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01-22-2015, 09:25 AM | #1 |
Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: Salodurum, Confoederatio Helvetica
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Who brings a knife to a gun-fight?
Hi guys
To answer my own question: Apparently, Space Marines do! I have a problem with the survivability of melee-weapons based fighters in a world which also features high damage ranged weapons. My current headache is with a Warhammer 40'000 campaign where the PCs take on the roles of Space Marines. The PCs start out at 700 CP, they are extremely beefy warriors with high stats, all wearing power armour with 70 DR. Have a look at this post in which I linked a document if you are interested in the templates I used.<link zu pdf post> So far, I've tried the following rule adaptions for melee-based PCs:
Do you have any other ideas on what to do to help my melees survive? Then there's the problem of scope. Assault Marines often carry a melee weapon and a ranged weapon. Do they get all, some or none of the benefits I mentioned above? Do only 'true' melees get the benefits? I am mostly interested in hearing about experiences and additional rules exemptions you might have used in your games. And of course what you think of the stuff I did so far. Cheers Onkl |
01-22-2015, 09:32 AM | #2 |
Hero of Democracy
Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: far from the ocean
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Re: Who brings a knife to a gun-fight?
Other things you can do:
Close quarters: melee weapons work best in quarters close enough that ranged weapons get bulk penalties and engagements start at melee range. (watch for it in action movies -- its really common). High dodge, no deceptive ranged attack: If enemies (and PC's) have high dodges and you can't do deceptive ranged attacks, Closing to melee range may be the best way to hit ubersoldiers bouncing all over the place.
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Be helpful, not pedantic Worlds Beyond Earth -- my blog Check out the PbP forum! If you don't see a game you'd like, ask me about making one! |
01-22-2015, 09:39 AM | #3 | |
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Portland, Oregon
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Re: Who brings a knife to a gun-fight?
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01-22-2015, 09:46 AM | #4 | |
Join Date: Jun 2013
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Re: Who brings a knife to a gun-fight?
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Other than that, give everyone the rule Flesh Wounds, which lets you spend 1 CP to reduce the injury from an attack to 1, but let them pay FP instead of CP against ranged attacks. This makes sense, and it would also be 100% appropriate to the setting for some manner of special ammo to disregard Flesh Wounds (and be rare, of course). I think it's best to implement special rules that protect the all PCs from ranged attacks rather than giving specific advantages to the melee ones. The Devastator marine with the Heavy Bolter is absolutely going to get more kills on average than the Assault Marine: however, the Assault Marine is going to shine against opponents that close quickly like Ork Bikers, shrug off damage like Necrons, or are hard as hell to hit like Harlequins. Don't make people feel bad for playing the Devastator by giving the Assault Marine free points, make them both feel good by giving them different enemies to annihilate. |
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01-22-2015, 10:32 AM | #5 |
Join Date: Jun 2013
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Re: Who brings a knife to a gun-fight?
Can't talk directly to WH40K, but typically speaking in video games with automatic weapons where melee is still of use, there are a few notable advantages to melee.
Accuracy: Firearms require you have the reticule on the target to hit, and many weapons have a decent amount of spread, while just having the target in range and within a wide arc is enough for an auto-hit with a melee attack. GURPS covers this fairly well already. Range penalties can easily give you a low chance to hit, although at high TL's Acc can offset this. Tactical Shooting requires you to use All Out Attack to benefit from Acc, however, so implementing that can help the melee characters. You can also disallow Prediction Shooting (so that Deceptive Attack is a melee-only option). Another option would be to give melee attacks a blanket bonus to hit - +2 could do it. Power: Melee attacks often do more damage than all but the most powerful of ranged weapons. High armor divisors for melee weapons and low wounding modifiers for ranged ones can accomplish this rather well in GURPS. Alternatively, you can accomplish something similar by having armor give high protection against pi and burn damage and lower protection against all other types. Stagger: Related to the above, in many First Person Shooters ranged attacks will at best cause a foe to flinch slightly, while a melee strike sends them reeling. Have foes struck in melee suffer a higher shock penalty than those attacked at range to help facilitate this. Knockback can also be useful (due to the chance of the target falling). Sneak Attack: In games with a sneak attack mechanic, melee strikes are almost invariably more effective than ranged ones. Again, GURPS already has something like this, with Telegraphic Attack. You could also give a blanket damage bonus - say, +1/die - and/or give reduced penalties for Targeted Attacks (and/or only allow the Targeted Attack Technique for melee skills). |
01-22-2015, 10:35 AM | #6 |
Join Date: May 2013
Location: Ellicott City, MD
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Re: Who brings a knife to a gun-fight?
From what little experience I have with Warhammer, it seems that melee weapons should have a higher armor divisor than ranged weapons, meaning you're more likely to murder the canned meat with a single attack than with any gun shot. Throw in sneaking up behind somebody so they get no active defense, and melee has a purpose.
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01-22-2015, 12:38 PM | #7 |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: Who brings a knife to a gun-fight?
The reason you bring a melee weapon to a gun fight in Warhammer 40k is because the melee weapon does considerably more damage. Knives aren't a great choice even for space marines, but at least in their RPG it can be difficult to damage things with a gun, meaning you need to go over to higher damage melee weapons.
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01-22-2015, 01:46 PM | #8 |
Hero of Democracy
Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: far from the ocean
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Re: Who brings a knife to a gun-fight?
Yeah, whatever else the modern world is, we are not pragmatic about war. When we fight we are messy, underhanded, wasteful, and rarely settle for anything but unconditional victory. Its definitely a cultural thing: we've seen cultures that fight like that in history, and for many of the same reasons (ancient rome comes to mind). We've also seen cultures that are pragmatic about ending the war before one or the other sides has been turned into dust.
Its also worth recognizing that along with this we have the philosophy that violence is the last resort, so much of the time we use it, the above outlook is valid: if something less than unconditional victory was on the table we would have started with negotiations, not tested (emphasis on test) our strength first.
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Be helpful, not pedantic Worlds Beyond Earth -- my blog Check out the PbP forum! If you don't see a game you'd like, ask me about making one! |
01-23-2015, 09:59 AM | #9 | |
Join Date: Oct 2013
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Re: Who brings a knife to a gun-fight?
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I'm going to echo all the other posters that are saying that the key is to make sure that the armor to penetration setup is such that the heavily-armored marines can close without getting ripped to shreds. Maybe justify the absurdly-short ranges mentioned above (48/120 yards) with defensive jammers/point defense that make shooting beyond that range ineffective? |
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01-24-2015, 02:13 AM | #10 | ||
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Germany
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Re: Who brings a knife to a gun-fight?
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDPlWAq-11I In WWI the soldiers improvised Weapons for Close Quarter, then the armies reintroduced the dagger for fighting in the trenches. AFAIK the Gurkhas used their kukris in WWII in Close combat.
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Tags |
damage, guns, melee, warhammer, wh40k |
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