So, when you're in combat you can only use pistols if you wanna shoot something, but what if you're in a combat and you want to shoot out of it into another enemy? Is such a thing possible? Does the person you're in combat with get to strike you for doing so?

Thanks!

I could be mistaken, but IIRC, the rules don't say you can't. And since you can shoot (with a Pistol) an opponent that's in hand-to-hand combat with you without provoking an attack, I don't see why shooting anything else would. But if I were running the game, I would probably impose a penalty on the attack roll, the same as the one (-20 I think) a ranged combatant gets from firing into hand-to-hand combat.

However, realistically speaking, I would think shooting anything else when you've got an opponent in your face trying to rip your heart out, is at best, unwise. Granted, in some kind of extreme circumstance, I suppose I could see someone wanting to. JMHO. Hope it helps.

Sister Cat said:

Though you have to admit that there are situations when you might not even care if you have an opponent in your face. Consider this, im wearing a set of mkIV power armour and I am armed with a heavy bolter and im in a fight with my fellow acolytes against a bunch of tattered cultists. One of the crazed cultists charge me and try to stab me with... A knife (not a mono or power knife, but just a knife), while my frieds are busy trying shoot down that greater daemon the cultists just summoned.

Would you tell me that I simply can't shoot at the greater daemon with my heavy bolter, without suffering a bunch of penalties just because one measly, wetched little human is "technically" in close combat with me, but wouldn't pose as a viable threat to me at all? That would seem a little unreasonable don't you agree?

If you are in melee with someone and shoot a different target, ignoring who you are engaged with, I would give them a free attack and maybe a bonus to hit. Ignoring someone who is in combat with you, no matter how "insignificant" is a mistake.

ItsUncertainWho said:

That's something I can live with. If you don't boher to keep up with someone in a melee fight with you then they should have an easy time hitting you because you're no even focusing on your enemy at melee range but someone far away which you're trying to shoot.

ItsUncertainWho said:

ItsUncertainWho said:

And I agree with you. I can see situations where it might seem the best option. But I can't see how it wouldn't give the opponent in hand-to-hand combat with you some serious advantage. I was just going on my "admittedly limited" knowledge of RAW.

@Varnius: Yes, as I said ... I CAN see situations where this scenario might seem the best option. All I was saying is, I think that there should be some significant penalty to turning your attention away from the heretic that's trying to rip your heart out.

As a GM I would consider such a person as 'Stunned' in regard to close-combat according to the rules; i.e. he would be hit at +20 in close combat and won't be able to parry or dodge. Not that it would matter to Varnias in Power Armour being attacked by a knife-wielding cultist though...

Luthor Harkon said:

That seems fair to me. A free attack at +20 against the shooter, with no ability to parry or dodge. I still think I would impose a penalty to the shooter's own attack roll though, because of the distraction of having a large angry bug buzzing around scratching the paint on Varnius' shiny new power armor.

Sister Cat said:

Okay, but what if the shooter has the Auto-Stabilized trait or something similar? From the description it seems like those things should be able to ignore annoying bugs scratching paint of the armour when shooting. The same could go for characters with the Machine trait or From Beyond trait or why not just a simply Rite of Pure Thought?

In my opinion, there are just too many potential talents and traits that would reasonably contradict that the shooter would become "too annyoed" by a melee fighter that don't even have a chance to actually damage the shooter enough to actually become penalized while taking the shot.

I mean, take an example from the Terminator movies, if the T-800 were aiming and has the intention to shoot someone 20 metres away, would the T-800 reasonably get an "unsteady aim" or become "annoyed" if a four year old kid started to bang at T-800's leg? The T-800 would most definetly calculate that the kid can't cause any significant damage to it and thus probably ignore or at least down-priprotize the kid until after he has shot the poor guy standing 20 metres away first.

So to summarize: I have no problem giving melee aggressors "free attacks" with bonuses and such if the shooter choose to ignore them, but I can visualize just way too many contradictorial scenarios to justify that the shooter should suffer penalties for shooting "out of" melee.

Varnias Tybalt said:

Absolutely. And this is why I would give the mentioned bonus (I would only give a free attack though if the shooter turns around to shoot, thereby showing the one in melee with the backside as if fleeing from combat). I would not give the shooter any penalties though, as I doubt a Warlord Titan would care for for a Gretchin smacking it with a pointy stick for example. Otherwise, if certain characters and creatures would be completely unmolested by close-combat (as the mentioned T800 or Varnias in Power Armour) with certain adversaries, then why do they cannot use the +30 BS for point-blank range in close combat or could use a Basic weapon in close combat...? The RAW have their limits after all, otherwise you could be kept in close combat by anything down to angry ants on the ground...

Varnias Tybalt said:

Varnias Tybalt said:

Heh, heh ... okay, so I'm open to situational modifiers on an individual basis. I agree that a machine would not suffer such penalties, and that there might be other scenarios that didn't warrant the penalty. I was speaking, more specifically, of the acolytes themselves ... and any other reasonably-sane humans that were not also all-but-invincible.

Besides, in my upcoming game, even a pathetic heretic with a knife can be a danger, even to a badass in full power armor ... since I allow all baddies the opportunity to invoke "righteous fury", as well as the characters. One lucky roll and, oops! That's got to hurt! Just sayin' ...

Sister Cat said:

Ah, but that's just the thing. In comparison to certain enemies, acolytes can actually become all-but-invincible on higher levels. Especially when they start getting their grubby little paws on Power Armour or when the Techpriests decide to go Mechanicus Secutor on themselves and purchase implants like the Machinator Array and Mining Helot augmetic and Dragonscale Armour etc. (my first techpriest went that route and he sure became hard to injure after awhile).

So rather than going through the ardous task of adding a bunch of disclaimers to certain talents and traits regarding if someone possessing said talents/traits can "ignore" being in melee with someone for the purposes of shooting at other targets during combat, I'd rather settle with just giving the melee aggressors a bunch of bonuses and "attacks of opportunity" on someone who don't even bother to pay attention to what the aggressors are doing in order to take pot shots at targets several metres away instead.

Sister Cat said:

Oh yes, I certainly agree with that. A pathetic heretic with a knife should pose a threat even if you're wearing power armour. Or at the very least, SEVERAL pathetic heretics with knives should pose a threat. In my games I've ruled that there is nothing stopping a mob of enemies that are "too weak" to injure the acolytes from simply rushing the acolytes and thus get a bunch of bonuses to Knock Down tests, and then proceed to simply strip the armour off the acolytes bodies if the enemies notice that their weapons can't harm the acolytes while they are still wearing armour.

Being outnumbered should be dangerous, regardless of what armour you're wearing. The same goes for shooting at someone other than the one you are in melee with. If you don't make any efforts of defending yourself, you will get hit, and depending on how smart your aggressor is, being hit could result in ending up on the floor with a crazed lunatic trying to tear off your helmet and gouge your eyes out.

Varnias Tybalt said:

Exaclty, Varnias. That's all I was trying to portray. Or rather, in DH, there should always also be the risk that some random situational event/maneuver could wreak havok upon the PC's. I guess what I'm saying is, no matter what the power-level of the player-characters, in this game the acolytes should ALWAYS be in fear for their lives and souls. And therefore, should have some penalty to attacking anyone who is not "right in their face". If I'm wrong here, then I defer to the masters here. But, IMHO, this works to my understanding of the DH game. But ... since you have changed my opinion with your superior knowledge in the past, I will admit that I am open to persuasion. In the words of natives of Missouri ... "show me".

Here's a thought I had on this: What if the Acolyte was dual wielding and had Independent Targeting? That allows him to have two targets up to 20 meters apart. Would that have any effect on shooting out of melee, so long as you keep one gun on the guy you're scraping with?

With independent targeting, as long as you are still actively engaging with your melee counterpart with one attack, I wouldn't penalize either combatant or give a free attack.

ItsUncertainWho said:

Agreed. In this case, I would not penalize the shooter, or give his opponent a free attack. Like I said, it depends on the situation. I guess I'm just used to house-ruling on the fly, since my players have a tendency to try and do things (in every game we play) that aren't covered well by the rules.

To play devil's advocate a little, the rules are quite clear on the point that characters in combat are actively engaged in the basic ducking, weaving, etc, required to defend themselves at all times. Likewise, melee is defined as any situation in which an attacker is adjacent to his target, a circumstance which results in both characters being considered to be in melee. So for purposes of attacking characters outside of the melee, you are not technically in melee at all for the purposes of engaging your target.

An alternate penalty in this situation might be denying the shooter any bonuses for short or point-blank range, since one is typically denied such bonuses in melee specifically because of the pressure of engaging with one's melee opponent. Technically, limiting the shooter to pistols is a grey area, but I strongly lean towards the interpretation that you remain in melee until you successfully end a move action unadjacent to an opponent (which was the rule in DH).*

*Edit: Durr, I thought I was on the RT forum for some reason. Er, consider this a mash-up reply from both variants, then.

It seems unclear, so imposing a penalty is entirely reasonable at any rate.

Hodgepodge said:

Hmm ... interesting. Yes, I might be persuaded to go with something like this, rather than a flat penalty. Of course, there would still be "situations" that could come up that would apply other modifiers. But overall it's just as easy to come up with them in this case as it is with the flat penalty. And, this does seem to eliminate some of those. Yep, I like it. [YOINK!]

Sister Cat said:

I'm inclined to think the same way. Furthermore, I'm not too adamant on "pistol-only" rule in close-combat. In wrestling-match yes, but when someone is a swrod-reach away flailing about with chainsword shooting autogun from hip is not only possible but also strongly recommended...

Polaria said:

Interesting ... and perhaps more realistic: the whole allowing weapons other than pistols, in anything other than a grappling/wrestling situation. But now I have a question. If you allow, say Basic weapons as well as Pistol weapons, to be used in hand-to-hand combat, then in addition to not allowing the bonus for Point Blank range, would you also impose a penalty, since the character is having to "shoot-from-the-hip"? Just curious.

Sister Cat said:

I'd say in order to use any weapon (pistol and rifle included) in melee, you have to roll WS and use WS modifiers. This means you won't get any modifiers from range, aiming, laser sights or accurate weapon. Its not like hitting something that close is the issue, the issue is to actually get your weapon barrel pointed in the right direction when the opponent is most likely using his one hand to wrestle the gun away from you and his other hand to whack you with some nasty primitive implement

Funny side-note: In the <organization I work for RL> they actually teach us how shoot a rifle in close combat while someone *is* trying to wrestle it away from you... Its not even that hard, but you have to know exactly what to do. Then again, I've never had to try it outside practice grounds (thank God).

Polaria said:

Okay, so we agree ... mostly. Since many/if not all Basic weapons can have melee attachments, what's to keep a character from stabbing some-critter or other with his bayonet, then pulling the trigger. As you say, the difficulty is in getting the weapon in line with the target while not allowing him/her/it to grab it/knock it out of line. If you are using the weapon in this manner, it does make sense to me that the character should have to use WS instead of BS.

However, in the case of the OP's question, I still have to wonder how you would handle his "shooting at an opponent other than the one he is engaged in hand-to-hand combat with." As this has been an exceptionally long thread, please forgive me if I missed a previous post of yours that answers this question.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't "shooting from combat" already somewhat covered by the rules. Can't you simply take a move action (giving the opponent free melee attack), move away from melee combat, then take a standard attack action and fire a single shot? Seems to me that if you were to house rule shooting while remaining in combat, that the bonuses/penalties should be comparable (opponent gets a free attack, no semi or full auto or aiming, but ranged modifiers apply).

Only thing I'm unclear of is if you are still considered in melee combat when you end your first half action away from your opponents.

You guys are making this WAY more complicated than it needs to be.

The combat rules (both melee and ranged) in DH assume that the target is taking reasonable precautions (ducking, weaving, paying attention, etc...) to avoid harm befalling them and set this type of circumstance as a base +/-0 modifier [since this is the expected normal]. If for some reason the target is NOT engaged in such self-preserving activities for whatever reason then the attacker gains a +10 bonus to hit.

THEREFORE if you are in melee and choose to ignore the combat and instead fire a weapon at someone outside of the melee, by all means do so... And hope that your melee opponent does not make you regret giving them +10 to hit you that turn.

As for why pistol weapons can be used in melee but basic weapons cannot, this is a holdover from Warhammer 40K. The idea was to make pistols viable weapon choices. If rifles were better in every way AND had no drawbacks then why would you NOT fight with a rifle at all times? It is a game balance thing. Put a darn bayonet on that thing and stab them a few times already! This also prevents all those munchkins in the world from ignoring their WS and just maxing out BS... "40 orks with axes in a mosh pit? Hey cool, I will shoot them all while in melee with my heavy stubber...."

ZillaPrime said:

Well, in RL pistols are carried "just in case". They are the less-conspicous, light-to-carry option for situations where you aren't actually expecting a fight but don't want to go unarmed. If I'm expecting a gunfight, I'll come with a rifle.

As for melee-range gunfighting I said using rifle is possible in melee, but using pistol is easy in melee. Thus, if I'm expecting melee, Id rather take a pistol. Many police departments and military units use pistol for point-man and rifle for backup when assaulting houses. This is pretty much because in short ranges pistol is faster to bring around and easier to use in grappling / melee type of scenarios.

Anyway, I've been thinking how to convert all this to DH rules and I'm currently writing house rules for "Close Quarter Battle for Dark Heresy". Will post them soon. I'm trying to stick with just clarifications and minor modifications to existing rules to keep it simple.