We have some battle with droids, but we would like to get at least one of them captured for interrogation (and a poetical revenge, i feel, for lying to us before). Obviously, if we had a single ion weapon, that would not be a problem.

Lacking ion weapon, is there any other viable options to subdue a droid? It's is not a minion, i need add, but would like an option on minions as well.

There are a few restraining bolts around, i think i even got one in my mechanic's pocket (removed it from another droid to wake it up) , but i judge that that would not be applicable in middle of fight upon a resisting droid, right?

Stun damage still works, right? Make its circuits overload to shut it down, apply the restraining bolt and then go ahead with whatever it is you want to do to that droid. Sure, minions don't have a strain threshold, but I see no reason to keep anyone from stunning a minion instead of killing it.

Otherwise, a sneaky PC could attempt to apply the bolt while the others keep the droid busy. Would be hard to do and require a few opposed checks, but it's certainly doable.

18 hours ago, Noriass said:

We have some battle with droids, but we would like to get at least one of them captured for interrogation (and a poetical revenge, i feel, for lying to us before). Obviously, if we had a single ion weapon, that would not be a problem.

Lacking ion weapon, is there any other viable options to subdue a droid? It's is not a minion, i need add, but would like an option on minions as well.

There are a few restraining bolts around, i think i even got one in my mechanic's pocket (removed it from another droid to wake it up) , but i judge that that would not be applicable in middle of fight upon a resisting droid, right?

There's the Wookie approach; you'll find it a lot easier to handle after you rip its extremeties off. Of course, you'll be stuck carrying it if you do.

Random list of options I can think of, some might require approval from GM:

1. Restraining bolts (as mentioned above)

2. Applied electricity. I can think of several types of traps you could set up, involving live currents nearby to short circuit the droid in question. Water + exposed cable = great shock trap.

3. A mechanics/computers check during combat, to forcibly shut down the droid. The GM would probably make this quite difficult, seeing as you would need to be in Engaged range, of a hostile target, who doesn't want you to turn him off. But it seems doable to me. I can think of tons of movies that they did this very thing with robot threats they wanted to shut down.

4. Targeted shots to key systems to shut it down. If you have a good shooter character, they could try and do an aimed attack at a specific part of the droid, to disable it's power supply by blasting the cables leading from it to the rest of the droid for example. Again, this would probably be a very hard shot, but hey, that's what specialized combat monkeys live for.

5. Depending on how much lead time you might have, perhaps the less combat focused characters could find a way to get some schematics on that model of droid, and find a shutdown code or something, to simply switch it off.

6. Ion damage (as mentioned above). This is probably the easiest way, as I don't think it's too difficult to find a few ion weapons at reasonable prices, with minimal rarity.

7. Have your mechanically/slicing inclined character, specifically make an item to shut the droid down. I seem to recall one of the mechanic talents allowing the PC to make any device they need on the fly. But they can only do it like once per session or something. Have the PC (assuming one of you has this), say he's cobbling together a droid disabling device, so you can take the droid captive. It won't really matter how it works really, as the talent basically says "it works if they make the check to build it". This is more narratively flexible of course, but feels like a fun use of the talent.

Annnd....yeah that's all I've got off the top of my head. I'm sure I could think of some others, but 7 options should give you something to work with I think

Ion pistol + restraining bolt.

Ion grenades should be easier and cheaper to find than an ion pistol or rifle but there have been some really great options posted already.

I mean is your GM a real stickler for "damage beyond wound threshold = dead"? It seems like if you want to capture a droid it'd just be a matter of shooting it up until it goes down, then recovering the hardware and repairing it to the point of working again.

Ion weapons make the process quicker sure, but if you're able to repair the droid, I don't see why a blaster can't do the trick.

2 hours ago, Kommissar said:

I mean is your GM a real stickler for "damage beyond wound threshold = dead"? It seems like if you want to capture a droid it'd just be a matter of shooting it up until it goes down, then recovering the hardware and repairing it to the point of working again.

I mean, we have precedent for this in the movies. 3PO got blown up into pieces and left for a scrap heap for several hours at least

And with a little fiddling of switches and wires, Chewie was able to get him running again.

I'd say as long as the droid didn't suffer a critical injury directly related to their CPU or other vital processing systems, the ability to shoot them dead and then bring them back online is entirely feasible. Of course, the droid might not be very happy that you blew him up to have a talk, and be inclined to try and kill you if he gets loose. Depending on the intent of the party, using non-lethal ways to subdue him might make the droid more inclined to be friendly to the party, or at least less violently murderous.