luckykaa

First, would a stick do that much damage to a droid?

Second, I'm looking at this both from the roleplayers' point of view, and from the film point of view. There are clearly two robots in panel eight. So in the actual film, Bria was able to tell the difference between two robots, and identify one as her friend and one as...

How well does she actually know the robot? The robot is partnered with Cassian; she's only seen it briefly. Are we to believe that she was somehow able to identify two nearly identical looking robots, and figure out that one was the one she knew briefly, and the other was a stranger; or is it a case that she just took a random shot and got lucky that she did not kill the partner of the people she's working with?

Just how reliable of a person is this Bria? When her job is to avoid being noticed, she gets noticed; when her job is to talk to someone, she is far too literal and doesn't even realize that the guy is responding literally; she antagonizes Jabba's contacts out of a personal issue; etc.

Seriously, if Cassian does not need her, why not just shoot her? She's now reached the point of being more trouble than she's worth.

Oh right, she is the only one who knows who they're supposed to contact.

She's supposed to know who they're supposed to contact. Supposed to.

This could probably be the trope namer for a bad case of a bad escort mission.

Last Minute Update

44 hit points. 2d6, same as a blaster. A critical. We're talking about rolling a 12, and getting a 4× crit multiplier. On a non-lethal weapon being used to disable.

Was the line "Makes sense to me" or "I see nothing wrong"?

— Keybounce

Something that I never realized before: Chicken miniatures.

There is no movie; this GM actually had chicken walkers, and chicken miniatures.

Chicken. Miniatures.

Never mind the deformed seal-walrus-whatever it was, where do you get chicken miniatures? Are there other farm animals yet to show up?

I find myself wondering, what would a cow standing on two legs like a meerkat look like? (Lorenda? Kria?). Oddly, I have no problem imagining that cow holding a gun.

Looking over the last two comics, I'm realizing the clear advantage of the chicken walkers: they bring in close air support. Easy to tell apart from enemy fire. Easy to tell apart from the kitchen mess.

But the whole design still seems wrong. It still seems too easy to take out one leg, and turn the main body into skeet. (Have we ever seen one of these guys self-destruct? There's always a self-destructing something in movies, right? Toss a grenade in, tie up their legs... do they self destruct? What kind of hum do they make before they go boom? There was a self-destructing speeder in the TV series, but that's not the same.)

So let's look at the soldiers. Last comic, we see a huge number of soldiers appearing with the walker. They spread out in front of the walker. This comic starts with two in the first panel, then has a lot more in the second panel.

So who is killing the soldiers, and why do we not see them shooting? It sure looks like there's a lot of bodies in the center of the last panel, but we don't see them being killed. Presumably, this is just the choice of screen captures. It sure looks like we see a soldier being shot in the last panel. But we don't see who is shooting them at all. Are they really running into a killbox?

Meanwhile, all of the other civilians have gotten out of the way. "Our heroes" are the only ones left to get into trouble.

— Keybounce

In panel two, did Bria just throw a grenade back at the troopers? Also, that's a pretty darn big explosion.

Now then, containers of large crystals. Are these by any chance Khyber saber crystals? Light saber crystals? Special hyperspace piloting crystals? Solidified spice from sandworm extract?

Were there any chicken walkers in the prequel trilogy? Is this the first appearance of a chicken walker in the Star Wars timeline? And can you imagine a meerkat walker?

Once again, we are reminded that talking is not a free action. The enemy is taking action even while you are trying to figure out what the enemy even is.

Still, does this mean that if you have a large group of four-legged walkers approaching you, that you are on the cow level?

— Keybounce

Stun weapons? Stun Weapons?!?

We've seen a stun weapon once in Star Wars, in the famous Capture The Princess scene. In Da&Dr? #681/#685 make no mention of Princess being captured with a stun weapon. (Although, in fairness, I loved re-reading that scene knowing this was her mother.)

But as I look at the size of that thing—the explosion in the last panel—I cannot help but wonder what normal grenades are like in this world.

Meanwhile, not only are they talking to each other in panel 1 despite being who knows how far apart, somehow Bria manages to get trapped next to the tank. Is this another example of the escort NPC trying to get killed off? It's not "If Bria dies, nothing is lost". That's mission failure, and re-load from last save.

Seriously though: Bria's mission is to avoid attracting attention, and contact someone for the Rebellion. Here she is, attracting as much attention as possible.

I don't know. If this was Groot, I'd be wondering if she was a plant.

— Keybounce

I really love color management done right. I really hate color management done wrong.

Panel one has a large amount of motion blur. And it sure looks like there is something on Bria's chest. I played around with my video settings again; I found a control on my TV monitor that improves the dark areas without destroying gamma; I used both monitors; I went back and looked at all the prior comics so far.

The only thing I have seen up until now is that there is a clasp holding her robe in place at the top of her chest. There hasn't been a single full-front chest view of her up until now. The details are very hard to make out, but it sure looks like there is some sort of device on the front of her chest. If she was a police officer, I'd think it would be a body-cam; if this was Paranoia, it would be the session recorder. Either way, it's the thing you want to destroy so that your view of what you report back to your superior is the only view.

Motion blur is horrible here. I don't know if JJ Abrams was responsible for this movie or not; I know that people have complained that he needs a steady-cam because of the blur.

Either way, it is really interesting looking at the difference between how the PCs think, and how the NPC thinks. The PCs are busy spending time debating whether or not they should rescue someone, and pointing out just how risky it is for the future to save an unknown person; Bria just gets it done. This scene clearly shows that talking is not a free action.

But I just love how the GM is talking to himself, with the whole "I don't know how to thank you"/"saying thanks would have done it" bit. Bria's line here could have easily come from a PC.

Oh, and I absolutely love the respect level here. "If Bria dies, nothing's lost!".

The bottom line here: The PCs think of NPCs as disposable. I cannot wait to see how the NPCs will dispose of the PCs. We've been told that there's a TPK, and I want to see it happen.

Hmm. So, something I just realized after this stewed for a night: This was only ever supposed to be a one-off campaign. A mini-episode set in the same world. The characters were throw-aways. The players treated their own PCs as throw-aways, just as the PCs are treating the NPCs.

The players aren't respecting their characters, any more than the characters respect the background. I wonder if maybe they wanted to go out with a big "ka-bloom, now lets get back to the real story".

— Keybounce