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So, I've been playing DH with my gaming group for a while now. In general I am very satisfied with the system and I think it handles most things pretty well. The one gripe I have with it are the selection of weapons available from both the original system and the Inquistor's Handbook. They're underpowered and in general very very blah. I know people joke about how pathetic lasguns are compared to all other weapons in the setting but even in the fiction a lasgun to the chest or face is death to any normal human. In game the average lasgun shot won't even critically wound an average unarmored human and a full damage one will barely take the shine off them. Give the person even some basic flak armor a bit more toughness and a lasgun is little threat whatsoever. Most of the weapons on the table do almost the same damage, 1d10+(2,3,4) with very similar firing rates ( S/(2,3)/- ) and approximately equal ranges. Even the big guns like bolters and plasma weapons deviate little from this. They gain penetration but little raw damage. The Inquisitor's Handbook obviously tries to get some variation going on in the weapon department but suffers in that it tries not to make all the basic DH weapons obsolete. I'm not looking for an uber weapon that'll let me one shot kill people, I just want some damned variation in the tables so that it makes a difference if someone is carrying an autorifle, someone else a lasgun, and another person a submachine gun. Right now, it's all pretty much the same.

Now, that little rant over with I can acknowledge that there is a good reason for not letting weapons do too much damage. After all if a lasgun could almost kill you with one shot the game world gets very dangerous and it could become very difficult for acolytes to stay alive. You want your enemies to be able to take shots at the acolytes without the damage or gibbing them on the first hit. Still, it just seems like they kept the weapons tables far too uniform.

Any other DH players feel this way? Any GM's tried cooking up some homebrew weapons to add some flavor?

Just change the rules. If your GM is open to it (or you are the GM), just give them higher penetration values, or roll 2D6 for damage (either adding or picking the highest).

No one's going to stop you.

That's what I've started to do in the campaigns I've run. I'm wondering if anyone else feels the weapons are underpowered and uninspiring.

I dunno.. lasguns suck but at max damage they still do 12... Your average human has 10 Wounds and 3 toughness at most so he's halfway to critical there.
Flak armor will protect of course, but that's what it's for.
Penetration might not be raw damage but it prevents armor from stopping the raw damage so in the end, the result is the same.

Still, if you're not happy, there's 2 things you can do.
1- As mentioned, modify the weapons, make them more deadly.
2- If you're worried about your players killing mobs, use the optional suggested rules... If the mob's wounded, they die. If you're worried about your players not getting hurt enough.. give the bad guys better guns. Sure your players will likely loot them but if mobs die in one shot anyway, it won't do them much gun. Except against the real baddies, of course.

It's lots of tweaking, really. >.>

13 actually, lascarbines do 12. Yes, it gets someone to the crit tables, 10% of the time. The problem is that 10 wounds and 3 toughness isn't where most acolytes, or most mobs, are. You're usually going to run into some extra wounds and armor at least. The average damage of a lasgun is actually 8.5 damage, which only gets an average human half way to the crit tables. You need, on average, 3 hits or more to kill an average human with a lasgun. Heck, the average inferno pistol hit isn't going to kill a regular human. You need above average hits with an inferno pistol to kill a regular person outright.

The pen thing is true, it does give the weapons an advantage. That advantage only works against armor though. Against an unarmored foe a plasma pistol is just a bit better than a lasgun. Pen is nice, believe I know this after carrying a lascarbine and fighting mobs with 4 armor and 4 toughness, but it's only half the equation. You need some raw damage as well. The result is only the same if your opponent is wearing heavy armor.

Well my point simply is that this is what heavy armor is for. Sure my group's guardsman with his Toughness in the forties and his guard armor of 4 is hard to kill... but that's his job. The assassin and tech priest are pretty squishy.
But yeah... tweaking. It's your game, after all.

if you dont like the guns they have just make up your own gun.
I have a scum in my group carrying a gun that's range 70, damage 3d5+5 E, pen 2 rof S/2/5 clip 5X2 rld full each, inaccurate, reliable. its really simple, it took me literally five minutes to make.


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if you don't like the guns they have just make up your own gun.
I have a scum in my group carrying a gun that's range 70, damage 3d5+5 E, pen 2 rof S/2/5 clip 5X2 rld full each, inaccurate, reliable. its really simple, it took me literally five minutes to make.

I made a Tech-Priest once, he was soon dead with a wooden club shoved through his skull. I've never quite figured out how that happened.

Honestly, DH is still pretty deadly in comparison to a lot of games. Shotguns, Automatic fire and any other means of scoring multiple hits can quickly make things turn nasty fast. Frag Grenades and Firebombs are dirt cheap, can get around precious cover and can produce damage on multiple targets.

The different ammo types can drastically affect the damage a given weapon can do. Yeah... lasguns do kinda suck because your ammo options with them are limited. I prefer SP weaponry because you have a wider range of special rounds. Increasing damage, or penetration, or a combination of both is usually very helpful in pushing the weapons into the more lethal range.

HBMC also has a good point. Just tweak it a bit. Give them a bonus damage point if you feel that they hit a weak spot, or if you feel that it would do more damage than was indicated.

Your other option is to use the Rogue Trader versions of some of the weapons (I.e. hellguns) as they are scaled up a tad.

Deathwatch has a free scenario up now, and in it are the stats for a few basic Astartes weapons in there. Those are probably worth snagging.

The Lasgun in Deathwatch is different as well - 1D10+4, Energy, Pen 1. That's a huge improvement.