Session 001 - Character Rewind

I forgot to post character sheets. It's Sunday and I am working on my Neimoidian bounty hunter, but I would like to share the player's initial sheets.  

These are photocopies of a character sheet I had on hand and I rewrote what the players did on their sheets. There are mistakes, either one of the players didn't write in languages or I missed it. 

In either case, these are available by hitting the Pregenerated Characters tabs above or from the links below. When the players share their updated sheets, I'll load those, too. 

Just to recap, there are 5 player characters. Nonin is a Devaronian force adept with a blaster. Talhana is a Zabrak force adept, also with a blaster. Malta is Rodian scoundrel and dreamer, with a tiny holdout pistol. Dex is a human handiman and fringer with a sporting blaster. And lastly is Lidda. She is a twi'lik solder with more weapons than anyone else. Click those links for the individual PDF files. 

The characters have made it to level two, but I wanted to show their initial stats from Session 000.  Click the link for a recap. The short of it is, all of the characters have far more equipment and funds now. 

These characters the players created are forcing me to change up the scenarios in Invasion of Theed. In dumping the players on a different home planet, the scenarios can't play out as described. That one I knew. The second change followed by an adjustment was the players wanted to be in a place like the worlds in The Mandolorian. Since they made that choice they changed their minds. They want lightsabres now. Not too hard. The final change I have to make is the final villains can't exist on the players homeworld for a variety of reason, but the primary is, as played the characters would see these villains as heroes. That just won't do. 

Aftermath - SW Session 001

"It's not Star Wars without lightsabers," she said. 

True. My campaign doesn't support lightsabers, so I am plugging in an event that allows the players to get their hands on lightsabers. I'm nothing if not adaptable and amendable. Plus, little wacky. 

I'm going to add the kookiest bounty hunter in the Universe. The characters' main antagonist is the former Viceroy of the Trade Federation, Bergel. Bergel is a Neimoidian, who avoids conflict and physical combat like the plague. He has a small band of security sentients and bodyguards. One of them is a Neimoidian bounty hunter. 

What? A Neimoidian bounty hunter? That is so against type, it's insane. 

Yes, it is. This bounty hunter will have to embody the traits of both a hunter and Neimoidian. He will be specialized in taking creatures alive or collecting information. This fits best with his species's tenancy to avoid conflict. He overwhelms his opponents with gadgets and technology to take the fight out of them. He would probably render medical assistance to those he takes before he turns them over as a bounty.

Since bounty hunter is a prestige class in the WotC Star Wars set from 2000, I will make this character much higher level than the party, which means he will have to be amediable to the player's goals. Since he is so "extra", he will have a massive amount of skills the party hasn't seen in one person yet. They aren't going to be able to outfight or outsmart him. At least, initially. 

In true bounty hunter fashion, he has trained on Mandalore. But not to be a bounty hunter, he was there to set up a trade alliance. He gained a lot insight on Mandalore as to what it means to be "independent" on a global level. This is a useful piece of knowledge for Bergel to have access to. The Tankeren are independent like the Mandalorians, but not as hostile. The Mandalorians called him "enchanting" and "charming". Coming from Mandalorians, those are not complements. However, he did make contacts, friends and a few non-violent enemies. 

He has a noticeable lack of Mandalorian armor and weapons. But he does have a ton of gizmos and gadgets that the Mandalorians use. He doesn't really care to kill. Two of these items are lightsabers that he doesn't use. A few of the other oddities use Kyber crystals, like an energy shield, net and entagler cable. In fact, he has a whole collection of Kyber crystal jewelry that he found interesting. This stuff is of low value on this planet as they don't have that tradition of The Force.  

In some part, he will be based on Obsidian Maw. He is cocky but calm about his skills and goals. He will announce his intentions truthfully because he believes in what he is doing. Everything he does seems to come out of nowhere, verging on magic tricks because he is an ambush hunter. He is vehicle to grant the party what they desire. 

Once I have his sheet made up, there will be the small matter of getting him into the hero's sphere of influence. I have few tricks up my sleeve to bring in some of that classic Star Wars feeling into this game. One of the better bits about Star Wars is the host of gray characters who don't fall under the categories of good or bad. This hunter will be yet another of those people. 

Session 001 - Spiraling Dice

Invasion of Theed is a basic game engine. 90% of the information inside is geared for combat. Each encounter is broken down into three sections: pre-combat, combat, and post combat. The players are encouraged to use non-combat skills outside of combat, but every encounter defaults to combat for success. There is no way avoid it as stated.  

But I changed the setting, so the encounters had to change. This encounter was still a jail break. The characters were to suborn a couple of Neimoidian guards to get the codes to open the jail. They'd fight off some droids and rescue the prisoners or be captured. 

In this campaign, the lead Neimoidian Bergel is an antagonist but not a physical threat. He has relinquished control of the droid army to the leaders of Tankern, the name of the planet. Those republican leaders ordered the droids to quell the riot. As bad as battle droids are at warfare, they are even worse at policing, public policy and PR. The droids were holding people prisoner that the leadership didn't want imprisoned. Since this is a classic republic, there is no chief executive, only a person nominated for given tasks. The droids can't handle this, they want someone to be in charge to give them orders. 

My players were rolling from their last encounter directly into this one. They were still itching for a fight and not much time has passed since their last encounter with the droids. 

However, they gave themselves an excuse to stop and take a breather. They are rummaging through the speeders they stole in the last encounter. They have found a medkit, a toolbox, some tarps, painting supplies and a couple of cloaks and blankets. 

While the main party was doing this, Dex and Malta crept closer to the jail to scope out the place. Since Bergel has the most knowledge of the droids, he sent two representatives to order the droids to release the prisoners. Unfortunately a Republican Representative named Vidda showed up at about the same time and made the same demand. The droids are confused by the lack of combat and leadership. They don't know what to do and keep calling for help. 

Malta and Dex hatched a plan and returned to the speeders to fill everyone in. 

The nice thing about this group of players is they want to make use of non-combat skills. Some of this exceeds the rules in Invasion of Theed, so we are supplementing with the core rulebook. The party dressed Malta and Dex up as medics and made up Nonin to look like a wounded rioter. Malta and Dex have tiny blasters and planned to sneak them into the prison with the medkits and tool box to bust everyone out. Nonin was unarmed. Lidda stayed with one speeder to snipe targets if things get out of hand. Talhana's part was to use her speeder as a barrier between the droids and the side door. 

As Dex and Malta approached, a fourth "representative of the people" showed up. He is a rioter named Manro. For the player's benefit, I was rolling d20s for each party negotiating, whoever got the highest number has the droids ears for that round. It's a mechanic for the player's benefit so they could jam themselves into the conversation by backing different opinions. 

I'm not doing a blow by blow like the last time. Here is the initial map setup. The player's speeders are at the top and everyone else is in front of the jail at the bottom of the picture. 

The droids were pretty easy to fool. The Dex, Malta and Nonin wanted to get into the jail, which the droids were perfectly happy to do. They claimed to be "medical assistance". The droids flustered at this because they were calling for "assistance", but didn't mean medical assistance. I made Malta and Dex roll to keep their weapons hidden and they succeeded. The droids fixated on the tool kit, but Dex claimed they also repair droids. 

I used that to both help and confuse the party. There were 4 security droids off map, the jailers called them in and asked Dex to provide that assistance. He reluctantly rolled to repair one of them and satisfied, the beefy security droids marched off map to take up their hidden positions again.  

The three adventurers made their way into the jail and once the door closed, set about freeing themselves and everyone else from their cells, providing medial assistance and recovering the rioter's weapons. One problem the party had was they have no communication gear. There are some communicators in the jail, but the characters outside didn't have any and no way to pick them up.  

The force adepts are not powerful enough to use the Force to communicate. I deem that the force-sensitive feat and alter feat is good enough for the adepts to know if a party member is in the area and their general state of being, hurt, angry, etc. This is done on a DC 15, where a failure indicates the character knows they have failed. It's kind of the wrong power for the job. Since the characters were looking right at the jail or know the direction back to the speeders, they can detect their friends and the people right outside the door. 

After a great many die rolls for computer use, disable device and first aid, Nonin, Malta and Dex got the side door open and gave the signal. Lidda started blasting away as Talhana brought the speeder over. There were too many people to ride in the speeder, so Talhana switched places with Dex and he used the speeder as moving cover for the prisoners. 

The four people in front of the jail decided to enter and lock the door to get out of the fight. They are unarmed anyway. The droids are in no position to stop them. The party engages in a running gun battle with the hidden security droids and makes good their escape. 

The text indicates the jail holds a weapons cache. Since the characters are all gunned up already, I changed this 8 comlinks and 8 medpacs. Basically what one would find in a police station, sans the weaponry and armor. Droids don't have armor and store themselves with their weapons on their backs.  

The party decides to leave the city and hide in the countryside. To that end, they trade one speeder to the barkeeper from the first encounter for access to their rooms and some gear. The speeder is worth 6000 credits. Lidda demands some light armor, while everyone else sticks to the basics. Of note, they have 3 datapads, three electro-binoculars, a couple of tool kits, and their smaller personal belongings from their apartments. 

The barkeeper is not the nicest person and is already mad at the party, so he short changes the party and intends to dump their remaining belongings outside. The party intimidates their former landlord into forking over 1,500 credits with all of the gear and extract a promise for him to store their belongings they can't take. This will be a hostile work relationship in the future, but the deal seems to be pretty even. What the party got for the speeder was rather minimal, considering they are protecting goods that have no in-game meaning. 

This session went exceptionally well, I particularly loved the attention to detail the party put into their plans and the fact that they took an interest the last adventure so that they remembered that they had stuff in their apartments. Leaving the city will create some problems for me, I may have to create a different one off adventure to get them back into the city. 

Session 001 Setup - Automatic (Detention) for the People

This next session needs some modification. 7 battle droids, starting at a distance were no threat to the players. Also, the event description from Invasion of Theed won't make sense. 

The players will still be doing a prison break as per the boxed set events, but I am changing the scenario up in true Star Wars fashion. The characters have two land speeders they stole in Session 0, plus 7 blasters from the droids they fought. They are properly gunned up, but have no other equipment. 

The theoretical bad guy Bergel, is a former member of the Trade Federation and a Neimoidian. The boxed set describes a jail with two Neimoidians out front, watching droids take captives. I am changing this. Bergel has sent two representative Neimoidians to get the rioters out of prison. "For the People," they say. The droids can't process the thought and call for instructions. 

Vidda, a city representative shows up to also represent "the People". Vidda is being followed by a rioter, Manro who is also claiming represent "the People". Since all four of these people are unarmed and acting rationally, the droids want to hand over the rioters, but can't figure out who should get them. 

The droids are baffled. Vidda should have control of the droids as a representative of the Republic, but Manro and the Neimoidians actions have confused them. These citizens are unarmed, so the droids have broken into two groups, a pair with holstered weapons arguing with the sentients and four battle ready droids guarding the parameter. The droids are trying to figure out who is really in charge and who needs to be arrested, which is flummoxing every living being. The droids plan on arresting two or more people then hand all of the detained people over to the last sentient. 

That illogical path is par for the course when it comes to battle droids. 

The characters will roll in on this mess directly from their last encounter and tip the scale from confusion to gunfire, in typical Star Wars fashion. 

Here is the starting map. 

On the far side of the map are the party's two speeders. On the near side of the map are the droids and sentients. The four droids on the perimeter have cover from 3 columns, while the other two droids are in contact (arguing) with sentients. 

I have left the prisoner tokens off the map as the players can't see them. There is supposed to be weapons cache inside the prison, but I am swapping it out with supplies the party needs. All weapons inside have been taken from the rioters and should be returned to them once they are free. Off board are reinforcements for the droids, plus the cache and supplies have a few surprises for the players if they get inside. 

Obviously, the characters shouldn't come in guns blazing. We'll have to wait and see how they react to this scenario.