So... now that Special Modifications is out, I have a player who wants to run as a mechromancer sort. His idea is to play support to his small army of droids. Problem is, we lack and concise rules about how having a droid companion - or five of them! - works.

How would you see that kind of situation playing out?

Does each droid (or droid minion group) get its own initiative? (And if so, doesn't that just mean the player is getting multiple initiative slots per round?) Does the player tell the droid what to do while the actual action is at the GM's discretion? Should there be a functional limit to the number of droids the player can field at a time?

Does each droid (or droid minion group) get its own initiative?

Yup.

(And if so, doesn't that just mean the player is getting multiple initiative slots per round?)

Yup.

Does the player tell the droid what to do while the actual action is at the GM's discretion?

Yup.

Should there be a functional limit to the number of droids the player can field at a time?

Squad rules?

How much money they have?

Bigger armies on their side mean bigger armies on the other side?

Everyone starts attacking them with Ion weapons?

Opponents try to hack into his droid army and take them over?

The droid army develops a leader who then ends up fomenting rebellion amongst his kind against the Droid Emperor?

Mo money and/or Mo Minions == Mo Problems?

I have a mechcromancer type in one of my games. I run the Droids as NPCs. So, in my games, the player technically doesn't have extra turns. The droids of course recognize their maker for who she is, and listen to directions. If the directions go against programming, she must make a leadership check, but that's only come up maybe twice. However, the fun part is when other players try to get the droids to do something, or have a problem with a Droid, as the droids have their own personalities m.

I've got a player who wants to do something similar to this, we're about to introduce said character. My plan regarding initiative is to give the droids initiative slots immediately after the player's turn - as if they were a squad that has just been disbanded. Seems like the easiest way of tracking where droids are at rather than rolling initiative for each individual droid.

Does each droid (or droid minion group) get its own initiative? (And if so, doesn't that just mean the player is getting multiple initiative slots per round?) Does the player tell the droid what to do while the actual action is at the GM's discretion? Should there be a functional limit to the number of droids the player can field at a time?

Yes. No. Kinda. Yes.

In any game I've run, the only character than any given player can control is their PC. Beyond that, they can have their character provide guidance, but the ultimate decision of what a given NPC does is on me, the GM. That being said, most droids generally tend to be pretty obedient (given Asimov's rules) so there's generally few issues with following orders...however, droid efficiency and order interpretation is directly proportional to the time and attention spent in supervision. Sure, the droidmaster can issue new, specific orders every turn, but at that point, we're going beyond an incidental, and I'll be asking him to use a maneuver for the combined "keep an eye on the droid and what it's doing, then give meaningful instruction" if there's more than one droid (or minion group thereof). This quickly cuts down on the efficiency of just fielding a huge gang of droids to dominate every situation...unless of course they're willing to a. give up on most of their own input, b. trust the droids on a longer/no leash, c. build smarter droids, or d. perhaps build a droid commander for their gang.

I can see how this is fun for a little while but long-term? I don't know... but I do know I would not want to be a player in that player's group. Normally, I would say everyone should get to play what they want if the gm says ok. In this case, i'd be concerned that this character and his robot army are going to take too much time to deal with and basically steal everyone else's thunder doing the things the PC's should be doing while the PC's watch or look for some small piece of the action to avoid becomING entirely redundant. If you have other players, it's something they should all consider together.

I can see how this is fun for a little while but long-term? I don't know... but I do know I would not want to be a player in that player's group. Normally, I would say everyone should get to play what they want if the gm says ok. In this case, i'd be concerned that this character and his robot army are going to take too much time to deal with and basically steal everyone else's thunder doing the things the PC's should be doing while the PC's watch or look for some small piece of the action to avoid becomING entirely redundant. If you have other players, it's something they should all consider together.

Haley nails it here.

Minion and squad and squadron rules would handle it tactically. Of course since there's a run down cantina on Tatooine where droids aren't served or welcome, I'd expect after a galactic war where droids ravaged hundreds of worlds, and are viewed as the enemy, anyone leading around a phalanx of droids probably isn't viewed all that positively.

I would say that a player at my table would have to give up their maneuver or action to control the droids. Depends on what they wanted to do really.

Back in the day, playing Aberrant from White Wolf, and we had a guy who made a character which had the Clone power, and him getting three or four turns in a round made the rest of the team just about redundant.

I have a minion-mancer in my group (droids & an animal companion from Seeker:Pathfinder), and we use the following rules (which seem to work pretty well):

- Controlling a "companion" in combat requires 1 maneuver per Rival/Nemesis or per minion group.

- If the player doesn't control them, I (the GM) do, based on their last orders.

- Leadership checks may be involved if the PC asks the "companion" to do something that has a good chance of leading to serious harm for that companion.

What Haley and Kaosoe say is correct, for the most part anyway. If a player has lots of minions, it can take a shine off the other PCs. On the other hand, a character like this is good in smaller groups, especially if the PC is not very combat orientated.

A few things to remember though - a PC can't just summon like Gaige in Borderlands. A droid is a physical creature that takes up space and in many places, looked down upon. Many cantinas will have 'no droids' signs and many species regard them as little more than mobile tools (the droid hatred in my campaign is dialled up to 11). An astromech or gonk is a common enough sight, but someone walking around with Restricted battle droids is going to attract the attention of every local goon squad, stormtroopers or local law enforcement. An assassin droid that looks like the love-child of HK47 and the Death Star is likely to be impounded or shot on sight. Of course, the Droid Tech can do clever things like program a perfectly-legal labour chassis with Elimination protocols, giving you something like LoaderBot from Borderlands, a loyal protector who passes as a simple work droid.

For the most part, Specialist droids are kept on the ship or at base - those with Repair, Healing, Navigation or Translation protocols won't usually be taken on adventures, they will wait for when the Droid Tech needs their special skills. This means they can make fun cameos when required and not overshadow the PCs.

For combat droids, be very sure that these are NOT as tough as PC droids - minions get trashed really swiftly in combat, and even Rivals lack strain, and all the fancy stuff like Talents that PCs take for granted. Lowly stormtroopers are rarely a thread to most PCs unless they are in decent numbers, but can turn your robot friends into melted slag in short order. Ion weapons are not unusual, and do brutal things to poor droids.

That said, you shouldn't be heavy-handed unless things are getting out of hand. The PC is investing time, money and XP, all valuable resources, in his bots, so you should ensure this is a viable choice for him. A single droid protector and a plucky sidekick should present few issues. But 'I send my army of battle droids in again' gets old really quickly, especially for the other PCs.

Finally, make them real NPCs with quirks and personalities, just like we see in the movies. I allow a roll on the positive and negative personality tables for each droid created, to make it unique and individual. They may very well dislike being the disposable cannon-fodder for some uncaring meatbag.

Remember; a droid companion is for life, not just for Life Day!

I want to do this, but the conglomerate of droids IS the pc.

Depending on the complexity of what the player wants the droids to do and their level of intelligence, I would call for a leadership check to make then do the more complex commands, especially in structured time where things can be very hectic, failure could lead to misunderstandings, and in some cases if the command is easily misunderstood or ambiguous then I would throw in challenge dice. Out of structured time then I would waive much of that.

Droids can be a liability however, picture the droid master having to run from a group of stormtroopers / criminal syndicate / inquisitor or nameyourownbadguy, they cannot spend strain for a 2nd maneuver meaning that the 2500 credit investment gets left behind and even worse can have restraining bolts put on them to reveal, who knows, how much data on the characters, their base, their employers, their strengths, weaknesses, any force sensitives, their ship, etc. So, while I think that its a good idea personally, make this very clear before the player starts down this path that the potential of the droids being destroyed or used against them is strong.

So they want to be a mech-romancer and lead a small army. This seems pretty crazy and OP at first but there's a lot of factors to being able to achieve this.

They want to build a swarm of droids? That's 24 hours down time per small droid. maybe down to 16 hours with a good roll. Even longer for a standard security droid (48 hours).

They will also have to pay for the creation and upkeep. its 3,250 for a combat droid. If it goes down in battle, tough luck, they need to build a new one.

They want to walk into town with the droids? While someone might be able to sling a gun over their shoulder, or put some grenades and pistols in a bag, you can bet your ass every imperial in the local area will zone straight in on the guy with 6 battle droids next to him.

So keep down time short, punish them with credits, and make security harass them for leading the swarm around.

I was more thinking about a group of monotask chasis, because its not too likely to have a group of droids of a higher level kind. 5 monotask droids, will have rank 4 skill , giving the player potential for a combined check of who knows what at their chosen skill.

Well I mean realistically how many small droids can help you do something? Too many cooks spoils the broth. I would limit help or flat out not allow help for some checks.

Assistance for charm? Not unless that person in a droid nut. Assistance for Medicine? maybe only 2 can reasonably help.

Also what is the size for a monotask droid? An astromech? A pitdroid? one of those eyebots?

Also what are you working on? Lotsa helpers carrying bricks is a good thing. Not sure how many people fine tuning a pocketwatch are helpful, or any really.

Also the type of droid. Got a bunch of floating eye bots? They'll help out with perception and vigilance immensely.

Not so much for something like astrogation or underworld (although if a player thinks of a use, reward that!)

Well I mean realistically how many small droids can help you do something? Too many cooks spoils the broth. I would limit help or flat out not allow help for some checks.

Assistance for charm? Not unless that person in a droid nut. Assistance for Medicine? maybe only 2 can reasonably help.

Also what is the size for a monotask droid? An astromech? A pitdroid? one of those eyebots?

There is nothing to say you cant do a combined check with a minion group. Pit droids come to mind for mechanic checks. Piloting, doesnt make sense so its the same as normal for combined checks, GM choice and situation

Combined skill/stat checks are meant for narrative play, not structured, so when the check is being made matters. Generally if there's initiative involved it is limited to the maneuver.

EoE CRB p. 26.

"During combat or structured encounters, when initiative and the order in which people act is more important, assistance can be accomplished by performing the assist maneuver."

Yeah id prettt much rule out most if not all combined checks ib structured play, note I say most, certainluly no combat skill.

Assistance for Medicine? maybe only 2 can reasonably help.

You've never been in a Code situation then. A typical team is 5-6, and another 2-3 replacements/runners are pretty **** useful.

Yeah id prettt much rule out most if not all combined checks ib structured play, note I say most, certainluly no combat skill.

There's a droid brain specifically intended to provide combined checks for Gunnery.

I've been wondering why they're called mech-romancers, in the first place, not mecho-mancers. If your romantically involved in machine beings, that's your private matter; I won't judge. But, does it really have to be played out at the gaming table?

Or, is it just an euphemism for droid pimp?

I've been wondering why they're called mech-romancers, in the first place, not mecho-mancers. If your romantically involved in machine beings, that's your private matter; I won't judge. But, does it really have to be played out at the gaming table?

Or, is it just an euphemism for droid pimp?

I hadn’t heard the term until the OP in this thread, so I’m just guessing.

But “mechromancer” does sound a lot like “necromancer”, and I recognize the latter as a well-known method in D&D.

Of course, it’s entirely possible that I’m missing something more … juvenile … here, which would be rare, but has happened before.

So, just in case — let’s trot out the standard warning — Haley, don’t Google that.