Carbonite & Hibernation Sickness Rules?

By P-Dub663, in Game Masters

Anyone have an idea about how the aftermath of being frozen in carbonite would affect someone? I'm writing up a new adventure where the party will be rescuing a few rebel pilots who were frozen in carbonite for transportation to a maximum security prison. Once the prisoners are thawed out they will have hibernation sickness and require some medical attention. I know Han Solo had a bad case of hibernation sickness after spending six months being frozen. When reading "Tales From Jabba's Palace" the cook went out of his way to make sure Han received some simple carbohydrates to alleviate some of the symptoms.

Any thoughts on how these NPCs should be handled after being thawed out? What kind of medical checks would be necessary to help them recover? Should I just treat it like a critical injury?

It’s been a while since I read through the book covering this but I do recall that when boba-fetts ex-wife was found 30-40 years after she disappeared by him and his granddaughter it turned out that she had been kidnapped and frozen in carbonate that whole time.

she suffered blindness, dizziness, and memory loss that all persosted until they found a Jedi healer to treat them.

the effects of Hybernation/carbonate sicknesses are likely caused by nerve and brain damage that leads to a loss of memory, sight, motor function, and likely a debilitation of the other senses as well.

It could be possible to treat some cases like a critical injury but it would have to be like a major critical injury, whereas people in han’s situation it’s just like “ok your nerves need to wake up walk it off” so it really depends on how long your prisoners have been in stasis and how they have been cared for during that time.

Why, I made some of these for my own use not too long ago. I've attached it as a PDF so it has all the nice symbols.

Hibernation Sickness.pdf

32 minutes ago, themensch said:

Why, I made some of these for my own use not too long ago. I've attached it as a PDF so it has all the nice symbols.

Hibernation Sickness.pdf

Says page is not available.

Perfect! Thank you!

I do note some editing improvements that could be performed, as well as a thematic backdrop. This was more or less lifted right from my holocron but if it's handy I could pretty it up a bit.

I would handle hibernation sickness by assigning critical wounds. For example the one that causes blindness and one that lowers intellect and cunning. Sorry I do not know the names without my book handy. However I would have the crits heal on there own, after all Han seem to heal in a day or two during ROTJ.

On 10/9/2017 at 7:37 PM, themensch said:

I do note some editing improvements that could be performed, as well as a thematic backdrop. This was more or less lifted right from my holocron but if it's handy I could pretty it up a bit.

would love to see a "pretty'd up" version!

On 10/9/2017 at 7:47 AM, themensch said:

Why, I made some of these for my own use not too long ago. I've attached it as a PDF so it has all the nice symbols.

Hibernation Sickness.pdf

Your pdf says that you take two strain for every week you are frozen. Say I am frozen for a year. I have a Soak of 3, a Wound Threshold of 13 and a Strain Threshold of 13. When I come out I take 104 strain - 3 Soak = 101 Strain. 101 - 26 (twice my strain threshold) = 75. I take 75 wounds - 13 threshold = 62 past the threshold. That's a critical wound and an extra critical wound (at +10) for every five points past the threshold - so I take a Crit, a Crit at +10, a Crit at +20, a Crit at +30, a Crit at +40, a Crit at +50, a Crit at +60, a Crit at +70, a Crit at +80, a Crit at +90, a Crit at +100 and a Crit at +110. With all those Crits the odds that one was over 140 and I died the next round is over 98%.

Is carbonite really that bad?

7 hours ago, pnewman15 said:

Your pdf says that you take two strain for every week you are frozen. Say I am frozen for a year. I have a Soak of 3, a Wound Threshold of 13 and a Strain Threshold of 13. When I come out I take 104 strain - 3 Soak = 101 Strain. 101 - 26 (twice my strain threshold) = 75. I take 75 wounds - 13 threshold = 62 past the threshold. That's a critical wound and an extra critical wound (at +10) for every five points past the threshold - so I take a Crit, a Crit at +10, a Crit at +20, a Crit at +30, a Crit at +40, a Crit at +50, a Crit at +60, a Crit at +70, a Crit at +80, a Crit at +90, a Crit at +100 and a Crit at +110. With all those Crits the odds that one was over 140 and I died the next round is over 98%.

Is carbonite really that bad?

Good question! I made some off-the cuff decisions around what would work for my campaign based upon what little I could find on the subject so it's likely wildly inaccurate and not applicable to every situation. It seems to reason that if long-term storage of live cargo was the intention, certain technological adjustments could be made to account for that. Perhaps one of the previous iterations of the game has a better framework for what you seek?

Well, the only person I know of to survive carbon freezing is Han Solo, and he was in carbonite for about six months. We know how screwed up he was afterwards.

Here I thought it had been a couple of years that he had been frozen. Long enough for Luke to train up in being a jedi at least.

Why freeze them at all though? Carbonite freezing seemed like it was very dangerous for the subject. I remember 3PO saying that Solo would be well protected "if he survived the freezing process". Why not just use the specimine containers from the hunter book? They put the subject into stasis with no side effects. Not as handy for long term storage, but it would do the job for a trip across the galaxy.

23 minutes ago, Ahrimon said:

Why not just use the specimine containers from the hunter book?

I bet the Empire found the book was on back order and was unable to procure a copy due to the Trade Federation's seizure of assets of a small shipping company.