I just started a new campaign of DH2 with my group of friends. They've played Rogue Trader for a while with me, so they're familiar with the D100 system, and we did go over some of the differences between DH2 and RT.

We just hit our first combat in Dark Pursuits (The old manufactorum with Zax Holothane)....and I have to ask if anyone else has had concerns about the difficulty. I'm aware that DH2 is at a much lower power level than RT, and I reminded them of this fact. That being said, since most people only have access to nothing better than a lasgun (exceptions: Someone picked up a sniper rifle at character gen, and our outcast has a chainsword), I'm finding the soak thresholds of most npcs to be ridiculously high. The encounter lead-up states that zax has roughly a dozen hired lasguns with him. I lowered that number to 6, and even with some creative use of scenery (blowing up a promethium tank and using cover) it took forever to take down even his hired lasguns.

Unless people preemptively pick up SP weapons with man-stopper ammo, it is REALLY hard to get past armor and toughness. Reading further ahead, I'm looking at the final encounter with the daemonhost, and I just have NO idea how they're supposed to stand a chance against something that soaks 14 damage on a hit with no penetration.

Does anyone have suggestions, ways that they've re-tuned the encounters, or am I missing something on how this is supposed to work?

Don't forget that you can supercharge las-weapons for +2 damage and +2 penetration at the cost of gaining unreliable.

I ran that adventure with my group of 4 players and the encounter with the smugglers went pretty good. Some where snipered right away and the rest fell pretty quickly to coordinated lasgun fire. We also had a priest with a Flamer who really cleaned house.

Against the daemonhost a long las with the Accurate property proved to be really REALLY effective (almost too effective for my taste as a GM).

I myself played up the fact that the tunnels were occupied by smugglers. Suvfaeras killed several groups during the chase. scattered through the tunnels and the dead smugglers were three Krak grenades. The players only found one, but it was enough to give them the edge they needed.

Back then, I simply skipped the part about the Daemonhost (I did not fit my plans, as I wanted them to go hunting for xenos artefact smugglers instead of having them hunting some daemon-SELLING mega-scum)

If you want to get them hooked in regard to that-one-NPC and to hunting him and the daemon host down with better gear, have the 3-way-fight happen, with the characters fighting the daemon first and ....

...going down one by one, burning fate but staying on the ground. As soon as there are only one or two of them left, the third Party shoes up..going about binding the daemon and taking out the remaning pc, due to better gear, better preparation and being the SECOND Group to tangle the daemon. They will leave the characters for dead.

This cheesy Approach will work to get the Players HOT for the head of the enemy (once the recovered) and if you give any characters that died "one fatepoint threshold for bravely opposing a foe ...this time", the Players will not even balk THAT LOUD. If they can value a dramatic ending given them an opportunity to roleplay how that defeat changed them.

Just make sure you have a game ready that seesm them hunting down the whereabouts of the third and Party and the deems, days after the Event. Hack, you could even make them go after them as soon as they are just "lightly wounded", Make sure to give them proper weaponary, this time.