What about the following idea:

> let Toughness Bonus only soak damage by 1/2 (rounded up)

> increase the critical area of damage from 10 to 20 points (this are the wounds from 11-30 from the old beta; the first 10 without any effect are the "wounds" of the new beta)

> Felling would ignore Toughness completely

> Righteous Fury deals 1d5 additional damage and kills Novize/Troop and Elite Enemies instantly

This would make characters less invulnerable by boosting Toughness too much, but still has some impact with Toughness.

Also it would enable the "weaker" weapons to still have some damage potential.

It also would keep some of the narrative flavour of the old betas wound system.

And it would still be easily compatible with the old lines.

Also keeping the old Betas Fatigue System would be easy:

> Threshold is Willpower + Toughness Bonus

> Shocking (X) gets the effect of creating X fatigue, Concussive gets the function of stunning/dazing others

> failed fear tests also create 1 fatigue

> Blood loss keeps the old beta definition and creates fatigue

> characters get unconscious if the fatigue reaches the threshold and die if it exceeds the double threshold

Could this be a compromise ?

I think a simpler solution would be to require a 1d5 roll on the Crit Table whenever a character takes a hit that deals a number of Wounds (after reductions) equal to or exceeding that character's Toughness Bonus. That keeps some of the increased 'color' of Beta1 's wound system, without the glitch of 'certain death from 5 scratches', and it prevents most of the Beta1 problem of bogging down combat by having to page through Crit Charts after every wounding hit, no matter how trivial.

As for high TB is causing problems, I recommend modifying the rules to say that 'TB cannot reduce a hit to less than 1 point'.

You know that SublimeShadow had listed a better system.

When taking damage your armor soaks damage naturally. What damage is left over we divide that by toughness round down. If rounding down means 0 damage, then no damage is done. If you have some damage you look at the damage source and its effect. You deal with the effect.

SublimeShadow then lowered the crit to 0 to 5. Five is always lethal in his game, but for me if it is a limb I will go limb lost at crit five. Righteous Fury always does a +1 to damage. It will also allow snipers to one shot their targets. This is without changing the equipment as well.

So you got a system with no HP that is short and easy to understand. Got to give SublimeShadow major props for this.

I suppose it's worth cross posting this from the other thread. This is how I'm handling wounds/damage in my own games.

• Toughness does not reduce damage. Armour acts as usual.
• Each character has 6 hit points. Upon losing all six, the character passes out. Any wounds received while the character is passed out in this manner cause instant death.
• Righteous Fury upgrades the severity of the wound dealt by one level. Fatigue becomes a Minor Wound, a Minor Wound becomes a Major Wound, etc. If the attack did not manage to break through the target's armour, a point of fatigue is dealt.

The following effects refer to the amount of damage dealt AFTER Armour and AP calculations.

Damage equal to or below Toughness Bonus

Take 1 fatigue damage.

Damage exceeding Toughness Bonus.

Take a Minor Wound. One Hit Point lost, and roll 1d5-1 (minimum of one) on the appropriate critical effects table.

Damage exceeding Toughness Bonus multiplied by two.

Take a Major Wound. Two Hit Points lost, and roll 1d5+2 on the appropriate critical effects table.

Damage exceeding Toughness Bonus multiplied by three.

Take a Greivous Wound. Three Hit Points lost. Character gains Lost Leg, Lost Arm, Lost Eye, Lost Hearing or Lost Organ depending on location damaged.

Damage exceeding Toughness Bonus multiplied by four.

The character is instantly killed.

You know that SublimeShadow had listed a better system.

When taking damage your armor soaks damage naturally. What damage is left over we divide that by toughness round down. If rounding down means 0 damage, then no damage is done. If you have some damage you look at the damage source and its effect. You deal with the effect.

SublimeShadow then lowered the crit to 0 to 5. Five is always lethal in his game, but for me if it is a limb I will go limb lost at crit five. Righteous Fury always does a +1 to damage. It will also allow snipers to one shot their targets. This is without changing the equipment as well.

So you got a system with no HP that is short and easy to understand. Got to give SublimeShadow major props for this.

I agree. I think this system is better than the one in both beta 1 and 2.It may need some adjustments to make high toughness characters (like a TB10 Space Marine) able to be killed by a bolter.

I suppose it's worth cross posting this from the other thread. This is how I'm handling wounds/damage in my own games.

• Toughness does not reduce damage. Armour acts as usual.
• Each character has 6 hit points. Upon losing all six, the character passes out. Any wounds received while the character is passed out in this manner cause instant death.
• Righteous Fury upgrades the severity of the wound dealt by one level. Fatigue becomes a Minor Wound, a Minor Wound becomes a Major Wound, etc. If the attack did not manage to break through the target's armour, a point of fatigue is dealt.

The following effects refer to the amount of damage dealt AFTER Armour and AP calculations.

Damage equal to or below Toughness Bonus

Take 1 fatigue damage.

Damage exceeding Toughness Bonus.

Take a Minor Wound. One Hit Point lost, and roll 1d5-1 (minimum of one) on the appropriate critical effects table.

Damage exceeding Toughness Bonus multiplied by two.

Take a Major Wound. Two Hit Points lost, and roll 1d5+2 on the appropriate critical effects table.

Damage exceeding Toughness Bonus multiplied by three.

Take a Greivous Wound. Three Hit Points lost. Character gains Lost Leg, Lost Arm, Lost Eye, Lost Hearing or Lost Organ depending on location damaged.

Damage exceeding Toughness Bonus multiplied by four.

The character is instantly killed.

This seems great as well, but may also need some balancing for high toughness opponents.

A lot of good ideas here !

My main concern is, that I am afraid that FFG will be not willing at all to change a core concept as this now.

They showed by their retreat to OW rules that they are not willing to go the risk of new rules.

I've basically resigned myself to using people's suggestions as houserule potential. With how the last few releases have been handled, I've lost most of my faith in FFG. I mean between this, Hammer of the Emperor and Faith and Coin, I'm really starting to think they've lost whatever it is they once had.

Black Industries wrote far better content, too.

And that really is a pity - because their potential was huge.

With the first beta draft I thought they finally manage to go their own way.

And now they even fail to integrate some of the minor improvements that were made and just managed to copy-paste Only War in 2 months...

I wouldn't give the original Beta too much credit either, really. It had some spectacular ideas, but their implementation and execution was pretty bad, and overall the game didn't work anywhere near as well as it should have. The updates also showed the devs don't have much skill in critically analysing feedback; player suggestions seemed to be implemented word for word.

I think the original was shaping up ok but any new rule set needs debuging and that one was over half fixed when it was scraped.

It could've been a pretty playable game with a lot of adjustment, yeah. But it'd have to be very carefully considered adjustment, and I don't think FFG was ever up to the task.

The old beta did have the feel of a happy accident. I agree that their willingness to take our feedback at face value was worrying.

The release schedule we were looking at wouldn't have made a great game - there were definitely too many flaws. That said, if given another two months (randomly picked number with no relevance to current events, naturally) of weekly updates, I could really see myself loving that system. It already played very well in my group, despite the rough spots (none of which had to do with combat, by the way, which flowed incredibly well at our table).

Oh don't get me wrong I prefer the wound system in OW. I just love HP and see nothing wrong with it. Still there are reasonable alternatives.

Glad to see my method getting some love! So long as the injury system is fast, brutal, and "feels right" its great in my book. Having "Wound Pools" (original DH, OW, BC, etc., etc.) checks the fast box. The brutal box only really happens when you hit crit or, like in BC, you roll on the crit tables for righteous fury. Still though, getting shot and removing wounds has never "felt right" to me.

I remember seeing this in Inquisitor the tabletop game Sublime.... A very complex and underrated tabletop game sadly.. I liked the concept but it died before it had a chance.

I remember seeing this in Inquisitor the tabletop game Sublime.... A very complex and underrated tabletop game sadly.. I liked the concept but it died before it had a chance.

Such is the fate of GW's Specialist Games.

Using 54mm models wasn't their brightest move ever. Could easily be ignored, but still, can't imagine excluding every other model in the entire 40k line was a particularly bright move.