Dark Heresy 2nd edition Beta is out

[Gunhead]

I think I may have an idea, then. The biggest problem I've run into is really weird scaling at different power levels and a lot of stuff tending towards some skills being really high odds of success on opposed checks. I was actually asking for opinions because I've been tinkering with RPGs recently and wanted another opinion.

What is it you had in mind? If you ask me, the first thing to do is ditch the d100 for something more manageable like d20. It's useless to use a dice with such high granularity when the system doesn't use it for anything. Outside attributes being other than multiples of 5, all modifiers are and you don't really lose much if you just round everything to the nearest five.

One other idea I was testing was using d20 with another dice for difficulty i.e d20 + d4 or d20 - d4 if it's easy. You can get +- adjustments in steps of two up to D12 this way. I never tried running a game with this so I only know it looks pretty decent on paper. Not my original idea either, there is a rpg from the 80's that used a system like this. I forget the name though. Feel free to test it out.

-Gunhead

[White Haven]

I'm curious, Gunhead, what makes a d100 any more or less manageable than a d20 or a d12 or whatever? To me, it's all about what you do with the number once you have it, not what scale the number is on.

[xthetenth]

I think I may have an idea, then. The biggest problem I've run into is really weird scaling at different power levels and a lot of stuff tending towards some skills being really high odds of success on opposed checks. I was actually asking for opinions because I've been tinkering with RPGs recently and wanted another opinion.

What is it you had in mind? If you ask me, the first thing to do is ditch the d100 for something more manageable like d20. It's useless to use a dice with such high granularity when the system doesn't use it for anything. Outside attributes being other than multiples of 5, all modifiers are and you don't really lose much if you just round everything to the nearest five.

One other idea I was testing was using d20 with another dice for difficulty i.e d20 + d4 or d20 - d4 if it's easy. You can get +- adjustments in steps of two up to D12 this way. I never tried running a game with this so I only know it looks pretty decent on paper. Not my original idea either, there is a rpg from the 80's that used a system like this. I forget the name though. Feel free to test it out.

-Gunhead

I've been working on a system, and I picked d100 over d20 not because of the granularity because of two advantages I feel d100 has and the fact that I don't really think the numbers being smaller for d20 are that big a deal because it's both two digit numbers.

First it maps linearly to percentage, which helps in theorycrafting (and on the fly battle planning), which I feel is important to playability because the earlier people get a feel for what the numbers mean the sooner they make informed decisions and the less likely it is that there's a seriously problematic interparty power disparity. Sure, you don't need the extra numbers for very similar play, but for readability it's easier to say rolling higher than 65 is a 35% chance than it is to say that rolling higher than a 13 is a 35% chance.

Second, the tens digit being separate and much more granular is very handy. Except for the one in ten chance of rolling with the same tens digit, a roll of d100 can be judged a success or failure by comparing one digit, which is a bit easier. This actually wound up being a lot less relevant later due to the dice rolling mechanic I've been playing with but even then when playtesting I find it just as fast to work as a d20 system with dice and faster with a computer dice roller with a notably more complex dice roll than straight pass/fail.

The mechanic I've been toying around with because I kind of have a problem with binary pass/fail as a systematic thing because I really like the idea of decisions following from imperfect successes is as follows. Subtract the difficulty of the check/opponent's relevant skill for an opposed check from the player's relevant skill and add d100 to the result. The result is as follows with examples of a hypothetical lockpicking scenario in parentheses:

20 or less: complete failure (You jam the lock and make a noise. If you want to get through that door be prepared to knock it down and make more noise.)
50 or less: mixed failure (You can get the lock open, but it's going to have to be by jimmying it open, which will make some noise and leave signs of your presence.)
80 or less: mixed success (You can get the lock open with an easy stealth check to close the door behind you without making any noise.)
Greater than 80: complete success (You open the lock without noise and can leave the door however you want it.)

Yes it's a bit more complex, but in return for that, note that every roll leads to at least some choice and gives the player some wiggle room in case of failure to try to make something of it. Also handily for a setting for huge power disparities it scales indefinitely and a difference of 10 is always the same rather than how weird straight up percentile dice can get with their distributions.

[Zinegata]

The problem isn't actually with choosing either a D100 or a D20. The problem with the D100 games (including the old Dark Heresy games) is that players tended to have a much worse than even chance of success at accomplishing anything; because the system insists on keeping stats in the 30s-40s range in order to "synch" with the tabletop game wherein most characters only have BS3/4 (e.g. a BS 34 in Dark Heresy is supposed to be a BS3 Guardsman).

Of course, this synching actually doesn't work at all because the D100 system works off a full D100, whereas the tabletop uses a D6. The probabilities of a DH BS 34 hitting (34% hit chance) and a tabletop BS3 hitting (50% hit chance - BS3 hits at a 4+) are completely different.

In short, the DM needs to keep giving extra bonuses so they don't fail to hit the broad side of a barn, because they tried to force-fit tabletop math into the RPG math.

In most cases, giving every character stats in the 60s tends to work better, with the DM just minusing from that when the PCs are trying stuff that's really, really hard.

[bilateralrope]

In short, the DM needs to keep giving extra bonuses so they don't fail to hit the broad side of a barn, because they tried to force-fit tabletop math into the RPG math.

In combat there are plenty of bonuses available for the players to grab themselves. An autogun user can get an easy +20. +10 from getting the enemy within 45m (getting into melee is viable), another +10 from using semi-auto or aiming before firing a single shot*. So a player with the average BS of 30 will be hitting half the time. Use a full-auto burst, with a +20 bonus, and you're looking at hitting on a 60 or less.
If it's only a single shot weapon, a red-dot sight is a cheap +10.

*Using the first edition DH rules. Only war changed the bonuses on fire rates, but I don't recall the new numbers ATM.

As for non-combat tests, a modifier of +0 represents a challenging test. Getting that 30% of the time doesn't seem too bad, especially if the GM treats them like combat tests where the only penalty for failure is time unless there is a good reason for a worse penalty (like failing a security test badly enough to trip the alarm).

The 40k RPGs have always seemed like one where situational modifiers should be the norm.

[Zinegata]

The 40k RPGs have always seemed like one where situational modifiers should be the norm.

Which is the problem. You shouldn't be adding situational modifiers every single bloody roll. Your base statistics should instead reflect your ability to do a regular (not challenging!) task, and you only add or subtract to it during uncommon or rare circumstances.

The end result is that most DH/WH DMs tend to start off thinking that challenging tasks are the default, which quickly falls apart, which then requires them giving bonuses on almost every roll. That's just bad design; and making people bend over backwards to have some semblance of "synch" with the tabletop game even though RPG players almost never port their characters to the tabletop to begin with.

[bilateralrope]

Easy access to situational modifiers in combat gives a much more tactical feel as each bonus comes with a cost or time and/or ammo, or are just straight gear upgrades. Remove those modifiers, and you lose the tactical feel while gaining nothing. Get a decent GM and it's not just a tactical feel, as the choice between moving or staying put to get bonuses is a tricky one.
Once the starting characteristics are set to keep those modifiers in, you have to choose between different characteristic numbers for non-combat tests, or you go for lots of modifiers in them as well.

How does your suggestion of starting stats in the 60s work with in-combat modifiers like range ?

Do you have any proof that BI decided to sync the numbers with the tabletop ?
Because trying to sync the numbers while using a different sized die seems a very strange move.

[Zinegata]

Easy access to situational modifiers in combat gives a much more tactical feel as each bonus comes with a cost or time and/or ammo, or are just straight gear upgrades. Remove those modifiers, and you lose the tactical feel while gaining nothing. Get a decent GM and it's not just a tactical feel, as the choice between moving or staying put to get bonuses is a tricky one.

I'm not talking about situational or even tactical modifiers. You can still have those, the problem is that you almost always need to add something like a +20 to each roll because most challenges are actually mundane in nature, whereas the game sets its stats to assume that the game makes you do challenging tasks all the time.

Most groups who start out Dark Heresy that I know of inevitably find themselves failing very hard at most tasks, especially if the DM is unaware of this and doesn't constantly hand out situational modifiers.

Moreover, the idea that you are required to take so many tactical options in order to make your DH character barely effective is not a feature; it is a massive design problem - it's essentially saying "Even if you powergame your character will still be not very good". This entire premise is fundamentally flawed to begin with.

How does your suggestion of starting stats in the 60s work with in-combat modifiers like range ?

It works in that in most cases, you don't need to add an extra +20 for most checks. You only subtract 10 or 20 when you're actually facing real problematic enemies or taking very difficult shots.

It has nothing to do with adding or removing tactical options, but it has everything to do with rationalizing the game so that its base math actually works 95% of the time without needing to recalculate. This is the equivalent of getting rid of THAC0 because while THAC0 may be the same as the 3.X system of math, THAC0 is stupid because you're forced to calculate the damn thing backwards.

Do you have any proof that BI decided to sync the numbers wih the tabletop ?
Because trying to sync the numbers while using a different sized die seems a very strange move.

D100 is based off WHFRP, which did try to synch the numbers with the tabletop. This is why the tens digit is such a big deal in the early FFG books, which they've gradually dropped as they realized how stupid it was.

[Jub]

I don't see the issues that you have with the system Zinegata. Skills can be made easier with quality tools, training, aid another, and not require any arbitrary modifiers by the GM. You might need to roll with a few more failures or partial victories, but that happens even in mechanically solid games. It can get fiddly, but with skilled players and a DM that knows his modifiers it can roll along as fast as anything.

Then again I have few issues running 3.x/Pathfinder on the fly and I enjoy running CP2020 in spite of the very real flaws it has.

[Zinegata]

I don't see the issues that you have with the system Zinegata. Skills can be made easier with quality tools, training, aid another, and not require any arbitrary modifiers by the GM. You might need to roll with a few more failures or partial victories, but that happens even in mechanically solid games. It can get fiddly, but with skilled players and a DM that knows his modifiers it can roll along as fast as anything.

Then again I have few issues running 3.x/Pathfinder on the fly and I enjoy running CP2020 in spite of the very real flaws it has.

The issue is that you generally want your base success level to be at around 50% for an RPG, modified by your own bonuses and difficulty. For instance, in 3.X you roll a D20 against a "standard" armor class of 10. That gives you a 55% chance of succeeding. If you add tools (e.g. powergame) then you get a better result - something like 60-70% hit chance, even when the enemy has an AC higher than 10.

And note these success levels are for level 1 characters.

In Dark Heresy, with your starts being in the 30s, you only have a 30-40% base chance of succeeding at anything if you just look at the stats. And you generally stay there for a good long time. So you in fact need to constantly twink and scrape for every bonus (or, like most DMs, just give +20 to each task because the default challenge is supposed to be "challenging" anyway), which is again horrible, horrible design.

What it actually encourages is not "tactical skill", but homogenization. Everyone needs to take auto-weapons (or whatever big bonus option) because otherwise they aren't hitting anything. Which again is very, very bad design.

The correct thing to do is to give everyone a decent base chance - have stats in the 50s and 60s range. Then let the players pick options which give some bonuses, and have enemies that give some penalties. So even if you don't twink out your character you don't fail at everything and feel bad that you didn't take the auto-weapon that the party powergamer selected.

Again, there is nothing wrong with the D100 dice. The problem is that the DH is a child of WHFRP, which tried to make the roleplaying game characters and the tabletop characters compatible without realizing they used different dice and different resolution tables. A BS 34 character is supposed to have a 50% chance of hitting an enemy because that's the chance a BS 3 character has on the tabletop. Instead we get stuck with characters that are contantly missing the broad side of the barn because the FRP idiots didn't realize that 34% is not equal to 50%.

[Serafina]

Note that the new system assumes somewhat higher stats - plenty of talents assume stats in the 50+ range, and buying characteristic advances is less restricted (and expensive if compared to talent costs) than before.
I expect a character to have a rating of 60 in the characteristics of his speciality by rank 3-4, with a rating between 40 and 50 in secondary stats

So the complaint of too-low characteristics shouldn't be valid, at least for player characters.

[xthetenth]

Honestly if they wanted the tabletop sync, rather than messing with constant modifiers they really probably should've made being trained in a skill a +20.

[InsaneTD]

I think that the stats accurately refelct the feel of the universe. You aren't super hero. Not even a hero more often then not. You are an average human with one quality the "Inquistor" needs or wants, or you are just a warm body to fill the numbers. If you live, yay. Part the reward of completing a mission is the fact you survived.

The group I was in had no trouble with a mix of weapons. The only time we had a problem was when the guardsman got hold of grenades.

[Jub]

I don't see the issues that you have with the system Zinegata. Skills can be made easier with quality tools, training, aid another, and not require any arbitrary modifiers by the GM. You might need to roll with a few more failures or partial victories, but that happens even in mechanically solid games. It can get fiddly, but with skilled players and a DM that knows his modifiers it can roll along as fast as anything.

Then again I have few issues running 3.x/Pathfinder on the fly and I enjoy running CP2020 in spite of the very real flaws it has.

The issue is that you generally want your base success level to be at around 50% for an RPG, modified by your own bonuses and difficulty. For instance, in 3.X you roll a D20 against a "standard" armor class of 10. That gives you a 55% chance of succeeding. If you add tools (e.g. powergame) then you get a better result - something like 60-70% hit chance, even when the enemy has an AC higher than 10.

And note these success levels are for level 1 characters.

In Dark Heresy, with your starts being in the 30s, you only have a 30-40% base chance of succeeding at anything if you just look at the stats. And you generally stay there for a good long time. So you in fact need to constantly twink and scrape for every bonus (or, like most DMs, just give +20 to each task because the default challenge is supposed to be "challenging" anyway), which is again horrible, horrible design.

What it actually encourages is not "tactical skill", but homogenization. Everyone needs to take auto-weapons (or whatever big bonus option) because otherwise they aren't hitting anything. Which again is very, very bad design.

The correct thing to do is to give everyone a decent base chance - have stats in the 50s and 60s range. Then let the players pick options which give some bonuses, and have enemies that give some penalties. So even if you don't twink out your character you don't fail at everything and feel bad that you didn't take the auto-weapon that the party powergamer selected.

Again, there is nothing wrong with the D100 dice. The problem is that the DH is a child of WHFRP, which tried to make the roleplaying game characters and the tabletop characters compatible without realizing they used different dice and different resolution tables. A BS 34 character is supposed to have a 50% chance of hitting an enemy because that's the chance a BS 3 character has on the tabletop. Instead we get stuck with characters that are contantly missing the broad side of the barn because the FRP idiots didn't realize that 34% is not equal to 50%.

It doesn't really follow that you don't have success 50% of the time once you add in factors like aiming, help from other PCs, and quality tools. That's a little more fiddly than some systems that don't have a cap at 100 (D&D for example would just allow you to stack bonuses) but 50% success should be reasonably common. It also doesn't follow that all combat will boil down to the same things, just in ranged combat you can get bonuses for fast draw, careful aiming, close range fire, and bursts/rapid fire and those are just from actions add in sights, laser dots, high quality weapons, and different ammo types. Once you spend some experience or add in some psychic powers you might even have an advantage over the enemy.

Plus, even if you disagree with the ways to get to 50% the enemy should be roughly the same skill and of course in a grittier setting you tend to end up with more misses just because half of all shots don't hit in real life. With a great DM misses can be tense because you're trading fire and don't know if the next bullet could be headed for your head. Noncombat tasks can just take longer, make more noise, or force the party to make a choice. Perhaps I just have a higher tolerance for bad systems than some, but I'm not seeing that these rules are bad in the way that you're saying.

[xthetenth]

Tolerance for flaws in a game system can often be translated to using or having a GM who uses good practices like that. A good game system is one which plays well for good GMs but also encourages bad ones to be less bad. For example, the smooth model of progressively more success you note in the premade adventures is all good and well but in use the single die roll makes it really tempting to be flat success/failure with maybe something for exceptional rolls because it's hard to come up with good things for degrees of success on the fly (this is a place where I think the granularity can be troublesome because it encourages a bad practice, but that's not with d100, it's actually with implicit 1d10, amusingly enough).

[Jub]

I guess, I know some pretty bad DMs who have monsters jump out at you in every dungeon room and don't know how things are supposed to work, but they're bad in Pathfinder where they have CRs and stuff to guide them. I don't think better rules would save them, I think that a better DMG or a GM's section can go a long well to helping as might a quality GM screen. In the end this system will have wrinkles with a new or bad GM, but I haven't seen many that have a mix of everything (rules, fluff, fluidity, combat feel) that you'd want as a new player/GM.

In the end you get better by playing the game and working under and learning from other GM's and players. Codifying things in rules won't make the games any better, it'll just create more situations where the GM doesn't have to think about how he can personally spice things up. I'd rather there be some things that aren't written down just so I don't need to house rule them away.

[Zinegata]

Note that the new system assumes somewhat higher stats - plenty of talents assume stats in the 50+ range, and buying characteristic advances is less restricted (and expensive if compared to talent costs) than before.

Yeah, I figured that would happen because most of their newer games also assume higher stats. FFG to its credit did understand that the stat system didn't work after DH.

I think that the stats accurately refelct the feel of the universe. You aren't super hero.

Yes, but the problem is that DH characters have problems hitting the broad side of a barn, when their tabletop stats (not to mention the fluff) clearly suggests they should be able to manage this. The problem isn't DH characters not able to solo Daemon Princes ala Superman. The problem is that they can't even do the things that their limited powers are SUPPOSED to be able to do.

Frankly, 50% success rate minimum should be a given if the task is something the character is supposed to do all the time. If you're a soldier with rifle training, then you'd better have passed the basic marksmanship course and hit something consistently. Otherwise your character is just fail.

Plus, even if you disagree with the ways to get to 50% the enemy should be roughly the same skill and of course in a grittier setting you tend to end up with more misses just because half of all shots don't hit in real life

The grittiness of the setting is not actually enhanced by the crappy success rate, at all, because everyone is too busy failing to accomplish anything. As-is (without GM modification) DH games actually tend to be a game of "Who shoots themselves in the foot first?", because what actually happens is that everyone - enemies included - are too busy ailing their own rolls to do anything meaningful unless the GM starts handing bonuses OR everyone just packs auto-weapons.

I you want a gritty setting, you actually tweak the HP system. D&D 3.X is "high fantasy" mainly because hitpoints grow pretty quickly (you double your hitpoints when you hit 2nd level) thus making your characters much more survivable. It only falls apart again later - in the teen levels - when a whole slew of "instant death" spells are introduced which bypass the HP pool entirely.

DH - where it's hard to get additional wounds (HP) - is sort of a step in the right direction. The problem is that the toughness + armor thing actually tends to make combat much less lethal (especially combined with the "Everyone waiting to see who shoots their foot first" situations); not to mention the fact that FFG also realized that while people love claiming they like "gritty" games, in practice players whine badly when their characters die and hence newer books in the FFG 40K RPG line are more generous with wound total.

[Zinegata]

Honestly if they wanted the tabletop sync, rather than messing with constant modifiers they really probably should've made being trained in a skill a +20.

It was never really a well thought-out sync, which is why the newer FFG books almost drop any attempt at synching entirely. Their Space Marines for instance are effective Str 8 on the tabletop.

Also, note that a BS4 character has a higher hit chance (66%) than the progression from BS30 to BS40. The whole damn thing just doesn't work.

[Feil]

Not going to argue that DH isn't a deeply flawed system, because it is. But the DM hardly needs to go handing out bonuses in combat to make things work: the modifiers apply themselves automatically as a result of combat actions and positioning. A tolerably competent rifleman (BS35) with a rifle (range: 100m) at typical rpg engagement ranges (15-50m, the limit of what you can reasonably put on a combat map divided into 1m squares), who either aims before every shot or fires semi-auto bursts (using his full turn to attack, instead of trying to run and gun), is already rolling against 55% to hit, fresh out of character creation with no special equipment. Apparently 34% is 50% after all.

[Imperial Overlord]

Zinegata's point stands. It isn't that Dark Heresy doesn't have ways for compensating for the fact that stats are generally in the 30-40 range. It does. His point is that it's better to have stats in a higher range and do less number crunching to get to reasonable success numbers. It's not a crippling design flaw by any means, but it does make the game play more complicated than if the stats worked better.

[Gunhead]

I'm curious, Gunhead, what makes a d100 any more or less manageable than a d20 or a d12 or whatever? To me, it's all about what you do with the number once you have it, not what scale the number is on.

It's about granularity and how modifiers are tallied. +-5% is pretty much the smallest useful modifier to keep tally of and having a single die to roll makes rolling multiple dice much more easier if that is desirable. Smaller numbers are simply put faster too, specially if they're in nice neat even steps. This simplifies things like calculating margins of success too. How fast you can calculate stuff is highly variable from person to person, but it's generally good game design to have your smallest modifier used by the game to be represented as the smallest digit on the dice you're using. This has more impact when you're using a system where it's important to know by what margin did you succeed in addition to just doing success / fail check, in a "make every digit count" kinda way.
Some of this goes a lot into personal preference too, but I generally dislike it when the granularity of the dice is out of sync with the modifiers given by the system. It gives a sense that people didn't really think through what sort of action their system was meant to represent.

-Gunhead

[bilateralrope]

I've seen people complaining about the wound system making sniper weapons unable to score 1-shot kills. I can see what they mean. Sniper weapons as they are now simply don't deal enough damage to cause a fatal wound, at most they cause the target to start bleeding out or burning to death. The only instant kill possibility is righteous fury on lesser enemies, but other weapons can do the same thing.

Moreover, the idea that you are required to take so many tactical options in order to make your DH character barely effective is not a feature; it is a massive design problem - it's essentially saying "Even if you powergame your character will still be not very good". This entire premise is fundamentally flawed to begin with.

Since when was powergaming limited to what's on your character sheet ?

How does your suggestion of starting stats in the 60s work with in-combat modifiers like range ?

It works in that in most cases, you don't need to add an extra +20 for most checks. You only subtract 10 or 20 when you're actually facing real problematic enemies or taking very difficult shots.

It has nothing to do with adding or removing tactical options, but it has everything to do with rationalizing the game so that its base math actually works 95% of the time without needing to recalculate. This is the equivalent of getting rid of THAC0 because while THAC0 may be the same as the 3.X system of math, THAC0 is stupid because you're forced to calculate the damn thing backwards.

I have got no idea what THAC0 is.

As for removing tactical options, with higher base numbers you are going to do one of the following:
- The standard attack action comes with a penalty.
- Anyone using tactical options gets a higher hit chance than the 50% you think is ideal.
- You dump the tactical options.

Which would you suggest doing ?

Do you have any proof that BI decided to sync the numbers wih the tabletop ?
Because trying to sync the numbers while using a different sized die seems a very strange move.

D100 is based off WHFRP, which did try to synch the numbers with the tabletop. This is why the tens digit is such a big deal in the early FFG books, which they've gradually dropped as they realized how stupid it was.

You still haven't proven any link between any of the tabletop games and RPG. Just shifted which game and tabletop you claim are linked.

The issue is that you generally want your base success level to be at around 50% for an RPG, modified by your own bonuses and difficulty.

Please prove that having a base success level that isn't around 50% is an objectively bad thing. Because it sounds very subjective to me, especially when you consider how the mechanics interact with the games themes.

I've played a wide range of RPGs, with all sorts of hit chances for fresh characters. I've even played one that uses a Jenga tower instead of dice. At no point have I felt like their base success rate being something other than 50% is a problem.

For instance, in 3.X you roll a D20 against a "standard" armor class of 10. That gives you a 55% chance of succeeding. If you add tools (e.g. powergame) then you get a better result - something like 60-70% hit chance, even when the enemy has an AC higher than 10.

Or are you just saying that since D&D does it, it must be right ?

Because there are so many things I don't like about D&D that I don't play it. So if that is the argument you are going with, you have better have a really convincing argument for that.

And note these success levels are for level 1 characters.

Those numbers I calculated above that get an easy 50% hit chance are also for fresh characters. Since you're talking about combat chance here, they are still relevant.

For the 50% hit chance you're talking about in D&D, what other things do players do on the turns where they have that hit chance ?

Yes, but the problem is that DH characters have problems hitting the broad side of a barn, when their tabletop stats (not to mention the fluff) clearly suggests they should be able to manage this. The problem isn't DH characters not able to solo Daemon Princes ala Superman. The problem is that they can't even do the things that their limited powers are SUPPOSED to be able to do.

No they do not. 50% hit rate on a human target sitting at typical ranges (ranges that make melee a viable option) is easy.

[bilateralrope]

I'm curious, Gunhead, what makes a d100 any more or less manageable than a d20 or a d12 or whatever? To me, it's all about what you do with the number once you have it, not what scale the number is on.

It's about granularity and how modifiers are tallied. +-5% is pretty much the smallest useful modifier to keep tally of and having a single die to roll makes rolling multiple dice much more easier if that is desirable. Smaller numbers are simply put faster too, specially if they're in nice neat even steps. This simplifies things like calculating margins of success too. How fast you can calculate stuff is highly variable from person to person, but it's generally good game design to have your smallest modifier used by the game to be represented as the smallest digit on the dice you're using. This has more impact when you're using a system where it's important to know by what margin did you succeed in addition to just doing success / fail check, in a "make every digit count" kinda way.
Some of this goes a lot into personal preference too, but I generally dislike it when the granularity of the dice is out of sync with the modifiers given by the system. It gives a sense that people didn't really think through what sort of action their system was meant to represent.

-Gunhead

I can see what you mean. It sounds like the second edition makes your complaint worse. Degrees of success/failure are determined by the difference between the tens digits on the dice and target value. Eg if the target value is 40, rolling 41-49 is one DoF. 55-59 is 2 DoF. 40 is the only value that succeeds with 1 DoS, 30-19 gets 2.

The only time the granularity of a D100 comes into play is with psykers, where doubles trigger phenomena, rolling stats or on minor stat changes. If it drops to d20, rolling stats can be easily dumped and psykers just need to roll a second die to check for phenomena. Losing the minor stat loss from injury would be the biggest hit to the game.

[xthetenth]

Literally every single attack roll uses the granularity to provide a hit location as a useful adjunct to an attack roll, although frankly they should have organized the locations so the higher numbers hit the locations that make for easier kills as a little extra neat thing for slightly higher skill values other than a few percent hit chance.

[White Haven]

With regards to sniper weapons, are these complaints regarding the inability to one-hit-kill being made by complete goddamned idiots who don't know how amazingly destructive the Accurate weapon trait is? I think they are. I really, really think they are. Because 'throw another couple d10s at the problem' with a good roll is most definitely capable of one-shotting a vast panoply of assholes.