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Message: <blockquote data-quote="hawkeyefan" data-source="post: 8090922" data-attributes="member: 6785785">For Blades in the Dark, any action that a PC will take is assigned a Position and Effect by the GM. The Position is the level of risk and how in control the PC may be in a situation. It ranges from Controlled (low risk) to Risky (normal level of risk) to Desperate (high risk). This is coupled with the Effect, which is the potential strength of the outcome based on the fictional circumstances. This also has a range of three levels, Great (enhanced effect) to Standard effect (goal achieved) to Limited (reduced effect).So the GM can take all kinds of factors into account when he sets the Position and Effect prior to the player committing to and then making the roll. So, depending on how strong or weak you want the mooks to be, this can be reflected in the Position and Effect, along with other factors. So a PC who has crept up quietly on a NPC is likely in a position where he has Controlled Position and possibly Great Effect. He rolls, and his chances are very good to simply eliminate the target, but ultimately the result of the dice will decide.That same NPC facing off on even ground with a PC, where he's not caught unaware, would likely be a Risky/Standard action. There's more risk, but he can still achieve the goal of eliminating the target if the dice go his way.If the NPC was a bit more than standard, like a mini-boss or lieutenant type of NPC.....or if there were more than one standard goons.....then I could see the situation being one where the Position is Risky (if they're squaring off face to face) but the effect is Limited, so that with a successful roll, the PC works toward his goal, but does not manage full success. In this case, he wounds the Lieutenant, or maybe disarms him, making the rest of the fight easier. Or with multiple mooks, perhaps one is taken down, but the other is still there.You could also be more liberal with things, especially as the PCs grow in power/ability. Maybe you have some particularly low level goons that surround a potent PC. If you want the difference in ability to be a major factor, you can work it in to the Position/Effect. The player says "What chance do I have to just wade through all these jokers so I can move on to their boss?" you can say "Well, they're not exactly highly trained assassins, they're just raw recruits, and they've heard of you, so they're a bit nervous. I think Skirmishing with them would be a Risky/Limited action." The player can then decide to proceed, and also has some resources at his disposal to either buy more dice, or to increase the Effect by one step, in this case from Limited to Standard. Which means that if he rolled a full success, he takes the small gang out.There are a lot of ways you can approach it. All of this is also subjected to the dice. Players roll pools of d6s, taking the highest roll, and the results are: Failure (1-3), Partial Success/Success With Complication (4-5), or Full Success (6). You can also get a Critical Success if you get more than one 6. So the dice can further tweak how it all plays out.The combination of Position and Effect, and then Partial Success on the roll makes for a myriad of possibilities, but it's really all based on the fiction, and largely avoids any kind of math for NPCs. They don't even have stats.Edited to Add: You can make certain NPCs or opponents tougher and require more than one success to deal with. There are ways to do this beyond  the minimal ways I describe above. I just wanted to keep my post from getting out of hand.</blockquote>

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