Since there's not any kind of Challenge Rating, or total XP for an NPC, how do I determine what is an adequate threat for my players? Plus, as my players earn experience and advance in skill, I'd want them to fight enemies of increasing skill.

The chapter on Adversaries denotes how to create minions, henchmen, and nemeses (more or less, the same way you create a PC, but with tweaks). But after several sessions, my PCs will be much more powerful that a "freshly created" NPC. Do I just go through the effort to track the XP awarded and up the stat blocks appropriately with new purchases?

Help me, FFG Designers… you're my only hope.

Such guidelines will probably be in the actual rule book, and was purposefully left out of the Beta.

That being said, if you want to start making more challenging enemies, start making smarter enemies rather than stronger ones. What I mean is, have enemies that flank, set up ambushes, and quite frankly, don't fight fair.

Some RPG's don't have a quantifiable power scale. I'm actually a fan of this. It gets rid of the "I can take it… I still have 13 HP left" It allows the players, as they get more skilled to defeat the enemies easier, but at the same time a really powerful threat they may have to run away from. Running away is a viable option that a fair number of DM's and players don't use. Which is a shame.

The point is. Rather than make more powerful enemies, put the players in a situation where they are at a disadvantage. They could be fighting a fuel refinery where a stray blaster bolt could ignite the whole moon, or there could be hostages as human shields. This will hopefully create situations, where the PC's have to think outside the box. Also, if presented situations where the PC's have to choose to kill the badguy or save the princess, but they only can do one or the other, it creates drama and thus a memorable game.

Also keep in mind the obligations a character has. These are supposed to come up at an the worst times. Imagine the players in a standstill firefight, the enemies in the front, and from the rear, JimmiJo the bounty hunter comes to collect Karl who skipped out on playing the hut.

And finally, do some fun stuff with the environment. This is Star Wars. Nothing has railings. Especially if it's a long drop. So don't let the characters just fight in factories or forests, but on the gantry below Cloud City, where a fall means plummeting to the crushing depths of Bespin. Remember the battle over the Sarlaac.

This version of Star Wars won't have the same runaway challenge machine that d20 features. As characters advance they'll get more actions, wounds, characteristics, training, etc. But a storm trooper is still nothing to laugh at (unless you default them to minion level) even when you are significantly more of a bamf.

As characters advance you can set aside minions for the most part and hit em with a gob of standard NPCs, or maybe a nemesis. Players are still going to be in danger if they muck up (even at the upper end of advancement) against the same kinds of enemies they faced as entry level characters. Gear might improve, maybe the NPC oponents have a bigger Destiny pool or more actions assigned to give them a few more tricks up their sleeve. But getting shot by a blaster rifle is a bad idea. <-period. Elements like this are what made me really enjoy WFRP 3rd edition. You get to have meaningful advancements that make a character feel improved and awesome. But when it comes time to throw down…everyone knows it's about to get real.

And you can spend more time building NPCs and encounters that make for cool set pieces (memorable locales, crazy environmental conditions, etc) instead of stressing out over whether or not the dioxin gas will be enough to counter-act the living characters long enough for you to get some good shots off on the assassin droid pc. Or adding stealth levels of Soldier onto your storm troopers.

I'm sure the final release will have a gob of example NPCs and critters to use as a backdrop for various challenge levels (in terms of rough ideas of wounds, actions, destiny, etc) to pattern custom creations on. But really, you don't need to have Moff Flimflam be as strong and healthy as a kryat dragon in order for him to present a challenge to your PCs.

GM Chris said:

I don't know the system (yet), but here's what I do in Dark Heresy to determine adequate threats for my players:

1) Forget the term 'adequate threat'.

2) Populate a given scene with the kinds of enemies that make sense for the situation.

3) Leave it for the PCs to figure out whether the odds are on their side, or not. If it's not, I'm sure they can come up with creative ways to even the odds. This is, after all, Star Wars. There's detonite and thermal detonators!

In my opinion, the world shouldn't be designed to cater to the PCs. Or rather, it should be, but it shouldn't feel like it to the players. Even if they deep down know that you've designed everything to entertain them, there should still be the illusion of a living, breathing world that would be perfectly happy without the PCs mucking things up.

A good way to do this is to arrange "credible" scenarios. Are you infiltrating the home of the richest trade prince in the outer rim? He should have the best guards and the best security money can buy. Players shouldn't just rely on a D&D-esque frontal assault (unless they have some serious firepower). If they can't charge it (and survive) they have to be clever about it. If they don't have the resources to be clever about it, maybe they should just accept that they are not ready to infiltrate the guy's home (queue side-quest to scrounge up contacts, equipment and support to make a second go).

But, uhm, that was unnecessarily long-winded. In short: A "balanced encounter calculator" shouldn't really be necessary.

Slaunyeh said:

ROFL… no worries, man. I'm a "long-winded" type myself. And you make sense. After reading more and more, and talking to Jay Little on the Podcast last night… that's kind of what I'm seeing.

There's really no "mechanical" way to easily represent threat. Because it can be different even between PCs. Two PCs can have 500 XP, and drop it all into their builds. But one can be a Bounty hunter who's done nothing but max out his skills and the Assassination Talent Tree. The other could be spreading the XP accross multiple specializations (even cross-career). And the "power level" (which I don't think there really IS, in this system - so perhaps "character effectiveness") will be radically different for both - depending entirely on the scene/encounter.

GM Chris said:

Agreed (great podcast, btw). I think, ultimately, it comes down to 'gut feeling', and a bit of experience with the system.

Slaunyeh said:

That's what I'm thinking, too. (and thank you! btw)

But I also think we should ALL (those of us playtesting) try to look for concrete ways to maybe measure this. That's the kind of feedback I really think they want from the Beta.