I've GM'd many games before (D&D, EQ, WoW, and the original SW RPG) and I usually never come across questions about things that just don't make sense to me. However, I'm slowly coming across more things in this game that I'm trying to figure out an answer for even if I need to create my own rule to tweak the way the system works but these few things I don't get so I want to know how everyone else handles these situations.

1. How does putting additional weapons on a ship work? If my group has started with the Wayfarer and they want to add an armada of laser cannons across the top and bottom of the ship, why would you not just make every single one of them turret mounted? Do you restrict turret mounted weapons by charging more credits for the turret? If so, how many total turret weapons can a ship of that silhouette hold? It seems like if you could have a weapon that fires only forward or the same weapon that can fire anywhere, why bother mounting it anything but turret mounted?

2. How often should characters take critical injuries? I have a wookiee in my group with a wound threshold of 17. He acts as the tank and takes most of the fire for the group. Well last session he hit 21 wounds which would incapacitate him and give him a critical injury. However, his critical injury allowed the attacker to get a second shot at him and he dealt an additional 7 damage. Would he not take another critical injury from not being able to defend himself? Or does he not take an additional critical injury from hitting so many wounds above his threshold? Is there even a maximum amount of wounds he can take? At what point does he just die? Surely in the unfortunate situation where a PC hits like 40 wounds, they can't still possibly be alive can they?

3. The outlaw tech PC in the group found a small standard protocol droid with 4 arms that was made to be a cleaning droid. I assumed that its programming, learning chip, and verbobrain would be the parts that allow the droid to compute what it is designed to do. However, having 4 arms and being small, the player would like to program the droid to become an assassin droid. How exactly should this work? Should he purchase new parts to replace the old parts within the droid? Is it even possible to just simply reprogram a protocol droid to become a killer? He has 5 Intellect and 3 ranks in computers and 5 ranks in mechanics so he's sure he could just reprogram it to become a disciplined assassin. How would you handle and/or control this?

I have had more questions come up but I cannot think of what they were so I will continue to post as I come across them again. But these are the main points that I have come across so far. Thank you for your responses.

1. Each new weapon system takes one Hard Point. The rulebook doesn't say anything about turrets costing extra, but in my game I charge an additional 50% of the base weapon cost to mount it on a turret. The only real reason for mounting a weapon on a turret is for example when you're in a chase and want to fire at something behind you.

2. Characters take critical injuries whenever the person attacking them rolls enough advantage and doesn't find anything more useful to spend them on. If one of your characters wants to be a tank but doesn't like taking crits all the time, he should invest in the Durable talent. As for wounds, PCs should track up to twice their wound threshold - after that it doesn't matter much. They can never die from wounds alone (unless the GM really wants them to), only from Criticals at 140+ on the table. Of course, once you exceed your wound threshold you automatically take one critical hit.

3. Turning a maintenance droid into an assassin droid should be EXTREMELY difficult. Otherwise everyone would be doing it, all the time. Apart from mounting weapons, armour and the like, you'd have to completely reprogram its behavioural programs in order to allow it to hurt living creatures. I'd say that's an upgraded Impossible: Computers check, minimum. I'd also add a stack of setback dice since there's nothing in a maintenance droid's original programming or hardware that relates even remotely to killing people.

To turn a protocol droid into a killer, why not. But at a high difficulty level. I guess it is not just reprogramming like "flashing a firmware" it is more like replacing special processors your players have to found and to modify.

1. How does putting additional weapons on a ship work? If my group has started with the Wayfarer and they want to add an armada of laser cannons across the top and bottom of the ship, why would you not just make every single one of them turret mounted? Do you restrict turret mounted weapons by charging more credits for the turret? If so, how many total turret weapons can a ship of that silhouette hold? It seems like if you could have a weapon that fires only forward or the same weapon that can fire anywhere, why bother mounting it anything but turret mounted?

The turret mounting vs. fixed is a rather inflammatory topic right now.

Per RAW there's no difference in cost because it doesn't matter. Within the game mechanics the direction of a weapons' facing is largely irrelevent because the game assumes that (like personal scale combat) the pilot and any gunners will work together to get the ship facing the direction it needs to face to bring weapons to bear. This is also why without "Gain the Advantage" the defender gets to pick which defensive arc the enemy's shots land. The reason for fire arcs being listed is more one of the narrative, to be able to say when you shot your left facing laser and accrued no successes that the enemy never got into your arc. Or to explain why that star destroyer didn't just fire every single cannon it has at your one little ship.

HOWEVER the way this works narratively has proven really hard for some people to get their heads wrapped around. Some have even gone so far as to rewrite large portions of the vehicle combat rules to accommodate. If you fall into this camp, yes a turret will always be better.

2. How often should characters take critical injuries? I have a wookiee in my group with a wound threshold of 17. He acts as the tank and takes most of the fire for the group. Well last session he hit 21 wounds which would incapacitate him and give him a critical injury. However, his critical injury allowed the attacker to get a second shot at him and he dealt an additional 7 damage. Would he not take another critical injury from not being able to defend himself? Or does he not take an additional critical injury from hitting so many wounds above his threshold? Is there even a maximum amount of wounds he can take? At what point does he just die? Surely in the unfortunate situation where a PC hits like 40 wounds, they can't still possibly be alive can they?

What Krieger said. This isn't D&D, the wound mechanic is different. Don't try to apply it the same way or you'll just give yourself a headache.

3. The outlaw tech PC in the group found a small standard protocol droid with 4 arms that was made to be a cleaning droid. I assumed that its programming, learning chip, and verbobrain would be the parts that allow the droid to compute what it is designed to do. However, having 4 arms and being small, the player would like to program the droid to become an assassin droid. How exactly should this work? Should he purchase new parts to replace the old parts within the droid? Is it even possible to just simply reprogram a protocol droid to become a killer? He has 5 Intellect and 3 ranks in computers and 5 ranks in mechanics so he's sure he could just reprogram it to become a disciplined assassin. How would you handle and/or control this?

I'd do it something like this:

Formidable computers check. Upgraded at least once probably more. Success eliminates the droid's "Three Laws" programming for lack of a better term. Every two advantage adds a rank of ranged light, or melee (players choice). Triumph: The Droid was in fact an assassin droid all along and the Player just unlocked this programming and made himself the "master" GM rewrites stats to match the droids unlocked capabilities. Failures = fail. Threat = damage to the droid at 100 credits/threat Despair = Droid suffers a critical wound as if inflicted by a Vicious 5 weapon. Triumphant Failure = droid destroyed, 1,000 credits of salvageable parts. Successful Despair = Droid is an assassin already, Player is now primary target. (Laugh Manically) Triumphant Despair: Droid is an assassin all along, Player accidentally identified all living things (and other droids) as primary target, but was able to deactivate droid. Reactivation of the droid will cause it to go postal (though there's still some fun to be had with that)

I personally wouldnt allow reprogramming a droid like that, too much work it could take years for someone thats never done that. He'd need access to a droid manufacturer's code in order to implement it..then I'd make it a daunting check + at least 1-2 challenge dice. (square peg, round hole)

Despair on reprogramming droid into assassin...droid immediately turns on programmer!

Hi Dave...you're going to die now!

The way you explain how space combat works makes sense Ghostofman. I think I might keep it simple though and just keep it the way I've had it where I just charge extra like Krieger stated. I don't think I have what it takes to wrap my mind around the way it should be done every time the group gets in a fire fight. Lol.

Another thought I have had come up. What happens when the group finds an NPC that joins the group and becomes a helpful character. Come to find out, this NPC is force sensitive. When he uses the force, how do I go about using the destiny points? I'm not going to use a light side point for an NPC using the light side of the force. That puts the PCs at an extreme disadvantage. It says that if I have him use a dark side move then I flip a dark side token. This seems unfair as well if I am using dark side tokens to help the PCs. How would you go about doing this?

I would flip a destiny exactly as I would as a player.

If I do this only rarely and with great remorse then perhaps I get away with it.

If I do this regularly then as the GM I would be quite expecting to have the PC's hand over the NPC and try and claim the bounty for capturing a Force user. Throw him from an airlock of something terrible.

The only difference between a PC and NPC here is that the players will be slightly more tollerant of a PC going dark, but sooner or later a PC who consumes destiny points and takes the easy path to the force, will probably have some problems and resentments build amoungst his fellow players.

The way you explain how space combat works makes sense Ghostofman. I think I might keep it simple though and just keep it the way I've had it where I just charge extra like Krieger stated. I don't think I have what it takes to wrap my mind around the way it should be done every time the group gets in a fire fight. Lol.

Another thought I have had come up. What happens when the group finds an NPC that joins the group and becomes a helpful character. Come to find out, this NPC is force sensitive. When he uses the force, how do I go about using the destiny points? I'm not going to use a light side point for an NPC using the light side of the force. That puts the PCs at an extreme disadvantage. It says that if I have him use a dark side move then I flip a dark side token. This seems unfair as well if I am using dark side tokens to help the PCs. How would you go about doing this?

This is a slippery slope. I wouldn't introduce an NPC that can take the players light side points. If I needed to have this NPC it would be for a very short time 1-2 adventures and make it exempt from needing Destiny or I would roll the NPCs force rating and have it have it's own separate force pool.

Just give the cleaning droid a ridiculously low threshold for how dirty something must be for it to clean it and fill its window cleaner reservoir with acid then point it at your target!

Ad3

In addition to programming, I think a cleaning droid is not mechanically equipped for killing. It's not only about weapons, but I guess its servomotors are meant for lighter work. Without replacing most of its hardware, it would be quite clumsy. However, it could be great at leaving mines/bombs. It's just a cleaning droid right? No one pays attention. So it could leave a bomb somewhere...

HOWEVER the way this works narratively has proven really hard for some people to get their heads wrapped around. Some have even gone so far as to rewrite large portions of the vehicle combat rules to accommodate. If you fall into this camp, yes a turret will always be better.

Do you know where this rewrite can be found? I'm searching around for it without much luck.