We ha our first game last night, and it went pretty well on the whole. I ran into a couple situations that brought the game to a halt while we all madly looked up rules, but for the most part it went fairly smooth.

I have one question regarding a stealth check. We had four PC's trying to sneak into a hanger to steal back their ship, which somebody had stolen from them. How would people make this roll. Have the Guard roll against a perception against the PC's stealth, and if so how do I set the difficulty when their are four targets?

Or would it be better to have all the PC's roll against perhaps the perception of the guard? In that case it seems fairly straight forward, but what if there had been two guards?

I think this is a situation where you can do whatever you like best.

I would probably do an opposed check of stealth vs perception using the PC who is best at stealth with a setback (maybe 2) for the added risk of leading his/her buddies.

Alternatively, you can do a check for the worst PC at stealth and assume that if anyone would get spotted, it's this PC. (Edit: Wanted to mention that this is my second choice because it makes it harder for that player who took points in stealth to feel like they mattered. I'd rather the one who obviously cares about his stealth abilities to roll than the one who doesn't and make the stealth PC feel less awesome)

I wouldn't do 4 different rolls there, cause I think the odds of passing that are terrible. Also, I don't think there's enough difference between one and two guards to worry about playing with that.

Generally I suggest letting the PCs make as many of the rolls as possible. Have the PCs roll their stealth against the guards.

I'd probably set the difficulty as if the guards were assisting each other (either best of the two attributes/skills or +1boost (if the stats are the same)

Edit: and I second the idea of having the PC with the stealth score roll for the party. To keep people involved I'd have all the other players roll too, if they succeed the Stealth PC gets a bonus, if they fail she gets a setback.

One way to make it quicker and more streamlined is to let the two best PCs assist each other (add their best Stealth and Agility) and then assign one Setback die for each additional PC. Then roll that pool as an opposed roll against the guard's Perception. If there are more than one guard, combine the best Perception and Cunning and add Boost dice for additional guards, but only if they're actively alert.

I'd consider something like this:

Let each PC make a roll... probably starting with the most stealthy to build tension.

In general, rolling dice is fun, so whenevefr there's a choice between players being active or passive, I favor active.

With respect to the opposition, I would treat the guards with a variant form of the minion guidelines: pick the highest Perception and upgrade once for each additional guard.

On the other hand, it's all relative, so if this is just a simple thing that you expect the heroes to succeed at, don't upgrade... or even just let them get through without rolling.

Make certain you give appropriate boost and setback dice as appropriate. If the PCs are crawling around in the brush at night, the guards are going to have a few setback dice. The brush might grant a boost die, but the darkness would be a setback. Distance from the guards should also grant setbacks for the guards. These are the sort of things that are important to helping even the less stealthy PCs feel like they've got a chance.

Thanks for all the help everybody, some great ideas.

These guys needed all the help they could get. Of the four sneaking, only one had stealth. Luckily the guard was only was Storm Trooper Sgt, who though vigilant and all that, was not overly perceptive. I think I ended up having everybody do competitive checks for this one. There were a couple failures, but the one with stealth had a bunch of boosts, so I had those go to helping the less fortunate. The trooper failed his roll also, so it balanced out. In the future I might take some of the above advice and consolidate rolls. I'll talk with players and we can decide together how we want to handle situations like this in the future.

Something i just thought of and i wanted to put it forth to be examined.

The difficulty would be determined as per minion (thanks go to gwek for that input).

Nominate the PC with the highest Stealth. For every PC in the group that doesn't have training, downgrade the check. for every PC that does, cancel one of the downgrades. This way his stealth score isn't going to magically get better, but the supporting pc's training can offset some of the others lack of ability.

What say you?

If you look up the Stealth skill you will see that additional successes lets the acting character assist allies also infiltrating, by pointing out details that could lead to failure. This is intentionally vague I guess, but I'd think that for 2 or more additional successes you could provide one ally a boost die for his or her check, or remove a setback die - whatever is the most appropriate under the circumstances.

So I'd let the Stealthiest character in the group go first, and his success would aid his allies. The check would be against the closest of the guards, or the one with the highest cunning. If minions they would probably be identical, and if they have perception as a group skill, I'd upgrade appropriately if grouped/close to each other.

Now if they all wanted to go simultaneously, I'd make it an assisted check, adding 1 setback die per person beyond the first, or perhaps second... leading one person shouldn't incur a setback die in my opinion. So 1 setback die if a total of 3 people, 2 if 4 and so on.

It could also come down to what each player has the most fun with. If some players prefer combat, but you're ruling that they can't just go in guns a blazing to get their ship, then you could have the stealthy party members go in, and do something very advantageous for the rest of the group. Like distracting the guards and opening up the secure door for the rest of the party to come pouring through.

This could lead to a surprise attack on the guards, where they have to roll vigilance with some setbacks and the party rolls cool with some boosts for initiative. Maybe even give the party boosts on their attacks for the first round.

Either way, the people who like stealth will feel like their skill proficiency mattered and made a difference and the combat-centric folks will also feel like they made some heavy contribution.

But, yeah, if your story called for all characters to be sneaky -- no matter what -- then I would go with what the others have suggested.