Grievous was cyborg that was apparently kept alive with a Jedi's blood. As a character build, it wouldn't be too far-fetched to give him the FSEx or FSEm specs so he could take advantage of lightsaber specs fully, if one so chose.

And while firmly ensconced in the Legends category, there are the shards and Iron Knights . The droid PC in your game could discover a shard which then joins him in his body to use him as a host, thus allowing him to become Force-sensitive and taking Force specs.

Grievous was cyborg...

Grievous was cyborg...

Which is all that needs sayin. Grievous was not a Droid.

Point taken, possibly FFG may come out with some sort of rules for a "cyborg"?

Grievous was cyborg...

Which is all that needs sayin. Grievous was not a Droid.

Point taken, possibly FFG may come out with some sort of rules for a "cyborg"?

What kind of rules? About the only thing I don't care for right now is the cybernetics shut-down from an ion weapon. I think it is enough that they are affected by weapons like the ion blaster and the potential of Disorient 5. Plus such cybernetic systems can not heal on their own and must be maintained and repaired, especially after a critical injury that would affect it.

Grievous was cyborg...

Which is all that needs sayin. Grievous was not a Droid.

Point taken, possibly FFG may come out with some sort of rules for a "cyborg"?

What kind of rules? About the only thing I don't care for right now is the cybernetics shut-down from an ion weapon. I think it is enough that they are affected by weapons like the ion blaster and the potential of Disorient 5. Plus such cybernetic systems can not heal on their own and must be maintained and repaired, especially after a critical injury that would affect it.

But there may be some interest for a cyborg whether or not ion blasters and the potential of Disorient 5. There are players playing droids that that affects. Heck there is an interest of a Jedi brain being dropped into a droid. So some rules would be nice.

Although thinking about it, handling of characteristics and starting XP may not be the best at start.

I would say that yes, they can.

Consider the lightsaber construction droid we see in a late episode of The Clone Wars, where Ahsoka and the kids go to the cave on Ilum.

Also consider that non force sensitive PCs can take such talents as well, even if they are not Force sensitive (see a Sam Stewart interview on Order 66 podcast). If they can do it, droids should be able to as well.

They can then share this knowledge with others, sort of like a holocron might, even though they can't use it for much themselves.

Obviously they wouldn't be able to use the force talents located on the tree, and would not become force sensitive, but can they take the tree anyway?

If they’re an Iron Knight, then I see no reason why they can’t take F&D careers just like any other force-sensitive person.

If they’re an Iron Knight, then I see no reason why they can’t take F&D careers just like any other force-sensitive person.

EDIT: Though for ease of play I'd build them as Droids but without the "cannot get a Force Rating" disability.

You don't need the force when you build a body to move faster than normal meat should be able to do. So, heightened reflexes and all the extra limbs makes for a potent foe, even for jedi. Even the super battle droids were able to take down jedi just from sheer volume of fire.

And since someone brought up non-canon stuff, the original Clone Wars cartoon series (the 2D cel shaded cartoon from just before RotS) showed that Grievous was a total jedi killer, then Mace Windu crushed his chest cavity with the Force as he was leaving Coruscant with Palpatine/Sideous and he was left in the state that we see him in the RotS movie. That completely confused the hell out of one of my friends who hadn't seen the cartoon, but had read all the hype about what a badass jedi killer this guy Grievous was...

Iron Knights are not droids. They're Cyborgs.

I guess I was thinking of how an Iron Knight might come to acquire the mechanical body that it uses. If that body started out as a droid, and then the Shard joined in symbiosis with the droid, then I guess the result might technically be a cyborg. Or something.

This was actually a potential character evolution concept for me — take my existing LE-series repair droid and have him run across a Shard that needs a new body.

EDIT: Though for ease of play I'd build them as Droids but without the "cannot get a Force Rating" disability.

Exactly.

Did someone say Skippy the Jedi Droid?

Considering there are talents within the tree with the burst in the upper-left(?) hand corner that say "Force Sensitives Only" or some such, I guess you could take the tree, but you could only get the one 5 point talent on the Force Sensitive Exile tree, as anything else leading down is Force Sensitive from the get go. Sounds like an expensive waste of time if it's allowed, much like cocaine in the 1920's, or sending your own personal panda loaded rocket into space.

Yes in my opinion. The only one Talents that can't buy (or use, not sure) are those ones with the star that mean that are only for Force Sensitives.

I guess I was thinking of how an Iron Knight might come to acquire the mechanical body that it uses. If that body started out as a droid, and then the Shard joined in symbiosis with the droid, then I guess the result might technically be a cyborg. Or something.

This was actually a potential character evolution concept for me — take my existing LE-series repair droid and have him run across a Shard that needs a new body.

Yes in my opinion. The only one Talents that can't buy (or use, not sure) are those ones with the star that mean that are only for Force Sensitives.

I don't know why people insist that droids can't pick up the specializations. There are already mechanisms in place to keep them from gaining a Force Rating and therefore the benefits of Force Talents.

It's a huge waste of XP for them, but nothing breaks down if you allow it.

This was actually a potential character evolution concept for me — take my existing LE-series repair droid and have him run across a Shard that needs a new body.

Split Personality awesomeness! Or rather "dula head" syndrome. So who get's to control which side? Or does the shard just shout "And I'll form the head!"?

I was definitely looking at the split-personality issue as a great role-playing opportunity.

I was also wondering if the result would be kinda of like the Trill from ST:TNG, or maybe more like the Goa’uld from Stargate.

Anyway, I decided that I’m not going this direction after all, so it seems unlikely that I will have any answers in this space.

But I will at least leave open the possibility that something along these lines might happen at some point in time in the future.

I don't know why people insist that droids can't pick up the specializations. There are already mechanisms in place to keep them from gaining a Force Rating and therefore the benefits of Force Talents.

It's a huge waste of XP for them, but nothing breaks down if you allow it.

Yeah, I guess some people are set in stone with their opinions hm? But it was indeed Grievous who gave me the idea of using a different characteristic for the lightsaber skill, hence why I was curious.

the lightsabers skill is a skill not a specialization and not in the talent tree I'm sure general grievious did not know any of this lightsaber fighting styles because there was no way to teach him to teach him

you know I don't think anyone saying that the Droid can't take the talent trees. I think they are saying that it is worthless and if you want to spend your XP on a talent tree that you cannot use the force in.

thinking about it I feel like since ffg has come out with force and destiny, tell everybody wants to be a Jedi or force user and then I think this game has gotten messed up has gotten messed up flood the galaxy with force users and Jedi.

I like that you don't necessarily need to be Force-Sensitive to fight proficiently with a lightsaber. I never thought of Grievous as a Force User, blood transfusion and Midichlorians be damned . In my head canon, he's just a very skilled cyborg.

Also, Darth Vader specifically modified ASP droids to have lightsaber sparring partners.

So in my opinion, the non-force sensitive lightsaber wielder has a place in the Star Wars universe. It's a big galaxy, after all.

The only specializations that a droid can't take are the two FSE specializations, because they give you a FR of 1 (says so in the CRB). By inference, none of the FaD careers can be taken by droids either, for the same reason.

However, all FaD specializations can be taken, no problem, because they don't give out a FR. And it also says in the FaD beta that you can even buy Force talents in those specializations if you're not Force-sensitive, you just don't gain any benefit from them. Purchasing them is just a mechanism to get to talents further down the tree.

To those calling it a huge waste for a droid to take some of these specializations: Some of these trees only have a few Force Talents. Shii-Cho Knight, for example has three. Granted, they're in the 20 and 25 XP row, and you need to go through one of them to get Dedication (you can buy the talents, but they do nothing for you). So 20 wasted XP is a real bummer, but that droid will be quite the badass with a lightsaber. Starfighter Ace has five, but you don't need to go through them at all, Makashi Duelist is similar. Mechanics-wise, it's not ideal, but I'm surprised looking through the specializations that a lot of them are fairly solid for a muggle. If you're set on a lightsaber bot and can handle the occasional bit of wasted XP, you can have a pretty decent character.