Helpless targets are hit automatically in melee how many swift/lightning attacks do you get? Is there a rule that clarifies this anywhere?

Thanks

Mushkilla said:

There doesn't seem to be a rule covering this. If I were DMing, I'd say maximum. e.g. a WS of 40 would produce 4 hits. Narratively speaking, a helpless enemy is basically dead, unless you've got your fists and they're in power armor.

Perhaps figure out their total bonuses, add whatever to make it equal to 100, and roll it? Guaranteed at least one hit, maybe more.

As Flail-bot said, hitting a helpless target in melee should be a sure-fire way to kill them. Unless they're just that much tougher I wouldn't make the players roll too hard. Or is this some sort of temporary combat effect thats in play?

But against things like orks. Say an ork gets caught in a bolas or mantrap both of which immobilise the target and count it as helpless, you rush up and attack him, auto hit and get to roll damage twice, with a mono sword on a strength 30 character thats 2d10+6 damage. That's not going to kill the ork. Even an average roll of 16 damage will only bring it down to 1 wound. Even if you were to roll high say two 9s, that would be 24 damage, reduced by 6 because of the orks toughness to 18, once you take into account reduction from True Grit the ork is only in -1 critical. As you probably all know orks get really tough once they are in critical thanks to true grit, effectively giving them a damage reduction of 12 (to a minimum of 1 damage). In that respect a helpless ork is far from helpless (as he at least can survive a turn or two and try and break the snare, and when he does you will eat furious assault choppa to the face).

In our current campaign we are all actually guardsmen, with lasguns and a few swords at best. Not a plasma gun with power weapon bayonet totting squad in full chamileoline storm trooper carapace with refractor fields arriving by Valkyrie drop insertion (the way a lot of people seem to play Only War), so an ork is serious business in our game! The first time we encoutered a nob, one player died and another had both his legs ripped off ( the medic stopped the bleeding and ended up making a baby carrier to carry the legless guardsmen on his back, sort of like a living MIU weapon). Our squad has also almost run out of charge packs (as charging them in the fire has been unkind). So using makeshift mantraps and bolas to hunt orks has become a common theme.

Mushkilla said:

If the enemy is "important" or "tough" you can simply think of a house rule. The book says nothing about this. A possibility:

- Using Swift attack you can do as many attacks as your WS bonus or your Agility bonus, whichever is lower .

- Using Lightning attack you can do as many attacks as your WS bonus or your Agility bonus, whichever is higher .

Your encounters with the Orks remind me of ours in our game. It has been fun, but now Orks are not a thread anymore, the PCs have developed a bunch of tactics to deal with them!

whoseyes said:

Care to share any? Our heavy bolter has been wrecked, chimera got taken out in a kommando ambush and we are down to a working lasgun per two players and still a week away from the main base. We tend to use bolas, mantraps and our party ratling disgusised as a gretchin to lure orks into ambushes (he ran out of ammo for his rifle). The problem is when we get caught unprepared.

Mushkilla said:

That's meta-gaming!

But so is this: Even though the ork weapons are going to be unreliable, they're probably better than nothing. Grab a few?

How is that meta-gaming?

Flail-Bot said:

Didn't think of that! You have just given legless Jo something more to do. Currently he's strapped to the Doc's back and throws bolas to snare orks so the Doc can go cut them up in melee. With a shoota he will be able to provide suppression fire when the Doc needs to perform first aid. Doc might go deaf with a shoota rattling off next to his head but its better than dead. You might just have saved our hides, thanks for the head up.

We have taken to using slings with krack grenades/frag grenades, but were running out of grenades. Those Ork boom sticks are going to be real handy. Sling krack grenades have been pretty effecitve against ork buggies and implacements (slings make for a great poor mans grenade launcher).

Any other tips? Other than hope we don't get executed for desertion when we get back to base? Man being a guardsmen tough.

My ruling on this one would be that the automatic Weapon Skill check to hit a Helpless target would apply only to a standard attack. If you want to use a Talent to do something fancy like get multiple hits, you will roll against your WS as normal.

Savage said:

What and roll against 100 as it's an auto hit? Seems reasonable.

Hmm might be better off using survival to make a primitive great weapon out of a big stone and a stick. 4d10+6 (great weapon on a strength 3 character hitting a helpless target) would be enough to at least get a snared ork into critical somewhat reliably, although one of us has a crippled arm so no great weapon for him!

I have to say my GM is a legend, he makes the game deadly enough and survival based enough to be interesting without being out to kill us, it's a careful balancing act. It's amazing how much fun you can have with the low tech weapons and thinking outside the box.

Also the deceive skill is awesome, opposed deceive vs scrutiny test to see if the ork follows the helpless ratling into the ambush. It's a great skill for baiting enemies. Sleight of hand is pretty handy too our ratling got an ork nob to kill one of his boys by stealing his "teef" and pickpocketing them onto the an unsuspecting ork boy. The Nob was not impressed.

"I didn't steal ya teef boss, I swear!"

I imagine the fireplace-charging happened only after the chimera was destroyed? Anything with a running engine or generator should be compatible with Tech-Use, so you guys should've been fine till the thing permanently ran out of fuel, or got blown up.

Numerous orks and gretchin carry stikkbomms, which being thrown weapons should not be a proficiency issue for you guys. The Ork Weapon suggestion is a good one, as their weapons, despite the reputation, are actually quite dangerous. Unreliable in the hands of non-orks, yes, but pretty nasty outputs. Aiming's no good though so you'll need a different use of your half-action.

Kiton said:

Yeah it happened after the chimera got wrecked. Our tech priest got taken out by the ork nob (my character), having only one fate point at the beginning of the game and burning his only one in the previous encouter. The nice thing with Only War is as long as you have some commerads around, dead players can just jump into their skin so to speak the session after they die. Uninteresting guardmen Dutch can suddenly jump to the for front of the action after the Death of Hex-33 the techpriest. I have to say on the whole Only War is a pretty good system.

I demand to know the story of how his servo-skull became a guardsman. That can only have been pure orky genius on the part of your dok.

By the way, your medicae's probably an ork.

Easy house rule for this:
Swift attack does 1/2 WS bonus hits automatically so just roll damage

Lightning attack does full Ws bonus hits automatically so just roll damage

And as for the "orks are too tough" comments - it does say that GMs can hand waive damage to low level mooks and have them killed instantly the moment they lose their last wound - this speeds up combat a lot and means GMs only need keep track of crit damage on elite or boss enemies.

Kasatka said:

Interesting… But, do you allow them to 'roll twice' for the damage for each hit?

Savage said:

Why not? It's not like it's a "sneak attack", a helpless target is helpless regardless of whether he is aware he is being hit or not (as being helpless normally entails being snared or bound in some fashion).

Savage said: