Hello Testers,

This thread is stickied for the purpose of posting feedback and comments concerning the adversaries. Thanks, everyone! 

So, I was looking at how effective Stormtroopers are in combat, and found that they carry quite a bit of gear. Their total Enc is 12 (blaster rifle, vibro knife, laminate armour, 3 grenades). Obviously, adversaries don't have to follow the written rules. Still, if handled RAW, this would mean Stormtroopers suffer 4 setback dice on pretty much any check, and don't get a free maneuver due to being encumbered.

This quite comically recreates the idea that Stormtroopers can't hit the broadside of a barn (so I'm actually not against this being the case, and props to the designers if this is working as intended).

Otherwise, they did seem quite a bit effective. A group of 4 (3 agi, effective Ranged(Heavy) 3 skill due to group size - 1) drops 3 proficiency dice, vs. 2 difficulty dice and 1 setback, firing at PCs in medium range who are behind cover. Fairly likely to deal 11-13 damage a turn, effectively downing a PC every other turn.

One other thing, having heard that its possible that armour does not add (or adds differently) to encumbrance, this may not matter at all (as minus the laminate armour they would be able to carry all of that gear).

One big question I now have is trying to determine if a group of minions > 6 have an effective skill rating of Size - 1 still. Skills cap at 5 for PCs, but its unstated for NPCs/Minions (especially given the "don't follow normal rules" blurb).

Basically, when shooting, do 10 Stormtroopers drop 6 ability/3 proficiency, or 2 ability/3 proficiency? I'm inclined to believe it caps at 5, as otherwise its difficult to do a larger group combat without just accidentally murdering a party member each turn.

I imagine the intent is for larger group combats to broken up into a number of smaller groups acting independently, such as is seen in the Tusken Raider encounter in the sample adventure.

Star Wars Beta: EotE, page 199. Twi'Lek Black Mareketeer [Henchman] 

The NPC adversary doesn't have any proficiency ranks in charm or deceit.

I know the rule on page 38 (Twi'Lek Special Abilities) only strictly aply to PC's and Nemesis.

So maybe thi is as intended. And then againmaybe not.

Really the first option would be kinda liberating for NPC creation duties.

Anywway, I though it was worth to mention.  

 Maybe I missed something somewhere, but how would a group of minions attack more than one PC at once if they make just a single attack roll?  For some reason I think I read something somewhere about it, but I could just be confusing it with the auto fire rules (of course it may just be the same as the auto fire rules).

Also regarding Minions, I failed to find in the written text anykind of provision to calculate or otherwise determine the wound threshold of Minions.

OB-1 said:

Minions have their own Wound Thresholds. Look at their statblocks.

 Yes, but how are they determined is the question. 

Inksplat said:

Actually, he has a point, at least from the POV of building your own NPCs, something that some of us GMs like to do rather than just rely on the same set of stat blocks over and over again.

Granted, I'm hoping the final version has some basic guidelines on building NPCs, particularly as pertains to Wound Thresholds.  As it stands, it looks like Minions get 2 to 4 skills, most at only 1 rank , and a Wound Threshold of 5 in most instances.  Henchmen seem to be more on par with starting PCs, though with slightly better characteristics and talents than a starting PC can generally get.  And Nemesis-level baddies seem to be in a category all their own, with it taking hundreds of XP for PCs to reach similar levels of power, or simply can't reach those levels at all in some instances.

OB-1 said:

Please have NPCs follow the same rules as PCs unless there is a specific reason for them not to do so in a case by case basis. In the case of this Twi'lek, I don't see a compelling reason for NPC Twi'leks to lack proficiency in either charm or deceit.

There really does need to be guidelines for creating Minions, Henchmen and Nemesis level NPCs and some sort of guidelines for skill levels, so that minor NPCs can be created on the fly.  There also needs to be some guidelines for creating encounters?

As for species characteristics, I would say that most NPCs should be created as non-specific, species wise, and its up to the GM to add species characteristics that might come in to play.

Minions attacking as a group make a single attack roll to determine success.  Since this one roll represent fire from multiple weapons, would it be reasonable to add the "Linked" quality to these attacks?  Very successful attacks (e.g. large number of advantages) by these groups could generate multiple hits from the group.  The ability may require more advantages to activate than the "linked" quality states to appropriately control the abilities potency.

-WJL

 That would definitely make minions with ranged weapons more fearsome in the damage output department if you feel they aren't serving their purpose.   However, I look at it as I do in WFRP.  The damage output of the group is "minionized" such that a "hit" from a group of stormtrooper minions might actually be a couple glancing strikes or near misses depending on how you visualize wounds.   So if a cloud of angry alien toothy creatures has a go at you the hit they generate is actually a number of lesser bites and jostles.  Minions cant even damage individually like a propper combatant…hence their status.

LethalDose said:

I'm thinking it's not needed.  Minions are supposed to be cannon fodder, and the fact they actually get skill dice when functioning as a group rather than individuals provides enough of a benefit already.  Seeing how it's generally easier to get hit in this system than in most prior versions of Star Wars, most minions are going to have enough damage output to be worrisome to the PCs already.  And when the PCs get more experienced, minions should be far less of a threat.

Consider the movies, where in ANH stormtroopers are generally treated as a threat to be worried about, even by the seasoned adventurer Han Solo.  In the original version of ANH, that group of stormtroopers that Han was chasing after thought it was a squad of opponents, but when they ran into a sealed-off corridor and turned around, they saw it was just one guy.  Cue Han running the other way as soon as he realizes his bluff has been called.  But by RotJ, even the Emperor's so-called "legion of his best troops" are pretty much being treated as target practice by the heroes.

Also, the Battle at the Pit of Carkoon.  The ANH versions of the heroes would have gotten decimated against so many minions.  And yet, we see Luke ripping through them like Godzilla through Tokyo, suffering only a minor critical hit in exchange for the piles of dead minions he left in his wake.  And fandom-fave Boba Fett was just barely able to slow the former farm-boy down, where he'd have no problem at all dealing with Luke in prior movies.  Amazing what four years of adventuring can do for one's combat prowess.

While there are going to be PCs that have obnoxiously high starting Wound Thresholds or Soak Values (or both!), upgrading minion damage just to account for them is falling into the classic issue of making combat too lethal for the less stalwart characters to have a hope of surviving against something that even has the ability to hurt the combat monster.

I think Minions could have an option of having some kind of "squad weapon" with them. For instance, check the scene in Episode V when the Falcon escapes from Hoth.

How would that work? They couldn't fire it every round. To keep the action going, maybe such a weapon, be it E-Web repeating blaster, rockets etc, could only be fired once every three rounds, giving the players a chance to take cover or otherwise get out of the way.

Also, a Minion group could, for example, have one sharpshooter in the mix?

Any thoughts?

Eirik