Back attack!

By ColArana, in Dark Heresy Rules Questions

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Something that came up in my last session of Dark Heresy, and my GM and I had a nice little chat about it.

How would you handle attacking from behind in melee combat? During a duel, one of the group was essentially musing over trying to make an Acrobatics skill test to somersault over his opponents head (or tumble around him, or perhaps do a butterfly kick, but some form of acrobatics) to get behind his opponent and deliver a strike at the opponent's back.

This sparked off some discussion as to how to handle this, so I'm curious for ideas of how else it might be handled. Obviously, the opponent isn't necessarily stunned or surprised by the action, as they are aware they are in a fight, but at the same time, defending against attacks from behind is nowhere near as easy as if your opponent is at your front. We came to an idea that the defender should take a negative penalty to any attempt to parry or dodge (-20 seemed reasonable), but I'm curious as to if there's other-- perhaps more creative ideas of how to handle it.

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Memory's fuzzy and away from books ... but for some reason I think there's a talent for that or something similar. Assassin Strike or something like that maybe?

Part of the problem with anyone saying "I'm going to attack them from behind" is then you have to track facing - for everyone. And the easy counterargument (that players will throw up if the GM tries to return the favor) is "I'm in a fight, I know about this guy, I'm not going to remain still while he runs around behind me, I'm reflexively going to want to reorient/shift position to keep track of him, and since I'm not in a shield-wall I'm not going to be locked into one position all the time".

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I actually had an NPC with a Special Ability somewhat like that:

Acrobatic Assault: Harlequin may attack a melee target using his Acrobatics Skill. If he succeeds, he does no damage, but has moved up behind his enemy and moved the enemy one metre towards his original position. The enemy chooses to lose any Reactions, or a Half-Action, until the end of the enemy's next turn. The enemy may attempt to Dodge, but needs as many Degrees of Success on his Dodge as Harlequin got on his Acrobatics Test. Should he Succeed, Harlequin has only failed, and is now either behind or the the left or right of hist target. This is a Half-Action if taken as a Standard Melee Attack, or a Full Action if made as a Charge Attack Action.

Anyway, Javcs is right, it could potentially be a nightmare to track facing all of the time, but with that said, if someone is explicitly attack someone from behind, I'd give them a +10 to the Attack, that's it, unless the enemy is unaware, in which case there are pre-existing bonuses.

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Going from the existing combat modifiers, a bonus to Attack seems reasonable. To reiterate the RAW:

Target is surprised: +30
Target is stunned: +20
Target is prone: +10
The exact extent of the bonus depends on your interpretation of the wording in the rules as well as your sense of gameplay balance. It could be argued that "surprised" refers to the target not expecting to be attacked at all, or just that the target is not expecting a specific attack from a specific direction. If the player character is visibly somersaulting over the opponent's head, it seems reasonable to assume that said enemy is going to expect an attack from their behind any moment - yet at the same time, one could also say that it happens so fast that they just won't have time to react.
You might go for the cinematic approach here and assign the +30 bonus to almost guarantee that IF the player succeeds on the Acrobatics Test, he or she will also succeed on the Attack. Because that Acrobatics Test does constitute an additional risk and has a chance of making the PC look particularly bad if it fails, not just because of threatening the character with getting exposed to enemy attacks, but also by making them look like a fool for falling flat on their face. And in my personal opinion, martial arts-style characters do deserve some flashy moves from time to time.
If you think this could be abused for powergaming rather than just looking cool every once in a while, you could temper it by making the bonus depend on the type of Attack. For example, a knife-strike would require the attacker to land and turn around first, giving the enemy an additional split-second to react and decreasing the bonus, whereas a kick to the head delivered when the character is still in the air (see various martial arts movies) could make full use of the +30, whilst at the same time not having as much damage potential.
However, this is only if you actually make full use of similar bonuses if the players do things like attacking stationary things such as training dolls, practice targets, lights, etc. If you do not assign bonuses there as well, I would instead recommend to apply a penalty to Parry/Dodge, just so you have consistency in how your group handles combat.
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Well, even if you're a ninja on speed a sommersault over your opponent is not going to be an instant thing. He'll have time to turn around, etc etc.

However, you could rule it to be an acrobatic version of the Feint Action, perhaps. Use Acrobatics vs Perception or Agility, instead of an opposed WS test. Should't break anything, and will let the bouncy guys have more options than plain melee guys.

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Well, even if you're a ninja on speed a sommersault over your opponent is not going to be an instant thing. He'll have time to turn around, etc etc.

However, you could rule it to be an acrobatic version of the Feint Action, perhaps. Use Acrobatics vs Perception or Agility, instead of an opposed WS test. Should't break anything, and will let the bouncy guys have more options than plain melee guys.

On the first point: True, but an opponent somersaulting over my head is certainly going to take most men-- yes, probably even Acolytes of the Inquisition, by surprise, and will take a moment to process what's happening.

Although I really like the idea of making it an Agility-based Feint action. That seems actually quite appropriate.