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Hey gang I've been playing around in the rogue trader universe from time to time and just started up a new adventure with our group. It's a nicely rounded out group with almost every base covered but everytime I've played I have had a few problems playing that i am able to mask while GMing it. These come down to a few things like Mechanics, gameplay and even fluff I am making this to hopefully provide others like myself a thread for advise to get around this as well as get the info i am requesting from others who may have a better grasp of it than me.

1. Guns, I normally find myself amazed at the power any weapon with semi-auto or full auto function guns they seem almost too OP for their own good. I look to weapons like the humble autogun which is suppose to be more or less a solid shot lasgun in the TT version sprays a range of bullets which blood mists huge super mutants. How i calculate damage might be wrong so allow me to clarify when someone rolls a BS test to fire their weapon in semi auto function they need 2 successes for every additional "bullet" to hit the target. So for example someone with a 55 BS rolls a 34 obtained 2 shots from their gun. If the gun did 1d10+3 normally now it's 2d10+6 with an unmodified AP to it. Is this the correct method? What i am running into is sudden spurts of damage that seem inconsistent with my own mental images.

2. Emperors Fury, Maximum damage = new attack keep going if you keep rolling max damage. this I my understanding is it correct? It isn't too often this shows up but when I see weapons with the tearing quality where someone can CHOOSE their damage it seems it happens way too much!

3. Gameplay/Mapping. How do you guys map out a battlefield some of the ranges feel unreal, I am not sure how I would detail a fight at longer ranges I've tried using my wet erase board and saying "every square is 2 m rather than 1 m but then it screws up movement and the mechanics of the game.

4. Fire is too amazing. I find myself looking at flamers and going "well damn.... nothing is avoid this crap!" normally a flamer screws up anything a throw so badly that i find myself creating situations where it might be dangerous to use the flamer. I would like nothing more than to let them go but it is so hard to put yourself out even if you are amazing it just seems like a flamer shouldn't be that amazing but i suppose in 40k TT it does screw up alot of orks...

5. Threats seem weak, I had a group of hullghasts for our first mission along a mining vessel they were suppose to be sneaky scary MFers and instead they couldn't even hurt our Ork player (given this is my own stupidity for allowing an ork) I know I will have other ways to hurt him in the future but i was hoping to give him a small run for his money. I've had many threats be underwhelming in the game and could use some help with what challenges good rogue traders. I either make it crazy like 1 space marine devastator carrying a heavy bolter that compeltely overwhlems them in 1 burst of fire or I have a skulk swinging his knife to no effect

my request is to help me find ways to work around these problems. I am primarily a D&D fan been playing for 12 years and I know how to operate well on it and am able to bring vast amounts of that to Rogue trader but these problems are things preventing me from finding the groove to this system.

Flame throwers and firearms are absurdly lethal in real life. It's playing too much of the tabletop that makes you think they are overpowered.

What you need are bad guys who use intelligent tactics that force your players to not approach every encounter guns blazing. It's a difficult thing to learn to do as a GM, especially if you come from hack and slash backgrounds like D&D and 40K. I, like most people, came from D&D as well, so trying to grasp the complexities of games that shouldn't always be resolved by combat is a transition for sure. Fortunately, by the time a 40K RPG came out, I'd played Call of Cthulhu and knew that style of play was the best way. I always thought the 40K setting was too restricted for a good RPG, so I don't have any specific suggestions for how to tailor adventures. I'd play Dark Heresy like Call of Cthulhu, where the players investigate strange things, make it heavily investigation and story base, and then at the end, the players either get eaten by the monsters (like any good CoC game, lol), or they call in the Deathwatch, and the Space Marine characters do all the fighting.

Trust me. If you put the characters into situations where they can't just expect to shoot their way out, and you actually force them to deal with the reality of injury and healing, then you won't need to worry that your players just go in guns blazing. If your players don't like that style of game, you may just be stuck with a system where the players are going to slaughter most things you throw at them until you reach the breaking point where it slaughters them. And don't feel constrained to making maps. Abstracting combat can make longer ranged battles easier. Unless your players have stunted imaginations, you can just tell them about how far things are and describe them rather than bothering to show them. When we played the Twilight 2013 RPG a few years ago, at some point we just abandoned maps because they were too time consuming for fast paced ranged combat.

Veteran Sergeant wrote:Flame throwers and firearms are absurdly lethal in real life. It's playing too much of the tabletop that makes you think they are overpowered.

What you need are bad guys who use intelligent tactics that force your players to not approach every encounter guns blazing. It's a difficult thing to learn to do as a GM, especially if you come from hack and slash backgrounds like D&D and 40K. I, like most people, came from D&D as well, so trying to grasp the complexities of games that shouldn't always be resolved by combat is a transition for sure. Fortunately, by the time a 40K RPG came out, I'd played Call of Cthulhu and knew that style of play was the best way. I always thought the 40K setting was too restricted for a good RPG, so I don't have any specific suggestions for how to tailor adventures. I'd play Dark Heresy like Call of Cthulhu, where the players investigate strange things, make it heavily investigation and story base, and then at the end, the players either get eaten by the monsters (like any good CoC game, lol), or they call in the Deathwatch, and the Space Marine characters do all the fighting.

Trust me. If you put the characters into situations where they can't just expect to shoot their way out, and you actually force them to deal with the reality of injury and healing, then you won't need to worry that your players just go in guns blazing. If your players don't like that style of game, you may just be stuck with a system where the players are going to slaughter most things you throw at them until you reach the breaking point where it slaughters them. And don't feel constrained to making maps. Abstracting combat can make longer ranged battles easier. Unless your players have stunted imaginations, you can just tell them about how far things are and describe them rather than bothering to show them. When we played the Twilight 2013 RPG a few years ago, at some point we just abandoned maps because they were too time consuming for fast paced ranged combat.

that is the nice thing, is that one Hullghast managed to rush a pc trying to get to an evacuation point with his orkish sanctioned Xeno got bite by the hullghast and that one bite nearly crippled him and he's stranded on the ship at this moment.

Perhaps this section would be more useful for this?

Big Mek Wurrzog wrote:Hey gang I've been playing around in the rogue trader universe from time to time and just started up a new adventure with our group. It's a nicely rounded out group with almost every base covered but everytime I've played I have had a few problems playing that i am able to mask while GMing it. These come down to a few things like Mechanics, gameplay and even fluff I am making this to hopefully provide others like myself a thread for advise to get around this as well as get the info i am requesting from others who may have a better grasp of it than me.

You'll get lots of rules wrong. It took us a year to figure out we were doing flamers wrong.

Big Mek Wurrzog wrote:1. Guns, I normally find myself amazed at the power any weapon with semi-auto or full auto function guns they seem almost too OP for their own good. I look to weapons like the humble autogun which is suppose to be more or less a solid shot lasgun in the TT version sprays a range of bullets which blood mists huge super mutants. How i calculate damage might be wrong so allow me to clarify when someone rolls a BS test to fire their weapon in semi auto function they need 2 successes for every additional "bullet" to hit the target. So for example someone with a 55 BS rolls a 34 obtained 2 shots from their gun. If the gun did 1d10+3 normally now it's 2d10+6 with an unmodified AP to it. Is this the correct method? What i am running into is sudden spurts of damage that seem inconsistent with my own mental images.

Yes and no.

You're right in that you'd get one extra hit for every 2 DOS for Semi-Auto. So in your example, yes, you'd get two hits (one for hitting, and the second for rolling 20 under what you needed ie. 2 Degrees of Success).

The damage though is rolled separately for each shot - 1d10+3 for each - not added together for 2d10+6.

I'm not sure what game you're playing (DH, RT, DW) but if you look in rulebook you'll find a chart that shows you where each shot hits. Generally the first shot hits wherever the shot would normally hit (reverse the dice on the To Hit roll, so if you rolled a 35 you'd hit in the 53, where ever that is... the Body I think) and then the chart shows you where each subsequent hit goes (so for the Body it might go Body/Body/Arm/Head/Arm/Leg/Body, so if you hit them 5 times the 5th hit would hit them in the head). And then, as I said, roll damage separately for each one, subtracting Armour and Toughness Bonus against each shot.

There are exceptions to this, such as Talents that allow you to shoot two pistols with the same action, but the various errata and rulebooks cover these situations.

If you are finding Semi-/Full-Auto to be too powerful, try the Black Crusade method.

Reduce both to 1/2 Actions, but Semi-Auto is at +0 To Hit (rather than +10) and Full-Auto is at -10 To Hit (rather than +20). Make the standard attack +10, and all all three to Aim. Black Crusade does it that way and it works very well.

Big Mek Wurrzog wrote:2. Emperors Fury, Maximum damage = new attack keep going if you keep rolling max damage. this I my understanding is it correct? It isn't too often this shows up but when I see weapons with the tearing quality where someone can CHOOSE their damage it seems it happens way too much!

Righteous Fury you mean? It allows for huge amounts of damage, but it's not guaranteed. First you need to roll a 10 on the d10, then once that's done you need to confirm the Righteous Fury again by rolling To Hit once more. Assuming that's successful you only roll one further d10, not all the damage again. If that d10 comes up with a 10, you roll again, and again and again until you roll something other than a 10. Then add up all the results. Yes, the DW rulebook says to roll the whole damage again, but the errata changed that because it was nuts.

Weapons with tearing do have a higher chance of rolling a Righteous Fury, but the tearing only applies to the initial damage roll, not to the bonus damage for Righteous Fury.

Big Mek Wurrzog wrote:3. Gameplay/Mapping. How do you guys map out a battlefield some of the ranges feel unreal, I am not sure how I would detail a fight at longer ranges I've tried using my wet erase board and saying "every square is 2 m rather than 1 m but then it screws up movement and the mechanics of the game.

We often do 1:2 (occasionally 1:4). You just round things up. If your movement is 3/6/12/18, your movement becomes 4/6/12/18 when using 1:2 ratios. It makes things simpler. Yeah, not everything is perfect (especially with blast weapons), but that is the best way to do it.

Big Mek Wurrzog wrote:4. Fire is too amazing. I find myself looking at flamers and going "well damn.... nothing is avoid this crap!" normally a flamer screws up anything a throw so badly that i find myself creating situations where it might be dangerous to use the flamer. I would like nothing more than to let them go but it is so hard to put yourself out even if you are amazing it just seems like a flamer shouldn't be that amazing but i suppose in 40k TT it does screw up alot of orks...

As a member of a group who got flamers wrong completely until corrected by someone else, let me make sure that you are getting it right so you can avoid the problems we faced.

Step 1: The flamer needs a target.
Step 2: The flamer shoots at that target, measuring out a wave of flame 30 degrees in angle (or more, or less, depending on the type of flamer) out to the weapon's maximum range.
Step 3: Anyone who would be hit by this wave of flame takes an Challenging (+0) Agility Test to see if they are hit. If they pass this Test, they are not hit. If they fail this Test, they are hit by the flamer.
Step 4: Anyone hit by the flamer who still has a Reaction to use my attempt to Dodge the attack by making a Dodge Test. If they pass this Test, they successfully Dodge out of the way and take no damage (but must be able to get out of the wave of flame - if their Ag Bonus isn't enough to do this then they cannot Dodge). If they fail this Test, or are unable to Dodge, they are hit.
Step 5: If they are hit, they take damage as per the damage for the flamer in question.
Step 6: Anyone who took damage from the Flamer needs to make another Agility Test to see if they catch fire. This is a Challenging (+0) Test, or a Hard (-20) Test if the person firing the flamer has the Cleans & Purify Talent.

Big Mek Wurrzog wrote:5. Threats seem weak, I had a group of hullghasts for our first mission along a mining vessel they were suppose to be sneaky scary MFers and instead they couldn't even hurt our Ork player (given this is my own stupidity for allowing an ork) I know I will have other ways to hurt him in the future but i was hoping to give him a small run for his money. I've had many threats be underwhelming in the game and could use some help with what challenges good rogue traders. I either make it crazy like 1 space marine devastator carrying a heavy bolter that compeltely overwhlems them in 1 burst of fire or I have a skulk swinging his knife to no effect

Ah. You're playing Rogue Trader.

Orks are very tough. Often twice as tough as regular humans. That's the point. Put the players up against some foes with Full-Auto weapons and watch them cower. They'll need to use cover or they will die.

H.B.M.C. wrote:

Big Mek Wurrzog wrote:Hey gang I've been playing around in the rogue trader universe from time to time and just started up a new adventure with our group. It's a nicely rounded out group with almost every base covered but everytime I've played I have had a few problems playing that i am able to mask while GMing it. These come down to a few things like Mechanics, gameplay and even fluff I am making this to hopefully provide others like myself a thread for advise to get around this as well as get the info i am requesting from others who may have a better grasp of it than me.

You'll get lots of rules wrong. It took us a year to figure out we were doing flamers wrong.

Big Mek Wurrzog wrote:1. Guns, I normally find myself amazed at the power any weapon with semi-auto or full auto function guns they seem almost too OP for their own good. I look to weapons like the humble autogun which is suppose to be more or less a solid shot lasgun in the TT version sprays a range of bullets which blood mists huge super mutants. How i calculate damage might be wrong so allow me to clarify when someone rolls a BS test to fire their weapon in semi auto function they need 2 successes for every additional "bullet" to hit the target. So for example someone with a 55 BS rolls a 34 obtained 2 shots from their gun. If the gun did 1d10+3 normally now it's 2d10+6 with an unmodified AP to it. Is this the correct method? What i am running into is sudden spurts of damage that seem inconsistent with my own mental images.

Yes and no.

You're right in that you'd get one extra hit for every 2 DOS for Semi-Auto. So in your example, yes, you'd get two hits (one for hitting, and the second for rolling 20 under what you needed ie. 2 Degrees of Success).

The damage though is rolled separately for each shot - 1d10+3 for each - not added together for 2d10+6.

I'm not sure what game you're playing (DH, RT, DW) but if you look in rulebook you'll find a chart that shows you where each shot hits. Generally the first shot hits wherever the shot would normally hit (reverse the dice on the To Hit roll, so if you rolled a 35 you'd hit in the 53, where ever that is... the Body I think) and then the chart shows you where each subsequent hit goes (so for the Body it might go Body/Body/Arm/Head/Arm/Leg/Body, so if you hit them 5 times the 5th hit would hit them in the head). And then, as I said, roll damage separately for each one, subtracting Armour and Toughness Bonus against each shot.

There are exceptions to this, such as Talents that allow you to shoot two pistols with the same action, but the various errata and rulebooks cover these situations.

If you are finding Semi-/Full-Auto to be too powerful, try the Black Crusade method.

Reduce both to 1/2 Actions, but Semi-Auto is at +0 To Hit (rather than +10) and Full-Auto is at -10 To Hit (rather than +20). Make the standard attack +10, and all all three to Aim. Black Crusade does it that way and it works very well.

Big Mek Wurrzog wrote:2. Emperors Fury, Maximum damage = new attack keep going if you keep rolling max damage. this I my understanding is it correct? It isn't too often this shows up but when I see weapons with the tearing quality where someone can CHOOSE their damage it seems it happens way too much!

Righteous Fury you mean? It allows for huge amounts of damage, but it's not guaranteed. First you need to roll a 10 on the d10, then once that's done you need to confirm the Righteous Fury again by rolling To Hit once more. Assuming that's successful you only roll one further d10, not all the damage again. If that d10 comes up with a 10, you roll again, and again and again until you roll something other than a 10. Then add up all the results. Yes, the DW rulebook says to roll the whole damage again, but the errata changed that because it was nuts.

Weapons with tearing do have a higher chance of rolling a Righteous Fury, but the tearing only applies to the initial damage roll, not to the bonus damage for Righteous Fury.

Big Mek Wurrzog wrote:3. Gameplay/Mapping. How do you guys map out a battlefield some of the ranges feel unreal, I am not sure how I would detail a fight at longer ranges I've tried using my wet erase board and saying "every square is 2 m rather than 1 m but then it screws up movement and the mechanics of the game.

We often do 1:2 (occasionally 1:4). You just round things up. If your movement is 3/6/12/18, your movement becomes 4/6/12/18 when using 1:2 ratios. It makes things simpler. Yeah, not everything is perfect (especially with blast weapons), but that is the best way to do it.

Big Mek Wurrzog wrote:4. Fire is too amazing. I find myself looking at flamers and going "well damn.... nothing is avoid this crap!" normally a flamer screws up anything a throw so badly that i find myself creating situations where it might be dangerous to use the flamer. I would like nothing more than to let them go but it is so hard to put yourself out even if you are amazing it just seems like a flamer shouldn't be that amazing but i suppose in 40k TT it does screw up alot of orks...

As a member of a group who got flamers wrong completely until corrected by someone else, let me make sure that you are getting it right so you can avoid the problems we faced.

Step 1: The flamer needs a target.
Step 2: The flamer shoots at that target, measuring out a wave of flame 30 degrees in angle (or more, or less, depending on the type of flamer) out to the weapon's maximum range.
Step 3: Anyone who would be hit by this wave of flame takes an Challenging (+0) Agility Test to see if they are hit. If they pass this Test, they are not hit. If they fail this Test, they are hit by the flamer.
Step 4: Anyone hit by the flamer who still has a Reaction to use my attempt to Dodge the attack by making a Dodge Test. If they pass this Test, they successfully Dodge out of the way and take no damage (but must be able to get out of the wave of flame - if their Ag Bonus isn't enough to do this then they cannot Dodge). If they fail this Test, or are unable to Dodge, they are hit.
Step 5: If they are hit, they take damage as per the damage for the flamer in question.
Step 6: Anyone who took damage from the Flamer needs to make another Agility Test to see if they catch fire. This is a Challenging (+0) Test, or a Hard (-20) Test if the person firing the flamer has the Cleans & Purify Talent.

Big Mek Wurrzog wrote:5. Threats seem weak, I had a group of hullghasts for our first mission along a mining vessel they were suppose to be sneaky scary MFers and instead they couldn't even hurt our Ork player (given this is my own stupidity for allowing an ork) I know I will have other ways to hurt him in the future but i was hoping to give him a small run for his money. I've had many threats be underwhelming in the game and could use some help with what challenges good rogue traders. I either make it crazy like 1 space marine devastator carrying a heavy bolter that compeltely overwhlems them in 1 burst of fire or I have a skulk swinging his knife to no effect

Ah. You're playing Rogue Trader.

Orks are very tough. Often twice as tough as regular humans. That's the point. Put the players up against some foes with Full-Auto weapons and watch them cower. They'll need to use cover or they will die.

Wow you've really helped me out with this! Luckily i was doing flamers right impressively enough. But just for clarity I had a few more questions in regards to what you mean with this so lets go ahead and go over them. For example...

Question 1: let's say a player rolls a 01% for his roll to hit, that means the hit location just became head then because it would read 10% which means head correct unless taking a called shot which removed the "hit location chart". Lets say this was Full auto and it was 3 DOS that would mean the shots would read out like this accord to pg 239 chart 9-5 as "head, Head, arm". What you are saying is to resolve each bullet as though it were separate attacks?

Part 2: Now lets get more details, next step is resolution. Let's assume the enemy has 5 armor in all locations and a 3 toughness bonus and I was using a typical weapon like the auto gun (damage 1d10+3, pen: 0), If I understand you correctly then that would mean the damage would resolve like this... Shot1: 1d10+3 vs 8 soak, Shot2: 1d10+3 vs 8 soak, shot 3: 1d10+3 vs 8 soak is that correct? If so I am going to roll dice randomly and have my results before you... shot 1: 9+3=12 - 8(soak) = 4 damage; Shot 2: 5+3=8 - 8(soak) = 0 damage; 7+3=10 - 8 = 2 damage

collectively with this weapon i just did 6 damage is that all correct?

Question 2: Righteous Fury seems a bit more balanced now but I wanted to make sure i understood it compeltely; So let complicate this a bit cause normally this hasn't come into play often unless i see tearing weapons. What happens if someone is using a boltgun (Damage: 1d10+5, Pen: 4, TEARING) Vs the same enemy with armor 5 in all categories and TB:3. We'll give the exact same example as above yet again for lateral understanding. First shot would hit head armor but because of penetration 4 now the player keeps only 1 point of armor and all the toughness bonus to soak making them soak 4 per shot correct? Then I would resolve a boltgun like this....

Part 2:
Shot 1: 2 & 4 selecting 4 ---> 4+5 = 9 - 4 = 5 damage
Shot 2: 1 & 9 Selecting 9 ---->9+5 =14- 4 =10 damage
Shot 3: 7 & 10 selecting 10 ----> 10+5 =15 - 4 = 11 damage but Righteous Fury roll to hit Successful = 1d10? or 1d10+5 vs 4 soak?

Also what about weapons like Big Choppas which have 2d10+S & tearing? 3d10 choose the 2 highest and you rolled a 10? does the 2d10 get re-rolled or just that 1d10?

Big Mek Wurrzog wrote:Question 1: let's say a player rolls a 01% for his roll to hit, that means the hit location just became head then because it would read 10% which means head correct unless taking a called shot which removed the "hit location chart". Lets say this was Full auto and it was 3 DOS that would mean the shots would read out like this accord to pg 239 chart 9-5 as "head, Head, arm". What you are saying is to resolve each bullet as though it were separate attacks?

That’s correct. You’d roll damage for each shot individually. The only exception to this comes from Talents such as Dual Shot, but the as I mentioned earlier the rules and errata cover these quite well.

Big Mek Wurrzog wrote:Part 2: Now lets get more details, next step is resolution. Let's assume the enemy has 5 armor in all locations and a 3 toughness bonus and I was using a typical weapon like the auto gun (damage 1d10+3, pen: 0), If I understand you correctly then that would mean the damage would resolve like this... Shot1: 1d10+3 vs 8 soak, Shot2: 1d10+3 vs 8 soak, shot 3: 1d10+3 vs 8 soak is that correct? If so I am going to roll dice randomly and have my results before you... shot 1: 9+3=12 - 8(soak) = 4 damage; Shot 2: 5+3=8 - 8(soak) = 0 damage; 7+3=10 - 8 = 2 damage

collectively with this weapon i just did 6 damage is that all correct?

Looks correct to me.

Big Mek Wurrzog wrote:Question 2: Righteous Fury seems a bit more balanced now but I wanted to make sure i understood it compeltely; So let complicate this a bit cause normally this hasn't come into play often unless i see tearing weapons. What happens if someone is using a boltgun (Damage: 1d10+5, Pen: 4, TEARING) Vs the same enemy with armor 5 in all categories and TB:3. We'll give the exact same example as above yet again for lateral understanding. First shot would hit head armor but because of penetration 4 now the player keeps only 1 point of armor and all the toughness bonus to soak making them soak 4 per shot correct? Then I would resolve a boltgun like this....

Part 2:
Shot 1: 2 & 4 selecting 4 ---> 4+5 = 9 - 4 = 5 damage
Shot 2: 1 & 9 Selecting 9 ---->9+5 =14- 4 =10 damage
Shot 3: 7 & 10 selecting 10 ----> 10+5 =15 - 4 = 11 damage but Righteous Fury roll to hit Successful = 1d10? or 1d10+5 vs 4 soak?

For that last shot it would be the 10 you rolled, the +5 the Bolter normally gets, plus another D10 thanks to the Righteous Fury. So if that second D10 rolled a 6, your total damage would be 10+5+6-4 = 17 damage. Most human-sized targets have anywhere between 12 and 20 wounds, so as you can see Righteous Fury can be VERY deadly.

Big Mek Wurrzog wrote:Also what about weapons like Big Choppas which have 2d10+S & tearing? 3d10 choose the 2 highest and you rolled a 10? does the 2d10 get re-rolled or just that 1d10?

Generally speaking when you get Righteous Fury you only gain an extra d10 damage. So even if your Lascannon does 6d10 damage base, you’d still only get 1d10 extra damage. Doesn’t matter if you have Tearing or anything like that, Righteous Fury is just a bonus 1d10 damage. Even if you roll multiple 10’s on your original damage roll (eg. if that Lascannon rolled 10, 10, 10, 6, 3, 1) you still only get 1d10 bonus damage, not 1d10 per 10 rolled.

It is technically possible to roll infinite damage as you could just keep rolling 10 over and over again (I’ve seen it happen 7 times in a row, that’s my max).

So with RF just remember the following:

1. Roll weapon’s damage.
2. If a 10 is rolled on any of the d10’s, the attack has the potential to cause Righteous Fury. It does not matter how many 10’s you rolled, only one 10 is required.
3. Make another To Hit roll, using the exact same bonuses and penalties that applied to the previous one. You make this roll only once, not once per 10 rolled on the initial damage roll.
4. If this roll is unsuccessful, nothing special happens, you just get the damage you rolled but nothing extra.
5. If this roll is successful, roll another 1d10 and add the result to the damage you have already rolled.
6. If that d10 comes up with another 10, you just roll another 1d10 and add that damage (you don’t need to re-confirm by making another Weapon Skill or Ballistic Skill Test).
7. If that d10 comes up with a 10, then roll another 1d10 and add that to the running tally.
8. And keep going for every extra 10 you roll, and if you’re lucky you could roll 90+ damage like a friend of mine did with a Force Weapon.

As an alternative you can use the Black Crusade method of Righteous Fury, which does not roll extra damage. Instead you simply follow the first three steps above, and then if the confirm Test is successful you roll 1d5 on the relevant Critical Hit chart and apply that result (eg. someone hits your character in the head with a Laspistol, and rolls a 10 for damage. They confirm their Righteous Fury roll, and now roll 1d5 on the Energy Critical Hit Chart (Head) to see what it does to you).

Hope that helps.

H.B.M.C. wrote:

Hope that helps.

More than you know and my players will be amazed that they are not dying automatically from auto guns anymore Hurray!

So your help went over great with the group as most people were pleased by what they heard (The ork included... )

I did happen to fall on more DM related questions which have made the game a bit strange for me as well. Mostly this is endeavors and achievement points. It seems the ship quirks our Rouge Trader ship has is stotic which burns a profit factor from the group per mission which seems HORRIBLE but then again that is because i feel like maybe I don't understand how these missions work. I am not really fond of using the templates they have in the book and offered to create my own ... but they still don't make sense to me... how is profit increase decided?

RT is not my area I'm afraid. I'm a general RPG rules and then DH/BC/DW. I've not played RT, only read the books, so I can't help you with RT specific questions like Endeavours, Profit Factor and Ship Rules.

I'm not my group's RT GM, but I do know the rules well and have good GMing experience, so I can offer some thoughts here.

Stoic reduces profit factor GAIN, but it's not supposed to erode their current stash (I.e. harder to make more money, not eating at what they've got) - like how a weapon's Pen can't reduce armour to a negative value.
The Complications all offer some drawbacks (from the minor, like the -2 power of Wolf in Sheep's clothing, to the more major like the hefty repair penalties of Xenophilous or the potential breakdowns of Rebellious), and the point is that the crew need to learn how to get around them... or perhaps set off on a quest for a ship that's a bit less bother.

In Stoic's case, they need to set off in search of big endeavours, as doing four profit factor 2 adventures each is going to only earn them four points after the penalty, but two PF 4 endeavours will net them six points (even if they'd get eight in both cases from another ship). Extra achievement points along the way to earn extra profit factor (normally an extra +1 for each extra 100 APs, although you can decide otherwise), will also help. Bear this in mind as a GM, that there should always be the chance to net more APs than are needed to complete an endeavour - do also remember though that there may be parts of an endeavour that can't be skipped even if they do pick up enough APs elsewhere. For example, if they need to set up a trade route, the bonus profit factor from rescuing a stranded ship and making friends with a planetary governor by dealing with his terrorist problem will not let them get away without securing the contracts from the mining corporation for the adamantium ore they want to transport, even if they were worth the same number of APs.

As to exactly how much profit factor/achievement points something is worth - that's entirely up to you based on how hard you think it's going to be, in the same way as "You crippled the enemy light cruiser and made it away, with some good roleplaying too, so you all get 500 XP".
In essence, Profit Factor is awarded in the same way as experience and loot - somewhat arbitrarily, but the harder and bigger the job, the more it's usually worth.

Thank you both so much for help, last night I did dedicate quite a bit of time to reviewing the endeavors and the like. I felt like I had a good grasp on everything else and the info you've provided has made the game alot more balanced.


Ironically the group has been fighting Hullghasts which have the toxic trait to their attacks and one of the players in an effort to help me out read aloud the toxic QUALITY on weapons which apparently is incredibly different heh. All and all I feel like i can proceed from here amazingly well and thank you both for the time invested to get us all on track

One thing I've found rather than plotting then endeavours themselves with the profit factor and AP (which with the way AP work profit factor can get silly very quickly with that one you thought was awarding 1 actually ends up awarding 3 or 4 if they have the right ship parts) is to plan adventures that don't necessarily lead straight onto profit factor but has profit opportunities dotted around it if they realise them. Doing this has also got out RT really in the right mind set and he is now always looking for how he can profit from any situation they find themselves in.

The other thing we've discussed but aren't at a point for it just yet is scaling what you need to do for PF with the logic being as your holdings increase you need to do more to get a significant gain (equating it to real life do you think starbucks or mcdonalds gets a significant profit boost from each place it opens now compared to how much it was boosting their profits when they were just starting out).


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For XP we normally use the abstract approach of 500xp and regaining any spent fate points every 2 to 3 sessions (we have 2.5 hour sessions on average) assuming they actually achieve something so sessions spent shopping don't count even if they spend fate points during the filler in these.