Hey guys, I'm currently running a Force and Destiny game set a couple hundred years after the movies. This is my first game even playing the Star Wars RPG from FFG, and at first I absolutely loved it (I used to play Saga Edition and Star Wars D20, and both had big issues with them). However, I have a big issue with the current game system, and I don't know how to handle it in a fair, mature way as the GM.

My party consists of 2 complete newbies (never played a tabletop RPG before), 1 slightly experience player, and a seasoned veteran. They re-rolled their characters stat-wise not too long ago (it fit with the story), since some of them didn't know what they were doing when making characters. The issue that I'm running into, however, is that I can't seem to make good encounters that I feel are both challenging and interesting, without them being extremely boring.

For example, the player characters (that are roughly around 300 experience currently), seem too powerful offensively. One of my players in particular is focused around defense (sucks at lightsaber combat, but had guard shotos to prevent from being hit) and while he's defending he uses Heal/Harm. Now I know he's invested 100+ exp into this power, but it just seems...too much. No roll required other that a Force Die (and he's going Dark side, so no issue with rolling Dark), and it does 6 damage ignoring Soak. And I can't seem to hit him when I attack.

Then, I have a tank-like character who is an Armorer that sits back and shoots his Disruptor Rifle. He is, of course, annoying to kill.

Then another member is a skilled duelist with Lightsabers, who even has a Crit 1 weapon (another annoyingly stupid thing). All while handing out Battle Meditation.

The other player uses Vibro-weapons, of course with Crit-1.

This, combined with things such as disarming because of Threat/Advantage, crits coming from everywhere, and lack of experience with the game system on all of our ends (me included) makes it so I don't know what to do. I've even sent an Inquisitor level Sith against them, and sure they took some hits, but it was still along the easy side for them.

I have ideas in my head about how to make epic lightsaber fights and interesting encounters, but I don't know how to do so with this game system. How do I prevent them from disarming my super big bad guy? Is there a way to make a longer fight, one that doesn't end quickly in either direction? Is there something I'm missing?

I'm thought of things such as "I'm going to spend a Destiny point to prevent him from being disarmed" just to stay within the parameters of fair for the players, but other than that, I don't know. Are there any experienced people out there who know how to handle situations like this more effectively?

1) Are you balancing out the campaign across all functional areas? Combat isn't the whole game. Are you including social, technical, and other encounters that can't be resolved with a lightsaber?

2) How are you planning your combats? Star Wars opponents aren't monsters locked in a dungeon room. They can fall back, call for backup, carry mission specific equipment that gives them a serious advantage, and so on.

3) An Inquisitor can't, and wasn't meant to, solo an entire party. Split them up and have a New inquisitor take on only one or two of them.

4) Are you making the environment a thing? Snow, Rain, Sandstorms, Smoke, Collapsing Catwalks, Lava fields, and so on can all effect combat. Setback dice, upgrades and the like are generated by environmental effects.

5) Do your combats have objectives? Like other then "kill everyone in the room?" Give the players something to do beyond shooting and slashing. Simple concepts like 1-flag capture the flag can be adapted to your combats, thus requiring your players to do more then just roll attack after attack. Spend too much time killing and some lowly scout trooper captures the flag out from under you and you lose the encounter despite your body count.

6) Do your opponents use tactics? Just tossing a pile of bad guys at the players and seeing what sticks pretty much ensures failure. Just like with developing objectives you need to develop tactics your bad guys can use to accomplish those objectives. Look at what the different NPCs do or can be built to do and figure out how they can work together, and how to make that work. One melee Inquisitor is no big deal. When paired with a Move/Bind inquisitor and placed in a location where you can't just walk from one range band to another, you have a way to isolate one character for the melee guy to beat on while the Move Binder keeps it that way.

7) Map out your combats. Not like on a map, but on a flow chart, just like you would an adventure. Make it so the combat goes somewhere or does something more than just "they fight until they die." (The inquisitor and his entourage are on the empty landing pad when the players arrive; it's raining very hard [+2 Setback on all checks], fight using defined tactics -> After 2 turns or when the Inquisitor is at 10 wounds their ride arrives, an Airspeeder with an auto blaster and it's escort that also has mini-rocket pods. Airspeeders are piloted by 3 Agi minions and have armor 1 and fire full auto at the players to reduce hit probability while keeping players on their toes. Gunship covers using any Triumph/Advantage to apply upgrades and setbacks on players, Transport gets to pad and ISB agent, melee inquisitor and move Inquisitor make a run for it, once they are on board dustoff unless there's an opportunity to evac the stormtroopers safely. -> Once clear of the Pad gunship spend one turn to Aim and Stay on target, next turn opens up with rocket pods, hopefully players realize it's time to go before it fires, if TPKO have Rebel Squad Bravo arrive later and drag them out. If the Players somehow kill the airspeeders, the ISB agent uses his jetpack and the inquisitor helisabers to fly to the bridge below and escape int he landspeeder, if the players are feeling especially cocky chuck a thermal detonator at them on the way out)

8) Make combat a really bad idea to force a skill based non-combat solution. Eight Stromtroopers are probably not a big concern of the players... but if any one of them calls for backup an AT-ST will arrive. So the players either need to figure out a way to slip around, or how to eliminate all eight stormtroopers in a single turn.

Ghostofman nailed it. I don't have a ton of experience with this system, but I've DMed for a long, long time in a variety of settings & systems. If your PCs are combat powerhouses, you need to take them out of the arena they're comfortable in and give them challenges where they can't just kill everything to succeed.

I'm not a fan of the Legacy stuff, and you didn't give much information about your campaign's specifics. You did ask combat-specific questions, though, so here's a couple of more tips. If the party has a nemesis, he/she should be just a powerful & well-equipped as they are. A hefty Adversary rating and things like Breach and Sunder make melee combat more dicey. Ablative armor in the form of Minions prolong the BBEG's life, and sniper/airstrike support and booby-traps can soften the party long before the actual encounter. If their nemesis really is an evil genius, he/she should fight like one.

Just like he ^^^ said.

Great; your players are versed in the art of killing; now what else can they do?

Personally I would use Obligation for any Force and Destiny campaign as a measure of where they sit in the galaxy; favours they called in from their smuggling friend, that Black Sun organisation they ticked off by robbing a shipment, or the growing imperial bounty placed on them from wielding their largely illegal weapons in civilised space? Obligation adds a degree of flavour to a breathing galaxy and while it mightn't always be relevant (hey nico, wanna go bow- Oh, right, AT-ST, I call back later) it serves as a nice little plot hook to add to the threats and encourage the PC's to think a little smarter.

Make them talk, spilt them up to accomplish multiple tasks. The cast in star wars very rarely stay together in a coherent party.

1) Are you balancing out the campaign across all functional areas? Combat isn't the whole game. Are you including social, technical, and other encounters that can't be resolved with a lightsaber?

2) How are you planning your combats? Star Wars opponents aren't monsters locked in a dungeon room. They can fall back, call for backup, carry mission specific equipment that gives them a serious advantage, and so on.

3) An Inquisitor can't, and wasn't meant to, solo an entire party. Split them up and have a New inquisitor take on only one or two of them.

4) Are you making the environment a thing? Snow, Rain, Sandstorms, Smoke, Collapsing Catwalks, Lava fields, and so on can all effect combat. Setback dice, upgrades and the like are generated by environmental effects.

5) Do your combats have objectives? Like other then "kill everyone in the room?" Give the players something to do beyond shooting and slashing. Simple concepts like 1-flag capture the flag can be adapted to your combats, thus requiring your players to do more then just roll attack after attack. Spend too much time killing and some lowly scout trooper captures the flag out from under you and you lose the encounter despite your body count.

6) Do your opponents use tactics? Just tossing a pile of bad guys at the players and seeing what sticks pretty much ensures failure. Just like with developing objectives you need to develop tactics your bad guys can use to accomplish those objectives. Look at what the different NPCs do or can be built to do and figure out how they can work together, and how to make that work. One melee Inquisitor is no big deal. When paired with a Move/Bind inquisitor and placed in a location where you can't just walk from one range band to another, you have a way to isolate one character for the melee guy to beat on while the Move Binder keeps it that way.

7) Map out your combats. Not like on a map, but on a flow chart, just like you would an adventure. Make it so the combat goes somewhere or does something more than just "they fight until they die." (The inquisitor and his entourage are on the empty landing pad when the players arrive; it's raining very hard [+2 Setback on all checks], fight using defined tactics -> After 2 turns or when the Inquisitor is at 10 wounds their ride arrives, an Airspeeder with an auto blaster and it's escort that also has mini-rocket pods. Airspeeders are piloted by 3 Agi minions and have armor 1 and fire full auto at the players to reduce hit probability while keeping players on their toes. Gunship covers using any Triumph/Advantage to apply upgrades and setbacks on players, Transport gets to pad and ISB agent, melee inquisitor and move Inquisitor make a run for it, once they are on board dustoff unless there's an opportunity to evac the stormtroopers safely. -> Once clear of the Pad gunship spend one turn to Aim and Stay on target, next turn opens up with rocket pods.

8) Make combat a really bad idea to force a skill based non-combat solution. Eight Stromtroopers are probably not a big concern of the players... but if any one of them calls for backup an AT-ST will arrive. So the players either need to figure out a way to slip around, or how to eliminate all eight stormtroopers in a single turn.

Minions, stormtroopers are very effective. Have them have glop grenades, gas grenades, or pretty much anything that hinders them. I like the feel of stormtroopers requiped with bola carbines, 3 bolas, 2 gas grenades and 3 glop grenades. You know those melee combat people sit baack aand shoot them while attacking the armorer with an inquisitor up close. I pair 1 "ensnare" stormtrooper squad with 2 normal. It makes combat very annoying, as stormtroopers have filters so that gas doesn't affect them. Also for #8 have them be seperate minion groups, making them even harder to kill, as that is 40 soak total as well as that many wounds.

I notice you didn't describe any of them as being very powerful in the Force. If you are intent on keeping all the encounters focused on combat, toss some Force Rating 3-4 Nemesis against them, with some fully upgraded powers like Move or Bind, or Battle Meditation with a horde of minions (seriously, BM is scary as hell if you make it really upgraded), who is also powerful with Unleash or some such thing, and see how they do.

You send a group of minions at them who are getting auto successes on their combat checks of like 1-3 suxx per group, all firing on the same guy at once, he's going to feel it. You have a guy who can use Move on all of them at once (and I'm guessing they've probably got low Discipline scores), and slam them into a wall for massive damage, they will notice. You have a guy who can pull a Palp on them and toss arcs of lightning like a pissed off Raiden, with burn damage every round, they will notice.

Along with all the above mentioned options, like grenades and the like. But yeah, someone who is scary strong in the Force will probably give them some problems.

Also, make terrain difficult. Make an enemy be attacking them from a ledge that the melee guy can't get to easily, and have him Move the ranged PC into the side of a wall face first. Have him hurl bolts of lightning from up there, forcing them to deal with a few rounds of damage until they can actually get to him....and then have him relocate with a force jump through Enhance, and repeat the process.