@Nifelfang:

Check out Maximal mode for plasma weapons (pg 147, Deathwatch Core, under Firing Plasma Weapons), it's pretty much what sets them apart.  Plasma is also useful for heavily armored, non-alien foes (think Traitor Marines); the weapons have high Penetration, and the Volatile quality, which means your marines automatically get righteous fury on a 10 damage roll, just as if they were fighting aliens.

I've had the same problem with Hordes, ironically genestealer hordes, when playing.  Marines can tear up a genestealer horde with ranged weaponry.  Although, they are still incredibly deadly in Horde form if they get to close combat, and the Marines can no longer Dodge or Parry....

 True, although the plasma maximum only makes them slightly better then bolters, and as before, no autofire, no double dmg vs hordes, no tearing. and an increase of 3 more pen isnt a huge upgrade compaired to tearing quality. 

about the stealers, yeah they where in melee, the time they got to magnitude 10 one of the team members tossed a frag and killed them all due to the blast and X quality. after that they got some space from the rest of the stealers and i had to finnish the fight quickly by not making them solo again or i would have killed the whole team, not the best way to introduce them to the adventure.

Usually the horde represent a weak component, something the stealers are not so i guess horde isnt that broken, except when genestealers. 

Nifelfang said:

Even then it is not broken, whoever doctors horde stats need to do so informed. If the KT has trouble against a single genestealer but slaughters a horde in one round, then the magnitude has been way too low. Most likely the author has based the horde magnitude on imagined numbers only. But the dangerous factor of the individual creature which the horde is based on has to be taken into account properly too.

So if it has been a mag 20 or 30 genestealer horde, chances are it should have been a mag 40 to mag 60 horde. Or maybe even more.

Using horde rule properly needs experience and sadly the rules don't provide proper guidance so GMs have to learn to use them the hard way.

Alex

PS As for Plasma, a simple fix is to add 1d10 Damage to both Plasma and Melta weapons. And if that still isn't good enough, add 3 to Pen too.

yeah, overall, plasma just isn't as good, and you didn't even mention all the specialty ammunition for bolters that make them even better, and for cheaper requisition than getting a plasma gun.

I just wanted to point out that that within a certain niche, plasma weapons can be useful (Maximal mode does +4 more damage than a bolter also, not just better pen)

So ehm... is there some set date for the next errata update? Last one was in December (at least that's what the document states). Perhaps I'm mistaken but it seems to me that there is a lot of stuff that should be added. 

yeah i do agree about that.

[SPOILER] and about the magnitude scale. Yes i agree that the magnitude was way to low for the number of genestealers, but i was a written adventure so i followed their guidelines since i figured they knew what they where talking about. if the players would have a blast i would just up the magnitude, but they got butchered so... anyway, genestealers are way to powerful individualls to never be horde stuff if you ask me. I explained the difference in a horde vs a single genestealer with "have you seen the movie Alien and the followup Aliens?" easier to kill when many. although..still. [SPOILER ENDS]

And i have also thought about upping the dmg on plasma with 1d10, maybe same with melta. downside is that i might have to change other stuff also, since then plasma will be to powerful and the spiral continues. 

Nifelfang said:

Yeah, I know. I like the basic ideas of TEP but its execution isn't first class.

Nifelfang said:

No, if you only add d10 to plasma and melta, the unmodified HB will still reign king among them. Even the Bolter with its specialty ammo will be better in most cases. +d10 is rather not enough than too much of a buff (try to kill a Rhino through the front armour with a thus buffed plasmagun: 3d10-11 penetrating, nearly impossible to one-shot it, even though you have +1d10 to damage! Even the buffed meltagun struggles to one-shot it at short range: 4d10-10 penetrating).

The only concern might be that the advanced Tau pulse tech might not look stellar in comparison to Astartes plasma. But then again the marines in DW are supposed to be epic and if their weapons outshine Tau rank&file weapons it is not against the spirit of the published setting.

Alex

I have a few questions, if anyone has answers...

Weakness as Strength in RoB - I take it the +2 TB and SB is not doubled for unnatural? I've assumed that anything adding to strength, etc. is taken into account for unnatural (except were specified, like armour boosts) but that additional bonuses are just that.

Tech-Marine servo arm attacks. Can you make a standard attack and then use your reaction for an additional attack with the servo arm? The rule against multiple actions with the same sub-type seem to forbid it but increasingly it seems to me that you should be able to do both.

SPOILERS AHEAD

In the final part of TEP the stat blocks for the Black Engine and Paragelle are identical which I can't help but think must be a misprint. I did e-mail FFG about this but have never recieved an answer. Has anyone else gotten one? I suppose it isn't a big deal, but it would be nice to know what they were meant to be!

Shaun said:

It's never been stated explicitly but RAI is that all additions take place after multiplications in DW in general unless explicitly stated that it is otherwise.

Shaun said:

Yes, that is what it is for. Comes very handy against hordes because you can't parry/dodge their attacks anyway.

Shaun said:

It seems that the stats for the Paragelle are off, in particular the low AG and Int.

Alex

i can only seem to find v1.0 of the errata and this may be answered somewhere else but i noticed that assault marines get lightning attack at rank 2 and never get swift attack which is a prerequisite to the former. i imagine this is just a typo of some sort and it is available to them at rank 1, and if that is the case how much xp does it cost?

Watcher_of_the_Dead said:

All Assault Marines begin play with Swift Attack, as noted near the top of Page 73.

Shaun said:

That one is a good spot, I had to get my copy out as soon as I got home to check it was wrong.  Glad I saw this before running the adventure with my group. 

Is it intentional that restraints have a requisition value of 10?  It seems off that a pair of handcuffs has the same requisition requirement as a master crafted bolter or chain sword.

I can't find falling damage anywhere. Am I missing something?

carrotcolossus said:

Falling damage is at the top left of page 261--roll 1d10+1 for every meter fallen.  Armor does not help, damage is considered Impact, and you use Table 8-3 to determine which part of the body hit first and took the damage.  At the GM's discretion, the damage can be adjusted based on what surface you fall onto, gravity, etc.