Okay, here goes. ItS has a military sniper rifle, the "Absolution", that should be able to drop most marks with one hit. But the gun has as much penetration as some backwater buckshot. Sure, the 'Accurate' rule can add lots of damage, but at least some Pen would have been nice.

On the other hand, there is the Ripper pistol, which has a better pen than a friggin plasma gun. Isn't that a tad much?

 Man Stopper Rounds?

Santiago said:

Only apply to specific SP weapons, not bolters. Only special bolt ammo I can think of just adds damage against things with the Machine trait. And its incredibly rare.

Sorry, it seems I didn't make myself clear. My point is that a military sniper rifle should NOT have the same pen as a musket or a derringer. I know this can be fixed by special ammo, but even the gun's normal ammo should be superior to that of lesser guns.

(And BTW: The Absolution is neither a bolt weapon, nor would I use Manstoppers. Organgrinders or Lathe Bodyblowers are just way better.)

On the other hand, a Pen of 7 seems way over the top for a solid projectile weapon small enough to be classified as a pistol. Not even Heavy Bolters have that kind of penetration.

Both instances seem to me to be screwups and I'm wondering if there is an Errata or something for them.

eBarbarossa said:

Blame the tabletop stats then - the Ripper pistol has AP2, same as a Lascannon or Plasma weapon.  It appears to be intentionally designed to pierce armor.

 Astartes sniper rifle has 0 pen as well, due to the fact that it fires slivers of crystallised toxin. You're generally supposed to aim for the weak points in their armour, ie the head.

The Ripper pistol is a bit odd; prior to the FFG entry it was unique to Sly Marbo. The way I figure it the gun's not really anything special, it's the ammo that's the major aspect of it; perhaps increase the rarity of the ammunition by one step and/or have the player make an upkeep test regularly to keep a supply of the ammo in stock?

This was an issue a player of mine had as well - he wanted to play a sniper character, and being a bit newer to the 40k setting he was using a Barret Sniper Rifle, which can penetrate quite a bit of armor RL.  Of course, sniper rifles on table top play out substantially different (4+ Wound, no AP or AP1 if you are using a unit like Pathfinders, if memory serves).  What I ended up doing in his case was custom statting a long-las with hellgun penetration and reduced the clip size.

The other option I'd considered is adding a Pen bonus that goes with aiming on sniper style weapons - although Accurate as a quality really helps with the damage output, even against armored targets.

A final option would be to up the penetration substantially (maybe up into the 9-10 range) but class it as a heavy weapon that can't be fired unbraced (bulging biceps or not).  I'd need to play with the balance on this one a bit more, as well as the last one, but the option we ended up going worked quite well for him until he 1) saw the stats on melta-guns and 2) realized a lot of our encounters took place at much shorter than sniper ranges.  Of course, it helped in my case that I had a player who was very open with "let's try this, and if its broken I'm either going to try something else to improve it or gimp it drastically" as a way of helping him build out his character the way he wanted.

For sniper work there is the solo boltgun or how it's called from into the storm.

Boltgun damage and pen, tearing and accuate.

 Been playing with a Long-las and I gotta say the lack of penetration is no issue. I still drop most targets in a single shot or two. To me Accurate is a better representation than just slapping Penetration onto the weapon because the additional damage from Accurate chews through both Armor AND Toughness. Consider that you see some huge, unarmored ork. It doesn't matter how high of penetration the rifle has, because it's negating armor the ork doesn't have and the effect is wasted. Accurate, on the other hand, helps relate the devastating blows that a sniper rifle can make in the hands of a skilled gunman regardless if the target is armored or not. 

Just my two cents.

Just to expand on that:

Remember than a weapon's Pen is a special kind of damage that only works up to a maximum of their target's armour. It is flat out just worse than damage in almost all cases (all the ones I can think of anyway).

The sniper rifle works fine, as one of my players, who is an absolute killing machine with that exact weapon, will testify to.

The ripper pistol is something of an oddity with it's massive penetration (steady now), and although it's not explicitly stated, you could just count it's ammo as being exotic, thus making it harder to come by.

As a side note, I like the Barret .50 cal idea presented earlier and wanted to develop my own version of it (warning: not very much like an actual Barret):

Gunmetal Pattern "Final Rebuke" .50 Anti-Armour Rifle

Class: Heavy

Type: SP

Range: 400m

Damage: 2d10 Impact

Pen: 12

RoF: S/-/-

Clip: 5

Reload: Full

Special: Accurate, Recharge, Special*

Availability: Extremely Rare

*This weapon is considered a basic weapon for the purposes of applying upgrades that count as 'sights', with the exception of the Red Dot Sight.  This weapon also does not gain the +10 bonus for firing at short range, and may not be loaded with unusual ammunition.  The recharge quality represents the firer compensating for the massive recoil generated by the weapon, as well as operating the extremely heavy bolt action.

 With the Ripper Pistol, I find it odd that a weapon that hyper-penetrates stil leaves toxins behind, but realism be damned. Our group's Arch-Miitant loves this beast!

Thaddux said:

There's one BIG problem with your reasoning, yes a barrett antimateriel rifle IS kind of unwieldy, but it has suprisingly LOW recoil, contrary to popular belief, because the barrel is designed like a damper (look it up) ;)

Ok, 1st off.. a .50 sniper rifle is WAY too complex of a gun for the 41st Millennium. This is 40k where even the most basic of things we take for granted here in the now is considered Arechotech.  Furthermore, this game is about flavor, not substance like stats and min/max.  Kills me to see so many people concerned with game stats than with the flavor or spirit of the game. Most weapons in Rogue Trader all do the same amount of damage with a +/- a few points.  Rogue Trader is kind of like Star Wars in the fact that its Space Opera more than it is Sci-fi.

Serve the Emporer today, you may be dead tomorrow…

Cpt. Harkonnen said:

Trying to tell others what the game is/should be about is always going to be a FAIL.

Cpt. Harkonnen said:

What are you on, and where can I get some? Gravity manipulation is a fairly common thing in the Imperium, relatively speaking, as are enhancements, bionics and the like that make dealing with recoil and the like much easier. The basic lasgun is an incredibly advanced weapon by our standards, and yet is considered incredibly basic by Imperial standards. Don't confuse their differing aesthetic and the fact that they're much less advanced than DaoT humanity with them being primitive by our standards, because there are far more ways they're not than ways they are.