Which talents do you think are especially cool, effective, or fun to give to adversaries? I'm not thinking so much from a "beat the players" mindset, as from a "create fun combat encounters" mindset.

Some talents that I've found especially fun:

--Coordination Dodge (Performer tree): This is great for when a PC scores a lucky hit that would ruin the drama by killing a major boss in the first round. Of course you should only give it to characters who would plausibly have ranks in Coordination.

--The Force is My Ally (Sage/Seer trees): Pulling out a surprise Force power action is a great way to heighten the tension in a fight.

--Resist Disarm: Disarming can be much too easy in this system. If your players over-use the mechanic, this talent is a must.

Fearsome is one I've used a couple times. I like the idea that this character has something about them that, when they close in on you, suddenly you find yourself overcome with fear. It's different from a normal fear check in that way.

Crippling Blow can be effective, so as to put a bit of pressure on the PCs and really make them think about what they're doing.

And of then there's good ol' Scathing Tirade (and the Improved and Supreme versions), for when you just wanna yell at the characters

Scathing Tirade is awesome. Firstly, it gives you a rules-mechanic-supported reason to monologue at the heroes...secondly, using up their strain goes a long way to taking away their advantages over most NPCs - the ability to do multiple manoeuvres or use stuff like parry/reflect.

Just be sure to come up with appropriately (in character*) hurtful things to say; it doesn't just have to be yelling. Thrawn or the Inquisitor's comments during their fights in Rebels are the perfect example of this talent to me:

Quote

"Interesting...it seems you trained with Jedi Master Depa Bilaba."

"How...? Who are you?"

"The Temple records are quite complete; in close quarter fighting, Bilaba's emphasis was always on Form III...which you favor to a ridiculous degree. Clearly you were a poor student."

Quote

"So heroic...just like your master. Tell me, Jedi, how did you survive Order 66, hmm? It was your Master, Bilaba, who laid down her life for yours. Do you remember her last word to you, her last and final breath before she died? You do, don't you? You see it in your sleep, you hear her voice when you wake. Tell me, Jedi, what was her last word to you?"

" Run "

You also can't go wrong with giving an adversary....well..... Adversary . The ability makes just about everything harder, which goes a long way to making someone feel threatening. It's a nice general-purpose "villain with a name-tag" ability, that makes a non-combat villain like a Moff harder to hit without loading them up with body armour and combat skills, and works in any situation - up to and including getaway in a starship.

* Specifically in character. Otherwise don't hold me responsible if your players give in to their anger.

Master Amorer, three Strain to reduce the crit roll by the amount of soak x10.

Or Durable to reduce the crit roll by ranks x10.

really neccesary if are all about crit everything with +80 each time they hit somthing...

Otherwise I like my villains to be commanders that also have a lot of Minions so they'll get some leadership specials, like Emperial Valor, pirate Captain, Inspiring presence a.s.o.

or if ya doing an rival encounter (4-10 Rivals instead of lot of minion groups) I like to give them the "Pack Hunter" ability, that way they are allowed to pass on 2 Boosts with the assistmaneuver to an engaged friendly target. (that can pille up quite quick if 3-5 attacking the same PC while using theire maneuver after attack to assist the last one attacking.)

It's very easy to increase the damage output with Deadly Accuracy and/or talents like Barrage/Feral Strength/Point Blank/Powerful Blast. These also let you give your bad guy a hard-hitting attack without the worry of placing an overpowered weapon into the hands of loot-whoring players.

Instant Strain recovery talents, like Intense Presence or Mind Over Matter can also be a way for those NPCs to use DPs aside from the fairly boring upgrade option. Take special notice that these are out of turn incidentals.

Resolve is a great talent if your PCs go heavily for un-Soak-able sources of Strain to drop enemies (like Pressure Point). Even a few ranks can be really helpful.

I've used Tactical Direction and Overwhelming Fire to settle down PC's who got a bit too overconfident. Crippling Blow and Natural Marksman can be very effective as well.

This is such a useful thread, but is there an index for all the adversaries's talents?

58 minutes ago, RusakRakesh said:

This is such a useful thread, but is there an index for all the adversaries's talents?

Most of them are in the Core Rulebooks of the various lines. Are you specifically asking for an online index?

No, most talents are within the corerulebooks in the "Talents-Section" since they are also Playertalents (only the advasery-talent is mentioned there as the only "Just-NPC" talent of the section.) Furthermore you'll find "special talents" like Emperial valor, pirat captain a.s.o. with in the "Advasery-Section", and then of course you may just made up something entirely your self (just make sure the PC still have a fair chance of overcome it!) e.g. "imbuede Creature" may roll on FR on all attacks and use o for extra sucess. for an rancor on dathomir.

or "Slowly but surely" once the NSC got hit by a crit reduce the result of the d100 once per encounter to 1, there fore the NSC is now angry and Upgrades his attacks once/twice but therefore he'll has to take the last initative spot of his team.

or "master pack hunter" when ever this creature uses the Assistmaneuver to assist a creature of the same kind that is engaged it may spend one strain, to not only add 2 boost but also upgrade the skill check of that allied creature once.

or "ISB dosier" The Character may make an "ISB Dosier"-Action. Make an medium/hard Knowledge (Education) skill check. On success the character remembers the weaknesses of his target listed in the ISB datas. He Upgrades all skill checks against the target once, for every 2 Advantages he tells a allied where to aim. This can only be done once for any target and the Upgrade lastes for the rest of the encounter.

and so on...

When one PC has high soak but the others don't, I usually give the baddie a "flip DP for characteristic damage" so they can threaten the high soak pc without crushing the other PCs.

On 8/10/2017 at 9:43 AM, Hinklemar said:

When one PC has high soak but the others don't, I usually give the baddie a "flip DP for characteristic damage" so they can threaten the high soak pc without crushing the other PCs.

I need to remember this one.

I have a homebrew talent that I gave my Dug Brawler Rival NPC. In Your Face uses the Situational Modifier for making ranged attacks while engaged.(EoTE p.210)

The talent simply increases the Difficulty Modifier in Table 6-4, +2 for Ranged (Light) and +3 for Ranged (Heavy). It also adds a new category to the chart. Engaged w/Melee +1 Difficulty. Brawl* weapons and unarmed attacks are unaffected. This makes it similar to Hinkelmar's use of +Characteristic Damage talents; the "better armed" a PC is, the greater penalty.

*I would also generally consider combat knife and vibro-knife to be unaffected as well, but nothing larger.

1 hour ago, GM Stark said:

I need to remember this one.

Characteristic damage or strain attacks tend to be good at bypassing people in stupidly heavy armour.

Are there any guidelines on applying characteristic damage?

On 10.8.2017 at 0:41 PM, RusakRakesh said:

This is such a useful thread, but is there an index for all the adversaries's talents?

http://swrpg.viluppo.net/character/talent/

22 hours ago, zsavk said:

Are there any guidelines on applying characteristic damage?

What we mean here are the talents that add damage equal to a characteristic.

Example talents are Anatomy Lessons (Flip a DP to add damage equal to Intellect) and Soft Spot (Flip a DP to add damage equal to Cunning)

4 minutes ago, GM Stark said:

What we mean here are the talents that add damage equal to a characteristic.

Example talents are Anatomy Lessons (Flip a DP to add damage equal to Intellect) and Soft Spot (Flip a DP to add damage equal to Cunning)

Thats a great idea! Thank you for clarifying GM Stark