Just ran an online the other night, with 5 players who are no getting used to the system. As I’m growing in confidence too, I found it easier to make use of the system and Doom, etc, to balance play. One thing I did was use terrain to the advantage of the NPCs, even though this was a side encounter and not a main quest.
I used Bandits, mostly minions, but included a couple of Toughened. I used rooftops to give cover and add difficulty to PC ranged attacks (I didn’t consider this a Doom spend). The attack was at night so I penalised PCs for having light sources and for the attackers not having any. I used Mobs of minions. I used Doom a lot - to go first, to get extra d20s, to increase dofficulty for PCs and to add reinforcements.
The outcome was that one PC remained fully engaged in combat throughout, haivng to use every trick he could think of to avoid Wounds, one (who was already wounded) became so wounded he had to take cover. ‘Second tier’ fighters, who usually do other things (a thief, a would-be sorcerer) had to step up.
Altogether it was very successful, and I ran out of Doom just at the end and at least one PC ran out of Fortune. I think if I used the same tactics with more dangerous npcs (Bandits are pretty easy) this could have been even harder.
My next adventure will include Skeletons and a Nemesis and we’ll see how that goes.
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