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Played a game today. Marine shooting at a flyer. Rolls a 3. -1 to hit, becomes a 2, but because it was modified, I can't reroll the miss.

Horrible mechanic.

So I'm trying to figure this out....How to intuitively look at numbers which will have shooting modifiers and not get a reroll.

Should I just look at the number, preapply the modifier, and think, if I roll that naturally that is what I get to reroll?

Depends, if It says re roll hit of 1. Than you re roll only natural ones as that is the specific number it is asking for. However if it's just re roll misses period, than you can re roll hits modified to miss as it's not asking for a specific number in that case.

So essentially just keep in mind when shooting if the buff is asking for a specific number or not. If it is than re roll before modifier. If not than re roll after.

While I agree the mechanic is poor - the best way is to simply think in your head that you can only re-roll natural dice (ignoring modifiers). It sucks, but that's what it is.

Ecdain wrote:
Depends, if It says re roll hit of 1. Than you re roll only natural ones as that is the specific number it is asking for. However if it's just re roll misses period, than you can re roll hits modified to miss as it's not asking for a specific number in that case.

So essentially just keep in mind when shooting if the buff is asking for a specific number or not. If it is than re roll before modifier. If not than re roll after.

Except that rerolls cannot happen after dice are modified so no matter if its "reroll missed hitrolls" or "reroll hit rolls of 1", after modifiers there will be no rerolls allowed even if modifiers take the dice down to a 1.


Whatever rerolls you are looking for, check the dice results straight vs the BS or WS in question and apply rerolls.
Then modifiers kick in.

Pretend there are no modifiers, then move on to rerolls. After that, apply modifiers and see what hits and misses. It's not that hard or time consuming, it just requires the ability to just not over-think it.

Look at it this way.

Do all your rolls and ignore the other player completely.

Then when you are done playing your part of the "to hit game", the other player will take over and modify your dice rolls for the classic gotcha B***H that we all love!

I see the to hit rerolls as a part of your units inherent accuracy. If you reroll after modifiers, your unit would somehow become better shooters because their target is hard to hit, which doesn't make any sense at all. If anything, you'll miss more because it's hard to hit, which is perfectly depicted by the rules.

Just apply a different mindset and it's not weird at all.

Just roll a 4, problem solved.

 SideshowLucifer wrote:
Pretend there are no modifiers, then move on to rerolls. After that, apply modifiers and see what hits and misses. It's not that hard or time consuming, it just requires the ability to just not over-think it.

This. It's not hard or time consuming, but I am still having such a hard time figuring out why they even did this in the first place. It's a stupid change to a system that has worked the other way for as long as I can remember, so changing it without an obvious reason (for me atleast) is strange.

 alleus wrote:

 SideshowLucifer wrote:
Pretend there are no modifiers, then move on to rerolls. After that, apply modifiers and see what hits and misses. It's not that hard or time consuming, it just requires the ability to just not over-think it.

This. It's not hard or time consuming, but I am still having such a hard time figuring out why they even did this in the first place. It's a stupid change to a system that has worked the other way for as long as I can remember, so changing it without an obvious reason (for me atleast) is strange.

Modifiers haven't been a thing (or at least not a very impactful thing) before. It would be changes to your BS, not modifiers to the roll after the roll. Now it's a very prevalent mechanic, and the way they've chosen to do it it's easier to use it to balance thing. A reroll is a powerful thing, but making it resolve like they do makes the modifiers and rerolls work against each other, instead of just stacking bonus on bonus.

That said, I can see why they're working towards this different system, but I think they missed the mark by quite a bit. I think certain things should happen before modifiers, such as Overheat. As a balancing mechanism, it works against balance that Plasma overheats way too much because something has a minus modifier, or that you become immune to overheat if you have a +1 modifier. That's stacking bonus on bonus (or negative on negative) and it's counter intuitive. (please note that I am not whining that it's not realistic. I don't give a single frick-frack about that argument. I only care about balance and the design that helps balance.)

 Purifier wrote:

 alleus wrote:

 SideshowLucifer wrote:
Pretend there are no modifiers, then move on to rerolls. After that, apply modifiers and see what hits and misses. It's not that hard or time consuming, it just requires the ability to just not over-think it.

This. It's not hard or time consuming, but I am still having such a hard time figuring out why they even did this in the first place. It's a stupid change to a system that has worked the other way for as long as I can remember, so changing it without an obvious reason (for me atleast) is strange.

Modifiers haven't been a thing (or at least not a very impactful thing) before. It would be changes to your BS, not modifiers to the roll after the roll. Now it's a very prevalent mechanic, and the way they've chosen to do it it's easier to use it to balance thing. A reroll is a powerful thing, but making it resolve like they do makes the modifiers and rerolls work against each other, instead of just stacking bonus on bonus.

That said, I can see why they're working towards this different system, but I think they missed the mark by quite a bit. I think certain things should happen before modifiers, such as Overheat. As a balancing mechanism, it works against balance that Plasma overheats way too much because something has a minus modifier, or that you become immune to overheat if you have a +1 modifier. That's stacking bonus on bonus (or negative on negative) and it's counter intuitive. (please note that I am not whining that it's not realistic. I don't give a single frick-frack about that argument. I only care about balance and the design that helps balance.)

I have only played since 5th edition (which is still quite a few years), but I see what you mean.

Agreed. I think there should be variants of the rule for different situations. Plasma overheat for example should just be on an unmodified roll of 1. Simple. Even though I agree that this should be done because of balance reasons foremost, I do think it's very silly that a Plasma rifle somehow overheats easier because it's night out. Same thing the other way around, why should the gun not overheat because your Captain is next to you? What is he doing, telling you (a super human, ultra soldier of dooooom) how the plasma rifle works? I don't think so. That thing should blow your face off if it overheats regardless of who is standing beside you.