I've been reading on the forums that alot of people use BlackCrusade rules but with DeathWatch settings and marines.

I do own both manuals but I just briefly looked inside the Black Crusade without reading much. What seems to be the issue where BC have better rules?
Can someone give me some example and/or suggestions?

Hi there,

I guess one of the most accepted changes are new rules for Single Shot, Burst and Full Auto, namely +10, +-0 and -10 to BS.

Together with the alternate Weapon Statistics from the Deathwatch Errata the combat system is viewed as better than before.

Cheers,

-- TechVoid

TechVoid said:

First of all thanks for the reply.

I do have the Living Errata 1.1 of DeathWatch but there is not mentioning of the Single Shot, Burst And Full Auto thingy. Unless is in the BlackCrusade rules?

ExGemini said:

Exactly. The DW Errata simply changes the Weapon Statistics and the BC Rulebook comes up with the new modifiers for the different fire options.

Cheers,

-- TechVoid

TechVoid said:

Again thanks :)

 Along the lines of this post (and sorry for the kinda-sorta-not-really-a-tangent), have many people adopted the changes to parry and melee attacks (i.e. swift and lightning attack)? I'm pondering to include them in my own games, but I'm still unsure of what their effects in actual play are.

Other than adopting the changes to Single Shot, Semi-Auto Burst, and Full Auto Fir from Black Crusade, I suggest against adopting anything else. It really is better to leave each game system (or each rule set) self-contained. But, if you do adopt melee changes from Black Crusade, then adopt all of them. But you'll have to read them several times and do the comparisons with Deathwatch, and I recommend you do some testing on your own before dropping it into your game.

Melee combats will go one of two ways: they will be over far faster than you'd like, or they will drag on and on and on…and it's all left to the roll of dice, which you cannot control.   

Alekzanter said:

Yeah, the idea would be to go all or nothing with them. However, the changes to swift/lightning attack seem like they can be problematic when fighting hordes (a good roll makes for a ton of hits on the horde), and against single, big enemies, make combat far more swingy (a character with the lightning attack talent will take 3 attacks in DW, which yields more consistently average results than the BC method, which makes it a far more "all or nothing" affair, even if, on the long run, the number of hits would be comparable, statistically speaking).

It also seems that the weapons have been revised heavily for Black Crusade (housemate finally got it last week). It goes beyond the errata stats and smooth's it out somewhat, heavy weapons for instance don't do as much damage, auto cannons are semi auto (which is something I've mentioned before and I think will work well).

But I'm not sure I would incorperate them into DW directly. The big bad guys and vehicles are stated for different weapon stats so that might mean the first chaos rhino is completely indestructable or that a vast disparity between classes (looking at your Librarians) might turn up.

Alekzanter said:

I'm not sure if you can do this. These changes have ripple effects. And I'm not sure it's worth it since DW has very few full auto weapons (using errated weapons).

 I'm a big fan of the changes to Unnatural Characteristics. Black Crusade shifted them from Multipliers to Modifiers, and I much prefer that.

Plushy said:

And BODMAS rejoiced, for many idiots finally got their equations correct that day!

Plushy said:

I'm with you on this. The modifiers give me more to play with before getting to the over powered broken state, when I am making the villains for an adventure. Where the multipliers just get OP to quick to do much with.

I also like the change to WS and BS where they havea bonus like all the other stats, and all the changes made around that.