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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
Joined: 05 Apr 2010
Posts: 16320
Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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 Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2018 6:12 pm Post subject: |
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| garhkal wrote: | | CRMcNeill wrote: | | To me, making droids pay a D cost for attachments is like making a character trade Attribute dice for starting equipment. Nobody makes a Smuggler trade in a D of Attribute dice so that he can start with a Stock Light Freighter, or a Jedi sacrifice a D to start with a Lightsaber. |
If that equipment grants bonuses to skills, i could see the justification for making an attachment cost.. |
Well, a Smuggler comes stock with a contraption that allows him to transport cargo and passengers across vast interstellar distances while shooting laser beams and blasting the Cantina Band theme on his comm system. How many Attribute dice should that be worth?
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"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
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Whill
Dark Lord of the Jedi (Owner/Admin)
Joined: 14 Apr 2008
Posts: 10436
Location: Columbus, Ohio, USA, Earth, The Solar System, The Milky Way Galaxy
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| Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2018 6:31 pm Post subject: Re: Building a Droid... |
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| Chocobo Inquisitor wrote: | | I'm new to the D6 system, but I figured it was a better alternative to use REUP than FFG. |
| MrNexx wrote: | | Yeah, the canon rules are horrible in a lot of ways. According to them, there's no difference between a droid with 4D in every attribute and +1D for Technical skills, and a droid with 1D in every attribute and +19D in Underwater Basket Weaving (A Technical skill) |
| CRMcNeill wrote: | | To me, making droids pay a D cost for attachments is like making a character trade Attribute dice for starting equipment. Nobody makes a Smuggler trade in a D of Attribute dice so that he can start with a Stock Light Freighter, or a Jedi sacrifice a D to start with a Lightsaber. |
It's also like trading attribute dice for skill dice, which the droid PC rules do in some cases but not others. Above I was answering his question about REUP RAW without my personal commentary on the quality of the rules.
| garhkal wrote: | | If that equipment grants bonuses to skills, i could see the justification for making an attachment cost.. |
Regarding attachments, only the "equipment that provides the droid with a permanent skill bonus" come out of the build dice. Free attachments can also be included in the droid build with GM approval. I also don't have an issue with that rule. That's about the only droid PC rule I don't.
| REUP wrote: | Creating a Template for a New Droid Model
Like all player characters, starting droid characters begin with a total of 25D. The major difference is that organic characters divide these dice between attributes and skills, whereas a droid character breaks these dice down between attributes, skills, and attachments. Organic characters generally have 18D for their attributes, leaving 7D for a location to skills. Droids do not have this limitation. They are not subject to species’ minimums and maximums like organics (though they are subject to the current state of technology)... Because of this, it becomes amazingly simple to create a new droid type to use as a character template. Simply divide the 25D between the droid’s attributes, skills, and attachments (equipment that provides the droid with a permanent skill bonus)... Talk with the gamemaster about what your droid’s Move rating should be, what equipment it has installed and other such considerations. When a consensus is reached, the droid is effectively created...
Optional Rule: Basing a Character Template Off an Existing Droid
...Count up the dice the new droid has allocated to attributes, skills, and attachments... If the droid model you wish to play has less than 25D total, you can add the difference with “Build Dice.” Figure out what your “build dice” are by subtracting the total dice from the droid you want to play from 25. The value you come up with is your build dice, which can be allocated to skills, and attachments, not attributes...
BATTLE DROID
Type: Baktoid Combat Automata B1 Series Battle Droid
DEXTERITY 1D
Blaster: blaster rifle 3D
KNOWLEDGE 1D
MECHANICAL1D
PERCEPTION 1D
STRENGTH 2D
Brawling 3D
TECHNICAL 1D
Equipped With:
• Integrated comlink
• Remote receiver (5,000 km range)
• Body armor (+1D to Strength to resist all damage)
• Vocabulator (the droid can replicate organic speech)
Equipment: Blaster carbine (5D damage, range: 3-30/100/30)
Move: 10
Size: 1.8 meters tall
Availability: 3, X
Cost: 1,8000 credits |
Going with the second option, the PC will have a weak character because of all the 1D attributes (even with extra skill dice). If you go with the first option and build a droid type from scratch, the rules allow you to create an overpowered character by game-breakingly dumping most of your build dice into attribute dice. Neither one of these have much regard for game balancing droid PCs with other PCs.
Chocobo, my suggestion is for you and the player to create a B1 PC droid template with exactly 18D for attributes, and exactly 7D total for skills and attachments that provide a permanent skill bonus. This will put the droid PC close in ability to the organic PCs.
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jmanski
Arbiter-General (Moderator)
Joined: 06 Mar 2005
Posts: 2065
Location: Kansas
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| Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2018 8:08 pm Post subject: |
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| CRMcNeill wrote: | | garhkal wrote: | | CRMcNeill wrote: | | To me, making droids pay a D cost for attachments is like making a character trade Attribute dice for starting equipment. Nobody makes a Smuggler trade in a D of Attribute dice so that he can start with a Stock Light Freighter, or a Jedi sacrifice a D to start with a Lightsaber. |
If that equipment grants bonuses to skills, i could see the justification for making an attachment cost.. |
Well, a Smuggler comes stock with a contraption that allows him to transport cargo and passengers across vast interstellar distances while shooting laser beams and blasting the Cantina Band theme on his comm system. How many Attribute dice should that be worth? |
I'd like to point out that the smuggler also starts with debt to a crime boss, which, IMO, offsets the ship quite nicely as well as giving plenty of story options
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
Joined: 05 Apr 2010
Posts: 16320
Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2018 8:42 pm Post subject: |
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But a droid also begins with other restrictions, such as the requirement that he be "owned" by one of the PCs, having a restraining bolt port, etc. My point is that it doesn't make a lot of sense to nickel-and-dime droid characters and not organic characters, nor is it particularly fair from the players' standpoint. I mean, if you want a really extreme example, the Privateer Captain begins the game with either a modified Corellian Corvette or a Light Frigate & 1,000 credits.
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"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
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Wajeb Deb Kaadeb
Commodore
Joined: 07 Apr 2017
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| Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2018 9:09 pm Post subject: |
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| CRMcNeill wrote: | | But a droid also begins with other restrictions, such as the requirement that he be "owned" by one of the PCs, having a restraining bolt port, etc. |
I'm with McNeill on this. Droids can have a lot of restrictions, and not having free will is a biggie.
Just try having one player play a normal character, and other player play a droid character owned by the first player's character. |
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garhkal
Sovereign Protector
Joined: 17 Jul 2005
Posts: 14214
Location: Reynoldsburg, Columbus, Ohio.
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| Posted: Sat Feb 03, 2018 12:41 am Post subject: |
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| CRMcNeill wrote: | | garhkal wrote: | | CRMcNeill wrote: | | To me, making droids pay a D cost for attachments is like making a character trade Attribute dice for starting equipment. Nobody makes a Smuggler trade in a D of Attribute dice so that he can start with a Stock Light Freighter, or a Jedi sacrifice a D to start with a Lightsaber. |
If that equipment grants bonuses to skills, i could see the justification for making an attachment cost.. |
Well, a Smuggler comes stock with a contraption that allows him to transport cargo and passengers across vast interstellar distances while shooting laser beams and blasting the Cantina Band theme on his comm system. How many Attribute dice should that be worth? |
And. If you look, not all characters are even in equipment. Some like the smuggler and bounty hunter have thousands of credits in gear.. others have barely 400 credits worth..
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
Joined: 05 Apr 2010
Posts: 16320
Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Sat Feb 03, 2018 12:45 am Post subject: |
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I'm aware of that. So why deliberately stiff droid characters when their attachments should be part of their starting equipment, as in, what they need to do their primary function? If it's an Astromech, it's got dozens of hide-away tools; if it's a Protocol Droid, it's got a Verbobrain and a Vocabulator, and so on and so forth.
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"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
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Wajeb Deb Kaadeb
Commodore
Joined: 07 Apr 2017
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| Posted: Sat Feb 03, 2018 1:02 am Post subject: |
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Just a note: As we all know, R2's gadgets--many of them--were not known to WEG when designing the D6 rules as they were not shown in the films until the prequels.
And, some of them, I just plain don't agree with--like the flame thrust based pods that shoot out of R2's arms and allow him to fly and hover. If he had these, then how many times would that have been handy during the original trilogy. Plus, how do they work? Is the fuel explosive? How much fuel does T2 carry to fire them?
Those don't make sense at all.
Repulsorlift tech would make a lot more sense. |
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Whill
Dark Lord of the Jedi (Owner/Admin)
Joined: 14 Apr 2008
Posts: 10436
Location: Columbus, Ohio, USA, Earth, The Solar System, The Milky Way Galaxy
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| Posted: Sat Feb 03, 2018 2:03 am Post subject: |
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I have no problem with droid (or Shard) PCs having free attachments because being a droid is already a severe disadvantage.
| Wajeb Deb Kaadeb wrote: | Just a note: As we all know, R2's gadgets--many of them--were not known to WEG when designing the D6 rules as they were not shown in the films until the prequels.
And, some of them, I just plain don't agree with--like the flame thrust based pods that shoot out of R2's arms and allow him to fly and hover. If he had these, then how many times would that have been handy during the original trilogy. Plus, how do they work? Is the fuel explosive? How much fuel does T2 carry to fire them?
Those don't make sense at all.
Repulsorlift tech would make a lot more sense. |
I don't know if it was rocket fuel, but in RotS Artoo squirted out some black oil-looking stuff on the B2 droids and then ignited it with his rockets, which couldn't have been done with repulsorlift tech.
Lucas said the gimmick with Artoo is that he has a new gadget (or gadgets) in every movie. The problem with having prequels is they have to show something new even though it takes place in the past of the original episodes. Supportive publishing makes up solutions. In the EU and canon universe, the rockets were still there in the classic era and the explanation for them not being used is because they no longer worked and the warrantee has expired. That makes enough sense to allow me to just enjoy the gimmick. I like the rockets despite repulsorlift making more sense.
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atgxtg
Rear Admiral
Joined: 22 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Sat Feb 03, 2018 11:29 am Post subject: |
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Hmm, and with a droid being an intelligent computer, it's just possible that R2 might not use the rockets in the classic trilogy even it they still worked simply because they are out of warranty and haven't been serviced recently.
One possible option for droid characters would be to give them a pool of dice, that they could allocate to some sort of tool or attachment in play. And once used the dice stay allocated to that attachment until the droid spends a CP to bring out some other tool (and reallocate the dice). |
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Wajeb Deb Kaadeb
Commodore
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| Posted: Sat Feb 03, 2018 1:44 pm Post subject: |
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I still like the 1E method of gadgets for droids: The GM decides what is cool and neat and interesting for his game.
If a GM thinks a droid is becoming too powerful because a PC keeps upgrading it with equipment, the GM makes something blow at a critical moment. If the Droid ever gets shot, well, there goes a part. This can get expensive and time consuming for the PCs.
This also would be a good use of the Wild Die.
| Quote: | | "What wrong with Dee Dee 7? I'll tell ya what's wrong. That new sensor unit you bolted onto him is draining too much power. Dee Dee won't move. We'll have to carry it." |
You can even use something like this in the game as a "push" to encourage the PCs to go where you need them to go for the adventure.
| Quote: | | "I looked into a new power unit for Dee Dee. He's at the max for his chassis. The only one that might work is an old Rodian 42879 BatCov. They're hard to find as the Empire took over the company for strictly Empire contracts. We might get lucky in a parts house on Rodia--it we ever get close to there, it's worth a stop and a check." |
Instead of relying on hard-cast rules, like 1D per gadget, rely on the GM's sense of drama, and balance, and fun for the game.
OTOH, if the PCs have an R2 unit, and every time the PCs are in a jam, the GM has the unit expose a new gadget that gets them out of the mess, a la Lucas, then that's the GM's call. As long as everybody is having fun and enjoying the game--that's what it is all about. Let the droid have a new gadget that no one knew it had before. |
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Straxus
Lieutenant Commander
Joined: 30 May 2017
Posts: 105
Location: Norway
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| Posted: Mon Feb 05, 2018 11:59 am Post subject: |
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Am I the only one who sees the equipment on templates as "suggestions suitable to the character type, pending GM approval"?
If my players started speculating in what kind of character to play "because then you get this and this kind of equpiment", I would... ehh probably find other players 
I let my players choose whatever they think is reasonable for their character to have, but with a shared understanding that if you get greedy, it will come back to bite you in the @$$ at some point. (Starship = debt and so forth) |
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Whill
Dark Lord of the Jedi (Owner/Admin)
Joined: 14 Apr 2008
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Location: Columbus, Ohio, USA, Earth, The Solar System, The Milky Way Galaxy
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| Posted: Mon Feb 05, 2018 12:58 pm Post subject: |
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| Straxus wrote: | Am I the only one who sees the equipment on templates as "suggestions suitable to the character type, pending GM approval"?
If my players started speculating in what kind of character to play "because then you get this and this kind of equpiment", I would... ehh probably find other players
I let my players choose whatever they think is reasonable for their character to have, but with a shared understanding that if you get greedy, it will come back to bite you in the @$$ at some point. (Starship = debt and so forth) |
I'm right there with you. Big stuff like ships come with a debt, but otherwise whatever is reasonable for the PC to start with, they can. In my game, each PC's creation is a collaborative process that involves steps of the entire game group, then PC's player, then PC+GM finalization. Smugglers may end up not starting with a ship, and other characters of templates that don't normally start with one could, depending on the needs of the campaign at start-up. The templates were designed to allow quick character creation, and in my game everything about them is all only suggestions and they can be altered if desired.
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
Joined: 05 Apr 2010
Posts: 16320
Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Mon Feb 05, 2018 2:02 pm Post subject: |
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IMO, the D6 Space Advantage/Disadvantage system is a good place to start if you are looking for a framework for this, since droids already have some pretty hefty disadvantages just for being droids.
As an aside, places like Wuher’s Cantina banning droids makes a lot more sense if acdroid’s electronic memory is admissible as evidence in court...
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"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
Last edited by CRMcNeill on Mon Feb 05, 2018 3:57 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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garhkal
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| Posted: Mon Feb 05, 2018 3:56 pm Post subject: |
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| Straxus wrote: | Am I the only one who sees the equipment on templates as "suggestions suitable to the character type, pending GM approval"?
If my players started speculating in what kind of character to play "because then you get this and this kind of equpiment", I would... ehh probably find other players
I let my players choose whatever they think is reasonable for their character to have, but with a shared understanding that if you get greedy, it will come back to bite you in the @$$ at some point. (Starship = debt and so forth) |
I usually go with, 2d6+4 x 100 for starting credits if they are making a pc NO TEMPLATE, but if they select a template they get what's there. And yes i DO allow those templates not starting with a ship, but sounds like they should have one, to do so with a corresponding debt.
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