Hello, everyone! I'm putting together a basic campaign plan for my group in the AoR world. I will give a basic outline below and then give my questions.

How to scale:

If you are using groups of enemies, the rule of thumb is to use ones that have one or two die less in their pools compared to the PC's.

If you are using individual enemies then the rule of thumb is to use ones that have an equivalent pool to the PC's.

Different adversaries have different purposes:

Minions are used to distract or delay. They work best in groups.

Rivals are used to threaten individuals of the party. They work best individually or in small numbers.

Nemesis are used to threaten the entire party. They work best alone, but should always be accompanied by rivals or minions (or both). Always have 1-2 escape routes planned for a Nemesis.

Too many or not enough:

If you are uncertain how many opponents are adequate for your party, low ball it. You can always add more enemies.

If you have thrown too many opponents at your party, obstruct or divert them. This means anything from putting a physical barrier between the opponents and the PC's to adding or taking away something to divide their attention. Perhaps a dangerous fauna wanders in and now the opponents have to defend themselves from that fauna.

Beware of critical modifiers. Some rivals have weapons or talents that increases critical hits. Remember that this might open up the possibility of accidentally killing a PC.

Social Encounters:

Scaling difficulty is not as vital when it comes to social encounters. You can have multiple paths that result in the same outcome. Often, even if they fail they can usually try again.

PC's should always have a decent chance to win or escape

Other tips:

Not all threats must involve combat. A nemesis can threaten them with her hacking skills or supreme intellect.

Usually a nemesis or the opponents have some advantage they hold over the party. Once that is taken away then that might count as a defeat for the opponents. Not every fight needs to end in one sides complete death.

There are plenty of other tips that can help you use adversaries in the core rulebook.

If you are looking for a good mechanic to use, I would recommend the phalanx rule found in the clone wars books. I don't have that in front of me at the moment, but basically it is a column of minions that is infinite (the strength of the column determined the width of the column. A column 4 minions wide is very strong, while a column 2 minions wide is fairly weak.) Hopefully this comment helps.

Honestly dude, at this point in time, I think you're completely overthinking this.

Each ofnyour firsy 3 adventures will be multiple sessions, which means by the time you reach 4, you will have a much better and more intuitive understanding of bothe the system, and more importantly, your party.

Which means, when you get there, you'll probably have a really good idea of what scaling, tweeking, and other modifying you need to do.

Doing so now will either paint you into a corner, or end up with you just redoing it nearer the time anyway.

The other hing to bare in mind, is by the time you get there, your campaign may have led you all on a completely different direction. You may very well have even cooler, better, and most importantly, more relevant to your group's story, ideas.

So my advice for now, just chill, and only plan 1 adventure at a time.

On 9/9/2020 at 3:47 PM, jhight said:

Also, I am having a hard time finding out how to scale enemies. I know I can add characteristics, skills, or some talents, but I don't know if that will make a nemesis into a GOD or will I build everything up only to have him be a joke. Should they have a group of elite Stormtroopers or will two bodyguards be enough? Are there any guides that could point me in the right direction with scaling and equipping enemies?

There is nothing official. The common complaint with Nemeses is if they are acting solo they are vastly underwhelming. In many ways the system is designed to favour the attacker (assuming the PCs have reasonable dice pools), and it's designed this way to prevent the action from becoming stagnant. What you won't get in this system is a standoff where the PCs lose 75 hit points each taking down a 500 hit point dragon... So your Nemesis should always have backup or distractions...basically you want enough for each PC to do (hacking, breaking doors, freeing prisoners, etc) so they can't gang up on the NPC.

Otherwise, scaling comes down to comparing dice pools. Basic rule of thumb for any skill check:

1. If you want an easy challenge, the negative dice should be 2 or more less than the PC's positive dice
2. If you want a 50/50 challenge, the negative dice should be 1 less than the PC's positive dice (this is because you need 1 net success)
3. If you want a difficult challenge, the negative dice should be equal or 1 more than the PC's positive dice

You might also find this post useful (the second half, for scaling adversaries):

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/309181-experience/?do=findComment&comment=3952508

9 hours ago, Stethemessiah said:

S o my advice for now, just chill, and only plan 1 adventure at a time.

And even then, they will find a way to do something different.

55 minutes ago, Fistofpaper said:

And even then, they will find a way to do something different.

Yup, they frickin' will, the little #&$@

Lol.

9 hours ago, Stethemessiah said:

Yup, they frickin' will, the little #&$@

Lol.

I think my record went something like this:

Me - "Today's adventure is on tatooine and an imperial cordon has made travel so restrictive you cannot get off world"

Player - "I travel to either Mos Eisley or Espa to leave tatooine."

Me - *looks up Impossible difficulty rules*

The best advice I can give is: Minion groups are your friends! Seriously, no matter how much you prep in advance, you can always change the size of your minion groups right before the encounter begins. You'll get a feel for your group as you play. The problem/benefit of this system is your players aren't locked into the level/wealth by level constraints of other systems. So, your players will become more powerful in combat based on what they choose and when they choose it. The good thing is that you have minion groups, which is the perfect answer to that unpredictable change in power. When encounters start getting too "easy" (define that how you will), you can make the groups bigger. I'd recommend only increasing each group by one until you see that they are still too weak. Going from 3 groups of 3 Stormtroopers to 3 groups of 7 doesn't look like much of a change on paper, but at the table it likely means lots of unconscious/dead PCs. Just remember that minion groups max out at 5 skill ranks, so groups of 7+ are just adding more wounds, not more combat capability. Make gradual changes and you'll get a feel for it as you go. I would avoid giving NPCs "better" weapons. A heavy repeating blaster in the hands of a capable NPC is asking for a TPK. More guys rather than better guys is a safer option.

The other thing I would caution is the use of cascading effects, positive or negative. It is certainly interesting to have the results of a skill check/decision influence another skill check/decision. If you keep going, you risk the auto-win/auto-fail situation, where the results stack up in one direction or the other. The solution is to not make long chains of skill checks/decisions that influence each other. So, the PCs sneak up on the guards, and you give them a bonus to initiative (stealth -> initiative). Then they kill the guards before any can act and you give them, well, nothing. The chain is broken - no auto-win or auto-lose down the road. Now you can begin a new chain where a result of one check/decision influences the next. Also, keep the benefits and penalties small.

For example, in the Jyrene Base situation (I am unfamiliar with it entirely, so bear with me as I make this up as I go), maybe success means the space combat to escape begins at long range, giving the PCs more time to make Astrogation calculations, or adds a Boost or upgrades the ability of that check once. Failing means the enemy starts at short range, giving the PCs less time before they are getting shot at, or adds a setback to Astrogation, perhaps an upgrade in the difficulty. The space combat is essentially "the same" in both cases (same enemies), but it won't seem that way to the PCs. Note that the actual benefits and penalties are rather small - one boost or setback die, a change in starting range, or an upgrade (don't do all three). No auto-win or auto-fail and yet there is some benefit to success and making good decisions.

Always err on the side of minion groups being too small for your party. See how they fare. If it's super easy, have more of the same size groups enter as adds near the end of the encounter, and then step up the group size by one for the next. Lather rinse repeat until balanced, aka you don't need to enter adds to make it feel challenging.

On scaling the enemy, how your players play their characters can have as big as an affect on how powerful opponents can be as do game mechanics. That is true regardless of game system or genre; so, waiting to get the feel of the players before deciding on scale should be an early priority.