Delay:
I can delay as my second half action? correct? This makes delay in conjunction with full-auto incredibly powerful.
Unarmed Combat:
the errata says something like, you need to make mor damage then the TB of the opponent to inflict fatigue. Is that before armor or after armor?
vogue69 said:
Unarmed Combat:
the errata says something like, you need to make mor damage then the TB of the opponent to inflict fatigue. Is that before armor or after armor?
Must be after. Otherwise you could knock out somebody in power armor with a pool cue.
vogue69 said:
Delay:
I can delay as my second half action? correct? This makes delay in conjunction with full-auto incredibly powerful.
How so? Full Auto is a Full Action. When you Delay, you only reserve a Half-Action for later use.
vogue69 said:
Delay:
I can delay as my second half action? correct? This makes delay in conjunction with full-auto incredibly powerful.
As far as I'm aware there is nothing to say that you can't.
vogue69 said:
Unarmed Combat:
the errata says something like, you need to make mor damage then the TB of the opponent to inflict fatigue. Is that before armor or after armor?
I would be tempted to say after, but then there are clearer ways of saying that (e.g. whenever an unarmed attack wounds an enemy it also inflicts a level of fatigue). If you run it as before armour, chances are the opponent won't actually take any damage but will eventually be KO'd.
Khouri said:
I would be tempted to say after, but then there are clearer ways of saying that (e.g. whenever an unarmed attack wounds an enemy it also inflicts a level of fatigue). If you run it as before armour, chances are the opponent won't actually take any damage but will eventually be KO'd.
The alternative interpretation is that you have to inflict a number of Wounds exceeding the target's TB after reduction for the TB, so that if you hit somebody with a TB of 3, you have to do at least 7 damage to inflict Fatigue (7 - 3 = 4 - 3 = 1).
1. The Delay action does not give you any more action, but lets you reserve an unspent half action for later use. It also costs a half action by itself, so no you need another action for it to have any meaning.
2. You need to do more damage than TB, it doesen't say after armor and if it was you might as well just say "if target takes wounds" or something. So yes you can technically knock out a guy in power armor with unarmed attacks. Unless it's a space Marine... or do you generally have 15 in SB?
It may seem silly at the extreme end, but if you consider a knight in plate armor being pummeled by alot of people I can see the helmet protecting against most damage but there would still be blunt trauma.
If I would make a house rule I would determine that TB didn't matter and it was armor on location that mattered to determine wether there would be fatigue or not. Unarmed attack does so low damage that even a fairly lightly armored average guy is pretty much impregnable to it. If you can routinely do 5 damage with unarmed then you deserve to so some fatigue IMO.
Friend of the Dork said:
1. The Delay action does not give you any more action, but lets you reserve an unspent half action for later use. It also costs a half action by itself, so no you need another action for it to have any meaning.
Really? I thought it simply let you delay the half action itself. So you could take a half action move then delay and shoot an enemy when they walk into your line of fire.
From DH, p197:
"A successful Weapon Skill Test made with an unarmed attack deals 1d5-3 Impact Damage, plus the character's Strength Bonus. Armour Points count as double against the attack. In addition a successful hit [that causes damage equal to or greater than the target’s
Toughness Bonus also causes one level of Fatigue.]"
Two possible interpretations:
1. You roll d5-3+SB and beat your opponent's TB, you cause a level of fatigue.
2. You roll d5-3+SB, subtract your opponent's TB, subtract double their AP, and if the total beats their TB, you cause a level of fatigue.
Interpretation 1 massively favours the attacker; a character in power armour might be virtually immune to damage caused by, say, a sword; yet hit him with your bare fists and you can probably KO them after a dozen blows.
Interpretation 2 massively favours the defender; it's basically impossible to cause any fatigue at all to an armoured target, without unnatural strength. (Or righteous fury. Does that apply here?)
I favour interpretation 2, because fundamentally it's a bit stupid that it might be more effective to put your sword down and start punching your opponent instead. But there again, I think the concept that unarmed attacks do fatigue but other weapons don't, is idiotic.
Really? I thought it simply let you delay the half action itself. So you could take a half action move then delay and shoot an enemy when they walk into your line of fire.
Hmm. I was going to disagree here, but reading the text I can't see anything to contradict your interpretation.
Khouri said:
Friend of the Dork said:
1. The Delay action does not give you any more action, but lets you reserve an unspent half action for later use. It also costs a half action by itself, so no you need another action for it to have any meaning.
Really? I thought it simply let you delay the half action itself. So you could take a half action move then delay and shoot an enemy when they walk into your line of fire.
Nope, Friend of Dork is correct. You use a half action to perform the "Delay" action, which allows you to delay using your other half action until later in the round (essentially converting the delayed action into a full action for the round).
The way you have stated means the character has performed 3 half actions in a round, which is not legal.
dvang said:
You use a half action to perform the "Delay" action, which allows you to delay using your other half action until later in the round (essentially converting the delayed action into a full action for the round).
Is there an official ruling to that effect? The rulebook wording appears very unclear.
dvang said:
Khouri said:
Friend of the Dork said:
1. The Delay action does not give you any more action, but lets you reserve an unspent half action for later use. It also costs a half action by itself, so no you need another action for it to have any meaning.
Really? I thought it simply let you delay the half action itself. So you could take a half action move then delay and shoot an enemy when they walk into your line of fire.
Nope, Friend of Dork is correct. You use a half action to perform the "Delay" action, which allows you to delay using your other half action until later in the round (essentially converting the delayed action into a full action for the round).
The way you have stated means the character has performed 3 half actions in a round, which is not legal.
The rulebook doesn't support this. It just says "a" half reaction. if it would be your other unspent half-action they could have made delay a full action.
No the rulebook doesen't say a "half reaction" it says you can take the half-action you reserve later before your next turn. It also says your turn immedeately ends, which would make it pointless NOT to take an action before you Delay as you would otherwise lose i
Cardinalsin with your interpretation a man in armor is always invulnerable to unarmed strikes. He can't take enough damage to actually take damage, and he can't be knocked out or worn by repeated attacks. I agree that it silly that only unarmed can deal fatigue damge, but the way you run it you might as well say that there is no fatigue damage.
The way the rules are now a man in flak armor can still be knocked out, but will not suffer any real injury because of his armor.
In any case it's fairly obvious that fatigue is meant to work on another principle than just "taking wounds." Remember that pre-errata the fatigue was automatic regardless of damage done. Now you have to usually roll fairly high on a d5 to cause that fatigue damage. Those that wear power armor tend to have pretty good toughness to begin with. If it really bothers you that much you can always say that Power Armor gives extra protection against fatigue from attacks.
dvang said:
Nope, Friend of Dork is correct. You use a half action to perform the "Delay" action, which allows you to delay using your other half action until later in the round (essentially converting the delayed action into a full action for the round).
The way you have stated means the character has performed 3 half actions in a round, which is not legal.
Except the way I am reading it, the Delay action is just that, a delay. When you choose to use Delay Action you turn ends immediately and the Delay Half Action is then reserved for later use. So in my example the character is still only performing two Half Actions in a Round, a Half Move and a Standard Attack, but with a delay between the two.
Friend of the Dork said:
No the rulebook doesen't say a "half reaction" it says you can take the half-action you reserve later before your next turn. It also says your turn immedeately ends, which would make it pointless NOT to take an action before you Delay as you would otherwise lose i
The rulebook says:
"Delay (half action). [...] When you use the delay Action, your Turn ends immediately, but you reserve a Half Action for later use."
The way I read that, you don't have to have two half actions in hand, one to take the Delay action and one to reserve. By taking the Delay action you cause your turn to end, but with a half action in reserve. Nothing here seems to indicate you can't have taken another half action first. After all, if that's what they meant, surely they would have made it a full action, to make it absolutely clear you can't do anything else in the same turn?
Friend of the Dork said:
Cardinalsin with your interpretation a man in armor is always invulnerable to unarmed strikes. He can't take enough damage to actually take damage, and he can't be knocked out or worn by repeated attacks.
Well, yeah. The armour in DH seems to me to be sufficiently tough that a physical blow would feel no worse than a shove - no risk of KO. The only way I can see someone getting KOd in this way is if they aren't wearing a helmet and take a blow to the head, or if they are physically pushed down a hill or similar. Maybe it's arguable in the case of flak armour, I dunno.
but grappling deals damage through chokes and locks. Armor (expcept maybe powerarmor) is of no use against that.
vogue69 said:
but grappling deals damage through chokes and locks. Armor (expcept maybe powerarmor) is of no use against that.
I'm not sure I agree it's *no* use. If nothing else, plated armour protects some joints in a way that makes it hard to get a lock in the first place. But I take your general point.
Basically though, let's be honest - the unarmed combat system, and the fatigue system generally, needs some work. I'm half-tempted to say that it should revert to using d10+SB as damage, but use a D&D-style "subdual damage", meaning if you get reduced to 0 wounds by subdual damage, you are simply KOd. Armour would still be pretty awesome against unarmed attacks, but no more so than against many primitive melee weapons. The only remaining problem would be that it would be easier to knock someone out using your fists than using, say, a club.
Cardinalsin said:
Friend of the Dork said:
No the rulebook doesen't say a "half reaction" it says you can take the half-action you reserve later before your next turn. It also says your turn immedeately ends, which would make it pointless NOT to take an action before you Delay as you would otherwise lose i
The rulebook says:
"Delay (half action). [...] When you use the delay Action, your Turn ends immediately, but you reserve a Half Action for later use."
The way I read that, you don't have to have two half actions in hand, one to take the Delay action and one to reserve. By taking the Delay action you cause your turn to end, but with a half action in reserve. Nothing here seems to indicate you can't have taken another half action first. After all, if that's what they meant, surely they would have made it a full action, to make it absolutely clear you can't do anything else in the same turn?
Then you are giving a player 3 half actions in a single round, which is not allowed anywhere in the rulebook, nor is there precedent for it anywhere in the rulebook. PCs get a total of 2 half actions in a combat round (or one full action), period. Using the Delay action is a half action. Thus, the only way to have a half action to use later (with the delay) is if they didn't use their other half action for the round. If they just wanted the Delay action to 'give' a free half action later then they could have made the Delay action itself be free and allow one of the two actions itself to be delayed. Instead, the Delay action itself costs a half action. Consider it a penalty for the player getting the flexibility to act outside the normal sequence (and as an interrupt-like abillity) of combat.
dvang said:
Then you are giving a player 3 half actions in a single round
Arguably. It's functionally equivalent to giving a player 2 half actions in a single round, one of which he gets to save for later.
dvang said:
Then you are giving a player 3 half actions in a single round, which is not allowed anywhere in the rulebook, nor is there precedent for it anywhere in the rulebook. PCs get a total of 2 half actions in a combat round (or one full action), period. Using the Delay action is a half action. Thus, the only way to have a half action to use later (with the delay) is if they didn't use their other half action for the round. If they just wanted the Delay action to 'give' a free half action later then they could have made the Delay action itself be free and allow one of the two actions itself to be delayed. Instead, the Delay action itself costs a half action. Consider it a penalty for the player getting the flexibility to act outside the normal sequence (and as an interrupt-like abillity) of combat.
That's the way I read it as well.
Because the Delay Action specifically states that you retain a Half Action for later use, there's no need for it to state that it technically allows three half-actions elsewhere in the rules. If the designers wanted a Delayed Half-Action to be the only thing a character could do in a turn, Delay would have been a Full Action which ends your turn but allows an extra half-action later.
As written, you can easily take another Half-Action and then use Delay. You can interpret that as either granting you a third half-action or simply displacing the Half-Action used by the Delay ability until later in the turn, or as meaning that you retain a half-action despite having potentially used two after the Delay Action. You can interpret it as Flying Monkies swooping down and taking the half-action for you. But the Delay Action specifically states that your turn ends and you retain a Half-Action for use later in the Round.
There's no reason to impose "a penalty for the player getting the flexibility to act outside the normal sequence," because having a higher initiative is intended to be a straightforward advantage. Acting first in a turn is not necessarily better than acting last, so they allowed players to reserve half of their turn for use anytime in the sequence. This is technically actually a pretty large penalty in itself, since it makes an advantage (being faster than the other PCs/NPCs) somewhat disadvantageous (you can't delay the whole turn).
Incidentally, if Delay were a Free Action, you could technically take two half-actions or a full action and then Delay. This would have been fine, except that the Delay Action would have had to state "you cannot take the Delay Action after you have used either a Full Action or two Half-Actions or their equivalent in a given Round."
Hodgepodge!
You forget the one main advantage of the delay action: The possibility to interrrupt another person. If it wasn't for that you might as well let people delay as much as they want, having delay just mean "act at a lower initative as if you've rolled lower."
However the possibility of the Delay action does give a few advantages:
1. You can wait for a melee attacker to charge or even just run to you that is otherwise out of range for your attack. (If it runs you even get +20 ws on the attack).
2. You can wait for an attacker to come within range or a closer range for your ranged attack, giving you potentially +30 and scatter...
3. You can threaten someone with a weapon and get an attack if they resist.
Now as far as I can tell, these advantages is why you actually lose a half action on the turn you use Delay. Using a half-action and then delaying means you don't lose anything except the ability to take a full action at once.
Friend of the Dork said:
Hodgepodge!
You forget the one main advantage of the delay action: The possibility to interrrupt another person. If it wasn't for that you might as well let people delay as much as they want, having delay just mean "act at a lower initative as if you've rolled lower."
However the possibility of the Delay action does give a few advantages:
1. You can wait for a melee attacker to charge or even just run to you that is otherwise out of range for your attack. (If it runs you even get +20 ws on the attack).
2. You can wait for an attacker to come within range or a closer range for your ranged attack, giving you potentially +30 and scatter...
3. You can threaten someone with a weapon and get an attack if they resist.
Now as far as I can tell, these advantages is why you actually lose a half action on the turn you use Delay. Using a half-action and then delaying means you don't lose anything except the ability to take a full action at once.
Those are very good uses of Delay, but they don't seem to me to be extraordinary examples of the sort of advantage one has if one essentially has the drop on someone else during a round of combat. Except for the last, they all also require an opponent to actually choose to move through a point directly beside you, unless you are concealed or something. A shotgun or sword through the gut seems like a suitable reward for someone stupid enough to try to walk right past an alert opponent.
The sort of scenario I have in mind is such:
Player B: ****, I'm nearly dead, someone help me.
Player A: Gotcha covered. I make a half-action move in front of Player B and then delay my next action to see if any of the Cultists are foolish enough to try to attack him.
By your last sentence, do you mean that you if you take a half-action and then delay, you don't "lose" a half-action, but if you choose to use delay as your first half-action then you do? Because if so, then we actually agree. It seems quite clear that you only retain one half-action, regardless of how many you had left when you used delay.
I think you guys are missing the entire point of the unarmed combat rules in DH and why they are deliberately weak. The relative weakness of the attack is the ENTIRE POINT! What this lets you do from a GM's perspective is stage a nice fun bar-clearing brawl without things getting stupidly lethal. No, you are NOT kung-fu using super-mutant Jedi masters who can beat a Dreadnought to death with a single bare hand and a raised eyebrow! Any reasonable armour that is intended to protect the body from LETHAL force, at least to some extent is going to do a more or less wonderful job of stoping a hunk of flesh on a lever (the human arm/fist). This means that your acolytes can get in a brawl without 3 years of tedous court procedings about those 47 manufactoria workers you murdered over a game of darts.
The numbers game:
Unarmed damage: (1D5-3)+SB Average SB = 3 Therefore "average" unarmed damage = 1D5. Average TB = 3. This puts a pair of "average" fighters effectively smacking each other around for 1d5-3 damage per hit. Most of the punches, kicks and so on that land are therefore simply cosmetic and serve to make the fight dramatic and last more than "I swing, he dies". That said, 40% of those hits will get at least 1 point of damage past toughness, resulting in 1-2 wounds and a level of fatigue. Fatigue will drop someone when it equals or excedes TB and the average wound total for a normal human NPC is about 10. So a good solid beatdown involves about 3 telling blows that inflict 1-2 wounds and a fatigue point. Our KO'ed brawler has suffered 3-6 wounds out of 10 and is "lights out" for a while, but NOT dead unless someone continues to pound away on them. Battered, bruised, sore, but they will live to see another day and will be feeling a bit beat-up for a few days unless they get medical attention.
Most other weapons and attacks in this game go well into critical damage before any fatigue is inflicted, so an unconscious target is far more likely to be because of massive shock from losing limbs, some inconsiderate fellow taking a melta-gun to their ribcage or some other rather permanent misfortune.
So no, you are not knocking out a 10,000 year old Chaos Marine with a pool-que. Chances are bad on doing that against a Cadian or Vostroyan Guardsman in their carapace armour either. Or a Scintilla PDF trooper in full flak. This stuff has a halfway decent chance of stopping solid shotgun slugs. Your little "meat-mallets" do not measure up in either velocity or penetration power compared to this, so it is silly to expect that they will somehow work better than true weapons of war. Why else would weapons have been invented? They ARE better lethal weapons, which is the whole point of someone going to all the trouble to invent and craft them, and others to perfect fighting techniques to use the weapons in question. It would also violate a primary rule of DH in that it makes these things LESS COOL! Now having a non-lethal option for taking down a heretic that you manage to corner so you can interrogate them to learn all their filthy secrets and unmask MORE heretics and their foul plans, now THAT is cool!