Source
r/swrpg•
Halae

Droid optimization for a new player?

So, a friend of mine is starting up an Edge of the Empire game soon. He's a very flexible GM who's willing to run with a lot of different things including stuff from the other star wars RPG lines, and I figured I'd take the chance to play a droid character, since I rarely get an opportunity to play a robotic character in any game.

Trick is, I'm coming to the realization that the Droid species is the advanced option; lots of customization in exchange for a few limitations. Advanced options can be problematic, so before I get lost and screw up character design, I'm asking people who know the game better than I do to help me with this; what is the way to make a droid that isn't suboptimal? I don't want to break the game or anything but I like being fairly powerful.

If it changes anything, the GM is letting me roll with refluffing various cybernetics into droid upgrade parts as appropriate, and every book is available.

Posted Feb 4, 2016, 12:09 AM UTC

110
Kill_WellyGM•

As a droid, you start with 175 starting XP, but all your characteristics start at 1. This means you want to spend pretty much as much as you can bumping those up -- and you might want to take 5 extra through a little hit to Obligation.

Look at the specialization(s) you want, and the skills you want to have, and the characteristics you need to bump up to make them effective. Those are the ones you'll want to boost, a couple up to 3 or possibly even 4, and then any more characteristics for additional skills you might use up to 2 if you have some to spare. You can leave the rest at 1, and your party will have to cover you.

Other than that, it's mostly the same as any other character. You get more free ranks in career skills -- six from your career, three from your specialization -- and that'll boost your skills to make up for your lower characteristics. But the same concepts apply.

4
HalaeOP•

Thanks, that helps a lot.

1
Winnie256GM•

What kind of a droid are you looking to play? Do you have a backstory or career in mind?

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HalaeOP•

Dammit, I knew I was forgetting something.

I've got two concepts at the moment. the first is an astromech droid that's obsessed with getting larger and larger weapons attached to it, and its greatest aspiration is attaching a turbolaser to itself. Or, more accurately, attaching itself to a turbolaser. Fell in with smugglers and pirates because they're the most likely people to accomodate it.

the second concept is a war droid who's been around some five years and got really tired of being ordered around, and so just sort of walked away one day.

I don't really have any plans for Career, though I do know my group has basically everything but tech and repairs covered.

3
kingpin000GM•

the second concept is a war droid who's been around some five years and got really tired of being ordered around, and so just sort of walked away one day.

Most War Droids are too simple programmed to become tired of war like a human. They are build for combat and most of them also wearing restrainings bolts to keep the obedience. Think about the Cylon Centurions from BSG.

A rogue War Droid is really dangerous...but how about this: During a fierce battle, the droid was hit by an ion weapon so hard, that the memory was completely wiped and it was deactivated. Maybe the body was lying on the ground for time until some scavangers (maybe Jawas) found, repaired/reprogrammed and reactivated it. At this point, one of the other PCs (like the social character) bought it as bodyguard.

If you want tech/repair and firepower you should take Bounty Hunter/Gageteer as Career.

4
The_RecreatorConsular•

It's interesting that you cite Cylon Centurions, given that they took a turn from "simple war droid" in Season 4 of the reboot series.

If you really want to do a war droid that turned away from its masters though, you could try one of these hooks:

  • The droid got assigned an escort mission. During the course of its duty, it realized the only way to protect its escort was to turn on its masters.
  • An engineer within the droid's owner's ranks fiddled with its brain, causing it to develop a personality that rejected wanton warfare.
  • It's been in service for so long that it's started to develop a few… quirks. (Just like R2-D2!)
1
Winnie256GM•

In that case i'd probably look at going down the astromech path personally. I'd spec towards being a tech whiz, and heavily emphasizing the side of your personality that is driven to collect bigger and badder weapons.

As far as being powerful is concerned, I find it is typically fairly rewarding to have a character with defined strengths and weakenesses, such as high Int and low Brawn etc. Let the other two players cover the nitty gritty of fighting, and have your character focus on technological skills and acquiring (maybe even hoarding/stockpiling?) guns.

2
FerrumVeritasMystic•

Droids are very hard to optimize. They don't quite have enough xp to outshine a human (Humans get 110xp and start with all 2s, Droids get 175 and all 1s, but to buy all 2s costs 120xp). Spend every possible experience point on characteristics. You have to specialize hard to do well. Take the 5xp obligation hit. 441111 or 522111.

If going the astromech route, go Agility and Intellect at 4 and try to get a cybernetic enhancement boosting your brawn as soon as possible. A Verpine is still ostensibly better than you, but the extra skills help to compensate a little bit.

If going the war droid route, choose melee or range. A 5 in brawn is massive (costs most players 90-120xp) and makes you both tough and hit very hard in melee. Marauder is the way to go here. Put the twos in things you don't want to be bad at (Agility and Intellect affect a lot of skills, but Presence/Willpower both affect initiative). If choosing range, Assassin is probably your best bet. 5 in Agility makes you good at a lot. Put a 2 in Brawn (so you can actually carry things) and the other do with what you like.

Droids rely on doubling up on skills from career and specialization to overcome shortcomings in characteristics, so the extra skills help here. Consider skills that don't use your 5 or 4 characteristics to round yourself out (5 green dice is still very, very likely to succeed at difficulty 3 or lower, and has a good shot at anything up to difficulty 5 although you're likely to have a lot of threats at 4 or 5).

A note on dice: Talents that give a boost are better than ones that remove a setback, generally. Increase>Boost/Setback>Upgrade when it comes to dice.

2
Sidebutt•

You have to specialize hard to do well.

To me this is the point of a droid. Sure droid in Star Wars are often sentinent creatures with a free will of their own, but they are still built with a somewhat specific purpos in mind.

There is no reason for C3-PO to use XP on brawn and agility but would expect him to have a rather high INT and presence. Like wise a murder droid built to help out pirates how no reason to spend XÅ on social skills since that isn't the point of its existence.

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Zakic•

Well one thing i would not do is do bounty hunter assassin that specs solely for a heavy blaster rifle... i have a player in my group that has done just that.. hes running 3 brawn to carry the heavy blaster rifle and has progressed to 5 agility (with 1 in all other stats) and has 4 ranks in heavy ranged.. so hes rolling 1 green and 4 yellow and with his modded rifle and picking up jury rigged in the gadgeteer tree his USUAL roll is YYYYGPPP (medium-long range) and for every advantage he rolls he gets to auto fire meaning he is a damage machine.. last week he rolled that roll and ended up with 1 success mean he dealt 12 damage.. and 7 advantage auto firing 7 times.. quite insane really... but any thing that does not involve agility hes pretty much screwed on.. hes also the ship pilot (this is after about 4 months of weekly playing)

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