I've got a game I am running this week and we are going to start with into the maw. while running thru a test of part two to get reacquainted with it I noticed that the players ship blew thru the wolf pack ambush in about 5 rounds using only half the players ( the other half have not rolled characters yet) while taking only 6 points of hull damage. and had similar results against Fel's ship.

so far I've got a navigator, kroot, and rouge trader. and I believe we are getting an arch militant and void master added to the bunch.

granted the explorers have a merchateck raider so 12 hull damage is nothing to laugh at but it seems like the npc ships are at such a disadvantage ( especially the first pack)

I'd figured I would ask if other people have had this problem before, and what did they do about it?

at the moment I'm thinking about just adding another raider and/or switching them to cobras or maybe infidels. I am not looking to scrap the players, but give them a slightly better taste of what ship combat is like.

The Into the Maw adventure is supposed to be an introductory adventure, introducing new players to the various facets of RT and letting them get to know the mechanics. It's not necessarily meant to be terribly difficult.

Without knowing the various stats involved I can't really say if you just had a blip of them rolling well or you rolling poorly for the NPC's. Keep in mind that that can and does happen. If you think it's too easy you could ramp it up a little, but considering how short the adventure is you could also make this their chance to run a little wild and have some fun before getting into a more difficult adventure.

I don't even need to read your post. The answer is yes.

Virtually all Rogue Trader NPCs and quests are - at least in my humble opinion - pitifully weak and should be buffed. Hostile Acquisition's NPC section is pretty much a buffé of free gear, even for a starting party.

I think FFG hadn't really gotten the hang of game balance back then. Only War is much better in this regard.

Get Fel's ship to be a class higher than the PC's - and also get him some decent NPCs instead of using Crew Rating 40 for everything.

This should solve the entire issue with Fel being underpowered.

Regarding the raiders, add 2 and make them a squadron (see Battlefleet Koronus rules for that).

good call Sebastian, I'd forgotten those rules where in there. I'd probably run fel in a squadron with a raider or something, just so it is not so one sided. this will also make it easer for Fel to escape when the players win. I think I'll just up the number of ships the wolf pack has and run them as your run of the mill not very smart opponents, thou the NPC ship order options will be handy here.

Get Fel's ship to be a class higher than the PC's - and also get him some decent NPCs instead of using Crew Rating 40 for everything.

This should solve the entire issue with Fel being underpowered

To be honest, the crew is the main thing. Frigates - especially lance-armed frigates - can put a meaningful dent in much larger warships provided they have a high gunnery and piloting skill at their disposal. Even just remembering that Hadarak Fel is a Rogue Trader himself (hence able to provide a +10 bonus to other people) and assuming he has a master of ordnance at his disposal to direct weapons fire from the Fel Hand shifts the balance of power dramatically.

The scenario could stand a power boost (and there's already good advice here on how to do that), but even more, the rewards are just too high. Given that the players only have a few fight encounters, and travel is rather short, I'd only give it 2 PFs.

There's a reason the math-hammer rules thread is one of the most popular house rules threads on the board.

The scenario could stand a power boost (and there's already good advice here on how to do that), but even more, the rewards are just too high. Given that the players only have a few fight encounters, and travel is rather short, I'd only give it 2 PFs.

As far as I can tell, it's not meant to be representative of actual play. It's a "c'mon, you know you want it - first time's on the house..." sort of scenario, designed to sucker people into playing.

So ofcourse it's too easy, and ofcourse the pay-out is too high.

There's a reason the math-hammer rules thread is one of the most popular house rules threads on the board.

Yep, dump the standard rules for starship and particularly macrocannon damage they're utterly broken, as for Fel himself the servitors his battle comes with are the primary danger not him. Although at Rank 1 the players probably wont be able to beat him down in a single turn unless they gang up anyway. If you have an RT that guy probably has a powersword and an armor rating of six which means he's already got Fel as written painfully outclassed.

I find Math-hammer absolutely necessary.

And, in my latest campaign, the players did beat Fel in exactly one round. They teleported back to the ship, fired two torpedoes from their Voss-pattern tubes and fired their Sunsears. Both torpedoes hit, one with a critical, and the Sunsear hit 3 times. The critical hit knocked out the sensors of the Fel Hand, and the remaining damage crippled the ship. Fel struck his colors. The Rogue Trader negotiated a contract with Fel guaranteeing that the Fel Dynasty's current PF (and most for the near future) would end up in his Dynasty's coffers.