I don't know how familiar you are with fencing and sword fighting in general, but having trained kendo (modernized form of japanese swordsmanship) for a couple of years I think I can safely assume to have a feel for what is and what isn't realistic concerning a sword fight.

In my opinion, parrying a correct thrust or swing from your opponent is far easier than actually manage to connect a correct thrust or swing against him. Making some of the close combat talents in Dark Heresy somewhat strange. You can easily buy swift attack and lightning attack, giving you more attacks in a single round, but there is only ONE way to increase the number of parries you can do, and that is by buying the wall of steel talent, and that will only let you parry ONE extra time during a combat. Making you pretty vulnerable against opponents who have lightning attack since they can stab at you three times while you can only parry two.

I find this to be absurd, based on my experience in how easy it is to parry a sword strike in comparison to attacking with a sword. And yes, I do know that kendo is a sport primarily and a form of martial arts secondary, but you have to remember that while certain forms of cutting and thrusting are only accepted by the judges, this emulates realism in a way since a sword has to be wielded and swung in a correct manner to actually do the maximum amount of injury to an opponent.

Desperate swings and thrusts by an untrained user are dangerous of course, but they are a far cry from the thrusts and swings of an experienced swordsman, that can easily kill the intended target in one stroke if the target is unable to defend him- or herself. This is especially true with japanese swords like the katana with the peculiar curvature of the blade. An experienced swordsman wielding a katana knows that his swings has to have a certain circular motion to them in order to achieve the fierce cutting power of the blade, while inexperienced swordsmen have a tendency to chop with a sword like it was an axe, which could do a great deal of harm, but you won't sever someones head with a katana if you use it like an axe since it is a cutting weapon, not a chopping weapon.

So while I agree that you can't base full knowledge of real swordfights on kendo alone, due to the discipline's sports-like nature, it is quite reasonable to assume that you need to wield a sword with the proper form if you want to use it as efficiently as possible, and we can assume that swordfighting and melee damage in Dark Heresy are based on as efficient blows as possible, rather than desperate swings that are more likely to maim or injure rather than kill.

So, my main intention here is to make it easier to parry several times than it already is in a sword fight/melee fight in Dark Heresy. My proposition is that characters with the swift attack and lightning attack talents can opt to not use all of their attacks during combat and instead use these unused attacks to parry several times instead. This ruling would make the game slightly more realistic, while at the same time not topple the standard rules. Wall of steel could keep it's function like usual, even if you can combine it with this sacrifice of attacks in favor of parries.

What do you think?

From a balance perspective I think that for every way to get more attacks there should be a way to avoid said extra attacks. If a melee character gets dual weapon wielder, lightning attack and counter strike he can get five attacks in a round. Compared to a character equally specialised at not getting hit who gets three reactions to avoid damage. It shouldn't be that a dual wielder can attack more than anyone can defend.

I would however much prefer it if an upgrade to wall of steel was added so that you could parry extra instead. Making the swift attack/lightning attack tree also work on parry would severely overpower it compared to other options. For one, there would be no point in actually getting wall of steel instead of swift attack since it performs both jobs in one.

I consider Wall of Steel plenty good enough because a parry is only needed when the attack has already succeeded - and its easier to up your parry roll than your attack roll because of traits like Balanced and Defensive. You'd need as many parries as attacks only if you had to use up parries even for failed attacks.

Cifer said:

Is it safe to assume that you've never had to deal with a high level moritat reaper assassin? Do you know how rarely such a character actually miss in melee combat? (remember that the Blademaster talent effectively eliminates most freak misses). Their weapon skill can reach ridiculous levels pretty quick, and when they tot around with dual power swords they can lop of limbs and heads at an astounding rate, and there is no way to parry all of the attacks, even if you act as the most defensive and coward way you can in combat.

About the weapon qualities you talk about, these can be just as easily countered with the "Good/Best quality" and the "Fast" Quality. So they counter eachother out as arguments go.

Also remember that you are just as likely to fail a parry, that you are to fail an attack. However since there are talents that can allow you to attack five times in one round, a missed attack won't be that much big of a deal, but a missed parry on the other hand can be deadly, making it completely imbalanced.

So a character specialising in melee defense has to rely on his opponent missing one or two attacks each round? The best you can crank out in melee is five attacks and you can only avoid three, so thats two attacks in five that needs to be missed every round for the defender to even have a chance of not getting hit. That hardly seems fair, especially considering that you can fail a parry aswell.

You are also talking about a Moritat Reaper. All they do is slice things up. Give me an equal level guardsman a heavy bolter and your MR at 500 yards and we’ll see who wins that fight.

Specialists get very nasty. That’s what they do. The trade off comes in the fact that a specialist is going to be hurting for something. The Moritat Reaper is useless if it can’t charge and stand next to its target.

To the main question, the appropriate response would be to add additional parry and dodge options to build on Step Aside and Wall of Steel. It forces more XP expenditure for extra maneuvers while not loading up and creating one super talent. Extra dodge and parry options should require very high Agility scores. Ultimately they will only help out the specialist as the generalist won’t be able to qualify. You must remember that the shouts for realism can only go on for so long before the big ugly beast named “Game Balance” rears its head.

Is it safe to assume that you've never had to deal with a high level moritat reaper assassin? Do you know how rarely such a character actually miss in melee combat? (remember that the Blademaster talent effectively eliminates most freak misses). Their weapon skill can reach ridiculous levels pretty quick, and when they tot around with dual power swords they can lop of limbs and heads at an astounding rate, and there is no way to parry all of the attacks, even if you act as the most defensive and coward way you can in combat.

About the weapon qualities you talk about, these can be just as easily countered with the "Good/Best quality" and the "Fast" Quality. So they counter eachother out as arguments go.

Well... yes, it is safe to assume that I haven't had to deal with Moritat assassins dual-wielding best quality powerswords (which, by the way, cost 50k and have an availability two levels beyond Very Rare). However, since at that point other characters lug around power armours and the aforementioned heavy weapons, I fail to see the problem - though you're welcome to open a thread about how unfair guardsmen characters driving around in a Leman Russ are.

The main argument against the whole thing remains that there is no need for attack and defence to be balanced against each other - almost any character going the dedicated melee route can spend a few hundred XP and become proficient in both. Yes, the defense "tree" caps out somewhat sooner than the attack tree, but there's no reason for any character not to master both.

Plus, most characters with this number of high potency attacks probably have access to counter attack - and if you can parry multiple times you can counter attack multiple times off of those parries...

and its not as if there is some equivalent to counter attack with the dodge/step aside combination.

Are you proposing to allow multiple dodges in some fashion then for those non-melee specialists?

S.K

1) Attacks and parries/dodges are an abstraction; in theory a failed attack roll may mean the defender parried or dodged, even if they didn't use the formal game-mechanical parry/dodge option. So in reality no character is limited in how many parries or dodges they can use, just in how many "second chances" they get.

2) Even excepting that, in most situations you will get the chance to parry/dodge most if not all attacks made against you by a single equal-level opponent. As your opponent gains attacks and WS, you gain WS/Ag, dodge mastery and wall of steel or step aside (assuming you are a combat character).

3) Moritat reaper-types are the exception; but even they probably won't kill you outright if your skills and equipment are balanced to the same level as them, e.g. as Cifer says, they get best quality power swords, you get good quality power armour.

4) Actually the main reason for attacking being superior to defending for game purposes is that it would get deadly dull very quickly otherwise. The long wait for an attack that actually gets through would begin to grate. On a similar note, I suspect successful attacks are quite a bit more lethal in real life than in the game, but again this is toned down for game balance reasons.

5) That said you could create a followup talent to WoS, perhaps called "fortress of steel", giving you yet another parry. I would suggest that if you do this, subsequent parries should suffer penalties as it becomes increasingly difficult to weather the onslaught.

6) I think the most annoying thing is more the fact that the defender's skill level makes no difference to their chances of being hit, unless they choose to expend a reaction to parry/dodge. This suggests that, in terms of the ability to avoid blows, there is no difference between a master and a novice once the reactions run out, even though combat is supposed to be an abstraction, with the defender presumably trying to avoid being hit with varying degrees of competence.

7) So if you want to solve *that* problem, why not ditch the RAW altogether, and say that everyone gets a reaction against every (non-surprise) attack, but at an increasing penalty (say, -10 per additional attack, even attacks that miss). Wall of Steel and Step Aside could then give a bonus to parry/dodge instead.

Well... yes, it is safe to assume that I haven't had to deal with Moritat assassins dual-wielding best quality powerswords (which, by the way, cost 50k and have an availability two levels beyond Very Rare). However, since at that point other characters lug around power armours and the aforementioned heavy weapons, I fail to see the problem - though you're welcome to open a thread about how unfair guardsmen characters driving around in a Leman Russ are.

The point is that melee close combat gets impossible to defend against, it doesn't matter if it's a moritat dual wielding powerswords or a guardsman with two sharp sticks. The end result is still at least two attacks that hit no matter what the defender does with which skills.

The rest of the game doesn't work like that so why should melee?

Graspar said:

Even very high level characters are unlikely to get more than three hits in melee. With lightning attack and dual wield you have a chance, but all four attacks must hit, which even with WS 60 and taking a double aim isn't all that likely.

Moritat reapers or whatnot may be an exception, if their WS is ridiculous enough. But then they are supposed to be ridiculous. Just like if you get hit by a high-BS character with an automatic weapon they may get enough degrees of success to make it impossible to dodge every bullet. So what?

Graspar said:

Thank you, that summarize my main point pretty well.

Cardinalsin said:

you could rule, that the one with the higher WS could selfimpose a penalty, that his opponen has to take as well.

so if I am at WS 58 and my opponent at 35, I could selfimpose a -20 penalty. I would then fight wth a WS of 38, and my opponent with a WS of 18

Or you could just do Feints all day long. if your skill is higher, you will probably win most opposed tests.

Even very high level characters are unlikely to get more than three hits in melee. With lightning attack and dual wield you have a chance, but all four attacks must hit, which even with WS 60 and taking a double aim isn't all that likely.

Moritat reapers or whatnot may be an exception, if their WS is ridiculous enough. But then they are supposed to be ridiculous. Just like if you get hit by a high-BS character with an automatic weapon they may get enough degrees of success to make it impossible to dodge every bullet. So what?

And you can miss your dodge tests as well, so the point stands. It's five attacks to three defensive reactions. Should you have to rely on the opponent missing without being able to affect the result at all in combat? I don't think so, certainly not in a one on one fight.

Cardinalsin said:

Bad comparison, because each degree of success to the dodge test when dodging automatic fire negates one additional hit, meaning that the two tests are balanced against eachother. It's the gunmans BS versus the targets Ag (dodge).

However, there is no similar way to avoid attacks from swift attack or lightning attack, since they always count as separate attacks and has to be dodged/parried one at a time. Meaning that the attacker will always have an advantage over the defender (regardless of whether they are equal fighters or not), since the attacker will most oftenly always have more attacks than the number of reactions the defender might use to try countering the attacks.

So this comparison you made doesn't really help your argument.

Oh and by the way, I point out the fact again: It is A HECK of a lot easier in real life to parry/avoid getting hit in melee (at least with swords), than it is to actually connect with a proper swing or thrust. In fact, it should be the defender that has the advantage in a pitched battle, not the attacker. But that would most likely result in poor game balance, which is why I try to propose solutions for the attacker and the defender to be in relatively equal measure when it comes to amounts of attacks and parries.

Also I'd like to say that I like the idea of having more "defensive" talents, like upgraded Wall of Steel and Step Aside.

So what other "defensive" talents could there be?

The "Fortress of Steel" espoused earlier is a great idea, but what requirements would it come with?

S.K.

Varnias Tybalt said:

A good roll with a full-auto weapon with maximal bonuses could make it impossible to dodge for someone with an equal agility. For example, BS 40 with full auto bonus, full aim and point blank range, yields at most 4 hits while Ag 40 dodge will protect against at most 3 hits. So it works as an example, even though in the extreme case dodge wins out because you can take mastery, allowing your maximum number of degrees of success to outstrip the maximum number of hits a full-auto weapon could produce.

Varnias Tybalt said:

They may have more attacks than reactions, but you only need a reaction if every attack hits, and the odds of 4 out of 4 attacks hitting are low. As stated, in extreme cases that may happen, but most attackers won't manage it most of the time, just as most shooters won't manage to get an undodgeable number of hits most of the time as per my example above.

Varnias Tybalt said:

It does depend on the level of abstraction, though. After a few swings in a melee it's pretty much guaranteed that one of the fighters will at least have been scratched. Formal situations like kendo aside, there are few situations where defence beats attack for long. But as I said before, an important question has to be how long you want to wait for one of the characters to break through. Attack beats defence in the game because anything else would be kinda boring.

But anyway, you can run your campaign any way you choose, and I've made a couple of suggestions in my first post on how you could bolster defence without tipping the scales too far.

Solomon Kane said:

Just some talents that come to mind:

Fortress of Steel

Prerequisites: Wall of Steel

You may make an additional parry once a round, in addition to the extra parry gotten from the Wall of Steel talent.

Cold Steel Defense

Prerequisites: Combat Master, Two-Weapon Wielder (Melee), Fortress of Steel

Your keen reflexes and skill with two melee weapons let's you put up an almost impenetrable guard. As a reaction you may attempt to parry any number of melee attacks directed against you, regardless of the number of opponents you are facing. The weapon skill tests to parry are made at a -10 unless you have the Ambidextrous talent. You are also required to have a useable melee weapon and/or shield in each hand in order to gain the benefits of this talent.

Swashbuckler

Prerequisites: Swift Attack

Your skill with the sword along with your finely honed instincts let's you know when to hold your guard up and not leave you open for attack in close combat. Whenever you attempt the Guarded Attack manouver, you may make an extra parry during your reaction.

Bullet Cleaver

Prerequisites: Deflect Shot, Wall of Steel

Either by dumb luck or insanely acute instincts and senses you are able to wave your sword in defensive patterns swiftly and covering enough to cleave projectiles fired at you in mid air. You may spend a Reaction to Parry an incoming ranged attack, this Parry is made at a -20 but can be used in conjunction with the Wall of Steel and Fortress of Steel talents respectively. Note that if you opt to use this talent there is a 75 percent chance that the shot shatters your weapon completely. Power weapons and weapons with the Lathe Blade upgrade listed in the Inquisitors Handbook are exempt from this.

Just a few talents to spice things up a bit. And yes, I know that the last talent is a bit over the top, but it is a Talent I have been thinking of inventing for quite a long time now (because cleaving bullets in mid air with a sword is one of the coolest things I can think of ), and I thought I should include it just to show that im not a terra firma rooted realist all the time, and that I am perfectly able to think in over the top, adrenaline-pumping action ways as well.

Cardinalsin said:

Of course, but then again im not opposing the fact that it's hard to dodge being shot at (you can't dodge being shot at in real life AT ALL). Bullets tend to move a lot faster than swordswings after all. My main concern here is melee combat.

Cardinalsin said:

Okay, point taken. But let's consider the issue in another way. Let's say that a melee attacker do roll insanely good on his or her rolls for attacks, then this will effectively negate any kind of result that the defender might roll. I mean, the defender could by all means roll consecutive ones for all his/her parries, it simply won't make any difference if the attacker rolls equally good, simply because the attacker has more attacks than the defender can muster in the way of defense.

That is imbalanced, no matter how you look at it.

If it were guns, then it would be a different story, because you can't normally outrun bullets or dodge them. So a gunner rolling an undodgeable amount of hits is completely okay by me in that regard. Swordswings and thrusts on the other hand do not move at the speed of bullets, and should be treated in a more balanced way.

Cardinalsin said:

I think I've said it before, but probably in another thread but the system of the so called "abstractions" in Dark Heresy suck. Because the rules try to overreach themselves in both keeping the combat system filled with abstractions but at the same time going in to treat minute details. In my experience this is a bad approach, because the system will be riddled with bugs and quirks and many aspects that makes no sense at all. It is better to either emphasize abstractions all the way, or concentrate the full attention towards all minute details. (I have played RPG's that handles combat in both ways, so I'd say that I know what im talking about). But trying to do both at the same time will result in a lot of errors.

So for the sake of argument let's not blame the errors and inconsistensies on "the power of abstractions", you feel me?

Now as for combat draging on to long and becoming boring, which is an excellent point that you adress and I appriciate that you bring it up, I think this is something for the GM to tailor to fit his own needs. All the GM has to do is to make sure that minor NPC's that shouldn't take too long to dispatch do not have the talents for doing multiple parries in one round. However sometimes a GM might want to have an NPC being a little more formidable than the rest of the bunch. As of now, the only way to do this is to send a monster with a really high toughness bonus and a sick amount of AP, hoping that the monster is able to absorb most damage inflicted upon it by the PC's.

But let's say that I want to have a human NPC, with human Toughness and a human set of armour, but still is a very formidable fighter which is not that easy to kill? Someone who will prove to be a real challenge to take out? I assure you that if I created an NPC with human stats (meaning no unnatural toughness or similar traits which beef up resistance, or an unnatural high number of wounds), it wouldn't matter how many Melee Combat Talents, or how high value in WS he/she would have. An armed group of acolytes would chew this character up for breakfast, even in melee. And why? Well that's simple, it's because the game, as it is now, can't provide enough parry reactions to build one über character like that. Making that wanted, exciting, long drawn sword duel a wish of dreams and nothing more.

With my way, you can have that, without having to resort to cheap tricks, like giving all NPC's unnatural toughness and Refractor fields.

@Graspar

The point is that melee close combat gets impossible to defend against, it doesn't matter if it's a moritat dual wielding powerswords or a guardsman with two sharp sticks. The end result is still at least two attacks that hit no matter what the defender does with which skills.

The rest of the game doesn't work like that so why should melee?

Please flip open your rulebook on the page 175, read the power firestorm and tell me how to evade it, assuming a human agility bonus. Some parts of the rest of the game do work like that.

Okay, point taken. But let's consider the issue in another way. Let's say that a melee attacker do roll insanely good on his or her rolls for attacks, then this will effectively negate any kind of result that the defender might roll. I mean, the defender could by all means roll consecutive ones for all his/her parries, it simply won't make any difference if the attacker rolls equally good, simply because the attacker has more attacks than the defender can muster in the way of defense.

That is imbalanced, no matter how you look at it.

Yes, it is unbalanced. It's already unbalanced because the optimum outcome for the defender is that nothing happens while the best outcome for the attacker is that the defender gets hurt.
The more interesting question would be: Does that matter?

Most people with Wall of Steel will have Swift/Lightning Attack themselves - and they're not limited to using one or the other in a round. There's no unfairness because there is no either-or situation here.

Cifer said:

Why do people bring up firearms and psychic powers?

I don't think anyone in this thread have anything against these being hard to evade. Bullets move only slightly below or sometimes way above the speed of sound (laser move at the speed of light), so no one would think it's strange or imbalanced for them to be hard to evade. As for psychic powers, although it is a metaphysical thing, considering that it stems from the mind of the psyker we can pretty much assume that psychic powers move at the speed of thought (which is faster than the speed of light even). So no one's trying to argue against them being hard to evade here, melee attacks on the other hand are the slowest form of attacks in the game. Unless you are a cybernetticaly enhanced killer robot with an unnaural agility and strength miltiple by three or four, your sword swings, knife stabs, power fist blows etc. will move very slowly and cumbersome in comparison to the speed of a bullet, bolt-shell, laser beam, psychich power etc.

That's why it makes NO SENSE AT ALL why melee attacks should be the hardest to evade. Neither from a realistic point of view, or from a game balance point of view.

Now, can we drop the comparisons with psychic powers and firerarms please? They hold no validity in this discussion at all.

Cifer said:

You can't just assume that a person with Wall of Steel will have Swift/Lighting attack as well. And also it doesn't really matter if they do, because the net result is still the same, meaning that: melee attacks will still be very hard to guard against. So in a scenario where two characters are fighting, and both have Wall of Steel and Lightning Attack, the one result that will decide who win's the fight is most likely who get's to go first (having the highest initiative). In a gunfight that would be perfectly acceptable (in the real world, if I can draw and fire my gun before you do, you are dead or too seriously injured to shoot back), in a melee however things are completely different. A close combat can take unexpected turns depending on how smart one fighter is over the other, and if one knows when to keep their guard up and when to attack. So while an element of surprise can be really helpful (to throw the first punch that is), it will not necessarily be as decisive like firing your gun before the other guy.

So in a scenario where two characters are fighting, and both have Wall of Steel and Lightning Attack, the one result that will decide who win's the fight is most likely who get's to go first (having the highest initiative

Or who Charges looses. Which is seperate issue but if you have Mort against someone who isn't that kind of means the Mort has too be the one to charge. But then as people said penalising the agressor is a bit dull, and completely at odds with the firearms initiative where i think we all agree shooting first is the best bet.

It's funny think about previous threads that this is regarding people who never miss. I still haven't seen a situation where this is the case (in combat anyway). Assuming WS 60 (40+4 advances), is there a +5 for mort. +10 for best quality. So at best 3/4 attacks hit. And with LIghtning attack that 3 attacks. Dual weilding is no help because for an extra attack they are all at -10. I've always considered Blade Master to be an extra attack because the chances of hitting with all of them were so low and it can be used to reroll a parry. Do they use All out attack all of the time? Am I forgetting something or are we interperting something differently.

All things being equal the defender should have +10 for a balanced weapon on their parries, again I could be wrong but people with Wall o steel also get step asside by then which is one dodge, 2 parries (assuming parries have a higher chance but not nescesarily the case). There should be something that allows an extra dual weilder parry.

I'm not calling you a liar but we are talking about vey high level game play issue.

At that level I don't think additional defensive talents are unbalanced at that level. It might not appropriate for the PC melee classes. Neither the assassin or guardsman should really be allowed to have additional defensive skills because it's a bit out of their Idiom but some of of talants seem good NPC's. Fencers, Gladiators, Ranking Naval officers and especially Aspect warriors (especially bullet cleaver).

Cold Steel Defense: is too powerful as is IMO. What about if it delayed your attack till the end of the turn or even sacrifices your attacks totally.

And maybe talents that convert the ability to dodge into extra parries that round if that's the issue.

Why not just steal something that has worked in several other systems? Namely the concept of an all-out defense, in which you spend the whole turn doing nothing except defending?

Spend a full action, you gain a dodge/parry against every attack you receive. When you're through your natural defensive moves, impose a -10 penalty. Only allow talents such as counter-attack to function with the normal defenses.

Certainly that should address the matter?

Zearoth Kilrathle said:

Isnt this principle covered by the "Defensive Stance" action?

Varnias Tybalt said:

Varnias Tybalt said:

In fairness, every mention of firearms has been, at the outset, in response to Graspar, who is making significantly different points to you.

Varnias Tybalt said:

I think you're talking about a different thing here to your original post, which was about realism. It isn't all that realistic to have one character able to defend against 4-6 individuals attacking at once, unless the 4-6 individuals are quite weak. But no problem, in that case I think having the option for a large or even unlimited number of parries could be quite cool, but as Zearoth suggests, it should probably mean no attacking. If you're looking to create a real combat god you could break even that restriction, but I wouldn't recommend it.

A further idea I had for a talent:

Desperate Defence. When the going gets tough, you pull out the stops. You can spend a fate point at any time during a combat round to double your total number of reactions for the round. This includes any extra reactions you get from Wall of Steel or Sidestep, but they must be used in the same way, i.e. to parry or dodge, respectively.

I think that provides a pretty cool way to defend against being outnumbered or just against a foe with lots of attacks who got lucky, without providing an endless unbeatable defence.