Hey all,

My first campaign is well underway and the player character crew has finally earned their first 100 Contribution Rank points and they’re now officially part of the Rebel Alliance (they started on the outside trying to get themselves recruited). They’ll be sent to the base’s quartermaster after some briefing to be given some extra gear, and for most PCs I have a pretty good idea what they should get.

However, one player just loves herself some cute companion critters in RPGs, and this being Star Wars I thought it would be fun to give her one of those droid companions we’ve all come to love. You know, like BD-1 from Jedi: Fallen Order , ID10 from Battlefront II , the Seventh Sister’s ID9 Parrot Droids from Rebels , and the R5, Pit Droid, & Cam Droid companions from Imperial Assault . You get the drift.

Rather than an actual NPC, I sort of want something that works as an extension of the PC during games. What’s more, the PC is a pilot but I don't want the droid companion to be specifically pilot-oriented as she’s already very specialized towards pilot stuff; I’d rather have the droid add a useful dimension to the character when she’s out and about on missions, or whatever. How would you folks go about pulling this off game mechanically?

Of course, the droid will have a built-in tool kit and flashlight and whatever, but I was thinking it would be fun if it basically just grants an ability to the owner… like: “ Droid Helper : You may send your companion on short missions to do simple tasks for you. Spend a maneuver to extend the range of any non-combat, Engaged Range actions to Short Range ". Something like that.

How would you gentlebeings do this? Thougts?

Follow-up, if you would; how would one pull off BD-1, DI10, Parrot etc. specifically? (I haven't actually played J:FO or BII yet and don't know these droids to well)

Thanks in advance 🙂

If you don't want to have the droid as a fully-fledged NPC (I would suggest running it as an NPC), then allow the character to spend a maneuver each round to direct her companion, giving it 2 Maneuvers/Maneuver and Action. "Attack that" "slice this" "investigate that," allowing Speaks Binary to add appropriate Boost to the checks.

If you are looking for specific stats for the creature, I would suggest looking at existing droid models and remotes and looking at the crafting rules in Special Modifications. Not that you should craft it or require the PCs to craft it, just that it should give you plenty to work with, between basic chassis and programs to tables for spending Advantage, Triumph, Threat, and Despair.

1 hour ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

If you don't want to have the droid as a fully-fledged NPC (I would suggest running it as an NPC), then allow the character to spend a maneuver each round to direct her companion, giving it 2 Maneuvers/Maneuver and Action. "Attack that" "slice this" "investigate that," allowing Speaks Binary to add appropriate Boost to the checks.

If you are looking for specific stats for the creature, I would suggest looking at existing droid models and remotes and looking at the crafting rules in Special Modifications. Not that you should craft it or require the PCs to craft it, just that it should give you plenty to work with, between basic chassis and programs to tables for spending Advantage, Triumph, Threat, and Despair.

Thank you, @P-47 Thunderbolt! 😄
I already have loads of NPCs to juggle, so it would be advantageous if this one was just a PC add-on of sorts. But we'll see. I like your short-hand way of doing it. Perhaps an alternative could be something like...
Direct Companion : Spend a maneuver to activate the droid*. It can move anywhere within Short Range as an incidental. It also gets one maneuver and one action.
*I like that it activates in the PC's own turn.

Good point about crafting to modify existing droids. I'll definitelly look into that! At the time of writing, I'm leaning towards a Prowler 1000 Seeker Droid, going off the ID9 stats for inspiration. I'm not very familiar with the Prowler 100; what should such a droid have stats & gear-wise?

39 minutes ago, angelman2 said:

Good point about crafting to modify existing droids. I'll definitelly look into that! At the time of writing, I'm leaning towards a Prowler 1000 Seeker Droid, going off the ID9 stats for inspiration. I'm not very familiar with the Prowler 100; what should such a droid have stats & gear-wise?

To clarify, I wasn't suggesting use crafting to modify existing droids, but using crafting as inspiration for making your own, or looking at existing droid stats and then modifying them to fit.

For the Prowler 1000, it isn't really armed, so here's my suggestion:

Rival: 122211, Soak 3, WT 5, Melee/Ranged Defense 0/0
Skills: Computers 1, Perception 2, Stealth 2
Talents: Stalker 1
Abilities: Droid, Hoverer, Silhouette 0
Equipment: General Purpose Scanner, Glow Rod, Comlink, (modification) Light Blaster Pistol. (4 encumbrance total)

Here's how I handle droids and encumbrance:
A droid can carry up to its encumbrance threshold in equipment as integrated equipment that doesn't count against its encumbrance threshold (in this case, 6 encumbrance). A Mechanics check can be made with a difficulty equal to total encumbrance-threshold to include equipment of encumbrance greater than its threshold (8 total encumbrance-6 encumbrance threshold=Average difficulty).
It can then carry equipment up to its encumbrance threshold in its graspers or whatever.

2 hours ago, angelman2 said:

Thank you, @P-47 Thunderbolt! 😄
I already have loads of NPCs to juggle, so it would be advantageous if this one was just a PC add-on of sorts. But we'll see. I like your short-hand way of doing it. Perhaps an alternative could be something like...
Direct Companion : Spend a maneuver to activate the droid*. It can move anywhere within Short Range as an incidental. It also gets one maneuver and one action.
*I like that it activates in the PC's own turn.

You could also make a few tweaks to the animal companion rules from Savage Spirits and use those.

24 minutes ago, micheldebruyn said:

You could also make a few tweaks to the animal companion rules from Savage Spirits and use those.

That's actually a really good point! Cool 🙂

I like any of the ideas above. I would also say that if you’d rather not bookkeep another npc, don’t. This should be the player’s job to manage. You could give her a rival with little to no combat effectiveness that could still provide some interesting utility. Even if it’s just there to give the assist boost die occasionally.