Aloha,

Just curious, what is the best way to match PC's Xp totals versus a NPC's Adversary Level (ie. Minion, Rival, and Nemesis.) Especially with Knight Level of play...

I can't really find a 'real' way to make NPC's and would like to tailor them against my Players. The Knight Level of play seems like they could breeze through quite a bit of minions. Yet eventually, something of Nemesis level might become lower than a player's Xp total and could be considered more a rival or worse even a minion. I don't want to just keep using cookie cutter NPC's and find out as the campaign goes long enough that the present nemesis is now considered a minion to the PC's.

While 100 Battle Droids against 1 Jedi is cool for Clone Wars, isn't there a certain point where 25 Stormtroopers against 4-6 Experienced players gets out matched?

Unfortunately there's really no elegant answer.

Its all highly variable depending on how your players build their PCs - do they dump all their starting xp into Characteristics? do they all have at least some combat skill?, etc., and requires a certain level of GM intuition (just an intuitive grasp of the probabilities), but the easiest way in general is to look at the comparative size of pools, and number of Enemies.

First you need to understand the dice. You need to know that every "positive dice" has a slightly better chance of creating a positive result than any equivalent "negative dice". So, a Green is always slightly better than a Purple, so 3 Gs are always slightly better than 3 Ps. Same w/ Yellow v Red and even Blue v. Black. And this all stacks not only within a pool, but also down the line to other players, as you can pass on Blues, etc. You also need to understand that Yellows and Reds aren't that much better than Greens and Purples, also that Gs and Ps are significantly better than Blues and Blacks, but that Blues and Blacks aren't anything to just sneeze at.

As a general rule, if I want something to be challenging, I try to make sure there are an equal number of "negative dice" in an opposition pool as there are Gs and Ys (not Blues) in the "positive"/action pool.

Next you need to know that the ability to deal out damage is fairly flat in this system compared to something like a d20. Minions (specifically Groups) aren't that far behind PCs, in part because weapons do a flat amount of damage and it's substantial. But also because probabilities simply don't scale up in this system like it does in a d20.

So, what do you do? Depending on how tough you want the encounter to be, just match up the number of enemies and the number of dice they're throwing compared to the PCs. Keeping in mind the ability of Taking Cover to equalize Defense v. Attack pools and Adversary and other Talents. On top of all that, Soak is an important consideration as well. And the greater the disparity between pools and Soak, when compared to how challenging I want the encounter to be, the more Minions I'll add in.

So yea, don't know how much help that all really is, but basically there's no easy button, you kind of have to understand the system if you want to fine tune NPCs and encounters.

I find that the experience of both the players and the GM with the system also has quite a significant impact. The mechanics and character builds possible, especially with Jedi characters in Force and Destiny , are sufficiently crunchy that an inexperienced group of players will handle a given combat encounter much differently than an experienced group.

Consider a group of 5 Stormtroopers [Minions]. As long as they don't take any losses (which is entirely possible if there are other enemies in the encounter who also have to be dealt with), they sling around 4 Yellows on their attack every turn, which is a virtually guaranteed hit on someone. Blaster Rifles tend to hurt, especially when backed up by multiple successes and potential Triumph/Advantage-fueled crits. Knight-level start or not, such a minion group tends to cause a lot of hurt to an inexperienced group before the Stormtroopers finally go down. An experienced group, on the other hand, tends to have a better understanding of how to mitigate that damage with Soak and Reflect, how to accrue better defensive dice (Dodge upgrade to Red, Sense upgrade to Red, cover for a Black, Defensive/Deflection stats for Blacks, etc), and how to efficiently kill those Stormtroopers with good offensive pools and judicious use of the results. 5 Stormtroopers wouldn't even put a dent in my usual group before getting slaughtered, but I would be very, very hesitant to throw 5 Stormtroopers at a group of players who are new to the system or even just new to Force and Destiny .

Rivals and Nemeses tend to be similar, albeit without the intrinsic scaling that Minions have. What I'm saying is that, unfortunately, you as a GM just have to have a good sense for what your group is mechanically prepared to handle. Luckily, this good sense tends to come with experience. My advice in any system is to 'lowball' encounters with enemies you think are a little on the weak side -- if you're wrong and they turn out to be more powerful than you thought against the players, then chances are it won't be too overpowering. If you're right and they're easily dispatched by the players, then you have two options: Let the players have an easy encounter if they enjoyed it (there's nothing wrong with letting players murderize some puny opposition now and then), or scale the encounter organically -- more goons arrive in the middle of the fight to reinforce their hapless comrades, use a timely Triumph or Despair to inflict some environmental scenario to the players' detriment (a cave-in starts, the alarms go off, security measures are activated, etc), or some other way to subtly enhance the difficulty of the encounter. Unless all your players are seasoned GMs themselves, none of them will be the wiser that you didn't intend for the initial enemies to be so laughably easy. After a few encounters like this, you'll probably have a much better sense of how various enemies handle against your party, and can thus fine-tune your opposition with more precision.

As an addendum, specific to Force and Destiny , I find it's particularly important to emphasize and consider Parry and Reflect. These are huge tools in a Jedi's arsenal that really set them apart from mundane characters in combat scenarios (although mundane melee characters can get small amounts of Parry, large amounts of it backed up by a lightsaber are exclusive to Jedi-style characters). Players who don't focus on Parry/Reflect, or at the very least large amounts of some other defensive combat strategy (such as stacking Soak), will drop like flies against heavy duty opposition, even if it consists of Minions. Goons armed with things like Heavy Blaster Rifles and Light Repeaters, spewing blaster bolts with Autofire, will put colossal amounts of damage on Jedi characters who have not properly beefed up their lightsaber talents like Reflect. Characters who have paid for a healthy helping of Reflect, however, will tend to shut down that kind of opposition pretty quickly, especially if they have things like Improved or Supreme Reflect.

The same goes for lightsaber duels. An Inquisitor/Dark Jedi/Sith/whatever with Adversary and Parry talents will make quick work of an unprepared Jedi character who has a rank or two in Lightsaber but no talents to support it, whereas someone who has invested in Parry and other dueling talents can treat the table to a real Duel of the Fates (inspired GM and player use of Advantage/Triumph is strongly advised)!

On 4/3/2017 at 1:36 PM, BCGaius said:

Consider a group of 5 Stormtroopers [Minions]. As long as they don't take any losses (which is entirely possible if there are other enemies in the encounter who also have to be dealt with), they sling around 4 Yellows on their attack every turn

3 yellows and one green, I believe (that's what you get from 3 Agility and 4 ranks).

It's worth considering what each type of NPC is for , as well. Minions are just that: thugs, goons, and cannon fodder. While they can certainly pack an offensive punch, they usually (but not always) fall into the "glass cannon" application, where they hit hard, but go down relatively easy. Minions are designed to be defeated, in large numbers, by your PCs.

Rivals represent a fairly significant increase in capabilities. While they're unlikely to pose a threat to PCs on their own, they work well in supporting roles, the way a stormtrooper sergeant makes a minion group of 'troopers much more dangerous. Rivals are also the type of NPCs your group will most often encounter in social and/or non-combat encounters. Rivals used in this fashion are likely to be named NPCs, whereas minions are just the faceless mob.

Nemeses don't have much of an upper limit in terms of power, but a single Nemesis is unlikely to be able to go toe-to-toe with an entire group of PCs. There are lots of threads (here and on the EotE forum) about Nemesis construction and usage; I won't retread here. Suffice to say that a Nemesis is someone that the party should be interacting with for a good long while and defeating that Nemesis should be the culmination of a story arc, if not the entire campaign.

It would be nice if we were provided with more resources and guidelines for adversaries in high-level campaigns. Once you get up to 800 or 1,000 XP, even if the PC builds aren't very munchkin-y, a tough Nemesis like an Inquisitor will probably lose to a single PC in a one-on-one fight.

2 hours ago, DaverWattra said:

3 yellows and one green, I believe (that's what you get from 3 Agility and 4 ranks).

Whoops, you're right. 6 Stormies to get 4 Yellows.

Just now, BCGaius said:

Whoops, you're right. 6 Stormies to get 4 Yellows.

Wouldn't that be 3 yellow 2 green? The yellow dice are equal to [Characteristic or skill rank, whichever is lower] and then the green dice are equal to {[Characteristic or skill rank, whichever is *greater*] minus the number of yellow dice}. Adding minions to a group doesn't upgrade their checks, it adds skill ranks.

You're right again, I had upgrades on my mind! (though in my defense, 3Y 2G is even worse to be shot at with than 4Y!)

Yeah, balancing out encounters in this system involves a lot of guesstimating, especially in the earlier sessions.

emsquared suggestions for how to determine an "challenging" encounter are a pretty good baseline, and helps avoid putting your PCs up against foes that are too powerful. For instance, a minion group of 5 stormtroopers is going to decimate most PCs in short order simply due to rolling a very high combat pool against characters that generally don't have a lot of defensive options or that high of a wound threshold; most PC builds will be able to survive at best one hit from that stormtrooper minion group before going down.

For minion groups, I tend to start out using them in groups of 3, so that they've got 2 ranks in their group skills, and increase the number of minions the more of a threat I want them to be to the party, especially if they're using high-damage weapons such as blaster rifles or vibro-axes.

Rivals I tend to look at what dice pools the PCs are rolling and usually give them comparable dice pools, as well as considering what defensive options. A party where all the PCs have an option to upgrade the difficulty of incoming attacks at twice or more means I'll give my Rival an additional rank in their main combat skills.

Nemeses I tend to give them one rank above what the PCs have on average in their best combat skills, and ranks in Adversary equal to about one less than then best combat skill in the party (minimum of 1 rank).

Then again, with the dice work, you need to be ready for encounters to go the completely opposite direction that you intend. I've had what should have been simple/easy fights turn nasty for the PCs due to their dice rolling poorly and what were meant to tough boss fights wind up being curb-stomps in the PCs' favor simply because my dice were rolling poorly or the players' were rolling really well. It's part and parcel of the system, so it's something a GM will need to be aware of.

Is it just my imagination, or is this game very swingy? In our first game, I constructed what should have been a very simple encounter that ended up taking most of the play session. In the second game, I ran them through a variant of the Age of Rebellion beginner game box, with a few details fine-tuned to fit the campaign. However, they breezed through storming the Imperial base, which was supposed to take a good chunk of the play session.

The biggest difference between these two sessions was the dice results. In the easier encounter, one of the players was rolling horribly, unable to hit a single enemy the whole time, while the NPCs kept rolling Triumph after Triumph on one yellow. In the second game, it was just the opposite. Players were getting Triumphs left and right, and the NPCs couldn't hit a thing despite rolling respectable dice pools.

In general, the more rolls you give the adversaries, the worse it is for the PCs. The more survivable you make the Rival and Nemesis NPCs, the worse it is for the PCs.

Early on, a small group of stormtroopers was a challenge, but after a few sessions my PCs learned to deal with them. That's when I started to add Sergeants. For a group of PCs around the Knight level, a 9-trooper squad is a challenge when handled like this: one 3-minion group, one 3-minion group with a light repeating blaster 1 range band further than the forward position, the Sergeant forming a "squad" with the two remaining minions (allowing the Sergeant to ignore the first few attacks that land by directing them to the other NPCs).

At even higher XP, start introducing support vehicles (they land more troops before providing cover fire). Have a Nemesis officer lead a platoon, with four squads (one 5-minion group, one Sgt. with 4 minion blaster sponges). Make sure they have an E-web and a few light repeaters. If the NPCs are taking a lot of damage, send an AT-ST as backup.

Alternately, send your PCs up against an elite unit. Five Storm Commandos (all Sergeants) with upgraded equipment and a prepared ambush will really, really challenge most PC groups.

1 hour ago, Underachiever599 said:

Is it just my imagination, or is this game very swingy?

It's not just your imagination.

Unlike a lot of other RPGs, there's not really any way to get a reliable result with the dice in this game, and a string of bad or good dice rolls can seriously skew an encounter.

Unfortunately, that inherent amount of swinginess is part of the price paid for having a dice mechanic that cuts down on "boring" check results and generally averts the binary pass/fail axis that the majority of RPGs go with.

8 minutes ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

Unfortunately, that inherent amount of swinginess is part of the price paid for having a dice mechanic that cuts down on "boring" check results and generally averts the binary pass/fail axis that the majority of RPGs go with.

Yea, this.

The margin between the number of success/fail symbols on the "twin" dice is on the +0/1/2 success side. So its close to a uniform distribution of success/fail (statistically like a d20 or d100 mechanic).

This literally makes room on the dice for the Adv/Dis symbols, which have a similar distribution. And therefore a similar swingyness as d20/100 system would have.

And of course Triumph/Despair is flat equal.