Hi Folks

I understand what has happened and why with the move from the B1 to B2, they guys at FFG want a commercial product after all.

However I often hear how the B1 was 'almost broken' and I would like to hear your thoughts on this. I'm looking to start playing a DHb1 game.

Reason; If I can have some help identifying the flaws (i.e. Carry weights!) I can do something about them prior to starting a new session (this weekend!)

Cheers

A few things off the top of my head:

The original weapon and armour stats were widely hated; the revised ones from the first Update were much more popular.

Rate of Fire rules were needlessly complicated, and rendered some weapons virtually unusable.

The 'narative' damage system, while interesting in concept, had some serious flaws: paging through charts after every wounding hit slowed combat to a crawl, the cumulative +5 for every wound made multiple 'scratches' astronomically deadlier that a single solid hit, it doesn't 'scale up' to reflect non-human adversaries very well, and it necessitates the use of cartoonish 'two hits and they pop' Minions to keep combat from slowing down even further.

1. Much of the armory needs tweaking. The easiest method is usually during use when something doesn't work like expected.
2. The Wound System, while a step in a great direction, also needs tweaking. It does great at simulating the fact that getting shot always screws you up, rather than removing "health". However, it isn't punishing enough and the wound stacking isn't intuitive.
3. Influence doesn't work for some things that are important to Dark Heresy (bribes, buying things clandestinely, etc.). It also doesn't really make sense that everyone has different influences (if they have contacts, they should just have contacts).
4. The Skills are great but a few need their Characteristics (what they're tested against) swapped. I think it was tech use?
5. Untouchables are garbage in that system (as well as the new beta). They **** the lore.

Aside from that, most of its great. Every once in a while you'll run into a situation in which you wish there was something but that's when you house-rule!

After the third update it had a few minor problems that are easily fixed with house-rules or a creative GM.

I have made some tweaking:

1. The damage tables. The homemade one makes tough creatures being tough, and vice versa. Ofc i have to figure out how to deal with the toughness problem - some people dislikes toughness being a part of the standard damage reduction.
2. Dealing with Righteous fury - Took the idea from the Inquisitor system, giving WS and BS a modifier, which determines the chance of a righteous fury. This changes is due to the reworked damage system.
3. Weapon status - this part were never completly done by FFG. Bonuses were missing ect.

Keep it coming guys, all useful stuff. I'm trying to get any many opinions together as possible, cover as many different perceived/actual flaws.

I do have a query on Influence; I think we're linking it to our background as we are starting lower (society wise) than in a Inquisitors retinue. So a Guardsman would have contacts into the Guard, have access to Guard gear (Guns, ration packs, etc).

Also wound tables; we've got some laminated sheets for easy reference; Combined with the new tables have a bigger null-injury zone to start, are they that prohibitive. If so, how (so I can try and accommodate or change),

Cheeers!

The main complaint was the wound system and how it effected the equipment as well. AP was a problem, but that was due to the simple fact that rate of fire was horrible. Nobody like how untouchables were done either as they were too weak and had no weakness. Beyond that no one had a issue with the other changes.

The main complaint was the wound system and how it effected the equipment as well. AP was a problem, but that was due to the simple fact that rate of fire was horrible. Nobody like how untouchables were done either as they were too weak and had no weakness. Beyond that no one had a issue with the other changes.

Okay but expand. Examples and context would help.

I get about Untouchables because.., they should be.. untouchable. Our main idea for that was to start out as a passive -3Psy lvl drain, upgradable 3 times, each adding +3 to the effect.

How did wounds effect equipment (or their shortfallings etc.). Was ROF horrible because its complicated with melee weapons? Because there isn't enough variety with ranged weapons??

The initial weapon stats were broken to all-hell. High Rate of Fire was godly and single-shot weapons were pretty much junk. Dual wielding was massively incentivised.

The second wave of weapon stats and the adjustments to how the lowest level of Mook (Novices, I think?) took damage helped with these issues. I didn't feel I had enough time to do tests to see if it completely solved the issues before they announced they were revising the whole hog at which point it felt a bit pointless.

The initial weapon stats were broken to all-hell. High Rate of Fire was godly and single-shot weapons were pretty much junk. Dual wielding was massively incentivised.

The second wave of weapon stats and the adjustments to how the lowest level of Mook (Novices, I think?) took damage helped with these issues. I didn't feel I had enough time to do tests to see if it completely solved the issues before they announced they were revising the whole hog at which point it felt a bit pointless.

I believe i figured out how to deal with high rate of fire vs single heavy shots. It has to do with the damage tables (i still don't know with dual wielding tho..)

Hmm I think single-shot vs multi-shot should be balanced in context of AP (If they aren't, that would be the way to go) plus ofc ensure that, generally, SS weps are stronger than multi-shot.

Part of it, is the expenditure of AP. This then effects the chance to hit. Spending two AP and getting two dice rolls is very potent but of course that requires cheap-AP weapons. Heavier calibre weapons take more AP to fire if they are compact/single handed (bolt pistol). It also may be prudent to include an upper limit (of say 1AP) for the use of AIM action for multi shot weapons and discount it when dual wielding.

@Razerous - That's why i made my tweak on the old health system. It made it far better for SS weapons than multi shot weapons (or well, it should atleast balance it out).

Also, I made WS and BS have a modifier, just like the rest. A guy with 43 BS has a modifier of 4. This is his "new" righteous fury chance. A weapon with Vengeance (like the sniper) doubles this effect (being 8% in this case). Righteous fury will deal 1d10 more damage.

The reason for to do this, is making WS and BS more interessting for soldiers to upgrade, and for the sake, to maybe choose a SS weapon over the high RoF weapons. This will also make the players believe that becoming a more skilled soldier rewards in the end.

I just have to figure out how to solve the case for abusing this rule for weapons with high RoF. Maybe reduce the righteous fury chance by half.. Spray and pray with "closed eyes" does not show your skills.. everybody can do that.

Interesting points Scyndria.

So currently it is 10% on a damage roll, after hitting, purely luck based. Moving to the to-hit makes it skill based (based on WSb and BSb) and roughly the same chance, However a Vengeful (8) sniper on 2D10 has a far greater chance to get it than simply doubling the base BS (Assuming 50 here). In addition, due to snipers tending to AIM/ignore negative modifiers, the detriment for not hitting (then effecting the purely random D10 roll) is less.

A simpler solution could be to add direct fatigue into high threshold damage weapons. Link that threshold to TB. So whilst 5 pistol rounds may inflict progressively more deadly damage effects, a single high powered shot (15-16) is going to do less > the idea is to do 1 fatigue for Tb x 3 damage, 2 for Tb x 4-5 etc. Basically your changing less and adding little.

Question - How would you abuse the rules for high ROF weapons (we including melee as well?). Bracing heavy weapons adds an AP cost, which is good.

You don't need to brace a heavy weapon with Bulging Biceps though.

Interesting points Scyndria.

So currently it is 10% on a damage roll, after hitting, purely luck based. Moving to the to-hit makes it skill based (based on WSb and BSb) and roughly the same chance, However a Vengeful (8) sniper on 2D10 has a far greater chance to get it than simply doubling the base BS (Assuming 50 here). In addition, due to snipers tending to AIM/ignore negative modifiers, the detriment for not hitting (then effecting the purely random D10 roll) is less.

A simpler solution could be to add direct fatigue into high threshold damage weapons. Link that threshold to TB. So whilst 5 pistol rounds may inflict progressively more deadly damage effects, a single high powered shot (15-16) is going to do less > the idea is to do 1 fatigue for Tb x 3 damage, 2 for Tb x 4-5 etc. Basically your changing less and adding little.

Question - How would you abuse the rules for high ROF weapons (we including melee as well?). Bracing heavy weapons adds an AP cost, which is good.

Well, since Vengeful is normally a special rule for a weapon, granting it an increased chance to inflict righteous fury, the (x) is ignored and simply made to "double the chance of righteous fury (%), for whatever weapon that has it).

Well, if someone just walks around with an autogun, having a RoF of 3 (or 4, can't remember), they can just spend 1 AP to shoot and try and see if hits with 3 shots. If he doesn't score a RF, he can do it over and over again, increasing his chance (overall chance).

Bs modifier of 4.

Shoots 4 times. 4x 4% RF = 16% overall chance, for maximum of 12-16 shots.

I hope you understand what im trying to explain .

If a weapon has less or equal to 1 RoF, you will have a normal Bs Modifier chance to inflict RF.

If RoF is 2 or more, it's half the Bs Modifier.

Now, you will maybe be suspecious to why i will do this. Think about it, a guy with an autogun will still have a larger damage output overall, but atleast the "SS" weapons will have a better chance of RF.

With my current health system, it will work out even better. I can explain my reworked system, if you want to.

Two separate themes here.

1) RF on weapons. I'm not sure it needs to change, it works okay as it is. The benefit of higher WB/BS is higher chance to-hit. Changing the system as little as possible is the key to doing it well. Personal taste on homerule by all means, but that is my thinking towards it.

2) ROF on weapons. Perhaps Bulging biceps should not be as good/a bigger need when firing heavy weapons. Melee weapons, your ROF can't exceed 1/2 your WS bonus per hand. Likewise for dual wielding light ranged weapons.

Finally, another idea that MAY work, is increase the threshold to activate a multi-shot weapons. For example, the ROF may be 3(+1), So it is 2AP to fire at ROF3, 3AP to fire at ROF6 and so on. This may balance out the benefit of rolling two sets of dice for dual wielders, by increasing the AP usage per two hands.

Another note on Dual wielder's, for melee users, a quick balance could be to have all Sb effects only apply when holding a weapon in two hands, or count it as 1/2.

We are going to playtest as normal and see how messed up it is in play.