Hello

First of all I wanted to say hi, as I'm new to these forums. I'm also new to DH and i wanted to as a couple of questions. I'm a DM for 3 years now. So far I've only DM'ed WFRP 2Ed and some oWoD. Now, I know that DH is rather similar to WFRP when it comes to rules, but I have a few questions. I hope that you guys will be able to help me with them.

- In WFRP hits to the head dealt twice the damage, after reducing TB and AP. Same with eye hits. I couldn't find anything about it in DH rulebook.

- Are there any rules for the damaging of armour in DH? In WFRP, when a hit with strentgh 7 or more was dealt, there was a chance of armour destruction. Again, I couldn't find anything about it in DH.

- How should I treat the followning action, as a full one, or a simple one: One of my players hides behind a wall. he's completely concealed but stand very near the edge of this wall. He wants to lean and fire on a cultist. How much does leaning cost? Is it a free action, as this guys stands near the edge, or should he spend a half action to lean and the other half to shoot?

- Do my players have to buy every single skill and talent for their characters' current rank in order to advance to the second one? If no, will they be able to purchase the left-over ones, after further career advancement?

- When a player characters is engaged in melee combat with 2 or more enemies and has a swift attack/l ightning attack trait, can he attack several enemies at one, in his round? I know that a firearms trait (desperado?) let's you shoot at a couple of enemies, if they are not more than 2 meters away from each other (I also know that there is a trait which lets you ignore the 2 meter restriction). I was wondering if a similar thing could be done in close combat situations?

I think that's all for now. Thanks in advance for your help guys.

1. There is no current rule for doing double damage for head shots.

2. Not to my knowledge about armor damage/destruction, well short of critical hits.

3. I should be a free action, but for the cultist firing back your player has his head and right or left arm exposed and the rest is has cover.

4. No your players don't have to buy every single skill or talents to advance to the next rank. Yes they can purchase skills/talents from previous ranks.

5. I want to say yes, but I'm not completely sure though.

This is how I understand the rules (and if someone knows otherwise, please correct me)

1) Wounds dealt to the head don't benefit from any such rule. The main advantage to striking the head is it is the one area least likely to be protected by armor, and has a different critical table. You could always house-rule it though.

2) Destruction of armor doesn't really have a specific rule (that I know of). My group has decided that a power weapon can destroy the area of armor that has been struck by the power field on a 75% chance. (Leg armor, or whatnot gets destroyed) Cover does have rules for being depleted/destroyed.

3) I find this to be a bit of a grey area. The problem doesn't happen with leaning out and firing, but firing and then pulling back completely behind cover. It's exploitable. The way I rule it is that if you're leaning out and shooting you don't make a move in meters, but to move back requires a half move. It's enough that you could lean out and fire a single shot, and lean back in. You wouldn't be able to fire semi or full auto, and then move so all of your body is protected by cover.

4) Each rank requires an amount of xp to be spent. Rank 1 is from 0-499 experience. So once a player has spent 500 experience he is in rank 2. A player may purchase advances from the rank he is in, and any before it. Theoretically you could advance to rank 8 without ever making a purchase in rank 7.

5) I don't believe any talent is required to allocate melee attacks between two targets so long as they are both engaged with you. Keep in mind, those two enemies DO get an advantage for outnumbering you.

- In WFRP hits to the head dealt twice the damage, after reducing TB and AP. Same with eye hits. I couldn't find anything about it in DH rulebook.

There is nothing general (i.e. I'm not considering any weird one-off item/weapon) in this system that makes hits to the head any more deadly beyond the severity of the crit table for that location (which you're only going to hit once they're at 0 wounds anyway).

- Are there any rules for the damaging of armour in DH? In WFRP, when a hit with strentgh 7 or more was dealt, there was a chance of armour destruction. Again, I couldn't find anything about it in DH.

I want to say I have seen rules for that, it could just be the ablative armour mods from Rogue Trader/Black Crusade.

- How should I treat the followning action, as a full one, or a simple one: One of my players hides behind a wall. he's completely concealed but stand very near the edge of this wall. He wants to lean and fire on a cultist. How much does leaning cost? Is it a free action, as this guys stands near the edge, or should he spend a half action to lean and the other half to shoot?

This is always a tricky thing. First big thing, how does he intend to "fire" (Standard Attack half action, or Full/semi auto full action)? Is he trying to maintain "total" concealment (and thus make the enemy suffer that -30 or whatever it is to hit him)? Generally, I just give the player the bonus AP from cover when they're behind it and go from there. So effectively they're exposed, but still get the cover bonus. If he really wants to be totally concealed I would probably allow the guy to lean out/back as a free-half action, but then have it turn out that one of the opponents has Overwatch engaged, and fires at him as he does so.

- Do my players have to buy every single skill and talent for their characters' current rank in order to advance to the second one? If no, will they be able to purchase the left-over ones, after further career advancement?

No, you open up the next rank once you've spent the XP to get to that point. Yes, you can buy skills/talents from a previous rank.

- When a player characters is engaged in melee combat with 2 or more enemies and has a swift attack/l ightning attack trait, can he attack several enemies at one, in his round? I know that a firearms trait (desperado?) let's you shoot at a couple of enemies, if they are not more than 2 meters away from each other (I also know that there is a trait which lets you ignore the 2 meter restriction). I was wondering if a similar thing could be done in close combat situations?

I'm reasonably sure you can split your attacks from a multiple attack action up against any valid target in range.

Thank you for your answers. They're really helpfull. I still have two more tough.

-What's with the called shot attack? Is it a half or a full action?

-My players want to know if there are any items that work similar to healing draughts from WFRP. You know-you drink one and immediately recover X wounds. I couldn't find any item like that. I guess there are none, since you can spent fate points to quickly restore your health.

Oh, and while were at it-is it possible to use fate points like that, more than once during session? I know that you can spend only a single fate point to re-roll a failed test, and not more. At least that's what the rulebook says.

Again, thanks for your help.

Called Shot: Ugh….I have to read up on that one again real quick, but I believe it's a standard attack. You should be able to do a half-move, and then make a called shot.

Draughts: Healing comes down to Medicae, or Psyker powers like "Seal Wounds". I don't know of any draughts, potions, etc that provide instant healing. (Honestly, it doesn't seem to fit the grimdark)

You can't use multiple fate points on one test, but it's fine to spread them amongst multiple tests. So if I have 3 fate points, I can choose to reroll 3 tests. But I can't use 3 rerolls on one test.

Xathrodox86 said:

I wasn't aware that hits to the head dealt extra damage in WFRP 2nd ed, and I've played that game a lot.

-K

Likewise. But I do recall the critical hits to the head caused IPs

I think that called shot should be considered as a full action. I've always tought that called shot was simmilar to aiming - you know, half action for aiming and than the other one for firing. Even with -20 to hit, making the called shot a half action is really overpowering.
Remember that there's also an issue of short range - even with -20 to BS from called shot it's not so hard to hit, when you are firing at someone on close range with what? +30 to hit I belive?

Xathrodox86 said:

And that can be a house rule for you if you like, but I'm pretty certain it's not RAW. (Rules as Written)

You can aim, and then make a called shot. You can take a full aim on a turn, and next turn take a called shot. It's common for sharpshooter characters to do just this. The sheer difficulty of the shot is represented by that -20, but can be mitigated by taking a good amount of time to line up sights and fire on a specific body part. It doesn't say anywhere in the called shot description that it takes more time to line up this shot, and characters who have taken the Deadeye Shot or Sharpshooter talent to shoot from the hip.

I'm not saying it's the most realistic, but it is RAW and is pretty well balanced.

But shouldn't the called shot be counted as an aim action - which means that at least an additional half action needs to be spend to perform the attack? Remember that a character needs to aim at the precise body part. I don't know, I'm, just saying that this should be considered a full action - I'm pretty sure it its in WFRP 2Ed.

And one more thing while we're at it. Can I improve the called shot if my character performs an aim action before that? Can I make a full aim action, or just a hal one? What do you guys think about that?

Can you shoot at a Servo-Skull? At a rat? Why, yes you can! You get a -20 penalty to hit such a small target, but that's the only difference between shooting at a head-sized target, and a human-sized target.

You're free to aim, shoot single, semi or full auto as you please.

Now tell me why it should be more difficult, or to take longer, to shoot at a head-sized target attached to a body?

Pretty sure Called Shot is a Full Round Action. (In fact, in DW, part of the SM power armour grants the special ability to make them as half actions.) Which means you'd have to aim in the precedding round to get the bonus and offset the -20.

Otherwise: what Darth Smeg said: a head-sized object is a head-sized object.

Macharias the Mendicant said:

It isn't in Dark Heresy. It's just a modifier like range, darkness etc etc.

But in Rogue Trader and later versions of the game, it becomes its own combat action, which is a Full Action. I never liked this change, which I think don't make any sense, and have kept the DH way of doing things even though we've adapted most other changes from BC/OW into our DH game.

I think that I'll allow the called shot to be a single action afterall. That's a sensible thing to do. Anyway, I have another question and a tricky one. According to rulebook you can only do a single action once during aturn. Now here's my question regarding the lean out action, which I've asked you guys earlier about. How should I treat this one? Leaning out as a free action and then hiding behind the corner/crate/wall etc. should be considered as movement. This means that during his turn the PC can do the following actions: lean out, shoot, lean back. Two move actions. Isn't that against the rules?

You can't actually do it like you suggest, which would be to abuse the sequential resolution of characters actions to avoid exposing oneself to attacks, while still being able to shoot.

Imagine if all the fighters did the same: They would never see each other. He leans out, sees nobody (they are all hiding) and… shoots what exactly? Then hides. And so forth.

Basically, everyone acts at the same time, even though the actions are resolved in turns for practical gameplay reasons.

If you choose to expose yourself to shoot, then you will be exposed for that round.

If you really want to hide your entire body behind Cover, this is best reflected by the Stand/Go Prone Action (which is a Half Action, I think).

If you're crouching down behind cover/hiding behind the corner, you will not get shot, but neither can you shoot.

Xathrodox86 said:

Ok, got it. I must say that this makes a lot of sense. But I was also wondering how much bonus modifiers (both good and bad) can a person possibly have? I think that max is +30/-30. I just don't want a situation where a PC or a bad guy aims, shoot from point blank range, has a red dot sight etc. and suddendly recives a +50 bonus. Same thing with penalty modifiers.

I'd also like to know if it's possible to perform an aim action and then shoot on semi or full auto mode and if shooting prone targets gets you ay bonus modifiers. Thanks!

I beleive in the erratta it went up to 60/-60

Yes, it is true, but I think that it's only for full auto action. In no other place in errata or rulebook does it says, that this rule also applies to other/all actions. Any confirmation on that one?