Creating Bigger Opposition in Low Power Games

[Theogony_IX]

Where my story currently stands:
My Fist of Adonai accepted a rather large compel to let a girl (RCV) take him back for a lap dance.  The RCV leader in the city used this as an opportunity to offer him a deal to team up and depose the WCVs in the area.  The Fist was fairly rude to him in response, so the RCV leader told his girls to cover the Fist in their saliva.  He tags the aspect for an effect that requires the Fist to need help before he can escape.

Meanwhile, the Wizard and the Cop sneak to the back, use a demon to create a diversion, grab the Fist and make to escape.  Unfortunately, the Cop and Fist succeed on their stealth rolls to escape, but the Wizard fails (and he didn't think to use a veil on his way out).  The doors boom closed behind the Cop and the Fist, and in front of the Wizard.

I've got some interesting story compels for the continuation of this particular scene to ramp up the tension and create cool character moments, so I really want to offer a compel to the Fist to go back in and save the Wizard which has the added benefit of putting him back on the path of righteousness and restoring a measure of the power he lost from straying in the first place (to clarify: this character gradually loses his power each time he strays from a righteous path, and maintains/regains it by acting righteously).

The problem I have is that I'm about to send them into a RCV stronghold, and equal opposition for this group is 22 refresh.  That's only 2 RCVs.  Granted there is chaos and blood frenzy everywhere, so its not like they're walking in on a well organized and defended foe, but they should be facing off against more than 2 RCVs.

Not only that, but they need to go and face another conflict immediately after this one involving RCVs and ghosts.

How would you guys handle creating the opposition in this situation?

[Crimson Overcoat]

Depends on the group. How combat capable are they, and do they know about the RCV catch (soft bellies and holy stuff)?

[Theogony_IX]

They're pretty combat capable, and yeah, they've dealt with the Red Court before.

[Sanctaphrax]

Don't worry about the guidelines. Refresh totals don't actually determine how tough the opposition is. Skills, tactics, FP/debt supply, and willingness to take consequences are all very very important.

If you treat the RCVs as mooks and don't give them consequences or FP, your wizard will likely be able to one-shot entire zones full of them. And IIRC, your Fist of Adonai has Superb Fists and Supernatural Toughness. Random RCVs with Good weapon 4 attacks will find it very hard to meaningfully injure him without using Aspects.

So if you make sure to play the Vampires stupid (blame it on uncontrolled bloodlust), and you deny them narrative resources like consequences, your wizard and Emissary should be able to crush a whole bunch of them.

And if all else fails, you can lower the skills of the Vampires.

[Theogony_IX]

That actually puts a good many things into perspective for me.  I will give that a shot.

If I'm using that as my method of stating the opposition, how do I control for level of difficulty?  The books offers minor, equal, challenging, and overwhelming.  Using skills, tactics, and FPs, how do I gauge what level of difficulty I've set up for my players, and how can I manipulate it to create what I want?  I.e. My mooks have this skill set up, and use these tactics, so I will need this many of them to be a challenge for my players.

[Sanctaphrax]

There isn't really a formula. You've got to use your own judgement.

Might be a good idea to not have all of the vampires enter the scene at once. Staggering their arrival would let you regulate the level of the challenge you're offering by deciding how many to send in based on how the fight is going. Seems realistic, too, for more enemies to arrive while you fight inside enemy territory.

[Theogony_IX]

Okay, cool.  I can wing it until I get a better handle on the process and learn to feel it out ahead of time.

I was planning on running this one in stages anyway.  For this particular fight, I'm putting a time limit on it.  The cap being when the cops arrive.  I have a few story points I want to fit in, so I imagine that will be after the story points occur . . . or don't as the case may be.  I figured I'd do something like a wave defense.  The three other players go in, grab the wizard, and then I throw waves of vamps at them.  Start with two, and increase by one until they find a way out or the cops arrive.  I thought this would have the added benefit of giving the other players a opportunity to shine since the wizard can't just bazooka everything in one or two shots and be done with it.

[Haru]

If I'm using that as my method of stating the opposition, how do I control for level of difficulty?

Short answer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gD6olRJ8S3I

Long answer: One of the beautiful things of Fate is the concession mechanic. If you have overestimated the opposition, the players can always deliberately lose the fight and be in a position to go at the problem from a different angle. Their opponents will get their way at that point, of course, but the players can bargain for a way to end the scene on slightly better terms than being killed or totally defeated in any other way. On the other hand, if you underestimated the opposition, you can always throw in a compel to make things harder. Or just let them have this one and throw something harder at them the next time.

Generally, there are so many things to consider, that I find it all but impossible to judge the opposition right. If the players work well together, they can take down a lot more than a group where everyone is only considering his own action. Some groups might have skill synergies even beyond that, or others might work well together as a team, but the characters don't line up all that well.

Then again, what is the "right" amount of opposition anyway? In a game like D&D, the answer would be "challenging, but doable". But since there are so many ways to handle things in Fate, that can totally turn things on its head. If you want to go for the "challenging but doable" opposition, trial and error seems to be the best bet. Otherwise, I tend to just throw things out the way I think would make sense at the moment. If the big bad is there with an army of a thousand men against my three players, that's going to happen. But they can be as creative as they like in their approach, and that doesn't always have to be a direct attack approach.

[solbergb]

Yeah.  I have not once guessed right so far on how my players will approach challenges in my games, so I've just been going for "here's the resources the opposition has, here's what they're trying to do, lets see what the PCs do".

The situations were utterly lethal for what the opposition knew, but the PCs are making a hash of their clever plans because they walked into a situation intended for a completely different target.  Not that they're having it all their own way, but the story's writing itself nicely at this point, with both sides off balance and reacting to the unexpected.

[Theogony_IX]

lol at the Scrubs clip.

I'm interested to see how these guys deal with the situation I'm setting up for them.  I have a feeling this is going to be our best session to date.  Sounds like I shouldn't worry about controlling the difficulty too much though, and just let things be what it will be, and maybe adjust on the fly if something isn't feeling right.

Thanks for the input, all.  Very, very helpful.