A question regarding the supreme skill of GMing: Challenging players without overpowering them.
If there are three players, how many simple enemies (no extended task) should I put in a group for challenging yet manageable conflict (skirmish)? Given that the players got the hightest drive at 8, skill at 7 and the enemies’ drives are at 5/6 and skills at 6.
Also extended tasks against complex enemies. Are you even creating single individuals (like bosses/minibosses)? How would I create one or two Sardaukar, who need extended tasks to defeat, in order to challenge my players? Both with fight skills at 8 and shields with quality 1 - what about the quality of their offensive assets, should they have better swords to threaten the players more?
My combats are fairly light in Dune, but I have run quite a few in STA which is close enough to carry over.
My rough rule of thumb is that a default mook squad should be 2 x number of players. This is normally straightforward for the players to beat without a combat dragging on too long.
If I want to up the difficulty I will add 1 or 2 points to their stats or give them a lieutenant character who has higher stats and better equipment (Armour or Phaser in STA, so a shield, etc in Dune).
The corebook has a Sarduakar NPC (pg 288). One should cause pain to an average party, but at 3-1 they will still take them down without too much trouble. Two would give a party a serious challenge depending on how combat focussed they are.
Alternatively you can use a reskinned Duncan Idaho (pg 248) whose stats are fairly similar but who has much better talents for use on his own.
Both of these have the Master-at-arms talent so when they appear you can throw down a couple of threat and narrate how their knives sing as they are pulled out of their sheaths…
This is one of the things Threat does very well.
If the PCs are having too easy a time, its time to spend some Threat.
Trickier to balance if the opposition is too tough though.