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So, I have scoured the web for statistics on the Shard, used what knowledge I have of the system, and gotten feedback from a few others. And I *think* I have come up with a well balanced Shard playable species. Please let me know what you think!

I'd say drop starting xp to 65 or just use the droid as is and say it's a Shard.

You're basically ramming human starting xp with all the perks of being a droid and really no drawbacks.

Did you read it? It does not have all of the perks of a droid. It gains no extra skills. It doesn't get the Enduring talent. Which, together, are the primary reasons most people play a droid...

It doesn't have to eat, sleep, drink, or suffer from toxins. It gets 5 cybernetic slots even though it has 1 Brawn for a score. You gave it 110 xp, and then 110 xp worth of stats on top of the 110 xp.

It's basically a droid with more xp that can be Force sensitive.

You asked, imo it's too much starting xp.

If you take a human as a base 2 2 2 2 2 2 thats 120 xp worth of improvement from 1s. You have spent 110 xp to raise the stats to what you have now.

The benefit for not eating, sleeping and immune to vaccum and toxinsis worth at least 20 xp Imo ( perhaps more if you look at the difference between lunged and lungless gand is 10 xp and only provides one of those benefits), you underestimate the usefulness of those abilities.

Add another 10-15 xp for the increased cybernetics Gand get the ability but drop Presence to 1 to do so ( but get 5000 creds of equipment but are limited to cybernetics) so I would go 15 xp here , it depends how much value you put on the cybernetics used, it sounds a lot but as its limited to 2 items from a very select group id actually say it was worth 5 xp, so would say 15 for the increased cyber cap).

Now onto the biggie , the fact that if the chasis is killed and your opponent is not aware there is a shard then you effectively have a dodge death card. To me this is worth probably 30xp, im perhaps being harsh on this point but it is big one.

Thats around 75 xp worth of advantages on top of 110 xp of stats. Now a human gets 120 worth of stats and 110 xp of advantages for a total 230 xp. So starting xp for your shard knight should really be 45 xp to 65 xp depending on how much you think should be applied to the last benefit.

I was comparing it to the Droid, not a Human. Assuming Droid has been balanced with Human already...it doesn't really matter form an XP count perspective, but it is a much more direct comparison.

It gives up 3 trained skills, one cybernetic implant slot, the Enduring talent, and 75 XP.

Having -3 Skills equal -15XP; this is straightforward. The loss of the Enduring Talent is much harder to quantify directly. It is theoretically a 5XP loss. But given that it is impossible to access that talent for many of the careers a droid would take, I have seen it suggested it is equal to buying a new specialization plus the talent; 25XP. Since you don't get full access to a new specialization, I averaged the two and came up with (25+5)/2=15XP. So now we are at -30XP. The loss of one cybernetic slot, I would put at -5XP. So now we are at -35XP. Add in the -75XP, and you have -110XP. Which I used to up the characteristics, by 110XP.

That leaves the ability to swap into a new chassis; as you put it a potential dodge death card. I hadn't intended it to be that - but you're right it could be. I don't think it is worth a full 30XP though. I'd call it 10XP, and drop them to 100XP total. I can see that...

If you disagree with me, please do that same comparison you just did between a human and a droid. And then explain to me how I am off by so much? ( and by the way - you left off 20 points of advantages for humans, in that they get two non-career skills trained; those are 10XP each ).

I'm not trying to be argumentative here. I did ask for input. And I am open to adjusting it if I am way off base. But I just don't think it is as far off base as you're saying (which is why I broke it down as I did here).

Many moons ago I did a similar comparison between droids and human, and actually got them to balance out quite well.

Just to point out that with the exception of droids almost every race gets the following formula between starting xp and starting stats. Take the amount of xp it costs to raise stats from 1 , then add starting xp ,you end up with 230 xp. Im not counting free talents or starting skills. They seem to come under a separate set of options , the one exception is droid.

Example Bothan / Twilek / Kel Dor / Mirilian / Nautolan/ Togruta etc all have the following for stats 3(50xp), 2 (20 xp), 2 (20xp), 2 (20 xp), 2 (20 xp), 1 (0 xp) = total 130 xp along with starting xp of 100 xp

Something like Weequay has 3 (50) , 3(50), 2(20), 2(20), 1(0), 1(0) = 140 xp but gets 90 xp

Sakiyan get 2, 2, 3, 2, 2 ,2 and get 80 starting xp total 230 xp

Now Faleen get the same as the bothan example but get starting xp 90 because they get the ability to boost charm negotiation and deception skills.

Droids are the one exception because of the way they work with starting stats, starting skills and the other various bonuses they get which I worked out previously to be worth more than 230 xp once all added in but it wss fairly close.

You have chosen the meatbag way of putting in fixed starting stats above one.In fact if you follow the examples you have 1(0), 1(0), 3(50), 2(20), 2(20), 2(20), so starting xp 130 less benefits , of which you have given considerable. Which means you can no longer compare with droid esp as you give it force sensitivity its closer to a meatbag now, than to a droid.

Also saying the enduring talent is one of the only "real benefits" of choosing droid. Well I would strongly disagree.

For the record droid get a drop in 55 xp because of the following

Enduring Talent

Cybernetic implants at 6

Dont need oxygen/food/atmosphere.

Equipment can be built in and therefor cannot be taken off you (armor,tools etc but within reasons some weapons as well).

(Amongst others)

So the droids benefits are deemed to be worth 55 xp and the disadvantage of not being allowed to be force sensitive. You drop Enduring from this list (perhaps worth 5 or 10 of those xp) and drop the disadvantage and give 220 xp worth of starting stats and xp.

Way overpowered and out of balance if you ask me.

Effectively the shard gets 220 xp of starting stats and xp, and the droid benefits (worth at least 45 xp) force sensitive poossibilty (cannot guage) giving at least a 35 xp bonus over droid or human whichever way you look at it

Comparing stat bonuses with individual skill ranks or bonus Talents you removed based purely on xp cost is not an accurate comparison or cost swap. Stats can only be raised at creation this way, so front loading the additional stat potential at CHARGEN has a disproportionate impact. A stat rank impacts all the Skills tied to it, so it is far more valuable than just the xp expenditure.

This race has the ability to have a 5 Intellect a 3 in a stat, and the listed 2s associated with it. A droid would have to spend 140 xp alone to just have a single 5. A PC using this race to make a Force user has a min/max Soresu Defender tailor made, a 5 Intellect out the gate and the ability via cybernetic upgrades and gear to raise Soak considerably without a single point of xp spent.

Okay. Color me convinced. At least partially. I had initially put the Intellect at 2, but had several suggest it was underpowered, so I raised it to 3. ( well, honestly I initially had it at 3, along with willpower. but that was before I added several abilities. Then I had lowered them both to 2, before being told it was likely underpowered...so I raised Intellect back up to 3 ) I see that was a mistake.

So let's go back to your Human comparison...

Humans have 120XP in characteristics. And 110XP free to spend. 230XP in total which can theoretically go to characteristics. Plus another 20XP in skills. 250XP total.

By dropping the 3 to a 2, the Shard has 80XP in characteristics. And 110XP free to spend. 190XP in total which can theoretically go to characteristics. Which, as you say, this is the one time you can do that so is the heavier weighting. And we're now at 40 less strictly looking at characteristics (compared to only 10 less when I had Intellect 3).

Add in the Human's skills and we're at 60 less XP in total. But then we have the various features of the Shard. Do they add up to more than 60XP?

Telecommunication - 5XP

Cybernetic Implants at 5 instead of Brawn - 10XP/15XP

Don't need food/rest/atmosphere - 20XP

Droid Chassis* - 20XP

*On this - yes, they can theoretically survive what would have been death if the droid chassis is destroyed but the crystalline body is not. However, given how weak the crystalline body is, and the extremely limited means of healing it (rest/force only)... added to the fact they cannot get out of the droid chassis themselves, nor is it simple for someone to help them to do so, and that there must be another specially modified droid chassis prepared for them to be put into (again, requiring outside aid), and that they are physically helpless while outside of a droid chassis (or within an incapacitated chassis)...I think that is not as great a benefit as you paint it to be. I wouldn't even go as high as I am, except in an attempt to compromise. I'd probably go 10 or 15, myself.

So even going with the higher guesstimate of the cybernetic implants, and the higher compromised value of the droid chassis, it now perfectly hits 250XP, the same as a human.

Actually you are adding 20 xp for the humans skills this isnt like for like. The starting stats and xp are pretty much all about what can potentially be done to stats. There is pretty much a cap on this. Only one race gets 240 xp ( lunged gand but it has the disadvantage of having oxygen being poisonous for it) , other than that no other race gets more than 230.

Skills seem to be done separately , humans get 2 non career skills , being non career limits them to being only able to grant you a single rank at creation. This means that they are more diverse but less specialised.

Most other races get a specific skill allowing you to tie it into the career or specialisation to give you a rank 2 skill, and usually a talent and/or abiliity as well. Forget the xp cost here as these seem to be balanced out by wound and strain thresholds.

So instead of getting this xp to potentially boost stats you should take a talent (like enduring) and a specific skill and drop the rest of the extra droid bonuses. Make the starting xp 120, only now they have a normal cyber cap and now require to eat and breathe

Now its balanced.

You could consider basing it off the droid, (compared with a human they get one additional skill rank) and the starting skills and the enduring rank can be compared to be the equivalent to the extra skills talent and ability that other races get, or the two ranks a human gets. For the humans and other races these appear to be separate from starting stats and starting xp, for droids the lines get blurred so its hard to compare. So for your shard either take a talent with a fixed skill along with a racial ability (alien race option) or take the human option (2 non career skills), or take the droid option of 6 career skills, 3 spec skills and a rank in enduring)

Then compared with the droid starting abilities, you have still included all of the rest of them, and you would have spent 110xp on stats already,leaving 65 xp compared with a standard droid. Now take off the xp cost you attribute for being able to be force sensitive, also less the get out of jail free card that you have that humans or droids dont get. A more than fair cost would be 10 xp each.

Wounds and strain, I would say that the chassis/shard combo would be quite resilient so 11+Brawn -strain would be a problem for a creature such as this and would be hard to keep "cohesion" and control, remember droids are considered sentient in this game so 8 or 9 + willpower

In fact this one is perhaps the more thematic of the two ideas I present. So I would say 45 starting xp.

Finally if the shard is force sensitive there is a morality issue straight off the bat, under coercion you can generate conflict for forcing something else to do something against their will, taking over a live droids body definitely falls under this and then some. Taking over a dead one has little point since in this game a dead droid is the same as a dead meatbag, there is no saving it and getting it working again because it won't work.

EDIT I can't believe also that this actually can't work according to canon, a shard takes over a droids body and controls it using the force, when in the RPG droids are immune to manipulation this way by the force, if a Jedi master with a whopping FR 10 couldn't manipulate a droids thoughts then a shard couldn't either unless it could integrate with its circuits I n which case its a droid and can't be FS.

The easiest way to get this to work is this take the Gank species and then take the lungless part of the Gand and apply it dropping starting xp by 10 leave the fact it requires some form of sustenance. So take 2s in everything and drop one to 1, give it 5k cybernetics, drop it's starting xp to 100, and make it that it doesn't require to breath, but can still be affected by poison etc, just apply it in such a ways as thee toxins can affect its neural pathways as they'd evolve into something more carbon based. Choose a different starting skill if you have to.

EDIT I can't believe also that this actually can't work according to canon, a shard takes over a droids body and controls it using the force, when in the RPG droids are immune to manipulation this way by the force, if a Jedi master with a whopping FR 10 couldn't manipulate a droids thoughts then a shard couldn't either unless it could integrate with its circuits I n which case its a droid and can't be FS.

Well, I am looking at playing a non force-sensitive droid, that simulates using the force. So I clicked into this thread, just to see if it might give me any ideas on how to simulate it.

It hasn't really... but I can reply to this aspect of your post, syrath. A shard wouldn't be taking over an existing droid. They had to have special droids built for them to be put into. The OP didn't limit it to those special droids, though. But even then, it does mention part of the process to prepare an existing droid involved removing the droid's brains, and replacing them with an interface.

So that means you aren't taking over the droid's brain. You are physically removing it, and replacing it.