Okay, you make some damned excellent and quite compelling points, Varnias. However, I think we both might be going about beating this horse in the wrong way and it just ain't getting tenderized properly. I think us skewing our arguments in the direction of reality and examples there of or thoughts on what is really feasible and not is a touch faulty (never mind the fact that anyone bringing up reality in regards to 40k too much could probably use some electro-shock therapy). From a feasibility standpoint, you are quite correct and damned compelling in your arguments. Your standpoint is completely reasonable. On the flip-side, however, my stance still remains just as reasonable to me. Liegekiller made a great point in his post; in the end, there are just too damned many variables to any given situation which prity much validates either of our stances. Likewise, in a way, I feel that a character always being able to dive behind cover (after passing his dodge test of course) or utterly failing to do such doesn't take into account that more outcomes are possible due to the myriad of variables that could be at play but are simply far too numerous to take each into account separately.

Like I said, your arguments thus far have been very compelling, but there is still one major thing about your stance which I have a problem with; it's binary. You either dive out of the way of all gunmen who have the drop on you or you're not fast enough to avoid any of them. Even if a character were faced with 200 paranoid coked up Eldar all with a clear line of sight to him (they're in bleachers or on a hill or some such), the character's one reaction is still enough to trump all of their insanely ramped up reaction times and dive behind cover before any but one could even get a shot off at the character. I realize the example is a bit extreme and terribly silly, but it's to illustrate a point and the reason i don't much care for binaries. There has to be a middle-ground, more then just one of those ramped up Eldar has to have a chance to hit our character without him utterly failing. In fact, those are the only two possible outcomes, utter failure or complete success. There's no middle-ground there, and I'm a big fan of the middle-ground. That and it dose help to mimic all those countless variables that liegekiller mentioned as existing in such a situation that we couldn't hope to fully map out in a sane way.

Because of that, I'd still have to say either imposing a -20 on the attackers BS after a successful dodge by the character or (and this option is starting to look even more attractive to me by the day) our character can negate one attack against him for succeeding plus one per DoS (like dodging autofire because, well, it is a lot like dodging autofire). In small situations with small numbers, a limber and quick fellow can still easily dive behind some cover from a couple of armed gunmen. If there are 200 coked up Eldar all aiming catapults at him telling him not to move, then he should just listen to them and not move.

From a strictly rules perspective, the other things I have a problem with is it effectively dose what a half action would have to be spent doing and, on top of that, also dose what a reaction usually dose. The common half action move rate is between 2m-3m and being able to dive 2m for a reaction essentially allows a character to be as fast or faster in reaction time then things with superhuman reaction times (coked up paranoid eldar for instance) because he or she effectivly gets their first half action right after the first guy no matter what. I'm a bit reluctant to let a reaction have as much effect as a half action and still maintain the defensive capabilities of a reaction as well. It just seems like too sweet a package from a strictly rules perspective.

@Liegekiller, I'm well aware of the psychology of the gunfight... well, that is to say I've read a lot of reports and studies done on police and FBI shootings. They are the primary reason i go for what I earlier mentioned as a total chaos approach to combat and never use maps, markers, or anything of the sort. From going over those studies (in which the tunnel vision occurs in about 70% of all officers involved in a shooting) there are a lot of even more interesting phenomena that will occur due to the brain going into severe survival mode. It would seem that distance becomes distorted, time gets all forms of messed up, vision cues can be easily misinterpreted, and hearing tends to selectively go (several officers could see muzzle flashes of the gunman's gun but not hear the shots, a lot of time, they never heard their own gun as they fired back and, in their weird state of mind, thought they weren't firing, etc).

One of my favorite reports was from an FBI agent who was caught in a shootout next to is partner. He, of course, suffered from tunnel vision but also from selective hearing loss (he could hear is radio going off clear as day and remembered all the codes being called over it but couldn't hear any of the gunshots being fired at them nor their return fire). He also recalled that during the shootout, he remembered seeing beer cans floating by his face and part of him wondered who would be in this shootout throwing beer cans in front of is face and why the hell someone would do that. It wasn't until after the incident was over and he was able to actually reflect on it that he realized what he was seeing was the spent shells being ejected from is partner's gun. His mind had just been locked onto the gunmen they were shooting at as they were an immediate threat to his life and everything else, his mind simply didn't even want to bother with. The sells were so close to is face tat, due to forced perspective, they looked about the size of a beer can and since they weren't an immediate treat to his life, his mind left them at that.

That's the feel I try to convey in my combats. I just wish the combat system for DH/RT was a bit less dice and math intensive to better allow for that kind of intensity -having to stop the narrative to scribble down some hasty math takes a bit of the tension out of the combat sails.

Graver said:

I agree.

Im beginning to feel like a broken record here since I've said this before, but I don't like rules systems that tries to combine abstractions and minute details together. In my opinion, a rules system should either stick to one or the other, because combining them always give birth to bugs, inconsistencies and double standards.

While both the extremely detailed and the more abstract and narrative systems can be fun in their own rights (just two different flavours of the same thing), I tend to prefer the narrative and abstract ones over the more detailed ones, mainly because of my extremely pleasant experience with the rules of a swedish RPG called Noir (my absolute favourite of all time RPG).

I would like to convert the rules in Noir for Dark Heresy, but it would simply be too complicated, because they are far from interchangeable. First of all Noir doesn't use d100 percentile skill tests, it use a dice-pool system with d10's a little reminiscent of the World of Darkness system (but still a pretty distinct system despite some similarities). So if I were to try Iäd have to re-write the rules for Dark Heresy completely, while at the same time invent my own mechanics for Noir that would symbolize some of the more archetypical mechanics in Dark Heresy.

It's not that I dislike doing things myself, but there are limits to my energy. But if I can allow myself to dream for a little while, I have to say that a Dark Heresy game powered by the rules from Noir would be sweeeeet!

This seems a rather big escalation of what seems pretty straightforward to me.

Four baddies get the drop on an acolyte and open up on him with their weapons (preparation, ambush, possible surprise AND all four managed to win initiative no less!). Acolyte spends his reaction as "dive for cover" and rolls dodge, modified as circumstances require. (roll succedes, first shooter does lots of cosmetic damage to the scenery). Acolyte has Step Aside as a talent and uses his second dodge reaction against shooter #2. Shooter #3 & 4 then resolve their fire as normal. The acolyte (or what is left of him) is now behind the corner of this wall (or whatever cover was dived for), likely prone and also likely bleeding profusely from several new holes.

The game is admitedly lethal, but in my game we have had several dramatic moments somewhat like this and the acolytes have lived through them so far, though often pretty torn up from the experience. Did the shots do a bit too much damage? "Nah, most of the pelets just grazed me" (player spends fate point to remove some damage). Did the shots blow our hero into 47 separate pieces of grot-snot? "Nope, but I think I need a new leg.... MEDIC!" (character BURNS fate point.).

I use the fairly common GM methodology of grouping certain baddies into initiative blocks to speed up gameplay when there are several mooks, named villains and players in the same battle scene. DH uses agility bonus as the tie-breaker for initiative, but I have found it expedient to use the actual agility score as a tie-breaker, as most combatants (human anyway) have a 3.... a sample initiative order from one of my games might look like this:

1) Jerichus (assassin)

2) Big Bad

3) Kira (guardsman)

4) Lasgun baddies

5) John (guardsman)

6) Shotgun baddies

7) Terrified hostage

8) Psi-1985 (techpriest)

9) Ogryn

I use a third-party produced magnetic board and tag product that makes managing this stuff pretty simple. Just write combatants' names on individual tags and arrange them in initiative order on the board. It has a current turn pointer magnet included, so it is alot harder to skip someone by accident. When someone delays, joins in on the fight or otherwise interacts with the existing initiative order you can simply slot a new tag into the order, slide it out partially to indicate a "delaying" or whatever. Best generic game aid ever made!

Like I said, your arguments thus far have been very compelling, but there is still one major thing about your stance which I have a problem with; it's binary. You either dive out of the way of all gunmen who have the on you or you're not fast enough to avoid any of them. Even if a character were faced with 200 paranoid coked up Eldar all with a clear line of sight to him (they're in bleachers or on a hill or some such), the character's one reaction is still enough to trump all of their insanely ramped up reaction times and dive behind cover before any but one could even get a shot off at the character.

Well, there is a relatively simple way for the Eldar - spread out so the available cover doesn't protect against all of them. Crossfire is a wonderful thing.

Alternatively, there might be surprise to consider: If the character doesn't notice the Eldar switching from "***** about state of the unverse and stupidity of Mon'keigh picking at things despite wise Eldar telling them not to without providing further reasons" to "kill stupid Mon'keigh", then the character would be considered surprised and not receive a set of actions in the first round.

Cifer said:

Generally speaking, if an Eldar - particularly an Aspect Warrior - is fully-equipped for warfare (tall helmets, armour, guns, swords, accompanied by grav-tanks and jetbikes), then he probably switched to "the vile little things are annoying me, I want to paint a picture with their innards and make music with their screams" mode before he left the Craftworld. If art is a means of expressing emotion, then no art is so perfect for expressions of rage and hate than warfare, as an Eldar philosopher might say as he murders human children who happened to look at him funny.

Of course, if they're Corsairs, then they're likely to go from "the subtle flavours of this particular wine are-" to 'ripping your face off because you interrupted the conversation' to "-as I was saying..." in a matter of moments.

When dealing with the Eldar, you do not want to get on their bad side. Their bad side is what created Slaanesh, Chaos God of "Y'know what sounds fun? Mass Genocide!"

Back to the subject at hand. The Dive Behind Cover use of dodge doesn't actually prevent subsequent attacks. It puts you behind an obstacle. Your attackers saw you move there (so they remain aware of you, which means that they can still attack, albeit through the cover now), and depending on how powerful their weapons are and what kind of cover you have, may not at all be bothered by the obstacle you've thrown yourself behind.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

That's what I've been saying too. But some of the debaters in here say that you should get shot several times as you fly through the air towards that cover and won't benefit from the cover at all.

I disagree with their assesment and according to one of my "opponents" (which is pretty sweet to be able to say without it actually having to mean "enemy" like it can do on other messageboards, kudos for everyone who have been able to keep a sensible debate!) Graver think I have good points, but he and the others aren't really convinced.

I feel like I could take the debate even more in-depth with more arguments, but somehow I get the feeling that it's just gonna bog everything down in minute details...

Chalk me in for "Dive for Cover leaves the character prone behind cover if successful" camp. If it's halfway decent cover, small arms fire will ping off it. Hopefully there aren't heavy weapons involved. Cover is not known to be universally reliable against multi-meltas and railguns, contrary to the Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer's advice regarding sandbags.

For initiative, I roll separately for each NPC. It's one extra roll per NPC at the beginning of combat, and it breaks them up to minimize the instantaneous focus firing that leads to debates much like this one. I just list the characters in order of initiative and resolve in order; I'd have to resolve their actions (and damage, and status...) individually anyway, so it's minimal extra bookkeeping.

Often many of the enemies will share stats anyway (f'rex, a combat in our last session involved a whole gang of Tech-Adepts), so the same AB is applied and makes rolling initiative for them very fast.

Pandadan said:

Well that's just the thing ain't it. You can never know exactly how good protection cover will provide, and throwing yourself behind cover is really a desperate action that might prove useless in the end anyway.

For instance take the example in this thread. Say the characters are in an alley and the guy throwing himself behind cover chose a pile of trash and trashcans for cover. What he didn't know is that the trash is basically just paper and bio-waste, and the cans are rusted, giving him pretty shoddy cover. I.e the cover type would go under "Light wood, Armour-glas or light metal" at best and only provide him with an extra AP of 4 (or possibly even less if the GM feels a little mean at the time). And I can guarantee you that even small arms fire won't harmlessly "pling off" such useless cover. I would never hope to come out unharmed from behind such cover if im being shot at by a full auto burst from even a modest autogun.

So the way I see it, having the 'benefit' of pretty useless cover, while better than nothing, won't really be that overwhelmingly unbalanced or even decent most of the time. Not if you're being shot at by four armed people within effective range.

ZillaPrime said:

Thank you Zilla, you have made the most sense to me so far(because you agreed with me, lol). I'm curious. Where did you get this 3rd party magnet board and pieces? Sounds like it would be very useful, especially with 7 players! Could you possibly link it? Thanks.

And btw there is also a rank 7 Psyker present in the group with 2 levels of Power Well, and Discipline Focus(Biomancy), so said dodging player had a healer that can throw around 3d10+15 heals per round to take care of him if he got shot up too bad. And yet he still complained!

Varnias Tybalt said:

Don't forget the -30 for shooting at a completely concealed target soft cover can still be valuable to cower behind, even if it offers little (or no) AP. And assuming it's big enough to be concealed behind if someone is hiding behind a simple trash can, it's pretty hard to shoot the can and not the target.

Pandadan said:

I still wouldn't have my hopes up. The scenario sounded like it was at close range, and if the gunmen were firing something on full auto, the bonuses would pretty much cancel that -30 penalty out. It's still a really dangerous situation to be in...

In response to Jlid's inquiry into the magnetic initiative tracking board I use for my games:

FFG's forum rules prohibit me from posting a direct link, as this would be considered "advertising". That said, the item is question is the "GameMastery Combat Pad Initiative Tracker" by Open Mind Games. It was clearly made with D&D 3.5/Pathfinder in mind, but it works for pretty much every game I have tried so far. You will need to buy suitable pens for it separately (I recommend using wet-erase "transparency" pens, have not tested dry erase on it.)

Sure you can do the exact same thing with paper, but anything I can do to speed up the bookkeeping portion of the game to squeeze in more actual game is well worth it to me. Being able to add, subtract and rearrange combat order as needed by simply dragging magnets around makes me happy, and the little combat round tracker and "current turn" arrow helps preserve GM sanity.

Should cost around $15 US unless inflation or currency exchange has made this painful since buying it. The manufacturer also sells an extra magnets pack for the board, so if you regularly have 30+ separate initiatives in combat then you might want to get both.

To add a silly yet poignant South Park reference to the thread: "Hot Lava! Duck and cover!" Cover only goes so far....