Droid player help.

By Grimstory, in Star Wars: Edge of the Empire RPG

2 hours ago, Grimstory said:

That has nothing to do with liking your comments but it assumes the worse of the individual instead of asking.

Okay, sorry about that but it did seem from your comments like there was some friction. Anyway...

Quote

Example: I run to a droid in combat and mechanic or computer skill to turn it off.

This is a problem for me as a GM because unless the Droid is unaware of you they will resist. Even a civilian Droid, especially one who is in a combat situation, will do whatever it takes to avoid being shut down by anyone other than their master. Military or Security Droids will absolutely fight you.
So the way I would run it would be the same as I said before with a minor change:

  1. Disable, immobilize, or somehow deceive the target before any Mechanic roll is possible (I would not allow a Computer Skill check because at this point it's purely a mechanical thing.
  2. If not already Engaged then do so.
  3. Now make the Mechanic check to Shut down the Droid. The Difficulty should be very high if it is a Military or Security Droid.

If at this point you also want to re-program the Droid to do something very simple such as shut off it's friend foe recognition (like Agent Kalus did to Thrawn's practice Droids) then I'd do this:

  1. Spend a Maneuver to expose or draw your PC's Slicing Kit
  2. Use an Action(s) to attempt to Access the Droid's systems
  3. Use an Action(s) to attempt to Defeat the Droid's security
  4. Use an Action(s) to attempt to Install/Change or whatever the Droid's programming.
  5. Unhooking your Slicing Kit would be free (Drop object)

As you can see it would be three turns minimum to do it. This may seem onerous but it's basically just following the RAW as shown in Special Mods.

Edited by FuriousGreg
2 hours ago, Grimstory said:

That has nothing to do with liking your comments but it assumes the worse of the individual instead of asking. Example: I run to a droid in combat and mechanic or computer skill to turn it off.

I would NOT allow that in my game, you'd have to subdue/restrain the Droid before you could attempt the mechanics/computer check to turn it off. Some appropriate ways to subdue/restrain a Droid are to ion to above its strain threahold, attach a restraining bolt with a brawl check (be careful with this one because if you get a despair or 3 threat and you failed the attack roll, the restraining bolt would be on you instead), have a large creature sit on it, have another party member grapple/pin it long enough for you to do the mechanics check, do enough damage to put it over it's wound the should without destroying it, remove one or more limbs from the Droid and sit on its back while you take the back of its head off (in this case you would be getting one or more black dice on your mechanics/computer check.

3 hours ago, korjik said:

You are missing my point on why I say you need to talk to your GM. He is giving off all the classic symptoms of a GM who wants to tell a player No, but figures it will cause an arguement.

Ask him specifically if he wants you to stop turning off the NPC droids. As in these exact words: 'Do you want me to stop turning off NPC droids'

If his answer is anything other than an immediate 'No, thats not a problem' then that is the problem.

Like most of the posters here, I would not let you just turn off droids. Even civilian ones. If you could just walk up to a droid and press a button and its off, then theft would be rampant. If you did manage to convince me to allow it, I would make sure that you understood that to mean it can happen to you to. Your arguement as to whether PC droids are protected seems to be a completely metagame arguement, that the lack of an N in front of your PC makes you special inside the game rules. It doesnt.

Han and Leia do it multiple times to 3PO. So to civilian droids makes sense. It does not make sense to military droids as that would pretty much useless for military purposes.

7 hours ago, Daeglan said:

Han and Leia do it multiple times to 3PO. So to civilian droids makes sense. It does not make sense to military droids as that would pretty much useless for military purposes.

Well the one scene I can remember off hand wouldn't be considered combat but more importantly it was comic relief. Also I believe C3P0 was with Leia at the time and so he likely did not see her or Han as a threat. An unknown Droid will not just let anyone shut them down, at the very least they would attempt to flee.

1 hour ago, FuriousGreg said:

Well the one scene I can remember off hand wouldn't be considered combat but more importantly it was comic relief. Also I believe C3P0 was with Leia at the time and so he likely did not see her or Han as a threat. An unknown Droid will not just let anyone shut them down, at the very least they would attempt to flee.

True. But it does show that on a civilian protocol droid it is relatively easy to access.

1 hour ago, Daeglan said:

True. But it does show that on a civilian protocol droid it is relatively easy to access.

Sure, and it's also going to be much easier to overcome a civilian Droid who is trying to resist but that doesn't mean you shouldn't have to roll for it during combat.

Would most non-military/security droids refuse a shutdown command from a sentient?

Would they resort to (defensive) violence to stop a sentient from flipping their off switch?

Most droids are merely complex tools that do whatever they are told while refusing to do anything that endangers sentient beings. There are exceptions, including most PCs (unless your kink is playing a sub in an unremovable techno-gimp mask).

Edited by HappyDaze
Autocorrect sucks.
4 hours ago, FuriousGreg said:

Sure, and it's also going to be much easier to overcome a civilian Droid who is trying to resist but that doesn't mean you shouldn't have to roll for it during combat.

I agree