I don't try to make the game lethal, it just seems to go that way. Once all the dice crunching is done, most of my fights are 2 rounds. usually by then all the baddies are done and if no one is dead, they're pretty hurt. I build the npcs the same as I allow the PCs to be built, and then I think "if it was me, how would I handle guys with such reputations?" and if the PCs tend to play things hush, that leaves the NPCs little intel, and I'll play them so. I also use a lot of the material collected by richterbelmont and robshanti that they usually link in their signatures. I favor DMF's big list of SWSE NPCs v2a and My NPC statblocks (v8.0) of the fan made NPC stat books. Last fight I did was a sith haze(cl7), a Vahl Firebrand (cl6) and a pair of sith assassins (cl6)' all out of the latter book, and the 4 players were all level 9 or 10 jedi/force users. although none died, by the end, they all had suffered a good amount of damage and CT steps, but none of them believed that they'd had such a low CL encounter. I tried pointing out that I use pretty solid ground tactics and teamwork where they're a bunch of soloists on the same side. I've always liked star wars, even played the D6 by WEG as a young teenager (mid 90s)but I've never liked a d20 system until I encountered Saga. I've played the other D20s, even DM'd, but did so for the people I played with. I felt like most systems are over complicated with to many rules that bog the game down with too much math for table-top instead a nice flow of story. I even went so far as trying to mine any and all Old World of Darkness books I came across for stuff to make jedi/force users for the Story Teller System before my old group convinced me to try out the 2 systems (saga and the one before it). Tried the older system first, then tried saga and to my shock, actually enjoyed it, so, here I am. on the digital side I really enjoyed KOTOR, but haven't played any other Star wars video games.
I was surprised by how many seem to not like the Destiny system, cause it's what kept a lot of PC's at my table alive (usually by negating crits and fixing 1's). I even like the Background and legacy things, which I use for starting PCs, and then discuss what destinies they will take on about 7-9ish. I did note in one of the games I was reading on here they were spending 3 Force points instead of Destiny points, I like that, might use it also. But as I said, whatever I allow for the PC's goes for the baddies also. so if you pull out some star ship that can take out a space station with a few shots either recognize that its a typo, or expect the next set of ships you encounter to have mounted said super weapons on their Vessels if they're not the same model y'all are using.
I feel like i'm coming off as draconian, but I favor story over combat. same group of players have on more then one occasion turned what were supposed to be fights into other things (roleplaying session/skill challenge etc) which has earned them all Destiny points at one time or another.
PS I'm kinda digging the idea of a bunch of saber rakes (muskateers and count of monte cristo come to mind, but ya, that groove) Any suggestions on other material I can read/watch for ideas and to kinda get the right mind set for such style?