Hello

I recently started a game using FaD beta and EotE.

While thinking about how to have special battles involving inquisitors with lightsabers, i had a couple ideas.

I don't know if they are viable or might cause problems so im asking for your help.

First, the basics: my campaign will involve a few rare times where inquisitors are involved. I want those moments to be special and interesting, and i read on the forums that lightsaber duels often end in a single hit. I absolutely dont want that. I want long-winded duels and fights that go on different stages and locations before someone dies or flees.

Here's my idea:

Before this special battle, as the inquisitor shows up, all destiny points are turned to the dark side. (Yeah, he's that awesome). Also, the GM cannot use those destiny points.

Characters cannot deal significant damage to the inquisitor while the dark side holds. No wounds can be applied, no criticals, no stun damage, enemy cannot be reduced below 1 strain.

Instead, each success the characters score against the boss-inquisitor, only counting those made using lightsabers or heavy ordnance (or clever ideas) can flip a dark side destiny point to a light side one, with a triumph removing two dark side destiny, and a despair generating a new one. Also, change of scenes should happen every couple "flips".

This point can be used once by players as normal, but are not flipped back to dark, just removed from the current encounter pool.

When all dark side destiny points are converted, then normal combat rules resume and the final blows can be exchanged.

Can something like this work? Any glaring problems you can see? Is this not fun?

I imagine you're taking the

as inspiration for the basic mechanics of the fight? It's important to note though, that in that, you're supposed to keep the Destiny Pool separate from the "Influence" pool.

Your idea isn't necessarily bad, but it's a bit too video game-y for my tastes. Like what is it exactly that's causing this near invulnerability? Is it just an overpowered energy shield, power of the dark side, something?

And I think you may not have a super firm grasp on what an Inquisitor is capable of and how lightsabers work. Lightsabers can definitely hit hard and rack up crits, but damage can be mitigated by both parties by using Parry. Players can only use this a finite amount of times based on their Strain, Inquisitors can keep using it non-stop since it doesn't cost Strain for them. THIS is how you keep battles going for a bit longer, as advantages for players have to be spent more on recovering spent strain so they can continue to Parry while the Inquisitor can use his for criticals and creating easier/harder rolls. And per a common suggestion from the game, Nemesis characters should be allowed to go multiple times in a round if you think it's necessary, which keys into how crazy an Inquisitor can be if you're feeling particularly ruthless:

You could, give the Inquisitor 5 Brawn, a 4 in Lightsaber skill, both Parry and Reflect, Intimidating Presence/Crippling Blow, a Double Bladed Lightsaber, and Armored Robes. The result? 25 Wound Threshold, rolls 4 yellows and 1 green every lightsaber attack, 7 soak (mostly just useful for ranged attacks since Lightsabers have Breach), can force players' strain to rise more quickly and can hit a player twice a turn (or 4 times a round with a second turn each round). And what do players have to deal with when dishing out lightsaber attacks? 2 red, 1 purple, and 1 black difficulty, automatic 2 threat, and the need for all lightsaber attacks to deal at least 8 damage (2 uncancelled successes for a basic, unmodded lightsaber) to land a single point of damage.

This is pretty extreme, granted, but I'm more of just using it to show you that per current rules, Inquisitors have more than enough behind them to be able to take down a group of players, and this is before any personal touches you may decide to add to make it a more suitable challenge for your group.

But basically, adding on a huge invincibility force field before the Inquisitor can even start to be touched is a bit overkill unless you're specifically making one that can't hold up too well on their own in a lightsaber fight. Besides, something ridiculous like that already exists in the game - go look at the Talisman of Iron Fists, gives the wearer the Cortosis quality to their armor, which in a lightsaber battle with Parry 5, can practically make them invincible with an even mediocre Brawn rating. The interesting thing about the talisman is it makes it puts the initial challenge into getting the talisman off first (not entirely unlike your idea) before real damage can be done.

Parry will answer your concerns just as Lathrop suggested. He (she?) also has an excellent point about the Cortosis quality. Just make sure you are fine with your players getting that item if they ever defeat the BBEG.

I too agree with Lathrop. An Inquisitor using the RAW, is extremely tough and does not require any fiddling with the rules to make them a very difficult opponent that can accomplish all that you want. Don't forget that the Inquisitor has force powers, not just a lightsaber. If you want combat to move around just have the Inquisitor use Move to push the player(s) away then the Inquisitor is free to move to a more advantageous position. Give them a good parry/reflect ability and the combat will last a good while and can move to different locations.

Parry is your friend.

Most of these "the players on-shoted my bbeg" stories were from people that didn't get how's the system works and assumed something like just making a character a nemesis level would allow them to solo a party.

Make the inquisitor by the guidelines in the book and staagee any fights carefully and youll find he does just fine.

Yeah, there are already means within the existing rules to make a BBEG be incredibly difficult to take down without having to add or create new rules.

First and foremost, if your baddy is an Inquisitor or Dark Jedi, then a few ranks of Parry will do wonders to lessen the damage output of lightsabers. Even just three ranks of Parry will go a long way, particularly if your 'saber-users don't have access to the high-end crystals or had the chance to seriously modify the default Ilum crystals that each lightsaber comes standard with.

If you have the Age of Rebellion GM Kit, there's also the squad rules, which will enable your baddy to shunt a hit off onto a minion. This is actually a pretty good way to have a major villain show up with plenty of support (think Agent Kallus at the end of Spark of Rebellion with his stormtroopers) but not be too overwhelming of a threat to the PCs, since each major hit they inflict on the BBEG can be directed to a minion in the squad, which still lets their attack count for something while keeping them from doing crippling damage to the villain.

I once had a Specter Class Star Destroyer named the Emperor's Shadow. It was a research ship with a lot of "illegal" and "immoral" things going on. A rebel cell had infiltrated it and one of the slicers had used his AJ^6 to link with the AI that helped run the ship (the AI was based on ancient holocron technology). The Rebel failed the link and corrupted the AI with his own linked brain. The players ended up in the AI core and it was defending itself with a large droid (Think the force unleashed). One player tried to end the encounter immediately by using Move Object to wrench the AI Core from it's housing. As a protective measure, I had included several tractor shields that prevented such an action. The Core not only was an adversary, but had 8 shields (Setback Dice). There were several massive cables that ran power into the Core. Several being 8. They made the connection and started attacking the cables, while fighting the monster/droid. Each cable took off a shield until they were ready to wrench the Core from it's housing again. Before that happened, the PC Slicer found the emaciated Rebel who begged her to kill him. As the PCs are Imperial, she had no problem doing so (which stunned the Monster/Droid) and then linked herself in to combat the AI with a WILLPOWER/COMPUTERS check (Causing strain equal to her Presence+Success) until she beat the corruption and reinitialized the AI Core (now with aspects of her own personality in it).

It was a resounding success and nobody was upset over the crazy +8 setback difficulty due to the shields. It may be a tactic that the OP would like to use.

I like it actually -- he did mention "sometimes" this type of battle occurs. I like it as a boss mechanic. I did mention different types of mechanics that are MMO style raid boss battles to spice up the boss battles. This would easily add to the mechanic. The hard dark side destiny flip is scary but the result is a full light side flip since that is the only way to do full damage output on the boss-- so the trade off -- if won.. Is full light side and a dead bad guy.

I will definitely use this mechanic along side my other raid boss style battles!

I like it actually -- he did mention "sometimes" this type of battle occurs. I like it as a boss mechanic. I did mention different types of mechanics that are MMO style raid boss battles to spice up the boss battles. This would easily add to the mechanic. The hard dark side destiny flip is scary but the result is a full light side flip since that is the only way to do full damage output on the boss-- so the trade off -- if won.. Is full light side and a dead bad guy.

I will definitely use this mechanic along side my other raid boss style battles!

Care to link the mechanics you are using?

I myself i am using different MMO style mechanics for D&D fights, i would like to see yours

It may seem "videogamey" but I also upgrade the armor or main weapon of a story boss (the BBEG) with an extra hard point. Not only does this give me just a little more to work with for the Boss, but it also makes their iconic equipment stick around and feel special to the players. It has gone over well in my games.

I wouldn't use this all the time, and as others has noted, the problem of paper tiger antagonists is not really as endemic in this game as some would lead you to believe, but I think this is a neat system to use with 'boss'-type combats, especially as a system to represent the influence of the dark side. I'd be interested to hear more about how this plays and what your table thinks of it.

I like it actually -- he did mention "sometimes" this type of battle occurs. I like it as a boss mechanic. I did mention different types of mechanics that are MMO style raid boss battles to spice up the boss battles. This would easily add to the mechanic. The hard dark side destiny flip is scary but the result is a full light side flip since that is the only way to do full damage output on the boss-- so the trade off -- if won.. Is full light side and a dead bad guy.

I will definitely use this mechanic along side my other raid boss style battles!

Care to link the mechanics you are using?

I myself i am using different MMO style mechanics for D&D fights, i would like to see yours

Again these raid boss style battles are uses sparingly -- I wouldn't keep doing it because it will be hokey.

Does that help?

My End Boss dark Jedi last weekend stood up to 4 or 5 rounds of abuse, and he only had a soak of 5 (plus 1 defense) and a WT of 20, 3 or 4 levels of parry and Adversary 2, facing down 4 characters at just south of 400 points. That was plenty of time for him to jump around and do cool things (and for the players to jump around and do cool things) and not turn the game into a pointless Yahtzee roll-fest.

Staging is THE most important thing you can do to ensure the longevity of your Bad Guy. I had my players encounter the End Boss a couple at a time. It was a large two-armies-clashing battlefield, a PC and a GMPC went into a building and ran headlong into Bad Guy coming out. They panicked, managed to hold their own (and get some cool moves in) and shouted into the comlink "AHHH! FOUND HIM!"

By the time the first group was worn down (and had gotten some licks in), a 3rd character showed up, got some cool screen time and wore him down just a bit more. And then the marauder showed up and finished the job. Everyone got plenty of Crowning Moments of Awesome, the Bad Guy wasn't too tough, and the fight lasted long enough to be satisfying but not so long to wear out it's welcome.

My favorite was an inquisitor I made specifically for endurance. The players were all +300ish Jedi types. First 3ish went as expected. But after they knocked out the henchmen and went after him in earnest it quickly became a black knight situation. "I'm missing both legs, an arm, my eyes, and I can't take any maneuvers, but I can still fight! HAVE AT YOU COWARDS!!!!"