Who's played Dark Heresy?

[king.com]

Many of the powers are broken. Fairly weak Adeptus Arbites learns to be so commanding and awesome that everyone has to obey their orders, and they can pick a talent which makes heretics even more susceptible to those orders than loyal citizens already are. An assassin can dodge pretty much anything short of a nuclear blast multiple times per turn (and some would argue that yes, he can dodge anything, including nuclear blasts). Psykers can more or less think people out of existence with their powers (and this is a very small exagerration).

Some people say that but I disagree to avoiding it (a GM should always have this thing out and refer to it in sesssion simply as a freak out tool ). The idea is, that you have hit a level where it is no longer a battle of individuals and it has become a battle of resources. Take a look at the skill lists for these Ascension classes. They are mostly reputation and relationship based, this is basiclly how you acquire openings to gain more allies as your opposition probably has many. I found classes like the Vindicare, Storm Trooper, and combat focused psykers particularly weak. They have little to no way of actually interacting with organisations outside of their comfort zone. Classes like the Sage, Magos, Interrogator however get to build some fairly strong alliances which can be used as their weapons.

Take the scenario of your players going up against a radical inquisitor going over the line into heresy. Hes likely to be able to draw upon groups like the Imperial Guard and Imperial Navy in order to impede your path while your own players will need to pull similiar contacts in order to keep up. Stopping someone with this kind of resources is going to be very difficult if he knows your coming, meaning its less about finding him, and more about cutting his resources down until he cant stop hiding anymore. A demonic cult he rules over? You use your Oath Bonded to the Angels of Death talent to clean out before it requires the players themselves to actually physically deal with. Imperial Navy Admiral pulling forces to the Jericho reach leaving a sub-sector exposed for the radical Inquisitor to get in and out without report? Counter without your alliances with the Navis-Nobilite house who can help enforce that these ships remain in orbit for a time, giving your players that small opportunity to actually intercept the radical or atleast stop him getting what he was after here in the first place.

Thats how I've always seen Ascension to be run.