Here's another update, based on game play so far…

1- Falling Damage: Toughness Bonus (TB) reduces falling damage as normal; ignore/resolve any Critical Injuries sustained from Falling Damage as per bullet point #3 (IE: a Critical Injury may be ignored but still cause Fatigue). 

Another update for those who have adopted my House Rules…

Concerning Ranged Attacks:

1- Primitive Armour does NOT receive the +2 AP adjustment.
2- Dum-Dum Rounds do NOT count ANY Armour AP values as double. If they cause ANY Wounds, +2 is added to determine the total Damage caused.
3- Standard/Special ammo do NOT count Primitive Armour AP as half. A Man-Stopper will blow clean through Primitive chain mail (AP 3) , but Primitive plate (AP 5) still affords some protection.
4- Mooks/Goons/Scrubs taking more than half their maximum wounds total from one ranged attack are considered Out Of Action (severely wounded, bottling out, etc.). Note that GMs can opt to add an extra layer of "cinematic" interaction here by instead making such Mooks/Goons/Scrubs take a Difficult (-10) Will Power Test, with success keeping them in the fray. Regardless, Mooks/Goons/Scrubs reaching 0 (zero) Wounds cease to be a threat.
5- To prevent Mooks/Goons/Scrubs (who typically appear in greater in numbers) from quickly bringing down Acolytes (our supposed heroes) with an overwhelming volume of ranged attacks I have adopted the following GM "fudging"…

A)- Standard Attack (Half Action): +10 to WS/BS Tests. Damage is calculated as normal.
B)-Semi-Auto Burst (Half Action): +/-0 to WS/BS Tests. Rather than scoring an additional hit/Damage die, just add +1 to calculated Damage for each 2 DoS.
C)-Full Auto Fire (Full Action): -10 to WS/BS Tests. Rather than scoring additional hits/Damage dice, just add +2 to calculated Damage for each DoS.
D)- Accurate Weapons: Rather than adding additional Damage dice, just add +3 Damage for each 2 DoS (Max 4 DoS/+6 Damage).
E)- Dodging Ranged Attacks (PCs): A successful Dodge allows a PC to avoid Damage calculated from the die roll, and each additional DoS allows the PC to avoid the additional Damage caused from "multiple hits"/Accurate (IE: Evan, a Warden of the Divisio Immoralis, is wearing Enforcer Light Carapace [AP 7] when he gets hit by sniper fire from a nearby bell tower. The sniper (a "Mook") is using a Hunting Rifle with standard ammo, and hits Evan in the shoulder with 3 DoS. The Mook rolls his damage die and it comes up a 7+3, and adds +3 for DoS, for a total Damage score of 13. Evan subtracts the AP [7] of his Enforcer Light Carapace, reducing the Damage score to 6. Had Evan known the attack was coming and successfully dodged the Damage score would have been 3, which would be soaked by his Armour. Evan ducks behind a nearby trolley car…).

PCs and "elite" NPCs/named villains also use the bonus/penalty adjustments for ranged Attack Actions, but continue to calculate the number of hits and Damage as per the standard rules, bestowing upon them the mark of distinction and significance they deserve.

I'm working on an alternative to the current Initiative mechanic. The current mechanic lumps large groups of GM-controlled adversaries together, and I find that to weigh heavily for one side or the other, depending on Initiative scores, which works fine in an exchange between a few vehicles or void ship combat, but not so much for representing the ebb and flow of ground-level "cops and robbers" tactics. I'll be incorporating it into this week's game, but will start another thread if it pans out.

In my game as wll i was dissaponted by the fact that certain weapons where more dangerous to someone wearing armour than to someone with a TB of 5. Say a Plasma Pistol with a Pen of 6 ignores Carapace but you still subtract the TB from it's damage roll. So a carapaced character is worried by the Plasma carrying vilain only so long as his armour is concered?

So in my game the Pen of the weapon cuts through everything. The naked Ork with a TB of 8 is very worried by a Hellgun with a Pen of 5. As should be. It makes thew game a little more lethal but characters are supposed to enter fights with great trepidation and well prepared, or when desperate.

konst80hum said:

It seems this simply adds PEN to the weapon's damage:

Wounds = Damage roll - (AP + TB - PEN) = Damage roll + PEN - (AP + TB)

I assume the house rule limits the "bonus damage" from PEN to no more than the damage reduction. E.g.: If a character with AP 2 and TB 3 suffers a hit for 10 damage with PEN 10, he suffers 10 Wounds, not 15…

So in essence applaying pen to both armour and toughness. I've heard about such a practice but it makes things much more lethal. Everybody would need more wounds to balance this.

All of these houserules seem to get why toughness doesn't work in the system but instead of fixing the problem they just create new ones.

So why doesn't toughness work in DH? Because characters become immune to damage they shouldn't. The solution is not alter the way toughness works. The solution is to alter the way damage works, namely by adopting the only war version of righteous fury.

Any damage roll of a 0 causes righteous fury. If the character takes any amount of damage roll a d5 on and apply the critical effect from the correct chart. If the character would have taken no damage from the attack the character instead takes 1 wound.

This gives you the proper effect, which is that a lucky strike from a club even on a dude wearing power armour will still do something. Large numbers of enemies are still dangerous.

It's a heck of a lot more elegent than completely altering basic system math.

Droma said:

I really dislike some of this forum's tool usages.

Sure, elegant. Simple. But…

Meh. So an Acolyte with a TB4 wearing Flak Armour gets whacked by a club-wielding Nancy. Nancy gets a lucky "10" and does 4 or 5 points Damage plus a -1 to -5 Critical, at which point I (personally) feel any Critical Damage is too severe. The other end of the Spectrum is an Acolyte with a TB5 wearing Storm Trooper Carapace getting hit by the same lucky Nancy. Big whoop, one point of Damage. Let's say Nancy gets lucky on this same Acolyte 5 times…5 points Damage, all of which can be healed by a Psychic Ability, the Medicae Skill, or by spending a Fate Point, which still leaves me in the same rut of rolling dice over and over just to have said Damage healed and all that combat dice rolling I just did was a waste of time, and Players feel cheated because there was no real, lasting challenge or threat. Imagine the frustration of rolling attacks for 4-6 mooks per Acolyte…just endless bouncing dice, taking SO MUCH TIME. It looked good on paper when Black Crusade dropped, but in play it seemed either excessive or pitiful. [sarcasm here] YAY! Nancy wounded the Chosen Chaos Space Marine…for one lousy point. Pitiful. YAY! Jenny wounded the Apostate for 4 points and a -5 Critical. Excessive.

The PROBLEM is not Toughness Bonus OR Damage…it's weapon Pen. The mechanic being used is the same mechanic from WFRP 1st Edition. You rolled dice, added strength, subtracted TB and any armour…done. Rune Weapons ignored armour completely. Adding variable Penetration values for certain weapons, ammos or upgrades DOES make sense, but doing so foils the entire mechanic.

You say the solution is to use the ZH/RF rules of Black Crusade/Only War, but I disagree. IF you're going to have Penetration values, then instead of adding a +2 or +3 (or more) modifier to any weapon to indicate (supposedly) how hard it hits an average Human (or how much TB it bypasses) it is SIMPLEST to remove TB from the equation. It is FAR MORE SIMPLE for a Player to reduce any Damage taken by one number (AP) than it is to A) subtract any Pen value from armour, then B) add remaining AP and TB, then C) subtract that total from the Damage taken. As most Dark Heresy PCs do not have Unnatural Toughness the math becomes succinct.

And yes; I understand there are monstrous creatures that have Unnatural Toughness but little armour, but my House Rules SPECIFICALLY address that. A creature with Unnatural Toughness (x2), TB4(8) and Natural Armour 2, then gets 8 MORE Wounds, receives +2 AP, and ALSO reduces Damage received by the base of its TB, which is 4.

The humble Carnifex (whose base is adjusted for yet more damned typo inconsistencies): 100 Wounds becomes 118; 10 AP becomes 12, Damage negated by TB is 12. It loses 4 points of Damage reduction through the use of my House Rules (because it loses 6 of its TB but gains +2 AP) and it gains 18 Wounds. With Bolt Weapon errata Damage it can take another 1-3 boltgun hits.

In short, in its most pure form, it is easier to add +2 AP to most armours and remove TB than it is to change the Damage values of EVERY WEAPON. The Critical Threshold is for PCs and "special" NPCs only, but not necessary for the overall use of my House Rules, so if it's not to your liking you can trash it. My way is simple, no more lethal (since players actually use the set dressings for cover now) and makes as much sense in the context of "realism"-game mechanics.

 Now see, I was kinda thinking "Naaah" up until this point. But now I'm kinda like "Hmm, the lad has a point" :)

What's going on with this editor?

If I understand correctly, the problem is that characters develop damage reduction abilities that elevate them beyond concern for mundane weapons, e.g. the trusty lasgun. This sort of "immunity" is certain to be detrimental to the theme of the game: The thrill of the desperate struggle against the forces of ruin and corruption is undermined when the enemy does not actually represent a threat..

It is a natural development. The game challenges the players to have their Acolytes survive, so the players find ways to help them survive: More Toughness, more Armour, more Wounds. In order to survive the challenging threats, they find they've suddenly outpaced the mundane ones.

While it is tempting to look at the game system and see how it can be tweaked to allow mundane threats to remain threats while the Acolytes evolved to deal with the challenging ones, it seems oh-so-simple to me to instead come to an agreement with the players and set a limit to how much protection the Acolytes can have.

Let's say you want a lasgun to remain a significant threat, first notice that it does 1d10+3 damage, meaning that a lucky shot (barring Righteous Fury) will deal 13 damage at most. Now all you need to agree on is how many wounds an Acolyte should lose on this sort of lucky hit. 1 wound? Then your max damage protection is 12 points. 5 wounds? Then it's 8.

I know this may sound crazy, but it seems a lot easier to achieve than to mess around with the rules system in the hopes of achieveing the same thing.

-K

Asking Players to limit themselves on purchases, equipment, gear, weapons, Skills, Talents, Advances…why not redact what you don't like from the Rule Book in that case? Don't let them use their books. They can only use yours, and the long, blacked out stuff just isn't available.

Or, I can implement this House Rule, which brings (and keeps) everything in balance, regardless of what they take, buy or get.

I've run this campaign since 2008. Every PC, collectively, has shared about 1500 Thrones of pay. My Inquisitors are cheap bastards. So, Players buy up Toughness, Sound Constitution, damage-mitigating Talents. Then they beat the crap out of leaders and loot their bodies, taking a suit of Light Carapace here, Flak Armour there. Then they buy cheap shields. It gets hard to simply hurt them, so I throw in one Common Quality Boltgun. It gets looted.

With this House Rule I can continue to do what I've done from the beginning, OR I can throw in everything plus the kitchen sink. It won't matter. The playing field is even, from the Mooks all the way to the Evil Bastards.

I think you may be confusing "asking" with "telling". :)

My point is that trying to steer the player into a certain type of game with house rules is a lot of work compared to simply asking them to use moderation. If you ask them nicely and they agree then your problem may very well be solved. If they don't agree, well, you're no worse off than before.

Please note that this moderation isn't about of removing options from the players. All the options are still available, but the player must adhere to certain limits and tailor his choices accordingly. I agree that this reduces the total number of combinations the players can explore, but isn't the root cause of this thread that some of those combinations break the game? I mean, if you are playing WoW and the a bug in the game causes the server to crash each time somebody says "Leroy Jenkins", the quickest of fixes is to for all to agree not to say it!

And, please. There is room to be flexible and further cater to the players personal preferences. Maybe primitive armour doesn't have to count its full AP toward protection. The system has location-specific AP, so maybe an Acolyte that leaves an arm unprotected can have have better protection on his body location.

Now, I'm not going to tell you that you have to chuck all your hard work. Just don't fall so deeply in love with it that you blind yourself to what may be a simpler solution.

@Alekzanter

Without going into a giant discussion on why I'll simply say that your monster math doesn't work because you're not adding enough wounds to make up for the loss of toughness. Also it is in fact more difficult and annoying to add values to all armors in the game as well as large changes to the npc stat blocks than to use the system as presented.

Your point about excessive dice rolling is noted. Why don't you try using the horde rules from DW instead for large groups. Modify the extra d10 dmg to occur at every 20 magnitude instead of 10 and you should be good to go.

Most of the issues you have are solved a lot more easily than wholesale changes to the system math that you've only half thought through. That being said we're both tossing around houserules so if you like the changes you've made and so do your players that is fine keep going with what you're doing. However I disagree with your reasoning for creating the houserules the way you did.

Droma said:
Quote-  "…it is in fact more difficult and annoying to add values to all armors in the game as well as large changes to the npc stat blocks than to use the system as presented."

First , you're NOT changing stat blocks at all, you're simply using one (unchanged) Characteristic differently…by doing simple math. Second, If you cannot be bothered to remember something this simple, then how do you remember to adjust your weapon's penetration value for using Man-Stoppers, or to adjust your opponent's AP values (oh no, possible fractions!) and your weapon's Damage when using Dum-Dums, or (deep breath) to add the AP of a Shield and then add bonus AP due to the use of a Psychic Ability then subtract the Pen value from your final adjusted AP then add that remainder to your TB then subtract THAT from the Damage?

Me: Are you wearing any Primitive armour?
Player: No.
Me: Add 2 to all your AP values, except for Ballistic Coats and Shields.
Player: Okay.

Done.

Me (looking through NPCs): Hm. I'll add an Arbitrator to the list of foes. They wear Storm Trooper Carapace (glances at AP value of 6, writes "Carapace, AP 8"). They have TB3, so add 3 to (glances at listed total) 15 (writes "18 Wounds").

Done.

Me: You get hit for X Damage, Pen 2.
Player: *(subtracts 2 from AP, then subtracts remaining AP from Damage)

Done.

And…
Quote- "I'll simply say that your monster math doesn't work because you're not adding enough wounds to make up for the loss of toughness."

Simply put, I never considered "adding enough Wounds to make up for the loss of Toughness" because Toughness, Wounds, and Armour are not system foil. More specifically stated, variable Penetration values are the system foil, and to continue using variable Penetration values Toughness (as it is written) simply does not make sense. It cannot. Rather, it is quite baffling. How can a Hand Cannon loaded with standard ammo be so powerful as to better penetrate Armour, yet a naked target's Toughness ignores the Penetration value? Boltgun shreds my Light Carapace, but my Toughness ignores its Pen? Sure, weapon Damage is supposed to reflect the severity of injury, but all weapon and attack Damages are incorrect, and have been from the beginning (see below). If you just stop for a moment, and really look at the mechanic, you'll see using variable Pen values foils the game mechanic's intention. The only "Penetration value" that makes any kind of sense in context of the mechanic is the Warp Weapon Quality. And don't give me real-life facts or examples, because translating real life to Dark Heresy would be like playing HarnMaster 1st Ed, or MERP. So rather than altering and rewriting weapon Damage and Pen for every weapon/attack in the game, it's far easier to add 2 (first graders do it all the time) to the listed AP for a PC's or NPC's Armour (unless that Armour, as noted in my House Rules, is Primitive, Ballistic Coats, or Shields). Again, add TB to Wounds and you're done. Adding TB to Wounds just re-purposes how Toughness "protects" a PC/NPC from Damage. It's not meant to account for the vast amount of variables spanning every possible Armour/Weapon/Penetration combination.

And…
Quote- "Why don't you try using the horde rules from DW…"

Don't get me started on Hordes. Simply put: it is a "lazy game-developer's mechanic", implemented to "fix" A) weapon/attack damages that were incorrect at the time of printing, and B) Unnatural Toughness (which wouldn't be an issue if, from the beginning, they had A) created correct weapon/attack damages, and B) never introduced variable Penetration values).

( I know some of the game designers/developers are going to see this thread and think "So, you think you can do better?", and the answer isn't necessarily yes OR no. I just think it was a tried and tested mechanic [sans variable Penetration values], one that saw NO changes through three editions, and they botched it in Dark Heresy by adding…you guessed it…variable Penetration values. A variety of weapons would have been enough. Every "special" ammo type [and the Mono upgrade] could have been simply represented by a Damage modifier. And I think they should have taken more time to think about the Critical Damage tables.)

Blah…lethal game of heroes defying extinction or damnation. Someone has to get hurt…but not die…so we have a game instead of a real-life/real guns LARP. I'm just trying to help others (like myself) who don't like THIS PARTICULAR mechanic of the game.

kjakan said
Quote- "The system has location-specific AP, so maybe an Acolyte that leaves an arm unprotected can have have better protection on his body location."

I honestly do not know where to begin trying to make sense of this statement.