I am a veteran roleplayer currently in a campaign and have three questions about EotE:

1) For a few weeks we have been trying to kill 3 specific "nemesis" characters, who seem to run away a lot frankly. In this game I am playing a wookie Hired Gun/Marauder. Through my travels I have acquired various upgrades for my vibro-ax and mainly put my xp into my talent tree in order to obtain the stat profile on my attacks of: Damage (Brawn 5)+3, Pierce 4, sunder, vicious 5 on my vibro ax. In addition I have the "Lethal Blows + 20" Talent. Basically when I crit I am already on +70 which is what I have been basing my character around. So far as the only melee character in an 8 player group its been very painful, i have been through tons of pain and the crit chart has screwed me over hard several times and i didnt complain.

The problem is, that the other way around when I want to crit nemesis characters I have been told for weeks now that in the rulebook it says "Nemesis enemies cant be crit". In a crit based build (which i stumbled into by the way and was in no way planned), it is very problematic, and disappointing to roll a total of over 190 on the crit chart and be told that you cant have that effect. I didnt argue this because if it says it in the rules why would you. However, I borrowed the rulebook and as far as I can see nowhere does it say that that is the case.

IN FACT it states that rivals suffer critical injuries normally and nemesis enemies are:

"identical to PCs in virtually every respect and may in fact be more powerful; this is necessary to ensure that they are able to pose a threat to an entire party. Nemeses possess a number of talents, high characteristics, and skills, and their equipment can often rival that of even the most well supplied parties. NEMESIS SUFFER STRAIN AND WOUNDS NORMALLY and DO NOT HAVE ANY special rules governing their operations."

So as far as I can see I can crit him normally, same as with rivals. Additionally on other forums I have googled for information I found that they agree you can do this, but I thought it better to ask than assume, so im asking.

2) Can you double Aim? The way it reads I and most of the party think you can and the gm seems to be unsure.

(Just a quick side note, weve been doing the stimpacks and medpacks incorrectly too it would seem, as stimpacks, can as i said be used as a maneuver not an action (made healing very hard vs. nemesis characters when this is all combined with the hard to kill non crit taking effects that are being used so far)

3) Medpacks are reusable yes? You don't need to buy one per heal because that seems beyond ridiculous but is what weve been doing so far.

If it seems a bit rantish im sorry, and the gm is a good personal friend of mine, but often gets rules wrong in other games i feel, and rather than slow the group down rulebook arguing i let it go until I could ask others who may know better,

Thankyou in advance. Any and all assistance is appreciated. The Don.

1. Yes you can crit.

2. Yes you can double Aim.

3. No, you don't keep buying medpacs, it's a first aid kit, so a reasonable fee over time to restock is fine, but not every use.

1. As written, Nemesis characters are basically just like PCs in all regards to how they give or take stun, wounds, and critical hits. They can have all the same Talents that PCs can have that make it easier to dish them out, or easier to withstand the assault. But if the GM is doing his job properly, those Nemesis NPCs should be very slippery and always manage to find a way to escape at the last moment. Or, almost always.

2. As written, the rules allow double-aim, no problem. Aiming doesn’t last from one round to the next, and you can’t typically get more than two maneuvers per round, so double-aim is really about as far as you can expect to take that.

3. Stimpacks are one per use, but not medpacks. Medpacks can “run out” if you wind up with enough net Threat on your Medicine roll, but otherwise that shouldn’t be a problem. Medpacks are limited in terms of how many “free” stimpack applications they can give you, which I think is on a per-encounter or per-session basis.

All of the above is assuming Rules As Written. Of course, your GM may choose to do things differently, so YMMV.

Your GM was either mistaken, or didn't appreciate his Big Bad being one-shotted due to a crit roll.

When you tell your GM that PCs can crit a Nemesis, perhaps tell them that the most badass Nemesis can also have multiple ranks of the Durable talent. That way you can still use your crits, but the good Nemesis can mitigate the severity some.

Your GM was either mistaken, or didn't appreciate his Big Bad being one-shotted due to a crit roll.

When you tell your GM that PCs can crit a Nemesis, perhaps tell them that the most badass Nemesis can also have multiple ranks of the Durable talent. That way you can still use your crits, but the good Nemesis can mitigate the severity some.

And of course the nemesis should have a rank or two of ... that A Talent for NPCS that I suddenly can't remember the name of that upgrades difficulties against them. Antagonist? Darn it...

Adversary? I think that was it.

Best solution in my mind is to jot those three points down on a slip of paper (helps dodge rants and stay on track) and grab your GM before or after the next session. Explain you looked those things up and are wondering if the table has house rules that weren't officially laid out. If so, ask for the house rules to get written down somewhere official.

Also, if the GM insists on Rivals and Nemesis not taking crits to protect his people, then I'd politely explain that ruling makes Lethal Blows and Vicious irrelevant, since only Minions can suffer crits and die instantly. If he still wants to stand by that rule, then lastly, I'd ask to rebuild my character around something other than critical hits, since any bonuses to those are wasted xp, and you weren't aware of the house rules at the time.

Just keep things polite and not confrontational.

Adversary? I think that was it.

Yep, that's correct.

Also, is your GM stuck in the mindset that his BBEG/major enemies must all be fighters? I would structure things so that you have plenty of underlings to destroy, but the Boss-man/woman is elusive, resourceful and tough to actually get to.

The adversary can also have a couple of body garuds with the bodygarud talent to help protect his from your attack. There are also the squad rules which would allow damage to be done to a minion rather than the BBEG. All of that with with a coupple of setbacks for x reasons and it should be difficult to one shot the bbeg

Yeah, tell your GM that he might want to hop on the forums and get help with methods to make nemesis more survivable. It's entirely possible he's making the mistake plenty of others have before him have made and assumes that Nemesis=Hard to kill.

Nemesis can be made tough to kill, but merely applying the Nemesis quality to a character isn't enough.

Appreciate all the responses and thankyou for the feedback. I think hes just getting the rules wrong, although I could understand if some narrative element was used to say he ran away bleeding etc, but they have (without using foul language) severely, and royally (due to the fact they hit me with 7 soak for 14/15 damage sometimes with crits never mind the party) slaughtered a ton of people because of the healing being an action for stimpacks, medpacks being 1 use and non crit rules combined together I feel.

I also agree about the rebuild if he insists on having that non crit rule stand for some reason. Its a character i picked for my love of wookies and hadn't played melee in EotE before, and if I cant have my invested time, credits and xp do anything useful it feels pretty awful to just be getting smashed in the face repeatedly until dying without doing much back in return. Anyway, thank you for the help, I will approach the GM before the next session. If anyone wants to do an EotE online group i would be interested in meeting you and participating.

Thanks, The Don.

Appreciate all the responses and thankyou for the feedback. I think hes just getting the rules wrong, although I could understand if some narrative element was used to say he ran away bleeding etc, but they have (without using foul language) severely, and royally (due to the fact they hit me with 7 soak for 14/15 damage sometimes with crits never mind the party) slaughtered a ton of people because of the healing being an action for stimpacks, medpacks being 1 use and non crit rules combined together I feel.

I also agree about the rebuild if he insists on having that non crit rule stand for some reason. Its a character i picked for my love of wookies and hadn't played melee in EotE before, and if I cant have my invested time, credits and xp do anything useful it feels pretty awful to just be getting smashed in the face repeatedly until dying without doing much back in return. Anyway, thank you for the help, I will approach the GM before the next session. If anyone wants to do an EotE online group i would be interested in meeting you and participating.

Thanks, The Don.

Actually I believe using a stim-pack is a maneuver.

Appreciate all the responses and thankyou for the feedback. I think hes just getting the rules wrong, although I could understand if some narrative element was used to say he ran away bleeding etc, but they have (without using foul language) severely, and royally (due to the fact they hit me with 7 soak for 14/15 damage sometimes with crits never mind the party) slaughtered a ton of people because of the healing being an action for stimpacks, medpacks being 1 use and non crit rules combined together I feel.

I also agree about the rebuild if he insists on having that non crit rule stand for some reason. Its a character i picked for my love of wookies and hadn't played melee in EotE before, and if I cant have my invested time, credits and xp do anything useful it feels pretty awful to just be getting smashed in the face repeatedly until dying without doing much back in return. Anyway, thank you for the help, I will approach the GM before the next session. If anyone wants to do an EotE online group i would be interested in meeting you and participating.

Thanks, The Don.

Actually I believe using a stim-pack is a maneuver.

I agree with you, thats what I thought from my previous epxerience of playing it, and it turns out it is. For clarification, I meant that the GM was making us use them as actions and that made healing almost worthless when we get hit higher than that amount regularly.

I agree with you, thats what I thought from my previous epxerience of playing it, and it turns out it is. For clarification, I meant that the GM was making us use them as actions and that made healing almost worthless when we get hit higher than that amount regularly.

Ah, sorry. I missed you saying that.

Best solution in my mind is to jot those three points down on a slip of paper (helps dodge rants and stay on track) and grab your GM before or after the next session. Explain you looked those things up and are wondering if the table has house rules that weren't officially laid out. If so, ask for the house rules to get written down somewhere official.

Also, if the GM insists on Rivals and Nemesis not taking crits to protect his people, then I'd politely explain that ruling makes Lethal Blows and Vicious irrelevant, since only Minions can suffer crits and die instantly. If he still wants to stand by that rule, then lastly, I'd ask to rebuild my character around something other than critical hits, since any bonuses to those are wasted xp, and you weren't aware of the house rules at the time.

Just keep things polite and not confrontational.

Agree with this one hundred percent. Great advice MuttonchopMac!

Any GM who refuses to let Nemesis characters take Critical Hits is missing out on a fun aspect of this game's fighting, not to mention a strategic one!

If you can land a "Hamstrung" Crit on a melee fighter and then kite them, that's an excellent strategy that wouldn't exist if you couldn't even use Crits on them at all.

It's also just fun to have something like a sniper shoot a guy in the leg and his leg explodes and falls off his body! Reminds me of Fallout 3

It's also just fun to have something like a sniper shoot a guy in the leg and his leg explodes and falls off his body! Reminds me of Fallout 3

Are we playing Edge of the Empire or Warhammer 40K? The latter has more frightening critical tables... Acrobatics tests to not fall down in the wash of gore or part of a crazy leg crit, I believe...

I also agree about the rebuild if he insists on having that non crit rule stand for some reason. Its a character i picked for my love of wookies and hadn't played melee in EotE before, and if I cant have my invested time, credits and xp do anything useful it feels pretty awful to just be getting smashed in the face repeatedly until dying without doing much back in return.

So, I love Wookiees too, and I played a Hired Gun/Marauder/Heavy with a serious focus on melee, and was able to do a lot of critical hit damage. But the thing is that we didn’t do all that much melee. Which is part of why I got a chance to branch out into various other specs.

Most of the real combat damage in the group was done by other people firing ranged weapons with auto-fire, especially the Klatooinian Heavy with his heavily modified LRB — I was just the big mean looking guy standing in the middle while everyone else did most of the killing.

IMO, your problem is not just the crits. Your problem is that the GM has house ruled a whole bunch of stuff that dramatically changes the fundamental nature of the game, and crits are just one aspect of that.

My books are not in front of me so I may be wrong. You need to reread the section on maneuvers specifically the aim maneuver. If my recollection serves you may only aim once per turn, and may only benefit from two aim maneuvers. Also aim is lost if you move. So as an example if you swing at enemy A who is engaged with you it is possible to aim after you swing to line it up for the next round. When your next turn comes up if enemy A is still standing and is still engaged you may take a second aim maneuver and take your swing adding two boost (blue) dice to your attack roll.

My books are not in front of me so I may be wrong. You need to reread the section on maneuvers specifically the aim maneuver. If my recollection serves you may only aim once per turn, and may only benefit from two aim maneuvers. Also aim is lost if you move. So as an example if you swing at enemy A who is engaged with you it is possible to aim after you swing to line it up for the next round. When your next turn comes up if enemy A is still standing and is still engaged you may take a second aim maneuver and take your swing adding two boost (blue) dice to your attack roll.

The text in the book says that you can "spend two consecutive maneuvers aiming". It does not state that they have to be done in separate turns. Thus, a character can perform two Aim maneuvers, suffer two strain, and then perform an Attack action in the same turn with two boost dice.

Since the Aim maneuver "grants a bonus to the next combat check" as long as they remain in their current position, perform no other actions or maneuvers, or take any damage a character may also do something like take the last PC initiative slot in a turn, perform two Aim maneuvers (exchanging an action for an extra maneuver to incur no strain), and then take the first PC initiative slot in the next turn (say, before any NPCs act) to perform an Attack action with the benefit of two boost dice and they'd still have a free maneuver to use for something like taking cover, closing a door, etc.

The flexible initiative system in this game lets you do some really interesting combinations when the players get crafty.