So, I'm going to be starting a game with a group that previously, I played a game of dark heresey with. We never managed to finish because of 1. Half the group suddenly leaving, and 2. Myself getting completely burned out over a few of the reasons that the group suddenly left. The new group is 3 of the original 6 plus one other new guy, so a group of four. I'm thinking of having them each pick two roles, and then have a limit of 6 on all away missions, just to make sure we get a good flavor for the crew over everything. However, that's not my main querry here.

One of the previous players is obsessed with power armor. When I say obsessed, I mean this. The previous game had started at rank 5, since we'd played a bit and didn't want to start from scratch. This player attempted, at character creation, to spend about 1000 of his starting 3000 experience on contacts at the back of the inquisitors handbook for the sole purpose of being able to aquire power armor cheaper and earlier. I obviously didn't let this one happen.

Fast forward to now. I understand that rogue trader is at a much higher power level than DH, so someone with power armor is not that unusual, what with the aquisition rules instead of just raw throne buying power. What I'm unfamiliar with is how to deal with it in my missions and encounters. When the afore mentioned player did manage to get his hands on the suit, he flat out refused to go on any mission without it, and for the sake of keeping the game going for the other players, I made a military power supply available so that he could use the thing for more than just 1 hour without getting the entire group killed.

When he was able to use it, very little things could damage him, resulting in most missions being a "Oh lets just throw the power armored guardsmen at them and wait for him to roll through everything. My question is, how should I design encounters involving one person with a very heavy suit of armor? Most weapons that can actually harm the guy would vaporize anyone else, so I'm concerned as how I'm going to make it challenging for him without making it an insta-gibb for anyone else in the party. At the other end, if there's always some kind of heavy weapon capable of going through the suit, it'll eventually feel like he's being singled out. While it could be said that it's his fault for wearing the big suit that says "I'm gonna murder you", at the same time I do want him to have a little bit of fun with the thing.

So, what have all your experiences been as far as balancing out a mini-space marine in the group, and how have you made it work?

Well for one thing the design of the Power Armour power supply was supposed to limit the person to use it in certain circumstances. One where they would only be on ground for a few hours, no days or weeks with no way to recharge it. So, now you are forced to use other methods.

Flamers and flame bombs can be used. Power Armour doesn't stop that. You can also use the old fashion trap method. D&D style but with future modifications. Walls crushing people, electrofied floors, false floors, weak floors (like old rickety mansions/buildings/space ships , small places like tunnels that he can't fit into, him giving your position away, not being able to blend in, horrible social situations or not even being allowed into certain places while wearing the armour at a Noble's House, his battery supply gets damaged/sabotaged (hehe, evil aint it), or massive amounts of enemies that grapple him and then start ripping off his armour/stabbing him through the joints. Can't really wade into 100 people thinking you can kill them all before they bring you down. Even the best knight can be killed by 50 peasants with pitchforks.

Honestly; Bite the bullet and take away his military power supply. Now is as a good a time as any. It is what keeps power armor from being a "every day, all day" sort of thing. That's your first step, just have the fight now and deal with the issue.

Other then that though it's just a matter of punishing the player bringing the power armor to situations not appropriate. Mission requires stealth and he brings the power armor anyway and the group doesn't intervene? Hit them with cosquences on the pretty much inevitable discovery. Even the space marines don't try and do stealth missions (what few they do) in power armor typically. Fancy dress ball? He's not even getting in the door, meeting on another captians ship? He's not getting in the door. He can sulk to his hearts content but the universe isn't particularly impressed or sympathetic to his problem. Don't make it be but also try and keep it from splashing on the rest of the group to your ability, but at the same time let it splash enough that they help you control things.

Also one super important thing to remember about power armor, without the black carapace it increases the users size rating. That means a lot more rounds are going to land and do better, keeping this in mind seems to help take some of the mechanical edge off it.

The military power supply was from the DH game, so I'm with you on making sure he doesn't aquire one that easily this time around.

Intriguing idea with the flame bombs and flamers, I hadn't really thought of that, they always seemed to be more so for use against swarmy stuff.

Bring up the Agility penatly for wearing heavy armour (I think it's -30%…?) every chance you get, and let peer preasure from the rest of the group run it's course. "No, you can't wear that clanking abomination when we try to seak into the enemy camp and assassinate their leader! Why not carry a Screamer, while you're at it?!"

Right, that's true as well. By any chance could you point me to the page of the rulebook where that is outlined?

Power Armour increases your size to Hulking. Reduce your Agility by 10, increase your Movement Bonus by 1.

Yeah, all that sounds very familiar now that you mention it. But again, any chance I could get a book and a page? I found the one regarding -30 to conceal and silent move tests, but all these rules are kind of scattered throughout the book, not necesarily where you'd think they'd be. I'm a firm believer that if there's someting detrimental to players, I should be able to show them where in the book it is. I don't think they'll call BS on me or anything, just a matter of principle.

Considering the rarity of power armour perhaps your rogue trader's enemies would be willing to deploy some equally rare weapons if the player could be considered enough of a threat? If that's the case then perhaps you might want to consider equipping enemies with haywire grenades or alternatively check out some of the mechanicus weapons in the dark heresy lost dataslate web supplement such as stasis grenades or, if you really want to try scaring the power armoured player, cataclysmus devices.

Well, you can use meltas and/or power weapons, they make some mince meat out of power armour. Flame weapons will be very deadly to him, simply because his agility test is at -30. Again, the main disadvantage should be that every shoots at him, and that gets pretty rough pretty fast.

Now, another idea is to encourage other players to bring up their survivability. The Explorator starts with Best Enforcer carapace, so he's already at AP 6, and gets a shot at the Machine Trait. Getting their hands on AP 5 or 6 gear is not all that hard, and in a situation where heavy armour is appropriate, there isn't a great deal of reason why the rest of the crew wouldn't want it as well.

I can understand your frustration, but I don't think it is too fair to vent it at him for having a favourite aspect of the game, even if it is power armour. That stuff is cool. I mean really cool. Let him shine at what he loves most, and then make sure he knows that he needs to not be a behemoth at all times. Maybe point out that unless he wants a fusion explosion attached to him, his power supply should get some maintenance rather regularly.

I don't have any objections to him having it. It's rogue trader, higher power level, I expect someone to have it. My question was regarding how to balance the game around that since I wasn't familiar. Melta and power weapons obviously go through that, but they also go through others just as easily. Was trying to figure a way to make the environment hazardous, not outright deadly, as those afore mentioned weapons screw everyone over.

I was not "venting" at him just for power armor. The issue was that in a previous game it got in the way, that he would not go anywhere without it. The other suggestions regarding traps, flame weapons, awkward social situations etc. have been very helpful. I don't have an issue with him bringing it on, for example, boarding actions, ground assaults, all those make sense!

Now again, could someone PLEASE tell me where in the book all these afore mentioned penalties to power armor are!? I found the part about the -30 to conceal and silent move, but the other properties (agility penalty) are unknown to me.

I don't think those exist, unless he is wearing Heavy Power Armor.

But I haven't read the RT rules for a while now.

Bowoodstock said:

Only the -30 to concealment and silent move checks is in the rules (mind you, these are agility based tests so maybe that is what they are referring to). Page 137 RT to be exact. Of this -30 to specifically agility tests, they might be referring to BC or OW, but it is not implemented in DH or RT. So, no, it is not in the rules if you are playing RT or DH.

BangBangTequila said:

The problem with kitting out Adversaries to deal with one overpowered PC is that those same Adversaries will auto-kill any PC not similarly overpowered…

Storm trooper carapace is 6 - 7 at Best Quality. Is +1 or 2 armour rating such a big deal? Or is the rest of the party running around in light armour?

Aside from the strength bonus, one to two points can make all the difference in a meat grinder game where people die in 2-3 hits. The unfortunate thing is that most weapons that go through that kind of armor without problem also tend to roll a ridiculous ammount of damage along with it.

Weapons with a high Penetration don't always have high Dam, so such weapons can counter power armour without unduly screwing over the other players. Look at the hellgun (one of the standard options on combat servitors) for one example.

…huh, never noticed that. Back in DH they only had a pen of 3. Guess they decided to make a point to using one.

Adeptus-B said:

Black Crusade addressed this by encouraging that you add one or two NPCs that are kitted out to deal with Marines that focus their attention ON the marines. If you've got ten soldiers charging the players, add one soldier with a hotshot lasgun at the back of the group that takes pot-shots at the power-armoured player.

Errant said:

Smart target selection also considers a target's offensive punch. A guy in power armour packing a lasgun is generally a lower priority target than a bare-chested guy blasting away with a heavy bolter. If your power armour guy doesn't pack the same offensive punch as the rest of the group then he's somewhat more survivable, but not necessarily overpowered.

Bowoodstock said:

It seems to be, in large part, a response to the update in the Imperial Guard codex between the two, and the move from AP 5 to AP 3.

A good question might be, what are the other players, and what are they sporting in the Koronus fashions? Power Armor is rather rare, and can be rather effective, but Storm Trooper Carapace is pretty close, without all the extras, and could make the rest of the party feel safe. Force Shields are one of my FAVORITE pieces of gear, if you have Into the Storm, and RT groups are among the few who can "easily" acquire them. They aren't quite armor, but even the Refractor Field can be very efficient, can allow your character to "look a certain way" that isn't armor-monger, and isn't likely to be checked at the door.

Otherwise, yeah, remind him that the suit has drawbacks, making him easier to HIT, and easier to find. Power Armor is a great thing, but it still has to balance with everything else.

Errant said:

When the BC Forum first started, I asked how you keep the adversaries specifically kitted out to challenge CSMs from auto-killing the Mortal PCs when their line-of-sight to the CSM gets blocked in the course of combat, or if the Horde charging a CSM ends up close enough to also attack a Mortal; I was told that these circumstances never , ever occured. This boggled my mind, and it took me a while to figure it out: all of the playtesters use narative-only combat, rather than miniatures like I do. With minis, there is no way to 'fudge' things to keep the heavy-hitters focused exclusively on the CSMs, but using narative-only, 'line-of-sight' and 'close proximity' can be whatever the GM says they are. Something to keep in mind if you are considering persuing the 'two levels of adversaries' option.

To be frank I don't rate this game's damage mechanics. However, one aspect that I don't see mentioned much is cover.

If people are in a firefight they should seek cover. Only the locations sticking out should be vulnerable to most weapons. The mechanics are there and it is up to the GM to use them - by having the NPCs use cover intelligently. NPC snipers dug in behind rockcrete should be able to mess up even a power armoured PC.