I have a player that recently joined and is playing a Droid Bounty Hunter Gadgeteer. (he started with the CH-1 pregen, and asked about adding and upgrade that shields his motor impulse drives from restraining bolts, which he read about on wookiepedia. It's an interesting idea, which I want to say "Yes, and.." to.

Below is the line from the character history he emailed me.

"Upgrades were made to shield motor impulse drives from restraining bolts, although, the droid will typically pretend to be restrained and use this to its advantage."

Before our last session, he asked if I had approved his character background. So far, I have told him "yes," your character background is great, "and" let's discuss the effect that certain items have on game terms.

For the time being, we are simply using the description of the shielding to explain what is described in the Restraining Bolt entry on p.178, where restraining bolts pretty much work automatically, but Player Character droids get a Discipline check to overcome the bolt.

And now I am looking for ways he can improve on this. The most direct way I told him, is to invest some XP in Discipline. (which can add up, being a non-career skill for him) Even one point will improve his check, since he currently only has his Willpower for that check.

I have not seen any published gear description like this, so the player and I are discussing some home brew improvements he can make. My understanding of gear so far is that it either makes a check possible (having the appropriate gear) or provides Boost Dice bonus.

He might also consider a further upgrade that would count towards his limit on cybernetic enhancements, but this would provide an actual upgrade to a Yellow die. It could be providing an upgrade in his favor to any roll involving an attempt to shut down or override the droid. In other words, this could upgrade (or at least setback) the difficulty of attacks made with a DEMP gun or stun setting, as well as improve his Discipline check to overcome a restraining bolt.

The alternative would be to have it be a simple increase to his Discpline skill, much like the Immune Implant increases Resilience. I'm leaning toward the former, because, narratively, shielding the motor impulse drive on a droid would not necessarily increase Discipline in other situations, like opposing Coercion and Deception. But if he does commit part of his cyber allowance to it, I want it to apply to more than just this one instance.

Another option I'm considering is a Mod that grants innate talent - "Bad Motivator" in a limited fashion. The droid can make the Bad Motivator check against a restraining bolt as its being attached.

Anyway, these are just some of the thoughts the player and I have been considering. We are not quite to the point of discussing costs yet. We'll get to that, soon, I'm sure.

To be honest, I didn't have any current plans that involved capture or restraining bolts to begin with, but if the player invests in this, there are plenty of ways to make use of it. The easiest would be to have important locations enforce strict regulations on droids, requiring a restraining bolt before the droid is even allowed in.

Call me heartless, but my reply would have been "raise your Discipline skill".

But sure, you can houserule some cybernetic parts. Something that adds a boost die or two to fight off the effects of restraining bolts sounds appropriate.

I'm against it whole-heartedly. You want to play a droid, you get to deal with restraining bolts, my two cents.

This smacks of munchkinism and I hate munchkins.

Actually, there are a fair number of droids in the EU who get around having a restraining bolt. Squeaky (from the Wraith Squadron books) was a manumitted droid who apparently didn't have have the corresponding subdermal port that a restraining bolt would attach to, Whistler (Corran Horn's droid) had a special modification that shifted his internal components around, making him immune, ED-9V9 "modified itself" to be immune to restraining bolts, and security droids (Wookieepedia lists the G-2RD series as an example) also had resistance to restraining bolts. So there's a fair amount of support for the concept.

Ultimately, I'd say go with something that you feel comfortable explaining within the bounds of your game, because you know that once a PC has resistance to a restraining bolt, every droid in the galaxy your PC's come across will be assumed to have the same. I would say that in order to resist the commands given by a restraining bolt, he could raise his Discipline, as he is constantly reprogramming himself in order to minimize outside influence on his core functions. Then, if he wants to become completely immune, he would then have to devote some sort of mechanical modification like the examples above, and that would cost him a cybernetic modification.

Thanks for the replies. I was worried about possible munchkining, which is why I addressed it with the player right away, clarifying what is already in the rules (Daunting Discipline Check) and how he might work to increase it. The used the specific analogy that restraining bolts are the droid equivalent of binders. So, any gear would work similarly to concealable tools that one might use to increase their skulduggery skill.

There are other ways of limiting that happening as well. Droids and restraining bolts have been around for a long time, so it's unlikely that no one has thought of these countermeasures before. Smarter opponents will think to scan for these modifications, or won't be fooled by his performance.

The best defenses against the restraining bolt are:

1) Don't let them put it on you.

2) Have enough Willpower/Discipline to resist it.

3) Have allies that can remove it.

I would say "raise your Discipline" skill, but rather than being just learning a straight skill, it also represents extra shielding and hardening of circuits and redundancies built in to the droids systems. PC droids are a little tougher than your run-of-the-mill NPC droids, and thus get that Discipline check to resist the restraining bolt.
Think of a restraining bolt as being something along the lines of a taser. For most of the population, a jolt from that thing is going to stop you in your tracks. However some individuals can 'power through' the taser and resist some of its effects. They aren't exactly going to be dancing and singing showtunes, but they have a chance of pulling one of the taser barbs free.