I'm in the process of switching my DH campaign over to using the more updated rules of Only War. My problem is with Lightning Attack, and Swift Attack, combined with two weapon wielder: Melee

For those of you that are unfamiliar, Only War changed the rules for lightning attack, so the character can make up to his WS bonus in attacks per turn, when using two Melee weapons, the character can make one lightning attack per hand

Does anyone else feel that this is too many attacks to make in 1 turn?

I've been arguing with one of my players (Moritat Assassin) for a couple of weeks about it now. Is there something that I'm just not seeing ?

Well, he can now finally do what pistol-wielder have been ably to do since day 1.

It's a good change in my opinion.

My concern is in the difference in damage between the pistols and his swords. On average most pistols, that have Full Auto capability, do 1D10+3 damage, while his swords (BQ Mono swords) would be putting out 1D10+4 Pen 2 Tearing

Well, the gun-toters can load up with man-stoppers, and the Mighty Shot talents bumps each hit by +2 DMG.

And there is the fact that he has to close to melee range before he can start dishing out the pain. Clever enemies will lay down crossfire and keep the poor fella pinned, making it hard to get close, and hitting him with ranged fire all the way,

Well, the gun-toters can load up with man-stoppers, and the Mighty Shot talents bumps each hit by +2 DMG.

And there is the fact that he has to close to melee range before he can start dishing out the pain. Clever enemies will lay down crossfire and keep the poor fella pinned, making it hard to get close, and hitting him with ranged fire all the way,

You do make a very good point Smeg, I guess I can let it go. Thanks for the input.

Well, the gun-toters can load up with man-stoppers, and the Mighty Shot talents bumps each hit by +2 DMG.

And there is the fact that he has to close to melee range before he can start dishing out the pain. Clever enemies will lay down crossfire and keep the poor fella pinned, making it hard to get close, and hitting him with ranged fire all the way,

Additionally, while the melee user has to get close to dish out pain, he also becomes vastly protected from shooting once in combat, and being able to cross 12 or 18 meters in a single charge will cover most of the range of a normal pistol.

Further-furthermore, pistols run out of ammo. Most guns can't keep firing full-auto for more than 3 turns, reloading is a pain, and ammo is expensive.

Further-further-furthermore, Lightning Attack has less chance of maximum hits, but more chance of a single or couple hits. A gun on Full-auto with BS40 has a 40% chance of getting no hits, three Lightning Attacks at WS40 have only a 20% chance of no hits.

Further-further-further-furthermore, Melee is a far more rewarding tree in the long run. No ranged weapon has a damage output that can compete with a Power Sword weilded by a Lightning Attacker with Crushing Blow. A Boltgun comes close if you have Mighty Shot, with an average of 14-15 Damage Pen 4 per hit (Tearing makes the average roll 7-8, 5 damage base, +2 for Mighty Shot for 14-15 usual damage,) but a Power Sword will get 17-18 damage with 6 pen per hit. (Average roll of 5 or 6, 6 damage base, +2 for Crushing Blow, +4 for average melee strength.)

A dedicated melee user can often get his SB even higher than that, too, very reasonably to 60 so long as he's got a bionic limb. Gun weilders can, well... Not do much.

(While it's true that Plasma or Melta weapons do more damage, their ROF is so ludicrously low in comparson that they're out of the discussion.)

It's apples and oranges. Guns favor versatility, range, and give untrained warriors a fighting chance at dealing damage against tougher enemies. They reward non-confrontational enemies, and trade damage for range. Melee has greater damage output, reliability, and gives much more chance for a nonlethal takedown, but only reaches this point for dedicated users and rewards specialization, also giving opportunity to go for long periods without repleneshing ammo or supplies.

TL;DR

Melee users are already rewarded very heavily for specialization in Dark Heresy V1. They don't need more buffs for specializing.

A real dedicated melee operator will go from 4 attacks all the way up to 8 or 10, easily doubling his damage output with zero penalties I can see.

One other point I forgot to mention: Unnatural Strength is a huge buff that Melee users can eventually get through various means, giving 4 or 5 more damage to every attack. Ranged characters have no such chance at any kind of similar damage boost.

thank you Mikmaxs for reigniting all of my fears, about updating those rules.

So Darth Smeg, is in favour, Mikmaxs you are against, correct ?

Maybe we can get a couple more people to jump in with their opinions ??

In my opinion based on GMing OW, BC, and DW with these rules, it works fine if any only if you port over the BC/OW combat system pretty much completely. This isn't a case in which you can just pick one element and ignore the rest.

In other words, bring over all the new combat modifiers and changes to actions needed etc. Otherwise pistols will outshine melee weapons completely (which presumably is why they are single-shot only in melee in DH/RT/DW). Melee weapons will become obsolete -- which is totally realistic but not very 40K.

This may require you to change how certain Talents and Skills work as well. (See, it's not that simple.)

We've ported the lot, and it works fine. See my .sig for details.

But yes, that means the gun-toters can fire full auto in melee if they like (but they do so at BS-10). And the melee attacks now suffer penalties as well. Lightning Attack is not 3 WS rolls, but one WS at -10. If you dual-wield, there are additional penalties.

You're going to be looking at ALOT of XP invested before you see a melee fighter score 8 or 10 hits. (Really, you're looking at rolling to tests with 4+ DoS when taking at least -20 to each test, maybe more, depending on Talents).

We've ported the lot, and it works fine. See my .sig for details.

But yes, that means the gun-toters can fire full auto in melee if they like (but they do so at BS-10). And the melee attacks now suffer penalties as well. Lightning Attack is not 3 WS rolls, but one WS at -10. If you dual-wield, there are additional penalties.

You're going to be looking at ALOT of XP invested before you see a melee fighter score 8 or 10 hits. (Really, you're looking at rolling to tests with 4+ DoS when taking at least -20 to each test, maybe more, depending on Talents).

If you're porting over the whole combat system, though... Why not just play Only War? (With more investigation.)

If you want to get into the game design/balance nitty-gritty of it, melee weapons will normally do more damage or the same in melee as a pistol of the same "level".

Doing math here more to keep myself from falling asleep here than anything else (BC/OW rules).

Assuming someone with WS30 and BS30 and SB3 attacking someone who for whatever reason doesn't evade, assuming the target has a TB3 and no armour --

assuming a Half-Action Aim + Standard Attack with a sword vs. a HAA + Full Auto Burst with an autopistol --

The sword will do 2.75 wounds on average per attack, while the autopistol will do 2.70.

Pretty much identical.

EDIT: People really really exaggerate the effectiveness of Lightning Attack (and autofire) in BC/OW.

If you want to get into the game design/balance nitty-gritty of it, melee weapons will normally do more damage or the same in melee as a pistol of the same "level".

Doing math here more to keep myself from falling asleep here than anything else (BC/OW rules).

Assuming someone with WS30 and BS30 and SB3 attacking someone who for whatever reason doesn't evade, assuming the target has a TB3 and no armour --

assuming a Half-Action Aim + Standard Attack with a sword vs. a HAA + Full Auto Burst with an autopistol --

The sword will do 2.75 wounds on average per attack, while the autopistol will do 2.70.

Pretty much identical.

EDIT: People really really exaggerate the effectiveness of Lightning Attack (and autofire) in BC/OW.

That's in a vacuum, though. Melee has far more buffs, bits, and bobs to increase damage late-game, but only if you specialize. Since we're assuming that the enemy doesn't dodge...

Find me any pistol with any set of gear which will, when fired by a user with 45 BS, against a target with 4 Toughness and 6 Armor (A standard powerful heavy infantry,) deal equal damage to a Power Sword, Blademaster, Crushing Blow, S40, Good Quality Arm, Lightning Attacker. (By my math, 2 hits dealing 14.5 damage each, or 29 average damage.)

Now, I'm not saying melee is overpowered: It requires specialization, focus, and proper use.

However, if you only apply the one rule from Only War, with no other additions, you more than double this damage output with zero penalty.

Hey you're getting me wrong. I was defending melee by saying that it is not inferior to pistols.

In OW/BC. In the Dark Heresy rules set, letting a pistol fire full auto in melee would be wildly imbalanced.

Hey you're getting me wrong. I was defending melee by saying that it is not inferior to pistols.

In OW/BC. In the Dark Heresy rules set, letting a pistol fire full auto in melee would be wildly imbalanced.

Hey you're getting me wrong. I was defending melee by saying that it is not inferior to pistols.

In OW/BC. In the Dark Heresy rules set, letting a pistol fire full auto in melee would be wildly imbalanced.

I'm saying that it's vastly superior late-game, as pistols are a poor-mans last ditch effort if they've got no melee training, not a true melee effort. The damage is *not* equal unless both parties are low-level.

This is true; I was more thinking of low-Rank DH where people are carrying around swords for some reason.

Hey you're getting me wrong. I was defending melee by saying that it is not inferior to pistols.

In OW/BC. In the Dark Heresy rules set, letting a pistol fire full auto in melee would be wildly imbalanced.

I'm saying that it's vastly superior late-game, as pistols are a poor-mans last ditch effort if they've got no melee training, not a true melee effort. The damage is *not* equal unless both parties are low-level.

This is true; I was more thinking of low-Rank DH where people are carrying around swords for some reason.

I thought that was because 40K logic...