Hi everybody! I've been running rpgs for years so I have a fair amount of experience generally, but I've never run a game that handles NPCs like this version of Star Wars does (minions, rivals, nemeses). I'm going to have a fairly big group (8 players), and though I usually prefer to write my own adventures, I've decided to run the adventures in the back of the core rules and in the GM kits until I get used to the system enough to be comfortable with how much opposition a group can handle.

I'm using all three core rule books, and four of the players have made characters from Edge of the Empire, so I decided to start with "Trouble Brewing." I presume with a group this size I'll have to scale up the encounters. The problem is in the absence of a level system or challenge ratings I don't know how many minions or rivals would make an appropriate challenge. I ran the Edge of the Empire beginner box with five of my players and they blew through the encounters in that book, though one of the storm trooper minion groups nearly killed the droid with one shot (they managed to talk their way past the Trandoshan without a fight so I didn't necessarily get to gauge the level of difficulty in dealing with a Nemesis).

Does anyone know what the optimum number of players these adventures are written for? That would give me some reference point to start scaling things up. In trouble brewing there is an encounter against a set of NPCs consisting of one rival, two lone minions and a group of four minions. How much should I scale up an encounter like that for example? Is there a rule of thumb that you might use, like ten minions split into two groups of three and one group of four is a decent challenge for a party of 4 starting characters? Are ten minions too many?

I'm really looking forward to running this game, we had a blast with the beginner box, playing with the full set of rules should be pretty cool. Thanks for any advice!

Start small. Ramp up slowly till you get to challenge you want.

aye i suggest using minion groups loads of em maybe 3 groups of like 5-7 gives them 2-3 green/yellows to test the waters, it depends really on how combat oriented they are starting out really although with that many youll probably have to ramp up numbers later on quite abit.

So I've run through several of the published games, including Trouble Brewing, and I would highly recommend beefing up the number of NPCs if you really are going to be playing with 8 players. I've GMed for a group with 8 players before (down to 6 in my current EotE group), and it is a lot of fun, but can't get very hectic. Some basic recommendations I'd have:

- People are going to have lots of side convos during the session; have a way of getting everyone's attention for important moments like describing the beginning of an encounter or the end of one.

- Make sure that everyone gets involved; if someone is being too quiet during the session, have something happen to their character specifically that gets them involved

- If the session gets way off track, take a break and have something to bring all the players back into the game after the break is over

Now to answer your specific question about NPCs. At starting level I'd recommend the following:

- Minions: 1 or 2 per Player

- Rivals: 1 for every 2 Players

- Nemesis: 1 for every 4 Players

I'd also recommend that you try to limit Combat Encounters to 1 or 2 Combat Encounters per session. Trying to squeeze in more than that is just too much and usually 1 Combat Encounter can be long enough that it takes up most of a session. I would also alternate with having an average combat with enemy numbers matching what's described above and a difficult combat, such as a mix of NPC difficulty levels.

Example: The final fight in Trouble Brewing against Bandin Dobah and his goons. As written, it could have 1 Nemesis, 2 Rivals, 3 Minions. With your group of 8 (depending on their combat level) I'd make it 2 Nemesis, 4 Rivals, and 7 - 9 Minions acting in groups of 3 or 4. I would upgrade Bandin's Aqualish Lieutenant to be a Nemesis, keep the Rodian Bounty Hunter in play, add 3 new Aqualish Rivals with the original stats of Bandin's Lieutenant, and just add 4 - 6 Human Minions. Don't throw all of that at them at once. As the adventure is written, if the group has snuck into Dobah's base, they should be spread out around his ship. Maybe they fight half of that group in the cavern outside the ship and have to fight the other half on the ship. It should be a long encounter though and take up most of the last session for this adventure. For the combat encounter with Daro, I would add 1 more Rival and 3 or 4 minions.

Now later on, if your group keeps playing and growing in XP, you're going to have to make things interesting. Rancors make great adversaries for big groups. Let them use Aiming to help take down targets like that. Also, when they get so strong that combat becomes easy for them, I'd go to the suggestions in the thread here:

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/218461-problem-with-1-round-enemies/page-1

Thanks for the advice everybody, especially you, Nevermind! My first session went well, I even had to create a new encounter from scratch because my players went off on a tangent, and your advice came in very handy. I used your suggestions for numbers of NPCs and it worked perfectly! The PCs were adequately challenged without being overwhelmed right off the bat, and your suggestion to add a rival and one more minion group balanced the encounter with Daro to a tee!

That's awesome it went well. Glad to help. Ask if you have more questions like that.

Try to think of a reason why the lot of minions doesn't go for the biggest threat, like terrain or smoke, cover, positioning or anything. If a lot of minions focus on the same PC - likely the one with the biggest stick - even "harmless" minions can bring down beefy characters and it gets boring for the player if his character goes down every fight.

ps: minion groups are your friend.