Bounty hunter PCs need a space-effective way to transport prisoners. Working on a homebrew for the carbon-freezing we see Mando use. Yes, I know it's technically a bit anachronistic for 20 BBY, but it's a big galaxy and I'm willing to suspend disbelief here.

Slab storage/freezing station: each reusable slab takes up 5 encumbrance. Empty or full. Thus, if you've got capacity for 5, it's 25 encumbrance.
When you unfreeze a prisoner, roll a Challenge die. If it rolls a Despair, the prisoner dies. If the slab has not been treated carefully or the prisoner has been in there for an exceptionally long time, roll the die twice or even three times depending on the circumstances (dropped, shot, rolled downhill, sliding around in the back of the ship).

The main question here is about cost (though I'm open to feedback on the other stuff too).
For the system itself, I'm thinking 7,000 per slab, with a "maintenance" cost of 200 per freeze.

This obviously would not be used for VIP transport missions, but if it's dead-or-alive anyway, it ain't so bad.

What do you think? I thought always rolling a Challenge die would be fair, considering it's an "experimental" system, but is it too harsh?

What I ended up going with:

Slab storage/freezing station: each reusable slab takes up 5 encumbrance. Empty or full. Thus, if you've got capacity for 5, it's 25 encumbrance.
5,000 credits per slab, with a "maintenance" cost of 100 credits per freeze.

The carbon-freeze process:

Freezing non-living objects: depending on the object and it's sensitivity to temperature changes, Simple to Average Knowledge (Education) check.
Living creatures: Hard Knowledge (Xenology) check.

Success:
The subject was successfully frozen with little to no incident.
Failure:
The freezing was done improperly. The subject suffers a Critical Injury. As they are frozen, the critical injury takes place immediately after thawing the subject.

1 Threat can be spent to add Setback to the Resilience check (see below) to recover from thawing.
2 Threat can be spent to upgrade the Resilience check (see below) to recover from thawing.
3 Threat can be spent to cause the target to suffer 1 wound for each day frozen.
Despair: Something important was accidentally thawed with the intended subject.

When thawed, the subject must make a Hard Resilience check, with a Setback for each week frozen (capped at 4) and an upgrade for each month frozen. If the slab has not been treated carefully, upgrade the difficulty at least once more.

Success:
- Suffer Strain equal to half ST
Failure:
- Suffer Strain equal to half ST and take a crit:
Hibernation sickness (Avg):
- Disoriented for remainder of encounter/scene
- Blinded until the critical injury is healed

Suffer 1 Wound for each net Failure.
Suffer 1 Strain for each net Threat.
On a successful check...
2 Threat can be spent to Disorient the subject until the end of the scene or encounter
3 Threat can be spent to temporarily blind the subject
Despair can be spent to inflict a Critical Injury+20 on the subject ("permanent" results may instead be temporary, at GM discretion)
On a failed check...
Despair results in the subject's death.

Sounds a bit harsh to me. A single die roll that is completely random and without regard to how healthy or tough the character is.

I feel like a better way might be a Hard Resilience check. Threats and Despairs can be used to impose blindness or even death.

A slab is pretty safe for the occupant. Falling over, sliding around... These sorts of things should not impose a penalty out of hand.

The costs of slabbing someone should not be too expensive, or otherwise it doesn't make sense to imprison this way. I might say the carbon freezing process costs a hundred credits maybe. The electronic gear in the slab is maybe a hundred more credits. Maybe 200 more. Then the slab has no maintenance cost; it maintains itself.

9 minutes ago, RLogue177 said:

A slab is pretty safe for the occupant. Falling over, sliding around... These sorts of things should not impose a penalty out of hand.

That is related to damage to the system itself. I figure it's pretty sensitive (especially since this is circa 20 BBY, so experimental tech), so getting overly bumped around could cause damage to the life-support system.

And before anyone brings it up, I am well aware that it was used twice in the Clone Wars by Anakin Skywalker and company, but they had a full facility for it, not the "auto--slabs" we see in The Mandalorian.

15 minutes ago, RLogue177 said:

I feel like a better way might be a Hard Resilience check. Threats and Despairs can be used to impose blindness or even death.

Okay, thanks. I like that. Maybe upgrade once or more based on how carefully it's been handled and how long the subject has been in there.
Occupant suffers wounds equal to net Failure and Threat. 2 Threat can instead by spent to Critically Injure the subject, and 3 Threat can be spent to temporarily blind them. Despair on a Failed check results in death, Despair on a successful check results in... ?

17 minutes ago, RLogue177 said:

The costs of slabbing someone should not be too expensive, or otherwise it doesn't make sense to imprison this way. I might say the carbon freezing process costs a hundred credits maybe. The electronic gear in the slab is maybe a hundred more credits. Maybe 200 more. Then the slab has no maintenance cost; it maintains itself.

100 per freeze sounds okay. Perhaps 7,000 for the initial buy-in is a bit high, but the idea is that this is rare and experimental technology. Plus, credits run pretty free in my game so it isn't like they'll be saving up for years and since each slab is reusable, that'll help. It's also far cheaper and much more convenient than having to purchase a bigger ship. Maybe 5,000 each? For comparison, the containment field (the blue, glow-y thing with Obi-Wan in AotC) is 7,500.

10 hours ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

That is related to damage to the system itself. I figure it's pretty sensitive (especially since this is circa 20 BBY, so experimental tech), so getting overly bumped around could cause damage to the life-support system.

How is it experimental when people had been doing for literally thousands of years? Alkso, do you think Vader would have even considered using it on Luke if it was not incredibly safe?

2 hours ago, micheldebruyn said:

How is it experimental when people had been doing for literally thousands of years? Alkso, do you think Vader would have even considered using it on Luke if it was not incredibly safe?

He tested it on Solo to make sure it was safe. And what're you talking about thousands of years?

2 hours ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

He tested it on Solo to make sure it was safe. And what're you talking about thousands of years?

That was because Lando’s facility was designed for industrial uses to freeze Tabbana gas.

4 hours ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

He tested it on Solo to make sure it was safe. And what're you talking about thousands of years?

It already was around in the Knights Of The Old Republic era.

And Vader was testing if Lando's industrial gas freezer was safe to use on people.

11 minutes ago, micheldebruyn said:

It already was around in the Knights Of The Old Republic era.

And Vader was testing if Lando's industrial gas freezer was safe to use on people.

Well KotOR is not part of canon or my headcanon (the important one for the campaign), so I think I'll stick with it as is. I'm going to do a bit more research on the subject though, and maybe I'll change my mind.

Part of the "experimental" is that it's the portable "freeze anywhere" slabs we see Mando use, not a full-blown facility. It's possible, if not probable, that the slabs were an innovation after Empire and didn't exist before hand. If they did, and were perfectly safe, then why didn't Vader just use that? I know from an out-of-universe perspective, but the in-universe reason is the relevant one.

What I'm going with is that they are less safe than the facilities and pretty rare, experimental in this time period.

13 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

Part of the "experimental" is that it's the portable "freeze anywhere" slabs we see Mando use, not a full-blown facility. It's possible, if not probable, that the slabs were an innovation after Empire and didn't exist before hand. If they did, and were perfectly safe, then why didn't Vader just use that? I know from an out-of-universe perspective, but the in-universe reason is the relevant one.

Does Mando seem like the type who would use experimental Imperial tech to you? It doesn't look like he owns anything that isn't older than dirt.

15 minutes ago, micheldebruyn said:

Does Mando seem like the type who would use experimental Imperial tech to you? It doesn't look like he owns anything that isn't older than dirt.

I didn't say it was experimental or Imperial when Mando was using it.

1 minute ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

I didn't say it was experimental or Imperial when Mando was using it.

If Darth Vader invented it in The empire Strikes Back, and the Empire stops existing about a year later, I'd be very surprised a production model even exists.

The freezers were in the first episode of the Clone Wars Citadel story arc.

1 minute ago, micheldebruyn said:

If Darth Vader invented it in The empire Strikes Back, and the Empire stops existing about a year later, I'd be very surprised a production model even exists.

Vader did not invent it. The process was used back in the Clone Wars (at least twice), but only using a facility. Then Vader used the same process, again with a facility.

5-6 years later, we see Mando with the portable slab technology. Now either it is a recent innovation, recently became more widespread, or was not deemed safe/reliable enough for Vader to use on Luke.

My headcanon for it is that it was originally devised around the beginning of the Clone Wars, but was not widely used due to the significant dangers with the process and the unreliability of the slabs. Research and experimentation progressed and it came into use close to the end of the Galactic Civil War now that the risks had been minimized and demand had increased in the chaos of the aftermath of the GCW.

I don't see how this is contradicted by the facts we have in evidence.

As for the mechanical side of things, thanks to RLogue177 for the help. I think this is what I'll stick with: 5,000 credits/5 encumbrance per slab, 100 per freezing. Hard Resilience with the mentioned consequences and modifiers.

In Legions, Carbon freeze was used to keep meat fresh for transport.. In the old comics from the 90's, they were used prior to Hyperdrives for space travel..

Lando used them to transport Tibanna gas.. the ones in CW might have been agricultural? (so more 'safe' for biological use, rather than Lando's Industrial use)

In star wars, when you see technology, you kinda have to expect that it has been around for a long time prior to you "seeing" it, the Falcon is rumored to be over 50 years old by the time we see it for the first time in A New Hope..

I'm starting to think Carbon Freeze is like getting a mini fridge or chest freezer installed...

(granted I'm biased in my argument.. )

I had some thoughts about the rules part, so I'm just throwing them up here for inspiration and as food for thought:

First of all, Carbon Freezing cannot be attempted without proper equipment. So Setback from carbon freezing without equipment does not apply

Freezing:

Freezing non-living object: depending on the object and it's sensitivity to temperature changes, Simple to Average Knowledge (Education) check (it's physics!)
Living creatures: Hard Knowledge (Education) check

On Failure: The Freezing was done improperly. Inorganics have some parts broken or their structure weakened (cracks & such). Living subjects suffer a Critical Injury due to improper freezing. As they are frozen, the critical injury takes place immediately after thawing the subject.
1 Threat: add Setback to the Resilience check (see below) to recover from thawing.
2 Threats: Upgrade the Resilience check (see below) to recover from thawing.
3 Threats: The target suffers 10 wounds (reduce soak, armor does not protect).
Despair: Something important was accidentally thawed with the intended subject: a piece of equipment, or maybe a friend

Equipment for freezing:

Industrial freezer facility: Add Setback when freezing living subjects.
Organics freezer facility: Reduce difficulty to freeze organics by 1, to a minimum of Easy.
Freezer attachment to starships: 1 HP, despair and threat generated from freezing could be used to inflict some nasty stuff to the star ship.
Modifiers: 1 x Organic algorithms: Boost die to freezing organics. 1 x Industrial processes: Boost die to freeze inorganic substances.

Thawing:

Thawing non-living objects: No roll needed
Thawing living targets: The thawed subject must take a Hard Resilience check. If the target has been frozen for a long time (years, months, weeks? Whaever is "long" in your universe) suffer a Setback per full year/month/week.
On success, the target only suffers strain equal to half of his/her strain threshold. Soak does not apply.
On failure, target suffers a special Critical Injury: Hibernation sickness (Average):
- Suffer strain equal to half of strain threshold.
- Suffer Disoriented for the remainder of the encounter/scene.
- Target is blind until this injury has been healed.

Threats: suffer some strain / or wounds, suffer Disoriented or Staggered condition
Despair: Roll a critical injury (Carbon ice is Vicious 2). Permanent critical injuries could be treated as temporary and are healed when the subject recovers from critical injury in question if GM is a nice one.

Equipment:

Auto-Thaw Unit: A unit that can be slapped to the side of a carbonite block that have controls to monitor and to thaw the carbonite block immediately. Without Auto-Thaw unit, carbon blocks must be thawed in separate thawing facilities. Thawing with Auto-Thaw Unit takes three rounds.
Industrial thawing facility: Add Setback to Resielience checks for living subjects. Thawing takes one round.
Organics thawing facility: Add Boost to Resielience checks for living subjects. Thawing takes 10 rounds.

1 hour ago, Mman said:

I had some thoughts about the rules part, so I'm just throwing them up here for inspiration and as food for thought:

Thanks for the detailed feedback! I'll mull over it and respond soon.

2 hours ago, Mman said:

Freezing:

Freezing non-living object: depending on the object and it's sensitivity to temperature changes, Simple to Average Knowledge (Education) check (it's physics!)
Living creatures: Hard Knowledge (Education) check

On Failure: The Freezing was done improperly. Inorganics have some parts broken or their structure weakened (cracks & such). Living subjects suffer a Critical Injury due to improper freezing. As they are frozen, the critical injury takes place immediately after thawing the subject.
1 Threat: add Setback to the Resilience check (see below) to recover from thawing.
2 Threats: Upgrade the Resilience check (see below) to recover from thawing.
3 Threats: The target suffers 10 wounds (reduce soak, armor does not protect).
Despair: Something important was accidentally thawed with the intended subject: a piece of equipment, or maybe a friend

I like that a lot, definitely going to use it almost as-is. There's certainly an argument for not since Mando just slaps them in there, but that makes sense and adds an extra dimension to it that I really like.
Perhaps instead of 10 wounds ignoring soak, it's one wound each [time period] frozen? Probably day for my purposes.

2 hours ago, Mman said:

Equipment for freezing:

Industrial freezer facility: Add Setback when freezing living subjects.
Organics freezer facility: Reduce difficulty to freeze organics by 1, to a minimum of Easy.
Freezer attachment to starships: 1 HP, despair and threat generated from freezing could be used to inflict some nasty stuff to the star ship.
Modifiers: 1 x Organic algorithms: Boost die to freezing organics. 1 x Industrial processes: Boost die to freeze inorganic substances.

I'd change the Setback to an Upgrade, but that's decent. I stray away from having internal stuff like this take up HP; I think it should just take up encumbrance (which can be as bad or worse than taking up an HP, depending on your setup). I also don't think I'd use the consequences to the ship, but it's a decent idea.

2 hours ago, Mman said:

Thawing:

Thawing non-living objects: No roll needed
Thawing living targets: The thawed subject must take a Hard Resilience check. If the target has been frozen for a long time (years, months, weeks? Whaever is "long" in your universe) suffer a Setback per full year/month/week.
On success, the target only suffers strain equal to half of his/her strain threshold. Soak does not apply.
On failure, target suffers a special Critical Injury: Hibernation sickness (Average):
- Suffer strain equal to half of strain threshold.
- Suffer Disoriented for the remainder of the encounter/scene.
- Target is blind until this injury has been healed.

Threats: suffer some strain / or wounds, suffer Disoriented or Staggered condition
Despair: Roll a critical injury (Carbon ice is Vicious 2). Permanent critical injuries could be treated as temporary and are healed when the subject recovers from critical injury in question if GM is a nice one.

For the Setback, probably week (capped at 4). For a much longer time period (maybe month), I'd Upgrade.

Here's what I had before for the Resilience check:

On 5/17/2020 at 8:21 PM, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

Maybe upgrade once or more based on how carefully it's been handled and how long the subject has been in there.
Occupant suffers wounds equal to net Failure and Threat. 2 Threat can instead by spent to Critically Injure the subject, and 3 Threat can be spent to temporarily blind them. Despair on a Failed check results in death, Despair on a successful check results in... ?

Looking at your suggestions, here's what I think I'll go with:

Success:
- Suffer Strain equal to half ST
Failure:
- Suffer Strain equal to half ST and take a crit:
Hibernation sickness (Avg):
- Disoriented for remainder of encounter/scene
- Blinded until the critical injury is healed

Suffer 1 Wound for each net Failure.
Suffer 1 Strain for each net Threat.
On a successful check...
2 Threat can be spent to Disorient the subject until the end of the scene or encounter
3 Threat can be spent to temporarily blind the subject
Despair can be spent to inflict a Critical Injury+20 on the subject ("permanent" results may instead be temporary, at GM discretion)
On a failed check...
Despair results in the subject's death.

On 6/1/2020 at 6:36 PM, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

There's certainly an argument for not since Mando just slaps them in there

The reasoning for the Knowledge check was that in Imperial Strikes Back the technicians seems busy working with the different parts of the carbon freezer (although my recollection is quite vague, haven't seen that scene in several years). Also, Knowledge Education is very overlooked and under used skill, at least in my experience, so this seems like a good opportunity for that.

On 6/1/2020 at 6:36 PM, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

Perhaps instead of 10 wounds ignoring soak, it's one wound each [time period] frozen? Probably day for my purposes.

I often try to stick with increments of five when slapping damage on the characters outside of combat for simplicity. Although I can see that damage based on time is also a valid option if you keep track in-game time. When looking at the movies, we often have no clue how many days/weeks/months have passed since the last scene, so in my games, I try to obfuscate the passed time when possible to mimic that (of course healing wounds and crits require some time keeping). For more serious games/adventures where time is a resource, the wounds/time unit will definately work. For more cinematic and loose games, I would go with some default damage. Maybe adjusting it up or down if the time under was shorter/longer than recommended.

Also I like to keep random environmental etc. damage soakable to reward those players who have spent their XP on that (note that I wrote "reduce soak", not "ignore soak" ;). More physically robust characters should be able to withstand carbon freezing better.

On 6/1/2020 at 6:36 PM, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

I'd change the Setback to an Upgrade.

You're right, diff Upgrade would make more sense as the character is using wrong equipment (industrial freezer) for sensitive subject (living organism), and things might go horribly wrong. I'm just too bent to put out Setback's whenever possible as PC's usually have talents that reduce setbacks

On 6/1/2020 at 6:36 PM, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

I stray away from having internal stuff like this take up HP.

That's a valid call. Maybe attachment would be more robust version of freezer/thawer that would be installed on some industrial ships / vehicles (e.g. Jawa Sandcrawler might have one as an attachment). Bounty Hunters and such might have smaller, portable versions for SIL 1 subjects. Maybe designed for freezing organics.

The consequences to the ship from the freezing checks stop making sense if the freezer is a piece of cargo (taking enc. not HP).

On 6/1/2020 at 6:36 PM, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

Despair results in the subject's death.

This is a bit harsh, although completely valid ruling considering the context. However, I would rather go with maybe a crit at +50. This would make death a real danger, but would also reward those characters who have that talent which reduces crits by 10 per rank (can't remember the talent name). Also it would be enough to kill all minions and maybe rivals with a hand wave, but Nemesis/PC might still survive and have a grudge to carry. I often stick to a rule that living characters are more interesting than dead ones.

This makes me want to include some carbon freezing in my games also

5 hours ago, Mman said:

The reasoning for the Knowledge check was that in Imperial Strikes Back the technicians seems busy working with the different parts of the carbon freezer (although my recollection is quite vague, haven't seen that scene in several years). Also, Knowledge Education is very overlooked and under used skill, at least in my experience, so this seems like a good opportunity for that.

Compared to the other Knowledge checks, it's actually used more in my games. I don't need the extra use, so for the portable slabs, it might make sense to not need to make that check. I do plan on using it though. Perhaps Xenology would make more sense narratively as they must make sure that the subject won't suffer harm if they are put in the freeze?

5 hours ago, Mman said:

I often try to stick with increments of five when slapping damage on the characters outside of combat for simplicity. Although I can see that damage based on time is also a valid option if you keep track in-game time. When looking at the movies, we often have no clue how many days/weeks/months have passed since the last scene, so in my games, I try to obfuscate the passed time when possible to mimic that (of course healing wounds and crits require some time keeping). For more serious games/adventures where time is a resource, the wounds/time unit will definately work. For more cinematic and loose games, I would go with some default damage. Maybe adjusting it up or down if the time under was shorter/longer than recommended.

Fair point. I use detailed operation costs rules for ships and keep track of hyperspace travel times with a system and calculator I devised (with some input from others) and I've even got a calendar for the campaign since certain things will trigger at certain times. So keeping track of days is no problem for me. Plus, we've got an avid crafter, so keeping track of time is pretty important there as well. I've been fighting the urge to make a calendar for my other campaign (the one that is basically entirely crafting focused ), but I have convinced myself that I need to. Only problem is that I don't like to violate canon (well, the canon that is part of my head canon), and we currently have no idea as to when the Empire "shattered" Mandalore or what that entails, so I was keeping it vague. Ah, well. We'll see how it goes. We can always retcon stuff later, specially since it'll be almost entirely in a spreadsheet and not likely mentioned in the game.

5 hours ago, Mman said:

Also I like to keep random environmental etc. damage soakable to reward those players who have spent their XP on that (note that I wrote "reduce soak", not "ignore soak" ;). More physically robust characters should be able to withstand carbon freezing better.

For suffering 1 wound a day, which is what I plan to go with, Soak would have to be ignored and I think I like it that way. Remember, going over WT doesn't kill, just incapacitates and crits. If you apply the damage all at once, it only crits once and has no chance of killing the character unless they have several crits already. However, that brings up an interesting point. If you apply it all at once, you could Soak it. Perhaps you are able to go days=to Brawn without taking wounds. I still think I wouldn't apply Soak, though. This is supposed to be a 3 Threat result, after all.
Upon rereading the section about Soak, I realize what you meant (straight Brawn, no Armor) I think that "more robust" is already accounted for with the Resilience check.

5 hours ago, Mman said:

You're right, diff Upgrade would make more sense as the character is using wrong equipment (industrial freezer) for sensitive subject (living organism), and things might go horribly wrong. I'm just too bent to put out Setback's whenever possible as PC's usually have talents that reduce setbacks

That's a valid call. Maybe attachment would be more robust version of freezer/thawer that would be installed on some industrial ships / vehicles (e.g. Jawa Sandcrawler might have one as an attachment). Bounty Hunters and such might have smaller, portable versions for SIL 1 subjects. Maybe designed for freezing organics.

The consequences to the ship from the freezing checks stop making sense if the freezer is a piece of cargo (taking enc. not HP).

Yep, sounds good.

5 hours ago, Mman said:

This is a bit harsh, although completely valid ruling considering the context. However, I would rather go with maybe a crit at +50. This would make death a real danger, but would also reward those characters who have that talent which reduces crits by 10 per rank (can't remember the talent name). Also it would be enough to kill all minions and maybe rivals with a hand wave, but Nemesis/PC might still survive and have a grudge to carry. I often stick to a rule that living characters are more interesting than dead ones.

This is solely intended for prisoner transport, and is supposed to come with a warning tag that it's inherently dangerous. Since you only Upgrade with extenuating circumstances, I think Despair=death makes sense. The talent you're looking for is Durable.
A lot of this is related to how this will be used. This'll really only be used for prisoners that they need alive, but the condition doesn't matter too much. They'll slap 'em in and deliver them. Then they have to have the extenuating circumstances that upgrade it in the first place, then they must fail the Resilience check, and get a Despair. The odds of that happening are pretty slim.
This isn't likely to be used on a PC, and if it is, you can bet they'll be extremely careful about it (probably having 0 upgrades). I don't want the PCs to die, so while I am unlikely to fudge the results, I can easily spend a Despair on something more interesting. (hmmm... PCs are about to semi-cross Jabba... perhaps Cade (the big bad beskad brawler) gets put in carbonite and has to be rescued by his lady love and fellow PC... That's definitely never been done before )

A successful check with a Despair would only result in a crit+20 (with no prior crits, that's permanently blinded at worst, which is actually the perfect result).

5 hours ago, Mman said:

This makes me want to include some carbon freezing in my games also

Glad to have inspired you!

5 hours ago, Mman said:

I'm just too bent to put out Setback's whenever possible as PC's usually have talents that reduce setbacks

I agree. I try to add Setback to many checks, rather than increasing difficulty. To this end, I've been working on a skills uses, difficulties, and modifiers guide to give suggestions on using Setback. Would you care to take a look at it and give me some feedback? Especially on the Survival checks, I'm a bit stuck on those.