Takedown - talented or not.

By Friend of the Dork, in Dark Heresy Rules Questions

Hey I've read up the takedown rules and it seems to be that using the Talent is not very good, as you get a chance to stun a foe for 1 round only , if you do enough damage and they fail a toughnesss check.

However, if you don't have the talent and use a Stun action instead, you have the possibility of stunning the target for several round if you're lucky on an opposed d10+SB vs d10 +TB(+armor to head), and to top it off the enemy takes one level of fatigue if you succeed. The only drawback is a -20 WS, if you don't have the talent.

So if you have the talent wouldn't it be better to use the Stun Action (without -20WS) in order to potentially stun for several round rather than just have the chance of stunning once. Only advantage with the talent "takedown" action is if you think your SB is lower than the enemy's TB, or the enemy is heavily armored at the head.

So what's your take on it?

Friend of the Dork said:

So if you have the talent wouldn't it be better to use the Stun Action (without -20WS) in order to potentially stun for several round rather than just have the chance of stunning once. Only advantage with the talent "takedown" action is if you think your SB is lower than the enemy's TB, or the enemy is heavily armored at the head.

Let's assume you have takedown in both scenarios. So, with both actions you have to roll to hit, with both you roll a d10 and add your SB, and in both your opponent resists using his TB and armour (in the case of stun it is head armour only).

- with stun your opponent adds d10 to his resistance roll

- with takedown you get to add your weapon damage to your roll

- with stun you have to take a full action, while takedown is only a half action

So for stun to be the preferred action, your SB has to be better than, or at least quite close to, your opponent's TB + head AP. Otherwise chances are you'll have no effect at all, and you'll have spent a full action doing it.

Meanwhile for takedown to be worthwhile, you only have to be reasonably confident of doing some damage. After all if your SB + damage equals your opponent's TB + AP then you are guaranteed to do some damage, because you get to roll a d10 on top of that while your opponent rolls nothing. It also works especially well if you can gang up on your opponent; e.g. you stun the target for a round then your buddy puts some cuffs on them.

Of course, takedown fails if your opponent rolls their toughness ok, but you are much more likely to get the chance in the first place. With a stun action it is all too likely that your opponent will simply out-roll you.

I expect you could work this into a spreadsheet - you are comparing the odds that your opponent will roll less than you against the odds of him passing his toughness test.

You have good points, but I just realized something: the takedown action doesen't specify what kind of weapon you can use, or if you can use a weapon at all. It doesen't specify that you hit the head either, so if hit in the chest the enemy may have alot of armor there.

If you can use any melee weapon then takedown becomes much better.

Also if you can combine this half action with a basic melee attack yourself. Instead if aiming for +10 you can use this and get +20 for you and your allies.

So with this interpretation you get a +20 (better than aim), enemy cannot dodge or parry (better than feint), and if he survives he must waste a half action when it is his turn. Ok, im sold.

However i don't think you can bind someone because they're stunned, they're not completely helpless and binding may take longer than 5 seconds.

Meh, I figure that against a stunned opponent a single grapple check is sufficient to cuff them. Binding them would be a different story, but handcuffs are pretty well designed for this sort of scenario.

Cardinalsin said:

Meh, I figure that against a stunned opponent a single grapple check is sufficient to cuff them. Binding them would be a different story, but handcuffs are pretty well designed for this sort of scenario.

Hmm, yeah cuffs may be a different scenario I'm too used to thinking D&D.

And in my next adventure the PCs will be in a feudal world where cuffs do not exists while their adversaries have the takedown talent. Most combat there will be musket fire and baoynet charge though :)