Of all the things that can make or break a movie – the camera work, the lighting, the music, the actors and actresses – one of my favorite to discuss is the role of the villain. The best movies have villains that move, motivate, disturb, or mystify both the protagonists and the audience, and Star Wars is not by any stretch of the imagination an exception.
Star Wars is crawling – sometimes literally – with villains. Geonosians, stormtroopers, droids, and the Sith are all woven into Star Wars stories and through the course of the series they help to define it. One of the most stand-out villains of Star Wars is the very first one introduced, the one that stepped calmly into a hallway filled with the smoke of blaster discharge and the dead bodies of friends and foes alike, and stepped simultaneously into the cultural zeitgeist: Darth Vader.
Darth Vader is a tall, imposing, black-armored enforcer with a lightsaber and countless minions, so it’s no surprise that the only people that go toe-to-toe with him with any chance of surviving are similarly powerful and destined people. That said, there’s no reason he can’t act as the primary antagonist of a tabletop campaign, and if a character exists in a game, it’s virtually a certainty that players will try to kill them. With that said, let’s take a crack at statting out Darth Vader in the Star Wars RPG by Fantasy Flight Games.
There are some caveats. First, since the Edge of the Empire core rulebook, it’s been codified that major NPCs can only die at story-appropriate moments. Naturally this can make players feel railroaded or like their actions don’t matter, but it’s worth noting that (especially with the use of a destiny point) the GM can stop just about anyone from dying if he or she wants. A second thing to note is that Darth Vader has already appeared in a Fantasy Flight roleplaying scenario, but he was specifically intended as a force of nature: something unbeatable, unstoppable, and there only to be avoided or to be succumbed to. The player characters are merely expected to run from him and escape in time, not actually fight him.
But what if some player characters get together and are crazy? Reckless? So highly experienced that virtually nothing stands in their way? In that event, we turn to stats. Darth Vader has been the right hand of the galactic government for 19 years, and for several years before that was a bona fide war hero. In terms of experience points, he probably has enough to purchase just about every talent and skill rank in the system, so let’s just nail down the basics to understand what Darth Vader would be like in the Fantasy Flight system.
Darth Vader was a master of many lightsaber styles, so he probably has all of them from the various Force and Destiny specializations. The thing is, he probably doesn’t need them: Vader is depicted as absurdly strong once he’s in his suit, so he probably has 6 brawn. His expert piloting likely comes in part from a 3 or 4 agility – strong and dependable, but reflecting his suit’s limitations on his mobility. He’s an expert mechanic with a lot of insight, so his Intellect is probably also high – maybe 4 or 5. Cunning could be strong, but lower than other stats – maybe a 3, to represent that he doesn’t do too much sneaking around now that he’s seven feet tall. His Willpower and Presence, though, are where things get both more interesting and more philosophical. Darth Vader’s commanding aura and sheer indomitability of will suggest that he’d do quite well in both stats, but by the time the Original Trilogy happens, Vader is a pawn in a game larger than himself, and – especially at the start of Episode IV and the entirety of Episode V – he has serious issues controlling his anger and emotions. I can’t personally decide what his Willpower and Presence would be, but I’d imagine his Presence would be the higher of the two – maybe a 4.
Now that his stats are lined up – 6/4/5/3/3/4, at the highest estimate here – we can start talking about talents.. As mentioned before, Vader probably has just about every specialization and skill in the game, since he’s so incredibly experienced, but he’ll focus more on mechanical talents and ones that involve beating people up. There are, of course, some must-haves, beginning with Adversary. Adversary ranges typically from 1 to 3, and for each rank of it, the PCs upgrade the difficulty of their checks by 1 (so shooting an Adversary 3 opponent at medium range would go from two purples to two reds and a purple). As player groups get more experienced, adversary rankings tend to start going up, both for game balance reasons and for narrative ones (after all, 600-XP characters probably have gotten a lot more attention from the Empire than 200-XP ones!). As such, Adversary is highly situational, but it’s fair to say that Vader would be at least 4 Adversary, maybe 5 or even 6 if the player group is especially powerful!
Vader also likely has Imperial Valor (take a maneuver to make a nearby ally or helpless enemy take your hits for you, instantly killing them but sparing you the damage), Dodge (suffer one strain per rank to upgrade the difficulty of the enemy’s attack by one per rank), and Supreme Reflect (if Vader didn’t use a combat check last round, suffer one strain – or if he did, suffer three strain – to reduce the damage from a ranged attack by 2 + ranks in Reflect). He likely also has many ranks of Parry to match the half-dozen easily available Reflect ranks he likely has, meaning that as long as he’s comfortable taking strain (and he likely has tons of Grit to let him do so freely!) he can soak even more damage than his heavily armored suit and tremendous strength would let him do normally.
Lastly, in terms of his use of the Force, Darth Vader is renowned as strong in the dark side. That said, the Legends materials suggest losing a few limbs did a number on his Force ability, making him likely have 4 or 5 Force rating. He likely has every Force power, especially Move and Harm, and likely has enough Force rating sitting around to use Enhance to boost his rolls.
Ultimately, Darth Vader is as much a killing machine in the Fantasy Flight RPG system as he is in the cinema. He’s strong, tough, implacable, and always on the prowl for more rebels to annihilate, making him a powerful antagonist for the eager GM to test (or, more likely, kill) his player characters with.
D.T.S.
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