Canonically, a droid's "mind" consists of two main components: its programming, which governs its skills, operating parameters, loyalties, and recorded experiences, and its personality matrix, which is basically everything that gives the droid its distinct persona. Changing its programming does not change its personality matrix, nor vice versa: when K2-SO was reprogrammed to serve the Rebellion, it didn't change his nature, or his skills, just his loyalty. Wiping a droid's memory clears all recorded experiences, but not its skills, parameters, etc. So C3-P0 didn't need to be reprogrammed as a protocol droid every time he got wiped.

It's unclear if a droid's personality matrix can be altered; evidence suggests not, that you would need to replace it if you wanted the droid to have a different personality. For example, if you reprogram a gonk droid to be an assassin droid, it's still going to be pretty dull and uninteresting, and probably more interested in power sources than killing.

When Aphra reprogrammed Triple-Zero and BT-01 to serve her and Darth Vader, it seemed like she was accessing some root directory in their programming to set the parameters for who their "masters" would be. If you have access to that directory (you programmed it yourself, for example), then all you need to do is verbally access the directory. If you're trying to override existing programming, that should have a difficulty based on how secure the original programming was meant to be: reprogramming the loyalty of an average astromech might be Average or Hard, reprogramming an Imperial security or assassin droid should be Daunting or Formidable.

I would make each separate aspect that you wanted to change a separate roll, or if you're trying to do it all together, maybe require additional advantages for each aspect you want to alter. I would not allow the personality matrix to be altered except perhaps with multiple triumphs.

12 hours ago, korjik said:

If a moisture farmer in the back edge of nowhere can get a droid set back to its factory settings after buying it off the back of a Sandcrawler, I would have to say that is cant be all that hard to get thru the security.

Plus look at what I said: If there is a reason to have a time crunch, then yeah, you have to roll. If there isnt, then the rolls are a little superfluous and dont make them

If a moisture farmer can do that, sure - but in the movies, he wasn't able to. That's why Owen Lars had Luke take the droids to Anchorhead, remember?

Hmm... I've just skimmed through the thread so please forgive me if this has already been brought up, but if droid reprogramming was easy, wouldn't droid thefts be rampant?

I mean, even if there are serial numbers on the physical components of the droids, identifying them to their owners, that would usually require semi-invasive checks... something you couldn't go around going on every droid you see.

So, if reprogramming a droid was as easy as just shutting it down and giving it a memory wipe, then pretty much every petty criminal would do this.


I'd say it's a difficult thing to do that requires not only skilled knowledge, but specialized tools.


Kind of like how reformatting a laptop might be easy, but reformatting an industrial robot would require not only special technical know-how, but also most likely specialized tools.

Of course, if you really want to reprogram a droid, you can get the tools from various illicit sources, and getting the know-how by stolen technical manuals or being taught by someone who has experience.
I don't think it's as simple as "anyone who has high computer skills can reprogram a droid with a simple slicer tool".

I'd say Daunting or higher computers check, with several added black dice if you also don't have the proper tools. And that's just for a memory wipe and factory reset.
If you want more than that, I'd say you'll need to increase the difficulty even more, or possibly have two consecutive rolls (one for doing a factory reset, and one more for the actual reprogramming).


By no means would I let this be an easy affair in my games, because A: It's not done often in the movies, and B: It makes no sense for it to be easily done.

On ‎2‎/‎16‎/‎2018 at 8:15 AM, Yaccarus said:

OK, now try PC droids transferring their conscience in order to give themself a different body.

Not to be done... This is Star Wars, not Age of Ultron.

You can put a droid's personality matrix in a new body, but it won't retain the programming from its previous body. Basically it would be the same personality, but an entirely new character (career, skills, etc), unless you went through the trouble of copying all its programming, memories, etc. and moving them to the new body as well.

7 hours ago, Bishop69 said:

Not to be done... This is Star Wars, not Age of Ultron.

That's already been done in the EU, though.

And it's essentially done in the movies too when C-3PO ends up with his head on a different droids body (which, however, doesn't follow his programming and starts shooting others... I know it's done for "comedic effect" but it makes no damned sense...)

On 2/18/2018 at 1:46 AM, OddballE8 said:

That's already been done in the EU, though.

And it's essentially done in the movies too when C-3PO ends up with his head on a different droids body (which, however, doesn't follow his programming and starts shooting others... I know it's done for "comedic effect" but it makes no damned sense...)

I think it does make some sense. The B1 droids were closer to classic dumb terminals than to actual PCs. The majority of the local components were probably stored in the back/chest, as it had the largest volume to work with while the "Head" would have been primary for the sake of interacting with biological beings and a semi-mobile mounting spot for the optical sensors. Threepio has no control over the body because it's still being controlled by the remote computer;his eyes might be feeding information back, or the the computer might be relying on secondary sensors or even GPS to determine positioning and valid activity choices.

I feel like this falls under the same category as comlink signal availability, and other things that work when it is narratively appropriate. I agree with Oddball that it would be rampant if it were easy/common/tolerated, and I don't think you will end up with something that feels like the movies if every significant droid is easily repurposed.

I would say it would depend upon the droid's function, how common it is, how long it's been since it's programming has been updated, whether it's designed to be programmed for civilian or military use, general intelligence of it's AI, whether it's designed to change owner frequently or not, and it's overall quality in general. A protocol droid like C3PO for instance is designed for peacefully interacting with organics, is a common but fairly effective unit among those that share it's function that is usually a civilian model, it's original builders still actively update it's programming if not it's entire AI regularly, is reasonably intelligent, and is likely to change owners at least a few times in it's existence. On the other hand a B1 combat droid is designed to kill or destroy any designated target, is a very cheap and extremely low quality combat droid built in the quintillions, was created to be used as a military unit, is dumber than the metals it's composed of, it's programming likely has been updated very haphazardly by previous owners since the Clone Wars if it's been updated at all, and finally as a military droid it is designed in general not to change owners much if at all.

Now, let's break all this down.

Function: Logically, a droid that is designed for combat would be one designed to avoid reprogramming by unauthorized users particularly by remote, and reprogramming would harm it's function significantly compared to say a GNK Power Droid *GORK!* designed to function as little more than a walking battery and likely has it's AI is designed to do something over and over again until it's owner or a connected computer changes where it's supposed to be plugged in at a moment's notice. The former thus would be inherently more difficult to reprogram than the latter right out of the box regardless of any other factors.

AI Program Obsolescence: A modern 3PO like C3PO is going to have regular system and security updates that are going to plug up various loopholes a slicer might try to use to try to reprogram it while the ones it still has are going to be either undiscovered or kept secret by the manufacturers and any slicer who finds them for quite a while. An ancient B1 rusting away in the deserts of Tatooine somewhere or whatever is probably going to be filled with security exploits that are likely common knowledge among slicers by the time of the Empire. Naturally the latter is going to be easier to break into than the former.

Rarity: To give an example, a 3PO unit is popular, effective, and thus pretty common in the galaxy, while it's functional cousin LOM Protocol Droid turned out to be much less effective and thus the line was scrapped, both meaning that the LOM isn't as numerous and used throughout the galaxy as a 3PO unit. While it would be difficult to generalize with unique models that likely were built from the ground up, it would be logical to assume the more commonly used a droid is, the more attempts to get past it's security are likely to have occurred and how well known security vulnerabilities for it are. Given this, I'd say unique models would likely have it's difficulty based on rarity added or subtracted to it at random, while a more common unit would be easier to reprogram than a less common unit.

Military or Civilian Model: Simply, any computer designed for civilians would be easier to break into than something designed for the military, even if the latter makes use of the lowest bidder and droids are no different. This would be just as true of a typically civilian model droid that is purchased by any given military for it's use as it would be for a droid that was designed to be a military droid in the first place, as the former would have been upgraded to comply with the standards of that military when it was purchased. A 3PO unit is going to have stricter security to prevent tampering if it was built for the use of the Empire than it would built for some guy of average wealth in Coruscant.

General AI Intelligence: How complicated a droid's AI and thus how smart it is would naturally effect how difficult it would be to reprogram, particularly if it's a complete reprogramming. A droid that's smart enough to be able to talk to organics would be more difficult and take longer to reprogram than one whose intelligence is limited to being able to identify whether a floor needs to be cleaned and clean it and nothing else.

Resale: Allowing a droid to change who it's master is and recognize that they should be obeyed would be something it's given owner would be able to do with a simple voice command, and the easier it is to do something like this the more security flaws a slicer would have to exploit.

Quality: Naturally, a droid that is similar in function to another even of the same model but built with cheaper and more shoddy materials would be easier to reprogram than one that is top of the line. A 3PO unit built up to the highest quality standards out of the best materials available for a planet's ruler or something would probably have a better computer core than one that's built barely up to code in some factory on some backwater planet out of the cheapest materials the builders can find, even if they are functionally identical in every other way.

What does this all come to? You got me, putting all this into something fairly simple to reduce it down to a dice roll wouldn't be easy, and it would be pretty difficult to quantify all of this for a particular droid due to a lack of anything that gives this a number of some sort. Off the top of my head, a given droid's difficulty to be reprogrammed as a dice roll would start at Simple or in other words no dice, and get progressively more difficulty dice as more factors are added which make reprogramming a droid more difficult Vs the slicer's Computer skill. Since there are 7 here (though there's probably more I haven't thought of) I'd say `for each that applies there would be 1 difficulty die for the first 4 up to daunting, then start replacing the difficulty die with challenge die until one reaches 3 challenge die and 1 difficulty die, while doing the opposite for factors that would make the difficulty of reprogramming a droid easier. Any dif, boost, and setback dice affected by other factors such as talents and circumstances would be applied to the check as normal.

I’d be tempted to go with an opposed test vs droid’s discipline (a secured droid having ranks in the skill, so having chance of despair in form of countermeasures) and handle other situational factors (such as you list above) as boost or setback dice.