Hi, planning the next adventure to run my players through; neither the core rules or the GM screen section on picking adversaries had any insight, so I thought I'd ask. What's a good rule of thumb for assigning ranks of the Adversary talent on an NPC? THe GM's kit has some sidebar rules for advancing an NPC with experience; should I treat it as a separate tree all NPCs can take (IE costs 5-10-15-20 XP), or just wing it? Can anyone share their results?

I'd say just wing it. Following a rigid structure to build NPCs can be an exercise in frustration. I've learned that it's better to just give your NPCs what they need to be a threat socially or in combat as needed and go from there. The first several you make may end up being too strong or too weak, but it's ok. You'll get better at judging the NPC's abilities over time. And, since you're the only one that knows what thier stats are you don't have to worry about players metagaming anything. This also gives you the advantage of being able to adjust on the fly. Characters trouncing your guys, slap a few extra HP on them or pull out a grenade that you hadn't written down. Characters getting their arses handed to them, drop the HP a bit or silently reduce their soak to even things up. Socially, if the characters try and end run around your NPC or attempts to push him, you can adjust as needed. Say, if you didn't expect them to try and intimidate your enforcer, you can toss in a few ranks of discipline and go.

Since XP has absolutely nothing to do with the enemies you face in combat, it works really well.

The research for this method is to eyeball the existing threats in the book. Erase a name here and there and use those. Stormtrooper? Nah, it's an elite city guard. Nexu? Nope, now it's feral rakghoul.

Wing it.

Good tip though is to think of it like this:

Unnamed Rival 0-1 ranks

Named Rival 1-2

Unnamed Nemesis 1-2

Named Nemesis 2+

My crew has just hit 250XPish earned. I'm seriously needing Adversary ranks for boss types. I used it for the first time about 2 weeks ago and I was shocked at how bad the Red dice were for the players.

So... Wing it... You shouldn't need too much. There are a lot of other balance issues that you will have to figure out in the fly. Like what is a fair fight? How come the players get 6 turns before your boss gets one? That stuff causes way more issues.

Read my thread on my players invading the Jedi Temple. It explains what it was like for the players, and at the end you can see my thinking on balancing up an escape space battle.

As a general rule of thumb, minions could be rolling 1-2 less of each die than PCs, rivals should be rolling 0-1 less than PCs, and nemeses could roll anywhere from 0-2 more than the PCs. I want my minions to feel much less able than PCs, rivals to be rivals, and nemeses to be true challenges.

Other than that, like the others say, it's really just a matter of feeling it out. And don't feel bad about modifying your NPC's stats mid-combat...maybe he gets a quick burst of adrenaline if you realize he needs to be stronger (Adversary +1) or gets some terrible injury as the result of PC actions (Adversary -1).

I'm with Ghostofman on this one. I'm also using Adversary to differentiate between minions, rivals and nemeses.

I'm doing something similar with Enduring for Droids.

My crew has just hit 250XPish earned. I'm seriously needing Adversary ranks for boss types. I used it for the first time about 2 weeks ago and I was shocked at how bad the Red dice were for the players.

So... Wing it... You shouldn't need too much. There are a lot of other balance issues that you will have to figure out in the fly. Like what is a fair fight? How come the players get 6 turns before your boss gets one? That stuff causes way more issues.

Read my thread on my players invading the Jedi Temple. It explains what it was like for the players, and at the end you can see my thinking on balancing up an escape space battle.

Regarding the slots/round issue, the last bit in the GM kit says about giving true nemeses an extra turn each round in combat. Last night I had my players fight a nemesis 4 on 1, but to even it out he got 2 shots per round. Made for a pretty even matchup, and more importantly a fun encounter.

Adversary is the mechanics justification for a cinematic scene (at least to me).

Some GM uses to use "out mechanics resources" to protect an important NPC (friendly or enemy).

Instead summoning an event or NPC that saves the target, just add some Adversary at your will, its the "fair way" to protect it and the player won't become (or not so often XD) frustrated because the bad boss runs away heavily wounded to its starship in a massive voley of fire.

So, don't worry about XP costs on Adversary and add it to create a nice balance between fairness (this word exists?) and an awesome scene like "I'll revenge!"

Also, for nemeses at least, remember the Enhanced Nemesis Combat ability from the GM kit (and from Shadows of/Under a Black Sun). I have used it once, it scared them good.

Ghostofman has a nice guideline to work from when it comes to adversary talent distribution.

I would like to recommend you to OggDudes Character Generator. In the GM Tools program you can build Minions, Rivals and Adversaries really quickly. It even has all the ones from the books already pre-loaded. There is no definitive cost to the Adversary talents. If you have a super important guy in your game that you don't want killed, but think he might, even though he should not be in combat, give him Adversary +5

One thing I would like to note about this system and the addition of the Adversary Talent. Ok, I am not one to plug other movies or things on this forum, but now I am compelled to talk about this movie: Last Stand.

I can see this system in this movie and the Adversary Talent.

Near the end with the big battle in the town, there is a bad guy who is not getting shot, even by the big hero. He has some minions and rivals running around, they are getting waxed, but not him. Yes all movies do this, but I really picked up on it in this movie.

Why do these big bad guys have the ability to cause you a despair? To make it cinematic! So you have him on the ground finally, you are standing over him, you pull the trigger of justice and...your gun is empty. After 5 minutes of continuous shooting, it goes dead now! He kicks your leg, you fall, you guys tumble on the ground, rolling over and over trying to hit each other, but you can't (Upgrades), finally you win a roll you push him into the wall he gets a despair, you get a triumph, there is metal rebar sticking out the wall that he got impaled into. He is dying, you get your hero one liner...Stick around, or I think he got the point... or whatever. Win! So i try to look at is as, not how hard you want to make it on the players, but how cinematic do you want to try to get?

Edit: I got the class names of the bad guys wrong...sorry.

I think if our GM gave someone Adversary 5 he'd face open rebellion.

I think if our GM gave someone Adversary 5 he'd face open rebellion.

Actually, I'm getting what people are saying; I could easily see Vader as Adversary 5 (he's staying around to the end of the campaign). Sort of explains why Luke couldn't touch him in ESB, too...

I get that, but I'd also hope Vader would be badass enough that he wouldn't need it.

Adversary is something of a sore point in my group. As long is it isn't overused, I like that there's a mechanic that helps "end of level baddie" not be a push-over, but 2 of the other players (in a 4 PC team) believe that

1. If the NPC is good at surviving a fight, they shouldn't need it
2. If the NPC isn't good at surviving a fight, they shouldn't have it

Basically, the feeling is that it either diminishes the Rival/Nemesis or it diminishes PCs.

Col Orange, I feel that it's more than Adversary is just a way of abstracting a lot of the things that MAKE them good at surviving a fight.

Sure, you could spend an hour granting the Nemesis all kinds of Talents, from Point Blank, to Skilled Jockey, to whatever would make sense for a character of their type.

But part of the nature of the game is to abstract a lot of that if it's not strictly relevant. We have Minion rules to simplify and abstract the fighting of groups of enemies. Adversary, in my opinion, is just a way of making it easier to maintain and run Nemesis-level baddies.

As a GM, I'm cool with giving a Nemesis a talent or two, but they are often so situational that I'd rather not have to keep in mind "when can I use this talent?"

Especially if they're maybe not THE big bad evil guy who will menace the PCs for 6 sessions in a row until they're finally defeated.

If it's a boss you're facing at the end of a certain encounter, I feel that Adversary 1 or 2 is a great way to make it simpler to run that villain.

Yeah, I'm cool with it (within reason). The two of my friends who don't like Adversary would simply rather win or be beaten "fair and square".

Yeah, I'm cool with it (within reason). The two of my friends who don't like Adversary would simply rather win or be beaten "fair and square".

So use ranks in Side Step instead, and keep track of Strain for the baddie, and give him a big ST. Honestly, the practical bit is that it becomes harder for the PCs to hit, which should be part of the mechanics in one way or another. How you do the accounting is relatively minor.

Yeah, I'm cool with it (within reason). The two of my friends who don't like Adversary would simply rather win or be beaten "fair and square".

Out of curiousity, does it also bother them that NPCs don't follow the same rules as PCs when it comes talents, skills, etc.

What exactly is "fair and square"?

You don't have to answer, I'm just looking at your friends view and scratching my head.

Yeah, I'm cool with it (within reason). The two of my friends who don't like Adversary would simply rather win or be beaten "fair and square".

Out of curiousity, does it also bother them that NPCs don't follow the same rules as PCs when it comes talents, skills, etc.

What exactly is "fair and square"?

You don't have to answer, I'm just looking at your friends view and scratching my head.

I was wondering this myself.

I can understand, in theory, the mindset that PCs and NPCs 'should' be constructed from the same mechanical rules and follow the same build mechanics, etc. I don't agree with it, but I suppose I can understand why someone might feel that way.

Out of curiousity, does it also bother them that NPCs don't follow the same rules as PCs when it comes talents, skills, etc.

What exactly is "fair and square"?

You don't have to answer, I'm just looking at your friends view and scratching my head.

That's okay.

One doesn't even like Minion groups. I roll my eyes a little at this. For one, it's a game representing cinematic fiction - there should be some bad-guys that are there to go down like skittles. For another, the game would drrrrraaaaagg.

I haven't asked either about this, but I doubt that it bothers them that NPCs don't have to go through the same career/spec talent trees (personally, I imagine the "NPCs get what talents their role requires them to have" is just how EotE represents the infinate career paths the game will never map).

Fair and square just means they (particularly anti-Minion guy) like everyone to be capable of the same things, if they have access to similar training, are equally dedicated and have the same resources. If one guy is boosting their defence for free while another gets tired doing the same, the two of you are playing different games.

• If they beat you it becomes impossible to know if it was because they were better or smarter or luckier, or whether it was Adversary (cheapening their victory).
• If you beat them... well, you didn't - you beat the system (cheapening your victory).

I empathise ("A man's greatness can be measured by his enemies"), but I'm happiest just keeping things moving along.

It's interesting to me to see this level of identification by the players with the *mechanics* of their character.

I feel fortunate that in our group, the players have a healthy sense of identity with their characters as a *person*, that is, a character in a story, but they don't seem to be committed to the idea that their character's mechanics are anything more than just a way to represent the stuff they can do. More of a loose association to the rules. They seem to have more of an investment in the stories of their characters than they do in whether they're successful in using the mechanics to defeat other characters in combat.

At least, that's how it seems after six months of playing. We've just started a new campaign and we'll see how it goes!

I think we're heading towards the same destination from different directions . They make an effort to have their characters act like people. But, if I understand correctly, where your guys see Adversary as a shortcut to stop the rules getting in the way, my guys see the additional rules as an additional reminder that it's a game.

I think we're heading towards the same destination from different directions . They make an effort to have their characters act like people. But, if I understand correctly, where your guys see Adversary as a shortcut to stop the rules getting in the way, my guys see the additional rules as an additional reminder that it's a game.

That seems about right, yeah

I get that, but I'd also hope Vader would be badass enough that he wouldn't need it.

Adversary is something of a sore point in my group. As long is it isn't overused, I like that there's a mechanic that helps "end of level baddie" not be a push-over, but 2 of the other players (in a 4 PC team) believe that

• If the NPC is good at surviving a fight, they shouldn't need it
• If the NPC isn't good at surviving a fight, they shouldn't have it

Basically, the feeling is that it either diminishes the Rival/Nemesis or it diminishes PCs.

Have the players who have issue ever run a game? The reason I ask is the adversary talent is a windfall for running a game - I feel it is to make running a game easier for the person who, generally, works hard to write a story, know the rules while herding a group cats. Seriously, players are often times the ones who complain about a campaign on tracks, and when you give them the option yo do whatever they want, they stare at you like a deer in headlights. I could be bitter as the evergm though.

Have the players who have issue ever run a game? The reason I ask is the adversary talent is a windfall for running a game - I feel it is to make running a game easier for the person who, generally, works hard to write a story, know the rules while herding a group cats. Seriously, players are often times the ones who complain about a campaign on tracks, and when you give them the option yo do whatever they want, they stare at you like a deer in headlights. I could be bitter as the evergm though.

Yeah, but not as often as some of us.

(Enjoying this but gotta go. Good evening, gentlemen!)

NooOOoo come back Colonel!

jk