1. Please keep it that Evasion is effectively an opposed test, not a success test. One of my greatest issues with the DH/RT/DW/BC/OW system is that the players possess the power to actually tell the GM "No, you don't hit me, because I succeeded on my dodge check." This is disruptive to my narrative powers as the GM, and is in violation of the spirit of rule 0. It should not be so obvious that I am cheating.

This might have worked in the new beta system, but it will create problems if introduced into Only War attack rules. Namely, it will create a situation where a single attack is always the hardest to avoid, as it not only comes with a to-hit bonus that will statistically generate more DoS, but it will also be the only attack mode where the effective difficulty to avoid the blow isn't capped in some way.

Also, the rules don't exist for you to exert control over the game, they exist for everyone to exert a role-appropriate level of control over the game.

Then perhaps they can make a minor tweak. Its not as bad as asking that AP be retained in combat - I get that that can't really work.

But maybe they can further refine the "To-Hit" system to enable that.

My point still is that the current wording of evasion from DH/RT/DW/BC/OW is something that makes applying rule zero to combat difficult. It should not be so transparent that a GM is cheating. You must understand, I'm arguing for this in a theoretical sense, but its something that the rules kinda force me to avoid engineering circumstances to rely on players being hit by something (e.g. as the assassin is fleeing, he throws a poison dart at you! It turns out that this poison causes the same mysterious circumstances as the one of the murder the party is investigating.), essentially, it prevents using the nature of an attack as a clue in an investigation unless I choose to use it on some "throwaway" NPC. More relevantly, I can't use an attack as a guaranteed means of ratcheting up tension without either making it a cheap "you can't dodge this" or outright cheating "I know you dodged it but the hit still happens."

The role of the GM is to provide a challenge to the players. If rules and dice rolls get in the way of doing so, then they can be ignored (rule zero). A good GM does this to a degree that is fair and interesting, and also unnoticeable to players.

Get rid of the AP system, and the new combat mechanics all-together. It's just...horrible, and ill-conceived. Everything else can be fixed as the ideas behind them are fairly cool and awesome, just poorly executed at the current iterations.

Keep:

AP system : I like it way better, it adds tactical flexibility and player choice, a simple convert back box will do for making it compatible, and a rework of fractional AP rates of attack as special qualities would eliminate the two real objections to it.

No hit points : I had already converted to a house rule away from HP before the beta and love the direction they were headed, with some streamlining to make it faster to use it should be workable. Whatever my objections, I prefer it vastly to HP systems.

Reduced skills : the number they arrived at here seemed about right, I never felt like any of them was useless and I absolutely loved the freely matching skills with different characteristics for different sorts of tasks.

No currency : Counting thrones was silly, distracting, and felt wrong. I much prefer Influence although it could use refining.

Fewer fixed, stackable bonuses : The previous edition was all about stacking up crazy amounts of gear and circumstantial modifiers to do anything, having higher characteristics and skills and less abusive penalties has felt way better and more balanced.

No unnatural characteristics : They were clumsy, getting rid of them was the right choice. Have a box explain how to turn them into flat increases and move on.

Varied scaling : Having different weapons and attacks scale with different characteristics added interesting flavors and choices and assured more variety, it will need to be better tuned, but the potential is great.

Challenge ratings : They were useful and take up little space, the calculator can go though, it was neither easy to use nor especially helpful.

Character Generation : Add a "Motivations" step and tweak it as needed, but I definitely liked it and the flexibility it offered.

I agree on this quite much, but am adding:

> keep the new fatigue system incl. Blood Loss

> keep the limit on cybernetics and the Agility-Limitation on armour

> Design the weapons in such an interesting way as done in the beta so far

--> making weapons usefull and diverse (e.g. Ib for Plasma-Overcharge, attacking faster with knives and Vengenace High Crit Chances for snipers)

> keep the variety of characteristic value a little higher, as it was aimed for in the DH2 beta

--> this leads to better chances on success tfor tests without always needing to make it +X test

This also helps to make enemies more different from each other (and also characters)

> keep the wound/critWound (+5/+10) system

--> this really helps to make "weak" weapons useable after all, as a lucky shot can wound most targets.

-------

RoF is somehow buggy and sometimes a pain in the ass as I can be one.

So returning a system with Standard-Shot 1AP/2AP/3AP for SIngle-Shot/Semi-AUto/Auto or a similar rule would be nice.

1. Please keep it that Evasion is effectively an opposed test, not a success test. One of my greatest issues with the DH/RT/DW/BC/OW system is that the players possess the power to actually tell the GM "No, you don't hit me, because I succeeded on my dodge check." This is disruptive to my narrative powers as the GM, and is in violation of the spirit of rule 0. It should not be so obvious that I am cheating.

2. Please use the style of wording currently present in the "Delay" action. That is, please make it that a character can only come off delay between the turns of characters, not as a means of interrupting. This prevents any hijinks with regards to reactions.

3. Please make the use of reactions (as those are most likely to return) clear. The previous systems were muddled by the phrasing that reactions cannot be used during one's own turn. Please make it clear when a character generates reactions.

4. Please make it distinctly clear when a character is in melee, and when they are not, as well as clarifying the limits on when a non-pistol weapon can be fired at melee ranges. I.e. please make it so that running up to a target doesn't lock said target in melee - an attack should need to be made first.

5. Maintain the distinct steps of turn order. Even if the system is changing, please just clearly write out how each step is handled. When do certain conditions fire off their effects, when do things that last for a number of turns count down, when are reactions gained, when exactly do characters act, etc.

6. Keep the cover system, or rather, the specifics provided in DH2.0b (the amount of regions of the body usually covered).

Definitely cannot agree with 1. I did not like the change to an opposed Dodge check. It makes the attack increasingly more powerful than the defence ("I have to give up doing something else, and my chances of actually making a difference are really slim as I have to pass by more than their DoS... I will just attack some more.").

An obvious solution to your problem is... don't cheat. Find other ways to achieve what you want to achieve. Remember unknown attacks cannot be dodged. If you want an assasin's poison to be discovered, have them find the dagger that just missed them stick into something just behind them. Or have it hit a passer-by who suffers the poison's effect.

2. Without the ability to interrupt people delay has little point. However, I do agree it should be clarified to say that people can parry/dodge etc attacks made as part of a delay. 3 is part of the same point really. Just remove that wording, and then maybe say certain things cannot be parried/dodged (preventing things like counter-attack chains).

4. A clarification of when and what "engaged" is would be good. However, as far as I was aware you did need to make an attack to count as engaged. People do not have ZoC in Dark Heresy, and there are no opportunity attacks, just attacks on those that flee you in combat.

I have decided I wouldn't mind a properly resolved AP system being retained, though I am not sure how to do that. However, the Wound System is a big mess that could be done away with. If you are going to have a wound free system, go for a full wound free system, not... whatever it was. Either have hit points, or let people be randomly killed by lucky shots... not some half-way house.

Sadly, I did feel that my example was getting a bit too wordy. Part of the angle I was shooting for was the poison was nigh undetectable, and that only by witnessing its affects in action could the connection be made. Thus why the previously mentioned murder was so mysterious to the party.

Realize, that was a highly convoluted example to try and create a situation where its helpful for a GM to cheat, but it where with current RAW is too difficult mid-combat. I tried stating my dislike for unknown/undodgable attacks; its just too obvious. And NPCs and mooks may not be present when the time is right (and thats something that the players can kind of control). Certainly, there should be more clues present in an investigation, but my point is that the rules as written make it difficult to include this as an option (of many others).

As far as "don't cheat" to some extent, sure. But if the dice are getting in the way of an interesting story (say all the NPCs are rolling 80+s, and the PCs are rolling 20-s), then at my table the NPCs will at least start succeeding on things themselves. As long as its not abused (and I would say I do not abuse it), then this is good. Also, bear in mind, I am arguing for this on principal, not on experience. I am against the principal of having players tell the GM when success occurs, not so much that I have been burned by this before.

I feel delay can still have a purpose even if relegated to between the turns of others. More importantly, in DH2.0b, Overwatch was the means of interrupting an opponent. I have far too often seen interrupting delays as a joke ("I delay to close the door when the opponent opens it").

Technically, in DH1, the "Move" action contains wording that allows a player to classify themselves as engaged with an opponent that is in melee range (DH, p.192 "Move"). No attack was needed. Run however, did not contain any wording that you could be considered to be engaged in melee. Technically point 4 was a bit more of a complaint about the new system (as with the removal of Run as an action, that resulted in 4 AP sprint moves that could result in players locking up heavy weapons)

Hey everyone, I got a reply back to the email I sent FFG regarding feedback.

First, my email:

I just read the most recent update about the beta. I have to say that

I'm a little disappointed that you're dialing back some of the

changes, but I'm glad to see that you've taken a lot of the feedback

to heart. Still, I have a few questions:

1) Do you know for sure what is being taken out of the new beta? As

in, are you taking out/majorly revising the wound new wound system

and the AP/RoF system? Any other major changes or deletions that you

know of? Please tell me you're keeping the wonderful new skill system!

2) Do you still want feedback on the beta or systems that players

would like changed? If so, what parts would you like the feedback to

be on?

Thanks for your time and response!

And FFG's response:

Hello! The News article has pretty much everything we can say at this point concerning changes we plan, but we're certainly open to suggestions on any aspect of Dark Heresy or 40k RPG in general.

Tim Huckelbery

RPG Producer

Fantasy Flight Games

[email protected]

Visit us at http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/

Sorry about the lack of quote tags, I'm on my phone. So yeah, it seems like we aren't really going to know much until November, barring new announcements. As far as feedback goes, there's no real direction, so I guess a thread like this would be most useful, along with general "what do I want in DH" threads and emails.

Things to get rid of:

The wound system. I can hardly say I ever saw a damage system this badly constructed. It makes automatic weapons a method of 'softening' a target without much actual damage, which leads to the same problems as with DH1, just now you hope for a 10 so the next guy can kill the enemy thanks to the little wounds you accumulated. Also it leads to a shitload of effects you need to track. I would suggest an HP system with a threshold calculated from Tb and possibly 'HPb' above which even the first hit can generate critical effects, making Fury entirely a function of the hit roll to avoid the problem of high damage rolls producing Fury which makes spraying interesting.

The talent trees. Seriously, who would think it was a good idea to make people buy unrelated stuff so they can get what they want?

Remembrance in the current form. An all-in-one knowledge skill is an incredibly dangerous weapon as characters could potentially have any intel up their sleeves when needed. Just determining what a character should be capable of knowing demands much from the GM.

Uncapped stat advances. There is only so much you should be capable of advancing. Maybe make it a resource. Like three advances per level max., one advance per stat and cap the overall number to invest in one stat with one or two higher for focus stats.

The shotgun. This iteration of a historically pointless weapon is by far the most bizarre and pointless.

Things to keep:

Unified skills. It makes life much easier if you can count on skills applying to more than one narrow use so you are capable in a field, not a single activity.

Weapon effects depending on more than one stat. Still, some kinks in there like scaling Pen with Strength.

Things to build upon:

The AP system. In its current state it is really dull and offers little effective options, especially since anything more complex than pulling a trigger seems to require a talent. Some actual options here and it could be far better than the old system.

Chargen. It is nice, no question. The way it's made makes for a very compact way of presenting all the options you have. But it needs at least one more level to choose from and more flavor in terms of items, quirks, abilities etc. you acquire.

Things to include:

Range modifiers. Seriously.

A useful shotgun. But that appears to be a general problem in these RPGs.

Things to get rid of:

The wound system. I can hardly say I ever saw a damage system this badly constructed. It makes automatic weapons a method of 'softening' a target without much actual damage, which leads to the same problems as with DH1, just now you hope for a 10 so the next guy can kill the enemy thanks to the little wounds you accumulated. Also it leads to a shitload of effects you need to track. I would suggest an HP system with a threshold calculated from Tb and possibly 'HPb' above which even the first hit can generate critical effects, making Fury entirely a function of the hit roll to avoid the problem of high damage rolls producing Fury which makes spraying interesting.

The talent trees. Seriously, who would think it was a good idea to make people buy unrelated stuff so they can get what they want?

Remembrance in the current form. An all-in-one knowledge skill is an incredibly dangerous weapon as characters could potentially have any intel up their sleeves when needed. Just determining what a character should be capable of knowing demands much from the GM.

This! There is a lot of good things in DH2, but these are not among them and the wound system in particular really needs to go.

Things to keep:

Unified skills. It makes life much easier if you can count on skills applying to more than one narrow use so you are capable in a field, not a single activity.

Weapon effects depending on more than one stat. Still, some kinks in there like scaling Pen with Strength.

Things to build upon:

The AP system. In its current state it is really dull and offers little effective options, especially since anything more complex than pulling a trigger seems to require a talent. Some actual options here and it could be far better than the old system.

Chargen. It is nice, no question. The way it's made makes for a very compact way of presenting all the options you have. But it needs at least one more level to choose from and more flavor in terms of items, quirks, abilities etc. you acquire.

This as well.

I 100% disagree about remembrance. That is one of my favorite changes in the beta. All of the lores end up being massive experience hogs, and it is rarely worth it to raise most of them above trained. I feel like all of these complaints about knowledge being dangerous is a combination of adversarial GMing and people buying too much into the fluff. In all of the games I played, the GM would just give us a problem and then stretch whatever lores we had to apply to it. That automatically makes players well versed in the fluff have an advantage. Not to mention that it is impossible to balance the utility of each lore, and pricing them by utility is an exercise in frustration. Why should a player have to guess what lore will come up in game? Oh, sorry, that lore about the administratum doesn't come up in our jungle survival game! This is not a problem with the players or GM; it is a problem with game design. You don't design a toaster with a few dozen knobs for each kind of toast and bread that only work under certain unknown circumstances. I cannot think of a single legitimate argument against the remembrance skill that isn't coming from some adversarial notion of screwing the players through the mechanics of a game. Here's a hint: you screw players through the fiction of the game, not the rules.

• I would like the Forbidden Lore skill to be closer to the original version, having it the way DH2 had it makes little sense.
• AP's would be nice, and I don't see it being a problem with reverse compatability given that the current two half action system can be finessed more by splitting the half actions effectively into quarter actions.
• The wounds system is cumbersome and creates unecessary table flipping, but an alternate system could possibly create a similar amount of flavour. For example, when making the to-hit you use the units dice for location, perhaps that system could be expanded for a basis of a woundless system.

Suggestion: Use the units dice for location, then use the tens dice to determine the type of penalty with the damage which gets through determining the severity. So, if you roll 32 on a to-hit roll which means you have hit the location 2 (right arm). As a suggestion 3 on the tens dice determines that the penalty is a lower level problem which could be a level or levels of fatigue. The severity could be based on the damage which bypasses toughness and armour, so if the damage which gets through is 7, this could suggest D5 levels. Had the to-hit been 58, the penalty could be attribute damage.

Please be aware that this is a very loose suggestion with no real workings behind it, so bear with me on this, it is literally just a throw away thought.

Eldath

I pretty much agree with Nimsim here, remembrance is a great change, I never want to go back.

I also think the wound system is slowish to use, but way better than HP even in its current form, and I really like the uncapped stat advances, I would vastly prefer they stay, they are very easy to restrict as a house rule if you hate them and want a lower powered more mundane game.

Keep:

AP system : I like it way better, it adds tactical flexibility and player choice, a simple convert back box will do for making it compatible, and a rework of fractional AP rates of attack as special qualities would eliminate the two real objections to it.

No hit points : I had already converted to a house rule away from HP before the beta and love the direction they were headed, with some streamlining to make it faster to use it should be workable. Whatever my objections, I prefer it vastly to HP systems.

Reduced skills : the number they arrived at here seemed about right, I never felt like any of them was useless and I absolutely loved the freely matching skills with different characteristics for different sorts of tasks.

No currency : Counting thrones was silly, distracting, and felt wrong. I much prefer Influence although it could use refining.

Fewer fixed, stackable bonuses : The previous edition was all about stacking up crazy amounts of gear and circumstantial modifiers to do anything, having higher characteristics and skills and less abusive penalties has felt way better and more balanced.

No unnatural characteristics : They were clumsy, getting rid of them was the right choice. Have a box explain how to turn them into flat increases and move on.

Varied scaling : Having different weapons and attacks scale with different characteristics added interesting flavors and choices and assured more variety, it will need to be better tuned, but the potential is great.

Challenge ratings : They were useful and take up little space, the calculator can go though, it was neither easy to use nor especially helpful.

Character Generation : Add a "Motivations" step and tweak it as needed, but I definitely liked it and the flexibility it offered.

I agree on this quite much, but am adding:

> keep the new fatigue system incl. Blood Loss

> keep the limit on cybernetics and the Agility-Limitation on armour

> Design the weapons in such an interesting way as done in the beta so far

--> making weapons usefull and diverse (e.g. Ib for Plasma-Overcharge, attacking faster with knives and Vengenace High Crit Chances for snipers)

> keep the variety of characteristic value a little higher, as it was aimed for in the DH2 beta

--> this leads to better chances on success tfor tests without always needing to make it +X test

This also helps to make enemies more different from each other (and also characters)

> keep the wound/critWound (+5/+10) system

--> this really helps to make "weak" weapons useable after all, as a lucky shot can wound most targets.

-------

RoF is somehow buggy and sometimes a pain in the ass as I can be one.

So returning a system with Standard-Shot 1AP/2AP/3AP for SIngle-Shot/Semi-AUto/Auto or a similar rule would be nice.

I agree with pretty much all of this. Fatigue system is better, as is blood loss and also someone mentioned burning, which is also super iconic to 40k adn way better in DH2. Agility limits on armour are also probably good, having some trade-offs is more three dimensional I think.

I agree the RoF system was awkward at times, but I think that it adds to the flexibility of the AP system and would much prefer we not take a step backward to the binaric system of DH1. A refinement rather than reversion if you will.

My primary problem with rememberance covering all lores at once is that it makes character differentiation more difficult when every knowledgeable character knows the same things.

A bit like it would make characters more identical if all physical skills were grouped under a "physical activities" skill.

I don't mind competent characters. I just want them to be competent within different areas. Rememberance is too broad a skill.

I 100% disagree about remembrance. That is one of my favorite changes in the beta. All of the lores end up being massive experience hogs, and it is rarely worth it to raise most of them above trained. I feel like all of these complaints about knowledge being dangerous is a combination of adversarial GMing and people buying too much into the fluff. In all of the games I played, the GM would just give us a problem and then stretch whatever lores we had to apply to it. That automatically makes players well versed in the fluff have an advantage. Not to mention that it is impossible to balance the utility of each lore, and pricing them by utility is an exercise in frustration. Why should a player have to guess what lore will come up in game? Oh, sorry, that lore about the administratum doesn't come up in our jungle survival game! This is not a problem with the players or GM; it is a problem with game design. You don't design a toaster with a few dozen knobs for each kind of toast and bread that only work under certain unknown circumstances. I cannot think of a single legitimate argument against the remembrance skill that isn't coming from some adversarial notion of screwing the players through the mechanics of a game. Here's a hint: you screw players through the fiction of the game, not the rules.

Leaving aside the confrontational tone, I mostly agree with this. In my group, we're all very communicative with regards to lore skills so that nobody will take a useless lore. The more granular system runs both ways - DMs can use it to section off knowledge to characters that have the lore skill, and players can use them to signal to the DM what kind of things they'd like to see come up in the game (an obvious example would be taking FL(Xenos), which pretty clearly says the player would like to see some aliens in the game).

However, these are both ways to work around the problems inherent in having extremely specific lores. Having the PCs all know a little bit about a lot of topics makes sense from a gameplay perspective (everybody feels useful!) and from an in-character perspective it makes sense that agents of the Inquisition are knowledgeable individuals.

• I would like the Forbidden Lore skill to be closer to the original version, having it the way DH2 had it makes little sense.
• AP's would be nice, and I don't see it being a problem with reverse compatability given that the current two half action system can be finessed more by splitting the half actions effectively into quarter actions.
• The wounds system is cumbersome and creates unecessary table flipping, but an alternate system could possibly create a similar amount of flavour. For example, when making the to-hit you use the units dice for location, perhaps that system could be expanded for a basis of a woundless system.

Suggestion: Use the units dice for location, then use the tens dice to determine the type of penalty with the damage which gets through determining the severity. So, if you roll 32 on a to-hit roll which means you have hit the location 2 (right arm). As a suggestion 3 on the tens dice determines that the penalty is a lower level problem which could be a level or levels of fatigue. The severity could be based on the damage which bypasses toughness and armour, so if the damage which gets through is 7, this could suggest D5 levels. Had the to-hit been 58, the penalty could be attribute damage.

Please be aware that this is a very loose suggestion with no real workings behind it, so bear with me on this, it is literally just a throw away thought.

Eldath

If you were to do something like this you would want lower digits on the tens die to be better, since that would generally correspond to hits with more degrees of success. Having a minor effect from an 11 to hit and a great effect from a 58 that barely hit seems weird. That said, it would be potentially repetitive to have wound effects the same for every hit of a full auto attack.

The wound system is cumbersome, but it is also more flavorful and thematically appropriate than hit points, which make little sense in any system and even less in 40k with its grimdarky "goes to 11" level of violence.

On a related note about hit locations, DH2 currently has a 40% chance to hit legs and a 30% chance to hit the body with a 10% chance to hit either arm or the head. This seems silly. If anything, when aiming for center of mass your chance of hitting the arms is higher than the legs and these chances should be swapped. Alternatively, just make it a 50% to hit the body and 10% for every other area. After all, that is presumably where people are aiming for the most part.

I have also thought that called shots at short range should be easier. Perhaps a free action within point blank range or if we keep AP, 1 AP instead of 2 AP to make a called shot at point blank.

This would help get rid of the "I point my shotgun at his chest and tell him 'talk or I shoot'... he says nothing? I shoot and... blow his leg off, huh."

Please be aware that this is a very loose suggestion with no real workings behind it, so bear with me on this, it is literally just a throw away thought.

Eldath

If you were to do something like this you would want lower digits on the tens die to be better, since that would generally correspond to hits with more degrees of success. Having a minor effect from an 11 to hit and a great effect from a 58 that barely hit seems weird. That said, it would be potentially repetitive to have wound effects the same for every hit of a full auto attack.

The wound system is cumbersome, but it is also more flavorful and thematically appropriate than hit points, which make little sense in any system and even less in 40k with its grimdarky "goes to 11" level of violence.

Fair point, but as I said it was a throwaway thought with no real thought behind it. I am sure a more solid system could be built on the idea.

As to the wound system, though it would be more flavorful it would very quickly become tiresome and likely ignored. I can very easily see groups retrofitting the wound system back were this system to remain. I agree that a non wound system would be an interesting change, just not this wound free system.

Eldath

I'd like them to keep the whole Wound Conditions stuff. I felt it gave combat a bit more mechanical flavour than just taking a wound. Then again my game group usually play on a white board so it was pretty easy to keep track of the different Conditions characters accumulated.

Skills on being bound to a single Characteristic also made me happy.

And, the omission of Unnatural Characteristics was definitely something I approved of. I really hope they done add it back in for backwards compatibility. I've never really understood why unnaturally strong characters weren't just give higher strength characteristics.

As far a Characteristic cap goes; personally I didn't mind there not being one. Even if you wanted to min/max your way to 90 it'd still take 28000 exp (six-ish sessions?) to get you from a starting value of 45. And honestly, if your having trouble with players chasing a single characteristic and nothing else then I'm inclined to say the problems with they player and not the system.

edit:

Also, I did like they way RoF (and by extension Action Points) were handled. I think it's main failing though was when it was used in conjunction with the Wound system. Don't get me wrong, I liked the idea of how wounds were handled, but any system where being grazed by five consecutive unarmed attacks is more deadly than being hit with a rocket propelled .75 caliber explosive round probably has a few kinks that need working out. It'd be nice (although highly unlikely) if for DH2.1 Fantasy Flight tested it out on a different wound system, and if that failed fall back completely on Only War.

In terms of character differentiation and forbidden lores, neither of those are a problem with the current system. Remembrance lets you use actual character background to differentiate (oh you were from an imperial regiment that fought orks? Roll to see what you know about them). This is differentiation. There are so many skills and talents and character creation options that I don't think there is much risk of characters becoming samey. There's just some judgment and roleplay involved. Also, the specialist talent can be used for forbidden lores. That's literally half the reason it exists.

To Keep:

- The Skills. Seriously they are good and should not be mess with. If you have to change any thing then let common lore be one skill instead of splitting things up to separate groups. Let the separate groups be for scholaristic and forbidden lores.

- Character creation. This actually trumps OW character creation in my opinion and leads to real character customization without dice rolls. You only need three rolls that is to determine your starting characteristics, see if you get a extra fate, and to see what divination you have.

-- Let Roles keep the characteristics and skill progressions. This is better than apptitude.

- Elite advances. One of the best moves the game had done. This will allow the creation of some pretty unique prestige classes and allow some choices to be made. Do you side with the imperial creed cult that has a axe to grind against the local authorities, or do you destroy it because you think going against the local authorities is heresy? Both will tempt you with exclusive access to elite advances.

- AP system. Seriously this is treated like a quarter of a action if you think about it. The only down side is rate of fire which I agree that it should be drop like a bad habit. That still doesn't mean the whole AP should die because of RoF. It has the chance to improve and could do so much more than half actions.

To Get Rid of:

Wound system. My god I hate this and it needs to die in fire. The old wound system was much more better.

RoF. Also needs to die in fire. What happen to just s/-/-? What happen to just single shot +10, semi shot +0, and auto shot is -10. Simple and easy to understand so why ruin it with a new RoF system that I had to spend a hour trying to explain to people how it works? Just let the new RoF die and keep the proven RoF system.

In terms of character differentiation and forbidden lores, neither of those are a problem with the current system. Remembrance lets you use actual character background to differentiate (oh you were from an imperial regiment that fought orks? Roll to see what you know about them). This is differentiation. There are so many skills and talents and character creation options that I don't think there is much risk of characters becoming samey. There's just some judgment and roleplay involved. Also, the specialist talent can be used for forbidden lores. That's literally half the reason it exists.

True. Rememberance may not be that big a problem. I would still, however, prefer a couple (a couple, not 50) of different knowledge skills to have some mechanical differentiation instead of only relying on GM judgement. Just like there are some variety in the physical and social skills, it would be nice to have some variety in knowledge skills as well.

I actually like most of the changes to the game.

Biggest issues that I do not want or like.

Lack of wound pool/wounding mechanics. I dislike it, give me back DH1 style wounding. Its simple, straightforward and fast.

DH1 Weapons styles: Damage, and pen values. Easy to learn, and gives an excellent concept of effectiveness.

DH1 Armour: Have a large list of different style armours. Primitive, leathers, guard and power armour were half of the parties goal to get to. They wanted that massive AP bonus and to get those other perks.

Money: Give me gelts. Money is the primary mechanic for GMs to control what tech level and availability they give their players. I say remove the resource stateline entirely. With the exception of maybe the inquisitor. Even still, as a GM I would punish the **** out of him for using it. Last thing I need or want as a GM is a bunch of players rolling (using chance) to see what types of weapons they can get or mustering troops for aid.

Talent tress, I have not played enough to give them a proper review. Skills, I actually kinda like.

I love nearly everything else in the book.

Yeah - the wound system adds indeed a lot flavour to combats - its not just numbers going down, but enhanced effects on your character that can change the situation - therefore make it interesting and less computer-gamey.

The new fatigue is also making fatigue something to care about and much more interesting.

As to the Talent trees (and also the psy power trees), I dont like them at all.

They force you to take something which you do not want, or even worse, that does not fit into your character concept, even if you just want 1 specific talent which is a little further in the tree.

The OW Tier system ist superior to this and much more flexible - would really like to give OW a favour in this case.

And, the omission of Unnatural Characteristics was definitely something I approved of. I really hope they done add it back in for backwards compatibility. I've never really understood why unnaturally strong characters weren't just give higher strength characteristics.

The problem is that a percentile system has an inherent cap on the possible characteristics. You can only really go to 100, and even very close to 100 having a higher stat becomes increasingly less significant as you go along. ("Yay. I have 96 Toughness rather than 91!"). If an average person has a strength of 30, how much is twice as strong? 60? What about someone who is 5 times as strong? 150? And what does 150 mean when you are using a system that caps at 100. Now, I am not saying Unnaturals are the best solution to it (though I don't have a problem with them, just they were massively overused. For one Space Marines should not have had them), but it is certainly one way to deal with this. It means you can hold off the stat cap a little longer.

I don't mind the concept of Talent trees, but to actually introduce them they would need to have much more diverse, larger trees. The ones in DH2 were just too small to bother with. If you are going to have a talent tree you need to have more branches and more choice to make them meaningful.

And, the omission of Unnatural Characteristics was definitely something I approved of. I really hope they done add it back in for backwards compatibility. I've never really understood why unnaturally strong characters weren't just give higher strength characteristics.

The problem is that a percentile system has an inherent cap on the possible characteristics. You can only really go to 100, and even very close to 100 having a higher stat becomes increasingly less significant as you go along. ("Yay. I have 96 Toughness rather than 91!"). If an average person has a strength of 30, how much is twice as strong? 60? What about someone who is 5 times as strong? 150? And what does 150 mean when you are using a system that caps at 100. Now, I am not saying Unnaturals are the best solution to it (though I don't have a problem with them, just they were massively overused. For one Space Marines should not have had them), but it is certainly one way to deal with this. It means you can hold off the stat cap a little longer.

I don't mind the concept of Talent trees, but to actually introduce them they would need to have much more diverse, larger trees. The ones in DH2 were just too small to bother with. If you are going to have a talent tree you need to have more branches and more choice to make them meaningful.

At the beginning, I thought so too.

But I guess that is because usually we think, that % ends at 100, if related to probabilities.

But as this game can have modifiers, 100% is not really a hard cap in any way.

Example:

> With characterisitc value 50, you would already be at 110% now, when facing a +60 test.

> With characteristic value 110, you still had to roll for a 80, when facing a -30 test

Of course, a value >100 means, that you auto-pass +0 tests and easier - so what - the test is just so easy that you do not need to roll. And if you need DoS, you may roll as usual.

It is also an indirect way to show immunities against certain effects (by having a very high Toughness)

The trees given are too narrow and contain too many "musts" before you can buy what you want. In many cases this doesnt even make sense.

1. Please keep it that Evasion is effectively an opposed test, not a success test. One of my greatest issues with the DH/RT/DW/BC/OW system is that the players possess the power to actually tell the GM "No, you don't hit me, because I succeeded on my dodge check." This is disruptive to my narrative powers as the GM, and is in violation of the spirit of rule 0. It should not be so obvious that I am cheating.

This might have worked in the new beta system, but it will create problems if introduced into Only War attack rules. Namely, it will create a situation where a single attack is always the hardest to avoid, as it not only comes with a to-hit bonus that will statistically generate more DoS, but it will also be the only attack mode where the effective difficulty to avoid the blow isn't capped in some way.

The obvious solution to this is to restore the old DH hit modifiers, which is something they should do anyway. If that unbalances heavy weapons, then heavy weapons should suffer a penalty, not full auto.