So, took my son and his friends (a group of 13 year old boys) through the beginner adventure over the weekend. I have not been a GM since I was in Middle School and honestly have just gotten back into RPG (Pathfinder and now D&D) just in the last 2 years. So, I am worried that I have been doing something wrong.

It seemed to me that all of the combat was generally incredibly easy. For this group of boys, facing Malefax, only one boy had incurred any damage at all. And, when they went up against Malefax, Pon dropped him with one hit (light sabre and a crit). This just seemed way to easy. I understand it is a beginner game...I am just worried I may have made it all too easy.

Can you please walk me through a battle between Pon and Malefax. Just how to form the dice pool and why...

No, you probably got it right. The combat is easy because the developers gave the characters lightsabers; if you were playing the full game, a starting character (which is what the 6 pregens are built on) wouldn't normally be able to get those at character creation. So, if you were to take starting PCs through Mountaintop Rescue, they wouldn't have lightsabers, they'd have mundane weapons, ancient swords, or training sabers (which don't have Breach).

But, rolling 4-yellow dice against 1-purple, seems like they could NEVER fail...

Any engaged encounter (default for melee/brawl) is average, 2 purple.

Wait, who had four yellows? I don't have the game handy, so I don't recall exactly, but:

1. since you can't have more than 2 skill ranks out of chargen, none of the included characters could have been rolling four yellow dice, probably the best dice pool is YYG (3 Brawn and 2 ranks).

2. yes, 2 purples is a minimum for melee combat, plus the final bad guy probably had Adversary (which upgrades a purple to a red).

Sounds like you gave out some unintentional free upgrades...no wonder it was so easy.

Well, when you start with like 1 yellow and 3 green for your lightsaber and then upgrade for brawn it makes it 4 yellows.

And I was doing 1 purple because distance was short...

Like I said, pretty sure I am doing something wrong.

Well, when you start with like 1 yellow and 3 green for your lightsaber and then upgrade for brawn it makes it 4 yellows.

And I was doing 1 purple because distance was short...

Like I said, pretty sure I am doing something wrong.

Ah yes. There's part of the problem.

The 1 yellow 3 green was likely already calcuated with your brawn.

For skill checks you determine your skill ranks and your characteristic for that skill. The higher of those two numbers determine the number of green dice in your pool, and the lower of those two numbers determine how many of those green dice get turned to yellow dice.

So if you have 1 rank in lightsaber and a 4 in brawn, 4 is the number of green dice, and 1 is the number of times those green dice are upgraded to yellow. So your skill check would be 1 yellow and 3 green.

Second, unless you have some ability that lets you attack from short range, you need to be at engaged range to Attack with a lightsaber. The base difficulty for all Brawl, Melee, and Lightsaber skills is always 2 purple, not 1 (however your talents or those of your target could alter that base difficulty). If you move out to short range, you cannot attack with your lightsaber. This is one of a few reasons range weapons are preferred over Lightsabers.

Well, when you start with like 1 yellow and 3 green for your lightsaber and then upgrade for brawn it makes it 4 yellows.

That's not right, and you figure it out as kaosoe said above. However, note that the pre-gens (if you were using them) come with the total dice pools already showing. You don't have to calculate anything. If you get the core rules and continue with the game, look for OggDude's character generator, it will calculate everything for you as well.

And just to add to what kaosoe said, the only way to get four yellow dice is to have both a Brawn of 4, and 4 skill ranks.

Ok. So, I clearly wasn't setting the dice pool correctly for the players. How about for Malefax?

When he would attack, I took his sith sword (2 yellow 1 green) and upgraded the green to a yellow due to his brawl being 1 yellow 2 green. Then I would set the number of purple based on the character he was attacking brawl combat skill. So, when Malefax attacked Pon it was 3 yellow against 4 purple.

I assume this was wrong too? Should it have been 2 yellow 1 green vs 2 purple???

Okay, first of all, with the beginner games, all the printed dice pools on the character sheets or the adventure book are the dice pools. So for any of the character or bad guys, to perform a skill check, it's just the dice printed on the page. As for difficulty, it's normally static; it's 2 purple for brawl/melee/lightsaber combat, and you don't add the opposing character's skill ranks. So Malefax rolls YYGPP.

I assume this was wrong too? Should it have been 2 yellow 1 green vs 2 purple???

Yes. The Sith Sword uses the Melee skill, which has nothing to do with Brawl. Either Malefax has a Brawn of 3 and a Melee skill of 2, or a Brawn of 2 and a Melee skill of 3. That's how you get the 2 yellow 1 green.

It's worth mentioning that Malefax is regarded as a pretty lackluster final enemy for that adventure. Even for a group of complete newbies. Solo fights do not work well in this game, especially against a group that has lightsabers.

It's worth mentioning that Malefax is regarded as a pretty lackluster final enemy for that adventure. Even for a group of complete newbies. Solo fights do not work well in this game, especially against a group that has lightsabers.

That said, the guy in the Free PDF is just the reverse. I ran the beginner set as a filler game when we were just running with two PCs (pretty experienced, too) and he utterly destroyed them. I had to dial back right quick and have him make some stupid decisions or it would have ended badly.