So this evening we got into a fight with a nemesis. He had a soak value of 5, and the characters kept dealing 6 wounds, which got bumped down to 1. At a certain point its just 4 characters standing over someone who laughs at the tickles from the blasters. The same thing happened with Stun.

My question is this.....are my PC's too underpowered, or are my villains over powered?

We looked at some of the other NPCs in the book, and a Hutt could have 10 guys surrounding him all with blasters, and just laugh at their pathetic attempts to do one wound to him.

Am I reading something wrong?

Why are they only dealing 6 wounds? Every additional uncancelled success should give an additional point of damage.

your PC's have nothing but hold out blasters and sticks? 5 dmg or less weapons?

none of your characters have a heavy pistol, carbine, rifle, grenade or any vibro-weapon with pierce?

Unless your PC's are not combat spec'ed they should have at least 3 agi and 1-2 in skill to use their weapons. In 3 rounds of combat or so someone should have rolled enough to do some a crit or triumph, or use advantage to boost a teammate to do something useful.

5 soak isnt THAT much.

Yeah, it sounds like the OP's group is underpowered, at least in terms of raw firepower.

Unless none of them took extra Obligation for additional funds (or they simply took extra Obligation to get the extra starting credits), it's not too difficult to start with a blaster pistol, which does 7 damage on a successful attack (base 6, +1 for the uncancelled success). Even just taking +5 Obligation for an extra 1000 credits means a PC could start with a heavy blaster pistol, a blaster carbine, or a blaster rifle and still have credits left over for other things. Heck, a slugthrower rifle (which can be obtained with just the base 500 credits) does more damage and is cheaper than a light blaster pistol.

So it's not so much a case of Soak Value being a problem, but more that your group brought peashooters to the fight. Truthfully, you may want to give them a chance to upgrade to more capable sidearms as soon as possible, especially if you plan on having the PCs duke it out with any other combat-capable NPCs. Because Diggles is right, a Soak Value of 5 really isn't all that much.

Are they spending their Destiny points?

Why are they only dealing 6 wounds? Every additional uncancelled success should give an additional point of damage.

This. The "Damage" listed in the equipment chapter is the base damage. Each un-cancelled success is +1 damage, so on a base hit (1 success) with a regular blaster pistol you're doing 7 damage: 6 base +1 for the 1 success on your roll. So a really good roll with 3 successes will net you 9 damage!

-EF

Why are they only dealing 6 wounds? Every additional uncancelled success should give an additional point of damage.

This. The "Damage" listed in the equipment chapter is the base damage. Each un-cancelled success is +1 damage, so on a base hit (1 success) with a regular blaster pistol you're doing 7 damage: 6 base +1 for the 1 success on your roll. So a really good roll with 3 successes will net you 9 damage!

-EF

Could be they're just using light blaster pistols (which are cheap and don't have the range restriction of hold-out blasters) or slugthrower pistols (really cheap, but worse damage than a hold-out or light pistol).

If the PCs are only rolling one or two successes to hit with those sorts of weapons... well, they're not going to be dishing out a lot of damage.

Of course, if the OP isn't letting their players increase the damage via uncancelled successes, that's an entirely different problem.

Why are they only dealing 6 wounds? Every additional uncancelled success should give an additional point of damage.

This. The "Damage" listed in the equipment chapter is the base damage. Each un-cancelled success is +1 damage, so on a base hit (1 success) with a regular blaster pistol you're doing 7 damage: 6 base +1 for the 1 success on your roll. So a really good roll with 3 successes will net you 9 damage!

-EF

Could be they're just using light blaster pistols (which are cheap and don't have the range restriction of hold-out blasters) or slugthrower pistols (really cheap, but worse damage than a hold-out or light pistol).

If the PCs are only rolling one or two successes to hit with those sorts of weapons... well, they're not going to be dishing out a lot of damage.

Of course, if the OP isn't letting their players increase the damage via uncancelled successes, that's an entirely different problem.

Crit's too. Even with those weapons you can still crit and do some nasty things if you do it two or three times.

Why are they only dealing 6 wounds? Every additional uncancelled success should give an additional point of damage.

This. The "Damage" listed in the equipment chapter is the base damage. Each un-cancelled success is +1 damage, so on a base hit (1 success) with a regular blaster pistol you're doing 7 damage: 6 base +1 for the 1 success on your roll. So a really good roll with 3 successes will net you 9 damage!

-EF

Could be they're just using light blaster pistols (which are cheap and don't have the range restriction of hold-out blasters) or slugthrower pistols (really cheap, but worse damage than a hold-out or light pistol).

If the PCs are only rolling one or two successes to hit with those sorts of weapons... well, they're not going to be dishing out a lot of damage.

Of course, if the OP isn't letting their players increase the damage via uncancelled successes, that's an entirely different problem.

Yeah, something is missing here. Either the entire party is packing ultra-light weaponry, or *something*. If that's the case (the ultra-light weaponry), then perhaps it's a better idea *not* to throw enemies at them with 5+ Soak.

Sounds to me that maybe they're not adding successes as additional damage. 5 soak seems to be the average enemy soak starting out. it's not all that much.

Crit's too. Even with those weapons you can still crit and do some nasty things if you do it two or three times.

Yeah, I'm liking the criticals now. Last weekend had a fight against a significantly more powerful bad guy that totally turned in our favor pretty much thanks to the criticals stacking up. Without 'em, we've have been boned.

OP, it sounds like you're doing it wrong. No offense meant, of course.

As others have said, every success uncancelled is +1 damage. So if a blaster does 5 damage, and it is a successful hit, that is automatically 6 damage. 2 successes? 7 damage.

3 or 4 advantages? Critical hit.

My players were hitting for upwards of 9 to 10 damage a pop.

I suppose that I've been botching the job as well.

I've always supposed that when you get a success on a roll, it was canceled out automatically, regardless of whether or not there was a failure, i.e. if the player rolls one success and nothing else, they succeed, but the success is canceled out to spend on succeeding. If they roll two successes, they spend one to succeed and one to add one point of damage.

At least, that was my understanding of it.

But anyways, I agree that their weapons are underpowered. They should be doing a good amount of damage (my players went up against a band of security guards and had them down in a jiffy, and the guards had 5 soak). I'd suggest using the successes to add damage, and look into the critical hits.

I suppose that I've been botching the job as well.

I've always supposed that when you get a success on a roll, it was canceled out automatically, regardless of whether or not there was a failure, i.e. if the player rolls one success and nothing else, they succeed, but the success is canceled out to spend on succeeding. If they roll two successes, they spend one to succeed and one to add one point of damage.

At least, that was my understanding of it.

A lot of folks initially thought the same way, including myself and both GM Chris and GM Dave of the Order 66 podcast. It wasn't until a guest appearance by Jay Little that the issue got clarified, mostly by him pointing out the usage of "uncancelled successes." Which was also a reason for the damage ratings of all the weapons being knocked back at least one point during the EotE Beta process.

I suppose that I've been botching the job as well.

I've always supposed that when you get a success on a roll, it was canceled out automatically, regardless of whether or not there was a failure, i.e. if the player rolls one success and nothing else, they succeed, but the success is canceled out to spend on succeeding. If they roll two successes, they spend one to succeed and one to add one point of damage.

At least, that was my understanding of it.

A lot of folks initially thought the same way, including myself and both GM Chris and GM Dave of the Order 66 podcast. It wasn't until a guest appearance by Jay Little that the issue got clarified, mostly by him pointing out the usage of "uncancelled successes." Which was also a reason for the damage ratings of all the weapons being knocked back at least one point during the EotE Beta process.

Ah, I see. Thanks for the clarification.

That's a thing that came up when people asked about one-shotting stormtroopers (Soak 5, WT 5, so 10 damage required to one-shot) "like in the movies". Blaster carbines and blaster rifles have a listed 9 base damage, but it's that "uncancelled successes" that makes them do 10+ damage in actual play.