So as much as I love my gaming group I've been playing with them long enough to know they can pull out some really terrible combos/builds that bring games to a grinding and painful halt. D&D sessions, Super Hero RPGs and Star Wars RPGs have been completely ruined by their power gamed number stacking, loop hole exploitation and busted ability synergy. With that bit of background information done with-

-We have just started a Rogue Trader game. 2 sessions and already I am seeing the painful foreshadowing of a group out to make the most broken characters possible. How can I keep a decent grasp on the balance of this game while combining good story telling with fast paced action and challenging combat?

-A new GM to this system myself I am already noticing several of the things that have caught their eye.

1. With the max bonus to a roll being +60 and stats easily boosted to around the 40-50 level (with a few xp buys) what is to keep players from literally rolling 90-100 percent chances on important rolls? Ballistic skill looks exceptionally easy to boost. I realize you can add negative modifiers to things, but I don't want to feel like I have to tailor make trouble in EVERY encounter just to balance the game.

2. Acquisition. With even a mid range Profit Factor (and to me it seems pretty easy to obtain and maintain profit factor) players can simply roll, roll and roll some more until they inevitably get the powerful gear they desire. Now, obviously, I won't let them simply roll until they get it, but it really is quite inevitable. Thoughts on keeping on handle on acquisition?

3. Semi and Full Auto. With a decent weapon and the previously mentioned easy to stack ballistic skill you can pretty much kill anything in a round or two. The enemy- and the party!

4. Powergaming dodge. The entire party has picked up on this one. I realize you only get 1 but they never seem to fail on these rolls and they always seem to hit.

Ultimately, I don't truly mind if the party is BA and rolling most of the mundane foes. They ARE a Rogue Trader and his mighty crew. It is just when the mighty seem to overlook RPing/concept in an attempt to break the system that I find myself struggling to hold them back from running wild over the universe. Or having to entertain the idea of putting them up against something that will simply tear them apart. There has to be a middle ground here.

1. Not so easy to get +60 to rolls unless they are going hog wild with freaky gear, see number 2. Especially with BS.. +20 normally where it is plus possible burst and full auto.

2. As the GM you have absolute control as to what is available.. if there are no items of the type where ever they are they can't get them. The book suggests that you control how many aquisition rolls the players can make at any given time, this is a MUST. You should make up your own system but if you need some base rules to start with look in into the storm for a statarting idea. I don't actually like those rules as they actively punish acquisition rolls but it could get you started. If you want I could post mine as well though they are customized to how I handle profit factor so would most likely need to be modified for your use.

3. Yep especially with heavy weapons. That is why they get to fight large numbers of enemies, numbers tailored by you to make it challenging. I find it is better to add enemies rather than make them tougher.

4. They can only dodge 1 time a round without some specific talents which could get them 2 IIRC. As to they always seeming to dodge, I have no answer to that one. Do you see the rolls they make? Maybe they just have been really lucky so far.. If necessary shoot at them more, see number 3

If they're playing the game like it's Deathwatch, perhaps you should have them facing down hordes from Deathwatch. See the Deathwatch Support section for a quick and dirty version of Horde rules. If I recall correctly, you can't dodge horde fire.

Regarding #3 - Warp creatures can take a LOT of punishment from non-force weapons.

As for availability, you control how many acquisition checks the group gets. Also, re: Dodge. I don't allow dodge unless the character is in cover or made some sort of movement action the previous turn.

Generally I agree with Ilsoth. In addition, I have found that what kills players the most is throwaway NPC's in hordes nickel and diming them to death with lasguns, rather than some monstrous big bad.

1. A +60 is not that easy to obtain; only at great situation usually. So it is okay. Dont forget that if the PC can do that, NPC can also do that

2. Acquisition is easy, true enough. But there is something that could limit the buying power a bit, such as the time to find the item. Most 'rarer' items took days or even weeks just to find them. I often give my characters some dilemma; yes you can search for it but if it took too long, there goes your endeavours and also it will costs you more on vessel docking. Furthermore, somewhere in Into the Storm states that multiple acquisition should be given penalties. Plus, failed acquisitions could resulted in misfortunes (IIRC, it is written somewhere).

3. Semi Auto and Full Auto. If PC can do it, NPC too. IMO here people die easily

4. Dodge? I believe it is okay to dodge once or twice in awhile. Make sure NPC dodges too. Oh btw in melee duels, we could always use Feint so that opponent cannot dodge.

What I fear from this setting is not that PC's powergaming; it's NPC's Powergaming that could prove very fatal. Daemons (with Fear and Daemonic Presence etc), Navigator NPC with many powers, Farseer and Warlocks, Hordes that ignore Dodge / Parry occupy abstract space and only count how much hit not how much damage, Corruption Points and Insanity Points..

But then again, those are just my opinions.

Thanks for mentioning that. Fear tests can incapacitate an entire party, with the exception of the Missionary, who can use fate points to ignore willpower/fear tests, and perhaps an Arch Militant who takes Jaded from the Death World origin.

Good tip I keep hearing is to keep the areas where PCs are fighting interesting. Give enemies cover they can get behind, and the PCs. Fights last a little longer when cover has to be chewed through, and shots that penetrate are doing minor damage. Throw in a couple of non-standard things to make combat a bit tougher for both - Agility checks in factories to balance on conveyor belts, or a heavy weapon emplacement. Suddenly, the PCs are taking full cover to avoid heavy bolter fire, and formulating plans to take them out, etc.

NobleSeven said:

What I did was, between endeavours, each player could roll once for each item they wanted. If they passed, they would have it in time for the next endeavour. I only limited the number of rolls they could boost with their personal stats because they only have so much time to go looking, the rest are done by lower members in the dynasty.

That worked well for personal gear. For anything of a larger scale, I'd suggest making sure they roleplay it and having a look at the penalties for acquisition tests introduced in Into the Storm. Just make note of this text on page 273 of the core rulebook: Explorers should be able to buy personal weapons, armour, and gear as often as they like - provides they have access to the goods they seek and time to acquire them.

That suggests that the penalties for excessive acquisition tests isn't meant to apply to personal equipment, only equipping an army.

Honestly it sounds like you're just giving them way to much of an easy time. BS 60 isn't that hard to get, you can get 80 if you pick your options right. Wait till they realise they can use Corpulent to get unnatural toughness (and with the right options they'll have toughness 100 in no time, taking corpulent rather then rolling for it = 200 xp).

Throw an ork or 5 at them with about 6 grenades each and see how they do. Those buggers are ffing hard to kill with their unnatural toughness. Also: don't let them overuse Medicae. RT doesn't have that many wounds, in any dungeon crawl with a lot of smalltime enemies attrition of resources/wounds becomes a big deal. Fighting in a space ship means a lot of places to take cover behind for enemy ambushes. Lots of tough enemies out there like Rak'Gol, Ork, Dark Eldar, Demons that can match their skills easily.

Unless they're a vindicare assassin dodge should not be that big of a problem. Unless they got agility 100 they should not be dodging all the time. After all: even with agility 50 you only dodge 1 in 2 attacks. Give your opponents something that scores additional hits with DoS and they'll likely only dodge half of what they get hit with.

Yes, RT lends itself to some serious power gaming. But most of that depends on what you allow them to have and it's countered by the tough enemies that you can throw at them. Not the biggie biggie demons, but the simple badasses like Orks, Rak'Gol, enemy RT crews, ... .

An example: my character died last session. First i had to burn a faithpoint to avoid dying after duking it out with 5 lowl-level grunts that took up a nice fortified position that we needed to get past (one of our party has a BS of 75 atm), and that got a heavy stubber as reinforcements. Then i finally bit it entirely after we took out the lvl 5 psyker with two shots only to see the entire party engulfed in the flames of a couple of battle-servitors. One path to the enemy + all good guys there = disaster if you roll badly to avoid the flames and/or be set on fire. I was the only PC to die, but the entire retinue save one died + the rest of the party came within an inch of their lives. The same happened before when we fought 4 tough orks with grenades and chainswords. Without a meltagun, they were just freakishly hard to damage. Unnatural toughness of 50 + armour of 5 = 16 damage before you do so much as 1 wound. If they hadn't accidently been caught in their own grenades i'm pretty sure the lot of us woulda snuffed it then and there.

Conclusion: if they power game, just hit them with some of the simple facts of 40k ... for every larger then life PC there's over 100.000 small guys that want to kill'm.:

along with one dodge a round, use tactics, make them choose between taking a few autogun hit, or getting that heavy stubber/autocannon in the face.

Honeslty, I wouldn't worry about it. It doesn't really matter how powerful the PCs are in a game of Rogue Trader because the game's scale makes it easy to compensate for those sorts of shenanigans. If you end up making combat too lethal or dangerous the PCs will stop leading from the front and instead of the Rogue Trader and his intrepid crew taking the lead they'll be shouting orders to 2000 armsmen. Not that they can't do this anyway if they think too, but hopefully that gets the point across.

I too have powergaming players. One in particular has created a monster of an archmilitant with both weapon skill and ballistic skill and strength somewhere in the 60 range. He dual wields a powersword and powerfist (for the parry bonus and sheer damage output) and wears best quality power armour. He is riddled with cybernetics and has an overall armour of 10 (+4 for tougthness bonus). He is mean and his damage output with lightning attack is frightful.

However, it doesn't unduly unbalance the game. I just have to create encounters with him in mind. If the PCs get into a fight with a bunch of daemons (he has fearless so won't run) then they are splatting horrors and flamers while he gets the charnel daemon. If its chaos cultists, then their leader is either "Marked" or is a chaos marine. And so on.

I've still yet to introduce horde rules but might do so as they look fun.

A good tip is not to have a single baddie. In my last session my players took a daemonhost down to 1 wound in the first turn. And thats without the murder-machine arch militant. If they focus their efforts not much lasts beyond turn 1 or two. However, give them a pair of daemonhosts, and a bunch of rubbish daemons (horrors, etc) to rush and distract them in close combat and its a different story.

Anyone who chooses to be super awesome with a gun should be engaged in close combat. Any close combat machine should be swamped in CC and the have the enemies attack from range while he is pinned (using fire attacks when fighting something immune to fire is fun).

Howling banshees are great too. Powerswords as standard weapons plus a banshee mask can really cook even close combat focused fighters.

However, the aim isn;t really to beat the PCs, just to make them hurt. Make them take a few wounds and they realise they can be killed. Drop one to crits and it becomes very tense.

Don't be afraid to break out the vicious psychic powers such as psychic blade either. They have fate points to burn if the baddie rolls well.

It is strange the strength level of RT/DW characters compared to DH. I think they wanted to make the players a bit more Heroic and went to far the other way to compensate.

Nimon said:

Yup. Which is why Rogue Trader is the black sheep of the franchise. DH gets way too many toys and Deathwatch is practically incompatible.

Nimon said:

I honestly don't know what you're talking about. If you compare characters at xp level then there's no problem whatsoever between DH and RT characters. If anything the DH ones'll be a lot more dangerous once they hit ascended levels.

I don't fear the PC's in combat. This is afterall, Warhammer. I'm more worried about accidentally TPKing them with some failed Fear rolls. They don't get that many wounds and the Crit tables are incredibly terrifying.

As far as acquisitions go... after reading this I've decided to grab some of your ideas. I'll allow each player one roll between endeavours / adventures plus one for the group (ie starships etc). BUT i'm going to make them secretly so the truly heinous ones will be very difficult to get. I'll soften the blow by adding some role-play to it. The arch-militant returns to his quarters after suppressing a native population to find that an ornately carved ryll-wood chest has been placed there... inside his the archeotech bolt pistol he has had his agents scouring the Obscura Sector for. ETC.

llsoth said:

Hi llsoth,

Are you refering to the system with base PF and effective PF where the effective PF is calculated from base PF and the number of ships the players own?

If you can, would you please tell us what system you use to handle PF? I have been looking for a way to handle this.

Alox

Combat bunnies tend to come unstuck in this system to fire, fear and ignorance.

Half a dozen pyromaniacs with flamers will wreck anyone's ****, a few consecutive pinning rolls is a real pain in the arse. A couple of Fear rolls of 3-4 break **** near everyone except usually the "support" characters (Navis, Explorators, Priests) and because they spent all their xp on wounds, kill-stuff abilities and stats, they dont know ****, so feel free to have theml blunder in witlessly into things and probably get stuck in there. My job as a GM is to simply know the rules inside out, remain consistant, make up challenging stories and when needed to be, a titan sized prick, it doesn't matter what system it is.

To some extent though, RT is a game of Colonial Incorporation. If the natives want to come peacefully, buy beads and let themselves be exploited then they'll make profit easily... but mostly they wont be mugs and be out to gouge PC's for all their worth with misinformation, violence and blackmail.

Seriously you simply havent explored the amount of nasties the world of 40k can throw up.

Daemons or/and Chaos Space Marines are probably the most iconic high danger threat.

Give them a Slaughter class cruiser with a command crew of a dozen CSM as an opponent. Take DW as a hint at how powerful any type of Space Marine is. I have no trust in PC ability to win this fight. Simply because the rest is pretty much equal. Instead of an RT you have a 5000 year of Chaos Lord, replace the Explorator with a daemonmelded Heretek from the Dark Mechanicus, instead of Voidmasters the crew is totally melded to their stations. Instead of Missionaries and Archmilitants, you have a number of chaos ridden Cult Marines or Veterans of a dozen wars; thats 6 flavours of Marine already. Theres the Ork menace as well.

And stuff like that isnt THAT rare. 40k tends to throw so many "uhh theres another potential danger" into such small space, that its really no problem of simply killing the party. The finicky part is to find a balance that is actually challenging and wont kill them outright.

The PF System is another problem though. Some stuff is hard to obtain on single rolls (come on finally give me that power armour), but with enough rerolls, if given time (hire an underling and let him handle aquisition of personal effects) it is ridiculously easy. I have decided to balance personal warfare at the level of: RTs simply have the best. And RTs get their hands dirty doing a high profile insertion into enemy territory, but if you wish to actually do something about this planet, you should bring your army. Yes it should be around a few divisions. Unless you only want to raid for negligible amounts of wealth.

Basically think less about personal combat, then having the best Dodge and a master crafted Plasmagun simply wont matter that much. Its more about the application of massive amounts of materiel. And quite alot of diplomatic bickering. Do more Socials. Sure having a Charm value close to a hundred is possible. But its not like you cannot have an equally devious diplomat form the water caste opposing you, or a crafty Eldar pirate. etc.

One way of looking at it is the social/political scene. I find it that characters who are all about fighting (and in this case, also a good Profit Factor) may also be low in Fellowship and what not. A failed Aquisition roll could easily mean that someone local bought it before they managed to get to it and in this case they would have to bargain with that party. Failing to sweet talk the wrong party could get them wanted on several worlds, pretty bad for further Aquisition rolls in different places if the people you're bargaining with would rather turn you in for the reward. Or in serious enough cases, bring down entire organizations on their heads which can effect them over a wide expanse as those who are effected by such an organization (the Brotherhood, the Inquisition, Navis Nobilite, and so on) will likely refuse to even get to the bargaining table with them.

This would lead to the many, many people who would like to kill the PCs and all the resources they have at their disposal. An angry organization such as the Brotherhood would be the equal to a big, nasty daemon in the deadly effects that they can have.

This doesn't even begin to step into the variety of toxins and dieseases that can be used to hamper the PCs or (ala Escape from LA) control them.

You have a whole galaxy to use. They are a few in the face of uncounted trillions...