Ok, I get it. The GM has to suffer through players constantly picking on him, killing all his characters over and over again, so of course he's going to put up a fight.
Now for some context. We're playing Dark Heresy, and I'm playing a Crimson Guard, which is basically a tank with a giant axe. 75% of all attacks are negated, due to thick armour, and a high amount of wounds keeps him from needing healing as regularly as everyone else. On top of that, with high penetration weapons, half with abilities that effectively double their damage output, depending on the roll, he is definitely a formidable force.
The downside? The rest of the group are paying for it. While I have been spending experience on upgrading my combat ability (effectively "power levelling"), everyone else has been spreading their experience over their entire character (upgrading skills and stats, purchasing new ones etc), in the interest of role-playing, rather than just battle.
Additionally, the party level is still low, so their inability to use most equipment is seen as a disincentive. They might be able to do more damage with certain equipment, but they need to be able to hit the enemy first; so the choice to use equipment with lower damage, but a higher hit chance is chosen instead.
So when it comes to combat, the GM wants to at least have some fun, and not be creamed by one guy who immediately chops him in half. This means that the enemies need to be bigger and tougher than normal, just to have a chance to do some damage to me; but also means that the rest of the group have less of a chance of contributing.
An example of this was our last fight. The enemy had regeneration (had to "drain" power to regenerate), with a high armour value, and even higher damage output. I alone managed to survive the fight with only a few wounds remaining, while the rest of the group had burned 3 Fate Points, and used another 3 on re-rolls among them*, just to keep their characters alive. I was the only one who could deal enough damage to sufficiently wound it, while other's attacks were simply negated by the regen, or armour.
There really is an imbalance here, and I feel like while the problem might not be everyone's fault, everyone can definitely contribute to the solution.
I want to talk to the group about it, but we waste a lot of time when we discuss things, as everyone has their own opinion, so I'm just looking for some basic ideas on what each party can do to achieve less of a rift for me (the "tank"), the other players, and the GM.
*Fate points that are "used" are regained at the end of every session, whereas ones that are "burned" are lost forever. They are rare, and each player would never have more than a handful, so burning them is costly.
Best Answer
I only know the 1st edition of Dark Heresy but that is very prone to this problem. Armor and toughness reducing damage and the rest going to the few wounds many PCs have means you have a situation where one PC can shrug off an attack while the same attack can take out another PC.
On the other hand I had the same problem in a game of Shadowrun 3rd. I had a tanky PC who could shrug off direct hits by missile launchers while the rest were either skill monkeys or glass cannons.
I, on my part, see two options:
In my case back then at least my PC did less than or equal damage as the others and was just VERY tough.
However you need to address this with the party and the GM. It would not help if you change your PC and the enemies stay the same.
Another point: When I played DH enemies often had force fields that had a chance of overloading on each hit. That gave every hit the chance to contribute because it could be the one shutting the force field down. And as long as the field was up most damage was negated. That made low damage weapons with a high rate of fire a good option for PCs who were not too much focused on combat. With a stronger second weapon for when the field was down.