Hi all,

I recently gm'ed the Beginner Game from EotE and killed my group with it.

I used the minion rules for the Stormtrooper encounters - so three troopers would move and shoot as a group with two yellow and one green (if I remember correctly). They were fairly easy to kill by my players.

Then, however, they met the four security droids guarding the Krayt Fang at the spaceport. Thing is, those security droids have the same rating - and it didn't say that they used the minion rules.

After a short firefight, all three characters (Vex, Lowhhrick, and Oskara) were down, two droids still standing.

My gut tells me that four droids should be less difficult to handle than 2x3 Stormtroopers - especially after the explicit warning in the adventure sidebar.

Did I do something wrong? Did you stumble over this as well? How are you handling such encounters?

/edit: For minion fights, I "overflowed" the damage. For example the stormtroopers have 15 wounds, I think, so I would mark down damage continuously and drop a minion (and reduce skills) every threshold increment.

So the first blaster volley of 13 damage (soak 5) reduced the group's total wounds to 7 (15 - 8) and dropped one minion. A damage of 8 (soak 5 again) would drop the second minion (8 - 3 = 5).

I'm not sure how you handled the droids, but there should have been two the players had to deal with at the door first, with the other two hanging out by the ship's loading ramp - it sounds like you may have just had all four clumped together. If they called for help from the other droids, then it would take a couple of turns or so before the next two would come, which would probably be more than enough time for Lowhhrick and Oskara to finish the first group.

Of course it could've been careless players as well - did they try to start the fight while heavily wounded and didn't stop to try and heal themselves up?

For the minion rules, and killing NPCs or knocking players out in general, you need to exceed wound threshold. Except for you math on the last part, you're correct. So the 7 remaining wounds would drop to 4 with the 3 damage from the second attack, and that would kill the second minion. And 5 more damage would kill the third.

I'm not sure how you handled the droids, but there should have been two the players had to deal with at the door first, with the other two hanging out by the ship's loading ramp - it sounds like you may have just had all four clumped together. If they called for help from the other droids, then it would take a couple of turns or so before the next two would come, which would probably be more than enough time for Lowhhrick and Oskara to finish the first group.

Of course it could've been careless players as well - did they try to start the fight while heavily wounded and didn't stop to try and heal themselves up?

For the minion rules, and killing NPCs or knocking players out in general, you need to exceed wound threshold. Except for you math on the last part, you're correct. So the 7 remaining wounds would drop to 4 with the 3 damage from the second attack, and that would kill the second minion. And 5 more damage would kill the third.

Thanks for the answer!

They were on the run from three Gamorreans from outside - and they did have some wounds on them, that is true. The droids weren't clumped either - it was two droids versus the three PCs of them first - but they weren't able to kill them (Lowhhrick decided to run over the length of the landing bay instead of taking cover and shooting for Lord knows what reasons, while Oskara simply dropped prone, aiming and firing away. I gave the droids two setback dice when firing at her) - so they called in the other two as reinforcements two rounds later.

The PCs had used up a lot of destiny points by that point. I used some myself to keep the Force in balance, but upgrading the droid's rolls did really a lot of damage.

Did you have all droids fight for themselves or did you use the minion rules with them?

//edit: Yeah@math. Should read "7" not "8". ^^

Droids are by themselves.

Sounds like it was more of just the players then and just isn't something that could be helped. Star Wars is pretty dangerous as it is - it's easy for a critical to escalate into something that blows a limb off or flat out kills a player. I'd advise that if you run the game for them again, to make sure they understand the risks of fights and consider alternatives. Or you could just let them roll characters for the beginner's game - if they all want to be combat-focused, they might be better off with characters that fit with the way they want to play.

Droids are by themselves.

Sounds like it was more of just the players then and just isn't something that could be helped. Star Wars is pretty dangerous as it is - it's easy for a critical to escalate into something that blows a limb off or flat out kills a player. I'd advise that if you run the game for them again, to make sure they understand the risks of fights and consider alternatives. Or you could just let them roll characters for the beginner's game - if they all want to be combat-focused, they might be better off with characters that fit with the way they want to play.

Eh, I've decided to give them a second chance instead of being killed. They were brought aboard by Trex, shackled and put into the cargo bay. They managed to escape, overwhelm the two remaining security droids and storm for Trex.

Unfortunatley, they had used all of their destiny points, so the Force was not with them. Oskara got shot down at the entrance to the cockpit, Lowhhrick tried to storm it, going into a berserker rush... and getting hit in the face by Tressk who rolled two triumphs on his attack.

Tressk then simply walked out, Vex waiting for him with a blaster. Vex rolled a Despair, the blaster was empty, and Tresk simply deactivated him via remote (they didn't bother checking for a restraining bolt).

So, I decided to give them another chance, give them some more obligation, remove some XP and send them on another adventure where they will have to fight for their lives and freedom.

Coming back from the tangent - thanks for the reality-check. I guess it's a play and learn situation,

Just going from the story so far, but it sounds like they missed a lot of opportunities to take non-combat actions to swing the situation in their favour. For example, instead of fleeing the Gamorreans, maybe one of them could have Charmed/Bribed/Coerced them. Or once they were free in the ship, Vex might have hacked into the computer and started playing with doors, turning off power, maybe even reprogramming the droids (causing them strain via successes in hacking).

The game's pretty "lethal" in that it doesn't take much to bring a character down, and going from one fight to another can grind them down very quickly. However, it does take a lot to actually kill the characters, they are not dead after their wound threshold is surpassed, they are just out of commission.

Just going from the story so far, but it sounds like they missed a lot of opportunities to take non-combat actions to swing the situation in their favour. For example, instead of fleeing the Gamorreans, maybe one of them could have Charmed/Bribed/Coerced them. Or once they were free in the ship, Vex might have hacked into the computer and started playing with doors, turning off power, maybe even reprogramming the droids (causing them strain via successes in hacking).

The game's pretty "lethal" in that it doesn't take much to bring a character down, and going from one fight to another can grind them down very quickly. However, it does take a lot to actually kill the characters, they are not dead after their wound threshold is surpassed, they are just out of commission.

My feeling as well. I think they're a bit too combat focused and maybe a bit too inexperienced with Star Wars. We'll see how it goes.

As for the Gamorreans - no talking them down. They came from the slaver's encampment nearby whre Lowhhrick decided to throw a grenade into in order to distract the patrolling Stormtroopers.

I think I'll just need to have a talk with them about how violence is not necessarily always the best option.