It's so hard to be able to take more damage. Sure some talents make a few appearances in most trees, but that's it. Soak from armor is in small amounts.

Encounters are as difficult as you make them. And unless you're a rules lawyer, you shouldn't have any trouble adjusting your NPCs wound thresholds and soak mid encounter to make things easier, or adding in more minions to make it harder.

But the only measure of difficulty is minion, rival, nemesis.

It's difficult to get measurably tougher in absorbing damage unless one takes several trees that focus on that (i.e. combat focused trees). Even with infinite wealth, the restrictions on gear make things challenging -- even if you have the gear, though, the increase in soak/defense isn't all that helpful.

As for difficulty of enemies, Ogg's GM tools have some sort of rating system for adversaries, but I have to admit that I haven't the foggiest how it works since I've never used it for that.

There's no official rating, but you can look at dice pools to get a rough idea.

For combat adversaries you'll want to compare dice pools against average ranges. It's probably fair to say that most difficulties will be in the PP range, just like a melee difficulty, so all types of combat can effectively be ranked similarly. There's little a character can do about this, except add Defense to their equipment or upgrade the difficulties through Talents like Dodge. Also, the threat level here is somewhat static across the life of the PCs, at least until the PCs start wearing high-soak armour or have significant ways to upgrade the opponent's difficulty. So:

YGG: low level threat, hits more than misses, but unlikely to crit or trigger weapon qualities. Defense and cover and good Soak will protect against such adversaries.

YYGG: medium level threat, able to punch through defense, or if there is no defense, likely to crit or at least trigger a quality such as Auto-fire.

YYYGG: high level threat, likely to crit, possibly multiple times, trigger qualities, and overall have much more damage output.

A minion group of storm troopers might start out at medium threat and devolve to low.

Obviously there's more to it, but comparing dice pool to PP is a reasonable starting point.

Social adversaries are sometimes more dangerous, but harder to quantify. Not only might they be skilled (something that doesn't come into play in combat), if they have the Adversary Talent they get bonuses on top of their skill. I'd approach this differently: each full die difference is a new rank, while each upgraded die is a half step. If the adversary is less skilled, the PC is the threatening one, with the same scale.

So during a Negotiation, a PC's YGG vs an NPC PP means the PC is a low-level threat. If the NPC is better, 1 die difference = low level threat, 2 dice = medium, 3 dice = high.

Hope that's helpful...

Thanks for the responses - that all seems to make sense.

It's difficult to get measurably tougher in absorbing damage unless one takes several trees that focus on that (i.e. combat focused trees). Even with infinite wealth, the restrictions on gear make things challenging -- even if you have the gear, though, the increase in soak/defense isn't all that helpful.

As for difficulty of enemies, Ogg's GM tools have some sort of rating system for adversaries, but I have to admit that I haven't the foggiest how it works since I've never used it for that.

All the Adversary rating does in Oggdude's program is give an "approximate" amount of XP needed to build an equivalent PC character. NPCs do not have to follow the rules for careers, specializations, talent trees, etc. They can literally have anything you want. Keeping this in mind, his rating does some guess work.

Adversary Talent as raw, "upgrade the difficulty of any combat check targeting this character once per rank."

That means only melee, brawl, range (light/heavy), and gunnery. When your Pc's try to shoot the bad guy with adversary 2, he won't be rolling 2p, it will be 2 reds. Social checks in combat don't count, as per raw. There's another talent for that (hutts).

As for a gauge for your Pc's? How much xp does your party have total? I got guys with 300xp now, tossing 2-3 yellows like they were nothing more than tic tacs.

Thanks. I have quite a new party, and have been browsing some of the more recent supplements, and was wondering if the NPCs and enemies list in those were perhaps more difficult than some of the ones in the core book.

Just consider the Ranks (and Stats) on the main skills for that encounter (Computers, Melee, Charm...) and any linked talents to that task.

For combat encounters also remember Adversary talent and off course if they are Minion, Rival or Nemesis.

I have been wondering too, since I had my players, a group of three who has earned around 100 xp, fight an Emperors hand. One of them is very combat focused, one is competent and the last isn`t combat focused at all.

And this Forceuser Nemesis didn`t really feel that hard from my end and I kind of had to tweak him a little bit. They had even fought 7 scout troopers first, then the nemesis appeared and attacked. Emperor`s Hand sounds kind of badass, so you`d expect him to be. Did I use him wrong?..

It's difficult to get measurably tougher in absorbing damage unless one takes several trees that focus on that (i.e. combat focused trees). Even with infinite wealth, the restrictions on gear make things challenging -- even if you have the gear, though, the increase in soak/defense isn't all that helpful.

As for difficulty of enemies, Ogg's GM tools have some sort of rating system for adversaries, but I have to admit that I haven't the foggiest how it works since I've never used it for that.

All the Adversary rating does in Oggdude's program is give an "approximate" amount of XP needed to build an equivalent PC character. NPCs do not have to follow the rules for careers, specializations, talent trees, etc. They can literally have anything you want. Keeping this in mind, his rating does some guess work.

YES! I have a player in my group that apparently thinks that NPC's follow the same rules as PC's. This is NOT Saga Edition. I threw in some NPCs and he was "like how did they get that talent. That is from a special tree and hard to get. Does he then have these talents too." I was like, no this is a NPC, not a PC, they follow different rules. that didn't set to well with him. I was also "called out" when I gave a Rival Strain Threshold. He stopped the game and was adamant that Rivals can not have Strain Thresholds. I actually stopped to read the book to him and it does indeed say that they do not have Strain, but if the GM wishes, can at times track Strain for them if they want the additional bookkeeping. In Essence making them a lower powered Nemesis. The funny thing is I never mentioned if they were Rivals or Nemesis though.

In short when building a Rival and in particular a Nemesis, you as the GM can do pretty much whatever you want to. You do not have to follow the Specialization tress, you can give them talents that are outside their "career/spec".

For RodianClone, not to be mean, but it seems that when you ran your encounter, you may have done something a little wrong. But three against one, no matter the XP level of the baddie is going to have a tough time. He is getting three attacks a round thrown at him. Not many PC/NPCs could really take that kind of punishment. I don't view an Emperor's Hand engaging in open combat with three proficient PC's. I think they would have some minions around. I would use the alternative rules from the AoR GM screen that allows the Nemesis to use minions as their "buffers/shields". I also never let my players just "stand there and shoot". I try (doesn't always work) to make my combat feel dynamic and fluid. Things change constantly. Cover can get blown away, enemies move around from cover to cover, trying to flank the good guys. They have reinforcements that can come in. That is the nastiness of them Empire, not competent troops, but an overwhelming number of them.

There is nothing I hate more than the "static D20 mini combat" feel. Nor I am not in the school that says rounds last a minute. Yes, rounds can last up to a minute, but it really should be (and is in the books) long enough for a player to move and take an important action. So in firefights, I make my rounds last only a few seconds. And the biggest take away from how rounds work, is that while yes, each player and NPC gets a turn, and they are mechanically used in a sequence, they are really happening at about the same time . So I have had players try to use the move from full cover, shoot, and move back into full cover before the baddie can shoot back. Sorry, no the shots are happening milliseconds apart from each other. "As you pop out of cover, the baddie sees you, you fire off a quick burst of blaster bolt of bada**ness, he quickly returns fire at you, he gets a Setback to his check."

But yes RodianClone, having one Nemesis against three proficient PC's was a mistake in my opinion. Never feel bad about tweaking a badguy. Those stats and cards are there for guidelines. To give you an idea of how they are built. You can also the little know/used rule that Nemesis can have more than one action per turn. Edge GM Kit page 26.

Well, hope you can learn a little from my past experiences, and best of of luck to your future gaming hijinks.

Indeed - in most game systems, many PCs against a solo enemy NPC is going to be a short fight, unless the enemy has some extraordinary abilities. Solo enemies usually need backup and/or location effects such as traps or static defences to balance things out.

There is also a rule that allows Nemesis level NPCs to gain a second action at the end of the round, so that helps. Not sure if that is in the core book, but it is in the GM screen supplement.

Indeed - in most game systems, many PCs against a solo enemy NPC is going to be a short fight, unless the enemy has some extraordinary abilities. Solo enemies usually need backup and/or location effects such as traps or static defences to balance things out.

One thing (maybe *the* one thing) D&D4 did right was giving solo bosses a way to handle a party. Area attacks, extra actions, extra movement, etc all help contribute to the survivability of the BB. A good discussion and some modifications, starting here:

http://angrydm.com/2010/04/the-dd-boss-fight-part-1/

Bosses also had triple or quadruple hit points, but that becomes a grind. Still, if you distill the central ideas it can give you good fodder for creating your own adversary. Area attacks can come from equipment or environmental conditions, remote minions (watching through a camera and firing remotely). I'm not really a fan of extra actions or movement because it puts the NPC on a completely different level than the PCs. However, when players cause some local destruction, use threats and despair to make nearby equipment malfunction and produce deadly arcs that fire off randomly. These things can effectively do the same as extra actions and extra movement, without giving the player the sense that the NPC has access to special rules to ensure survivability that the PCs will never have access to.

Indeed. Some D&D 5 monsters have "lair actions" - that is, their environment helps them out - perhaps they can cause lava to erupt or icicles to fall or something. That kind of thing can be easily translated into any game system, such as this one. So perhaps a target painter labels a PC to be hit by automated defences, or the enemy NPC can cause poison gas to be emitted when the PCs enter a certain area.

I think it has be set up so not to feel contrived, though.

I think it has be set up so not to feel contrived, though.

Yes. Just thought of this and I'm going to try it next time there's a major adversary: borrow threat. This would go beyond the use of threat/advantage in most scenarios. When the PCs generate some threat, use a bit of it to impose Strain or whatever standard effects, but also "save one" into a pool (publicly, so the players know). This might act as kind of a "countdown clock" to some event: NPC reinforcements, a damaged engine core exploding, etc. Then when designing the scenario you can set up events with various countdown triggers. If you're a "by-the-book" GM, trigger as they come up or from a random table. If you're a "the story needs this drama now!" GM, then you can trigger whatever and whenever you want, but you preserve the illusion of the countdown.

It's difficult to get measurably tougher in absorbing damage unless one takes several trees that focus on that (i.e. combat focused trees). Even with infinite wealth, the restrictions on gear make things challenging -- even if you have the gear, though, the increase in soak/defense isn't all that helpful.

As for difficulty of enemies, Ogg's GM tools have some sort of rating system for adversaries, but I have to admit that I haven't the foggiest how it works since I've never used it for that.

All the Adversary rating does in Oggdude's program is give an "approximate" amount of XP needed to build an equivalent PC character. NPCs do not have to follow the rules for careers, specializations, talent trees, etc. They can literally have anything you want. Keeping this in mind, his rating does some guess work.

YES! I have a player in my group that apparently thinks that NPC's follow the same rules as PC's. This is NOT Saga Edition. I threw in some NPCs and he was "like how did they get that talent. That is from a special tree and hard to get. Does he then have these talents too." I was like, no this is a NPC, not a PC, they follow different rules. that didn't set to well with him. I was also "called out" when I gave a Rival Strain Threshold. He stopped the game and was adamant that Rivals can not have Strain Thresholds. I actually stopped to read the book to him and it does indeed say that they do not have Strain, but if the GM wishes, can at times track Strain for them if they want the additional bookkeeping. In Essence making them a lower powered Nemesis. The funny thing is I never mentioned if they were Rivals or Nemesis though.

In short when building a Rival and in particular a Nemesis, you as the GM can do pretty much whatever you want to. You do not have to follow the Specialization tress, you can give them talents that are outside their "career/spec".

For RodianClone, not to be mean, but it seems that when you ran your encounter, you may have done something a little wrong. But three against one, no matter the XP level of the baddie is going to have a tough time. He is getting three attacks a round thrown at him. Not many PC/NPCs could really take that kind of punishment. I don't view an Emperor's Hand engaging in open combat with three proficient PC's. I think they would have some minions around. I would use the alternative rules from the AoR GM screen that allows the Nemesis to use minions as their "buffers/shields". I also never let my players just "stand there and shoot". I try (doesn't always work) to make my combat feel dynamic and fluid. Things change constantly. Cover can get blown away, enemies move around from cover to cover, trying to flank the good guys. They have reinforcements that can come in. That is the nastiness of them Empire, not competent troops, but an overwhelming number of them.

There is nothing I hate more than the "static D20 mini combat" feel. Nor I am not in the school that says rounds last a minute. Yes, rounds can last up to a minute, but it really should be (and is in the books) long enough for a player to move and take an important action. So in firefights, I make my rounds last only a few seconds. And the biggest take away from how rounds work, is that while yes, each player and NPC gets a turn, and they are mechanically used in a sequence, they are really happening at about the same time . So I have had players try to use the move from full cover, shoot, and move back into full cover before the baddie can shoot back. Sorry, no the shots are happening milliseconds apart from each other. "As you pop out of cover, the baddie sees you, you fire off a quick burst of blaster bolt of bada**ness, he quickly returns fire at you, he gets a Setback to his check."

But yes RodianClone, having one Nemesis against three proficient PC's was a mistake in my opinion. Never feel bad about tweaking a badguy. Those stats and cards are there for guidelines. To give you an idea of how they are built. You can also the little know/used rule that Nemesis can have more than one action per turn. Edge GM Kit page 26.

Well, hope you can learn a little from my past experiences, and best of of luck to your future gaming hijinks.

I know this post is old but:

sounds like a rule nazi.

To the OP: I found episode 45 of the Order 66 podcast particularly good at explaining some guidelines for scaling NPC difficulty. I think they each go into crafting their own NPC as well. A very helpful episode!

Z

We were once impromptu ambushed at the bottom of a street by something like 20 Mandalorian mercenaries while getting into our speeder. So we ran. (Duh.) It is OK to throw impossible odds at your characters. If they don't take the "way outs" that you give them, let them fight to the end and end up in the Spice Mines of Kessel for another series of adventures.. If they kill all your attackers, the fight will last long enough for them to be surrounded by cops and SWAT teams and army and navy and... and end up in jail. Eventually, they'll get it.

It still was a memorable encounter because the second-best pilot happened to dive into the driver seat. One character dove into the open top vehicle and spent the combat upside down, feet sticking out. The best driver was basically hanging onto the outside of the driver's side.

The non-combatants had activated smoke grenades and the enemy was just firing into the cloud. The second best driver then proceeded to miss a series of driving rolls in a streak almost as bad as his absolute record. He stalled the vehicle leaving the cloud. Stalled it sitting in the wispy edge while the vehicle got peppered. Managed to reverse it back into the cloud finally though.

So we changed drivers and burst out of there. The upside down guy (only) managed to see the enemy leader clearly, including his insignia (an important plot point) as we sped out of there... but never told anyone else. ( "You can lead a horse to water, but can't make him drink!" )

This was well executed by the GM. I think it started out as just a "Hey, remember you have enemies and this is who they are"-encounter. The GM kept it on track even through some difficulties brought on by unexpectedly failed dice rolls. If we had acted stupid/arrogantly and fought a pointless duel-to-the-death with an overwhelming force, I'm sure the GM would have punished us appropriately.

The most dangerous thing you can do to a party is... to have the enemy act like players.