Rak'Gol paper tigers and incompetent Competent crews

By Blizzard36, in Rogue Trader

In the last two sessions of the RT based game I'm running two glaring issues have reared thier heads. The Rak'Gol are abysmal as the big scarry bad guy of the Expanse, and Competent crews are just about as useless as Incompetent ones.

The Rak'Gol problem is simple, they don't have any weapons listed with decent penetration. While they will tear through opponents using Flak armor or worse, anyone using Carapace armor or better is essentially invulnrable to them. Since the average person probably doesn't have very good armor if any, the Rak'Gol are the terror they are supposed to be for most NPCs. But against PCs, who can pretty easily get Carapace armor if they want it, their attempts to kill them were laughable. No really, when the Rak'Gol had to resort to trying to use breaching charges against individual PCs (which failed spectacularly due to a critically failed roll) the players really did laugh and facepalm.

Against opponents as well armored as the PCs the PC's crew would also be hard pressed to hurt them with thier las-carbines and shotguns. But they could then call up specialists with hellguns, plasma guns, or inferno pistols to deal with such hardened targets. The Rack'Gol do not have any equivilent to this second tier of weaponry that I could find, and they badly need it if players are ever going to take them as a credible threat beyond the starting ranks.

At the same time I've noticed that NPC vessels have consistantly been underwhelming. I chalk this up to the fact that the recomended average crew level of Compentent really isn't good enough in combat. A Compenent crew, a 30% chance of success does have a good chance of landing a hit a round by firing multiple batteries. And while a hit a round is a lot less than the possible maximum it's still a consistant low grade success, which sound's like an apropriate outcome for a Competent crew. Unfortunately. since your average macrocannon needs to hit 3-4 times in order to deal any damage at all (Void shields eat the first one and armor is good enough to nullify the first hit or so) it is very rare for a crew of this level to ever actually do anything of effect. By using the various special actions and having good components on the ship you can get the Compentent crew up to a regular pretty regular 3 hits in 2 round. A marked improvement, but still not enough to actually have an effect. You have to wait for a rare string of good rolls in one round to land more than 3 hits and finally do damage. And even then it may only be single digits if the damge rolls aren't very good. Combat slogs on a long time with multiple NPC ships fighting each other, while the PCs on thier ship are the only rutinely effective ones.

Using lance batteries doesn't help either. While they only need 2 hits in a round to do reliable damage, it takes just as many sucesses to get those hits as it would take to get 4 hits from a macrocannon. Getting those sucesses is the problem.

Clearly the cew percentages need to be bumpped up, the question is how much? I would normally say increase them all by 10, but with the actions like Lock On Target and Put Your Backs Into It (which get you a bonus to hit) even a small increase in overall crew skill can combine to a much larger bonus to hit by now succeeding in those actions more regularly. Perhaps just 5? Has anyone tried anything similar?

NPC crew ratings vs the PCs skills are one of the advantages PCs have. Mind you why a crew of tens of thousands can't find one guy who has bought an advance or two...

Anyway, you don't need to raise the crew rating. You can give the NPC crew section chiefs, Chief Gunner with a BS of 50 or so, Chief Engineer with a tech use skill, Ships Morale officer with a blather or charm skill, Captain with a Command skill, ect, ect. Just use the appropriate NPC once a turn for the extended actions. If the NPC ship needs to make multiple tests on the same skill use the crew rating for the second one.

Personally I wouldn't do that for every ship, just the ones you want to be more dangerous. If you really want to mess with them, give the NPCs a Navigator with something like Stack the Deck.

If you've got a specific ship (a rival Rogue Trader, or a recurring opponent) toss out a few names when you're making the rolls..."Looks like Magos Scotty has gotten the Void shields back online..." "Once again the Navigator Tremaine has bent the warp to his will and...."

If the PCs start asking if they can do a hit and run raid on "that guy!" you're doing it right.

As concerns the Rak'gol, its an easy fix. If the players are mowing through the standard Marauders with ease just give them Mighty Shot and let their stubbers use the Rak'gol version of Manstopper rounds. +2 damage and an additional -3 penetration should make them much more of a threat, even to carapace armored PCs. Currently Rak'gol heavy stubbers deal 1d10+5 damage with 2 penetration (or in that ballpark, I don't have EotA with me atm). A few minor changes would mean they deal 1d10+7 with 5 penetration. If a heavy stubber firing full auto with those stats doesn't scare your PCs then they are very overgeared.

If you want to be even more of a bastard, let your "elite" marauders apply a Rak'gol version of the Arch-Militant ability, granting them +10% to hit and an additional +2 damage. That's 1d10+9, pen 5 with a significant hit bonus...

These are all small changes mechanically, but applying them to the basic Rak'gol Marauder template is an easy way to modify your foes in an easily understood and probably not too overpowered fashion. If your players are overpowering your foes its up to you to adjust for that accordingly...

Mistakes like these crop up in FFG's writing all the time. Do they just not playtest their books? FFS, they charge enough for them.

And before the fanboys descend, I accept that mistakes can and do get made, but when you set out to write a more detailed, complex even, system, you must accept that comes with increased demand for testing. The more mechanical data you ascribe to things like guns/armour, for example, the more the players - the paying customers - need that info to be absolutely bang on.

Having enemies that can't hurt you is patently ridiculous.

Bladehate said:

These are all small changes mechanically, but applying them to the basic Rak'gol Marauder template is an easy way to modify your foes in an easily understood and probably not too overpowered fashion. If your players are overpowering your foes its up to you to adjust for that accordingly...

The problem is FFG front load their games with a lot of info. Now that info may not be, case by case, especially complicated, but compelling the GM to add more to fix a problem that shouldn't exist, just makes it worse. For some it's also a daunting prospect, having to work out ahead of time what needs fixing and apply a suitable fix isn't something everyone finds easy. We buy these books precisely because we are happy to pay FFG to do that job for us; they get our money and we get a nice well produced (at least in principle) product.

It really is about time FFG took notice and started to respond to these. I've seen complaints like these all over the internet when people talk of the 40k games and I just do not understand how intelligent professionals think it acceptable for these errors to slip past all the time.

Well, I agree with you in principle. And it is for this exact reason that I very rarely use the stats that the books present in my own adventures. Instead I view them as very loose guidelines, not as the final answer to everything.

But consider the fact that there are a staggering number of ways to play a game like RT. Even if you play by the book, the need for a GM to adjudicate what is and is not permissable is intense. The PF and Acquisition system itself can be utterly broken without a GM curtailing it. Walking the line between using the system without making it useless can sometimes be a challenge in itself.

This means that RT groups can vary immensely in power level, and trying to create the perfect, balanced foe for such a variety of player parties is almost impossible. There are no challenge ratings or level difficulties for the various creatures and enemies in FFG sourcebooks, which is both a curse and a blessing as there are no meta-tools to determine relative power of an NPC.

If you look at the raw statistics, a Rak'gol Marauder is a very strong "mook" enemy for early and mid-game explorers. Compare it to any number of the example NPCs in the RT sourcebook and its quite a dangerous beast. If some groups are well geared and combat optimized, that will heavily affect how relatively dangerous the given baseline Marauder is. Its the GMs responsibility to know roughly where his group is and what it will take to challenge his players. If that means upgunning NPC foes from their baseline given stats then that's what needs to be done...its part of the job. This phenomenon is not unique to WH40K RPGs, though it may seem more obvious considering its table top wargame origins.

I buy the rather expensive FFG products mainly for the background and setting information because I don't have a strong background in WH40K. The information is invaluable to me to help bring the game alive with details for my players. I buy this rather then construct it myself because...well...I can. I've homebrewed my own settings before, and I will do so again, but at the moment I'm enjoying the option of shortcutting some of these aspects. I still have to bring it to life for my players but I don't have to create it all from whole cloth and that's overall worth it to me. If I was still a poor university student I would probably feel differently about it.

So to me, I could live without the example NPC stats just fine. But I think its still a helpful tool as it allows a GM an idea of what the baseline abilities and stats for various NPCs could be. But that's all they are: A starting point.

Bladehate said:

But consider the fact that there are a staggering number of ways to play a game like RT. Even if you play by the book, the need for a GM to adjudicate what is and is not permissable is intense. The PF and Acquisition system itself can be utterly broken without a GM curtailing it. Walking the line between using the system without making it useless can sometimes be a challenge in itself.

I strongly disagree with the consequence you give that simple factoid. Yes there are many ways to play RT, but the same can be said of any number of rpgs out there that do not have this problem. I play Pathfinder as well, i don't have this problem with those books. Nor do i have the problem of radically vague backgrounds with huge gaps in the universe upping the SoD considerably. I also don't have the problem there that i buy a book about eg. Elves and see it filled for 2/3s with stuff about other races (which is exactly what happened when i bought Mark of the Xenos). Last but not least: i also don't have the problem that the different playable careers have different sourcebooks that don't mesh together well without a lot of GM interference. And there's more problems that are quite significant, so this is not an exhaustative list by any means.

I love the 40k universe, and i even like the effort FFG is putting into a good rpg system. But there are honestly a whole range of problems with the product that i sincerely hope they will iron out in future releases. The main problem with that hope though seems to be that whenever someone points out these problems - or others - he tends to get shouted down and no official reaction is ever given that i've seen. This stands in starch contrast to how quickly one can get a reply to a rules question submitted via the forum, which is honestly very quickly (all 5 times i've asked anyway).

Basically until things change a lot of the fun of the game depends on how your GM houserules a staggering amount of things. Which means that a lot of people will turn away after a cursory experience because it took to much work or their GM trumped their fun. And because i love the setting so much, i consider that to be a bad thing ... it means less profit and therefore less impetus to invest.

Wow now. You are putting words in my mouth and making assumptions.

I was discussing the FFG published stat blocks, stating that they are and should be guidelines. And that comparing to the NPC stats for various foes in the RT sourcebook, the Rak'gol Marauder is in the tougher end of the spectrum.

Now, a part of the reason for that is as we both agree...the many systems in the WH40K RPG line that are open to abuse. This is entirely different aspect of the game systems, and one I never stated an opinion on, only stating one of the results: Drastically varying character power levels, necessitating a lot of GM awareness.

Comparing that to the evolution of Pathfinder, built on 3.5 and playtested into the ground before the rules were finalized and you do get a very different system. I love Pathfinder for that reason (and many others). However, Pathfinder is still heavily level based as all D&D game systems tend to be, meaning its a combat system first and fore most. The RPG systems are much less well developed, and easily ignored or handwaved. This doesn't make it better or worse, its just a defining characteristic of the genre.

WH40K doesn't have that clarity of focus. I understand the basic system comes from second edition WH Fantasy, and it bears some superficial resemblance to other systems like Rune Quest that also uses percentile values for skills/attributes. But comparing Pathfinder to WH40K RPGs is not fair, or entirely accurate.

But just like certain Prestige classes can be used to break 3.5, the many, many character options in WH40K RPGs can also make for some very powerful combinations.

To be clear though, I do wish that a revision of the rules would take place. There are a great many things that could require some polish and a unified sourcebook would be a blessing. The different versions and revisions along with the many and varied splat books are starting to cause some problems. I do feel the game needs that more then it needs Black Crusade...but perhaps that's just me.

Housecats are lethal to peasants in Pathfinder. Rak'Gol are lethal to the common citizenry of the Imperium.

Blizzard36 said:

In the last two sessions of the RT based game I'm running two glaring issues have reared thier heads. The Rak'Gol are abysmal as the big scarry bad guy of the Expanse, and Competent crews are just about as useless as Incompetent ones.

The Rak'Gol problem is simple, they don't have any weapons listed with decent penetration. While they will tear through opponents using Flak armor or worse, anyone using Carapace armor or better is essentially invulnrable to them. Since the average person probably doesn't have very good armor if any, the Rak'Gol are the terror they are supposed to be for most NPCs. But against PCs, who can pretty easily get Carapace armor if they want it, their attempts to kill them were laughable. No really, when the Rak'Gol had to resort to trying to use breaching charges against individual PCs (which failed spectacularly due to a critically failed roll) the players really did laugh and facepalm.

Against opponents as well armored as the PCs the PC's crew would also be hard pressed to hurt them with thier las-carbines and shotguns. But they could then call up specialists with hellguns, plasma guns, or inferno pistols to deal with such hardened targets. The Rack'Gol do not have any equivilent to this second tier of weaponry that I could find, and they badly need it if players are ever going to take them as a credible threat beyond the starting ranks.

At the same time I've noticed that NPC vessels have consistantly been underwhelming. I chalk this up to the fact that the recomended average crew level of Compentent really isn't good enough in combat. A Compenent crew, a 30% chance of success does have a good chance of landing a hit a round by firing multiple batteries. And while a hit a round is a lot less than the possible maximum it's still a consistant low grade success, which sound's like an apropriate outcome for a Competent crew. Unfortunately. since your average macrocannon needs to hit 3-4 times in order to deal any damage at all (Void shields eat the first one and armor is good enough to nullify the first hit or so) it is very rare for a crew of this level to ever actually do anything of effect. By using the various special actions and having good components on the ship you can get the Compentent crew up to a regular pretty regular 3 hits in 2 round. A marked improvement, but still not enough to actually have an effect. You have to wait for a rare string of good rolls in one round to land more than 3 hits and finally do damage. And even then it may only be single digits if the damge rolls aren't very good. Combat slogs on a long time with multiple NPC ships fighting each other, while the PCs on thier ship are the only rutinely effective ones.

Using lance batteries doesn't help either. While they only need 2 hits in a round to do reliable damage, it takes just as many sucesses to get those hits as it would take to get 4 hits from a macrocannon. Getting those sucesses is the problem.

Clearly the cew percentages need to be bumpped up, the question is how much? I would normally say increase them all by 10, but with the actions like Lock On Target and Put Your Backs Into It (which get you a bonus to hit) even a small increase in overall crew skill can combine to a much larger bonus to hit by now succeeding in those actions more regularly. Perhaps just 5? Has anyone tried anything similar?

Blizzard36 said:

The Rak'Gol problem is simple, they don't have any weapons listed with decent penetration. While they will tear through opponents using Flak armor or worse, anyone using Carapace armor or better is essentially invulnrable to them. Since the average person probably doesn't have very good armor if any, the Rak'Gol are the terror they are supposed to be for most NPCs. But against PCs, who can pretty easily get Carapace armor if they want it, their attempts to kill them were laughable. No really, when the Rak'Gol had to resort to trying to use breaching charges against individual PCs (which failed spectacularly due to a critically failed roll) the players really did laugh and facepalm.

I can't realy see what you're talking about. Lets have a Look hat Rak'Gol Weapons:

Razor Gun 1d10+5 Pen: 0 Jepp that would be a lousy gun wouldn't it be for the special effect of these things (5 or more Damage that comes through armor and Toughness and you suffer blood loss, means a 10% chance of dying each round), that thing shouldn't do that on every shot.

Heavy Stubber with 1d10+5 Pen: 3 firing 10 rounds. Your average carpace-armored PC has 3 Points of armor left, maybe a TB of 5 so he soaks 8 points of damage per hit, the Weapon has an average damage of 10 per hit.

Than there are the melee Weapons 1d10+12 pen: 4, lets again take a PC: Armor 6 (Carpace), TB 5, Wounds: 16, so he can soak up to 7 Points of damage per hit, that means even a minimum damage attack will deliver 6 Wounds, three hits with only minimum damage and the PC is in the crits.

Somehow I fail to see, were the Rak'Gol are underpowered, taking in mind that they attack in groups and are not meant to act as one single big enemy. They're just more of melee-fighters (see their hunting frenzy and the fact that the "multiple arms"-trait gives them 2 attacks per round). Their description already mentioned that their tech is inferior to imperial tech, so their long range weaponery is more of an auxiliary option. I mean look at those things; they're ******* Aliens and obviously meant to be used like them.

blubbbb said:

I can't realy see what you're talking about. Lets have a Look hat Rak'Gol Weapons:

Razor Gun 1d10+5 Pen: 0 Jepp that would be a lousy gun wouldn't it be for the special effect of these things (5 or more Damage that comes through armor and Toughness and you suffer blood loss, means a 10% chance of dying each round), that thing shouldn't do that on every shot.

Heavy Stubber with 1d10+5 Pen: 3 firing 10 rounds. Your average carpace-armored PC has 3 Points of armor left, maybe a TB of 5 so he soaks 8 points of damage per hit, the Weapon has an average damage of 10 per hit.

Than there are the melee Weapons 1d10+12 pen: 4, lets again take a PC: Armor 6 (Carpace), TB 5, Wounds: 16, so he can soak up to 7 Points of damage per hit, that means even a minimum damage attack will deliver 6 Wounds, three hits with only minimum damage and the PC is in the crits.

Somehow I fail to see, were the Rak'Gol are underpowered, taking in mind that they attack in groups and are not meant to act as one single big enemy. They're just more of melee-fighters (see their hunting frenzy and the fact that the "multiple arms"-trait gives them 2 attacks per round). Their description already mentioned that their tech is inferior to imperial tech, so their long range weaponery is more of an auxiliary option. I mean look at those things; they're ******* Aliens and obviously meant to be used like them.

The Razor gun will never trigger its special ability against a group with Carapace armor and 50+ Toughness, it needs to roll max to do it if they have 40-49. That's really not very worrisome. As for thier melee attack, I screwed that one up. I read it wrong and missed the +12, treating it as a +4 Pen 0 attack. Which is significantly less painful.

Bladehate said:

As concerns the Rak'gol, its an easy fix. If the players are mowing through the standard Marauders with ease just give them Mighty Shot and let their stubbers use the Rak'gol version of Manstopper rounds. +2 damage and an additional -3 penetration should make them much more of a threat, even to carapace armored PCs. Currently Rak'gol heavy stubbers deal 1d10+5 damage with 2 penetration (or in that ballpark, I don't have EotA with me atm). A few minor changes would mean they deal 1d10+7 with 5 penetration. If a heavy stubber firing full auto with those stats doesn't scare your PCs then they are very overgeared.

If you want to be even more of a bastard, let your "elite" marauders apply a Rak'gol version of the Arch-Militant ability, granting them +10% to hit and an additional +2 damage. That's 1d10+9, pen 5 with a significant hit bonus...

These are all small changes mechanically, but applying them to the basic Rak'gol Marauder template is an easy way to modify your foes in an easily understood and probably not too overpowered fashion. If your players are overpowering your foes its up to you to adjust for that accordingly...

Thanks for reminding me of the special rounds, that provides an easy way to make them a threat again within the rules. I think I'll reserve the Arch-Militant's ability for the Broodmasters.

Bladehate said:

Comparing that to the evolution of Pathfinder, built on 3.5 and playtested into the ground before the rules were finalized and you do get a very different system. I love Pathfinder for that reason (and many others). However, Pathfinder is still heavily level based as all D&D game systems tend to be, meaning its a combat system first and fore most. The RPG systems are much less well developed, and easily ignored or handwaved. This doesn't make it better or worse, its just a defining characteristic of the genre.

WH40K doesn't have that clarity of focus. I understand the basic system comes from second edition WH Fantasy, and it bears some superficial resemblance to other systems like Rune Quest that also uses percentile values for skills/attributes. But comparing Pathfinder to WH40K RPGs is not fair, or entirely accurate.

There's no reason why FFG couldn't have playtested it to the ground as well. Especially every time they bring out a new branch such as RT and DW and shortly Black Crusade. Simply put though, they don't. From the credits in the book it seems they only playtest with a mere handfull of people. It reminds me a lot of WoTC and how they do things as opposed to how Paizo does things.

I don't see your point about being heavily level based, the same goes for RT. They don't add more damage/attacks based on levels, but the way you need to spend XP to increase skills and characteristics as well as to buy talents effectively achieves the exact same dynamic. Especially coupled with talents/skills only being "unlocked" as of a certain level. Elite advances basically function the same as cross-class skills, just badly so: they're twice as expensive only they are at the leisure of the GM rather then being a possibility for everyone if they so choose.

The main difference is that in Pathfinder you make jumps in power at every level and in RT you gain power gradually (which i like better).

Rpg-ing wise both system are equally worked out imo. There's nothing in either setting to actually work it out in detail, and quite frankly i doubt such a thing could ever be achieved. At any rate: in both settings it's equally easily ignored in favour of more dakka if you so desire. It's all up to the group of players around the table & the GM.

Lastly why wouldn't it be fair to compare the two? I can see no reason not to do so. The different system to handle rolling attacks/skills/damage/whatever are hardly the focus of my comparison. It's about how you handle the building of a system and customer relationship. Nothing more or less.

Basically: stat blocks ought to be decent in the books you buy. They shouldn't require house-ruling. Rak'gol might be deadly to the avarage imperial citizen, but then: so is a soldier with a lasgun. If i buy a book i expect it to not contain so many blatant errors that i need to houserule a bunch. Not that it matters much as i keep buying the books nonetheless :P But i would hope someone at FFG reads these forums and decides to clean their act up so as to stop driving people off by ******* up things that honestly aren't so hard to get right.

So let me get this straight. We have a bunch of replies about this example of FFG not testing their stuff. Yet it was pointed out that the melee damage was being done wrong, and is in fact, dangerous. So as far as "Rak'Gol paper tigers" are concerned, that is invalid. Lets get that out of the way first.

Following that up. Most GM's should realize that with static stat lines, you will always have to do some tweaking of them to work with your group. The Rak'Gol presented are likely pretty dangerous to Rank 1 players, but less so to Rank 5 players. Also, stat lines should be based against an "average group" not a meta/power-gamed group. An average group is not going to all be packing carapace armor and inferno pistols. If your group does that, then you balance the opponents reasonably. I would do this by having some "Veteran Rak'Gol" mixed in that are a threat. That way you don't just arbitrarily buff the whole race based on your party. Following that up, if you have a very non-combat party, especially a small one, then you need to keep that in mind. Lets say we have a Rogue Trader, an Astropath, a Navigator, and a Seneschal. No arch-militant, no high-rank uber-explorator, just normal people. They are going to suffer quite a bit more (and should likely invest in Barracks or something...****).

So, the Rak'gol seem fine as is for an average group, in an average situation. They are clearly much stronger in melee, so play that up. They aren't going to engage in an open field where the PC's can bring their superior firepower to bear. Instead they will use cover to advance, ambush, etc. where suddenly that +12 damage is scary.

Now then, ship crews. This does seem to be an issue. The rules in Into Battlefleet Koronus about NPC Starships help quite a bit. Granted, this probably would have been better if it had been in Into The Storm, but alas.

Badlapje said:


There's no reason why FFG couldn't have playtested it to the ground as well. Especially every time they bring out a new branch such as RT and DW and shortly Black Crusade. Simply put though, they don't. From the credits in the book it seems they only playtest with a mere handfull of people. It reminds me a lot of WoTC and how they do things as opposed to how Paizo does things.

I don't see your point about being heavily level based, the same goes for RT. They don't add more damage/attacks based on levels, but the way you need to spend XP to increase skills and characteristics as well as to buy talents effectively achieves the exact same dynamic. Especially coupled with talents/skills only being "unlocked" as of a certain level. Elite advances basically function the same as cross-class skills, just badly so: they're twice as expensive only they are at the leisure of the GM rather then being a possibility for everyone if they so choose.

The main difference is that in Pathfinder you make jumps in power at every level and in RT you gain power gradually (which i like better).

Rpg-ing wise both system are equally worked out imo. There's nothing in either setting to actually work it out in detail, and quite frankly i doubt such a thing could ever be achieved. At any rate: in both settings it's equally easily ignored in favour of more dakka if you so desire. It's all up to the group of players around the table & the GM.

Lastly why wouldn't it be fair to compare the two? I can see no reason not to do so. The different system to handle rolling attacks/skills/damage/whatever are hardly the focus of my comparison. It's about how you handle the building of a system and customer relationship. Nothing more or less.

Basically: stat blocks ought to be decent in the books you buy. They shouldn't require house-ruling. Rak'gol might be deadly to the avarage imperial citizen, but then: so is a soldier with a lasgun. If i buy a book i expect it to not contain so many blatant errors that i need to houserule a bunch. Not that it matters much as i keep buying the books nonetheless :P But i would hope someone at FFG reads these forums and decides to clean their act up so as to stop driving people off by ******* up things that honestly aren't so hard to get right.

1.) Insufficient playtesting. There is no reason for FFG not to adopt Paizo's model, or one similar. This game line certainly has more then enough rabid fans that are willing to test and give feedback. But they choose their own path, which is what I was pointing out. I never said I supported or excused FFGs method, only that I greatly admired how Pathfinder has come to exist. You seem intent on picking some sort of fight where none exists.

2.) A level based system is easier to keep in perspective when judging the power levels of NPCs and foes. This option simply does not exist in RT to the same extent it does in Pathfinder. That was my entire point. Because there isn't an easy meta-game measuring tool, it becomes very difficult to know exactly what stats are best for a game. With experience, its possible to judge rough power levels in RT as well. But where in PF I look first and foremost at the challenge rating, in RT I have to check the stats, the combat talents, the wounds, the weapons, the armor and the special rules to get an impression of that foe's combat power.

However, as has been repeatedly pointed out in this thread alone, even if you don't mod the Rak'gol they are actually quite dangerous none-the-less. Their Marauders are very dangerous for being mooks, and there are plenty of suggestions on how to build broodmasters or Abominations that can seriously threaten any number of RT groups. In short, the Rak'gol stat blocks support them being deadly mid-game foes, which is pretty much what they are intended to be.

You once again seem intent on ignoring that and instead picking some sort of fight about it.

3.) Comparing two different systems and two different companies serves no real purpose because it is heavily opinion based. Ironically, I share your opinion about the insufficient play testing or the many, many spelling errors in FFGs products. It bugs the crap out of me to purchase an expensive book, in full color and otherwise great production values only to see multiple spelling errors on the first page alone.

But that doesn't make it any less subjective or opinionated when comparing the systems and business practices of FFG and Paizo. It would be far better to just say that what FFG is doing wrong (spelling errors, insufficient testing) is easy to fix, and certainly should be addressed. Then we could both agree and go on our way.

But since you would rather be contrary, I think I'll leave you to it. I think I've already contributed to this thread and the OP and there's nothing here for me now other then flame bait.

Are you seriously saying that your PCs cant be hurt by a krak grenade? 2D10+4 Pen 6?

llsoth said:

Are you seriously saying that your PCs cant be hurt by a krak grenade? 2D10+4 Pen 6?

Not all of them no, but enough of them are tough enough that Krak grenades would be the answer that the average Rak'Gol encounter just doesn't have enough krak grenades. There's 3 that are that tough, and a 4th that could be if he wanted too. The Pen and static adds on the krak 'nade counter the armor and TB, leaving the dice for actual wounds. 2d10 is pretty variable, and once it is adding up the PC's can spend Fate to get some wounds back.

Sure I could just have the Rak'Gol volley waves of krak 'nades to take them down, but while effective it wouldnt' be very believeable for a fresh group with no prior experiance against the party to do that.

Still, the suggestions in this thread have given me ideas to make the next encounter both a challenge and equally organic in flow as my usual. The first introduction to the species was the group boarding one of thier vessels (two of the party are going to have some fun with radiation sickness as a result) but the next session will be them boarding the Imperial ships the Rak'Gol had boarded before the party showed up. Basically they stumbled across a skirmish just after it ended that the Imperial forces lost. The difference in challenge level can be explained as the Rak'Gol having sent thier more experienced troops on the boarding actions against these ships, which the party will now be boarding to investigate, leaving the junior troops behind on their own ships which the party previously boarded.

Blizzard36 said:

llsoth said:

Are you seriously saying that your PCs cant be hurt by a krak grenade? 2D10+4 Pen 6?

Not all of them no, but enough of them are tough enough that Krak grenades would be the answer that the average Rak'Gol encounter just doesn't have enough krak grenades. There's 3 that are that tough, and a 4th that could be if he wanted too. The Pen and static adds on the krak 'nade counter the armor and TB, leaving the dice for actual wounds. 2d10 is pretty variable, and once it is adding up the PC's can spend Fate to get some wounds back.

Ok, your complain is that an enemy capable of delivering 2d10 wounds after armor and TB is weak and not dangerous, how many characters are your players making per session?

Actually just looking at the average RT group will tell any sentient being that they are on a whole other level than the average forces around them.

It would not be unreasonable even for enemies with no prior knowledge of the PCs and little of humans in general, to divert huge resources to killing them off at first sight as they are obviously very important. If the PCs enemies have at least a working knowledge of humanity in general a single glance will tell them that these are the guys in charge and thus are target number one to be taken down at all costs.

As a side note canny PCs may in fact take advantage of this to create diversions using themselves or decoys dressed and equipped in a similar fashion. gran_risa.gif

blubbbb said:

Ok, your complain is that an enemy capable of delivering 2d10 wounds after armor and TB is weak and not dangerous, how many characters are your players making per session?

I don't often actually play role-playing games, but when I do, I find that four is a nice, round number.

Von Todkopf said:

I don't often actually play role-playing games, but when I do, I find that four is a nice, round number.

I don't often quote popular memes from reddit, but when I do, its on FFG forums. :P

I've had great success in using Rak'Gol vs my players, don't think they are underpowered at all *except in space combat, in which I agree with said points on them.* You guys keep talking about their ranged attacks/weapons, but of course they suck, it's their weak point like orks. Like orks, they excel at melee.

Fear 1 *only really vs low-levels, higher levels are too resistant/immune* to mess up a few of them, 5/10/15/30 movement+sprint means they can close the distance very fast, frenzy (boosts melee damage, to hit up to 53 so better chance to hit than miss, damage soak, and immune to pesky fear, pinning, stun, and fatigue*, multiple arms for two attacks, all add to to mean they should be able close the distance and hit the enemy hard. Once in melee, 1d10+14R, Pen 4 means on average they will be soaking 6-8 damage, so they take anywhere between 7-18 damage. Combine that with their handflamer, 1d10+4E Pen 2, Flame that you can use in melee and you've got something much more powerful than your average human enemy. Add onto that the rangedRak'Gol's using pinning on PC's and throwing grenades and they should be more then strong enough.

Hell if you want to be really mean, upgrade their suicide collars so that on death they deal frag or krak grenade damage centered on themselves. Albit this has a good chance on backfiring if they can nail enough of them at range to blow themselves all up.

And yes I know it's been a while since a post here, but I like the Rak'Gol as enemies and want to encourage others to use them.

Are all the PCs immune to Pinning? With their Heavy Stubbers, the Rak'Gol can lay down lots of suppressive fire while lobbing grenades and closing in to melee range.