It's actually not that simple <Snip>

True, but close enough.

Just 5 steps?

Or more, or less. To me it's not important if or how much characters can increase their characteristics. What matters is that it doesn't make the system go all screwy.

Maybe it would be an idea to create scaling within the scale, so to speak. Say, S30-50 starts at 30Kg with every S point increasing carrying capacity by 1Kg. Then 51 might increase carrying capacity by +100Kg, with every point afterwards increasing it by +10Kg. Or.. You know, something along those lines. Do note I've given the exact values about as much thought as it took me to write this.

Additionally, it might be a really good idea to introduce a species maximum on characteristics values. Off-hand, I think the stuff in the wargame can't go more than 2 points over the species base values.

Or more, or less. To me it's not important if or how much characters can increase their characteristics. What matters is that it doesn't make the system go all screwy.

The latter is the most important thing, of course. I would also consider it important to keep progression somewhat interesting, though. A +5 is a single one purchase under standard rules. With a +10, you'd have at least two advancements. Ideally, I would keep the four "levels" we have now, but that might just be too much.

Unless the steps themselves are made smaller, such as turning the +5 into a +3? This would also make character stats look a bit more randomised/natural by negating the urge to assign rolls ending on a 0 or 5 to one's preferred attributes in order to be more efficient about the stat bonus. As a side effect, it also makes character progression look less like huge jumps, instead sporting a smaller gap between the advances.

Maybe it would be an idea to create scaling within the scale, so to speak. Say, S30-50 starts at 30Kg with every S point increasing carrying capacity by 1Kg. Then 51 might increase carrying capacity by +100Kg, with every point afterwards increasing it by +10Kg. Or.. You know, something along those lines. Do note I've given the exact values about as much thought as it took me to write this.

Okay, I admit I wasn't concerned about carrying limits/rules at all, but rather just about attacks and tests, as well as Strength and Toughness bonuses and how they affect combat. I think I was the only one in my group who actually kept track of the weight of my character's equipment, but even I would consider this an optional detail.

Either way, I'm sure that more realistic capacity limits should be possible somehow. Not a fan of ascending curves at all, however. If there's a scale from 1-100, there is no reason to artificially inflate the differences. A method should be found for a smooth and steady increase. Anything else feels very arbitrary, favouring characters or NPCs who are already better.

Additionally, it might be a really good idea to introduce a species maximum on characteristics values. Off-hand, I think the stuff in the wargame can't go more than 2 points over the species base values.

Straken has S6 (compared to most humans having S3), but then again he's a Catachan souped up with a bionic arm...

Technically, don't the basic rules already include species maximums when they limit characteristics advancements to a specific amount? To me, this mechanic results in exactly what you seem to describe - a limit on stats above which a character may never rise, at least not by natural means.

In BC and OW Toughness doesn't mitigate against damage entirely, so I have no idea what the problem here is.

In BC and OW Toughness doesn't mitigate against damage entirely, so I have no idea what the problem here is.

What?

How is this different than in DH, DW, RT, etc?

I'm guessing he means that the weapons were rebalanced so that TB provides less protection than it did in DH1 but I'm just guessing here.

Ooh, okay. Well, I'd have to compare the stats to be sure (fairly certain the changes were not that big), but even if that is what he meant, all this would do would be shifting the issue. In terms of BC, it would make CSM "vulnerable" whereas normal people are at risk from being turned into a pile of ash. Enjoy playing that human Renegade.

Every time I see GMs ask for advice concerning exactly these issues, the response is "give some enemies huge weapons and have them attack only the CSM, and give the other enemies puny weapons for the other PCs". In essence, the "solution" for this issue is to railroad combat into explicit X-versus-Y encounters rather than allowing for a free flow. In my opinion, that just doesn't make for a good game.

The thing with Toughness included in damage calculation is that it's a relatively simple way of replicating an element of the setting - creatures bigger and tougher than humans able to shrug off injuries that would kill ordinary people. The likes of Orks and Ogryns and Space Marines withstanding conventional weaponry with little regard for them is a trope of the setting, and while Space Marines include their armour in that equation, the idea of filling an Ork with bullets and it barely noticing is still an enduring one.

The simplest, most unthinking solution to what people regard as "the toughness problem" - removing TB from the damage equation - also makes creatures that are justifiably tough enough to eat bullets difficult to represent without creating yet another set of mechanical exceptions. The ability to distinguish between frail characters/creatures and resilient ones is a necessary part of any rules attempting to depict the Warhammer 40,000 setting.

The base assumption of the rules come from WFRP1, which used Strength+d6-Toughness for basic damage (armour in WFRP1 provided a very small bonus - 1 or 2 extra points), was that the characteristics in question would be similar. Percentile Strength and Toughness, and first-digit bonuses were a WFRP2 invention, thus a starting average human had Strength and Toughness 3 (same as in WFB)... so using a sword on an identical person dealt d6 wounds (because the S and T cancel out). That assumption carries over through multiple iterations to 40kRP - a Lasgun's static damage bonus is sufficient to match and thus negate the toughness bonus of an unarmoured average human, so only the random damage roll remains.

The problems come when mundane characters gain disproportionately-high strength and toughness scores that result in too great a difference between the basic assumptions of damage - Naked Dwarf Syndrome comes from Dwarf Daemon Slayers with a Toughness of 7 or 8. It's fine for a Dragon or a Greater Daemon to have a toughness that resists most/all mundane attacks... but a normal humanoid character shouldn't have such resilience. Being able to withstand an extra point or two of damage from a lasgun shot isn't too big a deal - a major advantage of WFRP2 onwards having switched to d10s for damage - particularly if it's made clear - either in description or rules - that an attack causing 0 wounds doesn't necessarily mean "no damage" (cuts and bruises and minor burns, etc, are all likley outcomes of 0 damage hits).

Really, these sort of issues could be fixed, imo, simply by turning the toughness bonus damage reduction into a talent or trait. Get rid of TB reducing damage and instead have unnatural toughness just be a trait that allows the character to ignore X amount of damage from every attack roll. So Space Marines could have "Unnatural toughness (8)" which allows them to ignore the first 8 points of damage from any attack-roll. A Great Unclean One could therefore have "Unnatural toughness (15)" which allows him to ignore up to 15 points of damage from a single attack, basically requiring heavy weapons to be used to cause any damage.

This serves the duel purpose of preventing regular humans from becoming Space Marines, and also cuts down on the need for having wound one-upping; that phenomenon we see in DW and BC where a boss creature has like 80 wounds because it needs to be durable enough to be a boss-level threat. Using the above examples, at first glance a Space Marine that completely ignores up to 8 points of damage AFTER ARMOR might seem excessive, but if the Space Marine only has, say, 15 wounds, then suddenly it becomes much more reasonable. An ork shoota getting lucky and inflicting even 3 points of damage is a genuine hampering to a Space Marine in that scenario- especially when there are five other orks in the enemy party. A GuO ignoring 15 points of damage might seem excessive, but if it's only got 30 wounds, that means inflicting 5 points of damage to it with a lascannon is a fair trade.

So on and so fourth. I just threw those numbers in there for examples- they could be tweaked to fit more sensibly.

What if say, Unnatural Toughness score and this score only mitigated damage as per existing (I'm thinking of OW as the latest iteration which everybody seems to laud) rules?

This means that an Unnatural Toughness trait of (X) negated (X) damage suffered from a weapon. Furthermore, unless you don't have an Unnatural Toughness score, you don't reduce the damage received. So your average PC party, mooks, elites and most masters would not reduce the damage received at all if they don't have the Unnatural Toughness trait.

Basically what I am saying is to completely do away with the TB in the service of damage reduction unless it is an Unnatural Toughness (X) in which case it stays as a damage reduction score of (X) on all damage suffered.

That's a terrible idea.

I thought that's exactly what you were proposing?

"Get rid of TB reducing damage and instead have unnatural toughness just be a trait that allows the character to ignore X amount of damage from every attack roll."

vs

"This means that an Unnatural Toughness trait of (X) negated (X) damage suffered from a weapon. Furthermore, unless you don't have an Unnatural Toughness score, you don't reduce the damage received."

I think we all agree that creatures with a higher resilience need this to be represented somehow , I just don't believe that TB as it is currently used in the BI/FFG 40k RPGs truly being the simplest solution. Another simple way would be to up the hitpoints, or alternatively come up with a "Natural Armour" trait (which actually does exist in the DH Core Rulebook) that adds a moderate layer of protection, as opposed to having the already moderate layer of protection from normal characters scale to excessive levels and beginning to cancel out attacks in full.

The way that Toughness works here is particularly unwieldy as, aside from needlessly sabotaging the idea of crossovers and mixed groups, it also apparently necessitated implementing additional mechanics just to compensate for this added resilience. We've got the "Felling" trait in weapons that, for some reason, are much better at dropping tough creatures, yet show no advantages at all when deployed against ordinary targets. And then we have the Horde rules from Deathwatch where normal weapons magically become dangerous just because ~ten people fire them in a group, as opposed to using them individually. And let's not even get into how all of this necessitated new "+1 versions" of existing weapons and creatures.

Ultimately, there is a difference between "being able to survive a lot of injuries" and "not being injured at all", and I am convinced that the latter is neither a good representation of the setting (depending on which sources you read), nor a good idea for a roleplaying game. This is why I often point towards the idea that GW's Inquisitor game suggested: using Toughness not as a second layer of armour, but rather to make injuries that the target still suffers lighter.

It may simply be a matter of preferences. Some people like the idea of, say, a Space Marine strutting through a hail of lasblasts and bolt shells with impunity, not even being at risk of being injured, or maybe eating plasma shots with the bare face and suffering no consequences aside from a loss of hair and a moment of blindness.

I, on the other hand, would deem it more appropriate if such characters are simply better at taking injuries, and taking more of them. "Soldiering on" in spite of numerous bleeding wounds and a crippled limb.

The latter would not only better support crossover gameplay, but it'd actually be in line with how the original material describes the setting - something which, personally, I would prefer.

There is also a difference between "has no mechanical effect" and "has no effect whatsoever". Nobody expects paper cuts and the like to inflict wound damage, do they? Yet somehow, people assume that an attack dealing less damage than they'd like (remembering that inflicting harm on human beings is a colossally inconsistent and variable thing - the sheer uncertainty of it being what the damage roll represents) means that it 'bounces off'.

A psychological disconnect between what the game's rules represent, and what people think they should represent, are responsible for a significant proportion of 'problems' with games.

I'm not saying that the system as it exists in the first five versions of the 40kRP is perfect - far from it. But I'd not go as far to claim that it's fundamentally and irrevocably flawed, either. Each and every damage system developed for every RPG in the almost-four-decade history of the medium is an abstraction, which will disconnect from reality in some fundamental way depending on how it is abstracted. Consider the massive flame-wars that have occurred on D&D forums across the internet about whether or not Hit Points represent luck, morale, endurance and skill alongside raw physical durability, and thus whether or not allowing anything other than natural healing-through-rest or magical healing-through-spells to recover them is allowable (many die-hards on the side of "hit points are purely meat" refuse to entertain the possibility of healing-through-inspiration, which appeared in D&D 4th Edition, yet that edition's treatment of hit points as being an abstraction of many factors beyond the purely physical is the closest to the description of them in every edition's rulebooks...)

My point in my previous post was that - if properly scaled - Strength/Damage and Toughness should compare in such a way that only edge cases result in 0 damage hits. A human struck by a lasgun blast (the iconic S3 vs T3 attack from the wargame) deals 1d10 damage, as the lasgun's +3 is counteracted by the human's TB3 (meaning that a Guardsman's armour is the most important part of the equation, as it drastically improves his survivability). This requires establishing a solid scale of damage and resilience early on - I tried to push for scaling of that sort in the development of BC and OW, though it was pushing against the inertia of compatibility at the time - so ensure that a Bolter does sufficiently high damage that it overwhelm's a human's resilience and matches squarely with an Ork's (my personal rule of thumb under the BC/OW scale of things was that each point of strength above 3 an attack has in the wargame, and each point of toughness a creature has above 3 in the wargame should equate to about 4 points increase in the RPG - an Ork should be roughly TB7, and a Bolter should similarly deal about 1d10+7 damage, though Tearing can account for some of this as it increases the average damage per hit). This requires balance of a variety of elements in different areas, including the ability of mundane human characters to increase their capabilities (the higher peaks a human can achieve, the higher the threshold before something is 'superhuman'). The problems come - as with any abstracted system - when it is pushed to edge cases.

With regards to "Space Marines wading through hails of attacks with impunity", that comes down as much to how armour is represented. Fundamentally, there's a difference between soft armours like Imperial Guard Flak and Eldar Mesh, which disperse and diffuse impact through their construction, and hard armours like Carapace and Power Armour, which provide a solid obstacle for attacks. An attack against soft armour can inflict harm without breaching the armour - the deadly force of the attack is lessened by the armour's design, but will rarely stop it entirely. An attack against a solid mass of self-powered armour can be more often repelled entirely - bullets ricochet from curved plates, lasbolts spend their energy against thick, heat-resistant surfaces - because it protects through different means. It isolates the wearer from harm, rather than merely insulating him. Fundamentally, a Space Marine - or someone else wearing power armour or its equivalent - should be able to wade through a storm of small-arms fire, because the armour is more akin to the armour of a tank than that of a conventional infantryman. A high-end weapon like a plasma gun... that's a different matter. It's suited to slaying such targets, and the inadequacies of previous depictions of it in 40kRP (and in Inquisitor, which woefully underrepresented basically anything beyond basic weapons) are a distinct issue. By my own benchmarks, a plasma gun should be dealing a mean damage of 24, and ignoring 10 points of armour per hit through its Pen, sufficient to inflict serious harm on a fully-armoured Space Marine.

My point is that the problems inherent to the 40kRP damage system thus far are not beyond fixing, while making sweeping changes to it is likely to produce its own set of problems... and when it comes to games design, it is often better the devil you know...

... and when it comes to games design, it is often better the devil you know...

That's exactly how I feel about the Beta rules changes...

There is also a difference between "has no mechanical effect" and "has no effect whatsoever". Nobody expects paper cuts and the like to inflict wound damage, do they? Yet somehow, people assume that an attack dealing less damage than they'd like (remembering that inflicting harm on human beings is a colossally inconsistent and variable thing - the sheer uncertainty of it being what the damage roll represents) means that it 'bounces off'.

Fundamentally, a Space Marine - or someone else wearing power armour or its equivalent - should be able to wade through a storm of small-arms fire

That depends entirely on what interpretation of the 'verse you're operating on. Both the 40k Tabletop as well as GW's Codex fluff on the protective properties of Marine power armour disagree with your assessment.

Not that this matters much. Something I ultimately had to come to accept is this setting's lack of consistency, and that Space Marines in particular "suffer" from a wide range of differing opinions of their writers. The Deathwatch RPG has been described as essentially being 300 in Space before, so perhaps you are spot-on regarding Astartes in this game. I am still convinced it makes for bad gameplay balance, however.

And it is worth pointing out that DW's own rules contradict this, too, for grouping the very same number and type of small arms into a Horde magically ups their damage potential to a level where they suddenly become threatening even to a Space Marine. So what gives?

My point is that the problems inherent to the 40kRP damage system thus far are not beyond fixing, while making sweeping changes to it is likely to produce its own set of problems... and when it comes to games design, it is often better the devil you know...

Well, do you have an idea that fixes these problems without sweeping changes?

The way I see it, the last attempts at doing so (Felling, Hordes, etc) just didn't cut it. And considering DH2 is receiving "sweeping changes" anyways, I just don't see why, out of all things that could really stay as they are , TB Skin Armour needs to remain in place...

I thought that's exactly what you were proposing?

That was the joke yeah.

I think I've thought of some suitable rules, tell me what you think.

First, whenever handling paper, a character will need to make a Trivial (+60) Agility test to see if they get cut. If they do, they take special damage as per a table that lists paper sharpness (e.g. normal paper deals 1 damage, premium Administratum paper deals 2 damage); this damage will be tracked separately. For every (10 x Toughness) wounds they receive, they gain the Blood Loss (X) condition, where X is the number of paper cut wounds they've received divided by (10 x Toughness), rounded down. Paper cut wounds can be healed through a Trivial (+60) First Aid test, with the number of wounds removed being equal to the DoS on the test.

That was the joke yeah.

I thought that's exactly what you were proposing?

Well, I'll admit, you certainly got me there. :highfive: for arriving separately at the same idea

@MaliciousOnion: hilarious

I think I've thought of some suitable rules, tell me what you think. First, whenever handling paper, a character will need to make a Trivial (+60) Agility test to see if they get cut. If they do, they take special damage as per a table that lists paper sharpness (e.g. normal paper deals 1 damage, premium Administratum paper deals 2 damage); this damage will be tracked separately. For every (10 x Toughness) wounds they receive, they gain the Blood Loss (X) condition, where X is the number of paper cut wounds they've received divided by (10 x Toughness), rounded down. Paper cut wounds can be healed through a Trivial (+60) First Aid test, with the number of wounds removed being equal to the DoS on the test.

Shouldnt there be any "Sage Glove" item that provides immunity against such damage ?

Otherwise it is a huge penalty for ratherknowledge-heavy characters...

Just saying...

_{Sage shall have "calloused hands" trait. Many years handling books have made their hands skin hard enough to resist paper wounds, anyone else risks cutting their hands when reading or handling books .}

While I wouldn't go so far as to say 'better the devil you know' what I will say is that I enjoy the wfrp1 system and its family of descendants for what they are. I can choose to play in the 40k setting using any system, but rather tend to adapt this core system to other settings. The removal of TB in itself is not a terrible suggestion, but necessitates another change (your suggestion being the one from inquisitor) in order to represent that different characters are better at receiving damage than others in the newly proposed woundless system (which I like the idea of).

This is such a big departure from the lineage of the system the game is built on it is likely to damage the support for the game. I know many players who abandoned systems after such rules changes (people not moving to D&D4, people not adapting to WFRP3, the entire debate between oWoD and nWoD). You have to understand that people's loyalty to setting and system are different entities. I can play in the 40k universe using GURPS or whatever else I want to. Given a system already exists for playing Dark Heresy (DH1) a change like the one you're suggesting could just lead to people going 'meh' and staying with a game that already has enough published material to provide enough adventures for the average gaming group to play from now until they die.

I don't really have a problem with TB reducing damage but I can certainly understand the argument against it. Would it make sense to make it so that only a target wearing armor can use it's TB to soak damage?

This is such a big departure from the lineage of the system the game is built on it is likely to damage the support for the game. I know many players who abandoned systems after such rules changes (people not moving to D&D4, people not adapting to WFRP3, the entire debate between oWoD and nWoD). You have to understand that people's loyalty to setting and system are different entities.

Absolutely, I understand this and have felt the same way!

In fact, "Blood of Martyrs" turning Battle Sisters into space wizards was pretty much the reason for why I stopped buying further books ...

Yet would the removal of TB be a more drastic change than the removal for Wounds or the shift to Action Points? There are so many things being changed, it just seems odd to leave this one out, given that unlike Wounds or Half/Full Actions, TB has actually caused a lot of issues (as proven by the introduction of several attempts to reign it in).

I don't really have a problem with TB reducing damage but I can certainly understand the argument against it. Would it make sense to make it so that only a target wearing armor can use it's TB to soak damage?

Would this really change anything, though? It seems like it'd only affect creatures - or perhaps particularly heroic characters who forego wearing helmets.

Also, +1 @ "Calloused Hands"

Yet would the removal of TB be a more drastic change than the removal for Wounds or the shift to Action Points? There are so many things being changed, it just seems odd to leave this one out, given that unlike Wounds or Half/Full Actions, TB has actually caused a lot of issues (as proven by the introduction of several attempts to reign it in).

Not per se, no. The problem is if you remove the TB soak entirely you need to change how you represent that some characters are more physically capable of absorbing damage than others. So far I feel your suggestions (like adopting Inquisitors thresholds system) would be a more drastic change, yes. It would certainly be enough to stop me (personally) adopting a new system that used it because I feel it sucks the life out of the game a bit.

However, I am prepared to say that perhaps there COULD be a way that it might be implemented that would still be in keeping with the feel of the system's lineage.

The wounds system has been in a state of constant flux with each edition (I can't think of a single iteration where it hasn't changed) so at this stage thats kind of par for the course. The splat charts however have been a constant. I don't know how I feel about the action point system, however it does seem like part of a logical progression from the 'simple action/complex action' system of the last two editions.

The biggest change (although this is somewhat off topic) that has me confused is the departure from advanced skills and basic skills, leaving it entirely to GM discretion. This seems really odd to me thematically, and it loses some of the flavour. I actually really liked that unjamming a gun was a tech use test, but test use was not a common or basic skill which really emphasised the 'we dont really know how anything works' aspect of the setting for me. Also (and I'd really like someone to tell me if I'm wrong) but I can't see anything that specifies that that tech skill tree is limited to tech priests. So my completely unaugmented Desperado can technically learn luminum blast or maglev grave (?!?)