Hey there,

I wasn't really sure if I should post this here or in the EotE GM forum, but I thought it may be more relevant here. My players are the typical scum and villainy you'd expect out of Edge, however we have dabbled a tad in the use of the Force with a Sith Holocron, Force-using creatures, Elaiza from Jewel of Yavin etc. I want to up the ante a bit and introduce a pair of Shadow Guard in an upcoming encounter, so my question is, would you just reskin them by using the Royal Guard stats out of the book (swapping the force pike for lightsaber pike perhaps)? Add a few Force abilities on top? I want them to be a major challenge, not impossible to kill but likely to seriously put the hurt on the players should they try to engage them to the death.

This isn't a new group by the way, several hundred exp on each of them by this point.

My Shadow guards were Royal guards with some Soresu talents and Shi Cho talents and a few force abilities mainly being enhance, sense and Farseeing for combat bonuses. I didn't know enough of their fighting style or Force powers to go off of cannon or legends or make believe so just went with what felt right. One ended up cutting a players arm off with a crit right before the pc cut him in half. Like them over inquisitors sometimes

would you just reskin them by using the Royal Guard stats out of the book (swapping the force pike for lightsaber pike perhaps)? Add a few Force abilities on top?

This seems like a good solution to me. Depending on how combat-capable your players are you may want to tweak the stats some more - higher wound/strain threshold, ranks in Adversary, that sort of thing. Also consider modding their weapons and armour some; give them the Enhanced Optics attachment and then pop a couple of smoke grenades as combat begins, that sort of thing.

would you just reskin them by using the Royal Guard stats out of the book (swapping the force pike for lightsaber pike perhaps)? Add a few Force abilities on top?

This seems like a good solution to me. Depending on how combat-capable your players are you may want to tweak the stats some more - higher wound/strain threshold, ranks in Adversary, that sort of thing. Also consider modding their weapons and armour some; give them the Enhanced Optics attachment and then pop a couple of smoke grenades as combat begins, that sort of thing.

My players are very capable with Ranged-Heavy weapons, so giving them some combat tricks like smoke grenades sounds like a good idea. I have a scenario in mind where they have a meeting with the Jedi from JoY, whom they transported to Nar Shaddaa after the end of the adventure AND gave a Sith Holocron too, not really knowing what it is. She's being...influenced by the device, but it is making her reckless and someone in the Empire has sensed her (hence the Shadow Guard). I want it to feel pretty epic of a moment and balanced at the same time.