Has anyone had someone play as an R2 Unit astromech? I have a player wanting to do it but I'm not sure if or how it would work

A player in a group I was in played an astromech. He just used the droid species to build his character, and worked with the GM to figure out what sort of equipment he would have. Worked fine.

The same here, like @Nytwyng I had a player that wanted to play a droid (protocol, not astromech, but who's counting that difference here?) and it worked fine. He even had a joint background story with one of the other player characters. It defined their Master-Property status, even though they seemed both very agreeable to play this as long standing friendship, rather than Master-Property. He used the Droid species, and built it to as much of the example NPC protocol droid as he could, with the extra stuff from not being a minion character but a full player character.

No, but it looks like an intriguing idea to run an Astromech PC. Not that I'll have the chance as I'm the GM.

I have put together two astromech NPC's using the PC rules and it looks feasible.

I've had a few of astromechs (a couple R2-series and an R5-agromech) as PCs in some of the campaigns I've been in.

In each instance, the player used the droid species as written, choosing career/spec combos that best suited what being an astromech would entail. All but one of them were Technicians, with Mechanic being seen as something of the "go-to" for a proper astromech, though the R5 chose Modder to account for him being dedicated to the party's ship.

As for gear, in all cases the standard rules for purchasing equipment were followed, though for the droids the bulk of their gear (which always included a tool kit) was designated as "integrated." Most of them wound up taking a hold-out blaster with stun-only capability to reflect an electroshock prod (such as what Chopper of Rebels so enjoys using) to give them a ranged combat option.

Remember droids are ubiquitous, they are everywhere and I have found that canny players can derail a plot quicker with a droid than with a meatbag PC..

Respray a protocol droid from gold to blue for a few days and you have a spy.... respray him again 'Y et ANOTHER protocol droid? What happened to blue? Oh, that one malfunctioned this is a new one (even with a setback dice 😄 )..

'What's this R2 unit doing? Oh. that's the new maintenance droid etc etc...

'Just ignore that gonk droid, it's off to repower the generators'

' Are those B1 battle droids ?' Yup. we reprogrammed them, they're harmless now. Honest, took out their combat subroutines.. (which we could transmit to them at the flick of a switch) ..

I'm (hopefully) going to be playing a Bounty Hunter-Gadgeteer R5 astromech in my next campaign. Gear-wise, he's basically going to be Boba Fett, and I see no reason why all of that gear can't be integrated into an astromech. Hopefully the GM agrees. 😁

1 hour ago, arnoldrew said:

I'm (hopefully) going to be playing a Bounty Hunter-Gadgeteer R5 astromech in my next campaign. Gear-wise, he's basically going to be Boba Fett, and I see no reason why all of that gear can't be integrated into an astromech. Hopefully the GM agrees. 😁

The rules I run with for integrating gear is that the droid can carry up to its encumbrance capacity (5+Brawn, no equipment) as integrated gear, and can then try Mechanics checks to integrate more gear (1 over=Easy, 2 over, Average, etc.). If the check is failed, they can't increase the amount of integrated gear any further, though they can still get cybernetics.

3 hours ago, arnoldrew said:

I'm (hopefully) going to be playing a Bounty Hunter-Gadgeteer R5 astromech in my next campaign. Gear-wise, he's basically going to be Boba Fett, and I see no reason why all of that gear can't be integrated into an astromech. Hopefully the GM agrees. 😁

Well, if it helps persuade your GM, there's the in-canon example of BT-1 from the Darth Vader and Doctor Aphra comic books series:

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/BT-1

Appearance-wise, he's an R5 droid, and packs more raw firepower than most heavy assault squads, all of which "packs in" to such a degree that you'd almost think he was a G1 Transformer. Of course, BT=1 was created by Marvel Comics, who produced the original Transformers comic books...

Rules-wise there is nothing that prevents you from having a Astromech Droid with the same stuff / equipment another character could have.

Sure you can make the argument that it has to be feasible, but in my Opinion there should also be a way to make it work since its completely inside the Rules as written.

On 6/27/2020 at 8:41 AM, Fl1nt said:

Rules-wise there is nothing that prevents you from having a Astromech Droid with the same stuff / equipment another character could have.

Sure you can make the argument that it has to be feasible, but in my Opinion there should also be a way to make it work since its completely inside the Rules as written.

And... well... R2D2 is a walking swiss knife, so you know.... Why not?

2 hours ago, Rimsen said:

And... well... R2D2 is a walking swiss knife, so you know.... Why not?

Yep.
Further example is a was already stated BT-1.
He has been extensively modified but I think it's quite inside the Rules of a Hired Gun Heavy.

Your Droid might not be able to store / hide every weapon especially large ones but a human heavy won't be able to carry his large gun around anywhere as well.
I don't see why a Astromech Droid couldn't just grab his Gatlingblaster before leaving the ship to stir up trouble, just like another heavy character would.

And if you go further down the road, you might be able to hide / store these guns inside eventually (I don't know how realistic it is to store actual heavy weapons but maybe there are miniaturized version that are harder to come by / more expensive?).

4 hours ago, Fl1nt said:

Yep.
Further example is a was already stated BT-1.
He has been extensively modified but I think it's quite inside the Rules of a Hired Gun Heavy.

Your Droid might not be able to store / hide every weapon especially large ones but a human heavy won't be able to carry his large gun around anywhere as well.
I don't see why a Astromech Droid couldn't just grab his Gatlingblaster before leaving the ship to stir up trouble, just like another heavy character would.

And if you go further down the road, you might be able to hide / store these guns inside eventually (I don't know how realistic it is to store actual heavy weapons but maybe there are miniaturized version that are harder to come by / more expensive?).

I'm thinking of a grenade launcher that works just like whatever R2 used to launch Luke's Lightsaber in RotJ.

2 hours ago, arnoldrew said:

I'm thinking of a grenade launcher that works just like whatever R2 used to launch Luke's Lightsaber in RotJ.

I don't see how storing grenades inside your head can possibly go wrong.

3 minutes ago, micheldebruyn said:

I don't see how storing grenades inside your head can possibly go wrong.

Thrill seeker Obligation +100.

I have played a lot of astromechs. Lots of fun using action to role-play intentions and personality instead of voice (other than beeps and boops). Beware of ladders. (Save up for a jet pack.)

I have weapons and tools be onboard systems inside the astromech. Armor is just attached plating.

On 6/29/2020 at 10:20 AM, micheldebruyn said:

I don't see how storing grenades inside your head can possibly go wrong.

Use stun grenades. No damage to the droid. Great for innocuously rolling up to a group of Imps and using it at point blank range. That is R5-C1 (Rascal)'s favorite tactic.