Here are our list of things that seem broken and need to be fixed or errata'd.

1) Inescapable attack. This feat needs to go away.

2) Dodge and Parry: Should be opposed rolls. We would like to see dodge only work against ranged so that agility doesn't stay the uberstat.

3) Flame: back to DH1 rules, which is death for the person on fire. Once again the only way to survive is to max your agility. Most pcs will have from 3-5 rounds to put out the fire before falling unconcsious and be only able to act normally during one of those rounds. The chance of putting out the fire is about 10-20% each round. The way you treated flame in DH2B1 was much better.

4) Influence: We cannot find a usage limit on the requisition test. BY THE RULES as far as we can tell. If you have a character from the adeptus administratum at the table and are willing to have a subtelty score of 0 during your first adventure, you can equip yourself completely in the FIRST module with all near unique items. Shouldn't these tests be time limited like the commerce tests so that you don't just accept 100 failures to get your 1% success?

5) Shock: Stunning opponents or pcs for long periods with common weapons is bad table management. If shock mauls are really that common, then expect to see npcs with them. Every second time hit with a shock maul is going to result in an average of 3 rounds of stun. This takes the player out of the game for up to 15 - 20 minutes. How is this fun for the player? You need a mechanism that imposes a penalty, but allows the player to do something. Perhaps only half actions (daze in D&D terms)?

6) Fear. You went away from the very nice fear mechanic in DH2B1 and went back to the old DH1 fear mechanic. We are back to the old " I see a dead rabbit and am catatonic with fear for d5 days" stupidity. Please, please go back to the B1 mechanic and break fear down into catagories.

7) Full auto into melee. And can't hit your ally? Really? What kind of uber snipers do you think the pcs are? And if they are that good, why do their stats stink?

8) Auto fire vs. single shots. There needs to be a mechanism to balance single shots versus auto fire. I think it would be reasonable to limit some of the damage adding talents to single shots (crushing blow, mighty shot, etc.) to encourage a little sanity in the combat.

9) Accurate weapons. You need to go back to B1 and make accurate weapons heavy, so that you must brace to get the extra d10. Extra dice are hugely damaging, which is fine with the suprised sniper head shot, but not so realistic when someone is dual wielding two pistol gripped sniper rifles (which is just so wrong on so many levels that I don't have time to list them all). I would go so far as to say that to get the bonus dice, you must do a full round aim, this would fit with "reality" of snipers carefully picking off targets, not fast, but deadly.

Here are our list of things that seem broken and need to be fixed or errata'd.

1) Inescapable attack. This feat needs to go away.

2) Dodge and Parry: Should be opposed rolls. We would like to see dodge only work against ranged so that agility doesn't stay the uberstat.

3) Flame: back to DH1 rules, which is death for the person on fire. Once again the only way to survive is to max your agility. Most pcs will have from 3-5 rounds to put out the fire before falling unconcsious and be only able to act normally during one of those rounds. The chance of putting out the fire is about 10-20% each round. The way you treated flame in DH2B1 was much better.

4) Influence: We cannot find a usage limit on the requisition test. BY THE RULES as far as we can tell. If you have a character from the adeptus administratum at the table and are willing to have a subtelty score of 0 during your first adventure, you can equip yourself completely in the FIRST module with all near unique items. Shouldn't these tests be time limited like the commerce tests so that you don't just accept 100 failures to get your 1% success?

5) Shock: Stunning opponents or pcs for long periods with common weapons is bad table management. If shock mauls are really that common, then expect to see npcs with them. Every second time hit with a shock maul is going to result in an average of 3 rounds of stun. This takes the player out of the game for up to 15 - 20 minutes. How is this fun for the player? You need a mechanism that imposes a penalty, but allows the player to do something. Perhaps only half actions (daze in D&D terms)?

6) Fear. You went away from the very nice fear mechanic in DH2B1 and went back to the old DH1 fear mechanic. We are back to the old " I see a dead rabbit and am catatonic with fear for d5 days" stupidity. Please, please go back to the B1 mechanic and break fear down into catagories.

7) Full auto into melee. And can't hit your ally? Really? What kind of uber snipers do you think the pcs are? And if they are that good, why do their stats stink?

8) Auto fire vs. single shots. There needs to be a mechanism to balance single shots versus auto fire. I think it would be reasonable to limit some of the damage adding talents to single shots (crushing blow, mighty shot, etc.) to encourage a little sanity in the combat.

9) Accurate weapons. You need to go back to B1 and make accurate weapons heavy, so that you must brace to get the extra d10. Extra dice are hugely damaging, which is fine with the suprised sniper head shot, but not so realistic when someone is dual wielding two pistol gripped sniper rifles (which is just so wrong on so many levels that I don't have time to list them all). I would go so far as to say that to get the bonus dice, you must do a full round aim, this would fit with "reality" of snipers carefully picking off targets, not fast, but deadly.

1&2: I agree

5: shock should deal fatigue

6,7: I agree

8: buff Called shots with Vengeful (9) and single shots are fine (along with an indirect buff if you bring back opposed evading)

For the others I dont agree that much though

9) Accurate weapons. You need to go back to B1 and make accurate weapons heavy, so that you must brace to get the extra d10. Extra dice are hugely damaging, which is fine with the suprised sniper head shot, but not so realistic when someone is dual wielding two pistol gripped sniper rifles (which is just so wrong on so many levels that I don't have time to list them all). I would go so far as to say that to get the bonus dice, you must do a full round aim, this would fit with "reality" of snipers carefully picking off targets, not fast, but deadly.

Dunno if Accurate weapons need to be Heavy (though I can see the point).

Pistol Grip appears to be the actual problem here, it's not only silly, it's also mechanically unsound.

... though if your players tried this at my table, they'd be told that pistol gripped sniper rifles are considered pistols, not basic weapons.

8) Auto fire vs. single shots. There needs to be a mechanism to balance single shots versus auto fire. I think it would be reasonable to limit some of the damage adding talents to single shots (crushing blow, mighty shot, etc.) to encourage a little sanity in the combat.

Okay, I still can't understand this. Single fire weapons does more damage than auto-fire weapons (or, to better say, the high damage weapons are mostly single fire only)) so you have your balance there. If you want to used a fully automatic weapon with single fire then you were doing something wrong and you should fell exactly like that. So where is the problem?

8) Auto fire vs. single shots. There needs to be a mechanism to balance single shots versus auto fire. I think it would be reasonable to limit some of the damage adding talents to single shots (crushing blow, mighty shot, etc.) to encourage a little sanity in the combat.

Okay, I still can't understand this. Single fire weapons does more damage than auto-fire weapons (or, to better say, the high damage weapons are mostly single fire only)) so you have your balance there. If you want to used a fully automatic weapon with single fire then you were doing something wrong and you should fell exactly like that. So where is the problem?

I forget who it was but someone here worked out the math for the expected damage each round based on rate of fire and the takeaway was that there was no reason to ever not use full auto.

They didn't account for things like Accurate and were comparing like-damage weapons (~1d10+4, I think), so not a complete analysis, but it was useful in that it illustrated that the +10 for single shot was not enough to overcome the possibility of multiple hits for full auto weapons.

^Okay... But why would you use single fire if you had auto fire? I mean, you take an auto fire weapon to spray some auto fire love, don't you?

Once again, I'd like for there to be some narrative differences rather than just giving more hits. Just have the firing modes give different qualities. Full auto gives Spray, Semi Auto could give tearing, and single shot could be the only one allowing for a chance at righteous fury/could get the vengeance (8) quality.

^Okay... But why would you use single fire if you had auto fire? I mean, you take an auto fire weapon to spray some auto fire love, don't you?

This was discussed at length numerous times on this forum. The short answer is that if a player is presented with a choice (in this case, single/semi/full), those choices should be viable in mechanical terms. If one option is superior in all cases, there may as well not be a choice because the player is incentivized to always choose the best one. This is referred to as a false choice.

As it stands, Single Shot is not an action you would ever take if you have a choice because Semi and Full are always better (in that order). It's bad game design.

Inescapable Attack seems like a clumsy way to reintroduce "opposed evasion tests" with a talent, but is far too strong with Semi/Full Auto. It should either be fixed to only work with single shots or scrapped entirely and replaced with opposed evasion for everyone.

And I like the suggestion to make Dodge only usable against ranged weapons from a balance standpoint, but I feel it would be better to simply return to the Beta1 evasion system. Have a single Evade skill (aptitides Defense + Finesse?) that uses WS against melee attacks, Ag against ranged ones, and (possibly) WP against psychic attacks. It's much easier to gain bonuses on attack rolls than on evade rolls, so I don't believe this change will unbalance things in favor of the defender.

Excessive Drug Use and Addiction (p.135).

When the same drug is used too often in a short period of time, there is a chance for it to have a diminished effect as the user builds up an immunity or tolerance. A character using more than one dose of a drug in a 24 hour period must make a Toughness test for each use after the first, with a cumulative –10 penalty. Should the test fail the drug has no useful effect and further doses have no useful effect for a full 24 hours.

In the real world drugs can generally be categorised as "toxic", and "not significantly toxic". The mechanics work surprisingly well for the latter category of drugs, but a terrible job of the former. And at least in the real world, what we classify as drugs mostly belongs in the former category.

Excessive drug use can also lead to Addiction. Every time the effects of one of the drugs indicated below wears off, the user must take a Routine (+20) Willpower test with a –5 modifier for every dose taken in the last week. Failure means the user is Addicted and will suffer one level of Fatigue unless he gets another dose (should this dose trigger the Excessive Drug Use test above, it must be successfully passed for it to overcome the Fatigue loss). The character (should he so choose) can overcome the Addiction by passing Very Hard (–30) tests for both Willpower and Toughness.

This is so utterly ignorant it's kind of offensive.

First and foremost, it needs to be prefaced with something to the effect that addiction should never, ever occur by chance, without the agreement of the entire group, and without a plan for exactly how intrusive it can be allowed to be. Because this is a potentially fantastic vehicle for completely derailing a group. Much like Kender & Fishmalks.

Secondly, addiction doesn't work like that. At all. Yes physical addiction can be a thing, but generally speaking, it's easily overcome and in most ways that matter, completely separate from the state of being an addict. Addicts are addicted to every aspect of the activity, and perhaps most of all to chasing the drug (or game, or whatever).

It's also not something that happens just because the gods of random decided to hate on you. It happens if you have a void in your life that the particular activities involved happens to fit neatly into.

Even if some villain kidnaps your PC & forces a severe physical drug addiction on your PC, there's no particular reason that PC will become an addict other than in the strictest and normally very temporary, physical sense.

Willpower and toughness really doesn't enter into it. If addiction can be reduced to a single, simple question, then it isn't whether the PC has "the will to resist" or "the toughness to weather" stuff. That's as ridiculously ill-informed as believing the planet is flat. It's about whether the PC feels they have a meaningful and interesting life.

Indeed, most former addicts would say the greatest challenge in overcoming addiction, is figuring out what to do instead.

To be fair, this is a cartoon world in which all mental disorders are rolled on a random table divorced from their cause and combat is an enjoyable tactical experience rather than a ptsd-inducing nightmare. Do you feel like the mechanics of this game are being overtly disrespectful to addiction in an offensive way? I say that not sarcastically, because I have my own things that I don't want to see anywhere near games. Or is this more a case of you disliking the lack of realism? If the latter, then it is important to keep in mind that it's a pretty cartoonish game.

I think his issue is that people who have been mercifully sheltered from the reality of addiction will use these rules (subconsciously or not) to infer how addiction works in the real world. If that's the case, I have no issue with his criticism. This wouldn't be the first time the fiction of a game world had offensive real-world implications.

That's a fair criticism. I'm able to compartmentalize the way that games tend to glorify or distort things like mental illness or warfare, but I recognize that those are both problems in many rpgs. I think the game could probably stand to distort the mental illness side of things the point that it is obviously not intended to simulate reality in any way, so as to not risk turning legitimate illnesses into boogeymen.

Even if some villain kidnaps your PC & forces a severe physical drug addiction on your PC, there's no particular reason that PC will become an addict other than in the strictest and normally very temporary, physical sense.

Are you implying that physiological addition isn't a highly relevant effect? Why do you think nicotine patches were developed? (Of course many drugs of 40k may be more or less addictive, depending on circumstance.)

As for the way the game deals with addiction as characteristics tests: That's how it deals with everything.

It's not 'random' from the game perspective-- the dice are used to determine what happened in the world. In the world it wasn't a random chance. Toughness would likely be lored as his body not being much affected by that dose: which does happen in real life and is why doses tend to be given in mg/kg of body weight usually.

Willpower is the game's way of representing the ability to combat many deleterious psychological effects. A success would ostensibly be the character not giving in to a craving, or deciding to enroll in rehab rather than perhaps getting more of the drug.

If anything, they could require multiple Willpower tests for more long term addictions.

But also mind you that Willpower can literally bring the mystic glory of The Emperor himself into your body as you devastate the daemonic minions of Slaanesh in a hail of laser fire.

I think his issue is that people who have been mercifully sheltered from the reality of addiction will use these rules (subconsciously or not) to infer how addiction works in the real world. If that's the case, I have no issue with his criticism. This wouldn't be the first time the fiction of a game world had offensive real-world implications.

This is absolutely part of it.

Are you implying that physiological addition isn't a highly relevant effect? Why do you think nicotine patches were developed? (Of course many drugs of 40k may be more or less addictive, depending on circumstance.)

I think I more than implied it. You know how long it takes for nicotine withdrawal to kick in for a chain-smoker? 10-30 minutes. Do you realise these same people go cold turkey with zero problems every single night? Yeah... Nicotine withdrawal is totally what stops people from quitting the cigs. Also, I have a bridge you might be interested in buying

I'm not saying such products can't help, but if they do it's psychological. They make you feel like you're taking positive steps that work and that you're happy about. The ameliorating effects on physical withdrawal really don't mean very much. You might also consider that you absolutely can become addicted to things that are purely behaviours, for example gambling.

Physical addiction can absolutely be a nightmare. But unlike the overall addiction, withdrawal is very straightforward to deal with: you push through it with whatever assistance you need (if any), and then it's done. The addiction, however, isn't.

As for the way the game deals with addiction as characteristics tests: That's how it deals with everything.

It's not 'random' from the game perspective-- the dice are used to determine what happened in the world. In the world it wasn't a random chance. Toughness would likely be lored as his body not being much affected by that dose: which does happen in real life and is why doses tend to be given in mg/kg of body weight usually.

Like I said, the frequent use rules work surprisingly well for not-so-toxic drugs. But it doesn't work well for drugs where 1 "dose" will get you suitably messed up, while 3 "doses" will kill a 300lbs regular user that's build up a massive tolerance.

Toughness is rarely a significant factor, because in most cases your tolerance or the lack of it is vastly more significant, and because in most cases a "dose" will mess you up whether you're the human ton or a scrawny 13 year old. Even with alcohol, tolerance is a far greater factor than the size & shape you're in.

But like I said, RAW works well enough for the not-so-toxic stuff. Lho's, Amasec & the like. But for things like Obscura? I don't think so.

Willpower is the game's way of representing the ability to combat many deleterious psychological effects. A success would ostensibly be the character not giving in to a craving, or deciding to enroll in rehab rather than perhaps getting more of the drug.

If anything, they could require multiple Willpower tests for more long term addictions.

But also mind you that Willpower can literally bring the mystic glory of The Emperor himself into your body as you devastate the daemonic minions of Slaanesh in a hail of laser fire.

I'll grant the Emperor Fuel. But what I was trying to point out previously, is that addiction isn't a matter of willpower. Or intelligence. Or physical fortitude. Or character. Addiction isn't something you fall victim to against your will. On the contrary, addiction is something you embrace willingly. It's not something that happens to you, it's something you make happen. That's why it's so incredibly hard to break an addiction: you have to really, truly want to do it. And "doing it" involves deliberately and drastically changing who you are as a person, and what you do with your life.

The idea that addicts are the subhumans who couldn't withstand the object of their addiction and was subjugated by it, is - as I hope my phrasing makes obvious - as ridiculous as it is offensive.

Addiction is only in part about the object of the addiction . Primarily it's about every aspect of being an active addict. It's exciting, engaging, interesting, challenging, consumes your every waking hour, and defines your behaviours. It also eats you alive and destroys every relationship you'll ever have, your economy, and in the case of drugs, your mind and body. But those are things that happen very slowly and gradually. Enough so that it's like trying to watch yourself age: you can't from moment to moment, though seeing a picture from 5 years ago makes it painfully obvious that time/your addiction is having its way with you.

Even something as relatively innocuous as a cigarette addiction is deceptively difficult to break. Not because nicotine is such an awesomely amazing drug - it doesn't actually do anything beyond removing your very mild withdrawal symptoms for a very short while. But people use smoking to define who they are, both outwardly and inwardly. It's part of their wardrobe, part of the way they show emotion, part of the way they control their emotions. Figuring out how to change is extraordinarily difficult, even when you want to very badly. Because the object of addiction is actually only a small part of the addiction.

Hell, a positive addiction - as in one that isn't self-destructive - is a great thing. It's probably the most motivating and fulfilling thing in the world next to infatuation. Like riding a tiger that won't eventually eat you. Though of course, we don't call it addiction unless it is self-destructive. We call it things like zeal, passion & ambition.

tolerance is a far greater factor

Toughness test.

you have to really, truly want to do it

Willpower test.

withdrawal is very straightforward to deal with: you push through it with whatever assistance you need (if any), and then it's done. The addiction, however, isn't.

No actually, physical substance dependance may be significantly more complex than 'toughing through it', with potential alterations in the nucleus accumbens (and other neuroplastic effects), altered genetic transcription (as in drug sensitization), and hormone disregulation.

But don't just take my word for it:

Dopamine in Drug Abuse and Addiction Results of Imaging Studies and Treatment Implications

Nora D. Volkow, MD; Joanna S. Fowler, PhD; Gene-Jack Wang, MD; James M. Swanson, PhD; Frank Telang, MD

(With many other studies available.)

It's pretty odd that you're claiming FFG's rules are 'insulting', despite personally insulting sufferers of physiological addiction who may often go through relapses and other long term dysfunction.

Now realize that 40k drugs can have warp magic and xeno filth in them.

Long term effects are usually represented by 'Insanity' and 'Corruption' in game, with more 'toxic' drugs having specific rules associated with them, or even being directly listed as a Poison. (As may occur with some Dark Eldar variants.)

Because of this drug addiction rules are something I don't use in my games, unless a character is following a narratively coherent way about it. For example, a character who wants to infiltrate a group of Obscura users and gets two weeks injecting that ****. But by normal rules, if you drink two times a week you can get addicted with no effort. Neh. That's not how drugs work, and I've tried some of them during my life.

Inescapable Attack seems like a clumsy way to reintroduce "opposed evasion tests" with a talent, but is far too strong with Semi/Full Auto. It should either be fixed to only work with single shots or scrapped entirely and replaced with opposed evasion for everyone.

And I like the suggestion to make Dodge only usable against ranged weapons from a balance standpoint, but I feel it would be better to simply return to the Beta1 evasion system. Have a single Evade skill (aptitides Defense + Finesse?) that uses WS against melee attacks, Ag against ranged ones, and (possibly) WP against psychic attacks. It's much easier to gain bonuses on attack rolls than on evade rolls, so I don't believe this change will unbalance things in favor of the defender.

My RT group may not know how dodge works by RAW, I had one of them queston me in OW when I was GMing and used RAW not DoS. Dispite this falling we somehow still have fun.

Is the second aptitude to Willpower still Psyker? If so, I would suggest to change it, so non psykers, such as priests can have Willpower cheap.

For example Willpower would have aptitudes WP, defense and PR and all psy rating talents would have WP and Psyker.

I think I more than implied it. You know how long it takes for nicotine withdrawal to kick in for a chain-smoker? 10-30 minutes. Do you realise these same people go cold turkey with zero problems every single night? [...]

Yeeah.. no.

While there's a degree of merit to the argument, and a lot that can be pointed out as dubious both on part of the game system and your arguments against it, equating going to sleep, a process the body pretty much forces you to and we grow accustomed to as part of our daily cycle, to going cold turkey just made me facepalm pretty hard.

While it's entirely true that nicotine withdrawal kicks in after 10-30 minutes (or even less, actually), it gets gradually worse. I've seen people develop die-hard withdrawal symptoms after more than a day. 8 hours of sleep? 8 hours is nothing. 8 hours is what makes the chain-smoker reach for the package in the morning and why they won't even get dressed before then.

While fully outside the norm, given that nicotine isn't all that terrible to kick, compared to many other substances, my go-to example in nicotine addiction was a woman that actually ended up being hospitalized when attempting to go cold turkey (after many years of failing trying to stop smoking). Her doctor ended up having to order her to smoke again, after which she gradually cut down on smoking and enjoyed, like, 6 months without smoking (...I didn't say the process was successful ).

While there are very often socio-psychological issues involved in addictions, downplaying the biological aspects - especially when it comes to prolonged habitual use and abuse of subscription medication - is infantile.

The rules might be of questionable quality in terms of playing out just how addiction usually turn out, or maybe even the reasons just as to why someone would get addicted in the first place - these things being largely the subject of roleplaying; but I don't see the problem with them as such .

The only possible changes I'd really like to see, is to make the initial Addiction Test conditional (such as having failed two Tolerance Tests in the span of a week or "GM:s discretion based on habitual (or near-habitual) drug use"), and the Willpower/Toughness Tests being Extended, not just flat -30's once.