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Lanrak wrote:HI all.
Save modifiers are an unessisary overcomplication of the rules .The Addition of the AP system was another unessicary complication of the rules.

It would have been better to use one simple resolution method to determine the weapon/armour interaction for ALL units.
EG.
Opposed characteristic comparison.

Using new values , weapon damage,(D) and Armour/resitance to damage(AR) .

Save roll = D-AR.

EG ork boy AR 2 is hit by a bolt from a SM bolt gun D7.

7-2=5 the ork boy needs to roll 5+ to save.

The ork boy shoots his slugga D7 at a SM AR 4.
7-4=3 the marine saves on 3+.

The higher the AR value the better tha save.
The higher the weapon damage the lower the save.

Just one example ....

This is actually MORE complicated than save modifiers.

Only if you don't know how to do arithmetic.

That's actually a fine idea, especially since things like Cover, KFFs and all would simply add to the AR of a model. KFF would add +1 AR, as would bushes- walls or other models would add +2 AR.

You could even get rid of Weapons skill if you wanted, and incorporate the D/AR system into vehicle armour values as well.

Save modifiers doesn't really work in 40k, maybe if they had an erroding cover save mechanic that could work out wonderfully, but unfortunately for armor saves on infantry it just neuters how effective they are overall. When armor plates are developed they give them a grade saying they can resist up to but NOT including some rounds. I think the same should have to be said with armor developed in the 41st millenium, after all, a .50 cal machine gun doesn't reduce kevlar's effectiveness it just punches straight through it.

The problem is actually the game's 10-point vs 1d6 system. It's simply not expansive enough to cover things that might require more tact - but on the other side, we get much more ease of rolling.

If I were to suggest something that would alleviate the former problem, it would be a successes system. Roll D6's equal to your characteristic, add or subtract situational modifiers, and every D6 over a threshold is a success.

I'll have examples up later. Food!

Or raise the limit of the Stat line to 12 instead of 10. Allows for greater range in strengths, and fits with the d6 system better.

Righto, examples. This needs a lot of cleaning up but I'm pressed for time at the moment, the numbers and modifiers are not representative of a balanced game, but the general idea is Dice pool = number of dice each model rolls, if D6 > (target toughness - weapon strength) + (Target armour - weapon AP) then you get a success, and the weapon's Rate of Fire determines how many successes equals a wound (the lower the better - for example, a bolter with a rate of fire of 2 means you need 2 successes to wound, whereas a lasgun with a rate of fire of 3 requires 3).


Although this requires a bit of a shift, Success-based systems are much more adaptable.

So, let's start with Dice Pools, targets, and Modifiers. Your dice pool will be your Ballistics Skill. Your target roll will be your opponent's Toughness plus his Armour. Your modifiers will be the Strength of the weapon and the AP. Your Rate of Fire will be how many successes is needed for a wound.

Each result OVER the Toughness plus the Armour is a success. As anvildude said, this works better on a larger or unlimited statline, as that allows for a wider range of automatic successes or failures.

This also allows for critical successes - successes that's more than double the target for success could have an additional effect.

For example, if we change the Toughness for Orks to 5's, their Armour Rating to 3 and the Bolter Strength to 4's with no fire rating, and AP 4, we have marines firing with the following:

4 Dice. The Target is 8, but the Bolter's Strength makes that 4. The AP only removes Armour, making it 1. As you can see, a regular bolter isn't quite powerful enough to critical on an ork mob - what a critical entails could be listed under the Special section of the weapon, with a list of common critical effects being included in the BRB (For instance, Bolter criticals could be a small blast template).

This gives 2 as the average wounds from a Marine firing a Bolter at an Ork. We can also now simply add cover to armour as a modifier. This also does away with the need for armour rolls.

Milisim wrote:I dont find the AP/Armour save a problem.

I find the generic cover save to be killing it for me.....

A railgun fires into a razorwire and everyone behind it gets a 6+ inv save? From razor wire? From a railgun?

Trees and troops are even worse at 4+


To me you should ALWAYS have a chance to hit and kill a guy in this game...

I believe "TO HIT" modifiers like Fantasy should come into play more so.

IE: Firing into razor wire = -1 Ballistic Skill , Firing into trees -2 Ballistic... Firing into Bunker -3 etc....


To a minimum of BS 1 IE: 6 always hits.

We just say that fences don't provide cover. They shouldn't.

Dry wall won't do much to stop a railgun shot, you shouldn't get a coversave anyway.

K I'm going to hide behind some drywall. Shoot me with a gun 100 times. Factor in your accuracy and see how many hit. Use the nearest D6 probability as the save. Problem solved.

Hi again.
@Zalmout.
Looking at the effectiveness of armour as a simple pass or fail is THE WRONG way to model weapon and armour interaction.As it leads to non proportioanl results.

ALL armour has an effect on ALL weapon hits.
Its just some time the effect is NOT HIGH enough to prevent damage to the target behind the armour.

Viewed as a set of constants we can get PROPORTIONAL results on a steady increment .

As oposed to the AP system of efficeincy jumps at exponetial rates, due to sve chance being linked to raretiy of weapon AP.

10mm of armour plate has the same resistance no matter what weapon hits it. This is a constant
A weapon hit has a constant damage potential no matter what it strikes. This is constant.

Therfore ;-

Weapon damage - armour resistance = chance of damage to target.

This can be used for ALL unit types and all weapon types.
(Obviously specialised weapons get bonuses to armour penetration -supression - ignore cover ,etc as now.)

Okay but not everything in 40k is Steel Plate. Reflective/ablative armour will do better against lasweapons and thermoceramics will do better against heat wepaons and adamantineweave will do better against ballistics and explosives.

As well, not all weapons are equally as likely to wound you. Laserbeams cauterize and create small holes - space marines and even guardsmen might be able to shrug them off with ease - an autocannon round will chunk right through you. You have to remember that the weapon's damage ALSO has to go against the target's toughness; making a single value for both means that it will only further increase the disparity between massed low-power weapons and massed high-power weapons.

If we start adding different types of armor and different types of damage we will complicate the system far too much. 2nd edition 40k would look more and more familiar.

This would so radically alter the game mechanic that it might drive people away, especially new players. GW doesn't need to drive more people away.

That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying removing AP and making weapon Strength/Damage a static value is the wrong direction. Scaling AP vs Defense values are where the game should be at - See above posts by me for one that would work with the current system, and one that would require a success based system.

Hi chrisrawr.
All armour no matter what to material composition can have a rating of how good it is at stopping damage.And weapons can be given the same type of scale.

And scalable proportional results from straight forward game mechanics makes much more sense IMO.

(We could add in ablative, reacvtive and reflective armour types and kinetic , energy and chemical weapon types and thier interaction AND STILL have LESS written rules than the current 40 weapon and armour interaction rules!)

Using damage values of 5 to 22, and AR values of 1 to 15, this gives us a range of 255 possible scalable results.

Can you explain why you belive just 5 fixed save values applied in a non scalable way is better ?Especialy as you have to use other resolution methods as well,(Invunerable saves, seperate vehicle damage mechanics, and special ruels like feel no pian...etc.)

I do admit, something along the lines of how FoW operates could be interesting.

It works by vehicles having an armor rating and weapons having an anti-tank rating. once a hit has been scored then you compare the 2. The owner of the vehicle rolls a D6 and adds it to his armor rating. If the total is higher then the Anti-tank of the hit the attack bounces off. If it equals it, the vehicle has a possable bail. If its less then, its a possable kill.


Something like that could work, but its so radically different that you would need to completely rewrite the codices to bring them into line. Or have massive Erratas as long as the rule books.

Once something is in place its tough to change things as much as what save modifiers would entail. Unless you did a blanket Errata that listed all existing equipment and its new value. Like PA is now a 2+, TDA now gives a 1+ save and a 5+ invuln.

Save modifiers would also only work well if you allowed multiple saves to be taken. Like fantesy. You get your armor and then either a Ward save or Regen save. Thats the only way I see save modifiers being successfully applied.

@Lanrak - What you're proposing does ease up the BRB-side burden of rules encumberance. But now you're writing "Front Kinetic14 Energy16 Chemical20 / Side Kinetic12 Energy14 Chemical20 / Rear Kinetic10 Energy14 Chemical20" for basic vehicular armour, "Kinetic0 Energy6 Chemical0" for a lasguns' damage values - increasing the complexity of EVERY unit and weapon.

And as you can see, I don't believe just 5 fixed save values are better. I feel a success-based system with 2 unlimited-scale statistics against 2 unlimited-scale statistics, each with terrain and profile-based modifiers, is better - but would settle for a 1-10 system and the current dicerolling mechanic if stat-comparison and profile / terrain-based modifiers were also present.

Hi chriswar.
Simply giving a unit a prefix of A for ablative armour ,R for reflective armour, and X for reactive armour.

Eg Ork Boy A2 ( 2 points of ablative armour.)

IG Chimera R12/11/10(Vehicle has reflective armour.)

Simply putting prefix C for chemical E for energy and K for kinetic in the weapon profile next to the damage value might be enough.

And then saying;-

Ablative armour reduces Kinetic damage by 2
But chemical and energy weapons damage is increased by 1.

Reflective armour reduces energy weapons damage by 2.
But chenical and kinetic weapons damage is increased by 1

Reactive armour reduces chemical weapons damage by 2
But energy and kinetic weapons damage is inceased by 1.

This adds a bit of spice and variety to weapon damage resolution and targeting selection.
And is purely an optioanl extra.(If you like that sort of thing.)

One paragraph of rules and we cover mutiple amour weapon interaction ....simples.....

Okay but now how do you do a space marine?

If you put Orks even at A1,

Space Marines Power Armour has been a 2/3 chance to ignore pretty much everything for a long while. A lot of the game is balanced around this, so it wouldn't do too well to change it much - it makes for a good starting point, so to speak.

Let's start by making key values: If you want to cap it arbitrarily at 22 for some reason, and Armour Values at 15 again arbitrarily for some reason, you get

15ARX is a monolith. This one was simple.
0ARX is a grot. Also simple.


But how about doing things that are resistant to some things, but not to others?

With your orks example - why are orks taking +2 damage from energy and chemical but -4 damage from kinetic? They're bioengineered fungus that don't care if they lose arms. This can be somewhat represented in their toughness, however, what does toughness do against Damage?

If a boltgun is 8CK (under half your arbitrary total), what do I roll against to wound? What is rolled against to save? How many wounds am I doing?

Your 'system' addresses none of this.