Favor And Contact Article

Some characters have access to a special resource in the form of a person they can call on in times of need. A contact is an individual who has the power to assist the character in some way, usually through favors owed.

Favors
Nobles and Jedi Investigators can use their influence and contacts to call in favors. The character must make a favor check (1d20 + the character’s favor bonus) and compare the result to the favor’s DC, which the GM must determine based on the situation and the threat of danger. Some guildlines for determining the DC of a favor check are given below.

Favor Examples DC
Easy Booking passage on a smuggler’s ship; Asking a crime lord for a loan of 500 credits; Persuading a shipyard administrator to waive docking fees or assign mechanics for repairs 10
Problematic Convincing a podracer to throw a race; Asking a crime lord for a loan of 5,000 credits; Asking a slicer to hack into the Bothan spinet 15
Difficult Convincing an Imperial officer to release a suspected Rebel spy; Asking a crime lord for a loan of 50,000 credits; Persuading a starship captain to risk his ship and crew to help capture a notorious pirate. 20

Contacts
The purpose of a contact is to provide information, expert skills, or the occasional loan. Contracts differ from follower or allies in that they are less inclined to risk their lives or their prosperity for a hero.

As the GM, you must decide how much assistance a contact can and will provide. In general, the more wealthy, powerful, and important the contact, the less inclined he or she is to deal directly with the hero. A planetary governor contact might assign a minion to help a hero cut through some bureaucratic tape, but the governor isn’t going to risk the merciless gaze of public scrutiny by allowing the hero to violate a planetary quarantine. In such a case, it might be more advantageous for the hero to have as the contact someone in the planetary governor’s office, and not the governor himself.

Circumstances will arise when a hero is unable to reach a contact or call in a favor. The GM must adjucate these situations as they arise. For example, a hero stranded on Hoth without a transceiver probably can’t ask a favor of a crime lord on Tatooine. Similarly, a low-level slicer contact won’t help a hero break into the Bothan spinet if he stands a good chance of getting caught.

Information Contacts
An information contact can discover things the heroes normally couldn’t find out. You can use this contact as a mouthpiece when you need to pass information to the heroes during an adventure. Other times, a player might think of asking a contact for help when the adventure seems to stall.

Examples of information contacts include bartenders, thugs, con artists, spacers, law enforcers, outlaws, reporters, entertainers, computer slicers, traders, politicians, smugglers, officers, starship captains, and various types of street people.

Expert Contacts
Expert contacts have skills or abilities that the heroes don’t have. Usually, the hero brings a situation to a contact’s attention and asks the contact to address it. For example, a mechanic who can repair a damaged hyperdrive at reduced cost would be invaluable to a noble with her own ship.

Examples of expert contacts include doctors, engineers, diplomats, historians, spacehands, fences, mechanics, scholars, scientists, politicians, and bounty hunters.

Resource Contacts
A resource contact can provide heroes with equipment, personnel, or transportation. For instance, a bureaucrat with access to a space transport might be usefull to a hero without a ship. Similarly, a resource contact might have subordinates or connections whose services a hero needs. Obviously, the contact might be annoyed if the hero is careless or indiscreet with the resource she has been given.

Examples of resource contacts include bureaucrats, corporate executives, crime lords, government officials, officers, politicians, ship captains, and shipyard administrators.

Generating Ready-to-Play Contacts
A contact should be developed as a supporting character. If the contact is in a risky occupation or brought into the line of fire by the hero’s actions, you will need the contact’s game statistics. However, if the contact isn’t likely to be harmed or be called upon to make skill checks, a simple description of the contact should suffice.

In general, a contact should be of comparable level to the heroes, and you can increase the level of these contacts as the heroes become more powerful. All of the supporting characters listed in the table below have game statistics in the Character Archetypes section.

Sample Archetypical Contacts
d% Contact* d% Contact*
00-04 Administrator (I, R) 51-54 Military Officer (I, R)
05-07 Assassin (I, E) 55-58 Outlaw (I, R)
08-10 Bounty Hunter (I, E) 59-62 Peace Officer (I)
11-14 Con Artist (I, E) 63-65 Pilot (I, E)
15-18 Crime Lord (I, R) 66-68 Pirate (I, R)
19-22 Doctor (E) 69-71 Slicer (I, E)
23-26 Elite Trooper (I, E, R) 72-75 Smuggler (I, R)
27-30 Fallen Jedi (I, E) 76-79 Spy (I)
31-34 Gambler (I) 80-83 Starfigher Pilot (E)
35-38 Independent Droid (I, E) 84-87 Technician (E)
39-42 Jedi Investigator 88-91 Thief (I, E, R)
43-46 Medic (E) 92-96 Thug (I, E)
47-50 Mercenary (I, E) 97-100 Trader (I, R)
*I = Information Contact, E = Expert Contact, R = Resource Contact

Other contacts include commoners (bartenders, clerks, entertainers, street people), low- to mid-level diplomats (executives, minor bureaucrats, politicians, reporters), and low- to high-level experts (engineers, mechanics, scholars, historians, scientists). Use the rules for commoners, diplomats, and experts to create game statistics for these minor support characters.

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