One more time the same topic...sigh!

Down with soak based rpgs! Rebellion!

If you don't want to houserule the game as I did, my only suggestion is do not make combat the centre part of your sessions. EotE is a game that offers challenges to PCs in many forms. Challenge your players with investigation (computers, black-market contacts, stealth...), social encounters (with criminals, politicians, rebels, imperials...), space combat, morale dilemmas, there are so many things!

As for personal combat, because most of the players likes that, I suggest you to, instead of putting powerful enemies that can match the marauder but endanger the whole party, just put many enemies who are a match for the less combat focused characters in your party. Just put a big number, so while the rest of the party is having fun dealing with the bad guys (seeking for cover, healing the wounds, shouting hurrah when they kill one of the baddies etc.) and feeling the challenge, your marauder can have fun chopping through the enemy ranks like they are butter, after all, probably that is what he build his character for. Let him be if he has fun.

Cheers,

Yepes

My crew has done very well in finding the wreck of the Sa Nalor.

Your beefcake marauder would not last long in front of our Gadgetteer. Her damage far outstrips his soak. Her heavy Blaster has 14 base damage, pierce, autofire, and she's rolling YYYGGBlue. Your marauder could hurt her a bit before he fell with multiple sucking chest wounds. Buh bye. And this character was hardly optimized. I'm more concerned about her ability to put down a Boss in a fight, than the Marauder soaking it up.

Our Marauder (force Exile) has a Soak of 6, and is struggling to get awesome. But he has 21 wounds. He has incredible defense in melee. PurpleRedBlackBlack He should top out at Soak 9, RedRedBlackBlack against all known targets. (So I guess you got it easy compared to me...)

My advice?

First, let the marauder succeed. Not all fights have to be resolved with a blaster. I have a super sneaky droid... should I punish him? That is very similar to what you are saying. He can sneak in anywhere. (YYYGG Master Of Shadows)

Second, hit him in the dump stats... find a scenario where he has more challenge to succeed. His agility can't be great, and the rest of his skills are essentially dump stats. He's over optimized, outside of melee combat. Kick him in the nuts for it. Time for a negotiation check... How would he deal with being coerced? Squeal like a little girl I bet. (I plan to annoy my Marauder with droids because his force powers don't work against them.)

Third, make him earn it. If your bad guys know what's coming, they can easily be prepared with traps. If they don't know, standard bad guy tactics are to pick on the big guy in front. If they do know... that's more interesting. Pit trap... Magnetic trap... HRB nest. Force field box.

Fourth, let your other players succeed. Even if he kicks butt in combat, doesn't mean that this is what the game is about. Run a 'repair the ship before we die' scenario (last fight in Beyond The Rim), Did I mention that our Doctor is getting pretty good at re-attaching limbs? Even in combat, he's probably busy and engaged, so who's going after the bad guy with the Death Star Plans in his back pocket?

The more I play the more I realize that however the players may dominate here or there, its more fun when they get into a scenario that they don't seem to dominate at. When I play with so much variety, there's always something interesting happening for all the players.

All good tips.

I should clarify there is no issue with what the other players are doing, and none of them feel overshadowed by the beefy Marauder. My point was to find a way to challenge him in the field he enjoys, without putting the rest of the party at a severe disadvantage.

Our Big Game Hunter steals plenty of his kills before he can get to them, so they're not for want of action. Most of my games are outside of combat as well, giving those with more talk-centered abilities, or mechanical skills, a serious up on him. The disadvantage is that he is a smart player. He knows when to stick with the party, or shift responsibilities when his weaknesses are satisfied by someone else's. He knows when they enter a social situation, to move to the back of the party, and let the Scoundrel do the talking.

Do I sometimes force him to talk? Sure. And he messes everything up for the rest of the party, and its hilarious.

Do I sometimes force him to do things he's terrible at? Totally. And he enjoys watching his hamfisted Trando bumble through a coordination check.

The point of the question was to find a way to keep him engaged in combat, and keep him a little scared. Not to make the rest of the party have fun. He's not a buzzkill. He's fearless and hard to kill. And I want to put a little fear into him.

I think the "Bring It Down" option is really elegant for when you want him to feel threatened by combat. Throw that around and bring pierce weapons and you're done. I wouldn't call it arms-racey (which I always prefer to avoid) and it shouldn't frustrate him too much, whereas I think constantly keeping him out of engaged would. And, as always, hit him in the dump stat. Coordination to get across hazardous terrain at his foes while they laugh at him while he falls and keep on shooting, or Fear checks, or whatever.

But don't go too far against him either. You don't want to punish him for making his character the way he did, you just want to remind him that those badass moments where he just wrecks your combat encounters come at a cost.

I'm very fond of the Bring It Down option as well. It takes his strength and makes it a weakness, which can result in a real "Oh ****!" moment. And no, punishing him is definitely not my goal. Just to make things a little harder, and a little less "I soaked it. Can I hit him now?"

It's a mistake to believe that a Marauder is only effective in when Engaged. Ranged skills are easy to pick up and talents can be cherrypicked to easily increase ranged output. The melee/brawl output of the Marauder can be secondary to the Soak and WT is allows the character to accumulate.

I agree, but thats the route he wanted to take. I don't want to punish him for his choices, rather feed off of them. Some of the ideas here have given me some good ammo to make things more exciting.

I've seen that some folks have house-ruled the Pierce quality to mean "At least X points of damage gets through soak".

This would mean if you shot your Soak 9 guy with a Pierce 2 weapon, then at least 2 points of damage would get through to cause wounds, rather than subtracting 2 from his soak, which may not result in any net damage being done.

This might be something to consider.

Do I sometimes force him to talk? Sure. And he messes everything up for the rest of the party, and its hilarious.

Do I sometimes force him to do things he's terrible at? Totally. And he enjoys watching his hamfisted Trando bumble through a coordination check.

The point of the question was to find a way to keep him engaged in combat, and keep him a little scared. Not to make the rest of the party have fun. He's not a buzzkill. He's fearless and hard to kill. And I want to put a little fear into him.

Talk To The Player...

Obviously his job is to anchor the group in a fight. Is he happy winning so much? Honestly, do you need to make him loose more (if he's having fun)? What I'm getting at is that you only need to toss the very very hard combat challenge at him rarely. The rest of the time he is basically doing his job, so let him.

Since its very hard to actually kill the players permanently, I really do throw big stuff at them, like space ships. My players make very liberal use of their Bacta tank.

Check out what I did to my players on Cholgana;

http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/97379-those-moments-of-awesome/

If my players had decided to fly their ship at the attacking imperial ship at the Retreat instead of dealing with the invading Storm Troopers in their cargo bay, then this would have had a very different story line. Usually my players ain't that bright, so I just beat the snot out of them.

The most repeated phrase in my group is, "If we survive this." I rarely start with that in mind... but tactically, if I can be a d*ck... I am. I kick them when they're down if I can.

I don't like some of the tone upthread that seems to be passing judgment on him for wanting to be a melee beatstick. It doesn't make him a "power gamer" or "min-maxer" because he decided to play a melee Trandoshan. I'm sure the long-term for this character was visible from chargen right when the GM saw "Trandoshan Marauder."

In other words, if the player's having fun with his character, that's a good thing. Is his fun to the detriment of the rest of the party? If not, that's a great thing. If it's frustrating you as a GM, it's not all or even mostly the player's fault, you just have to get more creative in challenges, and I don't mean only combat challenges. If there are a couple sessions that are mostly talk where he doesn't do much, that's also not your fault, it's his if he can do literally nothing else well because a GM running Edge is not signing up to run nothing but 4-hour combat simulations. Maybe someone else in the spotlight will incentivize him to take Coercion or something to branch out!

I can't speak for everyone else, but I did specifically say "don't do this all the time.." but to make the high soak character feel impotent can spark the fire of thinking beyond "can I smash it?". The fear that an enemy could be more poweful than actually using the enemy.

To quote the closing line from the Stephen Dietz' Dracula stage play (of which I played Renfield who had the last line)

"Though a foe, when vanquished, is gone from sight.. a fear, once rooted in your mind, is yours forever. Sweet dreams..."

I say give him what he wants. If a group of guys were going to fight Mike Tyson (in his prime) and 3 other nobodies they would all try to take out Mike first. So, just overwhelm him, keep him occupied. Allow the enemies to use the Assist maneuver instead of attacking which will increase the number of success, which in turn increases the damage.

For example; 3 minion groups attacking doing Weapon Damage of 8 each vs 9 soak = 0 damage, but 2 groups using assist adding (let's say 2 successes each) = 8 damage + 2 + 2 = 12 damage vs 9 soak = 3 wounds

I also like the 1 minimum rule in WHFRPG which is regardless of soak, when you take a hit, you always suffer at least one damage. I use that one as well. No supermans in my game.

I am curious why this didn't migrate over to Star Wars. There are Ironbreakers in a galaxy far away as well It also seems kinda weak that you could succeed on a combat check but not....succeed. I'm not eager to house rule my game yet but if/when that time comes that will be the first thing to come over from The Old World.

I'm not sure why it didn't make it's way over either. It's a good simple rule that keeps people's heads down I think.

since i too play a marauder soak monster, here is how you counter him.

1 anyone wearing laminate or heavy armor is constantly harassed by the Imperial troopers, it is not legal in the empire to wear stormtrooper armor or armor designed for war without a purpose, your marauder red flags law enforcement everywhere he goes due to what he wears.

2 grenades, the enforcer has to get up close to damage, so having enemies with lots of grenades is bad, especially stun grenades, he may have loads of soak and wounds, but i doubt his strain is very high.

3 ion weapons for same reason as above

5 nets and sticky grenades

6 impassible gaps between the enemies and the group, like fighting building to building, or across 2 cliffs with a long drop between them

those should give you some help

lets just hope for your sake he doesn't do what i want to do and use 4 halves of spec trees to get up to a potential 20 soak and 32 wounds with 6 defense

oh and if its to let the marauder have fun, those cyborg nexu from a certain campaign are fun, maybe a combat challenge like that, or a rancor.

Hey guys, first post in these forums.

Been GMing an ongoing EoTE game with about 5 people. So far, its gone very well, and we've managed to balance difficulty and fun, and had some great campaigns. However, in the course of our game I've encountered one problem that is making writing scenarios for my players that are challenging, yet fun, difficult.

That one guy, with way too much soak.

In short, we have a Marauder who has minmaxed his way down his tree to bring his soak up to 9, negating most blaster weapons, and his Wounds to 24. Which makes for a great tank, and is a smart move if you just wanted to beat the game.

The rest of the party? Not nearly so beefy, most of them with a soak of 3-4 and wounds of 12-14. They're playing explorer, smugglers, and mechanics. Even if they're well armed and armoured, none of them want to run around in heavy armour, nor can they all afford Personal Shields.

Where I'm having trouble is creating a way to keep the Marauder from facesmashing his way through everything, without putting in an enemy that can nearly one-shot one of the other players (which has almost happened enough times to make it a concern).

I don't want to force the rest of the party to abandon skills that make for better roleplay, like Knowledge and Medicine, for Brawn, Grit, and combat skills. Nor do I want them to dump all of their credits on getting heavy armor, just to keep up with the one guy.

I also do not want to tell the Marauder to respend his talents, reroll, or something extreme.

When writing, I've started designing enemies specifically to counter him, and keep him busy, while the party has a normal fight along side him, but that feels skeezy, and it can only last so long until its obvious I'm stacking the deck.

Running out of ideas, so I'm looking for some input from other GMs.

Lots of ways to take him out of his element: Space ship combat, plantery ship combat, climbing dangerous cliffs/buildings, poison drinks, having to get through a sun soaked jungle/desert on foot, trying to dive out of the way of a trampling Land vehicle (AT-AT walkers) or some kind of heavy machinery..be creative, build obstacles, weapons arnt the only dangers in the galaxy...

I dont see how this is a problem. Design most encounters so that he gets to stomp everyone like a rampaging bantha herd. Then at some point have an aincient guy with a conical hat confront him. An ancient Doctor/Big game hunter/Marauder/ Assassin. Who decks him in one hit. Strain damage of course. If any of the other members of the party go after the old guy, suddenly every person on the street has a blaster pointed at them, every window has a guy with a blaster in it, and every rooftop is lined with guys with blasters. Ask them if they want to rethink trying to do anything to the old guy who is now giving the trando a sermon on peace and tranquility.

Then later have a fight where the big baddy is on a dias taunting the marauder. When he charges into combat, he sails right through the hologram and into the pit. Now he has to spend several turns climbing out of the pit while the rest of the party is suddenly without their damage sponge.

But most of all, try to arrainge the fights so that the non-fighters have non-fighting things to do. Make it so that while the Hitter is defenestrating the guards, the Hacker is slicing the comps to insert the evidence of rebel activity and the Thief is breaking the vault for the cash monies, all while the Grifter is convincing the Impys that there is nothing to see here.

Cause remember, all you need is some Leverage

Kaalla,

When I demo I get some of the min/max, pathfinder players often enough. I often use pre-gens because this. However, when I do allow them to make their own characters, after a session or two, they often express a desire to re-spec, or to create a new toon. Not because I have it out for them, but because the narrative system, and a crafty GM, will make the deficiencies glaringly obvious. It really is set up for more rounded characters.

In the two consistent groups I run, I have one toon that is a soak monster, an Assassin-droid. He is completely unintentional... He isn't trying to be a bullet sponge, it's just how the toon is coming together. I could only imagine what it would be like if the player was actually trying to max out.

(No longer applies, see edit) I guess before you start plotting, ask yourself some questions. How do the rest of the party feel about it? Both in and out of character. Is it disrupting their fun? Are they getting tired of "holding the torch" for this dude? If this character is having such an easy time of things, perhaps he is bored of the character and wishes he built something a bit more rounded.

If everyone is having fun and enjoying the game... there is an old saying about not fixing what isn't broke. If it's frustrating to you(s).. talk to them, outside of game and look for suggestions. Talk to him about toning down the toon a bit.

Even if you're just looking to make his life a bit more challenging then here are my notes:

EtoE is pretty much yin/yang mechanically. It's set up for player characters to be a bit more jack of all trade with specialties, but not so much min/maxing. It's rock, paper, scissors. This character put all his eggs in the "rock" basket... make him realize the error of his choices, start tossing "paper" around like its glitter in a gentleman's club.

-Debuffing. Any min/maxed physical player is highly susceptible to mind/thought influencing skills. Any decent politico is going to mop the floor with him before the weapons are even pulled. Have the leaders in your bad-guy groups start using debuffs.

-Critters- a rancor doesn't care who/what your small meaty body is geared for. Nom nom nom!

-Split the party, put them in situations where splitting the party is a sound option, but let them come to that conclusion of their own accord. For instance, have targets "slip out the back door" a few times. Won't be too much of that happening until they ensure all exits are covered. If they are tracking down clues, they will cover more ground if they split up, etc.... Then you can use appropriate bad-guys without endangering the rest of the party.

Stun settings, the big guys, always seem to be "threading the needle" in strain department. Even with the reduction to damage, the character only has a handful of hits he can take. Really it's only a matter of time.

EMP/Ion will do a number on personal shields and droid characters.

Concussion damage. Sound damage (Ithorian's bellow, etc..). Force (or force like powers such as the witches), don't attack in the traditional routes, and often times bypass soak all together.
Environment- Heat (deserts, engine rooms), cold (hoth)... a long foot chase, bodies of water (swimming), etc... make him use strain. If he is using armor, put him in situations where it has to come off to avoid serious consequences.

Poison- can do a real number on beings.

Groups: No matter what, if this cat is dominating the battle field he/she is going to attract attention. Any military force is going to remove the biggest threat, first. Have the minions group and throw a Sgt for good measure. A squad of stromies are going to provide various levels of threats for your whole group, in the same battle... allowing you to adjust them dependent of what challenges the individual PC(s) you have them targeting.

Fame/notoriety- The outer rim is a lot like the wild west. Once this character becomes known for his abilities in a fight... others will use them to name for themselves... by taking down this well know character, or beating her at her own game. Rarely is this fight going to be fair, as the people attacking her are going to "stack the deck" in their favor. Sucker punches, snipers, barricades, wookies and trandos... and those are just the "random" encounters. The intended opponents, are going to start having heard about said character and preparing for him, once they know THAT'S who is on their trail. Ambushes and traps, which min/max toons are often ill equipped to have much of a chance of noticing.

Wow, this last half really looks like you're out to get him. This stuff should be spaced out, and not all of it used. Was just for jotting down some options for you. Use what you wish, stuff the others in a back pocket for the future. Don't go balls out to get a player, just use what you need to provide a challenge, and again, if nobody is complaining, and everyone is having fun.... don't try to "fix" it.


Edit:: I started writing this this morning, figured I'd come back and finish it, then post it. At that time this thread was a lot smaller, with less information (like you're (and your party) not having issues with his character). Some of this post doesn't apply any longer, however, I didn't change it in case some of the lurkers came here because they are having exactly this problem, and need the info.

It's a mistake to believe that a Marauder is only effective in when Engaged. Ranged skills are easy to pick up and talents can be cherrypicked to easily increase ranged output.

While this true for most... when a character is this specialized, rarely did they spend the extra xp to accumulate out of class skills.

I played a droid marauder who was somewhere around eight or nine soak by the time he died; combat sessions were great fun, and although I did the bulk of the fighting everybody else got a reasonable amount of smashing in as well. However, we hit a two or three week period where the focus was almost entirely on social encounters, and it became a little less fun for me. What I did was invest a couple ranks in coercion and flesh out my roleplaying - I had some really great in-character conversations with a guy playing a former Jedi.

"Becky" was a Magnaguard deactivated during the battle of Kashyyyk. After 20 years laying unconscious in the jungle he was found and repaired by Wookiee revolutionaries, where he continued what he perceived to be fighting for the CiS (and picked up some Wookiee cultural practices along the way) - he didn't distinguish between Clone Troopers and Stormtroopers, he probably always thought of the Republic as "The Empire," and would barely have noticed any political change beyond that the Clone Wars had ended.

The basic concepts behind the character were laid out in the one-paragraph backstory that I had created for an XP bribe. However, I didn't truly start playing the character until I ran out of things to smash.

His crowning moments were not the times that he bisected security officers, but the times that he mixed his violent, near-psychotic tendencies with social encounters. At one point, a significant NPC who had scammed his way into a fairly high-ranking corporate job was about to be fired by his board of directors. His influence and support were essential to our group, and when we happened to be meeting with him when his superiors came to let him go, the party face failed a few rolls, and the group was at a loss. So Becky did what he does best and suddenly severed one of the dudes' legs, brandishing it and screaming at the others "he still has his job!"

I rolled Coercion, the social skill Becky had picked up during the Great Blood Drought of '13, and got something along the lines of failure with several advantages and a triumph (you get a lot of Boost Dice when brandishing a severed limb). This tempts me to digress on how much I adore the EotE dice system, but I'll try to stay on topic. The result: "no, he doesn't have his job." The CEO took a frightened look at his colleague lying bleeding on the floor. "He has his job now. Sorry, Jim, you know we can't afford to pay your health insurance after that sort of injury."

So, what I'm getting at is that it's the responsibility of the player to make his own character fun - if he's unbalanced, he'll either be twiddling his thumbs or find a way to participate. At the same time, it's the responsibility of the GM to be responsive to creative moves. So, if you don't like the way that he dominates combat, use the suggestions above in moderation (if my GM had decided to launch nothing but Jet Troopers at us, I'd have been pissed) to keep combat challenging, and every so often give him a chance to shine - there's nothing more fun than taking small-arms fire damage that comes out to less than your soak. Being bulletproof is awesome.

I also like the pierce house rule where the Pierce rating is minimum damage or you could use the "Die by a thousand cuts" house rule where there is a minimum 1 damage on a successful hit. A lot of other RPGs use that rule.

Hmm, this topic yet agian.

---begin scathing tirade---

Players really dont have to be punished for their choices of character development. So what if a character has 9 soak. It really doesnt matter unless you as a GM want to beat them up for no good reason. Just let them have fun. As a GM the point is to tell a story and make sure the players are having fun...thats really it.

---end scathing tirade---

Edge really isnt a system like D&D where you constantly fight. Have a couple sessions in a row without combat and the combat minmaxers are basically going to feel useless. If they still want to participate, they will have to adjust for it and spend XP on something other than combat skills...then no more problem.

Have you talked to your players about your issues? If you and your players are serious about the situation, perhaps some compromise can be made.

If you as a GM get really grumpy and just need to damage that particular character, you are the GM. Do whatever you want.

As long as the group has fun and work together well I don't really see an issue. There are plenty of ways to bring down even the mightiest of soak monsters. Where I get concerned is where you have an entire group full of utility players with holdout pistols and one giant Math Monster. From an npc and adventure design standpoint it's just a poor group build because you can easily find yourself designing two games for any given session. Not an impossible task, per se. But also not particularly fun. Going forward I'm tempted to take the Shadowrun approach of "pink Mohawk" vs. "black trenchcoat" and spend a bit more time during character creation getting a feel for what kind of campaign the group wants, and making a few polite recommendations at that time. A 5 minute conversation during the first session could really go a long way towards avoiding many of these little awkward spots I see in group builds.

anyone wearing laminate or heavy armor is constantly harassed by the Imperial troopers, it is not legal in the empire to wear stormtrooper armor or armor designed for war without a purpose, your marauder red flags law enforcement everywhere he goes due to what he wears.

I'm afb right now, but IIRC, laminate armor is legal to own and use, but without modifications, you might as well stick to Padded Armor. Just get Laminate that isn't Stormtrooper Armor (find an off brand). Heavy Battle Armor is indeed Restricted.

Being bulletproof is awesome.

It means that the next group will either try to hire you, or throw atomic weapons on you.

Always remember rule #2

Lot of posts here seem to think I want to punish the player for his choices, or somehow take away the perks he built into his character. He built a tank, and I know that. He's promoted that fact.

The point of this was not to slap him on the wrist for building his character the way he wanted.

The point of this was to think of some creative ways to push his limits and challenge him.

Combat is the area he enjoys. I can put him in as many other elements as I like, but combat is what he enjoys. The first thing he asks for on every planet is if there is a pit fighting ring. The point of this was to help come up with some baddies that force him to fight in a new way, or present him with a clear indication of, "This is my limit" without it being a Rancor or Jedi. Thankfully, there are a lot of good ideas that I've already started implementing (including the Pierce house rule, which the player has already agreed to as reasonable).

I'm not a grumpy GM. I don't have a problem with the player, or the group as a whole. I want to challenge him in the area he excels in, and let him feel as awesome as he wants to.

I'm not a grumpy GM. I don't have a problem with the player, or the group as a whole. I want to challenge him in the area he excels in, and let him feel as awesome as he wants to.

As long as his fun isn't ruining the fun of others I think your attitude on the whole deal is great, actually.

I'm not a grumpy GM. I don't have a problem with the player, or the group as a whole. I want to challenge him in the area he excels in, and let him feel as awesome as he wants to.

As long as his fun isn't ruining the fun of others I think your attitude on the whole deal is great, actually.

Hardly. He enjoys being the big beefy tank, definitely. And it seems everyone enjoys him running around smashing things.

But he boasts he wants to go toe to toe with big things. Helpful that his Obligation is 'Power' (Scorekeeper wants him to beat up everything in the galaxy maybe. I don't know how Trandos think... If they think). I just don't want big things to kill the rest of the party at the same time.

After talking to him about his desires, we guided him into putting points into Coercion and Leadership, so he can try to soak enemies onto himself, rather than the party. That way he can live the tank role he wanted.

I'm not a grumpy GM. I don't have a problem with the player, or the group as a whole. I want to challenge him in the area he excels in, and let him feel as awesome as he wants to.

As long as his fun isn't ruining the fun of others I think your attitude on the whole deal is great, actually.

Hardly. He enjoys being the big beefy tank, definitely. And it seems everyone enjoys him running around smashing things.

But he boasts he wants to go toe to toe with big things. Helpful that his Obligation is 'Power' (Scorekeeper wants him to beat up everything in the galaxy maybe. I don't know how Trandos think... If they think). I just don't want big things to kill the rest of the party at the same time.

After talking to him about his desires, we guided him into putting points into Coercion and Leadership, so he can try to soak enemies onto himself, rather than the party. That way he can live the tank role he wanted.

See, that's great. It fits the character and the build in a way that doesn't have you mowing over the rest of the group. That Scorekeeper...she has demands