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Because gases venting out of my plasma pistol aren't going to instakill me just because I failed an armour save. If anything the weapon should force the wielder to take the hit from the weapon at a penalty to its Strength with armour saves allowed. If the character survivives, roll a D6:

1-2: Systems irreparably damaged. The weapon cannot be used for the rest of the battle; represent this with a marker or a small piece of cotton wool. The character is unharmed and may continue to fight with whatever weapons the
3-5: Cooldown; the weapon cannot be fired the next turn as it must cool down.
6: Gas safely vented; the weapon may be used, but its ammo/gas reserves are depleted and it still needs to cool down to some degree. It may fire one shot at half range. If it suffers a Gets Hot! result again and a 6 is rolled on this table again, treat it as a 3-5 instead.

This makes more sense to me. If your weapon overheats and has to vent gas to prevent an explosion, there's a chance that it'll be damaged to the point that it cannot be used for the rest of the battle. Slightly more often, you'll drop the overheating gun and you'll have to wait for it to cool and recharge before you can resume firing. In some cases, you'll get lucky and the heat will vent in a safe direction, meaning you're still in control of the weapon but it's running a little hot and a lot of gas/ammo has cooked off or been wasted. You can fire off one shot if you're feeling lucky.

I was reading "Sons of Dorn" not the greatest book but there was an interesting strategy one of the scouts used

He was defending an access point to this Mountain Base and when his Plasma Gun got to hot it was gunna overload. So he threw it at the advancing Noise Marines then it blew up killing a couple.

actually ... that venting superheated gas is melting the flesh right off of your bones as it is a few thousand degrees at that moment ...

mon-keigh slayer wrote:actually ... that venting superheated gas is melting the flesh right off of your bones as it is a few thousand degrees at that moment ...

The broken plasma pistol isn't vomiting plasma directly onto your hands! It's discharging excess heat through side vents. A trained soldier wouldn't stand there and let his skin get melted. He'd drop it.

I think it's fine the way it is.

When you make your armor save, it was a little bit of superheated gas.

When you fail your save it's when the plasma core ruptures and hits you with some 15,000,000 C(27 million F) goodness.

yea i was saying the gas thats venting from the part its not supposed to, is a couple thousand degrees as it was coolant for the couple million degree fusion reaction ...

Monster Rain wrote:I think it's fine the way it is.

When you make your armor save, it was a little bit of superheated gas.

When you fail your save it's when the plasma core ruptures and hits you with some 15,000,000 C(27 million F) goodness.

So by having better armour you magically have a plasmagun that's a little less likely to overload? Also, what about other weapons with "gets hot!" like those carried by Lootas?

Ummm... Lootas don't get hot. Are you thinking of Flash Gitz?

There's a certain amount of abstraction that you have to factor into playing this game. "Gets Hot!" is a perfect example of this.

I like the idea that the armour save is representing the skill of the wielder in question: A Space Marine has better training than a Guardsman, so he is able to safely vent the super-heated gas twice as often. A Storm Trooper or Grenadier would be the middle ground, here.

MinMax wrote:I like the idea that the armour save is representing the skill of the wielder in question: A Space Marine has better training than a Guardsman, so he is able to safely vent the super-heated gas twice as often. A Storm Trooper or Grenadier would be the middle ground, here.

Ya, look at it this way, a plasma gun has ap 2, which means if it explodes, its probably going to melt trough any armor.

Space marines know what to do when it's about to overheat, so there's a 2/3rds chance they can deal with the problem before it gets messy. How ever thers always that 1/3rd chance that the gun explodes, immolating the weilder, or atleast disabling him some how (i.e. his arm is blown off, his hand melted, the extra ammo exploded, leaving a bloody crater in the marine)

I'd say that when you factor in that a guardsman, who's more poorly trained, equiped, and armored, he'd be much more likely to die via malfunction.

Why fix something that isn't broken ? Much easier to just roll the save against "heat" rather than use cotton balls, or mark turns it can or cannot be used, etc...

lordrevege wrote:

MinMax wrote:I like the idea that the armour save is representing the skill of the wielder in question: A Space Marine has better training than a Guardsman, so he is able to safely vent the super-heated gas twice as often. A Storm Trooper or Grenadier would be the middle ground, here.

Ya, look at it this way, a plasma gun has ap 2, which means if it explodes, its probably going to melt trough any armor.

Space marines know what to do when it's about to overheat, so there's a 2/3rds chance they can deal with the problem before it gets messy. How ever thers always that 1/3rd chance that the gun explodes, immolating the weilder, or atleast disabling him some how (i.e. his arm is blown off, his hand melted, the extra ammo exploded, leaving a bloody crater in the marine)

I'd say that when you factor in that a guardsman, who's more poorly trained, equiped, and armored, he'd be much more likely to die via malfunction.

What about a Veteran who hasn't been issue Carapace Armour? A Forward Sentry is just as skilled as a Grenadier. By your logic, we should be basing this on BS or perhaps making them take initiative checks.

heres an idea:
'works like scatter'

-x from weapon strength. (X = BS)
for AP, halve the BS and add it to the weapon. (for a MEQ/IGEQ 2+ (.5 roundup))
so a space marine gets a S3 AP4 hit.

then for the damage result to the weapon:

1:weapon destroyed explodes!: small blast template around the soldier and weapon may not be used. .
2: weapon destroyed wreked: weapon blows up and cannot be used
3: weapons overheats, and cannot be used for some time. (D6)
4: weapon overheats, and cannot be used for a short time. D3.
5 weapon overheats, and cannot be used for a very small time. (D2)
6. weapons is sucsessfully vented and doesn't break down or overheat.

add whatever you get on this roll to half BS

so, resolution becomes:
for a space marine


alternative: on 1, D2. on a 1, it can't be used again on a 2, it is okay. (can be used next turn, assuming he survives.)
on a 2 D2 same situation.

I get what you're saying, and fluffwise, you can justify this or that all you please.

But it slows things down. Instead of rolling to hit, you roll the armor save, and then you also have to roll on this table, acount for the affect, and then remember if you've already rolled a 6 for that weapon. What happens if you've got 3-5 plasma weapons in a squad? (Which is doable.) You've gotta remember all those thing, and you have to roll more die then normal. Roll a 1 on to hit, roll a save instead of to wound, and then roll on the table. If you bad luck and roll alot of ones in that squad, that's even more. Plus, then you still have to resolve everything else...

HI all.
Why not just make 'gets hot' mean only fires in alternate turns?
So you simply let the weapon cool down.No casualties caused , just reduce the number of shots taken during the game.

Would you use a weapon that could potentialy kill you if you fire it continualy?Or would you just let it cool down between shots.
I know common sense has NO PLACE in 40k, but I thought I would just mention it.

A cool down rule might be the way forwards but I quite like the idea of a fairly powerful weapon incinerating some of my guardsmen when they try and use it.

Its the chance you take when you purchase them.

Lanrak wrote:
Would you use a weapon that could potentialy kill you if you fire it continualy?Or would you just let it cool down between shots.
I know common sense has NO PLACE in 40k, but I thought I would just mention it.

The question is if you had been conscripted by the Imperial Guard and your Commanding Officer told you to use the Plasma Gun would you have the stones to risk getting your face blown off by a Commissar for not using it?

Hi Monster Rain.
I was just proposing an alternative to the general 'gets hot ' rule.(Which is used a cross a wide range of weapons and armies.)

(Note the comment about common sense and 40k.... )

To make 'gets hot' more deadly how about a roll of 1(+1) caused an automatic wound on the firer, and destroys the plasma weapon, IF fired in consecutive turns?
As I dont think ANY personal armour would save a plasma explosion.....if terminator armour can not stop it...

First shot no risk,
Second concetutive shot , explodes on a roll of a 1+ to hit.
Third consecutive shot , explodes on a roll of a 2+ to hit.
Fourth consecutive shot, explodes on a roll of a 3+ to hit
Fifth consecutive shot, explodes on a rol of a 4+ to hit.

Don't use another table. If you're going to change it, just have the gun destroyed and the model resorting to the default weapon of the unit. If none, like with flash gitz, they don't have a gun anymore.

Strange that by fixing "Gets hot" you are actually intending to make Plasma guns more "broken"...

Actually as a matter of fact, the way I think Gets Hot should be "fixed" is that by forcing individual rolls for fireing, example: If you have 2 guys with plasma guns in rapid fire range, you do not roll 4 dice for your "to hit" roll, but instead roll two sets of two dice, and resolve the wound BEFORE the secound round, otherwise, as the rules currently stand its possible to theoretically have your first shot "get hot" and kill the gunner while the second shot is still capable of causing a wound.

Its bad enough they removed the 1-2 gets hot rule from before in the new edition. Make plasma anymore OP and it will just make fielding things like Nids, Necrons, and orks (and termies to an extent) much less enjoyable. Not to mention anything with FnP...

While this would be a bit more realistic, I think I prefer the current "gets hot!" rule to having to memorize yet another list of D3 results.

youd think in the 41st millinium they could find a way for a plasma gun to not heat up and explode onto the person whoes carrying its face....IMO

The Tau and Eldar have.

The Imperium just doesn't care.

yead I guess sense the guard have pretty much an infinite supply of men it would be pointless to save the lives of a couple billion by making plasma guns safe...while the marine can just shrugg of the explosion with their armor...be more of a waste of time to make them safe.

monster, the imperium does care.

just... not much.

Their idea of cooldown is to put little vents in it.

imperial plasma is more dangerous then tau, 'cause tau is slightly weaker IIRC. so this basically means that it has less chance of exploding.

IMO

The reason the Tau and Eldar plasma weapons are at Strength 6 is because they're using it at a safe power level. The Imperium wants the extra punch, and considering their callous disregard for the lives of Imperial Guardsmen they are willing to pay the price in maimed soldiers. I suppose that as the Grimdark is phased out of the fluff to make it more palatable this may be less and less the case...

I'm not just making this up. It's all in the Eldar Codex, about how they think it's funny that the Imperials blow themselves up with their plasma guns.

On a 2-6, the gun cools normally or overheats in a way that can be vented safely. On a 1 the gun explodes, melts the trooper's hands, etc. rendering it unusable.

deleted

I think resorting to tables and the like is over-complicating things for a single weapon type, 40K prefers to streamline rules and keep things moving that bit faster than, say, fantasy.

I think a sensible and perhaps more practical rule would be to follow the normal rule for gets hot but instead of the wound just say the weapon can't be fired the following shooting phase, representing the firer venting the weapon or dropping it temporarily and then refiguring it (whatever the terminology is).

Or, alternatively, if the firer rolls a 1 to hit with a 'gets hot' weapon, roll a further D6 and the firer suffers an automatic hit with the strength equivalent to the difference between their BS and the roll with no armour save allowed (except invulnerable saves). For instance, an Eldar Guardian rolls a 1 to hit with a 'gets hot' weapon. He rolls a D6 and gets a 6, which means he suffers a S3 hit with no armour saves allowed. If the Guardian had rolled a 3 or below, the firer may carry on unaffected as normal.

The reason I like the second option is, whilst arguably deadlier, it factors in the firers skills with guns which would presume would factor into how able and experienced they are with such weapons. The no save throw except invulnerable seems to make sense because it its hot enough to wound then chances are it would sear through armour. I'm not a particularly huge fan of the 'gets hot' rule, you'd imagine generals wouldnt give such important/powerful weapons in the hands of troops that havent had considerable training with them, so think my second suggested rule puts a firers skill on the spot and if they aren't good enough with their weapons, they're likely to get badly burnt, suffering a small but potentially fatal misfire. It also negates the fact that with the current rule apparently the likes of fire dragons are just as likely to get themselves injured as a bog standard imperial guardsman, which seems a bit ludicrous.

It isn't that the Imperium doesn't care, but that the Imperium has no clue how plasma technology works, or even how to use it.