I don't think your off base with your intial observation. Characters should not be able to rip hard points off other peoples weapons without their express premission. After all, it's their equipment at that point and as long as it's doing it's job, then theres no reason that a tinker can be whimical. Really, I don't feel the hard point makes such a difference to most weapons.

In general I don't see why he couldn't do it, since the removal of the attachment could permently make it useless, then if they wish to spend their hard earned cash on more mods rather then something productive then they can. I would argue that certain mods could never be used on another weapon, easpically barrels that have been extenstively calibrated (Sure, they could attach it to another gun but it will probably break on a dispair due to energy output being differnet, disabling the rifle until the offending part can be replaced due to short curcuit) though simple attachments would be fine.

As for his contributions with combat, or lack of contribution. Perhaps he needs more to interact with, action scenes with senery to interact with easpically if the objective is something other then merely winning the battle (your under attack by stormtroopers, you see drop ships landing all around your meeting point, fight off the stormtroopers while you try and kickstart the speeder).

Alternatively, he may need to invest in other skills outside machanics. For example my character started off as a gadgetter with all intentions of becoming a county hunter, yet I rapidly became one of the central pivots of the crew due to my high machanics and interliect and in furture I may take on an more archological career in character due to interactions with the doctor on this crew. If his int isn't getting him anywhere, perhaps he needs to invest in other skills, I mean by the time he's visited scientist, gadgetter and Outlaw, surely he should give some thought towards spending his abudent EXP towards some sort of combat skill or otherwise expanding outside his area? Even R2-D2 learnt some tech-fu though he was never a real combatant.

Thanks for the feedback here. Some of my concerns for why treating him like any other player in combat might be a bit hard to justify.

• I can't quite shoot at him when he (a Toydarian) spends a round running completely away from the enemy to hide behind a building a block later, threat assessment says the Wookie, the Jedi or the Bounty Hunter are more immediate threats.
• Storing a minion group to ambush him when the party is struggling seems like a **** move.
• In our 4 combat encounters thus far following Escape from Mos Shuta and Long Arm of the Hutt he has

1. tried to turn on the stage lights in the cantina to distract Gammoreans, failed on 2 average checks
2. ran from combat at the Spaceport Control and hid a block away from the fighting
3. Tried to use docking bay console to shut down the security droids and remote pilot the ship, he blew up the console with a hard check
4. In the ambush on Ryloth he hid behind a rock and did not attempt to get the speeder operational.

• The other players are not opposed to this use of the talent and I was hesitant it would be overpowered but within 10 minutes of my initial posting for this (at the table) I remembered the Golden Rule "Yes...and" and decided it's best to just run with it and maybe do something I never planned to do if things get out of hand, spend destiny on item modification to introduce despair.

The concern I had with the Tinkerer talent mostly came from the character's non-involvement through most of our sessions combined with the accusation from other players that Hard checks are "unrealistic" as he's a "computer expert" he should be able to do it. I am fully expecting the argument for Jury Rigged will be that it's personal scale equipment is what they mean by personal gear in the book so it doesn't matter that it's not owned by the player. *sigh*

I'm hoping that when they get to the Dukes he'll take it upon himself to acquire a B1 battle droid to contribute. On that subject, anyone have a good set of rules for commanding NPCs in combat? Leadership skill opposed by Discipline or Average/Hard difficulty depending on the tasks ordered?

Depends on how you want to let them control the Battle Droid. In my group, we've got an astromech unit that was purchased, he's almost never in combat since he was fairly expensive, so he's usually just off to the side, but when he has something to do (whenever something needs to be sliced or something when combat is in effect) then he'll take normal turns and do whatever the players ask of him (with the players pretty much controlling him directly) - my reasoning is that this is because you can generally allow things to be said over comlinks as incidentals, and since astromechs aren't the dumbest droids around, advice/orders from the players to just head over to a computer and slice it to try and accomplish whatever task is fine.

There'll also be times when I bring an NPC in and they basically just do whatever they think is right, if a PC tries to give them a direct order, sometimes they might listen to it, sometimes I'll require leadership checks (difficulty changes based on NPC's disposition toward players, course of battle/situation, or if multiple NPCs are trying to be directed at once). But I'll control these directly.

For a B1 battle droid, they're pretty dumb in general and depending on how you're making it, will likely follow any orders if they haven't had the chance to establish a personality. I'd let the player control it directly, but they would basically have to stick relatively close to actual battles so that he can actually see what's happening in battles to properly give orders.

Sounds more like a 'player' problem than a character problem. He just runs to Extreme range from the combat and hides all the time?

"threat assessment says the Wookie, the Jedi or the Bounty Hunter are more immediate threats."

It only says this if you, the GM, want it to say this. If the only adversaries your PCs ever face are battle droids, then perhaps, but if they're individuals with opinions and views about things, it is within your prerogative as GM to say that one of the NPCs they're confronting takes an interest in why the slicer is running away, and follows him and confronts him in some way.

But if your player is deliberately having his character run several blocks away from every combat and just hiding, I'd have a talk with the player.

Thanks for the feedback here. Some of my concerns for why treating him like any other player in combat might be a bit hard to justify.

The concern I had with the Tinkerer talent mostly came from the character's non-involvement through most of our sessions combined with the accusation from other players that Hard checks are "unrealistic" as he's a "computer expert" he should be able to do it. I am fully expecting the argument for Jury Rigged will be that it's personal scale equipment is what they mean by personal gear in the book so it doesn't matter that it's not owned by the player. *sigh*

Well, if he's separating himself from the rest of the PCs during combat by running a good distance to cover, that's just begging to be taken as a hostage by a previously unnoticed enemy. This would give him a chance to be the central focus of combat without having to blast away blindly. He can use his brains and skills to escape.

If they're arguing check difficulties, you should really shut them down. A player's ability determines the ability and proficiency dice he rolls, not the difficulty and challenge dice he needs to overcome.

As for both Tinkerer and Jury Rigged, I plan to allow my PCs to apply it to any character's items (including vehicle-scale items). I've explained to my two Technicians, however, that applying either of these Talents to any item will make it harder for anyone other than the character who applied the Talent to maintain it. I'm planning on Jury Rigged (and possibly Tinkerer as well) upgrade one Difficulty to a Challenge on all Mechanics checks on that item, representing the custom and improvised nature of the modifications. I may also apply Setback if players other than the Technician attempt Mechanics checks on it.

Both of my Technicians have agreed to this compromise, as having them do check-ups on various weapons and equipment helps them establish their roles as the party's technological support. I recommend you try something similar.

Thanks for the feedback here. Some of my concerns for why treating him like any other player in combat might be a bit hard to justify.

• I can't quite shoot at him when he (a Toydarian) spends a round running completely away from the enemy to hide behind a building a block later, threat assessment says the Wookie, the Jedi or the Bounty Hunter are more immediate threats.
• Storing a minion group to ambush him when the party is struggling seems like a **** move.
• In our 4 combat encounters thus far following Escape from Mos Shuta and Long Arm of the Hutt he has

1. tried to turn on the stage lights in the cantina to distract Gammoreans, failed on 2 average checks
2. ran from combat at the Spaceport Control and hid a block away from the fighting
3. Tried to use docking bay console to shut down the security droids and remote pilot the ship, he blew up the console with a hard check
4. In the ambush on Ryloth he hid behind a rock and did not attempt to get the speeder operational.

• The other players are not opposed to this use of the talent and I was hesitant it would be overpowered but within 10 minutes of my initial posting for this (at the table) I remembered the Golden Rule "Yes...and" and decided it's best to just run with it and maybe do something I never planned to do if things get out of hand, spend destiny on item modification to introduce despair.

The concern I had with the Tinkerer talent mostly came from the character's non-involvement through most of our sessions combined with the accusation from other players that Hard checks are "unrealistic" as he's a "computer expert" he should be able to do it. I am fully expecting the argument for Jury Rigged will be that it's personal scale equipment is what they mean by personal gear in the book so it doesn't matter that it's not owned by the player. *sigh*

I'm hoping that when they get to the Dukes he'll take it upon himself to acquire a B1 battle droid to contribute. On that subject, anyone have a good set of rules for commanding NPCs in combat? Leadership skill opposed by Discipline or Average/Hard difficulty depending on the tasks ordered?

I wouldn't argue over Jury Rigging, the rules are very clear "The bonus only applies so long as the character is using the item".

In regards to his running from combat I'm not sure why anyone would play an RPG and run from all combat. I don't know why a group would let him get away with that. If they don't care and you don't want to assign additional adversaries to attack him I'd say that's de facto acceptance of his behavior. If you don't like it then make him get involved, have more threats, close the door so there is no running away. You're the GM.

It's definitely the GM's prerogative to set the difficulty of tasks.

However, if you find that your Technician is not having as much fun or feels like he isn't as useful because he fails almost every task, you might consider making the tasks easier.

Average Difficulty (2 Purple Dice) to turn on cantina lights? I'm not sure I'd rule it that way in my game.

Sounds more like a 'player' problem than a character problem. He just runs to Extreme range from the combat and hides all the time?

"threat assessment says the Wookie, the Jedi or the Bounty Hunter are more immediate threats."

It only says this if you, the GM, want it to say this. If the only adversaries your PCs ever face are battle droids, then perhaps, but if they're individuals with opinions and views about things, it is within your prerogative as GM to say that one of the NPCs they're confronting takes an interest in why the slicer is running away, and follows him and confronts him in some way.

But if your player is deliberately having his character run several blocks away from every combat and just hiding, I'd have a talk with the player.

Well so far they haven't fought anything off book from the Mos Shuta & Long Arm of the Hutt campaigns so Gammoreans, Security Droids & Stormtroopers. Maybe the troopers would shoot at him but they'd have to track him down and running after a flying bug when two people are beating you down and 2 more are shooting at you seems extra tactically bad.

I have asked him what I can do to make it more engaging for him, how he wants to proceed in a firefight intensive rim experience but I haven't gotten a response yet. Talking to him in person out of session usually gets a non-response when I've probed for motivations & personal history for the character to better flesh out upcoming storylines.

Both the Tech & the player who debates difficulty (purely for fairness as he sees the situation) are long time friends of mine and much more experienced players (playing 5+ days per week for other systems) and GMs in their own right. Dismissing their arguments isn't an option but my explanations for the difficulty have led to some heated arguments citing "anyone of us could do that and we aren't computer experts but he is" as the reasoning which admittedly is sensible but I have to weigh against giving Easy or Average checks for difficult skill challenges such as completely disability the Hutt transponder not just delaying it makes those sections not only unrealistic but also takes away the only challenge for the Tech because they don't participate in combat. They're my friends first and players second, also we host sessions at their house so the situation is nebulous to navigate (or I'm just worrying too much?).

Upgrading difficulty for items tinkered by another player sounds perfectly fair, I'll use the possibility of Despair & maybe make them take the items away and workbench them to keep the modifications in check. The talent says it can be applied but doesn't say how long that would take or how much tinkering it is. Is asking how you tinker the item too restrictive I wonder...

It's definitely the GM's prerogative to set the difficulty of tasks.

However, if you find that your Technician is not having as much fun or feels like he isn't as useful because he fails almost every task, you might consider making the tasks easier.

Average Difficulty (2 Purple Dice) to turn on cantina lights? I'm not sure I'd rule it that way in my game.

It was to configure the stage lights to blind the Gammoreans but not the party so not just turning on the lights themselves. Average seemed fair for someone rolling YYG. I had fully expected him to roll multiple success & advantages to lay down cover from fog machines on the stage but in the end he rolled 1 success no advantage.

Ah, thought you meant the rest of the PC team should shoot him for doing nothing in combat.

This is America, he could have meant the other PLAYERS should shoot him!

That being said, considering the sheer number of 'friendly fire' incidents inflicted by US troops, not far off the mark.. unlike american troops.

As for a chatacter not shooting in combat, I'm of the mindset that not every person in the galaxy would be a hardened killer, the likes of which, most players' characters espouse. To use a non Star Wars example, Kaylee, Wash and Simon in Firefly did very little in combat, other than the occasional puburst of heroics. Most of the time they took cover. Kaylee had a mental breakdown in one firefight.

Finally for whether to allow tinkerer to be applied to a ship, I say why not. As a GM, I would assign some setback dice to any character that tries to do repairs/maintenance on an item that benefits from tinkerer, unless THAT character is the one that applied it to that item.

It's definitely the GM's prerogative to set the difficulty of tasks.

However, if you find that your Technician is not having as much fun or feels like he isn't as useful because he fails almost every task, you might consider making the tasks easier.

Average Difficulty (2 Purple Dice) to turn on cantina lights? I'm not sure I'd rule it that way in my game.

It was to configure the stage lights to blind the Gammoreans but not the party so not just turning on the lights themselves. Average seemed fair for someone rolling YYG. I had fully expected him to roll multiple success & advantages to lay down cover from fog machines on the stage but in the end he rolled 1 success no advantage.

Maybe they have an argument with the light thing. I'm not sure I'd even allow someone to shut down droids and fly a ship from a docking bay control panel, kind of like jury rigging the toilet to turn on the microwave imo.

Ah, thought you meant the rest of the PC team should shoot him for doing nothing in combat.

This is America, he could have meant the other PLAYERS should shoot him!

No, this is not America. I'm from Canada.

That being said, considering the sheer number of 'friendly fire' incidents inflicted by US troops, not far off the mark.. unlike american troops.

As for a chatacter not shooting in combat, I'm of the mindset that not every person in the galaxy would be a hardened killer, the likes of which, most players' characters espouse. To use a non Star Wars example, Kaylee, Wash and Simon in Firefly did very little in combat, other than the occasional puburst of heroics. Most of the time they took cover. Kaylee had a mental breakdown in one firefight.

Finally for whether to allow tinkerer to be applied to a ship, I say why not. As a GM, I would assign some setback dice to any character that tries to do repairs/maintenance on an item that benefits from tinkerer, unless THAT character is the one that applied it to that item.

Why would someone have to be a hardened killer to defend their friends?

It's definitely the GM's prerogative to set the difficulty of tasks.

However, if you find that your Technician is not having as much fun or feels like he isn't as useful because he fails almost every task, you might consider making the tasks easier.

Average Difficulty (2 Purple Dice) to turn on cantina lights? I'm not sure I'd rule it that way in my game.

It was to configure the stage lights to blind the Gammoreans but not the party so not just turning on the lights themselves. Average seemed fair for someone rolling YYG. I had fully expected him to roll multiple success & advantages to lay down cover from fog machines on the stage but in the end he rolled 1 success no advantage.

Maybe they have an argument with the light thing. I'm not sure I'd even allow someone to shut down droids and fly a ship from a docking bay control panel, kind of like jury rigging the toilet to turn on the microwave imo.

Surprisingly enough neither the difficulty of the stage lights nor the use of the Docking Bay control panel was debated by anyone.

Edit: The results of the Docking Bay was debated, but with a failure and 4 threat an exploding console makes sense.

So what difficulty were they arguing? I guess I'm just confused about what they are getting spun up over. Incidentally what does the rest of the group think about the one guy running away all the time?

Why would someone have to be a hardened killer to defend their friends?

Furthermore, s character designed in such a way should not be punished. However, if the player is just being an schutta, to be disruptive, then fire away at them.

So what difficulty were they arguing? I guess I'm just confused about what they are getting spun up over. Incidentally what does the rest of the group think about the one guy running away all the time?

I've ruled that the transponder on the Fang had its own power supply (since we're using battery cells rather than fuel for ship propulsion in lack of other information) so I gave the mechanics check for dismantling with Mechanics a Hard/Daunting difficulty. I can't remember which but it made sense, the thing probably survives stray blaster fire or overloads to the weapons considering where it was placed or it'd be pretty useless for Teemo to use to track his employees.

When that check failed he didn't try again and went with a computer use where I presented the Easy option in the adventure to change the pulse time, this was decided to be insufficient so I gave a Hard check to permanently disable it.

In the end the player decided to shoot the transponder with his holdout blaster, I requested he make a check (without mentioning any difficulty) to see how well he had destroyed the device. This began an argument that he would "continue to keep shooting until it was destroyed completely" and the difficulty of the above checks began to be debated heatedly.

OK well I'd have to side with them here, that shooting an inanimate object in order to destroy it would just be handled narratively and it would be slag. Now as far as the other checks, oh well, I think that was probably more emotional response over the last one. To do something with finesse and require a check is appropriate. To melt something with blaster fire, I'd just let them do that.

No, this is not America. I'm from Canada.

That being said, considering the sheer number of 'friendly fire' incidents inflicted by US troops, not far off the mark.. unlike american troops.

Them's fightin' words.

OK well I'd have to side with them here, that shooting an inanimate object in order to destroy it would just be handled narratively and it would be slag. Now as far as the other checks, oh well, I think that was probably more emotional response over the last one. To do something with finesse and require a check is appropriate. To melt something with blaster fire, I'd just let them do that.

Please note I said "how well they destroyed the device" destroying it was never in question. But you will not keep shooting over and over until it is dust, you will shoot it and consider it dead unless it makes a noise or has a light still on.

PC: I shoot the device.

GM: You shoot it successfully and don't miss, the device makes no sounds and has no lights remaining you feel very successful in your brute force method.

On a roll with threat & successes it could go something like this...

GM: You shoot the device and disable it's function however you note that before it shuts down completely a large red light blinks several times in rapid succession then subsides.

On a roll with advantage or triumph it could go like this...

GM: The device is melted to slag and you detect on your personal commlink a signal being sent out. When this data is entered into the ships nav computer you find that the signal was widly inaccurate placing you not on Ryloth but rather on Rodia, anyone pursuing this signal will likely be very delayed in their pursuit of you.

The system isn't binary fail or success it's also narrative threat & advantage it was never about success or failure it was about extra factors beyond shooting it until it's broken I find this to be an issue with people from d20 systems.

Were they aware of that though? Your intent to have narrative effect? If they weren't aware then I can still see the frustration on their part.

Were they aware of that though? Your intent to have narrative effect? If they weren't aware then I can still see the frustration on their part.

I would understand that too but no one asked why making the check just arguing against the mere implication that I would defame to ask for a check. I phrased it as "to see how successful you are" so the d20 mindset probably said "I should auto succeed!" but then it got ridiculous.

PC: Well instead of rolling I'm just going to keep shooting.

Me: Ok well then you keep shooting and blaster bolts fly everywhere in ricochet as you shoot constantly for 2 minutes, does that sound better than rolling a check?

Preemptive Edit: Note in my reply to the constant shooting I don't say, take damage, blow up something on the ship just that constantly shooting at a floor would make blaster bolts ricochet just like bullets.

It's definitely the GM's prerogative to set the difficulty of tasks.

However, if you find that your Technician is not having as much fun or feels like he isn't as useful because he fails almost every task, you might consider making the tasks easier.

Average Difficulty (2 Purple Dice) to turn on cantina lights? I'm not sure I'd rule it that way in my game.

It was to configure the stage lights to blind the Gammoreans but not the party so not just turning on the lights themselves. Average seemed fair for someone rolling YYG. I had fully expected him to roll multiple success & advantages to lay down cover from fog machines on the stage but in the end he rolled 1 success no advantage.

I can sympathize!

I set up some challenges on our first adventure that I expected to be easy, but they were failed as well.

One was Athletics checks to climb down a mountainside in several steps. I made the first one Hard, because I thought it would reflect the challenge of the climb. Everybody failed and I didn't have good narration to make that interesting, so I lessened the difficulty and moved on.

Later the party discovered a datapad in which I'd hidden some juicy clues for them to follow. The Technician failed the Average check and I was disappointed! I went ahead and gave them part of the results anyway.

Was it just that one player complaining or was it everyone?

It seemed like everything was fairly reasonable, so I can only assume the frustration was just a build-up of the player just having horrible luck - which can be understandable, but still - nothing worth starting a big argument over since it's not like anything was really lost (valuable item, player death, horribly failing a mission).

I guess you'll need to be more clear with them, although if they are experienced GMs you shouldn't have to be. Did you get a chance eventually to explain your reasoning? I would think that would head off further issues.

Why would someone have to be a hardened killer to defend their friends?

They don't. However, the majority of the careers do have a somewhat violent bent to them. The point was that not everyone has the mindset to shoot someone else, even if their friends are in danger. Combat evokes a fight or flight response, that most of as players ignore because we want to play a heroic character. The truth is, the flight response is probably more likely to occur in most of the population.

Furthermore, s character designed in such a way should not be punished. However, if the player is just being an schutta, to be disruptive, then fire away at them.

I definitely agree the solution is not necessarily to make the Technician spend his time shooting and brawling with the enemy exclusively.

I just think it's important to provide a variety of appropriate-level difficulty options for the character to engage in combat in some way using their particular skills, if possible.