Ok, I was bored and wanted to work up a scary version of Vader.

I know everyone has their own issues wth statting Darth Vader. Let me just say this is JUST MY TAKE on creating a workable version using available materials. I created this build the same way you'd create a PC. All XP accounted for and no odd talents like Adversary.

Here's a quick glance at what I ended up with:

Name: Anakin Skywalker / Darth Vader
Species: Human Cyborg

Career: Warrior

TOTAL XP: 110+10 to start, 6650 Earned & Spent for a Grand Total of 6770 xp.

Specializations:
Starfighter Ace, Artisan, Aggressor, Shii-Cho Knight (Form 1),
Peacekeeper, Shien Expert (Form 5), Ataru Striker (Form 4), Makashi Duelist (Form 2), Protector,
Soresu Defender (Form 3), Niman Disciple (Form 6), Warleader, Warden, Armorer,

Characteristics:

Brawn 8 (Includes Cybernetic Strength +2 from arms & legs AND his armor grants a +1)

Agility 3 (Diminished -1 from a Critical and -1 from his armor)
Intellect 4
Cunning 5
Willpower 6
Presence 4

Wound Threshold 45

Strain Threshold 39

Force Rating 10

Soak Value: 12

Melee Defense 6

Ranged Defense 2

Special

Parry: Can Soak 23 for 3 Strain (Improved & Supreme)

Reflect: Can Soak 14 for 3 Strain (Improved & Supreme)

Lightsaber: Damage 11, Crit 1, Special: 1 Auto Adv., Breach 1, Sunder, Vicious 2, Dual Phase Mod, Defensive 4 (From Defensive Training - already factored in above)

Pertinant Skills:

Lightsaber, Pilot (Both), Discipline & Gunnery 5

Astrogation, Coercion, Cool, Leadership, Perception & Vigilance 4

Most others at 2-3

Force Powers:
I gave him All of the Sense, Move, Influence, Enhance & Bind Trees. On Forsee I only gave him the Base power with the Initiative Control upgrade and 3 Range upgrades. I also gave him all but Mastery in Protect/Unleash.

I also gave him Implant Armor because it made sense to add a bit of soak with all the cybernetics he has in him.

As far as talents go, he's got over a hundred individual talents with multiple ranks in many.

His armor is basically just the PX-11 from the Hired Gun Book. It seemed like a good fit to start with.

Anyone who wants to see the full workup on one of my personal (Excel Based) character sheets with all the math factored in can check it out here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/6li9orsevrcokzx/Darth%20Vader%20%3A%20Anakin%20Skywalker.xls?dl=0

NOTE: I don't upload things to forums very often and this is the best I could do at the moment... Sue me...

I'll probably regret asking this, but what does everyone think? I wanted to make something I could throw at players that's pretty much unbeatable. I'm considering having a moment like in the end of season 1 of Rebels where Kanan and Ezra have a quick fight with vader before fleeing.

EDIT: I should probably also note I didn't add in anything for the whole "Chosen One" thing.

Honestly? I find him ridiculous. EVERY lightsaber spec? 21 ranks of Parry? You really don't need something like this for that scene in Rebels. A simple Inquisitor is an almost unbeatable foe for a group of starting characters, and still pretty scary at Knight Level. Vader was powerful, but he wasn't superman.

I should point out that one of the designers recently ran a "Jedi Masters" game, at XP levels even he considered "too much." Yoda was the highest XP character at around 2000 XP.

Admittedly, I may have gone overboard with the lightsaber spec's and Parry, but if I'm statting one of the most powerful characters in the galaxy that no one is supposed to actually beat, then why skimp?

I should point out that one of the designers recently ran a "Jedi Masters" game, at XP levels even he considered "too much." Yoda was the highest XP character at around 2000 XP.

That kinda blows my mind... 1000 years old = 2 xp per year, sounds light. lol Seriously though, running just a base off the top of my head that seems like a fairly underpowered Yoda. Between several pretty decked out force powers, A fairly high force rating (Yoda is absolutely not a 5, 7-10 maybe), Skills, and enough talents to make an inquisitor cry, You'd be pretty hard pressed to find a Yoda build in the current Spec's that'd I would find believable for 2000 xp.

Even doing up an Inquisitor with XP would require Approx 5 spec's minimum. To get Parry 4 and Reflect 4 they'd need two lightsaber spec's. To pull off a Force Rating of 3 they'd need about three Spec's that'd grant it. Sure there are things like Sage & Seer and the one lightsaber spec with a Force Rating, but assuming they don't go for that and the first three spec's are in their Career, that's 20+30+50+60 xp just to get the spec's. Then to buy the combat skills at 4, 3 & 2 it's 50+30+15 xp & the knowledge skills at 2 each it's 6x15=90 xp. Not to mention that their attributes would require about 4 points of Dedication (Roughly 75 xp to get to the bottom of a talent tree x4 = 300 xp). That's 20+30+50+60+50+30+15+90+300=645 xp. And that's BEFORE paying for the general skills & Talents that fall outside a straight down line to those Dedication ranks. Let's also not forget the 5 points of Toughened and 10 points of Grit to manage those starting Wound & Strain Thresholds...

Now I know I can power game a character to have a Force Rating of 5 after two specs... I know there's some good tech possibilities that can make a character hyper dangerous with Soak values over 10... I'm not looking to Hyper Focus these characters to get a somewhat Narrative similarity. If the lore says there an expert in most forms of lightsaber combat, then give them most forms of lightsaber combat.

If I'm looking to stat up Some Super Baddies like Yoda, Vader or the Emperor, I'm gonna make them god **** SCARY!

P.S. I'm totally Ok with the idea that the NPC characters are using streamlined training programs (i.e. More specifically focused talent trees) that PC's don't have access to, I'm just working with what's available to me.

Honestly? I find him ridiculous.

Well yeah, he should be. Vader IS ridiculous. There's a reason none of the many, many Jedi he hunted down ever had a chance at beating him.

Also, 2000XP is a little low for a Jedi Master, let alone YODA.

Brawn 8 seems over-the-top, as does Intellect 4 & Cunning 5. While Vader was large, imposing even, he wasn't punching through blast doors. I can understand the inflated stats to reflect his Force mastery (or raw power, at any rate), but I would argue that Anakin was neither smart nor wise (mechanical tinkering notwithstanding). This, of course, was a large part of the problem.

Here's my Vader stats.

Darth Vader

While I don't have the adventure in question, I've been told that he was stated in one of the one-shot adventures played at a convention, and I've been using those stats for the big DV ever since:

"Each round, Darth Vader uses the Move maneuver to close. If he ever ends the round within short range of the party, he has caught them, and the GM should describe the ensuing slaughter narratively; the party has no hope of matching the Dark Lord of the Sith."

I think Vader needs a ton of XP, but not quite so much as you spent.

XP: 4370

Wounds 26, Strain 22 (has a couple of recovery options here)

Defense 2|2, Soak 8 (9 with committed die)

As far as Specializations go, I would look at: Artisan, Shien Expert, Aggressor, Niman Disciple, Peacekeeper, Pilot, Shii-Cho Knight, Protector, Starfighter Ace

Characteristics: 6, 5, 4, 4, 5, 4, which includes powered cybernetics bolstering his Brawn (should probably include a penalty to some things as well); 7 Brawn, 6 Agility with committed Force dice

Force Rating 7 (enough to commit 3 or 4 dice while still having the ability to activate powers and upgrades reliably)

Powers: Sense (everything), Bind (everything except Magnitude upgrades--do we ever see him choking more than one target at a time?), Enhance (everything), Foresee (down to first Control and Strength upgrades), Influence (down to Control upgrade that adds Force to social skills--may not be appropriate; notably no Mind Trick), Move (2 Magnitude, 2 Strength, 2 Range, Control Upgrades to attack and pull--do we ever see him moving anything very large?), Protect (all Strength upgrades, and other stuff to get to Incidental)

Parry 7, Reflect 7, bunch of ranks in Skilled Jockey, both Improved Parry and Reflect, 3 Fearsome

Brawn 8 seems over-the-top, as does Intellect 4 & Cunning 5. While Vader was large, imposing even, he wasn't punching through blast doors. I can understand the inflated stats to reflect his Force mastery (or raw power, at any rate), but I would argue that Anakin was neither smart nor wise (mechanical tinkering notwithstanding). This, of course, was a large part of the problem.

I think he was definitely smart, but could possibly leave him at 3 Intellect with full ranks in Mechanics, and several ranks each in Computers and Warfare. Willpower I suppose could be the same: leave around 3, but put a lot of ranks in Coercion and some other skills perhaps.

Interesting, but lacking a couple of things: His cyberware, for instance.

How come Luke beats Vader if he is so good? Does Luke get about 6000 XP too between Empire and Return of the Jedi?

I dunno, maybe I just see things a bit differently. Between 0-4 ABY Darth Vader is extremely powerful, second only to the Emperor, and he's been living under the Emperor's guidance for the last 20ish years. As we see from things like The Force Unleashed Game, and even his stint on Rebels, Vader is quite intelligent even aside from his aptitude for mechanics and has learned a great deal of cunning from the Emperor on top of what he already had as a brilliant tactician in the Clone Wars.

Admittedly, as I touched on above, I may have overdone a few things a bit, but I still wouldn't drop more than 500-1000 xp even in hindsight.

I think Vader needs a ton of XP, but not quite so much as you spent.

XP: 4370

Wounds 26, Strain 22 (has a couple of recovery options here)

Defense 2|2, Soak 8 (9 with committed die)

As far as Specializations go, I would look at: Artisan, Shien Expert, Aggressor, Niman Disciple, Peacekeeper, Pilot, Shii-Cho Knight, Protector, Starfighter Ace

Characteristics: 6, 5, 4, 4, 5, 4, which includes powered cybernetics bolstering his Brawn (should probably include a penalty to some things as well); 7 Brawn, 6 Agility with committed Force dice

Force Rating 7 (enough to commit 3 or 4 dice while still having the ability to activate powers and upgrades reliably)

Powers: Sense (everything), Bind (everything except Magnitude upgrades--do we ever see him choking more than one target at a time?), Enhance (everything), Foresee (down to first Control and Strength upgrades), Influence (down to Control upgrade that adds Force to social skills--may not be appropriate; notably no Mind Trick), Move (2 Magnitude, 2 Strength, 2 Range, Control Upgrades to attack and pull--do we ever see him moving anything very large?), Protect (all Strength upgrades, and other stuff to get to Incidental)

Parry 7, Reflect 7, bunch of ranks in Skilled Jockey, both Improved Parry and Reflect, 3 Fearsome

This isn't a bad build, and if you never expect your characters to break 1000-1500 xp I'm sure it'd do just fine. I wanted to make a build that I felt best represented all the scary bits we see of Vader. Something that represented his abilities even against someone equal in power.

And remember, this isn't the Manic Depressive Anakin from Episode 3 everyone gets fixated on. This is the Sith Lord that has already become accustomed to his armor (and upgraded it? - the texts are controversial in this), his place in the dark side, and has relentlessly hunted and exterminated every threat he or the Emperor can conceive. The Emperor (supposedly) had his cybernetics and armor built with substandard materials AND a weakness to Force Lightning just to ensure he never tried anything. If the Emperor was worried...

Remember, Darth Vader is ONLY beaten by Luke in the original trilogy and that's due to Vader's feelings more than anything else. In game terms, Luke got to him emotionally and Vader stopped using parry long enough for Luke to score a crit and take off his hand. Without parry, it's not impossible with a moderately high Lightsaber skill & Characteristic. Unlikely, sure, but not impossible.

Just to really throw a wrench into the discussion, I started a Darth Sidius build. It's not finished yet and some of these abilities may drop a bit as I decide which Talents he has from each tree. These stats assume all Toughened, Grit, Dedication, Force Rating, Parry & Reflect talents.

Darth Sidius

Age 86-ish

Career: Mystic

Specs: Seer, Advisor, Makashi Duelist, Shadow, Sage, Healer, Shien Expert, Aggressor, Niman Disciple, Ataru Striker, Agatator, Ambassator, Scholar, Peacekeeper, Protector,

Characteristics:

Brawn 2 (-1 from age)

Agility 4 (-1 from age - Does this seem high? I dunno...Maybe he should skip a few Dedication Talents...Probably will...)

Intellect 5

Cunning 6

Willpower 6

Presence 5

Wound Threshold: 40

Strain Threshold: 41

Force Rating: 12

Parry: Soak 15 for 3 Strain

Reflect: Soak 10 for 3 Strain

Primary Weapons:

Lightsaber: Damage 11, Crit 1, 1 Auto Adv., Breach 1, Sunder, Vicious 2, Shadowsheath,

Force Lightning: Damage: 6+1 per DSP, Crit 1, Burn 2, Ensnare 2, 1 Adv = 1 Strain, +1 DSP / +3 Targets,

-- Costs to use: 5 DSP to get the Base Dmg 6, Crit 1, Burn & Ensnare 2,

Skills:

Charm, Coercion, Cool, Deception, Discipline, Leadership, Negotiation, Perception, Stealth, Vigilance, Lightsaber, Ranged Light (for the Force Lightning), Knowledge: Core Worlds, Education & Lore ALL and 5.

Skulduggery, Streetwise, Melee, Knowledge Outer Rim & Underworld at 4

Everything else at 1-3

Powers: I gave him all of Sense, Move, Influence, Enhance, Forsee, Bind, Protect/Unleash, Heal/Harm, & Seek (Not sure about seek)

I'm looking at around 8,000 xp for the build. Just for the Spec's, Skills & Powers I'm already at 4,000 xp. I could probably drop Agitator, Administrator & Scholar as well, but they seemed to fit.

Huh... Great. It seems mostly like an unnecessary exercise in creating an over-powered player character with all the cool specs in the book and calling said character for Darth Vader. Beyond that there's no rationale for why the character should have all those specialisations or all that XP except for a: "... because." Which is hardly a satisfactory or reasonable argument.

You are, as I see it, going in the opposite direction of the intention of this game's design. This has happened on these forums before, it will continue to happen. It is mildly entertaining and fun to see people d20-fy and try to adapt board-game-like-RPG-thought-sets to this game - that is not intended as an insult, I have had fun with games like that, but they require a different way of thinking from players and GMs than this game. Anyway, it seems that this other mindset works too (in some way or another), which is just another strength of this system and the game's design. The perspective above is a bit like the sound of a fork or dry sponge on a blackboard to me, but hey, some people like Huttese opera, other's prefer Ithorian yodelling, I'm not judging I prefer this .

Vader is unbeatable, there's no need for stats, unless you're Luke Skywalker (Luke RotJ may have had ... oh ... perhaps 4-500 earned XP? perhaps tad more?). If you're Luke Skywalker the GM would make stats, for the two fights you're going to have - but mostly Vader would be "terrain" to navigate to avoid certain death - those encounters were less about fighting with lighsabers, than they were about the spiritual and internal struggle of both... The stats presented above are meaningless in any such encounter. There's too many fiddly bits for this over-powered PC to use, they serve no purpose in a game or in a story (which is ultimately what Vader should, no?). If you play in a game where Vader is supposed to be killable, these stats are ridiculously meaningless and I feel sorry for the poor GM having to deal with all those pages of talents (and why doesn't he have any signature abilities maxed out and the Chose One special power?). If on the other hand you play in a game where Vader should not be killable, why the stats? Either Vader is going to kill the PCs if he catches them or he's going to capture them, or he's going to "fight them" only to let them "escape" to serve his needs. In cases like that (Rebels season 2 first story arc), you don't need special Vader-fied stats, just use Inquisitor rules or boost the Fallen Master adversary or one of the other Force-sensitive adversaries from the CRBs. Unkillable doesn't mean unbeatable, toppling a walker on him slowed him down. Somewhat.

Interesting, but lacking a couple of things: His cyberware, for instance.

How come Luke beats Vader if he is so good? Does Luke get about 6000 XP too between Empire and Return of the Jedi?

One argument has always been Battle Meditation/Sith Master. The Emperor was there, same as he was when a very unqualified Anakin fought down the greatest lightsaber duelist in most of history, Darth Tyrannus. Depending on whom you ask, Dooku was one of the only people who could probably have punked Mace Windu, in a straight out fight, as he was dedicated to beating other lightsaber-wielders, specifically, along with the power of the Force that both a Jedi Master, and a Sith Lord, would have. The Emperor used his dark powers to enhance Anakin, once he was ready to be rid of Dooku, and later Luke, once he was sure he was done with Darth Vader. Sort of the same way he could imbue Mara Jade with enhanced abilities, in EU material. It's a running theory, anyway.

It always amuses me when people make Vader this epitome of the Force, despite many sources linking significant loss of ability, in that field, to getting all his aforementioned cybernetics. Vader was powerful, certainly, but not nearly so mighty as many want to see him. Fear led many to fall before him, and their own training, that kept them from going all out, and doing whatever it took to win, while he would corner, and crush, with joy, anyone he could catch. Many Jedi also stood alone, to better hide from him, so when he eventually caught them, anyway, they were alone, and he pwned them, usually with sheer ferocity, and physical strength. While I wouldn't build a Vader stronger than a rancor, he'd have most of the Brawn, and most/all of the Lightsaber skill, with an Edge/Age variant-stat lightsaber. His Force wouldn't suck, but he'd focus a lot of it into things like Defense, and committed to stat boosts, keeping a bit for Force chokes, or other Move Object uses. He's potent, certainly, but not as powerful as he once was, and now the Emperor sees little reason to make him much stronger. My opinions, of course.

As for Yoda possibly having a low XP total, this is actually normal. I know it's more d20, than anything, so please take that as it is, but you really don't get much XP for redoing the same things, especially easy things. Yoda's been a Master for the better part of eight centuries, and known a great deal about the Force, so there's little for him to add to his repertoire, and knocking out weaklings isn't getting him much, during the Clone Wars, either. Only through battle with foes that have a reasonable chance of success, themselves, and scouring for the greatest remaining lost secrets, is Yoda really likely to improve; he's mostly just there as an example to aspire to, and a font of knowledge for other people to gain from. My 18th-level wizard can walk into a town, harass the lord-mayor for something, feel insulted, and level it with meteor storm, killing everyone, but at his level, that was no challenge, at all, so probably no XP. The risk of diminishing returns, if you will. Now, this system might not use their XP in quite the same way, and it, like 5e D&D, does seem to do a much better job of letting you get stronger, but keep the lesser threats threatening, but the only XP Yoda probably got in a long time was the fight with Palpatine, again, in my opinion. What else is he doing that is actually furthering his skills, or knowledge, rather than just keeping them from getting rusty?

This thread is 'Exhibit A' why FFG don't stat movie characters...

The funny thing is that, even with Reflect 12, the OP's OP Vader would drop in one or two hits from a character with a Silhouette 2 vehicle mounting a light blaster cannon.

Huh... Great. It seems mostly like an unnecessary exercise in creating an over-powered player character with all the cool specs in the book and calling said character for Darth Vader. Beyond that there's no rationale for why the character should have all those specialisations or all that XP except for a: "... because." Which is hardly a satisfactory or reasonable argument.

Unnecessary Exercise? Of course it is. That's kind of a given. And there's a simple reason that he's got all those Spec's & XP, that's how I see his character build. (notice I didn't say because, lol)

You are, as I see it, going in the opposite direction of the intention of this game's design.

I assume you're talking about narrative relation versus a specific character design based around accepted traits. You're correct. That was also, kind of the point.

The perspective above is a bit like the sound of a fork or dry sponge on a blackboard to me, but hey, some people like Huttese opera, other's prefer Ithorian yodelling, I'm not judging I prefer this .

I totally missed what you were saying here on the first read through. I opened that link and was like... WTF? 0.o lol

Vader is unbeatable, there's no need for stats, unless you're Luke Skywalker (Luke RotJ may have had ... oh ... perhaps 4-500 earned XP? perhaps tad more?). If you're Luke Skywalker the GM would make stats, for the two fights you're going to have - but mostly Vader would be "terrain" to navigate to avoid certain death - those encounters were less about fighting with lighsabers, than they were about the spiritual and internal struggle of both... The stats presented above are meaningless in any such encounter. There's too many fiddly bits for this over-powered PC to use, they serve no purpose in a game or in a story (which is ultimately what Vader should, no?). If you play in a game where Vader is supposed to be killable, these stats are ridiculously meaningless and I feel sorry for the poor GM having to deal with all those pages of talents (and why doesn't he have any signature abilities maxed out and the Chose One special power?). If on the other hand you play in a game where Vader should not be killable, why the stats? Either Vader is going to kill the PCs if he catches them or he's going to capture them, or he's going to "fight them" only to let them "escape" to serve his needs. In cases like that (Rebels season 2 first story arc), you don't need special Vader-fied stats, just use Inquisitor rules or boost the Fallen Master adversary or one of the other Force-sensitive adversaries from the CRBs. Unkillable doesn't mean unbeatable, toppling a walker on him slowed him down. Somewhat.

Ok, first of all... There were only two pages of talents on the character sheet. Second of all, Of course there's no NEED for stats in a narrative game like this where you can just tell the PC's there all dead when Vader catches them or work up arbitrary stats like with the Inquisitors. The whole point was, using XP and the available Career/Spec listings, to make a character that resembled what I know of Vader and his abilities. I found it a fun exercise.

Also, I've never liked the limits people place on these games. Limit the XP so the characters don't get overpowered, limit the money so the characters have to struggle to get by, limit the tech so they really appreciate that new toy you've allowed them to have. I don't know if everyone else was born a rich badass, but those are limits I deal with every day in real life. I have no desire to play a game where I'm essentially, even in a cool sci-fy/fantasy setting, dealing with the same things that frustrate me in real life. I want escapism. I want a character who stands above the rest from the get-go. I don't want to wade through two years of adventures to get that way. I realize that some people do like to play that way, and I have no problem with that. I occasionally want to play extremely low powered games to get that sense of realism, but it's just not something I find interesting all that often. That might make me some version of a power gamer, but I'm ok with that. As a GM, I run the game the same way. If my players want to try something cool, I usually try to find a way to let them, even if it's potentially game breaking or they have to deal with the consequences of their actions (people often forget that these games are set within functioning societies...usually).

And why is it such a bad thing for PC's to want to take on Vader? He's the epitome of Star Wars bad guys. How epic would the fight become where the GM dropped Vader into your lap. He'd totally dominate the fight, but any character that scored a significant hit, crit, or cool narrative event (even just making him fall down) would have some cool bragging rights. A build like this pretty much guarantees they won't kill Vader, but dial it back just a bit on the Parry (which I already admitted I got carried away with), and assume in Vader's arrogance (or whatever) he doesn't use most of his abilities, and that could be an interesting fight. Six PC's attacking a single NPC at once can possibly mess up even a powerful bad guy's day. I'd never let them walk away without kicking their collective butts, but it'd be cool. I'd want to know all Vaders abilities for that fight. Even if it's just to make sure the fight goes the way I want it too without having to fudge dice rolls or make up narrative excuses (not that these are always a bad thing mind you) to keep the PC's alive.

Are Vader's stats necessary? No. Was it fun to try to make up a build for him? Yes. Would it be useful? I dunno, I think it could be.

And on a final note, I disagree about Luke. Just my two cents, but he's running Rebel missions from the beginning pretty much non stop in all the lore. I'd have him between 500-1500 XP just off the top of my head. Ace Career (I read that somewhere) and Spec's (Don't know which without looking), then Force Sensitive Emergent, maybe a Soldier or Commander Spec before hitting up Peacekeeper and a lightsaber form (or two).

What can I say, I like making characters.

It always amuses me when people make Vader this epitome of the Force, despite many sources linking significant loss of ability, in that field, to getting all his aforementioned cybernetics. Vader was powerful, certainly, but not nearly so mighty as many want to see him. Fear led many to fall before him, and their own training, that kept them from going all out, and doing whatever it took to win, while he would corner, and crush, with joy, anyone he could catch. Many Jedi also stood alone, to better hide from him, so when he eventually caught them, anyway, they were alone, and he pwned them, usually with sheer ferocity, and physical strength. While I wouldn't build a Vader stronger than a rancor, he'd have most of the Brawn, and most/all of the Lightsaber skill, with an Edge/Age variant-stat lightsaber. His Force wouldn't suck, but he'd focus a lot of it into things like Defense, and committed to stat boosts, keeping a bit for Force chokes, or other Move Object uses. He's potent, certainly, but not as powerful as he once was, and now the Emperor sees little reason to make him much stronger. My opinions, of course.

As for Yoda possibly having a low XP total, this is actually normal. I know it's more d20, than anything, so please take that as it is, but you really don't get much XP for redoing the same things, especially easy things. Yoda's been a Master for the better part of eight centuries, and known a great deal about the Force, so there's little for him to add to his repertoire, and knocking out weaklings isn't getting him much, during the Clone Wars, either. Only through battle with foes that have a reasonable chance of success, themselves, and scouring for the greatest remaining lost secrets, is Yoda really likely to improve; he's mostly just there as an example to aspire to, and a font of knowledge for other people to gain from. My 18th-level wizard can walk into a town, harass the lord-mayor for something, feel insulted, and level it with meteor storm, killing everyone, but at his level, that was no challenge, at all, so probably no XP. The risk of diminishing returns, if you will. Now, this system might not use their XP in quite the same way, and it, like 5e D&D, does seem to do a much better job of letting you get stronger, but keep the lesser threats threatening, but the only XP Yoda probably got in a long time was the fight with Palpatine, again, in my opinion. What else is he doing that is actually furthering his skills, or knowledge, rather than just keeping them from getting rusty?

I don't really disagree with you're views on Vader here. I've seen discussions and good rationale for making him more or less powerful based on his injuries and cybernetics. This is just my take on him based on this game's options and I'm assuming that as badass as he is, he'd be even more so if he'd never gotten hurt. I'm also of the opinion that Rancors are really underpowered in this game.

As for Yoda, you have a point about the whole diminishing returns thing, but I'm of the belief that your 18th level wizard should have received some xp for destroying the village, even if it's a minuscule amount, unless that's all he does and it's become totally mundane. Experience isn't always about testing your abilities at their fullest, often it's just about doing something new or different.

The funny thing is that, even with Reflect 12, the OP's OP Vader would drop in one or two hits from a character with a Silhouette 2 vehicle mounting a light blaster cannon.

I don't know of a way to compensate for that in this game. People, even super people, often don't fare all that well against artillery. You find a workable counter, please let me know... That would be awesome.

Also, It's not really difficult at all to mod a pair of bolster pistols to do over 13+ damage per hit. A group of PC's all duel wielding modded blasters or using custom heavy blaster rifles set to auto fire could possibly still cut him down pretty quick if he wasn't careful. Then there's Cortosis rounds that will take the lightsaber out of the equation all together... Possibilities man... Possibilities...

True enough, the various Jedi Masters, in RotS, are pretty good examples. Yoda might've lucked out in that he was ONLY attacked by a few Clone commandos, rather than a group on speeders, like Aila Sekura, or a whole wall of rapid-fire gunline, like Ki-Adi Mundi. Even Darth Vader would be felled by enough firepower, either in high quantity, or excessive punch.

In EU, the entire Jedi Order, and the collective strength of the Republic, sat in orbit, above Yavin IV, trying to decide how best to deal with Exar Kun, but after watching him brainjack the ENTIRE Senate, and then also kill his own accomplished Jedi Master, in front of all of them, it was the Jedi who basically said "nope, not going down there", and ordered the fleet to bombard the Temple of Fire from orbit, and even Exar Kun could then only die, and suck out the life of all his remaining followers, to become a Force spirit, trapped there, and sleeping for most of 4,000 years. EU, of course, but that still counts, for me.

I thought the story for the Force Unleashed franchise was silly, at points, and they were too short, but I still enjoyed them, as games. When Galen Marek wasn't even phased by fighter craft, though, it lost me for a bit; vehicles are a threat to people, pretty much regardless of who those people are, and I'm not even referring to him pulling down a Star Destroyer, or using the Force to power a ship-class superweapon, like in FU2 (heh, they named it that likely on account of its DLC-level length), even attack craft should be a worry, with their speed, and firepower. I hope this system DOESN'T have a workaround for the artillery problem; people need things that ALWAYS threaten them, or else the become gods.

Brawn 8 seems over-the-top, as does Intellect 4 & Cunning 5...I would argue that Anakin was neither smart nor wise (mechanical tinkering notwithstanding). This, of course, was a large part of the problem.

This is really more a quirk of how the system works than anything else.

I mean, let's say I wanted to build a MASTER gunslinger. Best of the best, galaxy legend, etc. How do you build him? You pump up his agility, blaster skills, and give him all the blaster related talents you can shake a stick at. Now, let's say this character is also supposed to be a horrible, and I mean horrible pilot. Should never, EVER touch the controls of so much as a speeder truck. You cannot faithfully build this character in FFGs system. In the process of bumping up that agility for the boost to ranged weapons that so vital to the character, you also bump up their base ability in driving and flying vehicles. There's no way around it unless you houserule the situation.

The same is true with Vader. He doesn't have a high Intelligence because he's smart, he has it because he's smart with machines . And we quietly sweep under the rug that this also boosts his medical and computer, and general knowledge skills. He doesn't have a high cunning because he's wise, he has a high cunning because he is perceptive and a good liar ("I am altering the deal..." "That name no longer has any meaning for me" "It is too late for me, son"), and we ignore that this also makes him street savvy and savvy in the wilderness. (This is actually something that cracks me up: both wise-cracking city slickers and grizzled lonesome cowboys use the same stat to survive in their environments, making transitioning from one to the other trivial if you don't throw in some hefty setback penalties to even things out.)

In the end, my general way of dealing with this quirk is to set the attribute at whatever makes sense for the highest related skill and just add tons of setback die for areas outside their expertise.

One supposes, though, that a lot of that "he's the best..." is merely hearsay, like Heracles was powerful enough to lift mountains, throttle multi-headed monsters, and more. Possibly, but more likely the result of stories told, and retold, and in his case, well after his own death, no doubt. I won't sit here, again, and prattle about how powerful Darth Vader (really) is, but some of those acts of awesome might simply have been triumphs, or successes/advantages he gained from talents giving him Boost dice. Also, if you look at most NPCs as Minions, who can't even make skilled checks (Proficiency dice) without group support, he would seem pretty amazing with just his high Skill, giving him a decent number of Ability dice, and then his stat making several of those Proficiency dice. I haven't played, I confess, but how many Triumphs does it take to accomplish something truly awesome? In this way, you can have an average Ability, a high Skill, and maybe a talent that Boosts said skill, or a piece of equipment that does, and still be pretty capable, even legendary. By the other logic, Ghent would need to have an Intelligence of 6-8, and while he might be the greatest, almost intuitive hacker who ever lived, he's REALLY not that smart. He'd have maxxed out Computers, and some of the best, most specialized slicing gear, but he has been shown to be rather naive, even dumb/ignorant, when put into any situation that doesn't involve hacking a computer, or at least that's the feel I got from him, reading up on the topic, back in the day.

Should Vader have IMPRESSIVE strength? Certainly, he's a cyborg, he's tall (now), and imposing, and he is both proficient with physical brutality, and using the Force to augment his personal strength, but I wouldn't give him an 8 Strength, even a 6, anymore than I'd give him a Force 10. While this system is blessedly less riddled with infinite little add-ins, to try and shoehorn something unique to one character, possibly done by a bad author, but you might want to emulate THAT, a legend like Vader might be call for having some of those, or for sticking with the no stats approach, and winging it. I liked some people having unique abilities, little nuances of the Force, but it quickly got out of hand when every new character needed one, to stand out among the Emperor, Yoda, Vader, and Luke, especially when they started going the X-Men route, and making me say "Wait!?! You believe the Force can allow you to do WHAT!?!" My favorite example, from personal experience, was my best Saga character, Endymion Farstrider. He started out cheesy, and it only got worse, but one thing I MADE happen was one part "I WANTS IT!", one part "the system won't let me..." (and Saga got pretty cheesy with what you COULD do; SEE BELOW), so i decided to have in Ender's backstory that his Master was Anya Kuro. For those who have blotted out the EU, especially when those "crazy old wizards" really started acting like D&D wizards, she is the Dark Woman, and her special abilities were spycraft and using the Force to phase. I wanted Ender to have that ability, actually agreed that it made no sense for him to have it (she was the only one who knew how), and then decided to just have her be his Master; problem solved. Cheesy, too.

SPOILER

So, the BS you might not want to read, and from an entirely different system. There are these people called the Aang-Tii Monks, and they are CHEESY. Effectively the Navigators from Dune, they could move their living ships through the Force, and fold space, from one location to another. I really fell in love with these cheesy aliens, and their weird view of the Force, and REALLY wanted it in my character; my special snowflake syndrome was in full force. Problem: the Fold Space power had a HUGE limit on it; you could only fold space aboard a vehicle, and then move the whole thing, so no personal teleporting, because the game loses something when you can just teleport. Well, I wasn't to be stopped, and realized that, if I wanted to teleport, and keep this theme, if Ender had Anya Kuro as his Master, in addition to some really cool story stuff I wrote in, he could learn to phase, like she does, and if you combine it (move action) with Burst of Speed (swift action), you were effectively teleporting, so long as you could clear any impediments. So I got it into his backstory. Very cheesy.

Sometimes, it's cool to have a special ability, and sometimes it needs to not have a rule other people can use. Also, sometimes you don't need to be the maxxed out, be-all and end-all of asomething to be seen as it. This game appears capable of allowing skills to cover for lesser abilities, and in a way that still makes you look like Wedge Antilles, Luke Skywalker, or Chewbacca; whomever epitomizes your theme. Talents can, or later should, give you the ability to further push these specific focuses, and WITHOUT accidentally making you better at five other things you're not, simply because your ability increased. This is also, IMO, why the Dedication talent is usually near the bottom of the tree; it's the last way they expect you to improve something, probably because it improves way more things, and those you weren't even really focusing on improving.

To quote the great GhostOfMan, who pretty much sums the entire concept up in one pithy reply:

Isn't this the same problem people usually have when trying to use main characters and EU? Every author under the sun worked so hard to one-up the others, the characters (and by extension the falcon) become cartoonish supermen well beyond the scope of the game, or even the source material?

A 4000XP Han should kinda be an indicator....

Or is it merely symptomatic of the wookieepedia effect, where everything has to have an epic backstory and be the best at whatever it is?

"The soft soap dispenser in the Millennium Falcons head is the last leader of the Cranton Gorforion, a long lost force using tribe of intelligent public restroom products. In 87ABY the resurrected Sith hand dryer known only as Darth RecieveBacon attempted to kindnap the Soft Soap Dispenser by turning Han Solo into a unicorn and drinking epic amount of red bantha energy drink. The attempt was thwarted when R2-D2 reconfigured Luke Skywalker's walker (itself an ancient Jedi library shelf dusting droid in disguise) to replace the clogged soft soap packet nozzle, freeing the Lord Gorforion's force spirit, who defeated RecieveBacon by installing a x0 hyperdrive into the Falcon, allowing it to be everywhere in the galaxy at once."

And here's the thing; leaving stats open allows us to interpret things as you wish. The Xenomorph in 'Alien' was a Nemesis, as that was his role in that film. The ones in 'Aliens' were Minions, because they died in droves.

If you think Boba Fett is the useless, no-mark dweeb who gets accidentally killed by a blind guy in the films, stat him accordingly. If you're Karen Traviss, see the Vader stats above. Me? The 'Master Bounty Hunter' gets him about right, I think - he's a Nemesis with about 4 Dedications, which puts him in the realm of a top-end PC.

If you want Vader to be killable, make him killable. If you don't, then don't bother with stats. (I will personally disagree -respectfully - with the latter, though. He's not the Lady Of Pain, he's not a force of nature like a tsunami, he's a guy with stats and he does die in the movies.... YMMV.)

For laughs, I did a non-canon fight with our best AOE PCs and a Vader expy with maxed-out stats. They kerbstomped him in two rounds. The moral of the story is that no NPC you want to survive should be in a position where the PCs can dogpile him anyway...

I also did a for-reals version of the Jedi taking down Palpatine during the failed Order 66 - this was a canon event for us, but we thought it would be fun to test the system when the F&D game came out. So everyone built some 2000 XP Jedi (expect the PC who was actually there who used a version of their character that was 20 years younger and stayed out of the battle on healing duties). He managed to kill one of them but he lasted about four rounds. It was fun though to see how the high-level powers worked, and though we probably got some of it wrong, it was cool to see an event from our canonical history played out.

Where was that originally posted? Ghost deserves an actual "Like" for that, not just one by proxy through Marcy...

Technically he deserves 1.21 giga-Likes for that, but I can only give him one per post, so...

EDIT: Oh, and +1 to all the other stuff you said, too. I'm especially fond of changing the NPC type of a character based on story role. In my campaign I'm running, right now there is one Inquisitor after the party, and she is a beastly Nemesis with 3 ranks in Adversary. However, once the party is stronger, I have planned an encounter where she and three of her buddies attack them en masse, where all four will be Rivals with only 2 ranks in Adversary, to show how much more powerful the party has become.

It's a very sideways way of thinking about NPCs if you (like me) come from the very rigid and well-defined d20 world, but it's amazing at helping you tell awesome stories, so I'd recommend it highly!

It was in the 'Excess Hardpoints' thread last year. I think some fanboy was trying to build the Falcon with the stats of a Star Destroyer, but Sil 4 and about 50-odd hardpoints.

I think I pointed out that a fully-modded YT1300 is actually a really good ship.

Much of the EU was fan escalation and one-upmanship, so the canon characters ended up distorted as Asgardian supermen far beyond the flawed, interesting characters we see in the movies. The originals in particular are fairly restrained; we see a journey of improvement for the hero, and nobody is invincible. What followed afterwards wasn't so restrained, and hit the barrel-scraping nadir with Force Unleashed, which played like some insane stealth parody or a Robot Chicken sketch. It was a low-point, but hardly the only one, alas

Tell me about it; my party just realized that ship mods are a thing they can do (I guess it might also have been that this was the first time they actually had money, but...), and I'm starting to see how crazy good a YT-1300 can be.

But those modifications are about to be put to the test - at the end of last session, after stopping "mid-warp" to pry a tracking device off their ship, they continued on to Kashyyyk only to find three Star Destroyers and swarms of TIEs waiting for them. I love me a good cliff-hanger .

Don't worry, the SDs aren't for them - the Empire is waiting for a Rebel attack that's incoming. But if the party intervenes and helps the Rebels not get slaughtered, our captain might finally find out what happened to his wife...