Does anyone feel that the current DH2 Beta rules give the correct amount of Weapon Training talents to starting characters?

I like fgdsfg's write-up, but I don't really care for the concept at all as relates to playing the game. I understand a need for consistency in the game, but this does seem like WAY too much of an xp tax.

I'm not sure I fully comprehend when you all call things "XP tax" or "Feat Tax" (in the case of cps). Yes, it's a price of admition-thing, with potentially interesting elementes generated by characters trying to use a weapon with which they have no competence. Or not as the case may be, after a lot of pondering. I don't have a problem with this.

Characters receive a number of weapon specialization talents based on their WS bonus and their BS bonus at character creation. The specialties that's character can choose from to start with are associated with his/her background. Players are now able to start with an interesting selection of possible weapons, you utilize the characteristic bonus, and you maintain some of the "realism" of the game.

Sounds elegant, but I cannot support this.But then, I already think that the Weapon Specialist of OW get too many free weapon training talents.

Edit: For all the hatred I see on this board toward players, it's ironic to see people frequently wanting rules that actively foster power gaming behavior and an adversarial GM.

What about the following categories to make the list shorter:

> Simple Weapon Training: SP, Laser & Low-Tech Melee Weapons / Throwing Weapons

> Advanced Weapon Training : Chain Weapons, Shock Weapons, Flamer, Low-Tech Ranged Weapons (as they are rarer in use), Grenades, Chain Throwing Weapons, Bolt Weapons, Force Weapons, Launcher Weapons

> Professional Weapon Training: Plasma Weapons, Power Weapons, Melta Weapons, Power Throwing Weapons

> Heavy Weapon Training : is needed for the Heavy versions of above categories

> Exotic Weapon Training (as now)

Sounds elegant, but I cannot support this.But then, I already think that the Weapon Specialist of OW get too many free weapon training talents.

It's called a tax because it's a case in which you need to pay out xp in order to participate at certain levels of the game. The problem myself and others have with it is that the difference between weapon talents and other talents is that for the former you are paying to not be bad at something and for the latter you are paying to be better at something/gain a cool new skill. That is the problem, when you have some things to buy that are just there to give you more cool stuff and others that you buy because you have to. All of the talents should be giving you fun cool stuff. Its also a matter of options. One gives you more of them or makes a good option better, and the other just makes an existing option suck less, which is boring. It also promotes players using their xp in a utilitarian way rather than using it to have more fun or make a more interesting character. That is honestly my biggest problem with it. I don't want character creation and advancement to be about utility and practicality, because I am playing a game about riding my robot horse psychically connected to me into a crowd of big green soccer hooligans while dropping giant fire bombs behind so as to spell out in fire "PRAISE THE EMPEROR". I want to do that stuff; much less of "well Id like to have a clue if someone is lying to my literal investigator but I'd also like to be able to use an iconic weapon of the setting without cutting my arm off. Which thing do I want to suck less at?"

Edit: For all the hatred I see on this board toward players, it's ironic to see people frequently wanting rules that actively foster power gaming behavior and an adversarial GM.

But Weapon Training does give you something cool. It's the ability to use the gun without penalty. It's not depriving anyone of participating at all. In reality, it's no different than giving someone the mundane ability to Dodge or to get a +10 on a normal roll.

Technically it gives you the ability to not take a -20 penalty to use a gun. You suck less at it, basically.

It's called a tax because it's a case in which you need to pay out xp in order to participate at certain levels of the game. The problem myself and others have with it is that the difference between weapon talents and other talents is that for the former you are paying to not be bad at something and for the latter you are paying to be better at something/gain a cool new skill. That is the problem, when you have some things to buy that are just there to give you more cool stuff and others that you buy because you have to. All of the talents should be giving you fun cool stuff. Its also a matter of options. One gives you more of them or makes a good option better, and the other just makes an existing option suck less, which is boring. It also promotes players using their xp in a utilitarian way rather than using it to have more fun or make a more interesting character. That is honestly my biggest problem with it. I don't want character creation and advancement to be about utility and practicality, because I am playing a game about riding my robot horse psychically connected to me into a crowd of big green soccer hooligans while dropping giant fire bombs behind so as to spell out in fire "PRAISE THE EMPEROR". I want to do that stuff; much less of "well Id like to have a clue if someone is lying to my literal investigator but I'd also like to be able to use an iconic weapon of the setting without cutting my arm off. Which thing do I want to suck less at?"

First of all. Wall of Text. Bad habit, loose it. Not for my sake but for your own.

If this post wasn't a direct responce to a question I'd asked, I'd simply have ignored it due to formatting.

This is not an attack, it's intended purely as friendly advice.

With that out of the way, let's look at your actual argument.

The problem myself and others have with it is that the difference between weapon talents and other talents is that for the former you are paying to not be bad at something and for the latter you are paying to be better at something/gain a cool new skill. That is the problem, when you have some things to buy that are just there to give you more cool stuff and others that you buy because you have to.

(Sidenote: now that I think about it, that might not be a bad idea at all, though maybe only -10 instead of -20).

That is the problem, when you have some things to buy that are just there to give you more cool stuff and others that you buy because you have to. All of the talents should be giving you fun cool stuff. Its also a matter of options. One gives you more of them or makes a good option better, and the other just makes an existing option suck less, which is boring.

it "feels" like the 'new-and-shiney' syndrome, which is also why we get powercreep when new books are introduced. I don't have a problem with Bread-n-Butter talents mixed in with Shiney-New-Trick talents.

It also promotes players using their xp in a utilitarian way rather than using it to have more fun or make a more interesting character

I hope that somewhere out there, there are players where this hold true. Because my experience tells me that 'fun' players will make 'fun' characters regardless, and 'utilitarian' players will create 'optimised' characters regardless. And the utilitarian players will honestly believe that they have created more 'interesting' characters, because they have more options.

I don't want character creation and advancement to be about utility and practicality, because I am playing a game about riding my robot horse psychically connected to me into a crowd of big green soccer hooligans while dropping giant fire bombs behind so as to spell out in fire "PRAISE THE EMPEROR". I want to do that stuff; much less of "well Id like to have a clue if someone is lying to my literal investigator but I'd also like to be able to use an iconic weapon of the setting without cutting my arm off. Which thing do I want to suck less at?

This I can actually consider a legitimate argument.

And to this I can only say one thing: "Earn it."

Because IME (and this might not be true for you) that robot horse is so much sweeter if I feel I've earned it (even so slightly), instead of just having been given it comming out of the gate.

@cps Exactly. That and as a talent it has a double cost due to needing to acquire said weapon. The other talents don't do that. And before you ask, yes I don't like the talents making two weapon fighting suck less rather than just making it better, I don't like having to buy skills to not suck at them (although I'm fine with having ones you can't use without training), and in general I think the game would be more fun and run more easily if the players were given a pretty universal baseline competence which gets improved to be really good by games end.

It fosters player creativity to give them a decent shot at everything rather than just sucking at all but a few things. It also means when you restrict or take away a player specialty they can still do things rather than just sitting there. Given how this system works, you're incentivized to specialize heavily, so as to gain a reliable chance of success. The rules should work in favor of the system, and that means putting as few penalties on creative or interesting options as possible, because they will otherwise not be used.

Edit: pressed the return button

Earn your fun, you entitled child.

I played AD&D with Arneson. I know how games are supposed to work and asking for fun starting characters is doing it wrong .

Earn your fun, you entitled child.

I played AD&D with Arneson. I know how games are supposed to work and asking for fun starting characters is doing it wrong .

Not the most productive comment. Playing with Arneson doesn't make you the authority on what is "fun".

Also, what you and others think is fun is obviously subjective.

I personally get a twinge of fun when my character no longer takes a -20 penalty to shoot flamethrowers. It makes my character a more interesting, flavorful individual with unique abilities.

I personally get a twinge of fun when my character no longer takes a -20 penalty to shoot flamethrowers. It makes my character a more interesting, flavorful individual with unique abilities.

Sarcasm really doesnt help this discussion.

I personally get a twinge of fun when my character no longer takes a -20 penalty to shoot flamethrowers. It makes my character a more interesting, flavorful individual with unique abilities.

Well, sometimes characters need to earn their skills rather then start with them. God forbid they don't know how to use a particular type of weapon.

Phone posting so no quotes

"OK, then I suggest we re-write all "weapon training" Talents to give you +20 with the weapon group in question - and lower WS and BS by 20. See, suddently weapon training gives a cool bonus. The only difference is our assumed starting point.

(Sidenote: now that I think about it, that might not be a bad idea at all, though maybe only -10 instead of -20)."

Honestly, that wouldn't be a bad thing were it not for how awful the probabilities of success are. Although I am more than aware of the mathematical equivalence, there is a lot to be said for the psychological impact of adding things rather than penalizing. I brought up in another thread that weapon proficiencies should just give you a flat bonus to a specific weapon and that otherwise all weapon proficiencies are the same. I'd be fine with that. And, here's an idea, recognize how **** the probability to start is, even with a maxed weapon skill, and account for that by allowing this weapon specialty. In general, characters should be succeeding at stuff about 2/3 of the time.

"I may just be an old grognard, but this kind of thinking annoys me

it "feels" like the 'new-and-shiney' syndrome, which is also why we get powercreep when new books are introduced. I don't have a problem with Bread-n-Butter talents mixed in with Shiney-New-Trick talents."

Yeah, you are being a grognard about this. First off, I think its laughable that you're putting down "new and shiney" as a bad thing when you're posting about a game where you have chainsaw axes. If you're going to condescend about an immature attitude, keep in mind the position you're doing it from.

Also, the "bread and butter" talents are boring as hell, and are basically just having you pay for competence. Players are complaining about "samey" characters because everyone has to buy the same things to have generally functional characters. You get an issue where players are being incentivized to buy all the competence to start, followed by the obviously best talents, followed by worse ones. Players who deviate from that end up with less versatile characters that the system doesn't support doing a lot.

And you would get talent bloat regardless of having all cool talents or not, because that's how publishing works as that's what players and GMs will actually buy books for.

"Is this based on optimism of experience? I'm asking because I'm hoping it's experience.

I hope that somewhere out there, there are players where this hold true. Because my experience tells me that 'fun' players will make 'fun' characters regardless, and 'utilitarian' players will create 'optimised' characters regardless. And the utilitarian players will honestly believe that they have created more 'interesting' characters, because they have more options."

Yes it's based on experience. Players all have natural tendencies, but the system they use is going to guide them in how those tendencies come out. People obsessed with optimization will take as much as the system gives them as creative players will do the same. If the system eliminates most of the optimization and "false choices" it both reduces bloat and allows more room for players to think of creative things and actually run them well. I'm going to take a guess that your experience may not have included a lot of systems that encourage creativity through the rules, although I could be wrong.

"This I can actually consider a legitimate argument.

And to this I can only say one thing: "Earn it."

Because IME (and this might not be true for you) that robot horse is so much sweeter if I feel I've earned it (even so slightly), instead of just having been given it comming out of the gate."

Do you know how you earn that? It's not a case where a player just says this out of the blue and it happens. You earn these things by working together on a story that puts you in the position to do it. That's it. These things need to have story and dramatic weight, and those are where the sense of them being earned comes from. It doesn't come from "well I've been playing long enough to buy horse riding, get a robot horse, train in fire bombs, learn how to write high gothic, and got ungodly rolls". No ones sense of earning something comes from their character sheet. It's from the story itself. I'd feel the same sense of accomplishment for doing that in the first session as I would the eighth, provided try both had the same dramatic weight. If your sense of earning something just comes from playing long enough to get bigger numbers, I have plenty of suggestions on better alternatives.

And yes, like CPS said, thanks for the old grognard chestnut of earning your chance to be a badass. As I said, these things don't happen in a vacuum, and tier weight comes from the story around them. I'd rather that the underlying system not act as such a gatekeeper to that outcome, because the story should have already done enough.

The problem with giving everything a bonus is that at high levels, it's impossible to miss!

I'd like to commend Nimsim for consistently demonstrating having more patience for this stuff than me. That whole post is great.

Yes it's based on experience. Players all have natural tendencies, but the system they use is going to guide them in how those tendencies come out. People obsessed with optimization will take as much as the system gives them as creative players will do the same. If the system eliminates most of the optimization and "false choices" it both reduces bloat and allows more room for players to think of creative things and actually run them well. I'm going to take a guess that your experience may not have included a lot of systems that encourage creativity through the rules, although I could be wrong.

In particular, I'm really curious if the posters who disagree with me and Nimsim on this point have any experience with these games, or any conception that they exist at all.

From my over a decade of experience, I haven't had anyone complain about this stuff. Instead, they just took it as a challenge and still had fun. I'm not saying that all people are going this method of gaming but like I pointed out, a WS 40 charcter that gets another +20 for "knowing" how to operate a weapon already has a 60% chance to hit. That's all fine at low levels but it completely neglects weapon mods, environment factors like having the high ground, aiming, and all of the WS/BS increases over time until we get to a near impossible chance to miss.

Then, all a GM can do is apply negative modifiers to create any semblance of a challenge in combat but I have a feeling that people are going to argue against those modifiers too because they are "not fun".

The other possibility is that the GM imposes no negative modifiers in which case everyone hits every time and it because just a battle of attrition.

Another complete waste of posting space and our time. Speaking of communication issues, using insults and sarcasm is exactly that.

Another complete waste of posting space and our time.

Some people just love themselves so much that they NEED to see themselves post certain things to show they are superior.

Sometimes they think its funny, sometimes they are just arrogant. Who cares. Ignoring them is the best way to deal with it.

Brevity is the soul of wit, CPS, so I'm pretty dense by that metric.

Also, Elior, this is another issue with the d100. However, if you give players a good baseline competence in things you can then get rid of the bloat of +10 bonuses in the game and just focus on the player doing something interesting. As a side benefit, you now lose the player fishing for those bonuses.

And again, the baseline for the game should be 2/3 times successful, probably more given the d100. DoS should play strongly into how successful something actually is, with less degrees being very minimal successes. The system sucks at having interesting things happen consistently, and upping success would help a lot with that.

Brevity is the soul of wit, CPS, so I'm pretty dense by that metric.

Also, Elior, this is another issue with the d100. However, if you give players a good baseline competence in things you can then get rid of the bloat of +10 bonuses in the game and just focus on the player doing something interesting. As a side benefit, you now lose the player fishing for those bonuses.

And again, the baseline for the game should be 2/3 times successful, probably more given the d100. DoS should play strongly into how successful something actually is, with less degrees being very minimal successes. The system sucks at having interesting things happen consistently, and upping success would help a lot with that.

I agree. I think it would work but in order to do so, I would remove all WS / BS increases and only give weapon mods and things like having high ground a +5.

There are players who NEVER will stop bonus fishing.

Not all players are equal. I saw many types that where so much different.

There is no unique way to have fun or only way to be a "true" roleplayer.

There are narrative drama queens that are as annoying as rules fetishists and power gamer, and in my opinion, a good gaming group is a mix of different types.

Brevity is the soul of wit, CPS, so I'm pretty dense by that metric.

Also, Elior, this is another issue with the d100. However, if you give players a good baseline competence in things you can then get rid of the bloat of +10 bonuses in the game and just focus on the player doing something interesting. As a side benefit, you now lose the player fishing for those bonuses.

And again, the baseline for the game should be 2/3 times successful, probably more given the d100. DoS should play strongly into how successful something actually is, with less degrees being very minimal successes. The system sucks at having interesting things happen consistently, and upping success would help a lot with that.

I agree. I think it would work but in order to do so, I would remove all WS / BS increases and only give weapon mods and things like having high ground a +5.

Also, in terms of scaling, I think it would be simplest to just take advantage of the DoS system. Give characters bonus DoS but keeping them in that same 2/3 or so probability. They still fail, but when they hit it becomes much deadlier.

Gaunt, if you eliminate the bonus system from the math, there's nothing for players to hunt for. And if you don't give number values to everything players will jut be more creative in bonus hunting rather than always going for high ground, aim, etc.

Well, just to add my two Thrones to this discussion, I'd like to say that, if you change the penalties to -20 and -10, respectively, Fgdsfg suggestion would be perfect.

It's easy to notice that the Warhammer setting and game divide weapons by class and type already. You always notice the weapons in terms of what they are (pistols, rifles, etc) and what nasty instrument of death they deliver at their opponents (bullets, bolts, plasma, screaming gretchins throug the warp, etc).

the flaw of the rules is only capturing half of this. Can't you perfectly picture a primitive guard, a master with a flintlock, having some difficulty with a lasgun? that handicap, however, would not be the same as that of character who doesn't know how to operate either rifles or laser weapons.

So, weapons have classes and types. If you don't know how to use either, you have a penalty of -20. If you know how to use one, but not the other, your penalty goes down to -10. If you know how to use both, you have no penalty and may the heretics quake at your coming.

I strongly agree that both kinds of talent should be T1 with at least one general aptitude, making them cheaper, and that basic weapons just should have no type, or better, a "simple" type that requires no talent.

I would just like to stop and congratulate Fgdsfg for this very elegant and efficient idea.