Buzz Droid

[denderan marajain]

Greetings!

i am looking for answers about the buzz droid
I know the stats but i do not have an idea how it should works in the game

How much damage a buzz droid does to a starfighter?

i hope for your help

[Whill]

[shootingwomprats]

A few observations about buzz-droids.

1. RotS Obi-Wan specifically says they are shutting down his systems, not destroying his systems.
2. Wookieepedia as states they were designed to disable ships not destroy.
3. Darth Sidious gave the ARC-170 plans to the Separatists making the buzz droid increasingly more capable.
4. When used as a space weapon it appears to be flack based, you will see that once the Discord missile explodes, releasing the buzz droids, some do not attach to Obi-Wan's Jedi fighter.

This is incredibly difficult to make a game mechanic for. The scene in question starts as a space battle scene then progresses to a character battle. The question quickly becomes can we design a mechanics to allow for this or should be we approach it from two different points of view: 1. space battle and 2. character.

The number of buzz droids that attach to a given ship can easily be handled by rolling 1D+1 (since the missile carries no more than 7 buzz droids and about half did not land on Obi-Wan's ship ...), that's the number that attach. So we now have a mechanic for the how many land on a ship.

Okay, we now know how many buzz droids attach to the ship. Now all kinds of questions need to be asked. How can the ship defend once its has been"boarded"? From watching the scene and using some common sense it would appear you don't. It is one of the time in space combat where once your hit your stuck and it continues to do damage. For a game this seems pretty powerful. Pretty much consider it a one-hit/one-kill weapon. This doesn't sound very Star Warsish to me.

So lets see what we can come up with that allows a ship to defend. It cannot really shake them off as they are magnetically attached to the hull and those they have mass I do not believe they can be knocked of using inertia. So fancy maneuvers and starship dodges will not help.

Would shields help? Probably not. We do not have any images or evidence to support that they would help.

The buzz droids attack by mechanically destroying equipment not by electronically shutting it down. Again we only see them destroying components not electronically shutting them down. I suppose once could make the argument they can do either. Since the attacks are physical they cannot be stopped by a tech roll. Perhaps a generous GM would allow a Technical roll to re-route the damaged section.

So far it would appear the buzz droids must be attacked in physical way and this must be from outside the ship. Requiring either an externally mounted weapon (say the weapons system on another ship) or something/someone outside with the means to physically attack the buzz droids (R2 or person in a vacc suit).

This is where things get really hinky. We have a number of examples from the scenes:

1. Shoot off the ship by another ship.
2. Using another ship to ram/scroop the buzz droids off.
3. External attack (R2 zapping the buzz droid).

How do these equate to RAW mechanics?

1. For scale purposes the buzz droids are gets +6D scale modifier for dodging. Size of 25 centimeters adds a +1D modifier to hit the buzz droid. No wonder Anakin shot the crap out of Obi-Wan's Jedi starighter!
2. Again scale difference and size difference are +6D/+1D but this time using piloting skill.

In both cases the starship weapon if it hits gets a +6D modifier to the damage roll.

3. External attack weather its a blaster pistol, built-in weapon droid or whatnot seems to be highly effective on them. There has been some talk that the eye of the buzz droid is a weak spot. I don't really buy this.

So how do we use all this information for buzz droids in our games? I think RAW already does a decent job of handling them once its broken down. I think I would change some things about the buzz droids though.

[CRMcNeill]

Alternately, if you are looking for a simple mechanic, a successful hit with a Discord missile starts at a base damage of 1D + (# of buzz droids who successfully attached to the ship), converted from pips to dice as normal. Increase damage by +1/round for every droid, converting from pips to dice as normal. Once the ship actually begins to take damage, resolve damage as normal.

Alternately, you can use the degree of success from the missile's To Hit roll to determine the number of buzz droids that touch down, say 1 droid for every 5 points of success (up to a maximum of 7)

What you end up with is something like:

Round 1: Missile succeeds in landing 3 buzz droids on a target starfighter.

Round 2: Buzz droids inflict 2D damage (1D + 1 pip/droid)

Round 3: Buzz droids inflict 3D damage (1D + 1 pip/droid x 2 rounds)

Round 4: Buzz droids inflict 4D damage (1D + 1 pip/droid x 3 rounds)

As damage scales up, the target ship's systems will eventually take Light Damage, causing systems to malfunction, then shut down, and eventually the damage will become severe enough to destroy the ship. The only way to stop it is to destroy the droids, either with precision weapons fire or with armed astromechs who engage and destroy the buzz droids.

The action using this method will go slightly faster than the action seen in the films, but since rounds and scenes are designed to be somewhat flexible time-wise, it should work out okay.
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[shootingwomprats]

l really like some of your suggestions. Not sure what the answer is. All I know is buzz droids are nasty!
_________________
Don Diestler
Host, Shooting Womp Rats
The D6 Podcast
http://d6holocron.com/shootingwomprats
@swd6podcast, Twitter

[CRMcNeill]

[Jedi Skyler]

If the unit in question has the possibility of facing buzz droids, they *might* be able to upgrade their ships' systems to include a multi-role security device. I'm primarily thinking of fighters here...but when the ship is dirtside, or landed in a hangar bay, or whatever, a capacitor holds a charge that, if not deactivated by a burst transmission from a comlink, or even something as simple as a modified droid caller remote, anything that comes in contact with the hull of the ship gets a nasty, high-voltage shock. Discharge of the built-up charge when the ship is in standby mode automatically triggers certain systems to power up and recharge the capacitor as quickly as possible, to prevent possible subsequent entry attempts. In the case of, say, an Aethersprite or other fighter using an astromech, the droid is insulated as long as it's in its socket. When the ship is in flight, the capacitor's charge is maintained as a defense against buzz droids; once they've attached to the hull, the power can be discharged over the hull, thereby frying the buzz droids, releasing their magnetic hold on the ship, and cleaning them off as the fighter scoots on by. The charge, once spent, starts automatically rebuilding. The process, however, can be sped up by diverting power from another area of the ship.


This would allow for an equally dramatic and cinematic response to these nasty droids, as well as those smelly Jawas trying to bust into your ship while you're trying to get a drink at Chalmun's...

[Savar]

[Jedi Skyler]

Hrmmm. True that.

I wonder if a lower-level pulse would be sufficient to zap the buzz droids without wreaking havoc on the ship's systems.

Perhaps, in a ship equipped with an astromech, the electric grid could be laid out in such a fashion that the droid could pinpoint sections to zap, thereby limiting the amount of charge used, and also possibly keeping the ship's systems from being fried.

[CRMcNeill]

Another complication is navigation shields. It would seem to follow that a free-floating object like a buzz droid would be just the sort of thing that navigation shields would deflect away...
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[Jedi Skyler]

You would think so; seems that speaks to some pretty strong maglocks on those buzz droids...

[Savar]