Hi all.

I haven't started a game of DH yet (as a GM) but I'm wondering how do people find out how hard the different adversaries are to handle for the acolytes? COmbat wise. I realize there is a plethora of group combinations and some are more tuned towards combat than others. But looking at the threat rating I realized it has no meaning outside background. Take for instance the Seedworld custodian which is a minoris threat, but to mee it looks really tough in combat.

so how do you avoid killing you acolytes by putting them up against to powerful adversaries? playtest and experience?

-L

Unlike D&D, there is no formula. It's down to experience and blind guess. A good way to judge is to compare WS and BS between the party and the enemy, as well as the damage each can do (based on weapons) and the damage they can absorb (T bonus plus armor). If these are roughly equal, you have a "mathematically" equal fight. However, it is important to note that skill is often that is less important than bonuses... so circumstances and tactics count for a lot.

What LuciusT said. The three easy things to look at are:

-WS/BS

-Damage

-Absorption

Also, take into consideration Fear rating vs. the fear resistance of your group. A demon, when combined with some unlucky rolls can be a lot harder than their stats would suggest when three quarters of the party are hampered by penalties or incapacitated.

Finally, and this is more general than system-specific, but helpful in a game like DH where there aren't hard and fast rules for balancing a fight, it can be helpful to set up situations where the initial force of enemies is not that powerful, but more continue to arrive over the course of the fight. By doing this, you can adjust over the course of the fight based on how the PC's are doing thusfar.

Thanks for the tips.

About the escalating combat: I do that with the WFRPG system which is very easy. I imagine it will be just as easy for me to do this once i'm completely familiar with the DH rules system which is comsiderably more complex/detailed.

I do so enjoy reading all the background material. My head is simply abuzz with all sorts of conspiracy, intrigue and mischief

Again thanks

In my experience the best thing to do is to just write a really good plot and put in the bad guys that are appropriate to that situation and don't worry about whether your PC's can beat them in a fair fight.

Essentially DH is an RPG not a First Person Shooter. Running away rom the bad guys and returning at a later date is a valid option for the PC's. Equally you should encourage your PC's to use what resources they have available in the most efficient manner rather than merely hoping to win in a norml gun fight.

So for example I put my PC's up against an unusually well equipped and, crucially, well briefed Ordo Sicarius Kill Team in their first ever session which resulted in the badly wounded party having to flee across a ruined city.

The PC's were barely into rank 3 when they had to take on an Evesor Assassin, which hacked his way through 40 allied NPC goons and took out two party members.

The PC's loved these sessions because the enemies served the stories rather than merely acting as arbitary obstacles. Equally later on in the game the PC's were facing a number of dregs and gangers which they blasted apart without a second thought.

I can't stress the above post enough. The OP's question of a formula for balanced encounters to me begs the question as to why one feels the need to write enouncters from a mechanically 'balanced' point of view .

Personally I take the plot of the adventure first (does it call for daemons or will narcogangers suffice?), apply realistic consequences next (so the party are wanted fugitives and get nabbed by the arbites? They aren't going to hold back with the Excruciators), and then finally think of how much of a hard time the party will have dealing with it (our inquisitor would never send us against that ....right?).

Obviously there isn't a clear dichotomy between game balance and thematic appropriateness, and a game siding with one of those exclusively would be rather boring IMHO. But I personally think a GM should focus on a good, convincing setting with enemies appropriate to the setting at hand, rather than how many PCs will die. Especially if they're a new GM. Throw the players against something that seems good storywise and see how they deal with it. You can take that knowledge later and apply it to any moderation you see fit, but at the very least for now you'll have a cool story.

One thing to keep in mind is that a single opponent is unlikely to be much of a threat to the PCs, no matter how skilled, well equipped or otherwise powerful. They'll probably be able to gang up on him and take him down. If you have a powerful NPC and want him to impress the players, you need him to have a few mooks to divert some of their attention. No matter how tough he is, if the PCs have the freedom to concentrate their firepower on him then eventually one of them will get a RF and take him down.

The Hobo Hunter said:

Having, on one occasion, accidentally wiped out an entire party and thus ended an otherwise promising campaign because I didn't fully appreciate the relative power of the otherwise thematically appropriate foes, I can sympathize with the OP. It is neither wrong nor poor roleplaying to understand the relative power and danger of the foes you're planning to set against the PCs. A mechanically balanced encounter, IMO, simply represents one of many valid options in adventure design and is a good baseline to understand what represents a powerful or weak foe.

so far in my experience playtesting is the surest way to make sure you dont accidentally wipe the party out

i have set aside copies of my players characters and will test a fight with the baddies before hand just to make sure its challenging enough to make the combat fun and exciting and also to not make the players feel helpless (unless thats my goal for the combat)

See I've always felt perfectly justified as a GM to fudge dice whenever the need arises... On occasion I've overestimated the PC's abilitys and thrown them in way over their heads... when that happens the NPC's seem to miss alot and crits tend to them out... after one or two of those I can get a solid idea of what the group really can handle.

Good points above, and I'd like to add two more: Fate Points and Damage (touched upon earlier, but bears elaborating on).

Fate points, fortunately, tend to keep PCs alive even under extreme circumstances, and even enable suicide tactics - a PC can take one for the team in a properly heroic fashion, burn a Fate point and show up later. The character will have become slightly weaker for no longer having that Fate point to adjust dicerolls with, but will have gained much in the eyes of the other Acolytes, as well as NPCs (I emphasized this one time by having the PC in question receive a Medallion Crimson - the Imperial equivalent of, say, the US Purple Heart).

The one thing you should keep an eye on when looking for adversaries is the damage they inflict with a single attack. Even if an enemy has a low WS or BS, if it can deal a lot of damage in a single stroke it is quite likely that they'll hit at least once. In D&D, for instance, it doesn't matter much if damage comes from a single source or multiple, but in systems with a damage buffer (eg. Toughness), it most certainly does. So be careful with those WS 15 industrial servitors, a single lucky attack roll by them can turn a PC into raw meat stew!

Encounter balance is hard, and is easily single greatest challenge I face with my scenarios. I don't think I've got it right yet (everything has been a tad on the easy side, except for one horrendous fight where it was too hard).

As has been said, playtesting is important. My first encounters consisted of the suggestions for 'minions' in the Creatures book, where they basically have 1 wound, and then Critical Damage (I wanted to see the Crit Charts in action! ). I inserted the odd 'boss', usually with 5 or 10 wounds, but they died in a heartbeat. The next game went better, but even with the full armour the players cut through them quite handily. Yes, one of them was a Rank 5 Assassin with Swift Strike and a Power Sword, but even still, it was an 'easy' game. The third game was the bad one, which saw me almost kill the players by throwing 4 Orks and a Nob (w/Power Klaw) against them. The Unnatural Touchness X2 and combined with the light Flak Armour the Orks had made it near impossible for the players to win - only luck with the Tech-Priests Omnissian Axe and the fact that they had a Servitor with a Melta-Cutter saw them win the day.

Since then things have gotten better, and they're winning the fights that they're meant to win, and struggling in the ones that are meant to make them think (the two Astra Spectres I threw at them were fun - I didn't say what they were to start with, so their first few shots were wasted as they hit nothing but air!), but some of the larger encounters haven't proven very difficult (my 'Cult Leader' psyker, using Ascended powers, was beaten by Flamers, and the two rogue Tech-Priests have gone down in a round or two usually). Then there was the town that attacked them - 5 players, plus a Servitor + a Cyber-Mastiff killed 50+ people in a single session. It was like Fallout 2...

The only fight they've really had trouble with was the enraged Ogryn Beast Keeper. TB5 and UTX2 really helped there.

We've actually all talked about it - the ease of combat - and I think that things should get better. I'm designing a new scenario that involves multiple types of enemies, but is centred around the Adeptus Mechanicus, so Skitarii troops along with combat Servitors (including Praetorians) will be included. I wonder how they'll do there.

In any case, there's no science to working out encounter balance in DH. It's gut feeling combined with a few educated guesses. I know that being conservative so far has resulted in some fun combats, but none that really leave the players terribly wounded. I might throw some 'Holy ****!!!' moments at them soon just to see if they survive it.

BYE