Morning all,

I was sitting down sketching out some ideas for endevours my my group, and had the thought that most of them would be on to small a scale to even whet the apettite of RT's like Mr Winterscale. Plus the thought that the larger, and more sprawling, a RT's holdings, the higher the costs of running them and protecting them.

So I was thinking, for every 10 PF over 50 that the group has, it gets 1 less PF reward from an endevour. So Mr Winterscale will only be interested in the grandest of ventures to expand his holdings, and not at all keen on trifling leads.

It would also help with a potential problem that one of my players pointed out. Why spend 4 sessions on an endevour that can earn us 5 + bonus when we can do 4 endevours that earn us 1 + bonus each.

Hygric said:

A bigger empire should mean more potential for severe misfortunes, but not a reduction in PF values.

Agreed, if another major house declares war or something like that PF could (emphasis on could) PF considerably. But for a well diversified house (with detailed PF sources), you will be a mean GM if you constantly use misfortunes to reduce PF.

I'm thinking about a situation like a PF 70 house setting up a trade in xeno baubles from the last lot of primitives they encountered. It won't sell as well as they allready have several ventures selling stuff to the rich. Plus, if you take PF as being partially influnece among the movers and shakers, no-one is going to be impressed by a house that just keeps going after the little nibbles of PF.

As an afterthought: Re - endeavors of 1 PF versus endeavors of 4 PF, I would simply look at what some of the grander scale objectives grant you. Edge of the Abyss's adventure nets you an artifact that can grant a massive bonus to warp navigation on a successful psyniscience roll. Meanwhile, endeavors are constructed by the GM, not the players. They can tell you "We want to make a colony on <X>", but it's always up to the GM whether making a colony on <X> is a difficult job or an easy job. And if they just keep refusing jobs until an easy one comes along, you should roll a misfortune that occurs during their idlenss.

The runaway PF can be a problem.

One of the ways that we have used to combat the problem is to change the way ships work in regards to purchase and upkeep.

All ships require upkeep a transport/raider/frigate needs 1 PF, a light cruiser 2, cruiser 3, grand cruiser 4, battleship 6. As an example lets say the RT has a PF of 70 and a small flotilla of ships consisting of a cruiser, 2 light cruisers, 2 transports, and 3 frigates. he would have a effective profit factor of 58 (which would be used for all rolls).

We also changed how you buy a ship. No longer is it an acquisition roll, instead you have to pay for it in permanent PF. The cost is the same as the upkeep, only it comes from his base PF. So if a RT had a PF of 70 and a single cruiser he would have PF 70, PF(effective) 67 and then decided to buy another cruiser (if he could find one for sale) he would then have a PF 67 , PF(effective) 61.

This may not solve the problem but it has helped slow it down for us at the very least.

llsoth said:

I really like this. RAW, the only way I can see to keep the PF down (especially if the PCs focus on getting good ships that give them lots of PF at the end of a session) is to encourage them to "burn" PF to get components NOW .

I've used a house rule in my saga where everytime the PCs acquire a new ship i lob 5PF off their total. Since my players seem keen to increase their fleet, they've so far had 30PF sliced off their PF.

They also tend to spend PF on things when they fail acquisition rolls (most recent funding religious extremists in the Calixis sector) and in one notable occasion, buying massive amounts of industrials tools, parts and gubbins from a forgeworld to artificially boost its production so that when the war arrives, they forge world is up and running. This cost them 15Pf but they got it back after they finished the endeavour.

At one point they got their PF down to 16 but its back up now to a robust 54.

I've decided to impose a 10% PF "tax" on refiting ships based off the total SP that the ship ends up at. Why? Well the Lathes (best place to refit) are a busy place and while they will eventually refit the ship to your specifications, it may well be 100 or 200 years from now, no reason to rush it. I also liberally tell them to burn the PF to get +10-30 on the roll for the individual components that they really, really want.