I'm wondering how much setting bending would be required to use RotS materials--namely Galactic Republic clones and Sith Empire droids--in the Old Republic era. This would be for a game set to begin in 10 ATC and that only uses TOR material from the Old Republic Encyclopedia (so the beginning of the game, not all of the expansions).

The basic premises are:

• The Great Galactic War (GGW) caused massive casualties on both sides, and both sides spent the Cold War (CW) period in an arms race scrambling to be ready for the next phase of (inevitable) open war.
• The Sith Empire had already used some battle droids during the GGW but spent the CW period (the last 10 years) massively increasing it's force strength through droids. Droids now comprise more than two-thirds of Imperial forces.
• The Republic needed to boost it's numbers and started creation of a clone army during the CW period. In 10 ATC, the first batches are now ready. These clones currently comprise only a small portion of Republic troops, but that number will continue to grow.

Would this change be hard to incorporate into the era? Would it cause any major ripples to other aspects of the era?

I'm hoping to make the Clone Soldier career and its specializations a viable choice for TOR-era inspired gaming, and some of the talents in those trees require the opposing force to be at least partially droid-based.

Offhand only serious concern is balancing with other materials. Specifics being clone fighter pilot with it's barrel roll talent compared to other pilot specs, and how CW era gear is a smidge better than normal gear, depending how you look at it.

56 minutes ago, Ghostofman said:

Offhand only serious concern is balancing with other materials. Specifics being clone fighter pilot with it's barrel roll talent compared to other pilot specs, and how CW era gear is a smidge better than normal gear, depending how you look at it.

The balance isn't really era-specific. I don't think the barrel roll abilites were only developed fir cones Sens then lost when clones stopped being used. It could just be a power creep issue in general with the new book.

Any comments as far as the general flavor effects of adding clones and droids as major fighting forces in the TOR era?

1 hour ago, HappyDaze said:

Any comments as far as the general flavor effects of adding clones and droids as major fighting forces in the TOR era?

I'm not super up on current ToR Lore or... Canon?

But nah, I mean droids, soldiers, armies and clones are all fairly conventional concepts in Star Wars. It's not like Obi-wan ever said "What? Any Army of Clones!??! No one has ever done, or even proposed such a thing!" If anything Obi seems merely surprised at the existence of the army, not it's composition. Just as if he'd shown up to find a weapons factory inexplicably cranking out millions of rifles for a previously unknown government contract.

Story-wise I would ensure that the war already has a clear title by the time I started deploying clones in force. After all, the Clone Wars were the Clone Wars, and not CWII.

Should the Republic use a single human prime clone, or multiple human primes? I can see using one or more war heroes as the prime(s), but I'm not sure if it should be one model of clone or multiple (all with the same Species template since the differences would be minor). I can see advantages and disadvantages to both, both in-universe and for player enjoyment (some players might like clones of different phenotypes or sex).

Personally I'd go with multiple, for player reasons, story reasons, and science/pseudoscience reasons.

And the Bad Batch also indicates the viability of a pool of genetics the clones could be generated from. So perhaps your clones have a "Family Resemblance" but don't have to all look identical. Or there's a set of a few hundred templates. Or there's a block of several dozen templates for each MOS... there's options.

Jango later used as a single-source can be easily hand waved due to the secrecy of the build up. If your TOR clones don't need to be made in secret getting a broader sampling and template set wouldn't be a big deal as you wouldn't care who knew about it. Heck, going in for a DNA donation might be considered a civic duty towards the war effort...

1 hour ago, Ghostofman said:

If your TOR clones don't need to be made in secret getting a broader sampling and template set wouldn't be a big deal as you wouldn't care who knew about it. Heck, going in for a DNA donation might be considered a civic duty towards the war effort...

I was thinking that they would be developed in secret. You don't want to tip your hand to the Sith before your troops are ready (and that takes 9-`10 years with the accelerated growth).

1 minute ago, HappyDaze said:

I was thinking that they would be developed in secret. You don't want to tip your hand to the Sith before your troops are ready (and that takes 9-`10 years with the accelerated growth).

In that case I'd go with either a limited template sampling or a mix-master. So most clones look like they could be siblings, cousins, or step-siblings, and if you get more than a company together in one room you'll start seeing repeats.

Alternatively if this is following an established recent conflict, the templates could come from existing and/or deceased troopers. Might be interesting to see a platoon of your deceased ex-girlfriend show up out of nowhere...

21 minutes ago, Ghostofman said:

In that case I'd go with either a limited template sampling or a mix-master. So most clones look like they could be siblings, cousins, or step-siblings, and if you get more than a company together in one room you'll start seeing repeats.

Alternatively if this is following an established recent conflict, the templates could come from existing and/or deceased troopers. Might be interesting to see a platoon of your deceased ex-girlfriend show up out of nowhere...

You would also likely see more repeats in a MOS. IE you see the same template for a pilot repeated when you look just at pilots. But if you look across several MOSes it is less obvious.

56 minutes ago, Ghostofman said:

Alternatively if this is following an established recent conflict, the templates could come from existing and/or deceased troopers. Might be interesting to see a platoon of your deceased ex-girlfriend show up out of nowhere...

There had been 28 years of the Great Galactic War (GGW) followed by 10 years (so far) of the Galactic Cold War (GCW). The clones were commissioned at the close of the GGW from the best troops from the final days of the GGW. The first batches are just now mature and ready to be revealed (just in time for the war to heat back up...)

You're potentially dealing with differing levels of secrecy too. For the Clone Wars, the creation was pretty much unknown outside of Sifo-Diyas (dead soon after I believe), the Kaminoans themselves, plus the duo of Sith. For your era, you could argue a slightly larger pool, such as high level military personal, a top echelon in the politicians maybe. Obviously you can't go too far with it, but it also builds hooks, (such as why the last Chancellor suffered that freak speeder accident so soon after retirement).

In my opinion, a small pool of genetic templates would be more fun.