Dark Heresy - Full Auto and Suppressive Fire

[Magua]

Inspired by the discussion at www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?529225-Any-advise-on-Dark-Heresy&p=22167937

I've long had a problem with full auto and suppressive fire, with both being "too good." Suppressive fire allows someone to force a really hard WP check on anyone with no check on their part. Full auto gives a huge bonus to hit and gives additional hits on success.

The only downside for either (besides using a full action rather than a half action) is that they use more ammo, but for guns where the clip size is 20x the full auto ROF, this doesn't seem like much of a downside.

So basically everyone with a non-accurate gun used one of those near exclusively -- no reason to use single shot unless you're moving, no reason to use semi auto ever.

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So in my (newly started) game, I've hit both of those with the nerf bat -- full auto can get the +20 to hit /or/ do additional hits, but not both at the same time. Suppressive fire requires multiple people suppressing the same area.

(Part of this was also to keep a group of six thugs from swiss cheesing the PCs.)

However, reading the other thread, I'm wondering now if I'm overly gimping the acolytes. The assassin in the party uses an accurate weapon, so unaffected; however, the Guard, the Psyker, and the Cleric all have autoguns that they use when they can't do anything else, and the Cleric has complained that the changes make that useless for him.

So I'm looking for thoughts, opinions, possible alternate house rules, etc.

[Destro_Yersul]

Yeah, those options are good. I kinda like them being good, since the PCs really need some advantages, but Full-Auto at least is something that has changed over the course of editions. In DH2e, the bonuses for everything are changed. Full Auto is at -10, Semi auto at +0, and Single Shot at +10. Semi and Full can still get multiple hits. If you're really worried about it, maybe consider doing that.

I wouldn't change suppression. Yeah, it forces WP checks, but it's also the most useful thing a low BS character can do with an autogun, and the chances of it actually killing anything are abysmal. You have a party of four people. Why change it so that two of them need to take the same action to make that action useful? You're basically telling them that in order to accomplish something, one of them doesn't get to take a turn.

[Chijinda]

You could always use the system that later 40k TTRPG systems did which is +10 for single shot, +0 for Semi-Auto and -10 for Full Auto (as proposed above). Also, suppressive fire is fine. If in doubt, throw some higher WP opponents at the party if it's REALLY bugging you.


As far as DH1 is concerned though, while Autoguns are STUPIDLY efficient weapons, I found they tend to fall off quite a bit once you start throwing tougher enemies the Acolytes' way. Autoguns will shred lightly armored troops, sure, but they are significantly less effective against things like Orks or Daemons (this may be campaign bias, as my GM threw a LOT of Orks at us in our campaign). There's also close combat. Here's a suggestion; Do not let them get clear line of fire against their enemies. Are they investigating some dark tomb? Maybe the enemies come lunging out of cover right on top of them. Hell. Give the enemy cover to use. A single group of heavily armored troopers in a dimly lit corrider, with access to cover, using flame weapons is gonna cause Acolyes considerable trouble if they're relying on autoguns unless they get REALLY lucky.

I don't want to say: "Just ramp up the encounters" but put yourself in your villains' shoes. If the Acolytes are chewing through your lightly armored guys are you going to keep throwing lightly armored guys at them in anything short of an extreme ambush situation?

And as far as the villains are concerned, the same applies-- tactics and cover can greatly mitigate the effectiveness of an autogun, the Acolytes just have to use it. If you're standing out in the open, while the enemy uses cover and intelligent tactics, of COURSE you are going to get turned into shredded wheat.

[Destro_Yersul]

Yeah, I second the above. Good encounter design is crucial. I don't know what you have been doing, bmake sure it's not flat rooms filled with chest high walls. 40k is filled with huge grandiose architecture and tiny cramped corridors. Have the acolytes get into a running gun battle in a series of dripping, rat-infested tunnels in the underhive. Give them huge multi-level refinery rooms with gantries and tangles of pipes everywhere. Maybe drop them in a mist filled swamp with terrible visibility and misshapen trees with clutching branches. The design of the battlefield can really change the tone of the encounter.

[Magua]

Thanks guys.

I removed the house rule on suppressive fire, and changed full auto or semi auto so you could get either multiple hits modifying the BS roll by -10/+0 respectively, or you could forgo multiple hits for +20/+10 to hit instead.

(Yes, I realize the +10 to hit semiauto option is silly because you could always just aim+shoot, but there you go.)

So far it's worked out okay. Fights have also introduced a lot more cover, and smaller lines of sight, so that's also been useful.

[Glorthindel]

I find it see-saws a bit.

Certainly early game, everyone starts packing autoguns full of manstoppers, and full autos their way to victory (or goes with the combat shotguns at point blank), but as characters level up and everyone gets more armour (and monsters start racking up unnatural toughness and daemonic auras), they become fairly ineffectual (to the point where my players started nicknaming them "fishing rods" since their only point was to roll lots of dice fishing for Righteous Furys), and everyone graduates up to bolt weapons for tearing goodness, or meta and power for complete armour negation.

Granted, it does come back in to play when the heavy weaponry starts coming out, so even if you backtrack on the rule for now, I suggest keeping a way of stopping the game devolving into Autocannon and Heavy Bolter spam.

[Chijinda]

Granted, it does come back in to play when the heavy weaponry starts coming out, so even if you backtrack on the rule for now, I suggest keeping a way of stopping the game devolving into Autocannon and Heavy Bolter spam.

To be fair there's a VERY easy way of handling that. Two actually. One is the Dark Heresy weight system. If you are packing an Autocannon, that is ALL you are packing. Those things are, if memory serves, so heavy that when my GM of my last campaign calculated it out, he realized that the party Guardsman was the only person who could carry an Autocannkn AND wear her armor at the same time without being encumbered by the sheer weight.

The second way is to encourage not drawing attention to yourself. You're the Inquisition, not the Astartes. If you are walking around with an autocannon or Heavy Bolter then people are going to be staring and talking about you, and tipping off your enemies. If anyone here hasn't read the novel "Nightbringer" there's an excellent scene in which an undercover Inquisitor is forced into a fight and draws his power sword to fight off the threat, effectively blowing his cover on the spot (to quote one of the onlookers: "What kind of an Adept has a power sword!?")

Besides which, if you end up in a situation where you actually NEED that autocannon or heavy bolter then at that point it's time to call in the Imperial Guard or PDF.