I like the original system, it made sense to me. I have difficulty understanding the purpose of the change.

The rationale is to simplify the calculation of DoS. Double digit subtraction is more complicated and fatigue inducing than single digit, so it was changed to single digit. Whether this reduction in complexity is a worthwhile goal is matter of some contention.

Its a simplification of a method thats not complex at all.

At the cost of not only odd math behind it, but, more importantly, the player tendency to always get 30, 40, 50 etc. values.

It kills variety in player values. And thats really not a good thing.

Also, in indirect ways, it messes up with compatibility to previous lines (everytime something was balanced around DoS/DoF).

Really- thats one of the most important things to be changed back to OW status.

It kills variety in player values. And thats really not a good thing.

You've said this a few times in a few places and I really don't understand why, in your mind, one character having 34 in a characteristic and one having 36 in a characteristic constitutes variety. They're barely different scores (until you go to raise them, that opens up a whole other can of worms). Is this really an aspect of the game that should be preserved?

At least I think so, yes.

Call it an aesthetic feature, but I prefer players having values that look different, even if it is just by 3,6 or 9%.

2% might not be much, but 9% are. As long as d100 is used, this differences should matter.

It creates a penalty for those players who set their values on 33, 39 and 43; and it gives a benefit for those "optimizers" that set their values on 30 and 40.

If every PC and NPC just has values of 30 (mook), 40 (elite) and 50 (master), the game variety IS hurt and it gets boring.

And I will not stop saying it EVERYWHERE, until something is done about this heresy ;D

In a math-heavy system like this there is going to be an optimal value. That's just unavoidable. Personally, I'd rather the optimal value be a round, easy number.

Odd values have been penalized in every 40k game. If you have a characteristic value of 34 and you spend the XP to raise it +5, all you get is 5% more likely to succeed. If your characteristic is 35 you get that plus the benefit of a higher characteristic bonus (some of which don't matter, but that's a fault of the system).

You've always been incentivized to have nice round numbers. Odd values are a holdover from random stat rolling. If you're not rolling randomly there is literally no reason to have non-optimal numbers. The fact that optimal numbers are also easier to work with is a benefit. Does it really add more variety if one master has a score of 51 vs 50? No. That ones digit can easily be rounded out without harming anyone's experience of the game.

Odd values have been penalized in every 40k game. If you have a characteristic value of 34 and you spend the XP to raise it +5, all you get is 5% more likely to succeed. If your characteristic is 35 you get that plus the benefit of a higher characteristic bonus (some of which don't matter, but that's a fault of the system).

That's kind of dodgy logic. I could just as easily say:

If you have a characteristic value of 30 and you spend the XP to raise it +5, all you get is 5% more likely to succeed. If your characteristic is 37 you get that plus the benefit of a higher characteristic bonus (some of which don't matter, but that's a fault of the system).

The fact is every other advance nets a characteristic bonus. The starting value only determines if it is even advances (0-4) or odd advances (5-9).

Fair point. However, if you're building a character you can choose where the odd advance happens to optimize characteristic advance costs (so you only need to buy 1 to get the bonus you want instead of 2).

It also says nothing of the 'variety' complaint.

If you wanna play like that - play d20.

If you wanna play d100 - dont do such stuff.

To put it in a "simplified" way.

If you wanna play like that - play d20.

If you wanna play d100 - dont do such stuff.

To put it in a "simplified" way.

This entire beta has been an exercise in "maybe DH2 isn't for me..."

Since I find counting increments of 10 to be just as easy as the new 'simplified' DoS system, I want to take a look at the other aspects of the new system.

As Nimsim pointed out earlier, one advantage is that it puts emphasis on all attribute bonuses; currently only Toughness and to a lesser extent Strength have important bonuses. This is a good point, but it's a double-edged sword: as GauntZero points out, this has the unintended effect of making every other characteristic advance 'feel' like a waste. This was one of my pet peeves with D20 .

Aside from that, the main effect is to require two different interpretations of the same die roll, which seems needlessly clunky to me, and it produces occasionally counter-intuitive results: if I need a 39 and I roll a 30, that's one DoS, but if I need a 30 and I roll 29, that's two DoS, even though I barely passed.

Freed from considerations of difficulty of calculations (which I've already done by avoiding subtraction in the old system), are there any other benefits to the new system that I'm missing, that outweigh these disadvantages?

"if I need a 39 and I roll a 30, that's one DoS, but if I need a 30 and I roll 29, that's two DoS, even though I barely passed "

This example is enough to show that this new rule is odd.

Hah - one more thing that jumps into my mind.

Has anyone checked how this works out with Unnatural characteristics ?

Does that mean, my increased bonus value is compared and therefore I get both direct DoS AND the mentioned Unnatural bonus/2 on top ;D

"Successful tests using a characteristic tied to this trait gain a number of bonus degrees of
success equal to half the Unnatural Characteristic value"

That new DoS-rule is just something that causes problems.

Since I find counting increments of 10 to be just as easy as the new 'simplified' DoS system, I want to take a look at the other aspects of the new system.

As Nimsim pointed out earlier, one advantage is that it puts emphasis on all attribute bonuses; currently only Toughness and to a lesser extent Strength have important bonuses. This is a good point, but it's a double-edged sword: as GauntZero points out, this has the unintended effect of making every other characteristic advance 'feel' like a waste. This was one of my pet peeves with D20 .

Aside from that, the main effect is to require two different interpretations of the same die roll, which seems needlessly clunky to me, and it produces occasionally counter-intuitive results: if I need a 39 and I roll a 30, that's one DoS, but if I need a 30 and I roll 29, that's two DoS, even though I barely passed.

Freed from considerations of difficulty of calculations (which I've already done by avoiding subtraction in the old system), are there any other benefits to the new system that I'm missing, that outweigh these disadvantages?

Bolded for emphasis. To me this is the main issue with DoS being calculated on the tens differential, and not in increases of 10. The disconnect (and lack of consistency, where passing by 9 might be worse than passing by 1) that this adds to the game is enough for me to not like the rule as it stands.

Keep it as before. I seriously don't think it's such a big slog to calculate, specially if you do it in increments of 10 as mentioned upthread.

This entire beta has been an exercise in "maybe DH2 isn't for me..."

The entire WH40kRP line should've been an exercise in "maybe it isn't for me..." to you.

And I'm really not judging you for that, I'm just saying that judging from your opinions regarding fluff vs. rules and the general ruleset, I still have absolutely no idea why you're sticking around.

This entire beta has been an exercise in "maybe DH2 isn't for me..."

The entire WH40kRP line should've been an exercise in "maybe it isn't for me..." to you.

And I'm really not judging you for that, I'm just saying that judging from your opinions regarding fluff vs. rules and the general ruleset, I still have absolutely no idea why you're sticking around.

Dark Heresy 1 is a charming game full of antiquated mechanics that lead to silliness and table full of hilarious results. It's a great game if you want to laugh at all of the things that go consistently, horribly wrong for characters of suspect competence and roll on tables with ridiculous, improbable, horrible results. What it lacks in good design it makes up for with charm.

My hope was that Dark Heresy 2 would have been a modern game with all the charming ridiculousness of the original. What we're getting is Only War Updated, a game I own and am not in love with.

I'm sticking around out of a combination of habit, a vain hope someone will link to a game that does Dark Heresy better than Dark Heresy does, and for the mind-boggling posts for just how wrong/dumb some people's opinions about games can be.

This entire beta has been an exercise in "maybe DH2 isn't for me..."

The entire WH40kRP line should've been an exercise in "maybe it isn't for me..." to you.

And I'm really not judging you for that, I'm just saying that judging from your opinions regarding fluff vs. rules and the general ruleset, I still have absolutely no idea why you're sticking around.

Dark Heresy 1 is a charming game full of antiquated mechanics that lead to silliness and table full of hilarious results. It's a great game if you want to laugh at all of the things that go consistently, horribly wrong for characters of suspect competence and roll on tables with ridiculous, improbable, horrible results. What it lacks in good design it makes up for with charm.

My hope was that Dark Heresy 2 would have been a modern game with all the charming ridiculousness of the original. What we're getting is Only War Updated, a game I own and am not in love with.

I'm sticking around out of a combination of habit, a vain hope someone will link to a game that does Dark Heresy better than Dark Heresy does, and for the mind-boggling posts for just how wrong/dumb some people's opinions about games can be.

to be honest, I really don't like guys who talk like that.

It sounds only arrogant to me.

Those are the guys who usually never get friends - and theres a reason to that.

to be honest, I really don't like guys who talk like that.

It sounds only arrogant to me.

Those are the guys who usually never get friends - and theres a reason to that.

Please be my friend.

to be honest, I really don't like guys who talk like that.

It sounds only arrogant to me.

Those are the guys who usually never get friends - and theres a reason to that.

Please be my friend.

No thank you.

This entire beta has been an exercise in "maybe DH2 isn't for me..."

The entire WH40kRP line should've been an exercise in "maybe it isn't for me..." to you.

And I'm really not judging you for that, I'm just saying that judging from your opinions regarding fluff vs. rules and the general ruleset, I still have absolutely no idea why you're sticking around.

Dark Heresy 1 is a charming game full of antiquated mechanics that lead to silliness and table full of hilarious results. It's a great game if you want to laugh at all of the things that go consistently, horribly wrong for characters of suspect competence and roll on tables with ridiculous, improbable, horrible results. What it lacks in good design it makes up for with charm.

I'm sticking around out of a combination of habit, a vain hope someone will link to a game that does Dark Heresy better than Dark Heresy does, and for the mind-boggling posts for just how wrong/dumb some people's opinions about games can be.

Paranoia, HoL (Human occupied Landfill), WHFRP 1st edition/2nd Edition, Strontium Dog, Traveller (you can die in Chargen), Hackmaster.

Enjoy

Paranoia, HoL (Human occupied Landfill), WHFRP 1st edition/2nd Edition, Strontium Dog, Traveller (you can die in Chargen), Hackmaster.

Enjoy

How about Cyberpunk 2020? The chargen tables wouldn't exactly kill you, but could hurt you pretty badly IIRC.

Paranoia, HoL (Human occupied Landfill), WHFRP 1st edition/2nd Edition, Strontium Dog, Traveller (you can die in Chargen), Hackmaster.

Enjoy

How about Cyberpunk 2020? The chargen tables wouldn't exactly kill you, but could hurt you pretty badly IIRC.

I'm not familiar with all of these, but the ones I have heard of are pretty old (Traveler, Paranoia, Hackmaster is a retroclone(?)). I was looking for a game without the cruft of old D&Disms. Modern design. Do any of these have that?

I have heard great things about Paranoia but everything I have heard leads me to believe it is impossible to do anything except a comedy player-backstabbing romp. I may try to do a one-shot of it, but I feel like it'd be hard to do anything serious with it.

Paranoia, HoL (Human occupied Landfill), WHFRP 1st edition/2nd Edition, Strontium Dog, Traveller (you can die in Chargen), Hackmaster.

Enjoy

How about Cyberpunk 2020? The chargen tables wouldn't exactly kill you, but could hurt you pretty badly IIRC.

I'm not familiar with all of these, but the ones I have heard of are pretty old (Traveler, Paranoia, Hackmaster is a retroclone(?)). I was looking for a game without the cruft of old D&Disms. Modern design. Do any of these have that?

Could you be clear on what you mean by D&Disms here?

Yes, all* of these a fairly old, but they are also rather strongly different from D&D.

And since we're at it, how would you identify modern design? Purely by date?

* Exception: Hackmaster. I have never played Hackmaster nor even opened the book. I claim no knowledge of Hackmaster and none of my comments or statements should be in any way be understood to include Hackmaster.

@cps: Try Eclipse Phase. The PDFs can be found for free (the devs want you to try the game out and hopefully purchase thereafter). It's d100 (but goes from 00-99 as doubles are crits). I'm sure you'll still find numerous faults in the game, but at least it tries to do some things differently, plus has one of the better reputation systems I've seen (about a million times better than Influence in DH2, that's for sure).

Paranoia, HoL (Human occupied Landfill), WHFRP 1st edition/2nd Edition, Strontium Dog, Traveller (you can die in Chargen), Hackmaster.

Enjoy

How about Cyberpunk 2020? The chargen tables wouldn't exactly kill you, but could hurt you pretty badly IIRC.

I'm not familiar with all of these, but the ones I have heard of are pretty old (Traveler, Paranoia, Hackmaster is a retroclone(?)). I was looking for a game without the cruft of old D&Disms. Modern design. Do any of these have that?

Could you be clear on what you mean by D&Disms here?

Yes, all* of these a fairly old, but they are also rather strongly different from D&D.

And since we're at it, how would you identify modern design? Purely by date?

Exception: Hackmaster. I have never played Hackmaster nor even opened the book. I claim no knowledge of Hackmaster and none of my comments or statements should be in any way understood to include Hackmaster.

Non-exhaustive list:

D&D-style ability scores with their derived bonuses, encumbrance, weapon speeds/size categories, arbitrary character restrictions (e.g. only Humans can be Paladins), disparate subsystems for every little thing, inherent player class imbalance, mechanics that serve no real purpose (e.g. the 9 alignments).

I'm aware ( well aware) DH meets all of these criteria. These are all things I've dealt with in games I've played and want to move away from. In my opinion, DH2 has doubled down on these aspects (some more than others), rather than refocusing the game on the things that endear me to DH - difficult moral decisions, the inevitability of going insane, corrupt, or horribly dead (or all three), investigation, intrigue, and larger-than-life stakes.

When I talk about modern design elements I'm talking about things that closely involve the players in the game's narrative, let all players contribute equally (so no wizard supremacy), have tight, easily understood conflict resolution mechanics, and generally do not punish players for their character. Sadly, DH2 fails to some degree on each of these.

I've looked at Eclipse Phase briefly and I have a similar issue with it as with Nova Praxis - the settings are cool, but I have trouble thinking up meaningful conflicts when death is only a setback and society has advanced to the point where people's basic needs are guaranteed to be met. The whole shadow war between Corporations thing doesn't do it for me and that's NP's default setting.

Why not go ask around somewhere else? I'm sure if you spent 30 minutes on /tg/ you'd find the system you wanted if it exists.

Leave us to our terrible and uneducated opinions on games we enjoy, oh master of game design.