So, I'm starting a custom campaign in a couple weeks, basically it's stitching Edge of Oblivion and Twin Shadows together. EoO is the first act.

That means that the first mission for brand new characters is Deadly Transmission, the Obi Wan mission. I'm looking at the groups and I'm thinking about making a couple tweeks. I want the characters to have a fair shot at the mission, maybe even a little more than fair, but I also want it to be a challenge.

So, I'm considering the following changes:

1) Instead of an Elite Stormtrooper initial group I''m putting in an Elite Death Trooper. Logic: He's half the cost (4 v 9) Less than half the health (7 v 15), cant be reenforced, his dice hit harder but they are shorter range (I'm considering dropping the auto +4 accuracy) and the DT surges are nice but he's only likely to get one, not two.

2) For the reserved group regular Royal Guard I'm considering switching for a regular Riot Trooper. Again, lower cost, lower HP no reach or stun and lower overall damage potential.

Open groups I'm bringing a Probe Droid, a Loth-Cat (it's like a nexu, but less) and a Jawa Scavenger (all regulars)

Group is Onar, Vinto, Jarrod, Diala(with lightsaber)

Your thoughts?

Sounds fair, although balance is precarious at the best of times in this game.

maybe look for a play by forum game on boardgamegeek where the mission has been played to see how it can go. Might give you ideas about how the reserved groups fare..

Just don't adjust too much beforehand. If/when the rebels can too easily defeat all initial groups they have no trouble keeping up with any new groups, and then it becomes very dull.

I would only modify the reserved groups depending on how much stuff there remains on the board. (And if the rebels use Obi-Wan efficiently, they won't have trouble with the terminals even if you try to get imperials on or adjacent.)

It's also hard to know how well the rebels are doing if you haven't played the mission before.

6 minutes ago, a1bert said:

Just don't adjust too much beforehand. If/when the rebels can too easily defeat all initial groups they have no trouble keeping up with any new groups, and then it becomes very dull.

I would only modify the reserved groups depending on how much stuff there remains on the board. (And if the rebels use Obi-Wan efficiently, they won't have trouble with the terminals even if you try to get imperials on or adjacent.)

It's also hard to know how well the rebels are doing if you haven't played the mission before.

I've run a whole campaign with them. I think I've got a pretty good handle on what they do effectively or not.

And yeah, I can ramp up the difficulty mid mission if needed. Sometimes that's just playing to the hilt on my part, whether that spending my threat in the most efficient way possible or focus firing vulnerable targets.

Hopefully you’re using the latest version of EoO, I lowered the threat level for the first mission and maybe some of the others because people were reporting they were too hard for the Rebels. First mission should be threat level 2.

On 9/21/2018 at 10:40 AM, Zrob314 said:

So, I'm starting a custom campaign in a couple weeks, basically it's stitching Edge of Oblivion and Twin Shadows together. EoO is the first act.

That means that the first mission for brand new characters is Deadly Transmission, the Obi Wan mission. I'm looking at the groups and I'm thinking about making a couple tweeks. I want the characters to have a fair shot at the mission, maybe even a little more than fair, but I also want it to be a challenge.

So, I'm considering the following changes:

1) Instead of an Elite Stormtrooper initial group I''m putting in an Elite Death Trooper. Logic: He's half the cost (4 v 9) Less than half the health (7 v 15), cant be reenforced, his dice hit harder but they are shorter range (I'm considering dropping the auto +4 accuracy) and the DT surges are nice but he's only likely to get one, not two.

I have never played the mission (and I don't have it in front of me at the moment) but nerfing elite Stormtroopers (3 attacks) for an elite Death trooper (a single attack) seems like a big downgrade. Are there any leaders you might be able to activate with tactical comms to get back one possible extra attack? Also, removing the auto +4 accuracy sounds like you will need your DT to almost be adjacent to hit since red die doesn't have accuracy and yellow die is limited. Of course, you know your rebel players more than we do and this may be perfectly fine for them.

On 9/21/2018 at 10:40 AM, Zrob314 said:

2) For the reserved group regular Royal Guard I'm considering switching for a regular Riot Trooper. Again, lower cost, lower HP no reach or stun and lower overall damage potential.

Open groups I'm bringing a Probe Droid, a Loth-Cat (it's like a nexu, but less) and a Jawa Scavenger (all regulars)

Group is Onar, Vinto, Jarrod, Diala(with lightsaber)

Your thoughts?

Riot for RG is a swap I would be more comfortable with. You still get 2 possible attacks by activation. The stats downgrades should definitely help early-campaign rebels.

Most importantly it's about having fun. If the changes bring the fun-factor level high enough for everyone to enjoy the mission then everyone win!

8 hours ago, Tvboy said:

Hopefully you’re using the latest version of EoO, I lowered the threat level for the first mission and maybe some of the others because people were reporting they were too hard for the Rebels. First mission should be threat level 2.

I created it as a custom campaign so as it is the first mission of an 11 mission journey the threat level is 2.

3 hours ago, IanSolo_FFG said:

I have never played the mission (and I don't have it in front of me at the moment) but nerfing elite Stormtroopers (3 attacks) for an elite Death trooper (a single attack) seems like a big downgrade. Are there any leaders you might be able to activate with tactical comms to get back one possible extra attack? Also, removing the auto +4 accuracy sounds like you will need your DT to almost be adjacent to hit since red die doesn't have accuracy and yellow die is limited. Of course, you know your rebel players more than we do and this may be perfectly fine for them. 

It is an elite Stormtrooper unit backed up by two other regular stormtrooper units.

This is the first mission in an 11 mission set, the characters are coming in with starter equipment and the abilities printed on their initial card. Yes they have obi wan as a back up but 9 attacks raining down on them to begin with just felt a little bit much.

I actually want them to win this one.

Besides, if they steamroll the opening group I can always adjust on the fly and amp it back up. In this case I'd rather start with too little than too much.

57 minutes ago, Zrob314 said:

I created it as a custom campaign so as it is the first mission of an 11 mission journey the threat level is 2.

How much xp/credits are the Rebels getting before the first mission? If you are doing this like a regular campaign and starting the heroes from scratch, I would recommend ditching the 2x threat gain during setup and downgrading the initial elite stormies to regulars.

6 minutes ago, Tvboy said:

How much xp/credits are the Rebels getting before the first mission? If you are doing this like a regular campaign and starting the heroes from scratch, I would recommend ditching the 2x threat gain during setup and downgrading the initial elite stormies to regulars.

Thanks for the input, I might ditch the first round threat gain, but I'm keeping the Death Trooper swap.

Part of it is that I don't want them to feel demoralized by the initial setup of the board. I think having twice their number (1/3 of which is elite) on the board in the intro mission would have that impact on them. This is also one of those "I know these particular people and how they react" sort of things.

@Tvboy in case you happen to be interested in the structure I'm using:

EoO 1

Side Mission

EoO 2

EoO 3

EoO Finale

Side

Side

TS 1

Ts 2

TS 3

TS Finale

Putting a side mission second is wonky in regard to story, but that makes it feel more liker a regular published campaign =P

I also didn't want them to have to wait until halfway through to get a character upgrade mission.

3 minutes ago, Zrob314 said:

Thanks for the input, I might ditch the first round threat gain, but I'm keeping the Death Trooper swap.

Part of it is that I don't want them to feel demoralized by the initial setup of the board. I think having twice their number (1/3 of which is elite) on the board in the intro mission would have that impact on them. This is also one of those "I know these particular people and how they react" sort of things.

Whatever makes sense for your group. I find it hard to reconcile "challenging" and "make sure they win" as concepts within the same game, and that seeing something that looks intimidating makes me try harder, but I have learned that my personal philosophy when it comes to games works for some people and not for others, so I respect it when someone who knows their playgroup very well tries to do the right thing for their group.

That structure looks pretty interesting. I'm fuzzy on the details of my own story, though I seem to remember there was a sense of urgency after each mission except between the 3rd mission and the finale, but you could fix that by just taking some liberties with the epilogues so that the Rebels are waiting on info while they do their side mission or something.

19 minutes ago, Tvboy said:

but you could fix that by just taking some liberties with the epilogues so that the Rebels are waiting on info while they do their side mission or something.

That is basically my intention. Rebel Win is them going into Bantha Rider to rescue him. That can be edited to be "the Sand People took him, but I don't know where, give me time to find him."

Rebel loss goes into Alliance Smuggler. The smuggler has taken off and is headed to Ryloth. Definitely time to have a monster of the week episode in between.

Also, I didn't say "make sure they win" I said "I want them to win" which is a subtle distinction. I do not intend to overwhelm them or play this one in such a way as to prevent them from winning. I'm not going to store all of my threat so I can drop a big scary Rancor on their heads in the second to last round. Think of it this way, I'm going into tonight with the attitude of being a game master rather than their opponent and I think that them winning and having Obi Wan is a better story than them losing and not getting him.

Now, the dice might tell a different tale, or it could be that they don't play smart at all and pluck defeat from the jaws of victory.

I will not stop those things from happening either.

11 hours ago, Tvboy said:

so I respect it when someone who knows their playgroup very well tries to do the right thing for their group.

So, everything went swimmingly. I gave myself a threat bump at the start of 2 (rather than 4...so going into round 1 with 4 threat rather than 6). They did wreck the initial set up pretty well in rounds 1 and two but I was able to recover pretty and make them earn the rest of it. I did fudge a little on round three and brought in a new elite DT at the rear. I gave myself 2 extra threat, maybe three to do that. I had a Jawa and an Officer that kept rolling X on their defense. Poor diala (who is starting this one with her lightsaber) couldn't roll a surge to save her life. I wounded Onar and Vinto, Almost got Diala and could have taken Jarrod, but the dice abandoned me in the last two rounds. I did have an opportunity to clockblock them in round 5 but that's no fun so I skipped it. They barely made it. Almost didn't take out the transmitters but eeked it out with their last activation. Best of all they had a blast and said that it was one of the most fun missions they'd done since we started.

I told them that I tweaked the initial setup down and then cheated in the Elite DT in the middle. They said that it was great and they understood why I did it. I've earned a lot of trust with them on making the story flow.

Now here's the best part. We gave the supply deck a really good shuffle. Like a couple of them. Crate #2, they pulled the missing key. They read it and wonder what that's about and then follow the instruction to draw another card. That card was the freaking locked chest. So, aside from earning Obi Wan they walked away from the first mission with Hondo's treasure. I was not counting on that happening. Onar being able to throw and X once a mission is going to be difficult to get around.