Has anyone statted up the Magnaguard droids (or would care to)? These were Grievous's personal honourguard / bodyguards in TCW.

I have an idea for an Aliens style adventure which starts with some junker / prospector finding an old CW-era repair facility where a Magnaguard is lying in a powered-down state. It was in for repairs and is now in pefect condition, but has not been re-activated. During the attempt to relocate this valuable specimen onto a ship for transport, it is of course re-activated and begins hunting through the ship silently, trying to continue a war that ended twenty years ago.

I'm imagining it being smart enough to go into stealth mode when it finds itself on an "enemy" ship. Striking from airvents and... well, look. Everyone here has seen Alien. You get the idea.

I imagine it would be pretty scary tough. Suggestions? I don't have a lot of experience with higher level opponents, yet.

Force and Destiny beat you to it.

IG-100 Magnadroid

5/4/2/3/1/1

Soak : 8

WT : 20

ST : 14

M/R Defense : 1/2

Skills : Athletics 3, Brawl 3, Coordination 4, Melee 4, Perception 3, Vigilance 3

Talents : Adversary 2, Durable 2, Parry 4, Pin

Abilities : Droid

Equipment : Electrostaff, Armor plating

Force and Destiny beat you to it.

IG-100 Magnadroid

5/4/2/3/1/1

Soak : 8

WT : 20

ST : 14

M/R Defense : 1/2

Skills : Athletics 3, Brawl 3, Coordination 4, Melee 4, Perception 3, Vigilance 3

Talents : Adversary 2, Durable 2, Parry 4, Pin

Abilities : Droid

Equipment : Electrostaff, Armor plating

Huh. Thanks for writing out that. It's appreciated.

They're not very smart, are they? Although I suppose I never saw that much intelligence demonstrated by them. Can I assume that was listed as a Rival in the book, not Nemesis?

Actually, Magnaguards are of the Nemesis category.

Sorry. I should have specified they were a nemesis. The Strain Threshold gives it a way, but I should have been more explicit.

Sorry. I should have specified they were a nemesis. The Strain Threshold gives it a way, but I should have been more explicit.

No problem! You've already been very helpful.

I'm wondering if it's quite scary enough to fulfil the Alien / Predator type role I want of it. It's tough, but my PCs will be somewhere in the 120XP range by the time they encounter it. I'm trying to think of the best way to beef it up a little...

The electrostaff has the linked quality. Your PCs definitely would not want it scoring any advantages on them. 2 upgrades and 2 setbacks against range attacks, or 1 setback + 4 parry against melee attacks could make it down quite scary to PCs with only 120XP under their belts.

I'm not very good at these sorts of things, but maybe there's some sort of personality quirk that could make it even more frightening.

What would make this thing a real nightmare would be if you could somehow disarm the PCs and have him in the same room as one of these.

I think it's plenty bad-ass for an alien/hunter, especially if you do a few quick ambushes on pairs of PCs, and then escapes through the ducts. With that kind of Athletics it will be able to flee at will to recover. Maybe they have to figure out it's always going to a particular part of the ship for repairs, if they can damage that they will prevent it healing. If you find it facing all the PCs at once, give it an extra initiative slot.

The electrostaff has the linked quality. Your PCs definitely would not want it scoring any advantages on them. 2 upgrades and 2 setbacks against range attacks, or 1 setback + 4 parry against melee attacks could make it down quite scary to PCs with only 120XP under their belts.

I'm not very good at these sorts of things, but maybe there's some sort of personality quirk that could make it even more frightening.

What would make this thing a real nightmare would be if you could somehow disarm the PCs and have him in the same room as one of these.

I think it's plenty bad-ass for an alien/hunter, especially if you do a few quick ambushes on pairs of PCs, and then escapes through the ducts. With that kind of Athletics it will be able to flee at will to recover. Maybe they have to figure out it's always going to a particular part of the ship for repairs, if they can damage that they will prevent it healing. If you find it facing all the PCs at once, give it an extra initiative slot.

Thank you both! Excellent points. Kaosoe, you're right - now that I really look at it, it actually is pretty nasty. With the proper descriptive spin and setting it could be what I want it to be. Which brings me onto Whafrog's post - Brawn 5, Athletics 3: that thing's going to disappear up a ventilation like Santa Claus played backwards! You've made me think about ways I can exploit an environment. Now that I think about it, a horror film such as Alien never relies just on the creature itself. The world itself seems to conspire against the heroes. Lights fail, people twist ankles...

Kaosoe suggests disarming the PCs. You've made me think about working the environment into it. You know what this reminds me of?

Ripley: Lieutenant, what do those pulse rifles fire?

Gorman: 10 millimeter explosive tip caseless. Standard light armor piercing round, why?

Ripley: Well, look where your team is. They're right under the primary heat exchangers.

Gorman: So?

Ripley: So, if they fire their weapons in there, won't they rupture the cooling system?

Burke: Ho, ho, ho. Yeah, she's absolutely right.

Gorman: [turns round to Burke] So? So what?

Burke: Look, this whole station is basically a big fusion reactor...

[Gorman turns back to stare, horrified, at the screen]

Burke: ...right? So you're talkin' about a thermonuclear explosion and "Adiós, muchachos."

Gorman: Oh, great. Wonderful. ****!

I'm thinking the ship gets damaged, either because they're piloting back the old CW-era ship they find the droid on and it's already damaged, or because the droid starts damaging whatever they've loaded it onto. And as a result, pockets of it fill up with hyperspace fuel vapour. "Nobody touch nothin'" as Apone says. Of course knowing my players they'll immediately try to seal airlocks around the droid and use the vapours as ad hoc explosive to kill it. But that's okay. They need ways they can win and the best games are the ones where they find ways to turn my own weapons against me. And besides, first they'll have to find it.

Oh, this gets better! Now I just need a better motivation for the droid.

The droid might have been during preparation for an assassination mission, where no-one was supposed to be left alive. Now, awake it thinks it's on the mission. The PCs might find this information during the game (following a trail of clues of course).

PC1: What do you mean, we're as good as dead?

PC2, turning back from a screen: I mean, it is a machine. It has a mission. To kill all biological opponents. It has the right programming, right skill-set and it won't rest, won't stop, won't hesitate until its mission is accomplished. We're all dead.

It might be amusing if its original orders were to kill Palpatine. Only Dooku knew the double-identity, maybe Grevious took some initiative...

Of course, the players couldn't find that out until after it considered them an enemy...but they could eventually bail and send the ship to Coruscant

The ship would also need to be pretty large to play hide and seek in, CR90-sized at least. It could be interesting to make them think they just made a huge score, only to discover the "score" has an occupant.

The droid might have been during preparation for an assassination mission, where no-one was supposed to be left alive. Now, awake it thinks it's on the mission. The PCs might find this information during the game (following a trail of clues of course).

PC1: What do you mean, we're as good as dead?

PC2, turning back from a screen: I mean, it is a machine. It has a mission. To kill all biological opponents. It has the right programming, right skill-set and it won't rest, won't stop, won't hesitate until its mission is accomplished. We're all dead.

Oh this gets better and better! Now I don't just have Alien in the mix. I have Terminator, too!

Listen, and understand. That magnaguard is out there. It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until everyone on this ship, is dead.

It might be amusing if its original orders were to kill Palpatine. Only Dooku knew the double-identity, maybe Grevious took some initiative...

Of course, the players couldn't find that out until after it considered them an enemy...but they could eventually bail and send the ship to Coruscant

Ha! Your group has different underlying assumptions than mine! Mine would want to save the Emperor and thus receive oodles of credits!

The ship would also need to be pretty large to play hide and seek in, CR90-sized at least. It could be interesting to make them think they just made a huge score, only to discover the "score" has an occupant.

I've come to the conclusion that it would be best if it were an old Confederacy ship, one of the big ones. Three reasons for this - one atmosphere and lots of decaying systems providing opportunities for the environment to turn on them. Two, lots of regular and decaying ordinary battle droids for casual enemies, creepiness (like dolls, but with blasters) and for sources of information on what is going on. Three, any scenario in which PCs are loading a comatose but deadly droid onto their own ship is inevitably going to be accompanied by the PCs wielding the comatose droid into a metre-thick iron box no matter what tricks I pull to make them think it wont wake up and do "the Mummy thing". Players are just too genre savvy. But if they're piloting back its own ship, there's no end of places I can hide it away.

:D

Have you played through Beyond the Rim? There is a crashed frigate on the planet Cholganna, if you twisted things around and made it repairable (and skip episode 3 of the adventure) that could set the stage nicely.

I love this idea so much - Tucking it away for a future date.

I love this idea so much - Tucking it away for a future date.

She'll be a lucky gal. Most dates you just get a movie, or dinner if you're lucky. This one's going to involve a full adventure in a derelict spaceship!

(Assumed gender for the sake of humour. Poster could be girl or not that way inclined. But jokes seldom benefit from extensive caveats!)

Have you played through Beyond the Rim? There is a crashed frigate on the planet Cholganna, if you twisted things around and made it repairable (and skip episode 3 of the adventure) that could set the stage nicely.

I have not. Nor read it. I've heard mixed things about it - good but with some rail-roading that could be problematic. Not sure, but now I don't know whether to buy it to incorporate, or avoid it to prevent overlap!

I have not. Nor read it. I've heard mixed things about it - good but with some rail-roading that could be problematic. Not sure, but now I don't know whether to buy it to incorporate, or avoid it to prevent overlap!

I never run these things as written, so avoid most of these issues. It's the Cholganna part (middle episode) that's most fun for me. I skipped the last episode first time I ran it, and have skipped the first episode on this latest run through (different group) and wove in my own discovery plot. There's a droid that the party is supposed to have...completely ignored that part.

Even as written though I didn't think it was too rail-roady.

(end of sales pitch)

Oh and speaking from experience - you'll need some friendly NPCs to be killed first since no plan survives encounter with PCs

It would be great if they were something more than generic, nameless redshirts, but rather helpful and vital members of the whole team.

Another idea: remember half-life? At some point military guys show up, but no-no, they aren't there to kill the monster. They want to capture it and study it and make more like it.... Or perhaps discover a lost separatist bunker with dozens of Magnaguards...

One of my PCs is playing a Magnaguard Droid whose memory has been wiped. It's been very interesting so far, and going to take an interesting turn as it's been discovered he has some deeply embedded programming that could let certain people with the right knowledge of how to access it (former Separatist leaders and/or scientists who helped program the model) take control of the droid...

Another idea: remember half-life? At some point military guys show up, but no-no, they aren't there to kill the monster. They want to capture it and study it and make more like it.... Or perhaps discover a lost separatist bunker with dozens of Magnaguards...

That sounds like the plot of Aliens.

Thanks for the great ideas in this thread. You've just planned by next adventure...

Thanks for the great ideas in this thread. You've just planned by next adventure...

Glad you like it. My game is only just getting off the ground so it will be a while before the PCs are ready for this adventure. What I'm going to do is start planting rumours and old traveller's legends about a "ghost ship". I need a name and to thrash out some details about why it would still be active and the truth behind the legends, but it should give me space to do some really nice foreshadowing when they find out it's real and they can make their fortune with this.

If anyone has heard the old Filk song Dawson's Christian from the old album "Carmen Miranda's Ghost is Haunting Space Station Three", that's the feel I want to go for in the build up.

And then come this adventure they'll find the old ruined ship itself and we'll shift to the Alien style story behind it.

Glad you like it. My game is only just getting off the ground so it will be a while before the PCs are ready for this adventure. What I'm going to do is start planting rumours and old traveller's legends about a "ghost ship". I need a name and to thrash out some details about why it would still be active and the truth behind the legends, but it should give me space to do some really nice foreshadowing when they find out it's real and they can make their fortune with this.

If anyone has heard the old Filk song Dawson's Christian from the old album "Carmen Miranda's Ghost is Haunting Space Station Three", that's the feel I want to go for in the build up.

...

And then come this adventure they'll find the old ruined ship itself and we'll shift to the Alien style story behind it.

Awesome!