Thinking of having my group find a crashed separatists ship. Looking at using the ruins on the Whisper base map. Wondering how to handle droidica shields? Was tossing around the idea of making there shields one or two points of vehicle scale shields. Thoughts?

Considering shields, whether vehicle or personal scale add setback dice, it doesn't matter.

With that said, I would put no more than two setback dice towards shields. Give the droideka a heavy repeating blaster 'rifle' and it will be a dangerous foe.

As much as I love this system, I don't think it models shields very well. It's evident at least from TCW that you need a rocket or grenade or vehicle-scale weapon to punch through, everything else just bounces off. So if you wanted to go with canon, they'd need a Soak of at least 10, but it might be simpler to say that only vehicular weapons, or personal weapons with at least Breach 1, can damage them.

I'd also be pretty careful sending more than one against a party, especially if they are statted the way they should be, ie as something that makes even experienced Jedi Knights back off. They have decent frontal armour behind the shields (Soak 6?), are soft from the side (Soak 2?), and carry twin repeating blasters (Autofire, or Linked 1). If you stat it this way, then you'll probably want to weave in ways to handle the droideka that don't involve a full frontal assault. Maybe it can be hacked, maybe it's old and the shields intermittently go down, or the guns overheat, or...

Thanks guys some intresting ideas, I like the idea of the heavy shields via soak, but defiantly thinking it might be heavily damaged. Maybe no maneuverability.

They ould be much weaker that way, but what about using the personal shields from the core rulebook without the run-out-of-power option? That way your players would have a chance (and in 20 years, the generators may have degraded or something).

Why give them a chance? It just cheapens the experience IMHO. The whole point of putting a droideka in a scene is to force the characters to think around the problem rather than engage in a suicidal frontal assault. Been that way since E1, there's a whole TCW episode practically devoted to the subject. Every time they show up they require outside-the-box thinking, or a missile.

If you don't want the players to have to think their way around a problem, either make sure they can get a missile, or use lesser defenders.

...The whole point of putting a droideka in a scene is to force the characters to think around the problem rather than engage in a suicidal frontal assault. ...

True, I just prefer using existing rules to making up new ones, but your point is valid.

You must keep in mind tha,t in the clone wars series, the droideka shields can not avoid slow motion objects or fixed objects.
And, if I remembered correctly, they cannot move quickly when they are shielded and are firing

I would also use the shields with Defense 2. This is a cinematic system. It doesn't really matter if it's the lack of successes because of Defense or a ton of Soak that causes the narrative result of "This droid is really hard to damage because of its shields".

Btw, I would really like to put a buzz droid in my game, as sort of a pet for a Nemesis. Ideas?

I would also use the shields with Defense 2.

Defense 2 is child's play to penetrate. It's just 2 Setback, a PC can easily "match it" by taking two Aim Maneuvers.

Yeah, "cinematic" is not an explanation for how the shield concepts in this game don't capture of the flavour of shields in the media. They can't be damaged, or recharged. And in this game, having 2 Defense still allows easy plinking...steady damage that eventually kills off the target. But a droideka could stand being plinked at all day long...

I don't see plinking as terribly problematic either. Maybe it's because I don't think that droideka shields ought to be invulnerable. We've never seen them be a problem for longer than a couple of seconds.

Edit: But hey, I got an idea. Give the Droideka, say, Reflect 5. As soon as they reach the Strain Threshold, the shield collapses.

We've never seen them be a problem for longer than a couple of seconds.

GranSolo really has a good point, give them (quite) a few points of Reflect and call it a day.

Edit: But hey, I got an idea. Give the Droideka, say, Reflect 5. As soon as they reach the Strain Threshold, the shield collapses.

Where are the rules for Reflect?

F&D beta.

When attacked, as an out of turn incidental, take 3 strain and reduce dmg by 2+X (times talents, in the example above that would total 7 dmg mitigation) (before applying soak)

I think a lot of the issue is expecting the shields to be a hard value. What I mean, is that it is a narrative system. When you roll an attack, don't think about it just being your character firing directly at the droideka. It could be firing some shots at the shield, then firing at a fuel tank that is beside the droideka, or hitting something that makes debris fall on the droid.

Don't always look for codified minutiae... be creative.

Thinking of having my group find a crashed separatists ship. Looking at using the ruins on the Whisper base map. Wondering how to handle droidica shields? Was tossing around the idea of making there shields one or two points of vehicle scale shields. Thoughts?

That sounds about right to me.

You should also allow slow-moving objects to pass through the shields, like a grenade that has been slow-rolled on the ground — maybe give that grenade attack a couple of setback dice. And if there is anything that can lift them up or tilt them backwards, the shielding doesn’t cover the bottom of the sphere, so you can shoot through there.

Also, the shielding is only used when the droideka is not in colicoid rolling mode, so they’d be fast moving targets but still more vulnerable when not shielded.

But head-on, even a lightsaber would be hard-pressed to get through — even with Breach.

I think a lot of the issue is expecting the shields to be a hard value. What I mean, is that it is a narrative system.

*sigh* This game isn't as "narrative" as people like to say, and they seem to be arbitrary about how they apply the label, and as a cover for a poorly designed mechanic. This game has plenty of crunch, mostly in the right spots, but it's missing a few.

A blaster rifle does a "hard value" of damage (+successes). Soak is a "hard value". But shields are narrative, because...why? No reason at all.

Don't always look for codified minutiae... be creative.

That's the whole point of this exercise. When presented with a situation where a frontal assault is suicidal, be creative and think of other ways to deal with it. Just shooting at it like any other target and saying you "narrate" what happens isn't all that creative; and allowing it to happen that way doesn't narratively express what a droideka is supposed to represent.

F&D beta.

When attacked, as an out of turn incidental, take 3 strain and reduce dmg by 2+X (times talents, in the example above that would total 7 dmg mitigation) (before applying soak)

That seems more complex than simply needing something with Breach 1.

*sigh* This game isn't as "narrative" as people like to say, and they seem to be arbitrary about how they apply the label, and as a cover for a poorly designed mechanic. This game has plenty of crunch, mostly in the right spots, but it's missing a few.

A blaster rifle does a "hard value" of damage (+successes). Soak is a "hard value". But shields are narrative, because...why? No reason at all.

That seems more complex than simply needing something with Breach 1.

Like a slow moving, sneaky Jawa mechanic to sneak up, penetrate the shield and push the off switch... repeatedly with a Fusion Torch.

I loath the way shields work in this game. They make you tougher to damage, not hit in the first place.

I think all shields should work on a system strain system. The shield provided an amount of soak, but the system accumulates strain. Maybe a one to one ratio of damage absorbed and once the strain reaches the threshold the shield goes down.

So something like this.

Droiddeka shield generator. System strain threshold 15.

Provides 5 soak that is immune to the breach and pierce qualities. Keep track of how much damage has been negated by the shield. For every point of damage negated by the shield, the generator suffers one system strain. Once the strain threshold is reached, the shield collapses till it recharges. When the shield is collapsed, it recovers five system strain per round. Once system strain reaches zero, the shield reignites and again provides soak.

I loath the way shields work in this game. They make you tougher to damage, not hit in the first place.

I think all shields should work on a system strain system. The shield provided an amount of soak, but the system accumulates strain. Maybe a one to one ratio of damage absorbed and once the strain reaches the threshold the shield goes down.

Though Droideka should have more than 15 Shield Strain... but that's just my take. A single good shot shouldn't drop a Droideka shields.

I should have explained a little better. You don't count the damage reduced by normal soak on top of the shield, nor damage done in excess. So its a minimum of three shots to drop the shield.

So say the droiddeka has base soak of four. Plus the shield. Gives total soak of 9, five of which cannot be reduced.

Say it then takes 11 damage from a heavy blaster pistol. It would take 2 wounds, and lose five strain on its shield. Say it then takes 8 damage from a holdout blaster. It would suffer no wounds, but would lose four system strain.

I think all shields should work on a system strain system. The shield provided an amount of soak, but the system accumulates strain. Maybe a one to one ratio of damage absorbed and once the strain reaches the threshold the shield goes down.

On a similar note, I actually like the base concept from X-Wing for Epic ships and their use of Energy, and wish they had adopted it for the space/vehicle combat component of this game. Basically the machine is a power plant which can be used to route power to certain components as needed, so if you need to recharge your shields you have to reduce your speed, or your guns fire at a lower rate or with a lower power. Each component has a max capability (fully charged), though mods and Talents can "boost the power", etc.

I think that kind of energy management would more closely model the flavour of what we see in the media, and would give a better foundation for oddball things like droideka shields.