As we all know, the DH2 Beta has gone back to the drawing board to be made 'more compatible' with Only War . So, since every game in the WH40KRP line has honed and refined the rules set of its predecessor, let's talk about what needs to be 'fixed' with Only War .

The first thing that comes to my mind is Righteous Fury. For those who don't know, RF in OW is also based on rolling a '10' on damage, but the results are applied differently than in DH1 : first, everyone can score RF, not just characters with Fate Points; second, the 'confirmation' roll is gone; third, instead of rolling additional damage dice, RF deals 1 point of damage if the hit wouldn't otherwise overcome Armour/Toughness, or it adds a 1d5 roll on the Critical Hit table if the hit inflicts damage normally.

The benefit of this system over DH1 is that no-one is safe: any grunt has a chance to harm any super-hero. I like that in concept , but in function it is applied too randomly: a lowly Gretchin and a 1st Company Space Marine have the identical chance of scoring Righteous Fury?! I find that... irritating.

It seems to me that the most obvious solution is to bring back the 'confirmation' roll- that way the relative combat skill of the attacker is a factor in the frequency of RFs. I remember a lot of people on the Forums saying they liked the removal of the confirmation roll from Black Crusade when that game first came out, so this suggestion my not be too popular, but can we really justify 1 in every 10 hits being an automatic RF, without any regard to skill...?

And then there is the fact that, against difficult-to-wound targets, you might as well save your ammo and just throw rocks, since they have the same chance of wounding an Obliterator as a lasgun. This is a trickier problem to solve... The only solution that I'm coming up with at the moment is to require the RF hit to meet a certain damage threshold- say, at least half the target's Defensive Value?- in order to get the 'minimum-of-1' damage from RF.

What are your thoughts on this? And what are some other areas where the OW rules need to 'evolve'?

As far as Righteous Fury is concerned, I actually think it is more "fair" and realistic that anyone (or anything) can score RF, and I think it is, psychologically speaking, more fun if there is no confirmation roll, because there's a good chance that any initial surge of rejoice at having rolled a 10 will quickly be curbed by RF not kicking in after all because the 2nd roll is failed.

Of course one should feel fortunate enough at 10 points of damage alone, but the human mind generally doesn't work that way. We recognise the potential for more, and will be disappointed if we don't get it.

However , I certainly agree with Adeptus-B at the newest incarnation of RF making too many weapons too similar when deployed against high resilience targets, and a simple rock should never have the same chance to deal the same damage as a lasgun. My suggestion here would be to turn RF into a simple +1d10 bonus damage like it worked in the original Dark Heresy, or even just +1d5. We could even have both values and make the bonus dependent on the weapon (modern vs primitive), or a special talent similar to Mighty Shot.

As for other areas, in the style of Cato the Elder I will of course add my usual "TB skin armour needs to go" protest.

Oh, and I don't agree with so many lasguns and las pistols having a charge slider, but this is a matter of background preference/interpretation, and I fear I may be in the minority regarding this.

I kind of agree on the lasgun front, in terms of fluff (I'm almost certain it says somewhere in the munitorum manual that messing with the charge level on your lasgun is basically tech-heresy), but I think it's a worthy sacrifice to make them more interesting weapons, rather than just being SP weapons but with a (E) on the end of the damage value.

You may have read this in Black Crusade, where it said this to explain why heretic lasguns have a charge setting when those in Dark Heresy did not.

All of this flew out of the window with Only War, when the fans lobbied for every lasgun getting one.

In GW's own background (5th edition Codex Imperial Guard) and their Inquisitor rules, the charge slider is a defining feature of the Triplex-pattern:

It's just a question of preferences - although I never had much of an issue with lasguns in Vanilla Dark Heresy. Their advantage over SP weapons was their much larger ammunition capacity and their increased reliability, whereas SP weapons had the capacity to use special ammo. Different enough for my taste. I mean, by the same token, we could say bolters are just SP weapons with (X).

Well, I'm of the opinion that 40kRPG bolters are fairly wimpy, so yeah, I would say that

Maybe tie RF to the to-hit roll?

Completely off the top of my head, whenever the to-hit roll ends with X (with X being a number that I do not know how to determine...weapon, Damage Type, arbitrary number assigned by respected mathematicians?) it causes RF. Lets say the number is 6- an Acolyte with a base Weapon Skill 38 could get RF on 06, 16, 26, and 36. Don't let it advance past the PC's actual WS score, meaning bonuses to hit from Aim, Range, Size, and etc don't mean the PC continues to have a chance at RF on 46, 56, 66, and so on. Limit it to the actual WS score, then those with greater ability have a greater likelihood of scoring RF, and those with lower WS scores have less chance at RF.

I'm definitely not a fan of "confirming" dice rolls, and the current OW RF mechanic applying to everyone, PCs and NPCs alike, was (IMO) taking it a bit too far.

However, like I said, from where would the magic number for the ones digit RF originate?

I'm on the side of the fence that thinks charge "sliders" should be limited. As Lynata noted, the lasgun has a higher ammo capacity...oh, and is Reliable- it's the go-to gun for protracted firefights- and has "special" ammo in the form of Overcharge and Hot Shot, while SP weapons have many and varied special ammo (maybe too many and varied) and Jam more frequently. Isn't that interesting enough?

I agree with a few others on the forums about opening up Character Advancement. Impose limits on the Character at CharGen with origin, background, and role (I think "role" should represent what the PC's "function" was before being recruited by the Inquisition) but open it up from there on out. I would also suggest adopting a policy of limited Characteristic Advances in favor of allowing more individual (and smaller, say +3 or +5 instead of +10) Skill Advances. Remove weapon usage as Talents, make them Skills, allow EDIT- Players to focus on increasing their Character's Skills (all Skills, not just weapons) as they choose, rather than their Characteristics.

Right, I almost forgot.

In addition to smaller Skill Advances, I'd also suggest smaller Characteristic Advances. This would allow player characters as well as creatures to better fit into the d100 success range without the need for excessive modifiers or Unnatural traits, and it would "soften up" Characteristics advances to be a bit less of a no-brainer compared to other ways to spend XP, or rather would make the choice a little tougher (as Characteristics advances would come in smaller steps, but could also be somewhat less expensive compared to now).

Examples:

Human starting Toughness: 25+1d5, advancement in 5 steps of +3 (possible maximum: 45)

Astartes starting Strength: 45+1d5, advancements in 5 steps of +2 (possible maximum: 60)

In addition to getting rid of Unnaturals this way, I would also attempt to remove talents such as Bulging Biceps, instead tying its effect directly to, in this case, a character's Strength. Either you've got the muscle, or you don't.

PS: Cool idea about tying RF to a character's BS/WS!

Could then some Talents be "handed out" upon reaching a certain Characteristic score?

Ex:

S# Talent

26-29 Nothing (below average to average)

30-34 Talent X

35-39 Bulging Biceps

40-44 Mighty Blow

...and so on.

(I'm in no way trying to specifically influence what score gets which Talent, just making a quick example.)

Maybe not, come to think of it. Using the example above, it might be more difficult to scale 6-8 Talents in this manner and keep the "fluff" separation between Human and Space Marine without being too stingy with the handouts at lower Characteristic values and/or too generous at higher values. Considering this would be done for all Characteristics, this would also deplete the pool of Talents that could be taken as advances. Yeah, I don't like this idea.

Move along, nothing to see here.

I'm not sure how I feel about starting characteristics only being up to 5 points apart. This would make starting characters of the same 'race' veeeery samey, which is something I try to avoid.

Also, are smaller advances needed? Why not just less advances? Three +5 advances seems fine, to me.

How about this:

Human starting Toughness: 25+2d5, advancement in 3 steps of +5 (maximum possible: 45)

Astartes starting Strength: 35+2d5, advancements in 3 steps of +5 (possible maximum: 60)

That's pretty similar to what I've already got written up for my own houserules, yeah. Except I've got 25+3d5, with homeworlds giving +5 modifiers, so a maximum of 60 if you're minmaxing to the extreme.

I think we're letting ourselves down by scaling things in increments of 5.

If we really want to scale different races and creatures, shouldn't we be using increments of 1? I know the math is "easier" in increments of 5 and 10, but minimum/maximum scores-that have no bearing on "easy math"- should really be scaled in increments of 1.

I suppose I'm mostly inclined towards using 5s because they provide a fairly meaningful step up for a characteristic. The existence of bonuses also comes into play, considering how much sway some of them have in a character's power level.

Oh, I don't mean Advances. I mean the actual minimum or maximum scores. Well, mostly maximum scores. Like instead of maxing Astartes Strength at 60 or 65, why not max them at 66? An Ork Warlord at 72? A Human (any) 51? (Those were just flip numbers for the purposes of examples.)

So you'd still buy Advances in increments of +5, but there is a cap, and that cap has more granularity, allowing better scaling of things within a unified system. Maybe?

EDIT- My apologies, Adeptus-B. I didn't mean to derail your thread.

I'm not sure how I feel about starting characteristics only being up to 5 points apart. This would make starting characters of the same 'race' veeeery samey, which is something I try to avoid.

Also, are smaller advances needed? Why not just less advances? Three +5 advances seems fine, to me.

Well, my whole idea was to make the gap between characters smaller, specifically because the d100 scale doesn't leave much room to manoeuver in without getting to the same issues DH always had. Using my example, human characters already occupy ~20% of the scale just by the difference between minimum starting Characteristic and the highest advance, and this is before you factor in implants or stuff like that.

I suppose 2d5 would be a good compromise, though. It almost feels like too much, but it can be justified by the variety humanity sees in the many possible backgrounds. For example, someone from Catachan could start with 2d5 Toughness, whereas a Hiver would only roll 1d5 - but in exchange, the Hiver gets to roll 2d5 on Fellowship. Would that work?

As for the smaller advances, my reasoning here was threefold. Firstly, they're supposed to feel a bit less meaningful, because then they may not be as attractive compared to other ways to spend your XP. Secondly, more (but smaller) advances could be spread out over the character's entire progression (my thoughts were: the first three advances for standard DH levels 1-8, whereas the fourth and fifth are Ascension stuff). And thirdly, "crooked" advances invariably lead to Characteristics looking more "natural", as a 0 or 5 would become a 3 or 8 with its next advance, rather than a 5 or 0.

Lastly, less "meaningful" advances also appear a bit more realistic in terms of how much better a character can actually get in a given timeframe.

I think we're letting ourselves down by scaling things in increments of 5.

If we really want to scale different races and creatures, shouldn't we be using increments of 1? I know the math is "easier" in increments of 5 and 10, but minimum/maximum scores-that have no bearing on "easy math"- should really be scaled in increments of 1.

Oh, I don't mean Advances. I mean the actual minimum or maximum scores. Well, mostly maximum scores.

Isn't this what the initial starting roll would do? The cap is, in the end, determined by how well (or crappy) you rolled your starting stats. Someone who rolled a 4 and a 2 on his 25+2d5, for example, would end up with a starting Characteristic of 31, which (using your suggested advances of 3x+5) means their individual cap would be 46.

I suppose I can see where you're coming from. As it stands we're basically treating the system as a d20 system, not a d100 system, just with some extra padding. I think the over-reliance on bonuses as a mechanic has a lot to do with that.

I don't mean the cap is determined by what you roll added to the maximum number of advances, I mean the cap is set by the game system:

Ex: The rules specifically state that the maximum Human S51, so no matter how many advances you take, even if an Advance would take you over that cap number you stop at that cap. What I mean by "the math is easier" is that adding a bonus of 5 or 10 to a Characteristic score is easy, whereas what I mean by scaling in increments of 1 is a snotling has a max S12 instead of 15, an adult Human 47 instead of 45 or 50, or a human child 12-13, an Astartes 66 or Ork Nob 68 or Daemonhost 62, an Ork Warlord 73, a Wraithlord 81- by scaling things in increments of 1% we have more space between 1-100 to play with. One hundred spaces to be exact, rather than 20.

I would like to see degrees of success on a hit effect damage in some way (maybe instead of RF).

I would like to see degrees of success on a hit effect damage in some way (maybe instead of RF).

It already does: you can replace one damage dice with the number of DoS you had in the attack test.

I keep forgeting that.

I don't mean the cap is determined by what you roll added to the maximum number of advances, I mean the cap is set by the game system:

Ex: The rules specifically state that the maximum Human S51, so no matter how many advances you take, even if an Advance would take you over that cap number you stop at that cap. [...] by scaling things in increments of 1% we have more space between 1-100 to play with.

I don't really see the advantage in this ... when each species (or at least the heroes of said species) already has such a comparatively large range of advances, cap increments of 1 just come across as completely arbitrary. What's the difference between, say, 50 and 51 supposed to be when humans start out at 30?

Also, "soft" caps (meaning, influenced by a character's starting score) also support inherent genetical differences and propensities between different characters, which, for example, could mean that someone who isn't from Catachan could never reach their maximum Toughness.

It already does: you can replace one damage dice with the number of DoS you had in the attack test.

I'm still not sure if this is the most elegant solution. It makes accurate shooting (or swinging) less important for weapons that already have Tearing, and doesn't add anything to an attack if you've already been rolling high...

I wonder if perhaps Righteous Fury (or a modified form of it) should be moved from the damage roll to the attack roll?

Sidenote: Attack rolls having little effect on damage is something that kind of bothers me a little, but almost every single P&P works like that. Or even having to roll for damage at all when you've already rolled to hit. Is this an example of "established industry wisdom"?

It isn't an elegant solution at all, but in my opinion, a good attack roll is a boon all by itself, especially in the Failed Beta where your opponent may have 3-4 reactions to evade.

In many P&P games the attack roll determines when a critical hit (equivalent to RF) or Fumble (jam) occurs. To me, it makes more sense that the To Hit roll should determine RF using the reasoning that the accuracy and how solid the blow landed would directly cause the extra bonus in damage. It's kind of like imagining that in combat, most attacks are glancing blows or blows that don't bear the full brunt of the impact that they could. RF in my mind indicates that lucky direct hit that dishes out maximum destruction on the target. For the common soldier, A blow that includes RF would kill them outright.

In many P&P games the attack roll determines when a critical hit (equivalent to RF) or Fumble (jam) occurs. To me, it makes more sense that the To Hit roll should determine RF using the reasoning that the accuracy and how solid the blow landed would directly cause the extra bonus in damage. It's kind of like imagining that in combat, most attacks are glancing blows or blows that don't bear the full brunt of the impact that they could. RF in my mind indicates that lucky direct hit that dishes out maximum destruction on the target. For the common soldier, A blow that includes RF would kill them outright.

In your example then; If 96-00 is automatically a miss and a jam (Discounting weapon quality), then rolls of 01-05 (Potentially modified by other factors) would inflict RF. This would also have to mean that the weapon either automatically inflicts a critical regardless of damage or automatically inflicts max damage and potentially a critical under the current rules. (Which is probably the way I would handle it.) I will also add support for removing tb damage soak. (To support Lynata!)

Would it be too much to have every x DoS add 1 damage? Let's say 1 damage per 3 DoS and 1 pen per 2 DoS for las wepons 2 DoS damage 1 DoS pen for bolt? Would this slow down play too much?