Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

@Catbarf: How do you feel about the classes weapons and saves in the later Epic games, like Epic Armageddon? Because there's a good deal of "exceptions" and then "ignoring-of-exceptions" with Reinforced Armor, Macro Weapons and Titan-Killer Weapons (plus Invuln saves and Void Shields too). On the one hand it sounds goofy when you explain it (Reinforced Armor saves are re-rolled, unless hit by a Macro Weapon, in which case they're taken only once, unless it's hit by a Titan Killer weapon where saves are not taken at all, unless it's an Invuln save.) But I find it works well in practice, partly because most of the time only a few models are ever benefitting form any of them. I guess also because there's a minimum of additional rolls.

I say this realizing my usual opponent plays a Grey Knights list where Terminators have Reinforced Armor and then a 6+ Invuln. Then again they are only four models for 400ish points, where as my IG Mechanized Company has like. . . 20 models at 400. And of course they had no fancy rules, they just save or they die. In fact by default the Infantry get no save at all.

Actually, it's almost like there's a design metric of number of dice per point in a unit. The cheaper a unit/model is the fewer dice there should be to roll, just so that you're not spending so much time of bunches of little models. By this metric Feel No Pain should almost never be on cheap models because it's an additional roll and risks becoming burdensome.

 Wyldhunt wrote:


Interesting take. I consider myself more on the RPG-side of the spectrum, and that's *why* I prefer the idea of rules that tie into positioning etc. instead of just fiddly little modifiers to how killy your guns are. To me, something like the 7th edition warp spiders flicker jump rule (though annoying and broken) was super flavorful. Whereas something like the 9th edition drukhari rule that gave them extra AP on 6s (Blade Artisans?) was just boring and felt like bloat. Similarly, physically putting my models up on a rooftop and rewarding them for exposing themselves and seeking thath better positioning is way more appealing to me than a lieutenant giving his squad Lethal Hits because he yelled the words, "Aim better!" at them.

Okay, so since not all rpg's are equal, so let me define my terms: I'm talking pen and paper only, an the games I know most extensively are: Dungeons and Dragons, World of Darkness, Cyberpunk and Shadow Run. Of all these games, the only one that made much use of positioning tools like models or markers was D&D 3 and 3.5. Now, that's not to say that there aren't SOME positioning rules common to all classes (or Clans, or Archetypes, etc) that exist in the rules of RPG's but they are quite limited. SO D&D, even editions that didn't support the use of models, still had bonuses for flanking, assisted actions, and tactics like the elevated firing positions you mention, or sending fighter sub-types to engage melee opponents in order to protect casters and ranged fighters.

But even these often interacted with class specific rules. So yeah, you say "D&D had positioning rules"- but backstab is thief class ability, whirlwind attack is a fighter ability and touch spells can only be used by spellcasting classes... So what's a pure "positioning rule" without those class based modifiers?

 catbarf wrote:


Accomplishing the same result different ways for no reason other than to make the execution feel different isn't a feature of RPGs, it's a feature of bad RPGs. D&D would not be a better game if Barbarians got half as many hit points as Fighters but a 11+ save on D20 against each point of damage. And it would absolutely be a worse game if that was the distinguishing factor between the two classes- not actually mechanically impactful differences in their capabilities, just a wholly superficial difference in resolution, in the misguided belief that rolling dice differently will make them feel different when the end result is functionally the same.

It seems to me that the whole crux if this paragraph comes down to how we define "mechanically impactful differences in capabilities." Personally, I DO see the differences between T, W, Sv, FNP and Invul as mechanically impactful differences in capabilities. I may disagree with the way GW assigns these to specific units, but they DO mean different things to me:

An Invul is anything that prevents an attack from making kinetic contact with the model; an attack resisted this way doesn't hit, which is WHY armour penetration is irrelevant
A SV can resist anything that hits the model.. But because the attack DOES hit, the power of the attack (AP) can modify the level of protection
Toughness is natural armour or strength of will which prevents someone from being injured by an attack
FNP is an insensitivity that prevents someone from being affected by damage from an attack- they take the damage, but manage to shrug it off for the remainder of the battle
Wounds indicate that a unit can maintain combat effectiveness despite horrendous damage

IMHO these are (ideally) the "fluff" reasons why the mechanics exist, and what they are meant to represent. I think we can certainly argue that there may be different ways to represent these characteristics; I think we can argue whether GW distributes these abilities according to these characteristics, and I think we can argue about tweaks to these mechanics or how they are used that would improve the connection between the "fluff reason" and the mechanic that reflects it.

But my post was a response to someone arguing to cut a whole mechanic... Which would impact GW's ability to represent one of the conditions listed above,

 catbarf wrote:

I will again point out that when we are discussing 40K, we are talking about a game with a half dozen different ways to model 'this guy is hard to hurt', but no core mechanic for modeling 'this guy is hard to hit', which instead requires kludgy to-hit penalties or invulns patched onto the core combat resolution. Given that there are several factions that have speed-as-defense as part of their identity, it seems a glaring omission that having supernatural reflexes is mechanically represented the exact same way as an energy shield, especially if you put so much stock into differences in mechanical resolution as a means of conveying fluff.

As I explained above, to me invul mechanics as is DO feel like a good way to represent dodge. I agree that "fields" being included in "fluff reasons" for invuls somewhat clouds the issue, but only somewhat: a field DOES interpose itself between the attack and the target, rather than mitigate the effect of the attack after it makes contact.

 catbarf wrote:

So I don't really buy that having Toughness and Wounds and armor saves and invuln saves and penalties to wound and FNPs is essential in order to make factions feel different from one another. I bet you could consolidate defensive stats a lot and use some of that design overhead to represent literally anything else that differentiates the factions besides how well they take a punch, and it'd be a net positive for faction identity.

Based on everything else I've said in this response, it might surprise you, but I do kinda agree with this. I'm not arguing that these specific mechanics are NECESSARY as much as I'm arguing that efforts to reduce the mechanical complexity of the game often come at the expense of meaningfully differentiating between factions. I'm really just saying that care has to be taken to prevent that.

If you look back through the thread, there will be comments that resemble this analogy:

Differences between rangers, fighters and barbarians just complicate the soldier archetype; differences between Wizards, Sorcerors and Bards just complicate the magic user archetype... The only classes should be fighter mage cleric thief. The game would be simpler and I wouldn't have to buy as many books or memorize as many rules.

And yeah, there was an edition of D&D that did that, and yeah I played it and yeah it SUCKED compared to almost every other edition of D&D.

I think its just a debate over whether dice rolling really forges a narrative - or whether its just a computation exercise.

I mean when I was younger I perhaps had much more imagination, and all these little things did matter. The game was something of a story told in each dice roll.

Whereas now... not so much. The game is a game "as a game". If I tell unit A to shoot at unit B, I just want to know how many - if any - I kill or how many wounds I do. There's not a lot of interest in how many shots missed, how many failed to wound, how many were saved by armour (or invuls) and then how many would have died but they shrugged it off because of some special resilience. In terms of my next decision its all the same.

But equally, I want the game to feel somewhat like the fluff - and I find thing like one page rules strip far too much away. It may be noise, but it does... build a picture. Bolt Action for example "works" - but without all the noise to cling to, I find it very difficult to feel much about the various factions. "You should play British because you are British" - well that's a bit boring.

 PenitentJake wrote:

It seems to me that the whole crux if this paragraph comes down to how we define "mechanically impactful differences in capabilities." Personally, I DO see the differences between T, W, Sv, FNP and Invul as mechanically impactful differences in capabilities. I may disagree with the way GW assigns these to specific units, but they DO mean different things to me:

An Invul is anything that prevents an attack from making kinetic contact with the model; an attack resisted this way doesn't hit, which is WHY armour penetration is irrelevant
A SV can resist anything that hits the model.. But because the attack DOES hit, the power of the attack (AP) can modify the level of protection
Toughness is natural armour or strength of will which prevents someone from being injured by an attack
FNP is an insensitivity that prevents someone from being affected by damage from an attack- they take the damage, but manage to shrug it off for the remainder of the battle
Wounds indicate that a unit can maintain combat effectiveness despite horrendous damage

I've bolded what I'd consider the biggest issue.

If Toughness accounts for a model's armour then what exactly is the point of having a separate save for armour? Especially in an already-bloated wargame. Hell, even many RPGs like Dungeons and Dragons often don't make this distinction!

I know you can probably argue that toughness is inherent but this just feels like an unnecessary (and often meaningless) distinction. Take races like Tyranids and Necrons, how do you meaningfully separate armour from just being part of their bodies (i.e. toughness)? Same goes for vehicles and dozens of other units.

Put simply, armour should just factor into how tough a model is.

Imagine for a moment if models had a 'Dodge' characteristic that represented their agility. Instead of WS/BS being flat to-hit values, they're compared against the enemy Dodge value. Then, on a hit, you roll S vs T. And then any successes inflict wounds.

Maybe a few models like characters could get an invulnerable save, but most models have no save at all - just dodge and toughness (with Eldar and Skimmers having higher dodge, while tanks and armoured infantry have higher toughness).

@vipoid - It is true that the distinction between Natural Armour and Armour is less of a distinction than the other distinctions on the list. If I was going to tweak anything, this might be where I'd start.

But D&D, or at least several editions of it, DID make a distinction between armour and natural armour; the former doesn't limit dexterity based AC bonuses but the latter does. And of course, D&D, because it incorporates non-combat mechanics, presents other differences, such as donning and doffing rules don't apply to the former, nor do repairs; natural armour can't be enchanted as an item, etc.

 PenitentJake wrote:
@vipoid - It is true that the distinction between Natural Armour and Armour is less of a distinction than the other distinctions on the list. If I was going to tweak anything, this might be where I'd start.

But D&D, or at least several editions of it, DID make a distinction between armour and natural armour; the former doesn't limit dexterity based AC bonuses but the latter does. And of course, D&D, because it incorporates non-combat mechanics, presents other differences, such as donning and doffing rules don't apply to the former, nor do repairs; natural armour can't be enchanted as an item, etc.

I think you misunderstood my point slightly (perhaps I didn't explain myself well?)

Yes, some editions of D&D distinguish between armour and natural armour. However, they both just add to the same value 'AC'. So, regardless of whether a given creature has armour, natural armour or whatever else, there's still only ever one roll involved to see whether or not an attack injures it.

By contrast 40k has separate rolls for 'natural armour' and 'armour'.

 PenitentJake wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:


Interesting take. I consider myself more on the RPG-side of the spectrum, and that's *why* I prefer the idea of rules that tie into positioning etc. instead of just fiddly little modifiers to how killy your guns are. To me, something like the 7th edition warp spiders flicker jump rule (though annoying and broken) was super flavorful. Whereas something like the 9th edition drukhari rule that gave them extra AP on 6s (Blade Artisans?) was just boring and felt like bloat. Similarly, physically putting my models up on a rooftop and rewarding them for exposing themselves and seeking thath better positioning is way more appealing to me than a lieutenant giving his squad Lethal Hits because he yelled the words, "Aim better!" at them.

Okay, so since not all rpg's are equal, so let me define my terms: I'm talking pen and paper only, an the games I know most extensively are: Dungeons and Dragons, World of Darkness, Cyberpunk and Shadow Run. Of all these games, the only one that made much use of positioning tools like models or markers was D&D 3 and 3.5. Now, that's not to say that there aren't SOME positioning rules common to all classes (or Clans, or Archetypes, etc) that exist in the rules of RPG's but they are quite limited. SO D&D, even editions that didn't support the use of models, still had bonuses for flanking, assisted actions, and tactics like the elevated firing positions you mention, or sending fighter sub-types to engage melee opponents in order to protect casters and ranged fighters.

But even these often interacted with class specific rules. So yeah, you say "D&D had positioning rules"- but backstab is thief class ability, whirlwind attack is a fighter ability and touch spells can only be used by spellcasting classes... So what's a pure "positioning rule" without those class based modifiers?

I think you might be taking what I said in an unintended direction? What I was trying to convey in my quoted post above was that I find mechanics that are visible on the tabletop or change up behavior in some way to be more evocative/"flavorful" than mechanics that just change the math of the attack process slightly.

Warp spiders suddenly moving to a new position when targeted? Fluffy. Conveys the idea that they've hastily teleported to relative safety. Presents the opponent with a bit of a puzzle to plan around. Where do they need to put their units in the movement phase so they can deal with the spiders changing position?

Lieutenants granting marines lethal hits? Kind of boring. Why are marines only good at aiming their guns when the boss is standing next to them chastising them about proper bolter discipline? Doesn't really change the way the unit behaves other than making them do more damage.

To me, the spider mechanic feels like it's telling a story while the lieutenant mechanic feels like it's just a generic, gamey damage boost. And not even a themed one.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

 PenitentJake wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:


Interesting take. I consider myself more on the RPG-side of the spectrum, and that's *why* I prefer the idea of rules that tie into positioning etc. instead of just fiddly little modifiers to how killy your guns are. To me, something like the 7th edition warp spiders flicker jump rule (though annoying and broken) was super flavorful. Whereas something like the 9th edition drukhari rule that gave them extra AP on 6s (Blade Artisans?) was just boring and felt like bloat. Similarly, physically putting my models up on a rooftop and rewarding them for exposing themselves and seeking thath better positioning is way more appealing to me than a lieutenant giving his squad Lethal Hits because he yelled the words, "Aim better!" at them.

Okay, so since not all rpg's are equal, so let me define my terms: I'm talking pen and paper only, an the games I know most extensively are: Dungeons and Dragons, World of Darkness, Cyberpunk and Shadow Run. Of all these games, the only one that made much use of positioning tools like models or markers was D&D 3 and 3.5. Now, that's not to say that there aren't SOME positioning rules common to all classes (or Clans, or Archetypes, etc) that exist in the rules of RPG's but they are quite limited. SO D&D, even editions that didn't support the use of models, still had bonuses for flanking, assisted actions, and tactics like the elevated firing positions you mention, or sending fighter sub-types to engage melee opponents in order to protect casters and ranged fighters.

But even these often interacted with class specific rules. So yeah, you say "D&D had positioning rules"- but backstab is thief class ability, whirlwind attack is a fighter ability and touch spells can only be used by spellcasting classes... So what's a pure "positioning rule" without those class based modifiers?

I think you might be taking what I said in an unintended direction? What I was trying to convey in my quoted post above was that I find mechanics that are visible on the tabletop or change up behavior in some way to be more evocative/"flavorful" than mechanics that just change the math of the attack process slightly.

Warp spiders suddenly moving to a new position when targeted? Fluffy. Conveys the idea that they've hastily teleported to relative safety. Presents the opponent with a bit of a puzzle to plan around. Where do they need to put their units in the movement phase so they can deal with the spiders changing position?

Lieutenants granting marines lethal hits? Kind of boring. Why are marines only good at aiming their guns when the boss is standing next to them chastising them about proper bolter discipline? Doesn't really change the way the unit behaves other than making them do more damage.

To me, the spider mechanic feels like it's telling a story while the lieutenant mechanic feels like it's just a generic, gamey damage boost. And not even a themed one.

Lethal Hits specifically is also capable of taking stuff that shouldn't be doing much into actual threats.

Sustained Hits 1 on a BS 3+ gun is (assuming you only crit on 6s and have no bonuses or penalties to the hit roll) a 25% increase in damage on average. This is true whether you're firing Bolters into Termagants, or a battery of Lascannons into a GUO.
Lethal Hits on a BS 3+ gun is (same assumptions as above) anywhere from a less than 5% boost (wounding on a 2+ is 5%, add on Twin Linked and it's now less than a 1% boost) to more than doubling your damage (wounding on a 6+, no rerolls).

I don't mind rules that vary in effectiveness-but I'd like there to be an in-universe reason for the different effectiveness.

 JNAProductions wrote:

Sustained Hits 1 on a BS 3+ gun is (assuming you only crit on 6s and have no bonuses or penalties to the hit roll) a 25% increase in damage on average. This is true whether you're firing Bolters into Termagants, or a battery of Lascannons into a GUO.
Lethal Hits on a BS 3+ gun is (same assumptions as above) anywhere from a less than 5% boost (wounding on a 2+ is 5%, add on Twin Linked and it's now less than a 1% boost) to more than doubling your damage (wounding on a 6+, no rerolls).

I don't mind rules that vary in effectiveness-but I'd like there to be an in-universe reason for the different effectiveness.

There's an old saying, "figures don't lie but liars can figure". You are not comparing apples and apples. Sustained Hits (when only critting on a 6) adds a hit ~16% of the time. I'm not sure how something that only adds 16% at the top of the stack adds 25% at the bottom of the stack, but sure. Sustained Hits does not care about BS skill. It just triggers on a crit hit (default 6+ or 16%) Additionally you do not involve the damage roll in Sustained Hits. 16% more hits do not equate to 25% more damage, especially when hits that cause damage is less than 100%. 16% multiplied by less than 100% is going to be less than 16%. The Aggressor bomb was based on stacking Sustained and Lethal to generate more hits and Lethal hits than than the on-paper number of attacks. Crits were moved to a 5+ which means for every miss (1-2 on a 3+) you got one bonus (sustained) hit AND one bonus (lethal) hit per miss - on average.

Breton wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

Sustained Hits 1 on a BS 3+ gun is (assuming you only crit on 6s and have no bonuses or penalties to the hit roll) a 25% increase in damage on average. This is true whether you're firing Bolters into Termagants, or a battery of Lascannons into a GUO.
Lethal Hits on a BS 3+ gun is (same assumptions as above) anywhere from a less than 5% boost (wounding on a 2+ is 5%, add on Twin Linked and it's now less than a 1% boost) to more than doubling your damage (wounding on a 6+, no rerolls).

I don't mind rules that vary in effectiveness-but I'd like there to be an in-universe reason for the different effectiveness.

There's an old saying, "figures don't lie but liars can figure". You are not comparing apples and apples. Sustained Hits (when only critting on a 6) adds a hit ~16% of the time. I'm not sure how something that only adds 16% at the top of the stack adds 25% at the bottom of the stack, but sure. Sustained Hits does not care about BS skill. It just triggers on a crit hit (default 6+ or 16%) Additionally you do not involve the damage roll in Sustained Hits. 16% more hits do not equate to 25% more damage, especially when hits that cause damage is less than 100%. 16% multiplied by less than 100% is going to be less than 16%. The Aggressor bomb was based on stacking Sustained and Lethal to generate more hits and Lethal hits than than the on-paper number of attacks. Crits were moved to a 5+ which means for every miss (1-2 on a 3+) you got one bonus (sustained) hit AND one bonus (lethal) hit per miss - on average.

Do not call me a liar.

As far as I can see JNA's maths is correct.

Say you have 6 shots hitting on 3s. You'd expect to get 4 hits.
You now get sustained on 6s. You still get your 4 hits, but 1 of those hits is a 6, so 5 hits. This is a 25% increase.

The thing is though if you were hitting only on 6s, you'd get a 100% increase. Its just that typically you don't see this scenario.

By contrast if you were hitting on 3s and wounding on 6s, lethal hits adds 125% to your damage as can be seen below:

So hitting on 3s, wounding on 6s.
36 shots, 24 hits, 4 wounds.
With lethal. 36 shots, 6 auto-wounds, 18 regular hits, 3 normal wounds. 9 total wounds. So 5 extra wounds.