Hello there 😃

I'm currently planning a fairly battle heavy OneShot set in the Mandalorian Wars with High XP Characters.

My problem currently is, how would Mandalorians deal with High XP Jedi Knights / or even Masters?
The PreGens I rolled up end up with up to 12 Soak and with Mandalorians lack of Lightsabers I am a little bit stumped on how to deal with that high soak some of the more tanky characters are likely to have.

Has anyone run a High XP / High End Force and Destiny Game or has experience with these high amounts of Soak and can give me any pointers or ideas ?

Thanks in advance

Four words: Mandalorian Basilisk War Droids .

Or use jetpacks and flight freely, a lightsaber only has so and so much range, as do unaugmented Force powers. High soak does jack-excrements to a land slide caused as an ambush.

In short, intelligent opponents could always play off an opponent's weaknesses instead of trying to batter through its strengths.

2 minutes ago, Xcapobl said:

Four words: Mandalorian Basilisk War Droids .

Or use jetpacks and flight freely, a lightsaber only has so and so much range, as do unaugmented Force powers. High soak does jack-excrements to a land slide caused as an ambush.

In short, intelligent opponents could always play off an opponent's weaknesses instead of trying to batter through its strengths.

Yep, I have already planned for there being Basilisks.
Good points

A Basilisk could do considerable damage to the group, thats good so far,
but if I wanted to challenge them in Melee also (apart from Basilisks that can also Brawl with their claws), what would your approach be?
Or for the normal Mandalorian Footsoldiers, give them all Light Repeating Blasters, maybe a Micro-Rocket Launcher somewhere in between?

Short of bringing your own lighsabers or using vehicle scale droids, I don't think challenging high XP Jedi with 12 soak in melee is an actual thing that is possible.

In every game I played (KOTOR 1 and 2, for example) and every piece of (now Legends) story I read, Cortosis weave seems to be more common in times when Jedi (or at least lightsabers) seem to be more prevalent. Every description mentions its rarity, yet it pops up everywhere, it seems.

As such, I wouldn't equip every single Minion level Mandoa-mook with one, but Rival level officers and higher might as well defend themselves with Cortosis vibroswords, cortosis lower arm bracers, etc. Short out a lightsaber, lay down a bit of firing solution onto a Jedi now relatively defenseless (Parry and Reflect depending on a Lightsaber or Melee weapon), see part of the problem disappear. Remember, most people would state, that reactivating a lightsaber is but an incidental. But it must be your own turn to use an incidental. Only a rare few things are out-of-turn incidentals, always specifically noted as such.

It's hard to mitigate a soak 12 without resorting to the big guns. A lightsaber has its Breach quality, ignoring Armor (and thus Soak in the tens and twenties unless there's cortosis or some such). There is very little that can do so in kind. Perhaps a man-portable armour piercing laser cannon as a support weapon in (or more likely behind) a minion squad? The aforementioned Basilisk war droid claws? First break the means, then the men and women behind the means. What provides the tremendous Soak bonuses? Can that be targeted and then broken (if, for example, Jedi Battle Armor with mods)? How about Stun Quality weapons? Stun must be activated but causes strain, doesn't count as damage, and thus bypasses Soak. What good is Soak, if you drop 500 kilograms of netting onto a Jedi, thus immobilizing him or her?

Granted, few things to be truly done in melee. But once you crack the shell, you might get to the meat inside a little easier.

20 hours ago, Xcapobl said:

In every game I played (KOTOR 1 and 2, for example) and every piece of (now Legends) story I read, Cortosis weave seems to be more common in times when Jedi (or at least lightsabers) seem to be more prevalent. Every description mentions its rarity, yet it pops up everywhere, it seems.

As such, I wouldn't equip every single Minion level Mandoa-mook with one, but Rival level officers and higher might as well defend themselves with Cortosis vibroswords, cortosis lower arm bracers, etc. Short out a lightsaber, lay down a bit of firing solution onto a Jedi now relatively defenseless (Parry and Reflect depending on a Lightsaber or Melee weapon), see part of the problem disappear. Remember, most people would state, that reactivating a lightsaber is but an incidental. But it must be your own turn to use an incidental. Only a rare few things are out-of-turn incidentals, always specifically noted as such.

It's hard to mitigate a soak 12 without resorting to the big guns. A lightsaber has its Breach quality, ignoring Armor (and thus Soak in the tens and twenties unless there's cortosis or some such). There is very little that can do so in kind. Perhaps a man-portable armour piercing laser cannon as a support weapon in (or more likely behind) a minion squad? The aforementioned Basilisk war droid claws? First break the means, then the men and women behind the means. What provides the tremendous Soak bonuses? Can that be targeted and then broken (if, for example, Jedi Battle Armor with mods)? How about Stun Quality weapons? Stun must be activated but causes strain, doesn't count as damage, and thus bypasses Soak. What good is Soak, if you drop 500 kilograms of netting onto a Jedi, thus immobilizing him or her?

Granted, few things to be truly done in melee. But once you crack the shell, you might get to the meat inside a little easier.

Good pointers, Cortosis will help a ton to make encounters more interesting.

On the Stun Quality, I'm having a hard time finding weapons or other stuff with that Quality apart from Stun Pikes or something like that.

Countering the armor with the Basilisk Claws also sounds like a good Idea, I'll just put Pierce 6 or even Breach on the Claws.

27 minutes ago, Fl1nt said:

On the Stun Quality, I'm having a hard time finding weapons or other stuff with that Quality apart from Stun Pikes or something like that.

Countering the armor with the Basilisk Claws also sounds like a good Idea, I'll just put Pierce 6 or even Breach on the Claws.

Light Blaster Pistol comes with a Stun setting. Blaster Pistol comes with a Stun setting. Blaster Carbine comes with a Stun setting. Blaster Rifle comes with a Stun setting.

The Stun part is an item quality that can be added to many weapons, in as far as they don't already have it. A lot of the more basic Blaster type weapons can fire a normal blast, or use the Stun setting. If it is omitted from the tables, just look up the full descriptions.

10 minutes ago, Xcapobl said:

Light Blaster Pistol comes with a Stun setting. Blaster Pistol comes with a Stun setting. Blaster Carbine comes with a Stun setting. Blaster Rifle comes with a Stun setting.

The Stun part is an item quality that can be added to many weapons, in as far as they don't already have it. A lot of the more basic Blaster type weapons can fire a normal blast, or use the Stun setting. If it is omitted from the tables, just look up the full descriptions.

Stun Setting is not Stun Quality.
Stun Setting is like Stun Damage resisted by Soak while the triggered Stun Quality is not.

Its the latter that I'm having problems with finding. Stun Damage and Stun Setting Weapons are available galore. 😃

One thing I'll definately give to my Mandalorian Officers / Squadleaders are a few Ranks of Supressing Fire to enable my Minions to hurt the Jedi with Strain upon missing.

Hmmmm. Might have to reread some parts there then.

Never really made heavy or even medium use of Stun (neither setting, quality nor damage) at all.

Yep... Back at my books now, and somehow (probably by not using it much) I overlooked the fact there are 2 (3) Stun entries... Stun Quality, Stun Damage and Stun Setting causing one of the former... To keep things clear, I guess.

A note about Cortosis and the Mandalorians. Since you're setting things during the Mandalorian Wars, remember that the Mandalorian warriors of the time had Mandalorian Iron, or Beskar. Beskar wasn't the same as Cortosis, it had the Cortosis quality in game mechanics, but it WAS NOT Cortosis. Instead, it was a revered alloy and in many ways was analogous to high carbon steel in the medieval period. A surprising number of rank and file soldiers did have beskar armor, but most wouldn't have weapons of beskar. This is aesthetically important, because while your Jedi may find that their lightsabers aren't cutting through minions because their soak has the cortosis quality, they could very easily disarm their opponents because their weapons could be sundered. Officers and warlords, on the other hand, would have the wealth to use beskar for their gear as well as armor, and so these Rival and Nemesis level adversaries would require another change in tactics.

Allies and Adversaries, as well as the Clone Wars books, have some higher level Adversaries you can use the stat blocks for and just create a new character. Of course, if its 6 on 1, your adversary is still going to get put down pretty quickly in many cases, so use the squad and squadron rules to add survivability, and maybe give the adversary the optional rule that lets them have two initiative slots in combat.

@Kyla is correct here. IF you're using Mandalorians, then their armor would be made of Beskar, which has the "Cortosis" quality, but is not itself Cortosis. As for weapons with that quality. IF you're using Mandalorians, give them a Beskad and a Kal. These are Mandalorian blades, a heavy short sword and a heavy dagger respectively. Both are forged from Beskar, and thus have the Cortosis quality, and also do more damage than other swords and knives The Beskad does Brawn +3 Damage, whereas the Kad does Brawn +2 damage. Both can be found in Collapse of the Republic.

Thanks, for the Input.
I really need to pick up the new Books it seems

I've found a neat weapon I'll homebrew to my purposes for one of my Big Bads of the Oneshot.
The Contained Energy Axe (which oddly counts as a Lightsaber Skillwise), will be the Melee Weapon of choice for the local Commander of my Mandalorian Force.
I think Contained Energy Axe + riding a Improved Basilisk that has been upgraded with light Beskar Plating (aka Cortosis Quality) and supported by 2-4 Rival Mando's riding normal Basilisks should be quite the challenge

Crushguants from Fall of Republic combined with Unarmed Parry talent (and some ranks in Parry) could help out. They have the ability to short out lightsabers with the 3 ADV/THR depending on who is doing the attacking or with TR/DE.

I just added those to my non-lightsaber character in an online game that has us going against a lot of Sith with lightsabers. I try to focus on the ranged guys while the other players focus on the lightsabers but when they come right at me, these can help, especially if I can get a hit in first and shut it down early on. They can reactivate it as an incidental after the next round but hopefully you have time to get out of the way before that happens.

Stop worrying about high level adversaries and focus instead on extremely treacherous terrain. Obi-Wan and Anakin swung around on cables and rode floating things over red hot lava . Create a situation where PCs have to use skills other than Lightsaber just to stay alive.

4 hours ago, Varlie said:

Crushguants from Fall of Republic combined with Unarmed Parry talent (and some ranks in Parry) could help out. They have the ability to short out lightsabers with the 3 ADV/THR depending on who is doing the attacking or with TR/DE.

I just added those to my non-lightsaber character in an online game that has us going against a lot of Sith with lightsabers. I try to focus on the ranged guys while the other players focus on the lightsabers but when they come right at me, these can help, especially if I can get a hit in first and shut it down early on. They can reactivate it as an incidental after the next round but hopefully you have time to get out of the way before that happens.

Nothing in the writeup on Crushgaunst say that they short out a lightsaber. They can deflect a lightsaber because Beskar is resistant to Lightsabers, (the Cortosis Quality, and thus immune to Sunder), but that's as far as it goes.

1 hour ago, Tramp Graphics said:

Nothing in the writeup on Crushgaunst say that they short out a lightsaber. They can deflect a lightsaber because Beskar is resistant to Lightsabers, (the Cortosis Quality, and thus immune to Sunder), but that's as far as it goes.

Shhhh! My GM reads these forums.

Also, crap. Misread that

Want people that can melee combat lightsaber wielders? Great, I got you covered.

5 ranks medicine.

5 ranks brawl.

4+ ranks brawn.

High soak armor with cortosis quality.

Pressure point talent.

Feral Strength talent of 3+.

Unarmed parry talent.

Parry talent to taste. My preference is 2 or more so the trade of strain is less than the wounds that you can reduce.

Minimum of 12+successes unsoakable strain damage per hit.

Dual wield your brawl attacks as necessary.

Knock out PC's, then coup de grace.

Want ranged combatants too? Great. Grenade launchers with stun grenades. You can't reflect a grenade and if the players bunch up, that's just helping you strain them out quicker.

20 hours ago, GroggyGolem said:

Want people that can melee combat lightsaber wielders? Great, I got you covered.

5 ranks medicine.

5 ranks brawl.

4+ ranks brawn.

High soak armor with cortosis quality.

Pressure point talent.

Feral Strength talent of 3+.

Unarmed parry talent.

Parry talent to taste. My preference is 2 or more so the trade of strain is less than the wounds that you can reduce.

Minimum of 12+successes unsoakable strain damage per hit.

Dual wield your brawl attacks as necessary.

Knock out PC's, then coup de grace.

Want ranged combatants too? Great. Grenade launchers with stun grenades. You can't reflect a grenade and if the players bunch up, that's just helping you strain them out quicker.

I might add some of these, but I want to challenge my players not TPK them in a Oneshot 😂
But thanks alot, these are nasty ^^

3 minutes ago, Fl1nt said:

I might add some of these, but I want to challenge my players not TPK them in a Oneshot 😂
But thanks alot, these are nasty ^^

For sure. Even I won't necessarily TPK players with said dudes either. I built one that's even scarier than this... he's a bounty hunter. He's meeting my group soon and won't be on friendly terms with them.

I could easily see someone like this later in my campaign.

I'm going for more of a "Bleed them slow" approach for the oneshot, they're gonna be in combat or at least in enemy territory for the whole duration of the session, so I have to be careful not to hurt them too much in each single encounter. (Atleast not till the end. They're not really supposed to make it out of this alive... [Last battle of the Mandalorian Wars *cough*] )

Wait I'm confused, your previous post said you didn't want to TPK them in a oneshot but now you're saying you don't want them to make it out alive....

Oh I think I just misunderstook your use of oneshot, I thought it was talking about the length of the campaign, you meant more of a one-hit-KO thing, I see what you mean.

22 minutes ago, GroggyGolem said:

Wait I'm confused, your previous post said you didn't want to TPK them in a oneshot but now you're saying you don't want them to make it out alive....

Oh I think I just misunderstook your use of oneshot, I thought it was talking about the length of the campaign, you meant more of a one-hit-KO thing, I see what you mean.

Ah, sorry xD
Yes I may not have been all that clear about this, its supposed to be a Oneshot / One-Time Adventure for 1 Session.

We normally play an Edge of the Empire Campaign but we wanted to change it up a little bit and since they'll be scrounging around the forbidden history of the galaxy sometimes, I reckoned why not let them play a Oneshot in the Old Republic and later discovery said Place (where they will probably have Force Visions or something about what happened here and I dont have to narrate it because they experienced it themselves as other characters).

The thing about them not making it out alive will be a more narrative thing however, they'll probably either have to hold out until the Mass Shadow Generator can be activated or do it themselves when the enemy threatens to overwhelm the entire Republic Fleet with reinforcements.
(I dont know if this will work out as planned, but its an interesting experiment).