I've been running Dark Heresy off and on for a while but I really have not yet mastered the combat mechanics. For some reason, I have real trouble making combat flow. I get bogged down by the numers... it's all add this modifier, subtract this modifier, roll, subtract result of roll from modified target and divide by ten to determine degree of success (if needed), roll damage, subtract armor (after reducing for pen) and toughness. Repeat until bored or insane. There's just so much number crunching, so many modifiers to keep track of... and heaven forbid anyone take critical damage, cause then I have to look up those charts and figure in those modifiers... It's enough to make me want to run back to d20.

I'm wondering if anyone has any tips they'd care to share for making combat flow more smoothly.

Ok first of all, do you have a GMs screen? Even with the typos it is incredibly handy as it sums up all the combat modifiers.

Secondly, for the combat heavy characters it is worth getting them to note down their range brackets on their weapons and what their modifiers will be at each range on each gun under optimal conditions. That way you only need to apply a couple of modifiers to the PCs combat rolls in most instances.

So for example, Hive Scum Julian Suarez wants to fire his Havelock Mk-V Autopistol at a ganger barring his way to a vital objective. Julian's PC would note down the Short/Medium/Long/Extreme range modifiers based on the sum of all his talents and ballistic skill, plus any add ons he has on the autopistol like red dot sights. Then you just sum up everything like light levels, if Julian has steady footing etc. and putting it into a single +/- modifier to his roll.

The main thrust of the second point is to get your players to do the majority of the maths so that you can focus on lavish descriptions to keep the flow of combat, well, flowing and the narrative of the campaign from stalling.

I'm no number ninja, but I got two advice to make combat more exciting and less bogged down:

- Clear situation and clear objective
Avoid "A lot of us and a lot of them is rolling dice at each other standing in a pile in an open space". Always frame a situation where something is going on, people got an environment. "We are on top of the tower and genestealers are climbing the wall to get up to us. We trying to avoid getting killed while climbing a clothesline over to tower B" "We are tying to dispose the 5 guards without any of them reaching the panel and alarm everyone". "We are fighting a deamon on a slim bridge. If we just can push or trick it over the edge we might win." Having a clear situation with clear objective makes combat more alive and less confused. Set the stakes high. The encouters feel induvidual and fresh. It makes the encouters hard but fast too, and thats awesome with no bogging down.

- The 50% rule
Any enemy that comes in groups, from the most simple beast to the most logical tech priest begin to retreat when they lost 50% of their capacity, and the PC clearly don't seem to be dieing. Either out of fear or tactical choice for individual. If half you mates are gone it like you will be too, better to regroup, get reinforcements and try to attack the PC again with the odds on you side. Even Khorne dont punish you for some tactics, and Darwin most certainly dont. Saves the boring "It obviously the PC will slowly painfully win but the cleaning up takes forever". It also has the effect that you players learn that it okay to make an tactical retreat when things are going badly.

LuciusT said:

Make the players do it.

No, really. Players are normally more than happy to handle any bonuses they may get (and just as likely to forget penalties; you'll still have to deal with those). The players are the ones deciding their actions, so they should be familiar with the modifiers those actions subject them to, and be able to apply them to their own characteristics for tests - that leaves only the NPCs to handle.

Most situational modifiers are simple addition or subtraction of multiples of 10, so it's seldom as difficult as it looks to keep things figured.

Beyond all that, wing it. The system as a whole works on the principle of GM-determined difficulty modifiers, so if you think a shot is particularly tricky, apply whatever modifier you want onto it. As you grow more familiar with the system, you'll remember more of the most frequently used modifiers and apply them quickly enough. It's more a matter of time and experience than anything else.

Critical Damage is an easy one - ignore it for anyone who isn't important - if someone takes more damage than they have wounds, they're incapacitated (dead or unconscious, at your discretion). An important NPC (anyone with a name and a unique statline), or a player character still suffer Critical Damage as usual, but most creatures just die when you say so.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

The NPCs are problem enough. I can usually manage to talk the PCs through their rolls and totals... it's when I'm rolling for the mooks that I tend to forget things like range, semi-auto fire, etc.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

That's already what I do. The problem comes in when the PCs or important NPCs get shot. The whole games comes to a crashing halt as I flip through the rulebook looking for the critical tables. I am so very not a fan of those rules.

Kasatka said:

No and I have no intention of doing so. Having already $50 on the rulebook, I'm really not inclinded to another large chunk of cash on a reprinted summery of the rules.

Kasatka said:

Digressing into the whole range brakets thing... I don't get it. The "range" listed on the weapons charts seems to have only passing relevance to the actual range of the weapon. This is one of the places where I really hate these rules because here is a range number that, by itself, tells you nothing concrete about the range of the weapon.

Are you confused by the mechanics of the range bracket? Or do you not understand why FFG chose to use it?

To speed up my combats, I took a relatively simple step that helped enormously. I have my PC's, and myself, make our rolls BEFORE adding and subtracting the bonuses and penalties. This allows you, when degrees of success are not a factor, to take the obvious successes and obvious misses and move on without ever actually doing the math. This may be old news, but it was a revelation to me, so there it is.

LuciusT said:

That happens with everyone to some extent. The WFRP1 and WFRP2 versions were worse in this regard, requiring an additional roll on top to turn the damage roll into a critical damage result. I've got a really good memory for rules, and I still have to stop and look up the results.

Simple way around it... bookmark things. My rulebooks are filled with little sticky labels marking important page references; the weapons tables in the armoury, the combat actions, critical hit tables, fear and insanity, NPCs... plus similarly important sections in sourcebooks and so forth. And then I use the GM's screen on top of all that - it's all just ways of speeding things up, useful for anyone. I don't necessarily need them, but they're useful to have on hand nonetheless.

As much as you may dislike the idea of the GM screen, it's still a useful tool to have a summary of commonly-used rules on hand when you're running the game. I put together a couple of summary sheets (and printed them off several times) when I was playtesting Dark Heresy for that reason.

LuciusT said:

Check out which degree of critical damage that usually means dead for diffrent types of damage and diffrent damage types. Make up a rule of thumb, what degree of critical means dead, and for all results less then that make up the result yourself.

LuciusT said:

Quick and easy answer. Fudge it. Unless they are taking penalties then give them a general +20 for good conditions -20 for bad conditions. Easy. The PCs (If they are enjoying the game) will not usually knit pick on your numbers because your the DM you can justify any way you choose. OR Just use the DM Law rule. That rule is "because I am the DM and I say so." Saves you so many headaches.

LuciusT said:

Well there is a section at the beginning of the armoury, that explains that 4x the listed range is the absolute max range you can shoot to with a weapon, 2x is long, 1x is medium, 1/2 is short, and within 3m of a target is point blank. This is on pg127. It makes more sense to list only one range and let the players who actually "snipe" figure out the maths from there than have cluttered tables that confuse more people than they help.

I totally feel your pain, Lucius... totally Combat would be the weak point of my game as well as the numbers tend to get in the way of exciting narration, something that continues to rub me raw every-time I think about it. There's a few things I've done to help out with this problem, but it is, by far, not solved in my game so take these how you will:

Modifiers: These are possibly the easiest part of the number hell that is combat to deal with.

Range isn't that much of a concern. When I realized that most combats tended to happen within 20-30m, I got to where I simply applied a default +10 to all basic BS checks (+0 for pistols) unless there was something special about distances involved (such as everyone is in This Room [+10 for all weapons] or They are Over On That Ridge [300m, range calculations are actually made or referenced now]). By special, I mean did the character get right up on top of someone before shooting (point black) or did I set the combat up to be fought at great distances where I really wanted to emphasize the combatants being distanced from one another? Basically, when it comes to range, I simply decide if things are happening at Pistol Range (smallish rooms, halls, the same side of the street, in the ally-way, etc, and other things roughly15m or less, everything gets a +10) or Rifle Range (across the street, down the corridor, across the Grand Chamber, and other situations of 20-30m where only basic weapons get a +10). Combat rarely happens outside of those close range brackets in my DH game, though I reckon I could add easily a third range bracket of Ranged (across the field, down the street, way across the temple, etc in which Pistols receive a -10). I find that Ranges are best used as descriptions without a hard number as the exact distance from one combatant to the next is rarely needed in a narrative sense and keeping things simple and descriptive saves a bit of time in looking up/remembering a specific weapons range and keeping track of the various distances of the various combatants to all other combatants.

In point blank examples, those rarely ever last as in such situations, one of the characters will either flee for cover or engage the gunman in melee thus ending the whole pb +30 issue. Beyond that, the fact that, barring special circumstances, PB range is the same for all guns makes it fairly simple to keep track of. It's a rare thing for combats to be carried out at greater ranges then 30m. I have to go out of my way to set them up in which case the whole range thing gets treated like most other special circumstance modifiers that I pay special attention to and had thought about prior to the sequence playing out.

Most other modifiers tend to be either a +10 for aiming/bursting or a +20 for full auto and little else. Again, anything outside of those tends to be a special circumstance or situation that I had thought about prior to the combat and possibly set the combat up to showcase that aspect. That in mind, in most shoot-outs, the only modifier math happening is adding 10 and 10 or 10 and 20 with the occasional subtracting of 10 for fatigue (which I more often then not absolutely forget about despite making an effort to make a special sheet to keep in front of me to remind me of who's fatigued and not) or range. Rarely still is -20 subtracted for a running foe or firing into melee, but it happens now and again. Modifier math outside of those simple mathematical feats are kept as exceptions as opposed to rules and end up being something I've thought about prior to the game.

When it comes to applying the modifier, for PCs I don't worry about it at all once I come up with the number. I simply tell the player what the modifier is and they apply it to their stat, make their roles, and determine whether they succeed or fail and let me know the results. For NPCs, I usually don't apply or even calculate the modifiers unless the roll fails or succeeds by a close margin, 20 or so points unless it's clear that exceptional circumstances would be applied to them. If they have a BS of 35 and I roll an 87, I just don't bother with the math, they fail. If they have a 35 and I roll an 02, again, unless there's some crazy things happening in the combat, they just succeed. Granted, this could lead to some situations where an NPC succeeds where they should have failed or fails where they should have succeeded, but sacrificing of the accuracy of a randomly generated outcome is a small price to pay for a bit of speed in combat. Likewise, I'm able to ignore what the end modified stat is in some combat situations because of one little tweak I've done to how DoS is calculated...

In my game, I've changed how Degrees of Success are calculated for the better. Someone else had come up with this little solution to the math intensity of DoS a while back on the BI forums and I've been using it ever since as it's just too damned beautiful in it's simplicity. If a roll succeeds, the Tens Dice indicates the Degree of Success. Simple, elegant, involves no math, and eliminates the need to add in modifiers to stats in clear cut win situations. So, after I give a player his modifier, he makes his roll, and then informs me whether he succeeded or failed. If he succeed and I need to know what the DoS is, I'll simply ask what he rolled and that right there will tell me what his DoS is, no calculations needed. If he succeeds and rolled a 45: 4 DoS. If he succeeds and rolled an 02: 0 DoS. Simple and in situations where it's a clear cut success by an NPC where DoS is necessary (say with full-auto firing), it saves me from having to calculate the modifiers, add in the modifiers to the base stat, and then do the math to figure out what the DoS is. If NPC #2 who has a BS of 30 gets a 22 on a full auto fire attack, I automatically know (barring special situations where out of the norm things are happening) that he hits his intended target(s) with three shots (2 for DoS plus 1 for initially succeeding) with that 2+1 thing being the only math involved. That little change to DoS can make a hell of a difference on your mental workload, though the players will have to get used to treating their rolls like a Black-Jack hand; you want to get as close to your target number without going over, but they'll catch on.

Damage calculation is still where combat bottle-necks for me. I simply have not come up with a good solution to that problem as of yet, but I do have a few things I do to try to keep it exciting and have the math at least matter a bit more.

First, I made combat more deadly. My reasoning is simple -if it's more deadly, less attacks will be made before one side or the other is out of combat and, as such, less math will be done in order to reach it's conclusion. Likewise, if it's more deadly, it will be more terrifying for the PCs and the players will be less inclined to make it happen with the end result being less combat so less math. So, deadly combat means it will happen less often and when it dose, it should be over quicker. It helps some.

To such an end and to have the math that is done mean something more, I've rewritten how damage is handled in my game. You can find my post on it HERE . However, it should be noted that since that posting, I've tweaked it a bit, streamlined it and ironed out some of it's more clunky aspects, added in temporary characteristic damage to represent wounds and eliminate me having to remember or deal with more modifiers (because, believe me, players remember that one of their characteristics is temporally lower then it should be and will be sure to remind you of it quite regularly as they ask if it's healed any since the last time they've asked), added in permanent characteristic damage (or at least permanent until they can go under a mechanicus' knife or find a biomancer, etc) to simulate those incredible life threatening grievous how-the-hell'd-you-survive-that-? wounds, etc. If you're interested in it, I can update the thread with my revisions.

I'll admit that the Critical Force system that I came up with for wound tracking has it's pros and cons when it comes to speedy calculation-lite combat. On the con side, it dose equate to an additional thing that must be considered when it comes to PCs. While they keep track of their wound total and I'd normally be finished with them when I have a damage number for them to subtract, I have to take the extra step of looking on my PC tracking sheet (where I make all my little notes to remember about them as well as recording their 4 wound-thresholds) and find what kind of wound they've suffered. While, granted, there's not much math involved with this, it dose add an extra second or so to the proceedings while I find the number the ending damage is closest to without exceeding, give them the effects of the wound, and come up with a suitable description of the wounding blow.

On the pros side, however, it dose eliminate the need to reference any critical charts ever as all damage is standardized without the various damage types losing their individual flavour (I actual feel they gain flavour, but then I'm a bit biased in my assessment) with it's complete range of effects fitting nicely on one half a sheet of paper. It also speeds up combat as, in a lot of situations, I don't need to worry about subtracting damage from an NPC. Once I have the damage total and see that it is in excess of half their total maximum wounds (an easy thing to see as I make sure all NPC maximum wound totals end in a 0 with the occasional 5 tossed in where needed), unless they're some kind of special NPC, they're out of the combat either dead, dying, or stunned for longer then the combat will last more then likely. Only if combat drags on will I even worry or consider them again, otherwise, the next time they're dealt with would be in a strictly narrative manner.

Finally, since, by the system I came up with, damage done has a much greater and immediate impact, the time I have to pause my narration to calculate the damage out seems to be worth it. When I look up from my paper, recite the effects of the damage, and narrate the results of the roles made, chances are very good that the combat would have changed significantly. It's rarely ever a matter of going through all the math to find out that NPC #4's wound total has gone from 10 to 6 which pretty much equates to one arbitrary number changing to another arbitrary number with no real effect on anything as of yet. Instead, when I find that NPC #4's wounds have gone from a 10 to a 6, it also means that they are, at the very least, stunned for a round, perhaps screaming from the grievous wound a bit, and no longer attacking the PCs giving them a potential window to exploit. Instead of a number merely changing, the in-game situation changes a bit which makes the pause and math worth it in my eyes.

tl:dr...

Barring extenuating circumstances, I don't worry about figuring out weapon ranges. Combat is either set up at Pistol Range which means all guns receive a +10 (10-15m, includes most modest rooms, halls, the same side of the street, cramped shops, etc) or Riffle Range (20-30m, and includes such descriptors as “across the street”, “on the other side of the Grand Hall”, “down the corridor”, etc) in which case only basic weapons receive a +10. I usually don't worry too much more about range unless it is incredibly important or being highlighted for that combat. Meltas and flamers will give me pause, but they rarely turn up being the exception as opposed to the rule.

Changed DoS calculation. DoS = the Tens dice of a successful roll, not Target Number – Roll.

Rewrote damage allocation to make getting hit mean something more then a number arbitrarily changing to another number with little to no immediate in-game effect, make combatants quicker, shorten the length of time a combat takes to play out, and make the rolling and the math have a more immediate combat changing effect to raise tension and make it worth doing.

Kasatka said:

Here's how I read the range rules. Please correct me if I'm getting them wrong. I'll use an average pistol with a "range" of 30m as an example:

Point Blank 0-3m, Short (defined as "less than half") 4-14m, Medium (logically greater than short and less than long) 15-60m, Long (defined as "more than twice") 61-89, Extreme (defined as "three times the range") 90-120m.

You will note that 30m is not actually the inner or outer limit of any one of the range bands. I find that very confusing and so do my players.

Graver said:

I like that. I'll be using that. Thanks!

With my mooks, i have all their numbers preset for me before combat happens, a lot in my current game though i'm working on that. I have all of thier bonuses figured and hand wave most of the penalties since they hit about 50/50 anyway, and just assume is does half max roll +1 damage (a hellpistol would do 10E Pen7 damage per hit for example, Ascension is the only book i have with me atm) keeps the bookeeping down, and makes my life easier. If the roll was really good, or bad, to hit, i lower it or increase it a bit, but that saves a suprising amount of time. Other than that, definatly make your players do their own bonuses, and trust them to do it correctly. i don't mind a fudge here or there, but if you notice someone who always seems to have good numbers, you might want to check them.

Finally, the suggestion to bookmark you core book is a good idea, i run my games from a laptop with pdf copies, so my players can use my hardcore, and thats even better. If your not willing to go that far, the screen is worth it, sometimes you have to pay for convience, this hobby is cheaper than some, but there is a certain ammount of investment your going to have to make to play, the screen si a fairly small one

I make extensive use of "GM Tools" to make my game run smoother.

I have my books physically on hand. I have the GM's Screen (really quite useful on its own, plus it includes extra poison rules, random xenos generator and an adventure). I have a magnetic "initiative tracker" board that was intended for 3.5 D&D but works great for DH too! I provided printout "Actions Summary" sheets to all of my players for personal use. I made photocopies of several frequently used charts and then made a GM binder for them: All the critical charts, psychic phenomena tables from both DH and RT, the failed fear test chart, the Vehicles Appocropha and copies of the Elite Packages currently in use by characters in my game. I also make extensive use of notes, index cards and player handouts. Most combats are played out on a magnetized dry-erase board pre-marked with a 1" grid (Surprisingly cheap find at CostCo!) that I can quickly draw out scenes on... 1" is perfect for most GW minis and then you just announce if the map is using 1": 1m or 1": 2m scale. Most of my players also make use of expanded character sheets that have room for alot more useful information (like weapon ranges, lifting/carrying, jumping and so on). Likewise, PC character sheets and NPC stat-blocks in my game always include SB, talents and anything else that tweaks fixed numbers already included in the stats, but do not include situational modifiers: So a mook with an axe, SB4 and Crushing Blow would have "Axe 1D10+8 pen0 Primitive, unweildy" listed, for example.

Most modifiers are +/- 10, so you get used to applying them on the fly in a hurry. If you think something is a minor benefit but not really all that powerful I will sometimes split the difference and call it a +/- 5. DH looks big and cumbersome, but the reality is it is actually quite a GM-friendly system. It is made for you to literally make stuff up on the fly and not let your game bog down. Typical game: "Guys, there is no listing for that on the chart, so you can't do that." DH: "Ok, that is pretty creative and sounds difficult but possible, roll me your Demolitions skill at -20."

I also recommend the GMs screen. As well as all the handy charts, it allows you some wiggle room to fudge dice rolls to make the game run better (you MUST be fair on this, fudging should only be done to make the players have a better time).

I love the idea on degrees of success matching the tens dice, its so elegant and totally avoids a bit of maths. Great!

I also heartily recommend a mooks rule. During our very early days our team got into a fight with some goons and had to repeatedly shoot an unarmoured bad guy in the face with lasweapons before he would die. Since he was just a common goon we got annoyed. So my mooks rule.

All mooks have 1 wound. If they take that wound in damage, they are out of the fight. Tougher mooks have 5 wounds (enforcers maybe), super mooks have 10 (arbites riot squad), beyond that, use the normal wounds system. This really speeds stuff up.

Giving the PCs a simple printout of the bonus/penalty table and the combat actions table also really helps.

My modified version of the mook rule, which was derived from the ones found in... DotDG, I think. Works thusly:

Mooks do not have wounds. Instead, they go down after they take either a specified number of hits that deal damage, or a single hit above a damage threshold. Most mooks are 2/10, so they will die the second time they are damaged, or the first if the damage, after reduction, is 10 or greater. I can up this to 3/10, or 3/15 depending.

This system has worked well for me, and I've considered applying it to more powerful enemies as well, leaving the wounds system for only the most significant baddies.

I think the easiest way for me to run convincing combat is to start with the fundamentals of the encounter.

Who are the antagonists, what do they do and why will they fight? Remembering that takes a very special kind of nutcase to actually haul out and shoot someone or want to hack them apart to the point there's brains, blood, **** and guts spread over the place, its pretty unpleasent. Anyone who isnt running from that outcome is likely not quite right in the head or really has a reason to fight... until you paste a few of his friends over the surrounding landscape.

1: Most people will run, it might be the grim-dark, cranky far future which is fighty, but most people dont want to die.

2: Anyone that doesn't run is either too stupid to leave or very dangerous.

2a: People that are stupid and stick around can usually be convinced to bugger off with something violent demonstrated on a couple of them.

2b: People that are very dangerous have an expotential scale of 'fightyness' that ranges anywhere between staying to fight because they're more scared of their boss than you, all the way up to the completely batshit crazy that are off in their own reality.

3: Unless they're Imperial Guard, in which case the best laid plans and commands of my NPC's simply FAIL HARD on every dice roll, so I've given up using them as antagonists after they've been rolled like complete bozos.

Where are we and what the hell are we doing here? Did at some point, my good self the antagonist NPC just decide, aw f**k it, I'm moving into the sewer full time to hack up prostitutes for fun and heathen rituals or am I just a tourist that's down here for the convenience of not being bothered mid slice. In more often than not, PC's don't recon anything, with anything, except by stumbling into an area, someone messing them and then proceed to hose down the surrounding suburb with everything they've got. If that's your case as well, your NPC's that are endemic to the area should be making the most of the terrain, ambush spots, retreat routes, COVER and sniping positions they know like the back of their hand. Or is the antagonist(s) just tourists as lost as the PC's? It's your job as GM's fiat to apply as much +/- to-hit and cover as you think is necessary depending on where it is, how much lighting, smoke, rain and pollution is around that would affect everyone.

How sneaky and how well equipped are NPC's? By and large, most people in 40K are ignorant, but they're quite good at fighting as a bit more than just a hobby. Some will be heroically fighty, by sticking their head up out of the hatch of their baneblade and gettin some with a las pistol in the middle of an artillery barrage, others are just downright dirty bastards that will hide a melta bomb in a toilet cistern or your PC's favourite vehicle 'for the lulz' of it going off and without having to get associated with the deed.

But essentially, you do need to think about what people will use tactically from a point of relativity (its 40k, nothing's realistic ) Hive mutants wont be armed with marine bolters and likewise a nobles private army isn't going to war equipped with happy thoughts and a bit of rusty iron bar. So that does affect how you will use them to best-effect in their relevant skill areas, people with knives will need to close the distance without being torn up and people with guns won't want to be using them at point blank. The smarter they are in relative terms will determine essentially just how well they manage to pull off what they're trying to do and luck of the dice/bit of fudging will take care of the rest. When in doubt with a large antagonist armed force vs small group, your standard Imperial doctorine really is to just send them in to overwhelm the enemy with sheer numbers, all at once and it will generally either force them to surrender, retreat or you'll be able to overwhelm them.

Don't undersell your Mooks unless they really are cannon fodder and if they are really rubbish, you can make the most out of them with decent battlefield leadership to apply what little they have for some effect. If that means taping a couple up with high-ex and a remote detonator, or someone lethal and competent somewhere in the morass of humanity just waiting for that precise time to strike, you can really make PC's **** bricks and a fight memorable.

MKX makes a good point about recon. A lot of the time, PCs don't do it. But, can they?

A lot of GMs, consciously or otherwise, don't allow it. The fight the NPCs are walking into has probably been set up by the GM. The GM has thought the combat through and has a good idea in his own head how it is going to go. This NPC will he here, that one there and so on. So when the sneaky players decide they want to scout ahead, a lot of GMs will, consciously or otherwise, block it. Either the fight is set up so it can't be scouted or the scouting is made difficult; hard die rolls to move silently, GM warnings about how dangerous it is, clairvoyant NPCs who know when the PCs are coming, etc. This is a natural response that goes far and above combat. You went to all this hard work as a GM to set something up and now the players are trying to walk all over it.

Far better to accomodate it. If your PCs use their brains to scout ahead, discover the enemy disposition, flank them and massacre them in a murderous crossfire, then that is just great. The PCs are happy because they used their brains and it paid off. You are happy because you have happy players. Okay so maybe it isn't quite that easy. Maybe one of the corridors on the flank is mined, or there are lookouts to take down silently. Your players need to work for a pay-off, after all, but resisting the urge to funnel the story in the direction you think it should go is the mark of a good Gm.

Railroading in RPG's is always one of those things which is very hard to avoid, expecially if you're using a module adventure as more or less all of them are based on the premise that PC's find critical clues and survive certain unavoidable encounters. That isn't something endemic to DH, but its a problem we all run into at some point which can create the impression for players that they're not in control of their own destiny- which in our current society of liberties is frowned against, but in WH40K it more or less is the truth that they don't really have a lot of self determination.

Way I figure it, they are issued an order to do something, no ifs, buts or complaints allowed, just get it done. It is in their best interests that they get it done, once the threat of being shot by an angry inquisitor with a melta gun loses its appeal, you can rope them in on the basis that the Inquisition is also the route to power, influence, cash and getting away with complete bloody murder! ...in the name of the Emperor, that they wouldnt be able to attain in their normal jobs.

This does create an incentive to do things quickly, that is where they railroad themselves into behaviour thinking that there is a time constraint to their activities which doesn't actually mean they have to do it quickly. It is important to bear in mind that a lot of the people/critters that they are off to capture, torture, rob and murder will often be in a position of power they're not happy to relinquish to a bunch of scruffy nobodies. They'll stick around if the pressure isn't too high and the investigative probing not impringing on their business, of course, they may which to pre-emptively retaliate against people sticking their nose in and that application of force to an inquisition squad caught investigating someone should be as vicious and surgically devastating as possible.

Tactically, when I write up an adventure it usually runs along the lines of four contingencies.

The easy way: Made it easy as possible on themselves and got the job done with a lot of planning and a minimum of risk- good job

The hard way: Missed a few things along the way in haste that could have made it easier, but achieved it any way even if they did get busted up and probably made a lot of noise in the process- put it down to a learning experience

The extraordinarily hard way: Went blundering in, shot off lots of expensive ammo, got their arses kicked, had to come back after running away (or where exterminated in the process) and possibly have to hunt down some fugitive over an entire planet or sub-sector. At this point it should become an utter nightmare they never wish to repeat.

The what the hell? Never underestimate the sneaky bastard PC, low on ammo, far from home and surrounded by evil, some cunning bastard remembered to bring along that vital piece of equipment or risked their arse getting plans to the back-way into that fortress housing a warp engine ready to tear apart reality and condemn the planet to chaos. If this happens, its not a loss as a GM for not making it a challenge because you're just like ever other falliable person ever born and get blindsided by good/bad luck. Bad guys make mistakes too!

Keep in mind the 1/2, 1x, 2x, 4x measurements. Players aren't likely to be constantly picking up weapons, so they should be encouraged to keep track of things themselves - similarily if you stat up an NPC that has ranged weapons, mark down the brackets for personal reference or just stick with weapons you are aware of. The listed range I tend to just treat as the "standard optimum firing range" - its where they aren't getting any bonuses or penalties.