One of my players insists that he can can always use his Lightning Claw for a Parry without readying the weapon first, because there are no minis showing any retracted Claws, but the description in the Deathwatch Armoury clearly mentions the ability to retract them. Otherwise it wouldn't be possible to manipulate anything with it, even with a -20 penalty.

I've offered him he can requisition the Dipole Mag-Lock Upgrade for the Claws to allow an instant Parry, of course this would only be an abstraction and not some real Mag-Lock, but some kind of thought control mechanism to extract the Claws in the blink of an eye.

Any Suggestions?

Kain McDogal said:

Thematically the dipole mag-lock just wouldn't work with lightning claws. The description on lightning claws mentioning the ability to manipulate with a -20 if they are retracted, but with no mechanic for retracting them. I'd suggest allowing them to be retracted/deployed as a free action on your own turn OR as a reaction outside of your turn (after it takes barely more than a twitch of your muscles in your hands to do so!).

This means that if the player wants to be able to parry with them outside of his turn and hasn't already deployed them, then he is going to need 2 reactions (1 to deploy them, 1 to parry) or have planned ahead and deployed them on his turn.

Ultimately he can't have the best of both worlds and be able to fight with them AND manipulate stuff at the same time…

You could use the "ready" action, which is a half action to represent the time required to sheath and unsheath the claws.

Decessor said:

Does not agree with common sense (edit reminder: the game itself mentions common sense should be applied, don't argue against it). Even if we assume a turn is 5 seconds, versus 10 seconds, it would generally take less than a second to slide something like a claw into position. Add to that the mechanic for extending the claws would be MIU through your power armour, versus reaching back grabbing a knife and pulling it clear of a scabard, and extending claws is such a simple thing as to be no more than a free action.

Finally, unless the character is suprised with his claws put up its unlikely he's going they're not out and ready to slice in a combat. If he's suprised he can't dodge anyways, if he's not suprised he's already extended the claws, if for whatever reason he had them retracted.

Result:
Unless he was doing something specific requiring his claws be sheathed it is more than safe to assume they are out and ready to go.

My characters with lightning claws would have them unsheathed at most times, unless they needed to sheath them for some reason. And I question your assumption that it only takes a second to extend the claws and fully energise them. If a marine wants to use lightning claws at no notice, they should have them ready *before* the fight starts.

I know it is a bit out of topic but does wolverine need an action to use his claws? Does the feline need a proper time to get theirs ready?

Don't think so…

It is the salme with the claws of the gauntlet, they are linked and part of your body nervous system, you don't have to ready them because when you want to fight with it, cut something they are out. they are controlled by your mind, electric impulses. No need to think about it, no need to do a simple move to get them.

Ligthning claws are IMO always ready.

Thebigjul said:

Yes, very much so. In a world when you can reel off a speech while flying through the air at someone they still make a point of having his signature 'Snikt' panel with him pulling a face or posing.

And yes cat's can and do claw as when, but they are tiny little needles they've had from a few days old a far cry a 30kg 2 foot long power blade that, going by everything else in the background, more likely requires a prayer to activate.

Who’s walking around in combat with sheathed Lightning Claws?

BYE

Face Eater said:

30 KILOGRAMS!!!!?!?!?!

You're trying to tell us that a single blade on a power claw weighs 66 pounds!?

patently…

REDICULOUS

And don't go around saying "suwoards are weawy weawy heavwy" either. most were barely 4 to 6 pounds in weight. Heck the wooden swords warriors practiced with were heavier than their combat versions.

With this obvious lack of knowledge on the subject matter, I am fairly certain we can very easily dismiss your argument as hog-wash.

Caveat: The games rules specifically state you should use common sense. Just want to put that out there before people start towing that line.

herichimo said:

30 kilo's is the listed weight of a lightning claw. Obviously that's the whole thing but mostly claw.

What's your point swords (and all weapons) require an action of some kind to put in place, NOTHING in this game happens without an action of some kind (such as stopping sustained psychic power, which is to change your mind, and that's a free action) so I don't see why we should start making exceptions now.

Face Eater said:

Exactly as i said in my previous post, make it a free action if during your turn, or a reaction out of your turn but fundamentally it requires SOMETHING from the player - conscious thought on your turn, or muscle reflex outside of your turn. No Marine gets a free meal at the Emperor's table!

So use the autosenses of thje armour should be a free action too, and walking, running, charging … should need a half action more to be used because you are using the synthetic muscles of the armour, as using jump pack and so on….

The matter is to decide if using any parts of the armour should count as an action…

Ligthning claws aren't only weapon they are part of the armour and by the way of your body. Are you losing half action or free action to breath? to smell?

As GM I will not put any kind of action for the claws but as Gm you could do as you want.

But Take time to think about it because it will be logical that any action made by the armour should then cost something.

Thebigjul said:

I'm actually on the fence about the overall effect and you have won me over. From now on arm mounted bolters and mechandrites not longer require an action at all to use or attack with.

I'm being facetious of course. We all know the black carapace allows the armour to mimick the natural movements of the space marine by connecting there nerrvous system directly. Which accounts for normal actions and their autosense come on automatically when they put on thier helmet (if they wanted to turn off for some unknown reason that's an action).

But unless space marines actually have retractable claws or extra arms then that falls under some unknown additional control mechanism, bear in mind that without a mind impulse unit they don't have mental control of everything connected to them, otherwise they wouldn't need a MIU.

And of course the actual circumstances that a space marine needs to sheeth those lighting claws in few and far between, so much so that we've not seen a picture of model of a character with it ever.

Face Eater said:

They do.

Its called the power armour and black carapace. The black carapace is an MIU link between the marine and his armour. It doesn't work with his bolter because the bolter is not part of the armour, but those big ass hands on a lightning claw are actually attached and integrated into the marines armour. If a marine wants an MIU link to something which isn't a part of his armour he's going to need an actual MIU designed for it.

Speaking of the big ass hands, why do you think the blades on a power claw are its heaviest element? Because they are long? Because you watch movies? Pay attention in school for crying out loud. Use a little logic why don't you.

4 blades, each about half the size of normal swords with a little wiring for the power field, no more than 2 or 3 pounds each (and 3 is pushing it). so thats 8-12 pounds out of 66 accounted for.

Where does the rest come from, oh I guess no where.

What about the frame which holds the blades, mounts and interfaces the weapon to power armour, supports the power feeds, and mounts the ceramite outer armour?

What about the ceramite armour?

What about those large power feeds?

What about the mechanical system to retract and extend the blades?

Oh, you didn't think about all that stuff did you? Well I guess since you didn't think about it then it doesn't matter huh?

Finally, I'm not saying the action to retract the blades should not be an action (of course it would never be more than a half action), but no marine would be in an area expecting combat (or even more rediculously in combat) without the blades out and ready to go. The OP example of the marine being attacked in combat and GM saying the blades are retracted makes no sense. The ONLY exception would be the marine was somewhere where no combat was expected (though marines always expect combat, its who they are), the combat just started, and the marine was suprised. In this case the marine wouldn't be able to react anyways so it would be moot. If a marine was anywhere where combat was expected then the blades would not be retracted unless they had to be to do some kind of work with his hand.

herichimo said:

Nope not f%2&ing jot, that sh!t stopped being important at far far more than a cats claws.

herichimo said:

I can think of plenty of examples where someone might have the lightning claw retracted mid combat, perhaps an assault marine has jump packed to the top of lift shaft and needs to activate a panel controlling the lift to send it back down for his comrades - he has to retract the blades to do so and it may take several turns. if he is ambushed while up there then the scenario we have been discussing in this thread would have arisen.
I think everyone is in agreement that the armour doesn't NOT do everything for the marine and that the action for the claw should be no more than a half action (though i stand by saying a free/re-action)

I don't see where the issue is here.

If you are attacked without your weapons drawn, you cannot parry with them. What makes Lightning Claws a special case?

BYE

Because unlike a sword, you don't take the four blades off the big hand they are attached to and stick them into a scabard when not in use.

In most cases they wouldn't likely even be retracted. At best they would only be retracted when needed. And its very possible the auto-reactive responses from the power armour would do this automatically in many cases. From how it was described it seems the OP simply wanted to get a hit on one of his players and arbitrarily decided lightning claws are always retracted when not making attacks or actively extended, or were retracted in this one case (playing the players character for him, a no-no in RPGs). It is unlikely a space marine is going to be unready for combat anywhere, though (this does not mean they can't be suprised). It is most likely the claws are almost always ready for action, the only exceptions are when the marine needs to do something and the claws would get in the way.

Driving a tank - retracted
Picking up a rocket launcher - retracted
Grabbing a ledge - not necissarily retracted
Walking around minding your own business - probably not retracted

herichimo said:

The Players accompanied an Inquisitor while he opened negotiations between to warring nations without knowing that one party was infiltrated by Chaos. So the negotiations were only a trap to slay the investigating imperial authorities. The Librarian couldn't sense anything because of a psy-damper so the players where completley suprised and had to defend themselves in close quarters. Of course all weapons weren`t readied because the players didn't want to leave an hostile impression. The charachter in question concentrated all his actions on hitting the attacking Demons with his Bolter because he has a high BS and after the enemy got to close he opt to parry the attack and use his Counter Attack Talent, because he has an equally high WS but never bothered to improve his Dodge Skill.

Herichimo, here and then you leave some helpful marks in the forum, but most of the time you act very offensive telling people what they can't do and pointing out mistakes they only did in your eyes. Nothing against productive criticism but this forum isn't to alleviate stress you might have in real life!

Kain McDogal said:

I hope thath the character in question only had a single lightning claw as a pair of them would entirely prohibit the use of other weaponry.

Kasatka said:

Of course, although he tried once to requisition a Heavy Bolter in addition to his Lightning Claw and argued with me that he can use this two-handed weapon, because he only needs the Lightning Claw arm to stabilize the HB and can use the free hand to pull the trigger. This was the main reason we switchted to the alternate weapon stats and after the HB wasn't attractive enough anymore he took a Storm Bolter instead. He is a very combat orientated SM.

Kain McDogal said:

Sounds like he is trying to power game the system - focussing on potentially OP imbalances or broken options over fluff and logic.
GM is logic king so just keep smacking him with it till he learns his place.

Given that the Lightning Claws are directly connected to the nervous system through the Black Carapace, he should be able to ready them as a free action.

That being said, if he was caught flat-footed, he should suffer a major penalty. If I were GMing, the penalty would be on the order of -30 or -40. Additionally, it wouldn't get the benefit of its power-field until his combat round.

*Sorry for the double-post, I can't edit my last post for some reason.*

@Kain McDogal: I've been mulling over the whole lightning claw/heavy bolter situation in my head. Namely, "Why would anyone even think of trying that?" But last night, I was considering what I might do in your place, and it hit me: Allow it.

Now, I need to clarify. Let him select both peices of wargear. Then suggest that he go into the training halls of the Watch Fortress to get acclimated to the new wargear configuration. Then, as he tries to go through some combat excercises, have the machine-spirits of both the lightning claw and the heavy bolter reject him. They would be offended by the presence of the other, implying that they are not good enough at their respective jobs to demand the primary focus in the character's personal arsenal. He would be publicly humiliated within the Watch Fortress, likely taking a small renown hit. He'd then have to select one or the other, and for the next mission or two the weapon would be finicky, still angry at him for the insult.

You could let him use both lightning claw and heavy bolter, but apply the -20 manipulation penalty to his shots, as stabalizing the weapon while aiming at all the things you are shooting might be quite a bit harder with the giant, fat hand of the lightning claw. Also note that in order to ready his sheathed claws he has to pick: damage the heavy bolter, drop the heavy bolter, or spend a half action posting the heavy bolter. I also like the idea of the machine spirit problems, but I would have that be something that could bde overcome.