I know there has been discussion about whether stun weapons affect droids, or if only ion weapons do. My interpretation is to have droids affected by stun weapons, just like organics (partly because if I try to capture a droid, not many people carry ion weapons). But that leaves ion weapons as a weapon with little to no use. They seem to deal slightly higher damage than a regular weapon, but not enough to justify their existence. I talked with my group about it, since one is a droid, and we came up with a couple of options for ion weapons which seem to make them more in line with the movies and TV shows. I wanted to hear what others thought about them.

1. All ion weapons (including ship based) receive Breach 1. This option dramatically affects how much strain the shot does, and increases the likelihood of a takedown, even against combat droids like the droideka.

2. All ion weapons deal damage normally, but if any damage passes soak/armor, the weapon causes an auto "crit". This crit is affected by lethal blows, earlier crits, etc, but will wear off in a few minutes. To give the droids some stun resistance, droids cannot receive crits from stun weapons.

BTW, I assume that stun weapons can crit targets, but that the effect only last a few minutes.

I think the big benefit of them is if you miss the droid and hit your buddies engaged with it then they don't get hurt (unless they are droids themselves!). Also helpful when shooting into a crowd trying to stop a runaway Droid.

It's all about having the right tool for the job, sometimes when a Droid goes rogue their former master may provide the ion weaponry to be used, or a group of bounty hunters may have a cupboard full of them on the ship for those special jobs.

A few thoughts:

• Not all stun weapons should effect droids; several are gas/chemical based stun weapons, which droids are immune too.
• Stun settings automatically reduce their weapon's range to short. Most ion weapons are short ranged anyway, but it's a consideration.
• Of the ion weapons, there are very few. The droid disabler and the droid disruptor have qualities that the ion blaster or other stun weapons don't have. Culling them would seem mean.
• Ion affects cybernetics adversely in a way stun weapons don't.

Sorry for bringing this thread up but what I figure from reading on about soak, ion weapons do NOT get lowered by soak value (wich droids usually have lots of) but stun damage counts as regular damage but to the strain..

"Soak does not reduce strain inflicted on a target except in specific instances (such as with weapons with the Stun Damage quality)." Last bit on page 207 in the core rulebook.

Or have I misread it badly?

Weapons with Stun Damage or Stun setting have their damage reduced by soak. Weapons with the Stun X quality (where X is a number) do not involve soak but are applied directly to the character's strain threshold.

And I don't remember reading anywhere that ion weapons bypass soak. I know for sure they don't bypass vehicle armour, and I'm pretty sure droid characters would get their soak against ion weapons as well. Most personal scale ion weapons have pretty high base damage, so it's hardly a handicap.

Soak (or Armor) is applied to Ion damage.

Soak is definitely applied to ion damage. Moreover...

All ion weapons (including ship based) receive Breach 1.

... where does this come from? Ion weapons that don't have Breach include: Ionization Blaster (ECRB), Felebrek Droid Disabler (FC), Mini Torpedo - Ion (SoR), Kirgo Blastworks Lightning 22 Ion Grenade (DC), Gungan Atlatl and Plasma Ball (NoP), Ion Thruster Gun (SM)...

In other words, pretty much all of them. Did I miss some special rule that says "All ion weapons receive Breach 1?"

Soak is definitely applied to ion damage. Moreover...

All ion weapons (including ship based) receive Breach 1.

... where does this come from? Ion weapons that don't have Breach include: Ionization Blaster (ECRB), Felebrek Droid Disabler (FC), Mini Torpedo - Ion (SoR), Kirgo Blastworks Lightning 22 Ion Grenade (DC), Gungan Atlatl and Plasma Ball (NoP), Ion Thruster Gun (SM)...

In other words, pretty much all of them. Did I miss some special rule that says "All ion weapons receive Breach 1?"

It's a proposed house rule to make ion weapons more effective compared to stun setting weapons. It's not an offical rule.

I know there has been discussion about whether stun weapons affect droids, or if only ion weapons do. My interpretation is to have droids affected by stun weapons, just like organics (partly because if I try to capture a droid, not many people carry ion weapons). But that leaves ion weapons as a weapon with little to no use. They seem to deal slightly higher damage than a regular weapon, but not enough to justify their existence. I talked with my group about it, since one is a droid, and we came up with a couple of options for ion weapons which seem to make them more in line with the movies and TV shows. I wanted to hear what others thought about them.

1. All ion weapons (including ship based) receive Breach 1. This option dramatically affects how much strain the shot does, and increases the likelihood of a takedown, even against combat droids like the droideka.

2. All ion weapons deal damage normally, but if any damage passes soak/armor, the weapon causes an auto "crit". This crit is affected by lethal blows, earlier crits, etc, but will wear off in a few minutes. To give the droids some stun resistance, droids cannot receive crits from stun weapons.

BTW, I assume that stun weapons can crit targets, but that the effect only last a few minutes.

I think you'll erase PC droids.

Soak is definitely applied to ion damage. Moreover...

All ion weapons (including ship based) receive Breach 1.

... where does this come from? Ion weapons that don't have Breach include: Ionization Blaster (ECRB), Felebrek Droid Disabler (FC), Mini Torpedo - Ion (SoR), Kirgo Blastworks Lightning 22 Ion Grenade (DC), Gungan Atlatl and Plasma Ball (NoP), Ion Thruster Gun (SM)...

In other words, pretty much all of them. Did I miss some special rule that says "All ion weapons receive Breach 1?"

It's a proposed house rule to make ion weapons more effective compared to stun setting weapons. It's not an offical rule.

Okay... yeah. I should have read more closely. I don't know why, but that one line caught my eye and I went a little crazy on the response.