This will stir up some commotion. Some answers from Ross Watson:

> 1) Can pistols burst in close combat in DW? (And if yes, doesn't
> that carry a high risk of wildly straying shots?)

No. Pistols fired in melee fire a single shot.

> 2) If no, does that mean this is a DW-specific change or does that
> apply to all of 40k RP?

It applies to Dark Heresy, Rogue Trader, and Deathwatch.

> 3) What actions can be done with pistols in close combat other than
> Standard Attacks? Multiple Attack (if so only 2-handed attacks only
> or does swift strike, etc also apply)? All-out attack? Guarded
> attack? I am asking because page 240 indicates more than standard
> attacks are possible.

Standard Attack (or as part of two-weapon fighting) only.

> 4) Does the answer given to question 3 carry on to all of 40K RP or
> only DW?

It applies to Dark Heresy, Rogue Trader, and Deathwatch.

Will post it to all 3 forums.

Alex

I don't really see why you wouldn't be able to fire a full or semi-auto shot in close combat. I mean all you do is pull the trigger and it happens. I could see some bracing issues, but that doesn't preclude possibility.

I'm guessing there is something in DW that says that specifically?

I don't see it either, but it is the official rules clarification - if ak-73 is to be believed ...

I think, it's some kind of balance issue, you have to pull a melee weapon to make the best of melee combat... you can bind an enemy with a fearsome autofire capable pistol in melee to prevent him from using his full power.

gomme said:

No reason to lie about it for me. Personally I wouldn't it run this way but allow application of swift and lightning attack. As for automatic fire, I rule it out in my games because I think shots would go stray like crazy. Or let's say, noone who cares about collateral damages should be using it while they dance the melee shuffle.

Alex

ak-73 said:

I'm not sure if I got you right (sorry, I'm not a native speaker). Would you allow the use of swift and lightning attack with a pistol in melee? I mean, shooting, not clubbing..?

With a little houseruling to determine the stray and ricocheting shots, I'm tempted to allow automatic fire in melee. On the other hand, I like to keep it simple and if the official rule is that you are bound to a standard attack with your pistols, I'd leave it that way.

gomme said:

Yeah, shooting with swift and lightning attack.

Alex

i don't think it works like that, with lighting attack, you get 3 melee attacks and one with a pistol.

Void_onion213 said:

After the clarification from Ross that is what it's like. However I am going to house rule that the talent applies to pistols in melee too.

Alex

i'm just going off what it said in the talent description in my RT book

The game designer isnt running your game.

Do what you think is best and stick with it.

If the players do it, then the bad guys can too.

So please, be a Game Master, figure it out yourself, and stop making the game designer answer questions instead of getting me the next book !!

Seriously tho, the whole point of the GM is to be the master of the game. If your players wont let that happen, then tell them to be the GM.

I would prolly let the autofire, but allow it to be parried. I would also probably make it to where if the attacker rolled badly enough, or the defender rolled well enough, then the defender would get to choose who got shot.

Just remember to have it work both ways. The explorers may not like it much when some ganger full autos after sticking his pistol down the neck of their power armour.

I'd permit autofire, but apply the penalty for moving to it. IE -10 to hit instead of a +20, and of course no point blank since this is melee. I'd also not permit the bonus from motion predictors as there's no time for it.

Sure you're laying down a lot of shots, but you're doing it while someone's within arms reach trying to take your head off. They could knock the gun aside, get inside your reach, or do some weird Equilibrium style gun-fu.

Though perhaps a trained pistoleer gets a talent (or I make up one) that lets them negate some of those penalties.

I don't know about autofire, but I would be only to happy to let my PC's attack up to a number of times as the weaopns semi-auto rof. So if you are armed with a naval pistol (Rof: S/3/-) and have swift attack, you could make 2 attacks with the pistol.

The idea of auto-fire in melee sounds about as sensible as attaching two chainswords together with a length of chain and claiming that you had invented chainsword-chucks...

Hygric said:

Hey you can't claim that!! Didn't Dead Rising 2 come up with that... or was it with a pole instead of a chain....

Anyway I would allow it so long as they spun them around above their heads while both, laughing maniacally, and wading into zombies.

Survival of said character would be purely optional.

I was adapting from 8-bit theatre... Sword Chucks Yo!

Hygric said:

I certainly don't see it as sensible (especially if you got friends right there with you), but definetely possible. Its as easy as pointing the gun and holding down the trigger. Although I really like the idea of being able to use parry in this instance, that also sounds plausible to me (sort of sweeping the gun aside).

Quartermus said:

I liked that idea as well. Auto and semi-auto allowed in melee combat, but the person in melee with the attacker should be able to parry the pistol attack (Standard, semi and full auto all), even if they aren't the one being fired at. I don't think they should be able to spesify a new target (That would require a bit more control than a simple parry). Maybe if they got like at least a couple degrees of success more than the attacker did... also the parry should be all or nothing. No reducing number of hits, simply you parry them and the gun doesn't hit you at all, or you don't and you're swiss cheese

Perhaps also throw in something like the shooting into melee rules where if you only miss by 1 DoF (or however it works) you may end up hitting someone else entirely.

Hygric said:

There are far stupider weapons in the 40k universe than that. Plus I can totally see an ork wanting one.

Pistols only adding a single standard attack in melee is how our group has always played DH, RT and DW anyway. It just seemed to make more sense that way. I guess this won't really affect our games any.