Hard to really title this but I’m running a TOR game and I’m gave my players a cool trails adventure and they earned the right to make their lightsabers.

now I just don’t know what exactly is a good combat against lightsabers. They are pretty powerful even at basic level they will do 7 damage (6 damage with minimum 1 damage or the 1 success. With breach it will go through most NPCs)

so with most things becoming Swiss cheese what will Be exciting or interesting for players to fight? I know some combats will be some things for them to Swiss cheese through but what is a challenge especially against lightsabers?

If it's set during The Old Republic, I'd give every vibrosword during that setting the cortosis quality (as this was the explanation provided in KotOR and KotOR II for why vibroswords could block lightsabers). Then when you want enemies to be a challenge, just give them a few ranks of parry and some vibroswords. Parry 2 or 3 on a rival-level opponent should be more than enough to pose a decent challenge.

Lightsabers don't make you immune to blasters, make sure people fire at them a lot. And if they engage a minion group then at least a minion is likely to go squish per round of combat, but the rest of that squad is not likely to just stand there and get lightsabered in the face. They're going to back out to short range and shoot like maniacs, which is pretty likely to hit. And you don't send 4 or 5 guys to take down a group of jedi, you send 12 to 15 guys at them. It's also possible to use the tips of HK-47.

Heh good ol HK

thanks all that’s pretty helpful! Ranged stuff is still potent against melee who need to meet you head on. Mines and grenades of all kinds i didn’t think of sounds good for harder combat!

13 hours ago, Underachiever599 said:

If it's set during The Old Republic, I'd give every vibrosword during that setting the cortosis quality (as this was the explanation provided in KotOR and KotOR II for why vibroswords could block lightsabers). Then when you want enemies to be a challenge, just give them a few ranks of parry and some vibroswords. Parry 2 or 3 on a rival-level opponent should be more than enough to pose a decent challenge.

This really isn't necessary. Parry works anyway. If you want it for the flavor, just call it a phrik/cortosis weave/alloy or something like that to explain why it can be used to parry, but still can be cut with some effort (Sunder).

Cortosis ones would be immune to sunder, rather than enabling them to parry.

There are a couple of melee weapons with Cortosis I seem to recall (away from books at present).

A Mandalorian Jedi hunter nemesis with an autofire weapon could be interesting, especially if it's a heavy blaster rifle and he starts at long-range. Deflecting multiple hits a round will eat through your strain really fast (be sure to back him up with some novice minions, probably using the squad rules so that the minions can take damage for the nemesis)

Another interesting encounter would be a Morgukai (sp?), the nikto warrior cult that hunt force sensitives. There are stats for a Morgukai Cortosis Staff in one of the books. You could back him up with regular nikto minions or less experienced Morgukai. As they are trained to resist the force, give him some kind of resistance, such as an automatic success on discipline checks to resist force powers, or that force powers require an additional pip to activate against him.

Imperial Sniper: give him a good sniper rifle (Perhaps a slugthrower with a suppressor) that can shoot from extreme range, a holographic ghillie suit or something else that boosts stealth, and have him take shots at the group. He should be really hard to spot. Also, remember you can't use reflect if your lightsaber isn't out yet ;-) For maximum frustration, give him a jetpack or speeder bike behind cover, so when they get too close, he can just run away to harass another day.

5 hours ago, Darzil said:

Cortosis ones would be immune to sunder, rather than enabling them to parry.

There are a couple of melee weapons with Cortosis I seem to recall (away from books at present).

Now I'm not away from book, there are :

Cortosis Shield (FnD core)

Cortosis Sword (FnD core)

Electrostaff (FnD core)

Refined Cortosis Staff (FnD core)

Sith Shield (Keeping the Peace)

Morgukai Cortosis Staff (Lords of Nal Hutta)

12 hours ago, Darzil said:

Cortosis ones would be immune to sunder, rather than enabling them to parry.

There are a couple of melee weapons with Cortosis I seem to recall (away from books at present).

I'm awaree of the in-game effects of cortosis. If we're going period-accurate, the vibroswords used during the Old Republic should have the cortosis quality. In combat, at least at my table, it's pretty easy for a lightsaber weilding player to minimize the threat of an opponent by sundering their weapons. Vibroswords with cortosis would minimize the risk of the enemies being easily disarmed, while being accurate to the Old Republic games.

Jetpacks > Lightsabers ;-)

33 minutes ago, SEApocalypse said:

Jetpacks > Lightsabers ;-)

Until said jet pack gets a thrown lightsaber in it!

A couple of things that I use against lightsabers:

1) Public encounters - Pulling a lightsaber out in a populated area and fighting is sure to attract a lot of attention. And none of that attention usually wanted. This forces our FnD PC's to usually think twice about using them. Eventually, if they leave a big enough wake of destruction somebody will come following.

1a) Need to go - Hear those sirens in the background? A klaxon? Somebody (or somebodies) banging on the doors? Not all fights should be winnable out right and occasionally making the PCs run makes for a better story (IMO).

1b) Space battles - If the PC's have to avoid planet side entanglements caused by their wanton wake of destruction, they will have to go to space. Hit when they have no way to use dem shiny laser death wands.

2) Same number of minions in smaller groups. - A group of four minions will get one shot albeit a good one. Two groups of two minions with get two shots. Even with reflect, the FnD PC's will burn through a lot more strain. With out reflect, the groups become problematic just because of the amount of fire. Also put the groups apart with supporting arcs of fire as that it'll require time to move between them. Remember to have your minions aim also.

2a) Sheer numbers. - Have minions in 7 groups of two and the last group firing some sorta gunnery weapon. i don't bring the entire clan/gang/horde at once. They tend to come in waves and are those usually a bit more prepared as the first groups have comm-links and are calling out what is happening. And if the PCs pass an easy perception check, they will hear that the next wave is incoming. And remember, the NPC's will lie about the number of waves sometimes, right? "The four squads should be on-site in the next round, sir."

2b) Cover fire - See that tall, rock-hewn tower out about 200 meters? Is there someone up there?

3) Things that go boom - Probe droids explode very nice when destroyed (at a 10 blast if I remember correctly).

4) Ambush - Prepared PCs will do well, but well prepared ambush can cause a lot of ... well... pain. Rocket into the speeder to crash it, a couple of lobbed grenades and some suppressive fire will hurt. And not all the ambushers fire at once. Wait until a PC rushes the Gunner with the launcher and pop out with a group or two wielding blasters to shoot on the way.

5) The Gauntlet - One battle and then resting is easy. One battle, and then another and then another and... well, you get the idea. Don't let the PC's rest. Strain is their friend and a lack of it will cause a bit of tension. Keep them running, hunted and harried and the tension will definitely ratchet it up.

6) Defensive bonuses on the bosses. - Dodge, sidestep, and adversary are nice ways to move that two purple to two red. Throw in some darkness, fog, flickering lights or fire suppression system going off for a couple of blacks just to really bring the odds in NPC's favor.

7) Lightsaber v. lightsaber - Rarely, PC's have to face off against NPC's wielding equally scary weapons. Going toe-to-toe with an NPC who can also cut through a star ship hulls changes the entirety of the attack. And of course that lightsaber wielding NPC might employ a variation of 2a. Might.

7a) Does that NPC also have some good, offensive-oriented force powers? SENSE's left side of the tree? A powered up MOVE? Or an equally powered BIND?

Really, all the ideas before were good and as you called out, it's about fun. Winning a tough fight the players talk about later seems to be our measure.

P.S. DRAW CLOSER > Jet pack. (I hope as I just got that last game.)

6 hours ago, Random Bystander said:

Until said jet pack gets a thrown lightsaber in it!

Jetpacks users can shoot and move beyond extreme range
Hotshot Jetpack users can move in from beyond extreme range, fire at short range in your face and fly by beyond extreme range. It actually is a little bit of a balancing problem. (though this cost 6 strain, so it is not an big issue)

Anyway, even avoiding this issue, draw closer doesn't reach reach out to long range. Dictating range with jetpacks is the essence of what they can do for you.

19 hours ago, Underachiever599 said:

I'm awaree of the in-game effects of cortosis. If we're going period-accurate, the vibroswords used during the Old Republic should have the cortosis quality. In combat, at least at my table, it's pretty easy for a lightsaber weilding player to minimize the threat of an opponent by sundering their weapons. Vibroswords with cortosis would minimize the risk of the enemies being easily disarmed, while being accurate to the Old Republic games.

You are correct on every account, but I'd personally be wary of introducing any large amount of cortosis lest the PCs start scavenging it to build cortosis armor. Normally if someone goes for a high soak build you can always deal with them via a breach weapon, but if they add cortosis, well you have to go to missile launchers or vehicle scale weapons to hurt them. The first is silly, and the second is usually overkill, so I'd prefer to keep cortosis well out ot of my players' hands.

3 hours ago, penpenpen said:

You are correct on every account, but I'd personally be wary of introducing any large amount of cortosis lest the PCs start scavenging it to build cortosis armor. Normally if someone goes for a high soak build you can always deal with them via a breach weapon, but if they add cortosis, well you have to go to missile launchers or vehicle scale weapons to hurt them. The first is silly, and the second is usually overkill, so I'd prefer to keep cortosis well out ot of my players' hands.

That's fair. Looting isn't much of a things in my games, for one reason or another. I often put them in situations where they don't have time to loot, or when taking the time to loot would put them in immense danger, so I don't often think about players getting their hands on the enemy's equipment.

remember, FAD isn't helping you build Jedi. It's helping you build people scaled to be new force users after the Jedi Order's gone away. If you want KOTOR level Jedi stuff, you'll be starting minimum at Knight level.

This won't make you more resilient to damage, but it might help you add in some parry or reflect and bump strain.

6 hours ago, penpenpen said:

You are correct on every account, but I'd personally be wary of introducing any large amount of cortosis lest the PCs start scavenging it to build cortosis armor. Normally if someone goes for a high soak build you can always deal with them via a breach weapon, but if they add cortosis, well you have to go to missile launchers or vehicle scale weapons to hurt them. The first is silly, and the second is usually overkill, so I'd prefer to keep cortosis well out ot of my players' hands.

Making cortosis weave a non-extractable attachment seems reasonable. Cortosis itself is not super-rare, it's the cortosis weave which can be attached to gear and armor to improve it without adding much weight that is rather rare and expensive. Stuff build directly from cortosis is cheap. Which makes adding direct cortosis melee weapons a cheap option which can be harvested by players to build cortosis weave. Naturally you have to keep the cortosis weave template a trade secret of a selected few in the galaxy who make a small fortune that way.

Besides, critical hit weapons and high damage sniper rifles (mostly those from the gunnery category) usually deal rather easily with high soak cortosis-armor targets. Applying critical hits instead of one-shotting players is anyway more fun, because it increases the tension much more. Someone might actually die that way! Panic! So mitigating from simple wound-based encounter balance down to a style in which wounds are rarely the main reason players retreat, but instead critical hits … seems rather beneficial for the game progression, especially for FaD when you want longer lightsaber fights for example and get to the point of those clone wars style resistant jedis … well at least for the lightsaber guys.

A group of ordinary minions with blaster rifles or similarly good (=high damage) weapons can do great damage to a lightsaber wielder, especially one that has no talents/force powers that gives great defense, nor very high soak.

So the jedi rushes in and kills 1 or 2 minions, let's say 3 if he has particular talents.

The remaining three minions backs out to short range and shots the jedi at point blank, so their difficulty is only 1 dice.

For extra nastyness, have the three minions separate into three different dudes, shooting at point blank (only worthwhile if the jedi has poor ranged defense, however).

Throw in an extra minion group, and pure weight of numbers will grind the jedi down quite severely.

Also, do remember, if the jedi has Reflect, by far the best way to bring her down in this fashion is stun damage. If you want to have jedi PCs defeated, simply throw in a full minion group of stormtroopers that sets their blaster rifles for stun. It'll work wonders.

Building on my philosophy above, it's quite fun to pit jedi against a kind of elite minions you seldom see in the official books. Here's two profiles I've cobbled together for my campaign. One is very close-combat focused, the other a mortal ranged threat. It's a testament to the quality of the rules system that both these profiles have proved a decent threat for PCs of quite different power levels. In the last encounter, I paired the Death Troopers up with a Nemesis-level NPC who could use Aura of Command to give them an extra action each turn. It was insane.

Flesh Raider of Tython (Minion)

Brawn 4 Agility 2, Intellect 1, Cunning 2, Willpower 3, Presence 1

Soak Value: 6, Wound Threshold: 5, Defense: 1|-

Skills (group only): Brawl, Lightsaber, Melee, Ranged (Heavy), Resilience, Stealth, Survival

Abilities: Insane Fury; all attacks from Flesh Raiders have the Knockdown quality.

Equipment: Brutal Bite (Brawl; Damage 5; Crit 4, Range Engaged; Vicious 2), Ancient sword (Lightsaber; Damage 6; Crit 3, Range Engaged; Defensive 1) or Truncheon (Melee; Damage 6; Crit 5; Range Engaged; Disorient 2), some have Longbows (Heavy; Damage 5; Crit 5; Range Long; Cumbersome 3, Limited Ammo 1, Pierce 1), Grotesque battle armor (Soak 2)

Death Trooper (Minion)

Brawn 4, Agility 3, Intellect 2, Cunning 2, Willpower 3, Presence 1

Soak Value: 6, Wound Threshold: 5, Defense: 1|1

Skills (group only): Athletics, Discipline, Melee, Ranged (Light), Ranged (Heavy), Stealth, Vigilance.

Talents: Adversary 1, Confident 1 (Decrease the difficulty of all fear checks by one).

Abilities: -

Equipment: E11-D blaster rifle with augmented spin barrel, integrated illuminator, laser sight (Ranged [Heavy]; Damage 10; Critical 3; Range [Long]; Stun setting. Gain 1 automatic Advantage on successful combat checks with this weapon. Remove up to 2 Setback dice due to darkness on any checks to use this weapon against targets within short range). BlasTech SE-14r light repeating blaster (Ranged [Light]; Damage 6; Critical 3; Range [Medium]; Auto-fire, Stun setting), C-25 frag grenades (Ranged [Light]; Damage 8; Critical 4; Range [Short]; Blast 6, Limited Ammo 1), serrated vibroknife (Melee; Damage 5; Critical 2; Range [Engaged]; Pierce 2, Vicious 2) , reflec armor (+2 soak, +1 defense; when in darkness or deep shadow gain 2 Boost dice to all Stealth checks), utility belt, extra reloads. Individuals or groups of two may be armed with DLT-19 heavy blaster rifles with integrated illuminators, laser sights and telescopic sights (Ranged [Heavy]; Damage 10; Critical 3; Range [Long]; Auto-fire, Cumbersome 3. Gain 1 automatic Advantage on successful combat checks. Remove up to 2 Setback dice due to darkness on any checks to use this weapon against targets within short range. Reduce the difficulty of ranged combat checks at long range by one.).

but if we're talking dedicated jedi killers, the Magnaguards from the Force and Destiny Core Book works well. The Bounty Hunter Nemesis in the Edge of Empire book is downright terrifying - if you give him a rocket pack.

But then you can go all out, like with this guy, designed as a nemesis for the strongest of the lightsaber-wielding PCs in my campaign.

Gaar (Gaartu)
Retired Morgukai Warrior (Nemesis)

Brawn 6 Agility 3 Intellect 2 Cunning 2 Willpower 4 Presence 2
Soak Value: 9 Wound Threshold: 27 Strain Threshold 18 Defense: 2|1

Skills: Athletics 1, Brawl 3, Coercion 3, Cool 3, Discipline 3, Melee 4, Knowledge (Lore) 3, Ranged (light) 2, Resilience 3

Talents:
*Parry 4 (Suffer 3 strain to block 6 damage)
*Adversary 2 (All attacks against Gaar uppgrades their difficulty twice)
*Enduring 1 (+1 soak)
*Feral strength 2 (Add 2 damage to one hit per round from Melee/Brawl attacks)
*Defensive Stance 1 (One per round on the character’s turn, may perform a Defensive Stance maneuver. Suffer up to 1 strain. Until the start of the character’s next turn, upgrade the difficulty of all melee combat checks targeting the character a number of times equal to the strain suffered.)

Equipment:
Cybernetic arm (+1 brawn, included in profile), Biofeedback regulator (Increase cybernetics cap by 2), Repulsor fist (Innate Talent [Defensive stance]; Brawl; Damage 8; Crit 3; Range [Engaged]; Concussive 1, Slow-Firing 2) , Cybernetic jaw (Innate ability [Brutal bite]) , Surge override switch (Average (2) Discipline check to reactivate any overloaded cybernetic implants by suffering 2 strain per overloaded implant reactivated (16 for all, 8 for arm, legs and eyes)) , Morgukai cortosis staff (Melee; Damage 8; Crit 1; Range [Engaged]; Breach 1, Cortosis, Defensive 1), KO-2 heavy stun pistol (Ranged (light); Damage 10; Crit -; Range [Short]; Stun damage; wrist mount, overcharged actuating module (2 Threat to damage weapon 1 step)) , Vibro-machete (Melee; Damage +2; Crit 1; Range [Engaged]; Pierce 3, Vicious 1, Sunder; Monomolecular edge), Brutal bite (Brawl; Damage +2, Crit 3; Range [Engaged], Vicious 1) , Heavy cortosis battle armor (+2 soak, +1 defense, cortosis, biofeedback systems (included in profile))

2 hours ago, Natsymir said:

For extra nastyness, have the three minions separate into three different dudes, shooting at point blank (only worthwhile if the jedi has poor ranged defense, however).

I'd recommend never to do this. The whole point of minions is to be a low level threat that the PCs can mo down, and to simplify bookkeeping for GMs. If you want separate ones, just use weak rivals.

It reeks (for me) of adversarial GM munchkinism.

24 minutes ago, Darzil said:

I'd recommend never to do this. The whole point of minions is to be a low level threat that the PCs can mo down, and to simplify bookkeeping for GMs. If you want separate ones, just use weak rivals.

It reeks (for me) of adversarial GM munchkinism.

In my opinion you almost have to do it occasionally, otherwise players can abuse certain talents in really unfair ways (mainly the ones where they lock down entire groups). However, before we argue any further it should be noted that even I myself use this option very sparingly. I've mainly done it once or twice to increase the threat level for a PC who is very, very combat optimized, and therefore is asking for it.

But I run my game in a more gritty Rogue One-style, rather than going for more of a matinée feel, so I want all or at least almost all enemies to feel somewhat capable and dangerous. I don't like the "minions are only there for cannon fodder" philosophy. And my sense of immersion demands that minions can behave in narrative and tactically sound ways, including splitting up and going in completely different directions should it make sense for them in the story to do so. And my players seem completely fine with me running things this way, so I don't see a problem at all.

To each his own.

I have done it too. In a vehicle where they were firing, which started to be boarded, I split the group in half with half firing and half trying to pilot vehicle.

I see splitting a minion group so that they behave in a narratively appropriate way to be different from splitting a minion group then continuing to attack to gain a mechanical advantage.

9 minutes ago, Darzil said:

I have done it too. In a vehicle where they were firing, which started to be boarded, I split the group in half with half firing and half trying to pilot vehicle.

I see splitting a minion group so that they behave in a narratively appropriate way to be different from splitting a minion group then continuing to attack to gain a mechanical advantage.

I see where you're coming from there. I partly agree. I'd only ever split them up to gain a mechanical advantage if the PCs were very optimized, then I hold that the players are asking for it.

In particular, my campaign had the issue with one PC being much, much better at combat than the others. I needed to be able to threaten him with the same enemies that the other PCs were facing, so I made the enemies behave a bit more mechanically advantageous towards him. Not in all combats, but in the ones I really wanted to be tough. And I think that's fine.

It should also be noted though, that in my campaign we have a house rule that all to hit difficulties are increased by one. This means that for a minion group to split up is often not a good idea, as hitting with Ability 2 or 3 and Skill 0 against difficulty 2 dice (short range) or 3 dice (medium range) is not a sure thing, not to mention if the PC has defense dice or the dodge talent or something.

We don't upgrade to hit difficulties, but tend to be rocking with a couple of environmental setbacks, which has much the same effect.