I'm glad they are attempting to address the problem of balancing threats for encounters as DH (and the other sgames tbf) are horrible at this.

But does it work?

Looking at the antagonist in the adventure at the back of the book, he has (as a master) a Threat level of 35! This means that you need a party of at least 6 pc's (starting at 1000xp) to take him on - according to the system. This assumes that he's not so powerful he can't one shot either of those pc's in one action (unlike the antagonist in the Black Crusade adventure!).

The Daemonhost statted next to him has a Threat level of 40! I can't imagine many player groups being 6 let alone 8!

Not exactly. There's a table of threat level versus difficulty of encounter, if I remember right; that is, 6 PCs facing him will find the encounter whatever difficulty rating gives you '6 x the number of player characters' - but the table goes up to more than that: I remember one encounter difficulty which is '10 x the number of player characters' - so you'd be expected to take him on with only four players....but it'll be a much harder fight. Etc, etc.

I don't understand.

The Threat Rating is 35.

1000xp characters - the starting amount - is set at a level that gives a maximum Threat rating of 6x number of playters. So to accomodate a rating of 35 you need 6 players. Sure you can send pc's to fight any threat level or any enemy, but the point is that they will probably die.

I doubt it works that well. It is basically an attempt at a CR system ala DnD, and that doesn't work properly, even with the fact that DnD is a much more predictable mathematical system than the 40k RPG is. I wouldn't put much stock in it myself.

It's the one thing that was absolutely lacking from DH1 to the point the game was unplayable. As a GM if I cannot with reasonably accuracy properly guage the level of threats i wanted to set against my players then the design of the game has failed.

Personally, I think the Threat Rating system is a waste of pages and said so during the Beta. There is no reasonable way a character with 1000 exp invested in Intelligence and Lores can face the same threats that a character with 1000 exp invested in Weapon Skill and combat related Talents. Each type of character is good at handling specific types of challenges but nearly useless at others. It is ultimately the job of the GM to balance challenges according to the design of the character in his game and the style of play preferred by his group.

It's the one thing that was absolutely lacking from DH1 to the point the game was unplayable. As a GM if I cannot with reasonably accuracy properly guage the level of threats i wanted to set against my players then the design of the game has failed.

I disagree. IMO, it is the GM who has failed. In a system where characters have the flexibility in design and growth seen 40K RP, no system can accurately gauge a threat against all types of characters. It is therefore the GMs responsibility to understand both the system and the characters well enough to present scenarios which challenge his group.

It's the one thing that was absolutely lacking from DH1 to the point the game was unplayable. As a GM if I cannot with reasonably accuracy properly guage the level of threats i wanted to set against my players then the design of the game has failed.

I disagree. IMO, it is the GM who has failed. In a system where characters have the flexibility in design and growth seen 40K RP, no system can accurately gauge a threat against all types of characters. It is therefore the GMs responsibility to understand both the system and the characters well enough to present scenarios which challenge his group.

The GM has only the system to work with; to balance an encounter he has to use the tools available. In the case of DH1 there were no tools. There were no effective ways to guage the strength of an opponent versus a pc or group thereof.

I agree that this can never be an exact science, particularly when dealing with dice rolls. But if you had, for example, a system that uses the same points to pay for player characters as enemies then you would have a reasonable yardstick. This is not the case with this game; enemies are not built by the GM in the way PC's are built by the plaeyrs, and dn't come with xp costs to measure up agauinst.

So i would say it isn't reasonable to hold the GM at fault.

Personally, I think the Threat Rating system is a waste of pages and said so during the Beta. There is no reasonable way a character with 1000 exp invested in Intelligence and Lores can face the same threats that a character with 1000 exp invested in Weapon Skill and combat related Talents. Each type of character is good at handling specific types of challenges but nearly useless at others. It is ultimately the job of the GM to balance challenges according to the design of the character in his game and the style of play preferred by his group.

Fair point.

I guess it's assumed no character exists that has no combat capability.