I have a player who is an apprentice of a Jedi (now dead) that initially survived Order 66. It works well into the story so far, but I'm beginning to get concerned about how to properly keep them from showing off that they're a trained Jedi Knight. Or at least how to punish/complicate things for them if they decide to. Obviously an Inquisitor getting dispatched to assist the local ISB detachment is the first step, but if things continue I was planning to have Vader show up to end things for good or drive him back into hiding.

The Force and Destiny book has a short section saying to not stat out Vader and just have him do his thing, but I want to make him an implacable force instead of a game-breaking annoyance that pulls the players out of the game and gets them frustrated at me.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to make him powerful enough to fear, but not so blatantly invincible as to be cheesy?

Easy. Use Vader as the book suggests, then Force choke complaining players until they relent.

I have a player who is an apprentice of a Jedi (now dead) that initially survived Order 66. It works well into the story so far, but I'm beginning to get concerned about how to properly keep them from showing off that they're a trained Jedi Knight. Or at least how to punish/complicate things for them if they decide to. Obviously an Inquisitor getting dispatched to assist the local ISB detachment is the first step, but if things continue I was planning to have Vader show up to end things for good or drive him back into hiding.

The Force and Destiny book has a short section saying to not stat out Vader and just have him do his thing, but I want to make him an implacable force instead of a game-breaking annoyance that pulls the players out of the game and gets them frustrated at me.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to make him powerful enough to fear, but not so blatantly invincible as to be cheesy?

The problem is that everything that has stats can be killed. So you will either destroy the entire group with a broken nemesis and his army of minions or they are going to kill him. If you dont bother to change the canon, the later is not a problem

I will give news of Vader's action to my PCs, rumor, holonet, etc. so they would know much dangerous he is to be encountered. If you decide to make the party meet him physically, then give him an army of stormtrooper and provide an escape to both groups if it turn out badly for them.

I had the idea of an Master Inquisitor hunting down the group (works for standard force sensitives)
But if you have an survivor of order 66, Vader may show up.

Use him when they have the possibility to escape and have him show up with a platoon of Storm Troopers.
Roll in secret for Vaders defense and tell your group that vader simply reflects every shot and lightsaber swing.
then give him a ton of boost dice (as he is only playing with your group and wants them to flee, he might find more jedi)


I would think of something simillar to Star Wars: Rebels, when Darth confronts the players for the first time

I have a similar issue with my group, they were all younglings being transported to Coruscant at the end of the clone wars, have been trained by the agro-corp jedi that had been sent to collect them and now wave their glowy sticks of doom while using the force to take people's weapons. An Inquisitor did turn up but they managed to escape and lay low long enough to make him believe that they may have moved on. He is still looking for them.

First off, if you want a Bad Guy to last in any game, never give it/him/her stats. "If you stat it, they will kill it." If your player(s) make it onto the List of Suspected Jedi, then they are going to be watched and observed. Make sure, however, that they know they are being watched. A face in the crowd that always shows up...their quarters being searched but not put back quite right, with a chair or knick-knack out of place. If they keep showing off, then they get the attention of the Inquisitors. The first meeting could be a 'friendly chat' with an Inquisitor. Picture the gestapo guy from 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' sitting down and, creepy smile and all, asking, "Now....what shall we talk about?"
If the player(s) don't keep their heads down, then the Empire is going to make the choice: Dead or Alive. To quote Longshanks from 'Braveheart', "Bring me Wallace. Alive, if possible. Dead...just as good." Now the player(s) have to contend with the Empire actively trying to capture or kill them. If capturing proves to be too difficult, keep in mind that the Empire could do just about anything...level a building, blow up a transport, stormtrooper ambush...and blame the whole thing on 'Rebellion terrorism'.
Hopefully, the player(s) get the hint, and don't draw attention to themselves. Now, when they are away from public/imperial observation, all bets are off...

Don't pull out Vader unless you have to. Make them jump through the Agent and Inquisitor hoops first, all while ramping up the challenge. Then give them a "there are worse things than death" when they finally do defeat the last guy before Vader.

After that, make Vader an implacable force.... If they had contacts, Vader slaughters them. If they had friendly ports, Vader flattens them. Play him like the Agent from Serenity: if the enemy goes to ground, give him no ground to go to.

Once Vader actually does show up in the flesh, the party should be solidly imbued with the idea that the best, nay, only course of action is to run. Just like the Matrix.

These PC's are not Vaders son, when he comes to town he brings the hurt. He will chase them through a crowded street by flinging civilians out of the way like rag dolls. He will open fire on their YT-1300 with every turret on his SSD. He will force choke every one of them... At the same time. You need to give them fair warning he is after them and very close, if they don't run then at least 1 PC is dying that session. Unless he thinks he can turn a PC he won't bother with capture, this isn't fishing for him, there's no "catch and release".

If you want stats then every dice pool is 7 yellow, 6 force dice, and every force pip counts as 2. He reflects anything with no strain cost every time (narate as either Lightsaber or Move) , he has as many initiative slots as there are PC's. He never suffers wounds, or strain. He has every Force power with every upgrade.

He also has 2 Inquisitors with him and an endless army of Storm Troopers.

But I wouldn't bother with stats or dice:

GM: "He throws a building at you, can you catch it or dodge it? It's a Formidable check..."

Or

GM: "Vader comes at you with an avalanche of swings from Saber, hit, Breach 2, 18 damage, and a vicious 3 Crit"

PC: "but you didn't roll"

GM: "Buddy this is Vader, if I roll it will be worse"

They will never kill him, and he will always win. The players need to learn this, either the easy way by just accepting it, or the hard way by dying.

These PC's are not Vaders son, when he comes to town he brings the hurt. He will chase them through a crowded street by flinging civilians out of the way like rag dolls. He will open fire on their YT-1300 with every turret on his SSD. He will force choke every one of them... At the same time. You need to give them fair warning he is after them and very close, if they don't run then at least 1 PC is dying that session. Unless he thinks he can turn a PC he won't bother with capture, this isn't fishing for him, there's no "catch and release".

Oh, even worse - Vader has them absolutely dead to rights and they just barely get away. Why? Because Vader let them get away. Not because he's following them back to their base or whatever, but because now that he has wiped out the Jedi, there's nobody left to give him a good challenge. All he has is petty imperial officers and the scum and villainy of the galaxy as foes.

In short, he's bored.

And a bored Vader coming after you is a billion times more scary than a Vader with a task.

These PC's are not Vaders son, when he comes to town he brings the hurt. He will chase them through a crowded street by flinging civilians out of the way like rag dolls. He will open fire on their YT-1300 with every turret on his SSD. He will force choke every one of them... At the same time. You need to give them fair warning he is after them and very close, if they don't run then at least 1 PC is dying that session. Unless he thinks he can turn a PC he won't bother with capture, this isn't fishing for him, there's no "catch and release".

Oh, even worse - Vader has them absolutely dead to rights and they just barely get away. Why? Because Vader let them get away. Not because he's following them back to their base or whatever, but because now that he has wiped out the Jedi, there's nobody left to give him a good challenge. All he has is petty imperial officers and the scum and villainy of the galaxy as foes.

In short, he's bored.

And a bored Vader coming after you is a billion times more scary than a Vader with a task.

The only thing worse than Vader considering you a threat is a bored Vader -not- considering you a threat.

Reading through this makes me hope one of my Players will create a force sensetive Exile.

Throwing the full might of the Empire against them, just classy.

I'm going to disagree with everyone. Give him stats. Make them high but reasonable. Let the players take their chances. They will most likely fail if they don't run, but there should always be some chance if the players play well.

Oh, even worse - Vader has them absolutely dead to rights and they just barely get away. Why? Because Vader let them get away. Not because he's following them back to their base or whatever, but because now that he has wiped out the Jedi, there's nobody left to give him a good challenge. All he has is petty imperial officers and the scum and villainy of the galaxy as foes.

In short, he's bored.

I don't think I'd go with the boredom thing. I'd treat it like how he treated the rebels on Lothal: letting them escape is one way they might reveal the identities and locations of other rebels. Because he is always certain there are more rebels. Never underestimate the power of the dark side's paranoia.

I don't know that I'd stat him out, but I don't think I'd go overboard with the stats and initiative slots. It seems to me he really only needs one slot, and the skills and Talents to make sure he goes first. Assuming he has the full Bind tree, and an FR of 5 or more, for 3 pips he can grab 4 people in the party, and then Commit 3 dice until they're dead. Meanwhile he busies himself with the remainder (if any), or simply use Mastery to crit them repeatedly. No doubt his Discipline and Lightsaber skills are very high, with lots of Parry and Reflect. That along with Adversary should keep him going long enough to destroy 4 PCs at a time and hold the rest at bay. And he's never alone.

For all that, he's not immune to being slowed down or diverted, again, see Rebels for an example.

Thanks for the ideas!

The other thing I've been liking about this so far is that no matter how powerful the players get, no matter how many ships they buy, or allies they make; the Empire is always stronger than they are. This should be fun.

The other thing I've been liking about this so far is that no matter how powerful the players get, no matter how many ships they buy, or allies they make; the Empire is always stronger than they are. This should be fun.

If they’ve made friends in a particular city and the Empire really wants to bring the hurt, let them do orbital bombardment until there isn’t even rubble left. Not full-on Alderaan, where the whole planet gets blown up — there might still be some useful resources down there that can be extracted before the planet gets destroyed. No, just wipe out an entire city or three.

I think with a great soak (7), great hitpoints and some reasonably good stats with a limitation (he only moves one manvour at a time.) you can make a good Vader without necessarily going completely over the top. But theres a little trick that I find can make a good vader great.

Out of turn actions.

"I draw my tricked out Nova Viper and open fire, I might have been had but I'm not going down without a fight!"

"I flip a destiny point. Vader activates force sheild rolling... 4 darkside pips off 4 dice. You just see him raise a hand and catches the blasterbolt, the energy harmlessly dispating around him."

-The players gasp-

"Vader's action is quite simple. He uses move object. Make a strength apposed by disapline."

(Rolls dice)

"****, he's taken it it, hasn't he?"

"Yup, that magic you never really believed to be real? Well, nothing else could explain the tuggign sensation that yanked your blaster into his hand, where it rests confortably as vader invites you to sit around the table. During the other turn you hear a rustling of footsteps, though you can't see, you suspect that backup is arriving. You either try and run or accept his inventation"

"You don't give me much choice..."

Doing small things like that can make a character much more powerful then a stat's sheet may seem. All while allowing the player to survive one encounter with one of the most powerful enterties of the universe.

Also, just because you defeat him doesn't mean he's dead. A defeat in this particlar case is managing to over come him enough to get some distance, such as kicking down a well, disarming him (literally) so that he has no other discorse but to force push you backwards, exactly where you wanted to be.

If you want Vader to be an implacable force, statting him is the opposite of what you want to do. Anything with stats can be killed. On the other side of that, anything with stats can slaughter the party. Let him stalk menacingly towards the characters. If they shoot at him, he simply absorbs the energy like he did in ESB. As soon as you tell them "You deal X damage" they might start to think "Wow, I just wounded Vader, maybe we actually have a shot at this after all."

Then they either get a lucky crit that downs the Dark Lord of the Sith or they get destroyed because they decided not to run after all.

Another thing to consider. When using a big bad, don't forget about using Fear checks. Edge of the Empire core rules specifically go over encountering Vader as a 5 or higher difficulty if I recall correctly.

Another thing to consider. When using a big bad, don't forget about using Fear checks. Edge of the Empire core rules specifically go over encountering Vader as a 5 or higher difficulty if I recall correctly.

Fear checks might help the players decide whether they want to run, or whether they REALLY want to run! If I remember right any check against Vader is both Formidable and then upgrades three times.

I have a player who is an apprentice of a Jedi (now dead) that initially survived Order 66. It works well into the story so far, but I'm beginning to get concerned about how to properly keep them from showing off that they're a trained Jedi Knight. Or at least how to punish/complicate things for them if they decide to. Obviously an Inquisitor getting dispatched to assist the local ISB detachment is the first step, but if things continue I was planning to have Vader show up to end things for good or drive him back into hiding.

The Force and Destiny book has a short section saying to not stat out Vader and just have him do his thing, but I want to make him an implacable force instead of a game-breaking annoyance that pulls the players out of the game and gets them frustrated at me.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to make him powerful enough to fear, but not so blatantly invincible as to be cheesy?

The problem is that everything that has stats can be killed. So you will either destroy the entire group with a broken nemesis and his army of minions or they are going to kill him. If you dont bother to change the canon, the later is not a problem

I will give news of Vader's action to my PCs, rumor, holonet, etc. so they would know much dangerous he is to be encountered. If you decide to make the party meet him physically, then give him an army of stormtrooper and provide an escape to both groups if it turn out badly for them.

For me, If I had players playing during that time period? And they, themselves, were not wise enough to try and keep things on the down low? then they brought the Wrath upon themselves. They better flee because if they choose to face Vadar and the empire, the Smack down cometh.

If all said and done and they some how manage to actually survive such a conflict. Well then cudos to them, The Emperor and the Empire will be hunting them with everything they have.

I kind of didn't want to state this because I always mention it every time the possibility of a duel comes up, but another answer to keeping Vader intimidating.

Spilt the party. Even Vader isn't indestructible, but on the same notice whenever the players encounter him they are either heavily outnumbered (Shuttle raid, Landos surprise dinner party) or they are effectively alone (each of the duel's in all three OT movies, it's practically the formula for most duels ever.).

That way you can still have your battle without necessarily making him a super god. I mean, Luke beat him quite handily when he put his mind to it.

That way you can still have your battle without necessarily making him a super god. I mean, Luke beat him quite handily when he put his mind to it.

Was that Luke beating him by his own skill and talent, or was that Vader holding back and then ultimately choosing to lose instead of killing his own son?

That way you can still have your battle without necessarily making him a super god. I mean, Luke beat him quite handily when he put his mind to it.

Was that Luke beating him by his own skill and talent, or was that Vader holding back and then ultimately choosing to lose instead of killing his own son?

I would agree with this lieklyhood more.

Yoda and others may have given him the Idea that his training was nearly complete... But louke didn't have even a 10th of the training, let alone the years as a Sith Lord, to perfect his abilities.

Luke had about 3 years, from being BARELY taught anything by Obi-wan over a space of a few days, to going to find Yoda, Then he leaves after what may have been a few days to a week or so of training by Yoda. Spends nearly a year building a Lights Saber and helping to find Han. Then returns to yoda again just as Yoda Dies.

Even if e assume he returned to Yoda during that year at some point, He has, at most, less than a years worth of Actual Training by any master.

Han's statement of "delusions of Grandeur" was appropriate. The Problem was Luke was filled with confidence by the words of Yoda and Obi-wan that he was up to the task.

The reality was, Luke was Woefully under-trained and Much less skilled than ANY Jedi before him.

And we are not even just talking about Force abilities, There is very little real possibility that he ever gained the mastery of the lightsaber that Any Jedi ever had with a lifetime fof training in just a few months. Especially with Zero people to really train against.

On Vadar's side, With every word he spoke to Luke, he showed his desire to be united with his son. The Fact was, Vadar was dependent on the Emperor to keep him alive. Vadar's suit was handling a lot of the load, but it was the Emperor's Mastery over life and death that really kept him alive. Vadar even said it himself in return of the Jedi when Luke turned himself over to Vadar. Vadar knew that if he left the Emperor or turned against him, the Emperor could withdraw his life with a mere thought. Vadar wasn't yet willing to let go of his own existance and power yet. Especially not when he had Just found his son.

It was only when it came down to the Love that still existed in his heart, that love for Padme, that translated to his children, seeing his son about to die, He could not stand by and let that happen, even if it lost him his own life.

Vadar was not fighting Luke with all his might, He continued to hope that He and Luke could still have some life together, even if it meant that Luke turned to the Darkside. He was Blind to the truth, though, as the Emperor knew only one of them would remain his apprentice and was using them against one another to Make sure he had the most Powerful servant at the end.

Vader is in the Rescue at Glare Peak adventure and interestingly he is not statted like other characters. Instead he acts more like a countdown, an unstoppable threat who its best to get out of the way.

He arrives after a certain amount of encounters. Then he gets two move manuevers per turn. If he gets into Engaged range with a character they are immediately incapacitated.

I'll probably use something similar in my Force and Destiny camapign.

I'm more inclined towards using Vader statless as if you do manage to face them alone someone evidently messed up!

Remember Vader's Fist?

The 501st have acted as backup for Vader prior to the EU chuck out I can't see the Emperor ordering them to allow Vader to confront them alone even in Rebels he had back up they just didn't plan on them throwing high explosives around!