I disagree with this. Anyone who doesn't have ~80 Fel +60 Command will get their asses handed to them. A few paltry bonuses to Hit & Run won't change that. Not only that, but before you even get to within your 5VU Hit & Run range, the guy with two laser macrobatteries will already have blown your ship to scrap.

Speaking of which, macrobatteries are some of the most broken rules in RT.

Take a RT with good fellowship, Storm troopers, the murder servitors, teleportarium,and then silent run up to the target. Remember too that some bridges give a bonus to command. ALL command.

IF needed leave behind an atomic.

IF needed leave behind an atomic.

IF needed leave behind an atomic.

What, and destroy the loot?!

Obviously you take the loot, and then make it look like an accident in munitions.

Then you spread the story of how dangerous and unstable atomics are, and buy them up when the price drops.

I disagree with this. Anyone who doesn't have ~80 Fel +60 Command will get their asses handed to them.

I suspect the point was more that RT PCs will easily get that 80 Fel and acquire the +60 Command from the murder servitors and teleportarium.

Well, since Baron is of the opinion that Silent Running is a valid tactic, and Errant is of the opinion that 80 Fel and +60 Command is a problem, I can only take the stance that neither of you pits their players against competent enough enemies.

Competent enough is the bugbear, here. The best of the best crew rating is only rating 60. Hell, none of the statted Rogue Traders break a Command score of 65. Whipping out bigger numbers than my players' stats isn't a problem. Establishing a standard that the only way to play the game is to hyper-specialise into your niche role is annoying and tedious for me to deal with. I would rather see an Explorator that maxes out his Tech-Use at 75 but has interesting character options than one that can push his Tech-Use to 180.

Honestly, that's the only real problem I have with Rogue Trader. The rules themselves are okay at best, but they seem to have been playtested with Dark Heresy characters, where if you were able to get to a 50/50 chance of succeeding on a test with assistance, you were doing great. Charging out of chargen with 70 in your main stat and +20 with Talented in whatever your focus skill is is crazy.

Not that I disagree that the system is broken or anything - I mean, it's like the one thing people in this forum can agree on - but why are crew ratings relevant? Give the enemy some NPCs to work with.

And the pre-statted NPCs are ****. Absolute tripe that can only survive thanks to GM fiat and bull. The Hostile Acquisitions NPC section is a buffé table of loot and free ships. If I hear one more arrogant sumbitch GM talk about how they can totally be dangerous with clever planning (by which they invariably mean GM fiat) I will dqo0wfhbk´qudfb9AI=FHARAHRGRHRHGHGHH

Okay, I'm calm.

Seriously, though, the system is way broken. You can either turn it into a different system via house ruling (adding another fifteen pages to the word document of rules you have to make up because the actual rules don't cover even half the stuff they should), GM fiat it (in which you really are better off playing FATE or freeform or something, given the amount of fiating you'll have to do), or adapt to the power levels that result from the rules.

I hate to say it, but I've grown rather fond of the campy 90s action movie version of 40k.

Then again, Kasatka, it could be that said players prefer roleplaying over rollplaying.

I'm assuming that was in reference to my comments about Tradey McShip being a boring ship to play with as the players claw their way to 100+ profit factor while doing nothing but peaceful trade endeavours? If so then if you're focusing on RP and not mechanics then why would someone min-max a ship in such a way? It seems strange for serious role-players to pick such a mechanically broken ship if they only want to focus on narrative and whatnot.

Heck if my players didn't want to have to worry about ship mechanics so much i'd ask them to narratively describe what sort of ship they wanted and then i'd build a couple for them to pick from. I mean i'm a role-player myself - i'll often play a-typical characters just to be more interesting and less stereotypical but the fun for me in games is the interplay within the party of characters and between the characters and the NPCs (via the GM).

But yes back on track - acquisition rules for military forces in BFK are insanely broken. Its not that hard to acquire units of Elite troops, then equip them with hell pistols and power swords and laugh as they annihilate almost anything short of full-blown tyranid or chaos incursions.

Well, since Baron is of the opinion that Silent Running is a valid tactic, and Errant is of the opinion that 80 Fel and +60 Command is a problem, I can only take the stance that neither of you pits their players against competent enough enemies.

Well, for much the same reason that not ever wandering adventurer is secretly the Dragonborn, not every ship in the expanse is a archeotech fitted Repulsive filled with Chaos Space Marines.

Having to score an additional three degrees of success with what's effectively a -30 penalty can indeed make Silent Running a valid tactic unless you're loading every ship with very high end auspex. Particularly if the players use passive array to avoid decloaking until they fire.

If you give your NPC ships low stats, bad equipment and poor training compared to the players, then yes, that may very well happen. Personally, I wouldn't put something as valuable as a voidship in the hands of a factory floor scrub with 30 [insert stat here] unless I was absolutely desperate. If my players were going that far out of their way to attack impoverished garbage scows, I'd be wondering why they're not going after the fabled treasure of von Guffin instead.

But we can trade snide jabs all week and never agree on anything. If you're having problems with your games, I suggest you fix them, and I have given you suggestions on how. If you don't want to do that, it's out of my hands, and it's not my group to worry about.

The Atomics ARE really bad. Every group with a teleportarium and atomics wants to end climatic battles with a whimper.

Hey now, don't the rules say you should allow *creative* ways to get the bombs in? Teleport nukes, clearly, are the most uncreative way imaginable, as evidenced by the fact that everyone thinks of it right away. ;P

Hey now, don't the rules say you should allow *creative* ways to get the bombs in? Teleport nukes, clearly, are the most uncreative way imaginable, as evidenced by the fact that everyone thinks of it right away. ;P

If my players were that uncreative, I'm going to hit them with the creativity hammer and tell them that atomics cannot be teleported, due to the rapid ongoing decay of fissionable materials making entry and re-entry hard or impossible. At best, the atomic would fail to detonate. At worst, it would detonate before the shunt was complete.

The Atomics ARE really bad. Every group with a teleportarium and atomics wants to end climatic battles with a whimper.

Hey now, don't the rules say you should allow *creative* ways to get the bombs in? Teleport nukes, clearly, are the most uncreative way imaginable, as evidenced by the fact that everyone thinks of it right away. ;P

Any plan I think of before my PCs I am much less forgiving in allowing it to work.

A Rogue trader's obscene amounts of wealth and influence and the fact they have their own spaceship full of weapons and a private army...

If you can't do something broken with tons of cash and your own army then you are doing something wrong!

Oh and astropaths getting that gaze of death thing from their warp eye... Why doesn't the emperium have squads of combat astropaths?

Oh and astropaths getting that gaze of death thing from their warp eye... Why doesn't the emperium have squads of combat astropaths?

You're thinking of Navigators. The reason is that Navigators are super valuable, super essential to every ship, and incredibly inbred because only a purebred Navigator produces a Warp Eye. Also a Navigator pregnancy has an (increasing) chance of just birthing a horrible Chaos spawn that is completely worthless and has to be put down.

Also the Navigators are one of the most powerful political forces in existence. That helps their case.

Kasatka, you can follow a thread without the need for quotes. Congratulations. You're a step above most. In my LARP days I met many a player that min=maxed, power-gamed, and/or rules-lawyered, all while never getting into a combat, so believe me, even if you've never met them, that there are plenty of people that will game the system just for social backup, better encounter situations, or the rewards incumbent upon those encounters. And some of them were superb role-players, as evidenced by awards they won, voted to them by memberships of 10k+.

I would only include a couple of those superb role-players in the last RT group I ran, but the other two were tabletop miniature gamers and as a group they really liked space combat and preferred to avoid firefights, and that was fine with me as I burned out on dungeon crawls a couple decades ago. And said ship was the one they designed, and I allowed it, as I don't like to penalize intelligent gameplay. Yes, I had to come up with houserules. Who doesn't?

I don't run opponents' ships with crew rating alone; they get NPC hero-class characters, too. I'll even use duplicates of the PCs on occasion.

Baronlveagh brings up another problem with the game, and that is detection. The rules are poorly explained and that's quite unacceptable given the importance of the mechanic. Encounter range has always been a problem in my games, and I hate the "range of plot" or GM fiat, as Magellan would have it.

The RT mechanics are terrible at every aspect. Why? Because they are barely modified, transfered mechanics of Dark Heresy. The underlying issue is that PCs in RT get much better bling, resulting in a lot of one-shooting items.

Some examples of broken mechanics:

-Seneshal having legitimate 25 armor+6 TB, along with true grit laughing your ass off on meltaguns.

-99% chance for passing a dodge test... Plus a reroll, two dodges a turn, and 50% chance to negate any hit that actually connects (power field).

-Stacking same modifier on space ship, resulting in, for example, 95 hp raiders, transports with +120 to maneuverability and one of the smallest hulls in the game dealing enough ramming damage to cripple a battlecruiser in one go.

-Every anti-tank weapon that hits a character instagibs him (unless he's the forementioned Seneshal).

-Noone really understands how the acquisition works, so every1 houserules it

-The only way to be good at something is stacking modifiers. Result being that you usually either have a ~30% chance succeed at something or 100%.

Those are the first examples from top of my head, could go on and on for ages.

1- I would need the mechanics to get 25 armour

2-doens't seems to horrible; ascension chars can pull this off; tech-priest's been doing that with awanress tests since rank 6-7 with his implanted good quality aupex

3-No idea how to get a raider to 95 hull point, nor a mechant vessel with 120 maneuvrability... Please explain the mechanical know-how to get that.

4-anti-tank weapon vs a human..human looses everytime, nothing too horrid about that.

5-Really? No one understands it? It's explained in the book, I never had to jump around loops to house rule it a ton...(Granted been a while since I ran RT, but I usually go with a sinlge roll for a single item; you can't find it, it's not currently availalbe at the city/station you're currently at...also no fate point can be used with acquisition rolls.)

6-Stacking mods are the way to go yes; but I usually never had anyone break the 100 margin (short again, of the Tech-priest)

Keeping in mind I run a Dark Heresy campaign prertty much straight up with the core book and specialised books (Lathes World, BoJ, Ascension..)

Not being able to use fate points with acquisitions is perfectly normal. They only let your reroll *failed* *characteristics tests* - including skill checks, since those are based on characteristics (the terminology used doesn't make sense to me either, but it's been stated). You also cannot reroll a successful test because you don't like the result - a focus power test that results in warp phenomena cannot be rerolled if it successful, for instance.

And why are you arguing that Rogue Trader characters don't break the 100%, based on your experiences with Dark Heresy?

Oh, you must have read it wrong; I didn't say that RT char can't break the 100, just that breaking the 100 is not something I see as susprsing as others seems to think it is; also, that I never really witnessed it in RT as of yet, mostly because I didn't play/GM Rogue Trader as much as I GM Dark Heresy.

Now, can anyone give me the math on how to get a senechal with 25 armour, a raider with 95 hull point and a merchant vessel with 120 maneuvrability? Because really that seems like people spend more time breaking the **** thing than actually playing with it.

Oh, okay. My bad.

Well, let me think. A raider with 95 hull points is probably a result of a ton of high-quality interior bulkheads upgrades with reduced space requirements. It still gets blown up in one round by a decent broadside, so it doesn't seem very meaningful.

The vessel with 120 maneuverability is just utterly pointless, since you can't have more than a +60 to your tests anyway, between your maneuverability, MIUs and plain old Pilot (Voidship) +20. You might be able to do by filling all your space with retro-thrusters.

25 Armour. Dunno. BQ Power Armour, subskin armour, bionic heart, suppression shield gives you 16, Physical Perfection 3 and TFiW 2 can get you 21, and if you add the upgrades from Hostile Acquisitions, you get an effective 23-ish against almost all weapons over almost all of your body. Then you could go Awakened Psyker and TK Shield yourself for another six or so depending on the specifics. There's more, depending on what books you use, but this is what I can think of off the top of my head.

If you give your NPC ships low stats, bad equipment and poor training compared to the players, then yes, that may very well happen. Personally, I wouldn't put something as valuable as a voidship in the hands of a factory floor scrub with 30 [insert stat here] unless I was absolutely desperate. If my players were going that far out of their way to attack impoverished garbage scows, I'd be wondering why they're not going after the fabled treasure of von Guffin instead.

But we can trade snide jabs all week and never agree on anything. If you're having problems with your games, I suggest you fix them, and I have given you suggestions on how. If you don't want to do that, it's out of my hands, and it's not my group to worry about.

So, wait, all voidships are so super expensive that no one with one would ever have a stat lower than 30, but they're so cheap that knocking off a garbage scow isn't worth the effort? (mind you, PCs can have stats lower than 30)

Treasure McGuffins tend to draw the Inquisitorial Eye. Knocking off pirates and smugglers for the IN and selling their ships as spoils once IN has searched them does not. Usually.

Also, did a quick check:

The CMD bonus from components can be maxed out at +70 for Hit and run, and +75 to defend against hit and run. Mind you, this does take a cruiser size ship or larger to pull off. I'll go out on a limb here and say that said cruiser would roflstomp anything smaller due to H&R.

If you give your NPC ships low stats, bad equipment and poor training compared to the players, then yes, that may very well happen. Personally, I wouldn't put something as valuable as a voidship in the hands of a factory floor scrub with 30 [insert stat here] unless I was absolutely desperate. If my players were going that far out of their way to attack impoverished garbage scows, I'd be wondering why they're not going after the fabled treasure of von Guffin instead.

But we can trade snide jabs all week and never agree on anything. If you're having problems with your games, I suggest you fix them, and I have given you suggestions on how. If you don't want to do that, it's out of my hands, and it's not my group to worry about.

So, wait, all voidships are so super expensive that no one with one would ever have a stat lower than 30, but they're so cheap that knocking off a garbage scow isn't worth the effort? (mind you, PCs can have stats lower than 30)

Treasure McGuffins tend to draw the Inquisitorial Eye. Knocking off pirates and smugglers for the IN and selling their ships as spoils once IN has searched them does not. Usually.

Also, did a quick check:

The CMD bonus from components can be maxed out at +70 for Hit and run, and +75 to defend against hit and run. Mind you, this does take a cruiser size ship or larger to pull off. I'll go out on a limb here and say that said cruiser would roflstomp anything smaller due to H&R.

Tricked out for Silent Running to get into position and launch a surpise salvo of virus torpedoes. Kill the crew and they can't hit and run.

Or, turbo laser/plasma macrobatteries. Blow the ship to interstellar dust before they can close to H&R range. Fuzzy on the exact rules, so not sure, but disruption macros might work as well.

Tricked out for Silent Running to get into position and launch a surpise salvo of virus torpedoes. Kill the crew and they can't hit and run.

Or, turbo laser/plasma macrobatteries. Blow the ship to interstellar dust before they can close to H&R range. Fuzzy on the exact rules, so not sure, but disruption macros might work as well.

Max virus torps a frigate can put out wouldn't do much to a cruiser. Certainly not enough to prevent H&R. And a cruiser with plasmat broasides/godsbane lance can hit you at a range of 12. If 'Wrested from a Space Hulk' you're looking at a potential speed of 9 and a maneuverability of +27. All without losing that +70 to H&R.

Tricked out for Silent Running to get into position and launch a surpise salvo of virus torpedoes. Kill the crew and they can't hit and run.

Or, turbo laser/plasma macrobatteries. Blow the ship to interstellar dust before they can close to H&R range. Fuzzy on the exact rules, so not sure, but disruption macros might work as well.

Max virus torps a frigate can put out wouldn't do much to a cruiser. Certainly not enough to prevent H&R. And a cruiser with plasmat broasides/godsbane lance can hit you at a range of 12. If 'Wrested from a Space Hulk' you're looking at a potential speed of 9 and a maneuverability of +27. All without losing that +70 to H&R.

Hmm, point.

Specializing for H&R can be ridiculous. Question, did you include the Storm Trooper Detachment upgrade in your calculation?

On the other hand ... how much can said cruiser do outside of combat/H&R/boarding? How much of the ship is really left afterwards?

Off the top of my head, a Barracks, Command Bridge, Murder-Servitors and Teleportarium puts you at +65 Command and triggers an argument about whether the Barracks should count since you're teleporting small numbers of crew into the enemy ship. If you can wrangle two archeotech components you could take the Bridge of Antiquity for a total of +70 Command. That's barely half a dozen points of space and power used, all up.

So, wait, all voidships are so super expensive that no one with one would ever have a stat lower than 30, but they're so cheap that knocking off a garbage scow isn't worth the effort? (mind you, PCs can have stats lower than 30)

Treasure McGuffins tend to draw the Inquisitorial Eye. Knocking off pirates and smugglers for the IN and selling their ships as spoils once IN has searched them does not. Usually.

Also, did a quick check:

The CMD bonus from components can be maxed out at +70 for Hit and run, and +75 to defend against hit and run. Mind you, this does take a cruiser size ship or larger to pull off. I'll go out on a limb here and say that said cruiser would roflstomp anything smaller due to H&R.

Do I really have to explain this, really? Voidships are so expensive that any ship operating in the Expanse (or indeed, any dangerous area) with a command crew where, between all of them, any characteristic vital to the operation of that ship is below 30, is begging to be taken over by someone better suited to running it, unless the ship is extraordinarily worthless. However, a warp-capable ship, even if all it does is transport garbage, would probably still be worth stealing and refitting. Hence the need for the command crew to be able to at least walk and chew gum at the same time.

Additionally, bonuses to any test cap out at +60. This is like, one of the most basic rules in the game. How can you not know this?