Hyper-Effective Clone Trooper Build

By P-47 Thunderbolt, in Star Wars: Age of Rebellion RPG

Posted at

Meet " Scrapper ," a clone trooper who is really good at taking out battle droids.

I got the idea into my head that the "...The Harder They Fall" Signature Ability from the Engineer campaign would be perfect for a clone trooper because of the auto-crit against droids. THEN I remembered that the Droid Specialist had Design Flaw which adds 1 Advantage per rank (2 ranks in the tree) to combat checks against droids.

Long story short, I gave myself 1,000 bonus XP and started out as Engineer: Droid Specialist and then bought into Clone Trooper and Clone Veteran.

For credits, I didn't really bother. If you scale up Heroic-Level, he'd get 60,000 credits, and that's plenty for what I gave him.

Here are some sample dice pools and results against droid opponents, without the Signature Ability and then with it (it is perfect for taking on Droidekas, by the way).
[a] is Advantage.

Brawl (Superior Vibroknucklers) vs. a group of four B-1/B-2/BX Battle Droids: YYGGBBB[aaa], -1 Crit. 6 base damage, 2 base crit, with Pierce 1. (YYGGBBB[aaa] dam 6, Pierce 1, crit 1)
(3 Boost: Multiple Opponents [1], Combat Veteran 2 [2]. 3 Advantage: Design Flaw 2 [2], Superior [1])
Result: B-1s: Probably two kills (3s1a min). B-2s: Probably only one kill, but you'd still have a ton of Advantage to spend (1s1a for one kills, 7s1a for two). BXs: Maybe two kills (4s1a min).
Use Clanker Killer 3 to get 3 automatic success, and you're looking at 3s3a before you even roll (YYGG vs. PP), making a double kill on the BXs extremely likely.

Melee (modded M8 Combat Knife) vs. a group of four B-1/B-2/BX Battle Droids: YYYGBB[aa], -1 Crit. 5 base damage, 2 base crit, with Pierce 3 (YYGBB[aa] dam 5, Pierce 3, crit 1)
(2 Boost: Multiple Opponents [1], Accurate 1 [1]. 2 Advantage: Design Flaw 2 [2])
Result: B-1s: Almost certainly two kills (2s1a min). B-2s: Probably only one kill, but two is not off the table (1s1a for one kill, 6s1a for two). BXs: Probably two kills (3s1a min).
Use Clanker Killer 3 to get 2 automatic success, and you're looking at 2s2a before you even roll (YYYG vs. PP), making a double kill almost a certainty on the B-1s and BXs.

Now we're getting to the good stuff!

Melee (Superior Ion Pike) vs. a group of four B-1/B-2/BX Battle Droids: YYYGBS[aa], -1Crit. 11 base damage, 3 base crit, with Pierce 4 and Ion. (YYYGBS[aa] dam 11, Pierce 4, crit 2, Ion)
(1 Boost: Multiple Opponents [1]. 1 Setback: Inaccurate 1 [1]. 2 Advantage: Design Flaw 2 [2])
Result: B-1s: Two guaranteed kills on a flat success, no Threat before auto-Advantage gets a crit for 3 (1s2a for 3, 4s2a for 4). B-2s: Almost certainly two kills (1s1a). BXs: Probably three (2s2a for 3). Droideka: Probably two hits to kill (10 past Soak with 3 success).
Use Clanker Killer 3 to get 1 automatic Advantage, and you just need 1 Success and 1 or less Threat to get the triple kill on B-1s, but you'd probably want to put that into Success against the BXs.

Ranged (Heavy) (modded DC-15a Blaster Carbine) vs. a group of four B-1/B-2/BX Battle Droids: YYYG[aa]. (YYYG[aa] dam 12, Pierce 3, crit 1, Auto-Fire, Deadly Accuracy)
Result: B-1s: (no Auto-Fire) Almost guaranteed a quadruple kill. With auto-fire, an additional 3 success to make up for the loss of Deadly Accuracy and another Advantage for a second crit means you could annihilate a Phalanx (1s1a quadruple kill, auto-fire: 4s4a kill two groups of 4 or 1s4a to kill one group of 4 and three of another group) B-2s: (no Auto-fire) Almost guaranteed two kills, probably three. With Auto-Fire, a second hit will probably take out the rest of the group (1s1a for 2, 3s1a for 3, auto-fire: 1s3a for 4, 3s3a for 3 in 2 groups). BXs: Probably four. With auto-fire, you can knock off an additional 3 from a second group (3s1a for 4, auto-fire: 3s3a for 4 in 1 group and 3 from another). Droideka: (no Auto-Fire) With 1 Success, deals 11 damage past Soak. Two hits with 1 success is a kill, and of course you can stack crits with the 1 Advantage, but you'd need 5 Advantage to even put a kill on the table. With Auto-fire, you lose Deadly Accuracy on the second hit, but it doesn't matter much. (2 hits with 3s to kill, auto-fire: 1s4a or 3s2a to kill)

With "...The Harder They Fall:"

Brawl (Superior Vibroknucklers) vs. a group of four B-1/B-2/BX Battle Droids: YYGGBBB[aaa], -1 Crit. 6 base damage, 2 base crit, with Pierce 1. (YYGGBBB[aaa] dam 6, Pierce 1, crit 1)
(3 Boost: Multiple Opponents [1], Combat Veteran 2 [2]. 3 Advantage: Design Flaw 2 [2], Superior [1])
Result: B-1s: Probably two kills (3s min). B-2s: Probably only one kill, but you'd still have a ton of Advantage to spend (1s for one kills, 7s for two). BXs: Maybe two kills (4s min).
Use Clanker Killer 3 to get 3 automatic success, and you're looking at 3s3a before you even roll (YYGG vs. PP), making a double kill on the BXs extremely likely.

Melee (modded M8 Combat Knife) vs. a group of four B-1/B-2/BX Battle Droids: YYYGBB[aa], -1 Crit. 5 base damage, 2 base crit, with Pierce 3 (YYGBB[aa] dam 5, Pierce 3, crit 1)
(2 Boost: Multiple Opponents [1], Accurate 1 [1]. 2 Advantage: Design Flaw 2 [2])
Result: B-1s: Almost certainly two kills (2s min). B-2s: Probably only one kill, but two is not off the table (1s for one kill, 6s for two). BXs: Probably two kills (3s min).
Use Clanker Killer 3 to get 2 automatic success, and you're looking at 2s2a before you even roll (YYYG vs. PP), making a double kill almost a certainty on the B-1s and BXs.

Now we're getting to the good stuff!

Melee (Superior Ion Pike) vs. a group of four B-1/B-2/BX Battle Droids: YYYGBS[aa], -1Crit. 11 base damage, 3 base crit, with Pierce 4 and Ion. (YYYGBS[aa] dam 11, Pierce 4, crit 2, Ion)
(1 Boost: Multiple Opponents [1]. 1 Setback: Inaccurate 1 [1]. 2 Advantage: Design Flaw 2 [2])
Result: B-1s: Three guaranteed kills on a flat success (1s for 3, 4s for 4). B-2s: Two guaranteed kills on a flat success (1s for 2, 7s for 3). BXs: Probably three (2s for 3). Droideka: Probably two hits to kill (10 past Soak with 3 success). You automatically trigger a crit (+20 for Lethal Blows), but you can add on to that with additional Advantage.
Use Clanker Killer 3 to get 1 automatic Success.

Ranged (Heavy) (modded DC-15a Blaster Carbine) vs. a group of four B-1/B-2/BX Battle Droids: YYYG[aa]. (YYYG[aa] dam 12, Pierce 3, crit 1, Auto-Fire, Deadly Accuracy)
Result: B-1s: (no Auto-Fire) Guaranteed a quadruple kill on a flat success. With auto-fire, an additional 3 success to make up for the loss of Deadly Accuracy a second auto crit means you could annihilate a Phalanx (1s quadruple kill, auto-fire: 4s2a kill two groups of 4 or 1s2a to kill one group of 4 and three of another group) B-2s: (no Auto-fire) Guaranteed two kills on a flat success, probably three. With Auto-Fire, a second hit will probably take out the rest of the group (1s for 2, 3s for 3, auto-fire: 1s2a for 4, 3s2a for 3 in 2 groups). BXs: Probably four. With auto-fire, you can knock off an additional 3 from a second group (3s for 4, auto-fire: 3s2a for 4 in 1 group and 3 from another). Droideka: (no Auto-Fire) With 1 Success, deals 11 damage past Soak. Two hits with 1 success is a kill, and of course you can stack crits with the 1 Advantage, but you'd need 4 Advantage to even put a kill on the table. With Auto-fire, you lose Deadly Accuracy on the second hit. (2 hits with 3s to kill, auto-fire: 1s4a or 3s2a to kill). Oh, and you also ignore the Droideka's 2 Defense.

This is aside from all the benefits gained against even tougher (or more mediocre) droid Rivals/Nemeses. If you take the IG-100 for example, 1s6a gives you a >50% (Lethal Blows 2) chance of an outright kill in one hit with any weapon that beats soak and has a crit of 1. You also ignore their Defense, which is nice.