Dear Colleagues,

Is there any rule stating how long (action type) does it take to pick up an item (weapon) from the floor? Half action similar to 'Ready' or else?

No, there's nor rule stating exactly how long it takes. But I'd go with half action. It takes a half action to ready a weapon, and by that reasoning it would take a half action to ready a weapon picked up from the floor, and because of that it would be safe to assume that it takes a half action to pick something up.

Also, to be consistent, Quick Draw should allow a character to pick something up from the floor as a free action.

Isn't it more difficult to get something from floor than to pick something from pouch? In first case you have to bow, and become more vulnerable to attacks...

Moreover from balance point of view - Disarming becomes totally inefficient.

Mrakvampire said:

Only if your disarming someone with quick draw- who could draw another weapon as a free action anyway.

I doubt that someone will have an arsenal of power swords. Nevertheless backup weapons will be usually more weak than primary one.

Mrakvampire said:

Try it out IRL.

I don't know about you, but the time it takes me to fiddle and tease out an object out of a pouch located somewhere on my body (i.e hanging from a combat harness or something similar), assuming that it is a standard pouch with some sort of safety mechanism to keep whatever is storaged in it secured (like a clip, a button, zipper, velcro etc. etc.), I could easily have picked up that same object from the floor in the same time.

But that's only assuming that the object in question lies within arms reach of where im standing, like at my feet.

If the object in question is located a few metres away, then naturally a half action wouldn't suffice to pick that object up. (which eliminates any difficulties with disarm as well, because if you disarm an opponent you will most likely try to throw or kick the weapon away and out of reach of your opponent or try to take the weapon yourself, not let it land at his or her feet)

IRL?

I doubt that you can effectively pick up something from floor during a melee fight. But to draw a sword or a pistol? It will take a skilled gunsman 2 secs to draw a pistol. How 'bout picking it up from ground? You will get a smash to your head from the enemy when you'll try to bow down.

Mrakvampire said:

In Real Life. Meaning that you should try it out yourself and time it.

Also, you wouldn't be "bowing down" with complete disregard for your own safety. But since the rules allow you to dodge as a reaction (and a reaction happens way faster than a half action) you should have ample opportunity to "bow down" and pick up something. Seriously try it out yourself. How long does it take for you to squat, pick something up and stand up again if you do it as fast as you possibly could?

(oh and by the way, a skilled gunman will draw a pistol and fire in well UNDER 2 seconds. Just so you know )

There's also the awareness aspect. When I draw a gun from my holster, I know from extensive practice exactly where it is located. If I'm in combat, I don't want to take my attention off of my opponent for even a moment, and that's what I'd have to do to locate and position myself to pick up a weapon on the ground following a disarm. Assuming in game terms that locating it is automatic, I'd still have retrieving such an object take a Full Action.

HappyDaze said:

If your opponent actually disarmed you, then he or she's going to use some time to recover or roll with the motions and try to attack you. All you'd need in that moment is a quick glance at where the weapon landed, and then you go for it, squat, pick the weapon up and stand up in a continuous flowing motion. (you don't "bow down" like the OP said)

It's not that hard to do. If I can do it (a normal, out of shape, person), then a madly skilled and fit PC in Rogue Trader could do it. Provided that the object in question is within arms reach of course. (if you need to move a significant distance to the object then that's gonna require a half action or even a full action depending on how far away the object is located)

Varnias Tybalt said:

So if my opponent disarms me - he has to spend time recovering while I can instantly reassess? Not likely IRL as you claim, and I can speak with more than passing experience on this one (four years as a corrections officer and three years working an acute care mental health facility). You're simply wrong.

HappyDaze said:

Well, with risk of sounding like im bragging (which im not trying to do at all, but if you choose to interprate it that way then I can't really stop you) I also speak from experience, and I know that im not wrong. The difference is that I got my experience from a few less than legal sources and situations, but I really don't feel like extrapolating on that too much because it's something im trying to leave behind.

But suffice to say, I know what can and can't be done in a hostile situation. Most of the **** happening in combats in games like Rogue Trader and Dark Heresy won't ever happen in real life anyway, so for the sake of game balance, some stuff ultimately has got to be chalked up to abstractions. Which is fine in my opinion, although I would have liked for both RT and DH to simply choose to stick with either an abstract or detailed system rather than trying to incorporate elements of both (because doing so usually includes a bunch of contradictions and inconsistencies).

Varnias Tybalt said:

Although clearly quite different circumstances, Having been disarmed (and disarming) in fencing, I can tell you that the follow up attack can be very quick. The weapon tends not to fall too far from the combat and while it is possible to escape (grappling is a good option) picking it up straight away is essentially suicide.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not doubting your experience. This is fencing done in a a pretty formal environment and with weapons with long reaches (3-4 feet). In this context, in my experience, you would be hit before you finished glancing away.

Agmar_Strick said:

Oh absolutely I agree, the follow up attack is usually pretty quick. But that's the thing with the current rulessystem, a Disarm action isn't automatically followed by an attack, which it would most likely be in the real world. For instance, soldiers are rarely trained to just disarm a person and then leave that person alone, they are trained to disarm the person and follow the movement, either with a grapple/lock or either a killing or crippling stroke with a weapon (most usually a knife or other sharp object). But that's not the case in this gaming system for some reason.

That being said, there are plenty of manoevuers taught in different disciplines of combat (ranging from formal set martial arts to Close Quarters Combat training in many different armed forces) intended to quickly recover a dropped weapon and keeping yourself out of harms way from a retaliatory attack from the one who disarmed you (or trying to arm yourself fast enough with an improvised weapon in case you find yourself unarmed).

A common one is to quickly duck down, grab the weapon and do a quick roll away from the attacker. Or when squatting down to pick the weapon up, you use the tension in your leg muscles (since they are already bent) to do a quick leap behind cover, rolling and then use the small respite to stand up.

However these are the more passive methods, and the most taught and prefered methods usually includes attacking the armed opponent in some way (like shielding vital areas of your body with your arms and hands from a knife or a sword strike, while body-slamming the opponent or something similar).

In any case, with all this in mind, it would be safe to assume that you can pull off picking up an object from the ground as a Half Action in this rules system. But that would of course entail that the object is within arms reach and not several metres away.

Varnias Tybalt said:

So you try to use IRL examples - unless they don't fit your argument - then you'll lean towards the game rules. Whay your suggesting is that all of the rules should favor the guy that just got disarmed, and that's crap since he's no the one that spent a Talent and an action getting to where he should have an advantage.

HappyDaze said:

I have done nothing of the sort, I just remarked upon a particular quirk in the game system, one that is much more tangible than the discussion about exactly how long the "pick up thing from floor at the front of your feet"-action takes.

Also, in what way did I say that the rules "favor" the guy getting disarmed? Where's the "benefit" of effectively having to lose an entire half-action by having to pick up the weapon in question? That seems more like a loss in my opinion.

And since being able to disarm someone requires the appropriate talent to do it (it's not an action anyone can attempt according to the rules), I'd say that the talent is well worth it's use. And even if the disarmed opponent were to have the Quick Draw talent, it still wouldn't help him if the one disarming him scores three or more degrees of success (which means that the attacker takes the weapon away rather than dropping it at their feet). Considering that most careers that actually have access to take the Disarm talent usually have pretty cheap characteristic advances in Weapon Skill, suceeding with three degrees of success isn't particularly unfeasible, even in an opposed WS test...

Varnias Tybalt said:

The guy attempting the Disarm has to have a Talent and he must use an action. He may or may not succeed, and if he doesn't his action is totally wasted.

The guy being disarmed can resist without a Talent at no loss of action. If he is disarmed he can automatically succced in rearming himself for an action (no chance of failure) - or even more quickly if he has the Quick Draw Talent.

With this, the chance of gaining an advantage by performing a Disarm is almost entirely negated.

HappyDaze said:

So?

I mean, why attempt to disarm someone in the first place if you're armed yourself?

Usually you do that with the intention to take someone alive, something you shouldn't be doing alone if you don't have access to some sort of stun weapon or fast acting tranquilizer. The only other reason I can think of would be to try and take a weapon from someone while being unarmed yourself, which you can do, but it's just pretty hard grappling for a gun or a knife that someone else is already holding.

If you want to capture someone alive without any sort of extra methods than simply disarming the person, then you should make sure you have back-up, otherwise it's no point trying to disarm someone, exept for the odd chance where you migth actually steal the weapon and turn it against it's owner...

Varnias Tybalt said:

The reason doesn't matter - disarming comes up ofen enough in WH40K fiction, and it's generally a useful tactic that various characters employ it from time to time. Your interpretation that 'just pick it back up' is an easy risk-free action flies in the face of this (as well as the RL angle you seem now to have abandoned).

I'd like to point out two important points of view here. Mostly the first one, and less important one, has been discussed.

1) The strategy gamer point: Does the disarming action give a meaningful choice, and can it be considered good value for the investment of xp?

2) The story teller point: Is disarming good according to the Rule of Cool?

1 Yes and yes. Consider two enemies, each armed with an eviscerator. One is a tiny little unarmored hive ganger, the other a burly mutant with unnatural toughness and heavy armor. It is likely to be most effective to kill the ganger, rather than trying to disarm her. It is likely to be most effective to disarm the mutant, since killing it could take many rounds. So the Disarm talent gives an additional and distinct option, that is in some cases more effective than the options available without the talent. It is also well worth a few hundred xp to avoid being sawed with an eviscerator for a few rounds. Few other investments of the same xp could give such a large increase in Experienced Time to Death of the user.

I houserule the disarmed weapon to be flung away a bit, maybe a meter or two. Thus leaving the disarmed the option to move there (suffering an attack and missing the opportunity of all out attacks etc) and pick up their weapon (as a half action). I do not allow quickdraw on dropped weapons, since I think that talent represents a good knowledge of where you place your holsters, scabbards etc, rather than just being quick at adjusting your grip on the weapon.

That the weapon is flung away is derived mostly from my experience in different arts of fighting, as well as a few ugly techniques that doesn't deserve the glorifying title "art". Most disarming moves I know strives towards me controlling the weapon at the end. These often including wrestling, controlling hands and breaking arms or fingers. If that's not an alternative, the weapon is likely flung away a bit because I have smashed it out of the hand of the previous holder using a (preferrably armed) strike towards the holding hand. So a disarmed weapon is very rarely dropped at the feet of the fighters.

2. And this is the most important one. Weapons flying through the air after being fenced from someones hand is cool. Errol Flynn is awesomely cool when he disarms the big bad at the very end of the last fencing scene of Casanova, flings his own sword away while exclaiming "the Sword is to good for a traitor, you die by the dagger!" and then proceeds to jump down the marble stairs and stabs the would be throne usurper in the tummy. If Disarm is used for such things, it is always welcome. Also Disarm is cool when it comes to showing excellently superior swordmanship over a snotty upstart or smelly commoner.

It is however not cool to disarm the big bad sorceress of her daemonweapon and thus make the crowning end fight of a 26 month campaign stupidly simple. Disarm is in thiscase only cool if it happens at the very end of the battle, just when the heroes are about to loose the fight. So I say this point is a lot trickier. Think long and hard about how you want your story to play out, and don't be affraid to let your big bad use a fatepoint to reroll her failed WS-check to resist a disarm. But please don't plotarmor your big bads to be immune to Disarm, it is very annoying when the players are given abilities that cannot be used in the really important fights. The minor psychic power "call item" might be useful as a lifeline for palmsweaty bad ones.

HappyDaze said:

I haven't abandoned anything, you need to practice on your reading skills.

You say that "my" interpretation says that it's an easy "risk-free" action, well consider this:

You can ready a weapon as a half-action even if the enmy is up in your face according to the rules. It doesn't matter what kind of weapon, anything from a puny compact laspisto, to a huge eviscerator hanging on your back is compleely fine and "risk-free" according to the game system in question, and the other combatant won't have **** to say about it.

Quite simply, you have all the time you need to AUTOMATICALLY succeed drawing either a puny weapon from some obscure pouch located somewhere on your body, or even a huge assault cannon if you got that strapped and hanging off yourself, and it won't matter if the enemy is up in your face trying to cut your lips off with a power-sword or not.

Unless you're gonna houserule that action to impossibility as well (i.e having to change the whole system as it is), then saying that it's gonna take a full action (or more) to simply pick up an object at your feet, would be HYPOCRITICAL!

The reason why I brought up real world examples was simply to show that a normal person can quite feasibly pick up an object from the ground at arms reach just as quick as that person could draw a weapon. In other words, it's a half-action.

You wanna make your life harder by implementing an absurd amount of additional rules to cover exactly when and witch type of weapon you can ready without risk and when there's gonna be a risk, then fine, that's your prerogative. But if you choose not to, but still want to implement risk for pretty much doing the same thing just because the weapon happens to be lying at your feet rather than being strapped to your back or in a holster, then you just being a hypocrite. And hypocrisy in rules lawyering automatically leads to an imbalanced and inconsistent game. If you want that, then that's your prerogative, but if you want to discuss some sort of standards in interprating the RAW, then you need to come up with a better angle. You might be the GM in your games and can overrule anything the players want to say, but on these messageboards there is no GM authority.

So put up or shut up...

VT, you seem to have a habit of responding to me with rants, and such responses have not swayed me towards your point in the slightest. If you can't come up with a reasonable discussion that accomplishes your goal, perhaps you shouldn't respond at all.

HappyDaze said:

I don't rant. You're reading too much into what I've written. I don't mean to offend you, but you simply don't have the capacity to get me worked up enough to start ranting.

Also, my goal wasn't to convince you of anything. Primarily because I was responding to the OP and not you in the beginning, and also because it would be a futile effort, because in the end, every gamemaster is going to do what suits them with their game anyway, and it won't really matter how good case you make or how much understanding of the RAW one possess and has presented in an argument. Quite simply, you're clearly dead set on what you want to do in your game, and there's nothing I can say to persuade you otherwise (not that I'd really want to, because whatever you do in your game doesn't really affect me at all).

The thing is, im not trying to persuade you at all. I just take part in the discussion for the sake of discussion. I'll present my case, and I'll respond to any arguments you make with my own arguments, and after that, it's up to the readers to decide which of arguments they like best. I do this because I enjoy a good discussion and partly because having discussions could actually help other players and GM's that might be reading the arguments. It might make them think of things in a new way, or they might simply ignore it altogether. But if there's a chance someone might find the reading to benefit their game, then the time spent will not have been wasted, in my opinion. THAT'S my goal.

Also, I couldn't help but notice that you have responded yet again with no good argument for your case. Like you have done in other threads where we have "butted heads", you tend to complain a lot about my arguments but you have yet to present a better course of action yourself.

A lesser man might have thought that you have a personal grudge against me, for some mysterious reason. But personally I don't believe that a discussion will be any better due to such petty sentiments, so im going to give you the benefit of a doubt, regardless of the poor case you have presented so far.

So, you got any constructive to say, or are you just gonna keep on complaining about my debating methods? It's your choice of course, but chances are im gonna get bored if you don't help to keep the discussion interesting and constructive.

Oh, and please refrain from accusing me of ranting. Im as calm as a hindu cow over here, so your accusations are completely unfounded.

My best suggestion would be to have the guy trying to pick something up off the floor while being harried in melee make an opposed WS Test against his opponent as a Half Action. If the guy doing the 'duck and grab' has Acrobatics he can substitute that for his WS when making this Test. If he succeeds, he can ready the weapon, if he fails he's spent his Half Action but his opponent has kept him from regaining it. Now there is at least a chance that the guy that performed the disarm can prevent his opponent from instantly and automatically getting the weapon off of the floor, especially if the opponent is a much better melee fighter.

While debating rules are fine, having an argument devolve into personal attacks will not be tolerated. If this continues, the thread will be locked.