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So I was reading the thread about Least Favourite Rules and it occurred to me that one rule I don't like in 40k is the Instant Death rule. Specifically I hate it because it violates the Warhammer design principle of scaling that underlies rules like rolling to wound, armour saving throws, and rolling to hit (close combat at least).

So something I thought would be more interesting would be to detach Instant Death from the comparison of the weapon's Strength to the target's Toughness and append it to the to-hit and to-wound rolls. Weapons that have their own rules for causing would naturally follow their own rules. Basically if a model with multiple wounds is wounded, then they take a Toughness test. If it passes the test, the model simply takes a wound. If it fails the test, then the model suffers Instant Death, cannot make a Feel No Pain roll, and is removed from play regardless of the number of wounds it had left if it fails its Save.

Naturally this involves dealing with Eternal Warrior. Eternal Warrior would allow a player to re-roll this Toughness test.

So, for example, a T5 model is struck with a S4 hit. It would be wounded on a roll of 5+ and succumb to Instant Death on a Toughness test roll of 6.

Personally I'd restrict this to skirmish games of 500pts or below so that multi-wound beasties can be played, but otherwise what do you think?

Originally I thought about making the Wound roll double as the Toughness test, but then Bolters could Instant Death Carnifexen as easily as wounding them, and I at least don't want that.

I dunno...

Personally I like Instant Death and Eternal Warrior...

Although I think there should be more Invul re-rolling weaponry, because I've found that's the only way to easily kill Eternal Warriors.

Nurglitch wrote:Specifically I hate it because it violates the Warhammer design principle of scaling that underlies rules like rolling to wound, armour saving throws, and rolling to hit (close combat at least).

Except it doesn't. You still need to successfully hit and wound your target. That and there are instant death weapons that don't ignore armor, and the ones that do still allow the model invul saves.

I guess if you really wanted it taken out, I'd do something like the new BS system. If you have a weapon that is double the strength of the toughness you get a second, weaker hit (sort of like the reroll of a BS7 model). That said, I don't think ID really needs to be made worse. It's a way to counter things with lots of wounds that aren't awesomely tough like marine special characters (which all get eternal warrior anyways...)

Ailaros:

I suppose I didn't emphasize the "scaling" part enough. What do rolling to wound, armour saving throws, and rolling to hit in close combat all have in common? They scale depending on what's involved. That means, since I wasn't clear enough in the first place, that the threshold to cause a result increases or decreases. An example is Strength vs Toughness. The wound roll threshold decreases as the Strength increases or the Toughness decreases. It scales.

Furthermore, I don't want it taken out, I'm proposing an alternative. It's a curiously subtle difference, in that taking out the Instant Death rule would involve removing it from the next edition of the game (and frankly no proposal in this forum will ever be used in any edition of the game, thank god), rather than playing it a different way in skirmish games of 500pts and under.

As you can see, extending ordinary Instant Death (as opposed to Instant Death via special rule) so that it affects Toughness 6 and greater does not actually remove the rule from the game. It simply amends the conditions by which Instant Death is caused or negated.

firstly, ID does scale. Sometimes the rule does nothing, sometimes it does a lot.

secondly, what's so wrong that needs to be fixed?

thirdly, how would you propose the rule work for T6 models?

Ailaros:

First, all or nothing is not scaling. It's actually the opposite of scaling.

Second, it doesn't fit with the design principles mentioned in the first post.

Third, are you even reading this thread? Do you understand what a Toughness test is?

An interesting idea to say the least. Not a big fan of succumbing to instant death even if the weapon is weaker than the actual character.

For example, an Imperial Space Marine Captain gets hit by a Str5 weapon, and as he is T4 he is wounded on a 3+. Then, if he takes a wound, on a 5+ he is instantly killed.

Makes heros a bit too vulnerable.

I'd prefer that weapons go back to doing different damages. For example if an autocannon hits you, all unsaved wounds are multiplied into doing d2 wounds.

Plasma guns do d2 wounds, lascannons do d6, battlecannons do 2d6, meltas do 2d6, so on and so forth. The key here is "all unsaved wounds are multiplied into doing X wounds", X being the damage of the weapon. Bolters and lasguns would be Damage 1 for example.

Just a quick list:

Bolter: Damage 1
Heavy Bolter: Damage D2
Autocannon: Damage D3
Missile Launcher (Krak): Damage D3+1
Lascannon: Damage D6
Melta Gun: Damage D6+1
Plasma Gun: Damage D2

You could then make template weapons have 2 different damages, one if it's on the hole and then another if it's anywhere else.

For example:

Battlecannon: Damage 2d6 if on the hole, Damage d6 otherwise

You can then make Eternal Warrior: "Weapons that would do more than 1 damage to this model are reduced to doing 1 damage instead"

You may notice that I'm not complaining about how Instant Death results in characters being removed because of a single Heavy Bolter wound, which is pretty reasonable if it catches them in the right spot and consistent with the Warhammer concept of a wound being whatever puts the average trooper out of action. While this makes models vulnerable to Instant Death from weapons that they previously didn't have to worry about, it makes them less vulnerable to Instant Death from weapons that would otherwise take them out without blinking. The advantage of higher Strength weapons remains just that: They're more likely to cause Instant Death because they're more likely to wound.

Furthermore my proposal has the benefit of not having to go back and change every single weapon profile in the game.

So wait, you mean a lascannon could potentially hit six guys?

@Melissia; no, a lascannon could potentially cause 6 wounds to a single model. The extra wounds would not bleed over onto other models. Just imagine that the hapless SOB caught by the beam has been very, very thoroughly disintegrated.

Sorry But this is a terrible Idea.

10 Lasguns Vs Trygon:

20 Shots
15 Hits (Bring It down)
~2-3 Wounds
~1 Failed Save
Toughness Test: Ooops! 6

Dead Trygon. From a LASGUN.

Vladsimpaler wrote:An interesting idea to say the least. Not a big fan of succumbing to instant death even if the weapon is weaker than the actual character.

For example, an Imperial Space Marine Captain gets hit by a Str5 weapon, and as he is T4 he is wounded on a 3+. Then, if he takes a wound, on a 5+ he is instantly killed.

Makes heros a bit too vulnerable.

I'd prefer that weapons go back to doing different damages. For example if an autocannon hits you, all unsaved wounds are multiplied into doing d2 wounds.

Plasma guns do d2 wounds, lascannons do d6, battlecannons do 2d6, meltas do 2d6, so on and so forth. The key here is "all unsaved wounds are multiplied into doing X wounds", X being the damage of the weapon. Bolters and lasguns would be Damage 1 for example.

Just a quick list:

Bolter: Damage 1
Heavy Bolter: Damage D2
Autocannon: Damage D3
Missile Launcher (Krak): Damage D3+1
Lascannon: Damage D6
Melta Gun: Damage D6+1
Plasma Gun: Damage D2

You could then make template weapons have 2 different damages, one if it's on the hole and then another if it's anywhere else.

For example:

Battlecannon: Damage 2d6 if on the hole, Damage d6 otherwise

You can then make Eternal Warrior: "Weapons that would do more than 1 damage to this model are reduced to doing 1 damage instead"

Not a fan of this idea, this makes eternal warriors even harder and totally devalues multiple wound models and monstrous creatures...

Example...melta gun wounds the swarmlord......does 4+1 wounds...swarmlord dead a 280pt creature...from a 5pt space marine weapon.....even an autocannon could kill 220 point Astorath...no no no

zeekill:

Consider, for a second, the likelihood of that happening:

Firstly, rolling to hit with 20 Lasguns re-rolled. That's 0.75 rate of hits for 15 expected hits.

Of those 15 expected hits, 1/6 will wound. That's 0.17 rate of converting hits to 2.55 expected wounds.

Of those 2.55 expected wounds, 1/6 will cause Instant Death. That's 0.17 rate of converting wounds to Instant Death for a rate of 0.43 expected Instant Death.

Not bad for using an Order specifically intended to bring down Monstrous Creatures, but not a reliable way of killing the Trygon either. Of course, two such turns and the Trygon will be dead of Lasguns anyways. Two turns, or three such squads shooting without the benefit of orders.

So while I can see how you might object to a might Trygon being brought down with Lasguns, they can already be brought down with Lasguns. In fact they're more likely to be brought down by cumulative wounds than they are by Instant Death, and the possiblity of Instant Death makes taking a Trygon a reasonable option in a small skirmish game.

zeekill wrote:Sorry But this is a terrible Idea.

10 Lasguns Vs Trygon:

20 Shots
15 Hits (Bring It down)
~2-3 Wounds
~1 Failed Save
Toughness Test: Ooops! 6

Dead Trygon. From a LASGUN.

I completely agree... The instant death rules make sense: A battle cannon (S8 AP3) round would utterly blow apart most living things, including Orks and SM and the likes. The chance for a lower Strength weapon to potentially 'kill' a model is represented by the wounding and armour save rolls.

Another option, with mostly a focus to reduce the number of rolls, is to do an additional wound to the wounded model for each 2 points of strength above it's toughness.
So, a T4 marine would take 2 wounds from a successful S6 wound, a T5 whatever would take 3 wounds from a successful S9 wound, etc.

Belphegor wrote:Another option, with mostly a focus to reduce the number of rolls, is to do an additional wound to the wounded model for each 2 points of strength above it's toughness.
So, a T4 marine would take 2 wounds from a successful S6 wound, a T5 whatever would take 3 wounds from a successful S9 wound, etc.

Lets say a Tac. Squad of 5 marines takes three successful S6 wounds, therefore inflicting SIX wounds. Say only one is stopped (bad luck?), and the rest inflict wounds. By your logic, the THREE wounds on THREE of the marines could potentially put all FIVE of them out of action... ???
If you had it so that each model had to make two armour saves per each S6 wound inflicted, you get into a dangerous realm called 'complication', and I don't know about you; but I like my games to have simplicity.

Edit: Sorry, didn't mean to sound so harsh...

TheMostSlyFox:

Actually the 'wound' roll doesn't represent a kill. It specifically points out in the rule-book that it represents any damage that puts something out of action.

BeRzErKeR wrote:@Melissia; no, a lascannon could potentially cause 6 wounds to a single model. The extra wounds would not bleed over onto other models. Just imagine that the hapless SOB caught by the beam has been very, very thoroughly disintegrated.

But seriously folks.

@ Melissia: The part that I really emphasize is that each UNSAVED wound is multiplied into those wounds. So 6 guys aren't hit. Edited by Mod Frazzled. Lets keep it polite.
@Radi87: Most of the weapons that you say would 'devalue' multiple wounds model already 'devalue' them. In a way, this is actually better because now characters could theoretically survive a lascannon shot. Say your Captain has 3 wounds, then the lascannon owner rolls a 2 for wounds. The captain now has 1 wound left.

The only things that really change are the heavy bolter and the autocannon but then again it's a good fix.

Monstrous creatures are already really good so I'm not worrying about them too much. : )

@ Nurglitch: Fair enough about not having to change every single weapon profile.

Though like I said above, in some ways characters become more resistant cause you can always roll lower than their wound count. Sure it's unlikely for the most part but then again, so is suffering instant death on a failed T test.

Here's for a more likely example, 10 Imperial Guardsmen versus an Imperial Space Marine captain in powered armor

30 Lasgun shots (via FRFSRF)
15 hits
5 wounds
~1.667 wounds taken
Then the model takes rolls for instant death, and in this particular case the model has a 55% chance of suffering instant death. That's pretty high.

I'm not knocking your idea per se, it just needs some work to figure out.

Nurglitch wrote:So something I thought would be more interesting would be to detach Instant Death from the comparison of the weapon's Strength to the target's Toughness and append it to the to-hit and to-wound rolls. Weapons that have their own rules for causing would naturally follow their own rules. Basically if a model with multiple wounds is wounded, then they take a Toughness test. If it passes the test, the model simply takes a wound. If it fails the test, then the model suffers Instant Death, cannot make a Feel No Pain roll, and is removed from play regardless of the number of wounds it had left if it fails its Save.

Naturally this involves dealing with Eternal Warrior. Eternal Warrior would allow a player to re-roll this Toughness test.

So, for example, a T5 model is struck with a S4 hit. It would be wounded on a roll of 5+ and succumb to Instant Death on a Toughness test roll of 6.

Personally I'd restrict this to skirmish games of 500pts or below so that multi-wound beasties can be played, but otherwise what do you think?

Hang on, so a character with T4 would be suffering instant death on a roll of 5 or 6, whether the wound was from a lasgun or a plasma gun? That seems an odd result, surely the roll should scale up, dependant on the strength of the weapon?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Vladsimpaler wrote:An interesting idea to say the least. Not a big fan of succumbing to instant death even if the weapon is weaker than the actual character.

But a round from a rifle can be deadly dangerous if it strikes the target in the right place. No-one can go storming across the battlefield knowing they can survive three wounding hits from small arms before there's a chance of dying. The first bullet really might just do it, even if it's from a relatively weak gun.

I'd prefer that weapons go back to doing different damages. For example if an autocannon hits you, all unsaved wounds are multiplied into doing d2 wounds.

Yeah, that was the 2nd ed way. It didn't really work that well. Problem was most weapons capable of beating the toughness and armour of a big beastie also inflicted multiple wounds. As such, when they statted a carnifex they couldn't give it just enough wounds to resist some small arm fire, they had to give it a ludicrous number of wounds to make it somewhat likely of surviving the wounds inflicted by a lascannon. At which point it becomes pointless to shoot any small arm at the big creature.

Right now there's something of a happy middle ground, where big guns are obviously much better at firing at big creatures, but there's still a point to firing smaller weapons.

Your system won't exhibit the problem to the same level of difficulty it caused in 2nd, because the wounds you have there aren't as extreme (there's no D10 and no mass of 2D6 wound weapons). But the problem would begin to eventuate anyway.

sebster:

That's a good point. A Toughness test is actually flatter than the current double-Toughness condition for Instant Death in the case of single models. Back to the drawing board, I suppose.

Vladsimpaler wrote:

BeRzErKeR wrote:@Melissia; no, a lascannon could potentially cause 6 wounds to a single model. The extra wounds would not bleed over onto other models. Just imagine that the hapless SOB caught by the beam has been very, very thoroughly disintegrated.

But seriously folks.

@ Melissia: The part that I really emphasize is that each UNSAVED wound is multiplied into those wounds. So 6 guys aren't hit. That'd just be stupid. Get Captain Solon for that sorta stuff.

... which makes no difference whatsoever? It still means a single lascannon hits six different models.

Vladsimpaler's answer actually made sense. Yours does not.

The strength double toughness idea just kind of pisses me off. A single meltagun shot can kill my 100+ point captain while the only way I can insta-kill a carnifex without sending in my librarian with a force weapon... CC with a carnifex? I don't think so...

The two are incomparable, however, because one is a monstrous creature, while the other is a heavily modified roid-raging former human.

They're not completely dissimilar. They both have heads, there's something about decapitation that slows down stuff that has a head. The background on Old One Eye suggests that the Carnifex keeps its brain in its head, and getting a Plasma Pistol shot in the face was enough to put it down.

I remember back when I was a little tyke playing Battletech and being slightly weirded out by the whole "sanding down armour" when I was used to the notion of one or two shots putting down a tank or infantryman in movies and other popular media. I was terribly impressed when I read the Rogue Trader book and discovered a game whereby one shot could 'kill'. Pity about the rest of the rules, but I think that Instant Death is useful to have in the game despite not liking the way it works.

Wound it nurglitch, not put it down
The beast still lives, simply regenerating each time it suffers severe damage.


Also, why compare a captain and a fex? might aswell compare a grot and a stealer.
Also, you might aswell fight it in combat, I1 means you will be going 1st. (one of the many fex nerfs)


While the idea doesent seem to bad, it just seems to have far too many "what if" moment that can see cause problems.

Could elaborate a bit Jack? To which "what if" moments are you referring?

Nurglitch wrote:Could elaborate a bit Jack? To which "what if" moments are you referring?

What if you grot blasted my trygon in the face and killed it?

Belphegor wrote: Another option, with mostly a focus to reduce the number of rolls, is to do an additional wound to the wounded model for each 2 points of strength above it's toughness.
So, a T4 marine would take 2 wounds from a successful S6 wound, a T5 whatever would take 3 wounds from a successful S9 wound, etc.

in response, TheMostSlyFox wrote:
Lets say a Tac. Squad of 5 marines takes three successful S6 wounds, therefore inflicting SIX wounds. Say only one is stopped (bad luck?), and the rest inflict wounds. By your logic, the THREE wounds on THREE of the marines could potentially put all FIVE of them out of action... ???
If you had it so that each model had to make two armour saves per each S6 wound inflicted, you get into a dangerous realm called 'complication', and I don't know about you; but I like my games to have simplicity.

I'm sorry, I think I failed to explain clearly enough.
A >successful wound< indicates a failed save. (successful to-wound would indicate, a successful Strength vs Toughness roll)
These additional wounds are allocated only to the failing model, much like instant death.
Wounds inflicted on specific models do not overflow on to other models, much like instant death.

So in your example, what would happen by my logic is:
Three >successful< wounds on Three marines would put three marines out of action.
One could not be 'stopped' as it was successful. So three would be the number and the number would be three.

- I'm is this a less complicated explanation? I hope this clarification will help you understand my logic.
- I hear the 'Realm of Complication' is an uncomfortable and snarky place...

Melissia wrote:The two are incomparable, however, because one is a monstrous creature, while the other is a heavily modified roid-raging former human.

Both could still be killed in one shot. A 'fex has a head and well placed hit could kill it in one shot. It has legs that a lucky hit could sufficiently destroy to immobilise the 'fex.

It's very odd that we play a game where we accept that a tank can be blown up in one shot, but a monstrous creature of T6 or greater has to be whittled down with multiple wounds. I've seen people notice this in the past and decide that to balance the two we should give wounds to tanks, but they've missed the point. Tanks shouldn't have wounds because one hit really can blow it up, and more hits don't make that any more likely. A character should also have a chance of being killed by a single hit (well, really there shouldn't be wounds system at all, no amount of experience, training or heroism that's going to make a human significantly more capable of surviving a bullet than another human but we accept it because this is not a heroic system, not a realistic one).

Exactly how to allow for that chance for instant death, so that it scales from small arms through to the more powerful special and heavy weapons is a good question. I'd have thought a second toughness check, but as Nurglitch points out that doesn't really work as it gives too great a chance of inflicting instant death with small arms. It's a tough question.

Melissia wrote:

BeRzErKeR wrote:@Melissia; no, a lascannon could potentially cause 6 wounds to a single model. The extra wounds would not bleed over onto other models. Just imagine that the hapless SOB caught by the beam has been very, very thoroughly disintegrated.

... which makes no difference whatsoever? It still means a single lascannon hits six different models.

Vladsimpaler's answer actually made sense. Yours does not.

Read it again.

If a single model, MODEL, not unit, with one wound, suffers six wounds, how many wounds does it lose? One.

It does not matter whether that model is an IC, an MC, or part of a unit. The proposal was for heavy weapons to do multiple wounds TO A SINGLE MODEL, which means that no matter what happens, a maximum of one model dies per shot. Understand now?