So, my players were making some alternative characters to play in space battles and one of them came to me with a curious idea, a Vulture Droid (essentially the prequel's droid fighters) with a modified droid brain to make it playable as a character.

Now, I realise this is bonkers, and she's happy to play something else, but I like to try an accommodate for cool ideas when they come about.

Could this be done? Sure it would be a Siluetee 3 character, but this comes with as many problems as advantages, and it would be for space focused missions.

What do you guys think?

One of my other players actually had a cool idea. The character is the droid brain itself, it just happens to be slotted into a droid fighter.

I see no reason it couldn't work. I myself put up a thread about sentient ships in Star Wars. Since they have intelligent droids, I see no reason the silhouette would be a limiting factor for a robot brain.

If I were the GM, I would probably require the PC to remain in the ship. Not have some kind of detachable husk they can run around in. This is mostly for simplicity, so that you don't have to track 2 different types of full character stats for the PC. However as I write that, I do think that it might be fun, to have the droid take the spec tree that is all about droid manufacture and upgrades. I forget the name of it, but someone will provide the answer. I think it wouldn't be difficult to let them have a handful of droids they could send out with the party, to be their eyes and ears on planet. I would severely stress that their functionality outside of the ship is limited. If you've ever seen the show Farscape, the living ship had an entire host of little droids that did the maintenance on the ship, and other various tasks. If she took that career/spec (the droid tech one), I'd let her pick from the list of droids that are published, and she would be limited to those abilities. She'd have to use the spec talent that lets you command the droids on your action to do stuff in encounters, but I think it would be fun. I would also require her to cross spec as a Pilot career too, or at the very least, have a lot of points dumped into Piloting. An intelligent ship that can't fly itself REALLY well, seems silly to me. You can still allow for a PC to pilot it too, but she should be able to get around on her own without any help. Copiloting checks would still be super useful in that situation, as the party can be busy keeping her systems running, and doing other things that she can't devote her attention to, while she's dodging blaster fire and torpedoes. In fact, I would probably suggest she have at least 1 skill rank in any of the skills that are relevant to flying a ship. Astrogation, Piloting (Space & Planetary), Mechanics (her bots could do the repairs with her controlling them), Gunnery, and Computers. This is her body after all, not being able to control it from head to toe seems odd.

I would also make sure the party had some form of communication system with the ship, if only to allow party banter, so the player doesn't feel left out entirely whenever they do an away mission. (This is kind of independent of the droid scouts idea above. I think this should be possible even if you don't do the droid option above, even more so in that case). I would pretty much require it really, and if it happens to be some massive device, to accommodate surface-orbit comms, I would just shrink it down to a tri-corder size device and be done with it.

I would make serious effort as the GM to account for the party asking the ship to scan stuff for them all the time, to try and get the upper hand on any scenes. I would prep bits of information of various types that the droid ship's scans could reveal, that way you aren't left flat-footed if they pull that card (and they will, oh boy they will, a LOT).

I would also try to have some side things that happen in space for the ship to investigate, while the party is elsewhere. Like say, the encounter is on surface, and the PC's go down there, but there is also a derelict ship in a nearby orbit that looks interesting. It's close enough for the ship to remain in contact with the party on planet, but she would need to direct her droid attention to the ship, and not on surface. That way, if say, the party ends up doing nothing but an investigative/social encounter on the surface, the ship can have some fun sending her bots into the ship to sniff about, perhaps find some interesting tech they could salvage and sell, or use to upgrade their ship, etc.

Now, this probably sounds like a lot of stuff for a starting PC, and it probably is. I'd sit down and have a target goal for the build in mind, and then see if it's doable with starting XP. If not (and I'm guessing it's not), then I would suggest allowing her to start at Knight Play, even if the others don't. And here's why. She's asking for a lot, and you are allowing a lot, but there are going to be some limitations too. The "you will stay in the ship, and at best can control a few small purpose droids with the party" limitation is harsh,as most players feel like they aren't contributing if they aren't actually with their party. She's also likely getting a lot of expensive things too, like the droids she will be remotely controlling, they aren't entirely cheap. So I personally think it's fair, if you're going to allow it (which I definitely think you should), to put some significant limitations as well. If everyone's playing at Knight Level, then no biggy really. Everyone's got extra XP, and a fat stack of cash to play with. But if the others are just beginners, and this PC is not, this would help to alleviate any feelings of favoritism that might pop up.

Definitely be up front with your concerns about the concept, and how you want to limit the concept, so that it's at least slightly in line with the other PC's. Make sure the player is on board, and understands why you are limiting whatever you decide to limit. I wouldn't do too much though, the idea is for it to be fun. But I think as long as the two of you are on the same page about what she can/can't do as a living ship, I think it will work out.

If you are looking for inspiration for how to describe things to a living ship, I'd suggest reading some of the various novels that are out there about this very kind of thing.

We Are Legion, We Are Bob (Book 1 of the Bobiverse) is a really good one, and very funny.
The Ship That Sang series by Anne McCaffery will probably be useful too.
The show Farscape, that I mentioned above, would be good as well, especially on the dynamic of having a "motley crew of misfits inside my body" angle. Also in how having parts of the ship not working right, might impact the behavior of the controlling mind.

I can't think of any other examples off hand, but I know there are many more. I'm sure others could provide further examples for you.

After some discussing, I think the way we will do it is as such:

She will make a droid character just like any other, probably an Ace and it makes the most sense. However, she will be bolted 100% of the time into an old Clone-Wars vulture droid. They have enough mobility to be able to interact in some other scenes but this is a 100% starfighter focused character, which is fine by me as that was the plan all along.

Actually, now my only problem is that the vulture droid is too fragile! She might need to get the mechanic and outlaw tech to do some tinkering with it...

31 minutes ago, Obsidian Razor said:

After some discussing, I think the way we will do it is as such:

She will make a droid character just like any other, probably an Ace and it makes the most sense. However, she will be bolted 100% of the time into an old Clone-Wars vulture droid. They have enough mobility to be able to interact in some other scenes but this is a 100% starfighter focused character, which is fine by me as that was the plan all along.

Actually, now my only problem is that the vulture droid is too fragile! She might need to get the mechanic and outlaw tech to do some tinkering with it...

Or, you could just give all ships an arbitrary increase to their Hull Point threshold, so they can survive an extra hit from an average attack. Humanoid PC's can only survive 1-2 hits in most cases anyway (unless they specifically build a damage sponge character), so the fact that the ship is only able to survive 1-2 hits isn't that out of the ordinary.

Also, remember, the ship doesn't blow up when it reaches Hull Point threshold, just like PC's don't die when they hit Wound threshold . They fall unconscious, and the ship can be dead in space. They only actually DIE, when they hit the Critical Wound/Damage table result of "Death/Destruction". So be sure to remember that. Having her go dead in space would still allow opportunities for repairing the ship to get it running again, having the party repair her, or any number of other things.

Though I would still probably just add an additional +5-10 Hull as a standard, across the board for all ships. Just to let the space combat last a bit longer.