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Old 02-27-2021, 04:21 PM   #4
Fennefell
 
Join Date: Feb 2021
Default Re: Request for Feedback on Warhammer 40,000 Handbook

Quote:
Originally Posted by MrFix View Post
I found it of dubious need to have a separate Legality Class for Astartes equipment. Normally the rarity of items is appraised by the penalty to Merchant roll to purchase it, with LC indicating how illegal it is to hold it - meaning government will shoot at you for having certain stuff beyond your clearance.

Scout Marine equipment is certainly not LC4 in normal understanding, which adds confusion, and it doesn't really help with figuring out how to purchase 'rare' gear.

Ditto for Inquisition gear.

Legality to Money conversion is just weird, it has no reason to exist unless it is a flat tax on owning items of this legality.

In short, I'd advise against using Legality Class as a stand in for item rarity, and advise against having multiple different types of legality classes that are seldom about legality and do not really interact with each other. Instead, look into Merchant skill.

In equipment section, Laser weapons have no business running off of Guns skill instead of Beam Weapons. Giving Lasguns (2) AD seems weird when Dark Heresy equalized Autogun and Lasgun damage, with both having 0 pen and 1d10+3 damage die.
Legality class is meant to represent a conjunction of faction (General, Astartes, Inquisition, etc.) and rarity within that factioann. The "General" subclass maps to the standard LC-4 - LC-0; the other's do not. As noted on page 6 and 7, the other factions map to between LC-2 and LC-0, depending on the item. The standard LC system is not sufficient for the needs in this case, as the granularity is not sufficient. Please reread page 6-7 to understand the exact mappings.

Similarly, the legality to money conversion is not a flat tax, nor is it meant to be a conversion but rather guidelines. Wealth is not in scope of the book, and abstract wealth is meant to be used. It's reason to exist is to provide guidelines on cost for items based off legality, as both are linked in Warhammer 40,000. The legality classes are about legality, and do interact with each other; please reread the specific section for each legality class to see their relative interactions and specific legality. They also act as a guideline for the cost of items. It is highly unclear to me how the Merchant skill would aid in this.

As per the lasgun, it acts as a Gun because it, for all purposes, a Gun (with the slight exception of bullet drop); a person with Guns who picked up a lasgun would be able to use it with familiarity penalties, not as a default. Beam weapons is reserved for weaponry that has significant differences from Guns, such as the meltagun. I am not using Dark Heresy as a metric for anything for multiple reasons, the most relevant in this case being that I need to balance the handbook with the rest of GURPS. The handbook is meant to be read considering internal balance, balance within GURPS, and design considerations to maximize GM design space, with strict adherence to lore being one of the lowest priorities.
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