Hey fellow GM's

One of my players is GMing a one shot this evening, and had a question for me:

Can Droids.. and therefore a Droid PC be affected by Burn. He is guessing that they would take the initial damage but be unaffected by the Burn Quality.

Personally I would rule that they burn just like anything else. But what would you say? Is there a specific rule I'm missing?

Edit - Need fast answer so tagging frequent and reliable members (hope you don't mind)

@P-47 Thunderbolt @whafrog @Daeglan @Rimsen @GameboyAK @Edgehawk

They shouldn't be immune to burn..overheating external plates thermally conduct the heat inwards overheating servos, wiring, processors etc. There is no specific ruling but I'm AFB..

If they try to pull a fast one, have the next minion group armed with ion blasters - is that base 10 ion damage?

7 minutes ago, CloudyLemonade92 said:

Hey fellow GM's

One of my players is GMing a one shot this evening, and had a question for me:

Can Droids.. and therefore a Droid PC be affected by Burn. He is guessing that they would take the initial damage but be unaffected by the Burn Quality.

Personally I would rule that they burn just like anything else. But what would you say? Is there a specific rule I'm missing?

No, there is no rule addressing that. They burn like anything else.

If you need to justify it, they have flammable components that would be badly damaged by fire (like insulated wiring).

7 minutes ago, CloudyLemonade92 said:

Edit - Need fast answer so tagging frequent and reliable members (hope you don't mind)

@P-47 Thunderbolt @whafrog @Daeglan @Rimsen @GameboyAK @Edgehawk

Didn't even need to.

1 minute ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

No, there is no rule addressing that. They burn like anything else.

If you need to justify it, they have flammable components that would be badly damaged by fire (like insulated wiring).

Didn't even need to.

Just what I thought,

How would you rule gases and poisons?

Immune.... not to Ion blasters 😄 not immune to strong acids either 😉

I've run many player led, sandbox games to know how to plan ahead now - just keep mental notes.

It's not being a rules lawyer, the emphasis is on fun, use the dice and the guidance for spending advantages, threats etc

The only immunity they have is they have extra soak with the droid quality

23 minutes ago, CloudyLemonade92 said:

Just what I thought,

How would you rule gases and poisons?

"Droids do not need to eat, sleep, or breathe, and are unaffected by toxins or poisons."

Special Abilities section of the droid species write-up.

Thanks for the replies! The GM for tonight is satisfied 🙂

Computers can overheat like anything else.

3 hours ago, CloudyLemonade92 said:

Can Droids.. and therefore a Droid PC be affected by Burn. He is guessing that they would take the initial damage but be unaffected by the Burn Quality.

Personally I would rule that they burn just like anything else. But what would you say? Is there a specific rule I'm missing?

It also depends on how the burn quality is applied. If you're lighting an aerosol on fire, its just going to catch whatever you're wearing on fire (be it fabric, plastoid, leather, wiring etc). However, if its a fuel or gelatinous substance (Star Wars version of napalm) then its whatever is burning on you that is doing the damage, rather than you yourself burning. Its why plasma grenades/missiles/mines have the burn quality, because the plasma itself will burn you, rather than you catching on fire.

If I could but in on this a little... I wonder, according to the official rules, can Droids be affected by the unit coordintation effects of the Battle Meditation Force Power?

6 minutes ago, angelman2 said:

If I could but in on this a little... I wonder, according to the official rules, can Droids be affected by the unit coordintation effects of the Battle Meditation Force Power?

No, droids aren't affected by mind-altering force powers so Battle Meditation wouldn't apply.

9 minutes ago, angelman2 said:

If I could but in on this a little... I wonder, according to the official rules, can Droids be affected by the unit coordintation effects of the Battle Meditation Force Power?

No.

10 hours ago, CloudyLemonade92 said:

Hey fellow GM's

One of my players is GMing a one shot this evening, and had a question for me:

Can Droids.. and therefore a Droid PC be affected by Burn. He is guessing that they would take the initial damage but be unaffected by the Burn Quality.

Personally I would rule that they burn just like anything else. But what would you say? Is there a specific rule I'm missing?

Edit - Need fast answer so tagging frequent and reliable members (hope you don't mind)

@P-47 Thunderbolt @whafrog @Daeglan @Rimsen @GameboyAK @Edgehawk

****, I've slept right through it...

On 6/4/2020 at 12:13 AM, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

No, droids aren't affected by mind-altering force powers so Battle Meditation wouldn't apply.

Cool. I thought this was a battle-field manipulation and superior tactics through the Force kind of power, but the text clearly states that it is a telepathy thing. My bad. But this raises a new question (which is totally off topic for the current discussion - sorry about that): could you use Battle Meditation to boost your construction workers at a building site, or scholars researching in a library, or a bunch of forensics investigators investigating a crime scene? In other words, does it has to be "Battle" Meditation?

I guess, technically you can't, since the basic power states "... in battle". The fluff, however, seems to indicate this power could have a greater use (and I will certainly be fudging this to work for evil force-user slavers or whatnot dominating their underlings).

1 hour ago, angelman2 said:

Cool. I thought this was a battle-field manipulation and superior tactics through the Force kind of power, but the text clearly states that it is a telepathy thing. My bad. But this raises a new question (which is totally off topic for the current discussion - sorry about that): could you use Battle Meditation to boost your construction workers at a building site, or scholars researching in a library, or a bunch of forensics investigators investigating a crime scene? In other words, does it has to be "Battle" Meditation?

I guess, technically not, since the basic power states "... in battle". The fluff, however, seems to indicate this power could have a greater use (and I will certainly be fudging this to work for evil force-user slavers or whatnot dominating their underlings).

I would definitely rule that it does, pending an examination of balance.

23 hours ago, CloudyLemonade92 said:

Hey fellow GM's

One of my players is GMing a one shot this evening, and had a question for me:

Can Droids.. and therefore a Droid PC be affected by Burn. He is guessing that they would take the initial damage but be unaffected by the Burn Quality.

Personally I would rule that they burn just like anything else. But what would you say? Is there a specific rule I'm missing?

Edit - Need fast answer so tagging frequent and reliable members (hope you don't mind)

@P-47 Thunderbolt @whafrog @Daeglan @Rimsen @GameboyAK @Edgehawk

Watch "Return of the Jedi" and listen to the fear in C3-PO's voice when he translates about Leia having a thermal detonator.

Droids burn.

1 minute ago, Fistofpaper said:

Watch "Return of the Jedi" and listen to the fear in C3-PO's voice when he translates about Leia having a thermal detonator.

Droids burn.

Thermal Detonator goes "boom" and annihilates everything in the vicinity. Thermal in this case has pretty much nothing to do with fire.

17 hours ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

Thermal Detonator goes "boom" and annihilates everything in the vicinity. Thermal in this case has pretty much nothing to do with fire.

An interesting thing about this scene is than when Jabba laughs and offers his compromize, steam seems to come off of him. I always wondered it the thermal detonator was supposed to somehow increase people's core body heat till the point of explosion? Now, I have nothing to base this on, other than interpreting the visuals in the scene, but that would give the weapon a very SciFi-y quality, I think. Thoughts? (And it would definitelly apply to droids).

2 hours ago, angelman2 said:

An interesting thing about this scene is than when Jabba laughs and offers his compromize, steam seems to come off of him. I always wondered it the thermal detonator was supposed to somehow increase people's core body heat till the point of explosion? Now, I have nothing to base this on, other than interpreting the visuals in the scene, but that would give the weapon a very SciFi-y quality, I think. Thoughts? (And it would definitelly apply to droids).

No, it's the explosion itself. That's what we see in games (where it's actually used), and that's what the lore would suggest. It's an unstable explosive that detonates violently (baradium).

24 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

No, it's the explosion itself. That's what we see in games (where it's actually used), and that's what the lore would suggest. It's an unstable explosive that detonates violently (baradium).

Yeah, well, I was talking about what the thing was perhaps initally intended to do/be. I'm well aware of what thermal detonators came to be defined as in the post- RotJ development of the SW franchise.

4 hours ago, angelman2 said:

An interesting thing about this scene is than when Jabba laughs and offers his compromize, steam seems to come off of him. I always wondered it the thermal detonator was supposed to somehow increase people's core body heat till the point of explosion? Now, I have nothing to base this on, other than interpreting the visuals in the scene, but that would give the weapon a very SciFi-y quality, I think. Thoughts? (And it would definitelly apply to droids).

The steam/smoke starts earlier. It saturates the entire scene - notice the atmospheric lighting, it's that 80s sci-fi "light scattered through smoke" look.

9 hours ago, angelman2 said:

An interesting thing about this scene is than when Jabba laughs and offers his compromize, steam seems to come off of him

5 hours ago, Stan Fresh said:

The steam/smoke starts earlier. It saturates the entire scene - notice the atmospheric lighting, it's that 80s sci-fi "light scattered through smoke" look.

Side note... Jabba is smoking in almost every scene he's in. It's probably just because of how some shots are cut that give that effect

On 6/4/2020 at 1:47 PM, angelman2 said:

Cool. I thought this was a battle-field manipulation and superior tactics through the Force kind of power, but the text clearly states that it is a telepathy thing. My bad. But this raises a new question (which is totally off topic for the current discussion - sorry about that): could you use Battle Meditation to boost your construction workers at a building site, or scholars researching in a library, or a bunch of forensics investigators investigating a crime scene? In other words, does it has to be "Battle" Meditation?

I guess, technically you can't, since the basic power states "... in battle". The fluff, however, seems to indicate this power could have a greater use (and I will certainly be fudging this to work for evil force-user slavers or whatnot dominating their underlings).

Aye I certainly see it as possible, just at what point do you start eroding ones sense of self? That one time that supervisor you looked up to thoughts just for the briefest of moments that he thought his buddy was an a kriffer, or a worker comes home one day being unable to recognise his own family because he spent so much time at work immersed in the thoughts of others? For space wizards they probably have to have a strong sense of self to even do this, but the average joe and Jane probably don’t have the safeguards to withstand extended exposure without some consequence.

Hive minding a group of people does have its dangers, which is possibly why it’s limited to battle, since the alternative is dying or evil regimes that care about productivity first. Plenty of potential for some unnerving dystopian settings. I should write that down! XD

3 hours ago, LordBritish said:

Aye I certainly see it as possible, just at what point do you start eroding ones sense of self? That one time that supervisor you looked up to thoughts just for the briefest of moments that he thought his buddy was an a kriffer, or a worker comes home one day being unable to recognise his own family because he spent so much time at work immersed in the thoughts of others? For space wizards they probably have to have a strong sense of self to even do this, but the average joe and Jane probably don’t have the safeguards to withstand extended exposure without some consequence.

Hive minding a group of people does have its dangers, which is possibly why it’s limited to battle, since the alternative is dying or evil regimes that care about productivity first. Plenty of potential for some unnerving dystopian settings. I should write that down! XD

The Thrawn Novels discussed the dangers of Battle Meditation at length, and it was part of why they used clones (if I'm remembering that correctly. I know they also just needed manpower).