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Gabe Lincoln wrote:

The idea I like the most for this system is having "weight classes" for armor and baking in what level of Armor a weapon beats into its stats. Firing into a higher class of armor means there's no AP applied, and getting fired on by a weapon 2 AP classes above yours means you do not get an armor save at all.

I think I'd be okay with that. So my shuriken weapons could keep their extra rend vs infantry without it being especially good vs tanks. You can have super special armor piercing rounds that don't make the math against vehicles weird. A couple concerns:

* Where would you put meltaguns? "Titan-Killer" sort of sounds like overkill, but I feel like a meltagun attack would melt the metal of a titan's ankle as well as the armor plates of a russ. It feels like titans shouldn't get armor saves against meltas, but their sheer size means the melta attack only accomplishes so much. So you're melting that ankle metal just fine, but it's a really thick ankle. Which seems like it would be better modeled by the knight/titan just having a bunch of wounds rather than by giving it a full armor save vs melta. Similarly, it seems like plasma should be pretty effective against ankle metal.

* Where would you put weapons like the heavy bolter or shuriken cannon? They're better as anti-infantry than anti-vehicle, but they've traditionally been moderately effective against vehicles when taken in large quantities. I feel like something the size of a heavy bolter round should probably fall into the anti-tank category despite not being that good against tanks?

* There are a few really weird weapons in 40k whose effectiveness against vehicles is kind of unclear to me. Consider inferno bolts and drukhari mandrakes' baleblasts (magical "non"-psychic fireballs; AP-1, mortal wounds on 6+). My understanding is that these attacks penetrate armor through supernatural means. So it seems like it might be appropriate to let these weapons' AP continue to work against tanks? How about haywire weapons that are usually AP-1, but their specialized anti-tank damage output is largely the result of their mortal wounds-dealing special rule. (But the the couple of normal wounds they get through is still a not-insignificant part of their damage output.) Would we let all these become S4 weapons in the anti-tank weight class?

Orkimedez_Atalaya wrote:

That should be fairly easy to build into the strength of the attack. Remember autodeath rule, if Sx2>T then autokill. So move that to AoC. If Sx2>T, no AoC.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
You could add an extra pip of ap if Sx3>T for instance

But Toughness maxes out at 8. Well, 9 now with the new Chaos Land Raiders. But still, I think it'd be a lot easier to remember "this gun is AT. That means it gets its bonus against vehicles and infantry, but not against Titans" than it is to remember "if S is 3x toughness, you get an extra AP".

Wyldhunt wrote:

Gabe Lincoln wrote:

The idea I like the most for this system is having "weight classes" for armor and baking in what level of Armor a weapon beats into its stats. Firing into a higher class of armor means there's no AP applied, and getting fired on by a weapon 2 AP classes above yours means you do not get an armor save at all.

I think I'd be okay with that. So my shuriken weapons could keep their extra rend vs infantry without it being especially good vs tanks. You can have super special armor piercing rounds that don't make the math against vehicles weird. A couple concerns:

* Where would you put meltaguns? "Titan-Killer" sort of sounds like overkill, but I feel like a meltagun attack would melt the metal of a titan's ankle as well as the armor plates of a russ. It feels like titans shouldn't get armor saves against meltas, but their sheer size means the melta attack only accomplishes so much. So you're melting that ankle metal just fine, but it's a really thick ankle. Which seems like it would be better modeled by the knight/titan just having a bunch of wounds rather than by giving it a full armor save vs melta. Similarly, it seems like plasma should be pretty effective against ankle metal.

* Where would you put weapons like the heavy bolter or shuriken cannon? They're better as anti-infantry than anti-vehicle, but they've traditionally been moderately effective against vehicles when taken in large quantities. I feel like something the size of a heavy bolter round should probably fall into the anti-tank category despite not being that good against tanks?

* There are a few really weird weapons in 40k whose effectiveness against vehicles is kind of unclear to me. Consider inferno bolts and drukhari mandrakes' baleblasts (magical "non"-psychic fireballs; AP-1, mortal wounds on 6+). My understanding is that these attacks penetrate armor through supernatural means. So it seems like it might be appropriate to let these weapons' AP continue to work against tanks? How about haywire weapons that are usually AP-1, but their specialized anti-tank damage output is largely the result of their mortal wounds-dealing special rule. (But the the couple of normal wounds they get through is still a not-insignificant part of their damage output.) Would we let all these become S4 weapons in the anti-tank weight class?

1) Melta Guns would generally be 1 armor class higher than the thing that's shooting them. So an infantry Melta gun would be Assault 1 AT-3 or 4. A tank Melta would be TK -3 or 4 and a Titan Melta (I looked them up and they do exist) would be OB -3 or 4. There shouldn't be anything on the OB armor level BTW. OB is mostly there so Titans can say "feth Tanks".

2) A Heavy Bolter could be AT -1. I see no problem with allowing stuff like that happen. It's AP -1 now, but considering that a lot of AP-1 stuff would go to AI -1 or AI -2, it'd still be a significant upgrade to a normal bolter.

3) I see no reason why not. It's kinda weird having such low strength and still being AT, but that's fine. 40k has a lot of weird weapons and these weapons already work like that.

This feels too much like a basic RPS Command and Conquer balancing scheme Infantry/Tanks/Artillery. The AP system feels better then ever before, there's just too much of it.

 Gibblets wrote:
This feels too much like a basic RPS Command and Conquer balancing scheme Infantry/Tanks/Artillery. The AP system feels better then ever before, there's just too much of it.

I was legit thinking of Dawn Of War. It absolutely worked like that. Which to be fair that works better for the RTS setting it's based on.

 Gibblets wrote:
This feels too much like a basic RPS Command and Conquer balancing scheme Infantry/Tanks/Artillery. The AP system feels better then ever before, there's just too much of it.

If you're talking about my system, can you explain why it feels like a RPS system?

) Melta Guns would generally be 1 armor class higher than the thing that's shooting them. So an infantry Melta gun would be Assault 1 AT-3 or 4. A tank Melta would be TK -3 or 4 and a Titan Melta (I looked them up and they do exist) would be OB -3 or 4. There shouldn't be anything on the OB armor level BTW. OB is mostly there so Titans can say "feth Tanks".

@Game Lincoln: Hmm. The only thing that still feels off to me is that it seems like meltaguns probably should remain effective against knights/titans. I don't expect a single meltagun to make a lot of progress on its own, but it seems like a squad of eldar fire dragons or meltadevs should be a pretty significant threat to something like a knight. Looking at my knight paladin, many of its limbs actually seem less protected from incoming attacks than my rhino's chassis.

Also, is the weight class of the attack tied to the weapon or the weapon's platform? Ex: is a multi-melta on a devastator less effective than a multi-melta on a land speeder?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Gibblets wrote:
The AP system feels better then ever before, there's just too much of it.

Yeah. I enjoy discussing possible alternatives, but I really don't mind the current system as-is. There's just a bit too much AP being handed out in the newer books, and maybe up the Wounds of vehicles a smidge.

You want to abolish age of consent?

Wyldhunt wrote:

) Melta Guns would generally be 1 armor class higher than the thing that's shooting them. So an infantry Melta gun would be Assault 1 AT-3 or 4. A tank Melta would be TK -3 or 4 and a Titan Melta (I looked them up and they do exist) would be OB -3 or 4. There shouldn't be anything on the OB armor level BTW. OB is mostly there so Titans can say "feth Tanks".

@Game Lincoln: Hmm. The only thing that still feels off to me is that it seems like meltaguns probably should remain effective against knights/titans. I don't expect a single meltagun to make a lot of progress on its own, but it seems like a squad of eldar fire dragons or meltadevs should be a pretty significant threat to something like a knight. Looking at my knight paladin, many of its limbs actually seem less protected from incoming attacks than my rhino's chassis.

Also, is the weight class of the attack tied to the weapon or the weapon's platform? Ex: is a multi-melta on a devastator less effective than a multi-melta on a land speeder?

Knights being Titanic is kinda weird. Although you could probably add a new thing like "Armor Class" to the datasheets to disconnect the Armor Class rules from keywords if you wish. You'd already have to go through all the Weapon Profiles anyway with a change like this. So why not also go through every datasheet to add Armor Class to it? This isn't a small change. It's elegant, and intuitive IMO, but I understand that this is not a small change to how the game would work.

To answer your second question, it'd be based on the weapon. If they're the same weapon they'd have the same stats, and AP Class would be an addition to the stat line. Right now stat lines look like so.

Ironstorm missile pod 72" Heavy D6 5 -1 2

Afterward it'd be

Ironstorm missile pod 72" Heavy D6 5 AT-1 2

So if you have two weapons that are the same, they'd have the same AP Class value. i.e. The Sponson Heavy Bolters on a Russ and the Heavy Bolters in a Heavy Weapons Team would be the same weapon and would have say AT -1. The Melta example was more to say how Meltas would generally work. If you have a Melta as the primary weapon on a tank it'd be TK, but a Melta as the primary weapon on an infantry model would be AT. At the same time however, a tank using the same infantry Melta in a sponson would still only have that Melta be AT.

 sing your life wrote:
You want to abolish age of consent?

Libertarians be like

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 sing your life wrote:
You want to abolish age of consent?

Libertarians be like

My first thought: “what did ocasio-Cortez say now to anger the conservatives?”

 Backspacehacker wrote:
The rend ap system for 40k is a failed experiment.

Today I learned that weapons reducing armour saves in 40k is in some way a recent development

Question - Isnt the effect of the AP and Firepower creep made worse by a D6 sytem?
<BTW - I am aware that it has always been a D6 system>

Wouldn't a D10 or D100 math base allow for adjustments?

When I came back to 40 I was really surprised by the massive increase in shots/saves as a balance mechanic

Using a different dice would allow for more variation, but normal people don't have dozens of d8s, d10, or d12s at their disposal. Not to mention the larger dice can be a bit difficult to roll in large quantities.

Many modern game systems have resorted to making specialized dice on the classic cube design to allow for more variation than a d6 allows. Just look at all those crazy dice used in games like Car Wars 6th Edition, Imperial Assault, or Warhammer Underworlds.

The obvious correct answer is to move away from model based rules to unit based rules, reduce the number of dice being rolled and move to larger dice.

You know just like Apocalypse did.

 alextroy wrote:
Using a different dice would allow for more variation, but normal people don't have dozens of d8s, d10, or d12s at their disposal. Not to mention the larger dice can be a bit difficult to roll in large quantities.

Sure - Makes sense - but i suppose part of my question was my un-stated in that with a different math system - there would be fewer dice per firing/saving unit. Not sure how it would work but I am "not" thinking that 36 shots (aka D6 rolls) should turn into 36 D100 rolls. That would be a nightmare...

Anyway - 1 pip on a D6 is 16% so adding a plus or minus is a pretty big swing...

What I hate most about armor of contempt is how inconsistently it is applied. Even ignoring that xenos heavy infantry/tanks generally have worse base armor than imp/chaos ones but none of them get it, there are several identical units that either have armor of contempt or don't based solely on what flavor of human it belongs to.

Take the land raider for example:
Land Raider driven by space marines? Armor of contempt
Same land raider driven by custodies? No armor of contempt
Chaos marine's land raider? Armor
Inquisition land raider? No

Tome_Keeper wrote:
Question - Isnt the effect of the AP and Firepower creep made worse by a D6 sytem?
<BTW - I am aware that it has always been a D6 system>

Wouldn't a D10 or D100 math base allow for adjustments?

When I came back to 40 I was really surprised by the massive increase in shots/saves as a balance mechanic

Whether my Terminators save on a 2+ or a 17+ has the same result, whether that 2+ is changed to a 3+ by flayer claws or the 17+ to a 34+ by flayer claws does not change that Terminator saves are fine and flayer claws should not have any AP. They should not have AP 0,5 or 0,1, they should have AP0 like they used to.

The insane number of attacks also has nothing to do with balance and everything to do with GW being unable to control themselves. GW could go back to the old times of heavy weapons and RF weapons being useless on the move, that would reduce the number of dice rolled. Get rid of all the "6s to wound have extra AP" rules to speed up the game further, although 9th has already made strides in speeding up elements of the game.

Balance is only decided by pts-effectiveness, and the pts side is the right side to fine-tune the equation on because Gretchin are not supposed to be tougher than Boyz, but balance doesn't know that, only fluff and gameplay feel knows that. So you use fluff and gameplay feel to adjust the rules to be fun to use and then adjust points so that the datasheets are balanced internally and the faction is balanced externally.

 Destroyer_742 wrote:
What I hate most about armor of contempt is how inconsistently it is applied. Even ignoring that xenos heavy infantry/tanks generally have worse base armor than imp/chaos ones but none of them get it, there are several identical units that either have armor of contempt or don't based solely on what flavor of human it belongs to.

Take the land raider for example:
Land Raider driven by space marines? Armor of contempt
Same land raider driven by custodies? No armor of contempt
Chaos marine's land raider? Armor
Inquisition land raider? No

That's because gits have been saying that 40k should be balanced on the rules side for years. Look where we are now, an unbalanced game with horrible amounts of rules changes every 3 months.

 Tyran wrote:
The obvious correct answer is to move away from model based rules to unit based rules, reduce the number of dice being rolled and move to larger dice.

You know just like Apocalypse did.

And become a failure just like Apocalypse did. I want individual models to matter, otherwise, you might as well use one model to represent each unit. I also have not seen the benefits of adding D12s in the battle reports for Apocalypse I have watched.

 vict0988 wrote:

Tome_Keeper wrote:
Question - Isnt the effect of the AP and Firepower creep made worse by a D6 sytem?
<BTW - I am aware that it has always been a D6 system>

Wouldn't a D10 or D100 math base allow for adjustments?

When I came back to 40 I was really surprised by the massive increase in shots/saves as a balance mechanic

Balance is only decided by pts-effectiveness, and the pts side is the right side to fine-tune the equation on because Gretchin are not supposed to be tougher than Boyz, but balance doesn't know that, only fluff and gameplay feel knows that. So you use fluff and gameplay feel to adjust the rules to be fun to use and then adjust points so that the datasheets are balanced internally and the faction is balanced externally.

This idea is asinine. The rules and points both need to be changed to ensure both balance and fluff. Balancing exclusively by points means that if an ability or special rule is busted then the points cost for that unit would just shoot up in a way that would make entire armies not fluffy. Let's say Sentinels become busted somehow. Maybe it's an unforseen rules interaction, or a new thing comes out and makes them busted. I'm talking Baneblade points worthy busted. The appropriate action would be to nerf the rules interactions that made it broken in the interest of preserving both fluff and balance, but under your premise, the only thing to do is nerf the points costs.

Gabe Lincoln wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

Tome_Keeper wrote:
Question - Isnt the effect of the AP and Firepower creep made worse by a D6 sytem?
<BTW - I am aware that it has always been a D6 system>

Wouldn't a D10 or D100 math base allow for adjustments?

When I came back to 40 I was really surprised by the massive increase in shots/saves as a balance mechanic

Balance is only decided by pts-effectiveness, and the pts side is the right side to fine-tune the equation on because Gretchin are not supposed to be tougher than Boyz, but balance doesn't know that, only fluff and gameplay feel knows that. So you use fluff and gameplay feel to adjust the rules to be fun to use and then adjust points so that the datasheets are balanced internally and the faction is balanced externally.

This idea is asinine. The rules and points both need to be changed to ensure both balance and fluff. Balancing exclusively by points means that if an ability or special rule is busted then the points cost for that unit would just shoot up in a way that would make entire armies not fluffy. Let's say Sentinels become busted somehow. Maybe it's an unforseen rules interaction, or a new thing comes out and makes them busted. I'm talking Baneblade points worthy busted. The appropriate action would be to nerf the rules interactions that made it broken in the interest of preserving both fluff and balance, but under your premise, the only thing to do is nerf the points costs.

What's that, did you just say the Sentinel's rules were unfluffy and that the gameplay feel was off? Sounds like a justification for changing the rules. How about I give you a bad justification for changing the Sentinel's rules. "Ehhh, boss, everyone is spamming Scout Sentinels since we halved their cost in the new Codex and we cannot move any Heavy Sentinel boxes, what do we do?" The right answer is "find an appropriate pts cost" not "reduce their Sv to 6+ and make them blow up on a 4+".

 vict0988 wrote:

Gabe Lincoln wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

Tome_Keeper wrote:
Question - Isnt the effect of the AP and Firepower creep made worse by a D6 sytem?
<BTW - I am aware that it has always been a D6 system>

Wouldn't a D10 or D100 math base allow for adjustments?

When I came back to 40 I was really surprised by the massive increase in shots/saves as a balance mechanic

Balance is only decided by pts-effectiveness, and the pts side is the right side to fine-tune the equation on because Gretchin are not supposed to be tougher than Boyz, but balance doesn't know that, only fluff and gameplay feel knows that. So you use fluff and gameplay feel to adjust the rules to be fun to use and then adjust points so that the datasheets are balanced internally and the faction is balanced externally.

This idea is asinine. The rules and points both need to be changed to ensure both balance and fluff. Balancing exclusively by points means that if an ability or special rule is busted then the points cost for that unit would just shoot up in a way that would make entire armies not fluffy. Let's say Sentinels become busted somehow. Maybe it's an unforseen rules interaction, or a new thing comes out and makes them busted. I'm talking Baneblade points worthy busted. The appropriate action would be to nerf the rules interactions that made it broken in the interest of preserving both fluff and balance, but under your premise, the only thing to do is nerf the points costs.

What's that, did you just say the Sentinel's rules were unfluffy and that the gameplay feel was off? Sounds like a justification for changing the rules. How about I give you a bad justification for changing the Sentinel's rules. "Ehhh, boss, everyone is spamming Scout Sentinels since we halved their cost in the new Codex and we cannot move any Heavy Sentinel boxes, what do we do?" The right answer is "find an appropriate pts cost" not "reduce their Sv to 6+ and make them blow up on a 4+".

I think Gabe Lincoln is just pointing out that both points and rules can be adjusted to reach a desirable outcome. Points should usually be the first and main method of adjusting balance because points adjustments tend to have fewer weird consequences, but that doesn't mean that rule changes should be off the table entirely.

If GW ever gets drunk and gives sentinels the same rules as a paladin knight, I'd like them to feel comfortable changing those rules; not force them to price sentinels like paladins.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

I think Gabe Lincoln is just pointing out that both points and rules can be adjusted to reach a desirable outcome. Points should usually be the first and main method of adjusting balance because points adjustments tend to have fewer weird consequences, but that doesn't mean that rule changes should be off the table entirely.

If GW ever gets drunk and gives sentinels the same rules as a paladin knight, I'd like them to feel comfortable changing those rules; not force them to price sentinels like paladins.

Both points and rules must be adjusted to maintain both balance and fluff. Character is very important, and having cool tools is fun, but sometimes something just needs to be dumpstered for the good of the game. I say this a s a fighting game player. Sometimes stuff just needs to be removed for the good of the game.

Edit: Also, changing rules is way more fun and exciting than changing points. Everybody loves getting new stuff, and changing points just doesn't give that new stuff feeling that a phat rule change does.