I was noticing some people were having trouble dealing high soak of characters like the marauder with out hurting the rest of the party. This struck me as a encounter design problem. so lets hear the tips for this.

NPCs shoot more at the big, scary Wookiee than at the unassuming technician?

Few solutions, the bigger combat centric characters are focused more and that makes sense since the slicer cowering behind cover in the corner is going to be a lot less of a threat priority than the marauder mowing through your allies like swiss cheese and deflecting blaster shots off his pecs. Thus the biggest guns that would smear most other players will be focusing on that player with the high soak.

Similarly throw in some high pen weapons, they deal with soak nicely without doing so much damage as to completely obliterate weaker players as long as they don't also have an awful WT or ST (depending on the damage type). Other solutions are using things like an entangle weapon to deal with the high soak character or some other form of immobilization, etc. There's a lot of ways around it just need to be clever.

NPCs shoot more at the big, scary Wookiee than at the unassuming technician?

This and Lots of Stun... Most Soak PC's have low Strain.

"Wookie say what??".... ZAAPPAPPP!!!... UrGK!!..

NPCs shoot more at the big, scary Wookiee than at the unassuming technician?

This and Lots of Stun... Most Soak PC's have low Strain.

"Wookie say what??".... ZAAPPAPPP!!!... UrGK!!..

I cannot agree with these two solutions more.

I would also go listen to episode 7 the list strikes back.

Have a balanced mix of combat and social encounters so everyone has their moment to shine. Don't forget to put in piloting encounters for your pilot and slicing encounters for your slicer too. Basically, plan your encounters approperately for the characters in the group. It doesn't really matter if the Marader rolles over every combat encounter with ease because the Face will be doing the same with social, pilots with piloting, and slicers with slicing.

I once read on here some good advice, ask your player why they built their character that way. Did they build a high soak character because they want to see lots of combat or did they do it because they just don't want to die when combat actually comes up? Cater to your player's wants and desires.

So looking at the Marauder tree. aside from a high brawn what makes them have super high soaks compared to everyone else?

So looking at the Marauder tree. aside from a high brawn what makes them have super high soaks compared to everyone else?

They can take Enduring twice on that tree. It's not really all that much worse than other trees (like Gunner) in that regard, but when combined with a high Brawn - which is assumed with the Marauder specialization - the characters get tougher than average. Still, I've had a Marauder in almost every group and they've never been a problem even with Soak averaging 2 points higher than everybody else.

So they have 2 more soak that they spent 45 and an additional 65 points to get. That is a lot of character resources they spent to get +2 soak.
I am not seeing the problem use weapons with pierce 2. poof problem solved. Just don't do it all the time.

So they have 2 more soak that they spent 45 and an additional 65 points to get. That is a lot of character resources they spent to get +2 soak.

I am not seeing the problem use weapons with pierce 2. poof problem solved. Just don't do it all the time.

you could also drop them into a social encounter a few times to the point they diversify a little.

So looking at the Marauder tree. aside from a high brawn what makes them have super high soaks compared to everyone else?

Personally I think the concept was for the Marauder to be the "Naked Berserker" stereotype, hence the 2 Enduring traits.

For instance the BH in the game I was in (that just wrapped) hit a 10 Soak. 6 Brawn + 1 Implant Armor + 3 from Armor. If he'd a been a "proper" Marauder it would have been 12.

The next highest Soak was 5. Then 4. Then 3.

The suggestion of "just toss in some Pierce 2" wouldn't even have slowed him down, but would have wrecked the rest of us. As for "just liberally toss about Stun, it'll down the Marauder..." would also have downed the rest of pretty quick, as we we're only 5-6 Strain up on him and spent our Strain fairly liberally.

We handled it by the GM just having the majority of the enemies "target the big guy". But that kinda started to get too... MMOey feeling, which has contributed that GM swearing off FFG SW forever (as a GM, he'll play in it, just won't run it ever again).

you could also drop them into a social encounter a few times to the point they diversify a little.

That's just means the Combat Monkey gets to fail at the "talking" and either a) instigate combat, or b) slow the game waaaaaay down as we have to now figure out how to "fix" whatever he "broke" with his dumb words.

I'm not saying it's an insoluble problem. Just ye olde "Be A Better GM" nonsense isn't always going to work on this problem.

So looking at the Marauder tree. aside from a high brawn what makes them have super high soaks compared to everyone else?

It's that they will hit a base Soak of 8. Toss in +2-3 for armor and presto the Marauder is probably 4-5 Soak higher than everyone else.Personally I think the concept was for the Marauder to be the "Naked Berserker" stereotype, hence the 2 Enduring traits.For instance the BH in the game I was in (that just wrapped) hit a 10 Soak. 6 Brawn + 1 Implant Armor + 3 from Armor. If he'd a been a "proper" Marauder it would have been 12.The next highest Soak was 5. Then 4. Then 3.The suggestion of "just toss in some Pierce 2" wouldn't even have slowed him down, but would have wrecked the rest of us. As for "just liberally toss about Stun, it'll down the Marauder..." would also have downed the rest of pretty quick, as we we're only 5-6 Strain up on him and spent our Strain fairly liberally.We handled it by the GM just having the majority of the enemies "target the big guy". But that kinda started to get too... MMOey feeling, which has contributed that GM swearing off FFG SW forever (as a GM, he'll play in it, just won't run it ever again).

There's really a ton of ways already built in to deal with this kind of situation sounds like the gm was just not willing to use anything more than straightforwards bigger guns for bigger guys thinking to solve their problem.

As for the focus fire "mmoey" feel it's more just common sense that anyone would use in a combat situation. If your in a fight and one person in that fight is shrugging off blows and chopping your allies up into itty bitty pieces it's expected that he's the first thing the enemies going to go "oh **** kill it!" to

As for the focus fire "mmoey" feel it's more just common sense that anyone would use in a combat situation. If your in a fight and one person in that fight is shrugging off blows and chopping your allies up into itty bitty pieces it's expected that he's the first thing the enemies going to go "oh **** kill it!" to

What I thought was funny was in the game where my Wookiee Marauder was down to just one or two Strain left, and then he killed the enemy Heavy with the big nasty gun.

That’s when one the guys attacking us said "Oh, ****, they killed Steve!!! Everybody -- take your blaster off Stun!"

At which point we were able to mop up the remainder pretty easily. ;-)

Granted, my Wookiee did one-shot the Heavy who didn’t have much Soak and I did roll really well with my Vibro-Axe, but it was so ironic that they chose exactly the wrong solution at that time….

As for the focus fire "mmoey" feel it's more just common sense that anyone would use in a combat situation. If your in a fight and one person in that fight is shrugging off blows and chopping your allies up into itty bitty pieces it's expected that he's the first thing the enemies going to go "oh **** kill it!" to

What I thought was funny was in the game where my Wookiee Marauder was down to just one or two Strain left, and then he killed the enemy Heavy with the big nasty gun.That’s when one the guys attacking us said "Oh, ****, they killed Steve!!! Everybody -- take your blaster off Stun!"At which point we were able to mop up the remainder pretty easily. ;-)Granted, my Wookiee did one-shot the Heavy who didn’t have much Soak and I did roll really well with my Vibro-Axe, but it was so ironic that they chose exactly the wrong solution at that time….

I usually have competent enemies allocate firepower based on a target's visible offensive capabilities more than their defensive capability (assuming the weapon used has any chance of being effective). Generally a guy with a blaster rifle is considered a bigger threat than just about anyone with a melee weapon (excluding lightsabers).

I usually have competent enemies allocate firepower based on a target's visible offensive capabilities more than their defensive capability (assuming the weapon used has any chance of being effective). Generally a guy with a blaster rifle is considered a bigger threat than just about anyone with a melee weapon (excluding lightsabers).

Right up to the point that the Melee guy starts tearing through your line like a woodchipper chews up people.

True but I find in most games I've run or been in that characters with high def tend to have good offense, also I've typically found melee to be far more deadly than ranged in this game unless the opponent can move faster or starts far away. Though that could just be do to my player base.

A vibro-ax is about the nastiest melee weapon commonly seen. In the hands of someone with Brawn 4 (and such bruisers should be fairly uncommon!), it does damage comparable to a blaster carbine/rifle once Piercing 2 is taken into account. However, it always faces Difficulty 2. At Short Range, a blaster carbine/rifle is only facing Difficulty 1 (and a single Maneuver means you should never need to attack in Engaged with such weapons). The blaster carbine and blaster rifle are fairly common ranged weapons, and things just get nastier if larger ranged weapons are used, whereas the vibro-ax is already near the peak of melee weapon effectiveness.

It's more the viscous and sunder on the vibro axe that are scary, especially if a player gets the mod talent from outlaw tech or gadgeteer and lowers it's crit to one then slaps superior on it for that bonus advantage like a Wookie player in my group decided to do.

It's more the viscous and sunder on the vibro axe that are scary, especially if a player gets the mod talent from outlaw tech or gadgeteer and lowers it's crit to one then slaps superior on it for that bonus advantage like a Wookie player in my group decided to do.

Most combats I've seen are decided by Damage more than Critical Hits, and Sunder just doesn't come up all that often (why wreck gear when you can wreck the guy using the gear?). Just about anything scary about a melee weapon can be replicated with a ranged weapon, and ranged weapons are just generally more useful too.

If you really need to counter high-Soak guys trying to rush you with melee weapons, the AP Grenade from AoR is a rude surprise to pull out of a pocket.

One of my favorite tools to negate melee monsters is the tactical tractorbeam.

These things are used in every bigger spaceport and warehouse to move large and heavy goods, and by the military too. See it as the Star Wars equivalent to a good forklift.

Sure it is somewhat anticlimatic if he is suspended helpless in the air, but then his friends have time to shine by bailing him out.

That would be an example of a skillful challenge from the list. The mechanic gets to try and hack the computers to release their frind while the rest of the party defends them.