Hey all,

I was wondering if anyone had any general guidelines for assembling encounters to be reasonably balanced. For the half-dozen sessions we played so far I've worked from modules (AoR Beginner's Box, Shadowpoint and then Jewel of Yavin) but the players have been tearing through opponents pretty easily.

For the next few months at least, the party will consist of four players, one commando (now a ground combat monster), a skilled Ace (who is pretty handy with a blaster as well), a spy and a tech (reasonable at close range but not as powerful). I'd like to design a couple of encounters for them to fight through.

I've seen a few comments on these boards regarding balancing respective die pools to help balance things out, depending on desired results (generally successful, success with panache, struggle to win, etc). Does anyone have any general guidelines for constructing groups of adversaries (including breaking down by minions/rivals/nemeses) and series of encounters (opportunities to heal/recover between encounters)?

Just to be clear, I have the plot and location ideas in my head for these encounters, I'm specifically looking for assistance with difficulty balance. I didn't want to bog down any conversation with specifics, instead looking for general guidelines...

It's hard to talk balance without getting specific. Generally speaking, you never want more target sets than your team can engage in a given round as it will mean they are getting shot at by more things than they can shoot back at. Beyond that the conversation needs to get specific about soak levels, weapon types, wound and strain thresholds, examples of past encounters etc.

I agree with our old pirate, as much minion groups/rivals as much as PCs,

Nemesis and special equipment are out of 'normal' design.

Be careful with heavy weapons or disruptors, go with snare weapons instead. They are good for taking a group down independent of their armour/soak.

Yeah, getting "balance" in your encounters in this system is more art then science. Better to design the encounter with generated narrative effects in mind over some kind of numeric balance.

Examples:

A quick simple shootout with some thugs over a spice deal.

Effect: Communicate through action that there's something wrong with the spice smuggling chain.

Encounter: 4-6 ungrouped minions.

Special points: remote unprepared location

Result: a simple encounter even lower xp characters should be able to cut through.

In walks general bbeg.

Effect: introduce a major commmander type advesary.

Encounter: One Nemesis with the Imperial Valor talent, 4-6 minion pairs of stormtroopers.Use 3 threat, 1 despair, or a triumph to bring in more troopers.

Special points: an arrival point within engaged range of the bbeg.

Result: more moderate difficulty, but shouldn't kill lower xp players unless they try and fight it out to the bitter end.

Players are stupid

Effect: the players are murder hobos expecting to kill everything all the time. Fix this.

Encounter: 4 minion groups of 4 cops. Spend two threat/advantage to bring in more. Spend 1 triumph despair/despair to bring in a pair of rivals.

Result: hard encounter that can wear down any pc.

Special ambush

Effect: they know you're coming.

Encounter: 2-3 rival stealthy commandos for each pc.

Special: the commandos have prepared the site, so use threat/despair to actvate mines and such. Have the commandos fight wisely.

Result: combat specced high pcs should have only moderate trouble, lower can get spanked.

That help any?

I tend to soften my players before unloading a nemesis on them when tension is high.

OK, fair comments throughout.

General ranged combat capabilities of the party:

Commando - Heavy Blaster Rifle, rolls 3Y 2G ; upgraded Vibroknife, Soak 5

Pilot - Blaster Rifle or Sniper Blaster Rifle, rolls 2Y 2G ; Heavy Blaster Pistol, rolls 1Y 3G , Soak 3

Spy - Blaster pistol, rolls 2Y , Soak 3

Tech/Slicer - Blaster Pistol, rolls 1Y 1G , Soak 3

The general flow is:

Small rebel team (AoR PCs) plus an NPC Jedi Exile

are hunting for an old Clone Wars era ship. They head to an uninhabited system but are jumped by a superior force of Pirates:

- Encounter 1: Starship Combat, PC light freighter vs Pirate Starfighters & Freighters. Run as a chase, intended outcome is to force PC ship down on planet.

The planet below is ice-bound and the PCs have a short time to escape the (crashed?) ship and make their way towards the lost ship. A few skill checks to deal with the icy conditions (coordination, survival, etc) as they make their way through canyons in the target area. Above, pirate ships scour the area looking for them.

- Encounter 2: As the PCs try to traverse a tricky path/cliff climb/ice traverse, they are accosted by a group of Pirates.

Location/Environment: Cliff face, slippy conditions, wind, snow(?). Pirates have better cover but must move to follow PCs

Intended outcome: PCs defeat Pirates with minor wounds or PCs escape along the path out of combat leaving Pirates behind.

Potential other outcomes: PC party is split or suffers avalanche/slide, breaking out of the combat encounter but inflicting a number of wounds and/or strain as they land in the snow below.

PCs approach cave entrance at the base of a cliff; most of the entrance is covered by a rock/ice/snowfall but there is a small opening.

- Encounter 3: A larger Pirate group approaches from behind, cued in by previous encounter or a recon ship overhead

Intended outcome: PCs are forced into cave through opening under heavy fire, close up opening behind them.

Potential other outcomes: PCs are defeated and captured, Pirates take them into the cavern with them to investigate.

Inside the cavern they find a Clone Wars era Consular Cruiser/Republic Frigate. There are signs of a struggle around and inside the ship. As they investigate, the PCs are jumped by a number of wild creatures (Wampas - if you hadn't guessed yet, yes, this is Hoth)

- Encounter 4: Attacked by a party of Wampas. First couple at close range aboard the ship where the Wampas have made a nest, additional ones are deeper in the cave and come to investigate noise when combat starts.

Intended outcome: Defeat Wampas/drive them off

Potential other outcomes: Wampas defeat PCs, drive them back/capture and take for snack time - in which case, they are rescued by the Pirates who break through the icefall and take the ship for themselves. Or Pirates break through icefall while PCs are still fighting the Wampas, causing a 3-way fight to occur.

Alternative: If the PCs are captured during Encounter 3, Wampas will attack pirates when they investigate the cruiser, providing PCs opportunity to escape.

PCs must secure the ship from the Wampas and get it up and running (not easy, given that it has been there for the last 20 years). During this process, might need to take on a few Pirates who make it past the icefall. Take off, blast through the icefall and head for orbit, possible fight their way out past pirates (but now significantly out-gun them).

Sounds like you are largely on track.

- Encounter 1: Starship Combat, PC light freighter vs Pirate Starfighters & Freighters. Run as a chase, intended outcome is to force PC ship down on planet.

OK, always, always, always, build space encounters to the players ship first. Then to the players. For this I'd make it something like two ungrouped minion z-95s and a single minion firespray. Put a corvette/carrier at long range, an introduce 2 z-95s per turn until the players run. For extra pad equip the craft with ion cannons and have em switch to ion once the players ship is weakened. Strain is easy to fix, hull trauma, not so much.

- Encounter 2: As the PCs try to traverse a tricky path/cliff climb/ice traverse, they are accosted by a group of Pirates.

Location/Environment: Cliff face, slippy conditions, wind, snow(?). Pirates have better cover but must move to follow PCs

Intended outcome: PCs defeat Pirates with minor wounds or PCs escape along the path out of combat leaving Pirates behind.

Potential other outcomes: PC party is split or suffers avalanche/slide, breaking out of the combat encounter but inflicting a number of wounds and/or strain as they land in the snow below.

I'd keep this one easy. A handful of minion pairs at mediumish range, and a rivalaat long range at the top of the cliff shooting down. The commando should be able to chop em up when switches to full auto. If the pirates get to half strength or below, have em run. They are pirates, not religious zealots, they aren't paid enough to die.

- Encounter 3: A larger Pirate group approaches from behind, cued in by previous encounter or a recon ship overhead

Intended outcome: PCs are forced into cave through opening under heavy fire, close up opening behind them.

Potential other outcomes: PCs are defeated and captured, Pirates take them into the cavern with them to investigate.

OK, this is a pusher, so you need to outgun the players without murdering them. Try something like a handful of rivals with rifles supported by ungrouped minions in a landspeeder with an autoblaster fired on full auto. Bring in some environmental effects for good measure. The rivals should land a couple hits and make it clear its dangerous, the minions should have trouble hitting the broad side of a star destroyer, but the threat of a hit (which would be devastating, don't be afraid to remind the players of this when the encounter starts) should force the players into the cave. Then use a failed threat gunner check to collapse the cave.

- Encounter 4: Attacked by a party of Wampas. First couple at close range aboard the ship where the Wampas have made a nest, additional ones are deeper in the cave and come to investigate noise when combat starts.

Dont overdo this one. As a melee encounter after a nasty shootout this could go horribly wrong. Remember, your commandos heavy rifle will be neutered here, so one or two wampas will probably be enough.

I can say that one of the Episodes we're planning to do for January will focus on NPC creation. I have to think that we will be discussing attempts at balancing it for the party too.

Also, if I may...

Order 66: Episode 7 - The List Strikes Back

One of Order 66's solid episodes on encounter design, but geared more toward making the encounter more alive and vibrant, and less of a "pcs vs npcs in a featureless room/raw stats vs. stats" scenario.

I found this Nemesis

http://www.mediafire.com/view/5v57d5u115bfn5d/Sissk.pdf

To provide the perfectly balanced adversary for my PC's last session, I have 7 PC's but 3 went up against him and ran, and then the other 4 went up against him... they managed to do 1 wound and several crits to him (and the droid doctor pressure pointed him once). I expect that your PCs will have more xp than mine so he should probably be good for your too (Heroic Resilience + a destiny point brings him up to a soak of 10). Your PCs are going to have to be a little careful about the sidewinder, my PC's could take one hit and go down on the second. And so after the first 3 learned that the rest were trying to figure out how to deprive Sissk of his weapon (a triumph and a repair patch [which auto screwed itself in] over the trigger did nicely)

Regarding the rest of that session... I was shooting for a predator (an old Arnold Schwarzenegger movie) style adventure with a group of trandoshans (minions and rivals), lead by Sissk, hunting a named wilderness ninja gand (I can post his PDF) because he had a data chip that EVERYONE from black sun, to multiple hutts, to the pyke syndicate, to ISB, to CorSec, to... wanted and the "high level" gand NPC played the roll of the predator and was picking off the trandoshans... and the PCs, we're a side group (so they wouldn't take the brunt of the gand or Sissk) who wanted the chip too, the PCS ended up buying the chip from the gand for 100,000 credits (expense account for the Hutt they were working for) and a ride to iziz (the only city on the jungle planet of onderon), the gand was afraid to kill the party because one of the PCs, Thad Bane, is the nephew of Cad Bane and... the gand knew that killing cad band's nephew would sentence himself to a very unpleasant death... Thad Bane is recognized by reputation by sight as the Duros bounty hunter who wears a Kamperdine tailored armored jacket (his reputation plus jacket plus uncle often works as a "circle of protection" against high powered scum and villainy... the trandoshans didn't care so we're a real threat)

Sounds like you've got a pretty good idea of what you want to happen already. Ghostofman's advice is solid, I'll only add acouple of details to that.

First of all, here is a glorious collection of enviromental effects I just came across on another thread. The "Asteroid Field", "Starship Crash", "Arctic Snowfield", and "Frozen Ice Cave" are particularly relevant to your storyline. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-n7ekVbbfnRcE9HUE14LWczaVk/edit?pli=1

Secondly, since you're running a survival-style scenario, you always want to keep the party on the run. The pirates should have cold weather gear as well as speeders for transportation, and should keep the PCs at a distance until they move in to capture them. Even when they're repairing the ship, it should be a race against time (maybe more pirates are on their way, or have already begun a bombardment).

You might also want to think of some reason for the pirates to be so persistent in chasing the PCs (if you haven't already), as Ghostofman said, they're not fanatics, they'd need a pretty good reason just to go down to the surface of such a dangerous planet at all, or at least to chase the PCs after scavenging the wreck of their ship (make sure your PCs aren't too attached to their ship, too). Perhaps they're here salvaging the cruiser, and that's how the PCs find it in the first place (pick up signals from expedition camp, or interrogate prisoner from a skirmish).

Once they're in the cave it becomes a horror movie. "What was that?" "Here's Pirate Jim's radio, but where is he?" etc. Don't be surprised if they figure it out pretty quick, but that's okay, they should still be at a loss for how they'll deal with multiple wampas (play up how nervous the pirates are if they're not). And if they get cocky...

An important thing to remember is that the only thing here that would fight to the death is a cornered Wampa

unless the PCs have a reputation for torturing or murdering prisoners anyway. Establishing this in any campaign is important, and doubly so when the environment itself is an enemy. Unless either your PCs or the pirates are total murderhobos (and I don't recommend creating murderhobo NPCs in Star Wars) they should be willing to cooperate against the environment and especially the Wampas if things get bad enough (especially if one or two pirates get isolated or captured). How long they'll do so is a different matter, but this kind of situation could lead to some really good roleplay.

One idea is optional encounters. If the PCs dominated your villians, add in some extra ancounters to wear down their health. If they struggle through, then take out those encounters so the players don't die after one bad roll.

Another thing is destiny points. If you can use destiny points in more narrative ways, it can balance things out. For example, say the players have crashed on an uncharted swamp planet and are under attack by a bounty hunter. If they are doing a little too well, spend a dark side destiny point or two and have a dianoga come out of a swamp near the players. Of course, now the players have light side destiny points to allow them to regain the advantage and win. On the flip sode, if players are losing, offer them an opportunity to spend destiny points and have a dianoga come out of a swamp near the bounty hunter and swallow him whole. Either way, it turned a too easy or too hard encounter into something more interesting that the players can remember.

I've always found the ultimate trump card to combat monsters is heavy weapons. If the PCs are stuck in one place fighting for a while, have some minions bring out the big guns. Missile Launchers, Heavy Repeating Blasters, Armored Vehicles, Bombers... The list is endless. A single group of minions isn't a threat, but give that group of minions a Light Laser Cannon and that combat monster is going down in one shot -- once they set it up, that is.

I don’t think there are any hard and fast mechanics for balancing an encounter, nor is it a requirement.

You can throw an encounter together that the players are not going to beat. On purpose or accidentally. The players always have the option to flee or fight, quite a good portion of the movies and TV series are spent with the main characters actually running from the fights.

A chase can be as exciting as a fight, and as the GM you can help the players. “Are you sure you want to fight those 4 Storm Troopers? As you walked into the room one did put his hand to his ear, perhaps he radioed for reinforcements? Triumph and Despair even Threat and Advantages can always be used to add some more minions to an encounter.

Not every encounter has to be balanced, you don’t have to bring your party to their threshold every fight. In as much as you can plan for them to run away, sometimes the encounter can be easy, a hand wave from the Jedi and it is done.

Now here is the truly great feature of the combat system: You design an encounter expecting the players to flee. You gave them a hint but they stand and fight. Well, unless you roll a critical on them and kill them as a result they will all wake up hours later, in a cell or tied up or in yet another form of danger from which they can escape.

How many times did George Lucas have the main characters captured only to have them saved, even if it took half an army of Jedi?

Keep in mind that the same applies to the Rival and Nemesis NPCs you create. Unless the players shoot the NPC and get a critical that results in death, then they can always come back and seek revenge. Darth Maul most certainly took this to the point of ridiculousness, but Darth Vader and Darth Insidious both benefit for coming back from near death.

As such the idea is, that it doesn’t matter. If you get it wrong with a little bit of thought and effort you can make the story even better.

Hey all,

Sorry, been a busy few weeks so I've not been back to check up on the thread. Thanks for the pointers and advice, and especially for the ESP pdf, Joker Two.

In terms of motivations, I've reached back into the history of the campaign so far and grabbed a piracy/smuggling/organised crime ring that the players ran across on Onderon during the Operation Shadowpoint arc. Since they'll need access to an Archive (like, say, the one in Iziz they broke into last time they were there) to find out information on the Cruiser, they'll encounter several gang members. From there it's a hop, skip and a hyperspace jump to have the same gang check the access records of the archive and figure out what the PCs are after, and give chase/follow them/know a shortcut to beat them to Hoth. Once the PC ship is forced down on the planet's surface, the pirates pursue as they only know the general location of the Cruiser, and assume the PCs know the details.

Interesting point about the pirates + PCs working together if circumstances force it, I'll keep my eyes open for opportunities.