Due to some discussions I've had with my GM (ZillaPrime, if you know him), I was wondering what other people thought of this:

Does TWW(Ballistic) allow someone to burst two guns (I use Pistols) out of melee? We've already house ruled it to yes, because otherwise, it's just a lesser version of Dual Shot, and makes it nothing more then an expensive step to Gunslinger.

And before you ask, no, I DON'T burst in melee. That got cleared up fast.

You can autofire two pistols even without the talent if you wish to do so with the penalty for dual wielding without the necessary talents (-20 MH, -40 OH). This is explicitly stated in the rules for full and semi-auto fire on pages 190 and 191 of the core rules.

You can even do so in melee, since there is no peritinent restriction on firing pistols on autofire in melee. You don't get the +30 for PBR, however.

So, in short:

Yes, you can fire two pistols at once on autofire mode, because the rules explicitly state you can.

There is no rule preventing you from doing this in melee, as long as both weapons are pistols.

Ah, I see.

Character was using S-Autos, which I always read their burst as akin to pulling the trigger multiple times.

We just assumed the "Can only fire once in melee". Helps that there are NOT a lot of mods when you are in there (the +10 for burst being canceled out by the -10 for Ambi TWW)

Kylen said:

(Sorry for the double post, there is no edit here ^^;

We were also under the assumption that Burst with a pistol is still a full round action, which is why we weren't sure if you could get two pistol bursts off.

from france

actually there is a edit function just not easy to find

Edit | Reply #4 | Published on 10 December 2009 - 13:36:15

Merci, spider. I see it now.

If there are any other opinions, I'd love to hear different reads on this one, or general house rules. (We've (me and GM) agreed that bursting in melee is wrong and game breaking against anything that ISN"T a daemon/Space Marine/Purestrain 'stealer)

Even without the TWW(Balistic) talent it is possible to fire two ranged weapons from each hand on different modes within and outwith melee combat [DH, p. 197].

RAW, it is viable to fire two pistols on fully automatic within a melee combat (although it is worth noting that there would be no bonus for point blank range). In general melee weapons deal more damage per hit than a fully automatic pistol and do not suffer from running out of ammunition when in the middle of dealing out rightous justice to the Emperor's enemies.

If you prefer less lethal combat, not autofiring in melee is a decent house rule to that end. In general, I do find that people frequently mistake one or more aspect of the overall deadliness of everything in DH for having found something broken, though.

Kylen said:

By the RAW, which is what we used in the last game I played in, and what I will use in my upcoming game, when you have TWW (Ballistic) you can fire each pistol in any mode it is able to fire in as a full round action, up to and including fully automatic burst if your pistol(s) is(are) capable. It can get really outrageous if the character in question also has Ambidextrous and Gunslinger, but in my experience unless you also have Quickdraw, you really don't WANT to be in melee when using two pistols, IMHO. Of course, when facing creatures/enemies much faster than you (i.e., Genestealers), you may not have a choice. In these cases, you are just rewarded for taking the appropriate talents ... so it may not kill you outright before you can put it down.