Hello

I have a player who loves to play a droid. He always boost the brawn stat high up and then put on the toughest armor clothing he can find.

I know the general rule her is that droids normally dont wear clothes and it is considered to find someone that can weld steel plates or something on then to reinforce them.

But i am afraid giving him to much , because he will only put clothes outside this again.

The basic problem here is a player that boost his soak armor so high that no normal weapon will ever hurt him. do other GM have this problem ?

This is frustrating for a GM to play with , when the other players have a normal soak value.

Every enemy that want to hurt this droid have to carry a very big or strong gun to ever pose any threat to him.

Anyone have some suggestion to stop this problem ?

Armors soak value don't stack. So he couldn't wear an "built in" armor and then the same (or another) armor on top, only the best one counts.

If the enemies know they are fighting a combat droid, let them have Ion weapons.

There are also a lot of threads on the forums (the three lines of star wars rpgs) that deal with the "problem" of high soak characters. Go to the search bar and find your missing thread, you will.

There are a few things you can do:

1 - Soak from Armors never stack. So if he gets inbuilt Armor it won't stack with his clothes.

2 - Visit a few other threads on these boards for some advice on handling Soak Monsters.

Here's one: http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/98402-dealing-with-too-much-soak/

3 - Learn to hate it. The rules are a bit broken when it comes to extraordinarily high Soak characters.

Is there some rules yet released about a replicant android for example like Guri from Shadow of the Empire?

So if he wants to make use of normal armour then he'd have to look at either having a replicant droid or be fully aware that having built in armour won't be improved by wearing extra body armour.

I'm just curious since even Jawas make use of ion weapons have you ever thought about including droid poppers (ala Clone Wars)?

Escalation. If your baddies know about this combat monster and have time to prepare/call in reinforcements, they could bring some Breach weapons!

I'll leave you to read the threads for more suggestions, but I would argue that the Soak mechanic isn't broken. Your PC has obviously sacrificed lots of things (all his other characteristics, 500 of his starting credits) to be really good in this one area. He obviously wants to be the party tank, so let him! Then hit him in the dump stats.

Hymm.... in accordance with what the book suggests I always assume that droids buy armour as bioPCs do, the same price, availability etc., it only described differently - as droid upgrades. For example our droid currently wears enviro suit - naturally it is not streched over his chassis, but it is integrated into his plating etc.

A starting droid could get to 8 Soak...Brawn 5 (140 XP), +1 for Enduring, +2 for "padded armor" which in a droid's case would be flavored as reinforced combat plating or some such. That leaves 35 XP for skills, talents, or another characteristic or two (if he lowers his Duty).

He could conceivably get another point of Soak from either Commando, Gunner, or Mechanic. Mechanic is easier to beeline the Enduring talent (30 XP total), but Commando might be more appropriate for a Brawn 5 droid to beeline Armor Master for 40 XP total.

Either way, this puts starting Soak at 9, which is base damage for a blaster rifle. So...unless you've got your stormtroopers kitted out with nonstandard equipment, you should be damaging this guy with every successful attack from a blaster rifle.

Blaster pistols might be a bit weak on him, but this just means your PC has found a way to not have to worry about small arms. So give him something else to worry about, and in the meantime let him soak up blasterfire for his teammates.

Edit: spelling is hard.

[snip combat monster droid]

Fortunately this is a pen-and-paper RPG. It is up to the GM to say no to something that would ruin the game. Just because you can cobble it together doesn't mean the GM has to approve it. As a GM I would ask my player to make a more balanced character. If he would insist I would insist he find a game with a different GM. Problem solved.

[snip combat monster droid]

Fortunately this is a pen-and-paper RPG. It is up to the GM to say no to something that would ruin the game. Just because you can cobble it together doesn't mean the GM has to approve it. As a GM I would ask my player to make a more balanced character. If he would insist I would insist he find a game with a different GM. Problem solved.

Edit: quite frankly, combat monsters have always been the least of my worries in RPGs. It's those damned social characters you gotta watch out for...

Just because a player decides he wants the armour he purchased to be built in for his droid does not mean he gets to then wear armour on top of it. If he gets padded armour and says it is built in, that is his armour. He can further purchase implant armour to stack with it, but could not put on a suit of battle armour and expect it to stack too.

For example our droid currently wears enviro suit - naturally it is not streched over his chassis, but it is integrated into his plating etc.

Question. enviro suit.... that helps you survive in space right? Pretty sure droids can do that without a suit. AFB otherwise I would look it up.

There are many GMs who believe that "Does Not Breathe" includes neither "Doesn't Freeze" (extreme cold resistance) nor "Doesn't Lose Oil Pressure in a Vacuum" (vacuum sealed).

I'm one of them. But then I'd be fine with a Droid having multiple different suits of "Armor" inbuilt as long as they aren't stacking.

I find that asking the player questions like "What will you do outside of combat?" works. Either they think about what would be fun to do and start thinking outside the box and making their character marginally more well-rounded, or they accept their incompetence and start roleplaying their killer character's weaknesses like a bumbling comedy relief character. I've seen that many times - Incompetence can bring fun to the gaming table as well. The really important point is that the combat monster doesn't outshine every other character in the game, he is allowed to outshine many of the NPCs, why not.

As for how to challenge a high-soak character - I find that a good answer is Strain that ignores soak. Familiarize yourself with everything that allows you to strain the droid (usually those are things that allow him a choice.) Tempt him into buying things like maneuvers with strain, etc.

I'd be more worried about droids overheating in space rather than freezing. Beyond that, the radiation exposure isn't necessarily pleasant to then either, so just pay the 100 Cr for a built-in spacesuit and don't worry about again.

Hello

Thanks for the many tips. I sat down and thinked long and hard on this problem.

I have to accept it. It is up to GM to think out of the box and find a solution to this.

And i finally found out how to manage my player and scare him in future play.

I let the players into a bar packed with villains and scum. Of course it became a bar fight so my droid player could shine good and beat the crap out of someone.

After this some jawas in the bar were interested in hiring him and they went to the back room to discuss the price and mission.

But the jawas was interested in the droid parts and had set up and ambush with ion weapons and paralyzed the droid. Then restraining him and dragging him out a back door to dismantle him in their vehicle. Hoping to sell him in parts.

The other players sense he is gone and had to search for him and rescue him. After this he was very quiet and are now very scared to rush into the battle alone. Always waiting for his friends.

He suddenly realized that he is not invulnerable...:-)

But the jawas was interested in the droid parts and had set up and ambush with ion weapons and paralyzed the droid. Then restraining him and dragging him out a back door to dismantle him in their vehicle. Hoping to sell him in parts.

The other players sense he is gone and had to search for him and rescue him. After this he was very quiet and are now very scared to rush into the battle alone. Always waiting for his friends.

He suddenly realized that he is not invulnerable...:-)

...this...this is beautiful.