Right, I dislike the fact that characters can dodge bullets. I want combat to be deadlier for players and NPCs alike.

House rule!

Replace 'Dodge' and 'Parry' with one skill: Evasion. You can use either Weapon Skill, if armed, or Agility, to parry and dodge. It will use Agility and Defence as its Aptitudes.

Now, the interesting part:

You can't use Evasion against guns, outside of melee. You can dodge flamers and grenades, but not bullets, plasma, or bolt shells. You can dodge arrows from bows.

However , if you gain Unnatural Weapon Skill, or Unnatural Agility, or are under the effects of the Psychic Powers 'Foreboding', or 'Forewarning', you can parry (Unnatural WS), or dodge (Unnatural Ag), these shots. Eldar and Genestealers can dodge bullets, non-psychic humans can't. Psykers with Force Swords can parry bullets like Eisenhorn.

Note that a Power Field, or the Force Quality, might be needed to parry the likes of plasma and melta shots.

Well, that boost certain type of character, and decrease others, without any balancing between both.

Eisenhorn swords parries bullets not because he is a psyker, but because his sword has a conscience by itself.

Dodge do not represents dodging bullets, but getting the frag out of the way of an ennemy aiming towards you.

If I draw a gun an points it towards you, you have the time to get out of the future trajectory of my bullets.

Unless you decide to ditch any kind of survival behaviour.

That's what cover is for. You don't move to use dodge. You don't even move a single metre. It's not getting out of the way of that full-auto spray that just got four hits.Those four degrees of success do not have you move out of their area of fire. They, instead, have you dance on the spot, ignoring the bullets.

It is, in real life, possible to dodge a punch, or a sword. That's accepted. If the dodge skill represents this, and the dodge skill is something else for guns, that's odd.

A moving target is assumed when using Ballistic Skill. It's assumed that the target isn't allowing himself to be shot. That's why Stunned characters are easier to hit. They're not actively avoiding the shot.

Survival behaviour: Don't get into gunfights. Don't bring knives to gunfights.

Also, Barbarisater's consciousness is probably, in part, due to the fact that it's a Force Sword, and Dan Abnett is applying cool flavour to that.If Nayl picked it up, I can't imagine that he'd instantly be able to parry bullets. The Adeptus Mechanicus isn't known for forging bullet-parrying swords that anyone can use.

The fact that he's psychic likely plays a part in Eisenhorn's Jedi sword skills.

At ten metres, a character with 49 Ballistic Skill, armed with a shotgun, taking a half-action to aim, and one to shoot, has a 69% chance to hit. A person that skilled should be hitting far more than that. He should not be reducing this chance to hit by a third, down to 46% because a guy with Agility 33 and the Dodge skill is up against him.

A trained professional - that is, 49 Ballistic Skill, which is only one point lower than a Deathwatch Space Marine, can only hit, at Short Range, less than half the time with Dodge involved. Without Dodge , you'd expect the vast majority of such shots to hit. Not just 69%. Therefore, it should probably be assumed that the target is not standing and allowing himself to be shot.

I would then argue that, regardless of how good he is at dodging, he's not going to be able to react and dodge bullets naturally.

So wait. Just to clarify.

You'd allow Psykers to dodge bullets in your campaigns but literally nobody else (PC-wise)?

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I don't think Psykers NEED any help to make them better than the other careers.

Also, I interpreted the dodge rule as the character "dodging" the shooter's aim.

The ballistics skill 69% chance deal you mentioned is the gunner trying to hit an erratically moving target. If a character is caught unawares (ie. stunned) you get the bonus because they're not actively moving.

There's a difference between a moving target to make themselves harder to hit in a general sense, and a character moving specifically to make it harder for YOU to hit.

This is why you only get one dodge per round outside of special rules like Step Aside. The character is explicitly moving around to make it harder for the specific shooter to hit them, at the expense of not being able to do it against any of the other shooters. They're explicitly looking at where you're aiming and doing everything they can NOT to be in line with your barrel when you pull the trigger.

Remember. You're not just standing around waiting your turn, in between rounds. Your characters are moving, weaving, ducking and the like. The dodge roll represents them doing this even moreso, with regards to avoiding ballistic weapons.

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And on a rules note, all your ruling does is mean that NOBODY will use anything except guns. All you're doing is making guns the top dogs. No PC is going to bother with anything except a gun, since they cannot be dodged. All you're doing is making melee builds completely obsolete.

Melee builds get Killing Strike, and provide safety from guns. If you're in melee, you're not getting shot. Their high level talents are better too.

Yeah, I'd disallow anyone but psykers to dodge bullets - although maybe cybernetics or drugs could offer similar later.

Also, they do more damage, by far. A chain sword, with a strong wielder, does lots of damage.

And, yeah, I want guns to be more dangerous than swords. You could argue 'but the tabletop battle game has melee fighting!'... and you'd be right, but shooty armies are generally better than punchy ones.

A trained professional shouldn't be missing the majority of the time against someone that is trained at dodging. 46% chance of hitting, at only 10 metres, for a Space Marine with a boltgun, is ridiculous. Sure, 46% chance for his chainsword as the guy desperately ducks and weaves... but dodging bullets? Nah, I'd rather not. I'm happy for players to get shot to death, that's fine. I'm also for the bad guys getting shot to death, too.

Obviously, this would alter the balance of melee against shooting, but that's fine in my book - I'm not going to force this on players mid-campaign. As an aside, this would make the sword and pistol combo, which is very common in 40K on the tabletop and in the fluff, far more common. Players will pin people with their pistols, or move and shoot, when trying to get into melee.

It is, in real life, possible to dodge a punch, or a sword. That's accepted. If the dodge skill represents this, and the dodge skill is something else for guns, that's odd.

If you've actually been in a sword fight, no, it's not possible to dodge a sword. Not properly, at least. You can parry it, or you can jumb back. But dodge, nope. Your feet move slower than your hands and arms, so the sword will be faster than your movement and you'll get hit. So no, the dodge skill in the game represents not dodging like going fluidly against one's attack, but getting the crap out of the way.

If it was your depiction of dodge, then counter-attack would be permitted with dodge.

A moving target is assumed when using Ballistic Skill. It's assumed that the target isn't allowing himself to be shot. That's why Stunned characters are easier to hit. They're not actively avoiding the shot.

Your argument is invalid. You can't say "the game assumes this" while not accepting it also assumes that you can dodge ranged attack.

Survival behaviour: Don't get into gunfights. Don't bring knives to gunfights.

That's a behaviour when you have complete control of what happen and no fight to do. A fighter must developp survival behaviour in a fight, such as getting of the way of killing zone and autofire.

Also, Barbarisater's consciousness is probably, in part, due to the fact that it's a Force Sword, and Dan Abnett is applying cool flavour to that.If Nayl picked it up, I can't imagine that he'd instantly be able to parry bullets. The Adeptus Mechanicus isn't known for forging bullet-parrying swords that anyone can use.

Indeed it is a force sword and Nayl couldn't use it the same way Eisenhorn do. But it's Barbarisater that has the special perk of subconsciously making its user move his hands to put the blade in way of ennemy fire. A salmon is a fish, but not all fish are salmons. Barbarisater is a force sword, but not all force swords are like barbarisater.

I would then argue that, regardless of how good he is at dodging, he's not going to be able to react and dodge bullets naturally.

Well..that's why you've got only 1 reaction per round (maybe 2 if you're hot). That's also why talented fighters in DH2 has gun inescapable attack.

A trained professional - that is, 49 Ballistic Skill, which is only one point lower than a Deathwatch Space Marine, can only hit, at Short Range, less than half the time with Dodge involved. Without Dodge , you'd expect the vast majority of such shots to hit. Not just 69%. Therefore, it should probably be assumed that the target is not standing and allowing himself to be shot.

Have you read statistical number of touches per 10 bullets of the army? Have you read the same thing of the SAS, Navy Seals or other professional soldiers? Because 69% of getting hit is WAY more than what actually happens in real war and battlefield.

No, touching with guns is hard. Principally because people get out of the way when someone target him with a gun and he knows it.

And, yeah, I want guns to be more dangerous than swords. You could argue 'but the tabletop battle game has melee fighting!'... and you'd be right, but shooty armies are generally better than punchy ones.

Already the case, if your players and NPCs acts intelligently.

Never needed your rules to let gun be more dangerous.

Melee combat in your way is just pointless. Higher grade melee combats talents won't even give some balance to that, since you won't ever get into close combat.

Nah, I'd rather not. I'm happy for players to get shot to death, that's fine. I'm also for the bad guys getting shot to death, too.

Personnal preferences, then. Not a search for realism.

Melee combat doesn't become pointless. It's good for flushing folks out of cover, and, as a knock-on, if you're good at it, and do it in a clever way (use of stealth, use of cover, use of smoke, close quarters etc), it can be useful - especially because other humans are less likely to be particularly good at it. Furthermore, your foe might be able to evade your attacks in melee, yes, but you can also evade his. It's also easier to take folk alive. It's less prone to killing bystanders (Sometimes you don't want to do that, right?). Or, it's for desperate guardsmen who have been rushed by Orks, and now need to fix bayonets - OH SH... Or it's for when you've run out of bolt shells (we should have taken lasguns, I told you!), and you've no other goddamn option.

Regarding counter-attack - changing Dodge and Parry to Evade would allow for counter-attacks from Dodge, which is fine by me. It would also remove the need for people being pedantic and saying ' well , you can't really dodge a sword', and allow for whatever flavour description one wants.

I'm aware that it, on paper, in a wartime situation, takes 'a man's own weight in ammunition to kill him'. However, that isn't because they're dodging bullets. It's because they stay pretty far from the enemy. It's because they hide and take cover. It's because soldiers, particularly conscripts, might lack trigger discipline and fire unnecessarily. At 21 feet, it's unlikely that a Space Marine (an honest-to-God supersoldier) will hit less than half the time with a carefully aimed shot. Against an average character with the Outcast background, and no XP, a Space Marine will hit said character less than half of the time, at the perfect distance.

The game doesn't cover 'not being where the bullet is' for Dodge. It does for evading area of effect attacks, though. Evading those puts you outside of where the shots were fired or exploded or whatever.

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I'll agree that it's personal preference, of course. I'm trying to provide something for those that want to scare folks out of getting into too many shootouts. Also, I want Eldar, in my game, to be dodging bullets in scary almost Matrix-type fashion, terrifying the players who can't do that.

I'll agree that it's personal preference, of course. I'm trying to provide something for those that want to scare folks out of getting into too many shootouts. Also, I want Eldar, in my game, to be dodging bullets in scary almost Matrix-type fashion, terrifying the players who can't do that.

I understand the principle behind your choice.

But why not asking players to simply do 2 tests: first of all, awareness, even if he is aware of getting shot at, to spot pretty exactly where the gun points, to then dodge the place where the gun will shoot? Because, it is possible to do this in real life. Clearly it's a little harder than in DH, but that's what many soldiers, police officers, special forces and such used to save their own lives for decades (and even centuries, with other weapons).

Melee builds get Killing Strike, and provide safety from guns. If you're in melee, you're not getting shot. Their high level talents are better too.

Yeah, I'd disallow anyone but psykers to dodge bullets - although maybe cybernetics or drugs could offer similar later.

Also, they do more damage, by far. A chain sword, with a strong wielder, does lots of damage.

And, yeah, I want guns to be more dangerous than swords. You could argue 'but the tabletop battle game has melee fighting!'... and you'd be right, but shooty armies are generally better than punchy ones.

A trained professional shouldn't be missing the majority of the time against someone that is trained at dodging. 46% chance of hitting, at only 10 metres, for a Space Marine with a boltgun, is ridiculous. Sure, 46% chance for his chainsword as the guy desperately ducks and weaves... but dodging bullets? Nah, I'd rather not. I'm happy for players to get shot to death, that's fine. I'm also for the bad guys getting shot to death, too.

Obviously, this would alter the balance of melee against shooting, but that's fine in my book - I'm not going to force this on players mid-campaign. As an aside, this would make the sword and pistol combo, which is very common in 40K on the tabletop and in the fluff, far more common. Players will pin people with their pistols, or move and shoot, when trying to get into melee.

I don't know how to do broken up quotes so I'll address each point in turn:

" Melee builds get Killing Strike, and provide safety from guns. If you're in melee, you're not getting shot. Their high level talents are better too."

Couple things here. First off: No, melee builds DON'T provide safety from guns. Pistols can be fired in close combat. On top of that, I don't recall any rules saying that pistols can't fire at full auto or semi-auto in close combat. Plus you actually have to get CLOSE to the guy shooting at you. Doable in the present where you can avoid their fire. But if a fight breaks out and you're more than ten meters away from your gun wielding enemies? You lose.

"Yeah I'd disallow anyone except Psykers to dodge bullets"

Welcome to having a table of nothing but Psykers then. Psykers are ALREADY, bar none, the most overpowered career in the game. Psykers are the one career in the game that are capable of doing things no other career can do. You are simply tacking on MORE things that they can do on top of that and broadening the gap. If my GM told me: "Listen guys in this game only Psykers can dodge gunfire" I would be surprised if anybody at the table DIDN'T play a Psyker. You've ironically made the Psyker-- who is SUPPOSED to be the one character class most likely to die, the most likely to survive.

" Also, they do more damage, by far. A chain sword, with a strong wielder, does lots of damage."

Not necessarily. High level firearms will outclass almost any melee weapon that isn't a Force Sword in the hands of a Psyker (Oh hey. ANOTHER reason Psykers are better than any other career). Even a Shotgun can vastly outdamage a chain sword in short range, on a character with high ballistics skill.

" And, yeah, I want guns to be more dangerous than swords. You could argue 'but the tabletop battle game has melee fighting!'... and you'd be right, but shooty armies are generally better than punchy ones."

Then you don't need to change anything. For the better part of the game, guns are better than swords. It takes a LOT of XP for melee combatants to start matching up to their shooting counterparts, and in many situations they'll STILL not be as good. In my own campaign I've been pushing for a melee character and yet most of our fights end up being shoot-outs because it's just plain impractical to get close to the enemy for varying reasons. You'll find considerably less obstacles in using firearms.

Melee characters at BEST can break even with ranged combat characters, and serve a niche use in that their weapons are (usually) quieter. Again. Except for Psykers.

" A trained professional shouldn't be missing the majority of the time against someone that is trained at dodging. 46% chance of hitting, at only 10 metres, for a Space Marine with a boltgun, is ridiculous. Sure, 46% chance for his chainsword as the guy desperately ducks and weaves... but dodging bullets? Nah, I'd rather not. I'm happy for players to get shot to death, that's fine. I'm also for the bad guys getting shot to death, too."

As pointed out, in real world battlefields accuracy goes to ****. I believe the statistic in WWII was that there was one wound for every 10,000 bullets fired? Battlefields are chaotic places, and yes. Accuracy goes to ****. ESPECIALLY if you're only firing one bullet at a time.

Which brings me to my next point. Want people to stop dodging? Full auto weapons. You cannot just "dodge" full-auto weapons (or even Semi-auto weapons). To do that, you actually need to roll an equal number of degrees of success to the guy trying to shoot you-- ie. Your attempts at evasion are just as good as his attempts to keep you in his sights. The odds of this are slim a/f if the guy with full auto makes a good roll.

" As an aside, this would make the sword and pistol combo, which is very common in 40K on the tabletop and in the fluff, far more common. Players will pin people with their pistols, or move and shoot, when trying to get into melee."

Why bother when the pistol is far superior to melee? Why not just go two pistols, since you can use your pistols in melee AND my opponent cannot get reactions against them, while I can still use my dodges to avoid his melee attacks?

Oh and as for flushing people out of cover? Fire bombs. Or Flamers. Scales off that Ballistic Skill you've been pouring all the XP you might otherwise have been putting into Weapon Skill too.

Apologies for the double post, but I wanted to drop this without the massive white-coverup I got for copy/pasting.

TL:DR for major points--

-Guns are better than swords almost across the board even with RAW. With the right talents a sword user may be able to break even, mid to lategame with a firearm user, but the firearm user will dominate the melee fighter in the early game, and will continue to be viable in more situations than the sword user as the campaign progresses.

-Gun wielders already have talents and abilities for reducing or even negating the effectiveness of dodging. Hell plenty of guns even have FEATURES that make dodging them more difficult (full auto/semi-auto).

-Giving Psykers the ability to dodge bullets and nobody else, will just mean you end up with a table of everyone playing a Psyker because that alone makes the Psyker the best class in the game, even without the fact they have superpowers.

Side question: Do you keep track of how much ammo a player has? And how many bullets for instance are left in the clip when firing?

Side question: Do you keep track of how much ammo a player has? And how many bullets for instance are left in the clip when firing?

Are you giving us the argument that blades don't need reloading?

Well, I hear a lot of groups don't, because it's too much of a hassle. But yes, it's a factor naturally.

We do count ammo. That's not very hard. You've got plenty of times between turns.

In this game if you stay in the middle of nowhere and someone with a full auto shoots you is likely that you will be able to avoid damage...
More so you can actually dodge someone shooting you with a laser rifle from 50m away... light travels only at 300k km/s there's plenty of time to get the hell out of the trajectory!
Seems to me the infamous bunny hopper first person shooter technique.
That's so realistic that in real life soldiers always charge in the open against enemy fire jumping and rolling like mads. Or if you have style you can go agent smith way. I imagine the Normandy assault with all those soldiers not trying to reach cover but simply waltzing their way through enemy fire...

From dh 1st ed. I always ruled that you can't dodge ranged weapons (besides thrown an bows, not crossbows or composite bows or other fast projectiles). You are allowed to dodge if you are behind cover (if you get hit you can duck in cover), if you have cover at 1.5m from you you can dodge diving for cover (if you fail you are prone outside cover, if you succeed you are prone bhind cover), you can dodge pistols in melee. Finally you can dodge ranged attacks if you have some superhuman abilities like psyker powers active or unnatural agility. You can never dodge attacks you cant't see being fired (ex. No dodging attacks coming from behind).

You can also use your reaction to go prone to impose a malus on the nemy BS.

This makes cover much more important, players run for cover and move from cover to cover (if you start and end your movement behind cover you are considered in cover for all your movement), melee characters dont't charge like idiots but position themselves, players move carefully trying to flank and nullify enemy cover.
Overall players are forced to be aware of the battlefield and move strategically (overwatch and suppressing fire), they always try to not get caught in the open and consider combat dangerous.
Melee characters shine in dealing with entranced enemies or in close quarters and are at best when supported by ranged characters, naturally melee players most often start to roll attacks after a few rounds of combat but that is only reasonable.

In the end melee combat is something that shouldn't be viable out in the open (besides things like space marines or other heavy armoured characters that can withstand enemy fire), while a ranged character is surely dead if he gets caught in melee.

In this game if you stay in the middle of nowhere and someone with a full auto shoots you is likely that you will be able to avoid damage...

More so you can actually dodge someone shooting you with a laser rifle from 50m away... light travels only at 300k km/s there's plenty of time to get the hell out of the trajectory!

Seems to me the infamous bunny hopper first person shooter technique.

That's so realistic that in real life soldiers always charge in the open against enemy fire jumping and rolling like mads. Or if you have style you can go agent smith way. I imagine the Normandy assault with all those soldiers not trying to reach cover but simply waltzing their way through enemy fire...

As mentioned you're not dodging the bullet/laser, you're dodging the shooter's aim, ie. You are not longer in the line of fire when your opponent pulls the trigger.

This is not the same as your opponent simply missing (which is what happens if they fail their Ballistic Skill test), this is you actively working to make yourself as hard a target for that guy to hit as possible, and the guy missing you because of it.

Also, which game are you playing that unleashing a full auto-burst from a character with half decent BS gets avoided the majority of the time? Your players must have pumped an absurd amount of XP into Dodge and Agility. The last time my GM threw enemies with full auto at our party, we ran for the hills, and were still full of holes by the time the enemy lost sight of us, despite us trying to pull our dodge rolls. Even on successes, it wasn't generally enough to completely mitigate the full-auto, since we weren't scoring equal DoS to the Shooter.

Also on the "so realistic" yeah if any PC group I've played with tried to charge a gunline, they wouldn't make it. Even WITH the RAW. You can only dodge once per round afterall, and so multiple attacks on the enemy's part is your worst enemy.

As far as the "melee characters shine best with entrenched enemies" no. No they don't because a fire bomb or flamer will clear out those entrenched enemies many times easier than a melee character.

And also, I've found melee combat ISN'T viable out in the open if there is a considerable distance between the sword-guy and the gunner. Sure. If the gunner STARTS in charge-range that's one thing. But actually trying to close more than your run distance with a guy with half decent BS and a half-decent gun? You're not getting through that without taking a hit.

"while a ranged character is surely dead if he gets caught in melee"

Unless of course he's packing pistols and has high agility, in which case he can fight just as easily. Moreso if his pistols are capable of full-auto, which the melee character literally needs multiple talents to be able to match just in close-combat.

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Seriously. I don't know what game you guys are playing that the guns aren't ALREADY better than melee weapons save in extremely specialized circumstances. The only way my group has found to "safely" mitigate guns as RAW is by using copious amounts of cover, and fighting guns with guns, unless the combat starts at extremely close range. Anyone who simply tries to charge headlong at a guy with a gun who is already a fair distance away either goes down on the way there, the guy is shot down by one of the other Acolytes who is actually using a gun themself, or in the one in a hundred chance the melee character actually MAKES IT into range by his lonesome, he's eaten so many hits that he's half-dead anyways and certainly wouldn't live to do it again. At BEST it's a one-opponent wonder and that's only when you're dealing with ONE opponent with a gun. Against a group of enemies with guns your melee fighter isn't going to make it to his second round outside of Critical at any distance further than 20 meters.

I imagine the Normandy assault with all those soldiers not trying to reach cover but simply waltzing their way through enemy fire...

That's a chance that the rest of your argument is better than this non-gem.

You take isolated cases and generalise them to prove your argument. Take these elements into accounts:

-Basic guardsmen (which would fit very well with normal soldiers) are not trained with dodge? It gives them 15% of getting out the shot's way, a mg42 pumping 3-4 bullets at the soldier would need 3-4 successes to dodge...hard with 15% dodge.

-Being stuck in a squad in close position (when getting out of the ship) or being stuck with many obstacles around you that impede your movement should give you penalties. A nice -10 to a 15% chance of doding ain't very good.

-There is so much bullets and attacks very well that no, on an open battlefield with hundreds of guy shooting everywhere, I wouldn't try to dodge my way everywhere, it would be physically impossible.

As another point towards this interpretation, look at horde fights, where hordes (pretty much representing large groups of soldiers) can't dodge, because it is sure you'ill hit someone when shooting all those pretty guy.

I don't see nothing close to waltz in your description. So no, normandy assault and such battles aren't at all arguments against dodges. Dodge is a contextual action, in a game which context is little groups of people fighting little groups of people.

Seriously. I don't know what game you guys are playing that the guns aren't ALREADY better than melee weapons save in extremely specialized circumstances. The only way my group has found to "safely" mitigate guns as RAW is by using copious amounts of cover, and fighting guns with guns, unless the combat starts at extremely close range. Anyone who simply tries to charge headlong at a guy with a gun who is already a fair distance away either goes down on the way there, the guy is shot down by one of the other Acolytes who is actually using a gun themself, or in the one in a hundred chance the melee character actually MAKES IT into range by his lonesome, he's eaten so many hits that he's half-dead anyways and certainly wouldn't live to do it again. At BEST it's a one-opponent wonder and that's only when you're dealing with ONE opponent with a gun. Against a group of enemies with guns your melee fighter isn't going to make it to his second round outside of Critical at any distance further than 20 meters.

This is truth incarnate.

the idea of dodging the barrel of a weapon is good but in melee range (that's why i permit to dodge in melee), getting away from the trajectory of the barrel of a weapon fired at range (let's say 30-40m) means you have superhuman senses and you move at superhuman speed, especially with laser weapons... you can try to move away but you'll never know when the trigger is being pulled (trigonometry says that 1cm of "movement" form the barrel is about 4m at 40m range), worst even if it is a full-auto. In fact the sensible thing to do is not "dodging" but running because a moving target is more difficult to hit than a stationary one, the dodge skill doesn't make you run or move but only "bunnyhop".

Full auto gives a -10BS, semi-auto +/-0 while a single attack gives a +10

now if you have 50BS and your target isn't in short range you are going to shoot in full auto at 40BS, a character with 50 Agi and +10 dodge has a 60% chance of success. You will score more than 1 hit with your roll in 30% of cases while the dodging character will avoid more than 1 hit in 40% of cases.

for semi-auto things are even worst for you will be shooting at 50BS scoring more than 1 hit in 30% of cases while the dodging character will avoid more than one hit still at 40%

a standard attack will be fired at 60% and dodged at 60%, so attacker and defender have the same chance of success.

so it's very likely to dodge a full auto, actually it's even proportionally easier to avoid damage on a full-auto than on a single shot O_O

you can actually bunnyhop on the spot for 10-15secs (2-3 rounds) under full-auto fire without any problem!!! Meaning that the one shooting you has to reload before he actually killed you...

considering the fact that full or semi auto fire modes have been invented to increase the chances of hitting something at medium/short ranges seems to me that the entire system doesn't really work (we used house rules to solve this problem too but that's another story).

now you are on the open and you have someone shooting at you with an autogun loaded with man-stopper rounds and you are at 20m from him, you wear flak armor (4AP) and have 4TB.

the scenario goes like this: full-auto with 50BS+short range-Full-auto = 50BS, attacker scores 50% of the time at least 1 hit for an avrage of 3 wounds, 40% of cases attacker will double that damage and so on. Dodging at 50Agi +10 dodge, 60% chances you avoid at least one hit, with 50% dodging 2 and so on. Defender has a 10% chance more than the attacker to come up on top, considering the ammount of damage inflicted in avrage it's a very good idea to just rush toward the firing autogun!

if you weren't able to dodge things would be a little different.

more than 1 bad guy shooting to you: first of all that's some kind of serious taunt going on, in truth in a fire-fight you do not concentrate fire on a single opponent (excepetion made for covering/suppressing fire) but you simply try to shoot the ones that you have more chances hitting (or you actually see), or you concentrate fire on the most dangerous looking enemy.

If you have 5 bad guys and your group is of 3 characters is very likely that you can actually rush toward the enemy considering that you have good chances of negating/reducing the attacks of 3/5 of the enemy squad leaving you exposed for 2 attacks only, and that's without considering delaying actions or other things like that and the fact that enemies can EVEN MISS (is reasonable to consider 50% of enemies attacks missing without the need for evasion tests).

the problem of dodging ranged attacks naturally decreases with greater numbers of shooting characters in the fight (you can predict that dodging is silly untill you reach a number of enemies equal to twice the number of reactions you have): if you have a shootout between 20 characters you can actually say that dodging isn't making a difference.

lastly a melee character in melee against a ranged character is going to pulverize him, even if the ranged one is using pistols. Using semi-auto or full-auto in melee with pistols isn't a good idea, you are just reducing your chances to hit and giving an easier time to the sword-wielding character (for the reasons above), and in melee it's even worst because once engaged you don't have any kind of bonus from range so you roll your unmodified BS. Another important thing to consider is that usually a ranged character will not have the same dodge of a melee one (for obvious reasons) and pistols usally do a lot less damage than melee weapons, more so melee character can stack bonuses in melee (frenzy for ex.). Finally if you aren't playing a gun-fu character usually you are going to have a serious disadvantage in melee range (to be optimistic) and if you are using a basic weapon well...

in the end flamers: they are good to use against entranched enemies with low agility, against a character with good agility/dodge flamers are even less dangerous than other weapons because you can avoid the entire damage with a challenging dodge test, no opposed roll needed (another stupid thing of the system... how the hell do you dodge an heavy flamer? O_o ).

I imagine the Normandy assault with all those soldiers not trying to reach cover but simply waltzing their way through enemy fire...

That's a chance that the rest of your argument is better than this non-gem.

You take isolated cases and generalise them to prove your argument. Take these elements into accounts:

-Basic guardsmen (which would fit very well with normal soldiers) are not trained with dodge? It gives them 15% of getting out the shot's way, a mg42 pumping 3-4 bullets at the soldier would need 3-4 successes to dodge...hard with 15% dodge.

-Being stuck in a squad in close position (when getting out of the ship) or being stuck with many obstacles around you that impede your movement should give you penalties. A nice -10 to a 15% chance of doding ain't very good.

-There is so much bullets and attacks very well that no, on an open battlefield with hundreds of guy shooting everywhere, I wouldn't try to dodge my way everywhere, it would be physically impossible.

As another point towards this interpretation, look at horde fights, where hordes (pretty much representing large groups of soldiers) can't dodge, because it is sure you'ill hit someone when shooting all those pretty guy.

I don't see nothing close to waltz in your description. So no, normandy assault and such battles aren't at all arguments against dodges. Dodge is a contextual action, in a game which context is little groups of people fighting little groups of people.

Seriously. I don't know what game you guys are playing that the guns aren't ALREADY better than melee weapons save in extremely specialized circumstances. The only way my group has found to "safely" mitigate guns as RAW is by using copious amounts of cover, and fighting guns with guns, unless the combat starts at extremely close range. Anyone who simply tries to charge headlong at a guy with a gun who is already a fair distance away either goes down on the way there, the guy is shot down by one of the other Acolytes who is actually using a gun themself, or in the one in a hundred chance the melee character actually MAKES IT into range by his lonesome, he's eaten so many hits that he's half-dead anyways and certainly wouldn't live to do it again. At BEST it's a one-opponent wonder and that's only when you're dealing with ONE opponent with a gun. Against a group of enemies with guns your melee fighter isn't going to make it to his second round outside of Critical at any distance further than 20 meters.

This is truth incarnate.

an mg42 shoots an avrage 1200rpm, and isn't actually aimed but just pointed in a direction. the paradox is that i can't dodge that but i can dodge something that is aimed at me? so because in the normandy assault there were a lot of weapons firing against a lot of people that means you cannot dodge "act evasive"? if dodging is "acting evasive" then what's the problem! If dodging is "actually dodging" that's another story!

truth is that ROF of weapons in FFG games is abstract and leads you to belive that a full auto weapon is going to shoot 6-10 rounds in 5 seconds... a full-auto saturates the air with bullets! no acting evasive can even slightly reduce the chance of being hit out in the open. A modern weapon, be it an assault carabine or a smg, will shoot something between 700-800 rpm, meaning in 5 secs 60-70 bullets every round... and that's without considering truly high ROF. Without moving how can you even think of not being hit? And even while moving you'd better go under cover asap because that's just a metter of few seconds before you get hit.

truth is that ROF of weapons in FFG games is abstract and leads you to belive that a full auto weapon is going to shoot 6-10 rounds in 5 seconds... a full-auto saturates the air with bullets! no acting evasive can even slightly reduce the chance of being hit out in the open. A modern weapon, be it an assault carabine or a smg, will shoot something between 700-800 rpm, meaning in 5 secs 60-70 bullets every round... and that's without considering truly high ROF. Without moving how can you even think of not being hit? And even while moving you'd better go under cover asap because that's just a metter of few seconds before you get hit.

It saturates a very limited place in the air of bullets.

If it was so hot shooting that many bullets in so few seconds, autofire would be killing people in real life. Which is not very much the case, in comparison to single shot or burst of 2-3 bullets.

an mg42 shoots an avrage 1200rpm, and isn't actually aimed but just pointed in a direction. the paradox is that i can't dodge that but i can dodge something that is aimed at me? so because in the normandy assault there were a lot of weapons firing against a lot of people that means you cannot dodge "act evasive"? if dodging is "acting evasive" then what's the problem! If dodging is "actually dodging" that's another story!

There is no paradox here. The rule represents taht a gun is pointed towards you. You get the frag out of the direction the gun points. The shoot, and you're no longer here.

That's an active reaction, where you concretely act against that particular situation, while running gives maluses to the shooter because aiming at him is hard, and if the shooter get to shoot at the guy, if the guy sees it, he can try to dodge the line of fire before bullets fly.

If I point a gun towards you and you see me doing it, you'll stay put hoping that you get superman's thoughness and ignore the attack? Or get out of the way?

It's not easy getting out of the way. That's why general human have, if they're TRAINED (which normal soldiers aren't) 30% of doing so, which is not much, especially not if many bullets score hit in the game, because he'll have 30% chance of dodging 1 bullet, less percent chance of dodging many. And then, the second ennemy shoot and the guy is screwed.

in real world the vast majority of urban fire fights happen at ranges of 10m or less, at that range you just "spray and pray" and usually if you aren't behind cover you get killed by a good number of bullets not just 1 (that's why you want an automatic weapon).

in real world open warfare fire fights happen at ranges of hundreds of meters, that's why assault rifles usually have the ability to shoot short bursts (3-2 rounds per pull) while at extreme ranges single shot fire is the way to go.

hell we have even automatic shotguns especially for close range fights! (p.s. scatter weapons are horrible in this ruleset)

now how much time you have between a barrel pointed to your face and the actual bullet piercing you? fraction of seconds? (laser? actually only a blind man can miss with a laser weapon) human reaction times goes about 0.8-0.7secs then you have to travel at least 1m-1.5m to actually avoid a bullet shot to your chest, and this is only considering 1 bullet traveling toward your general direction. more so the spread of automatic fire depends on the distance of the target so an smg can fill a very wide area of bullets not a few cm that can be "easly" avoided (not moving).

to even increase the sillyness you can get out of the way of someone pointing a gun in your general direction from 50m away, you can actually just dance on the spot dodging the trajectory of a weapon from 50m away... Neo was the chosen one because he could do that...

50 Agility with a +10 dodge isn't superhuman, or 50BS would be superhuman too, my examples assumed equal skills not a guardsman form a feudal world against a vindicare assassin. Players in dark heresy can't be superhuman without implants/psy powers/drugs/sorcery/mutations, most dark heresy characters are human, heroes but still human and they can, by ruleset, dodge automatic fire, flamers, lasers and so on. They not only can but they actually have good chances of doing so! So if i was a dark heresy character i wouldn't be so much afraid of a ranged weapon knowing that i have a very good chance to be missed even standing still (50% chances in most cases) out in the open, if i was going to be hit i still have a good chance of just spinning/jumping/dancing/wathever avoiding to be hit.

in a realistic world or ruleset i would be freaking out to find myself out in the open against a ranged weapon and i would: 1- drop prone, 2- throw myself under cover, 3- run like hell to get into cover (rise my arms and beg for mercy still is the most reasonable action), and all of this with a very good chance to be hit in the process while the actual fact of being able to get under cover without a scratch is something like winning the lottery.

maybe i'm too used to reason in a more realistic way when it comes to fire fights, my mindset is much aligned with FNFF from cyberpunk 2020 where you can just impose some penalties with your behaviour to someone shooting you (running, going prone) and not actually avoid bullets, thus if you aren't behind cover you are very likely to get hurt and badly too.

anyway those are the rules we use, we have used them in all warhammer games and they served us well.

50 Agility with a +10 dodge isn't superhuman, or 50BS would be superhuman too, my examples assumed equal skills not a guardsman form a feudal world against a vindicare assassin. Players in dark heresy can't be superhuman without implants/psy powers/drugs/sorcery/mutations, most dark heresy characters are human, heroes but still human and they can, by ruleset, dodge automatic fire, flamers, lasers and so on. They not only can but they actually have good chances of doing so! So if i was a dark heresy character i wouldn't be so much afraid of a ranged weapon knowing that i have a very good chance to be missed even standing still (50% chances in most cases) out in the open, if i was going to be hit i still have a good chance of just spinning/jumping/dancing/wathever avoiding to be hit.

We definitely don't play the same game.

now how much time you have between a barrel pointed to your face and the actual bullet piercing you? fraction of seconds? (laser? actually only a blind man can miss with a laser weapon) human reaction times goes about 0.8-0.7secs then you have to travel at least 1m-1.5m to actually avoid a bullet shot to your chest, and this is only considering 1 bullet traveling toward your general direction. more so the spread of automatic fire depends on the distance of the target so an smg can fill a very wide area of bullets not a few cm that can be "easly" avoided (not moving).

to even increase the sillyness you can get out of the way of someone pointing a gun in your general direction from 50m away, you can actually just dance on the spot dodging the trajectory of a weapon from 50m away... Neo was the chosen one because he could do that...

50 Agility with a +10 dodge isn't superhuman, or 50BS would be superhuman too, my examples assumed equal skills not a guardsman form a feudal world against a vindicare assassin. Players in dark heresy can't be superhuman without implants/psy powers/drugs/sorcery/mutations, most dark heresy characters are human, heroes but still human and they can, by ruleset, dodge automatic fire, flamers, lasers and so on. They not only can but they actually have good chances of doing so! So if i was a dark heresy character i wouldn't be so much afraid of a ranged weapon knowing that i have a very good chance to be missed even standing still (50% chances in most cases) out in the open, if i was going to be hit i still have a good chance of just spinning/jumping/dancing/wathever avoiding to be hit.

in a realistic world or ruleset i would be freaking out to find myself out in the open against a ranged weapon and i would: 1- drop prone, 2- throw myself under cover, 3- run like hell to get into cover (rise my arms and beg for mercy still is the most reasonable action), and all of this with a very good chance to be hit in the process while the actual fact of being able to get under cover without a scratch is something like winning the lottery.

maybe i'm too used to reason in a more realistic way when it comes to fire fights, my mindset is much aligned with FNFF from cyberpunk 2020 where you can just impose some penalties with your behaviour to someone shooting you (running, going prone) and not actually avoid bullets, thus if you aren't behind cover you are very likely to get hurt and badly too.

anyway those are the rules we use, we have used them in all warhammer games and they served us well.

Ignoring a lot of this in the interests of avoiding going over the same ground.... On your whole: "How much time do you have between a gun being pointed at you and the bullet piercing you" comment? As long as it takes the person to realize the gun is pointed at you and pull the trigger. Which, if you're moving erratically, might be just enough time for you not to be where you were by the time the bullet comes out the barrel.

Also. 50 Agility IS superhuman, actually. Or pretty much. If you look at the general statlines, the average Guardsman is sitting at round 30's in most stats. The average SPACE MARINE is sitting at between 45 and 50 in most stats (with the exception to Unnatural Strength and Unnatural Toughness). That means if your hypothetical assassin has 50 Agility, then he is faster than the average Space Marine. This means he is faster than a genetically enhanced super soldier who CAN dodge bullets on a semi-regular basis.

"If I was a Dark Heresy character I wouldn't be afraid of ranged weapons"

Two things. First. You're not your character. Your character is an Inquisitorial Acolyte-- the vanguard against some of the most terrifying nightmares in the Galaxy. Fighting the latest thing that has dredged its way up from humanity's worst nightmares on a daily basis. No. They're NOT going to be as frightened of a gun as you would be in real life, because of the **** they've faced.

But they should be. That plasma rifle will still take your head off. An autogun will still put you full of holes. Two guys with a las guns in a BEST case scenario means you can only avoid one hit tops, and depending on the guys holding the las guns you might get hit by both shots anyways.

If the rules you use serve you well, good for you, but as far as I can see, your "fixes" are completely unnecessary, and only making the already superior-to-melee ranged weapons even better.

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As a side tangent from my earlier comment on how my own group has found ranged weapons, even by RAW to be vastly superior to anything melee. This isn't particularly important to my earlier points but if you're interested here's anecdotal evidence of how difficult it can be to play a melee character even by RAW. What I'm saying is you can totally skip this if you want.

Our group has been doing a single campaign for a VERY long time. Over that campaign our characters have fought in almost every conceivable scenario. Underground tunnels, small confined rooms, an office, city streets, hell in one particularly AWESOME fight we had, we fought in an old western town, as our characters literally scrambled building to building in one of the most entertaining shoot-outs we'd ever had. So we've fought at all ranges, and over the course of our campaign have probably engaged in a few dozen fights at the most.

Less than five of those fights have been settled with melee combat, despite two of our characters possessing particularly decent melee skillsets, and one of them (mine) actively trying to seek out melee opportunities. What I am basically saying is that for every battle melee weapons were actually an important factor, we've had five or six where they never came into play at all.

On top of that, almost all of the fights where melee weapons DID play a role in our victory, ranged weapons were often equally, if not MORE important. Many times the melee weapons would come out at the END of a fight, after the sides had whittled down the distance between each other and were in charge range. The only times I can think of where melee weapons came out right away, was usually when the fight started at distances less than fifteen meters (and even then, my character was usually the only one who would pull the sword. Both other characters would usually default to their ranged weapons for a few rounds until they stopped being effective).

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I know for a fact that if our group EVER adopted the policy of being unable to dodge ranged weapons, we'd put our money into acquiring the hardest hitting guns we could and use those exclusively.

But the biggest thing imho?

Being denied the ability to react to something like a Las Cannon on a character with 50+ Ballistic Skill just screams IMBA to me.