Does anyone have any suggestions on how to make enemies less likely to go down? My group has gained enough experience that a nemesis with a small horde of minions (in squad formation with the nemesis) plus a couple rivals will go down very quickly. The PC's are using autofire, and when engaged at short range, they are rolling YYYG or better against RR. This seems to regularly generate 2-4 hits at 13+ damage. I don't have a problem with minions going down quick, but the nemesis, even at soak 6 will go down fast and hard. But it doesn't seem right to make the enemy have hideous soak. Do I just up the rivals, and keep the pressure on with more minions?

Have a high initiative and go first. Why don't your opponents have at least some Setbacks in the pool? They should be taking cover, or have armor, or something. Add in innocent by standers that allow for a Despair to completely miss an opponent and strike a by stander, as well as, add in Setbacks for the increased chaos of trying to hit the bad guys. Mix up the attackers composition, hit them with melee, short and medium range opponents, and snipers from long and extreme range.

One thing you can do for the nemesis is use the squad leader rules from AoR to give him a minion group that acts like extra HP. Basically when shooting at the nemesis they have to get rid of all the minions first. And using the squad rules he can command a new minion group when the first one is eliminated. Obviously it works best narratively if the minions are nearby...

This does take a minion group out of circulation, unless the nemesis rolls very well on their Leadership.

Well, if they're Jedi/Marauders, you could have the bad guys start at beyond engaged range. That or put some stuff between the two parties so moving over in one (or even two) rounds is difficult.

Also - what about reinforcements? "Hey, look at that - you rolled a despair? Looks like the stormtroopers at the back door finally managed to batter down the lock and come pouring in!"

Never underestimate the ingenuity of a desperate enemy. Once the enemy has seen the PC hose down his goons with a heavy weapon, have the baddie beat a hasty retreat. Only to show up alter with some nasty surprise. Perhaps rocket launchers or thermal detonators.

Obviously you shouldn't use the above tactic more than once in long while, but it could drive some tension.

One thing you do for the nemesis is use the squad leader rules from AoR to give him a minion group that acts like extra HP. Basically when shooting at the nemesis they have to get rid of all the minions first. And using the squad rules he can command a new minion group when the first one is eliminated. Obviously it works best narratively if the minions are nearby...

This does take a minion group out of circulation, unless the nemesis rolls very well on their Leadership.

on what page are this rules?

Forcefields and blast doors. These can pop up in ridiculous places to force the players to either wait, or take a route around.

An adversary should NEVER fight in an area he is not in control of.

Remember to liberally assign black dice because of the environment one, to limit the number of success and advantages rolled, two, for players to make use of talents that remove these.

Mix it up and manage the situation. Rain, snow, sleet, hail. Anything that adds setbacks. Make them use those talents and special gear they should have been buying. Is it cold? Is it hot? Is there little pieces of rock being blown at hundreds of miles per hour? How far can they see? What gear should they need to survive here? Were the opposition expecting them? If so how does that change how they should be equipped and laid out?

Make their gear matter. Envision the character. What does he look like? Really look over all his gear and think about it. Lets see... he's got battle armor, a huge frame pack, a big honking gun, and a dozen other weird odds and ends. Now... where is the encounter taking place? Is his gear actually appropriate? I mean really, deep down appropriate? If it's not, start dropping setbacks, or worse for it. On a highly civilized planet? Why is he allowed to carry an infantry support weapon around? Hauling a bunch of bulky gear in the jungle doesn't make sense, you'll be snagging on everything. Moving through Tatooines sun with no cooling gear? What? And no canteens of water? That's a resilience check, a tough on.

Make the location drastically different. Acidic atmo requires the players be in environmental suits. Open water means dropped items can't be recovered. This is good because it not only makes the location memorable, but also requires the players to really take what they need, not just what has the highest damage rating.

Give them something to do other then stand aim and shoot. Make them have to fight while jumping from platform to platform on a massive automated mining rig. Stay on a platform for more then 2 rounds and get hit by machinery. Make the fight take place in a collapsing temple, with everyone making a "Chase" check vs the collapse.

Give everyone a goal that isn't "kill all opposition." Place a thing in the middle that one side needs to get and do something with. Skip that to shoot your big two handed gun and it's probably some lowly scouttrooper will grab it and run off, giving you an instant failure. Make the object to get a person out of a bad situation. Dragging an unconscious VIP out of a fire is hard.

Make the enemy unstoppable through volume of fire. Ok, he's piloting a small walker through the streets with Armor 3 and a light repeater chin gun. You have nothing that can punch through armor 3. You'll have to find some other method of stopping him. Get creative.

Give them something to carry other then their massive cannon. (You are tracking enc right?!?!?) Yay, you've got a light repeating blaster, a weapons harness, and heavy battle armor. For this next mission you need NEED to carry this specific item to do something critical to mission success. It has an Enc of 8.

Develop actual real life no kidding tactics. If you're just tossing a pile of baddies at them without a plan, then you're automatically at a disadvantage. What are the bad guys going to do? Why? How does that leverage their abilities, gear and so on? Break it down and work it out. "Ok the Naval troopers with the boarding shields will form a phalanx across the hallway and advance while firing, the stormtroopers will fall in behind and fire over the shields so they can get a cover bonus. When close enough they start tossing grenades. The Stormtrooper Sgt. will follow the troopers, using his ability to allow the troopers to aim for free each turn, and the Officer will follow granting the stormtroopers or naval troopers a free second attack every turn."

Make sure you're applying the rules correctly. Squad rules allow you to negate a hit at the cost of a squad member. That's a hit, not damage. So if you hit me 2 times with your auto fire heavy rifle, I lose 2 guys. I don't care how many success you got.

Make them rivals instead of minions, and spread them out so the player can't sarlacc sweep the whole group with one good hit.

Also, as others have said, weather and terrain.

Stop using minions. If your players are this effective in combat you need to switch to rivals and nemeses only.

Also, give the NPCs some powerful weapons of their own. The PCs have heavy blaster rifles with auto-fire? Give the NPCs one as well. Or a disruptor rifle; nothing terrifies players more than someone who can crit with +40 or however much it is. Have your NPCs focus fire on whichever PC is wielding the most dangerous weapon and drop him, then move on to the next. It's important that they learn that carrying a beast of a weapon doesn't just make you dangerous, it also makes you a target.

I've added Adversary 1 to minions before, as well as increased minion group sizes. I also encourage using the environment to modify the encounter. Additionally, I am a fan of placing PCs in situations where blasting one's way out isn't the only way, or the best way. They can't kill nemeses they can't shoot.

Concerning minions, you may want to try the "Elite" house-rule talent for your minions

Talent: Elite x (All attacks made by the minion group gains a linked rating equal to the rank of Elite as long as the group has more than one minion minion within it).

It doesn't help how quickly they will die out, but it's help them burn a little brighter before they go.

Don't stick with listed weapon load outs. There are grenades that are quite good, I'm a big fan of concussion grenades. The humble Bola used by the right adversary can be devastating. Jetpacks are the obvious choice for confounding any PCs that are Brawl/Melee focused. We see 1st order Stormtroopers with shields, they certainly dial up opponents defensive qualities.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to make enemies less likely to go down? My group has gained enough experience that a nemesis with a small horde of minions (in squad formation with the nemesis) plus a couple rivals will go down very quickly. The PC's are using autofire, and when engaged at short range, they are rolling YYYG or better against RR. This seems to regularly generate 2-4 hits at 13+ damage. I don't have a problem with minions going down quick, but the nemesis, even at soak 6 will go down fast and hard. But it doesn't seem right to make the enemy have hideous soak. Do I just up the rivals, and keep the pressure on with more minions?

Where are all the various setbacks for all kinds of factors in the fight? poor lighting, foggy, enemies taking cover, noise, etc... Why aren't the enemies playing smarter? Don't start so close together. Give them good ranged cover (snipers at long/extreme) to help keep the PCs pinned down while the NPCs move around.

Stop using minions. If your players are this effective in combat you need to switch to rivals and nemeses only.

We interrupt this post for an important message: minions can be VERY effective, even against high level characters. A group of 10 against one target can only shoot that one target, but it takes a while to whittle them down. In the meantime, they're rolling 5 yellows (potentially) against the target - which should be enough to make anyone's day unhappy. If you play them smart, minions can be extremely deadly.

This message brought to you by The Minion Anti-Defamation League.

Also, consider this house rule: Minions with Linked

First and most importantly stop using SMALL groups of minions, start using BIG groups. By far the best personal scale tank is a squad of 10+ Stormtroopers, and I mean by far. That's a wound pool of 50+ wounds, soaking 5 every hit. So your players 4 hits at 13 damage just barely managed to take out 3 of them... Guess what, their dice pool is still their peak AAPPP! It would take 2 solid attacks to bring them down to where most GM's start their Minion groups

A Nemesis is typically a glass cannon, just like most PC's they hit hard but go down super easy. You need to make them hard to get to and hard to hit.

There are serious consequences for using Auto-Fire on a regular basis, the authorities take a very unfavourable view of them and tend to give people carrying them a very hard time... Just saying.

Edit: Beaten to it by Desslok, but seriously anyone who is thinking minions have no place in a high powered game should try sending 3 groups of 10 of them at their PC's

drop rivals on them, and i mean literally, have them walk around a city and have crazy wookies leap down and beat em to a pulp :3 whatchu goin to do when u got an ally pinned down by a bezerkin wookie

Oh yeah engage those puppies, then when things look bad use that Despair from the "Shooting into Engaged" rules to hit their buddie

To not regurgitate any of the great ideas above like the setbacks for not being geared, environmental setbacks, and ideas of reinforcmenents and adversaries being more in control of their environment, add in a slicer who's somewhere else in the facility or hidden in the back of the room. The slicer can activate defensive systems like gas in between the adversaries and PCs, the gas will keep away Melee PCs as the NPCs switch to ranged weapons. The Slicer can activate turrets that may have been hidden, or overload terminals in the PCS vicinity. Maybe even having a small treasure of poison / emp grenades. Add in nets that take down the heavier PCs. Have the minions use their stun settings to take down the PCs as narratively the NPCS do not want to clean up a murder scene or maybe they want the PCs as prisoners because they don't know why they are being attacked.

There is so much good advice in this thread.

/wild applause.

There is so much good advice in this thread.

/wild applause.

Amazing when people.....A. Stay on topic.....B. Answer the question from the OP........ C. Don't be *****y with other poster's suggestions and finally......D. Don't go off on some goofy tangent/rant about why they hate some element of the game, that ultimately...... E. Things go smoothly.................almost like a crafting template for how to make a productive thread.....

Well, it also helped that Edgookin didn't lead off with "Minions are terrible, so here's a house rule I made up. It's awesome and I know better than all of you! So there."

Sadly that seems to happen all too often. . . . .

Well, it also helped that Edgookin didn't lead off with "Minions are terrible, so here's a house rule I made up. It's awesome and I know better than all of you! So there."

Sadly that seems to happen all too often. . . . .

True, but honestly I find more often than not OP's post pretty straightforward dispassionate questions, and it goes goofuss afterwards. Then of course there are the bothersome infinite backpacks to contend with......

I forgot Sunder, lotsa Sunder on those autofire guns of the PCs. Called shots on them as well.

A fully tricked vibro axe should give any autofire'n PC something to think twice about.

Nothing quite says "I love you", when your NPC gets 4x Advantage and splits that precious HBR in twine.

My only caution is that after this happens, give the PC time to mourn and an opportunity to get another HBR (or equivalent) back.

Also, weapons with the concussive quality (especially ranged ones) can really give your PCs a hard time. Denying the PCs the ability to take any actions, really makes them think again.