What did the PC's spend their starting credits on?

Surely, if a character is weak enough to be dropped in one hit by a minion group, they should have realised as much (even without much game knowledge) and invested in armor, or some other defence?

Felismachina, I've been reading your posts over and over again and I cannot for the life of me understand what's going on in your game. There is simply no way minions should be able to wipe the floor with your party like that. You say it happened in every fight; there has got to be something you're missing.

Let's just look at the numbers for a second. You say you have a minion group of 3 minions, with Agility 3. That gives them a dice pool of 2 yellow and 1 green dice. Now, let's assume you've also equipped them with blaster rifles (Damage 9). You're firing at your players, who are at short range, have no cover or defence, and have the bare minimum of 3 soak (2 Brawn plus some kind of armour) and a wound threshold of 12. Assuming you roll two successes on each of your green and yellow dice and a blank on the single purple, that's still only 15 damage - not enough to drop a player in one hit.

What am I missing here?

Felismachina, I've been reading your posts over and over again and I cannot for the life of me understand what's going on in your game. There is simply no way minions should be able to wipe the floor with your party like that. You say it happened in every fight; there has got to be something you're missing.

Let's just look at the numbers for a second. You say you have a minion group of 3 minions, with Agility 3. That gives them a dice pool of 2 yellow and 1 green dice. Now, let's assume you've also equipped them with blaster rifles (Damage 9). You're firing at your players, who are at short range, have no cover or defence, and have the bare minimum of 3 soak (2 Brawn plus some kind of armour) and a wound threshold of 12. Assuming you roll two successes on each of your green and yellow dice and a blank on the single purple, that's still only 15 damage - not enough to drop a player in one hit.

What am I missing here?

Yes I agree, and without the details of precisely how things were conducted and the dice rolled, character builds, etc, it's virtually impossible to offer any advice. Particularly if this happened after several sessions, there is something not quite right. That's probably at least 50 xp earned to spend and there should be some kind of additional equipment and weapons. There is no way a group of minions and a rival should be wiping the floor with 3 characters with 50+ xp on board.

Ok so let's start with that no one invested in any combat skills beside ranged light which they have currently at 1. One player has 2 soak while rest have 3. Two players have 3 agility and ranged light 1 while one player have 2 agility with ranged light 1. As for players equipment they all had light blaster pistols and heavy clothing.

Ok so let me give you examples how our three fights that i remeber most went.

First example

3 PC's enters room. Enemies are group o 3 minions with slugthrowers pistols, one rival with two blasters and a minion with vibroknife and a minion with heavy blaster pistol. Enemies get first 4 initiative slots. Players get next 3.

First slot - minions aim, fire do some dmg, not much about 3-4 wounds to one player.

Second slot - same player gets hit from rival. Rival score 4 success and two advantage so he get another hit. Thats two times 10 dmg. Player is down.

Third slot - minion with heavy blaster shoots at second player scoring a hit with 2 success.

Fourth slot- minion with vibroknife charges his pierce quality ignores soak and finish second player.

After another round last player is down due to 4 NPC attacking him.

Second example

3 minions with blaster carbines and a rival with vibroax. Again players loose initiative since they rolled no success and NPC's rolled 2-3.

First slot -Minions aim (getting boost), then fire and dropping down our soak 2 player.

Second slot- Rival with a vibro ax charge at slightly wounded PC and his pierce quality ignore PC soak. PC goes down since he was hit for about 11 dmg with no soak.

Third example

Nemesis and two rivals vs PC

Nemesis have heavy blaster pistol, one rival have heavy club, another rival have disruptor pistol.

This time PC has first two slots then 3 slots for NPC then one for PC

First slot - player shoots he hit a rival doing 1 dmg after soak (Rival soak is 5)

Second slot- another PC shoots doing the same.

Third slot -Rival with disruptor scores a crit and blast one PC arm and does about 13 dmg player is almost down

Fourth slot- Nemesis shots damaging another player

Fifth slot- rival with heavy club charges to finish our one handed bounty hunter. He hits for 8 dmg and this time

That time i just let the PC stand despite the fact that they were over wound treshold since i didn't see that they would have any chance otherwise. Any dmg done to them after wound treshold was another critical hit so they ended this with with 4 and 5 critical injuries but won.

After that i realized that either core book has poorly designed adventure for starting characters or there is something wrong with PC's or with wound mechanics.

All enemies stats was taken from core rulebook adventure Trouble brewing.

Sorry if i made a mess in this post, tried to write this down as best as i remember.

OK, here's the deal, they didn't just not invest in combat skills, it's like two of them intentionally ignored being any good at combat whatsoever, and the one who is combat oriented made a very mediocre one. On top of that, they apparently have no armor. They are facing opponents with Disruptors!?!. I would never tell anyone what kind of concept of a character to make, but if you make one that essentially sucks at combat, you shouldn't be surprised when you suck at combat.

So if you turn the rules on their head and make some kind of change what is your plan should one of them start putting effort into combat? Honestly you don't have a balance issue, you have some characters that simply put little effort into their combat skills and they are fighting opponents with premiere weaponry. That's not a balance issue, but implement your rule idea and then they actually start focusing more on combat and you will have created one.

One thing that might be a problem is how big are you making your minion groups? for example a minion group size of 6 is going to be very different than 2 minion groups of 3 and going to hit a LOT harder for the first round.

2 minion groups of 3 with a 2 agility is going to be rolling YY versus 1 minion group of 6 with a 2 agility that is rolling YYYG
And they have to drop 2 minions before their skill goes down.

OK, here's the deal, they didn't just not invest in combat skills, it's like two of them intentionally ignored being any good at combat whatsoever, and the one who is combat oriented made a very mediocre one. On top of that, they apparently have no armor. They are facing opponents with Disruptors!?!. I would never tell anyone what kind of concept of a character to make, but if you make one that essentially sucks at combat, you shouldn't be surprised when you suck at combat.

So if you turn the rules on their head and make some kind of change what is your plan should one of them start putting effort into combat? Honestly you don't have a balance issue, you have some characters that simply put little effort into their combat skills and they are fighting opponents with premiere weaponry. That's not a balance issue, but implement your rule idea and then they actually start focusing more on combat and you will have created one.

Also why are minions aiming? minions should not be played smart...they are low level thugs who should be doing low level thug things like not using cover and not aiming.

And yeah why do your players have no armor whatsoever? heavy clothing is 50 credits. And your players don't sound like they are using cover. Good cover gives 1 to 2 setback die to attacks against them. And if you are not giving the players things to use as cover..that is bad gming.

Biggest minion group size was 3. Players were using cover however it's hard to use cover when enemies attack you before you can move

So, there’s problem #1.

As for minnions using cover. Well first it's stated in adventure that they take positions behind cover and second, why they should not? They have brains, they are not suicidal and they fight for their lifes. Same is for aiming. It's bad design if game tells you to play enemies like total morons.

Minions shouldn’t be played any smarter than they need to be in order to give the PCs something of a challenge. If the Minions are nuking the PCs out of the water, then they’re either being played wrong or they were statted wrong.

Like i said before. I was using adventure for fresh characters so i assumed that if starting character can have 3-2 .max 4-2 in combat skill then 3-1 it's not so bad.

Throw three non-combat turkeys into the ring with basically no armor, no skills, no attributes, no weapons, and don’t be surprised if they get battered, fried, fricaseed, and served up on a stick by a Loth-Rat.

Also i assumed that starting adventure realized that players are fresh smugglers and other similar characters not trained soldiers running around with heavy weaponry. Maybe that was my mistake, thinking that encounter difficulty in that adventure was balanced. Or maybe game encourage power gaming and min maxing. Since normal well rounded characters can't even take minion enemies.

You sound like you’re playing the Minions like the smartest guys in the combat, and that it’s an “Us versus Them, fight to the death” scenario.

That’s not the right way to run this game.

First off, it’s not “GM versus the PCs”. Everyone at the table is involved in helping to tell a fun story. As GM, you set the background and create the situations, and then the PCs decide what they’re going to do. But it’s your job as GM to give the PCs a situation where they can potentially shine like the heroes they’re supposed to be.

Secondly, Minions don’t fight to the death. And they’re not bright. They’ll do what they’re told by Rivals and Nemesis NPCs, but otherwise they’re about as basic and simple as you can feasibly get. Minions should pose something of a threat to the PCs, but if the Minion group is as big as or bigger than the PC group, and much better armed, and much better armored, then you’ve got a serious problem on your hands.

No wonder the PCs died. Like, every time.

Maybe that was my mistake, thinking that encounter difficulty in that adventure was balanced.

The adventures always have to be customized to your group.

Or maybe game encourage power gaming and min maxing. Since normal well rounded characters can't even take minion enemies.

They don't sound that "well rounded" to me. Face it, you have a combat-lite group and you threw too much at them. End of story.

You seem very resistant to any advice here, but FWIW: if you make a house rule, once your players figure out how to run a combat character and once you learn to scale encounters, you're going to end up with a broken system. Instead, learn to scale encounters appropriately (gentlemanscoundrel has some good advice) and then decide whether you need a house rule.

Another thing to note, if the Stormtroopers the party encountered had blaster carbines, once defeated, that would mean most groups have blaster carbines now. Whatever gear the NPCs have quickly becomes the PCs property, so the arms race doesn't last all that long without some external pressure.

My players mostly don't scavenge equipment. They have their own weapons so the don't loot enemies. One of my players is playing mechanic so he didn't want a weapon at all but after in game discussion he bought igh blaster pistol but mostly try to shoot on stun setting. Another one is smuggler so he also using only blaster pistol. And a bounty hunter who shoots from two blaster pistols.

I give you guys one example. Simple combat (minions group (3), one rival) gets first round. They fire at players, two players get down in first hit.

Two players go down in first hit? You're not running your player characters the same way you run minions, are you? And they get first round? I hope you mean they got the first initiative slot (during which either the minion group or the rival can act) and not a whole round to themselves.

A group of 3 minions dropping someone with one shot means they either have incredibly powerful weapons or ridiculously high Agility scores. Keep them at 2 or 3 Agility, give them pistol-size weapons instead of rifles and keep them in small groups and you should be fine.

I was using enemies from core book adventure with Agi 3 and blaster carbines (pirate crew or something) and i run minnions by the book so they have one attack per round etc.

As for initiative i rolled once for minnion group and once for rival and each player rolled once. First two slot was eniemies slot and then slots for players. First hit from minions group and one player is down since they had tons of succes. Then rival charge into melee ,score a hit and another players is down. He had like 2-3 wounds but otherwise was fine.

The problem is the enemies was not super powerfull, they were all by the book with equipment by the book. Also best shooter in players party have 3 agi and 1 ranged light and at best he can score a hit with 1-2 succes. Also we were using all combat rules like aiming, taking cover etc.

Something doesn't smell right. 3 Stormies means they should be rolling YYG vs PP (before other things, like setback due to lighting, haze, cover, etc...). That means that 6 successes should be the max possible before the difficulty cancels that out. That is one heck of a roll (1/216 chance). And just to be fair, a party with 3 Agi and 1 Ranged have the same chance of those 6 successes (since 2 successes on G or Y are 1/6). The chances of the troopers getting 1 or more successes (before cancellation) is about 3/4 with 2 or 3 being the expected value. On average the PP should cancel out at least one success, and possibly throw some threat in for the players to use against the stormies.

2P51

Like i said before. I was using adventure for fresh characters so i assumed that if starting character can have 3-2 .max 4-2 in combat skill then 3-1 it's not so bad. Also i assumed that starting adventure realized that players are fresh smugglers and other similar characters not trained soldiers running around with heavy weaponry. Maybe that was my mistake, thinking that encounter difficulty in that adventure was balanced. Or maybe game encourage power gaming and min maxing. Since normal well rounded characters can't even take minion enemies.

I'd like to know the build on these characters, because it isn't just that they aren't "trained soldiers", they have ignored their Agility and Brawn. They've also not bothered with ballistic protection at all. I don't know what they spent their xp on initially, but over the several session you cite it should have been readily apparent they needed to add some gear, skill levels, and or talents, to start making up the combat short fall. This isn't a game design issue like I said, they built characters who are bad at combat.

This game isn't any different from any other RPG in that one should expect conflict and danger. If you build 3 characters who are no good at combat in any game they are going to get a beat down. Plus in a three PC group there simply isn't room for someone to play the 'I'm a special snowflake that doesn't fight'. In a group that small in any game, everyone has to bring some ass kicking to the table and pull their weight.

You as the GM need to familiarize yourself better with the gear and weapons as well. I don't know the specific adventure details you're citing but I do know that if I start shooting at my guys with Disruptors it's because I want to kill one of them. A well built character will die from those. To be sure there are elements of the game and combat system that everyone here has agreed and altered, by a wide margin most agree autofire is very unbalancing, but a tweak here and there is what most have done. Changing how wound thresholds work to suit characters that simply aren't built well is a mistake.

2P51

Like i said before. I was using adventure for fresh characters so i assumed that if starting character can have 3-2 .max 4-2 in combat skill then 3-1 it's not so bad. Also i assumed that starting adventure realized that players are fresh smugglers and other similar characters not trained soldiers running around with heavy weaponry. Maybe that was my mistake, thinking that encounter difficulty in that adventure was balanced. Or maybe game encourage power gaming and min maxing. Since normal well rounded characters can't even take minion enemies.

I'd like to know the build on these characters, because it isn't just that they aren't "trained soldiers", they have ignored their Agility and Brawn. They've also not bothered with ballistic protection at all. I don't know what they spent their xp on initially, but over the several session you cite it should have been readily apparent they needed to add some gear, skill levels, and or talents, to start making up the combat short fall. This isn't a game design issue like I said, they built characters who are bad at combat.

This game isn't any different from any other RPG in that one should expect conflict and danger. If you build 3 characters who are no good at combat in any game they are going to get a beat down. Plus in a three PC group there simply isn't room for someone to play the 'I'm a special snowflake that doesn't fight', in a group that small in any game everyone has to bring some ass kicking to the table and pull their weight.

This kind of depends on if the game they are in really is about combat. What about one with tons of social situations and maybe vehicle combat won't be the same as one with tons of melee or other personal scale combat.

If the players build a bunch of non-combatants and the GM is throwing them into tons of fights, then their is an obvious mismatch of design/expectations between the two. That is best resolved via discussion between the parties involved in the game. No reason to modify the rules of the game for a self-inflicted issue.

2P51

Like i said before. I was using adventure for fresh characters so i assumed that if starting character can have 3-2 .max 4-2 in combat skill then 3-1 it's not so bad. Also i assumed that starting adventure realized that players are fresh smugglers and other similar characters not trained soldiers running around with heavy weaponry. Maybe that was my mistake, thinking that encounter difficulty in that adventure was balanced. Or maybe game encourage power gaming and min maxing. Since normal well rounded characters can't even take minion enemies.

I'd like to know the build on these characters, because it isn't just that they aren't "trained soldiers", they have ignored their Agility and Brawn. They've also not bothered with ballistic protection at all. I don't know what they spent their xp on initially, but over the several session you cite it should have been readily apparent they needed to add some gear, skill levels, and or talents, to start making up the combat short fall. This isn't a game design issue like I said, they built characters who are bad at combat.

This game isn't any different from any other RPG in that one should expect conflict and danger. If you build 3 characters who are no good at combat in any game they are going to get a beat down. Plus in a three PC group there simply isn't room for someone to play the 'I'm a special snowflake that doesn't fight', in a group that small in any game everyone has to bring some ass kicking to the table and pull their weight.

This kind of depends on if the game they are in really is about combat. What about one with tons of social situations and maybe vehicle combat won't be the same as one with tons of melee or other personal scale combat.

If the players build a bunch of non-combatants and the GM is throwing them into tons of fights, then their is an obvious mismatch of design/expectations between the two. That is best resolved via discussion between the parties involved in the game. No reason to modify the rules of the game for a self-inflicted issue.

There is no room for PCs to be combat deficient in a 3 man group.

2P51

Like i said before. I was using adventure for fresh characters so i assumed that if starting character can have 3-2 .max 4-2 in combat skill then 3-1 it's not so bad. Also i assumed that starting adventure realized that players are fresh smugglers and other similar characters not trained soldiers running around with heavy weaponry. Maybe that was my mistake, thinking that encounter difficulty in that adventure was balanced. Or maybe game encourage power gaming and min maxing. Since normal well rounded characters can't even take minion enemies.

I'd like to know the build on these characters, because it isn't just that they aren't "trained soldiers", they have ignored their Agility and Brawn. They've also not bothered with ballistic protection at all. I don't know what they spent their xp on initially, but over the several session you cite it should have been readily apparent they needed to add some gear, skill levels, and or talents, to start making up the combat short fall. This isn't a game design issue like I said, they built characters who are bad at combat.

This game isn't any different from any other RPG in that one should expect conflict and danger. If you build 3 characters who are no good at combat in any game they are going to get a beat down. Plus in a three PC group there simply isn't room for someone to play the 'I'm a special snowflake that doesn't fight', in a group that small in any game everyone has to bring some ass kicking to the table and pull their weight.

This kind of depends on if the game they are in really is about combat. What about one with tons of social situations and maybe vehicle combat won't be the same as one with tons of melee or other personal scale combat.

If the players build a bunch of non-combatants and the GM is throwing them into tons of fights, then their is an obvious mismatch of design/expectations between the two. That is best resolved via discussion between the parties involved in the game. No reason to modify the rules of the game for a self-inflicted issue.

There is no room for PCs to be combat deficient in a 3 man group.

Yes, there is. Not every game HAS to focus on personal scale combat. Exploration, politics, traders, etc... don't have to be combat effective. Running from a fight is a valid tactic and one rarely taken by players that seem to think that when weapons are drawn, they HAVE to fight... nope, best way to survive a fight, don't be in one.

Thaks for input.

Sorry if i sounded like i don't want any advice but i just wanted to have good arguments. Too many times people wanna excuse broken rules by wrong narrative or bad GM'ing or wrong way to run a game.

I know it's not players vs gm however i try to run npc's like thinking beings so they just don't stand in the open getting killed. I can try a different aproach in this game and we see how it will work.

2P51

Like i said before. I was using adventure for fresh characters so i assumed that if starting character can have 3-2 .max 4-2 in combat skill then 3-1 it's not so bad. Also i assumed that starting adventure realized that players are fresh smugglers and other similar characters not trained soldiers running around with heavy weaponry. Maybe that was my mistake, thinking that encounter difficulty in that adventure was balanced. Or maybe game encourage power gaming and min maxing. Since normal well rounded characters can't even take minion enemies.

I'd like to know the build on these characters, because it isn't just that they aren't "trained soldiers", they have ignored their Agility and Brawn. They've also not bothered with ballistic protection at all. I don't know what they spent their xp on initially, but over the several session you cite it should have been readily apparent they needed to add some gear, skill levels, and or talents, to start making up the combat short fall. This isn't a game design issue like I said, they built characters who are bad at combat.

This game isn't any different from any other RPG in that one should expect conflict and danger. If you build 3 characters who are no good at combat in any game they are going to get a beat down. Plus in a three PC group there simply isn't room for someone to play the 'I'm a special snowflake that doesn't fight', in a group that small in any game everyone has to bring some ass kicking to the table and pull their weight.

Two players spend 90 experience on stats to raise 3 of them from two to three. And rest on skills while one player did almost the same but he spend the rest xp on talents. They all taken skills who fit their character concept and nobody did min/max build.

From what we read in the book and from character creation combat heavy character should have 3 or 4 agility and 2 ranks in fighting skill. So most of them just taken 3 ranks in agi and 1 in skill. Which from what book explained about enemies, encounters etc should be enough at start. But from what it looks like now without at least 4-3 or 3-3 character is weaker than simple size 3 group of minnions in combat.

There is no room for PCs to be combat deficient in a 3 man group.

So for a narrative heroic game it's kinda bad design if players need to focus on combat so much to survive simple encounters. We had no problem like this in other games like Dark Heresy which was more gritty by design and no one was combat focused. At least not more than needed.

To summarize this. I need to

1. Learn how to scale encounters in this game, maybe start with fewer enemies and nerf their equipment , give them something like blaster pistols at best and not what adventures or corebook suggest.

2. Nerf tactical thinking on minnions so they won't aim, use cover, auto fire (it will be hard cause i don't like this idea )

3. Encourage players to spend xp on cool and vigilance so they have better chance of having first slots on initiative.

Anything else? I know that there always be some combats since it's part of the game but i don't think they want to dump all their xp into combat skills since from what book says having skill at 3 is true proffesional. And we want to play a firefly type game not combat heavy. But they want to survive simple encounters so they don't drop on the floor every battle.

Thaks for input.

Sorry if i sounded like i don't want any advice but i just wanted to have good arguments. Too many times people wanna excuse broken rules by wrong narrative or bad GM'ing or wrong way to run a game.

I know it's not players vs gm however i try to run npc's like thinking beings so they just don't stand in the open getting killed. I can try a different aproach in this game and we see how it will work.

2P51

Like i said before. I was using adventure for fresh characters so i assumed that if starting character can have 3-2 .max 4-2 in combat skill then 3-1 it's not so bad. Also i assumed that starting adventure realized that players are fresh smugglers and other similar characters not trained soldiers running around with heavy weaponry. Maybe that was my mistake, thinking that encounter difficulty in that adventure was balanced. Or maybe game encourage power gaming and min maxing. Since normal well rounded characters can't even take minion enemies.

I'd like to know the build on these characters, because it isn't just that they aren't "trained soldiers", they have ignored their Agility and Brawn. They've also not bothered with ballistic protection at all. I don't know what they spent their xp on initially, but over the several session you cite it should have been readily apparent they needed to add some gear, skill levels, and or talents, to start making up the combat short fall. This isn't a game design issue like I said, they built characters who are bad at combat.

This game isn't any different from any other RPG in that one should expect conflict and danger. If you build 3 characters who are no good at combat in any game they are going to get a beat down. Plus in a three PC group there simply isn't room for someone to play the 'I'm a special snowflake that doesn't fight', in a group that small in any game everyone has to bring some ass kicking to the table and pull their weight.

Two players spend 90 experience on stats to raise 3 of them from two to three. And rest on skills while one player did almost the same but he spend the rest xp on talents. They all taken skills who fit their character concept and nobody did min/max build.

From what we read in the book and from character creation combat heavy character should have 3 or 4 agility and 2 ranks in fighting skill. So most of them just taken 3 ranks in agi and 1 in skill. Which from what book explained about enemies, encounters etc should be enough at start. But from what it looks like now without at least 4-3 or 3-3 character is weaker than simple size 3 group of minnions in combat.

There is no room for PCs to be combat deficient in a 3 man group.

So for a narrative heroic game it's kinda bad design if players need to focus on combat so much to survive simple encounters. We had no problem like this in other games like Dark Heresy which was more gritty by design and no one was combat focused. At least not more than needed.

So maybe they had a bad initial first session, but then you said they were having the problem several sessions later.

They should have had at least 50 xp awarded by you at that point, what did they spend it on?

Did they get themselves some gear over those sessions? Weapons? Armor? Attachments? Stimpacks?

You say Bounty Hunter and Smuggler, those are careers, what specs?

I also don't agree with your opinion they have to 'focus' on combat. Having a 3 Agility is not 'focusing' on combat, having a 3 Brawn is not 'focusing' on combat. Everyone spending a lousy 50 credits for a pair of stimpacks each is not 'focusing' on combat.

So what your basically have said here is that your Group is NOT combat Oriented, But you (and possibly they by choice) Keep tossing them into Heavy Combat Situations when it more looks Like they want a Less combat heavy and more RP oriented Game.

Again.. This is Not a Problem with the game... This is a Problem with Adventure Choice.

IF they want a More RP and shadowruner Style game then the Adventures need to be tailored More towards THAT. and Less towards Combat situations..... and the Players need to Be trying to plan better have ways to avoid or to evade/escape combat situations and Not Shoot it out.

So Once More..... this is Not a problem with the Game that Needs a Solution..... this is a Choice of Style of play by the players.. that you as the GM have not accounted for...Or even the players Tailored their characters towards a Certain Style of Play, but they Don't PLAY towards their Strengths and instead Keep putting themselves up against their weaknesses........

SO instead of Rectifying the problem By the players REbuilding their characters to account for the Style of play THEY are Playing.... They want a House rule to change the game to accommodate the fact that they didn't BUILD their characters for the style of Play they are playing.

Or rectify the problem as the GM by Giving them options that Lead to the style of Play THEY BUILT their characters for instead of putting them always in situations that only Play against the style f play They Built their Characters for...

The Game Doesn't need to change....

Either the Players Need to Change how they are Building their characters to match how they play, OR you need to change the Adventures TO meet The Style f Play they Are making their characters FOR.

I Have a No holds Barred Game.. I don't Pander to my players and I don't Hold Back when they put themselves in a Life or death situation. But I do Try to provide adventures for what the group seems to want to play and what Kind of characters they have designed... IF the GRoup designed a Bunch of Charmers, Politico and Techs... I would Not be loading up on combat Situations that are a better fit for Hired guns, Bounty Hunters and Brawlers that the group doesn't have.

There is no room for PCs to be combat deficient in a 3 man group.

Yes, there is. Not every game HAS to focus on personal scale combat. Exploration, politics, traders, etc... don't have to be combat effective. Running from a fight is a valid tactic and one rarely taken by players that seem to think that when weapons are drawn, they HAVE to fight... nope, best way to survive a fight, don't be in one.

Agreed. I run a game with my son where he is the sole player, a scholar-type who can barely shoot, but is good at research and infiltration. We have a blast, I just have to make sure any combat is brief and the terrain is open enough so there are options. And he's never been one-shotted by anyone...

1. Learn how to scale encounters in this game, maybe start with fewer enemies and nerf their equipment , give them something like blaster pistols at best and not what adventures or corebook suggest.

2. Nerf tactical thinking on minnions so they won't aim, use cover, auto fire (it will be hard cause i don't like this idea )

3. Encourage players to spend xp on cool and vigilance so they have better chance of having first slots on initiative.

1. To scale encounters just compare dice pools and base damage output. It looks to me like a low level rival (10 wounds or so) and two minion groups of 2 thug types (not stormtroopers) is more than enough. If that's easy, ramp it up.

2. I don't agree with nerfing tactics, aim all you want, and make the minions as smart as is suitable for their character. However, note that minions can't voluntarily spend strain, so if the party runs, spending extra strain to move twice while still shooting, the minions won't be able to shoot and keep up. In other words, retreating is sound tactical advice.

3. Having at least YYG in a combat skill goes a long way, and the twin pistol wielder needs YYYG to dual wield effectively . Once they have that, plus maybe a blaster with the "accurate" quality, and some armour with extra soak or defence, they should be okay.

To summarize this. I need to

1. Learn how to scale encounters in this game, maybe start with fewer enemies and nerf their equipment , give them something like blaster pistols at best and not what adventures or corebook suggest.

2. Nerf tactical thinking on minnions so they won't aim, use cover, auto fire (it will be hard cause i don't like this idea )

3. Encourage players to spend xp on cool and vigilance so they have better chance of having first slots on initiative.

Anything else? I know that there always be some combats since it's part of the game but i don't think they want to dump all their xp into combat skills since from what book says having skill at 3 is true proffesional. And we want to play a firefly type game not combat heavy. But they want to survive simple encounters so they don't drop on the floor every battle.

Bold Emphasis.

On your second point there... Most people, Even Military trained soldiers, your basic Grunts, re not really great at firing under pressure, A lot of people get into a fire fight situation and their Fight or flight Instincts take over guiding them to Take cover and fire from cover without really taking aim..... Just spatter the area with bullets and hope something hits.

Now last month My players Finished the "Debts to pay" Module found with the GM screen.

lets use that as an Example.

the first fight offered in the module is against 6 Gamorrean Guards..

Now in a Melee Fight Gamoreans can be tough, even with only a 2 Ag melee 2 or brawl 2..

but they have no ranged.

My group through out a stun grenade taking out 2 of them and then fired at the Gamorreans, Only 1 Gamoreans actually reach the audience Room but was quickly dispatched. Had the group Waited to go Toe to Toe with the Gamorreans, Playing to the Gamoreans Strength and against their own weakness? It would have gone a bi worse for the players.... But Gamoreans Though "inteligent" Creaures, Are not the brightest rocks in the box.... SO not very tactical... and Only had melee/brawl options... No Range....

This encounter was designed as a TOUGH FIGHT or really deadly fight if the players went toe to toe.... 6 Gamorreans in Melee could have wiped the group.... But the Adveture designed th Encounter so that the 6 Gamorreans would most likely be cut in half by a group using ranged weapons.

Or the Players could completely avoid Fighting the Gamorreans at all since they really will only go after the HUTTs Guards and the Hutt himself if the Players remain as Bystanders.

SO a Potentially LETHAL situation is Made possible for the players to deal with in 2 ways without having to Make the Gamorreans act out of Nature.

Now There were points later in the module where the PCs might face off against 1 or 2 Droids at a time... easy pickings... Unfortunately MY players ended up setting themselves up to Split half their group into 2 different areas and Alerted the droids to where they faced off against the Majority f the droids all in one area... Half the group (3 pcs) faced off against The Main Villain droid and 2 Load Lifter Droids and 6 decommissiond Battle Droids.

Now the Battle Droids Should have been the Biggest Threat since they actually had Weapons skills..

Now I actually Ran Each Driod as an Individual.. which may have made this Fight a Bit tougher..... but not by to much... The Fight is meant to have 3 battle droid in 2 Minion groups....

THe battle droids have a 2 Agility and Ranged heavy Blasters skill but not listed ranks in heavy blaster so they only get 2 green dice to shoot with. This means that ran as inion groups.. they would get 2 shots a round.... I had all 6 firing individually.

They have a Soak of 4... But only a Wound threshold of 4.... So really.. any 1 Hit of most blasters would take out a Single Droid without additional successes needed.

The Load Lifters suprisingly were a Bit tougher to take out..

They used Brawl as their attack with no skill ranks but had a Brawn of 5... SO they had a Bit better chance to hit in Melee than the battle droids did with blasters.

The Load Lifters also had a Soak of 7 and WT of 20... so it aactually took 2 to 3 hits or more to take them out.

The Lead Villain Droid Had an Agility of 1 and no blaster skill...Soak of 3 and WT of 14.

This droid only lasted the longest because the group was trying to take him intact.

The 3 PCs had taken out most of the droids, Including the Load lifters before they had 2 Pcs Down and one PC holding on by a Thread (and Only because she managed to Get a StimPak into her before getting shot again.... The Finale 2 PCs arrived barely in time to Aid the last standing PC in taking out the last 4 droids.

It was an Epic Battle..

FYI the group make up was

2 Bounty hunter Assasins (1 spec'd More for Melee and the other more for Heavy ranged)

And I think one was a Tech Slicer.

those were the three that started the fight... so at least they had all of their Heavy fighters int he combat..

The other 2 who showed up near the end were a Smuggler: Scoundrel focused to wards Piloting and Charm.. minor combat skill..

and a Droid Tech: Mechanic with NO combat Skills what so ever.

Those two were off swapping around ships from the lading pads so their ship was closer to where the action was instead of being far away. They ran to the Fight when the other 3 finally realized they Were going likely Lose the fight and called for help.

This was the "Big Bad" of the adventure. This was designed to be a Near Beginning Adventure from my view point. So for a group with zero to 1 or 2 adventures already under their belt..... that Fight wasn't supposed to be as Big as it was... but the players Ended up forcing it that way...

So... Think about this and then Think about what You have been throwing your Beginning Characters up against....

Are you pitting Lowly Grubs up against AL Capone? or are you starting them out with Small time jobs fit for Zero Rep guys who are trying to just start making a name for themselves?

One Last Thought. This Bit of advice comes from the Designers of a Completely Different Game system.... But I find it applies to EVERY RPG game I run or play in....

No One Fight should be an Equal Match for the Players. All combat encounters in a Series, Unless you are giving "Days" between fights (Time for the PCs to recover, Should be an Easy Fight for the PCs at Full strength.... But set in a series to where they Wear down the PCs and use up their Resources so that the Finale Fight Becomes a Serious Challenge for them.

If ALL your "Fights" in series are a Challenge for the PCs.. the you are going to Wipe them out before they ever get to the "Big Bad".

2. Nerf tactical thinking on minnions so they won't aim, use cover, auto fire (it will be hard cause i don't like this idea )

Minions are usually unskilled thugs, They should not have tactical skills or knowledge and should make bad decisions like the unskilled guys they usually are. Others like stormies are overconfidant and thus make arrogant bad decisions. As your players get better and more skilled and better gear you can start playing them smarter. But start with easy difficulty and ramp up to the right challenge level.

2P51

Like i said before. I was using adventure for fresh characters so i assumed that if starting character can have 3-2 .max 4-2 in combat skill then 3-1 it's not so bad. Also i assumed that starting adventure realized that players are fresh smugglers and other similar characters not trained soldiers running around with heavy weaponry. Maybe that was my mistake, thinking that encounter difficulty in that adventure was balanced. Or maybe game encourage power gaming and min maxing. Since normal well rounded characters can't even take minion enemies.

I'd like to know the build on these characters, because it isn't just that they aren't "trained soldiers", they have ignored their Agility and Brawn. They've also not bothered with ballistic protection at all. I don't know what they spent their xp on initially, but over the several session you cite it should have been readily apparent they needed to add some gear, skill levels, and or talents, to start making up the combat short fall. This isn't a game design issue like I said, they built characters who are bad at combat.

This game isn't any different from any other RPG in that one should expect conflict and danger. If you build 3 characters who are no good at combat in any game they are going to get a beat down. Plus in a three PC group there simply isn't room for someone to play the 'I'm a special snowflake that doesn't fight', in a group that small in any game everyone has to bring some ass kicking to the table and pull their weight.

This kind of depends on if the game they are in really is about combat. What about one with tons of social situations and maybe vehicle combat won't be the same as one with tons of melee or other personal scale combat.

If the players build a bunch of non-combatants and the GM is throwing them into tons of fights, then their is an obvious mismatch of design/expectations between the two. That is best resolved via discussion between the parties involved in the game. No reason to modify the rules of the game for a self-inflicted issue.

There is no room for PCs to be combat deficient in a 3 man group.

Yes, there is. Not every game HAS to focus on personal scale combat. Exploration, politics, traders, etc... don't have to be combat effective. Running from a fight is a valid tactic and one rarely taken by players that seem to think that when weapons are drawn, they HAVE to fight... nope, best way to survive a fight, don't be in one.

Where did I write focus on combat? What I wrote is in a 3 man team everyone needs to bring some level of skill to the table, that group is far to small to hyper specialize and not be multi talented. In a galaxy at war where adventurers are positioning themselves at cross purposes to nefarious individuals sometimes witty banter over ancient Corellian literature and being able to shoot a better azimuth navigating is not going to get it done and when 2/3 of a team like the one the OP lists is completely gimped at combat, it's a recipe for fail.