How can an Ewok take out a Scout Trooper?

[Kallatari]

Two things to consider, and when combined might give you what you are looking for.

Stormtrooper armor is cheap/gives less protection

This has been mentioned by several others here. And Star Wars itself promotes this. They actually point out the uselessness of the stormtrooper armor in Star Wars Rebels, and that's considered canon for the setting.

Kanan and Rex put on stormtrooper uniform to sneak into the Imperial ship to find and free Ezra. When they first put them on, Rex is complaining how the armors are nowhere near as good as the old clone trooper armor.

Later, Ezra mistakes them for actual stormtroopers and shoots them, taking them both down with his weapon on stun. As Rex is later telling Ezra he should have shot to kill instead of having his weapon on stun in case they were indeed real stormtroopers, Kanan complains how "this armor doesn't protect you from anything."

I think there's a similar quote in a different episode when Zeb punches Kanan, who is wearing a stormtrooper armor, to make it look like Kanan's a legitimate stormtrooper, and Kanan is surprised at how much the punch affected him. And Zeb took great joy in hitting him "to make it convincing."

So giving stormtrooper armor a lower DR than anticipated for the TL is definitely staying within the realism of the setting.


Ewoks have Magic (a.k.a., the Force)

Although even in the movies the Ewoks have shamans, their ability to use the Force as magic is never established. However, it is in the Ewok cartoons. Logray, the shaman uses the Force, as does his apprentice (I forget his name). Both characters are actually in the movies, but of course they never use magic/the force in the movie.

It wouldn't be unreasonable to have the shaman "bless" the weapons of the Ewoks - with no visible signature - before battle. Or even bless the Ewoks themselves so it's used no matter what they are wielding (e.g., thrown rocks). In the D20 Star Wars, non-jedi force users - thus the Ewok shamans - can increase their damage with weapons other than lightsabers thanks to the force. In GURPS, this could be extra damage, or perhaps even an armor divisor blessing. It's not too difficult to view this ability being applicable to others with the right spell (a.k.a. force ritual).

Or even bless the Ewok with Luck before the battle if not the weapons themselves. That can also help them defeat stormtroopers.

Forced-enhanced Ewoks is not canon (as to my knowledge, the Ewok cartoons aren't canon), but fits perfectly with the setting without changing anything in the movies... it's a subtle but legitimate use of the Force. And if Ewoks can only do subtle "magic", that would explain why you don't see them doing anything obvious in the movies. And using the Force as magic is canon (the Night Sisters have lot of strange magic, all powered by the Force).

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by Plane

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Scout_trooper_armor

You mean they ought to be wearing that instead of

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Stormtrooper_armor

?

Perhaps there were shortages where scouts had to wear the standard-issue instead of specialized? It could possibly cost more to create or repair scout armor due to complications in using lighter-weight materials.

Feeling this growing urge to try and stat all eighteen pieces of the plate armor (19th is I guess the body glove) but there's rules against conversions here I think.

Using DR (Limited: Limb) to stat an entire suit of armor is pretty cost-prohibitive compared to whole-body DR (cheaper in the end) except when dealing with minimizing cost of DR to resist gradual ablation (separate pools) so adapting "Vehicles as Allies" to "Armor as Allies" is the route I'd want to take for minimizing costs.

I mean they should have something more obviously mission oriented, like biosniffers, stealth suits, etc.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

The Death Star is likely a SM+28 spacecraft. Its super fusion reactor would cost around $300 quadrillion, so it probably ended up costing $3 quintillion. Outfitting a billion stormtroopers with proper armor would only cost $23 trillion, which would be a rounding error in the budget of the Death Star.

Of course, the only reason why the Empire could build that albatross is because of its enormous size. If we assume that the Empire controlled 10 million star systems with an average population of 5 billion per star system, the total economic value of the Empire would be $4.85 sextillion per year at TL11. If the Empire spent 5% of GDP on the military, its military budget would have been around $240 quintillion per year, meaning that the cost of the Death Star should have really only been 1.25% of the military budget. Of course, the experimental nature of the Death Star could easily increase its price 10x, which would make it 12.5% of the military budget, but I imagine that the cuts would have not occurred in stormtrooper armor.

To be fair emperors have a weakness for gargantuan military stupidities which turn out to be to expensive to be useful.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by Frost

Han can gut punch a stormtrooper because he is Han bloody Solo and the storyteller thinks he is that good not because of some fact of setting physics.

I would just chock that down to the abdomen having less armor than the chest blade, and the armor being designed to stop piercing/impaling/cutting/burning attacks moreso than crushing ones, at least in that spot.

We see "split DR" like that on B284 (note 3) where lower DR is used for crushing than other damage types for the Mail Hauberk/Shirt/Leggings/Sleeve/Coif and also Studded Leather Skirt.

Modern armor also uses split DR on B285 (note 1) except it's high for pierce/cut low for all others, for the Frag/Ballistic/Tactical Vests/Suits

Trooper chest plates might not have split DR but I'd bed their abdomen does, and I'll bet Han KNEW about that.

Originally Posted by Kallatari

Kanan and Rex put on stormtrooper uniform to sneak into the Imperial ship to find and free Ezra. When they first put them on, Rex is complaining how the armors are nowhere near as good as the old clone trooper armor.

Later, Ezra mistakes them for actual stormtroopers and shoots them, taking them both down with his weapon on stun.

This seems odd to me because from what I've read the suit they wear underneath is supposed to protect them from getting stunned.

A couple things might explain that:
1) maybe Rex (despite being experienced at donning the old armor) didn't know how to properly fasten up the newer kinds of body gloves, so it failed to insulate him against stun shots
2) maybe there was a temporary post-clone period where the Empire produced cheap inferior body gloves that didn't protect against stun rounds

Originally Posted by Kallatari

I think there's a similar quote in a different episode when Zeb punches Kanan, who is wearing a stormtrooper armor, to make it look like Kanan's a legitimate stormtrooper, and Kanan is surprised at how much the punch affected him. And Zeb took great joy in hitting him "to make it convincing."

So giving stormtrooper armor a lower DR than anticipated for the TL is definitely staying within the realism of the setting.

Zeb is a pretty strong guy, maybe Kanan just didn't understand what a great puncher he is?

Originally Posted by Kallatari

Ewoks have Magic (a.k.a., the Force)

Although even in the movies the Ewoks have shamans, their ability to use the Force as magic is never established. However, it is in the Ewok cartoons. Logray, the shaman uses the Force, as does his apprentice (I forget his name). Both characters are actually in the movies, but of course they never use magic/the force in the movie.

It wouldn't be unreasonable to have the shaman "bless" the weapons of the Ewoks - with no visible signature - before battle. Or even bless the Ewoks themselves so it's used no matter what they are wielding (e.g., thrown rocks). In the D20 Star Wars, non-jedi force users - thus the Ewok shamans - can increase their damage with weapons other than lightsabers thanks to the force. In GURPS, this could be extra damage, or perhaps even an armor divisor blessing. It's not too difficult to view this ability being applicable to others with the right spell (a.k.a. force ritual).

Or even bless the Ewok with Luck before the battle if not the weapons themselves. That can also help them defeat stormtroopers.

Forced-enhanced Ewoks is not canon (as to my knowledge, the Ewok cartoons aren't canon), but fits perfectly with the setting without changing anything in the movies... it's a subtle but legitimate use of the Force. And if Ewoks can only do subtle "magic", that would explain why you don't see them doing anything obvious in the movies. And using the Force as magic is canon (the Night Sisters have lot of strange magic, all powered by the Force).

I like this too, because much as I like the image of muscular Ewoks, they really didn't look that way, so dmg bonuses or armor divisors from force blessings helps in explaining situations where striking from 100ft drops or stabbing chinks in the low DR rear don't explain success.

[Dalillama]

Chimps don't look very muscular either, but I wouldn't recommend arm-wrestling one. Nor have a rock thrown at me, the little beasts are known to kill lions that way from time to time.

[Kallatari]

Originally Posted by Plane

This seems odd to me because from what I've read the suit they wear underneath is supposed to protect them from getting stunned.

A couple things might explain that:
1) maybe Rex (despite being experienced at donning the old armor) didn't know how to properly fasten up the newer kinds of body gloves, so it failed to insulate him against stun shots
2) maybe there was a temporary post-clone period where the Empire produced cheap inferior body gloves that didn't protect against stun rounds

Well, when Kanan mocks Rex by saying the armor looks tight on him, Rex counters by saying "at least I know how to put it on", so I'm thinking #1 is not the case. The sheer number of stormtroopers that also drop from the stun suggest that it's unlikely that they all failed to put them on correctly... but you never know.

I don't know how stormtrooper armors are supposed to work against stun in Star Wars (i.e., the "technical stats"). So no clue about #2... but keep in mind that Star Wars rebels takes place about 5 year before A New Hope, so that's what, maybe 15 years after the clone wars.

All I can say is that, in Star Wars Rebels, Ezra's stun seems to work about 80%-90% of the time; most stormtroopers are stunned by the shot (although they're still squirming slightly while on the ground, so I'm guessing it's not a very long stun). However, occasionally a stormtrooper simply shrugs off the shot and keeps going with barely a delay in their action. Maybe those rare people who stay up are the few who actually use the armor correctly? But that seems too low a number.

Is that an "official" interpretation of how the tech specs of the armors work, or just an error on the part of the writers? Or just a comment that sometimes people resist a stun? That I can't answer. But Filoni seems well aware of how the tech is supposed to work in Star Wars, so I personally don't think it's an error.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by Kallatari

The sheer number of stormtroopers that also drop from the stun suggest that it's unlikely that they all failed to put them on correctly... but you never know.

I don't know how stormtrooper armors are supposed to work against stun in Star Wars (i.e., the "technical stats"). So no clue about #2... but keep in mind that Star Wars rebels takes place about 5 year before A New Hope, so that's what, maybe 15 years after the clone wars.

All I can say is that, in Star Wars Rebels, Ezra's stun seems to work about 80%-90% of the time; most stormtroopers are stunned by the shot (although they're still squirming slightly while on the ground, so I'm guessing it's not a very long stun). However, occasionally a stormtrooper simply shrugs off the shot and keeps going with barely a delay in their action. Maybe those rare people who stay up are the few who actually use the armor correctly? But that seems too low a number.

Is that an "official" interpretation of how the tech specs of the armors work, or just an error on the part of the writers? Or just a comment that sometimes people resist a stun? That I can't answer. But Filoni seems well aware of how the tech is supposed to work in Star Wars, so I personally don't think it's an error.

My guess is since you'd always get a HT roll against stun that body glove DR gives the standard bonus to the HT roll to resist the affliction. Troopers who shrug off the blasts might higher HT, lucky rolls, Fit, resistant, or better competence at putting the suit on.

I'm not sure where the part about body gloves / plate stopping stun rounds comes from, the wikis do cite a lot of sources but it's not always clear exactly what part of a source for which parts of a body... as best I can tell the "The armor deflected stun beams" description might be derived from pg 120-121 the 2004 book "The New Essential Guide to Weapons and Technology" but I haven't been able to find a copy to check.

That might just mean SOME (weaker) stun beams though, Ezra's gun might have a stronger-than-normal beam. https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Ezr...blaster_pistol says it was this model: https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/DL-...blaster_pistol

"one of the most powerful blaster pistols in the galaxy" but only at close range, and overheated quickly. Apparently Han Solo also used this model, did we ever see him stun any stormtroopers?

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Kallatari

Is that an "official" interpretation of how the tech specs of the armors work, or just an error on the part of the writers? Or just a comment that sometimes people resist a stun? That I can't answer. But Filoni seems well aware of how the tech is supposed to work in Star Wars, so I personally don't think it's an error.

While I haven't seen it (or more than an episode or two of the Clone Wars animated series), it's possible the choice was made that having the heroes slaughtering hordes of human beings in a cartoon wasn't appropriate, so opted to let stun weapons be effective. Whether this means stormtroopers have minimal or no protection from stun weapons in the new canon, the characters had some sort of experimental stun weapons that can readily beat stormtrooper stun protection, or that Disney was like "screw consistency, gimme something that sells," I can't really say... although my money would be on the last bit.

[awesomenessofme1]

Originally Posted by Varyon

or that Disney was like "screw consistency, gimme something that sells," I can't really say... although my money would be on the last bit.

TCW began several years before the Disney buyout, and the movie and 4/7 seasons were released before it. So that's not what happened.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by awesomenessofme1

TCW began several years before the Disney buyout, and the movie and 4/7 seasons were released before it. So that's not what happened.

I was referring to Rebels, which happened after the buyout and was the series under discussion. Anakin and Obi-Wan cutting droids into pieces is markedly less problematic than people gunning down humans with lethal weapons. Of course, I haven't actually watched either series, so please salt to taste.