Hit and run attacks

By malador888, in Rogue Trader House Rules

I played the 'into the maw' adventure and when we got to the surprise attack by the raiders one of them closed in rather quickly, im not a new GM but im new to rogue trader, when i tried to launch a hit and run attack against my players ship i quickly found out that any hit and run attempt i could run would end up in failure because of their turret rating of 4 was able to cancel out the competent crew of the raiding ship (30 skills characteristic).

Then to make matters worse the groups rogue trader with a fellowship of 50 decided to launch his own counter attack on the raider using his murder servitors and a teleportarium which combined with the bonus he gets on his command test just for assaulting another ship he had in total an effective fellowship of 100 to test against ensuring his victory. i made him test anyway just so i could see by how many degrees he won by, but does anyone else thing there is something wrong with being able to do that, unless i can fit every other ship with a tenebro maze or beef up the crew to ridiculous strengths anything i throw at them will be annihilated in hit and run attacks, unless i sent in large groups but that would just be unrealistic and unfair. Has anyone else had this problem? How would you solve it without just shamelessly overpowering enemy ships, i could just have long range weapons but they could just charge in and perform hit and run attacks.

You could just have the captain of the ship be a notch above the rest of his crew, give him 40 fellowship and command +10. If they get in close, do the "prepare to repel boarders". Even on a standard success you're looking at 40 (base fellowship) + 10 (skill mastery) + 10 (prepare to repel boarders) = a grand total of 60 to beat of their attack. If he does better in prepare to repel boarders its another +5 per DoS.

Well your main issue is the teleportarium. I'm amazed at the number of ships that seem to have them despite the long odds of rolling for them. The key is to reduce their usablity.

-Play the other side smart. If the PCs use a teleportarium the enemy always targets it on their next crit or H&R. This is justified as it dangerous and the other ship's sensors will be able to trace the energy used by the teleport,

-House rule that the murder servitors have a chance of being damaged if the roll is failed.

-Send enemies that can't be boarded. 'Nids, and Yu(the ones in the gm guide)

-Use enemies with good boarding bonuses

-Necrons and the like are just plain tough

-Good leadership. An Ork warboss with the other ork bonuses helps

-The maze, and baracks are a nice set of bonuses but aren't good loot.

-If your view of the teleportarium is that it transports things through the warp. (Which depends on your source.)

-Gellar fields might protect the target

-Use psi rules on the command roll. If you get doubles use the various charts.

-If the teleportarium isn't warp based then it can be jammed with other technology. If I was hearing about an RT with a teleportarium I'd get my hands on jamming tech.

My house rules: (liberally stolen from various forums)

Teleportarium

Being transported through the Warp to arrive at your destination is an imperfect science, made all the harder by the fact that next to nothing is known about exactly how these ancient devices work. A character operating the Teleportarium may make a psyniscience or tech use skill check. If a character has both he recieves a +20 bonus to his best skill.

If the enemy ship has an active gellar field the roll is -20, and with an additional -10 for warpbane hulls (-30 for warpbane hulls with active gellar). Note that keeping the gellar field active is a drain on power, and all rolls for ship actions are at -10. Unless the ship diverts power from a weapon system (unpowered), shields(unpowered), or drives(1/2 speed). (Normally in warp a ship does not have to worry about powering it's shields, or weapons.)

Success indicates that the target has arrived relatively safely, with degrees of success or failure used to judge how far off target the teleported character lands. Sending a character to a teleport beacon, or retrieving a group with one, gives +20 on this check.

If a 90-95 is rolled. Roll on the phenomena table twice. The 1st roll is for the target area, and the 2nd for the teleportarium room. If a 96-100 is rolled for the skill check the teleport fails and roll once on phenomena table for the teleportarium room.

Even at the best of times, a teleportation is dangerous. If the skill check was successful, the subject takes 1d5 damage, -1 for every degree of success. A failed roll causes 2d5 damage, +1 for every degree of failure. This damage ignores armour, but not toughness.

Note that generally a failed skill check doesn't mean the teleport fails unless a 96-100 is rolled. The exception being if the target has an active gellar field in which case the teleport roll must suceed, and the target ship is immune to phenomena caused by 90-95 rolls.

In ship scale combat use a command roll instead. Damage is not tracked. Most phenomena results will be confined to the teleportarium with little effect. For more serious effects the GM may rule that the teleportarium is damaged, or other effects linger. (IE daemonic forces may be hiding on board shp.)

These devices may only be used 3 times in a ship turn. This includes retrieving a hit and run force. Of course hit and run attacks by other means may still be done. Putting large explosive devices on the pad is dangerous as they may detonate on the pad with a failed skill roll......

Murder Servitors

Murder Servitors may be only used for one hit and run a turn. If a command roll is failed by more than 20 this component is damaged and must be repaired.