Cover: a New Action

By Investigator Spleen, in Dark Heresy House Rules

I am thinking about implementing a house rule called covering to deal with when a acolyte wants to take someone alive and not kill them.

Covering full action

When in combat an acolyte can attempt to subdue a combatant with out physical force but instead by force of will. First you must state what mode your weapon is in single semi or full auto. Then you must make an intimate test to see if the combatant will comply with your threat. If you are successful the combatant will put down his gun and surrender. If not you will have to make a scrutiny test to see that the other is going to attack and if you make that test then you get your shot of first.

Modifiers

-10 for every person outnumbering you
+10 for every person you out number
+10 bigger gun.
+5 for every person making an intimidate roll
+5 Adaptus Arbites

There's a combat maneuver in the Starfleet Operations (?) supplement of Decipher's Star Trek RPG that you might like to adapt:

"I got you in my sights "

You target a character that can see you and is aware of you. You make the to-hit roll as normal. If you score a hit you don't roll for damage yet. Instead you keep your weapon aimed unerrin(or stand ready to strike ) at any time later. If you decide to resolve the hit the target gets his dodge/parry as appropriate and you roll damage.

The idea is that the target character is immediately aware that you've got the drop on him: You're pointing your gun at him and going "Don't even think about it!", or you've got your knife at his throat or something similar. It's a stand-off of sorts, and with multiple characters pointing guns at each other it can get Mexican pretty fast! :)

Of course the GM needs to arbitrate wether the opportunity to take the shot is lost as circumstances change. Also, the maneuver is likely to be most effective before combat is properly initiated, or when the NPCs are about to break and flee.

-K