So, after another anime-fueled campaign brainstorm, I came up with the idea of giving some Nemesis level NPCs a signature ability. Has any other GM tried this?

I was thinking about Last Man Standing. It could be pretty useful if, say, the PCs are leading a squadron of Rebels, and they come across an NPC who utterly demolishes the PCs squadron, then says, "right, let's get down to it." I think this would be a fun narrative device, and also let people know that this NPC is not to be taken lightly.

An NPC could also used Unmatched Protection to take an insane amount of damage from the PCs and still keep going. I think this would be another great narrative device, especially if the main enemy was someone who just seemed to take all the damage the PCs could throw at her and still keep coming.

Has anyone tried this, or do you think it would make the NPCs overpowered?

I think the NPCs have enough weapons behind them that they don't need signature abilities.

With squad rules and mass combat rules and throwing a lot of minions/rivals they can accomplish the same thing without having to take a PC kind of thing to get that kind of talent for an NPC.

However, I don't think there's anything fundamentally wrong with it. It should just be used sparingly. As you said, it could make them quite memorable as a BBEG.

NPCs with signature abilities could definitely have their place, but it would have to be applied judiciously.

The only SA that I have considered giving my NPCs thus far is "This one is Mine" but I can handle that narratively so it's not a necessity.

The only SA that I have considered giving my NPCs thus far is "This one is Mine" but I can handle that narratively so it's not a necessity.

Kaosoe stated the core of my answer. NPCs don't really need Signature Abilities. When you look closely, most S.A.'s grant player characters a limited access to the type of narrative control that the GM already has in the game. It's one of the ways that FFG makes the players co-authors of the GM's story.

Let's say your players have an objective, and you want the NPC to get there first. You can simply design the scene so that whenever they arrive, the rival is already there. This is a little bit canned, but it works.

If you want to make it more sporting, don't make it an opposed roll. Just assign a difficulty, and if it's opposed, make sure the difficulty includes Challenge and Setback dice. (Challenge to reflect active opposition, and Setbacks to give players an opportunity to use Talents to remove them)

my thought is if the PCs have it, I'll give a nemesis access to it too.

id also give it to the bbeg at the start of a campaign.make him big and scary for the group. but that would be it for that early.

The only SA that I have considered giving my NPCs thus far is "This one is Mine" but I can handle that narratively so it's not a necessity.

Kaosoe stated the core of my answer. NPCs don't really need Signature Abilities. When you look closely, most S.A.'s grant player characters a limited access to the type of narrative control that the GM already has in the game. It's one of the ways that FFG makes the players co-authors of the GM's story.

Let's say your players have an objective, and you want the NPC to get there first. You can simply design the scene so that whenever they arrive, the rival is already there. This is a little bit canned, but it works.

If you want to make it more sporting, don't make it an opposed roll. Just assign a difficulty, and if it's opposed, make sure the difficulty includes Challenge and Setback dice. (Challenge to reflect active opposition, and Setbacks to give players an opportunity to use Talents to remove them)

Some abilities, however, are not narrative, but instead allow for limited breaks from the basic rules, like Unmatched Mobility. This is the kind of thing that could be given to a powerful "hunter" type BBEG and give him something unique for players to go "oh yeah, that guy, **** him." For others like Insightful Revelation, it could be interesting as a Mentor or other PC's side character to give them a way to aid the players they could request or prompt, without making it limitless or completely fiat GM.

My thought is if the PCs have it, I'll give a nemesis access to it too.

Sounds like GM vs Players.

When I am teaching someone to fence when we are free fencing I'll make them work hard but give them hits without being too obvious about it. And if we start scoring my goal will be to lose but buy a narrow margine. As the GM you are trying to keep a similar ballance IMHO, you aren't specifically out to get them but neither are you trying to make the game dull and lifeless to them.

It is also worth noting that the BBEG at the start of a campaign will probably be revealed as a small fry evil guy at some point, and then you will reveal a bigger fish, and later you will reveal yet a bigger fish and so on. As such there you want to ballance the longevity of the evil guys, they have a narrative purpose and for as long as they fill that purpose they live.

If you want a memorable game, make it memorable. Make the BBEG big and evil. Darth Varder wasn't awesome 'cause he had a sword fight with Luke, he was awesome as a BBEG 'cause he choked people, had minion groups to do his dirty work and if they weren't building his death star fast enough would threaten them with being replaced, a threat which we know wasn't idle, he was a law unto himself.

Perhaps say a pirate as a BBEG for early on, perhaps they come upon a child slave who has been removed from her mother by him. Now for a week or two they home in on him, and eventually attack a base, where they capture a lieutenant. He gives away a second base, following up on that they actually counter an Imperial Bioweapons Research Facilty and have to save some "experiment subjects" one of the subjects puts the pirates on an Imperial Star Destroyer and the players have to infiltrate and release the mother and some other prisioners and kill the pirate captain. Then escape....

Where upon they learn of a bigger fish, the captain of the Star Detroyer has gone rouge and is going beyond the scope of his orders and causing great evil on his civilian populations in his control.

If you pull it off the Pirate Captain will feel like a great win for the players. Not because he had some talent or skill, but because the players had to move heaven and earth to get him and when they did they righted wrongs and became heroes to that little girl and her mother.

In my opinion, NPC are built our of the common rules, just based on the need or demand.

If do you need that your lethal Bounty Hunter have Deadly Shot, just pick it up. Does your thied need some Master of Shadows? Just take it!

NPC's are/use to be temporal characters with precise functions. They don't use to have an active role on every aspect of a game session. Pick the stats and Wounds/Strain that you need.

Just consider that they have to match (or not) PC's skills and challenges, so feel free to build them up as you wish

Also, even if NPC's are "GM's PCs" or long therm PC's assistants, still use the NPC's rules. Would be easier and if do you consider that they have to increase their "level" after a few sessions, again, just do it

I manage about 110 more o less important NPC's in my game that I started on 1.999, so, not saying that this is the right choice but... it works fine for me

Name Role Origin/Actually Skills Combat - Wounds/Tension/Soak/Adversary Height/Weight/Age/FR

(With "Guard" Balmorra/Byss 2 1 Vigilance 2 1 Ranged (Light) - 14/12/3/1 1,7 / 75kg / 31 / 0

picture

link)

This is a sample about how I design NPC's and write them. Usually I put 2 skills but I used the short versions due to post size.

PS: There is any easy way to post pictures easily on the forum without external pages?

I'd say no to NPCs having access to the Signature Abilities.

The Signature Abilities are there so the PCs can do things in both a mechanical and narrative sense that other folks simply can't hope to achieve. They're the sort of thing that when the main hero in an action-orientated movie does it results in a really cool scene that makes the hero look that much cooler, such as Bruce Lee tearing through a gang of mooks (Last One Standing).

Giving your adversaries (who aren't restrained by talent trees) access to Signature Abilities starts to cheapen the impact of those abilities for the PCs. And besides, NPCs can already have access to a number of Special Abilities that the PCs have no chance of ever obtaining or being able to pick up some pretty boss talents without having to navigate through a talent tree.

Maybe instead of special signature abilities, you can look at giving really unexpected characteristics or skills in a more thematic way. A big lumbering NPC who, at a moment of your choosing, attacks in a startlingly quick way. Or one I like, a smaller or weaker-looking character who turns out to be extraordinarily strong. I think this will be especially familiar if you're into anime. Little girl is actually a cyborg assassin. What?!

These depend on narrative technique to lend thematic weight to what are essentially just a sneaky twist on basic stats. As a GM, you can just choose not to play the NPC that way until the right moment. If you want to get JRPG about it, you can try to set up behavior patterns that indicate a setup for one of these actions, but it might be too easy to get bogged down in that. Flexibility will still win the day for fun.