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Right now plasma weapons on vehicles are a huge liability, and your tank is more likely to lose a hull point to plasma than a plasma marine. So here's the fix.

If you roll a 1 for gets hot, instead of losing an hp on 4+...your vehicle takes a S7 AP2 hit to its side armor. If the vehicle has the "extra armor" upgrade, the hit is resolved against the front armor.

This means that the toughest vehicles will be immune to gets hot, but will still punish plasma spam on light vehicles. And more importantly, plasma will be viable on battle tanks without them being weaker than plasma toting infantry.

I might suggest modifying Gets Hot! in general to be "model takes a hit from its own weapon, if it's a vehicle this hit is resolved against the side armour".

I honestly think vehicles would have more advanced cooling systems to prevent dangerous overheating. Something like this?

"When a vehicle fires a weapon with Gets Hot, roll a D6; on a 1, the weapon must disperse excess heat and may not be fired that turn."

I'm still wondering why the Gets Hot! mechanic is really needed anymore.

I mean, it was one thing when plasma guns were 5pts in the 3E Blackbook lists, but when we're talking about 150pts speeders, 2HP 60pt walkers, nearly 200pt IG battle tanks, etc. it no longer really serves any true balance purpose and is largely there just for its own sake, which is awful game design.

 Vaktathi wrote:
I'm still wondering why the Gets Hot! mechanic is really needed anymore.

I mean, it was one thing when plasma guns were 5pts in the 3E Blackbook lists, but when we're talking about 150pts speeders, 2HP 60pt walkers, nearly 200pt IG battle tanks, etc. it no longer really serves any true balance purpose and is largely there just for its own sake, which is awful game design.

It's one of the oldest rules and most defining trait of Imperial plasma weapons with the old trade-off compared to Tau and Eldar weapons being more strength for a chance of something screwing up.

But honestly I agree that it's largely unneeded these days. Just have the S6 Xenos plasma weapons be a little cheaper as their new trade-off since neither the Eldar nor Tau consider them particularly rare tech.

 Kain wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
I'm still wondering why the Gets Hot! mechanic is really needed anymore.

I mean, it was one thing when plasma guns were 5pts in the 3E Blackbook lists, but when we're talking about 150pts speeders, 2HP 60pt walkers, nearly 200pt IG battle tanks, etc. it no longer really serves any true balance purpose and is largely there just for its own sake, which is awful game design.

It's one of the oldest rules and most defining trait of Imperial plasma weapons with the old trade-off compared to Tau and Eldar weapons being more strength for a chance of something screwing up.

But honestly I agree that it's largely unneeded these days. Just have the S6 Xenos plasma weapons be a little cheaper as their new trade-off since neither the Eldar nor Tau consider them particularly rare tech.

If they dropped gets hot off plasma cannons and the like, I would instantly go out and buy my da's a plasma storm battery. Dat juicy pieplate of awesomesauce!

An alternative to doing damage would be that on a roll of a one target takes an armor save. If it fails they have a bs modifier of -1 for the duration of your next turn.

And that I think would be fair. No more ion accelerators, and plasma storms, and plasma russes melting themselves!

... Y'know, the rules are the represent a certain reality. It's a fictional, mutable 'reality' to be sure, but it's what comes first generally.

Plasma tech being destructive and nigh uncontrollable existed since the beginning, with imperial troops jamming and needing to spend turns recharging between shots, while chaos fired at full strength but risked explosions.

That's where Gets Hot comes from. And it should remain.

Originally plasma weapons on vehicles did NOT get hot!
And infantry plasma weapons that DID GET HOT could not fire consecutive turns. Eg if you fire this turn you had to wait for the plasma core to cool down next turn.

But some where along the line they decided to let Gets Hot plasma weapons fire every turn with a risk of blowing up.
And then forgot the reason that 'Gets Hot' did not apply to vehicles.(vehicles get larger and better cooling options.)

I prefer the original interpretations to the current ones.