I'm in a real dilemma right now. I have allowed so many bonuses to their hit attacks that the target number is pretty outrageous. I also have implemented every DoS is a hit on full auto. My question is how do I start penalizing the player with some tough modifiers to bring down the Target Number a bit.

I do not want to ruin their chance at having fun but it seems I have to make combat extremely complicated or find 'hellish' reasons why their target numbers should be brought down at least 30% - 40% for a manageable game. If I could at least get the players within a TN of 50%-65% I will be more happy than giving them modifiers at 80% +.

I realize that every situation is comes with there own story. Finding loopholes in part of the mechanics and science of what their doing to find ways of balancing their modifiers. My question is what method do you use (if any) to balance an encounter. Knowing they are going to use the same ones over, I don't know what can be done to use some of the penalties listed in the book are pretty explanatory, just how would firing a basic weapon bring a hellish modifier.

I'm in a real dilemma right now. I have allowed so many bonuses to their hit attacks that the target number is pretty outrageous. I also have implemented every DoS is a hit on full auto. My question is how do I start penalizing the player with some tough modifiers to bring down the Target Number a bit.

I do not want to ruin their chance at having fun but it seems I have to make combat extremely complicated or find 'hellish' reasons why their target numbers should be brought down at least 30% - 40% for a manageable game. If I could at least get the players within a TN of 50%-65% I will be more happy than giving them modifiers at 80% +.

I realize that every situation is comes with there own story. Finding loopholes in part of the mechanics and science of what their doing to find ways of balancing their modifiers. My question is what method do you use (if any) to balance an encounter. Knowing they are going to use the same ones over, I don't know what can be done to use some of the penalties listed in the book are pretty explanatory, just how would firing a basic weapon bring a hellish modifier.

How about giving their enemies the same modifiers, for starters?

Try using environmental modifiers (low light, smoke), put the enemy behind cover so less shots hit.

Sure, I'am aware of cover and armor protection. I'am using the play by post method for our game right now and I probably should envision the surroundings more. I can completely agree with this and I should implement more decisive ways of equaling the playing field. I already started with your advise and I'm giving the renegades almost equal ballistic and weapon skill scores. I was thinking of making a house rule for distance. I know there maybe some at certain distances but If they are going to use full auto on everything, then stack the penalties for either different targets or the same ones. 1st hit {+0} 2nd{-10} 3rd {-20) etc...

I think this could help scale down the powerful effects of certain shots at least. But how could I justify the penalties. Maybe make mention since various hits are to different body parts that sustaining the trigger takes concentration or something like that. I know it's not too difficult to pull a trigger and especially when bullets are spraying moving your weapon hand to justify it's fast aim at something. I dunno.

I'm guessing you are using the original Dark Heresy rules rather than the Black Crusade/Only War rules. Would you mind listing out the modifiers the players are applying to their attacks so I can get a better idea of how their bonuses are stacking so high? What class/Rank are your players, and what sort of weapons and gear do they use?

In addition to placing enemies in cover and assigning environmental penalties to hit (smoke, driving rain, storm-tossed decks/airplane turbulence, etc.), you can place the players in scenarios where indiscriminate shooting is a poor option. Maybe they are chasing their target through a crowded hive market, and any stray shots could harm civilians. If they need to assassinate a heretic who has great authority and many armed guards (like a PDF general or spire noble), the players would need to engineer the heretic's death creatively rather than taking on a small army by themselves. Perhaps they need to take their target alive for interrogation and filling him with storm bolter rounds is not an option. Maybe there are no actual heretics present, and the players are prevented from entering a data-crypt by loyal but stubborn Imperial servants. Make it so that the players can use their nasty full-auto weapons if they really want, but choose not to for narrative reasons. If you work these constraints into the story in a plausible manner, players will view it as a tactical challenge rather than a contrived limit on their power.

You can also encourage enemies to behave in a manner that counters the players' preferred tactics. If they like to use full-auto weapons a lot, several cultists laying down suppressing fire will deny the players full actions. Full-auto fire and basic weapons both cannot be used in melee, so some fast enemies with close-combat weapons can tie up the shootiest party members quite well. Very occasionally, you might throw an enemy at the players who cannot be defeated by normal weapons; an incorporeal astral specter or ponderous daemon engine might require very different tactics to defeat.

I'm quite impressed by your response and have learned a great deal from your reply. I'am using the updated version of BC rules in a Dark Heresy Game which I'm considering switching to Black Crusades just so that I can have the label of all the talents, skills and other worldly features as well. I will give you a few of the modifiers. First the Tech Priest is the heavy guns of the group. He even outmatches a rank 5 Guardsman.

He has ballistic cybernetics, cybernetic eye implants, Multi Interfaced Units for his weapons, he has heightened sight so roughly gains about +50 on his two weapon specialist attack of which he has a max RoF with a drum of inferno shells. So were looking at +90 -+113%. This is extremely outrageous and usually I tend to let players have free will with their equipment. So right now I am using a little creativity for this next round coming up. I rolled a better initiative then the Tech Priest did so I invoked Psychic Phenomena and rolled reality quake which he was told to lay suppressing fire.

That is a -20 from the door and then I invoked another -20 for the amplified sonic blast which is arduous at best. I'm tending to work through through some of the difficulty of finding modifiers. Even if I could scale it down a bit where there is a 60- 80% chance, I feel this something tangible to me. I usually like to keep target numbers around half a chance so pretty much I have thrown twice the difficulty of cultists, renegades and animated corpses for a final climatic prelude. Then the sorcerer has doombolt and is summoning a blood letter of Khorne. This should raise some difficulty for the Acolytes.

WARNING: Too tired actually read the entire post, so just replying to bits I noticed.

Heighted Sight? How does this help him shoot? It only provides a bonus to spotting things.

And the only ballistic cybernetics I can recall off-hand is the ballistic mechandendrite, which is just an extra pistol, fired as a reaction.

Indeed the only implants I can recall that help you with actually shooting stuff are the MIU (only if Good Quality or better) and the Skeletal Petrification (from BC, has another name in RT) that gives Bulging Biceps.

Infact, checking up on it, the DH version of the MIU doesn't even provide a bonus to BS, only WS.

Sure, Skeletal Petrification lets him walk and fire a heavy weapon in the same round, but can still only use one such at a time. Or do you mean he uses a fancy pistol with his mechandedrite and a heavy weapon with his hands? Or did I misinterpret what you wrote? I feel like I'm missing some info here.

Detail: Sorcerors and Bloodletters are a bad combo. And as it turns out, bloodletters are a lot less scary that you might think.

Depending on what system you're using for psykers, I might suggest Weapons Jinx (from DH) to shut down the weapons of one of more PCs, or the BC Horror, with a very reliable Warpfire attack that should worry most acolytes.

He has ballistic cybernetics, cybernetic eye implants, Multi Interfaced Units for his weapons, he has heightened sight so roughly gains about +50 on his two weapon specialist attack of which he has a max RoF with a drum of inferno shells. So were looking at +90 -+113%. This is extremely outrageous and usually I tend to let players have free will with their equipment. So right now I am using a little creativity for this next round coming up. I rolled a better initiative then the Tech Priest did so I invoked Psychic Phenomena and rolled reality quake which he was told to lay suppressing fire.

Ok firstly, without meaning to sound rude the first thing you have to understand is that you brought this situation upon yourself. By allowing the characters free range of equipment and changing the core rules for full auto fire so that they are far more effective you basically broke the game out of the box. I say this not to be mean, but its important to know why this is going wrong before we try to make it right and hopefully you can learn from this experience so it doesn't repeat in the future.

The immediate solution is to 'undo' some of your changes. I would suggest getting hold of a copy of OW, which is the most recently published version of the game (and shares a number of similarities to Dark Heresy second edition, which is due for release soon) and look at the combat rules in that. The full auto attacks in particular impose a penalty rather than giving a bonus just for being used. You could also implement the idea of 'requisitioning' equipment, where finding things is based on fellowship and inquiry tests. Personally I am not a fan of this system, but it would limit your players just grabbing all the best gear.

Next, Heighten Senses: Sight does not grant a bonus to Ballistic Skill checks, it grants a bonus to Perception checks. Also what precisely is the character using to fire inferno shells? Just because he has TWW doesn't mean all weapons can be dual wielded without a -20 penalty (basically anything that would require two hands to fire is still at a penalty) unless he gets a recoil glove. If he has those, I would point you back to the last paragraph regarding 'letting them have anything'.

If you really want to go rules as written, Dark Heresy 1st edition states that a character shouldn't really ever gain more than +30 or -30 to any single test. Just take a really hard line enforcing that. Its on the box text for combining difficulties on page 197 of the corebook.

The errata for DH changed the combat modifiers to a max of -60/+60.

But otherwise yes, it seems that Drama was too generous with the boni and equipment.

Even if he uses the original modifiers his players get +20(full auto), -30/+30 (ranges) and maybe +10 (Targeter, equipment), but that's it.

Every other mod Drama hands out seems to be house ruled or a clear misconception of the rules.

Even my best shooter (Metallican Arbites with a BS of 45) rarely uses full auto since you simply waste too many bullets until you get closer to each other. At half range with an autogun he could score up to 7 hits. Sounds impressive. But that to happen is a 5% chance.

If his target is not running (-20), there is no smoke/rain (another -20), ...

So no.

Dark Heresy is, as a game, all about stacking bonuses to get something resembling a chance to succeed. Combat is no different. So, aside from a few issues mentioned above, I don't really think you have a "problem" as such.

That said, however, Dark Heresy can be a pretty lethal system if you're not doing everything in your power to limit the opponents chances to succeed, stuff like using cover, smoke grenades, environmental effects, etc., and this is also true for NPCs. If you don't play the NPCs "clever" (which can make sense, depending on the kind of enemies they are) they are going to get slaughtered. Furthermore, you can try to enforce how much gear (read: ammo) the PCs can realistically carry, to make stuff like auto-fire a less appealing option.

And if all else fails, there's always the almighty pinning test. Your BS doesn't matter if you're too busy cowering to fire your gun!

As has been pointed out, most of the positive mods you're giving out aren't valid. And I hope this list helps you come up with some negative ones

He has ballistic cybernetics, cybernetic eye implants, Multi Interfaced Units for his weapons, he has heightened sight so roughly gains about +50 on his two weapon specialist attack of which he has a max RoF with a drum of inferno shells. So were looking at +90 -+113%. This is extremely outrageous and usually I tend to let players have free will with their equipment.

I have a couple rules clarifications that may help clear up the situation: (Note that I use the Macharian Handbook for all my DH gear needs, and while I believe it's pretty accurate to source material the wording may be slightly different to the books your group uses)

• The bonuses from cybernetic eyes and the Heightened Senses talent to not apply to ranged weapon attacks -- there should be a note in the upgrade/talent's description stating this. Good eyesight certainly helps a shooter, but accuracy with ranged weapons is based more on hand-eye coordination and steady aim.
• By itself, a weapon MIU does nothing but allow a character to fire a weapon with his mind -- in other words, he still needs to hold the weapon in his hands. There is the option to include a shoulder-mounted servo-rig that can fire a Pistol-class weapon without a free hand, but it still does not grant a bonus to hit. You may be confusing it with a vehicle MIU, which gives the owner a +10 bonus on BS tests with the linked vehicle's weapons.
• Ballistic mechadendrites function in a similar way -- they let the user mount additional Pistol or melee weapons, but they don't grant any bonuses to hit.

If you are using the BC attack rules (full auto fire is a half action and is made at -10 to hit), then this character should have a +0 modifier to hit at short range (+10 range, -10 full auto). If he takes actions to aim, he can boost this modifier up to +10 or +20. Some kinds of weapon sights may increase this, but remember that red-dot sights only work with single shots.

Unless he's a Mechanicus Secutor with the Machinator Array talent, he can't mount Basic weapons on his mechadendrites or weapon MIU rigs and must hold them in his hands. This imposes a further -20 penalty unless he has recoil gloves. I personally dislike recoil gloves and don't use them in my DH games, but the choice on whether or not to allow them is up to you.

I must be too generous with my bonuses awarded to players. Of course they are not going to tell me this. Lol. It was just my personal feeling to give them a +10 from heightened senses which I feel could merit a boon to a ballistic skill test. The MIU is of course merited so I can't really argue that. So I may try to bring the modifier down a bit when the next scene comes up. I think one of the worst things I can do is take back something that is already in place so I think I will have to find clever ways of equaling the playing field. I do award my players the best chances at survival and combat.

I usually dish out best weapons and armor like their candy. I like balancing the game with different challenges that are fun and some what unique. I think this is one of the reasons why I love this system so much. I don't want to limit their opportunity, just when a player plays the hero, one would think that they are special in terms of their missions and the Inquisitor favors them to the point of giving them what they need. I like to think players knowing that a GM awards nice things attracts players to the game and could keep interest in a play by post setting.

It takes so much time to get through a scene or campaign in relative terms that implementing ways of keeping interest is one of the best things a GM can do of course within limitations as most of you have mentioned. I dunno, I'll keep everyone posted about this chase scene coming up. I have three directions for the Acolytes to travel on war bikes. A host of friendlies in two of the directions and some terrain features they will have to traverse if they take that route. I guess some penalties are distance, cover and speed?

I think one of the worst things I can do is take back something that is already in place so I think I will have to find clever ways of equaling the playing field. I do award my players the best chances at survival and combat.

Just say that you misunderstood the rules, and from now on you will rule differently. Fair for everyone, including NPCs.

That's hardly taking anything back, and I don't see how people could get worked up over that.

That's hardly taking anything back, and I don't see how people could get worked up over that.

Some people can, sadly.

You created a mess by being overgenerous and not knowing the rules properly. And now you are suggesting solving it by tacking on more (house) rules to achieve some 'balance'?

When you dump every candy in the store in batter and bake a cake which is too sweet, the answer is not adding some vinegar to the recipe. You have to use less candy.

In your case, simply fess up you made a mistake in interpreting things and that you are now enforcing the rules as intended. It will make for a better game. GM's can't know every item/skill/talent in the book(s) and thus might need to retroactively withdraw permission or nerf stuff to achieve game balance. It's part of the game, especially when dealing with power gamers or inventive gamers who can come up combinations which break the game.

Totally agree!

Put it on the "beginners mistakes" tab, and start over.

I am using the Black Crusade Errata for the Dark Heresy game and besides a few house ruled talents that give bonuses, I don't see why I should take back awarding player bonuses. I know I am a beginner but I feel that part of the game to balance it would be come up with my penalties to balance things out. I'm kind of nerfing what they get for thinking outside the box while being able to somehow save face. I learned that if I am going to be inconsistent then at least a part of the consistency is allow them the boons and under different or special circumstances rule opposing forces that will bring down the numbers a bit, I thank you for your responses, just I will have to do extra research for the terrain features, conditions and extra sciences for them while in game. I think this would make the whole group work for a better game. I mean one of the things I remember about reading the rule book is that everything can be changed to suite the Game Masters needs. Right?