Newbie GM here again with questions

Reading the combat rules it seems that in melee a character can only parry once per round no matter his weapons or his talents. If i am reading this right it seems odd a character with Two weapon combat and Lightning attack would get 4 attacks and only 1 parry in a round, in fact it seems incredibly unbalancing.

Am i reading these rules wrong? if not i'm thinking i need a house rule to balance melee a little

You`ve read almost correctly. As a standard, a pc gets only one parry per round. There are some talents that can give you additional parries, but you can try to parry every attack only once.

To give a visual example from my own LH/RA experience:

Parrying means reacting to someones action, so you have to "wait" and see what he does. Attacking means, you act and your counterpart has to react, so can try to overwhelm your enemy with multiple slashes/attacks/whatever in short succession.

The WH40k combat system is of course nothing realistic, so it`s your decision if you want to allow more parries.

Thanks for the info, i think i am going to need to house rule this otherwise a single explorer no matter how skilled is always going to be at a disadvantage against multiple weak opponents. One parry vs one attack i agree with but there has to be balance and the ability to achieve 4 attacks in one round needs something to counterbalance it imo or my players are just going to surround every big bad with melee knowing numbers will bring it down easily.

Well, in addition to the one standard parry, every character with the Dodge ability can dodge an additional attack. And if its about your players rushing the enemy bigwig, just give him some cc talents and suddenly the odds are more even again.

Ahh, dodge is in addition to parry? i assumed it was one dodge or parry per round though the rules didnt seem 100% clear. I think i might still be tempted to allow those with multiple attacks to buy an extra parry by forgoing one of their attacks as long as they declare it beforehand, that shouldnt be too overpowering.

Also note, depending on rank, there are other defenses other than Parry/Dodge in effect which will reduce things.

Explorators will have up to 4 Armour extra over other classes. Subdermal Plating is +2AP to most places, bionic arms are +2TB to the arm, skull plating boosts this.

Multiple weak attackers will have bonuses to hit, but if they're weak, theres no too much they'll do to the standard Explorer (My newly rolled up Explorator has 4TB + Enforcer light carapace. If I wanted, I could have taken subdermal plates or whatever, got +2AP. Thats 11 points of protection. The standard lasgun just pings off. If you want full amounts of attacks, you won't be able to half-aim or charge before for the bonus to hit. And some get Combat Master, which cancels out the weak attackers ability to gang up.

EDIT: Also, note that there are talents which boost this. Step Aside (I think it is) and Wall of Steel both allow one extra Dodge and Parry per turn, respectively.

You get one reaction per round that can be used to make one dodge or parry action.

Step Aside gives one additional reaction that can only be used for a dodge, Wall of Steel grants an additional reaction that can only be used for parry. These are the only way to get multiple dodge or parry actions in a round without being a Temple Assassin.

There are other actions that can show up that use your reaction. Thus leaving you unable to dodge or parry.

The fact you don't get a chance to block every attack is a great help in speeding up combat and adding to the brutal nature of it.

I personally enjoy having to balance the risk with how things are; you've been hit by the ganger with a chainsword. Do you try to Parry it, or hope you survive and save your reaction to Dodge the heavy bolter about to fire on your position?

DarianBlood said:

That's one of the things I like about the 40k rpgs, being outnumbered means you will be hit. Your armour will protect you from mooks.

Ahh, dodge is in addition to parry? i assumed it was one dodge or parry per round though the rules didnt seem 100% clear.

- You get one reaction a round. It can be used for a dodge or parry (or other things).

- If you have Step Aside , you get an extra reaction that can only be used for a dodge.

- Wall of Steel gives you a parry only reaction. Both this and step aside are generally high level talents.

- Kroot have a talent that gives them an extra reaction, available at rank one.

- If you use Defensive Stance you get an extra reaction, as well as giving anyone attacking you -20 to WS. This can be done by anyone.

I'm wincing here at the Lethality of combat, i mean anyone with a hellpistol can ignore most anything short of power armor when attacking and as for melta weapons....

Just not sure my group is ready for a game where life can be this cheap, we tend to get attatched to our characters and here it seems in combat everyone is about 2 bad rolls short of getting fried.

Remember, everyone won't have that kind of weaponry; a rival Rogue Trader with a decent dynasty -can- afford anything, given time and good rolls. But the standard Rogue Trader Dynasty will be five head honchos. That bolter gun the Explorator is going around with? Costs 250 thrones on it's own, not including the 16 thrones per shot. You're carrying in your hands something more expensive than a hundred hivers will ever earn in their lifetime.

Fate points can be spent to heal 1d10 non-Critical Wounds. Standard cover is 4AP in addition to your normal armour and Toughness. Think of it like the wargame, if you play it; even a Space Marine will be cut down with ease by an Eldar starcannon if he doesn't have the common sense to get behind cover. Even things like Explorators with average Agility (35) can get Dodge at Rank 2, giving you a 35% chance to dodge -anything- once per turn, twice with Step Aside.

DarianBlood said:

Well, fate points is your friend. Spend them to re-roll a failed dodge/parry, burn them to save your ass. Also, 0 wounds does not mean dead, a character can get the **** kicked out of him/her quite a bit without dying.

Also, if I remember correctly, there is a talent that halves the "critical" damage, thus increasing the chance that a player will be unable to continue the combat, but still being alive.

And, to further increase your players chances to live: Force fields, best quality storm trooper carapace, subdermal plating, cover, the list goes on.

Combat, specifically a gun fight, is bad news when it comes to living a long full life. This is a good thing, it really is. The relative frailty of people will help reinforce the idea that there are lots of other ways around a problem than pulling a gun.

In 40K a human life is literally worth less than what a single boltgun costs to manufacture. The crew of your RT's ship, most of them are the property of his dynasty and fully expendable.

As was mentioned, death does not happen at 0 wounds. Death happens when you reach enough cumulative crits to make you explode into a bloody mess of some kind.

DarianBlood said:

Then send them up against weaker foes or let their army (assuming they buy one) take most of the damage. Balancing the encounters towards your players is something that you will have to learn. But the 40k RPG games have one thing that really helps with this: Fate points.

If a player stuffs up, or you make an encounter too hard, and a PC dies they can always burn one to survive. I'd suggest having them out of the fight from then, maybe remove a limb (gaining a bionic), but if they burn fate they should be allowed to recover.

If you are really worried, house rule it so that the players start with the maximum number of fate points for their character instead of rolling for it. I'd also suggest that where the RAW says permanent characteristic damage, you house rule it to being until they have enough time to have it fixed (usually only between endeavours) in their ships medicare facility, otherwise you risk a character becoming unplayable as it loses an important characteristic.

GregorM1980 said:

What? You get one reaction action per round. Both dodge and parry are a reaction.

Also, regarding the lethality of combat: COVER. USE IT.

Fortinbras said:

Misquoted from memory. Sorry about that.

Thanks for the help and the food for thought guys, i love the concept of this game but going from dungeons and dragons to this is gonna be quite the stretch for my group (who are used to having meatshield fighters with enough hitpoints and armor to make a battleship proud). I really dont want to them to die in a bloodbath and blame me so i guess they are gonna have to learn to fight tactically and use concealment.

Hmm i might get em playing Gears of War multiplayer for a bit as training

I'm a D&D player myself who now also playes RT (though to be honest i switched to Pathfinder when it came out and haven't regretted that one bit, i DM for our Pathfinder sessions). Yes it's true that you can die easier with RT then in D&D. But to be honest: D&D can also be very deadly, it's all about the DM and how tough he wants to make it for the group (and of course whether or not they let him).

If you'd play DH with them then yes, they'd likely not mind to come back after a few tries. But RT is the one game in the 40k verse that lends itself to a D&D-style group of PC's (dunno bout deathwatch, but i've a feeling it might be similar but more combat oriented and it'll likely also require you leading them by the nose a lot more then RT does). Whether or not your players'll enjoy it is up to how you will GM it. Yes you can overwhelm them so often that they die, but if you ease them into the universe or simply downscale the toughness of their opponents then it shouldn't be to much of a problem to keep them alive. Just keep stuff like Rak'Gol away from them until such time as they've gained several levels and the shiny pieces of gear that they'll need to survive such encounters.

Fate points can help, but they're essentially the same as hero points in Pathfinder. They can't work miracles if the GM doesn't fudge a roll every now and then or deliberately puts the players into situations where a single mistake means death. Some players in my Pathfinder group (3d lvl atm) have already nearly died 6 times because they made bad calls or rushed in thinking they'd save the day. Yes you gain more hitpoints in D&D as you progress but so does the damage your foes dish out. Introducing a CR 15 monster to a lvl 1 party will just as surely get them killed as will the introduction of a Rak'Gol boarding team fighting your lvl 1 characters in RT.

Basically: RT doesn't allow you to greatly increase your wounds and yes there are a lot of opponents that are tough. But it does allow you to get gear to offset that vulnerability, it allows you to employ shiny cybernetics to replace severed body parts or augment existing ones and most importantly it allows you to gain talents & skills to be up to the challenge (along with the experience to know how to use them by the time you do). I'm currently playing a lvl 2 seneschal in our RT game with only 9 wounds (he's more of a cerebral type of person with a lot of charm). I get shot up pretty badly on a regular basis, but i make it out alive every time - even if just barely. RT simply forces me to make good use of the resources i have .... which is nothing different then what D&D forces characters to do.

D&D: hm, we're out of spells and potions and half of the party is at close to 0 HP's, we might be better of to return to town until we manage to heal or replenish our spells.

RT: hm, we're out of grenades, half or more of our mercenaries got killed in the last raid and our seneschal just lost another arm (luckily we were able to close of the wound by aiming a meltashot to cauterise the wound), we might be better of to return to ship and have our surgeons put a new bionic arm on him and get some more ammo before we finish exploring these ruins.

I don't see the problem.

DnD very much fosters a mechanical version of combat, massively so in 4th ed. often you get your fighters standing there whacking at a badguy and taking the hits.

Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader use a more RP based combat system which very much rewards creativity and setup. Ambushes are absolutely vicious. Well deployed heavy weapons ae very nasty and using cover is essential if you want to survive.

As a GM you should ensure that your PCs get to find in interesting areas. Don't give them fights on flat plains or empty rooms, make them fight in crowded warehouses/Ships holds, down corridors ripped with support struts and such like. Allow and encourage creative combat (e.g. why fire a krak missile at a badguy when you can fire it at the ceiling above him and his mates and collapse the corridor onto them).

Combat really should be dangerous enough that your players feel the fear of failure, while giving them the thrill of being badass. One reaction a turn helps with this as it means that even weak mooks can take them down in large numbers. And so they have to think their way round the large numbers, use grenades, suppressive fire and so on to pin and disrupt the foe while using cover to avoid return fire.

side note- if you want a character that can hold his own against multiple opponents, play a Kroot Mercenary. They cap out at four reactions per turn.

Gribble_the_Munchkin said:

I think you have perfectly summed up how i want combat in my game to be, i'm just crossing my fingers i can wean the DnD heads off 'throw em into the grinder' style combat reasonably painlessly. Two i know will love it and the third will be happy as long as he has the biggest gun in the party (trust me he wont need any encouragement to hit the roof with a Krak missle, trying to stop him would be the problem), the other two are more 'roll players' than roleplayers and will need some serious encouragement

apostateCourier said:

However the Kroot are discouraged from wearing any armour better than AP 3* and they have problems with using bionics. This seems to make them a bit squishier than other PCs, but I've never been in a game with one to see for myself.

*I compare that to the armours base value before adjusting for quality. Otherwise good quality armour, with its shifting AP value, gets confusing.

If you allow DH characters, the Vindicare Assassin (Ascension) has a ridiculous number of dodges and parries.

I reckon your biggest problem will be the conversion to an acquisition system based on PF and grimdark setting where basically nobody can be trusted completely. I'd be very suprised if it turns out combat is what they find annoying.

DarianBlood said:

1. They get all the toys they can handle. Encourage them to load up.

2. Cover was a huge part of Dark Heresy, and it is in Rogue Trader. If you're standing behind chest-high cover, you basically have a 3-in-5 chance of the hit being negated by strong enough cover, or at least severely reduced.

3. Heavy weapons. Suppressive fire is wildly inaccurate but can pin enemies.

4. Consider using a horde (see Deathwatch) of ship ratings as a sort of meatshield. Any attacks aimed at the explorers has to grind down the meatshield first. It shouldn't be huge, maybe only capable of soaking 15 points of damage at max. But it will emphasize how deadly their opponents are, without exposing them to one-hit kills right off the bat.

5. In my experience, players tend to kill "big bad" bosses with high stats who are all alone with ease, while the hits start to stack up when facing traitor Guardsmen with lasguns, resulting in being nickel and dimed to death by a large group. The point is that if you use bosses instead of hordes, you might increase their chances of survivability.

Nice tip about the minions being more dangerous than the boss, tbh that suits me temprament a lot better than the inevitable 'end of level badass' as i usually prefer a bad guy to be more brains than brawn.

This sunday i put them through a staged combat to show them how the system works, i guess thats the acid test...