Been talking about running EotE when our current game finishes. One of the players in our group had never seen any of the Star Wars movies so she borrowed all my DVDs. She declared that Maul and Grevious are her favourite characters and would like to play a Kaleesh cyborg, after reading Grevious' back story (I have no idea what his back story is, never cared enough to look).

How using the EotE rules could I let her create the character she wants?

I'm thinking maybe the easiest way would be to create the character as a droid, what are your thoughts ladies and gentlemen?

I would go the droid route too. He is mostly machine by episode 1.

I would say let him heal on medicine OR mechanic, but maybe have some other drawback, like a lower strain threshold or something.

He wouldn't have the intelligence of a droid, so don't give him the droid perks of picking more skills. But he could be stronger and more agile, so start him off at higher brawn and/or agillity.

Notice that all races (except for droids, and maybe humans?) start with 12 characteristics, so you could start there.

Start with a standard block for Kaleesh. 2 in every stat, +1 Agility, -1 Presence.

Kaleesh have are able to see well in the dark. So probably - Setback caused by low light.

Kaleesh also have a warriorsentric Culture. So probably a free skill rank in either Melee or Ranged (heavy).

That creates your base. After that you allow your player to customize Cybernetics keeping in mind the cost, potentially leading to high starting obligation.

On the Cybernetics front you could just say that they have mechanical parts that act as normal parts for now and then they can upgrade the cybernetics as they can afford it.

Droids start with 6 and a ton of XP to craft the droid to it's purpose. They'd have to spend 120 just to get to the human base leaving only 55 left for upgrading. From what I can tell, the Droids are meant for min-maxing, even so, they get taxed for it.

Humans start with 12 points.

The 12 point guide isn't bad, as long as you don't take anything above a 3.

If you want to just go droid and flavor the biological, that's cool. If you want to preserve more of the biological then Strongarm's stats aren't bad. Give um 100xp too. Now give the character every cybernetic upgrade in the book (or at least all they want), with the caveat that they don't actually enhance. They were simply to replace the biological functions, not enhance them. Now, over the course of the adventuring, they can upgrade each component to the in book version. This establishes a motivation for the character.

You could use the cybernetics as the base obligation also. Some tech genious doctor saved the character by implanting all these cybernetics, but expected your character to pay it off, or be an indentured servent, or be more of an obediant slave to compensate him for his work and parts....now you've ran out on this debt. He wants revenge and his materials back.

Think she wants an almost total cyborg, there is no way a starting character can afford even a fraction of cost, hence the droid idea.

I have six players, so nobody is going to be able to take much extra obligation.

Droids start with 6 and a ton of XP to craft the droid to it's purpose. They'd have to spend 120 just to get to the human base leaving only 55 left for upgrading. From what I can tell, the Droids are meant for min-maxing, even so, they get taxed for it.

It's why I would give a droid player an extra 30xp or so, so they're only 30xp behind humans, since I reckon not needing food, water, or an atmosphere makes up for that.

I would say let him heal on medicine OR mechanic, but maybe have some other drawback, like a lower strain threshold or something.

I like this idea--but I'd have each one only be half as effective as normal. That way, both types of repairs are necessary. This makes me think of how, when Obi-Wan kills General Grievous on Utapau, he has to shoot him in the organic parts to do so.

-Nate

Droids start with 6 and a ton of XP to craft the droid to it's purpose. They'd have to spend 120 just to get to the human base leaving only 55 left for upgrading. From what I can tell, the Droids are meant for min-maxing, even so, they get taxed for it.

It's why I would give a droid player an extra 30xp or so, so they're only 30xp behind humans, since I reckon not needing food, water, or an atmosphere makes up for that.

The droids have other benefits that keep someone from min/maxing too much, and that is why the XP is so low. They get 3 extra skill ranks at character creation (thats 15 - 20 xp worth), and the Enduring trait (1 extra soak). Then there is the no food/drink/sleep benefits and the immunity to poisons. All in all, I see no reason to add XP unless you are also removing some of these benefits. Since there is still a biological entity in place, you could remove the food/drink/sleep benefits and the immunity for maybe 5 xp. You could remove the enduring for another 5-10 maybe.

Just have your player create his Kaleesh as a standard character with the prescribed stat block. For flavors sake start out with "Cybernetics" that have the same stats as what the character would have already. Then later in the option opens up for the character to exchange his current cybernetics for some more powerful ones later.

You might even toss some bonus XP to the player because he would also be picking up some of the disadvantages of being a droid without a lot if the advantages. Namely a new weakness to Ion Weapons and the Ion Rifle.

Droids start with 6 and a ton of XP to craft the droid to it's purpose. They'd have to spend 120 just to get to the human base leaving only 55 left for upgrading. From what I can tell, the Droids are meant for min-maxing, even so, they get taxed for it.

It's why I would give a droid player an extra 30xp or so, so they're only 30xp behind humans, since I reckon not needing food, water, or an atmosphere makes up for that.

The droids have other benefits that keep someone from min/maxing too much, and that is why the XP is so low. They get 3 extra skill ranks at character creation (thats 15 - 20 xp worth), and the Enduring trait (1 extra soak). Then there is the no food/drink/sleep benefits and the immunity to poisons. All in all, I see no reason to add XP unless you are also removing some of these benefits. Since there is still a biological entity in place, you could remove the food/drink/sleep benefits and the immunity for maybe 5 xp. You could remove the enduring for another 5-10 maybe.

We were originally worried that Droids got shafted, but the one in our group is doing just fine. It's important with a Droid to just accept that you WILL have dump stats (usually two or three, possibly four) and they will be less flexible than most races outside of their core role. OTOH, within that role they tend to shine pretty well.

To the OP, I guess the major question is simply which is more important to the player, the Kaleesh aspect or the Cyborg aspect?

If the cyborg is the main thing, then just build the character as a droid, with all the perks and drawbacks that come with being a droid. Heck, many people during the Clone Wars erroneously thought Grievous was literally a droid general, not simply the general of a droid army. The fleshy bits are probably so minute for a full-conversion cyborg as to be nearly irrelevant from a game mechanics angle. Simply buy up the Characteristics that are important to the character concept, and figure anything that's left as a 1 are things that have atrophied in the wake of the character becoming a cyborg. After all, how many cyborgs remain warm and fuzzy people after becoming more machine now than man?

Also, consider the example of Robocop, another example of a full-conversion cyborg. He pretty much survived on baby food, and had few organic parts left to him after OCP got done with the conversion procedure. Up until he got his memories back, he was pretty cold and aloof (Presence 1) yet physically imposing (Brawn 3, Agility 3), but not exceptionally smart or witty (Cunning 2, Intellect 2), with his strength of will being pretty good (Willpower 2, maybe 3). Granted, he wouldn't be a starting EotE character simply due to the cost of his gear and XP needed for his Characteristic scores alone.

I've got some ideas for true cyborg characters as starting PCs, using the droid rules as a foundation with some tweaks, but nothing fully formed as of yet.

I agree with Dono. If you want him to be like Grievous (or the NK Necrosis droids, which were being constructed in secret around this time - hint hint) I would just have him work as a droid. But, if you want him to be more biological, well, I'd just have him start with "cybernetics" that probably wouldn't actually do much past thematicness, and as you get more credits, you can have him buy the actual cybernetic upgrades and such.

If you need a decent Kaleesh entry, I made one up along with several other races here: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/jdp5u8uoqgk58kb/aZYDhU9zvw

Thank you for your thoughts and ideas folks.