Allow me to present a little backstory. I'm new to the game; I ran my friends through the Beginner Box and they (for the most part) loved it. Now they're all clamoring to kick off a Knight-level game, preferably with tons of starting XP. I like to have powerful/capable characters as much as the next guy, but I think they're getting in over their heads with the potential complexity level of "higher-level" PCs for what are, essentially, novice players.

To illustrate my point, I want to give them pre-gen PCs and run them through a short scenario. It will be three Karen Traviss-type clone commandos and a Jedi master. They'll set up an ambush for a column of battle droids, hit-and-fade, camp for the night, and then get the word to execute order 66.

The clone commander will be a follow-orders type, the demolitionist will hate Jedi, and the sniper owes his life to the Jedi in question, so there's some good RP potential there, and it could end up in a 3 vs. 1 fight, a 2 vs. 1 with 1 abstention, or even 2 vs. 2. I don't want the Jedi so powerful that he wipes the floor with the clones, but I also don't want him to fold up in the first round of shooting. I think a few rounds of fighting followed by a hurried escape (or escape attempt) is about right.

The clones will have about 440 XP invested in skills, talents, and specialization buy-ins. They'll have about 165 XP worth of talents from Soldier: Commando, then around 100 XP worth of talents from another specialization. For the clone commander, that's the Commander: Tactician. For the sniper, it's Soldier: Sharpshooter and for the demolitionist, it's Engineer: Saboteur.

My question is this: How powerful does the Jedi need to be to survive a fight with the three clone commandos?

For the Jedi Master, I'm looking at getting fairly deep into Sentinel: Shadow and Shien Expert, concentrating on Reflect and the improved versions thereof. I'll probably invest in the Sense and Misdirect Force powers. Is a Force rating of 2 enough? Should I dip into another specialization far enough to raise the Force rating to 3? Any other powers that are must-haves?

I'd be happy to get some feedback and ideas.

I'd recommend against giving them that much XP to start with. It takes a while to understand how some Talents work, if they overload right away they are going to forget what they have, or won't know how to use it. I'd say that's especially true of the Force...if you scan these boards you'll find a ton of threads wanting clarification on one rule or another, and at that much XP you're going to be up against all those rules right away.

Well, that's kind of the point. I want to show them just how complex the rules and characters can be at higher power levels so that they'll agree to a more reasonable starting XP level. At the same time I want the scenario to be fun & interesting, but the complexity and the fun might be mutually exclusive.

Is it too much?

Yes.

It will make your point... but it might turn them off of the game in general. "It's too complicated", they might say. Or "It's not really that fun." It's a huuuuge risk. Try compromise? Starting XP + 25 or 50, enough to justify a nice established backstory. Promise the first few adventure will be rapid-paced, with lots of opportunity for XP. Dangle the award of role-play and motivation-based XP in front of them - convince them to interface with the game itself, and they might just find the prospect of growing in power just as rewarding as having the power itself.

That's my janky, on-the-fly advice, anyway.

Kestin makes a great point. Starting off at low power (with a little extra to be nice) and making some XP jumps after the first few missions would let you and the players find a nice point through the course of play and then slow down. Narratively, you might have a session about finding a Force user to train them, or say, a holocron. Cue a training montage, and they get 50 XP at the end of the mission. Next session is a while later, where they brush up against some big bad evil guy who maybe kills their master. Cue a montage of the players on the run all across the Outer Rim, and they get another 50 XP. Next session is a while later, and they're hunting for lightsaber crystals. End with them building sabers, and give 'em a little downtime to train, and another 50 XP to sink their teeth into a Lightsaber Form tree.

Now you've got players that are 150 or so XP above starting, which will give you some pretty competent characters, who also (importantly) have room to grow. Plus you've all laid out some backstory and character personality, introduced a villain, and can weave in plenty of other plot threads. Essentially, the first three sessions are setting the stage for the main plot, and make some time jumps to show greater scope.

Plus you can shorten or stretch this period of the game depending on how the players do. If they're dumped with the first +50 XP and can't track all their Force powers and talents, then slow it down. If they're pros and put everything to good use and most importantly, enjoying the mechanics of the dice too, not just craving more talents, then by all means, speed up to higher power. It's a flexible format.

Ah, those are much better ideas. Thanks so much!

Yeah, you're much better off giving them larger XP awards rather than just dumping buckets of XP on them right out the gate, especially if they're still fairly new to the system.

As for one Jedi vs. three clone commandos... it's going to depend on how they're built. A Jedi with a basic lightsaber and no mods on their crystal is still going to be a nasty combatant due to Breach, and depending on the LS Form spec chosen will have a pretty solid defense vs. ranged attacks (Niman Disciple and especially Shien Expert qualify) while the clones' armor won't be doing jack against lightsaber strikes. If the Jedi's been able to modify their lightsaber to drop that crit rating to a 1 and add at least one rank of Vicious, then the clones' biggest concern is going to be the critical injuries they'll be suffering, which can probably be a lot more debilitating than just sheer wound damage.

You might also run into the problem of making them feel useless when you scale things back to a "reasonable" level, and they might respond with "Ugh! I feel so useless! I can't do anything!"

Donovan's got the right idea. If you don't want them to stay in the "lowbie zone" for a long time, be generous with your XP. It will allow them to quickly build up their PC how they want, and it will force (hahah!) them to study the rules, and see how the talents/skills/powers work in conjunction with each other.

Being generous with the XP has worked well for me. I basically gave them enough per session/milestone to buy a new cool thing, and they basically got to "Knight-level" way faster than the in-game progress would have suggested, but no complaints (from me or them).