Droid PC's: cp & modification

[Ning Leihrec]

If droid PC's use character points to increase skills and attributes as any other character would, what role does equipment modification play in the upgrading of their stats? Are they allowed to modify themselves to the max 1D+2 on top of cp advancements? Are only certain stats modifiable?

[cheshire]

I played a PC droid once. The GM and I worked it out as to how to keep an even balance with the rest of the party. It would be very easy to go munchkin real quick with a superdroid tricked out with all sorts of gear and abilities hard wired into his/her body.

Most of my stuff we worked out as an experimental dual-heuristic processor that allowed me to learn skills without having to purchase skillware. I spent CPs normally as any other character would and progressed along a similar line. I was just a mechanical character like any other.
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Before we take any of this too seriously, just remember that in the middle episode a little rubber puppet moves a spaceship with his mind.

[Ning Leihrec]

Yeah, a learning processor is what makes the most sense for standard cp advancement. Did you apply the standard modification rules to upgrading any of his stats by using the Droid Prog/Rep skill? Also wondering if physical skills required hardware upgrades... Stamina, dodge, etc.

[cheshire]

Now, the GM and I fudged a few things through because we didn't have a copy of Cynabar's Fantastic Technology: Droids, at the time.

By RAW, if your droid model has a 3D in Dexterity, but has no dice in Blasters, they aren't supposed to have a blasters skill, and you can't use the base attribute code to bump it from 3D to 3D+1. You have to buy a Blasters skillware at 1D, and then use character points to advance it. (Check out Cynabar's Fantastic Technology: Droids page 25 for that.)

As I said, the GM and I ran things differently because I had built in some pretty significant flaws in the character that made it a more interesting party member and made it more challenging to play.

Granted, this blatant rule breaking is not something that I would universally endorse, because most PC droids need to be kept in some sort of check to keep them from going crazy with mechanical abuses of the system. And that's one reason why many GMs won't allow PC droids in their games. (I'm expecting Whill to do his duty and chime in on this one soon, as he and I are on different ends of the spectrum on this issue, and you may wish to consider his take on the matter as well.)

But until, then, have you looked at Cynabar's Fantastic Technology: Droids yet?
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Before we take any of this too seriously, just remember that in the middle episode a little rubber puppet moves a spaceship with his mind.

[cheshire]

Sorry for the double post, but here's a copy that is near mint. Good price for it too!

http://www.ebay.com/itm/West-End-Games-Star-Wars-CYNABARS-FANTASTIC-TECHNOLOGY-DROIDS-/361249609348?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item541c279684
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Before we take any of this too seriously, just remember that in the middle episode a little rubber puppet moves a spaceship with his mind.

[garhkal]

[cheshire]

Each time they wiped my memory, I would keep my learned skills, but the personality-memory core and the skill-memory core did NOT play nicely together. It led to a stable but bland droid at first, but then the droid would develop neurosis, compulsions, or delusions. I once had to be tackled by my own party and deactivated to stop me from going ahead and challenging "another" Jedi to an honor duel for the grand insult that I could not wield the Force.

It got real when I whipped out the lightsaber (that I had stolen from a KotOR-Era Sith armory), and ignited it. No one was around when I had pocketed a few items, and so when I ignited the lightsaber, the rest of the party turned on my owner and exclaimed, "Where did he GET that!?!?!" and "Why do you let him HAVE these things!?!?" To which his answer was, "I DON"T KNOW!" and "I DON'T!"

There was another bad neurosis with a compulsion for self-modification. However, he did not really have sufficient skill to pull of the jury rigged items he was welding to himself. So, they were finicky, usually didn't work, and got in the way of his normal operation.

Another time he took things WAAAAY too literally. So, if my master would say, "Cover me," I would cover him, but no one else in the party.

Most of the time I would do these things it was to my character's own detriment. But it made it more interesting to play when a player is not acting in the known best interest of the character, but still staying true to the character.
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Before we take any of this too seriously, just remember that in the middle episode a little rubber puppet moves a spaceship with his mind.

[Whill]

[Savar]

Okay, the GMs that do not allow droid chars. Do you allow other droids to advance?

Young Jedi template starts with an R2 unit.

Or If the chars buy a droid?

I am referring to droids that are not wiped regularly?

Edited.
don't know where Nov came from.

[garhkal]

Nov droids?? Are you meaning the droids pcs can buy/start with?
Yes by spending credits and purchasing the mods/skill ware etc.
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Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[cheshire]

[cynanbloodbane]

[garhkal]

Nope. Just like i don't believe in pcs being able to spend CP on their ships.
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Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[Bobmalooga]

My cousin, who has played in most if not all of my Star Wars games, once played a droid and as a matter of fact for a long time it was the only droid PC we had. This was in the days before the droids book, so the rules were fast and loose...as a matter of fact the online rules that floated through the boards a while back were the rules we used before the droid book came out and then adapted and adopted that. He was a protocol droid that was armed with a limb blaster and 'security' to an important member of the rebellion (One of the pcs...)

We treated it just like a pc with 18D of stats, allowing him to buy skillware. He became so modified by the end that any repair rolls that were made had to be at Heroic to fix him.

I ended up doing a pinocchio riff where he went from a mechanical being to being a human replica droid, which was a cyborg chasis that housed and used the brain of the person it was based on as memory storage. The interface between the brain and the body (other than for memory storage...) wasn't activated until late in the game, thus making the transformation complete when it finally went active allowing him to be the droid who became a man.

I did this again, much later and in reverse where I had a data-like android end up getting hard wired into a human as part of a cybernetic chasis...
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[KageRyu]

I have never had any players who wanted to play a droid PC, thankfully. I say thankfully, because I have always felt the rules for droid characters in all D6 editions as written are busted - too many problems and pitfalls. If a player ever were to want to play a droid character, I would seriously need to sit down and do some rewriting and fixing (I have toyed with a few ideas here and there in anticipation, but never finished).