Slightly Overhauled Combat Actions

By SCKoNi, in Rogue Trader House Rules

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I was dissatisfied with the Combat Actions within the RT system, so I made a simple, short hybrid using a mix of my own ideas combined with elements of the BC and OW lines. Enjoy and comment at your leisure! (Note any Actions NOT listed here are unchanged from the Core Rulebook)

Standard Attack (Melee/Ranged): As a Half-Action, the character takes his time to attempt an Routine (+10) Weapon Skill or Ballistic Skill Test, with additional modifiers for size, range, etc. where applicable. A success means the target suffers a single hit.

Semi-Automatic Burst (Ranged): As a Half-Action, the character takes several shots at his target, attempting a Challenging (+0) Ballistic Skill Test, with additional modifiers for size, range, etc. where applicable. A success means the target suffers a single hit for every Degree of Success on the Ballistic Skill Test, up to a maximum of the character's Ballistic Skill Bonus or his weapon's Semi-Auto Rate of Fire. The character must be equipped with a weapon capable of Semi-Automatic fire to take this action.

Full-Auto Burst (Ranged): As a Half-Action, the character unleashes a spray of fire at his target, attempting a Routine (+10) Ballistic Skill Test, w ith additional modifiers for size, range, etc. where applicable. A success means the target suffers a single hit for every second Degree of Success, due to the difficulty of keeping his weapon on target, up to a maximum of the character's Ballistic Skill Bonus or his weapon's Full-Auto Rate of Fire. The character must be equipped with a weapon capable of Full-Auto fire to take this action.

Swift Attack (Melee): With a series of rapid blows, the character takes a Full-Action to make two, consecutive Challenging (+0) Weapon Skill Tests with additional modifiers for size, enemy position, etc. against one target or two targets he is bound with in melee. Each Test is rolled separately and may receive different modifiers from each other. On a successful test the target suffers one hit. Unwieldy weapons CANNOT be used to perform this action.

Lightning Attack (Melee): In a blur of motion, the character takes a Full-Action to make three, consecutive Difficult (-10) Weapon Skill Tests with additional modifiers for size, enemy position, etc. against one target or up to three targets he is bound with in melee. Each Test is rolled separately and may receive different modifiers from each other. On a successful test the target suffers one hit. Unwieldy and Unbalanced weapons CANNOT be used to perform this action.

Dodge (Ranged/Melee): As a Reaction, by either side-stepping a blade or ducking under an incoming round, the character attempts an Opposed Challenging (+0) Dodge Test against an enemy's attack roll, with additional modifiers for environmental conditions or gear. Note that this may only be attempted against one attack action per turn (the extra attacks from Swift and Lightning attack count as one action in this regard).

Parry (Melee): As a Reaction the character deflects an incoming blow with his own weapon, attempting an Opposed Challenging (+0) Weapon Skill Test against an enemy's attack roll, with additional modifiers for environmental conditions or gear. Note that this may only be attempted against one attack action per turn (the extra attacks from Swift and Lightning attack count as one action in this regard).

*A note on melee: To represent an attacker overwhelming a target's defences, the Opposed Tests from Parry and Dodge are used for each roll on Swift and Lightning attacks, however should a target ever fail such a test then any remaining attacks by the attacker that round cannot be Parried or Dodged.

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I really like these rules, but would have to advise against making Dodge opposed. One reason is that with Opposed dodge, a person firing on full auto may roll a 1 and get 4 hits for example, and even though you rolled a 20 dodge you failed the opposed check and take all the hits. Without opposed dodge you would dodge only some of the bullets, which seems more accurate. The same thing applies to parry and swift/lightning attacks.

Edited by Utherix
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Ah, I see the mistake I made in the earlier posting.

In my games, with Opposed Tests the attacker only gets the remainder of his DoS in any case. Meaning that with your example, if the attacker got a total of 8 DoS (for 4 hits) and the defender got 3 DoS (taking a 50 Dodge as a baseline) then the attacker only has 5 DoS left, meaning he only gets 2 hits instead of 4.

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I feel like Semi and Full Auto are the wrong way round...

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You would think, but consider what fully-automatic weapons are used for in real life. Mostly its for suppression or assaulting an area, where the hail of bullets is supposed to provide enough of a reason for the enemy to keep their heads down.

When someone actually wants to put multiple rounds on target, they use semi-automatic fire. This is why you will almost never find fully-automatic marksman rifles.

What I wanted to do with these changes was give the wielder of a weapon capable of all 3 types of fire more options. Currently, with the ruleset for Black Crusade/Only War/DH 2E, the Full-Auto action is only ever used at Point-Blank or by ridiculously high BS characters in a way that goes wholly against what Full-Auto is supposed to represent.

Weapons on Full-Auto are difficult to control, the weapon jitters and bucks in your hands (or a similar effect on Laser weaponry), which is why any marksman will forgo it for Semi-Automatic fire any time they want to accurately strike a target.

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...consider what fully-automatic weapons are used for in real life. Mostly its for suppression or assaulting an area, where the hail of bullets is supposed to provide enough of a reason for the enemy to keep their heads down.

When someone actually wants to put multiple rounds on target, they use semi-automatic fire...

Right, I agree entirely - but what your rules do (giving a +10) is make it more useful for shooting at individual people, not less. It's effectively an extra DoS for the same roll.

The -10 from the Only War rules fully encourages the use of FA for Suppressing Fire only, at least in my experience.

Edited by LoneKharnivore
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...consider what fully-automatic weapons are used for in real life. Mostly its for suppression or assaulting an area, where the hail of bullets is supposed to provide enough of a reason for the enemy to keep their heads down.

When someone actually wants to put multiple rounds on target, they use semi-automatic fire...

Right, I agree entirely - but what your rules do (giving a +10) is make it more useful for shooting at individual people, not less. It's effectively an extra DoS for the same roll.

The -10 from the Only War rules fully encourages the use of FA for Suppressing Fire only, at least in my experience.

This is true, but with that -10 the only thing they are good for is suppression, the +10 is supposed to facilitate assaulting units like Ork Shootas and Guardsmen with Assault Lasguns. I want to represent a Full-Auto Weapons ability to at least get one hit in most of the time through sheer luck. Currently, its usually not worth the ammo expenditure for just a Full Action suppression.

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I see. I'm just not sure about the maths... Let's look at an exemplar:

A character has a BS of 55. He rolls 40.

On Semi-Auto he would score 2 DoS, for two hits.

On Full Auto (+10 to that 55) he would score 3 DoS, for two hits.

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Well you're going by high stats, PC-tier. Think about who mostly uses Full-Auto weapons though, grunts, that usually have low BS. Outside of Eldar there are not many Full-Auto weapons among the elite warriors of the races.
Imperium has Storm Bolters and Heavy Bolters and Chaos has the same, Eldar have their weird **** like Reaper Launchers and stuff (then again, those would benefit from a nerf in this game) and Tau have Gatling guns. Full-Auto is mostly a grunt thing.

Now lets take the same example you posited with a Guardsman wielding a Lasgun against a Cultist with an Autogun (Both same BS)

By the OW rules, the Guardsman shoots with 45 BS if aiming, 35 if assaulting, and the Cultist shoots with 35 BS if aiming, 25 if assaulting.
Both have a very low chance of getting more than one hit, and the cultist usually just misses unless he aims.

With the ruleset I propse, the Guardsman would still shoot at 45 if aiming, 35 if assaulting, but now the Cultist gets 55 if aiming, 45 if assaulting. Should they both roll 30, both get 2 hits, BUT the guardsman only used 3 rounds from his clip, the cultist used 10. This expenditure of ammo is what the cultist is paying for to get that higher chance to hit, which for me better represents the Autogun as an Assault weapon and the Lasgun as more of a rifle. The auto-gunner is wasting rounds by the dozen per clip to get a few hits, he will often need to stop and re-load, several times even, before the Guardsman ever needs to think of ammo.

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Makes sense, and is actually quite elegant. I thought your intent was to change the way players used SA/FA. I'll have to test these out.

As a point of interest regarding " a Full-Auto weapon's ability to at least get one hit in most of the time through sheer luck": during the Vietnam war, the US expended 50,000 rounds for every enemy kill. In Iraq and Afghanistan that number climbed to 250,000 per kill. I don't know if this'll change your numbers but I thought it worth noting.

Edited by LoneKharnivore