Long story short, the player party has been captured by an ISD while they were trying to smuggle a defector off world. They have already managed to break out of the detention area, thanks to a droid PC and a couple droids they had which were able to basically get confiscated and lay low for a bit. After blasting up the detention area and rescuing the defector, the party is making their way back to the hanger. I am looking for a couple ideas and suggestions as to hazards to throw into their path and interesting obstacles.

here is the schematic I am basing this ship off of

http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/b/b3/Victory_cross_section.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20081020214917

Currently the ISD is caught in an ion minefield thanks to the rebels, so several systems are not working properly for them, and its nearly dead in the water out in some nebula with rebels lurking nearby and harassing them. However there are still security teams and several defensive droid dispensers that they have run into. I am considering forcing them through an engineering section to add some non-combat hazards for the party to deal with, things like coolant leaks, dangerous machines, areas with exposure to space. Making them stop and traverse the area is simple enough, I have already told them that not all the turbolifts are working so some breakdowns can happen.

As they get closer to the hanger they probably will want to sabotage the tractor beam projectors. I am not sure what kind of obstacles they should run into there.

Also thinking about when they actually get back to the hanger, that their ship was more or less crippled from before, reduced to zero HP by turbolaser fire. Kind of thinking about making grab spare parts from the maintenance areas or cannibalize nearby equipment while under fire to get their ship working again so they can leave.

It's just the area between the hanger and the engineering area I am not entirely sure what to do with. I am looking for some ideas here that go beyond closing doors or throwing more stormtroopers at them.

If you've read the West End Games adventure module Starfall , you can see plenty of examples of Star Destroyer encounters.

My personal adventure philosophy is this: worry less about how much you should throw at the players, worry more about how to make the ideas you have more interesting and how to properly pace the game. Rather than throwing in obstacles when sabotaging the tractor beams, consider making the process require multiple die rolls with multiple skills in order to emphasize the drama of the scene.

In A New Hope, Obi-Wan had to sneak past guards (a Skulduggery test), maintain his balance on a catwalk (a Coordination test), and flip at least two dials on two different panels (a Mechanics or Computers test). A failure on any of these can result in wounds, strain, or alerting nearby stormtroopers of their presence.

Would meeting engineers trying to repair systems be interesting for them? Depending on the party meeting non combatants can be an interesting moral challenge.

11 minutes ago, Darzil said:

Would meeting engineers trying to repair systems be interesting for them? Depending on the party meeting non combatants can be an interesting moral challenge.

What about two engineers carrying a third down to medical? Relay panel blew out, or some such, and the wounded engineer is obviously in no shape to fight. The other engineers have sidearms, but have their hands full carrying their comrade.

if their ship is in bad shape maybe it has been transfered to the repair bay and is hanging from repair cranes. The imperials have already started repairing some stuff in the ship (it can be used against those rebels that have captured the ISD after all) so you can grab more stuff and continue the repairs or simply try to pull it up to the hangar bay again.

As per Dazil's suggestion, ther emight be non combat personel working on the ship. They are non combat, but might carry blaster pistols none the less. Or be forced labor. or both. Or stormtroopers in disguise. Or all at the same time.

the scape operation (once they reach the area) would need several steps.

1. Tractor beam off

2. Ship to hangar bay

3. Open the doors/shields and escape.

4. Avoid the mines!

Taking the tractor beam out in ANH wa sdone quite far away from the hangar area, so here you can reproduce that. Divide the team (NEVER!) and you shall have a funky scene paralleling the ANH death star chase.

Large chunks of the second act of Dead in the Water (AoR GM's kit adventure) could be reused.

I second the idea of meeting noncombatants (especially forced labor, do they try to save/free them or just make it out?).

My first thought was to do to them what PCs always think is really easy to do to a ship: open the airlocks and vent them into space (whether by mechanical failure or intentional mercilessness)! Could be an interesting enounter with them trying to get to a place to hide (or lockers with spacesuits), possibly while fighting storm/space troopers who are already protected.

Have them deal with a no oxygen part. That'll be fun.

Just in case you didn't notice and it wasn't intended: The schematic is that of a victory class destroyer, not an imperial class.You played Star Wars: Jedi Outcast? There was a mission where you had to fight your way to the hallways of a ship and suddenly gravity generators fail.

Or did you play Jedi Knight (Dark Forces II)? There was a level where you had to get to the hangar bay of a ship falling to the ground. The ship rolled, gravity was still there, but with the rolling ship you had to walk on walls or ceilings. Was very hard to see where you had to go when the wall of a corridor or lift tube was the new floor

Also you can have all sorts of damage. Exploding consoles, short-circuiting consoles, blocked corridors (with the option to squeeze through the debris, make the corridor free of debris or detouring threough some maintenance tunnels.. with new dangers of course..), rooms with hull damage, sucking out all the air as soon as you open the door, ...

The ship hitting a mine while they are nearby is also an option

12 hours ago, MonCal said:

The ship hitting a mine while they are nearby is also an option

Especially an ion mine. The section they are in is suddenly ionized, and has no power to doors/computers, etc. Do they fix it so they can move on? Find a more difficult route through the air ducts/geoffreys tubes? Blast the doors? What if they needed data from the computer that was ionized? Is it more important to fix the computer, restoring functionality to the SD? or keep the computer offline, which hurts the ships' ability to fight the rebels.

On 9/27/2017 at 9:41 AM, Concise Locket said:

If you've read the West End Games adventure module Starfall , you can see plenty of examples of Star Destroyer encounters.

My personal adventure philosophy is this: worry less about how much you should throw at the players, worry more about how to make the ideas you have more interesting and how to properly pace the game. Rather than throwing in obstacles when sabotaging the tractor beams, consider making the process require multiple die rolls with multiple skills in order to emphasize the drama of the scene.

I'll second this one. Quality over Quantity. Make sure that whatever encounters you do throw at them have multiple ways to success. Although you've set the stage for mechanical difficulties, I might suggest limiting those types of encounters. YMMV, but to me Star Wars is about beings vs. beings, I like to avoid scenes in which they have to go straight on through the chompers, or crawl through jefferies tubes. However, mechanical difficulties being set up, you've got some terrific set pieces for where your encounters take place.

I also +1 for the non-combatants.

Also +1 for Starfall. LOTS of great information about exactly what you're looking for.

Also... escaping from a Star Destroyer of any class is pretty epic stuff... and their ship is pretty banged up...

Unless they have a real attachment to the ship, this might be a good chance to introduce a 'party bonus' in the form of a new ship of some sort... which is also a good chance to introduce all sorts of new complications. Maybe there's a newer, better, faster smuggler ship that just got impounded. Sure... they can swipe it - but what's in the hold? Who did it belong to before? Secret smuggling compartments carrying WHAT???

If they *are* attached to their ship, and it's all banged up from heavy turbo fire, be sure to leave them a McGuffin or two (tasty imperial data to sell/trade to the rebels - there's a reason that they chose to attack that ship, after all...) so that they can pay to get it fixed, and maybe throw in an upgrade or two.