Hi there,

I'm making the transition from GM to player in the New Year. I've been told by my GM that there are too many Force-sensitive characters at the table, and so I'm thinking through my options. I read the story of C-3PX, a protocol droid turned assassin, and wondered if that could work in reverse: an assassin or battle droid turned protocol droid.

So, here's my idea:

BX-M8 was a commando droid commander during the Clone Wars. He managed to survive somehow and was pressed into service with a Hutt the year the Empire was declared. Due to power struggles gone wrong, his master was killed and M8 was fitted with a special restraining bolt that forced him to ignore his primary programming and become a protocol droid.

The MO of his new master was to have M8 stand at his side with a blaster, threatening and coercing those who wanted to deal. Whilst M8 still had his blaster rifle, he now was unable to use it in any meaningful way. The restraining bolt completely suppresses his former skill set.

After many years of service, M8 met a small, battered astromech droid, S19-N5, who was able to slice the restraining bolt and find a lovely little loophole in it, which meant that BX-M8 could ignore the requirements of ownership. He became his own droid and left.

His obsession is with removing the restraining bolt, as his previous skills are still forbidden, but it's far too sophisticated for anyone he's met thus far (represented by Obsession (10) as his obligation). His motivation is freedom and any time spent not looking for a droid technician to remove the bolt is wasted in his opinion.

My question to you all is this: how do I represent that on the table? What career and spec would you give him. I see him as the 'Face' of the crew, but more of a Coerce and Deception focus...

Over to you!

PS: Once he's through character creation, I have 190XP to play with...

My question to you all is this: how do I represent that on the table? What career and spec would you give him.

How would you do that for a human? With regards to Careers and Specializations, they’re no different.

Personally, I’d start with AoR Soldier:Commando, since you say he was a Commando Droid. That seems to be a perfect fit for his starting skills. If you prefer, you could go with EotE Hired Gun:Mercenary Soldier, or one of the other EotE Hired Gun specializations, but those don’t seem to fit as well as an actual “commando soldier”. If you want to stick with purely F&D careers, then you could do Warrior:Aggressor, minus the force talents, but that would seem to me to be too much of a crippling of his nature.

From there, you need to figure out what makes more sense for his “protocol droid” re-training. Does it make more sense to go EotE Colonist:Politico? The way you describe it, EotE Hired Gun:Enforcer actually sounds like it would make more sense, given that the Enforcer tends to work through Intimidation, Loom, and being Fearsome. But I could also see EotE Explorer:Trader, for the Negotiation and Perception skills. The AoR Diplomat:Ambassador specialization could also work well. In F&D, the Mystic:Advisor specialization seems to fit well, but again you’d be losing all the force-related talents.

So, I think there’s a number of ways that you could build the kind of character you want with regards to the game mechanics. IMO, the more important thing is how you want to skin that build, to make it role-play the way you want.

I see him as the 'Face' of the crew, but more of a Coerce and Deception focus...

That’s tough. In most places in this galaxy, they don’t like droids. That’s a holdover from the Clone Wars. So, IMO making a droid “Face” is going to be very hard. IMO, that’s doubly hard if you still look exactly like an old Commando Droid. Most people should be scared shitless of you.

It’s going to be really hard to Negotiate with or Coerce anyone if you can’t get into the place of business because you’re told “We don’t serve their kind here!” just as soon as you walk in.

In a tough place like Mos Eisley on Tatooine, C3-PO and R2-D2 had a hard enough time, and they didn’t look at all threatening. If you were to try to stick your head in the door, I would expect every blaster in the place to come out and start firing at you, before you even get halfway in.

Oh, and my Wookiee Maurauder/Heavy would definitely be ripping you limb-from-limb. And then beating the crap out of your remains using your own arms and legs as improvised weapons. There definitely wouldn’t be anything left for the Jawas to try to scavenge.

We had a game a while back where one of the players was running a Two-One-Bee medical droid, and he was trying to become a “face” for the group. He’s no longer playing with us, and I have to wonder how much of that was due to the fact that he started off so far behind by trying to take a droid and make it into a “face”.

Start with the speaky stuff. Agitator [Diplomat, AoR] (or Politico [Colonist, EotE]) then pick up Recruit [universal, AoR] once you get access to your fight stuff.

I always have a scan through Doc, the Weasel 's excellent talent tree PDFs when I'm planning a new character.

I guess it depends how you want to play it. YMMV.

My game is a lot like Brad's above - droids have it really hard, with almost every race suspicious of them and disliking them. Nobody wants to listen to the opinions of their toaster or vacuum cleaner, after all.

One of the main reasons our droid sticks with the PCs group is because most of them treat her with friendship and respect, and see her as a person rather than equipment.

In the canon, droids in general seems to be second-class citizens and even the heroes don't seem to care much about them. They don't get medals or promoted or anything, and seem taken for granted.

Col Orange beat me to it. Check out the Recruit from AoR. The best way to give a non-combat character some teeth.

Build your character as a droid soldier/commando but do not buy any talents. Purchase the face spec you want, say diplomat and buy exclusively into talents within it. Once the game gets going you can buy talents within the commando spec to simulate you slowly regaining your commando abilities as you gain experience. At least that is how I would do it.

I disagree with those arguing that droid faces can't (or shouldn't) work. Protocol droids are pretty much the definition of a droid face; that's their primary function, to interface with organics and facilitate tea and crumpets. I agree that this might get more difficult once you get away from high society, but perhaps one of your buddies has enough Coercion that he can say, "You DO serve their kind her, don't you?" when you get to the cantina. Someone in the party will also have to be your designated master, or at least pretend to be. I'd build the droid as an Ambassador or Politico and then get the combat stuff when the time comes.

All of that applies to designated protocol droid models. I agree with folks above that the combat droid shell will give people pause. If this is a commonly known model, you will be in for trouble.

Duh. Commander not Commando. May reconsider once home again. There may be some crossover but the basic theory is still there.

Thanks for the thoughts, guys. There's some good ideas there! What about the initial characteristics buy? That's going to be a bit trickier, due to the varied skills needed. Should I just go with the Face build, ignoring the Commando bit for now, or make a more general build, or even a Commando type build that actually is gimped in the social stuff?

I disagree with those arguing that droid faces can't (or shouldn't) work.

I’m not saying that it can’t or shouldn’t work. I am saying that it’s a tough challenge, even when you start off being a proper Protocol Droid. That alone is like starting off with at least one arm tied behind your back.

When you’re not a proper Protocol Droid but you’re supposedly acting as one even though you look like something much nastier, IMO that’s a much more difficult situation. Like maybe all your arms tied behind your back and perhaps one or more of your legs tied behind you as well.

Not impossible mind you, just a much bigger challenge.

Thanks for the thoughts, guys. There's some good ideas there! What about the initial characteristics buy? That's going to be a bit trickier, due to the varied skills needed. Should I just go with the Face build, ignoring the Commando bit for now, or make a more general build, or even a Commando type build that actually is gimped in the social stuff?

If you want to make it as a proper Protocol Droid, then I’d buy the characteristics to suit. You could gimp yourself out of the starting block to try to support your role-playing, or if you think you’re going to need those capabilities sooner rather than later.

But personally, I wouldn’t gimp myself any more than my character concept requires. Life for you is going to be hard enough as it is. There’s no need making it any harder than it has to be.

But, it’s your character and your game, so it’s your choice.