's a leg, they're not going to be moving much. Chances are he'll have to spend all his AP to get into cover.

Body : Body Armour's status is reduced by 1 [probably not a big deal, since we were penetrating that anyway - but it could matter], the target is knocked Prone [an AP sink, which is going to matter because..] and unless he passes a -10 Strength test, he's Dazed for DoF rounds [which would halve his AP - he'll now only have 1 left after standing up]. That character's next turn is probably worthless. He better be near cover.

Head : 2 Fatigue [might very well matter, depending on current condition - Fatigue is deadly], Intelligence Decay (1d5+1) [okay, probably not a big deal] and he must pass a Toughness test -20 (!) or be Stunned (!!) for DoF rounds. That's going to kill him. Unless he has an ally that will drag him to safety, he's as good as dead if doesn't pass that (very difficult) Toughness test.

And that's assuming the character isn't wounded. Put just a single Wound on him beforehand and he's in major trouble.

It's also worth noting that the Autocannon gets 2 shots per AP spent. You're likely to put a lot of bullets in your target, further increasing your odds of a good damage roll.

EDIT: And we haven't even considered the frightening effect an Autocannon has of setting up a target for instant death: With base damage that high, every hit is going to cause a Wound (even with TB 9 and Power Armour, rolling snake eyes for damage to the body). Spend 3 AP on that with a decent Ballistic Skill and the target is likely to have 6 Wounds on him. You could flick him to death now.

Maybe you want an Autocannon to kill in one hit, and I can sympathize with that. I don't agree (in an RPG setting), but I think it's a fair argument. I don't think it's fair to completely ignore what the Wound system actually does, though.

I think it's a hell of a lot more terrifying than going from 15 to 3 Wounds in DH1, which would be mostly pointless since my 50% chance to dodge would probably save my ass anyway.

It is incredibly stupid that an autocannon round can do all that damage to a person but not kill them, only for a punch to that person's thigh next round causing his leg to become a hand-grenade, though.

It is incredibly stupid that an autocannon round can do all that damage to a person but not kill them, only for a punch to that person's thigh next round causing his leg to become a hand-grenade, though.

Agreed, but that's a completely separate argument (and one that's easily fixed without throwing away the entire system).

It is incredibly stupid that an autocannon round can do all that damage to a person but not kill them, only for a punch to that person's thigh next round causing his leg to become a hand-grenade, though.

That's very similar to someone with high Wounds losing a whole bunch to a heavy weapon and feeling no ill-effects, and then suddenly someone punches them and they start going to pieces aka DH1. At least in the DH2 version, there are likely effects before that incrementally building. Also you can feed into things narratively with very little effort. In the example we're talking about the character is dazed and stunned and if someone walks up to them whilst they're still swaying and grabs them by the neck and slams them into a wall - yeah, they get their skull cracked and they die. That is pretty much what we're talking about - an autocannon hit and then an unarmed physical. But it sounds alright, doesn't it? Even the specific example you gave - a leg hit, I can make that work pretty easily. You spot a piece of sharp shell casing from the autocannon embedded in their thigh. Grabbing it you push it in further / yank it downwards slicing open their leg. As the arteries spill out, you produce the "shower of blood and gore" described in the Impact Limb result.

There's a basic choice here - FFG produce the world's largest role-playing book, or GMs exercise a very small amount of descriptive freedom adjusting the wound effects occasionally as needed. It even prompts you to do this in some places, though really, if you shoot someone from behind and the result says it hits you in the forehead, then I do not believe that any GM here should have a problem altering that flavour text in a tiny way as needed. So I don't see big problems doing so anywhere else. And I want to keep the existing wound descriptions because they are useful to me in a way that a bland mechanical listing would not be.

There's a basic choice here - FFG produce the world's largest role-playing book, or GMs exercise a very small amount of descriptive freedom adjusting the wound effects occasionally as needed. It even prompts you to do this in some places, though really, if you shoot someone from behind and the result says it hits you in the forehead, then I do not believe that any GM here should have a problem altering that flavour text in a tiny way as needed. So I don't see big problems doing so anywhere else. And I want to keep the existing wound descriptions because they are useful to me in a way that a bland mechanical listing would not be.

You really nailed it here. To account for every situation, we'd either be looking at very vague rules, or a ******* lot of rules. I prefer the happy medium we've got at the moment.

That's very similar to someone with high Wounds losing a whole bunch to a heavy weapon and feeling no ill-effects, and then suddenly someone punches them and they start going to pieces aka DH1.

Like the DH1 Lascannon, you mean? Or the Multi-Melta? The Plasma-Cannon?

Anyway, that doesnt mean that DH1 didnt have its problems. If you compare the Heavy Bolter, for example, to later publications or 2.0, you'll see a ramp up relative to other weapons.

There's a basic choice here - FFG produce the world's largest role-playing book, or GMs exercise a very small amount of descriptive freedom adjusting the wound effects occasionally as needed. It even prompts you to do this in some places, though really, if you shoot someone from behind and the result says it hits you in the forehead, then I do not believe that any GM here should have a problem altering that flavour text in a tiny way as needed. So I don't see big problems doing so anywhere else. And I want to keep the existing wound descriptions because they are useful to me in a way that a bland mechanical listing would not be.

Agreed on the latter, it hint at the approximate wound level intended. So it's a helpful guide.

However, you are ignoring the fact that the system links a state (foot wound) mechanically to an occuring, unrelated event (head exploding). This is much more pronounced in the current system than in DH 1.0.

So for correct modeling every wound would have to take effect independently of other wounds (maybe even insta death) and would then require a mechanical linking to other effects. But it would not need a billion descriptions. For an example how this can be done, I refer you over to the Harnmaster system (fantasy but still works).

Alex

It is incredibly stupid that an autocannon round can do all that damage to a person but not kill them, only for a punch to that person's thigh next round causing his leg to become a hand-grenade, though.

That's very similar to someone with high Wounds losing a whole bunch to a heavy weapon and feeling no ill-effects, and then suddenly someone punches them and they start going to pieces aka DH1. At least in the DH2 version, there are likely effects before that incrementally building. Also you can feed into things narratively with very little effort. In the example we're talking about the character is dazed and stunned and if someone walks up to them whilst they're still swaying and grabs them by the neck and slams them into a wall - yeah, they get their skull cracked and they die. That is pretty much what we're talking about - an autocannon hit and then an unarmed physical. But it sounds alright, doesn't it? Even the specific example you gave - a leg hit, I can make that work pretty easily. You spot a piece of sharp shell casing from the autocannon embedded in their thigh. Grabbing it you push it in further / yank it downwards slicing open their leg. As the arteries spill out, you produce the "shower of blood and gore" described in the Impact Limb result.

There's a basic choice here - FFG produce the world's largest role-playing book, or GMs exercise a very small amount of descriptive freedom adjusting the wound effects occasionally as needed. It even prompts you to do this in some places, though really, if you shoot someone from behind and the result says it hits you in the forehead, then I do not believe that any GM here should have a problem altering that flavour text in a tiny way as needed. So I don't see big problems doing so anywhere else. And I want to keep the existing wound descriptions because they are useful to me in a way that a bland mechanical listing would not be.

Yes, well put knasserll. We've all been playing with a system (1e) that was pretty terrible at this. DH 1e combat had you behaving in tip-top physical condition even though you were heavily wounded and wearing 70lbs of gear. Then you went from diving, rolling & sword fighting with zero ramifications - to dead from a moderate amount of damage.

This is a great opportunity to keep crunching to get 2e as right as possible, but it's still useful to assert at this point that, in this particular aspect, there's a good case that 2e is already better than 1e (we just got used to it in 1e). Still needs work but it's better than what we've all already have been using.

Another good point you make, is it's perfectly realistic and reasonable for a character to take a blast, be near death & to be finished off by a moderate amount more damage. That's realistic, not un realistic. A lot has been made about this in this thread and on this forum - but I don't think it's something we should be trying to fix.

If anything, it's simply the Wound descriptions that are in question for this. I'm okay with discussing how to make the Wound Effect tables more accurate, but everyone has to admit that to try to have them describe every possible situation accurately is a very tall task.

I actually find more compelling the question of whether +5 for every previous Wound suffered of any size is the best number to use. There's a case to be made that it makes the lasting effects of small wounds too big and big wounds too small. I'm still captured by the notion of making the cumulative Wound Modifier the amount of damage actually taken: +1 future Wound Effect Table modifier for 1 point of damage taken and +15 future Wound Effect Table modifier for 15 points of damage taken. This way would perfectly represent the size of the wound.

It's worth noting that this is the way that 1e handled multiple Critical Wound effects and I thought it worked quite well. In 1e, if a character suffered damage resulting in a "2" on a Critical Wound table, they suffered that result on the table and the next wound suffered would get a +2 to the next damage result on the Critical Wound table. The +2 exactly represented the "2" they had before on the table. Simple & perfectly representing where on the table they were before.