It isn't viable to make an enemy (who ismore confidant in melee than you and thus charged you) move out of combat where they can't full action attack or charge you (minimum charge distance is 4 metres), and also into point blank range for your SA or FA blast?

It isn't viable to make an enemy (who ismore confidant in melee than you and thus charged you) move out of combat where they can't full action attack or charge you (minimum charge distance is 4 metres), and also into point blank range for your SA or FA blast?

Not really no. So the foe is more confident in melee than me? The implies to me that I'll have poor chances of winning that opposed WS test to force him out of melee. I might as well shoot him before he charges and then disengage after the charge. I'll still have shot him with semi or full auto (granted, not in PB range but rather short range), I'm still not in charge range or melee and he didn't get the chance to nullify my chance of shooting him SA or FA with the opposed WS test that he'll probably win.

And I'f Im confident in my ability to beat him in WS test? I might as well shoot that burst before he charges and whack him with my sword once he's in melee, dealing damage more times.

Given acrobatics I'll even get to whack him with my sword and disengage in the same round.

So no, not viable, I bet it'd look cool but it's not supported by the rules.

Eh. I concede that it doesn't apparently make such a massive difference late game or in very high power games, I've been apparently spending too much time playing low level/low power games and completely forgot that power fists even exist in core DH, let alone how ungodly potent they are. No-one tends to use them pre-Ascension/RT in groups I've been in due to the whole price tag attached versus the much cheaper Eviscerator, and since they are also one handed .. Ye gods.

However, I don't agree on every aspect. Moritat are flavorful batshit crazy death cultists who therefore happen to be fantastic in melee - gunslingers are relatively flavorful crazy asshats who happen to be fantastic with pistols. I do agree that gunslingers definitely do give a larger focus towards making you an extremely effective shooting machine versus moritat just giving tearing and some early talents/skills (tearing is fairly nice though), but similarly one could build a rather nice melee killing machine via gunslinger - you get a lot of early reaction talents and the first rank of careers tend to matter very little. You only get a penalty to use other Basic weapons, but not any to use melee weapons. Suddenly you can have a rank 1 character with Lightning Reflexes and what not. But I suppose this is just me rambling on - I view gunslingers as part of the optimum pistol build and moritat as part of the optimum melee build. If we agree that late game something like bursting in melee isn't nearly as big deal when people are running around with power fists and eviscerators, than it is still way too extremely potent in the early ranks. I suppose this would be where I take the biggest offense to it throwing aside any semblance of balance, and this hardly requires one have Gunslinger to make use of it, nor would I call it a nerfing pistols in melee.

This is simply not the case. Eviscerators are amongst the better melee weapons certainly, but there are plenty of other examples. The omnisian axe at 2d10+5 pen 6 is even one handed, as is the power fist at 2d10 pen 8 +2xSB. Moving down to more reasonable levels, Power longsword 1d10+6 pen 6, even the mundane greatweapon is a force to be reckoned with after mono. I could go on and on but it think the point is made.

What ranged weapons compare to such statlines? Not pistols, unless it's melta, and then you're not shooting anything outside of 10 m

Eviscerators are extremely good as are power fists - I wouldn't really listing omnissiah axe as part of it because it is a tech priest only un-purchaseable item. Its also 2d5+5 I believe, so while nice, is not nearly as good as the 2d10+5 one handed stats you listed. Its something to keep in mind, but something far less likely for a person to be carrying around; let alone carrying two. Power Swords are well known and Great Weapons are nice, but they are "only" 2d10 Pen 4 and you cannot quick draw them. They are not really all that comparable to, say, an Eviscerator. They are wonderful weapons in their own right, but I maintain that Eviscerators stand well out... As do apparently Power Fists, and Power Blades are great, but the "power" weapons move up into an extremely different price category.

There are some nice pistols though - the BoM Inferno pistol does 5d10+2 Pen 20 when fired with Dual Shot. Hand Flamers do the always wonderful Fire effect, Webbers have Snare - but I do digress these are supplementary. When we deal with straight damage they don't tend to have such an amazing stat line as, say, the previously mentioned Power Fists 2d10 Pen 8 +2x SB, but I still do find Bolt Pistols to be an effective work horse, or the mentioned melta pistols, and what not. The standard inferno pistol at the horrible 10m range can still shoot up to 40m, which can be talented to not take a penalty, and fires a 2d10+4E shot with Pen 12. Respectable still.

This is really a case of apples and sports cars. Damage from carnodon, a "high priced and exclusive" hand cannon and RoF from the hecuter ,"a prince among pistols" gets to compete against the most basic of melee weapons. We could compare the power sword to a stub revolver, but i don't think that would be accurate either.

Wanna compare mono sword? Autopistol or stub auto works, but that's hardly the kind of weapons the dedicated combat characters we're discussing here is going to have. If you spend thousands of XP on gun fu or melee combat you're not going to be happy with basic armaments.

Yes, if you roll well on your to hit you get lots of hits, unless the opponent rolls equally well on his dodge, then you get nothing. In fact, if you do the math you hit less than one shot per round with the two autofire in melee tactic against an opponent with agility equal to your BS, dodge +20 and step aside. Without step aside that number goes up of course, but the damage is still small per hit against something with decent TB and armour. A good melee weapon will still outperform with one or two hits. There isn't even any comparison to a great melee weapon.

A melee character encountering an opponent who dodges or parries everything will feint and be done with it. Parried and counterattacked? Sure, but that's rather well balanced by the fact that they can also parry and counterattack...

I disagree entirely. I spoke specifically of a Best quality mono sword, for good reason. Best Quality Mono-Sword gives it a stat-line of 1d10+1 Pen 2 with +10WS to attack for 190 thrones. Going up a tier to the common quality chainsword is 275 thrones for 1d10+2 Pen 2 with tearing and no bonus to WS. Previously mentioned Moritat would make the best quality mono-sword tearing as well, so you lose out on exactly 1 damage for a +10WS that can negate the penalty of dual wielding them. That sounds like a pretty freaking great deal to me. Hecutors are 175 thrones and average availability, so that means its still 15 thrones cheaper than the compared mono sword - and since its a reliable weapon you can easily get a poor quality of it and simply lose the reliability and make it standard jamming chance for a wonderful price of 88 thrones. So you can get two hecutors for the price of a single BQ mono-sword, with change to spare, and a far better availability (poor quality hecutor is common, BQ mono is scarce). Carnodons I prefer to Hecutors are 200 thrones - so 10 more thrones than a BQ mono sword and same availability, but you can easily get them PQ and gain Unreliable trait for a 4% higher chance to jam (and maybe its personally I just roll lucky, but I tend to never have a jamming issue so I have no problem making them PQ), making them than Average availability and 100 thrones each.. So you can get 2 again for the price of a single BQ mono sword + 10 thrones.

That's just the thing, It doesn't cut down viability of "focus only on BS". You don't full auto burst in melee to be effective with BS. Melee is (most of the time) one v.s. one, and a single opponent is less about the number of hits and more about the damage those hits do. You get dual shot, a decent high damage gun (for overkill, take hack shotgun or inferno pistol) and a raincoat. And when the GMs who feel that pistols need to be rubbish in melee houserule dual shot away too, just keep the inferno pistol, it's still way batter than the hecuter on FA within that range.

I guess than I am speaking of low level games, or games where people aren't running around with two power fists and every talent and what not. Unloading with full auto in melee is extremely powerful when people can start with strong automatic pistols (or powerful semi-auto pistols) and do terrible terrible things to melee encounters. I don't really view it as trying to make pistols "****" in melee or what not, I just view it as taking away the spirit of the game/rules... And it doesn't take a gunslinger to do that. Gunslingers can do it better than anyone else, sure, but any class can pickup a pistol and do that.

You can Quick Draw an Eviscerator?

Inquisitor sapiens potensque said:

No, 2h weapons cannot be quick drawn.

Salindurthas said:

No, that's not what I want at all or what I described. In fact it sounds pretty silly.

1. SM shoots at enemy.

2. Enemy charges SM.

3. SM attacks enemy with both his weapons, one melee one ranged which is the iconic Space Marine way. I don't see any reason why the SM would limit himself to a single attack with his bolt pistol when all he needs is to squeeze the trigger twice instead.

Now for balance reasons I suggest:

a): Allowing ranged attacks in melee to be parried. In fact it's the gun that's pushed out of the way before it's fired. This is even more fun if the defender has a power field weapon

b): Removing the FA and SA bonus in melee to compensate for melee's lack of accuracy bonuses.

Personally I prefer the above house rule to the "melee talents works with pistols" house rule. One major reason is that a full auto burst can in many cases be alot worse than several single attacks. A single dodge can negate a full-auto burst (which is hardly that good in melee to begin with), while you'd need Step Aside and Wall of Steel to be able to handle a Lightening Attack

It is somewhat similar, which was all I was aiming for. To me it seemed that by the RAW it is about as close as you can get to what you wanted (multiple shots at someone who charged you).
Reconsidering due to Graspar's post, other, perhaps more viable options instead of "manouvre" are acrobatics->half action disengage, or half action move and just take the free hit they get against you.
Adding in the Counterattack talent too would make sense if you wan't to be great at defeating people that charge you.

Now for balance reasons I suggest:

a): Allowing ranged attacks in melee to be parried. In fact it's the gun that's pushed out of the way before it's fired. This is even more fun if the defender has a power field weapon

This is already allowed, I thought. I almost certainly remember reading this in the core rulebook.

b): Removing the FA and SA bonus in melee to compensate for melee's lack of accuracy bonuses.

Seems like a reasonable enough houserule. Although I personally would prefer to leave things as they are, which is this:
In order to fire multiple shots you need to not be busy avoiding a sword.
To free yourself up like that you need to be better at swordplay (manouvre), or be more agile (acrobatics->half action disengage), or take a risk (half action move away). Although I've never gotten into a sword vs gun fight, this seems realistic enough way for it to be protrayed in the game.

Do remember that a round of melee combat round is someone close enough to touch you who is waving a sword for 6 seconds. If I wanted to shoot that person I would find it hard to imagine doing anyting other than backing up.

Salindurthas said:

"Ranged attacks cannot be parried, unless you have a special Talent. " "You can only parry melee attacks." I think RAW is pretty clear here.

Secondly your suggestion requires a half action and thus you can't use FA/SA attack anyway. Unless you use ready. in which case you could already have made an attack so you're no better off.

Now the realism argument again - I don't know where this is from. If you have a fully automatic weapon and you try to fire it while some maniac is slashing at you, I find it hard to believe you would take the time to make sure you only fire a single bullet at a time. Now I admit it does not help for accuracy, but if you're backing away while pointing the pistol at the enemy and pull the trigger you might just be able to hit him with more than one bullet.

If you just want to leave things as they are and you've played like this for a long time then that's fine too - it will not break the game either way IMO. In my experience, gunslingers use melee weapons if locked in melee, and melee users use ranged weapon if the enemy is too far away to just charge. Even in these rules though a gunslinger can still shoot his pistol in melee, gettting one attack (which is compared to most attackers the same as they get at lower levels).

I think that a better alternative to parrying ranged attacks would be simply representing this as an attack at the weapon. Parries are typically conceived of as against incoming blows, which you are not doing if you wack somebody's gun with a sword. Logically, if you hit a pistol with a hammer you;re going to do more to it that just deflect its shot. You're likely going to damage it and/or knock it out of the person's hand,

(There are no rules for being able to do this at present to my knowledge other than Disarm, but logically you could treat it as a Called Shot with an additional penalty according to the size of the weapon.))

I assumed that attacks made in melee (even if with a pistol) cannot be considered ranged attacks. I also thought attacks with a pistol in melee counted as melee attacks. I could still be wrong though, I don't have my book with me right now.

My suggestion was an attempt to allow someone to fire SA or FA after being enganged in melee within the RAW.
I suggested explicity to delay until an opponent charges and use manoeuvre (and later acrobatic disengange and half action move became alternatives).
The tatical advantage to "delay then autofire next round" instead of "auto fire fire" is that you get the point blank bonus and potentially hit 3 more times. It also forbids any kind of full action melee attack (charge, multiple attacks, all out) on the enemies next turn.

I prefer to approach realism because I like examination of the rules to encourage you to do what you would do in real life. If the "rules correct" and "real correct" actions are the same or similar, then I find it helps immersion in the setting.
Common sense says that if you want to use a gun against the guy with a sword in your face, you should probably back away. The rules encourage you to do the same as it allows you to hit more/deal more damage. Sure, the specific way in which your damage output increases (you can shoot more bullets) might not make realistic sense, but the end result of "backing away is better" is the same. I prefer that.

Granted, I agree that either way is unlikely to break the game, and the appeal of being able to FA in melee (which you can of course try to do in real life) might be more important to you, and that is obviously fine.

I like the idea of called shot to the hand/arm knocking someones weapon out.

Salindurthas said:

WS and BS are defined as skills with types of weapons (melee vs. range), not at close vs. long range . Skimming (and only skimming) the combat section of the book I don't see anything that implies that WS would be used with a ranged weapon in close combat. And pg. 195 says "you cannot make ranged attacks, whilst engaged in melee, unless you are armed with a ranged weapon that is classed as a pistol," which means that attacks with pistols in melee are ranged, and therefore use BS.

Salindurthas said:

Only Primitive ranged weapons can be parried via talent.

Rakiel said:

No, this is not possible. Mind if I quote the Dark Heresy Core Rulebook on the topic of flame weapons, page 128:

Flame

[...] Unlike other weapons, flamers have just one range and when fired, cast fiery death out to this distance [...]

There's no long range, extreme range, short range or point blank for any flame weapon. It just fires out to it's noted max range and that's it. No range-based modificators or anything, except for having the according flame weapon talent or not. (Though one might argue, if the range modifiers are applied to the according agility-role, but I doubt one can justify that by RAW either.)

In regard about using pistols in SA/FA-modus in melee, I can't find a single RAW-rule, that denies these fire-modes in melee at all and pistols already loose the range modifier they could have when beeing in point-blank or short range, which is a huge hit to hit-chance! That may change for pumped up and munchkinned higher class characters, as I haven't played one yet, but I think this keeps up for a long long time. Pistols are, for all intends and purposes, a mix between melee and ranged weapons. They get a ranged attack, they can be used in melee. In return for this advantage, you get a few disavantages, namely not having such a wide variety of moves, maneuvers and talents, compared to a melee-armed and trained character and on top of that you can not parry melee attacks with pistols, as you can not fix a melee attachment onto them, unlike with basic weapons.

One shouldn't overlook these litte details about them, since they are actually intended to be used in melee and especially this last little detail can lead to some rather deadly results. Yes, giving them the full bonus for SA/FA in melee might seem rather odd, but that is, in my opinion, more a problem of general mechanics regarding especially the FA modes of ranged weapons (SA seems mostly fine for me so far) and not so much a problem of pistols using SA/FA in melee.

inferno pistols are melta weapons, not flame weapons

rayze said:

Indeed. I didn't notice that since this doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, given meltas are basically the same as flamers, just stronger and without spread. Oh well, one weapon odditiy more vOv

Anyways, I still stand by my second point: Pistols potentially beeing overpowered in melee, when using SA/FA (especially when dual-wielded), is not a problem of pistols beeing able to utilize it, but a general problem regarding SA and especially FA-mechanics. SA seems mostly fine on my book, but it's FA that breaks the balance, given that it's mechanics doesn't differentiate at all between hitting something and hitting a specific target. Taking away the +20 to hit and either lowering it to 0 or +10 (or even just switching it with the SA bonus to hit) would be a good start.

Madner Kami said:

Not to be too pedantic but they aren't.

Flamers project burning liquid.

Meltas are microwave weapons that superheat their target.

I both cases, given the '1-shot only' ruling, the hand flamer and inferno pistol are perfect for use as pistols in melee.

Luddite said:

Um, no. That is not the case, as one can easily read from the Dark Heresy core-rulebook, can see on pretty much any miniature, picture and even core tabletop-rulebooks. Meltas are basically squirt-guns that emanate a beam of superheated materials, without a cone (DH Core p.134):

[...] Most work by combining pressurized gases into an unstable sub-molecular thermal state , which is fired out in an intense blast of heat , that can turn even tank armour into molten slag. Targets are vaporised within seconds, usually accompanied by a distinctive hissing sound as the beam boils away the water vapour in the air. [...]

Also (while it's not really a proof, but can be used as an indication), pretty much every picture with meltas shows them with tanks similar to flamer-weapons (and by description beeing a crossbreed between plasma and flamer-weapons). The thing that comes closest to a microwave-weapon in DH, is the Rad-Cleanser (Exotic Ranged weapon, IH p133), obviously not a melta-weapon.

Madner Kami said:

As ever with 40k, the truth is out there and somewhere in between...

Lets just have a quick review of how its been described since 1st edition.

'The melta gun, melter or fusion gun is designed to melt its target away with a blast of near-unstoppable super heat'. WH40k 1st ed. (p73)

'The meltagun is also known as the melter, cooker, or vape gun. It works by sub-molecular thermal agitation in a manner similar to microwave irradiation'. WH40k 2nd ed. Wargear book (p26)

'Melta weapons, sometimes called fusion guns, melters or cookers, fire a sub-molecular thermal blast over a short distance causing massive molecular breakdown. Most melta guns use highly pressurised pyrum-petrol gasses charged to produce a fearsome blast. Melta guns use a two-part injection system to force the gas into a sub-molecular state'. WH40K 3rd ed. (p61)

'Melta guns use a two part injection system to force pyrum-petrol gas into a sub-molecular state, which will vapourise just about any target...' WH40K 4th ed. (p35)

No particular detail given in WH40K 5th ed.

'[Melta weapons]use a magnetic containment beam to create microwave agitation which vapourises the target in a blast of intense heat' Inquisitor (p69)

'The meltagun is also known as the melter, cooker or vape gun. It works by means of sub-molecular thermal agitation...' Necromunda (p52)

'Melta weapons (also known as cookers or melters) ... work by combining higly pressurised gasses into an unstable sub-molecular thermal state'. Dark Heresy RPG (p134)

'Melta weapons emit devastatingly intense but short ranged blasts of heat ... most types of melta induce highly pressurised gasses from an ammunition canister into an unstable sub-molecular state and direct the resulting energies down the barrel' Rogue Trader RPG (p122) and Deathwatch RPG (p148)

So at various times its been described as a fusion (nuclear) weapon, a microwave weapon, a 'super flamer', a 'super plasma gun', or a 'heat ray'. Its effect (superheating and melting/vapourising the target) remained constant throughout all iterations since 1st ed.

And still, yet again, with the 1-shot restriction with pistols in melee it represents the best weapon for that purpose (if you can afford it).

GW has retconned how meltaguns work. If you want to use old fluff fine, but the description in the more recent codexes and the FFG materials is not of a microwave beamer. And there are no Beastmen and no Squats, You can play AD&D too if you want but don't expect other people to accept a Dungeon Master's Guide from 1983 as a source.

And yep they are the best pistol for close combat.

Inquisitor sapiens potensque said:

Parrying is usually about hitting the opponent's weapon in a fashion that deflects it away from you. Hitting a sword dead on with a hammer can have a very different effects than just parrying it, same as for the pistol. Swords can break, or you could knock it out of the enemy's hand.

What I proposed however is seeing the enemy point his gun at you and then giving it a slight push so that the shot(s) will miss. It's all part of the "difficult to shoot in close combat" stuff. Heck, it could even be forcing the shooter to recoil his pistol arm to avoid getting attacked, or bumping into him to unbalance his shot. After all this is a very abstract game system.

Another potential fix is the "dreaded" d20 way - give melee dudes a free attack against users of ranged weapons in melee. To compensate I would even allow basic weapons to be used in melee, as there is no logical reason why it could not be used against an enemy 1 meter away. A rifle or shotgun is short enoough to pull this off, heck even the old muskets with bayonets is little more than a spear, which can be used against enemies 1 meter away (adjascent) per RAW. Now what this does is to represent that by shooting at an enemy that's trying to hit you with a sword (or whatever) you are exposing yourself and not defending yourself properly, thus provoking a free attack.

I wouldn't let you destroy/disarm weapon without some special attack and/or Talent though. Only Power weapons get that special oomph.

Friend of the Dork said:

You just obsoleted pistol weapons completely. They don't have any advantage over basic weapons anymore, if you apply such a ruling.

Also, the difficulty of wielding a ranged weapon in melee is already reflected by:

a) Loosing the point-blank range modifier,

b) in the case of basic weapons, by simply not beeing able to fire them in close combat and

c) not beeing able to parry melee-weapons with the only ranged weapons which can still be fired in close combat, which forces the pistol-wielder to use his dodge-skill, which is not very high in most cases and can not be boosted like the weapon-skill via defensive-melee weapons.

The logical choice will be, in this cases, to get two auto-shotguns, attach a pistol grip and melee attachment to both. By using recoil gloves, you'll be even better in CC then the pistol-wielder used to be.

Madner Kami said:

Errata states they can make a single attack, it doesn't define what constitutes a single attack - this post states that it was RAI to be a single standard attack/shot, not meant to be anything else. It depends on interpretation of the RAW on whether or not you are allowed to do it, but the entire thread stems off a post asking dev's about it, and them specifically saying you may only fire in a single shot.

Keep in mind with Quick Draw you only need to carry a knife on you and you can automatically quick draw and parry with it when required. Pistols also have a variety of talents that Basic weapons do not get, and the ability to target more than one enemy. There are advantages to them besides "your a weapon user in melee!".

Also: ..Not very high Dodge skill? Lunacy! Its one of the most effective ways to avoid damage. If your running around into melee with a pistol or intend to be a short range combatant I can't see why you wouldn't have Dodge. Sure, you cannot boost it via a Defensive weapon for that lovely +15, but you can boost it via increasing the skill to +20.

Rakiel said:

Errata states they can make a single attack, it doesn't define what constitutes a single attack - this post states that it was RAI to be a single standard attack/shot, not meant to be anything else. It depends on interpretation of the RAW on whether or not you are allowed to do it, but the entire thread stems off a post asking dev's about it, and them specifically saying you may only fire in a single shot.

Keep in mind with Quick Draw you only need to carry a knife on you and you can automatically quick draw and parry with it when required. Pistols also have a variety of talents that Basic weapons do not get, and the ability to target more than one enemy. There are advantages to them besides "your a weapon user in melee!".

Also: ..Not very high Dodge skill? Lunacy! Its one of the most effective ways to avoid damage. If your running around into melee with a pistol or intend to be a short range combatant I can't see why you wouldn't have Dodge. Sure, you cannot boost it via a Defensive weapon for that lovely +15, but you can boost it via increasing the skill to +20.

Which shows yet another time, that devs often don't have a clue about what they wrote and suggest or that the answers they supply are not complete (sometimes because of how the question was asked, so it's not neccessarily an error of the dev). Applying the dev's words, that you can only make a single attack, which has to be most certainly directly translated as standard attack action (since a single shot is just that: a standard attack action), also means, that you can't use most pistol based talents and not be able to dual-wield, too, since most of those are not standard but full actions. Now the same dev, when asked about that, surely will agree that you can use all of these full-action talents in melee, too. But that in turn again means, that you can do SA/FA, since:

a) that is directly allowed via dual wield talent

b) each of those are full-actions and SA and FA actions are just full-actions, too and you can't just allow one full action but disallow the next, while both have the same basic frame and circumstantial requirements.

As such, this dev's statement is inconsistent with the established rules and, on top of that, de facto forbids using any full-action talent with ranged weapons/pistols in melee (which should be most all talents, barring quick-draw and rapid reload maybe, but you may correct me there).

Most pistol-only talents can be emulated on basic weapons via the extra-grip weapon-upgrade, which is specifically stated as "also known as a pistol-grip", which in fact makes any basic weapon with this upgrade a de-facto pistol weapon (so you'd need a rather restricitive DM to rule that out). Plus you could argue, that this allows a basic weapon to be fired in melee, but that's up to debate and besides the point (I certainly wouldn't allow this, if I were teh DM). And, to be quite honest, if you go along with the exact reading of talents, that those only apply to pistol weapons and restrictively ignore the pistol-grip, than you're back to RAW-interpretations, which in turn again means that the dev's statement regarding SA/FA not beeing allowed in melee via RAI, is as a matter of fact: worthless.

Not every class is intended to go into melee combat with pistols, but many can end up in that constellation unwillingly. None of those are rather good at WS or dodging of course, but normally it's easier to achieve a higher WS with those classes than to get a high dodge-skill and/or agility-attribute. Though I need to admit, that I am not that that deep into the system at this moment, since I'm fairly new to it. But this seems to be an important point in balance of pistols versus basic versus melee weapons and non-combat versus combat-heavy classes. Else those classes will be dead meat, no matter wether they win the initiative or get mowed down by the most-likely already initiative-winning melee-toon. Getting into close combat with a pistol wielder is supposed to be dangerous by default, if the melee-attacker doesn't overwhelm the pistoleer via initiative and a flurry of melee-attacks and if the melee-wielder fails with that task, he did **** it up and should get the blowback, since tactics like when-to-attack-whom-and-with-what and when-better-to-take-a-dive are an important part of the overall for everyone deadly combat in Dark Heresy.

Hahaha, I actually agree with you over the dev thing... Its why I tend to point out that not everyone is taking the forum rulings as universal, and to bear them in mind as a tangent when we speak of RAW. Read the first page - the intention it seems is that you may NOT do SA/FA in melee range, using two pistols is fine and lets you make the two attacks, and you can still dual shot. But yeah, its slightly wonky and would be great if they put up another errata shortly.

But I would encourage you to actually re-read (or read) the first post of the thread as it specifically refers to the post; they fire single shots only, may only make standard attacks, or as part of two-weapon fighting, but the ability to do SA/FA is explicitly denied. All they have to do really is put in a rule that "SA/FA may not be used in the frantic chaos of a melee" and it fits with the rules well enough, since everything else is just attempting to take one shot from a pistol each over the 5 seconds, as opposed to holding down the trigger and hoping you don't hit someone else. All the pistol talents that I believe you are referring to come out of dual-wielding, which would be things like dual shot - though arguable as well that it wouldn't apply as its tangently part of two weapon wielding.

Anyways, I wouldn't allow pistol grips to change the class of a weapon - if your treating it like that it means that classes can automatically use weapons they could not otherwise via just slapping a pistol grip on it. Can't use basic (sp) but can use pistol (sp)? Slap a pistol grip on your rifle and suddenly it qualifies as a pistol! Or if you did that you end up going around things like Accurate quality - if I dual wield two accurate basic weapons, if I made a full turn aim action and than fired them as a dual-shot would it qualify for basic accurate stacking? Or would it qualify as pistols? Or could....etc.etc.etc. Saying that just because its referred to as a "pistol grip" lets you treat it "like a pistol" opens up a lot of weirdness that starts to mess with the rules, and makes one wonder why someone would ever use, say, auto-pistols when they could just pistol grip two autoguns for better stats all around.

I've never actually known a GM to ever allow you to treat Basic weapons as pistols if you had pistol grips. So, uh, I guess all my GM's and myself qualify as really restrictive.

As for the WS vs AGI argument: If you can raise it easily than raise WS and get a defensive weapon if you want, sure. But its got its own limitations - if you have amazing WS for parrying and horrible dodge, well that doesn't really help you against ranged (non-primitive) weapons, blast weapons, burst weapons or what not. Dodge is usable against any attack, I cannot think of anything where you cannot apply it, while Parry is more situational. I just did a quick look and there isn't a whole lot of classes that are 500 agi and 500 ws (actually, I dont think any), and a 250 scheme really isn't all that bad - especially since all worlds start with a base 2d10+20 Agility, and that is never modified. But to each their own I guess.

Madner Kami said:

Just like real life?

In the real world, the advantages, and only advantages, pistols have over rifles are small size and being one-handed.

Dark Heresy in fact bends over backward to make pistols competitive, giving them the same damage as a rifle for instance.