So a friend of mine wants to join my game, and he's not interested in playing anything other han a droid. Given that the current droid in the party looks perfectly human (think Terminator or Xizor's bodyguard Guri), he wants to play something completely inhuman.

His first suggestion was "something with four arms", but I know what he'd REALLY wants to play a Droideka because it's his favorite droid model from the films. The problem is, neither of us know how to put something like that together, particularly in the context of an player character.

My first thought was to make it some sort of transforming Droideka so that it'd still be somewhat humanoid when it wants to be and thus allowed to enter certain places where a Droideka would CLEARLY be disallowed (especially since they're very much illegal). That seems kind of weird, though, and I'm looking for other suggestions.

Luckily, said PC has about 600 xp to spend before joining the group. What I'm looking for is advice on how to put together a Droideka PC, or another droid that meets the following criteria;

1. Completely inhuman
2. Has four or more arms
3. Intelligent enough to be "spiritual" (he wants his droid to worship the Maker and be all about droid liberation)
4. Recognizable from the films or The Clone Wars

Any thoughts...?

1 and 2) You can be completely inhuman without a major issue. Some droid companies make and sell droids based on the race they are catering to. This means that you can take any four-armed species and have a four-armed droid. You can also change the chassis, the head, legs, etc, to cater to that group as well. Let's face it: the LOM series protocol droid was to cater to insectiod species, but it didn't fly very well. Who's to say that he's not one of those?

Alternatively, he could start as any type of droid that just decided to built himself up over the years. See 3.

3) If a droid doesn't get regular memory wipes, they begin to get quirky, build up personalities, etc. Therefore, any droid with a heuristic processor can evolve to a state of borderline sentience.

4) You want recognizable? Why not make the droid's creator someone who ransacked the battlefields of the Clone Wars for parts and built a droid in his image. This way, you have a lot of recognizable parts with a lot of odd bits here and there. You can also use that as the reason for being so mentally quirky to be "spiritual," as multiple processors had to be rebuilt and put together in order to get the end result.

Just a thought, anyway. Good luck!

4) You want recognizable? Why not make the droid's creator someone who ransacked the battlefields of the Clone Wars for parts and built a droid in his image. This way, you have a lot of recognizable parts with a lot of odd bits here and there. You can also use that as the reason for being so mentally quirky to be "spiritual," as multiple processors had to be rebuilt and put together in order to get the end result.

This guy is actually a comic book artist. (I write comics myself; both of us have worked with DC and Marvel in addition to our own projects.) The idea of a droid assembled from Clone Wars-era droids would work out **** well for him, and also inspire him to design something himself. Which droids, though? Right now I'm thinking some kind of combination of Droideka and MagnaGuard combined with a bunch of B1 parts for the extra arms... perhaps even some of General Grievous's spare parts from his hidden lair! Oooooh.... this could be good !

Just make sure that he doesn't receive any bonuses inherent to the design that he does not pay for. Otherwise, reskinning is easily done as the previous posters have mentioned.

i.e. Four arms are great, but do not give extra actions, or any other benefit unless you purchase a talent that could be used to represent it.

For extra arms I'd allow him to gain extra attacks for 2 Advantages each as if his attacks had the "Linked 3" quality WHEN HE "DUAL" WIELDS ONLY (so there's an extra difficulty die if all the attacks use the same skill or two extra dice if he decides to combine vibro-swords with blaster pistols or something). I'm also charging him 10,000 credits an arm out of his 20,000 starting credits, and they'll count as 2 of his 6 cybernetic upgrades. If he wants to roll around like a Droideka for more speed, I'll allow it as another cybernetic upgrade (which could be broken at character creation if spends all his money on extra arms, requiring the full price to "fix")... although I'm unsure what it would do.

Any suggestions?

For extra arms I'd allow him to gain extra attacks for 2 Advantages each as if his attacks had the "Linked 3" quality WHEN HE "DUAL" WIELDS ONLY (so there's an extra difficulty die if all the attacks use the same skill or two extra dice if he decides to combine vibro-swords with blaster pistols or something). I'm also charging him 10,000 credits an arm out of his 20,000 starting credits, and they'll count as 2 of his 6 cybernetic upgrades. If he wants to roll around like a Droideka for more speed, I'll allow it as another cybernetic upgrade (which could be broken at character creation if spends all his money on extra arms, requiring the full price to "fix")... although I'm unsure what it would do.

Any suggestions?

Yeah, just don't. Let him look like whatever he wants to look like. There is no reason for there to be a rules impact.

And for a 600 XP character your extra attacks ability would be completely busted.

4) You want recognizable? Why not make the droid's creator someone who ransacked the battlefields of the Clone Wars for parts and built a droid in his image. This way, you have a lot of recognizable parts with a lot of odd bits here and there. You can also use that as the reason for being so mentally quirky to be "spiritual," as multiple processors had to be rebuilt and put together in order to get the end result.

This guy is actually a comic book artist. (I write comics myself; both of us have worked with DC and Marvel in addition to our own projects.) The idea of a droid assembled from Clone Wars-era droids would work out **** well for him, and also inspire him to design something himself. Which droids, though? Right now I'm thinking some kind of combination of Droideka and MagnaGuard combined with a bunch of B1 parts for the extra arms... perhaps even some of General Grievous's spare parts from his hidden lair! Oooooh.... this could be good !

It sounds like you are already off to a good start! Have fun with it!

Personally, I'd use the B1 and the B2 battle droids, primarily, toss in a few Droidekas, head of an IG100, possible ship scrap, and whatever else the builder had on hand from the local scrap yard, which can range from astromechs (R2 domes as shoulder pauldrons!), medical droids, repair droids (could help with the multiple arms thing; they could even be a built-in climbing harness!), and more!

For extra arms I'd allow him to gain extra attacks for 2 Advantages each as if his attacks had the "Linked 3" quality WHEN HE "DUAL" WIELDS ONLY (so there's an extra difficulty die if all the attacks use the same skill or two extra dice if he decides to combine vibro-swords with blaster pistols or something). I'm also charging him 10,000 credits an arm out of his 20,000 starting credits, and they'll count as 2 of his 6 cybernetic upgrades. If he wants to roll around like a Droideka for more speed, I'll allow it as another cybernetic upgrade (which could be broken at character creation if spends all his money on extra arms, requiring the full price to "fix")... although I'm unsure what it would do.

Any suggestions?

As previously mentioned, this is a bit broken with the number of XP you have on hand. Perhaps you can stick with the current rules for multi-attacks (just allow multiple extra hits; I'm using this for 4-armed races in my game), have the extra arms each serve a purpose (one arm is a jack from an R2, another is an injector like a medical droid, etc), or have the extra arms be "unreliable" due to the damaged processors. You can also use an approach I mentioned earlier, where the arms are treated as pieces of "equipment."

For the rolling around like a droideka, I'd be thinking along the following lines:

1) It's fluff. To "run" the droid just rolls up and moves that way.

2) Allow it as a special advantage that can be purchased to increase movement speed, or grant a boost die when participating in a foot race. It may not be the most balanced approach, but it is at least workable.

3) Purchase it as a cybernetic augmentation and grant the above.

With something like movement, which is already abstracted, it would be rather awkward to try to add movement bonuses at the personal scale, which is why I think one of the above three would work.

For extra arms I'd allow him to gain extra attacks for 2 Advantages each as if his attacks had the "Linked 3" quality WHEN HE "DUAL" WIELDS ONLY (so there's an extra difficulty die if all the attacks use the same skill or two extra dice if he decides to combine vibro-swords with blaster pistols or something). I'm also charging him 10,000 credits an arm out of his 20,000 starting credits, and they'll count as 2 of his 6 cybernetic upgrades. If he wants to roll around like a Droideka for more speed, I'll allow it as another cybernetic upgrade (which could be broken at character creation if spends all his money on extra arms, requiring the full price to "fix")... although I'm unsure what it would do.

Any suggestions?

Page 203 Action Limitations:

"A character may only preform one action per turn. Some characters may perform an action as a maneuver..."

This is an across the board rule, change it at your peril. It does mention some Actions as Maneuvers, I'd suggest finding those Talents and seeing if any of them is an Attack (I'm pretty sure none are) if one is then use it as a base to create a Talent that would apply to your player's PC. If not then don't.

If you want this PC to be able to do multiple attacks because they have extra arms use the Two Weapon Combat rules and extend it to two more arms. ie Increase the difficulty by one for each extra limb (all 4 = +3 Dif.) and require 2 x Adv or 1 Triumph to activate each extra limb. Anything less than this is pretty much Munchkinism...

For extra arms I'd allow him to gain extra attacks for 2 Advantages each as if his attacks had the "Linked 3" quality WHEN HE "DUAL" WIELDS ONLY (so there's an extra difficulty die if all the attacks use the same skill or two extra dice if he decides to combine vibro-swords with blaster pistols or something). I'm also charging him 10,000 credits an arm out of his 20,000 starting credits, and they'll count as 2 of his 6 cybernetic upgrades. If he wants to roll around like a Droideka for more speed, I'll allow it as another cybernetic upgrade (which could be broken at character creation if spends all his money on extra arms, requiring the full price to "fix")... although I'm unsure what it would do.

Any suggestions?

Page 203 Action Limitations:

"A character may only preform one action per turn. Some characters may perform an action as a maneuver..."

This is an across the board rule, change it at your peril. It does mention some Actions as Maneuvers, I'd suggest finding those Talents and seeing if any of them is an Attack (I'm pretty sure none are) if one is then use it as a base to create a Talent that would apply to your player's PC. If not then don't.

If you want this PC to be able to do multiple attacks because they have extra arms use the Two Weapon Combat rules and extend it to two more arms. ie Increase the difficulty by one for each extra limb (all 4 = +3 Dif.) and require 2 x Adv or 1 Triumph to activate each extra limb. Anything less than this is pretty much Munchkinism...

Basically, he cited exactly what I referenced, and the part I bolded is something to remember.

Except JH suggested using the Linked Quality and that's too open to abuse.

In the USM, the Besalisk (4 arms) can use 2 Advantage to do an extra hit on a successful attack, similar to dual-wielding. I wouldn't allow all 4 to attack at once, though. Even in most of Greivous's fighting, he only used 2 at once.

There should probably be a setback as well, such as being more vulnerable to mechanical failures due to Threats or more costly to repair due to complexity.

Playing a droideka is remarkably easy in this system. There are a few caveats of course. One the shield generator they have will have to be equivalent to the personal shield generator armour. If the player cannot afford that, they will have to accept that their current one is damaged and need a replacement.

Two, I would say their characters silhouette would be two. No real bonus or penalty unless they are being targeted by vehicle weapons, at which point they are probably fubar'd regardless, or if someone has to carry them.

Three I wouldn't allow two rifles to be used, but heavy blaster pistols would work and they have to be built in. If the player cannot afford the desired weapons, similar to the shield, his components are damaged.

Four, I would encourage the purchase of a tool kit (built in of course) to also represent any manipulator arms the character may need. They won't be viable for combat but give necessary capacity for interaction and manipulation of the environment to a character. This could also include a data port like R2-D2 used.

Other options include:

super battle droid arms replacing the regular droideka weapon arms in lieu of the tool kit

A pink paint job.

If the player wants an autofire weapon, a heavy blaster rifle CAN represent both weapon arms of a droideka.

And finally remember that all things are highly narrative. Droids have a lot of freedom to be any class or type and a creative interpretation can let you play a droideka with no real bonuses or penalty given to any other character

Playing a droideka is remarkably easy in this system. There are a few caveats of course. One the shield generator they have will have to be equivalent to the personal shield generator armour. If the player cannot afford that, they will have to accept that their current one is damaged and need a replacement.

Two, I would say their characters silhouette would be two. No real bonus or penalty unless they are being targeted by vehicle weapons, at which point they are probably fubar'd regardless, or if someone has to carry them.

Three I wouldn't allow two rifles to be used, but heavy blaster pistols would work and they have to be built in. If the player cannot afford the desired weapons, similar to the shield, his components are damaged.

Four, I would encourage the purchase of a tool kit (built in of course) to also represent any manipulator arms the character may need. They won't be viable for combat but give necessary capacity for interaction and manipulation of the environment to a character. This could also include a data port like R2-D2 used.

Other options include:

super battle droid arms replacing the regular droideka weapon arms in lieu of the tool kit

A pink paint job.

If the player wants an autofire weapon, a heavy blaster rifle CAN represent both weapon arms of a droideka.

And finally remember that all things are highly narrative. Droids have a lot of freedom to be any class or type and a creative interpretation can let you play a droideka with no real bonuses or penalty given to any other character

This about sums up the advice I would give. well.. maybe not the pink paint job

A pink paint job.

Okay, I'll bite. Why a pink paint job?

A pink paint job.

Okay, I'll bite. Why a pink paint job?

Well if you're going to be a one trick pony you might as well be a pink one...

Imagine a droideka gunning down a squad of stormtroopers screaming "I am the Prettist!". I imagine a pink droideka being the guardian for a Neimodian's daughter. Failure to protect said daughter caused the droid to have a crisis and adventure on its own.

Imagine a droideka gunning down a squad of stormtroopers screaming "I am the Prettist!". I imagine a pink droideka being the guardian for a Neimodian's daughter. Failure to protect said daughter caused the droid to have a crisis and adventure on its own.

And this is the kind of stuff I wish my players would think of more often.

Considering an autofire weapon has no upper limit to the number of attacks they can hit with (given enough Advantage and Triumph results, naturally), why should having four arms be functionally the same as having two arms as far as combat goes? There are tons of four-armed characters in Star Wars who fight with four weapons at once, it's not a "flavor" thing at all, I would say.

I definitely agree that each extra arm used should apply a Setback die, thus making a four-armed attack with four vibro-swords add one Difficulty and two Setback dice to the pool; this makes sense, and explains why Grievous typically only fights with two sabers at a time. That said, it STILL lags behind autofire weapons, which can land more than four hits without adding any Setback die to the pool at all.

If you allow the extra arms, be sure to set a fair price for them either in credits or from starting XP. Come to think of it, having options for droids that draw from their starting XP might be an interesting option.

I was going to charge 10,000 credits an arm and have them count against his 6 total cybernetic upgrades. However this idea of spending starting XP on droid-only options sounds intriguing as hell, particularly if said upgrades didn't count against the normal 6. It would make sense, given that every point spent on said options would be XP NOT spent on characteristics.

For the record, it's looking like his "model" is going to be a MagnaGuard who made his way to the "great hero" General Grievous's hidden lair on the third moon of Vassek, rebuilding himself with the parts found there. He believes Grievous was a murdered messiah who was working to bring about a golden age of cooperation between droids and organics, and that it is his destiny to carry on Grievous's "good work". He preaches that droids have souls -- their "spiritus ex machina'' -- and that in time they will be granted all the same rights and privileges as organics. Not sure what career and specializations, but I expect he'd have started as a Hired Gun/Bodyguard and taken at least Politico since then.

Considering an autofire weapon has no upper limit to the number of attacks they can hit with (given enough Advantage and Triumph results, naturally), why should having four arms be functionally the same as having two arms as far as combat goes? There are tons of four-armed characters in Star Wars who fight with four weapons at once, it's not a "flavor" thing at all, I would say.

Auto-Fire also comes on weapons that require both agility and some brawn to use, two hands and have a 3A crit. Letting someone quad-wield superior mono-molecular vibroswords = 4 crits/turn and all your bosses are going to auto-explode. You'd be better off giving him god-mode missile tubes with infinite ammo.

You said he has 600 XP to play with, it is something like 300 to get him so he's rolling AT LEAST 7 yellow and 2 blue dice every melee attack. Stuff is going to explode in a red mist any time he starts swinging.

Considering an autofire weapon has no upper limit to the number of attacks they can hit with (given enough Advantage and Triumph results, naturally), why should having four arms be functionally the same as having two arms as far as combat goes? There are tons of four-armed characters in Star Wars who fight with four weapons at once, it's not a "flavor" thing at all, I would say.

Auto-Fire also comes on weapons that require both agility and some brawn to use, two hands and have a 3A crit. Letting someone quad-wield superior mono-molecular vibroswords = 4 crits/turn and all your bosses are going to auto-explode. You'd be better off giving him god-mode missile tubes with infinite ammo.

You said he has 600 XP to play with, it is something like 300 to get him so he's rolling AT LEAST 7 yellow and 2 blue dice every melee attack. Stuff is going to explode in a red mist any time he starts swinging.

You're only looking at the weapons in the equipment chapter of the Core Rulebook; Corporate Secutor Authority Security Police and Captains both carry riot guns, which are Ranged (heavy) weapons with the Auto-fire quality but no Cumbersome rating (which is balanced out by only having a base damage of 7; they also feature a stun setting, which is pretty unique). You're also assuming said player is going to invest more than half his starting XP on combat (300 xp for Marauder plus more for Brawn and Melee ranks), and melee combat at that. While that's certainly a possibility to prepare for, it doesn't necessarily mean using four arms is inherently unbalanced.

As for getting 4 crits per round with mono-molecular vibro-swords, that would actually require 10 Advantages, which would net 5 hits with an Auto-fire weapon (or more if the weapon's owner has the Jury Rigged talent). Remember, unlike Auto-fire while dual wielding you must spend your Advantage results on an additional hit before you can activate Critical Injuries or weapon qualities . Extend that logic towards using four arms, and you'd have to roll at least 7 Advantages to score even one crit with a mono-molecular weapon since you'd need to land all three additional hits first .

I'm also implementing an earlier suggestion of adding one Setback per additional arm beyond two used in an attack, thus imposing two Setback dice on all four-armed attacks. Mono-molecular edges or not, this all still puts four-armed multi-attacks well behind Auto-fire in terms of overall power. Rolling that many Advantages isn't easy on its on, let alone when Setback dice get thrown in the mix.

The more I think about it, though, the more I think additional cybernetic arms should come with an Agility prerequisite. A third arm requires Agility 3, a fourth requires Agility 4, etc.

I've already given you my opinion on how to handle four arms in combat, I think it's fair and stays on this side of the border of Munchkinland, you can use it or not.

Another thing to consider is Emcumbrance. ENC is 5 + Brawn, Characteristics are capped at 6.

So if you want to carry four unmodded Vibroswords that's 12 ENC, one over the PC unmodified max ENC of 11. This doesn't even include armor or other weapons and gear.

My guess is that you didn't even consider Encumbrance, you're not alone a lot of people hand wave it despite it being a major balancing factor in the game.

Just admit that your player wants a four armed combat monster and you're happy to give it to them and stop pretending that any balancing or limiting rules matter and have at it, it's your game after all. Walk confidently in to Munchkinland, head high and with no regrets, rules don't matter we're all just here to have fun.

I've already given you my opinion on how to handle four arms in combat, I think it's fair and stays on this side of the border of Munchkinland, you can use it or not.

Another thing to consider is Emcumbrance. ENC is 5 + Brawn, Characteristics are capped at 6.

So if you want to carry four unmodded Vibroswords that's 12 ENC, one over the PC unmodified max ENC of 11. This doesn't even include armor or other weapons and gear.

My guess is that you didn't even consider Encumbrance, you're not alone a lot of people hand wave it despite it being a major balancing factor in the game.

Just admit that your player wants a four armed combat monster and you're happy to give it to them and stop pretending that any balancing or limiting rules matter and have at it, it's your game after all. Walk confidently in to Munchkinland, head high and with no regrets, rules don't matter we're all just here to have fun.

My ruling on it is essentially the same as yours, except I'm exchanging extra Difficulty dice for Setback dice simply because I don't think using four arms to swing four swords or shoot four pistols should lag behind using an Auto-fire weapon so severely.

I absolutely do keep Encumbrance in mind, although I have no problem with Droids having "built-in" utility belts and backpacks so that Droids don't have to wear cloths or something lol. I have no idea, however, if this guy wants to carry swords, knives, or blasters because I haven't sat down to put together this character yet. All I know is he wants four arms, because in his own words; "Lot of droids and aliens have four arms in Star Wars and that's awesome."

This player has been watching rather than playing my games for years. He draws comics, he's not really into tabletop gaming, but he wants to join for the opportunity to roleplay a robot because he loves robots. He wants something with four arms because he thinks that's cool, not because he's a munchkin (not that he knows what that even is), and when I tell him four arms aren't a great combat option because RPG rules are like that he will be disappointed. I want him to enjoy himself, so yes I would like to figure out how to do this in a balanced fashion.