To my knowledge there is nothing in the rules that say if a free strike hits that the character is stuck in melee. You'll have to show a page reference in the rules for that one.

Let's say that the melee character is WS 50, that is still only a 50/50 to hit with the freestrike, and then the character walking out still has his dodge, even if that is say AG 35. you are looking at a chance of 32.5% of being hit. If the character has a second dodge, he's golden, if he has more AG or Dodge +10 or 20, freestrikes are a joke.

The character I was refering to has 2 dodges and AG in the 40s and dodge +10. So against your average chump (ws 30) there is only a 15% chance of him being hit. Even without FA and SA there are plenty of options for character who avoid using melee weapons.

Removing FA and SA is not going to make characters helpless in melee, they will still have tricks and options and it is still my opinion that the game would be better without it.

I think the easiest fix to keep it and maintain a good balance would be that FA or SA in combat either does not get the +20 or +10 in combat, or if it does it counts as the All Out Attack and there fore forfeits dodging and parrying.

Feint was brought up earlier and I think you need to possibly re examine those rules. Feint is a 1/2 action and the next attack must be a standard attack or you lose the advantage of feint. So if a character feints that character gets 1 attack. I'll also point out thata character with a pistol could also try to feint, they just may not have a decent WS because with pistols there is no need to put any points into WS. Which is another reason into itself why I feel pistols don't need anymore help.

But like I said earlier I'm in the camp that is against FA and SA in melee.

Randango said:

There is a player in my group who just walks out of combat to shoot his shotgun. 1/2 action move 1/2 action shoot. He takes the freestrike which more often than not misses and then even if it doesn't he parries or dodges (fleeing: leaving combat without disengaging is on page 192 if anyone is interested).

Wait wait wait wait... We were talking about pistols SA/FAing in melee. Taking a step back, to emulate an SA with a shotgun via scatter and forcing the melee-toon to waste a move action, is definitly not the same as firing a pistol on SA/FA within melee, not forcing the melee-toon to waste a move-action. That's apples and oranges and in this case apples versus foul oranges, since you try to justify removing SA/FA from pistols within melee.

Randango said:

With a simple pistol you could walk out of combat, take 1 free strike, do 1 shot back. Next round "melee toon" has to re-engage you taking up 1/2 action and gets to make one 1/2 action attack back. So once engaged in melee the "melee toon" only gets 1 more attack than you per round. Not a huge advantage considering the pistol could start firing at him from 70m or so away, and then it gets the point blank advantage each time the pistol wielder walks out of combat.

Let me quantify, what you're comparing here:

Dude with gun takes step-back, Meleeer gets single attack and has to make a move-action to get back into range, while having to make a dodge-test versus a scattering shotgun or a single-shot pistol..

Shotgunner has to survive a simple melee-attack, then gets +30 to BS and gets 1+(degrees of success/2) hits with 1d10+X Pen Y

A Pistolero in the same situation takes a step back, recieves a simple melee-attack, then gets +30 BS and 1d10+X Pen Y shot. That's totally the same...

Randango said:

Pistols are extremely versatile, especially if they have FA. They have access to suppressive fire etc. If you can FA while in melee what prevents you from doing a suppressive fire action and sending your melee opponent running for cover? Melee weapons do not have this sort of versatility, therefore, I believe that when they do engage they should dominate, and I don't feel that they do.

It's up to your GM if supressive fire works within melee, but the rules cover it. Yet still, the supressor gets -20 to BS, targets are assigned by random, making it a rather situational action within a thick melee situation (once again: it depends on the smarts of the melee toon *hints*) and only scoring a hit for every second degree of success and demands a FA-pistol (bye-bye bolters, melters, plasma pistols, hello SP and Las-pistols...). So assuming a toon has 60 BS, he rolls versus 40 and can get a max of 4 hits versus any targets within the killzone. If the meleer isn't stupid and your GM allowed supressive in melee, than there's a good chance that there's more than one potential target within the zone and if the meleer gets hit by 1-4 bullets, he still has his dodge oh and if in close combat the meleer doesn't get pinned either (p.196 core rules).

Randango said:

Could you make a successful party if it did not include any melee weapon users? Yes quite easily.

Could you make a successful party if it did not include pistols at all? Perhaps but surey with more difficulty.

Everything is situational. Basic and heavy guns in an environment with loads of cover and surprise opportunities? Shazam, useless. Melee weapons in a wide and open environment? Shazam, useless. Hello, pistols, which can be used in both and yet are weaker in both situations, compared to the specialized counter-part, too. Less range then basics, less damage-potential then melees. And you want to nerf it. Smooth move.

And no, single unbalanced equipment-pieces are not a good reason to nerf a whole range of items. Simply ban the unbalanced equipment instead (since this 70m pistol was brought up).

Randango said:

Can a pistol be snuck into a place? Yes. Can an eviscerator? Not likely. So in that situation the melee character gets a knife, brass knuckles or some other 1d5 sort of weapon.

Covered by rules, any equipment can be snuck into any place. Even heavy weapons, non-compact pistols and currently activated two handed great-chain-swords with blinking lights attached. It's up to your GM, to make it sensible by giving according modifiers. Non-compact pistols don't get a -20 to awareness and search already and if it's a handcannon or really any type of larger pistol, it simply recieves a bonus to beeing discovered, just as I would assign a bonus to be discovered for any basic weapon or melee-weapon, depending on how cleverly the player concealed it via description, because it's the logic thing to do.

Also, if you feel that there's no usefulll sneaky melee weapons, either check Rogue Trader, as was already pointed out, or shoehorn something together via house-ruling. Lack of euipment-options is not an excuse to nerf other equipment.

Randango said:

Do pistols need to have FA and SA in combat to remain a rock solid piece of equipment? No. Why should a pistol be so awesome? I guess some of you think it should be, Me? I do not.

If your group is doing it and having fun, then by all means continue.

Oh yes, they do. Else they're completely underpowered in melee versus anything that wears any armor, as was already shown, have a slight advantage within point-blank or really close range via beeing able to be dual-wielded and SA/FAed but still beeing within melee range in the blink of an eye and are completely outperformed at any range beyond point-blank + a few meters. Their engagement envelope shrinks down to the size of a thumbnail without Full Actions in melee and every pistolero is better off by just jusing a basic weapon with melee attachement in next to every situation.

Randango said:

Let's say that the melee character is WS 50, that is still only a 50/50 to hit with the freestrike, and then the character walking out still has his dodge, even if that is say AG 35. you are looking at a chance of 32.5% of being hit. If the character has a second dodge, he's golden, if he has more AG or Dodge +10 or 20, freestrikes are a joke.

Let's say, that the pistolero has BS 50, that is still only a 50/50 to hit with the single attack and then the character with the melee weapon still has his dodge. Even if that is say AG 35, you're looking at a chance of 32.5% of hitting the target, much less damaging it, when it wears armor and has a reasonable toughness. If the meleer has more Agility and Dodge +10 or +20, which is very very likely, he's golden. Also you can not dodge the same attack twice (Step Aside, p.122 Core), but you can spend your second doge to attempt to doge the secondary pistol of the pistolero. That arguement is useless, because it applies to both single-shot pistols and melee weapons, but unlike the melee toon, that pistolero gets only one shot, while the meleer gets two chances to strike the pistolero in this round , plus beeing able to reroll if the melee toon has the according talents and eventually tearing and a high penetration and having the pistolero tied in combat after that round again.

But after rereading that paragraph, I have to thank you for that example, because it actually clearly shows, how much of an advantage the melee toon has, compared to the disadvantages of a non-SA/FA-in-melee pistolero. Really, thank you. It's an awesome example!

Randango said:

The character I was refering to has 2 dodges and AG in the 40s and dodge +10. So against your average chump (ws 30) there is only a 15% chance of him being hit. Even without FA and SA there are plenty of options for character who avoid using melee weapons.

You can't dodge the same attack twice. Core-rulebook page 122, Step Aside. Also your GM should stop pitting you with underpowered mobs for a change.

Randango said:

Removing FA and SA is not going to make characters helpless in melee, they will still have tricks and options and it is still my opinion that the game would be better without it.

Not entirely helpless, I'll grant you that, since the pistolero can still fire one to two shots within melee, but very very underpowered, as shown above and at a steep tactical disadvantage.

Randango said:

I think the easiest fix to keep it and maintain a good balance would be that FA or SA in combat either does not get the +20 or +10 in combat, or if it does it counts as the All Out Attack and there fore forfeits dodging and parrying.

That is something, that actually makes sense, unlike disallowing full actions for pistols in melee. Go ahead and try that and you'll notice that not only the chance to hit in melee drops but also successfull hits have a way lower damage-potential. Still not an ideal solution, but much more reasonable and sensible.

Randango said:

Feint was brought up earlier and I think you need to possibly re examine those rules. Feint is a 1/2 action and the next attack must be a standard attack or you lose the advantage of feint. So if a character feints that character gets 1 attack. I'll also point out that a character with a pistol could also try to feint, they just may not have a decent WS because with pistols there is no need to put any points into WS. Which is another reason into itself why I feel pistols don't need anymore help.

Can't feint with pistols, it's melee only and I really suggest to not bend the rules in that way, because you're compromising the advantages of melee-tactics with it. Also you're giving pistols a choice that is of no real use for them, given their main problem is armor and Toughness and not parry and dodge.

The forums don't run particularily well on my browser / machine so I can't copy the formatting of your post.

The argument of bursts in combat has been had way back since Black Libraries ran DH. They posted on their forum back in the day single taps only. Now here we have the Devs saying the same thing (presuming the OP is legitimate [which I believe is true]).

The reference to walking out of combat, which you claim is comparing apples to foul oranges was to point out that if FA / SA are removed from melee there are still viable options for pistol characters to fight on with.

Also "A Pistolero in the same situation...." there are plenty of pistols available with scatter (hack shotgun, Puritan 14, Shotgun pistol small clips yes, but scatter none the less)

Secondly I am fully aware you can not dodge the same attack twice. I should have been more clear, I was intended to point out that with step aside, you can walk out of combat, and have a dodge for the freestrike, then in the melee's turn still have a dodge left for the single attack s/he can throw at you giving you a very good chance of taking no damage.

I've had a lot of math and stats put up against my argument, and that is fine, but most of the math points out late game situations.

In order to achieve lightning attack you need to buy swift attack and have ws 35.

An assassin doesn't have access to Swift attack until Rank 3, and then doesn't get lightning attack until rank 5. So the soonest any of your comparisons involving LA can happen is mid game.

A lv 1 adept needs only buy an autopistol and s/he can full auto in melee. A lv 1 scum, can start with an autopistol and the ability to fire FA in combat.

Is firing FA / SA as a whole crazy overpowered? No, but it benefits from a whole lot of perks, no negatives and requires no investment of xp to do. For example +20 to hit without losing reactions. Potential multiple hits at Rank1, Investment of XP into a single stat, investment into that stat benefiting combat as a whole not just close quarters melee fighting, it also helps you throw a grenade, fire a grapnel, sink a heretic in a dunk tank etc etc.

As for melee character throwing weapons it relies on BS which involves investing XP into tanother stat and skills / talents to be proficient at doing so.

A pistolero gets to have a well balanced character who is competent in all forms of combat without having to diversify his XP spending, he can complete ignore investing in WS. A melee character has to invest in BS to be well balanced.

Can FA / SA in melee be made balanced? Sure, it could be a talent you'd have to buy. SA at Rank 3, FA at rank 5. In order to gain the +10 or +20 you have to sacrifice one reaction or something along those lines.

FA and SA in melee is introduced much too early on in the ranks. As you rank up it gets better as you can afford better ammo or guns, and by the time it starts to cap it is still very good. Some one mathed out earlier a hecutor doing 0-54 damage vs light carapace. That is pretty darned good.

Finally, I think it is poor form to attack a DM who is not involved in the discussion to defend himself from accusations. He has thrown a variety of opponents at us from "under powered mobs" to ascended level assassins.

Rangdango said:

Finally, I think it is poor form to attack a DM who is not involved in the discussion to defend himself from accusations. He has thrown a variety of opponents at us from "under powered mobs" to ascended level assassins.

First things first: My apologies, it wasn't my intention to get personal. Your WS 30 melee-toon and the general context however implied, that you're fighting such adversaries often.

Rangdango said:

The forums don't run particularily well on my browser / machine so I can't copy the formatting of your post.

Yeah, I think it's firmly established by now, that this forum is tainted by the ruinous powers and needs some serious purging with the sanctified flame and bolter of the holy servants of the one and only and true god-emperor.

Rangdango said:

The argument of bursts in combat has been had way back since Black Libraries ran DH. They posted on their forum back in the day single taps only. Now here we have the Devs saying the same thing (presuming the OP is legitimate [which I believe is true]).

I'm not really confident in the "Dev says - Player follows, because Dev knows best"-arguement, because it's been proven time and again, that there are fewer devs who actually give a sensible reply then there are devs, that actually do give sh*tty replies. I've had that with DnD, I've had that with EVE Online, I've had that in WoW and I've had that in a number of other games, no matter if PnP or computer or tabletop (especially DnD got a track record with that imo). Devs often don't have the slightest clue about what their answer actually results in, like in this case, where the ruling is inherently contradicting itself and, what's far more worse, simply disables any usability for pistols in melee in late game situations.

Disclaimer: I don't think devs are stupid by default, but it happens quite often, that the players are better at finding loopholes, exploits, severe weaknesses in designs or imbalances then the devs, mostly because Devs tend to interpret RAW from a viewpoint of RAI, plus the questions and answers are always only snap-shots of given situations, quite out of context with the rest of a game and that as such a simple dev-ruling has a high potential of making things worse instead of better, especially if the answer is presented in the form of RAI.

The same is happening here. Yes, SA and especially FA are very very strong in the early game if compared to what an early melee toon can dish out, however SA and FA are one of only two choices of pistol wielders to overcome a foe with high toughness and/or armor (and not even beeing the better option at that, just to note it). The other choice is Dual Shot and that got forbidden via this dev-ruling, too... Speaking of dev-ruling: See above, no clue about the greater consequences of the reply. One could come along and decide now, that plasma-pistols, meltas and bolt-pistols are supposed to be the "natural evoluton" in that case, however they got a bunch of trade-off weakness (overheat/recharge or even further limited range, or not even beeing SA/FA and/or having outragous ammo-costs), which place those options at severe odds compared to the melee-progression, because the later simply become better and have no trade-offs. Well, the Eviscerator maybe, but that's generally an exception.

Rangdango said:

The reference to walking out of combat, which you claim is comparing apples to foul oranges was to point out that if FA / SA are removed from melee there are still viable options for pistol characters to fight on with.

Which ones? Dual Shot? Ruled away, can only take standard actions in melee, as said by dev. And beyond that? Walking out of combat is about the single worst choice a pistol-wielder can make. The Pistolero is far better off, if he just remains in melee and releases two single shots via dual-wielding. Steppig out of melee for a pistolero means he gives the enemy a chance to whack him one additional time (maybe twice, because of the reroll talent for melee) and only rolling a single shot of his pistol. it can't get any worse from there, really.

Rangdango said:

Also "A Pistolero in the same situation...." there are plenty of pistols available with scatter (hack shotgun, Puritan 14, Shotgun pistol small clips yes, but scatter none the less)

Hack shotgun has one shot, then needs two full rounds to reload and has only 10m range. Hey, I'd have a chance to wasting the enemy, but if he dodges, I'm toasted or if the opposing force consists of more then one melee-toon. Oh, also no penetration at all (not even manstoppers are compatible), so the anti-armor/anti-toughness problem still persists and technically is even worse then before (compared to manstoppers in pistols). Numbers of hits don't equal damage per hit as was established above. Plus I still have to take that step back, granting a free attack and while your party-member may have luck with throwing dice, I more often then not end up on the other end of the scale.

Puritan-14 suffers the same drawbacks and even gets a -10 on BS for shotgun-mode, but hey, I can use it as a pistol afterwards. Hmno, thanks. A melta-pistol is superior in both cases.

Just to note it though, I find it funny, that you bring this solution, given scatter basically works like a mishmash between SA and FA (beeing slightly weaker then FA, but beeing considerably better then SA). If you're so disturbed by getting raped via FA-pistol in melee, then why is scatter at point-blank with just a standard action acceptable in your eyes?

Rangdango said:

Secondly I am fully aware you can not dodge the same attack twice. I should have been more clear, I was intended to point out that with step aside, you can walk out of combat, and have a dodge for the freestrike, then in the melee's turn still have a dodge left for the single attack s/he can throw at you giving you a very good chance of taking no damage.

I misunderstood you there then, I apologize. And yes, you're right about that usage.

Rangdango said:

I've had a lot of math and stats put up against my argument, and that is fine, but most of the math points out late game situations.

That's because there's the point, where this ruling becomes a severe issue. As said, I agree with melee SA/FA beeing a strong tool especially early on and maybe even beeing too strong in comparison to what a melee-wielder can pull-off. However pistol usability is diminishing the further the game advances and there are basically only two ways of beeing able to get a reasonably armored melee-foe down in melee with pistols. FA and praying that your damage-rolls are high enough or Dual Shot. Consequentually both were rulled out, technically leaving plasma, meltas and bolt-pistols. All of which have severe drawbacks for the bonusues they get and have less tactical usability, because none of them have FA (most not even SA, but that's not really interesting at that point anymore anyways) aka no overwatch, no supressive fire. Melee weapons already have tactical superiority in melee or closer ranges, furhtering the gap even more.

Rangdango said:

In order to achieve lightning attack you need to buy swift attack and have ws 35.

An assassin doesn't have access to Swift attack until Rank 3, and then doesn't get lightning attack until rank 5. So the soonest any of your comparisons involving LA can happen is mid game.

Swift Attack + Dual wield. Or swift attack + greatweapon, which results in some even more hilarious numbers. Both is available rather early and starting out with 30 WS + one advancement or straight out 35 WS isn't that difficult, really.

Rangdango said:

A lv 1 adept needs only buy an autopistol and s/he can full auto in melee. A lv 1 scum, can start with an autopistol and the ability to fire FA in combat.

As I tried to point out: That is a problem of how SA and especially FA work and how they give bonuses, not a problem of pistols beeing able to use it. You need to find a fix to SA/FA-scaleability, not remove that ability from pistols. DH tries to emulate recoil via needing degrees of success for additional hits, however that is in part offset by recieving such a large bonus, which is rather silly, if you think about it. It should be harder to hit a single target with FA-shooting, not easier. Of course one can come along and argue, that more lead in the air equals more potential hits, but then I have to point at the word potential. Yes more lead can hit the target, however the chance to direct that lead into the right direction is much much harder after the first few rounds. DH doesn't reflect that good enough, leading to some severe early-game problems. However that lack of recoil is dearly needed in late-game, so you can't just plainly remove the bonus to hit or demand more degrees of success for an additional hit.

Rangdango said:

Is firing FA / SA as a whole crazy overpowered? No, but it benefits from a whole lot of perks, no negatives and requires no investment of xp to do. For example +20 to hit without losing reactions. Potential multiple hits at Rank1, Investment of XP into a single stat, investment into that stat benefiting combat as a whole not just close quarters melee fighting, it also helps you throw a grenade, fire a grapnel, sink a heretic in a dunk tank etc etc.

A pistolero gets to have a well balanced character who is competent in all forms of combat without having to diversify his XP spending, he can complete ignore investing in WS. A melee character has to invest in BS to be well balanced.

It does has negative effects. Money, for example, is a balancing-factor in this game, though one can argue how much sense this makes in this type of game, because it really depends on how the game is played (lots of fights versus few fights is the most obvious example). Beeing at a large disadvantage versus armored abd/or high-toughness foes is another. Not having the same range as basic weapon can be a disadvantage, too, albeit it depends on how the game is played again. It doesn't have many tactical choices (though slightly more then basic weapons, btu far fewer then melee).

But hey, you just established, that it's easy to do and get. Well, flow with it, give your melee toon a pistol and hip-shooting. Move him into melee range and give a shot while you're at traversing through point-blank. Opponent tied in combat and you gave already damage. Melee is about using your surrounding and making smart moves and if that is forgotten, it appears a lot weaker then it actually is. And I certainly don't have to point out, that broader usability of BS isn't really a reason to nerf pistols, do I? I know you didn't really intend to combine those two different things.

Rangdango said:

As for melee character throwing weapons it relies on BS which involves investing XP into tanother stat and skills / talents to be proficient at doing so.

Could you hint me at it in the core-rules? I've been doing a quick-scan when that was mentioned earlier (throwing power weapons for fun effect) and didn't find it, hence assuming it uses WS. Thank you in advance

Rangdango said:

Can FA / SA in melee be made balanced? Sure, it could be a talent you'd have to buy. SA at Rank 3, FA at rank 5. In order to gain the +10 or +20 you have to sacrifice one reaction or something along those lines.

That's something that is negotiatable, imo and makes a lot more sense then the dev-ruling. Thanks you for concedeing to that rather important point (the error beeing in FA, not pistols beeing able to use it).

Rangdango said:

FA and SA in melee is introduced much too early on in the ranks. As you rank up it gets better as you can afford better ammo or guns, and by the time it starts to cap it is still very good. Some one mathed out earlier a hecutor doing 0-54 damage vs light carapace. That is pretty darned good.

The math examples were me. I wanted to prove a point of another poster and found he was completely right. And while yes, those 0-54 look good on paper, you really really shouldn't forget, that each dodge-degree of success means one less bullet hits and that there's a 10% chance per hitting bullet, that it deals no damage at all (also needing Mighty Shot, but every ranged combateer should take it anways), plus that the meleer actually has means of disrupting the pistolero and preventing him from SA/FAing, if maneuvered right (Hello, Knock-Down) or by simply killing the pistolero before he gets a melee FA off.

Also limiting people to just one weapon choice is bad game-design (lasers are lol where a hecutor does at least have some potential, but many other pistols aren't as good as the hecutor can eb) and while that also applies to melee weapons, this is no excuse for greater gaming-decissions and ruling.

P.S.: Thank you for the discussion so far (actually at everyone), I learned a few things about pistols and melee due to this discussion (e.g. I wasn't aware of how nifty and neccessary Dual Shot actually is, especially since my current toon does only use lasers-pistol and FA is largely not an option with those anyways, even if I ever upgrade to "higher tier" pistols, which I definitly must it seems).

Things like knocking the opponent down are not completely relevant because they also prevent you from LA. Much like feint it prevents you from lightning attacking. Take down and feint for example are both 1/2 actions. Lightning attack is a full action so you can't do both in a round. A shooty character would also have access to these abilities.

I know earlier you said feint only applies to melee weapons, I would agree. However, the rules say no such thing, just that it is an opposed WS check. Even if it did require a melee weapon to do so you could always just draw knife in the off hand to do so, which would also open up parrying options, ad parrys do not suffer the off hand penalty (pg 199 mentions that offhand penalties apply to attacks, parry is not an attack).

In regards to throwing pg 215, near the bottom it mentions that if you are throwing an object as an improvised weapon you make a BS check. I would say that is evidence enough to conclude that throwing a knife, shuriken etc as an intended weapon would also be a BS check. It wouldn't make sense for throwing a rock to be BS check but throwing a knife to be a WS check since it is essentially the same action.

Also, throwing grenades pg 136 is a BS check, this is all the evidence I can find, both cases seem to imply throwing is a BS check and I can find nothing to indicate throwing would be a WS check.

As far as walking out and shooting goes. I agree it is strange for me to bring this up a well as I'm not an advocate of it. When the player in my group started making it a regular thing I quickly found myself rooting for his enemy. But as my GM says, "anything you can do, your opponent can do as well" so perhaps that character has a fated meeting with a shotgun in his future. None the less the option is there in the rules and if you are faced with a lightning attacking opponent and you have step aside, you can keep him down to 2 attacks per round by walking out of combat and have a dodge for each. I think it just goes to show that the enemy should get a bonus to hit a character WALKING out, but there are not rules to enforce this. I'm of the opinion GMs should punish meta gaming / munchkining. So by that same logic if you have characters spamming FA in combat the GM should turn it back on them and have the opponents do the same.

Lastly, you keep pointing out that the hecutor has a 10% chance of doing 0 damage, while this is true it also has a 10% chance of righteous fury. Which probably when mathed out comes to about a 5% per bullet (after factoring in confirming the hit). So yes while there is a chance for the bullet to do 0 damage there is also a chance for it to do +d10 damage.

Finally, it would seem we are the least likely people to be having this back and forth to begin with. You use las so your clearly not munchkining out an SP pistol FA spamming character. Meanwhile, my Moritat just hit rank 9 and he still uses a pair of mono swords. We've had this back and forth and it would seem that neither of us are really looking to max out our combat damage. It adds clout to your argument.

Salindurthas said:

That's why my NPCs all get Righteous Fury. It's still unlikely that the average human is killed with a headshot, but not impossible.

You know...

It's really impressive how much excellent debate can be generated by a very poorly written and poorly errata'd rule.

As a houserule.

How about allowing only semi-auto burst in melee?

Wouldn't it even things out ?

It sure would make SA more useful IMHO

Meatpuppet said:

As a houserule.

How about allowing only semi-auto burst in melee?

Wouldn't it even things out ?

It sure would make SA more useful IMHO

My first approach to the SA/FA issues was the idea of simply switching how SA and FA work and recieve bonuses. Give SA the +20, FA the +10 and make both to hit per degree of success. See how that works out on average and then, if needed, make SA hit per degree of success and FA to hit per 2 degrees of success instead. This far more reflects the spray and pray of FA-mechanics as a beginning, gives SA actually an advantage over FA (one that is actually reflecting reality to some degree, since it is far easier to hit a given target with a burst than full auto), while FA retains the tactical advantages (Overwatch and Supressive Fire). Allow both in melee as a baseline of course. This leads to:

Tactical Talents: Single and Double shots with dual wield (Thinking about Hip Shooting or simple movement, half actions and all that)

Armor/Toughness Breaker: Dual Shot

Steady and reliable damage versus unarmored foes: SA (see the numbers given in the posts above, I've been choosing 3-hits for the examples on purpose)

Potential armor/toughnes overwhelmer, tactical/suppport, "Help I'm getting swarmed!!!": FA.

This also deals, to some degree, with the rather extreme damage advantage of any FA-capable basic weapons over SA and single shot basics to some degree and if all else fails, negate any BS bonus from FA or far more simple: do chance rolls for bullets which miss in all instances of FA-usage and see if they hit other things behind the intended target.

Luddite said:

Well said.

In my games, I "solve" this issue by allowing SA/FA in melee. However, if the victim makes a parry (yes, a melee character may parry a gun when in melee) or dodge, any success completely negates all hits as the pistol is knocked wide or is completely avoided.

So far its worked out fairly well in terms of balance and realism.

Graspar said:

I can accept dual inferno pistol game concerns but about being more effective in melee... is this any more odd than being able to do 1 shot in 5 seconds where a melee fighter can make 3 attacks with his sword?

Alex

Rangdango said:

Things like knocking the opponent down are not completely relevant because they also prevent you from LA. Much like feint it prevents you from lightning attacking. Take down and feint for example are both 1/2 actions. Lightning attack is a full action so you can't do both in a round. A shooty character would also have access to these abilities.

Yeah of course, but that's one of the trade-offs for actually having access to those tactial variants. You can either try to just slaughter the enemy before he can take a move or you bind him in melee via one of those various ways that you have at hand. Though I totally admit, that some of those options aren't really viable until med-game or until you got some certain talents, which is a mainly a problem if you compare it to FA-capabilities at early game.

Rangdango said:

I know earlier you said feint only applies to melee weapons, I would agree. However, the rules say no such thing, just that it is an opposed WS check. Even if it did require a melee weapon to do so you could always just draw knife in the off hand to do so, which would also open up parrying options, ad parrys do not suffer the off hand penalty (pg 199 mentions that offhand penalties apply to attacks, parry is not an attack).

I base my opinion on that via this action using the WS. Ranged weapons do not use WS in my little world. But yes, it's RAI, not RAW and this totally opens some potentially interesting perspectives especially for single-pistol wielders (who obviously only have access to SA/FA, but not dual-shot). However, there's an interesting twist there and I believe you already mentioned it or do so later in this posting: Let pistoleros use WS in melee. The extend of how fair this is, compared to what a melee-toon gets via strength is debateble though and I opt against that choice for now. I think special melee moves and WS should be kept for melee weapons only, since that is one of their selling points over pistols, imo.

And don't even get me into the wierd territory of what you could potentially pull off with melee weapon+pistol dual-wielding, especially once you consider that pistols can be made no-handed weapons (I did that to my current toon and I am curious, how this will work out in the end)...

Rangdango said:

In regards to throwing pg 215, near the bottom it mentions that if you are throwing an object as an improvised weapon you make a BS check. I would say that is evidence enough to conclude that throwing a knife, shuriken etc as an intended weapon would also be a BS check. It wouldn't make sense for throwing a rock to be BS check but throwing a knife to be a WS check since it is essentially the same action.

Also, throwing grenades pg 136 is a BS check, this is all the evidence I can find, both cases seem to imply throwing is a BS check and I can find nothing to indicate throwing would be a WS check.

Hm, you got a point there. However throwing a knife or an axe is quite different from shooting a gun or throwing a grenade. I dunno if you ever did any of that, but believe me when I say, it is. Throwing a knife or an axe or something along the line is much more relying on you beeing able to actually have a "feeling" for the weapon or having an understanding of your weapons balance. Simply throwing a knife usually results in the knife dealing blunt-damage with the hilt and while that doesn't particularly matter for a thrown grenade (the damage of those usually comes from blowing up, not hitting the enemy with the grenade itself), it does matter for a thrown knife. I suggest to treat thrown melee weapons as WS only, for exactly that reason, plus giving a melee-specced toon at least some sort of range via WS, without forcing quickdrawing a ranged weapon or dual-wielding it.

Rangdango said:

As far as walking out and shooting goes. I agree it is strange for me to bring this up a well as I'm not an advocate of it. When the player in my group started making it a regular thing I quickly found myself rooting for his enemy. But as my GM says, "anything you can do, your opponent can do as well" so perhaps that character has a fated meeting with a shotgun in his future. None the less the option is there in the rules and if you are faced with a lightning attacking opponent and you have step aside, you can keep him down to 2 attacks per round by walking out of combat and have a dodge for each. I think it just goes to show that the enemy should get a bonus to hit a character WALKING out, but there are not rules to enforce this. I'm of the opinion GMs should punish meta gaming / munchkining. So by that same logic if you have characters spamming FA in combat the GM should turn it back on them and have the opponents do the same.

I completely agree with you. While there of course always is the incentive to bend and abuse the rules and mechanics as far as possible, just to survive and win, one shouldn't forget that it's still called role-playing and even while it's allowed due to RAW, I'd next to always opt for the RAI. However RAI is a quite subjective matter and while it may be obvious with some things, it's far less obvious with others and the only common base-line option you're left with, is RAW-usage and interpretation. As such, RAW has to be the mainstay by default, not RAI. If RAW is flawed, you're basically ******, because abusing RAW is a totally valid tactic imo. Not the smooth move, but the smart move. In the end, this is always up to the DM, to put a thumb on that, but that's no excuse either, since this can be summarized as bad game design, if you ask me.

In general my main-DM is of the school of "what the players can, the NPCs can, too". I think this worked ok in all our parties, given that also the palyers usually opt for RAI over RAW if RAW is flawed or RAI simply is more fun (without beeing totally OP). Except for the one time, where we decided to munchkin a mini-campaign for the joys. I never ever had a more useless character in my entire role-playing history. In small part because of it beeing flawed by my design (aka I didn't munchkin it enough and brought too much RPG into it). The far more important part was the munchkinned druid. T'was the last time I played DnD 3.5 and while i don't think DnD is a bad system per se (quite the contrary, if you ask me), this has shown me how hilariously broken it was in some parts (Magic, I am mainly looking at you).

Rangdango said:

Lastly, you keep pointing out that the hecutor has a 10% chance of doing 0 damage, while this is true it also has a 10% chance of righteous fury. Which probably when mathed out comes to about a 5% per bullet (after factoring in confirming the hit). So yes while there is a chance for the bullet to do 0 damage there is also a chance for it to do +d10 damage.

I choose the Hecutor for the examples, because it seems to be one of the most capable SP-pistols in game, without having any super-duper-uber perks. Other pistols prevail a whole lot less under the same circumstances and I was hopeing that this shows, how underpowered other, less universally good similar pistols can be, given the Hecutor wasn't generally that far ahead in what it achieves. Let's say you end up with pistols that have no 1d10+3 6 shot full-auto, but only 2 shot SA? Or a rather silly 1d10 8 shot full-auto. Yes it sounds threatening, but pit it versus an armored target with some reasonable toughness: And it's close to lolworthy. Hecutor is pretty close to beeing the best SP-pistol ingame, only surpassed by the Mark IV Thollos (6 shots FA with 1d10+4, no SA, clip of 12, scarce availability), imo. Once we tread into the territory of las-pistols... Well, we all know how underwhelming they are, mainly due to lack of proper ammo-options versus armored foes.

Rangdango said:

Finally, it would seem we are the least likely people to be having this back and forth to begin with. You use las so your clearly not munchkining out an SP pistol FA spamming character. Meanwhile, my Moritat just hit rank 9 and he still uses a pair of mono swords. We've had this back and forth and it would seem that neither of us are really looking to max out our combat damage. It adds clout to your argument.

Oh I love argueing. Sometimes I even argue about things that I think are correct, just for the joys

And I also love optimizing as much as possible, however I think the roleplaying aspect should come first. But I also think, that RAW should be the thing that governs decissions in a rule-based game, because wherever two humans argue, you'll find at least three opinions (except if it's obviously broken or doesn't suit our needs for whatever reason)

I don't think you actually need a drawn weapon to test Weapon Skill. You use it with fists.

Bladehate said:

That sounds like a great houserule.

ak-73 said:

Yes, I think so. While only being able to get one shot of on a normal pistol is slightly strange when compared to real world physics it's at least internally consistent within the games own physics as laid out by the rules and as such easily explainable away with perhaps "The standard guns simply have poor cyclic rate and the ones that works somewhat similar to ours are those with semi auto". A pistol suddenly being able to fire faster in melee breaks that internal consistency and thus my willing suspension of disbelief.

However, to make that hoserule work one might require a combination of swift attack and a semi auto capable gun. Or perhaps invent a whole new talent to enable pistols to shoot in melee and place it a a high enough rank that it doesn't break the low level game as the main concern seems to be. Somewhere around swift attack seems reasonable. Perhaps require "Melee pistoleer" for doing SA/FA with one gun and "Melee dakka master" for doing it while dual wielding pistols.

I might be wrong, but doesn't this sound like a reasonable compromise? I'd have a much easier time accepting "pistols in melee is hard and you need training to be good at it" than "pistols in melee is hard and you're not allowed to try" and at face value it seems to me that it adresses the main concern, i.e. low level pistol play in melee.

*edit* Awesome, I've appeased the machine spirit to allow multiple quotes. All you need is some incense and to follow the rites of quoting as proscribed by technomagos N0-1_H3r3 here: http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=70&efcid=3&efidt=442592&efpag=2#444657