Having the base go BOOM!

[garhkal]

Ok. I am starting to draw out another module, one in which the rebels are to go and infiltrate an imperial prison, and rescue X prisoners. Now seeing how manh of those in my group have 'handled' these types of things in the past, i am figuring on the Imps being a little more prepared for it. Rather than numbers of stormies, i was thinking of them having the base wired to self descruct if the commander gets koed/killed. Basically for that part, he would have his foot on a pressure switch. If his foot comes up, which is what would happen if he got stunned, or killed, the SD activates a 10 second counter.

Now looking at how the base would be wired, i am looking at probabily total destruction of the base, +20 or more meters beyond, but i am struggling to put in a good damage value. One that is POTENTIALLY survivable (good luck, cps etc), but not so survivable that a normal run group would walk away after dropping a CP or two..
So what would you suggest?
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Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[Pel]

Well, if you want the blast survivable, the job is tougher.

My thoughts:

An Imperial Garrison is a capital-scale installation with a large reactor core. The self destruct is probably intended to vaporize or at least render unusable the entire facility, so I'm thinking around 15D capital-scale damage with the blast radius extending several hundred meters beyond the perimeter.

This is still workable until we arrive at the deadman switch with handy 10 second delay. 10 seconds isn't nearly enough time to make good an escape. I would give them at least a few minutes to commandeer a shuttle and get to the minimum safe distance.

You can handle the interim as a silent countdown,
"Hey, what's that big timer counting down to on his desk?"

or as a nice loud warning that wakes the dead.
"DANGER! The Emergency Destruct System is now ACTIVE!" - ala Alien.

I suppose it depends on how much you want to blow up your party. If you want to do it and have them (conceivably) survive, say the explosion fizzled and cap the damage at say, 5 or 6D speeder scale. Alternatively they could make it to a ship or speeder, then get caught in the blast wave and suffer crash damage.

What do you think?
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Aha!

[Gry Sarth]

I don't know, I find the idea of a safeguard system that vaporizes an entire, very expensive and very important, garrison if the commander gets an itch on his leg to be a little unrealistic. I mean, how does that work? The poor guy has to stand on that pressure plate all day long? Doesn't he have better things to do? And if it's a thing where he goes and steps in the system in case of a potential threat, then what if he's conducting his errands somewhere else at the moment of the attack? Then the whole system is wasted....

I'd think it'd have to be a portable device he carries with him, similar to the one used in Terminator 2 to blow up that building. If the commander feels threatened, he presses the switch. If he releases it, kabooom. If the danger is contained, he enters a code to deactivate it.
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"He's Gry Sarth, of course he has the stats for them."

[Allst Beamem]

Oh yea or like the thing in the spawn movie with the thing on martin shene's wrist that measured his heart beat. if his heart stoped then the detonation cycle would begin.
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We're all gona die!!

[Pel]

I hadn't given much thought to the detonator. What is the commander's motivation for the scorched earth approach? Does he have some personal connection to the prisoners or characters that would make him that vindictive, or is he just nuts?

I ask, because that would really help in suggesting a "believable" scenario.

The only published reference to a garrison self destruct occurred in SWAJ #14, the short story No Disintegrations, Please. A quick synopsis for those who haven't read it:

An Imperial general takes in his wayward brother who is on the run from Boba Fett. The general sends the entire might of his garrison after Fett, who annihilates them all. In vain desperation, the general shoots his XO and engages the garrison auto-destruct. Seems the XO was pretty sane and the only other guy who knew how to disarm the sequence. I won't spoil it, but the text gave the impression of a big boom (baada boom) if someone happened to be around to see it. 8)

Ok, now the general in question was quite unhinged by losing his nice shiny garrison to a single man. Garhkal are you planning a similar scenario or is there more to it?
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Aha!

[garhkal]

[Pel]

Ok, that makes sense. Talk about your no-win scenario. Surrender or be blasted to bits. I like it!

Happy blasting. 8)
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Aha!

[garhkal]

Yup. While i don't like to see totally no win situations, i do feel they should come up every now and again. And with our groups rules for freeing those captured, surrendering for later 'freeing' won't really be seen as a complete loss. Unless they are kept at the same base, and the imperials keep the self destruct stuff in place....

On a side note. What would you say the standard defenses would be for a 200-250 prison facility be?
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Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[Pel]

For a small to medium installation like that, I'd say probably 50 - 75 guards (Army troops), a couple squads of Stormtroopers, 5 officers, and 30 support personnel. Additionally I'd toss in a couple of AT-ST's, and the ability to call in TIE fighter support from the nearest garrison or base.
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Aha!

[garhkal]

On the holonet, both grimace and random axe (two of the posters there) suggested i do 'set damages' say, blast zone 1 - ground zero to 50 meters, damage is 200pts. Blast zone 2 - 50-100 meters, damage is 150pts... and so on...

Would that be better than the dice option?
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Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[Pel]

Only if you're giving the players a longer timer with a chance to escape.

If you like the 10 second delay (more in keeping with your plan, I think) then I'd go for the dice and let the chips fall where they may. Unless someone has a portable shield generator, Greater Force Shield, or a teleporter in their pocket those 10 seconds won't matter much.

I would love to see their faces, though. 8)
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Aha!

[Jedi Skyler]

I have to admit, the first thing that came to mind about the activation switch was basically a device that monitored the commander's vitals. Rather than having it activate as soon as he had no pulse, a sudden stop in his vitals would trigger a countdown which would then start the actual Big Bang countdown. This would allow for the possibility of the base commander having some kind of accident, heart attack, whatever, and the base not simply disintegrating because the guy liked to chow down on pork sausage at every meal.

However, this option takes away from the commander's control of the situation. Admittedly, he'll want to survive, and as an Imperial, he'll want to be able to purposely activate the countdown if he wants to.

Alternatively, if you want to keep the 10-second countdown, but take it in a different direction, you could have him only wire the prison area for detonation. That way, the prisoners can be easily neutralized without threat to the commander's own life- a big consideration for an Imperial- but then there's an added danger if the Rebels manage to get to the prison area without encountering the commander. He'd have the whole area wired for audio/video, and so could taunt the Rebels, demand their surrender, perhaps even remotely activate a hidden plate in the wall that slides open to reveal a nice, tidy thermite bomb, with a nice, big timer ticking down from ten seconds...

That way, he can have his cake AND eat it, too!

[garhkal]

[Dan Solo]