Rules suggestions - Weapons, Wargear and Traits

Thorgor

Of The YAQ
Oct 12, 2015
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A thread for discussing all rules about items.

I'll try and regroup here the suggestions that have already been made in other threads.
I think general discussions about Blast, Template, Rapid fire and how they interact with Shooting can stay in the Shooting thread though.


For armour, I think we should introduce the concept of 'layers'.
I think currently we functionally have a main layer, an underlayer, and an overlayer.
A fighter can only have one piece of wargear (just move all armour to a type of wargear) per layer.
We may even want to reduce the number of layers to prevent fighter stacking armours for insane saves.
With Armour I'd rather go for the functionally simpler method of tweaking things like Ablative Overlay or Armoured Undersuit from 'May be worn in addition to armour' to 'may be combined with one piece of armour' so you can have an undersuit and armour, or an overlay and armour, but not both.
My solution is very simple, divide armour into 3 categories:
  • Armour
  • Combined Armour
  • Field Armour
A fighter can max have 1 of each. Armour is flak, carapace, hazard suit, mesh, you know it already. Combined armour are items that improve/modify armour. So stuff like shields, undersuit, bodyglove and ablative overlay. And fields are fields, they haven't changed or been expanded since Gang War 3 I believe?
That's all fine, except that this means Subjugators & Van Saar get effectively no benefit from their Shields as both of those couldn't then be stacked with the bodyglove/underlay. There's a vague benefit from attacks out of their Vision Arc, but I wouldn't say the stacking of these are a problem.

I'd suggest Shields are a separate category entirely, clarifying that you can only get benefit from 1 shield at once.

Frankly the biggest problem is the Ablative Overlay, which we've houseruled to not exist...
The problem with shields is that some are Weapons while other are Wargear.
The reasons for having a clear rules on armour with limitation are:
  1. Balance: Purchasing 3x undersuit is broken and Necromunda is not a place where fighters should have terminator saves.
  2. Logic: How do a fighter wear and benefit of carrying 3 shields and mesh, flak and heavy carapace armour? Doesn't make any sense.
Carrying 5 weapons on the other hand does not have these problems. We have multiple models today that RAW can carry 5 weapons. Any tooled up bounty hunter armed to the teeth for example. Balance is also not an issue. Even if the rules supported unlimited weapons, the fighter would still not be any 'better' from it. It would instead be awful bloat.

I can agree that there should be some limit to amount of weapons. It can't be 100, but it's not a problem if it's 5 or 3 in my opinion.
Some shields are weapons even. A solution could be to limit shields to max 1, and apply that to anything that includes the word 'shield'? So it would apply to all.
Fighter should be allowed 1 suit of armour, 1 undersuit (either body glove or undersuit), 1 shield and maybe 1 additional source of armour save tops.
We could also add a rule that armour save can never be better than 2+ before negative modifiers such as AP are applied.

For weapon capacity, I'd like something a bit more granular that the current rules (where Unwieldy weapons take 2 slots and every other weapon takes one slot) as having a stub gun take as much place as a sniper rife is weird.
I'd like to add a new Concealable weapon trait to small arms (mainly pistols and knives, and maybe stuff like the sawn-off shotgun). Concealable weapons would only take half a slot, and could also be used (maybe provided an Intelligence test is passed) in scenarios where fighters are normally not allowed to use weapons (Bar Brawl, and whatever else we could come up with)
The discussion here has reminded me of a loophole that could do with closing: I'm not aware of any rule that prevents you from taking multiple copies of the same Wargear.

In a lot of cases it doesn't matter: taking two Grav Chutes won't be any better than one. But if you're allowing multiple Stimm-Slugs and Armoured Undersuits it gets problematic.

In a few cases it makes sense to have multiple; a fighter with two Stub Guns should be allowed two sets of Dum Dum rounds, I feel.

But it's a loophole that could do with closing.
 
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Master-Crafted
The updated rules in HoChains/HoBlades are better, lets codify those as the standard rules for these weapons

Unstable
This trait is unnecessarily harsh, and I especially loathe the FAQ that means Plasma grenades are a 50/50 proposition to take yourself OOA. We've so far houseruled it as:
  • If you roll the Ammo symbol on the Firepower dice, roll a D6. On a 1-3 the weapon has suffered a catastrophic overload, your fighter is Pinned and takes a single hit with the weapon profile used and the weapon is considered out-of-ammo for the duration of the battle;
  • Regardless of how many firepower dice you roll, Unstable can only trigger once so the Stormwelder is less hilariously awful;
  • When throwing an Unstable grenade, the Unstable trait only triggers on a natural 1 of the to-hit roll (This gives these weapons the same chance to hit your own fighters as an Unstable non-grenade i.e. 1/12). Place any Blast marker directly on top of your fighter in the event of any catastrophic overload
Blast & Rapid Fire
This need clarity on how these two traits interact.
 
Master-Crafted
The updated rules in HoChains/HoBlades are better, lets codify those as the standard rules for these weapons

Unstable
This trait is unnecessarily harsh, and I especially loathe the FAQ that means Plasma grenades are a 50/50 proposition to take yourself OOA. We've so far houseruled it as:

Blast & Rapid Fire
This need clarity on how these two traits interact.

I believe we had some discussion on unstable in another thread (and various ideas proposes of how to change it).

Yours is another good one to throw into the .is to be considered
 
For Unstable, we could do something similar than the Misfire rule for Blast weapon (the fighter hit themself). That would make them less dangerous.
And I agree plasma grenades should also have only 1/12 chance to blow up in your face, not 1/2.
 
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I think it is way too early to discuss anything about traits until we flesh out basic rules for shooting and CC.
For example I'd prefer for unstable to trigger more often, but be less punishing overall, like getting either fleshwound/injury dice, depending on D6 roll. But this approach does not work well with current ammo triggers.

One thing is that I'm strongly against though even at this early stage are easy to access to-hit rerolls. Getting that unlucky "1" should always be a risk, even if you are a fully kitted Van Saar gundam of a person, otherwise BS2+ gangers turn into a 40k marines who have their outcome almost guaranteed. At this point why bother rolling dice and not give automatic success? So yeah, I don't like Master-crafted, thats what I'm saying.
 
I think it is way too early to discuss anything about traits until we flesh out basic rules for shooting and CC.
For example I'd prefer for unstable to trigger more often, but be less punishing overall, like getting either fleshwound/injury dice, depending on D6 roll. But this approach does not work well with current ammo triggers.

One thing is that I'm strongly against though even at this early stage are easy to access to-hit rerolls. Getting that unlucky "1" should always be a risk, even if you are a fully kitted Van Saar gundam of a person, otherwise BS2+ gangers turn into a 40k marines who have their outcome almost guaranteed. At this point why bother rolling dice and not give automatic success? So yeah, I don't like Master-crafted, thats what I'm saying.
In general agree with regards to discussing traits (although I feel that unstable can probably be discussed as part of shooting and ammo tests etc).

I'm much happier with the HoB/HoC master crafted both with regards to the rules change to one to hit roll per game and with the fact it's only so far appeared on melee weapons in house lists at least.

I feel that its probably best left as it is, as it's an easy rule for a group who doesn't like it to house rule out of a campaign (rather than make a more complex replacement?).

Anyway it's just an idea
 
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I don't think it's too early to give suggestions for Trait. We are currently in the first pass, nothing will be set in stone before the second pass, and it will be useful to have suggestions for traits when we tackle the real discussions about resolving attacks.

Should master-crafted weapons still be a piece of Wargear that you can purchase from the Trading post? Should it give the Master-crafted keyword to the weapon?
Maybe, instead of being a brand new weapon, you could purchase it as an upgrade for an existing weapon? That would close the sticky fingers loophole (if we keep sticky fingers that is)

Blaze needs to be clarified (we need to make it clear that it replaces the normal activation of the ablaze fighter) and maybe nerfed a little. Chance to set ablaze could be tied to the weapon Str (so that a Heavy flamer has more chance to set you on fire than a hand flamer), or just a variable of the trait (Blaze (4+), Blaze (3+), etc.)

Concussion (and other similar effects) could run until the end of the target's next activation instead of the end of the round (or whichever comes second?)

Digi needs to be clarified. If you carry 10 digi weapons, can you use all of them during the same Fight action?

Disarm currently does almost nothing, as reaction attacks rarely happen.

Fear should probably trigger on hitting instead of wounding. Otherwise, Fear gas grenade are pretty useless compared to Choke gas grenades.

We need to clarify how Knockback and simultaneous attacks interact. Can the target be pushed back more than once per action? Can the attacker follow them more than once (in melee)?

How Melta work with Grenade needs to be clarified. I'd like 'short range' to be replaced with 'under the center of the Blast marker' in this particular case.

I dislike how Parry is also almost useless (because anyone equipped for CC should be the one doing the charging, and even if they are charged, it will be by a melee monster with WS 2+ and a bucketload of attack dice, and Parry will do nothing to stop them). Suggestion: instead of the attacker having to reroll, the defender makes a WS check and cancel one hit if successful. Add the ability to spend reaction attack dice to try and parry more hits?

Rapid fire and Melee: can you spread extra hits to nearby enemy fighters? Are the indirect targets Pinned?

Scattershot: any reason it's worded differently from Rapid fire?

Seismic needs to be clarified, at the very least. We should make it clear that it only cancels Nerves of steal (and the Spawn ability, provided we let the Spawn Stand up).

Smoke: interaction with Template and Blast needs to be clarified, and needs to use the same logic as Pitch black (not a fan of the official clarification for this one)

Is anyone happy with how Toxin currently works? It basically gives the weapon a fixed S4.

Versatile probably needs its own thread...

Web is way too powerful and in need of a serious nerf. Should only work if the target fails a Str check?
 
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I'd rework web to be an entirely different beast. We did it like this:

Applying webbed also applies 1 flesh wound. Whenever you do any action (including reacion attack) while webbed you need to pass a Strength test, or suffer a flesh wound. Also while webbed fighter treats all open terrain as difficult and all of their attacks are improbable (can be 7+ for ranged or hit only on 6's for melee)
 
Just from a clarification point of view:

Blaze needs to be clarified (we need to make it clear that it replaces the normal activation of the ablaze fighter) and maybe nerfed a little. Chance to set ablaze could be tied to the weapon Str (so that a Heavy flamer has more chance to set you on fire than a hand flamer), or just a variable of the trait (Blaze (4+), Blaze (3+), etc.)
With regards to the activations, I think it should have a clarification in the Actions section, like Broken and Insanity. Also needs to be a way of determining priority for those three conditions

We need to clarify how Knockback and simultaneous attacks interact. Can the target be pushed back more than once per action? Can the attacker follow them more than once (in melee)?
Hopefully this will be clarified by sorting out proper definitions for 'attack' and suchlike. I generally lean towards less powerful interactions (so only one knockback in this case) just because they're less likely to break something further down the line.

How Melta work with Grenade needs to be clarified. I'd like 'short range' to be replaced with 'under the center of the Blast marker' in this particular case.
Does a Melta Bomb have blast? But yeah, this one is silly.

Rapid fire and Melee: can you spread extra hits to nearby enemy fighters? Are the indirect targets Pinned?

Scattershot: any reason it's worded differently from Rapid fire?
Very good points

Seismic needs to be clarified, at the very least. We should make it clear that it only cancels Nerves of steal (and the Spawn ability, provided we let the Spawn Stand up).
Seismic also currently has a strange interaction that you can automatically pin anyone within line of sight; the trait only requires that you target them, not hit them, so being out of the weapon's range is irrelevant.

Smoke: interaction with Template and Blast needs to be clarified, and needs to use the same logic as Pitch black (not a fan of the official clarification for this one)

Versatile probably needs its own thread...
Versatile certainly needs looking at, and smoke needs clarification. From a balance point of view Web could do with looking at, but at least it's currently clear
 
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the trait only requires that you target them, not hit them
I respectfully disagree with your interpretation. I don't think Seismic was ever meant to pin targets that are not hit (the interaction with a scattered Blast marker would be hilariously stupid otherwise). Which is why it needs to be clarified.
 
I dislike how Parry is also almost useless (because anyone equipped for CC should be the one doing the charging, and even if they are charged, it will be by a melee monster with WS 2+ and a bucketload of attack dice, and Parry will do nothing to stop them). Suggestion: instead of the attacker having to reroll, the defender makes a WS check and cancel one hit if successful.


Ohhh I like this. I'd just keep it as one ws test per party you have. Makes twin swords etc very good, also buffs the power trait as well (because ignoring a party is more useful) and make the party skill good.

It also helps address the high WS fighters not having as much defence against charging melee combatants as people like.

It's a really good idea.

Two thumbs up from me
 
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I don't think it's too early to give suggestions for Trait. We are currently in the first pass, nothing will be set in stone before the second pass, and it will be useful to have suggestions for traits when we tackle the real discussions about resolving attacks.

Should master-crafted weapons still be a piece of Wargear that you can purchase from the Trading post? Should it give the Master-crafted keyword to the weapon?
Maybe, instead of being a brand new weapon, you could purchase it as an upgrade for an existing weapon? That would close the sticky fingers loophole (if we keep sticky fingers that is)

Blaze needs to be clarified (we need to make it clear that it replaces the normal activation of the ablaze fighter) and maybe nerfed a little. Chance to set ablaze could be tied to the weapon Str (so that a Heavy flamer has more chance to set you on fire than a hand flamer), or just a variable of the trait (Blaze (4+), Blaze (3+), etc.)

Concussion (and other similar effects) could run until the end of the target's next activation instead of the end of the round (or whichever comes second?)

Digi needs to be clarified. If you carry 10 digi weapons, can you use all of them during the same Fight action?

Disarm currently does almost nothing, as reaction attacks rarely happen.

Fear
should probably trigger on hitting instead of wounding. Otherwise, Fear gas grenade are pretty useless compared to Choke has grenades.

We need to clarify how Knockback and simultaneous attacks interact. Can the target be pushed back more than once per action? Can the attacker follow them more than once (in melee)?

How Melta work with Grenade needs to be clarified. I'd like 'short range' to be replaced with 'under the center of the Blast marker' in this particular case.

I dislike how Parry is also almost useless (because anyone equipped for CC should be the one doing the charging, and even if they are charged, it will be by a melee monster with WS 2+ and a bucketload of attack dice, and Parry will do nothing to stop them). Suggestion: instead of the attacker having to reroll, the defender makes a WS check and cancel one hit if successful. Add the ability to spend reaction attack dice to try and parry more hits?

Rapid fire and Melee: can you spread extra hits to nearby enemy fighters? Are the indirect targets Pinned?

Scattershot: any reason it's worded differently from Rapid fire?

Seismic needs to be clarified, at the very least. We should make it clear that it only cancels Nerves of steal (and the Spawn ability, provided we let the Spawn Stand up).

Smoke: interaction with Template and Blast needs to be clarified, and needs to use the same logic as Pitch black (not a fan of the official clarification for this one)

Is anyone happy with how Toxin currently works? It basically gives the weapon a fixed S4.

Versatile probably needs its own thread...

Web is way too powerful and in need of a serious nerf. Should only work if the target fails a Str check?
In general these are all great suggestions and probably worth putting in the suggestions doc at some point. (Not all of them are perhaps needed, but all are worth further discussion)
 
I respectfully disagree with your interpretation. I don't think Seismic was ever meant to pin targets that are not hit (the interaction with a scattered Blast marker would be hilariously stupid otherwise). Which is why it needs to be clarified.
Haha, I was quoting the trait, not defending it! I'm in complete agreement that it needs clarification, and was highlighting an additional area of the wording of that needs to be addressed.

As it stands it doesn't mention "hit", only "target" which are separate things.
 
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Blaze should be limited, at the very least fighters should attempt to put the fire out *before* running around like a headless chicken. That way you could bring fighters to help
N17 blaze was much nicer, and there was a real decision in whether to pin yourself or not to put the fire out.
 
Blaze should be limited, at the very least fighters should attempt to put the fire out *before* running around like a headless chicken. That way you could bring fighters to help
N17 blaze was much nicer, and there was a real decision in whether to pin yourself or not to put the fire out.
The earlier itterations of blaze should probably be considered as a simple revision to Blaze. It still most of the time took someone out of the fight for a turn, but hard cases could risk carrying on as normal and being burnt.
 
Since there's a lot of ground to cover in this section, I'm going to try to keep to one area per post. For this one: Field Armour

Right, so there are a lot of issues with Field Armour in the rules.

At no point do they refer to themselves as saves in their descriptions (E.g. Mesh says 'gains a 5+ save roll'. This sort of language is missing for Field), yet are clearly called out as saves by examples in other places. I don't really mind if they are or aren't saves, but the language should be consistent.

Saves are taken against wounds or injuries, but this is contradicted by all of the Field Armour texts which specifically trigger on 'hit'.

They state that if successful 'all effects of the hit are ignored'... but when this was asked about on FB one of the developers said something along the lines of 'you still take the effects of the hit including pinning, because you had to have been wounded already to ignore the hit'. Again, needs consistency. (This is also happens with the Dodge skill; you ignore the hit but only if it wounded you).

One of the other things liked to this is 'when do they trigger'? If it's on hit, then they might trigger their downsides more frequently. If it's on wound, you're less likely to burn out a Refractor Field but could run foul of Seismic rolling a 6 to wound and ignoring saves. (Also, I'd have to double check but I think all of the 'ignore saves' things currently ignore Field Armour, which seems off to me.)

With regards to how often they trigger their downside, there might be a hint of intent in House of Blades. The wording on Displacer Field now contains "If the fighter is saved from one or more hits, they will be moved once as the field displaces them". So, quite apart from finally sneaking the word save in there, it seems like the intent might be that you only trigger once from multiple simultaneous hits. That's handy for the Refractor Field, and stops the Conversion Field from occasionally being a demented strobe.

---

I think the easiest way to get through most of these issues is with three fairly simple clarifications. Firstly, if the rules want them to be saves they really need to be specifically called out as saves in their text to be consistent with every piece of armour. However, I'd be happy if there was an additional distinction for Field Saves and Armour Saves, so things that ignore Armour don't automatically ignore Fields.

Secondly, change the text of the 'Make a save roll' section of 'Resolve Hits' so that it says saves can be taken against hits (Field Saves), wounds, or injuries (Armour Saves). Allowing Field Saves to be taken at the hit stage removes any confusion in their current wording. (As a bonus, they would avoid 'on-hit' effects (like pinning) to give them a point of difference against conventional armour.)

Thirdly, I think the wording of Displacer Field's trigger (once only from multiple saves from the same attack) should be plonked on to all of them because it's clearer and means less additional rolls.
 
All great points. I've been thinking about an Ambiguities thread, this was the push I needed.
 
Great stuff @Jayward. One thing that still needs clarifying with field armour though - does it trigger for every attack in CC? And if yes, what happens with left over attacks when target gets teleported by displacer field?

Another weird thing is how displacer is worded: "if an attack has no strength, displacer does not work". I think it needs to be reworded since it makes toxin knives counter displacer fields better than a regular knife, which is just weird. I think displacer needs to be specifically worded that getting hit by gas or flash does not cause teleportation and that'd cover all possible weird interractions? Also displacer takes anyone who teleports out of the battlefield as counting OOA, which is too harsh in my opinion (also apparently their intention for all ground outside the battlefield's edges was to be an endless abyss?)
I respectfully disagree with your interpretation. I don't think Seismic was ever meant to pin targets that are not hit (the interaction with a scattered Blast marker would be hilariously stupid otherwise). Which is why it needs to be clarified.
I feel that the intention was that you pin target even if you miss it, otherwise the trait is too situational even for GW design. They've probably never gave a second thought about blast interractions with seismic (or playtested them to begin with :mad: ). I think that you always pin the target, unless you are using a blast weapon and your blast scatters.
...
Digi needs to be clarified. If you carry 10 digi weapons, can you use all of them during the same Fight action?
...
We also need to clarify how ammo checks work on melee weapons (digi or laser). Is it once per Fight action? Once per attack? If I fail an ammo check what happens with the rest of attacks?
 
Great stuff @Jayward. One thing that still needs clarifying with field armour though - does it trigger for every attack in CC? And if yes, what happens with left over attacks when target gets teleported by displacer field?

Another weird thing is how displacer is worded: "if an attack has no strength, displacer does not work". I think it needs to be reworded since it makes toxin knives counter displacer fields better than a regular knife, which is just weird. I think displacer needs to be specifically worded that getting hit by gas or flash does not cause teleportation and that'd cover all possible weird interractions? Also displacer takes anyone who teleports out of the battlefield as counting OOA, which is too harsh in my opinion (also apparently their intention for all ground outside the battlefield's edges was to be an endless abyss?)

Yeah, it depends on how we end up defining 'attack'. I'm hoping we end up taking the route where you make one "melee attack" as part of a Fight action which consists of (say) simultaneously rolling three "attack dice" (or making three "attack rolls"), generating two "hits", and so on.

That way everything gets fast rolled, and a lot of the effects would happen simultaneously (So if an attack roll generates a flesh wound it wouldn't give -1T to other attack rolls from the same attack; all the injury rolls would be simultaneous). It also allows for a lot of the troublesome effects to move to a more Rad-Phage-like effect where the attack triggers the effect once even if there are multiple hits.

Based on that and with the current wording of the Displacer Field you would attempt the save against every hit in CC, and if you make one or more then you teleport once. I think because the attacks would be simultaneous you would still take the damage from any hits you didn't save, even if you teleport. After all, at that point you've been hit, the rest is just working out how hard you've been hit. Which feels about right, to be honest
 
I think that you always pin the target, unless you are using a blast weapon and your blast scatters.
This has already been discussed to death before. This interpretation doesn't make any sense to me, both mechanically or narratively (in 40k, Seismic weapon destroy things by making them vibrate, not the ground they are standing on, and even if you ignore that it doesn't make sense that a fighter you miss is pinned while the fighter standing 1" next to them (or other fighters next to the line of fire) are not — mechanically, the interaction with Stray shots makes as much sense as the interaction with Blast)
The only interpretation that makes some sense is that it negates Nerves of Steel. It's extremely situational, yes, but not much more than the "only Power can Parry Power" rule (that only applies to the Power sword)