I am completely aware that Dark Heresy is not supposed to be exactly like the 40k miniature game. The themes and ideal mechanics of a role-playing game is not similar to a miniature war game. Likewise, the setting details does not have to be completely identical. A shooting fase in the wargame could present several rounds of combat in the RPG, and a "dead" model in the wargame may just be severely wounded or unconscious. However, I think it is a problem when the mechanics used in Dark Heresy to model the signature weapons of the setting causes the weapons and armors to be barely recogniceable. For instance:

Bolter: this is an armor-piercing micro-missile launcher. It has a 67% chance of killing or disanling a veteran imperial guard soldier in the wargame. It easily dispatches orks, and even have a 17% chance of killing a fully armored space marine. In DH it needs 4-6 hits to be able to kill the same imperial guard, if he is unarmored (disregarding an extremely unlikely streak of critical hits).

Plasma gun: this weapon fires superheated plasma capeable of destroying tanks and APCs. It kills space marines with frightening ease (83% chance). The weapon becomes so hot that it can kill or disable a space marine who fires it (33% chance if it overheats). In DH it is unlikely to kill an unarmored man with 3 hits.

Meltagun: this weapon is practically able to destroy anything. It kills space marines as easily as a plasma gun, is almost incapeable of not severely damaging a dreadnought that is hit by it, and is even quite capeable of damaging and eventually destroying an enourmous titan weighing millions of kilos. In DH it is unlikely to kill an unarmored man with 2 hits.

Power armor: this armor is capeable of stopping the main cannon of a tank more often than not 67%). It reliably protects against heavy bolters, heavy flamers, and alot of other heavy weapons. In DH it barely increases survivability against anything but the least damaging weapons. In the majority of cases an armor does not do much to increase survivability if it does not completely prevent a wound. It is a great way to prevent damage from auto-pistols, however.

I think this disparity is a major problem. It seems silly that all these tank-killing super weapons may have less stopping power than a 9mm pistol would have in real life. It ruins suspension of disbelief, and makes the combat system unbelieveable.

You shouldn't apply the normal wound tables to unnammed/example characters. If they don't have a name, don't have a fated existence, and are not an "impressive" character by 40k terms, they're a novice.

A boltgun will guaranteeably kill an unarmed man in two hits, most likely one solid hit. TB 3 or 4 means that 6-8 damage will cause instant death.

PCs represent "fated" characters in the setting, and are therefore "lucky" enough to only get winged by most attacks. The damage models PCs use shouldn't be used to indicate how the setting at large works.

I know, but most important characters are elites or masters, and thus "fated" to only be grazed by the first 3-5 hits in each and every combat. Even a dumb-muscle heavy thug is an elite. It does not make sense, and it in no way reflect the supposed lethality of the weapons IMHO.

Additionally, if hits are supposed to represent near-misses most of the time, the words used to describe the game mechanics should reflect this. If not, the game runs the risk of bring misinterpreted. Just like D&D and hit points, where you could easily be let to believe that a high level fighter can take several sword blows to the head and be basicly unaffected.

I am completely aware that Dark Heresy is not supposed to be exactly like the 40k miniature game. The themes and ideal mechanics of a role-playing game is not similar to a miniature war game. Likewise, the setting details does not have to be completely identical. A shooting fase in the wargame could present several rounds of combat in the RPG, and a "dead" model in the wargame may just be severely wounded or unconscious. However, I think it is a problem when the mechanics used in Dark Heresy to model the signature weapons of the setting causes the weapons and armors to be barely recogniceable. For instance:

Bolter: this is an armor-piercing micro-missile launcher. It has a 67% chance of killing or disanling a veteran imperial guard soldier in the wargame. It easily dispatches orks, and even have a 17% chance of killing a fully armored space marine. In DH it needs 4-6 hits to be able to kill the same imperial guard, if he is unarmored (disregarding an extremely unlikely streak of critical hits).

Plasma gun: this weapon fires superheated plasma capeable of destroying tanks and APCs. It kills space marines with frightening ease (83% chance). The weapon becomes so hot that it can kill or disable a space marine who fires it (33% chance if it overheats). In DH it is unlikely to kill an unarmored man with 3 hits.

Meltagun: this weapon is practically able to destroy anything. It kills space marines as easily as a plasma gun, is almost incapeable of not severely damaging a dreadnought that is hit by it, and is even quite capeable of damaging and eventually destroying an enourmous titan weighing millions of kilos. In DH it is unlikely to kill an unarmored man with 2 hits.

Power armor: this armor is capeable of stopping the main cannon of a tank more often than not 67%). It reliably protects against heavy bolters, heavy flamers, and alot of other heavy weapons. In DH it barely increases survivability against anything but the least damaging weapons. In the majority of cases an armor does not do much to increase survivability if it does not completely prevent a wound. It is a great way to prevent damage from auto-pistols, however.

I think this disparity is a major problem. It seems silly that all these tank-killing super weapons may have less stopping power than a 9mm pistol would have in real life. It ruins suspension of disbelief, and makes the combat system unbelieveable.

A few general points. Firstly, removing a character in Table Top does not necessarily mean they are dead. Incapacitated, spending the rest of the battle hiding behind a hedge because they've got a serious leg wound. So that should be taken into account when you compare a "death" in TT with an injury in DH. TT doesn't want to have to track that miniature X now has a missing left hand and is having to fire their lasgun with their offhand whilst taking a penalty due to the pain. In fact, it can't. So you just pull them from the board. That's one source of the resilience in DH.

But also, I think your numbers might be slightly off in a couple of cases. You mention the 67% chance of removal of the IG trooper with a Boltgun vs. the 4-6 hits it takes in DH. Well again, TT doesn't want to track damage from round to round but that miss in the first round could easily be partial damage and then the hit in the second round, could be what finishes the trooper off. Really you need to compare not the probability per round, but the average length of rounds it takes to finish someone off, therefore. At 1/3 chance of hitting, the average length of time taken would be 1.5 rounds. In 1.5 rounds in DH, (without running the numbers) getting 4 hits in with a Bolter if all you're doing is shooting at someone, doesn't sound wrong to me.

Along the same lines, when you talk about Plasma weapons are you using the versions in the latest update? Because a plasma pistol doing average damage (you can forget about armour) can easily do around 15 points. That's fairly nasty and if they've already got a wound or two... Plus if you go all out, you can get two hits with it.

Meltagun is even worse! Pen of 12 basically disregards armour (we haven't seen Terminator armour) and does 1d10+16(E). If you keep in mind that with the movement distances from TT and the single attack rolls of automatic weapons like Bolters clearly indicate that a round in TT is equivalent to multiple rounds in DH (which is more detailed), then that Melta shot in TT becomes near certainty of death over a few shots in DH and a decent chance of taking an opponent out of the fight in one shot once they have even a trivial amount of pre-existing damage.

I am not really quite sure where we disagree on the numbers.

(Yes I use the weapon stats from the upgrade).

We both mention that "death" in the wargame is not necessarily death.

We both mention that plasma weapons is only likely to be lethal against a target with two or more wounds, thus needing three hits to kill in most cases. And that a meltagun is incapeable of killing an unwounded target, thus needing two hits to kill.

Where we disagree, if I understand you correctly, is whether it is plausible that a unhurt and relatively normal person (a PC, or elite/master npc with toughness 30) in no armor cannot be killed or knocked unconscious by a shot from a weapon frequently used to detroy tanks and 100+ feet tall titans.

a unhurt and relatively normal person (a PC, or elite/master npc with toughness 30)

That's where people are disagreeing with you. A relatively normal person is a Novice NPC, not Elite or Master. The PCs are not relatively normal, they have been chosen by fate and are the Protagonists of the story that is being told. The heavy weapons will vaporize pretty much any Novice NPC. Many of the Weapons have between a 20 and 51% chance of instantly vaporizing an Elite NPC. Let's.....look at the numbers!

Plasmagun shooting an Elite Guardsman NPC in the body (We'll say Flak Armour and Toughness 40)

Deals between 3 and 30 damage, 27% chance of vaporizing him instantly. Average damage is 16.5, so the Guardsman is gaining a Fatigue and may be weakened. If he's hit a second time, he faces another 27% chance of death and an average hit will cause him to lose Willpower and possibly be set ablaze.

Meltagun shooting an Elite Guardsman NPC in the body

Deals between 17 and 26 damage, 10% chance of vaporizing him instantly. Average damage is 21.5, so the Guardsman would lose Willpower and possibly be set ablaze on an average hit, with a second hit automatically setting him on fire, giving him probably a 95% chance of falling unconscious (assuming his Agility is 35) and costing him permanent willpower. That guardsman is probably going to burn to death in his sleep.

So what do these number tell us? If you make the pretty good assumption that one round in the tabletop represents a few rounds in Dark Heresy (or just go with the fact that a single soldier in DH is going to be worth more narrative weight than a single soldier in the tabletop, and will thus be stronger), these numbers work out pretty well. The plasma rifle has a chance of wreaking massive havoc, or dealing strong damage. The meltagun is a more reliable damage dealer. Both of the weapons are distinguished in that way. The plasma gun is a gamblers weapon, and the meltagun is the reliable one.

Doesn't the elite guardsman subtract toughness from damage? Or has that been changed?

I think that the elites presented are relatively normal persons. But even a master, such as an Apex Prince or Crime lord, should not be able to automatically stay conscious after a point-blank hit from an anti-tank weapon. I also think that 10% is way to small a chance to disable or kill an elite heavy thug or preacher with a shot from a meltagun.

I know it is a matter of taste, but it makes very little sense to me. If this "destined by fate" thing is supposed to explain why pc's and master characters can survive just about any punishment, it should be way more transparent from the system that this is what is happening. For instance by linking the pc's ability to ignore the first couple of hits from deadly weapons to their fate points. When you hit someone with 4 degrees of succes, they fail to dodge and you roll all 9's on the damage dice, it is not that obvious that you actually only grazed your target.

I was subtracting toughness when listing out the effects caused on the damage table, but I didn't specifically mention it. Again, although the elites presented may seem like normal people, they are given enough plot weight to have a full wound table. I think it's a pretty easy fix to just treat them as novices if you want them to die more easily.

And I'm not seeing where you're getting that PCs or Masters are ignoring the effects of deadly weapons, as I just posted the average effect they'll have on the Wound Tables. Wouldn't the old Wound system allow players to ignore heavy damage even more so until they were dropped to the criticals?

To be fair, I am of the thinking that the errata's change for novice NPCs should actually be broadened to mean that any hit exceeding twice the defence score should be a critical wound. This would mean that even elite NPCs die to stronger weaponry.

Which leaves only master npcs and PCs as being able to "survive" these sorts of hits. That said, you really do need to understand just how bad certain conditions can be. A high rating Blood Loss condition could easily be a death sentance if the party can't get to you and heal you. And remember, a fatigued agility reasults in longer to perform staunch bleeding actions, which results in fewer attempts.

Having read a bit more closely the damage tables, I am of the thinking that the majority of characters will pass out most of the time, and a larger number than expected deaths will result from 2 * (TB + WP) fatigue points being accumulated.

True, the critical effects can be bad, but I don't think they in any way resemble plausible effects from being hit, or even grazed, by an anti-tank weapon. (I did not like the damage ratings in first edition either).

If the system is supposed to offer narrative-protection to important characters, I think the bar is too low when elites are included, and I would rather just play a dedicated narrative system than this weird simulationist/narrative mix. Especially in a game that I would prefer to run as a horror/investigation game. narrative-protection from harm and horror does rarely mix well mix in my opinion. But again thats clearly a matter of taste.

I think that the problem with making Dark Heresy into a Horror/Investigation themed game is that it's at odds with the source material, and at odds with the weapons and combat rules. Not very horrific when the evil chaos gods are cartoonish caricatures and people are walking around with handheld rocket launchers. The setting is a gonzo one, and the rules should reflect that. You can play it as a more straight-laced investigation game, but I think there are better settings to do scifi/horror with (do not even mention CthuluTech). I think a lot of people are forgetting the fact that "grimdark" is a comedy term that emphasizes how hyperbolic the setting is. I mean, look at the word: Grimdark . Of course PCs are able to shrug off anti-tank weaponry sometimes, because that is awesome . Here's the thing about having anti-tank weapons used in anti-personnel roles: it rarely happens in reality. It's a waste to use a rocket launcher against a single person, or even a group of people. The weapons being given in the corebook are all pretty much meant to be used in anti-personnel roles, and their stats are made to reflect that. If an actual anti-vehicle weapon was used against a human target, the result would be "okay, I don't roll for damage because you're dead." So what can be done when the anti-personnel weapons in the setting double as anti-tank weapons? What do you do in a setting where the weapons are designed around being able to kill vast swathes of soldiers instantly? The weapons get downgraded because the scale of the game is different. I will do some houserules of the weapons to reflect their actual anti-vehicle abilities:

Plasma Weapons

Damage: If the weapon hits, the target is vaporized by fire unless he is wearing power armour or in a vehicle.

Melta Weapons

Damage: If the weapon hits, the target is melted into ashes unless he is wearing power armour or in a vehicle.

Bolt Weapons

Damage: If the weapon hits, the target explodes, unless he is wearing power armour or in a vehicle.

You can use these stats to reflect the tabletop rules.

I wouldn't mind a cinematic, gonzo 40K game with larger than life heroes plowing through the enemies of the imperium, and shrugging of missiles hitting them in the head, just 'cause they are that awesome. It is, however, not the feel I get from the book, and I don't think that's what they are going for. Just look at the relatively low stats a starting character has. It may fit a desperate acolyte in a loosing battle against the enemies of the emperor, but comes no where near a gonzo action hero. The only really impressive power a starting character has, is an incredible ability to stay alive.

For example, I just rolled up this test combat. My character, an elderly scribe with three fate points and a very low toughness and agility of 27, has somehow been attacked by a master chaos cultist armed with a plasma gun. Let's just say that the cultist hits every time he shoots and the scribe never succesfully dodges, anything else would just increase the survival of the scribe.

Round 1:

The cultist shoots and hits the scribe in the leg for (1+7+9 -2TB) 15 damage. He gets a fatigue, looses some agility points, and he gets a wound. He then uses a fate point to remove the wound.

Round 2:

The scribe is hit again, this time in the head. He gets 8 damage (3+3+4-2TB). Nothing happens, but he gets a wpound, and removes it with a fate point.

Round 3:

The scribe is hit in the body for 22 damage (7+7+10-2TB). He uses his last fate point to reroll the dice and gets 14 damage instead (4+5+6-2TB). He looses a couple of willpower points, takes a wound, but makes his willpower roll.

Round 4:

The scribe is hit in the arm for 13 damage (1+3+6-2TB+5 for a wound). He gets another wound, but nothing else happens.

Round 5:

He is hit in the leg for 26 damage (3+5+10-2TB+10 for wounds). His leg explodes sending bone splinters everywhere, the scribe starts burning, and he gets a critical wound. He is, however, still going strong after five hits from a plasma gun.

Round 6:

Messy death.

Had he not used any fate points, he wold have died in round three, due to the very high damage roll, and two previous wounds.

But even a master, such as an Apex Prince or Crime lord, should not be able to automatically stay conscious after a point-blank hit from an anti-tank weapon

If the roll on the Wound table doesn't say they've been hit full in the face with the full power of the weapon, but says that the beam "scours a furrow through their armour, scorching the limb underneath", then that is what has happened. Your chief problem, as I see it, is setting your statement of what a hit means above what the rules state it is. Nothing in the rules or descriptions state that someone has been hit point-blank full on from an anti-tank weapon just because "a" hit has been achieved. A hit in rules terms just means some damage. The decision that "hit" means full on direct shot is all you. There isn't a problem with flavour here, it's that you want to apply a different flavour than what the rules state. The ability of a Master enemy to survive a first shot isn't saying that they took a missile to the chest and shrugged it off, it's saying that you don't get to hit them square in the chest with a missile on your first attempt.

Now you can like that or not as a game effect, but it is not a flavour problem that causes problems in describing the effects.

Then the system is also saying that you can never hit a master or pc with the full power of the weapon on the first attack. And for most weapons, you are unable to do so for first 3-4 attacks in a row in each and every combat. And thereafter you hit with full power almost automaticly. This could make sense from time to time, but not every time a weapon is fired against a non-novice character, in my opinion. But this is a whole other discussion.

I'd imagine that most GMs and most players would be pretty relieved by this solution to "oh god the player just got one-shotted now what" or "oh god the big bad NPC I'd planned/final boss battle just got torn to pieces instantly now what" situation. If a player gets lucky with the Plasma Gun and rolls 30 damage, he's looking at melting off the NPCs face/knocking him unconscious/melting off a limb, assuming 40-59 Toughness. That's pretty brutal, and either takes the NPC out of the fight or leaves him little choice but to run away. If the Meltagun gets a lucky 10 on damage he's looking at setting the target on fire in various awful ways. For almost any of the 20+ wound results, the character injured would be considered taken out of the fight, or would be best served running away. Novices and Elites are prone to being 1-shotted. Master NPCs are not because they have plot armor, and this is a game where you are telling a story. The same thing goes for the PCs. Your adept (who is lucky enough to have 3 Fate Points) is a player keen on staying in the story. In round 1, he is working with 1 Fatigue, and 7 or 8 less Agility on average. In Round 2, the machine spirits of the Plasma Gun fail the cultist (thematic!) and it barely does any damage. Round 3 the player loses some willpower, and is making an Agility test on his already reduced Agility (your adept got lucky on this roll!). The player has spent all of his plot armor, now. Round 4 the Machine Spirits fail the cultist again with a bad roll. By the end of Round 5 the adept is not really "going strong" given that his agility has taken a pretty huge hit, he's permanently slowed, he's getting -20 to any tests using his leg, and he's on fire (good luck putting that out with his bad agility now!).

For some reason I rolled willpower and not agility in round three, so the scibe would have failed the roll, cought fire, and would have been dead a round earlier. It's still way too much plot-armor for my taste.

Anyways, it is clear that a "hit" is not necessarily always a shot between the eyes or center-mass of the body, and what really happens is described in the critical tables. On an average body damage roll against an unwounded target with toughness 35, this is the effect for specific weapons:

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.

These are not desciptions of near-misses.

Another likely outcome of a hit from an autocannon in the head is: the shot smashes into the target's forehead, and his skull creaks under the pressure. This is a hit from a weapon used to destroy light tanks.

I could easily just ignore the description, but I still think it in no way represent a plausible outcome, even with plot protection, and sometimes at least a "hit" is actually a hit, but with a very limited effect, so it's not just me applying the wrong flavour compared to what the rules state.

Yeah, they want it that way. They think it's more fun/interesting if damage has to build up until the final kill shot.

Alex

Obviously my preferences differ. However, I can easily accept arguments, such as "To hell with plausibility, we want to include iconic weapons such as plasma guns and meltaguns, but we do not want their damage potential to reflect the fluff, since that would be far to deadly".

A plot-armor is a descent way to solve that problem. I just wish that the plot-armor part of the game were more transparent. The wound tables is the most important part of the damage system, and they do not (IMHO) reinforce the " the first "hits" are all near-misses" interpretation of the mechanics. Even many of the "10 or lower" effects are not just near-misses. The wound-tables are filled with evocative and exciting descriptions that make some (cinematic) sense for low-damage weapons, but makes no sense at all for high-damage weapons. The average wound from a sniper-rifle bullet to the head is " The 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 ." (unwounded TB3). I am pretty sure that my players (or myself, if I were the player) would be pretty sad, if this was all the damage that he/she was able to do with a well-placed sniper-shot to the head of a cult leader. NPC plot armor could easily be quite frustrating to the players.

I would prefer that the lethality of all weapons were increased, but can accept the presence of plot-armor. However, this plot armor needs to be reflected in the mechanics, and especially in the wound tables, if it is to be in any way believable.

Not meaning to trivialize, but if someone fires a plasma gun at someone and somehow manages to score a 5 on the wound table, I will just say: "you manage to avoid the full superheated charge, but a small blob of plasma splashes against your chest armour, causing your chest hair to singe and skin to blister, even through your carapace armour."

Minor fluff improvisation is easy for me to do, but separate wound tables for all the different weapons would be hard for FFG to do.

I would do the same thing. It's the only way for the damage tables to make sense for most weapons. However, this would actually be the case where we apply a different flavour than what the rules state (as you mention above). Not that there is anything wrong with that, I would just prefer not having to do it as often.

Not meaning to trivialize, but if someone fires a plasma gun at someone and somehow manages to score a 5 on the wound table, I will just say: "you manage to avoid the full superheated charge, but a small blob of plasma splashes against your chest armour, causing your chest hair to singe and skin to blister, even through your carapace armour."

Minor fluff improvisation is easy for me to do, but separate wound tables for all the different weapons would be hard for FFG to do.

This.

I think I mentioned it elsewhere, but I'm likely to do away with the crit table descriptions all together. I prefer describing the hit (or having the players describe it, when they know the result) so it fits the situation. Otherwise it gets stale, with everyone reading the same paragraphs aloud all the time.

I know the crit descriptions are sort of a staple of 40k RPGs now, but I honestly think they're doing the game a disservice. I'll be making my own charts that only list the effects, to save space and make looking things up quicker.

One solution to this lethality issue might be to remove the 0-10 'you get a wound but nothing else happens' table. Let's return to your cartoonishly lucky scribe with this (assuming all the same rolls, etc.)

Round 1

The cultist, with a cackle of fiendish laughter, opens fire and hits the scribe in the leg for a 15E Wound Effect (25E in the 1-10 still there system). The heat of the attack boils the marrow in his limb, exploding shards of bone into his body - his leg is Crippled, and he gains the Burning (5) condition. His Agility is permanently reduced to 22. Being a cunning soul the scribe spends a Fate Point to ignore the wound (basically retconning so 'it's only a scratch'). On his Turn he receives the effect of Burning and takes a 3E (13E) wound effect to his Leg, and he is Immobilised for 2 Rounds. He spends a Fate Point to remove the wound.

Round 2

Annoyed at his poor luck, the cultist fires again for an 8E (18E on the old table) effect. Assuming he struck in the Body, the scribe's Burning condition increases to 7. He spends his last Fate Point to ignore the wound again (more 'it's only a scratch). On his Turn, though, he receives a 5E (15E on old table) effect. The scribe suffers 1 Fatigue and 13 Agility Decay - more importantly he suffers a wound he can't remove.

Round 3

The cultist, furious it is taking this long due to the scribe's LUCK (Fate Points ARE luck, remember?), hits the scribe in the body for a 27E effect (37 in the old system). The scribe is carbonised, melted down to the bones, and the sight is so horrifying the cultist runs away screaming maniacally.

If the scribe hadn't spent Fate Points (i.e. - luck) then he probably would have died on the 2nd shot. As it is, he died in under 20 seconds of game time while expending what favour he had with the fates. Seems reasonable to me.

Not meaning to trivialize, but if someone fires a plasma gun at someone and somehow manages to score a 5 on the wound table, I will just say: "you manage to avoid the full superheated charge, but a small blob of plasma splashes against your chest armour, causing your chest hair to singe and skin to blister, even through your carapace armour."

Minor fluff improvisation is easy for me to do, but separate wound tables for all the different weapons would be hard for FFG to do.

This.

I think I mentioned it elsewhere, but I'm likely to do away with the crit table descriptions all together. I prefer describing the hit (or having the players describe it, when they know the result) so it fits the situation. Otherwise it gets stale, with everyone reading the same paragraphs aloud all the time.

I know the crit descriptions are sort of a staple of 40k RPGs now, but I honestly think they're doing the game a disservice. I'll be making my own charts that only list the effects, to save space and make looking things up quicker.

I think a lot of people will end up where you are (and can I have a copy of those tables when you're done, please? ), but I think they're really useful for newbies like myself at the start to help see how it can be done and give us imagination-fodder. I like them being there for now.

One solution to this lethality issue might be to remove the 0-10 'you get a wound but nothing else happens' table. Let's return to your cartoonishly lucky scribe with this (assuming all the same rolls, etc.)

This time the combat makes a lot more sense.

The thing is that it would be quite easy to achieve my preferred level of lethality by just using houserules or a whole other RPG system. I think "just use houserules or improvise" is a valid argument if I asked for a way to make the game work for me. However, in this beta test phase, I think that the primary objective should be to make changes to the written rules.

If I am the only one having a problem with the weapons lethality (and low level of protection provided by a power armor - though we haven't really discussed that), as seems to be the case from the few other participants in this thread, there is no reason to change the rules as they are now.