Dark Heresy 1E – How do you challenge high-XP Acolytes without killing them?
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Hey everyone,
I'm currently running Dark Heresy 1E. We've finished House of Dust and Ash, and I plan to run the full Haarlock's Legacy trilogy along with a few other adventures before that.
The group currently sits at around 6,500 XP.
My question is: How do you challenge individual Acolytes with appropriate enemies without simply killing them?
At the moment, a Chaos Space Marine is still off the table (though I plan to use some later during Book 3 on Mara).
The party
🔮 Telepath Psyker
Uses Psychic Shriek constantly.
How would you handle that?
- High Willpower opponents?
- Keep enemies outside 10m?
- Psyker duels?
- Something else?
⚔️ Ecclesiarchy combat monster
- Armour 6
- Tons of rerolls
- Very hard to put down
🤖 Lathe Worlds Skitarii
- Venator swords
- 3 attacks
- Armour 8
⚙️ Tech-Priest
- Shield generator
- Very resilient
🪖 Guardsman
- Decent in melee
- Decent at range
- Lots of armour
My first thought was simply using more armour penetration and bolters, but I can't realistically give every hive ganger a boltgun.
Any other ideas?
The two tech characters are effectively immune to most Fear and many psychic tricks because of their machine traits, which makes encounter design even trickier.
Has anyone run into a similar situation and found good solutions?
Best regards,
Currently travelling from Solomon to the Lathe Worlds,
Frosty