I'm currently running a campaign for a few friends and fellow podcasters(Shuttle Tydirium) and I have a few questions about character strength. I apologize if this has been addressed, but I couldn't find it by searching.

My players never seem to have any problems with combat. There are 3 of them and they blaze through enemies in large numbers. A 4 man squad of storm troopers will die in a single round, and Nemesis/Rival level characters often die(or get stunned) just as fast. I've had a couple combats where players took damage, but never more than a few points. They also rarely gain strain.

On top of this, I don't recall ever using the red d12 for anything except an opposed roll. The players are routinely completing 5 difficulty(purple) die actions with multiple successes.

What have I done wrong? What are we missing in our combat and skill checks that is allowing them to so easily complete tasks?

In combat I'd expect to use Red dice commonly when there is an Adversary, or through use of destiny points, or where enemies have force powers such as sense.

I also tend to ensure any combat has 'star wars style' threats or difficulties (smoke, fog, lava pools, loose footing, large drops), which usually add one or two setbacks, and on occasion even upgrades, which increase difficulty (and benefit those who invest in talents to reduce setbacks).

But generally, I'd say yes, players tend to succeed. And that is a good thing, generally, and it's better to work up the challenge over time than set it too hard and kill them all.

Your rivals should have the Adversary talent. A Stormtrooper sergeant has Adversary 1, so anyone more capable could show up with a 2 or 3.

When this started happening with my PCs, they ended up fighting more minions. Lots more. The minions also had vehicle support and some heavy weapon help, causing them to have to split their focus, get lucky, or run.

I agree with the suggestions above. Force-using enemies might also get a couple ranks of Parry and/or Reflect. And if they're tearing through one minion group of stormtroopers, make them face three; the extra attacks each round will make the combat more dangerous and challenging. There's also an optional rule to let your Nemeses act twice each round to ensure they get a couple of attacks in before the PCs roll them.

One thing to realize about FFG Star Wars combat is that everyone is a glass cannon (some exceptions, but generally true) so as a GM I've had to re-adjust my expectations of how to construct challenging encounters. Generally combat check pools are not going to be that difficult. If PCs have a 5 characteristic behind their combat skill they'll be really good at hitting things. Things like Adversary, spending a DP point to upgrade the difficulty, armor with defense, and taking cover, etc can make that check more difficult but even these tricks are not going to make it unlikely the NPC will be hit. But also keep in mind that even if all these added "negative" dice in the PCs attack pool don't cause a miss they will tend to reduce the number of success/advantage so it at least blunts their attack (one nice thing compared to pass/fail systems).

Opponents with decent Soak values also make them more survivable.

Part of my mental adjustment is to accept that NPCs will usually go down quickly. So add more of them. If you've got 3 PCs who tear through combat encounters than I'd try a 3 Stormtrooper minion groups with 4 each and a Stormtrooper Sgt. This should be a tough encounter. If it's not add an additional minion group. Or add 1 more trooper to each. Give the ST Sgt Adversary 2. Stormtroopers actually have good Soak and good weapons so if they get a chance to hit back they should hit pretty hard. Stormtroopers also have the option of using a light-repeating blaster rifle which is a good way to hit more than one target with good damage.

Knowing your group's weapons and capabilities you can usually figure out how many hits a given NPC can take. Plan around that. It's easier than a d20system because most of a weapons damage is usually in it's base damage (if the PC rolls a ton of net success that's great but I wouldn't plan around that, it's a moment for the PC to shine).

You can also do the same for PCs - most PCs can take 2 or maybe 3 shots from a blaster rifle. They're pretty fragile too.

You can also use Stun damage to hit PCs with high WT but low ST.

Even with all of this FFG combats will not go as many rounds as some of us are accustomed to with 3 rounds seeming typical to me at least (and 2 rounds a fair amount of the time).

You need to introduce challenges/threats that can't be solved by putting a blaster bolt into it.

Have the location where the fight is happening, be a severe environment. Like Mustafar for example. Fighting over rivers of molten lava (which looks cool and epic), is also really freaking hot, and lots of fumes are emitted. Have there be some kind of environmental effect that causes setback dice on all checks made in the area, if they don't have some kind of protection (The enemy might, as it's his home for example, so he's dressed for the occasion). Make the environment so treacherous that any time they try and move a range band, they have to make a coordination or athletics check (this wouldn't count as their action necessarily, just a secondary roll required for the movement). If they fail, they suffer some strain damage, or possibly a wound, depending on the severity of the failure.

Take a look at the types of combat they excel at (close quarters vs ranged for example), and build an NPC that fills the gap of their weak spot. They are all tough, brawler types? Toss an elite sniper against them who is at Extreme range, taking pot shots at them, behind a horde of Minion level storm troopers. They're good at ranged? Build a close quarters guy that can dodge their attacks with talents like Dodge, Defensive STance, Sense, etc, and can move significant ranges in a turn due to other talents, and can get in close on them before they can drop him.

They like to use area effect attacks? Make the fight take place in an area with explosive gas pipes, and the blasts could set the whole place on fire, hurting them (and possibly adding those environmental hazards I mentioned above).

In my experience, for most situations of a really powerful combat character, the key is lots of negative dice. Trying to give a target high soak, and lots of wounds helps, but if it isn't actually reducing their effectiveness to hit the target , you're only delaying the inevitable. Negative dice however, in the form of the above mentioned Adversary talent for Rival/Nemesis NPCs, or lots of setback dice for environmental effects, can drastically reduce, and possibly entirely shut down an attack action on their part. I'm assuming, since they sound like combat monkies, that they have really tricked out weapons too. Super powerful guns with insane mods that let them mow down targets. Well, one of the basic uses for things like Despair, or a high amount of Threat, is that those weapons can be dropped, or damaged due to random fire, etc. You can even destroy it permanently if you are being really rough on your PCs. But even if you only remove their BFG 9000 for a single fight, for that fight at least, they have to use their backup weapon, or improvise something else if they only have the one weapon. It will shake things up.

And this isn't you being a Jerk GM, the book flat out suggests these as options to use for Threat/Despair on their combat rolls, or as Advantage/Triumph on your rolls as the GM. They're not the only ones that get to do cool things to the narrative with dice results.

I totally missed the Adversary rule. I need to go back and look at that again. I was just using the stock characters in the back of the rulebook for most encounters. Honestly, I do take it easy on them in combat. Most of the enemies are 'dumb' in that they aren't tactically sound. There are a handful of plot level characters that I play more intelligently. In fact, they ran up against one in our last session after chasing rumors and 'hunting' someone they shouldn't. It was quite the eye-opener for them to run against a single opponent that didn't just sit in cover and shoot, or rush them blindly. After the shock wore off, I think they rather enjoyed the sudden fear they were forced to run from.

Also, when you have an rival/nemesis you want to keep around a bit, use the squad rules from the AOR GM screen to add a couple minions as cannon fodder.

Either try large minion groups (that are guaranteed to survive more than a round by sheer numbers) or use a large number of solo minions... when there are solo minions you generally can't kill more than one with a non area effect attack. Also use the squad rules from the aor gm kit adventure to protect your rival/nemesis

Combat encounters should not just be about opponents and a premise of "take them down before they take you down". They work best - and this is true of most RPG systems - when the fighting is essentially a distraction or obstacle to getting something else done, or preventing something else from being done, or both simultaneously, and taking down the opposition is essentially an optional part of doing/stopping whatever it is. Super-tough opponents aren't necessary because even weak ones still present an obstacle and while they may go down easily enough that's time (and turns) not spent toward achieving the objective.

Or give your players a tight time limit: Narrative once the raid goes down the players only have 20 minutes to get in and out before the overwhelming ground/air force arrive and encounters escalate. The moment serious trouble is detected the empire will start purging their data banks e.c.t

There was one time that we were having to leave as the bombers were closing on our position and the waves of storm troopers that had just swamped the temple were arriving, the party heavy gunner had fallen prone off the ship ramp as part of three threat, thus had to step back on. We all said that this was the time we had to leave otherwise things would get really bad. Seems simple enough, until the gunner spent her turn to double aim at the foot of the ramp to shoot at the stormtroopers instead of stepping on, meaning we would have had to do another full around before we could leave.

So what did we do? We took off and left her behind. Long story short, she got captured by the empire because she was there when the hammer came down and couldn't get away. The player was pretty ticked off but we were ticked off at him for endangering the entire mission just to "shoot at a few more targets and expect us to wait for the bombers to carve out a new airfield.".

Basically, give them missions which brute force cannot accomplish, against garrisons they would be stupid to tackle head on. Give them missions to undertake in neutral zones where subtly should be stressed; technically they are preforming diplomatic treason by even sending troops here.

I've definitely been doing that. The plot they are involved in is fairly complex with lots of moving pieces. They learned early on that their choices have direct impacts on the world around them, and their inaction is just as important. If they have 3 avenues to explore and choose 1, the other 2 don't sit idle, their stories progress as well. It's made for an interesting dynamic where they poor over every choice of direction and investigation, knowing that they might miss important clues.

I also let them chat amongst themselves, which is hilarious as a GM since they have a great dynamic, but don't let them press pause. Interrupting their discussion with bad guy activity often results in funny moments as they scramble to react. I don't think they mind that the bad guys fall so quickly, but I'm just worried the big boss folks at the end might seem anti climatic.

By the way, if anyone is interesting in listening to our horribly bad play sessions, I have them up on the Shuttle Tydirium youtube page. I know I could use the corrections to our rule problems.

Ahhh awesome, I will check it out sometime. ^___^

On 3.8.2017 at 0:47 AM, EliasWindrider said:

Either try large minion groups (that are guaranteed to survive more than a round by sheer numbers) or use a large number of solo minions... when there are solo minions you generally can't kill more than one with a non area effect attack. Also use the squad rules from the aor gm kit adventure to protect your rival/nemesis

Like Captain? Windrider said.

The major survival benefits for squads over Minion is that damage exceeding a members Hitpoints, dosn't get carried over.

I.E: Minions: 4 Stromtroopers, 5 HT each = 20 HT, take 10 Damage, kill two.

Squad: 4 Stromtroopers, 5 HT each = 20 HT, take 10 Damage, kill only one, or choose to take the damage with your squad leader!

Also important to note that, unlike d20 systems, this is not an arms race. In d20 systems, you just keep adding hit points, offense, and defense to make encounters more difficult. In d20, you also focus on making a W.O.W.-like "Boss" to fight and the whole adventure leads up to him.

In SW FFG, it is more narrative. It's about doing Star Wars stuff. It isn't about whether and adversary has 1-purple or 5-purple to hit him, it's about how badly the PC's want to hit him. I doubt you can ever out-equip an NPC versus the PC's. Your villain should have some "outs". You want him to get away and cause trouble from adventure to adventure.

All the input above is good, too. But remember, it's not a d20 system point-building race.

My experience is somewhat different.

We are a group of five Players with two of them actually "combat" classes. a Bodyguard and a Big-Game Hunter.

Our fights are generally more close, as we are not so well armored and only moderate equipped.

We have gained 165 XP so far so maybe that is an issue too.

I haven't had much luck with having a single NPC being able to stand up to much, short of using something like a Wampa. People tend to focus fire, and they go down pretty quick, even with the Adversary talent.

However, minion groups keep the party on their toes more than an actual dark jedi thrown their way. A group or two of four stormtrooper minions hits hard enough to make anyone in the party (besides the cybered up Gank in power armor) cringe. It's funny when mooks provide as much suspense, than a Wampa with literally infinite HP (Experiment I did one game), but that's how the system works.

I think that part of the problem is that there's a tendency to try to build a 'boss battle' influenced by the way that the CRPG genre does it - a single super-enemy that's immune to everything of consequence and can only be (slowly) whittled down by piling damage on it over an extended period while avoiding all of its special attacks (which, of course, penetrate any usual PC immunities). That's fine for a CRPG but it makes for a lousy tabletop RPG scene, and even if it isn't expressly what the GM is trying to do it ends up affecting the way that people look at encounter design.

Opponents aren't meant to work like that thematically or mechanically work like that. A single enemy WILL go down fairly quickly even if they're supposed to be a tough guy and that's by design. If you want them to stick around then you have to have enough distractions/threats (aka mooks) or alternate objectives that they can't reasonably be focus fired. This is as true of a top-end inquisitor (or even Vader - he doesn't bring along trooper squads out of sentiment) as it is of a run-of-the-mill pirate captain. Those types have command of minions for a reason.

This game is balanced toward the PCs winning almost every fight except those that are purposely set up for them to fail. There's very little middle ground and the end of most combats can be predicted within a round or two.

On 2017-08-02 at 5:04 AM, wanderlust2 said:

On top of this, I don't recall ever using the red d12 for anything except an opposed roll.

I haven't seen it mentioned in this thread: I will find any excuse to flip a Destiny Point, especially if there are no red dice already in the pool. The pool is meant to be under constant use by both PCs and the GM.

Have a minion group of 5 stormtroopers commanded by a sergeant throw their grenades for an attack against a group of PCs. They will start to take combat a lot more seriously after that, and, to your players, the stormtroopers will become the feared Fist of the Empire they were intended to be.

You could lure them into a trap using what they assume to be cannon as bait and then surround them and pour concentrated fire OR have a squad of tie bomber/fighters or AT-STs to show up and ruin their day.

What I do is add a minion or two to each group and add one or two HP. Then add HP and Soak to Rivals and nemeses. Also as stated before, Adversary is a good talent.

Minions ( i.e. Stormtroopers or street thugs) are not ment to be a real challenge. Seeing them drop like flys is the norm. Rivals (i.e. Officers or bodyguards) are a little tougher and may be more challenging if there are more than two or three but are also supposed to be the biggest threat. The real threat to the PC is the Nemesis (i.e. Crime Lords or highly skilled assassins). These should be the culmination of an adventure. One on one, a PC might even lose to a Nemesis. However, while the Nemesis should strike fear into the PCs, they shouldn't be unbeatable.

The way I see it, the stats given are just the writer's suggestions, as the GM it is up to you to make it as hard or easy as you think it should be.

One of the things I have learnt about this game is, that the player characters are supposed to be the heroes, far above the norm. A single stormtrooper or even a small minion squad of them isn't much of a threat to a bunch of combat-spec PCs, but any minion-level nerf herder or moisture farmer will wet his pants over the arrival of these elite Imperial shock troops.

You may add to that the fact that even within a party of player characters the differences may be significant. Try setting up a Colonist (Doctor) against a Bounty Hunter (Gadgeteer), both equipped to do what they are best at, in a combat with each other. Lucky hits aside, the Bounty Hunter wins more often. Certain careers and specializations offer more of a combat character than others. And even two combat characters may be far apart. One might say an Ace-Pilot and a Bounty Hunter-Martial Artist are both combat related characters. Are they 'equal'? Comparatively perhaps yes. But pitted against each other, one would shine and one would suffer. Which does what depends on whether the pitted combat is on an arena floor or in opposes starship cockpits.

Another thing to keep in mind is, that the dice are lopsided. There was a discussion about this, where it became clear that the positive dice leaned more towards success symbols, and the negative dice actually had ample threat symbols. There wasn't a fifty-fifty division.

Which brings me to the original post. Other than not having used Adversary, or enough rival-level and nemesis-level opponents, or too few minion squads, and not using Destiny often enough to upgrade purple dice into red ones, I guess you're doing nothing wrong. Of course, we also have precious little info on the characters too. If they "routinely completing 5 difficulty(purple) die actions with multiple successes" they sound like really competent characters. Is this the 'average', regardless of what skill is used? Or is it more of a situation that pops up in combat alone?

But finally, don't sweat it. If everyone is having a good time, and you're describing the combats vividly, who cares if the stormtroopers drop like flies? And if you fail to see the humour in a nemesis-level foe being hit only once and going down, just remember how many people snorted their drinks through their noses from laughter when Indiana Jones shot that show-off swordsman.

On 08/10/2017 at 3:30 AM, Xcapobl said:

Another thing to keep in mind is, that the dice are lopsided. There was a discussion about this, where it became clear that the positive dice leaned more towards success symbols, and the negative dice actually had ample threat symbols. There wasn't a fifty-fifty division.

If you think about it that actually makes sense. If there was parity between the dice then even amounts would be tending towards null results. As it is though 1 green vs 1 purple has about a 35% chance of succeeding as the number of equal dice go up the chance of success also goes up, as does the tendency to roll threat. So the default parity situation is approx 35%(1g v 1p) with a 35% chance of threat increasing to 53%(5g vs 5p) and 53% chance of threat. So where parity exists between green vs purple you have similar chances of success as you do threat.