The enemy below is a droid (but could also be modified for less technologically advanced settings). It is Level 5, but it cannot move so I buffed it a bit to make up for that. It is designed for a Star Wars campaign I will be running and plan to make it a threat if they get too cocky stealing a ship. They will be first level, so is that too harsh? The only scenario where they should activate the droid is if they dry to release the docking clamps on the ship without proper access (if they hack into the terminal and fail, it would be a succeed with a twist scenario). It would pop out of the ground in the middle of the main hallway to get to the ship. There will be other ways to get to the ship even if they try doing that. Still, I am worried about them getting too cocky and having a TPK.
Guard Droid
Attributes: Energy 6, Perception 5, Logic 2, Agility 4, Might 3
Guard: Guard 18, Toughness 17, Resolve 20
HP: 40
Speed: 0
Feats: Bane Focus (Persistent Damage), Bane Focus (Stunned) Resilient, Battlefield Opportunist II
Actions:
-Arm Rifle (Damaging) - Agility (1d20 + 2d6) vs Guard
The stationary droid’s right arm folds outward to reveal a rifle
-Arm Baton (Damaging) - Might (1d20 + 1d8) vs Guard
The droid’s hand on its left arm folds upwards and into arm, forming a baton
-Electrified Baton (inflict Immobile) - Energy (1d20 + 2d8) vs Toughness
The droid’s arm baton is lit with electricity capable of overcharging humanoid nervous systems
lvl 5 vs lvl 1 party. If there is four party members thats not even a Hard encounter by the rules, just a bit above moderate. If your worried it may be too hard, make sure you give a bit of a warning about security by the ships being strong or some other ingame way for them to know to be weary.
Taking out movement isn’t a very bad hindrance, especially for a ranged NPC. That means they can more easily focus action, and they always have their move action to resist banes.
The stats aren’t even that high for a Level 5 (only Attribute score 6), and like others mentioned, action economy. It will probably have a surprise round on them, but then they’ll most likely take it down pretty fast.
Tips on making it more powerful then? I do want it to be a formidable foe and present a sense of danger. In Chapter 8 of the rules, it says primary attributes should be 6. If there is only one attribute I want to be very high, should I raise it more? The other attributes I fiddled with a lot, so I am not sure what they should be at.
Take away Battlefield Opportunist, it only applies to melee, and you have a ranged attacker more so
Part of this is I imagine it a big space, but if it is a hallway, I suppose that is different. But with only Might 3, not worth having (maybe if you made the baton Agility and you increased the agility to 6 as well, or Might to 6)
Multi-target Attack Specialist so it can immobilize an area, hitting several of them (though immobilize isn’t that great, I’d do stunned instead)
Immobilze isn’t as ideal since they are ranged to begin with, it might help them from running
Attack Specialization - I’d have it doing around 3 advantage on its damaging attacks
You could go with Multi-attack Specialists to help offset the action economy.
What would be better is to have more NPCs honestly. Anytime the PCs outnumber the NPCs, it’s not going to be much of a challenge
Don’t raise an attacking attribute too high (7 is dangerous, 8 is almost definitely too much at level 1), or you’ll end up one-shotting some members of the party even if the overall encounter isn’t too difficult. It certainly ups the challenge, but not usually in an interesting way.
What I would suggest to make a single enemy more difficult is to give it Multi-Target Attack Specialist, so each individual attack goes further and affects more of the party. Multi-Attack Specialist also works, and grants versatility as well as damage. Summon Creature also helps a lot, but is kind of pushing the definition of “single enemy” at that point
Also, for this, don’t worry. You are the only one that would/can kill them. If the droid were able to successfully knock them all out, I don’t think it would be set to kill them, but alert the proper authority, and now they are having to get out of prison situation, or have to make a hard deal with the authorities in order to not get jail time, etc.
EDIT:
Also, Also
They will, almost 100% get “too cocky” and attack it. This is what PCs tend to do almost universally. The only exception is if beforehand it has been talked about and made perfectly clear that certain scenarios are not winnable and that bad things will happen to them. And I’m not just talking about in game, but out of game. Some games/campaigns are more about getting around fighting, spy games, etc. But most games that are played, the PCs are going to fight. They aren’t going to surrender and run away in most cases.
The TPK issue was because the Empire (this is a Star Wars based campaign, but I may change the name as it is different in some ways) set up the dock where they are supposed to steal the ship. The planet is very hard to survive on due to its frequent blizzards and frigid temperatures. The planet used to have a colony on it before the colony was forced to leave. This was around the time the Empire was coming to power so there were not very many ships to spare/there was some kind of accident (still working out the details) which lead to a lot of people being left behind on the planet. They were forgotten in the struggles that ensued after the Empire started to see resistance from planets/governments. No one knows why the Empire has returned to the planet after such a long time and the docking bay is the only new project on the planet. It is strangely modern in a sea of ruins. If the players are interested, they can find out that the Empire is starting a mining operation on the planet because it has some strange and highly valuable resource. The Empire is already killing everyone left on the planet (the PC’s best friend was killed as an example) so the droid would not be given programming to incapacitate the PCs. All of the Imperial forces on the planet are currently there to kill everyone so they can start their mining operation undisturbed and no attention will be drawn to the planet. Sorry, this is a lot that I typed up but I found I had a lot of say. Thank you, @reddevil, @Frank, and @SamWilby.
