>We have a droid heavy marauder outlaw tech.

That's your problem right there. Rings all kinds of danger bells.

Actually, this system is easy to min-max, and it completely goes against the themes of the game.

Now you could just start a war of escalation, using Breach weapons like lightsabers, anti-droid ion weapons, etc... But ramping up the danger just for this guy will just get everyone else killed.

I've done certain things in my game that's likely too harsh for most (no out of career multiclassing, no armour for anyone) to keep the themes of my game intact. Being shot with a blaster should hurt anyone, right?

So I'd just sit him down, tell him you're unhappy, and suggest he play something else. Congratulations, you've 'won' the game, now do something different that doesn't look like the love-child of MechaGodzilla and the Death Star.

Star Wars isn't only supposed to be about combat. That's just a part of it. Realistically, you should be challenging all six stats, not just Brawn. Anyone with a 1 is asking to be hurt. There's fear checks, etc, and general out of combat stuff. The players should regularly be in a position where fighting isn't their best option. Social tests, sneaking, chases, vehicle combat etc should be a regular part of any Star Wars story, let alone non-stats stuff like difficult choices and moral decisions. This isn't 40K here.

With equipment and gear, remember that YOU control these things. This isn't D&D3 where every player gets level-appropriate items. If you're giving them overpowered weapons or gear, that's part of the problem. The rules have checks and balances like Restricted, Rarity, price, encumbrance. In most games these are handwaved, but in this one, enforce them. Nor should they be romping around with heavy or illegal weapons without stormtroopers or the local crime boss calling them to account.

Explain that there are 32+ skills and a character will be challenged on most of them, that a wide spread of stats and skills will be required in future. We've been playing regularly for two and half years and the characters are still mortal because they grow outwards, not upwards. Heck, I myself have a 1000+ XP GM sidekick character who would be outfought by a starting Droid Marauder.

Don't play the game like it's Pathfinder or D&D 4E, with everything maximised for a combat only game. Talk to the players, explain how you feel, and challenge a wide variety of skills and talents. And if nothing else, go back and watch the original films, where you'll see that running away and being outgunned happens frequently to our heroes.

For me, 'Star Wars' is as much about all the other stuff that happens outside of fights.

I just found out what a muchkin is btw. Thanks wiki. But I also found out that I am a muchkin enabler. I should never have just given them all this sweet stuff unless they truly earned it, I just wanted to make them happy. I guess I need to curb my rewards from now on in my games, regardless of complaining from the players.

I just found out what a muchkin is btw. Thanks wiki. But I also found out that I am a muchkin enabler. I should never have just given them all this sweet stuff unless they truly earned it, I just wanted to make them happy. I guess I need to curb my rewards from now on in my games, regardless of complaining from the players.

Look up Monty Haul, too. It's also applicable.

Sounds like you're having the teething troubles every new GM has, Farth.

I've been role-playing since I was ten (I am now 46), I learned all that the hard way back in AD&D. That stuff only comes with experience.

Essentially, ease back on the combat. Show the players that other stuff can be fun. Our AOR game has a tag-team of Diplomats, and some brutal social conflicts.

While this game is not quite 'rules lite' it is intended to be narrative and to capture the feel of a Star Wars movie. If your game doesn't feel like 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' or 'Guardians of the Galaxy'... you're doing it wrong

Mechagodzilla and the Deathstar.... LMFAO!!!

I see your point exactly, and I have been avoiding escalation for that very reason, just felt a little cheap to me and it would be detrimental to the other players... maybe.

I do throw lots of other checks at him though. He failed a fear check before the encounter with the big bad. I have a large portion of the next session planned out in a space combat that will involve a boarding action, traveling through a damaged ship that will require some stealth, mechanics, computers, skullduggery, etc...

He rolls with a cortosis shield and mining weapon with breach 1, inaccurate 2. His attack pool against the big bad was YYYYYG/RRPBBBBBBBB after the fear check failed... (Adversary 3, Melee Defense 5, Inaccurate 2, Afraid... Talk about escalation! This may have been overkill and it was certainly a loaded dice pool, thankfully I have enough dice that he could hold onto the pool the whole time, make combat faster.) I thought it would be exciting and challenging for his droid, and I frequently used the Nemesis' Brawl to knock him down, disorient him (adding more setback), use threat to add setback and take free maneuvers, and used the terrain to stay away from him (force leap around a large hangar bay, on top of ships and the such). I had hoped this would ramp up the tension and create a more interesting encounter and promote more narrative thinking from him. He just seemed to get upset with me and complain how he would never hit with that dice pool. He did hit the guy, but they didn't take him down until the gunslinger made a called shot onto a portion of the Nemesis armor in the back that caused it to temporarily power down, reducing his defense, which was my whole plan actually, trying to encourage them to think first and shoot second, but no one even tried to use any other skills in combat in a hangar bay... I had ships that could be used to shoot, fuel cells, 3d terrain, all kinds of stuff... it wasn't until my baddie rolled a despair on a check that I as gm revealed his weakness in the back (think hunters from halo or bane) the gunslinger took out the armor power pack with a called shot and the droid ended up taking him down. Honestly, I thought I had the makings of a super great final boss battle there, which like you said, combat is something they crave and I figured they would love it, but they just seemed to be annoyed with his defense and the fear check and all that, didn't even really try to use the terrain (one player used his jetpack to fly onto a ship for higher ground), I even though they won and I am pretty sure the other two only got hit once a piece, which almost killed them both, before they took him down.

In space he just sits there and says well I cant do anything so I guess I will just sit here. I have explained to him that he created a one trick pony, but when I attack his dump stats or put him in positions that he cant brawl out of, he seems to take it personally and his enjoyment is way down, which is his own fault as I said, but it is frustrating nonetheless...

Where on earth did he get a cortosis shield? That's supposed to be super-rare in the movie era. And if he's rolling 5 yellows every round no wonder the fights are so one-sided. This isn't a game like Pathfinder with 'level appropriate' encounters or gear. If you're only concentrating on combat and ignoring everything else, no wonder that this is the result.

Ideally, in a SW game, characters shouldn't be 'builds' consisting of the 'best' combination of stats, weapons, gear. They should be rounded characters with a part to play in your story.

Han Solo or Luke Skywalker weren't built to be the 'best' at what they did or be min-maxed. What matters is their motivations, character, and story role. That's why we watched the movies. I wouldn't want to see a film consisting of an overpowered terminator robot killing millions of people, where's the fun in that?

Unfortunately, it sounds like this guy would be better off playing a wargame than an RPG. If you talk to him and that doesn't work, you might just need a new player

I'm very lucky that I have great players who are very much in tune with the game I'm trying to run. It's one reason why the game is going so well And I know I'm fortunate.

Thanks for the replies btw... I could use some encouragement lol. I am still leaning yes. I am a new gm, and nothing teaches better than experience, but I really really appreciate all your input!!! I am running a monty haul!!! Now I know.... cant really go back now. But after this next session, after the space battle, I have the final encounter of this whole thing set. They are fighting a fallen jedi (Rav Naaran from FaD Beginner Box) who created the nemesis and is behind it all. He is really tough too, I have ramped him up as much as the players have been since the beginning, but they will have to make it through astrogation, space combat, boarding the ship, finding the bridge, making it through damaged portions of the ship, and any other sweet non combats I can think up before the final battle of my story. Plus, I have it set up so they will have to choose between following orders from rebel command to take out the ship that has the rakghoul plague on it set to be unleashed on Onderon, or to go after Rav Naaran who is indirectly responsible for the death of Satena Hasse, the rebel commander, who died when my gunslinger, whom developed a romantic relationship with in game, accidently shot in the head (crit roll) when she was being kidnapped by Rav's spy on Resolute Base and he rolled a despair on his called shot to take out the spy... Talk about tales of triumph and despair!!! So there should be plenty to motivate them to do either.

If they go after the bad guy, they lose onderon and the plague spreads, the rebels dump them for not following orders, and the game is going to take a much for edge approach where they can focus on smuggling or bounty hunting. If they go after the plague, they can stop it, but Naaran escapes, opening further exploration of the war between the alliance and the rebels, and also a whole new adventure set on revenge. I thinks this can breath some new life into the campaign and also be a reasonable explanation for them losing whisper base and their fighters and speeders, though I would make it a fair tradeoff... they can keep the disruptor weapons and the pathfinder class recon vessel with the astromech, plus keep all personal gear, and turn whisper base into bounty hunting business.

At this point I may even talk to the group and try to hand off the reigns as gm to another player if anyone will take it. That way someone else can deal with the droid for a while, and I can finally try to build one of my 50 character concepts I have come up with in the past two years... Lol.

That is my plan, this thread could probably be in gm advice at this point, but nonetheless I appreciate the input and you guys listening to my vent.

May you all roll triumphs and find vast amounts of credits and beautiful alien women... In game.

He started with one... He took the extra credits obligation, and it is actually only 1000 credits. Which baffles me, since it is better by far than a riot shield, with better defensive bonus, and no setback for dual wielding... I looked hard and long at this and I found no reason why he could not start with it unless I just said no, I think rarity 7? Trust me, I didn't want to let him have it either, but when I give the gunslinger two novaviper blasters and a trenchcoat, and the boba fett wannabe a jetpack and heavy battle armor, I really couldn't say no to him, unless I nerfed everyone... I can already hear all the whining at the table... I started a monty haul, I have to live with it now... but never again man!!! I just figure with this system, gear wouldn't be such a big deal as long as the opposition was just as well equipped, apparently my players disagree with others having good gear too.... whatever. In the end, I have leaned a lesson the hard way. I just know they don't want to start over again, and fear them quitting the campaign if I either nerf, or try to start a new campaign.

Keep in mind the cortosis shield is +2 defense, but the cortosis quality does not cancel breach or pierce... (technically in game it is considers a weapon, not armor) it just allows him to short out lightsabers and the such, which he has not even encounters yet, and if he uses it on my final bad guy, force bind will take care of him for a couple rounds until it comes back on...

But seriously, how can a cortosis shield be 1000 credits, have better defensive stats than a riot shield, and not have the added setback for dual wielding like the riot shield does? They have the same encumbrance and cumbersome rating... and he did take two ranks in that talent that reduces encumbrance and cumbersome ratings from heavy, so after much debating I decided to allow the dual wield even though the mining weapon should probably be two handed to operate. But he is a droid too... trust me, I pondered this question a lot before deciding that it would be more in the spirit of fun and character building that he could do it.

Wouldn't you allow it? Not to spendy or rare, took talents to compensate for it, extra obligation....

And I allowed the players to choose or keep their old obligations from the old campaign since I wanted to keep them hooked, and choose their duty as long as it was character appropriate. His obligation is to start a droid rebellion and take over the universe, no so much fun with the other players being fleshy and him always calling npc's meat bags, which again, leads to some pretty difficult situations for the party. I even tried to nugde him to change it when he made bb2.0, he did, to responsibility to protect his teammates, but he tends to revert to his old way of droid revolution destroy all fleshies thinking anyway...

his duty is combat victory.. can you make it any easier? But how can I say no to him when I said yes to the other two choosing their own? Another mistake that I will not make again, always rolling first in any other campaigns for the future....

In the end, I guess this also boils down to me being a little over compensating to them for the game? I feel like my job as the gm is to ensure every player gets to do what they want within reason and present situations where they can all shine... In your game you say that being willfully stupid trumps mechanics, how do you do it without upsetting your players? What do you do? How can I as a gm continue to cater to the group without bending over backwards? I guess I am still unsure of where the line is, I have only been gming for a couple years now. I am generally a very nice person, and as gm I usually just allow it if it adds to the fun without breaking the game session, but I can also be quite the opposite if pushed, I am no idiot, I just don't want to have to be a **** if I can help it. How do you handle your players? What can I do better in the future?

There is no easy answer for this. What works for one group does not necessarily work for another. I could tell you how I have handled this kind of thing, but that would not necessarily be a viable option for you, and in fact could lead to the group breaking up as people get their feelings hurt. I have GM'ed for a wide variety of people. Everything from buddies in the army, to conventions and even groups of long-time friends on both sides of the Atlantic. And to be honest, my straight-forward and somewhat authoritative way of GMing has not always won me universal friendship, even if it has won me a lot of GM requests, compliments and callbacks. In short, my style does not necessarily match your GM style or your group.

That said, you are making a clear argument that this guy is a problem player. He has a history of being a munchkin, and he has all the most negative, attention-hogging behaviors associated with being a power gamer. I'm not saying you have to flip out or anything, but this guy's behavior should not be tolerated. You're fighting an uphill battle because the rest of the group has allowed him, and because you yourself have enabled him to some extent. I think there's some axiom about it being harder to change course once the ship is underway, or something like that.

Unfortunately, I do think you are going to have to confront this guy, or else accept the hit to your enjoyment. There's a lot of ways to handle it. You can be passive aggressive about it by hand waving combat he's involved in, since the outcome is a foregone conclusion. You rob him of the spotlight, and you highlight the fact that he's not actually interested in playing, but rather just being dominant. There's the escalation, where you prove that no matter how min-maxed he is, you as the GM can always, always one-up him. Or you can just flat out murder him the first time he rests in an exposed area, and fails a Vigilance check and gets sneak attacked. Repeat your chosen method until he gets it.

Speaking personally though, I find those methods to be time consuming and they often backfire. Basically, if you answer his scuzzy behavior with scuzzy behavior of your own, you'll both end up being a pair of scuzzbots, with the extra minus that you destroy your authority and credibility with the rest of the group as well. My advice is to just be honest and upfront. His behavior is, at least, mildly toxic, even if its just you who feels affected by it. You should be willing to stand up for yourself, and address the issue in a mature but honest way. The result may still be that one or both of you chooses to walk away, but I still think it is necessary if you want to keep on running this campaign with them.

In all honesty, he might be better off playing X-Wing or Imperial Assault with regards to playing a Star Wars combat game. But then these games also have strict points values and the like, and Edge of the Empire doesn't.

It's an easy mistake to make.. but in giving these guys cortosis shields and jet packs and nova vipers you're making it much too easy. It's like starting off a 1st level D&D character with a +6 Holy Avenger and +6 armour and shield then wondering why combat seems too easy.

The game is intended to challenge characters in other ways too, so if you're essentially playing a mostly-combat game, of course the munchkin guy is going to seem overpowered, because his weak spots don't matter.

It's easy to do this with droids; I only permit them if I'm certain the player is intending to portray 'humanity within the machine' as with Threepio, Artoo or BB8 (or inhumanity in the case of HK47...) If your letting a player create a murderbot with overpowered gear, then unfortunately it's no great surprise you're not enjoying things.

At this point, it's probably better if you just start over and insist the players make more rounded characters. Even a Marauder has Survival and Coercion, and these kinds of skills - they should be tested in these areas too, and they should be just as important as 'DPS' or whatever. Read 'Dangerous Covenants' for ways to run more involving stories for Hired Guns beyond shooting things. Look at the character's Motivations and Obligations and make these things a part of the game.

And whatever you do, don't handwave rarity, Restricted items, cost and encumbrance, because your situation is always the result of doing that.

.

At this point I may even talk to the group and try to hand off the reigns as gm to another player if anyone will take it. That way someone else can deal with the droid for a while, and I can finally try to build one of my 50 character concepts I have come up with in the past two years... Lol.

That is my plan, this thread could probably be in gm advice at this point, but nonetheless I appreciate the input and you guys listening to my vent.

Just remember, as the GM, you have the most obvious ability to make or break a game. But that does not mean you have the sole responsibility for everyone having a good time. Every person who sits down at the table and picks up dice has the power to ruin that game, and it takes everyone making an effort together to enable it into an awesome experience.

It is a really easy mistake to make as a new GM, but you have as much right to have fun as everyone else at that table. If you're not enjoying yourself, you absolutely need to take some kind of action.

At this point, it's probably better if you just start over and insist the players make more rounded characters.

Agreed. At this point you can't exactly reign them in with fewer rewards, the cat is out of the bag. You have to sit down with the group and tell them what kind of game you want to run and that one-trick-ponies aren't welcome. Basically, you want to run a Star Wars game, not a continual reenactment of the Battle of Thermopylae, staring a single droid instead of 300 Spartans. You may lose your munchkin player, but that's probably a blessing. (Personally I'd rather not play at all than play with people like that...whether as a co-player or a GM.)

You should also feel free to put limits on the new characters. The character generation XP is set up so that most species can get four 3s, which makes for very broadly capable character; or 4/3/2/2/2/2, which is a little more focused. It's not a stretch for a munchkin-transition-group to have to stick to one of those two options...it's the first step in the Munchkin Anonymous 12 step program...

Step 2 might be to be fairly restrictive about equipment. Make anything other than Padded Armour hard to get. Don't give them enough cash to casually go shopping, and try to avoid "shopping" as a game activity altogether.

Oh I enjoy gming very much. One player in particular is a wonderful player and really, if it wasnt for him, i would probably have stopped already. The bounty hunter is always willing to take the extra time to look for the extra details, try and slice the computer to find the dirty secret, sneak into the base rather than barge in, try and talk to the npcs and learn more or play the situation to his advantage. He does it very very well and I truly enjoy it. Then I have the smuggler who is pretty awesome too, high risk obligation and loves anything involved with going fast, gunfights, showing off, and romancing the ladies. Classic smuggler. But he tends to start drinking and have a little too much sauce at time, becoming beligerent and incoherent, which did lead to him being kicked out of a previous campaign due to being a huge jerk frequently, but he has toned it down a lot until recently, although it was a new years eve game so i gave him a pass... He couldnt even roll his dice. Hand face.

I love gming, but sometimes it gets so frustrating when i am putting work into not just making combat encounters interesting, but making a rich story with lots of other cool things to do, like racing, smuggling, hacking, hunting, meeting super cool npc's who can help them, running spice, tripping on crazy wierd Jagomir bug venom, exploring ancient temples, sneaking... the list goes on. Then the killer bot isnt having fun because he sucks at it. So i try to throw in intersting fights for him to shine and the other guys feel like a third wheel. So I make a combat where the jetpack shines due to terrain, or the gunslinger shines because they have to make that one shot on that really hard target before it is too late, but then the droid isnt having any fun... I seriously wonder if they realize how i am trying to encompass all their own unique abilities and talents into all these unique encounters and balance the fun for all of them... I feel like im being taken for granted, like I spend free time on this for them to have fun, which i enjoy, but if they all cant always be the most awesome or the best then it isnt fun anymore... I am a fricken dwarven cleric champion in dnd and all I am there for is to healbot, but I always try to have fun, roleplay, enjoy the story the gm (the bounty hunter) has written for the session, keep up with the story. I guess I just feel like gm's are taken for granted after so long, and the players dont realize the work that goes into making a rich campaign with all kinds of cool stuff to do.

I am reminded of when the campaign was about two months in. I asked my players at the end of the session what they wanted to do, what was their motivations at the moment so i could build it more to that, make it richer. They told me they "wanted a superior officer who could give them missions." Like a video game or something. Sure! I guess if that is all you want. So I did, pretty easy to give them a spot in the rebellion and an intel agent who could offer them "missions." But not even a month later they were at the table talking about how the rebellion pays **** and they are only their until they find something better. Like a guy who works for the hutts who gives you missions? How am I supposed to build a rich story around you player when all you ask for is a guy for missions.

I guess as i have been reading your replies, i have realized how much I am starting to not enjoy running the group now at this point. You are right, i can control the game, but they should take some of the story reigns as well, that is how this system is built and why I was drawn to it over dnd in the first place. They need to be just as responsible for their own fun as I am.

I see that I have enabled these problems as well, I am just as much at fault as they are. It became this monster because I allowed it. I need to step up my game. I am still learning, and each failure is a step towards a greater success... I have tried to get other groups going, but honestly, it is not easy to find people who want to roleplay. Most my friends cant comprehend why I play this game or love it so much. I have gotten other groups started, but they havent taken to it or the chemistry has been so off in the group that arguments start and people got mad. It sucked. This current group is the only group I have been able to get together consistently. I am currently looking to end my gm curse, but it is tough. All the gaming stores in my area are pretty much dnd fanboy hangouts, and the ff system is like a taboo. I have even tried getting the game store owners to work with me on running one shots on the weekends for those interested in trying a new system, but they never get back to me... It is hard to find dedicated players not stuck in d20 mindset... it is almose heartbreaking!!!

Wow i am complaining a lot. But this is like therepy for me. Thanks again. I think I am going to take your advice and starting after the final session next week move on to Imperial Assault, which I have one expansion for. Then they can just go to the gm vs. player mentality and forget about narrative roleplaying, play in a system where they cant min max and combat is the only focus. Are there any rules out there for character creation in that system in case they dont want to run one of the pregens? Any homebrew?

munchkin twelve step program... hahaha...

I should post an add on craiglist...

"Have a muchkin problem? Find yourself killing innocent civilians because you cant talk to them? Are you stuck sitting in the cargo bay twiddling your thumbs while your companions are enjoying a high pitched dog fight? Are you strong enough to kill a rancor, but still scared of an average joe? You might be a muchkin, and we can help! In our twelve step program we can help you overcome meta game! Our comprehensive program deals with the root of the problem, tackling things like straight probability thinking, roll-playing, power gaming, meta-gaming, snowflaking, and all other symptoms of munchkinism... Please, call today, the first step is acceptance... 1-800-PWR-GAMR"

Are there any rules out there for character creation in that system in case they dont want to run one of the pregens? Any homebrew?

Not really - the whole point is that you have to play a balanced character in that system.

EoE is much looser because it's an RPG rather than a tactical mini's game.

munchkin twelve step program... hahaha...

I should post an add on craiglist...

"Have a muchkin problem? Find yourself killing innocent civilians because you cant talk to them? Are you stuck sitting in the cargo bay twiddling your thumbs while your companions are enjoying a high pitched dog fight? Are you strong enough to kill a rancor, but still scared of an average joe? You might be a muchkin, and we can help! In our twelve step program we can help you overcome meta game! Our comprehensive program deals with the root of the problem, tackling things like straight probability thinking, roll-playing, power gaming, meta-gaming, snowflaking, and all other symptoms of munchkinism... Please, call today, the first step is acceptance... 1-800-PWR-GAMR"

If it's any consolation, I bet everyone here has been there at some point.

Everyone gets to this point at some time, mine was an AD&D game that went off the rails.

Gaming and GMing is like everything else, you learn by experience, and by making mistakes.

Thanks again.

Back to the core of this post, I think I have successfully gotten us all off track and distracted from the main question here, which is about balance, so I feel it is my duty (or obligation) to get this back on track... In fact I feel morally responsible to get back to the core of the post...

High Level Games

After what was discussed here, I think that we can all agree that, yes, balance and escalation can be an issue in this game when you get to high levels of experience. However, this is entirely dependent on the group of players and the gm. We have numerous Game Masters here talking about high experience campaigns that are still rolling on just fine... So lets look at some of the core causes to this problem.

I would say that a huge cause of this problem is a d20 mindset on both the gm and pc. If they are showing up just to kill monsters, this is not the system to go with imo. D20 is also very rooted in the treasure system. You kill a boss, you get a better sword. Not plus 1 but plus 2 or 3... this system is not that. You can get a better gun, yes, but once you have it, you got it. This system also is very flexible when it comes to finding and losing gear. You can destroy armor and weapons pretty easily if you want.

So, a very easy way to avoid this would be to have "that" conversation with your players. Let them know this is nothing like dnd or pathfinder, and they should expect it. They will not be gaining levels, they will not be finding +2 blaster rifles. They will lose gear, but they can easily replace pretty common gear, and finding the really good stuff is really hard. Comparing a nova viper blaster pistol or heavy battle armor to a vorpal sword or something. This is a narrative storytelling game, not a dungeon crawl.

Another huge break in the game from what I have read is rules comprehension. We have seen multiple posts here talking about damage output being way too high, or weapons firing when they technically should not be able to, or minions suffering strain to do two maneuvers, or forgetting to add setback and challenge dice where applicable, or even handling mass combat encounters on a personal scale. All these are can be game breaking problems that unbalance the game. The developers made the rules for minions and mass combat for a reason. Not only to make it easier on us, but to help balance the game.

So we need to be willing to look hard at where we went wrong, figure out how to do it right, and be big enough to admit it to our players and let them know that you will be correcting it in the future. If they cant accept that you as gm are human and make mistakes, then they can go play some old republic online. We also have to be willing to adapt these rules if we find a problem in our campaign, like some use pierce and breach differently to handle soak monsters, or use social encounters differently to make them higher tension. I believe that the developers made some rules very broad so we can all make our own game out of this system, and we need to have the courage and confidence to say "this is what I am doing and this is why, don't like it, here is a tissue..." (That could be a little harsh). In the end, that is one of the reasons we have these forums, so we can make rules adjucations and get advice on them.

Another major problem with difficulty is encounter variety. If every encounter is a "combat" where winning is "killing the bad guys," your going to run into issues with this system. This system is set up to have lots of different encounter types, and if you are running the same combat over and over, but just with more minions and rivals or nemesis, you are not going to get all you can out of the system.

Of course, scaling difficulty is fairly simple once you get a baseline on your groups power level by just adding another minion to the group or another group itself, adding support rivals, more rivals, adding nemesis or tweaking nemesis skills to compensate for the group, or by simply giving them just a couple pieces of better gear. But you can do so much more, you can make that encounter much more difficult by having it in a busy street with civilians everywhere and law enforcement coming in, give them a macguffin to protect or capture, throw in those locked doors that require hacking or skullduggery to get through, put your adversaries in positions of advantage, like on top of a building at long range, or across a huge chasm that they must athletics or coordination across to get to, or having them try to track down the target in a busy street with survival while the crowds are in panic from the group of minions that are on top of the buildings shooting at the pcs while the hacker tries to unlock the door to the cantina he snuck in....

You can do so much, combat should not be about killing them, and I think that a great way to express this is to have them keep coming until they do the other keys to "winning" the combat. Did they smoke your minion group in 2 rounds? You think the empire or black sun is going to have 5 guys on the street and that's it? They have huge gangs and armies, reinforcements can keep coming until they unlock that door, get inside, nab the target, get to the roof and hotwire a speeder to escape the pursuit, and it doesn't end there... Variety is the spice of life, and every encounter should include multiple other checks beside ranged attacks and melee.... (Highly recommend order 66 the list episode for great great pointers on this if you haven't listened already).

Attack the weakness' of pc's. Split the party, make the marauder roll charm or negotiation, have the face get into a fist fight, the pilot can fly, but when his speeder breaks down from threat or despair and he is on his own, can he fix it in time to warn the party about the ambush at the spaceport? This isn't cheap gameplay, this is exciting and narrative story telling. If the group cant understand they, they need to rethink some gaming expectations.

Have you ever got a flat tire on the way to work? You ever lost your phone at the bar the night you got that gorgeous girls number and now you have to find her? You ever take a test that you studied all week for, but get there to realize you forgot a huge portion was on something you didn't remember to write down or missed and your study partner didn't remember to bring you up to speed on? Have you ever gone camping and dropped your pack in the water, soaking your gear for the day? Life is full of complications. This game can be too, if you want it to be interesting and unique. So much opportunity for setback and upgrades in all those situations.

Make them work for the gear. Have them roll in the dump stat and it affect the story. Put them in crazy situations full of all sorts of variables. Does it take a little more work? Yes. But your game will greatly improve and your players think your the boss gm.

This game can work great and balance very well. But you need to change the mindset, put a little more work in, and let your players know they are active participants in the game, not backround dice rollers. I think I just pretty much reiterated what everyone is saying on here, but if I missed anything or someone has different ideas, please share.

I am currently suffering a little due to some mistakes I made in my game, but I am willing to admit I was wrong and I am willing to work to set it right. I have read a few posts about some space combat that seemed like it got excessive. If a 300xp group has a fleet of super tricked out ships and the rules are not being followed correctly when it comes to space combat, it is no surprise that is seems unbalanced, just like me giving my party super tricked out gear and then they murder circus everything in sight. It happens, lets admit we can do better in the future and work together to improve our game, not bicker about little details or semantics.

Word. You are all awesome sauce cool beans burritos.

BTW, I am going to be starting a couple threads soon about droids and different gear, since some issues have come to mind throughout these threads. I would love to hear your opinions on the matters. Unfortunately, I am getting closer to my dnd date and it will have to wait. Gotta go kill some vampires in ravenloft and give my minotoar paladin buddy the strength of a storm giant so he can whoop on one of strahds werewolf cronies. Good Luck gaming my friends.

I just found out what a muchkin is btw. Thanks wiki. But I also found out that I am a muchkin enabler. I should never have just given them all this sweet stuff unless they truly earned it, I just wanted to make them happy. I guess I need to curb my rewards from now on in my games, regardless of complaining from the players.

Start sundering weapons and armor.

Thanks again.

Back to the core of this post, I think I have successfully gotten us all off track and distracted from the main question here, which is about balance, so I feel it is my duty (or obligation) to get this back on track... In fact I feel morally responsible to get back to the core of the post...

High Level Games

After what was discussed here, I think that we can all agree that, yes, balance and escalation can be an issue in this game when you get to high levels of experience. However, this is entirely dependent on the group of players and the gm. We have numerous Game Masters here talking about high experience campaigns that are still rolling on just fine... So lets look at some of the core causes to this problem.

I would say that a huge cause of this problem is a d20 mindset on both the gm and pc. If they are showing up just to kill monsters, this is not the system to go with imo. D20 is also very rooted in the treasure system. You kill a boss, you get a better sword. Not plus 1 but plus 2 or 3... this system is not that. You can get a better gun, yes, but once you have it, you got it. This system also is very flexible when it comes to finding and losing gear. You can destroy armor and weapons pretty easily if you want.

So, a very easy way to avoid this would be to have "that" conversation with your players. Let them know this is nothing like dnd or pathfinder, and they should expect it. They will not be gaining levels, they will not be finding +2 blaster rifles. They will lose gear, but they can easily replace pretty common gear, and finding the really good stuff is really hard. Comparing a nova viper blaster pistol or heavy battle armor to a vorpal sword or something. This is a narrative storytelling game, not a dungeon crawl.

Another huge break in the game from what I have read is rules comprehension. We have seen multiple posts here talking about damage output being way too high, or weapons firing when they technically should not be able to, or minions suffering strain to do two maneuvers, or forgetting to add setback and challenge dice where applicable, or even handling mass combat encounters on a personal scale. All these are can be game breaking problems that unbalance the game. The developers made the rules for minions and mass combat for a reason. Not only to make it easier on us, but to help balance the game.

So we need to be willing to look hard at where we went wrong, figure out how to do it right, and be big enough to admit it to our players and let them know that you will be correcting it in the future. If they cant accept that you as gm are human and make mistakes, then they can go play some old republic online. We also have to be willing to adapt these rules if we find a problem in our campaign, like some use pierce and breach differently to handle soak monsters, or use social encounters differently to make them higher tension. I believe that the developers made some rules very broad so we can all make our own game out of this system, and we need to have the courage and confidence to say "this is what I am doing and this is why, don't like it, here is a tissue..." (That could be a little harsh). In the end, that is one of the reasons we have these forums, so we can make rules adjucations and get advice on them.

Another major problem with difficulty is encounter variety. If every encounter is a "combat" where winning is "killing the bad guys," your going to run into issues with this system. This system is set up to have lots of different encounter types, and if you are running the same combat over and over, but just with more minions and rivals or nemesis, you are not going to get all you can out of the system.

Of course, scaling difficulty is fairly simple once you get a baseline on your groups power level by just adding another minion to the group or another group itself, adding support rivals, more rivals, adding nemesis or tweaking nemesis skills to compensate for the group, or by simply giving them just a couple pieces of better gear. But you can do so much more, you can make that encounter much more difficult by having it in a busy street with civilians everywhere and law enforcement coming in, give them a macguffin to protect or capture, throw in those locked doors that require hacking or skullduggery to get through, put your adversaries in positions of advantage, like on top of a building at long range, or across a huge chasm that they must athletics or coordination across to get to, or having them try to track down the target in a busy street with survival while the crowds are in panic from the group of minions that are on top of the buildings shooting at the pcs while the hacker tries to unlock the door to the cantina he snuck in....

You can do so much, combat should not be about killing them, and I think that a great way to express this is to have them keep coming until they do the other keys to "winning" the combat. Did they smoke your minion group in 2 rounds? You think the empire or black sun is going to have 5 guys on the street and that's it? They have huge gangs and armies, reinforcements can keep coming until they unlock that door, get inside, nab the target, get to the roof and hotwire a speeder to escape the pursuit, and it doesn't end there... Variety is the spice of life, and every encounter should include multiple other checks beside ranged attacks and melee.... (Highly recommend order 66 the list episode for great great pointers on this if you haven't listened already).

Attack the weakness' of pc's. Split the party, make the marauder roll charm or negotiation, have the face get into a fist fight, the pilot can fly, but when his speeder breaks down from threat or despair and he is on his own, can he fix it in time to warn the party about the ambush at the spaceport? This isn't cheap gameplay, this is exciting and narrative story telling. If the group cant understand they, they need to rethink some gaming expectations.

Have you ever got a flat tire on the way to work? You ever lost your phone at the bar the night you got that gorgeous girls number and now you have to find her? You ever take a test that you studied all week for, but get there to realize you forgot a huge portion was on something you didn't remember to write down or missed and your study partner didn't remember to bring you up to speed on? Have you ever gone camping and dropped your pack in the water, soaking your gear for the day? Life is full of complications. This game can be too, if you want it to be interesting and unique. So much opportunity for setback and upgrades in all those situations.

Make them work for the gear. Have them roll in the dump stat and it affect the story. Put them in crazy situations full of all sorts of variables. Does it take a little more work? Yes. But your game will greatly improve and your players think your the boss gm.

This game can work great and balance very well. But you need to change the mindset, put a little more work in, and let your players know they are active participants in the game, not backround dice rollers. I think I just pretty much reiterated what everyone is saying on here, but if I missed anything or someone has different ideas, please share.

I am currently suffering a little due to some mistakes I made in my game, but I am willing to admit I was wrong and I am willing to work to set it right. I have read a few posts about some space combat that seemed like it got excessive. If a 300xp group has a fleet of super tricked out ships and the rules are not being followed correctly when it comes to space combat, it is no surprise that is seems unbalanced, just like me giving my party super tricked out gear and then they murder circus everything in sight. It happens, lets admit we can do better in the future and work together to improve our game, not bicker about little details or semantics.

Word. You are all awesome sauce cool beans burritos.

BTW, I am going to be starting a couple threads soon about droids and different gear, since some issues have come to mind throughout these threads. I would love to hear your opinions on the matters. Unfortunately, I am getting closer to my dnd date and it will have to wait. Gotta go kill some vampires in ravenloft and give my minotoar paladin buddy the strength of a storm giant so he can whoop on one of strahds werewolf cronies. Good Luck gaming my friends.

YOu should give a listen to epsidoe 24 of the Order 66 Podcast... It has a part on moving from d20 to FFG and how to reset those expectations. And likely you will want to listen to all of them. As lots of solid GM advice for this system.

Now I know.... cant really go back now.

Actually, there's no reason you cant call a GM Mulligan. "Look, we're all still learning the system, and I didn't realize that giving you guys such good swag would really screw up game balance. Since I don't want to scrap the game, lets just remove the troublesome items and say it didn't happen."

They need to be just as responsible for their own fun as I am.

The 98 dollar question: have you told them that? Sounds like you might need to talk to the group, mention your concerns, that you feel like you're doing the lion's share in what is suppose to be a collective story. Talk to them about getting them to buy into the story more and less about you handing them a game on a platter.

If it's any consolation, I bet everyone here has been there at some point.

Everyone gets to this point at some time, mine was an AD&D game that went off the rails.

Gaming and GMing is like everything else, you learn by experience, and by making mistakes.

Oh god, if you were to time travel back to 1986 and my first Star Wars sessions, you'd see a night-and-day gaming style. I was an f'ing terrible GM back then. Like any skill, only time and experience can help you get better. And even then you'll still make colossal f'ups. You'll just know how to handle them better.

And then if you were to time travel back to 1986, why the hell arent you telling me to buy Apple stock when it was 75 cents a share!