Hello Everyone,

I had this conversation with our GM last week after a particularly monstrous encounter with a cultist base that took hours to finish. It basically summed up that the rules as presented seem to fall apart when the game reaches higher levels (6-8). Some of the weapons you expect to see at this level are either grossly over or underpowered, as well as some characters advances not being up to the task of keeping them alive (access to either step aside/wall of steel for a second or third defensive reaction being a massive help). So much so that i have to conclude that FFG havent playtested a high level game before they released DH to the general public...

Also, when compared to the stats they have given on some of the monsters out there (which will rip through acolyte parties without breaking a sweat) It seems like game balance has been lost.

Does anyone else feel the same way? I think the lower level game is great, and very well balanced. The errata only fixed certain elements.

Opinions/thoughts? What needs to change to make things more balanced/make more sense?

S.K.

In my opinion, not every fight is meant to be won. Some of those high level monsters, you would be much better off running away and calling reinforcements. As well with the higher levels, I'd imagine you have some authority that you can get red shirts running away to scream for you.

But to answer your question, I don't think higher levels in DH are unbalanced to what you fight. It seems more GMs simply have trouble wounding or damaging their Acolytes than the reverse for those high rankers. Then again, it could go either way, depending on the GM that is in charge.

Well, firstly FFG didn't playtest any of the DH core rules... Black Industries did. FFG picked up the line after GW dropped it. That's just a technicality of course.

Now I want to raise a question about one thing you said: "...weapons you expect to see at this level..." What does that mean? What weapons do you expect to see? This isn't D&D where the power level of a character is partly based on their equipment and every 10th level party is assumed to be running around with a bunch of magic items. Being a rank 7 character doesn't necessarily mean you're running around in power armor, armed with a plasma pistol and a power sword. You could still have a quilted vest, a poor quality stub revolver and a sharp stick. It depends entirely on the campaign.

As for monsters, a lot of the critters, especially in the Creatures Anathema are what I would call "opps you're dead" challenges. They just kill you. It doesn't matter if you're a rank 1 Conscript or a rank 8 Interrogator, some of these beasties are just going to ruin your day. From a GrimDark, Cthulhu-esque, the galaxy is out to get you standpoint they sound really cool. From a lets-infest-a-PC-with -Sinophia- boreworms standpoint... don't! That's something horrible to do to an NPC to showcase just how evil the evil cult really is. IMO, there are too many critters like that... but that's another discussion.

If your group wants people to run around in top quality highly lethal gear fighting critters that will kill you with touch than the group needs to recognize what that actually represents and adjust their play style accordingly. "Game balance" is not, in this case, hard wired into the system. It requires some reasoned judgement on the part of the GM and players.

Besides the "DH is a child of BI that FFG simply adopted"...

Talking "monsters":
Unlike other system, there is no advice/counter along the line of "an amount of X combat opponents of typ Y should be a fair opponent for a reguluar group of rank Z". Since there is no rule for this, there can hardly be any "unbalance". I agree that you really have to think twice before dropping something in the way of somebody (to easy / to strong), but "that´s it".

Talking "equipment"
Truth be told, there are powerfull weapons out there. Which make for powerfull figures if combined with the right stats&talents. Can tell us an example? Perhaps, someone knows help

Talkig "some figures get uber-combat, some can´t keep it up"
Which figures in particular and which talents/skill have proofen to you as "particular ueber-deadly"? At his point, I am just curious. My player haven´t reached a high level by now, but I would really like to know where problems might come up.

This reminds me of an interview Ross Watson had with the crew of Dice Like Thunder. He talked about a group of players that told him that the Ambull from Creatures Anathema was a bit weak. They thought it should have been a lot stronger. When he asked them to explain this, they answered something similar to "well, first we hit it with that Lascannon..."

I agree to most answers that have been posted. It's the GM's task to do the balancing between the Acolytes (with their equipment) and the adversary.

LuciusT said:

So you think that FFG didnt do any playtesting whatsoever on thier product before selling it?..... hmmm....

Whilst i agree totally that DH isnt DnD, there seems to be too many people out here willing to point the "you may not have aquired that level of kit yet" argument. Yes it is all relative but i have to point out that there is some implicit grading in what levels the characters should start to encounter certain "potencies" of item/weapon.. Its in the advance schemes. For example, most characters dont get access to melee weapon (power) until level 5-6. Thus its reasonably implicit that you would look to aquire one at that level, or similarly expect the opposition to start using them against you. Similary with the ranged weapon talents. No GM would ever dream of using chainswords and multi-melta's on rank 1 parties on a regular basis. If your GM keeps you with relatively simple, low-tech weaponry, many character classes suddenly find that quite a few of thier advances become worthless to take..

As to the power of creatures at higher levels, Creatures Anathema is shaping up (in my mind) as a very shiny, quite expensive book which is chock full of critters that (if your argument above is right) most GM's will NEVER use on the party because they are too potent. Chalk one up to FFG for selling that...

And no, our group does not want to "run around in top quality highly lethal gear fighting critters that will kill you with a touch", we just want to be able to enjoy the game at higher levels without fights being either total walkovers or having to run away from everything. There was too much of that at the low levels. The higher levels should be about taking the fight back to the opponents and actually giving them a kicking.

@ Fideru: At higher levels I have found that either the opposition cant even scratch you or they decimate you inside one or two hits. There is no "in-between" which is what i was trying to get at.. Its implicit that as characters advance in levels they will encounter more potent opposition. Yes you can call for reinforcements but in some (many?) situations your acolyte group cant risk this and has to go and deal with the threat themselves. If this means fighting a charnel demon on your own then so be it, thats the nature of the Inquisition.

@ Gregorius: Skills wise, the primary culprits are Step Aside and Wall of Steel. Having a second defensive reaction is almost a necessity once you start meeting opponents with multiple attacks. Not having access to them is a severe cripple in any combat situation. Likewise True Grit and Frenzy.

What i want is a reasoned response from other players who have operated a game at high levels and if they have seen/encountered things as i mentioned... or does everyone play games that seem to top out at ranks 4 or 5?

S.K.

Solomon Kane said:

FFG more ten likely didn't playtest Dark Heresy as it was a finished product when they took it over. They playtest the books they make, but why would they spend resources playtesting a book someone else made, had playtested, and then released?

Creatures dose have a lot of good inspirational ideas and, well, creatures which are great challenges to any group depending on ow the GM uses them. I'm using the Tech-Witches currently and loving the twisted guys... they're not uber. I've used the Dreaming Dead (not uber), the Hullghast (not uber again), the theory of the Obliviots (it's more then just creatures to trow at your PC's after all), the False Men (they were more of a help then a hindrance though), the Eldar (not uber, but my players thought they were so didn't try anything...), and so many astral sectors (I do love me a ghost story). Granted, there are some creatures in their I wouldn't force my players to fight in a one on one confrontation with the odds stacked against them (lictor comes to mind) but it doesn't mean I can't use one as the basis for a story and have back-up available to the players or have the objective not an extermination one but one of survival or getting the supper nuke to location Y so it can take out said creature, etc. My point is it's more then a collection of stat lines to torment your players with. It's ideas for all kinds of things, deadly and unsurvivable, that lurk out there. ow they are used is up to the GM and the needs of the story.

As far as the lower levels being like the higher levels, at least there's consistency. ;-)

I can't really comment on the problem your having with a fight either being a walk-through or a decimation as I've altered the combat rules for my game in favor of quicker more deadly fights... so my PC's are either laying down serious hurt easily or they are in a world of hurt very quickly anyways and is usually more dependent on their choices and the level of preparation before a fight. Perhaps it's that way in the RAW? Those who simply go into a fight with little planing and forethought on how to stack the deck in their favor could get themselves killed. Are your PC's just rushing into confrontations or do they try to set up ambushes, snippers, find weaknesses or alternate methods of defeating the enemy without endangering themselves?

On the skills, almost all careers get Step Aside by rank 6-7. The only exceptions to that are Psykers (by 6 they should have all kinds of other defenses), the Cleric (tough they get Wall of Steel at 7), and Assassins who take the Imperator-Mortis branch (though they get Wall of Steel at 8). So, by rank 8, they all get one of those defensive talents except for the psyker who, by that time, shouldn't even need such mundane defenses ;-) Frenzy has to be the easiest talent to get out of them all! Every career can potentially get that one at rank 1. Do drugs, kids, they're good for ya and some come packed with Fearless as well!

All in all, the difficulties you're having, as others above kind of said, is with your approach.

Oh, and I've got a high end group (ranks 7-8) but I have altered the combat rules of my game so I don't know if that counts. Then again, i also seem to like what you ate, so you might be seeing problems where I see something as it should be.

Is there really no way to use the stuff inside Creatures Anathema without sending your PCs into a straight fight against it? I don't know about your copy of the book, but mine spends about two times as much space on explaing a creature and its habitat as its fighting statistics.

It really does depend upon the story your trying to tell. I am certainly not going to base the equipment my players are walking around with on the skills they can choose to pick up. If I did so they'd be wandering around with bolt pistols, launchers and flamers at fourth level ... no wonder there are people who can't slow their pcs down. My group is all third level and still using las pistols, stub revolvers and shotguns. I am glad that nowhere in the system does it say "you must have X level of equipment by this level or else" ... if I wanted that I'd sit down and play a mmorpg.

I've just hit rank 10. The game's been a blast so far. Here are my thoughts on high-level combat.

First, our GM (DocIII, you may have seen him around the board) has instituted a couple of houserules to make combat more... horrible. They're a bit complicated, but taken as a whole they make explosive and energy damage a bit more dangerous, and make low-level crits and one-shot kills more likely and frequent. On the whole, we like the changes; they work against us as well as for us, but they make things more visceral. It's mesurably more awesome to come out of an encounter with a missing finger and a nasty scar down your arm, rather than "down 7 wounds."

Many opponents, in fact most opponents, are not balanced for a straight fight. Your acolytes should, by high rank, be paranoid and clever enought not to get involved in straight fights anyway. When we needed to take down an Ork Nob, we didn't charge him; we hid on a hillside a mile away and shot him with sniper rifles until he fell down. The high power of many antagonists is a good thing; it encourages planning, strategic retreats, and a healthy degree of fear.

On weaponry: I'm actually quite pleased with the variety of murder devices available. There certainly is a spread from less to more powerful, but it's narrow enough that using an odd weapon out of personal preference is feasable. While the guardsman has a powerfist (long story) and I have a plasma pistol, most of the time he uses his monoaxe and I stick with my Hecutor autopistols and good old sniper rifle. Not a Nomad or anything fancy; just a regular, accurate, 1d10+3 rifle.

Step Aside and Wall of Steel are indeed excellent, and most careers get access to at least one of them.

On the whole, I'm enjoying the high-end game. The system does a good job of letting you be more powerful without becoming inhuman; it feels like the characters have become more skilled and experienced, better at their jobs, rather than simply getting bigger stats.

Here's my thing. I approach Dark Heresy a lot like Call of Cthulhu. I told all my players to expect to die in horrible and gruesome ways, and that there's no real "winning". If you survive, you encounter things which eat away your soul and at best leave you a scarred, cynical husk, and at worst corrupt you against what you stand for. If you die, well, if you're lucky you die at the hands of a human and a gun. If you're not so lucky, there are a LOT of nasty things out there which kill you in horrible, horrible ways. Your name will be recorded and placed within eyesight of the Emperor for all time as payment for your service to the Imperium.

I agree with the above post. Many "combat" situations *are* effectively suicide. And the Empire will ask the acolytes to surmount these problems anyway. By high level, the players should be adept at figuring out ways to turn certain death around to a "winnable" situation. Sometimes though the fates hate your character, and they have to die.

W40k is not the setting to play in if you want to be "fair" or "balanced" in gameplay. I mean, the tagline for the setting is "in the grim darkness of the distant future, there is only war." No winning, no surviving, just war.

And war never changes... (sorry, couldn't resist)

I think that i need to make one thing clear (because i have reread my OP and my wording is total garbage), im not talking about the gameplay and how the games are run by the GM as many of you seem to think. Im talking about the rule mechanics themselves (the dreaded RAW) and how there seem to be certain problems with high end games.

Admittedly my first responses over the additional defensive talents werent thought through clearly, so i withdraw that line of reasoning.

@ Graver... from your post i infer that your amendments to the combat system have produced exactly the same results that the RAW is giving our group (in that the players either dish out the hurt or get it dished back at them). Do you find as a GM that you are deliberatley "pulling" your encounters sometimes so the entire party isnt wiped out? Or that you sometimes make an encounter deliberatly more difficult (mid-combat) beause the players are walking it when you didnt think they would?

@ Cifer... Sorry, i was being somewhat wry over the content of Creatures Anathema in response to a previous post. I actually think the book is extremely good for background.

@ Brother Domis... Level 10?... But aside, i agree with you in many ways, our group is capable of planning encounters. The OP assault was such a planned encounter (the GM was trying to make it reniniscent of a description of an attack on a cultist base from Disciples of the Dark Gods that went horribly wrong).

Jack of Tears said:

I have to glean from this response that you dont actually intend to let your players get any of the pre-mentioned weaponry when they get the skills to aquire it? Why is this? Ok a whole party with boltguns is somewhat implausible but nobody getting one?

S.K.

I started my Characters at 8000 Xp (aprt from the leader - An Inquisitor at 9000 XP) so far there has not been any major problems with opponents - although we are still getting to grips with the system.

There main threat so far has been with Dark Eldar - so plenty of horribly effective creatures and warriors - warp beasts are very good - the WP test to even effectively percieve them is great...........

re the RAW (well to be honest rules are to me - the start point and I amend as required for narative reasons.........) I would agree that often the best use of the really nasty stuff is to initially slaughter NPCs so the players know what they are up against . I also agree that like CoC - I don't really care how hard/equiped the players are - there is ALWAYs something nastier than them (which my players know - cos I keep saying yes to things that seem really powerful and shrugging say - OK doesn't bother me - worries them quite a bit )

I am always happy to fudge the dice/ encounter a bit to make it seem more exctiing/ interesting............

On the other hand if the players come up with a really clever way of circumnavigating the problem / creature I am more than happy to go along with it - I really hate games where all your choices end in the same series of fights.............

Solomon Kane said:

He meant 10,000 XP which is the threshold for rank 8. His character is just getting there.

Sometimes I think I gave out XP too fast (even though I usually avoid giving more than the recommended 200xp per game session [and our sessions usually run about 8 hours]) because characters often never got the opportunity to take alternate ranks they were interested in due to being in remote or odd locations and now they're maxing out rank leaving little room to take alternates.

I find the game mechanics working just as good if not better in the advanced game. I have rank 7 and 8 players still complaining that their % chance of success on things is still too low even with stat advances and +20 skill bonuses.

As Radicals Handbook (supposedly a 2nd quarter release) isn't out yet, I feel some doubt that we'll get Ascension (scheculed for 4th quarter) this year as promised, which is putting me in a bind b/c my group's characters may well max out their career paths long before Ascension is available.

Solomon Kane said:

Ya, I realized that as well when I reached the end of writing that post. It's why I mentioned that where you see a problem, I see things as they should be. I think we just come from opposite sides of the fence as to what we look for in a game. Different styles and all that.

As for the rest, I don't pull any punches in any combat situation. I figure if the PC's are stupid enough to dive into the lake without first looking to see if there's rocks just below the surface, then their heads are gonna get cracked. Since there's already a built in mechanic to deal with saving their hides, collectively or singularly, from such moments of stupidity (fate points), I feel I don't need to fudge rolls, pull punches, dumb down the enemies or any of that. If it's too much, they'll burn a fate point. If they're out, well, every character has to die or retire some day.

On the same toke, I also never alter a situation or stats of a foe mid combat to make it harder on the PC's. Usually, they did something to stack the odds in their favor and I shouldn't take that away from them. There's also plenty of times when they do end up getting in way over their heads. The easy fights make up for those other times and help boost the players confidence in their characters abilities in times when they start feeling like they're some kind of mickey mouse armature hour. Finally, taking away a pathetically easy win from the players could potentially take away a wonderful Indiana Jones moment as well, and who doesn't love those moments?

I probably take a slightly different approach to story design then you. I don't make "boss fights" or plan out any encounter what-so-ever. I take the sandbox approach and simply come up with a good fleshed out stage, no less the two NPC factions/groups with conflicting goals which are usually also in conflict with the PC's goals, flesh out the NPC's as much as I can, scribble down a few random ideas for scenes that "would be so cool" to be inserted where ever they seem to fit into the narative as it develops, and then toss the PC's into the mix on game night and watch what happens. Once the game is going, I just keep an eye out for what looks like a good rising action and focus a bit more of the narrative there. As it develops, I keep alert for what ever feels like the climax of the rising action (it can come from surprising places sometimes) and once reached, begin pushing and prodding events to to reach a satisfactory conclusion. If things get slow, I have my list of "cool scenes" to spice things up a bit as well as several groups of NPC's who are rubbing each other the wrong way to make sure that if the PC's aren't acting, then at least they'll be reacting.

So, in essence, since I don't plan on anything being easy or difficult, there's no reason for me to change any combat situation that should crop up to be easer or harder then it naturally plays out to be.

Solomon Kane said:

I'm sorry, but the rules do not exist seperate from game play. Also, there are no rules in regards to equipment possessed or foes faced at any level of play, so your original question does not make sense to me in this context.

I would like to point out that Clerics only get Wall of Steel at 7 if they go the Bishop route. Which i dont understand why their CHA Face Brand gets it and their Exorcist Branch gets Frenzy which i probably wont end up getting b/c i want to use swift/lightning attacks.

Melil13 said:

I suggest you get another character (one who know Wall of Steel or Step Aside) to give yours some defensive combat training. Get GM permission and take an elite advance.

I'm a big fan of elite advances. They're great for getting skills and abilities that suit your character's distinct style and personality, or his experiences and allies. You not only get the freedom of customization, but the story appeal of remembering the grizzled airship-pirate who taught you the Poltroon's Parry.

Don't forget that the broad basis for the Dark heresy game "rules wise" is the Warhammer Fantasy game.

And, just like WFRP, the rules work to create a game that is, in my opinion, quite lethal at ALL levels and that is how it's meant to work. The characters have one or two major things gunning for their side though..

1 - Fate Points, both use of and burning,

2 - The story. Like any RPG the player characters are the main thing, the protagonist, the individuals around whom the narrative flows...Plot is a powerful ally as well as enemy.

Personally I find no problems with the rules as written at the endgame or at the beginning.

The gritty risk of death floats around quite happily!

Solomon Kane said:

In my experience, Wahammer (both Fantasy and 40K ) don't require balance.

It's an unfair world, where you are usually at the bottom. Its realist in the sense where you DON'T want to get in a fight. You don't want o fight someone weaker than you, or as strong as you because you know you might get hurt and NO ONE wants to get hurt if they can avoid it.

Warhammer is about trying to survive - The more productive way to do that is going around the problem, finding other aproaches and avoiding conflict as much as you can.

Damage tends to go up in scale a lot more than survival does. This is a fairly common problem in many RPGs (DnD 4.0 and StarWars d20 are two exceptions). I guess this is because it is a lot more fun to create (for the designers and gm) and obtain (for the players) cool and awesome weapons than it is to create/obtain cool and awesome armors. Same goes for talents and skills (again, compare with similar in other systems) There are plenty of skills and talents to deal damage, but much fever to take/avoid it. Same goes for monsters, more dangerous monsters generally does a lot more damage, but survives just a little bit more. This means that games will be more and more of a classic revolver duel, where the first side to get a decent shot off will be the vinners.

I have found that taking "lower level" enemies and bringing more of them, or giving them loads more wounds or some extra nifty armor, makes for a more tactically challenging game than just bringing a few "highl level" enemies. Also this makes the players wounds into an important resource to be managed, rather than just a big on/off switch.

Apart from that, I agree with the multiple posters above that compares to CoC: Characters are supposed to die. To avert this a bit I generally give my players some extra fatepoints, so that FP turns into a worrying/interesting resource to manage. I've also experimented with having temporary fatepoints, useable for rerolls and +1d5 wounds etc be calculated by "5 minus current permanent FP", these reset every new gaming session. Permanent fatepoints are mostly used to avoid dying. This means a new character might have 4 "extra lives" but only one "reroll or healing pot". While a character that has been around a while will have maybe only 1 extra life and 4 rerolls/healing pots. Makes for an interesting change of pace. It is of course quite possible to change the balancing number to something else. 5 is a good number if you see a lot of horrible things and combat per gaming session, and don't want people to die, 3 might be better for more investigative/social play or indeed if you have pretty short gaming sessions.