DoS is already pretty closely tied to amount of hits, though.

True. Idea droped.

Unless the single shot is underpowerd thing comes up.

I think single shot is best made more powerful by making single shot weapons worth a ****, rather than tacking on bandaid rules.

then let's hope they do.

I think single shot is best made more powerful by making single shot weapons worth a ****, rather than tacking on bandaid rules.

Traditional Fantasy is so much easier to deal with, because of the lack of 1,000 bullets per minute weapons.

Ideally I'd like to toss weapon Damage out the window, and instead use a fixed Strength value, modified by the degree of success of the to-hit roll.

But I'm having a very hard time imagining how to do that and still have weapons feel 40K.

Edit: I'm not a fan of the idea that single-shot weapons must be as good (by whatever yardstick) as automatics. However...

Single-Shot could be harder to hit with, but add more DoS-based bonus damage when it does hit.

While Auto Fire could give BS bonus, and low DoS-based bonus damage as additional hits against additional locations.

That would make rapid fire weapons ideal for sucky shots and against poorly equipped enemies, while single-shot weapons would be ideal for good shots and against well-equipped enemies.

I've seen something like that done in World of Darkness, the problem as I see it is how damage and armor work in this system.

I've seen something like that done in World of Darkness, the problem as I see it is how damage and armor work in this system.

Hmmm... A thought just occurred to me.

What if the #hits value of rapid-fire weapons was a damage threshold value instead of the way it's done now?

Say an Autogun has a Damage Value of 7 (it's something like d0+2 right?). So up to 7DP it's 1 hit, up to 14 it's 2 hits & so on.

Obviously that's not the whole solution. Damage, or perhaps more likely Pen (god I hate GW sooo much for calling Armour Protection AP when AP is otherwise the universal abbreviation for Armour Penetration - DH2e please for the love of god throw every single **** keyword out the window and get someone sane to start over), would need to be re-weighted. Pen could be a cumulative per-Hit value instead of a static one as it is now.

Say an Autogun with a new and improved Pen of 1 does 21 damage, or 3 hits, with the second hit having Pen 2 and the third having Pen 3.

At least that way automatic weapon damage won't have to be increased tremendously.

... Still...

One of the big issues with all of this is the d10 damage dice. It is waaay too random.

I can't remember the rules but it might be worth looking at the Paranoia way of working out damage.

One way to make single-shot weapons worthwhile is to restrict ammo, or at least enforce reloading and carrying capacity.
Of course, that requires RoFs that can actually deplete guns in relevant time, or several battles in a row.
I favor higher RoFs, as it stretches my disbelief quite badly to say that in 5 seconds an MG only gets off 10 shots.

If I can only fire 3 times at Full-Auto before I have to reload, and I can only reload 3 times (sure, I got more ammo, but only three prepared mags...) in a fight, suddenly firing 10 three-round bursts or 30 single shots per mag seems much more reasonable.

Single shot should be the standard: No bonuses, no maluses.
If there needs to be a distinction between Semi-Auto and Full-Auto, then Semi-Auto should get a small bonus, but more extra hits (say 1/DoS) and Full-Auto a big bonus, but less hits (1/2DoS or even 1/3DoS).

From my experience with guns, however, I'd advocate for a different rule:
Every gun gets 1 RoF value. 1 for Single-Shot guns, up to idk 30 for a heavy stubber.
You're allowed to fire up to RoF shots in one action, getting bonuses to hit when firing more shots.

Additionally, all guns get a Recoil value, which acts as a threshold for extra hits:
You get one hit for making the roll, and an extra hit for every multiple of Recoil that you pass by. Recoil of 10 would essentially equal one hit per DoS. Guns with higher fire rates would get higher Recoil values.

This would lead to a situation where full-auto makes it more likely that you hit at all (after all, you just fired 30 shots at the guy) but you wouldn't get ridiculously many hits; in fact, in most cases you shouldn't get more than one or two.
With reloading becoming relevant, you must weigh the bonus to your hit chance against the time spent reloading.

All of that sounds terrible. Additional bookkeeping is a bad solution to the question of how you make each of the three rates of fire worthwhile.

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.

If we change DF to being attack-roll-based rather than damage-roll-based (which I support), I would rather it not be based on a flat value- then you get the same problem with veterans being no better off than rookies. I'd rather base it off of DoS, but:

DoS is already pretty closely tied to amount of hits, though.

So, what do you think about having two different RF systems for single shot and semi-/full auto (including their melee counterparts)- say, have single attacks that score RF get bonus damage, while multiple attacks that RF get extra hits...?

Is there really a MY IMMERSION problem with RF triggering on damage instead of the attack roll? Is it really a problem that everyone has an equal chance of inflicting RF?

Genius!

Is there really a MY IMMERSION problem with RF triggering on damage instead of the attack roll? Is it really a problem that everyone has an equal chance of inflicting RF?

I think it's more a matter of "this seems better" than "RAW doesn't work at all".

Bonus damage reflecting a well-placed hit or strike should be tied to accuracy rather than being completely random. It's bad enough that base damage is disconnected from the attack roll, and I'd rather get rid of that as well, but I fear it is too established in general P&P mindset.

I'd actually prefer Redwraith's idea of RF on a 1-5 because it's the complete opposite of the "bad roll" result with the Jamming and thus would fit nicely into the system by sheer sense of consistency, but since this is missing the individual character's BS/WS advantage I'm settling for Adeptus-B's idea.

Unless we find a way to combine both of them, such as .. completely off the top of my head, introducing a "Weapon Skill Bonus" and "Ballistic Skill Bonus" where, for example, a BS of 47 would add +4 to the base 1-5, resulting in Righteous Fury if the player rolls between 1 and 9.

In terms of what Tom cruise mentioned about making single shot weapons worth a ****, I think a few things need to be quantified.

First, we have the very simple "average damage" of a weapon based solely on its damage value.

Within that damage value, we have the issue of scaling damage based on strength. Ideally, weapons will have a floor level damage rating that goes up to a reasonable ceiling. In reality, you end up with melee weapons starting on par with range ones and then skyrocketing well past them. Honestly, scaling damage to strength bonus does not work. Some alternatives:

1) Have a minimum strength bonus to use a weapon. If you meet or exceed it, roll damage as normal. If you're below it, roll a d5 instead of a d10. That's it. Make it a VERY simple binary.

2) Have your strength bonus be the minimum damage you can roll on the d10 for melee. Add a weapon quality that uses Agility instead for some things like knives.

3) Fix unarmed combat to be THE default and then build up other weapons from that.

After accounting for damage, we then figure out a value for Pen. Should it be worth half a damage point? Should it be cut entirely? Again, it is probably for the best to simplify the math by just removing Pen and lumping it into damage.

Qualities should also be assigned values, basing them on the values for added damage and pen they give.

Rate of Fire is the trickiest thing to add math for. Two bullets should always be better than one, so players are going to be incentivized to always use the highest rate of fire they can on a weapon. The way each hit is calculate will also affect the damage total. So you need to base weapon damage calculations on that. However, you also get into a design AND realism issue with the incentive to only use the highest RoF, so the game needs to reflect recoil in some way, either by adding penalties for autofire (boring) or by adding bonuses to lower RoF (exciting).

Finally, when calculating out weapon balance, talents and equipment need to be taken into account. This includes those stupid recoil gloves that completely throw off weapon balance, as well as the various talents increasing melee effectiveness. Basically, recoil gloves should be removed or heavily nerfed, and the weapon talents should work in a way that equally gives the advantages of one kind of weapon (eg melee, single shot) to the other kinds.

It is currently really hard/impossible to do this kind of math with the way the current system works. The current system runs on what "feels" right while also being very complicated and numbers heavy. This is not good game design. They need to scale back on some of the complication and focus on the core balance. Let the weapons be differentiated by their qualities, and keep the numbers more balanced.

Okay, random question: why should we make Single Shot good? I mean, I would love a burst-firing or auto-firing Lascannon, but thing is, that no matter how hard I want it, it is still Single Shot only . So... is this "Buff Single Shot!" thing in fact a cleverly disguised "Buff every Single Shot only weapons into heaven!" movement or what ?

Okay, random question: why should we make Single Shot good? I mean, I would love a burst-firing or auto-firing Lascannon, but thing is, that no matter how hard I want it, it is still Single Shot only . So... is this "Buff Single Shot!" thing in fact a cleverly disguised "Buff every Single Shot only weapons into heaven!" movement or what ?

Having 3 rates of fire presents the player with a choice. In order for that choice to be meaningful, each of the options must be useful in some circumstances. If one option is always, objectively, mathematically the better choice in all circumstances (as is the case with Full Auto in DH1 pre-errata), well that isn't much of a choice now is it? Don't think of it in terms of buffing or nerfing, in taking something away and giving it to something else. It's about creating a balanced action economy so that the player has an interesting, meaningful choice to make.

Why must I have a choice? If one of the three options is better, then it is better. End of story. Rapid firing weapons are meant to rapid fire. If you want to use them with Single Shot then you can still do it but then you don't use the weapon according to its purpose. So you will suck with it. Sounds good for me!

I always did it aim only works on single shot.

Why must I have a choice? If one of the three options is better, then it is better. End of story. Rapid firing weapons are meant to rapid fire. If you want to use them with Single Shot then you can still do it but then you don't use the weapon according to its purpose. So you will suck with it. Sounds good for me!

This makes literally no sense. Are you advocating the game have choices where one option is always the best case? Why even be given the choice then?

Why must I have a choice? If one of the three options is better, then it is better. End of story. Rapid firing weapons are meant to rapid fire. If you want to use them with Single Shot then you can still do it but then you don't use the weapon according to its purpose. So you will suck with it. Sounds good for me!

This makes literally no sense. Are you advocating the game have choices where one option is always the best case? Why even be given the choice then?

Using a rapid firing weapon for single fire is like using a buzzsaw to cut a cake. Hell, you can do it, you have the option, but it doesn't make it a better choice. And do you cry "Life is unbalanced!" in this case or just use a knife?

I can kind of see both sides of the argument. And I agree with AtoMaki that rapid fire should, in theory, always be better than a Single Shot of the same gun. And it really should be a no brainer, aside from circumstantial conditions such as conserving ammo. With those weapons, single shot simply is not how the gun was intended to be used, and trying to force a mechanic going against this does seem odd.

It's like argueing we ought to buff unarmed combat or knives, because otherwise people wouldn't use that instead of chainswords and guns.

On the other hand, we also need to ensure that burst or auto fire do not "break" the game by becoming too powerful and essentially counting for several rounds worth of damage. So what I'd do is to make sure that dedicated single shot weapons are attractive enough to warrant carrying them, whilst burst or autofire weapons need to be toned down to a level where they do not simply become three or more times as deadly as the former just because they spit out more bullets. Single Shot on burst- and autofire weapons should really be something you consider only when you're running low on ammo and/or one bullet is enough to do the job.

An example for toning down burst- and autofire I have provided above. As far as single shot weapons go, I'd say arguments for them could be size/concealability, availability, massive damage, or any combination thereof.

Plus, the DoS idea from Adeptus-B.

On the other hand, we also need to ensure that burst or auto fire do not "break" the game by becoming too powerful.

That's why we have weapon balance. It isn't about the rules of single fire/burst fire/auto fire, but the weapons that use them.

That's why we have weapon balance. It isn't about the rules of single fire/burst fire/auto fire, but the weapons that use them.

It's not that easy ... personally, I wouldn't want Single Shot of an autogun to have a profile that makes it appear less dangerous than a slap in the face, just because this weapon was balanced by comparing its Autofire against other weapons.

We need to take into account what these weapons are capable of - regardless of in which firing mode you're using it. That's why I'm thinking we should perhaps stop resolving the damage of Burst and Autofire like individual shots, for as realistic as this would be, it would be so deadly that you may just as well skip the single shot options entirely. And as much as I think that single shot on burst- or autofire weapons is odd, I'd like the dedicated single shot guns to stay somewhat viable.

That's why we have weapon balance. It isn't about the rules of single fire/burst fire/auto fire, but the weapons that use them.

It's not that easy ... personally, I wouldn't want Single Shot of an autogun to have a profile that makes it appear less dangerous than a slap in the face, just because this weapon was balanced by comparing its Autofire against other weapons.

I have already proposed a solution to this problem: increase damage drastically on all weapons. When your bog-standard autogun can dish out 2D10+8 damage/shot then the question quickly changes from "How?" to "How well?' .

I have already proposed a solution to this problem: increase damage drastically on all weapons. When your bog-standard autogun can dish out 2D10+8 damage/shot then the question quickly changes from "How?" to "How well?' .

Well ... the game becoming a "BANG! You're dead" kind of deadly experience would be one solution, because overkill wouldn't be very efficient. However, whilst I like a game being deadly, I also like the idea of my character surviving at least 2-3 hits from a "bog-standard autogun", after armour reduction.