So I'm looking at playing a droid tech at the moment and have been reading special modifications. I've come up with an interesting idea that seems way to under-priced so I was hoping someone can tell me why it doesn't work.

1. Craft a bunch of monotask chassises, when you have 6 with enough bonuses, move to step 2 (sell extras for profit.) - each chassis costs the droid tech 300cr and 1 day.
2. Add combat directives to each chassis, ranged light probably
3. Craft a "remote laser" for each of your new death drones

Acting as a minion group, I believe these guys roll YGGGG (more with superior hardware triumphs) on their tiny laser but they also have a second function, you could order them into a "defense mode" where each remote leaves the minion group and bodyguards you, effectively giving +6 defense, though admittedly only for 2 rounds before needing repair. Does this work?

And from a roleplaying perspective, how expendable will these little fellas be? Would our droid tech be OK with them blowing up left and right? and what does it look like to have a swarm of 6 remotes buzzing around you all the time?

1 hour ago, bane2571 said:

So I'm looking at playing a droid tech at the moment and have been reading special modifications. I've come up with an interesting idea that seems way to under-priced so I was hoping someone can tell me why it doesn't work.

1. Craft a bunch of monotask chassises, when you have 6 with enough bonuses, move to step 2 (sell extras for profit.) - each chassis costs the droid tech 300cr and 1 day.
2. Add combat directives to each chassis, ranged light probably
3. Craft a "remote laser" for each of your new death drones

Acting as a minion group, I believe these guys roll YGGGG (more with superior hardware triumphs) on their tiny laser but they also have a second function, you could order them into a "defense mode" where each remote leaves the minion group and bodyguards you, effectively giving +6 defense, though admittedly only for 2 rounds before needing repair. Does this work?

And from a roleplaying perspective, how expendable will these little fellas be? Would our droid tech be OK with them blowing up left and right? and what does it look like to have a swarm of 6 remotes buzzing around you all the time?

Their roll would depend on how much advantage you had available in crafting so that you could boost their characteristics... bc as it stands they are 1-1-1-1-1-1. With combat directives you then get Bodyguard 1 and Rank 1 in whatever Weapon. So assuming you have the advantage you can then potentially roll YGGGG which is boosted by ranks in speaks binary with a B per and the benefits of Improved and Supreme Binary. (We’ll return to Supreme Binary in a second)

Personally, I would rule that you wouldn’t be able to command multiple Droids in a single round, but I’m not well versed in the RAW per minion groups for PC’s.

As for Bodyguard, you can use that as an action, but you will not able able to take other actions and RAW cap Defense at 4 per the errata anyways.

That said, even if you are unable to command them all every round, you are able to command them by taking the Supreme Binary route. My current PC has 7 ranks in Speaks Binary, so I could command 7 Droids to use my ranks to perform an action as a maneuver once per encounter. But the wording states something about Non-minion and tbh I don’t know what the devs were intending by that language.

Btw: I have a Commando Droid and Schematics for an HK... with plans on finding an IG and Droideka.... that talent will mean raining hellfire if/when I can get my investments to pay off....

13 hours ago, bane2571 said:

Acting as a minion group, I believe these guys roll YGGGG (more with superior hardware triumphs) on their tiny laser but they also have a second function, you could order them into a "defense mode" where each remote leaves the minion group and bodyguards you, effectively giving +6 defense, though admittedly only for 2 rounds before needing repair. Does this work?

And from a roleplaying perspective, how expendable will these little fellas be? Would our droid tech be OK with them blowing up left and right? and what does it look like to have a swarm of 6 remotes buzzing around you all the time?

Using Squad rules from the AoR gm kit would probably work better, as they would be more powerful meat shields AND be significantly more capable outside of combat.

I can totally see your tech building a bunch of souped up training remotes from Ep. IV, hovering around you in a sort of cloud. They fly into incoming fire to save you. Just don't give them sentience, or a lot of people will have problems. Maybe even have a backpack deployment system.

Fully Operational did introduce droid brain grenades that are just itching to die for you. Narratively adding that brain to a remote for the squad would be funny.

Schlock Mercenary has taken up the suicidal droid brains:

4 hours ago, Edgookin said:

I can totally see your tech building a bunch of souped up training remotes from Ep. IV, hovering around you in a sort of cloud. They fly into incoming fire to save you. Just don't give them sentience, or a lot of people will have problems. Maybe even have a backpack deployment system.

This is along the line I was thinking of.

21 hours ago, Khazadune said:

As for Bodyguard, you can use that as an action, but you will not able able to take other actions and RAW cap Defense at 4 per the errata anyways.

The droids use it as an action. Additionally it doesn't work as defense, it upgrades the check, I got that wrong initially - so no cap? Your point about commanding the droids is a good one - I had simply assumed they act independently and I basically say "droid sawrm, shoot that guy" or "droid swarm protect me" and they get the idea. Are there hard rules somewhere on using PC controlled droid companions. I just reread the bit about remotes in special modifications and it says commanding a remote requires a maneuver, does that extend to a minion group?

On 2018-04-19 at 11:48 PM, bane2571 said:

This is along the line I was thinking of.

The droids use it as an action. Additionally it doesn't work as defense, it upgrades the check, I got that wrong initially - so no cap? Your point about commanding the droids is a good one - I had simply assumed they act independently and I basically say "droid sawrm, shoot that guy" or "droid swarm protect me" and they get the idea. Are there hard rules somewhere on using PC controlled droid companions. I just reread the bit about remotes in special modifications and it says commanding a remote requires a maneuver, does that extend to a minion group?

The thing is, the Droids don’t act independently of you, you have to direct them. The CRB states that giving orders to Allies is an action, and that you can take one action, so therefore you could order a single droid to do a single task, and each round you would be required to renew this.

The exception may be in regards to Bodyguard actions, where you could make an argument that you “commit” the droid to doing so, and do not need to renew this each round, but in my own games this does not extend to separate actions like that of attacks.

You could make the argument that they are minions but minions cannot learn ranks in skills, so they would be restricted by that, and I couldn’t find any reference to treating them as minions. (Although im not an expert in anyway on this, and I welcome someone with more information)

With the above understandings in place I believe Supreme Speaks Binary is the ability for you! You can command a number of Droids equal to Ranks, they use your skill for the roll AND you get bonuses per ranks to add to the roll. Imagine you create these Droids and carry them with you for that special moment, when your Droids can turn the battle.

Your attack pool does not follow the rules for upgrading. Assuming an agility of 1 and the appropriate group skill, the combat checks of a minion group are as follows:

1 droid: G

2 droids: Y

3 droids: YG

4 droids: YY

5 droids: YYG

6 droids: YYY

As a GM, I would only allow one instance of the Bodyguard upgrade. I think any more would be overpowered. Understanding that there is nothing in the Bodyguard talent description that I can find that would prevent multiple body guarding droids, it’s just my opinion and how I would rule.

23 hours ago, Edgookin said:

I can totally see your tech building a bunch of souped up training remotes from Ep. IV, hovering around you in a sort of cloud. They fly into incoming fire to save you.

18 hours ago, bane2571 said:

This is along the line I was thinking of.

Are there hard rules somewhere on using PC controlled droid companions.

AoR GM kit, Squads and Squadrons. You have the remotes form a minion group and squad up with you. Take a hit, be it from a damage 5 hold out blaster, or damage 70 turbolaser, and you can sacrifice one remote and the hit is resolved. Yes the whole hit. Of course "bodyguard" won't work anymore, but who cares when you can just plain negate a hit.

Not only that but you can give commands to the remotes to take various formations and give you various bonuses on related checks.

Roll a triumph on anything you do while leading the Squad and they can make an attack with their minion group pool.

I'm telling you man, that's what you want. Addresses your desired outcome in an easy to manage package that won't fry your brain or tick off your gm.

15 hours ago, OriginalDomingo said:

Your attack pool does not follow the rules for upgrading. Assuming an agility of 1 and the appropriate group skill, the combat checks of a minion group are as follows:

1 droid: G

2 droids: Y

3 droids: YG

4 droids: YY

5 droids: YYG

6 droids: YYY

Is this an alternative rule from one of the newer books? It is clearly different from what is written in the core rulebook.

The skill increases with each minion after the first, but the attribute (agility of 1 in your example) stays the same.

So there should always be only one Y, whereas the number of Gs increases.

5 hours ago, Rogues Rule said:

Is this an alternative rule from one of the newer books? It is clearly different from what is written in the core rulebook.

The skill increases with each minion after the first, but the attribute (agility of 1 in your example) stays the same.

So there should always be only one Y, whereas the number of Gs increases.

Never mind. You are correct.

Wasn't there a rule with animal companions they could attack by spending 2 adv from your roll?

22 hours ago, OriginalDomingo said:

As a GM, I would only allow one instance of the Bodyguard upgrade. I think any more would be overpowered. Understanding that there is nothing in the Bodyguard talent description that I can find that would prevent multiple body guarding droids, it’s just my opinion and how I would rule.

Oh I agree, I was just saying that as a player he could an argument could be made that it was a continuous multi round activity and therefore if he used his action during a turn he could set a Bodyguard in place for each subsequent round until it was destroyed.

As a GM I would rule as you have and say that the effect can only mechanically work once for balance and narrative reasons. I wouldn’t prevent him from using one after the first is destroyed though, he would be using his actions and costing himself credits so it’s balanced in that sense.

On 4/21/2018 at 1:56 AM, OriginalDomingo said:

As a GM, I would only allow one instance of the Bodyguard upgrade. I think any more would be overpowered. Understanding that there is nothing in the Bodyguard talent description that I can find that would prevent multiple body guarding droids, it’s just my opinion and how I would rule.

I should point out that I completely agree with this - I've basically settled on not using custom built droids in combat - the potential for exploitation of being able to make such cheap cannon fodder is something I don't feel comfortable with. I am mostly curious about the rules - in a perfect system the rules would mitigate the power of semi-sentient companions in some way.

On 4/22/2018 at 12:40 AM, Khazadune said:

As a GM I would rule as you have and say that the effect can only mechanically work once for balance and narrative reasons. I wouldn’t prevent him from using one after the first is destroyed though, he would be using his actions and costing himself credits so it’s balanced in that sense.

I think that is necessary for balance reasons and I can tell you that the credit cost does accrue viciously if you're using 5 - 5 wounds per round is basically a repair patch a round, more if the droids actually get shot at themselves - then you're looking at full replacement. You could potentially be spending thousands each fight.

Trying to wrap my head around this, this is what makes sense to me. Commanding Rival or Nemesis droids requires an action and a check, and assuming the check passes, they do more or less what you want. Where it gets fuzzy is how much commanding is required. I am leaning towards one action is enough as long as the droid is performing the same task. Ex. commanding a droid to "kill that guy" should be sufficient until said guy is dead, or a new command needs to be given. Minion droids I am not sure about commanding with an action or a maneuver. RAW a remote can be directed with a maneuver, however what is a remote? Any minion level droid? A droid that specifically says remote in its name? I would assume a monotask droid that is being crafted is a remote, a minion labor droid being crafted, not sure. Anywho I would say any minion group acting would be commanded with one action/maneuver regardless of the size of the group. You could have a large group of shield remotes defending you essentially acting like you used dodge and side step (still using a maneuver but not your strain) but only to rank one. If you had 2 minion groups of shield remotes I would say you could gain the benefit of body guard twice, but would have to use 2 maneuvers to do it. Alternatively, I could see commanding your shield remotes to harry your opponent essentially providing an assistance blue dice (or 2 with improved speaks binary) to your combat checks. This is basically an Aim maneuver (better w/ Imp binary). As for how long this lasts, I am on the fence but am leaning towards anything talent driven (bodyguard) requiring constant "upkeep", but otherwise similar to the above example of "kill that guy".