I feel like I'm doing this wrong, but playing through Beyond the Rim I'm not really feeling the danger of the animals. Maybe I'm toning it down too much, but the party consists of a non-combat droid, an explorer, and a detective (NPC I run as a character), so I'm leery of sending in more than one at a time. The nexu just get one attack, and it doesn't seem that severe. Do you allow them to dual wield? Or do they get multiple attacks automatically?

Make sure you start using fear checks. Gets the characters feeling nervous (set back die). Have the nexu dart in attack and hide in the jungle. You can't fight what you can't see.

Something really dangerous is the arboreal octopus. They jump down on a character, ensnare them, climb up into a tree with the ensnared character (as high as they can go) and drop the entangled character.

I'm a huge octopus fan, I love the creatures, they are Incredibly intelligent. They learn very quickly. I used my love to, with a triumph, have an octopus know what blasters were and pull one out of a characters holster and throw it in the jungle.

Finally, don't have the animals fight to the death. Retreat and have them stalk the party till a character is alonem

Finally, if you aren't overly attached to your NPC, have them go 'into the tall grass' jurassic park style.

I would absolutely allow nexus to dual wield. I've been playing tabletop games since 2nd Edition AD&D in the early 90s, so the concept of animals that don't claw/claw/bite is pretty foreign to me.

I haven't run the module yet, but I'm in the process of updating it for my party; when the time comes, I'm intending to allow nexus to claw/claw/bite/tail lash by adding a difficulty die and two Setback dice to their die pool, just like I'm doing for my four-armed droid PC. (Most of the time I'll probably just have them claw/bite, though.) I feel the same way; the animals don't seem too tough to me.

Adding fear checks helps, but I've also been thinking of various ways to spice up the encounter by either having it take place in the trees -- some of which are burned and brittle from the Sa Nalaor's crash -- or by adding a dose of inclement weather (probably a tropical storm, but perhaps tornado). My group isn't very combat-focused either, so stuff like that goes a long way towards making an encounter more interesting.

(BTW, as an update for the four-armed droid PC, it turns out using the standard rules for dual-wielding plus adding an extra Setback die for additional limbs beyond two works perfectly fine. He hasn't hit with more than two attacks so far; for the most part, his extra arms just get in the way.)

Thanks for the input. I have absolutely been using fear checks, it's a great way to set the mood. They have only managed to kill one nexu, because of a Triumph on the roll before it was about to flee. I generally don't make animals fight to the death. So that's standard practice for me.

I re-read a few things after my OP and realized I could easily dual-or-more wield. Plus I realized I'd done the wasps wrong...they only have to hit to have an effect, they don't actually have to do any damage. Lastly, I ran the octopii after the OP, and that was the best fun yet. In addition to freaking the player out, a couple of Yav's minions got caught by them, hoisted into the trees, then the octopii took off like gibbons. All the group heard was the screams of Rodians fading into the distance.

There's still plenty of time to do more, and do it right.

Last thing...the Reevos have a ranged water attack, but AG 2 and no skill. This seems pretty useless to me. Any thoughts on making it more effective? I suspect it may be necessary soon...

Holy crap! I just realized that Reevos have a WT of 35! That's insanity!

In any case, these "Lock Ness Monsters" don't seem to be very scary in combat, but I think that's on purpose since they're kind of domestic mounts. I aso don't think their water blast is "useless" considering very few animals have a ranged attack of any kind, making it a nice -- although not necessarily nasty -- surprise.

That said, if you wanted to make their water attack nastier, I would recommend changing the key skill to Resilience instead of Ranged (Heavy). Since they have a Brawn of 4 you wouldn't even need to give them skill ranks; they'd be rolling 4 Ability dice anyway, which is plenty for a big but not-especially-threatening creature.

Considering that the Ithorian's bellow was changed to Resilience instead of Ranged (Light), I'm inclined to think that this is consistent with the most current RAW. Plus, it just makes sense. Resilience is the skill needed to hold one's breath, so why wouldn't it apply to spitting water or screaming really loud? Both are essentially functions of lung capacity.

Same spot as me... My players are 140-170XP earned at this point.

Droid went into Besh 34 and had no issues. But they were afraid that the bugs would eventually hurt him and get through his soak, so he jumped into the pod with a live grenade. :-) It took days to put him back together.. but the bugs were gone. (I let him backup to the ship first.)

They split the party and sent 4 into the wreckage via the bridge. 2 were full combat (Marauder and Bounty Hunter), the other two were not so useful (droids). I had 2 platoons of 5 Storm Trooper Scouts waiting if they escaped the Sa Nalor.

Their ship left the scene, and several Cyber Nexu entered the ship via the bridge behind the players. I was intent on a repeat of Aliens, only driving them further into the ship.

Nexu were put down quick with little effort. In one fight it was tough, but hardly 'die hard effect' tough. At the start of the next session I decided to A) make a souped up Cyber Nexu, B) give it all attacks at once to take on a group, C) chase them into the wreckage, so that a chase with 2 useless droids in two would point out how vulnerable they were.

Single actions is what makes Nexu easy. Give them multiple attacks and watch your players cry.

That session was fun. Again the players put down the souped up Nexu with ease, but the group took 2 crits, and some damage. The Marauder had his sword arm maimed, and more Nexu were on the way. This went from "we are awesome" to "Please help us" in a heart beat.

After considerable effort, they escaped. Literally leaping from the wreckage, the marauder fell Medium Range to get out, earning him a one way ticket to the bacta tank.

Before you think the adventure is too easy, remember the level of combat readiness the players have compared to Padme in Movie 2. My players faced them armed with vibro-sword and heavy Blaster Rifle, and they were good.