Building Your Own Droid in SW Saga Edition

[Mokona]

I'm trying to find rules or advice on allowing my players to build a droid from scratch. Based on the rules in Saga and Dungeons & Dragons how would that work? How long should it take? How much should it cost?

 

[Donovan Morningfire]

I'm trying to find rules or advice on allowing my players to build a droid from scratch. Based on the rules in Saga and Dungeons & Dragons how would that work? How long should it take? How much should it cost?

Are you talking about a PC droid, or a new stock model droid?

If the later, there's no hard'n'fast rules for pricing beyond totalling up the price of droid gear/equipment. I did a quick summary of the R2, and from my numbers it should have a higher price tag based on components. Of course, that was during the first week of owning the book, so I may have goofed somewhere along the line with my math.

Rules for building a PC droid are explained in the Droids chapter of SECR, and can easily be extrapolated for non-PC droids. Again, they'll likely cost more than the stock models in the book.

 

[theredrobedwizard]

Just purchase the custom droid (just like making a custom droid PC), then have them roll a Mechanics check. 30 - [Result] = number of days it takes to go from drawing board to finished product.

Simple, elegant, and it doesn't have any of the silly crafting hangups from RCR.

-TRRW

 

[Mokona]

Are you talking about a PC droid, or a new stock model droid?

Neither. The player's character, a mechanic, wants to build a droid from scratch like Anakin Skywalker did with C-3P0.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Neither. The player's character, a mechanic, wants to build a droid from scratch like Anakin Skywalker did with C-3P0.

What? Whiny, mincing, and mostly useless?

DC10, tops.

 

[Kaffis]

What? Whiny, mincing, and mostly useless?

DC10, tops.

You, sir, get a cookie. And owe me a keyboard.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Are you talking about a PC droid, or a new stock model droid?

If the later, there's no hard'n'fast rules for pricing beyond totalling up the price of droid gear/equipment. I did a quick summary of the R2, and from my numbers it should have a higher price tag based on components. Of course, that was during the first week of owning the book, so I may have goofed somewhere along the line with my math.

Rules for building a PC droid are explained in the Droids chapter of SECR, and can easily be extrapolated for non-PC droids. Again, they'll likely cost more than the stock models in the book.

I guess your calculations weren't wrong (without checking them myself). R2s are stock droids available on the free market. The player wants to build something from scratch, that will most likely be more expensive.

Going along the D&D lines, you would probably use these rules:
Make a Mechanics checks DC X. If you succeed, multiple the result with the DC. This is the worth in 1/10 credits you make per week. Repeat until you have enough credits equal to the price of the object. Pay 1/3 of the estimated price in advance for base materials. If you fail the check by 5 or more, you lose half the base materials and must start from the beginning

The question might be: What is X? I'd suggest something around 15-20. (The character should have the option to voluntarily increase the DC by 10 to effectively increase the speed of the construction)

That said, I wouldn't use these rules. It takes awfully long to build something with this rule.
Though you could still use them as a base.
My suggestion would be to modify the progress per week in some way. Consider these:
By expending more money to get standardized droid components, you can increase the progress per week by 5 or by 10. By paying 2/3 of the droids base price, you increase it by 5, and by paying full, you multiply it by 10. (This is only useful if you really want to build the droid from scratch, especially a customized one. Otherwise, you should just go out and by one from the market)

 

[Randolpho]

Neither. The player's character, a mechanic, wants to build a droid from scratch like Anakin Skywalker did with C-3P0.

Are you the GM? Charge him, oh, 80% of his total cash onhand, and three months of off-scenes work and be done with it.

Or tell him "no", if that's your inclination.

 

[theredrobedwizard]

Step 1) List all the things you want your droid to be able to do.
Step 2) Out of those, find everything that is a listed component in the Droids section of the book.
Step 3) Anything that can't be done is probably a reflavored talent or feat (for example, a web shooting droid would be using a reflavored version of the Scoundrel talent Distracting Attack; when the thing being attacked drops to the bottom level of the Condition Track, they're 'webbed'), so you'll have to give the droid class levels.
Step 4) Total up the cost of the components and multiply the final cost by the heroic class level you want them to have (no higher than the HCL of the builder) [Non-heroic levels count for 1/2 normal for the purposes of cost adjucation.]
Step 5) Pay the total cost [Component Cost x HCL {or 1/2 NHCL}].
Step 6) For each 1000 credits of cost, it takes a week and a Mechanics check (DC 10 + 1 per week you've worked on it) [For example, the first week is DC 10, second is DC 11, etc.]

It costs more to build an R2 unit out of parts than it does to buy a stock one because a stock on is mass produced. It's like building a car; it'll probably cost you a lot more time and money than just buying a new one, but you'll have exactly what you want.

-TRRW

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I'm not sure, but is the entangled condition no longer part of SAGA? If it would still be in there, you could just use the rules for regular D&D nets for a web shooting weapon.