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So, I'm curious to see what you all think about a little idea I had concerning the woefully underpowered state of melee in Deathwatch. I hate shooting, it's detestable and cowardly! So I charge things, and I'm always dissapointed at how pitiful it is. One swing, and that's it. As a tac marine, I don't even want to think about when I can get a second...without penalties. So here's my idea. Add in a new full action called:

Martial Strike: The marine unleashes a series of well thought out swings, catching his opponent offguard. The character will receive a +10 WS bonus and an extra hit for every two degrees of success, up to their agility bonus. A successful parry eliminates all the hits from the attack. The marine can only use one weapon, regardless of circumstances, to make this attack with. This can be used on a charge, but not an all out attack. This can only be used with weapons which have the Balanced quality.

My group is trying this out on Sunday, it looks promising. My character has furious assault and blademaster, so All Out Attack is still viable for the larger bonus to hit and getting to do it again. Add in he also has hammer blow, and all out attack loses nothing. It just seems to stupid that melee did not get something like this before, since shooting did. My other thought is to simply institute that bonus into all melee attacks instead, we will discuss it further. We do not see the rulebook as a bible, so please don't come in and say we're changing the rules which isn't right because if they meant for it to work like this yadda yadda yadda.

Thanks for looking!

Instead just make each degree or each other degree of success in melee do extra d10's of damage.

I really like that idea too, that way the unnatural strength bonus does not get out of hand and still gives a decent shot at righteous fury! Especially with flesh render. Anyone else?

Martial Strike: The marine unleashes a series of well thought out swings, catching his opponent offguard. The character will receive a +10 WS bonus and an D10 of damage for every two degrees of success, up to their agility bonus. The marine can only use one weapon, regardless of circumstances, to make this attack with. This can be used on a charge, but not an all out attack. This can only be used with weapons which have the Balanced quality.

How about making this an ability everyone can use? What do you think of the balanced weapon quality, leave it or ditch it?

Have you thought about taking a swift attack or lightning attack? How about counterattack? Or two weapon wielding? A servo arm? There are plenty of talents that give you extra swipes as long as you plan ahead and spend your XP appropriately. Both counterattack and swift attack are available to certain starting characters through their chapter and deeds. The other thing to think about is that you chose a tac marine which in DW isn't supposed to easily be a close combat character.. they're shooty and commandy, not choppy. That said, I'm currently running a CC-tact marine and do pretty well with him with the stuff above.

Also, the rules specifically limit you to one attack (and nerf almost all of the other ways zbove of getting an extra) on the charge so you may want to give that part a second thought (I'd say your talent would be a no brainer with it.. which isn't a good thing for game balance).

Or just reduce the power of Bolters.

That's an easier solution.

Warboss: that is precisely the problem though. I don't want to have to min max things to get a perfect build. I want a guy who is decent in melee, but not great. I've read many posts where people admit they never charge because they give up so much. My group is going to try the aforementioned idea as an ability granted in melee with balanced weapons only. The problem with swift attack and lightning attack is that not everyone has access to it, unless they pigeon hole themselves. I made my own chapter with it's own fluff, and those talents just...aren't in the cards for the story. I think they are still viable talents for people to take, they will just hit all the harder! But as I stated I'm looking to find a balanced rule to fix an obviously underpowered aspect of the game disregarding the rules as written, they are no bible. It might be over the top, that's what I'm looking to discern here.


HBMC: I'd be open to reducing bolter effectiveness, but I'm not familiar enough with the game to know how to go about it. It seemed easier to just give an extra D10 dmg for every two degrees of success since unnatural strength makes up for the rest.

From what I have noticed the only real way you are going to be good at melee in DW is by using an unbalanced weapon so you can murder things. Honestly though we have toned down the shooting since it is too easy to slaughter something in 1 or 2 rounds with a storm bolter or heavy bolter.

How did you manage that, Foot? I'm curious!

SlaaneshiCultist wrote:Warboss: that is precisely the problem though. I don't want to have to min max things to get a perfect build. I want a guy who is decent in melee, but not great. I've read many posts where people admit they never charge because they give up so much. My group is going to try the aforementioned idea as an ability granted in melee with balanced weapons only. The problem with swift attack and lightning attack is that not everyone has access to it, unless they pigeon hole themselves. I made my own chapter with it's own fluff, and those talents just...aren't in the cards for the story. I think they are still viable talents for people to take, they will just hit all the harder! But as I stated I'm looking to find a balanced rule to fix an obviously underpowered aspect of the game disregarding the rules as written, they are no bible. It might be over the top, that's what I'm looking to discern here.


HBMC: I'd be open to reducing bolter effectiveness, but I'm not familiar enough with the game to know how to go about it. It seemed easier to just give an extra D10 dmg for every two degrees of success since unnatural strength makes up for the rest.

In my game (I'm a coGM in the campaign), I haven't noticed melee being underpowered for those people who actually spend XP and renown to use it. Granted its easier to kill in ranged combat but the same is also true over there. One thing I would recommend is that you don't make the talent add to damage AND weapon skill since you're effectively just giving a free d5 of damage that way statistically with every hit; I'd pick just the extra damage. Also, waht are you charging for the talent? Keep in mind that the various "hunter of XXXX" cost 1000xp and only give you 2 extra damage and 10 to WS against a single class of enemy. I wouldn't charge less than 1000xp for just the extra d10 / 2 DoS version without the WS bonus as it would make the other talents relatively alot worse for their XP.

My flesh tearer marine with dual chainsword and that ability lets you swing a total of 3 times while berserk got 3 swings in at 40 damage a pop....

Right, but here's what we've noticed as a group right out of the gate....shooting kills easier than melee. Our ranged shots almost always hit for 30-40, in melee you are LUCKY to get 30ish. And that is with the best dice rolls you typically expect to get. It's stupid. Ranges starts better, and then if you talent it up then it is EASIER to get MORE stupid. Melee starts crappy, and continues to be crap unless you choose to take the appropriate chapter and class to make it any form of decent. As I said, we'll try it out and see how it goes. On the 70-ish chance my character hits, I expect to typically hit for 22. That's with the half aim...it is sad.

Please remember, I want to make melee dangerous for those who do NOT want to take a particular set up to do well. Just like shooting. Anyone can shoot, it is stupid. But I feel like I am way off base, or not being understood or understanding the game well.

Please take a moment to look at melee versus ranged WITHOUT THE NEED TO SPEND XP. And then look at what you can do WITH spending XP. They get better linearly, they do not start at the same level.

SlaaneshiCultist wrote:How did you manage that, Foot? I'm curious!

Basicly we just limited the ammount of righteous furies any one person can score. We watched our tac marine almost kill a tomb spyder by himself and decided, for purposes of keeping the game challenging, that you can only score so many hits in one turn. I can't remember the name of the rounds he was using but they were the ones with increased chance to RF and that is all he would do in a battle, it was kinda boring. I don't know the exact mechanics behind what we have decided since I'm not the GM.

Ah nice, I think those are the Hellfire rounds! They are pretty sick. We've thought about putting in that righteous fury is capped at half agility bonus rounded up per player turn. But it seemed kind of harsh, since that kind of stupid heroic thing is what makes the game fun. Of course if he's doing that all the time....

We implemented the extra die per 2 degrees of success for attacks with balanced weapons and...well...it was great! I was doing damage I was happy with which was just shy of what a servo arm dishes out. The one thing we had not taken into account was that the GM, to speed up game play, was not taking toughness and armour out of the damage we were doing each time but instead giving extra hit points based on the creatures toughness and armour. This gives a larger pool without having the game bog down in math. I am not sure exactly how he has done it, but the game is fun and we aren't too serious about it. Although it was funny since he tried to kill us with a chaos space marine lord in terminator armour and couldn't roll below an 80 to hit us. Amazing.

Just to double check with everyone in the thread:

You are all aware of the Deathwatch Errata that changes Righteous Fury so it is +D10 damage, not the whole weapon's damage again, each time you get an RF?

Right?

Well then...looks like I need to hop onto their site. Thanks for the info HBMC.

H.B.M.C. wrote:Just to double check with everyone in the thread:

You are all aware of the Deathwatch Errata that changes Righteous Fury so it is +D10 damage, not the whole weapon's damage again, each time you get an RF?

Right?

That's how I read the intent in the first place.

Melee output is boosted in squad mode... HEAVILY. In fact, the GM tends to make a lot of stuff stand-ff-ish to get into melee with our group and we end up rushing in...

As I'm just an apothocary rocking a storm shield (saved my ass numerous times and has yet to overload oddly), I don't know the name of the squad ability... but it gives everyone an extra attack action equal to their agility modifier until they miss... We've mowed down hordes, 10 magnitude large (of xenos filth) with 2 of our meleer's and 1 devistator unlucky enough to be caught with a combat knife only... but it happened all in 1 turn.

Sorry I don't remember the name of it, but I'm usually too busy putting people back together, lol.