While building a couple Inquisitors using the rules in the Beta book, I find myself in a conundrum. These BBEGs are likely to come under fire from blasters and by pcs wielding lightsabers, but I don't want to use both of my recommended "two talent choices" on Parry 5 and Reflect 5. I also don't want to break the recommended rules and increase the Talents, because we're supposed to be testing the RAW.

I wonder if adding in a talent that gives the Inquisitor both Parry and Reflect but at a lower rank would work, sort of like how Adversary covers upgrades to defense from a variety of talent sources. Have another NPC-only Defensive Talent that allows them to reduce damage from any incoming attack by 5 points for 3 strain, or something like that.

Thoughts?

I'd say it kind of depends on what you're trying to do with the Inquisitor. If you're just trying to give the group a challenge with just the inquisitor, the 3 ranks in Adversary, point of defense from armor, and if you want to, 2 turns a round is pretty decent enough. Talents are more of just how you want the Inquisitor to be a challenge. Do you want them to just start going nuts on the group before going down? Do you want him to last as long as possible? Do you just want him to be a huge nuisance to the melee-range players?

Then if you want it to be a long-time rival of the group, then you want to consider mix-and-matching the recommendations of how to build such a character from the EotE GM Kit and FaD's Inquisitor guide, since such a character should adequately grow in strength compared to the group. Also if you're going this route, flipping a destiny point to make them escape if they'd otherwise die, when you don't want them to, is always a good option.

As always though, if the players are too tough, chuck in some minions or rivals to act as back-up.

I like your suggestion of a lower ranked combination of the two. The talent selection is full of goodies and choosing between reflect or parry over some the other choices is already a tough decision.

Well NPCs have never really had hard rules... but mostly I'm with Lathrop.

If you give both those defensive abilities to a single character they are going to be tough as heck. It might make more sense to pick one defensive talent, and resolve the other in a different way.

So for example, let's say I go with Parry on my Inquisitor, then when I get to Abilities I give him something like "Imperial Valor" (awesome name for that btw). Now as long as I keep some minions handy he's got his ranged defense taken care of. This also allows a nifty side effect of being negatable with something like "Last One Standing" assuming those are Minion stromtroopers next to him and not helpless orphans.. that would suck...

Or you can go the other way, giving the Inquisitor Reflect, but then having him or an ally carry glop grenades, or a netgun, or whatever, to prevent the melee player from moving.

Also as Lathrop says you can do some nutty defenses too. So with something like say Intimidating presence and/or terrify there's a chance (at lower levels anyway) of stacking some serious difficulty onto that Adversary 3.

And there's always the lame but functional Move power.... 3 Pips and he can chuck a Sil 1 object to Long range.....

I'm thinking that Adversary 3 and armored clothing goes a very long way towards helping an NPC survive for more than one or two rounds against a group of PC already, without needing to add Parry and Reflect.

Then again, said Inquisitor rules do state that they're ultimately guidelines, so if you want to give your Inquisitor both Parry and Reflect and then an additional Talent option, go right ahead.

I modified Beyond the Rim, specifically the Imperial encounter, to make it much more difficult, with 2 trooper squads, a Chicken Walker, and Mara Jade. I was going to use one of the Jedi in Edge or Age, but at the last minute I built her using the Inquisitor rules. She lasted the entire combat, about 4 rounds, little to no damage taken. She used reflect to take out an important npc, Move (rolled 3 dark side) to capture another, and flipped a Destiny to make dramatic escape at the end. Summary:less than 5 minutes to build and made for one of the most exciting encounters yet.

I just made the guy how I wanted him, using the guide as a suggestion of what he could take; rather than budget him, I gave him everything I could see him needing in the foreseeable future. This makes him a huge threat to the PCs that, if present, means that they're screwed. I justify this with what the producers of Rebels said in an interview about their inquisitor; if he shows up, it's not time for the min characters to triumph over all the odds, it's time for them to pack shop and book it. What ought to be done is to build a General Grievous that isn't made a fool by a couple of no good Jedi.

In terms of Parry, Reflect, or others, I'd say that it depends on the group. Are they lightsaber duelist? Ace shots? Noe of the above? All of the above? This will determine how they react to the Inquisitor, and what he will need to deal with them. That's another thing; what is the Inquisitor meant to be? A one shot suicide bomb? The ever present being always breathing down their neck? The one come to show murder hobo players everywhere the error of their ways by slaughtering everyone around them, including important NPCs and maybe the PCs themselves?

After answering these questions, you might come up with what the Inquisitor should take. However, if he still seems too weak, try fudging the rules a bit. Plenty of people do it, and the book even mentions it already.

If you still feel the need to come to a more conclusive result, than carry on. These were just my two cents.

CLEAR!

*Resurrects old thread*

(apologies, but this above discussion is good and pertains to this)

I am likely going to be running the Glare Peak adventure to start off my new AoR campaign at my local game store. and instead of Vader setting his lightsaber to Puree on the PCs, i got the Idea of using an inquisitor as their main Antagonist in the Campaign

For the Parry and Reflect talents that you can add on in step four, would the Inquisitor take strain to activate the talent? it doesn't say in the short description, nor the ability to reflect/retaliate.

For the Parry and Reflect talents that you can add on in step four, would the Inquisitor take strain to activate the talent? it doesn't say in the short description, nor the ability to reflect/retaliate.

They don't need to take strain, so they can effectively knock damage down endlessly. So be sure to keep that in mind when deciding on armor and Brawn so that soak doesn't get too high to make nearly all blasters completely ineffective.

For the Parry and Reflect talents that you can add on in step four, would the Inquisitor take strain to activate the talent? it doesn't say in the short description, nor the ability to reflect/retaliate.

They don't need to take strain, so they can effectively knock damage down endlessly. So be sure to keep that in mind when deciding on armor and Brawn so that soak doesn't get too high to make nearly all blasters completely ineffective.

I'm on the fence about this. I played it by RAW, giving an Inquisitor Parry and Reflect, and it wasn't even fair. My PCs got lucky and disarmed the guy, then damaged him a bit which caused him to retreat. But still.

I think these abilities should probably require strain to be suffered, and that perhaps the omission in the "Inquisitor version" of the talents was simply an editing oversight.

I agree with Away here.

An Inquisitor with both Parry and Reflect (even reduced ranks) but no strain cost is going to incredibly difficult for any PC that's not hyper-competent at combat to defeat.

I did a stress test during the Beta testing period of an Inquistor with Parry 3, Reflect 3, and no strain costs against a group of Knight Level PCs, featuring a Warrior/Shii-Cho Knight (basic lightsaber), a BH/Gadgeteer (twin heavy blaster pistols and laminate armor), and a Guardian/Protector (heavy blaster rifle and laminate armor). Without that strain cost to use Parry and Reflect, the Inquisitor was able to blunt the damage from the Shii-Cho Knight and Gadgeteer with very little effort, and with a soak value of 5 (Brawn 3, heavy combat robes) the Gadgeteer was rendered almost useless in that fight while the Shii-Cho Knight was limited to "chip damage" each time he hit, which even with Brawn 4 and Lightsaber 3 wasn't a sure thing against Adversary 3 and Melee Defense 1. The Protector did a little better, but even on those instances where he was able to get autofire to trigger it still amounted to "chip damage" because the Inquisitor had no restriction on using Reflect against each hit. Frankly, it was very much like a D&D 4e fight against a Solo monster, in that the enemy was simply a bloated bag of hit points that the PCs could only whittle away at each round.

We ran it a second time, this time having the Inquisitor suffer strain for using Parry and Reflect. The fight went very differently, as the Inquisitor was forced to take more damage and the sheer amount of strain he was burning meant that Advantages rolled were being spent on recovering strain instead of triggering critical hits or free maneuvers. And when the Protector rolled two Triumphs on an autofire attack, the Inquisitor simply wasn't able to use Reflect against all three hits and was easy pickings for the Shii-Cho Knight to finish off.

For someone as legitimately badass as Darth Vader, then I could see waiving the strain cost for Parry and Reflect, but then he's really more of a plot device than an actual adversary the PCs should have any chance of defeating. But for an Inquisitor, who generally aren't meant to be the full equals of a properly-trained Jedi Knight, I say have them suffer the strain cost the same as any PC, especially if you're giving them both Parry and Reflect.