Hi all,

I'm a newbie to this community (been lurking for maybe a few weeks), a newbie to Dark Heresy, and a newbie to GMing. But not to tabletop RPGs. So that's something.

Anyways, I've been buying books like crazy and reading them as I can. I eagerly await Deathwatch, and I am writing a campaign for a group of my friends who are all long-time table-top RPGers, but also new to DH/RT/DW.

So, I've got some major plot elements down, and the supplements are great for ideas (love you, Disciples of the Dark Gods!), but I'm struggling with one thing, which has been the reason why I haven't GMed any of the other games I used to play - encounter balance.

When I read stats, I understand what I'm reading, and it all makes sense. However, when it comes time to set up an encounter, I don't know what will be too challenging for my PCs, and what will be a cakewalk, at least until after the combat is run - call me soft, but I don't really want my PCs to burn Fate Points because I fail at encounter balance.

So, I guess my question (there is one in here) is, do you have a method or some kind of formula for getting at least a vague concept of how a combat will go? I understand that rolls make or break the combat, for either side, but is there some kind of rule of thumb that I can employ to ensure combat at least points in the direction I want it to go?

From the session I've run, I learned a lot (Big thanks to the community here for helping me prepare)

The Armor and weapons enemies carry are the biggest way to gauge the difficulty from what I've seen (however, all my players were rank 2 by the end of the session, so my experience with this method of gauging enemy strength is limited) Do their weapons have piercing? How much AP do they have? Do any have Psychic Powers? Another thing with encounter difficulty is the map you use. How many elements of possible Cover can the enemy/players use? Any pitfalls or traps the players might trip?

Thanks for the advice! I plan on running some premade adventures over the next little while, so I'll be sure to keep what you've said in mind while looking at the encounters provided. Cover is a great point, I hadn't really thought about that before.

I asked the same question a while back. Got great responses.

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=101&efcid=3&efidt=295557

-L

Why is a GMs screen such a useful tool? Because you can hide and fudge rolls and stats

For the most part encounter crafting is a learned thing. I have been GMing for over 10 years and new systems still throw me for a loop. How will piercing, armor, abilities, cover, skills REALLY effect combat? Will a dozen gangsters be a cakewalk, and will a single Ork Boy be an insurmountable obstacle? With a lot of study and simulation you might be able to find out the answers (and you should do that), but even then you will be wrong a fair amount of the time in a new system.

Just give yourself and your players some time to get used to it, put them up against things that aren't whose skills/abilities aren't easy to immediately identify (elite human villains instead of orks, for instance), and see how it goes. Make modular multi part encounters that you can easily tailor. Combat too hard? That group of reinforcements is of a weaker type, or doesn't come in at all. Combat too easy? The next room has more cover and is guarded by slightly more elite enemies.

Remember to make use of cinematic "cut scenes", like in a good video game. Are those orks WAY tougher than you thought they were (the answer for me is YES), oooh you planned it to be a lost cause with a cinematic ship crash/collapsing tower/stray tank providing the players with a non-combat exit strategy.

Prepare lots of contingencies and act with confidence and your players wont know you didn't plan everything out to perfection.

After a few game sessions you will have it down and crafting encounters will come naturally, at which point you can (and should) tighten your games up.

Thank you very much for the responses guys! Between the thread linked and the points riplikash brought up, I think I've got an idea of how to move forward. Thanks again!