In the best case scenario, you will wade through lasgun fire without it being able to damage you. That's one problem. The other is that the 40kRPGs impose something as the 'human norm' in terms of average stats for movement, carry weight etc. that makes the average guardsman statline seem like they're fighting from rusty wheelchairs. To even be on the basic capacity of a normally fit human being, you need to delve into space marine tier stats.

Anyway, OT, my main problem with ranged dodge is more one of crunch than of fluff. I have always seen it as someone being able to evade the line of fire before being shot, and not actually pulling a Neo and dodging bullets in flight. That's just ridiculous.

Speaking from experience with extremely lethal ranged combat systems, I have to say that low damage firearms can have their time and place. More so because in those games they're still deadly and have other advantages.

In the best case scenario, you will wade through lasgun fire without it being able to damage you. That's one problem. The other is that the 40kRPGs impose something as the 'human norm' in terms of average stats for movement, carry weight etc. that makes the average guardsman statline seem like they're fighting from rusty wheelchairs. To even be on the basic capacity of a normally fit human being, you need to delve into space marine tier stats.

Well, guardsman stats in DH where always more than enough for me to get a decent squad of soldiers that could hold their ground or even force to retreat high xp players.

These stats are decent and when used logically, like normal human would act, they get close enough to what soldiers could do.

WS/BS isn't so much the issue as the overall movement rates and how strength/encumberance work. You could, easily, rock a guardsman with 30 BS, given how modifiers work and all that fun stuff, but an average human soldier should have considerably higher strength and agility. That's where the translation into concrete numbers really falls apart.

I don't see whey they should get more. A regular soldier isn't a muscle man, nor a super fast guy.

The solider has athletics, which represents fairly well its capacity to run for long time and endure some pain or even sprint for short period of time.

Real life soldiers are boosted when needed also, if you saw all the stuff they put in their rations... I could go on through a week-end with endless supplies of energy with just that **** (and disgusting) loaf of bred, or that special caffeine and such.

But basic soldier stats? Not much.

50 agility isn't superhuman because you can't be superhuman in dh. You are a hero that's different. Spacemarines do not dodge bullets that's why they have powered armors, eldars dodge ranged fire that's why they have light armors.

anyway even if we consider a stat at 50 superhuman that means BS 50 is superhuman too, if you downscale with 30BS and 30Agi the probelm is the same, to be fair is even worst because only 1 attack on 3 will actually generate the need for a dodge action to negate it.

moving erratically means moving, you do not move in your reaction you stay on the spot, so even if the all "acting evasive" was logically capable of reducing so much the chance to be hit that's not the case (even considering the idea of a character more able to "act evasive" then another). you act evasive on the spot, narratively what does it look like? "i jump, then crouch, then scream that i'm going to my right, instead i go to the left..."

2 guys shooting at you with lasguns aren't a threat even for a new character, with 35Agi and +10 dodge you have 45% chance of avoiding a lasgun hit, against 30-40% hit chance it's really likely that you will not suffer damage at all (1 attacker will statistically miss, the other will statistically miss in 45% cases), if someone has the unfortunate idea of using semi-auto or full-auto it's even easier to not suffer damage.

characters in dh are supposed to fight nightmares right, but if a gun was a threat you would act accordingly, you should be scared of something that is likely to kill you no matter what it is but if a gun isn't a serious threat to your life that's different (by being scared i mean that you will act knowing that you could easly die). A bullet to the head of a 9mm will kill you exactly as a 12.7mm, you are more scared of the 12.7mm then the 9mm? more scared of a gun or a tiger? it's true that uglyer/bigger scares more but on logically you should consider two things that are lethal as the same, so you will not go into the tigers pit as much as you would not go into a firefight with a knife.

melee vs ranged: i seriously do not find any issue in this, it's only logic that ranged combat is better than melee! infact guardsman do not charge with axes but instead use lasguns (easy to use and easy to land a hit at distance), only in very specific circumstances melee combat is wiser (or forced). Do you think that a feral world has some chance to fight against the Imperium using swords and axes?

Other non-human may act differently because they have superior strenght/speed or because they can actually withstand ranged damage long enough to get in melee.

In rpgs i do not want to have "balance", this isn't a videogame that each character should be equal, if that was the case you can easly drop all kind of characters because tech-priests are totally more powerfull/usefull then everything else...

i prefer a more realistic approach in my games and i like combat to be dangerous without having to call on the field the big stuff, to me (and my group) the idea of dodging bullets or lasers is silly and ruins the immersion so we came up with rules to avoid something that we consider not needed and not fun at all.

for the actual game experience (skip if not interested):

in my 2 years long capaign in dh i had in my group 1 melee character, a moriat reaper. In 80% of combats he didn't do anything, in the other 20% he was the one that actually did the most. Was a problem? Nope, he was an assassin not a front line warrior, he killed many more npcs then the rest of the group but not in "open combat". Actually his previous character was a "ranged assassin" and when he died he decided to go for something different, in the end he was very happy with his choice and how he was contributing the group. It has to be said that the capaign didn't had many open fights, inquisition rarely goes on the battlefield.

The 40kRPGs don't lend themselves to realistic combat. It starts with full auto, continues over characters completely invulnerable to small arms fire while naked to weapons ranges that are absolutely terrible by any standard. That said, moving evasively and thus avoiding fire is entirely realistic, though it usually consists of moving from cover to cover while allies provide covering fire or rushing someone before they manage to get their gun out and shoot. Dodge, the way it's implemented and what it's called is fairly deceptive there. I prefer SR's take on it, where you dodge the shooter's line of sight/fire before he pulls the trigger and not the actual bullets.

I don't see whey they should get more. A regular soldier isn't a muscle man, nor a super fast guy.

The solider has athletics, which represents fairly well its capacity to run for long time and endure some pain or even sprint for short period of time.

Real life soldiers are boosted when needed also, if you saw all the stuff they put in their rations... I could go on through a week-end with endless supplies of energy with just that **** (and disgusting) loaf of bred, or that special caffeine and such.

But basic soldier stats? Not much.

I forgot the exact math, but if you take distance cleared at a sprint in the time of the exact combat round, you quickly find out that people with 30 Ag are mordbidly obese or in a wheelchair. I also recall distinct problems fitting even a basic kit of weapon + flak armour on someone with 30 Str without encumberance, so, it's a wee bit off there.

Tactical movment is something different than what we are discussing here.

running from cover to cover is different than using reactions to dodge bullets (call it wathever you want but you don't move, you avoid bullets while standing on the spot), the rulset itself considers you in cover for all your movment if you start and end moving behind cover. To make cover even more important and give characters a way of making use of cover based on their "skills and experience" i give the chance to use reactions to duck in cover to avoid ranged weapons. That is something that sound "plausible" to me, if you are near a cover you dive to save your life, if you are alredy behind a cover you duck when you recive fire. No cover in range? Go prone and hope for the best!

For evasive run there's even a talent that covers those kind of things: Hard Target.

I know that warhammer 40k isn't big on realism, actually it has a mindset of WW1 when it comes to battlefields, anyway in the setting i don't recall humans dodging bullets or las-fire while i rember eldars and other xenos doing so.

50 agility isn't superhuman because you can't be superhuman in dh. You are a hero that's different. Spacemarines do not dodge bullets that's why they have powered armors, eldars dodge ranged fire that's why they have light armors.

Actually several novels HAVE had Space Marines dodging and reacting to gunfire. I could grab a few quotes, but among them included one instance of a Space Marine literally swatting bolt-rounds out of the air with his bare (albeit power-armored) hands. Obviously as per 40k Canon your mileage may vary, but yeah. Space Marines DO have the reflexes to react to gunfire if you look at a few novels.

And here's the other thing. You seem to assume your character is standing still between rounds. They are not. I don't know about you but I have ALWAYS gone with the assumption that characters are not simply standing around staring at the ceiling between rounds. They are moving and weaving above. Your run roll is just how far they cover in the time it takes for baddie A to fire off a round at them. They're still moving when you fire at them-- hence why running incurs negative penalties on shooting attacks-- the guy is trying to hit you AS you run. Your character isn't running 24 meters, stopping and then running another 24 meters.

In a fight you're in constant motion, and I would assume that is the case here. Your attack, dodge, w/e rolls simply represent the moments you're fully committing to an action.

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As far as the "fighting nightmares" bit though? No. I would argue you WOULD be less afraid of the gun. You've fought Eldar firing their shuriken pistols and come out of that battle alive. You fought against a cult of heretics packing auto-guns. You've battled a pack of Tyranid Termagants with their spike rifles. After fighting dozens, maybe even hundreds of people with guns, you think the next corrupt PDF trooper with a las gun is going to scare you as much as that? By this point your characters have grown accustomed to getting shot at, and they know if they keep their cool it is a survivable experience.

Besides novels that are quite inconsistent do you think a space marine capable of the same agility feats of an eldar? Idon't, especially considering the fact that eldars don't have powered armour but use agility to defend and not physical resilience. To add the common image of spacemarines (even sororitas) is to advance taking enemy fire reling on powered armour to protect them.

You move in your round if you move. You don't move in any appreciable way if you do not use movment actions. If you brace to use a heavy bolter and fire are you moving? No. Yet you can dodge bullets. If you use your full action to shoot 2 pistols do you move? Nope. If you were always moving you would have movment actions every round without having to trade them for attacks, to make sense then you would be able to use dodge only if you actually moved.

Movment is fluid and happens without solution of continuity between rounds but without full round movment actions that's not the case. Infact to shoot during a full movment action there's even a talent: hip shooting.

You survive to horrors learning that guns do not kill you, that's why you arent' scared. If you survived avoiding being shot and your friends that were shot died you surely will regard a gun as dangerous. And i'm not talking of panic (you survive to horrors you learn to stay cool) but on the assumption: "oh a gun to my head... no big deal punk! Pull the trigger i dare you! You will not hit me and even if you were lucky i would't even bleed for that!" That's not how it should work, at least for me.

Space Marines are genetically enhanced to possess superhuman speed and strength. Yes, I see no reason they can't pull off the same feats of Eldar or Genestealers.

"You move in your round if you move"

You've clearly never been in a fight. You are CONSTANTLY moving in a fight. You don't just stand in place and let your opponent come at you unless that's literally your plan.

Funny thing about your gun to the head scenario. There are martial art techniques for dealing with that. Hell, Krav Maga literally has a technique intended to be used if you are having a gun pressed to the back of your head execution style. Also, if you miss a gun-to-the-head it's a freak accident, given how many bonuses you'd have to hit the guy. But let's play along for a moment. Funny thing for your situation? If I were in that situation, I wouldn't go: "Go ahead pal! I'll probably dodge!" No. If I was unafraid it would be because I know the DAMAGE of that gun isn't enough to put my character down in one go. "Oh that's a las pistol? Well, considering my character is wearing a helmet with an AV of 3 and has a toughness of 4, I know a Las Pistol can only do a maximum of 5 damage to my character who has 12 wounds, and on average, will only do 1 or 2 points of damage. So go ahead. Pull that trigger son, and then I'll pull mine."

Now here's my question. Do you think our armed forces are trained to cover their heads, and cower behind cover, curled into a fetal position when someone points a gun at them? NO! They're trained to deal with the situation, and fight back.

Why would you assume your Acolytes wouldn't be? Guns are scary, but there are much, much, scarier things that Acolytes deal with.

If you want combat more lethal, you don't have to take away the ability to react to guns, just drop the whole "Toughness=Damage Soak", and suddenly it will be a LOT more lethal. The few instances I've seen of melee characters making it to close combat has a lot more to do with the fact they take an extra 3-5 damage off any attack in ADDITION to their armor, than the ability to dodge a single ballistic skill per turn on somewhere between a 30 and 50% chance.

Space Marines are genetically enhanced to possess superhuman speed and strength. Yes, I see no reason they can't pull off the same feats of Eldar or Genestealers.

"You move in your round if you move"

You've clearly never been in a fight. You are CONSTANTLY moving in a fight. You don't just stand in place and let your opponent come at you unless that's literally your plan.

Funny thing about your gun to the head scenario. There are martial art techniques for dealing with that. Hell, Krav Maga literally has a technique intended to be used if you are having a gun pressed to the back of your head execution style. Also, if you miss a gun-to-the-head it's a freak accident, given how many bonuses you'd have to hit the guy. But let's play along for a moment. Funny thing for your situation? If I were in that situation, I wouldn't go: "Go ahead pal! I'll probably dodge!" No. If I was unafraid it would be because I know the DAMAGE of that gun isn't enough to put my character down in one go. "Oh that's a las pistol? Well, considering my character is wearing a helmet with an AV of 3 and has a toughness of 4, I know a Las Pistol can only do a maximum of 5 damage to my character who has 12 wounds, and on average, will only do 1 or 2 points of damage. So go ahead. Pull that trigger son, and then I'll pull mine."

Now here's my question. Do you think our armed forces are trained to cover their heads, and cower behind cover, curled into a fetal position when someone points a gun at them? NO! They're trained to deal with the situation, and fight back.

Why would you assume your Acolytes wouldn't be? Guns are scary, but there are much, much, scarier things that Acolytes deal with.

If you want combat more lethal, you don't have to take away the ability to react to guns, just drop the whole "Toughness=Damage Soak", and suddenly it will be a LOT more lethal. The few instances I've seen of melee characters making it to close combat has a lot more to do with the fact they take an extra 3-5 damage off any attack in ADDITION to their armor, than the ability to dodge a single ballistic skill per turn on somewhere between a 30 and 50% chance.

The game assumes you move when you move not when you stay still, infact you do not adjust range or your position on the battlefield by an arbitrary distance every round: you start your round at 30m from something and if you do not move you still end it at 30m from it. If it wasn't true then you should actually give every character a free move action, that's not how the system works. Or if you are prone on the ground taking aim to shoot at something are you moving? nope. If you have to run 50m toward a door do you run 25m with your actions and the other 25m are just bonus? In melee combat it's easy to assume you are moving around with your opponent while attacking/parrying/dodging, but you do not move anyway more than a few meters in anycase. Ranged combat assumes you aren't moving in any appreciable way unless you use a movement action, I repeat: the game has talents/manouvers that take into account movement+attacks. And firefights aren't dynamic like melee combat, they usually end up with both parties behind cover shooting each out, that's where flanking and suppressing fire are used (moving around). Unless we are talking of gunfu but that's a different matter.

Gun to the head scenario: an avrage gurdsman will miss 40% of the time... 30BS+30 point blank = 60%, then you will dodge probably at 40% or so, so 4 exectuion attemps on 10 will miss by incompetence, of the 6 that actually succeded 2 or 3 will miss by your reaction, ergo on 10 tries a gurdsman will just be able to hit you 3 times on 10. That isn't looking pretty for the Commissar.

Every instructor of personal defense will teach you how to disarm someone telling you: "do not attempt this unless there's no other way!" why they tell you that? because it's a gamble that sees you likely dead and you should try it only if the outcome is in any case your death so you have nothing to lose by trying. Infact soldiers usually surrender when they have guns pointed at their heads (unless it's a movie), when they don't they die.

Armed forces are trained to deal with guns but they aren't trained to dodge bullets! Staying cool when under the threat of a weapon does not mean that the gun is no danger to you. They are trained to survive in a firefight optimizing their chances: crawling, cover, suppressing fire, flanking, battlefield awarness, aiming under pressure and so on. All those things do not make you more likely to avoid bullets but make more difficult for those shooting at you to actually hit while increasing your chances to hit. Never heard of "dancing under enemy fire" training.

My problem isn't with damage per se (at least not considering that here, that's another thing that needs house rules on some weapons) but on the assumption that guns aren't dangerous at all not only because i can take a lot of hits before bleeding, but the fact that guns do NOT HIT, when they do is luck/unluck. Even if a gun was able to actually cripple a character with 1 hit it will still be unlikely to hit so i would act considering that: "that's a big gun that has a scary 20% chance of actually doing something! Let's go with my sword to kill that gunner!".

Anyway i don't belive humans can actively avoid bullets as the game permits, in DH you are a human (no unnatural characteristics, no fluff that says you aren't human), spacemarines to me do not dodge bullets (no implant for superhuman reflexes in lore nor superhuman agility in the game), bring a knife to a gunfight: your choice to be on the neolitic side of war.

I don't belive there's the necessity to make melee combat more viable just to give players the chance to go to war with axes and "perform" instead of firearms etc.

As said I (and my group) prefer to play without giving the chance of dodging bullets or lasers or wathever that we don't belive is dodgeable, we have always felt the need to heavly "fix" the entire ruleset of FFG games to avoid absurd results and to make it more balanced where we felt it was necessary. Do we belive our solutions are the best? Nope, they work for us for our assumptions on what is enough realistic vs fun vs playable, others will have other ways for dealing with this things or they will not even feel the need to have houserules at all, that's one of the nice parts of rpgs.

Still i'm quite confident that humans do not dodge bullets =P

I forgot the exact math, but if you take distance cleared at a sprint in the time of the exact combat round, you quickly find out that people with 30 Ag are mordbidly obese or in a wheelchair. I also recall distinct problems fitting even a basic kit of weapon + flak armour on someone with 30 Str without encumberance, so, it's a wee bit off there.

Guardsman at tactical speed (6 metrers per round, * 10 rounds in a minute, *60 minutes in an hour) walk 3600 metres, which is close to the average of normal walk speed (3.6 km/hrs)

I don't call those guys as being in wheelchair.

Besides novels that are quite inconsistent do you think a space marine capable of the same agility feats of an eldar? Idon't, especially considering the fact that eldars don't have powered armour but use agility to defend and not physical resilience

Background is also inconsistent.

Marines are not capable of feats like an eldar, that's why marines have something like...3-4 agi bonus points of difference. They can dodge larger blast, have better percentage of dodging auto fire and such.

And eldars do have power armours too. Not all, that's it.

If you use your full action to shoot 2 pistols do you move? Nope

If I remeber correctly, shooting with two weapon is a half action in 2nd Edition. So yeah, you can move.

If you want combat more lethal, you don't have to take away the ability to react to guns, just drop the whole "Toughness=Damage Soak", and suddenly it will be a LOT more lethal. The few instances I've seen of melee characters making it to close combat has a lot more to do with the fact they take an extra 3-5 damage off any attack in ADDITION to their armor, than the ability to dodge a single ballistic skill per turn on somewhere between a 30 and 50% chance.

That's it.

A bullet to the head of a 9mm will kill you exactly as a 12.7mm, you are more scared of the 12.7mm then the 9mm?

Actually, normal 9mm bullet in the head and your chances of surviving are pretty hight, comapre to 12.7mm.

That's why bigger calibres and special ammos exists.

more scared of a gun or a tiger? it's true that uglyer/bigger scares more but on logically you should consider two things that are lethal as the same, so you will not go into the tigers pit as much as you would not go into a firefight with a knife.

You speak of logic, then you speak of fear. Those two doesn't get together well, you know.

About the tiger and the gun, depends on the tiger, depends on the gun. If I'm facing a dude with a revolver with a 6 shots barrel, I prefer the revolver than the tiger. Because I can run on adrenaline with bullet holes, I can make him miss his shoots and club him to death with my bare hands while he's reloading. I can lure him somewhere he won't be able to use all his advantages. Will it be easy, not at all.

But easier than outrunning a tiger, outfighting a tiger with no weapons. And I if get a gun, I think the human will be eaiser to hit than the tiger, but I never tried, so I won't make assumptions.

You survive to horrors learning that guns do not kill you, that's why you arent' scared. If you survived avoiding being shot and your friends that were shot died you surely will regard a gun as dangerous

You say the **** truth. Since I know that a gun is dangerous, if the guy shoot at me, I'll try to dodge is aim. If I was shooting in a stationary way and I spot a dude pointing a gun towards me, I'll move in a way to stop being in his line of sight, I'll get the frag off. That's what is called dodge in that game.

I know that warhammer 40k isn't big on realism, actually it has a mindset of WW1 when it comes to battlefields, anyway in the setting i don't recall humans dodging bullets or las-fire while i rember eldars and other xenos doing so.

Well, read books and stories. Find me a guy that when pointed a gun at just stay there and hope that the guy won't touch him.

he game assumes you move when you move not when you stay still, infact you do not adjust range or your position on the battlefield by an arbitrary distance every round: you start your round at 30m from something and if you do not move you still end it at 30m from it

The game assumes that characters are constantly on the move and they duck, side step and such. Not enough to count on the 30m you spoke of, but the game assume you're on the move.

If you think fighters just hit each other turn after turn, without moving or nothing, you didn't read the rules.

Axel, you may want to look at the proposed running speed for Ag 3 instead. At 18m/6 seconds instead of the walking base, which means you need half a minute to clear 100 meters at a full run instead of about ten seconds.

"The assumption that guns aren't dangerous at all because you can dodge them"

Wrong again. Guns are still insanely dangerous even if you can dodge them. The lack of danger from most firearms comes from DH's insane damage soak. It's not that I'm not afraid of guns because I can dodge them. I (as the player) is afraid of a gun if I HAVE to try and dodge it-- because I only get ONE try to get out of the way, and if there's more than one enemy, I'm probably dead. Even if there is more than one enemy, I (personally) have less than a 50% chance of surviving that hit if the guy makes his roll (37 Agility and a Dodge+10).

The ability to dodge gunfire, on a mechanical standpoint, enables the player some say or power in what happens to their character, as opposed to the GM simply saying: "That guy with the Heavy Bolter rolled 4 DoS, you die, gg no re." And as mentioned for some characters that might STILL not even be a very good chance, depending on how much they've sunk into dodge and agility.

As far as armed forces, you're right. They're trained to minimize their chances of being hit. They do not dodge bullets, but you can bet that if they do get caught out in the open, they're going to do what they can to cause their opponent to miss. Again. "Dodge" vs firearms is not you dodging a bullet. It's you throwing off your attacker's aim, from a fluff standpoint.

"Space Marines do not dodge bullets"

Then we'll have to agree to disagree, because I literally have a tab open with quotes from two separate novels, one involving a Space Marine swatting aside a Bolt round with his bare hand, because he noticed it too late to dodge it, and another involving a Space Marine Captain deflecting a series of bolt rounds with a power sword. There's also, of course, Eisenhorn doing the same thing against a Chaos Space Marine in "Pariah" (within spitting distance OF a Pariah), and Eisenhorn has no physical advantages over any other normal human. Only mental.

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Also, I might add that the Desperado would be completely broken in one of your campaigns, and further make melee completely useless, due to their Role Bonus, as well as their aptitudes enabling them to have high ballistic skill as well as high agility.

Melee character: -Charge attack that, due to Desperado having high agility and high dodge means he will miss almost guaranteed-

Desperado: -full action disengage, then point blank shot with a pistol. Given a Desperado's high Ballistic Skill and a +30/40 to hit, he likely is going to hit and the melee character now, according to your rules, cannot avoid it-

Melee character: -forced to do a half-action move and basic swing that the Desperado will dodge again-

Desperado: -rinse and repeat until the melee character dies-

As said novels are what they are depending on the writer. Spacemarines anyway do not have super speed or agility, no implants or mutations on that regard. Ehisenhorn is a psyker with a semi-sentient force sword... scream superhuman to me. Infact i permit psy powers to give you the chance to dodge bullets if reasonable. The arbitor friend surely doesn't dodge bullets, infact spends 80% of the books on his back. Anyway inquisitors are humans, humans do not dodge lasers, to me makes sense.

You say that moving somethig that isn't even worth calculating, without even dropping prone is "acting evasive"?

I give the chance to get out of incoming fire if you have near you cover, that's to me reasonable, not saying that you move in a completely unappreaciable way and react to a gun pointed to you from 30m and doing it so contiously and with "skill" increasing your chance of avoiding a laser or a full-auto from an smg or even a full auto from a sewed-off automatic combat shotgun...

A plasma gun or even a rad cleanser can 1 shot a normal character, problem is that at the best will hit 50% of times and then you dodge... you can even rule one-shot/one-kill if you feel weapons are not lethal, still they will miss way more then hit, still i will feel the problem isn't damage but suspension of disbelif of humans reacting to bullets like they were ping-pong balls.

Class balance? Seriously? To me isn't a problem as alredy said and anyway: dodging bullets makes classes balanced? Saying that something clearly poorly designed is designed to dodge bullets and if you change that it will become unbalanced isn't to me a good point. I don't play 2nd ed. Because i do not want to write down another tons of house rules to fix another terrible ruleset that has nothing really good to motivate me in taking the effort.

I even use different rules for auto-fire and bursts, for las weapons and shotguns etc. I'm here talking of one aspect of our house ruling anyway.

If you are worried of class balance look at tech-priests then at guardsmen.

Actually the Biscopea could very well promote superhuman speeds. And Space Marine's DO possess superhuman speed. This is a fact. The extent of this speed varies from writer to writer (ranging from "Holy crap how can he be that fast!?" to "Moves so fast they seem to teleport"), but that Space Marine's possess superhuman speed is concrete (I would like to recommend you to the comicvine Space Marine respect thread, feel free to check under "Speed and Reactions": http://www.comicvine.com/profile/strider92/blog/space-marines-respect-thread/92848/ ).

If you drop prone you're actually making yourself an easier target if you're caught in the open, as now you literally cannot move easily. Moving is the most effective way not to be hit if you are in the open. Hitting a moving target is /difficult/. That's the key thing. Here's a question. Why does the shooter gain a bonus to Ballistic skill if they're trying to hit someone unaware of them? Because the target. Isn't. Moving.

And again. The difference between Dodge and "not having that bonus" is the difference between simply hitting a moving target, and hitting a moving target that is specifically moving to make it harder for you specifically to hit them. Which can absolutely be done-- ESPECIALLY at longer ranges. Are you suggesting that it is impossible to make it harder for someone with a gun harder to hit you, even without cover, at /thirty/ meters? The average person cannot accurately hit a moving target at distances beyond 5, according to modern day police statistics.

On your point about the majority of shots missing? That's fine. The vast majority of rounds put into the air in an ACTUAL firefight are also going to miss. It is absolutely possible to make yourself a harder target to hit even without cover, and it doesn't have to involve sprinting sideways from your opponent.

"Humans do not dodge lasers" I have not once stated that they do. I have been saying that people holding the lasers can miss. And they will miss a lot more often if the guy they're shooting at is actually trying to make them miss, whether or not cover is available.

Let's see if I can't get you to think of this another way. Let's line up three hypothetical shooters on a straight lane, with no cover. All three of these shooters are exact equals in shooting ability. They have one "target" who is going to try not to get hit despite not having cover. Our Our target-boy focuses his attention on just ONE of our three shooters. Yes he's going to be moving as well as he can to make himself a poor target, but of the three guys shooting at him, which of the three is LEAST likely to hit him? The guy our target is focusing on. Even if it's only by a small percentage, our target is less likely to get hit by the guy he is specifically trying to avoid getting hit by, because all of his movements are going to be made from the perspective of where our target boy thinks his mark is going to shoot. Not where the others are going to shoot.

I bring up Class balance because you seem to be under the strange delusion that melee combat is still viable in your game. It isn't. Not to flush enemies out, not even to counter other melee combatants. My hypothetical desperado will be able to take down virtually any melee combatant even if he was ambushed in a 5x5 room. Ie. Even in the very small handful of situations that melee combat could /actually/ be viable, your system ensures that pistols are still better, even in melee combat. It makes the entire Weapon Skill stat basically a waste of space, and, in my opinion, would make anyone who even wants to try a melee build feel extremely demoralized. Nobody wants to be the fighter in a party of wizards.

Also. You say you don't play 2nd Ed? Then why are you posting this in the 2nd Ed. boards?

Are you playing 1st Ed? Well then ranged weapons are actually MORE dangerous in 1st Ed. because of the full-auto rules making any character firing at short or point blank range at full auto basically guaranteed to turn their target into swiss cheese, dodge rolls be damned.

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If you want a more lethal system, removing toughness soak is basically all that's needed. Guns are PLENTY scary, even if you can dodge ONE attack per round, if you're lucky. Think of it that way as well if you like. You are making /one/ additional attack miss per round. If you're lucky. Early game, you're going to fail that dodge more often than not, and mid or late-game as GM you'll probably be sending more enemies the player's way anyways, which makes the one dodge they made more or less irrelevant, but hey. At least they get the chance to do that.

Making guns undodgeable except in specific conditions only serves to take the power out of the hands of the players, which, in my opinion, makes the game less fun.

So soldiers actually go around jumping or they go prone and crawl?

You can't see where a gun is pointed unless you are really close, human sight and prospective don't help. You can actually be more difficult to hit by moving a lot (reactions don't do that) but not by predicting the direction of the gun. It's difficult to hit a fish swimming in the ocean, quite different hitting a fish in a barrel. It's difficult to hit a mosquito flying but i'm quite sure it doesn't react to where you are pointing the gun (size, speed and erratical movment are the factors).

In your examples all 3 shooters will have the same exact chance of hitting you, depending on distance and their weapons your movment can even be completele futile.

You miss because you mis-align your weapon with the predicted spot of your target, that depends on reaction time and flight time of the bullet, with lasers nothing of this matters, you cannot miss with a laser weapon really. You could miss something very quick (high traversal velocity) or very small, in that case problem is with your eye-hand coordination, but a human target surely isn't tge case. Just try to "hit" a friend with a laser projector while e tries to avoid you by moving in 1,5-2sqm.

Most shots fired in real life are misses, right, in real fights you do not shoot 1 bullet every 5 seconds, not even a bolt action has that poor rof. Plus in real fights peapole are under cover or at extreme ranges (war) or in darkness, most urban fights are among unprofessionals and even police isn't trained for war, you have special corps for that and they have a very nice accuracy %

From codex biscopea generates muscle growth hormones, gh in practice, and is responsable for hormon control of other implants. No adrenalin or super drugs. Sure spacemarines are faster than same sized humans covered in tankish armour but i don't see them with elven-like reflexes.

My problem isn't balance but suspension of disbelif, to me reacting to/dodging bullets in dh isn't plausible, just like surviving to an execution. That's why the house rule.

Although I generally agree with the sentiment (it was my idea after all!), Las weapons are not the same as real-life lasers. The shots don't move at light speed. They might be described as working like lasers, but never, in any of the fiction, are the shots moving at light-speed. If they were, missing would be impossible for basically everyone.

I won't adress the rest of your points, as you are attempting to apply real world logic to a setting where: laser weapons fire in the visible spectrum creating sounds as loud as a gunshot from an equivalent sized weapon, and magical space wizards exist...

From codex biscopea generates muscle growth hormones, gh in practice, and is responsable for hormon control of other implants. No adrenalin or super drugs. Sure spacemarines are faster than same sized humans covered in tankish armour but i don't see them with elven-like reflexes.

But this quote in particular can actually be indesputably resolved with RAW by using DH2E as the source, since that is after all the forum we are on.

Comparative dodge %:

(Normal Humans)

Desoleum Bounty Hunter - 58% Dodge (48Ag, +10 Dodge - Core Book, pg#385)

Thug - 33% Dodge (33Ag, Dodge trained - Core Book, pg#387)

Citizen - 13% Dodge (25Ag, Dodge not trained - Core Book, pg#392)

Dreg/Chem Addict - 16% Dodge (32Ag, Dodge not trained - Core Book, pg#394)

Desoleum PDF Trooper - 35% Dodge (35Ag, Dodge trained - Core Book, pg#394)

(Heroic Warriors)

Sister of Battle Canoness - 50% Dodge (40Ag +10 Dodge - Core Book, pg#296)

Deathwatch Space Marine - 50% Dodge (40Ag +10 Dodge - Core Book, pg#297)

*Rogue Trader 66% Dodge (46Ag, +20 Dodge - Core Book, pg#399)

*Note: the Rogue Trader can actually use their Leverage special ability every round to swap their Influence of 64 with another stat for a skill test; this means that he/she could just save it for their Dodge test every round and have an effective 84% Dodge, which is the highest of any NPC in the core book except for the Eversor Assassin, who is of course disqualified for using perfomance enhancing drugs

(Mutants)

Necrophage - 60% Dodge (50Ag, +10 Dodge - Core Book, pg#408)

(**Eldar)

Guardian - 49% Dodge (39Ag, +10 Dodge - Core Book, pg#412)

Corsair - 54% Dodge (44Ag, +10 Dodge - Core Book, pg#412)

Ranger - 58% Dodge (48Ag, +10 Dodge - Core Book, pg#413)

Pathfinder - 69% Dodge (49Ag, +20 Dodge - Core Book, pg#413)

Dire Avenger - 54% Dodge (44Ag, +10 Dodge - Core Book, pg#414)

***Warlock - 62% Dodge (42Ag, +20 Dodge - Core Book, pg#414)

**Note: all of the eldar listed here have Unnatural Agility 3, however this only helps their Dodges against Semi/Full automatic fire, and also against blasts.

***Note: this does not include any bonuses from psychic powers.

TLDR: random junkies can dodge bullets 1/6th of the time, PDF troopers can do it just over 1/3ed of the time, random human bounty hunters are more agile than most eldar and space marines, and finally; Rogue Traders OP plz nerf.

Have you ever played Duck Hunt? It's essentially instantaneous translation of hits and yet, it's perfectly possible to miss due to simply pointing the barrel in the wrong place or pulling the trigger too late. Same thing with laser weapons. You can have instantaneous/lightspeed translation of your shot to the target, but if what you're aiming at isn't exactly on the mark, you may still miss.

So soldiers actually go around jumping or they go prone and crawl?

If your ten metres in the open in front of me and you point a gun towards me, I **** well won't drop down. I will try to make you miss the shot you fire at me in moving out of the way of your gun.

The rest, you say the contrary to what the rules describe, say and means. You create a false situation on which you argue. But the base of your argument is incorrect.

Hard target (-20 to get hit when you run), represents passively being hard to hit, while dodge represents getting out of the line of sight of a gun (or a sword) before it touches you, which is actively being hard to hit.

If you don't consider this correct or realist, then you didn't read the rules. Are the rules as they are perfect? No. But anyway, you don't like them, so what. The problem is far bigger than dodge or not dodge. it's the fact that anyway, whatever people will tell you won't be alright, since you consider the system terrible. So any argument about that system is no use to you.

EDIT:

TLDR: random junkies can dodge bullets 1/6th of the time, PDF troopers can do it just over 1/3ed of the time, random human bounty hunters are more agile than most eldar and space marines, and finally; Rogue Traders OP plz nerf.

Random junkie can dodge ONE bullet 1/6 of the time. Funny thing is, majority of weapon against said junky will shot many bullets to get sure to hit him and kill him.

Getting hit 1/3 or even 1/2 of thime is waaaaay better than what happen in a real shootout.

I the end, when a look at your comparisons, only the best creatures/heoric/superhuman will be able to dodge anything close to be good enough.

And you don't consider the fact that, except officio assassinorum, they can dodge 1, maximum 2 times.

Have you ever been to paintball? On a real firefight? To laserquest? To airsoft?

Check out how many time you must shoot at somebody to hit him.

Way more than what is happening in DH.

Humans dodge bullets: no. Things in dh that you can play are humans? Yes.

You dodge with 30% dodge at least 1 attack/bullet every 3, against someone with 30bs that misses 2/3 of the shots.

Without moving in any significative way.

Don't tell me that every bullet in the ruleset must be considered a real bullet, if that was true we are talking of freaking muskets. Just as every attack with a melee weapon isn't an actual swing.

Lasers are visible, depends on the frequency and in anycase light travels at light speed unless we are in star wars. More so what's the point in equipping imperial guard with las weapon if they aren't incredibly easy to fire and hit? Just to use some more complicated and costly tech for show? Has i see it you give the easiest to use weapon to your line infantry even if it isn't the hardest hitter because you want your horde to hit.

Npcs stats are... well... you know... humans quicker then eldars says everything.

As i said to me humans do not dodge bullets or lasers, so my house rules forbid things that to me are impossible. You don't think it's realistic i get it, i prefer to go with "do not bring a knife to a gunfight". 20m out in the open against someone with an autogun? To me you will be hit unless incredible luck.

For paintball: paint bullets are way slower than real ones, they drop more and deviate more, even so try to act evasive moving by 2m and predicting the trajectory of the barrel for 5 secs.

Lasergames: still try to avoid being shot ma vin by 2m out in the open for 5 secs.

In conclusion the thread was about dodging bullets: i said mine and why.

Humans dodge bullets: no. Things in dh that you can play are humans? Yes.

You dodge with 30% dodge at least 1 attack/bullet every 3, against someone with 30bs that misses 2/3 of the shots.

Without moving in any significative way.

Don't tell me that every bullet in the ruleset must be considered a real bullet, if that was true we are talking of freaking muskets. Just as every attack with a melee weapon isn't an actual swing.

Lasers are visible, depends on the frequency and in anycase light travels at light speed unless we are in star wars. More so what's the point in equipping imperial guard with las weapon if they aren't incredibly easy to fire and hit? Just to use some more complicated and costly tech for show? Has i see it you give the easiest to use weapon to your line infantry even if it isn't the hardest hitter because you want your horde to hit.

Npcs stats are... well... you know... humans quicker then eldars says everything.

As i said to me humans do not dodge bullets or lasers, so my house rules forbid things that to me are impossible. You don't think it's realistic i get it, i prefer to go with "do not bring a knife to a gunfight". 20m out in the open against someone with an autogun? To me you will be hit unless incredible luck.

For paintball: paint bullets are way slower than real ones, they drop more and deviate more, even so try to act evasive moving by 2m and predicting the trajectory of the barrel for 5 secs.

Lasergames: still try to avoid being shot ma vin by 2m out in the open for 5 secs.

In conclusion the thread was about dodging bullets: i said mine and why.

Stop putting words in our mouths. Not ONE PERSON in this thread has said that humans can dodge bullets (except for Space Marines who are genetically enhanced and not exactly human anymore). What we have been stating is it IS possible to make the guy firing the bullets miss you. You don't dodge bullets, the guy holding the gun misses. As InquisitorAlexel said. If you are ten meters away from me with a gun, I can STILL make hitting me with that gun harder. Maybe not by a significant margin, but hey. Your starting Acolyte can't either. Your average starting Acolyte can make himself about 15% harder to hit with a bullet.

As far as lasguns are concerned, the guard use lasguns because lasguns are the AK-47 of the 40k universe. You could drop a las gun into the ocean, leave it there for a month, fish it out, dry it off by setting it on fire, and then put out the fire by beating it with a warhammer, and the thing would still be just as effective as it was when you threw it into the ocean in the first place. THAT is why they are used. Also, because they basically never run out of ammo, since all you need to do is leave the battery pack out in the sun to replenish your ammunition. Lasguns are cheap and reliable. That's why the Guard makes them their primary weapon. Because they are an army's dream weapon. You give a guard a dirt cheap gun, and two dirt-cheap battery packs and you will never have to send replacement equipment to him ever again. It has nothing to do with the speed they travel at. When firing into a seething horde of Tyranids or Orks, accuracy is largely irrelevant anyways. You're going to hit something. Hell, in the case of Tyranids you could probably fire straight up into the sky and STILL hit something.

As far as your paintball commentary, the gap in speed between a human and a paintball pellet is large enough that it is completely irrelevant that a paintball pellet is slower than a bullet. At a certain point, the gap in speed stops being relevant. But since we're on the topic I notice you didn't address laser tag, and as someone who's played it and who sees it played regularly (on account of a laser tag center being on my route home from work, so I sometimes drop in and watch)-- no. Lasers are not anymore accurate than bullets. Oh, and yes, it is absolutely possible to make a guy firing a laser at you miss. Very. VERY easy. In all the laser tag matches I've either participated in or watched, pretty much the only times I've seen people get consistently hit is when they STOP moving. Movement wreaks havoc with your aim. It wreaks even MORE havoc when your opponent isn't moving predictably because they know you're trying to get a bead on them. While I'm not expert sharpshooter, that much I can tell you from experience-- and that's USING one of your "impossible-to-miss-with" lasers.

" Npcs stats are... well... you know... humans quicker then eldars says everything."

So you're saying that if my character has a higher agility than the Eldar Howling Banshee you threw at us, you'll STILL allow that Howling Banshee to dodge my shots but not me, despite my character being faster?

Humans dodge bullets: no. Things in dh that you can play are humans? Yes.

No one said that.

For paintball: paint bullets are way slower than real ones, they drop more and deviate more, even so try to act evasive moving by 2m and predicting the trajectory of the barrel for 5 secs.

No one spoke about the velocity/speed of said projectiles.

Except you.

Be it a rocket launcher, a lasgun, an autogun, a bolter, and auto-rifle shooting nuclear warheads, your hands move at the same speed. And even if they move a little faster than your ennemy legs (basic martial arts concept), you can still move fast enough to be out of alignement with said hands. Sure, if the guy aligned his hand (and gun) with you and pressed the trigger, you're hit. The fact is, the guy in front of you can be slower than you, without taking into accounts accuracy.

Npcs stats are... well... you know... humans quicker then eldars says everything.

Well, that's why eldar will dodge more often than humans.

Lasergames: still try to avoid being shot ma vin by 2m out in the open for 5 sec

I did, often. I also spent 780 shots in lasertag in a battle of 10 minutes, and killed only 12 adversaries. On these shots, I touched not enough. And I was a competition shooter with a 87 to 93% accuracy with no scope weapons, to miniscule targets. I'm really accurate with a gun, and still, when the guy decides to concentrate on not being in the way of my weapon, he succeds of not being where my bullets will be. And we speak of "laser", so a little faster than bullets. And guys "dodge" and I did dodge. Of course, when I'm running in zigzag I'm harder to hit, but when someone sees me, is going to squeeze the trigger and I just jump on the side, the guy doesn't touch me.

In the end, we've repeated thousands of time the same thing and you never answered to any of what you said.

You transform arguments, reality, stats and rules for what you want them to be to create a vision of the game that is limited to your backyard, in which you will absolutely rule since no one can argue against the things that happen in your head. But the reality is a lot more complex but you obscure facts.

In the end, a normal human in DH has a 15% of dodging a single hit of so many that can happen in a round. That's quite legit and realistic. After that, your characters become heroic and better at it, fine. That's what I call heroes. Don't want to play heroes? Don't play a game where you've got characters in the centrer of the universe.

End of arguing. You don't know how to do that, anyway.