So I found my old WEG Star Wars books; I've had them for many years but I never got a chance to play with them before. I've decided I'd like to try D6; I may end up doing it in Star Wars or in a homebrew sci-fi setting.

My principal question is simply how do you scale encounters in a D6 system so they challenge the players without killing the party? In PF I just use challenge ratings, which is easy enough. I don't see a simple way to do this in D6.

Welcome to the site Keolin. Generally I don't worry about scaling encounters, if the players can reliably blast their way out of it using mechanics alone (which is what balanced encounters are all about), there's no challenge, so it helps to give them something they will have a hard time handling now and again, it forces them to use their heads. That's the great thing about RPGs, there are so many options that any crack can be levered open with a little ingenuity.

Obviously I wouldn't randomly drop an imperial walker on them so to speak, but if they decide to jimmy the locks under the neon sign that says "IMPERIAL WALKERS -  ACHTUNG" well that's their decision...

Quote from: KeolinPortara;703433So I found my old WEG Star Wars books; I've had them for many years but I never got a chance to play with them before. I've decided I'd like to try D6; I may end up doing it in Star Wars or in a homebrew sci-fi setting.

My principal question is simply how do you scale encounters in a D6 system so they challenge the players without killing the party? In PF I just use challenge ratings, which is easy enough. I don't see a simple way to do this in D6.

Depends on how you want to challenge them.

What has worked for me is a layered approach. One big bad evil guy that is the boss monster/mastermind who has the same number of skill/ability dice as twice that of the highest player character. Then a number of lieutenants who have the same skill/ability dice as the player characters and are equal to the number of player characters. Then a bunch of mooks who are the equivalent of stormtroopers or thugs or other extras in the movies and shows.

Use the team as lieutenants only with supporting mooks at first against the Players. Once you have enough of these challenges under your belt, you will be better able to gauge how best to challenge your Players. Start small, remember a chase through a crowded shopping district to recover a pickpocketed datapad is still an adventure.

Honestly, there IS no "simple way" to do this ... not in terms of what you seem to be looking for, an easy "Take 5 Mooks From Column A against a four-person party of Level X" metric.

The real way to do this is, simply, to learn your system.  If I was to GM an unfamiliar system, I'd work up to it.  Ask your prospective players to run through a half-dozen trial combats with sample characters, and learn together how it all works.  Do some solitaire combats yourself, and parse out how various tactical options play out.

I generally defer to the SW Sourcebook, which does a good job emulating the characters from the original trilogy so provides a good guide to estimating power levels.

I use Stormtroopers as my base for any rank n file baddies. For slightly more pathetic characters I defer to Ewoks statlines. Boba Fett is a badass, but no match for Jedi masters. The Rancor provides a starting point for big beasties.

Part of it, though, is how you as a GM play them. Stormtroopers using advanced tactical maneuvers and guerrilla skirmish attacks are going to be devestating, but the dimwitted centurions in the films are easily dealt with (which is why they were defeated by Teddy Bears I guess).

Raven has it pretty correct there.

Trial and error and common sense.

These Storm Troopers do this much damage per hit, the players have this much health, the players do this much damage per hit and the troopers can take this much before dropping. Factor in or guess accuracy if you want. Then scale up or down as needed.

Also factor in how much recovery the PCs can apply. If medical is short then do not hammer them on the first encounter and expect them to live long after unless there are convenient medicals around the locale. On the other hand, if that first hard encounter is about it till much later. Then a harrowing start is more viable.

IME the big problem with SWd6 was that the PCs are too powerful for effective genre emulation of the original trilogy. Adventures often assume the PCs will run away from a Stormtrooper squadron of 12-15 troopers, but the players soon realise that they can defeat the enemy. And the gulf between a mook stormtrooper and the published stats for 'name' NPCs is vast.

As far as balancing goes, I suggest a moderate challenge would be an equal number of opponents with dice one less than the PCs; eg if the 4 PCs attack and dodge at 6d6, then 4 NPCs at 5d6. Double number of NPCs per reduction in dice, eg 8 NPCs at 4d6. Likewise halve per +1 die, so 2 NPCs at 6d6 or one NPC at 7d6.