Hello all,

I've recently picked up the core rule book, and I'm enjoying what I'm reading so far. I have a tendency in roleplaying games to design characters that control or dominate NPCs (friendly and otherwise) to achieve my agenda. In other systems, I've had great fun summoning units of undead or beguiling villagers to be by obedient slaves. Naturally I've browsed the EotE system for potential to build similar characters, and reading the Outlaw Technician specialisation (specifically for the Speaks Binary talent) along with the Restraining Bolts and Ionisation Blaster item entries gave me some ideas.

Organise for the injury of an organic and zap a 2-1B Surgical Droid as it comes to help, and now the party has a begrudging medic. An R-Series could be a wonderful proxy hacker for teams that don't want to get caught doing the dirty work themselves. The combat applications for a small Droid force clutching frag grenades is also interesting.

Has a similar build focusing on disabling and asserting control over several droids been discussed on the forums previously?

Ta

...Thieves and Lootwhores have been discussed at length. Pretty much what you describe.

One thing is that the Restraining Bolt is probably not something that can be applied in combat. Shoot the droids with Ion blasters and knock them out, then you can quickly and easily weld a Restraining Bolt in place.

Of course, even with a Restraining Bolt, that just means that the droids in question have to follow the letter of your orders, and not necessarily the spirit. So, the R-series droid is doing your hacking just fine. But maybe it’s also sending out alerts to the previous owners as to where it is located.

If you do a full memory wipe of the thing, then you get back to just the basic attributes, skills, and talents as laid out in the rulebook, and that loses most of the benefit. Sure, you might be able to sell them for money, but if they’re stolen and hot, even if they are memory-wiped, you’re unlikely to get much for them.