It's feasible to start with a 40 Toughness if the maximum is rolled at Rank 1 and if wearing Guard Flak Armor we now have a total soak of 8.

I just had to imagine a Commissar trying to execute a Guardsman. 1d10+5 vs TB4 + 20 Wounds

(let's assume the Commissar had the poor guy/gal take off their helmet first)

*BLAM* Die *BLAM* you *BLAM* worthless *BLAM* traitor *BLAM* *reloads* *BLAM* ...

That's pretty much how it goes. Might as well not even have half of the weapons that are in the Core Rulebook.

....Unless a group is rolling around as a bunch of Adepts ;-)

At this point, then, we're no longer talking about "unified" so much as whether the system will be comprehensive (detailed/complex) or "streamlined." I don't really perceive an issue with a semi-complex system.

Take the Beta injury system and Lynata's (and my own) desire to incorporate armour degradation, for instance- The GM rolls to hit, the roll is successful, the GM rolls for and tells the Player Damage, Pen, and wizznicky all else {"The weapon is a Power Sword", which the Player then translates to "degrades my PC's armour"), and the Player tracks all of it from "You get hit by the Power Sword for 13 Damage, Pen 2." Apply effects as they need to be applied. The Player already has to track the +5/+10, Injury effects from among nine Tables (which could be just five, or even three) and weapon/gear Condition. To me, tracking these things adds to the gaming experience.

i used to role play that my barbarian's scale mail was battered and worn. I would buy new armour after particularly nasty/harrowing fights. By comparison, my buddy's paladin wore the same gleaming pristine plate mail every session for years. Different strokes, and all, but since then I've been of a mind that there could be and should be some rules for the degradation of the stuff people use. So far, Dark Heresy has offered some pretty poor (and inconsistent) rules. I've written House Rules I intend to use, but that's not what anybody on the forum wants. It seems that what's more wanted is official rules...except now we are starting to disagree on even the most basic principle of our game: which do we prefer, simple or complex? And by "complex" I mean something more than "Your armour's in pretty poor shape; you have to buy new armour" and less than "Your armour has degraded 17%- temporarily re-figure you Movement, Endurance, Combat Ability, and etc until the armour is fixed, until you discard it, or until you buy new armour."

I'm wondering if ixnay onyay omplexitycay is a "Players cheat/fudge" concern that a simple game system leaves wide open for scrutiny (meaning there is nothing or little to fudge), or if it's just/only a desire for a simple game.

I prefer complex, but this is neither here nor there when discussing a unified rule system...or is it? Do we need to start from scratch?

It's certainly a tricky question. We have to keep in mind that no matter what we (or rather FFG) do, there's no way that every single buyer could be satisfied. There's too many different opinions to ever achieve such perfection. The best we could hope for would be some sort of compromise.

Anyways, I'm not sure if this is just my own biased perception, but I feel that the basic principle of the d100 system remains sound. I liked it for (unlike other P&P RPGs) offering a clear projection of a character's success chances. And the way I see it, most if not all the issues that I perceive the system to have these days are the results of minor flaws in the basics that are exacerbated once pushed beyond a certain range, which is why I'm assuming the designers just never really noticed how mechanic X could eventually work out when combined with Y or Z.

So personally ... no, I don't think the system would need a complete rewrite. But I do believe it could benefit from some simplification, and from having its kinks worked out.

I also feel that the d100 system is much less complicated than even the d20 system which is good. What it needs is some tweaks to the areas that grant modifiers to a roll. It also needs further balancing.

I think you can't have the simplicity of the core mechanic and system architecture, without having a jungle of modifiers.

Or, you can. But not in a fantasy game covering the span from snotling to greater daemon. Because the puny ones has to have a real chance of success, and the super-powered ones has to have a real chance of failure.

Personally I'm not really sure what I want. On the one hand, I love the simplicity and flexibility of the current system. On the other, most of the issues the system has, are a result of the very finite 100 scale and the comparatively large d10 variable.

That's pretty much how it goes. Might as well not even have half of the weapons that are in the Core Rulebook.

I've had problems with some of my PCs piecing together 'broken' stacking armour combos (from Book of Judgement ) that really gutted the range of threats I can use against them, so I can kind of see what you are getting at, but I think you are overstating the case. TB4 (so, elite) plus Carapace Armour (crazy expensive) = a damage soak of 10, so even laspistols (max damage of 12) have a chance of inflicting a wound- an appropriately slim chance, but a chance. Add the Maxial rules for las weapons from Only War (long overdue imo) and nothing short of Terminator Armour is 100% immune to the lowly laspistol.

I have no problem with TB as damage resistance, since I think it's pretty representative of the 'macho fantasy' aspect of much 40K fiction ("Pfft! Just a flesh wound!"), but if I did I think the simplest solution would be to use a suggestion someone made a while back (I'm too lazy to look up the post and give credit where due...): just say that "Any damage that exceeds Armour Value is reduced by the target's Toughness Bonus, to a minimum of 1 ." Would that appease some of the hate for 'skin armour...?

-and Lynata's (and my own) desire to incorporate armour degradation, for instance-

I may have missed it- have there been any suggested rules on how to 'degrade' armour? Because I like that idea. The simplest way I can think of to incorporate that would be to say that any hit reduces armour in that location by half the weapon's AP.

Would that appease some of the hate for 'skin armour...?

I have two problems with TB Soak. It works exactly like armour, and it is point for point a lot better than armour is.

That said, it seems our Inquisitor inspired alternative injury mechanics are working out just fine, and plugging them into any of the versions and editions we've seen so far is problem-free.

Even so, I think it's sad we have to houserule this stuff, because to me both HP and TB Soak are both incredibly awkward and just about the least interesting way to handle damage and injuries. I hope the beta strives for something better (without going to the extreme of the last beta).

I may have missed it- have there been any suggested rules on how to 'degrade' armour? Because I like that idea. The simplest way I can think of to incorporate that would be to say that any hit reduces armour in that location by half the weapon's AP.

I haven't seen any simple and cool ways to handle it yet, that has enough of an impact to matter and not enough impact to radically alter the damage point balance. But do let me know if you see any. I'd love to make it part of our game, but I can't think of a good way to do it.

I have the same problem with Fatigue, vaguely apropos. It's a cool concept, but it's hard to justify the added complication (we've yanked out Fatigue).

Regarding the armour degradation thing, you could handle it using the Item Status system. Something like this;

Every time armour is hit with an attack which has Pen exceeding the armour value of the armour, reduce armour status by one.

Item status could do this;

0 (Wrecked): Armour provides only a token amount of protection (1 on each location), and inhibits movement to a tremendous extent. Maximum agility while wearing the armour is halved (round up).

1 (Poor): Protection is reduced, and the damage impedes movement. Reduce Armour value by one on all locations (to a minimum of one), and reduce maximum agility by 10.

2 (Average): Armour behaves as usual.

3 (Best): The armour is in perfect condition, providing superior protection and allowing for increased flexibility. Increase the Armour value of the armour on all locations by one point, and increase maximum agility by five.'

This would probably work better if Item Status had another step or two, though. But that should provide a basic template to work with.

Personally, what I'd like to see is an armour degradation rule that also allows armour to be damaged by attacks that do not break through it. Especially those, even, to make prolonged exposure even to lesser weapons dangerous. The more you get shot, the more you are at risk, regardless of by what.

Narratively, it would be about attacks chipping off chunks of ceramite from your power armour, or your flak jacket getting a nasty black burn spot that will have this location be more vulnerable next time.

The tricky part is that I also wouldn't want every single attack to provide a tangible reduction in armour efficiency, and that I wouldn't want it to become a hassle in bookkeeping. Whew!

Several options spring to mind:

Either track every single attack whose combined damage + pen exceeds AP, and make a simple tally mark on your character sheet. Once your marks equal AP, your armour degrades by one step. Good and Best quality traits each add +1 to the threshold.

Tally marks and Degradation Steps are tracked on a location basis. The latter (4-5 steps?) focus on reducing AP, but in the final stages would also feature minor penalties to Agility.

Or, have the armour degrade by one step every time a successful attack rolls a natural 10 on the damage die. Number of Degradation Steps is equal to the armour's original AP. Again, effects would focus on reducing AP, but in later stages also Agility. This would have the added benefit that Agility modifiers can only kick in for heavy armour - a leather or flak jacket simply loses protection, but it won't slow down your movement.

Or, to pick up on an idea from Balenorn and modify it a bit, have "Critical Tables" for armour that are triggered either before or together with the character's normal Critical Table. Works better if you also use this to replace Wounds/hitpoints and classic TB Soak:

Note that these Critical Tables would be meant to be less complicated than the standard FFG ones, though.

An easy approach would be to just take AP and multiply it by 5 to get a sort of "total resilience value". At any time an attack strikes the armour, AP lowers its potency before passing the remaining damage on to TB. Total damage (+Pen) to the armour is tracked, however, and once it pushes over the total resilience value, that location permanently loses 1 AP and the counter is reset. Rinse, repeat. The downside is that you've got an additional number to track. Not much, but still a hassle.

A faster but simultaneously more complicated way would be to treat these Crits exactly like Inquisitor TB, and apply a negative effect every time an attack whose damage is above total AP "touches" the next stage. As this would lead to a much quicker armour degradation even against less powerful weapons, however, I would recommend making the effects less severe - such as only Stage 2 and Stage 4 actually leading to a loss of -1 AP each, whereas Stage 1 is only a scratch. Stage 5 could be some equipment malfunction based on location (Strength penalty if arm, Movement if leg, BS/WS if helmet).

Only after an armour location was knocked down to Stage 5, an attack would actually have a chance at damaging the wearer, for now any damage beyond the remaining AP will go directly into TB and trigger the appropriate injury effects.

The upside of this approach would be that, aside from making hitpoints redundant (as you basically have your armour provide a pool of hitpoints based on AP as Crits), you do not need two steps to track stuff - as you are only looking at either your Armour Crit table or your Body Crit table. Once an armour location has been whittled down, you simply switch charts.

Or you just make the gaps between characters/creatures and the advancements smaller. +2 or +3 instead of +5 per levelup already goes a long way.

I agree that a system where armour loses durability even in the face of 'weak' attacks would be good, but it seems like it's pretty **** tricky to do without either making all armour into tissue paper or adding a huge amount of extra book-keeping. I basically went with what I wrote up up there because it's relatively easy to track and doesn't let armour break down too fast.