IMO, game-wise Palpatine should be a force of nature, and doesn’t have any stats. Same with Vader.

The Star Wars Day Age Of Rebellion adventure clearly agreed with you; the adventure's 'stats' for Darth Vader were " just run , okay? "

I got the strong suspicion that you need to hand out PC talents left and right to bring NPCs up to player levels, adversary is a real nice defensive talent, but there is more to combat then rolling dice and turning up adversary beyond 5 feels silly anyway.

A single Nemesis is not going to survive long against a powerful group of PCs, unless you’re running the Nemesis correctly. There’s a number of threads on this board for precisely that kind of situation.

Split the party up, disarm them, put them in situations where they can’t use their normal tactics without excessive risk to innocent parties, throw wave after wave of cannon fodder at them, and your Nemesis will do much better.

I got the strong suspicion that you need to hand out PC talents left and right to bring NPCs up to player levels, adversary is a real nice defensive talent, but there is more to combat then rolling dice and turning up adversary beyond 5 feels silly anyway.

A single Nemesis is not going to survive long against a powerful group of PCs, unless you’re running the Nemesis correctly. There’s a number of threads on this board for precisely that kind of situation.

Split the party up, disarm them, put them in situations where they can’t use their normal tactics without excessive risk to innocent parties, throw wave after wave of cannon fodder at them, and your Nemesis will do much better.

We are talking here about inquisitors, based on their own nemesis rules, beefed up by gaining double the amount of talents in a situation with 3 or 4 nemesis overall in the encounter against 4 players. With the nemesis gaining double actions per turn. It still was, well not rather easy too… well, outside me getting stucked in a window while trying to do a climbing check. Despair can be a trouble and in this case everyone get a shot at me first, leading to a unconscious PC in turn one.

And I am btw not really trying to complain about the weakness of nemesis npcs, I am just trying to point at that they are nowhere close to deal with equal amounts of PCs on their own in direct confrontations. Even the most powerful ones, especially when going for a direct approach. Inquisitors are no force of nature per rules, but rather very weak in their options and abilities compared to even just 500 xp characters. Talents are king in many ways.

LOL

Here I thought this was a thread about statting me! But, as usual, it's all about my brother, Sheev.

Everybody loves Sheev...

Abilities: Commander-in-Chief (character can muster a fleet of Star Destroyers or legion of stormtroopers or Army units anywhere at any time), Backup Death Star (if the PCs destroy a super weapon, Palpatine has a more powerful version of destroyed weapon under construction), Royal Guard (character has a personal company of NPC Nemeses on call at any time).

Only 5 in his characteristics?

Well, I thought sixes would be way too overpowered.

Psh, you didn't even give him skills? How is he going to rule an empire with green dice?

You do not know the power of the green dice!

Abilities: Commander-in-Chief (character can muster a fleet of Star Destroyers or legion of stormtroopers or Army units anywhere at any time), Backup Death Star (if the PCs destroy a super weapon, Palpatine has a more powerful version of destroyed weapon under construction), Royal Guard (character has a personal company of NPC Nemeses on call at any time).

Yes, Red Guards should probably be the most dangerous thing the PCs can face after an Inquisitior. If you have a group of them headed your way, then you've probably overstayed your welcome.

Lots of good information on this thread, fellows! I'm getting all kinds of Ideas for my poor PCs......

One of the basic rules of GMing is that an NPC should never show up in person unless you're okay with the possibility of them being killed. Palpatine would be no exception. Still, he's unlikely to put himself in direct danger except as an extremely calculated gambit with a prize worth the risk; granted that his judgement isn't infallible (his handling of Luke being exhibit A there), but especially with his ability to perceive future events he's unlikely to make a genuinely stupid mistake that leaves him an easy target.

That being said, he's dangerous primarily as a mastermind and manipulator, not so much as a combat monster, and he's definitely not invincible (if he was, he wouldn't bother with guards), so if he's going to appear in person then the "why" of it becomes important - that will largely determine the terms of the encounter and what stats would actually be relevant to it.