Background: We have very limited experience, only playing some D&D 4.0.

SPOILERS FOLLOW if you haven't played yet:

Everyone was very hesitant about the new dice system. There was some groans about using pre-made characters, but I explained that this was just a demo to see what they thought, and if they liked it - we would begin a real campaign.

The encounter with the Gamorreans was really quick, the PCs destroyed the thugs. And the junk shop encounter ended with the owner's face being shot off (critical hit). They did joke around about having the R5 unit leading a droid revolution (thus acquiring security droids and other droids) and take over Teemo's Palace. Luckily they were just joking, but throughout the rest of the session there was hopes of the R5 unit flanking the enemy they were fighting.

Everything was great until the encounter with the storm troopers, Hinting at how strong they were, I was hoping for a chase scene. Instead, the Wookie character just charged one group (critical hit), follow by the Twi'leks shot (only at medium range) - dealing an instant death to another trooper in the group. By the time the other group of storm troopers that were at long range arrived, it was too late and they were taken out quickly. I felt like there wasn't enough difficulty die in the pool (medium range - 2 purple die), the Twi'lek was dealing 8+ damage a turn through out the whole game. The Wookie's piercing damage was nuts. Pash would finish off the stragglers.

The encounter with the Trandoshan was boring. They defeated the security bots easily, and the Wookie covered ground real quick engaging him and killing him in two hits (the Trandoshan dealth a decent amount of damage though).

We all had fun, but I'm confused. Was it suppose to be that easy? Is it just because it's the beginner game? Did I do something wrong? We had fun, but as a GM I was honestly a bit bored (I barely hurt anyone). I like to see more of a challenge. Thanks!

My players thought the Tie fighters in space were a walk in the park, although they hit the kayt for half its hull capacity. But they did finish them quickly, also because one of them fumbled and shot down one of his mates. Others have reported that the fight with the Tie fighters were insanely hard.

Our fight with the storm troopers were not that hard, because Oskara ambushed them by blowing out a water tank. But still it was a minor challenge. Did you remember the rules for upgrading depending on minion group size? I had one minion for each player and two groups of stromtroopers.

I GM'd the beginner adventure for the first time a couple nights ago for my family, and overall felt like the game was pretty easy for them as well, and was curious if, perhaps, I missed something obvious.

The cantina fight was a complete pushover. The group failed to hide (one person failed trying to talk the twilek dancer into helping, and ended up on the floor with cover (3 advantages, 0 successes on the roll, seemed fun)

The gamorians moved in on her and ended up getting shot to death trying to close the range. They were really never a threat.

Similarly good rolls convinced the junk shop vender to part with the needed ship part (took two rolls to get the price down to normal..heh, that was fun), but they made it out of there without incident.

Hilariously, they went in the side door of the space control building and the droid walked right over and sliced a nearby terminal perfectly, then walked out without any alarms being raised. The tension on the group's face was hilarious, but the encounter is pretty specific that nobody pays attention to them if no alarm has been raised.

They all agreed that it was fun, but I feel like I'm going to have to really work on my storytelling to make these encounters more interesting with such, overall, simple resolutions.

I finally finished the second game that completed our experience of the beginner box tonight. My players went completely off the reserve. They tackled the Trandoshan before getting the ship unclamped, caused mayhem and destruction including blowing up the junk yard and ramming a speeder into the Spaceport control building. In the end half the party was rescued from the roof of the spaceport control building (on fire and with Storm Troopers closing in), by the rest of the party in the YT-1300. It was a crazy game, but the narrative dice were fantastic and worked really well - everyone had a blast, and we'll be grabbing the full rules.

Great game.

Cheers,

Giles.

We created our own characters and went trough the adventure.

As a GM I taught it was a good adventure to start with.The players liked it it was fun and everyone had a good time.

At the end of the adventure our mechanic instaled the hypermater friki-wiki thing while me (merc soldier) and our bounty hunter assassin hold the stormtroopers away.(Our bounty hunter remained with 1 HP.)

After he instaled it we went into space and gone hyperspace without confonting the TIE fighters.

The technician rolled and according to the simbols he instaled the thing in 4 turns.We fought 4 groups of stormtroopers.

Our group got together and finished up the last three encounters this weekend. There was a lot of fun to be had. I did have to do some page turning a few times and ended up with a couple of questions that might or might not be resolved with a good reading of the expanded rule book.

So the gang left the spaceport control room and started heading for docking bay Aurek by the most direct route. Upon entering the water tower square, they ran afoul of the stormtroopers, The PC's lost initiative, but I didn't want the stormtroopers to just start shooting without provocation in a crowded street, so the close group yelled at the PC's to halt and surrender. Without a readied action equivalent, I figured they were done for the turn. The droid stepped up and tossed a stun grenade in response (taking strain), and didn't quite drop a trooper. The rest of the party proceeded to move forward and open up on that group. Twilek bounty hunter girl rolled amazing and did enough damage to drop two troopers (I wasn't sure about that. They're minion groups and are treated as a single entity for a lot of things...but can a single blaster shot take two out? Also, would a stun grenade with enough advantages hit ALL of the minions separately?) Pash took out the last trooper and our intrepid fugitives ducked down the nearest street at full speed. Twilek girl took a hard shot in the back from the other group of stormtroopers, but they fell far enough behind that another clear shot never developed.

The group created a mess as they ran down the alley, and at this point I figured the other stormtrooper group was about 3 turns behind. When the group got clear of the alley, they saw the docking bay and went straight for the front door, bluffing past the droids with the part . I ruled they got into the docking bay just as the stormtroopers cleared the alley. The droids radioed in (net threat result) and Trex came down the ramp to greet them. They failed the deceit roll with 4 or 5 advantages, and I let them get partway up the ramp before Trex noticed the smoking burn mark on our twilek's back. heh

Init was rolled and the PC's all got to go (they had some hot dice from this point out...I don't think there was another failure all night). They all rushed into the ship and started raising the ramp (with Trex on it!). Shots were fired, and on the second turns, Pash ran for the cockpit to start the ship. Trex got a wee bit irritated and I let him rush in and brawl the twilek, getting a triumph (but failing the attack). Ultimately, she shot Trex down (only took 2 hits...wow, that blaster rifle is lethal), went down to the droids, and they got away. The tie fighters were a joke with the way this group was rolling. Even with only 3 PC's, I should have brought in a second wave of them.

All in all, it's a fun game. I think we're going to pick it up regularly soon. GG, FFG

Twilek bounty hunter girl rolled amazing and did enough damage to drop two troopers (I wasn't sure about that. They're minion groups and are treated as a single entity for a lot of things...but can a single blaster shot take two out? Also, would a stun grenade with enough advantages hit ALL of the minions separately?)

Keep in mind that one roll doesn't mean one shot. It can be assumed that in the span of a turn, if the player is attacking, then the player is sending a spray of blaster fire or slashing wildly with her vibro ax. With that in mind, it's not a stretch to think of 2 troopers dropping from a volley of blaster fire.

If the beginner box is similar to the core rules, it takes 2 advantages to activate the blast quality. So with only 2 advantages, everyone engaged with the initial target will take the blast damage indicated by the blast quality. This isn't activated multiple times.

Keep in mind that one roll doesn't meed one shot. It can be assumed that in the span of a turn, if the player is attacking, then the player is sending a spray of blaster fire or slashing wildly with her vibro ax. With that in mind, it's not a stretch to think of 2 troopers dropping from a volley of blaster fire.

If the beginner box is similar to the core rules, it takes 2 advantages to activate the blast quality. So with only 2 advantages, everyone engaged with the initial target will take the blast damage indicated by the blast quality. This isn't activated multiple times.

Just to be sure I'm clear, since this was a minion group, if the stun grenade had done 11 damage but did not have enough advantages to activate the Blast special (leaving 6 after soak), would you have ruled two stormtroopers had taken damage (knocking one out and damaging another)? And if the Blast special had been activated, the three minion group wouldn't have been hit 3 times?

[...]if the stun grenade had done 11 damage but did not have enough advantages to activate the Blast special (leaving 6 after soak), would you have ruled two stormtroopers had taken damage (knocking one out and damaging another)? And if the Blast special had been activated, the three minion group wouldn't have been hit 3 times?

Different GMs run this in different ways. In the first example, by RAW you are right, even if the storm troopers weren't engaged with the primary target. However, as the GM you don't have to run minion's staying in a tight formation, the could easily spread out, meaning the blast quality could not hit anyone even when activated.

I don't recall if RAW covers a single minion group getting blasted with the blast quality. If it does, I hope someone corrects me. I would run this in 1 of 2 ways. The first way, you could have the blast quality only hit the minion group once (dealing an extra 6 damage to the minion group). The second option, and the one I probably would go with, I would just have a grenade take out all storm troopers in the minion group (assuming they are the previously mentioned tight formation), if the blast quality is activated.

I am not hung up on the idea of wanting to really make my players suffer. I use minions for the fact that they are initially challenging when combat breaks out, but I expect them to get slaughtered quickly. So just killing off some minions is a no-brainer.

[...]if the stun grenade had done 11 damage but did not have enough advantages to activate the Blast special (leaving 6 after soak), would you have ruled two stormtroopers had taken damage (knocking one out and damaging another)? And if the Blast special had been activated, the three minion group wouldn't have been hit 3 times?

I am not hung up on the idea of wanting to really make my players suffer. I use minions for the fact that they are initially challenging when combat breaks out, but I expect them to get slaughtered quickly. So just killing off some minions is a no-brainer.

It's not really about making the players suffer, as being sure I get whatever fiddly bits there might be in the system correct. The beginner adventure was an awesome leadup for the players, getting them invested and interested, and I think that Long Arm of the Hutt will be even better, but too many times I found myself thinking 'uhh..what to do with that roll', or something similar. I was happy with most of my decisions, but the blast weapon vs minion and excess damage rolling into a different minion were two things I wasn't sure about.

as a semi-seasoned DM (3 yrs) i've found that sometimes it takes an unknown(pardon the pun) "force" to give the NPC baddies a bit of an edge, such as not registering a hit... giving them DR(damage resistance)....more HP... a sudden artillery round detonating behind them (reducing them(pc's) in hp) or some other thing of similar nature(or if you were trying to get them to run away... (try throwing a storm trooper who's an undercover sith or something like that, have him take no damage until they start to run where you want them to run, then have him(the sith) take a lucky shot to the leg..... i think you get the hint, but it's also important not to have the mob to powerful and it's easier to weaken a mob than toughen him up in battle... and if you would like one more in the campaign let me know.