Since it's easier to be disarmed of a firearm than a knife (you can grab the firearm with less risk of personal injury than you can a knife or sword), I'd go with whichever weapon I was most familiar with (knives, actually), unless I knew that it would start with some distance between us (at least six feet). In that case, I know I could snap off a semi-accurate shot before my opponent is on top of me.

I also suggested, earlier on somewhere, that if you want to house rule Parrying pistols used in melee but don't think it should be as easy, that you also house rule the Fast quality from the Inquisitor's Handbook onto all pistols. It doesn't make the weapon "fast" as in what we think of - it imposes a -20 penalty to any attempt to Parry the weapon.

Also, a pistol in a melee fight a knife or short sword is in fact more comperable to a pistol than to a whip, flail, quarterstaff, or chainsaw, and it still astonishes me that you draw the line where you do. I mean, feel free to disagree, but in addition to the general involvement of "unrealism" in the game I am really not seeing the "realism" that you're invoking.

It just seems to me that all those who think you should parry pistols have the defender being super skilled and the pistol guy being a moron. If your argument is that you should be able to get a trait that allows it I can maybe see your point. But we should be talking about an equal situation. What happens if I don't extend the gun out in front of me? What happens if I dont stand square on to my oppenent but at an angle (like you should)? What if I am not standing static but shuffle a step (just one) back? All of a sudden it is VERY VERY hard to do anything about the pistol.

Mark it Zero as I said I understand the desire BTW a fun thing is to do what our cleric does if he has time. He douses his chainsword in flamable liquid and lights it on fire (screaming about divine retribution while attacking etc) We don't give it any significant stat bonuses but the imagery is awesome.

Pneumonica we are just going to have to disagree on this one. Assertions such as a short sword has more in common with a pistol than a whip are incomprehensible to me.

llsoth said:

Not applying penalties for heat or a chance to set himself on fire is a significant bonus IMO. A Chainsword would be effectively spraying burning liquid when he starts it up. He could even light allies on fire *gasp* hehe. Anyway yeah that's cool and it's totally happening in my game sometime.

Nobody is saying the pistol guy is a moron. After all, just because a fighter can parry doesn't mean he has a great chance to succeed. This house rule does not severely cripple pistol combat, just brings it more in line with melee in a sensible and simplified way.

The other thing to remember about a parry roll is it's a "penalty" that cannot be offset by the player. No fate points help here, if your opponent makes his roll your attack fails. I understand your assertion that you don't have to open yourself up to a "parry" if you were to say hip fire your weapon or make quick shots to avoid giving your opponent the chance to defensively knock away your weapon. However quickly hip firing your pistol without extending your arm makes it hard to aim for a proper killing shot. You aren't taking the time to find chinks in armor or aiming for vitals. So not taking a properly aimed shot or necessarily targeting vitals should apply some penalties beyond assumed passive defense which this system already takes into account.

The penalty IMO works well if you just use the same "parry" rules you would use for melee weapons. Simple really.

Also, as stated upthread, in actual combat a "parry" doesn't often actually strike the opponent or his/her weapon. It forces the weapon in a neutral direction. And why does the melee fighter have to be a moron while the gunfighter is doing his schtick? He's just sitting there, continuing to attack as he would be normally, while gunboy is lining up a shot that'll kill him? I'd take a short swing at the dude's midsection in the direction of his weapon, forcing him to take that highly-anticipated-by-you backstep to avoid the strike, in the process throwing the shot in the wrong direction. That's called a "parry" in game terms (a "feint" in real-world terms, but it functions as a parry).

Nobody's sitting still and letting anything happen - that's the entire point. RAW, the melee fighter is sitting still and letting somebody within reach shoot his head off unchallenged. But we can agree to disagree.

Mark it Zero Yah we thought of the potential drawbacks but since he wasn't going for any bonuses just the image we let the Rule of Cool take over.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RuleOfCool

llsoth said:

Always. I wasn't naysaying your decision to side with the rule of cool. More like supporting it and bashing "realism" at the same time.

Graver said:

Brass knuckles are distinctly different in construction than a pistol. You can't wrap a pistol around the outside of your fingers and punch someone. Personally, I'd just go with improvised weapon, but you're more than welcome to use whatever rules you see fit.

I've been allowing pistols to use full/semi auto fire in melee for quite a while now, to me it just felt right.

But seeing it in play is quite different. My players don't even bother to use melee weapons anymore (Weapon skill is becoming more and more a dump stat). If their stuck in melee they just pull out their Hecuter filled with manstopper rounds and kick the sh*t out of the opposition. Even the group guardsman who started out has a "melee expert" is becoming more more of a "ballistic monkey", I think the last time he used his Swift Attack talent was six months ago!

When we started playing DH, being stuck in melee with a ranged weapon ment bad news. I'm seriously considering going back to: no semi/full auto fire in melee.

Im sorry but this trumps all naysayers about parrying pistols in melee combat.

Yeah, somebody posted the same clip upthread, and it's even less convincing now. While I agree with the notion of Parrying firearms in melee combat, the movie shows a basically unreal presentation of it (even the martial arts style deviated from the way the original coreographer had intended it).

Pneumonica said:

That's why I specifically mentioned not using Equilibrium as an example no matter how much I love that movie.

I'm talking about a combatant doing that once or twice then using his action to dive for cover or try to wrestle the gun away from his opponent like any sane man would do. Prolonged parry fights feel too much like BRP Stormbringer.

Pneumonica said:

bah its a fantasy game where people use guns that are 3x too big for their hand and wear armor that makes them the size of a small car. I can suspend realism in my roleplaying to accomodate parrying pistols as shown in the equillibrium clip. especially since the 2 individuals are the equivallent of rank 10 characters.

That is a very silly (but enjoyable) movie clip.

If that clip is the best argument for parrying guns, my counterargument would be that the clip is about as far from the feel of melee combat in the Dark Heresy universe as its possible to get. Maybe an imperial assassin could be imagined fighting like that... so yeah, I think a special talent might be the way to go.

But forgetting realism and the feel of the universe, I think the key to these questions is game balance.

A maxed out melee fighter can manage four melee attacks, at 50% chance to hit, s an expectation of two hits, parryable. (Lightning attack plus two-weapon wielder plus ambidextrous, WS60.) A maxed out gunfighter could then manage one pistol attack on full-automatic, at 80% to hit assuming you allow the bonus, with an expectation of 3.6 hits, possibly unparryable (BS60, fully-automatic). If you don't allow the bonus expectation is 2.1 hits. For semi-auto, the numbers are 1.6 hits and 1.2 hits respectively.

Now, you have to bear in mind that the best automatic pistol you can lay your grubby mitts on is pretty poor compared with the best melee weapon (something like d10+4I and Pen 0 compared with d10+5+SB and Pen 6), the fully auto stats don't seem too b0rked. But when you look at semi-automatic you're getting stuff like plasma pistols. So if you allow the bonus, the gunfighter is getting quite close to the effectiveness of the melee fighter, plus the melee fighter has had to take four talents, plus the gunfighter is also awesome at range while the melee fighter is only any good up close. If you say the attack is unparryable you have the makings of something truly monstrous - why ever bother taking a melee expert?

So based on the above I'd say combining the use of semi and full auto fire in melee with unparryability is pretty broken. If you do allow semi- and full-auto, at least have the decency to not allow the bonus to hit, or you're pretty much putting melee experts out of a job.

I guess you could argue that talents like disarm, counterattack and takedown lend a versatility to melee experts that can't be matched by a gun, but I don't think it balances the equation enough, especially given the need for more and more talents to make it work.

If that clip is the best argument for parrying guns, my counterargument would be that the clip is about as far from the feel of melee combat in the Dark Heresy universe as its possible to get. Maybe an imperial assassin could be imagined fighting like that... so yeah, I think a special talent might be the way to go.

How so? Lightning attack is achievable at what, rank 5? Step aside at rank 6 and Wall of Steel is available as well at 8 or 9 I believe. Two combatants fighting with these talents the combat could happen very fast and look exactly like that clip.

Round 1

Assassin 1 uses lightning attack. Attack 1 is a hit, attack 2 is a miss, attack 3 is a hit.

Assassin 2 parries first hit, with step aside dodges second hit.

Assassin 2 uses lightning attack. Attack 1 hits, attack 2 hits, attack 3 hits.

Assassin 1 parries first hit, with step aside dodges second, with wall of steel parries 3rd.

Rinse. Repeat.

Will it happen every time? course not, but it is not as far fetched as you make it out to be. Keep in mind, the 6 total attacks in the scenario above happened in 6 seconds.

Smokes said:

I just meant that, based on flavour text and the generally "chunky" feel of the characters in the art, the feel is less equilibrium and more, I don't know... Braveheart? Highlander? Lord of the Rings? Something like that.

But even though I was making more of a flavour point than a mechanics point - your example actually shows that combat happens a lot slower in the game than in the film clip - I count (and it's difficult because it happens so fast) about 6 gunshots in the first 3 seconds of combat (I'm counting from 9 seconds into the clip), about twice as fast as your example.

I found some more on youtube, though they are unarmed martial arts style, but its the idea that counts really

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfCxMCeUOTE&feature=related

Remember burst or full auto fire is a FULL action so if someone does that they do not get to attack with other weapons.

I was unaware there were any burst capable plasma pistols, they show up in creatures anathama? (which I will be getting this weekend)

Since you do not get the point blank bonus I do not think it is too much of a problem. The only way it might get out of hand is with a full auto, scatter pistol, which they have avoided like the plague (with good reason).

In my mind at least the generally higher damage (without need to reload as well) of melee weapons offsets the loss of the parry.

Cardinalsin said:

Point blank shot doesnt apply in melee combat so the best you can get with full auto is the +20. One shot at full auto with a hecuter w/manstoppers vs. 2-weapon(melee) and lightning attack with a chainaxe. One good dodge can take care of the gun. Unless you are rocking Step Aside, there is a good chance that the chainaxe is going to gut you. Not to mention you dont have to reload a melee weapon.

In our group, the guardsman is a veritable killing machine in close combat. So no, I wont be allowing parrying of guns in my game. Thats what dodge is for.

hehe a veritable killing machine that was 1 shotted by the Psyker and his force sword

Jlid said:

I have to admit, I hadn't noticed up until now the rule that you can use extra degrees of success to negate extra hits from a single full-auto burst. But I still have to point out: the full-auto burst in my example will produce on average 3.6 hits, so you'll need 3 extra degrees of success on a dodge roll to avoid being hit - not all that likely even for someone with a fantastic AG. Admittedly to avoid both of the expected 2 hits from the melee fighter you'll need Wall of Steel and/or Step Aside, but given that the melee fighter has already had to take 4 talents just to get those 4 attacks I think we can give the defender the benefit of the doubt there!

But it isn't the hecuter I'm worried about, 'cause that only does d10+3I with Pen 2. It's the Mark III Sunfury dealing out d10+10E with Pen 7 that I'm worried about. Allowing the +10 bonus for semi-auto fire, that will probably hit me twice, and I'll need a nice dodge roll or I'm taking some pretty horrific damage.

I'm still mulling it over but my gut feeling is that (a) pistols already get to be good at range, so I want to err on the side of making them less good in melee for balance purposes, and (b) John Woo has a lot to answer for and I have to make sure at least some of my acolytes aren't dual-pistol-wielding crazies.

my assassin started with a horrible agility (damned hive worlds) and after spending 850xp for +15 agi and 200 for dodge +20, Im dodging on a 64. not TERRIBLY difficult to get 3+ degrees of success (and you can always fate point a degree in a last ditch effort)

Im used to dodging hecutors and carnadons though, i mustive missed the d10+10 monstrosity you referenced....but now I want one....and i want our tech priest to make it accurate for me

It's in the Inquisitor's Handbook. Scary.

The mark III Sunfury is not a pistol though, its a basic plasma weapon. The appendix has it listed as a basic, while the text has it as a pistol. The errata later corrects it to a basic weapon. So that's a relief there.

Pneumonica said:

Parrying, in game terms, is a Reaction... pending traits, it's the single defensive action that is taken AFTER an attack roll succeeds to either dodge or parry.

While I understand that this 'firearm parry' is a house rule and shouldn't be discussed in this forum; I would ask if you consider it to be an action or a reaction? If it is a reaction, and the attacker has fired a burst or full auto attack striking with multiple bullets, does your 'firearm parry' negate more than one successful hit?

As you say, there is no need to uselessly complicate the game making up rules to fit random choreographed video clips. Might as well through in some jedi, ewoks, and tribbles, I think there are movie clips of those out on Youtube, too. All joking aside, the rules just do not support 'firearm parries' and are fairly clear that they can't be done in game.

But lets be real for a moment... just because this is on Youtube doesn't mean it's supported by the rules or welcome in a DH game:

Cardinalsin said:

The mark III Sunfury is a basic weapon and cant be used in melee. So I used a hecuter in the example since it is a default badass pistol. One of the Warden of the Divisio Immoralis in my game is using a Sunfury and they are definitely nasty. But still able to be dodged. And like smokes said, a 64 dodge will yield 3+ successes relatively easily.

Then you have to worry about parrying multiple shots. How is that possible? That would mean you are parrying bullets and not the gun itself.

Just some food for thought. I have made it clear with the players that there will be no parrying of guns in our last game session.