Hey guys,

A friend of mine is going to be starting up an EotE game pretty soon and I've decided to play (with his permission) something a little off the wall. A refurbished LR-57 (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/LR-57_combat_droid) combat droid. Now, I'm brand new to EotE so I'm not exactly sure of the best way to represent them. I'm thinking of using the Security Droid on page 412 of EotE as a basis only swapping out Ranged (Light) for Gunnery and purchasing a Heavy Repeating Blaster to represent his built in weapon systems. Would this be viable? If it matters I'm going to be a Hired Gun with the Heavy Specialization.

You take the Droid species and build them accordingly.

When I read the title, I thought, "Oh, must be some interesting droid type."

When I read the post, I thought, "Oh, it must be a really interesting droid type."

When I saw the picture, I though "WHAT."

Honestly, I have no objection to this, but stats wise, I'd say base it on combat (high Agility with some Brawn for defense, maybe a 2 in one of the other stats). Yes, this is min-maxing, and yes, that's frowned upon, but for your circumstance, those droids have minimal knowledge beyond "If it trigger the wire, kill it." Ranged-Heavy would be important, maybe changing that to Gunnery when you modify yourself with the big guns.

Beyond that, it's up to you! Like I said, combat should be the focus, although don't let that stop your roleplaying-based juices from flowing.

Yeah if I hadn't just watched the Clone War movie I wouldn't have recognized it. The barrell head droid. Not sure what the attraction would be as you are about as useful as a droideka, but I guess if all you are about is combat it is all right. Its not like you can walk down the street though. You'll probably end up sitting in the ship on anything but a combat run.

But yeah just build your droid using the droid race as close as possible.

Cripple,

You'll want to build your droid from the ground up using the basic character stats. You can pick Droid as a race, just note that there are some differences that set them apart from the other races, such as their attributes all start at 1, more starting XP, and they get more starting skills when choosing their career. You basically get to build the droid to be whatever you want from scratch.

If you want to be one of these Combat droids, and your GM allows it, that's fine. If they had stats in EoTE you probably won't start out as good as one. This could easily be explained that you are an older droid model and you've taken some wear and tear over the years since the war.

Now. Something you need to consider before you take on this role is... is there a role to have? Some droids, like Binary Load Lifters, have basically so little AI that the only thing they can do is take orders. I don't remember the Combat Droids from the show, but are they able to communicate and think on their own? I think this is important for a player character because if all you plan on doing is taking orders from your owners you may quickly lose interest in the concept when you don't feel like you can evolve as a character.

If you want to play a combat-centric droid, that shouldn't be a problem. There are so many different combat droids in the expanded universe that you could easily find a model that allows you a little bit of freedom of thought, and if you can't ... make up your own model.

Good luck! I'm envious! I want to play my droid!

When I read the title, I thought, "Oh, must be some interesting droid type."

When I read the post, I thought, "Oh, it must be a really interesting droid type."

When I saw the picture, I though "WHAT."

Honestly, I have no objection to this, but stats wise, I'd say base it on combat (high Agility with some Brawn for defense, maybe a 2 in one of the other stats). Yes, this is min-maxing, and yes, that's frowned upon, but for your circumstance, those droids have minimal knowledge beyond "If it trigger the wire, kill it." Ranged-Heavy would be important, maybe changing that to Gunnery when you modify yourself with the big guns.

Beyond that, it's up to you! Like I said, combat should be the focus, although don't let that stop your roleplaying-based juices from flowing.

Roleplaying is entirely the point. I thought it would be fun to take a droid who's designed for combat and with almost no high-level function and try to play him as 'one of the crew'. One of the other PCs will own my droid character, and the droid could use a memory wipe to be sure, so he's fairly quirky and tries to participate in activities which he is clearly unsuited for. The crew has given him a paint job that makes him look a little less threatening. It's below if you're interested.

Forgive the noobishness, but what constitues "high" for a starting character? 3? 4?

Right now I have him at

Brawn: 2

Agility: 2

Intellect: 1

Cunning: 2

Willpower: 1

Presence: 1

Should I go higher here?

Yeah if I hadn't just watched the Clone War movie I wouldn't have recognized it. The barrell head droid. Not sure what the attraction would be as you are about as useful as a droideka, but I guess if all you are about is combat it is all right. Its not like you can walk down the street though. You'll probably end up sitting in the ship on anything but a combat run.

But yeah just build your droid using the droid race as close as possible.

As I said above, the attraction is in the roleplaying, not necessarily in the combat monster department, though it would be nice to actually be fairly competent when the Bantha poodoo hits the fan.

When I read the title, I thought, "Oh, must be some interesting droid type."

When I read the post, I thought, "Oh, it must be a really interesting droid type."

When I saw the picture, I though "WHAT."

Honestly, I have no objection to this, but stats wise, I'd say base it on combat (high Agility with some Brawn for defense, maybe a 2 in one of the other stats). Yes, this is min-maxing, and yes, that's frowned upon, but for your circumstance, those droids have minimal knowledge beyond "If it trigger the wire, kill it." Ranged-Heavy would be important, maybe changing that to Gunnery when you modify yourself with the big guns.

Beyond that, it's up to you! Like I said, combat should be the focus, although don't let that stop your roleplaying-based juices from flowing.

Roleplaying is entirely the point. I thought it would be fun to take a droid who's designed for combat and with almost no high-level function and try to play him as 'one of the crew'. One of the other PCs will own my droid character, and the droid could use a memory wipe to be sure, so he's fairly quirky and tries to participate in activities which he is clearly unsuited for. The crew has given him a paint job that makes him look a little less threatening. It's below if you're interested.

Forgive the noobishness, but what constitues "high" for a starting character? 3? 4?

Right now I have him at

Brawn: 2

Agility: 2

Intellect: 1

Cunning: 2

Willpower: 1

Presence: 1

Should I go higher here?

Yeah if I hadn't just watched the Clone War movie I wouldn't have recognized it. The barrell head droid. Not sure what the attraction would be as you are about as useful as a droideka, but I guess if all you are about is combat it is all right. Its not like you can walk down the street though. You'll probably end up sitting in the ship on anything but a combat run.

But yeah just build your droid using the droid race as close as possible.

As I said above, the attraction is in the roleplaying, not necessarily in the combat monster department, though it would be nice to actually be fairly competent when the Bantha poodoo hits the fan.

If you want to raise your agility one/two points higher you'll be better at firing your weapons. When you select a career and specialization you might consider Hired Gun : Heavy from the Dangerous Covenants source book.

Yes but how much role-playing can you do if you can't even leave they ship? Even more so than running around waving a glowing deathstick you are going to be a target of local law enforcement or Empire forces. Obviously lethal combat droids like that attract attention. What is your plan to deal with that? Or is that to be brushed aside? I'm curious.

For Characteristics, I'd go with...

Brawn: 3, Agility: 4, Intellect: 1, Cunning: 1, Willpower: 2, Presence: 1

That leaves 25 points to put in either talents or skills, maybe a bit more if your GM offers you more XP for Obligation/Duty. Frankly, you're probably going to need to get extra Obligation or Duty to get the cash to pick up your weapons, though.

You could also take 20 of that 25 XP to raise one of Intellect, Cunning, or Presence to 20. Of those, the only one really that helpful for a Heavy is Cunning, which works with his Perception. Most other skills for the Specialization use Agility or Willpower. Brawn is necessary because heavy weapons often have Cumbersome ratings, but you can mitigate some of that with the Burly talent.

That droid really doesn't look like it would have Agility 4 to me.

That droid really doesn't look like it would have Agility 4 to me.

Fair point.

That droid really doesn't look like it would have Agility 4 to me.

It looks like it's designed to hit when it fires. While it doesn't look particularly agile to me, either, the only way we have to model being able to hit well is to give it either high Agility or high weapon skill. I guess the player could save that 40XP and dump it all into Ranged (Heavy) after creation to model the ability to hit well without Agility becoming too much of an issue in other skills, but as a Heavy, there aren't a lot of other Class or Bonus skills that use Agility (outside of combat skills). (Specifically there's one. Other than Ranged (Light), Ranged (Heavy), and Gunnery, the only Agility skill Heavy's get is Piloting (Planetary).)

It's not a bad idea, but I wouldn't force it on a player.

It looks like it's designed to hit when it fires.

You haven't been paying attention to the performance reviews on Separatist droids, have you?

Agreed. There's no way that Droid is Agility 4. The attributes are fine, put some points in Range (Heavy) instead of upping the attributes higher. For some here it's almost a mantra to chant "Raise Attributes". That's because if you want to raise them later it will cost more because you have to get to the bottom of a talent tree and buy extra specializations. But neither of those is a bad thing anyway - there's lots to spend XP on and high Ranged (Hvy) plus modest Agi is no different to the other way around when you're shooting. To answer your question, 2 is normal for a human. 3 is good.

Anyway, I think this is a very fun concept. Don't worry about going about town. Maybe you can just detach the guns or put caps over the barrels or somesuch. Plus there are plenty of worlds on the Fringe where an armed droid might not be a problem.

Have you seen that Clone Wars episode where R2 is captured and organizes the drones into an escape party? One of the other drones which he repairs is one of these (and very heroic he is too).

It looks like it's designed to keep shooting until it actually hits something.

Fixed that for you.

That droid really doesn't look like it would have Agility 4 to me.

That and the PC's ship better have high ceilings and large doors. That droid was rather large IIRC.

There two ways to go, then. Go with high Agility, then all ranged combat skills will be pretty impressive. This isn't necessarily the best way to go for a straight story-based character, of course. Perhaps drop that extra point in Agility and go...

Brawn: 3, Agility: 3, Intellect: 2, Cunning: 2, Willpower: 3, Presence: 2.

That puts 150XP into characteristics, and leaves 25 starting XP to put in skills and talents. Put a free point from your Heavy spec into Ranged (Heavy), then 10 of that 25 into the same skill at start and you'll have a decent (but not overpowering) combat check. On top of that, you'll have a nice balance of dice to roll for other skills.

It looks like it's designed to keep shooting until it actually hits something.

Fixed that for you.

Nice.

That droid really doesn't look like it would have Agility 4 to me.

That and the PC's ship better have high ceilings and large doors. That droid was rather large IIRC.

A very good point. Wookieepedia lists the droid at 2.58 meters. That's just under eight and a half feet tall.

What a bunch of naysayers!

I say go for it!

Put Brawn at 3 (50XP) (you could probably get away with 2 considering the Burly talent), Agility at 4 (90 XP), and consider what you want to spend you last 35 XP on. Willpower can be useful for Strain, Cunning (and/or Presence) could nice flavour to this cannon-bot, having gone through a stage of developing a personality...

Take on extra obligation (lower duty) to get extra XP or cash, or both if you can get that much extra obligation.

For career I'd go with Hired Gun, and Heavy... and then perhaps dip into Enforcer later.

I see the roleplaying challenge in this, but also the tons of fun it can enable!

You'd need to make your weapons retractable in some way, but that's flavour more than providing any mechanical benefit - unless you want them to be really hard to notice as weapons (and/or shielded from sensors). If you want them to be hidden, add a cost (credits or xp depends on you and your GM I guess) that makes the weapons Average to Hard difficulty to notice using Perception.

I mean, you could also go for medic/doctor after Heavy (as I think you should go Heavy first really), at least if you want the character to break with expectations, but Gadgeteer is also a good way to go.

I love the idea of ex seperatist droids. We've got one in our party - R0-OT, an ex seperatist maintenance droid that went a bit nuts over the years.

Also; "retail droids"? I have a mental image of some sort of security subroutine snapping into effect if he sees the party steal anything...

"Why are you shooting at us?!?!?"

<Sorry. I cannot help it. Must...destroy.....shoplifters....>

"Why are you shooting at us?!?!?"

<Sorry. I cannot help it. Must...destroy.....shoplifters....>

"Drop the holodisc, you have 15 seconds to comply."

At least that's what the droid reminds me of.

"Why are you shooting at us?!?!?"

<Sorry. I cannot help it. Must...destroy.....shoplifters....>

"Drop the holodisc, you have 15 seconds to comply."

At least that's what the droid reminds me of.

Droids, IMNSHO, are designed to be a min-maxer's wet dream. Hyper specialize them, that is what they are for. The problems come when said droid CONSTANTLY get restraining bolts applied to it when it lands in port.

From sheer mechanics, I would do AT LEAST Brawn 3 (for the bigger weapons you will want to use to counteract their cumbersome rating), Agility 3+ (I would start at 4, for sheer twink joy). Then max out at 2 the skills you will want to focus on. Take extra obligation for cash to buy a big-ish weapon and maybe some armor plating.

AFTER all of that though, assign your obligation to something completely silly and roleplay worthy. Give your droid 2 ranks in a skill that a combat droid should NOT have (and is expensive to raise) to represent the droid's personality quirk. Our currently combat monkey droid has an obsession with Twi'lek love poetry. This little gem alone has led to more fun around the table than ANY combat we have ever been in.

Kevynn