Along the lines of my Seal Wounds thread, I am having trouble keeping this game going past level 5. Due to the lethality of the game and my players abundant skills and talents, I am having trouble making anything challenging anymore unless it is totally over the top. This is a general rundown of how a typical generic game will go:

Arrive on planet, players use fellowship/Inquiry/Intimidate tests with peer bonuses that bring their chances up into the 60s or 70s to find the bosses hideout. They don't care if the boss finds out and sends a team after them because they are walking right in the front door anyway, possibly with a krak missile or demo charge door knocker.

Then the tanks and gunslingers go into mega-brutalization mode while the biomancer fully heals them practically every round. Blam Blam Blam, Twin handcannon dual shots, Autoguns hitting 5-6 times on full auto, Scoped hunting rifles that hit like lascannons, Boltguns and Power Swords blazing and the game is over and everyone is healed to maximum health before they even walk out the door.

The last time someone actually died was when one of their own teammates accidentally shot them in the back with a bolter while they were in melee. After a quick fate burn they just ended up incapacitated for the rest of that session.

I'm at a loss for what to put them up against to keep it interesting. Do I give the bad guys heavy bolters and Melta guns, knowing that they will eventually end up in my acolytes hands when they win. Put them up against unbound deamon hosts? Have them fist fight orcs, or go up against armored companies? These guys were able to kill 5 freaking CHOAS SPACE MARINES for god sake. And I wasn't taking it easy either. (Based off the Brother Agamorr from Shades on Twilight). I can't use any written adventure because the characters can pretty much sleepwalk through them.

I am about ready to throw in the towel as GM after a year and a half due to the system being broken for high levels. The acolytes only have 2 states fully healed or completely dead(very rare). Having the entire game hinge on whether or not you can kill a character in a single round of combat just isn't very fun for players OR Gms.

I personally don't let my psyker heal any player more than once in a single combat encounter for just this reason, well its not strictly true that i don't let them, but i do have consequences to repeated psykic healing.

For any encounter the first time a character is healed it is done as normal, the second time the character being healed must succeed on a Toughness test or gain a corruption point, 3rd and successive tests call for toughness tests to avoid d5 corruption points.

I argue that this is due to the character being repeatedly exposed to and their flesh manipulated by warp energy.

It means in the really tough fights they have the choice to keep fully healing, but i find it is enough of a deterant to keep them from using it too often.

I use exactly against the PCs what they use against their enemies. That goes for everything, not just the weapons. Not only your Acolyts have peers and Bonuses for Talents, certain information is not to be gathered by a simple Inquiry/Intimidate Check. Not to mention: The asked person might tell them the truth ... out of his very own perspective.

And why not make your enemies strong enough to be able to compete with your PCs? If they want a Gangleader, i look at the Rank 'Gang Lord' from the Scum Career and let that inspire me.

Or simply send them to a back water planet that has no elici ... ilectri... you know, sparky things ^^ . Send them for example to Balecaster to investigate the Knights of the Star Sanctum.

You control the situation, not them...

Next time they go in the front door, close it behind them....then all fades to black....

They wake up in cell, naked and chained to the wall, helpless...psykers can't use his powers...they are cold...and weightless...


Have fun...

Do you remember to use all of the Terrain to your advantage. Think to advice you would give a new player about how to survive and use it. Suppressing fire can work wonders for screwing up thier plans, 2 hidden gunmen can make a difference as you cant dodge if you are unaware of the attacks. Grenades, traps and if all else fails heavy weapons can make a mess of the players if you use them right.

TBH Brother Agammar is toned down for a Space Marine, all of the NPC's in Purge the Unclean are designed for rank 3 or less characters including Agammar. The best example I have of effective tactics causing the players grief was when basically I had a bunch of underhive scum with autoguns, ambush them on their way to steal their car. It was meant to be a light encounter to get them started, if I had added all of the modefiers and cover bonus's I might have atually killed them just by hiding at long range and full autoing them. I wasn't even trying and I caused them alot of hurt.

Range is probably your best bet, in my experiance most fights happen at a short range where my PC's almost always have the advantage. At long ranges they lose that advantage as most of thier most powerful weapons dont come into play. In fact at long range all they have now is a long las and a hellgun.

It would help to know what your players are using to help you work out fights that can challenge them without over doing it. Are any of them immune to pinning or fear, would psycic powers work. Traps, grenades, poisonous gas, knockout gas, tear gas. Or just put them in situations where having awsome gear and fighting is no help. Where killing things mostly hurts them in the long run or where they would be completely overdoing it like killing basic scum and Civilians. Make their threats political rather than physical.

Kaihlik

All of my players are well into Rank 6. While it is sometimes difficult to challenge them, I've found ways to do it.

1. Most of the time my players are under cover, that means that when they're out and about in the Hive they're limited to light armor and hand weapons. Unless they want to get noticed by the locals, my PCs need to stick to this. Once our Guardsman starts asking questions in her Storm Trooper Carapace while waving around her Eviscerator lines of Inquiry tend to dry up and the bad guys send out a hit squad and leave town. This has worked nicely. My players can still hold their own wielding pistols and wearing light armor, but they can still get hurt by a bunch of thugs with sawn-off shotguns.

2. As has been mentioned before, use the environment against the PCs. My players recently raided a ritual being held by a bunch of Slaaneshi cultists. The air was thick with Hallucinogenic fumes the writhing bodies all over the floor making it difficult to walk and profane warp music filled the place making it difficult for my PCs to concentrate unless they stayed close to their Untouchable--making them easy targets. To top it all off, killing the cultists and the Sorcerer in charge angered Slaanesh enough to send in a half dozen Daemonettes. Even though I totally forgotg their entrancing aura they almost slaughtered my PCs. And it helped that they were undercover, see above. Good times.

3. Now it may seem that I'm a cruel, adversarial GM. And it is true that I have grown to love seeing my PCs eviscerated, where once I was kinda squeamish about that. But I always make sure my PCs get one or two fights per storyline where they truly get to shine. I'm sensitive to the tendency for GMs to constantly out class his PCs with every encounter, making them fight for their lives every time. This can get tedious, and considering how lethal this game is it can drive players away pretty quick. So I've found that the key to getting my players to accept their deaths is to over inflate their egos first. Let them kick some ass and they'll shortly be laughing along with you as their PC burns their last Fate point.

4. The other posters here also mentioned using Psykers, Gas, poison, snipers, Fear, Pinning and Flamers. These are all awesome ways to escalate things for the PCs.

--None of my PCs are immune to Fear yet. They just lost their Assassin to a Slaugth Infiltrator because he failed his fear test and froze. The Slaugth fileted him.

--Flamers are great because they ignore cover and can hose any of your PCs with a low Agility. And don't forget being on fire bypasses armor.

--Snipers are unfair, they really are. I use them sparingly because there's nothing a player can really do if he doesn't see that bullet coming. Heck, I used Snipers sparingly before the errata came out, now I'm really careful about it.

--Gas and Poison are great together, or apart. Morphian V from the GM toolkit is nice if you want to capture the PCs. Combine with the Needle Rifle, give it to a sniper... A simple Blind grenade can ruin your Tech-Priest's day. Ours has an Augur array, he got hit by a blind grenade and was nearly slaughtered by an Ashen Tear Assassin.

--Pinning is a great way to flank your PCs, or line them up for a Sniper.

--Psykers: I once had my BBEG use Spasm on one of my PCs who was piloting a Guncutter at the time. That was almost a TPK, but my PCs got lucky. That's just a minor power. Our Scholastia Psykana Templar had his head exploded by the same baddie using Soul Killer. The best part about Psykers is that there's no way for your PCs to loot the weapons after the battle. I use these guys sparingly too.

5. Now if your PCs have slaughtered 5 Chaos Marines, maybe they out class mine. Sometimes my players just kill what I throw at them no matter how much I plan. But stick with it, there's always a way. What kind of gear do your PCs have?

6. Two words: Slaugth Overseer. These guys have a 3m reach, their natural weapons work during a Grapple (which they are really good at), and they have that freaking Necrotic Scepter that can blast your players to goo fairly easily. Plus they're smarter than your PCs, and they have a network of agents that is as well-entrenched as you need it to be.

7. When in doubt, make them act civilized. If the PCs are sent on a mission where they only suspect heresy, they have to gather information. Keep the bad guys behind the scenes, make the players work for it. Maybe they have to dig through information in an Administratum hub, maybe they need to rub elbows with a bunch of snobby nobles, maybe they need to get into a private library owned by a territorial Inquisitor.

I have jabbered long enough. I hope this was helpful.

Well yes,

A sniper is not fair, a Slaught Overseer is simply unethical....fun nonetheless.

The Slaught are insane opponenents....I love them....
Or in the immortal words of my groups Moritat:
Don't worry, I'll delay him for a minute or two and than I'll join you...WHACK...(fate point)

Why aren't you popping heads like melons with rogue NPC psykers?

Why do normal people rolling around on the street know where BBEG's HQ is?

Why aren't you attacking/ambushing the openly brazen acolytes while they sleep? Why are you *letting* the acolytes sleep?

Why are they still infiltrating normal, human, mortal enemies? They're capable enough, send them in with a deathwatch squad to supervise the cleansing of a chaos hive and slather on the corruption and insanity points with a trowel.

Grenades are your friends.

Ambushes are your friends

Hit & Run tactics are your friends.

Don't fight the acolytes in ways they are strong, fight them in ways they are weak. Make their "enemy" the protected agent of a rival, radical inquisitor. They grease the dude, and a rank 6 psyker shows up and takes away one of the characters deemed most responsible for this. The conclave sanctions this.

Run a mystery session, where there is no combat, and almost all roleplaying and politics and social interaction. Intimidate and Inquiry must not be sufficient for this.

Sometimes perfectly well meaning NPCs give completely false information, believing it to be true. Successful inquiries will yeild this information.

Anything the PCs can do, the NPCs can do better. And then some. Meet the psyker who specializes in healing, with the second psyker who specializes in popping heads like melons.

Fear auras are beautiful things. A powerful psyker could pop a level 4 or 5 fear aura, which is like a will check -40. Failure adds up on the shock table, and can quickly stun, knock out, catatonic players. There are far worse things out there than getting shot. That's a minor power.

DON'T SEND THE PCS AFTER SMALL, COMMON HERETICS. They are ready for the minor league, and out of amateur league.

One heavy stubber will outright kill a PC on full automatic in an ambush with good rolls. Six will TPK. Best 6000 thrones a mastermind ever spent. Upgrade to bullets that penetrate if money is not an option and you *really* want to drop a PC.

Perm fate points keep a dead player from dieing outright. If they're up and walking around in anything less than a month, you aren't running the game properly. He may be at -12 hits, burn a permanent fate, but he's still at... -12 hitpoints.... and has to heal those in intensive care at like what was it, 1 per week?

An untouchable assassian can completely rub out a psyker. They're more or less defenseless unless they diversivied, and it doesn't sound like your party did.

Santiago said:

Avoid DM Fiat unless you have no choice. Especially if you go from monty haul like you have been to draconian. It will shatter the game.

Warn your players you're going to be playing smarter against them. Always have an escape route. If they blow in through the front door, the bad guy instantly blows out through the back door, blows up his hideout, gets on a transport ship, and starts over in another system. Maybe next time the PCs will not be so brazen.

Mooks will run away too usually to survive. And report tactics. And identities. Masterminds know this, and encourage this if they are smart. They will engage in disinformation, deception, cheating, bribery, and just about anything else they can to survive and *win*.

Not all Arbites are legit. Many take bribes. Hint hint. Once acolytes "lose" their rosette, or writ of execution or authority, they really have no real protection. Arbites can kill them, and if anyone comes investigating, the arbites shrug and state it's their own **** fault for crossing the law, and for not having a rosette to back them up when they do. They may be badass, but let's see them take on a f*cking TANK. Or three.

Have them stumble across a full blown inquisitor, with their patron elsewhere. He looks at the PCs, flashes his rosette, and says "I'll take that bolter, power sword, and missile launcher for a mission I am on. Now." What are they going to do, waste an inquisitor?

Propaganda is a powerful weapon. Aside from transports, astropaths are the only way to communicate between planets. A well forged writ of arrest or execution is nigh on impossible to verify if it comes in to the PDF or the arbites, and by the time the PCs put boots on the ground they may be known as the slaughterers from Mulloch XI, who killed over 5000 women and children by themselves, in a blood-soaked chaos ritual. Good luck getting anything out of the populace other than a shot in the face.

TheFlatline said:

The OPs problem with this bit is that the players don't even have to wait a day, hell they don't even have to wait an hour to be healed. Even if they burn a fate point the psyker can just heal them up to full and remove crit damage in an instant. It sounds like his main problem is with the stupidly overpowered Seal wounds, i really wish it hadn't been changed during the playtesting prior to release.

One published adventure that would work for you is Tattered Fates as it strips all the PC's of their excessive gear.

Otherwise run some adventures where Inquisitorial politics and the needs of the Imperium mean they cannot just cut people down- they have to gather proof, make deals with Radicals, infiltrate the Governors mansion etc.

SJE

My group just reached rank 4 and I already fear what you mentioned. Actually, I had a similiar problem in WFRP with my group (Assassin, Duellist, Amethyst Magister, Wardancer and plate armoured Witch Hunter) wading through almost everything I threw against them. I think it is kind of a D&D-phenomenon (I only played D&D a few times) where the PCs kill Storm Giants left and right and the only thing which are still a challenge are also these sort of heterogenous 'adventuring groups'.

Hence, throw rivaling Acolyte groups at them (with similiar weaponry to prevent your PCs getting better weapons all the time) or other mixed groups of ranged and melee specialists with all kind of siniping, pinning and stunning abilities. Another option is to use 'asymmetric encounters'. At the end of RfYAT for example, I plan to put an Amaranthine Captain (+2 Fervious Bodyguards) in negotiation with Theodosia into the Joyous Choir chapel on Ambulon. When they encounter the PCs, I will let a Guncutter appear above the Chapel where the Captain flees to. The Guncutter is armed with an Assault Cannon and two Heavy Bolters and anything short of a krack missile launcher won't do any damage to its armour. These things will teach the PCs a lesson or two. You could do the same with most other vehicles or other massive constructs/creatures, at best combined with a horde of mooks coming along.

Kaihlik said:

Toned down?! Geez! That guy is almost unkillable. Especially in the mentioned SoT scenario, where nothing is able to harm him in fact. He is actually more toned up for a SM (as is his armour), which is fine as he is a Deathwatch Veteran Sergeant in fact.

TheFlatline said:

Well, Arbites are known to be almost incorruptible IIRC.

@Luthor Harkon: The members of the Adeptus Arbites (Intergalactic Police) are, but the local Arbites (local Police) is not above such things.

I, as GM, use the local Arbites rather extensively. They are after all charged with the official investigation of crimes, therefore running nearly always into the PCs. Depending on the Acolytes behavior/performance they either leave them alone, add them to the list of suspects or help 'em. Since they are not allowed to show their Rosettas (except of catastrophies around the corner) they behave. In terms of skill and equipment they can be a match for any group of Acolytes, and any group stupid enough to start a shoot-out with the AA ... You are now a sector-wide wanted criminal, dead or alive.

Other places your group could investigate would be ... the IG. I send my team to Kulth (not Tranch as i posted in another thread) to snoop around. After 80 years the Orks were still there and the IG made no real progress? Suspicious! Now, try to intimidate a soldier who has been in a warzone for weeks/months/years by pointing a gun at him. Especially if his squadmembers are with him, which happens often enough.

Or, if you think they are too powerful, send them after the big evil groups, like the Logicians or the Temple Tendency! They have powerful tools, good connections, loads of money, loyal followers who don't break but rather commit suicide, ....

As for problems, even with good Inquiry/Intimidate Tests here's an example. One of the informants in my game sold out both sides. He got greedy and showed the Acolytes the warehouse where the Beast House normaly held it's Pit Fight. After the succesful Inquiry Test and getting his first payment he asked for 2 days to 'locate' the wanted location. In these two days he made contact with the BH and sold them the names and faces of the PCs that had contacted him. The BH told him to bring them to said warehouse. Instead of joining a group of spectators they got locked inside the warehouse, with several goons shooting at them, and 3 little 'pets' charging at them. After a nasty suprise round they started shooting back. They made it out (after using a few fate points) but the last goon made sure they could not find any evidence. To make sure no one could find traces of illegal activities the BH had set several small loads throughout the wareouse to completely level it and burn any evidence. So when he saw his comrades dying the last good activated the detonation sequence and fled through the window. The BH now knows their names (faked cognomen, but still something), faces, and that they are decent fighters. The next trap will be much harder.

@Luthor Harkon, not really, he is designed to be badass against lvl 3 or less NPC's. I would say that everything in that book is underpowered to give low level PC's a chance. There is loads of skills and talents that a Space Marine should have on top of what Agamorr actually has and his power armours auto senses aren't really represented. I would also like to add that I think his Str and T are too low even with the unnatural trait and his intelligence is very low for what I would give a SM.

He may be insane for alot of PC's but I still hold that he is toned down, past rank 5 I think alot of PC's can challenge him and at the top ranks I think most fighting charcters would beat him in a straight out fight. While I think that a high level character should be able to fight with a Space Marine he should never ever find it easy unless he is packing heavy weapons and is standing very far away in cover. And even then...

His Armour is probably right for a Space Marine, they have the bulk to carry it. I would probably put an actual Soroitas's power armour at 9 in all locations and maybe 10 in the body. The Items in the rulebook seem to me to be mostly basic versions of equiptment and although Basic power armour is still rare better versions will exist and I think would likely appear in the Imperiums military branches.

Space Marines used right should always be overkill, that is the point of them, that is why they are so rare. Against almost every foe they will encounter they will be overkill, a GM should never play fair when using them, they should find the weak point, analyse it and then destroy it mecilessly.

(Note: I am not in fact a Space Marine fan boy but they should retain thier mythical status in Dark Heresy as the ultimate warriors, the saviours of mankind and most importantly someone you do not want to be fighting.)

Kaihlik

Sounds like your players have a very simple routine. What would happen if say, the routine were broken? The biomancer could be forced to wear a psy-dampening collar by the local populace through fear. These...guns you speak of? What're they doing in the hive spire? Matters up there are dealt by duels and negotiations.

Change the circumstances, keep the players on their toes, make every investigation new ground to learn. It should work rather well.

The best way to challenge PCs is the crash on a death or feral world. This is what I've done and it's very effective:

Have the PCs shuttle guncutter get shot down by the locals fighters. They have 3 rounds after the crash to grab gear and run. Enforce weight limits to the letter. Include armor and ammo. It the PCs want to shoot down the fighters let them, but have more come every few rounds, and their #1 goal is to hit the transport with few krack missle until it explodes. After that the PCs are just wasting ammo. Key is that the PCs have only what they can carry.

The PCs only hope is to travel hundreds of miles over land to the only space port on the planet. The planet is off course full of angry natives. Orks, mutants, beastmen, xenos.... The key is that the natives don't have high tech gear ot it can be used by the PC. (Orks are great as their weapons tend to break in non ork hands.) Now set out to exhaust the PCs gear. Have the PCs encounter the natives and just slaughter them. In courage the PCs to hunt every last one of the natives down. Keep good track of ammo. Now have the natives dog the PCs for revenge the entire trip. The natives of course use drum or something so there are always a fresh batch just up the trail. Ambushers have lots of time to setup.

Things to use:

1)Pit traps, snares, deadfalls. Remember falling damage is not effected by armor! (page 210) If your melee PCs are giving you trouble

2)Quick sand, bogs- People in armor are going to head right for the bottom. Taking off the armor to cross the swamp is a good idea, but that's what the natives are waiting for.

3)Fire, boiling oil, grass fires Remember a hot fire will transmit heat thru anything. Unless they have fire gear a forest, or grass fire will be a major danger. Remember if someone is set on fire it's 1d10 per round with 1 fatigue no armor!!! (page 210) Plus their backpacks, straps and holsters are likely made of plastic or leather. Exposed to fire that stuff burns, and cracks. How will they carry their spare weapons if things go? And remember they need to make will saves to avoid running around screaming.

4)Can they climb in their heavy armor? Can they fit thru tight spaces?

5) Drop big rocks, and trees on them. Rock /mud slides. The damage might not be the worst part. Being pinned under things is far worse.

6)Insects- Is their armor fully sealed?

7)Are there herds of massive easily spooked beasts. You know there just must be.


Now start combining things example: (Note you can have a captured plot line after this, and get rid of their gear. Remember fate points stop you from dying it doesn't mean you escaped.)

The party is traveling through hilly terrain. The only way through is a pass. The enterance to the pass is covered by typical scrub brush or chaparral*. As they near the middle of the pass they see a mass of brush built up into some sort of wall across the pass. As the deploy to attack the wall they are suddenly attacked from above by large stones, boulders, and a log or 2. (2d10-4d10) Also in the mix are flaming jugs of alcohol, and pitch. (Use normal fire bomb stats) At this time the "wall" is set on fire. Also the entire hillside on their back trail is set on fire.

If they try and climb the wall. It extends 6 meters back, and ends in a 10 meter deep pit. The wall has oil on it and goes up a round after the PCs start climbing. The floor of the pit is covered by bush, and gets set on fire at some point. Climbing the wall will take a round or 2, followed by 1-2 rounds clambering a top the wall, then unless they were really careful about their footing they will fall in the pit. (Which they can't see due to smoke, and they are on fire...) Unless the 1st guy falling into the pit makes a willpower roll. He is likely not able relate there is a pit. Even if they hear about the pit they still need to make climbing with heavy penalties. This should mean 1d10 damage each round for fire plus 1d10+7 falling. (no armor) Also consider what that much fire has done to their gear. Don't forget the natives are throwing boulders blindly down on them all the while. (-20 to hit) If you are really cruel beastmen are waiting on the other side. Even crueler they have spears and rocks (1d10+SB) which keep the PCs in the flaming pits. Remember that the PC are likely fatigued, separated, and missing gear.

Staying and fighting means taking numerous rounds of bombardment. The beastmen are now use to the PCs weapons. They take cover making only heads and arms viable hits. Sure they can eventually slaughter them, but how much ammo is used? The beastmen are spread out so area effect weapons aren't much good. Do the fire bombs damage backpacks, straps, and the like. I'd say if a PC takes more than 20-25 damage (not counting armor, or toughness) any plastics are gone, leather maybe 30 damage. Also the beastmen will be taking potshot with rocks.

Climbing the pass wall means taking numerous rounds of bombardment. Plus there are the negatives for climb in heavy armor. (At least -15 for carapace) Then there are the strength rolls to keep their holds when the natives use spears to push them off. If you are climbing up the cliff face you really can't dodge effectively.

Going back means taking a few round or 2 of bombardment. Then running straight into a fire storm. This is simply impossible if they don't have breathing equipment. If they do be sure to have them take fatigue from the heat, and roll to see if they lose equipment. Also their breathing equipment will likely need servicing. (Hope they don't fail their roll!) They will likely end up split up in the smoke. Hit them hard while they are fatigued, and remember that if the fatigue exceeds TB they drop.

*Chaparral areas are very prone to fire, and the plants themselves encourage it. Even tropical areas have such areas in the hills and mountains.

PS- SP ammo, and grenades don't like being heated. Then there are flamer ammo.

PPS- Yes I can be a very mean GM;-)

Ok so you have killed the players then what. This seems a bit extreme to deal with players who havent done anything wrong. Yes a survival game can be fun but that looks like a Kobayashi Maru situation there. Always give them some option to escape even if its unlikely and for the love of god do not burn the players to death for not having the decency to die when you want them too. Alot of those ideas are good and useful just dont make your players feel like there is nothing they can do to change the situation, thats when they will lose interest and rebel.

Kaihlik

That's the problem, when your pcs become powerful enough, ditch the generic format, and start mixing stuff up. be unpredictable, hell use the house of dust and ash, and then put them through the full run of Purge The Unclean.

Farax Isan said:

My players absoulutely hated me when I did that.

Oh yeah, and I racheted the difficulty up.

Luthor Harkon said:

Just like the Inquisition is supposed to be beyond reproach? Just like the Mechanicus knows clearly where the line between heretek and sanctioned technology lies and respects it? Just like psykers who are sanctioned are supposed to be mentally strong enough to resist the lures of the warp?

Gotcha.

OP, you have to remember that this is not supposed to be your standard dungeon crawler, you're problem is that you're gming it like that.

1) The Inquisition is basically an intergalactic league of batman. If you're players are just smashing things up, then they are not dealing with batman-style threats.

2) The man on the street is not going to know about dark conspiracies. You're dealing with heretical cults, not rotary clubs.

3) The advanced cults are not your ma-and-pa heresies that are defeated once you knock over their popsicle stands. if one of their tree forts is taken out, your acolytes will have basically shot themselves in the foot. The advanced heresies are multi-headed hydras, and cannot be defeated by cutting off one of their heads. Even if you manage to kill the head honcho, it just means the survivors all get promoted. This is why monodominants are so ineffective, they treat their jobs like dungeon crawls.

4) As a gm, you represent cold, neutral reality. Just give them the logical consequences of their actions. The players see the trees, the gm should see the forest.

Sun Stealer said:

You've just made my list of Quotable DMs.

Kaihlik said:

Thanks for the Help Kaihlik. I do recall some long range firefights that they had problems with for at least a few rounds. The problem is hive worlds don't often provide much opportunity for long range fighting. And that is their primary area of activity. Not to many chaos cults out in the desert that I can think of. Both players and enemies almost always use cover.

I have 3 tanks at the moment all in Carapace, at least one immune to pinning, one is immune to fear level 2 and I think the last is immune to fear level 1. Yeah they have take some insanity over the course of the games and it shows. The Psyker has a very high willpower and rarely succumbs to fear or pinning. In fact they worked out a fantastic system for dealing with attacking peons. The psker runs right out in front and yells "Cantaloup" which is the signal for the party to duck and cover. He then pops Fearful Aura at fear rating 3 causing everybody that is looking at him to **** their pants including every enemy sniper looking through their scopes. That generally buys the group enough time to either close in or exit the area.

I used gas once already and it had some pretty decent effects. But the Acolytes all went out and bought filter plugs and re-breathers after that.

Psykic powers are the next set of tricks I am going to try to throw at them to see what works. I am all for suggestions.

One thing that is very important about this group is that these PCs are as hardcore as it gets. For fun they start barfights in the underhive. they have ABSOLUTELY NO PROBLEM killing innocents or lesser scum. Most of them are either scum, assassin, Bounty hunter or ex-military. They have made it quite clear that they have a very specific way of handling assignments and if the Inquisitor and administratum can't stomach a pile of casualties they probably shouldn't hire the group for the mission. Taking people alive, discreet investigation, pretty much anything that can't ultimately be solved with violence, that is not what this group is about. So the Inquisitor better be ready for any potential fallout that happens. Thats not to say they don't take prisoners. In fact they often take one if they need it or not, just to keep up on their interrogation and torture techniques. They have received leeds to other side quests from properly applied techniques on random enemies.

cyclocius said:

What a lot of you don't seem to understand is HOW FREAKING POWERFUL level 5 and 6 characters are. When gathering information the 3 tanks sit it out in whatever safe house they have while the Biomancer, Pyromancer and a scum with rediculous fellowship go out and uncover clues. Their combo of skills allow them to talk to pretty much whoever they want, Wherever, and whenever. Along with taking any prisoner they feel is necessary to drag back and be interrogated by the even more sadistic guys. Just to take out this small crew would require a hitsquad of stormtroopers. After the first Psyker pops off the fear 3 the pyromancer firebolts anything that hasn't crapped itself, OR just wall of flames and they all escape.

When they have figured out where to apply the pressure it comes quick and merciless.

Sounds like your players have a very simple routine. What would happen if say, the routine were broken? The biomancer could be forced to wear a psy-dampening collar by the local populace through fear. These...guns you speak of? What're they doing in the hive spire? Matters up there are dealt by duels and negotiations.

Again we are not talking about conscripts and sanctionites here. Do you think when Inquisitor Rykehuss gets a mission he gives a crap about what the planetary governor wants?

The Biomancer would take the psy-dampener and insert it up the chieftans ass using a new type of cellular control before the group exterminated the local pupulace under suspicion of taint. After all, If they are impeading a duly appointed Inquisitorial Scholar Arcanum, they must be hiding something. Innocent deaths, while regrettable, are a small price to pay to spread the fear that helps suppress the activities of witches, and in any case, the Emperor sorts them all out in the end.

I have heard the "Put them in different and new situations" theory a dozen times and it doesn't fly. For one thing, forcing the team to go on a mission that they would be purposely ill suited for just doesn't not make sense logically. Why would their supposedly intelligent inquisitor send a monster hit squad on a peacekeeping mission. Use the right tool, for the job. Second, I have 6 PCs and by level 5 they have the skills to deal with pretty much ANY situation. Especially the warp blasted psykers. I haven't been able to put them in a situation yet that they haven't completely dominated. (hence my OP)