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 Da Boss wrote:
I think it's a shame there's not more editorial control exercised on the book writers writing crazy stuff for Marines which is then taken as 100% inviolable truth by fans.

That's not the problem. The protagonists will always have plot armor. The problem is not that Sergeant Pasanius has plot armor and super skills. The problem is the people who can't tell the difference between Sergeant Pasanius, and that Assault Marine there on the left who just took a lascannon to what used to be his face. There are two kinds of characters in these kinds of bookst. The ones who get names, and the ones who die easy.

The argument that the game is secondary to the books is bonkers to me - it was a game first, it remains a game, and the game is much more consistent through it's existence than the novels.

The rot has set in at the game level by now as well though, so I'm on a hiding to nothing complaining about it.

I don't understand the appeal of this powerscaling stuff at all. I always thought the Ork "Biggest Ork is the Leader" stuff was poking fun at this sort of thing, but the Imperium works on this logic now too and no one seems to think it's ridiculous.

Its both ridiculous and not. Its human nature. Ever play an MMO? Is the raid target 60 feet tall (relative to your six foot tall avatar)? Ever see a raid target that was and stayed halfling size? How often? Its human nature.

Breton wrote:

Its both ridiculous and not. Its human nature. Ever play an MMO? Is the raid target 60 feet tall (relative to your six foot tall avatar)? Ever see a raid target that was and stayed halfling size? How often? Its human nature.

MMO bosses need to be tall so they are visible under the VFX of 40 people and their nameplates.

They also need to be tall/strong for the immersion of being a challenge. A frail Gnome mage being pummeled would look silly and unbelievable.

I don't think this is comparable to the scale creep in a miniature game.

 vipoid wrote:

But if anything that just reinforces the point - if Space Marines are basically walking armour, then what meaningful distinction is their between their armour and their "toughness"?

I think its initially supposed to be more of a strength test and less focused on the toughness aspect. An old aspect of the game's RPG roots where you'd roll to see if you passed your accuracy check, then roll to see if you pass your strength test and then your opponent gets to react to save themselves with a dodge or shield or passive armor or something. The names are a little clunky; particularly in how "armor save" works, but that's the original reason that's mostly just stuck around because it mechanically worked.


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 alextroy wrote:

Regardless, all Chaos Space Marine who have not ascended to Daemon Prince are mortal in they die from outside forces and stay dead. This is where the entire 40K setting becomes a bit silly. None of the numbers presented make sense. Given how few Space Marines (Loyalist and Chaos) there are, they die far too quickly for them to still exist given their replenishment rate.

This is extremely common from any sort of sci fi. The actual scale of space is impossible to really comprehend in a way that results if anything logistically viable. You just end up making up giant nonsense numbers and then learning that you have a fraction of a percent of what's actually needed for a cosmic scale.

Karol wrote:
Space Marines have bones laces with cermite from the food paste they eat. And the older they are the more cermite in bones they have. Not counting the parts of the bones replaced with metal bits of course. The black carapace is also part of a subdermal armour. And it is not just marines. Imperial assasins have it too. And only GW knows how custodes function, because their lore keeps getting changed.

Also pure mechanics wise. Both chaos and imperial knights should have "toughness" too.

None of those from my recollection have their bones on the outside where the bullet would hit before entering their bodies...

Resilient bones equals more wounds to resist death, it doesn't stop bullets getting into you.