If you are including the "intangible benefits" of being a Droid, such as being ignored/overlooked, then you need to include the corresponding weaknesses. Droids have no rights, they are tools and the property of others. In most cases this drawback far exceeds the benefits.

If you are including the "intangible benefits" of being a Droid, such as being ignored/overlooked, then you need to include the corresponding weaknesses.

True enough.

Droids have no rights, they are tools and the property of others.

Maybe in your game. Maybe only in some parts of your galaxy.

But that is certainly not necessarily a universal truth throughout all galaxies in all universes in all games.

In most cases this drawback far exceeds the benefits.

Maybe. Again, I don’t think that you’ll get everyone to agree to the value of those non-tangible costs, either.

If you are including the "intangible benefits" of being a Droid, such as being ignored/overlooked, then you need to include the corresponding weaknesses. Droids have no rights, they are tools and the property of others. In most cases this drawback far exceeds the benefits.

They are perceived to be the tools and property of others, that is why they are so often overlooked. The PC droids are (usually) not, but benefit from the in-universe assumption that droids at-large are. If a PC playing a menial droid tried to interact with official beings, I'd certainly have that work against it.

Droids have no rights, they are tools and the property of others.

Maybe in your game. Maybe only in some parts of your galaxy.

But that is certainly not necessarily a universal truth throughout all galaxies in all universes in all games.

Yeah, all games are different.

But take 2 steps beyond that, and you'll see that is an instance where there's a lot of EU precedence that demonstrates that "droid racism" was pretty prevalent in the galaxy. I'm not going to walk through specific exampes, but I'll point at the following wookieepedia articles:

• Anti-Droid Sentiment
• Great Droid Revolution
• "Legal status" section of the Droid entry
• The Droid rights movement

And there's plenty of additional links in those for additional supporting information.

Yeah, all games are different.

But take 2 steps beyond that, and you'll see that is an instance where there's a lot of EU precedence that demonstrates that "droid racism" was pretty prevalent in the galaxy.

This is a case where I’m not necessarily going to put a great deal of stock in what the EU says. I mean, if you pick the right part of the EU, you can make it say just about anything you want.

When it comes to Canon and the movies, certainly 3PO and R2 don’t get treated all that well by certain people, and there’s a larger group of people that don’t really pay them any attention at all. But neither of those cases are universal.

Yeah, all games are different.

But take 2 steps beyond that, and you'll see that is an instance where there's a lot of EU precedence that demonstrates that "droid racism" was pretty prevalent in the galaxy.

This is a case where I’m not necessarily going to put a great deal of stock in what the EU says. I mean, if you pick the right part of the EU, you can make it say just about anything you want.

When it comes to Canon and the movies, certainly 3PO and R2 don’t get treated all that well by certain people, and there’s a larger group of people that don’t really pay them any attention at all. But neither of those cases are universal.

Except for Luke and Anakin, does anybody really treat R2 & 3PO like people rather than, at best, pets?

Yeah, all games are different.

But take 2 steps beyond that, and you'll see that is an instance where there's a lot of EU precedence that demonstrates that "droid racism" was pretty prevalent in the galaxy.

This is a case where I’m not necessarily going to put a great deal of stock in what the EU says. I mean, if you pick the right part of the EU, you can make it say just about anything you want.

When it comes to Canon and the movies, certainly 3PO and R2 don’t get treated all that well by certain people, and there’s a larger group of people that don’t really pay them any attention at all. But neither of those cases are universal.

No one's claiming it's universal.

We're just pointing at the more-than-substantial pile of evidence that it's the galactic norm, and statements like HD's:

If you are including the "intangible benefits" of being a Droid, such as being ignored/overlooked, then you need to include the corresponding weaknesses. Droids have no rights, they are tools and the property of others. In most cases this drawback far exceeds the benefits.

Is widely accepted flavor for Star Wars setting, and hence bears more than your passing dismissal above.

Yeah, all games are different.

But take 2 steps beyond that, and you'll see that is an instance where there's a lot of EU precedence that demonstrates that "droid racism" was pretty prevalent in the galaxy.

This is a case where I’m not necessarily going to put a great deal of stock in what the EU says. I mean, if you pick the right part of the EU, you can make it say just about anything you want.

When it comes to Canon and the movies, certainly 3PO and R2 don’t get treated all that well by certain people, and there’s a larger group of people that don’t really pay them any attention at all. But neither of those cases are universal.

Except for Luke and Anakin, does anybody really treat R2 & 3PO like people rather than, at best, pets?

Ahsoka was decent to threepio and R2.

Padme commended R2 for saving the ship.

Boba split a bounty with C-21.

Seems like enough main characters to imply no, everyone does not treat them like pets.

I hate force sensitives, they are overpowered! Plus, why does everyone want to be one? Hello? It's me, the jedi purge! Every time my group becomes too overpowered due to force sensitivity (They spend all xp on it!!!) i send them to myrkr, so that they quit it. Droids are harder to manipulate. Droids are harder to smell. Droids are immune to so many things. Droids are unlikely to die! Droids are fast learning. And... Droids are awesome! One question: if droids are so useless, explain me why is R2 a bigger hero than Nien Nunb or why c3po is a hero, while jar jar not. it's because they are unique in star wars. every droid is different. bonus: look for the YVH-1 and tell me about it... plus: you can make droids have more experience than other characters... (they learn faster)

Want to understand why someone would wan to play a droid? Watch "Bicentennial Man" and think about how fun that must have been to act out.

however at the start they can be very powerful in their specialized role.

See, if that was actually true, I'd be fine with the droids as written. But they're simply worse in every respect compared to a specialist of any other role.

Their terrible base stats aren't sufficiently compensated by their starting xp or their special advantages (basically two additional ranks in career skills and Endurable 1)

I've been lurking this thread for a bit, but I haven't seen anything to change my mind from where it was when it started. I disagree with with the OP in general on the topic, but primarily on the point noted above. I'm totally on board with BigSpoon.

If you're not wasting gobs of your xp on increasing your characteristics, you've got tons of xp to spend on skills and talents. IMO, players typically spend way to much xp on starting characteristics. You need to spend about 50 XP to get your primary attribute up to 3, maaaaaybe one up to 2. To improve your abilities, you're going to be relying on your skills, talents, and attachements, not your attributes.

Then you spend the remaining exp (over a 100 xp with a 3/2/1/1/1/1 profile!!) on talents and skills, buy appropriate attachments, and then proceed to rock the face off of your specialty (combat, espionage, mechanics, human-cyborg relations, etc).

You just *suck* at everything else.

And that's okay.

I would like to see an option for droids that they get to choose to be silhouette 0 or 1.

Actually, I can think of one conditional reason to not play a droid: The GM.

If a GM doesn't let you make full and creative use of the droid intangibles (the "built-in" gear, in particular), I think it would much less fun.

Are there any rules for droids uploading/copying their personalities, like IG-88? By the end of his story, he's made 4 or 5 copies of himself, taken over an entire droid-manufacturing planet, and uploaded his consciousness into the Death Star. At the very least, there should either be an innate rule or even a Droid-based class that had some talents associated with it that would allow aspects of that. Such as the Slicer talent, Skilled Slicer, which says "When making a computers check, may spend Triumph to make further Computers checks within this system as maneuvers". That could almost be seen as the droid leaving part of themselves behind in the system, allowing them to continually slice it without having to maintain a connection. As in, if a droid with that ability is hacking a system and rolls a Triumph, then they have uploaded some of their consciousness into that system and can make subsequent Computer checks as necessary.

Are there any rules for droids uploading/copying their personalities, like IG-88? By the end of his story, he's made 4 or 5 copies of himself, taken over an entire droid-manufacturing planet, and uploaded his consciousness into the Death Star. At the very least, there should either be an innate rule or even a Droid-based class that had some talents associated with it that would allow aspects of that. Such as the Slicer talent, Skilled Slicer, which says "When making a computers check, may spend Triumph to make further Computers checks within this system as maneuvers". That could almost be seen as the droid leaving part of themselves behind in the system, allowing them to continually slice it without having to maintain a connection. As in, if a droid with that ability is hacking a system and rolls a Triumph, then they have uploaded some of their consciousness into that system and can make subsequent Computer checks as necessary.

Currently, no, I don't think there are rules for these types of droid actions. I think a GM can adjudicate these actions "on the fly" pretty easily, though, and this allows the GM free reign to manage it in a way that's consistent with the narrative's requirement. The trick is staying consistent, but again, narrative should take priority.

In a way, I think this highlights the importance of the GM in playing a droid PC. I'm not going to qualify *the manner* in which it's important, because invariably someone gets butt-hurt because they choose to interpret a general qualification as a personal insult.

At some point, it would be cool to see a droid-centric rules supplement, but it's not a priority, especially since I don't think they'd need one for any other playable species.

Are there any rules for droids uploading/copying their personalities, like IG-88?

No, at least not yet. Maybe to come in a future Technician splat book or something, but nothing like that in any of the material released so far that I know of.

I know the other races don't have their own books, but I'd think droids would be an exception, considering there are sooo many variables that other races just don't have to worry about. The viability of a droid PC can vary from almost useless to godlike, all based on how the GM interprets the rules. Sure, a good GM is going to be able to keep things under control, but a designated book would save so much time and work spent on answering questions and coming up with house rules. A player shouldn't have to relearn all of their strengths and weaknesses and abilities every time they get a new GM. At the very least, they should have a droid-specific class that has some of those cool droid abilities that have popped up in canon so that a player would be able to do some of it, but have it governed by hard rules and they wouldn't be able to do all of it (unless they maxed out the specialization, of course). The Tales of the Bounty Hunters book alone contained a number of game-breaking feats accomplished by droids (from the IG-88 feats mentioned above, to small droids that could seduce a ship's computer).

I'd just run it as something a droid could do if the player wants to just keep playing the same character. Hand me your character at some point and call it copying yourself onto some platform that will all for download if you die later. Character starts up where the character sheet left off not knowing anything from that point. Maybe come up with some charge to account for its creation if I want to.

Well, that's balanced by the fact that Droids can be targeted by computer viruses and so on. Organic meatbags don't have to worry about that kinda thing (unless they're neuro linked into a computer somehow and it fries them). Saying that as a GM though. I mean, sure a droid doesn't need to breathe but what happens if the ship's stuck in an ion storm? Need to make repairs else the meatbags all suffocate or something equally horrific.

The droids have strengths but the GM should still poke at said strengths, right?

Anyway, has anyone ever tried out a droid with two 4s in their Characteristics? It means taking a +5 XP Obligation and no talents or extra skills to start with. But it seems appropriately powerful.

My Marauder/doctor has 4 Str and 4 Int, he once was a MagnaGuard and now running around in a Pit Droid mending injured meatbags, trying to redeem himshelf from the Clone Wars.

Well, this thread inspired me so much that I built my favorite character yet.

A science droid Diplomat Analyst called 3-BRT or "Ebert" for friends. Ebert is a somewhat stocky, bowtie wearing, matt black type 3 droid that has the weird habit of using his body as a black board to scribble down calculations and strategies on. He is a kindhearted, gentle war expert (knowledge specialization warfare) that refuses to cary a weapon himself. He knows way too much about fighting to know that would never amount to anything anyway. 3-BRT instead relies on his collar-amp to direct his allies from afar. Advicing them how to handle situations and yelling out the best strategies available to overcome their encounters and carries around datapads, field manuals, cultural etiquette manuals, species databases and insider guides to help him out.

And once battles are over Ebert is keen to talk over what went well and what didn't, always being very surprised if that causes any frustration amongst his team mates.

His stats are 1-1-4-2-1-2 and he has a wide range of skills and talents going all the way up to the 3rd tier.

He was inspired by the late great Roger Ebert. The best movie journalist ever to walk this Earth.

We got talents in FaD that by virtue of requiring Force Rating exclude Droids from using them. This is obvious, but also sets a standard that could be applied in other ways.

What if we get talents that require certain parts of your body to be mechanical, i.e. Droid or Cyborg? Perhaps theres a talent that improves your ability to interact with technology? or improves the durability of your mechanical parts? Ignore a critical that affects a cybernetic system?

A "Cyborg" universal spec could be interesting and separates those that just use a few implants from those that go full-borg.

(I know, I said I wouldn't post here, anymore, so sue me... I definitely don't mean to rekindle the initial discussion in any case.)

I know the other races don't have their own books, but I'd think droids would be an exception, considering there are sooo many variables that other races just don't have to worry about.

Absolutely! I'd love to see this!

I mean, I can understand why FFG felt they needed to have droid stats available as a player species right off the bat, but they're sufficiently different from any other choice of species that they deserve their own source book (or at least one or more chapters in s source book with related topics).

I would applaud an approach similar to what they did with the Lighsabers in FaD:

Have the baseline droid stats as they're presented in EotE and AoR to allow players to play droids in any campaign without requiring any further investment, but have a supplement supsersede the rules for campaigns who want to delve deeper. E.g. I'd love to see different sets of base characteristics based on droid types, droid-only equipment (aka body enhancements) and one or more droid-specific general careers.

I don't think we will see a droid book but seeing how they add a bit of such crunch to all the career books thusfar I think it is a safe bet that we will see modification options for droids in the mechanics book. Things like hovering, tracks, limbs with injection needles, etc. I think that will be the book it's going to be in.

I know the other races don't have their own books, but I'd think droids would be an exception, considering there are sooo many variables that other races just don't have to worry about. The viability of a droid PC can vary from almost useless to godlike, all based on how the GM interprets the rules. Sure, a good GM is going to be able to keep things under control, but a designated book would save so much time and work spent on answering questions and coming up with house rules. A player shouldn't have to relearn all of their strengths and weaknesses and abilities every time they get a new GM. At the very least, they should have a droid-specific class that has some of those cool droid abilities that have popped up in canon so that a player would be able to do some of it, but have it governed by hard rules and they wouldn't be able to do all of it (unless they maxed out the specialization, of course). The Tales of the Bounty Hunters book alone contained a number of game-breaking feats accomplished by droids (from the IG-88 feats mentioned above, to small droids that could seduce a ship's computer).

i would regard the conscience of the droid as a datapad or hacking device, if the player says he wants to upload himself, hard difficulty computer and let him do it, if he rolls a triumph he hacks the entire system, because noone has ever rolled a triumph in my group

I know the other races don't have their own books, but I'd think droids would be an exception, considering there are sooo many variables that other races just don't have to worry about. The viability of a droid PC can vary from almost useless to godlike, all based on how the GM interprets the rules. Sure, a good GM is going to be able to keep things under control, but a designated book would save so much time and work spent on answering questions and coming up with house rules. A player shouldn't have to relearn all of their strengths and weaknesses and abilities every time they get a new GM. At the very least, they should have a droid-specific class that has some of those cool droid abilities that have popped up in canon so that a player would be able to do some of it, but have it governed by hard rules and they wouldn't be able to do all of it (unless they maxed out the specialization, of course). The Tales of the Bounty Hunters book alone contained a number of game-breaking feats accomplished by droids (from the IG-88 feats mentioned above, to small droids that could seduce a ship's computer).

i would regard the conscience of the droid as a datapad or hacking device, if the player says he wants to upload himself, hard difficulty computer and let him do it, if he rolls a triumph he hacks the entire system, because noone has ever rolled a triumph in my group

Are you sure you're "doing it right?"