Hi,

I'm still fairly new to FFG's Star Wars, but I really like it. I was hoping that I could get some advice on how to GM a game with force users and non-force users. Specifically I'm wondering how you run gunfights if force users don't have a gun. If they're equipped with only a melee weapon, do they just sit out the fight? Any other advice that you could provide on running a combined game would be very much appreciated. Thanks

If it's a melee weapon that could be used with the Lasersaber Skill and the PCs have the Reflect Talent they could use it in ranged combat. If not there're Force Powers and Talent from the F&F careers specialisation's trees that can be very useful in a fight.

Or they can grab a blaster and make themselves useful rather than sitting counting shots.😀

Thanks @WolfRider. It's specifically entry level force users that I don't know how to handle, short of, as you say, they pick up a blaster. I'm thinking of, for example, F&D Beginner Game. Some starting characters have blasters, other lightsabers, and one has a walking stick, but most of the bad guys use blasters.

All it takes to change a gunfight into a melee fight is spending one or two maneuvers in most cases.

13 hours ago, Dejon said:

Hi,

I'm still fairly new to FFG's Star Wars, but I really like it. I was hoping that I could get some advice on how to GM a game with force users and non-force users. Specifically I'm wondering how you run gunfights if force users don't have a gun. If they're equipped with only a melee weapon, do they just sit out the fight? Any other advice that you could provide on running a combined game would be very much appreciated. Thanks

Unless the F&D characters have an abysmal Agility score, they can very easily pick up a blaster pistol and use it unskilled.

it ultimately boils down to how the F&D characters are built, as not all characters build using those careers and specs are going to be melee specialists. There's more than a few specs that can make for devastating ranged combatants (Hunter from Seeker career for instance, or Warleader from Guardian as found in Keeping the Peace), and just a bit of XP investment into the Move power and the Discipline skill can make for a very potent Force-based combatant, especially if they're in a spec that offers multiple Force Rating talents.

Plus, as micheldbruyn said, it generally doesn't take much for a melee-based character to get in close with a ranged attacker, provided you as the GM aren't putting all your bad guys at long range. If you are, then that's less a problem with F&D characters and more a problem with your encounter design.

Thanks for the great answers. If melee characters do manage to close the distance to close, do those using blasters need to add setback dice to their roll to avoid hitting the friendly player?

If they are shooting at a character who is engaged with the PC, then they upgrade the difficulty once, changing a purple (Difficulty) die into a red (Challenge) die. A Despair results in shooting the PC by mistake.

1 hour ago, Dejon said:

Thanks for the great answers. If melee characters do manage to close the distance to close, do those using blasters need to add setback dice to their roll to avoid hitting the friendly player?

Nope. Instead they upgrade the difficulty once.

Now, per RAW if the attacker rolls a Despair, then any other result of the attack (success or not) gets automatically overwritten and the ally is hit. Myself and a number of other GMs outright hate that rule, as it goes completely against what is established in the first chapter about how a Despair result should never counter the effects of a successful roll. And I've seen more than a few instances where the excitement of the encounter got sucked out in a hurry because what was a spectacularly successful ranged combat check ends up badly crippling or even KO'ing a fellow PC because of the Despair, and I'm fairly certain that the game's designers would agree that's just bad ju-ju no matter how you slice it.

Instead, I treat it as an option that I can elect to spend the Despair on if the shooting PC misses their attack and I really can't think of anything better to spend the Despair on. So really, I just treat "potentially hitting an ally whose engaged with your target" as simply one more option I can spend the Despair on. Other GMs will still use the "Despair in this instance still automatically means you blasted your ally" but only if the ranged combat check is a failure; a successful ranged combat check with a Despair result means something else potentially bad happened, with running out of ammo being a fairly popular result or the bad guy getting an increase to their ranged defense until their next action.

That's great advice, thanks!

Assuming there is more than 1 target, the upgraded difficulty isn't too big of a hurdle. Shooters shoot at one set of targets, melee go after another set.

That makes sense, thanks.

13 hours ago, kmanweiss said:

Assuming there is more than 1 target, the upgraded difficulty isn't too big of a hurdle. Shooters shoot at one set of targets, melee go after another set.

True.

Combat encounters in this system work best when there's multiple opponents for your PCs to attack, be it multiple minion groups, a few minion groups and a rival, a few rivals, or a nemesis supported by a couple of minion groups.

If you've got a party of four or more PCs, a single opponent isn't going to make for a very exciting encounter, especially if more than half the group are skilled combatants with appropriate talents and weapons. Either the PCs are doing so little damage that the combat becomes a grind, or the PCs are doing so much damage that the Nemesis gets dropped in only a couple of rounds just from the sheer volume of damage being hurled at it. There's exceptions, but they tend to be few given how combat in this system is geared towards being dangerous for all parties involved.

So how would you handle a group of four force users, two with melee weapons and two with blasters, against a minion group of three stormtroopers?

You roll for initiative, have the blaster guys go first, and then have the lightsaber guys mop up what's left.

That is if you even bother rolling. with 3 grouped stormtroopers against 4 PCs, unless the PCs get really unlucky, that lasts 1 round and the stormtroopers might not even get a turn.

The CRB suggests that if a combat is a foregone conclusion, rather than rolling it our, just have each PC roll 1 check to show what they would do in the combat. In a situation like this, though, I would either narrate the PCs killing the stormtroopers or have the stormtroopers advance backwards. Maybe have each PC roll a challenge die and see if a Despair pops up indicating them getting shot.

Thanks. What's CRB? (my noob-ish behaviour is showing)

Core rule book.

I had the same question when I first got on (4 months ago).

<Heavy sigh> Good thing this community is so friendly

3 hours ago, Dejon said:

So how would you handle a group of four force users, two with melee weapons and two with blasters, against a minion group of three stormtroopers?

I wouldn't!

4 players against a single minion group of 3 stormtroopers isn't a great encounter. Minion groups are a great way to handle large groups of NPCs while also keeping the action moving, but they have significant impacts on the gameplay.

Minion groups are DEADLY. A minion group will do more damage than an individual while also increasing the chance of critical hits or other advantage based results. They also apply all that damage to one target as opposed to dividing it among many targets. (the counter arguement is that individuals could do overall more damage, but they are more likely to miss or do smaller amounts of damage while also doing less crits/effects)

Minion groups are easier to kill. Due to the way damage is passed from one minion to another, it's actually easier to do damage and kill off minion groups than individual NPCs.

4 players against a single minion group of 3 stormtroopers is a bad encounter for both of these reasons. They are easier to kill which might mean a really easy fight, however if the stormtroopers pull initiative before they are attacked, they could wipe out a player in a single round of combat. I'd prefer 4 individual stormtroopers, or 2 groups of 2, or two singles and a group of 2...or some variation. Having multiple enemy groups also makes for more interesting encounters.

4 minutes ago, kmanweiss said:

I wouldn't!

4 players against a single minion group of 3 stormtroopers isn't a great encounter. Minion groups are a great way to handle large groups of NPCs while also keeping the action moving, but they have significant impacts on the gameplay.

Minion groups are DEADLY. A minion group will do more damage than an individual while also increasing the chance of critical hits or other advantage based results. They also apply all that damage to one target as opposed to dividing it among many targets. (the counter arguement is that individuals could do overall more damage, but they are more likely to miss or do smaller amounts of damage while also doing less crits/effects)

Minion groups are easier to kill. Due to the way damage is passed from one minion to another, it's actually easier to do damage and kill off minion groups than individual NPCs.

4 players against a single minion group of 3 stormtroopers is a bad encounter for both of these reasons. They are easier to kill which might mean a really easy fight, however if the stormtroopers pull initiative before they are attacked, they could wipe out a player in a single round of combat. I'd prefer 4 individual stormtroopers, or 2 groups of 2, or two singles and a group of 2...or some variation. Having multiple enemy groups also makes for more interesting encounters.

I find this interesting as FFG wrote an encounter with two minion groups of three stormtroopers into the EotE beginner adventure "Escape from Mos Shutta," with the impetus being that the PCs (all of whom are EotE builds and pretty much at starting XP levels) should run rather than try to stand and fight.

At the same time, a single minion group tends not to be much of a challenge, especially if they don't have Cool or Vigilance as group skills, since it means more often than not, by the time that one group gets to go, the minion group is either going to be severely whittled down or already be defeated.

I do agree that starting out with minion groups in sets of two is a good approach, at least until the GM gets a feel for what their PCs can handle in a fight. Two minions to a group is still a danger, but not an overwhelming one since combatwise they'll tend to have a yellow-green-green dice pool if operating at full strength and one or two solid attacks will whittle them down pretty quick, removing that threat from the field. I'd even go so far as to suggest at the beginning to only have as many minions as there are PCs, split into groups of two, especially if more than half the party haven't invested heavily in combat skills (more than single rank) or weapons.

2 minutes ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

I find this interesting as FFG wrote an encounter with two minion groups of three stormtroopers into the EotE beginner adventure "Escape from Mos Shutta," with the impetus being that the PCs (all of whom are EotE builds and pretty much at starting XP levels) should run rather than try to stand and fight.

At the same time, a single minion group tends not to be much of a challenge, especially if they don't have Cool or Vigilance as group skills, since it means more often than not, by the time that one group gets to go, the minion group is either going to be severely whittled down or already be defeated.

I do agree that starting out with minion groups in sets of two is a good approach, at least until the GM gets a feel for what their PCs can handle in a fight. Two minions to a group is still a danger, but not an overwhelming one since combatwise they'll tend to have a yellow-green-green dice pool if operating at full strength and one or two solid attacks will whittle them down pretty quick, removing that threat from the field. I'd even go so far as to suggest at the beginning to only have as many minions as there are PCs, split into groups of two, especially if more than half the party haven't invested heavily in combat skills (more than single rank) or weapons.

A single minion group isn't much of a challenge for established characters. But for new characters it's often VERY dangerous. Unless I'm screwing something up, I find minion groups tend to win a lot of initiative slots until players really start putting some effort into cool/vigilance. This makes them even more deadly for early characters.

To be honest, I wouldn't even start new characters off against stormtroopers. They aren't the worthless, blundering, defenseless idiots they are portrayed as in movies/shows. They are quite powerful and competent. Imperial army, or local law enforcement (with no armor and weaker blaster pistols) make much better enemies for new players.

This is all really good advice, and I really appreciate you taking the time to share experience with me. If you have more, I'd love to hear it, as this will be my first time GM-ing in FFGs version.

10 hours ago, Dejon said:

This is all really good advice, and I really appreciate you taking the time to share experience with me. If you have more, I'd love to hear it, as this will be my first time GM-ing in FFGs version.

Best bit of advice, which you may or may not have already gotten, is pick up one of the Beginner Boxes (EotE is almost universally suggested, with TFA being a generally solid choice) and run that, even if it's just a one-shot using the pre-gens and not unique characters. The adventures are designed to ease both players and GMs into the system, teaching the rules as they go. I've used the EotE beginner adventure a few times to demo the game, and the players have generally had fun and were able to pick up the system pretty quickly.

Another option for an "intro to the system" would be the Free RPG Day adventure Under a Black Sun (you can get the PDF off FFG's website, I think under Resources on the EotE page). Again, it's designed to introduce players and GMs to the system while also exploring a bit of the seedy underbelly of Coruscant. It again as its own set of pre-gens (who don't necessarily follow the rules of character creation), but can be a fun one and done to help you get a better handle on the system.

Awesome advice! I downloaded Under a Black Sun and picked up TFA at my local hobby store (they didn't have EotE). Great places to start. Thanks.

You're welcome. Let us know how it turns out.