my campaign is EotE-based but I waited until F&D was released to see if it was covered. I have a recurring bad guy that is a force emergent (or close approximation). He doesn't use a LS but is pretty much an insane demolitionist bent on ruining and his family's business and bloodline. He was killed due to a blaster blast to the face in a character's (his brother) back story but, due to GM mental mistake, I had him come back. I gave him "absorb energy" made famous Corran Horn to explain his return, though badly scarred.

Now, digesting the F&D and I didn't see it covered so I kind of made it "roll force, generate ds pips, add to soak but only to energy." If I overlooked it, let me know. Now, the closest creation was a talent tree of Reflect and Parry.

Any advise to make this a decent but not overpowering for my group to overcome?

Wouldn't that be the protect side of unleash/protect? It basically reduces damage from energy based weapons. I don't see why a dark side user can't use the protect ability. Wasn't that sort of what Vader did when Han shot him in Empire?

Yeah, it is pretty much just Protect, and Dark siders can use it on themselves only (as opposed to Light siders that can spread it to other allies if they want to).

It's the Protect/Unleash power, straight up.

" The user makes a Protect power check and rolls a [PP] Discipline check as part of the pool. Spend [two Force points] to reduce damage from an energy-based weapon that hits himself or an engaged character by amount equal to Willpower plus 1 per [success]. Dark side Force users may only protect themselves. "

It does require a FR of 3+, though.

As others have said what you have described is the Protect power. However since it's just backstory if your NPC isn't powerful enough to have this power you can describe it as an act of the Force unrelated to the NPC's rating ie. Force Power Plot.

Once again, this character came out before F&D was even in Beta so I had to make due with limited power knowledge within the system. But, now, F&D has a named power with a requirement within the tree. So, the choice is leave his survival at the whim of the force via plot contrivance or level him up to being more powerful than what was envisioned.

Personally, in this instance, I'll leave it to plot contrivance but use the baseline of the power. If a player decides on being Jedi, his knowledge could cause the players to over analyze the NPC villain.

Thanks for the input. Still digesting F&D's nuances vs Saga and Star Wars miniatures.

Since it's an NPC, you don't need to follow the rules the PCs do, so it's all good. If you do what's best for your game, you're doing it right!