If you want to remove TB from soaking damage, I'd suggest doing so while making the following change: Sound Constitution adds (TB) Wounds per purchase. Include Unnatural Toughness in TB when making this calculation.

Adding wounds (Hit points) simply brings us back to the original problem. If we were going to use a narrative damage system (Like the original DH2 beta) than TB soak would be appropriate. If we're going to be using Hit points, I don't see it!

If you want to remove TB from soaking damage, I'd suggest doing so while making the following change: Sound Constitution adds (TB) Wounds per purchase. Include Unnatural Toughness in TB when making this calculation.

Adding wounds (Hit points) simply brings us back to the original problem. If we were going to use a narrative damage system (Like the original DH2 beta) than TB soak would be appropriate. If we're going to be using Hit points, I don't see it!

Not really. TB doesn't ablate, so it doesn't get worn down and light attacks are almost useless against high TB. OTOH, with the additional Wounds, you might last longer but you can still be hurt with fists, knives, and other light weapons that high TB can totally ignore.

Fair point but I still disagree. Sound constitution can be bought an unlimited number of times up to twice their TB. This implies a human "natural" max of twice the TB. For a Sergeant or Heavy, this is a normal max of about 23 (Assuming TB 4). This is plenty to my thinking. Your method would leave characters with upwards of 39-47 wounds! Either that or they will Max out their wounds within one or two purchases of the talent. Not sure I like either option.

Fair point but I still disagree. Sound constitution can be bought an unlimited number of times up to twice their TB. This implies a human "natural" max of twice the TB. For a Sergeant or Heavy, this is a normal max of about 23 (Assuming TB 4). This is plenty to my thinking. Your method would leave characters with upwards of 39-47 wounds! Either that or they will Max out their wounds within one or two purchases of the talent. Not sure I like either option.

Yes, more Wounds, but each hit will be doing more damage. The powerful weapons will seem to be doing a little more, while weaker weapons (like knives and even laspistols) will actually look considerbly stronger. With my suggestion, you could kill an Ork Warboss with a laspistol but it's going to take a lot of shots. With TB reducing damage, that Warboss is practially immune to laspistols barring RF.

Well, technically, you could simply offer turn down the number of times a character is able to buy Sound Constitution.

But what would be simpler than simply removing it? We both agree that the system should be potentially (Even if unlikely) fatal even with your humble lasgun! My point is that way is simple and in no way breaks the system!

It doesn't break the system - it could just be a tad "too deadly" for some (many?), hence I'm argueing for the golden medium which I feel would be better than the current situation (especially since it would then also allow rebalancing certain weapons) without being too different to what a lot of people are already used to.

Turning TB into a Crit-Buffer is admittedly more complicated than removing it entirely, but not by much.

If you're hit, just take the damage that goes through armour, divide by TB, round up - and that's how deep you now go into Criticals.

Plus, I think it is important that tougher people are indeed better able to deal with injuries they receive, even if the current RAW is seriously overdoing it. So either you need to use hitpoints (no problem, just make sure the number does not climb too high .. 10 + Rank + TB?) - or you have to resort to TB as a soak somehow .

Well, technically, you could simply offer turn down the number of times a character is able to buy Sound Constitution.

But what would be simpler than simply removing it? We both agree that the system should be potentially (Even if unlikely) fatal even with your humble lasgun! My point is that way is simple and in no way breaks the system!

It doesn't break the system - it could just be a tad "too deadly" for some (many?), hence I'm argueing for the golden medium which I feel would be better than the current situation (especially since it would then also allow rebalancing certain weapons) without being too different to what a lot of people are already used to.

Turning TB into a Crit-Buffer is admittedly more complicated than removing it entirely, but not by much.

If you're hit, just take the damage that goes through armour, divide by TB, round up - and that's how deep you now go into Criticals.

Plus, I think it is important that tougher people are indeed better able to deal with injuries they receive, even if the current RAW is seriously overdoing it. So either you need to use hitpoints (no problem, just make sure the number does not climb too high .. 10 + Rank + TB?) - or you have to resort to TB as a soak somehow .

The current system allows for twice your toughness bonus sound con "buys". This is where your TB comes in. Your normal human could have somewhere between 4 and 10 extra wounds while the Iconic Space marine would have between 12 and 24. Neither is Immune to RF by virtue of toughness! I think this is what we both were looking for. It also addresses Happydaze Orc Warboss (Who also has Unat. ST and Toughness) since while you could technically bring him down with Laspistols, It will probably take longer than you have! (Especially if he's a Mega-Nob)

I guess I feel that this doesn't make the system too lethal. We both agree that Tb soak makes it not lethal enough! I'm sure you remember that in TT neither the Warboss Meganob Nor the Terminator marine are "Immune" to a Lasgun. They are just REALLY unlikely to bring one down! That would also be the case here!

Just to clarify, you want to keep hitpoints? If so, then yes, TB could go away altogether.

I'm saying we could also drop hitpoints and then use TB as a Crit-buffer.

Both approaches would work, and both would (imho) be better than what we have now.

We may have talked past each other for a moment there.

(probably my fault as I've also debated this over in the DH2 forum, and its first Beta dropped Wounds)

Here's an idea for Wounds - why not make it so that you can only buy as many Sound Constitutions as you have TB? Or maybe even make it TB x 2. Just off the top of my head.

Or drop Sound Constitution entirely and make hitpoints depend only on a combination of Toughness and some base value.

In a Narrative style wound system your way would work well enough. But to clarify: If you get hit with a Plasma gun on maximal (2d10+7 dam and pen will go through most armors), if you're using TB soak as a crit buffer does that mean your max crit effect, (assuming TB 4) is 6? This will in most cases be non-lethal! I'm not sure that's what we want.

BTW: We must be talking past each other. TB x 2 is the sound con limit under the current rules.

Furthering my not to lethal thought: Between Evasions, talents like true grit, Iron Jaw and ultimately Fate points, I'm not sure how allowing no tb soak (If we are in fact keeping HP) makes the system TOO lethal for anyone!

In a Narrative style wound system your way would work well enough. But to clarify: If you get hit with a Plasma gun on maximal (2d10+7 dam and pen will go through most armors), if you're using TB soak as a crit buffer does that mean your max crit effect, (assuming TB 4) is 6?

Plasma guns shouldn't deal a meager 2D10+7 damage on Maximal in the first place. 3D10+36 without Maximal sounds much better. With Lynata's proposed rules, it would be a crit 9 (death) before even rolling for damage .

In a Narrative style wound system your way would work well enough. But to clarify: If you get hit with a Plasma gun on maximal (2d10+7 dam and pen will go through most armors), if you're using TB soak as a crit buffer does that mean your max crit effect, (assuming TB 4) is 6? This will in most cases be non-lethal! I'm not sure that's what we want.

The highest damage of a plasma gun on maximal setting would be 27 Pen 8. Assuming the target wears AP 4 flak and has average human TB of 3, this would be Crit 8 (7.66 rounded up) - a single point short of immediate death, but left with permanent damage.

With TB 4, it would be Crit 6 (5.75 rounded up) - not quite as bad, but certainly still a showy effect befitting for a plasma weapon, imo.

It should be noted that the above goes only for attacks hitting the Body location. Crit 8 on the arm means you're going to need a bionic replacement, and even Crit 6 runs you a risk of losing a hand. Crit 8 on the head ... well, time to roll up a new character.

To clarify, I am not argueing for one-shot kills becoming something regular in a game - not for player characters, at least. Personally, I'd love to see a good mixture of gritty realism whilst still maintaining a certain survivability simply to allow for a better narration. A minimum layer of plot armour, if you will. Considering the gruesome effects that the Crits have, I think this would be a good medium ground.

What I perceive to be the advantage over a purely hitpoint-based system is that any damage you incur beyond your armour leaves you with an injury of some kind, rather than having a good chance of being absorbed by a character's Wounds pool - the latter would feel very close to what we currently have, simply because a lot of hits won't push into Crits immediately.

And Critical Tables being completely neglected until you're almost entirely dead anyways was something that had always bothered me. You just stand there and get shot and nothing happens for, like, 20 points of damage, then suddenly you've got gibs and body parts flying everywhere and people's heads explode. Quite often you don't even get the chance to require prosthetics.

Let's take your plasma gun, for example. Assume it is fired on the standard setting, and that it deals average damage, which I believe is far more likely to happen on the battlefield. This would mean 12 points of damage, or 8 after armour reduction. An Only War character who starts with something like ~12 Wounds could easily shrug this off and still have hitpoints to spend, with zero tangible injury to his or her person.

Compared to my system, a TB 3 character would be pushed into Crit 3, and a TB 4 character into Crit 2. Not devastating, but certainly "more lethal" than suffering no Crit at all, no?

BTW: We must be talking past each other. TB x 2 is the sound con limit under the current rules.

Oh, I actually forgot about that. But is this really so bad, then? Considering the average TB of 3-4, this means a character may at most raise their hitpoint pool by 6-8 Wounds, in addition to the ~12 they start with.

Sure, it makes them even more likely to survive heavy physical punishment, but it's not that different to what they are already starting with. They're at best getting about 50% tougher, if they pump a ton of XP into Sound Constitution.

Also, I just noticed that as a nice side effect from removing TB, Sound Constitution would actually become more important. The individual +1 Wound may not feel like much, but if you max it out it'd be a notable difference - if you are willing to invest the necessary amount of XP.

In all my previous games of Dark Heresy, Deathwatch and Only War, I never really thought Sound Constitution to be very attractive, as +1 Wound just did not mean nearly as much as it would if you suddenly remove TB soak...

Plasma guns shouldn't deal a meager 2D10+7 damage on Maximal in the first place. 3D10+36 without Maximal sounds much better. With Lynata's proposed rules, it would be a crit 9 (death) before even rolling for damage .

Ouphh, with that kind of damage they'd be instadeath even with the RAW!

In a Narrative style wound system your way would work well enough. But to clarify: If you get hit with a Plasma gun on maximal (2d10+7 dam and pen will go through most armors), if you're using TB soak as a crit buffer does that mean your max crit effect, (assuming TB 4) is 6? This will in most cases be non-lethal! I'm not sure that's what we want.

The highest damage of a plasma gun on maximal setting would be 27 Pen 8. Assuming the target wears AP 4 flak and has average human TB of 3, this would be Crit 8 (7.66 rounded up) - a single point short of immediate death, but left with permanent damage.

With TB 4, it would be Crit 6 (5.75 rounded up) - not quite as bad, but certainly still a showy effect befitting for a plasma weapon, imo.

Almost completely irrelevant, but I am suddently very much reminded of a friend's comment that on average, more people died in a game of Blood Bowl than a game of Necromunda. Which seemed a little curious since in BB, the objective was (theoretically) to score touchdowns, while in Necromunda, people were shooting at eachother with plasma cannons...

In a Narrative style wound system your way would work well enough. But to clarify: If you get hit with a Plasma gun on maximal (2d10+7 dam and pen will go through most armors), if you're using TB soak as a crit buffer does that mean your max crit effect, (assuming TB 4) is 6? This will in most cases be non-lethal! I'm not sure that's what we want.

The highest damage of a plasma gun on maximal setting would be 27 Pen 8. Assuming the target wears AP 4 flak and has average human TB of 3, this would be Crit 8 (7.66 rounded up) - a single point short of immediate death, but left with permanent damage.

With TB 4, it would be Crit 6 (5.75 rounded up) - not quite as bad, but certainly still a showy effect befitting for a plasma weapon, imo.

It should be noted that the above goes only for attacks hitting the Body location. Crit 8 on the arm means you're going to need a bionic replacement, and even Crit 6 runs you a risk of losing a hand. Crit 8 on the head ... well, time to roll up a new character.

To clarify, I am not argueing for one-shot kills becoming something regular in a game - not for player characters, at least. Personally, I'd love to see a good mixture of gritty realism whilst still maintaining a certain survivability simply to allow for a better narration. A minimum layer of plot armour, if you will. Considering the gruesome effects that the Crits have, I think this would be a good medium ground.

What I perceive to be the advantage over a purely hitpoint-based system is that any damage you incur beyond your armour leaves you with an injury of some kind, rather than having a good chance of being absorbed by a character's Wounds pool - the latter would feel very close to what we currently have, simply because a lot of hits won't push into Crits immediately.

And Critical Tables being completely neglected until you're almost entirely dead anyways was something that had always bothered me. You just stand there and get shot and nothing happens for, like, 20 points of damage, then suddenly you've got gibs and body parts flying everywhere and people's heads explode. Quite often you don't even get the chance to require prosthetics.

Let's take your plasma gun, for example. Assume it is fired on the standard setting, and that it deals average damage, which I believe is far more likely to happen on the battlefield. This would mean 12 points of damage, or 8 after armour reduction. An Only War character who starts with something like ~12 Wounds could easily shrug this off and still have hitpoints to spend, with zero tangible injury to his or her person.

Compared to my system, a TB 3 character would be pushed into Crit 3, and a TB 4 character into Crit 2. Not devastating, but certainly "more lethal" than suffering no Crit at all, no?

BTW: We must be talking past each other. TB x 2 is the sound con limit under the current rules.

Oh, I actually forgot about that. But is this really so bad, then? Considering the average TB of 3-4, this means a character may at most raise their hitpoint pool by 6-8 Wounds, in addition to the ~12 they start with.

Sure, it makes them even more likely to survive heavy physical punishment, but it's not that different to what they are already starting with. They're at best getting about 50% tougher, if they pump a ton of XP into Sound Constitution.

Also, I just noticed that as a nice side effect from removing TB, Sound Constitution would actually become more important. The individual +1 Wound may not feel like much, but if you max it out it'd be a notable difference - if you are willing to invest the necessary amount of XP.

In all my previous games of Dark Heresy, Deathwatch and Only War, I never really thought Sound Constitution to be very attractive, as +1 Wound just did not mean nearly as much as it would if you suddenly remove TB soak...

Plasma guns shouldn't deal a meager 2D10+7 damage on Maximal in the first place. 3D10+36 without Maximal sounds much better. With Lynata's proposed rules, it would be a crit 9 (death) before even rolling for damage .

Ouphh, with that kind of damage they'd be instadeath even with the RAW!

@ Lynata: I do believe you're coming around to my way of thinking! I do admit that your way is also interesting!

I had a much longer post typed up before I did something dumb to get it erased.

TLDR: Game mechanics aren't designed to reflect realties of the universe in any game. They are designed so that when something happens in a game and you ask does this feel right, the answer is yes. If a rule/mechanic doesn't give you that feeling then it's badly designed or your opinion is a minority.

Well, i did read through all 7 pages, but so far i can only agree with bogi_khaosa.

As far as i am concerned the revised Unnat. Trait in OW compared to DH prevents several enemies from becoming immune to small arms fire. The exceptions are huge animals, critters and robots. Everything else can be hurt without relying on RF.

And it helps the PCs to live a little longer.

If they **** up and/or play dumb they still get killed very fast.

My best example was in my 2. DH group when the Cleric surrounded by robbers armed with shotguns, pistols and clubs demanded their surrender. 2 rounds or 6 seconds later they looted his corpse and prepared for the other Acolytes. So far i have neither seen something in the books or designed by my players that i could not neutralize/kill. The toughest PC i ever had was an Arbitrator with TB5 in a Lihdl PA wielding an Autocannon. The heretics baited him into a trap and dropped a pallet of bricks on him and mushed him. Be creative, use your imagination.