In both of my main Star Wars groups, there are players who want to specialize in building droids, so in order to help them out I wanted to ask this question:

Assume one of my droid crafters has built 3 Monotask Drones with Medicine as their group skill. If the three droids use the Assist Maneuver with, for example, a character with no ranks in Medicine, do the Droid group's 2 effective skill ranks in Medicine (per minion rules) transfer over to the Assisted player as per Skilled Assistance?

Both crafters want to build droids that compensate for skills they (or the party) lack, so knowing precisely how this works will determine whether those players build a cloud of drones or save up to build their own protocol droid.

They only get to use their numbers as ranks of Skill when they are the ones making the roll. They could be a swarm of medical bots doing the check, and the PCs can assist, but the minion skill rules is for when they are called on to make the check.

Hm, so what happens if the PC assists the group, then? If they're making the check, you use their ranks, but then they can use the higher ability score. Presumably if they're the ones making the check and the PC is assisting them the PC can't use any talents.

I can see why you'd want to avoid PCs getting ranks in skills from minion groups but in this context it doesn't seem like a huge issue. Actually, I'm not sure if buffing skills *should* be a practical concern. Getting to Ranged (Heavy) 3 with minion groups is going to be prohibitively expensive- 26k credits worth of Battle Droids to get 1 extra upgrade over a starting character.

2 hours ago, Talkie Toaster said:

I can see why you'd want to avoid PCs getting ranks in skills from minion groups but in this context it doesn't seem like a huge issue. Actually, I'm not sure if buffing skills *should* be a practical concern. Getting to Ranged (Heavy) 3 with minion groups is going to be prohibitively expensive- 26k credits worth of Battle Droids to get 1 extra upgrade over a starting character.

Buffing skills is a concern because building Monotask droids is so cheap, especially for a Droid Tech. It wouldn't take 26k credits to get effective rank 3, just 2400 credits, or 1200 for a Droid Tech. Of course, it's also notable that Skilled Assistance doesn't appear to be possible during combat, so the battle droid application in particular probably isn't a concern.

I'm playing a Droid Tech in a game currently, and I'm side-stepping this issue by focusing on Specialist Chassis droids that get their own skill ranks and talents (though I do have a personal monotask assistant to provide unskilled assistance boosted by Improved Speaks Binary). That's not cheap, but if you want to support this route as a GM, all you have to do is reward them with parts and components specifically for crafting droids. Remember that the materials cost doesn't have to just represent the PC going in and racking up a 3000 credit bill at the local Droid Shack.

If they're just looking to fill a gap that no one wants to invest in, then they probably won't care that the narrative is "This swarm of medical droids does the work while I supervise and supply my massive Intellect," and so it's probably fine to let them build a bunch of minions to fill those roles. Protocol droids might be a trickier matter, though, since if the players would rather let a swarm of remotes do their negotiating for them, they probably aren't interested in the scene in the first place.

The party I'm specifically referring to is a two-man group consisting of a Gadgeteer and his Slicer buddy on the mean streets of lower Coruscant. While (as their specs would indicate) they are mostly interested in heist and bounties, it has occurred to them that unless they want to be spending lots of credits on street docs, they may need medical backup. Additionally, when the time comes to do anything social that doesn't involve turning a thug upside down and shaking them till a clue falls out, they're a bit hosed. Mainly, I was concerned whether (if the Slicer asks about it) I should point them toward building a cloud of med-droids and translators, or if I should suggest they save up and build/buy a protocol droid and a med droid that hang out at the "office" (read: crappy slum apartment) until needed.

A second group basically wants "hovering encyclopedias" to aid with Knowledge checks and the like, since that's the one area they don't really have an angle on (They also are sorta lacking a face but the Corellian has 3 Presence so he's been able to slide by so far).

Have em build 2 droid PCs and run them along with their main PCs.

I like this.

They can then stay at home or come along.