Are needle weapons strong enough ?

By GauntZero, in Dark Heresy Second Edition Beta

Players should certainly be testing for awareness at ~100m. Made easier if they know the target is going to be there and if they have appropriate telescopic sights.

Regarding the difficulty of the actual shot, there are modifiers already for shooting at range and an array of sights that can help you do this.

Remember, the sniper rifle is a weapon designed to do single target damage at what might otherwise be considered 'extreme' range. It's appropriate.

Yes....considering it has an inbuilt telescopic sight, range does not really matter for perception that much.

But otherwise I could very well think of a max. distance limited by your perception somehow.

Well it should be an environmental limit. Unless you're on a very straight street in a city, you aren't going to be able to see more than...oh..500m in any single direction? (I think of Buchanan St in Glasgow for this if you're at the top of it looking down which is a very straight long line). If you're in a packed hive city, again appropriate awareness modifiers apply. Even with a vantage point, picking out a single desired person is going to be nightmarishly difficult and again, simple viewing distance is going to be heavily restricted. Possibly as low as 50m if it's a particularly convoluted layout.

Back on the subject of Needle Weapons and their possible toxins.

DH1's Game Master's Kit came with a booklet that contains the adventure " Maggots in the Meat" . In the back of that booklet is an appendix entitled " Rules for Poisons & Toxins ", which I find quite adequate to the task. It also contains a list of "Infamous Poisons of The Calixis Sector".

It's only two pages but I think it gets the job done.

I finally got an answer to the dodge question:

Good question. This particular example specifically refers to exceptional uses of the Dodge Skill in which a character might spend a full Round's time evading. Typically, this sort of thing is handled in Narrative Time (a boulder rolling toward the character that he has to evade, or a room collapsing underneath him as he attempts to escape), but such events can also occur in Structure Time.
So, to address your example, the answer is no: this bonus would not typically apply to a Dodge Test to avoid an attack from a foe who has been Aiming at a character since the previous Round. At the GM's discretion, though, it might apply to a less standard use of the Dodge Skill, such as a character's attempt to make a Dodge Test to spend his Turn scrambling out of the path of a Valkyrie gunship that has been shot down and is about to crash on top of him.

To me, this makes a lot of sense, and seems like it shouldn't mess the balance up, since afaict most people played it this way anyway.

Needle weapons have always been hideously rare and costly, but the problem is that they're underpowered for how much effort you need to get it. You need to buy an exotic weapon talent just to use it, they have small magazines, and finding extra ammunition is difficult at best. All told, it's much more cost-effective to just buy a sniper rifle and slap a silencer on it, and then load up with whatever specialty ammunition you want (which comes in far greater variety and quantities and is much easier to find). At the distance you're typically going to be shooting your targets, they're not going to be able to hear a silenced gunshot. The long-las is also a very viable choice, since you're unlikely to ever run out of ammunition, and its Felling (4) and variable power settings (and the use of Hotshot packs) make it much more powerful than the anemic needle rifle, even with the Whisper-Bolt Discharger (from Rogue Trader: Hostile Acquisitions; a lasgun "silencer" that reduces damage by 1).

For the cost of a needle rifle, you could buy a Solo boltgun (from Rogue Trader: Into the Storm), a far more powerful weapon with a bigger magazine, and load it with Stalker silenced shells. There are plenty of alternative sniper weapons you can get, and they all outperform the needle rifle in pretty much every practical way. The needle pistol is even more useless; last time I tried to use one while playing Rogue Trader, I ended up doing more damage with a laspistol. When the Imperial Guard's mass-produced flashlight is more powerful than your expensive, exquisite assassin's weapon, get a better gun. They're just not worth it.

Edited by Boss Gitsmasha

Don't forget the Hostile Acquistions breakdown las sniper rifle, which is compact, more shots than the needle rifle and still decent damage.

As I mentioned somewhere, the point of needle weapons is not that they be superdeadly weapons.

The point of needle weapons is that they are silent, invisible, and leave no obvious wound.

Of course they do less damage than a sniper rifle or long las -- otherwise there would be no point in having sniper rifles or long lases!

They are specialty assassination weapons, not weapons to be used in a firefight.

Edited by bogi_khaosa

They're not even that good as specialty assassination weapons, and a long-las with whisper-bolt and a silenced sniper rifle are also silent and invisible, and are also far cheaper and more easily supplied with ammunition. And even if they do leave no obvious wound, the presence of poison in the victim's bloodstream would make it fairly obvious how they died. The Exitus rifles used by the Vindicare Assassins cause obvious wounds, like the sniper rifle, and Vindicares are considered to be the best snipers the Imperium has. And ultimately, it doesn't matter if the weapon leaves a wound or not; all that matters is the end result, which is the target being dead and the assassin going undetected.

bogi sees the bigger picture here, I'm sure.

They're not even that good as specialty assassination weapons, and a long-las with whisper-bolt and a silenced sniper rifle are also silent and invisible, and are also far cheaper and more easily supplied with ammunition. And even if they do leave no obvious wound, the presence of poison in the victim's bloodstream would make it fairly obvious how they died. The Exitus rifles used by the Vindicare Assassins cause obvious wounds, like the sniper rifle, and Vindicares are considered to be the best snipers the Imperium has. And ultimately, it doesn't matter if the weapon leaves a wound or not; all that matters is the end result, which is the target being dead and the assassin going undetected.

Well do whisper-botl long lases exist in the DH Beta?

If someone is shot with a sniper rifle, his head blows up and everybody notices due to all the brain bits flying around. If somebody is shot with a needle weapon, he crumples to the floor for no apparent reason.

There is no point from a design point of view in making 3 different weapons all of which are carbon copies of each other. As things stand now., the long las, sniper rifle, and needle rifle trade off, in order, killing power for inobviousness. The long las is blatantly obvious, the sniper rifle less so, and the needle rifle not at all.

If they were functionally identical there would be no reason for having three different weapons in the first place.

If someone is shot with a sniper rifle, his head blows up and everybody notices due to all the brain bits flying around. If somebody is shot with a needle weapon, he crumples to the floor for no apparent reason.

Haha... This reminds me the case when our sniper took out a Chaos-assassin-sniper-cultist from 12 kilometers(!!!) away :lol: . Yeah, maybe the target's head was replaced with plasma but ain't no comrade of his could frame the PC for it!

On-topic, IIRC Rending damage effects are even more brutal than Energy/Impact ones. So according to the rules, Needle weapons are pretty darn obvious. Though, I must admit, I can't recognize this whisper-bolt-whatever thing, so maybe the secret answer lies there...

If someone is shot with a sniper rifle, his head blows up and everybody notices due to all the brain bits flying around. If somebody is shot with a needle weapon, he crumples to the floor for no apparent reason.

Haha... This reminds me the case when our sniper took out a Chaos-assassin-sniper-cultist from 12 kilometers(!!!) away :lol: . Yeah, maybe the target's head was replaced with plasma but ain't no comrade of his could frame the PC for it!

On-topic, IIRC Rending damage effects are even more brutal than Energy/Impact ones. So according to the rules, Needle weapons are pretty darn obvious. Though, I must admit, I can't recognize this whisper-bolt-whatever thing, so maybe the secret answer lies there...

What kills the target should ideally be the poison. :) Which OK does do Impact damage. ;)

The whisper-bolt thing is something from one of the Rogue Trader supplements.

Edited by bogi_khaosa

Hostile Acquisitions, which also has a dedicated assassin longlas, which is something like 1d10+3 E, 10 shots, silent, no visible beam and can be taken apart or set up in less than 30 seconds IIRC

Cadence "Widower" Dart Casting Device FTW.

If you get poisoned rounds for the Widower. Then it is a very good assassination weapon.

Hostile Acquisitions, which also has a dedicated assassin longlas, which is something like 1d10+3 E, 10 shots, silent, no visible beam and can be taken apart or set up in less than 30 seconds IIRC

See this is the kind of thing that crop up in supplements that irritate me. :)

What is the point in this weapon, other than being cool? It does the exact same thing as a sniper rifle or needle weapon (other than leaving a big hole in the latter case). You could have just taken a sniper rifle with a silencer and changed the energy type to E, and lo and behold pretty much the exact same thing, especially because in RT long lases didn't have the Felling bit.

OK, it's Rogue Trader, so "being cool" is more important than "making sense." :)

Edited by bogi_khaosa

First off, the Cadence Widower is indeed awesome

On the HA assassin long las.

1. It is quieter than a silencer equipped sniper rifle
2. It is takedown

3. Some assassins prefer Las over SP (I had one who used only them)

Also, balance wise it really isn't bad. It is in between a silenced sniper rifle and a needle rifle and is pretty neat.