Hi guys, My friends and I have started to play this recently, and one of them, the GM for our normal D&D sessions, created a droid with a 5 in Agility, and has since modded his gun and armor, used his experience, and using the black market deal from the Long arm of the hutt, managed to get a personal deflection shield. Now I have a character on my hands that can do 15 damage a shot, pierce 5, has True Aim, 2 Accuracy, has 4 setbacks thrown against him anytime someone shoots him back, and I don't know what to do.

He was literally able to with the mods on his gun, Auto-fire and kill Teemo the Hutt cause of all the advantages, in one turn.

The only options I've had so far in even making an encounter in that module interesting has been throwing overwhelming odds at them, because of him, which puts the other players in a harder position since most of them play Average 2-3 in every characteristic characters. I mean granted, he can't do anything but shoot, but with as many encounters as there were in that module, I didn't know what else to do.

Thoughts and or ideas would be most appreciated. Thank you.

Run more sessions where there isn't as much combat. Run sessions where the situation doesn't allow for the carry of heavy weapons. Throw adversaries at him with talents like Improved Stunning Blow and lock him up with Staggers. Beyond that he has made himself excel at open unrestricted combat, let him enjoy that, but if you limit the times that presents itself he may get bored and want to try other skills.

You can't carry heavy machine guns everywhere, even in Star Wars.

Despairs can cause weapons to jam and break. I would consider having it break very carefully. Perhaps only temporarily until he can spend a few minutes to re-assemble it (or allow him to do it with a triumph of some sort.)

Beyond that, hit him in the dump stat, if his Agility is a five, what's his Willpower looking like? He may have a low strain threshold, consider throwing a few Ion weapons his way every once in a while (sparingly) it might make his reconsider burning strain for that second maneuver.

Beyond that, 2P51 is right, you don't want to neuter his or her character every combat, but definitely challenge him.

I would also throw them into situations where combat is the last thing the party needs or some bad stuff plot-wise would come their way.

Lastly, talk to the player. Ask him if he is really having fun being the combat genius. Or pick his brain for story ideas, maybe his character wants something more than to be a killbot. the player might be willing to set the guns aside every once and a while if it means fulfilling this characters motivations.

Four setbacks are useless if you attack him indirectly. Use a weapon with Blast to target something next to him (like the floor at his feet of you have to). It doesn't have any Setbacks or defensive talents at all, so usually just range applies. So long as you hit this adjacent piece of ground, you can activate Blast with 2 Advantages. If you miss, you activate it with 3 Advantages. Close counts with Blast weapons!

Seriously, I would never use the above, but if you're feeling a need to fight fire with fire...

Four setbacks are useless if you attack him indirectly. Use a weapon with Blast to target something next to him (like the floor at his feet of you have to). It doesn't have any Setbacks or defensive talents at all, so usually just range applies. So long as you hit this adjacent piece of ground, you can activate Blast with 2 Advantages. If you miss, you activate it with 3 Advantages. Close counts with Blast weapons!

Seriously, I would never use the above, but if you're feeling a need to fight fire with fire...

Fire with fire eh?

Missile Tubes....

Thanks for the great ideas guys! I was definitely thinking about other ways I could entice him to learn other skills, Currently he is a : 4 Brawn, 5 Agility, 1, 1, 1, 1. So his strain is terrible.

That's pretty lame and cheesy for stats. I'd ask how he feels leeching off other players initiative rolls.

So, the player created a binary loadlifter with a gun. What are the droid's Obligations and Motivation?

Did you and your players agree to a combat-heavy campaign in your Session Zero discussion? Was there any desire for other types of game play such as mystery/intrigue, horror, or social/political?

Aside from stun/ion damage to hit him in the Strain, it sounds like he'd be vulnerable to Fear checks, coercion, and charm. Basically, the droid might be a weak-kneed, gullible lug. Someone might actually talk him into shutting off the deflector shield.

EMP Grenades

Make everything electronic go to sleep

Ionization blaster,

glob grenades, emp 'nades, any nades that hit the pal next to him and trigger blast,

social ocassions,

really overwhelming firepower on the enemies side (we do the negotiations on THEIR turf with their X.000 minions?),

mission parameters (remaining undetected, ...),

offing the wrong guy (he was an undercover ISB agent ... and they want retribution/compensation), ...

I do remember a planet out on the rim where carrying weapons in public were not allowed and violators got shot by the heavily armed security groups. When i get home I'll try to get the name of that planet.

Edit: The planet is called Svivren. Running around with displayed weapons in public is forbidden, the penalty is usually death. At least in the Legends EU.

I do wonder when we'll start seeing the threads about overpowered social characters. They're surprisingly easy to build, and I tend to think that a Dr. Who-like ability to talk anyone out of violence will actually be more disruptive to the game than a character that hits hard in combat.

I'm gonna go with "talk to the player, see if you can get him to make a more balanced character" and "wrap it up and start a new campaign," no droids allowed this time (he ruined it for everyone). The fact that you've essentially got a GM whose now a powergaming player is kind of bad form. Maybe he's just still stuck in the D&D mindset and needs someone to explain that Star Wars runs better with more balanced PCs?

If you want to be more confrontational, I agree with Deve, failed fear checks can be brutal.

Also something I did back in D&D 4e (for fun, but it would apply here too) Make a murder mystery adventure with no combat encounters at all. I did it just to get away from the hack n stab monotony of the other 4e games we'd run, but in your case it would be quite the equalizer. If all you're doing is searching for clue, interrogating suspects, and conducting other non-combat encounters, the cracks in the war droid will appear FAST. He'll be the most optimized paperweight in the party.

Another idea I had, use NPCs with "ignore setback" talents and "Cortosis" quality armor. It'll make those NPCs a bigger threat to the droid, but not really change the dynamic for the other players.

Also, Obligation and Storynotes is a question. Combat droids are illegal as poop in the Empire, and this droid clearly is one. You don't have to slap him with obligation for every infraction, but I would treat him in much the same way I'd treat a Jedi character running around whipping out his light saber at every turn. His Obligation would go up every time he went berserk in public and a popped Obligation automatically means some kind of bounty hunter team, or imperial counter-terror team, or corporate recovery team shows up, carefully kitted out with all the right hardware, equipment, and skills to counter the droid, with the droid as the target.

so wait, the character has 1 for int, cun, will, and pres? dude. you can outwit him with simple tactics. make him do int checks to see if his character to figure things out. make him do perception checks to see if he picks up on important things. if he is all combat oriented and doesn't have any points in perception or the skill that backs it, you can trick him into doing tons of stupid stuff and take him out of the fight. heck a loud noise down the hall and he'd go inspect it while the thing that made it sneaks up behind him.

also, in the words of South Park, if a PC is giving you problems, sn a tch his ass in a bear trap.

In a similar vein to what kryss said, my GM is great at creating situations where not everything is at it seems. Have the PCs' informatant betray them, or have the opposition play weak, pull the PCs into a bad situation, then spring their trap. Whatever you do, just add layers to the situation/story, and it should make it more interesting.

And as Ghostofman said, combat droids are illegal. Not only that, but it's easy to infer a general prejudice against them by the populace, many of whom remember the Clone Wars and the evil caused by armies of walking robo-soldiers. Have certain NPCs not be willing to deal with the group when he's there (like the Mos Eisley cantina). Also, you can have a lot of fun if he runs across Imperial Customs...

In a similar vein to what kryss said, my GM is great at creating situations where not everything is at it seems. Have the PCs' informatant betray them, or have the opposition play weak, pull the PCs into a bad situation, then spring their trap. Whatever you do, just add layers to the situation/story, and it should make it more interesting.

Or run "Beyond the Rim" and have the character get caught up in the ...

... taken over as an NPC ...

Sounds like you have a campaign killer on your hands. I agree with the other people posting.

First, throw in social encounters so he can see the benefit of playing a more rounded character.

Second, a droid so powerful would clearly be illegal in the Empire. He should take a major Obligation hit and as he becomes more infamous the Empire will begin stalking him.

Lastly, remember that many weapons are rare or illegal. Try to prevent him from purchasing any further mega-upgrades. It he takes damage to a game-breaking system have the repair parts be prohibitively expensive.

That's my two credits...

i'm personally not a fan of anything that takes a character away from a player without them completely being ok with it. find ways to use their weaknesses against them.

And as Ghostofman said, combat droids are illegal. Not only that, but it's easy to infer a general prejudice against them by the populace, many of whom remember the Clone Wars and the evil caused by armies of walking robo-soldiers. Have certain NPCs not be willing to deal with the group when he's there (like the Mos Eisley cantina). Also, you can have a lot of fun if he runs across Imperial Customs...

Just going on, I think this is a key issue. And the reason why it might make more sense to talk to the player about a re-build. The player didn't make a character, he made robotic gun platform. In the mind of most galactic citizens, he's just a weapon, that's all. Not a person, not a being, just a gun drone.

He's this:

He's not allowed pretty much anywhere. When he does show up, people get stupid-nervous immediately. You show up at a Spice-buy with this thing in tow, your dealer probably won't get out of his speeder and instead just drive away. Stroll into Denny's? Expect SWAT to show up in no time. Played with any kind of seriousness a character this purpose built and 1 dimensional is asking for continuous story issues.

So, that's why I'm getting the feeling that just having the player build a new character is a better solution. Congratulate him for having "won" Star Wars, and then tell him his character is disruptive to the group dynamic, and difficult to design diverse adventures around, and maybe it's time to move on to something else.

If he throws too much of a hissy fit, suggest that as an experienced GM himself maybe he should GM a little bit while you play his character so that he can find a solution to your problem and you can just implement that in future games.

(Also, is it just me, or did this player essentially just build an NPC using the PC build rules?)

While many of these combat monster builds are Droid based (and a lot of the counterarguments tend to focus on anti-combat Droid stuff), you can do almost the same thing with organics. It's not hard to make a Klatooinian combat monster almost the equal of this Droid while still having most characteristics at 2.

He's this:

Glad you didn't ignore the Metal Storm cannons there.

See http://www.discovery.com/tv-shows/other-shows/videos/future-weapons-metal-storm.htm

I believe that those are 4 x 40mm grenade launchers (like the M203) along with an M240.

They are, note the rifling. Metal Storm was never adopted, just wasn't all that amazing in the grand scheme of things. You guys have no idea how many "future" weapon systems just end up in the trashheap because they look cooler then they actaully are. So far my favorite was the lightning cannon that looked like a giant pair of metal meevonks. The Falcon's lightning cannon (Dark Empire II) was waaay off.

As cool as the Metal Storm systems sounds as an 'uneducated' civilian my first question is: Do you need to replace the whole barrel to reload?

My second would be: What will happen if you ever have a missfire blocking the barrel? Very expensive fireworks?

btt:

It does not matter if the PC is a droid or a living being, both have the same general weaknesses (dumb stats) and differing weaknesses. A droid will ignore lack of air, most organics not. The droid hates ionization blasters, the meatbags hate gases and poisons. Both fall victim to glob and ensare weapons, scathing tirade and stun (active). Both are neutralized by a tactical tractor beam unless they want to fall down from 20+ feet.

It does not matter if the PC is a droid or a living being, both have the same general weaknesses (dumb stats) and differing weaknesses. A droid will ignore lack of air, most organics not. The droid hates ionization blasters, the meatbags hate gases and poisons. Both fall victim to glob and ensare weapons, scathing tirade and stun (active). Both are neutralized by a tactical tractor beam unless they want to fall down from 20+ feet.

Mechanically no, but narratively it matters quite a bit. The character is a weapon system, not a person, and can easily and justifiably be treated as such. Makes the time I made our wookiee player wear a slave ID collar (because the planet he was on identifies wookiees as a slave species, not because he actually was one) pale in comparison.

That's kinda the funny/sad thing about it all. The player seems to being trying to make a combat monster and instead made such a perfectly focused and optimized character that he ended up with an NPC he happens to roll for.