OK, Its me again. Some of you may have seen me with issues on Player Wealth in another thread.

This kind of carries on from there, but its more specific.

I am just starting Trouble Brewing, and I can forsee some things coming up that I would like to try and 'pre-empt' them if I can.

My Tech will almost certainly want to take the remains of the Protocol Droid with him, in his hopes of building his own (With some parts from Teemos droid) I dont see this as a huge issue, but should I let him construct a free protocol droid?

I have considered that he wont have enough parts

I have considered that he wont be able to carry the entire droid, but he has friends who can help.

When they find Dobah, they will almost certainly decide to take his ship as well. If I ensure the ship is not 'spaceworthy' the Tech will almost certainly try and strip every single usable item from the ship. (The same would apply the other Rodians ship, that is not space worthy anyway)

What kind of methods would you suggest to prevent this?

What kind of support should arrive to prevent them having the time?

I am fairly certain that my tech may try and hijack the Astromech droid, slap a restraining bolt on it, and abuse the fact he now has an astro droid to really bump up his effectiveness in all things mechanical.

I have considered having the droid become belligerent, refusing any complex orders, even though it will be compelled to COME, STOP, TURN ON, TURN OFF, etc... but that kind of defeats the point of a restraining bolt.

I have considered the Droid fighting back, or suggesting the party can Pay for its services (Since it is a manumitted droid).

I am also quite happy for the droid to go on its merry way, so as to remove this wonderful tool from the groups arsenal, but thats dependent on the group letting it go.

I have an absent player in the group, who has a droid pilot as his character (Currently switched off, as he thinks his time is limited), who I can co-opt into freeing the Astro if need be, but I can see that causing arguments and such.

I am resigned to the fact the party could end up with 5k reward, which compounds things mentioned in a previous post, assuming they dont got for the 'big bucks' at Kessel (Which will also mean they may end up with some Glitterstim).

As a side note... how would you use glitterstim? What effect would you apply, and how would you deal with addiction for a PC?

Cheers

RD

Glitterstims effects are detailed in the EotE core book.

The only reason stealing starships is so easy is if you make it so, let them steal the ship, let them find a buyer, let them realize they don't have any BoSS transponder codes to show they own said ship when the buyer contacts the authorities quietly and your players are arreseted and sent to a penal colony earning nothing. Let some a gang of criminals break them free enroute minus now two ships(the authorities did some digging and impounded their other stolen ship) and obligation to the folks that freed them and set them up with a new ship with falsified codes.

Maybe your players will then realize oh I can't just steal everything. Piracy and glitterstim smuggling are two of the worst offenses in almost all systems, if your players want to be hardened criminals that don't have the skills or contacts to pull off hardened criminal crimes, they should be given the threat of hard time.

Dobah could always trigger a self-destruct sequence if he gets hurt badly enough. Blow his ship, blow out the pressure curtain around his hideout, suck anyone who doesn't get vaporized by the blast out into the cold, unforgiving vacuum of space.

More specifically though, why don't you want your tech able to make a protocol droid? Let him slowly find parts to add to doing so bit by bit 500 credits here and there if you want, let him feel like his efforts are worthwhile, just dont give him the immediate gratification of having a completed droid for free.

Dobah's ship can be spaceworthy, as I said before its a known pirates ship(and likely to be impounded or shot down), and the players can't provide any means of proving ownership, maybe point out to the players that the added heat is not worth it as they would not have the means of selling the ship, and considering they are already tooling around in another stolen ship that they haven't falsified BoSS transponder codes for maybe that extra scrutiny isn't something they want. If your tech wants to hack and forge his own BoSS codes it would be considered an Impossible check, much like forging a credit cylnder meaning its something that NPCs might be capable of doing for story's sake when you want it to be possible, but players really shouldn't be allowed to.

Let your tech strip Dobah's ship if time permits, in the end advise him its value is likely only that which you could get for the scrap metal as its incompatible with your own ships systems. Selling the glitterstim is already covered in the adventure, and transporting it outside of the adventure to a better buyer potentially carries a higher risk as glitterstim smuggling is a pretty risky crime, same for smuggling weapons.

If your tech wants to steal the droid, let him, the droid might just be pissed enough about it to occasionally leave the ship unlocked at seedy spaceports, or turn on the ships active sensors while the crew is trying to sneak past a customs corvette, the key is to let there be a consequence for the negative behavior. As you mentioned before if one of your players is already a droid then perhaps the thought of another character enslaving every free droid he meets is offensive and he helps with said liberation. As far as grabbing the droid and trying to sell it, they would likely get very little for a droid who's programming had to be totally wiped since its been hard-coded in as manumitted, and most droid lover dealers might report the theft to the authorities as attempted droid slavery of a free sentient.(Probably at most a minor fine but one that still carries no ability to profit off the transaction)

Very helpful Greymere.

Very helpful indeed... thank you!

There is a reason why nearly all stolen cars are used for 1 trip/crime or end up in a chop-shop. Starships are the same way because the registration is at least as distinct, if not more. There are a couple of threads on it I'd have to dig up, but the tl;dr version is that it's exceptionally hard to hide the ID of a vehicle.

In my game I simply said "a quick examination determines the droid is beyond repair. I'd take several thousand credits to rebuild and even then, it wouldn't be the same droid." They left it, but had they taken it it would have been a 95% cost repair needing 30 accumulated "week of work" successes. At the end they would have gotten a stock protocol droid.

I also made Dobah's ship in bad, non-spaceworth condition. "The engine and shield generator were cannibalized for the atmosphere shield, and the power core doesn't look like it's been maintained for a decade." Combined with the lawn chairs and totally decorative awning, the entire thing gave a memorable impression of a trailer-park-in-space that gave him some character.

If they want to strip the ship for scrap and they have time (which they should) I'd let the Tech make a salvage (mechanics) roll with at least 3 blacks (Age, tools, in space) and recover 500 credits / 25 ship encuberance or so per success.

Your actually on par with the Restraining Bolt. Most of them just issue shutdown and basic locomotion instructions. Also, an emancipated droid can make a discipline check (which it'll make eventually) to ignore/override the bolt if it wants to, and an R2 unit has more than enough engineering skill to remove the bolt once it can act. Then it can just let its self out at the next starport, with the tech's tools & credit chip.

Suddenly: 5 cruisers exit light speed and lock on-- Dues Ex Story.

Have fun.