Playing Beyond the Rim our scout thought shooting a hooversled with normal settings on her blaster would be putting bystanders at risk and so she shot it with stun.

I had no idea how to deal with it... I have searched the rulebook to no avail so eventually I gave her the benefit of the doubt only to find that one shot was enough to incapicitate the sled and allowed the party to catch up with the enemy very quickly.

Does anyone know what the official rule for using stun on vehicles is?

Stun damage would do system strain to vehicles.

Well, in previous versions Stun didn't have any effect on machines (including droids), but this version does have droids suffer from Stun, so...?

Stun damage would do system strain to vehicles.

In that case I handled it correctly... That made the gravsled totally useless by the way!

For some reason this is something I'd house rule. Droids (or vehicles) won't suffer strain from normal stun bolts in my game. Even if it can be rationalised. Shock gloves I feel all right about, but not stun bolts. Don't ask me why, that's just the way it is.

For some reason this is something I'd house rule. Droids (or vehicles) won't suffer strain from normal stun bolts in my game. Even if it can be rationalised. Shock gloves I feel all right about, but not stun bolts. Don't ask me why, that's just the way it is.

I agree. Ion weapons are the stun guns for droids and vehicles.

I would not be surprised if tougher/heavier vehicles were hardened against stun bolts. A soft skin vehicle would take suny stem strain, a hardened vehicle no effect. Of course targeting the pilot in an open cockpit is always an option. Lots of Star Wars vehicles have exposed pilots...

For some reason this is something I'd house rule. Droids (or vehicles) won't suffer strain from normal stun bolts in my game. Even if it can be rationalised. Shock gloves I feel all right about, but not stun bolts. Don't ask me why, that's just the way it is.

The issue I have with this is that by making them immune to Stun you've given Droid PCs a significant defensive ability at no cost. It may make sense but mechanically it's unfair to player's who play other races. If you're going to do this you should offset this advantage is some way.

For some reason this is something I'd house rule. Droids (or vehicles) won't suffer strain from normal stun bolts in my game. Even if it can be rationalised. Shock gloves I feel all right about, but not stun bolts. Don't ask me why, that's just the way it is.

The issue I have with this is that by making them immune to Stun you've given Droid PCs a significant defensive ability at no cost. It may make sense but mechanically it's unfair to player's who play other races. If you're going to do this you should offset this advantage is some way.

Easy. They're playing Droids. Someone sees them wandering without a meat being nearby. Hits them with an ion blast to shut them down. Attaches a restraining bolt and takes them away to be sold. Droids are property with no real rights.

Toydarians have immunity to mind-influencing Force powers, and it's not written into their "stats", it's just noted in their description. Droid PCs in my game are immune to stun weapons other than shock gloves, although it can disorient them the same way ion weapons disorient organics. If this seems like a balance issue, methinks you've been playing a lot of d20 and need to let go of that min-maxing attitude. This game is all about story and narrative, and anything that doesn't make sense in the narrative should be discarded.

The issue I have with this is that by making them immune to Stun you've given Droid PCs a sig

Easy. They're playing Droids. Someone sees them wandering without a meat being nearby. Hits them with an ion blast to shut them down. Attaches a restraining bolt and takes them away to be sold. Droids are property with no real rights.

The issue I have with this is that by making them immune to Stun you've given Droid PCs a significant defensive ability at no cost. It may make sense but mechanically it's unfair to player's who play other races. If you're going to do this you should offset this advantage is some way.

Toydarians have immunity to mind-influencing Force powers, and it's not written into their "stats", it's just noted in their description. Droid PCs in my game are immune to stun weapons other than shock gloves, although stun weapons can disorient them the same way ion weapons disorient organics. If this seems like a balance issue, methinks you've been playing a lot of d20 and need to let go of that min-maxing attitude. This game is all about story and narrative, and anything that doesn't make sense in the narrative should be discarded.

I guess the best way to handle the issue to to decide how you'd want Stun damage as a whole to effect mechanicals and establish it early. If stun does damage to droids, you can use the damage mechanics against a vessel, but at a scaled rate (similar to like a how blaster pistol would damage a vessel).

You could say it effects system strain, due to the ionization, or stun waves effecting power flow, if this works for you. You could say that, due to the way stun effects droids, that it should have a similar effect on ALL mechanics. The thing is, it should be decided and established with the group (players and GMs as a whole) so that a fair system is in place. Every group is different - some are good with simple explanations and GM decisions on how the actions, weapons and the lot effect the world, others want specific, in lore reasons why something effects something in a certain way. As long as everyone is in agreement with how the situation should be dealt, I believe you should be able to justify whatever course you take.

Thanks, you know I usually stick with RAW because I it is less confusing for my pleasure but also for myself as keeping tabs on house rules usually doesn't work out to well for me!

Do whatever works best for your game, as per usual. Personally, if I was to make droids (or vehicles) immune to the stun setting of weapons, then I would drop the self-repair feature. If they are to be only affected by ion weapons (beyond regular blaster damge), then the damage is so severe it must be repaired. Ion energy disrupts electrical systems and fuses circuits. Damage I feel needs to be externally repaired.

Stun damage would do system strain to vehicles.

Naw, that's silly. Why would an attack that works (according to sources) by overloading the target's nervous system have an effect on hardware? Now one of them Jawa guns? Yeah - but a stun setting? Wouldnt have any effect.

Do whatever works best for your game, as per usual. Personally, if I was to make droids (or vehicles) immune to the stun setting of weapons, then I would drop the self-repair feature. If they are to be only affected by ion weapons (beyond regular blaster damge), then the damage is so severe it must be repaired. Ion energy disrupts electrical systems and fuses circuits. Damage I feel needs to be externally repaired.

You seem to be thinking about this purely in terms of game mechanics. Keeping droids immune to stun damage is balanced because they're not immune to ion damage. Should organic characters remove a feature or two because they're unaffected/merely disoriented by ion damage...?

Also, self-repair keeps droids in line with organics; it basically means that while droids are "resting" they're also repairing themselves both internally and externally, cutting down on bookkeeping. It's the exact same thing as using the Mechanics skill in terms of what's actually happening, it just doesn't require a check because even without training in Mechanics a damaged droid will attempt to put itself back together (albeit slowly).

The rules as they are now, droids are affected by the stun setting on blasters. If you want to make them immune to stun setting, thus meaning the only way to take strain is either through actions or ion damage, I think there needs to be a trade off. Just my opinion, feel free to disagree. I'm fine with with the way things are now.

Toydarians have immunity to mind-influencing Force powers, and it's not written into their "stats", it's just noted in their description. Droid PCs in my game are immune to stun weapons other than shock gloves, although stun weapons can disorient them the same way ion weapons disorient organics. If this seems like a balance issue, methinks you've been playing a lot of d20 and need to let go of that min-maxing attitude. This game is all about story and narrative, and anything that doesn't make sense in the narrative should be discarded.

As for other races and their abilities I'm not suggesting changing them from the RAW so those arguments aren't really relevant.

Except for a few sessions of 4thEd and a couple of SAGA I haven't played D&D regularly in 25 years. Balance isn't the issue here, changing the RAW to gain an advantage at no cost is.

You seem to be thinking about this purely in terms of game mechanics. Keeping droids immune to stun damage is balanced because they're not immune to ion damage. Should organic characters remove a feature or two because they're unaffected/merely disoriented by ion damage...?

You are correct that I'm thinking of it as a game mechanics issue, narratively I have no problem with Droids being immune to Stun although I haven't actually seen anything in the films to suggest they can't be Stunned or that a Droid "Brain" couldn't be constructed in such a way that it can disrupted the same way that a bio-electric "meat" brain can. The point is that it's a potentially significant combat advantage that they currently do not posses and that is a game mechanics issue.

If you could come up with a way to have it not effect combat then I wouldn't care, but you can't. So as far as I'm concerned Droid "Brains" are sufficiently complex that the Stun setting on blasters can disrupt them is such a way that it is indistinguishable from how it effects a "meat" brain. As far as vehicles and other equipment goes their mechanisms are not complex enough and require the effects generated by an Ion weapon to disable them.

If you could come up with a way to have it not effect combat then I wouldn't care...

It doesn't affect combat because ion weapons can't damage organics. Are you going to remove free skill ranks or something from organics? Otherwise, I would suggest making stun damage affect droids the same way ion weapons affect organics; in other words, add Disorient 5 (droids only) to the stun setting of a given weapon.

I don't understand why everyone thinks No Stun on droids is imbalanceing? Are there enough stormtroopers set for stun that are unable to gun down player droids for this to be a big deal? We're talking a very small percentage of players (running around as droids) in an even smaller percentage of combat (stun only fights).

Ignore the stun on droids, and if it starts to turn out to be an issues, then Stormtroopers start running around with EMP grenades and Jawa guns. There - problem sorted.

It doesn't affect combat because ion weapons can't damage organics. Are you going to remove free skill ranks or something from organics? Otherwise, I would suggest making stun damage affect droids the same way ion weapons affect organics; in other words, add Disorient 5 (droids only) to the stun setting of a given weapon.

Or you could do what I've done with meat being hit by ion blasts. "Boy, I hope you didn't need that comlink to call for backup. Oh, and your gun is misfiring too."

Hell, ion guns were my favorite thing to throw at unsuspecting Jedi. Bad guy pulls a "blaster", Jedi moves to block the bolt, lightsaber gets hit with a full on EMP burst - poof, no more lightsaber! Oh look, three more bad guys - all with real, very deflectable blaster bolts - now have free reign to shoot you as much as they like.

It doesn't affect combat because ion weapons can't damage organics. Are you going to remove free skill ranks or something from organics? Otherwise, I would suggest making stun damage affect droids the same way ion weapons affect organics; in other words, add Disorient 5 (droids only) to the stun setting of a given weapon.

Again, I'm not suggesting changing the RAW you are. The RAW says Droids are affected by the Stun setting and Ion weapons, I don't care what the narrative explanation is for why this is so (although I did just make one up that seems pretty reasonable), so I don't need to do anything but follow the RAW which is fine by me.

I don't understand why everyone thinks No Stun on droids is imbalanceing? Are there enough stormtroopers set for stun that are unable to gun down player droids for this to be a big deal? We're talking a very small percentage of players (running around as droids) in an even smaller percentage of combat (stun only fights).

Ignore the stun on droids, and if it starts to turn out to be an issues, then Stormtroopers start running around with EMP grenades and Jawa guns. There - problem sorted.

Precisely. There's no reason why a droid should loose something as basic as being able to rest and gain back Wounds simply because Stun weapons are ineffective on them. At that point, Toydarians might as well loose the ability to take ranks in Discipline, because they can already ignore mind-influencing Force powers, so wouldn't it be "unbalancing" if they learned to see through non-Force powered lies as well...?

Again, I'm not suggesting changing the RAW you are. The RAW says Droids are affected by the Stun setting and Ion weapons, I don't care what the narrative explanation is for why this is so (although I did just make one up that seems pretty reasonable), so I don't need to do anything but follow the RAW which is fine by me.

Actually the RAW don't address the issue of stun damage and droids at all. I would say it's implied, kind of like how it's implied that the "Mind Trick" Control upgrade for the Influence Force power only works on living targets, even though only the base power notes this. You have a reasonable enough explanation for stun damage working on droids, I would say, but it absolutely conflicts with existing canon. (Remember: older editions of the RPG ARE canon until something more recent specifically contradicts the older source.)

RAW states that stun weapons inflict strain damage on "targets". Ion weapons do damage in "system strain" usually to vehicles, but Droids are explicitly called out as being effected by ion weapons.

Nothing In the indexed entries for Stun, Droid, or Ion makes any mention of whether or not droids are effected by stun damage. I would rule that since droids have "Strain" they are effected by stun. The call out to droids being effected by ion weapons is a rule exception, because droids have "strain" rather than "system strain". Because of this I would rule that stun weapons do not effect vehicles under RAW because they inflict "strain" rather than "system strain".

I think this is one of those gret areas that comes down to GM and player group interpretation. If someone feels strongly enough about it contact FFG and ask for an official ruling. I would be happy to accept what ever the convention of the group I am playing with.

The chance of a handheld weapon on stun doing much of anything to a vehicle simply with planetary scale armor etc in play generally makes it a moot point, doesn't it?