Hello!

In our game session yesterday (Chronicles of the Gatekeeper) the characters encounterd two DROIDEKA (DESTROYER DROID) and survived

After defeating them, our mechanic made an very succsessful mechanics roll and removed the fully functional:

Shield Projector (maneuver to activate or deactivate; while active, gains defense 2 and upgrades the difficulty of all combat attacks targeting the droideka once, but droideka cannot use the Move maneuver)

Now he plans to Build a personal Shield Generator out of the Shield Projector.

Any Ideas about the possibility of the idea?

45 minutes ago, SanHolo said:

Hello!

In our game session yesterday (Chronicles of the Gatekeeper) the characters encounterd two DROIDEKA (DESTROYER DROID) and survived

After defeating them, our mechanic made an very succsessful mechanics roll and removed the fully functional:

Shield Projector (maneuver to activate or deactivate; while active, gains defense 2 and upgrades the difficulty of all combat attacks targeting the droideka once, but droideka cannot use the Move maneuver)

Now he plans to Build a personal Shield Generator out of the Shield Projector.

Any Ideas about the possibility of the idea?

I told my resident Macgyver, that they were made for droids and would fry him because of the radiation. So he installed them on some droid remotes. Also the droids can't move very much when it's deployed.

To add to what @Eoen said, the Droidika shields were extremely power intensive, requiring a very large and heavy battery just for the shield.

53 minutes ago, Tramp Graphics said:

To add to what @Eoen said, the Droidika shields were extremely power intensive, requiring a very large and heavy battery just for the shield.

Yeah the wikipedia legends entry says it's a starship class reactor.

Personal shield generators are supposed to be some rare tech only the wealthy usually sport. If players want one it should be hard for them to get they need to work contacts, pay black market prices, apply for licenses, etc.

Many thanks!

3 hours ago, Tramp Graphics said:

To add to what @Eoen said, the Droidika shields were extremely power intensive, requiring a very large and heavy battery just for the shield.

So basically carrying a pack like Baze carries only with power cells rather than ammunition. I could see some players thinking. "I'm OK with that. Totally worth it" and the GM thinking "Don't ever roll a despair in combat [evil grin]"

Droideka backpack with spider legs, like Spidey in Infinity War! And a droid spider face, too!

High power drain? Then how about this for a personalized generator based on it...

Jury-Rigged Personal Shield Generator

Defense 2, Innate Talent: Dodge. The GM may spend 2 Threat or 1 Despair on any check done while the shield is active to make it run out of power, disabling it for the rest of the scene or until recharged with a new power pack (same cost as extra reload).

2 hours ago, Silim said:

High power drain? Then how about this for a personalized generator based on it...

Jury-Rigged Personal Shield Generator

Defense 2, Innate Talent: Dodge. The GM may spend 2 Threat or 1 Despair on any check done while the shield is active to make it run out of power, disabling it for the rest of the scene or until recharged with a new power pack (same cost as extra reload).

The problem with the energy requirements for a shield generator, such as the one used by the Droidika is that such a battery is absolutely huge and very, very heavy. I'm not talking a few pounds here. I'm talking hundreds of pounds.

Droidekas are also a whole lot larger than an adult human, so the shield can be shrunk in size if used as a personal shield. You can also add Encumbrance of 4 or 5 to it if that fits your game more, but personally I'd put it at 1 or 2 and leave it at that (and since its not armor, wearing/using it doesn't reduce encumbrance).

2 hours ago, Silim said:

Droidekas are also a whole lot larger than an adult human, so the shield can be shrunk in size if used as a personal shield. You can also add Encumbrance of 4 or 5 to it if that fits your game more, but personally I'd put it at 1 or 2 and leave it at that (and since its not armor, wearing/using it doesn't reduce encumbrance).

It's not the size of the shield generator that's the issue. It's the size of the battery required to power it. The amount of power that the shield generator a Droidika uses requires is very large and heavy . I'm not talking Encumbrance 4 or 5. I'm talking Encumbrance 10 to 20 .

I think this kind of comes down to how much you want to deal with this sort of thing in your game. On the one hand I respect the desire to loot those things because it shows off the best feature of pen and paper RPGs, namely the infinite interface.

On the other hand without a really good shop and a lot of time I don't think this thing would be much more than a kit bashed, one or two use goody with a heavy backpack that is terrible to wear (causes Strain for every scene worn). The game specifically limits personal shields (was this ever in a movie?) and every game I have ever seen them in has them wear down really fast.

I think that the looting and building has to be tempered unless you want the game to be about that, but if personal shields were the way to go they would be widespread in usage. There must be some reasons why every Elite Soldier ever shown does not have one on his belt deflecting bolts away from him.

That's because personal energy shields comes from Dune and Lucas didn't think of them when he wrote Star Wars. ?

3 hours ago, Tramp Graphics said:

It's not the size of the shield generator that's the issue. It's the size of the battery required to power it. The amount of power that the shield generator a Droidika uses req  uires is very large and heavy . I'm not talking Encumbrance 4 or 5. I'm talking Encumbrance  10 to 20 .

5 hours ago, Tramp Graphics said:

The problem with the energy requirements for a shield generator, such as the one used by the Droidika is that such a battery is absolutely huge and very, very heavy. I'm not talking a few pounds here. I'm talking hundreds of pounds.

I'm not seeing it to be honest. I'll concede that it's big and heavy, but looking at destroyers from the movie stills there just isn't room for anything that heavy unless they are super dense materials or something. Even then it's a stretch. I'd go with the 15-25lb range. Which is still quite heavy to carry around.

37 minutes ago, Ahrimon said:

I'm not seeing it to be honest. I'll concede that it's big and heavy, but looking at destroyers from the movie stills there just isn't room for anything that heavy unless they are super dense materials or something. Even then it's a stretch. I'd go with the 15-25lb range. Which is still quite heavy to carry around.

The shield generator is contained in the bowl on the bottom from which the legs project.

9 hours ago, Tramp Graphics said:

It's not the size of the shield generator that's the issue. It's the size of the battery required to power it. The amount of power that the shield generator a Droidika uses requires is very large and heavy . I'm not talking Encumbrance 4 or 5. I'm talking Encumbrance 10 to 20 .

If you shrink the shield generated, you obviously need less energy to power it. Human means smaller than Droideka, means smaller shield, means smaller battery. This really isn't rocket science, but actually simple square-cube law... Shield goes bigger in three dimensions, your energy needs to keep it going grow at a far higher rate.

My two cents:

If the PC is expecting to be able to tank around not taking damage, maybe make it into a kind of single use tool that they'll have to keep paying credits to use, or expending considerable resources.

Perhaps they can rig it into a shield they can deploy with one action to make the next attack made against them more difficult, but after that it shorts out/loses power. So they have this thing on the arm or back or wherever they want it, the enemy moves to attack, they decide to deploy the shield, the enemy attacks, and after the result is determined, the shield shorts out. So they effectively get one use out of it per session (or possible per multiple sessions) so they are forced to use it wisely, but it is also expensive to recharge and repair, so the more they use it, the more likely it is to break beyond what could be reasonably repaired.

Isn't there already some sort of personal energy shield in the core rule book that could be used for this?

20 minutes ago, kaosoe said:

Isn't there already some sort of personal energy shield in the core rule book that could be used for this?

There probably is, but I know it's always fun for PC's to feel like they've come up with their own thing.

@kaosoe Yeah, it’s in the EotE core book. It’s not as strong as this one, for instance it doesn’t upgrade rolls, it just ads defense. It also has a rarity of 8, making it pretty hard to find.

1 hour ago, Eoen said:

@kaosoe Yeah, it’s in the EotE core book. It’s not as strong as this one, for instance it doesn’t upgrade rolls, it just ads defense. It also got a rarity of 8, making it pretty hard to find.

It sounds like it would be a good substitute.

"You strip down the shield generator from the Droideka. Unfortunately, in order to fashion it into something more portable, it's not nearly as powerful. But hey, at least it makes a cool accessory on your belt"

3 hours ago, kaosoe said:

It sounds like it would be a good substitute.

"You strip down the shield generator from the Droideka. Unfortunately, in order to fashion it into something more portable, it's not nearly as powerful. But hey, at least it makes a cool accessory on your belt"

I had one once on my HK Assassin droid, the problem with equipment in this game is once one player has something suddenly everyone wants one. I blame WOW for this attitude. Many of the player in my group had a gear agenda, and they where all ex raiders. It’s almost as if WOW was designed to encourage materialism.

As a GM I find it rather frustrating to deal with a group of players who are constantly trying to upgrade their gear. It’s like your in an arms race.

5 minutes ago, Eoen said:

I had one once on my HK Assassin droid, the problem with equipment in this game is once one player has something suddenly everyone wants one. I blame WOW for this attitude. Many of the player in my group had a gear agenda, and they where all ex raiders. It’s almost as if WOW was designed to encourage materialism.

As a GM I find it rather frustrating to deal with a group of players who are constantly trying to upgrade their gear. It’s like your in an arms race.

Man, the "With that Despair you drop your gun, it clatters off the catwalk and into the ocean below" results must have blown their minds.

And yes, WoW always wanted you trying to upgrade gear. Months of grinding to get magic pants helped ensure you wouldn't cancel your account and put all that time to waste.

1 hour ago, Ghostofman said:

Man, the "With that Despair you drop your gun, it clatters off the catwalk and into the ocean below" results must have blown their minds.

And yes, WoW always wanted you trying to upgrade gear. Months of grinding to get magic pants helped ensure you wouldn't cancel your account and put all that time to waste.

Yeah watching your role playing buddy rage quit, after the despair role was so worth it.

All those months of grinding proved to be an absolute waste of time when the level cap raised, and all your gear needed to be replaced.

But hey they can never take "Hero of the Horde" away from my druid.

On 10/26/2018 at 3:22 PM, kaosoe said:

Isn't there already some sort of personal energy shield in the core rule book that could be used for this?

Gungun?.... dunno which splat it's in if it aint in the CRB