One of my players had an idea for implementing a Stun-esque setting to a starship laser cannon. Almost ever laser gun in this game has a stun setting, would it be possible to create a modification to the cannon, so that it will Stun the Crew of the ship, without actually damaging the ship in any way. [Or causing System Strain].

Basically he wants to add Stun Capacitors. Some sort of Diffusion Crystal, and Hull Penetration.

Your call but I wouldn't allow it. Ion is far as it goes, although I might allow some kind of upgrade to ion weapons in order to inflict both System Strain and Strain on live targets possibly with various restrictions. There actually aren't any man portable laser guns, they are blasters, and the blasters that have stun setting tend to be the lower end of the power scale. The beefier blasters with hard hitting potential or Autofire tend to not have Stun settings.

Unfortunately that is more the domain of Star Trek. If it were possible to mass stun a crew then pirates (and the Empire) wouldn't use ion cannons to disable vessels. It's up to you but I'd suggest not allowing this weapon simply because if your heroes have it there's no reason their enemies may also have a similar weapon.

Yeah, ion cannons already fill that niche. Also from what you've mentioned of your players before I don't think its a good idea to let them have a weapon that'll allow them to just take a ship intact with a minimal fight.

If they really want, pm me. There is a group in the EU that has a weapon like you describe. But they aren't really known for being.... Friendly... I could see an entire campaign around trying to get one off em.

If you could stun a ship crew with your starship cannons without boarding, you aren't playing Star Wars anymore and removing lots of fun that could potentially snooze a campaign.

Example: The opening scene of Episode IV just became non-sensical. An Imperial Star Destroyer would of course have such weapons at its disposal if it existed. Several of them. Powerful versions. Now they've stopped a fleeing Rebel ship by blowing out its engines. On board is a rebel leader whom they want taken alive for interrogation. Why would they send the Stormtroopers on board without just stunning all of the crew first to ensure they don't kill Leia?

Once you open this can it's hard to close it again. Many scenarios you may develop as a GM will suddenly have an instant-unfun button. Every time an enemy ship needs to be boarded, the players will utilize this unfun weapon and simply walk aboard. Expect them to use this over and over to get rich or amass a fleet of ships. And it wouldn't stop at ships. Every time you map out a base/building/hideout for the PCs to infiltrate, they would use this weapon to push aside all of your work. Throwing the same weapon back at the PCs would also unfun things. "Ok, the Imperial Corvette opens up with its stunners and you awake 10 minutes later with Stormtroopers standing above you....for the 5th time". Snooze.

I agree with all of you, I just wasnt sure how to explain my "No."

I would say that you could create a modification to have a stun setting on a starship weapon. However, almost no one would use it because it would not penetrate the armor of the ship. It would effectively only be useful as a close air support idea, with significantly limited range.

I would say that you could create a modification to have a stun setting on a starship weapon. However, almost no one would use it because it would not penetrate the armor of the ship. It would effectively only be useful as a close air support idea, with significantly limited range.

This makes sense. You have stun settings on blasters after all. BUT:

Are the weapons of starship scale actually blasters? Only the Autoblaster is called a "blaster". The others are called, "lasers". I wouldn't think there is a stun setting at all for a laser.

As noted above, there is also the issue in RAW of more powerful blasters not having stun settings. Why? An easy answer is that such weapons are so powerful that they can still be lethal even when adjusted to a stun setting. In game terms, even when set to stun they will still cause normal damage at a reduced rate?

This makes sense. You have stun settings on blasters after all. BUT:

Are the weapons of starship scale actually blasters? Only the Autoblaster is called a "blaster". The others are called, "lasers". I wouldn't think there is a stun setting at all for a laser.

I think you just came up with the first legitimate reason I can think of to actually have real "blasters" on a ship — a stun setting for use against ground targets.

Now auto-blasters and their 3 damage makes so much more sense….

This makes sense. You have stun settings on blasters after all. BUT:

Are the weapons of starship scale actually blasters? Only the Autoblaster is called a "blaster". The others are called, "lasers". I wouldn't think there is a stun setting at all for a laser.

I think you just came up with the first legitimate reason I can think of to actually have real "blasters" on a ship — a stun setting for use against ground targets.

Now auto-blasters and their 3 damage makes so much more sense….

Auto-blasters in RAW are damage 30 on the personal scale (some of us house rule 15 like a heavy repeater). No blaster with 10 or more damage (Heavy Blaster Rifle or above) has a stun setting in RAW. For your Auto-blaster to have a stun setting to do 30 stun on the personal scale you would have to explain why no other weapon of 10+ damage can do such.

You could simply house rule any blaster can have a stun setting regardless of power, those in the book just chose not to include it. But you could also interpret there is typically no stun setting since the weapon is too powerful and causes some residual lethal damage even if switched to stun - it's dangerous so Imperial law or factories worried about liability prohibit it.

With some tweaking you could add stun ability to those powerful blasters that don't come it? Perhaps make it a new attachment sucking up a hard point. An enlarged Stun Module for larger blasters wouldn't be something you could easily find.The attachment could be illegal, hard to find, and/or costly.

Blaster Rifle : 9 wound normal / 9 stun if stun selected (RAW)

Heavy Blaster Rifle : 10 wound normal / 9 stun and 1 wound if stun selected

Heavy Repeating Blaster : 15 wound normal / 10 stun and 5 wound if stun selected

Auto-Blaster : 30 wound normal / 15 stun and 15 wound if stun selected

Thus you could try to use your tweaked Auto-Blaster to stun, but just as often you are accidentally going to fry your stunned target too. Perhaps there is a difficult modification roll to the Stun Module attachment to further increase it's stun ability versus lethality?

Mod Option: 25 wound (2 damage starship scale) normal / 20 stun and 5 wound if stun selected

As noted above, there is also the issue in RAW of more powerful blasters not having stun settings. Why? An easy answer is that such weapons are so powerful that they can still be lethal even when adjusted to a stun setting. In game terms, even when set to stun they will still cause normal damage at a reduced rate?

It's good to think of stun setting as a "sublethal" attack, like Sturn suggests. One that will incapacitate the target probably without inflicting serious injury or death. A rubber bullet the size of a tank round will still crush you, and an EMP burst meant to disable hardened starship electronics will probably scramble the electrical currents in your body just as well.

Heck, I remember a line in Harry Potter , of all places, about how McGonagall "took five Stunning Spells to the chest! It's a miracle she didn't die!" And if magic can cause overkill, technology certainly will!

My group has all agreed that Stun attacks can still trigger Critical Injuries, for example, representing the target having sensitive internal organs being struck in a vulnerable location, or even suffering injuries from collapsing after being rendered unconscious.

And I can't think of anything in-setting, other than the Force, which could affect individuals aboard a ship (from outside the ship) without affecting the ship itself.

That said...you could get close by using an extremely focused gravity well generator to somehow overstress the target's inertial compensators. This would prevent acceleration (in the physics sense) and leave the ship drifting, capable of generating no more than a handful of gravities without crushing the crew, without damaging any other major systems. However, if the failsafes don't cut power to the engines in time, you won't be able to take the crew alive; dozens of gravities worth of falling damage would do similar damage to a turbolaser...and that's assuming a grav-well will actually affect the compensator at all, or at least do so without tearing the target ship and/or itself apart by creating miniature singularities in the process.

However I can't think of any example in Star Wars where an inertial compensator has actually failed (catastrophically or otherwise) so they are are likely incredibly reliable and nigh impossible to interfere with, or someone would have done it by now. Even if it was possible, the power required would be ridiculous (even Interdictor Cruisers only generate a planet's worth or so, and you'd need either another couple orders of magnitude or some incredibly precise targeting).

Although...Yuuzhan Vong dovin basals do have some pretty pinpoint gravitational control...now I'm really curious...but even then, overloading the compensator will either leave the crew unaffected or pulp them all instantly. If they survive they can still use all of the ship's other systems and weapons, as well as fight against a boarding attempt.

Once the ship was disabled, you could maybe use a tractor beam to apply a dozen gravities or so (steadily increasing over the course of a minute or two) to induce unconsciousness (since the artificial gravity is likely intimately connected with the compensators, and the overloading of the latter would likely entail a similar effect on the former) without tossing the crew around in a way that could cause serious injury, but even that involves a lot of finesse and isn't at all certain.

There really isn't a magic bullet to incapacitate the crew without affecting the ship. Other than using the Force. Because, you know, magic .

Star Wars runs pretty soft-science for my taste in sci-fi; since the mechanics of spaceflight aren't laid out in consistent detail, almost any attempt at technology-based problem-solving devolves into handwavium pretty rapidly, as you can see above. If you really want to design such a weapon, just make sure you think about the implications for how your players might use it and how that would affect your game first.

Your question piqued my interest, and so this post kept getting longer as I tried to figure out a way to do it. Short answer is "other than the Force, no".