I'm starting a new campaign for my players tomorrow. The first one went well, but my players had a couple of grumbles over not having certain options or factors in combat... so I obliged and here are the results. Tomorrow we play test em', so we'll see how they handle at the table. I thought maybe some other groups might be interested in trying them out as well.

Defensive Command: A character can spend their reaction and roll their Command skill to allow an ally to use the result of the Command test in place of a failed Dodge or Parry roll. The character must be able to see and communicate with the ally in order to provide them this benefit.

Subduing: Any weapon that can be used in a non-lethal manner (fists, stun batons, etc.) can be used to subdue rather than attack. If a character uses a weapon to subdue a target, then any damage from the attack which would cause a heavy or critical wound is instead applied as levels of fatigue.

Armor Has Consequences: Armor pieces covering the legs or arms of a character whose armor rating is higher than their strength will have the following modifiers applied:

• Arms: -10% to any tests requiring fine finger control (Security, Climbing, Demolitions, etc.)
• Legs: -1 to Agility Bonus (minimum of 1)

Also, due to limited range of peripheral vision and ear coverings, carapace head armor, feudal plate head armor, and any other similarly-enclosed head covering, will apply a -10% to perception tests unless otherwise specified in the armor's description.

Mesh and Power Armor ignore all of these negative effects unless otherwise specified in the armor's description.

Hit Em' Where it Counts: If a character makes a called-shot, then they can declare the attack to be a Crippling attack. This applies an additional -10% to the roll and the attack will have added benefits if it does at least one wound to the target. The benefit of Crippling attacks are listed per hit location below:

• Head: The attack also inflicts one level of fatigue.
• Arms: The attack applies a -20% modifiger to any test requiring the use of the struck limb. The modifier remains in place until the target recovers a wound.
• Body: The attack knocks the target off of their feet unless they succeed against a standard test against Strength or Toughness (whichever is higher). The GM may give the target additional modifiers to the roll based on their size, extra legs, how stable their footing is, and other similar factors.
• Legs: The attack prevents the character from running or charging. The modifier remains in place until the target recovers a wound.

Pull Blow: A character can choose to pull their blow in ranged or melee combat in an attempt to do less damage. This applies a -10% modifier to the attack roll and allows the attacker to reduce the amount of damage dealt, after calculating for Toughness and armor, by any number up to their WS or BS bonus respectively (i.e. WS for melee attacks, BS for ranged attacks).

I gotta say, some of these seem rather strange.

Defensive Command for instance, was this a complaint some player had, that he couldn't make a fellow acolyte dodge better by yelling "Dodge!"? And how to explain parry? Would he yell "No that's not how you do it, you're supposed to hold the blade like this!"? It just seems odd that a successful Command test would invalidate a failed dodge or parry.

Subdue is already possible (but hard, especially against an armoured enemy) by using unarmed combat; 1 level of Fatige if the damage done is equal to or higher than the opponents Toughness Bonus.

Armours as they are now can impose negative effects, due to weight. And strength already plays a part in this because the lower your Strength Bonus is the less you can carry without becomming encumbered. -10 to tasks requiring fine manipulation wouldn't come from a slightly heavy armour, it would come from thick gloves. And movement impairment is also covered by the amount you carry. The helmet rules I could consider getting behind but I would even then recccomend that if you really intend to use these rules that the penalties would dissappear if the armour was of, at least, good quality. I can see you trying to make a case for these rules if they would apply to Carapace armour only, because of their description, but that wouldn't really be fair.

With the Hit Em' Where it Counts rule, it seems like it's your players wanting to impose a system of critical hits before reaching 0 wounds. Reaching 0 wounds is the game's way of telling you that your body is starting to break down. Wounds (and other damage systems in other RPGs) needn't be taken literally, that's the misstake that many make when wanting to change a damage system. 0 wounds could just as well be interpreted as the ammount of pain you're in is starting to become more apparent because your body cannot release more epinephrine into your system, or some such explanation. A person with more wounds could just be someone who has learned to deal with pain in their own way or just have a lower sensetivity to pain, or any number of other reasons. With this rule all your players should be smart enough to purchase Deadeye Shot and Sharpshooter as early as possible, make sure to get a accurate weapon, and shoot their enemy in the arms to give them a -20 penalty to everything they do wih that arm, and that's alot. Then shoot them in the head and suddenly they've got -30 to use the wounded arm.

I can see Pull Blow functioning with melee attacks, but certainly not chain or power weapons. Ballistic weapons should be considerably harder, and shouldn't even be possible with some weapons, such as melta, plasma, launcher, weapons not capable of single shots, most heavy weapons and anything that causes 2d10 or more damage. In fact I think it should be restricted to SP and Las pistol, any maybe some Basic SP and Las. I assume this rule (and subdue) comes from the players to capture an enemy rather than killing it. If this is the case then you shouldn't need a special rule that makes this option available, this could just as well be rollpayed.

Realism is all well and good, but any functioning RPG system needs a certain amount of arbitrariness to create balance. After all, if you want realism, plenty of people die from a single gun shot wound to the head, chest or stomach. Sorry if I seem a bit harsh, I just think you're overcomplicating a pretty functional system. The rules and game mechanichs shouldn't stand in the way of you or your players wanting to do something like capture an opponent. The players should take the initiative if this is something they want to do, instead of just continually shooting the enemy until he goes down, they should give him a chance to save his life by giving up. Then it's just up to you as a GM to decide is this is plausible or not. If they're facing a die hard fanatic he probably wouldn't give up, but if it's just some random scum or poorly trained militia why not give them a chance to do something other that trying to shoot or hit them in certain ways and locations in order to cause enough fatigue so they'll fall unconscious.

xenobiotica said:

This was put in to encourage team work, make social characters a bit more valuable in combat, and give the player a little bit more control in keeping their minions alive.

xenobiotica said:

The problem with those rules is that trying to take down someone with a stun baton still kills the target majority of the time and, if it doesn't, it still puts them in the hospital for a month or two as wounding someone is the only way to take them out with one. We have run into this problem at our table multiple times as our Arbites player keeps trying to capture suicidal cultists alive for questioning in a police-like manner. I've also instigated a "three successful grapple actions in a row allows the target to be manacled" on his behalf.

xenobiotica said:

We tend to favor less record-keeping and faster gameplay. This streamlines things quite a bit for us. We don't bother messing with encumberance unless a player has entered the realm of the ridiculous (i.e. "Joe, how the hell are you carrying a heavy stubber, RPG launcher, 2,000 rounds of stubber ammo, and a two-handed mono-sword?").

xenobiotica said:

Both of these rules were both started up as one of our players wanted the ability to wing someone with a non-lethal wound that would slow them down to prevent their escape. The rules were further elaborated upon for one of our Sniper-style players to give him more combat options. Pulling blows with a Las Cannon would still be possible, but I doubt that reducing the damage by 5 points is going to save a human being from becoming a stain in any case.

xenobiotica said:

My players enjoy more options in combat and all of these rules were created to alleviate arguments at the table that have happened previously. You may see these as over-complicating things, but at our table this is actually making things easier on us. In most cases I had to make a quick judgement to keep the game flowing then will work out a solution with the players after the game is over. I've always been of the mind to fit the rules to the players and not try to fit the players to the rules. We have a pamphlet-size copy of the errata and combat rules on the table for easy reference. Adding these to the existing combat rules isn't a stretch for us at all. I'm not saying that these rules may fit your own style of play or that you even have to use them. I figured that I would share them for others who may find them useful. If you don't find them useful, then that's fine, but that doesn't mean that someone else won't. They are "optional rules" after all.

ShortBusFury said:

With this point of view, I am very keen to see your rule tweaks to make combat-characters more usefull in social situations
Our a hiver more usefull in the wilds...

But anyway, I would like to suggest the something else for that purpose:

If "Commander" (pc with command skill) spends a half/a full action giving orders to his crew and has success on a command/command+10 check a number of his crew (equall INT bonus) get a+1 bonus on their initiative for next round. (If you do not re-roll from round to round, simply higher their ini for that round).

This should reflect how the "soldiers" benefit from simply having to react and follower their "drill".