Alas, it's not the road FFG seems to travel as it is intended to gear combat towards certain gaming aspects. Makes sense if you're aiming at supporting game sessions less than 5 hours, which in turn probably makes economic sense. For the hardcore gamers this tends to be rather kinda meh though.

Alex

Surely it is the other way around - increasing the deadliness of combat and chance of "insta-death" is going to decrease the length of sessions. When PCs die, we tend to have to stop the game, re-jig the adventure to make it still work, take long breaks or end the session for people to make up new characters and backstories... Your answers to your own questions such as chance of insta-death on an "above average roll" indicate a game with a high turnover. If I make three rolls, then statistically, one of them is likely to be above average.

I think that's a common theme with advocates of 'an above average roll' leads to serious effects. People need to keep in mind that even small chances become near certainties after a few iterations. If there's a 20% of someone dying from something, then the average number of times they can face that situation is three times (80% of it not happening, times 80% times 80% = 50% of it having happened after the third time).

I don't actually see anything in Kainus's post that is incompatible with your first post. It may be that you haven't got the point they're making.

That's because you lack credentials. Anyway:

", just assume average rolls for damage"

End of story.

Surely it is the other way around - increasing the deadliness of combat and chance of "insta-death" is going to decrease the length of sessions. When PCs die, we tend to have to stop the game, re-jig the adventure to make it still work, take long breaks or end the session for people to make up new characters and backstories... Your answers to your own questions such as chance of insta-death on an "above average roll" indicate a game with a high turnover. If I make three rolls, then statistically, one of them is likely to be above average.

I think that's a common theme with advocates of 'an above average roll' leads to serious effects. People need to keep in mind that even small chances become near certainties after a few iterations. If there's a 20% of someone dying from something, then the average number of times they can face that situation is three times (80% of it not happening, times 80% times 80% = 50% of it having happened after the third time).

You've been missing the point. They are targeting a game mechanics effect, willing to sacrifice pseudo-realism for the sake of it.

As for high turnover: not necessarily. It just changes the player's approach to combat. And that in turn makes for slower gameplay. And in my experience players and GMs get this above average thing rather quickly. And adapt. Whereas in more lenient games, there is risk compensation.

Alex

I don't actually see anything in Kainus's post that is incompatible with your first post. It may be that you haven't got the point they're making.

That's because you lack credentials. Anyway:

", just assume average rolls for damage"

End of story.

Yes, I made a joke out of your accusing me that I don't have enough experience to make informed comments, but I still don't find it funny on repetition.

The point is that there is no "damage roll" that is separate to actual hit location, in the Dark Heresy 2 system - it doesn't work that way conceptually. You roll for a basic hit location, but the Wound table is what actually tells you whether the hit scored a line across your cheek or hit you in the middle of the forehead. It's a fundamental misunderstanding to try and separate that and clearly shown by the fact that different wound results indicate different final locations. If you say "what damage results from a shot in the head", well you don't know if someone has actually been shot in the head until after you roll the Wound result, because some of those wound results say it's missed.

It can't be "end of story" because if I "assume average damage rolls" for a lot of weapons, then that never will translate into "target is shot in the head", because the lower ends of the head wound tables are mostly near misses.

That's part of the realism aspect of DH2. It's unrealistic for a human being to take a shot from a rifle in the middle of their face and shrug it off. So a "damage roll" in DH2 isn't to see how many hit points or whatever you take from a shot in middle of your face, it's to see if you get shot in the middle of the face or if it glances across your temple or whatever. If you actually get shot in the middle of the face then that's the result of a very high result on the Wound tables. A low result or "assume average roll" as you request, isn't a shot in the middle of the face in the first place. Fundamental misunderstanding. You can see that from all the Wound results which talk about shots missing or hitting a vital organ, etc.

You've been missing the point. They are targeting a game mechanics effect, willing to sacrifice pseudo-realism for the sake of it.

I don't know what you mean by pseudo-realism.

As for high turnover: not necessarily. It just changes the player's approach to combat. And that in turn makes for slower gameplay. And in my experience players and GMs get this above average thing rather quickly. And adapt. Whereas in more lenient games, there is risk compensation.

I didn't use the term 'necessarily' and I think that creates a different argument. Of course a more dangerous system with a higher chance of insta-death doesn't necessarily lead to a higher turnover. But all else being equal it probably will and yes, players can adjust their style a lot to compensate. But it still constrains things a lot. Very few GMs will want players to have to manage all fights all the time as ambushes or sniping attacks in order to minimize risk of insta-death. So you have to look at the cumulative effect of these risks. Even a 20% chance of character-altering or ending injury becomes a 50:50 chance of it having happened after three fights. Drop that to 10% and it only moves up to five fights. Even if it's 5% chance, that's only being shot at 13 times before you get the same chance of instadeath or permanent maiming. Do we want being shot at 13 times to be the average combat lifespan of a character?

Conversely, if you take a different approach - that of allowing a very small buffer - then the player's get a chance to realize or assess the odds and attempt alternative tactics if they're outmatched / ambushed / etc. This makes deaths more a player's error of judgement and it enables me as GM to run a wider range of scenarios. I don't have to err on the side of caution as much with under-powered opposition, or avoid ever having the PCs ambushed because to do so would almost certainly kill one of them.

You can want whatever you want in your game - but I'm pointing out that it is incorrect to say that a decent chance of intsta-death wont result in high-turnover. Not necessarily, yes, but in all probability.

From the OP (sic):

"Forget existing mechanisms, forget the crit tables or whatever, just assume average rolls for damage, discount use of Fate Points (they can be used after determining results). Targets are all at full health. (If you want to take the time and effort, you can also write a second outcome for a target who has already taken a medium wound in the chest and a light wound in the leg, if outcome is different.)"

Most people got that.

I don't know what you mean by pseudo-realism.

The fact that RPGs usually dont target to model reality, instead they aim to model the pseudo-reality of books (LOTR), movies (Aliens) or other fiction (one's own inventions). As such they tend to try to reflect the realism -or lack of it- in that.

I didn't use the term 'necessarily' and I think that creates a different argument. Of course a more dangerous system with a higher chance of insta-death doesn't necessarily lead to a higher turnover. But all else being equal it probably will and yes, players can adjust their style a lot to compensate. But it still constrains things a lot. Very few GMs will want players to have to manage all fights all the time as ambushes or sniping attacks in order to minimize risk of insta-death. So you have to look at the cumulative effect of these risks. Even a 20% chance of character-altering or ending injury becomes a 50:50 chance of it having happened after three fights. Drop that to 10% and it only moves up to five fights. Even if it's 5% chance, that's only being shot at 13 times before you get the same chance of instadeath or permanent maiming. Do we want being shot at 13 times to be the average combat lifespan of a character?

Conversely, if you take a different approach - that of allowing a very small buffer - then the player's get a chance to realize or assess the odds and attempt alternative tactics if they're outmatched / ambushed / etc. This makes deaths more a player's error of judgement and it enables me as GM to run a wider range of scenarios. I don't have to err on the side of caution as much with under-powered opposition, or avoid ever having the PCs ambushed because to do so would almost certainly kill one of them.

You can want whatever you want in your game - but I'm pointing out that it is incorrect to say that a decent chance of intsta-death wont result in high-turnover. Not necessarily, yes, but in all probability.

I have run games like that and they work. I like cyberpunk games that way.

Anyway, your math is irrelevant in the sense that the game system can calibrate the likelihood of a fatal attack. In particular, it can give the players the tools to reduce the likelihood substantially below the 5% threshold. Add Fate Points on top of that and I dont see any unreasonable turnover.

Anyway, your remark wrt ambushes is interesting: you know that a certain situation would normally very lethal (being successfully ambushed), yet you want a game system that allows this situation to occur and that allows the players quite possibly walking away without fate point loss.

Well, I suppose it's better for more casual gamers as they dont have to watch their steps to closely. Although you could also make the awareness rolls less difficult for them, so that they get only ambushed if they all roll badly.

Alex

From the OP (sic):

"Forget existing mechanisms, forget the crit tables or whatever, just assume average rolls for damage, discount use of Fate Points (they can be used after determining results). Targets are all at full health. (If you want to take the time and effort, you can also write a second outcome for a target who has already taken a medium wound in the chest and a light wound in the leg, if outcome is different.)"

Most people got that.

I can really only repeat what I've already written and draw your attention to it. You ask what the result should be for someone who gets shot in the head, and then also ask us to assume average damage rolls. But an average damage roll can well mean that the target is not shot in the head but instead (to quote an example) "the shot passes millimetres above their head".

You're not getting that in DH2, the damage roll is part of what determines where you are hit. The location roll just determines which wound table to roll on. An individual roll can be a grazed ear or a bullet in the eye. Countless examples in the Wound table describing a specific location.

I don't know what you mean by pseudo-realism.

The fact that RPGs usually dont target to model reality, instead they aim to model the pseudo-reality of books (LOTR), movies (Aliens) or other fiction (one's own inventions). As such they tend to try to reflect the realism -or lack of it- in that.

I see. Then I don't think "pseudo-realism" is sacrificed. There's no-one surviving direct hits from a las-cannon or anything, which seems to be the sort of thing you're implying does happen.

I didn't use the term 'necessarily' and I think that creates a different argument. Of course a more dangerous system with a higher chance of insta-death doesn't necessarily lead to a higher turnover. But all else being equal it probably will and yes, players can adjust their style a lot to compensate. But it still constrains things a lot. Very few GMs will want players to have to manage all fights all the time as ambushes or sniping attacks in order to minimize risk of insta-death. So you have to look at the cumulative effect of these risks. Even a 20% chance of character-altering or ending injury becomes a 50:50 chance of it having happened after three fights. Drop that to 10% and it only moves up to five fights. Even if it's 5% chance, that's only being shot at 13 times before you get the same chance of instadeath or permanent maiming. Do we want being shot at 13 times to be the average combat lifespan of a character?

Conversely, if you take a different approach - that of allowing a very small buffer - then the player's get a chance to realize or assess the odds and attempt alternative tactics if they're outmatched / ambushed / etc. This makes deaths more a player's error of judgement and it enables me as GM to run a wider range of scenarios. I don't have to err on the side of caution as much with under-powered opposition, or avoid ever having the PCs ambushed because to do so would almost certainly kill one of them.

You can want whatever you want in your game - but I'm pointing out that it is incorrect to say that a decent chance of intsta-death wont result in high-turnover. Not necessarily, yes, but in all probability.

I have run games like that and they work. I like cyberpunk games that way.

Anyway, your math is irrelevant in the sense that the game system can calibrate the likelihood of a fatal attack. In particular, it can give the players the tools to reduce the likelihood substantially below the 5% threshold. Add Fate Points on top of that and I dont see any unreasonable turnover.

I don't think my maths is irrelevant at all. I demonstrated how the likelihood of character death increases and that was what I wanted to talk about - the effect of such rule changes as you're advocating. Nor did I say what a reasonable turn-over was. I was just pointing out that the changes you appear to be arguing for would dramatically increase it, all else being equal.

Anyway, your remark wrt ambushes is interesting: you know that a certain situation would normally very lethal (being successfully ambushed), yet you want a game system that allows this situation to occur and that allows the players quite possibly walking away without fate point loss.

Yes. To an extent . I like variety in my games and I like believability. I don't want to have to keep fudging things so that the enemy can never ever get the drop on the PCs, avoiding it because I know that doing so has a very high chance of me rolling a few dice and looking at a player who hasn't even picked their dice up yet and telling them they're dead. It's a choice, but given that choice between having to fudge the behaviour of NPCs a lot to keep the players alive, or accepting that there's the occasional minor movie-ish moment, I choose the latter. It is a lot less damaging to the internal consistency of my setting (the thing that ultimately determines whether players believe in it or not) to occasionally say: "the sniper bullet catches you in the shoulder. An inch to the left and you'd be dead" and then watch the players scramble in a panic, than have to engineer that any combat scene be an equal battle where the PCs are always prepared and expecting it.

Narrative freedom, basically.

Well, I suppose it's better for more casual gamers as they dont have to watch their steps to closely. Although you could also make the awareness rolls less difficult for them, so that they get only ambushed if they all roll badly.

Alex

There's that slight air of elitism once more - the way you differentiate between "casual gamers" and "hard-core gamers" which you've done in a number of places. Same as when you decided to imply I lacked the "credentials" to make informed comments. I don't think dangerousness of the combat system ties into the casual-hardcore axis of gamerdom however you spin it (or even that it matters). There's plenty a hard-core D&D player who'll game through the night falling into lavapits and being dropped by dragons and I'm not going to tell them they're not a hard-core gamer.

From the OP (sic):

"Forget existing mechanisms, forget the crit tables or whatever, just assume average rolls for damage, discount use of Fate Points (they can be used after determining results). Targets are all at full health. (If you want to take the time and effort, you can also write a second outcome for a target who has already taken a medium wound in the chest and a light wound in the leg, if outcome is different.)"

Most people got that.

I can really only repeat what I'

What part of "Forget existing mechanisms, forget the crit tables" don't you get?

Well, I suppose it's better for more casual gamers as they dont have to watch their steps to closely. Although you could also make the awareness rolls less difficult for them, so that they get only ambushed if they all roll badly.

Alex

There's that slight air of elitism once more - the way you differentiate between "casual gamers" and "hard-core gamers" which you've done in a number of places. Same as when you decided to imply I lacked the "credentials" to make informed comments. I don't think dangerousness of the combat system ties into the casual-hardcore axis of gamerdom however you spin it (or even that it matters). There's plenty a hard-core D&D player who'll game through the night falling into lavapits and being dropped by dragons and I'm not going to tell them their not a hard-core gamer.

Logical fallacy. I said that having to watch every step closely would probably be discouraging for casuals. I did not claim that games which might be more lenient (I wouldnt rank D&D among them, as enemy magic user are very dangerous) discourage hardcore gamers.

This conversation with you is getting a bit too silly for me, sorry.

Alex

In Dark Heresy (any edition), A chance of Insta-death is NOT going to add up to increased turnover. It WILL lead to players acting more like they are in a firefight and not in some pandybat competition with foam weapons! In the event that a die roll lays a PC low, it will serve two purposes: 1.) It will serve as an example that it is in fact dangerous out there! 2.) PC will burn a fate point and avoid catastrophe. If the PC's are continually burning fate points because of carelessness the Emperor will tire of their stupidity and they will die! If they are smart and accomplish great things than the emperor will reward them (They will gain fate points, Influence and of course power.) I am not saying that every hit should be lethal or disabling. I am just suggesting that there should at least be some mathmatical chance even if it's only slight, that a weapon will smoke you outright! Trust me, After many years in martial arts, Japanese fencing and even a stint in the Military I feel qualified to say that ANY weapon can be Lethal in the right circumstances. Knives and Sniper rifles are two fine examples of weapons that in an all out fight are mediocre at best! But, put them in a surprise situation and their ability to take down an opponent is virtually unparalleled! It occurs to me that there might be a solution that appeals to me and perhaps others like me: 1.) The Critical hit rule should be amended to being effective the round it happens. Thus a player (or NPC I don't discriminate!)rolling a natural 0 on his damage dice would gain an IMMEDIATE +10 do his damage on the table. With the humble Lasgun, against an unarmored opponent (TB 3), the attack would read:

In the case of "Accurate" weapons (Which I would personally Include knives in when used from surprise) perhaps a +3 to damage per AP spent aiming. (This would max out at +12 with a Sniper rifle). Against an unarmored TB 3 opponent With average die roll of 11 (a 5 and a 6) this yields the following:

Wow. You've really taken this thread in an unpleasant direction, ak-73, and I really don't think it's warranted.

knasserll's making some pretty sound arguments. You did too, a couple pages ago. Now it's devolved to you basically saying "no, you're stupid" in response to everything.

Take a step back and breathe. You're making this personal.

From the OP (sic):

"Forget existing mechanisms, forget the crit tables or whatever, just assume average rolls for damage, discount use of Fate Points (they can be used after determining results). Targets are all at full health. (If you want to take the time and effort, you can also write a second outcome for a target who has already taken a medium wound in the chest and a light wound in the leg, if outcome is different.)"

Most people got that.

I can really only repeat what I'

What part of "Forget existing mechanisms, forget the crit tables" don't you get?

Just for a second, extend the courtesy of assuming I might have actually read your post and understood what you're saying and am replying to that, rather than failing to notice your heavily underlined and oft-repeated at me statements.

The Wound tables are part of determining hit location. As easily evidenced by how many entries in them state where an attack has struck or sometimes even that it has missed. If you want people to "forget the wound tables" then you're asking them to forget about where someone has been hit. Under DH2, for you to say: "what should result from a shot to the head" is to ask "what should result from a mid-to-high result on the head Wounds table."

This whole thread was your attempt to build a case that the wound tables didn't reflect what people actually wanted. And obviously most people who play DH like me, want realism. But your thread is based on putting your own assumption ahead of what the book actually says. If someone says, as I would, that I want a bullet in the head to result in severe injury or death, that doesn't mean that I want severe injury or death to be the result of rolling to hit and then rolling head for location, because that's not necessarily a bullet in the head. I can't forget the wound tables, because without them, I don't know if the target has been hit in the head or not! And if you're saying that I do, then you're no longer discussing the DH2 rules.

EDIT: Having read the posts from the others, I'm going to back out of this discussion. It has become personal and so long as other people understand what I've been saying, which they obviously do, then I have nothing actually to prove. I was mostly just concerned that misunderstandings that could harm the game development were being promulgated. I'm now bowing out on this subject.

I'm not sure I can ever agree with the sentiment that the first shot in a combat, regardless of weapon, should have a chance to kill or disable outright. Unless we're talking very high powered weapons (plasma, melta), I think it'd simply feel cheap to have to burn fate because of a lucky shot in the first round. Ultimately, this is still a game.

I'm not sure I can ever agree with the sentiment that the first shot in a combat, regardless of weapon, should have a chance to kill or disable outright. Unless we're talking very high powered weapons (plasma, melta), I think it'd simply feel cheap to have to burn fate because of a lucky shot in the first round. Ultimately, this is still a game.

And it's worth re-emphasizing that with the DH2 rules, this doesn't mean that you take a Las-cannon to the face and ignore it the first time, it can mean that the las-cannon comes close but doesn't fully hit you the first time. A very important difference from a realism point of view.

I'm not sure I can ever agree with the sentiment that the first shot in a combat, regardless of weapon, should have a chance to kill or disable outright. Unless we're talking very high powered weapons (plasma, melta), I think it'd simply feel cheap to have to burn fate because of a lucky shot in the first round. Ultimately, this is still a game.

Most weapons are not going to be instantly fatal under this method! (Except perhaps your aformentioned Plasma or melta guns!) Even the Boltgun, which is supposed to be the last word in anti-personnel small arms Yields a total critical effect of:

Again, Very nasty and painful but NOT immediately fatal! I realise that you and I are on opposite sides of the damage argument Tom. What I'm trying to do is find a balance that satisfies us both! The Heavy bolter is Fatal on a Critical in the first round (As it should be! It's a heavy weapon!) but unless it gets said critical (Righteous fury if you prefer) it cannot do so.

It's an interesting idea, and it's definitely a better compromise than instant death, but I feel like it's not exactly fun to get taken out of combat on the first turn. Being eliminated from being able to put up a fight in the first round because you didn't roll well on initiative is a little disheartening, and could easily mean you're sitting out half a session due to no fault on your part.

It's an interesting idea, and it's definitely a better compromise than instant death, but I feel like it's not exactly fun to get taken out of combat on the first turn. Being eliminated from being able to put up a fight in the first round because you didn't roll well on initiative is a little disheartening, and could easily mean you're sitting out half a session due to no fault on your part.

Fair enough but remember; All of these examples involved unarmored opponents. Even with flak vests the effects go down considerably. After all, How many times do you see PC's venturing off Bare chested and scary looking? The point for me is it feels heavily disappointing to know you got that great roll and the enemy didn't dodge. You even rolled a Righteous fury and it only helps next round? Meh, Letdown. The Cumulative +5 already covers that. I think the immediate critical gives that immediate nastiness feel.

1.) The Critical hit rule should be amended to being effective the round it happens. Thus a player (or NPC I don't discriminate!)rolling a natural 0 on his damage dice would gain an IMMEDIATE +10 do his damage on the table. With the humble Lasgun, against an unarmored opponent (TB 3), the attack would read:

But how would that mesh with the intention of the designers to have control over the duration of combat? The exact point of the wound effect modifier is to bring a natural limitation to that. X number of hits and you are guaranteed to be dead.

That's why I have surrendered on the wounding issue. The designers apparently do not approach this from an angle of

"How would such a fight run in the world of 40K (plus hero bonus for PCs)?", they are approaching it from an angle of "How do we tweak the mechanics so as to provide an enjoyable ruleset?" Maybe they don't trust that the former approach might lead to a good and entertaining system.

Wow. You've really taken this thread in an unpleasant direction, ak-73, and I really don't think it's warranted.

knasserll's making some pretty sound arguments. You did too, a couple pages ago. Now it's devolved to you basically saying "no, you're stupid" in response to everything.

Take a step back and breathe. You're making this personal.

I'm not stepping back, I'm stepping out of debating this particular issue. I've had my say: balance might not be optimal between weapon damages and +5/+10.

However, there are drawbacks to changing that:

• Does one want to use +3/+6 instead? ... kinda uneven.
• Does one want to compress the damage tables? You lose variation that way and you need variation because you use the tables way more often than in DH 1.
• Do you want to up the weapon damage? You deviate more from previous editions and the fixed damage part of weapons might get too high.

None of it sounds too pleasing. But then again, that's the life of a game designer. You get paid for this guys, get to work!

Alex

1.) The Critical hit rule should be amended to being effective the round it happens. Thus a player (or NPC I don't discriminate!)rolling a natural 0 on his damage dice would gain an IMMEDIATE +10 do his damage on the table. With the humble Lasgun, against an unarmored opponent (TB 3), the attack would read:

But how would that mesh with the intention of the designers to have control over the duration of combat? The exact point of the wound effect modifier is to bring a natural limitation to that. X number of hits and you are guaranteed to be dead.

That's why I have surrendered on the wounding issue. The designers apparently do not approach this from an angle of

"How would such a fight run in the world of 40K (plus hero bonus for PCs)?", they are approaching it from an angle of "How do we tweak the mechanics so as to provide an enjoyable ruleset?" Maybe they don't trust that the former approach might lead to a good and entertaining system.

None of it sounds too pleasing. But then again, that's the life of a game designer. You get paid for this guys, get to work!

Alex

It would remain unchanged! My methods do not effect the cumulative +5 damage per hit. They only credit the critical to the person that inflicted it. If you were to use my method, The critical would only provide an additional +5 (For being previously wounded) to the damage track for next round (In addition to whatever effects it caused!). I don't see the problem!

1.) The Critical hit rule should be amended to being effective the round it happens. Thus a player (or NPC I don't discriminate!)rolling a natural 0 on his damage dice would gain an IMMEDIATE +10 do his damage on the table. With the humble Lasgun, against an unarmored opponent (TB 3), the attack would read:

But how would that mesh with the intention of the designers to have control over the duration of combat? The exact point of the wound effect modifier is to bring a natural limitation to that. X number of hits and you are guaranteed to be dead.

That's why I have surrendered on the wounding issue. The designers apparently do not approach this from an angle of

"How would such a fight run in the world of 40K (plus hero bonus for PCs)?", they are approaching it from an angle of "How do we tweak the mechanics so as to provide an enjoyable ruleset?" Maybe they don't trust that the former approach might lead to a good and entertaining system.

None of it sounds too pleasing. But then again, that's the life of a game designer. You get paid for this guys, get to work!

Alex

It would remain unchanged! My methods do not effect the cumulative +5 damage per hit. They only credit the critical to the person that inflicted it. If you were to use my method, The critical would only provide an additional +5 (For being previously wounded) to the damage track for next round (In addition to whatever effects it caused!). I don't see the problem!

Good point. Yeah, it would at least mitigate some of the drawbacks of the new system.

Alex

Scenario 1: Light damage, light penalties. It is a headshot after all

Scenario 2: V.Light damage. A master is supposed to challenge the party but a scribe with a peashooter's the least of his worries.

Scenario 3:
>Standard combatant: Severe damage, serious penalties. If they pulled off an ambush and snipe on a big boss they deserve proper results, even if that's "less cinematically appealing" to whomever had to come up with the boss' story.

>Snipe/ambush specialist that's actually focused on being good at this: DEAD TARGET
Keep in mind he might be important but those stats indicate a soft target. Just because lots of people love you don't make you invulnerable. Though it helped a bit.

Scenario 4*: Heavily wounded, pretty mangled, would probably not have survived high damage or RF

Scenario 5*: Heavily wounded, pretty mangled, would be unconscious and in need of medical attention if it rolled high, but probabaly outright dead without fate use if two bolts hit instead.

Scenario 6*: Critical Damage. Quite probably dead, or at least unconscious and in need of immediate medical care if it rolls high or when shot by a Weapon-Tech.


*Boltguns are explosive. While it would complicate things a little, I believe they would be better portrayed by losing Tearing if they fail to penetrate armour with their own Pen, but gain Felling when it does, provided the Pen is also equal or higher to the target's Toughness Bonus. Get it good and lodged in there for splatters.

As for plasma, they're supposed to overkill regular guardsmen and have a tendency to boil terminators alive within their suits, so flak and TB4 should be making it about as hard as "Hellgun vs Grots". Damage a bit too wild right now, and I'd like to see it fare better against "we emulated 'invulnerable saves' by giving them ultra-high Tb" types too. Right now it's too AP intensive and too variable on the damage.

And it's worth re-emphasizing that with the DH2 rules, this doesn't mean that you take a Las-cannon to the face and ignore it the first time, it can mean that the las-cannon comes close but doesn't fully hit you the first time. A very important difference from a realism point of view.

Well... Now, I think we can all accept HP are intrinsically unrealistic. There are always ways of kind of justifying them (ability to avoid being hit for serious damage, luck etc), but they are inherently a bad way of representing how injuries affect people. You don't feel fine if you have been shot 3 times, even if they were "glancing", or "just" flesh wounds or whatever.

However, this new system doesn't really deal well with realism either. Yes, you now suffer actual effects if you take any damage, and some of them be quite nasty. However, being knocked over and suffering fatigue, maybe being dazed, or loosing the use of your limb for a few seconds, is a fantastically unrealistic result of being hit by an autocannon (I am using the autocannon as I know the average results for that, and I am not sure a lascannon has actually been stated up yet). Autocannons are capable of taking out light to medium vehicles. These are 30mm+ cannons, fired at a high velocity. A hit would just kill you.

Now, with the old rules, they would. The average damage roll for an autocannon was 27, with Pen 4. That would kill a Dark Heresy character right out, unless they had really boosted their toughness, were wearing power armour, and maybe bought a whole load of wounds. Even then, they would almost certainly be into nasty criticals. Now, maybe this isn't good game design (though it really depends on your design intention... if you want to reflect the lethality levels of autocannons, then it is totally correct). Maybe you want the players to be able to respond after they have been shot at. Ok. That is fine. Therefore you make it that the first attack that any unwounded character takes cannot kill them (ok, very high Melta Bomb damage rolls are an honourable exception). Fine. However, the lingering effects can actually be more jarring, rather than less.

The new system gives every wounding hit an effect... but if the effect of your average autocannon hit is a dead arm, like you have slept on it all night and have got pins and needles, or someone just punched it very hard, this is fairly glaring in its unrealism. Ok, yes, the effects of the hits can be fairly major (stunning in the middle of combat... yes, that is bad), it still jars. Yes, if you had hit points, and had a lucky low damage roll, you might suffer no ongoing penalties, but then... well, they are HP, no expectation of realism necessarily. The new system: You have suffered an average hit by an autocannon, and... well, at worst you have been stunned. And that's if you have been hit in the head. While wearing no helmet.

The fact that taking five holdout pistol hits to the arms and legs is worse than being struck dead center with an anti-vehicle weapon, so long as that fifth pistol shot was not part of the same burst is also making things rather wonky.