We ran into a situation where 5 mooks were recklessly trying to push past our force-sword weilding sorcer who was standing at the door...

1. How many free attacks should the sorcerer get?

We judged that he could get no more than his Agility bonus, but I could maybe see it using up a reaction for that round.

2. Since the sorcerer is attacking them on their turn, do they get to dodge (as per the "can't use reactions on your own turn" rule)?

Thanks.

1. Presuming none of them decide to just make a Disengage action, as many as there are attempts to leave melee. If that's 5 guys, it's five attack rolls. The natural cap on this is the amount of people who can fit into melee range of the Sorcerer, which isn't a whole heck of a lot, most of the time.

Also, it should NOT cost a reaction, ever. Disengaging without the appropriate action should be a risk. If it's now a risk that your opponent may elect to give up his defense in lieu of attacking you, it stops being a risk and starts being a tactical option. It also becomes a huge way to **** with melee guys.

Say he closes on the heavy weapons guy. A very viable tactic for melee, tying up the heavy guns in melee where they're sub-par and preventing them from firing their weapons. Now, instead of wasting a full action retreating, the heavy can just move out, and illicit an attack from the melee guy.

Melee guy can now attack, meaning he loses his reaction for the chance of possibly killing the heavy. If the Heavy lives, he still has a half action left to full auto with, and the melee guy has no reaction without very expensive talents, and thus takes full damage with no save.

Or the melee guy can not attack, in which case the heavy now got to disengage for no damage as a half action. He's also now out of melee range, and may fire his heavy weapon at the melee guy.

See how that totally screws over the melee guy?

2. Nope. No reactions on your own turn. Not taking the full action disengage action should be a risk. And, while there are cases where you should possibly be allowed to spend a reaction on your turn, this is not in my mind one of them. If you want to run and do something else so bad this turn, you should do so knowing full well that you're risking that a sorcerer stab you in the back with a force weapon, with you having nothing to say about it.

The bigger question in this situation is wether the 'mooks' were 'in melee' with the psyker and how they were getting past him. If he is standing in a narrow doorway and they have to actualy push him out of the way to get through I think they need to do more than just take a move action and he gets to block it pretty easily. If it's a big open door a couple of chaos marines could walk through side by side, I could see taking reactions to try to stop more than one guy from going through.

As soon as I posted, I realized using a reaction to do the attack was a bit silly. I was more thinking out loud.

The situation was like this:

- Sorcerer was standing 1 metre inside the door, so if anyone wanted to get through the door they'd have to go within melee range of the sorcerer.
- The 5 mooks were standing roughly 4 metres away(not in melee) so the were too far away to use the disengage action to get past the sorcerer. They could have used a move action to move up to the sorcerer, then attempt an acrobatics check to do the disengage as a half action (assuming they were trained in the skill), but that was too much of a risk.
- the mooks had no-where to go, since they were cornered in a room with no other exits.

As far as how many people can be in melee with the sorcerer at once...it doesn't seem to apply, since each enemy is taking his turn to rush past the sorcerer.

We chose to cap the free attacks to a number equal to the attackers agility bonus because it seems a bit cheesy to have an infinite** number of attacks for free.

**assuming an infinite number of enemies are trying to get by

Assuming he doesn't want them to get past it sounds to me like they would have to make some sort of test, either bowling him over or slipping past. Something like the 'knock down' action with help from friends using the ganging up rules if more than one are trying to get past at the same time. Or the acrobatics check if they don't want to try to push past him. I'm assuming that individualy they wouldn't pose much of a challenge, but stopping half a dozen guys from all pushing past at the same time is hard. Even if you do stab the first one, the others will try to slip past while their friend dies.

It also matters what your goals are for the situation as a GM. If you want a decent chance for the goons to escape and make life hard for the PCs later, make them act in concert and have a chance if luck is on their side. If you don't mind them all being slaughtered, let them die one by one as they attempt to run past. It's not that the rules change so much as which actions you pick based on your preference.

By a strict RAW it gets harder. Technicaly they were not 'engaged in melee' with him when they began their move action so no free attacks. So strict RAW if there was space for them to move past him they get to run past without getting attacked at all. Common sense and being reasonable say not so much.

Nathiel said:

But common sense and being reasonable say, to me, that someone shouldn't be able to hit 5 fleeing targets in the span of 3?, 6? seconds. (I don't remember how long a combat round is)

Also I don't think we want to have to define every instance of "engaged in melee". If I've got a sniper rifle and a sword-weilding lunatic moves in on me, am I "engaged in melee"? technically, I can't be because I don't have a weapon that I can use in melee and the swordy guy never attacked me. Should he get a free attack if I choose to run away?

Based on my groups interpretation, we say they're in melee.

Basically, we've interpreted it as "if you move out of MELEE RANGE without disengaging, you provoke a free attack". Maybe there's a better interpretation...hence the point of this thread.

Also, while it seems the obvious tactic to gang up on some one, mechanically it's hard to do. By the way delay works, it would be hard to co-ordinate a group effort. In order to act in concert, some people are forced to use up a half-action to delay. Really, all they can do is move in, which provides some tactical advantages to your allies, I suppose.

Like I said, it depends on the GMs decisions. With my group If they are just five goons, we never roll seperate initiatives. They just all go at the same time. (but since my group's main game is Deathwatch we don't even care about 5 goons. unless it's a horde or something scary it doesn't have a chance.)

if the GM knows that all 5 are trying to rush past, then he can use some creative lisence with the rules and give them the bonuses in combat for ganging up (+20 without thedouble team talent in this case, and +10 for moving before the knock down attempt.) and let them try the opposed strength for the knock down. If they win, he falls down and at least some get away. if he wins they are stopped. If he wins by a lot then they fall down. or even let the first guy try without the bonus, the second guy gets the +10 for outnumbering 2 to 1, the third and later guys have the +20 for outnumbering 3 to one. once one succeeds then the rest can run past. I wouldn't be likely to give him free swings at people if he's on the ground, but the ones who took him down still have to survive his next action before they can disengage and run.

You say the risk of trying the acrobatics roll is too great, but if the other option is certain death then why not try?

My view is that they don't get the option of simply moving past in that confined area without a test. if you're going to do it anyway, then the Ag bonus is as good as any for a limit. Don't forget the bonus you get to melee vs. someone who is running.

Instead of all running I'd probably have them cower in the corners and shoot if they have weapons and if they don't then they would hope that he can't kill all of them at once or would have to come into the room to get some of them and the others could run out when he did that. I'm guessing there was more going on than that though.

I think the best thing would have been to lay down suppression fire and force the sorcerer to find cover (assuming he'd failed his will save). Then people could just run out.

When I say the acrobatics was too risky, I just meant that they'd have to close and if they failed their check they'd be standing right next to the guy who just decapitated their buddy.

I think there was more going on (we haven't puzzled out the whole mystery yet). In the end, I think they were all jacked up on combat drugs so they just kept firing. I think whoever hired them didn't really want them to survive.

The point is that there was a big discussion over how many free attacks a person should be able to have - and it slowed down the flow of the game - so I'm just looking for some clarification.

Lecram said:

Reverend mort said:

LOL! Mort, you kill me sometimes. (no punn intended)

Thank you all for your advice. I shall pass your wisdom on to my group.

@Nathiel

The bigger question in this situation is wether the 'mooks' were 'in melee' with the psyker and how they were getting past him. If he is standing in a narrow doorway and they have to actualy push him out of the way to get through I think they need to do more than just take a move action and he gets to block it pretty easily. If it's a big open door a couple of chaos marines could walk through side by side, I could see taking reactions to try to stop more than one guy from going through.

What do you mean, "if"? If the opening isn't a double door big enough to drive a tank through, with both adamantium doors engraved with either faces in agony or litanies praising the Emperor, several Cherubim floating nearby and announcing everyone who steps through and a skull crowning the door frame, it has no place in a 40k rpg anyway!

@Lecram

We chose to cap the free attacks to a number equal to the attackers agility bonus because it seems a bit cheesy to have an infinite** number of attacks for free.

**assuming an infinite number of enemies are trying to get by

The problem with that line of thought is choosing to apply temporary limitations to one side, but not the other. Yes, it makes no sense that the sorceror can slash at an infinite amount of guys rushing past within six seconds. But it makes no sense either that an infinite amount of guys are able to rush past him in the same time - that doorway is going to get seriously crowded otherwise.

Cifer said:

I agree. I was being facetious but I think the point still stands that, in the situation, it feels like overkill. I think we're still in a D&D "attack of opportunity" mind-set and we should look at the other combat options when dealing with this type of thing.

On a similar note: If a character is weilding a pistol in melee, and the opponent runs away, can you use the pistol for the free attack or does it only apply to melee weapons?

Lecram said:

Yes, p.147:

Pistol weapons are fired one-handed and can be used in
close combat.

You get a free standard attack, and as a pistol can be used in close combat, you would get the attack.

Also, you can be engaged in melee with a sniper rifle. The restriction is that the weapon could not be used in melee, and not that they cannot be engaged in melee.

Personally, I think it would have worked better if you'd had them form a horde with a magnitude equal to the number of mooks that were trying to escape. They all act at once to rush the door, and at most they lose two due to the free attack and bonus magnitude damage from using a power weapon (well, unless the guy had whirlwind of death, but then they'd all end up dead no matter how you do it, so it's not like it would hurt.)

I remember having a similar discussion in the DH boards a while back on a similar topic, but my thoughts are that one is "locked in melee" only when two individuals are about 1m apart from each other and some sort of attack has been made between the two. This means that it is possible for two individuals to march up to each others faces and let loose with basic/heavy weaponry, just that after the first shot, the two are now locked in melee.

This prevents people from running up to heavy weapons users and locking them out of being useful (even without landing a melee attack). Also, the definition of being locked in melee does imply an attack of some sort must be made. Adjacency is not enough.

In the provided examples, this would imply the mooks could get through the door, unless the PC was blocking the entire space.

This is where things always get sketchy for me… and the reason why we try avoiding defining "locked in melee".

My understanding is basic/heavy weapons can''''''''t be used in melee - only melee weapons and pistols can be used in melee. So if you want to run past the guy with the Reaper auto-cannon, his hands are full and can''''''''t really make a free attack. I''''d allow for someone weilding a non-pistol gun in one hand make an off-hand unarmed attack, but that''''''''s it.

Example 1: two enemies(A and B), both weilding melee weapons are standing within 1 metre of each other, fighting other people(X and Y), even though A and B are free to attack each other - the fact that they haven''''''''t means they aren''''t locked in melee? I can see your point, but why wouldn''''''''t A get a free shot at B if he tries to run away?

The same issue comes up when firing into melee.

Example 2: A moves in on B with the INTENT of attacking, but doesn''''''''t have a chance to attack yet because he delayed. Does that mean they are not in melee? No-one sufferes the -20 to shoot and it also means B can run away without any penalty?

I''''''''m not disagreeing with your take on it, I guess you can look at it any way. In example 1, A and B are too busy fighting other enemies to be able to react to each other; in example 2, B can withdraw before anyone has a chance to lock him into combat - he can be purely defensive, or back up and fire his auto-cannon…

It just seems easier to say, "dude moves within "melee range" therefore you can smack him"

EDIT: why do all my question marks look like arrows and why are all my apostraphes multiplying►►►

In my rulings, in example 1, yes, no attack would be made if A tries to move from B, and yes, in example 2, they would not be in melee.

Personally I''m fine with how both of those work, as in example 1, they weren''t paying attention to each other, and in 2, the attacker chose to delay and thus did not have the time to properly act.

Intent to do something is different from actually doing it. I can have an angry look in my eyes, but if I haven''t had the time needed to act on it, then it doesn''t mean much.

What I''m trying to prevent is a situation where people use the run action as a means of locking out heavy weapons. That somehow, magically, by running up right into the face of the guy with the heavy bolter you can actually prevent him from shooting you. And not only that, but you get a free attack if he tries to move away. I can buy if you move and attack (i.e. charge), but not simply moving.

Honestly its not too difficult a state to track, just requires that you track if two individuals have traded attacks within the 1m range.

What it means is that people should be careful about how close they get to others. The point blank +30 to hit is terrifying if you haven''t locked up the heavy weapons guy properly.

So then, in the situation with the mooks and the sorcerer, they would all get to run out of the room past the sorcerer without the fear of being attacked. What I like about that is it limits the number of free attacks to the number of people you are allowed to be in melee with at once. I don''''t remember what that number is…3, 4? I suppose it depends on your size as well.

EDIT:

The way you do it, do you actually need to LAND a hit or does the act of attacking lock someone into combat.

At my table any attempted attack within the 1m range causes the two to be "locked in melee" for the purposes of no basic/heavy weapons, -20 to be shot at from the outside, losing point blank bonuses vs. your target, and being able to attack your enemy if they fail to disengage before they move.

Yes this does mean I allow basic and heavy weapons to be used within a 1m range (at least for the first attack, after that, they are locked in melee). If the target has not bothered to properly attack the gunner as they moved in that close, then they also are not bothering with living much longer.

Generally I disallow movement through occupied areas, so if the door was only 1m wide, the mooks wouldn''''t be able to pass through (or wider, since marine size is larger).

In the case of your sorcerer, if he wanted to truly block the doorway, he would need to ready an action to attack and/or grapple the first target attempting to get through. Which leads to a further house rule that might need to be added regarding walking through areas occupied by friends, especially when they''''''''re locked in melee.

Sadly DH/RT/DW/BC don''''''''t really bother with grid/map ranges, so alot of this is fairly abstract.

KommissarK said:

I don''t see why you would need to allow Basic/heavy to be used within 1m. If the melee guy runs in and doesn''''t attack, then the gunner is free to move back as a half action and mow the guy down. It works in BC since full auto is now a half-action. Really, all moving in on the gunner does is force him to back-up a bit, so I can see an instance where you back a guy into a corner and he can''''t get his gun free to shoot on you. Which makes sense especially when you are talking about Heavy weapons that are extremely long and unwieldly - if you are inside the length of his barrel, he wouldn''''t be able to pointed at you.

I''ll admit I haven''t had a chance to try it out in BC yet. Most of this is coming from my DH experience (don''t worry, I did get BC and check its rules for how it defines "locked in melee," pretty much copy and pasted since RT, so no real changes). Personally I disagree with full auto being a half round/losing the +20 bonus, but that''s a conversation for another time.

I would imagine in BC it would just be more effective to take aim and full auto, and make use of the attack while you still have it. Pretty soon you''re going to be locked in melee anyway, and moving back 3-8 meters isn''t going to change that (unless you can kill them first). Also, move back too far and you''d lose the point blank bonus, which would hurt.

Except that while he gains a +30, he loses he has to use up a half-action to brace or suffer a -20, so he only gets a +10 to shoot. I kind of like that. It''s why a basic gun, in that situation, would have an advantage over the Heavy and it''s also becomes a slightly tactical (albeit very risky) move to run in on the guy who''s got his Heavy Bolter braced and ready. Anyway, I digress. Thanks for your opinion.

Ah yes, bracing.

Actually never had a player try to use heavy weapons without already having bulging biceps, so it hasn''t been an issue at my table.

As far as I am aware there is no "Zone of Control" in 40k RPG. As long as characters are not actively attacked in melee, enemies are not enagaged automatically when they come within 1 metre of an enemy. People can freely run past each other. To "control" an area you have to "Delay", and then use your half action to attack someone that tries to get past you. At that point that person is then engaged and would have to use the Disengage action to get away. However, anyone else could run past with impunity as they are not yet engaged.

Oh, looks like it has been dealt with already…

I'd consider anyone locked in melee who is standing next to someone who wants lock him. Firstly, this makes it a bad idea to just run past someone rather than engaging him and then withdrawing, representing a more careful approach. Secondly, it emphasizes the drawback of Heavy weapons - and considering the damage they deal, I have nothing against them having a drawback.

A system where Attacks of Opportunity are difficult to set up generally makes it really hard to protect someone when the PCs are in the minority. As Borithan noted, Delay only ever works against one person. But as long as people running past me pay no attention to their own defence, it's quite easy to slash multiple times within the six seconds represented by a round of combat.