OK, so sometime in the next few weeks I will be returning to GMing my Campaign.

We are bringing in a new player, after someone left.

However, the group have requested they be allowed to continue to run the departed players character (partly because the Medic wants to take a more supporting role to make use of her Buff talents, and keeps finding herself in the front line).

So my group will consist of:

A Drall mechanic. Not that great in combat, 'reasonable' with a blaster.

A Rodian Scoundrel, who IS good with a Heavy Blaster (Ag of 5).

A Twilek Doctor, who is also reasonable, but wants to make use of her more 'supporting' talents.

a now Playerless Selonian Marauder, who is quite nasty in Melee.

and the new guy, but I am not sure quite what he will be playing... minor force user probable, good in combat.

I have decided to run Pirates of Prexier (location modified) as an intro, as it has a range of dice checks that will allow the new player to get a good grip of the mechanics.

The question is, how many Pirates and where should they be?

The Printed Adventure says there is a guard in each tower (Thats a total of 6).

10 patrol the gate.

2 guard Vangars hut, and Vangar presumably inside.

But not specific elsewhere...

Presumably some in the barracks and mess hall, possibly the ship.

I would like to 'prevent' them stealing the pirate ship (That I have swapped for a Gozanti, as it seems the right size). So I was going to put some pirates ON the ship.

Should I also throw some weak starfighters into the mix?

(I think they will do their best to prevent them making chase, sabotaging ships etc.

They will certainly try sneaking around, but I dont have much hope of them passing all the checks required.... suggestions on how to let them pass, while failing would be appreciated.

would 20-30 pirates in total be too many? (They will have no idea, as they cannot see into the buildings) Obviously they wont be fighting them all at once.

I also need to take into account the chase back to their own ship.

The ambush in the forest (Which would be dropped)

And the showdown with the Pirates ship (To get some space combat in, as we need the practice, ive made some changes to how i run it, and so the new player can experience it).

But I dont want it to be too hard on them, as the payout for this job is going to be light.

(They are doing a favour for Ota who they met in LAotH, and what they dont know, is they are retrieving stolen Rebel supplies that are needed for a rescue missions... they may run into the same Rebels later..)

Help please!

RD

I ran this adventure a couple of times back in the D6 days and that ship ALWAYS got stolen by the PCs.

I might humbly suggest the pirate's vessel perhaps...

...be "guarded" by repairmen: the interior has suffered some widespread, but superficial, damage (perhaps someone suffered an explosive decompression during entry into the atmosphere, or a grenade went off during a prank) and so all the low-level pirates are on clean-up duty.

... be full of (noncombat) droids, pressed into service by the pirates, who panic and set off noisily through the ship when they see the PCs

...contain some newly-captured native animals who are already stressed and only freak out even more when they see PCs

...not have that nice stationary blaster "machine gun", because that thing wrecks if turned back onto the pirates.

As for allowing for failure during sneaking, perhaps you could treat failure as "entering structured gameplay" and starting combat/initiative, where pirate turns give them a chance to know the general area where the PCs are and to use their turns to search more closely; if the PCs get through a round of "stealth combat" without failing a roll, then they reenter "narrative gameplay" and the pirates, though still suspicious, are now still mainly ignorant of the PCs. If your PCs are murderhobos, then you might find they DO attract the attention of all of the guards, so I wouldn't raise the overall numbers too high.

I have a lot of love for this mini-module, so I hope it goes well for you!

Ideally, I envisage them getting to the cargo, that is sat outside the ship by the skiff, and loading it without too much issue.

THEN they get discovered.

I want the Pirate ship to be functional, so it can give chase and result in alittle space combat, but otherwise 'unstealable'

I was thinking, as they watch the ship, they can see pirates entering and leaving, and so they will know it is well crewed.

Short or moving the cargo elsewhere in the camp, to one of the warehouses perhaps, but below the ship makes for a reasonable covered area to load the cargo, which will be about a dozen crates, any of which can be moved by one person, but too many for them to 'carry out' the way they come in.

Of course, they might do something totally different. I have made it clear to one of my players, that I wouldnt want them to steal the ship, as it would grant them a significant boost to power or cash, that would unbalance the story i am trying to tell.

The surviving Pirates flee in the Gozanti once it becomes clear the attackers are closing in on the ship you never know what your PCs want is still aboard leading to them maybe chasing after it?

Another possibility you use accumulated threat or a despair causing the ship to blow up, please note accumulated as in by both Pirates and players so you have a darn good reason they fail to capture the ship let alone the Pirates decide to split ranks and the pirate leader sets off the self destruct now imagine your players reaction if that happens after they narrowly fail to capture the pirate ship?!

I tried to run this adventure during the EotE Beta and regretted it as soon as we hit the chase scene.

Uh... spoiler alert... for a near 20 year old adventure module?

Anyway, YOU WERE WARNED!

The second (or third, whatever) encounter has the players fleeing through the woods on the skiff with the goods. They're chased by a bunch of speeder bikes, and then get ambushed by AT-PTs. The characters are expected to fire back at AT-PTs with hand-held weapons. In EotE, stock AT-PTs have Armor 3...

This poses a problem.

Even if you strip down the armor to 0, it would take 80 damage to destroy the AT-PTs, which is possible if you give them the LRB listed in the crates but, again, this strips all the armor off the AT-PTs.

Some options:

• Change the AT-PTs to something else, a la nests of Heavy Repeaters
• Revamp the small arms fire vs vehicle rules
• Give the characters something "vehicle-sized" instead of the LRB to deal with the walkers
• Add the breach quality to the LRB
• Make it very clear they should avoid the walkers
• See what else they come up with.

Just be aware that hiccup is there. It would have been nice to have a vehicle scale between "characters" and "full-sized starships", but it is what it is.

But I dont want it to be too hard on them, as the payout for this job is going to be light.

Just food for thought on this one line:

If they *fail* and get chased into the woods or captured, it's not exactly a horrible situation. This system, more than most, handles the party going "off-the-rails" better than most. It'd be a good chance to show them how the dice can be used in a narrative setting (I don't recall there being much in the way of social interaction in the module), and showing them that getting knocked out from wounds isn't the end of the world.

Thats for the feedback LethalDose.

I had not noticed the issue with the ATPTs, but I was considering dropping that entire encounter anyway... and possibly adding in a couple of Cloakshape fighters into the space battle (Which, knowing one of the driving players in my group, will be a "GET OUTTA DODGE QUICK! tactic).

I may reduce the speeder bikes to two, and let them finish them off before they get back to their ship...,. but I get the feeling I might need to add or reduce the challenges depending on what they elect to do, and what they succeed in doing.

Our group had a great time playing this with the EotE rules. They ended up pinned down in the base beside the loaded-up skiff and resorted to calling in air support from their ship. They had to survive against Vengar (nemesis) and his cronies until the ship arrived, but because it couldn't set down in the base, they settled for having the ship blow up the guard towers and create enough mayhem for them to slip out on the skiff. Cue a chase, with the PCs protected from overhead. This led to a superb climatic battle where they had to load up their ship in a clearing while the AT-PTs were giving them hell, and all the while Vengar was on approach in his own vessel. Good times.

OK.... So after taking into consideration all the above, here is my plan.

I have no idea what the group are going to do to get INTO the Compound. None whatsoever.

But they could do any of the following:

*Bypass the Fence (Strain of 5 if they fail, and damage any tools used) They can try and repeat this. Guards might notice, but I actually want them to succeed.... so probably wont have alarms go off.

*Bluff past the guards. This i doubt they will try, as they are not a group who really go the 'bravado swagger' route, they are paranoid. If they DO try and fail, i might have the fight proceed as if they dont get the chance to sound the alarm. Perhaps reduce the guards on the gate to aid in this.

*Sneak in via the water pool... this would be fairly straight forward, I might have them encounter one pirate getting water if they fluff a roll, but I dont see that being a huge issue, he should be easily dispatched without alerting anyone.

Once they are in, a few checks to sneak about should be fine to get them to the cargo that is sat outside the ship next to the skiff. That is broken, giving the Mechanic something do do as well. Easy fixes, load up.,.. get caught. Bit of a firefight, FLEE, ramming their way out of the main gate.

Chase ensures with a few swoops using personal weapons.

SCRAPPING the ATPT ambush. Its just too much of a heachache. Ill let them run til they dispatch (or they give up) the swoop riders.

At their ship, the Pirates Gozanti has arrived (After they repair any sabotage they might try), and dropped off a few pirates trying to get into the ship, while the pirate ship circles. They should make short work of them (those on top of the ship falling off when shot and becoming incapacitated).

Mild firefight on the way to orbit, a short chase through the planets asteroid field (to prevent too quick of an escape). A short battle with a couple Cloackshapes and the Gozanti... and Jump to safety.

Rendezvous with their target (Rebels, needing the supplies for a rescue/prison liberation/something - not that the players know this, the Rebel here will crop up later), transfer cargo, small reward, home for drinks and cigars.

What do you all think?

Its impossible for me to come up with an ABC plan, as I have no idea WHAT they are going to do, or how, or if it works.

Normally, this would terrify me, But i am actually looking forward to running this. Ive got enough Framework to work within, without it becoming overwhelming for my poor broken brain.