More Star Wars

[Crothian]

In my campaign they will soon be running into the first serious threat, a Sith Lord of some sorts. My one concern though is that Destiny Points will really make the encounter boring. I can easily see all five players worried (as they should be) and spend a point the first round. I highly doubt almost anything they should be able to face would survive 5 critical hits that fast. Even with the Force. I have no problems with them killing it the first encounter but I want the encounter to be memorable and not for how ridiculously easy it was.

Anyone have some suggestions that don't make the encounter impossible with out the use of Destiny points? I don;'t just want to make the bad guy a lot tougher knowing they have the DP's to use.

 

[Creamsteak]

If you were talking DnD I'd say throw in an illusion (mirror image or something more permanent) or put some additional grunts or terrain that forces them to manuever around.

Sadly I'm not too certain what a Sith Lord can do in the Star Wars RPG. I assume all of those are reasonable approximations.

 

[Shalimar]

Destiny points are majorly powerful, but then again not everyone needs or is suposed to have a destiny. I would suggest just disallowing certain usages of desitny points, especially if the usage is not 100% on par with completing the Desitny.

As a sith lord though he should have Block and Deflect, and a high Use the Force skill. With the three before mentioned things he can block attacks even if they use a destiny point per the errata. I think that was put in for just this reason.

 

[drothgery]

Well, you've got options ranging from the cheesy to the subtle.

The cheesy thing, if this is a major bad guy, is to just do the dueling banjo destiny point thing and have the Sith Lord use his destiny points to counter the PCs. But that's not all that much fun, so only do that as a desperation tactic.

On the other extreme, especially if the Sith Lord is not your BBEG, is to drop a lot of hints that the actual BBEG could show up at any time. Have the Sith Lord be saying "Yes, my master" to a viewscreen when the PCs walk in on him, or something like that. So they believe that going through their destiny points is probably not a good idea.

Somewhere in between, especially if the Sith Lord is supposed to be noticeably higher level but still beatable, is to arrange the encounter so that the 5-autocrits tactic just won't work. The Sith can easily get full cover, or something like that. Add some minions in the room. Etc.

 

[SteveC]

In my campaign they will soon be running into the first serious threat, a Sith Lord of some sorts. My one concern though is that Destiny Points will really make the encounter boring. I can easily see all five players worried (as they should be) and spend a point the first round. I highly doubt almost anything they should be able to face would survive 5 critical hits that fast. Even with the Force. I have no problems with them killing it the first encounter but I want the encounter to be memorable and not for how ridiculously easy it was.

Anyone have some suggestions that don't make the encounter impossible with out the use of Destiny points? I don;'t just want to make the bad guy a lot tougher knowing they have the DP's to use.

I'd say it's simple: tell your players that it won't be any fun to handle it that way.

In a more complex (and hopefully useful) answer: I've told my players that except for instances of saving their own lives, each destiny point is a chance for a scene or encounter to be all about one character, so only one person is allowed to spend a point in any one encounter. It's that character's moment to shine, so to speak.

It made sense to them, so I'd try that.

--Steve

 

[pawsplay]

Anyone have some suggestions that don't make the encounter impossible with out the use of Destiny points?

Minions. PCs may be less blithe about blowing Destiny points left and right if they know there will be trouble to follow. But even solo, the battle can be made memorable.

The battle should go like this. The Sith Lord spends a Force point on initiative. He delays. Someone attacks and autocrits. Someone else autohits. He undelays. He uses his second wind. He attacks and moves. If the third player chooses to go for the autohit, so be it.

When the Sith Lord finally goes down, he spends a Force point to avoid death. At that moment, you can contrive for more minions to show up, or some other event to occur. Whether or not that happens, the PCs can decide whether to finish him off; if they seem to be doing it for the wrong reasons, they get Dark Side points. The wrong reason is pretty much any reason other than, "We have no way to capture or hold him" or "there is no prison safe enough."

There. Exciting. Add a few Destiny points and you can make the players sweat, maybe even kill a PC.

 

[Spatula]

Or you could just disallow destiny points.

 

[ValhallaGH]

Simple honesty is generally best. "There's a big, epic fight coming. You have a solid chance to win, regardless of destiny, so using destiny points to auto-crit would ruin the fun. Not just your fun but also my fun. So I'm asking you to think about that and restrain yourselves." That doesn't work for all groups but it does work for a surprising amount of groups. If it won't then you'll need another method. Below are my favorites.

Trickery. Lesser Sith Lords, specifically. They walk into the encounter expecting the big Sith Lord and instead run into his lackey and burn their first destiny point or two on taking him down. He goes down but now they have fewer Destiny Points to blithely chuck about.

Lawyery. Give him a whole bunch of Non-Heroic levels to get a much higher hit point total as well as higher skill ranks and base attack without improving his defenses, or his CL by very much.

Destiny. Your Sith Lord also has a Destiny and getting killed by the PCs would interfere with it, so he uses his Destiny to counter their Destiny's. Feel free to give him as many destiny points as he needs for this purpose (and only for this purpose). This works especially well when combined with honesty. When they notice that he's used about 24 destiny points to prevent critical hits you can smile and say "I told you that I wanted this to be an epic battle without much Destiny use." If they can learn then they probably will.

Fiat. He's always got an extra [survive the crit] hit points, thus being far cooler than your players expected.


The key to all of those is to have an encounter they can reasonably defeat without relying upon destiny points. So his defenses need to be beatable (even if it is difficult) and his hit points need to be within a sane range. I hope some of this is helpful.

Good Luck!

 

[Henry]

The book already provides an answer: Destiny points are used to help complete a destiny. If it is not their destiny to win against this Dark Lord, then they cannot use Destiny points in their battle with him. If it is in their destiny, then let them use the points. Alternately, remember that Destiny points can make characters act out of turn; plus, if I read the rules correctly, there's no limit to the destiny points he (or they) can spend in a round.

The way the rules are written, a GM is the one who has control over Destiny point usage, so this can help shape the encounter.

 

[Tarek]

Also, you can consider giving this Sith Lord a destiny too...