So, basically I have a baddy in store for my group that is kinda like mara jade to my emperor-equivalent of the campaign.

Cybernatically enhanced melee assassin, lots of dodge talents and a hidden weapon that is usable every other round. Basically I want my players to hate her. Lets call her Arden, since Arden Lyn from masters of teras kasi was partly inspirational.

Basically I found a piece of artwork online and totally fell in love with it, I don't want to share the artwork right now because I know my players visit the forum frequently.

(sorry for everyone that is getting his hopes up but turns out to not be in my campaign ^^)

Long story short:

Ideally they meet Arden, almost kill her, she survives, gets her upgrades and then goes PC hunting.

Problem is, one of my players has a tendency of making dead people really dead, hes a "shoot-in-the-face-when-they-lie-on-the-ground" -insurance-type

ideas? input?

The old burn the troll routine. I despise it. Always have. Wanna know how you get around it? Your shoot-'em-in-the-face guy is not following a unique philosophy. He hurts someone but doesn't kill them, he gets incapacitated, that someone makes sure he's dead. Just saying'. Karma.

Clone, vengeful sister, lobot style augmented brain to recover from being shot in the head, last minute rescue, synthetic human, incapacitate the nutcase before the end of the fight, bystanders who wouldn't take to kindly to dead checking a woman, a bounty that requires her alive.

Several routes to take.

Darth Maul route. Have the fight take place above a dangerous McGuffin. A reactor, grindy machine or vat of glowing green goo. When she gets hit she falls (roll some dice behind the screen, make a face and say "she falls into the nasty green goo splashing all it all over and you see it slowly dissolving the supports for the vats. You have seconds before the vat will fall over and you will need to swim through it to get out. Are you acid proof?"

Classic Cliffhanger route. Have the fight take place near a fast moving river or waterfall. Have her trip and fall into the water and be washed away. They can search for the body to no avail.

The Surgical Plate route. She had some sort of accident as a child and a plasteel plate was put in her head. The blaster bolt appears to finish her off, but in reality it didn't penetrate the plate. Make sure when she comes back the damage to her face is obvious. Have her wear a mask to conceal the damage and in a theatrical reveal the mask is knocked off and the hideous wound on the left side of her face shows the shine of plasteel in the center of the wound."

I seem to recall a specialized droid being built that could hologramatically look like anyone. The idea was, it would assume the 'face' of someone, then try to assassinate Darth Vaders secret apprentice. The first time your players run across your Bond Villain, have them beat her...then Captain Coup d'grace shoots her...only to have to hologram image fade, and the droid give a dying status report. "Damage non-recoverable. Holo system offline. Reconnaissance of target successfulllllll......*BZZZzzzzttt*". Of course, the droid didn't look anything like your Bond Villain. All the players know is that someone used this droid to fight them, gained some very useful data on how they fight, and is now more than likely hunting for them.... That should give them a few sleepless nights.

Captain Coup d'grace, classic lol. The solution here, is don't let them get close to killing her, have a Wound total in your head and at this point she runs away, maybe give them a few chances of chasing her, but they just flat-out won't be able to catch her. I had a similar situation with a Bounty Hunter Nemesis in my EotE game, they were on Nar Shaddaa and she had captured the wookie of the party and was landing on a platform on the side of a skyscraper to deliver him when the party caught up to her. After a few rounds of her getting shot and beat up, she lept off the platform into speeder traffic and used her jetpack to boost to safety. Leaving the party standing watching on a platform with the only speeder there to follow her with in flames because they crashed it.

In summary, give them a chance to pursue but if you want her to get away, she gets away, you're the GM.

Thank you all for the input so far!

Basically the idea is, she is important (inuniverse) but a mild threat to the PC's, big encounter, she gets upgraded and THEN she will be a major threat to the group.

The feeling I had in mind was more more like dengars (legends) origin story, less burn the troll