Hey all. New member but long-time lurker who's recently kicked off an ongoing Star Wars campaign using all three books. This isn't the first FF Star Wars game I've ever run (I did the EotE beginner game for multiple groups and a couple of my own scenarios) but as I'm grasping the rules more firmly a couple of questions are coming up that I can't seem to find answers for in the book. Rather than spamming a bunch of different threads I figured I'd make one where I can ask whatever rules questions come up in play.

To start:

1. For the Ace Rigger talent (Age of Rebellion) part of the specialization tree allows you to increase the Silhouette of your signature ship by one per rank. One benefit of this is that you can mount heavier weapons on craft that would otherwise be limited in firepower (Like a light turbolaser on an X-Wing) but is there any other incentive to do this given that the tradeoff is increasing your signature and making yourself easier to hit?

2. Given that stimpacks heal 5/4/3/2/1 (15 Wounds, more than enough for any character) and cost 25 credits each why would you bother with bacta or medpacs unless you had a Critical Injury? Maybe I'm just dense and that's the rules working as intended but it seems odd to offer the players the choice of A. spending a full day in bacta to recover wounds or B. jabbing yourself with magic drugs and getting up in minutes. Especially when a tank of bacta costs four grand.

3. Is there some sort of system for determining appropriate encounters for a given number of PCs at a certain experience level? In the prequel game I ran for this campaign I had two PCs and a support NPC (One player had to cancel at the last minute) who absolutely steamrolled encounter groups of Rival-led minions without taking a scratch, but the second I threw a Nemesis at them with supporting minions they were nearly wiped out.

2. Given that stimpacks heal 5/4/3/2/1 (15 Wounds, more than enough for any character) and cost 25 credits each why would you bother with bacta or medpacs unless you had a Critical Injury? Maybe I'm just dense and that's the rules working as intended but it seems odd to offer the players the choice of A. spending a full day in bacta to recover wounds or B. jabbing yourself with magic drugs and getting up in minutes. Especially when a tank of bacta costs four grand.

For anything other than crits, IMO stimpacks are the way to go. Or Force Heal, if you can. A good doctor/medic with a high intelligence and a good Medicine skill can also help a lot, if you should happen to run out of stimpacks, or exceed what stimpacks can do for you in the amount of time you have available between fights.

But for healing crits, you want a bacta tank.

3. Is there some sort of system for determining appropriate encounters for a given number of PCs at a certain experience level? In the prequel game I ran for this campaign I had two PCs and a support NPC (One player had to cancel at the last minute) who absolutely steamrolled encounter groups of Rival-led minions without taking a scratch, but the second I threw a Nemesis at them with supporting minions they were nearly wiped out.

Look at the relative dice pools, and the size of the minion groups. If the minion groups are large, they will have a lot of dice to roll, and that will make them more dangerous. They will also last longer in combat as their dice pools don’t go down until a minion is taken out, and with more minions to take out then it will take longer to whittle them down.

Also look at the number of minion groups. If there are more minion groups than there are PCs, that will mean the PCs are taking more inbound attacks from the minion groups, which will also make them more dangerous.

If the PCs are throwing around lots of yellow dice, then you want to throw more minion groups at them, and each minion group should be larger. Teams of six or more minions per group will have their skill capped at five, but they will keep that skill at that level until such time as they are reduced to less than six minions in the group.

Nemeses and Rivals should be using Squad rules for combat, so that the incoming attacks against them actually get taken by the minions that are formed up on those more powerful enemies, until such time as that minion “meat shield” gets wiped out.

Also, where possible, you might want to consider seeing if you can make checks that are opposed, so that it is the players who are doing most of the dice rolling, and as GM you do less dice rolling to represent the actions of the NPCs.

1. For the Ace Rigger talent (Age of Rebellion) part of the specialization tree allows you to increase the Silhouette of your signature ship by one per rank. One benefit of this is that you can mount heavier weapons on craft that would otherwise be limited in firepower (Like a light turbolaser on an X-Wing) but is there any other incentive to do this given that the tradeoff is increasing your signature and making yourself easier to hit?

You are looking at it wrong. What they mean is you can increase the silhouette you can pick for your project. IE instead of a fighter you can choose to do a freighter like the Millennium Falcon. So with one of the talent you can choose a silhouette 4 ship with the second one you could choose a silhouette 5 ship llike a Correllian Corvette

2. Given that stimpacks heal 5/4/3/2/1 (15 Wounds, more than enough for any character) and cost 25 credits each why would you bother with bacta or medpacs unless you had a Critical Injury? Maybe I'm just dense and that's the rules working as intended but it seems odd to offer the players the choice of A. spending a full day in bacta to recover wounds or B. jabbing yourself with magic drugs and getting up in minutes. Especially when a tank of bacta costs four grand.

For anything other than crits, IMO stimpacks are the way to go. Or Force Heal, if you can. A good doctor/medic with a high intelligence and a good Medicine skill can also help a lot, if you should happen to run out of stimpacks, or exceed what stimpacks can do for you in the amount of time you have available between fights.But for healing crits, you want a bacta tank.

3. Is there some sort of system for determining appropriate encounters for a given number of PCs at a certain experience level? In the prequel game I ran for this campaign I had two PCs and a support NPC (One player had to cancel at the last minute) who absolutely steamrolled encounter groups of Rival-led minions without taking a scratch, but the second I threw a Nemesis at them with supporting minions they were nearly wiped out.

Look at the relative dice pools, and the size of the minion groups. If the minion groups are large, they will have a lot of dice to roll, and that will make them more dangerous. They will also last longer in combat as their dice pools don’t go down until a minion is taken out, and with more minions to take out then it will take longer to whittle them down.Also look at the number of minion groups. If there are more minion groups than there are PCs, that will mean the PCs are taking more inbound attacks from the minion groups, which will also make them more dangerous.If the PCs are throwing around lots of yellow dice, then you want to throw more minion groups at them, and each minion group should be larger. Teams of six or more minions per group will have their skill capped at five, but they will keep that skill at that level until such time as they are reduced to less than six minions in the group.Nemeses and Rivals should be using Squad rules for combat, so that the incoming attacks against them actually get taken by the minions that are formed up on those more powerful enemies, until such time as that minion “meat shield” gets wiped out.Also, where possible, you might want to consider seeing if you can make checks that are opposed, so that it is the players who are doing most of the dice rolling, and as GM you do less dice rolling to represent the actions of the NPCs.

Thanks for the advice! I'll put this to use in the next session.

1. For the Ace Rigger talent (Age of Rebellion) part of the specialization tree allows you to increase the Silhouette of your signature ship by one per rank. One benefit of this is that you can mount heavier weapons on craft that would otherwise be limited in firepower (Like a light turbolaser on an X-Wing) but is there any other incentive to do this given that the tradeoff is increasing your signature and making yourself easier to hit?

You are looking at it wrong. What they mean is you can increase the silhouette you can pick for your project. IE instead of a fighter you can choose to do a freighter like the Millennium Falcon. So with one of the talent you can choose a silhouette 4 ship with the second one you could choose a silhouette 5 ship llike a Correllian Corvette

OH. That makes a hell of a lot more sense.

2. Given that stimpacks heal 5/4/3/2/1 (15 Wounds, more than enough for any character) and cost 25 credits each why would you bother with bacta or medpacs unless you had a Critical Injury? Maybe I'm just dense and that's the rules working as intended but it seems odd to offer the players the choice of A. spending a full day in bacta to recover wounds or B. jabbing yourself with magic drugs and getting up in minutes. Especially when a tank of bacta costs four grand.

Because you end up in more than one shootout in 24 hours and are wounded in multiple separate encounters.

Stimpacks should be used during combat, if you use them for maintenance healing you'll find yourself SoL in the middle of a fight if you have multiple combats in a short time frame. Medpacs are limited to once per encounter, so if you come up short after one encounter, know you'll be in contact is less than 24 hours, and have used up, or severely tapped into your stimpacks, your only option is Bacta tanks.