If a inquisitor is hunting players and he finally confronts the jedi and a fight ensues...

If they defeat the inquisitor and his strain threshold ( because he's a nemesis)... Going by the rules should he then become unconscious? Obviously the players will want to kill him but it would be cheesy and possibly dark side to just to Stand above him stabbing him with lightsabre just to get enough critical to kill him...

That's where the narrative takes over. I mean, why would you roll for an obvious execution.
If they defeat him, it should be a narrative choice what to do with him.

As @Rimsen says, once the target is incapacitated - and presuming no other factors like other enemies in the vicinity or being on board a ship that is about to blow up - then the PCs have free reign to do as they will with them without rolling. You only roll when there is a reasonable chance of failure - and if your PCs have no moral qualms about stabbing an unconscious foe, then they can do as they please. However you are right that such an act would almost certainly earn Conflict if you're using the Morality mechanic in your game. Luke Skywalker doesn't slit the throats of fallen stormtroopers after all.

Of course, if the Inquisitor is important to the story - maybe he knows vital information to help guide the party to the next chapter of the campaign - then as a GM you can hint (through narration, an NPC, or simply a nod and a wink depending on your style) that they might find it more beneficial to keep them alive (even if only temporarily).

Thanks... That's what I thought... I was just confirming... I thought I might have missed a subtle rule.

There's no hard rule about that. Just the narrative spirit of the game.

If the Inquisitor is incapacitated by exceeding his Strain threshold, if you clear it with your players that they want to kill the inquisitor, you could narrate it as the flurry of blows overwhelming the Inquisitor until he was no longer able to keep up his defenses and so had his head chopped off.

Aye, if the players choose to murder someone who is harmless? The conflict might be partly mitigated by a character's nature, but the character's emotional centre when taking a life is hugely important. Obi-Wan fought maul full of rage, but he didn't fall because ultimately he was a very good man and recovered his mind enough to deal Maul a final blow. Luke would've fallen to the dark side if he killed Vader because he was in the grip of rage and that killing Vader would've been to throw away all his belief's he held up to that point; that and technically he was already beaten.

Of course, there are exceptions to every rule. I wouldn't make every inquisitor a conflict trap; if you top an inquisitor's wound threshold then usually that means it's over. If they run out of strain in a compromising situation then they fall to their death/obscurity. The main reason why Darth Vader was an exception to that rule compared to a lot of people was that Luke had a personal connection to Vader, the same connection he was trying to use to turn him was the same that was used to hurt him. Likewise, Anaikin didn't need to murder Dooku as he was completely at his mercy and that Jedi didn't kill prisoners, so his killing betrayed his idealisation of the Jedi Order. If there's no moral incentive to the "hostage" situation I wouldn't necessarily give them one unless the player/s either went out of their way to incapacitate them or alternatively the inquisitor might've been someone once more important to them.

Funny really, in the TV shows and such, Obi-Wan excluded, they can never let a Jedi simply kill an enemy force user. Literally the only time I recall it ever happening is episode 1, and even he didn't stay dead. Every other time seems like a moral quandary.

You could also narrate running out of strain to become disarmed and utterly helpless, but not unconscious. Then the player need to choose what to do with their defeated foe, knock him out? Kill him? Take him prisoner? Never turn down a good chance to learn something about the characters

On 10/16/2019 at 6:15 PM, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

If the Inquisitor is incapacitated by exceeding his Strain threshold, if you clear it with your players that they want to kill the inquisitor, you could narrate it as the flurry of blows overwhelming the Inquisitor until he was no longer able to keep up his defenses and so had his head chopped off.

Quite often, nemeses have lower Strain than Wound Thresholds, and will be spending Strain on talents and 2nd manoeuvres -and so are much easier to take out if you just switch your blasters to Stun. The trade-off for that is that either you have to face the moral choice of killing an undefended foe, go through the effort of taking them prisoner, or put up with them coming back- letting the PCs get away with it as a 'normal' kill makes them too powerful.

23 minutes ago, Talkie Toaster said:

Quite often, nemeses have lower Strain than Wound Thresholds, and will be spending Strain on talents and 2nd manoeuvres -and so are much easier to take out if you just switch your blasters to Stun. The trade-off for that is that either you have to face the moral choice of killing an undefended foe, go through the effort of taking them prisoner, or put up with them coming back- letting the PCs get away with it as a 'normal' kill makes them too powerful.

If you have stun setting, and if you are comfortable sitting in short range from a lightsaber. Also, the Nemesis can spend advantage to heal strain too.

I don't always have 0 or even low minus Strain equal Unconsciousness. It is the stat used to depict mental Stress as well as Non-Wound Damage so I will use it as a Failed Morale Check for the Nemesis.

I like that idea.

Incidentally I had almost the oposite the other week. A Rival level adversary was on 1 wound, the narratively logic thing for him was to run away, I paused, because the extra manoeuvre would have caused strain, then thought "no. He runs anyway, bit collapses from the blood loss of his wounds "

I treat running out of Strain as being rendered mentally of physically incapable of taking furtehr action. Which depending on the specifics of the scene can range from passing out to panicking and running away to surrendering or whatever fits the scene.

3 hours ago, Archlyte said:

I don't always have 0 or even low minus Strain equal Unconsciousness. It is the stat used to depict mental Stress as well as Non-Wound Damage so I will use it as a Failed Morale Check for the Nemesis.

I think you may be doing Strain/Wounds wrong, you're supposed to count up until they exceed the threshold. Are you doing this for a reason, or am I just confused?

3 hours ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

I think you may be doing Strain/Wounds wrong, you're supposed to count up until they exceed the threshold. Are you doing this for a reason, or am I just confused?

I think it's just a hang up of systems where you count down wounds or HP, mechanically it's really no different.

I have to admit I have to constantly remind myself that it's the other way round.

it can be frustrating, so use sparingly ... but GM-Granted Plot Armor is a thing. lol

If you don't have a plan B for a dead inquisitor, apply the plot armor when needed.

22 hours ago, Stethemessiah said:

I think it's just a hang up of systems where you count down wounds or HP, mechanically it's really no different.

Not a big deal, but it's actually off by 1. If you have a WT of 14, counting up you are out when you take the 15th wound. If you count down you're out when you take the 14th wound.

1 hour ago, whafrog said:

Not a big deal, but it's actually off by 1. If you have a WT of 14, counting up you are out when you take the 15th wound. If you count down you're out when you take the 14th wound.

Very good point. Noted.

I think this is a very common mistake amongst new and inexperienced GM's.

I remember when I first started out (at 10) having a few moments where the players had incapacitated their enemies by various means and then wanted to finish them off, but they kept missing with their weapons against an unconscious target... That's where my young brain kinda picked up on the fact that it would be kinda silly to roll for anything to kill an unconscious person.

On 10/17/2019 at 5:20 AM, LordBritish said:

Aye, if the players choose to murder someone who is harmless? The conflict might be partly mitigated by a character's nature, but the character's emotional centre when taking a life is hugely important. Obi-Wan fought maul full of rage, but he didn't fall because ultimately he was a very good man and recovered his mind enough to deal Maul a final blow. Luke would've fallen to the dark side if he killed Vader because he was in the grip of rage and that killing Vader would've been to throw away all his belief's he held up to that point; that and technically he was already beaten.

Of course, there are exceptions to every rule. I wouldn't make every inquisitor a conflict trap; if you top an inquisitor's wound threshold then usually that means it's over. If they run out of strain in a compromising situation then they fall to their death/obscurity. The main reason why Darth Vader was an exception to that rule compared to a lot of people was that Luke had a personal connection to Vader, the same connection he was trying to use to turn him was the same that was used to hurt him. Likewise, Anaikin didn't need to murder Dooku as he was completely at his mercy and that Jedi didn't kill prisoners, so his killing betrayed his idealisation of the Jedi Order. If there's no moral incentive to the "hostage" situation I wouldn't necessarily give them one unless the player/s either went out of their way to incapacitate them or alternatively the inquisitor might've been someone once more important to them.

Funny really, in the TV shows and such, Obi-Wan excluded, they can never let a Jedi simply kill an enemy force user. Literally the only time I recall it ever happening is episode 1, and even he didn't stay dead. Every other time seems like a moral quandary.

Anakin beheaded Dooku. But that's Anakin I guess.