Only big problem in my oppinion is the Carrying Capacity table.

It should be reworked to be more realistic and not have such a bad scaling.

Same goes for the jump scaling maybe

80 is just an silly amount of strength for a human, scaling aside. I'd expect it from something like a tyranid warrior or something that might be able to leap 6m (well maybe not quite 6m but still much further than the healthiest human). I suggest a cap on all stats except influence of 60.

The real question has to be how/why did he get unnatural strength and toughness in the first place

Vindicare Assasin

We all know that ascension is broken even before you try to convert it to DH2. What sort of Unnatural Strength and Toughness was he getting? What was he using them for generally speaking?

The "ordinary" *2. And mainly for killing stuff

A vindicare assassin wielding a power fist in power armour smacks of power gaming anyway. With the removal of Unnatural toughness it does seem like there should still be a cap on how far beyond the starting level you can increase your stats though, like how you used to only be able to raise it by 20 above the characters starting stats.

Yea I'd take his strength and toughness down a notch and give him some skills and tallents that help him do whatever he uses them for most. So if he's mostly climbing buildings give him an increase in athletics.

The character does stink of power gaming alright. He certainly isn't in line with the lore.

I can't help but notice he has literally no skills that let him interact with NPCs that don't involve him turning them into a fine mush, I'm amazed he reached this XP level without being poisoned or killed in an ambush due to his low perception. Let alone the complete lack of investigatory skills.

I'm not trying to be harsh here, but I think the point is if you want to be a munchkin there are ways to break any system.

To clarify I'm in total agreement that the stats allow you to do ridiculous things, I just think the problem is a system that allows a human to attain those kind of stats in the first place, not necessarily the lifting/carrying capacity associated with them.

Others in the player group backupped with said skills

Main issue is that the values does not scale properly.

The carrying cap should scale way lower, like 25kg per S point. From 25 to 250kg.

Jumping should not be meter/degree of success but "up to half S vertically" and up to S horixontally.

I just made two fixes that fits both the rules and the realism better...

Yeah those are good changes, particularly the jumping one. I'm still not convinced the problem doesn't lie with being able to attain that kind of strength in the first place when it comes to lifting and carrying though, reaching a strength in the 80s is still grossly unrealistic.

For comparison a genestealer has a strength of 55, an ork boy has a strength of 40. A Juggernought of Khorne (a demonic rhino made of brass) has a strength bonus of 10. Think about it

Apart from the constant praise of inquisitor, which was one of the most clunky and unbalanced systems I've had the misfortune to play. I think you've got some good points.

I think toughness still needs to exist as a stat, given its also used for endurance checks. I think the stat could be lowered without it needing to be removed entirely, I ran a DH game where the base toughness of all NPCs and characters was 2 and I was amazed at how much it increased the lethality of firefights which is another reason I like the woundless system being proposed in the 2.0

Admittedly, this is also a matter of what we'd like to see and experience in the games we play, though.

I think the stat could be lowered without it needing to be removed entirely, I ran a DH game where the base toughness of all NPCs and characters was 2 and I was amazed at how much it increased the lethality of firefights which is another reason I like the woundless system being proposed in the 2.0

I also think it is a step in the right direction - but TB's effect as stacking armour will apparently still be there.

From what I've read, they were trying to make combat shorter by lowering armour values a bit, but I think this looks weird as it only increases the role of Toughness even further, and it ends up making certain types of armour feel too similar.

Unless this was changed in one of the more recent erratae?

If you want to be technical BI we're lifting from a system they revised from a company called Hogshead (or possibly Green Ronin, I forget who published WFRP first).

To be honest my biggest misgiving about Inquisitor was its complete lack of balance (you could just make a team made of whatever you want) and its initiative system, which made dangerous actions more risky if you had a higher initiative through a weird quirk in the rules. Neither of these things relate to the wound allocation, which I can see you're point with.

To use the space marine as an example though, using a DW marine in the DH beta rules, the Marine is quite likely to take damage from a lasgun, its just unlikely to do more than a 1-6 result on the first couple of hits, with the average chest armour being 10, meaning the lasgun needs at 8-0 result to cause an injury (roughly 1/3, the same chance of a SM failing an armour save in 40k). It might not be perfect, but again, its a step in the right direction.

I think the problem I have personally is that a larger buffer between crit levels means less variation on the critical "splat" charts, which are a big part of why me and my play group of nearly 9 years enjoy the system so much - damage has a direct narrative effect on the combat, not just a series of condition effects and stat drains like in other systems. Moving to something more akin to WoD 'Bruised, Injured, Crippled' system with TB acting as a buffer would necessarily have to diminish that to keep the lethality. Its a horses for courses thing though, and as I say every time anyone makes a new edition "No one is forcing you to change editions" as noted by my steadfast refusal to move from WFRP 2nd ED.

I would enjoy it if FFG could re-introduce the 'groin' hit location from Inquisitor though.

If you want to be technical BI we're lifting from a system they revised from a company called Hogshead (or possibly Green Ronin, I forget who published WFRP first).

Good point about WFRP. I have little knowledge of its history, only ever played ... its 2nd edition, I think?

you could just make a team made of whatever you want

Isn't that desirable?

It is exactly this mix-and-match ability that I'm missing in between the different 40k RPGs from BI/FFG.

I think the problem I have personally is that a larger buffer between crit levels means less variation on the critical "splat" charts, which are a big part of why me and my play group of nearly 9 years enjoy the system so much - damage has a direct narrative effect on the combat, not just a series of condition effects and stat drains like in other systems.

Ahh. Yes, I started out enjoying those tables a lot. They were, at least for me and back then, a fairly unique thing in RPGs. By now, however, I'm leaning more towards putting more responsibility in the hands of the GM rather than letting the rules railroad combat beyond the most basic effects. A good GM and a good player should have little issue thinking of suitable effects and descriptions for how those condition effects and stat drains come to be - individually tailored to the specific situation and the weapon that was used.

It is an exercise in imagination, and as a lot of threads have shown, the book doing it for you has its very own downsides. What was that about heads exploding from a punch with a fist?

With Unnatural Toughness and Power Armour? How so?

Only big problem in my oppinion is the Carrying Capacity table.

I kinda agree. I'm frankly amazed that more RPGs don't make use of the concept of diminishing returns (have Sb 2 to 3 give a larger increase in carrying capacity than Sp 7 to 8). Instead, this system does exactly the reverse. To me, that's the big problem. Want to make 80's rare without putting a hard cap in place? Then make increasing a stat from 70 to 80 not all that worth it in terms of game play. Make spending that experience on something else give the PC a significantly bigger bang for their buck, and they'll spend it on something else.

I'm okay with the one-shotting capability - all over the rest of the board you hear people complaining about the system not being lethal enough. Having a level 7 PC being able to one-shot in his 'area of expertise' seems fine to me.

you could just make a team made of whatever you want

Isn't that desirable?

It is exactly this mix-and-match ability that I'm missing in between the different 40k RPGs from BI/FFG.

I think Cail wasn't being clear enough here. In Inquisitor, there's no formal character creation process - You roll your characteristics as normal, but then can choose skills and equipment pretty much as you like, with no xp cost to limit you. It's very much designed to be policed by the GM.

Isn't that desirable?

you could just make a team made of whatever you want

It is exactly this mix-and-match ability that I'm missing in between the different 40k RPGs from BI/FFG.

No, not at all. There's a massive issue of game balance (remember Inquisitor was meant to be played competitively between two players each controlling a warband). There was nothing to stop one guy (and there was always ONE guy) taking five space marines lead by a maxed out inquisitor for from the start and just laying waste to everyone. It was a power gaming nightmare.

Ahh. Yes, I started out enjoying those tables a lot. They were, at least for me and back then, a fairly unique thing in RPGs. By now, however, I'm leaning more towards putting more responsibility in the hands of the GM rather than letting the rules railroad combat beyond the most basic effects. A good GM and a good player should have little issue thinking of suitable effects and descriptions for how those condition effects and stat drains come to be - individually tailored to the specific situation and the weapon that was used.

It is an exercise in imagination, and as a lot of threads have shown, the book doing it for you has its very own downsides. What was that about heads exploding from a punch with a fist?

You can still use imagination using the splat charts (which I defended in the same thread you're referencing). I mean more like "x result says you lost an eye/arm/foot/nose" which in my experience players complain about unless its stated in the rules. The problem with the exploding head punch of doom is treating unarmed damage as impact damage (a table meant for solid projectile bullets and clubs). WFRP 1 used to have a separate table for unarmed damage (and one for teeth, and treated melee and shooting attacks differently, and a seperate one for crushing, and falling) so I think the problem is in how this has slowly devolved into a mass grouping of damage types for description, not the chart use itself.

With Unnatural Toughness and Power Armour? How so?

No, you're right I gaffed on that. Although I was working on the principle that unnatural toughness wouldn't exist as its not listed in the 2.0 as something I've seen. I did forget to factor in his regular toughness of 4 though. You'll have to forgive that mistake, I think I posted it at about 3am Shanghai time.

No, not at all. There's a massive issue of game balance (remember Inquisitor was meant to be played competitively between two players each controlling a warband). There was nothing to stop one guy (and there was always ONE guy) taking five space marines lead by a maxed out inquisitor for from the start and just laying waste to everyone. It was a power gaming nightmare.

B-but the book specifically points out the opposite...

"If you attempt to play Inquisitor from just a competitive standpoint, you will find that much of the enjoyment of playing the game will be lost."

You can play Inquisitor with PvP, but since the book says you need a minimum of 2 players, and that one player is the GM, I think it was meant to be played against GM-controlled opponents?

You'll have to forgive that mistake, I think I posted it at about 3am Shanghai time.

Of course - I know the feeling!

Good to know I didn't miss something important. Well, or bad, as I suppose that means the problem still exists in DH2 ...

I kinda agree. I'm frankly amazed that more RPGs don't make use of the concept of diminishing returns (have Sb 2 to 3 give a larger increase in carrying capacity than Sp 7 to 8). Instead, this system does exactly the reverse. To me, that's the big problem. Want to make 80's rare without putting a hard cap in place? Then make increasing a stat from 70 to 80 not all that worth it in terms of game play. Make spending that experience on something else give the PC a significantly bigger bang for their buck, and they'll spend it on something else.

I'm okay with the one-shotting capability - all over the rest of the board you hear people complaining about the system not being lethal enough. Having a level 7 PC being able to one-shot in his 'area of expertise' seems fine to me.

I think you got the diminishing returns thing backwards. Lots of RPG systems use it. The WFRP/40K system is kind of the exception. But it is the way it is because of the wargame it grew out of.

In the wargame, characteristics have values between 1 and 10, where 1 is a snotling (trouble picking those heavy-heavy mushrooms) and 10 is a bloodthirster (plays maracas with school busses). On that scale humans are a 3.

The original RPG system opted to multiply the stat range by a factor of 10, but kept the power scale mostly unaltered, presumably to make it nice & easy to port stuff back and forth between the RPG and wargame systems. And that decision has been carried on through the editions and iterations ever since (DH2.3b is basically 3rd edition and about as different from 2nd as 2nd was from 1st, in case you're curious - and yes, there was/is edition war mentality over other editions too - WFRP3e is more like a whole new tree than a branch on the original).

That it always has been a really terrible decision, I'll be the first to agree with you on. Though many others most definitely won't. But it's the cause of the scaling issues we're all talking about here. Because snotlings should strain to carry a bottle of milk and bloodthirsters should play maracas with school busses. So when you put the two at the extremes of the scale, you're going to run into scaling issues when you let humans climb several steps on the scale. There's really no easy way around it.

The best solution would be to not make the system closed to begin with and not worry about wargame stats. Give a bloodthirster S500 or whatever, if that's how far up the scale you got to move before there's a sensible difference between the most a human can possibly achieve and a bloodthirster.

The second best one would be to not let anything climb very much on the scale. Give an ordinary human S30 and a god-like one S35 - then you can have bloodthirsters with S100 without also having player characters that can play ping pong with cars.

But what we have instead are complications: the scale doesn't work right because stuff can climb it too high, so we introduce special rules to limit stuff from actually being able to do what they according to their stats should be able to do. It's a messy, messy solution IMO, to what I consider a really stupid and completely artificial problem.

...

As for Toughness... Blubber of Invulnerability (AKA Naked Dwarf Syndrome if you played WFRP) has always been a horrible idea, and in this the 8th take on the system, it is back and more problematic than ever. Not sure how to solve that one, but I still think removing armour penetration and toughness soak altogether would be a good start. Their effects somewhat cancel each other out, and neither is any good.

No, not at all. There's a massive issue of game balance (remember Inquisitor was meant to be played competitively between two players each controlling a warband). There was nothing to stop one guy (and there was always ONE guy) taking five space marines lead by a maxed out inquisitor for from the start and just laying waste to everyone. It was a power gaming nightmare.

B-but the book specifically points out the opposite...

"If you attempt to play Inquisitor from just a competitive standpoint, you will find that much of the enjoyment of playing the game will be lost."

You can play Inquisitor with PvP, but since the book says you need a minimum of 2 players, and that one player is the GM, I think it was meant to be played against GM-controlled opponents?

That may have been the intention, but the problem is the system didn't provide enough solid RPG backing for it to be really used in any other way (I distinctly remember comparing it to WFRP1 at the time and finding it lacking). The reality is this was how it was played by most people at its height of popularity.

In short while Inquisitor may have had some (albiet, in my opinion, few) ideas that improved on the system it was derived from (wfrp1) it did a weird thing of trying to be both a war game and and RPG, and failed at being either particularly well. If it had featured a real XP system, or indeed any mention of skills with uses outside of combat, it might have done better but it seemed GW were too intent on trying to sell it to a miniature wargaming crowd used to playing games in a competitive fashion, which was ultimately what doomed it. Hell, even Necromunda had an XP system...

I still want my groin hit location back though. Nothing says 'Fury of the Emperor' like a lascannon shot to the gonads

The original RPG system opted to multiply the stat range by a factor of 10, but kept the power scale mostly unaltered, presumably to make it nice & easy to port stuff back and forth between the RPG and wargame systems. And that decision has been carried on through the editions and iterations ever since (DH2.3b is basically 3rd edition and about as different from 2nd as 2nd was from 1st, in case you're curious - and yes, there was/is edition war mentality over other editions too - WFRP3e is more like a whole new tree than a branch on the original).

It's actually not that simple, the basic conversion rate for strength in the first edition is actually that S and T remain the same (so a blood thirster is still S10, remember the idea of SB and TB were not introduced until an edition later when BI took over) The calculation for the percentile stats varies, but generally runs something like (X+1)x7 + 4, where X is the warhammer battle stat. That's the WS formula anyway.

REF = page 213 WFRP1 core rules

The second best one would be to not let anything climb very much on the scale. Give an ordinary human S30 and a god-like one S35 - then you can have bloodthirsters with S100 without also having player characters that can play ping pong with cars.

Just 5 steps? I think we could do more than that - at least 10, plus homeworld modifiers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hysterical_strength (this list actually sounds like good examples for RL Acts of Faith ...)

I think it'd be alright if you had Strength scores for, say, normal humans ranging from 30 to 50 (Hiver teen to Catachan vet) and Marines 50 to 60 (Rookie to Champion). Yes, the gap towards the Bloodthirster could be a bit larger, but keeping in mind that this is a roleplaying game about a fictional setting where people are described as doing epic feats by the minute, I would say that some level of exaggeration is alright as long as it makes for a good game. I actually liked that one table in the original Dark Heresy core rulebook with its examples of what the various levels of characteristics from 1-100 would mean.

A problem is probably that melee hit accuracy is determined by Strength, providing that Bloodthirster with a natural 100% hit chance - but of course one could say that this is either intended, or introduce a special rule that makes such creatures use their Agility score to hit, dropping an excuse like "lots of muscles but curtailed by their speed".

I'd also be open for the idea of making physical capabilities not change at all, and people just picking up talents and skills, but I suppose a lot of players might be disappointed at the "lack of progression"? Raising body stats has become a fairly established thing in RPGs, realism be damned.

I still want my groin hit location back though. Nothing says 'Fury of the Emperor' like a lascannon shot to the gonads

Ow.

I forget who published WFRP first.

It was GW.

WFRP 2e is to WFRP 1e what Black Crusade is to Dark Heresy 1e. Hogshead and Green Ronin were given the IP from GW, same as FFG from Black Industries. Therefor, Dark Heresy 1e owes its origins to WFRP 1e and GW.