Hi All,

The following situation presented itself during last night's session, and I'd be keen for some input.

Shooting Stun Weapon with Surprise

The heroes had managed to make their way into a secure compound where an Imperial Shuttle was parked. They were there to track down a contact who had been captured by Storm Commandos. Two of the players managed to get guard uniforms and one of them was dressed as a tech. They eventually got to the hanger and observed three Storm Commandos (Minions) standing next to a statis pod which contained their friend. Their initial intent was to take their friend by force, but as the three players were the not the firepower of the team, they decided that taking on Commandos would be a bad career choice. Instead they decided that tracking where the ship might be headed would be a better idea so they could rescue their friend later. They spotted a terminal, and moved towards it. As they reached their distination, a Storm Commando Rival (Sergeant) exited the ship along with a Dark Trooper Phase 0.

Somewhat concerned, the "Guards" (PCs) tried to look bored, as the Tech (PC) was "repairing" a broken terminal. The Tech tried to hack the system several times, resulting in a complete wash each time. During that time, the three Commando Minions were ordered to check out a situation caused by the Pilot and Combat Droid PCs who were elsewhere. That left the Commando Rival and and the Dark Trooper. Because the PCs at this point were lingering, the Sergeant came over to investigate. As the tech gained his attention, whilst the Dark Trooper looked on across the hanger bay, one of the "guard" PCs, secretly drew his blaster (good stealth roll), and attempted to cap the Sergeant with his light blaster on stun.

I provided a Boost Dice on the check (for surprise), but the check only generated 2 Success and 3 threat. Given that he was stunning a Commando, I imposed 3 strain for the stressful situation. But the damage only did 2 points of Wounds to the Rival.

So the questions I have are:
1) Should I have just had the Sergeant knocked unconscious?
2) Have I applied the rules correctly?
3) Any suggestions?

The only immediate one I have thought of this morning was that the player could have made a called shot, [+2 Setback] to get a shot under the troopers helmet and avoiding the armour's soak, but the player did say that he didn't want to wait and that he was making the action sudden and so didn't want to aim.

Any help?

I can think of two ways to do this, I'm sure others will think of other ways.

1. You can play RAW, in this case the damage was not enough to neutralize the Rival and a firefight begins. Since the only person exposed is the one who just shot, you could give everybody else a Boost for surprise. However this is not going to be a pretty fight since you said this is not the combat heavy of the team.

2. You could play this out cinematically. The shot was a success and since it was a surprise shot, the target is stunned. The PC suffers 3 strain due to the highly stressful situation (as you ruled). And then go from there.

I think you have applied the RAW correctly but it sounds to me that you have misgivings about a pitched firefight. The choice is yours and yours to make. You must do as you feel is right. The consequences will fall wherever they may.

And that's exactly what happened. One of the PCs ended up unconscious, the tech went toe to toe with the sergeant and the other character (Jedi) whipped out some force powers, snap-hiss with the lightsaber and thanks to a Despair, the Dark Trooper's programming got knocked out of whack, which allowed the Jedi to influence him and bring him to the thinking of the Old Republic Clones before Order 66. That worked, and the trooper used the words, "I can't attack the Jedi. I'm a Clone Trooper". He then opened up on the Sergeant. The final result was a dead Sergeant, a dead Dark Trooper (but redeemed) and the PCs running off with the shuttle.

The point is that had I followed RAW, most of that may not have happened. Would I change what I did? In hindsight, no, but I do think I will do what you suggested in point 2 Oden.

i think there is an element of what the situation is like that should be taken into account like how far was he from the trooper, did he tell the trooper before he went over etc etc. If you were going to do it in a cinematic way as suggested I think it also opens up more options an different ones as well, for example the guy was knocked out but wha happens if the dark trooper comes looking for him as he's wondering why his friend hasn't come back yet and really wants to know who won the pod racers. I like to think of it as if I've put something there to be a challenge, just because they've changed it doesn't make the challenge go away it just changes form if possible.

If this guy was just a lacking and not important to anything and was just an inconvenient obstacle then just lights and and move on, otherwise I think your ruling was fair and seemed to have played out in a fun manner anyway.

Good GMing is making sure your players are having fun. Not that you follow the letter of the rules. If the whole episode was fun for everyone I wouldn't worry about whether you ran it correctly or RAW as it sounds like you did have fun. Could you do things differently? Possibly. And it never hurts to discuss it for future improvs too. For instance, the stress you inflicted could also have been the result of the character double aiming to bypass the target's soak, thus getting just the one setback die. Or whatever else works. Lots of variances.

Yeah, the rules (or lack thereof) for sneak attacks are a bit of a problem. I've considered allowing PCs to make Stealth checks and add the Success/Advantage to their attack results when sneak attacking- but even then, that's probably 5 more damage at best.