I'm looking for a little thought and insight on the subject.

I've never liked the static "to-hit" roll of most RPGs. In real life, there is always a modifier based on the opposed skill of two combatants. It doesn't matter if it's boxing, wrestling, fencing, martial arts, etc. For example, an expert Olympic Fencer will always have a significant advantage striking or defending against a novice. Yet he will have no advantage against another Olympic Fencer of the same caliber. And that's just the subtle movements, posturing, and experience that factor into the skill. (Skills, Talents, "feats", etc. are something entirely different and are factored seperately).

I'd like to see a system more like Warhammer 40,0000. Your basic to-hit roll depends on your Weapon Skill vs. opponent's Weapon Skill.

What about something simple like: +10 to-hit if your Weapon Skill is twice as much as your opponent's. And -10 if their Weapon Skill is twice as much as yours? I'd like to find something more in-depth yet still streamlined for quick game play. Any thought?

Taken from another RP-Houserule, just something pulled from thin air mostly:

- In Melee, an Attack automatically hits. However, should the attack fail, the opponent gains a +10 to parry for the failure and another +10 for every degree of fail his opponent achieved.

- Furthermore, damage and pen are reduced by 1 for the initial failure and a further -1 for each degree of failure, to a maximum of Zero. Furthermore, Righteous Fury can not occur.

- In order to alleviate the increased amount of attacks which can inflict damage, each character can parry as often as he wants, but suffers a cumulative -10 penalty on each parrying-attempt after the first. Wall of Steel gives one additional penalty-free parry or reduces the cumulative penalty from -10 to -5, although that might be a bit too brutal.

- Furthermore, the Talent "Counterattack" receives a cumulative +10 Bonus for every degree of success achieved on a successful test to parry.

Makes Melee potentially a lot more deadly (especially when outnumbered), makes melee-focused characters potentially invincible, dodge would need to be incorporated.

Note, I'm not using the system nor have I tested it, just pulled it out of thin air from another system I'm playing which uses a similar train of thought (at least in our house rules). So, yeah, take with a big spoon of salt

The major way that comparative skill is meant to matter is through the Reaction mechanic (namely more skilled characters had higher parry and/or dodge scores and so would be better able to avoid attacks). You say you regard Talents etc as separate from skill, but in the original system this was never really meant to be the case. From the fact that even in the more restrictive Dark Heresy class structure everybody eventually had access to Swift Attack (even the non-combat characters), and from the write ups for various NPCs it is clear that the original designers saw the Talents system as another part of the expression of skill of a character, rather than special abilities for certain characters as they were treated in the later games (ok, some Talents did represent this, like Psy Rating, but some didn't). Basically, as you got better at fighting it was kind of taken as a given that you would take the extra Attack and Reaction Talents.

Not had enough time to look at the updates in the new rulebook to comment how it works here, but based on the previous changes FFG have made it does feel like they see Talents as being more like special abilities...

Another issue is that it isn't going to be that often that you are going to have a position where someone has a WS twice as high as another character. The degrees of difference between characters in the 40k RPG system isn't that large, and tends to max out at +30 odd over base stats. Only the most extreme foes or characters well into their progression facing real mooks are going to ever be in that position.

I'm just looking for a simple way to factor opposed weapon skills. Perhaps a slight bonus if your skill is higher, and a slight penalty if your skill is less.

I think the game designers used a static to-hit mechanic because they copied it from other companies. It seems to be the industry standard at the moment.

As for skill vs feats. There is a difference in the real world. For example, in Olympic wresting one wrestler can stall while on the mat. He looks as if he's hardly moving. There is no "dodge", "parry", or any other feat occurring. Yet there is tremendous amount of skill and subtle movement that his is employing. Conversely, his opponent is directly opposing his skill and a myriad number of movements and tactics to reposition his opponent.

You can also see how important opposed weapon skill is in martial arts and other forms of combat where a highly trained expert attacks flawlessly and defends flawlessly against a novice. No feat or attempted feat really factors in no matter how hard the novice tries. The expert makes it look easy, as if he didn't even try. That is absolutely due to opposed weapon skill.

Wrestling would generally be covered by grappling, which already involves opposed tests (although in DH it's opposed Strength not opposed WS). I'm pretty sure that Parry and Dodge can be used to describe most conceivable attempts at damage mitigation and avoidance in a striking context (and unarmed combat is pretty niche in FFG settings anyway). Moreover, many of the scenarios that the rules are intended to represent are not clean duels between individuals but chaotic melees involving multiple adversaries and the need to selectively respond to specific threats using their limited attentional resources, hence the use of reactions to make discreet evasion actions rather than handling the attacks themselves as opposed tests. From what I've generally heard in context of self-defense lessons, pitting a skilled martial artist against multiple comparatively unskilled opponents attacking from multiple angles is not going to generally not likely to end favorably for the former.

The main way to factor in superior weapon skill on the attack are talents like Inescapable Attack (for All Out Attacks, although the latest beta chose bizarrely to generalize this to the extent of even ranged single attacks) and multiple hit actions like swift/lightning attack. Not perfect, but realistically someone actually focused on melee combat is going to have one or the other.

Hi.

I've been GMing a Dark Heresy campaign for over a year now, and currently I'm using most of the Only War rules, with a number of house rule modifications, to fix numerous remaining issues. The Only War rules, particularly on the combat side, are reasonably solid, and hence the Dark Heresy Second Edition rules should be similar. I picked up the new book a few days ago, and I'm currently working my way through it.

I do agree with the OP that there is an issue with the relative Weapon Skills of combatants not being taken into account AND that it IS NOT adequately dealt with by Parry and Dodge. I find the best way to see if there are issues with rules, is to look at some examples.

Let's take acolyte A, with a WS of 60, and cultist A with a WS of 30. In the midst of a large skirmish, A and B are locked in Melee. Another cultist B, not caring about his buddy fires into the melee at Acolyte A with a hand cannon and scores a lucky hit to the head. Acolyte A, having seen the second cultist out of the corner of his eye, ducks at the last second - i.e. uses his evasion to execute a successful dodge.

Cultist A, having initiative over Acolyte A, like his buddy, then attacks Acolyte A. Now, despite the fact that Acolyte A is TWICE as good at melee combat as his opponent, and still has his FULL ACTION to come - Cultist A has THE SAME chance to hit the Acolyte (base chance 30% - not taking into account any other modifiers) as he would if the Acolyte was THREE times WORSE than him, with a Weapon Skill of 10! And in this specific example the Acolyte can't use his parry or dodge (not taking possible talents he may or may not have into account). The simple fact is, in this example, it is IRRELEVANT to the Cultist how good or bad his opponent is with a weapon. He's just as easy to hit if he has a Weapon Skill of 100!

This does NOT seem right to me. I would contemplate something like subtracting the defenders WS from the Attackers, rounding DOWN to the nearest ten, with a cap of +\- 30. So in this example, the cultist would get 30 - 60 = -30. Being a rabid Cultist he would probably be doing something like an All Out Attack, so he would still have a chance of hitting our highly skilled hero, but it would be greatly reduced - as it should be. If they both had the same WS, it would be combat as normal, with no modifiers for relative WS. This would significantly slow down a complex battle however. But it seems a tad more realistic to me.

Hi.

I've been GMing a Dark Heresy campaign for over a year now, and currently I'm using most of the Only War rules, with a number of house rule modifications, to fix numerous remaining issues. The Only War rules, particularly on the combat side, are reasonably solid, and hence the Dark Heresy Second Edition rules should be similar. I picked up the new book a few days ago, and I'm currently working my way through it.

I do agree with the OP that there is an issue with the relative Weapon Skills of combatants not being taken into account AND that it IS NOT adequately dealt with by Parry and Dodge. I find the best way to see if there are issues with rules, is to look at some examples.

Let's take acolyte A, with a WS of 60, and cultist A with a WS of 30. In the midst of a large skirmish, A and B are locked in Melee. Another cultist B, not caring about his buddy fires into the melee at Acolyte A with a hand cannon and scores a lucky hit to the head. Acolyte A, having seen the second cultist out of the corner of his eye, ducks at the last second - i.e. uses his evasion to execute a successful dodge.

Cultist A, having initiative over Acolyte A, like his buddy, then attacks Acolyte A. Now, despite the fact that Acolyte A is TWICE as good at melee combat as his opponent, and still has his FULL ACTION to come - Cultist A has THE SAME chance to hit the Acolyte (base chance 30% - not taking into account any other modifiers) as he would if the Acolyte was THREE times WORSE than him, with a Weapon Skill of 10! And in this specific example the Acolyte can't use his parry or dodge (not taking possible talents he may or may not have into account). The simple fact is, in this example, it is IRRELEVANT to the Cultist how good or bad his opponent is with a weapon. He's just as easy to hit if he has a Weapon Skill of 100!

This does NOT seem right to me. I would contemplate something like subtracting the defenders WS from the Attackers, rounding DOWN to the nearest ten, with a cap of +\- 30. So in this example, the cultist would get 30 - 60 = -30. Being a rabid Cultist he would probably be doing something like an All Out Attack, so he would still have a chance of hitting our highly skilled hero, but it would be greatly reduced - as it should be. If they both had the same WS, it would be combat as normal, with no modifiers for relative WS. This would significantly slow down a complex battle however. But it seems a tad more realistic to me.

Maybe you should use not WS for that system but WSB and simply multiply it by 10 in the end. Or five. More easier to calculate and the level of detail lost is negligible.

On the other hand, in your specific situation, the PC is actively avoiding another attack, thus not focusing entirely on his enemy right up front, leaving him more open to attacks from his opponent.

Also, coming up with a feasible system on the spot is not something I can do right now, but I'll think a bit about it.

Yes, I agree using WSB and then multipling by ten or five would work as well. But in terms of mental calculation it does't really make much difference. Really just a matter of personal preference :-)

The specific example I picked where an evasion was used was deliberate. Yes, I agree with you that in this specific example the acoyte is not paying 100% of his attention to the melee. HOWEVER, the point here is he still has enough time to carry out a FULL ACTION such as an all out attack. It is reasonable to assume then, that he WILL be exchanging blows, and having a decent battle with cultist A during the majority of his 5 second round. And yet it doesnt matter if his WS is 1 or 100 when it comes to wether or not Cultist A's attack roll lands a hit.

Logically if I am paying PARTIAL attention to a battle and I'm a legendary master swordsman with a skill of 100 I should be harder to hit than an untrained OAP with a WS of 1 paying PARTIAL attention. Just because I ducked out of the way of a bullet doesn't make me forget all my ability for the remainder of the round :-)

The point I was trying to make here, is that I personally don't believe that parry/dodge ALONE, sufficiently accounts for differences in weaponskill between opponents, which can sometimes be quite huge. This example being one where I believe it fails. Over the course of many, many sessions, I've found this comes up quite frequently in combat.

Yeah, big problem with abstractions. But in order to make the whole system more "realistic" (as far as that works) it'd need a complete overhaul I think. Another problem is ultimately, how Melee and Ranged Combat are handled essentially the same (because in fact they totally aren't).

I'd adapt a few roles from the Dark Eye (which has a Melee-System, which is almost too detailed, but then again, it's a fantasy-setting and most combat melee there)

Yes, I completely agree that it's hard to tweak some aspects of DH, as the abstraction level is not as consistent as perhaps it should be. In general it's fine for a comic book or action movie level of realism, which is in keeping with most of the Black Library books. I personally don't have any major issues with it.

I have found you need to be VERY careful if you try to make it more 'realistic' with rules tweaks, as doing so tends to high-light half a dozen other issues elsewhere :-) When contemplating ANY such changes, one should check that the abstraction level of the change you are thinking of is at the same level of abstraction as the rest of the rules. One of the reasons I haven't actually implemented the possible rules change I mentioned above in my own games - for me it's border line as to whether it fits in with the rest of the rule's abstraction level, and whether or not it's worth the extra complexity.

Also in agreement that you would need to completely rework the entire system to make it noticeably more realistic. For example ; I can fire my autogun as a Half action on full-auto. I now have a half action left. But I can't fire my autogun again! Huh? Why? Ok, I change the rules to allow me to use my other half-action to make an attack as well :-) Easy fix, huh? Except that half the combat talents need to then be rewritten. Er, let's just stick with the only 1 attack per round high level abstraction then thanks ;-)