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Fledging group of players here and it strike us odd that weapons with penetration are more effective against a target with armour than a naked one. For an extreme example: A multimelta does 4d10+5 energy damage with a penetration of 13. Say the user manages to hit an ork freebooter to the body and rolls 21 on 4d10. The armour of the ork is ignored (penetration) but he still deducts 8 because of his Unnatural toughness trait resulting in a measly 13 points of damage witch is not sufficient to kill the critter. Have we applied the rule correctly? It strikes me as curious that something that can ignore tank armour is stoped by skin.

Yes, for all damage you subtract your toughness bonus, IE the tens digit or the unnatural characteristic, from all damage unless it has a rule that says otherwise.

If you think ignoring 8 damage is bad, My iron hands apothecary got hit in deathwatch for 53 damage pen 30, and survived at crit 7. Toughness bonus of 16 without min-maxing. Gotta love bionics.

Wait 'til you see the official Iron Hands rules. Those guys are tough. They're even tougher when they're Tech-Marines.


konst80hummel - I know it seems strange, but the system does work. If that Ork had had, for some reason 30 armour, then there'd be a massive difference. Most of these high Pen weapons can usually kill their targets in one hit anyway, as most things only have 7-12 wounds. You're also seeing the benefit of Unnatural Characteristics.

It seems strange that's all. Looking at the carnifex, a creature that in the tabletop dies to multiple Lascannons effectivelly soak them in the rpg game is slightly disconcerting. I assume that the Toughness bonus applies to hits with melee e.g. power weapons?

All hits unless specified otherwise.

Toughness is one of my little pet peeves with the system. DH looks deadly at first - until you notice that even a simple IG cardboard vest gives starting characters 50% chance to completely ignore a direct lasgun hit. It gets worse later on with advanced armour, and let's not even start with Unnatural Toughness rendering people and creatures nigh- or completely invulnerable against stuff that may just not "feel right".

But OP: Always remember that you can easily tweak things if your group doesn't like some aspect of the official rules. I have seen multiple takes on how various groups dealt with excessive TB effects already, such as only every second point of TB actually granting a damage reduction, or TB only helping against primitive weapons. You can mix the two previous ideas, too. You could even apply a weaker TB only for mooks, but allow players and important NPCs (elite and boss opponents) to make full use of it.

Maybe talk it over with your group and see what they think.

Lynata wrote:Toughness is one of my little pet peeves with the system. DH looks deadly at first - until you notice that even a simple IG cardboard vest gives starting characters 50% chance to completely ignore a direct lasgun hit.

Uh... yeah? They get a 66% chance to completely ignore a lasgun hit in 40k. (4+ to wound, 5+ to save). Mind you, basing assessments off the 40k rules isn't a great idea, so moving on...

While it's a long running joke, flak armour is NOT cardboard. It's an equivalent to decent modern body armour, and the weapons that just mangle it straight up start at armour piercing rocket propelled grenades (indeed, bolters completely ignore flak in DH too). The Imperial guard wouldn't've got as far as it has if its equipment was as bad as the jokes would have it. It's not the best the Imperium can muster, but it's still damned effective!

Also, I'd say only a 40% chance in DH, as most starting characters will have a TB of 3 (cancelled by the +3 of the Lasgun's damage), and the remaining D10 has a 60% chance of beating the 4 points of armour.

And while you're not dead, when you reach Heavy Injury, it becomes pretty bad. Any attempts to use Medicae become largely moot, because the small gains are pretty much equalled by the chance of ham handed doctoring and taking extra damage. You either have to start using up your fate points or remain injured and neither is a great place to be in a protracted fight.

If you're the poor sod that rolls a TB of 2, it gets worse - less damage resistance, lower Heavy injury.

~~~~~

@konst80hummel: You've done your maths wrong. If it's 21 on 4D10, then it'd be 26 after the +5 and would make it 18 wounds after TB. (And if that's 21 on 4D10+5, that's a rather below average roll.) Also, there's a damn good chance of getting Righteous Fury on 4D10, which means quite a bit more damage (particularly if you're using the nastier version of RFs), and when characters start building up talents like Mighty Shot, it does start making a difference to their ability to turn such beasties inside out.

Anyway, as far as why TB isn't affected by Pen, TB is not so much about "damage resistance" but "damage ignorance". The character's still been injured, but not enough to affect how they fight - flesh wounds, bruises and minor burns rather than anything that really hinders them. Orks just happen to be able to ignore what would be very major wounds to a human.

It's a matter of interpretation, but for me, the TT is sufficiently abstracted so that it doesn't feel as "off". For example, the rolls you do for the Guardsman don't mean that he wasn't wounded at all - just that the shot didn't "neutralize" him. The other 33% would mean he'd have dropped to the ground instantly, after all. In DH, it's either nothing or a "nice tan".

And yeah, the cardboard example is a running joke - but just like that armour is pretty decent, so are lasguns, which really feel a little like flashlights due to this. An energy weapon which is (if you believe GW) capable of downing even a Space Marine - which is actually impossible with the rules in FFG's RPG thanks to the massive relevance of toughness. Especially when you factor in Unnaturals. Take a naked Space Marine and count how many times you'd have to shoot him in the face with a plasma gun, point blank, until he even shows signs of injury. Does it start to feel weird yet?

It's not all bad (of course it isn't, I still love the game) - the system actually works quite well in the lower levels when you have just started out. But as people level up and gain better armour and push their stats, a lot of weapons start looking less dangerous very quickly. I realize this may be due to the usual P&P nature in order to prevent sudden player deaths, but that doesn't change the gut feeling. Or the disappointment when you realize how "efficient" your supposedly awesome gun really is...

All in all, I think GW's own Inquisitor RPG has solved this a little more elegantly - by not allowing Toughness to soak damage entirely, but rather playing a role in minimizing injuries. It may seem like the same thing, but actually works very differently. If I would have to apply this concept to Dark Heresy, it'd make characters not have any more "normal wounds" at all but rather go into Criticals instantly upon being hit - but their TB then acts like a buffer between Crit Levels. For example, TB3 would mean that anything that goes past your armour will end up injuring you ... but thanks to Toughness you get 3 poins of soak until the remaining damage spills over to and "activates" the next Crit Level, after which another 3 points of soak will hopefully catch the rest.

Granted, this would likely result in a much more bloody game, so maybe just lowering the damage reduction from TB to 50% would suffice already.

Lynata wrote:Take a naked Space Marine and count how many times you'd have to shoot him in the face with a plasma gun, point blank, until he even shows signs of injury.

Once.

Plasma Gun - 1D10+12, Pen 10. If he's naked, so no helmet, the Pen means nothing. 1D10+12 then, let's say you roll a 5. That's 17. Take away Toughness bonus of 8, and that's 9 damage.

So one shot to the face will do it. If the shot's on maximal you might even do 14 damage, which will be over half his wounds.

And actually, in that case, the Pen beats the standard Marine Armour, so naked or not doesn't really matter.

And yeah, the cardboard example is a running joke - but just like that armour is pretty decent, so are lasguns, which really feel a little like flashlights due to this.

You wouldn't expect someone in body armour to drop dead instantly if shot with a modern rifle, so I'm not entirely sure what the issue is.

If unarmoured, two shots from most "normal" weapons would put most starting characters into or close to critical wounds - which isn't actually that daft in as far as real life goes. If up on adrenaline, people frequently completely fail to notice they've been shot until sometime later. I admit it's a little odd that the only real differences between head, arm and limb hits is any variation in armour and a couple of points on the Crit tables as to when you actually end up dead, but we are still talking about a PvE RPG where players need to be able to heroically take a hit or two and still fight on.

It may seem like the same thing, but actually works very differently.

Yes, I am aware. Still, in that case, you get enough complaints about the "four slaps to the face" problem where four 1-point hits to the head is technically lethal. (However, I've never seen it happen in my years of playing, and anyway, the GM is partly there to adjudicate such things.)

It's very hard to represent the toughness of living creatures in game rules, mostly because it's so unpredictable in real life. Millimetre differences in bullet or blade placement can make the difference between almost instant death or permanent disability and making a full recovery. Compare Phineas Gage with Hayden Walton. One survives an iron bar being blown through his head, the other is killed by being hit in the chest by a baseball.

H.B.M.C. wrote:Plasma Gun - 1D10+12, Pen 10.

Wow. Of course I knew that for some reason Marines get vastly superior gear to even the Inquisition in DW, but I didn't remember the gap has gotten that big in some cases.

My bad. I was assuming only a standard DH-level Plasma Gun with 1d10+6, Pen 6 - which would mean ~2 wounds on average after deducting soak.

MarcoSkoll wrote:You wouldn't expect someone in body armour to drop dead instantly if shot with a modern rifle, so I'm not entirely sure what the issue is.

The issue is that I personally feel that the combination of armour and toughness results in too much mitigation. As I said I think it works okay for starting characters, but grows out of control later on. Guns that can kill in the TT should do so in the RPG as well.

Now, I'm sure that no-one here would seriously advocate insta-death - but just like we wouldn't expect someone in body armour to drop dead instantly, we would still expect him to be hurt.

I guess I was just somewhat impressed with what I've seen in the Inqusitor RPG (I've only read its rules fairly recently; originally I was merely looking for some fluff inspiration) in that it creates "more of a consequence" (and thus a more tense and immersing combat experience) by letting people be more susceptible to injuries in a way close to how I think those weapons would work. DH on the other hand is pretty basic with its TB and hitpoints in that both work like some kind of abstracted shield; the jump to Criticals feels like a whole new world instead of a seamless crossing, if you get my drift.
With some weapons, the first dozen hits nothing happens and suddenly you're about to have your head popped. Critical Injuries in that system, I think, are like some kind of penalty for having been to close to loosing a fight instead of something you simply happen to pick up during the course of a campaign because you stood to close to a grenade when it went off.

Don't get me wrong, I love the Crit Tables and they still feel like something new and are definitively more complex than the vast majority of RPGs out there - but ... I dunno, it's just that it feels as if they could've gone a step further. I realize this is very likely to be a matter of preferences, however, and that my thoughts about consequences may seem somewhat odd. I'm quite biased in that I would want an experience close to the adventures and stories I've read about. Could well be a matter of the grass always being greener on the other side, but it just looks rather attractive/intrigueing for now.

Lynata wrote:

H.B.M.C. wrote:Plasma Gun - 1D10+12, Pen 10.

Wow. Of course I knew that for some reason Marines get vastly superior gear to even the Inquisition in DW, but I didn't remember the gap has gotten that big in some cases.

My bad. I was assuming only a standard DH-level Plasma Gun with 1d10+6, Pen 6 - which would mean ~2 wounds on average after deducting soak.

They actually cover that "some reason" in the DW books. Astartes sized weapons are simply much bigger physically so can incorporate larger plasma chambers/insert technobabble here, giving them better ammo capacity and damage. Think of them as a plasma gun from the Space Marine game with both perks instead of just the standard model.

warboss wrote:They actually cover that "some reason" in the DW books. Astartes sized weapons are simply much bigger physically so can incorporate larger plasma chambers/insert technobabble here, giving them better ammo capacity and damage. Think of them as a plasma gun from the Space Marine game with both perks instead of just the standard model.

I've read those - they're in the BC book as well, and some of them even sound reasonable. I guess I'm simply too used to how all of this works in the world promulgated by GW's books.

But I apologize, I now realize how ambiguous the quoted sentence was written. My scepticism there is aimed at the general gap that exists in FFG's RPGs, less the way how it is explained. Although I will point out that some of their explanations still sound pretty far-fetched, such as the flamer one. And then you're barred from this level of equipment not on the basis of weight or size, but a talent. It just feels incredibly arbitrary.

This is the second big pet-peeve I have with the system/s. That said, the toughness one I regard as justified criticism against the game mechanics, whereas my stance on the equipment disparities is admittedly based solely on me not liking this aspect of FFG's interpretation of the setting.
Without doubt, there are many players who actually prefer it that way, I'm just not one of them. Artificially widening the gap between normal people and Marines by an even greater level than what could be considered necessary not only negatively affected the games' realism in relation to the source material (should one choose to include it), it also hampers compatibility between the various books and makes "crossover" games more difficult by negating certain character concepts due to uselessness, thus making such games less fun.

That said, these two issues (toughness and compatibility) may very well be related to each other. I've often heard the rumour that the FFG designers felt compelled to give Marine guns a "bigger boom" because of the strong impact that characteristics have on combat, especially when you factor in Unnaturals. Had they not increased weapon damage, they'd be left with Marines who can do more damage by throwing rocks rather than shooting their bolters, not to mention that they'd be invulnerable to their own weaponry. On the other hand, this only strengthens my belief that there is something fundamentally wrong with the way how characteristics work and what effect they have on the game. It's a problem at the very core of the entire system. It can be fixed surprisingly easily, though.

I actually know the reason why Marine guns do more damage, and it's not that. And no, sadly I can't actually tell you what the reason is. FFG themselves will have to do that.


Plasma Guns have always had a problem in the DH rules, long before FFG got involved. They explained it later on when Ascension came out saying that all the other Plasma Guns were non-military grade weapons, and that the Ryza-Pattern ones (that were new in Ascension) are proper military ones, hence the better damage ratios.

That almost sounds like a conspiracy. Well, maybe some day.

As for the plasma guns, the +1 from the Ryza doesn't seem to be that much of a difference - though I only have a quick xml-spreadsheet to go by right now (still in the office). I vaguely recall something about an optional setting, so maybe this is what you are referring to. Would have to take a glance at the actual book again...

But speaking of "non-military grade" - this is another thing with DH. Some weapons just appear to be a little "too common". Maybe it's just a matter of context, but mass-produced "civilian" plasma guns (with the old Black Industries rulebook actually using the term "civilian" for anything non-Astartes, which only adds insult to injury) and PDF with bolters makes me think these weapons may have been de-toothed simply so they could be included at all in a game where people play fledgling Inquisition mooks. As if the designers had to choose between nerfing their damage or making them much less accessible, which, given the status of these weapons as symbolic of the 40k franchise as a whole, may not have been a popular option. Sometimes, I wonder how things would have looked like if DH would have been about a player Inquisitor and his retinue right away, like in GW's RPG.

The good thing about Pen & Paper games is that a GM and his group can always houserule stuff like that, and my constant nagging about some details aside, I still love the basics.

Gonna have another game in precisely two hours from now. Infiltrating a PDF base and retrieving an Eldar artefact. Wish us luck!

Lynata wrote:That almost sounds like a conspiracy. Well, maybe some day.

As for the plasma guns, the +1 from the Ryza doesn't seem to be that much of a difference - though I only have a quick xml-spreadsheet to go by right now (still in the office). I vaguely recall something about an optional setting, so maybe this is what you are referring to. Would have to take a glance at the actual book again...

I think the big difference IIRC for the Ryza plasma guns is that they have the overcharge shot rule like the deathwatch ones do. You can fire them on the lower setting in complete safety or charge them up with a risk of overheating. I don't have the normal DH books but I remember comparing them once at the FLGS and the original version plasma weapons always had a chance to overheat but didn't seem to have the option to charge them up for more damage (sorry if I missed that somewhere but I didn't catch it on my perusals of that rulebook).

@Lynata:

I agree that the damage system is wonky in the DH series of games (DW,RT,BC). They decided to go with a bit more freeform 80's style ruleset and imbalances are more a part of those unfortunately. I noticed the two extremes in my campaign when I simply couldn't damage the techmarine (base T60, bionics, etc) whereas nothing I generated could withstand a 1-50 attack roll from the devastator's moderately min-maxed heavy bolter (only moderately because they were rank 2 and still initiate renown at the time). The errata seems to have ameliorated the later significantly and it looks like the BC version of unnatural toughess seems to help the former (although I haven't put that one to use yet).

I know comparing tabletop stats isn't always the greatest thing to do, but if you look at the rules for Necromunda, Plasma Guns could fire at high and low power. Low power shots were basically as good as bolter rounds - certainly not anti-Terminator weapons by any means - and it was the max shot that did the major damage (but it had to recharge).

So honestly the idea of civillian plasma weapons doing very little damage never really bothered me.

Gee thanks for the discussion gentlemen. Quite a bit of food for thought
We will try to implement a house rule that penetration applies to the TB as well. Not teribly imbalanced and besides if a lascannon hits my adept i 'm perfectly ok with being incinerated

warboss wrote:The errata seems to have ameliorated the later significantly and it looks like the BC version of unnatural toughess seems to help the former (although I haven't put that one to use yet).

It's definitively gotten better. It's still too high (for toughness at least, I don't mind the strength but TB has a huge stacking effect), but it's not a flat multiplier anymore, which was my main criticism with it.

To be honest, I would do away with Unnaturals as starting traits entirely and just give the appropriate creatures/characters a +X bonus during creation.

konst80hummel wrote:We will try to implement a house rule that penetration applies to the TB as well.

That sounds like a neat solution, too. I assume by that you mean that TB and AP essentially become a single "protective rating", i.e. leftover Pen after armour will lower TB? Or will you have Pen be applied twice at full strength?

No the plan is to add the TB to the armour and then deduct the penetration of the weapon. So e.g. the freebooter from our previous example: has a TB of 8 and an armour rating of 5 on the body. It is hit by a plasma gun for 1d10+7 points of damagel (let's say 12) with a penetration of 6. I deduct the pen rating from the total of TB+armour leaving the hapless ork with 7 more points with witch to soak damage from the plasma gun. It not a lot of damage but it represents better the fact that without armour you die! The same ork unarmoured would take 10 points of damage! (average 12 points of damage that ignores 6 points of armour/TB-8 points of TB= 2 points of TB to soak damage with. He is half cooked and very angry!

konst80hummel wrote:It not a lot of damage but it represents better the fact that without armour you die!

Then why have a toughness value at all? If your opinion is that No Armour should = Death, then why even have toughness? The simple fact is that characters need something with which to defend themselves even when they don't have armour. Most things in the game don't have many wounds, especially humans who have around 7-12 wounds, sometimes 15 if they're lucky. An Ork is tough - it's meant to be tough - and it does that via its innate toughness, not via fancy armour. The idea of simply removing that benefit makes things far too weak.

Oh but it does help with soaking damage. A lasgun with it's pen of 0 and damage of 1d10+3 would sevelerely wound an unarmored human with a TB of 3, doing 1d10 straight damage. The same unarmored ork from above would suffer 1d10+3-8 (TB) potentially emerging unscathed. Against something with penetration like th PG the human dies taking the full damage and the ork is badly mauled. It is tough, it just survived a direct plasma hit. It is still nealy immune to lasgun and autogun hits and the fact that to actually draw it's attention you need one of the most powerfull special weapon is a testament to it's toughness.

konst80hummel wrote:No the plan is to add the TB to the armour and then deduct the penetration of the weapon.

Gotcha. That's actually what I meant with the single protective rating.

Sounds good, btw. This should also make sure that, for example, a bolt weapon actually feels different from a lasgun when hitting a spot without armour.

H.B.M.C. wrote:Then why have a toughness value at all? If your opinion is that No Armour should = Death, then why even have toughness?

Personally, I think it's just that Toughness plays too much of a role in soak. The way I see it, Toughness should provide a minimum of protection and make creatures of a different biological composition "feel" stronger or weaker than an ordinary human. What it does in DH etc., however, is that it becomes able to nearly or even completely negate even powerful weapons just because it stacks 100% with armour. And the better the characters get (in terms of characteristics and equipment), the more ridiculous amounts of firepower are required to hurt them at all.

And then it's not just that, but Toughness acts like a second shield where the penetration of a weapon plays no role at all. It feels a bit like a game of "one-upmanship" ... if you think that characters would be too easy to hurt, why even have weapon damage that goes to this level? You have a gun that does +3 damage, only to then have this +3 negated by TB. Similar with Unnatural Toughness and Felling weapons. It's an illusion of realism that boils down to mechanics neutralizing each other.

Of course all of that is heavily "tainted" by personal perception and preferences, i.e. how one sees the "realism" of the setting, what interpretation of it one follows, and how gritty one wants it to feel. I'm sure we all have our own ideas, and we all have fun following them up.

That said, I'm still contemplating a "50% TB" experiment. The loss for starting characters isn't that much (they'd loose, what, 1 or 2 points of soak?), but it could have a massive impact on the higher levels, especially when running mixed groups with Marines - which would then actually have a good chance of being hurt by weapons that I think should be capable of doing so, thus increasing the "compatibility" between character types.

Three weeks ago we fought a single CSM, and it was ridiculous I tell you. Guy almost wiped the group (insta-critting our Psyker with a single swipe of his knife), and I still feel as if we've cheated as the GM suggested some pretty weird stunts to get out of that situation. That's just not what I'm used to after having read so much GW fluff.

Lynata wrote:Toughness is one of my little pet peeves with the system. DH looks deadly at first - until you notice that even a simple IG cardboard vest gives starting characters 50% chance to completely ignore a direct lasgun hit. It gets worse later on with advanced armour, and let's not even start with Unnatural Toughness rendering people and creatures nigh- or completely invulnerable against stuff that may just not "feel right".

I think it is the crappiness that is the LASGUN, not the greatness of the armor.

Mattlov wrote:

Lynata wrote:Toughness is one of my little pet peeves with the system. DH looks deadly at first - until you notice that even a simple IG cardboard vest gives starting characters 50% chance to completely ignore a direct lasgun hit. It gets worse later on with advanced armour, and let's not even start with Unnatural Toughness rendering people and creatures nigh- or completely invulnerable against stuff that may just not "feel right".

I think it is the crappiness that is the LASGUN, not the greatness of the armor.

Well, they are solar powered after all... I wouldn't expect more than a moderate sunburn from a direct hit.

Mattlov wrote:I think it is the crappiness that is the LASGUN, not the greatness of the armor.

Well, in this system a bolter only does 2 points of damage more. Its main advantage is the "armour piercing" ammunition, which gets completely lost as soon as the target (or at least the spot your attack hits) doesn't wear armour but relies more on Toughness. Such as, say, some Orks.

And lasguns aren't all that bad. Shouldn't be. In GW's world they can still knock down even a Space Marine. That Marines are invulnerable against them in FFG's RPGs only goes to show that - in my opinion - something is a bit off. Though you don't even need to be a Marine to achieve that level of soak. I dunno, some things just feel very ... "different" in the higher levels. The curve is too steep. Anyone remember the NPC Space Marine in the "Purge the Unclean" adventure book? And how the Dark Eldar enemies have no chance at wounding him, at all?

I imagine many GMs will address this by simply having weapons that would have little effect on the group's combatants not appear anymore, or at least not as often. Customizing encounters in such a way, however, may afflict the believability of the world, as locations and opponents start becoming dependent on the player characters, like in an MMO where you meet the same type of enemy you've seen 20 levels ago in a different zone, but suddenly he is much more powerful, simply because your character is. Another way to circumvent this would be to employ the so-called Horde rules, but they "warp reality" in their own way.

Lynata wrote:

Mattlov wrote:I think it is the crappiness that is the LASGUN, not the greatness of the armor.

Well, in this system a bolter only does 2 points of damage more. Its main advantage is the "armour piercing" ammunition, which gets completely lost as soon as the target (or at least the spot your attack hits) doesn't wear armour but relies more on Toughness. Such as, say, some Orks.

And lasguns aren't all that bad. Shouldn't be. In GW's world they can still knock down even a Space Marine. That Marines are invulnerable against them in FFG's RPGs only goes to show that - in my opinion - something is a bit off. Though you don't even need to be a Marine to achieve that level of soak. I dunno, some things just feel very ... "different" in the higher levels. The curve is too steep. Anyone remember the NPC Space Marine in the "Purge the Unclean" adventure book? And how the Dark Eldar enemies have no chance at wounding him, at all?

Does the DH bolter have the tearing rule like the deathwatch version? If so, it should do more than 2 points more than a lasgun statistically. As for the novels, I can't recall a case of an undamaged marine felled from a single lasgun shot (although I haven't read every novel admittedly). When marines do die to inferior weapons like a lasgun in the novels, they're described as dying the death of a thousand cuts with lots of smaller wounds from lucky shots from massed squads resulting in cummulative damage... which is what would happen in the FFG games if you're using the horde rules. While I agree that its a forced mechanic, it's there for a reason. Marines in an RPG are meant to be heroic and to have a destiny greater than to be killed by your average guardsman. Its also interesting to note that the BC rules for lasgun do give it a heretek overcharge ability, similar to plasma guns; you can load the shot with more pep at the expense of reliability. Those can *just* barely damage a weakling marine on a roll of 10 for damage. I can't speak for the Dark Eldar as I'm not personally familiar with them. If you're not interested in using horde rules, you could always house rule something like a semi/full auto burst does an extra d10 per additional "hit" that is added to the weapon's damage for a single roll against armor and toughness instead of multiple shots soaked individually.

Lynata wrote:Well, in this system a bolter only does 2 points of damage more. Its main advantage is the "armour piercing" ammunition, which gets completely lost as soon as the target (or at least the spot your attack hits) doesn't wear armour but relies more on Toughness. Such as, say, some Orks.

And Tearing, which in turn leads to a higher average damage and a greater chance of RF.

warboss wrote:As for the novels, I can't recall a case of an undamaged marine felled from a single lasgun shot (although I haven't read every novel admittedly).

Naw, I don't mean a single shot - this doesn't even happen in GW's Inquisitor RPG, and whilst I wouldn't be surprised to see this happen in some novels I am generally averse to pulling them as "evidence" since they are always heavily biased in favor of the protagonists, not to mention the glaring differences between various authors' interpretations of the setting. Even for the TT, I do not assume that a single Guardsman just fires a single shot when killing a Marine. But still it's just a single Guardsman that can pull this off, and he shouldn't need a thousand shots to do so (I'm going by the detailed armour description in the AoD Codex here, mind you). I think the Inquisitor's RPG does a better job at simulating these "many small cuts" as Toughness doesn't negate damage entirely, it only lowers the extent of injuríes that a single attack may inflict. And it's not just Marines - a normal human with power armour can achieve the same level of protection where only Righteous Fury will give lasguns any chance to harm him at all. And then of course it's not enough to just harm someone - with a chance like this it will take quite some time until the wounds actually drop to zero and people start getting injured for real.

I dislike the current version of the Horde rules mainly because they feel like cheating reality (there just shouldn't be a difference between 20 troopers firing their rifle once - or a single trooper shooting 20 times), but also because they seriously lower the "narrative capability" of whoever gets lumped into a Horde, as people suddenly revert from trained troops with a dozen wounds to what feels like a bunch of one-shot-kills that don't even attempt to dodge (Eldar gotta be pissed). In addition to that, they also come with the added disadvantage of lowering the gap between invulnerability and instakill for the players; I've seen lots of GMs posting on the FFG forums about how their players either shrug off Horde attacks like they're nothing or get wtfpwned by escalating damage due to the +2d10. Hordes and Marines are so poorly balanced that in Black Crusade, the book effectively suggests two different Horde rules depending on which character they fight. If that's not a confession of something being broken, I don't know what is.

I will admit that Horde rules make for nice "epic fights" and I feel their basic idea is sound, but the way it's pulled off just doesn't swing with me. I'm not saying I could do it better (unlike for the Toughness issue, I currently have no ideas for this one), but it's all become so abstracted that you could just as well roll for a crossfire environmental hazard and run everything else by pure narration. I'm cautiously hoping that the upcoming "Only War" will maybe feature something similar but better...

warboss wrote:Marines in an RPG are meant to be heroic and to have a destiny greater than to be killed by your average guardsman.

I can understand that. The problem I have is that this system makes too much of a distinction between these Marines and the other player characters, which are - in my opinion - just as eligible for a "hero bonus". Think of all the short stories in GW books and all the BL novels where you have human progagonists fighting alongside or versus Astartes - aside from the Vindicare (which I often see described as overpowered), it's virtually impossible to recreate this in FFG's RPGs, and this affects how entire organizations are portrayed in its books. There are just too many arbitrary features setting them apart. Starting with a different class of weapons (which has never been an issue before - and in fact stands in direct contradiction to what GW's books say), continueing with the escalating Toughness (that makes naked Marines tougher than the armour they wear), and ending with bonuses that stack with other bonuses for maximum effect beyond what the creator may have intended.

Now, I see it working fine in Deathwatch, because that game is (imho) intended to be epic rather than realistic, essentially having you play Movie Marines like you have them in some of the more "heroic" novels too. But it keeps proper crossovers from being fun, or rather it imposes too many limitations, which is why I'm still somewhat sceptical as to how this will go in Black Crusade. I've now come to terms with the idea of playing more of a social character there (currently planning a Slaaneshi Witch-Priestess with loads of Minions - I think HMBC was doing something similar, or did I misunderstand that?), but people who would want to recreate combatants in the style of a Miriael Sabathiel or a Lowen Tegget will be sorely disappointed as a CSM in the party will let them appear like incompetent mooks.

Bottom line ... I guess what I'm trying to say is that I wish FFG's games would be somewhat closer to the TT, where all fluff has its origin, and which remains the focus for my own interpretation of the setting. I understand that I may be in a minority with this opinion, though.

Re: Tearing - good call, I actually forgot that trait. It doesn't affect maximum damage, though, so its effect is still capped very close to the lasgun.

Yes, I had a Slaaneshi Apostate Priestess who had two minions - a tiny little weedy creature who was excellent at driving and stealth (my chauffeur), and a big bruiser Servitor thing with a big chainblade and a flamer. She was the character I used during play-testing, and she was heaps of fun. Looking forward to getting back to that game.


The Horde rules were designed to give a heroic feel to combat. That's their purpose. They are shallow and there are quirks to them that don't make sense (why some very tough things get quite weak when turned into a Horde). They're also there to speed up combat. How's a GM going to control 50 Hormagaunts and not take all night to do it? And, of course, there's the whole damage issue. Without Hordes a lot of things couldn't hurt the Marines, it would not only take all night for the GM to control those 5 H-Gaunts, but they wouldn't be able to hurt the Marines anyway.

That's why I'm happy with live with the Horde rules as they fit within the context of the game.