Actually I think my math was off.

Max possible TB in Black Crusade for a human character is Toughness max roll 45 + 10 (Fortitude + Perfection) = 55 + 20 (all four increases) = 75 = TB7. TB8 if he has Mark of Nurgle.

In Only War it is: max roll 40 + 5 (don't heavy gunners get this?) + 20 (all stat increases) = 65 = 6. For an Ogryn it is 40 + 10 + 20 = 70 = 7 + (Unnatural Toughness +2) = 9.

Right, so maximum human TB in Black Crusade is actually 7, 8 if he has Mark of Nurgle. Whereas the max. Chaos Space Marine TB is 11, 12 for Mark of Nurgle. A bionic limb could bump this up to 9 (10) or 13 (14) in specific locations.

In Only War it is 6 (8 with bionics) for humans, 9 (11) for super cybernetic Ogryns.

Whereas max PC toughness bonus in Deathwatch is 50 +5 + 20 = 75, 7 x 2 = 14, +2 for bionics in specific locations = 16.

Now I DO think that there is a (minor) problem with the current rules in so far as an unarmoured fist, an arrow, and a bullet have exactly the same chance (10%) of injuring somebody in Terminator armour, but this is totally unrelated.

Depends on what you mean by injure. The fist and the arrow on a natural 10 are probably going to do 1 damage. The bullet on the 10 is probably going to do 2 or 3 damage and cause a d5 critical effect. Or do I not know something about terminator armor?

Now I DO think that there is a (minor) problem with the current rules in so far as an unarmoured fist, an arrow, and a bullet have exactly the same chance (10%) of injuring somebody in Terminator armour, but this is totally unrelated.

Depends on what you mean by injure. The fist and the arrow on a natural 10 are probably going to do 1 damage. The bullet on the 10 is probably going to do 2 or 3 damage and cause a d5 critical effect. Or do I not know something about terminator armor?

All of these attacks witll do 1 Wound on Righteous Fury and no Critical Effect, because none of them can exceed the target's TB+AP (AP = 14 for Teminator Armour).

Incidentally I just played out the "Brother Agamor vs. 5 Dark Eldar Warriors" scenario for the hell of it using the BC/OW rules to see what would happen. On a totally abstract, featureless plain with no cover and everybody being fixed in place. And no Suppressing Fire. Using the Space Marine and Kabalite Warrior stats from the Black Crusade core rulebook.

Anyway what happened was that by the end of Round 5 Agamor had 1 Wound left and he hadn't hit any of the Dark Eldar. At this point things were going to get even more tedious given that his True Grit was about to kick in, so I stopped. But, extrapolating, he should die around Round 10.

Using the Only War splinter rifles (which are Toxic [2] rather than [4]) he should last a couple rounds longer since his chance to pass the Toxic Test will be 35% rather than 15%.

Wow, the damage values for most bullet weapons are very low. It's like the game makers were afraid to make anything more powerful than a flintlock musket.

Wow, the damage values for most bullet weapons are very low. It's like the game makers were afraid to make anything more powerful than a flintlock musket.

It's to keep them roughly equivalent with lasguns. You don't want your sc-fi weapons to be outshone by stub automatics, as they were in Dark Heresy.

They do the same as lasguns, but with no variable setting, for the most part. On other other hand, autoguns/autopistols can do full auto.

Special ammo will push it up.

Well, anything stronger than an auto-pistol will break through the 14 total defense with that armor (anything with about 2 pen will do it really)

Well, anything stronger than an auto-pistol will break through the 14 total defense with that armor (anything with about 2 pen will do it really)

Total defense is armour + toughness bonus for purposes of Righteous Fury (unless they changed this in OW and I didn't notice). The average total soak of a space marine Terminator armour is thus 22, meaning that nothing short of a heavy bolter can beat it.

(Or a sniper weapon or long las.)

ignore post

In fact, NONE are, because all will be damaged by Righteous Fury 10% of the time.

That's fine, but would you really dismiss the inherent issues at the core of how Toughness is used just because there is some 10% chance that any weapon used on a target deals a single point of damage?

It boggles the mind how this could lead to troops starting to throw rocks at High-TB opponents because of two things:

- the guns they have don't have a chance a punching through the enemy's resilience

- the game doesn't care for any difference between a rock or a lasgun when it comes to that one point of damage

Your example of 10 Dark Eldar dudes volley-firing at a Space Marine for 5 entire rounds until he goes down (assuming they actually all hit their target all the time, something you didn't account for) just shows me how wrong this still feels, but maybe we're just having different ideas of what Toughness should do.

**** POSTING SOFTWARE!

You should've been here before the new software. At least this one works.. mostly. It helps to switch the interface off when quoting/editing.

As I pointed out in the preceding post, there are virtually no, zero, creatures in OW or BC that are immune to small-arms fire via toughness. The superman norion is thus a phantasm. No such things exist other than giant monsters and huge robots.

In fact, NONE are, because all will be damaged by Righteous Fury 10% of the time.

Indeed, the Purge the Unclean Space Marine WOUD be injured under the new rules, because one out of 10 hits would do RF which means one out of 10 hits would prompt a Toxic (-20) Test, which he would fail 65% of the time, leading to death statistically (does math in head) after about 50 hits, which would be around 5 rounds of combat vs 10 adversaries assuming an even playing field and people just standing there shooting at each other.

So you would be alright with a stabbing of a naked xenos only doing damage in 10% of the cases? Are you seriously going to use Righteous Fury as an argument, which applies to everything from lascannons to throwing rocks?

Even so, "still doing damage" or not isn't the issue. The issue is magic damage reduction . Even if "it still does a minimum of 1 damage in 10% of all cases!" was a valid point it wouldn't change the fact that someone with a TB of 2 would see his body explode when hit with certain weapons, while someone with TB 7 would potentially barely be scratched.

I'm going to ignore the oddly specific arguments about toughness bonus limitations because they're simply not relevant as presented.

That is funny about rocks vs machineguns.

Possible alternatives could be...

Killy version : Fury that penetrates armor (but not toughness) does 1 damage and causes a d5 critical effect. Fury that fails to penetrate armor does 1 damage (as normal).

Not-killy version : Fury that penetrates armor (but not toughness) does 1 damage (as normal). Fury that fails to penetrate armor does nothing.

Kill or Nothing version : Fury that penetrates armor (but not toughness) does 1 damage and causes a d5 critical effect. Fury that fails to penetrate armor does nothing.

They all draw a difference between a weapon with decent stopping power and rocks/fists. The first makes fists/rocks able to hurt and bullets able to maim. The second makes bullets able to hurt while fists/rocks are useless. The third makes bullets able to maim while fists/rocks are useless.

And none of it changes the underlying toughness/armor mechanics, only the fury mechanics (which are extraneous).

So you would be alright with a stabbing of a naked xenos only doing damage in 10% of the cases? Are you seriously going to use Righteous Fury as an argument, which applies to everything from lascannons to throwing rocks?

Which xenos is the possible for?

Assuming the stabber of the xenos has a Strength Bonus of 3, this requires a Toughness Bonus of 8, and the only xenos in the Enemies of the Imperium with a TB of 8+ are the Ork Nob and Warboss and the Squiggoth and the Great Knarloc, and in the two latter cases 10% actually seems excessively high. The Krootox has a Toughness Bonus of 7.

If you go to Black Crusade however, then most of the Necrons have Toughness Bonuses of 8+ (none have TB above 11, other than Canoptyk robots, up to and including Overlords), for which being impervious to knives seems pretty reasonable to me. That's pretty much it.

As far as I can see, this is a complete non-issue from the POV of an issue of creatures that are supposedly invulnerable due to toughness. They don't exist. 1) No creatures are invulnerable to any attack (which is actually the problem that I have, since a Squiggoth actually probably should completely ignore knives), and 2) in fact, the number of creatures that can completely ignore attacks (in absence of RF) via toughness is very small, generally giant monsters and huge robots. That includes Necron Lords and Ork Warbosses and Keepers of Secrets (!), none of whom are invulnerable to small-arms fire due to Toughness. EDIT: in fact, Keepers have no armour, so an autogun with blessed shells can hurt it.

Bloodthirsters are though. I may be mad, but I think that a naked Bloodthirster being invulnerable to knives is appropriate.

In fact, NONE are, because all will be damaged by Righteous Fury 10% of the time.

That's fine, but would you really dismiss the inherent issues at the core of how Toughness is used just because there is some 10% chance that any weapon used on a target deals a single point of damage?

It boggles the mind how this could lead to troops starting to throw rocks at High-TB opponents because of two things:

- the guns they have don't have a chance a punching through the enemy's resilience

- the game doesn't care for any difference between a rock or a lasgun when it comes to that one point of damage

Your example of 10 Dark Eldar dudes volley-firing at a Space Marine for 5 entire rounds until he goes down (assuming they actually all hit their target all the time, something you didn't account for) just shows me how wrong this still feels, but maybe we're just having different ideas of what Toughness should do.

I did take that into account. I actually rolled all the dice. Agamor got down to 1 Wound after 5 rounds. (Despite two of the Warriors having their weapons jam). 1 of 10 shots penetrates, forcing a Toxic Test that he loses 85% of the time, meaning he takes about 5 damage on average per 10 shots that hit, which about 8 will do a round on average.

I'm ignoring the inherent issues in the toughness mechanic because I don't believe they exist.

The problem is in the other direction -- being able to damage Squiggoths with bare fists and thrown rocks. But they have so many Wounds that it doesn't matter unless you literally besiege them.with armies of rock-throwers.

You should've been here before the new software. At least this one works.. mostly. It helps to switch the interface off when quoting/editing.

Word!

I did take that into account. I actually rolled all the dice. Agamor got down to 1 Wound after 5 rounds. (Despite two of the Warriors having their weapons jam). 1 of 10 shots penetrates, forcing a Toxic Test that he loses 85% of the time, meaning he takes about 5 damage on average per 10 shots that hit, which about 8 will do a round on average.

Ah. That's not quite what you said earlier, as you projected he needs "about 50 hits". Which, obviously, would take 7 rounds if you only have 8 hits per round. Also, is it 65% or 85% now?

I'm ignoring the inherent issues in the toughness mechanic because I don't believe they exist.

So you're just ignoring the points I raised? Why are you even posting here when you do not want to address the very reason this topic exists - the fact that a number of players do believe that there is a problem?

You can say that you're totally fine with RF solving this for you, but as for me, I'd like to see a difference between rocks and lasguns. And something more like what I'm used from the tabletop. And a bit more realism in general rather than people just getting a nice tan from staring into a plasma pistol's nozzle upon discharge.

1) No creatures are invulnerable to any attack (which is actually the problem that I have, since a Squiggoth actually probably should completely ignore knives), and 2) in fact, the number of creatures that can completely ignore attacks (in absence of RF) via toughness is very small, generally giant monsters and huge robots. That includes Necron Lords and Ork Warbosses and Keepers of Secrets (!), none of whom are invulnerable to small-arms fire due to Toughness. EDIT: in fact, Keepers have no armour, so an autogun with blessed shells can hurt it.

Bloodthirsters are though. I may be mad, but I think that a naked Bloodthirster being invulnerable to knives is appropriate.

The problem is in the other direction -- being able to damage Squiggoths with bare fists and thrown rocks.

That sounds as if you don't like the solution you present yourself - Righteous Fury. Fix Skin Armour and we can fix RF.

(also, you just admitted there is a problem! are we back in business? )

People don't get a nice tan from plasma pistols. This is not Dark Heresy Core, this is Only War and by extension Black Crusade. A plasma pistol does 2d10+7 on maximal, which is the standard setting really, = 18 average damage - TB3 (average human toughness) - 8 (average human NPC wounds) = -7 critical.

There is no problem from a game-balance perspective or from a game-play perspective, as far as I can see, unless it is really really important for you to be able to damage Great Knarlocs with knives. (How about... increasing the damage done by knives by 1 whole point?) (It's telling by the way that the "you can't hurt things with small arms because of toughness" argument became "but you can't hurt things with knives because of toughness!" once I pointed out that practically no such creatures exist. This whole argument is now literally about whether or not you should be able to hurt an unarmoured Squiggoth with a knife and how unrealistic and gamebreaking it is that you can't do meaningful damage to a giant Ork dinosaur with a foot-long bit of metal.

Or from a realism perspective, because as a matter of fact my entire body could be covered by shaving cuts and I would not die. My entire body could be covered by wasp stings and I would not die (leaving poison out of the equation). I could be pelted by razor blades all day and I would not die. For attacks under a certain level -- such as by, say, cats -- I am effectively superman. They simply cannot hurt me in any meaningful way, although they can hurt like hell and make me bleed, what with me having no armour.

The REAL reason for the toughness wars in their current incarnation is of another nature entirely, but I won't mention what it is because I'm nice.

Adeptus-B said:

TB damage reduction doesn't really bother me, because there is some precedent for it in real life. We've all heard stories of badly wounded soldiers ignoring their injuries and carrying their fallen comrades to safety, and we all know people who act like they are dying when they stump their toe. Different TBs at work...

The problem is, TB really does an extremely poor job of representing this. You don't have characters coping better with the injuries they still receive, you don't have them receive the damage in the first place!

For those real world incidents (which are really a better example of how willpower works, actually), the wounded soldiers still remained wounded and had to be treated. They still lost that arm. Or they still died on-location after having managed to silence that MG nest.

I think that's more a function of storytelling, Lynata. A Catachan Guardsman who gets shot, for example, and has 4 points of damage get through his armour only to be negated by his TB of 4 is not completely unharmed- he's still bleeding from the hit, but he just considers it a 'flesh wound' not worth his macho attention. That identical hit, inflicted on an aged scribe with a TB of 2 would have him yelping for the Emperor, because he doesn't have the same 'pain threshhold' or 'body-mass index' indicated by the Deathworlder's superior Toughness Bonus...

Edit: the quote feature didn't work right, but I think you can figure out what's what.

Adeptus-B said:

TB damage reduction doesn't really bother me, because there is some precedent for it in real life. We've all heard stories of badly wounded soldiers ignoring their injuries and carrying their fallen comrades to safety, and we all know people who act like they are dying when they stump their toe. Different TBs at work...

The problem is, TB really does an extremely poor job of representing this. You don't have characters coping better with the injuries they still receive, you don't have them receive the damage in the first place!

For those real world incidents (which are really a better example of how willpower works, actually), the wounded soldiers still remained wounded and had to be treated. They still lost that arm. Or they still died on-location after having managed to silence that MG nest.

I think that's more a function of storytelling, Lynata. A Catachan Guardsman who gets shot, for example, and has 4 points of damage get through his armour only to be negated by his TB of 4 is not completely unharmed- he's still bleeding from the hit, but he just considers it a 'flesh wound' not worth his macho attention. That identical hit, inflicted on an aged scribe with a TB of 2 would have him yelping for the Emperor, because he doesn't have the same 'pain threshhold' or 'body-mass index' indicated by the Deathworlder's superior Toughness Bonus...

Exactly.

It's like there's some tacit notion that every injury makes a difference. If you bleed, you're meaningfully hurt. It's like nobody here has ever been injured in real life.

If I take a shallow knife slash across my back, for instance, I am not actually hurt functionally in any way. Same if a cat bites me on the hand with all the force that it can muster. That's because these attacks are not powerful enough, or go deep enough, or draw enough blood, or do enough damage to muscle tissue, to damage me in any but a cosmetic fashion. They cause pain and bleed a bit, but that's it. Because I'm too tough.

Now, I will agree that there IS a big problem in DH, DW, and RT -- in which you can get Space Marines that cannot be hurt by being on fire, for example.

But that issue no longer exists.

Well, I think that many of the ridiculous situations that the rules create are essentially moot. There's no difference between rocks and civilian handguns against space marine armor? Fine. The rules don't model those battles well because those battles will essentially never happen and can more easily be handled by narration.

The rules model things like lasgun, heavy stubber and heavy bolter vs tyranids and space marines just fine. We don't need a system to model knives against tyranids because we already have one, it's known as 'the GM describing a man being ripped to pieces after trying to knife a tyranid'

So you would be alright with a stabbing of a naked xenos only doing damage in 10% of the cases? Are you seriously going to use Righteous Fury as an argument, which applies to everything from lascannons to throwing rocks?

Which xenos is the possible for?

Assuming the stabber of the xenos has a Strength Bonus of 3, this requires a Toughness Bonus of 8, and the only xenos in the Enemies of the Imperium with a TB of 8+ are the Ork Nob and Warboss and the Squiggoth and the Great Knarloc, and in the two latter cases 10% actually seems excessively high. The Krootox has a Toughness Bonus of 7.

[...]

You're missing (ignoring?) the point, and getting hooked up on complete invulnerability being the only meaningful point in highlighting the issues with TB-Soak. It's not.

Just because there's still ways to hurt specific opponents, be it with a 10% chance with rocks or dropping a building on them, doesn't mean that TB-Soak makes any kind of sense.

Furthermore, you are assuming maximum damage at all times, catering to your misunderstanding of the point (that it is one about total immunity). If you instead deal with averages, the skin-magic TB-Soak becomes even more apparent.

Which is still beside the point of TB-Soak not making any sense and why does it even exist (?).

[...]

If I take a shallow knife slash across my back, for instance, I am not actually hurt functionally in any way. Same if a cat bites me on the hand with all the force that it can muster. [...]

Wait what? Is your name Spartacus or something? Have you actually been hurt in any meaningful way, be it a shallow gash clear across your hand or a nail through your foot, because sweet jeebus, a shallow knife-slash across your back wouldn't functionally hurt you in any way?

Who would even say something like that with a straight face?

Now the cat is just nasty, but I'm willing to accept that as a testimony that all you've ever dealt with are kittens, because a cat biting you with all the force it can muster can cause some really, really nasty wounds.

A plasma pistol does 2d10+7 on maximal, which is the standard setting really

"Maximal" isn't the standard setting. The standard setting is what it says on the standard profile.

Or from a realism perspective, because as a matter of fact my entire body could be covered by shaving cuts and I would not die. My entire body could be covered by wasp stings and I would not die (leaving poison out of the equation). I could be pelted by razor blades all day and I would not die. For attacks under a certain level -- such as by, say, cats -- I am effectively superman. They simply cannot hurt me in any meaningful way, although they can hurt like hell and make me bleed, what with me having no armour.

When those shaving cuts and razor blades make you bleed, then you are losing blood. Your body cannot reproduce the blood as quickly as you lose it in your example. So, yes, eventually you would die.

But let's try to advance the discussion a bit and move away from completely invulnerable opponents towards how much TB affects damage still dealt to a target, shall we? Do you really believe that it's realistic for people to have a body as resilient as the body armour they wear? Especially given that AP can be reduced by Pen, but TB cannot? Or that the oh-so-terrible weapons of the battlefields of the 41st millennium are not actually so terrible anymore after you substract AP and TB from their damage? It's kind of the opposite of the vibe I get from 40k as a setting.

The REAL reason for the toughness wars in their current incarnation is of another nature entirely, but I won't mention what it is because I'm nice.

You already allowed yourself to that cheap shot earlier. That you feel a need to hint at your presumption a second time is the opposite of how you aim to come across.

I think that's more a function of storytelling, Lynata. A Catachan Guardsman who gets shot, for example, and has 4 points of damage get through his armour only to be negated by his TB of 4 is not completely unharmed- he's still bleeding from the hit, but he just considers it a 'flesh wound' not worth his macho attention.

That's the thing - Only War has hitpoints, which you lose when you are harmed. Long before you go into Criticals (where blood loss actually occurs). They are literally called Wounds . You are not Wounded until you lose a Wound . But TB prevents even these semi-narrative injuries (since they do not come with any mechanical penalty for the character, other than reducing their "shield") from occurring.

A more accurate narrative description (going solely by how it is actually described in the book!) would be, say, a bullet knocking the wind out of a soldier, his or her body toughness preventing an attack already cushioned by their armour to cause kinetic damage.

Some players may elect to circumvent this by still roleplaying their character as actually being wounded anyways, but that's the same as if bogi_khaosa would suddenly go all grim, clenching his teeth and trying to cover up the blood loss from where his ferocious kitty bit him - to turn his example around.

Ahh the old naked dwarf syndrome, that takes me back

Ahh the old naked dwarf syndrome, that takes me back

Yeah, and ridiculously, TB Soak has become far more significant than it was back in the WFRP days.

I'm inclined to believe TB Soak really is some sort of contractual obligation thing, because ****...

To get a bit back on track, though... How about using the Injury Levels system from Inquisitor? I know I'm not the first to suggest it, but the more I think about it, the more the idea appeals to me.

For reference:

Soo... By this system Hit Locations have 4-5 levels of narrative damage, and while Toughness doesn't stop you from getting hurt, it does determine how quickly you get taken out. Better still, it's less complicated than both the OW and DH2e RAW injury systems.

I'm thinking we'll use it pretty much as-is for our DH2e re-write. Since Inquisitor is long dead, I doubt there'll be any problems with me posting the injury system in full, if you guys want.

Which is still beside the point of TB-Soak not making any sense and why does it even exist (?).

I still have no idea what you're talking about. TB Soak makes perfect sense. If anything, it's Wound Points that don't make any sense at all and shouldn't exist. The first couple of solid hits get past your armor, overcome your natural endurance and then do... nothing. You suffer no real effects at all. You aren't impaired or injured in any way until this mysterious magical force field disappears are suddenly the next hit actually has some real impact.

That makes no sense at all to me.