Dear all,

Is it just me or does the Dodge skill at times seems a little overpowered (on PCs that is…)? And no, I am not talking about Vindicare Assassins or Ascension stuff…

My PCs recently ran into a squad of hostile Adeptus Astartes (I mean the iconic Space Marines!!!), and as the groups Tech-Priest sat at the central security room (with access to all security cams) of the building they were in, the PCs were rather good in coordinating their attacks and picking of lone Space Marines searching the building.

I used the Space Marine NPC stats from Black Crusade (Boltguns with 1D10+9 X for damage, TB 8 and 8/10 AP).

In the last session my players (rank 6 characters) were able to isolate and cut down three Space Marines including their sergeant. A single Force Sword, a single Power Sword and a single Plasma Pistol (as well as the Accurate rule for the Sniper Rifle…) worked wonder against them and the PCs themselves were able to Dodge every single shot from the Astartes.

All PCs have the Dodge skill (not sure about the Tech-Priest, but he was locked in the security room anyway) and most at +10 or even +20 (the Assassin). This combined with an Ag within the forties (or even fifties (the Assassin)) as well as Step Aside (the Assassin and Arbitrator) and before all re-roll for Fate Points, makes them almost invincible even against single elite opponents without multiple attacks. The potential re-roll of a 60-65% chance to make an enemy attack completely obsolete is a rather strong thing in my view, especially when even elite opponents like the mentioned Space Marines also only have an about 45-55% chance to hit at all (BS 45).

I am looking forward to your opinions.

Cheers
LH

Dodge is supposed to be powerful, as it's your last line of defense against impeding death. Characters such as assassins should be able to dodge pretty much everything you throw at them.

The balancing factor of Dodge is the amount of times you can use it in a round. Ganging up is the bane of all 40k characters, and virtual immunity to being swarmed is the reason for Vindicare Assassin being so broken as-written.

Now, your players seem to choose their fights carefully, which is commendable. But I don't think you played those three Astartes to the limit of their destructive potential or, more importantly, their tactical acumen. Facing such well-armed Acolytes, and ones who seem to dodge anything the Marines can throw at them, they should have disengaged from close combat immediately, and then focus all their fire on one Acolyte at the time. This would have done the trick, as no character in your team was able to dodge three times in a round.

Well, you send Lvl. 6 Ako's against SM. At that level their PCs are already able to be very specialised and the fact that you made a Force Sword available means that they are every good equiped. (A Psyker alone could beat 3 SMs with the right powers) Atleast everyone of them had a "can opener" Weapon (P/F-Weapons and P-Guns) When you look at the tabletop, nothing is more deadly to SMs than Guardsman with Plasmaguns. These weapons did not work like "wonders" they did what they are made for. These weapons are anti-heavy-infantry gear. They are made to slice powerarmors and their counterparts.

On the other Hand your SMs were quite stupid or had no intelligence on their enemys. The strenght of the astartes ist not only the power Armor or their supireror ordonance. Its the drill and expierince which let their Squads fight like one man. They dont let their oponents sepperate them unless they have to secure different key locations or are realy forced to do so. And if they dont know how strong their enemy is they tactic is to stay together and test the opponents strenght. If they are weak they spread out, perhaps, but the most chapters arnt that arrogant.

Additional I had a look on the Black Crusade SMs, they dont fit my expectation of a Space Marine if I compare them to decent DH PCs. The problem is, you took them from Black Crusade, thats another Rulebook and you said the lack of additional attacks was a problem. Indeed, because Black crusade uses different rules for that. A Black Crusade Swift attack ist not a Dark Heresy Swift attack, in Black Crusade it works some kind like burst Fire on a Lasgun and is therefore a lot stronger, thats why the Black Crusade SMs dont have this skill. In DH you recieve one attack, makes 2. In Black Crusade this skill can easily generate 3 or 4 Attacks on decent WS.

And did I get you right? You send 3 Astartes against atleast 4 PCs? Well, based on the Fluff thats even not a full tactical Squad. Send atleast 5 Marines, give them one heavy Weapon (Bolter/Rocketlauncher/LasCannon) and pimp up the Sergeants Profile. Aditional you can give the Sarge a Powersword or even Powerfist, that not uncommon (Depending on Chapter). And then, let your NPC act like a real elite military force. They have a wide arrays of sensors in their Helmets (Vox-Link, Auspex, Visionfilters etc.) which will be a boon too. To seperate against an unknown enemys is a mistake I bet the codex astartes does not allow. And even if they got power Armor, let them Use cover, let them use the same combat tricks your players use and look at the nasty melee actions. A grappel attack of an astartes is a real pain in the ass when another astartes can easly stab this charakter when it comes to hand to hand combat. Also Astartes use a wide array of Grenades, a Flashgrenade can end a fight in just a few seconds and there is no dodge and so on. And frag grenades will bring your Players out of their cover or let them waste their dodge in this round. So one of 5 Astartes throws a good nade, they have to dodge or cant, and the other ones advance or open fire. And a 55% 3 Shot Bolter Burst can be very deadly, especialy 4 of this bursts centered on one opponent. Then when they realise that their enemys dodge quite alot it one short command will focus their fire on one of them, they are the elite, not stupid guardsman on patrol duty. And please, dont use the Black Crusade NPCs for DH without some changes. The rules are realy different in some key elements.

Have the enemy focus fire on one guy till he runs out of dodges and things will really start to hurt. This kind of thing particularly makes sense for trained and drilled troops like marines who will know when they are outclassed one on one and try and compensate for it. It makes less sense for undisciplined gangers, but then they shouldn't be a serious threat at this point.

FieserMoep said:

Like FieserMoep said, your group looks highly specialized, so the situation is more a result/consequence of that specialization than the dodge being overpowered. It's also not so bad if you focus on one player at a time, since when he dodge the first strike, if the enemies can still attack him before his turn, well…he's in deep ****, especially if it's SM they have in their faces. Also, people tend to exaggerate dodge usefulness, I mean, even if it's Agi 53 + 20% because of dodge +20, well it's still only once per round. And if you compare to another system, let's say D&d 4th (I know it's less lethal but anyway), well if you compare the attack bonus and the AC/Fort/Ref/Will, you see that whatever your lvl is, you and the monsters almost always have around 50% chance of dodging/blocking the attacks, and they can do it (theoretically speaking) an infinite number of time. So what I'm trying to say is, that in a world as lethal as DH, I think it's only natural to give players at least one chance to dodge an attack, whatever the % really is (I do limit it to 95% personally, but I never had to use that house rule).

Full Auto is also a good way to cut through dodges (but without necessarily ganging up on one player, which may feel unfair to them).

So, a player has a dodge of 65. An NPC fires on Full Auto and hits with four bullets. The player rolls 50, getting a degree of success and dodging two bullets (I seem to recall you dodge one for passing and then +1 per degree of success). They still get hit and take some damage.

Just two or three people full-autoing weapons into a person will start chipping away at their Wounds, however good their Dodge skill.

Thank you all for your really helpful answers.

First of all, I have to admit I have not played the Space Marines to their full potential (even though I used overwatch and so on…). In the beginning, I feared if played to full potential, the PCs will be ripped to pieces (at rank 4 they already ran into a single SM and it ended in a sort of draw after many rounds of combat). Second, we indeed play the combat by BC rules.

Furthermore, the (renegade) Space Marines did not expected to face that well-armed and able characters, and they split up because they wanted to search the whole building (while staying in vox-contact with each other all the time (to react when one is attacked)).

It was a squad of five Marines (led by a Sergeant with Chainsword and Swift Attack), three of them entered the building and two went around the building to each side. Apart from the Tech-Priest, the PCs fled the building by a rear entrance (they were in a real panic at that moment), but were shot by one of the Marines surrounding the building. Still in panic, most fled behind the building, though two PCs then decided to attack the Marine and they could overwhelm him rather fast due to Force Sword, Plasma Pistol and Sniper Rifle. Before the other Marine surrounding the building came in range, the PCs again slipped into the building (the Marines only had an overall idea of the interior setting of the building), ambushed the Sergeant successfully and ganged upon him. They brought him down really fast as well (once again a hilarious shot by the Assassin (almost about 30 damage in a single shot). All PCs dodged the grenade of the third marine and again brought him down by ganging him in melee (he used a half action disengage (including free attacks by Power and Chain Sword from the PCs) to give a shot from point blank range, but to all our surprise it was again dodged…

So, I still have two Astartes up my sleeve for the next session running towards the PCs destination…
Or do you think the remaining two Astartes would flee (erm, I mean, tactical withdrawal…) from the setting, when they realize through the vox that three of their Battle-Brothers (incl. Sergeant) are dispatched within seconds by a sort of unknown enemy.

Regarding the use of grenades, see my other thread. My PCs are about all TB 4 and AP4-5, so grenades are almost ignored by them… Regarding the use of heavy weaponry, my problem is more hitting them (the Boltguns have no Full-Auto fire either) at all rather than doing damage when I hit them… They will dodge any grapple attack as well; I tried this tactic with a few zombies recently with only modest success.

Thanks again for the input. I would appreciate any more ideas and suggestions.

Dodge can be very powerful I suppose, but I pitted my groups PC's against 3 noise marines and a choas sorceror. The group had 10 guardsmen with them too. They were in a relatively narrow corridor and those noise marines had a field day killing the Maccabean Janissaries. My PC's dodged or spent fate points and dodged to live. Doom Sirens are nasty. If the two groups hadn't just just stumbled on one another, it would not have been pretty for my players, so I guess it just depends on how you do combat scenarios. The noise marines supporte one another very well. Suprising it was the group guardsman that won the battle for them by charging down the corridor behidn the battle sister and killing the sorcerer with the melta bomb he had. He almost killed himself in the process, but fight was pretty epic.

Well if those SM are renegades they could (depending of alligiance) seek for vengeance and glory by destroying such a strong enemy.

And TB 4 is not that powerfull. Throw 2 Photon Flash at them in an ambush szenario, 2 Tests on Toughness with 40-50% chance of success. If they fail they are 1d5 Round blind. They will automaticly fail any balistic, -30 on WS, Dodge and Parry. Also you can use Stun Grenades instead of Flash Grenades. If they suceed they are far more deadly because stuned enemys fall under the rules of helpless ones, if I am right Black Crusade is not that different to DH in this point.

But I see that you have a realy combat heavy group here and I think it would be the wrong way to search for a challenge in combat situations only. I dont know how you Master Sessions or what they are made of but such high TB and AB dont come in cheap. If they rely on combat send them on their next adventure in a social environment where they cant play the "I am stronger than you"-Card. You have already let them kill SMs which are, on my opinion, one of the last resort of "Theres always a bigger fish" to keep PCs calm. But if they are send to the Nobility of a Hive World where only the best Bodyguards and automated security systems are present they will perhaps balance themself because they are likeweise forced to take more social talents and skills. You dont rush into the manor of a noble where a Garrison of around 500 dedicated Household-Guards, that can be compared to elite Storm Troopers, are mobilised in less than 3 minutes. You cant dodge the drilled fire of 10 Hellguns per Squad or the Multilaser/LasCannon Turrets. Also the (loyal?) Techpriest should have a problem with rushing into the controlroom when this one is under guard of the mechanicus itself (Its not uncommon that for some privileges or even money the Adeptus sends Tech-Priests to "serve" the Nobility).

But if you realy want to chalenge them in Combat, play the NPCs as what they are. Give them a sense of tactic, based on their profession. And dont use the Templates for elite NPCs, they are always meant to be generic, not special. The only time I used Space Marines I created every single Squadmember with the tools of character creation (Based upon the Dark Heresy Rules but with additional Rules from Deathwatch). Each one was individual but they all shared what I saw as essential for a space marine. They were not meant to fight the players, but only for the possibility of any combat situation I wanted them to be fluffwise. And fluffwise they are mankinds finest warriors, even if that seems unfair to the players. But if the players focus fire on a target, why the hell shouldnt my NPCs do the same? The first rule of DH is: Warhammer 40k is not fair, thank the emperor for your faitpoints, for they are your only friends.

And here comes another thing, how do you handel faith points? Do you restore them after each session? If yes, in my expierience this destroyes the Fithpoints als the last line of defense and makes them so something like a cheap joker that can be wasted because you know, you will get another on.

I play long term campaigns with big goals and Faithpoints are only restored on special ocasions. And with that I dont mean the victory over a big bad adversary. The campaign is roughly devided by chapters and regularly after each chapter they get new Faithpoints. And such a Chapter requires around 10 Sessions, each 2,5-.5 houres long. Sometimes they are even longer and the players never know when they get their FPs back. Well, you would think this is a player killer… well, my expierience says no. I only had one player death in this campaign though they often got hurt. Sometimes they even had to abort a mission or fall back when the victory was near. They have to fight for their lives, and nothing should give them the feeling to be save. The faithpoints can give this feeling but when they are spent it shal hurt for the benefit they recieve. They spent them only on the most important skill rolls in dire situations and this is how they should be used, in my opinion.

And if everything fails and you dont know how to represent more fluffwise Space Marines have a look in Deathwatch. Dont create rookie marines, give them xp and decent wargear and show them that they are strong, but dont mess with Space Marines. Let them have this victory for they had luck, the initiative and the moment of suprise. Let the 2 renegades flee and tell their Master that they have found worthy foes that have killed 3 "fresh-made" Renegade Astartes and that it is not a shame to flee from several battles unless they are prepared to face such a threat. (Ascention Level)

I fear that if you let them slaughter generic 0815 Astartes there is not much left to confront them with on higher levels.

Luthor Harkon said:

Oh, wait I see your using Black Crusade rules. That makes it harder for you to burn through dodges in combat (as Swift Attack is still only one "attack").

Space Marine bolters should be capable of full-auto fire. I know they don't in Dark Heresy, but those are not Space Marine ones, the errata'ed Deathwatch ones only lack it for game balance/time saving purposes, and if they don't in Black Crusade… that's wrong. Ok, it is a bit late now you have already have them fight them, but they should really have a full-auto option (probably RoF 6 ala the pre-errata Deathwatch ones). Maybe the guys inside didn't have their guns set to full-auto and didn't think it necessary to switch across. However, with the loss of contact with their comrades the others outside think otherwise.

If they're supposed to be DH antagonists, I agree that giving all Space Marines Swift Attack is a good idea. Swift Attack is a very common Talent in DH, even the least combative careers like Adept can get it somewhere midway through their Ranks. Whereas in later games, it's a bit more elite - in RT and DW, it's locked behind high Ranks for all but the most choppy classes, and in BC and OW, it's usefulness is greatly diminished for everyone except the most dedicated melee fighters. In these systems, it's reasonable to assume your usual Tactical Marine won't have Swift Attack, because it's clearly a specialist tool for the choppy ones. But in DH, a Marine without at least Swift Attack looks kinda lame compared to the PCs, which should never happen.

As for Bolter RoF, Semi-Auto suits them very well and is arguably beneficial if you're using BC rules.

Something that hasn't been said: It's probable the remaining marines by now know how they were ambushed. Start shooting cameras.

If they dodge too much, don't give them the option. Feint is awesome for this (not sure if that rule is in BC) as are grenades and missiles that have a large radius (hallucinogen is a favourite of mine).

Cifer said:

This, marines are trained to be excellent tactical thinkers. They remaining two should immediately pull back & join together, if they feel they have to continue their attack they will do so but carefully, voxing for backup if available. Start taking out cameras, first one moves up, the second covers on overwatch, first one covers, second moves up, repeat. Use their inbuilt auspex to find where the power generator for the building is, head there and destroy it. Now, there are no cameras, doors may not open and it's pitch black… the marines are in constant contact, can no doubt force doors more easily and see perfectly, suddenly things became a lot more dangerous for the players

@ FieserMöp: The SM are renegades, but not Chaos-affiliated. Photon Flah grenades could indeed do the trick, even though I originally decided to have them just equipped with Frag and Krak grenades (though I have no problem to change it on the run).

My sessions are normally rather investigation-centric, but we also have combat every or every second session. My PCs may seem combat heavy and they sort of are, but most still run around with SP and Las weapons, even tough rank 6 already. The groups psyker (i.e. Telepath) is the groups brain (being a Legate Investigator and Agent of Reliquary 26) and does not overuses his powers (mostly Chameleon, Healer and Inspire and sometimes Psychic Screech), while using skills like Deceive, Scrutiny and Inquiry (as well as many Lore skills) in social environments, the Assassin has Charm and the Arbitrator is great at Scrutiny and also Inquiry. Actually, all of them are rather good in Inquiry. Even the groups Tech-Priest is surprisingly versatile and is not a combat monster as those mostly described here in the forum are.

Fate Points are indeed replenished at the start of each new session in our game, though we have a house rule that you are only allowed to use the regaining of 1D5 wounds to deduct damage they gain, but not to miraculously replenish their wounds by the remaining Fate Points multiplied by 1D5 at the end of each session.

Maybe I should indeed let the two remaining SM flee with the groups shuttle and disable the other (Aquila and Gun-cutter), though I think it would also be interesting to use the remaining two SM together as Suthainn mentioned.
Anyway, there are still Slaugth to challenge them at higher level…

@Borithan: I indeed thought about giving all SM Swift Attack, though these SM are more of the ranged combat type and “only” have combat knives with them. They are used to killing with their Bolt Guns from medium range. Still, they are able (as all SM) to crush heads empty handed (SB 10 and Unarmed Warrior/Natural Weapons). BC rules are fine enough without Swift Attack imo.
I could switch to Full-auto, but - as Morangias said - it is not that beneficial with BC rules.

@Heidrich: I indeed use a lot of Feints (as do my PCs for a while now). It is indeed the bane of the - Ag 53, Dodge +20, Step Aside – Assassin.

@Suthainn: I will try either that or let them flee with the groups Gun-cutter (though the groups Tech-Priest in the security control room might still be able to shoot them down with the twin-linked autocannons and lascannons on the roof of the building.
I already thought about shooting the cameras, but spending the valuable bolt gun ammunition for that seemed a little like overkill for me until now imo.

Well, faith points restored every round is on you to decide. I dont like it because it makes many things to cheesy. Imagine you have 10 Investigation rolls each session per character, they roll on 50+ if they are good investigators that help each other on their tests that are around 5 rolls they succeed. And then 3-4 constant rerolls each session for those skill checks that are realy important… well i think that makes it to easy. And in combat 3 rerollable dodges on 50+ can make the difference between easy goin and a real challange. DH is a system where just one hit of a strong enemys (weapon) can bring you acolythe into grave danger. If you have awsome dodgers and which have 3-4 rerolable dodges each session well, dont wonder if battles are easy. If you dont want to change your faith points rule then you have to engage them with mass so their dodges are not enough, use focus fire and dont split it up. In my opinion faith points are no "hero luck" talent with rerolable points each round, its a failsave function for situations that realy got messed up.

I know, every gamemaster has its own style and dont get me wrong vut dodge is extremy strong in combination with your faithpoints rule. I dont see the problem in dodge, i see it in the faithpoints.

I would say the ideal number is 2 or 3 Fate points. More than that and it just gets too reliable, and less than that and the player has to hoard them a little too much, meaning they can fail rolls that move the plot forward but then don't spend the Fate point to re-roll it (as they want to keep their one point for that vital survival dodge).

For healing using Points to heal damage I am not sure I would be so harsh as to say "only at the point of the attack", but I probably wouldn't allow them to spend it at the end of the session (as that does seem a bit cheesy to me).

FieserMoep said:

Yep, sort of, but that is how the rules are written and we already have a load of house rules so that my plaers would kill me, if I take away their valuable Fate Points (or the replenishing at every new session for that matter). Anyway, it is an exciting part of the game to decide whether to spend a Fate Point or not (while taking a look at the time and thinking how long the session might take…).

Coming back once more to your idea of challenging my players more with social encounters. I do this a lot as mentioned, though my player relized early that social encounters normally won't kill them if not successfully managed, while combat encounters normally kill them merciless if not successfully handled. Even most official scenarios state that you might not depend the success of a scenario by a single (mostly social) dice roll, so even if they have a hard time in social encounters and botch the first few Charm and Deceive rolls, on the long run they have success one way or the other (mostly through the hard way of course). Besides, my groups Tech-Priest and Psyker are really sociable in comparison to what I read on the forum of other groups. The Assassin, Guardsmen and partly even the Arbitrator are rather combat oriented though.

borithan said:

"Harsh" is my second forename. My players get max about 100 XP per session for example…

Well, I agree that you shouldn't make a social roll a "win or loose"-roll.

But atleast dont let the "hard" way escalate into combat. Make it a hard social way and perhaps even lower the "reward".

For example one of my groups tried to convince a rouge trader to help them because they had the same enemy. If they had ben sucessive he would have granted them acces to rare good with better conditions, also he would have offered all of the might a rouge trader can back off. But they made him pissed (failed etiquettes, the manners of a feral assasin pissed of other customers and so on…) only the intervention of the sororitas made them able to seperate in a neutral manner.

And for the social psyker or techpriest, I imagine a lot of situations where those two were not welcome. I even had some npcs that did not talk to psykers(void born) at any cost. And techpriest recieve a lot of suspicion depending where they are. And a group of such different individuals is always suspicious.

But atleast just put them into a setting where they cant reley on their combat strenght. Put them into a warzone where they have to investigate the staff of command or into the higher areas of a hive (nobels). To start combat there is suicidal because for each group member there are instantly 10 well trained, well equiped soldiers availalbe, and if the fight takes longer than a minite reinforcments will take place.

At this level and combat strengh you shouldnt let your npcs engage single targets or worse equiped enemys. You dont even have to make them that stronger or better equiped, just let them act like military forces and give them the numbers. But alteast make them fit for the setting where are akolythes are in. Those Space Marines were just fresh marines, right from the scout training or whatever. But atleast they were not Marines. Let them feel their victory but dont let them forget that theres always a bigger fish. And alteast if their inquisitor knows their strenght, send them to more complicated tasks where you cant intimidate gangsters or cover a conspiracy with guns. Atleast make them a tool of a conspiracy, let them kill the good ones without knowing it (but give them a chance to do so, but a difficult one). Create a network of traitors where you cant trust anyone but you have learn this lesson the hard way and perhaps they will get less trigger happy.

There is no problem with strong pcs, the only problem is when they solve their conflicts with ease becaus they can provoke combats to solve everything.