Difference between Only War and Deathwatch. Okay in DW it doubles maximum hits to twice its auto fire rate. In OW I read it as it gives double degrees of success, but it doesn't double the actual hits. So the Storm Bolter would be capped at its 4 hits. Did I read this correctly?

Correct, it just makes it easier to hit with all of the potential hits with horrid rolls.

The way I've always read it is you get two hits per DoS, up to double the RoF, because the gun uses up twice the ammunition. The text is exactly the same between Rogue Trader and OW. If I had to guess, its a bad copy/paste job, of which there are MANY in OW.

The way I've always read it is you get two hits per DoS, up to double the RoF, because the gun uses up twice the ammunition. The text is exactly the same between Rogue Trader and OW. If I had to guess, its a bad copy/paste job, of which there are MANY in OW.

This is the way I have always understood it as well.

No it says you only get double degrees of success. I don't think they would mess up a copy and paste job on such a major rule. Why wouldn't it be in the errata?

No I'm convinced it works the new way. It's only giving you degrees of success up to its maximum rate of fire, in this case 4. If it specifically doubled your hits it would mention it like all of the other times. This brings it in line with the other weapons which have all undergone tone downs since their original stats way back in Dark heresy, even Deathwatch had too crazy guns.

With the way the rules are written if the Storm Bolter doubles its number of hits its average damge per turn is over two times that of a regular bolter and slightly more than a heavy bolter. There's no reason to take a regular bolter or a heavy bolter if you can have one or even two storm bolters on a single marine shredding everything in sight. Making it completely obsolete. With the changes its dpt is brought down to be more in line. If you do account for the changes though it's a more reasonable weapon. Accuracy penalties on auto fire, but it can also gain a DPT boost. Definitely seems like a weapon a specialist would carry, as opposed to everyone upgrading at the first opportunity.

So in order of raw damage a turn with the new rules it goes bolter > storm bolter > heavy bolter. Which is how it should be. It also makes it more of a choice with some people if they want a regular bolter or the storm. People who don't have such a high BS would be better served by a regular bolter. It can fire 3 rounds on "burst" fire. To potentially get 4 rounds with a storm you take a -20 penalty. This isn't much of a problem if your a specialist in BS. Or in close in quarter to mitigate the penalty.

It also makes the heavy bolter king of the bolter line in terms of damage, which is where it should be by a wide margin. It's not classified as a heavy weapon for no reason.

No it says you only get double degrees of success. I don't think they would mess up a copy and paste job on such a major rule. Why wouldn't it be in the errata?

No I'm convinced it works the new way. It's only giving you degrees of success up to its maximum rate of fire, in this case 4. If it specifically doubled your hits it would mention it like all of the other times. This brings it in line with the other weapons which have all undergone tone downs since their original stats way back in Dark heresy, even Deathwatch had too crazy guns.

"This Quality DOUBLES the amount of HITS inflicted on the target and the amount of ammmunition expended. For Example, when firing a weapon with the Storm Quality in fully automatic mode, EACH Degree of Success yields TWO additional HITS (up to the weapon's firing rate, as normal)."

There is nothing mentioned about doubling the Degree of Success, only Hits. By the way, your interpretation would make Single Shots with a Storm Bolter pointless, because you would expand double the ammunition but you get no bonus to hit!

No it says you only get double degrees of success. I don't think they would mess up a copy and paste job on such a major rule. Why wouldn't it be in the errata?

No I'm convinced it works the new way. It's only giving you degrees of success up to its maximum rate of fire, in this case 4. If it specifically doubled your hits it would mention it like all of the other times. This brings it in line with the other weapons which have all undergone tone downs since their original stats way back in Dark heresy, even Deathwatch had too crazy guns.

"This Quality DOUBLES the amount of HITS inflicted on the target and the amount of ammmunition expended. For Example, when firing a weapon with the Storm Quality in fully automatic mode, EACH Degree of Success yields TWO additional HITS (up to the weapon's firing rate, as normal)."

There is nothing mentioned about doubling the Degree of Success, only Hits. By the way, your interpretation would make Single Shots with a Storm Bolter pointless, because you would expand double the ammunition but you get no bonus to hit!

Okay so it does double hits, but only up to the guns maximum of 4? Which is what I meant until I got the terminology mixed up.

A. One degree of success gets you two hits. So you get two degrees of success and 4 hits. Three will keep you capped at the weapons maximum of 4.

B. Or it means for each "hit" you double it. Up to the guns 4. So a total of 8 possible shots can hit.

I'm assuming you meant option A. Kain. Which makes the most sense. Since that is how my brain is interpreting the wording by default.

Edit

For single shots I'll rule they don't expend double ammo. It should say that in the rules anyways, unless the Storm Bolter (and weapons with Storm) is firing so much rounds it has to be abstracted. So a single shot is really firing a ton of ammo but only a single round is connecting. If the video game Space Marine is anything to go by this is the case, but a single source isn't exactly definitive. If that is how fast its shooting then you would never want to take it if you want to shoot a more accurate bolter, as it should be. Making it a choice between the regular bolter and the Storm even better. It would allow both weapons to have their qualities. If you intend and can fully make use of the guns high fire rate and low accuracy your golden. If you want a weapon with more accuracy but still the option of burst fire then regular bolter is more your thing. It also wastes less shots on single fire.

Then the die hard accuracy fans can have the Stalker pattern/other sniper weapon.

Okay so it does double hits, but only up to the guns maximum of 4? Which is what I meant until I got the terminology mixed up.

A. One degree of success gets you two hits. So you get two degrees of success and 4 hits. Three will keep you capped at the weapons maximum of 4.

B. Or it means for each "hit" you double it. Up to the guns 4. So a total of 8 possible shots can hit.

I'm assuming you meant option A. Kain. Which makes the most sense. Since that is how my brain is interpreting the wording by default.

Edit

For single shots I'll rule they don't expend double ammo. It should say that in the rules anyways, unless the Storm Bolter (and weapons with Storm) is firing so much rounds it has to be abstracted. So a single shot is really firing a ton of ammo but only a single round is connecting. If the video game Space Marine is anything to go by this is the case, but a single source isn't exactly definitive. If that is how fast its shooting then you would never want to take it if you want to shoot a more accurate bolter, as it should be. Making it a choice between the regular bolter and the Storm even better. It would allow both weapons to have their qualities. If you intend and can fully make use of the guns high fire rate and low accuracy your golden. If you want a weapon with more accuracy but still the option of burst fire then regular bolter is more your thing. It also wastes less shots on single fire.

Then the die hard accuracy fans can have the Stalker pattern/other sniper weapon.

Do I get this right "making the most sense" = "how your brain is interpreting it"? Maybe the world should ask you for a solution for all its problems, because you seem to know the answers. Of course we should tweak the world a little bit before, like you did with Single Shots (which is only a House Rule, to make something complicated more complicate), or otherwise it might not work.

Seriously its only a case of a bad copy/paste job like some people already mentioned.

If you want to have a toned down Storm Bolter use the Twin-Linked Quality or give it only Semiautomatic Fire, or both like in Black Crusade. Besides the Storm Bolter in Only War is out of reach for most PC and is only intended as a suppressive vehicular Weapon.

Well Marwynn seems to agree with myself. Lots of views for this thread up until the point you showed up, suggesting at least a few people agreed with our interpretation.

Well the house rule is my personal preference, so let's set that aside. I don't really care. Let's get to the core of the issue. Can you break down by wording why it works out like that?

Okay first bit of text.

When firing a weapon with the storm quality in fully automatic mode each degree of success yields two additional hits

I didn't notice this before, but it's limited to fully automatic fire. This is important. Each degree of success yields two additional hits. Then I roll 29 my BS is 40. So I get three hits. One for the simple success, and two added on. So three. Is this a typo when it says two additional? I'm assuming it means 2 for each degree of success. So I'll let the second part of that slide, it's irrelevant to the crux of the issue.

Second bit of text in brackets at the end.

(up to the weapons firing rate, as normal)

Now here is where it gets tricky. This thing in brackets throws it into complete chaos. In the previous sentence it says each degree of success is generating two extra hits. In the bracket it says you can only generate these up to the weapons maximum (hits). So in this case 4.

The crux.

It's not saying its generating degrees of success up to its fire rate. If this is true then the gun can actually hit up to 8 times. Which is an insane amount of DPT. I will put aside the fact that you don't "generate" degrees of success, but they are determined by your rolls. I am doing this because the wording is crappy enough, and this is the intent of the second way to reading the rules.

Major evidence:

In Dark Heresy 2.0 they also specify weapons with Storm quality can not exceed the number of hits assigned to the weapons rate of fire. This is huge evidence in my favor that this is an intentional change. It specifically says the number of hits can't exceed the weapons fire rate, no matter how many degrees of success are scored.

Secondary Evidence:

Why specifically say Storm only works with auto fire only? This is so that with the new rules Storm weapons can fire on slower modes without expending twice the ammunition.

Tertiary Evidence:

It makes sense from a balance point. I've outlined why this is so earlier, so I don't think I need to fill this back in. Developers would change it back to a less "confusing" version of the rule if it was meant to be the old rule. Why change the wording now when it's worked perfectly fine for a long time?

Do you honestly think its a copy and paste error? It seems too deliberate to me.

Until you can provide a valid reason I am wrong, I'm not going to pay much attention. Getting angry with me is not going to make me take you seriously. Also considering how valid my argument is, and the astounding unlikeliness of it being refuted; I think people had better at least hear me out next time before putting their chips in the pot.

When firing a weapon with the storm quality in fully automatic mode each degree of success yields two additional hits

I didn't notice this before, but it's limited to fully automatic fire. This is important.

Of course, you didn't noticed it before because it isn't there. You forgot the very much important "FOR EXAMPLE, when firing a weapon with the storm quality in fully automatic mode each degree of success yields two additional hits". - It's only an example.

This is exact the same wording as in Deatwatch which was further explained under DW Frequently Asked Questions: "Does a weapon with Storm generate a maximum number of hits equal to the ROF of the Weapon or double the ROF?" Official Answer: "Double the ROF." If this works ONLY in fully automatic fire, a Storm Bolter in DW couldn't have used it's Storm Quality at all under the errata weapon stats, because the Storm Bolter can only fire on semi-automatic now.

Personally I don't know why FFG always copied/pasted the wording from Deatwatch because it never was quite clear. They should have used the one from Dark Heresy Ascencion, because it describes the Storm Quality much better with no open Questions, but maybe it wasn't narrative enough and a wording like "unleashes shots at rapid speed" sounds much more dramatic. It seems nowadays every freelance game desingner mistakes himself for a novelist.

By the way every one knows (at least on this forum) that Dark Heresy 2nd Edition used a lot of copy/paste material from OW, without adapting it to the new setting.

And as I stated earlier it's nearly impossible for a PC to acquire a Storm Bolter in OW so this should be enough balance. It's only for the most trusted of the Emperor's servants or a supressive vehicular weapon.

In the end the only "evidence" we get is the text in brackets at the end, but if this is the decisive argument everything in the text before has to be redone to make it work, as you have done. Doesn't sound very plausible to me.

Okay I misread that.

I found DW to be very clear and precise on its meaning. Also the fact that something "once was" is no valid argument. It's a decent one. It is a good point, but in light of so much other evidence I find it lacking.

Once again I've read the 2.0 line and it's not copy and paste at all. It very clearly specifies it can only gain hits up to its maximum no matter how much degrees of success are rolled. It very clearly states this. It bears a striking but more clarified resemblance to the rule we are now debating. This new wording is consistent across Dark Heresy 2.0 and 2.0 after the major changes to make it similar to Only War. This would make three precedents. I think at this point it's pretty clear the rule for Storm weapons is changing.

As I stated earlier this is not an issue in Only War, it's an issue in Deathwatch. Where my PC can roll 90 and score 5-6+ hits. Most of the time he is out DPT ing and damaging the heavy bolter. Now it's only a matter of time until he figures out he can dual wield these weapons.

Until I get an official developer response I'm not going to believe your argument. You put up a decent one. I can see where your coming from, but it's just not adding up.

At the very least you have to admit its not as clear cut as you thought, and official clarification could be used.

I don't like the idea, but i always thought a Storm Bolter was supposed to unleash hell...just not with immense accuracy.

I don't like the idea, but i always thought a Storm Bolter was supposed to unleash hell...just not with immense accuracy.

I thought heavy bolters were supposed to be even scarier. Space Marines are supposed to be nigh invincible. I thought a lot of things, but for game balance a lot of that gets tossed out of the window. Same as the TT and its inconsistencies between gameplay and lore. Sometime you just gotta make a break from lore for a better gaming experience.

A -20? Pfft... to a space marine that is a slap on the wrist. In Only War the gun works fine with human stat ranges, but when it gets to the Space Marine scale it falls apart as simply being a superior weapon. You would think it would at least have shorter range to compensate for its insane fire rate, but no. Even that's a match. Something they also corrected in DH 2.0.

All I know is in Deathwatch its broken, so I'm looking for ways to fix it. When a player can get two of those with up to 10 shots each a turn... it's time to admit your system isn't working.

A Heavy Bolter is the MMG-Version of Bolter-equipped SM's, while the Storm Bolter is - something else. A Heavy Bolter fires bigger Bolts with higer Penetration and more Damage and the Storm Bolter fires normal Bolts with a much higher ROF. The original DW Stats reflected this, but other Weapons (Plasma, Melta) and more important the enemies weren't in scale, so instead of upping them up, the HB was nerfed down, which left the Storm Bolter being to good.

There was a time when Storm Bolters where only issued to Terminators in the TT, but then some funny Sculptor thought it looks good on a normal SM and soon even a Battle Sister Mini wielded it. Ever wondered how to fire a SB two-handed? No foregrip, no front shaft, only two Clips or an ammo-box to grab.

In our games we allow Storm Bolters only as mounted Weapons either on Vehicles or Terminator Armour. This simple rule change balances every problem, which has ever come up with SB's.

A Heavy Bolter is the MMG-Version of Bolter-equipped SM's, while the Storm Bolter is - something else. A Heavy Bolter fires bigger Bolts with higer Penetration and more Damage and the Storm Bolter fires normal Bolts with a much higher ROF. The original DW Stats reflected this, but other Weapons (Plasma, Melta) and more important the enemies weren't in scale, so instead of upping them up, the HB was nerfed down, which left the Storm Bolter being to good.

There was a time when Storm Bolters where only issued to Terminators in the TT, but then some funny Sculptor thought it looks good on a normal SM and soon even a Battle Sister Mini wielded it. Ever wondered how to fire a SB two-handed? No foregrip, no front shaft, only two Clips or an ammo-box to grab.

In our games we allow Storm Bolters only as mounted Weapons either on Vehicles or Terminator Armour. This simple rule change balances every problem, which has ever come up with SB's.

I'll consider it. The weapon certainly looks impractical for firing as a hand held gun. I think I'll just have to hand waive the storm quality as being the weapon firing tons of shots to hit its target. Something seen in the Space Marine game. I'm making this topic because my player didn't believe me when I said all of this. If I go and ban the gun outright to vehicles or terminator only there will be another week of bitching. I would like to offer it as its own gun with its own niche, even if this doesn't really represent accurately how the gun works in lore.

Well it's been fun. Hopefully someday we can get a developer in here or somewhere to clarify.