Cracken's Rebel Field Guide (Page 2)

Cracken's Rebel Field Guide is a supplement for Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game. The marvelous technology of the Star Wars universe is one of the great curiosities for gamemasters and players. This book contains many new items for Star Wars adventures, and explains how inhabitants of the universe alter and manipulate that technology. New areas discussed include jury-rigged items, computer data and cybernetic technology.

This supplement is presented courtesy of General Airen Cracken, one of the many people who have devoted long years to the cause of the Rebel Alliance. Cracken's field experience provides valuable insight into the alteration and use of the items in this book. His anecdotes can also serve as the inspiration for Star Wars adventures.

This book is an aid for players as well as gamemasters. It is written for the Rebel out in the field without much equipment at his disposal. Players should be allowed to read through the book.

Jury-Rigging

As described on page 29 of The Star Wars Rules Companion, a character may increase the performance ability of his equipment. He can make his blaster more powerful or make his airspeeder more maneuverable. Improving equipment through skill points reflects the fact that the character is investing himself into the equipment. It is a long-term and costly process. It is possible, however, to increase the performance of equipment without spending skill points and credits. Unfortunately, this short cut tends to make the improvement temporary, and dangerous when the equipment fails. The process is called jury-rigging. When a character jury-rigs a blaster power pack into a bomb or alters the design of an air speeder's mechanical air flaps, he is making the machine or item better - but by means that no honest engineer would ever use. Jury-rigging involves connecting wires that shouldn't be connected, taking out important safety features of a vehicle, or putting together two kinds of electronics that don't really belong together. Juryrigged equipment provides a short term benefit, but it is predisposed to breakdown. Jury-rigging something takes one hour, or the character can rush, jury-rigging the item in one minute, although the task becomes one difficulty harder. Very difficult tasks can be attempted in one minute. There is no way to spend more time on jury-rigging to make the task easier.

If the roll to jury-rig something is failed, it can be tried again, but the second try always takes an hour (even if the initial attempt was only one minute).

The Role of Jury-Rigging

Jury-rigging equipment often requires strange bits of wire and odds and ends. The gamemaster must decide if the equipment to jury-rig something is on hand if the Rebels did not specify that they brought the equipment with them. The game master should keep in mind that it is in the spirit of the jury-rigging rules that the Rebels slap stuff together when they want to. This is why the break down rules exist: to balance out the bonus the players get. A lack of materials for juryrigging should be the exception, not the rule.

Improving Existing Abilities

The most common way to jury-rig an item is to improve one of its existing die codes. For example, a blaster can be rigged for better damage or an airspeeder can be rigged for more speed. This kind of improvement only enhances a tool's die code (for example, a blaster can only improve the damage code this way, while a capital ship turbolaser could have fire control or damage increased).

An item can be made better by 1D, 2D, or 3D. Thus, a sporting blaster's damage can be improved from 3D+1 to 4D+1, 5D+1, or 6D+1. The maneuverability of an Aratech 74-Z Military