Shootig Fools in the Face

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Wed Nov 26, 2008 11:22 am

...what kind of girl named Daisy becomes an acolyte of a Chaos cult?

Actually, come to think of it, forget I said that. If I was named Daisy, I'd probably be inclined to worship Chaos gods and tear society down from within.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Wed Nov 26, 2008 6:03 pm

DA wrote:Does that 3d6 stage up step really need to be there? Thats an extra roll per target for an average of +1 damage per target. Does sustained fire really need the damage boost? If so can't it be a flat +1, there is already a soak roll to randomise the damage.

Actually I'm pretty sure it does. The thing is that you need to generate two things when you do autofire: how many hits and how severe those hits are. With direct fire it's pretty easy, in that extra hits straight stage damage up. But for autofire, it gets hairy. The obvious answer is to give autofire weapons a set number of attacks where you just roll your attack over and over again - which is probably too much work. So you want something that is simpler to resolve than that - hence rolling to determine how many people get hit.

But of course there's the problem that if autofire weaponry doesn't stage up then it has no random effects against vehicles. I mean, it's technically true that you can generate random damage effects with just a soak roll, that's frankly insufficiently random. Especially against non-living opponents that mostly just have an armor rating.

Template Weapons: A template weapon can be placed anywhere with the narrow end in contact with the shooter. Everything under the template to any degree except the shooter is hit. The shooter may make a shooting test and split up the hits any way desired to stage up damage to any targets under the template.

-Username17

TarkisFlux · Post by **TarkisFlux** » Wed Nov 26, 2008 6:20 pm

Frank - would you mind finishing the second autofire example with a description of the damage rolls? Not especially familiar with these mechanics and I don't quite get what you're asking the player to do once they've confirmed hits. Would damage just be weapon hits + hits on 3d6 - soak hits?

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Wed Nov 26, 2008 6:47 pm

TarkisFlux wrote:Frank - would you mind finishing the second autofire example with a description of the damage rolls? Not especially familiar with these mechanics and I don't quite get what you're asking the player to do once they've confirmed hits. Would damage just be weapon hits + hits on 3d6 - soak hits?

Sure. Here's the whole Combat chapter as currently laid out:

Combat

Battlefields in Warp Cult are preferably handled on the same kind of three dimensional terrain that one might play Necromunda in. During a character's turn, they will move their model around that terrain and movement and weapon ranges are measured with an actual tape measure.

Health and Consciousness: Everyone and everything has 10 wound boxes, and when they are lost they are incapacitated. Big things and little things both have 10 wound boxes, because a wound box actually represents being 10% of the way to being incapacitated. More resilient things lose less wound boxes from the same attack as would a less resilient thing. The lasgun that might seriously main or kill a human would be lucky to do anything at all to a Hive Tyrant or even an Ork 'Ard Boy. A character who suffers all 10 wound boxes has taken a deadly wound, and is incapacitate. Whether they actually die is a question of medical intervention and environment. A character who loses 15 boxes is just plain dead outside of Golden Throne craziness.

When a character is struck with an attack, they have the opportunity to soak the damage with their strength, armor, and abilities. Many advanced armor systems of the 41st millennium actually provide automatic hits for soaking damage. If damage is unsoaked, it becomes a wound. And the more damage from an attack was unsoaked, the more egregious that wound is. Wounds are ranked in order of severity: Light, Moderate, Serious, Deadly, and Fatality. And they correspond to amounts of unsoaked damage. 1 unsoaked damage is light, 2 is moderate, 3 is serious, 4 is deadly, and 5 or more is a fatality straight out. Each wound takes off progressively more wound boxes than the previous wound did. So a Light wound causes you to lose just 1 box, a moderate 3 boxes, a serious 6 boxes, a deadly wound 10 boxes, and a fatality is nominally 15 boxes, but since that means that you're dead it hardly makes sense to worry over much about boxes at that point.

Being injured provides wound penalties. If you have lost wound boxes enough to qualify as Lightly Wounded, you are at -1 to all of your dice pools, if you are Moderately Wounded you are at -2, if you are Seriously Wounded you are at -3, and if you have a Deadly Wound you are at -4 but this scarcely matters because you are also physically incapacitated. If you have suffered a Fatality you narrowly escape having a -5 penalty to all dice pools on account of being totally dead.

A character can stay conscious so long as their Willpower is higher than their Wound penalty. And yes, this means that people with a Willpower of 5 can stay conscious even after being incapacitated with a deadly wound from a plasma cannon. This is because they are hard core. People who are physically capable of moving but have had their Willpower exceeded by damage will eventually pull themselves together, but generally not within the time frame of a battle. They are casualties even if they aren't dead.

Staging Damage: If an attack scores net hits, the additional hits are added to the base damage. A weapon cannot gain more damage in this way then it has base damage to begin with. Once damage has been inflicted, the armor and soak roll will reduce it to determine the final inflicted Wound Level. This process is sometimes called staging damage up (and down).

Armor and Soaking: Most armor provides an Armor Value (AV) and a Soak Value (SV). AV reduces the damage value of a weapon, much like the character wearing it had gotten a hit on the soak roll. SV adds dice to the soak roll. Armor Piercing attacks ignore armor's SV, and Phasing attacks ignore armor's AV. Attacks which “ignore armor” or against which “armor does not apply” negate both the AV and SV of armor.

Initiative and Actions

At the beginning of any combat, all participants roll an initiative check, which is a Dexterity + Awareness check. Characters act in order of their number of hits. Ties go in order of actual Dexterity Attributes, further ties go in order of actual Awareness Attributes, further ties go in order of actual Tactics Skill Ratings, any further ties are resolved with roll offs or negotiation.

Basic Actions: A character can move and shoot in a single turn, but they are better at shooting if they do not move around. In general, a character gets 2 primary actions during their turn. A primary action can be used to move 10cm on the board or attack with a weapon. There are many other actions that can be used as primary actions, and you can also take as many Free Actions as seem reasonable.

Delaying Actions: Shooting first is not always as important as shooting last. A character who gets a higher initiative value may elect to take their action after other characters have taken theirs. A delaying character may cut in to the initiative order at any point between two other character's actions and take their action. If two or more characters are delaying, then the character has the better initiative value has the last word. Once the last character who isn't delaying takes their action, the delaying character with the worst initiative value must take their action or forfeit it.

Overwatch: A character may declare a primary action to be an Overwatch Action. An overwatch action has a declared trigger and takes place when and if that trigger takes place, interrupting any action currently taking place to do so. Overwatch actions are very difficult and require precision timing, and have their threshold of difficulty increased by 1. If the character's action comes up again, the overwatch action is lost, though there is nothing stopping them from declaring a new overwatch action at this point. A character may only have one overwatch action at queued up at a time.

Example: Acolyte Daisy knows that there is an enemy on the other side of the temple complex, but she can't see them right now. She declares an Overwatch Action to shoot the guy as soon as they come into view. As it happens, the enemy then moves from behind one pillar to a spot behind a closer pillar. Daisy takes the shot in the middle of the target's movement where there is no cover, but the threshold of difficulty is increased by one.

Tactics: Characters can improve their reactions in combat by working out a plan and sticking to it. When a group is operating under the supervision of a tactician who knows the rough layout of the opposition, the leader can make a Tactics test and improve every character's initiative rolls by the number of hits on that test. No plan survives in contact with the enemy, and the bonus will only last a number of combat rounds equal to the character's actual ranks in Tactics. The number of characters that can be coordinated with the Tactics skill varies with the situation, and is largely in the hands of the CO to determine. Space Marines have massive commlink arrays and tactical layouts on head's up displays in their helmets and their tacticians can coordinate groups of squads with fire support and speeders, while most warp cults are mostly stuck physically explaining a tactical plan with a stick in the sand, limiting their penetrance to the number of people they can physically fit in a huddle around the diagram.

Primary Actions:
Move 10cm
Run
Climb
Jump
Sneak 5 cm
Crawl 2 cm
Fire Weapon
Move 10cm and Fire
Stand from Prone
Prepare Heavy Weapon
Aim Weapon
Invoke Warp Power
Summon
Channel Daemon
Pilot Vehicle
Close Combat
Issuing Commands
Disengaging From Close Combat
Free Actions:
Talking
Intimidating
Overcoming ZoT
Going Prone

Taking Turns: Every turn entitles each characters to two primary actions

Optional Rule: Alternating Actions Sometimes having

Movement.

A typical battlefield of Warp Cult is as cluttered or more so as a Necromunda or Gorkamorka battlefield, and may in fact be a battlefield from one of those games. As such, it is reasonable to expect that there will be a number of places that a character will want to be that are not where they are. And to resolve that situation, moving is the preferred solution.

Movement Rates: A human has a movement rate of 10 cm. That means that with the expenditure of a primary action they can move themselves 10 cm. Moving at this speed a character can stay active for a long time, and won't get tired in any combat that is likely to occur. Furthermore, this movement rate is safe enough to not cause meaningful chances of falling down or jeopardizing one's defenses. Some species in the galaxy have movement rates that are very much faster or slower than humans, and vehicular movement rates are often very different.

Zones of Threat: People in battles are scary. An active combatant is very difficult to ignore, and it is often outright dangerous to do so. A normal character's Zone of Threat (ZoT) extends 20 cm in all directions. While a character is in the ZoT of an enemy character, they can't shoot at targets who are not threatening them, nor may they initiate a Running move to another point within enemy ZoT. A character may attempt to ignore the ZoT of another by making a Faith test (threshold 2), this is a Free Action that may be performed once per turn. A character can attempt to increase the magnitude of their ZoT by being especially intimidating. This is done by making an Intimidate test, with every hit increasing the radius of their personal Zone of Threat by 4 cm. Furthermore, if the Intimidate test gets more than 2 hits, then that becomes the threshold for enemies to overcome their ZoT by faith. Intimidating foes is also a free action that may be done once per turn.
If a character is subjected to multiple ZoTs, then a single Faith test made against the highest difficulty threshold is sufficient to last an entire turn. Monstrous creatures have a ZoT that extends to 40 cm in all directions, and the Faith threshold to overcome it is 4.

Difficult Terrain: The movement rates assume that characters are moving through flat and open terrain. When this is not the case, characters move slower. Difficult Terrain “costs” 2 cm of movement to move 1 cm through. If a character is moving through regular terrain and difficult terrain, just double the distance of the difficult terrain to see how much of their movement is used. Terrain that is slower to traverse exists, in general take the standard threshold for a task and compare it to how difficult the terrain is to move through and that threshold is the movement cost of each cm of real movement. So “average” difficult terrain such as shallow water, tall grass, or a ladder costs 2 cm of movement per table cm; “hard” difficult terrain such as sucking sand, cluttered shops, and knee-deep water costs 3 cm of movement; and “extreme” difficult terrain such as heavy snow drifts, waste deep water, and gelatin blocks cost 4 cm of movement per cm of terrain moved through.

Dangerous Ground: Dangerous Ground is terrain which has no impact on movement speeds but may collapse, catch fire, trigger ancient laser traps, or in other sundry ways cause damage to people moving through it. In general, moving through Dangerous Ground requires a character to make a skill check, with a threshold set by the difficulty of the area to avoid being hit with a baleful effect. The skill used for most Dangerous Ground is set when it is defined on the board, and most dangerous ground has a key skill of Athletics or Larceny. Moving quickly through dangerous ground (such as running or jumping) increases the threshold to successfully navigate it by 1.
A character moving down a ladder may elect to count it as Dangerous Ground rather than Difficult Terrain – the key skill is Athletics (Climbing) in that case. Failing to make the test causes the character to fall to the base of the ladder. A character may voluntarily fail such a check and simply move to the bottom of a ladder by falling.

Impassable Terrain: Impassable Terrain is actually something of a misnomer, because it's not actually impassable. Actually impassable things such as enormous metal pillars and force fields exist in the setting, and even in the actual battlefields of a Warp Cult game, but those are called “obstacles.” Impassable Terrain is rather underwhelmingly the name given to any terrain where it would physically take long enough to get through it that it is not a meaningfully possible combat action. Things like very narrow spaced bamboo and air ducts are “impassable” in game terms because people aren't going to get through them during a battle encounter, even though characters with sufficient time totally can go through those.

Climbing: A character may climb any surface, with the difficulty of the surface setting the threshold for Athletics (Climbing) tests to maintain position with net hits setting the character's movement rate. Each net hit moves the character up or down by 2 cm. A character who fails to meet the threshold to maintain position, falls. A character who suffers any damage while climbing must immediately make a climb test (remembering the new wound penalties), and net hits don't move them – the only thing that can happen is staying on the wall or potentially falling.
Ladders are a special case in which characters only have to make climbing tests if they are attempting to move on them quickly or take damage while holding on. Characters are assumed to be able to move up and down ladders as if they were difficult terrain without penalty or dice roll.

Falling: Falling is a special form of movement in which you go downwards really fast and quite often stop very suddenly and painfully upon meeting up with a solid object of some kind. A character who lands on something rigid and capable of supporting their weight must resist damage based on how far the fall actually was. Every full 6 cm of falling, the character must soak 1 damage (to a maximum of 7). A character always ends any fall of more than 1 cm prone.
Falling most distances takes substantially less time than does a combat round, so in general it is OK to merely move a character all the way to the ground when they fall. But if a character is sent off a ledge when it is not their turn, they may make an Initiative test with a difficulty threshold of 8 minus one for every 6 cm of falling. On a success, the fall is resolved on their next action and they may take one primary action halfway down. Extremely long falls may take multiple combat rounds, in which case normal initiative rules apply.
Falling Damage is soaked with Dexterity rather than strength, and armor values generally do not apply. Some worlds have high or low gravity. Indeed, the 41st millennium has some relic gravity generators so that some places on planets may have very unusual gravity levels. If a character is falling in high gravity, the damage from falling is 1 per 4 cm and the maximum damage is 9. If a character is falling in low gravity, the damage is only 1 per 10 cm and the maximum damage is 5. Furthermore, the Initiative thresholds to act in the middle of such falls start at 9 for high gravity and 7 for low gravity. Characters in zero gravity conditions do not fall.

Liquids and Swimming: Technically glass is a colloid, but that's sufficiently close to being a liquid that it inspires confusion on that point. Regardless, anything which flows slowly enough that characters can reasonably expect to walk on it rather than swim through it is considered “ground” by the rules. Even really sticky stuff like tar is just difficult, dangerous ground. Every primary action a character spends swimming they make an Athletics (Swimming) test, with a threshold of 0. Every net hit moves them 2 cm. If a character is carrying heavy or bulky items, the swimming threshold increases. A character who fails to meet the swimming threshold must either sink or drop their cargo. If a character spends 5 actions swimming, they must make an Endurance test. A character can fight from water, but it is very difficult. The character must “prepare” a primary action other than swimming by giving up a hit on their previous swim test (in short, they move 2 cm less on their last action). Swimming provides heavy cover against direct fire weapons, but no cover at all against blast weapons.
A character can walk through liquids if they come up to the character's waste or less. These areas count as difficult terrain, and only give cover from direct fire weapons if they are deep enough to cover substantial portions of the character's body.

Hiding & Sneaking: Characters can hide whenever they can get out of LOS from their enemies. A character who is literally fully invisible from opponents can “hide” themselves as a free action – it's mostly just a state of mind at that point. On the other hand, hiding when one is merely partially concealed requires a primary action to conceal one's self.

Running: Most characters are physically capable of moving substantially faster than their standard movement rates. They don't do it because moving at those speeds is tiring and unsafe. But if a character wants to flat out run, they may do so. A character who runs and takes any damage in the following turn falls prone automatically. When a character runs during a movement, they may add an additional 4 cm of movement for each hit they make on an Athletics (Running) check. A character who scores no hits is still running, it just means that they stumbled at some point along the way and made no more progress towards their goal than had they moved more cautiously. If this happens on dangerous ground, the hazard happens automatically.
Running characters are difficult to hit with ranged weaponry, but very vulnerable to close combat attacks. The threshold for hitting a running target with shooting is increased by 1. The threshold to hit a running target in close combat is reduced by 1. Every turn spent running provokes an Endurance test.

Shooting! Perhaps the most important act in a firefight is putting your ammunition into other people. And firing a weapon requires a primary action. A weapon has a Firing Rate, which determines how often it can be fired in a round. A Rapid Fire weapon or Pistol weapon can be fired twice a round (that is, with each Primary Action); a Heavy Weapon can be fired only once in a round and requires two Primary Actions to fire (one to prepare it to fire and one to actually fire it); and an Assault can be fired only once a round but requires only a single Primary Action to fire. A character can combine a single primary action to move 10cm and fire a weapon, but they suffer a -2 dicepool penalty to their attack and they lose the benefits of aiming as if they had moved prior to firing.

The following is the basic checklist for firing

Declare shooting: Say "I'm gonna shoot that guy, in the face."
Determine Dicepool and Modifiers: So you're going to be adding your Dexterity to your Firearms to your Gun Accuracy to special bonuses that apply, and you're going to take off wound penalties, movement penalties, positional penalties, and whatever. This will determine a dicepool.
Roll your dice, count your hits: 5s and 6s count as hits.
Do you want to use an Edge? You can spend an Edge to reroll your missed dice.
Does your target want to use an Edge? Your target can spend an Edge to make you reroll your hits.
Determine Threshold: The standard threshold to hit a dude is 2. Range increases it, as does cover, movement (of the target), restricted visibility, and so on. If you get hits equal to threshold, you hit. If you exceed the threshold, you do boosted damage with the Net Hits.
Soak Damage: The target rolls their soak pool, which is generally just their strength. But it may be modified by armor and magic powers or whatever.
Does the target want to spend Edge? They can reroll missed dice on their soak, and possibly use magic power.
Determine Wound Level: The Wound Level is the base damage of the weapon (example: many guns are 3) plus the number of Net Hits minus the number of hits on the soak test. A wound level of 1 is called Light and fills in 1 Box. A wound level of 2 is called Moderate and fills in 3 boxes. A wound level of 3 is called Serious and fills in 6 boxes. A wound level of 4 is called Deadly and fills 10 boxes. A wound level of 5 is called Fatality.

Range, Recoil, and Aiming: The threshold to hit with any ranged attack is 2. But for every 20 full centimeters the target is from the firing character's model the threshold is increased by 1. This is the Distance penalty, and it can be removed by taking Primary actions to “Aim.” Every Aim action reduces the Distance penalty by 1, and a character may take a number of consecutive Aim actions equal to their Firearms skill (not dicepool, skill). Many weapons have a Recoil modifier. After being fired, a weapon subtracts the Recoil modifier from the number of Aim actions that are active. If a character moves from their position, their Aim actions are lost.

For Example: Sister Mary is firing a Bolt Gun at a target 25 cm away. Because this is more than 20 cm away, she would have a Distance penalty of 1. This would raise the threshold of her attack to 3. Since she doesn't want to deal with this, she instead takes an action Aiming, which reduces her Distance Penalty to 0. She can now plug the target with her bolter as normal. Unfortunately, the boltgun has a Recoil of 1, which means that her Aim action is negated for subsequent attacks.

Furthermore, all weapons have a Range value. A Rapid Fire weapon can be fired out to that range normally; and be fired out to double that range with a threshold increase of 1. An Assault weapon can be fired out to its range in centimeters without penalty and cannot be fired past that. A Heavy weapon or Pistol can be fired out to the range at no penalties, at double range at +1 threshold, at triple range at +2 threshold, and quadruple range at +3 threshold.

Autofire: Weapons capable of Autofire can be fired in one of two ways: suppressing fire and sustained fire. Suppressing Fire targets an area rather than a specific person. Sustained Fire targets a number of enemies directly.

Suppressing Fire: A suppressing fire attack covers an area in bullets, hot rivets, or whatever it is that your weapon fires. The purpose of suppressing fire is to keep people out of the area. Anyone who is in the area during your turn or who moves into the area has a chance of being hit unless they are prone or in cover. Roll a single die, on a hit, they are hit (do not stage this damage up). Make an attack roll as normal. The number of hits sets the threshold of Faith checks for characters to voluntarily move into harm's way (better gunners are better at keeping heads down), and also allows you to nominate a number of characters who are not subject to getting hit. The act of laying down suppressing fire on an area while allies move through it is also called “covering fire.” The area covered by suppressing fire is a triangle whose apex is the firing character, whose base is a number of centimeters equal to the base range of the weapon, and whose height is any distance more than short range and less than extreme range for the weapon.
Example: Brother Maynard has a heavy bolter and only vaguely knows how to use it. So he decides to spray a hallway being used by hostile enemies. He chooses to put his cone of death out to 50 cm, leaving him with a triangle of interdiction that is 25 cm wide at the far end and 50 cm long. He makes his Heavy Weapons check and gets only 1 hit. This means that if any of the Arbites want to charge down the corridor they will have to get 1 hit on a Faith check (or their commander will have to get 2 hits on a Command check). It also means that Brother Maynard can nominate one of his allies to be exempt from catching a bolt. In this case, Brother Maynard will halt firing just long enough for Acolyte Daisy to run into a covered position partway down the corridor.

Sustained Fire: A sustained fire attack is made in the same manner as a normal ranged attack, save that you can declare your attack against any number of enemies in a 45 degree arc. If your attack succeeds against the easiest target you declared, you hit that target. Net hits do not stage up damage as normal. Instead your attack roll is compared to the next most difficult target with a +1 threshold modifier, if your attack meets this higher threshold, it strikes an additional target. Repeat this process until your attack does not meet the threshold for the next target. Roll 3d6 for each target struck, and stage the damage up for each hit. Then roll a single d6 for each target (friend or foe) within 3 cm who is not in cover, and if the die comes up a hit, they are hit (no staging).
Example: Caelin is firing a heavy bolter at three enemies at close range. Two are in light cover, and one is not. If Caelin gets 2 hits, the target out of cover is struck. If she gets four or more hits, she can hit the second target (threshold 3 +1 for second target), if she gets five hits, she can tag the third target (threshold 3 + 2 for third target).

Template Weapons: A template weapon can be placed anywhere with the narrow end in contact with the shooter. Everything under the template to any degree except the shooter is hit. The shooter may make a shooting test and split up the hits any way desired to stage up damage to any targets under the template. Template weapons ignore cover entirely.

Example: Acolyte Daisy has a flamer and has moved up to a position where she can use it on some enemies. She can touch three targets with her flamer, so she does. All three are hit. She makes her heavy weapons test and gets 3 hits. The Flamer does a base 4 damage, so all three opponents are going to have to soak at least 4 damage. She can distribute the hits any way she likes. So one opponent could have to soak 7 damage while the other two soaked 4; or one could soak 6, one 5, and one 4; or they could all soak 5. She does not even have to distribute all of the hits (if for example, she is worried about outright killing one of the targets with a Fatality).

Blast Weapons: A blast weapon has a circular area of effect, and is subject to scatter. A weapon scatters a variable number of centimeters in a random direction. The base scatter is a number of d6s of centimeters equal to the threshold of striking a target at the desired range with a direct fire weapon. The scatter is reduced by 2 cm for every hit on the attack roll. Every target within the area of effect of the blast is hit by the weapon, with the base damage being staged up by the number of hits rolled on 3 dice. Targets in cover from the center of the blast may be protected from blast weapons. Reduce the number of hits to stage up the weapon by 1 for cover and 2 for heavy cover. If the remaining hits to stage up the damage are now negative, the entire hit is negated.

Example: Brother Maynard is firing a plasma cannon at a group of enemies some 55 cm away. This is Medium Range for the weapon and more than 40 cm away regardless. Brother Maynard has not spent any actions aiming, so the threshold to hit a target at this range would normally be 5. He rolls his own heavy weapons check and gets only 2 hits. The weapon then scatters 5d6 minus 4 cm in a random direction. This pushes it 13 cm towards the frying machine. As there happens to be an enemy behind the frying machine, the blast nails someone. The blast rolls its own dice to stage up and gets one hit, unfortunately the would be victim is in heavy cover (-2), and so escapes being smashed by plasma. The frying machine on the other hand takes the full brunt and is reduced to slag.

Realism Note: sometimes a blast weapon may deviate to some place where it is literally impossible for it to go. Most deviations can be explained, for example there's nothing literally stopping a shell from going past the “maximum range” if it gets a favorable wind. But while a shell may indeed go around a corner by bouncing before detonating, it's not going to phase into an enclosed space nor escape from one. It is best in such a circumstance for the CO to just ad hoc something, with a good baseline being to draw a line from the shooter to the impossible location and have the shell go off when it hits something it couldn't go over or through.

Thrown Weapons: Thrown Weapons are resolved as Assault Weapons and the dicepool is Strength + Martial Arts. Many thrown weapons are blast weaponry.

Shooting Modifiers

Distance: +1 Threshold for each full 20 cm.*
Target in Close Combat.*
Range: +1 Threshold for each range increment of the weapon.
Poor Visibility: +1 Threshold✦
Blindfire: +3 Threshold
Cover: +1 Threshold✦
Heavy Cover: +2 Threshold✦
Target Moving Quickly: +1 Threshold✦
Target Running: +1 Threshold✦
Target Prone: +1 Threshold (-1 if within 10cm)✦
Target Large: -1 Threshold✦
Target Huge: -2 Threshold✦
Target Stationary: -1 Threshold✦
*: Aiming can reduce this modifier.
✦: Does not affect shooting tests for Blast or Template weapons.

Cover: A character counts as having cover when there is a physical object between the attacker and the target. Cover increases the threshold for normal shooting by 1 difficulty. If the attacking character “owns” the cover, they are not penalized on their attacks against enemies who do not own that cover. A character owns cover that they are within 5 cm of it and they can plausibly point their guns out or across. Template weapons ignore cover whether owned or not. Blast weapons ignore cover during the initial targeting test, but their staging roll is reduced if a target has cover from the center of the blast. Blasts never own cover. If cover is especially defensive and/or the target is about 10% visible (or less) from behind it, the cover is considered Heavy Cover and the penalties are doubled.

Example: Caelin is in a building firing out of the window. Since she can reach her gun through the window, she owns the cover provided by the building and suffers no penalties shooting out. On her opponent's turn, she has cover from their attacks. On the next turn, Caelin kneels down, meaning that she is now displaying less than 10% of her body and she has Heavy Cover from enemies. If an opponent got into the room with her, she would have no cover from that enemy, only from any opponents still outside.

Moving Targets: If the target moved more than 30 cm last turn, the threshold to hit them with a ranged attack is increased by 1 difficulty. Template weapons are not affected. Blast weapons are usually not affected, since they target the ground rather than any particular target. If however the ground itself is what is moving (for example: the character is attempting to land a rocket on a skimmer such as a Dark Eldar Raider), then the penalty applies. A stationary target on the other hand reduces the threshold by 1 difficulty. A target is considered stationary whether or not they literally moved any distance on the table if they took no evasive action. A character taking any kind of combat action is considered to be taking some kind of evasive action as well. Note that a vehicle driving down a road at a fixed speed may be considered both fast moving and stationary.

Prone Targets: An opponent who is prone is hard to hit with ranged weaponry unless they are very close. Hitting a prone target with a ranged attack requires attaining a 1 higher threshold on your shooting test. If the target is within 10 cm though, this effect is canceled and even reversed: the angle is good enough that the target is easier to hit and the required threshold is reduced by 1 instead.

Shooting Into Close Combat:

Close Combat
“The most powerful and advanced laser in the galaxy is of little use when a foe is breaking your skull with a rock.”

Close combat assaults begin when characters are in base contact. A character may make close combat attacks as a primary action. Each close combat attack's threshold is one plus one for every four rating points the target has in Dexterity and Martial Arts together.

Example: Acolyte Daisy has a rating of 3 in Dexterity and Martial Arts. The two added together are 6, which is at least 4 but not 8. So the base threshold to strike her in close combat is 2. If she had specialized her Martial Arts in Defense, the threshold to strike her in close combat would be 3.[/i]

Charging Into Close Combat: A character may run directly into an enemy and attack them in close combat all as a single primary action. If the target is on Overwatch, not only do they not suffer and increase in the threshold for firing on Overwatch or at a running target, their threshold is actually reduced by 1. It's not hard to guess where an enemy will be when they just seem to be getting larger and large in your view.

Intercepting Runners: A character who is running is actually quite vulnerable to close combat assaults. If you can charge and catch a running opponent your threshold to strike them is reduced by 1.

Attacking With Two Weapons: Everyone and their dog runs around the grim dark galaxy with a chain saw in one hand and a pistol in the other. Normally speaking, pistols are not used in close combat save as a club, but merely having two weapons of any sort gives an attack in close combat a +3 dicepool bonus. If a character attacking with two weapons scores net hits on their attack, they may sacrifice one hit to resolve a basic hit with their secondary weapon. Otherwise, they only strike with one weapon of their choice. If a character is not ambidextrous and they are fighting with two weapons, the threshold to strike them in close combat is reduced by 1.

Disengaging From Combat: If you attempt to disengage from combat and your opponent has a pistol weapon, they can shoot you in the back. They may make an immediate shooting attack with a base to-hit threshold of 1. Either way, a disengaging character spends a Primary Action to move their normal movement rate out of close combat.

Close Combat Modifiers:

Target running: -1 threshold.
Target's movement restricted: -1 threshold.
Attacker's movement restricted: +1 threshold.
Friends in Melee: -1 threshold.
Lots of Friends in Melee: -2 threshold.
Ignored: -3 threshold.
Target not Ambidextrous: -1 threshold.

Restricted Position: If the target is in difficult terrain, dangerous ground, climbing, or in some other position where movement is limited (such as being in a trench or attempting to protect an innocent), the attacker's threshold is reduced by 1. If the attacker is in such a position, the attacker's threshold is increased by 1.

Multiple Attackers: When a character is attacking an enemy in close combat and has one or allies also in base contact with that enemy, their threshold to strike their opponent is reduced by one. If there are three or more additional allies in an assault, the threshold is reduced by 2.

Ignored: If a character is attacking an opponent in close combat who is ignoring them, their threshold is reduced by 3. The most common cause for this is probably sneaking up on a target, but a character can also voluntarily ignore an enemy in order to concentrate on other (presumably more dangerous) foes. An ignored enemy does not count as an enemy in base contact for purposes of calculating multiple attacker bonuses.

Activating Warp Powers

Characters who are psykers may use their warp powers, such as channeling or summoning, as a primary action. But like using an Assault Weapon, calling upon the warp may only be done once in a turn.

Suffering Drain: Many Warp Powers cause drain which is physical damage returned to the Psyker who used the power. Drain damage is suffered after the power has been activated, but it does not provoke a chance to lose sustained powers. Drain bypasses armor of all kinds, but a character can soak the damage with their Strength plus their Willpower.

Invoking Powers: Invoking a Warp Power or calling upon any other use of the Warp is generally a Primary Action.

Summoning Daemons: The warp is a huge place where time passes differently and there are horrors beyond comprehension in uncountable hordes. And with a primary action, a character may attempt to summon one of them to his current location. The psyker can only summon types of daemons that they have the appropriate Daemonic Favor perk for. The psyker may choose to attempt to summon a daemon of any Force up to their Power attribute. In order to successfully summon such a creature, the psyker makes an opposed test, pitting their Channeling test against the Force of the Daemon. In the summoner gets at least as many hits a the Daemon, the Daemon appears in the warp. Every net hit of the summoner requires the Daemon to perform one service for the psyker. The psyker suffers Drain equal to half the Daemon's Force plus the number of hits the Daemon actually got. Most daemons have no special ability to interact with the physical world save through psykers, so if you want the summoned daemon to do anything other than scout or assault enemy psykers, you'll need to channel them.

Countering Psychic Powers: Warp powers are disrupted ironically enough by warp energy. This means that a character can attempt to counter powers by summoning warp energy. A psyker can take a primary action to attempt to Counter a sustained psychic power if they can see the target or the originating psyker by making a Summoning test. Every hit reduces the hits of the power, and the countering psyker suffers drain as if they had invoked the power themselves. Psychic powers are particularly well suited to disrupting other powers, and a psyker on overwatch to counter a power as it is being invoked can do so even against Instant powers without suffering a threshold modifier for taking an Overwatch action.

Channeling Daemons: Some daemons have the ability to assault and possess psykers, and there are warp gates scattered around the galaxy that allow daemons to simply walk directly into the physical world. But other than that, a daemon that wants into the physical world (and most of them do want into the physical world) will need the help of a psyker. And that help usually takes the form of channeling. There are several ways to bring a daemon across the border from the imaterium to the physical world:

Voluntary Possession: A psyker can channel a daemon into their own body or the body of a willing and marked character.

Involuntary Possession: A psyker can force a daemon into an unwilling psyker, marked character, or specially prepared object. The daemon does not have to be willing, and in the case of creating a daemon weapon almost certainly won't be.

Materialization: A daemon that is successfully materialized forms a body out of nothing and appears in the physical world with their normal physical attributes and appearance.

Telepathy:

-Username17

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 9:58 pm

Still working on this. Obviously, not all the sections of the combat section are done, but you can see where it is going.

-Username17