5 hero campaigns has been an ongoing discussion for some time. Most people recommend staying mostly within the rules and suggest having the 5th player control an ally or a 2nd imperial player. But those options are less fun for the 5th player, I wanted a 5th full hero so they can get the complete experience. There is nothing stopping it mechanically (tho you have to use something like a terminal for an activation), it is just a matter of tweaking existing elements to find balance.

These are the rules I am using:

-Heroes have -2 HP

-Threat Level increased by 1

-Starting Threat increased by the threat level (and perform an optional deployment)

-Open Groups +1

The -2 HP is to maintain the overall total HP of the group. Using the allies mechanic as a starting point, I asked myself "How much threat is a hero worth?" Obviously since a hero evolves, so should the threat. I came up with a combination of starting threat and incremental threat via increasing the threat level. The additional open group is for greater variety due to the increased threat. I have thought about tweaking influence, but since there isn't really a way to tweak it simply (+1 influence seems too much), I left it alone.

Now, I have played a solo campaign with these rules previously (It was a post Twin Shadows Base campaign), and the balance felt similar to the balance of a typical 4 player campaign.

So I felt confident introducing the rules to my game group and we started a Jabba's Realm campaign.

The heroes chosen were Vinto, Shyla, Murne, Davith, & Mak and I chose Nemeses, as I thought I could have fun with the additional threat. If I were super competitive, I would have chosen something else, because it is a rather strong group of heroes and I think Nemeses is more fun than powerful (but we will see). I chose Inquisitor and Boba Fett as my earned villains and loaded up my agenda deck with sets containing villains and threat generation/reduction. Now, I chose more expensive villians purposely due to the increased threat. Boba is definitely a risky choice, but I thought he might be decent in the end game. Not starting with a trooper villains makes it harder to use Inspiration, but I am bringing out Weequay Pirates a lot so it still works.

Intro: Trespass
This mission progressed almost exactly like it did in my solo 4 player JR campaign. I did have all but one hero wounded, but they still won fairly handily. The point at which they won and how the final tile played out was almost identical.

Side 1: Communication Breakdown (Leia)
We had played this mission in our previous campaign so it was a good comparison. Starting with 9 threat, gave me the opportunity to bring the Inquisitor out, although I decided I would bring him out after the first round instead of at the start. I deployed Weequay Pirates for 5 and then brought out the Inquisitor for 7 at the end of round. Inquisitor wounded 2 heroes and would have wounded a third if I got the cleave off, before falling to heavy focused fire. Rebels won by rushing Leia to the end, but all of the heroes were wounded. It again, played out similar to the 4 player game with Leia rushing the terminal at the end for the win.

I will continue to update as we play more, but I am pretty happy with the house rule set so far. I think the rebels do still have a slight advantage compared to 4p with these rules, but it is within normal mission variance so I am not too worried about it. We will see how the campaign progresses!

Reserved

This is pretty awesome, a great little adjustment engine to add another player (players?). Adds variety and replayability to old missions.

I like this. The more the merrier!

I'm not sure I would ever do more than 5 heroes.

I now have 6 people in my game group so it was a good time to try my house rules for real which I came up with and tested a year and a half ago.

I'm not sure the -2HP would work very well. You'll have more Imperials on the board making focus fire deadlier, and thinking of how often I've had a hero at 1 HP, and how the heroes have varying amounts of health so that -2 will be different to Jyn than it would be to Onar, I think there is probably a better way of doing it than giving the heroes -2 HP. Starting with strain, giving Imperials rerolls or something.

Also at the start of the campaign that extra hero is giving the Imperials 2 extra threat at the start, by the end it's giving the Imperials 6 extra threat. Is that 4 threat difference the difference between a starting hero and a hero with 11+ XP and tier 3 gear? Maybe extra influence on missions and a couple points of XP by the end would help.

Each individual hero is more easily wounded, but there are more heroes to wound. There are also other minor benefits such as more activations and also having another body can help with mission objectives. I think it balances out.

Your late campaigns concerns are possibly valid however. It seemed okay in my test campaign, but yeah on paper, you may be right. Im not sure what the right answer is tho. I wanted to keep the changes simple if possible. (And it is 3 threat and 7 threat due to the +1 threat level, but still a different of 4 threat).

In the existing 4p game. 100 credits per hero=1 influence and 4 total hero XP=1 Imperial XP.

So I suppose, all things being equal, the imperial should get bonus xp and influence every 3-4 missions for a total of around 3 of each.

I can get behind extra influence but +3 xp has me nervous.

We tried it the past weekend for 5 heroes with each getting minus 3 health each (reverse of the three player setup). I knew it was less wounds total, but we didn't adjust threat. We played two missions and the rebels won each fairly easily. The extra activation without a squad to defend was killer for the overlord.

i think I will try the variant you posted initially next time. Have you had any issues with it now that you've gotten a little more games in?

I have not played again yet.

I definitely recommend adjusting threat. You need those extra units.

I think I will also being giving the imperial player extra influence. +1 after every non-side mission except intro for a total of 5.

Have you considered the limit on Agenda cards in the JR campaign? I realize it's a little early to determine if it is an issue, but do you think you might need to increase that to 5 cards? It might help you to make use of additional influence.

17 minutes ago, Uninvited Guest said:

Have you considered the limit on Agenda cards in the JR campaign? I realize it's a little early to determine if it is an issue, but do you think you might need to increase that to 5 cards? It might help you to make use of additional influence.

Yeah, thinking about increasing the cards drawn by 1 as well as adding 1 agenda set.

I was about to edit my post.

Basically if you go by the formula of 4 rebel xp=1 imperial xp & 400 credits= influence, it basically works out to 3 xp and 3 influence total to balance out the 5th hero. However, since in JR the imperial player can already get up to 16 xp, i am reluctant to add more, so just giving all influence.

I am erring on the side of caution and giving 5 total influence and an extra card drawn instead of 6.

Thanks for posting. My play group is looking to add a fifth hero, so I think we'll give your rule set (or something like it) a whirl.

So I am running six heroes. Here is a bit of background as to why.

We have played all the campaigns so far. Our group consists of guys that place in the top 4 at various store tournaments and regional. With the previous campaigns the Empire has had no problems wiping the floor with the Rebels. The guys running Rebels were getting tired of getting there butts handed to them everytime we played. We talked it though and this is what we cam up with.

6 Heroes, start with 2 xp and 100 credits Empire starts with 1 xp and 1 influence and is playing the nemesis deck.

So far it has been much more competitive. We have played three missions and the Rebels were close to losing each. As the Empire I have chosen to Play Fat slug as a side mission. With a quick glance it looks like the now pretty beefy heroes will walk through this easily. So we might have to tweak the threat and or groups for the Empire.

53 minutes ago, LESHIPPY said:

So I am running six heroes. Here is a bit of background as to why.

We have played all the campaigns so far. Our group consists of guys that place in the top 4 at various store tournaments and regional. With the previous campaigns the Empire has had no problems wiping the floor with the Rebels. The guys running Rebels were getting tired of getting there butts handed to them everytime we played. We talked it though and this is what we cam up with.

6 Heroes, start with 2 xp and 100 credits Empire starts with 1 xp and 1 influence and is playing the nemesis deck.

So far it has been much more competitive. We have played three missions and the Rebels were close to losing each. As the Empire I have chosen to Play Fat slug as a side mission. With a quick glance it looks like the now pretty beefy heroes will walk through this easily. So we might have to tweak the threat and or groups for the Empire.

Good lord, 6 heroes + additional xp/ credit advantages? For guys who place highly at tournaments?

Your Imperial player must be an absolute warlord.

59 minutes ago, subtrendy said:

Good lord, 6 heroes + additional xp/ credit advantages? For guys who place highly at tournaments?

Your Imperial player must be an absolute warlord.

Well i was kicking there butts the last three campaigns and one of them ran the Empire on the original campaign and cleaned house as well. Thus the change up to 6 with bumps

The last mission was From All Sides - threat 3 - Nemesis: Bossk, Heros: Davith, Vinto, Orno, Fenn, Shlya, Loku

At the end of round 5 all heros were wounded except Davith who had 9 HP left after using med kit. Rebels win. Jabba lived Terro was defeated. As the Empire I think I could have played a little better actually. Instead of using an action one round for Jabba to gain threat I would probably been better to Focus and trandosian Hunter and then let him have a "free Attack"

4 hours ago, LESHIPPY said:

Well i was kicking there butts the last three campaigns and one of them ran the Empire on the original campaign and cleaned house as well. Thus the change up to 6 with bumps

The last mission was From All Sides - threat 3 - Nemesis: Bossk, Heros: Davith, Vinto, Orno, Fenn, Shlya, Loku

At the end of round 5 all heros were wounded except Davith who had 9 HP left after using med kit. Rebels win. Jabba lived Terro was defeated. As the Empire I think I could have played a little better actually. Instead of using an action one round for Jabba to gain threat I would probably been better to Focus and trandosian Hunter and then let him have a "free Attack"

We took Rangers just to give the Imperials even more threat in the hopes of giving them a chance, they worked out okay in part because of the magical doors, but pretty sure Troopers or C3-P0 (free thanks to Murn) would have been better. Rebels never even bothered resting, it was a complete curb stomp (with 4 heroes.) Murne was wounded but that was because we got greedy and ran her around to get crates, and 2 rangers died. Terro did the most damage by far and his weakness helped the Imperials quite a bit. Jabba was never shot at because of the big wall he was hiding behind.

Playing Side Mission Big Fat Slug tonight. Looking over this and knowing where my Rebels are at I think they will easily walk through it. Or at least should. So, instead of threat 3. I am bumping the threat to 4 for the Imperial. Which I would be surprised if it changes the final outcome, but at least make it more of a Challenge.

Since I am running the nemesis cards with the Empire. This will allow me to bring in Bossk and a Probe Droid to start out. Provided i don't lose any characters round one, I plan on following up with a regular nexu. i also have trandosian hunters in my hand to play.

My over all sense of this mission is that with a low threat level and high number of rebel characters it will be tough for the Empire to win this one. The best i can think of is making the corridor a log jam to slow them down and hope for teh best. If you were playing this with 4 rebels at threat level three it would be much more difficult. Especially if you didn't have any way to increase the speed of your Rebels. What I assume will happen is this. Loku will tag Jabba and then the shooting will begin. Once jabba then moves, Davith will use his speed to blow by all the scum and get to Jabba. Elite Gamorreans will proably be the closest but will still have problems catching Davith. I haven't counted squares but that is what my gut is telling me. The other Rebels will then try to clog the corridor and prevent me from reaching Davith who can just set back and wack away at Jabba with out much problem. Sure jabba can strain Davith, but he won't need much of it once he is up close. holding off the nexu and going with the trandosians in round three bringing them in at the yellow point might help.

i will post an update tomorrow if I get time.

this is very interesting. What I had previously done was give the imperial player 4 starting threat, and the fifth player got to control ONE Wookie Warrior with that special rule from the Wookie Warrior mission, except when he gets wounded and becomes elite, the imperial gets bonus 6 threat....but your optional rule here is very interesting...I'm interested in how the campaign unfolds

On 2/27/2017 at 2:17 PM, LESHIPPY said:

Mission update.

Heroes win the one fat slug mission. My main problem was as the Empire I forgot that you can't bring back Unique characters so once Bossk died that hurt. His hunting buddies kept the guys busy but I lacked the punch to knock out the rebels. I had wounded most of them , but Davith hit a med pack late in the game and Luke butchered most the Imperials coming in from the right.

Last night the mission was Almost Home. To this point the Empire has not won a mission. The Heroes are pretty tough at this point. Since I raised the threat by one on the Fat Slug mission and after much though I played the Almost home Mission with 5 threat as well. The heroes surprised me by "laying up" before they burst through the first door. My open groups were a probe droid, heavy ST, Trandosian hunters. My villain with nemesis was the Inquisitor. This is probably only the second or third time I have ran the Inquisitor so there was a bit of a learning curve. The heroes not bursting through the door at the end of round one allowed me to bring an Elite ST and a standard ST back in and work my original plan. Start of round three I bring in the Inquisitor and the probe droid. Start of round 4 the hunters.

Stuns really changed this mission from the last several and probably won me the game. I know I stunned Fenn, Shyla, and Loku at least once. The royal guards also had the flame thrower attachment which proved very useful as well. In the end the beacon with 3 blocks were just too tough. i flipped the last guy with the last beacon having 5 HP left.

A few problems we are running into with 6 players. Over the 5 missions 3 different people have played Vito. Two different people for Loku and two different people for Fenn. This has caused the game to bog down bit because people just don't know how they should use there character or what powers to use.

Next week they play the rebel sabatuer side mission from the original set. Page 15.

In our first playthrough the Rebels rushed the door but got bogged down a bit and didn't get them open until turn 2. Jedi Luke, Murn and Onar made short work of the RG while Vinto and Shyla cleaned up the Imperials by the far door. Figures don't block LoS to the beacons so the Rebels took long range shots at them, ignoring the Imperials and downed them quickly leaving a huge swarm of Imperials on the board. Good thing the heroes didn't have to get back to the evac point, lol.