Hello there,

I'm planning to run the Crates of Krayts Adventure as a Oneshot with Starter Characters.

I haven't run any EotE Games before but have played it once in an introductory Oneshot.

My decision to run Crates of Krayts in spite of it being a beta adventure is that I really like the tone and setting of this. It gives some broad examples of what an EotE Game could entail and therefore is really good for a Oneshot in my opinion.

While preparing the adventure I figured that the Enemies in this Adventure seem really strong, (for example the Master Hunter Nemesis Cordol got a Weapon with 13 Damage which could nearly oneshot a Starter Character if it hits).

Is this Adventure made for more seasoned Characters or am I fretting too much ?

Thanks for any help in advance.

Cheers

My short-lived group played that adventure as our first, and I had two issues with it:

• The opening encounter has snipers, so some starting characters may have trouble contributing (decent ranged weapons are a bit expensive for fresh characters).
  • We actually did okay once the GM realized the snipers only had medium range weapons, but it was an annoying fight with our low dice pools, the range, and cover...
• As you noted, the Bounty Hunter can easily one-shot most new characters (remember, successes on the attack roll get added to damage, so he'll do at least 14 damage per hit),
  • In our group, he would have auto one-shot my tech (Chadra-fan with 1 brawn) and very possibly one-shot nearly any other member of our party with a couple of successes. As it was, our Gamorean maruader charged him (5 brawn, 2 armor, riot shield + vibro-machette) and managed to hit him pretty hard before getting shot a second time and incapacitated. We just managed to take him down after that, and I was annoyed that we had to flee before we could steal that rifle.
  • On a side note, as I recall, some of that damage came from a talent that only applies to one hit per round, so he is not quite as nasty with auto-fire as he might seem. Still plenty nasty, though...

Personally, I suspect the Bounty Hunter should be dialed back significantly for most starting groups.

Thanks for the insights.

- As for the beginning encounter, I've made several premade Characters and all of them have had slightly more money to play with than normal starters so Weapons should be okay.

- Okay the Bounty Hunter will probably get nerfed then, my players are really new to Roleplaying Games (its their 2nd oneshot) so I dont want them to be steamrolled. I'll simulate and try what really challenges them without making it frustratingly hard. (It's still kind of a Glasscannon System).

If anyone has any additional insights I'd be glad to hear them ?

19 hours ago, Fl1nt said:

I'll simulate and try what really challenges them without making it frustratingly hard. (It's still kind of a Glasscannon System).

First, realize that going over your Wound threshold doesn't mean death, just "incapacitation". To some players this can appear to be the same thing, but I always play now with a capture scenario in mind.

But if you don't want them incapacitated as easily, this is easy to change. I don't like the stimpack mechanic, it's too video-gamey, so I just doubled the wound threshold and allowed a few Resilience rolls to act like "second winds". There's no reason you couldn't do the same, or just make sure everybody has stimpacks.

A good point.

As long as I dont incapacitate the whole Team, things should be fine.

And I'll prep a failsafe capture scenario aswel

thanks ?

On 6/4/2018 at 4:06 AM, Ominovin said:

• The opening encounter has snipers, so some starting characters may have trouble contributing (decent ranged weapons are a bit expensive for fresh characters).
  • We actually did okay once the GM realized the snipers only had medium range weapons, but it was an annoying fight with our low dice pools, the range, and cover...

Retreat is a valid option. No one says you have to take them out. And no one says Encounters have to be fair or even winnable by the players

6 hours ago, MasterZelgadis said:

Retreat is a valid option. No one says you have to take them out. And no one says Encounters have to be fair or even winnable by the players

Such a key point. It's not a video game, where the only way forward is through the opposition.

On 6/15/2018 at 8:22 AM, whafrog said:

Such a key point. It's not a video game, where the only way forward is through the opposition.

As we played it (I was a player, not the GM), our precious cargo was also being shot-up, so retreating would have been a bit complicated.

The encounter itself wasn't bad, but I personally feel it isn't a good choice for a 'first encounter ever in a new game system'

Good points, I dont see both prewritten combat encounters as: The Goal is not to kill everything / win" encounters anyway. Honestly both encounters are about fleeing and getting out the best out of the situation.

I have to say I think it is probably a relatively good beginner encounter. If the players choose to stay and fight okay, then its gonna be a little tough but they got the inhabitants to support them. If they focus on getting the cargo out of there -> optimal.

I'm currently relatively positive this will go well, my players have only one The One Ring game under their belt and therefore dont have the stubborn "Fight till everything is dead" mentality I often experienced with experienced players coming from D&D or Black Eye Systems.

But I'll report back how it went with my group.

Thanks for your insights.

On 6/7/2018 at 11:04 AM, whafrog said:

First, realize that going over your Wound threshold doesn't mean death, just "incapacitation". To some players this can appear to be the same thing, but I always play now with a capture scenario in mind.

But if you don't want them incapacitated as easily, this is easy to change. I don't like the stimpack mechanic, it's too video-gamey, so I just doubled the wound threshold and allowed a few Resilience rolls to act like "second winds". There's no reason you couldn't do the same, or just make sure everybody has stimpacks.

Can you expand on that some more? I really like this idea and would like to possibly implement it myself.

32 minutes ago, ramza82 said:

Can you expand on that some more? I really like this idea and would like to possibly implement it myself.

Sure:

• Incapacitation comes at WT * 2 (this keeps the math easy). If the situation is particularly dramatic I might allow a Resilience or Discipline roll to keep going. Wounds after WT * 2 aren't tracked (as per RAW), but they can still take crits.
• Going over WT still causes an automatic crit, as does any damage thereafter. This keeps the players from letting their PCs stick around too long, but it also allows them to do something about their situation before they go down. It always bugged me in RAW that they take a crit the minute they go down, and they can't do anything about it.
• I allow Resilience rolls as an Action to recover Wounds (1 per success, and I have allowed Advantage to recover Strain, but YMMV). By default this is a Simple check, but I've added difficulty/setback depending on the situation. You can limit this to 5 times a day, as with stimpacks, or find your own balance point. I think most players ignore Resilience since it doesn't get a lot of reference in the rules, so they aren't likely to recover as much as they would with stimpacks, so currently I don't have a limit, but we also haven't had a situation where they need more than 5 in a day. I also don't reduce the effectiveness for each subsequent attempt (like stimpacks do) for the same reason.

Hope that helps...