I do like the changed scatter rules. Shotguns hit harder up close and up to a certain range you are more likely to be hit by the "cloud" of shot. While at farther range their impact is minimized.

Could it be better? Sure, but it does add a more consistent heavy damage compared to the flurry of shots with the old rule, that could hit big or not at all.

Shotcannons in Dark Heresy actually kind of suck. Only War's Ripper Gun is probably a better representative of what they should be. (1d10+8 rather than 2d10 and S/-/6 instead of S/3/-) The problem with both weapons is that they are short-ranged Heavy weapons, which means that unless the wielder has Bulging Biceps/Auto-Stabilized, attached Suspensors, or an enemy that likes standing suicidally close without charging into melee, they're extremely inflexible and are generally outclassed by conventional shotguns.

Accurate weapons have flitted in and out of "overpowered", and I honestly can't think of any ways to really solve this problem.

One thing I have seen is to either require a half action brace or a called shot modifier (or half action) for fixing accurate.

One idea I floated in another thread was it being a -30 modifier to called shots, the talent brings it down to -10, which still cancels out the standard attack bonus (and from a half aim, only +20 including accurate), while untrained snipers have a flat +0 all put together.

Bracing works as well, but changes the dynamics of the game more.

Maybe increase the increased damage dice from Accurate to +1d10 per 3 degrees of success?

Better to do something like 1 or 2 flat damage per DoS.

That would mesh oddly with the minimum damage from DoS. Every attack would be something like 1d10 + DoS Proven (DoS).

Maybe it would work.

Our group playtested Accurate weapons with an alternate rule: the bonus damage dice are only granted if you spend a Full Action aiming. We liked the way this rule played; it let you fire quick snap shots that did "only" 1d10+4 damage with 3 Pen when needed, but if you really wanted to put the hurt on somebody you'd take a Full Aim and let loose on the next turn. Telescopic sights already have this limitation built in so it doesn't require any core rule changes, and the lack of a Bracing requirements prevents awkward rules abuse with suspensors/Bulging Biceps.

I really like the fact that a good aimed shot with an Accurate weapon can take out an average enemy in one hit. So many games have no way to one-shot enemies with a sniper from hiding using RAW, but the Accurate weapons can do that and feel great to use. Therefore, I think nerfing the damage is not a good idea because it saps much of the fun out of Accurate weapons. Restricting the bonus damage to Full Aimed shots keeps the high damage potential but makes the players work for it a little more.

Enemies can also counter sniper-wielding players by shooting them while they are Aiming. If the player elects to Dodge the hit, they lose their Aiming bonus. This encourages more tactical combat as players are encouraged to snipe from a safe position rather than running about in the open 360 no-scoping n00bs.

This is also an indirect buff to Called Shots. Since players have to spend a Full Action aiming before they can get the bonus Accurate dice, they will be more inclined to spend their following turn to make a Called Shot. With the talent that lowers penalties for Called Shots, they'll only miss out on the +10 to hit from Single Shots. Called Shot would not be objectively better than a normal attack in all situations, but it would be far superior if your target is in cover.

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Could you try out the ammo acquisition rules and see what your players think of those? Bonus points if they have one of the guns that get's shafted completely by the rules (Bolt Pistol/Bolter, the shotguns, stub revolver and bows/crossbows are some more common examples)

Could you try out the ammo acquisition rules and see what your players think of those? Bonus points if they have one of the guns that get's shafted completely by the rules (Bolt Pistol/Bolter, the shotguns, stub revolver and bows/crossbows are some more common examples)

Do you mean try out the alternate acquisition rules you proposed? We've been using the RAW rules so far and haven't run into any issues, but my players tend to use pretty common weapons so buying ammo isn't a problem (I think the rarest gun used by anyone atm is the sniper rifle, which uses bullets very slowly and has a rather large clip). I'll run your suggestiond by my players and see what they think, but we tend to deal with carrying capacity and ammo in a fairly abstract way. For us, the DH2 ammo system saves a lot of time and makes it easier to focus on investgation and combat.

With that said, I can see where the DH2 system would get strange at higher levels. Fuel for flamers is by far the weirdest to me; why does someone get so many fewer shots when requisitioning hand flamer fuel than when buying regular flamer fuel? It's a flammable liquid, not some magical fire-juice that comes in Pistol and Basic flavors! The bow/crossbow example is odd too -- while the Warrior walks into the store and buys over a hundred autogun rounds, the Assassin carefully selects three arrows from the display and buys them individually

They might as well throw in acquisition rules for equipment by planet type also. Feral and Feudal worlds might be pretty darn hard places to find standard ammunition. You could find arrows, bolts, and fire bombs galore though.

I meant more the basic rules applied to the trouble weapons, but if you would test out my first rough draft, I would appreciate that too! I built it to allow the more realistic approach of buying just flat ammo. It still needs work to tweak the values (like I see your issue with the hand flamer flasks, though that at least could be said to be under pressure, the arrow/quarrel one or any low ammo capacity weapon is just silly, the bolter/bolt pistol even more so). What do you do with your players when they want to "top off" a clip or have 2 half full clips (firefight, then swapped a fresh clip in before the next).

Yeah Elior, that is another issue, I didn't want to jump into that too early, but situational rules could be great.

Elior,

From a post in BC's House Rules forum, and is useful in adjusting Acquisitions by technology level...

Great reference, thanks Brother Orpheo!