I'm part of our group's first ever game of Rogue Trader. It's been a great deal of fun- however, we have a bit of a killer GM, as we found out in our first fight. Our Rogue Trader was the first to fall (funny how that happens), taking a power sword to the chest (we were... rather outmatched). He burned a fate point to survive the massive damage...

The GM picks up a d10, rolls it, and says something to the effect of "you miraculously survive, but lose 8 toughness from severe internal damage."

The game grinds to a halt due to eyebrows raised so high as to no longer be attached to our faces, and jaws no longer in their sockets.

I bring up that this is being rather brutal, especially given how painful it is to lose a fate point to begin with and the rules not supporting it. He shot back that he mentioned it once when we were forming the game, and no one said anything about it then. I tried saying something about things being lost in the shuffle but he wouldn't have it and in the same combat downed our Void Master, dropping his fellowship by a couple points when he burned his FP.

I've tried saying that the fate point mechanic as a whole exists to give us room to make risks, and that this damages that- given that it's wholly possible that a character starts with a <30 Toughness and 4 FP, if things continue like this such a character could die from burning fate points.

Should I get out now, or is this salvageable? I really want this game to work, but trying to get this group to agree to anything is like herding passive-aggressive cats. What I'm asking for, I suppose, on top of the original question is if any of you can provide more eloquent reasons for not nerfing fate points this hard.

Thank you for your time.

Get out now. It looks like your GM gets his fun from killing characters, and that's not good. A good GM challenges the players, he's like a riddle that beckons the players to be solved. Your's is like a meat grinder, painful and not really fun to be around.

Losing the ability to re-roll a check is punishment enough, it also looks like this little house rule of his was instituted without your input (the "I told you before" explanation is worth nothing, either all agree to play with a house rule or it's gone). Getting punished for burning fate points isn't the way to go, especially if the fights are as deadly as you described. And it looks to me like your GM will raise the bar higher and higher just to kill the PCs.

Talking to him will also bring you nothing, especially if you can't get the rest of the players around.

That's a bit harsh. Worst I ever do is use it as a good excuse for the PC's to get some bionics! Power sword to the chest? Looks like it's time for some new lungs! Bolt pistol to the face? Bionic eye time! Loosing the fate point itself should be enough penalty in anyone's book. As a suggestion, take 150 armsmen with you wherever you go from now on. And use orbital bombardment liberally.

Thank you all very much for the advice. I will still be looking forward to more opinions on the matter.

We considered bombarding the place- but as close to Port Wander as this was we didn't want to risk it. We *did* bring thirty guys in carapace armor with assault lasguns to deal with the rabble, but our target was waaaaay over our heads. Phrases like "Combat Master" and "Blademaster" kept coming up, and having read the rules I couldn't help glaring. The words "twin arm-mounted Belasco dueling pistols" (what.) and "best quality power sword" (not so bad) happened too. The room we were fighting in was in an observatory dome with the cold embrace of the void just outside it. Whelp, there went shooting at him. Yeah, this one was kinda over the top.

To the GM's defense, the Void Master dropped due to a bad tactical call on his part- failing to use the Disengage action when moving away from an angry man with a power sword is a bad idea.

I don't think it was malicious, I just don't think he "gets" encounter balance, if that makes any sense. He believes in the importance of a challenge and I don't know how to break it to him that the encounter was entirely unreasonable, and that his Fate Point house rule is unreasonable. He really took the "rank 5 Dark Heresy character" thing to heart, missing the bit where we don't get the awesome talents that make the kind of badassery required to get through this kind of encounter possible.

Dude, you just redefined combat overkill for me. A first fight and exploding ninja Bruce Willis clones with three bladed katanas never mix well. And that's exactly what happened.

How to break it to him? Well, I would choose something heavy and longer than your arm.

I don't actually think permanent penalties is too unreasonable. The description of burning fate points to avoid death by lascannon does say that the explorer may be "hideously burnt" which could reasonably be expected to include penalties.

I'm not sure about the encounter balance as I don't actually know what you were facing but, imo, you should expect to run away sometimes. None of the stuff you've mentioned appears that unreasonable for the enemy of a rogue trader (also, do you know the dome would've shattered from gunfire? I know that no observation dome in our interpretation of the universe would be damaged by small arms fire.)

Thank you for your take on the matter, Weasel. I understand from a fluff/logic perspective, that particular description does seem like it might incur some permanent penalties. That said, doing so seriously damages the Fate Point's role as "crazy and/or awesome risk insurance."

I can understand the misconceptions. I failed to impress the gravity of the situation in full. For not saying all of this in the OP, I apologize- part of me really didn't want to demonize the poor guy too much, but...

1. After the first shot sent spiderweb cracks up the glass (yes, glass), we were duly informed that yes, the dome was breakable.
2. He was on his own. Repeat: Single target. An investigator for the Adeptus Arbites. Not a space marine, not an inquisitor, nothing like that. WS/BS 50+ (no idea on the exact figures, hell, I don't think any of his relevant stats were under 50) and enough combat talents to compete in the action economy with the edge over us (5 people) in that regard. What. Not to mention vastly superior equipment.
3. The only exit was an elevator, in the center of the room, which sank back into the floor when we exited it. With how long it would've taken to come back up it wasn't an option.

Absolutely above all, this was our first fight. Ever. For two of us, it was their first experiences with the game system. I expected difficulty, yes. I did not expect a near TPK in combat #1. I didn't expect insult-to-injury stat burns added to permanent Fate expenditures.

All that being said, again, I don't think it was malicious- I think he just misread some rules (twin linked belasco dueling pistols. With hot shot charges) and vastly overestimated us. Three of us were in a Dark Heresy game under him, and it ended around rank 4- with the talents and such we had acquired we were quickly becoming a force to be reckoned with. I think he extrapolated too far and failed to take into account the lack of talents inherent to a rank 1 Rogue Trader character.

(Edit: fixed the bit about his stats.)

apostateCourier said:

Burning a fate point is penalty enough.

If the GM is kinda harsh he could institute permanent until fixed damage.. Such as loss of a limb (replaced with augmetics), loss of fellowship (fixed with cosmetic surgery) etc.

Permanent unrecoverable damage to a players base attributes is a major penalty especially at 1d10.

Coupled with harsh combats and the characters can quickly become unplayable which negates the entire reason for fate points.

Fate Points represent tremendous lucky breaks that allow you to survive where normal people would perish. Spending a FP means you get away scot free. The blast narrowly misses you or when you plunge down the cliff there is that trusty branch to break your fall. The way I use it, is that people can spend a FP, they will be still out of the fight but survive the encounter no matter what. Even if the whole planet blows up. Once you burn the FP it is up to me the GM to explain how your character survives to fight another day. Most often I reduce the player to 0 wounds and knock him or her unconscious but nothing more.

FP's are the raise dead spell of this game. You only have a limited amount and gaining more is hard to do. But once burned NO harm should happen to your character. In fact I allow my players to burn a FP to avoid permanent stat damage from a crit they would normally survive.

if the DM allows new character at same exp level, never burn a pts!

Thank you all for your advice- it came in handy, and after negotiations he halved the damage and made it temporary. This was enough of a compromise for me, and with a slight changing of the guard (I made a supplementary rogue trader at the same experience level, delegating the astropath to... astropath duty) and this last session (just ended!) went absolutely swimmingly!

This session, well, I may do a full writeup, it was our first ship combat and couldn't have gone better. Some hasty negotiations followed by a surprise opening salvo did wonders. I may do a full writeup, it was absolutely spectacular. It's hard to believe it's the same game as the one from last week!

I agree with much of the above, if the group doesn't like the house rule, and the gm doesn't get his jollies from screwing characters over, then why have it? If on the other hand(as one would suspect from someone who would invent this rule), the GM does deeply enjoy permanently screwing characters, it may be time to move along before too long...

Critical wounds are capable of reducing characteristics, but not based on a fate burn.

Of course, as DH uses the rool of cool factor a lot there is nothing wrong with blowing of an arm or a leg when you burn a FP. So long as the Character gets a nice shiny cybernetic one in return. A thing that can be offered by the GM to the player when he burns a FP. And when the character can pay for it, he could perhaps even buy a good quality item.

Things like that can be great mementos for an important moment in a characters life.