One of the largest issues with the clones as presented is that they are hemed in exclusively as warriors; they are, but they need enough play in their concept to make the squad leaders, slicers and the like that would also make up the army. It's worth nothing that the vast majority of their experience was forged through more or less constant combat simulations and evaluation exercises which in itself could be considered a full series of adventures for a cast of growing PC's. The template itself should only really provided to clones that were rushed through their training to quickly meet a demand for war

In all honesty I would treat clone troopers themselves as humans using the basic template (2 all round); but give their focus almost entirely to warfare themed skills (they can select any two from Gunnery, Ranged heavy, ranged light, melee or brawl), and can start off with a three ranks in any combat check to reflect specialised training, use Cornelia humans as the prime example of a clone variant if you want to make a balanced species and use the ranks and professional knowledge to separate themselves from other similar templates.

That way starting in a military career means they can have a strong military bant that is broadly specialised without completely hemming off other character concepts. A character that with 3 agility and 3 ranks in ranged heavy is arguably much better then a guy with 4 agility ranks because those dice will yield more consistent result, while allowing other options to be opened.

Republican Commandos, Arc Troopers would likely be much closer to their spiritual father in stats and would be broadly superior. Either as really experienced PC's or badass rival or nemesis class characters.

After a bit of reflection, I'd just go with Human with the sole difference being exchanging the two non-Career Skill ranks for the droid-like 6 Career Skills and 3 Specialization Skills. The XP difference between these two skill options is negligible, and it does a good job of showing that while "typical" humans dabble outside their lanes, clones are initially quite dedicated to whatever training they are first given.

I used the journeyman Bounty Hunter adversary card

just to throw my two credits into this discusion.

i've done extensive research in this department, gone through every rpg game sytems clone trooper data. looked at roughly 25-30 blogs, 3 wikis, read through sections in about 14-15 novels, plus a few star wars bibles.

Clones are not any faster or stronger than any other human. they are not any smarter either.

they are conditioned and slightly genetically modified to have more endurance, but still about human average. what they are not is below average. <- what is that you ask, when you recruit folks into a military, they come in all shapes, sizes and abilities, having a solid standard reduces the chances of sub-par warriors/soldier.

add to that the extreme military training regimine from just after birth, a genetically modified mental disposition to follow orders without question, 1,000,000 of the exact thinking minds, bodies, training that iS extremely comparable across the board, because they are clones, and you have the reason clones are so incredible.

yes there are some specialized clones, but again they all got the same X,Y and Z training, thus work like a well oiled machine.

Are clones any stronger, agile or smarter, not at all, humans are still humans, but these ones work like a lemmings on combat duty, but they are so good at it, they just seem better. Just think as a clone if you want to borrow those fine shoes your brother clone has, you know they will fit.

i would use human as is but drop xp to 100 xp give them 1 rank in Resolve, Strain & Wounds same as a human. drop the skill bumps.

oh yeah, clones age at 2 times the normal rate, so a clone at the cusp of the age of the rebellion would be 60-70 years old.

don't even get me started on 1st gen NULL ARC Troopers [there where 6 that made it to maturity, but they were ruthless] (THERE HAD BEEN 12, but some were terminated), In a game i play in i play #13, a base stock NULL clone who gene code was used as the base stock for all the regular clones who were further modified from the NULL stock. in genenetics you always try to start with a certain base level generation which you then modify for best results. #13 was my idea, but feel free to use the concept.

KSW

I made a Clone Trooper PC for a one-shot and used Human, spending the free ranks in Knowledge Warfare and Ranged Heavy. Didn't even use Recruit in that build.

For rival clones, I just pulled the various Stormtrooper stats with little to no modification. It played perfectly fine.

If you need to have some modification, I could see swapping some starting XP for a discounted/free Recruit tree. Maybe drop the second free skill and just give a rank of Warfare.

Really thinking about it, a full grown adult clone at the final stage of it's (say 20 year old appearance due in rapid aging) basic training has had about 9.0-9.5 years of training, further it has also had his specialized training during this time and been refining it for probably about 2-5 years as well. I wouldn't even allow a clone trooper to be played unless I was running a Knight level game or higher game, it would be a mistake otherwise. That is my opinion though and anyone can please do what you choose for your game.

In addition, I would also tell the player what some of his starting skills will be, this stipulation is un-challengeable, by spending some of the most of initial XP (** See note below) and some of the extra XP that was granted via the Knight level play. This would represent just the clone's basic training. The rest I would leave the player to spend on what their clone was specially trained for. I think this would be very reasonable.

** Note

In reality though it would be best to make a Clone race template as a base human and stat it out for a Jango Fett common clone, then provide just a lower starting XP, just for the base clone without training) The clone actual stats (mental and physical) should really match an early Prime physical specimen of Jango, whatever that might have been (law of averages, but not below average common clones). The mass made clones where created to be more receptive to following orders, docile against not following orders, and less independent than their Jango Fett gene code provider. ((Those 6 (12) NULL ARC clones I mentioned, just aged faster if I recall [but because of optimal personalized education, physical training and nutrition, the were the Adonis of all the clones (to represent these 6 who were trained by a different mandelorian from Jango), i'd say about 450-600 XP day 1 into the field), then Alpha ARC clones a somewhat close second (Jango trained the 100 of these himself) (Probably 300-450 XP day 1 into the field), followed by the law of averages, but not below average common clones]. Though many site and books have info this link is one of the best and goes into some great detail on the NULL ARC and regular clones as well. They also have links to the Alpha ARC clones, plus both of these have which resources to read so you can get a first hand look at what the authors of those write ups used, I went to those sources myself.))

In all likely hood a standard clone would stat out like this after being fully trained and ready chew bubblegum and kick azz. Brawn & Agility 2 ($ see note) Intellect 2 Cunning 2 Willpower 2 Presence 2

Initial mostly a base human (100 XP instead of 110). It would be mandatory to spend 30 XP on both Brawn and Agility each to raise them to 3 due to the physical regime, other assorted training and optimal nutrition that all clones received.( 60 XP used out of 100).

All clone troopers would have to take the following 2 human skills would be Athletics and Coordination.

Clone Trooper: Because Clone Troopers are trained from birth for a specialized task they may train in up to 6 of 8 career skills instead of only 4 (BTW this would cost about 10 XP correct? This is why I lowered their Human XP to 100.)

Depending on what specialized training they had been selected for, would determine what other stat would be raised

Pilots, Logistics (Computers, cause they don't do paper work in the Star Wars universe), Operations(Maintence), Medical - All Intellect

Officer Leaders & Military Intelligence, dedicaded Infantry - Presense

NCO's, Scouts, Supply - Cunning

That's how I see a regular clone and the logic behind the stats with the base XP.

They would also have to have a custom starting specialization tree created, sorta like a recruit, I'd even go as far as to say, a special career with it's own specializations, but I think within Soldier and a few others the above Clone specializations could follow something that has already been created after the Clone Basic training template career specialization was followed, I'd say to at least a respective through and into the 15 cost items, plus some XP spent of the career skills that would come with the career.

Clone Trooper

Career Skills

Athletics, Brawl, Cool, Medicine, Resilience, Ranged (Heavy), Ranged (Light), Survival

Clone Bonus skills; Melee, Resilience, Ranged (Heavy), Vigilance

What the Tree would look like, that is for another time Highlander!

KSW

Braendig, does your game play in the Rebellion era? Because then you have to take in mind, that clones age two times as fast as normal humans do.

Well except for Boba of course.

As of the rest, I agree, I have never heard or read, that the clones were genetically engineered to be stronger and more agile, than a baseline human. I am not against creating a new template, but I would change it that it has more strain threshold and one free rank in discipline and cool. That would drop it to arond 80 XP.

MOELANDER, a free rank of Discipline and Cool is another excellent idea. But dropping XP to 80 seems steep? maybe 90

What have you seen as a STRAIN bump that costs per say 5 or 10 XP from the base XP pool? How much of a Strain bump were you thinking? If someone has seen a decent XP formula for the various racial items, please point me there.

One of the biggest things I've found myself when trying to make a reasonable Clone right out of Clone boot camp, not including any special training is what would their career look like. I figured there has to be a basic Clone career like the Recruit, then I would say they have a Clone Specialization Career that has 3 to 5 specializations. With every Clone getting a standard training program even the NULL ARC and ALPHA ARC clones, who also had the basic Clone career, at least according to the fluff I read and researched, but where pulled off the so called standard training line to receive personal training from Kal Skirata and Jango Fett respectively.

KSW

To butt in on this, and I'm not gonna argue balance too much, since I agree on the human baseline approach.

So if this get's too off topic I'll make a new thread.

I'm currently building a new campaign, scrapped the old game because of player complications.

Timeframe is somewhere around 5-15 BBY, so the Empire is at its all time high, the Rebellion doesn't exist yet.

Characters are already made, setting and theme has been decided upon on a democratic basis. Basically everything done, except for the actual campaign.

One of my players wanted to play a Mandalorian. Wasn't too thrilled, because I think they're incredibly generic and every Mandalorian PC ever essentially just wants to be Boba Fett.

Anyway, I told him to make a human, and he choose Bounty Hunter Gadgeteer to go with it.

Now literally an hour ago he hits me with the desire to play a clone trooper gone rouge after Order 66 (realising his atrocities and whatnot). And I physically felt my excitement for the upcoming game drop.

It just doesn't fit.

It's supposed to be a starter game. A Knight game is out of the question for me, since we all only have been playing this RPG since january and haven't even ever got to 300xp the "normal" way.

Now in the planned timeline a clone trooper basically has to be afraid of imminent death of old age.

And like doktor grym already pointed out: A starting character doesn't really represent a veteran clone, no matter how you think about it.

So:

Any advice on how I gently tell him "No."?

Or alternatively any advice on how to make it work?

Thanks.

Perhaps let him roll up something temporary that he can swap for once the XP is more appropriate. Or his old age has left him a little rusty, so he will be on the same XP level as the rest of the party.

Or let him be one of the clones that were still at Kamino at the time of Order 66, may be as a 5 year old (so his appearance would be that of an ten year old) that could escaped when Vader came to shutt down the facility and the clones once and for all.

That way he would be at 5 BBY at the age of 19 and with the appearance of an 38 year old, that way he could roll up an normal human thats a clone, since he was in hiding i wasn´t able to learn a lot of the skills of the once famouse clon troopers, so no trouble at all and a nice obligation: Secret - the Empire shouldn´t find out that he is a clone by any means... be aware of hospitals with holonet and empereal securitystandards...

And like doktor grym already pointed out: A starting character doesn't really represent a veteran clone, no matter how you think about it.

So:

Any advice on how I gently tell him "No."?

Or alternatively any advice on how to make it work?

Easy - ignore it. Look, every single role playing game in the history of gaming has always a disconnect between what the player sees in their head and what is actually on the paper in front of them . Eventually the numbers on the paper will catch up to the imagined version in the head, but a brand new, out of the gate starting character will never measure up.

So yeah, give them their hundred starting points, let them build their clone trooper with two skills and no talents and don't worry about it.