Hey Friends,

I have a player in my group who is kind of a powerplayer (you know If it doesnt help in the fight then it sucks) and basically he always gets + 54 when he fires his weapon.

He is using a sniper rifle with red dot laser sight and modified stock.

For example: Half aim(10)+range(lets say short10)+Accurate weapon(10)+The attachments on his weapon Red dot and modified stock(14)+ Normal attack(10)=54 bonus on his attack.

Now He has a Balistic skill of 36 so he has to dice a 91=< to fail.

I know he has major problems with interactions with NPC and so he doesn't care much about it. But he throws the balance of the group out of the window.

I really hoped I missed a rule or something but a 54 basic bonus is really hard in my opinion.

Did short range change or something?

Also change the battle environment if it's that bad.

So he's not being a sniper. He's just a guy with a rifle.

Even then you'll just have to start playing the enemies smarter. Cover and firebombs.

I see. Was kind of hoping I missed a rule =/ Well then I have to level up my game =D

I can't see anything wrong with the adding or rules. I'm not at a book however.

Have a few thugs with auto guns doing suppressing fire.

I'm not an experienced GM (far from it), but maybe you could lower the ceiling on bonuses to +40 or even +30. Granting Unnatural Ballistic Skill (1) for each +10 over the imposed limit creates a "healthy" window for failure while still rewarding optimization (e.g., 50+-60 vs. 50+-30 with 2 additional DoS). This is something I was considering for games I run, as an end-game character can easily bypass rolls completely. Haven't the playerbase to test it with though.

Having enemies specifically counter this player may come off as a "GM vs. Player" scenario. I would try environmental factors first, such as cutting off his ammo supply (via defective ammunition, no vendors, etc.) or unfavorable environments (forests, tight quarters, etc.). That way, one can avoid buffing the enemies/keeping enemies beatable by less optimized characters. Ideally, anyway.

The bonus sounds alright given the character is a sniper - usually, single shot aimed attacks are the only thing they can shine in compared to the rest of the group. At the same time, this specialisation tends to be a major weakness. What is he going to do when a bunch of goons are charging his position? Most of the time, a single hit and thus their entire turn worth of actions won't even actually kill one target (barring a very low healthpool or very good dice).

For balancing, I think it helps to remember certain basic principles:

If you want to challenge characters who dominate against single tough enemies, send them a wave.

If you want to challenge characters who are good against waves of easier enemies, send them a tough one.

The tricky thing is to find that sweet spot for the entire group. That being said, as Asymptomatic mentioned, it may appear odd and immersion-breaking if an encounter doesn't reflect what you could usually expect from the respective location or faction, or if an encounter feels too "engineered" with specific types of enemies only engaging specific fighters rather than reacting naturally ...

so if overwhelming numbers are not an option due to background and/or narrative concerns, I approve of the aforementioned suppressive fire, as it seems to be the most sensible thing that an enemy who knows they are being picked off one by one would do. Also: cover and flanking moves!

I see. Thank you guys for the imput.

Gonna write down some basic tactical maneuvers and will use them. Flashbangs firebombs etc

Totally minor thing in the big picture, but Modified Stock gives only a +2 on Half Action Aim. It gives a +4 on Full Action Aims.

That said, this deifnitely is a case of:

-Smarter enemies (gee, my buddies who round that corner keep getting heir head blown off, maybe I should hold back, or deploy smoke)

-Recognizing that all it takes is a successful Dodge roll to negate the entire attack. Remember, its not an opposed test, the sniper might get 10 DoSs on their attack, but only 1 success is needed on the Dodge to say "You miss"

-Situations where they just can't leverage the range, and then lock them in melee

-Situations where they just can't get the weapon into the area without massive changes to subltety

-Wouldn't use this too often, but enemy snipers who are also stealthy/unseen in the first place, but already in place.

-Fear (all their killing capability does them no good if they're gibbering softly to themselves while sucking on their thumb)

-Making ammo hard to come by

Right, forgot that any successful dodge is completely nullify a single attack.

Have your bad guys use a lot of Suppressing Fire. Hard to line up sniper shots when your surroundings are exploding from all the ammo being flung your way.

And your cover is being destroyed.

Also,

Fog, darkness, rain, strong wind, range limitation (maximum range for line of sight is 40-100 meters).

As has been said above, it's a tough feat to challenge the group in combat without it being amazingly obvious "Wow, this guy is here to stop me doing my thing! Screw you GM!"

Make sure that whatever is affecting the Sniper PC (be it suppressive fire, cover, grenades, unstable ground/conditions) is affecting the whole combat. If everyone else is thinking "At least we're not getting firebombed!" then you have a responsibility as a GM to firebomb them as well!

There's nothing wrong of course, with players showing off their stuff in combat. They're the heroes, even if 40k isn't kind to heroes. Let them have a few combats that play to their strengths, remember that their enemies won't fight to the last man, they may flee in fear and the players love that part. Those that turned their back on the Emperor will fear his vengeance!

However, if these escaped mooks are fleeing they may well make it back to Heretic Headquarters! There they can say "Oh Bubonicus it was horrible! There was an angel of death in the second story window and he cut through us with sniper fire like plague through crop!" Then you can start to scale up your combats a little bit and start to challenge the PCs, it's no fun if every combat is a shooting gallery. If the bad guys know there's a deadly sniper, you can factor it into their combat plans.

Change the environment. Small cramped situations. No direct visibility. Things that shrug off bullet damage. Have a rival sniper. Have chaos of civilians.

Also you can force them have to deal more with other situations. See what you can do to highlight the other characters whether in or out of combat.

An entire adventure to kill off an imperial guardsman who has gone off the reservation may be interesting.

It's a special kind of sadism, when you're sending them after John Rambo, Chrysalis. Brilliant.

"They spit on me"

10 points to you for figuring that adventure idea out ^^

Equally it could be like Enemy at the Gates. The 40k version of Stalingrad...

It's a special kind of sadism, when you're sending them after John Rambo, Chrysalis. Brilliant.

And your cover is being destroyed.

Also,

Fog, darkness, rain, strong wind, range limitation (maximum range for line of sight is 40-100 meters).

Where did you pick up on this range limitation Keffisch? I wasn't aware of a maximum line of sight per se (but if you meant limitation due to darkness, rain, ... I do get it).

However, a range limitation wouldn't really be helpful because sniper rifle in close range only adds to the problem of overpoweredness.

"He is good at what his character is made for... he ruins the balance since everybody else feels like they are no good / not needed ...I need to fix him/his play style / the rules his character uses"

The term "imbalance" we use comes from the picutre of an old fashioned scale, where one of the weights hangs lower than the other. Strangly, when we try to "fix" imbalance, we focus on one weight only.

How about adjusting the other weight, which is the gaming situation of the OTHER players?
There is nothing wrong with "the sniper" having his moments and taking out an opponent with a single shot. The thing that is wrong is that the other players feel like they aren´t needed...so give them something to deal with, too, instead of giving the group something the sniper cannot deal with.

You alreay mentioned yourself that "having something that is tailored to give the sniper a headache" will get the player angry as he feels betrayed ("if I am not allowed to play that way, why do you gave me the option to begin with!?!"). It might be better to find something he cannot deal with all alone.

If the sniper feels like he was able to fulfil his role AND the other feel the sniper needs them, everybody should be happy.

Thereby: what other characters do you have in your group and what are their combat skills like? What kind of missions you use to play, what Nemesis (if any) are you after?

[EDIT: I reduce the amount of HORRIBLE gramma mistakes I made. Sorry for everyone that had to deal with my rubbish gibbering so far ]

So just had a session and testet out some ideas. And I have to say it worked.

Thank you guys. You are as always great.

np, mind sharing the details?

Glad to hear it.

But yeah, fair enough on the stats.

The thing is, you're talking about a guy who's a competent shot (BS36 is about right for a non special forces professional soldier) with a sniper rifle with a scope and customised triggerstock, firing aimed shots at a stationary, man-sized target within a hundred metres or so.

He should, in my head, hit 90% of the time.That doesn't sound wrong.

What makes it more of a challenge is other modifiers:

• Suppressing fire - pass your pinning check or -20 BS and no half action aim
• Fatigue - effectively -10 BS
• Fog, mist or shadow - without appropriate scope, -20BS
• Running target - shooting attacks are at -20BS

Feel free to stack these, just make sure to be fair with it - suppressive fire is going to hit everyone in the group, or - if he's off seperately playing marksman - is only going to start the first time he fires (it's a big arc, so they don't have to know precisely where he is).

Since we're talking about DH2, subtlety is crucial in this game. I can't imagine a place where sniper rifle wouldn't raise any suspicions other than the battlefield. Sure, there can be hives run by gangs armed with semi-auto guns, shotguns and so on. But a sniper rifle? There's only one purpoise this weapon has and only the soldiers are allowed to have it in the Imperium.

Therefore each and every of it's appearances should make the subtlety plummet, authorities should get interested. Make that sniper rifle more of a tool than the weapon - easy to conceal in a case, but requiring assemblage before the shot. Make your sniper think of the best place to shoot from, ways of escape, possible problems on the way.

Try to confuse the sniper. That guy walking down the street, is he carrying a bottle of milk or home-made bomb? Of those other two, which one is our contact and which one the target? Make the sniper sweat. Real snipers aren't simple headshot machines. They have to make tough decisions before pulling a trigger.

Snipers are a quite common archetype and do always contribute some strenght to a squad but do not forget:

A "Sniper" can't shoot what he can't see.

A "Sniper" has a limited number of Kills per turn.

A "Sniper" is vulnerable in close combat.

A "Sniper" only fires off a single shot that can be dodged rather easily.

A "Sniper" is a "special weapon" and thus a high priority target for any seasoned ganger or expierienced veteran.

A "Sniper" carries around a rather big weapon he may not be allowed to bring everywhere and generally causes some suspicion.

A "Sniper" is countered in combat by suppresive fire and long-range explosives - or a counter-sniper.

And about the Accurate weapons we tried several house rules for they worked rather counter-intuitive for they did not amplify the skill of a true marksman but their accurate trait turned rather bad ones into great damage dealers.

Currently we do use a rulle that every half action of aim enables one of the additional d10. This keeps the rather high bonus damage available though limited the overal killing potential. A true sniper is also a scout and dedicated to get into position and line up that perfect shot. So he aims a full round, enabling his killing potential. This makes him shoot every two rounds but we learned that this worked great with another thing: A synergy with the iconic Hot-Shot Charge Pack.

This way our current snipers basicaly has two modes:

Scout-Sniper:

Here he focuses on cover and his cameleolin cloak to cover the squad while giving slow but deadly support fire on high value targets while the full or two half actions enable both additional d10 of damage.

[Half Action Aim - Half Action Aim] - [single Shot - Reload (Quick Reload)]

Designated Marksman:

Now he sticks with the squad and supports them against any target with special ones being of higher priority while keeping cohesion. Instead of the Hot-Shot Charge Pack he utilizes regular Charge Packs and changes the Mode depending on the enemy. Only one Half Action Aim allows him to score just one of the additional d10 but the weapon is still rather deadly for its combined damage that only gets reduced by armor and TB once.

[Half Action Aim - Single Shot]

Other ideas we tried and scraped were:

- Only allow the Accurate Trait to work if the Weapon is braced

- Remove the additionale BS bonus and only keep the damage bonus

- Only called shots would benefit from Accurate