On the other hand for equal combatants it's easier now to block. In DH, RT, DW. If someone dumped at you 4 atack you could dodge max 2 from his 4 and you would be dead. Now you can negate all his attacks.

Now some math.

Let's say Both guys have 50 ws. Both are unaligned.

Bob have 2 mc power sword he have ambidextrous, blade dancer, SA, LA, two wp. wielder = 2750 xp he can make 2 LA with 50 WS (no penalty from 2 wp wielding, mc negate -10 penalty from LA), he can parry with ws 50+10 balanced+10 mc sword = 70

Jake have MC power sword and MC shield he have SA, step aside and parry +20 for 2300 xp, he can parry with shield with massive WS 50+20 (from skill) + 25 ffrom shield = 95, he can attack with aimed SA 50 WS+10 (aim)+10 MC =70

So after spending massive exp you have great kiling machine but in fight with someone with good def he can be easily beaten.

coolzyg said:

You could get up to 3 Reactions for Melee attacks: Basic Reaction, Step Aside and Wall of Steel.

As I said, I don't think Duel Wielding was originally meant to stack with multiple attacks, so I suspect the original maximum was meant to be 3. Even if we go with 4, that leaves 1 uncounterable attack. Even with a good attack percentage of say 70ish at least one of those attacks would be expected to miss (Yes, I know the to hit can go much higher, but FFG let the bonuses get away from them a bit, and raising the cap to +/-60 let these pile up to ridiculous levels), so you are probably going to get to attempt to parry all the attacks that actually hit. You will probably expect to fail at least one parry, but then all you get hit by is one attack, while as with the new rules you can successfully parry and possibly be hit multiple times. If you fail one or both of your reactions you could be hit up to 10 times by the duel wielding monster you have statted up, while as before it was going to be at most 4.

Ok, yes you're parrying monster you have built there will have a decent chance to fend most of their attacks off (Parrying at 95... wtf? That would just get frustrating in the end. I was also not keen on the idea of making parrying a skill), but then those without the multiple attack talents will be utterly hopeless in the face of that (ok, feinting aside).

You could get up to 3 Reactions for Melee attacks: Basic Reaction, Step Aside and Wall of Steel.

As I said, I don't think Duel Wielding was originally meant to stack with multiple attacks, so I suspect the original maximum was meant to be 3. Even if we go with 4, that leaves 1 uncounterable attack. Even with a good attack percentage of say 70ish at least one of those attacks would be expected to miss (Yes, I know the to hit can go much higher, but FFG let the bonuses get away from them a bit, and raising the cap to +/-60 let these pile up to ridiculous levels), so you are probably going to get to attempt to parry all the attacks that actually hit. You will probably expect to fail at least one parry, but then all you get hit by is one attack, while as with the new rules you can successfully parry and possibly be hit multiple times. If you fail one or both of your reactions you could be hit up to 10 times by the duel wielding monster you have statted up, while as before it was going to be at most 4.

The original maximum was 4. Two-weapon wielding and lightning attack has stacked through the entire gameline, basically. 3 from lightning and 1 from the off-hand has been pretty consistent. However, most characters got hit by that combo far more than once. First of all, in the no longer used Rank system, both wall of Steel and Step Aside were high ranked, high cost talents. You rarely found them on players and you really shouldn't be seeing them on npc's very often either. The end result being that characters who meleed had a tendency to bog down play with a lot of separately resolved attacks that, in the end, exhausted most opponents reactions after the first or possibly second strike.

Or to put it another way, characters built to punch their way through defenses are rather good at punching through the defenses of most opponents. This is more or less the same now.

And yes, you can still successfully parry and be hit. However, this is basically an opposed test, where you have the advantage. Unlike the attacker, you're not suffering a penalty for lightning attacking, and since you're using a skill you can easily gain a more reliable and potent bonus for less cost than the attacker (he buys up a characteristic, you're buying a skill) alongside easily accessible equipment bonuses. In short, a character built to handle melee both offensively and defensively can easily acquire a solid defense without sacrificing any significant offensive potential. Hell, I'd even be willing to say that defenses might be more effective and reliable now than previously!

Ok, yes you're parrying monster you have built there will have a decent chance to fend most of their attacks off (Parrying at 95... wtf? That would just get frustrating in the end. I was also not keen on the idea of making parrying a skill), but then those without the multiple attack talents will be utterly hopeless in the face of that (ok, feinting aside).

So? Shouldn't a character built for extreme defense in close combat be capable of... extremely effective defense? That particular example is a character that carries A SHIELD to boost the 2000+ xp it's dumped purely into defending itself. Xp is a resource because the things it buys you makes you better. If you put it all in one place, you should be able to expect reasonable and increasing returns, since in general we want characters who focus on one area so that they have clearly defined weaknesses and strengths to not only play to and against, but to indicate what the player wants to do. Ergo, the increasing returns on specialization.

I mean hell, you know what those multiple attack lacking characters might do against said parry fiend? Shot it with a gun! Preferably one with full-auto. No talents required. Some ballistic skill wouldn't hurt, but hey, let's not completely eliminate the variable of skill from the table .

And nice move glancing past the very purpose of feint. You're basically complaining that an uber-specialized character build is good at what it does, especially when you're not accounting for the mechanics that could be used to bypass it.

Reverend mort said:

Basically, as I read the original intention behind duel-wielding, it was not intended primarily for sword bunnies, who should just concentrate on the multiple attack talents. Instead the options are mostly there for gunslingers (ie duel wielding pistols), which is why they can remove the penalty entirely with the Gunslinger Talent, and pistol/sword combo users, and even there it is mostly a defensive option (ie having a sword to parry with while using the pistol as your main offensive weapon). Two sword wielding isn't even really a 40k trope (unlike sword/pistol and, less often, dual pistols). The only ones I can currently think of that are modeled as such are Death Cult Assassins.

Step Aside and Wall of Steel were not high cost in Dark Heresy. I know they were in Deathwatch, but then I think FFG really took their eye off the ball in several areas on Deathwatch. And, yes, having had a closer look at the career progressions (I had done before, but not all of them all the way through) sometimes you might find a higher level character who would have access to no extra reactions (Psyker and Guardsman, the latter rather oddly. Some of the other branches of other careers don't get them either, but the career at least has the option), but the assassin aside (who gets Lightning Attack comparatively early) with the other careers there is a kind of arms race between reactions. Swift Attack will come first, but a usually little later (next rank or so) a second reaction will become available, and Lightning attack is usually (assassins and Storm Troopers aside) a very high level talent, ie Rank 7 or 8, so for most careers there will be at most 1 uncounterable attack (some high level assassins and scum getting 3 reactions). Deathwatch kind of lost sight of that and gave swift attack at rank 1 to one class, and not until much later for everyone else, and giving them lightning attack at rank 2 which just meant assault marines (particularly with the lack of extra reactions) were not just better than anyone else in melee, they just were streets ahead at an absurd level no one could even get close to.

Ok, yes you can just shoot the guy, and yes, I guess I did gloss over feint (though I have rarely seen it used, and almost every time either it fails or the follow up attack fails... though I can't blame that on the option itself, just the luck of the draw). However, I guess I just see a 95% parry as a ridiculous solution to a problem that the new attack system has created (the potential for absurd numbers of hits), which in itself is a fix for a problem that was not created by the way that the melee system worked previously but because FFG didn't realise the balancing of it. I also find the new system more cumbersome than the old. Yes, it decreases dice rolls, but each dice roll requires more thought ("How many degrees of success was that? 4? 5?" compared to "Do I get under my needed score? Yes! A hit/parry!") which I also feel is less approachable, especially for those that are not experienced gamers. It also saves little on damage rolls (and can increase the number of those).

Rogue Trader and Deathwatch (and now Dark Heresy under FFG) allow the stacking of Duel-Weapon Wielding with multiple attacks. However, looking closely at the original text for duel-weapon wielding as written by Black Industries (taking into account its typos which means at one point the context shows it quite obviously says the opposite of what it means, ie regarding parrying with an off-hand), I would argue they were not originally meant to stack. Swift/Lightning Attack are Full Actions in of themselves, and it takes a Full Action to attack with both weapons when duel-wielding (which is only possible if you have the two-weapon wielder talent(s), ie you cannot do it at all, not even that you have an even worse penalty as FFG ruled). To me that suggests you cannot combine them, especially when looking at WFRP 2nd ed, which I know is a different game, but is the system Dark Heresy was adapted (heavily) from, in which duel wielding gives no particular offensive benefits.

Seriously? Because a different game by a different company had a different rule, clearly things shouldn't work differently now, 4 versions and a new company later? Do you insist people calculate Thac0 in 4th edition D&D too? Whether or not they were meant to stack is completely irrelevant, because it's a completely different game! If the designers meant for something to do X is, to me, somewhat secondary whether or not the game benefits from it being done.

Basically, as I read the original intention behind duel-wielding, it was not intended primarily for sword bunnies, who should just concentrate on the multiple attack talents. Instead the options are mostly there for gunslingers (ie duel wielding pistols), which is why they can remove the penalty entirely with the Gunslinger Talent, and pistol/sword combo users, and even there it is mostly a defensive option (ie having a sword to parry with while using the pistol as your main offensive weapon). Two sword wielding isn't even really a 40k trope (unlike sword/pistol and, less often, dual pistols). The only ones I can currently think of that are modeled as such are Death Cult Assassins.

Leaving aside the fact that "original intent" is irrelevant, why shouldn't close combat characters get to benefit from dual-wielding, especially now when multiple attacks with melee and ranged weapons works exactly the same way? Also, now there exists total penalty negator talents for melee too, so another not really working argument. Besides, logically having two weapons (and knowing how to leverage that advantage) should make you better. It's the reason martial arts techniques that use two weapons exist. Because it offers certain advantages.

Lastly, you're once again going "If you ignore these aspects, those aspects don't exist." Death Cult assassin's are not only a 40k staple, they're a core class in the very game you keep appealing to! And that's not mentioning Raptors and Assault marines with lighting claws. Also, there's nothing wrong with expanding or even defying the tropes of the core game. I mean, Imperial Guardsmen surviving anything isn't really a big 40k trope either, but I doubt anyone would wanna claim IG characters in DH should only have 1 wound...

Ok, yes you can just shoot the guy, and yes, I guess I did gloss over feint (though I have rarely seen it used, and almost every time either it fails or the follow up attack fails... though I can't blame that on the option itself, just the luck of the draw). However, I guess I just see a 95% parry as a ridiculous solution to a problem that the new attack system has created (the potential for absurd numbers of hits), which in itself is a fix for a problem that was not created by the way that the melee system worked previously but because FFG didn't realise the balancing of it. I also find the new system more cumbersome than the old. Yes, it decreases dice rolls, but each dice roll requires more thought ("How many degrees of success was that? 4? 5?" compared to "Do I get under my needed score? Yes! A hit/parry!") which I also feel is less approachable, especially for those that are not experienced gamers. It also saves little on damage rolls (and can increase the number of those).

The absurd number of hits "problem" already existed in the old games. The only difference was that it was limited to full-auto ranged weapons. It was also far worse, since it was at a base +30 without any other modifiers, all but ensuring they had the upper hand. Likewise, it's in my experience no more "unbalanced" than the old one. The only difference now is that a solid melee fighter might score a few hits through a less solid defense, where previously a solid melee fighter would pierce a less solid defense by merely exhausting it's reactions.

As for the number of hits, well, since the amount of hits you can score on an attack roll is capped to your WS Bonus, the absolute maximum a non-psyker melee character can score is 7, unless they are extremely minmaxed. And that's still only on a really good roll, and the effective number of hits is still gonna be a bit lower against anything but a really sh*tty or failed defense. Psykers can break this, but they bring more rules into basically everything they do, so that's tbh more of a psyker "issue" rather than an issue with the core mechanic. Also, since in general it's far cheaper on the xp to increase defenses than it is to increase your hit generating chances, while characters may easier score more hits, they have a far, far easier time negating said hits too.

As for the counting degrees thing, I don't really have that much of an issue with it, and there's methods of making that easier. I recall a thread on the topic not too long ago, actually. Besides, that's not something isolated to the combat system. Stealth, deception, daemonic mastery, daemon weapon crafting and certain psychic powers all use the DoS system, and I'm fairly certain they're not the only ones. It's all over the place, and if you don't like it, the solution isn't to change how combat works. It's to change how DoS works!

Reverend mort said:

My point regarding the "original intent" of the writers (which I may have got wrong, but it is just the way the rules strike me) is not that it should now apply into the future, just that what is being described as problem with the original rules may not have actually been a problem, but instead was a misunderstanding. By codifying the misunderstanding (if it was. It of course may not have been and my entire point is invalid) FFG may have made something that wasn't actually a problem into a problem (and exacerbated it by the mess up with Assault Marines in Deathwatch). Then the change in Black Crusade was (in part) a way to fix that problem, which in reality never really existed. Obviously it doesn't apply to Black Crusade as the rules explicitly state otherwise, and erratas and clarifications make it clear that as far as FFG is concerned you can Swift/Lightning attack as well as make a two weapon attack even in the earlier games (Truthfully I don't remember it being explicitly stated, aside from erratas etc as such in RT or DW, but that was because they seemed to continually copy-paste the two-weapon section without properly updating it). So I was not saying "You cannot make a Lightning Attack with both hands in Black Crusade, because the original rules in Dark Heresy suggest you shouldn't," but "The problem that has been complained about the old system, which in part led to the change to the new Swift/Lightning attack, may not have actually been that much of a problem in the first place, but just a misunderstanding of the original intention."

While two-weapon wielding is entirely possible, and a part of certain martial arts, as presented in many fantastical games (such as the 40k rpg) it is largely cinematic and unrealistic. Fighting styles that used two weapons usually used the weapons in a "defensive/offensive" pairing (which is how it is presented in 2nd ed WFRP, where it gave you a free parry where otherwise you had to sacrifice a half-action to prepare it), and/or the second weapon was a more opportunity weapon (while your opponent is occupied with one weapon you take advantage of the opening created to use your back-up weapo)n. There is usually a definite "primary" and "secondary" role to the two weapons. Making two distinct attacks with two different weapons at the same time takes a massive degree of coordination and skill. Not impossible, but rare.

Death Cult Assassins are not a core part of 40k... they are only fairly recent introductions (late end of 3rd edition), and even then, only one of the models is armed with two CCW. The other has a two handed katana. The more iconic two-weapon wielding combo for 40k is the pistol/CCW. Ok, I forgot about Lightning claws, but they are a fairly unique weapon (originally they could only be used in a matched pair). And the truth is until you get to (old style) lightning attack a dual-wielder is not too massively penalised compared to a melee swift attacker. Yes, they would be at -10 (presuming they have ambidextrous, but what respected dual-wielder doesn't take it?) but that is not exactly a crippling penalty and in the original limits of +/-30 as soon as you hit +40 odd bonuses (which I saw regularly in Deathwatch, and only required a little trying in the less powerful systems) you perform almost identically.

Base +30? Don't you mean 20, or are you including the short range bonus? Yes, Full Auto as used in Dark Heresy to Deathwatch was a bit too good. I was puzzled by it when I first saw it (and that was before the first errata changed it from an extra hit for every 2 DoS). And yes, I know the hits are capped by WS Bonus, but that caps things at a fairly high level. Even someone with WS of ~30 can generate up to 6 hits dual-wielding with Lightning attack. Not terribly likely I grant you, when you take the penalties and defences into account, but that increases to 14 with the hypothetical best of 7 WS bonus. Again, it is likely that will be reduced by not having a perfect roll and defences doing their thing, but it wouldn't be that surprising having several hits going through routinely.

Oh, I don't have a problem with the DoS system. I have been playing with it for about 2 years now, and even the slight change for Black Crusade (now a basic success is also a Degree of Success, and that makes some minor changes to how many you need to achieve things like bonus hits) is not the issue. I am just not convinced that it really simplifies or streamlines play. Making 4 rolls between two players and then working out degrees of success doesn't strike me as being quicker than making 7 rolls between two players and just seeing if you get a straight success or not, which can often be told at a glance (both these cases presume that the players involved have the maximum number of attacks and reactions allowed). This is especially the case when you consider that there is not much chance of saving damage rolls (and in fact, in some cases the new system can generate many more damage rolls).

A few game sessions ago in we had to fight genestealers which had two weapon fighter, lightning attacks and multiple arms trait from what I remember as a player. Each of them did 4 lighting attacks per combat action.

We play Ascended Dark Heresy, but upgraded to the Black Crusade combat rules half way though that mission. It made the gene stealers a real threat after the rule change. My crusader was equipped with a power fist and a power sword. So, I got to do a lightning attack (sword) and swift attack (fist) each turn, which really helped to even the odds.

Since my Crusader has the “Wall of Steel” talent, that doesn’t exist in Black Crusade, most of the kills were from counter attacks. Luckily my character was never charged by more than 4 genestealers at a time. And I never charged the genestealers with my character, I always had them charge my character to lessen their attacks while my character was in full defense stance/mode (counter attack heaven). I wondering if "step aside" just encorporates Wall of Steel is a single talent now.

So, multiple weapon usage making PCs over powered has nothing on monsters with multiple the limb trait. Now I need to do some research weather the attack with both weapons only count as a half action, I totally forgot.

I just got my own copy of Black Crusade in the mail today, I'm sure the I'm going to run into some interesting rule situations trying to get my ascended DH character ported to the BC rules.

The replacement talent now grants you an extra "Reaction", rather than specifying whether it is a dodge or a parry, so you can still parry twice, or dodge twice... you just cannot do two of one and one of the other anymore. In most cases this doesn't change balance much, as you only had two reactions to ranged attacks at most (dodges) and the number of melee attack rolls coming back at you has reduced (the change to lightning and swift attack).